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Abstract

This study examines the role of the far right in the Euromaidan in Ukraine, primarily in the Maidan massacre and other key cases of violence. The involvement of far-right organizations in these crucial events in the Ukrainian and world politics has been politicized and polarized in Ukraine, the West, and Russia.

This study analyzes various data sources, such as online live streams and TV broadcasts, videos, broadcasts of the Maidan massacre trials, the database of court decisions in Ukraine, media reports, and field research on the Maidan. The findings reveal that radical nationalist and neo-Nazi organizations had significant but minority representation among the Maidan leadership and protesters. However, the analysis shows that the far-right organizations and football ultras played a key role in political violence such as attempting to seize the presidential administration and the parliament. It reveals involvement of the Right Sector in violent clashes with the Berkut special police force during the highly publicized dispersal of Maidan protesters on November 30, 2013. The Right Sector and Svoboda had crucial roles in the violent overthrow of the Yanukovych government, in particular, in the Maidan massacre of the protesters and the police.

Research Question and Divergent Narratives Concerning the Contemporary Far Right in Ukraine

The main purpose of this article is to examine the role of the far right in Ukraine during the Euromaidan and the Maidan massacre. These events are the most significant and the most controversial ones in politics in Ukraine since its independence in 1991. They also affected the politics of other countries, such as Russia and the United States, as well as international politics. They ultimately led or contributed to various extent to the Russian annexation of Crimea, the civil war in Donbas, Russian military intervention, the conflict between Russia and the West, and the Ukrainian-conflict related impeachment hearings against the US President Trump (Black & Johns, 2016; Katchanovski, 2015a, 2016a; Kudelia, 2016; Pikulicka-Wilczewska & Sakwa, 2015; Sakwa, 2015).

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“Take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties.” — James Madison

James Madison, often referred to as the “Father of the Constitution,” once predicted that the Bill of Rights would become mere “parchment barrier,” words on paper ignored by successive generations of Americans.

How right he was.

Although Madison initially felt that the inclusion of a bill of rights in the originally ratified Constitution was unnecessary to its success, Thomas Jefferson persuaded him that “a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, & what no just government should refuse, or rest on inferences.”

The Bill of Rights drafted by Madison—the first ten amendments to the Constitution—was a document so revolutionary at the time that it would come to be viewed as the epitome of American liberty. The rights of the people reflected in those ten amendments encapsulated much of Madison’s views about government, the corrupting influence of power, and the need for safeguards against tyranny.

Madison’s writings speak volumes to the present constitutional crisis in the country.

Read them and weep.

“The accumulation of all powers, Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” — James Madison

“The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.” — James Madison

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” — James Madison

“A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.” — James Madison

“Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression.” — James Madison

“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” — James Madison

“I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”— James Madison

In the years since the founders laid their lives on the line to pursue the dream of individual freedom and self-government, big government has grown bigger and the rights of the citizenry have grown smaller.

However, there are certain principles—principles that every American should know—which undergird the American system of government and form the basis of our freedoms.

The following seven principles are a good starting point for understanding what free government is really all about.

First, the maxim that power corrupts is an absolute truth. Realizing this, those who drafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights held one principle sacrosanct: a distrust of all who hold governmental power. As James Madison proclaimed, “All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.” Moreover, in questions of power, Thomas Jefferson warned, “Let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” As such, those who drafted our founding documents would see today’s government as an out-of-control, unmanageable beast.

The second principle is that governments primarily exist to secure rights, an idea that is central to constitutionalism. In appointing the government as the guardian of the people’s rights, the people give it only certain, enumerated powers, which are laid out in a written constitution. The idea of a written constitution actualizes the two great themes of the Declaration of Independence: consent and protection of equal rights. Thus, the purpose of constitutionalism is to limit governmental power and ensure that the government performs its basic function: to preserve and protect our rights, especially our unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and our civil liberties. Unfortunately, the government today has discarded this principle and now sees itself as our master, not our servant. The obvious next step, unless we act soon, is tyranny.

The third principle revolves around the belief that no one is above the law, not even those who make the law. This is termed rule of law. Richard Nixon’s statement, “When the President does it, that means it is not illegal,” would have been an anathema to the Framers of the Constitution. If all people possess equal rights, the people who live under the laws must be allowed to participate in making those laws. By that same token, those who make the laws must live under the laws they make.

Fourth, separation of powers ensures that no single authority is entrusted with all the powers of government. People are not perfect, whether they are in government or out of it. As history makes clear, those in power tend to abuse it. The government is thus divided into three co-equal branches: legislative, executive and judicial. Placing all three powers in the same branch of government was considered the very definition of tyranny. The fact that the president today has dictatorial powers would have been considered an offense to every principle for which the Framers took their revolutionary stand.

Fifth, a system of checks and balances, essential if a constitutional government is to succeed, strengthens the separation of powers and prevents legislative despotism. Such checks and balances include dividing Congress into two houses, with different constituencies, term lengths, sizes and functions; granting the president a limited veto power over congressional legislation; and appointing an independent judiciary capable of reviewing ordinary legislation in light of the written Constitution, which is referred to as “judicial review.” The Framers feared that Congress could abuse its powers and potentially emerge as the tyrannous branch because it had the power to tax. But they did not anticipate the emergence of presidential powers as they have come to dominate modern government or the inordinate influence of corporate powers on governmental decision-making. Indeed, as recent academic studies now indicate, we are now ruled by a monied oligarchy that serves itself and not “we the people.”

Sixth, representation allows the people to have a voice in government by sending elected representatives to do their bidding while avoiding the need of each and every citizen to vote on every issue considered by government. In a country as large as the United States, it is not feasible to have direct participation in governmental affairs. Hence, we have a representative government. If the people don’t agree with how their representatives are conducting themselves, they can and should vote them out. However, as the citizenry has grown lazy and been distracted by the entertainment spectacles of modern society, government bureaucrats churn out numerous laws each year resulting in average citizens being rendered lawbreakers and jailed for what used to be considered normal behavior.

Finally, federalism is yet another constitutional device to limit the power of government by dividing power and, thus, preventing tyranny. In America, the levels of government generally break down into federal, state and local branches (which further divide into counties and towns or cities). Because local and particular interests differ from place to place, such interests are better handled at a more intimate level by local governments, not a bureaucratic national government. Remarking on the benefits of the American tradition of local self-government in the 1830s, the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville observed: “Local institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they put it within the people’s reach; they teach people to appreciate its peaceful enjoyment and accustom them to make use of it. Without local institutions a nation may give itself a free government, but it has not got the spirit of liberty.”

These seven vital principles have been largely forgotten in recent years, obscured by the haze of a centralized government, a citizenry that no longer thinks analytically, and schools that don’t adequately teach our young people about their history and their rights.

Yet here’s the rub: while Americans wander about in their brainwashed states, their “government of the people, by the people and for the people” has largely been taken away from them.

The answer: get un-brainwashed.

Learn your rights.

Stand up for the founding principles.

Make your voice and your vote count for more than just political posturing.

Never cease to vociferously protest the erosion of your freedoms at the local and national level.

Most of all, do these things today.

If we wait until the votes have all been counted or hang our hopes on our particular candidate to win and fix what’s wrong with the country, “we the people” will continue to lose.

Whether we ever realize it not, the enemy is not across party lines, as they would have us believe. It has us surrounded on all sides.

Even so, we’re not yet defeated.

We could still overcome our oppressors if we cared enough to join forces and launch a militant nonviolent revolution—a people’s revolution that starts locally and trickles upwards—but that will take some doing.

It will mean turning our backs on the political jousting contests taking place at all levels of government and rejecting their appointed jesters as false prophets. It will mean not allowing ourselves to be corralled like cattle and branded with political labels that have no meaning anymore. It will mean recognizing that all the evils that surround us today—endless wars, drone strikes, invasive surveillance, militarized police, poverty, asset forfeiture schemes, overcriminalization, etc.—are not of our making but came about as a way to control and profit from us.

It will mean “voting with our feet” through sustained, mass civil disobedience.

Ultimately, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, it will mean refusing to be divided, one against each other, by politics and instead uniting behind the only distinction that has ever mattered: “we the people” against tyranny.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

They are regular contributors to Global Research.

Featured image is from the Public Domain

A França parece cada vez mais isolada na sua decisão de intervir diretamente no conflito ucraniano. Nem mesmo as grandes potências ocidentais estão dispostas a confrontar abertamente Moscou no campo de batalha, dada a elevada probabilidade de uma guerra catastrófica surgir como resultado de tal medida. Agora, Berlim já está a sinalizar que não apoiará a medida francesa.

Segundo o jornal alemão Welt am Sonntag, o governo alemão prepara-se para recusar publicamente o seu apoio à iniciativa militar anti-russa da França. O meio de comunicação, citando fontes familiarizadas com assuntos de Estado, afirma que as autoridades francesas estão a pressionar vários membros da OTAN a cooperarem no envio de tropas para a Ucrânia. Os relatórios mostram que o chefe do Estado-Maior do exército francês, General Thierry Burkhard, escreveu uma carta apelando aos EUA e a pelo menos 10 outros países da OTAN para se juntarem a Paris na intervenção na Ucrânia.

A Alemanha, contudo, não foi incluída na carta do general francês, dizem as fontes. Isto significa que as autoridades alemãs provavelmente já deixaram claro, em segredo, aos seus homólogos franceses que não estão interessados ​​em participar diretamente no conflito com a Rússia. Segundo as fontes, durante as negociações em Bruxelas, a Alemanha, juntamente com outros países como Itália e Espanha, descartou a possibilidade de enviar tropas para a Ucrânia. Se a pressão continuar, espera-se que a Alemanha faça uma declaração pública negando ajuda à França.

Na verdade, a proposta francesa não parece ser popular no seio da OTAN. Poucos países demonstraram interesse em cooperar com o envio de tropas. Inicialmente, os soldados franceses não seriam alocados em unidades de combate reais, mas em centros de treinamento e comando. Além disso, os franceses teriam a missão de “proteger” áreas estratégicas em cidades-chave como Odessa e Kharkov, tentando dissuadir a Rússia de avançar nestas regiões.

Contudo, nada disto é suficiente para disfarçar a grave escalada iniciada pela França. Colocar tropas no terreno é entrar oficialmente na guerra, independentemente da função para a qual as tropas sejam enviadas. Na prática, Paris tenta conciliar dois cenários inconciliáveis: entrar em guerra com a Rússia e evitar uma resposta dura de Moscou. Obviamente, Paris não quer enfrentar as consequências de uma guerra direta com a Rússia, mas ao mesmo tempo Macron quer continuar a propagar a sua imagem de “líder e defensor da Europa”. Este cenário poderia facilmente terminar em tragédia.

Na verdade, Macron não está a agir ingenuamente. Ele certamente tem um plano por trás de sua perigosa ideia de enviar tropas. Dado o elevado número de mercenários franceses mortos pelas forças russas na Ucrânia, é muito provável que haja pressão na sociedade francesa para fornecer uma explicação para as perdas. Muitos destes soldados não são exatamente mercenários, mas sim comandos regulares franceses que lutam pelos interesses da OTAN na Ucrânia, usando o rótulo de “mercenários” para disfarçar o intervencionismo ocidental. O governo francês precisa de dar à sociedade uma explicação sobre a razão pela qual tantos cidadãos franceses estão a morrer nas linhas da frente – e, aparentemente, Macron tomou a pior decisão possível para “explicar” estas mortes.

É possível que o verdadeiro propósito do envio de tropas seja “legalizar” as mortes de mercenários. Assim, Macron poderia simplesmente dizer que as perdas ocorreram durante as hostilidades diretas entre o exército francês e as forças russas, fornecendo uma explicação para as famílias dos soldados mortos. Não há, no entanto, nada de racional ou estratégico em tal movimento. Ao disfarçar o envolvimento francês já existente, Macron estaria a provocar uma guerra total, colocando em risco a arquitetura de segurança global. No entanto, ele aparece cada vez mais isolado na sua proposta, tendo a iniciativa sido rejeitada por outros estados.

A única esperança de evitar que a interferência francesa se transforme numa guerra aberta reside na própria Rússia. Os russos provaram repetidamente ser o lado racional no conflito, já que Moscou está realmente disposto a evitar a escalada. A Rússia não quer entrar em guerra diretamente com a OTAN, embora a aliança atlântica já esteja a tomar medidas no sentido da intervenção direta – não só com a iniciativa de Macron, mas também com outros movimentos recentes, como a autorização de ataques transfronteiriços. Claramente, existe um cenário em que a OTAN quer a guerra e a Rússia a evita.

É claro que os russos farão o seu melhor mais uma vez para evitar o pior cenário, mas é importante que o Ocidente compreenda que em algum momento a paciência russa poderá esgotar-se. Moscou não está interessado em iniciar um conflito aberto, mas já deixou claro que qualquer soldado francês na Ucrânia é um alvo legítimo.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

 

Artigo em inglês : France isolated in its proposal to send troops to fight Russiai, InfoBrics, 10 de Junho de 2024.

Imagem : InfoBrics

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Lucas Leiroz, jornalista, pesquisador do Center for Geostrategic Studies, consultor geopolítico.

Você pode seguir Lucas Leiroz em: https://t.me/lucasleiroz e https://twitter.com/leiroz_lucas

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China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning has agreed to attend next month’s Ukrainian peace conference in Switzerland with one proviso, that Russia be invited. Mao said that Beijing supports the “timely convening of an international peace conference that is recognized by both the Russian and Ukrainian sides.”

That sounds reasonable, after all, one would expect that peace negotiations would include the representatives of the warring parties. But that is not the case here. And while more than 90 countries have confirmed that they will attend the upcoming meetings, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has excluded the one nation whose presence might make a difference — Russia.

[Update; Russia has not been invited. And China has decided not to attend] 

Naturally, many analysts are puzzled by Zelensky’s omission which precludes any possible settlement or end to the hostilities. Simply put, the fighting will continue until Russia and Ukraine conduct bilateral negotiations and reach an agreement.

So, what is going on here?

What’s going on is that Zelensky is perpetrating a fraud. Clearly, there is no intention to strike a deal with Russia or to end the fighting. How could there be, after all, Russia wasn’t invited. So, we must assume that the peace conference will be used for some other purpose, like demonizing Putin or drumming up more support for the war.

What that tells us is that neither Zelensky nor his handlers in Washington have abandoned the idea of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia. They’re not throwing in the towel and they’re certainly not looking for areas of mutual compromise. No. They’re merely exploring more creative ways of garnering support for their failed crusade. That’s what the so-called ‘peace conference’ is all about, luring more recruits to the Ukraine bandwagon.

We should mention, however, that Russia knows exactly what Zelensky is up-to and has no illusions about where all this is headed. Check out this short clip from an interview with Russian FM Sergey Lavrov:

The Swiss conference is being convened with the sole purpose of addressing Zelensky’s peace formula in the form of an ultimatum. It is not accidental that the Swiss themselves, including Swiss diplomats, are saying that the conference will focus not on “building bridges” for peace, but on supporting Ukraine.

Josep Borrel said the peace formula was the only initiative under discussion. (Note: Other peace initiatives by China, Brazil, and the Arab League are all being ignored.)

We have access to information that is not normally intended for public use. In late April, discussing the Swiss conference with foreign ambassadors in Kiev… Zelensky spent most of the time rambling almost hysterically and incoherently, and pleading for support for his peace formula as a means of forcing Russia on its knees. Whenever a person does not feel the need to control themselves, they tend to speak the truth. Those who are now being courted and pressed into coming to Switzerland, creating a crowd, and posing for a “family photo” in order to be able to then bloviate about broad-based support for Zelensky’s peace formula, should be aware of the place they are being lured into. They are expected to support an ultimatum that will then be presented to Russia. This is ridiculous.

President Vladimir Putin spoke about this quite recently. These games, just like other foreign policy moves by our Western partners who have lost their diplomatic skills, have nothing to do with diplomacy. Sergey Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister Press Conference

So, the Russians aren’t taken in by this nonsense, they know it’s a scam. They also know that the whole thing was probably concocted by the Intel agencies in concert with their media consultants. Just like they know the meetings will probably be used to shore up Zelensky’s tattered image while, once again, dragging Russia through the mud. We’ve seen it all before. But the reality is that the more time that’s wasted on these public relations fiascos, the more the carnage piles up on battlefields in the East. And that’s the real tragedy, that Zelensky continues to play these stupid games while his countrymen are slaughtered in droves for no apparent reason. Maybe he should stop the performance art long enough to fix the problem? Maybe he should think seriously about peace?

Is that possible?

It is possible.

Imagine for a minute, if Zelensky was sincere in wanting to end the war. How much effort and sacrifice would it really take?

Not much. Yes, he would be opposed by Washington and by the far-right uber-nationalists in his government, but the actual price he would pay in terms of blood and treasure would be negligible. True, he’ll never recapture Crimea or the Donbas (roughly 20% of Ukraine’s former landmass) but that’s the price of waging a two year-long war with Russia. Putin can’t be blamed for that. (Remember, Zelensky was prepared to sign a peace agreement with Putin one month into the war, but Boris Johnson scotched the deal.) In any event, those territories are gone forever. The point is to salvage what is left of Ukraine before its borders shrink even more. This is what Zelensky should be focused on; preserving what’s left of his country while he still can. The longer the war drags on, the more likely Ukraine will either be partitioned or transformed into an uninhabitable wasteland. The time to act is now.

The good news is that Putin is ready to deal. Despite the misinformation in the West, he wants to put this mess behind him. He wants to end the war.

And Putin’s demands are not unreasonable. He just wants assurances about Russia’s security, which means he won’t allow NATO missile-sites on his western border. That is a demand that Zelensky can meet at no cost to himself.

What else does Putin want?

This may surprise you, but the deal Putin seeks with Zelensky can be reduced to just one word: Neutrality. Ukraine must be a neutral state which means that it must not become a member of a major military bloc like NATO, because NATO is a hostile, anti-Russian, military alliance that has prosecuted wars of aggression in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Libya. It is a menace that must be prevented from putting its bases, combat troops or weapons systems on Russia’s border. Period. Just as the United States would never allow China to place missile systems on Mexico’s northern border, NATO cannot be allowed to place Washington’s missiles on Russia’s border. It’s the same thing.

Zelensky believes that Ukraine ‘has the right’ to make whatever security arrangements it thinks best serve its national interests. That sounds like a reasonable proposition, but it’s not. Because in practical terms, Ukraine’s determination to join NATO has made Ukraine less safe, in fact, the probability of Ukraine’s membership in NATO has brought the country to the brink of annihilation. So, if Zelensky’s intention was to increase Ukraine’s national security, then he has compelling proof that he made the wrong decision.

Here’s a good rule of thumb for any smaller and less powerful nation that shares a border with a nuclear superpower: Don’t do things that scare your neighbor. Do not do things that make your neighbor feel threatened. And—most of all—do not threaten to join hostile anti-Russian alliances that regularly express their deeply-felt contempt and loathing for Russia. That is the fast-track to annihilation. If Zelensky did not know that before, he should certainly know it by now. Check out this excerpt from an article at Geopolitical Monitor:

Ukraine is not exactly a stranger when it comes to the notion of neutrality. In the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union, the country expressed an intention in its declaration of state sovereignty of 1 July 1990 to become a permanently neutral state that would shun participation in military blocs and show a commitment to denuclearization. This largely nonaligned status resulted in a vacillating foreign policy, which nonetheless appeared to be conducive to the pursuit of amicable relations with both the European Union (EU) and Russia, before being ultimately abandoned in December 2014 in the aftermath of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the start of the Donbas war. In February 2019, with the overwhelming approval of the Verkhovna Rada (the Parliament of Ukraine), the Ukrainian constitution was amended, setting the country on a course toward full membership in the EU and NATO. Nonetheless, in late March 2022 Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was still prepared to discuss the possibility of Ukraine taking a neutral position as part of a potential peace deal with Russia to halt the invasion. A Neutral Ukraine Is Not the Answer, Geopolitical Monitor

Let’s review: When Ukraine made its declaration of state sovereignty in July 1990, it pledged to be “a permanently neutral state.” And while it remained committed to that neutral status there was no hostility between Moscow and Kiev. But as soon as the United States toppled Ukraine’s government in the 2014 coup, Ukraine moved to renounce its neutrality, which is when all their problems began. What’s clear is that independent Ukrainian leaders did not choose to abandon neutrality. That decision was made in Washington by neocons who wanted to move their globalist army closer to Russia’s border. This isn’t speculation, this is what happened. NATO lied about ‘not moving one inch east” after the reunification of Germany and continued to push eastward until they were right on Russia ‘s doorstep. Finally—after being shoved into a corner—Russia pursued the only option available and pushed back. Russia launched its Special Military Operation (SMO) on February 24, 2022.

Of course, many people still think that Putin wants to rebuild the Soviet empire and that Ukraine is just the first step in a long march across Europe. Fortunately, NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg dispelled that fiction in a press conference in September, 2023. Here’s what he said:

“President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that.

“The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance, introducing some kind of B, or second class membership. We rejected that.

“So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders. He has got the exact opposite. He has got more NATO presence in eastern part of the Alliance and he has also seen that Finland has already joined the Alliance and Sweden will soon be a full member.

“This is this is good for the Nordic countries. It’s good for Finland and Sweden. And it’s also good for NATO. And it demonstrates that when President Putin invaded a European country to prevent more NATO, he’s getting the exact opposite.” Putin invaded Ukraine to stop NATO, says NATO chief, YouTube

So, Putin did not go to war to rebuild the Soviet empire. He went to war to prevent a hostile, anti-Russia, military coalition from plopping itself on his border where their missiles could strike Moscow in less than 7 minutes.

Was that unreasonable of him?

Of course, not. He was simply acting is his country’s best interests on a matter of critical (existential) importance. Check out this short 1-minute video of John Mearsheimer who makes the same point:

“… Let me put it differently, Ukraine—according to its Constitution and its Declaration of Sovereignty in 1990—was a neutral country. It abandoned neutrality in December 2014. Just think about that. So, if we had left it alone, Ukraine would be intact today including Crimea. (And) all these dead people would not be dead.” John Mearsheimer, Would Neutrality Have Prevented the War, You Tube

For Zelensky, the choice could not be clearer. Ukraine is either going to be neutral or it’s going to be obliterated. The choice is his to make. But one thing is certain, Russia is not going to live with a gun to its head. We know that now.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Michael Whitney is a renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace.

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).  

Featured image is from TUR

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On September 11, 2001, Afghanistan was identified as a “state sponsor of terror”, without a shred of evidence. The 9/11 attacks were categorized as an act of war against America by an unnamed foreign power.

It was a “False Flag” which consisted in blaming Afghanistan of having attacked America. “The Right to Self Defense” was put forth. The US-NATO aggressor was portrayed as the victim.

9/11: A Historical Landmark in U.S. Military Doctrine (2001- )

The alleged 9/11 “Attack on America” was instrumental in justifying the implementation of so-called “counter-terrorism” operations (aka wars) against ALL Muslim countries, now extending over a period of more than 20 years. (2001 onwards).

In the present context (2023), The 9/11 False Flag has a bearing on the evolving US-NATO-Israel 2023 “Humanitarian War” against Palestine and the  Middle East War, which is predicated on the concept of “Self Defense” against alleged terrorist attacks by Muslim Countries.

What Happened on September 11, 2001?

“A few hours after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the Bush administration concluded without supporting evidence, that “Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organisation were prime suspects”.

CIA Director George Tenet stated that bin Laden has the capacity to plan “multiple attacks with little or no warning”

Image (right). George Tenet with G. W. Bush and Dick Cheney

Secretary of State Colin Powell called the attacks “an act of war” and President Bush confirmed in an evening televised address to the Nation that he would “make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them”.

Former CIA Director James Woolsey pointed his finger at “state sponsorship,” implying the complicity of one or more foreign governments. In the words of former National Security Adviser, Lawrence Eagleburger, “I think we will show when we get attacked like this, we are terrible in our strength and in our retribution.”

Meanwhile, parroting official statements, the Western media mantra had approved the launching of “punitive actions” directed against civilian targets in the Middle East. In the words of William Saffire writing in the New York Times:

“When we reasonably determine our attackers’ bases and camps, we must pulverize them — minimizing but accepting the risk of collateral damage” — and act overtly or covertly to destabilize terror’s national hosts”.(Michel Chossudovsky, Who is Osama bin Laden, September 12, 2001)

NATO’s “Collective Defense Clause” and the October 7, 2001 Invasion of Afghanistan

On September 12, 2001, less than 24 hours after the attacks, at a meeting of the Atlantic Council in Brussels, NATO invoked for the first time in its history “Article 5 of the Washington Treaty – its collective defence clause” declaring the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) and the Pentagon “to be an attack against all NATO members:

“The tragic death of thousands of Americans on 9/11 allegedly instrumented by Al Qaeda (with the support of an unnamed foreign power) was used as a pretext and a justification for launching the first phase of the Middle East Central Asian War, which consisted in the bombing and occupation of Afghanistan.” Michel Chossudovsky, Who is Osama bin Laden, September 12, 2001)

The decision of the Atlantic Council to invoke Article V (officially confirmed in late September), was conducive to the US-NATO bombing and invasion of Afghanistan which commenced on October 7 2001, four weeks after the tragic events of 9/11.

The U.S. led war against Afghanistan consists essentially of two interrelated stages.

The first stage tagged as the Soviet-Afghan War started at the height of the Cold War in 1979  was a carefully planned military and intelligence operation led by the United States, which consisted in recruiting and financing the “Islamic brigades” (Mujahideen)  including Osama bin Laden. 

The second stage, unfolded with the US-NATO October 7, 2001 invasion of Afghanistan four weeks after 9/11, following the decision of the Atlantic Council to Invoke Article 5 of the Washington Treaty. 

The Criminal Invasion of Afghanistan and the “Just War” Narrative

The October 7 2001 invasion was heralded as “A Just War” by Professor Richard Falk, renowned scholar, professor of International and Humanitarian Law at Princeton and anti-war activist.

The statement of Professor Richard Falk, who is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) formulated in the immediate  wake of 9/11 — published four days after the commencement of the US-NATO bombing campaign– was intent upon providing legitimacy to America’s war on Afghanistan: 

“The perpetrators of the September 11 attack cannot be reliably neutralized by nonviolent or diplomatic means; a response that includes military action is essential to diminish the threat of repetition, to inflict punishment and to restore a sense of security at home and abroad. 

The extremist political vision held by Osama bin Laden, which can usefully be labeled “apocalyptic terrorism,” places this persisting threat well outside any framework of potential reconciliation or even negotiation for several reasons: Its genocidal intent is directed generically against Americans and Jews;

its proclaimed goal is waging an unconditional civilizational war –Islam against the West– without drawing any distinction between civilian and military targets; it has demonstrated a capacity and willingness to inflict massive and traumatizing damage on our country and a tactical ingenuity and ability to carry out its missions of destruction by reliance on the suicidal devotion of its adherents.”  (Richard Falk, The Nation,    Defining a Just War, October 11, 2001, 4 days after the invasion of Afghanistan, emphasis added).

Note the emphasis on: 

“genocidal intent against Americans and Jews”

as part of an alleged

“civilizational war of Islam against the West”.

Palestine 2023: Is It Not “The Other Way Round”? What We Are Witnessing Is “The Genocidal War of the West Against Muslim Countries.”

Osama bin Laden’s “Apocalyptic Terrorism” has provided a justification for the waging of America’s “Global War on Terrorism”, i.e. the numerous post 9/11 U.S. led “humanitarian wars” and “counter-terrorism operations” against Muslim countries (with the support of Israel) in the course of the last 22 years, which have resulted in millions of deaths. 

A holy crusade was launched against the Muslim World of approximately 50 countries and one quarter of the World’s population. 

In turn, “Counterterrorism” has been used in the course of the last twenty years as a justification for the establishment of U.S. military bases in Africa, the Middle East and South-East Asia.

The unspoken objective of “counter-terrorism” is to confiscate and appropriate the extensive oil and gas reserves of Muslim countries. 

“The Just War”

Professor Richard Falk is a life-long anti-war activist. He is renowned for his commitment to the rights of Palestinians and his courageous stance against the Israeli government. In February 2001, Professor Falk was appointed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to serve in the Inquiry Commission pertaining to the occupied Palestinian territories.

In March 2008, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) appointed Professor Richard Falk as UN Special Rapporteur pertaining to human rights in the Palestinian occupied territories.

Professor Falk’s statement entitled “Defining A Just War, Ends and Means” was  formulated 8 months following his OHCR February 2001 appointment to serve in the Palestine Inquiry Commission. In a February 2001 Interview, Falk raised the question as to whether Palestinians have a “Right to Resistance”:  

“The [UN OHCR] team will consider two major issues, he said. “One is evaluating whether the conditions of occupation are such as to give the Palestinians some kind of right of resistance,” said Falk. “And if they have that right, then what are the limits to that right?”

“We must ask specific questions, such as what kinds of weapons were used?” he said. “And how does one interpret and understand the vulnerability of children? For example, the Palestinians contend that the Israeli army targeted children, and the Israeli army says Palestinians used children as human shields.” (Princeton University Report, February 2001, (emphasis added) 

According to Falk –referring to the role of Osama bin Laden’s– “apocalyptic terrorism” is marked by the conduct of

“an unconditional civilizational war of Islam against the West”. 

This statement by Richard Falk constitutes a misunderstanding as to what happened on 9/11. 9/11 was a False Flag.

I should underscore, however, that in recent statements on Palestine, Professor Falk’s critique of the Netanyahu government goes against his earlier “Just War” stance formulated in the immediate wake of 9/11. 

The evidence presented below documents the alleged role of Bin Laden in the September 11, 2001 attacks, which provided the pretext and the justification to wage war not only on Afghanistan but also against numerous Muslim countries (in the aftermath of 9/11), under the mantle of America’s “Global War on Terrorism”. 

There Was No Evidence that Afghanistan Had Attacked America on 9/11

Why was George W. Bush reluctant to negotiate the extradition of Osama bin Laden? The Bin Laden- Bush family relationship?

What Happened on September 10, 2001? 

1. Poppy G.H.W. Bush Senior Meets Osama’s Brother Shafiq at The Ritz Carlton Hotel on September 10, 2001

One day before the 9/11 attacks, as well as on the morning of 9/11, the dad of the sitting President of the United States of America, George Herbert Walker Bush was meeting none other than Shafiq bin Laden, the brother of the alleged terror mastermind Osama bin Laden. Sounds absurd? 

According to The Washington Post:

2. Osama is Hospitalized in Rawalpindi, Pakistan on September 10, 2001

Confirmed by Dan Rather, CBS News, Osama bin Laden had been admitted to a Pakistani Military hospital in Rawalpindi on the 10th of September local time, less than 24 hours before the terrorist attacks. 

This CBS report casts doubt on the official narrative to the effect that Osama bin Laden was responsible for coordinating the 9/11 attacks. It would be impossible for Osama bin Laden to enter a Pakistani military hospital unnoticed. His whereabouts were known.

U.S. Foreign Policy in the Wake of 9/11. What is the Meaning of Al Qaeda in Arabic?

The above statement by Major Bunel, was confirmed by the late British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook (shortly before his passing) in a pointed article in The Guardian:

The Criminalization of War

Richard Falk denies the hegemonic nature of U.S. foreign policy:

“Another form of antiwar advocacy rests on a critique of the United States as an imperialist superpower or empire. This view also seems dangerously inappropriate in addressing the challenge posed by the massive crime against humanity committed on September 11.

Whatever the global role of the United States –and it is certainly responsible for much global suffering and injustice, giving rise to widespread resentment that at its inner core fuels the terrorist impulse– it cannot be addressed so long as this movement of global terrorism is at large and prepared to carry on with its demonic work. 

These longer-term concerns –which include finding ways to promote Palestinian self-determination, the internationalization of Jerusalem and a more equitable distribution of the benefits of global economic growth and development–must be addressed.

Of course, much of the responsibility for the failure to do so lies with the corruption and repressive policies of governments, especially in the Middle East, outside the orbit of US influence. A distinction needs to be drawn as persuasively as possible between inherently desirable lines of foreign policy reform and retreating in the face of terrorism.”  (Richard Falk, Defining a Just War, The Nation, October 11, 2023, emphasis added)

With. regard to the above quotation, is it not “the other way round”? Many of the governments “inside” rather than “outside” the orbit of US influence are corrupt. Why? Because their leaders are threatened, coopted and/or bribed by Washington. 

With regard to the so-called “movement of global terrorism”, see the National Security Decision Directive 166 (NSDD 166), (signed by President Reagan) which de facto authorized  stepped-up covert military aid to the Mujahideen.

To read the full text of NSDD 166, click image below.

 

The promotion of “Radical Islam” was a deliberate CIA initiative (NSDD 166) which in the wake of 9/11 has served as justification to waging a “Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) in the Middle East, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and sub–Saharan Africa. 

The number of CIA sponsored religious schools (madrasahs) increased from 2,500 in 1980 to over 39,000. USAID generously financed the process of religious indoctrination, largely to secure the demise of secular institutions and the collapse of civil society:

“The United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings….

Published in the dominant Afghan languages of Dari and Pashtun, the textbooks were developed in the early 1980s under an AID grant to the University of Nebraska-Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan Studies. The agency spent $51 million on the university’s education programs in Afghanistan from 1984 to 1994“, (Washington Post, 23 March 2002)

 

“Before” and “After” a US Led “Humanitarian War”

Selected excerpts from 

America’s “Just War” against Afghanistan: Women’s Rights “Before” and “After” America’s Destructive Wars.

suggest you access full article

It should be understood, that the “Before” and “After” Analysis Applies to the numerous Muslim Countries which have been the object of  America’s “Humanitarian Warfare” agenda including Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Palestine, Sudan, among others which have been the object of US-NATO bombings, invasions, “counter terrorism” and “regime change” operations in the wake of September 11, 2001. 

 

Afghanistan “Before”

Afghanistan “After” 

The Fate of Women and Children 

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***

We now have matching news from the opposing camp.

Just as Trump is the first US President to be convicted by a jury, Hunter Biden is the first son of a sitting president to be convicted of a federal felony.

This conviction of Hunter Biden leaves me unsettled, as does his likely pending conviction for federal income tax evasion.

The real issue is the information on Hunter Biden’s laptop that the FBI was able for awhile to suppress and brand as “Russian disinformation.”

This is under US law obstruction of Justice by the FBI.

All responsible should, if US law is still enforceable, be arrested, indicted, and prosecuted. It would be justice to see the FBI in the dock after all the innocent people the corrupt organization has put there.

The laptop information is the real issue.

It shows that the Bidens are a crime family and that Hunter was marketing abroad his father’s influence as Vice President and as President.

It seems clear that Biden senior, “the Big Guy,” received payments from the influence peddling.

Yet, not only did the corrupt FBI and whore media cover this up, the Justice (sic) Department directed attention away from the major crime by focusing the prosecution on minor issues. Hunter is convicted of lying on his handgun purchase statement by hiding the fact that he was a drug user, and Hunter most likely will be convicted of income tax evasion as he and his accountants could not report income from influence peddling without launching a federal case that would cast a net over father Biden.

MAGA Republicans are delighted with the verdict as it spreads the criminal accusation into the Democrat camp. MAGA Republicans do not realize that they are being manipulated and diverted from the main issue into a subsidiary issue.

Decades ago the Nobel prize-winning economist George Stigler pointed out that government is a private, not public, organization.

Political campaign contributions purchase Congressional votes for special interest enrichment, and federal regulatory agencies are captured by the private industries that they are suppose to regulate, thereby serving private and not public interests.

Fauci at NIH, for example, served the profits of Big Pharma’s Covid “vaccine” at the expense of the lives and health of millions of people.

Today all sorts of American politicians are serving Israel’s interest at the expense of Palestinian lives and the honor and integrity of the US government.

The same politicians are serving the profits of the military/security complex by widening the conflict in Ukraine and fomenting war with Russia, Iran, and China that could easily end in the extinction of life on earth.

There is no doubt that Stigler was right. I watched and experienced it during my quarter century in Washington. The public’s interest never enters into Washington’s concern.

There is no such thing as the “public interest.”

In the Western world government is merely a tool of the greed of private interests. Voting cannot overturn this high level of corruption.

Founding Father Thomas Jefferson said that periodically the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants.

It remains to be seen if Americans are up to the task of preserving liberty.

*

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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Wikimedia Commons

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***

 

 

The ashes had barely settled on a Rafah tent camp incinerated by an Israeli airstrike before the next, gorged massacre presented itself for posterity’s gloomy archive.  It was intended as a golden operation and had been months in the making.  The rescue of four Israeli hostages, the killing of three others (bound to happen for the expertly inclined), and the massacre of over 274 Palestinians at the Nuseirat refugee camp were the end result.

The logistics that led to the bloodbath had been rehearsed with detail verging on the manic.  Many a vengeful mind was at play.  Two buildings were constructed for training purposes.  Participants involved the special counter-terrorism unit Yamam, Israel’s internal security agency Shin Bet, and members of the Israeli Defence Forces.  An enormous casualty rate would have already been contemplated given the remarks of IDF spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari.

“We understood that in those apartments with those guards, daytime will be the ultimate surprise.”

The lies barely have time to fledge.  First, the numbers.  Hagari could only count “dozens”, and “knew of less than 100”.  He conceded to not knowing how many of such a reduced number were civilians.  Israel’s Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, was happy to soften the carnage in attacking his country’s detractors.  “Only Israel’s enemies complained about the casualties of Hamas terrorists and their accomplices.”

Then came the praise, manifold, effusive.  The Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant cooed with satisfaction, calling the effort “one of the most extraordinary operations”.  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu merely offered the following morsel: “Israel does not surrender to terrorism.”

Furthermore, no civilian trucks, claimed the IDF, were used in the operation.  Yet undercover vehicles were apparently deployed, one very much resembling those used by Israel to traffic commercial goods into Gaza; another being a white Mercedes truck packed and stacked with furniture and miscellaneous belongings typical of the dislocated and dispossessed.  Disgorged from the latter, Palestinian eye-witness accounts noted men in plainclothes and some 10 heavily armed soldiers ready for mischief.  The commencement of firing signalled the start of the butchery.

The UN Special Rapporteur of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, was certain.  The IDF, she stated with exasperation, had “perfidiously” hidden “in an aid truck”.  This constituted “‘humanitarian camouflage’ at another level.”  While expressing relief at the rescue of four hostages, the enterprise “should not have come at the expense of at least 200 Palestinians, including children, killed and over 400 injured by Israel and allegedly foreign soldiers”.

In time, it became clear that the mission, venerated for its secrecy and praised for its planning, had not caught the Hamas guards responsible for three male hostages by surprise.  They duly engaged the Yamam operatives.  “Immediately, it became a war zone,” reservist brigadier general Amir Avivi told The Washington Post.  The Israeli air force commenced indulgent fire.  Death reigned at Nuseirat for some 75 minutes, concealed by the now standard refrain by the IDF: “Aircraft struck dozens of military targets for the success of the operation.”

Other, more tormented descriptions seemed closer to the mark.  The Intercept noted the observations of a Palestinian witness by the name of Suhail Mutlaq Abu Nasser. “The area turned to ashes… I couldn’t find my wife and started calling out to those around me to ensure they were still alive.”  The account goes on to document the use of armed quadcopter drones, the presence of tank tracks, the hovering of Apache attack helicopters, the targeting of homes by missiles.  Camp resident Anas Alayyan was also convinced that the entire military operation by Israeli forces did not fall short of a mass execution.

There is a pattern here, a murderous ratio justified by that most elastic yet horrific of reasons: self-defence.  The hostage rescue will go down a treat in Israel.  The names of those captured by Hamas on October 7 will be anointed in Israeli mythology: Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, Shlomi Ziv. But at what cost to those around them?

In addition to the slaughter, some indication of the aftermath is provided by Al Jazeera.  “The wounded were taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, an already overwhelmed facility.”  Medics are found to be in utter despair.

The scale of killing on this score also raises troubling issues with Israel’s closest ally.  Despite some political grumbling in the ranks, the Biden administration remains steadfast in support.  The deaths in Rafah were still excusable because, in the words of US State Department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, Israel had not engaged in “a military operation on the scale of those previous operations [in Khan Younis and in Gaza City].”

The hefty death toll of Palestinian civilians in the Nuseirat operation was of lesser concern to President Joe Biden than the welfare of Israeli hostages.  Speaking in Paris, Biden welcomed “the safe rescue of four hostages that were returned to their families in Israel. We won’t stop working until all the hostages come home and a ceasefire is reached.”

The sanguinary episode at Nuseirat is hard to stomach, even by Biden’s rubbery standards.  It stands to reason.  The entire operation had the buttressing of what the New York Times reported to be “intelligence and other logistical support” from the United States.   Two Israeli intelligence officials also confirmed that “American military officials in Israel provided some of the intelligence about the hostages rescued Saturday.”  And let us not forget murderous military hardware, readily supplied from US defence companies.  It follows that the lives of Israeli hostages, dubbed “diamonds” by their rescuers, are invaluable, the precious stones of Israeli-US policy.  The Palestinians, on the other hand, are mere coal dust.

*

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected] 

Featured image: An image of Al-Nuseirat refugee camp in the Middle Area of Gaza during Israel bombardments on Saturday 8 June 2024. The deadly Israeli attacks reportedly killed at least 270 Palestinians and left about 700 wounded according to the local health authorities. (© MSF)

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***

It is difficult to imagine Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad accepting a hostage exchange deal that does not meet their immutable demand, which is a lasting ceasefire linked to a total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. This, for them, is nonnegotiable, but for Benjamin Netanyahu and his hard-line coalition partners, an end to the war in this way can only mean defeat.

Sunday’s announcement by former defense minister and member of the War Cabinet Benny Gantz that he is resigning because Netanyahu has failed the Israeli public, including the families of the captives, and has never been able or willing to spell out a day-after plan for Gaza has compounded pressure on the government to call for early elections.

Assuming that the war will end soon or drag on for another few weeks or months, Israel will be looking for a way to declare victory. But even then, the question will be this: victory over whom and at what price? The political cost of the war, both domestically and abroad, is phenomenal. And then what comes next? The war will leave the entire population of Gaza, about 2 million people, homeless and battling a chronic humanitarian crisis for decades. Running this enclave will become an insurmountable challenge for any administration.

The deliberate destruction of Gaza in the most barbaric of ways can only mean that Israel was not going after Hamas but the Palestinians. Gaza has no more hospitals, universities, schools, residential areas, parks, stadiums or anything that denotes civilian life, including a society, culture and even cemeteries. This is a plan to drive people into extinction.

The war has dispatched Israel, the Palestinians, the region and the whole world back to the pre-1948 era, as if the last 75 years have meant nothing. The Palestinians remain stateless and under occupation and Israel is yet to decide what it wants to be in this region.

The war on Gaza will not deliver answers. But it will bring these fundamental questions to the forefront. We all know where the Palestinian people stand: they want to end the occupation — by any means possible — and claim their right to self-determination. They have tried to do this through both national struggle and peace negotiations. Both have failed to deliver.

And while it is easy to blame the victims for missing opportunities, a few have dared point the finger at Israel itself for derailing agreements and violating international law. An appeasement policy led by the US brought us to the Oct. 7 watershed moment.

But the real question is, what does Israel want to do with the Palestinians? It has killed more than 37,000 of them in Gaza — so far — and destroyed most of the enclave. By the time the war ends, Gaza will have become unlivable, according to experts. Will Israel withdraw? Or will it occupy the Strip indefinitely? What about the Palestinians there? What future awaits them?

Suppose one believes that the Gaza war, with all the atrocities and horrors, will summon a new vigor to find a lasting peace in historical Palestine. In that case, one should look back at the evolution of the Israeli body politic in the last two decades. Netanyahu’s long era in Israeli politics has empowered the far right — a toxic mix of ethnoreligious neofascists who openly talk about annexing the West Bank, colonizing Gaza and burying the Palestinians once and for all.

Netanyahu had hoped to use those who used to be on the fringe of Israeli politics to secure a majority in the Knesset. But now he has become their hostage. Similar to his, their agenda now occupies the center of the Israeli stage.

Netanyahu and his far-right partners do not want to give the Palestinians anything. They openly state that Oslo is over, the Palestinian Authority will be defunded and the UN Relief and Works Agency will be banned, as the momentum to annex most of the West Bank is at its height. The two-state solution is anathema to the far right. In the final phase, as Vladimir Jabotinsky and later Meir Kahane preached, the transfer of Palestinians will ensure complete Jewish control of the land.

We do not hear a rebuttal from the far right’s political rivals. Gantz, Yair Lapid, Avigdor Lieberman and Yoav Gallant, all potential successors of Netanyahu and his cronies, are all openly against the two-state solution. They are against giving up any territory in the West Bank, not to mention the Syrian Golan Heights. East Jerusalem is a red line for all. So, what are the Biden administration and its Western allies talking about when they declare they are behind a two-state solution?

The Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas have radicalized Israeli society even further. The Israeli left is no more. The so-called doves have been marginalized by a new generation of Israeli politicians. Netanyahu has claimed that there is no Palestinian peace partner. Still, in reality, it is the Palestinians who today cannot find an Israeli politician who presents himself as a partner for peace.

When the Gaza war is finally over, Israelis will face this question: what to do with the Palestinians? One has to understand that there is a Zionist master plan and that, after decades of intermittent wars and uprisings, that plan remains on target. Netanyahu and his extremist partners are clear about the objective; for them, this is an existential struggle: one ethnostate in all of historical Palestine — and maybe beyond.

Since the late 1980s, the concept of the land-for-peace deal, evolving into the two-state solution, had been a bipartisan US roadmap aimed at resolving what the Arab-Israeli conflict was then. But Donald Trump’s election changed all that. The core of the Republican Party is now aligned with Israel’s far-right agenda. Republican lawmakers are openly distancing themselves from the two-state solution for ideological, religious or selfish political reasons. The Democratic Party is divided and the Gaza war has splintered its ranks.

If anything good has come out of the war on Gaza, it is this: the Palestine cause is now universal. Israel has become a pariah state facing accusations of genocide. Its top government leaders may soon be indicted for war crimes. Global public opinion has shifted against it. A grassroots movement in Western colleges and universities is here to stay. Israel’s Western allies must choose between upholding international law and siding with a rogue state.

The Zionist agenda is under attack, but locally it is still on course. The systemic colonization of the West Bank is picking up speed. The situation in the West Bank is about to explode at any moment. The specter of a regional war is hovering over the Middle East.

Where Israel goes from here concerning the Palestinians is likely to be answered by the outcome of future Israeli elections. Israelis will have to choose, and their choice will determine where the rest of the world and the region go from there.

*

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Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman. X: @plato010

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***

After 21 years working at the UN Development Programme in Gaza, Basel Nasser now faces the task of assisting his birthplace on a scale unlike anything he has ever experienced before.

Eight months into Israel‘s military offensive in the Palestinian enclave, more than 37,000 residents have been killed, nearly 85,000 injured and most of its population of more than two million displaced by strikes and a ground offensive that have destroyed more than half of its buildings.

“The numbers don’t even remotely reflect the reality,” Mr Nasser told The National before taking part in the UN emergency conference on Gaza’s humanitarian needs, hosted by Jordan at the Dead Sea on Tuesday. 

As Minister of Relief Affairs in the Palestinian Authority‘s newly appointed government – a position created in light of the war in Gaza – Mr Nasser is already planning for the rehabilitation of Gaza and its people once the war ends.

Unlike previous conflicts between Israel and Hamas in the coastal strip, “virtually the entire population of Gaza will require aid” this time, he said.

He pointed out that the death toll provided by Gaza’s health authorities does not include those who have died from hunger or from the lack of proper medical care in the Strip.

Gaza’s residents have faced acute food shortages created by strict Israeli controls on the delivery of aid since the war began, with UN and aid groups warning that the territory faces the risk of famine.

There are no fully functioning hospitals after most were destroyed in raids and bombardments by the Israeli military, while the few that are still in partial service struggle with shortages of medical supplies and fuel to run their generators.

Israel dropped about 70,000 tonnes of explosives on the Gaza Strip between the start of the war on October 7 and April 24, according to the Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.

In addition to the grim human toll, damage to infrastructure totalled more than $18.5 billion by January, according to a World Bank and UN estimate.

Mr Nasser said the Palestinian government has put together an emergency plan for Gaza which will require at least $1.13 billion in assistance over the first six months after the fighting ends, as part of a larger project for relief and recovery.

The plan includes providing food, water and cash assistance for 300,000 families, and temporary shelters and other essentials for 30,000 families, as well as treatment for the ill and injured and psychological and psychosocial support for traumatised residents.

Teachers and temporary schools will be provided to allow children to resume their education, either remotely or in person.

“The matter requires sufficient funding,” Mr Nasser said. “If every person in Gaza was fed with just $5 a day, that’s $11 million a day for the entire population.”

Unimpeded access to the territory, which has been under an Israeli blockade since Hamas seized control in 2007, will also be vital, including for machinery and materials need for reconstruction.

“The removal of rubble, which in and of itself is a mammoth task, will require intervention from private and public contractors both in Gaza and the occupied West Bank and the total free movement of machinery and equipment in and out of the strip,” Mr Nasser said.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on Monday that more than half of all buildings in Gaza had been destroyed, citing data from the UN Satellite Centre.

The task of reconstruction could take “up to 20 years”, even if funding was immediately available and with unrestricted access to the territory, said Mr Nasser.

“There is damage from the 2014 war that has not yet been repaired,” he said.

However, the question remains whether the Palestinian Authority will oversee Gaza’s postwar recovery, as both Israel and Hamas, a rival of the Fatah political faction that controls the PA, are both opposed to this.

Still, Mr Nasser takes hope from the inclusion of eight members from Gaza, including himself, in the authority’s 22-member cabinet.

“This is a strong indicator that the Palestinian Authority and the government will exert all efforts to take all the responsibilities to provide services, manage the relief, recovery and reconstruction process, and unify the Palestinian public institutions in the Gaza strip and the West Bank,” he said.

For Mr Nasser, who was trapped in Gaza for the first 40 days of the war before being allowed to leave – thanks to his Canadian passport – psychological support for Gazans will be a crucial part of the territory’s rehabilitation.

“I was traumatised after only 40 days of war – but it has now already been months. There will be a lot of work to be done on that front,” he said.

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Featured image: Palestinian Minister of State for Relief Affairs Basel Nasser expects the reconstruction of Gaza to take up to 20 years. Nada AlTaher / The National

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***

On May 27, Israel “apologised” for the 45 Palestinian deaths resulting from its bombing raid on a “humanitarian zone” in Rafah. This backhanded apology conveyed more insult than atonement. As Israeli apologies, even insincere ones, are rare, it’s worth examining this one’s background.

The bombing occurred just two days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to stop its assault on Rafah, citing the dangers to civilian life and humanitarian aid delivery. The International Criminal Court prosecutor had also just declared his intent to request arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defense minister Yossi Gallant on charges of war crimes committed during the assault on Gaza.

Compounding Israeli embarrassment were the decisions by Spain, Ireland and Norway to recognise the State of Palestine and supportive statements for the ICC warrant request from France and Germany. Many European countries also issued swift and firm denunciations of the Rafah attack.

Unsurprisingly, the initial Israeli response was immediate and excessive. The ICJ was called “a moral outrage”. Israeli commentators denounced the court in racist terms, noting the percentage of judges from Muslim-majority  or “third world” countries. The EU countries recognising Palestine were compared to Nazis and their action termed antisemitic. The greatest torrent of abusive language came in response to the ICC request for warrants. Justice Minister Levin referred to the request as “one of the biggest moral disgraces in human history”. Netanyahu narcissistically said the charges against him were “directed against all of Israel” and “an example of the new antisemitism”. He further deflected saying:

“With what chutzpah do you dare compare Hamas…and the soldiers of the IDF who are fighting a just war that is unparalleled with a morality that is unmatched?”

Netanyahu’s foes Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid called the request “a crime of historic proportions” and “unforgivable”.

This bullying through excessive language is Israel’s traditional response to criticism, an attempt to verbally pummel critics into submission while shoring up supporters.

Then came the decision to bomb Rafah, perhaps Israel demonstrating that they were undeterred by criticism. After, Israel described the attack as using “precise munitions based on precise intelligence”. Appearing aware of the attack’s possible repercussions, Israelis seemed to test their critics’ tolerance, threading the needle of compliance with international law and bowing to US concerns about civilian casualties.

Of course, the initial bombing was not precise, with 22 deaths reported. The fires ignited by the blast ravaged an adjacent area, burning to death 45 Palestinians.

Confronted by growing international outrage, the Israelis followed their normal practice of “deny, lie, and obfuscate”. They claimed that the death toll was exaggerated and the attack precise; then said the site wasn’t in a “protected zone”, a false claim, as a few days prior they’d expanded the zone to include the area they bombed. Then they denounced Hamas targets for “hiding out” among civilians. Adding an element of confusion, they suggested that the fire might have started if the bomb blast ignited a nearby Hamas arms cache. No evidence was presented (or needed) because with that obfuscation Israel felt it had cast doubt on its responsibility, shifting the blame back to Hamas.

Failing to dampen international rage, the Israelis made a rare choice: “apologise.” They could see world opinion turning against them. Despite the Biden administration’s hesitation to condemn their crossing his ever-moving red line, they know how precarious their position is in the US. With Netanyahu hoping to address Congress and facing Democratic boycott of his remarks, action was needed.

Hence, the decision to apologise, and what a backhanded apology it was. Netanyahu announced: 

“Despite our efforts not to hit them, there was a tragic mishap. We are investigating the incident.” Adding insult to injury, he continued, “For us it’s a tragedy; for Hamas it’s a strategy,”

echoing the hurtful, racist comment of former prime minister Golda Meir:

“We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We can never forgive them for making us kill their children.”

The apology’s insincerity was demonstrated a few days later when Israel bombed another Rafah refugee encampment, killing 21 Palestinians.

As if to greenlight more such attacks, despite growing worldwide and domestic condemnation of these mass killings, the Biden administration announced it would not take any action against Israel. They are satisfied with Israel’s precautions to avoid civilian deaths and its investigation of their actions in Rafah. Netanyahu plays to an audience of one so that’s enough for the bombings to continue.

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James J. Zogby is president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute.

Featured image: Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Photo: Valeriano Di Domenico / WEF)

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***

Dietary protein is crucial for building and repairing body tissues, influencing everything from muscle growth to the function of enzymes and hormones

Nine essential amino acids must be obtained from the diet as your body cannot synthesize them

Animal proteins provide not only essential amino acids but also nutrients that are essential for health, such as vitamin B12, retinol and taurine, which support brain, heart, and muscle function

Adults generally need about 1 gram of protein per pound of their ideal body weight daily to support optimal muscle protein synthesis

Collagen, which makes up about 30% of your body’s protein, is essential for maintaining the strength and flexibility of tissues like skin, bones and joints, so approximately one-third of your daily protein intake should be in the form of collagen

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Dietary protein is essential for building and repairing tissues, including muscles and organs. It’s also required for the proper functioning of enzymes, hormones, and your immune system.

Essential, Nonessential and Conditionally Essential Amino Acids

Made up of amino acids, proteins serve as the building blocks of your body. While there are hundreds of amino acids in nature, humans only use about 20 of them to make the proteins our bodies need. Those 20 proteins include:

Five of these — alanine, asparagine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, and serine — are considered nonessential amino acids because your body can make them, although you can also get them from foods.

Another six — arginine, cysteine, glutamine, glycine, proline, and tyrosine — are described as conditionally essential. This is because, while your body can make them if you’re healthy, during times of illness, stress or intense physical activity, your body’s ability to produce these amino acids may not be sufficient to meet your needs, making it necessary to get them through your diet.

There are also nine essential amino acids, which you must get from food as your body cannot make them. These include histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine. Dietary sources for these essential amino acids include meat, fish, eggs, and dairy, as well as some plant-based options like legumes.

Why You Need Protein

Muscle mass optimizes you for longevity, and dietary protein, especially animal-based protein, is essential for muscle maintenance and muscle building. The greater your muscle mass, the higher your survivability against all diseases, including cancer. Cachexia, for example — the loss of muscle mass — accounts for 20% of all cancer deaths.¹

One of the reasons for this is because muscle acts as a reservoir for amino acids, which are crucial during illness when your body’s demand for them increases. Additionally, muscle regulates metabolism and is integral for glucose disposal, which helps you manage conditions like diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Your muscle also interfaces with your immune system.

The Case for Animal Protein

In terms of diet, skeletal muscle requires high-quality dietary protein, ideally animal protein, to stimulate muscle protein synthesis. Skeletal muscle requires branched-chain amino acids — leucine, isoleucine and valine — which are most abundant in meat.

Unlike plant proteins, animal sources also provide nutrients like vitamin B12, retinol (vitamin A) and creatine, bioavailable iron, carnitine, and carnosine, all of which are important for muscle growth and health in general.

Animal-based protein sources also contain taurine,² a semi-essential amino acid that is important for:

• Healthy brain function³
• Heart health⁴
• Healthy muscle function⁵
• Bile salt formation⁶
• Antioxidant defenses⁷ — Taurine protects your antioxidant status by neutralizing hypochlorous acid,⁸ diminishing the generation of superoxide by the mitochondria,⁹ and minimizing oxidative stress,¹⁰ including mitochondrial oxidative stress induced by toxins¹¹

According to a 2023 study,^12,13 taurine plays an important role in longevity and healthy aging. Oral supplementation with taurine increased the median healthy lifespan of mice by 10% to 12%. Taurine also helps rebuild damaged collagen fibers¹⁴ and can help ease anxiety by increasing glycine and GABA.¹⁵

Taurine is a byproduct of the sulphureous amino acids cysteine and methionine (technically a sulfonic acid), and is only found in animal foods. Examples of taurine-rich foods include seafood, organic grass fed red meat and dairy products, and organic poultry.

Finding Your Ideal Protein Intake

As a rule, protein should make up about 15% of your daily calories. More specifically, most adults need about 0.8 grams of protein per pound of ideal body weight (the weight you would ideally be, not necessarily the weight you are now), or for Europeans, approximately 1.76 grams of protein per kilo.

For example, if your ideal weight is 135 pounds, your protein requirement would be 108 grams. Divided into two meals, that would be 54 grams per meal. For reference, there’s approximately 7 grams of protein in each ounce of steak, so a 5-ounce steak would give you 35 grams of high-quality protein. For children, the average amount per meal is around 5 to 10 grams, while young adults typically can get away with 20 grams per meal.

For most normal-weight adults, 30 grams per meal is really the minimum you need to stimulate muscle protein synthesis.

Comparison with Conventional Advice

For comparison, conventional dietary advice recommends a daily intake of 1.65 to 1.76 grams of protein per pound of actual bodyweight (as opposed to ideal weight), or for Europeans, 0.75 to 0.8 grams per kilo. Using this metric, the average adult woman is said to need about 45 grams of protein per day, and men about 56 grams.¹⁶

While the gram per pound is higher, the total grams of protein recommended ends up being much lower because they’re basing it on actual weight, which in most people is primarily excess fat weight, not muscle. Basing your intake on ideal weight is more likely to bring you closer to your real needs.

Many are starting to realize that the conventional recommendation for protein may be inadequate though. As reported by The Guardian,¹⁷ this guideline is based on a studies trying to determine the minimum protein requirements needed to prevent malnutrition, which is different from the requirement to thrive:

“A new technique for establishing protein needs has been developed, catchily called the indicator amino acid oxidation method. ‘It suggests the minimum protein intake for thrive mode, not just to prevent malnutrition, is about 1g to 1.2g per kilogram of body weight per day.’

‘As a woman in my 40s,’ says [British dietitian Linia] Patel, ‘as my hormones decrease I will lose muscle mass. The 1g of protein will help me prevent that, not the 0.75g …

For bulky rugby players, the protein recommendation is ‘about 2g per kg in body weight per day, and they’re at the top of what the American College of Sports Medicine recommends’ …

[F]rom our late 70s we need a protein boost up to about 1g per kg of bodyweight, daily … [E]lderly people need a little bit more to slow the natural reduction in muscle mass. An older person who’s trying to be active might need 1.4g per kg.”

Make Sure You’re Getting Enough Collagen

Once you have calculated your overall protein requirement, make sure one-third of that is in the form of collagen. Collagen is the most common and abundant of your body’s proteins, accounting for about 30% of the total protein in your body.

One of its primary purposes is to provide structural support and strength to your tissues, such as skin, bones, tendons, ligaments, and cartilage^18,19,20 by allowing them to stretch while still maintaining tissue integrity. As such, collagen is crucial for repairing soft tissue, muscle, and connective tissue.

Connective tissues include tendons, ligaments, cartilage, and fascia, which tend to get weaker and less elastic with age. Connective tissue injuries are also problematic since there’s very little blood supply in connective tissue, which slows down recovery. Other lesser-known health benefits of collagen supplementation include:

• Deeper sleep due to its glycine content²¹
• Reduced joint pain and stiffness,²² including osteoarthritis pain²³
• Improved gut health and digestion, thanks to the presence of glycine²⁴
• Improved blood pressure and reduced cardiovascular damage²⁵
• Improved glucose tolerance²⁶
• Reduced inflammation and oxidative damage, as glycine inhibits the consumption of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH). NADPH is used as a reductive reservoir of electrons to recharge antioxidants once they become oxidized

Collagen Is Important for Muscle Functionality

Also, while collagen does not contribute directly to muscle growth, it plays a supportive role by contributing to the overall health and functionality of muscles and connective tissues. For example, collagen:

• Supports the health and strength of tendons and ligaments — By strengthening these connective tissues, collagen helps maintain the integrity and elasticity necessary for muscles to function effectively and grow.
• Facilitates injury recovery — Building muscle often involves rigorous physical activity that can sometimes lead to injuries. Collagen is vital for the repair of connective tissues and can accelerate recovery from muscle injuries by promoting quicker regeneration of muscle fibers and connective tissue.
• Enhances joint health — Regular strength training and muscle building can put a strain on joints. Collagen helps maintain the cartilage that cushions joints and may reduce the risk of joint deterioration and pain. Healthier joints support more consistent and intensive workouts.
• Improves muscle elasticity — Collagen contributes to the elasticity and hydration of tissues. With better muscle elasticity, there is a lower risk of injuries during workouts, allowing for more effective muscle engagement and growth over time.
• Aids in muscle contraction — Collagen contains several amino acids, such as glycine and proline, which are important for the synthesis of creatine in the body. Creatine is a compound that provides energy for muscle contractions and is often supplemented to increase muscle mass and improve exercise performance.

Why Red Meat Cannot Provide All the Protein You Need

The primary amino acids in collagen — glycine, proline and hydroxyproline — make up the matrix of connective tissue. As you can see in the chart below, red meat contains very little of these amino acids, so eating only muscle meat will not provide enough amino acids to allow you to build strong connective tissue and maintain bone strength.

Importantly, collagen contains higher amounts of specific amino acids with anti-inflammatory and other healing properties, while red meat is higher in amino acids that promote inflammation.

Collagen also helps protect your cells against stress. During stress, cysteine and tryptophan are released in large quantities, and these amino acids have antimetabolic effects. Glycine, on the other hand, has cell-protective, antistress effects.²⁷ As such, many degenerative and inflammatory diseases can be ameliorated by eating more gelatin and/or collagen-rich foods.

Red meat contains far higher levels of the antimetabolic amino acids cysteine and tryptophan, which you want less of if you struggle with degenerative and/or inflammatory conditions. Life extension studies have shown that tryptophan and cysteine restriction produce a greater life extension than calorie restriction, which is rather remarkable.²⁸

Bone Broth Is an Ideal Collagen Source

Homemade beef bone broth is an ideal source of collagen, and using a pressure cooker, you can whip up bone broth in as little as two to four hours. The devil’s in the details though.

When cooking broth, you want to make sure the bones are as organic as possible, as the bones of animals raised in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) tend to be contaminated with heavy metals, which leach out during cooking.

Some bones are also better sources of collagen than others. Chicken feet and the knuckle bones (knee joint) of cows are particularly high in collagen and are therefore excellent choices for making bone broth.

Prevent Muscle Breakdown with Carbs

On a final side note, the stress hormone cortisol drains the amino acids, the protein, from your tissues, thereby decreasing bone density and muscle mass. So, while making sure you’re eating enough protein is important, you also want to eat enough healthy carbs to prevent the destruction of muscle from excess cortisol.

Consuming carbs as part of your post workout meal will decrease cortisol and allow you to recover faster. Research has shown that including carbs in your post-workout meal decreases cortisol levels by 11% (relative to the peak cortisol level measured during exercise). Meanwhile, not including carbs can increase cortisol by 105%.²⁹

The reason for all this is because when you don’t have enough glucose to fuel the mitochondria, when you deplete your glycogen level, then stress hormones — adrenaline and cortisol — are released to trigger endogenous production of glycogen.

Those stress hormones are pathologic, and if they’re continuously released at high levels to compensate for insufficient glucose, it will accelerate disease and premature death.

According to a recent meta-analysis, a single strength workout will decrease muscle glycogen levels by 24% to 40%.³⁰ Just three sets of 12 reps performed to muscular failure resulted in a 26.1% decrease in muscle glycogen levels.³¹

So, it’s important to consume healthy carbs after your workout to replenish your glycogen stores. Your muscles rebuild when you’re in a rest and digest state, not in a state of fight or flight.

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Notes

¹ Cancer Manag Res 2020; 12: 5597–5605

² X, Dr. Eashwarran Kohilathas April 7, 2023

³ Nutrients March 2022; 14(6): 1292

⁴ Experimental & Clinical Cardiology 2008; 13(2): 57-65

⁵ Metabolites February 2022; 12(2): 193

⁶ Biocrates Taurine

⁷ Amino Acids June 2012; 42(6): 2223-2232

⁸ Amino Acids January 2014; 46(1): 89-100

⁹ Amino Acids January 2014; 46(1): 47-56

¹⁰ Mol Cell Biochem May 2016; 416(1-2): 11-22

¹¹ Can J Physiol Pharmacol February 2009; 87(2): 91-99

¹² Science June 9; 380(6649) DOI: 10.1126/science.abn9257

¹³ Science June 8, 2023; 380(6649): 1010-1011, Perspective/Commentary

¹⁴ Tohoku J Exp Med March 2015; 235(3): 201-213

¹⁵ Anxiety Medication, How to take taurine for anxiety?

^16, 17 The Guardian April 15, 2024

¹⁸ Bone 2010 Mar;46(3):827-3

¹⁹ PLoS One 2014 Jun 13;9(6):e99920

²⁰ J Agric Food Chem. 2010 Jan 27;58(2):835-41

²¹ J Pharmacol Sci 2012; 118: 145 – 148 (PDF)

²² Curr Med Res Opin. 2008 May;24(5):1485-96

²³ Curr Med Res Opin. 2006 November; 22(11):2221-32

²⁴ Am J Physiol 1982 February;242(2):G85-8

²⁵ J Med Food. 2010 Apr;13(2):399-405

²⁶ J Med Food. 2016 Sep;19(9):836-43

^27, 28 RayPeat.com Gelatin, stress, longevity

²⁹ Metabolism 2006 May;55(5):570-7

³⁰ Sports Medicine 2022; 52: 2691-2712

³¹ J Appl Physiol 1991 Apr;70(4):1700-6

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A new report by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) warns that a Canadian public official tasked with countering racism has demonstrated a harmful and malicious pattern of spreading misinformation against supporters of Palestine, and is calling for her to be replaced. Titled “Defaming the Pro-Palestine Movement,” the report examines the public commentary of Deborah Lyons, Canada’s Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism, and finds that her office has consistently spread false information to demonize Canadians protesting Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. CJPME’s report recommends that Lyons should be replaced in her position with someone able to combat antisemitism in an intersectional manner, without reproducing anti-Palestinian racism.

“It is unacceptable for a public official responsible for anti-racism work to be consistently spreading anti-Palestinian racism,” said Michael Bueckert, Vice President of CJPME. “We have no confidence in Lyons’ ability to distinguish between criticism of Israel and genuine antisemitism, as she appears to see no difference between the two. Her actions embolden hatred and incitement against young people who are rightfully protesting genocide. It is clear that she cannot continue in this public role,” added Bueckert.

On Saturday, Canada published its renewed federal anti-racism strategy without any mention of anti-Palestinian racism, thus failing to provide resources to combat the harm caused by the Special Envoy.

CJPME’s report examines the social media commentary of Special Envoy Lyons between October 2023 and March 2024 to demonstrate how she has consistently spread false claims about pro-Palestine activists, misrepresenting protests, slogans, and pro-Palestine positions as antisemitic. For example, Lyons has often falsely alleged that pro-Palestine protests targeted Jewish individuals or institutions while ignoring the organizers’ actual goals or rationale. Similarly, Lyons has misinterpreted the Arabic term “Intifada” and popular slogans like “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” to paint them as inherently and exclusively antisemitic, further suggesting that these forms of speech should be prosecuted by police. Lyons has even put forward the view that Canada’s December 2023 vote for a ceasefire at the United Nations General Assembly was antisemitic, even though it reflected a mainstream political view against war.

The report also finds that a significant part of Special Envoy Lyons’s role includes collaboration with Israeli officials. CJPME believes that this collaboration is particularly problematic at a time when Israel’s genocidal actions are being investigated by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and as the International Criminal Court is about to issue arrest warrants against Israeli leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity. This collaboration includes meeting with Israeli President Herzog, whose genocidal comments were referenced by the ICJ in its initial ruling, and with Israel’s far-right Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli, who leads a covert foreign influence campaign targeting Canadians with racist and anti-Muslim content.

“As Parliament investigates foreign interference and influence, it is outrageous that the Special Envoy is simultaneously collaborating with the far-right Israeli Minister who is behind a covert op targeting Palestinian- and Muslim Canadians with racist messages and disinformation. This is completely unacceptable. Canadians are rightfully concerned that the office of the Special Envoy is using public funding to defend Israel’s interests, rather than being used to combat domestic racism and white supremacy,” said Bueckert.

CJPME’s report concludes that Special Envoy Lyons’ behaviour shows a pattern of anti-Palestinian racism. Not only has Lyons consistently conflated legitimate criticism and protest of Israel’s structurally racist policies with antisemitism, but she routinely advocates for nearly all types of protest to be shut down or even prosecuted. CJPME argues that this behaviour is reproducing harm against Palestinian Canadians and their supporters, especially the racialized young people who are the most involved in pro-Palestine protests. CJPME is also troubled about Lyons’ authorship of a pending IHRA guidebook, which threatens to further conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. As CJPME’s report concludes, “An approach to anti-racism in Canada cannot prevent Palestinians and their supporters from advocating for their own rights or naming the forms of racism and oppression that they face, whether here in Canada or within territories controlled by Israel.”

“Rather than fighting antisemitism, the Special Envoy is leading a McCarthyite push to force Canadian institutions to support Israel and Zionism, while discouraging Palestinians from speaking up about their experiences of systemic racism in Israel and Canada. Her push to force institutions to adopt IHRA is a clear threat to free expression and Charter rights in Canada,” said Bueckert.

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***

A new problem has emerged in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: fuel theft, writes the Ukrainian portal Strana citing military personnel. However, all the cases cited by the outlet focus on low-ranking military personnel rather than where most of the corruption is being committed – by the upper echelons of the Kiev regime.

“Fuel theft has become one of the acute problems of corruption in the Armed Forces of Ukraine at almost all levels,” the Strana article says.

It is noteworthy that fuel has become a new real currency among the military. A Ukrainian official told the portal one of the schemes used. According to him, a huge amount of fuel is stolen from the country’s Army every month and is attributed to “combat operations.”

“If the unit is in the first line, fuel is delivered to the second line by refuelers. [The vehicles] are refueled, documents are handed over. The commander is obliged to account for fuel consumption in detail after rotation. But in reality, fuel consumption on the front line during a battle with the equipment is impossible to calculate accurately. This is the basis for the schemes and falsifications,” the military explained.

The Ukrainian military also said that the command is aware of the situation and is monitoring the process. As a result of these schemes, the stolen fuel becomes a bonus to the salary, concluded the soldier.

In the court registry, Strana found dozens of cases related to the theft of fuel and revealed some of them.

One of the court cases is about how a driver of a military tanker drained 1,200 litres of diesel fuel from it, which, as he later admitted in court, he planned to sell for 50 hryvnia ($1.24) per litre. Another case describes how a soldier dumped 500 litres of diesel fuel, whilst another court case describes how the senior combat medic of an air assault battalion created an entire group that specialised in fraud.

In all the cases cited by Strana, it only concerned lower ranking military personnel, meaning that the true scope of corruption is much larger since the main perpetrators are high-ranking officials, who are expanding their real estate portfolio, including Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky. The situation is so out of control that the US, hardly itself a bastion of transparency and honesty, is directly intervening to stop, or at least try limit the amount of corruption.

Brent Neiman, deputy undersecretary for international finance who returned from a visit to Ukraine earlier this month, said in a speech that Kiev needs to “reduce the likelihood for conflicts of interest and corruption.” This is especially important for the Biden administration in the lead up to the US Presidential elections in November since Ukraine has received hundreds of billions in financial support from the US and other Western countries.

“To this end, budget assistance from the United States, Europe, and the International Financial Institutions is designed to help support Ukraine in undertaking a number of priority reforms,” Neiman added.

Zelensky was initially elected on an anti-corruption platform in 2019, but instead the former comedian has now placed himself at the top of the corruption pyramid. To distract from his own deeply entrenched involvement in corruption, Zelensky fired Ivan Bakanov, former head of the State Security Service, in July 2022, as proof of their efforts to crack down on graft, as well as other top officials, including Agriculture Minister Mykola Solsky, who recently forced to resign after being implicated in a corruption case, and Ilya Vityuk, a high-ranking official in the SBU intelligence service, who was sacked on May 1.

The West has poured hundreds of billions into Ukraine even though the country is considered one of the most corrupt countries in Europe. The reality of Ukraine’s deeply entrenched corruption has always been known by the West, but there was a naïve belief that the war would somehow magically end the issue, rather than viewing it for what it actually was, a grand opportunity to siphon even more money out of the economy and military and into private hands.

With the European Parliamentary elections over and now global attention shifting to the upcoming US presidential elections, undoubtedly the billions of dollars Washington has sent to Ukraine, which the Council on Foreign Relations believes is $175 billion, will become a major talking point and one that former President Donald Trump will use to attack President Joe Biden and his reckless policies on Ukraine since much of that money was wasted on a futile war effort or was unaccounted for. For this reason, Washington is desperately trying to push Zelensky into cracking down on all corruption, but this will not be achieved since the Ukrainian president himself is deeply involved.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

On Monday, Hezbollah announced it shot down an Israeli Drone, the Hermes 900, over southern Lebanon. The Lebanese resistance group used air defense weapons to down the drone which fell in the vicinity of al-Rehan mountain in Jezzine District.

Hezbollah poses the largest military threat to Israel, according to Israeli and regional security experts.

In 2006, Hezbollah successfully defended an all-out assault by Israel and has only grown stronger since then by greatly expanding their weapons and technologies.

Hezbollah has said the day fighting in Gaza stops will be the day fighting in southern Lebanon will stop, referring to a possible ceasefire.

Steven Sahiounie of MidEastDiscourse has interviewed Khalil Harb, a freelance Beirut-based journalist, former managing editor of the Lebanese daily Al-Safir, and has worked for the Associated Press and the Lebanese An-Nahar newspaper.

Steven Sahiounie (SS): Israeli officials are threatening Lebanon that this summer is going to be a hot summer, and they mean war. In your opinion, can the Israeli military handle a war with Lebanon, and with the current war in Gaza?

Khalil Harb (KH): It is no secret that Israel has a huge military arsenal and exceptional destructive capacity, thanks to the continuous Western support for it for more than 70 years. Regarding the ability to launch a major strike on Lebanon, this possibility is not excluded, but it is important to point out that the ability to launch a major strike does not necessarily mean having the ability to wage a major war. Israel is literally caught in a quagmire in Gaza, and it is difficult to imagine that it can wage a war on a new front, a larger front, a front more dangerous than Gaza. As time passes, the resistance in Lebanon reveals a new qualitative weapon. In the past few days, it revealed its use, for the first time ever, of surface-to-air missiles on Israeli warplanes that were violating the skies of Lebanon.

Elbit Hermes 900 & Elbit Hermes 450 UAVs in formation (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

It is true that several advanced Israeli drones were shot down in the past months, including the Hermes 450 and Hermes 900, but this is the first time that the “Islamic Resistance in Lebanon” has announced the firing of surface-to-air missiles at Israeli aircraft, which means that a new page has been opened in the confrontation, after Israel was distinguished by its overwhelming superiority over Lebanon (and all its opponents) with its air force.

Until now, the resistance in Lebanon is still committed to the geographical extent of its military response within the Israeli entity, which does not exceed 15 kilometers. It is not clear whether a comprehensive war will break out, but what is certain is that the resistance has the necessary missile capabilities to inflict significant damage on the Israeli interior in what is known as the “Gush Dan” area, which is considered the economic and financial nerve and human concentration. The question is: Is Israel willing to risk such possibilities?

SS: Lebanon is going through a massive economic crisis, which could be helped by a regional peace agreement. If there was a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, such as the two-state solution, would Lebanon be included?

KH: I am not a supporter of those who say that “peace” with Israel brings economic prosperity. If the question means the economic gains that Lebanon could reap from a peace settlement like this, then I prefer to describe them as crumbs of benefits. The repeated American promises to Lebanon to obtain electricity through arranging cooperation with Egypt and Jordan in this context have been heard by the Lebanese for years… that is, before October 7, 2023, and Washington has been obstructing for years any cooperation in the field of energy with China, Iran and others. Keeping the Lebanese people in need, and shortages in the field of electricity allows officials of successive American administrations to make empty promises like these, or to portray them as if they were great gains that would come from the promised peace.

SS: The European Union and the United States are putting massive pressure on Lebanon over the Syrian refugees. In your opinion, how will Lebanon solve this problem, and will it affect the political crisis in Lebanon?

KH: The best, easiest and logical way to address the issue of displaced Syrians in Lebanon is through direct communication and coordination between the governments of Beirut and Damascus. There is no alternative to that. They are the two countries directly concerned with this issue, which is turning into an internal crisis in Lebanon and raising tensions. But the problem is that Washington and some European Union countries want two things: first, to try to keep Damascus isolated and prevent communication and cooperation with it in its geographical surroundings, and second, to continue exploiting the card of the displaced Syrians to weaken and aggravate the internal situation in Lebanon, but without causing it to explode, and also to keep Syria and its regime in the appearance of a unsecure and unstable state, thus obstructing the return of the displaced to their homeland.

SS: Lebanon has been without a president for over two years. In your opinion, what will it take for they various Lebanese political parties to elect a president, and what is the role of the West in this process?

KH: From afar, the best way to resolve the issue of the vacuum in the presidency in Lebanon is to prevent the American “conditions” and some Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia, from imposing them on Lebanon to determine the criteria for the new president. The fear of some Lebanese leaders of angering the Americans and Saudis, who enjoy humiliating influence in Lebanon, by reaching a settlement on the issue of the presidency, prevents progress on this issue. The pretext is always the “Iranian scarecrow.” Some in Washington, Riyadh, and Beirut are betting on a president who will be hostile to Hezbollah, or perhaps less friendly with the party.

SS: There is increasing pressure on the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah internationally, and domestically, because of their operations against the Israelis. What is your take on the situation on the ground, and what might happen later?

KH: As long as Israel wages its war in this way against Gaza and against the Palestinians in general, the front on which Hezbollah is fighting will not calm down. This is at least what the party says in whispers and in public. Hezbollah is convinced that Israel’s victory in the Gaza war means that the entire region will enter a more dangerous and bloody phase. This party considers that its entry into this battle to relieve pressure on Gaza as much as is available, is practically a defense of Lebanon itself. This conviction has not changed in 8 months, and I do not imagine it will change soon.

With the reckless lunatic Netanyahu in power in Israel, there is no hope of either goodness or peace. As for the internal situation in Lebanon, Hezbollah realizes, as many do, that no resistance throughout history has enjoyed popular consensus around it. Look at how there was division in some European societies even in the face of the Nazi occupation of Europe. Through the experiences of Hezbollah and the resistance factions before it in Lebanon, the Lebanese were never united around the resistance. Hezbollah also realizes this, and therefore, I believe, there is no choice for Lebanon.

The theory of “Swiss neutrality” does not hold true here, and is not applicable. We are next to the last dangerous occupying state in the world, ruled by extremists who want to “exterminate” the Palestinians and Arabs in general and view them with clear racism. Watch their political and ideological discourse in the words of their senior officials, theoreticians and religious leaders.

The dilemma facing Israel now, in my opinion, is that it realizes that igniting a major war in the region means that it will be the Hundred Years War.

*

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

After the assassination attempt on Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico, authors at InfoBRICS (myself included) argued that this certainly wasn’t a “lone gunman” type of thing, but something far more sinister and (geo)political. Expectedly, such hypotheses were immediately rejected as supposed “conspiracy theories” and nearly all Western social media platforms would “fact-check” these views into oblivion, resulting in “negative points” (i.e. banning and shadow banning) for anyone who “dared” promoting them. And yet, soon after the EU/NATO-sponsored assassination attempt on PM Fico, the troubled bloc’s Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi called Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze to tell him, in no uncertain terms, that he’s next if Tbilisi doesn’t change its anticolonial stance. I wonder how Facebook and the likes will “fact-check” that.

And yet, if you thought this was bad, just wait ’till you hear about the most recent threats that are now appearing in various outlets of the mainstream propaganda machine. But before we delve deeper into this, I’d like to remind our respected readers of a very similar “fact-checking” that happened back in late March, when another NATO-sponsored act of terror took place. Namely, we all remember the monstrous Crocus City Hall massacre, when hundreds of Russian civilians were ruthlessly murdered by Islamic radicals. However, soon after the terrorist attack, I argued that, even if we don’t take the abhorrent glee of the Neo-Nazi junta into account, evidence suggested its involvement was virtually guaranteed. And once again, this view was also exposed to endless “fact-checking”. This is where we get to the latest threats to Russia, yet another smoking gun of who was behind the Crocus City Hall massacre.

Namely, the Daily Express is now reporting that the Kiev regime could “launch terror campaign, bombing schools if Russia wins the war”. Quoting an “expert”, the British tabloid says that “Ukraine’s plan is more terrifying for Vladimir Putin than a conventional war because he could lose power very quickly in Russia”. The very first thing any sensible reader would notice is that the word “terror campaign” is thrown quite casually, as if it were the most “normal thing ever”. Then this plan is presented as “terrifying for Vladimir Putin”, as he could “lose power”. In other words, the Daily Express wants us to just forget about the fact that bombing schools and murdering civilians (in this case schoolchildren, obviously) is a monstrous act of terrorism that cannot possibly be justified by anything and focus entirely on deposing “evil” Putin. Who in their right mind would even think to “rationalize” such disturbing views?

However, that’s precisely what the infamous British tabloid is effectively trying to do. The “expert” it interviewed, Nicholas Drummond, says that “Ukraine is planning terrorist activity which would see Russian schools and other civilian infrastructure targeted”.

The Daily Express also tried justifying this by using the mainstream propaganda machine’s usual trope about Russia supposedly “targeting Ukraine’s residential areas consistently in the war”, while “Ukraine has been limited to striking Russian territory close to the border”, with “Belgorod, a city just 25 miles from the border, has seen the most Ukrainian attacks in the last year”. Obviously, the British tabloid is completely ignoring the fact that the Neo-Nazi junta has been murdering the people of Donbass for over a decade at this point and that its forces are now also targeting even the areas they lost in the initial stages of the special military operation (SMO).

“But Ukraine is planning much more damaging attacks. Ukrainians could launch terrorist activity in Russia, including the bombing of schools. I think any strikes will be restricted to the border regions because strikes deep into Russia would be a big escalation. Ukraine will want to conduct terrorist activity in Russia… if Russia wins in Ukraine or is given any kind of victory, I think Ukraine will conduct a counterinsurgency campaign inside Russia, and that would be much more devastating than anything we have seen on the frontlines. It will be really unpleasant. The terrorist activity would include bombing schools, bombing infrastructure… that would begin in earnest if any peace deal was imposed on Zelensky”, Drummond told the Daily Express, adding: “They are absolutely planning these kinds of attacks now. No question. I think this is more terrifying for Putin than a conventional war, because if Ukrainians unleash this terror campaign in Russia, he will lose power very quickly because people will say ‘you are not doing enough to stop it’.”

Just like a high-ranking EU official effectively admitted that the political West is behind the assassination attempt on PM Fico by threatening another “non-compliant” foreign leader, the mainstream propaganda machine also admits who was behind the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack (or “shooting” as they like to say). Worse yet, they are now openly threatening Russia, a global military superpower with the largest and most powerful strategic arsenal, that things will become “a lot worse” if the Kremlin wins in Ukraine. First of all, isn’t the Kiev regime “winning”? Isn’t that what the mainstream propaganda machine has been saying for well over two years now? And if it’s “winning”, if all these NATO-sourced “wunderwaffen” are “defeating” the Russian military, why would the Neo-Nazi junta need to launch a terror campaign across Russia? And second, how could this ever be justified?

It’s quite clear that the political West is determined to start WW3, as the very notion that this is being openly discussed in the political West will only enrage Moscow. Or anyone remotely sane for that matter, because how would your country react if someone threatened your schoolchildren with terrorist attacks? Not to mention the attempt to “dehumanize” Russian civilians, as if their lives were any less important than the lives of civilians anywhere else on the planet. Although the mainstream propaganda machine likes to call Russian leadership “hardline”, what else is the Kremlin supposed to be like when dealing with the political West that has sunk into utter madness? If supporting and justifying terrorism so openly is now becoming the “new normal” in NATO countries, how long before the entire world is pushed into the abyss? How long do we have before Russia decides it has had more than enough?

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

The results of the EU elections are causing despair among liberal activists around the world. Irresponsibly, some biased analysts claim that Europe is becoming “fascist” or “going far right”, without taking into account that it is precisely the nationalist and conservative parties that are showing an alternative to the European wave of Nazi-backing in Ukraine.

Millions of Europeans recently voted in their parliamentary elections. Preliminary results show a huge growth of conservative and nationalist right-wing groups. In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party received more than 30% of the vote, while Macron’s party got 15% only – which led the president to act dictatorially in response to the result, dissolving the National Assembly.

Similarly, in Germany, Scholz’s Social Democratic Party received only 14%, while the AfD reached around 15% and the CDU-CSU coalition, which is also right-wing, reached about 30%. According to liberal analysts, the rise of the European right is a symptom of “fascism”. With biased opinions, liberal experts claim that there is a far-right phenomenon in Europe, threatening democracy across the continent. However, the explanation for the results may be different.

Right-wing parties almost always show a more “patriotic” stance and concern for national interests. This aspect often makes them critical of real problems currently affecting all of Europe, such as mass immigration and the economic and energy crisis resulting from sanctions. Some of these right-wing parties, such as Germany’s AfD, also show an interesting geopolitical understanding, advocating for an end to military support for Ukraine and for European neutrality in the conflict, as well as resuming relations with Russia.

In practice, rather than a “fascist wave”, the Europeans’ choice for the right seems to indicate a real reaction to fascism – which has been growing stronger in Europe for a long time. In their Russophobic madness and subservience to the US and NATO, European states agreed to participate in a plan to promote neo-Nazism in Ukraine, the consequences of which have reached unacceptable levels. Currently, Europe is in a serious economic and energy crisis, undergoing an advanced process of deindustrialization, just because the EU decided to adhere to irrational sanctions imposed by the US against Russia. Obviously, ordinary people do not want to participate in this madness and so they react in the only way they can: by voting in opposition to the governments.

Strange as it may seem, the self-proclaimed “liberal” and “democratic” parties are the political groups that are currently most fomenting fascism in Europe. These parties have fully embraced the pro-NATO establishment, while maintaining a stance in favor of the EU’s full alignment with the US. The result is the reactive growth of Euroskepticism and the adoption of the conservative right as a political alternative.

In fact, conservatism itself is an important point to emphasize. The US and NATO control not only EU’s politics, but also its culture. Currently, liberal, democratic and left-wing parties in the EU are fully aligned with the American cultural agenda – the so-called “woke agenda”. Topics such as LGBT, queer and others have become central to the hegemonic parties in Europe, which obviously causes outrage among ordinary people with a conservative mindset. In practice, traditional values ​​have become an important political key to the growth of the right in Europe.

It is not difficult to understand what ordinary Europeans want. Their intentions can be summed up in a mix of social justice and traditional values. Ordinary people do not care about what is happening in Ukraine – they just want to have enough energy and food to live well, without financial difficulties. In the same vein, European workers want a reform of the migration policy, since the native workforce of the continent is being massively replaced by cheap, sometimes semi-slave, labor of immigrants and refugees.

It is also necessary to remember the situation in rural areas. Since last year, almost all of Europe has been experiencing a serious wave of protests due to the EU’s irresponsible policy of importing Ukrainian grains. In order to “help” the Kiev neo-Nazi regime, European countries have been buying cheap Ukrainian agricultural products, leading the native European farmers out of business. Of course, as a reaction, peasants tend to vote for opposition parties, which often criticize the support for Ukraine and the similarly unpopular “green agendas”.

In the end, the rise of the right in Europe must be seen in light of the crisis in the EU establishment. The hegemonic parties have irrationally decided to adhere to NATO’s plans, going so far as to foment Nazism in Ukraine and participate almost directly in a war against Russia. The turn of ordinary people to the right is not a popular embrace of extremism, but a reaction to NATO fascism.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Lucas Leiroz is a member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert. You can follow Lucas on X (former Twitter) and Telegram.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

US-NATO Threats Ignore ‘Red Lines’ in Ukraine

By Sara Flounders, June 12, 2024

U.S. efforts to dismember Russia appear to have utterly failed. Economic sanctions, price caps, the protracted war on Russia’s border and tens of billions of dollars, along with hundreds of U.S. and other NATO member troops sent as trainers, plus mercenary contractors can’t hold the corrupt Ukrainian military machine together. 

In Spite of Geography: “A Window to Europe” for Russia Becomes a Gateway to Asia

By Prof. Yakov M. Rabkin, June 12, 2024

As Russia sees its window to Europe walled up, the country has been turning eastwards. The press conference took place on the margins of the Saint-Petersburg Economic Forum, a major event that used to attract scores of world leaders, including those of Finland, France, Germany and Japan, as well as UN Secretaries Generals and Presidents of the European Commission.

NATO Installing Permanent Envoy to Ukraine, While Not Letting It “Join the Club”

By Uriel Araujo, June 12, 2024

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is planning to install a permanent special envoy to Kyiv as a new envoy post. This has to do with “institutionalizing” some of “the bilateral support that has flowed to Ukraine”, says US ambassador to Kyiv, Julianne Smith. At the same time, last week, Biden made it (again) abundantly clear that Ukraine is not to become a NATO member.

The Smell of War Versus a Fresh Breeze of Peace and Cooperation?

By Peter Koenig, June 12, 2024

During the previous years, and more specifically the last few months, the intensity of a putrid smell of war has increased to the point where apocalypse could be just around the corner. More and more talks of war, a fear-mongering discourse, the projection of a hot (nuclear) WWIII – hitting Central Europe the third time in just over hundred years, is dominating the mainstream and even non-mainstream media.

Video: Bill Gates Caught Telling Inner Circle ‘Global Famine’ Will Make Elites ‘God-Like’

By The People’s Voice, June 11, 2024

The 500 million souls left on Earth following the great depopulation will not only be easily controlled, according to Gates, they will also yearn for the level of control that the elites can currently only dream about. With total control of the food supply, farm land, seed banks, and genetically modified soil microbes, Gates has positioned himself to carry out a false flag worse than 9/11.

Video: 17-year-old Australian Lung Transplant Patient Was Killed for Being Unvaccinated

By Dr. William Makis, June 11, 2024

According to the Daily Mail, the Sydney hospital treating Dazelle said, her lack of a Covid vaccination was a factor in her not being put on the lung transplant waiting list. A hospital spokesperson told the Daily Mail, their ‘policies and guidelines wouldn’t support transplantation’ of an unvaccinated person.

Kiev’s Plan to Store F-16s in NATO States Raises the Risk of World War III

By Andrew Korybko, June 11, 2024

It can’t be ruled out that Zelensky might task one of his pilots with carrying out a mission directly from NATO territory without first stopping at a Kiev-controlled airfield in order to provoke Russia into striking the base from which it departed in self-defense.

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***

The EU elections over June 6 to June 9 have presented a chaotically merry picture, certainly for those on the right of politics.  Not that the right in question is reliably homogeneous in any sense, nor hoping for a single theme of triumph.  A closer look at the gains made by the conservative side of politics, along with its saltier reactionary wings, suggests difficulty and disagreement.

In any case, papers such as The Economist were hopelessly pessimistic about the post-Eden fall, which may suggest that democracy, in all its unpredictable nastiness, is working.  The lingering nature of the Ukraine War, the obstinate, enduring presences of such nationalists as Marine Le Pen in France and Viktor Orbán in Hungary, all pointing to “a period of political rudderlessness”.  In truth, the rudders are being replaced.

In France, Le Pen has managed to point the gun of discontent at the centre of bureaucratic control and (hideous word) governance.  The two prominent targets: President Emmanuel Macron and Paris.  She has been aided by the fact that Macron has been inclined to pack key positions in government with loyal, reliable Parisians.  Last February, François Bayrou, an early Macron enthusiast and Justice Minister, found it hard to accept that 11 of the 15 important ministers in the government were from the Paris area.  This revealed a “growing lack of understanding between those in power and the French people at the grassroots level”.

On June 9, Le Pen proved had every reason to gloat, with the gains made by her party sufficiently terrifying French President Emmanuel Macron to dissolve parliament and call an election.  Parties of the far-right came first in Austria, tied for top billing in the Netherlands and came in as runners-up in Germany (where Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats were savaged) and Romania.

The party of Italian Prime Minister, Georgia Meloni, also did well, winning 28.9% of the country’s vote in the elections.  Predicted to get 24 seats in the European Parliament, the Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) have done a shedding act on neo-fascism in favour of a smoother image, while still insisting that Europe’s identity had to be defended “from every cultural subjugation that sees Europe renounce its history to adopt that of others.”  Such messaging has come with slick shallowness on social media, including such posts as those featuring “L’Italia cambia l’Europa” (“Italy changes Europe”), or the voter instruction to “scrivi Giorgia” (“write Giorgia”) on their ballot.

Meloni’s march was so significant as to compel EU Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, to become a salivating groupie for the right – of sorts.  Her sharp policies on migration have drawn the approval of Meloni.  Speaking at April’s Maastricht Debate, organised by POLITICO and Studio Europa Maastricht, von der Leyen openly expressed her interest in linking arms with Meloni’s European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR).

The Italian PM has found herself to be an object of much political interest, indispensable to the chess pieces of Europe’s political manoeuvrings.  Italy’s reactionary flame has become, for instance, a matter of much interest to Le Pen. To the Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera, Le Pen emphasised her insistence that a hard-right bloc of parties in the European Parliament could be formed, overcoming the current division between her Identity and Democracy (ID) group and that of Meloni’s ECR.

That said, any union of faux liberal types such as von der Leyen with those of the hard right of Europe is unlikely to be a fragrant one.  Von der Leyen has taken heavy shots at Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (National Rally), excoriating its pro-Russian position along with those of Germany’s AfD and Poland’s Konfederacja.  “They are Putin’s puppets and proxies and they are trampling on our values.”  The promise to Meloni: if you want my dour, camouflaged conservatism, forget the otherreactionaries.

What was telling was that the young, having voted in 2019 for parties of the left such as the Greens, had had a change of heart.  In May an Ipsos poll revealed that 34% of French voters under the age of 30 were keen to vote for the 28-year old leader of the National Rally in the European Parliamentary elections.  In Germany, the 22% of Germans between 14-29 were keen to plump for Alternative for Germany (AfD), just under double from what was registered in 2023.

For Albena Azmanova of the University of Kent, this presents a curious predicament for those on the progressive side of politics (is there such a thing anymore?).  Dissatisfaction that would normally be mined by progressives for political advantage is being left over to the opposite wing of politics.  “The left is failing to harness that discontent, although its trademark issues – poverty and unemployment – are now more salient for voters than the far right’s flagship of ‘immigration’.”

An unanticipated phenomenon has manifested: younger voters in France, Portugal, Belgium, Germany and Finland folding at the ballot box for parties of the right and far right. The pendulum has well and truly swung.  Europe’s right, bulked by the young, is on the march.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected]

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***

There has been ample coverage of a marathon press conference held by Vladimir Putin for heads of foreign and Russian press agencies earlier this month. Predictably, most attention was drawn to his answer to a British journalist as to possible use of nuclear weapons in the current tug-of-war with the West. What attracted less notice was the setting: the world’s northernmost skyscraper built on the outskirts of Saint-Petersburg by the Gazprom, Russia’s prime hydrocarbons conglomerate. Both the site and the time of the event can tell us much about the country and its evolving place in the world.

The skyscraper is named Lakhta Centre, after the former village where it is built. It was from Lakhta that a gigantic granite rock was hauled eight kilometres to the centre of the city in 1769-70 to become the pedestal of the majestic statue of Peter the Great, the city’s founder. Poet Alexander Pushkin called it the Bronze Horseman in his eponymous poem, and this is how the monument has since been referred to by locals and visitors alike.

Straight from the press conference, Putin went to visit Pushkin’s lycée as part of the celebration of the poet’s 225th birthday. During the visit, Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s former culture minister, showed his boss a 19th century map of the Russian Empire, with the Ukraine as its integral part. Medinsky, one may recall, headed the Russian delegation in peace negotiations in 2022, the process abruptly aborted by the Ukrainian side, reportedly under British and American pressure.

It is in the same poem that Pushkin coined another expression, which became a current idiom: “a window to Europe”. Indeed, Peter founded the city as an opening to European ideas, culture, science, and technology. The Bronze Horseman was conceived by Étienne Maurice Falconet, recommended to the then empress Catherine the Great, by Denis Diderot, who spearheaded the French Enlightenment. In fact, much of the city was originally built by French, Italian and Swiss architects.

The 462-meters-high skyscraper was also built by a European architect, Tony Kettle of Scotland. The tower overlooks the Gulf of Finland and symbolizes the city’s creative vocation as a window to Europe. But thousands of sanctions imposed on Russia since 2014 have severed most links with the rest of Europe. Nowadays, a plane trip to Helsinki, Finland, that used to take 52 minutes lasts nearly ten hours, with a transfer in Istanbul. The new iron curtain is a lot more solid than its cold war predecessor. Under Stalin, at the height of the Korean War, trains connected Russia to most European countries. Under Brezhnev, while Americans fought Soviet-equipped Vietnamese soldiers, regular flights were inaugurated between Moscow and New York.

As Russia sees its window to Europe walled up, the country has been turning eastwards. The press conference took place on the margins of the Saint-Petersburg Economic Forum, a major event that used to attract scores of world leaders, including those of Finland, France, Germany and Japan, as well as UN Secretaries Generals and Presidents of the European Commission.

This year, the forum attracted as many participants as before, over 21 000 from 139 countries, but mostly from the Global South, or the world majority. Fewer Western participants took part, as Western sanctions disrupted normal economic relations and Western governments discouraged participation. In one so far unique case, three armed uniformed Customs and Border Protection officers stopped an American en route to Istanbul and Saint-Petersburg from boarding the plane in New York and seized his passport, apparently on the order of the U.S. Department of State.

The forum in Saint-Petersburg embodies the current evolution of the world. What was initially meant as a means of punishing Russia by cutting it off from its usual partners in the West, has turned out to be a blessing in disguise. According to the World Bank, Russia’s economic growth this year is higher than in the rest of Europe. Moreover, economic dynamism can be found in the eastern part of the Eurasian continent, while its western lands, most of them members of the European Union, experience economic slowdown.

It is ironic that this pivot to the East is highlighted by an event taking place in Saint-Petersburg, a city almost as far from Russia’s eastern borders as it is from Montreal and New York. An erstwhile window to Europe has become an enticing gateway to Asia.

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This article was originally published on Pressenza.

Yakov M. Rabkin is Professor Emeritus of History at the Université of Montréal. His publications include over 300 articles and a few books: Science between Superpowers, A Threat from Within: a Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism, What is Modern Israel?, Demodernization: A Future in the Past and Judaïsme, islam et modernité. He did consulting work for, inter alia, OECD, NATO, UNESCO and the World Bank. E-mail: [email protected]. Website: www.yakovrabkin.ca 

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Lakhta Center at night (Image by Wikipedia)

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***

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is planning to install a permanent special envoy to Kyiv as a new envoy post. This has to do with “institutionalizing” some of “the bilateral support that has flowed to Ukraine”, says US ambassador to Kyiv, Julianne Smith. At the same time, last week, Biden made it (again) abundantly clear that Ukraine is not to become a NATO member.

One should keep in mind that back on 21 December 2022, during a joint press conference in Washington, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the US, Biden had already been clear enough on the limits of Washington’s willingness to be there for Ukraine. The American’s replies must have been a cold shower to his Ukrainian counterpart: when asked about sending more powerful weapons to Kyiv, Biden said that doing so “would have a prospect of breaking up NATO”, and “breaking up the EU and the rest of the world.” Moreover, according to him, his Atlantic Alliance allies were “not looking to go to war with Russia. They’re not looking for a third world war.” Then, he went on to “reassure” the Ukrainian president right next to him, by telling that “as I said, Mr. President, you don’t have to worry — we are staying with Ukraine as long as Ukraine is there”, in an unintendedly amusing remark that inadvertently almost paraphrased the famous cruel joke about Americans being willing to fight “to the last Ukrainian”.

One could perhaps add “to the last European.” It is true that the US has reportedly secretly sent long-range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine, which has made use of them, but one should not make that much of it – according to Mark Galeotti, head of the consultancy Mayak Intelligence and honorary professor at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, this is no game-changer. The overall American attitude is increasingly one about “let the Europeans spend more, and do the fighting.” Many voices within the American establishment have indeed been calling for European troops (“not NATO”) being deployed in Ukraine – which is more than just rhetoric.

In an interview to TIME last week, Biden claimed that Washington did spend “a lot of money in Ukraine”, but, trying to downplay it, he argued “Europe has spent more money than the United States has, collectively. Europe has spent more money in taking on Russia.” According to TIME’s own fact-checking, the EU has provided Kyiv with more than $107 billion dollars in assistance (military, humanitarian, financial etc). The US congress, in comparison, has authorized Washington to send Ukraine up to $175 billion (much more than $107 billion, therefore) – however, thus far, has sent only about $81 billion, which, in any case, is already, for a single country, close enough to what the European Union has sent collectively.

In the same interview, asked about what the “endgame” for Ukraine looks like, the US President had this to say:

“Peace looks like making sure Russia never, never, never, never occupies Ukraine. That’s what peace looks like. And it doesn’t mean NATO, they are part of NATO, it means we have a relationship with them like we do with other countries, where we supply weapons so they can defend themselves in the future. But it is not, if you notice, I was the one when—and you guys did report it at TIME—the one that I was saying that I am not prepared to support the NATOization of Ukraine.”

One might remember that, in December 2023, Oleksiy Goncharenko, a member of Rada (the Ukrainian parliament), in a series of Telegram posts, claimed that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was pressuring European diplomats to cease any talks about Ukraine joining NATO. His allegations could not be verified, but are in line with Biden’s latest remarks on the matter.

Much has been made of former US President Donald Trump’s rhetoric point about not going to rescue European nations who fail to meet the Alliance’s defense spending duties. During a February rally, he did say “You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent? No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.” Rhetoric aside, Biden has a similar attitude in terms of making clear that the American role should, to some extent, limit itself to funding and arming its allies. Such funding in any case has also become the target of much criticism domestically, amid corruption accusations.

In the same TIME interview Biden added, quite surprisingly, that

“I spent a month in Ukraine when I was a Senator and Vice President. There was significant corruption. There was a circumstance that was really difficult.”

Indeed, according to TIME, Biden has traveled six times to the Eastern European country as a Vice President, which is more than any previous President or Vice President. His out of the blue mentioning of corruption there (a true problem) is quite ironic, considering that the issue has a lot to do with him and his family personally – something which had been deemed by some a “conspiracy theory” before but, more recently, has been covered by major media outlets across the political spectrum. In fact it’s been an issue since at least 202, with scandals surrounding the American President’s special envoy to (now gone) Nord Stream 2. Biden’s supposed signs of senility have become, quite openly, a hot political issue, not to mention an embarrassment to his Democrat Party (this was even a topic touched upon during his interview with TIME itself). Those corruption remarks perhaps could be interpreted while keeping that context in mind.

To sum it up, the West’s plan for Ukraine seems to be something like: “not NATO – but kind of NATO”. I wrote before on how French President Emmanuel Macron is on record saying deploying European forces (“not NATO”) to Ukraine is a possibility. In a way, this is already a reality, as admitted by NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who stated that “several NATO allies have men and women in uniform at the embassies” (in Ukraine), while claiming they are merely “giving advice.”

Stoltenberg also announced that NATO countries have air defense systems ready to be sent to the Eastern European country. He stressed NATO members have the “right” to “help” Ukraine, however, according to him, this does not make the Alliance itself a party to the conflict. 

I’ve described this logic as a Schrödinger’s cat kind of reasoning: it is all about coming up with a coalition of NATO members which, however, is not NATO, somehow. In this context, installing a new NATO special envoy to Ukraine is not just a consolation prize, but adds to this ambiguous approach that is about giving it to Kyiv without giving too much (in any case giving enough to trigger Moscow national security concerns) – and of course adds to tensions, thereby increasing the risk of conflict escalation.

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Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Front lines are collapsing for the Ukrainian army, whole units surrendering. Top commanders are fired. Faced with complete disarray of the U.S.-NATO instigated war in Ukraine, U.S. militarists are doubling down.

According to the Ukrainian constitution, President Volodymir Zelensky’s term in office is over. But he remains in power by martial law. This has led Ukrainian workers to hold strikes and work stoppages. But this news is ignored in the Western media.

A national truckers’ work slowdown inside Ukraine moved traffic to a 5-mile-an hour crawl and halted grain exports based on national anger at the expanded draft mobilization made by Zelensky, now an unelected president. (yahoonews.com, May 18) 

Ukraine’s combat units are so severely understaffed that the government would have to triple its mobilization in order to continue the current level of fighting, according to Eric Ciaramella, former U.S. National Intelligence Council official. The draft can’t fill the current gap, nor can even kidnapping men off the streets.

U.S. Failure on Two Fronts

U.S. efforts to dismember Russia appear to have utterly failed. Economic sanctions, price caps, the protracted war on Russia’s border and tens of billions of dollars, along with hundreds of U.S. and other NATO member troops sent as trainers, plus mercenary contractors can’t hold the corrupt Ukrainian military machine together. 

At the same time, on the world stage the one strategic ally of the U.S. in Western Asia, Israel, has utterly failed in its genocidal war on Gaza. Both setbacks mean that U.S. political dominance is being challenged in fundamental ways. 

U.S. strategy toward Russia aimed to partition and dismember the country, destabilize the border and block China’s Belt and Road development plans in Central Asia.

U.S. strategists considered all these steps crucial in preventing People’s China from surpassing the U.S. economically. The opposite has happened. What imperialist strategists have warned about for decades and sought to prevent is now the reality. 

China and Russia’s relations of intense cooperation and a merge of common interests is unfolding steadily. This was further cemented during the very warm state meeting between China’s President Xi Jinping and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on May 16. 

That means U.S.-NATO plans are in total disarray. Rather than reconsider their strategy, which has brought setbacks and defeats in Ukraine and for Israel in Gaza, this has led to an ominous escalation in U.S. military threats. 

The threat to dangerously escalate the war in Ukraine arises from the plans to give Ukraine high-speed missiles and allow the Kyiv regime to use the weapons to strike inside Russia. This threat is not just from a single statement or one delivery of weapons.

The statements promoting strikes with the U.S.-supplied weapons to targets inside Russia are being made directly by President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who is a former prime minister of Norway, but acts as if he were a U.S. official.

Ukraine at Center of 75th Anniversary NATO Summit

NATO officials are frantic that Ukrainian defense lines of Kharkov, the second-largest city in Ukraine, located in the northeast of the country, are about to fall.

Kharkov is a majority Russian-speaking city. It is the industrial, energy, science, rail and transport hub. It lies east of the Dnieper River on the Donetsk-Donbass Canal. Kharkov is the key industrial center still under Ukrainian control east of the Dnieper River.

According to a May 16 New York Times article, fear of Kharkov’s imminent collapse is what is driving U.S. threats. This loss is decisive in any control of Ukraine’s east, including the entire Donbass industrial region.  

Adding to the urgency is that at the 75th Anniversary NATO Summit, July 9-11 in Washington, D.C., NATO plans to unveil a “Security Package” for Ukraine involving 32 countries’ bilateral agreements with Ukraine. These bilateral agreements would serve as a bridge for Ukraine’s entry into NATO. 

Ukrainian entry into NATO would allow Kyiv to invoke the alliance’s collective defense clause, potentially triggering a broader regional conflict with Russia. During an April visit to Kyiv, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg vowed that “Ukraine will become a member of NATO.” (defensenews.com, June 3)

All these elaborate plans would be dashed if Ukrainian defense lines crumbled before the NATO Summit in Washington, D.C. This 75th anniversary NATO Summit is a grand plan to showcase U.S. and Western imperialist dominance.

NATO’s Long-range Missiles Target Russia

NATO’s dangerous escalation is galloping forward on several fronts.

Stoltenberg was explicit:

“We are giving weapons to Kyiv and consider them Ukrainian from this moment, so Ukraine can do whatever it wants with these arms, in part, strike at Russian territory where it deems necessary.” (bne IntelliNews, May 31)

Previously, the United States, Germany and other NATO members had forbidden the Ukrainian military from using the weapons delivered to them to strike targets inside Russia.

In the past, the Ukrainian military command had violated NATO’s official statements and used U.S. Stinger air defense missiles, M142 HIMARS, MLRS and other multiple launch rockets to strike the Belgorod region of Russia. The Russian Army’s air defense forces destroyed more than 10 missiles in the sky over Belgorod and displayed the U.S. stamped shells. 

Weeks ago, the British government allowed Ukraine to use its long-range Storm Shadow missile systems for attacks anywhere in Russia. Now France and Germany have taken the same position as Britain. The Storm Shadow cruise missile has a range of over 180 miles, triple the range of the missiles Ukraine has used until now. 

French President Emmanuel Macron further escalated the threat by stating the West must not exclude sending NATO ground troops to Ukraine.

On May 27, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, announced that he signed an agreement to allow French military instructors into the country. He urged other Western countries to join the French initiative.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted that French instructors, along with other representatives of military and special services of European countries, were already functioning in Ukraine. On June 4, Lavrov went a step further and warned that French military forces in Ukraine would be a “legitimate target for Russian forces.” (AP news, June 4)  

The threats and the actual attacks are escalating. On May 26, Ukrainian drones targeted a second long-range military radar site deep inside Russia, over 900 miles from the closest territory held by Kyiv’s forces. This is an early warning radar designed to detect hypersonic ballistic missiles and aircraft up to 6,200 miles away.  Russia is a major nuclear power. (Reuters, May 27)

Internationally, many voices are sounding the alarm. Such attacks are of the most extreme danger, because the slightest targeting slip up, a misinterpretation of instructions, a rogue operator on the ground, could lead to a global conflagration.

These attacks require a satellite-based military network that Ukraine does not have.  Only U.S. and NATO forces under U.S. command are capable of conducting such attacks against Russia.  

Divisions Appear Inside NATO

Divisions within the U.S. commanded and dominated NATO military alliance are appearing. Frustration and failure are intensifying the infighting even among members of the G7 and major NATO participants. 

Many NATO countries’ leaders, reacting to mass pressure from below, have already sharply expressed opposition to U.S. total support of Israel’s genocidal campaign against Palestine.

Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini objected to Stoltenberg’s call for allies to lift restrictions on using Western-supplied weapons against targets in Russia. “It is out of the question to lift the ban on Kyiv to strike military targets in Russia. … We want peace, not the antechamber of World War III” (Ukrainian Pravda, May 27)

Italian Foreign Minister Antonia Tajani reinforced this position:

“We will send no Italian soldier to Ukraine, and the military tools that Italy sends are used inside Ukraine. We are working for peace.” (Italian news agency Ansa, as reported by European Pravda, May 25)

On May 28, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo told Biden during talks in Washington, D.C., that he rules out the use of Belgium’s weapons, including F-16 fighter jets, outside Ukraine. To reinforce his point, De Croo reminded the reporters that the bilateral security agreement Belgium signed with Ukraine means,

“We are sending 30 F-16s, and we will thus become the biggest supplier of fighter aircraft for the Ukrainian air force. But the agreement is very clear. It is about fighter aircraft that can be used by the Ukrainians on Ukrainian territory.” (belganewsagency.eu, May 31)

Phony ‘Peace Summit’

Zelensky’s effort to call a “Peace Summit” on June 15 and 16 in Lucerne, Switzerland, exposes Ukraine’s dwindling support. The “Peace Summit” bars Russian participation. The effort is so flimsy that not even Biden is bothering to attend.

In desperation, Zelensky has blamed China’s decision not to participate as the reason other countries are ignoring the phony event.

Russian Foreign minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed the Lucerne summit, saying, “This conference in Switzerland has no meaning. The only meaning it can have is to try to preserve this anti-Russian bloc which is in the process of crumbling.”

Silence continues to prevail in Western corporate media regarding the four negotiation offers made by President Putin in the past two weeks.

RAND Corporation: ‘Pour it on’

The Rand Corporation, a powerful think tank for the major military industries, confirms the cynical calculations that justify war profits, regardless of the danger.

U.S. escalation will push the Europeans to ante up, the Rand article said. Even more ominous: “From a narrow U.S. perspective, greater U.S. involvement is an opportunity to test new capabilities and gain experience helping a partner facing a numerically superior foe. Such experience could be very relevant for helping Taiwan resist Chinese aggression.”  (Rand, May 22, defenseone.com, “How to win in Ukraine: pour it on, and don’t worry about escalation”)

Russia Warns NATO

President Putin delivered Russia’s strongest warning to date against the NATO escalation. He chose a meeting in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, with top Uzbek officials. With 37 million people, Uzbekistan is the second most populous country of the former Soviet Union. 

The Russian delegation to Tashkent included nearly half of the key Russian government ministers, heads of regions and Cabinet ministers from both Russia and Uzbekistan. It was held to move forward with joint plans of industrial cooperation, energy and infrastructure. 

At a large press conference following the meetings, Putin said,

“Long-range precision weapons cannot be used without space-based reconnaissance. … Final target selection and what is known as launch mission can only be made by highly skilled specialists who rely on this technical reconnaissance data. It can happen without the participation of the Ukrainian military.

“Launching other systems, such as ATACMS, for example,” Putin continued, “also relies on space reconnaissance data. Targets are identified and automatically communicated to the relevant crews. … The mission is put together by representatives of NATO countries, not the Ukrainian military. This unending escalation can lead to serious consequences. If Europe were to face those serious consequences, what will the United States do, considering our strategic arms parity? It is hard to tell.

“Presidential election is coming soon, and the current authorities want to confirm their status as an empire. Many in the United States do not like this, do not want to be an empire and bear the imperial burden.” (For the entire news conference, seeen.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/74132)

General Ivan Timofeev, Director of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), warned:

“NATO is spending ten times as much as Russia — if not more — on defense. It’s certainly a dangerous scenario.” (Tass, May 30)   

This enormous expenditure is not sufficient to save the Ukrainian government, built on a U.S. orchestrated coup in 2014, from total collapse. 

Rather than reassess their deteriorating global position, U.S. strategists seem determined to put the fate of the world at risk.

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Sara Flounders is an American political writer active in progressive and anti-war organizing since the 1960s. She is a Contributing Editor of the Marxist Workers World newspaper as well as a principal leader of the International Action Center. Sara also works actively with the SanctionsKill Campaign and United National Antiwar Coalition. Sara can be reached at [email protected].

She is a regular contributor to Global Research. 

Featured image: Brussels, Belgium, where NATO’s headquarters is located. Feb. 26, 2023. (Source: Workers World)

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Citing the “principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution” that international humanitarian law demands military forces obey, the United Nations’ top human rights office on Tuesday said the raid conducted at Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces over the weekend may amount to a war crime.

The IDF conducted the operation at the camp in the central Gaza Strip in order to free four Israeli hostages who were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, and Jeremy Laurence, spokesperson for the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) told reporters their release was “clearly very good news.”

But the OHCHR, Laurence said, is “profoundly shocked at the impact on civilians of the Israeli forces’ operation,” which killed at least 274 Palestinians, including 64 children and 57 women, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

“The manner in which the raid was conducted in such a densely populated area seriously calls into question whether the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution—as set out under the laws of war—were respected by the Israeli forces,” said Laurence in a statement.

Actions by both the IDF and Hamas, he added, “may amount to war crimes.”

As it has since beginning its bombardment of Gaza in October in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, the IDF blamed the civilian casualties on Saturday on the militant group, saying the hundreds of deaths were the result of Hamas operating in the densely populated Nuseirat camp.

But while Laurence said the OHCHR was “deeply distressed” by Hamas’ capture of hostages and its operating in densely population areas, Rutgers Law School professor Adil Haque concurred with the office that Israel is obligated to protect civilian lives in Gaza regardless of Hamas’ conduct.

“The fact that your adversary is breaking international humanitarian law does not change your obligations,” Haque told The Washington Post. “The foreseeable harm to civilians was disproportionate to the legitimate aim of rescuing the four hostages.”

Eyewitnesses and aid groups have said the attack began in broad daylight and started after IDF soldiers entered the camp in a humanitarian aid truck. The operation was carried out with jets, drones, and tanks and included strikes in the vicinity of a maternity clinic that has been converted to a hospital to help care for people wounded in Israeli attacks since October.

Paramedic Abdel Hamid Ghorab told the Post he witnessed “random and continuous bombing in the vicinity of the hospital with unprecedented intensity.”

“All they cared about was carrying out the operation, even if it was at the expense of all these lives,” said Ghorab.

Israeli lawyer Michael Sfard told the Post that the 274 casualties “is enough to raise questions about whether the use of fire was indiscriminate,” which would be a violation of international humanitarian law.

“Was the air power used on a prospected military objective, or was it a random, indiscriminate use of bombardment in a very densely populated area?” he asked.

As the OHCHR made its statement, Writers Against the War on Gaza condemned The New York Times‘ publication of “a whitewashed puff piece on the Nuseirat refugee camp massacre,” authored by former IDF soldier Ronen Bergman, which they said was aimed at dehumanizing Palestinian civilians while including no context about potential war crimes by the IDF.

Click here to read the tweet on X

“The framing of this article, typical of New York Times coverage of the massacre, foregrounds four (alive) Israelis over hundreds of dead Palestinians, and presents the IDF as swashbuckling heroes,” the group wrote on the X account of its project, The New York War Crimes. “This prefigures the reader to accept the justification for IDF butchery.”

From Common Dreams:  Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

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Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

Featured image: Palestinians survey the debris after Israeli warplanes attacked the Nuseirat camp [Ashraf Amra/Anadolu]

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Following the dismissal earlier this year of a federal lawsuit accusing senior Biden administration officials of failing to prevent Israel’s U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Monday began hearing an expedited appeal by Palestinian plaintiffs in the case.

Arguing that U.S. leaders “have a legal duty to prevent, and not further,” genocide, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) first filed a lawsuit last November in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Oakland on behalf of the rights groups Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI-P) and al-Haq, as well as a group of individual Palestinians in Gaza and the United States.

“Genocide can never be a legitimate foreign policy choice,” CCR senior staff attorney Katie Gallagher argued during Monday’s proceedings.

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The suit—which names President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin as defendants—seeks to force the U.S. administration to stop “providing further arms, money, and diplomatic support to Israel” as it wages a war of annihilation in which more than 132,000 Palestinians have been killed, maimed, or left missing; nearly 90% of Gaza’s population has been forcibly displaced; and at least hundreds of thousands of people are starving.

Palestinian American writer Laila al-Haddad, a plaintiff in the case, lost her aunt and three of her cousins to a November Israeli airstrike on a United Nations school in the Jabalia refugee camp that killed more than 30 people.

“I promised my surviving family members in Gaza that I would do everything in my power to advocate on their behalf,” al-Haddad wrote in an article published Monday by The Nation.

“Although I knew the case would be an uphill battle, I testified to make a record of Israel’s horrific slaughter of my family, the displacement and dispossession and starvation of the surviving members, the deliberate destruction of my hometown and everything that sustains life there, and ethnic cleansing of my people,” she continued.

“As a Palestinian, I struggle to balance the disgust and impotence I feel knowing that my tax dollars are being used to kill my family members in Gaza with an urgency to do everything in my power to demand an end to this administration’s complicity in genocide,” al-Haddad added.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White ruled on January 31 that the case fell “outside the court’s limited jurisdiction” and rejected the suit on technical grounds—even as he wrote that “the current treatment of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military may plausibly constitute a genocide in violation of international law.”

On February 27, the 9th Circuit Court granted a motion by CCR and co-counsel at Van Der Hout LLP to expedite plaintiffs’ appeal amid soaring Palestinian civilian casualties and destruction wrought by Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Last week, 9th Circuit Judge Ryan Nelson recused himself from the new case following pressure from plaintiffs who questioned his impartiality after he visited Israel in March with 13 other federal judges on a trip sponsored by the World Jewish Congress meant to convince U.S. jurists of the legality of Israel’s Gaza onslaught.

Genocide is defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention as killing or causing serious physical or psychological harm to members of a group, “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group,” or “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

At least hundreds of jurists and genocide experts around the world concur that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The International Court of Justice is currently weighing a genocide case against Israel brought by South Africa and backed by more than 30 nations and regional blocs. Last month, International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan said he is seeking to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders for alleged crimes including extermination.

As CCR noted:

Numerous Israeli government leaders have expressed clear genocidal intentions and deployed dehumanizing characterizations of Palestinians, including “human animals.” At the same time, the Israeli military has bombed civilian areas and infrastructure, including by using chemical weapons, and deprived Palestinians of everything necessary for human life, including water, food, electricity, fuel, and medicine. Those statements of intent—when combined with mass killing, causing serious bodily and mental harm, and the total siege and closure creating conditions of life to bring about the physical destruction of the group—reveal evidence of an unfolding crime of genocide.

The Biden administration has provided Israel with billions of dollars in military aid and arms and ammunition sales, as well as diplomatic cover in the form of United Nations Security Council vetoes and genocide denial, as its forces continue to obliterate Gaza 248 days after the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 that left more than 1,100 Israelis and foreign nationals dead—at least some of whom were killed by so-called “friendly fire“—and over 240 others taken hostage.

Click here to watch the video on X

“The U.S. courts have an opportunity in front of them: Judges can choose to take a minimal step towards allowing DCI-P and the other plaintiffs to have a chance at holding the Biden administration accountable for its role in the genocide of Palestinians, or they can sit back and refuse to carry out checks on the executive branch,” DCI-P advocacy officer Miranda Cleland wrote in an opinion piece published Friday by Middle East Eye. “It is a choice, quite literally, between life and death.”

“Israeli forces, emboldened by the so-called ironclad support of the Biden administration, have killed on average more than 60 Palestinian children every day since October 7,” she continued. “That’s more than 15,000 children who won’t go back to school, or play with their friends, or hug their parents ever again. Those 15,000 children will not grow up and live in a free Palestine.”

“If the U.S. courts continue to green-light Biden’s impunity, more Palestinian children and their families will pay the price,” Cleland added. “It is a price that I, alongside many other voters in the U.S., are not willing to accept.”

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Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

Os resultados das eleições na UE estão a causar desespero entre os ativistas liberais de todo o mundo. Irresponsavelmente, alguns analistas tendenciosos afirmam que a Europa está a tornar-se “fascista” ou a “indo para a extrema-direita”, sem ter em conta que são precisamente os partidos nacionalistas e conservadores que estão a mostrar uma alternativa à onda europeia de apoio nazista na Ucrânia.

Milhões de europeus votaram recentemente nas suas eleições parlamentares. Os resultados preliminares mostram um enorme crescimento de grupos conservadores e nacionalistas de direita. Em França, o partido Reunião Nacional de Marine Le Pen recebeu mais de 30% dos votos, enquanto o partido de Macron obteve apenas 15% – o que levou o presidente a agir de forma ditatorial em resposta ao resultado, dissolvendo a Assembleia Nacional.

Da mesma forma, na Alemanha, o Partido Social Democrata de Scholz recebeu apenas 14%, enquanto a AfD atingiu cerca de 15% e a coligação CDU-CSU, que também é de direita, atingiu cerca de 30%. Segundo analistas liberais, a ascensão da direita europeia é um sintoma do “fascismo”. Com opiniões tendenciosas, os especialistas liberais afirmam que existe um fenômeno de extrema-direita na Europa, que ameaça a democracia em todo o continente. No entanto, a explicação para os resultados pode ser diferente.

Os partidos de direita mostram quase sempre uma postura mais “patriótica” e preocupação com os interesses nacionais. Este aspecto torna-os frequentemente críticos em relação aos problemas reais que afetam actualmente toda a Europa, como a imigração em massa e a crise econômica e energética resultante das sanções. Alguns destes partidos de direita, como a AfD da Alemanha, também mostram uma compreensão geopolítica interessante, defendendo o fim do apoio militar à Ucrânia e a neutralidade europeia no conflito, bem como a retomada das relações com a Rússia.

Na prática, em vez de uma “onda fascista”, a escolha dos europeus pela direita parece indicar uma reação real ao fascismo – que tem vindo a fortalecer-se na Europa há muito tempo. Na sua loucura russofóbica e subserviência aos EUA e à OTAN, os estados europeus concordaram em participar num plano para promover o neonazismo na Ucrânia, cujas consequências atingiram níveis inaceitáveis. Atualmente, a Europa está numa grave crise econômica e energética, passando por um avançado processo de desindustrialização, só porque a UE decidiu aderir às sanções irracionais impostas pelos EUA contra a Rússia. Obviamente, as pessoas comuns não querem participar nesta loucura e por isso reagem da única forma que podem: votando contra seus respectivos governos.

Por mais estranho que possa parecer, os partidos autoproclamados “liberais” e “democráticos” são os grupos políticos que mais fomentam atualmente o fascismo na Europa. Estes partidos abraçaram plenamente o establishment pró-OTAN, mantendo ao mesmo tempo uma posição a favor do alinhamento total da UE com os EUA. O resultado é o crescimento reativo do euroceticismo e a adoção da direita conservadora como alternativa política.

Na verdade, o próprio conservadorismo é um ponto importante a enfatizar. Os EUA e a OTAN controlam não só a política da UE, mas também a sua cultura. Atualmente, os partidos liberais, democráticos e de esquerda na UE estão totalmente alinhados com a agenda cultural americana – a chamada “agenda woke”. Temas como LGBT, queer e outros tornaram-se centrais para os partidos hegemônicos na Europa, o que obviamente causa indignação entre as pessoas comuns com uma mentalidade conservadora. Na prática, os valores tradicionais tornaram-se uma importante chave política para o crescimento da direita na Europa.

Não é difícil compreender o que querem os europeus comuns. As suas intenções podem ser resumidas numa mistura de justiça social e valores tradicionais. As pessoas comuns não se importam com o que está acontecendo na Ucrânia – elas apenas querem ter energia e alimentos suficientes para viver bem, sem dificuldades financeiras. Na mesma linha, os trabalhadores europeus querem uma reforma da política de migração, uma vez que a mão-de-obra nativa do continente está a ser massivamente substituída por mão-de-obra barata, por vezes semi-escrava, de imigrantes e refugiados.

É também necessário recordar a situação nas zonas rurais. Desde o ano passado, quase toda a Europa tem vivido uma grave onda de protestos devido à política irresponsável da UE de importação de cereais ucranianos. Para “ajudar” o regime neonazista de Kiev, os países europeus têm comprado produtos agrícolas ucranianos baratos, levando à falência os agricultores europeus nativos. É claro que, como reação, os camponeses tendem a votar nos partidos da oposição, que frequentemente criticam o apoio à Ucrânia e as igualmente impopulares “agendas verdes”.

No final, a ascensão da direita na Europa deve ser vista à luz da crise no establishment da UE. Os partidos hegemônicos decidiram irracionalmente aderir aos planos da OTAN, chegando ao ponto de fomentar o nazismo na Ucrânia e de participar quase diretamente numa guerra contra a Rússia. A viragem das pessoas comuns para a direita não é uma adesão popular ao extremismo, mas uma reação ao fascismo da OTAN.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

 

 

Article original en anglais : Right wing wave in Europe a reaction to EU’s subservience to NATO, InfoBrics, 11de Juno de 2024.

Imagem : InfoBrics

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Lucas Leiroz, jornalista, pesquisador do Center for Geostrategic Studies, consultor geopolítico.

Você pode seguir Lucas Leiroz em: https://t.me/lucasleiroz e https://twitter.com/leiroz_lucas

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***

Globalist billionaire Bill Gates has been caught telling his inner circle that a devastating “global famine” is the next step in the elite’s indomitable march towards total global domination.

The 500 million souls left on Earth following the great depopulation will not only be easily controlled, according to Gates, they will also yearn for the level of control that the elites can currently only dream about.

With total control of the food supply, farm land, seed banks, and genetically modified soil microbes, Gates has positioned himself to carry out a false flag worse than 9/11.

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***

It’s a completely synthetic nation created without any regard for the organic sociopolitical movements of the land and its people, slapped rootless atop an ancient pre-existing civilization with deep roots.

Everything about Israel is fake. It’s a completely synthetic nation created without any regard for the organic sociopolitical movements of the land and its people, slapped rootless atop an ancient pre-existing civilization with deep roots. That’s why it cannot exist without being artificially propped up by nonstop propaganda, lobbying, online influence operations, and mass military violence.

Israel is so fake that its far right minister of national security Itamar Ben-Gvir has been stoking religious tensions by encouraging militant Zionists to pray on the Temple Mount — known to Muslims as Al-Aqsa. This is an illustration of how phony Israel and its political ideology are because Jews were historically prohibited from praying at the Temple Mount under Jewish law; a sign placed there in 1967 and still upheld by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate reads, “According to Torah Law, entering the Temple Mount area is strictly forbidden due to the holiness of the site.” It’s just this weird, evangelical Christian-like thing that Zionists have started doing in contravention of their own traditions and religious texts to advance their nationalist agendas.

Journalist Dan Cohen explains on Twitter:

“‘Prayer’ on the Temple Mount is 100% a Zionist invention in total contravention of Jewish law. Jews don’t step foot onto the Temple Mount, let alone ‘pray’ there. That’s why the sign below is posted at the entrance non-Muslims use. 

“Ben Gvir publicly announced this in order to provoke a reaction to use as a pretext to restrict and expel Muslims from the site, explode Jerusalem and the West Bank, and expand the regional war. 

“Ben Gvir holds Netanyahu hostage. Together, they’re leading Israel to self-destruction.”

Click here to read the tweet on X

 

There’s no authentic spirituality in such behavior. It has no roots. No depth. No connection. It’s the product of busy minds with modern agendas, with nothing more to it than that.

Israel is so fake that Zionists artificially resurrected a dead language in order for its people to have a common “native” tongue for them to speak, so that they could all LARP as indigenous middle easterners together in their phony, synthetic country.

Israel has no real culture of its own; it’s all a mixture of (A) organic Jewish culture brought in from other parts of the world by the Jewish diaspora, (B) culture that was stolen from Palestinians (see “Israeli food”), and (C) the culture of indoctrinated genocidal hatred that is interwoven with the fabric of modern Zionism. The way Israel has become a Mecca of electronic dance music points clearly to an aching cultural void that its people are trying desperately to fill with empty synthetic pop fluff.

Even international support for Israel is fake, manufactured astroturf that has to be enforced from the top down, because it would never organically occur to anyone that Israel is something that should be supported. 

The phenomenally influential Israel lobby is used to push pro-Israel foreign policy in powerful western governments like Washington and London. Just yesterday US Representative Thomas Massie told Tucker Carlson that every Republican in Congress besides himself “has an AIPAC person” assigned to them with whom they are in constant communication, who he describes as functioning “like your babysitter” with regard to lawmaking on the subject of Israel. 

Click here to read the tweet on X

The Israel lobby exists with the full consent of the western imperial war machine and its secretive intelligence cartel, because western military support for Israel is also phony and fraudulent. The western empire whose strategic interests directly benefit from violence and radicalism in the middle east pretends it’s constantly expanding its military presence in the region in order to promote stability and protect an important ally, but in reality this military presence simply allows for greater control over crucial resource-rich territories whose populations would otherwise unite to form a powerful bloc acting in their own interests. The Israel lobby is a self-funding consent manufacturer which helps the empire do what it already wants to do.

Support for Israel in the media is also phony and imposed from the top down. Since October outlets like The New York Times, CNN and CBC have been finding themselves fighting off scandals due to staff leaks about demands from their executives that they slant their Gaza coverage to benefit the information interests of Israel. Briahna Joy Gray was just fired by The Hill for being critical of Israel as co-host of the show “Rising”, a fate that all mass media employees understand they will share if they are insufficiently supportive of the empire’s favorite ethnostate.

Israel’s support from celebrities is similarly forced. A newly leaked email from influential Hollywood marketing and branding guru Ashlee Margolis instructs her firm’s employees to “pause on working with any celebrity or influencer or tastemaker posting against Israel.” As we discussed recently, celebrities are also naturally disincentivized from criticizing any aspect of the western empire by the fact that their status is dependent on wealthy people whose wealth is premised upon the imperial status quo.

Click here to read the tweet on X

Support for Israel on social media is likewise notoriously phony. For years Israel has been pioneering the use of social media trolls to swarm Israel’s critics and promote agendas like undermining the BDS movement. After the beginning of the Gaza onslaught Israel spent millions on PR spin via advertising on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, and The New York Timeshas just confirmed earlier reports that Israel has been targeting US lawmakers with fake social media accounts to influence their policymaking on Israel.

In truth, nobody really organically supports Israel. If they’re not supporting it because their lobbyists and employers told them to, they’re supporting it because that’s what they were told to support by the leaders of their dopey political ideologies like Zionism, liberalism and conservatism, or by the leaders of their dopey religions like Christian fundamentalism. It’s always something that’s pushed on people from the top down, rather than arising from within themselves due to their own natural interests and ideals.

Click here to read the tweet on X

Israel is not a country, it’s like a fake movie set version of a country. A movie set where the set pieces won’t even stand up on their own, so people are always running around in a constant state of construction trying to prop things up and nail things down, and scrambling to pick up things that are falling over, and rotating the set pieces so that they look like real buildings in front of the camera. Without this constant hustle and bustle of propagandizing, lobbying, online influence ops, and nonstop mass military violence, the whole movie set would fall over, and people would see all the film crew members and actors and cameras for what they are.

Clearly, no part of this is sustainable. Clearly, something’s going to have to give. Those set pieces are going to come toppling down sooner or later; it’s just a question of when, and of how high the pile of human corpses needs to be before it happens.

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***

Dazelle Peters, a 17-year-old Leukemia-sufferer who was reportedly denied a life-saving lung transplant after refusing to receive FIVE Covid vaccines, has died.

According to the Daily Mail, the Sydney hospital treating Dazelle said, her lack of a Covid vaccination was a factor in her not being put on the lung transplant waiting list.

A hospital spokesperson told the Daily Mail, their ‘policies and guidelines wouldn’t support transplantation’ of an unvaccinated person.

‘Vaccination status against various infections is a critical part of this assessment in order to ensure optimal prospects of survival post-transplant,’ a St Vincent’s hospital spokesperson said. (source)

Despite saying she was ‘sorry’ to learn of Dazelle’s situation Assistant Health Minister Ged Kearney had advised ‘the Australian Government is unable to intervene in clinical decisions’. 

Mr Kearney’s response was in reply to a letter sent to her by outspoken Liberal MP Russell Broadbent, who raised both the plight of Dazelle and Victorian mum Vicki Derderian, who is being denied a heart transplant for refusing the jabs.

‘The priority and treatment given to an individual is ultimately a clinical decision made by the treating hospital and transplant teams involved,’ Ms Kearney’s letter stated.

However, it clarified there is no official mandate barring the unvaccinated from getting transplants. 

The Guidelines do not prevent a patient who has not received a Covid-19 vaccination from being placed on a transplant waitlist,’ Ms Kearney stated.

Ms Kearney said the states are ultimately responsible for transplant practices.

‘Each state and territory is responsible for the delivery of the jurisdictional health services, including hospital and transplantation services,’ it read.

Dazelle’s family say that while the consulting surgeon described Dazelle as a ‘complex’ case he also said she needed to ‘do the right thing’ and get the vaccines, which take nine months to administer, to keep other patients and staff safe.

Australia joins Canada in a race to the bottom as 2 unvaccinated Canadians were murdered by local health officials in 2023 for being unvaccinated:

May 22, 2023 – Sudbury, Ontario – 35 year old Garnet Harper died after being denied a kidney transplant for being unvaccinated, leaving behind wife and five children. (click here)

Aug. 25, 2023 – Sheila Annette Lewis was denied access to the lung transplant list by corrupt Alberta Health Services Executives and Judges in Alberta, Canada.

My Take…

I work in a large Cancer Centre (Cross Cancer Institute, Edmonton, Alberta) and I have been involved in many life and death decisions.

Make no mistake, Dazelle was murdered in a premeditated manner via a decision that was made all the way up the bureaucratic ladder. This was not a decision made by her treating doctor, Dr. Mark Benzimra (who was guaranteed protection by his bureaucratic bosses including the medical board).

The decision to murder Dazelle was made at the highest bureaucratic levels – the policians simply gave the green light and a promise they wouldn’t intervene.

In Canada, Lung Transplant patient Sheila Annette Lewis was murdered by Alberta’s top health officials: Alberta Health Services Executives Dr.Verna Yiu and Dr.Francois Belanger, their lawyer Mark Jackson and four Alberta Judges – Justice Paul Belzil, Justice Frederica Schutz, Justice Michelle Crighton and Justice Dawn Pentelechuk.

• “Lewis’s lawyer said her client was informed in June 2021 that she had to be vaccinated in order to remain on the transplant list. Pejovic said that forced Lewis to make an agonizing decision. “

• The top healthcare bureaucrat in Alberta at the time was AHS CEO Dr.Verna Yiu.
• AHS CEO Dr.Verna Yiu also implemented an illegal COVID-19 Vaccine mandate on all of Alberta’s 105,000 healthcare workers on Aug.31, 2021.
• Dr.Verna Yiu is also directly responsible for murdering many of my 2456 Alberta Cancer patients at Cross Cancer Institute from 2016 to 2022.

• As a reward for all her crimes against humanity (and all the vulnerable Cancer patients, COVID patients and Transplant patients she helped murder), she was appointed Vice President of University of Alberta on Jan. 1, 2024.

 

Unvaccinated patients are murdered to serve as an example of non-compliance.

These decisions have nothing to do with medicine or science.

COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines are already causing Lung Transplant rejection in some cases. From 2022 paper by Alsunaid et al:

 

So why would health officials take the risk of murdering an unvaccinated patient?

Well, first, there is NO RISK. Everyone involved in the murder is guaranteed protection. Dr.Benzimra was guaranteed protection. He will never have to worry about his job or license. He will be taken care of very well.

Every doctor and nurse who killed unvaccinated patients in the hospitals, with lethal protocols including Remdesivir, was guaranteed protection ahead of time.

Every health worker who euthanized a Long Term Care resident with Midazolam and Morphine and recorded it as a COVID death, was guaranteed protection.

In Canada, and now in Australia, murder is legal. 

But it has to be in the service of an ideology or narrative.

In these cases, these murders of unvaccinated patients are carried out deliberately, in a premeditated manner, in order to send a message that the penalty for non-compliance IN THE FUTURE, is DEATH.

The objective of the murder is to send a message to the rest of the population: comply or die. And by getting Judges involved, they make it clear to us that they can get away with this any time. And do it to anyone.

This is one of many reasons why it is not possible to “move on” from COVID.

Not only has justice not been served, there has been a complete perversion and inversion of Justice.

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.  

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***

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, during a special meeting on the sidelines, St. Petersburg International Economic Forum held on 5 to 8 June, with President Vladimir Putin, underscored the development of relations between Russia and Zimbabwe, highlighted possible spheres of bilateral cooperation and, most importantly, Zimbabwe’s position within the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

According to Mnangagwa,

“the West has just begun consolidating its power in Zambia, our next neighbour. You know, there was a time when Zambia and Zimbabwe were one; it was called Northern and Southern Rhodesia. It was made one by the British, but they are now separate. And the Americans are consolidating their power in that country, both in terms of security and in terms of financial support to Zambia.”

Within the context of the great power competition, Mnangagwa further explained that its neighbours, Zambia and Malawi, are very heavily supported by the West. But in spite of that, Zimbabwe’s economic growth is the fastest growing economy in the region, in spite of being isolated by the Americans.

“We feel we have better relations with the people who respect us, not the persons who look down upon us. We are anxious to have more comprehensive and concentrated relations with Russia. And there is a lot that we can open for the Russian Federation to participate in our economy, especially in the mining sector and agriculture,” emphasized Mnangagwa.

That Zimbabwe is one of the few countries in Southern Africa that is regarded as anti-West. It was previously “disregarded as an isolated island in Southern Africa,” the Zimbabwean leader informed Putin. Mnangagwa suggested that as the relations are critically important, it is necessary to make them more comprehensive and share its emerging challenges.

“We received food allocations last year, and we have received cooperation in the military and security sector. That alone, as you continue to do so, we continuously become isolated in our region,” he underlined.

Image: President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa

Mnangagwa referred to President Vladimir Putin as “my dear brother” and said Russia was a consistent ally of Zimbabwe. Mnangagwa rained praises on Putin for defending the independence and territorial integrity of Russia.

“It is regrettable and unacceptable that the collective West continues to peruse hegemonic tendencies that blatantly violate the sovereign equality of nations, justice and fairness,” Mnangagwa later told the business forum. Still Zimbabwe was “open for business”, he maintained frankly.

Mnangagwa’s speech in St. Petersburg has sparked criticisms across the media in southern Africa. For instance, Tendai Ruben Mbofana, a social justice advocate and research writer, in an article, wrote that the southern African region has, by and large, been regarded as a peaceful place.

It came as a huge shock watching a video of Zimbabwe President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa moaning to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, over what he perceived as Zambia’s close alliance with the United States.

In his remarks – which I am sure have sent shockwaves not only across the region but the entire African continent (if not the world) – Mnangagwa appeared to be begging for military support for Putin to ostensibly counter ‘Zimbabwe’s loneliness’ in the region.

In his pitiful display, he seemed to paint a picture of a Zimbabwe under possible threat from the United States using Zambia as a launching pad. Surely, on what ridiculous basis would Mnangagwa assume or even conclude that the United States would want to attack Zimbabwe?

Save for a few conflict zones – such as Mozambique, Angola, and the DRC – we have avoided stoking the flames of war. This is particularly so as it pertains to inter-nation conflict. Of course, countries such as Rwanda and Burundi (although not southern African states) have repeatedly been fingered in sponsoring cross-border wars in SADC member DRC.

Southern African region has been known for maintaining peace and stability by any means necessary – even if that meant states turning a blind eye to gross injustices perpetrated in their neighbors against their populations. As a matter of fact, Zimbabwe is one of those countries that has benefited immensely from this ‘see no evil, hear no evil, and say no evil’ policy of SADC.

Granted, the United States, on April 26, 2022, established its military Africa Command (AFRICOM) in Zambia. However, it should be noted that this is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a military base.

AFRICOM in Zambia is merely an office set up in the US Embassy in Lusaka to assist the Zambian forces in the United Nations Multidimensional Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA). As can he clearly determined this is neither a military base nor Zimbabwe the target. Similarly, Zambia itself has never indicated a desire to engage with Zimbabwe in any military hostilities.

This then poses a crucial questions. Why did Mnangagwa say what he said to Putin? For what reason did he make it appear as though Zimbabwe was under threat from the US using Zambia? Does he now hate Hichilema so much that he will do anything to ‘punish’ him for his bold stance – including launching a military attack against Zambia?

Nonetheless, there were never signs of any desire on Zambia’s part to wage war or take any other action against Zimbabwe. Yet we have hardly lifted a hand against the kleptomaniac oppressive regime. Here we have, though, our head of state seemingly pleading with the Russians to offer military assistance to the regime in apparent readiness with a war with Zambia, according to Tendai Ruben Mbofana.

Mnangagwa’s statement has potentially positioned Zimbabwe as a regional security threat. This may demand the immediate intervention of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defense, and Security – which is, interestingly, currently chaired by Zambia. In fact, this may also require an extraordinary summit of the SADC heads of state to discuss this possible danger to the region.

Russia-Zimbabwe relations were established a long time ago when it was struggling for political independence which it finally gained on 18 April 1980. Zimbabwe, with roughly 15 million people as per 2022 census, is a landlocked country in southern Africa. In southern African region, it is the biggest trading partner of South Africa. Zimbabwe is one of the members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), Weekly Blitz and InDepthNews, is now a regular contributor to Global Research. He researches Eurasia, Russia, Africa and BRICS. His focused interest areas include geopolitical changes, foreign relations and economic development questions relating to Africa. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.

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***

It can’t be ruled out that Zelensky might task one of his pilots with carrying out a mission directly from NATO territory without first stopping at a Kiev-controlled airfield in order to provoke Russia into striking the base from which it departed in self-defense.

Ukrainian Air Force head of aviation Sergey Golubtsov told US state-run Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in an interview over the weekend that Kiev plans to store some of its F-16s in NATO states for reserve and training purposes. While this might sound like a pragmatic policy, particularly since it would deter Russia from destroying its entire fleet since President Putin recently mocked speculation about him plotting to attack NATO as “bullshit”, it actually raises the risk of World War III.

To explain, although US Air Force chief Frank Kendell claimed last summer that the F-16s are “not going to be a game-changer” for Ukraine and Golubtsov himself confirmed in his latest interview that they’re “not a panacea and we do not wear rose-colored glasses”, both downplay the nuclear dimension. President Putin brought it up earlier this spring when he noted that “F-16 aircraft can also carry nuclear weapons, and we will also have to heed this while organising our combat operations.”

The Russian leader also warned that “we would see them as legitimate targets if they operate from the airfields of third countries, no matter where they are located.” Mutual mistrust between Russia and the US is at a record low and continues falling by the week, made all the worse by Ukraine’s recent attack(s) against Russia’s early nuclear warning systems that might have been tacitly approved by America. This comes as the US is playing a dangerous game of nuclear chicken with Russia.

It’s with all this in mind that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last month that

“We cannot help but consider the supply of these (F-16) systems to the Kiev regime as a deliberate signaling action by NATO in the nuclear sphere.”

He added though that his country’s recent tactical nuclear weapons exercises might “bring some sense” to NATO and deter them from crossing the ultimate red line. Judging by what Golubtsov just said, however, the US wants to up the ante in its game of nuclear chicken.

What’s meant is that Russia can’t know whether any attacking F-16 are nuclear-equipped, especially if one of them from Ukraine’s “reserve” based in NATO states takes off from there and carries out a mission without first stopping at a Kiev-controlled airfield. From the Kremlin’s viewpoint, it could appear that a nuclear-equipped and NATO-piloted F-16 is preparing to carry out a first strike. In response, Russia might preemptively destroy the base from which it departed, with or without a tactical nuke.

The New York Times already cited an unknown number of Biden’s unnamed advisors to report that the US and Ukraine’s priorities are diverging, warning that “Ukraine has nothing left to lose from escalating with Russia” while “Mr. Biden does”. It therefore can’t be ruled out that Zelensky might task one of his pilots with carrying out a mission directly from NATO territory without first stopping at a Kiev-controlled airfield in order to provoke Russia into striking the base from which it departed in self-defense.

Seeing as how Denmark approved of Ukraine using their donated F-16s to strike inside of Russia’s universally recognized territory, which followed its NATO peers approving of Ukraine using other arms to do the same, this is a frighteningly real scenario that the US might be powerless to stop. The only way to prevent it is for the US to force its partners not to allow Ukraine to store its F-16s on their territory, but Biden likely doesn’t have the political will since he fears accusations that he’s afraid of President Putin.

The West’s most ideologically radicalized anti-Russian hawks and their media proxies could also claim that coercing Ukraine to store all of its F-16s inside the country runs the risk of Russia destroying them and therefore making a total waste of NATO’s months-long preparations for this latest escalation. This could be seized upon by his political opponents at home ahead of November’s elections so it’s unlikely that he’d want to take the chance of turning more voters against him with this so-called “stupid policy”.

Of course, the knife also cuts both ways, and his opponents could also claim that the most “stupid policy” is actually him letting Ukraine store F-16s in NATO states since that raises the risk of World War III as was explained in this analysis. Seeing as how these the US and Ukraine’s leading Air Force officials don’t even consider these arms to be a “game-changer” or a “panacea” by their own respective admissions, they shouldn’t even be fielded in the first place due to this irresponsible risk.

Nevertheless, the F-16s will now inevitably be used after all the time and investment that went into training Ukrainian pilots, not to mention the media hype over all these months. The decision has already been made to store some of them in NATO states so it remains to be seen whether Zelensky is truly willing to risk it all by authorizing a mission for attacking Russia directly from one of those bases. He has the motive and opportunity, which is why it wouldn’t be surprising if he gave it a shot in desperation.

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This article was originally published on the author’s Substack, Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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France appears increasingly isolated in its decision to intervene directly in the Ukrainian conflict. Not even major Western powers are willing to openly confront Moscow on the battlefield, given the high likelihood of a catastrophic war arising as a result of such a move. Now, Berlin is already signaling that it will not support the French move.

According to the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, the German government is preparing to publicly refuse its support for France’s anti-Russian military initiative. The outlet, citing sources familiar with state affairs, claims that French officials are pressuring several NATO members to cooperate in sending troops to Ukraine. Reports show that the French army’s chief of staff, General Thierry Burkhard, wrote a letter calling on the US and at least 10 other NATO countries to join Paris in intervening in Ukraine.

Germany, however, was not included in the French general’s letter, the sources say. This means that German officials have most likely already made it clear, in secret, to their French counterparts that they are not interested in directly participating in the conflict with Russia. According to the sources, during negotiations in Brussels, Germany, along with other countries such as Italy and Spain, ruled out the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine. If the pressure continues, Germany is expected to make a public statement denying aid to France.

In fact, the French proposal does not seem to be popular within NATO. Few countries have shown interest in cooperating with the sending of troops. Initially, the French soldiers would not be allocated to actual combat units, but to training and command centers. In addition, the French would have the mission of “protecting” strategic areas in key cities such as Odessa and Kharkov, trying to dissuade Russia from advancing in these regions.

However, none of this is enough to disguise the serious escalation initiated by France. Putting troops on the ground is officially entering the war, regardless of which unit the troops are deployed to. In practice, Paris is trying to reconcile two irreconcilable scenarios: going to war with Russia and avoiding a harsh response from Moscow. Obviously, Paris does not want to face the consequences of a direct war with Russia, but at the same time Macron wants to continue propagandizing his image as “leader and defender of Europe.” This scenario could easily end in tragedy.

Indeed, Macron is not acting naively. He certainly has a plan behind his dangerous idea of ​​sending troops. Given the high number of French mercenaries killed by Russian forces in Ukraine, it is very likely that there is pressure in French society to provide an explanation for the losses. Many of these soldiers are not exactly mercenaries, but regular French commandos who fight for NATO’s interests in Ukraine, using the label of “mercenaries” to disguise Western interventionism. The French government needs to give society an explanation to why so many French citizens are dying on the front lines – and apparently, Macron has made the worst possible decision to “explain” these deaths.

It is possible that the real purpose of sending troops is to “legalize” the deaths of mercenaries. Thus, Macron could simply say that the losses occurred during direct hostilities between the French Army and Russian forces, providing an explanation for the families of the dead soldiers. There is, however, nothing rational or strategic about such a move. By disguising the already existing French involvement, Macron would be provoking an all-out war, putting the global security architecture at risk. Nevertheless, he appears increasingly isolated in his proposal, with the initiative being rejected by other states.

The only hope of preventing French interference from turning into open war lies with Russia itself. The Russians have repeatedly proven to be the rational side in the conflict, as Moscow is actually willing to avoid escalation. Russia does not want to go to war with NATO directly, even though the Atlantic alliance is already taking steps towards direct intervention – not only with Macron’s initiative, but also with other recent moves, such as authorizing cross-border strikes. Clearly, there is a scenario in which NATO wants war and Russia avoids it.

Of course, the Russians will do their best once again to avoid the worst-case scenario, but it is important for the West to understand that at some point Russian patience may run out. Moscow is not interested in starting an open conflict, but it has already made it clear that any French soldier in Ukraine is a legitimate target.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Lucas Leiroz is a member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert. You can follow Lucas on X (former Twitter) and Telegram. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Nourish Cooperative is a farm cooperative that provides fresh, whole foods, such as low-PUFA eggs, raw milk, and “needle-free” grass fed and/or corn- and soy-free meat

On November 3, 2023, 15 of their corn- and soy-free, low-PUFA hogs were seized due to a misunderstanding on processing

On May 28, 2024, the cooperative was raided, and over $90,000 worth of product was put under “cease and desist” by the state of Michigan

The raid took place over the course of about four to five hours, and started with four government employees arriving in a government marked car, including a human food inspector, an animal food inspector and two dairy inspectors

Nourish Cooperative is fighting back to protect traditional foods and the right to access these healing products from small farms

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There is a lot of fearmongering circulating in mainstream media about the “Avian Influenza”. In parallel to the fearmongering, there has been a large increase in the number of inspections and surveillance. Creating fear would certainly help better maintain control of the food system, wouldn’t it?

On Tuesday, May 28th, our farm co-op was randomly “inspected” (raided), and over $90,000 worth of product was put under “cease and desist” by the state of Michigan, including all raw dairy. As this is an evolving story, I will share what we know to be true thus far.

Nourish Cooperative is a farm cooperative that my sister, Sarah, and I started with a few other first generation regenerative farmers in September 2023. After several years of a steadily increasing demand for our farm fresh products (such as our raw milk, sourdough, and “needle-free” grass fed and/or corn- and soy-free meat), we simply could not keep up with the demand ourselves, which led us to create a “cooperative” (co-op) of several small, local regenerative farms.

Our goal is to produce the highest quality food possible while working with Mother Nature through the use of regenerative agriculture practices. This cooperative grew faster than we could ever imagine, and with that, I suppose, more problems arose, inevitably. If interested, you can read more about Nourish Cooperative here.

First, 15 Hogs Stolen — ‘Their Lives Went to Waste’

Our first stint with the government happened last fall on November 3, 2023 when 15 of our corn- and soy-free, low-PUFA hogs were seized right before my eyes due to a misunderstanding on processing. I was forced to put the 15 hog carcasses in the back of our pickup truck, pour used motor oil on them, and then drive them to a nearby landfill and pay to dispose of 2000+ pounds of hog carcasses. 

I will never forget the smell at the top of that landfill! This was devastating — not only was thousands of dollars worth of product *literally* destroyed, but the lives of these animals went to waste. We could have used them ourselves, donated them, or fed them to our animals.

That’s a huge issue for us — we take pride in the methods in which we (and all of our farm partners) farm — rotationally grazing our animals to fresh pasture near daily, living as Mother Nature intended so they can express their innate instincts ensuring they have the closest to “natural” lives they can possibly live during their time on earth.

To know that they lived and died for no reason other than to sit in a landfill so the government could make a point — that hurt. And it hurt our spirit for a period of time, too. Thinking: Is this even worth it? Are we in over our heads?! There seems to be a block at every step of the way, when you’re trying to raise food traditionally, organically, and unadulterated.

But we persevered, which is how Nourish Cooperative expanded to carry not only various different types of meat and unique products (such as gelatin-rich bone broths and traditionally made sourdough products), but various types of raw dairy as well, including sheep, goat, and A2A2 cow dairy products such as raw milk, cheese, kefir, cream, butter, yogurt, and so on.

Most of us in the health space are familiar with the troubling laws around raw dairy, and we’re aware that raw dairy sales are heavily regulated, even illegal, in most if not all states.

This is where things get super confusing, as the laws differ by state, and in Michigan, where our co-op is located, the law states that one way to sell raw dairy is to establish a herd-share and require customers to pick up their dairy from your farm. Another option in Michigan is to sell your raw dairy as a pet food supplement, which is the route we decided to take.

All Raw Dairy — $90,000 Worth of Product — Seized

Raw cheese is actually a little simpler. One thing all states do have in common is that raw cheese, made in a legitimate, inspected facility, that’s aged for at least 60 days, is legal to sell and buy (7 CFR § 58.439). This is why you can buy raw cheese in stores such as Walmart and Meijer. It’s not illegal, yet, on May 28th, around 1 PM EST, all of this came into question for us.

During the raid of our cooperative, all raw dairy was placed under seizure — in total, over $90,000 worth of product. What this means is that these products (all milk, cheese, butter, etc.) were counted and tagged, and that we are not allowed to sell, use or even move these products without a government official present.

So no using these products for our personal use, no giving these products to our animals — simply put, these products have to remain where they were, unless we choose to discard of them, and in that case, a government official would need to be present to ensure we discarded of them appropriately, to their standards (which basically means, they’d need to go to literal waste). Remember the pig situation I mentioned …? Talk about deja vu, in the worst way possible.

Keep in mind, this was a Tuesday, the day after Memorial Day, and business was going as usual. We had over 350 orders to pack up and ship out to our cooperative members and their pets, the majority of which included raw dairy (sold as a pet food supplement).

The raid took place over the course of about four to five hours, and started with four government employees arriving in a government marked car, including a human food inspector, an animal food inspector, and two dairy inspectors.

The inspectors spoke to the highest in the chain of command available at our farm, which was Brandon, our head of operations (and Sarah’s fiancé). Brandon informed the government employees that he did not feel comfortable showing them around the facility since it was not his place, and gently pointed towards the farm’s “NO TRESPASSING” signs.

However, since Nourish Cooperative has a “Food Warehouse License” in Michigan, they notified us that they’re allowed to show up and inspect at any time, and requested to be shown around our facility.

Five-Hour ‘Inspection’ Leads to Cease and Desist Letter

What began to unfold over the next four to five hours was these four inspectors, going through our fridges and freezers, tossing products around, and deciding that all of our raw dairy and a few other products were placed under seizure. Including the raw cheese.

The issue they had with the raw cheese was that the plant number was “not identifiable” on the label. However, Brandon read off the plant number to the inspectors directly from the label in front of them, and this information was also given to the main human food inspector the week prior verbally during a phone call.

So, we provided the plant number where our cheese is made … but they said they couldn’t read it on their own. Even if the font size was too small, why did the product have to be put “UNDER SEIZURE”?

Figure 1. Nourish Cooperative cheese label.

 

UPDATE = the cheese was released from seizure eight days later on Thursday, June 6th after the plant number was again communicated and the legality of raw aged cheese for human consumption was proven through 7 CFR § 58.439.

As for the other raw dairy products (like milk and butter) sold as a pet food supplement, we were told that the entire situation started as a label miscommunication. We were told that there were some issues with our labels since we did not specify what pet the product was for, and did not include serving suggestions. (For example, for dogs, feed two tablespoons.)

Our labels were submitted in March and our check was cashed for a pet food license. But, instead of going back and forth with us to help us get our labels approved, there was the surprise inspection, and immediate seizure of all products.

We have made the suggested changes, and resubmitted the labels for approval the evening of the inspection, but now we are all of a sudden being told that it is illegal to sell raw dairy as pet food.

“Michigan does not permit the sale of raw milk for human or animal consumption, therefore relabeling the products will not fully correct the (label) violations cited.”

Hmmm I am not so sure about this. For example, in the past week I have called over 10 pet food stores throughout the state of Michigan who sell raw goat milk for pets.

Talk about selective enforcement? Despite this being an unannounced “regular inspection,” this group of government officials arrived with a pre-prepared Cease and Desist letter (unless they printed it in their car), and asked Brandon to sign this letter. Brandon declined saying he was not in the position to sign.

Truthfully, we are kind of in limbo right now and have no information on how to proceed forward (despite making the suggested label changes).

We cannot touch any of the products (raw milk, raw butter, raw cream, raw cottage cheese, etc.) that are still under seizure (only the raw cheese cease and desist order was removed). We can’t eat it ourselves. And we can’t feed it to our animals. All of this product will go to waste!

The most unfortunate part of all of this is that for many of our farm partners, our co-op is their only market — they rely on our market to make a living. So, how are they supposed to pay their bills? What do they do with all of the product?

We’ve been able to help dozens of small farmers improve their farming practices, expand their operations, and make enough income to actually be farmers and quit their off-farm jobs. (Did you know that 96% of farm households derived some of their income from off-farm sources in 2019?¹Meaning, many farmers require other jobs to support their farm.)

You Have a Right to Access Real, Healing Foods

As a co-op, we shouldn’t have to black market real, healing foods (which, to be clear, we are not doing — we have attempted to comply with the law and regulations every step of the way) or, as consumers, have to bend over backwards to try to source these products. Starting Nourish allowed these farmers to focus on farming (the right way), and actually make a living doing so. We hope to continue to provide this opportunity to other small farmers as the co-op continues to grow.

Just as unfortunate, our co-op members rely on us for these foods. Many of our members have food allergies or sensitivities, or other health conditions, that require them to source pure, unadulterated foods. Or they just choose to source the highest quality food available because it makes them feel good, and they want to support regenerative agriculture and small farmers.

While these members are buying the raw dairy for their pets, they obviously can do as they please with these products. It is not up to us to decide what someone does with their dairy.

Our members are upset, and they’re fired up at the same time. The support that’s rolled in from members of Nourish and beyond is incredible to see; more and more people are choosing to source their foods from small farmers, raising food the traditional way, and we don’t see why there should be so many obstacles to do so.

(Well, we do understand, as Big Ag spends millions of dollars each year on lobbying to ensure the rules and regulations make it so that it is very hard to be a small farmer or co-op in their centralized system.)

Regardless, we must work within the framework we are given, and even though it may not make sense to us, or to our co-op members, there are ways in which we can move forward — and we are hopeful we will be able to fully back in business soon.

Since May 28th, we’ve had to stop selling all raw dairy products (except raw cheese which is again available for sale) and other products seized by the government, but we are still providing grass fed meats (beef, yak, lamb), and corn- and soy-free, low-PUFA chicken and pork, as well as raw pet food chubs, pure Michigan maple syrup, raw honey, and a few other products on our website.

Fight for Your Right for Nourishment

We ship these products all across the United States. While the website shows we are currently closed and not taking new members, we are diligently working on opening up more spots for incoming members, so if you would like to join Nourish, please reach out to our customer service by clicking here with a request to make your membership active, or with any other questions you may have.

If you would like to support our co-op during this challenging time, to help us recover from the $90,000 product loss, and help us cover our mounting legal fees, we have an ongoing GiveSendGo fundraiser in which you can support us by clicking below.

Click to donate.

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Ashley Armstrong is the cofounder of Angel Acres Egg Co., which specializes in low-PUFA (polyunsaturated fat) eggs that are shipped to all 50 states (join waitlist here), and Nourish Cooperative, which ships low-PUFA pork, beef, cheese, A2 dairy and traditional sourdough to all 50 states.

Note

¹ USDA September 7, 2021

Bombshell: Japan’s Former Minister of Internal Affairs Apologizes to the Unvaccinated: ‘You Were Right, Vaccines Are Killing Millions of Our Loved Ones’

By Sean Adl-Tabatabai, June 11, 2024

Kazuhiro Haraguchi, the former Japanese Minister for Internal Affairs, has become the first major politician to apologize to the unvaccinated for the tsunami of deaths occuring among the vaccinated population.

Bombshell Video: 9th Circuit Court Rules COVID-19 mRNA Injections Are Not “Vaccines”.

By Jim Hoft and Dr. William Makis, June 11, 2024

In a contentious case involving the Health Freedom Defense Fund and other plaintiffs versus the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the court acknowledged the plaintiffs’ claim that the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines do not meet the traditional definition of vaccines because they do not prevent the spread of the virus but only mitigate symptoms.

Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Junta Continues with PR ‘Victories’ While Its Lines Collapse

By Drago Bosnic, June 11, 2024

Anyone who ever spent more than five minutes studying the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict knows that whenever the Neo-Nazi junta is having a hard time at the frontlines, there is a desperate need to raise the morale of its largely conscription-based forces.

Instigation of Rebellions in Tibet

By Shane Quinn, June 11, 2024

After 1948 the US had “lost China to communism” and policies were undertaken in Washington to reinstate their authority over China, with territories like Tibet identified as target areas. The CIA and to a lesser extent the US military helped to instigate anti-Chinese insurrections in Tibet, such as occurred from 1956 in the Kham and Amdo areas in the eastern part of the Tibetan Plateau.

The Ugly Israeli Denounced

By Rima Najjar, June 11, 2024

Israel is often described by analysts in the Arab media as an army that has a state rather than a state that has an army. Support for military measures designed to entrench and expand Zionist political and territorial control of historic Palestine has been a characteristic of the Israeli public since the entity’s violent establishment on 78 percent of Palestine in 1948.

Declassified: BBC and MI6 Kosovo War Propaganda Blitz

By Kit Klarenberg, June 11, 2024

On March 24th, this journalist exposed how London was at the forefront of efforts to launch a ground invasion of Yugoslavia, during NATO’s illegal March-May 1999 bombing campaign.

Is Government Your God? Is Fake Science Your God? How Can We Escape the Matrix?

By Mark Keenan, June 10, 2024

We were born into a soul-killing system – a matrix of institutional political and financial control. Consider the events of recent times: a fake pandemic, orchestrated wars, communism under a cloak of climate change policy and UN Agenda 2030, etc.

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***

Click here to watch the video

Read the Court decision here.

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Below is an excerpt from The Gateway Pundit article.

9th Circuit Court of Appeals Acknowledges Plaintiffs’ Claim that COVID-19 mRNA Jab is NOT a Vaccine, But a Therapeutic 

By Jim Hoft, June 8, 2024

In a contentious case involving the Health Freedom Defense Fund and other plaintiffs versus the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the court acknowledged the plaintiffs’ claim that the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines do not meet the traditional definition of vaccines because they do not prevent the spread of the virus but only mitigate symptoms.

The case revolved around the LAUSD’s COVID-19 vaccination policy, which required all employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by a specified deadline.

The case, brought by the Health Freedom Defense Fund and several individuals, argues that the LAUSD’s vaccination mandate interferes with their fundamental right to refuse medical treatment. The plaintiffs assert that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines merely mitigate symptoms rather than prevent infection or transmission, which they claim does not align with the traditional definition of a vaccine.

In its decision, the 9th Circuit highlighted that the district court had misapplied the precedent set by Jacobson v. Massachusetts, which upheld mandatory smallpox vaccinations due to their effectiveness in preventing disease spread. The court noted that the plaintiffs’ claims, taken as true at this stage, suggest that the COVID-19 vaccines do not effectively “prevent the spread” of COVID-19, thereby warranting further consideration of their allegations.

The Gateway Pundit previously reported that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had modified the definition of “vaccine” to include the mRNA shots.

So, look at what the CDC did. Here’s the definition the CDC used on 26 August 2021:

• Vaccine– “a product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease.”
• Vaccination– “the act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease.”

Rather than admit the COVID-19 vaccine is not working as advertised, the CDC took a page out of Orwell’s 1984 and opted for new spin language.

Click here to read the full article on TGP.

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’85 years of glacier growth & stability in East Antarctica’, the study states. ‘Ice-sheet wide mass balance estimates start[ed] in late 1970s…have exhibited either an overall mass gain or been relative unchanged’

Climatedepot.com reports: Nature Communications: Our results demonstrate that the stability and growth in ice elevations observed in terrestrial basins over the past few decades are part of a trend spanning at least a century, and highlight the importance of understanding long-term changes when interpreting current dynamics. … However, in Antarctica, the scarcity of historical climate data makes climate reanalysis estimates before the 1970s largely uncertain^10,23, and observed trends cannot clearly be distinguished from natural variability^24,25.

Currently, the earliest ice-sheet wide mass balance estimates start in the late 1970s^3,6,7, and since then all the sub-regions examined in this study have exhibited either an overall mass gain or been relative unchanged.

…

Regardless of potential climatic changes, our results indicate that the glacier in Kemp and Mac Robertson Land and along Ingrid Christensen Coast, have accumulated mass during the past 85 years which inevitably have mitigated parts of the more recent mass loss from the marine basins in East Antarctica and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). This positive accumulation trend and positive mass balance is anticipated to persist as snowfall is expected to increase over the entire EAIS in the next century^54,55, and ice sheet modeling studies project positive mass balance estimates in all three sub-regions across all future RCP scenarios⁵⁶. Lastly, we determine frontal changes of 21 glaciers from 1937 to 2023 (Table S1 and Fig. S11). From the 85 years of observations, we find two distinct regional patterns; one of constant glacier surface elevations and one of ice thickening.

 

Click here to read the full article on Nature.

 

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Having cut his teeth in the mainstream media, including stints at the BBC, Sean witnessed the corruption within the system and developed a burning desire to expose the secrets that protect the elite and allow them to continue waging war on humanity. Disturbed by the agenda of the elites and dissatisfied with the alternative media, Sean decided it was time to shake things up. Knight of Joseon (https://joseon.com)

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The ongoing Israeli war on Gaza has extended its devastation beyond the immediate human toll, reaching a state of “ecocide” that impacts the environment in often overlooked ways.

The relentless bombings and military operations have not only obliterated infrastructure but also wreaked havoc on Gaza’s ecosystem.

The first four months of the war have inflicted $18.5 billion in damage to Gaza’s infrastructure, destroying up to 66 per cent of buildings and half of the besieged strip’s trees, and resulting in the deaths of more than 36,000 Palestinians, according to the health ministry in Gaza, the World Bank and the UN.

Pollution in Gaza spans water, debris, and air, creating severe environmental impacts that pose long-term threats to the health and livelihoods of its inhabitants. Over 100,000 cubic metres of sewage and wastewater are being discharged daily onto land or into the Mediterranean Sea, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The UNEP spokesperson told euronews.green in March that past marine pollution incidents in Gaza have led to elevated levels of chlorophyll and suspended organic matter in coastal waters, as well as gastrointestinal parasites. The current war is likely exacerbating these problems.

Simultaneously, solid waste is being disposed of in informal sites, where hazardous substances can seep into the porous soil and potentially contaminate Gaza’s primary water source, the aquifer. The rise in communicable diseases is alarming, driven by water scarcity, overcrowding, and a healthcare sector on the verge of collapse.

In the most overcrowded shelters in the south, there is only one toilet available for every 600 internally displaced persons, and access to running water is minimal, as reported by the American Near East Refugee Aid.

Debris and hazardous waste present a significant issue. As of January 7, UNEP estimated that the total amount of debris had reached 22.9 million tonnes, a number that has likely risen substantially since. This vast accumulation of rubble, combined with hazardous waste, is contaminating land and water sources, further exacerbating the humanitarian crisis. The United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) estimated that by mid-April, the Gaza Strip contained approximately 37 million tonnes of debris, equating to 300 kilogrammes per square metre.

“Gaza has more rubble than Ukraine, and to put that in perspective, the Ukrainian front line is 600 miles [nearly 1,000 kilometres] long, and Gaza is 25 miles [40 km] long,” according to Mungo Birch, head of the UNMAS programme in the Palestinian territories.

“This rubble is likely heavily contaminated with UXO [unexploded ordnance], and its clearance will be further complicated by other hazards in the rubble,” Birch was quoted as saying in international press.  

“There’s estimated to be over 800,000 tonnes of asbestos alone in the Gaza rubble.”

The war on Gaza is estimated to have produced between 420,265 and 652,552 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, comparable to burning over 1.5 million barrels of oil, according to British-American study, which also found that the greenhouse gas emissions produced in the first two months of the Gaza war exceeded the annual carbon footprint of over 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries. The study estimates that the climate impact of the Israeli war in the first 60 days is equivalent to burning at least 150,000 tonnes of coal.

The use of white phosphorus by the Israeli army has further contributed to environmental contamination. White phosphorus is harmful to humans through all routes of exposure, and the smoke it produces contains phosphoric acids and phosphine, which are harmful to the eyes and respiratory tract, as stated by the World Health Ogranisation.

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Featured image: A view of Palestinians as they try to continue their daily life amid Israeli attacks at the Jabalia Refugee Camp in Jabalia, Gaz on February 17, 2024 [Dawoud Abo Alkas – Anadolu Agency]

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Anyone who ever spent more than five minutes studying the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict knows that whenever the Neo-Nazi junta is having a hard time at the frontlines, there is a desperate need to raise the morale of its largely conscription-based forces.

Whether it was the grossly overhyped “Patriot” SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems “shooting down” half the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS), including their long-range bombers even when these are well beyond the “Patriot’s” maximum engagement range or the even more overhyped HIMARS that the mainstream propaganda machine is trying to portray as the “ultimate wunderwaffe” of the conflict, “destroying” the Russian military left and right.

In reality, the Kiev regime’s “real accomplishments” with these weapons boil down to murdering civilians, including people in territories it claims.

Obviously, this is nothing “out of the ordinary”, as the Neo-Nazi junta has been doing it for over a decade at this point. However, this is “not enough”. It can be argued that the worse the situation on the frontlines is, the bigger the PR “victories” need to be.

Namely, the Kiev regime is now claiming that it allegedly “took out” a Russian Su-57 next-generation fighter jet. According to its military intelligence (GUR), the supposed attack was launched on June 8 and struck the aircraft parked on the runway of the Akhtubinsk airbase in the country’s southern Astrakhan oblast (region), located over 700 km from the frontlines. It remains unclear whether the drones used in the supposed attack were really launched from Ukraine or if this was done by sabotage groups operating within Russian territory. In fact, we don’t even know whether this attack ever happened.

The GUR released what it claims are satellite images showing some damage to the part of the runway where the Su-57 was parked. However, the very low resolution of the footage makes it quite a challenge to assess the level of potential damage to the aircraft itself. What’s more, the image quality (or the lack thereof) indicates that this could easily be a rather simple fake. The timing is just perfect, in every sense of the word. Firstly, what are the chances of a satellite taking photos of the airbase at such a “perfect” moment? And if it was simply damaged, why haven’t the Russians removed the jet from the area and prevented further damage? In other words, there are way too many holes in this story. And while some Russian sources are also reporting that an attack took place, the extent of the damage to the Su-57 remains uncertain.

It’s unclear whether the aircraft will still be flyable or if there’s the possibility of disruption to the operations of other jets in the airbase or elsewhere in the wider region. The footage itself doesn’t show any significant damage to the Su-57, although there are claims that shrapnel might’ve damaged it. Both the Neo-Nazi junta and the mainstream propaganda machine are exhilarated about a “destroyed Russian stealth jet”, even though some seem to be a bit cautious with all the inconsistencies in the story. On the other hand, as is customary for the Kiev regime, it’s now claiming that a second Su-57 was “also destroyed”. This is a standard procedure in its PR “victories” approach, where rather unconvincing “evidence” of one is used to amplify the propaganda effect of others (virtually always non-existent ones).

However, even if the claim is true, it doesn’t change the strategic aspects of the conflict. It would certainly be a setback for Russia, as the country operates around two dozen of these advanced jets, but once again, apart from a propaganda effect, it doesn’t make things any better for the Neo-Nazi junta. The Su-57 is a significant asset for launching covert airstrikes on heavily defended targets in Ukraine, particularly areas where foreign mercenaries and NATO personnel are located. However, it’s hardly the only platform the VKS can use for this purpose, as its MiG-31K strike fighters armed with 9-A-7660 “Kinzhal” air-launched hypersonic missile systems can do the same, only faster and from much greater distances. Unlike the United States and NATO, Moscow doesn’t really place as much emphasis on stealth.

On the other hand, the Su-57 is a prized target for the political West and its Kiev regime puppets. The jet has been used in a plethora of missions since the beginning of the special military operation (SMO), flying in highly contested airspace guarded by approximately one-third of the former Soviet Union’s world-class air defenses. It has been used to launch various types of precision-guided munitions (PGMs), particularly in SEAD (suppression of enemy air defenses) missions, while it has also proven itself in air-to-air combat against advanced Soviet-era fighter jets. And while Russia fields a small fleet of Su-57s (particularly when compared to its counterparts in US/NATO and China), all this makes them by far the most thoroughly combat-proven next-generation aircraft. This gives Moscow’s enemies a lot of reasons for envy.

This is particularly true when taking into account that the Su-57 has been exposed to much greater risks than any other jet of its class, especially when compared to NATO equivalents, as the world’s most aggressive racketeering cartel dares to directly attack largely helpless opponents only. Thus, this PR “victory” effectively kills two birds with one stone – the goal of discrediting the Russian military and boosting the morale of the Neo-Nazi junta forces, as it keeps taking a nosedive, particularly now, when their lines are collapsing everywhere. It should also be taken into account that, if the Kiev regime’s claims are true (a highly questionable prospect), this incident still doesn’t diminish the capabilities of the Su-57. In fact, it can be argued it validates them, as Russia’s opponents have very little chance against its most advanced jet when it’s in the air.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Sukhoi Design Bureau, 054, Sukhoi Su-57 (Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

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***

The land area called Tibet, in south-western China, is a vast and strategically important part of the Chinese nation, resting on the borders of India, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar. The size of Tibet, if including most of the sparsely inhabited Tibetan Plateau as part of its territory, amounts to 970,000 square miles which is almost 4 times bigger than France.

The Chinese authorities, however, recognise the part of Tibet located on the western side of the plateau, and in 1965 the area was formally established as the Tibet Autonomous Region by Beijing. The Tibet Autonomous Region consists of 472,000 square miles which is still much larger than nearly every European country.

Tibet is the highest region on earth with an average altitude above sea level of nearly 4,400 metres. The overall temperature in winter remains below freezing. In the winter of 2018/2019, the coldest in Tibet for two decades, the average temperature was minus 4.3 degrees Celsius which was almost half a degree lower than in usual years.

Many Tibetans live outside of cities and towns. Sixty-nine percent of inhabitants in the central part of the Tibet Autonomous Region were living in rural areas by 2017. There they have farmed yaks and sheep on the high altitude, semi-arid grasslands and valleys, while they grow crops such as barley.

\With the introduction by Beijing of healthcare programmes in Tibet since 1951, the average life expectancy of Tibetan residents has grown significantly. At the start of 2020 the typical life expectancy in Tibet was 70.6 years, whereas in 1950 it had only been 35.5 years. Because of its elevation and challenging land, the population of the Tibet Autonomous Region in 2022 consisted of a still modest 3.64 million people; but this is a population increase of around 15 percent since 2012.

Asia’s biggest rivers can be traced to Tibet such as the Yangtze, the Mekong, and the Yellow, which are a vital water source for many people living in nations like China, India, Pakistan and Thailand.

In modern history Tibet was reintegrated to China just over 300 years ago.

The Qing dynasty of China assumed control over the region in 1720, when Chinese soldiers that year defeated and expelled the Mongol forces of the Dzungar Khanate from Tibet. Yet the history of Tibet as being part of China dates much further back, to the mid-13th century, when the region was incorporated to China under the Yuan dynasty. China’s authorities have strongly argued that Tibet continued to be a Chinese territory during the Ming dynasty which lasted until 1644.

Over elapsing centuries one of the greatest challenges to China’s control over Tibet occurred during the 1950s and 1960s, in the immediate years after the successful culmination of the Chinese revolution in 1949. The revolution re-established China’s independence after many years of meddling in the country by the Western powers, such as from the United States.

After 1948 the US had “lost China to communism” and policies were undertaken in Washington to reinstate their authority over China, with territories like Tibet identified as target areas. The CIA and to a lesser extent the US military helped to instigate anti-Chinese insurrections in Tibet, such as occurred from 1956 in the Kham and Amdo areas in the eastern part of the Tibetan Plateau.

The CIA directly intervened in Tibet and following 1956 went so far as to fly hundreds of Tibetan militants to the US, where they underwent training by CIA personnel at a facility in the state of Colorado. This military training centre, called Camp Hale, was built for US mountain troops in 1942 and was positioned high up the Rocky Mountains. In the latter stages of World War II, some Wehrmacht troops captured by the US Army in North Africa were sent to Camp Hale where they were kept prisoner.

After completion of training at Camp Hale the “Tibetan freedom fighters” were flown in planes belonging to a CIA airline, called the Intermountain Aviation and Intermountain Airways, and also by the US Air Force, to a secret base for operations against China constructed in the town of Aspen, a Colorado skiing hotspot.

The failed 1959 rebellion in Tibet against Beijing’s authority was most heavily encouraged by Washington. As early as May 1957 armed Tibetan groups were created with CIA support. The following year (June 1958) an anti-Chinese guerrilla army, the Chushi Gangdruk Volunteer Defense Force, was established and its members were subsequently armed and trained by the Americans. The 1959 rebellion was supported not only by the CIA but by intelligence agents from India and Nepal, countries that were staunch US allies at the time.

Image: The 14th Dalai Lama in 1956 (From the Public Domain)

The 14th Dalai Lama, an influential religious leader who is alive today, managed to evade Chinese government troops in March 1959 during the insurrection. Through wearing a disguise, on 17 March he fled Tibet southwards to India having been escorted to the border by CIA-trained Tibetan militants. Beijing’s soldiers were understandably enraged when they discovered the Dalai Lama was nowhere to be seen.

The Dalai Lama’s older brother, Gyalo Thondup, also still living, had a leading role in the 1959 revolt. Thondup was in contact with the Americans for years. He had visited Washington in 1951 and provided intelligence details and local knowledge about Tibet to senior American officials.

Thondup insisted the Dalai Lama was not told about CIA assistance to the Tibetans which is obviously untrue. US State Department documents, released in August 1998, outlined that the Dalai Lama himself received from the CIA $180,000 every year from the late 1950s to 1974. This means the Dalai Lama was already being furnished with large amounts of American money at the time of the 1959 rebellion. The sum of $180,000 in 1959 is currently worth almost $2 million.

The Dalai Lama was previously receiving a financial allowance from the CIA dating to at least the early 1950s, and maybe as far back as 1949, at the end of the revolution. The CIA budget, relating to Tibet, was multiple times larger than the funds that were allocated for the British and US-led coup against the Iranian government of Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953.

The Dalai Lama has backed the unification of separatist groups in Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, with the ultimate aim of these Chinese regions seceding altogether from China. The Dalai Lama said,

“Geography, history and currently Chinese occupation is connecting our three peoples. I remain optimistic that the true aspirations of the peoples of East Turkestan [Xinjiang], Inner Mongolia and Tibet will be fulfilled in a not too distant future”.

American media later acknowledged the covert CIA training of Tibetan militants in Colorado. The CIA was also involved in funding “Tibet Houses” in cities like New York and Geneva, while the CIA’s budget extended to providing “educational opportunities” to Tibetans at Cornell University in New York, and supplying the insurgents with military equipment.

On 6 January 1960 for example, unmarked CIA aircraft flying over Tibet dropped to the militants below 650 pallets containing weapons, medical supplies, and food. In the weeks before that, CIA planes had dropped military hardware such as hundreds of American M1 Garand rifles, grenades, mortars, and machine guns.

Two more CIA air drops consisted of a further 1,170 M1 Garand rifles, 200 cases of ammunition for the rifles, and 20 cases of grenades. The M1 Garand was the firearm most commonly used by the US Army in World War II and the Korean War, but by 1957 the rifle was considered obsolete by the Americans.

Another CIA air drop in early 1960 amounting to 430 pallets, which contained weapons and other supplies, was sent to 4,000 Tibetan insurgents below. Their position was identified by China’s military pilots and heavily bombed. Occasionally, Chinese warplanes dropped leaflets ordering the militants to surrender and to ignore the Americans.

The Chinese aircraft often attacked enemy positions in the morning, at about noon, and then at around 3 pm or 4 pm. Fifteen warplanes would arrive in groups of five with each carrying between 15 to 20 bombs. Once the enemy forces were located, it was not a hard task for China’s pilots to execute their combat mission. Across the Tibetan Plateau there is scarcely any cover in which to conceal men and equipment. For the Chinese airmen the most difficult job was finding the enemy due to the vastness of the land.

According to a retired CIA officer living in the eastern United States, the Americans wanted to inflict injury on the Chinese in Tibet, and were aware they would be unlikely to drive Beijing’s divisions out of the area.

Image: Tsarong in captivity (From the Public Domain)

Tibetan guerrilla forces, with logistical support provided by the US, attacked China’s lengthy supply lines in Tibet and attempted to tie down Chinese soldiers and make life difficult for them. These attacks, although they inflicted damage, could not succeed over time because of the greater size of China’s military; and the fact that, compared to the enemy, Beijing’s troops were also better equipped and had advanced weapons like the Chinese Type 56 assault rifle, which was first produced in 1956.

Control over the Tibetan Plateau is crucial for China. Robert Barnett, an author who focuses on Tibet, wrote that the Tibetan Plateau from a military viewpoint is important because it is made up of the high ground and central, south and east Asia converge around it.

From the late 1950s CIA training camps were set up in Nepal including close to Pokhara, Nepal’s second biggest city, and in the district of Mustang, where Tibetan insurgents were trained by CIA operatives. There were at least 15 camps being used which were spread over Nepal, India, and inside China itself in Tibet.

By using Nepal and India as bases, the Americans were involving those two countries in the conflict against China. In the year 1964, the CIA spent $500,000 (worth $5 million today) on the guerrillas in Nepal; $400,000 ($4 million today) for the training of Tibetans in Colorado; $225,000 ($2.2 million today) on equipment, transportation and expenses; $185,000 ($1.8 million today) for flying to India the Tibetans trained in Colorado; $125,000 ($1.2 million today) for expenses, equipment and supplies to Tibetan reconnaissance teams, and on the storage of supplies, aircraft refuelling, agents’ salaries, and formulation of traineeships for the network of agents in Tibet.

Moreover, the CIA in 1964 spent $75,000 ($744,000 today) on maintaining the Tibet Houses in New York, Geneva, and other cities; $45,000 ($446,000 today) on “educational programmes” for 20 Tibetan youths; and the Dalai Lama of course received his annual $180,000. The Dalai Lama’s entourage stressed that he never spent any of the money on himself.

A security guard for the Dalai Lama, Lobsang Tsultrim, said that he was hired by the CIA in 1964 and had no qualms about it. The insurgents could be naive and were often unable to comprehend that the Americans were using them for their own strategic purposes. The Dalai Lama, regardless, admitted that the US military aid was “entirely political” in nature.

At the end of 1962 the Americans were granted access to an airfield beside New Delhi, India’s capital city. From this airfield the Tibetan militants were flown to Colorado in groups of 40 or 50 men.

Upon finishing their training in the US they were returned to India by aircraft, and shortly thereafter north to Tibet where they jumped out of the planes and deployed their parachutes. Hundreds of other Tibetan insurgents were flown to the American-held islands of Okinawa and Guam where they received training in guerrilla warfare, and they were then sent back to Tibet to fight against the Chinese forces.

A joint CIA-Indian command centre was set up in New Delhi in the early 1960s, as relations between India and China continued to worsen during this period. The Dalai Lama’s brother, Thondup, was forefront in directing US military aid through India’s northern region of Darjeeling across the Indian-Chinese border into Tibet.

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This article was originally published on Geopolitica.RU.

Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree and he writes primarily on foreign affairs and historical subjects. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Sources

Politics in China: An Introduction, edited by William A. Joseph (Oxford University Press; 3rd edition, 6 June 2019)

“Tibet experiences coldest winter in 19 years”, Xinhua, 11 March 2019

“Total population of Tibet autonomous region in China from 2012 to 2022”, Statista, 7 March 2024

Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira, The Second Cold War: Geopolitics and the Strategic Dimensions of the USA (Springer; 1st edition, 23 June 2017)

“At the Highlanders’ Museum, Indian Talwar Sword, Flintlock Musket, Chinese Type 56 Assult [Assault] rifle, WWI Heavy Machine Gun, Kris Dagger”, The Highlanders’ Museum

“US Rifle Cal .30 M1 [Garand]”, Imperial War Museum

Featured image is from Geopolitica.ru

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History of World War II: Operation Barbarossa, the Allied Firebombing of German Cities and Japan’s Early Conquests

By Shane Quinn

The first two chapters focus on German preparations as they geared up to launch their 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, called Operation Barbarossa, which began eight decades ago. It was named after King Frederick Barbarossa, a Prussian emperor who in the 12th century had waged war against the Slavic peoples. Analysed also in the opening two chapters are the Soviet Union’s preparations for a conflict with Nazi Germany.

The remaining chapters focus for the large part on the fighting itself, as the Nazis and their Axis allies, the Romanians and Finns at first, swarmed across Soviet frontiers in the early hours of 22 June 1941. The German-led invasion of the USSR was the largest military offensive in history, consisting of almost four million invading troops. Its outcome would decide whether the post-World War II landscape comprised of an American-German dominated globe, or an American-Soviet dominated globe. The Nazi-Soviet war was, as a consequence, a crucial event in modern history and its result was felt for decades afterward and, indeed, to the present day.

Click here to read the e-Book.

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***

Based on real-life events, comes the corporate thriller, Protocol 7.

Alexis Koprowski, a devoted mother and small-town family lawyer, Adrian Jay, a renegade doctor exiled from the medical profession, and Steve Schilling, a virologist at a prominent vaccine laboratory turned corporate whistleblower, work together to hold a large pharmaceutical corporation accountable for allegedly fraudulent test results behind a failing mumps vaccine.

Protocol 7 takes us behind the corporate curtain, exposing a chain of command that devolves responsibility, prioritizes profits over people, and fosters an amoral mindset of “just following orders.”

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***

Even before Israel exposed its heart of darkness to the world in the aftermath of Oct 7, the term “the ugly Israeli” was already a thing. According to many reports, Israelis traveling internationally have developed a reputation for unruliness, rudeness, and assertiveness; observed instances of Israelis arguing, yelling, and disregarding rules have led to negative perceptions by airline staff and other travelers abroad, and even to a Ynet news report that wonders, “Are Israel’s tourists the worst in the world?” But such characterizations of a national stereotype are just the tip of the iceberg.

The “heart, mind and soul” of the Israeli public in general is twisted, maybe even beyond redemption. Israel is often described by analysts in the Arab media as an army that has a state rather than a state that has an army. Support for military measures designed to entrench and expand Zionist political and territorial control of historic Palestine has been a characteristic of the Israeli public since the entity’s violent establishment on 78 percent of Palestine in 1948. This mass public support of violence is the natural human condition of a “State of Terror,” one that came into being through massacres very much like those taking place in Gaza daily now, and through robbery and deceit (very much like that being exercised now by Netanyahu and his partner in crime, Joe Biden) on the backs of the mostly agrarian Palestinian people at the time. (See State of Terror: How Terrorism Created Modern Israel by Thomas Suarez, “The first comprehensive and structured analysis of the violence and terror employed by the Zionist movement and later the state of Israel against the people of Palestine”, according to Ilan Pappé.)

The aftermath of October 7th has disrupted Israel’s success in directly influencing the perceptions of the publics of other nations and garnering tolerance for the Israeli government’s strategic objectives. But the Israeli public is still firmly in the government’s public policy grip.

The Zionist Jewish entity controls not only the content and limits of Jewish identity, but also the content and limits of Palestinian lives. My concern here with the Israelis and their grandiose and self-absorbed national character is to expose and condemn their “distance from humanity,” their “millennia-old disdain for non-Jews” (i.e., their racism), which have shaped the horrendous and unjust world in which Palestinians have lived for more than 76 years and made the Israeli public complicit in genocide.

The censorship and repression of the Palestinian, international, and Israeli media hide some of the horrors of Israel’s war on Gaza’s children. But is it really possible that the Israeli public is unaware of the story the whole world is watching with horror, a story of “famished Palestinians killed outside aid trucks on Al-Rashid Street in February; of tent-dwellers in Rafah burned alive in Israeli air strikes; of women and children subsisting on 245 calories a day?” Do they honestly believe instead what Benjamin Netanyahu describes as “the victory of Judaeo-Christian civilisation against barbarism?”

In an attempt to search the Israeli public’s heart of darkness, Eitan Bronstein Aparicio (De-Colonizer) recently published a video of himself having conversations with random Israelis in May 2024 about what Israel is doing in Gaza and the possibility that its actions will ultimately be recognized as genocide.

Aparicio asks these individuals for their opinion on the lawsuit against Israel brought by South Africa before the International Court of Justice in The Hague (On February 16, the ICJ called on Israel to avoid actions that could lead to genocide and to facilitate humanitarian access for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.) Unsurprisingly, their responses show a uniform obliviousness to their government’s willful causing of great suffering to Palestinian civilians, including the “mowing” of Palestinian children. They deny it’s happening, even as the UN has put Israel on its “blacklist” for the killing, maiming, recruitment of minors, bombings of schools and hospitals, and attacks on humanitarian aid workers as well as Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon of war. Aparicio says:

“All the people I interviewed reject it [the idea that Israel is conducting a genocide on Palestinians] and even react to it with anger.”

At the very least, the scale and nature of Israeli military operations in Gaza, combined with policies that result in severe Palestinian suffering, suggest an intent to weaken or destroy the Palestinian population in Gaza. But Israelis are in self-absorbed denial.

Like the Nazi regime in Germany, the Zionist regime has been highly effective in its use of propaganda (hasbara), including exploitation of the Holocaust to shape public opinion, especially the Jewish-Zionist entity’s own public. It uses the Holocaust to justify military actions, occupation policies, and settlement expansion in the Palestinian territories, invoking historical suffering to justify contemporary political objectives.

Zionist leaders cooperated with Nazi Germany (the Haavara Agreement of 1933 — i.e., before the Holocaust) to allow Jewish emigration and the transfer of Jewish assets from Germany to then “British Mandatory Palestine,” thus helping to undermine the anti-Nazi boycott, which was supported by many European and American Jews and posed a potential threat to the German economy.

Under the Agreement, Jews emigrating from Germany could use their assets to purchase German-manufactured goods for export to Palestine. This created a substantial export market for German factories in British-ruled Palestine, which was beneficial for the German economy during a time of economic hardship. The largely agrarian Palestinian population was locked out, then as now, of the economic benefits of the influx of Jewish capital and labor to Palestine.

To me, the De-Colonizer interviews with Israelis are as chilling as the following excerpt from the cross-examination of Otto Ohlendorf, commander of Einsatzgruppe D, during the Nuremberg trials, which United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca P. Albanese shared on Facebook:

Q. Will you explain to the Tribunal what conceivable threat to the security of the Wehrmacht a child constituted in your judgment?

A. I believe I cannot add anything to your previous question. I did not have to determine the danger but the order contained that all Jews including the children were considered to constitute a danger for the security of this area.

Q. Will you agree that there was absolutely no rational basis for killing children except genocide and the killing of races?

A. I believe that it is very simple to explain if one starts from the fact that this order did not only try to achieve security, but also permanent security because the children would grow up and surely, being the children of parents who had been killed, they would constitute a danger no smaller than that of the parents.

When I came across the De-Colonizer video, I was curious to hear how the Israeli respondents would handle Aparicio’s question on the Gaza genocide, especially because Israeli PR has long invoked the term “ethnic cleansing” (in reference to Israeli Jews) as a tactic to create a negative association with the Palestinian right of return, framing it as something that could lead to the displacement of Israeli Jews. (See Frank Luntz’s report, which was commissioned by The Israel Project and came to light in 2009. It suggests several fact-denying strategies for Israel’s public policy communication.) The loaded term “ethnic cleansing” resonates negatively with Western audiences, says the report, but as it turns out, the concept of genocide, especially when it is not merely rhetorical and is happening before our eyes, also does.

The Israeli respondents in the video recycle all the most familiar tropes of Zionist propaganda, making use of several strategies of PR communication in Luntz’s report, such as denial, deflection, and accusations of antisemitism. They pretend that the war on Gaza with its wholesale obliteration of neighborhoods and families, schools, hospitals and markets, is an equal struggle between an Israeli state that has the fourth most powerful army in the world (F16s, nuclear weapons, the unconditional logistical, political and diplomatic support of the most powerful state on earth: the USA, and massive trading privileges from the EU) … and Hamas. They pretend that it all started on Oct 7, 2023 and do not acknowledge that Palestinians have lived for so long, not just with the blockade of Gaza, but also with the daily threat of Israeli incursions, the kidnapping of their children by brutal Israeli soldiers, the demolition of their homes, the humiliation of men, women and children at countless checkpoints, and the daily interference with normal life at every imaginable level.

Comparing Israel and the Palestinian resistance is like comparing the rapist and the rapist’s victim. And yet, without exception, the De-Colonizer respondents do just that, with one of them saying (appallingly, since the issue being discussed is genocide) at minute 4:44— “and I say, ‘I wish they didn’t exist.’”

Another respondent says,

“It’s a war that’s sad for both sides. We on the Israeli side didn’t start it. It opened, exploded, on October 7, but there is a war, and it is sad for both Israelis and Palestinians. A war, but it’s a kind of contact between the Palestinian population, Hamas, and Israel.”

To the Israeli public, the unfolding horror in Gaza is a “kind of contact” the nature of which appears to be a mystery. It’s genocide, folks. The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories has found “reasonable grounds” to believe that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The report presented at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, entitled ‘Anatomy of a Genocide’, outlines specific acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

Aparicio concludes:

“The probability that in a few years’ time it will be proven that Israel has committed a genocide must also be taken into account by the Israelis themselves. This is a potential future that will shock all those who have not lost their humanity and who have not been swept away by the prevailing racism.”

It must be exhausting, this denial and rationalization on the part of Israelis. But then, so is facing the facts. A Jewish-American friend posted on Facebook about her exhaustion as she grapples with these gruesome facts:

“I am so exhausted that ‘exhausted’ doesn’t even fully cover how I feel from having my secondary trauma as a second gen Shoah survivor triggered constantly since Israel started its genocide in Gaza. The flip-flopping from the grief, shame, empathetic pain & sheer rage toward the perpetrators & the “Good Germans” who are enabling it is pushing the limits of my sanity. I hold onto stories of courage, resistance & selfless compassion as my life rafts in this sea of hate & sheer evil.”

I wrote this blog post with this question in my mind about Israelis: Have they “lost their humanity” for good? Do they need to wait “a few years’ time” for Israel’s crimes against humanity to be “proven” before being “shocked.” One of them says, “Alas, if it comes to that!” Well, it has come to that … and more.

Through control of the media, the spread of Zionist ideology, and the hasbara portrayal of the settler-colonial Jewish Zionist state as a victim figure with “a right to exist” forcibly on someone else’s land, Israel manipulates public perception and promotes the public’s complicity with the destruction of the Palestinian population in Gaza. The Israeli Jews who dissent must first go through a wrenching “identity crisis” and then, like the historian Ilan Pappé, be hounded out of Israel. Pappé moved out in 2008 after appearing in an Israeli newspaper at the center of a target and receiving several death threats.

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This article was originally published on the author’s Medium.

Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem and whose mother’s side of the family is from Ijzim, south of Haifa. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank. She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Frame captured from a De-Colonizer 1948 video titled “Une conversation en hébreu sur le génocide”

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***

On March 24th, this journalist exposed how London was at the forefront of efforts to launch a ground invasion of Yugoslavia, during NATO’s illegal March-May 1999 bombing campaign.

Mercifully, this noxious project never came to pass, but declassified files show there was a further, secret component to Britain’s war effort in Kosovo. MI6 covertly sought to manipulate public opinion at home and within Belgrade via wide-ranging propaganda campaigns, manufacturing consent for President Slobodan Milosevic’s indictment for war crimes, removal from office, and more.

NATO’s criminal bombing of Yugoslavia was launched, and sustained, upon atrocity propaganda. Claims Belgrade’s forces were perpetrating a modern-day Holocaust abounded throughout, despite the alliance’s air assault ostensibly being launched to prevent such carnage.

Western officials’ calculations of civilians slaughtered by the Yugoslav army grew ever-wilder. At one stage, a NATO spokesperson asserted 100,000 were dead. When Yugoslav officials were prosecuted over the conflict by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the total was revised down to a vague “hundreds.”

At every step though, Western media reported as gospel whatever nonsense NATO and Western government officials asserted, while framing the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)—a sadistic, civilian-targeting CIA and MI6-backed jihadist militia with whom the Yugoslav army was truly at war—as courageous freedom fighters.

As we shall see, the BBC, working in close collaboration with British intelligence, was an eager belligerent in this information war.

This blitz included a completely bogus Panorama “documentary,” featuring false eyewitness testimony of heinous atrocities, purportedly committed by Belgrade’s forces. Its effects were devastating, by design. The sordid episode’s relevance to future U.S. and British proxy conflicts, in Libya, Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere, could not be clearer, or graver.

“Editorial Control”

Among the declassified British government papers reviewed for this article is an April 29, 1999, memo dispatched from Michael Pakenham, then-head of London’s Joint Intelligence Committee, to John Sawers, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s “foreign policy adviser,” who in 2009 was appointed MI6 chief. It discussed clandestine “work with the media” since NATO’s aerial assault on Belgrade had already begun five weeks earlier, beginning with a section on “broadcasting to the Serb people.”

The BBC and MI6 were said to have “put substantial effort into increasing news broadcasting” to Yugoslavia, and neighboring Albania and Macedonia, since the bombing began. Due to government restrictions on foreign media during the war, the pair were investigating methods of ensuring broadcasts into Belgrade were not interrupted. U.S. propaganda outlets Radio Free Europe and Voice of America had already identified methods of doing so, and “offered to share their facilities with the BBC.”

Yet, the pair’s “heavy output” meant whatever remaining airtime was made available to the British state broadcaster—such as “the middle of the night”—“would be unattractive.” The BBC “would thus prefer to set up their own arrangements.” One option was to bombard Yugoslav audiences with propaganda via CNN and Sky News. The memo lamented that, “relatively few Yugoslavs have satellite dishes,” therefore denting the reach of British Satellite News, branded London’s “global fake news network” by academic propaganda expert David Miller.

Source: Document courtesy of Kit Klarenberg

Still, Pakenham wrote, “in times of crisis, word spreads fast,” meaning that even a small initial impact could have a resultant multiplier effect locally, due to a “thirst for news.” In any event, British Satellite News was still managing to broadcast regular news packages, over which the Foreign Office—read: British intelligence—had “editorial control,” into Belgrade via Montenegro. The Yugoslav republic was at that time led by corrupt autocrat Milo Djukanovic, who covertly coordinated his political activities with MI6.

Earlier that month, a memo authored by MI6 officer Julian Braithwaite observed that Montenegrin media were ideal to “broadcast criticism of Milosevic,” as “its powerful transmitters reach deep into Kosovo and Serbia.” He urged Downing Street to express “visible and immediate support to Djukanovic,” as “we need to demonstrate that reform pays, and we look after our friends.” This could take the form of Blair giving an interview to local news outlets, explaining “why we do not hold Montenegro responsible,” while announcing “assistance” for Djukanovic.

Source: Document courtesy of Kit Klarenberg

Elsewhere in Pakenham’s memo, he noted the U.S. was broadcasting propaganda into Yugoslavia from a plane, flying low above the region. Embarrassingly, “personal contacts” in Belgrade suggested to him “it has not gone down well.”

Derisively dubbed “NATO TV” locally, it was “regarded as a joke” by viewers, “partly because the Serbian accent of the presenter is poor.” By contrast, internet-based propaganda campaigns were considered “a success story.”

Official Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence webpages publishing information on the Kosovo War, translated into Serbian, were attracting “at least 1,000 hits a day from Yugoslavia.” Pakenham suggested there would be “other hits from Yugoslavs on which we cannot put even an imprecise figure.” At the start of April, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook authored “a special internet message to the people of Serbia,” and a second was being considered.

“Clobba Slobba”

More sinisterly, a dedicated Cabinet Office “Coordination Group” was compiling a “long list” of Yugoslav internet users, and “some agencies” were “developing ways of exploiting it effectively without any British hand showing.” The Group more widely was concerned with disseminating word of “Serb brutalities” in Kosovo, and “abuse of power of the Milosevic family and his cronies,” into Belgrade, “in a way which does not show British fingerprints.”

As such, the Coordination Group tasked British embassies in Yugoslavia’s neighboring countries “to feed material into local media for unattributable publication, [which] would be read by some Serbs.” Two articles on the Group’s core propaganda themes had already been disseminated in this manner; Pakenham promised “there will be more.” The same material was furthermore “made available to NATO.” Meanwhile, the Group was “trying to arrange for an Interpol investigation to be started into Marko Milosevic.”

In addition to the Yugoslav president’s son, the Group “compiled a list of Serbs outside the Milosevic family who are regime members or supporters important to Milosevic personally, on which it is now looking for usable information on corruption and other publishable behaviour.” This hunt was foreshadowed in Julian Braithwaite’s memo, which stated that Blair’s notorious spin doctor, Alistair Campbell, wanted to brief the British press “that Interpol is about to publish an arrest warrant” for Marko.

Source: felix-edmund.livejournal.com

Meanwhile, The Sun was “ready to send the paparazzi after him.” Then the crown jewel of Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire, it boasted a daily circulation in the tens of millions. British newspaper front pages, and reporting more generally, throughout NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia, almost unequivocally cheered the illegal campaign’s success, jingoistically tubthumping for ever-greater aggression. Yet, the declassified files show that the BBC and MI6 propaganda outburst was necessary precisely because the airstrikes were an abject failure.

In Braithwaite’s missive, he complained that Britain’s efforts to “convince military commanders and public opinion to turn against Milosevic” were entirely counterproductive. Serbs were “rallying round the flag” and “a blitz mentality” had set in locally. “Anger, bitterness and betrayal” were “common emotions” among his personal contacts in Belgrade. “Many staunch opponents of Milosevic” resolved to support the President, “while their country is under attack.”

Furthermore, the destruction of a prominent bridge in Novi Sad, “Serbia’s most liberal city,” had alienated local inhabitants and “Belgrade’s pro-Western intelligentsia,” making “pro-Western policies and connections unfashionable” in Yugoslavia. “This is a problem for us,” Braithwaite lamented.

A destroyed bridge in the city of Novi Sad, April 26, 1999. More than 1,500 settlements, 60 bridges, 30% of all schools, and about 100 monuments were destroyed in the criminal NATO bombing of Serbia. MI6 agent Julian Braithwaite worried that the destruction of the bridge created a public relations problem. [Source: felix-edmond.livejournal.com]

Deadly Web of Deceit Weaved

British intelligence got the opportunity to turn Yugoslav citizens, in particular pro-Western liberals, against Milosevic—or try to—by portraying Belgrade’s forces as engaged in genocide against Kosovo Albanian civilians, at his direct order. This was provided by retransmitting an April 28, 1999, BBC Panorama “documentary” into the country, via “local television stations” in neighboring states, “whose programmes can be received in Serbia.”

The Killing of Kosovo was never repeated, and cannot be viewed online today. All that remains is an official transcript from the time. In the program, multiple interviewees, including U.S. General Wesley Clark, who oversaw NATO’s bombing as Supreme Allied Commander Europe, and Kosovo Albanian refugees, accused Milosevic of personally orchestrating the violent, “wholesale expulsion” of innocent civilians from the province, deploying rampaging Yugoslav security and paramilitary forces for the purpose, who left a vast trail of massacred innocents, razed villages, and gang rape everywhere they went.

The tales of alleged atrocities reported by refugee talking heads in the program were almost invariably as lurid as they were ludicrous. One told the BBC she “heard” that Yugoslav forces “caught 20 young women and girls,” then executed “most of their husbands…in front of their eyes.” The surviving women were reportedly forced to “serve” Belgrade’s troops “as if they were their wives”—“they had to serve them during the day and sleep with them at night.”

Meanwhile, several interviewees said they personally saw “Serbs” commit rape and mass murder of their friends, relatives and neighbors. Unbelievably though, they were not only allowed to live to tell the tale, but sent safely over the border to Albania. There, as Yugoslav forces would have known, NATO, Western journalists, and rights groups waited in profusion, ready to amplify their stories to the world. Other talking heads spoke of roads soaked with blood, and littered with dozens of corpses.

Kosovo was at that time subject to intensive, daily NATO reconnaissance flights. Nothing resembling any of the scenes described has ever emerged. Strikingly, Panorama elsewhere cited grainy, barely discernible “satellite imagery” of “what appears to be” mass graves in the province, provided by the military alliance. Why the program producers did not think to ask if those satellites had detected anything to corroborate any of their interviewees’ tales is not clear.

Relevantly, while the bombing was ongoing, British journalist Audrey Gillan interviewed many Kosovo Albanians in a refugee camp in Macedonia, in search of “real evidence” for the monstrous claims of mass rape and murder in the province emanating from Western officials. She found none. An unnamed OSCE source told her they suspected the KLA “had been persuading people to talk in bigger numbers, to crank up the horror so that NATO might be persuaded to send ground troops in faster.”

Nevertheless, BBC host Jane Corbin did ask some tough questions, namely, “will Mr. Milosevic ever be brought to justice?” and “how can NATO negotiate a settlement with a man they have openly called a war criminal?” She firmly informed ICTY chief prosecutor Louise Arbour, “your credibility is on the line…people must stand trial, those at the very top, to make your job worthwhile at all.” Elsewhere, she demanded assurances from Robin Cook that the Yugoslav President would not be granted amnesty in exchange for peace.

“Patriotic Duty”

The ICTY answered the BBC’s call on May 24, 1999, indicting Milosevic for war crimes, and crimes against humanity, in Kosovo. Mysteriously, not a single “eyewitness” featured in the Panorama program appeared at his resultant trial, and the “documentary” was not entered into evidence. No wonder—proceedings would have been an even bigger disaster for NATO then. As it was, the tribunal incinerated Western narratives of what transpired in the province, and why the alliance had to “intervene.”

Multiple Yugoslav officials testified that not only was there no plan to displace, let alone carry out a genocide againt Kosovo’s Albanian population, but the army had strict instructions to prevent refugee flows, while protecting civilians from KLA attacks and conscription. In some cases, the separatist militia forcibly recruited children.

One army colonel, suffering severe health issues due to NATO’s concealed, illegal use of depleted uranium, told the ICTY he had urged citizens to stay after the bombing began, but assisted those who wished to flee.

“There is nothing sadder than watching a column of poor people who are moving from their homes on someone’s instructions,” he contemporaneously lamented in his field diary. “Soldiers are the way they are; they give juice and cookies to children in passing.”

Those “instructions” were given by the Kosovo Liberation Army itself. One of the group’s operatives, who “[filmed] the plight of displaced Albanian civilians with a video camera” for Western consumption, admitted to The Guardian in June 1999 that “KLA advice, rather than Serbian deportations” prompted the exodus.

His account is corroborated by ICTY testimony of Eve-Ann Prentice, a mainstream British journalist almost killed in a May 1999 NATO airstrike, while traveling through Kosovo:

“Ordinary civilian ethnic Albanians…had been told it was their patriotic duty to leave because the world was watching. This was their one big opportunity to make Kosovo part of Albania…NATO was there, ready to come in, and anybody who failed to join this exodus was somehow not supporting the Albanian cause…They were frightened of the bombing, they were frightened of the KLA, they didn’t really want to leave their homes.”

Fear of “being killed or injured” by NATO bombing was, per Prentice, “justified.” While in Kosovo, she “saw many civilians dead and injured, many ordinary homes that were bombed by NATO.” These anxieties were greatly amplified, she explained, by the military alliance’s illegal assault intensifying over time, its aircraft terrorizingly flying ever-lower overhead. School facilities, apartment blocks, and other civilian infrastructure were reduced to total rubble in targeted, repeat strikes along the way.

NATO member states were the ICTY’s key funders and facilitators. There was no question of the alliance being held accountable for war crimes it committed in Yugoslavia. “You’re more likely to see the UN building dismantled brick-by-brick and thrown into the Atlantic than to see NATO pilots go before a UN tribunal,” a Spokesman for the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives boasted in May 1999. The total number of civilians killed by military alliance bombing that year will likely never be known.

The ICTY did investigate whether NATO’s April 23, 1999, strike on the headquarters of Belgrade’s RTS TV, which killed 16 staff and trapped 16 more in rubble for days afterward, constituted a war crime.

Radio Television of Serbia headquarters in Belgrade bombed by NATO on April 23, 1999. [Source: reddit.com]

 

The Tribunal concluded that, while the site was not a military target, the action aimed to disrupt the state’s communications network, so it was still legitimate. It moreover found NATO warned Yugoslav authorities weeks prior that RTS may be caught in the crossfire, unless six hours of uncensored Western news reports were broadcast daily.

This would, the alliance argued, make RTS an “acceptable instrument of public information,” thus averting its destruction. The ultimatum is rendered considerably more perverse, and duplicitous, given the declassified files reviewed here. All along, NATO and its member states—in particular Britain, leading proponent of Yugoslavia’s all-out invasion—had numerous cloak-and-dagger means to transmit whatever they wished into the country they were criminally destroying.

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Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. Follow him on Twitter @KitKlarenberg.

Featured image source

Recentemente, têm-se espalhado rumores sobre uma possível autorização ocidental para o regime de Kiev lançar ataques contra o território “profundo” da Federação Russa. Até recentemente, a posição oficial da OTAN era permitir ataques apenas contra alvos dentro do território que o Ocidente reconhece como “ucraniano” – o que inclui as Novas Regiões e a Crimeia. No entanto, há poucos dias Washington alterou as suas diretrizes para permitir ataques em cidades fronteiriças russas. Agora resta saber até que distância os ataques serão “permitidos”.

Aparentemente, os EUA já recuaram do seu plano inicial. Numa declaração recente, o presidente dos EUA, Joe Biden, deixou claro que a Ucrânia não está autorizada a usar mísseis fornecidos por Washington contra alvos “no interior” da Rússia. As incursões transfronteiriças já haviam sido autorizadas, mas houve discussão sobre autorizar ou não ataques mais profundos – como contra Moscou, por exemplo. Biden, porém, descartou tal hipótese.

Biden não negou que a Ucrânia pudesse atacar alvos fora da zona de conflito. Segundo o presidente dos EUA, o regime proxy tem o direito de atacar alvos em regiões fronteiriças, com restrições apenas a ataques em áreas mais distantes. A sua política parece tentar conciliar medidas escalonadoras e pacificadoras. Biden quer “permitir” os ataques, mas evitar irritar a Rússia com possíveis manobras ucranianas contra Moscou ou o Kremlin.

“[A Ucrânia pode atacar] apenas nas proximidades da fronteira quando [as armas russas] estão a ser usadas do outro lado da fronteira para atacar alvos específicos na Ucrânia (…) Não estamos a autorizar ataques a 320 quilômetros da Rússia e não estamos autorizando ataques a Moscou, ao Kremlin”, disse ele.

Na mesma ocasião, Biden também manifestou preocupação com possíveis reações russas à “autorização” de ataques transfronteiriços. Anteriormente, Moscou já havia deixado claro que tal iniciativa deveria ser considerada uma participação direta do Ocidente na guerra. Durante o Fórum Econômico de São Petersburgo, o presidente russo, Vladimir Putin, afirmou que está considerando a possibilidade de enviar armas para países inimigos dos EUA, caso o território russo seja ameaçado por mísseis ocidentais. Talvez o receio de uma possível retaliação russa tenha sido a principal razão pela qual Biden decidiu recuar na sua retórica e afirmar que “apenas” regiões fronteiriças podem ser atacadas, “evitando” incursões mais intensas.

Para compreender bem o caso, devemos considerar as circunstâncias reais nas regiões fronteiriças. Os ataques ucranianos têm ocorrido quase diariamente desde 2022. Cidades como Belgorod e Kursk são alvos frequentes da artilharia de Kiev. Estes ataques covardes a áreas civis foram a razão da recente operação da Rússia em Kharkov, que lhe permitiu expandir a zona de segurança para Belgorod. Washington afirmou que a autorização de ataques transfronteiriços foi uma “resposta” à incursão russa em Kharkov, o que é de fato irônico, dado que o Ocidente permaneceu em silêncio face a todos os crimes ucranianos na fronteira russa.

Na prática, a “autorização” não significa praticamente nada. A Ucrânia sempre atacou estas regiões e continuará a fazê-lo até que a Rússia consiga neutralizar todas as posições inimigas perto da fronteira. Contudo, o próprio aparelho de propaganda ocidental colocou os EUA numa situação desconfortável. A mídia ocidental começou a relatar as notícias como uma grande escalada. A opinião pública foi levada a acreditar que Kiev estava agora “autorizada” a atacar Moscou – como se o regime tivesse capacidade para o fazer. Os rumores tornaram-se tão graves que o próprio presidente americano teve que se manifestar e recuar, deixando claro que a “profundidade territorial” russa que pode ser atacada é a região fronteiriça.

Na verdade, Kiev já atacou Moscou em diversas ocasiões, atingindo edifícios residenciais e o próprio Kremlin. No entanto, estes foram ataques fracos de drones, sem potencial para causar grandes danos. O regime está extremamente enfraquecido e é pouco provável que consiga atingir alvos estratégicos na capital russa, uma vez que os mísseis seriam certamente neutralizados a tempo pelas forças de defesa russas. Neste sentido, as declarações de Biden parecem realmente óbvias: os ataques ucranianos permanecerão restritos às fronteiras, simplesmente porque é tudo o que a Ucrânia é capaz de fazer.

No entanto, o presidente dos EUA não está a ser eficaz em evitar a escalada ao dizer isto. Ao enfatizar a sua aprovação aos ataques ucranianos nas fronteiras, Biden está a assumir a responsabilidade pelas mortes de civis russos em cidades como Belgorod e Kursk. As consequências desta medida poderão ser extremamente graves para o Ocidente, uma vez que, como já alertaram as autoridades russas, o cenário pode ser descrito como um envolvimento direto da OTAN.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

 

Artigo em inglês : US backs down on rhetoric, but fails to stop escalation, 7 de Junho de 2024.

Imagem : InfoBrics

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Lucas Leiroz, jornalista, pesquisador do Center for Geostrategic Studies, consultor geopolítico.

Você pode seguir Lucas Leiroz em: https://t.me/lucasleiroz e https://twitter.com/leiroz_lucas

Imagem : InfoBrics

 

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The United States arms industry is not producing the basic ammunition required to sustain support for Ukraine and Israel, Bloomberg reported on June 8. This is an extraordinary situation since Russia’s armed industry is booming despite facing major Western sanctions.

According to the outlet, the US defence industry gave priority to the manufacture of high-tech ammunition and halted the production of basic artillery such as 155-millimetre ammunition, the most used in the wars that are being fought today. The US is also facing a shortage of basic products, such as gunpowder or trinitrotoluene (TNT), to produce these munitions and have had to turn to other countries, such as Poland and Turkey, to obtain supplies.

At some point an attempt was made to replace the 155-millimetre ammunition with higher-tech projectiles on the battlefront in Ukraine, but the effort failed because the new weaponry was neutralised by the Russian military.

“Higher-tech shells that were intended to replace the traditional 155mm munitions failed an early test in Ukraine, when their targeting systems were thwarted by Russia,” Bloomberg reported. “The prospect that future wars could resemble the grinding combat taking place there has stirred fears that the US arsenal could someday be stretched to the breaking point.”

“The writing has been on the wall for a while,” Stacie Pettyjohn, a senior fellow and director of the defense program at the independent and bipartisan Center for a New American Security, told Bloomberg. “It has just taken the war in Ukraine to really shock Pentagon officials and members of Congress out of their complacency.”

Since the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, the Pentagon has divested or neglected facilities once used to manufacture everything from projectiles to gunpowder, focusing instead on transforming warfare with high-tech weaponry.

“What’s left is crumbling infrastructure, outdated machinery and a tiny workforce that can’t keep up with growing international demand,” the outlet highlights.

Before the special military operation in Ukraine, American production was 14,400 shells per month. Now, the US is spending more than $5 billion to overhaul aging factories across the country with the goal of producing 100,000 155mm shells a month by the end of next year.

As the agency stresses, it is a mobilisation that, due to its speed and breadth, is unlike anything since World War II.

As part of this effort, Congress has appropriated $650 million for a TNT production plant that will take two years to build, according to Doug Bush, the Army’s top weapons buyer. And Washington will have to finance purchases of whatever the renovated facilities produce, possibly for many years.

But, as Bloomberg noted, getting the money may also be the easiest obstacle to overcome.

“The US must bring old buildings up to snuff, build new ones, buy updated machinery and hire and train workers. Environmental regulations stand in the way. And the Pentagon will need to ensure that plants can be run safely — munitions-making is prone to fires, explosions and other accidents,” the outlet noted.

Bloomberg concludes,

“Boosting munition production is a costly and time-consuming business, and the US is playing catch-up at a time of growing tension in Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific region.”

Washington naively believed that the sweeping sanctions against Moscow would collapse the Russian economy and therefore its military operation against the Kiev regime. Instead, Russia not only overcame the sanctions but is now producing artillery shells at a rate that the West cannot keep up with.

It is recalled that Estonian Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur admitted in November 2023 that Russia was firing 70,000 rounds a day, meaning that an equivalent of a year’s worth of European production at the time was fired by the Russian military every 10 days. The crippling shortage of artillery was also referred to by Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov in January, who revealed that Ukraine was unable to fire more than 2,000 shells per day.

Due to a severe worldwide shortage of artillery shells, Western analysts admit Ukraine will likely be outgunned by Russia for at least the remainder of the year, but even with Kiev’s allies ramping up production, realistically Russia will hold the advantage for the duration of the war.

Even though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said recently there were no reports of artillery shortages, in an interview on May 21 with Reuters, he called on Western allies to speed up aid, saying every decision they’ve made on military support for Ukraine has been “late by around one year.” Even in this most desperate stage of the war, from Kiev’s perspective, Zelensky cannot but be ungrateful and entitled, even when the West struggles to overcome its industrial failures, particularly since Russia’s military industry is a resounding success despite the sanctions.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Saving Gaza is about more than saving Gaza. It’s also about saving ourselves.

Saving ourselves as individuals. Saving ourselves as a society. Saving ourselves as a species.

Saving ourselves from what we’ll become if we just watch this happening right in front of our eyes without doing everything we can to stop it.

Saving ourselves from what the sociopaths who rule over us are trying to turn us into.

Saving ourselves from the way the propagandists are trying to twist and train our minds.

Saving ourselves from the kind of future humanity will have if our rulers can get away with such a brazen act of extreme depravity.

Saving ourselves from the other horrors that will be unleashed upon our world if this kind of thing becomes normalized and accepted.

Saving ourselves from the dark dystopia we are plunging into at breakneck speed.

Saving ourselves from a world where journalism is dead and dissent is forbidden.

Saving ourselves from a world where the bastards will do the worst things imaginable without even having to hide it, and just stare us in the eyes daring us to do something.

Saving ourselves from a world where the powerful have decided to respond to the public’s widespread access to information and raw video footage by just committing their evil deeds right out in the open and forcing us to get used to it.

Saving ourselves from this relentless push by propagandists and politicians to amputate that sacred part of our humanity which screams “NO” to all this.

Saving our hearts.

Saving our compassion.

Saving our tenderness.

Saving our children.

Saving our humanity.

Saving our world.

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The Fabricated Institutional Matrix Is a System of Deception and Domination

We were born into a soul-killing system – a matrix of institutional political and financial control.

Consider the events of recent times: a fake pandemic, orchestrated wars, communism under a cloak of climate change policy and UN Agenda 2030, etc. Meanwhile, corporate-controlled news pushes a freedom-killing agenda building a deceptive jail house for the mind. One could be forgiven for thinking we have been living on a prison planet.

The UN, the World Health Organisation, the World Economic Forum (also known as the Davos Group), the World Bank, the US Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg group, etc. are international unelected unaccountable organisations, and are all parts of the one politico-corporate institutional power base that was established by the financial powers that intentionally orchestrated the mass death and destruction that was World War II.

This Censored History is evidenced by over 100 historical books on the subject that you won’t find in your local bookstore or library.

These structures act as implementation and marketing tools for the agendas of a group of power-hungry financial elites that have assumed control of almost everything via control of the money creation system.

All these institutions, at the top level, are just clever political mechanisms for implementing and maintaining a corrupt worldwide system of so-called elite power and control of society, under the clever guise of ‘fixing the problems of the world’. 

Analysis in this book indicates that this entire super structure is majority owned and controlled by a cartel of privately owned mega-banks. All national governments are dependent on this international banking/financial cartel for debt-money loans, i.e., and are thus subservient to the source of debt-money creation; and are ideologically and politically subservient to the UN super-structure. 

The revolving door of national politics is simply a meaningless election of who will the next manager of a ‘national corporation’ that does not have the interests of the people at heart – quite the opposite. Look at the scenes in Ireland currently where the government is actively discriminating against the people in that land, see this article. The valiant protestors are right to stand for their interests. 

Many people complain about government, yet they still accept government authority as their ‘God’ thinking that the next election will change things. The harsh reality is that in 2024 all governments are simply registered corporations – parts of this world corporate-communist matrix. Therefore, protesting to government is most likely to fall on deaf ears. Government will invariably do what it has been told to by the ulteriors that control the world debt-money financial system (upon which governments function). Elected politicians are little more than temporary cogs in that system. The instructions come externally from the EU, the UN, et al.

Fake Science

Bogus godless science is also part of this ideological hegemony.

The unpalatable reality is that economic and scientific tricks, used by this new world order group to increase their own economic power/control over world society.

These scientific tricks include fake climate science; and a virology wrong turn conveniently used to launch bogus pandemics and foist vaccine mandates worldwide. Communist control ideology; monopoly capitalism; along with corporate, banking, political, and media control, and are the everyday tools of this group. They created and own this current world corporate system because they have owned the process of money creation itself for the past century, they have been funding, or defunding, whatever agenda they choose. 

Meanwhile, the ulteriors, such as the families and secret societies that have historical ownership and control of the world’s mega-banks/mega-corporations and debt-money creatin process remain hidden from public view. The world private banking cartel has fashioned a dominator matrix of control and ideological subversion. In 2023, this dictatorship of words spans government, banking, corporate media, education, geo-politics, and the corporate/economic world.

Why give authority to a government or corporation that is spinning fake science and lies? The misplaced belief in government authority has replaced belief in original divine authority. There are countless ways in which free people can easily work for the mutual benefit of themselves and society without governments getting in the way. The only real authority is God, not the flawed corrupted manmade corporate and political power systems that are dominated by certain ‘groups’ to further their own power.

Democracy Will Not Make Things Better

Democracy will not make things better – it is a divide and conquer/control trick. Modern democracy itself is a joke, a divide and conquer trick, the real power lies beyond the revolving door of elected politicians with the money masters. Democracy is there to provide talking points and mirages. The world doesn’t work that way, and the ruling elites know it, that’s why they love the ‘democratic’ parties of the ‘media manufactured’ left and right fighting against each other. Divide et impera = democracy! The reality in 2022 is that representative democracy under the debt-money system, is an illusion, it is a road to nowhere – it is money that controls the world. Over the decades the financial power of the money-masters translated into political power. 

The democratic system is broken and unfixable because those that control the money creation process wield the power to control the corporate media, steer international political policy and own the material world, regardless of which political party is elected, or which system is utilised, capitalism, socialism, communism, etc. The left versus right divide is a divide created and fostered by the financialists who control both the so-called left and the so-called right.  The real divide is not left versus right, it is between the manipulators and the manipulated – between the power seeker and the freedom lovers. The following is an interesting quote from an interview with Emanuel Pastreich[1]:

“: …  the billionaires paid off a group of people to push this neo-progressive neo-Marxist ideology of identity politics… The same people at BlackRock, or Cisco, or Facebook, or Google who are funding the corrupt parts of Black Lives Matter, ordering them to push this gender blending, race-based, fake ideological struggle, are the same people who are funding the Trump people and their MAGA (Make America Great Again) groups, those who are attacking immigrants as the threat to America without identifying the real problem of global finance. The Trump people are not any more right, or wrong, than those on the other side. They’re totally right to see how immigration is used to destroy the lives of ordinary Americans. Where they’re wrong, or where they miss the point, is that they don’t see how global financial institutions are investing in Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina so as to destroy the local economies of those countries and to force people to move to the United States as part of this strategy to destroy the lives of workers in both places so that the billionaires can emerge all-powerful. Both sides, the left and the right, have become part of a puppet show these days.”  – Emanuel Pastreich

In these times, democracy is just the election of the latest political figure heads, the ins-become-the-outs and the outs-become-the-ins, none of whom have any real power. Ego-driven political personalities squabble with each other like barking dogs – just like with dogs, asking them to stop barking is pretty pointless. Many are subservient to, not the people, but to ‘special financial interests’ – if they were to actually declare these interests their suits they would be chequered with multiple corporate logos. 

People have been conditioned to participate in democratic elections, which amount to begging the ulterior authorities to please be nicer. As long as this remains the case, people arguing over which political party puppet should be in power is akin to shuffling the deckchairs on the titanic.

There are various politicians seeking to get elected in order to change the government or the change the system, but do they realise what are they seeking to get elected to. They are getting elected to be the newest cog in the wheel of a demonic control system – a political structure that was set up by the demons – the cogs may be replaced but the wheel keeps turning. Good people thinking they are going to change the system maybe be valiant and sincere, however, it invariably amounts to (pardon the expression used in Ireland) ‘pissing against the wind’. I spent a year as an active member of a political party in government in 2009/2010 and that was my conclusion. Yet each must follow his inclination for he is forced to by his nature.

Are Governments the Enemy of Freedom?

A government only exists in your mind – governments do not ‘actually’ exist. Sure, the buildings and people exist, and manmade rules have been written down. However, government is simply a concept, the word ‘govern’ means control, and the word ‘mental’ means your mind. The word ‘governmental’ literally means ‘control of your mind’, and governments are nothing more than an attempted ‘spell’ to control your mind via the ‘spelling’ of written rules. The following is an excerpt from an interesting online video presentation titled the ‘Myth of Authority’:

“government is the ridiculous idea that some people can have the moral right to rule everyone else and make it okay for them to boss around the sectors of population under threat of force… the idea that we need to give a group of people (governments) permission to forcibly rob us (via taxes) and control us (via government restrictions and huge police forces) so that they can protect us from those few private individuals who might possibly in the future forcibly rob and control us is ridiculous… and yet most people believe exactly that… that we need government the biggest thug and thieve around to protect us from thugs and thieves.” 

There are ways to easily prove that government cannot possibly be legitimate, for example, if you do not have the right to rob your neighbour on your own or tell your neighbour what they can and cannot do, then you cannot possibly give that right to some public official, not can anyone else. Belief in government authority over others is a dangerous superstition. The presentation goes on to say that:

“The only thing that so-called authority is needed for is…  to try to authorize and legitimize acts that if done by normal people would be wrong, in other words so-called authority is nothing more than permission to do bad things… every soldier, every law enforcer, every tax collector, and every bureaucrat of every country…believes that they aren’t to blame for robbing, harassing assaulting, or even murdering… because so-called authority told them to… authority is the most dangerous superstition in the world…  it is only about whose agenda, opinion, and values will be forced on everyone else… to volunteer to be the slave of a political ruling class in the hope that it will do what you want and make the world what you wish it was, is simply insane.”

[Aside: There is another major flaw in majority-rules democracy i.e., why should the majority have the right to make rules for the minority? especially if the majority have been led to believe in false ideologies by a corporate owned media? This amounts to a divide and conquer system.]

A Satanic Consciousness Directing the CO2, Covid, and Other Hoaxes

For those people who have little or no spiritual knowledge or realization, and who are generally absorbed in the materialistic society, the message that a ‘satanic influence’ or ‘satanic consciousness’ is controlling the top echelons of the world’s political, corporate and economic power structures is of such magnitude that it is quickly dismissed or certainly not easily understood or accepted. In March 2020, as the entire world grinded to a halt in the face of the covid-19 scare, most people had no idea of the deep significance of the events taking place – that this was a deceptive demoniac attempt to takeover and control the entirety of world society. Yet the bulk of society having accepted ‘government’ as their God simply accepted the narrative and queued up to get jabbed with ‘experimental’ vaccines.

They Foolishly Accepted ‘Government’ and ‘Science’ as Their King – As Their God

The smokescreen of the Climate Co2 Hoax and the Covid hoax enabled the godless forces to further control the world’s people and resources. Those souls that went along with the deceptive narrative had accepted ‘government’ and ‘modern science (infused with fake science)’ as their God – only problem is these are false Gods. It follows that the actual devotees of God should not naively trust the official government narrative, or blindly accept the so-called remedial measures to the fake climate catastrophe or next fake pandemic. 

In our own life-time we have lived under a political hierarchy, which though pertaining to be made of individual and autonomous nation states, is actually a one world government controlled by the world banking cartel and its mega-corporations. In 2024, all nations states are corporations and are thus simply part of the one world government superstructure.  If you think you are part of a ‘nation’ then you a slave that is owned – you have been conned into living within a cage that your mind has accepted. Obviously people exist, obviously different races of people exist, and obviously different geographical locations, different lands and islands exist. Yet, nations do not exist, a nation is a political fabrication to control you via government, taxes, debt-money, and bondage to that system via the ‘registered’ birth certificate, see also this book.  

This hierarchy has stealthily introduced a poisonous  ideology, an artificial monetary system that has caused economic enslavement to billions of people through-out the world, and a perpetual war machine which has caused death and injury to hundreds of millions of people through-out the world; it is a system which has introduced mass abortion, mass animal killing, illicit sex, gambling, and intoxication; it is a system that has introduced genetically modified foods, chemtrails, herbicides and pesticides, fluoridated water, toxic pharmaceuticals and vaccines, widespread ecological destruction, etc.; the list goes on and on.

Though individual politicians have been replaced by others, the same system of government has continued. 

Through various networks, such servants of the government matrix are placed in positions of leadership, power, and influence, and then enact laws that allow society to become degraded, weak, easily controllable, and unable to perceive the nature of their material and spiritual captivity. 

Our living reality has been co-opted into a godless political world regime. However, God-conscious souls have no need to fear as the perceived power of evil does not compare to the much greater and infinite power of God Himself. It is an awakening of God-consciousness that will help each individual soul to bypass the godless aspects of society. Without God it is just the blind leading the blind. 

Those souls that have neglected God have accepted what their bogus governmental or scientific king says. [Aside: The issue runs also deeper than government, for many people have also accepted bogus and corrupted religious institutions that have claimed to be representatives of God, the self-appointed middle-men between you and God, see also this book.] 

The souls that have given away their God-given freedom – they will getted vaxxed,  they will foolishly buy an eco-car to “save the planet”, they will take toxic pharmaceuticals, and they will tell their children the bizarre story that humanity evolved from monkeys (rather than tell them that God is our father and creator). See also this book for evidence that Darwinian evolution is another hoax that has been foisted upon the world.

They will do what their bogus king tells them to do, and if not, the demoniac king will try to force them. Living free souls know that they are children of God alone and that God is the real authority, not communist-type governments. They know they are not the legal fiction of a birth certificate cleverly bonded in tax paying servitude as collateral on unpayable national debt, whilst government tells them how to live their life. 

Choose the Real God – God Protects His Devotees

You can’t prove the existence of God to someone who has chosen to believe that there is no God. Those people that choose the government, the UN, fake scientific narratives, or a corrupted ‘religious organisation’ as their God will be subject to the dictates of those demoniac forces. It is folly to give away authority over oneself to such forces – the mistake is to neglect the true eternal God for only God has real authority. 

God is everywhere, God exists in the smallest atom and in the warmth of the sun, God exists as a friend and father to us all. He is in our heart and is hoping we will return to be with Him. 

Crucially, God is not a manmade organisation/institution. The demoniac paedophilia that has been exposed within manmade religious institutions exemplifies this. A deeper story is how original Christianity, the original movement of Lord Jesus Christ, was hijacked and subverted by institutional political forces seeking to advance their own power and empire, see this book.

Excerpt from a poem by Red Willow (American poet)

“You breathe the air, it wasn’t made in a factory.

You feel the sunshine on your face, you feel the cold wind coming your way.

This is Life, did you forget? That you need real human interaction.

You need all these things that can’t be obtained from a screen.

The scientists and the machines can’t manufacture reality even though they foolishly try.

The virtual world is limited and will never compare to the infinite spiritual sky.

…reclaim your life. Remember what you are actually dependent on, And give thanks.”

If we really want to protect ourself then we should surrender to the controller – to God Himself. There is no other way out of all this. Demons control those who accept false gods, but they cannot control God’s devotees – that is the real law. The 5,000-year-old Vedic scripture the Bhagavad Gita[2] states the world is in Kali-yuga, an era of degradation in which the demons are in control of the planet. The solution, it is stated, in all authentic scriptures of the world, is to surrender to God, to align ourself with God, and to lead a God-conscious life. Surrender to God is an active process and an ‘internal’ process. God sees all. 

All authentic scriptures of the world tell us that we are an eternal soul currently in a body. Like a person driving a car – sooner or late the car wears out and the person must get a new car, so it is with the body. Yet, an intelligent person must wonder: If I am an eternal soul, why was I placed in a body that was born and will soon enough die? Srila Prabhupada (a great saint in the tradition of Vedic Vaishnavism, a process of devotion to God and His Holy Names) asserted that this world is a kind of prison for those who do not accept God’s authority, whereas those who are not jealous of God will live in God’s spiritual kingdom. 

Who thinks they are fighting the demons of the world yet does not give devotion and thanks to God? If you deny the existence of God then who is the demon?

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Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Mark Keena is a former scientist at the UK Government Dept. of Energy and Climate Change, and at the United Nations Environment Division.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research. He is author of the following books available on amazon.com

• Transcending the Climate Change Deception Toward Real Sustainability
• CO2 Climate Hoax – How Bankers Hijacked the Real Environment Movement
• Godless Fake Science
• The Lies of Green Politics and How the Green Party Betrayed the People of Ireland
• No Worries No Virus
• Transcending the Covid-19 Deception
• Demonic Economics and the Tricks of the Bankers
• Fake Moon Landings and the Lies of NASA
• Censored History of the New World Order – WW2, Communism, Zionism, Jews, and the Vatican

Website: Reality Distinguished From Illusion

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheMarkGerard

Donate for Mark’s articles here via Paypal

Notes

[1] Source: https://www.globalresearch.ca/how-world-governments-run-multinational-companies/5804065

[2] Free download available at https://mkeenan.ie/vedas/

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Interview with Professor Mearscheimer, which points towards a process of military escalation.

“It’s no question that the US has joined with Israel because of the Israeli Lobby.

So when the Israelis decided to go on a rampage in Gaza, the US fully supported the Israelis.

Many Israeli generals made it clear that they could not conduct this offensive against the Palestinians in Gaza without the material support (weaponry) that the US is providing them; and furthermore, we’re providing them with diplomatic cover. So the US is complicit with what Israel is doing in Gaza.” 

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“Let Israel Do the Dirty Work for Us”

In this regard, Israel is largely serving the strategic interests of  the U.S. acting on behalf of Washington. 

America delivers 3 Billion dollars worth of weapons to Israel. And “Israel does the Dirty Work for Us”. 

The dirty work concept is embedded in U.S foreign policy. Let your allies do the Dirty Work for You.

Déjà Vu:

We recall that at the outset of Bush’s Second Term, Vice President Dick Cheney dropped a bombshell, hinting, that Israel would, so to speak: be doing the dirty work for us (paraphrase) without US military involvement and without us putting pressure on them “to do it”.

According to Cheney: 

“The Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards,”   Cheney said on Inauguration Day.

Those comments followed leaks last September [2004] that the Pentagon was selling Israel 500 bunker buster bombs, which could be used for attacking deeply buried Iranian nuclear facilities. Not mentioned was that this was a routine munitions sale.”

 

Michel Chossudovsky, June 10, 2024

 

Watch the interview with Prof. Mearsheimer below.

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A Wall Street Journal article back in April 2022 called US aircraft carriers “sitting duck” targets, adding:

The inconvenient truth is that our Navy has 12 carrier groups and all are now obsolete.

The fact is that modern warfare has passed the US Navy by, with old conventional hunks of steel that cost so much and take so long to make are now relics of last century warfare. Painful proof in point is last weekend’s alleged attacks of the USS Eisenhower in the Red Sea when the Houthis in Yemen claimed they damaged the aircraft carrier with several missile hits. Though the US denies this as “terrorist propaganda” citing claims it was AI-generated, according to Gordon Duff’s inteldrop.org website’s Monday June 3rd post, the carrier may have actually suffered at least surface damage with loss of life:

Despite fake videos, and a well-orchestrated coverup across social media orchestrated by the comedy team of Musk and Zuskstein, the truth is out, the USS Eisenhower is still under float but leaving the region under serious damage now to be scrapped.

Image: USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and strike group transit the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea, 28 October, 2023 (Credit: U.S. Navy)

On Hal Turner’s intel website on Wednesday June 5th, aerial photos depict what appears to be clear damage of the USS Eisenhower deck parked in port, with the added commentary:

The heretofore believed-to-be-untouchable Aircraft Carrier seems to have been touched; and by guys in the desert, wearing sandals and dirty rags on their heads!

The Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree claimed that the very real drone and missile attacks on the aircraft carrier and destroyer the USS Gravely were in retaliation for Friday May 31st US and UK airstrikes in Yemen that killed 16 Yemenis and injured 42. Tensions and stakes are rising every day in both Europe and the Middle East.

The Associated Press on Saturday, June 1st reported:

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin signed the order last week to extend the four ships’ deployment [at least another month] for a second time, rather than bring the carrier, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, and its three warships home. The other ships in the strike group are the USS Philippine Sea, a cruiser, and two destroyers, the USS Gravely and the USS Mason. All together they include about 6,000 sailors.

The US is pretending no harm has come to the carrier or the destroyer, hoping to simply cover up the plausible truth that missile damage to the US Navy sitting ducks never happened, that the fleet is still patrolling and intercepting enemy drones and missiles protecting both commercial and allied military vessels in the Sea of Aden and Red Sea, as if nothing happened… very typical. Out of sight, out of mind.

Braindead’s permissive, anything goes policy toward Israel’s blatant genocide continues a parallel course. In the aftermath of the nightmarish fiery attack on May 26th at the Rafah refugee camp, melting scores of both tents and human flesh, and the ensuing IDF Rafah ground invasion, the White House only acknowledges “an uptick” of Israeli military activity. Six days later Associated Press claims:

Still, Biden administration officials say Israel has avoided massive attacks on what had been thickly crowded neighborhoods of Rafah and kept strikes more limited and targeted than earlier in its nearly 8-month-old war with Hamas.

The whole world is appalled at the disgusting bloodthirst by the monsters in Israel, while Braindead insists no red line has been crossed. It’s despicable, deplorable and preposterous to even witness as the entire world sees the genocidal pariahs dig their heels in, pretending no international laws have been violated. Recall a month ago when Biden said he would withhold weapons and bombs if the Butcher launched an all-out assault on Rafah, On May 9th, Biden said:

If they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons.

Then within several days, Braindead reneged as the coward and sent more bombs. During this election year knowing that virtually everyone in the US government is bought, bribed, blackmailed and extorted by Israel and its higher paygrade founding masters from the City of London, no one has the moral courage to stand up and do the right thing. This moment in time in my opinion stands as an all-time low point for both the United States and Israel during my lifetime. I have never seen such evil go unpunished, as if no force on the planet has the strength or courage to stop this hell being diabolically played out. And then quibbled excuses and blind face lies are feebly aired to make it okay to look the other way and pretend the bloodbath isn’t really happening, and still no real consequences. It’s almost as if a disease of weakness and cowardice has afflicted humanity to such a degree that we simply are passively awaiting God’s intervention, or more apt God’s wrathful punishment.

On Saturday June 1st, another Associated Press article reported that on Friday May 31st Biden said:

Israel has offered Hamas a cease-fire and hostage release deal that would unfold over three phases, declaring it was time to end the fighting in Gaza and that Hamas is ‘no longer capable’ of carrying out another large-scale attack on Israel.

Yet this too seems like more like infantile wishful thinking, as if pretending hard enough will suddenly bring peace so Braindead can increase his election chances. This game of charades is so cynically pathetic. Braindead’s trying to apply undue pressure on both Israel and Hamas to accept a deal, do the hostage/prisoner swap and call an end to the bloody mess. But then as always, the Butcher upends Biden’s wishful thinking fantasy, claiming it’s not enough even to get whatever Israeli hostages home, the war will not end until every last Hamas militant is dead, an unrealistic, impossible task. But then by deliberate design, that’s how this wartime prime minister set it up in order to stay in power at all cost, keeping the war going. The Butcher obviously is showing his true colors and doesn’t give a shit about his hostages.

Netanyahu is receiving pressure from his rightwing Nazi war cabinet to not let up, anything less than full bore genocide is conceding to terrorists. If Netanyahu signs the ceasefire deal, his National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich threatened already to disband his coalition government which would be the end of Bibi’s political life. So with everything to lose, he figures he must holdout, with lots of people’s lives hanging precariously in the balance. After Biden in desperation laid out the three-phase ceasefire proposal on Monday, Bibi haltingly responded:

[Israelis] reserve the right to return to war.

Now that another ceasefire fantasy has stalled and hit the wall, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby kisses Israel’s higher paygrade ass:

This wasn’t about jamming the prime minister, the war cabinet. This was about laying bare for the public to see how well and how faithfully and how assertively the Israelis came up with a new proposal. It shows how much they really want to get this done.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador in the UN, is pressuring 14 Security Council members to sign onto the resolution, Biden is asking Qatar deal broker to pressure Hamas, national security advisor Jake Sullivan is leaning on his Turkish counterpart to pressure Hamas into the deal. Braindead is even pushing his G7 pals to endorse the deal, and they put out the statement:

We call on Hamas to accept this deal, that Israel is ready to move forward with, and we urge countries with influence over Hamas to help ensure that it does so.

When Time interviewed Biden on May 28th, asking if Netanyahu is stalling the war for his own political reasons, Biden admitted:

There is every reason for people to draw that conclusion.

Then on Tuesday June 4th, again asked if Netanyahu is playing politics with the Gaza war, with Bibi still not accepting Biden’s May 31st peace proposal, Braindead walked back his earlier statement nervous to further piss off the higher paygrade Israeli Butcher, so his lame answer was:

I don’t think so. He’s trying to work out the serious problem that he has.

Now a week later still without a ceasefire, it’s make-or-break time for this lame-brain dead regime, running out of time to finally put something, anything together that doesn’t humiliatingly fall apart like everything else this imbecile batch touches. The Braindead crew know that with the Democratic Presidential Convention to nominate Biden coming up soon two months away in August, and the November election less than 5 months away, Biden knows he better have Gaza war over or his political chances are worth near zero. So maybe facing that reality, maybe he is using no more weapons to Israel as leverage to pressure the Butcher to make the deal, even with his war cabinet threatening to break up his coalition government. It’s crunch time in the Middle East.

Killing Hezbollah soldiers near the Israeli northern border in southern Lebanon with white phosphorus airstrikes, that’s the Butcher’s way of quickly expanding the war. But it’s also the Butcher’s way of setting up Israel to be wiped off the map because Hezbollah is not Hamas, it’s a much stronger military than the IDF. And has all the support and logistics from Iran… like I said, crunch time in the Middle East.

The US government has never ever appeared so weak as today. This bumbling Braindead regime can’t get anything constructive accomplished, its hairbrained humanitarian pier broke apart, every peace negotiation fails, only bringing more US bombs killing more Palestinians brings shame and disgust from the rest of the world, and with Biden’s witch hunt on his opponent backfiring, only driving up Trump support, Biden’s days may be over.

Speaking of which, a more personal lens has this 81-year old wretch of an imposter slipping on even a more slippery slope these days. Not just the fact that Biden keep taking his infamous spills falling over and tripping on stairs, or not knowing where to go after he leaves the microphone. His unavoidable, way too obvious mental decline is growing worse by the week, and that reality is doing him in now. With his team in panic and constant damage control desperately trying to prop him up from clear signs of worsening dementia fast kicking in, the White House has been claiming executive privilege to withhold an audio tape of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s classified document interview with Biden. The interview transcript had to be altered to not make him look so senile and cognitively impaired. On CNN the Time reporter’s description of Biden’s mental competence was vague and elusive, unable to dodge or deny the obvious aging effects of his mental decline.

But the latest is a Tuesday June 4th Wall Street Journal piece titled “Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping.” The article cites multiple behind-the-scene close encounters this year where his undeniable senility is on full awkward display for all to see and report to WSJ. One damaging quote came from dethroned former GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy:

I used to meet with him when he was vice president. I’d go to his house. He’s not the same person.

That is not only cognitively true, but literally, physically true as well. The president is a failed actor with attached bottom ear lobes, and the real “Big Guy” VP from before he died, is with unattached bottom ear lobes, clearly a different person.

So, with less than five months left and the world fast falling apart, their 81-year old Braindead puppet geezer has no chance at all making it to the November finish line. The moneychanger controllers would prefer having a more easily pliable, robotic braindead occupying the White House as wartime president, with war breaking out not only on three warfronts. But upheaval is erupting over this coming long hot summer at home with more than one false flag planned, one to blame Russia, another one for Iran, while activating all those domestic terrorist sleeper cells to wreak havoc on the USA home-front. I’ve maintained for over a year now that I don’t believe there will even be an American election this year. A growing national emergency crisis in the coming months will usher in martial law to cancel the election on November 5th. This way the globalist agenda has full sway to destroy the US in the fastest way possible while engulfed in nuclear Armageddon on three world warfronts.

Let’s face it, all hell’s about to break loose all over this devil’s dominion planet. Without a brokered six-week ceasefire in Gaza, the current White House team appears to be on life support. With Bibi’s fractured coalition falling apart if a ceasefire deal is made, the Butcher’s own self-interests have always been his number one priority in everything this repeated war criminal has ever done. Because his war cabinet Nazis have him by the balls, this week-old deal still hanging in limbo appears to also run its course with near zero chance of success. The only option Biden has to salvage the deal Butcher agreed to is withholding US bombs. That would be the only way that Bibi might agree to halt the war. Of course, the last time a US president threatened an Israeli prime minister with cutting off the US cash cow spigot, that US president was murdered first, before US cashflow to the Jewish State would ever stop. That’s a reality check of Israel’s higher paygrade per founding Rothschild City of London power that runs the world.

This stagnating, bogged down Gaza war has gone the same way as the war in Ukraine, endlessly dragging on, looking grimmer for the IDF than the Hamas fighters. Again, the US is backing another loser in yet another immoral lost cause war of attrition. And the longer it goes on, the more detrimental impact on Israel. Resourceful Hamas cheaply produces weapons on its own underground tunneled turf, using guerilla-style warfare it can outlast Israel now flailing and failing to root out the surprisingly resilient and evasive occupation resistance. As the Palestinian civilian death toll rises to near 37,000, with graphically brutal accounts dispersed daily to the world on social media, Israel’s untenable bloodbath cannot withstand the wrath of the entire world, and for that matter, neither can the US.

So what does Bibi do? He orders more airstrikes on southern Lebanon, but once again using the outlawed chemical warfare agent, the flesh burning poison white phosphorus. Tangling with this far larger, more heavily armed, stronger military force Hezbollah at Israel’s northern border that already defeated the Jewish State once in a 2006 war, is a desperately dangerous Butcher-ous blunder intended to frantically drag the US into the wider war. Again, Israel is losing this war in Gaza and will immediately fold if the US actually ever grows the balls to stop shipping weapons to the IDF. This Middle East war is another no-win debacle just like Ukraine. The US keeps backing itself into the losers’ corner, backing the demons on the wrong side of history, both morally and militarily. Israel is the growing pariah of the world, joined by a weakening belligerent pariah, the United States. To make matters uglier and more grotesque, Israel’s bought and paid for treasonous US Congress has invited Bibi the Butcher to be their guest of honor addressing yet another joint session in the Capitol building, just like war criminal Zelensky afterglow comparison to Winston Churchill. On Saturday June 1st, the Butcher accepted, saying:

[I am] excited for the privilege to present in front of the representatives of the American people and the entire world the truth about our just war against those who wish to kill us.

The only thing that will cancel this demonic spectacle of a lauded genocidal Butcher in the Capitol Dome, is Israel cutoff from all future US weapons. A permanent ceasefire might bring him to Washington but his government would collapse before peace comes to the Middle East. Again, Satan rules this seemingly hexed earth.

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Joachim Hagopian is a West Point graduate, former Army officer and author of “Don’t Let the Bastards Getcha Down” exposing a faulty US military leadership system based on ticket punching up the seniority ladder, invariably weeding out the best and brightest, leaving mediocrity and order followers rising to the top as politician-bureaucrat generals designated to lose every modern US war by elite design. After the military, Joachim earned a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and worked as a licensed therapist in the mental health field with abused youth and adolescents for more than a quarter century. In Los Angeles he found himself battling the largest county child protective services in the nation within America’s thoroughly broken and corrupt child welfare system.

The experience in both the military and child welfare system prepared him well as a researcher and independent journalist, exposing the evils of Big Pharma and how the Rockefeller controlled medical and psychiatric system inflict more harm than good, case in point, the pandemic hoax and kill shot genocide. As an independent journalist for the last decade, Joachim has written hundreds of articles for many news sites, including Global Research, lewrockwell.com and currently https//jameshfetzer.org,  Inteldrop.org and  https://thegovernmentrag.com. As a published author of a 5-book volume series entitled Pedophilia & Empire: Satan, Sodomy & the Deep State, Joachim’s books and chapters are Amazon bestsellers in child advocacy and human rights categories. His A-Z sourcebook series fully document and expose the global pedophilia scourge and remain available free at https://pedoempire.org/content s/. Joachim also hosts the weekly Revolution Radio broadcast “Cabal Empire Exposed” on Friday morning at 7AM EST (ID: revradio, password: rocks!).

Featured image: I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream- by Mr. Fish

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***

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***

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words—and in this case, a stunning viral video that has been watched over 34 million times sums up one of the greatest lies that our country has ever perpetuated on its public better than a thousand op-eds ever could.

You remember—just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, the New York Post broke the story about how Hunter Biden’s laptop had been left at a computer repair shop and turned out to have photos and documents that showed his drug-addicted, lascivious lifestyle while its contents also revealed many dubious emails that appeared to show the Biden Crime Family illicitly profiting from all sorts of shady international dealings.

New York Post Cover Hunter Biden, “Biden Secret E-Mails” (New York Post)

Most of the nation’s media instantly joined forces with extremists in the intelligence community and other branches of government to throw their full power into discrediting—and censoring—the Post’s coverage, withholding crucial information from voters just as they were coming to their decisions.

To this day, if you say the 2020 vote was rigged, many will call you a conspiracy theorist or, worse, an insurrectionist. But what do you call such powerful forces all pulling together to lie to you other than “election interference?”

Of course, the government just admitted the laptop and its contents are, in fact, real, despite the fact that Joe Biden lied about it during an October 2020 presidential debate with Donald Trump. Hunter is embroiled in a scandal-filled trial in Delaware, where the First Son is charged with lying on a federal form to obtain a gun—and much of the evidence federal prosecutors are using in the case comes from… you guessed it, the Laptop from Hell.

The video is long, but watch as you are lied to, over and over, by the legacy corporate media, 51 former intelligence agents, and virtually every progressive politician in the country:

The FBI just admitted in court that Hunter Biden's laptop is real.

Here are 20 minutes of Joe Biden, U.S. intelligence officials, and the American media claiming that Hunter Biden's laptop was "Russian disinformation."

The FBI has had possession of Hunter's laptop since… pic.twitter.com/5lzQaXitwq

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) June 5, 2024

Absolutely amazing stuff. So much lying. Also note that you don’t need to rely on some pundit’s personal take on the matter—it’s merely a compendium of all the fraudsters in their own words. 

Not surprisingly, one of the most mendacious members of Congress, the man known as “Shifty Schiff,” was at the forefront of the propaganda effort:

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said during an interview with CNN at the time that it was clear Trump and the Kremlin were behind Hunter Biden’s laptop. 

“The Kremlin has an obvious interest in denigrating Joe Biden, they want Donald Trump to win, they recognize he’s a weak president,” Schiff said. “Clearly they want to help him, so they want to denigrate the vice president, the intelligence community has made that abundantly clear.” 

He also called the laptop story “Kremlin propaganda.”

Schiff is clearly vying for the title of “most dishonest politician in America.” But he has competition.

Two of the other most notorious deep state liars, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan—neither of whom has faced any consequences for their election meddling—also feature prominently:

James Clapper, a former Director of National Intelligence, said on CNN at the time that the laptop was “classic, textbook Soviet, Russian tradecraft at work.” 

“The Russians have analyzed the target, they understand that the president and his enablers crave dirt on Vice President Biden, whether its real or contrived, it doesn’t matter to them. And so all of a sudden, two and a half weeks before the election, this laptop appears, somehow, and the emails without any metadata, it’s all very curious,” he said.

The deep state, in cahoots with the mainstream media, used disinformation and censorship to alter the outcome of an election—and as we all know, they succeeded, and now we are subject to watching an incoherent Joe Biden lead our country into ruin. While long, this video reminds us of the powerful, corrupt forces we are up against as we head toward the November elections. 

I was once innocent enough to believe my country would not lie to me. Now I know better.

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Bob Hoge—pronounced Hoge like rogue, not Hodge like lodge—is a RedState front page contributor and editor and proud father of four. He is shown sporting his COVID beard, which his wife has since forced him to shave. Follow him on Twitter @Bob_Hoge_CA.

Featured image: This caricature of Hunter Biden was adapted from in the public domain from the US Congress (PDF). The body was adapted from in the public domain from The White House’s Flickr photostream.

Biden Plan: Rebuilding Gaza to Erase Palestine

By Manlio Dinucci, June 09, 2024

The clear aim of the plan is to strike the BRICS, which Russia and China are part of, and Saudi Arabia has entered together with Iran,which the USA and Israel consider their most dangerous enemy in the region. However, the fact remains – concludes Biden – that Israel will always have the right to defend itself from threats to its security and that the United States will always ensure that Israel has what it needs to protect itself.

Dr. Francis Boyle Provides Affidavit: COVID 19 mRNA Nanoparticle Injections Are Biological Weapons and Weapons of Mass Destruction

By Dr. Joseph Sansone, June 10, 2024

Dr. Boyle asserted that ‘COVID 19 injections’, ‘COVID 19 nanoparticle injections’, and ‘mRNA nanoparticle injections’ are biological weapons and weapons of mass destruction and violate Biological Weapons 18 USC § 175; Weapons and Firearms § 790.166 Fla. Stat. (2023).

Evil Can Destroy the World. Paul C. Roberts

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, June 10, 2024

Zionist Israel’s theft of Palestine and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their own country was covered up each year along the way by the West pretending to be in favor of a “two state solution.” Of course, such a solution never materialized decade after decade as Israel claimed the entire territory.

Zionists Don’t Know When to Quit: Israel to Launch Another Losing Battle Against Hezbollah

By Timothy Alexander Guzman, June 10, 2024

For Israeli officials, Hezbollah is a formidable enemy that will fight to the end.  Since Israel lost the last war to Hezbollah in 2006, the Israelis know that with the Lebanese resistance still in the picture, they will face an unwinnable war against all their long-time adversaries including the Palestinian resistance, Syria, Iraq, and eventually Iran, so for them, Hezbollah needs to be taken out of the equation. 

The Twilight of the Western Settler Colonialist Project in Palestine

By Amir Nour, June 09, 2024

An extensive examination of Theodor Herzl’s wittings and movement shows clearly that from its very beginnings to the politics and policies of the state of Israel today, Zionism thought has permanently and resolutely embraced the dominant European discourses of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including anti-Semitism.

Israel Prepares to Open a Second Front in the North

By Mike Whitney, June 09, 2024

Today’s political leaders in Israel—greatly emboldened by their perceived triumph over the civilian population of Gaza—are pushing for an invasion of Lebanon and a confrontation with their arch-enemy, Hezbollah. Most of these politicians either don’t know what transpired in 2006 or think that today’s “stronger and more capable” IDF will prevail with relative ease.

From Servant to Master? The New Boss in Town. Welcome the Rise of AI

By Michael Welch, Dr. T. P. Wilkinson, Cory Doctorow, and Mojmir Babacek, June 07, 2024

Artificial Intelligence, at least in its current form already threatens to take our jobs away from us. During the Viva Technology Conference in Paris a couple of weeks ago, billionaire Elon Musk asserted his conviction that Artificial Intelligence will ultimately eliminate the need for people to work.

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Important article first published by Global Research on Jun10, 2024

***

The latest voter registration numbers among noncitizens in Washington D.C. are a stark reminder of how the Democratic Party plans to use foreigners to cement their national majority.

Last year, an Obama-appointed federal judge upheld a Washington D.C. law that allows noncitizens, including illegal aliens, to vote in local elections.

The Washington Post reports:

The voters include 310 who registered as Democrat, 169 independent, 28 Republican and 16 Statehood Green, said Sarah Graham, a spokesperson for the D.C. Board of Elections.

In this city, which has no voting representative in Congress, leaders have expanded voting rights to noncitizen residents. Noncitizens are eligible to vote if they are at least 18 years old as of Election Day, have been a D.C. resident for at least 30 days before the election, have not been deemed by a court legally incompetent to vote and are not claiming the right to vote in any state, territory or country.

There has been opposition, with critics arguing that the right to vote should be reserved for American citizens. The U.S. House advanced a bill last month to block noncitizen voting in D.C., though it’s unlikely this bill would move forward in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Workers for the D.C. Board of Elections have also been fielding angry messages from callers opposed to noncitizen voting, said Monica Evans, the office’s executive director.

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***

The Bosnian Croats’ reaction and that of their neighboring eponymous NATO-member state to Republika Srpska’s planned separation will be the most pivotal factor for determining whether the West resorts to military force to stop the Serbs.

President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik confirmed in an interview with TASS at last week’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum that his state plans to separate from Bosnia but is proceeding very carefully in order to avoid any instability. He then met his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade during the Pan-Serbian Assembly there, which produced the  “Declaration on the Protection of National and Political Rights and the Common Future of the Serbian People”.

That document importantly calls for their institutions to act in coordination with one another to further the Serbian people’s interests and essentially amounts to the beginning of their informal merger along the lines of the commonwealth model that Dodik briefly touched upon in his abovementioned interview. As he explained, this is a natural development that represents the historically justified aspirations of the Serbian people, which he compared to the unification of East and West Germany after the Old Cold War.

The problem is that the West is unlikely to abandon its three-decade-long failed political experiment in Bosnia, however, since the whole purpose behind artificially keeping that polity together all this time has been to divide-and-rule the Serbian people. Moreover, since Serbs are among the most Russian-friendly people anywhere in the world, Western anti-Russian hawks are likely to spin this long-overdue move as some sort of Russian plot to sow instability in the Balkans exactly as the Associated Press just speculated.

Accordingly, the odds of them respecting the UN-enshrined right of Republika Srpska’s majority-Serbian people to separate from Bosnia and unite with Serbia are low. In all likelihood, they’ll use every means at their disposal to oppose this peaceful process, especially since successfully obstructing it could then be presented as a faux victory over Russia to boost Western morale. This includes warmongering and possibly even acting on their threats to stop Republika Srpska in the worst-case scenario.

To that end, the West is expected to gaslight that it’s Republika Srpska and Serbia that are preparing for war with secret Russian support, not the West. In that way, they can reframe everything as the opposite of what it really is by swapping the roles of victims and villains like they always do, which is aimed at manipulating public opinion in their support. That’s not to say that the West will definitely resort to military force to stop Republika Srpska, but just that they’ll at least likely convey such threats to it.

That’ll be much more difficult to do though if Republika Srpska convinces its Bosniak and especially Croat counterparts from Bosnia’s other half, the Federation of Bosnia & Herzegovina, to agree to its peaceful separation. In that event, this rump state can either remain as Bosnia’s successor or bifurcate once more if the Croat part joints Croatia, thus leaving the Bosniak part as its own country. There are pros and cons to these scenarios from each of their perspectives so it’s unclear what they’ll ultimately do.

The Bosnian Croats’ reaction and that of their neighboring eponymous NATO-member state to Republika Srpska’s planned separation will be the most pivotal factor for determining whether the West resorts to military force to stop the Serbs. If they agree that this is the most pragmatic way to truly advance the best interests of Bosnia’s three constituent people and doesn’t pose a threat to the region due to the lack of Serbian claims on others, then they’re unlikely to go along with the West’s warmongering.

Another argument in favor of them letting Republika Srpska peacefully separate from Bosnia is that few want to fight a war over the future of this country. Each of its three constituent people already have their own niche where they live in safety unlike right after Yugoslavia’s dissolution. Socio-economic ties between them can therefore easily continue even in the absence of political ones. Since nobody has any claims to anyone else’s land anymore, ending this experiment wouldn’t automatically lead to instability.

Moreover, so long as the Ukrainian Conflict continues, the West’s military priority is to keep fighting Russia by proxy. Republika Srpska and Serbia’s armed forces are incomparable to Russia’s in the sense that they’d be easily defeated by NATO, but even so, another regional war would distract from the West’s military focus on Russia and lead to the further depletion of its already stressed stockpiles. It’s for this reason why their use of force to stop Republika Srpska can’t be taken for granted even if they threaten it.

One possibility is that Western military threats deter Republika Srpska from declaring independence and then merging with Serbia but that Dodik withdraws his state’s recognition of Bosnia just like Puntland withdrew its recognition of Somalia earlier this spring after a constitutional dispute. That African sub-national polity is still universally recognized as part of its UN-member state but it’s functionally independent in all respects and has been for a while already even before the latest development.

In Republika Srpska’s case, its withdrawal of recognition might be irreversible but stop short of outright secession, thus resulting in a compromise whereby it and the rest of Bosnia can go their own separate ways without any political red lines being crossed that risk provoking the West into an overreaction. During that time, Republika Srpska and Serbia could accelerate the implementation of their joint declaration, which would change the political facts on the ground and create a fait accompli.

At this point, it’s obvious that the West’s political experiment in Bosnia failed to divide-and-rule the Serbian people, who’ve begun to peacefully unite once more. The only way to stop them is to resort to force, but that would divert arms and attention from the Ukrainian Conflict, plus Croatia might not go along with it. For these reasons, observers shouldn’t assume that Western warmongering signifies another impending war, but they also shouldn’t ignore any tangible moves in this direction either.

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This article was originally published on the author’s Substack, Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author

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***

The outbreak of the Ukrainian conflict revealed the worrying servility of Western countries, which translated into the loss of decision-making power of European institutions and their total subordination to the geopolitical dictates of the United States, leaving France as an irrelevant power in the new cartography, geopolitics of the Cold War 2.0.

However, Macron’s thinking would be rigid and incorrigible since it does not take into account the contrary reasons and only collects data or signs that confirm the prejudice to turn it into conviction, so everything indicates that Macron would be determined to lead Europe by personally committing himself to unwavering support for the Ukrainian people and forcing NATO into open conflict with Putin’s Russia.

Thus, as the US is immersed in the electoral campaign for the November Presidential elections, France, Poland and the United Kingdom would be the trident chosen by the globalists to implode the Ukrainian front next summer and provoke the subsequent entry of NATO into an open conflict with the Russia of a Putin reelected until 2030.

NATO Entry Into the Ukrainian War?

The Ukrainian conflict would have meant the return to the Cold War between Russia and the United States and the return to the Doctrine of Containment, the bases of which were exposed by George F. Kennan in his essay “The Sources of Soviet Behavior”, published in the magazine, Foreign Affairs, in 1947 and whose main ideas are summarized in the quote

“Soviet power is impervious to the logic of reason but very sensitive to the logic of force.”

Thus, the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, stated that his country is “willing to accept nuclear weapons” from allied countries on its territory, which has received a harsh and forceful response from Moscow when it warned that “the placement of this type of weaponry in Poland will make this country a priority objective in Russian military planning.”

Likewise, in a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry, Russia has warned that the “arrival of the F-16 fighters in Ukraine will be seen as carriers of nuclear weapons and we will consider this step by the US and NATO as a deliberate provocation,” while at the same time which accuses the West of openly supporting Ukraine’s sabotage actions in Russian territory and of supplying Kiev with British and French long-range missiles as well as the new American ATACMS, which can reach Russian territory.

Within the action-reaction dynamic typical of the new Cold War 2.0 scenario, Putin ordered his country’s Armed Forces to carry out maneuvers with tactical nuclear weapons on the southern border with Ukraine. Likewise, Putin warned that “the use of weapons by Ukraine against Russian territory could lead to very serious problems” and in response, “Moscow could provide long-range weapons to third parties to attack Western targets.”

Ignoring these warnings, in a televised interview with the France 2 and TF1 channels, Macron announced that France “will provide Ukraine with Mirage 2000-5 fighters, and will train pilots and a brigade of 4,500 Ukrainian soldiers whom it will equip, train and will lend weapons.” He also reiterated that

“Ukraine should be allowed to use weapons provided by its Western allies to attack Russian military targets and neutralize the points from which the country is being attacked.”

Paris’ current priority, according to its Defense Minister, Sebastian Lecornu, would be to supply Zelensky with high-tech precision-guided AASM bombs and advanced artillery pieces as well as the production of 40 units of France’s powerful SCALP cruise missile.

Macron and the Nuclear Saber-Rattling

Macron, established as “a champion of the defense of Western values against Russian barbarism”, would be the only European leader willing to use the “nuclear saber” in the face of Putin’s threats to “use nuclear force in the event of being endangering the integrity of Russia.” Although responsibility for the armed forces is shared by the President and the Prime Minister according to the 1958 French Constitution, a 1962 decree only attributes to the President the ability to authorize the use of nuclear weapons.

Let us remember that the “Force de Frappe” was born in 1960 as a consequence of the proclamation of the Fifth French Republic by General De Gaulle. And it was conceived as one of the key elements of the country’s economic, diplomatic and military independence from the two great powers in conflict worldwide (the US and the USSR).

Under Sarkozy, the French atomic arsenal was reduced to the current 290 nuclear warheads and bases part of its power on the use of ballistic nuclear submarines (SLBM), the M51 missile being the longest range with a range of 9 km and also including bombers. land and maritime missiles with medium-range, high-speed Air-Sol Moyenne Portée (ASMP) nuclear cruise missiles. In this context, the French Minister of Defense, Sébastien Lecornu, confirmed that “a first test shot of a new short- and medium-range supersonic air-to-ground nuclear missile” known as ASMPA-R had been successfully launched from an aircraft. Rafale of the Strategic Air Forces (FAE) over French territory and has a range of 500 kilometers and can transport nuclear charges of 300 kilotons.

Towards a Low Intensity Nuclear War?

Given that both Macron and Putin are suffering from the so-called Pontius syndrome, which consists of “a distortion in the perception of danger that would have its origin in the excess of adrenaline of the affected person”, neither of them will be deterred by the opposite, so the conflict could culminate in a low-intensity nuclear war through the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

“Non-strategic” nuclear weapons, also known as “tactical nuclear weapons”, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and of which Russia would have about 1,800 warheads and NATO would have 250 warheads deployed in Europe, would be warheads designed to used on a limited battlefield, for example to destroy a tank column or an aircraft carrier battle group if used at sea, which is why they are also known as “low performance”.

However, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Princeton University simulation of a US-Russia conflict that begins with the use of a tactical nuclear weapon predicts “a rapid escalation that would leave more than 90 millions of dead and injured”, with which the beginning of a low-intensity nuclear conflict could degenerate into a large-scale nuclear conflagration with disastrous results for Humanity.

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Germán Gorraiz Lopez is a political analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image source

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“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102

PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
–Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute   

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***

Lock them up.  The whole bally lot.  The pollsters, the pundits, the parasitic hacks clinging to the life raft of politics in the hope of earning their crust.  Yet again, the election results from a country have confounded the chatterers and psephologists.  India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, was meant to romp home and steal the show in the latest elections.  The Bharatiya Janata Party was meant to cut through the Lok Sabha for a third time, comprehensively, conclusively.  Of 543 parliamentary seats, 400 were to be scooped up effortlessly.

From a superficial perspective, it was easy to see why this view was reached.  Modi the moderniser is a selling point, a sales pitch for progress.  The builder and architect as leader.  The man of temples and faith to keep company with the sweet counting of Mammon’s pennies.  Despite cherishing an almost medieval mindset, one that rejects Darwinian theories of evolution and promotes the belief that Indians discovered DNA before Watson and Crick, not to mention flying and virtually everything else worth mentioning, Modi insists on the sparkle of development.  Propaganda concepts abound such as Viksit Bharat (Developed India).  The country, he dreams, will slough off the skin of its “developing” status by 2047, becoming a US$30 trillion economy.

The BJP manifesto had pledges aplenty: the improvement of the country’s infrastructure, the creation of courts programmed to be expeditious in their functions, the creation of “high-value” jobs, the realisation of India as a global hub for manufacturing.

The electors had something else in mind.  At the halfway point of counting 640 million votes, it became clear that the BJP and its allies had won 290 seats.  The BJP electoral larder had been raided.  The Modi sales pitch had not bent as many Indian ears as hoped.  The opposition parties, including the long-weakened Congress Party, once the lion of Indian politics, and the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, had found their bite.  States such as Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Maharashtra, had put the Hindutva devotees off their stroke.

Despite Modi’s inauguration of a garish temple to Ram at Ayodhya, occupying the site of a mosque destroyed by mob violence (the cliché goes that criminals return to the scene of their crime), the Socialist party and Congress alliance gained 42 of the 80 seats on offer in Uttar Pradesh.  A rather leaden analysis offered in that dullest of publications, The Conversation, suggested that Hindu nationalist policies, while being “a powerful tool in mobilising the BJP’s first two terms” would have to be recalibrated.  The theme of religious nationalism and its inevitable offspring, temple politics, had not been as weighty in the elections as initially thought.

For such politics watchers as Ashwini Kumar, the election yielded one fundamental message: “the era of coalition politics is back”.  The BJP would have to “put the contentious ideological issues in cold storage, like the uniform civil code or simultaneous elections for state assembly and the Parliament.”

While still being the largest party in the Lok Sabha, the BJP put stock in its alliance with the National Democratic Alliance.  The NDA, said Modi, “is going to form the government for the third time, we are grateful to the people”.  The outcome was “a victory for the world’s largest democracy.”

Modi, sounding every bit a US president dewy about the marble virtues of the republic, romanced the election process of his country.  “Every Indian is proud of the election system and its credibility.  Its efficiency has not [sic] match anywhere else in the world. I want to tell the influencers that this is a matter of pride.  It enhances India’s reputation, and people who have a reach, they should present it before the world with pride.”

For a man inclined to dilute and strain laws in a breezy, thuggish way, this was quite something.  Modi spoke of the Indian constitution as being “our guiding light”, despite showing a less than enlightened attitude to non-Hindus in the Indian state.  He venerated the task of battling corruption, omitting the fact that the vast majority of targets have tended to be from the opposition.  The “defence sector”, he vowed, would become “self-reliant”.

In an interview with the PTI news agency, the relentlessly eloquent Congress Party grandee Shashi Tharoor had this assessment.  The electorate had given a “comeuppance” to the BJP’s “overweening arrogance” and its “my way or the highway attitude”.  It would “be a challenge for Mr Modi and Amit Shah who have not been used to consulting very much in running their government and I think this is going to test their ability to change their way of functioning and be more accommodative and more conciliatory within the government and also I hope with the Opposition.”

Whatever Modi’s sweet words for the Indian republic, there was no getting away from the fact Hindutva’s juggernaut has lost its shine. We anticipate, to that end, something amounting to what Tharoor predicts to be a “majboor sarkaar (helpless government)” on fundamental matters.  Far better helpless in government than ably vicious in bigotry.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected]

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This map series shows the progressive theft of Palestine by Zionist Israel since 1947, with the complicity of Washington and Europe. Where did all the Palestinians who lived in the green areas of Palestine, almost the entirety of Palestine, in 1947 go? They were herded into refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon.

The UN (second map from the left) planned to give Israel half of Palestine, although no one explained the UN’s ability to give away a people’s country. The UN’s generous redistribution of Palestine to Israel did not satisfy Israel who took the rest.

Zionist Israel’s theft of Palestine and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their own country was covered up each year along the way by the West pretending to be in favor of a “two state solution.” Of course, such a solution never materialized decade after decade as Israel claimed the entire territory.

The “two state solution” let the West pretend it was doing the right thing while Israel stole the country and exiled the people, the remnants of which were confined to the Gaza ghetto, currently under destruction by Israel using American weapons and money.

America has been unable to do anything about this genocide of a country and a people because US presidents and members of the House and Senate are elected with the aid of Israeli campaign contributions.

The billions of dollars that US taxpayers are forced to hand over to Israel every year come back to purchase our elections. Consequently, Washington answers to the Israel Lobby, not to the American people. We see this clearly in the invitation of the US Congress to Netanyahu who is under indictments both within Israel and by the International Criminal Court. Washington is determined to show that Netanyahu’s criminal indictments notwithstanding, Netanyahu is under the protection of the United States. In contrast, we are supposed to write Trump off as a gangster based on concocted indictments resting on nothing but opinions of prosecutors determined to keep Trump from the White House.

Israel also uses its American tribute to purchase pastors of evangelical churches who indoctrinate their congregations that it is God’s will for America to support Israel and for Israel to reclaim their home of 2,000 or more years ago, from which God dispelled a sinful Jewish population. Some of the evangelical churches are so captured that they are known as “Christian Zionists.”

What the “great moral West” doesn’t understand is that by supporting and defending Israel’s genocidal policy toward Palestinians, the “great moral West” has given its approval to genocide. So how is the West moral?

Even Putin congratulates Israel for its sins and crimes. Perhaps Putin does this because the Holocaust story is a way for Putin to emphasize that Russia is fighting nazis in Ukraine. Nevertheless, Putin’s support for Israel is extraordinary as it is Israel that is pressuring its American lapdog to attack Iran, which would be a catastrophe for Russia and China. Without Iran the efforts of Russia and China to organize Asia into a coherent trading bloc independent of the dollar is impossible. Instead CIA jihadists would be flowing into the Russian Federation, Central Asia and China.

America’s disgrace from supporting genocide is diminishing the ranks of qualified personnel in the US Department of State. Two more officials have resigned rather than be associated with Washington’s complicity in the mass murder of Palestinians.

Alexander Smith prepared a report for the US Agency for International Development on the extraordinary high rate of maternal and child mortality among Palestinians suffering the Israeli attack. He was quickly fired before he could deliver the report.

He said:

“I cannot do my job in an environment in which specific people cannot be acknowledged as fully human, or where gender and human rights principles apply to some, but not to others, depending on their race.”

Another State Department official, Stacy Gilbert resigned. She said she could no longer accept the State Department lies that Israel was not deliberately obstructing the flow of food or other aid into Gaza.

So far 33 State Department officials have resigned, leaving their comfortable high-paying jobs because they cannot stomach the immorality of being a US State Department employee.

This is hopeful. It indicates that some Americans employed by Washington still have a moral conscience and will not serve Washington at the expense of their conscience.

The total evil that the Biden regime represents has the support of a large minority of American voters. That Americans will vote for evil shows how far down the drain America has gone. The question automatically arises: what is the United States other than a threat to life on earth, a threat to all civilization, to all known morality? How do we know that Satan doesn’t hold Washington in his hand?

We are faced with the possible outbreak of nuclear war, a death sentence for life on earth, and there is not a single Western leader trying to resolve the crisis. Zelensky has passed a law prohibiting negotiations with Russia to end the conflict. Washington’s response to Russia’s direct warnings is to turn the warnings into propaganda against Russia.

As Putin says, we will see what happens.

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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Below is a biographical summary focussing on Chossudovsky’s academic and professional activities, including publications and awards (as well as his contribution to the Encyclopedia Britannica)

To consult the complete Curriculum Vitae of Michel Chossudovsky click here

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Biographical summary

Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal, Editor of Global Research.

Citizenships

Canada, Republic of Ireland, United Kingdom

Education

Ecole internationale, Geneva, Maturité fédérale suisse, type scientifique (C), 1962
BA (Econ) Honours, Department of Economics, University of Manchester, UK, 1965
Diploma in Economic Planning, International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague, Netherlands, 1967, The ISS is now part of Erasmus University, Rotterdam.
Ph.D., Department of Economics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA. 1971

Chossudovsky was a student of social anthropologist Prof. Max Gluckman at the University of Manchester, of Nobel Laureate in Economics Prof. Jan Tinbergen at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague and of mathematical statistics Prof Harold Hotelling at the University of North Carolina (UNC).

Languages: Fluent in English, French, Spanish, German. Knowledge of Portuguese, Chinese (Mandarin), Dutch (Netherlands), Thai, Russian, Melanesian (Papua New Guinea).

He has undertaken field research in Latin America, China, India, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific and has written extensively on the economies of developing countries with a focus on poverty and social inequality.

He has also undertaken research in Health Economics: Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), UNFPA, UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), CEPAL -ILPES -UNICEF, Government of Venezuela, John Hopkins International Journal of Health Services (1979, 1983).

His recent research focusses on economic and social policy, health economics, geopolitics, globalization.

Academic, Research and Advisory positions: 

University of Ottawa, Department of Economics, current position: Professor of Economics, emeritus, (First academic appointment in 1968-)

Visiting Professor, Postgraduate Program in Geopolitical Analysis, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Autonomous University of the City of Mexico (UACM) (2022)

Professor, National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN), Managua, Centre for Development Studies Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann (CEDMEB), Founding Member of CEDMEB (2019- )

Visiting Professor, University of the Philippines, Cebu, Faculty of Social Sciences (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018).

Visiting Scholar and Lecturer, The International University of People’s Institutions for Peace (IUPIP), Rovereto, Italy (2003, 2004),

Directeur de recherche invité, Visiting Research Fellow, Lecturer. L’Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), Paris (1993)

Associate, Saint Mary’s University, International Development Studies, Halifax, Nova Scotia,  (1990s)

Associate Fellow, Centre for Developing Area Studies, McGill University, Montreal, (1990s)

Visiting Research Scholar, Chulalongkorn University, Department of Economics, Bangkok, (1991, 1992)

Visiting Professor, Catholic University of Peru, Department of Economics, Lima (1989-90)

Visiting Professor and Research Scholar, Kohn Kaen University, Department of Social Sciences, Khon Kaen, Thailand (1987-88), under contract with CIDA.

Policy Adviser, Rural and Social Development, Department of Economic and Technical Cooperation (DTEC), Prime Minister’s Office, Royal Thai Government, Bangkok (1986-87), under contract with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)

Visiting Professor, University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG), Department of Economics. Lecturer, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, UPNG, Port Moresby, 1985

Honorary Research Fellow, University of Hong Kong (1981-82), Centre of Asian Studies (CAS), Faculty of Social Sciences, Also Lecturer, HKU Economics Department, Lecturer, Department of Extra-Mural Studies (School of Professional and Continuing Education).

Carleton University, School of International Affairs, Ottawa, Part Time Lecturer (1977)

University of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Department of Economics, Part Time Lecturer (1979-80)

Visiting Professor, National University of Cordoba, Argentina (1976), Social Policy Institute. Under ILO-UNDP Contract

Visiting Scholar and Lecturer, Central University of Venezuela, Caracas (1976), Development Studies Centre (CENDES)

Research Scholar and Lecturer, UN African Institute for Economic and Social Planning (IDEP), Dakar. (1976)

Senior Economic Adviser to the Minister of State for Planning, and Research Director (Interdisciplinary project on poverty), Ministry of Planning (CORDIPLAN), Government of Venezuela, Caracas, 1975-76.

Catholic University of Peru, Department of Economics, Visiting Professor (1974)

Catholic University of Chile (1973), Institute of Economics, Visiting Professor and Teaching Fellow, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Consultancies

Consultant to the UNDP and the Government of Rwanda, Analysis of  Rwanda’s External Debt, Kigali. Missions in 1996, 1997.

Consultant, African Development Bank (ADB), country-level missions, economic and social analysis, post evaluation of macro-economic reforms (1991-1995), missions to Kenya, Morocco, Guinea Bissau, Gambia, Botswana on behalf of ADB.

Consultant, North South Institute, Ottawa:  research on country-level macro-economic reforms (Peru Research Project) on behalf of CIDA. 1990-1992.

Lecturer, World Bank, Economic Development Institute (EDI) Training Program, Workshop on Macro-Economic Reform, Harare, Zimbabwe, 1991

Consultant, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Missions to Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, 1988, 1989

Consultant, World Health Organization (WHO), Organization and Coordination of African Workshop on Health Planning, Lecturer, Dakar, Senegal. 1976

Consultant, UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) (Research on poverty, social indicators and health policy), Santiago, Chile, 1978-1979

TV Ontario, Educational Television, Researcher and interviewer, Five part series on the Canadian Economy (1978-79) (interview with former PM Jean Chrétien)

Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA):  Missions to Mali (1982-83), Peru, University Cooperation Programme (1977-79), Thailand 1986-88, Consultant to CIDA on Health and Development in Latin America, 1991, Lecturer, CIDA’s staff training programme, Economic Strategies and Development Policies, Ottawa, 1970s and 1980s.

He is a past president of the Canadian Association of  Latin American and Caribbean Studies (ACELAC) and a former member of the Senate of the University of Ottawa. 

Lectures and presentations at more than 100 universities, research institutions, parliamentary committees, etc.

Lecture, Committee of the European Parliament, Brussels (2002), Testimony, Joint Senate-House of Commons Committee (Canada), Economic Affairs and International Trade Committee (December 1989), Testimony, Joint Senate-House of Commons Committee (Canada), Canada’s International Relations (1984),  House of Representatives, Philippines, (testimony on the impacts of the 2008 Economic Crisis) (2009), Literaturhaus, Munich (2003), The Latin American Parliament, Caracas (2008), Belgrade Forum, (2000, 2009, 2022, 2024), etc.

Lectures at Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan (2013, 2017), Rosa Luxemburg Conference, Berlin (2014), Humboldt University (1999), Mexican Press Club, Malaysia Chamber of Commerce, Malaysia Academy of Sciences, Science for Peace Conference (2016), Perdana Global Peace Foundation (Kuala Lumpur) (several lectures, 2005-2017), Public Lecture chaired by Egypt’s Minister of Finance, Cairo (1991), Keynote Lecture, conference held at Korean Parliament (ROK), Seoul, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (2012, 2019), Tsinghua University School of Journalism, Beijing, Media Conferences, People’s Daily (Beijing), Keynote Address. Firenze Peace Conference, No War, No NATO (2019). etc.

Interviews/Conversations with (former) heads of State, heads of government: Jean Chrétien (Canada), Luis Inacio da Silva (Brazil), Fernando Enrique Cardoso (Brazil), Manmohan Singh (India), Pasteur Bizimungu (Rwanda), Fidel Castro Ruz (Cuba), Ricardo Alarcon (Cuba), Tun Mahathir Mohamad (Malaysia), Atef Ebeid (Egypt), Hugo Chavez (Venezuela), Georgios Papandreou (Greece). 

Publications

He is the author of:

Thirteen books including several international best-sellers

La Miseria en Venezuela (1978), Caracas 

Is the Canadian Economy Closing Down, (1979) (co-author),

Towards Capitalist Restoration? Chinese Socialism after Mao (1986), London, Macmillan

The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (1997, 2003) (published in 13 languages),

America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005) (published in 10 languages),

The Global Economic Crisis, The Great Depression of the Twenty-first Century
(2009) (Editor),

Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War (2011) (published in 4 languages),

The Globalization of War, America’s Long War against Humanity (2015) (published in 4 languages)

The US-NATO War of Aggression against Yugoslavia (2021), Belgrade. (published in Serbian and English)

The Worldwide Corona Crisis: Global Coup d’État against Humanity. (2022), E-Book pdf format. Print version forthcoming. Also published (print) in Japanese (2022)

 

The 2015 Kuala Lumpur launching by Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, PM of Malaysia of Michel Chossudovsky’s book entitled The Globalization of War

 

Scholarly publications:

Kyklos, Metron: International Journal of Statistics, Canadian Journal of Development Studies, Économie Appliquée, Southern Economic Journal, L’Actualité Économique, Review of African Political Economy, Development in Practice, Co-Existence, International Journal of Health Services (John Hopkins), Studies in Political Economy, Indian Journal of Quantitative Economics, World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues, Canadian Journal of Latin American Studies, Yale University Lecture Series on Post-Allende Chile,  Journal of Peace Research, El Trimestre Economico, Bulletin of Peace Proposals, etc.

Chapters in Books. Reports published by national and international organizations (ADB, UNFPA, UNDP, CIDA, UNECLAC, North-South Institute, Royal Thai Government). 

Conversations with Fidel Castro Ruz: The Dangers of Nuclear War, (October  11-15, 2010, available in several languages in print and online, chapter in book).

 

 

Chossudovsky’s  writings have also appeared in Le monde diplomatique (Paris), The Journal of International Affairs (New York), the International Herald Tribune and New York Times,  Third World Resurgence,  The Ecologist  (London UK), the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), The Nation (Bangkok), Dagens Nyheter (Stockholm), La Presse (Montreal), Junge Welt (Berlin), Hankoreh (Seoul, ROK),  Global Times (Beijing), People’s Daily (Beijing), Frontline (Chennai), Comercio Exterior (Mexico), Economic and Political Weekly (Mumbai), World Affairs (New Delhi), GeoPolitica (Bucharest), Peace Magazine (Toronto), etc.

Press interviews and TV interviews with (among others) CTV, CBC, RT, BBC, TVO, CCTV (Beijing), Global, Radio Canada, Tele Quebec, TV Ontario (Education TV) (five part series on the Canadian Economy), CNN, TV France 5, RTBF (Belgium), Press TV, TeleSur, MBC (ROK, Seoul), Malaysian TV, Peru TV, Portugal TV, Nicaragua National TV, Pacifica, WBAI, Community radio in US, Canada, etc.

He is a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. EB Article on the World Bank

His writings have been published in more than twenty languages.

Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission

Michel Chossudovsky is a signatory of the 2005 Kuala Lumpur Declaration to Criminalize War under the helm of Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, former Prime Minister of Malaysia

Signatories of the 2005 Kuala Lumpur Declaration. From Left to Right: Francis A.Boyle, Helen Caldicott,  Denis J. Halliday, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, Hans-Christof Von Sponeck, Michel Chossudovsky, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf

Michel Chossudovsky was a member of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (KLWCC) (2007- 2018) under the helm of Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, former PM of Malaysia.

Awards 

Michel Chossudovsky is the recipient of:

The Human Rights Prize, Society for Civil Rights and Human Dignity, (Gesellschaft zum Schutz von Bürgerrecht und Menschenwürde, Berlin (2002),

“Best Books in Germany” (media ranking), German edition of  Chossudovsky’s Globalization of Poverty, (Global Brutal, Der entfesselte Welthandel, die Armut, der Krieg,“Media Ranked no 2. best non-fiction titles in Germany” (2002),

Project Censored Award, State University of Sonoma, California, (1999- 2015, 10 awards).

Professor of the Year Award, University of Ottawa, Faculty of Social Sciences (2001). Excellence in Teaching Award

Mexican Press Club award to Michel Chossudovsky and Global Research, “Primer Premio de Periodismo”: “Premio Internacional de Periodismo por el Mejor Portal de Investigación Internacional.” “First National Prize for the best research website at the international level” (2008).

The Gold Medal for Merit of the Republic of Serbia (Government House, Awards to Canadians) for his writings on NATO’s war of aggression against Yugoslavia (2014).

From Left to Right Prof. Y Dissou Chairman, Economics Department, HE Serbia’s Ambassador Mihailo Papazoglu, Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, Prof. Marcel Merette, Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ottawa (2014)

Doctor Honoris Causa in Humanities, National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN), Managua (2016)

 

National Autonomous University, Managua, Nicaragua, 2016

Fellowships and Research Grants:

Research Fellowship, International Development Research Centre (IDRC),
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) awards.
Canada Council award,
Fellowship of the Netherlands University Foundation for International Cooperation (NUFFIC),
Latin American Teaching Fellowship of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Fellow of Tufts University.
University of Ottawa Faculty of Social Sciences Research Grants.
Research grant from SSHRC- Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), field research in China,
Conference Board of Canada -Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), Collaborative Field Research in China with CASS Institute of Quantitative Economics.

To consult the complete Curriculum Vitae of Michel Chossudovsky click here

The archive of Michel Chossudovsky’s 1800+ Global Research Articles 

He can be reached at [email protected]

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“Mr Hunka was applauded for fighting against the Soviet Red Army with the “first Ukrainian division” — as the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (“Galicia”), a largely Ukrainian Nazi collaborator unit, was renamed in March 1945 as Germany was on the point of losing the war.

Following the incorporation of openly Neo-nazi units like the Azov and Aidar battalions into the Ukrainian military, the incident underlines the way the war is being used to rewrite history and rehabilitate fascist collaborators while depicting the Soviet Union as the aggressor in World War II.” (Morningstar Online)

Zelenskyy Addresses Canadian Parliament

Sky News Report

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Part III

Is Trudeau Supportive of Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Party Svoboda?

“Trudeau  personally met and honoured the veteran of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (A Nazi Division).

Liberals then arranged for this Nazi veteran to be recognized on the Floor of the House of Commons” (Pierre Poilievre, Leader the Opposition) 

 

The leader of the Opposition Pierre Poilievre begs the question. Has P.M. Trudeau succumbed to Nazi ideology? 

From the outset in early 2016, Trudeau’s Liberal government has been supportive of Neo-Nazi elements within the Kiev regime, including the Azov Battalion and the Svoboda Neo-Nazi Party. 

February 23, 2016, Parubiy, second from Left meet PM Trudeau 

Chrystia Freeland’s Facebook, May 2019

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Rampant corruption and the Neo-Nazi junta perfectly go hand in hand.

The political elite in Kiev is so prone to fraud and embezzlement that not even the regime’s Western puppet masters are willing to turn a blind eye anymore. Initially, the Pentagon kept quiet on the massive scope of illegal arms trade that ended up costing it tens of billions in US/NATO weapons smuggled out of Ukraine.

At the time, building the image of “Zelensky the hero” who keeps wearing a military T-shirt and fatigues as if he just came back from the trenches was the priority, which is why the United States swept it all under the rug.

However, in recent weeks and months, the Neo-Nazi junta’s corruption started affecting its already atrocious battlefield performance. Worse yet, this comes at a time when the Russian military is making steady progress across the frontlines, particularly in the Kharkov oblast (region).

The US Embassy in Kiev is now openly raising the issue of corruption in the country. In addition, even the mainstream propaganda machine is reporting about it. According to NBC News, this has been a “source of repeated disagreement as well, with US diplomats and officials demanding decisive action from Zelensky’s government”.

Expectedly, the Neo-Nazi junta is quite unhappy with this turn of events, both because they won’t be able to steal as much as they’re accustomed to and because their already horrible reputation among the people in the political West is going to take yet another nosedive. NBC News says that “Ukrainian officials are particularly irritated by [American Ambassador] Bridget Brink”, because they believe that “Zelensky has made significant progress in countering corruption, funding a special prosecutor’s office and anti-corruption court”.

The Kiev regime believes that Bridget Brink supposedly “created unnecessary tensions and lost sight of the overarching priority — winning on the battlefield”.

The troubled Biden administration supported its top-ranking envoy in the former Soviet republic and called for “further reform, transparency and accountability as necessary steps for Ukraine to undertake for joining the European Union, as well as NATO”. The resulting rift over these issues (as previously mentioned, ignored all these years for (geo)political reasons) is creating additional problems between Washington DC and the usually compliant Neo-Nazi junta. According to NBC News, a US official “acknowledged the tensions with Ukraine over Washington’s efforts on corruption”, but also insisted that “a recent shakeup within Kyiv’s top anti-corruption agency represented an example of the continued need for reform”.

The NBC News report further states that “number two at Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau was reportedly suspended last month after a leak within the agency compromised a high-profile investigation into a road-building project involving government money”.

This development led to condemnation by Ambassador Brink, who now “receives the brunt of the Ukrainian government’s frustration”, although she “remains focused on reform and anti-corruption measures in Kyiv”, which, as previously mentioned, “has the full backing and support of both Secretary of State Antony Blinken and [President Joe Biden]”. Congress also supported this, with “key US lawmakers also strongly backing the administration’s campaign for reforms to combat corruption”, stressing the need to “keep [the Kiev regime’s] feet to the fire on corruption and democratic governance”.

Ambassador Brink is expected to disclose more details about these issues in an upcoming briefing before Congress, much to the chagrin of corrupt politicians in Kiev. However, this certainly isn’t the first time that American officials are raising the issue with its Neo-Nazi puppets. Namely, during his visit last month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also stressed “the importance of tackling corruption within the Ukrainian government”. At a joint press conference held the next day, the Kiev regime’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba had to answer questions about Washington DC’s concerns, but he insisted that “Zelensky has been consistently tackling issues of corruption since his first days in office and achieved serious results on this track”. And indeed, Zelensky certainly “achieved results”, particularly when it comes to expanding his real estate portfolio.

“There is a perception of the level of corruption and there are facts about the level of corruption,” Kuleba stated, adding: “There is always a very simple criteria: If we were as corrupt as the perception says, they simply wouldn’t be giving us any money; they wouldn’t be opening accession talks with Ukraine to accede the European Union, and the United States wouldn’t have trust in Ukraine.”

Now that you’ve finished catching your breath, here’s another joke. Namely, Kuleba claims that “the EU and IMF had commended Ukraine for undertaking anti-corruption measures and for introducing reforms”. These mythical reforms have been “so successful” that the Kiev regime has an entire “complex of massive fortifications” in the Kharkov oblast missing, as it exists only on paper.

The money that NATO provided to build such facilities must’ve “vanished into thin air”, because it’s not in the state treasury. So much for “undertaking anti-corruption measures and for introducing reforms”. On the other hand, Washington DC oligarchs and plutocrats are the last who should try to teach others about “anticorruption” (to say nothing of “democracy”). Their system has degenerated into literal persecution of political opponents, while the incumbent’s corruption is obvious pretty much to the entire world.

In fact, the Biden crime family helped facilitate corruption in former Ukraine decades ago, including during Joe Biden’s tenure as vice president in the Obama administration.

The current US president’s family used the already rampant fraud and embezzlement in the country to get rich(er), with the infamous Burisma scandal being the most prominent example of this.

And yet, in a weird way, it seems that the Neo-Nazi junta’s corruption is saving lives. Namely, although this is an entirely unintentional consequence, every dollar that the Kiev regime hyenas spend on buying villas, penthouses, seaside resorts, supercars, etc. doesn’t end up getting more weapons to the frontlines, where hundreds of thousands have already perished. This is precisely why the US is “so worried about corruption”, as it effectively undermines its monstrous “to the last Ukrainian” strategy.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

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“Colonialism is not satisfied merely with holding a people in its grip and emptying the native’s brain of all form and content. By a kind of perverted logic, it turns to the past of the oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures and destroys it” (Frantz Fanon)[1]

Uncomfortable Truths

In October 2003, late New York University professor and internationally renowned historian Tony Judt wrote an essay in The New York Review of Books (NYRB) entitled “Israel: The Alternative” [2]

The reaction to this outstanding article was swift and vicious and, in the case of the American response, verged on hysteria.

In effect, within a week of its publication, the editor of NYRB had received several thousand letters on Judt’s essay – more than on any in its history – and the Jewish Professor, who, up to then, had been widely respected for his core commitment to justice and intellectual honesty and loudly acclaimed for his lucid studies of 19^th and 20^th century social history, in particular his panoramic study[3] of Europe after World War II, became, almost overnight, the object of great furor, defamation and ostracism. 

Readers, among whom numerous renowned scholars and heads of Jewish organizations, accused him of belonging to the “Nazi Left”, of hating Jews, of denying Israel’s right to exist; distinguished professors at American universities canceled their NYRB subscriptions;

Andrea Levin, executive director of the “Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America” accused him of “pandering to genocide” and being “party to preparations for a final solution”; Alan Dershowitz of Harvard made the analogy with Adolf Hitler’s “one-state solution for all of Europe”, and David Jeffrey Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, charged him with advocating “genocidal liberalism”.  

Judt’s essay opened with the sentence:

“The Middle East peace process is finished. It did not die: it was killed”, followed by the notion that “The president of the United States of America has been reduced to a ventriloquist’s dummy, pitifully reciting the Israeli cabinet line”. 

He went on to contend that Israel “has imported a characteristically late-nineteenth-century separatist project into a world that has moved on, a world of individual rights, open frontiers, and international law. The very idea of a ‘Jewish state’, a state in which Jews and the Jewish religion have exclusive privileges from which non-Jewish citizens are forever excluded is rooted in another time and place. Israel, in short, is an anachronism”; that it

“remains distinctive among democratic states in its resort to ethnoreligious criteria with which to denominate and rank its citizens. It is an oddity among modern nations, not as its more paranoid supporters assert because it is a Jewish state and no one wants the Jews to have a state; but because it is a Jewish state in which one community, Jews, is set above others, in an age when that sort of state has no place”;

and that

“In a world where nations and peoples increasingly intermingle and intermarry at will; where cultural and national impediments to communication have all but collapsed; where more and more of us have multiple elective identities and would feel falsely constrained if we had to answer to just one of them; in such a world Israel is truly an anachronism. And not just an anachronism but a dysfunctional one”.

He also cited the prominent Labor politician Avraham Burg who wrote:

“After two thousand years of struggle for survival, the reality of Israel is a colonial state, run by a corrupt clique which scorns and mocks law and civic morality’[4]. Unless something changes, Judt declared, “Israel in half a decade will be neither Jewish nor democratic”. He then uttered the “anathema” that “the time has come to think the unthinkable”, that is “the bringing to an end of Israel as a Jewish state, and the establishment in its place of a binational state of Israelis and Palestinians”.

In his essay, Prof. Judt explained that, in one vital attribute, Israel is quite different from previous insecure, defensive microstates born of imperial collapse in so far as it is a democracy, hence its present dilemma due to its occupation of the lands conquered in 1967. Israel, he said, faces the following three “unattractive choices”:

• It can dismantle the Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories, return to the 1967 state borders within which Jews constitute a clear majority, and thus remain both a Jewish state and a democracy, albeit one with a constitutionally anomalous community of second-class Arab citizens;
• It can continue to occupy “Samaria”, “Judea” and Gaza, whose Arab population added to that of present-day Israel will become the demographic majority, in which case Israel will be either a Jewish state (with an ever-larger majority of unenfranchised non-Jews) or it will be a democracy. But logically it cannot be both;
• It can keep control of the Occupied Territories but get rid of the overwhelming majority of the Arab population, either by forcible expulsion or else by starving them of land and livelihood, leaving them no option but to go into exile. In this way Israel could indeed remain both Jewish and at least formally democratic, but at the cost of becoming the first modern democracy to conduct full-scale ethnic cleansing as a state project, something which would condemn Israel forever to the status of an outlaw state, an international pariah.

As Judt put it, the historian’s task is precisely

“to tell what is almost always an uncomfortable story and explain why the discomfort is part of the truth we need to live well and live properly. A well-organized society is one in which we know the truth about ourselves collectively, not one in which we tell pleasant lies about ourselves”.

Driven by such a principled position, he reacted to the flood of criticism of his contradictors by reiterating his conviction that the solution to the crisis in the Middle East lies in Washington. On this, he said, “there is widespread agreement. For that reason, and because the American response to the Israel-Palestine conflict is shaped in large measure by domestic considerations, my essay was directed in the first instance to an American audience, in an effort to pry open a closed topic.

Many readers have castigated me for heedlessly engaging so volatile a subject without due regard for the sensitivities affected. I respect those feelings. But, like Yael Dayan, I am very worried about the direction in which the American Jewish community is moving; reaction to the essay suggests that this anxiety is well founded”.

He added that

“Actually, Zionism has always been at war and its very identity is a function of conflict, struggle, and mutually exclusive claims on history. From the outset, and long before the Holocaust could be invoked in mitigation, the leaders of the Zionist project regarded the indigenous Arab population of Palestine as their enemy. More than a century ago, the Zionist writer Ahad Ha’Am[5] observed that the settlers ‘treat the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, trespass unjustly on their territories, beat them shamelessly for no sufficient reason, and boast at having done so’. To the extent that little has changed, it is understandable that many readers would dismiss my reflections on a binational state as a crazy fantasy”. 

Until his death in 2010, Judt remained faithful to his principles. For him,

“an injustice was committed: How should we acknowledge this and move forward? Indeed, even the very existence of Palestinians was once hotly disputed. In the later 1960s, at a public meeting in London, I was tartly informed by Golda Meir, Israel’s future prime minister, that I could not speak of ‘Palestinians’ since they did not exist”.  

In the aftermath of Judt’s death, Mark Levine wrote an article[6] in which he expressed his sorrow for the scope of the loss, not just of the man, but of the type of scholarship, of the way Professor Judt taught those willing to learn about how to approach and utilize history. He pointed out that the historian’s willingness to tell “uncomfortable stories” was not embraced by US government, and informed that few politicians paid much attention to Judt or invited his counsel; no evidence is found of his ever having been called to testify before the US congress, and the White House made no mention of his passing, even though Barack Obama, the US president, has during his tenure invited well-known historians to the White House to help provide him with historical perspective on the numerous crises he faced. Levine concluded his piece by saying that Judt’s writings can inspire a new generation of scholars and activists in other cultures, including in the many societies of the global south:

“It is there, in Latin America, Africa, and the Muslim world, where the legacy of Judt’s call for a critically reflective social democratic political discourse might well be found. If American militarism, European myopia, corporate greed and the militant ideologies of numerous stripes do not doom them first”.

The Settler Colonialist and Ethno-Nationalist Roots of Zionism

An extensive examination of Theodor Herzl’s wittings and movement shows clearly that from its very beginnings to the politics and policies of the state of Israel today, Zionism thought has permanently and resolutely embraced the dominant European discourses of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including anti-Semitism.

In his 1896 Der Judenstaat – “state ‘for’, or ‘of’ Jews” would be a literal and more accurate English translation – Theodor Herzl articulated his vision and blueprint for a future “Jewish state” in Palestine by highlighting his scheme as a venture beneficial to both the “current sovereign authority” – then embodied by the Ottoman sultan – and the European colonial powers “under whose protectorate” the new state would come into being and continue to exist: “If His Majesty the Sultan were to give us Palestine” he wrote, “we could offer to resolve Turkey’s finances. For Europe, we would form part of a bulwark against Asia there, we would serve as the advance post of civilization against barbarism”.

As recalled by Nora Scholtes in her thoughtful and thoroughly-researched study submitted for the Degree of Ph.D. in Postcolonial Studies[7], French Marxist historian and sociologist Maxime Rodinson is commonly said to be the first contemporary “Western” scholar to have re-placed Zionism/Israel within its colonial, and more specifically settler colonial, context. Rodinson recognized in Herzl’s propositions a clear manifestation of Zionism as a “colonialist phenomenon”:

“It would have been difficult to place Zionism any more clearly within the framework of European imperialist policies (…) The [Zionist] perspective was inevitably placed within the framework of the European assault on the Ottoman Empire, this ‘sick man’ whose complete dismemberment was postponed by the rivalries of the great powers but who, in the meantime, was subjected to all kinds of interference, pressures, and threats. An imperialist setting if there ever was one (…) The Europeanism of the Zionists made it possible for them to present their plan as part of the same movement of European expansion that each power was developing on its own behalf”.

Image: Statue of the founder of Zionism Theodor Herzl, unveiled in 2012 at the Mikveh Israel synagogue in Tel Aviv. It is called “Herzl meets Emperor Wilhelm II”

In effect, throughout his writings and speeches, Herzl never missed an opportunity to present the Zionist idea as a quintessentially colonial project, one that would also serve the interests of the Europeans, and more broadly the whole of the “civilized” world. In his Der Judenstaat he wrote:

“The world will be liberated by our freedom, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness”, and in a speech he delivered in London in 1891, he declared: “We want to carry culture to the East. And once again, Europe will in turn profit from this work of ours. We will create new trade routes − and none will be more interested in this than England with its Asiatic possessions. The shortest route to India lies through Palestine (…) What could I, poor barbarian from the Continent, tell the inhabitants of England about these things [progress and industry]. They are our superiors in all technical achievements, just as their great politicians were the first to see the necessity for colonial expansion. That is why the flag of Greater-Britain waves over every sea (…) And so I should think that here in England, the Zionist idea, which is a colonial one, should be easily and quickly understood in England, and this in its most modern form”[8].

For Desmond Stewart, there is no doubt that “Herzl’s stencil for obtaining a territory and then clearing it for settlement was cut after the Rhodesian model”[9]. Mark Levene equally argues that Herzl “had an agenda that closely followed and sought to emulate the essential contours of European empire-building in Africa”[10]. 

It was thus within the context of Western colonialism in Africa that the idea of acquiring a territorial basis for the establishment of a “Jewish entity” was most contemplated, more precisely in the Uasi Ngishu plateau, near Nairobi, Kenya, and not in Uganda as is commonly reported. 

Nevertheless, although Herzl did not exclude the option that “The Society”[11] would “take what it will be given under a charter” in what he called a “neutral land” in order to materialize his colonial-Zionist project – since Argentina was another country envisioned for a possible mass settlement for the Jews – he was convinced that Palestine would be the most powerful asset in attracting a Jewish mass following. As the Jews’ “ever-memorable historic home”, he writes in Der Judenstaat, “that name alone would be a tremendously stirring rallying cry for our people”. Furthermore, it is reported that when it was known that Herzl was wavering on the option of Palestine as a Jewish homeland in favor of East Africa or South America, he received a Bible from William Blackstone, an American Christian Zionist, in which every reference to “Israel” or “Zion” had been underlined in red, together with a letter urging him to insist Zionists settle only in Palestine[12].

Ultimately, the East-Africa scheme proposed by the British, which was indeed hotly debated during the 6^th Zionist Congress held in Basel on 23 August 1903, was rejected, both because of a lack of support by the critical mass of Russian Jews and because the British government faced a strong local opposition on the part of British settlers in its African territories to the idea of a Jewish colony in the area. 

And so, by the time of Herzl’s death the following year, the East-Africa and Argentina options had all but vanished from the agenda of the Zionist leadership. In a 1914 article of German newspaper Die Welt, a special issue on the tenth anniversary of Herzl’s death, Herzl’s East-Africa proposal is described by Bernstein as a “historical derailment”, a desperate and well-intentioned, but ultimately misguided attempt at providing emergency help to Eastern Europe’s persecuted Jews. Herzl, he indicated, “grasped the Uganda-straw immediately after the pogrom in Kishinev (…) He impatiently searched for a quick rescue (…) even if only in the form of a ‘night shelter’. It was the greatest sacrifice that Herzl has made for his people. He sacrificed, even if only for a moment, his life’s ideal”[13].

From that point onwards, the new leadership concentrated all its efforts on the implementation of the most preferred solution, that is the creation of a purely Jewish state in Palestine, mainly by way of ethnic cleansing. The terminology of “ethnic cleansing” only in recent times entered popular vocabulary. The concept used by Zionist thinkers was “transfer”, and Herzl’s true plans with regard to Palestine’s non-Jewish population are well-documented in his diary, where as early as 1895 he put forward this idea, writing: “We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country”.

The same can be said about David Ben-Gurion, the primary national founder of the State of Israel as well as its first prime minister. Indeed, in a letter[14] dated 5 October 1937 he sent to his son Amos – who appeared to be critical of his father’s decision to support a partition plan put forward by the Peel Commission – Ben-Gurion describes how he sees partition of Palestine and expulsion of Palestinians fitting into the Zionist movement’s long term goals:

“My assumption (which is why I am a fervent proponent of a state, even though it is now linked to partition) is that a Jewish state on only part of the land is not the end but the beginning (…) The establishment of a state, even if only on a portion of the land, is the maximal reinforcement of our strength at the present time and a powerful boost to our historical endeavors to liberate the entire country (…) We shall organize an advanced defense force – a superior army which I have no doubt will be one of the best  armies in the world. At that point I am confident that we would not fail in settling in the remaining parts of the country, through agreement and understanding with our Arab neighbors, or through some other means (…) We must expel Arabs and take their place (…) But if we are compelled to use force (…) in order to guarantee our right to settle there, our force will enable us to do so (…) Because of all the above, I feel no conflict between my mind and emotions. Both declare to me: A Jewish state must be established immediately, even if it is only in part of the country. The rest will follow in the course of time. A Jewish state will come”.

Maxime Rodinson asserts that the root cause of all of Zionism’s future failings is consubstantial with its very colonial founding vision:

“Once the premises were laid down, the inexorable logic of history determined the consequences. Wanting to create a purely Jewish, or predominantly Jewish, state in an Arab Palestine in the twentieth century could not help but lead to a colonial-type situation and to the development (completely normal, sociologically speaking) of a racist state of mind, and in the final analysis to a military confrontation between the two ethnic groups”. Gabriel Piterberg agrees with Rodinson’s early analysis: “From the moment Zionism’s goal became the resettlement of European Jews in a land controlled by a colonial European power, in order to create a sovereign political entity, it could no longer be understood just as a central or east European nationalism; it was also, inevitably, a white-settler colonialism”[15].

The unavoidable consequence of such a vision is what Ahad Ha’am warned against back in 1891 already:

“if the time comes when the life of our people in Eretz Israel develops to the point of encroaching upon the native population, they will not easily yield their place”[16]. A decade before Ha’am made his prescient comment, Palestine’s population was some 460,000. Of these, around 400,000 were Muslim Arabs; about 40,000 were Christian, mostly Greek Orthodox; and the remainder, Jews. 

How challenging these figures are to the falsehood of one of Zionism’s most cherished founding myths – that of “a land without people for a people without land”– and how shockingly ill-intentioned was Herzl’s omission of any reference to “Arabs” or “Palestinians” in his 30,000-word pamphlet!

Assuredly, Herzl’s dream of a national home for the Jews that would end both their own age-old insecurity within the diaspora and Gentiles’ anti-Semitism has inexorably transformed into a nightmare both for Jews and Palestinians and for the world which is still held hostage to their struggle, with no apparent solution in a completely transformed and blood-soaked “Holy Land”.

Nightmare is precisely the key word in the title of the brilliant book[17] Peter Rodgers, a former Australian journalist and ambassador to Israel, devoted to the tragic drama caused by the pursuit of Herzl’s dream by his Zionist followers, to the present day.

Whatever their historical or emotional attachment to the land they came to rule, Rodgers asserts, the Jews of Israel had supplanted another people, a people who would not forget. The making of one nationalist dream has indeed involved the unmaking of another. But for how long and for what price? 

The Aussie ambassador’s very well-researched study tells a story of sorrow and anger in a balanced manner – insofar as this is possible – which, obviously entails the risk of drawing fire from both Jews and Palestinians, but this, he says, is sadly part of the twisted logic of the conflict. The story told shows how little the dynamics of the conflict between Jew and Palestinian have changed; how eerily reminiscent today’s antagonisms and falsehoods are of yesteryear’s; how “modern” leadership is anything but; and how much today’s self-righteous intransigence owes to what went before. Furthermore, it poses the vital question: “have the nationalist dreams of both peoples been doomed by the determined refusal of Jew and Palestinian to contemplate what life must be like for the other?”

To epitomize the opposing views of the protagonists, Rodgers, in his concluding remarks, quotes Yasser Arafat as saying that “the womb of the Arab woman” is one of the Palestinians’ most potent weapons, and Shimon Peres, who, writing of a deepening chasm between Israelis and Palestinians, commented typically: “We are sorry but not desperate”. Rodgers reacted to these last words by saying: “He might perhaps have added wisely, not yet”.

*

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Amir Nour is an Algerian researcher in international relations, author of the books “L’Orient et l’Occident à l’heure d’un nouveau Sykes-Picot” (The Orient and the Occident in Time of a New Sykes-Picot) Editions Alem El Afkar, Algiers, 2014 and “L’Islam et l’ordre du monde” (Islam and the Order of the World),  Editions Alem El Afkar, Algiers, 2021. 

Notes

[1] Frantz Fanon,“The Wretched of the Earth” (Original French version:“Les Damnés de la Terre”), François Maspero,1961. To read the book: https://archive.org/details/thewretchedoftheearth/The%20wretched%20of%20the%20earth%20%20%20/

[2] To read the full essay: https://archive.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/israel-palestine/2003/1025alternative.htm

[3] Tony Judt, “Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945”, Penguin Press, London, 2005.

[4] Avraham Burg is a former head of the Jewish Agency and Speaker of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, between 1999 and 2003. His essay first appeared in the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot; it has been widely republished, notably in the Forward of 29 August: “A Failed Israeli Society Collapses While Its Leaders Remain Silent” (https://forward.com/news/7994/a-failed-israeli-society-collapses-while-its-leade/), the London Guardian of 15 September 2003: “The end of Zionism” (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/sep/15/comment), and in French newspaper Le Monde of 11 September 2003: “La révolution sioniste est morte” (https://www.mafhoum.com/press5/159C73.htm).

[5] Ahad Ha’am, “Emet M’Eretz Yisrael” (Truth from Eretz Israel), originally published in 1891 in the Hebrew daily newspaper Hamelitz (St. Petersburg), and translated by A. Dowty, Israel Studies, 2000. 

[6] Mark Levine, “Tony Judt: An intellectual hero”, Aljazeera.com, 14 August 2010.

[7] Nora Scholtes, “Bulwark Against Asia: Zionist Exclusivism and Palestinian Responses”, University of Kent School of English, 2015.

[8] Quoted in Nora Scholtes, Op cit.

[9] Desmond Stewart, “Herzl: Artist and Politician”, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1974.

[10] Mark Levene, “Herzl, the Scramble, and a Meeting That Never Happened: Revisiting the Notion of an African Zion”, in: Bar-Yosef, E., Valman, N. (eds) “‘The Jew’ in Late-Victorian and Edwardian Culture: Between the East End and East Africa”, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2009.

[11] In Der Judenstaat Herzl writes: “The plan, simple in design, but complicated in execution, will be carried out by two agencies: The Society of Jews and the Jewish Company. The Society of Jews will do the preparatory work in the domains of science and politics, which the Jewish Company will afterwards apply practically. The Jewish Company will be the liquidating agent of the business interests of departing Jews, and will organize commerce and trade in the new country”.

[12] Donald Wagner, “Dying in the Land of Promise”, Melisende, London, 2000.

[13] Bernstein, S., “Theodor Herzl im Lichte des Ostjudentums” (Theodor Herzl in the Light of Eastern Jewry), Die Welt, 3 July 1914: https://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/cm/periodical/pageview/3355506, cited by Nora Scholtes, op cit.

[14] This letter was first referred to by Ilan Pappé in his article entitled “The 1948 Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”, Journal of Palestine Studies, issue 141, Fall 2006. It was later translated from Hebrew into English by the Institute of Palestine Studies, Beirut, Lebanon. To read the full translated letter: https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2013/04/06/the-ben-gurion-letter/

[15] Gabriel Piterberg, “Settlers and their States”, New Left Review, No. 62, March-April 2010: https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii62/articles/gabriel-piterberg-settlers-and-their-states

[16] Ahad Ha’am, “Truth from Eretz Israel”, op cit.

[17] Peter Rodgers, “Herzl’s Nightmare: One Land, Two Peoples”, Constable, London, 2005.