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Her Majesty Queen Rania on Tuesday relayed the Arab World’s shock and disappointment at the world’s “glaring double standard” and “deafening silence” in the face of Israel’s ongoing war on the Gaza Strip, emphasizing that, despite the prevalent Western media narrative, “this conflict did not begin on October 7th.”
“Most networks are covering the story under the title of ‘Israel at War.’ But for many Palestinians on the other side of the separation wall and the barbed wire, war has never left. This is a 75-year-old story; a story of overwhelming death and displacement to the Palestinian people,” Her Majesty said. “The context of a nuclear-armed regional superpower that occupies, oppresses, and commits daily documented crimes against Palestinians is missing from the narrative.”
In a live interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, conducted remotely from Queen Rania’s offices in Amman, Her Majesty explained that the people of Jordan are united in “grief, pain, and shock” in response to the staggering civilian casualties of the past 18 days of war, according to a statement from Her Majesty’s office.
“We’ve seen Palestinian mothers who have had to write the names of their children on their hands, because the chances of them being shelled to death – of their bodies turning into corpses – are so high,” Queen Rania said. “I just want to remind the world that Palestinian mothers love their children just as much as any other mother in the world. And for them to have to go through this, it’s just unbelievable.”
Conveying Jordan’s position, Her Majesty stated that the country has been very clear that it condemns the killing of any civilian, whether Palestinian or Israeli.
“That is Jordan’s ethical, moral position. And it’s also the position of Islam,” she said, explaining that the religion prohibits Muslims to kill a woman, child, or elderly person, to destroy a tree, or hurt a priest.
The Queen stressed that these rules of engagement should apply to all sides, arguing that Israel is committing atrocities under the guise of self-defense.
“6,000 civilians killed so far, 2,400 children – how is that self-defense? We are seeing butchery at a mass scale using precision weapons,” she said, “For the past two weeks, we have seen the indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza: entire families wiped out, residential neighborhoods flattened to the ground, the targeting of hospitals, schools, churches, mosques, medical workers, journalists, UN aid workers – how is that self defense?”
The Queen went on to state that many in the region view the Western world as complicit in this war through the support and cover that it provides Israel.
“This is the first time in modern history that there is such human suffering and the world is not even calling for a ceasefire,” Her Majesty said. “Many in the Arab world are looking at the Western world as not just tolerating this, but as aiding and abetting it.”
Elaborating on the plight of Palestinian people, Her Majesty explained,
“There are over 500 checkpoints scattered all over the West Bank. You have a separation wall, which is deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice, that has separated the territories into 200 disconnected enclaves. And you’ve seen the aggressive expansion of settlements on Palestinian land, and those have interrupted the territorial contiguity of the territories and has deemed an autonomous, independent Palestinian state not viable.”
The Queen also mentioned that Israel is in violation of no less than 30 UN Security Council resolutions, which “require it, and it alone, to act to withdraw from territories occupied in 1967, and to stop the settlements, the separation wall, and the human rights violations.” She also underscored that Israel has been designated as an “apartheid regime” by Israeli and international human rights organizations.
Commenting on military solutions to conflict, Her Majesty said:
“Victory is a myth that politicians make in order to justify immense loss of life… There can never be a resolution except around the negotiating table. And there’s only one path to this: a free, sovereign, and independent Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with the state of Israel.”
The Queen also indicated that allies to Israel are doing it a disservice by giving it blind support.
“Expediting and expanding the provision of lethal weapons to Israel is only going to expand this conflict. It’s only going to prolong and deepen the suffering,” she said.
Criticizing the role of the media in covering the current conflict, Queen Rania noted the double standard presented when Western interviewers demand that people representing the Palestinian side immediately issue condemnations, requiring them to “have their humanity cross-examined and present their moral credentials.”
“We don’t see Israeli officials being asked to condemn, and when they are, people are readily accepted by [claiming] ‘our right to defend ourselves,’” she said. “I have never seen a Western official say the sentence: Palestinians have the right to defend themselves.”
The Queen also discussed the oppression of Palestinian expressions of solidarity in Western democracies, commenting that when people gather to support Israel, they are exercising their right to assembly, but when they gather for Palestine, they are deemed terrorist sympathizers or anti-Semitic.
“Freedom of speech is apparently a universal value, except when you mention Palestine,” Her Majesty said.
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Featured image: Photo courtesy of Her Majesty’s office
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On October 24, the United States and other imperialist states for the third time voted against a resolution, this time sponsored by the Republic of Brazil, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Two other resolutions over the last two weeks, one sponsored by Russia and the other also by Brazil, were prevented from being adopted due to the influence of the administration of President Joe Biden.
Since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Storm emanating from the Gaza Strip on October 7, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have imposed a total siege on an area considered the most densely populated in the world. Many refer to Gaza as the largest open-air prison on the planet.
Over 6,000 people have been killed during the siege with thousands more injured, wounded and traumatized. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been displaced from their homes due to the arbitrary evacuation orders from the IDF and the incessant bombings. Many of those killed were children, people with disabilities, the infirm and expectant women.
Civilian residential areas, schools, mosques, churches and hospitals have been subjected to targeted bombings by the IDF. Electricity has been terminated while the ban on fuel imports is threatening large-scale contamination of the water systems which could result in an outbreak of cholera and other infectious diseases.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres spoke before the Security Council urging the passing of the resolution for a ceasefire. Guterres outlined the horrendous humanitarian crisis which is directly the result of the IDF bombings and refusal to allow aid into Gaza from the Rafah Crossing or other border areas.
Since October 20, less than 50 trucks carrying humanitarian assistance have been able to enter Gaza from Egypt through the Rafah Crossing. On October 24, the same day as the UNSC debate, no trucks were able to enter the enclave. This is contrasted with the situation prior to October 7, when between 400-500 trucks a day carrying food, medicines, fuel and other supplies provided many of the essential needs of the Palestinians in Gaza. Even with the presence of Guterres in Egypt near the Rafah Crossing on October 20, the opening was still delayed until the following day.
“The situation in the Middle East is growing more dire by the hour. The war in Gaza is raging and risks spiraling throughout the region. Divisions are splintering societies. Tensions threaten to boil over. At a crucial moment like this, it is vital to be clear on principles — starting with the fundamental principle of respecting and protecting civilians. I have condemned unequivocally the horrifying and unprecedented 7 October acts of terror by Hamas in Israel. Nothing can justify the deliberate killing, injuring and kidnapping of civilians – or the launching of rockets against civilian targets. All hostages must be treated humanely and released immediately and without conditions. I respectfully note the presence among us of members of their families.
It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced, and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing. But the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”
Unfortunately, these remarks by the Secretary General are highly contradictory to the point of cancelling out the central points. United Nations General Assembly Resolutions passed between 1960-1990, upholds the right to self-determination for all oppressed and colonized people.
Moreover, these resolutions recognize the right of the colonized peoples to utilize any means necessary to safeguard their interests and bring about national liberation. Following the logic of these resolutions, Hamas or any other resistance movement is well within the contours of international law in taking up arms to win their freedom. (See this)
Since 1948, as well as 1967, the United Nations has failed to bring into existence an independent Palestinian state. The Palestinian people remain aliens in their own homeland. Millions of them are in forced exile with no right to return to the land of their ancestors.
In Gaza, the West Bank, Jerusalem and throughout the Occupied Territories (OPT), Palestinians are subject to illegal evictions, arrests and murder. Since the siege on Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by the security forces utilizing small arms, drones and other methods of inflicting serious injury and death.
This system of settler-colonial occupation and repression is financed largely by the U.S. which claims to be the leading democratic state in the world. Successive U.S. administrations routinely describe the State of Israel as a “democracy.” How can Tel Aviv be a democracy when the majority of the people are denied their fundamental civil and human rights? The Palestinians are treated as being inferior to the Israeli settlers and consequently relegated to the lower echelons of society and within the broader international community.
Resistance Remains the Only Solution to the Palestinian Question
Whether Secretary General Guterres is willing to recognize it or not, the Palestinians and other people living in the states surrounding the State of Israel have no alternative other than to defend themselves against settler aggression. The fact that Tel Aviv is funded, armed and given diplomatic cover by Washington and its imperialist allies, means that the struggle for the liberation of Palestine and the sovereignty of neighboring states, has broad international implications.
Biden, Rishi Sunak, Olof Schulz and Emmanuel Macron have all visited Tel Aviv to express their unconditional support to the Zionist state. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the media while standing next to French President Macron on October 24 that the conflict in Occupied Palestine is between “civilization or barbarism.”
The same language was utilized during the visit of Biden on October 18 in the aftermath of the IDF bombing of the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza, which killed nearly 500 people. Rather than call for a thorough investigation into the Al-Ahli bombing and all similar attacks carried out by the IDF, Biden readily endorsed the fabrications of the Israeli government. Biden has not yet called for a ceasefire and the resumption of adequate assistance to the people Gaza. Instead, the White House wants to send billions of more dollars to Israel to suppress the Palestinians along with continuing the failing war in Ukraine, the attempts to contain the People’s Republic of China and the fortification of the southern border to keep out migrants from Mexico, Central America, South America and other geopolitical regions of the globe.
Therefore, the divisions are clear: the imperialist states in their view represent civilization while the oppressed fighting for national liberation signify barbarity. Such an outlook paves the way for a global conflagration which could very well determine the future of human society.
However, for the western imperialist states and their allies to enforce this world view, it would require the re-enslavement and re-colonization of billions of people particularly in the Global South. An attempt to implement the subjugation of the majority of the world’s population would undoubtedly prompt a tremendous war of resistance spanning numerous countries and continents.
Consequently, the workers and oppressed within the imperialist states have a critical role to play in the present period. Capitalism in its current phase is incapable of providing adequate incomes, housing, energy resources, environmental quality, education and healthcare. Within the leading western capitalist states, there is significant unrest among the workers and oppressed who are demanding economic justice and an end to structural racism. These burgeoning struggles in the industrialized states must merge with the aspirations of those in the Global South to create a world without exploitation and imperialist war.
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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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***
“But these weren’t the kind of monsters that had tentacles and rotting skin, the kind a seven-year-old might be able to wrap his mind around—they were monsters with human faces, in crisp uniforms, marching in lockstep, so banal you don’t recognize them for what they are until it’s too late.” ― Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Enough already.
Enough with the distractions. Enough with the partisan jousting.
Enough with the sniping and name-calling and mud-slinging that do nothing to make this country safer or freer or more just.
We have let the government’s evil-doing, its abuses, power grabs, brutality, meanness, inhumanity, immorality, greed, corruption, debauchery and tyranny go on for too long.
We have seen this convergence before in Hitler’s Germany, in Stalin’s Russia, in Mussolini’s Italy, and in Mao’s China: the rise of strongmen and demagogues, the ascendency of profit-driven politics over deep-seated principles, the warring nationalism that seeks to divide and conquer, the callous disregard for basic human rights and dignity, and the silence of people who should know better.
Yet no matter how many times the world has been down this road before, we can’t seem to avoid repeating the deadly mistakes of the past.
This is not just playing out on a national and international scale. It is wreaking havoc at the most immediate level, as well, creating rifts and polarities within families and friends, neighborhoods and communities that keep the populace warring among themselves and incapable of presenting a united front in the face of the government’s goose-stepping despotism.
We labor today under the weight of countless tyrannies, large and small, disguised as “the better good,” marketed as benevolence, enforced with armed police, and carried out by an elite class of government officials who are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions.
For too long now, the American people have rationalized turning a blind eye to all manner of government wrongdoing—asset forfeiture schemes, corruption, surveillance, endless wars, SWAT team raids, militarized police, profit-driven private prisons, and so on—because they were the so-called lesser of two evils.
Yet the unavoidable truth is that the government—through its acts of power grabs, brutality, meanness, inhumanity, immorality, greed, corruption, debauchery and tyranny—has become almost indistinguishable from the evil it claims to be fighting, whether that evil takes the form of terrorism, torture, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, murder, violence, theft, pornography, scientific experimentations or some other diabolical means of inflicting pain, suffering and servitude on humanity.
At its core, this is not a debate about politics, or constitutionalism, or even tyranny disguised as law-and-order. This is a condemnation of the monsters with human faces who walk among us.
Many of them work for the U.S. government.
This is the premise of John Carpenter’s film They Live, which was released thirty-five years ago and remains unnervingly, chillingly appropriate for our modern age.
Best known for his horror film Halloween, which assumes that there is a form of evil so dark that it can’t be killed, Carpenter’s larger body of work is infused with a strong anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment, laconic bent that speaks to the filmmaker’s concerns about the unraveling of our society, particularly our government.
Time and again, Carpenter portrays the government working against its own citizens, a populace out of touch with reality, technology run amok, and a future more horrific than any horror film.
In Escape from New York, Carpenter presents fascism as the future of America.
In The Thing, a remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic of the same name, Carpenter presupposes that increasingly we are all becoming dehumanized.
In Christine, the film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel about a demon-possessed car, technology exhibits a will and consciousness of its own and goes on a murderous rampage.
In In the Mouth of Madness, Carpenter notes that evil grows when people lose “the ability to know the difference between reality and fantasy.”
And then there is Carpenter’s They Live, in which two migrant workers discover that the world is not as it seems. In fact, the population is actually being controlled and exploited by aliens working in partnership with an oligarchic elite. All the while, the populace—blissfully unaware of the real agenda at work in their lives—has been lulled into complacency, indoctrinated into compliance, bombarded with media distractions, and hypnotized by subliminal messages beamed out of television and various electronic devices, billboards and the like.
It is only when homeless drifter John Nada (played to the hilt by the late Roddy Piper) discovers a pair of doctored sunglasses—Hoffman lenses—that Nada sees what lies beneath the elite’s fabricated reality: control and bondage.
When viewed through the lens of truth, the elite, who appear human until stripped of their disguises, are shown to be monsters who have enslaved the citizenry in order to prey on them.
Likewise, billboards blare out hidden, authoritative messages: a bikini-clad woman in one ad is actually ordering viewers to “MARRY AND REPRODUCE.” Magazine racks scream “CONSUME” and “OBEY.” A wad of dollar bills in a vendor’s hand proclaims, “THIS IS YOUR GOD.”
When viewed through Nada’s Hoffman lenses, some of the other hidden messages being drummed into the people’s subconscious include: NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT, CONFORM, SUBMIT, STAY ASLEEP, BUY, WATCH TV, NO IMAGINATION, and DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY.
This indoctrination campaign engineered by the elite in They Live is painfully familiar to anyone who has studied the decline of American culture.
A citizenry that does not think for themselves, obeys without question, is submissive, does not challenge authority, does not think outside the box, and is content to sit back and be entertained is a citizenry that can be easily controlled.
In this way, the subtle message of They Live provides an apt analogy of our own distorted vision of life in the American police state, what philosopher Slavoj Žižek refers to as dictatorship in democracy, “the invisible order which sustains your apparent freedom.”
Tune out the government’s attempts to distract, divert and befuddle us and tune into what’s really going on in this country, and you’ll run headlong into an unmistakable, unpalatable truth: what we are dealing with today is an authoritarian beast that has outgrown its chains and will not be restrained.
We’re being fed a series of carefully contrived fictions that bear no resemblance to reality.
Despite the fact that we are 17,600 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack; 11,000 times more likely to die from an airplane accident than from a terrorist plot involving an airplane; 1,048 times more likely to die from a car accident than a terrorist attack, and 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist , we have handed over control of our lives to government officials who treat us as a means to an end—the source of money and power.
As the Bearded Man in They Live warns, “They are dismantling the sleeping middle class. More and more people are becoming poor. We are their cattle. We are being bred for slavery.”
We have bought into the illusion and refused to grasp the truth.
From the moment we are born until we die, we are indoctrinated into believing that those who rule us do it for our own good. The truth is far different.
The powers-that-be want us to feel threatened by forces beyond our control (terrorists, pandemics, mass shootings, etc.).
They want us afraid and dependent on the government and its militarized armies for our safety and well-being.
They want us distrustful of each other, divided by our prejudices, and at each other’s throats.
We are little more than expendable resources to be used, abused and discarded.
In fact, a study conducted by Princeton and Northwestern University concluded that the U.S. government does not represent the majority of American citizens. Instead, the study found that the government is ruled by the rich and powerful, or the so-called “economic elite.” Moreover, the researchers concluded that policies enacted by this governmental elite nearly always favor special interests and lobbying groups.
In other words, we are being ruled by an oligarchy disguised as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism—a form of government where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and the people are seen as mere subjects to be controlled.
Rest assured that when and if fascism finally takes hold in America, the basic forms of government will remain: Fascism will appear to be friendly. The legislators will be in session. There will be elections, and the news media will continue to cover the entertainment and political trivia. Consent of the governed, however, will no longer apply. Actual control will have finally passed to the oligarchic elite controlling the government behind the scenes.
Sound familiar?
Clearly, we are now ruled by an oligarchic elite of governmental and corporate interests.
We have moved into “corporatism” (favored by Benito Mussolini), which is a halfway point on the road to full-blown fascism.
Corporatism is where the few moneyed interests—not elected by the citizenry—rule over the many. In this way, it is not a democracy or a republican form of government, which is what the American government was established to be. It is a top-down form of government and one which has a terrifying history typified by the developments that occurred in totalitarian regimes of the past: police states where everyone is watched and spied on, rounded up for minor infractions by government agents, placed under police control, and placed in detention (a.k.a. concentration) camps.
For the final hammer of fascism to fall, it will require the most crucial ingredient: the majority of the people will have to agree that it’s not only expedient but necessary.
But why would a people agree to such an oppressive regime?
Fear is the method most often used by politicians to increase the power of government. And, as most social commentators recognize, an atmosphere of fear permeates modern America: fear of terrorism, fear of the police, fear of our neighbors and so on.
The propaganda of fear has been used quite effectively by those who want to gain control, and it is transforming the populace into fearful, compliant, pacified zombies content to march in lockstep with the government’s dictates.
This brings me back to They Live, in which the real zombies are not the aliens calling the shots but the populace who are content to remain controlled.
When all is said and done, the world of They Live is not so different from our own. As one of the characters points out, “The poor and the underclass are growing. Racial justice and human rights are nonexistent. They have created a repressive society, and we are their unwitting accomplices. Their intention to rule rests with the annihilation of consciousness. We have been lulled into a trance. They have made us indifferent to ourselves, to others. We are focused only on our own gain.”
We, too, are focused only on our own pleasures, prejudices and gains. Our poor and underclasses are also growing. Injustice is growing. Inequality is growing. A concern for human rights is nearly nonexistent. We too have been lulled into a trance, indifferent to others.
Oblivious to what lies ahead, we’ve been manipulated into believing that if we continue to consume, obey, and have faith, things will work out. But that’s never been true of emerging regimes. And by the time we feel the hammer coming down upon us, it will be too late.
So where does that leave us?
The characters who populate Carpenter’s films provide some insight.
Underneath their machismo, they still believe in the ideals of liberty and equal opportunity. Their beliefs place them in constant opposition with the law and the establishment, but they are nonetheless freedom fighters.
When, for example, John Nada destroys the alien hypno-transmitter in They Live, he delivers a wake-up call for freedom. As Nada memorably declares, “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I’m all out of bubblegum.”
In other words: we need to get active and take a stand for what’s really important.
Stop allowing yourselves to be easily distracted by pointless political spectacles and pay attention to what’s really going on in the country.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the real battle for control of this nation is taking place on roadsides, in police cars, on witness stands, over phone lines, in government offices, in corporate offices, in public school hallways and classrooms, in parks and city council meetings, and in towns and cities across this country.
All the trappings of the American police state are now in plain sight.
Wake up, America.
If they live (the tyrants, the oppressors, the invaders, the overlords), it is only because “we the people” sleep.
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Already in October 2000, at the outset of the Palestinian uprising, military circles were ready with detailed operative plans to topple Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. This was before the Palestinian terror attacks started. (The first attack on Israeli civilians was on November 3, 2000, in a market in Jerusalem).
This significant move to the right may be a sign of awakening – awakening to the aberrant neo-fascist “green policies,” coercing the world’s economy to be driven by green energy, mandating to demolish one of the most efficient and secure sources of energy, clean nuclear power and doing away with hydrocarbon energy – gas and oil – for which by now the most extraordinary technologies have made these sources of energy multiple times cleaner than they were 20 to 30 years ago.
The fundamental question that we’re confronting here is the extent to which the US is capable of supporting its own national interest which includes not getting involved in places like Ukraine and Israel-Gaza unless there is a compelling national interest that drives the process.
The population of Gaza are simply defenceless. Only international intervention can stop Israel from doing whatever it wishes, and those countries which have influence with Israel are actively abetting and encouraging the genocide.
An Air Canada captain, he flew his last flight in December 2022 following a diagnosis of terminal renal cell carcinoma. He fought this dreadful illness valiantly and tenaciously, characteristic of his indomitable spirit.
Mobilisation reserves in Ukraine have been emptied while the military calls for troop rotation at the front, which cannot be done, former UkrainianPrime Minister Mykola Azarov said on his Telegram channel on October 23. This is unsurprising as Ukraine has been illegally mobilising men since at least January, demonstrating the alarming lack of manpower the country has, an issue even well before the failed so-called “Spring Offensive,” which actually began in early June.
The Israeli military has a long track record of compulsively concocting face-saving falsehoods – disinformation that vilifies the very Palestinian people it has oppressed for decades. The latest example came a few days ago.
For anyone concerned about the moderating restraint international law is meant to offer, especially when it comes to the use of force by states, Israel’s approach against the imprisoned populace of Gaza is bound to cause profound despair and lingering disgust.
To begin with, the whole thing was based on a false premise. We were told that in SARS-CoV-2 we were up against a highly dangerous virus that posed a potentially lethal threat to those who contracted it and that vaccines were the only sure way to escape the scourge. This was a lie.
Biden’s formal address to the nation from the Oval Office on Thursday can only be seen as the launch of a new phase of the Ukraine war carrying forward the the demonising of Putin to a new level, Biden weaves together a new narrative claiming that Hamas and the Russian leader both want to “completely annihilate a neighbouring democracy — completely annihilate it.”
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Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (RFK Jr., or Bobby) is man of vision, a nonconformist who dared to challenge the conventional thinking on a wide range of issues, incurring the wrath of the establishment in the process. Bobby is a registered Democrat, and when, this past May, he threw his hat into the ring regarding the 2024 Presidential election, I had to suppress my enthusiasm, knowing full well that the Democratic Party elite who stole the nomination from Bernie Sanders in 2016, and cooked the books for Biden in 2020, would never give the nephew of John Fitzgerald Kennedy a fighting chance to win the nomination for the Democratic Party in the 2024 election. Frankly speaking, how I felt about Bobby didn’t matter, because as a registered Republican in the State of New York, I was irrelevant when it came to issues pertaining to the Democratic primary.
This, of course, didn’t mean I had gone deaf, dumb, and blind to the Kennedy phenomenon. Back in February, I had spent some quality time in a Washington, DC bar with Dennis Kucinich, the man who would go on to be appointed as Bobby’s campaign manager when the Kennedy scion announced his bid for America’s top job back in May. Dennis was excited about the prospects of a Kennedy run, and that night we outlined what we believed to be the list of positives that accrued to a Bobby candidacy. The list was long and, although fueled by beer and pretzels, rational. Bobby was the anti-candidate, the perfect antidote to the ignorant arrogance of Donald Trump and the incompetent ignorance of the incumbent, Joe Biden. If Bobby could find the sweet spot between the two candidates, Dennis and I strategized, then he had a very good shot at taking home the grand prize—the presidency of the United States.
Image: Conor Kennedy in the uniform of the Ukrainian Army, Summer 2022
I struggled with Bobby’s candidacy early on over his stance on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and Russia in general. His position seemed to be influenced by the experiences of his son, Conor, a law student at Georgetown University who skipped out on an internship at a prestigious law firm to instead spend the summer of 2022 volunteering to fight with the Ukrainian Army against Russia. Conor, who had no prior military experience, was initially trained as a drone operator and, later, as a machine gunner in a unit that included other American soldiers of fortune. After two and a half months in Ukraine, Conor returned to the United States, where he is currently finishing up his law degree at Georgetown.
Bobby said that he “knew [Conor’s] views about the war were not aligned with mine.” Noting that Conor wasn’t naïve about Ukraine (“Ukraine has problems…there’s corruption”), Bobby said of his son, “He doesn’t like Putin. He thinks he’s a gangster and a bully and he doesn’t like bullies.”
Forget that we are talking about a Georgetown law student whose mind should be developed sufficiently to advance an argument as simplistic as “Putin is a bully.” Forget for a moment that a scion of the Kennedy family—an American institution—chose to bear arms not for America, but a foreign country. Forget for a moment that this same scion fought for a country whose national hero—Stepan Bandera—led an organization of Ukrainian nationalists responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians during the Second World War while allied with Nazi Germany.
History is full of examples of prodigal sons returning to the arms of a forgiving father, and they should both count their blessings that Conor wasn’t killed, wounded, or captured by the Russians during his summer experimentation with conflict tourism.
Some of Conor’s childish sentiment seemed to rub off on Bobby when he spoke on the issue of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, but by and large Bobby took the right stance, solidly connecting with the facts and drawing the right conclusions.
The evidence of this is in the words spoken by Bobby in what has been, up until this moment, his defining public address to the American people—the Peace and Diplomacy speech delivered at Saint Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire, on June 21, 2023—sixty years after his uncle’s famous American University address that helped chart a new course of US-Soviet relations.
Bobby started his speech poorly (“I abhor Russia’s brutal and bloody invasion of that nation [Ukraine],” he said, perhaps channeling Conor), but he quickly recovered. “But we must understand that our government has also contributed to its circumstances through repeated deliberate provocations of Russia going back to the 1990s. Democratic and Republican administrations have pushed NATO to Russia’s borders, violating our own solemn promise from the early ’90s when we pledged that if Russia made this terrible concession of moving 400,000 troops out of East Germany and allowing the unification of Germany under a NATO army, a hostile army, that we would commit that after that we would not move NATO ‘one inch to the east.’”
James Baker gave that assurance, as did the British government officials and many, many others. And yet today, we have surrounded Russia. We have moved NATO not just one inch to the east, but a thousand miles and fourteen nations. We have surrounded Russia with missiles and military bases, something that we would never tolerate if the Russians did that to us. And statements from our government officials and think tanks lay out the goals for the Ukraine war: regime change in Russia; the overthrow of Vladimir Putin. This is what President Biden has said is our purpose in the Ukraine: the disabling and exhaustion of the Russian military, and the dismembering of the Russian Federation.
None of these objectives have anything to do with helping Ukraine, which of course, was the pretext for our involvement in the war. That’s when our leaders told us that we were there for a humanitarian mission. But they’ve since acknowledged that there is a broader geopolitical agenda, and that Ukraine is simply a pawn in a proxy war between the United States and Russia.
Bobby’s words shook the establishment. Some regional media outlets, like Boston Man Magazine, recognized it for what it was (“I heard the voices of JFK and RFK in that of Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr, nephew and son of the aforementioned,” its publisher noted in an introduction to the text of the speech published in the magazine. “In his Peace and Diplomacy speech that evening, I heard hope for a Pax Americana”), the mainstream media either ignored the speech altogether, or wrote it off by labeling Bobby a tool of Russian propaganda.
The fact that both the Democrats and Republican establishments were up in arms over Bobby’s common-sense approach to defining the Russia-Ukraine conflict meant that Bobby was separating himself from both parties—an absolute requirement if he was going to be able to garner enough votes in a general election to walk away the winner. Moreover, operating from the logic that one cannot solve a problem unless it is first properly defined (because whatever solution you come up with will not address the true nature of the problem, and as such solve nothing), Bobby was positioning himself to be the only candidate with a track record of getting it right on the issue of Ukraine and, as such, being in a position to conceive and implement policies that had a chance of helping craft a long-term solution to the overall issue of European security.
Bobby said of his uncle’s American University speech, “It’s one of the most important speeches in American history.” What made it so, Bobby believed, was that his uncle “talked to the American people and asked them to put themselves in the shoes of the Russians. Everybody else was doing the opposite at that time. They were demonizing and vilifying the Russians. And he said, no, we have to put ourselves in their shoes, in the shoes of our adversaries. If we want to have peace, we need to do that. It has to be a regular discipline.”
These words were music to my ears. I had just returned from a 26-day, 12-city tour of Russia promoting my book, Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika, which had been published in the Russian language by Komsomolskaya Pravda, one of the oldest and most respected publishing houses in Russia. The visit was far more than simply a book marketing ploy. It was a personal journey of discovery where I sought not only to put myself in the shoes of the Russian people, but peer inside their collective soul in an effort to better understand their perspective on life. JFK’s American University speech was a motivating factor in my journey, as it set in motion events pertaining to arms control that ended up being manifested in the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, which I helped implement as a weapons inspector (and the experiences of which formed the basis of my book).
Bobby channeled his uncle in the words of his Peace and Diplomacy speech, saying of the Russians that “they have legitimate security concerns the same as we do, and we need to understand that. He [JFK] reminded Americans of the suffering that the Russians had endured during the war – unimaginable suffering.”
One in seven Russians had been killed during World War Two. He asked Americans to imagine that all of the land, all of the cities, all of the towns from the East Coast to Chicago had been leveled to rubble, that the forests and fields had been burned. And he said that’s what happened to Russia during the war. That’s what they sacrificed for us. And they have legitimate security concerns to make sure that never happens again. And that speech turned around the American people and they ended up supporting the treaty. It was one of the fastest ratified treaties in American history.
After that speech, there was never a doubt—I was on Team Bobby.
I found Bobby’s candor and intellectual inquisitiveness in challenging the COVID mandates, inclusive of vaccines, refreshing. I appreciated his environmentalism. But most of all, as someone who believed that the threat of a nuclear war with Russia represents the single greatest threat to the security of the United States and the rest of the world, I saw in Bobby a glimmer of hope that the madness of nuclear war, and the Russophobia that existed in the United States that made such madness possible, could be defeated.
There were some things about Bobby which made me uncomfortable, nothing more so than his position on Israel and the Palestinian question.
I had taken the time to read up on Bobby before I did an interview with him on April 9 on “the cost of war.” I found one article he authored for Politico back in 2016, “Why the Arabs Don’t Want Us in Syria,” particularly illuminating.
“It’s time for Americans to turn America away from this new imperialism and back to the path of idealism and democracy,” Bobby wrote, addressing America’s oil-driven presence in the Middle East. “We should let the Arabs govern Arabia and turn our energies to the great endeavor of nation building at home. We need to begin this process, not by invading Syria, but by ending the ruinous addiction to oil that has warped US foreign policy for half a century.”
These words were again music to my ears. There was, however, one note that sounded off-key. Tucked away near the end of Bobby’s lengthy piece was a single reference to Israel. I was struck by the fact that Israel wasn’t factoring more in his narrative. “[W]e need,” Bobby wrote, “to dramatically reduce our military profile in the Middle East and let the Arabs run Arabia. Other than humanitarian assistance and guaranteeing the security of Israel’s borders, the US has no legitimate role in this conflict.”
The issue of Israel and Bobby’s allegiance to the same raised its head shortly after the son of RFK announced he was throwing his hat into the presidential ring. When Roger Waters, a founding member of Pink Floyd, came under fire in Germany for his live performance of “The Wall” in early May (Roger wore clothing that invoked Nazi Germany, a consistent feature of his act when performing this particular song from the eponymous album, which is highly critical of fascism and, by extension, an artistic expression against Nazi Germany), Bobby stepped up in his defense. “Roger,” Bobby tweeted, “You are the global hero Orwell had in mind when he said, ‘In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.’ The high priests of the totalitarian orthodoxies are trying to silence you with censorship, gaslighting and defamation. Please keep speaking truth to power!”
Almost immediately, Kennedy came under vociferous attack from Jewish organizations. Roger Waters, they maintained, was antisemitic. The charge was not a new one. In June 2020, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) criticized Waters for being “one of the most prominent and outspoken supporters of the BDS movement.” The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement is a pro-Palestinian organization which works to end international support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and pressure Israel to comply with international law by targeting the Israeli economy and businesses which do business with Israel. According to the ADL, Rogers “has refused to perform in Israel and urged fellow artists to follow suit and has often used inflammatory rhetoric against the country.”
Then, the ADL suggested that Rogers’ “anti-Israel views may be colored by antisemitism,” noting that the former Pink Floyd frontman viewed Zionism (described by the ADL as Jews who seek to “incorporate a connection with Israel into their religious, cultural, or social identities”) as “an ugly stain” which “needs to be gently removed.”
The ADL failed to make any mention of the philosophy espoused by the “father of modern political Zionism,” Theodore Herzl, who helped create the notion of a “Greater Israel” which has been used for decades by Jewish settlers, operating with the open support of the Israeli government, to steal Palestinian homes and land. In this way, the ADL—and other Jewish groups—have positioned themselves to label anyone who criticizes Zionism—like Roger Waters—as being engaged in “an implicit attack on millions of Jews who incorporate a connection with Israel into their religious, cultural, or social identities” and, as such, antisemitic.
Roger’s German performance came under attack by the European Jewish Conference, which tweeted out two images from the concert—one of him in his “costume,” and the other of the name “Anne Frank” projected onto a screen on stage. “Is there anything more antisemitic,” the EJC posted on X, “than using Anne Frank as a prop on a German stage while prancing around in a Nazi uniform attacking Jews?”
The Baronesse Katharina von Schnurbein, a German career politician who currently serves as the European Commission’s “coordinator on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life” (she herself is not Jewish), jumped on the anti-Roger Waters bandwagon, posting on X, “I am sick & disgusted by Roger Waters’ obsession to belittle and trivialize the Shoah & the sarcastic way in which he delights in trampling on the victims, systematically murdered by the Nazis. In Germany. Enough is enough. Holocaust trivialization is criminalized across the EU.”
Enter the United States. “I wholeheartedly concur with [Schnurbein’s] condemnation of Roger Waters,” the US Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism, Deborah Lipstadt, posted on X, “and his despicable Holocaust distortion.”
According to the Forward, an independent Jewish magazine, “Concertgoers who saw Waters perform in Berlin in May tweeted photos of Abu Akleh [Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, killed by Israeli troops while doing her job] and Frank’s names being projected onto large screens. Under Abu Akleh’s name, the location of her death was listed as ‘Jenin, Palestine,’ her crime as ‘Being Palestinian’ and sentence as ‘death.’ Under Frank’s name, the location of her death was listed as the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp while her crime was listed as ‘Being Jewish’ and the sentence also death. Rogers, “the Forward article noted, “has defended the concert act, saying on social media that it is ‘quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice, and bigotry in all its forms.’”
Indeed, when the Anne Frank Trust posted criticism of Waters on X, it was hit with a community context note which pointed out how wrong the trust and other critics of Roger Waters were in attacking his performance. “[C]learly Roger Waters needs educating about prejudice & antisemitism,” the Anne Frank Trust posted. “It is wildly inappropriate to misuse Anne Frank’s legacy.”
The community context note had a different take. “Frank’s name is shown as one of several victims of police or government forces as a statement against monetarianism and oppression,” the post noted, “themes addressed on Radio KAOS, the album from which the song is drawn. Frank is named as being killed for ‘the crime’ of being Jewish.”
No antisemitism here.
Anyone with a head on their shoulders saw through the nonsense of those defenders of Israel who took umbrage at Roger Waters exposing their hypocrisy. No one was buying what the pro-Zionist “establishment” was selling. No one, that is, except Bobby Kennedy.
“In my remarks about Roger Waters,” Bobby posted on X as soon as the Roger Waters controversy took root, “I was referring to his dissent on COVID and the war in Ukraine. I have only recently learned about some of his other views, which I do not share.” Kennedy then added, “I support Israel’s right to exist within secure borders and I also support the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people.”
What Bobby was admitting to was being as ignorant as the shallow politicians he was trying to differentiate himself from, people who, when armed with superficial knowledge about a topic, embrace an issue they had nothing to do with on the assumption that it might enhance their profile purpose, only to turn on a dime when confronted with controversy they did not understand, and lacked the courage of their convictions to defend against.
Bobby Kennedy with Shmuley Boteach and his wife, June 2023
Bobby then doubled down on his new-found stance as “staunch friend of Israel,” meeting for more than two hours with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach to discuss, according to a posting on X put out by Boteach, “Israel, the rise of antisemitism, and Kennedy’s recent tweet where he supported Roger Waters.” Boteach, a staunch defender of Israel and Zionism, went on to state, “It was courageous of Bobby to come and meet me and reassert his lifelong support of Israel and the Jewish people, continuing in the legacy of his great father who was murdered by Palestinian gunman Sirhan Sirhan because of his own support of Israel in 1968.”
What is curious about this passage is Boteach’s mentioning of Sirhan Sirhan, the man convicted of murdering Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. Bobby is on record saying that he doesn’t believe that Sirhan Sirhan was the gunman who killed his father. That title, according to Bobby, belongs to Eugene Thane Cesar, a man Bobby describes as a CIA operative and enemy of the Kennedy family. “He [Cesar] was holding my father’s arm,” Bobby told comedian Bill Maher in a recent interview. “He drew his gun, and my father was shot four times from behind.”
One would have to imagine this detail of his family’s history means something to Bobby—it is how his father died. Bobby has committed to a narrative which deviates from the public record—a bold move, especially if one believes in the accuracy of their position. And yet, because of Bobby’s need to be seen as supporting Israel, he allowed Rabbi Boteach to reimagine this murder to smear Palestinians with the murder of RFK and linking this murder to Israel. That Bobby allowed this to occur without correcting the record is, to be blunt, stunning.
Bobby marches alongside Shmuley Boteach in New York City, June 4, 2023
Bobby was also silent as Boteach turned his sights on Roger Waters, transforming Bobby’s “global hero” into something much different. Bobby, Boteach observed, “explained that his tweet about Waters was in response to someone sharing with him a picture that Waters flashed of Kennedy at one of his concerts, saluting the candidate’s willingness to swim against societal currents. Bobby told me he had no idea that Waters was a vicious antisemite and when he studied the issue and the facts, he immediately deleted the tweet. I believe Bobby and I thank him for his repudiation of Waters. How tragic it is for Waters to have his legacy as an antisemite now overtake his legacy as an accomplished artist.”
If Bobby said these things, then he has lost all credibility as a man who is deserving to hold the office of the President of the United States. Roger Waters is not a “vicious antisemite,” and for Bobby to attack him as such (assuming Boteach has accurately recorded his words) is both intellectual and moral cowardice. Things don’t get better for Bobby if Boteach manufactured this aspect of their conversation, since Bobby allowed Boteach’s words to go unchallenged.
As part of the Rabbi Boteach “cleansing” ritual, Bobby had to agree to march with the Jewish leader in New York City’s “Celebrate Israel Parade” on June 4.
Somehow, Bobby couldn’t shake the Israeli/antisemitic controversy. On July 11, 2023, at a private fundraiser held at Tony’s Di Napoli restaurant on East 63d Street, Bobby once again stirred up a hornet’s nest of Jewish angst. “COVID-19,” he told the crowd. “There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,” Kennedy said. “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese. We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential and impact.”
The New York Post published Bobby’s words (Bobby claims that his presentation was off the record, an assertion at least two attendees dispute), and the Jewish community blew up in anger, forcing him—once again—to turn to X to post a clarification. “The US and other governments are developing ethnically targeted bioweapons and that a 2021 study of the COVID-19 virus shows that COVID-19 appears to disproportionately affect certain races,” Kennedy wrote. “The furin cleave docking site is most compatible with blacks and Caucasians and least compatible with ethnic Chinese, Finns, and Ashkenazi Jews. In that sense, it serves as a kind of proof of concept for ethnically targeted bioweapons. I do not believe and never implied that the ethnic effect was deliberately engineered.”
The controversy followed Bobby to the US Congress, where he was scheduled to give high-profile testimony on government censorship, but instead spent most of his time defending his comments on COVID and Jews. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Florida, brought up an earlier Kennedy faux pas that occurred at an anti-COVID vaccine rally in Washington, DC, in January 2022, where he decried the COVID mandates set forth by the US government. “Even in Hitler’s Germany,” Kennedy said, “you could cross the Alps into Switzerland. You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did.”
Even though Kennedy apologized (via a tweet) for his remarks (“I apologize for my reference to Anne Frank, especially to families that suffered the Holocaust horrors. My intention was to use examples of past barbarism to show the perils from new technologies of control. To the extent my remarks caused hurt, I am truly and deeply sorry”), Wasserman Schultz confronted Bobby, stating, “You made light of the genocide against Jewish people.” Kennedy was forced to apologize yet again.
Kennedy had to again turn to Rabbi Boteach to be cleansed of the charge of antisemitism stemming from his July 11 comments. Boteach conducted a 35-minute interview with Kennedy. Afterwards, the popular rabbi declared,“Bobby Kennedy and I are friends, and I like him. Kennedy,” Boteach said, “is the only major Democrat who has come out against that Iran deal. Bobby Kennedy is one of the only Democrats who spoke out boldly to protect Israel with its recent Jenin assault on terrorists. He defended Israel.”
There was another act of contrition Kennedy had to subject himself to before he could shed the antisemitism charge—and interview with the strongly pro-Israel Jewish News Syndicate (JNS). Here, Bobby—for the first time in such detail—set forth the depth of his support for Israel, especially its importance “as the only Middle East democracy” and “the significance of its military alliance with the United States.”
Bobby declared that he was aware of no other country that has Israel’s military discipline—what he called its “unique moral approach” to warfare. According to the JNS interview, Bobby noted that “Israel tries to treat Palestinians morally with justice and has sought a two-state solution despite the ‘abject refusal of the Palestinian leadership to negotiate and the genocidal aspirations of the Palestinian Authority.’ Israel, Bobby said, only attacks military targets, “enduring casualties of IDF forces in a deliberate, purposeful effort to protect civilians. I don’t think any other country in the world does it as well and with such a commitment as Israel.”
Bobby stated that he stood alone among Democrats when it came to defending Israel’s actions. “I am going to not only defend that record,” Bobby declared, “but I’m going to champion the moral argument for Israel and use my campaign as a bully pulpit to do that.”
Bobby was as good as his word. On August 1, during an interview with political comedian Jimmy Dore, Kennedy defended Israel’s military conduct against the Palestinians, criticizing the Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal in the process. “I love Max Blumenthal,” Bobby told Jimmy, “But I do not think he’s objective on Israel. His reporting on Israel—it needs to be questioned.” When Dore challenged Bobby to do an interview with Max, Bobby agreed, only to have his staff reverse course, saying such an interview would not happen.
Bobby’s position was a disaster. I can personally attest to several high-profile political personalities who were ready to throw in with Bobby, only to have his position on Israel cause them to take stock of where they stood. Like me, they were attracted by Bobby’s anti-war stance, and his embrace of diplomacy as the ideal tool to resolve US-Russian relations. But Bobby’s unquestioning embrace of Israel’s militarism put him in a new light, something that did not bode well for the “anti-war” candidate, especially when looking at his hardline positions vis-à-vis Iran and China.
Bobby was losing votes at a time when he could ill afford to do so.
I stood by Bobby during this hard time, convinced that the wisdom and insight he exhibited in his Peace and Diplomacy speech was the real Bobby, and that warmonger Bobby could be managed once he secured the nomination. But he was still a Democrat, and as such I feared he would never survive in a system where the people had been supplanted by “super delegates” who would throw the election to the incumbent, Joe Biden, regardless of how the people voted. I had trouble vesting myself too much in someone I didn’t think was going to clear the starting gate.
Fortunately, Bobby and his team had reached a similar conclusion, accusing the Democratic National Committee of strategically shifting the Iowa primary and implementing rules that penalized candidates who campaigned in certain states. Moreover, Bobby believed, the DNC’s control over super delegates and automatic delegates made it virtually impossible for any candidate other than Biden to secure the nomination. Bobby would need to win almost 80% of all states to outmaneuver Biden, assuming Biden only wins 20% of the vote.
“It’s pretty clear that the DNC does not want a primary,” Bobby said. “They’re effectively disenfranchising the Democratic voters from having any choice in who becomes president or who becomes the Democratic nominee.”
Bobby then made the only choice possible if he was going to be a viable candidate for President in 2024—he declared himself as an independent.
This should have been a huge event, the very act that would separate him from both Democrats and Republicans, thereby liberating him to become a third center of gravity which, through the strength of Bobby’s personality and integrity, could start to steal voters from the orbits of the two major parties. The announcement was scheduled for October 9, in Philadelphia.
On October 7, Hamas launched its attack on Israel.
“This ignominious, unprovoked, and barbaric attack on Israel must be met with world condemnation and unequivocal support for the Jewish state’s right to self-defense,” Bobby posted on X that same day. “We must provide Israel with whatever it needs to defend itself—now. As President, I’ll make sure that our policy is unambiguous so that the enemies of Israel will think long and hard before attempting aggression of any kind. I applaud the strong statements of support from the Biden White House for Israel in her hour of need. However, the scale of these attacks means it is likely that Israel will need to wage a sustained military campaign to protect its citizens. Statements of support are fine, but we must follow through with unwavering, resolute, and practical action. America must stand by our ally throughout this operation and beyond as it exercises its sovereign right to self-defense.”
The anti-war candidate, whose stance regarding peace and diplomacy was the telling difference between his Democratic and Republican competitors, had just defined himself as a pro-war leader.
I pointed this out in a response to Bobby’s post. “I like RFKJr,” I wrote. “I think he’s the best choice for POTUS. He’s positioned himself as the peace candidate. And this is the tweet I fear may have sunk his chances. Israel’s policies regarding Palestine are indefensible. Bobby should be promoting an equitable peace settlement. Not war.”
Rabbi Rabbi Shmuley Boteach introduced Bobby by calling for a moment of silence for the Israeli victims. Then Bobby proceeded to say nothing—nothing—about the single most pressing issue of the day. This was his chance to weigh in on the side of peace, to promote the very peace and diplomacy message he articulated back in June.
He was silent, instead letting Rabbi Boteach speak on his behalf after the announcement.
And speak he did.
Dismissing criticism from Jewish groups that Bobby had not addressed the Hamas-Israeli conflict, Boteach said that his—Boteach’s—involvement in the October 9 event defined Kennedy’s stance toward Israel. “I think that was very brave of him and showed tremendous solidarity that he asked a rabbi who’s his close friend. You know, he moved away from the political figures who could have introduced him and endorsed him. The fact that I’m the one that introduced him, I think said it all.”
Five days later, on October 14, Bobby removed Dennis Kucinich as his campaign manager, replacing the veteran politician with a political neophyte—Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, Bobby’s daughter-in-law, and a former CIA clandestine officer.
I count Dennis as a friend. We’ve known each other for decades, ever since he invited me to testify in Congress about President George W. Bush’s flawed claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. I supported Dennis in his own bid for the presidency, back in 2000, and have for the past several years had the honor of serving with him on a prestigious advisory board where we provide our opinions on matters pertaining to geopolitics. Dennis’ hand could be felt in Bobby’s powerful Peace and Diplomacy speech. Sadly, the same could not be said of Bobby’s stance on Israel—Dennis had spent his political life defending the rights of Palestinians in the face of Israeli oppression. While both Dennis and the Kennedy campaign have been silent as to the reasons behind the precipitous firing, smart money says that the Israeli issue played a major factor in the decision.
“Not a good look,” I posted on X. “At a time when America should be excited about Kennedy’s independent run, his indefensible support of Israel is sinking his campaign. He is not only failing to gain any traction, but also bleeding support from a critical base of potential supporters—those Americans who bought into his rhetoric of peace.”
The results of the Israeli bombing of Gaza, October 2023
Bobby’s commitment to peace and diplomacy is what made him viable as a presidential candidate where his two likely opponents were on record supporting Israel without question.
Bobby could have followed in his uncle’s path, advocating that all Americans walk in the shoes of the Palestinian people to better understand their grievances and, in doing so, be better positioned to come up with a fair and equitable peace based on diplomacy, not war.
Bobby did not and has not. His appointment of Amaryllis Fox Kennedy bodes poorly for the future. I will continue to applaud Bobby for his stance on Russia and disarmament. But until he fundamentally changes course on Israel, I can’t in good faith claim to support his candidacy. If his name gets on the ballot, I may end up voting for him as the lesser evil, but that is not high praise.
America deserves better.
The world deserves better.
The people of Palestine deserve better.
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Swiss Parliamentary elections on 22 October 2023 resulted in a landslide to the right. Granted, Switzerland was mostly right leaning for years. However, this rather strong shift to the right was internationally not expected.
The right-wing People’s Party, already with a Parliamentary majority, gained nine new seats to the detriment of the Greens and the Liberal Greens. Together they lost 11 seats. The middle parties stayed about where they were before. The socialists made a modest gain of two seats, probably spillover from the Greens.
Is this a sign that the Swiss are gradually waking up and readopt human base-values, as His Excellency, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, pointed out in his video recording “Wake up from the Slumber”:
“The awakening of the consciousness is the first step towards liberation from the subversive leadership that has reserved the high places in both the national and international institutions because opening one’s eyes and looking at reality is essential.:
If you have to understand what is really happening, denounce the globalist coup d’etat and regain the national sovereignty and fundamental freedoms that have been taken away from you. You have all witnessed in recent years a radical change in society; a change planned by people without any electoral mandate and imposed by sold-out rulers.”
“The United States of America, like many other nations hostage to the Agenda 2030, is facing a very serious crisis: inflation, an out-of-control self-induced migration crisis, human trafficking and child trafficking, rampant crime, and the weakening of law enforcement.”
Archbishop Vigano spoke primarily to the people of the United States. He might as well have spoken to the Europeans and the Swiss. The recent election results would appear as if the Swiss had listened.
What is the Right, What is the Left? “Controlled Opposition”?
This significant move to the right may be a sign of awakening – awakening to the aberrant neo-fascist “green policies,” coercing the world’s economy to be driven by green energy, mandating to demolish one of the most efficient and secure sources of energy, clean nuclear power and doing away with hydrocarbon energy – gas and oil – for which by now the most extraordinary technologies have made these sources of energy multiple times cleaner than they were 20 to 30 years ago.
Do you know, that still today, after a massive propaganda for the last 30 years (since the 1992 custom-made UN Conference on the Environment, also called Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro) against petrol and gas, the CO2 cum climate change / global warming hoax – some 85% of all energy used in the world still comes from hydrocarbon? No change since 1992.
The absurd green movement wants to convert this power source to solar and wind energy, killing cows for their CO2 production – creating wanton famine, and death – and on the way ruin the world economy, as is already visible in the US, and even worse in Europe.
Maybe Switzerland did wake up? They may also be aware of the nefarious UN Agenda 2030, the WEF’s Great Reset, both identical – the unholy marriage between the World Economic Forum, a globalist NGO, heavenly seated in Geneva Switzerland, and the United Nations, a world body, created after WWII to foster peace and to mediate conflict solutions between warring countries.
The Swiss, as well as many Westerners, may gradually see through the invention of “COVID” – at best the equivalent of an innocuous flu, and the creation of a series of deadly vaxxes which have seen excess mortality skyrocket in the past two years throughout the Western world.
The Swiss are also becoming increasingly aware of the inferno “Woke” agenda, the criminal Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer or Questioning – or LGBTQ-plus agenda (also oddly but quite adroitly called the “letter-agenda”), which has infiltrated schools to the point where transgender ideas are literally promoted. In some parts of Switzerland 11-year-old kids may decide on their own, on a sex change, without parental approval or interference.
In Switzerland, where public schools have benefitted from a consistently good record, homeschooling was basically not known until about 2019. With “COVID”, homeschooling started taking hold also in Switzerland. Today it is still at a low 0.7% of all school-age children (compare with US – about 3.3%).
Over the past couple of years, homeschooling has more than doubled, and tends to increase rapidly, as parents do not want to continue exposing their kids to the nonsensical and outright criminal teaching of the despicable woke and gender agenda, promoted at certain public schools – and encouraged by the government.
Of course, the media will not tell you that.
The media analyzing on behalf of the globalists fatal election results, invent all sorts of reasons, like fear of increasing crime because of refugees and job-steeling immigrants. Such propaganda is, indeed, also being hammered into the brains of Western populations in Europe and the US and may influence the ever more discrimination-prone thinking of “white” people.
The media in Switzerland and elsewhere will never admit the truth – namely, that the people are waking up to the horrors of globalization, and are instead seeking true values of humanity, family, community, human and political sovereignty, ethical values and to some extent back to simplicity.
This is what the Right is currently offering, as the left has failed bitterly, being largely submissive to the globalist agenda.
Back to “simplicity” would doubtlessly mean stepping down from extreme capitalism, consumerism and “elitism”. Simplicity, an attribute that needs new fervor. The Tavistock technique of mind and social engineering feeds on the addiction of consumerism of the West.
These election results were not for love of the Right, but in Grand Opposition to the ever more invasive globalist movements.
True Left and Right have not existed for at least the last 40 years – almost nowhere in the Western world, as the CIA / MI6 anti-socialist program “Gladio”, eradicated the left in Europe during the four decades from the 1950s to about the 1990s. A similar movement decimated socialism in the US.
Later many of the same left-leaning groups were “bought” by the globalists under the pretext of a One World Government of equality for all, an old socialist slogan. The tragedy is that as of this day, many, if not most “new socialists or leftists” do not know, or refuse to admit, that they have been coopted and corrupted by the globalist crusade.
the endless wars and conflicts and random terrorist attacks,
and not least, the COVID and bio-war agenda
– all with their plan for massive population reduction – were largely funded by the less visible financial elite, Soros, Rockefeller, Gates, Rothschild et. al. and, of course, by the players from the dark, the Financial-Military-IT-Media-Pharma complex.
Extraordinarily, Archbishop Vigano nailed it all down in his bombshell 17-min video:
May the Swiss election results have been a wake-up signal for the rest of the world, at least the Western world? Rising up to conquer sovereignty in solidarity. To return to basic values of fraternity and LOVE.
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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
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***
Judge Andrew Napolitano: What damage is Israel doing not just to Gaza, not just to itself, but to the world by its invasion of the Gaza Strip?
Does the US support the unbridled invasion of Gaza by the Israeli military? And if so, does it appreciate the consequences of such support?
Philip Giraldi: The fundamental question that we’re confronting here is the extent to which the US is capable of supporting its own national interest which includes not getting involved in places like Ukraine and Israel-Gaza unless there is a compelling national interest that drives the process.
In this case the US was not threatened by either the Russians or the Gazans yet it’s fully engaged in the process of supporting countries that are basically not doing any good for us.
Watch the video below for the full interview of Philip Giraldi.
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***
“More than 5.55 billion people worldwide have received a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, equal to about 72.3 percent of the world population,” observed the New York Times in March of this year.
In other words, in the space of twenty-seven months (since the beginning of the rollout), the vaccinators had managed to inject nearly two thirds of the world’s inhabitants with their COVID medicaments. Furthermore, the majority of the vaccinated were subjected to more than one dose. In total more than 13.5 billion injections were administered across the planet.
To pull this off in such a short period of time makes the COVID vaccination campaign one of the most impressive logistical and organizational feats ever accomplished.
A fatal flaw, however, has marred the whole COVID vaccination enterprise: it was a blatant fraud from beginning to end.
To begin with, the whole thing was based on a false premise. We were told that in SARS-CoV-2 we were up against a highly dangerous virus that posed a potentially lethal threat to those who contracted it and that vaccines were the only sure way to escape the scourge. This was a lie. For healthy people of productive age the infection fatality rate was about as high as that of the seasonal flu. For healthy children and young people the danger of a serious outcome was virtually nil.
Lauded as both “safe and effective,” the vaccines turned out to be anything but that. To begin with, it quickly became quite clear that the vaccines would not protect against infection.
Only some five months after the start of the vaccination campaign, the authorities started speaking about the need for a booster. This obviously meant that the initial two doses of Pfizer and Moderna (one in the case of Johnson & Johnson) failed to protect their recipients from the SARS-CoV-2 virus beyond a very limited amount of time.
But the first booster also failed to confer any lasting protection and soon a second booster was required. The second booster, however, proved as ineffective as the first booster and a third booster was said to be necessary. But the third booster also failed, and a fourth booster was needed.
Currently, we are on the sixth shot and counting. And this less than 34 months after the COVID vaccines were first introduced. In other words, to keep fully vaccinated as per recommendations from our health authorities, one would have had to have been injected every five months or so.
But even those who got every booster on schedule were not protected against contracting COVID-19. We learn from the website of the Mayo Clinic: “People who are up to date on their vaccines can get breakthrough infections. They can then spread the virus to others.”
When pressed about this issue during a hearing of the European Parliament in October of last year, a Pfizer representative admitted that the company had never tested the vaccines to see whether they would prevent transmission.
What an astonishing admission that was. The objective of vaccines has always been to protect their recipients from the disease for which they were administered thus limiting the spread of infection in the population.
The COVID-19 “vaccines” are the first vaccines in history that do neither protect against infection nor slow its spread.
Do you remember when Joe Bidenpromised us during a Townhall meeting in 2021 that “you’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations.”
Turns out this was a massive lie. It was brazen disinformation coming from the very top of the US government.
The majority of the injected came down with COVID and most of them more than once. In fact, it appears that getting “vaccinated” against COVID increases one’s chances of contracting COVID. Just ask Joe and Jill Biden who despite being jabbed multiple times have been repeatedly sickened with the disease.
We must ask ourselves, “What kind of vaccines are these?” Never has the world witnessed such a thing — vaccines that require a booster every few months and apparently make their recipients more likely to fall ill with the very disease against which they are supposed to protect.
Neither will the vaccines protect people from serious COVID outcomes. The majority of people who get serious COVID or die of COVID have been vaccinated.
That the vaccines are grossly ineffective is becoming clear even to most of those who were previously brainwashed by our corrupt governments and medical authorities. A study published earlier this month found that “uptake of boosters has stalled in the United States at less than 20% of the eligible population.” Please note that the 20% uptake figure refers to only the eligible population. This means that only a small fraction of the whole population has opted to receive the COVID injections. Only 17% of Americans chose to receive the previous booster. This time around the number will be even lower. By now most people have seen through the fraud.
Not only are the vaccines ineffective, but they are also very dangerous. Since the rollout of the vaccination campaign, there has been an explosion of adverse reaction reports across the world. In the United States, the reports related to the COVID shots in the VAERS database exceed those related to all the other vaccines combined. There is no doubt that the COVID vaccines are the most dangerous vaccines ever devised and that by a long shot.
Already early in 2022, there were more than one thousand articles and studies published in scientific journals discussing the adverse effects of the COVID-19 vaccines. Some of the effects listed include conditions such as pericarditis, myopericarditis, death, Guillain-Barre syndrome, acute venous thromboembolism, lymphadenopathy, acute thrombosis of the coronary tree, cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, portal vein thrombosis, T-cell lymphoma, aphasia, and thrombophilia among others.
The wider public, however, was never informed about these studies by our government and the medical establishment, both of which are corrupted to the core.
According to a survey conducted by Rasmussen at the end of last year, nearly 30 percent of Americans thought they knew someone who had been killed by a COVID vaccine. This number is undoubtedly much higher today as we keep hearing the news of healthy people who keep inexplicably dying. The stories of hundreds of healthy athletes who have been collapsing and dying since the beginning of the vaccination campaign are especially revealing.
According to researcher Steve Kirsch the death rate of the COVID vaccines is roughly 1 in 1000 doses. This translates into 676,000 dead Americans. It turns out, however, that Kirsch’s analysis, which is based on a breakdown of VAERS figures, may be too conservative. Working with data from 17 countries on all-cause mortality, researchers with Canada-based Correlation Research in the Public Interest have come to the conclusion that the death rate of the COVID-19 shots is somewhere in the region of 1 in 800 doses. They estimate that the vaccines have killed some 17 million people worldwide.
As a point of comparison, the number of people exterminated by the Nazis in the Holocaust was about 6 million.
If even the most conservative estimates are correct, the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, the bulk of which was carried out under false pretences and coercive mandates, constitutes the greatest crime ever committed against humanity.
Unbelievably, so far no one — either in government or in the medical establishment — has been held responsible for this travesty.
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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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Holy books contain theological principles and play a crucial role in the transmission of faith. The Bible in Christianity, the Koran in Islam, the Torah in Judaism are texts that are taught from the cradle, becoming absolute, undeniable and exclusive truths.
There have been wars for strictly religious motivations in the past, but history shows that, for the most part, wars have been motivated by a combination of economic, territorial, ethnic and political factors. Whatever the motivation, the consequences of war are always devastating.
The three religions mentioned above, which predominate in Western and Middle Eastern culture, all enshrine the principle of “an eye for an eye” which implies equal or worse punishment for the crime committed, thus satisfying the revenge desired by the victim and society. Its religious origin may explain why this principle is so deeply rooted in human relations and in relations between states, and why it is so difficult to take the first step in building a peaceful coexistence.
It will always be easier to apply “an eye for an eye” because it does not require the courage to engage in dialogue and seek a healthy coexistence. As the song “Give peace a chance” by John Lennon says, “Peace is not something you wish for, it is something you create, and it can be achieved if you have the will”. In many parts of the world there is no such will.
This is what we are seeing in the Middle East. A long-standing conflict in which leaders display religious justifications, tirelessly repeated because it is easier to identify an enemy and align their own people. And in the pursuit of biblical, tit-for-tat justice, unimaginable atrocities and barbarities are being committed, which must be unambiguously and unhesitatingly condemned.
The force of politics and the media, which also respond to political interests, promote polarisation, so that anyone who condemns the violence on both sides is made to look like a traitor. Condemning violence perpetrated by those you sympathise with is not treason, it is collaborating in the first steps towards peace.
Children are born free of evil and prejudice. They are a blank sheet of paper that begins to be written by the adult world, which is why it is important to always distinguish between organisations and individuals.
In the Middle East situation, being Israeli or Zionist is not the same as being Jewish, and being Hamas or Islamic Jihad is not the same as being Palestinian.
Chile, with a large Palestinian and Jewish community, has been an example of good coexistence and collaboration, and our country can make a contribution by being very clear and direct as it has been so far.
Every war, however terrible it may be, can serve as an example in the classroom to remove it and to educate. To seek an “eye for an eye” is to go against the civilising advances that seek to have a recognised and legitimate rule of law that resolves conflicts between parties, avoiding violence and barbarity.
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Marcelo Trivelli is President of Fundación Semilla and Member of the Regional Network for Global Citizenship Education in Latin America and the Caribbean.
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***
I’m recording this message from Gaza.
I don’t have the words to describe the dire situation here right now. There is no food, there is no water, there are no supplies. Outside the few shops that remain open, long lines of people wait for scarce loaves of bread. No cars drive in the streets; people are too scared of being targeted by the Israeli war planes flying above us. The hospitals cannot receive more patients. Relentless bombing has razed entire neighbourhoods to the ground. You would no longer recognize them. The situation in Gaza is lacking all conditions of life.
Where I am in the south of the strip, the bombing is not as intense at this moment. Israel’s strategy is to bombard the north to forcibly transfer Palestinians to the southern region. But although it claims this area is safe, a hospital has been hit and many homes too. We do not know where the next one will strike. Everyone is scared that they will be the next victim.
This is not an Israeli occupation. It is genocide.
About 3,000 citizens have been massacred in just 10 days. This number is likely to have increased by the time you read this. Every 15 minutes a child is killed by the Israeli attack. Families have been bombed in their homes as they slept inside.
The enemies of Israel are not Hamas, but the Palestinian people themselves. This has happened with the complete backing of the United States administration and many other Western governments. They are supporting the Gaza genocide.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from their homes, after Israel ordered 1.1 million people to ‘evacuate’ from the north of Gaza City. Yet there are no signs that Israel is finished with its collective punishment of the people of Gaza. Netanyahu is still refusing to allow humanitarian aid to enter. Many of the Israeli officials say that the Palestinian people have to abandon their homes and move to Egypt. This is a clear attempt to ethnically cleanse the Gaza strip. Israel is punishing the people because they refuse to leave and be made refugees once again.
We are seeing history repeat itself. Israel itself was established on the rubble of Palestinian villages and cities. It displaced our grandparents, including my own grandfather, from our towns and cities under the pressure of massacres carried out by Jewish militias 75 years ago. After erasing these Palestinian villages and cities, it created the state of Israel.
What we are seeing now is a continuation of the Nakba in 2023, but there is one difference. The Nakba today is being recorded by video and by voice, all the world is watching.
How can we stop this massacre? It’s up to all of us, and all of you to take to the streets, to organize huge demonstrations and say we believe in freedom and dignity for everyone. This is a historic time to show your strong support, not only to the Palestinian people but to all people around the world. If we allow this injustice to be committed here, rest assured it will happen elsewhere. This is the time. This is the moment. Every single day we let them silence our anger, more families will be wiped out. This is not just our battle; this is your battle. This is our common struggle. This is the struggle of all the free people against the colonial powers. Please stand with us. Stand on the right side of history.
[This piece was adapted from a voice recording sent by Ahmed Abu Artema to New Internationalist. Israel cut off electricity to Gaza on 12 October after declaring a ‘complete siege’ of the strip. Since then, internet connection has been intermittent making it difficult for Palestinian journalists to write.]
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Ahmed Abu Artema is a Palestinian journalist and a founder of the Great March Of Return. He is a refugee from Al Ramla village and lives in the Gaza Strip.
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***
Tonight has been the most violent bombardment of Gaza so far, notably concentrated on precisely the areas into which Israel ordered the population to evacuate. I find it almost impossible to believe that this genocide is under way with the active support of almost all western governments.
I want to look at two questions – what will happen internationally, and what is happening in western societies.
Israel plainly is on the course of further escalation and intends to kill many thousands more Palestinians. More than 2,000 Palestinian children alone have now been killed by Israeli aerial attack in the last fortnight.
Gaza has no defence from bombs and missiles, and there is no military reason why Israel cannot keep this up for months and simply rely upon aerial massacre. We are perhaps within a week of thirst, starvation and disease killing even more people per day than bombardment.
The population of Gaza are simply defenceless. Only international intervention can stop Israel from doing whatever it wishes, and those countries which have influence with Israel are actively abetting and encouraging the genocide.
The question is, what is Israel’s aim? Do they intend to reduce the Gaza Strip still further, annexing half or more of it? Will starvation and horror enable the international community to force Egypt to accept the expulsion of the population of Gaza into the Sinai Desert as a “humanitarian” move?
That appears to be the end game: expulsion of population and territorial expansion into Gaza. That would require a ground invasion, but probably not until after even more intense aerial bombardment to eliminate all resistance. This territorial ambition of course accords with the violent expansion of illegal settlement in the West Bank which is currently under way, with the world paying almost no attention. It is very hard indeed to comprehend the passivity of Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas at the moment.
Netanyahu’s political stock within Israel is so low, that the only way he can recover is by making a major step towards the complete genocide of the Palestinian people and the achievement of Greater Israel. Netanyahu now knows that there is no violence against Palestinians so extreme that the western political elite will not support it under the mantra of “Israel’s right to self-defence”.
I do not see any salvation for Gaza coming from Hezbollah. If Hezbollah were to employ their vaunted missile strike capabilities, the moment to do it would be now when the Israeli armour is drawn up in massive parks outside Gaza, a perfect target even for longer range missiles of limited accuracy. Once dispersed into Gaza the armour would be far harder for Hezbollah to hit at range.
Hezbollah is even better equipped now to fight a defensive war in Lebanon than it was when it defeated the Israeli advance in 2006. But it is not configured or equipped to fight an aggressive ground war into Israel, which would be a disaster. It also has to worry about hostile militias in its rear. If Hezbollah can provoke an Israeli incursion into Southern Lebanon, that would enable it to inflict substantial casualties, but Israel is not going to do that in a way that detracts from its capabilities in Gaza.
Iran has greatly improved its diplomatic position in the last year. The Chinese-brokered lessening of hostility with Saudi Arabia has potential to revolutionise Middle Eastern politics, and the benefits of this will not lightly be laid aside by Tehran. Iran had also made real progress with the Biden administration in overcoming the blind hostility of the Trump years.
Iran has no desire to throw away these gains. That is why it seems to me extremely improbable that Iran had endorsed the 7 October attacks by Hamas. Iran is now restraining Hezbollah. But there are limits to the patience of Iran. The extraordinary truth is that Iran is probably the only state under discussion here with a genuine humanitarian concern for the lives of Palestinians. If the genocide unfolds as horribly as I anticipate, Iran can be pushed too far.
That said, I offer just a cautionary footnote that Saudi Arabia is not, under MBS, quite the reliable US/Israeli puppet it has historically been. I do not have much time for MBS, as you know, but his high opinion of the importance of the Al Saud and their leadership role among Arabs, makes him a different proposition to his predecessor.
Saudi Arabia has leverage. The Biden administration has gone all in on regional domination, sending two aircraft carrier groups into a situation which should it escalate, could send oil prices to highest-ever levels, with Russia blocked from the market. Biden is risking a huge gas price hike in an election year.
Biden’s calculation, or that of his security services, is that nobody can or will intervene to save the Palestinians. They judge the genocide as containable. That is an extraordinary gamble.
There has been an extraordinary amount of vitriol aimed at Qatar by pro-Israel commentators, for hosting the Hamas office and leadership. This is extraordinarily ignorant.
Qatar hosts Hamas, just as Qatar hosted the Taliban Information Office, at the direct request of the United States. It provides a means of dialogue between the United States and Hamas (exactly as it did with the Taliban) both at deniable level, and through third parties, including of course the government of Qatar. Thus when Blinken arrived in Qatar one day and the Iranian foreign minister the next, these were in fact “proximity talks” involving Hamas.
How do I know? Well, at Julian’s request, I visited Qatar about five years ago to discuss whether Julian, and Wikileaks, might potentially relocate to Qatar, which Julian had described as “the new Switzerland” in terms of being a neutral diplomatic venue.
It was explained to me by the Qataris, at a very senior level, that Qatar hosted the Taliban Information Office and Hamas because the United States government had asked them to do so. Qatar hosted a major US military base and depended on US support against a Saudi takeover. If I could generate a request from then President Trump for Qatar to host Wikileaks, then they would do so. Otherwise, no.
So I know what I am talking about.
One tiny but good result of this brokering in Qatar was the release of two American national hostages. British diplomats have told me that discussions in Qatar have so far held back the Israeli ground offensive, but I am not convinced that Israel really wished to do this yet. They are having sadistic fun shooting children in a barrel.
Qatar has also been the origin of deals allowing in a tiny amount of aid to Gaza, but this is so small as to be almost irrelevant. It is performative humanitarianism by the West.
I have frequently praised China for the fact that their economic dominance has been unaccompanied by any aggressive desire for world hegemony, but this also has its downside. China sees no benefit in assisting the Palestinians in practice. Hopeful reports of China sending warships refer simply to pre-planned exercises, largely in the Gulf. That China is carrying out such joint exercises with Gulf states is indeed part of a long term increasing of influence, but is not relevant to the immediate reality.
Russia of course has its hands full in Ukraine. It is allowing its Syrian bases to be used as a conduit following increased Israeli bombing of Syrian airports, but there is not a great deal more that it can do. Erdoğan is genuinely furious at what is happening in Gaza, but Turkey is struggling to find any way to apply pressure, barring linkage to Ukraine shipping issues (which Erdoğan is considering).
That is a very rough and ready tour d’horizon, but the net effect is that I see no current hope for averting the atrocity which is unfolding before our horrified eyes.
Most of our eyes are indeed horrified. The gap between the western political and media elites and their people on this issue is simply enormous. Western leaders have not only failed to restrain Israel, they have almost unanimously egged Netanyahu on, with the continued repetition of the phrase “Israel’s right to self-defence” as justification for the mass bombing, removal and starvation of an entire civilian population.
The western leadership glee in vetoing every attempt at a ceasefire resolution at the UN is astonishing.
Massive demonstrations have been taking place across Europe against this unspeakable massacre, and the knee-jerk reaction of politicians at their isolation from public opinion has been to try to make such shows of dissent illegal. In the UK people have been arrested for displaying Palestinian flags. In Germany pro-Palestinian demonstrations have been entirely banned. Something similar has been attempted in France, with predictable failure.
I have myself attended pro-Palestinian demonstrations in three different countries, and the most striking thing on each occasion was the strong support of passers-by, and the number of people spontaneously coming out to join the demo as it passed.
A wave of racism has been unleashed in the UK and elsewhere. I am astonished by the Islamophobia and racial hatred released online, with no apparent comeback. UK Ministers claim to be alarmed at the “terrorist sympathies” of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, yet it is perfectly legal to call for Palestinians to be exterminated, to compare them to different types of animal and vermin, and suggest they should be driven into the sea. That does not horrify ministers at all.
I am personally now subject to a police investigation for “terrorism” merely for suggesting that the Palestinians too have a right to self-defence and may offer armed resistance to genocide – a right they enjoy beyond doubt in international law. Remember, Israel has formally declared war. Is it the position in British law that the only belief it is legal to hold and express, is that in this war the Palestinians must simply line up quietly to be killed?
The step change in western authoritarianism is likely to be met by blowback.
After 20 years, we had finally come through the vicious cycle of the “War on Terror”, where terrorism, repression and institutionalised Islamophobia all boosted each other across the western world. Outrage at the appalling genocide in Gaza is very likely to result in isolated incidences of, also appalling, Islamist-inspired violence in Western countries, including the UK, particularly because of the UK’s military support of Israel.
That consequential terrorism in itself will be cited by the political elite as justifying their stance. And so the vicious cycle will restart. This will of course be welcome to the agents of the security state, whose power, budgets and prestige will be boosted. Once again we have to be on the lookout for radicalisation and real terrorism, but also for agent-provocateur-led terrorism and for false flag terrorism.
If we descend back into that nightmare again, the direct cause will be elite support for the genocide of the Palestinian people and the Islamophobic narrative. The major cause of terrorism here is Israel, the terrorist apartheid state.
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***
“Learn to do right; seek justice; defend the oppressed” (Isa 1:17).
We, at the undersigned Palestinian Christian institutions and grassroots movements, grieve and lament the renewed cycle of violence in our land.
As we were about to publish this open letter, some of us lost dear friends & family members in the atrocious Israeli bombardment of innocent civilians on Oct. 19, 2023, Christians included, who were taking refuge in the historical Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza.
Words fail to express our shock and horror with regard to the ongoing war in our land. We deeply mourn the death and suffering of all people because it is our firm conviction that all humans are made in God’s image.
We are also profoundly troubled when the name of God is invoked to promote violence and religious national ideologies.
Further, we watch with horror the way many Western Christians are offering unwavering support to Israel’s war against the people of Palestine.
While we recognize the numerous voices that have spoken and continue to speak for the cause of truth and justice in our land, we write to challenge Western theologians and church leaders who have voiced uncritical support for Israel and to call them to repent and change.
Sadly, the actions and double standards of some Christian leaders have gravely hurt their Christian witness and have severely distorted their moral judgment with regard to the situation in our land.
We come alongside fellow Christians in condemning all attacks on civilians, especially defenseless families and children. Yet, we are disturbed by the silence of many church leaders and theologians when it is Palestinian civilians who are killed.
We are also horrified by the refusal of some Western Christians to condemn the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine, and, in some instances, their justification of and support for the occupation.
Further, we are appalled by how some Christians have legitimized Israel’s ongoing indiscriminate attacks on Gaza, which have, so far, claimed the lives of more than 3,700 Palestinians, the majority of whom are women and children.
These attacks have resulted in the wholesale destruction of entire neighborhoods and the forced displacement of over one million Palestinians.
The Israeli military has utilized tactics that target civilians such as the use of white phosphorus, the cutting off of water, fuel, and electricity, and the bombardment of schools, hospitals, and places of worship—including the heinous massacre at Al-Ahli Anglican-Baptist Hospital and the bombardment of the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius which wiped out entire Palestinian Christian families.
Moreover, we categorically reject the myopic and distorted Christian responses that ignore the wider context and the root causes of this war: Israel’s systemic oppression of the Palestinians over the last 75 years since the Nakba, the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and the oppressive and racist military occupation that constitutes the crime of apartheid.
This is precisely the horrific context of oppression that many Western Christian theologians and leaders have persistently ignored, and even worse, have occasionally legitimized using a wide range of Zionist theologies and interpretations.
Moreover, Israel’s cruel blockade of Gaza for the last 17 years has turned the 365-square-kilometer Strip into an open-air prison for more than two million Palestinians—70% of whom belong to families displaced during the Nakba—who are denied their basic human rights.
The brutal and hopeless living conditions in Gaza under Israel’s iron fist have regrettably emboldened extreme voices of some Palestinian groups to resort to militancy and violence as a response to oppression and despair.
The brutal and hopeless living conditions in Gaza under Israel’s iron fist have regrettably emboldened extreme voices of some Palestinian groups to resort to militancy and violence as a response to oppression and despair.
Sadly, Palestinian non-violent resistance, which we remain wholeheartedly committed to, is met with rejection, with some Western Christian leaders even prohibiting the discussion of Israeli apartheid as reported by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and B’Tselem, and as long asserted by both Palestinians and South Africans.
Time and again, we are reminded that Western attitudes towards Palestine-Israel suffer from a glaring double standard that humanizes Israeli Jews while insisting on dehumanizing Palestinians and whitewashing their suffering.
This is evident in general attitudes towards the recent Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip that killed thousands of Palestinians, the apathy towards the murder of the Palestinian-American Christian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022, and the killing of more than 300 Palestinians including 38 children in the West Bank this year before this recent escalation.
It seems to us that this double standard reflects an entrenched colonial discourse that has weaponized the Bible to justify the ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples in the Americas, Oceania, and elsewhere, the slavery of Africans and the transatlantic slave trade, and decades of apartheid in South Africa. Colonial theologies are not passé; they continue in wide-ranging Zionist theologies and interpretations that have legitimized the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the vilification and dehumanization of Palestinians—Christians included—living under systemic settler-colonial apartheid.
Further, we are aware of the Western Christian legacy of the Just War Theory that was used to justify dropping atomic bombs on innocent civilians in Japan during World War II the destruction of Iraq, and the decimation of its Christian population during the latest American war on Iraq, as well as the unwavering and uncritical support for Israel against the Palestinians in the name of moral-supremacy and “self-defense.”
Regrettably, many Western Christians across wide denominational and theological spectra adopt Zionist theologies and interpretations that justify war, making them complicit in Israel’s violence and oppression.
Some are also complicit in the rise of anti-Palestinian hate speech, which we are witnessing in numerous Western countries and media outlets today.
Although many Christians in the West do not have a problem with the theological legitimization of war, the vast majority of Palestinian Christians do not condone violence—not even by the powerless and occupied.
Instead, Palestinian Christians are fully committed to the way of Jesus in creative nonviolent resistance (Kairos Palestine, §4.2.3), which uses “the logic of love and draw[s] on all energies to make peace” (§4.2.5).
Crucially, we reject all theologies and interpretations that legitimize the wars of the powerful. We strongly urge Western Christians to come alongside us in this.
We also remind ourselves and fellow Christians that God is the God of the downtrodden and the oppressed and that Jesus rebuked the powerful and lifted up the marginalized. This is at the heart of God’s conception of justice.
Therefore, we are deeply troubled by the failure of some Western Christian leaders and theologians to acknowledge the biblical tradition of justice and mercy, as first proclaimed by Moses (Deut 10:18; 16:18–20; 32:4) and the prophets (Isa 1:17; 61:8; Mic 2:1–3, 6:8; Amos 5:10–24), and as exemplified and embodied in Christ (Matt 25:34–46; Luke 1:51–53; 4:16–21). 37/
Finally, and we say it with a broken heart, we hold Western church leaders and theologians who rally behind Israel’s wars accountable for their theological & political complicity in the Israeli crimes against the Palestinians that have been committed over the last 75 years.
We call upon them to reexamine their positions and to change their direction, remembering that God “will judge the world in justice” (Acts 17:31).
We also remind ourselves and our Palestinian people that our sumud (“steadfastness”) is anchored in our just cause and our historical rootedness in this land.
As Palestinian Christians, we also continue to find our courage and consolation in the God who dwells with those of a contrite and humble spirit (Isa 57:15).
We find courage in the solidarity we receive from the crucified Christ, and we find hope in the empty tomb.
We are also encouraged and empowered by the costly solidarity and support of many churches and grassroots faith movements around the world, challenging the dominance of ideologies of power and supremacy.
We refuse to give in, even when our siblings abandon us. We are steadfast in our hope, resilient in our witness, and continue to be committed to the Gospel of faith, hope, and love, in the face of tyranny and darkness.
“In the absence of all hope, we cry out our cry of hope. We believe in God, good and just. We believe that God’s goodness will finally triumph over the evil of hate and death that still persist in our land.
We will see here ‘a new land’ and ‘a new human being’, capable of rising up in the spirit to love each one of his or her brothers and sisters” (Kairos Palestine, §10).
Your Kingdom come!
Signed Organizations and Institutions:
Kairos Palestine Christ at the Checkpoint Bethlehem Bible College Sabeel Ecumenical Center for Liberation Theology Dar al-Kalima University Al-Liqa Center for Religious, Heritage and Cultural Studies in the Holy Land The East Jerusalem YMCA The YWCA of Palestine Arab Orthodox Society, Jerusalem Arab Orthodox Club, Jerusalem The Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees of the Middle East Council of Churches Arab Education Institute Pax Christi, Bethlehem.
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***
This is a Personal Statement by an IRGC Official and Does Not Necessarily Reflect Official Iranian Policy.
A senior official in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) yesterday warned that Tehran will strike the Israeli port of Haifa if Tel Aviv invades the besieged Gaza Strip.
Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the IRGC, Brigadier General Ali Fadavi, said the Palestinian resistance is capable of moving on its own and has sufficient numbers in Gaza. However, if Israel foolishly decided to invade Gaza, Iran “will launch missiles directly toward Haifa”.
Last week, the IRGC said,
“If Israel’s crimes against Gaza do not stop, there will be another shock waiting for them,” adding that “the resistance forces’ shocks will continue against the Zionists, until this cancerous tumour disappears from the world’s map.”
In his Monday address, General Fadavi said:
“If the evil people of the world want to carry out a foolish act such as invading the Palestinian territories, they will face a miserable failure and will receive a decisive response from the resistance front,” according to Mehr Agency.
At the same time, he stressed that Iran does not give weapons and missiles to the Palestinian resistance forces, because they produce their own weapons.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has recently accused Israel of “committing genocide in the Gaza Strip before the world’s eyes.”
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Featured image: Brigadier General Ali Fadavi (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)
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It is with profound sadness that we announce the death of Maurice Patenaude, at the age of 54, on September 26, 2023.
An Air Canada captain, he flew his last flight in December 2022 following a diagnosis of terminal renal cell carcinoma. He fought this dreadful illness valiantly and tenaciously, characteristic of his indomitable spirit.
A career pilot, Maurice was very much appreciated and respected by all; it was with the Canadian Air Force reserves and Air Canada that he was able to fulfill his passion, flying.
He is mourned by his new bride, his family, his friends, his aviation colleagues and all who crossed paths with him.
His decision to leave his body to medical research reflects his wish to contribute to the battle against cancer. Respectful of his wishes there will be no traditional funeral but rather a celebration of life, details to be announced.
In this period of mourning, we thank the staff of the Medical Surgical Intensive Care unit of the Toronto General and his oncologist Dr. Fallah-Rad.
Dear Mo, rest in peace, you are in our hearts forever.
His family
Pilot Incapacitations and Deaths in August-September 2023
Sep. 24, 2023 – Austrian Airlines Flight OS-188 (STR-VIE) Stuttgart to Vienna The captain became incapacitated, first officer took control of aircraft
Sep. 23, 2023 – Alaska Airlines Pilot – 37 year old Captain Eric McRae died suddenly in his hotel room during layover, was to fly that morning
Sep. 22, 2023 – Delta Flight DL-291 (CDG-LAX) Paris to Los Angeles – Pilot became incapacitated, was taken to cabin for care, plane diverted to Minneapolis, pilot taken to hospital
Aug. 27, 2023 – Air Canada Flight AC348 (YVR-YOW) Vancouver to Ottawa, one of the pilots felt ill and became incapacitated 50 min before landing in Ottawa.
Aug. 17, 2023 – IndiGo Flight (NAG-PNQ) Nagpur to Pune, India, pilot 40 year old Manoj Subramanium died after collapsing at the boarding gate, about to board.
Aug. 16, 2023 – Qatar Airways Flight QR579 (DEL-DOH) Delhi to Doha, Qatar, 51 year old pilot collapsed as a passenger inflight and died, plane diverted to Dubai.
Aug. 14, 2023 – LATAM Flight LA505 (MIA-SCL) Miami to Santiago, Chile – 2 hours into 8hr flight, 56 year old Captain Ivan Andaur collapsed and died in the lavatory – plane diverted to Panama City!
Aug. 9, 2023 – United Airlines UAL1309 (SRQ-EWR) Sarasota to Newark, pilot had a heart attack and lost consciousness in flight
Aug. 7, 2023 – TigerAIR Flight IT237 (CTS-TPE) Sapporo to Taipei, copilot had a medical emergency after landing plane in Taipei
Pilot Incapacitations and Deaths January-July 2023
July 19, 2023 – Eurowings Discover Flight 4Y-1205 (HER-FRA) Heraklion to Frankfurt, pilot incapacitated, first officer took control, landed safely
June 7, 2023 – Air Canada Flight ACA692 (YYZ-YYT) Toronto to St.John’s, First Officer became incapacitated, deadheading Captain assumed duties
June 4, 2023 – Cessna Citation N611VG flying Tennessee to Long Island, fighter jets spotted pilot slumped over in cockpit unconscious, plane crashed and all onboard died
May 11, 2023 – HiSKy Flight H4474 (DUB-KIV) Dublin to Chisinau (Moldova), 20 min after liftoff pilot became “unable to act”, plane diverted to Manchester
May 4, 2023 – British Charter TUI Airways Flight BY-1424 (NCL-LPA) Newcastle to Las Palmas Spain pilot became ill, plane diverted back to NCL.
April 21, 2023 – Easyjet Flight U2-6469 (LGW-AGA) London Gatwick to Agadir, Morocco, first offer became incapacitated, diverted to Faro, Portugal.
April 4, 2023 – United Airlines Flight 2102 (BOI-SFO) – captain was incapacitated, first officer was only one in control of the aircraft.
March 25, 2023 – TAROM Flight RO-7673 TSR-HRG diverted to Bucharest as 30 yo pilot had chest pain, then collapsed
March 22, 2023 – Southwest Flight WN6013 LAS-CMH diverted as pilot collapsed shortly after take-off, replaced by non-Southwest pilot
March 18, 2023 – Air Transat Flight TS739 FDF-YUL first officer was incapacitated about 200NM south of Montreal
March 13, 2023 – Emirates Flight EK205 MXP-JFK diverted due to pilot illness hour and a half after take-off
March 11, 2023 – United Airlines Flight UA2007 GUA-ORD diverted due to “incapacitated pilot” who had chest pains
March 3, 2023 – Virgin Australia Flight VA-717 ADL-PER Adelaide to Perth flight was forced to make an emergency landing after First Officer suffered heart attack 30 min after departure.
Military Pilot Incapacitations
Aug. 18, 2023 – US Army Aviation Center (Alabama) student pilot went into cardiac arrest behind the controls midflight (Aug.18, 2023), Instructor landed plane – pilot was dead for 18 minutes!
Recent Pilot Deaths
Pilot death – July 16, 2023 – 2006 Piper Meridian, flying from Westchester NY, crashed at Martha’s Vineyard Airport after pilot had medical emergency upon final approach and passenger took control of the plane and attempted a landing. Pilot, 79 year old Randolph Bonnist, died later in hospital.
Pilot death – March 11, 2023 – British Airways (CAI-LHR) pilot died of heart attack in crew hotel in Cairo before a Cairo to London flight (name & age not released)
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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.
Featured image is from COVID Intel
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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President Joe Biden announced last week that the United States would be funding – and possibly fighting – three wars in three different parts of the world at the same time. It is an ambitious foreign policy for a president who doesn’t even seem to be able to express a coherent thought without the help of a teleprompter.
Nearly every word of Biden’s speech was untrue, including the preposterous suggestion that “American leadership is what holds the world together. American alliances are what keep us, America, safe.”
US interventionism in Ukraine for over ten years and in the Middle East for decades has brought those two regions to the brink of an explosion unlike anything seen before. And if that is not enough, Biden’s neocons are also determined to take us to war with China over Taiwan. The world is literally falling apart in front of us as Biden claims we are the only thing holding it together!
After a brutal attack on Israel by Hamas earlier this month, Israel declared war not just on the terrorists who attacked its territory, but on the entire population of Gaza itself. Israel’s policy of collective punishment – razing Gaza to the ground – has inflamed Muslims from the Middle East to Asia to Western capitals. The anger rages more fiercely than we have seen in decades, perhaps since the founding of Israel in 1948.
Yet instead of trying to help facilitate a ceasefire and a peaceful solution, Biden has poured gasoline onto the fire, sending two US carrier groups and at least 15,000 troops, while threatening war on Lebanon, Iran, and Syria if they intervene in Israel’s war on the Palestinians. What might Russia do if the US attacks Russian forces in Syria or Russia’s allies in Tehran?
Biden also repeated the line that “Israel has the right to defend itself.” While that may be true, it is not Israel defending itself. It’s the US government intervening to defend Israel. And as the entire Muslim world rages against Israel over the destruction of Gaza, how do we think they will feel about us as the financiers and facilitators of that destruction?
By dragging the United States into this war, President Biden has planted the seeds of innumerable 9/11-style blowback attacks on the US. Yet he has the audacity to claim that all of this is keeping us safe.
Recent polls show that most Americans disagree with Biden. A CBS/YouGov poll taken last week shows that the majority of Americans oppose sending weapons to Israel. His Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen assured us that “we can afford” to finance two wars because the US economy is doing “exceptionally well.” Maybe the American people know something Yellen and the elites do not.
As Biden demands another $105 billion to fund the wars in Ukraine, Gaza, and Taiwan, his speech seemed to have a touch of campaign rhetoric in it.
“I’m told I was the first American [president] to enter a warzone not controlled by the United States military since President Lincoln,” he said in his speech.
The statement is blatantly false, but he must believe it gives him an air of bravado.
They say that it is advantageous to be seen as a “wartime president” when elections roll around, but Joe Biden may have miscalculated the level of support he will get for being a “World-War-Three-time president.”
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***
The prognosis of “war fatigue” on the part of the United States and its allies in the proxy war in Ukraine was greatly exaggerated. On the contrary, the war is acquiring a new swagger.
The Biden Administration is riding a tiger and a dismount is fraught with the danger of being devoured by the beastly consequences of defeat in the war, which could only lead to the discredit of trans-atlanticism and the disintegration of NATO, and spell the doom for US’ global hegemony.
Biden’s formal address to the nation from the Oval Office on Thursday can only be seen as the launch of a new phase of the Ukraine war carrying forward the the demonising of Putin to a new level, Biden weaves together a new narrative claiming that Hamas and the Russian leader both want to “completely annihilate a neighbouring democracy — completely annihilate it.”
The bedrock of Biden’s argument was that resolute support of US allies is essential for preserving American primacy in the world. The main plot was that the hybrid war in Ukraine will continue so long as Biden remains in office in the White House. It has morphed into a “forever war”. Biden called Ukraine President Vladimir Zelensky before making his speech.
Analysts would have us believe that Europe is increasingly disenchanted with the war. But Poland, a major frontline state, has just voted to power a centrist government that is cause for celebration in Kiev (and Washington). In Britain too, a similar outcome is to be expected — only that it will be Tweedledum replacing Tweedledee, two rotund little men of the Deep State who are identical except that they are left-right reversals of each other.
Make no mistake that the Joint Statement after the US-EU summit in Washington on October 20 amounts to a resounding victory for the Biden Administration as the EU agreed with the US on “unwavering” military support to Ukraine; demand that Russia should “end its brutal war and withdraw its military forces and proxies and military equipment immediately, completely, and unconditionally from the entire internationally recognised territory of Ukraine”; the imperative of restoration of “internationally recognised borders” in any peace settlement; forcing Russia to “bear the legal consequences of all its internationally wrongful acts” against Ukraine; further deepening of “joint work to undermine Russia’s ability to wage its war, and maintain and expand its defence industrial base and capacity”, and so on.
There is no sign of a potential wobbling in the steadfastness of Europe’s military support to Ukraine, either. The most recent example is Sweden where, as in other Nordic countries and across the Baltic states, geographical proximity to Russia has heightened security fears, and there is little sign of any wavering.
Politico reported on Tuesday that Sweden’s Defense Minister Pål Jonson had instructed the country’s military leadership to examine the potential impact of providing various types of support to Ukraine’s fighter-jet capability, including Gripen planes. The military is to report back to Jonson by November 6. This followed announcements by Sweden’s European neighbours Norway, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands that they planned to send Lockheed Martin F-16 jets to Kiev.
The expert opinion is that even a limited number of Gripen could meaningfully help Ukraine’s efforts to control its airspace, and is seen as relatively cheap and easy to maintain jet that can operate from shorter, narrower runways, including improvised landing strips on straight stretches of highways, thus reducing the risk of aircraft congregating at a larger base and being destroyed by a single enemy attack.
As for the US, now we know that the Biden Administration was dissimulating as regards the ATACMS missiles, whereas, it had already surreptitiously equipped Kiev’s forces with that system. Furthermore, encouraged by the success of Kiev’s devastating attack on the Russian-controlled airfield attacks in Beryansk and Luhansk on Tuesday by using ATACMS (which reportedly destroyed multiple Russian helicopters, an ammunition dump, and an air defence system), the Biden Administration is now considering supply of an advanced version of the missile that can fire twice (190 miles) as far as the ones Ukraine just received (100 miles only).
Certainly, there is no weakening of Biden’s resolve. In fact, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan brazenly disclosed on Friday in a special White House briefing that Washington has “contracted for certain types of weapons systems that have yet to be delivered because they’re still in production.” Plainly out, the Biden Administration considers it possible to hand over weapons and military vehicles to Ukraine that have never been shipped before.
“The President has the discretion based on circumstances of the conflict, the situation on the ground, consultations with allies to make determinations about whether he will provide weapons systems to Ukraine that we have not previously provided,” Sullivan noted. He then went on to explain that the US has “contracted for certain types of weapons systems that have yet to be delivered because they’re still in production. We expect them to be delivered in the coming months.”
Yet another flawed assumption has been that within the US Congress, a groundswell of opinion is building that would make it increasingly difficult for the Biden Administration to get approval for military aid to Ukraine in an election year. But, as luck would have it, Biden, who is an immensely experienced politician in navigating challenging legislations, has found an ingenious way.
Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy put it nicely,
“They’re intentionally combining the debates around Ukraine, Israel, & our border to ram through the $61BN for Ukraine that otherwise would have never passed.”
According to White House documents, the request for the fiscal year 2024 proposes to allocate over $61.4 billion for Ukraine and over $14.3 billion for Israel.
Sullivan called the Biden administration’s latest budget request as coming “amid a global inflection point” following the Hamas attack on Israel “and as the people of Ukraine continue to fight every day for their freedom and independence against Russian brutality.” He turned the focus on Biden’s new narrative that “the outcome of these fights for democracy against terrorism and tyranny are vital to the safety and security of the American people.”
Who can say now that what happens in Ukraine, which is 10000 kms away, does not concern the United States?Biden began his speech on Thursday on a Churchillian note:
“We’re facing an inflection point in history — one of those moments where the decisions we make today are going to determine the future for decades to come. That’s what I’d like to talk with you about tonight.”
He went on to say,
“American leadership is what holds the world together. American alliances are what keep us, America, safe. American values are what make us a partner that other nations want to work with. To put all that at risk if we walk away from Ukraine, if we turn our backs on Israel, it’s just not worth it.”
So, Ukraine war is no longer about the Westphalian principle of national sovereignty and the UN Charter — or even about this being not an era of wars. It is actually about American leadership, American alliances, American values — plainly put, hegemony, NATO, exceptionalism.
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Featured image: President Joe Biden travels to Kyiv, Ukraine Monday, February 20, 2023. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)
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Mobilisation reserves in Ukraine have been emptied while the military calls for troop rotation at the front, which cannot be done, former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said on his Telegram channel on October 23. This is unsurprising as Ukraine has been illegally mobilising men since at least January, demonstrating the alarming lack of manpower the country has, an issue even well before the failed so-called “Spring Offensive,” which actually began in early June.
“The mobilisation in Ukraine has turned into a real nightmare for the Ukrainians […] Ukraine’s reserves have been emptied, while at the front, the military is asking for a rotation [of troops], which cannot be done due to lack of personnel in the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” said the former Ukrainian Prime Minister.
According to Azarov’s publication, recruitment centres began attracting former prisoners to “capture” as much of the population as possible because the mobilisation resource was exhausted, and many people fled the country in any way possible.
“Thus, as long as the Ukrainian authorities use force against their own people, there will be fewer and fewer supporters in the country, and fewer volunteers will appear in the ranks of the Ukrainian forces,” the former Ukrainian prime minister added.
“This means that with such sentiments in society, Ukraine has a catastrophically low chance of holding its own,” Azarov concluded.
Earlier, a spokesperson of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that the mobilisation potential of Ukraine still allows additional recruitment of men of military age without changing the legislation. Ukraine has been under martial law since February 24, 2022, and the next day, Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree on general mobilisation, and thus, male citizens aged 18 to 60 are prohibited from leaving Ukraine’s borders. In fact, the legislation is so draconian that Ukrainian men face prison sentences of up to five years for evading military service during mobilisation.
However, even the few provisions within the draconian legislation are being violated, such as the procedure for delivering summonses – a written document issued in the name of a specific person – for conscription. The summons must be prepared in advance, and if issued correctly, the conscript must appear before the relevant state body responsible for mobilisation. According to the law, summonses cannot be delivered by messenger, text, phone, or e-mail, and they cannot be filled out in front of the person to whom it is handed. If the summons is issued incorrectly, the conscript does not have to appear for mobilisation.
Yet, in Ukraine, these few provisions in the legislation are being violated on a mass scale.
One such case occurred in January 2023 in Odessa, when military recruiters hid inside an ambulance, and when they saw men of military age, they jumped out onto the street, handed out summons and forcibly dragged those who resisted into the ambulance. A month later, in Ternopil, military recruiters grabbed men at a bus station and forced them into the bus. Then, on March 20, a video appeared in which a taxi driver in Odessa expressed “insufficiently patriotic thoughts”, but two days later, he was reportedly “found and drafted into the army.”
These are just three examples of countless Ukrainians being literally dragged off the streets to fight in a war they have no interest in being involved in. This is also a major contributing reason to the utter failure of the so-called “spring offensive.” These forcibly conscripted men became the “cannon fodder” we heard about over the summer because they naturally had low morale and lacked military training.
In addition, many men are motivated to join the Ukrainian military just because it is one of the few secure sources of income, no matter how meagre it is, due to the destroyed economy. However, many of these men end up dead, become incapacitated due to injury, or do their best to avoid conflict to preserve their lives.
It is recalled that Ukrainian investigators detained Yevhen Borisov on charges of illegal enrichment, dereliction of duty, and evading military service in July. Borisov was fired as the military commissioner of the Odessa region in June after investigative reports found he and family members had bought property in Spain along with luxury automobiles worth $4 million, money he attained from taking bribes for exemptions, among other reasons.
In this way, Ukraine does not only have the problem of empty reserves, as highlighted by Azarov, but deep corruption that means many military-age men can avoid conscription, so long as they can pay the bribe, whilst poor Ukrainian men, which today forms most of the male population, are literally dragged off the streets to participate in a futile war against Russia, which they know they cannot win.
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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
October 24th, 2023 by Center for Constitutional Rights
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As President Biden visited Israel, and the Palestinian death toll in Gaza passed 3,300, the U.S.-based Center for Constitutional Rights released a legal and factual analysis of Israel’s unfolding genocide against the Palestinian people and U.S. complicity. The emergency briefing paper came on the heels of the U.S. veto of a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning both Hamas’s attack on Israel and all violence against civilians and calling for humanitarian access to Gaza.
The Center for Constitutional Rights produced this legal analysis in the midst of a situation still unfolding with devastating speed, in response to questions from journalists, activists, and within the legal community. This analysis is necessarily incomplete. However, given the proclamations about the trajectory and intensity of the upcoming Israeli ground invasion and bombing of Gaza, we fear the unfolding genocide will not abate and may well intensify.
The Center for Constitutional Rights recognizes that Palestinians and Palestinian human rights organizations have long warned of the likelihood of genocide being the inevitable frame through which to assess the widespread and systematic violations being committed against their people across the occupied Palestinian territory, and urged States to take action before it advanced.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has escalated its 16-year closure over 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza where approximately half the population is under 18, indiscriminately and repeatedly bombing civilians while cutting off access to all basic necessities, including food, water, electricity, and medical supplies, and on October 13 ordered a forced “evacuation” of 1.1 million Palestinians out of northern Gaza.
As this briefing paper was being finalized on the evening of October 17, 2023, there were an estimated 500 fatalities following a reported Israeli airstrike at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City where many were seeking shelter. Excluding those killed at Al-Ahli Hospital, as of October 17, 2023, the Palestinian Ministry of Health had confirmed that 3,000 Palestinians had already been killed, including at least 1,030 children and hundreds of family units; in 11 days, more than 12,500 people had been injured, one million Palestinians displaced, and thousands of homes destroyed, with reports of 1,200 missing people believed to be trapped under the rubble. As set forth in the paper in both the detailed factual overview and the findings, there is clear evidence that Israel is attempting to commit, if not actively committing, genocide in the occupied Palestinian territory, and specifically against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. The gravest of crimes under international law, genocide refers to specific actions — such as killing or deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the group in whole or in part — taken with the intention of destroying, in whole or in part, the group targeted, including on ethnic or national grounds.
The United States has been obligated, from the instant of learning of the serious risk of genocide of the Palestinian people, to exercise its influence on Israel to prevent the crime. The United States is not only failing to uphold its obligation to prevent the commission of genocide, but there is a plausible and credible case to be made that the United States’ actions to further the Israeli military operation, closure, and campaign against the Palestinian population in Gaza rise to the level of complicity. The United States — and U.S. citizens, including and up to the President — can be held responsible for their role in furthering genocide.
We credit and honor Palestinian organizations such as Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, Defense for Children International-Palestine, and Palestinian Center for Human Rights, and many others, for their tireless work under dangerous and unimaginably difficult conditions to gather information included in this paper and for their analysis of the human rights violations and crimes being committed by Israel and its officials. We also honor the people of Gaza who, despite being under constant bombardment with dwindling access to electricity, have nevertheless written, tweeted, posted, made calls, or otherwise reported on the Israeli assault, including when it has wiped out their own families.
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The US is using the conflict in the Middle East as a justification to increase its military presence in the region. Amid the escalations in the Palestine War, Washington is sending more and more weapons to “protect” Israel and “deter” Iran, which creates a wave of serious tension and increases the risk of internationalization of hostilities.
In a statement on October 21, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin stated that his country is sending additional weapons and troops to several sites in the Middle East due to the crisis in Palestine. Notably, he said he had “activated the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery as well as additional Patriot battalions.” Lloyd also demanded troops who are part of a “prudent contingency planning” to “increase their readiness and ability to quickly respond as required.”
The range of THAAD systems is around 200km, and they are designed to neutralize various types of missiles. In the same sense, the Patriot system, recently used on the Ukrainian battlefield, has a range of around 160km, being designed to target missiles, drones and military aircraft. It has not been said exactly where the systems will be deployed, but it is known that the objective is to place them in strategic positions that will help protect the territory occupied by Israel against possible air raids by Iran and the Axis of Resistance.
The American secretary justifies his measures with the supposed “escalations by Iran and its proxy forces”, without specifying exactly which moves by Tehran he is referring to. It is well known that Iran has reacted to Israeli actions in Palestine and promised responses if Tel Aviv’s war crimes continue to occur in Gaza, however, so far, no escalatory action has actually been taken by the Persian country. As for Iranian proxies, only Hezbollah is de facto involved in the hostilities, but without troop attrition on the ground so far.
“Following detailed discussions with President Biden on recent escalations by Iran and its proxy forces across the Middle East Region, today I directed a series of additional steps to further strengthen the Department of Defense posture in the region. These steps will bolster regional deterrence efforts, increase force protection for U.S. forces in the region, and assist in the defense of Israel (…) I will continue to assess our force posture requirements in the region and consider deploying additional capabilities as necessary”, Lloyd said.
In fact, regardless of how these new reinforcements help Israel, all American actions seem useless in “deterring” Iran as long as Israel does not change its attitude in Palestine. The crimes of the Zionist State against the Palestinian people increasingly appear to be a red line for almost the entire Islamic world, and it is not possible to guarantee that the mere presence of American weapons and troops in the region will be enough to dissuade Tel Aviv’s rivals from advancing.
This is not the first measure of support for Israel taken by the US. Previously, two aircraft carriers had already been sent to the region. CNN also confirmed that the Pentagon is deploying 2,000 Marines and sailors to Israel to deter Hezbollah. Furthermore, Biden made a statement to the American people calling for support for the approval of new billion-dollar military aid packages for Israel, making it clear that American policy in the conflict will be one of full and unrestricted support for the Zionist regime, regardless of the crimes committed against the Palestinian population.
And, even with so many US’ threats, the stance of Israel’s rivals remains clear. They demand an immediate end to the aggression against Palestine and several armed groups call for direct intervention in the event of a ground invasion in Gaza. In this scenario, the IOF would have great difficulty in maintaining the combat effectively, as they would be forced to fight on multiple fronts – in addition to facing a kind of “Vietnam scenario” in Gaza. Therefore, Tel Aviv continues to try to avoid the invasion, focusing only on bombings that massively kill civilians.
If the Axis of Resistance has not been intimidated so far, it certainly will not be intimidated by the arrival of more American military aid to Israel. Since the Zionist State is a representative of American interests in the Middle East, obviously Iran “and its proxies” are fully aware that any intervention against Israel will face strong American support for the Zionist State. But such is the relevance of Palestine to the Islamic world that despite all the difficulties, they seem really willing to face the risks and engage in prolonged conflicts – which would be disastrous for both Israel and the US.
To truly avoid intervention by the Axis of Resistance and prevent the conflict from becoming a multi-flank war against Israel, the US should convince Tel Aviv to stop attacking Palestine. Sending weapons and troops will only worsen tensions.
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Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.
Featured image: THAAD system (Source: New Eastern Outlook)
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Regarding the court case underway in Ottawa against key people involved in the Freedom Convoy, why is the defence team not using the ever-increasing medical evidence that the injections of so-called vaccines were, and are, causing a rate of injuries and deaths that far outweigh any known benefit from the roll-out of the injections?
For example, all populations that have been subjected to the injections have recorded an alarming jump in the death rate that coincided with the start of the injections, and the magnitude of the increase in local populations correlates with the percentage of that population that was injected.
Further, to date, the death rate remains significantly higher than the historical, pre-roll-out death rate. The medical evidence is also showing correlations between the roll-outs and the jumps in such ailments as myocarditis, pericarditis, cancers, disrupted menstruations, miscarriages, and stillbirths.
Given these serious health impacts being caused by the injections, the mandates to coerce injections were an egregious attack on the health, safety, and well-being of all Canadians.
Hence, participants and supporters of the Freedom Convoy were more than justified to strenuously object to mandates which penalized persons who declined to receive the injections. The Freedom Convoy and its organizers deserve to be thanked for their stand against the mandates.
And thank you too to the citizens of Ottawa who were inconvenienced by the Convoy’s efforts on behalf of all Canadians.
The Democracy Fund is crowd-funding the court case.
I call upon every reader of this article to forward it to your loved ones and contact lists, and all of us contact the Democracy Fund with an urgent request that the defence lawyers present the medical evidence to the court in defence of the Freedom Convoy and its organizers.
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Featured image: Freedom Convoy organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber wait for the Public Order Emergency Commission to begin, on Nov. 1, 2022 in Ottawa. (The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld)
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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Western politicians and media act as if they are caught in a permanent spell, sympathetically indulging even the most wildly improbable denials from Israel that it has committed war crimes.
As Lenin famously observed: “A lie told often enough becomes the truth”.
We can go further. It never matters how often Israel is caught out in a lie, because its next lie will be given the benefit of the doubt. Western media refuse to learn from the past.
The Israeli military has a long track record of compulsively concocting face-saving falsehoods – disinformation that vilifies the very Palestinian people it has oppressed for decades.
The latest example came a few days ago.
Israel vigorously kicked up dust to obscure its responsibility for hitting the al-Ahli Baptist hospital in Gaza City last Tuesday, killing many hundreds of Palestinians sheltering in its grounds. Faced with Israel’s relentless campaign of bombing, families had assumed they would be safest close to a Christian institution.
Drawing on previous experience, Israel rightly assumes that by the time the dust settles – and the truth emerges – the world will have moved on. The lie will stand.
Context Stripped Out
Israel’s job is made considerably easier by the media, whose coverage of Israeli atrocities can invariably be depended on to strip out relevant context.
As Israel began pummelling Gaza more than two weeks ago with thousands of high-explosive bombs, its leaders clarified exactly what their intent was.
Referring to the people of Gaza as “human animals”, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant vowed to “eliminate everything”. An Israeli military official explained that the “emphasis is on damage, not accuracy”. Another said Gaza would be reduced to “a city of tents… There will be no buildings.”
Meanwhile, President Isaac Herzog accused the entire people of Gaza of being responsible for the Hamas attack, effectively denying every man, woman and child their civilian status and designating them all terrorists. He added: “We will break their backbone.”
President Isaac Herzog is considered one of the more 'leftwing' political figures in Israel. Here he is rewriting international law by engaging in openly genocidal rhetoric against the Palestinians in Gaza:
Israel has demanded that Palestinians leave the northern half of the tiny Gaza Strip, requiring them to ethnically cleanse themselves. It has indicated that the vacated area will be treated as a free-fire zone.
According to the United Nations, in less than two weeks, a quarter of Gaza’s homes have been turned to rubble, and 600,000 Palestinians left homeless.
❗ 25% of homes in #Gaza reported damaged or destroyed ❗ 59 attacks on healthcare (including Al Ahli Hospital) ❗ 170 education facilities hit ❗ Water and sanitation facilities severely damaged
To ensure Palestinians do as they are told, Israel has targeted the support structures and major institutions in northern Gaza that ordinary people depend on. Mosques, schools, United Nations compounds and hospitals have been hit.
In the days leading up to the attack on al-Ahli hospital, 23 other medical centres in northern Gaza received warnings to evacuate immediately. Dozens have been hit, according to the World Health Organisation.
Those threats were ignored because the hospitals are already overflowing with patients too injured from Israel’s bombardments to be moved, and because there are no facilities to treat them elsewhere.
Apparently angered by this defiance, Israel hit al-Ahli hospital with two shells three days before the larger strike. This is known by the Israeli military as its “knock on the roof” procedure: firing a small weapon at a building as advance warning to evacuate before a much bigger strike.
Gaslighting Operation
Israel had told us precisely what it was going to do. But when it then did it, Israel began its now familiar gaslighting operation. It denied it was the guilty party, accusing a Palestinian militant group, Islamic Jihad, of the war crime instead.
Israel’s claim was ridiculous. On a video of the actual strike, you can hear the loud whistling sound of an incoming, high-velocity missile or shell moments before it explodes. Palestinian groups in Gaza have only primitive rockets that lumber through the sky. If one fails, it tumbles at free-fall speed, not at near-supersonic velocity.
The casualty rate alone proved it had to be an Israeli missile. No Palestinian rocket has ever killed more than a handful of people, not hundreds as this one did.
But Israel was ready with a campaign of lies and disinformation.
Embarrassingly, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had issued a social media post celebrating Israel hitting a supposed “terrorist base” in the hospital. The post was hurriedly deleted.
Instead, Israel issued footage of a Palestinian rocket falling nearby. However, Israel had to pull the video, too, when journalists noticed the time stamp was 40 minutes after the explosion at Al-Ahli.
Next, Israel produced a laughably inept audio recording supposedly of two Hamas fighters chatting – in the wrong dialect – about whether they or their rivals in Islamic Jihad had fired the stray rocket.
Israel runs a “mistaravim” unit of Israelis who disguise themselves as Palestinians to operate undercover in Palestinian communities. It also famously operates networks of Palestinian collaborators whom it threatens or bribes. Faking an audio would be child’s play for Israel.
In any case, in the recording the pair cited a cemetery close to the hospital as the site of their supposed failed rocket launch. But that contradicted other Israeli military claims that the rocket had been fired from an entirely different location.
At the weekend, Forensic Architecture, a research team based at the University of London, issued their preliminary findings.
Preliminary analysis by FA, @alhaq_org & @earshot_ngo into the #AlAhli hospital blast in Gaza casts significant doubt on IOF claims that the source of the deadly explosion was a Palestinian-fired rocket travelling west to east. pic.twitter.com/PtYtP9l81j
Analysis of the site showed, both from the pattern of damage caused by the strike and changes in the sound signature of the projectile as it moved through the air, that its trajectory was from Israel into Gaza, not out of Gaza. Other analysis indicated that the audio file of the two Hamas operatives talking had been manipulated.
Israel’s disinformation skills looked almost as amateur as its much-vaunted intelligence operations, which failed to spot months of planning by Hamas for its breakout on 7 October.
Seed of Doubt
The goal here, as ever, was not to produce evidence but to win the propaganda battle through misdirection, planting a seed of doubt that western politicians and media could then exploit to cloud the issue for their publics.
Instead of giving the victims proper attention, instead of finally galvanising anger over Israel’s wanton killing of thousands of Palestinian civilians in two weeks, the media’s reporting reverted to a predictable formula. It weighed claim and counter-claim over the hospital strike, it carried profiles about Islamic Jihad, and – most importantly for Israel – it adopted a wait-and-see, don’t-rush-to-judgment approach.
A moment that might have led to concerted diplomatic pressure on Israel to stop its rampage and negotiate a ceasefire dissolved into a round of bickering in which the hospital victims entirely disappeared from view.
By the time outside observers get into Gaza and carry out forensic tests, assuming they can, the story will be cold. No one will care, and Israel will not be held to account – morally, diplomatically or legally.
This is all too familiar to anyone who has followed decades of the media’s endlessly forgiving coverage, when it matters, of Israel’s occupation and illegal colonisation of the Palestinians’ historic homeland.
The fog that instantly enveloped the al-Ahlihospital story was a repeat – if on a far bigger scale – of what happened last summer when five Palestinian teenagers were killed in an air strike on Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp.
As with the hospital massacre, Israel immediately denied it was responsible, saying it had not carried out air strikes on Jabaliya at the time. It blamed Islamic Jihad for a rocket misfire.
“We have videos that prove beyond doubt that this is not an Israeli attack,” an Israeli official confidently asserted. Oded Bassuk, head of the army’s operations directorate, called the children’s deaths “a self-inflicted injury. We could see the rocket hit a Palestinian home.”
As with the hospital story, the military released video footage purporting to show the misfired rocket.
But it was all deceit. Later, when the story had moved on, the Israeli army quietly admitted that it was responsible for killing the children.
Boys on the Beach
The murder of children by Israel is not an unusual occurrence. But it is also when Israel can be expected to concoct its biggest falsehoods – for the obvious reason that the killing of children is when the world briefly wakes up to Palestinian suffering before turning off again.
As with the hospital strike, a potentially pivotal moment arrived in 2014 during another of Israel’s repeated rampages in Gaza. A series of Israeli strikes killed four young boys from the Bakr family who were playing football on a beach.
At the time, Israel claimed that the children had been killed accidentally, because they strayed into a seafront “compound belonging to Hamas’s Naval Police and Naval Force (including naval commandos), and which was utilised exclusively by militants”.
Israel’s claim, which gained amplification in the media, was that the boys were collateral damage in a drone strike on Palestinian militants.
Unfortunately for Israel, this was easily disproved. Several western journalists, who in those days dared to venture into Gaza, witnessed the strike because the beach was next to their hotel. The idea that Hamas militants would locate themselves on a beach next to a hotel known for hosting western journalists was patently absurd from the off.
Those journalists confirmed that there were no militants in the area at the time, and that the boys should have been visible as children to the drone operators.
Reporters noted that the beach was regularly used by fishermen and families for bathing. An investigation of a small shipping container, which had been destroyed by an Israeli missile the day before, also failed to support Israel’s claim that military equipment was stored there.
A later investigation found that the drone operators had fired without taking care to distinguish between the children and militants.
None of that mattered. Israel’s massacre of the children was forgotten. With no pressure on it, Israel’s reliably supine supreme court ruled last year that no further investigation was necessary. Case closed.
Executed by Sniper
Perhaps the best-known recent disinformation campaign by Israel occurred 18 months ago, over the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
Her murder, while wearing a flak jacket emblazoned with “Press” during an Israeli invasion of the West Bank city of Jenin, caused a wave of international indignation.
It was a particularly high-stakes moment for Israel. The media took an unusual degree of interest because Abu Akhleh was a prominent journalist who had worked with many of those reporting on her killing. She also held American citizenship.
Again, Israel blamed Palestinians for the death of one of their own. They produced a video that purported to show an exchange of fire with Palestinian gunmen close to where Abu Akleh was standing when she was shot in the head.
Major US media carried out their own investigations showing Israel had lied. There was no gunfight near Abu Akleh’s location. The most likely explanation was that an Israeli sniper decided to execute her, aiming for the narrow area of exposed flesh between her helmet and flak jacket collar.
Belatedly, with the story refusing to go away, Israel admitted one of its soldiers was most likely responsible for her killing.
Israel doesn’t just actively lie when its army murders. One of its most cynical deceptions arrived in 2021 when it designated six respected Palestinian human rights and welfare groups in the West Bank as “terrorist organisations”.
It demanded that the European Union immediately stop funding them. Their offices were raided, with equipment confiscated and smashed, and their doors sealed. Staff were arrested.
Israel’s aim was obvious: to shut down organisations that provide support structures for ordinary Palestinians and advocate in international forums for the Palestinian cause by documenting Israeli crimes. That has been especially important when cash-strapped foreign media have been shutting down their own bureaux in the region.
The lie was so outrageous that even some usually receptive media outlets had trouble swallowing it. Many months later, leaks of a highly classified CIA report revealed that the Israeli accusations were entirely without foundation.
Culture of Lying
The list of these deceptions and disinformation campaigns just goes on and on.
Look up the names Muhammad al-Durrah, Rachel Corrie, James Miller, Tom Hurndall, Iain Hook. Israel dissembled over all these high-profile murders carried out by its soldiers.
Even cursory research shows Israel lying about its use of cluster munitions in Lebanon in 2006, as well as its mass killing of civilians in the Lebanese village of Qana in the same war – exactly 20 years after it had earlier lied about its responsibility for killing more than 100 civilians in a United Nations compound in the same village.
Israel lied about its oversight of the mass killing of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp in Lebanon in 1982 by its Christian Phalangist allies.
None of this should surprise. The culture of lying has prevailed since before Israel’s creation in 1948. From its inception, the Zionist movement promoted the lie that Palestine was an empty land.
To perpetuate this foundational myth, Israel lied about its wholescale ethnic cleansing operations in 1948 – one in the north was called Operation Broom– that forced out some 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and drove them into refugee camps. It falsely claimed they had been ordered to do so by neighbouring Arab states.
It hid archival evidence of massacres of Palestinian civilians carried out by its forces, such as at Tantura and Dawayimah, and smeared anyone who tried to draw attention to them.
Equally, it lied that it offered the refugees a chance to return.
And it destroyed hundreds of Palestinian villages to stop the refugees from coming back to their homes – and then sought to conceal these crimes by planting forests in their place.
Edifice of Lies
Armies end up lying in times of war because inevitably they commit crimes they wish to conceal.
The difference with Israel is that its lies are integral to its decades-long existence as a state dispossessing and colonising another people’s homeland. It must mask its system of apartheid and the crimes that inhere in such regimes of privilege and subjugation.
Israel is at permanent war with the Palestinians and the wider region, so it must lie compulsively and continuously. Each lie builds on the earlier ones. Should one fall, the whole edifice risks crumbling.
Which is what makes untangling those lies such a difficult and thankless task.
Having to engage in protracted forensic battles against Israel and its many apologists to expose every single lie draws attention away from Israel’s even bigger deceptions. It obscures the context.
Fighting to hold Israel to account for killing hundreds at al-Ahli hospital comes at the price of shifting the focus away from the fact that Israel is actively carrying out an ethnic cleansing operation in Gaza and committing genocide against the Palestinian people there.
To struggle against one lie is to leave other lies – often lies of omission – free to worm their way into the public’s consciousness.
These difficulties are compounded by the media’s willingness to indulge and collude in Israel’s disinformation – as it has been doing since the creation of a self-declared Jewish state – because Israel is such an important strategic asset. As a reliable ally, it was intended to project western power into the oil-rich Middle East.
Those who seek to bring light to a subject immersed in so much darkness find themselves smeared as antisemites – as though solidarity with Palestinian suffering could only ever be motivated by hatred of Jews.
Which is why Israel can live with the bickering over who hit the al-Ahli hospital. Because the storm will soon pass, and the Palestinian victims will still be dead.
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Jonathan Cook is the author of three books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His website and blog can be found at www.jonathan-cook.net
Given that world events are politically and economically manipulated to give ever greater power to ever fewer institutions and those who run them, ‘enemies of the people’ are easily identified. However, the difference between a 21st century enemy and an enemy of previous eras, is that the 21st century version uses advanced psychological manipulation as the main weapon of an increasingly virtual armoury.
For anyone concerned about the moderating restraint international law is meant to offer, especially when it comes to the use of force by states, Israel’s approach against the imprisoned populace of Gaza is bound to cause profound despair and lingering disgust.
Serbia has not recovered to this day from the destructive consequences of that color revolution, orchestrated and financed by Western intelligence agencies which used their Otpor hirelings as a battering ram and field agents.
This bogus pretense that Israel conspicuously left its border totally unguarded and unattended for so many hours after such a serious security breach is impossible, unless of course it was done on purpose. This exact same conclusion has increasingly been corroborated by multiple intel sources as well as former IDF soldiers.
Biden’s second presidential address last Thursday strongly implied that World War III is either rapidly approaching or is already being fought but has yet to be acknowledged. He pushed this innuendo through his comparison of the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine with the latest Israeli–Hamaswar, which he spun as part of a global struggle between democracies and dictatorships.
Think back to October of 2019 when there was a “simulation” of a global corona pandemic that was a ‘chapter and verse’ prediction of the real Covid-19 Pandemic declared only 20 weeks later. It was called Event 201, and it resulted in an agreement among the representatives who had come from all sectors society: Craft a narrative for the governmental / industrial / media complex to hammer society with, stick to it and ignore or attack any assessment not in line with the agreed-upon story line.
The BJP-led government in India is seeking to extract revenge for the humiliating defeat it suffered at the hands of farmers whose one-year agitation led to the repeal of three farm laws in late 2021.
12 year old Brookelle McMullin is a 6th grader in Queensbury Middle School, who was just diagnosed with Stage 4 Rhabdomyosarcoma after biopsy of a swollen node in her neck.
Biden is skilled at shedding tears at memorials of grief in this country. But he runs dry when the recurring catastrophes befalling Palestinians beg for his presidential compassion and actual deeds.
Israel was founded on lies. The lie that Palestinian land was largely unoccupied. The lie that 750,000 Palestinians fled their homes and villages during their ethnic cleansing by Zionist militias in 1948 because they were told to do so by Arab leaders. The lie that it was Arab armies that started the 1948 war that saw Israel seize 78 percent of historic Palestine.
October 24th, 2023 by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East
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Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) has joined dozens of labour, faith and civil society organizations in a joint statement pushing Canada to call for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the blockade of Gaza, including the restoration of aid, electricity, fuel, food, and water. These demands from labour and civil society follow on the heels of urgent calls from Canada-based Palestinian and Jewish groups supporting Palestinian human rights and calling for a just and lasting peace in Palestine.
“The Trudeau government is increasingly out of touch with the public’s sentiments on Gaza,” said Thomas Woodley, President of CJPME. “As Canadians continue to witness Israel’s atrocious retaliation against the civilian population in Gaza, more and more are calling for a ceasefire and an end to the inhumane siege.” CJPME is proud to stand with organized labour and civil society in challenging the government to live up to its pretensions of support for the rules-based international order.
In addition to the joint statement’s two key demands, the statement also condemned the rise in anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism, Islamophobia, and antisemitism which has been observed in Canada in recent weeks. The statement also pushed for the international community to address the root causes of the conflict, and meaningful action to bring about a just peace in Palestine-Israel.
The statement was signed by a broad cross-section of Canadian civil society including the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, Unifor, Black Lives Matter – Canada, the United Church of Canada, and National Council of Canadian Muslims. Similar calls for a ceasefire have since been issued by 33 Members of Parliament in the Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Friendship Group, the Ontario Federation of Labour, and a coalition of humanitarian organizations including World Vision, Oxfam, and Save the Children.
“Israel’s collective punishment of Palestinians for Hamas’s attack is illegal under international law and Trudeau knows it,” said Woodley. “Organized labour is united with civil society in calling for an end to Trudeau’s hypocrisy, an immediate ceasefire, and an end to Israel’s brutal revenge on Gaza.”
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Featured image: Entire neighborhoods have been leveled in the Israeli bombing campaigns. (Photo: Mahmoud Ajjour, Palestine Chronicle)
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“Erroneous doctrines are current in the world, which declare a man culpable and responsible merely because he is a member or part of a determined country, without taking the trouble to seek or examine whether on his part there has been any personal sin of deed or omission.” —Pope Pius XII, New York Times, Feb 21, 1946.
For anyone concerned about the moderating restraint international law is meant to offer, especially when it comes to the use of force by states, Israel’s approach against the imprisoned populace of Gaza is bound to cause profound despair and lingering disgust.
Since the brutal and for Israel’s security apparatus, unnerving attack by Hamas on October 7, the Israeli State has been busy laying the patchwork for the use of force promises to be limitless. In a part of the world where the warring parties see themselves as the privileged proprietors of history and religion, the exceptional battling the unwashed, retaliatory violence is a purifying sacrament.
In its modern, public relations iteration, Israel’s way of waging war is seen as cleaner, more observant of international rules, than the swarthy, ill-kept barbarians who hold them in such contempt. It is couched in medical, operational terms. The killing is more surgical, more civilised, if you will. This is a reductive, machine morality, dehumanising and deidentifying victims. When slaughtered by shells, missiles and advanced weapons of war, humans are merely unintended targets.
This often seems like an attempt to square a particularly difficult circle, given such absolutist, apocalyptic aims being advanced by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli Defence Forces. How do you utterly and totally extinguish Hamas as an organisation without the mass killing of civilian personnel and civilians in general? The answer: you can’t.
Gaza City, according to Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is a reprobate agglomeration within which a wicked organisation, Hamas, operates. The conflation, which Netanyahu made in his October 7 speech, is effortless, purposeful. It follows that those living in such a morally regressive environment escape for their sake – lest they be tarnished by biblical wickedness. “I say to the residents of Gaza: Leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.”
This morning, on Shabbat and a holiday, Hamas invaded Israeli territory and murdered innocent citizens including children and the elderly. Hamas has started a brutal and evil war.
We will be victorious in this war despite an unbearable price. This is a very difficult day for all…
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) October 8, 2023
This gives some skimpy moral leverage to the exterminatory force to follow. “All the places which Hamas is deployed, hiding and operating in, that wicked city, we will turn them into rubble.” There are no distinctions on personnel, civilian, combatant, age or status. The logic here is one of justified collective punishment.
There is an undertow of atavism to the whole exercise. We are already well acquainted with the remarks of Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant,who declared that Israel was fighting “human animals, and we are acting accordingly”. To this can be added the punitive, scalding views of Major General Ghassan Alian, who lectured Gazans on October 10 with withering disdain. “Kidnapping, abusing and murdering children, women and elderly people is not human.” So said the Alian to children, women, and the elderly who could hardly have been blamed.
Alian, who serves as Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, went on to state that Hamas had morphed into ISIS, and gravely noted how “the residents of Gaza” had taken delight in their exploits against Israeli citizens. “Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity, no water [in Gaza], there will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell.”
Other officials have reiterated the same motif of cataclysmic, undifferentiated destruction. An IDF spokesperson told Channel 13 News that no buildings would survive an assault on the strip. “Gaza will eventually be turned into a city of tents.” Netanyahu, likewise, promised that Gaza would be turned “into a deserted island”.
Things were not much better in the Knesset. Ariel Kallner of the governing Likud Party yearned for an ethnic cleansing to rival the dispossession of Palestinians in 1948, known in Arabic as the Nakba:
“Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 48. Nakba in Gaza and Nakba to anyone who dares to join!”
Efforts are well underway for that objective. On October 13, the Israeli government ordered 1.1 million people living in North Gaza to evacuate their homes within 24 hours. What awaits those tormented souls on return – if they return – are charred ruins and mountains of rubble. But this was untroubling to the Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who sees all Gaza as culpable and therefore punishable. “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible… It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved.”
To therefore draw distinctions in the operation against Gaza in terms of military discrimination regarding targets is a spurious exercise. Nothing of the sort is taking place, though lip service is bound to be paid at intervals. We have not, in that sense, come much further than the debates that took place during the Second World War about mass civilian bombing, one vigorously endorsed by the likes of Air Marshal Arthur Harris of the Royal Air Force in targeting Germany.
The methods of “Bomber” Harris tallied with the views of the British diplomat Lord Robert Vansittart, much echoed in the assumptions of broad Palestinian guilt being expressed by Herzog and company. On that occasion, it was the inherent culpability of the German people. “You not only can indict a nation; you cannot escape from doing so,” he blustered in his 1944 work, Roots of the Trouble and the Black Record of Germany. “The appalling cruelty of the German nation, and its calculated causes, will be remembered as long as men go upright.”
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, finds the Israeli efforts to annihilate Hamas as indifferent to civilian, combatant, law and convention, in other words, symptoms of Vansittartism. “In their stated intent to use all means to destroy Hamas, Israeli forces have shown a shocking disregard for civilian lives. They have pulverized street after street of residential buildings killing civilians on a mass scale and destroying essential infrastructure, while new restrictions mean Gaza is fast running out of water, medicine, fuel and electricity.”
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner also released a statement on October 12 condemning “the horrific crimes committed by Hamas” while also condemning, in strong terms, “Israel’s indiscriminate military attacks against the already exhausted Palestinian people of Gaza, comprising over 2.3 million people, nearly half of whom are children.” The relevant UN experts also reiterate the all-punitive nature of the “unlawful blockade [of] 16 years” and the “five major brutal wars, which remain unaccounted for”. And unaccounted such acts of violence will continue to remain, except in a cycle of permanent, retaliatory acts that resist a political solution.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
Featured image: Gaza Strip during the Israel–Hamas war, 10 October 2023 (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)
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***
Begin as you mean to go on. That is the defining position of Britain’s blueprint regarding Israel.
It was Britain that gave the colonial project that morphed into the state of Israel its initial blessing via the Balfour Declaration in 1917, to create the conditions for the establishment of a Jewish “national home” in historic Palestine – where Jews constituted less than 10 percent of the population at the time.
This laid the groundwork for the start of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. And at every step of the way, as Israel has consolidated its power and oppression, Britain’s blessing has been on hand. Israel’s latest attempt to wipe out Gaza is no different.
More than 4,000 Palestinians have been murdered, at least 1,000 of whom are children. At least 11 Palestinian journalists, 28 medical staff and 14 United Nations workers have been killed.
Residents of Gaza have been forced to dig wells near the sea to fetch water whilst hospitals – those that are still standing – are at full capacity and severely lacking power.
Nowhere is considered safe in Gaza, especially as “safe routes” have been bombed by Israel and the only crossing that allows civilians to flee has been repeatedly struck.
Human rights experts have said Israel’s actions amount to collective punishment, a war crime under international law. It matters little since Israeli officials have not attempted to hide their intentions.
‘The Emphasis Is on Damage’
“Gaza will become a place where no human can exist”, declared a retired Major General. “The emphasis is on damage, not accuracy”, proclaimed the IDF spokesperson.
This carnage has never been about Israel defending itself. The onslaught on Gaza, just like every other time, is another excuse to implement the strategic objective of annihilating the Palestinians, or as Israel calls it, “mowing the lawn”.
And as a British Palestinian, it will forever be etched in my memory how my fellow citizens were being mercilessly slaughtered, and the British political class gave Israel its full-throated, unconditional support.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak offered multiple versions of the same moral backing, from “full solidarity” to promising to always “stand” with Israel. He continued to echo those sentiments when he landed in Israel on Thursday, yet could not answer when asked if he would call for Israeli restraint.
As the barbarity of today’s atrocities becomes clearer, we stand unequivocally with Israel.
This attack by Hamas is cowardly and depraved.
We have expressed our full solidarity to @netanyahu and will work with international partners in the next 24 hours to co-ordinate support.
"Will you be urging restraint on the Israeli government regarding civilians in Gaza?"@mattfrei asks Rishi Sunak if he will call for restraint during the Prime Minister's visit to Israel. pic.twitter.com/l7rtIBqatw
The lobbying group Conservative Friends of Israel was once described as “the largest organisation in Western Europe dedicated to the cause of the people of Israel”. It consequently makes the unwavering championship of Israel among the Conservative hierarchy unsurprising.
Right to Commit Crimes
But the Labour Party is now operating on the same spineless wavelength. As Israel pounded Gaza, party leader Keir Starmer regurgitated the robotic recitations about Israel’s right to defend itself.
The former human rights lawyer then insisted Israel has the “right” to withhold power and water from Gaza, even as UN experts made clear the imposition of sieges that endanger lives of civilians are prohibited under international law.
The fish ostensibly rots from the head. Shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry could not answer whether Israel cutting off power supplies to Gaza is in line with international law.
On Israel’s evacuation orders that have displaced thousands of Palestinians, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy failed to condemn them.
As Labour councillors across the country resigned en masse to protest against their party’s complicity, Starmer’s feeble letter in response made no mention of a ceasefire and maintained the line simply that Israel has the right to defend itself.
🚨 NEW: In a letter to Labour councillors, Starmer doubles down on his comments about Israel/Palestine, insisting that "Israel has the right to defend herself".
He offers no apology for saying that Israel has the right to withhold water and power. pic.twitter.com/YAygvGZJR3
The leader who has equivocated and sat on the fence on every political issue since his election to the helm of the party, has finally remained firm on a decision, and it is to offer unyielding support for the massacre of Palestinians.
Anomaly
Such a level of unshakeable, cross-party consensus on policy in Britain is a rarity. But Israel is the anomaly. So, in these quarters, Israel knows it has a dependable ally.
Importantly, Britain’s support goes beyond the diplomatic domain. Since 2015, it has licenced £472m worth in arms sales to Israel.
In the 2021 bombardment of Gaza, British military hardware was used by Israel. That remains a possibility this time too.
However, already the British government has made clear it has no plans to suspend arms sales to Israel. Britain is thus not just implicated in Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians, but it appears to consider them fair game too.
No State ‘On my Watch’
Yet both main parties keep up the pretence they’re fundamentally committed to an alternative that liberates Palestinians. The two-state solution is still the main policy stand for both.
But nobody can in good faith deny that Israel has locked in the one-state reality of apartheid. Hence, it is ignorant at best and deliberately performative at worst; offering the veneer of compassion to Palestinian self-determination even as the facts on the ground scrupulously neutralise the possibility.
Indeed, in 2015, Benjamin Netanyahu said there will be no Palestinian state “on my watch”. Israel must “crush” Palestinian statehood ambitions, he reiterated this year.
True to his word, Netanyahu’s cabinet in 2023 have taken major steps towards annexation of the West Bank. A peak number of illegal settlements have been advanced by Israel this year concurrent with a ramping up in the number of house demolitions and subsequent forcible displacement of Palestinian communities.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who advocated for the wiping out of a Palestinian town, believes every part of Israel and the occupied territories was promised to Jews by God and Palestinians should either emigrate, be killed or forgo their national aspirations if they want to reside – with unequal rights.
It is of little shock Israel is flattening Gaza with such fascists in high office.
Accountability
And when the time comes to hold Israel to account for its harrowing war crimes, Britain will inevitably shield it from any accountability and block the attempts of the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, as it did in 2021 and this year respectively.
All whilst the mass murder of Palestinians continues unabated.
It is the tragic story that has defined the Palestinian existence. In 1948, at least 750,000 Palestinians were expelled as their homes, villages and communities were systematically destroyed and occupied.
Many were murdered trying to protect their homes, like my paternal grandmother’s brother and his son. Others who escaped in that period, like my paternal grandmother and my maternal great grandmother, died in exile.
Now there are warnings from the UN that the atrocities in Gaza amount to another instance of Palestinian ethnic cleansing. But the reality is the Nakba was not a chapter confined to history. It has been an ongoing project since 1948.
That’s why whilst Israel pulverises Gaza, it is simultaneously murdering Palestinians in the West Bank. There is no worthwhile Hamas influence there, nor any Israeli hostages. Just more Palestinians that need to be exterminated to guarantee Jewish Supremacy from the river to the sea.
And nobody should be under any illusions: Britain is dripping in the blood of Palestinian massacres and it will never wash.
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Hamza Ali Shah is a British Palestinian political researcher and writer based in London.
Featured image is a screenshot from a video posted by PM Sunak on his Twitter
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***
Dr. William Makis talks about his guide to future pandemics so that you do not need to panic when the news and government FEAR people into getting the next vaccine.
“Negative Vaccine Efficacy, 6-12 months after your last shot, your immune system is really shot!”
Dr. Makis’s guide to future pandemics:
look for gain of function work on the virus
find the simulation or tabletop exercise
NIH or other government agency working on a vaccine
You have all the tools that you need for any upcoming virus scare scenario that they come up with already:
We talk about the gradual government masking and hinting at upcoming health scare: H5n1, boosters, masks, RSV, marburg.
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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.
Featured image is a screenshot from the video
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
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***
Introduction
At dawn on October 7th, the official story goes that Hamas invaded Israel allegedly killing over 1,300 Jews, reportedly the deadliest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust. That same day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a formal declaration of war, the first time since 1973’s Yom Kippur War – exactly a half century ago.
With the 200 plus Israeli hostage situation holding Tel Aviv back, Israel currently has more than 100,000 troops assembled at the Israeli-Gaza southern border with miles of tank convoys lined up awaiting the greenlight for Israel’s imminent ground invasion into the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, the Jewish State has mobilized 360,000 reservists for immediate deployment, the most in its history, ready to deliver Netanyahu’s vowed revenge of yet more unrestrained, unprecedented genocide against the Palestinian population as his “final solution,” obliterating the original ancient inhabitants from their stolen, chipped away and annexed Palestine as the Zionists’ primary targeted victim of their always expanding Greater Israel Project.
As always, this wholesale carnage permits the real culprits behind all this suffering and bloodshed to never be held to account. As the leader of the most militant conservative government in Israel’s 75-year bloody history, Netanyahu has terrorized and victimized Palestinians longer than any other Israeli leader.
He has been allowed to perpetrate his increasingly brutal apartheid, ethnic cleansing policy with total impunity from a complicit, largely approving world. Meanwhile, in recent years Netanyahu has aggressively expanded Israeli West Bank settlements at further expense to Palestinians.
A number of former IDF soldiers that provided active duty security along the Gaza border have gone public asserting that all kinds of border sensors automatically go off alerting detection of even a domestic cat walking near the border wall.
Currently, Israel possesses the most sophisticated robotic weaponry and advanced surveillance technologies installed to myopically monitor every inch of its border, and, if a breach occurs, within a minute dozens of armed soldiers in vehicles quickly converge.
So, it’s totally absurd to buy into the lie that the Mossad’s most masterfully skilled intelligence network on the planet would be completely caught off guard by a Hamas “surprise attack.” Yet the world is supposed to swallow this blatant deception that at dawn on Saturday October 7th Israel was totally unprepared for the Hamas offensive.
In December 2021, the Israeli government had just spent nearly a billion dollars over a span of more than three years to construct a solid impenetrable defense wall of cement and multiple chain linked 30-foot structures. Israel’s border obstruction is one of the most heavily fortified borders on earth, equipped with the most advanced technologies that Israel is now famous for.
Israel backed by Western puppet nations and lamestream media would have the world blindly accepting the concocted Israeli excuse that its crack intel services experienced a complete meltdown on the morning of October 7th, accidentally permitting Hamas militants to cut through multiple points of entry barriers along the Gaza-Israel border, causing the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) delay of seven hours before finally showing up to first make contact with the invasion force.
This bogus pretense that Israel conspicuously left its border totally unguarded and unattended for so many hours after such a serious security breach is impossible, unless of course it was done on purpose. This exact same conclusion has increasingly been corroborated by multiple intel sources as well as former IDF soldiers.
44-year old Yasmin Porat, who survived the October 7th Hamas invasion while at Kibbutz Be’eri near the Gaza border, stated she witnessed a fierce gun battle between IDF and Hamas militants, claiming that Israeli forces firing indiscriminately “undoubtedly” shot and killed fellow Israeli civilians and that prior to the fighting, her Hamas captors treated her humanely. Recounting her story on state media, she stated:
They [IDF] eliminated everyone, including the hostages. There was very, very heavy crossfire.
This eyewitness account suggests that either the Israeli soldiers were recklessly intentionally or unintentionally incompetent, either in the performance of their combat duty or perhaps were ordered by their command mission to indiscriminately rack up a high body count of Israeli victims.
Either way, it raises serious questions needing further investigation, which we know will not be forthcoming. Due to the shocking implication that Israeli soldiers may have been ordered by the Netanyahu chain of command to kill their own fellow Israeli citizens, this potential possibility will be buried. But in this era of democide becoming commonplace, it would not come as a surprise.
Another Israeli eyewitness source quoted on a CrossTalk News broadcast by journalist LaurenWitzke asserted that an Israeli village survivor emphatically stated:
Netanyahu intentionally let Hamas kill Israelis. Both the IDF and the Israeli Air Force both stood-down for 7 hours.
Also Jewish Pro-Life founder Cecily Routman citing government sources asserted that:
The IDF was given stand down orders – both the army and the Air Force – seven hours to stand down while those attacks took place.
Under Netanyahu’s alleged stand down order, the IDF remained conspicuously absent for many critical hours, and it appears that Israel knowingly allowed “wire cutting terrorists” (reminiscent of the 9/11 terrorist boxcutters hijacking four commercial jetliners) in bulldozers to cross through all the world’s most heavily fortified border barriers in 14 different places to launch a massive invasion inside Israel.
An Israeli born prominent New York rabbi, after conferring with his Israeli inside intel sources, also concluded that the October 7th invasion had to be “an inside job.” It’s absolutely absurd to believe that such formidable Israeli intelligence and highly adept IDF military forces would be totally oblivious to a “surprise attack” for seven long hours.
Israeli editor-journalist David Sidman further citing intel sources also reported this week:
The invasion was recorded at 7:15 AM, but the government instituted a media blackout preventing the press from warning the public for an hour and a half. Think of how many people could have prepared for the invasion if the press was allowed to warn them in real time. (Twitter)
Simply put, too many credible sources are piling up this week all drawing the same conclusion, from both eyewitnesses and inside intelligence, exposing the Netanyahu/IDF/Israel/US/West preposterous fabrication that the “Hamas invasion” was precipitated purely by accident and/or gross incompetence by Israel.
IDF Suspiciously Redeployed
Yet another convenient yet highly incriminating anomaly, just like the 9/11 inside job, shortly before the Hamas breach of Israel’s border, a two-thirds majority of the Israeli Defense Force normally assigned to guard the Gaza-Israel border was suspiciously redeployed to the West Bank.
Sounds way too eerily familiar to 9/11 to dismiss. On the morning of the 9/11 attacks, also not by accident co-engineered by Israel, NORAD Commander-in-Chief US Air Force General Ralph Eberhardscheduled several US military drill air exercises tying up all fighter jets unable on 9/11 to patrol and defend America’s East Coast.
General Eberhard later was caught lying to the 9/11 Commission. Likewise, during the August Maui DEW microwave attack, conveniently all the key Maui emergency officials were sent off-island at the time attending some bogus training exercise. This extremely common tactic is an all too frequent dead giveaway in numerous false flag attacks.
The long notorious Khazarian mafia boss Netanyahu is being accused of treason, intentionally allowing the Hamas attack to occur, then claim victimhood in order to instantly gain “upper moral ground” to garner worldwide sympathy and support, especially from an easily swayed Western world, providing the convenient cover up excuse for Netanyahu’s desperate, doomed-to-fail leadership to unleash an unprecedented inhumane brutal assault against Palestinians.
This warmongering despot was on the brink of being forced out of office, embroiled in corruption charges, battling to weaken the power of Israel’s Supreme Court and increasingly finding himself unpopular amongst Israeli citizens.
Who Benefits from Netanyahu’s Planned Genocide?
Asking cui bono [who benefits]? Netanyahu, his autocratic regime, the US and US/Israel’s masters – the Rothschild City of London/World Economic Forum elites, they are the only entities in this world that have everything to gain in power from pulling off yet another 9/11 inside job with more war against Moslem “terrorists.”
A number of both Israeli citizens and top Israeli newspapers are calling Netanyahu out for his failed leadership. An October 12thJerusalem Post states:
Four out of five Jewish Israelis believe the government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are to blame for the mass infiltration of Hamas terrorists into Israel and the massacre that followed, a new Dialog Center poll released on Thursday found.
An October 8th, a Haaretz editorial headline alleges “Netanyahu Bears Responsibility for This Israel-Gaza War,” squarely blaming him for all his reckless, extreme malfeasance that set the stage for this disaster.
Per the recent released documentary “The Mystery of Israel – Solved,” another incriminating piece and perhaps the smoking gun is a secret letter the Israeli parliament sent to Netanyahu not long before the so-called Hamas terrorist invasion, “demanding an immediate invasion into Gaza and a complete seizing of control of that whole area.”
Thus, the coordinated false flag Hamas attack on Israel serves as the perfect pretense of an excuse for Israel to demolish Gaza and the Palestinian people, nearly half of which are innocent children.
Another clue is Netanyahu’s speech at the UN General Assembly less than two weeks ahead of the Israel’s “counterattack” on Gaza, Bibi pulled out a map titled “The New Middle East” that shows no Gaza or West Bank on the map, only Israel.
The fact that Palestinians have been literally “wiped off the map” in Bibi’s world is hardly coincidence. Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowed at a press conference:
We will wipe them off the face of the Earth
Though “them” is supposed to be Hamas, what he and his boss Bibi really mean is Palestinian people will be wiped off the face of the Earth. Within days, Bibi showed it and the ungallant Gallant said it.
Netanyahu and Hamas
For a deeper perspective, let’s examine the relationship between Netanyahu and Hamas. Way back 14-years ago, highly astute Congressman Ron Paul dropped a truth-bomb on the House floor exposing the triangular, under-the-table partnership-in-crime between the US, Israel and Hamas:
If you look at the history, you’ll find out that Hamas was encouraged and really started by Israel because they wanted Hamas to counteract YasserArafat… We first, indirectly and directly through Israel, helped establish Hamas.
Corroborating Ron Paul, more incriminating information surfaced in a Monday October 8thTimes of Israel article:
For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank… Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas… from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad.
All along, Netanyahu pitted one Palestinian faction against the other per the “divide and rule” doctrine, while tolerating, covertly funding and giving complicit support to Hamas in order to thwart first PLO leader Yasser Arafat and later his Palestinian Authority successor President Mahmoud Abbas to prevent Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza unifying as one force to establish their long-awaited statehood.
Netanyahu instead imposed rigid apartheid’s open air prison under inhuman Israeli criminal control.
The documentary “The Mystery of Israel – Solved ” uncovers how the Illuminati controlled world of high finance as an international crime syndicate was briefly exposed a few years ago when in an explosive interview Belgian banker RonaldBernard reveals its dark secrets.
After he was forced to witness child blood sacrifice rituals amongst the global elite, Bernard turned tearful whistleblower.
The former high roller explained how the most powerful and wealthy bloodlines own the world through controlling not only the geopolitics of all the major national governments and corporations, but also global organized crime that includes all the terrorist organizations as well as sexual blackmail of selected “inner club” power players through pedophilia.
An example of this are the JeffreyEpstein–GuislaineMaxwell Israeli-US entrapment operations (fully covered in depth in my Pedophilia & Empire 5-book series).
Perhaps the most overt evidence that Khazarian mafia boss Bibi runs Hamas exposed itself four years ago in a March 2019 meeting with his Likud Party Knesset members. An October 10 Haaretz article exposes the damning evidence in a Netanyahu quote:
Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.
Netanyahu and U.S. Can’t Have it Both Ways
Israel has been funding Hamas through Qatar since its 1987 inception as Netanyahu’s long and intimate history working with this terrorist organization as a secret “divide and rule” proxy war ally is thoroughly documented and proven.
But as of October 7th, now the world’s supposed to believe Hamas is suddenly Bibi’s enemy, giving him the biggest “gift” of “surprise” of his entire life – extending his nine lives politically yet one more time.
Bibi wants it both ways but he can’t be both the chief Hamas financier, covert ally and cash in all his marbles playing victim without being exposed as the bloodthirsty traitor of both his people and nation.
And neither can the United States. Many observers both inside and out of the Jewish State recognize this false flag as “Israel’s 9/11 inside job” and the Deep State cabal will not get away with it.
The elites are shocked that the world is not rallying around the phony “stand up for Israel” cause, just as the Ukraine victim card’s run out of time and the fake pandemic/kill shot one two holocaust punch ran out of legs as well. The fact is, the global masses are beginning to finally realize that the bloodline murderers are behind every malady plaguing this earth and have been for millennia.
Two days after the “surprise,” on Tuesday October 9thTimes of Israel published an article implicating the Hamas attack to be Netanyahu’s FDR moment with plenty of forewarning as “Israel’s Pearl Harbor”:
An Egyptian intelligence official said that Jerusalem had ignored repeated warnings that the Gaza-based terror group was planning ‘something big’ — which included an apparent direct notice from Cairo’s intelligence minister to the prime minister.
Of course Israel vehemently rejects this incriminating Egyptian claim, warning Netanyahu of an imminent Hamas invasion. Again, just like President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was aware of the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor days and even weeks before his December 7th “Day of Infamy,” he permitted it to happen as America’s grand excuse to enter humanity’s deadliest war in history by treasonously failing to protect the more than 3,400 American lives that day as FDR’s infamous war crime.
Similarly, Netanyahu, his military intelligence and ranking IDF generals just let the Hamas attack on Israel happen. Cui bono? Netanyahu, his IDF and the Khazarian puppet masters controlling them are the only ones to gain at the treasonous, costly and bloody expense of this false flag war crime against both the Israeli and Palestinian people.
One US Congressman boldly contradicted Israel’s “surprise attack” lie. According to an October 12thNew York Post:
The US has confirmed that Egypt warned Tel Aviv of a possible attack, according to the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee – who says he is ‘not quite sure’ how Israel and the US ‘missed it.’
GOP Rep. Michael McCaul told CNN two days after Egypt said Israel was warned of the imminent attack:
We know the Egyptian intelligence service handed this off days before the terrorist invasion.
Though we should be grateful that Rep. McCaul had the nerve to tell the truth to the world, he’s playing naïve when he claims uncertainty over why both Israel and the US “missed it.”
Obviously, it was calculatingly set up by Bibi and his elite masters that control both US and Israel’s puppet governments. So, Israel’s been caught in a boldface lie as the entire carnage of thousands of his own Jewish people were deliberately set up by order-following bloodthirsty tyrant Netanyahu.
Blame must also be levied against the US for going along with this entire diabolical charade. Washington’s near 17 years of sanctions against the Palestinian Authority (PA), chronically ignoring the Palestinian plight of a two-state solution, all the while financing $38 billion in military aid from 2019 to 2028 demonstrates more than enough criminal complicity to prosecute.
Only Ukraine gets more US aid now from the DC cash cow, having received twice as much at over $75 billion in just the last 19 months alone. And only because the USA, Inc. boosts this diminutive nation the size of the 5th smallest US state New Jersey, can Israel boast its status as a top 20 GDP per capita economy while disgracefully possessing the world’s largest open-air prison and to this day continue getting away with it, holding 2.2 million Palestinians captive.
Why does US support Zionist terrorism and fight long costly wars on Israel’s behalf? Because as US traitors, infiltrated dual Israeli citizen neocons in Washington and Council on Foreign Relations are loyal to Israel and Israel alone.
While Israel’s horrific, unchecked crimes against Palestinians are always minimized and ignored for nearly eight decades now, it’s by malevolent design that Israel’s relentless ethnic purge of Palestinians covertly co-opts and supports militant elements like Hamas (and ISIS and al Qaeda prior) to foment terrorist attacks in order to constantly reinforce to the world that Jews are perennial victims surrounded by hostile Muslim terrorists determined to destroy their sacred Jewish State.
This vicious cycle of deception has been regularly used to justify Israeli apartheid genocidal policy with impunity in the name of Jews’ right to defend themselves against their sworn Islamic enemy.
Meanwhile, this rogue terrorist Israeli state has been granted carte blanche power to commit ongoing genocide against Palestinians and answer to no one.
Add the 1967 USS Liberty attack killing 34 American sailors and 9/11 killing 3,000 more Americans that again Israel and their duel-citizen neocons got away with, not unlike the US Nord Stream pipeline attack against “ally” Germany last year.
Under globalists’ New World Order, lawlessness and brute force rule this planet like never before. With total disdain for the US in 2001, Khazarian mob boss Bibi taunted:
America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction.
Then there’s that infamous, secret recording back in 1990 in Jerusalem’s Fink Bar where Bibi boasted:
If we get caught they will just replace us with persons of the same cloth. So it doesn’t matter what you do, America is a Golden Calf and we will suck it dry, chop it up, and sell it off piece by piece until there is nothing left but the World’s biggest welfare state that we will create and control.
An Hawkeye spy plane launches from the flight deck of the world’s largest aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (Photo: US Navy)
Billions of misdirected US taxpayer dollars ($38 billion mentioned, plus now the in the latest Israeli-Ukraine package deal) as the Jewish State’s official cash cow, compliments of Israel bribed DC pro-Zionist war hawk traitors, have been used to kill Palestinians.
Right now, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, has been joined by yet another aircraft carrier group the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, with more committed US ships and troops on the way, posing offshore “show of Force.” 2,000 Navy sailors and Marines are ready “to deter” Hezbollah and Iran from launching offensives against Israel.
US fighter jets and munitions are arriving daily as US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin vowed to protect poor little picked on, “defenseless” Israel that wields its infamous “Sampson Option,” reserving its right to nuke even friendliest allies like the US.
With the US Defense Department issuing “ready for deployment” orders for more US troops being sent, the US is poised ready to begin fighting another war in the Middle East for the Greater Israel Project. A Tuesday October 17thDer Spiegel article explained the Israeli ground offensive will likely be launched soon after Braindead Biden finishes meeting with Bibi this last Wednesday.
From 2008 up to the day prior to the October 7th Hamas incursion in Israel, about 6,400 Palestinians have been killed compared to 300 Israelis. But in the last two weeks alone, Israel has murdered almost as many, now closing in on 5,000 more Palestinians dead, than in the prior 15 years combined.
The entire world population is watching, despite no government lifting a finger to save thousands of innocent kids and their families, other than the Islamic world readily moving to step up and take decisive action to stop it, and they will. But at what cost? World War III Armageddon as Illuminati Mason Albert Pike predicted in 1871? At this grave hour, it looks that way.
A typical example of how the Illuminati Rothschild owned Jewish State operates is its evacuation order to Gazans issued on Thursday October 12th. The over a million Palestinians living in the northern half of the Gaza Strip were abruptly ordered by the Netanyahu regime to within 24-hours begin heading south “for safety” in the face of Israel’s planned ground invasion.
On the morning of Saturday October 14th, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated on Twitter/X:
Moving more than 1 million people across a densely populated warzone to a place with no food, water, or accommodation when the entire territory is under siege, is extremely dangerous and, in some cases, simply not possible.
Moving more than one million people across a densely populated warzone to a place with no food, water, or accommodation, when the entire territory of Gaza is under siege, is extremely dangerous – and in some cases, simply not possible.
Obviously, it’s impossible in northern Gaza to expect thousands of injured and ill hospital patients along with their attending medical staff to relocate. And as Guterres alluded to, it’s both unsafe and unrealistic while Israel is depriving Gaza of food, electricity and water under its illegally imposed blockade to suddenly head south. On top of all this, on Friday the 13th, the UN humanitarian body, OCHA ended up reporting:
Vehicles of those evacuating the north were hit, killing more than 40 people and injuring 150 others.
After Israel declared Salah al-Din Road to be “a safe route” just south of Gaza City, at about 5:30PM local time last Friday, according to the Guardian, the convoy was targeted reporting that 70 victims died, many of them children. In response to the UN head Guterres’ disapproval of Israel’s evacuation order, Israeli UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan said:
[The UN should be] praising Israel for these precautionary actions.
As if killing 70 innocent civilian family victims on the road following Israel’s evacuation order isn’t bad enough, on Tuesday October 17th in Gaza City the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital was also bombed killing at least 500 people.
Netanyahu aide Hananya Naftaliopenly admitted on social media that Israel bombed the hospital prior to deleting it two minutes later to blame Hamas, and ever since has been backtracking his truthful “blunder” of a bombshell.
But reality is out there for all the world to see, regardless of IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari’s attempt to blame Hamas for a “misfired rocket” from the hospital parking lot that exploded highly flammable propellant. This is the same IDF propagandist who within a couple days after the “surprise” weekend attack let it slip, admitting:
There were certain signs the night before.
What’s getting zero coverage these days in the CIA-controlled Mockingbird Western press is that Israel just three days prior on October 14th undisputedly launched an airstrike on the same hospital.
On October 15th, the AFEDJ (American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem), a non-political, non-sectarian 501(c)(3) organization reported that “Ahli Arab Hospital’s Diagnostic Cancer Treatment Center in Gaza City was struck by rocket fire,” injuring four hospital staff and significant destruction.
Aljazeera reported on October 18th that right after the earlier October 14th attack on the Christian hospital in Gaza City, senior Gaza health official Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health YousefAbual–Rish is quoted:
We warned you yesterday with two shells.
Aljazeera clearly states that after Israel fired two artillery shells as a “warning,” it threatened more attacks if the hospital staff and patients refused to comply with its unlawful evacuation order.
For reporting these facts as verified proof that Israel is criminally responsible for this horrific tragedy injuring and killing hundreds of innocent victims at the hospital, Israel is set to ban Al Jazeera operations in Gaza over its war coverage because puppets Netanyahu and Biden and their Rothschild City of London handlers cannot tolerate their diabolical truth be told to the world.
After all, they both have a false flag agenda to comply with their bloodline masters’ strict orders to ignite Armageddon.
A Wednesday October 18thDaily Mail article inadvertently confirmed that the US possessed foreknowledge of the October 7th Hamas attack with the following statement:
Within hours of the horrific onslaught on Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7 the U.S. began moving warships, jets and special forces to the region.
Astute journalist AsadIsmi writing for Global Research on October 19th asserts:
Known to military analysts, such a deployment requires considerable advanced preparation and cannot be improvised ‘within hours.’ This fits in with the scenario that the Hamas attack initiated on October 7, 2023 was a ‘false flag’ operation on behalf of Israel’s military and intelligence apparatus (which also coordinates such actions with the U.S.)…
So the very quick, dangerous and aggressive massive deployment of U.S. forces to the Israel area is presented in the Daily Mail article as a defensive measure aimed at deterring Iran. Even for the obedient pro-imperialist Western mainstream media, this is an incredible stretch.
However, if one reads the body of the article carefully it becomes clear that it is the U.S. that is starting World War III not Iran. The content of the article contradicts the title which happens sometimes in the mainstream press given its well-known editorial restrictions on telling the truth.
Thus, it’s more than apparent that the Rothschild City of London powers of this world are today laying the groundwork for the Masonic Illuminati plotted endgame WWIII, pitting Islam vs. Judaism/East vs. West big bang conflagration.
This death cult’s inhumane escalation of war events as an example of willfully inflicting massive casualties on the most defenceless, infirm hospital victims is unconscionable.
The world is witnessing concrete evidence of the rapid acceleration of grotesque inhumanity being committed in real time by the unified as one Netanyahu/Biden regime on full genocidal display before the world.
Do you think our world leaders care about us humans? Not in the least. Their systematic slaughter is expanding every day leading to their “imminent” ground invasion, with another Palestinian child being cold-bloodedly murdered every fifteen minutes by countless Israeli airstrikes over the last couple weeks alone.
Another appalling red flag atrocity discovered is Israel’s apparent use of the banned chemical weapon white phosphorus, per Human Rights Watch allegations reported by the Washington Post on October 17th.
Meanwhile, the governments of Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Qatar have all blamed the Israeli Air Force for this deadly hospital explosion. Muslim protests are spreading worldwide.
Outside the Western puppets and their globalist handlers, CIA controlled Western press and blindly ignorant MSM followers, the world has seen enough of Israel’s incessant lies, ungodly brutality and is fast rising up in Palestinian solidarity around the globe to oppose the Khazarian madman Bibi, his “loyal” US friends and the evil forces in control behind them.
A week ago Iran warned via a message to the UN that should the Israeli embargo on Gaza continue with its imminent ground invasion into Gaza, Iran will intervene. Iran then posted on Twitter/X that should Israel’s “war crimes and genocide” not stop, the situation could spiral out of control bringing “far-reaching consequences.”
More than a million Palestinian residents have been forced to flee their homes, due to so much of their high-density buildings bombed out, and their demolished, ever-shrinking ancient homeland now in near total rubble, totalling 30% of Gazans’ destroyed or damaged residences.
Palestinians attempting to escape the danger, complying with Israel’s evacuation order as part of its “humanitarian” refugee convoy, were targeted with Israeli airstrikes that injured and murdered nearly 200 while in transit on October 13th.
Israel coldly set up their victims as sitting ducks, targeted for extermination. Then during the overnight hours of early Tuesday October 17th, Israel warplanes struck multiple locations in south Gaza, precisely where Palestinian refugees were ordered to go, killing 80 more Gazans.
Again, Israeli coldblooded murderers are going out of their way to deliberately kill as many helpless war refugees as possible, literally being directed straight into Israel’s slaughterhouse line of fire.
Why would it order civilians living in the north to head south ostensibly for safety, then specifically target them as they reach southern Gaza, if not for bloodthirsty elimination?
As of Thursday October 19th, the Palestinian death toll climbed to 3,785 per the Wall Street Journal with over 12,500 injured. Just two days later as of Saturday October 21st, the mounting slaughter of the Palestinian people has surpassed 4,500. Yet the world feebly sits watching this real-life genocidal horror.
This diabolical evil to wilfully wreak so much carnage on innocent women and children aimed to ethnically purge all Palestinians “off the map” is simply how the Israeli government has operationalized its genocidal policy today, with absolutely no accountability or remorse from Bibi or his allied friends the US and Europe.
Outside Islamic bloc of nations, the entire world never reacts in any way to stop this horror, but habitually looks the other way as genocide accomplices, impotently allowing these egregious atrocities to only continue on indefinitely, decade after decade.
Because the Israeli perpetrators are never brought to justice for their ungodly sins, the killing’s now been allowed to reach exponential proportions. The current genocide against the entire human race only signifies that rogue states like Israel and oil-rich Azerbaijan can brazenly declare open season on the Palestinians and Artsakh Armenians, both unprotected minority populations denied their right to self-determination or for that matter to even exist.
Overwhelming evidence this week continues to emerge exposing the fact that this so-called Hamas invasion was a coordinated pre-planned attack on Israel, conceived, devised and controlled by Netanyahu and ultimately his masters – the City of London/WEF crowd.
Khazarian mafia chieftain Netanyahu was privy in advance, as the operation unfolded, choreographed at the highest levels of power, like carefully plotted clockwork. All the globalist players have been together working overtime to set this stage for their larger World War III, if not ignited in Ukraine than definitely now in the Middle East.
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Joachim Hagopianis 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 ticketpunching 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://jamesfetzer.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/contents/. Joachim also hosts the weekly Revolution Radio broadcast “Cabal Empire Exposed” on Friday morning at 7AM EST (ID: revradio, password: rocks!).
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I apologize for using the oxymoronic term “assisted suicide for babies” in the title. An infant is not self-aware and cannot “commit suicide.” Infants want to live, eat, and be held by their parents. And yet, the Quebec College of Physicians wants to expand the Canadian “Medical Assistance in Dying” program to infants.
Watch Dr. Louis Roy, from the Quebec College of Physicians, telling the Commons’ Special Joint Committee of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) on Oct. 7 that his organization believes MAID can be appropriate for infants up to age one who are born with “severe malformations.”
Medical Assistance in Dying implies someone wanting to die and getting medical assistance to die in a socially approved manner with some comfort.
Infants under one year cannot possibly choose to die or request medical assistance, so the name does not exactly suit the situation. Instead of “assistance in dying,” infants will be euthanized for the convenience of the parents and doctors who no longer want to deal with problematic babies. There are other, even more disturbing reasons for this program being promoted, which we will explore.
Quebec’s College of Physicians proposal attempts to sound sensible by referring to babies who suffer from “unbearable pain,” with euthanasia approved by a doctor and consented to by both parents. I am unsure how custodial situations would be handled and suspect that “both parents’ consent” would be disregarded in the case of non-married parents.
However, we must ask: how do we know that a baby’s pain is unbearable? We cannot ask the baby, after all. As a father of two grown children, I remember them suffering from routine illnesses where their pain seemed “unbearable.” My heart was breaking for them as they cried for hours over stomach pains and other issues, usually at night. While such pains felt desperately “unbearable” at the moment, they were temporary; fortunately, both kids grew up just fine. I learned that what seems unbearable in one moment may eventually become a distant memory.
The Quebec College of Physicians does not realize that and thinks adults can decide which infants to euthanize.
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On October 16, during the NATO-supplied, nuclear-armed hot war in Ukraine, the alliance began its annual nuclear attack rehearsal dubbed “Steadfast Noon.” This practice involves air forces from 13 countries, the “exercising” of fighter jets and U.S. B-52s, lasts until October 26, and will be roaring over Italy, Croatia and the eastern Mediterranean — not far from two aircraft carrier battle groups charging toward the war over the Gaza Strip.
A U.S. Air Force F-16 with the 510th Fighter Squadron, 31st fighter Wing, takes off from an airbase in Northern Italy on 13 October 2023
A hundred people joined an October 13 Protest outside Germany’s Nörvenich Air Base calling for cancellation of the rehearsal, to no avail.
NATO Sec. Gen. Jens Stoltenberg naturally said,
“Our exercise will help to ensure the credibility, effectiveness and security of our nuclear deterrent.”
This is shrewd, silk tie talk about threatening nuclear attacks, threats barely distinguishable from Putin’s verbal warnings. NATO Claims,
“[T]he fundamental purpose of NATO’s nuclear capability is to preserve peace, prevent coercion and deter aggression.”
Aware that this fundamental purpose was disproved and vaporized by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, NATO practices nuclear attacks. Steadfast Noon is a role-play for pilots, a dry run to test classroom preparations made at the German branch of the U.S. Air Force Nuclear College on Ramstein Air Base. According to the AFNC Website, the school “is responsible for delivering, sustaining and supporting air-delivered nuclear weapon systems for our warfighters … every day.” Some such air-delivered nuclear weapons are the U.S. “B61” free-fall gravity bombs stationed in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Turkey.
One Nuclear College course named “Theater Nuclear Operation” was described this way (before the page was taken down):
“[A] 4.5-day course that provides training for planners, support staff, targeteers, and staff nuclear planners for joint operations and targeting.” Another class is said to provide: “proficiency in importing and creating target models, developing attack plans using conventional or nuclear weapons, performing consequence assessment to WMD scenarios.”
If you imagined that nuclear war is unthinkable, this school says its fighter jet pilot students, “will be able to import, edit, and modify target sites”; “calculate probabilistic attacks against predefined targets; [and] “develop attack plans using either conventional or nuclear weapons.”
These B61s are just the U.S. nukes closest to Moscow. Add to these the French, British and U.S. thermonuclear weapons on submarines, long-range missiles, and bombers (totals are approximately 5244 U.S., 225 British, and 290 French).
At the protest in Nörvenich, Ludo De Brabander, from the Belgian peace group Peace Now, spoke of the 10 to 20 B61s stationed at Kleine Brogel Air Base in Belgium:
“These bombs will soon be replaced by new B61-12 nuclear bombs. Because of their ‘precision’ and ‘low yield,’ these nuclear weapons are considered ‘operational,’ lowering the threshold for nuclear war. All of this is happening without any official explanation or public debate.”
The concept of suicidal ideation applies to steadfast planning or the actual launch of nuclear weapons attacks. Daniel Ellsberg, in Things That Can and Cannot Be Said (Haymarket Books 2016), said, “[O]ur private, top-secret estimates were that we would kill every European, a hundred million Europeans, without a single U.S. or Soviet warhead landing on West Europe. Just from the fallout of the attacks we were planning on Russia and East Europe. One hundred million.”
So Steadfast Noon is not just code language, or public relations. The event is a large-scale, psychological operation intended to teach us to pretend that nuclear attacks can do good. Of course if nuclear firestorms saved lives and ended war — as U.S. mythology goes with Hiroshima and Nagasaki — then the Pentagon would have used them in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. People love to be fooled.
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John LaForge, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Co-director of Nukewatch, a peace and environmental justice group in Wisconsin, and is co-editor with Arianne Peterson of Nuclear Heartland, Revised: A Guide to the 450 Land-Based Missiles of the United States.
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Federal officials this week tested an explosion at the Nevada National Security Site that was led by the National Nuclear Security Administration, according to a statement.
on Wednesday, said the Department of Energy in a press release. It said that the reason for the test was to improve how military officials can detect low-yield nuclear blasts.
“These experiments advance our efforts to develop new technology in support of U.S. nuclear nonproliferation goals,” Corey Hinderstein, an agency deputy administrator, said in the release. “They will help reduce global nuclear threats by improving the detection of underground nuclear explosive tests.”
Wednesday’s “experiment” was carried out in the “P tunnel in Area 12” of the test site and used “chemical high-explosives and radiotracers,” the Department of Energy said. It did not elaborate.
“The experiment will help validate new predictive explosion models and detection algorithms,” the release said. “Measurements were collected using accelerometers, seismometers, infrasound sensors, electromagnetic sensors, chemical and radiotracer samplers, and meteorological sensors.”
Nuclear Blasts
The Nevada National Security Site, which is known as the Nevada Test Site, is a location in remote Rye County that was used since the 1950s to test nuclear weapons. More than 1,000 nuclear blasts have been tested at the site over the years, according to research. Since 1992, more than 27 subcritical tests have been carried out.
The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1996. It bans nuclear explosions anywhere in the world, but it has not been ratified by the United States, North Korea, Israel, Egypt, India, China, Pakistan, and Iran, although Russia has ratified it.
There have been concerns that Moscow could again restart nuclear testing in a bid to prevent the West from supporting Ukraine’s military.
Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putinsaid that his country might abandon the test ban treaty. Russian lawmakers also recently announced a move to revoke the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, according to reports.
Moratorium on Russian Nuclear Tests?
The speaker of the Duma, or Russia’s parliament, said via his Telegram channel that Moscow would withdraw from the agreement and blamed the United States.
“In the interests of ensuring the security of our country, we are withdrawing the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty,” said Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, adding that Washington has failed to ratify the treaty owing to what he called an “irresponsible attitude to global security issues,” according to a translation.
Mikhail Kovalchuk, a top Russian scientist, said in September that Moscow could test its future nuclear weapons at a test site in Novaya Zemlya, an archipelago in northern Russia, in a bid to scare the West and the United States.
“The situation is exactly the same now,” he said, referring to Cold War-era nuclear testing carried out by the Soviet Union and the United States. “It’s enough to carry out tests on Novaya Zemlya … at least once. And everything will fall into place,” he added.
But after the Nevada explosion this week, Mikhail Ulyanov, the Russian envoy to the United Nations, said that Russia would continue to maintain its moratorium on nuclear testing unless the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is revoked by parliament.
“Never say never. Tests may resume under certain circumstances. I believe that such a development would be negative for the modern world, for maintaining stability,” he told Russian state media. “We have enough turbulence in international relations and wouldn’t want another powerful factor added.”
Israel–Hamas Conflict
The test explosion in Nevada also comes in the midst of heightened tensions over the Israel–Hamas conflict, where Hamas terrorists attacked multiple areas in Israel, killing hundreds of civilians. Israel has responded with an extensive bombing campaign targeting Gaza, leading to widespread condemnation and protests across the Middle East as U.S. officials have scrambled to prevent a broader war from erupting.
The United States also positioned several aircraft carrier groups closer to Israel since the conflict erupted earlier this month. On Wednesday, Pentagon officials said a U.S. Navy destroyer shot down missiles that were likely fired from Houthi militia groups in Yemen, although they said the U.S. assets were not the missiles’ intended targets and no injuries were reported.
Several U.S. bases were also targeted by drones in Iraq and Syria in recent days. A drone attack targeting a U.S. base in Syria resulted in “minor injuries,” said Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder at a Wednesday news conference.
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Jack Phillips is a senior reporter for The Epoch Times based in New York. He covers breaking news.
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If President Joe Biden were a pony, instead of a perennial warhorse (e.g., gung-ho for Bush/Cheney’s criminal destruction of Iraq), he would have his tail between his legs on his return from a one-day trip to Israel. He failed to achieve any immediate, critical objectives while the ongoing destruction of Gaza and the defenseless Palestinians continues.
Did Biden get Israel and Egypt to allow the exit of hundreds of American citizens fleeing the Gazan firestorm? No!
Did Biden open up corridors for humanitarian aid to the babies, children, women, elderly and other civilians in Gaza who had nothing to do with the October 7th Hamas homicide/suicide attack on Israelis? No!
To the contrary, earlier in the week he cruelly ordered his UN Ambassador to veto a widely supported resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire.
Did he forcefully double down on his earlier counsel to the Israeli government to obey the laws of war, then and now, being openly violated? No! He continued his silence after the Israeli Defense Minister ordered his soldiers with the genocidal command, “No electricity, no food, no fuel, no water…” That death sentence includes patients in hospitals who must endure the carpet bombing of this long-time blockaded tiny strip of desert land holding 2.3 million people. (See, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide).
Did Biden press for the exchange of Hamas’ hostages for the release of Palestinian prisoners, including young Palestinians, who have been in Israeli jails for years without due process or charges? No! Worse, Biden failed to object to the Israeli military stating that the release of over 200 Israeli hostages is a “secondary priority” to smashing Hamas and Gaza “into the Stone Age.” This policy flouts the moral codes of many venerable Judaic sages described in an October 19, 2023, New York Times column by Mikahel Manekin titled “The Safety of the Hostages Must Come First.” Israel conducted two prisoners for hostages’ exchanges, one in 2004 and one in 2011.
Did Biden, in strong terms, tell the Israeli politicians that they have already exacted revenge many times over on the stateless people of Gaza – in civilian lives lost, injuries, related spread of disease, destitution and destruction? Did he say it is inhumane and counterproductive to bomb hospitals, clinics, schools, mosques, churches, apartment buildings, water mains, electric networks and ambulances, all of which is in violation of civilized norms and rules of war? Of course not. He greenlighted Israel’s genocidal warfare from the beginning of the Israeli assault and sent U.S. weaponry. He is enabling other actions of “co-belligerency” against the defenseless Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Did he even get the 20 trucks of humanitarian aid waiting at the Rafah crossing – also bombed by the Israelis – from Egypt into Gaza before he left? No! (Those trucks, paltry though the supplies they carried, were allowed into Gaza on Saturday.)
Biden did come back with a bill for the American taxpayers – who for decades have been forced to pay for these Israeli wars. Now Biden wants Congress to approve $14 billion for Israel to address the colossal failure of Netanyahu’s extremist coalition to protect its own citizens on the border. (Adding only $100 million for Palestinian relief).
That sum of money, to be authorized without any Congressional hearings or Congressional oversight, is greater than the combined annual budgets of the FDA, OSHA, NHTSA and the section of HHS, whose missions are to reduce the loss of hundreds of thousands of preventable American fatalities in the workplace, on the highways, and in the marketplace and the hospitals. (See, the 2016 peer-reviewed study from the John Hopkins University of Medicine).
Lastly, still not calling a ceasefire, Biden is disregarding his own military’s private advice against an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza as raising the risk of a larger war in the Middle East that would clearly be against the national interests of the American people and U.S. security.
He could have done what President Eisenhower did in 1956, when he demanded that the Israeli, British and French attack on Egypt stop immediately.
And stop, they did!
After all, the U.S. has some influence over Israel, to put it mildly. The U.S. endorses all Israeli aggressions (including Israel’s admission to bombing hundreds of sites in Syria, mired in its civil war and no threat, in addition to striking Damascus International Airport). All with U.S. advanced weapons, and billions of dollars in annual aid to Israel, a prosperous military, technological and economic superpower. In fact, Israel’s social safety net is better than that of the U.S.!
Biden provides total diplomatic cover in the U.S. with Washington’s automatic UN vetoes, and pressures allies to follow the party line.
Moreover, Biden seems unwilling to recognize the historical origins of this conflict that now has mighty Israel occupying, colonizing, brutalizing and stealing land and water from the twenty-two percent of the original Palestine left for millions of Palestinians under Israeli daily control.
Biden should take a moment in the Oval Office to read page 121 of the book “The Jewish Paradox” by Nahum Goldman (January 1, 1978), the head of the World Zionist Organization. He quotes the leading Founder of the Israeli state, David Ben-Gurion as candidly saying to him: “If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”
Today’s Israeli leaders refuse to demonstrate this degree of empathy. Instead, they provoke and deny the creation of a Palestinian state, envisioned by the Oslo Accords they signed in 1993, hurl the most racist epithets (“animals,” “vermin,” “snakes,”), and make sure the politicians in the U.S. Congress never utter the words “Palestinians also have a right to defend themselves” as violently subjugated victims of Israel the superpower.
Many members of Congress who demand giving Israel whatever money and weaponry it wants for whatever it does, violating human rights under international law in its illegal occupations and blockade, turn around and vote against the child tax credit, worker health and safety, universal healthcare, paid family leave and daycare for Americans. Their viciousness – as with the homicidal outburst of Gen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) against all Palestinians, and Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) a Harvard Law graduate, saying “As far as I’m concerned, Israel can bounce the rubble in Gaza…” set new levels of depravity.
A few Senators see it differently, especially Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) who noted
“…it is no secret that Gaza has been an open-air prison” with “horrendous living conditions,” and that “children and innocent people do not deserve to be punished for the acts of Hamas.”
Little known is that Israel and the U.S. fostered and funded the rise of Hamas as a religious counterpoint to the secular Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). It was established in 1987 following the first intifada uprising. A 2009 The Wall Street Journal article titled: “How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas” noted:
“Instead of trying to curb Gaza’s Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction…”
To Biden and the Congressional “howlers” for the death of civilian innocents, historical facts matter little. Hamas’ lethal attack on October 7th was preceded by far greater numbers of Israeli violent attacks over the past decades taking four hundred times the number of innocent Palestinian lives, injuries and other casualties than inflicted on innocent Israelis.
Image: Some of the wounded at al-Shifa hospital (Gaza Health Ministry)
Israel’s carpet bombing of Gaza will take twenty times or more lives of innocent Palestinians than those killed by Hamas on October 7th with the casualty toll of direct fatalities and the loss of life from the devastation of life-sustaining water, food, medicine, shelter and other hospital/clinic emergency infrastructure.
Also conveniently forgotten is the detailed peace offer to Israel in 2002, by 22 member states of the Arab League to establish diplomatic and trade relations with a recognized Israel in return for its retreating to the 1967 borders and creation of a Palestinian two-state solution. The Israel extremists in Congress and President G.W. Bush declined even to respond to this proposal. (See, the March 29, 2002 New York Times article: Mideast Turmoil; Text of the Peace Proposals Backed by the Arab League).
It is incumbent on the supreme military superpower in the region to take the initiative for peace over the powerless victims under its thralldom. That country is, of course, high-tech Israel, bristling with the latest weapons and nuclear atomic bombs.
Both the brave Israeli human rights groups and those courageous human rights Israelis standing shoulder to shoulder over the years striving to conduct non-violent civil disobedience at the besieged Palestinian village level, only to be dispersed by Israeli soldiers, know the real obstacle to peace. It is the plan by the right-wing Israeli parties to annex the entire Palestinian West Bank (nearly attempted under Donald Trump) and forcefully drive Palestinians into Jordan and Egypt.
Joe Biden is skilled at shedding tears at memorials of grief in this country. But he runs dry when the recurring catastrophes befalling Palestinians beg for his presidential compassion and actual deeds.
He will not escape history’s judgment.
[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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Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate and the author of “The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future” (2012). His new book is, “Wrecking America: How Trump’s Lies and Lawbreaking Betray All” (2020, co-authored with Mark Green).
Featured image: President Joe Biden participates in an impromptu private meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog at the Hotel Kempinski in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, October 18, 2023. (Official White House Photo by Erin Scott)
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***
The savage attacks Hamas inflicted upon the Israeli military and civilian population last week are utterly without justification, but not without explanation. The Arab/Israeli bloodlust has been going on since the end of World War I, most pointedly since 1947 when Zionist militias used violence to force 750,000 Palestinians from their villages and ancient homeland.
That process resulted in the establishment and international recognition of the State of Israel and the confinement of the Palestinian people to the Gaza strip in the west and to the West Bank in the east. Rather than amalgamate these folks into a democratic society — where individual rights are equal and the government respects them — Israeli governments have established an apartheid.
Gaza became an open-air concentration camp, doomed to poverty and cultural repression. The West Bank, meanwhile, keeps shrinking, as the Israeli government keeps encouraging and funding illegal Israeli settlements on land that the Palestinians have believed, because Israeli governments told them, was theirs.
The Israeli government repression of Palestinian natural urges for freedom, cultural identity and prosperity has resulted in extremists on both sides, and these people have fomented unspeakable violence.
How did Hamas come about? Hamas was the brainchild of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu fomented and caused the Israeli government to fund Hamas so as to resist the political influence of Netanyahu’s long-time foe, the late Yasser Arafat, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Netanyahu and his government separated the Palestinian people not only geographically but also politically. His creation of Hamas was far more successful than he envisioned. As the Israeli repression of Gaza grew, as it became more of an open-air concentration camp, Hamas sought and received the political support of Gazans. It fomented the resistance Netanyahu hoped for, and that resistance morphed into violence, and that violence erupted savagely last week.
What role has the United States played in all this? The U.S. has been Israel’s best and most faithful friend since Israel’s creation. Israel is about the size and population of New Jersey. New Jerseyans pay hundreds of billions in federal taxes each year and receive about $800 million annually in return. Israel, which of course pays no taxes to the U.S. government, receives $4 billion annually in what the feds euphemistically call foreign aid.
Foreign aid is nowhere authorized in the Constitution. But we all know that the federal government does what the folks who control it believe will keep them in office, whether countenanced by the Constitution or not. The feds believe that they can enact any law, tax any event, regulate any behavior, fight any war, insinuate government into any relationship and spend money that they don’t have — the Constitution be damned.
In furtherance of that extra-constitutional behavior, the feds have supported Israeli governments no matter what they did. Israeli governments spy on the U.S. government, the White House and American citizens — no problem. Israeli government jets bombed the USS Liberty, killing 34 and wounding 171 American sailors — no problem. Israeli intelligence knew of 9/11 beforehand and didn’t warn the U.S. — no problem. The Israeli government wants to suppress and partially annihilate an ethnic group using American weapons — no problem. The Israeli government wants to kill more innocents than Hamas crazies did — no problem. The Israeli government wants American cash to do all this — no problem.
This unstinting U.S. support, just like the U.S. military support for the government of Ukraine, has brought about the deaths of innocents, and it has brought Israel and Ukraine to the most dangerous and unstable precipice that either country has stood upon in the past 50 years. Since the recent Hamas attacks and Ukraine military defeats, American politicians have called for more borrowing from the Chinese so as to give the Netanyahu and Ukraine governments more cash. This will add to the federal government’s $33 trillion debt and push American prices up and employment down.
Instead of negotiating or even spending for peace, the U.S. has encouraged and paid for wars. Instead of using its enormous economic might to facilitate prosperity, the U.S. has, quoting U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, “projected power on both fronts,” meaning in the Middle East and in Ukraine. Power? It has projected and caused death and destruction, just as the U.S. did with its “power” in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Is that the goal of U.S. foreign policy — to project power? If it is, it is not working.
My friend and colleague, former Rep. Dr. Ron Paul, has argued eloquently not only that Russia has won the war in Ukraine despite U.S. efforts to use Ukraine as a battering ram to impair Vladimir Putin’s presidency, but that Hamas has won its war with Israel. How so? Hamas’s goal was to bring out the worst in the Netanyahu government and to arouse support for a Palestinian state among Arab and Muslim peoples. In that respect, Hamas has succeeded. Israeli rage is justified. But the intentional slaughter of innocents — Israeli or Palestinian — is not.
Where does all this leave the United States and the American people?
We have a president who cannot put two sentences together, much less credibly negotiate with foreign heads of state for peace. We have a Congress beholden to the intelligence community and the military-industrial complex. We have one big government party in Washington. It is pro-welfare, pro-warfare, pro-deep state, pro-security state and pro-administrative state; but it is not pro-Constitution or pro-limited government or pro-personal liberty or pro-peace.
U.S. foreign policy — no matter who is in the White House or which major political party controls Congress — stokes festering rage wherever it goes. What will that bring us? As of this writing, it is bringing 2,000 American troops to Tel Aviv. History shows indisputably that when all else fails, governments bring us to war.
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***
In reality, neither of the two conflicts that he tried comparing have anything to do with one another since they’re derived from completely different origins, nor are they connected to democracy in the way that he spun them as being.
Biden’s second presidential address last Thursday strongly implied that World War III is either rapidly approaching or is already being fought but has yet to be acknowledged. He pushed this innuendo through his comparison of the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine with the latest Israeli–Hamaswar, which he spun as part of a global struggle between democracies and dictatorships. Biden also referenced World War II by adding that Americans are once again “building the arsenal of democracy”.
His fearmongering sought to explain why he planned to ask Congress to fund both conflicts to the tune of $75 billion as part of a $106 billion national security package, with $61 earmarked for Ukraine and $14 for Israel. The larger context within which this rare Oval Office speech took place is the congressional dysfunction caused by the removal of former House Speaker McCarthy and the lack of a replacement thus far. Biden’s remarks were obviously meant to pressure lawmakers to reach a compromise on this.
There’s more to it than just that, however, since the real reason is to maintain the military-industrial complex’s (MIC) profits after they were abruptly thrown into uncertainty as a result of this month’s congressional dysfunction. Further funding for Ukraine was already more controversial than ever due to next year’s upcoming elections, the consequent exacerbation of partisan divisions on all issues, and Kiev’s disastrous counteroffensive, which proved that all the tranches this year failed to defeat Russia.
These factors combined to create a formidable challenge to Biden’s funding plans, which can’t be secured without first electing McCarthy’s replacement, ergo the need to scare lawmakers into a compromise to this end through his fearmongering about WWIII. In reality, neither of the two conflicts that he tried comparing have anything to do with one another since they’re derived from completely different origins, nor are they connected to democracy in the way that he spun them as being.
The Eastern European one was provoked by the US unilaterally eroding Russia’s legitimate national security interests over the years to the point where the latter finally felt that it had no choice but to kinetically react in defense of them. By contrast, the latest West Asian one was indirectly caused by the US’ refusal to force the Israel into granting Palestine independence per international law, which led to the political conditions that Hamas exploited to justify itsterroristattack that directly sparked this war.
The US is therefore responsible for both conflicts in its own way, which broke out as a result of its aforementioned policies that were driven by the desire to uphold its declining unipolar hegemony in each region. As for the democratic dimension of these conflicts, it’s the opposite of what Biden spun it as being. The US planned to Balkanize Russia after militarily blackmailing it in Eastern Europe while at the same time supporting Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine in West Asia.
Viewed from this perspective, it’s revealed that each conflict was actually triggered by the US’ anti-democratic prioritization of its hegemonic interests in Eastern Europe and West Asia, not by Russia and Hamas’ supposed obsession with “completely annihilating neighboring democracies”. This insight exposes Biden’s rhetorical fallacies and sheds light on the real reason why he’s so desperate to have Congress secure more funding for these conflicts, namely to maintain the MIC’s profits.
There are geostrategic motives as well, but precedent proves that neither conflict’s goals are achievable by funding alone after the over $110 billion given to Ukraine over the past 20 months failed to defeat Russia while the $124 billion given to Israel since 1946 failed to subdue the Palestinians. That’s not to say that funding plays no role in implementing strategy, but just that it’s not the determining factor in these two conflicts, whose respective goals have yet to be achieved despite overly generous funding.
That objectively being the case, the only reason why Biden is pressuring Congress to urgently compromise on McCarthy’s replacement in order to then pass his latest $106 billion funding request is to maintain the MIC’s profits, which are nowadays predicated on the “new normal” since February 2022. Russia’s special operation was a godsend to these companies since it created the pretext upon which they could resecure their Old Cold War-era funding and thus reach similar profit margins once again.
All their plans from that point onward were based on the expectation that Congress would continually be pressured to rubberstamp their requests on the grounds that refusing to do so would be both unpatriotic and recklessly endanger what they were told are the US’ national interests. That’s why these companies weren’t all that concerned about the grassroots and partisan pressure that combined to make further funding for Ukraine more controversial than ever in recent months.
What none of them accounted for, however, was the Republicans’ “Ultra-MAGA” faction successfully carrying out a “regime change” against House Speaker McCarthy, which threw Congress into chaos and thus abruptly threatened their business plans after further funding could no longer be guaranteed. They’re desperate to get everything back on track as soon as possible, which is why their lobbyists pulled some strings to get Biden to fearmonger about World War III for this purpose, but it might not succeed.
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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 frequent contributor to Global Research.
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***
Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s most feted post-war prime minister, was fiercely pro-Jewish and a powerful enemy of antisemitism.
But she was never afraid to call out Israeli war crimes, and did so repeatedly.
When the Israeli army stood by in September 1982 as Christian Phalangists slaughtered Palestinian refugees and Lebanese citizens in the Shatila and Sabra refugee camps, she described the massacres as “an act of pure barbarism”.
And, as historian David Cronin has exposed in an illuminating article for Declassified, she wrote to then US President Ronald Reagan of “an urgent need for a balanced policy”, adding that “unlimited support for Israel can only lead to growing polarisation and despair in the Arab world”.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who flew into Tel Aviv to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 19 October, loves to present himself as the heir to Margaret Thatcher.
This is nonsense.
The historical record shows that Thatcher would have arrived in Tel Aviv swinging her handbag. Of course, she would have extended her deepest sympathy to Israel for the attack on 7 October. But she would also – as a strong supporter of Israel – have given Netanyahu a stern lecture on morality, international law – and global statesmanship.
What a contrast with pitiful Sunak, who has come to Israel as Netanyahu’s poodle.
Reckless Language
Sunak made a mistake when he expressed Britain’s “unequivocal” support for Israel, thus giving Netanyahu, leader of the most far-right government in the country’s history, carte blanche to order war crimes.
Sunak’s reckless language means that Britain is already complicit in the carnage committed across Gaza by Israeli bombing over the last 12 days, the destruction of hospitals and civilian infrastructure, the targeting of schools, the wiping out of entire families, and the slaughter ofapproaching 4,000 Palestinians.
To be fair, this policy of giving Israel impunity to commit war crimes did not start with Sunak.
It was reaffirmed recently by then Prime Minister Boris Johnson who, in a letter to the Conservative Friends of Israel in April 2021, announced that he would block an International Criminal Court investigation into war crimes committed by Israel.
In a further show of support for Israel, on 18 October, Sunak ordered Britain to abstain on the United Nations resolution calling for “humanitarian pauses” in order to deliver essential aid to save lives in Gaza.
Netanyahu would have got the message: carry on bombing.
I have studied Sunak’s comments to the media and speeches in parliament. There has not been one mention, let alone condemnation, of Israel’s declared policy of collective punishment, as formally set out by Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, with his announcement of a “complete siege of the Gaza Strip” with “no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed”. Even though such action is illegal under international law.
Sunak’s government is seemingly untroubled by Gallant’s claim that Israel was fighting “human animals”.
Gallant has since made the terrible statement that Israel “will eliminate everything” in Gaza. No condemnation from Sunak or his government. Many Palestinians understandably see this as genocidal language.
Murderous message
Gallant, remember, is the minister in charge of Israeli troops.
He is sending a murderous message to the soldiers under his authority who, if Israeli plans go ahead, will soon be entering the densely populated Gazan enclave, home to 2.3 million people.
Meanwhile, Sunak has already deployed a naval task force – including a company of Royal Marines, two ships and three helicopters – to the Eastern Mediterranean in support of Israel.
According to a British government statement, this military package will “reinforce regional stability”. Yet Sunak imposed no conditions in return for this support. No demands for restraint. No reminders of Israel’s solemn duty to protect civilian life.
When asked by Matt Frei of Channel 4 News whether he would be urging restraint on Israel, Sunak wouldn’t even answer.
This is especially remarkable given the outbreak of dehumanising language among Israel’s political and media elite over the past few days.
The activist Yehuda Shaul has compiled a collection of such quotes. They are beyond chilling. Likud MP Revital Gottliebcalls on Israel to “bring down buildings! Bomb without distinction! Flatten Gaza. Without mercy!”
This deranged discourse has raised no concern from Sunak’s Downing Street. Not even an eyebrow. There’s been no rebuke, and it’s easy to see why. The most senior politicians in Israel are at it. Up to and including President Isaac Herzog himself. “Nobody is innocent in Gaza,” according to him.
Fair Game for Slaughter
Think of the licence to kill this grim statement from Israel’s head of state sends out to Israeli troops ahead of the looming invasion.
According to Herzog, Gaza’s civilians are fair game for the slaughter.
There’s no evidence this troubles Sunak, who met Herzog on his visit to Tel Aviv. Sunak’s message: carry on with the slaughter.
Israel has killed more than 1,500 children in Gaza since the latest bombing began. Not even a passing mention.
In the West Bank, Palestinians are under systematic settler attack amid fears of a wave of ethnic cleansing. No mention.
At one point, Sunak even extended his sycophancy towards Netanyahu into servility, telling the Israeli prime minister at their joint press conference that “I know that you are taking every precaution to avoid harming civilians” – a lie which insults the memory of the thousands of Palestinians killed or injured in Israeli bombing raids over the last 12 days.’
All this means that Sunak’s visit to Israel is a shaming day for Britain. It marks the moment that all my country’s claims to represent fairness, decency and the rule of law – admittedly always hypocritical and self-interested – have been abandoned.
Prime Minister @netanyahu, I stand with you in Israel’s darkest hour.
I welcome your commitment to ensure routes into Gaza are opened for humanitarian aid.
I support your work to secure the release of hostages, to strengthen your security and to end the threat from Hamas. pic.twitter.com/ZrLJALTzBN
Sunak’s moral vacuum alarms even the dictators and despots whom Britain counts as allies across the wider Middle East. The British prime minister apparently plans to make a series of visits across the region in the days ahead.
Exactly where is being kept secret, officially for security reasons. The real reason, it is not difficult to guess, is that Sunak is no longer welcome and fears being snubbed.
Ever since the Second World War, Britain has claimed to stand up for what we fondly call liberal values. He’s made these values worthless. It is hard to exaggerate the scale of this betrayal.
I also think that Sunak’s moral negligence is a tragedy for Israel itself. The last thing Israel needs at this dark moment is a blank cheque to commit further war crimes.
Sunak had an opportunity, as a true friend of Israel, to urge restraint. He has not taken it.
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Peter Oborne won best commentary/blogging in both 2022 and 2017, and was also named freelancer of the year in 2016 at the Drum Online Media Awards for articles he wrote for Middle East Eye. He was also named as British Press Awards Columnist of the Year in 2013. He resigned as chief political columnist of the Daily Telegraph in 2015. His latest book is The Fate of Abraham: Why the West is Wrong about Islam, published in May by Simon & Schuster. His previous books include The Triumph of the Political Class, The Rise of Political Lying, Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran and The Assault on Truth: Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and the Emergence of a New Moral Barbarism.
Featured image is a screenshot from the Twitter video
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***
In Rochester, New York, a religious center received enough threats around an in-person event about Palestine that the program had to be moved online. In Arlington, Virginia, bomb threats forced the country’s largest American Muslim civil rights group to move a banquet partially focused on Gaza to an undisclosed location. In Houston, a hotel pulled out of hosting a conference organized by a prominent Palestinian rights group due to “escalating security concerns.” In Brooklyn, a right-wing City Councilperson brought a gun to a student protest for Gaza. And in Washington, DC, a United States senator called for a Justice Department investigation into student supporters of Palestine.
As Israel’s bombardment of Gaza continues, Americans are expressing their opposition on college campuses, on social media, and in the streets. But the dissent has come with a cost. Across the US, supporters of Palestinian rights are facing a severe and unprecedented backlash to their speech and activism, ranging from university condemnations of student protest to death threats and intimidation from pro-Israel groups.
“We’ve had an exponential surge in requests for legal help. It has been like nothing we’ve seen before,” said Radhika Sainath, a senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal, which defends the free speech rights of Palestine advocates.
Since October 8th, the group has responded to nearly 200 reports of “suppression of Palestinian rights advocacy”—almost as many incidents as they addressed in all of last year. According to Sainath, attorneys have spoken to everyone from “people being fired from their jobs for tweets or social media messages that support Palestinian human rights” to student critics of Israel who are being “doxxed and put on a website called ‘College Terror List,’” which seeks to make them unemployable.
“There is an increase in people who are really concerned with the genocidal intentions of Israel right now—and they’re being met with immense McCarthyite backlash and suppression,” Sainath said.
Colleges and universities are the epicenter of this renewed Palestine solidarity activism, and have quickly become prime sites of the reprisals against it. For years, Israel-advocacy groups have worked to police public discourse on campuses, where pro-Palestinian sentiment is more visible than in perhaps any other forum of American life. Supporters of Israel have urged institutions to cancel pro-Palestine events, created blacklists of students deemed “antisemitic” for their Palestine activism, filed civil rights complaintsagainst universities for allowing such activism, and pressed universities to fire professors who criticize Israel. And since October 7th—when Hamas attacked Israel, and Israel began bombing Gaza—a new wave of activism has garnered fresh backlash.
Last week, student groups at Yale, Dartmouth, and Princeton, among others, posted statements of solidarity with Palestine, arguing that the present violence in Israel/Palestine has its roots in Israel’s oppression of Palestinians; many specifically cited Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 and the 16-year blockade of the Gaza Strip as catalysts for recent events. On October 8th, in a statement co-signed by 34 other student groups, Harvard’s Palestine Solidarity Committee said that they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” The next day, Yale’s pro-Palestinian student group, Yalies4Palestine, released a statement that read: “We mourn the tragic loss of civilian lives, and for this we hold the Zionist regime accountable.”
The backlash to these efforts has been swift and resounding. Two days after the Harvard students released their statement, for instance, more than 350 Harvard faculty signed a letter saying that the activists’ stance amounted to “nothing less than condoning the mass murder” of Israelis. Several US lawmakers issued similar denunciations. And the opposition did not stop there. On October 12th, the right-wing group Accuracy in Media dispatcheda truck to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to publicize images of students who were thought to be part of signatory organizations. The truck was emblazoned with the URL “HarvardHatesJews.com,” which redirected to the Accuracy in Media site. According to a former American Civil Liberties Union president who spoke to the New York Times, such actions aim to suppress students’ speech. They may also be impacting their employment prospects: After the Harvard students’ letter was published, CEOs at multiple companies publicly demanded that the university release the names of students whose groups had signed the statement so that they could be sure not to hire them. And the prominent law firm Davis Polk rescinded three job offers it had made to students suspected of signing the Harvard statement and a similar statement at Columbia University. (After two of the students said they had not been involved in their groups’ decisions to sign, the firm said it would reconsider.)
Such job offer revocations are sometimes accompanied by further harassment, as in the case of New York University Law School’s student body president Ryna Workman. On October 10th, Workman sent a newsletter to the law school’s student body expressing solidarity with Palestinians and blaming the “tremendous loss of life” in the region on Israel’s apartheid regime. In a statement sent to journalists, Workman said their message was “inspired [by] what many Jewish peace activists and Israelis, including the editorial board of Israel’s largest newspaper, have voiced over the past week in response to the violence.” However, in response to their newsletter, Workman lost a job offer at the law firm Winston & Strawn. The law school’s Student Bar Association also voted to begin the process of ousting Workman as student body president, and NYU law alumni have since called for their expulsion from the university. “I’ve been getting death threats online,” Workman said in the statement, adding that they have been attacked for being Black, queer, and nonbinary. “The harassment campaign against me has targeted all facets of my identity.”
Students say that educational institutions have not done enough to protect them from such harassment. For instance, at an October 12th pro-Israel gathering at Columbia University, a self-described Columbia administrative employee told student reporters that he wished students at the Palestine rally would “die.” Pro-Palestine student activists at Columbia told Jewish Currents that the incident was only one example of the harassment they had faced. “Students on campus have been taunted in the dining hall, hijabs have been ripped off, students have been spat on, just for things like wearing a keffiyeh,” one member of the Columbia chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), who wished to remain anonymous due to fear of retaliation, said in an interview. Students said the Columbia administration’s response had fallen short. On October 18th, the university’s president sent a message to Columbia staff and students lamenting those who “are using this moment to spread antisemitism, Islamophobia, bigotry against Palestinians and Israelis, and various other forms of hate,” and referenced “that some of this abhorrent rhetoric is coming from members of our community, including members of our faculty and staff,” but the message did not specifically address the threat to pro-Palestine ralliers or other incidents of harassment on campus. (In response to questions from Jewish Currents, a Columbia spokesperson said “the safety of our campus community is our primary and ongoing concern.”)
Some institutions have themselves cracked down on students’ political expression. A high school student in Frankfort, Illinois, who requested anonymity because they are applying to universities, said that on October 13th, school officials told a group of Palestinian students to stop wearing keffiyehs—scarves that are a Palestinian national symbol.
Such policing of expression is sometimes backed up by disciplinary actions. Maddy Ward, a student at Rockland Community College at the State University of New York, told Jewish Currents that when she interrupted a “unity gathering for Israel” by walking in and shouting, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “Jews for Palestine,” campus police officers told her that she would be subject to a campus disciplinary hearing, and that her actions could also be investigated as a crime. Ward was punished in advance of the October 19th disciplinary hearing by not being permitted to register for classes or obtain a transcript, according to a letter from a school official that Ward shared with Jewish Currents. Palestine Legal said that this move raised concerns about due process—as did the university’s denial of Ward’s request to have Sainath, the Palestine Legal attorney, present via speakerphone during the hearing. “They’re trying to criminalize and suppress people for speaking out,” Ward said. In a letter to the college, Palestine Legal said the administration’s actions raise “serious First Amendment and due process concerns.” (A spokesperson for the university told Jewish Currents that “officials are investigating an incident involving an allegation of disruption at an on-campus event” and that the school “is following applicable procedures set forth in the Student Code of Conduct.”)
On other campuses, the threats to Palestine activists have been even more severe, such as the October 12th rally at Brooklyn College where Inna Vernikov, a Republican New York City Councilwoman, showed up openly carrying a gun. Vernikov filmed herself calling the student ralliers “pro-Hamas” and “nothing short of terrorists without the bombs.” (The councilwoman was later arrested for openly carrying a weapon at a rally, which is prohibited in New York.) One member of Brooklyn College’s SJP chapter, who asked to remain anonymous due to safety concerns, said that students were alarmed by Vernikov’s presence. “We felt threatened. A lot of students felt like their lives were in danger,” they said. SJP leaders at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, recounted similar fears amid the barrage of death threats that followed their Instagram posts defending Palestinians’ “right to resist.” “We haven’t been to classes in a week because we feel unsafe,” said Ruya Hazeyen, a co-president of the school’s SJP chapter. Hazeyan said that the university administration has temporarily exempted her from attending class, but that she hasn’t received any further information from the school on what she and the other students should be doing in response to the threats.
While many of these threats have been aimed at student activists, Palestine Legal’s Sainath said the climate of repression has also affected professors and university administrators. “Professors are being questioned, their classes are being canceled, and they are being locked out of their emails over supporting Palestinian rights,” she said. “Some university administrators have reported to us that they feel that they can’t even publicly support their Palestinian students right now.” Pro-Israel donors have also put pressure on institutions themselves. Multiple donors to Harvard said they would cut off their funds because the university had been too slow to condemn the Hamas attack and the student groups’ statement. Some donors to the University of Pennsylvania have also said they will no longer fund the school because of what they described as its “silence” on the Hamas attacks, though the president in fact condemned Hamas’s “abhorrent attacks” three days after the assault.
While campuses are at the center of the clash over pro-Palestinian speech, human rights groups and other non-academic institutions have also been targeted by harassment campaigns. A co-leader of local solidarity group Rochester Witness Palestine, who requested anonymity due to safety concerns, told Jewish Currents that Ahmad Abuznaid, the executive director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), was scheduled to give an in-person keynote speech in Rochester, New York, during an October 13th event. The speech was slated to be held at an Islamic center in Rochester; however, the center had to pull out of hosting the event because of threats it received. (Abuznaid spoke online instead.) Such concerns have also affected other events in Rochester, with a Palestinian film festival organized by Witness Palestine also being moved online after the host theater pulled out for safety reasons.
The Rochester talk featuring Abuznaid was not the only USCPR event that was affected. In Texas, a Hilton hotel canceled the group’s upcoming conference, saying that it posed “potential risks to our Team Members and guests.” But the hotel did not cite “any specific threats or provid[e] any record of the threats received,” Abuznaid said, noting that “without any of that information, it’s hard to believe they didn’t simply cave to anti-Palestinian racists.” Texas Governor Greg Abbott praised the hotel for canceling an event he said was put on by “Hamas supporters,” adding that “no location in Texas should host or sponsor USCPR.” Meanwhile, in Virginia, the Council on American Islamic Relations, the largest Muslim American civil rights group, said it had to move the location of an annual banquet because, after it updated the event programming to focus on Palestinian human rights, the hotel hosting the event received calls from anonymous people threatening “to plant bombs in the hotel’s parking garage, kill specific hotel staff in their homes, and storm the hotel.”
As the Israeli bombing of Gaza continues with no end in sight, Sainath said she is bracing for more such instances. “The repression we’re seeing is different in nature and more intense than anything we have witnessed in recent years,” she said. At the same time, Sainath predicts the crackdown on speech won’t stop dissent. “People of conscience—particularly of the youngest generations—are continuing to speak out despite immense personal risk,” she said.
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Featured image: This was the biggest Keffiyeh Thursday in Harvard history. Our deepest thank you’s to the students, faculty, and staff that walked out of class today to protest the genocide unfolding in front of our eyes. May we never stop fighting for Palestine. May we see a free Palestine in our lifetime. May we always be surrounded by people willing to stand up for what they believe in. In solidarity always (Source: @harvardpsc Instagram)
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***
Think back to October of 2019 when there was a “simulation” of a global corona pandemic that was a ‘chapter and verse’ prediction of the real Covid-19 Pandemic declared only 20 weeks later. It was called Event 201, and it resulted in an agreement among the representatives who had come from all sectors society: Craft a narrative for the governmental / industrial / media complex to hammer society with, stick to it and ignore or attack any assessment not in line with the agreed-upon story line.
That’s what happened, and it continues to this day. A pall of censorship descended on the planet, and “higher education” of the Western world has protected the iron-clad official narrative every step of the way with all of its vaunted reputation. But you might have seen that coming. After all, Event 201 was a “tabletop exercise” run not only by the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation but also by the respected Johns Hopkins University.
That there are universities in the US being paid to manufacture strategies to counteract information and perspectives out of step with official governmental accounts is naked fact. Departments within major universities are serving as censors in the interest of governmental power, and they brag about it. And isn’t it of more than passing interest that the positions most rigidly protected are official stories on the 2020 election and of Covid-19, the latter in particular?
It’s the same way in Canada. Glaring falsehoods within governmental claims regarding Covid-19 quickly generated reactions from within the medical community itself, one of the most compelling being from America’s Frontline Doctors. But the group was attacked by esteemed McGill University through its Office of Science and Society. Simply look at what McGill labelled as misinformation in 2021 in light of what has been revealed since then.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, universities in England, Finland, Germany, France, and Portugal (a Canadian university also is found in this group) joined to form Jitsuvax, a collective dedicated to ferreting out any form of “misinformation” that might lead people to be “less likely to accept vaccination”, and finding ways of combatting such unwanted information. In each of those countries, the universities involved are major representatives of the nation’s Academy. Consider that England’s Cambridge University, a Jitsuvax member, was the alma mater of both Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin in order to get a better understanding of how far the Western university has declined as an environment fostering wide open thinking and exchange, and has instead become a tool of official power.
Jitsuvax refers one to a list of 19 “Myths about Covid-19 vaccination”, a ridiculous blend of lies (eg,“FACT: The Covid-19 vaccine do not have side effects that appear only after a long time”) buried among self-evident truths(eg, “FACT: Sadly, old, frail, and vulnerable people sometimes die”). Future side effects of the Covid-19 vaccine are something no human could ever predict, but that particular lie may be in play right now, because there is an expectation from multiple medical voices of damaging impacts manifesting only years after receiving the Covid-19 vaccine. In fact, the very reason that it has traditionally taken many years before vaccines of any sort are considered safe enough for wide distribution is that postponed repercussions are always possibilities. Even Anthony Fauci explained that at one time.
There are key takeaways from watching Event 201’s so-called “top global leaders and decision makers” from finance, education, public relations, the military, TV networks, banking and finance, commerce, the UN and health/medicine (including China’s CDC). The gathering acknowledged the growing public distrust in the public health profession. At the same time (and don’t forget that this “exercise” was months before the Covid-19 Pandemic was declared) they knew that what they would consider to be misinformation was certain to be showing up on the internet, that it would be impossible to stop it altogether, and that the best way to counter it would be to “flood” the information environment with an enforced, agreed-on official narrative.
Regarding misinformation, all discussion in Event 201 assumed it would all be coming from “bad actors” with malicious intentions. The notion that revelation of deception, or opinions hostile to the official account, could come from legitimate medical and scientific sources was not entertained. And of course, sound medical and scientific information not conforming to the agreed-on official narrative would inevitably be labeled as misinformation. In sum, then, all those self-appointed global experts were unable or unwilling to face the fact that society’s growing distrust of certified “public health” (a distrust vastly more pervasive now than in those pre-Pandemic days) is based not, primarily, on misinformation from “bad actors” but on the spectacle of competent medical and scientific sources being unjustifiably trashed as purveyors of misinformation.
In the real world, this “flooding” of official public health data and advice these past nearly four years, along with concerted blocking of valid scientific information, has led to dissenting doctors and other medical personnel being harassed by medical boards, penalized and delicensed. Central to the official presentation was that there were no effective and available treatments for Covid-19, so that hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, both inexpensive and having been shown effective in treating Covid-19, were made illegal or unavailable so as to justify the “emergency use authorization” of an expensive “vaccine” based on a technology, untested in humans, being rushed into production.
All over the West, the Academy, supposedly the bastion of free inquiry, has shown itself to be as craven and corruptible as any sector of political rot. Much of it has sold its soul in the interest of protecting the “flood” of an officially designated narrative that is increasingly seen as driven by corporate profiteering. But the monetary issue itself, in the long run, may come to be seen as of declining significance, relatively. This is because the authorized narrative, so carefully protected, appears to be an important part of a secretive and nefarious global project the ultimate goal of which is only now beginning to be sufficiently explored.
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Bill Willers is an emeritus professor of biology, University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh. He is founder of the Superior Wilderness Action Network and editor of Learning to Listen to the Land, and Unmanaged Landscapes, both from Island Press. He can be contacted at [email protected].
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is from Red Voice Media
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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***
The US government may be complicit under international law in Israel’s unfolding genocide of the Palestinian people, a group of legal scholars warned the Biden administration and the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
Lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights issued the dire warning to President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in a 44-page emergency brief on Wednesday, on the heels of Biden’s trip to the Middle East. There, Biden reiterated his administration’s unwavering support for Israel — even as the Israeli government wages an unprecedented bombing campaign on the occupied Gaza Strip in retaliation for a horrific attack by Hamas that killed more than 1,400 Israeli citizens.
“Israel’s mass bombings and denial of food, water, and electricity are calculated to destroy the Palestinian population in Gaza,” Katherine Gallagher, senior attorney with CCR and a legal representative for victims in the pending ICC investigation in Palestine, told The Intercept. “U.S. officials can be held responsible for their failure to prevent Israel’s unfolding genocide, as well as for their complicity, by encouraging it and materially supporting it.”
“We recognize that we make serious charges in this document — but they are not unfounded,” she added. “There is a credible basis for these claims.”
A State Department spokesperson declined to comment, saying,
“As a general matter, we don’t offer public evaluations of reports or briefs by outside groups.”
The White House and Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On Wednesday, the U.S. vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution that condemned all violence against civilians and urged humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza. The U.S. opposed the resolution because it did not reference Israel’s right to defend itself.
Israel has invoked that right in its assault on Gaza, which has already killed more than 4,200 Palestinians and displaced more than 1 million. But collective punishment — including measures like Israel’s blockade on fuel, food, and electricity into the occupied territory — and the indiscriminate targeting of civilians constitute war crimes under international law. A number of legal experts have argued the actions may also amount to crimes against humanity and genocide, as defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention. On Thursday, a panel of U.N. experts issued a separate statement that condemned the bombings of schools and hospitals in Gaza as crimes against humanity and warned that there is a risk the crimes might escalate to genocide.
“We are sounding the alarm: There is an ongoing campaign by Israel resulting in crimes against humanity in Gaza,” the experts wrote. “Considering statements made by Israeli political leaders and their allies, accompanied by military action in Gaza and escalation of arrests and killing in the West Bank, there is also a risk of genocide against the [Palestinian] people.”
While warnings about a potential genocide have grown more numerous in recent days, some international law experts cautioned that the war crimes and crimes against humanity — including the crime of apartheid — of which Israel has long been accused are no less serious. As one international law scholar put it: “[T]here is no hierarchy of international crimes.” The problem is that Israel has not been held accountable for any of its past crimes, making accountability for its ongoing offensive unlikely.
Under international law, the crime of genocide implicates not only those carrying out the crime, but also those complicit in it, including by “aiding and abetting.”
According to the CCR brief, Israel is attempting to commit, if not already committing, the crime of genocide, specifically against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. The U.S. government is failing to uphold its obligation to prevent a genocide from happening, the brief adds. Additionally, there is a “plausible and credible case” to be made that ongoing and unconditional U.S. military, diplomatic, and political support for Israel’s military intervention against the people of Gaza may make it complicit in the genocide under international law. (The U.S. has its own version of the law, making it a crime for any U.S. citizen — including the president — to commit, attempt, or incite genocide.)
“Rather than continuing to enable Israeli crimes, the U.S. should pressure Israel to stop its military operations and secure a ceasefire, and to ensure the provision of urgently needed humanitarian assistance and basic necessities for life to Palestinians in Gaza,” Gallagher said.
The CCR briefing also calls on the government to address the root causes behind the recent violence, including Israel’s 16-year siege on Gaza, its 56-year-long illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories, “and the apartheid regime across all of historic Palestine.”
Unconditional Support
As Israel continues to plan for a ground invasion of Gaza, the U.S. sent it a shipment of armored vehicles on Thursday, following shipments of U.S-made advanced weaponry earlier this month. Biden is expected to argue for greater military support for Israel in a Thursday night address.
Israel has historically been the largest recipient of U.S. military assistance — to the tune of $158 billion since the country’s establishment in 1948. That funding has increasingly come under scrutiny in the U.S., including following Israeli forces’ killings of several U.S. citizens. On Wednesday, a senior State Department official resigned from his post, citing the U.S. government’s ongoing provision of lethal arms to Israel.
“I cannot work in support of a set of major policy decisions, including rushing more arms to one side of the conflict, that I believe to be shortsighted, destructive, unjust, and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse,” Josh Paul, the former director of congressional and public affairs for the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, wrote in a letter. “If we want a world shaped by what we perceive to be our values, it is only by conditioning strategic imperatives by moral ones, by holding our partners, and above all by holding ourselves, to those values, that we will see it.”
Asked about the resignation on Thursday, State Department spokesperson Matthew Millersaid,
“We have made very clear that we strongly support Israel’s right to defend itself, we’re going to continue providing the security assistance that they need to defend themselves.”
This week, legal experts also testified before the United Nations Human Rights Committee, specifically calling on members of the international body to urgently address the unfolding crimes and particularly hold the U.S. accountable for its role in them.
“If such a body fails in this particular genocidal moment to reassert its commitment to the right to life our collective humanity will be profoundly diminished,” Ahmad Abuznaid, a human rights lawyer and director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, told the committee.
He also warned against the rippling effects of U.S. support for Israel and dehumanization of Palestinians, referring to the killing of a 6-year-old in Chicago last week. “As U.S. politicians and mainstream media beat the war drums for genocide, repeating dehumanizing rhetoric and misinformation about our people, that has not only emboldened Israel’s genocidal acts but also had alarming consequences in the U.S.”
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Featured image: Some of the wounded at al-Shifa hospital (Gaza Health Ministry)
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***
Israel demanded the evacuation of 20 hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip, six of which have already been evacuated, an Israeli security official said on Saturday.
“Four hospitals refused the evacuation orders while the rest are in the process of being evacuated,” the unnamed official told the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation.
The official claimed that “about 30,000 Palestinians came to the shelters surrounding Shifa Hospital to act as human shields.”
The UN and international institutions said, during the past few days, that there is a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip as a result of the Israeli bombing and siege imposed on Gaza.
However, the Israeli official said:
“There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”
“So far, 700,000 citizens have been evacuated from the northern Gaza Strip to the southern Gaza Valley,” he said.
Israel had asked about 1.1 million Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip to evacuate their homes and head to south.
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***
The BJP-led government in India is seeking to extract revenge for the humiliating defeat it suffered at the hands of farmers whose one-year agitation led to the repeal of three farm laws in late 2021.
This claim was made during a recent press conference in Delhi held by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) (United Farmers Front).
The SKM was formed in November 2020 as a coalition of more than 40 Indian farmers’ unions to coordinate non-violent resistance against three farm acts initiated two months before.
Asserting that the laws violated the constitution and were anti-farmer and pro big business, the SKM announced renewed agitation and expressed grave concern about a crackdown by the government against the online media platform NewsClick, which supported the farmers throughout their one-year struggle.
Those present heard that there has been “baseless dishonest and false allegations in the Newsclick FIR against the historic farmers’ struggle” and that the “FIR accuses the farmers’ movement as anti-national, funded by foreign and terrorist forces”.
An FIR is a ‘first information report’: a document prepared by police in India when they receive information about the commission of a “cognisable” (serious) offence.
Delhi Police issued an FIR against NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha and the human resources head Amit Chakravarty, which infers that the farmers’ movement was aimed at stopping the supply of essential goods for citizens and creating law and order issues.
An article on The Hindu newspaper’s Frontline portal describes the nature of the FIR, which goes far beyond the farmers’ issue, and concludes police actions along with the FIR marks a major low point for media freedom in India.
According to Frontline, the police raids on the offices of NewsClick and the residences of virtually anyone associated with it; the indiscriminate seizure of the electronic devices of journalists and other employees; the sealing of the news portal’s main office; the arrest of its founder-editor and its administrative officer on terrorism-related charges; and the searches conducted at the premises of NewsClick and the home of its founder-editor mark the lowest point for media freedom in India since the Emergency of 1975-1977.
The withdrawal of the FIR against Newsclick was called for during the press conference. There was also a demand for the immediate release of NewsClick journalists.
The SKM said that farmers across the country will burn copies of the FIR on 6 November after a sustained campaign at village level against the government’s pro-corporate policies from 1-5 November.
The farmers’ coalition also pledged to campaign in five poll-going states with the slogan “Oppose Corporate, Punish BJP, Save Country.”
And a 72-hour sit-in will take place in front of the Raj Bhawans (official residences of state governors) in state capitals between 26 and 28 November.
The SKM states that the farmers’ movement was committed and patriotic and saw through the “nefarious plan” of the three farm laws to withdraw government support from agriculture and hand over farming, mandis (state-run wholesale agricultural markets) and public food distribution to corporations led by Adani, Ambani, Tata, Cargill, Pepsi, Walmart, Bayer, Amazon and others.
It added that the farmers exposed the corporate-backed plan of depriving the people of India of food security, pauperising farmers, changing cropping patterns to suit corporations and allowing the free penetration of foreign corporations into India’s food processing market.
Those in attendance also heard about the hardships experienced by farmers during the one-year agitation:
“In the process, the farmers braved water cannons, teargas shelling, roadblocks with huge containers, deep road cuts, lathi charge, cold and hot weather. Over 13 months, they sacrificed 732 martyrs … This was a patriotic movement of the highest quality in the face of repression by a fascist government serving interests of Imperialist exploiters.”
State investment in agriculture infrastructure was called for, along with the promotion of profitable farming, the facilitation and securing of modern food processing, marketing and consumer networks under the collective ownership and control of peasant-worker cooperatives.
Accusing the government of acting on behalf of corporate interests, one speaker said that it had targeted Newsclick because it only did what a genuine news media should have been doing — reporting on the truth, the problems of farmers and the nature of the struggle.
It was claimed that:
“The BJP Government is using the farcical FIR to spread a canard that the farmers’ movement was anti-people, anti-national and backed by terrorist funding routed through Newsclick. This is factually wrong and mischievously inserted to portray the movement in bad light and seeking to extract revenge for the humiliating defeat they suffered at the hands of the farmers of our country.”
The farmers’ coalition argued that the government is moving to falsely charge the farmers movement of being foreign funded and sponsored by terrorist forces, while it is “promoting FDI, Foreign MNCs, big corporations into agriculture”.
The coalition says it remains committed to saving the rural economy, preventing foreign looting and rejuvenating the village economy in order to build a strong India.
The author’s e-book includes insight into the farm laws and farmers’ struggle mentioned above and can be accessed below.
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Renowned author Colin Todhunter specialises in development, food and agriculture. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
Featured image: Trade unions protest in Delhi’s Shaheedi Park. Several trade unions and workers’ organisations have joined the ongoing farmers’ protest against three recently enacted farm laws. SHAHID TANTRAY FOR THE CARAVAN
Read Colin Todhunter’s e-Book entitled
Food, Dispossession and Dependency. Resisting the New World Order
We are currently seeing an acceleration of the corporate consolidation of the entire global agri-food chain. The high-tech/big data conglomerates, including Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Google, have joined traditional agribusiness giants, such as Corteva, Bayer, Cargill and Syngenta, in a quest to impose their model of food and agriculture on the world.
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***
Oct. 11, 2023 – Grimsby, UK – 14 year old Alana Bee was just diagnosed with a rhabdomyosarcoma of the cervix spreading into the uterus, bladder, bowel, etc.
Oct. 20, 2023 – Bristol, PA – 19 year old Antwoine Fordham was diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma in his calf that has attached itself to bone and blood vessels.
Oct. 19, 2023 – Tomball, TX – 12 year old gymnast and professional dancer Mallory Jatzlau was just diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma.
Oct. 18, 2023 – Glen Falls, NY – 12 year old Brookelle McMullin is a 6th grader in Queensbury Middle School, who was just diagnosed with Stage 4 Rhabdomyosarcoma after biopsy of a swollen node in her neck.
Oct. 17, 2023 – Alexandria, VA – 12 year old son of Carla Jordan was just diagnosed with Stage 4 Rhabdomyosarcoma.
Oct. 14, 2023 – Pendleton, SC – 14 year old Mallory Newton was diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma of the thigh.
Sep. 29, 2023 – England – 16 year old Teddy Marks was diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma in Jan. 2022. After treatment, he was cancer free for 6 months. However, he relapsed in Feb. 2023 and is terminal with no treatment options left.
Sep. 27, 2023 – Boston, MA – 16 year old Isaiah Bowler was diagnosed with Stage 3 Alveolar Rhabdomyosarcoma which has spread to the lymph nodes.
Sep. 21, 2023 – Dalton, GA – 16 year old Gavin Keener was diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma. His mom is a Nurse practitioner.
Sep. 19, 2023 – Santee, CA – 16 year old Hudson Watts was diagnosed with Stage 2A Alveolar Rhabdomyosarcoma.
Sep. 18, 2023 – UK – 13 year old Kane Harris was diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma in July 2022. He had extensive treatments which finished on June 29, 2023. However, he had a recurrence in Aug. 2023 with 3 large tumors on major organs and died on Sep. 18, 2023.
Aug. 27, 2023 – Erie, CO – 19 year old Katie Curtis was diagnosed with Stage 4 Sarcoma Aug. 2, 2023 and died 3 weeks later on Aug. 27.
Aug. 15, 2023 – Phoenix, AZ – 12 year old David Popescu had a bump on his cheek and was diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma in Sep.2022. He was declared cancer free after treatment, but in March 2023 it returned in the shoulder.
Aug. 14, 2023 – Champlin, MN – 15 year old Tanner Anderson had abdominal pains in November 2022 and was diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma. He died 9 months later.
Aug. 11, 2023 – Somerset, KY – 19 year old Gracie Strunk was diagnosed with a very rare form of Rhabdomyosarcoma.
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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.
Featured image is from COVID Intel
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
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The White House and the Central Intelligence Agency are once again at loggerheads, as they were during Ukraine’s losing war against Russia, over the facts on the ground after President Joe Biden suddenly decided to fly to Israel again, reportedly at the request of Benjamin Netanyahu, the beleaguered Israeli prime minister.
Biden showed that, as he put it, he would have Israel’s back by moving two American carrier battle groups into the region, along with thousands of U.S. troops. It would have been better if he had done what America has often done: announced that his administration would begin transporting water and food to the hundreds of thousands of Gaza citizens who were driven out of the north by Israel and landed at a border gate with Egypt that Netanyahu and his colleagues had to know would not be opened.
Biden’s trip comes at a time of international outrage after the main hospital in Gaza City was destroyed by an Israeli bomb or a misguided Islamic Jihad rocket, killing hundreds. The President said he was primarily delivering a message of restraint. If so, the President was completely in the dark about Israel’s intentions.
In an interview Sunday with 60 Minutes, Biden was asked if it was time for a ceasefire in Gaza. Biden ignored the question and said the Israelis “have to move against Hamas. Hamas are cowards…They move their headquarters to where there are civilians and buildings…but the Israelis will do everything in their power to avoid killing innocent civilians.” He said he was discussing the possibility of a safe zone – a humanitarian corridor – for Gaza City residents who fled after being told that Israel was determined to destroy everything in the city. Asked if Hamas “has to be completely eliminated,” Biden answered in the affirmative, adding that there must be a “path to a Palestinian state.”
A Palestinian state is not on Israel’s agenda
There are intelligence analysts in Washington who estimate that Netanyahu, who is emerging as the strongman in Israel’s new emergency government, has no intention of letting any member of Hamas survive. They believe he is indifferent to what has happened to Gaza City residents who have fled south to Egypt and now find themselves without food or water and faced with the reality that economically beleaguered Egypt has no interest in opening its border to a million or more refugees in need of food, shelter and medical care.
Netanyahu’s stance, I was told, amounts to ”wiping out” Hamas, according to intelligence analysts. One knowledgeable official told me that ”Gaza City is about to be turned into a Hiroshima without the use of nuclear weapons.” Later, he said, American bombs from the Israeli arsenal, including so-called “bunker busters,” could be directed at the underground tunnel systems where Hamas was manufacturing weapons and planning attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7. The daily Israeli bombardment of Gaza City has led many in the Middle East and Europe to conclude that it was an Israeli bomb that hit the Gaza City hospital.
According to Israeli plans, there would be no need for a massive ground invasion, but I was told by the official that Israeli troops would be needed to locate those Hamas members underground who decide to surrender. The instructions, the official said, were to “shoot on sight.” Surrender would not be an option. The official told me that the Hamas soldiers who came out of the tunnels desperate for food were viewed by the Israelis as starving rats who would be confronted with poisoned food. The fate of the nearly two hundred hostages, most of whom are Israeli but include some Americans, went unsaid.
From the perspective of U.S. intelligence, the Hamas raid failed in every respect.
“Hamas believed,” I was told by the official, “that the success of their raid, which was planned over two years, would win the Arab world to their cause. They thought that Hezbollah,” the powerful Lebanese party controlled by Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, “and the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization] in the West Bank would support them.”
The U.S. assessment is that the Hamas leadership began planning the attack two years ago and “now,” the official said, “was the right time.” He explained that the Hamas leadership was “absolutely terrified” that the ongoing talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia would lead to further isolation of groups that oppose Israel.
The main supporter of the Hamas raid, I was told, was the Iranian government, whose leadership in Tehran was directly involved in providing money and materials for the Oct. 7 attacks.
“The Iranians,” the official said sarcastically, “want to attack Israel with every Palestinian they can find.” But “Iran did not realize how many civilians would be killed. Hamas was drenched in blood.”
Arab scholar Juan Cole, a professor of history at the University of Michigan, recently published an essay in the Telegraph outlining four ways in which the Hamas raid violated Islamic law. Hamas killed innocents, including women and children; it destroyed a city; it did not give fair warning; and it took civilians hostage. Cole quoted the Prophet Muhammad: “Do not kill weak old men, small children, or women.”
There were similar reactions from Hezbollah and in Damascus. Despite Western fears, I was told, there is no evidence that Hamas’ uprising served as inspiration for Israel’s enemies.
“In the Great Game,” the official said, “it was a chess game in which Hamas was a pawn.”
Netanyahu’s plan, the official told me, called for the Israeli army to kill any Hamas members it could find, destroy the tunnel system-perhaps using American bombs that can penetrate dozens of feet underground before exploding-and then seal off the southern part of what was once Gaza City. Israeli soldiers would be tasked with searching block by block in the destroyed city for survivors. Care would be taken to ensure that no Hamas survivors escape into the Mediterranean Sea.
In recent days, the Biden administration has deployed two U.S. aircraft carrier groups with squadrons of F-15, F-16 and A-10 fighter jets, more than 10,000 Navy personnel and 2,000 Marines to the region to assist Israel.
“All the American services are jumping on it,” the official told me, “but Israel says, ‘Go back. We don’t want your help.”‘ He continued, “There are no better pilots today than those in the Israeli Air Force. Bibi has the situation under control, and no Israeli will worry about the fate of Gaza’s citizens.”
So the official asked,
“Why is Biden knocking on the door? Is the president going to tell Bibi, ‘You can’t do this’? Leave the Gaza refugees at the border with Egypt.”
The official did not answer his rhetorical question. But he asked if one reason for the president’s sudden trip “might not be to keep the Ukraine war out of the headlines?”
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Featured image: President Joe Biden participates in a restricted bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Hotel Kempinski in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, October 18, 2023. (Official White House Photo by Cameron Smith)
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***
Israel was founded on lies. The lie that Palestinian land was largely unoccupied. The lie that 750,000 Palestinians fled their homes and villages during their ethnic cleansing by Zionist militias in 1948 because they were told to do so by Arab leaders. The lie that it was Arab armies that started the 1948 war that saw Israel seize 78 percent of historic Palestine. The lie that Israel faced annihilation in 1967, forcing it to invade and occupy the remaining 22 percent of Palestine, as well as land belonging to Egypt and Syria.
Israel is sustained by lies. The lie that Israel wants a just and equitable peace and will support a Palestinian state.
The lie that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.
The lie that Israel is an “outpost of Western civilization in a sea of barbarism.”
The lie that Israel respects the rule of law and human rights.
Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians are always greeted with lies. I heard them. I recorded them. I published them in my stories for The New York Times when I was the paper’s Middle East Bureau Chief.
I covered war for two decades, including seven years in the Middle East. I learned quite a bit about the size and lethality of explosive devices. There is nothing in the arsenal of Hamas or Islamic Jihad that could have replicated the massive explosive power of the missile that killed an estimated 500 civilians in the al-Ahli Arab Christian hospital in Gaza. Nothing. If Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) had these kinds of missiles, huge buildings in Israel would be rubble with hundreds of dead. They don’t.
The whistling sound, audible on the video moments before the explosion, appears to come from the high velocity of a missile. This sound gives it away. No Palestinian rocket makes this noise. And then there is the speed of the missile. Palestinian rockets are slow and lumbering, clearly visible as they arch in the sky and then tumble in free fall towards their targets. They do not strike with precision or travel at close to supersonic speed. They are incapable of killing hundreds of people.
The Israeli military dropped “roof knocking” rockets with no warheads on the hospital in the days leading up to the Oct. 17 strike, the familiar warning given by Israel to evacuate buildings, according to al-Ahli hospital officials. Hospital officials also said they had received calls from Israel saying “we warned you to evacuate twice.” Israel has demanded that all hospitals in northern Gaza be evacuated.
Following the strike on the hospital, Hananya Naftali, a “digital aide” to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, posted on X, formerly Twitter: “Israeli Air Force struck a Hamas terrorist base inside a hospital in Gaza.” The post was quickly deleted.
Pro-Israel social media influencer Hananya Naftali tweeted in celebration of the hospital bombing in Gaza.
Since the Oct. 7 incursion into Israel by Palestinian resistance fighters, which reportedly left some 1,300 Israelis dead, many of them civilians, and saw some 200 kidnapped as hostages and taken to Gaza, Israel has carried out 51 attacks on healthcare facilities in Gaza that have killed 15 healthcare workers and injured 27, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Out of 35 hospitals in Gaza, four are not functioning due to severe damage and targeting. Only eight of the 22 UNRWA primary healthcare centers are “partially functional,” the WHO says.
The brazenness of Israeli lies stunned those of us who reported from Gaza. It did not matter if we had seen the Israeli attack, including the shooting of unarmed Palestinians. It did not matter how many witnesses we interviewed. It did not matter what photographic and forensic evidence we obtained. Israel lied. Small lies. Big lies. Huge lies. These lies came reflexively and instantly from the Israeli military, Israeli politicians and Israeli media. They were amplified by Israel’s well-oiled propaganda machine and repeated with a cloying sincerity on international news outlets.
Israel engages in the kinds of jaw-dropping lies that characterize despotic regimes. It does not deform the truth, it inverts it. It paints a picture that is diametrically opposed to reality. Those of us who have covered the occupied territories have run into Israel’s Alice-in-Wonderland narratives, which we dutifully insert into our stories — required under the rules of American journalism — although we know they are untrue.
Israel has invented an Orwellian lexicon. Children killed by Israelis become children caught in crossfire. The bombing of residential districts, with dozens of dead and wounded, becomes a surgical strike on a bomb-making factory. The destruction of Palestinian homes becomes the demolition of the homes of terrorists.
The Big Lie — Große Lüge — feeds the two reactions Israel seeks to elicit — racism among its supporters and terror among its victims. The Big Lies fosters the myth of a clash of civilizations, a war between democracy, decency and honor on one side and Islamic terrorism, barbarism and medievalism on the other.
George Orwell in his novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” called the Big Lie “doublethink”. Doublethink uses “logic against logic” and “repudiate[s] morality while laying claim to it.” The Big Lie abolishes nuances, ambiguities and contradictions that can plague conscience. It is designed to create cognitive dissonance. It permits no gray zones. The world is black and white, good and evil, righteous and unrighteous. The Big Lie allows believers to take comfort — a comfort they are desperately seeking — in their own moral superiority even as they abrogate all morality. It feeds, what Edward Bernays called, the “logic-proof compartment of dogmatic adherence.” All effective propaganda, Bernays writes, targets and builds upon these irrational “psychological habits.”
Israeli supporters thirst for these lies. They do not want to know the truth. The truth would force them to examine their racism, self-delusion and complicity in oppression, murder and genocide.
Most importantly, the Big Lie sends an ominous message to the Palestinians. The Big Lie states that Israel will wage a campaign of mass terror and genocide and never take responsibility for its crimes. The Big Lie obliterates the truth. It obliterates the dignity of human thought and human action. It obliterates facts. It obliterates history. It obliterates comprehension. It obliterates hope. It reduces all communication to the language of violence. When oppressors speak to the oppressed exclusively through indiscriminate violence, the oppressed answer through indiscriminate violence.
The cartoonist Joe Sacco and I watched Israeli soldiers taunt and shoot small boys in the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza. We interviewed the boys and their parents afterwards in the hospital. In a few cases we attended their funerals. We had their names. We had the dates and locations of the shootings.
Israel’s response was to say that we were not in Gaza. We had made it up.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, Defense Minister and Israeli Defense Force (IDF) spokesperson immediately blamed the killing of the Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022, on Palestinian gunmen. Israel disseminated footage of a Palestinian fighter they said shot and killed the journalist, who was wearing a flak jacket and helmet marked “PRESS.”
Benny Gantz, who was at the time Defense Minister, stated that “no [Israeli] gunfire was directed at the journalist,” and that the Israeli army had “seen footage of indiscriminate shooting by Palestinian terrorists”.
This lie was peddled until video footage examined by B’Tselem, The Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, identified the location of the Palestinian gunman depicted in the video. The video, the human rights organization found, was taken in a different location from where Shireen was killed.
This morning, B’Tselem’s field researcher in Jenin documented the exact locations in which the Palestinian gunman depicted in a video distributed by the Israeli army, fired, as well as the exact location in which Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed. pic.twitter.com/6VbEJJuF7z
When Israel is caught lying, as it was with the murder of Shireen, it promises an investigation. But these investigations are a sham. Impartial investigations into the hundreds of killings by soldiers and Jewish settlers of Palestinians are rarely carried out. Perpetrators are almost never brought to trial or held accountable. The pattern of Israeli obfuscation is predictable. So is the collusion of nearly all of the corporate media along with Republican and Democratic politicians. U.S. politicians decried the murder of Shireen and dutifully repeated the old mantra, calling for a “thorough investigation” by the army that carried out the crime.
A few months later, Israel admitted that there was a “high possibility” that an Israeli soldier killed the journalist by accident, but by then the eruption of street protests and rage over the killing of the journalist was over and her murder largely forgotten.
By the time the conclusive proof comes out about the bombing of the hospital, it too will be a distant memory.
There is dramatic footage captured in September 2000 at the Netzarim junction in the Gaza Strip — where I saw a nineteen-year-old boy shot and killed by an Israeli sniper — by France 2 TV, of a father trying to shield his traumatized 12-year-old son, Muhammad al-Durrah, from Israeli gunfire that ultimately killed him.
The killing of the boy resulted in the typical propaganda campaign by Israel. Israeli officials spent years lying about the killing, first blaming the Palestinians for the shooting, later suggesting that the scene was faked, and finally insisting the boy was still alive.
Image: Rachel Corrie was an American member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). She was crushed to death in the Gaza Strip by an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) bulldozer when she was kneeling in front of a local Palestinian’s home. Photograph by Denny Sternstein. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
When an Israeli soldier, in 2003, murdered the 23-year-old student and American activist Rachel Corrie, by crushing her to death with a bulldozer as she tried to prevent the illegal demolition of a Palestinian doctor’s home, the Israeli army said it was an accident for which Corrie was responsible.
The Israeli military has killed “at least” 20 journalists since 2001, with no accountability, according to a 2023 report by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. “Immediately after a journalist is killed by security forces, Israeli officials often push out a counter narrative to media reporting,” the CPJ concluded. This includes blaming the deaths on “indiscriminate fire” by Palestinians or attempts to discredit those killed as “terrorists.”
Israel blocks the work of independent human rights organizations into atrocities and war crimes it commits in Gaza and the West Bank. It refuses to cooperate with the International Criminal Court into possible war crimes in the Occupied Territories. It does not cooperate with the U.N. Human Rights Council and prohibits the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967,from entering the country. Israel revoked the work permit for Omar Shakir, the Director of Human Rights Watch (Israel and Palestine), in 2018 and expelled him. In May 2018, Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy published a report calling on the European Union and European states to halt their direct and indirect financial support and funding to Palestinian and international human rights organizations that “have ties to terror and promote boycotts against Israel.”
After the bombing of the hospital, Israel first released a video that purported to show Palestinian Islamic Jihad rockets which struck the hospital. The Israelis hastily removed the video when journalists noticed that time stamps showed the images were taken 40 minutes after the strike on the hospital.
Israeli propagandists — aware that Palestinian rockets have little explosive power — then claimed that Hamas stored munitions under the hospital. This caused the massive explosion, they said. But if this was true, it would mean there would be a secondary explosion. There was none. And now Israel has released what they say is a recording of two Hamas militants discussing the missile strike on the hospital. The militants ask each other, in a self-incriminating conversation that is too ridiculous to believe, if Hamas or PIJ carried out the strike. Please. How was Israel completely in the dark about an incursion by thousands of armed Palestinian militants from Gaza into Israel on Oct. 7 and able to capture this incriminating conversation by two supposed militants?
“Israel has a whole unit of ‘mistaravim’, Israeli Jewish undercover agents trained to pose as Palestinians and secretly operate among Palestinians,” the reporter Jonathan Cook writes. “Israel produced a highly popular TV series about such people in Gaza called Fauda. You have to be beyond credulous to think that Israel couldn’t, and wouldn’t, rig up a call like this to fool us, just as it regularly fools Palestinians in Gaza.”
Israel has also long targeted medical facilities, ambulances and medics, as Middle East scholar Norman Finkelstein points out. It bombed a Palestinian children’s hospital during the 1982 war in Lebanon, killing 60 people. It also carried out missile strikes on clearly marked Lebanese ambulances during the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon. It damaged or destroyed 29 ambulances and almost half of Gaza’s health facilities, including 15 hospitals, during the 2008-2009 assault on Gaza known as Operation Cast Lead. It routinely prohibited wounded Palestinians from being picked up by ambulances during this operation, often leaving them to die. During Operation Protective Edge, the 51-day assault on Gaza in 2014, Israel destroyed or damaged 17 hospitals and 56 primary healthcare centers and damaged or destroyed 45 ambulances.
You can see my interview, released today, with Professor Finkelstein about Gaza and Israel here (or watch below).
Amnesty International, which investigated the Israeli attacks on three of these hospitals in 2014, dismissed the “evidence” for the attacks offered by Israel as false.
“The image tweeted by the Israeli military does not match satellite images of the al-Wafa hospital and appears to depict a different location,” the report read.
Expose Israeli lies and you are attacked by Israel and its supporters as an anti-Semite and apologist for terrorists. You are banished from mainstream media. You are denied forums to speak about the issue and, as has happened to me, disinvited from university events.
It is an old game, one I have played as a reporter many, many times. I bear the scars of the lies spewed out by Israel and its lobby. Meanwhile, Israel continues its butchery, endorsed and even lauded by Western political leaders, including Joe Biden, who accompany the torrent of lies from Israel like a Wagnerian chorus.
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Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. He is the host of show The Chris Hedges Report.
Featured image: Liar Liar – by Mr. Fish via ScheerPost
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There are numerous one-liners like “wag-the-dog” that constitute a long running joke about how Israel exploits Jewish power in the United States to limit and control Washington’s options in foreign policy as well as in many other aspects of international interaction. This has been accomplished by a cleverly executed neoconservative takeover of the foreign policy instruments of both major parties based on a series of nonexistent “threats” coupled with media control and billions of dollars in political donations that have bought the numerous politicians willing to be bought, which clearly constitutes a majority of Congress.
President Joe Biden and those who surround him are all about Israel and many of them are Jewish. His Secretary of the Treasury Janice Yellen claims that the US “can afford” two wars simultaneously and the Chuck Schumer led Senate has voted unanimously 97-0 pledging full and unconditional support for the Jewish state.
Biden’s somewhat pathetic fifteen-minute speech last week justifying throwing another $105 billion of deficit spending at Ukraine and Israel could have been written by a neocon scribe in its attempt to demonstrate that the US is threatened by developments in those two countries. It is not, even Biden knows that, and his assertions were as hollow as the rhetoric used to support the false premise.
My favorite argument being made by the president was that “American leadership holds the world together….and is necessary to keep freedom alive in both the Middle East and Eastern Europe… Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common: They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy.”
As it turns out, Biden was wrong on every point. Opinion polls suggest that the world overwhelmingly sees the United States as the most disruptive and dangerous nation on the planet, so Biden’s unwillingness or inability to discern that he is presiding the over the death throes of America’s global leadership is particularly troubling. And Joe even fails to realize that Russia is more democratic by most measures than is Ukraine, which is consistently rated as the most corrupt country in the world, while Israel is not a democracy at all unless one is a Jew.
Biden was certainly motivated to speak to the American public in prime time, only the second time he has done so, by his overriding concern to express and obtain absolutely total support for Israel no matter what it does. He is willing to lie, cheat and steal for Israel. In the wake of the devastating October 17th blast at al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, a Christian-run medical complex in central Gaza City, which killed at least 500 people and injured hundreds more, he immediately jumped on the protect-Israel bandwagon and declared that Israel had not done it, which is far from being demonstrated and is being hotly disputed by eyewitnesses and forensic specialists. Ukraine is a secondary issue but it too is a war supported overwhelmingly by international Jewry for various reasons, most notably visceral hatred of Russia.
Nevertheless, the control by the Israel Lobby aside, one is at a loss to understand the actual rationale behind the recent trips to Israel in the wake of the Gaza uprising made by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and “they beheaded the babies” Joe Biden since the United States has no genuine national interest that compels it to get involved in either war, even less so in Gaza where Israel has been indisputably the source of nearly all the trouble. Lest anyone be confused over what signal was being sent, two US aircraft carrier strike groups were also dispatched to the Eastern Mediterranean together with orders to prepare to deploy 2,000 Marines, suggesting that Washington was itself preparing for war. And the Muslim world, convulsed by what it is seeing happen to Gaza, is also heeding a call to arms. As of last Friday there seven separate drone and rocket attacks on US military bases in Iraq and Syria. Journalist Caitlin Johnstone has neatly summarized the legitimate rage on the ground in Palestine that the White House and Congress make no attempt to appreciate:
“The status quo in Israel has been one of continually escalating violence, tyranny and abuse for generations… Stand on someone’s face for long enough and one day it will surprise you if he eventually bites your foot. You might even feel like you were the victim, because that’s just what you’d gotten used to.”
Blinken, citing his ancestors and the holocaust, presented himself as a Jew to his Israeli audience, which meant that no further justification was required as he totally rolled over to comply with the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s interpretation of what had taken place on October 7th. Reports suggest that Blinken had initially sensibly supported a cease-fire on social media just after the Hamas attack, writing that he would be “encourage[ing] Turkey’s advocacy for a cease-fire and the release of all hostages by Hamas immediately.”
Presumably under pressure from Biden and the Israel Lobby, he then deleted that and wrote, “Israel has the right to defend itself, rescue any hostages, and protect its citizens.” The State Department got the message and circulated instructions to staffers to not use the terms “de-escalation/ceasefire,” “end to violence/bloodshed” and “restoring calm” in regard to the Gaza/Israel situation, giving Netanyahu a free hand to do whatever he would choose to do.
Blinken was thus converted to fully support massive and indiscriminate Israeli retaliation against the civilian population, a war crime, and his reward was being stiffed by the Saudi Crown Prince, forced to wait in attendance all night before being allowed a short and non-productive audience. Biden outdid his colleague in being completely stonewalled by Saudi, Jordanian, Egyptian, Iraqi and Palestinian heads of state and government, which leads to the question
“What did Biden seek to achieve apart from demonstrating that the United States was owned by Israel which is committing a war crime by its collective punishment of Gaza ? Did he think the Arab and Muslim states would react positively to a developing massacre of the Gazans, which he specifically supported?”
So why were Biden and Blinken so willfully ignorant as to be unable to appreciate that they were bearing a message that could only succeed in infuriating their hosts? Israel, after all, is by law a Jewish state which not only does not provide equal rights to the non-Jewish citizens and residents, it also has a government that has senior officials and some leading religious figures describing Palestinian Arabs as something less than human or even “animals” and who, in some cases, openly consider it perfectly acceptable to exterminate them. It is the same government with a different cast of characters that has been stealing, killing and inflicting a host of war crimes and crimes against humanity on its captive and largely helpless Palestinian Christian and Muslim minority for the past 76 years.
Image: Cong. Michael McCaul (Source: Another Day in the Empire)
Biden’s nice package of $105 billion, which will likely sail through Congress because it is “for Israel,” will include $14 billion for Netanyahu to buy some new heavy ordnance to exterminate the Palestinians, which guarantees that the Muslim world will hate the United States for the foreseeable future. The money is also funding the war in Ukraine for the next year and arming Taiwan with some shiny new weapons to ward off China. Ironically, a new CBS/YouGov poll finds that most Americans don’t want the US providing Israel with weapons and supplies in this war, but, of course ordinary voters are never asked their opinion when the White House chooses to demonstrate “American exceptionalism” towards the country that it loves beyond all others. Oh, and the bill will also include some cash to “fortify” America’s Mexican border, a sweetener that runs completely contrary to what Biden has been doing for the past three years.
All this will be piled on to the United States government debt which, at just short of $33 trillion, is considered to be unsustainable and weighs in at $350,230 for every American family. And it is all being done for no good reason whatsoever in terms of genuine American interests, and probably illegally too as proxy wars run by the Executive Branch would seem to go against the Constitution’s separation of powers as well as the time constraints in the War Powers Act of 1973.
Congressman Michael McCaul from Texas, the Israel firster fanatic who heads the House Armed Services Committee, is currently pushing legislation that would provide an in-advance authorization to go to war on Iran and on Lebanon if Hezbollah were to come in to support the Gazans when Netanyahu starts his potentially genocidal ground attack. Another Congressional clown, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is already calling for an attack on Iran under the presumption that it assisted the Gazans.
Fortunately for all of us who care for such issues as life and death, some cracks are appearing in the wall surrounding total subservience to Israel and its interest. Some even suspect that the “US-based Middle East system,” which mandates blind support for Israel, has become so abusive that the public is become reluctant to support it. Indeed, public opinion polls suggest that support for the Palestinians is increasing while that for Israel is growing weaker as atrocities against the Arabs multiply with Israel new ultra-conservative government. The resignation letter of senior State Department official Josh Paul, who recently quit over the Biden administration’s position on the Gaza War, makes for interesting reading. Paul described the Hamas attack as a “monstrosity of monstrosities” but continued: “This Administration’s response – and much of Congress’ as well – is an impulsive reaction built on confirmation bias, political convenience, intellectual bankruptcy and bureaucratic inertia. Decades of the same approach have shown that security for peace leads to neither security nor peace, The fact is that blind support for one side is destructive in the long term to the interests of the people on both sides.”
Paul was responding to the latest arms package being rushed through congress for Israel, which he described as “shortsighted, destructive and unjust,” and the US veto early last week of a Russian proposal in the UN Security Council to call for a ceasefire. The US permanent representative to the UN Linda Thomas Greenfield submitted the veto and then erupted with “By failing to condemn Hamas, Russia is giving cover to a terrorist group that brutalizes innocent civilians. It is outrageous, it is hypocritical, and it is indefensible.” She is the hypocrite in that she obviously does not recognize or does not care that Israel’s record is far worse that Russia’s in “brutalizing innocent civilians” for the past 76 years.
There are also other reports of general “discomfort” and dismay among civil servants over what is happening vis-à-vis the US role in Gaza out of concern for Israel not being urged to show restraint and the White House lack of any genuine concern over the developing humanitarian crisis. It also appears that several of the few Muslim federal government officials have been removed from positions having anything to do with Middle East policy. The US media likewise has been transferring many of its Muslim journalists who were on the ground in Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East for fear that they will actually try to tell the truth about what is going on and who is doing what to whom.
On a next to last final note, it has often been noted that the first victim of war is truth. The US government in its various guises has been lashing out at social media and other sites that have been making available material that can be construed as favorable to Gaza. So far, they have been less than successful, but the efforts persist and could lead to legislation. Also, there have been the usual claims regarding “antisemitism” which can be exploited in “hate crimes” prosecutions as well as the existing legislation in 35 states that protect Israel with potential criminal and civil penalties as well denial of jobs and services to applicants who are critics of the Jewish state’s behavior. In Israel itself, al-Jazeera journalists have now been detained and expelled as a consequence of legislation criminalizing the activity of journalists who report “facts” that are not approved by the Israeli government.
But some of the most bizarre lashing out by the Israel lobby and its friends is taking place in the United States. In Florida the state Attorney General has told prosecutors to “exercise zero tolerance” when dealing with the “anti-Jewish hate crimes” engaged in by college students who have been demonstrating in support of the Gazans. At Harvard, major donors who are mostly Jewish have cut off donations to the university due to its tolerance of pro-Gazan student demonstrators. A so called “conservative group” Accuracy in Media headed by one Adam Guillette, who is Jewish, has led the response to a coalition of more than 30 Harvard student groups that posted an open letter on the night of the Hamas attack, citing Israel as “entirely responsible” for the violence that killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians. The letter was posted on social media and did not include the names of the individual students in the groups.
But within days, students connected to those groups were being identified together with their personal information, all of which was posted online. Families back home were threatened while presumed Harvard alumni businessmen and executives demanded a list of the student names to ban their hiring. And a truck with a digital billboard paid for by Accuracy in Media circled Harvard Square, flashing student photos and names, under the headline, “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites.” The students now have to deal with “people’s lives being ruined, people’s careers being ruined, people’s fellowships being ruined” because they opposed a certainly controversial war being fought. Guillette said his organization’s next move, which has already started, is to create online domains using the students’ first and last names to create sites identifying them as antisemites. Guillette boasted that “I think it’s incredibly important for people to know who the antisemites are on their campus and in their community.”
And on a final note, if you have wondered where the money is coming from to fund Israel’s wars and crimes beyond what Joe Biden and his buddies are willing to hand them, there is an interesting story out of Georgia. Republican Governor Brian Kemp has ordered his state treasurer to use tax revenues to purchase $10 million in Israel Bonds. The bonehead then issued a statement: “Israel is one of Georgia’s strongest allies and greatest friends, and our support for its people as they endure horrific attacks from terrorists is unwavering. Purchasing these bonds is just the latest expression of that support.” It is not clear if the purchase is completely legal and someone should have advised the governor that buying Israel bonds is in the nature of a gift as they lack liquidity and are generally regarded as a terrible investment. So it is a rip-off of the Georgia taxpayer. I wonder if anyone will notice!
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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].
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“An absolute commitment to destroying an entire culture, basis of belief, all that is deepest.” (Global Research)
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At least five more mosques were destroyed in Israeli airstrikes on the besieged Gaza Strip on Sunday, bringing the total number to 31 since Oct. 7, the Gaza-based Endowments and Religious Affairs Ministry said.
“The number of mosques completely destroyed since the beginning of Israel’s attacks on Gaza has increased to 31,” the ministry said in a statement Sunday.
On Saturday, it also highlighted the Israeli bombardment of several civilian sites such as the ministry’s headquarters, the ministry’s Quran radio station and a church.
It said that 10 employees from the ministry lost their lives in these attacks, and others had been injured.
Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of the Gaza Strip, in response to the Oct. 7 surprise Hamas incursion, have also targeted other places of worship as well as hospitals.
The Church of St. Porphyrius, one of the oldest churches in the region, is located in Gaza’s southern Zeitoun neighborhood, only 250 meters (820.21 feet) away from the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, which was targeted in a ruthless airstrike on Oct. 17 that killed hundreds of people.
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As more people perish from the siege of Gaza, the untenable positions of the United States and other western governments are being exposed for their complicity in the attempted destruction of millions in Palestine and throughout the region
On Saturday October 21, the streets of various cities throughout the globe were filled with millions rallying and marching in solidarity of the Palestinian people as the siege of Gaza continues having killed over 4,000 people and injuring tens of thousands of others.
2.2 million Palestinians are imperiled due to the relentless bombings by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) over the last two weeks.
The bombings of civilian areas and infrastructure are considered war crimes by the United Nations. However, the United States government, Britain and the European Union (EU) are not only supporting the State of Israel they are pledging to send more military assistance. In the case of Washington, President Joe Biden has gone to the divided and beleaguered Congress to request $106 billion to spread greater insecurity and war throughout West Asia, North Africa, the Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe and the southern border of the U.S.
Biden has deployed two warships to the Eastern Mediterranean along with placing 2,000 Pentagon troops on alert for possible combat activity in defense of Israel and consequently against the Palestinian people and others living within contiguous states. The White House has threatened other countries and their governments not to take action in support of the Palestinians while the administration has failed to call for a ceasefire and the immediate distribution of much needed humanitarian aid to Gaza.
These militaristic initiatives are being answered even within the western industrial states and their allies through mass actions in defense of the rights of the Palestinian people to peace, self-determination, statehood and sovereignty. Demonstrations in Britain, the U.S., among other capitalist states, illustrate the growing rejection of imperialism and its hegemonic intentions of destabilizing and subduing large swaths of territory throughout the world.
On October 21, the city of London was overflowing with marchers from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, a broad coalition of peace and antiwar organizations opposing the war policies of Prime Rishi Sunak of Britain and Joe Biden of the U.S. Despite the official position of the Conservative government in London which unconditionally approves of every bombing carried out by the IDF, obviously there is widespread public opinion against the foreign policy of the administration.
“Police in London have estimated 100,000 people took to the streets for the ‘National March for Palestine’ demonstration to denounce Israel’s relentless bombing campaign and total blockade of Gaza. ‘We are all united to deliver the same message: we want the violence to end. We’re calling for an immediate ceasefire and for necessary humanitarian supplies to be safely delivered to the people of Gaza,’ Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said in a post on X. The violence will not end ‘until you address the root cause’, which he identified as Israel’s decades-long military occupation. Chanting ‘Free Palestine’, holding banners and waving Palestinian flags, the protesters moved through London before massing at Downing Street, the official residence and office of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.”
In developments on the other side of the world, people in Australia demonstrated in several cities decrying the siege of Gaza and expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people.
“At the same time in Sydney, virtually 1500 people rallied in the streets, chanting ‘free, free Palestine and ‘down, down Israel.’ ‘It’s difficult, what has been broadcasted in the Western media is definitely not reflecting what is on the ground,’ said protester Abdullah Ali. ‘What I see is different … I see parts of children being put in plastic bags, it’s extremely hard for anyone to see.’ Thousands more people attended demonstrations in Perth, Brisbane, and Hobart, with more pro-Palestinian events scheduled to take place on Sunday in Melbourne and Adelaide.
Angry protests have been held across the world since Israel killed hundreds of Palestinians at a Gaza hospital on Tuesday (Oct. 17).”
In the U.S., demonstrations have been held across the country. On October 18, hundreds gathered outside the McNamara Federal Building in downtown Detroit in a Palestine solidarity rally and later march.
Students at three high schools in Dearborn, a suburb just across the western border with Detroit, walked out in solidarity with Gaza and the Palestinian national struggle. The students waved Palestinian flags and denounced the policy pronouncements of the Biden administration.
“Students at both Edsel Ford High School and Dearborn High School walked out of their classrooms Friday morning (Oct. 20), waving flags and chanting phrases in support of Palestinians. One student at Edsel, affixed on the shoulders of another student, held a bullhorn and led the call-and-response cries while participants could be heard shouting: ‘Free, free Palestine,’ ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ and ‘Allahu Akbar,’ the Arabic phrase for ‘God is great.’… Friday’s walkout marked the second day in a row that students have walked out of classes in Dearborn. On Thursday, roughly 400 students walked out of Fordson High School, where roughly 90% of the student body is of Arab American descent.”
On October 21, demonstrators gathered in Washington, D.C. in solidarity with the Palestinian people. The protesters marched from the Washington Monument to Capitol Hill holding Palestinian flags and banners while chanting Free Palestine.” See this.
In New York City, hundreds of demonstrators from Islamic, Jewish and other communities marched to U.S. Sen. Kristen Gillibrand’s Manhattan office on October 21, while chanting ‘cease fire now.’ New York City Police later arrested scores of protesters as they blocked the Third Avenue entrance outside Gillibrand’s office by sitting in the road. Numerous other protests have occurred in New York on campuses and in public areas. See this.
Regional Solidarity Mobilizes Millions in West Asia and North Africa
Everyday within the neighboring states of Palestine and other areas, hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets demanding an end to the siege of Gaza and denouncing the policies of the U.S. and its imperialist allies. U.S. embassies have been targets of protests where solidarity activists are demanding the closure of all diplomatic missions from Washington.
In neighboring Egypt, thousands gathered in Cairo to call for an end to the siege of Gaza and the escalation of state and vigilante violence in the West Bank of Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). There were also huge crowds which gathered outside the Rafah Crossing demanding the opening of the border for humanitarian assistance to the people. When Israel placed impediments to the opening of the Rafah Border on October 20, people grew angry prompting a swift departure by western-based press agencies and United Nations officials.
Demonstrations have occurred in the Kingdom of Jordan, Turkey, the Kingdom of Morocco, Tunisia, Yemen and the Islamic Republic of Iran. In Iraq, there are reports of local resistance forces launching missiles at the U.S. troops still illegally based in the country.
In Lebanon tensions have grown on the border with Israel resulting in the evacuation of large areas occupied by Israeli settlers. The Hezbollah resistance movement in Lebanon has pledged to enter the war against Tel Aviv when it becomes necessary.
“Lebanon’s resistance movement Hezbollah says it has fired guided missiles at an Israeli military base near the Lebanese border town of Houla. In a statement released on Saturday (Oct. 21), Hezbollah said that its missiles targeted the Al-Abad military site, outside the southern town of Houla on the country’s border with the occupied territories. It added that part of the technical equipment and technology of the base was destroyed in this attack. In another statement, the resistance movement said its precision-guided missiles also struck the Israeli military base in the town of Hanita. Lebanese sources also announced that Hezbollah has targeted two military vehicles of the Israeli regime in the Baram Heights area near the Lebanese border. Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem said that the latest operations in southern borders are in response to the ongoing Israeli assaults, stressing that the movement will intensify its attacks if necessary.”
United Nations Summit on Gaza Held in Egypt
A hastily convened conference in Cairo was held on October 21 by the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres who was in Egypt to oversee the promised opening of the Rahaf Border Crossing on the previous day. Some 20 trucks carrying limited and selective humanitarian aid was allowed to enter Gaza.
“Leaders and top officials from more than a dozen countries have gathered in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, for a conference to discuss ways to ‘de-escalate’ the Israel-Hamas war amid growing fears of a wider Middle East conflict. Dubbed the Cairo Summit for Peace, representatives from countries including Jordan, France, Germany, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, the United States, Qatar and South Africa are attending the one-day meeting on Saturday, together with United Nations and European Union officials. In his opening remarks, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi invited leaders to come to an agreement for a road map to end the ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ in the Gaza Strip and revive a path to peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The plan’s goals included the delivery of aid to Gaza and agreeing to a ceasefire, followed by negotiations leading to a two-state solution, he said…. President el-Sisi said on Wednesday that Egyptians in their millions would oppose any forced displacement of Palestinians into Sinai, adding that any such move would turn the Egyptian peninsula into a base for attacks against Israel. Egypt’s position reflects Arab fears that Palestinians could again flee or be forced from their homes en masse, as they were during the war surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948.”
The UN Egyptian conference cannot lead to the resolution of the escalating security crisis in Palestine and beyond. This will require a shift in policy direction by imperialism which funds and coordinates the IDF military operations in the region.
As the resistance to Israeli occupation intensifies, the U.S. and other imperialist states will become more isolated among the peoples of West Asia, North Africa and around the world. Unless Washington reverses its course on Palestine, an inevitable war involving various states and peoples will emerge endangering the peace and security of the international community.
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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
United States President Joe Biden delivered a live television address on the evening of October 19 to demand that the Congress authorize another $106 billion to expand the wars in Ukraine and Palestine as well as providing funds to counter Chinese influence and enhance security at the southern border.
If you have to understand what is really happening, denounce the globalist coup d’etat and regain the national sovereignty and fundamental freedoms that have been taken away from you. You have all witnessed in recent years a radical change in society; a change planned by people without any electoral mandate and imposed by sold-out rulers.
Some sixteen states and territories in the Pacific became the second grouping to establish a nuclear free zone in 1985 via the Treaty of Rarotonga, first proposed by New Zealand at the South Pacific Forum meeting in Tonga in July 1975. Since then, climate change has taken centre stage.
Already in October 2000, at the outset of the Palestinian uprising, military circles were ready with detailed operative plans to topple Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. This was before the Palestinian terror attacks started. (The first attack on Israeli civilians was on November 3, 2000, in a market in Jerusalem).
Israel’s Creation and Ethnic Cleansing: The 1948 Palestine War, which led to the creation of Israel left Palestinian society leaderless, disorganized, and scattered. More than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs –about half of prewar Palestine’s Arab population— fled from their homes or were expelled by Zionist militias during this war.
White phosphorus causes severe burns, often down to the bone, which are slow to heal and can develop infections. If all white phosphorus fragments are not removed, they can aggravate wounds and flare up again when exposed to oxygen. White phosphorus burns on as little as 10 percent of the human body are often fatal.
In the name of the war that Hamas triggered, Netanyahu, together with all his opposition colleagues announced his determination to completely devastate the menace the attackers represented and has urged all citizens of the world’s single biggest open-air concentration camp to move south before they commence with their cleansing procedure.
Staff members of EU institutions have written to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen expressing fury over her stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict, in a letter that accumulated 842 signatures. The letter, which has been seen by The Irish Times, accuses the commission of giving “a free hand to the acceleration and the legitimacy of a war crime in the Gaza Strip”.
Across historic Palestine, all Palestinians feel as though we are being held responsible and paying the price for Israel’s failure to maintain security along the Gaza fence. From 1948 communities to Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, we feel we are being targeted on the basis of our identity.
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“Israel has killed over 1000 children, where’s the outrage?”
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As European empires crumbled in the 20th century, the power structures that had dominated the world for centuries were up for renegotiation. Yet instead of a rebirth for democracy, what emerged was a silent coup – namely, the unstoppable rise of global corporate power.
Exposing the origins of this epic power grab as well as its present-day consequences, Silent Coup is the result of two investigative journalist’s reports from 30 countries around the world. It provides an explosive guide to the rise of a corporate empire that now dictates how resources are allocated, how territories are governed, and how justice is defined.
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The letter, which has been seen by The Irish Times, accuses the commission of giving “a free hand to the acceleration and the legitimacy of a war crime in the Gaza Strip”.
It begins by condemning the Hamas attack on Israel before continuing:
“We equally strongly condemn the disproportionate reaction by the Israeli government against 2.3 million Palestinian civilians trapped in the Gaza Strip”.
“We hardly recognise the values of the EU in the seeming indifference demonstrated over the past few days by our Institution toward the ongoing massacre of civilians in the Gaza Strip,” it continues.
The letter warns that the EU is “losing all credibility and the position as a fair, equitable and humanist broker” and damaging its international relations as well as risking the safety of EU staff.
“We are saddened by the patent show of double-standards which considers the blockade (water and fuel) operated by Russia on the Ukrainian people as an act of terror whilst the identical act by Israel against the Gazan people is completely ignored,” the letter reads.
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Naomi O’Leary is Europe Correspondent of The Irish Times.
Featured image: Israeli President Isaac Herzog (C) meets with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (R) and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola (L) in Tel Aviv, Israel on October 13, 2023. [IDF Spokesperson Unit – Anadolu Agency]
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Within the past two weeks, after war broke out between Israel and Palestinian armed groups based in Gaza, Israel’s military has been accused of a number of war crimes as it continues its relentless bombardment of Gaza’s 2.3 million-strong population.
Israel has denied it has committed war crimes, and the US, which provides substantial diplomatic, political and military support to Israel, has stressed that Israel must follow the rules of war.
So far in the conflict, Israel has killed over 4,000 Palestinians including more than 1,500 children, while at least 1,400 Israelis were killed following the attacks by Palestinian armed groups.
Middle East Eye has previously provided an overview of the list of war crimes Israel has already been accused of in this war.
However, one accusation that has the potential to be forgotten about with the rapidly moving nature of the conflict, and after the devastating bombing of a hospital in Gaza City, is the allegation that Israel has used white phosphorus on the civilian population of Gaza.
Using white phosphorus in such conditions is a violation of international law, and two leading rights groups Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International have released reports on the matter.
MEE takes a closer look at these reports, and whether there are any possible US links to Israel’s alleged use of this incendiary substance in Gaza.
The Reports
On 12 October, HRW released a report outlining that it has verified footage showing Israel used white phosphorus rounds in both the Gaza City port as well as rural parts of southern Lebanon.
In videos reviewed by the rights group, HRW identified the round of munitions used on the port in Gaza as 155mm phosphorus artillery shells. Israel has denied the report.
The next day, Amnesty International released its own report, in which it said it had “compelling evidence documenting the use of white phosphorus artillery shells by the Israeli army in densely populated civilian areas in Gaza”. The report added that many of these uses could be considered unlawful indiscriminate acts.
It also documented that the Israeli military had deployed white phosphorus artillery shells to the Israeli town of Sderot, located close to the border with Gaza. In a photo analysed by Amnesty, it found that the shells contained the label D528, the US military’s identification code for white phosphorus-based rounds.
Does this mean that the US supplied white phosphorus rounds to Israel’s military, which were then used in a densely populated area, a violation of international law?
Experts have told MEE that the evidence to link all of it together is not yet there.
“The fact that there’s a US Dodic – Department of Defense Identification Code – was evidence of what’s inside, not that the United States manufactured that particular round,” Brian Castner, a weapons expert and investigator with Amnesty International, told MEE.
The US military, Nato and Israel’s military are all very intertwined, so Israeli arms manufacturers sometimes use American nomenclatures and codes because it’s easier than creating their own codes.
In order to truly find out if the rounds in question were made by the US, it would require seeing the National Stock Number (NSN), part of which includes a two-digit code denoting the country of origin. The US codes are 00 and 01.
Castner said that these NSN codes are used for everything in the military, from hubcaps to two-tonne trucks.
“I would need the national stock number which may or may not be actually stamped, pounded into the metal of the round itself. That code would tell us something.”
However, it’s not a mystery that Israel has white phosphorus rounds made by the US.
“The US provides so many arms and in these particular rounds, the M825 and M825A1, the US has almost certainly provided in the past,” Castner said.
What Is White Phosphorus?
White phosphorus is a chemical substance used by militaries in artillery shells, bombs and rockets. The substance is ignited when it comes in contact with oxygen, and can then go on to burn intensely at temperatures north of 800C.
The substance was discovered more than 300 years ago by a German alchemist in Hamburg, and after using it in a number of cases, including for the ignition of matches, it began to be used for military purposes.
As a weapon, white phosphorus is easily ignited, difficult to put out, burns at high temperatures and can spread fire rapidly.
“White phosphorus is particularly horrific when used as a weapon. The human suffering that comes with it is especially upsetting,” John Chappell, advocacy and legal fellow at the Center for Civilians in Conflict (Civic), said.
“And then of course, there’s the fact that the Israeli military is using weapons in a very densely populated area, Gaza, and that medical treatment is so limited, that the medical infrastructure has been so damaged.”
For armed conflicts, militaries use white phosphorus as smokescreens, as the clouds of white smoke they generate provide cover for tank battalions or in general obscure the view of enemy troops. The substance is able to interfere with infrared technology and also weapons tracking systems, such as ground-to-air missiles.
The use of white phosphorus is not banned under international law, but the use of it in heavily populated areas is outlawed. Protocol 3 of the UN’s Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons “prohibits the use of weapons primarily designed to set fire to objects or cause burn injuries against civilians”.
If the substance comes into contact with people, it can cause chemical and thermal burns, even down to the bone, and can also enter the bloodstream to cause organ failure. Even after being treated, wounds could possibly reignite after being exposed to oxygen again.
Moral Culpability Versus Legal Liability
When it comes to international law applying to warfare, the details of an act are incredibly important, especially when it comes to the use of a substance like white phosphorus.
While international law states that the weapon cannot be used in densely populated areas, Castner added that there needs to be a clear lack of distinction between the targeting of armed groups and civilians.
“Attacks that fail to discriminate between civilians on one hand, and valid military targets on the other – those are indiscriminate attacks. And that’s a violation of the law of war. And if civilians were injured or killed, that could be a war crime,” Castner said.
“It’s why white phosphorus shouldn’t be used. And it’s why it’s so dangerous to use the rounds in a densely populated area, because the potential to harm civilians and not being able to differentiate between civilians and military targets in a densely populated area is super easy.”
In terms of any US complicity in this, legal liability is hard to pin down, because of uncertainty over when the shells were given to Israel, and whether any of those white phosphorus shells the US provided were used by Israel in Gaza.
“So while there’s certainly moral culpability if the US transferred white phosphorus to Israel, liability under international law gets more complicated,” Chappell said.
“And because the US may have transferred white phosphorus shells significantly before the start of the current offensive, and since it’s unclear whether policymakers made a transfer with the knowledge that they would be used in this way, legal liability is less clear.”
The only way to concretely find out if any US-made shells were used is to go into Gaza and locate shell remnants there with US military codes and the NSN code for the US. With the access restraints, this does not seem plausible at the moment.
The International Criminal Court has an active investigation into “the situation in the State of Palestine” for alleged war crimes committed since 2014, and the ICC prosecutor says its mandate extends to the current conflict.
However, it is still clear that whatever Israel is doing in Gaza, it has the backing of the US. President Joe Biden travelled to Israel on Wednesday, where he went to Israel’s war room and was given an overview of Israel’s military plans in Gaza.
“The broader story is that everything that the Israeli military is doing right now is backed by the United States,” Chappell said.
Israel Has Safer Alternatives
Experts noted that while it can be difficult to pin down violations of international law, either by Israel or the US, Israel shouldn’t even be using white phosphorus to begin with.
Roughly a decade ago, Israel said it would stop using the substance.
“After criticism from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups during the 2008-2009 war in Gaza, the Israeli government said they would phase out the use of white phosphorus munitions in 2013, and they clearly did not do so,” Chappell said.
Israel has plenty of other weapons that could be used as smokescreens, which do the same stated purpose of white phosphorus while being less harmful. One of these is hexachloroethane (HC), a compound used in many smoke grenades in militaries around the world.
“Israel has other rounds that are smoke rounds that do the same thing. They’re M150 rounds and they use HC, rather than white phosphorus. They’re less harmful to civilians in the area. They have other things, but they appear to not be using it,” Castner said.
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Featured image: hite phosphorus is a chemical substance that is used by militaries in artillery shells, bombs and rockets (AFP/File photo)
Os recentes ataques massivos de Israel à Faixa de Gaza deixam claro que o estado sionista planeia destruir completamente o local. Porém, as reais intenções parecem ser ainda mais extremas, já que, segundo um jornalista americano, o objetivo é tornar a cidade algo próximo de Hiroshima da segunda guerra mundial, mas sem o uso de armas nucleares.
O renomado repórter Seymour Hersh, citando fontes internas da IDF, compartilhou esta informação em um artigo recente em sua coluna no portal Substack. Segundo ele, as IDF não se preocupam com a vida de centenas de milhares de civis, com real intenção de bombardear Gaza até alcançar um cenário semelhante ao de Hiroshima. Com isso, não haveria necessidade de uma grande invasão terrestre, com o foco dos soldados de infantaria sendo simplesmente aniquilar os soldados do Hamas escondidos nos bunkers quando tentavam sair em busca de comida e água.
“A cidade de Gaza está em processo de ser transformada em Hiroshima sem o uso de armas nucleares (…) As bombas de fabricação americana no arsenal israelense, incluindo aquelas conhecidas como ‘destruidoras de bunkers’, podem ser direcionadas aos sistemas de túneis subterrâneos onde o Hamas fabricou as armas e conduziu o planejamento dos horríveis ataques no sul de Israel em 7 de outubro (…) Segundo os planos israelenses, não haveria necessidade de uma invasão terrestre massiva (…) [No entanto, eles] seriam necessários para caçar clandestinamente os membros do Hamas que recusam se render (…) O oficial me disse que os soldados do Hamas que emergiam dos túneis desesperados por comida eram vistos pelos israelenses como ratos famintos que seriam recebidos com comida envenenada”, ele disse.
Hersh relata que Netanyahu acredita que, seguindo este plano estratégico, será capaz de derrotar as tropas do Hamas de forma mais eficiente, evitando desgastar as IDF numa guerra prolongada de desgaste. Os custos humanitários não são um problema para o governo israelita e não há preocupação de que estas táticas possam levar à morte de centenas de milhares de civis palestinos.
Outro ponto interessante no texto de Hersh é que ele relata um excesso de confiança por parte das IDF. O jornalista cita uma fonte que afirma ter desconsiderado o apoio e conselhos americanos, dizendo que as forças israelitas estão absolutamente confiantes na sua própria capacidade de combate para resolver sozinhas o conflito palestino.
“Bibi tem tudo sob controle e nenhum israelense vai se preocupar com o destino dos cidadãos de Gaza”, disse a fonte militar anônima de Hersh.
Na verdade, além de ser absolutamente anti-humanitário, o plano israelita parece bastante errado do ponto de vista estratégico. Bombardear Gaza até atingir um cenário semelhante ao nuclear será terrível para os civis, mas terá um impacto reduzido na estratégia de guerra do Hamas e não impedirá que a milícia palestiniana desgaste as IDF num conflito assimétrico prolongado. Acreditar que os soldados do Hamas simplesmente “emergirão dos túneis desesperados por comida” e depois serão eliminados pelos israelitas parece bastante ingênuo, uma vez que o Hamas certamente já se prepara antecipadamente para evitar este tipo de situação.
Na prática, as coisas podem acontecer de forma muito diferente do esperado pelas IDF. Israel teria de usar as suas bombas anti-bunker em muitos canais simultaneamente para neutralizar os arsenais subterrâneos de armas do Hamas. E seria necessário conduzir estas operações sob fogo pesado na superfície – não apenas das milícias palestinas, mas possivelmente também dos grupos proxy do Irã afiliados ao chamado “eixo da resistência”.
Além disso, é necessário sublinhar como mais uma vez o excesso de confiança parece ser um problema para Israel. Tel Aviv está confiante na sua capacidade de derrotar o inimigo contando apenas com a sua grande capacidade tecnológica militar, sem levar em conta fatores de guerra assimétrica, como a grande resistência dos grupos guerrilheiros, ações de sabotagem e ataques surpresa. A última vez que as IDF e a inteligência israelita agiram com arrogância e excesso de confiança, o resultado foi precisamente o ataque do Hamas de 7 de Outubro, pelo que um fracasso semelhante poderia ser repetido numa invasão mal planeada de Gaza.
Na verdade, embora as forças de Tel Aviv acreditem que podem alcançar uma “solução final” para Gaza através de bombardeamentos e ataques no terreno, os especialistas militares estão cada vez mais cépticos quanto à possibilidade de uma vitória israelita no caso de uma invasão. Por exemplo, o ex-inspetor da ONU e veterano de guerra Scott Ritter comentou o caso afirmando:
“Se os israelenses entrarem em Gaza, o que farão? Serei muito franco agora: eles morrerão. Morrerão em números que os israelitas nunca viram antes (…) O Hamas está à espera deles (…) O Hamas está a atrair os israelitas para uma armadilha mortal em Gaza. E é isto que acontecerá ao exército israelita quando entrar em Gaza: será destruído.”
Parece que neste plano Israel só alcançará um dos seus objetivos: destruir Gaza, matando civis. Quanto a derrotar rapidamente o Hamas, é muito improvável que isso aconteça. As autoridades israelitas deveriam considerar seriamente a opinião dos especialistas e evitar tomar decisões que apenas gerarão mortes desnecessárias e não trarão vitórias reais.
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There has always been something impressive, if slightly idiosyncratic, about political ideas emanating from Pacific states. In recent years, on the world’s largest body of water, the various island states seeing themselves as part of the Blue Pacific have tried to identify a set of principles by which to abide, forming an understanding of the environment that threatens to submerge them. Some sixteen states and territories in the Pacific became the second grouping to establish a nuclear free zone in 1985 via the Treaty of Rarotonga, first proposed by New Zealand at the South Pacific Forum meeting in Tonga in July 1975. Since then, climate change has taken centre stage.
Given that this vast aqueous area has again become an area of great power competition, it is time for the leaders, some cheeky, a number reckless, and all open to persuasion, to come to some arrangement to neutralise such competition even as they exploit it. Sitiveni Rabuka, Fiji’s coup burnished Prime Minister, has put up his hand in this regard. As he put it in his October 17 address to the Sydney-based Lowy Institute, “For us in the Blue Pacific, history may be calling, it might be our manifest destiny to carry banners for peace and speak out for harmony in our time and forever.”
This is daringly opportunistic, as it should be. Doing so means that bulky, cloddish powers such as the United States and China may be discouraged from going to war, one that would be incalculably ruinous across the Indo- and Asia-Pacific. After all, once the missiles start flying between Beijing and Washington, notions of a tranquil Blue Pacific can be filed in the cabinet of oblivion.
In the words of Rabuka, “Rivalry between the two most powerful nations, the US and China, looks to be intensifying.” The PM could only wonder, for instance, what would happen in instances where Chinese and Filipino ships confronted each other in the South China Sea. “Will this bring the US into an encounter with China?”
Concerns were also expressed about the deteriorating state of affairs regarding Taiwan. “Tensions over Taiwan are escalating with the potential for an armed face-off, or worse.” With this in mind, “Fiji’s position was clear. We are friendly with China and the US and do not want to be caught in the struggle between the superpowers.” The leaders in the Pacific, he warned, should not be made to choose sides.
With apostolic virtue, Rabuka suggested something of a different, middling formula: an “Ocean of Peace”. Such an idea was first aired in his September address to the United Nations General Assembly, where he urged “nations to come together” in tackling a whole set of crises, from great power competition to climate change.
This contemplated “Zone”, involving the major powers and Pacific Island states, would refrain “from actions that may jeopardise regional order and stability” and maintain “respect for each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”. Such an arrangement might also have immediate, tangible benefits, such as the deployment of Fijian peacekeepers to Papua New Guinea to quell tribal conflict, or brokering peace talks between West Papua and Indonesia. “There would be a continued emphasis on the Pacific way of dialogue, diplomacy and consensus,” he explained. “Protection and conservation of the environment would be central – a positive element for more harmony and peace.”
Rabuka’s ideas on peace and order are bound to cause a snigger over the canteen meals in foreign affairs departments. This was a man not averse to leading his own disruptive actions in undermining the very things he now redemptively extols. The ABC’s eternally looking adolescent, Stephen Dziedzic, was mature enough to note the obvious fact that Rabuka, “once nicknamed ‘Rambo’ – illegally seized power in a 1987 military coup”. A gentle exoneration follows, as Rambo “has since publicly apologised for his actions, and won a tight election 10 months ago to take Fiji’s top job once again.”
On that score, Fiji’s leader has much to apologise for. His coup (technically two coups staged over a few months) ensured the overthrow of the elected government of Timoci Bavadra in May 1987. He then daringly deposed Queen Elizabeth II as Queen of Fiji the following September, despite having been made an officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1981 for showing“imagination and innovation” in confronting and restraining the activities of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation in Lebanon. (He had done so commanding the first battalion of the Fiji Infantry Regiment, which was serving with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon.)
With such a resume, Rabuka tried to be penitent to his audience. He had “repented” and was “reborn. My past cannot be removed, but I can compensate to some extent for what I did.” Along the long road of political stuttering, he “became a convinced democrat … and now this democratic politician will do what he can to be an apostle of peace.”
Rabuka, like some of his Pacific nation colleagues, continues to be an irrepressible tease in dealings with Australia, China and the United States. “We are more comfortable dealing with traditional friends that have similar systems of government, that our democracies are the same brand of democracy, coming out of the Westminster system of parliament, and also based on British law that we inherited.”
Having previously shown a glorious contempt for that system, he is perfectly placed to cash in on his continuing relationship with Canberra and, by extension, Washington, while dancing with the emissaries of Beijing. And what better way to do that than through a solution that seeks preservation rather than suicidal annihilation?
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
Featured image is licensed under the Public Domain
October 22nd, 2023 by His Excellency Carlo Maria Viganò
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“The awakening of the consciousness is the first step towards liberation from the subversive leadership that has reserved the high places in both the national and international institutions because opening one’s eyes and looking at reality is essential.
If you have to understand what is really happening, denounce the globalist coup d’etat and regain the national sovereignty and fundamental freedoms that have been taken away from you.
You have all witnessed in recent years a radical change in society; a change planned by people without any electoral mandate and imposed by sold-out rulers.
The United States of America, like many other nations hostage to the Agenda 2030, is facing a very serious crisis: inflation, an out-of-control self-induced migration crisis, human trafficking and child trafficking, rampant crime, and the weakening of law enforcement.”
Watch the video below for Archbishop Vigano’s full address.
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The past two weeks have shown how easily the western world turns its back on Palestinians in times of crisis.
What unfolded in southern Israel on 7 October was horrific. We are all against the killing of civilians. But while the West has shown solidarity with the Israeli victims, it has remained appallingly silent over – and even encouraged – the crimes being committed against Palestinians in Gaza.
Across historic Palestine, all Palestinians feel as though we are being held responsible and paying the price for Israel’s failure to maintain security along the Gaza fence. From 1948 communities to Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, we feel we are being targeted on the basis of our identity.
All we hear are western countries giving their full support to Israel, which is using this cover to commit crimes, arrest people and violate the human rights of Palestinians anywhere in the country.
I live in Jerusalem. Palestinians here do not feel safe anymore. Tensions hang heavy, even just in the way people look at each other.
When you walk the streets of Jerusalem, you don’t see people anymore. You see police and private security forces.
Increasing numbers of civilians have been carrying guns in the streets, and even in shopping malls, where some Israelis were armed with M16s. This comes after National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir decided to hand out thousands of guns and to ease the conditions for purchasing weapons.
In one case, a group of armed Israelis stopped a Palestinian man, ripped a baby seat from his car and dropped it in the street, and then searched his vehicle. The Israeli state has given them implicit permission for this type of harassment.
Trapped at Home
Many of my friends from occupied East Jerusalem no longer go to work. Some have been beaten. The army can stop you on a whim and check your mobile phone; if they find a song about Palestine or a post about Gaza, they can confiscate your device, beat you and arrest you.
It feels as though we’re living on a military base. In several locations, cement blocks have been placed at the exits of Palestinian neighbourhoods.
The stress level is extremely high. I don’t leave the house anymore, unless I have to travel to report a story. Palestinians feel as though we’ve all been deemed guilty overnight.
Armed groups of settlers and private militia forces will stop you on the streets if you look Palestinian. None of us want to leave our homes, not even to get groceries or see a doctor.
We don’t even feel safe speaking our own language anymore. Palestinian friends in the streets will speak Hebrew or English; they don’t dare to speak Arabic in public. Many people have been fired or suspended from their jobs just for showing solidarity with Gaza.
There are two million Palestinian citizens of Israel. On Tuesday, Israel’s police chief, Kobi Shabtai, had this to say:
“Anyone who wants to identify with Gaza is welcome – I’ll put them on buses that will send them there.”
We are terrified that we could be physically attacked at any time. Extremist Israelis are urging others to kill their Arab neighbours, including women, children and babies. My friends have found their photos and other details posted on social media groups that have been established to target Palestinians. It is a collective call for revenge. We cannot feel secure in this environment.
Calls for Genocide
The speed at which this fascism has spread through the country is stunning. I have always believed there is a common space where Israelis and Palestinians can come together and work towards peace. But the transformation in recent days has been overwhelming. People who once described themselves as Israeli leftists are now calling to wipe out Gaza.
It feels as though the whole state is now baying for genocide. This is the type of language we are hearing from politicians, celebrities, academics and ordinary people. Many feel that Israel is working towards a second Nakba – and the world is doing nothing to stop it. Israelis are crossing red lines and using the current situation to promote apartheid, ethnic cleansing and a second Nakba.
Across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, at least 69 Palestinians have been killed in the past 13 days. Palestinians are being attacked by settlers; the police and army do nothing to protect them. Instead, Palestinians face mass arrests if they dare to show support for Gaza.
The situation is terrifying. We are entering a new era that feels even worse than military rule.
In Gaza, more than 4,000 people have been killed in Israel’s bombardment – including more than 1,500 children – while thousands more have been injured. Gaza City has been destroyed. People are struggling to meet their basic needs: water, electricity and medical care. Pregnant mothers are in crisis. Children are being left in hospitals with no one to pick them up, because their parents have been killed.
And still, the West supports and arms Israel. We are seeing western racism in all its cruelty, as Palestinian lives are deemed inherently less valuable. The worst horror is the silence and complicity of the West in Israel’s unspeakable massacres.
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Lubna Masarwa is a journalist and Middle East Eye’s Palestine and Israel bureau chief, based in Jerusalem.