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Nuclear weapon abolitionists sounded alarm Friday in response to fresh evidence that the United States is planning to station nukes in the United Kingdom for the first time in more than 15 years, a move that opponents said would only heighten the risk of an atomic war.
The U.S. removed more than 100 nuclear bombs from Royal Air Force Lakenheath, a base in Suffolk, in 2008 following sustained protests from the U.K.-based Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and other nonproliferation advocates.
CND warned in a statement Friday that the redeployment of nukes to Lakenheath would “make Britain a guaranteed target in the event of any war between NATO and Russia.”
“We encourage both the media and the public to increase pressure on the British government to be honest about this deployment,” said Kate Hudson, CND’s general secretary.
The Telegraph reported last week that “procurement contracts for a new facility at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk confirm that the U.S. intends to place nuclear warheads three times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb at the air base.”
“The return of American weapons to the U.K. is part of a NATO-wide program to develop and upgrade nuclear sites in response to heightened tensions with the Kremlin in the wake of the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine,” the U.K. newspaper continued. “Russia has stated that the placement of U.S. weapons in Britain would be viewed by Moscow as an ‘escalation’ and would be met with ‘compensating counter-measures.'”
CND said Friday it has “strongly suspected” that the Lakenheath base was being prepped for the return of U.S. nukes for nearly two years. Last August, Matt Korda and Hans Kristensen of the Nuclear Information Project highlighted U.S. Air Force budget documents for fiscal year 2024 that “strongly imply” the Biden administration is moving toward reestablishing American nuclear presence in the U.K.
As the pair explained:
The Air Force’s FY 2024 budgetary justification package, dated March 2023, notes the planned construction of a “surety dormitory” at RAF Lakenheath, approximately 100 kilometers northeast of London. The “surety dormitory” was also briefly mentioned in the Department of Defense’s testimony to Congress in March 2023, but with no accompanying explanation. “Surety” is a term commonly used within the Department of Defense and Department of Energy to refer to the capability to keep nuclear weapons safe, secure, and under positive control…
Construction of the facility is scheduled to begin in June 2024 and end in February 2026.
CND said it has questioned the U.K.’s Defense Ministry and local officials about the “lawfulness of the planning rights used to allow the building of the surety dormitory.”
“The Lakenheath upgrades form part of a wider effort to upgrade U.S./NATO nuclear infrastructure across Europe, which has preceded—and likely provoked—Russia’s deployment of its own nuclear weapons to Belarus,” the group said. “Despite this, neither the U.S. nor U.K. government have given information to the public about this deployment.”
Hudson argued that “far from making us safer, this deployment has escalated the dangers, brought Russian nukes to Europe, and made us a nuclear target.”
“It’s shameful that our government continues to take us for fools on this serious matter,” said Hudson. “They are refusing to give us crucial information about our security.”
[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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Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.
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It was a struggle to see how a child’s welfare was relevant in the latest, shrill debates about technology taking place on The Hill. The Senate Judiciary Committee and the leaders of social media companies were on show to thrash out matters on technology and their threats on January 31 in a hearing titled “Big Tech and the Online Child Exploitation Crisis.” The companies present: X Corp, represented by Linda Yaccarino; TikTok Inc, fronted by Shou Chew; Snap Inc, by Evan Spiegel; Meta and Mark Zuckerberg; and Jason Citron of Discord Inc.
Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) got the ghoulish proceedings underway with a video featuring victims and survivors. “I was sexually exploited on Facebook,” declares one. “I was sexually exploited on Instagram,” comes another. “I was sexually exploited on X.” And so forth.
Exploitation leads to distress and worse.
“The child that … gets exploited is never the same again,” says a parent.
One lost their son to suicide after being exploited on Facebook. Then, the failings of indifferent Big Tech operatives are carted out. “How many more kids will suffer and die because of social media?” goes the tune. “We need Congress to do something for our children and protect them.”
This supplied Durbin the ideal, moralistic (and moralising) springboard. And nothing excites those in Congress more than a moral crisis from which much mischief can be made. There was, he solemnly declared, a “sexual exploitation is a crisis in America.” In the decade from 2013 to 2023, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) had received and increase from 1,380 cyber tips per day to 100,000 daily reports. The modern smartphone has become a hellish conduit of exploitation. “Discord has been used to groom, abduct and abuse children. Meta’s Instagram helped connect and promote a network of paedophiles. Snapchat’s disappearing messages have been co-opted by criminals who financially extort young victims. TikTok has become a ‘platform of choice’ for predators to access, engage, and groom children for abuse”.
From the Republican side, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham saw social media companies in their current design and operation as
“dangerous products. They’re destroying lives, threatening democracy itself. These companies must be reined in or the worst is yet to come.”
The senators were ploughing familiar ground: the corrosion of mental health including instances of self-harm and suicide, the role of social media in perpetrating a number of crimes (drug dealing, sextortion) and the blissful digital heavens such companies have created for any number of unsavoury cults, ideologies and inclinations.
What, then, of it? For one thing, Zuckerberg, who was making his eighth appearance at such a hearing, was hardly going to offer anything constructive – at least in a binding sense. In the month just passed, internal Meta documents revealed a number of concerns from employees that the company’s messaging apps had featured in various instances of child exploitation. Little was done about it, which was precisely to be expected.
As a useful whipping boy of Congressional outrage, Meta’s CEO provided the perfect platform for senatorial outrage. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) could spice the airwaves (and the global social media universe) with his righteous display:
“There’s families of victims here today. Have you apologised to the victims? Would you like to do so now?”
Zuckerberg, reminded that he was on national television, did the performing seal act, turning around and facing the audience. A number of photos of deceased children were helpfully offered to torment the guilty soul. “I’m sorry,” Zuckerberg responded. “Everything that you all have gone through, it’s terrible. No one should have to go through the things that your families have suffered and this is why we invest so much and are going to continue doing industry leading efforts to make sure that no one has to go through the types of things your families have had to suffer.”
It was a fantastically bloodless response, filled with the usual Big Tech baubles: industry standards would be met, innovations would be made, investments would follow, and new products of sterling safety engineered. As Zuckerberg went on to explain to Hawley,
“I view my job and the job of our company is building the best tools that we can keep our community safe.”
But the model as to how such companies extract, use, and monetise information – surveillance capitalism – is left untouched. Hawley’s cosmetic suggestion is to create a compensation fund for victims; the social media business model can continue to operate untrammelled because no member of Congress wants to be tarnished with the anti-corporation brush. Money always comes first.
Another great threat was also being teased out in the combative questions posed to the social media CEOs. Their companies have produced hideous, wounding and in some cases lethal products, all of which continue being used by billions, including haranguing, morally indignant politicians and unsuspecting children. But Congress also showed why it is also a problem to the very people it claims to be protecting.
The form this takes is the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), a co-sponsored initiative from Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). KOSA ostensibly deals with child safety, intended to empower the attorney general of every state, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to file lawsuits against apps or websites for failing to “prevent or mitigate” the various harms that supposedly affect children. Its effect, far from protecting children, will be something quite different, elevating the “duty of care” principle to scrub content that might cause “anxiety”, “depression” and any other number of undesirable behaviours.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation describes KOSA as a censorship bill. And it is easy to see why, with any item of information or news shared susceptible to being banned or modified for causing distress to children. “Ultimately,” writes the EFF’s Jason Kelley, “no amendment will change the basic fact that KOSA’s duty of care turns what is meant to be a bill about child safety into a censorship bill that will harm the rights of both adult and minor uses.”
Fight for the Future Director Evan Greer was also deeply unimpressed, tellingTechCrunch that, “Dozens of human rights, civil liberties, LGBTQ+ and racial justice groups oppose the reckless legislation being proposed at today’s hearing.”
In an attempt to stream roll the CEOs into supporting the bill, Senator Blumenthal asked where they stood on its merits. Spiegel and Yaccarino expressed support for KOSA. Those from TikTok, Meta and Discord dithered and expressed reservations. Citron was diplomatic. “We very much think that a national privacy standard would be great.” Chew noted that “some groups have raised some concerns”. Zuckerberg blandly stated that, “These are nuanced things.”
The hearing of January 31 ended with an open conspiracy against genuine change in the social media ecosystem. Instead of focusing on privacy and surveillance capitalism, the senators were more interested in the regulation of outrage over undesirable content. Instead of considering genuine reform, the CEOs made non-binding promises about cosmetic adjustments and fictional industry standards. Along the way, the children were well and truly forgotten.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected]
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This year represents the 98th anniversary of the launching of “Negro History Week” in 1926, later named Black History Month in 1976, after the federal government issued a proclamation in recognition of the contributions of African American people under the administration of President Gerald R. Ford.
The commemoration was founded by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, a pioneering scholar and public intellectual who founded the Journal of Negro History in 1915 and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History the following year, 1916.
Woodson’s origins within the African American working class is a demonstration of the determination to seek formal education in the aftermath of the Civil War and Reconstruction in the South and other regions of the United States. Although Woodson came from humble beginnings and worked as a coal miner in West Virginia, he was able to put himself through High school, college and was eventually awarded a doctoral degree in history from Harvard University.
After teaching high school and college in Washington, D.C., Woodson became an independent scholar establishing the aforementioned journal, historical association and week of activities related to the achievements of African Americans and people of African descent. He established a headquarters in the nation’s capital while traveling extensively to deliver lectures in churches, community centers, schools and colleges.
Although the historical studies of African enslavement, rebellions, the Civil War, Reconstruction and the Jim Crow eras were dominated by Southern segregationists and their sympathizers, an entirely different approach to these periods in history were soon advanced by African American and African Caribbean researchers and writers. Woodson was representative of a cadre of scholars which focused on the necessity of reversing institutional racism and national oppression in the U.S. and other geopolitical regions of the world.
The Haitian Revolution and Its Significance: Contributions of T.G. Steward
Between 1791-1804, the African population of Haiti rose up in a revolutionary war to end enslavement and declare themselves as an independent republic. These developments on this Caribbean island-nation known as Hispaniola struck fear in the slavocracy within other areas throughout the Antilles along with South and North America.
Image: T.G. Steward
In the first volume and issue of the Journal of Negro History founded by Woodson, there was a book review of a study published by Theophilus Gould Steward (1843-1924) in 1914 entitled “The Haitian Revolution, 1791 to 1804”. The review was written by Jessie Redmond Fauset, African American woman editor and literary figure, who says that:
“Although most of the book is naturally concerned with the revolutionary period, the author brings his account up to date by giving a very brief resume of the history of Haiti from 1804 to the present time (1915). This history is marked by the frequent occurrence of assassinations and revolutions, but the reader will not allow himself to be affected by disgust or prejudiced at these facts particularly when he is reminded, as Mr. Steward says, ‘that the political history of Haiti does not differ greatly from that of the majority of South American republics, nor does it differ widely even from that of France.’”
Steward was born in Bridgeton, New Jersey in 1843. He was educated and later entered the ministry in 1864 and traveled to South Carolina in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War where under the direction of African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) Bishop Daniel Payne, he worked to establish AME churches in South Carolina and Georgia. During the period from 1882-1891 Steward conducted missionary work in Haiti.
By 1891 he had entered the U.S. military as one of the few African Americans in the officer corps. He would serve in the 25th Infantry Regiment working as a military chaplain and educator. Steward also held several posts in the Western U.S. and the Philippines.
He retired in 1907 at the age of 64. After touring Europe with his second wife, Dr. Susan McKinney, a pioneering African American physician, author and professor. Later Steward and McKinney-Steward would settle in Ohio where they worked at Wilberforce University.
The work of the Stewards was instrumental in providing education and medical care to African Americans only one and two generations removed from enslavement. Their interests in the developments of Haiti were a clear reflection of the international and Pan-African outlooks of many during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Anna Julia Cooper on the Haitian Revolution and Pan-Africanism
Born during 1858 in Raleigh, North Carolina, Anna Julia Cooper, became an advocate for the education of African American women, equal rights for women and the unity of African people around the world. She was a participant in the 1893 Chicago Congress of Representative Women as well as the 1900 Pan-African Conference held in London.
Despite widespread institutional racism and sexism, Cooper was able to earn her bachelor’s degree (St. Augustine College), masters (Oberlin College) and a Ph.D. from the Sorbonne in Paris. Her dissertation defended in 1925 in France was later translated, published and entitled “Slavery and the French Revolutionists”.
One source on the significance of Cooper’s writing on the Haitian Revolution noted that:
“In her 1925 doctoral dissertation at the University of Paris, African American scholar Anna Julia Cooper (1858-1964) examined the relations between the 18th century revolutionists in Paris and the representatives and inhabitants of the richest French colony, San Domingue. She argued that the legalized slave trade became a critical issue in the struggle over the rights of man during the French Revolution and that when the revolutionists of Paris deflected the question of slavery in San Domingue, the people of France lost the opportunity to escalate their liberty and their equality. Cooper insisted that to understand the French Revolution and its repercussions, it is necessary to add the dimension of race. Historian Frances R. Keller has made this unique work available in English. Through her interpretive essays, Keller places Cooper’s dissertation in the context of her life and scholarship. Keller also provides an essential historical look at the international events that led up to the bloody revolutions in France and Haiti.”
Cooper’s scholarly and political work has gained greater recognition over the last decade. She lived to be 105 years-old, making her transition in 1964, after serving many years as an adult educator in Washington, D.C. committed to the literacy and professional training of the African American people. Her book entitled “A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South”, published in 1892, has been hailed in recent years as a major contribution to African American Feminist Thought. (See this)
CLR James with Stokely Carmichael and Walter Rodney
Cyril Lionel Robert James was born in 1901 in the Caribbean island-nation of Trinidad and Tobago. During his upbringing he developed a keen interest in literature, political theory and historical studies.
James migrated to Britain during the early 1930s where he became involved in the socialist movement. Later he joined Leon Trotsky in efforts to build an alternative to the post-1924 events in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) under the leadership of Joseph Stalin.
After the October 1935 invasion of Abyssinia by the Italian fascist government of Benito Mussolini, James worked with his childhood friend from Trinidad, Malcolm Nurse, then known as George Padmore, where they built political opposition to the occupation of this Horn of Africa state. By 1935, Padmore had broken with the Communist International over ideological differences. However, along with James, they remained committed socialists.
In 1937-38 while in London, James published three books: “A History of Negro Revolt”, “World Revolution from 1917-1936” and “Black Jacobins”, a study on the Haitian Revolution. Perhaps his best-known work, Black Jacobins, prefigured the national liberation movements which emerged full-blown after the conclusion of World War II. (See this)
James remained active after traveling and living in the U.S. between 1938-1953. After his deportation in the early 1950s, his influence grew during the 1960s and 1970s. He would later return and teach at several universities in the U.S. advancing his theories on Pan-Africanism and World Revolution.
Although James distanced himself from Trotskyism during the late 1940s and early 1950s, he maintained that the political parties and popular movements which led the independence efforts in Africa, Asia and Latin America from the 1940s to the 1970s confirmed his ideas on the central role of mass struggles in the transformation of international affairs. James eventually returned to Britain in the 1980s where he died in London in 1989 at the age of 88.
The work of these African American and African Caribbean scholar-activists involving Haiti illustrates the central role of resistance within the historical trajectory of the world. Their independent research and reinterpretation of the periods of enslavement and colonialism provide a working alternative to the ideas advanced by imperialism which justifies its existence as an exploitative and oppressive system.
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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
All images in this article are from the author; featured image: Jessie Redmond Fauset
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Today, February 2, 2024, the US Labor Department released its monthly jobs report for January. One of the Department’s two surveys showed +353,000 jobs created in January. But a second report shows a drop in total employment in January of -1,070,000 full time and part time jobs (and an additional -400,000 jobs if one includes unincorporated independent contractors jobs). So, like the Bible, one can find whatever one wants in the government job stats.
So why the discrepancies between the two surveys in the monthly jobs report?
Jobs
One reason is that the two surveys have big differences in their methodologies (and underlying assumptions).
The Current Establishment Survey (which is not really a survey), or CES, is a compilation of reports provided by around 400,000 large businesses to the labor department. Even so, apparently those large corporations have been reducing their participation in the reporting. So maybe half that send in their reports on their hiring, layoffs, etc. to the government.
The second survey, the Current Population Survey, or CPS, is a true survey conducted by the labor department monthly. It actually surveys but mostly smaller businesses. It has a different methodology than the CES and different assumptions.
If one uses the CES it appears (and the Biden administration claims) 3.1m jobs were ‘created’ in all of 2023. But the CPS survey shows only 820,000 (again, counting full time, part time, and unincorporated independent contract workers).
Part of the problem may be that the CES doesn’t count NET job creation, just new jobs while the CPS looks at the total level of employment from period (Jan) to period (Jan). The latter makes more sense. Doesn’t one want to determine what the net gain in jobs was over the year? Jobs gained minus jobs lost? And isn’t a survey that considers the millions of smaller companies perhaps more accurate than a partial census with declining participation by bigger corporations? There’s a bifurcated US economy out there. Big businesses may be doing ok; but smaller businesses generally aren’t.
Then there’s the matter of the unemployment rate monthly reporting. Here we keep getting a monthly unemployment rate of 3.7% (for the last three months). But that 3.7% is what is called the U-3 unemployment rate. That rate, unfortunately, is for full time workers only! The US civilian labor force is about 167 million. Maybe 40-50m of that total labor force is part time workers, temps, gig workers (grossly underestimate btw), independent contractors (who are actually workers not small businesses), etc.
And if one looks at the CPS survey again, there’s a statistic called the U-6 unemployment rate. That’s at 8%, not 3.7%, in the January jobs report.
The U-3 concludes only 6m workers are unemployed; the U-6 estimates almost 14m are unemployed.
The mainstream US media likes to hype and report the 353,000 January and 3.1m 2023 jobs, and the 3.7% unemployment rate and 6.1m jobless. You’ll see that published virtually everywhere. But elsewhere in the same government stats there’s the -1,070,000 January and 820,000 2023 jobs and the 8% unemployment rate and the 14m jobless.
It all comes down to what population you’re dealing with, what kind of survey you’re using (or not) and what are the scores of underlying assumptions (typically not noted in the reports) that are being employed in the methodologies chosen.
For example, when estimating U-3 jobs the government takes the raw data on jobs in monthly big business report (CES) then adds a separate set of raw jobs data from what it considers net new businesses created. These two datasets are merged (with certain assumptions about how many jobs on average are associated with a new business when it is created). It combines the two datasets, does a number of operations & manipulations on the raw data, including (but not limited to) seasonality adjustments, and comes up with the 353,000 reported, for example. But that 353,000 is a statistic, a manipulation and transformation of the actual raw data on jobs. Statistics are estimations of the actual data, not the actual number of jobs created in January. But this approach integrating new business formation job creation with the monthly large businesses reporting on jobs has certain real problems:
First of all, it is impossible to estimate net new business development. Why? There’s data on when a new business has formed. It must report formation to its respective state. But businesses rarely report anything when they go out of business. They simply go away. So the government plugs in a number based on historical trends for the number of businesses failing each month, subtracts that from the number newly started, and that’s the new business formation jobs total it then adds to the big businesses reports to the labor department. In other word, the ‘net’ is half made up, a plugged in number! Worse still, the ‘net’ supposedly jobs number is lagged at least six months from the current big business raw jobs number reported. So one’s estimating jobs ‘created’ six months ago and mixing it with current jobs reported.
Not only is this mixing apples and oranges but oranges and potatoes since the latter is not really a fruit.
Wages and Salaries
There are similar issues when the government says wages have risen 4.5% over the past year: that 4.5% is for full time workers only. Moreover, it includes ‘wages’ (salaries) of the highly paid occupations, including managers and even CEOs salaries. The fact is these occupations at the top end of the ‘wage structure’ get wage raises much higher than 4.5%. So the 4.5% average is skewed to the top end. And that means workers at the median are likely getting less than 4.5%. Those below median even lower, unless they were at minimum wage and living in one of the States that raised minimum wages recently. If not, and living in the two dozen or so stuck with the federal minimum wage of $7.25 for nine+ years now, they got 0% raise.
In other words, reporting 4.5% is an average and that distorts reality.
There’s also the problem of what is the real take home pay wage and salary. The 4.5% is reported as adjusted for inflation. But what if the adjustment is, once again, only for full time workers, which is the case for the oft-reported 4.5%. Even more important, what if the inflation adjustment is ‘low-balled’? The CPI price index latest results showed inflation of 4% for ‘all items’. That would suggest an average real wage gain of 0.5% last year. But has it been 4%. (Or the even lower 3.4% for the other price index, the PCE)? There are a whole set of other issues associated with the under-estimation of inflation–and thus overestimation of the 4.5% wage gain. That would require a separate article to fully consider and explain. To make it brief, this writer believes the corrected CPI is at least 6%, not 4%. If so, the real wage gain of 4.5% is actually a real wage decline of at least -2% last year.
When one looks at the overall growth of the economy year to year, or quarter to quarter, as measured by the Gross Domestic Product, GDP, another entire set of issues also arise. The official preliminary first GDP report released a week ago indicated GDP in 2023 rose by 2.5%.
GDP vs. GDI
Without considering all the issues why GDP is also over estimated even at 2.5% (another article perhaps), here’s just one: GDP measures the total market value of all the goods and services produced and sold in a given year (or quarter). That total production results in a corresponding total income generated.
After all, if a product or service is sold (the definition), then it produces a revenue which gets distributed among various sources of income: profits, wages, etc. The gross income created from the gross production should be more or less equivalent. But the gross income for 2023 (called Gross Domestic Income, or GDI) was only 1.5% while the Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, was 2.5%! So where did the other 1% go? Either GDI is underestimated or GDP is overestimated, or both. Whatever, the media likes only to report GDP but it seems what ends up in people’s pockets (GDI) is more important.
The preceding is just an overview of some of the real issues behind US statistics on jobs, unemployment, wages or even the economy’s growth in general that get glossed over or even ignored by the media and especially politicians. There’s a lot of ‘cherry picking’ of the statistics going on.
Perhaps that’s why in part the media, pundits and politicians keep scratching their heads recently, lamenting on why the American public doesn’t get it that ‘the economy’s doing really good’.
Maybe, just maybe, John Q. Public is experiencing a different set of statistics (and raw data facts) about the condition of the US economy.
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Dr. Rasmus is author of the books, ‘Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes’, Clarity Press, 2017 and ‘Alexander Hamilton and the Origins of the Fed’, Lexington Books, 2020. Follow his commentary on the emerging banking crisis on his blog, https://jackrasmus.com; on twitter daily @drjackrasmus; and his weekly radio show, Alternative Visions on the Progressive Radio Network every Friday at 2pm eastern and at https://alternativevisions.podbean.com.
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1. Climate Change is not caused by CO2 emissions or methane from livestock, such as cows. These are not the dominant factors in climate change.
In an article I initially published in February 2023 titled ‘1500 Scientists Say “Climate Change Not Due to CO2” – The Real Environment Movement Was Hijacked I provided evidences and testimonies from renowned international climate scientists that contradict the UN assertion that climate change is caused by CO2 emissions or methane. I also referred to the conclusion of 1500 climate scientists and climate professionals at the Climate Intelligence Foundation (CLINTEL) that the climate changes naturally and slowly in its own cycle, and that solar activity is the dominant factor in climate; and that CO2 emissions or methane from livestock, such as cows, are not the dominant factors in climate change. The number of signatories of this CLINTEL World Climate Declaration has now risen to 1860. This subject is comprehensively detailed in the books Transcending the Climate Change Deception Toward Real Sustainability and in the book Climate CO2 Hoax.
The conclusions of the Climate Intelligence foundation include the following:
“There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm. Natural as well as anthropogenic factors cause warming… Warming is far slower than predicted… Climate policy relies on inadequate models… CO2 is plant food, the basis of all life on Earth: CO2 is not a pollutant. It is essential to all life on Earth. Photosynthesis is a blessing. More CO2 is beneficial for nature, greening the Earth: additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also good for agriculture, increasing the yields of crops worldwide.”
Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, and President of Greenpeace in Canada for seven years, states:
“the whole climate crisis is not only fake news its fake science… of course climate change is real it’s been happening since the beginning of time, but it’s not dangerous and it’s not caused by people… Most of the scientists who are saying it’s a crisis are on perpetual government grants.
I was one of the (Greenpeace) founders… by the mid-80s… we were hijacked by the extreme left who basically took Greenpeace from a science-based organisation to an organisation based on sensationalism, misinformation and fear… you don’t have a plan to feed 8 billion people without fossils fuels or get the food into the cities…” – Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace
The United Nations and the globalist Davos World Economic Forum is declaring the necessity of reaching a worldwide goal of “net zero carbon” by 2050. Transformations underway worldwide, to countless economies – setting the stage for creation of what in the 1970’s was called the New International Economic Order.In reality it is a blueprint for worldwide technocratic totalitarian corporate-communism. The EU, a political project of globalists from its very inception, is leading this nonsensical sinister agenda and plans become the world’s first “carbon neutral” continent by 2050 and reduce its CO2 emissions by at least 55% by 2030.
With a virtual monopoly on mainstream media as well as social media, the ‘climate change is caused by CO2 lobby has brainwashed the world into believing that we should eliminate hydrocarbons including petroleum, natural gas, coal and even the “carbon free” nuclear electricity by 2050, that we hopefully might avoid a 1.5 to 2 degree Centigrade rise in average world temperature. The problem with this is it is cover for a diabolical ulterior agenda.
Now the fear narrative has gotten so ridiculous that every freak weather event is treated as “climate crisis.” However, the entire rationale for the transition to energy sources, such as solar or wind, is their claim that C02 is a greenhouse gas that goes up to the atmosphere supposedly warming the Earth below.However, the reality is that CO2 cannot soar up into the atmosphere. CO2(Carbon dioxide) is not carbon or soot. It is an invisible, odorless gas essential to plant photosynthesis and all life forms on earth, including us.
“CO2 has a molecular weight of just over 44 while air (mainly oxygen and nitrogen) has a molecular weight of only 29. The specific gravity of CO2 is some 1.5 times greater than air. That would suggest that CO2 exhaust gases from vehicles or power plants do not rise into the atmosphere some 12 miles or more above Earth to form the feared greenhouse effect.” – F. William Engdahl, Author and Strategic Risk Consultant
The myth of manmade climate change due to CO2 emissions has become so normalised amongst all political parties worldwide and in the general population, that at times it seems as if one is living in an entire society ‘blind to the truth’. Images of the apocalyptic movie and book ‘Day of the Triffids’ springs to mind. In this book almost the entire population of the Earth has become physically blinded. In 2023, here we are living through a society that has largely become ‘mentally blinded’ to the truth.
What can be done? You cannot wake up a man that pretends to be asleep and you cannot make a blind man see. The unfortunate reality is that the blind are leading the blind; and the politicians and leaders whatever their political colour, green or otherwise, rarely rock the boat of the ‘institutional orthodoxy’ or relinquish their bloated government salaries, regardless of whether they are aware of the truth or not.
2. The current green energy/renewable technologies being promoted by the UN and WEF, are not a viable solution for the world’s energy supply.
Most ‘green policies’ are based on mathematical madness.The current green energy/renewable technologies being promoted by the UN and WEF, are not a viable solution for the world’s energy supply. Although these technologies have some limited viability in certain locations and scenarios, the fact remains that the Energy Returned on Energy Invested is much too low – in essence the entire process is mathematically flawed.
This is evidenced by the work of scientists, including Professor David MacKay, former Regius Professor of Engineering at Cambridge University and former Chief Scientific Advisor at the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change in his book Sustainable Energy without Hot Air[1]. His analysis shows the mathematical absurdity of wind energy and that an area twice the size of the entire country of Wales would need to be completely covered with wind turbines to meet the energy demand in the U.K., based on average energy consumption per person. The creation of wind energy infrastructure is in most parts of the world a massive waste of existing fossil fuel resources.
Let us consider the example of Germany as detailed in an article by strategic risk consultant F. William Engdahl[2]. In Germany, Angela Merkel and the German government as part of a 2001 government strategy to rely on solar and wind and other “renewables” aimed to make Germany the first industrial nation to be “carbon neutral.” F. William Engdahl described that:
this strategy has been an economic catastrophe. Germany had one of the industrial world’s most stable low-cost and reliable electric generation grids, but today Germany has become the world’s most expensive electric generator.
the energy inefficient wind and solar, today costs some 7 to 9 times more than gas. To reach targets by 2030 Deutsche Bank even admitted the state will need to create an “eco-dictatorship”[3].
by 2025 an estimated 25% of existing German windmills will need replacement and waste disposal is a colossal problem
Furthermore, a massive input of concrete and aluminum is needed to produce solar or wind farms, all of which requires cheap energy to produce; but solar and wind is not cheap it is very expensive. Consider also that the amount of added electricity needed for a ‘zero carbon’ EU by 2050 would be far more than today, as countless millions of battery chargers will need grid electricity with reliable power.
3. Driving an electric car is fake environmentalism – Elon Musk debunked
The Green Party and electric vehicle (EV) drivers are suckers for mega-corporate advertising, ignorantly proud of so-called low-carbon eco-cars. Apparently, unaware that the manufacture of millions of EV batteries, requires huge mining operations to acquire and refine large quantities of rare earth metals, such as lithium, rhodium and cobalt; that these metals have to be mined out of the ground using machinery which is powered by carbon-emitting vehicles powered by diesel or petrol; and importantly, that the mining and refining processes can cause significant and extensive pollution to land, air and water systems, for example in rural China and Mongolia[4]. Unlike the fake climate agenda, these are real environmental problems.
Have these deluded green politicians considered what would be the environmental consequence of transitioning the entire world population to EVs, for example, for a population of 8 billion to be using about 2 billion EVs, at around 1 per family? The real pollution to land and water systems from the mining of rare earth metals, such as lithium, for EV batteries would be massive. For example see a picture of toxic lithium leach fields in Chile in my recent article Driving an electric car is fake environmentalism – Elon Musk debunked.
Furthermore, the push to end gasoline or diesel transport by 2035 in favor of EVs is based on a lie as the lithium-ion battery-powered vehicles have a total “carbon footprint” when the effects of mining lithium and producing all parts are included, that is worse than diesel autos. The deluded greens are trying to get us all driving EVs, but EVS are still driven by electricity produced from fossil fuels and will most likely continue to be. Furthermore, EVs are not at all an efficient use of energy as the well to tank efficiency of this electrification process has been estimated at around only 37%!
There appears to be a growing realisation amongst people worldwide that electric transport is something of a ‘road to nowhere’. For example, I note the following video from Ireland criticising the country’s Green Party Minister for Transport:
4. The ‘green sheep’ are concerned with fitting in with the ‘accepted’ UN Climate and Sustainable Development narrative
The idiocy of the Green Party position on climate boggles the mind. Intelligent persons and real environmentalists know by now that climate change is NOT caused by CO2 emissions or methane from livestock, such as cows, see this article. Thus, the majority of Green Party policies, seemingly worldwide, are based on a lie and are complete nonsense. A generation of young people and deluded CO2 activists have been misled like sheep. Most individuals are smart, or at least have some capacity for intelligent discussion – I like talking with individuals. However, ‘group politics’ and ‘group think’ turns people into dumb animals – like sheep.
The ‘green sheep’ are concerned with fitting in with the ‘accepted climate change narrative’ and with saying things that can be approved of by people in their immediate surroundings and peer group. Thus, they let their ego and how they appear to others in their peer group rule their lives. Such concerns take away from the attainment of knowledge and deeper meaning. Which is better? Conveying an image to everyone around you, or being a genuine person openminded enough to consider the research and testimony of the almost 2,000 scientists and academics that refute the UN climate narrative as described in my book Climate CO2 Hoax.
Unfortunately, these days all debate of the UN narrative that ‘climate change is caused the gases C02 and methane’ is literally shut down in green politics, and in most political settings. The green sheep say there is no longer any room for debate and absorb their bogus climate knowledge from the green-painted institutions of the UN, an unelected organisation originally created and funded by the Rothschild and Rockefeller banking dynasties. Mega-banking dynasties that are the very harbingers of environmentally destructive corporate globalisation that you might think a real environmentalist would be opposed to.
5. The Green Party claims to be an environmental political party, but bizarrely supports the policies of international mega-banks and international institutions, such as the UN and the WEF, that drive environmentally destructive ‘globalisation painted green”.
Green politics is fake environmentalism. The Green Party appear to be brainwashed by decades of UN-promote propaganda; and appear to be unaware that the real environmental movement was essentially ‘hijacked’ by the Rothschild banking dynasty in 1992 at the UN Earth summit. This is detailed and evidenced in a recent article I wrote[5]. The article includes a video of the testimony of whistleblower George Hunt – this video testimony can be viewed (currently) on the internet[6].
In addition, the Greens, and seemingly most political parties these days, are championing the deceptive UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). I comprehensively decoded and dismantled the true meaning of the deceptive SDGs in this article and in the book CO2 Climate Hoax – How Bankers Hijacked the Real Environment Movement.
My research indicates the green political parties founded in many countries in the early 1980s were often focused on policies for ecology, food security, local resilience, and local governance. However, nowadays this focus on local sustainability appears to have been largely displaced. In modern times the various Green Party’s in respective countries worldwide, appear to be generally aligned with the globalist policies of the institutional powers of the EU and the UN for at least the past 10 to 15 years. However, despite the green facade they have adopted, the institutions of the EU and the UN are actually bastions of environmentally destructive globalisation. The green localists have been gradually displaced or replaced by brainwashed green globalists.
Industrial globalisation itself, and the debt-money system at the root of it, has been the main culprit for decades of real environmental destruction and pollution to land, air and water systems. Yet the green politicians who are supposed to be concerned for the environment have aligned themselves with the institutions and agendas of those same forces of environmentally destructive globalisation – the only difference only its ‘globalisation painted green’.
It appears that the green politicians are either too brainwashed by UN climate propaganda, simply too stupid to notice this, or too fond of their large salaries as elected members of parliament to care.
It should be noted that it is the world’s central bankers that are behind the decision to reduce CO2 emissions worldwide and are entirely funding and controlling the advancement of the worldwide project of combatting man-made climate-change. This project involves an attempt to de-carbonise the activities of the entire world population. In December 2015, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) created the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD), which represents $118 trillion of assets globally[7]. In essence this means that the financialization of the entire world economy is based on meeting nonsensical aims such as “net-zero greenhouse gas emissions”. The TCFD includes key people from the world’s mega-banks and asset management companies, including JP Morgan Chase; BlackRock; Barclays Bank; HSBC; China’s ICBC bank; Tata Steel, ENI oil, Dow Chemical, and more.
The fact that the world’s largest banks and asset management corporations, including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, the UN, the World Bank, the Bank of England and other central banks of the BIS, have all linked to push a vague, mathematically nonsensical ‘green’ economy, is no coincidence. There is another agenda at play that has nothing to do with environmentalism. The green economy along with UN Agenda 2030 is an agenda of world control, and will also develop trillions of dollars for the behind-the-scenes mega-banks. When the world largest banks, corporations, and institutions, all align to push a climate change agenda that has zero evidence, one can see there is another major agenda going on behind the scenes.
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Mark Gerard Keenan, is a former scientist at the UK Government Dept. of Energy and Climate Change, and at the United Nations Environment Division. He is author of the following books:
[1]The book “Sustainable Energy without Hot Air” by Professor David MacKay, Regius Professor of Engineering at Cambridge University and former Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change, is available for free at: https://withouthotair.com/
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How much persecution and human cruelty Palestinians have suffered for generations — for the inalienable right to life…
Since Israel’s establishment through the ethnic cleansing and massacre of Palestinians from Palestine — persisting in its massacre, mass expulsion, abduction, torture and terror of indigenous Palestinians?
The theft of land, life and human rights…
Israel’s unconscionable slaughter of 13,000 children, extermination of 30,000 civilians, destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system as it wounds 60,000 and mass starvation of 2.3 million, part of what it’s been committing on Palestinian life for decades – continuing its ongoing genocide now on hyperdrive…
Palestinians massacred and held hostage in the hundreds of thousands, terrorized in the millions under illegal siege, violent occupation and vicious apartheid…
A person’s stance on Palestine says everything about their moral compass.
You are either for or against genocide.
For or against ethnic cleansing.
For or against violent illegal occupation and vicious apartheid.
For or against systems of supremacy – the persecution of human life, the denial of millions of people their life, freedom, and fundamental human rights.
There is no middle ground.
It’s not complicated, in the same way the Holocaust is not complicated.
Slavery or Apartheid are not complicated. But they persisted because of those who didn’t see.
There’s a horrific persecution and oppression that has lasted for 8 decades. An oppressor and an oppressed.
It’s impossible for human beings of conscience or morals to know the truth on Palestine and to uphold this for human life.
It goes against all law, morality and our very humanity.
What we condemn in history and in every other context, what’s been committed on Palestinian life for decades… As with all systems built on human persecution and oppression, this will not survive.
All the inhumanity in the world in this, Palestine is fighting for all of our humanity and for all the world’s justice.
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Featured image: The UN says nearly 1.9 million people have now been displaced in Gaza. [AbdelHakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]
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UNICEF on Friday said that amid the dead from daily attacks in Gaza and the fog of war, tens of thousands of minors are unaccompanied or separated from their families.
“Our estimates indicate that 17,000 children in Gaza are unaccompanied or separated from their families,” Jonathan Crickx, UNICEF’s top spokesman in the state of Palestine, told a UN briefing in Geneva.
“These children have nothing to do with this conflict yet they are suffering,” Crickx stressed.
He also underlined that after nearly four months of relentless attacks, all the children in the enclave are believed to need mental health support.
500,000 Children Need Mental Help
Before the war began on October 7, half a million children were already in need of mental help but today all of them, more than 1 million children, need mental support, he added.
Israel last October launched a deadly attack on Gaza, to date killing at least 27,019 Palestinians and injuring 66,139. It followed an attack by Palestinian group Hamas in which 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed.
The Israeli onslaught has left 85 percent of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60 percent of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
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Featured image: Families have been forced to moved repeatedly in Gaza. UN United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
On Monday February 5 2024, we commemorate Padre Miguel d’Escoto, a powerful voice, whose Legacy will live forever.
In 2020, the Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN) established the Miguel d’Escoto Brockman Centre of Development Studies (CEDMEB).
The following article by Carla Stea, Global Research’s Correspondent at United Nations Headquarters in New York recounts her meeting with Padre Miguel upon his accession to the presidency of the UN General Assembly in September 2009. The following article was first published in May 2010.
Padre Miguel understood the evolution of the UN System as well as the hegemonic role exerted by Washington.
With foresight, Padre Miguel examined the future of the UN system and put forth concrete proposals to sustain the Spirit of the UN system, based on solidarity and internationalism. May his Legacy Live Forever.
Today, the UN system is in the process of being privatized in the context of a bilateral agreement between the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the United Nations (UN).
The UN judicial system including the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and The International Criminal Court (ICC) are also affected. In recent developments:
“no legal obstruction or hindrance were formulated by the World Court with a view to curbing the tide of atrocities against Palestinians including an Israeli project to engineer starvation throughout the Gaza Strip….What is at stake is the criminalization of the international judicial process.
No cease-fire was envisaged. The ICJ has granted Israel a de facto “green light” to continue and “escalate the genocide”.
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, February 3, 2024
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“I do not represent the G7, or the G20, or the P5, I represent the G192, all the member states belonging to the United Nations. All 192 are equally important, and their concerns will be equally addressed.”
“If we continue along this way we could arrive at the same destiny that has already befallen the dinosaurs.” UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann (2008-9)
One fine afternoon in the Spring of 2008, near the UN Security Council, I encountered a gentle, unpretentious man who was so friendly that we began a conversation, and I asked him what had brought him to the United Nations.
He said he had been elected President of the next UN General Assembly, for 2008-2009, and I asked his name. He said his name was Miguel d’Escoto. This seemed too good to be true, so I probed further: “Are you the former Foreign Minister of Nicaragua, Miguel d’Escoto?” “Yes, “ he replied, and I told him this was a miracle, and he had arrived just in time to save the United Nations!”
At his first press conference, President Miguel d’Escoto said firmly:
“I do not represent the G7, or the G20, or the P5, I represent the G192, all the member states belonging to the United Nations. All 192 are equally important, and their concerns will be equally addressed.”
UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto never wavered in his commitment to global economic and social justice, and the imperative need for a transformation of the global economic architecture to prevent perpetuation of the current grotesque injustices.
President D’Escoto was a priest, and the finest representative of the Liberation Theology which affirmed the profoundest commitment of Christianity, equal social and economic justice for all. The Vatican was not amused. Many of the G7, G20 and P5 were not amused, indeed they were terrified that President D’Escoto threatened the current global economic architecture which spawned obscene riches for the very few while multitudes starved.
Many of us loved Miguel d’Escoto – he was amazingly courageous, brilliantly consistent, and indefatigable in his struggle to create a more humanitarian world, free of the crimes of capitalism, responsive to the most profound and basic needs of humanity, and of “Mother Earth,” as he described the desecrated environment being plundered by multinational corporate power.
President D’Escoto’s address at the “Opening Session of the United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development” was a fierce call for justice, and is astonishingly relevant for today’s global crisis – a pandemic which the global economic structure is disgracefully ill-equipped to handle and heal. The United States, which spends $1 trillion dollars on Nuclear Weapons is revealing its criminal ineptitude and failure to invest in a health care system that meets the needs of all its citizens.
Physicians condemn to death people they deem unable to benefit sufficiently from the sparse availability of ventilators, and other life-saving medical equipment, and medical staff calling for protective equipment to enable them to safely treat infected patients are fired for exposing the disastrous condition of the United States’ health care system, a system owned by corporations whose sole concern is profits. The vastly increasing homeless and destitute who sought refuge on New York subways have been dragged out of their abysmal and degraded shelter there, and abandoned to inevitable death in the gutters. The elderly are condemned to death in crowded nursing homes lacking space to shield them from deadly contamination.
President Miguel d’Escoto’s words must be remembered and heeded at this very moment, as the world heads toward an economic crisis resembling the Great Depression of the 1930’s, and is ignorant of any means of “salvation,” to use the word Father d’Escoto would have chosen. As he stated on 24 June, 2009:
“It is neither humane nor responsible to build a Noah’s Ark only to save the existing economic system, leaving the vast majority of humanity to their fate and to suffer the negative effects of a system imposed by an irresponsible but powerful minority. We must take decisions that affect us all collectively to the greatest extent possible, including the broad community of life and our common home, Mother Earth.“First of all, we must overcome an oppressive past and forge a hopeful future. It must be acknowledged that the current economic and financial crisis is the end result of an egoistical and irresponsible way of living, producing, consuming and establishing relationships among ourselves and with nature that involved systematic aggression against Earth and its ecosystems and a profound social imbalance, an analytical expression that masked a perverse global social injustice. In my opinion, we have reached the final frontier.
“Therefore, controls and corrections of the existing model, while undoubtedly necessary, are insufficient in the medium and long term. Their inherent ability to address the global crisis has proven to be weak. Stopping at controls and corrections of the model would demonstrate a cruel lack of social sensitivity, imagination and commitment to the establishment of a just and lasting peace. Egotism and greed cannot be corrected. They must be replaced by solidarity, which obviously implies radical change. If what we really want is a stable and lasting peace, it must be absolutely clear that we must go beyond controls and corrections of the existing model to create something that strives towards a new paradigm of social coexistence.”
“The oriental expression of care is compassion, which is so needed these days when much of humanity and the Earth itself are being battered and crucified in a sea of sufferings. In a market society which is driven more by competition than cooperation, there is a cruel lack of compassion towards all suffering beings in society and in nature.
“With these words, our discussions at this very important Conference on the world financial and economic crisis have begun. In providing a context for these issues, I wish to emphasize that we will have to set aside all selfish attitudes if we are to take advantage of the opportunities that the current crisis offers. Such attitudes only seek to preserve a system which seems to benefit a minority and clearly has disastrous consequences for the vast majority of the inhabitants of the planet. We must arm ourselves with SOLIDARITY and COOPERATION in order to make a qualitative leap forward toward a future of peace and well-being.”
These words were the leitmotif of the tenure of Miguel d’Escoto’s Presidency of the United Nations Sixty Third General Assembly, 2008-2009.
He established a Commission of Experts, headed by Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz, which designed the blueprint for transformation of the global economic architecture into a structure prioritizing fulfillment of humanitarian needs and concerns, instead of increasing gargantuan profits for the 1%. The recommendations and the warnings of the resultant report were ignored and ridiculed by some affluent member states, though the report was welcomed by the majority of the UN General Assembly.
However, as a result of its unceremonious dismissal by the most powerful UN member states, the years 2010 -2020 saw, in blatant and antagonistic disregard of the recommendations of the Report, the imposition, instead, of austerity measures throughout Western Europe and the United States and elsewhere.
These austerity measures resulted in massive social instability, and riots throughout Spain, Greece, France, Italy, and in December, 2010, the Financial Times reported students in London rioting over the increase in their school tuition, and, indeed, approaching the chauffeured limousine of Prince Charles and his wife, shouting: “Off with their heads!” In 2018 the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty, Philip Alston reported that as a result of austerity measures in the United Kingdom, 20% of its entire population now lives below the poverty line.
In the ensuing years income inequality both within and between nations increased exponentially, and today, in the midst of the global Covid-19 pandemic, the garish failure of the current global economic architecture to effectively address this crisis is incontestably exposed.
The words of United Nations General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann are imperatives today.
The world is enduring the catastrophe that President d’Escoto warned against, and he provided a model which would have enabled us to avoid the cataclysm toward which we are hurtling, and, indeed, it is not clear that the possibility of avoiding disaster still exists.
Miguel d’Escoto Brockman never lost hope, and never abandoned the struggle to create the humanitarian economic architecture that our planet’s survival requires – indeed demands. We can only hope redemption is still possible.
The resurrection of UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto’s “Report of the Commission of Experts” is mandatory. His words are even more compelling today. In his Foreword to the Report, President Miguel d’Escoto stated:
“The essential insight of the report is that our multiple crises are not the result of a failure or failures of the system. Rather, the system itself – its organization and principles, and its distorted and flawed institutional mechanisms—is the CAUSE of many of these failures….The idea that the United Nations should provide the forum for such engagement appears to be even more polarizing. Throughout the preparatory process for the June Conference, a studious silence was observed in most Northern countries, except for the large number of articles and stories circulated citing unnamed officials and diplomats who decried the very idea of such a UN process as ‘a joke’ and ‘a farce.’
The assertion that the UN lacks competency found frequent expression, most notably in the explanation of vote presented by the U.S. delegate following the adoption of the Outcome;
‘Our strong view is that the UN does not have the expertise or mandate to serve as a suitable forum or provide direction for meaningful dialogue on a number of issues addressed in the document, such as reserve systems, the international financial institutions, and the international financial architecture.’”
To which Miguel d’Escoto replied:
“The United Nations General Assembly, as the world’s only legally constituted and globally inclusive intergovernmental body with a clear mandate on economic affairs, has a special and unique role to play in our global deliberations….Here alone does the voice of the Global South ring with equal clarity, and here too is where considerations of equity and justice are therefore more likely to be raised…..the UN General Assembly is arguably the most important and necessary, if not by any means exclusive, forum for deliberation of the global system reform….. For the better part of the last year, I have recited the mantra of the world social forum: ‘A better world is possible.’ Mahatma Gandhi once remarked, ‘First they ignore you, then they make fun of you, then they fight you, then you win.’”
We can only hope and struggle so that the late Father Miguel d’Escoto’s vision of a world of justice wins, and that the human species does not, as he warned, share the destiny that has already befallen the dinosaurs.
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The National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN) has launched The Centre for Development Studies named after Padre Miguel d’EscotoBrockmann (CEDMEB). This important endeavour was supported by the UNAN, the Family of Padre Miguel d’Escoto and the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
Carla Stea is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and Global Research’s Correspondent at UN headquarters, New York.
Comments Off on Remembrance of a Miracle at the United Nations: Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, President of the SixtyThird UN General Assembly, 2008-2009
“Le demolizioni controllate di Israele stanno radendo al suolo i quartieri di Gaza”, titola il New York Times. Le forze terrestri israeliane minano e fanno saltare scuole, moschee, quartieri residenziali, in una sistematica demolizione di edifici e infrastrutture. Ciò conferma che scopo della guerra è quello di rendere Gaza inabitabile, rendendo inevitabile la “delocalizzazione”, ossia la deportazione, della popolazione palestinese, con la conseguente cancellazione del Territorio palestinese di Gaza e allo stesso tempo quello della Cisgiordania, affossando definitivamente la possibilità che i Palestinesi abbiano un proprio Stato sovrano, come deciso dalle Nazioni Unite 77 anni fa.
Un resoconto ufficiale della Nazioni Unite, inviato da Gaza, descrive così la situazione: “Continuano ad arrivare a Rafah a migliaia, in situazioni disperate, da diverse parti di Gaza. Si costruiscono dei rifugi di fortuna con qualsiasi materiale su cui riescono a mettere le mani. Ho visto uomini e bambini scavare in cerca di mattoni per poter tenere in piedi tende fatte con sacchetti di plastica. Si tratta di un enorme disastro umanitario. Il blackout delle comunicazioni è continuato per il sesto giorno consecutivo, aumentando la confusione e la paura. Alcuni palestinesi rilasciati hanno descritto di essere stati picchiati, umiliati, sottoposti a maltrattamenti e a ciò che potrebbe equivalere a tortura. Hanno riferito di essere stati bendati per lunghi periodi Ci sono uomini che sono stati rilasciati – ma solo in mutande, senza nient’altro addosso per ripararsi dal freddo. Ciò che raccontano conferma i rapporti che il nostro Ufficio ha raccolto sulla detenzione su vasta scala di palestinesi, Alle famiglie dei detenuti – che si ritiene siano migliaia – non vengono fornite informazioni sulla sorte o sull’ubicazione dei loro cari.”
La guerra di Israele a Gaza ha provocato finora la morte di oltre 25.000 persone, per il 70% donne e bambini. Altre migliaia sono rimaste sepolte sotto le macerie. Oltre 60.000 sono rimaste ferite: La maggior parte sta morendo perché le forze israeliane distruggono gli ospedali o li lasciano senza elettricità né medicinali. A questi si aggiunge un numero non quantificato, ma sicuramente altissimo, di morti provocate dalla fame e dal freddo nei campi profughi.
In tale situazione, in cui Israele è imputato di genocidio alla Corte Internazionale di Giustizia dell’ONU, l’Italia, sulla scia degli Stati Uniti, ha sospeso i finanziamenti alla Agenzia delle Nazioni Unite per il Soccorso dei Palestinesi a Gaza, accusata senza alcuna prova dai servizi segreti israeliani di complicità nell’attacco di Hamas del 7 Ottobre.
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The geographic pivots of global trade can be discerned just by looking at a map. Expansive landmasses, with their erratic terrains and often hostile populations, had traditionally acted as a barrier against long-distance trade and conquest. This deadlock was broken from the mid-1400s onwards when Portugal, under the helm of Prince Henry the Navigator, experienced a revolution in maritime technology and exploration. The maritime pathway was now open for the conquest of the New World and Asia.
Six centuries later, despite advancements in various technologies, overland and air transport still cannot match the ease, capacity and cost-effectiveness of their maritime counterpart. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) constitutes the first overland challenge to this ancient transportational paradigm. But until the BRI meets its stated targets, over 80% of international trade will continue to be seaborne. Maritime chokepoints therefore act as the pivots of global trade.
As I had written recently, rising instability along the Red Sea, along with its twin chokepoints of the Suez Canal and Bab el Mandeb, will not upset global trade in the long run. The cardinality of a chokepoint hinges on the volume and type of trade as well as the availability of alternative routes. While the Red Sea can be bypassed indefinitely, the Straits of Hormuz remains an immovable fulcrum of global trade. Situated between Iran and the tip of Oman, it is only 33 km (21 miles) wide at its narrowest point, with shipping limited to just three kilometres. Prolonged maritime disruptions here will throw the global economy into dire straits.
While mainstream commentaries focus on the abundant flow of oil and gas out of this narrow lane, they often omit basic necessities that are shipped into Gulf Arab nations via the straits.If war breaks out between Iran and Israel, the straits would likely be closed to shipping. Oil prices will skyrocket overnight and this includes the cost of jet fuel. Airlifting basic necessities into the region would be a very expensive and dangerous proposition under this scenario. Tens of millions of migrant workers in these states, without access to state-subsidised food and water, would have to be evacuated, leaving sanitation and other essential services in a state of utter chaos.
Even the accidental sinking of a very large vessel in the Straits of Hormuz — the kind which renders the lane unpassable over a protracted period — will precipitate hyperinflationary trends worldwide.
Geographic Quagmire
For decades, Gulf Arab nations were cognizant of this existential entrapment but had failed to seek a permanent solution. Building long-term rapport, trust and infrastructure with their Arab brethren in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, would have given them a vital Mediterranean lifeline. Instead, under the direction of their Anglo-American overlords, Gulf Arab wealth was used to foster coups, economic subversion, an assortment of jihadi outfits, and the suppression of local autonomy in the region. Some of their actions have led to genocidal wars against the people of Syria and the Houthis in southern Yemen, to name just a few. While this internecine madness was going on, their “frenemy” Israel was gleefully annexing Palestinians lands.
It is quite telling that trillions of dollars in oil and gas revenue, stretching over decades, did not result in a single viable overland corridor from the Arabian Peninsula to the Mediterranean coastline. These corridors would have involved new roads, rails and oil and gas networks, with multiple redundancies built into the matrix. One may argue that these hypothetical networks would have been prone to periodic extortions from Levantine governments. While this argument has some merit, squabbles over transit fees are a norm just about everywhere. This is where diplomacy and compromise play a role.
If the northern Mediterranean lifeline was deemed too problematic, Gulf Arab nations could have built a southern infrastructural lifeline ending in Oman, alongside new deepwater ports. This would have permanently circumvented most risks associated with the Straits of Hormuz.
But what did they end up building instead?
Arabian Disneylands
When individuals and nations are trapped into a corner, mass irrationality is an outcome. Adolph Hitler was dreaming of a final victory even as the Red Army closed in on his bunker in April 1945.
With geopolitical tensions rising worldwide, an entrapped Gulf Arab region is similarly conjuring up its own escapist fantasies under a grand Vision 2030 plan. These entail the construction of monstrosities like The Line; a floating port city called the Oxago; a “desert sea ski resort” (yes, you read that right!) called Trojeno; and the spanking New Murabba enclave in Riyadh that will host the giant Mukaab (The Cube).
The Cube is so massive that it can reportedly house 20 Empire State buildings inside. All these will be built by 2030 at the cost of trillions of dollars. And they will be totally reliant on foreign consultants. From the perspectives of systems science, socioeconomic benefits, energy consumption and maintenance, among others, these Arabian Disneylands are disasters waiting to happen. The United Arab Emirates is set to join this construction frenzy with the Dubai Circle, a spacey floating structure that will ring the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa.
The future however cannot be built without basic and secure foundations. When the Burj Khalifa was built, it had no outward sewerage system for the seven tons of human waste, and an additional eight tons of wastewater, that were disgorged each day. A daily convoy of poop trucks were used to ferry out the excreta, much of which were dumped in the desert. This earned the Burj Khalifa the moniker of “Temple of Poop”.
The situation is hardly better in Saudi Arabia. Nearly 40% of Saudi households, and 85% of Jeddah city in particular, are not connected to a centralised sewage system. Accumulated wastes in Jeddah are often dumped into the nearby Buraiman Lake (aka the Poop Lake). As a result, periodic freak flooding generously recycles these wastes across the city.
It is not an exaggeration to say that between its Third World infrastructure and lofty sci-fi dreams, Gulf Arab nations have a continental-sized, sewage-filled chasm to bridge.
Right across the Straits of Hormuz, survivalism has triumphed over escapism.
Iran has invested in sectors that are vital to its long-term survival.
These include the development of software, construction (particularly bunker) and asymmetric weapons technologies. Russia is reportedly a top customer for Iranian drones and ballistic missiles. Iranian cars are set to be exported to Russia and Belarus in the near-future.
With Indian assistance, Iran has also developed the oceanic port of Chabahar in the Gulf of Oman which not only sidesteps the Straits of Hormuz but acts as a “golden gate” to Central Asia as well. If Chabahar is destroyed in the event of a wider Middle Eastern war, and if the Straits of Hormuz is simultaneously rendered impassable, Israel’s friend India will reel from the consequences.
China, which built the nearby Pakistani port of Gwadar as an alternative to Chabahar, may not fare any better as fossil fuels will be in short supply. This is a cardinal reason why both India and China are defying international sanctions to buy up Russian oil and gas, thereby cementing their long-term designations as “friendly nations” to Moscow.
Belated Southern Corridor
A US-Israeli plan to relieve the Gulf Arab region of its geopolitical encirclement was floated by then US President Donald Trump in 2020. The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) was envisaged to link the Gulf Arab region to the wider world via an ambitious web of roads, railway lines and submarine cables as well as ports located in Oman and Israel. Officially, the IMEC was about countering China’s expanding Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) while simultaneously fostering rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Israel. The real purpose however was to neuter Iran’s stranglehold over the Straits of Hormuz.
The IMEC would have complemented the proposed Arab Mashreq International Road Network which connects Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Kuwait, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Oman and Yemen. However, apart from a sparse Wikipedia page, not much is known about the current status of this project. Thanks to Western and Gulf Arab meddling in recent years, parts of Syria and Iraq are off-limits to traffic.
Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, which has resulted in more than 30,000 Palestinian deaths thus far, has just thrown a geopolitical spanner into the IMEC wet dream. The Arabian Disneyland extravaganzas however remain on track.
Ultimately, the Gulf Arab world is left with two choices in a world fraught with rapidly aggregating risks. They can either seek permanent rapprochement with Iran and thereby minimise risks in the Straits of Hormuz once and for all, or they can allow US and Israel to set them on a destructive collision course with their northern neighbour and the wider world. My bet is on the latter course of action. The Sunni Islamic world is led by dispensable pawns in the Western geopolitical chessboard.
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Dr. Mathew Maavak, who researches systems science, global risks, geopolitics, strategic foresight, governance and Artificial Intelligence. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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“According to the official version of history (said Brzezinski), CIA aid to the mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, on December 24, 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise; Indeed, it was July 2, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.” —Le Nouvel Observateur
In a recent interview, Paul Craig Roberts, former economic adviser (US Department of the Treasury) to the late President Ronald Reagan, outlined, with astonishing foresight, the trajectory that the current Middle East crisis may follow, and his insight is both brilliant and terrifying. To paraphrase Roberts’s analysis, the Israeli-Gaza conflict is merely the beginning of a widening conflict in the Middle East, spreading toward the neocon’s main target, Iran.
Though Iran is extremely powerful now, the conflict will greatly weaken the country, making possible the West’s stealthy infiltration of jihadists into the Central Asian countries which border Iran and extend to both the Russian borders and, indeed the Chinese border, with Xinjiang, bordering Kazakhstan. Though Roberts does not mention China, the logic of his thesis would extend to China.
The purpose of these jihadists, infiltrated into countries neighboring Russia, with large Islamic populations which have, historically lived in peace with citizens of very diverse ethnic and religious identities, including Russian, Catholic, Jewish citizens, often intermarrying, will be, as Brzezinski planned.
This purpose will be, (as superbly reported in Robert Dreyfuss’s masterpiece, “Devil’s Game, How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam,” “Eyeing Moscow’s Islamic ‘Underbelly’,”) to incite violent, extremist religious separatist movements, destabilizing these peaceful Central Asian countries, fomenting “color revolutions” (as was tried, but failed in Kazakhstan recently), and engineering bloody putsch, in these countries, similar to the one incited in Ukraine in 2014, with the ensuing devastating wars.
These infiltrated jihadists would spread and continue inciting violent separatist movements, next, within the Russian Federation itself, with Bashkortostan and Tartarstan on the Volga, with large Islamic populations, again, also hitherto living peacefully with other extremely diverse religious and ethnic citizens. If successful in inciting separatist movements on the Volga, Russia could be isolated from the enormously rich resources in Siberia, and reduced in size to less than the area of France, and impoverished, accordingly.
Though Russia may be aware of this lethal Western agenda, the militarization of the rabidly Russophobic Baltics, to the North, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, and the recent accession of Finland and Sweden into Nato, with planned “Steadfast Defender 2024, including 31 NATO participants, will threaten Russia from the north and west, reducing its ability to protect itself from threats from destabilized Central Asian neighbors, and demanding that Russia fight for its survival on two fronts.
Although Brzezinski, in “The Grand Chessboard”, describes a partnership between Russia and China as a disaster to be avoided at all costs, NATO’s provocation of Russia has forced a war between Russia and Ukraine, which Brzezinski fiercely advocated in order to isolate Russia from Europe.
Though the Russia-China friendship would appear to protect Russia from the aforementioned crisis, at least now, if the deadly agenda Paul Craig Roberts describes becomes a reality, the infiltration of jihadists would likely spread to China, which has, also, a large Islamic population, hitherto living peacefully with diverse citizenry.
However, as violent, externally engineered separatist movements have already occurred in Xinjiang, in the West of China, these could be exacerbated by further outside infiltration of jihadists, and could metastasize throughout China. Further, the eastern part of China could be existentially threatened by the new “Axis” of Japan, South Korea and the United States, menacing China’s survival, and again forcing China to divert its defenses from the West to the East, increasing its vulnerability, and diminishing its ability to assist Russia, amidst the rampant chaos created by the Brzezinski plan, and Washington’s current neocon agenda, world domination.
This agenda for the destabilization and destruction of both Russia and China, and theft of their phenomenal resources, has one deadly problem: both Russia and China are nuclear powers, and though, only as a last resort, Russia has stated that if its existence is jeopardized, it will use its nuclear arsenal. Evidently, Washington’s neocons, and its late “National Security Advisor” Zbigniew Brzezinski have no compunctions about exterminating all humanity in a nuclear holocaust of their creation.
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Carla Stea is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and Global Research’s Correspondent at UN headquarters, New York.
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“The federal government has essentially thrown a grenade into our admissions process. This is likely going to create chaos that is extremely hard to manage.” —Jordan Gills, 23 January 2024, “Federal Cap on International Students is unfair, N.B. says”, CBC News.
The federal government’s two (2) year cap on the admission of international students in Canadian cities and universities due to Canada’s escalating housing crises is matter of intriguing concern and important development in international education that we, as social advocates and human rights civil society, should keep abreast of. I immediately noticed the instrumental, discursive function of the media with respect to its implicit/subtle craftsmanship of framing international students’ impact on the Canadian housing market crisis, as the central problem. International students are viewed as and are treated as “overcrowding” Canadian cities.
The term “overcrowding” carries racist, xenophobic, classist and gendered implications in which the influx of international students are seen as security threats or risks to the Canadian nation-state. This explains the reason for the justification of an unfair immigration policy which places a cap on the number of international students that will be admitted to Canadian universities over the next two year period.
Critical social science scholar, Nandita Sharma (2019:224) comments on the apartheid citizenship regime in Canada by arguing that “anti-migrant ideologies, movements and policies shift the nation-state’s core responsibilities to the primary responsibility of migrants and away from underlying systemic and institutional structures of power and control”. Canada’s Immigration Minister, Marc Miller, policy makers and other stakeholders in the multi-billion dollar enterprise of international education have not adequately highlighted the role that private sector interests in their control over the Canada’s housing market has played in recent decades and as a result, the skyrocketing prices has made housing not only unaffordable but many racialized and marginalized communities including international students experience a gross situation of homelessness.
In my opinion, the era of “benevolent inclusion” of international students in Canadian society, universities and labour market operates under the shroud of humanitarian good will. In fact, Canada has always maintained apartheid citizenship regime that determines rights, duties, entitlements and a sense of belonging of who belongs to the nation-state and who does not.
Through the enactment of this unfair immigration policy, we are able to fully see the mechanics of power relations that is inextricably connected to a term known as border imperialism, which is coined by scholar-activist, Harsha Walia (2013). Harsha Walia (2013: 5) defines border imperialism is an alternative analytical framework that disrupts the myth of Western benevolence towards migrants. She (2013: 6) also notes, “border imperialism encompasses four (4) main structures: a) mass displacement of impoverished and colonized communities due to asymmetric global relations of power and securitization of borders against those migrants whom capital and Empire has displaced, b) criminalization of migrants through severe punishment and discipline for those who are considered as illegal or alien, c) entrenchment of a racialized hierarchy of citizenship whose legitimacy constitutes the nation-state and d) state-mediated exploitation of migrant labour in conditions akin to slavery and servitude to serve capitalist interests”.
We see the exemplification of the exalted status of Canadian nationhood, through border imperialism in key government policy documents such as the old and revised Canadian International Education Strategy (2014-2018 and 2019-2024). Both old and revised Canadian International Strategy documents stress the importance of international education in boosting Canada’s international competitiveness, research and innovation capacity and filling critical labour market gaps while building global ties through exporting education. None of these documents mentions the academic, emotional, physical and psycho-social well-being of international students in Canadian universities as policy objectives in international education. As mentioned in the first part of my opinion response commentary, this international education model is primarily focused on an influx of international students for profit generation. When an education model is built on numbers and profit generation, we create an unmanageable, dilemma that supports the commodification of knowledge, academic imperialism by treating education as an export product instead of a public, social service that is accessible to all. We also create antecedents to the discriminatory 1976 Immigration Act legislation which laid the foundation for differential treatment of international students from domestic students with respect to paying higher tuition fees. We need to make an urgent and sustained call for an international education model beyond numbers and dollars as this current model contributes to a predicament of provincial, federal and transnational unsustainability.
Border imperialism is not only evident in the state-sanctioned and institutionally-sanctioned violence meted out against international students who are mostly employed in low waged, lack of social protection jobs with deplorable working conditions in grocery stores, fast-food chain restaurants and other service jobs in the Canadian labour market. Border imperialism also extends to the micro-coordination of classroom and university spaces of sites of erasure and silencing international students’ diverse histories and knowledge production that is anti-colonial, anti-imperial and anti-capitalist. Border imperialism is embedded in the capitalist organization of the Canadian economy and the global economy that requires a certain class status requirements as part of the study permit package (proof of savings or financial proof that one is able to live in Canada) without being attentive to the fact that most international students are from regions of the world, where their countries experience sharp devaluation of local currencies and the jobs in their countries of origins do not pay enough to take them out of poverty.
The economic policy of local currency devaluation is also linked to the consequences of structural adjustment policies that have been imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) for more than two decades.
We see border imperialism deployed through an implicit-explicit language of racialization, social control and militarization by regulating which group of international students will be admitted into the Canadian nation-state and which groups will be rejected as result of the two year cap. It is the two-year cap that is an instrument of policing because now international students’ exponential growth in specific provinces and universities are viewed as a state burden to be ejected with great expedition. Two of the most evident implications of this recent immigration policy of caps on international students in Canada for the next two years are the fact that universities in specific provinces like New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Ontario will see lower international student enrollment and declining revenue. Universities and these specific provinces will be forced to seek alternative avenues for revenue generation and of course, the predicament at hand will be highly chaotic for all stakeholders in Canada’s international education industry.
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Tina Renier is an independent researcher based in Jamaica. She is a volunteer at Just Peace Advocates and a regular contributor to Global Research. She received a Master of Arts in International Development Studies in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Sources
Gills, J. (23 January 2024). Federal cap on international students is unfair, N.B. says. CBC News. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7091446
Walia, H. (2013). Undoing Border Imperialism. Institute for Anarchist Studies: AK Press. pp. 5-6.
Sharma, N. (2019). Citizenship and Borders in Brock, et. al. (eds 2019). Power and Everyday Practices. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. p. 227.
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A very important aspect of democracy is supposed to be that well-informed public opinion is able to influence government policy in important ways, functioning as an effective corrective. Hence policy mistakes and distortions have a reasonable chance to be corrected at an early stage, and an even higher chance to be corrected in due course of time. To ensure that people are well-informed, freedom of expression and media are supposed to exist as very important pillars of democracy.
All this is supposed to work particularly well in western countries which are supposed to have some of the most celebrated democratic systems in the world.
Despite this, it has been seen time and again regarding several important events of contemporary history that there is a big difference between common perception and reality. This is certainly true of the Ukraine conflict.
The widely held common perception is that Russia used its stronger position very unfairly and arrogantlyto invade a smaller neighbor Ukraine and annex a big part of its territory and so it is the duty of others to support the valiant resistance effort of the people and the government of Ukraine.
The reality is very different and although several senior scholars of western countries too have drawn attention to the reality but somehow the perception has been widely along the lines indicated above.
The reality is that given the geographical, economic, strategic and historical realities it is definitely in the interests of both Ukraine and Russia to live as friendly neighbors. At the same time Ukraine can have friendly relations with any other country as long as it does not create any serious problems in Ukraine’s relations with its most important neighbor.
Unfortunately, the USA, its close allies and NATO decided on a course of using Ukraine as a proxy to create increasing problems for Russia, as a part of the wider strategy of encircling Russia with relentless eastward expansion of NATO, violating earlier promises of not expanding even an inch in this direction.
In 2014 a neutral, democratically elected government of Ukraine that had enjoyed good relations with Russia was toppled in a coup engineered by the USA and Britain. This was followed by immediately withdrawing Russian language as an official language and violence against several Russian speaking people and areas of Ukraine. Russia annexed the Crimea region, an action which was widely supported by most people of Crimea. Discontent continued to grow among Russian speaking people in and around the Donbas region, and there was much repressive action against them by Ukraine forces. The people here mobilized, without military support from Russia, and achieved some success. In these conditions Minsk Accords 1 and 2 were signed in 2014 and 2015 with the mediation of European countries to provide for growing autonomy, (not separatism or secession) within a united Ukraine. Russia welcomed this along with other countries as the way forward and showed no inclination to intervene militarily. However Ukraine increasingly went back on implementing the Accords and increased its repressive actions with the passage of time.
These suddenly and decisively increased in early 2022 with very aggressive attacks by the Ukrainian forces on the people of Donbas where several thousand people had already perished, as per UN estimates. Instead of rushing to invade, President Putin tried a lot to avoid a military intervention despite coming under public pressure in Russia and Donbas for this, but finally relented in February 2022.
This version of the events is actually supported by what several senior US and western scholars have themselves stated. Several of them in fact warned their countries against such hostility and aggression towards Russia and against this steadily advancing proxy war of 2014-24 (not just 2022-24) but their advice was ignored. Very senior leaders of Europe later said that they merely used the Minsk accords to give Ukraine time to prepare better for war!
Here attention may be drawn to just one early warning given by a well-informed western observer. The reference here to a paper published in March-April 2022 in the Postil Magazine and subsequently re-published at several other places on the military situation in Ukraine, written by Jacques Baud. The author, trained in British and American intelligence, worked in UN peace operations and in NATO in senior positions and also had responsibilities to uplift Ukrainian military.
He has stated that in 2020 40% of Ukrainian military force comprised of paramilitary militias of mercenaries assembled from nearly 19 countries. He says clearly that western countries supported such far-right militias. These militias “convey a nauseating ideology” and are “virulently anti-Semitic”. “The west continued to arm militias that had been guilty of numerous crimes against civilian population since 2014—rape, torture and massacres.” Several of these militias were integrated with the National Guard. What is more, “in the Ukraine, with the blessing of the western countries, those who are in favor of negotiations have been eliminated.” Examples of assassinations given in this paper include the assassination of Danes Kireyev, negotiator, and assassination of Dmitry Demyaneko.
However papers such as this have been an exception and despite several respected voices from the west warning against the policy of initiating and relentlessly pursuing a proxy way using Ukraine to endlessly trouble Russia, this has been pursued by the USA and close allies. It is difficult to see how this has benefited the USA in any meaningful way while the energy situation of its European allies has been worsened. Meanwhile several hundred thousand people have died or have been injured in very painful ways, while millions have been uprooted. Endless supply of weapons by the west has led in many cases to weapons reaching the wrong hands; weapons and other forms of trafficking have increased.
Hence the real situation is very different from the common perception based on repetition of lies and half-truths. Those concerned with the future of democracy should seriously explore how many respected dissenting voices went unheeded, while a false discourse could be very widely propagated to support very harmful policies of US and western governments, and despite media playing a dominant role in society the task of creating public opinion based on the truth, the real situation remained completely sidelined or neglected.
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Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, Earth without Borders and A Day in 2071. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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Though few “major” media outlets have made any mention of this atrocity, other than defamatory remarks about the victim, during his January 24 press conference Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov spoke of the torture and murder of American/Chilean journalist, Gonzalo Lira, in a Ukrainian prison, after an extended imprisonment. Lira, who had lived in Ukraine for many years, reported of the Zelensky regime’s gross violations of human rights and violations of international law, exposed the vast government corruption and permeation by neo-nazis who had viciously attacked the Donbass region since the U.S. orchestrated putch of 2014.
The U.S. State Department did virtually nothing to obtain Lira’s release, or to help obtain the medical treatment he needed. The Zelensky regime has a “kill list,” the Myrotvorets, targeting for assassination reporters and eminent persons, anywhere, including the United States, who expose criminal activities by the Zelensky regime, and this list includes former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter and U.S. candidate for the Senate, Diane Sare, who must have bodyguards and other protective methods to endure their safety, even in New York City!
It is an indication of the Myrotvorets extreme fascist proclivities that such renowned persons as the Prime Minister of Hungary, Victor Orban is included on the list, and, indeed, none other than the late Henry Kissinger was added to the list on May 27, 2022.
This Ukranian regime is the “Democracy” that the U.S. Administration is sending hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons to defend.
The arrogance of the Zelensky regime seems stupefying as, not only does it murder journalists and other critics on its own territory with impunity, but it is now dictating censorship of major American media within the United States. As reported by Agence France Press on January 25, 2024, the Ukraine regime is attempting to censor even the HBO in the United States, and demanding that they fire the award winning Serbian actor, Milos Bikovic, who was cast by HBO in a starring role in the third season of their Emmy winning “White Lotus.”
The mainstream media remains mostly mute about the torture/murder of Gonzalo Lira, jailed and murdered for his extensive criticism of the nazi-permeated Zelensky regime.
And where is mainstream media coverage of “Myrotvorets?”
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Carla Stea is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and Global Research’s Correspondent at UN headquarters, New York.
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The BBC’s characteristically mild-mannered note said it all: What is Tower 22? More to the point, what are US forces doing in Jordan? (To be more precise, a dusty scratching on the Syria-Jordan border.) These questions were posed in the aftermath of yet another drone attack against a US outpost in the Middle East, its location of dubious strategic relevance to Washington, yet seen as indispensable to its global footprint. On this occasion, the attack proved successful, killing three troops and wounding dozens.
The Times of Israel offered a workmanlike description of the site’s role:
“Tower 22 is located close enough to US troops at Tanf that it could potentially help support them, while potentially countering Iran-backed militants in the area and allowing troops to keep an eye on remnants of Islamic State in the region.”
The paper does not go on to mention the other role: that US forces are also present in the region to protect Israeli interests, acting as a shield against Iran.
While Tower 22 is located more towards Jordan, it is a dozen miles or so to the Syria-based al-Tanf garrison, which retains a US troop presence. Initially, that presence was justified to cope with the formidable threat posed by Islamic State as part of Operation Inherent Resolve. In due course, it became something of a watch post on Iran’s burgeoning military presence in Syria and Iraq, an inflation as much a consequence of Tehran’s successful efforts against the fundamentalist group as it was a product of Washington’s destabilising invasion of Iraq in 2003.
A January 28 press release from US Central Command notes that the attack was inflicted by “a one-way attack UAS [Unmanned Aerial System] that impacted on a base in northeast Jordan, near the Syrian border.” Its description of Tower 22 is suitably vague, described as a “logistics support base” forming the Jordanian Defense Network. “There are approximately 350 US Army and Air Force personnel deployed to the base, conducting a number of key support functions, including support to the coalition for the lasting defeat of ISIS.” No mention is made of Iran or Israel.
Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh found it hard to conceal the extent that US bases in the region have come under attack. Clumsily, she tried to be vague as to reasons why such assaults were taking place to begin with, though her department has, since October 17 last year, tracked 165 attacks, 66 on US troops in Iraq and 98 in Syria. The singular feature in the assault on Tower 22, she stressed, was that it worked.
“To my knowledge, there was nothing different or new about this attack that we’ve seen in other facilities that house our service members,” she told reporters on January 29. “Unfortunately, this attack was successful, but we can’t discount the fact that other attacks, whether Iraq or Syria, were not intended to kill our service members.”
A senior official from the umbrella grouping known as Islamic Resistance in Iraq justified the attack as part of a broader campaign against the US for its unwavering support for Israel and its relentlessly murderous campaign in Gaza. (Since October 17, the group is said to have staged 140 attacks on US sites in both Iraq and Syria.)
“As we have said before if the US keeps supporting Israel, there will [be] escalations.” The official in question went on to state that, “All the US interests in the region are legitimate targets, and we don’t care about US threats to respond.”
A generally accepted view among security boffins is that US troops have achieved what they sought to do: cope with the threat posed by Islamic State. As with any such groups, dissipation and readjustment eventually follows. Washington’s military officials delight in using the term “degrade”, but it would be far better to simply assume that the fighters of such outfits eventually take up with others, blend into the locale, or simply go home.
With roughly 3,000 personnel stationed in Jordan, 2,500 in Iraq, and 900 in Syria, US troops have become ripe targets as Israel’s war in Gaza rages. In effect, they have become bits of surplus pieces on the Middle Eastern chessboard and, to that end, incentives for a broader conflict. The Financial Times, noting the view of an unnamed source purporting to be a “senior western diplomat” (aren’t they always?), fretted that the tinderbox was about to go off. “We’re always worried about US and Iranian forces getting into direct confrontation there, whether by accident or on purpose.”
President Joe Biden has promised some suitable retaliation but does not wish for “a wider war in the Middle East. That’s not what I’m looking for.” A typically mangled response came from National Security Council spokesman John Kirby:
“It’s very possible what you’ll see is a tiered approach here, not just a single action, but potentially multiple actions over a period of time.”
Rather than seeing these attacks as incentives to leave such outposts, the don’t cut and run mentality may prove all too powerful in its muscular stupidity. Empires do not merely bring with them sorrows but incentives to be stubborn. The beneficiaries will be the usual coterie of war mongers and peace killers.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected]
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Jan. 17, 2024 – mRNA Injury stories – 59 year old British journalist Mike Dickson, who attacked World #1 Tennis player Novak Djokovic for being unvaccinated, died suddenly while covering the Australian Open.
Mike Dickson was apparently a “giant of a journalist” – let’s look at the quality of some of his work:
Jan. 5, 2022 – Welcome to the Wacky World of Novak Djokovic: Anti-vaxxer tennis superstar is a tree-hugger.
“The fanatical quest to continually improve himself as a tennis player is mirrored by an obsessive curiosity about how best to curate his physical and mental well-being. At times it has dragged him into the realms of faddism and quackery, sometimes dangerously so.”
“Where Djokovic goes, controversy often follows. It is due to his curious mix of passion, fierce intelligence and temperament, and a sometimes stunning lack of self-awareness. “
“The cocksure nature of his social media post was ill-judged, and invited the ire of a population who have been subjected to more lockdowns than anywhere in the world. He possesses not just an extraordinary athletic ability, but a giant pair of tin ears.”
“The roots of his beliefs on health are entrenched beyond Covid, back to the beginning of the last decade. It was then that he diagnosed himself as having a wheat allergy by pressing a slice of bread into his stomach.”
“In 2016 he began working with Spanish coach Pepe Imaz, a strong believer in meditation whose theories extend to, literally, the power of hugging trees. He instituted the ‘peace and love’ gestures that accompany the Serb’s post-match victories.”
“When Djokovic began developing elbow problems the following year he tried holistic cures before eventually opting for conventional surgery. He later revealed that he cried for three days afterwards, at his failure to solve the issue through natural medicine.”
“By then he was already a strong believer in using hyperbaric chambers – where his body is exposed to pure oxygen at a much higher pressure than normal – actually bringing a mobile version on a lorry to be parked up at Flushing Meadows for the US Open.”
“At one point they promoted the idea that the power of positive thought could cleanse polluted water into the kind that was safely drinkable.”
“Meanwhile on the same social media his wife Jelena had a false information warning slapped on a post she shared, linking the outbreak to 5G telecommunication mast”
“The experience chastened him, but it has not dampened his enthusiasm for spiritual searching. He is, for instance, a regular visitor to the ‘Bosnian pyramids’ which some believe give off a mystic energy.”
“Away from the sport’s rectangles many have already condemned him, although his views on vaccines are more nuanced than sometimes portrayed.”
“He has always insisted that his vaccine stance is about freedom of choice and what someone puts inside their body. Given the opportunity he has missed out on in Melbourne, his continuing stance could be seen as one of principled self-denial, as well as self-defeating.”
So this is the work of a “giant of journalism”?
This isn’t journalism, this is tabloid trash, a smear piece designed to tarnish the reputation of the world’s top tennis player for his private health decisions: “many have already condemned him…his views on vaccines”
The question is: why would such a “highly respected and admired” journalist engage in such tabloid level character assassination of Novak Djokovic?
Notice how he paints Djokovic with these adjectives:
wacky world
anti-vaxxer superstar
tree hugger
pyramids, mystic energy, positive thoughts, purify water
This ensures that those who didn’t even read his article (and most didn’t) would still come away with a negative view of Djokovic and see him as “discredited” even if they just read the title and nothing else.
This was an ugly smear piece from someone of stature in journalism who didn’t need to lower himself to such ugliness. Yet he still wrote it.
But he didn’t stop there.
Feb. 15, 2022 – Novak Djokovic could ruin his chances of becoming the GOAT by refusing to take the vaccine…it is a strange hill to die on for a player who is so desperate to be loved.
“his refusal to get the vaccine is a strange hill for his legacy to die on”
“Most tennis players have now accepted, some albeit reluctantly, that they and their sport are best served by taking a vaccine that has saved countless lives.”
“Given how the circuit crosses so many territories with different rules and attitudes, everyone getting jabbed has been the best way to keep a very complicated show on the road. Ever the polarizing figure, Djokovic does not see it that way.”
“This must be partly to do with Djokovic’s upbringing, which was different from many of his opponents’ and goes a long way to explaining his ‘Novak versus the world’ approach to so many things.”
“This has led him to the cusp of being acknowledged as the greatest ever, yet there is every chance he will now forgo that due to the minute risks associated with a simple vaccination.”
“He says he wants more information, but how much more does he need? More than 10 billion doses have been administered worldwide and there is now a wealth of evidence out there.”
“The outlier stance has also reduced his stock in the locker room and dented his leadership of a fledgling players’ union, which he hoped would be part of his legacy.”
“ruin his chances of becoming the GOAT by refusing to take the vaccine… it is a strange hill to die on for a player who is so desperate to be loved”
Two years later, Mike Dickson is dead and Novak Djokovic has the record for the most Grand Slam titles.
This hit piece by Mike Dickson is much more sinister
he paints Novak as being “alone” in regards to remaining unvaccinated
“Novak against the world”
“outlier stance”
“desperate to be loved”
“his hopes of surpassing Federer and Nadal are in ruins”
“everyone getting jabbed has been the best way”
“his refusal to get the vaccine is a strange hill for his legacy to die on”
What is Mike Dickson doing here? He is pushing medical segregation, discrimination and he is promoting medical fascism.
Despite everything, Novak Djokovic sent his condolences after Mike Dickson died suddenly.
My Take…
At best, Mike Dickson was a useful idiot for big pharma, however his smear pieces of Novak Djokovic were outright malicious and evil.
Sadly, Mike Dickson won’t be remembered for his journalism career. He will be remembered as someone who promoted medical segregation, medical discrimination and medical fascism.
The media has been complicit in some of the biggest crimes of the pandemic. Promotion of medical fascism was one of these crimes. Many of the top names in media did it, and to this day, none have been held accountable for their actions.
Click here to watch a compilation of videos.
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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.
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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For a couple of decades now, the very worst people in Washington, D.C., have pushed hard for a war on Iran. Some high points have come in 2007, 2015, 2017, and 2024. Each time it has been absolutely critical to attack Iran at once. There could be no delay. Dominoes would fall. Terrorism would prevail. Credibility would be sqandered. And yet, each time, the threatened war has not been launched, and the world has gone on just the same.
We’ve seen a wide variety of excuses deployed over these years of unsuccessful propaganda for a war on Iran, including false claims about nuclear weapons, the pretense that attacking Iran would improve civil liberties within Iran, and shockingly honest commitments to gaining control of more oil with which to slowly destroy the habitability of the Earth. The push to attack Iran has been on for so long that entire categories of arguments for it (such as that the Iranians are fueling the Iraqi resistance) and demonized leaders of Iran have come and gone. The latest excuse is the killing of three members of the U.S. military.
Ordinarily, killing people could be prosecuted as a crime. But that’s tricky, because the United States government opposes and refuses to take part in international law, the U.S. troops had no legal justification for being where they were, and the violence across the region is being driven by U.S. support for enormous crimes by the Israeli government.
More importantly, the advocates for war do not want to prosecute a crime, but to use a crime as an excuse to commit much larger crimes, on the familiar model of September 11, October 7, etc. The choice to escalate is not imposed on anyone; similar situations in the past have been used as excuses for war and also allowed to pass without the launching of any war.
The U.S. government purports to believe that escalating wars will reduce wars, flying in the face of the overwhelming evidence of centuries, and to believe that there is no alternative, even though the demands of all sorts of warmakers across Western Asia are all the same and extremely easy to satisfy (and satisfying them has been ordered by the International Court of Justice): stop destroying Gaza and killing Gazans.
The U.S. government distorts the notion of “defense” beyond all recognition by claiming that harm done to its imperial troops anywhere on Earth can justify a “defensive” war. This is highly convenient for war hawks in Washington, D.C., who have known for many years that getting U.S. troops killed can be a big propaganda boost for war madness — an idea eagerly encouraged today by U.S. media outlets that are always perfectly capable of demanding revenge while simulaneously calling it “defense.”
In 2022 military spending, Iran spent 0.8% what the U.S. did. Iran is not a threat to the United States, despite having put its nation so close to so many U.S. military bases.
This is what the empire of U.S. military bases looks like to Iran. Try to imagine if you lived there, what you would think of this. Who is threatening whom? Who is the greater danger to whom? The point is not that Iran should be free to attack the United States or anyone else because its military is smaller. The point is that doing so would be national suicide. It would also be something Iran has not done for centuries. But it would be typical U.S. behavior.
The U.S. overthrew Iran’s democracy in 1953 and installed a brutal dictator / weapons customer. The U.S. gave Iran nuclear energy technology in the 1970s. Following the Iranian revolution, the United States aided Iraq in the 1980s in attacking Iran, providing Iraq with some of the weapons (including chemical weapons) that were used on Iranians and that would be used in 2002-2003 (when they no longer existed) as an excuse for attacking Iraq.
The roots of a Washington push for a new war on Iran can be found in the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance, the 1996 paper called A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, the 2000 Rebuilding America’s Defenses, and in a 2001 Pentagon memo described by Wesley Clark as listing these nations for attack: Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. It’s worth noting that Bush Jr. overthrew Iraq, and Obama Libya, while the others remain works in progress. The arguments in these old forgotten memos were not what the war makers tell the public, but much closer to what they tell each other. The concerns were those of dominating regions rich in resources, intimidating others, and establishing bases from which to maintain control of puppet governments.
In 2000, the CIA gave Iran nuclear bomb plans in an effort to frame it. This was reported by James Risen, and Jeffrey Sterling went to prison for allegedly being Risen’s source. But nobody involved in the scheme was ever punished in any way.
In 2010, Tony Blair included Iran on a list of countries that he said Dick Cheney had aimed to overthrow. The line among the powerful in Washington in 2003 was that Iraq would be a cakewalk but that real men go to Tehran.
For many years, the United States has labeled Iran an evil nation, attacked and destroyed the other non-nuclear nation on the list of evil nations, designated part of Iran’s military a terrorist organization, falsely accused Iran of crimes including the attacks of 9-11, murdered Iranian scientists, funded opposition groups in Iran (including some the U.S. also designates as terrorist), flew dronesover Iran, openly and illegally threatened to attack Iran, and built up military forces all around Iran’s borders, while imposing cruel sanctions on the country. The long history of the United States lying about Iranian nuclear weapons is chronicled by Gareth Porter’s book Manufactured Crisis.
In 2007, we were told that Iran needed to be attacked urgently due to false claims about nuclear weapons. Even a National Intelligence Estimate in 2007 pushed back and admitted that Iran had no nuclear weapons program.
In 2015, Republicans urged war justified by Iran’s nuclear weapons program, while Democrats successfully moved for passage of an agreement with Iran, also justified by Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The agreement was not a treaty, and President Trump would later throw it out. But the damage of both sides falsely claiming that Iran had a nuclear weapons program was done.
Dick and Liz Cheney’s book, Exceptional, tell us we must see a “moral difference between an Iranian nuclear weapon and an American one.” Must we, really? Either risks further proliferation, accidental use, use by a crazed leader, mass death and destruction, environmental disaster, retaliatory escalation, and apocalypse. One of those two nations has nuclear weapons, has used nuclear weapons, has provided the other with plans for nuclear weapons, has a policy of first-use of nuclear weapons, has leadership that sanctions the possession of nuclear weapons, and has frequently threated to use nuclear weapons. I don’t think those facts would make a nuclear weapon in the hands of the other country the least bit moral, but also not the least bit more immoral. Let’s focus on seeing an empiricaldifference between an Iranian nuclear weapon and an American one. One exists. The other doesn’t.
If you’re wondering, U.S. presidents who have made specific public or secret nuclear threats to other nations, that we know of, as documented in Daniel Ellsberg’s The Doomsday Machine, have included Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump, while others, including Barack Obama and Donald Trump have frequently said things like “All options are on the table” in relation to Iran or another country.
Proponents of war or steps toward war (sanctions was a step toward the war on Iraq) say we urgently need a war on Iran now, but they have no argument for urgency, and they’ve been making the same argument with ever less credibility for years.
The Trump White House early on openly expressed a desire to claim that Iran had violated the 2015 nuclear agreement, but produced no evidence. It didn’t matter. Trump tore up the agreement anyway and used his own shredding of the agreement as grounds for nuclear fearmongering about Iran.
In 2017, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations claimed that Iranian weapons had been used in a war that the U.S.., Saudi Arabia, and allies were illegally and disastrously waging in Yemen. While that’s a problem that should be corrected, it is hard to find a war anywhere on the planet without U.S. weapons in it. In fact, a report that made news the same day as the ambassador’s claims, pointed to the long-known fact that many of the weapons used by ISIS had once belonged to the United States, many of them having been given by the U.S. to non-state fighters (aka terrorists) in Syria.
Fighting wars and arming others to fight wars/terrorism is a justification for indictment and prosecution, but not for war, legally, morally, or practically. The United States fights and arms wars, and no one would be justified in attacking the United States.
If Iran is guilty of a crime, and there is evidence to support that claim, the United States and the world should seek its prosecution. Instead, the United States is isolating itself by tearing down the rule of law.
President Biden came into office with the possibility wide open to restore the Iran agreement and pursue a better course. He chose not to do so, and not to even try to do so. He waited for a less amendable government to take power in Iran, and then did seemingly everything he could to stir up hostitlities in the region. Now an agreement looks much more difficult to obtain.
Of course the reason why “real men go to Tehran” is that Iran is not the impoverished disarmed nation that one might find in, say, Afghanistan or Iraq, or even the disarmed nation found in Libya in 2011. Iran is much bigger and much better armed. Whether the United States launches a major assault on Iran or Israel does, Iran will retaliate against U.S. troops and probably Israel and possibly the United States itself as well. And the United States will without any doubt re-retaliate for that. Iran cannot be unaware that the U.S. government’s pressure on the Israeli government not to attack Iran consists of reassuring the Israelis that the United States will attack when needed, and does not include even threatening to stop funding Israel’s military or to stop vetoing measures of accountability for Israeli crimes at the United Nations.
Of course, many in the U.S. government and military oppose attacking Iran, although key figures like Admiral William Fallon have been moved out of the way. Much of the Israeli military is opposed as well, not to mention the Israeli and U.S. people. But war is not clean or precise. If the people we allow to run our nations attack another, we are all put at risk.
Most at risk, of course, are the people of Iran, people as peaceful as any other, or perhaps more so. As in any country, no matter what its government, the people of Iran are fundamentally good, decent, peaceful, just, and fundamentally like you and me. I’ve met people from Iran. You may have met people from Iran. They look like this. They’re not a different species. They’re not evil. A “surgical strike” against a “facility” in their country would cause a great many of them to die very painful and horrible deaths. Even if you imagine that Iran would not retaliate for such attacks, this is what the attacks would in themselves consist of: mass murder.
And what would that accomplish? It would unite the people of Iran and much of the world against the United States. It would justify in the eyes of much of the world an underground Iranian program to develop nuclear weapons, a program that probably does not exist at present, except to the extent that legal nuclear energy programs move a country closer to weapons development. The environmental damage would be tremendous, the precedent set incredibly dangerous, all talk of cutting the U.S. military budget would be buried in a wave of war frenzy, civil liberties and representative government would be flushed down the Potomac, a nuclear arms race would spread to additional countries, and any momentary sadistic glee would be outweighed by accelerating home foreclosures, mounting student debt, and accumulating layers of cultural stupidity.
Strategically, legally, and morally weapons possession is not grounds for war, and neither is pursuit of weapons possession. And neither, I might add, with Iraq in mind, is theoretically possible pursuit of weapons never acted upon. Israel has nuclear weapons. The United States has more nuclear weapons than any other country but Russia (the two of them together have 90% of the world’s nukes). There can be no justification for attacking the United States, Israel, or any other country. The pretense that Iran has or will soon have nuclear weapons is, in any case, just a pretense, one that has been revived, debunked, and revived again like a zombie for years and years. But that’s not the really absurd part of this false claim for something that amounts to no justification for war whatsoever.
The really absurd part is that it was the United States in 1976 that pushed nuclear energy on Iran. In 2000 the CIA gave the Iranian government (slightly flawed) plans to build a nuclear bomb. In 2003, Iran proposed negotiations with the United States with everything on the table, including its nuclear technology, and the United States refused. Shortly thereafter, the United States started angling for a war. Meanwhile, U.S.-led sanctions prevent Iran from developing wind energy, while the Koch brothers are allowed to trade with Iran without penalty.
Another area of ongoing lie debunking, one that almost exactly parallels the buildup to the 2003 attack on Iraq, is the relentless false claim, including by candidates in 2012 for U.S. President, that Iran has not allowed inspectors into its country or given them access to its sites. Iran had, in fact, prior to the agreement voluntarily accepted stricter standards than the IAEA requires. And of course a separate line of propaganda, albeit a contradictory one, holds that the IAEA has discovered a nuclear weapons program in Iran. Under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), Iran was not required to declare all of its installations, and early last decade it chose not to, as the United States violated that same treaty by blocking Germany, China, and others from providing nuclear energy equipment to Iran. While Iran remains in compliance with the NPT, India and Pakistan and Israel have not signed it and North Korea has withdrawn from it, while the United States and other nuclear powers continuously violate it by failing to reduce arms, by providing arms to other countries such as India, and by developing new nuclear weapons, not to mention keeping nuclear weapons in six European countries, providing Russia to put them into one European country as well.
Are you ready for an even more absurd twist? This is on the same scale as Bush’s comment about not really giving much thought to Osama bin Laden. Are you ready? The proponents of attacking Iran themselves admit that if Iran had nukes it would not use them. This is from the American Enterprise Institute:
“The biggest problem for the United States is not Iran getting a nuclear weapon and testing it, it’s Iran getting a nuclear weapon and not using it. Because the second that they have one and they don’t do anything bad, all of the naysayers are going to come back and say, ‘See, we told you Iran is a responsible power. We told you Iran wasn’t getting nuclear weapons in order to use them immediately.’ … And they will eventually define Iran with nuclear weapons as not a problem.”
Is that clear? Iran using a nuclear weapon would be bad: environmental damage, loss of human life, hideous pain and suffering, yada, yada, yada. But what would be really bad would be Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon and doing what every other nation with them has done since Nagasaki: nothing. That would be really bad because it would damage an argument for war and make war more difficult, thus allowing Iran to run its country as it, rather than the United States, sees fit. Of course it might run it very badly (although the U.S. is hardly establishing a model for the world over here either), but it would run it without U.S. approval, and that would be worse than nuclear destruction.
Inspections were allowed in Iraq and they worked. They found no weapons and there were no weapons. Inspections have been allowed in Iran and have worked. However, the IAEA has come under the corrupting influence of the U.S. government. And yet, the bluster from war proponents about IAEA claims over the years is not backed up by any actual claims from the IAEA. And what little material the IAEA has provided for the cause of war has been widely rejected when not being laughed at.
Another year, another lie. No longer do we hear that North Korea is helping Iran build nukes. Lies about Iranian backing of Iraqi resisters have faded. (Didn’t the United States back French resistance to Germans at one point?) Another recent concoction is the “Iran did 911” lie. Revenge, like the rest of these attempted grounds for war, is actually not a legal or moral justification for war. But the 9/11 fiction has already been put to rest by the indespensable Gareth Porter, among others. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, which did play a role in 911 as well as in the Iraqi resistance, is being sold record quantities of that good old leading U.S. export of which we’re all so proud: weapons of mass destruction.
Oh, I almost forgot another lie that hasn’t quite entirely faded yet. Iran did not try to blow up a Saudi ambassador in Washington, D.C., an action which President Obama would have considered perfectly praiseworthy if the roles were reversed, but a lie that even Fox News had a hard time stomaching. And that’s saying something.
And then there’s that old standby: Ahmadinejad said “Israel should be wiped off the map.” While this does not, perhaps, rise to the level of John McCain singing about bombing Iran or Bush and Obama swearing that all options including nuclear attack are on the table, it sounds extremely disturbing: “wiped off the map”! However, the translation is a bad one. A more accurate translation was “the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.” The government of Israel, not the nation of Israel. Not even the government of Israel, but the current regime. Hell, Americans say that about their own regimes all the time, alternating every four to eight years depending on political party (some of us even say it all the time, without immunity for either party). Iran has made clear it would approve of a two-state solution if Palestinians approved of it. If the U.S. launched missile strikes every time somebody said something stupid, even if accurately translated, how safe would it be to live near Newt Gingrich’s or Joe Biden’s house?
Luckily, war resisters have succeeded for so long (even while telling each other that they never succeed) that the war mongers don’t remember who Ahmadinejad even was anymore, and all that demonization has gone to nought.
The real danger may not actually be the lies. The Iraq experience has built up quite a mental resistance to these sorts of lies in many U.S. residents. The real danger may be the slow start of a war that gains momentum on its own without any formal announcement of its initiation. Israel and the United States have not just been talking tough or crazy. They’ve been murdering Iranians. And they seem to have no shame about it. The day after a Republican presidential primary debate at which candidates declared their desire to kill Iranians, the CIA apparently made certain the news was public that it was in fact already murdering Iranians, not to mention blowing up buildings. Some would say and have said that the war has already begun. Those who cannot see this because they do not want to see it will also miss the deadly humor in the United States asking Iran to return its brave drone.
Perhaps what’s needed to snap war supporters out of their stupor is a bit of slapstick. Try this on for size. From Seymour Hersh describing a meeting held in Vice President Cheney’s office:
“There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up. Might cost some lives. And it was rejected because you can’t have Americans killing Americans. That’s the kind of — that’s the level of stuff we’re talking about. Provocation. But that was rejected.”
Now, Dick Cheney is not your typical American. Nobody in the U.S. government is your typical American. Your typical American is struggling, disapproves of the U.S. government, wishes billionaires were taxed, favors green energy and education and jobs over military boondoggles, thinks corporations should be barred from buying elections, and would not be inclined to apologize for getting shot in the face by the Vice President.
Back in the 1930s, the Ludlow Amendment nearly made it a Constitutional requirement that the public vote in a referendum before the United States could go to war. President Franklin Roosevelt blocked that proposal. Yet the Constitution already required and still requires that Congress declare war before a war is fought. That has not been done in almost 80 years, while wars have raged on almost incessantly. In the past decade and right up through President Obama’s signing of the outrageous National Defense Authorization Act on New Years Eve 2011-2012, the power to make war has been handed over to presidents. Here is one more reason to oppose a presidential war on Iran: once you allow presidents to make wars, you will never stop them. Another reason, in so far as anybody any longer gives a damn, is that war is a crime. Iran and the United States are parties to the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which bans war. One of those two nations is not complying.
But we won’t have a referendum. The U.S. House of Misrepresentatives won’t step in. Only through widespread public pressure and nonviolent action will we intervene in this slow-motion catastrophe. This war, if it happens, will be fought by an institution called the United States Department of Defense, but it will endanger rather than defending us. As the war progresses, we will be told that the Iranian people want to be bombed for their own good, for freedom, for democracy. But nobody wants to be bombed for that. Iran does not want U.S.-style democracy. Even the United States does not want U.S.-style democracy. We will be told that those noble goals are guiding the actions of our brave troops and our brave drones on the battlefield. Yet there will be no battlefield. There will be no front lines. There will be no trenches. There will simply be cities and towns where people live, and where people die. There will be no victory. There will be no progress accomplished through a “surge.” On January 5, 2012, then-Secretary of “Defense” Leon Panetta was asked at a press conference about the failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he replied simply that those were successes. That is the kind of success that could be expected in Iran were Iran a destitute and disarmed state.
Now we begin to understand the importance of all the media suppression, blackouts, and lies about the damage done to Iraq and Afghanistan. Now we understand why Obama and Panetta embraced the lies that launched the War on Iraq. The same lies must now be revived, as for every war ever fought, for a War on Iran. Here’s a video explaining how this will work, even with some new twistsand lots of variations. The U.S. corporate media is part of the war machine.
Planning war and funding war creates its own momentum. Sanctions become, as with Iraq, a stepping stone to war. Cutting off diplomacy leaves few options open. Electoral pissing contests take us allwhere most of us did not want to be.
These are the bombs most likely to launch this ugly and quite possibly terminal chapter of human history. This animation shows clearly what they would do. For an even better presentation, pair that with this audio of a misinformed caller trying hopelessly to persuade George Galloway that we should attack Iran.
On January 2, 2012, the New York Times reported concern that cuts to the U.S. military budget raised doubts as to whether the United States would “be prepared for a grinding, lengthy ground war in Asia.” At a Pentagon press conference on January 5, 2012, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff reassured the press corpse (sic) that major ground wars were very much an option and that wars of one sort or another were a certainty. President Obama’s statement of military policy released at that press conference listed the missions of the U.S. military. First was fighting terrorism, next detering “aggression,” then “projecting power despite anti-access/area denial challenges,” then the good old WMDs, then conquering space and cyberspace, then nuclear weapons, and finally — after all that — there was mention of defending the Homeland Formerly Known As The United States.
The cases of Iraq and Iran are not identical in every detail, of course. But in both cases we are dealing with concerted efforts to get us into wars, wars based, as all wars are based, on lies. We may need to revive this appeal to U.S. and Israeli forces!
Additional reasons not to Iraq Iran include the numerous reasons not to maintain the institution of war at all, as laid out at WorldBeyondWar.org.
For more information, and a list of the Top 100 Reasons not to launch this war, and a petition to end the brutal sanctions on Iran, go to https://worldbeyondwar.org/iran-war
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Once again, it all failed. The Kremlin managed to secure stability despite being forced to conduct the SMO against the entire political West. What’s more, Russia overtook Germany as the world’s fifth and Europe’s largest economy, a humiliating defeat for its Western rivals who expected quite the contrary. Berlin did much worse than in decades, while London’s economic performance was at its lowest in over 300 years. And yet, to “add insult to injury”, now even Western data shows that the initial estimates of Moscow’s economic performance were wrong and that it will actually be even better in 2024. Namely, the new IMF’s forecast of 2.6% GDP growth doubles its previous assessment. According to the Financial Times, this increase of 1.5% is the largest for any economy featured in an update to the IMF’s World Economic Outlook, released on January 30.
Given the numbers, even the FT questioned the effectiveness of the political West’s unprecedented sanctions against Russia. What’s more, the report reveals that the IMF has significantly upgraded its forecasts for Moscow, but downgraded expectations for Japan and the European Union (particularly the eurozone). Interestingly, the IMF’s forecast paints a stronger picture of Russian economic performance than even that predicted by the Kremlin itself, whose Central Bank assessed no more than 1.5% back in November.
“It is definitely the case that the Russian economy has been doing better than we were expecting and many others were expecting,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the IMF’s chief economist, told the FT in an interview.
Interestingly, as the report claims, Russian President Vladimir Putin, usually not as involved in shaping the macroeconomic policy as his top experts in the field, has himself predicted that GDP would grow above the official assessment. Namely, he recently said that the growth could rise above 3.5% and possibly even over 4%. The mainstream propaganda machine essentially laughed it off. However, its reaction after the IMF’s upgrade is that of shock and disbelief. In addition, Putin stated that the growth is based primarily on domestic consumer and investment demand, including record spending on construction, production industry, agriculture, tourism and freight transport. The financial sector is also breaking records. In a separate report published on January 30, the FT concluded that Russian banks have posted record profits despite Western sanctions.
The report claims that this was fuelled by a rush to take out subsidized mortgages, as well as a boom in financing to purchase assets sold by Western companies leaving Russia. As the FT posits, despite severe sanctions that were supposed to isolate Moscow’s financial system, Russian banks generated 3.3 trillion roubles in 2023, which amounts to approximately $37 billion. This is a staggering 16 times more than in 2022. This came as a shock even to the Russian Central Bank (CBR), whose Chief of Banking Regulation Alexander Danilov previously estimated that profits would only exceed one trillion roubles (approximately $11 billion). The FT admits that this is yet another proof of Moscow’s resilience in the face of the political West’s (now failed) economic siege. This success is particularly puzzling to the belligerent power pole, as Russia has been almost entirely cut off from Western capital markets.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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The highly influential Thakur Family Foundation was exposed in a report for colluding with Indian and Western media to tarnish the image of India’s pharmaceutical industry to protect the profits of American companies. The systemic targeting of India’s pharmaceutical industry comes as American companies face a major challenge to their dominance as Indian alternatives are far more affordable.
According to a Disinfo Lab report, the fake news against Indian medicines is spearheaded by US citizen Dinesh Thakur, a pharmaceutical expert whose claim to fame was exposing Ranbaxy in 2003 and founding the Thakur Family Foundation (TFF). However, before returning to India in 2002-03 to take up a position at Tanbaxy, Thakur worked for ten years in a senior position at the American pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS).
His colleagues, Dinesh Kasthuril and Venkat Swaminathan, also quit their well-placed BMS jobs to join Ranbaxy at around the same time as him but in different branches, before they all left the Indian company and returned to the US after two or three years. Once back in the US, Thakur ‘exposed’ Ranbaxy to the Food and Drug Administration, which was at around the time Ranbaxy got into a dispute with Pfizer over a generic version of the Lipitor product as it threatened the American company’s stranglehold on a billion-dollar market.
Although Pfizer successfully fought against the generic version of Lipitor in the US, the consequential backlash was not only against Ranbaxy – but also against Indian pharmaceuticals and generic medicine, even though multiple US pharmaceutical companies paid higher penalties for a wider range of violations than Ranbaxy did. The success of exposing Ranbaxy and the accumulated whistleblowing money made Thakur decide to further engage in pharmaceutical activism, setting up TFF in 2018.
Through the TFF, Thakur has funded multiple individuals and institutions in India, including journalists, media houses, NGOs, and institutions. Disinfo Lab highlights India’s Newsclick as an example of the penetration of Thakur’s influence as in 2013, the outlet exposed “Thakur’s motivated narratives against Indian generic med”, but in 2021, two of its journalists funded by TFF glorified him as a “public health activist focused on improving health policy in the United States and in India.”
However, the influence over Newsclick was mild compared to Thakur’s penetration into India’s The Wire, which Disinfo Lab says is “run by another India-loving US citizen.” Four of The Wire’s journalists received approximately $75,000 for coverage of COVID-19. The Thakur-funded journalists wrote overwhelming negative stories on COVID-19 in India and always quoted so-called experts – who were also associated with the TFF.
One such journalist from The Wire was Priyanka Pulla, who soon moved on to Bloomberg, an outlet that, in July 2023, pushed fake news that toxins in Indian cough syrup medicine were found in samples taken in Iraq. The test commissioned by Bloomberg and conducted by a Connecticut-based lab, Valisure, contradicted the findings of Fourrts, which did not find any tainted substance in the samples.
It is recalled that in 2022, a US federal court found that Valisure “systemically utilised unreliable methodologies with a lack of documentation on how experiments were conducted, a lack of substantiation for analytical leaps, a lack of statistically significant data and a lack of internally consistent, objective, science-based standards for the even-handed evaluation of data” because the company claimed that Zantac, once a top-selling heartburn medication, was linked to causing cancer.
Yet, despite the reputation of Valisure being put into question, the US Department of Defense entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the company to jointly conduct a pilot study to assess the quality of generic drugs supplied to the department, many of which are manufactured in India. Based on Valisure’s history, the department’s decision to use the company would seem perplexing if there was no evident ulterior motive to continually discredit Indian pharmaceuticals to protect the profits of American companies, such as Pfizer, Merck, and BMS.
India aims to grow its pharmaceutical industry by about four times to $200 billion by 2030. The South Asian country also has the largest number of FDA-approved plants in the US and exports to 200 countries, in addition to accounting for about two-thirds of global vaccines for World Health Organization requirements. In effect, India is becoming a pharmaceutical powerhouse that, in future decades, has the potential to challenge the US for the top spot.
As Disinfo Lab points out, “this tarnishing of Indian image is not merely against Indian pharma, but as a nested strategy, it aims to target everything Indian. Thakur used Ranbaxy and other cases to paint the entire generic medicine dark. And used generic medicine to paint Indian pharma black,” adding that to Thakur, “Any alternative avenue other than foreign medicine is not acceptable.”
The report concludes that Indian generic medicine “is a threat to the US big pharma, which sells medicines at multiple times of cost, and has been pushing against generic medicine for a long time, which might eat into their profits. Not surprisingly, Thakur and Co. have devoted considerable resources to target Indian generic medicine in general” and that “this ruse is used to target the overall Indian pharma, thereby systematically denting the image to prevent it from ever becoming a competitor to the US pharma.”
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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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“You used to be so amused At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used Go to him now, he calls you, you can’t refuse When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose You’re invisible now, you’ve got no secrets to conceal”
– Bob Dylan, “Like a Rolling Stone”
It’s always encouraging when a country’s military commander-in-chief – President Biden, in this case – announces in advance that he knows how he is going to respond militarily to the killing of three American soldiers at a base that supports an illegal and immoral U.S. “covert” war against Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Iran, and all those who oppose the US/Israel slaughter of Palestinians. Such anxiety to show antecedently that he’s not sitting on his hands is touching. It’s the kind of announcement that all great military leaders make. It is the kind of arrogant stupidity that has long been the norm for U.S. presidents who love war but lose them all while masquerading as conquerors. So it goes, and so it will go.
To add to that, Biden says he doesn’t want a wider war as he creates one, since you can always take him at the opposite of his words. Yet he really has no secrets since his transparent corruption is almost palpable: He supports the Israeli/U.S. genocide in Gaza, the Ukrainian war against Russia, has expanded the war in the Middle East over the past few weeks, and will soon widen it further while the mass media report that he and his cast of fools are trying to “manage” their violent responses to prevent a wider war. The narrative has it that he is trying to outfox Netanyahu, who has often bragged how he has the U.S.A. in his back pocket.
It is hard not to laugh derisively. Now Biden issues an executive order to sanction some Israelis on the West Bank, as if this blatant political move to help his election chances with Muslim Americans is an act of moral statesmanship, while the blood of over 30,000 Palestinians drips from his shaky hands and increases daily.
My guess is that he will, as CIA veteran Larry Johnson suggests, execute his militarily meaningless bombing late today, Groundhog Day, not so much because he has to endlessly repeat similar macho acts of a Napolean in rags (which he does), but because the South Carolina primary is tomorrow and acts of war are appealing to the state’s military connected voters. Additionally, to timely “avenge” the lives of the three black soldiers killed in Jordan might help Biden with the crucial black vote in this primary that will positively launch his reelection campaign or send him back on his heels.
Acts of war have long been the magic rabbit American presidents have relied on to bail them out of political jeopardy and to show their macho toughness. In this case, as in others, such as Trump’s 2017 attack on Syria with 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles for the false accusation of Syrian chemical weapons use (a continuation of Obama’s war against Syria), the actual damage inflicted is often minor while the headline grabbing showmanship is major. That these presidents legally justify these acts of war based on the war authorization Congress passed following September 11, 2001 is telling. The so-called war on terror and a supine Congress is the gift that keeps giving the warfare state carte blanche to attack and kill whomever it damn well pleases.
In Biden’s case today, these are the actions of a desperado, a war-loving bumbling puppet who is over or under or out of his head as he feigns outrage at the killing of three soldiers who were placed in a spot where their lives were at risk because they were cogs in an imperial war machine. Pawns in the game. A very dangerous game in which the Zionists leaders of Israel are as desperate as Biden and whose secret operatives are no doubt plotting a desperate scheme to try to expand the war. Who is jerking whose chain may be questionable, but the dogs of war are barking.
“When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.”
“Biden has led U.S. imperialism out of the quagmire of Afghanistan into an even bigger quagmire in the Middle East. With the goading by his equally brainless political rivals, the Americans are plowing further into disaster.”
No rival politician to Biden dares challenge his allegiance to the Israel Lobby and what the inestimable CIA veteran Ray McGovern calls the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex, (MICIMATT), for they too are captives of it. A small demurral on this or that minor point they may make, but they essentially support the imperial hubris of the warfare state and its symbiotic relationship with Netanyahu and his ilk.
We are talking about very stupid leaders who have never learned from their losses and are risking a major war.
Cunningham writes,
“With over 50 military bases strung across the Middle East in 10 countries and with over 50,000 U.S. troops stationed in the region, the Americans are sitting ducks for the resistance. The advent of drones and newer missile technology is a new realm of warfare the Americans have not adapted to with their land garrisons in remote deserts and gaudy warships. . . . They have no idea what is coming to them given the long history of U.S. aggression, provocation, and illegal occupation in the region.”
There are even many usually astute critics of U.S. foreign policy who have recently claimed that the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) recent ruling was a win for the Palestinians, which it was not, as the ICJ appointed Netanyahu to “prevent and punish” those responsible for “genocidal acts.” Should one laugh? (See this and this.) The savage Israeli attacks on Gaza continue apace with 124 Palestinians killed in the past 24 hours and well over a thousand killed since the ruling. Spinning the ruling to accord with one’s hopes and well-intentioned wishes will not help the victims of the genocide but will only intimate that international law is somehow still operative when it is not.
So the emperor has no clothes or is dressed in rags and we all await Punxsutawney Joe to tell us which way the wind blows.
“He’s not selling any alibis/ As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes/And say, ‘Do you want to make a deal?”
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This article was originally published on the author’s website, Behind the Curtain.
Edward Curtin is a prominent author, researcher and sociologist based in Western Massachusetts. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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Israel plans to directly occupy the Gaza Strip after the war is over, giving its forces freedom to carry out military operations and assassinations as they do now in the West Bank, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on 30 January.
“After the war, when it’s over, I think it’s completely clear that Hamas won’t control Gaza. Israel will control [it] militarily but won’t control it in a civilian sense,” Gallant said at a briefing at his office in Tel Aviv.
“When we’re talking about military freedom of operation, look what happened tonight in Jenin,” Gallant added, referring to the assassination of three Palestinians in the West Bank city early on Tuesday.
Israeli special forces dressed as civilians raided the hospital and killed three Palestinian resistance fighters. According to Palestinian media, one had been injured in a raid in October and was receiving treatment while the others were visiting him at the hospital.
“This is military freedom of operation at the highest level, and yet we don’t control the area in a civilian sense,” Gallant says. “This is achievable [in Gaza as well], and it will take time.”
Gallant’s comments suggest he wants Israel to occupy Gaza while shunning the responsibilities of an occupying power toward the Palestinian civilian population as required under international humanitarian law (IHL).
IHL includes ensuring sufficient hygiene and public health standards and providing food and medical care to the population under occupation. Israel has been destroying Gaza’s hospitals and health system, while imposing a blockade to limit the entry of food and water.
IHL prohibits collective or individual forcible transfers of the population from and within the occupied territory as well as transfers of the civilian population of the occupying power into the occupied territory.
Commenting on this issue, Defense Minister Gallant told US officials last week that he and the Israeli military will not allow the rebuilding of illegal outposts or settlements by Israeli settlers inside the Gaza Strip, four US and Israeli officials toldAxios.
But on Sunday, 12 ministers and 18 lawmakers in Israel’s governing coalition gathered at a conference to promote the forcible expulsion of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians and to build Jewish settlements in enclave.
Shortly after the start of the war in October, a document was leaked from the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence outlining a plan to expel the population of Gaza under the pretext of humanitarian concern.
Members of Israel’s settler movement have for years advocated the reconquest and resettlement of Gaza. In 2005, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the dismantling of the Gush Katif settlement block and the evacuation of Jewish settlers from Gaza.
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Featured image: Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, left, and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee Chairman Yuli Edelstein attend a briefing at Gallant’s office in Tel Aviv, January 30, 2024. (Photo credit: Ariel Hermoni/Defense Ministry)
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What are we to make of this campaign of Joe Biden for president? Let us step back from the regular questions like whether he is in a hospice and three other actors play his role at different times. That is perhaps true, but it is not our topic today.
The interesting question is who is running his campaign?
First, it does not seem to be the Democratic Party, if there is anything left of that institution. It seems as if the Biden campaign is run by a set of contractors working as PR agents. But who tells them what to do? After going through the website carefully, I came to the painful conclusion that they are getting their orders from lobbying and private intelligence contractors, like Booz Allen Hamilton, and probably from three or four so as to spread the money around and make it more difficult to trace the responsibility. But the question is then, who gives the orders to those contractors?
Granted the bizarre fusion between the Biden and Netanyahu administration, and the radical privatization of governance by both, my guess is that the orders come from private consulting firms in the US, in Israel, and perhaps elsewhere, and that those consulting firms take their orders from the usual suspects:
multinational investment banks and private equity, multinational corporations (increasingly corporations have banks telling them what to do), and the strategic teams of various billionaires and billionaire families.
The immediate consulting firms around Biden are Asia Group run by Kurt Campbell and others, WestExec run by current Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Michèle Flournoy of the Defense Policy Board and Albright-Stonebridge, and there are others like Pine Island Capital Partners where both Lloyd Austin (Secretary of Defense), Flournoy, and Blinken all have interests.
I have no idea who the big players are behind the consulting firms and investment banks.
There may be some subtle issues regarding nationality. Various Israeli, Chinese, Turkish, German and other billionaires like to hide themselves behind multiple trusts and funds so that they cannot be traced. That is because of the increasingly confrontational rhetoric used in international politics.
Let us take a look at the Biden for President website now.
It is no surprise that the opening page of the Biden website asks for money. After all, the only thing that politics is concerned about these days is money. But the message presented is so bland and empty, so devoid of any possible motivation to support this zombie campaign, that one must wonder whether there is an intentional effort to discourage voters. Or perhaps this website is designed to demoralize and repel.
Perhaps it has already been determined that Trump will be the next occupant and the consulting contract from Booz Allen Hamilton is to make Biden look as stupid and compromised as possible.
The line “what we raise now will determine the size and scope of the programs we’ll be able to run next year” is ambiguous, but seems to imply that for the citizen, Joe Biden holding up the ideals of the nation is dependent on your contribution. It is pay to play for everyone.
Then you have a chance to join the mailing list and give your data to them. Still nowhere on the website is there any indication of what Biden stands for, or how you can get your message to him, or how you can contribute in any other way than swallowing propaganda and giving your money.
What exactly “finish the job” means is so open-ended, so weak and bland as to suggest that this campaign lost from the start. Similarly, the flaccid and banal statement “America is back,” which implies that having some women and minorities in cabinet level positions more than makes up for outsourcing the entire government to Amazon, BlackRock, State Street, Oracle, and Google, is at best insulting.
I will not dwell on the sad video of a Biden, or Biden look-alike, delivering warmed-over bromides in a testtube. One gets the sense that decisions for this campaign are being made by a tiny handful of people at Booz Allen Hamilton, whose minds are on autopilot.
What is most striking about the Biden site is the complete absence of and description of what he stands for, or how one can, in a democratic sense, have input in his campaign. The order of the menu is revealing. At the top is the store for buying creepy souvenirs. Then it presents two ways to donate money. Then opportunities to distribute Biden materials (without any opportunities to participate in the campaign). Then comes the description of the legal immunity of the campaign. And that is it. If you are concerned with any serious issue, you should be looking at another website.
I seriously doubt any ordinary Americans are giving this campaign money.
Here are some of the options for you if you want to join the effort. They do not seem to involve setting up your own community group in your neighborhood to address real issues.
Finally, the creepy paraphernalia of a zombie campaign.
The most striking item is the face of Joe Biden that has eyes which shift from blue sunglasses to red flashing beams like a monster from a Godzilla movie. What in the world this terrifying image is meant to convey is far from clear.
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This article was originally published on Fear No Evil.
Emanuel Pastreich served as the president of the Asia Institute, a think tank with offices in Washington DC, Seoul, Tokyo and Hanoi. Pastreich also serves as director general of the Institute for Future Urban Environments. Pastreich declared his candidacy for president of the United States as an independent in February, 2020.
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A United Nations humanitarian agency warned Thursday that over a dozen countries that have suspended their financial contributions are risking the “sheer survival” of most people in the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s war on the besieged Palestinian enclave.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said in a statement that “the colossal humanitarian needs of over 2 million people in Gaza now face the risk of deepening” due to recent donor suspensions over Israeli allegations that a handful of agency staff members participated in the Hamas-led attacks on October 7.
The number of countries cutting off funding—including the United States—has grown over the past week even though the 30,000-employee agency swiftly fired nine workers and launched an investigation into the the Israeli government’s claims.
While cease-fire talks are ongoing, Israel’s nearly four-month assault on Gaza—condemned as genocide in a South African-led case at the International Court of Justice—continues, with the death toll topping 27,000 on Thursday and thousands more injured or missing in the bombed and burned homes, hospitals, schools, mosques, shelters, and refugee camps.
In response to Israeli orders early in the U.S.-backed war, many Palestinians have fled northern Gaza. Thomas White, director of UNRWA affairs in Gaza and U.N. deputy humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, explained Thursday that the agency has had limited access to the people who remain in the north.
“UNRWA received reports that people in the area are grinding bird feed to make flour. We continue to coordinate with the Israeli army to be able to go to the north, but this has been largely denied,” he said. “When our convoys are finally permitted to go to the area, people rush to the trucks to get food and often eat it on the spot.”
Meanwhile, in southern Gaza, “Rafah has become a sea of people fleeing bombardments,” White added.
According to the UNRWA’s tally, donor nations have suspended at least $440 million in funding. Philippe Lazzarini, the agency’s commissioner-general, declared Thursday that “as the war in Gaza is being pursued unabated, and at the time the International Court of Justice calls for more humanitarian assistance, it is the time to reinforce and not to weaken UNRWA.”
“The agency remains the largest aid organization in one of the most severe and complex humanitarian crises in the world,” he said. “I echo the call of the U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres to resume funding to UNRWA. If the funding remains suspended, we will most likely be forced to shut down our operations by end of February not only in Gaza but also across the region.”
White warned that “it’s difficult to imagine that Gazans will survive this crisis without UNRWA.”
EU top diplomat @JosepBorrellF: "UNRWA is something that cant stop working—otherwise 100s of 1000s of ppl will perish. If you cut funding to UNRWA, you're punishing the whole Palestinian ppl. There's no alternative.. So no collective punishment.. no cutting [of funding] to UNRWA" pic.twitter.com/EJmNjVccoK
The comments from UNRWA leaders echoed remarks from other U.N. officials, humanitarians, global advocacy groups, and even some progressive U.S. politicians over the past week.
“UNRWA’s lifesaving services to over three-quarters of Gaza’s residents should not be jeopardized by the alleged actions of a few individuals,” Martin Griffiths, United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, told the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday.
“To put very simply and bluntly: Our humanitarian response for the occupied Palestinian territory is completely dependent on UNRWA being adequately funded and operational,” he added. “Decisions to withhold funds from UNRWA must be revoked.”
Griffiths and 14 other U.N. leaders and humanitarian partners who argued in a Tuesday statement that while the allegations against UNRWA staff “are horrifying” and “any U.N. employee involved in acts of terror will be held accountable,” global donors must not prevent the agency from helping the “hundreds of thousands of people homeless and on the brink of famine.”
“Withdrawing funds from UNRWA is perilous and would result in the collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, with far-reaching humanitarian and human rights consequences in the occupied Palestinian territory and across the region,” the coalition said. “The world cannot abandon the people of Gaza.”
[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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Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.
Featured image: Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) holds press conference in Jerusalem on October 27, 2023 [Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency]
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“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriorsgo to war first and then seek to win.”(Sun Tzu)[1]
Right from the outset of this analysis of the war on Gaza, I posited that this war is different from the others in many crucial respects and will have lasting and far-reaching consequences. It even has the potential to fundamentally remake the entire Middle East region. So far, the emphasis has been put on the highly important and necessary historicisation and geopolitical contextualisation of the century-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is today reaching its pinnacle.
From now on, we’ll shift our attention to what’s next for the Palestinians, for Israel, for the Middle East region and its impact on the global order. More specifically, and to start with, we’ll address Khaled Elgindy’s insightful observation according to which all parties concerned concur that there’s no going back to the October 6 untenable status quo, and try to answer his challenging question, “Where do we go from here?”[2]
On the Meaning of Victory in Ancient and Modern Warfare
More than 2,000 years ago, in his timeless treatise “The Art of War” (also known as “The Thirteen Chapters”), the great Chinese military strategist and general Sun Tzu asserted that war was an extension of politics and should be pursued in the interests of the greater good for all, the conqueror and the conquered. He believed that for warfare to be defined as anything other than a waste of life and resources, one needed to win. And for victory to be achieved, it is imperative to know yourself and your enemy:
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
For most historians the conventional view is that Sun Tzu has lived, fought, and composed his master work during the Spring and Autumn Period which preceded the Warring States Period (c. 481-221 BCE) during which the Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BCE) was declining, and the states once bound to it fought each other for supremacy and control of China.[3]
Likewise, the no less famous 19th century Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz claimed in his magnum opus military strategy book “On War”[4] that
“War is simply a continuation of political intercourse, with the addition of other means. We deliberately use the phrase ‘addition of other means’ because we also want to make it clear that war in itself does not suspend political intercourse or change it into something entirely different. That intercourse continues, irrespective of the means it employs. The main lines along which military events progress, and to which they are restricted, are political lines that continue throughout the war into the subsequent peace.”
It follows that
“The political object – the original motive for war – will thus determine the military objective to be reached and the amount of effort it requires.”[5]
Clausewitz described military victory as a condition where the enemy’s ability to enter battle, resist or resume hostilities is destroyed. He stated that “The key to victory lies in the ability to deny the enemy their objective”, thus emphasising the importance of not only achieving one’s own objectives but also preventing the adversary from attaining theirs. By depriving the enemy of their goals, a military force can strategically weaken and ultimately defeat them. It is interesting to note that Clausewitz’s manuscripts were inspired by the stunning military successes during the Napoleonic Wars between 1803 and 1815, which nevertheless, as history has recorded, proved ephemeral. Conversely, Clausewitz’s Prussia was convincingly beaten in 1806 in the Jena campaign but came back militarily in the 1813 and 1814 campaigns and again at Waterloo in 1815.[6]
This paradigm encompassing both the linkages between war and politics and the notion of victory, has traditionally constituted the norm and the yardstick for assessment and judgement through much of history and up to the 21st century. However, in modern wars – wars which have occurred since the end of the Cold War – while the former component is still largely valid, contemporary strategists and military affairs analysts tend to diverge on the latter element, that is the notion, or more precisely the meaning of victory. This is particularly the case regarding asymmetric warfare – a form of war between belligerents whose relative military power, strategy, or tactics are significantly different, and often involving a wide variety of non-state actors, insurgents or resistance movement militias.
I dealt with this subject in an article[7] I wrote in 2018 in which I explained that numerous careful studies have shown that the United States and its allies are blindly following those insurgents’ worldview and game plan, which is to “perpetually engage and enervate the United states and the West in a series of prolonged overseas ventures” in which they will undermine their own societies, expend their resources, and increase the level of violence, thereby setting off a dynamic that William Roe Polk has reviewed in length in one of his books[8]. Indeed, Polk reveals a pattern that has been replicated over and over throughout recent history. That is, invaders are naturally disliked by the invaded population, who disobey them, at the start in small ways, eliciting a forceful response on the part of the invader, which in turn increases opposition and popular support for resistance. The ensuing cycle of violence then escalates until the invading forces are obliged either to withdraw, or to resort to methods and means that amount to genocide to gain their ends.
Recent examples of battlefield victors eventually losing the war, or the defeated coming out as winners have been provided by many prominent scholars. In 2006, the University of Stanford rightly pointed out that
“Many wars do not result in unambiguous victory for one side or the other. Fatigue, a recognition that the cost of total victory is too high, or the prospect of endless conflict, leads the players to agree on a cease-fire.”
It cited as examples the invasions of Iraq and Lebanon by the US and Israel, respectively, saying:
“Israel realised that the cost of its invasion of Lebanon was more than it had bargained for and agreed to a cessation of hostilities. Initially the Jewish state had announced its aim as freeing the two soldiers captured by Hezbollah, disarming that organisation, and removing it from a position in which it could threaten Israel. It achieved none of these aims but still declared victory. Following that lead, President George Bush could declare victory in Iraq. Whether one wishes to view Israel or the United States as a victor depends on whether the glass is half full or half empty.”[9]
In these examples as well as in the case of Afghanistan, the strategic success could not be achieved notwithstanding a superior military force and an immense mismatch between the opponents in terms of firepower and technology at their respective command. The main reason for that is that victory required not only the defeat of the opponents’ military capabilities but also the successful resolution of the deeper problems at the root of the conflict.[10]
In understanding victory, says William Martel[11], a clear distinction between the political aim (the end) and the military aim (one of the means to achieve the end) is essential. Victory can be looked at as an outcome (result), a descriptive statement of the post-war situation, or as an aspiration (ambition or goal) being the driver to accomplish specific objectives through use of force. That’s why most scholars and analysts seem to agree that military victories alone do not determine the outcome of modern wars. They consider victory to be the achievement of a predetermined end state.
The notion of a desired end state implies that victory occurs if the outcome of the war corresponds with previously articulated aims, that is, a relation between war aims and war outcomes.[12] It is then critical to define the end before the war begins, and to clearly follow it. War, says Michael Anderson, “is a fluid, complicated thing, and it isn’t beyond reason for war aims to morph during a conflict, but at each of those points there must be a clear and understood process for the changed goals to be achieved as there was leading into the war in the first place. A change in war aims can seem like a new war in itself.”[13] Indeed, if it’s unknown how a war is supposed to end, then how can it be known if, or when the endgame has been achieved?
Nowadays, as stated by de Landmeter, it is almost inconceivable to wage war without considering the post-war period. Ideally, the object of policy extends into the period after hostilities, and victory is closely linked to concepts of conflict termination and conflict resolution that seek to find lasting solutions.
In answering the big question of what constitutes victory in modern war, Gabriella Blum contends that
“With wars becoming about long-term change, requiring a mix of benevolence and aggression that is carefully tailored to individual targets, the political and civilian dimensions of victory have outgrown the military one. As the attempts to define what success looks like in Afghanistan or Iraq show, the formulation of victory now requires more long-term, abstract, and complex, less tangible and immediate terms. War, in other words, can no longer be reduced into a military campaign.”[14]
To put it another way, victory in the “true sense implies that the state of peace and of one’s people, is better after the war than before.”[15] Such a victory, however, requires considerable patience, because “while the military contest may have a finite ending, the political, social, and psychological issues may not be resolved even years after the formal end of hostilities.”[16]
So, how does this paradigm translate in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? More precisely, has violence meted out on the Palestinians forcing them to do under duress what Israel wanted in the short term brought a settled, durable peace? It has obviously not. For Peter Layton, the Israelis are a perfect contemporary example of the validity of said paradigm:
“…they (the Israelis) have won many seemingly decisive battles but are still searching for victory. The Palestinians may be scattered and partly live in occupied lands, but Israel is unable to compel them to come to a peaceful resolution of their territorial disagreement. The two side’s political differences remain unresolved, so their political interaction – their human intercourse – continues, sometimes violently and occasionally at times through war.”[17]
Since October 7, this situation has worsened in an unprecedented manner, as it has set in motion a succession of tragic events of Dantesque proportions. What is unfolding right before our very eyes is no less than a fight for survival from the point of view of all the belligerents, namely Israel and the Palestinians, as well as the latter’s allies in the potent “axis of resistance” composed of Lebanese Hezbollah, Yemeni Houthis, Iraqi resistance factions, Syria and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Quite understandably, Wesley Clark’s shocking utterance “we’re going to take out seven countries in five years” has never ceased to loom over the region.
Collectively Trapped in an Existential Zero-Sum Game
On 21 January 2024, The Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas issued a 16-page document entitled “Our Narrative…Operation Al-Aqsa Flood”[18] to clarify the background and dynamics of the surprise attack, which the Palestinian Resistance leaders decided to launch on 7 October, considering it “a necessary step and a normal response to confront all Israeli conspiracies against the Palestinian people”.
The report is mainly intended to the steadfast Palestinian people, the Arab and Islamic nations and the “free peoples worldwide and those who advocate for freedom, justice and human dignity”, in light of “the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and as our people continue their battle for independence, dignity, and breaking free from the longest-ever occupation during which they have drawn the finest displays of bravery and heroism in confronting the Israeli murder machine and aggression.”
The document is structured around five sections. The first section deals with the reasons behind Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, explaining that the battle of the Palestinian people against occupation and colonialism did not start on 7 October 2023, but rather 105 years ago, including 30 years of British colonialism and 75 years of Zionist occupation. It recalls that in 1918, the Palestinian people owned 98.5% of the Palestine land and represented 92% of its overall population. And even after the mass Jewish immigration campaigns coordinated between the British colonial authorities and the Zionist Movement, the Jews controlled no more than 6% of the land of Palestine and represented only 31% of its total population prior to the creation of the “state of Israel” in 1948. Over these decades, the Palestinian people suffered all forms of oppression, injustice, expropriation of their fundamental rights and the apartheid policies, and “After 75 years of relentless occupation and suffering, and after failing all initiatives for liberation and return to our people, and also after the disastrous results of the so-called peace process, what did the world expect from the Palestinian people to do?” the document asks. Should they keep waiting and keep counting on the helpless UN? Or take the initiative in defending the Palestinian people, lands, rights and sanctities, knowing that the defence act is a right enshrined in international laws, norms and conventions?
The second section titled “The events of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” describes the occurrences of that day and debunks some of the Israeli lies, highlighting the fact that
“the Palestinian resistance was fully disciplined and committed to the Islamic values during the operation and that the Palestinian fighters only targeted the occupation soldiers and those who carried weapons against our people”, and adding that “If there was any case of targeting civilians, it happened accidentally and in the course of the confrontation with the occupation forces”.
It also indicated that many Israelis were killed by the Israeli army and police, especially those who were in the Nova music festival, as reported by Israeli Yedioth Ahronoth and Haaretz newspapers.
In the third section titled “Towards a transparent international investigation”, the report recalls that being a member-state of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its Rome Statute since 2015, Palestine asked for an investigation into Israeli war crimes committed on its territories, but was faced both with “Israeli intransigence and rejection, and threats to punish the Palestinians for the request to ICC” and Western powers completely siding with Israel’s narrative and standing against the Palestinian moves within the international justice system, thereby keeping Israel as a state above the law and ensuring it escapes liability and accountability.That is why, the document goes on,
“We urge these countries, especially the US administration, Germany, Canada and the UK, if they are meant for justice to prevail as they claim, they ought to announce their support to the course of the investigation in all crimes committed in occupied Palestine and to give full support for the international courts to effectively do their job.”
In the fourth section, titled “A reminder to the world, who is Hamas?”, the group describes itself as a “Palestinian Islamic national liberation and resistance movement” who “gets its legitimacy to resist the occupation from the Palestinian right to self-defence, liberation and self-determination.” It further insists that it “does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine.” In so doing, the report says,
“We stress that resisting the occupation with all means including the armed resistance, is a legitimised right by all norms, divine religions, the international laws including the Geneva Conventions and its first additional protocol and the related UN resolutions”, mainly UN General Assembly’s Resolution 3236, adopted on 22 November 1974, which affirmed “the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people in Palestine, including the right to self-determination and the right to return to ‘their homes and property from where they were expelled, displaced and uprooted.”
The fifth and final section is related to “What is Needed”. The document says that “Occupation is occupation no matter how it describes or names itself, and remains a tool to break the will of the peoples and to keep oppressing them”. It also emphasises the fact that throughout history the experiences of the peoples/nations willing to break away from occupation and colonialism confirm that “resistance is the strategic approach and the only way to liberation and ending the occupation”; a process which requires “struggle, resistance or sacrifice”. Believing that humanitarian, ethical and legal imperatives should normally lead “all countries around the world to back the resistance of the Palestinian people and not collude against it”, Hamas calls for the immediate halt of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, a cessation of the crimes and ethnic cleansing committed against the entire Gaza population, the opening of the border crossings and the entry of the humanitarian aid into Gaza including the reconstruction tools. It also urges to hold the Israeli occupation legally accountable for the human suffering it caused to the Palestinian people, and to charge it for the crimes against civilians, infrastructure, hospitals, educational facilities, mosques and churches. Moreover, it calls upon the free peoples across the world, especially those nations who were colonised and recognise the suffering of the Palestinian people, to take serious and effective positions against the double standard policies adopted by powers/countries that back the Israeli occupation: “We call on these nations to initiate a global solidarity movement with the Palestinian people and to emphasise the values of justice and equality and the right of the peoples to live in freedom and dignity.”
Hamas’s report also addressed the issue of post-war Gaza, a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doubled down on his opposition to Palestinian statehood. It states:
“We stress that the Palestinian people have the capacity to decide their future and to arrange their internal affairs” adding that “no party in the world” had the right to decide on their behalf.
It goes without saying that the October 7 sophisticated military operation must have been orchestrated after months, if not years of planning, training, and military and intelligence gathering. Liberation is the heart of Hamas’s strategic vision for Palestine, and during these last years, its leaders have assessed that “victory is nigh”.
Clear evidence for that line of reasoning was provided by the convening of a conference which passed almost unnoticed despite – or perhaps because of – its very conspicuous title and theme. In effect, a conference titled “Promise of the Hereafter[19] – Post-Liberation Palestine” was held at the Commodore Hotel in Gaza City on 30 September 2021, under the patronage of Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Al-Sinwar, with other Palestinian factions in attendance. The conference discussed preparations for the future administration of the state of Palestine following its “liberation” from Israel.[20]
According to an English translation provided by The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), the conference’s concluding statement[21] says:
“the Promise of the Hereafter Institute held the first strategic vision conference of its kind: the Promise of the Hereafter Conference, which formulated ideas and methods of operation [to be implemented] during the liberation of Palestine in various areas that were discussed at the conference. This complements the strategies that have been formulated by the Promise of the Hereafter Institute since its establishment in 2014, with the aim of providing a clearer vision for those in charge of liberating Palestine.”
The following are some of the recommendations formulated at the conference:
The liberation of Palestine is the collective duty of the entire [Islamic] nation, first and foremost of the Palestinian people. It is [therefore] crucial to formulate a plan for utilising the nation’s resources and dividing the labour among its different components, each according to its abilities. That is the responsibility of the Council for the Liberation of Palestine.
The Council for the Liberation of Palestine will be headed by a general secretariat, led by a steering council, which, upon the liberation of Palestine, will become an executive council headed by an interim presidential council until the holding of presidential and parliamentary elections and the formation of a new government.
Immediately after the liberation, the liberation forces will issue a Palestinian independence document setting out the Palestinian principles, highlighting the Palestinian national identity and its Arab, Islamic, regional and international depth. The formulation of this document will be overseen by a team of experts in the spheres of politics, law and media, for this will be a historic document on the legal and humanitarian levels, a direct continuation of the Pact of ‘Umar Bin Al-Khattab[22] and of the announcement issued by Salah Al-Din upon his liberation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque [in 1187].[23]
The liberation forces will declare a series of interim laws, to be formulated in advance, including a land and real estate law granting [these forces] control over all state lands and assets, as well as laws [regulating the activity of] the civil service, the interim government, the Palestinian army, the judiciary and security [apparatuses], the return [of the refugees], the [state] comptroller and the municipal authorities.
An announcement will be addressed to the UN declaring that the state of Palestine has succeeded the occupation state and will enjoy the rights of the occupation state, based on the articles of the 1978 Vienna Convention on Succession of States.
The concluding statement ends with the affirmation that
“time has come to act. Preparations for the liberation of Palestine began with the spirit of liberation that emanated from this conference, and from the preparations of the fighters whose souls yearn to liberate the land of Palestine and its holy places. We are headed for the victory that Allah promised his servants: ‘O you who have believed, if you support Allah, He will support you and plant firmly your feet [Quran 47:7]’; “They will say: ‘When is that?’; Say, ‘Perhaps it will be soon.’ [Quran 17:51]”
In his statement before the conference, Yahya Al-Sinwar underlined that “the battle for the liberation and the return to Palestine has become closer now than ever before”. He emphasised the importance of preparing for what was to come, giving as an example the “Sword of Al-Qods” battle of May 2021, and noting that
“the conflict can end only with the implementation of the promise of victory and control that Allah gave us – that our people will live with dignity in its independent state with Jerusalem as its capital. To this end, we are working hard and making many efforts on the ground and in its depths, in the heart of the sea, and in the heights of the heavens… We [can already] see with our eyes the [imminent] liberation and therefore we are preparing for what will come after it.”
It is noteworthy to mention that Al-Sinwar used similar words in a speech he delivered only three months earlier before Palestinian academics in the Gaza Strip.[24] He notably boasted that Hamas had won the last round of fighting with Israel and praised the Palestinians in Jerusalem for resisting Israeli “schemes to Judaise Jerusalem, divide al-Aqsa Mosque and carry out ethnic cleansing.” The last round of fighting with Israel, he added, represented only a “small battle” and the next war will be more significant and “will change the shape of the Middle East.”
For his part, the representative of the Islamic Jihad Khader Habib declared that
“The Resistance is engaged in an existential conflict with the Israeli occupation, and it will emerge victorious, as promised by Allah.” He added: “The only conflict which the Qur’an discusses in detail is the conflict between us and the Zionist enterprise, which is the pinnacle of evil on the global level.” Calling on the Palestinians to be prepared for the ramifications of the divine victory, he noted that “the end of the Zionist entity is mentioned in the Quran, and is certain and credible.”[25]
All these goals and considerations expressed by Palestinian leaders are obviously not lost on the Israeli political leaders, strategists and think tanks in particular.
As Ramzy Baroud rightly suggested in a well-documented article[26], while it is true that Zionism is a modern political ideology that has exploited religion to achieve specific colonial objectives in Palestine, the subject of religious prophecies and their centrality to Israel’s political thought was once more highlighted following remarks by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, in an interview with the Hebrew-language newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. Barak expressed fears that Israel will “disintegrate” before the 80th anniversary of its 1948 establishment. Throughout the Jewish history, he said,
“the Jews did not rule for more than eighty years, except in the two kingdoms of David and the Hasmonean dynasty and, in both periods, their disintegration began in the eighth decade.”[27]
Like Ehud Barak, Benjamin Netanyahu had expressed similar fears about looming existential threats at a Bible study session in his house in Jerusalem. He was quoted as saying that “Hasmonean state [also known as the Maccabees] lasted only 80 years, and we needed to exceed this.”[28] Although belonging to different political schools, both leaders share the belief that Israel’s survival is at stake and its demise is only a matter of time.
Moreover, this belief is far from confined to the Israeli political elites’ sphere, nor are they a new phenomenon. Indeed, for instance, Benny Morris, one of the leading Israeli “New Historians” – who considers himself as a Zionist[29] – is of the opinion that in a matter of a generation Israel will cease to exist in its current form, albeit for other reasons mainly related to demographics. He stated in an interview that he doesn’t see “how we get out of it. Already,today there are more Arabs than Jews between the (Mediterranean) Sea and the Jordan (River). The whole territory is unavoidably becoming one state with an Arab majority. Israel still calls itself a Jewish state, but a situation in which we rule an occupied people that has no rights cannot persist in the 21st century.”[30]
Avi Shlaim, Ilan Pappe and Ari Shavit are today reiterating what they have been saying, long before the ongoing war on Gaza, about the occupation of Palestinian lands and its adverse consequences on the future of Israel as a “Jewish state”. They all predict the demise of Israel “as we know it”. In effect, more than a decade ago, these left-wing historians and journalist wrote acclaimed books[31] in which they all agree on one thing:
“the current status quo between Israel and the Palestinians is unsustainable. [They] see the writing on the wall. The occupation, the relentless expansion of illegal settlements, the construction of the monstrous ‘security barrier’ on the West Bank, the demolition of Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem, the flagrant violations of international law, the systematic abuse of Palestinian human rights and the rampant racism – all are slowly but surely turning Israel into an international pariah. No sane Israeli relishes the prospect of living in a pariah state that maintains an apartheid regime.”[32]
Also, back in 2016, Ari Shavit wrote:
“It is not the United Nations and the European Union that will stop settlements. The only force in the world capable of saving Israel from itself is the Israelis themselves, by creating a new political language that recognises reality and that the Palestinians are rooted in this land. I urge you to look for the third way to survive here and not die.”[33]
Needless to say, in the reflection about the future of the state of Israel and the existential threats it’s facing, the think tank community is heavily involved. Maj. Gen. (ret.) Gershon Hacohen’s recent analysis stands out in this regard. Adopting a skilful approach, he wrote a very perspicacious article[34] divided into three parts on the right-leaning Bar-Ilan University’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies’ website. Hacohen says that the fractures and divisions within Israeli society over the past year were seen as a divine omen that this was the time when the gates of heaven would open to herald the redemption of the leadership of Hamas in Gaza. Referring mainly to the above-mentioned “Promise of the Hereafter Conference”, he reminds that Muslim religious leaders and military strategists predicted years ago that this period would mark the beginning of the end for Israel. He also strongly believes that as it defines the goals of the war,
“it is crucial that the Israeli leadership understand the religious logic guiding Israel’s enemies. On the physical level, Israel must strive to dismantle the regional system that has been constructed with the support and intent of Iran. On the spiritual-faith level, Israeli victory must be decisive in a way that neutralises the belief among the leadership of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran that the day of Israel’s destruction is at hand.”
One more example[35] in this same vein is provided by Seth Frantzman who – unlike many political leaders and analysts who are busy devising about what the “day after” will look like in Gaza – considers that “Gaza may not be where this is leading. In fact, the real ‘prize’ for Doha, Turkey, Iran, and others may be much closer to Jerusalem.”
The War to End All Gaza Wars and the Road Ahead
Based on the above-mentioned paradigm, how can we assess, thus far, the ongoing war aims and outcomes as per the belligerents? In other words, who’s winning this war and who’s losing it from the military, legal, moral and, more importantly, political standpoints? And what’s next therefore?
Like many other strategists and military analysts, Gershon Hacohen points out that Israel has continued to confront the threat of war according to the pattern of conflicts from the last century, from the “War of Independence” in 1948 to the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Thereafter, it has been struggling to grasp the implications of a new conception of warfare adopted by its enemies. This conception, he says, “has thrust Israel into a state of continuous warfare, like a chronic disease without a cure.”
When he initially crafted his country’s national security doctrine in the mid-twentieth century, the first Israeli Prime minister David Ben-Gurion acknowledged the fundamental weakness of the State of Israel in terms of its ability to withstand a prolonged war. Accordingly, he expected the IDF to decisively win wars fast, and developed an offensive striking force with the directive to transfer any conflict to the enemy’s territory as quickly as possible. General Israel Tal – who designed the Merkava tank and reached the position of deputy Chief of staff – explained this perspective in length in his book where he describes the history of the Israel-Arab wars from 1948 onward and presents a security theory specific to Israel from which the fighting doctrines of the Israeli military derive. Tal concludes that previous security theory proved valid because it was based upon a decision to allocate the great portion of available resources, both intellectual and material, to secure national defence. He considered that this theory was no longer valid due to political changes in the Middle East and the development of modern military technologies.
Over the decades, Israel’s security doctrine has been updated to encompass four fundamental pillars, namely deterrence, early warning, strong defensive capabilities, and decisive and quick victories.
Nevertheless, the Israeli need to end wars quickly was clearly understood and effectively integrated into the perception of warfare developed by Hezbollah and Hamas, with the backing of Iran. They formulated a concept of warfare that is aimed at swiftly negating Israel’s decisive capabilities.
As explained by Hacohen, over the last 40 years, Islamic organisations have formulated the idea of an ideological-religious war guided by the concept of “Al-Muqawama”, the Arabic word for “resistance.” This idea “represents a cultural perspective on the phenomenon of war that differs strikingly from that of Western observers. According to the Western cultural perspective, war is a deviation from the stable and peaceful order and is therefore conducted with the intention of restoring that order. The Al-Muqawama concept, by contrast, views warfare as a means of maintaining a constant momentum of conflict and struggle designed to ultimately bring about global Islamic religious conquest.”
It can thus be viewed as the inverse of Clausewitz’s description of war as “the continuation of politics by other means”. Politics therefore is seen as the continuation of war by other means, and negotiation is viewed not as a means to bring about the end of a war but simply as a pause that serves its continuation at a more opportune time under more favourable conditions.
According to the retired general, this concept of resistance has both a physical-military dimension and a cultural-spiritual dimension. The military dimension was described by the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Hossein Salami in 2022:
“The Palestinians are ready for ground combat. This is Israel’s vulnerability. Missiles are excellent for deterrence (…) but they don’t liberate land. Ground forces must be deployed, step by step, to liberate it (…) Hezbollah and Palestinian forces will move on the ground in a unified military structure.”[36]
In truth, the new resistance strategy was essentially the brainchild of Qassem Suleimani, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Al-Qods Force, who was assassinated in an American missile strike on 3 January 2020. Suleimani was keen on and fully invested in strengthening the coordination work between the different resistance groups around Israel; a strategy known as “Tightening the noose”, which links religious, political, civic and military ideology.
Also, less than two months prior to October 7, Saleh Al-Arouri, Deputy Head of the Political Bureau of Hamas, said in an exclusive interview with Lebanese Al Mayadeen TV that:
“the Resistance alliance is prepared and motivated by reason, will, and common interests to partake in a regional war, and the active parties are ready and prepared for it”, adding: “The all-out war will be a defeat for Israel, and we see that classical wars have changed, and this is evidenced by the conflict in Ukraine.”[37]
Later on, the very day of the October 7 attack, Al-Arouri[38] declared in an interview with Al Jazeera that the group is engaged in a battle for freedom:
“This is not a [hit-and-run] operation; we started an all-out battle. We expect fighting to continue and the fighting front to expand. We have one prime target: our freedom and the freedom of our holy sites.”[39]
Regarding the spiritual-cultural dimension, Hacohen says that Hamas’s leadership has taught us that its conduct is guided by a deep religious rationale, and
“Western cultural observers, who for centuries have separated religious motives from the political, diplomatic, and military considerations of state leaders, have no tools with which to understand the leadership of Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, which are driven by religious conviction and carry out their daily work guided by faith.” He added that “It is from this perspective that we can understand the logic employed by Yahya Al-Sinwar in his decision to go to war on October 7. From his point of view, after Hamas fulfilled its duty to take the initiative and act, trends would develop later that would advance the divine intention. If, for example, the war results in a situation in which Israel is forced to submit to American demands for the establishment of a Palestinian state and withdrawal from the West Bank, Al-Sinwar will be perceived as victorious. Despite the massive destruction he has brought down upon Gaza, he will achieve a historical status no less than that of Saladin.”
In Hacohen’s words, “this insightmust be integrated into the foundations of the Israeli security perception because in terms of comprehensive existential considerations, this perception extends beyond the concept of deterrence, which has repeatedly revealed itself to be fragile”. What he was referring to is the failure of the ill-named “mowing the lawn” strategy, consisting for Israel to reestablish deterrence through a limited use of force each time a flare-up occurred in Gaza. As a matter of fact, this strategy allowed Hamas and the other Palestinian resistance groups to carry out a long-term buildup of arms and military infrastructure and to improve their operational capabilities, in particular through the construction of an amazingly extensive and highly sophisticated network of tunnels, even infiltrating Israeli territory.
In essence, Hacohen concludes, the war of 1967 was the last military clash to unfold along the lines of World War II, and since then, the world of warfare has changed completely. As a result, he believes that “to seek a victory along the lines of outdated patterns is like asking for the Red Sea to be split again.”
Image: The UN says nearly 1.9 million people have now been displaced in Gaza. [AbdelHakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]
Undoubtedly, the era of intermittent cycles of fighting and cease-fires in Gaza is Over. There will be no going back to the previous state of affairs. For both the Palestinian Resistance and Israel the only order of the day is the vital need to achieve a decisive military outcome. This idea has “sparked extensive debate among experts and senior IDF leaders for many years about how to define ‘decisive outcome’ and ‘victory’ and how to apply them to conflicts with non-state actors and terrorist groups. Israel now understands that although the jihadi ideology of Hamas may persist (as have those of the Islamic State, or ISIS, and Al-Qaeda), the IDF must dismantle the organisation’s military capabilities.”[40]
It’s a truism to say that because of its incomparable conventional military superiority to its adversaries, Israel knows full well that Hamas and the other Palestinian Resistance groups cannot go toe to toe with the IDF. How could a group of armed irregulars numbering in the low tens of thousands, besieged in a tiny territory and with little access to advanced weaponry, reasonably be a match to a nuclear state, ranked 17th most powerful military in the world[41], armed and backed by the world’s number one, that is the U.S.? Yet, as we said earlier when referring to insurgents’ worldview and game plan within the framework of modern asymmetric warfare, Israel in its turn will go down in the history books as another example of a mighty military power losing to a weaker opponent.
As Audrey Kurth Cronin says, “For Israel, perhaps the most galling outcome of this asymmetry is that its armed forces may have played squarely into Hamas’s hands by striking Gaza with tremendous force”[42] in response to the Al-Aqsa Flood military operation on October 7th. This operation, she claims, “was intended to provoke the Israeli military into an overreaction that would undermine international sympathy for Israel, stoke an uprising in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and rally support for Hamas (…) In many ways, the group has succeeded”.
Indeed, driven by a blind desire for vengeance, the IDF have called up over 350,000 reservists and launched ferocious attacks by air, land and sea in a collective punishment of the Palestinian civilians that has so far killed and injured close to 5% of the Gazan population, created a humanitarian catastrophe of Biblical proportions, and is increasingly raising the risk of a wider regional, if not world war.
With its savage military expedition entering its fourth month – making it the longest and deadliest it has ever experienced – Israel has yet to achieve any of its three stated strategic goals, which Netanyahu has just once again reiterated:
“We will not compromise on anything less than total victory (…) That means eliminating Hamas, returning all of our hostages and ensuring that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel.”[43]
Worse still, Netanyahu is facing a deeply divided war cabinet and knows his right-wing governmental coalition is in great danger of being brought down at any time. Further evidence of this was given when Defence Minister Yoav Gallant who promised to “wipe Hamas off the face of the earth” is now replacing the previously equally sacrosanct third objective with a revealing new one, that is “maintaining unity among the people of Israel.”[44]
After only two months of fierce fighting, and despite the cataclysmic violence unleashed on Palestinians, an increasing number of establishment strategic analysts started warning that Israel was failing to achieve its political goals and could lose this war. By shattering a status quo that Palestinians find intolerable, Tony Karon and Daniel Levy say, “Hamas has put politics back on the agenda. Israel has significant military power, but it is politically weak.”[45] They remind that “History also suggests a pattern in which representatives of movements dismissed as ‘terrorist’ by their adversaries – in South Africa, say, or Ireland – nonetheless appear at the negotiating table when the time comes to seek political solutions. It would be ahistorical to bet against Hamas, or at least some version of the political-ideological current it represents, doing the same if and when a political solution between Israel and the Palestinians is revisited with seriousness.” The authors conclude that “What comes after the horrific violence is far from clear, but Hamas’s October 7 attack has forced a reset of a political contest to which Israel appears unwilling to respond beyond devastating military force against Palestinian civilians. And as things stand eight weeks into the vengeance, Israel can’t be said to be winning”.
For former Prime minister Ehud Olmert, the odds of achieving the complete elimination of Hamas were nil from the moment that Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared it the chief goal of the war. Hamas, he wrote in an opinion,[46]
“Is not easily defeated. Of course Netanyahu knew from the get-go that his rhetoric was baseless and would ultimately collapse in the face of a military and humanitarian reality that would force Israel to reach an end point in the current campaign. That time has now arrived. The defeat of Hamas is a long way away. We haven’t even reached the point at which we are in control of the timetable of the war that began on October 7.”
To the question of what is to be done, he believes that “the time has come for Israel to express its readiness to end the fighting. Yes, end the fighting. Not a pause and not a temporary cessation of two, three or four days. An end of hostility – period.” This should be conditioned on the release of all the hostages and in exchange, Israel “will have no choice but to release all the Hamas prisoners it holds.”
Similarly, for Eyal Hulata, who was Israel’s national security adviser from 2021-2023,
“There is no way this will end when Israel can say we are victorious. Israel lost this war [on] the 7th of October. The only question now is if we are able to remove from Hamas the ability to do this again. And we might succeed, and we might not.”[47]
Leading Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea doesn’t think otherwise. In an op-ed he wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth, he called on Israel to adjust its objective of dismantling Hamas in Gaza and affirmed that:
“In the last three weeks, the war has not changed reality. It has cost the lives of soldiers, has increased the risk of a humanitarian disaster that Israel will be responsible for, has hurt Israel in the world and hasn’t brought us any closer to a victory which does not exist.”[48]
Also, former leader of the Shin Bet domestic security force, Ami Ayalon, said Israel will not have security until Palestinians have their own state, and Israeli authorities should release Marwan Barghouti, jailed leader of the second intifada, to direct negotiations to create one. He also shared the view that the nature of Hamas meant that its destruction was an impossible goal for a military. Hamas is not just a militia, he said, but “an ideology with an organisation, and the organisation has a military wing. You cannot destroy ideology by the use of military power. Sometimes it will be rooted deeper if you try. This is exactly what we see today. Today, 75% of Palestinians support Hamas. Before the war, it was less than 50%.”[49]
The same opinion was expressed by war cabinet Gadi Eisenkot, thus contradicting his own Prime minister. He said that “A strategic achievement was not reached … We did not demolish the Hamas organisation”.[50]
Last but not least, former Prime minister Ehud Barak stated in an opinion in Haaretz that Hamas has not been defeated, and the chances of recovering the hostages are declining.”[51] He added that those who believe that Palestinians in Gaza can be encouraged to migrate voluntarily are delving into dreams that have no basis in reality.
The textbook case of genocide that Israel is carrying out against the Palestinian people has inflamed public opinion across the whole world as shown by the millions of pro-Palestinian protesters marching almost daily in rallies on the street of major world cities. These multitudes are united in one overarching demand: ending the Israeli bombardment of Gaza and Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.Even in the United States, the staunchest supporter of Israel no matter how gravely damaging this blind support has been to the United States’ national and global interests, growing numbers of protesters are taking to the streets of New York City, Washington DC, Los Angeles and Dallas, among others.
More significantly, after losing the war of worldwide public opinion, Israel has suffered another blow when, on 26 January, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rejected its petition to throw out a landmark legal case filed by South Africa concerning “alleged violations by Israel of its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in relation to Palestinians in the Gaza strip”. By an overwhelming majority of 15 votes to two, the ICJ’s panel of 17 judges issued an order[52], which has binding effect, indicating six provisional instructions to Israel to refrain from acts under the Genocide convention, prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to genocide, and take immediate and effective measures to ensure the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza. Crucially, the Court also ordered Israel to preserve evidence of genocide and to submit a report to the Court, within one month, of all measures taken in line with its order. This ruling, critically enough, raises the possibility that Israel’s backers in Washington, London, Berlin and other European capitals could face the prospect of being implicated in having aided and abetted genocide in some future date.[53]
As a result of all these momentous events, Washington is now openly and regularly calling for the implementation of the two-States solution. In the words of Maria Fantappie and Wali Nasr[54], Washington “Can no longer neglect the Palestinian issue. In fact, it will have to make resolving that conflict the centrepiece of its endeavour. It will simply be impossible for the United States to tackle other questions in the region, including the future of Arab-Israeli ties, until there is credible path to a viable future Palestinian state.”
Better still, Secretary of State Tony Blinken recently asked the State Department to conduct a review and present policy options on possible U.S. and international recognition of a Palestinian state after the war in Gaza[55]. The simple fact that the State Department is even considering such options signals a major policy shift within the Biden administration. This is all the more important news as for decades, U.S. policy has been to oppose the recognition of Palestine as a state both bilaterally and in UN institutions and to stress Palestinian statehood should only be achieved through direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
And so, thanks to their steadfast resistance and indescribable sacrifices, Palestinians have at last, and against all odds, succeeded in having their just cause front and centre on the global stage. They have thus decidedly paved the way for a long-awaited independence and a dignified life on their stolen ancestral land.
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Amir Nour is an Algerian researcher in international relations, author of the books “L’Orient et l’Occident à l’heure d’un nouveau Sykes-Picot” (The Orient and the Occident in Time of a New Sykes-Picot) Editions Alem El Afkar, Algiers, 2014 and “L’Islam et l’ordre du monde” (Islam and the Order of the World),Editions Alem El Afkar, Algiers, 2021.
Notes
[1] Sun Tzu, “The Art of War”, p.57, Shambhala Publications, 2005.
[3]Joshua J. Mark, “Sun-Tzu”, World History Encyclopedia, 9 July 2020.
[4]Carl von Clausewitz, “On War”, translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret, Princeton University Press, 1976. In fact, the book is an unfinished work: Clausewitz had set about revising his accumulated manuscripts in 1827 but did not live to finish the task. His wife Marie von Brühl posthumously published the book in 1832, and subsequently collected his works and published them between 1832 and 1835 (Source: Wikipedia).
[5]Bill Bently, “Clausewitz: War, Strategy and Victory – A Reflection on Brigadier-General Carignan’s Article”, Canadian Military Journal, Volume 17, Number 2, Summer 2017.
[6]Peter Layton, “Using a Clausewitzian Dictum to Rethink Achieving Victory”, The Bridge, 15 May 2018.
[7]Amir Nour, “The Twilight of the Empire Age: Whose World Will It Be?”, The Saker Blog, 29 March 2019.
[8]William R. Polk, “Violent politics: A history of Insurgency, Terrorism, and Guerilla War, From the American Revolution to Iraq”, Harper Perennial, 2008.
[9]University of Stanford, “What is Victory?”, 2006.
[10]Colonel E.A. de Landmeter, “What constitutes victory in modern war?”, Militaire Spectator, 20 March 2018.
[11]William C. Martel, “Victory in War: Foundations of Modern Strategy”, Cambridge University Press, 2011.
[12]Robert Mandel, “Reassessing Victory in Warfare”, in: Armed Forces & Society, Vol 33 Number 4, 2007.
[13]Michael Anderson, “On the Meaning of Victory”, The Association of the United States Army, 26 July 2018.
[14]Gabriella Blum, “The Fog of Victory”, in: The European Journal of International Law, Vol. 24 No. 1, 2013.
[15]B.H. Liddell Hart, “Strategy”, Penguin Group, New York, 1991.
[16]Robert Mandel, op cit.
[17]Peter Layton, “Using a Clausewitzian Dictum to Rethink Achieving Victory”, op cit.
[19]The name of the conference has a religious significance to it, originating from verse 7 of Surat Al-Isra’ (the nightly journey of Prophet Muhammad, PBUH) in the Qur’an, as it talks about the fate of the children of Israel during the end times after they return to Israel.
[21]See the report published by MEMRI, “Hamas-Sponsored ‘Promise of The Hereafter’ Conference for The Phase Following the Liberation of Palestine and Israel’s ‘Disappearance’”, 4 October 2021.
[22]According to Islamic tradition, the Pact of ‘Umar was signed between the Second Caliph ‘Umar Bin Al-Khattab and Sophronius, the Christian patriarch of Jerusalem, upon the Islamic conquest of the city in 638.
[23]A reference to Salah Al-Din’s decision upon his conquest of Jerusalem to allow Christians and Jews to reside in the city under Islamic rule.
[24]Khaled Abu Toameh, “Sinwar: Next war with Israel will change the Middle East”, The Jerusalem Post, 7 June 2021.
[25]Shehabnews.com, 30 September 2021.
[26]Ramzy Baroud, “Palestinians ‘Are Bound to Win’: Why Israelis Are Prophesying the End of Their State”, Common Dreams, 14 June 2022.
[27]Ehud Barak, “האיום האמיתי היחיד על קיומה של ישראל” (The Only Real Threat to Israel’s Existence), Ynet, 7 May 2022.
[28]Jonathan Lis, “Netanyahu: Israel Must Cope with Future Security Threats if It Wants to Reach 100”, Haaretz, 10 October 2017.
[29]He once regretted that Israel’s founder, David Ben Gurion, did not expel all of Palestine’s native population in 1947-48.
[30]Ofer Aderet, “‘Israel Will Decline, and Jews Will Be a Persecuted Minority. Those Who Can Will Flee to America’”, Haaretz, 22 January 2019
[31]Ilan Pappé, “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”, Oneworld Publications, 2007 and “The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge”, Verso Books, 2016; Avi Shlaim, “Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations”, Verso Books, 2010; Ari Shavit, “My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel”, Random House, 2013.
[32]Read: Avi Shlaim, “The Idea of Israel and My Promised Land – review”, The Guardian, 14 May 2014.
[33]Ari Shavit, “Haaretz’s Writers and Readers Are Obligated to Fight for Israel, Not to Spread Hatred and Leave”, Haaretz, 8 September 2016.
[34]Maj. Gen. (ret.) Gershon Hacohen, “A New Existential War”, 2,3 and 9 January 2024.
[35]Seth J. Frantzman, “Israel’s enemies may see the war in Gaza as a road to Jerusalem”, The Jerusalem Post, 6 November 2023.
[36]MEMRI, “IRGC Commander Salami In Interview For Supreme Leader Khamenei’s Website: ‘The Palestinians Are Ready Today For Ground Warfare”, 31 August 2022.
[37]Al Mayadeen English, “Exclusive – Al Arouri: Resistance Axis preparing for all-out war”, 25 August 2023. To watch the interview in Arabic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aoONr4zpdQ
[38]He was assassinated by an Israeli drone strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs of Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold, on 2 January 2024.
[39]Al Jazeera, “Hamas says it has enough Israeli captives to free all Palestinian prisoners”,7 October 2023.
[40]Amos Yadlin and Udi Evental, “Why Israel Slept: The War in Gaza and the Search for Security”, Foreign Affairs magazine, January/February 2024.
[41]Global Firepower, “2024 Military Strength Ranking”,
[43]Patrick Wintour, “Netanyahu rules out ceasefire deal that would mean Gaza withdrawal”, The Guardian, 30 Jan 2024.
[44]Akiva Van Koningsveld “Gallant: IDF to retain security control in Gaza after Hamas defeated”, The Jewish Chronicle, 30 January 2024.
[45]Tony Karon and Daniel Levy, “Israel is Losing This War”, 8 December 2023.
[46]Ehud Olmert, “Israel Must Cease Hostilities and Bring the Hostages Home”, Haaretz, 28 December 2023.
[47]Daniel Estrin, “Israelis are increasingly questioning what war in Gaza can achieve”, NPR, 11 January 2024.
[48]Nahum Barnea, “ איך יוצאים מהבור שאליו נפלנו” (How to get out of the hole into which we fell), Ynet, 9 January 2024.
[49]Emma Graham-Harrison and Quique, “Ex-Shin Bet head says Israel should negotiate with jailed intifada leader”, The Guardian, 14 January 2024.
[50]Nadeen Ebrahim and Vasco Cotovio, “Israeli government divisions deepen as cabinet minister says defeating Hamas is unrealistic”, CNN, 20 January 2024.
[51]Ehud Barak, “Israel Needs an Early Election-Before It’s Too Late”, Haaretz, 18 January 2024.
[53]Simon Speakman Cordall, “‘Israel’s supporters have been put on notice’, say experts on ICJ verdict”, Al Jazeera, 27 January 2024.
[54]Maria Fantappie and Wali Nasr, “The War That Remade the Middle East: How Washington Can Stabilise a Transformed Region”, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2024.
[55]Barak Ravid, “Scoop: State Department reviewing options for possible recognition of Palestinian state”, 31 January 2024.
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The second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is approaching and the Biden administration increasingly fears that its policy is failing. Although in public President Joe Biden remains confident about Ukraine’s future, the Pentagon reportedly is pushing new military plans for Kiev to go on the defensive. “Unnamed officials” in his administration increasingly talk of the need for a negotiated settlement. They justify further American aid as a way to increase Kiev’s negotiating leverage, not to defeat Moscow’s forces. Ukraine’s glory days last year in turning back Russian armored columns are long gone.
Money is also increasingly scarce. Political elites in the U.S. and Europe continue to support the Zelensky government, but popular opposition is rising, so they are looking for other sources of revenue—including hundreds of billions of dollars in frozen Russian assets.
It seems so simple. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. and European nations imposed economic sanctions on Moscow—the government and its people. The allies froze sundry assets of targeted individuals, mostly wealthy “oligarchs” viewed as regime supporters, and, in an unprecedented move, some $300 billion in financial reserves of the central government. Why not give it to Kiev? First the idea was to support Ukraine’s reconstruction after Russia was defeated and humiliated. Now the proposal is to aid the former’s faltering war effort.
Support for widespread confiscation is growing on both sides of the Atlantic. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky pushed the idea at the recent Davos gathering. Per Fortune, he called
for a “strong” decision this year for the frozen assets in Western banks to “be directed towards defense against the Russian war and for reconstruction” of Ukraine. “Putin loves money above all,” he said. “The more billions he and his oligarchs, friends and accomplices lose, the more likely he will regret starting this war.”
Belgium holds the largest amount of frozen Russian assets and suggested that the funds could “be used to buy military equipment, humanitarian aid and help with the rebuilding of the war-torn country.” Perhaps the most enthusiastic European proponent is the United Kingdom.
Some Western officials don’t want to stop with aid to Kiev. The Washington heavyweight Robert Zoellick suggested “setting aside some of the Russian reserves to assist developing countries that have been demonstrably hurt by higher food and energy prices. In addition, some amount could be allocated for claims by companies that suffered Russian retaliation.” Why not also use the money to solve the international debt crisis, reimburse governments for the cost of Covid, create universal global health care, and send a manned mission to Mars?
The Biden administration long was skeptical of grabbing Russian property, but has been moving to support the initiative with legislation. The New York Timesreported that the administration is “pressing Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan to come up with a strategy by Feb. 24, the second anniversary of the invasion.” At the Davos meeting, Penny Pritzker, a former commerce secretary who currently serves as Special Representative for Ukraine’s Economic Recovery, said that the U.S. and the G7 are working out the instruments for the seizures. Again in Fortune: “‘Get all the lawyers and all the various governments and all the parties really to come together to sort that through,’ she said. ‘It’s hard, it’s complicated, it’s difficult, and we need to work.’” As Ukraine’s battlefield prospects flag, support for grabbing whatever Russian wealth is at hand is likely to grow.
Nevertheless, doing so is a bad idea, despite the superficial appeal.
Western leaders talk often about the “rules-based international order;” of course, they write the rules but ignore them whenever inconvenient. Grabbing the assets of foreign nations and nationals without convincing justification would further expose their hypocrisy. European critics point out that “The U.S. and its allies aren’t at war with Russia, and Russia didn’t amass its wealth through illicit means but largely by selling oil and gas, much of which went to the West.”
Of course, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin wrongly loosed the dogs of war on Ukraine. For that his government bears responsibility. Nevertheless, if national governments were empowered to unilaterally grab assets, both state and private property when governments had engaged in illegal and immoral wars, then Americans would have been stripped bare after Iraq. Washington long has benefited from a global double standard because of America’s military power and political influence.
With the international power balance changing, the U.S. might not be immune in the future. Even the Europeans have tired of what they see as obstructionism involving their priorities, such as climate change, technology regulation, and more. If other governments remain chary about challenging the US government, they might become more willing to seize the property of Americans, both of individuals and companies. Future US officials might rue a precedent that governments can seize whatever they want from whoever they want without recompense.
The allied case for grabbing Russian assets is poor. The American and European governments present themselves as innocent bystanders in l’affaire Ukraine. However, they misled both Moscow and Kiev, violating multiple assurances of not expanding NATO while promising to induct Ukraine but failing to act on their commitment. Russia was angered and Ukraine was emboldened; both were betrayed. Invader and invaded alike have a claim to compensation from Washington and Brussels.
Although the emphasis has been on taking government property, some policymakers also would seize private assets. Indeed, last year the Justice Department confiscated $5.4 million from Russian businessman Konstantin Malofeyev and transferred the money to a State Department fund to rebuild Ukraine. No doubt, many such “oligarchs” are morally dubious characters, having manipulated the system and misused influence to gain their wealth. That is an issue for the Russian people, not Western governments. Nor are allied societies free of unjust state-created privileges, called “rent-seeking” by economists. Grabbing people’s assets because of their personal reputations makes a mockery of the rule of law and property rights.
More broadly, allowing politicians to seize sundry property and funds from politically unpopular owners would place all property and funds at risk. As Sergey Aleksashenko, a Russian dissident and former central bank official, observed:
“I do not believe that there is any way to confiscate assets of the Russian Central Bank without a court deciding on the matter. Because if there is no legal basis to confiscate Russian assets, and if it is done by the decision of the administration, that means that there is no rule of law in the U.S. and there is no protection of private property.”
Advocates for stealing Russian cash have floated various theories, such as treating property seizure as being a unique countermeasure to aggression. Nevertheless, “as a justification for confiscating Russian state assets, the reprisals argument has three problems: It lacks compellent effect, it is being invoked by the wrong parties, and it undermines the rules-based order western governments claim to defend.” The author Simon Hinrichsen argued that the circumstances are unique. Once the West sets such an exception, however, there is no logical limit. One could imagine taking someone else’s money as compensation for human rights violations, unfair trade practices, or climate mismanagement, all of which could be termed “unique.”
Dispensing with basic legal principles for a few billion dollars in booty brings to mind the famous Sir Thomas More quote in A Man for All Seasons:
Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!
Washington’s use of financial weapons already has caused many foreign governments, including in Europe, to look for means to insulate their economies from U.S. sanctions. Admittedly, alternatives are limited, and governments retain dollar-denominated investments. Yet the allied seizure of Russian assets would likely concentrate minds in governments at odds with Washington and Brussels and speed their searches for other financial storehouses. No country could feel safe in such circumstances.
Taking Moscow’s money also would be arbitrary. After all, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths in Yemen. Why not take the royals’ cash, effectively stolen from their populations? Israel has been hauled before the International Court of Justice for its promiscuous killing of civilians in Gaza amid much rhetoric promoting ethnic or religious cleansing. Shouldn’t overseas Israeli assets be seized? Then there is China. Consider its manifold human rights abuses and its military threats against Taiwan. Don’t they count? Why tag only Russian wealth for seizure?
In practice, Moscow undoubtedly would retaliate by seizing American and European assets. At the end of 2022, Western investments in Russia were valued at $288 billion. Moscow would probably confiscate them. The greatest burden would fall on private enterprises that could offer little defense. Although Russia would be worse off by the exit of Western firms, for many Russians cheap foreign assets would be a substantial windfall. Indeed, the Putin government might view the expulsion of foreign firms as a benefit, reducing subversive foreign influences and rewarding government loyalists.
As for Washington, its high-profile attempt to steal other nations’ assets would reinforce the impact of sanctions, which is spurring other nations to reduce their reliance on U.S. financial instruments and institutions. A $300 billion money grab almost certainly would accelerate this process.
Perhaps the most harmful impact of seizing Russian assets would be making it harder to end the war. So long as Moscow’s money is frozen, it could be restored as part of a peace settlement. Western governments could use the prospect to encourage negotiations between angry, distrustful antagonists. Indeed, with Russia increasingly believing that it has a military advantage, returning frozen assets, especially of the Russian state, and reopening markets to Russian firms might be necessary inducements for a peace agreement.
Confiscating financial reserves while retreating on the battlefield would encourage Russia to press forward to retrieve its losses and more. Despite outrage at Moscow’s unjustified (though not unprovoked) invasion, the issue of war and peace should be treated as one of prudence rather than morality. Ukraine is itself the battlefield and has paid most heavily for the conflict. It is essential to end the war, and to do so as soon as possible. Slowing that process to grab Russian monies would be counterproductive in the extreme.
The Putin government invited the Biden administration to negotiate before its February 2022 invasion. Washington refused, apparently assuming that Moscow’s threats were not serious. Now the allies, frustrated at the failure of their plans, are moving toward lawlessly seizing Russian property and reserves. Doing so would be ruble wise but dollar foolish. The so-called “rules-based order” means something only if its advocates obey the same standards they propound for everyone else.
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Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Foreign Follies: America’s New Global Empire.
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To be an American today is to collect a basket full of sadness.We have been at war forever for the profits of the military/security complex, for the hegemonic ideology of the neoconservatives, for Cold War hysteria, and for Israel.Huge sums of money have been wasted for no benefit to the American people.Just yesterday I was listening to a deputy sheriff tell me how frustrating it was that he cannot reach the criminal American elite and bring them home to their crimes, but has, instead, to focus on the minor crimes of their lower class victims.
I asked him why it is the lower class that most waves the flag, and he said that patriotism is all that they have that gives them meaning.I responded that this means that they cannot escape their victimhood, and he said “that is what is sad about it.”
Parents have not come home from Washington’s wars to their spouses, children, family, and friends.They died for the military/security complex’s profits, for Israel, or for some dumbshit ideology.They did not die for America, but for their deaths to have meaning, their families have to insist that they did.With the American people trapped in this way, Washington can pile up the deaths, thanking the dead not for defending the military/security complex’s profits, but for “defending America.” In this way Washington can continue its endless wars. Dying for America is a way the lower class can find meaning in their lives.
Now that Russia has shown that there is to be no American victory in Ukraine, Washington has renewed its war adventures in the Middle East, aligning solidly with Israel’s massacre of the Palestinians and against the Arab and Muslim countries that oppose what is an Israeli genocide of the Palestinians. Palestinian women, children, hospitals, schools, social infrastructure are being blown to tiny pieces with the American bombs and missiles that Biden is handing to Israel’s Nazi leader, Netanyahu, who is under indictment both in Israel and now in effect by the International Court of Justice.But this means nothing to Washington, which sees itself as the exceptional, indispensable country unaccountable to any law, domestic or international.
The alleged “moral democracies,” the US, UK, EU, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Iceland, thumbed their noses at the International Court of Justice’s verdict against Israel by suspending their funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the major source of aid to the Palestinians in Gaza.
What does this tell us about the morality of the Western World?It tells us that it is worse than in Sodom and Gomorrah.
How can we be Proud Americans when the suspension of funding by Washington will impact life-saving assistance for over two million civilians, over half of whom are children, who rely on UNRWA aid in Gaza? The population faces starvation and an outbreak of disease under Israel’s bombardment and blockade of aid.
This is the way that Zionist Israel, together with its Biden Regime Democrat ally, intends to accomplish its genocidal elimination of the Palestinian people.
Israel has blockaded all water, food, electricity, and medical supplies to Gaza for the last 120 days. As a result, a half million Palestinians face starvation.
The massive and ongoing bombing of Gaza, courtesy of the continuous shipment of US munitions to Israel, has killed and wounded at least 90,000 Palestinians, 70% of them women and children. More than 1000 children have had to undergo amputations without anesthesia. There is no medicine, no blood for transfusions, no clean water to wash wounds. And no food. Only more bombs falling from the sky each day, thanks to America.
Chris Hedges reports that the West’s alleged humanitarian and medical institutions refuse to denounce Israel’s decimation of human life in Gaza.We are faced with the stark fact that even Western medical and humanitarian institutions are in the pocket of Israeli Zionists.Morality cannot be found on the scene.
How is it that a tiny county, the existence of which depends entirely on American support, can force the world to accept genocide at the risk of the war widening into Nuclear Armageddon?
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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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Israel’s voters reward Netanyahu’s government coalition with more votes.
Israelis want genocide – and their government not only delivers but promises more of it.
The West Wants Genocide
The US and Western governments not only support Israel’s genocide – they actively participate in it.
This is confirmed by scores of their own Western officials who don’t want to be guilty as part of their politicians’ crime against humanity:
“What’s really different here is we’re not failing to prevent something, we’re actively complicit. That is fundamentally different from any other situation I can recall,” added the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity:
More than 800 serving officials in the US and Europe have signed a statement warning that their own governments’ policies on the Israel-Gaza war could amount to “grave violations of international law”.
It says Israel has shown “no boundaries” in its military operations in Gaza, “which has resulted in tens of thousands of preventable civilian deaths; and… the deliberate blocking of aid… putting thousands of civilians at risk of starvation and slow death.”
“There is a plausible risk that our governments’ policies are contributing to grave violations of international law, war crimes and even ethnic cleansing or genocide,” it said. (Tom Bateman, BBC, February 2, 2024)
Israel’s coalition of Netanyahu and extremist elements are in safe hands – the Israeli people and US and Western governments actively support their genocide.
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Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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Britain is set to rest fire a nuclear missile in just a few days in a major show of force towards Iran and Russia.
This will be the first time since 2016 that the UK will test fire a missile and it comes amid warnings that the world could be edging closer to World War III.
The HMS Vanguard submarine sailed into the Atlantic earlier this week and according to the Sun, it is expected to fire the missile off the coast of the US, near Florida.
It is expected to launch a single unarmed missile that will fly 3,500 miles and land in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of West Africa.
The US National Geospatial Intelligence Agency issued a warning to shipping to expect an impact in the area of the mid-Atlantic.
The warning also urges those closer to the launch site to be aware as debris is expected to fall as parts of the missile are burnt out and discarded.
The warning is in place from January 30 through February 4.
The tests are the final hurdle the £4billion sub has to overcome before re-entering service as part of the UK’s nuclear deterrent fleet.
The 30-year-old sub had spent the past seven years undergoing a refit in Plymouth and has been dubbed as a “colossus” by the Royal Navy.
The sub’s refit reportedly cost £500million and took three years longer than expected.
The 491ft beast can carry up to 16 Trident 2 D5 missiles, each armed with warheads 20 times more powerful than the weapons dropped on Japan in World War Two.
The last test which took place eight years ago with the HMS Vengeance, ended in failure.
The missile was due to 5,500 miles from near the coast of Florida to a target south east of Ascension Island.
It veered dangerously off course and self-destructed automatically.
That had been only the fifth time a Trident 2 missile had been fired this century, with the previous tests taking place in 2000, 2005, 2009 and 2012.
Trident missiles are designed to blast to the edge of space before re-entering the atmosphere and plummeting towards earth.
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Gaza is experiencing mass starvation like no other in recent history. Before the outbreak of fighting in October, food security in Gaza was precarious, but very few children – less than 1% – suffered severe acute malnutrition, the most dangerous kind. Today, almost all Gazans, of any age, anywhere in the territory, are at risk.
There is no instance since the second world war in which an entire population has been reduced to extreme hunger and destitution with such speed. And there’s no case in which the international obligation to stop it has been so clear.
These facts underpinned South Africa’s recent case against Israel at the international court of justice. The international genocide convention, article 2c, prohibits “deliberately inflicting [on a group] conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.
In ordering provisional measures to prevent potential genocide last Friday, the ICJ didn’t rule on whether Israel is actually committing genocide – that will take years of deliberation – but the judges made it clear that the people of Gaza face “conditions of life” in which their survival is in question. Even Justice Aharon Barak, appointed by Israel to sit on the panel, voted in favour of immediate humanitarian relief.
But a humanitarian disaster such as Gaza’s today is like a speeding freight train. Even if the driver puts on the brakes, its momentum will take it many miles before it stops. Palestinian children in Gaza will die, in the thousands, even if the barriers to aid are lifted today.
Starvation is a process. Famine can be its ultimate outcome, unless stopped in time. The methodology used to categorize food emergencies is called the integrated food security phase classification system, or IPC. It’s a five-point scale, running from normal (phase 1), stressed, crisis, and emergency, to catastrophe/famine (phase 5).
In categorizing food emergencies, the IPC draws on three measurements: families’ access to food; child malnutrition; and the numbers of people dying over and above normal rates. “Emergency” (phase 4) already sees children dying. For a famine declaration, all three measures need to pass a certain threshold; if only one is in that zone, it’s “catastrophe”.
The IPC’s famine review committee is an independent group of experts who assess evidence for the most extreme food crises, akin to a high court of the world humanitarian system. The committee has already assessed that the entirety of Gaza is under conditions of “emergency”. Many areas in the territory are already in “catastrophe”, it said, and might reach “famine” by early February.
Yet whether or not conditions are bad enough for an official declaration of “famine” is less important than the situation today, which is already killing children. Bear in mind that malnutrition makes humans’ immune systems more vulnerable to diseases sparked by lack of clean water and sanitation, and that those diseases are accelerated by overcrowding in unhealthy camps.
Since the IPC was adopted 20 years ago, there have been major food emergencies in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia’s Tigray region, north-east Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen. Compared to Gaza, these have unfolded slowly, over periods of a year or more. They have stricken larger populations spread over wider areas. Hundreds of thousands died, most of them in emergencies that didn’t cross the bar of famine.
And in the most notorious famines of the late 20th century – in China, Cambodia, Nigeria’s Biafra and Ethiopia – the numbers who died were far higher, but the starvation was also slower and more dispersed.
Never before Gaza have today’s humanitarian professionals seen such a high proportion of the population descend so rapidly towards catastrophe.
All modern famines are directly or indirectly man-made – sometimes by indifference to suffering or dysfunction, other times by war crimes, and in a few cases by genocide.
The Rome statute of the international criminal court, article 8(2)(b)(xxv), defines the war crime of starvation as “intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva conventions”.
The main element of the crime is destruction and deprivation, not just of food but of anything needed to sustain life, such as medicine, clean water and shelter. Legally speaking, starvation can constitute genocide or war crimes even if it doesn’t include outright famine. People don’t have to die of hunger; the act of deprivation is enough.
Many wars are starvation crime scenes. In Sudan and South Sudan, it’s widespread looting by marauding militia. In Ethiopia’s Tigray, farms, factories, schools and hospitals were vandalized and burned, far in excess of any military logic. In Yemen, most of the country was put under starvation blockade. In Syria, the regime besieged cities, demanding they “surrender or starve”.
The level of destruction of hospitals, water systems and housing in Gaza, as well as restrictions of trade, employment and aid, surpasses any of these cases.
It may be true, as Israel claims, that Hamas is using hospitals and residential neighbourhoods for its own war effort. But that doesn’t exonerate Israel. Much of Israel’s destruction of Gazan infrastructure appears to be away from zones of active combat and in excess of what is proportionate to military necessity.
The most extreme historical cases – such as Stalin’s Holodomor in Ukraine in the 1930s and the Nazi “hunger plan” on the eastern front during the second world war – were genocidal famines at immense scale. Gaza doesn’t approach these, but Israel will need to act decisively if it is to escape the charge of having used hunger to exterminate the Palestinians. Starvation is a massacre in slow motion. And unlike shooting or bombing, the dying continues for weeks even if killing is halted.
This is the challenge facing the UN security council when it will soon debate the ICJ’s provisional orders to Israel. Just allowing in aid and putting some restraints on Israel’s military action are not going to stop this thundering train of catastrophe quickly enough.
More than a month ago, the famine review committee wrote: “The cessation of hostilities and the restoration of humanitarian space to deliver this multi-sectoral assistance and restore services are essential first steps in eliminating any risk of famine.” In other words, an immediate end to fighting is essential to prevent a calamitous toll that may far exceed the numbers killed by violence.
That’s the operative line. For the survival of the people of Gaza today, it doesn’t matter whether Israel intends genocide or not. Unless Israel follows the famine relief committee recommendations, it will knowingly cause mass death by hunger and disease. That’s a starvation crime.
And if the US and UK fail to use every possible lever to stop the catastrophe, they will be complicit.
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Alex de Waal is the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University and the author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine.
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Dec. 2023 (Darren Cheng Han Teo et al) – The first reported case of new-onset mania and psychosis post heterologous bivalent mRNA COVID-19 booster vaccination (4th dose).
there are case reports describing associated neuropsychiatric manifestations following COVID-19 vaccination, but none reported post heterologous bivalent boosting yet
47 year old man with no history of psychiatric illness presented with 4 day history of manic and psychotic symptoms after 1st Moderna bivalent COVID-19 vaccine a week prior to admission.
Before this, he received 3 doses of Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine without significant side effects.
3 days after Moderna mRNA bivalent, he reported developing an elevated mood, increased irritability, psychomotor agitation, increased energy, decreased need for sleep, increased distractibility, grandiosity and paranoid delusions relating to work and family.
his ability to function at work was affected.
he had no family history of psychiatric disorders.
no history of substance or significant alcohol use, and he had been functioning well in his profession in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) discipline.
A contrast-enhanced MRI brain was unremarkable
His presentation was suggestive of an Other Specified Bipolar And Related Disorder With Manic And Mood-congruent Psychotic Features (DSM-V). Differential diagnosis (DSM-V) included Bipolar I Disorder and a Brief Psychotic Disorder
He was started on oral Olanzapine, titrated up to 7.5 mg once daily in view of his manic and psychotic symptoms. He was discharged after 8 days of inpatient treatment, where he demonstrated full resolution of his manic and psychotic symptoms. Subsequently, he opted to stop the oral Olanzapine approximately 12 days after his discharge. He remained well one-month post discharge with a full reported recovery of his functioning when he was reviewed in the outpatient setting with no recurrence of the manic and psychotic symptoms.
Psychosis and Mania with COVID-19 Vaccines
Let’s look at some other published cases.
3rd mRNA dose
2022 Sep (Kita et al): 37 yo Japanese man had psychosis & suicide attempt after Moderna mRNA booster jab
37 year old Japanese man with no psychiatric history had Moderna booster
He presented 4 days after Moderna jab with talkativeness and grandiose delusions, saying that he had won 2 billion yen in horse racing. Had emotional instability (crying), sleeplessness, excitement, hyperactivity and sexual deviance.
He was discharged. Nine days after Moderna booster he jumped from the 2nd floor of his house, and was brought back to hospital by ambulance.
He exhibited flight of ideas, hyperactivity, distraction, hyperthymia and religious delusions, such as saying “my child is God”. He displayed lack of insight and became enraged when his actions were restricted.
Diagnosis: acute mania with psychotic features, stayed 66 days in the hospital.
15 yo Taiwanese boy presented to ER with agitation, involuntary limb stretching and screaming 2 days after 2nd dose of Pfizer
After admission, he had bizarre behaviors, including sitting up and lying down frequently and taking up the mannerism of praying in bed.
had auditory hallucinations and delusions, persisted > 1 month after discharge
He was healthy without any specific medical history before the vaccination
2022 Nov (Alphonso et al) – 45 yo Asian-American married woman, had psychosis after 2nd Moderna mRNA
45 yo woman with no psychiatric history, presented to psychiatry after having psychosis for 3 months.
Her new-onset paranoia and auditory hallucinations began 1 month after receiving her second Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. She abruptly quit her job of 18 years and stopped eating—losing 56 lb in 4 months.
The patient would only get dressed in the dark, believing people could see her in her closet or bathroom behind a closed door. She would pace all day and stopped doing the household chores she had done for years.
She would wake her husband in the middle of the night trying to convince him that the neighbors were going to hurt her and were breaking into their home.
Due to this irrational fear, she would sleep only 2 to 3 hours per night and no longer slept in the bedroom, preferring to lock herself in the bathroom to sleep.
She heard whispers of people talking about her and would carry on full conversations with them. She would only do this in a room alone with the door closed.
2022 Sep (Guina et al) – 40 yo caucasian man had Bipolar I Disorder Exacerbation Following 2nd Moderna mRNA
40 year old white man had 2nd Moderna dose and his symptoms began immediately after
He reported depressed mood, suicidal ideation, and auditory hallucinations encouraging him to kill himself
he lost his job after a verbal altercation with his boss, prompting him to seek hospitalization
on admission he was hyperactive, impulsive, irritable, flight of ideas, pressured and hyperverbal speech, poor memory
His only previous hospitalization was five years prior to vaccination for mania and impulsivity
2022 Sep (Guina et al) – 60 yo African American woman post 2nd Pfizer mRNA dose had Bipolar Disorder exacerbation (psychosis)
A 60-year-old African American female patient with previously stable BD1 presented after three weeks of depressed mood, anxiety, and decreased need for sleep
She was observed to have increased energy, impulsivity, labile affect, verbose speech with repetitive phrases, tangential thinking and flight of ideas, paranoia, and ideas of reference, consistent with a mixed episode with psychotic features
She reported that her symptoms began within a week of receiving the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. She denied suicidal and homicidal ideations. Her symptoms were distressing and led her to call off work repeatedly, despite satisfaction with her job.
2022 May (Deng et al) – 45 yo man had psychosis & suicide attempt after 2 Pfizer doses
45 year old man had 2 Pfizer mRNA doses in May 2021.
In June 2021 he presented to ER with depression, paranoia, intermittent agitationand had preliminary diagnoses of bipolar disorder and delirium
reported to the psychiatrist that he was hearing voices and felt depressed, also had episodes of uncontrollable crying
he was discharged after 2 weeks
2 months after his 2 Pfizer doses he attempted to commit suicide by drowning himself in a toilet. He was feeling depressed and suicidal
also experienced auditory hallucinations, paranoia and persecutory delusions.
His speech was noticed to be repetitive, meaningless, and unintelligible. He was frequently hitting his head with his fists. Soft mitts were placed on his hands.
during admission to adult psychiatric unit, he was kicking both of his legs up in the air and banging his head and upper body onto the stretcher in a rhythmic fashion. His speech was largely unintelligible except stating, “God bless you” repeatedly, as well as repeating phrases that were said by staff. Upon being released from the restraints, Mr. A continued to be restless, screaming, hitting himself on the face, slamming his upper body, and kicking. He required a physical hold to apply 4-point restraints to prevent self-harm.
5 days later, had headaches, paranoid delusions and severe anxiety
in ER he had a depressed, irritable mood and olfactory hallucinations
he was discharged with ongoing psychotic symptoms and had to be re-admitted with changes to his anti-psychotic medications
2022 Feb (Aljeshi et al) – 20 year old woman in Saudi Arabia had psychosis after 2nd COVID-19 mRNA vaccine
20 year old College student had 2nd mRNA vaccine (Saudi Arabia gives Pfizer & Moderna mRNA vaccines).
she presented to ER with 4 weeks of anxiety, sleep disturbance, restlessness, reduced appetite that started 4 days after her 2nd mRNA jab.
in ER, she complained of “hearing terrifying voices and seeing random people stare at her”
in hospital she became agitated, aggressive, disoriented and complained of auditory and visual hallucinations. She had disjointed speech and grossly disorganized and disruptive behavior and was disoriented
she was diagnosed with acute psychosis and stayed in hospital 28 days
2022 (Renemane et al) – 45 yo Latvian man had psychosis & suicide attempt after 2nd mRNA
45 yo Latvian man had 2nd dose of mRNA vaccine
immediately developed insomnia, anxiety, tremors
2 weeks after jab “discovered white powder under the carpet in his apartment”
1 month after jab he was “receiving commands” including to commit suicide
he attached a rope, tried to hang himself but his father stopped him.
2021 Oct (Reinfeld et al.) – 31 yo man had psychosis after 2nd Moderna mRNA
A 31-year-old, single Hispanic man had two doses Moderna
symptoms began 1 month ago, after receiving 1st dose of mRNA vaccine, and markedly worsened 3 weeks after receiving 2nd dose.
brought to ER by police
was anxious, guarded, superficial and grandiose.
He reported becoming ‘clairvoyant’, being able to talk with dead people, hearing ‘people drumming outside his house’ and the constant voice of a co-worker he believed was his lover
57 year old man presented to ER with irritability, sleeplessness, talking to himself and suicidal attempt with thoughts of extinction 3 days after receiving 2nd dose of Pfizer.
had increased speech output, speed and psychomotor activity
had no history of psychiatric illness
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1st mRNA dose
2023 Feb (Neves et al) – 38 yo Brazilian woman had refractory psychosis after 1st Pfizer mRNA
had 1st Pfizer dose, presented to ER within 24hr
She became delusional, aggressive, disheveled with poor hygiene, unfriendly face, lacking self-orientation and uncooperative with doctors & staff.
She believed staff were persecuting her, that several city mayors were her parents.Her mood was dysphoric and enraged.
She was put on psychiatric medications but didn’t improve.
After 6 months of hospitalization, she remained hostile, persecutory and refusing to talk to staff and her psychosis was defined as refractory.She never recovered.
42 yo man with no psychiatric history was admitted to psychiatric ER 5 days after 1st dose of Pfizer with complaints of irritability and sleeplessness.
The patient had delusions that his family was being followed by the deep state and that they were in danger.
Physical exam: anxious, dysphoric mood, persecutory and reference delusions
within 24hr he developed acute confusion, memory disturbances and auditory hallucinations
My Take…
There are now case reports of psychosis and mania after 4th, 3rd, 2nd and 1st doses of Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 Vaccines. Some of these cases result in suicide attempts.
This most recent case shows that the newer COVID-19 mRNA boosters, bivalent flavor, can also cause psychosis and mania, as did the original boosters and the original mRNA jabs.
I note several observations:
The published cases only involve psychosis or mania that occurred within days or at most 2-3 weeks after the last mRNA dose. My guess is that the longer the time period after mRNA vaccination, the less likely a doctor is to link the psychosis to the jabs.
Most cases are being published outside of the US, as foreign doctors are less likely to be threatened by their medical boards, and are less likely to be stripped of their licenses for reporting these cases and getting them published.
Not all cases resolve with psychiatric drugs. Some result in permanent disability.
Teenagers can develop psychosis after mRNA jabs as well – mandating kids, whether to be able to play sports or go to University/College was medical malpractice – the risks clearly outweighed any possible benefit.
NO ONE is studying the long term effect of mRNA jabs on mental health.
Pfizer & Moderna COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines cause an increased risk of suicidal ideation, leading to suicide attempts. This is not controversial or a conspiracy theory. That risk alone should get these mRNA jabs pulled off the market.
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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.
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 result of the presidential elections to be held this year in the US and Russia could mean the return to the Doctrine of Peaceful Coexistence between the US and Russia and the consequent end to the Cold War 2.0.
The Cold War 2.0
Joe Biden’s harsh statements about Russia (“Putin is a war criminal”) and the implementation of sanctions to achieve the economic suffocation and financial starvation of Russia following the Ukrainian crisis have staged the arrival of the Cold War 2.0 and the return of the geopolitical thesis of George Kennan who affirmed that “to say that the overthrow of regimes hostile to the US is the main objective of the US intelligence services, is an open secret”, which would come symbolized in the gazapo of Biden when stating affirm that “Putin does not deserve to be in power”.
Putin was aware of the new dynamic action-reaction in which Russian-American relations would be involved from this moment on and which resulted in the intensification of the US Kentian strategy to stifle the Russian economy. Such a strategy would draw from the sources of the theory expounded by Sherman Kent in his book “Strategic Intelligence for American World Politics” and published in 1949 where he anticipated that “War is not always conventional: in effect, a large part of the war, of the remote and the nearest, has always been carried out with unconventional weapons: […] weapons […] political and economic”, a strategy that proved unsuccessful and that meant a triumph for Putin.
The Ukrainian conflict would thus have meant a return to the Cold War between Russia and the United States and a return to the Doctrine of Containment, the foundations of which were laid out by George F. Kennan in his essay “The Sources of Soviet Behavior” published in the journal Foreign Affairs in 1947 and whose main ideas are summarized in the quote “Soviet power is impervious to the logic of reason but very sensitive to the logic of force.”
This would include the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO military structures and the increase of military forces with 4 new battalions deployed on the European border with Russia and the Russian response to the installation of missiles in Belarus Iskander-M equipped with multi-purpose warheads as well as S-40 anti-aircraft missiles following the dynamics of the Cold War (action-reaction).
Putin seeks a Peace Agreement that establishes that Ukraine will not enter NATO and that the Ukrainian dispute is outlined with the division of Ukraine into two halves, leaving the East of the country, including Crimea, the Donbas, Zaporiyia and Kherson under Russian orbit and the Center and West of present-day Ukraine will sail under the tutelage of the West, while the imaginary line linking Kharkov, Zaporiyia, Bajmut and Rubizhne would become the new Berlin Wall of the Cold War 2.0.
Thus, Clito Zelensky would have already become a liability for the United States that should be removed with immediacy, not being disposable that if Trump wins in the November elections, Zelensky is accused of corruption and forced to exile to the United States, after which we will see the design of the new cartography of Ukraine and a new triumph of Putin.
The signs of Biden’s senility, the fentanyl crisis, the high cost of living and the increase in citizen insecurity would have plunged Biden’s popularity to historic lows of 38%, which would facilitate the triumphant return of Donald Trump in the November presidential elections, candidate who, according to a poll by CBS News and YouGov, would have the support of 65% of Republican voters.
A possible victory for Trump in November would represent the decline of the Atlantist strategy of Biden and Soros committed to defend Putin from power as well as the signing of a peace agreement in Ukraine and the return to the Doctrine of Peaceful Coexistence with Russia. This would mean the enthronement of the G-3 (US, Russia and China) as “primus inter pares” in world governance which would clash head-on with the obsessive dream of the Soros globalists and the Open Society Foundation (OSF) to achieve the subjugation of Russia, Russia would be for George Soros “the white whale that has been trying to hunt for decades”.
Thus, Donald Trump assured in his social networks that “we have never been so close to World War III” and that there must be a “total commitment to dismantle the globalist neoconservative power group responsible for dragging the world into endless wars”. Also, in a speech delivered at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the future Republican candidate stated:
“I am the only candidate who can make this promise: I will avoid the Third World War”, while denouncing the “excessive amount of weapons currently circulating in the world”, which would be anticipating the return of the US Isolationist Doctrine.
However, Trumpian isolationism would be a missile on the waterline of the military-complex. In the next five years, the recovery of the role of the United States as a world gendarme has been outlined through an extraordinary increase in US military interventions abroad to recover Unipolarity on the global geopolitical board.Thus, after the invasion of Gaza by Israel, the US and Israel will attempt the destabilization of Lebanon and Iran by expedited methods, which would mean the beginning of a great regional conflict that will mark the future of the area in the coming years.
Such a conflict could involve the three superpowers (US, China and Russia) counting as necessary collaborations with regional powers (Israel, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Iran) and would cover the geographical space that extends from the Mediterranean arc (Israel, Syria and Lebanon) to Yemen and Somalia with the avowed aim of designing the cartography of the New Middle East favorable to the geopolitical interests of the USA, Britain and Israel. Consequently, in the event of the failure of the current judicial offensive against Trump, the gestation of an exogenous plot of the globalists to neutralize it by expedited methods and prevent the utopia of Peaceful Coexistence between the US and Russia would not be ruled out.
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Germán Gorraiz López is a political analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: Russian President Vladimir Putin By Harold Escalona/shutterstock And President Trump By Drop of Light/Shutterstock
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“It’s not a coincidence that the attacks on UNRWA took place after the ICJ ruling. Israel is trying to discredit the International Court of Justice, and one way of doing that is by rubbishing UNRWA. But UNRWA has fulfilled the heroic role of providing health, education and all other services to the Palestinian refugees since 1948.
And it’s really heartbreaking that Israeli propaganda is now demonizing UNRWA and leading some countries to cut off aid. So, my sympathy and support is entirely on the side of UNRWA, and I hope it can long continue to play the vital role it has always played in supporting the Palestinian victims of Israeli aggression.” —Avi Shlaim, Israeli historian, You Tube
UNRWA provides food and flour distribution for the entire 2.2 million population of Gaza. Defunding UNRWA will lead to mass starvation and death.
Here’s your Zionist quiz for the day: Why did Israel launch a full-blown media blitz on a United Nations relief agency (UNRWA) on the same day that the International Criminal Court of Justice (ICJ) released its historic genocide ruling?
To divert attention from the fact that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza
To inform the public that new intelligence had serviced revealing Hamas involvement in the United Nations Relief and Works Agency
To assure people everywhere that Israel’s main concern is fighting terrorism
To activate the final phase of their ethnic cleansing operation
If you answered “4” then pat yourself on the back because that is the right answer. Of course, it’s also true that Israel wanted to divert attention from the ICJ’s announcement, but that pales in comparison to the launching of the final phase of its ethnic cleansing operation. This is the real coup de grâce, the final death blow to the two-state solution and a practical remedy to Israel’s nagging demographic problem. This is also the critical puzzle piece that makes sense of the last 100-plus days of relentless bombardment, airstrikes and other forms of state terror. It’s as if Israel is boldly laying down its cards so the entire world can see the strategy it plans to employ to eradicate the native population and fulfill the Zionist dream of a Jewish state from the river to the sea.
And what might that strategy be?
To disperse 2 million Palestinians to the four corners of the earth via mass immigration.
But, how will they do that, after all, haven’t a number of countries already refused to take the Palestinians?
Indeed, they have, but that is before the (soon to-be-published) photos of starving women and children flooded social media sites around the world generating an unprecedented outpouring of sympathy for the beleaguered population. And as public sympathy leads to widespread outrage, more and more people will demand that their governments take action to relieve the suffering through mass immigration. This is how Israel intends to rid itself of its native population and create Zionist Valhalla, a Jewish majority into perpetuity.
This is why Israel has launched its ferocious attack on UNWRA, because UNWRA—more than any other humanitarian organization operating in the Middle East—helps to keep the Palestinians fed and housed which is at-odds with Israeli explicit intentions. The last thing Israel wants is for the Palestinians to establish a massive refugee camp near Rafah that will balloon in size in years to come. That phenom has already taken place in both Jordan and Lebanon where nearly 3 million Palestinians still languish in refugee camps (75 years after the creation of the Israeli state) and are still determined to return home sometime in the future. That is not what Israel wants. Israel wants the Palestinians to ‘vanish into thin air’ which is why they want them dispersed around the world so even the thought of returning home, will never enter their minds.
So, while Israeli leaders do not relish the reputational damage they are experiencing due to their treatment of the Palestinians, they are willing to endure it in order to achieve their broader strategic objectives which are the complete eradication of the Arab population and the strengthening of a permanent Jewish majority.
Israel’s overall strategy was best summarized by Daniella Weiss, a former mayor of a West Bank settlement, who said the following in a short interview on Tik Tok:
“They will move. They will move. The Arabs will move….. So, we don’t give them food, we don’t give the Arabs anything, and they will have to leave. The world will accept them.” (Middle East Eye, Tik Tok)
That’s Israel’s plan in a nutshell.
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Michael Whitney is a renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace.
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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Five days after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) announced various interim measures aimed at preventing theState of Israel from committing acts in Gaza which come within the scope of the Genocide Convention such as “killing members of the (targeted) group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group,”the brutal, barbaric butchery of the largely unarmed and impoverished inhabitants of the small strip of land continues unabated.In the first two days after the 26th January ICJ Order was issued for instance 373 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, the majority of them children and women.
We should not be surprised that Israel has defied the ICJ. It has defied it before. Israel has nothing but contempt for international law. It sees itself as above the law. It has always acted as though the restraints and limits that law imposes upon states and individuals do not apply to it. Israel is special. It can do what it wants.
The main reason for this is the Nazi holocaust before and during the Second World War. As one of the principal victims of that terrible tragedy, many Jews have come to believe that the suffering that they have had to bear somehow absolves them from any wrongdoing. After all the Genocide Convention itself was a consequence of the holocaust. How could anyone now accuse the Jewish state of Israel of genocide? That the victims of a gross, wanton injustice sometimes become the most heinous perpetrators of inhuman crimes against fellow human beings once they gain power is a glaring truth that most Israelis have chosen to ignore.
If the Israeli elite is so determined to wipe out the Gazan population and tighten its suffocating grip over Gaza, it is because it is part of its ethnic cleansing agenda that began in 1948 with the expulsion of more than three-quarters of a million Palestinians from their homes to pave the way for the creation of the state of Israel. Ethnic cleansing of Palestine, it must never be forgotten, is a primary goal of Israel which has now reached a new phase with the current assault on Gaza.
What renders added significance to the current assault are the underlying economic and geopolitical motives behind the move. It is reported that a trillion cubic feet of gas discovered off the Gaza shoreline in the 1990s could bring massive wealth to Israel if it can eliminate the real owner of Gaza, namely Palestine. It would enable Israel to supply gas to Europe replacing Russia. Israel would also become a major player in the formulation of oil and gas policies and the ensuing politics in the region and beyond. This may be one of the reasons why the US, and to a great extent, Europe are prepared to provide cover to Israel’s drive to control Gaza.
Gas wealth and its geo-political promise must be read in conjunction with another plan associated with Israel and the US. The two countries, it is alleged, are set to build a new canal, the Ben Gurion Canal, from the northern tip of Gaza which will open a new naval route to the Mediterranean and beyond. It will not only reduce dependence upon the Suez Canal but also create a new route for global trade with the East and the West. For the US in particular, the Ben Gurion Canal may well emerge as its much needed buttress helping to perpetuate its power asa global hegemon.
This is why Gaza is so critical — for the aggressor who is hell-bent on annexing the strip and for the victim who realizes that the survival of its inhabitants as part of Palestine is fundamental to that nation which is now under Israeli occupation. The steadfastness of the Palestinian people, their willingness to sacrifice their lives for freedom and dignity would undoubtedly be a major factor in ensuring that Gaza survives. The massive support for the people of Gaza expressed by millions around the globe— the millions who are demanding both an immediate, unconditional ceasefire and the free flow of humanitarian assistance to the beleaguered citizens of the strip — will also help to reinforce their cause. The ICJ directives of 26th January could also have a salutary effect.
Since Israel is required to submit a report to the ICJ within one month of the announcement of the directives, the ICJ can do a thorough assessment of whether the former has complied with directives. If Israel is guilty of non-compliance, the ICJ can request the UN General Assembly to suspend Israel’s membership.
If suspension does not bring about a positive change in the behaviour of the State of Israel, the UNGA can after a reasonable period of time move on to the second stage. It should direct all member states to boycott Israel in every sphere of activity — from politics and economics to culture and sports. The boycott will last as long as Israel continues to kill people in Gaza or the West Bank or acts in any manner that contributes towards genocide as spelt out under the Genocide Convention.
A firm resolve on the part of the majority of UN members to act decisively against Israeli arrogance will surely produce the desired result.
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Dr Chandra Muzaffar is the president of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST), Malaysia. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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Over the past ten days there have been several interesting developments in the continuing ethnic cleansing of Gaza, as well as increasingly on the West Bank, by the Israeli military supplemented by armed settlers. In one particularly grotesque killing, Israeli commandos disguised as medical staff and Arab civilians burst into a hospital room in Jenin refugee camp on the West Bank and shot dead three Palestinians. The Israeli military said one of the victims belonged to Hamas and was planning an imminent attack “inspired by the events of October 7” but provided no evidence in support of the claim. Palestinian hospital staff reported afterwards how “They raided one of the patients’ rooms and killed him, and the people who were in the room with him, his brother and friend. He was a patient, paralyzed and using a wheelchair.” One might observe that Israel, like the White House, lies about everything.
To be sure, Israel and the United States deservedly continue to be subjected to legal challenges, both internationally and in the United States, over their carrying out of a policy in Gaza that many, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, might eventually consider to be a full scale and active genocide, the most notorious crime against humanity. The court’s Order last Friday to Israel “to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza and punish incitement for genocide accepts the possibility of Israel being a perpetrator of genocide” and not just a perpetual historical victim, as it chooses to depict itself. As the court continues to pursue the completely plausible claim of genocide submitted by South Africa and to come to a final ruling, which could easily take months to complete, it has “already made history.” But in the meanwhile, manipulation of both the judicial and constitutional processes by the United States to support Israel has enabled the Jewish state to keep bombing and killing an average of 300 Palestinians each day while also controlling and cutting off relief supplies desperately needed by the starving and dying two million nearly all civilians physically imprisoned by the barriers erected by Israel surrounding Gaza.
In the latest act of undoubted collusion staged to kill even more Palestinians, Israel claimed that 12 members of the United Nations Gaza Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) participated in the Hamas October 7th attack on Israel. The UN has fired some of those accused out of its 13,000 employees in the organization and it is investigating further but that did not prevent the US from immediately cutting its funding to UNRWA in spite of the fact that Israel had produced no evidence to back up its claim and there was no explanation provided why such a report was not issued until more than 100 days after the alleged incident. Timing is everything. Clearly the moves were preplanned by President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to help counter the negative impact of the ICJ report, which was released several days before, and it will accomplish nothing except to increase the misery of the Palestinians.
The international focus on Israel and the United States regarding Gaza is because of the widely held and absolutely correct perception that Israel keeps getting away with murder, literally, and Washington is the accomplice in the crime, using its power and United Nations veto to avoid holding the Jewish state accountable for its misdeeds. Ironically, Israeli behavior often negatively impacts on the actual interests of the United States to include killing American citizens without there being and consequences for the perpetrators. This recklessness has recently been on display not only in Gaza but also on the occupied West Bank where just last week another Palestinian-American has been shot dead in what appears to be something like a vigilante killing.
According to witnesses, the completely unprovoked recent killing consisted of the fatal shooting of American-Palestinian teen Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, 17, a Louisiana native, who was driving a pickup truck near his village Al-Mazra’a Ash-Sharquiya on the Israeli occupied West Bank. Without any warning, a volley of Israeli gunfire struck the back of the truck, hitting Tawfik in the head and killing him, resulting in the out-of-control vehicle turning over several times on a dirt road. Family members who rushed to the scene were confronted by Israeli soldiers at gunpoint, who blocked their access to the truck. In an initial statement, Israeli police admitted that the shooting targeted Tawfic, but claimed the victim was “purportedly engaged in rock-throwing activities.” Police would not identify who fired the shots but did describe the incident as “ostensibly involving an off-duty law enforcement officer, a soldier and a civilian.” That suggests an armed settler was involved. The US Embassy has demanded an explanation but Israel never convicts Jews who kill Palestinians. That is what is expected in this case, which recalls the May 2022 killing by an army sniper of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh at a demonstration which she was covering at the Jenin refugee camp in the Israeli occupied West Bank. She was wearing a clearly identifiable journalist’s jacket. No one was ever held accountable and even the Zionist dominated US State Department eventually believed she had been targeted and deliberately executed. Indeed, there is currently a law pending in the Knesset that blocks prosecution of any Israeli soldier or policeman who kills an Arab.
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)
And when it comes to other dead Americans, there is the still uninvestigated killing of 34 crewmen on the USS Liberty in June 1967 by Israeli warplanes and gunboats, the killing of activist Rachel Corrie by being run over by an Israeli army bulldozer in 2003, and the killing of Turkish-American boy Furkan Dogan and eight others in international waters on the Mavi Marmara ferry in 2010. If Israel decides to kill Americans it does not hesitate and the US never does anything but whine after the fact, if that. In that case of the Liberty the White House and Pentagon actually participated in the cover-up, such is the power of the Israel Lobby.
So once again the gloves are off in terms of the abuse that the United States has to take at the hands of “best friend” Israel, particularly now that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a group of fascist ultra-nationalists have formed a war cabinet that is intent on driving out or exterminating the Palestinians. Both in Gaza and on the West Bank any living Palestinian is little more than target practice for the Israel Defense Force half trained thugs in uniform.
And Netanyahu is not even trying to hide what he wants to do to Palestine, even though he is now running into concern from President Joe Biden who apparently is afraid that all the bloodshed in Gaza being endorsed and enabled by Washington will damage his re-election prospects. Netanyahu has not budged however and has made some significant comments over the past two weeks, one of which directly rejects a Biden call to look at options for reviving the so-called Two States plan that would give the Palestinians a mini-state that has actual sovereignty at some level, unlike the almost total military and police occupation by Israel that prevails currently.
Speaking at a press conference on January 22nd, Netanyahu insisted that “I will not compromise on full Israeli security control over all the territory west of the Jordan River”. His statement also prefigures an assault on the West Bank and the seizure of all Palestinian-held territory. War would “continue until the end, until the victory, until the elimination of Hamas” and “nothing will stop us.” Ending the war prematurely “would harm Israel’s security for generations,” he said, suggesting this could mean military action continuing until next year.
Netanyahu has said that there will be no Palestinian state with actual sovereignty and that Israel will control all of the former historic Palestine “From the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.” Yes, Netanyahu is using the very words that Israel’s friends have condemned as “antisemitic” when used by Palestinian demonstrators in the US objecting to the slaughter in Gaza.
Meanwhile, a number of Israeli cabinet and other senior officials have indicated clearly that achieving the goal of an Israeli state incorporating the whole area into what will legally be defined as a Jewish state will be achieved no matter what will have to be done to the Palestinians. This will all start with the ethnic cleansing and resettlement of Gaza by Jews, no matter how long it takes to accomplish, and then will proceed to the West Bank. The displacement of the Palestinians is being justified by claiming that that population is not redeemable as they are nothing but “terrorists,” to include incitement from government officials with comments like “We kill the children otherwise they will grow up to kill Jews.”
To be sure, there has been some pushback against the Netanyahu revelation, coming from many dissatisfied Israelis and even originating within the normally massively pro-Israel US Congress. Calls have come for a cease fire and 15 Jewish Democratic congressmen have supported a two-state solution with a Palestine state having true sovereignty. They issued a brief statement saying “We strongly disagree with prime minister [Netanyahu]. A two-state solution is the path forward.” And there also has been something of a rebellion from the civil service in Washington, where there was a walkout of employees rejecting the Biden Administration’s Gaza policy.
Senator Bernie Sanders and some others in Congress have repeated calls to stop funding what Israel is doing, particularly as the war is already spilling over to Yemen and Iraq and Syria where illegal US military bases are under attack producing most recently three deaths by drone fired from an Iraqi shi’ite militia, allegedly hitting a base in Jordan, and causing, more than thirty injuries. The incident will possibly lead to further escalation as Joe Biden has said there will be some retaliation against the militia group that staged the attack and its sponsors. Predictably, Joe and others in Washington are actually blaming the attack on Iran though there is no evidence supporting that claim. Several Congressmen and presidential candidate Nikki Haley have nevertheless already called for an attack on Iranian military and economic installations and CBS news is now reporting that preparations are underway for the US to hit “Iranian targets” in Syria and Iraq. The Iranian government has said it was not involved in the incident and has already announced that it would retaliate if attacked. A better policy would be a withdrawal from those illegal bases, reportedly under consideration by the Pentagon, but it has been denied by the inimitable Victoria Nuland at the State Department.
US President Joe Biden also followed up on the recent Netanyahu statements with what was reportedly his first phone call with Netanyahu for a month, after which he suggested that the Israeli leader might consider some “type” of two-state solution. But Netanyahu’s spokesman dismissed Biden’s claim on the following day, saying that
“In his conversation with President Biden, prime minister Netanyahu reiterated his policy that, after Hamas is destroyed, Israel must retain security control over Gaza to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel, a requirement that contradicts the demand for Palestinian sovereignty.”
Netanyahu then personally expanded on the message, saying how “I emphasized to President Biden our determination to achieve all the goals of the war, and to ensure that Gaza never again constitutes a threat to Israel.” Under his leadership, Netanyahu pledged that Israel would go beyond that to wage a far wider regional war “on all fronts and in all sectors. We are not giving immunity to any terrorist: not in Gaza, not in Lebanon, not in Syria, and not anywhere.”
Netanyahu and his generals have repeatedly stated that Israel is waging war not just on the Palestinians but also against Iran and its allies, with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant explaining that Israel is confronted by a war on seven fronts: Gaza, the West Bank, and Iran and its proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen. Replying to a question from a reporter asking why Israel is not attacking Iran directly, Netanyahu responded, “Who says we aren’t attacking Iran? We are attacking Iran.” Indeed, Israeli forces have repeatedly bombed Syria’s capital, Damascus, targeting Iranian forces allied to the Syrian government. In the most recent incident, Israeli missiles fired from the occupied Golan Heights killed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Syria intelligence chief and four more IRGC members.
As a final observation, Netanyahu and his supporters appear to be using the prospect of a Donald Trump victory in the US presidential elections in November to put more pressure on Biden to make him back off from supporting any concessions over Gaza and a Palestinian state. Bibi is also intent on extending the war until the end of 2024 to make his domestic opponents who are demanding his resignation appear unpatriotic, many of whom believe that the Israeli actions vis-à-vis Gaza have been motivated by Netanyahu’s own political and personal interests. As Netanyahu might well otherwise be in jail currently due to corruption charges, many critics now support the theory that Gaza may have been a false flag setup with the Prime Minister himself giving the green light to an operation that would open the door to keeping himself in power while also destroying Gaza and ridding Israel of the Palestinians forever. If Netanyahu plays his cards right with the clueless Biden he might also be able to convince the United States to attack Iran very soon, something that he has been seeking for more than twenty years. That may be what is coming next.
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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].
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: Israeli forces are dressed as patients, medics and civilians in the Ibn Sina Hospital (Screengrab/X)
Having hung onto the coat tails of the US neocons’ plan to destroy Russia through Ukraine, Britain now finds itself with Armed forces of 184,865 against Russia’s 1.3m and an army of 73,000 which would (at Ukraine’s rate of losses against Russia) be wiped out in 4 months!
Despite the fact that international students contribute CAD$22 billion to the Canadian economy, CAD$2.8 billion in tax revenue in 2016 and they pay five to six times (5-6) more in tuition fees than domestic students, they are not fully integrated or included in Canadian society because they are socially constructed and treated as “bodies out of place”.
A powerful Westminster lobby group took money from an organisation with close ties to the State of Israel, it has emerged. Around 80% of Tory MPs are members of Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) – which is the largest funder of foreign trips for British politicians.
The State Department wants you to know that the Biden administration made a record value of major arms sales last year – $80.9 billion under the U.S. government-administered Foreign Military Sales program and related “security cooperation activities” with U.S. allies.
Dressed in medical scrubs, Islamic thobes and hijabs, wearing face masks and pushing wheelchairs, a group of Israeli undercover agents descended upon Jenin‘s Ibn Sina Hospital on Tuesday. The agents are known in Arabic as mustaribeen, which means to “dress and act like an Arab”, and in Hebrew as mistaarivim, a derivative of the Arabic word.
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Northern California on November 13, 2023, on behalf of Palestinian human rights organizations Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P) and Al-Haq, three Palestinian individuals who live in Gaza and five Palestinian Americans who have family in Gaza.
In countries associated with the civilisation of the West, and as noted by Weber in particular where the Protestant ethic prevailed, doing things right and efficiently used to be a fanatical cult, just as Amiel observed. The beneficial results, especially by comparison to the performance of civilisations and cultures rooted in different principles, were plainly visible and indisputable.
The process of introducing a new system of “currency backing” might take time, and could start in Asia, under the lead of China and Russia, extending to the ASEAN and BRICS countries, and eventually and hopefully be adopted also in the west, meaning a successful revision and overhaul of the IMF and World Bank.
In a Security Council meeting discussing the sabotage of the Nordstream Pipeline, Professor Jeffrey Sachs delivered a brilliant speech, supporting the report by Journalist Seymour Hersh, and demanding that the crime be investigated by the United Nations.
Aparentemente, a possibilidade de Donald Trump regressar à Casa Branca já está a causar desespero entre os falcões da OTAN. Numa declaração recente, o presidente checo, Petr Pavel, apelou a todos os líderes da aliança ocidental para se prepararem para as possíveis consequências de uma vitória republicana nos EUA. Segundo ele, a ascensão de Trump poderá levar a um “acordo com Putin”, frustrando definitivamente os planos ocidentais.
Durante uma entrevista à comunicação social, Pavel afirmou que Trump pensa “diferentemente” dos outros líderes ocidentais, razão pela qual a sua possível eleição deve ser vista com preocupação no momento atual. Embora a maioria dos responsáveis da OTAN acreditem que a melhor forma de lidar com o conflito na Ucrânia é através do apoio militar a Kiev, Trump tem uma visão mais pragmática que inclui a necessidade de negociar a paz diretamente com os russos.
Pavel deixa claro que a sua intenção ao dizer isto não é perturbar a aliança entre europeus e americanos ou interferir nos assuntos internos dos EUA, mas simplesmente avançar nas discussões sobre como a OTAN deve preparar-se para uma possível mudança na política da Casa Branca em relação à Ucrânia. Alerta que haverá consequências graves se Trump for eleito, razão pela qual exorta os outros líderes da aliança a estarem prontos para um futuro de desafios.
“Não se trata de perturbar o vínculo transatlântico, desafiando os Estados Unidos como aliado. Mas deveríamos admitir realisticamente que Donald Trump olha para uma série de coisas de forma diferente (…) Deveríamos estar preparados para isso, porque certamente haverá algumas consequências”, disse aos jornalistas.
Não só isso, Pavel também enfatizou os pontos que considera vitais para uma estratégia da OTAN na Ucrânia. Segundo ele, Kiev está em desvantagem no campo de batalha porque tem opções militares limitadas e as suas ações táticas são insuficientes para causar danos aos russos. Seguindo as orientações dos militantes pró-guerra mais radicais, propõe que a aliança atlantista aumente exponencialmente o envio de armas para a Ucrânia, tornando as tropas de Kiev suficientemente fortes para alcançar um “equilíbrio de forças” com os russos. Ele acredita que só com Kiev conseguindo tal capacidade será possível conduzir negociações de paz justas com Moscou.
“Só um equilíbrio de forças pode forçar ambos os lados a compreender que não alcançarão mais sucessos e que é hora de negociações”, acrescentou Pavel.
Na verdade, o medo de Pavel reflete a mentalidade dos principais fomentadores da guerra ocidentais. Trump fez promessas na sua campanha eleitoral que incluem “acabar com a guerra na Ucrânia num dia”. Obviamente, a única maneira de o fazer é através de uma negociação de paz direta com os russos, forçando a Ucrânia a reconhecer as suas perdas territoriais e garantindo a neutralidade de Kiev e o fim do intervencionismo da OTAN nas fronteiras russas.
Ainda não está claro se Trump irá realmente fazer os esforços necessários para alcançar a paz, mas há pelo menos uma possibilidade significativa de que isso aconteça, uma vez que o líder republicano defende a ideia de “America First” – propondo o isolacionismo nacionalista e a redução da presença global dos EUA.
Além disso, o filho de Trump, participante ativo na campanha eleitoral do pai, já afirmou publicamente que é necessário acabar com o conflito através de negociações, ignorando qualquer possibilidade de solução militar. Claramente, Trump não está interessado em continuar a seguir o objetivo de “desgastar” a Rússia ou alcançar uma “vitória ucraniana”, mas sim em focar no desenvolvimento interno.
Este tipo de política parece desastrosa para os apoiadores da guerra contra a Rússia, e é por isso que Pavel e todos os fomentadores da guerra estão preocupados. Anteriormente, o próprio presidente ucraniano, Vladimir Zelensky, já havia dito estar preocupado com a possível eleição de Trump. Segundo o líder neonazista, o plano de Trump para acabar com a guerra é “muito perigoso”, pois põe em risco as ambições irrealistas de Kiev de “recuperar” os territórios reintegrados na Federação Russa. Na prática, o regime ucraniano e os governos pró-guerra da OTAN já estão a estabelecer a sua posição nas eleições americanas, lançando apoio aberto aos Democratas.
Na verdade, Trump tem grandes chances de vencer se realmente concorrer às eleições. Houve várias tentativas de bloquear legalmente a sua candidatura, mas até agora não está claro se tais procedimentos legais serão suficientes para o impedir. Obviamente, se Trump pode ou não concorrer é um assunto interno das autoridades americanas. No entanto, é inegável que as tentativas de prender Trump ou torná-lo inelegível são abertamente apoiadas pelos setores mais pró-guerra da sociedade americana e internacional. Nesse sentido, é possível que existam não apenas tais métodos burocráticos para impedir que Trump concorra ao cargo, mas até mesmo manobras ilegais, como fraudes, para fazê-lo perder as eleições de alguma forma.
Cabe exclusivamente ao povo americano decidir sobre a melhor opção para governar o seu país, mas até agora Trump é o único candidato com uma proposta concreta para retomar as negociações de paz. Como esperado, isto está a gerar histeria entre aqueles que apoiam uma guerra prolongada.
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“The Canadian federal government is focusing on numbers and dollars without consideration of the infrastructure and regulation to effectively support student, migrant workers. With few options in labour market, many international students are pressured into accepting exploitative employment.” —
Excerpt from Howard Levitt and Lavan Narenthiran, (9 January 2024) in Dark Side of International Student push is exploitation in the Labour Market, Financial Post.
I would like to share my comments on the article entitled, “Dark Side of International Student push is exploitation in the Labour Market” written by Howard Levitt and Lavan Narenthiran in the Financial Post on January 9, 2024.
First, I commend the authors and editorial team for raising awareness to their reading audience about the disparities in international students’ perception of Canada before their arrival as well as upon their arrival, their lived experiences of the exploitation of their labour. Internationally, Canada has been well-renowned for its reputation to promote equity, diversity and inclusion in social institutions such as its universities and workplaces. In more recent years, Canadian immigration policy has targeted the recruitment of international students to foment social and economic development, as part of its objectives outlined in the International Education Strategy (2014-2018 and 2019-2024).
Canada launched its International Education Strategy in 2014 because it is heavily invested in building a highly competitive knowledge economy and thus, sees international students as drivers of change by filling critical gaps in the Canadian labour market. In its International Education Strategy, Canada promotes itself as a safe, multi-cultural country that offers high-quality education at an attractive price and a world leader in innovation, research and development. Consequently, there is an exponential growth in the number of international students (551, 405) in Canada from 184 countries since 2022.
Despite the fact that international students contribute CAD$22 billion to the Canadian economy, CAD$2.8 billion in tax revenue in 2016 and they pay five to six times (5-6) more in tuition fees than domestic students, they are not fully integrated or included in Canadian society because they are socially constructed and treated as “bodies out of place”.
Professor Sunera Thobani (2022) highlights that Canada has a racial, hierarchal citizenship structure that determines who fully belongs to the nation-state and who does not belong. The issues of exploitation of international students’ labour due to their temporary legal status and other intersecting factors should be interrogated in the longer trajectory of Canadian project of state formation and national identity. This will allow us to fully understand the implications of the underlying discriminatory mechanics of Canada’s immigration policy targeting the recruitment of international students. The 1976 Immigration Act laid the foundation for discriminatory treatment towards international students paying differential and higher tuition fees than domestic students.
As a former racialized, international student and post-graduate worker, I can attest to the fact that the contemporary predicament of international students’ lived experiences of subordination in work spaces or the Canadian labour market are not often discussed thoroughly in national discourses because international education is a multi-billion dollar enterprise. One of the issues that was not raised in the opinion article is that fact that Canadian universities and workplaces are not sites of benevolent inclusion, as proposed in several federal policy documents. These spaces are sites of border imperialism as there are ongoing, racial-colonial, capitalist and imperial encounters that permeates repressive, institutional structures, subjugation as well as indigenous land dispossession.
Border imperialism is embedded in the class structure of Canada’s immigration policy targeting international students with specific amount of savings or proof of financial independence as part of the study permit application requirements’ package.
It is also evident in the fact that the international students are typically employed in low-waged, service industries in the labour market where there is little or no enforcement of employment standards at the provincial or federal government levels. Therefore, precariousness is not only a matter of a labour market position or matter of a lack of Canadian citizenship status. It is also an existential phenomenon that is prevalent in international students’ every day interactions and lived experiences.
This article opens crucial avenues to re-imagine alternative considerations for Canadian policy makers to engage in fairer, more transformative approaches in international education. In order for international education to contribute to inclusive and sustainable development, Canadian policy makers need to ensure that their policy objectives, decisions and actions go beyond simply attracting an influx of international students to earn record-level profits.
This can be done by reducing the low income cut off (LICO) threshold requirement for potential international students to study in Canada, as most international students are from regions of the world that are affected by economic policies such as local currency depreciation. The Government of Canada should be commended for a significant stride for removing the limitation of working hours for international students through Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) but more needs to be done for this important group of migrant workers as the years, progress. The Government of Canada should deeply consider one of Just Peace Advocates’ recommendation, to adopt an international convention protecting migrant workers.
I recommend that financial aid in the form of partial and full scholarships should be increased for international students from different regions or countries. Finally, I recommend that there should be a stronger anti-colonial, anti-racist lens in the applicability of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) capacity building for universities and workplaces. Additionally, there should be stronger oversight mechanisms to mitigate breaches in the labour and human rights of migrant student-workers. This will ensure that Canada’s truly fulfill its objective as being a global leader in inclusion rather than maintaining the status quo of enforcing geographic and social lines of demarcation through border imperialism.
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Tina Renier is an independent researcher based in Jamaica. She is a volunteer at Just Peace Advocates and a regular research writer at the Centre for Research on Globalization. She has a Master of Arts in International Development Studies from Saint Mary’s University in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Sources
Levitt, H. and Narenthiran, L. (9 January 2024). Dark Side of International Student Push is Exploitation in the Labour Market. Financial Post.
Thobani, S. (2022). Coloniality and Racial (In) Justice in the University Counting for Nothing? Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
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When the Kiev regime shot down a Russian Il-76MD transport aircraft packed with Ukrainian POWs (prisoners of war) on January 24, the United Nations said that they were still “waiting for evidence” who downed the plane. This was despite the fact that the Neo-Nazi junta forces immediately bragged about the shootdown, only to later retract the admission. Ukrainian POWs were on their way to a prisoner exchange, for which the Russian side already provided evidence, as the exchange was scheduled to take place. What’s more, on January 31, a large POW exchange took place, once again proving that Moscow is still dedicated to honoring international agreements, in stark contrast to the Kiev regime that killed over 70 innocent people, 65 of whom were Ukrainians, its own citizens.
The Kremlin showed evidence that the Neo-Nazi junta indeed downed the plane, with preliminary data suggesting that either a US-made “Patriot” or German-made IRIS-T SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems were used (possibly even operated by NATO personnel). Further investigation shows that the Il-76MD was most likely shot down by a kinetic warhead, indicating that the “Patriot” was the most likely culprit. On the other hand, the Russian military just destroyed an IRIS-T in the Kharkov oblast (region), so it still shouldn’t be entirely excluded as a possibility. Either way, it’s perfectly clear who downed the large transport aircraft. But, the UN refuses to acknowledge this and the “best” it can do is issue anemic statements about the supposed “responsibility of both sides”.
Obviously, the political West will do anything to conceal this fact. And yet, they’re not the only ones. The Kiev regime’s downing of the Il-76MD raises many questions, particularly as it repeatedly demonstrated readiness to target its own POWs. They’re almost certainly engaging in a cover-up, as the transport aircraft was also carrying a dozen “Azov Battalion” members. Once again, this isn’t the first time the Neo-Nazi junta is targeting its most loyal henchmen. Namely, on July 29, 2022, it destroyed a Russian POW camp housing precisely “Azov” members (approximately 150 of them) who surrendered in Azovstal. The unit was infamous for gruesome war crimes against the people of Donbass since the moment the US/NATO orchestrated the war in Ukraine back in 2014.
By killing them, the Kiev regime also eliminated the possibility of having these POWs reveal its direct involvement in the said war crimes. Of course, it’s almost certain they will never admit this, as it would be “too inconvenient” having to explain the death of other Ukrainian POWs, particularly to their families who were eager to see them after months or perhaps even years. On the other hand, the incident is clearly a part of the rapidly escalating internal power struggle in Kiev, particularly between civilian authorities and the military. Back in May 2022, when the Neo-Nazis surrendered in Azovstal, Zelensky was both furious and terrified of the consequences, particularly as there was speculation of NATO personnel being present there. He’s been holding a grudge against them ever since (or possibly even before).
Namely, although he publicly spoke about the priority of the exchange and the return of “Azov Battalion” POWs, his strained relationship with them was evident even before the special military operation (SMO). Running as the supposed “peace candidate” back in 2019, Zelensky was immediately seen as a “threat” and even had heated discussions with them. Ever since, he always harbored doubts and distrust toward both the Neo-Nazi battalions and the military as a whole. Their political power and connections to his rivalsalways made Zelensky feel uneasy around them. His biggest fear is that “Azov Battalion” members will engage in politics and possibly even organize a “new Maidan”. Such concerns aren’t entirely unfounded, as many of them hate him fiercely due to his Jewish background.
It can be argued that this serves him right, as Zelensky himself (as well as his NATO backers) has engaged in attempts to whitewash the “Azov Battalion’s” reputation. Still, prominent Neo-Nazis such as the “Azov” leader Denis Prokopenko (codename Radis) are planning to challenge his authority. Some sources claim that Prokopenko wanted to arrange a meeting with the exchanged “Azov Battalion” POWs, at which he intended to criticize Zelensky’s inept leadership, particularly his inability to secure Western financial “aid”and weapons, as well as condemn the cancelation of the presidential election. Prokopenko is also supported by other Neo-Nazi organizations such as the “Right Sector”, which is no less infamous for its own war crimes in the Donbass and elsewhere.
There are strong indicators that the military is also on Prokopenko’s side, which further suggests that even Zaluzhny could be involved. This is hardly surprising given their strained (if not already hostile) relationship. Some are even openly accusing Zelensky of not caring about the lives of the soldiers and the military as a whole, because of his tendency to circumvent Zaluzhny’s command and send them to certain death.
Thus, Zelensky’s motivation to ensure “Azov Battalion” members never return is quite strong, as they could’ve undermined his grip on power. Sources indicate that it’s still unclear whether the SAM units were kept in the dark or whether they were given specific orders to target the Il-76MD. Either way, this was done despite the warning given in advance by the Russian side.
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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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Since January 29, reports about the removal of the Kiev regime’s top general Valery Zaluzhny have been spreading like wildfire. Although there hasn’t been any official confirmation, while some outlets of the mainstream propaganda machine even issued a rebuttal, new revelations by informed (albeit anonymous) sources show that the Neo-Nazi junta frontman Volodymyr Zelensky is still serious about removing Zaluzhny. On January 30, the Financial Times, an important part of that same mainstream propaganda machine, but still a somewhat more reputable source, reported that Zelensky is preparing to replace his top general. Even the FT admitted that the controversial move would be “the biggest shake-up of Ukraine’s military command” since Moscow was forced to launch its special military operation (SMO) almost two years ago.
Citing “four people familiar with the discussions”, FT claims that, on Monday, Zelensky offered Zaluzhny a new role as a defense adviser, a ceremonial position that would effectively remove all of his executive powers as the military’s top officer. The sources claim that Zaluzhny promptly refused the “offer”. It’s clear that Zelensky left him no actual options, which was also confirmed by two of the four anonymous sources. They also said that, while the decision on Zaluzhny’s removal is final, he will keep his position for the time being, almost certainly in order to prevent the Kiev regime’s destabilization. These developments are hardly surprising as there have been simmering tensions between the two for quite some time. Occasional reports about the Zelensky-Zaluzhny rivalry started approximately a year ago in various media.
This is a clear indicator that’s just when the spat became so obvious that it couldn’t be ignored anymore. The two men have diametrically opposing views on how the conflict with Russia should unfold. Zelensky, a politician who primarily cares about his own interests, wants PR victories that would enable a constant flow of Western funds, which he then uses for personal gain. In that regard, he has the full support of his henchmen, particularly as they’re also getting a “slice of the cake”. On the other hand, Zaluzhny, who is anything but a saint, still has to think about the fate of his soldiers, as his position depends entirely on the military’s actual performance. PR victories are completely inconsequential for him, as they change nothing on the battlefield. The very fact that Zaluzhny is being replaced serves as a rather convincing evidence of that.
Zelensky’s strained relationship with Zaluzhny reached a boiling point after the end of the Neo-Nazi junta’s much-touted summer/fall counteroffensive that failed miserably. The fact that Zelensky promised to not only defeat Russian forces in former Ukrainian regions, but also Crimea, was a bitter pill to swallow for Zaluzhny. He was certainly aware this was effectively impossible and frustrated that such a daunting task was given precisely to him. One strong possibility is that Zelensky was completely delusional (something he’s certainly prone to), but another is that he deliberately announced such unattainable goals just so he could then blame Zaluzhny for the (obviously imminent) failure later on. Possibly realizing Zelensky’s intentions, the general then tried to one-up him by shifting blame to the Kiev regime’s civilian authorities.
Zaluzhny is surely aware that his removal would cause an uproar in the country. However, most importantly, he might be counting on the possible armed mutiny, as he enjoys unrivaled support in the military. His popularity among civilians should also be taken into account. FT cited a Ukrainian poll released in December, which showed that Zaluzhny enjoys a massive support of 88%. Compared to the 62% that Zelensky got, that’s a huge advantage, even if the numbers for the latter aren’t grossly inflated (which they most likely are). FT also reported that Zaluzhny is yet to comment on the reports of his dismissal, but pointed out that he published an undated selfie with his chief of the general staff Serhiy Shaptala on Facebook in which both were wearing military sweatshirts. This can surely be interpreted as a message to Zelensky.
FT also mentioned the involvement of Petro Poroshenko, one of Zelensky’s top rivals. The political arena in Ukraine increasingly resembles a hyena brawl as that’s precisely how many of the participants have been behaving. The FT’s sources claim that it’s currently unclear who would replace Zaluzhny, but possible candidates are General Oleksandr Syrsky, commander of the ground forces, and Kyrylo Budanov, the GUR (military intelligence) chief. Political analyst Andrew Korybko recently argued that the latter is the more likely choice. And yet, either of the two would have a tough time commanding respect and authority in the military. Zelensky himself has been lacking in that department, as his attempts to circumvent Zaluzhny by communicating orders directly to his subordinates have only resulted in disastrous losses.
Both Syrsky and Budanov will surely have big shoes to fill. The former might have a somewhat easier task, as he has been in the military for decades, while the latter has boasted about supposed “convert operations in the Donbass”, which doesn’t seem very convincing to the rest of the military. It doesn’t help that Zaluzhny’s reputation hasn’t been tarnished by corruption. Namely, some Russian sources are claiming that Zelensky’s offer also included several million dollars in what is essentially a bribe for Zaluzhny to step down, which, as previously mentioned, he promptly refused. Still, it’s highly questionable that he’s simply that virtuous. The much more likely scenario is that Zaluzhny understands that he stands to gain much more from a possible power struggle that he’s very likely to win rather than accept a comparably puny payout.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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In a letter to my MP (in answer to my question) the UK Department of Defence could not confirm that the UK was at war with Russia.
But in international law war is recognised as existing between two countries if there is a condition marked by armed conflict between or among states, whether or not war has been declared formally by any of the belligerents.
This is unquestionably the case between the UK and Russia with the British public slowly recognising the fact, having been jolted by the recent words of General Sir Patrick Sanders who said the UK should be prepared to “mobilise the nation” because the armed forces are too weak to resist Russia.
Even more devastating was the announcement that the United States plans to station nuclear weapons in Britain for the first time in 15 years according to Pentagon documents obtained by The Daily Telegraph. The US removed nuclear missiles from Britain in 2008. Contracts for a new facility at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk confirmed the US intention.
Having hung onto the coat tails of the US neocons’ plan to destroy Russia through Ukraine, Britain now finds itself with Armed forces of 184,865 against Russia’s 1.3m and an army of 73,000 which would (at Ukraine’s rate of losses against Russia) be wiped out in 4 months!
Given the extremely dangerous 2020 change by Biden on the FIRST use of nuclear weapons (see this) against “competitors that could inflict strategic-level damage” it is worth recording that the UK has a mere 225 nuclear warheads as against Russia’s 5,900.
The Royal Airforce has 564 fixed wing aircraft while Russia has 3,864 and in Ukraine Russia has developed the most sophisticated Drone operations and electronic warfare in the world.
The UK Attacks on Russia Through Ukraine
During the longstanding civil war between Kiev and the Ukrainian Russians in the Donbas it was the British armed forces who led the training and arming off Kiev’s forces (including openly Nazi groups like Azov). The Ukrainian Major General Alexei Taran, responsible for the training programme declared that
Great Britain has become the “undisputed leader” in organizing the training of the Armed Forces of Ukraine – it has trained over 30,000 military personnel since the beginning of the Russian attack, and another 20 thousand from 2014 to 2022.
It is worth recording that according to Ukrainian sources their losses are now 30,000 PER MONTH.
UK Trained Saboteurs
British Armed Forces special forces were involved in the training of Ukrainian saboteurs who were planning to attack military and transportation facilities in Russia, including nuclear power plants.
The Director of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, Alexander Bortnikov, reported that in August of 2023, his agency apprehended members of a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group who had received training, and their operations were planned with the involvement of British Armed Forces Special Forces.
The objectives of this group included conducting sabotage activities at military installations, in the oil sector, transportation, and critical infrastructure, as well as targeting nuclear energy facilities, specifically the Smolensk and Kursk nuclear power plants.
There is no doubt that the British government would classify such attacks as terrorism if inflicted on British soil.
UK Intelligence Organising Anti Russian Insurgency
The head of the Uzbek diaspora Vatandosh, Usman Baratov was arrested and confessed to collaborating with British military intelligence.
Baratov testified that he spoke at the British Embassy in Moscow with a military attaché, who offered him income and an easy path to British citizenship with subsequent emigration. Baratov met several times in Istanbul with people who introduced themselves to him as BRITISH military intelligence officers.
Baratov’s work was to promote the rights of the Uzbek diaspora in Russia by dividing it into “good” and “bad”. The spy was given the task of consolidating all the “good” ones and preparing them to defend their interests in Russia using soft and forceful methods.
First, everyone had to become citizens of Russia, and then be ready to come to the collection points at hour X at the end of March 2024. All other details are classified as “secret.” After his arrest, Baratov expressed his readiness to work with the FSB (The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation) and give evidence exposing the hostile work of British diplomatic workers.
UK Weapons Fabrication in Ukraine
Britain has said it will open weapons factories and training centres in Ukraine. Russia said it saw BAE opening a local entity in Ukraine “negatively”, and any facilities producing weapons used against Russia would become legitimate military targets.
The UK has also considered escorting Ukrainian ships by the British Navy in the Black Sea according to The DailyTelegraph
UK Forces Totally Unprepared for War
Apart from extreme recruiting difficulties for the Army and the RAF turning down white men in order to fulfil its “diversification” programme there was the embarrassment of two British minesweepers colliding in a Bahrain port. Even more serious was the inability of the Royal Navy to deploy an aircraft carrier to the Red Sea because there are not enough crew to man Fort Victoria, the only Solid Support Ship capable of providing the Carrier Support Group with the amount of ammunition, aircraft, spare equipment and food required for such a deployment.
In the last year both carriers the Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales (total cost £8bn) had to return to port unexpectedly for repairs.
The UK-Ukraine Security Agreement
As if the UK’s obligations to NATO were not already dangerously extensive (as previously neutral new members Finland and Sweden join) the British government has now signed a “Security Agreement” with a war ravaged Ukraine with 500,000 dead and wounded being driven back daily by Russian forces.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal summarised UK obligations:
“Not only must the UK respond within 24 hours if there is an aggression against Ukraine, Ukraine will also defend its ally and partner by responding within 24 hours in one way or another to support the UK if Russia wants to attack our friend, partner and ally,” he said on a national telethon.
While Ukraine is in no position to aid the UK, the terms of this treaty could rapidly bring direct confrontation with Russia. Bellicose and hubristic rhetoric from British politicians like Johnson, Truss and Shapps and military personnel like General Sanders have real world consequences and not one in a million Britons understand the massive gap between the political ambition and the weak state of British defence capacity.
Not long ago Tobias Ellwood MP Chairman of the Defense Committee was seen as a hysterical extremist when he said:
“Britain should start a war directly against Russia, we are fighting in Europe, we need to introduce martial law.”
After recent extreme warmongering by Shapps and Sanders, Ellwood is no longer on the fringes of political sanity but just another part of the establishment Gaderene swine.[1]
Not for 60 years and the Cuban missile crisis have the British been in such danger. And yet as the General Election approaches there is no sign of any genuine peace party.
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This article was originally published on Freenations.
Note
[1]The pigs into which Jesus cast the demons that had possessed a madman, and which as a result ran down a steep cliff into the sea and were killed; from this, Gadarene means involving or engaged in a headlong or potentially disastrous rush to do something.
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A powerful Westminster lobby group took money from an organisation with close ties to the State of Israel, it has emerged.
Around 80% of Tory MPs are members of Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) – which is the largest funder of foreign trips for British politicians.
Yet CFI’s own source of income has long been shrouded in secrecy, as it does not publicly disclose its donors.
Declassified can now reveal that those have included the Jewish Agency. That’s a parastatal body in Jerusalem, which is legally required to assist new migrants to Israel.
It has been encouraging Jews to move there from abroad for almost a century – offering considerable financial incentives – and actively supports those who wish to enlist in Israel’s army.
The Jewish Agency, now led by Major General Doron Almog, is one of Israel’s four “national institutions” that pre-date the State’s creation in 1948. When the country became independent, its first prime minister was David Ben-Gurion, the then head of the Jewish Agency.
Together with its twin, the World Zionist Organisation, as well as the Jewish National Fund and Keren Hayesod (The Foundation Fund), these groups were at the forefront of buying land and promoting (often illegal) migration to Palestine during British rule.
‘Likud Office in London’
The revelation that CFI was funded by the Jewish Agency is contained in minutes from a meeting held in 1990 between the lobby group’s then chairman, British MP Robert Rhodes-James, and UK foreign minister Douglas Hogg.
Rhodes-James is recorded as saying:
“CFI had been in poor shape when he took over two years ago. It had degenerated into a virtual ‘Likud office in London’, even taking money from the Jewish agency.”
The amount of money is not mentioned. Likud is the right-wing political party led by Israel’s current prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Likud’s original manifesto controversially pledged:
“Between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.”
Rhodes-James went on to say:
“CFI was now financially independent, and had earned respect as a group of spokesmen for HMG [the British government] sympathetic to Israel, rather than mere apologists for every Israeli action (even if some members remained uncritical Likud supporters).”
Whether CFI retained its financial independence after 1990 is unclear. The group has become a staunch defender of Netanyahu’s policies, even as the International Court of Justice warns Israel could be committing genocide in Gaza.
CFI and the Jewish Agency did not respond to requests for comment.
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Phil Miller is Declassified UK’s chief reporter. He is the author of Keenie Meenie: The British Mercenaries Who Got Away With War Crimes. Follow him on Twitter at @pmillerinfo
Featured image: The Jewish Agency’s headquarters in Jerusalem. (Photo: Hagai Agmon-Snir / Wikimedia)
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The State Department wants you to know that the Biden administration made a record value of major arms sales last year – $80.9 billion under the U.S. government-administered Foreign Military Sales program and related “security cooperation activities” with U.S. allies.
This is a 55% increase in this category of weapons transfers from the prior year, and, according to the State Department, “the highest annual total of sales and assistance provided to our allies and partners.”
There is some question as to whether major weapons transfers are actually at their highest levels ever. The Obama administration entered into $102 billion in Foreign Military Sales agreements in 2010, including $60 billion in deals with Saudi Arabia, many of them for weapons that were later used in Riyadh’s brutal war in Yemen.
But the fact that the State Department wants to brag about “record” sales is instructive. The rest of the fact sheet announcing the new figures makes it sound like recent U.S. arms sales will only have positive outcomes: no risks, no downsides. Boilerplate language on the benefits of runaway arms trading included the following:
“Each proposed transfer is carefully assessed on a case-by-case basis, in accordance with the Arms Export Control Act and related legislation . . . Major defense transfers are also subject to Congressional notification and review.” In other words, what could possibly go wrong?
Some transfers — like the tens of billions in arms supplied to Ukraine to defend itself from a Russian invasion — have a legitimate rationale, as long as they are not the only expression of U.S. policy, to the exclusion of exploring diplomatic approaches to ending the conflict on terms the Ukrainian government and people can agree to.
And a substantial portion of the rest of U.S. arms transfers in 2023 went to European allies concerned about possible future actions by Russia, which may be a distant prospect given Moscow’s mixed record in fighting a far less populous nation in Ukraine. It’s not clear that the Russian military is in any shape to take on the 31-member NATO alliance. Nonetheless, sales made with Russia in mind included over $30 billion in deals with Poland, $8 billion worth of military helicopters to Germany, and $5.6 billion in F-35 combat aircraft to the Czech Republic.
The legitimacy surrounding the provision of arms to Ukraine and European allies is decidedly not present with respect to recent arms aid to Israel, which has used U.S. weapons in an assault on Gaza in which the International Court of Justice has indicated that it is “plausible” that Israel is engaged in genocide. Leaving aside the dispute about whether Israel is committing genocide or “just” widespread war crimes, its military activities have killed over 26,000 Gazans, displaced 1.9 million people, and hindered the delivery of medical and food aid. This could not be, and is not, in line with U.S. law or the Biden administration’s stated policies.
Israel has been routinely exempted from U.S. human rights strictures with respect to its use of U.S.-supplied weapons. And to make matters worse, the Biden administration has made it harder for Congress and the public to know what weapons it is supplying to the Israeli military by circumventing Congressional notification requirements and providing weapons from stockpiles without reporting on what is being taken and transferred.
Needless to say, the State Department has been silent on this counterexample to its happy talk about how all U.S. arms sales are good U.S. arms sales. Nor did it emphasize the revival of U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia, to the tune of over $2 billion in 2023, with more likely to come this year. This is a far cry from the days when candidate Biden called Saudi Arabia a “pariah” and President Biden pledged to curb weapons transfers to that nation.
In short, instead of bragging about the enormous value of U.S. arms transfers and providing a sanitized view of their impacts, the Biden administration should take a hard, cold look at the risks of unrestrained arm exports on the reputation and security of the United States, as well as the human consequences of their use by U.S. allies. A good start would be to withhold further transfers to Israel as leverage to force a ceasefire in Gaza.
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William D. Hartung is a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. His work focuses on the arms industry and U.S. military budget.
Featured image: Golan Heights, Israel – An Israeli soldier prepares 155m shells for firing (Gal Rotem/Shutterstock)
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Dressed in medical scrubs, Islamic thobes and hijabs, wearing face masks and pushing wheelchairs, a group of Israeli undercover agents descended upon Jenin‘s Ibn Sina Hospital on Tuesday.
The agents are known in Arabic as mustaribeen, which means to “dress and act like an Arab”, and in Hebrew as mistaarivim, a derivative of the Arabic word.
The operatives – disguised as Palestinian medics, patients and civilians – raided the facility in the occupied West Bank, killing three people. One of the Israeli officers reportedly spoke in Arabic during the operation.
The raid took place at 5:30am, and took around 10 minutes, according to Israeli media.
The special forces involved were the latest in a long history of undercover Israeli agents pretending to be Palestinian.
Their existence goes as far back as the British Mandate of Palestine in the first half of the 20th century, during which British authorities worked with Zionist militias to infiltrate Arab populations in the region.
“Mistaarivim started as an undercover unit in the Palmach division, which was part of the terrorist militia of Haganah, the core of the Israeli army,” Emad Moussa, a researcher specialising in political psychology in Israel and Palestine, told Middle East Eye.
Israeli special forces disguised as Palestinian civilians and medical workers, raided the Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin, reportedly killing three Palestinians.
The raid took place early on Tuesday inside the Ibn Sina hospital in Jenin in the occupied West Bank pic.twitter.com/pAzJVrIeTE
“They were made up of mainly Mizrahi Jews, coming from Arabic-speaking countries, and were tasked to infiltrate Palestinians (and other Arabs in neighbouring countries) to collect information for the Zionist movement and the British.”
That unit was eventually disbanded, particularly after tensions arose between British authorities and the Zionist militias they had once propped up.
At the end of the Mandate and following the creation of Israel, the undercover unit was revived as a means of espionage, and to sow seeds of chaos and confusion in Palestinian communities.
‘Agent Provocateurs’
One of the most well-known units, the Duvdevan, was formed in the 1980s by former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak. The unit is still operational today, and one of several undercover Israeli units.
“Their use during the first intifada was particularly prominent. They were often either Druze, or Arabic-speaking Jewish operatives of Shin Bet,” Laleh Khalili, an academic and researcher at the University of Exeter, told MEE.
“[They] collected intelligence, acted as agent provocateurs, or managed to push themselves into protests or gatherings in order to arrest or injure or assassinate Palestinians from inside.”
Today, the undercover agents are found in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem – but not in Gaza.
“In Gaza, the mistaarivim units lost much of their operational capabilities after Hamas had taken control of the Strip in 2007,” said Moussa.
“For mistaarivim to operate in Gaza is to risk being captured and then hidden away well beyond the reach of the Israeli army.”
In the West Bank, the units are most often seen infiltrating protests against Israeli occupation, attempting to create fear and paranoia among Palestinians.
They also get directly involved in carrying out arrests, including during mass protests in December 2017 when then-US president Donald Trump’s administration unilaterally decided to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Violence and Brutality
The agents can be found in Israel too. Palestinian activists have reported being confronted by the mustaribeen in cities like Haifa, where they have earned a reputation of violence and brutality.
In recent years, Palestinians have employed several tactics to identify and fight back against the mustaribeen.
That includes wearing light colours and tucking their tops into their trousers: the undercover officers tend to wear darker colours and looser clothing to hide weapons.
Moussa said that protesters also organise themselves in smaller groups to avoid being captured by agents, and also share information on social media about suspicious individuals.
“I was told, those undercover units are sometimes recognised because they try to look and act ‘too Palestinian’,” he said.
Khalili added:
“More often than not, Palestinians can with a bit of attention spot them. But often they are intervening in incredibly heated moments of protest where Palestinians’ attention is elsewhere.”
West Bank Raids
The mustaribeen don’t just carry out arrests; they have been known to shoot and kill Palestinians, too.
In May 2021, they shot and killed Ahmed Fahd, 24, a civilian who lived in al-Amari refugee camp in Ramallah.
Israeli intelligence officials later called his family to apologise, stating they had meant to kill his brother and uncle accused of being involved in “terror activities”.
Increasingly, Israeli military raids on West Bank towns and cities – which now almost occur on a daily basis – involve mustaribeen elements.
Earlier this month, the Israeli army carried out a two-day raid on the city of Tulkarm, killing eight Palestinians, which it said involved “forces from the army, border guards, mustaribeen, and the general security service”.
These undercover units, backed by regular armed forces, operate differently to agents at protests.
“What happened in Jenin today is an operation of a different calibre. It combines military superiority and infiltration. The thing is, even if those units are recognised, they’re heavily armed and supported by Israeli military units,” said Moussa.
“Therefore, most people don’t stand a chance of confronting them.”
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Featured image: Israeli forces are dressed as patients, medics and civilians in the Ibn Sina Hospital (Screengrab/X)
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Mere hours after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found a plausible case that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, a historic hearing took place in a federal courtroom in Oakland, California. Several Palestinians who are suing President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for failure to prevent genocide and complicity in genocide testified before district court Judge Jeffrey White in a live-streamed session.
“I have lost everything in this war,” plaintiff Omar Al-Najjar testified from a hospital in Gaza. “I have nothing but my grief. This is what Israel and its supporters have done to us.” Al-Najjar reported that conditions are so bad there is “widespread childbirth in the street.”
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Northern California on November 13, 2023, on behalf of Palestinian human rights organizations Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P) and Al-Haq, three Palestinian individuals who live in Gaza and five Palestinian Americans who have family in Gaza. The complaint in Defense for Children International – Palestine v. Biden alleges violations of the Genocide Convention and customary international law which forbids genocide.
On November 16, plaintiffs filed a motion for preliminary injunction to immediately force Biden, Blinken and Austin to stop providing additional money, weapons, and military and diplomatic support to Israel for its genocide in Gaza.
The January 26, 2024, hearing featured testimony by Palestinian plaintiffs and a renowned expert on genocide and the Holocaust. Plaintiffs testified from Gaza, Ramallah and in the courtroom. They described the death, devastation and displacement their families have suffered since Israel began its military assault on Gaza after the October 7 Hamas attacks.
Attorneys representing the Department of Justice (DOJ) did not challenge the fact that Israel is committing genocide or contest plaintiffs’ allegations that U.S. support has furthered the genocide. They argued instead that the court doesn’t have jurisdiction to hear the case because it involves a “political question” regarding foreign policy that is reserved to Congress or the president.
Judge White appeared very sympathetic to the Palestinian plaintiffs. But he signaled that he may find that the issues in dispute raise a political question which would prevent his court from hearing the case.
It is rare that a federal judge allows a hearing to be broadcast. It attests to the public interest in charging the president and two cabinet members with complicity in genocide and failure to prevent genocide. The judge approved licenses for 1,000 people to watch the proceedings via Zoom and even that didn’t cover all of those who wanted to tune in.
“The Gaza That We Knew No Longer Exists”
The witnesses included Ahmed Abofoul, a Palestinian lawyer and legal researcher at Al-Haq, one of the organizational plaintiffs, who testified that more than 60 relatives on his father’s side had been killed, 15 of them in a single airstrike; many of their bodies remain buried under the rubble. For the first time in its 45-year history, Al-Haq is unable to document human rights violations throughout Gaza. “The Gaza that we knew no longer exists,” he said.
Plaintiff Laila El-Haddad, a Palestinian American writer, testified that her neighborhood in Gaza was reduced to “a large pile of sand.” Dozens of her relatives have been killed in Israel’s assaults and some were buried in mass graves. She described a “profound feeling of not just sorrow and sadness, but injustice and helplessness,” adding, “Biden could with one phone call put an end to this. He’s decided to aid and abet.”
Plaintiff Waeil Elbhassi is Palestinian American with extended family in Gaza. More than 100 of his relatives have been killed or injured since October 7. “Israel is making Gaza unlivable so there will be nothing for them to come back to. People don’t want to leave. If they stay, they might die. If they leave, they won’t be able to come back.”
Plaintiff Basim Elkarra, who is Palestinian American, testified that after the temporary humanitarian pause between Israel and Hamas in November, 65 members of his family were murdered by Israeli forces. Dozens are missing. “How can children or anyone deal with the relentless bombing that shakes you to the core?” he asked.
Khaled Quzmar, general director of Defense for Children International – Palestine, an organizational plaintiff, testified that DCI-P provides legal services and psychosocial support to children. It monitors and documents human rights violations against Palestinian children. Now, he said, DCI-P is “completely unable to work.”
DOJ attorneys objected to the testimony of Barry Trachtenberg, a professor of Jewish history and expert in genocide and the Holocaust, saying he was not qualified to opine on matters of law, but the judge allowed it. Trachtenberg said, “Israel’s assault on Gaza has been funded by the American people, fought with U.S.-supplied weapons, and encouraged by a complicit White House. Unlike past genocides, which were adjudicated long after they had concluded, we have an opportunity to halt this one in its tracks. Palestinians have suffered far too much and for far too long.”
The Lawsuit Charges Biden, Blinken and Austin with Arming Israel’s Genocide
The lawsuit alleges that Biden, Blinken and Austin transferred weapons and military equipment to Israel during its unfolding genocide. The defendants have asked Congress to appropriate $14.1 billion in military assistance to Israel — in addition to the $3.8 billion the U.S. already provides to Israel each year. Blinken authorized a $320 million transfer of military equipment to an Israeli manufacturer of precision bomb kits.
“As Israel’s closest ally and strongest supporter, being its biggest provider of military assistance by a large margin and with Israel being the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II, the United States has the means available to have a deterrent effect on Israeli officials now pursuing genocidal acts against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” the legal complaint states.
The Palestinian plaintiffs are asking the court to declare that defendants Biden, Blinken and Austin violated their duty under customary international law, as part of federal common law, to take all measures within their power to prevent Israel from committing genocidal acts against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Plaintiffs also seek an injunction ordering the defendants to take all measures within their power to prevent Israel from committing genocidal acts against the Palestinians in Gaza. This includes ordering defendants to exert influence over Israel to: 1) end its bombing of the Palestinian people in Gaza which has caused mass killing and serious injury; 2) lift the siege on Gaza and allow all fuel, food, electricity, water and humanitarian aid into Gaza; and 3) prevent the “evacuation” or forcible transfer and expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and guarantee their freedom of movement.
Finally, plaintiffs are asking the court to issue an injunction to prohibit defendants from: 1) providing, coordinating or facilitating military assistance and money to Israel, including the sales, transfer and delivery of weapons to Israel, and the provision of military personnel and equipment that advance Israel’s commission of genocidal acts and 2) obstructing attempts by the international community, including the UN, to implement a ceasefire and lift the siege on Gaza.
Will the Judge Find the Case Raises a “Political Question” and Dismiss It?
Judge White began the hearing by noting the “brutal attacks by Hamas” and that Israel’s “defensive” campaign was “similarly brutal.” He noted that Israel had killed “tens of thousands of Palestinians, children” and the “destruction was widespread.” Israel, the judge said, “destroyed critical civilian infrastructure, schools, refugee camps and safe houses.” He described the U.S.’s “substantial military, financial and diplomatic support” and said it continues to “fund and proffer weapons” to Israel.
The judge then asked counsel for the plaintiffs and defendants whether the court — judicial branch — had jurisdiction to hear the case, or whether it involved foreign policy decisions that were “quintessential political questions” reserved to the executive and legislative (political) branches.
CCR attorney Katherine Gallagher, representing the plaintiffs, told Judge White this is not a political question; it is a legal question. “These are not questions of policy,” she said. “These are questions of law.” The courts serve as a check on the political branches, she said. The executive has “no discretion to violate the law” and the United States has a “clear, unambiguous duty to punish and prevent genocide.” The U.S., she added, is making policy determinations that are contrary to international law.
Attorney Jean Lin argued for the DOJ that it is “not the role of the courts to indict Israel for violation of international law.” She said the plaintiffs were “directly challenging U.S. policy.”
Judge White cited a 2017 case in which his own decision to dismiss was affirmed by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Marshall Islands had sued the U.S. to fulfill its legal obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and customary international law to negotiate in good faith to end the nuclear arms race at an early date and for total nuclear disarmament. Judge White said the case involved nonjusticiable political questions.
Gallagher distinguished that case from the present case. In the Marshall Islands case, the plaintiffs were seeking to compel negotiations, but here, she said, there is a legal question: whether the defendants failed to prevent genocide. “It’s fundamentally different than weighing into negotiations.” She cited the ICJ’s new decision that makes clear there is an obligation to prevent and punish genocide.
Judge White also asked plaintiffs’ counsel what an injunction would look like if he issued one. Gallagher responded: “There can’t be more military support to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.” She clarified that the plaintiffs aren’t seeking to end all military support. For example, Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system would not be implicated. She proposed a hearing with the U.S. government and discovery to examine which weapons Israel is using in Gaza.
Lin said the court has “no jurisdiction to enjoin the president in his official duties” as commander in chief.
The judge cited the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution that says treaties are the supreme law of the land. That includes the Genocide Convention.
Lin retorted that even if the Genocide Convention is the supreme law of the land, that doesn’t mean it may be enforced by U.S. courts.
Gallagher noted that genocide also violates customary international law — which arises from the general and consistent practice of states. Customary international law is part of federal common law and must be enforced in U.S. courts, whether or not its provisions are enshrined in a ratified treaty.
Judge White characterized the testimony as “truly horrific, gut wrenching, no words to describe it.” He noted that the government doesn’t dispute the uncontradicted evidence of a “genocide in progress.”
“The Palestinian people are living in fear and without food, medical care, clean water or sufficient humanitarian aid. Defendants — the president of the United States and his secretaries of state and defense — have provided substantial military, financial and diplomatic support to Israel,” Judge White said.
“However, the primary concern for this court is the limitation of its own jurisdictional reach.” He said this case was one of the “the most difficult” of his career. He told the plaintiffs, “You have been seen, you have been heard by this court. I’m going to take it extremely seriously.”
Judge White may decide to play both ends against the middle. His decision could begin with a detailed recitation of the horrific facts on the ground in Gaza, the weaponry that the U.S. provides to Israel to kill large numbers of Palestinians, and his sympathy for the suffering of the plaintiffs. He will say what a difficult decision this is for him.
But my hands are tied, he might say, because this case raises “nonjusticiable political questions” reserved only to the executive and legislative branches of government, so he must dismiss the case.
Or he may take the high road and allow these Palestinian plaintiffs redress for the unspeakable violence perpetrated against their families and organizations by Israel, and allow them a judicial remedy.
Gallagher reported that a massive crowd of supporters convened outside Judge White’s courtroom as a huge sign reading, “Stop the Genocide Biden” hung from the federal courthouse.
Activists around the country are also demonstrating in support of the genocide lawsuits against Israel. On January 26, the day of the hearing in the Oakland case and the issuance of the ICJ’s order on provisional measures, hundreds of Palestinians, Jews, and other local community members gathered in downtown Portland for a march and rally calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an end to U.S. military aid to Israel. The action was endorsed by several civil society groups, including Jewish Voice for Peace PDX and Healthcare Workers for Palestine Portland.
Cities throughout the United States have passed resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Regardless of how Judge White rules in the Palestinians’ case, it represents a milestone in the struggle to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza and will inspire people in the U.S. and around the world to demand an end to Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people.
UPDATE: On January 31, Judge White reluctantly dismissed the Palestinian plaintiffs’ lawsuit against Biden, Blinken and Austin. Relying on the political question doctrine, the judge found he had no jurisdiction to hear the case. He wrote that “the ongoing military siege in Gaza is intended to eradicate a whole people and therefore plausibly falls within the international prohibition against genocide.” But he concluded this case was a “rare” instance where “the preferred outcome is inaccessible to the court.” He also wrote that the “Court implores Defendants to examine the results of their unflagging support of the military siege against the Palestinians in Gaza.”
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Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and a member of the national advisory boards of Assange Defense and Veterans For Peace, and the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. She is founding dean of the People’s Academy of International Law and the U.S. representative to the continental advisory council of the Association of American Jurists. Her books include Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues. She is co-host of “Law and Disorder” Radio.
Featured image: I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream- by Mr. Fish
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UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has described the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) as “the backbone of all humanitarian response in Gaza” and appealed to all countries to “guarantee the continuity of UNRWA’s lifesaving work”.
Several countries including the United States, UNRWA’s biggest donor, paused funding after Israel accused some agency staff of taking part in the October 7 attack by Hamas.
Speaking to the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP) on Wednesday, Guterres said he was “personally horrified” by the accusations waged against UNRWA staff but stressed the need to overcome the termination.
“Yesterday, I met with donors to listen to their concerns and to outline the steps we are taking to address them,” he said.
“I am extremely concerned by the inhumane conditions faced by Gaza’s 2.2 million people, as they struggle to survive without any of the basics.”
Describing conditions inside the besieged enclave, the UN chief said heavy rains were flooding makeshift tent camps, forcing children, parents and the elderly to sleep in the mud. Clean water has become almost completely inaccessible and preventable diseases are rife, while the health system has collapsed.
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday warned of a “massive catastrophe” unfolding in Gaza.
“This is a population that is starving to death, this is a population that is being pushed to the brink,” WHO’s emergencies director Michael Ryan told a news conference.
“The civilians of Gaza are not parties to this conflict and they should be protected, as should be their health facilities.
UN officials have warned that UNRWA will have to halt operations by the end of February if funding is not restored.
The heads of WHO, the World Food Program (WFP), UNICEF, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and other agencies and partners said the allegations were “horrifying.”
“However, we must not prevent an entire organisation from delivering on its mandate to serve people in desperate need,” they said in a joint statement. “No other entity has the capacity to deliver the scale and breadth of assistance that 2.2 million people in Gaza urgently need.”
‘Completely Dependent’ on UNRWA
At a meeting of the UN Security Council on Gaza on Wednesday, UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said that UNRWA plays a fundamental role in the humanitarian response in Gaza.
“To put it very simply and bluntly: Our humanitarian response for the occupied Palestinian territory is dependent, completely dependent, on UNRWA being adequately funded and operational,” Griffiths told the 15-member council.
“UNRWA’s lifesaving services … to over three-quarters of Gaza’s residents should not be jeopardised by the alleged actions of a few individuals. It is a matter of extraordinary disproportion,” he said.
Griffiths added that the ability of the humanitarian community to reach the people of Gaza with aid remained “grossly inadequate”.
“We continue to face the issue of the rejection for entry of much-needed items into Gaza by Israel for reasons which, at least for us, are unclear and inconsistent,” he said.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) last week ordered Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent its troops from committing genocide and take steps to improve the humanitarian situation of Palestinians in Gaza, in a case brought by South Africa.
In its highly anticipated interim ruling on Friday, the ICJ did not call for an immediate ceasefire but said Israel must promptly implement “immediate and effective” measures to guarantee the delivery of urgently required humanitarian aid and basic services to Gaza.
South Africa’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor on Wednesday said all states have an obligation to stop funding and facilitating Israel’s military actions in Gaza after the World Court made clear those actions have the potential to amount to genocide.
Israel must report to the court within a month on what it is doing to uphold the order to take all measures within its power to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza.
Accusations Against UNRWA
The accusations against UNRWA staff members became public on Friday, when the agency announced it had fired some staff after Israel provided information. Guterres said on Sunday that of 12 people implicated nine were fired, one is dead, and the identity of the remaining two was being clarified.
A six-page Israeli dossier said 12 UNRWA staff members took part in the October 7 attacks that killed 1,139 people. It also suggests Israel has wider evidence that UNRWA has employed 190 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters.
Later on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said UNRWA had been “totally infiltrated” by Hamas and called for its termination.
“It’s time for the international community and the U.N. itself to understand that UNRWA’s mission must be terminated,” Netanyahu told visiting UN delegates, according to a statement from his office.
The Palestinians have claimed Israel falsified information to tarnish UNRWA.
Donors, including the European Union and several European nations, the United Kingdom, Japan and Canada, have suspended funding to the agency.
Riyad Mansour, the permanent observer to the UN for the Palestinian territories, told the UN Security Council on Wednesday there was no reason to “take measures that effectively amount to the collective punishment of 30,000 UNRWA staff and millions of refugees” who benefit from UNRWA’s services.
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the US is working to facilitate the delivery of more aid into Gaza, sidestepping reports that Israel has consistently blocked UN aid delivery efforts.
Thomas-Greenfield also said that the ICJ ruling was consistent with the US approach to Gaza, and that conditions for a ceasefire “do not exist”.
South Africa’s Pandor said Pretoria has done everything it can and now it is up to the global community to play its part by holding Israel accountable.
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The United States has long called itself the “indispensable nation” to justify its claim to global leadership. Through its inane policies and destructive actions, the US has lost both international regard and support from world leaders who expected better of the world’s hyperpower. The latest outrage is the Biden administration’s decision to cut existential funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) because a dozen of its 13,000 employees in Gaza were allegedly involved in the December 7th Hamas surprise attack on Israel.
The Israel-blinded Biden administration does not comprehend that UNRWA is the “indispensable organisation” which provides food, shelter, health care, education and 30,000 jobs for the 5.7 million UNRWA-registered Palestinian refugees in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. UNRWA is and always was a quasi state-within-a-state serving a stateless people. What would happen to these survivors of Israel’s 1948 and 1967 wars and their descendants if there was no UNRWA?
The agency was created in 1949 to care for the 750,000 Palestinians driven from their homes in villages and towns during that war. If Israel had heeded and implemented UN General Assembly resolution 194, paragraph 11, and allowed the Palestinians to return home and paid them compensation for their losses, there would have been no UNRWA and no permanent stateless Palestinian refugee population living in limbo for 75 years until the world decides what to do with them.
Israel’s main objection to UNRWA is its registration as refugees the descendants of Palestinans driven from their homes in 1948. This has perpetuated “refugeedom” in the Palestinian camps in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and in host countries. Many live in camps among fellow villagers and townspeople from Palestine. This fosters a sense of community and solidarity which Israel seeks to erase.
In response to statelessness, young Palestinians have formed resistance groups which since the 1950s have mounted attacks on Israel and in the 1960s hijacked civilian aircraft. Resistance put Palestine back on the world map and reclaimed the stolen Palestinian identity.
The powers-that-be have promised a “two state solution” to the Palestinian predicament by founding a Palestinian state alongside Israel but have never made a serious effort to deliver on this promise which has been revived in recent months. It is too late. Israel says there can be no Palestinian state between the Mediterranean and Jordan River.
The two-state solution has become a mirage which has faded. Without serious US and international opposition and sanctions, Israel has illegally planted 750,000 colonists in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the areas which would make up 98-99 per cent of a Palestinian state while Gaza would contribute only one or two per cent.
In the absence of a two-state solution, UNRWA has become all-the-more indispensable for stateless Palestinians. Paradoxically, Israel has always been critical of UNRWA and eager to see its relief and works infrastructure dismantled and its 30,000 employees out of jobs. I say, paradoxically, for without UNRWA, Israel would have to assume responsibility for the lives and welfare of Palestinian refugees in all the areas it occupied in 1967 although Israel, as occupying power, has refused to provide for Palestinians who dwell there but are not refugees.
Over the decades, Israel has accused UNRWA of inciting young Palestinians through the textbooks in agency schools. This can be achieved only by leaving out the history of Palestine during the 20th and 21st centuries, which has been 123 years of colonisation, displacement and warfare. In East Jerusalem, Israel has tried and failed to impose Israeli approved textbooks and the Israeli curriculum.
While the European Union and various countries have joined Israel in mounting the textbook charge, UNRWA’s accusers do not investigate the incitement of Palestinian children by Israeli soldiers and settlers who harass them as the walk to school or play football in neighbourhood streets. The situation became so ugly in Khalil (Hebron) in the West Bank that the Temporary International Presence in Hebron was deployed to protect Palestinian children in that city between 1994 and 2019. No UNRWA detractors mention the actions of Israeli troops who in the West bank and East Jerusalem — as testified by Israeli soldiers in Breaking the Silence — crash into Palestinian homes at the middle of the night, beat and arrest males, or confine families in single rooms while taking over entire floors as observation posts.
UNRWA schools have also been accused by Israel of hiding weapons used to resist Israeli incursions into Gaza and, since it took control of Gaza, collaborating with Hamas. On the latter charge, UNRWA has had no choice but to have and maintain contacts with the Hamas-run administration in Gaza.
Although Hamas is Israel’s current enemy, since the First Intifada (1987-1993), successive Israeli governments had fostered the growth of Hamas with the objective of undermining Fatah which led the resistance during the initial uprising and the Second Intifada (2000-2005). Israel relished the rift between Fatah and Hamas which drove Fatah’s security agents from Gaza in 2007 and assumed control of the narrow coastal strip. Israel switched to the Fateh-dominated Palestinian Authority in 1993 following the signing of the Oslo accords and discouraged Palestinian reunification, splitting Gaza from the West Bank. Today, Israel is reaping the harvest of its wrong-headed policies. Destroying UNRWA would be disastrous and destabilising for the entire region.
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Featured image: Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) holds press conference in Jerusalem on October 27, 2023 [Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency]
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Delegates at an Israeli conference calling for the re-settlement of Israelis in Gaza were handed a board game that seemingly allowed players to map out where they would establish homes in the enclave after it was conquered.
The game, titled, “Come Build Your House in Gaza!” shows a layout of Gaza separated into different neighbourhoods with Hebrew names and explanations of the meaning behind each of them.
It was seen at the Victory Of Israel conference, an event hosted in Jerusalem on Sunday by right-wing Israeli politicians, campaigners and religious figures calling for the building of Israeli settlements in Gaza after the end of the war.
The conference was attended by 11 cabinet ministers and 15 coalition members of parliament.
Players of the game are invited to place wooden house-shaped blocks, with their names written on stickers, on the neighbourhoods they want to settle in.
Among them is the “Heroes of Gaza Neighbourhood”, which it says will be established on top of the Shujaiya neighbourhood. An estimated 300 people were killed in a single Israeli strike on a residential block in Shujaiya in December of last year.
“The translation to Hebrew is ‘Neighbourhood of the Brave,'” reads the caption, referring to its current name.
“The name comes from the Muslims who fought the Crusaders in the Gaza area. The name can also be attributed to the [Israeli army] fighters who fought in the city,” it says.
Another is listed as the “Gavish neighbourhood”, currently al-Nasser, which the game says is named after Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who fought with Israel repeatedly, including in the 1967 war that saw the capture of Gaza.
“Its name will be changed to honour chief commander of the Southern Command in the 6-day war, Yeshayahu Gavish,” reads the caption, using another name for the 1967 war.
Israel has occupied Gaza since 1967, and during that time built numerous settlements across the territory in which Israeli Jews settled.
In 2005, however, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the destruction and evacuation of the Gaza settlements, a move which many right-wing Israelis opposed and continue to regard as a mistake to be rectified.
‘Control Territory’
The conference came just days after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, for which it heard evidence earlier this month.
The court gave Israel six orders regarding the siege and bombardment of Gaza. One of those was that Israel “must take measures within its power to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide in relation to the members of the Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip”.
The court also cited a series of statements made by Israeli leaders as evidence of incitement and dehumanising language against Palestinians, including comments made by Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
During the conference, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvircalled for Palestinians to be “voluntarily encouraged to leave” Gaza.
In response to calls from the audience for Palestinians to be displaced from Gaza, Ben Gvir responded by saying: “You are right, voluntary encouragement, let them go from here.
“We must return to Gush Katif and northern Samaria… if you don’t want it to happen again for the seventh or tenth time, we must return home and control the territory, encouraging immigration, and the death penalty for terrorists,” he added.
Gush Katif was a bloc of 17 Israeli settlements in southern Gaza. At the conference, Ben Gvir, along with other ministers, signed a petition for “victory and renewal of the settlement in Gaza” during the event.
The document said that signatories pledged that they would “grow Jewish settlements full of life in Gaza”.
Afterwards, attendees were filmed celebrating the move by waving the Israeli flag and cheering. Following Ben Gvir’s speech, people could be heard chanting “death to Arabs”.
Some of the statements made at the conference have led to backlash, with some pointing out that they could violate the ICJ’s orders.
Itay Epshtain, an Israel-based special advisor for the Norwegian Refugee Council, shared a video in which Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrichcould be seen arm-in-arm, dancing together at the conference.
The human rights lawyer said that the image “would form part of the compelling evidence of noncompliance” with the ICJ’s recent order to take all measures within its power to prevent acts of genocide and to punish acts of incitement.
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Featured image: “Come Build Your House in Gaza!” on display at the Victory of Israel conference in Jerusalem, on 28 January 2024 (Oren Ziv/MEE)
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Swiss philosopher Henri-Frédéric Amiel’s famous description of the spirit of what we call today the Collective West, “le culte de la chose bien faite,” sounds sadly hollow nowadays.
Once upon a time, Amiel’s words referred to a palpable, vibrant, reality. In countries associated with the civilisation of the West, and as noted by Weber in particular where the Protestant ethic prevailed, doing things right and efficiently used to be a fanatical cult, just as Amiel observed. The beneficial results, especially by comparison to the performance of civilisations and cultures rooted in different principles, were plainly visible and indisputable.
Amiel lived in the nineteenth century. There is a contemporary French philosopher, Emmanuel Todd, who has noted processes that are markedly different. He has the reputation of a prescient analyst and uncanny forecaster. His recently published book, “The Defeat of the West,” will unsettle many. Its tenor is in sharp contrast to Amiel’s self-confident and optimistic view that the West has got the winning combination with its defining characteristic of “doing things right.” According to Emmanuel Todd, the West no longer retains its perfectionist edge. Its fundamental task now is merely to avert the impending downfall, if it still can. As Todd cogently argues, the West has not only passed its “active stage,” which is reflected in Henri-Frédéric Amiel’s cited remark, but also the ensuing civilisation-on-auto-pilot “zombie stage”. It now finds itself in the terminal “stage zero,” the religious mainsprings whence its civilisation drew its vitality being completely sapped. In the West, there is no longer a cult of efficiency and perfection capable of nurturing and sustaining a corresponding cultural articulation.
Todd has an enviable track record. In the mid-1970s he published a remarkable and at the time incredible volume, “The Final Fall,” where he predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union. This writer’s reaction to Todd’s arguments when they were put forward 40 years ago was deeply sceptical; they were enticing, yet also seemed unrealistic. To most contemporaries, the Soviet Union appeared to be an unshakable, enduring reality. Todd’s meticulous analysis of Soviet demographic data in support of his thesis was impressive, but seemed unconvincing as a cause capable of producing an effect of such magnitude. Few could imagine then that barely a decade later processes would commence that eventually led to precisely the outcome that Todd had predicted.
It would be unforgivably simplistic to attribute the implosion of the Soviet Union mainly to unfavourable demographics. That was a complex operation in which a multitude of factors played a role. But the virtue of the diagnostic investigation conducted 40 years ago by Emmanuel Todd was that he demonstrated how seemingly minor yet tell-tale signs could point to undercurrents and important processes that unjustifiably may have been overlooked.
And indeed, it is in the West now that tell-tale indications of disarray are increasingly emerging, to the consternation of those who have eyes to see and historical perspective to make comparisons. These signs point to a variety of breakdowns, only some of which are purely mechanical. They appear mostly to be cultural in essence, and therein lies the danger. A few recent random examples will serve to make the point.
Exhibit A: Political corruption.
Arizona Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake, who many suspect was cheated out of victory in the race for governor in 2022, is again the subject of political controversy in her state. A few weeks ago, she published the tape recording of a disgraceful bribe offer made to her by the state chairman of her own party. After requesting a confidential tête à tête conversation, that individual visited Lake in her home to inform her that wealthy and powerful “people back East” (in America that is a universally understood metaphor for deep state power centres) were prepared to satisfy Ms. Lake’s financial requirements if she would withdraw from the Senate race, presumably to make way for a controllable Establishment candidate. She only had to name her figure. To her credit, she flatly refused.
Readers from “third world” countries will be nonplussed by these revelations. But the matter should be viewed in context. In America political corruption is not unknown, but the brazenness of this particular proposition made in Arizona is a quantum leap into moral turpitude by comparison to previously recorded outrages of a similar nature.
Exhibit B: Academic corruption.
Harvard University President Claudine Gay was compelled to resign because of multiple plagiarisms discovered in her thin scholarly opus. Harvard was the flagship of the dozen leading Ivy League academic institutions in America. Its reputation for integrity is unimpeachable and sacrosanct. The appointment of the scarcely qualified Ms. Gay, apparently selected for her politically correct external characteristics rather than serious scholarship, was sufficiently problematic. But now her fall from grace, triggered by the embarrassing charge of plagiarism, gravely compromises not just Harvard but inescapably the American academe as a whole.
And if that were not enough, also at Harvard another academic scandal is brewing. Credible allegations have been put forward, and are being investigated, that researchers at the Dana-Farber cancer institute affiliated with Harvard Medical School had manipulated images and research data. One of the papers under review was authored by Dana-Farber CEO Laurie Glimcher. Molecular biologist Sholto David suggested Adobe Photoshop was used to copy and paste images in some of the papers. If correct, it is quite an adolescent way of cobbling together an academic research study.
“We are committed to a culture of accountability and integrity. Therefore, every inquiry is examined fully to ensure the soundness of the scientific literature,” and so on and so forth without missing a single platitude, responded Dana-Farber’s research integrity officer Barrett Rollins in a statement issued after the embarrassing allegations were made public. But big words cannot hide the damage that had been inflicted nor suppress questions about the implications. Merely alleging such academically unbecoming trickery would have been unimaginable a very short time ago.
Exhibit C: Mechanical breakdown.
Aviation does not seem to be fairing much better either. Boeing is an iconic American corporation. It is to industrial manufacturing roughly what Harvard is to higher education. That is a very important fact to remember when assessing the implications of several unprecedented Delta and Alaska Airlines incidents which occurred recently, involving Boeing commercial airplanes on which inadequately secured exit doors had been blown off in-flight. To make matters worse and disturbingly indicative of the quality of workmanship in the new normal, when these incidents occurred the airplanes (minus the critical plug bolts) were in mint condition, having come off the Boeing assembly lines just weeks before. Providentially, no one was sucked out into the surrounding stratosphere, but there is no guarantee that next time the passengers and crew will be as lucky.
Granted, in some parts of the world such examples of sloppiness and misconduct would be commonplace. Most likely they would not be noticed nor would portentous significance be attributed to them. The matter under consideration however is different in an essential respect, and cultural context is the key to understanding why. The trends we have surveyed are emerging in a society, a civilizational realm to be more precise, where within living memory the banner of professional integrity still stood exceptionally high and where laxity in the performance of duty until recently was neither common nor casually tolerated.
The suspicion that a sea change may be under way is therefore neither unwarranted nor is it at all extravagant.
It may be premature based on these random examples, to which many more could of course be added, to draw bold conclusions about an imminent chute finale. But a compelling prima facie case for decadence can certainly be made. The cultural matrix is severely damaged, whether or not irreversibly we shall soon see. Previously inconceivable departures from long established cultural canons, in this case of efficiency and professional integrity, are now becoming increasingly common. Their impact is felt from Ivy League academy to manufacturing plants, and presumably encompasses much that lies in between.
Emmanuel Todd said that his latest book would be his last. He should perhaps reconsider. It seems that there still are plenty of interesting topics to cover, and we are rightfully entitled to expect from him a worthy sequel.
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Stephen Karganovic is president of “Srebrenica Historical Project,” an NGO registered in the Netherlands to investigate the factual matrix and background of events that took place in Srebrenica in July of 1995. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Rethinking Srebrenica examines the forensic evidence of the alleged Srebrenica “massacre” possessed by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. Even though the ICTY created more than 3,500 autopsy reports, many of these autopsy reports were based on bone fragments, which do not represent complete bodies. An examination of the matching femur bones found reveals that there were only about 1,900 complete bodies that were exhumed. Of these, some 1,500 autopsy reports indicated a cause of death consistent with battlefield casualties. Only about 400 autopsy reports indicated execution as a cause of death, as revealed by ligatures and blindfolds. This forensic evidence does not warrant the conclusion of a genocide having taken place.
Karganovic examines the events that took place in Srebrenica in July 1995 in a wholistic manner instead of restricting it to a three-day event. The ten chapters cover:
1) Srebrenica: A Critical Overview;
2) Demilitarization of the UN Safe Zone of Srebrenica;
3) Genocide or Blowback?;
4) General Presentation and Interpretation of Srebrenica Forensic Data (Pattern of Injury Breakdown);
5) An Analysis of the Srebrenica Forensic Reports Prepared by the ICTY Prosecution Experts;
6) An Analysis of Muslim Column Losses Attributable to Minefields, Combat Activity, and Other Causes;
7) The Genocide Issue: Was there a Demonstrable Intent to Exterminate All Muslims?;
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This relatively lengthy introduction is deemed necessary to understand how we got to where we are today; to grasp the long-term western (US) plan to dominate the world economy with their currency, the US dollar, to which some 23 years ago the US-dollar’s cousin, the Euro, was added, with the same “zero-backing” base.
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The current western (US) made International Monetary System (IMS) has been plagued by unfairness since the beginning, when it was created through the so-called Federal Reserve Act (FRA), signed by US President Woodrow Wilson on December 23, 1913.
Image is from the public domain
The FRA supposedly provided the US Government with the means to control inflation, and most importantly, it brought about the internationalization of the US-dollar as a global currency. Meaning, the US dollar could be used internationally as a trading currency, which de facto, made it into an international reserve currency. As such, it was increasingly used by countries around the world as a major reserve currency, allowing, or “necessitating” Washington to increase their money supply.
In 1834, the United States fixed the price of gold at $20.67 per ounce, where it remained until 1933. Other major countries joined the gold standard in the 1870s. The period from 1880 to 1914 is known as the classical gold standard. During that time, most countries adhered (to varying degrees) to gold.
The law required the Federal Reserve to hold gold equal to 40 percent of the value of the currency it issued, i.e. the US dollar, and to convert those dollars into gold at a fixed price of $20.67 per ounce of pure gold.
The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 effectively created the Federal Reserve Bank called “The Fed”.
For purposes of (US) “financial stability” and adjustment to “varying international economic situations” the FRA also allowed The Fed to issue interest rates as guiding instruments for the US banking system, and de facto ever more for the international banking system, as The FED also internationalized the US dollar, especially for trade, so that gradually countries trading in US dollars were dollarized, to differing degrees. Trading in US dollars, no matter between what countries, became an unwritten rule.
This meant on average and over time, more than 90% of international reserves were held in gold and US dollars, thereby ever-more increasing their economies’ dependence on the US – or the US currency.
This also meant that the US could print dollars ever more indiscriminately – without backing – as the world depended ever-more on the US dollar for trade and national reserves.
When in July 1944 the Bretton Woods (BW) Conference not only created the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, but also a new Gold Standard, the US, organizer and effective “owner” of the BW Conference and its results, in a clever move, “convinced” the participating delegates of 44 nations to accept that the new Gold Standard – 1 troy ounce (about 31.1 grams) would be pegged to the US dollar.
Instead of fixing the value of gold according to the weighed average of the 5 or 6 key currencies emerging after WWII – applying the SDR principle – the gold rate was fixed at US$ 35 / per troy ounce (t-oz); the gold value used for backing the currencies of the BW-participating nations was expressed in US dollars.
This meant that de facto gold was replaceable by the US dollar.
The US also were and still are in full control of the IMF and the World Bank with a veto power. The US being the largest shareholder with a 16.5% share, effectively giving it veto power, since major decisions need 85% for approval.
This total control over the IMF and the World Bank is also the reason why China is vastly underrepresented in both the IMF and the World Bank. China is the second largest economy in absolute GDP terms, and the world’s largest economy in Purchasing Power Parity, or PPP-terms – see below.
The US administration needs congressional approval for any IMF quota reform. It took the government years to get Congress to put its stamp on the 2010 reform that increased China’s voting at the expense of European countries, but NOT at the expense of the US.
Similarly, only in October 2016, was the Chinese Yuan (RMB) accepted to join the IMF’s basket of Special Drawing Rights (SDR). In May 2022 was the currency weight in the SDR “adjusted” for the US-dollar to currently 43.38% from 41.73% and the yuan to 12.28% from 10.92%. The euro’s weighting declined to 29.31% from 30.93%, the yen’s fell to 7.59% from 8.33% and the British pound fell to 7.44% from 8.09%.
There is no doubt, comparing the Chinese economy with that of the US and Europe, that the Yuan is way undervalued. A more just valuation / weighing of the Yuan in the SDR currency basket (US$, Euro, Chinese Yuan, UK pound, Japanese yen) – is of high priority.
U.S. Abandons the Gold Standard
When in 1971 President Nixon abandoned the gold standard, via the US controlled IMF, meaning that the US would no longer adhere to backing her currency (US dollar) with gold, the price of gold skyrocketed and the US dollar took de facto over the role of gold.
This presented an unquestioned reason for the US to print indiscriminately US dollars, as the world needed them for their international trade and national reserve coffers.
The second blow came when in 1974, after the artificially created oil crisis of 1973-1974, the U.S. “negotiated” with Saudi Arabia, the head of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) that hydrocarbons, predominantly oil and gas, would only be traded in US dollars, thus, prompting Petrodollars flooding the world.
In exchange, the U.S. would provide Saudi Arabia with military protection and assist with weapons deals and infrastructure investment.
As of this day, oil continues to be the most valuable asset on the planet. More than 85% of all energy used to fuel the world’s economy originates from hydrocarbons.
The OPEC-dollar transaction deal allowed the US again to print indiscriminately more US dollars, as every country in the world needed US dollars to buy its (hydrocarbon) energy, thereby strengthening the US’s currency dominance over the world.
Today, about 60% of the world’s most used currencies (formerly called “convertible currencies”) are US dollars. While the world is flooded with the totally non-backed US dollar, the Chinese Yuan, the currency of the second largest or arguably the largest economy (in PPP-terms), accounts only for about 5%.
This disequilibrium must be corrected.
Indications for de-dollarization are increasing. In the early 1990s more than 90% of all monetary reserves were held in US dollar-denominated securities. Equally, about 90% of all international trade took place in US dollars. Today these proportions have been reduced to about 50% and 65%, respectively.
It is worth mentioning that many of the OPEC countries have fully or partially abandoned the unwritten rule of trading hydrocarbons in US dollars, replacing the dollar by local currencies, or by Yuan.
But much more is needed.
Back to President Wilson, the signatory of the Federal Reserve Act.
Shortly before his death in February 1924, President Wilson apparently came to regret signing the bill (Federal Reserve Act), saying:
“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”
If indeed this is a true quote by President Woodrow Wilson, his foresight had repercussion up to this date – the world is ruled by a small elite and an unequal system, today still largely dominated by a single currency, the US dollar, which is backed by nothing, not gold, not commodities, not even by the United States’s own economy.
If GDP and debt are any indication for the value of a currency, consider this: Today’s US GDP in absolute terms is about US$ 27 trillion (followed by China US$ equivalent of 19.4 trillion), compared to a current US debt of 33.2 trillion – about 123% of GDP (China’s current debt of US-dollar equivalent 12.6 trillion – about a 65% debt-GDP ratio).
However, the real US debt, also called “unfunded liabilities” is currently about US$ 290 trillion (almost 11 times the current US GDP). Approximately 40% of unfunded liabilities consist of accrued interest on debt never intended to be paid, and another 20% of unmet medical liabilities, mostly related to war veterans’ injuries and psychic traumas; and about 12% relate to unfunded social security liabilities.
A little used economic indicator is Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). It equalizes the value of a basket of goods a currency can purchase, by eliminating the differences in price levels between countries. The GDP-PPP factor in the US is US$ 23.6 trillion, compared to China’s of US$-equivalent 33.5 trillion (2023 est.).
Converted into per capita, per year (pc/yr.) PPP: US = US$ 69,500; and China = US$ equivalent 24,000. Meaning – in China you may purchase for US$ 24,000 /pc/yr, what in the US would costs US$ 69,500 pc/yr.
In real economic terms GDP-PPP is more meaningful than the unadjusted GDP.
Towards a New International Monetary System
Any monetary reform must be seen and carried out considering the current international order – which is heavily marked by ever increasing conflicts between West and East.
Western powers are seeking to preserve their status, by rivaling the autonomous and sovereign development of independent nations, or nations that strive to become and stay independent from the western fangs.
To enhance their control over global events – and de facto, attempting to establish a “Global One World Government” — western powers have set up so-called “rules-based orders” attempting to erase established international and national laws. As a result, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague has become inoperable, defunct.
China’s and Russia’s philosophy of life and cooperation with the world and particularly within Asia is promoting a space for stability and joint development.
The year 2023 has shown that Greater Eurasia and Asia have so far been resistant to the negative external influences that are having the most dramatic consequences in Europe and the Middle East.
In summary, Asia and Eurasia remain a space of cooperation, not competition. The leading regional powers are able to reach terms that are fair to their smaller partners.
The new geographically widely dispersed BRICS-11 (5+6) add a new dimension to international cooperation – and to a constructive detachment from the western (US) sanctions regime and US dollar-dominated world-dictate.
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A New or Revised International Monetary System: Might Consider.
General
Assign a greater role of PPP – in economic valuation as well as in the weighted average of IMF’s SDRs;
A massive reduction of US-dollars flooding the globe.
IMF / World Bank
Chinese Yuan to be revalued in the SDR, according to China’s economic strength
Chinese contribution in both IMF and World Bank to be reassessed, according to the weighted average of member-countries’ economies
Veto-power within these organizations to be reassessed; either abandoned altogether, i.e. one participant – one vote, or assigned according to newly assessed voting powers.
Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB)
AIIB to become an ever-stronger player in international economic development, not as a competitor to the World Bank and IMF, but rather as a cooperator and leader or co-leader in specific sectors, where AIIB might have a comparative advantage.
AIIB might take a lead in multi-currency (economic development) investments, promoting local currencies, under the premises that local currencies are enhancing a nation’s sovereignty and economic strength.
Virtual / Trading Currencies
With the objective of de-dollarization – i.e., brining an equilibrium of currencies in world circulation – and effective banning / blocking of (economic) sanctioning, which has proven detrimental to smaller and weaker economies:
Promote trading in local currencies – SWAP agreements
Abandoning SWIFT transfer system – replacing it with not one, but different transfer systems, not linked to the US-dollar;
Developing SDR-type (weighted average of specific economic indicators) virtual trading currency or currencies; SDR-type – means an International Trading Currency (ITC) based on the principles applied to the IMF’s SDR;
AIIB could be at the forefront of developing an ITC
BRICS-plus could be an initial trial for a common SDR-type ITC;
Digital Currencies – including Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC)
To be used specifically for international trading;
If used for day-to-day people’s and commercial transactions, digital currencies, incl. CBDCs should not replace cash transactions, leaving people free to choose between cash and digital currencies
Backing of Currencies
A country’s own economy should be determining a country’s monetary flow, considering international reserves and internal economic growth- and contraction fluctuations
Instead of gold or other precious metals, currencies might be backed by a package or packages of, say 20 -25 internationally used commodities, of which approx. a third could be country-specific. Such commodity packages might also include gold and other precious metals, but foremost commonly used and essential food products and different types of raw materials, including hydrocarbons (notably petrol and gas) – and possibly other (maybe 10%-15%?), of less tangible social indicators; like public health; level of education; peaceful international cooperation; capacity of conflict resolution….
It is understood that these indicators, the commodity packages, and possibly social indicators, would have to be periodically reviewed and reassessed by an international body, designated by the Community of Nations.
The Community of Nations is not necessarily represented by the United Nations. The UN, as its stands and functions today, is no longer the UN established in October 1945 in San Francisco, to replace the League of Nations (set up after WWI), with the specific goal to help resolve international conflicts and to foster peace and harmony among nations, as today it is dominated by the US and a few US allies.
While a revision of the UN is necessary, it is beyond the task of designing a revised or new international monetary system.
Conclusion
The process of introducing a new system of “currency backing” might take time, and could start in Asia, under the lead of China and Russia, extending to the ASEAN and BRICS countries, and eventually and hopefully be adopted also in the west, meaning a successful revision and overhaul of the IMF and World Bank.
The AIIB and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), as well as China’s International Monetary Institute (IMI), might take a leading role in designing currency backing packages.
The above are a few ideas for consideration and discussion possibly during the seminar on a “New International Monetary System” on 23 January 2024 in Beijing.
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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 non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing. He is also a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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During his January 24 press conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov exposed the imperialistic attitudes that characterize the Western powers. The US is in gross violation of Article I of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which states:
“Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly, and not in any way to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, or control over such weapons or explosive devices.”
In shocking violation of Article I, the United States has nuclear weapons transferred to Kleine Brogel in Belgium, Buchel Air Base in Germany, Aviano and Ghedi Air Bases in Italy, Volkel Air Base in the Netherlands, and Incirlik in Turkey.
It was, therefore preposterous when Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov was accused of Russian misbehavior in transferring nuclear weapons to Belarus, at that country’s request.
The absurdity was increased when Minister Lavrov was asked whether Russia intended to use these weapons against Ukraine. Minister Lavrov legitimately ridiculed the double standard by which the Western powers accept the United States’ gross violation of the Nuclear NPT, but attempt to prohibit Russia from likewise transferring nuclear weapons to its neighbor, Belarus.
As Foreign Minister Lavrov stated: the attitude of the West is that they can do whatever they want, in violation of international law, but Russia is not permitted such freedom. “By what right does the West dictate to Russia what it may, or may not do?”
Obviously, since Britain has transferred depleted Uranium weapons to Ukraine, for use against Russia, the UK is also guilty of gross violation of the NPT. In fact, NATO used depleted uranium weapons in its genocidal attack against Yugoslavia, and the widespread cancers that have befallen Yugoslav civilians as a result demonstrates that the use of these weapons is a war crime. The same situation prevails in Iraq, where the “coalition” powers are guilty of causing widespread cancers, as a result of these weapons.
Depleted uranium is used for tank armor, armor-piercing bullets, and as weights to help balance aircrafts.
Depleted uranium is both a toxic chemical and radiation health hazard when inside the body.
As it is obvious that carcinogenic weapons are being given to Ukraine for use against Russia, it is a ludicrous question as to whether Russia or Byelorussia intends to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine.
Neither country has ever used nuclear weapons against any country.
Both countries are the adults in the room, with irrevocable acknowledgement that use of nuclear weapons would lead to the extermination of humanity.
However, the ugly process has already been started by the West, specifically the UK, and it is impossible to predict how far this odious beginning will go. However, only the paranoid would suggest the possibility that Russia would initiate use of their nukes against Ukraine or any other country.
The only country that has ever used the nuclear bomb is the United States. Minister Lavrov exposed the pathological narcissism that characterizes Western, and specifically Anglo-American attitudes: “Do as I say, not as I do!” The Western powers evidently consider it is their imperial right to act with impunity, but no one else may claim such license.
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Carla Stea is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and Global Research’s Correspondent at UN headquarters, New York.
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Statement from Antonio Porto, Secretary-General of the Italian Police Union:
“Here we have young colleagues, 29, 34, 40 years old But people who were well. In the last month, from December 15th until today, I became aware of seven police officers who died suddenly. In the last year, we are almost at 50. If not more.”
Statement from Aldo Di Giacomo, Secretary-General of the Penitentiary Police Union:
“In the last 13 months, we had 41 penitentiary police officers who died of sudden deaths. With a 200% increase compared to previous years. But these data on these sudden deaths worry us, and not a little.”
As explained by Antonio Porto, to join the police, specific and rigorous medical exams must be passed. Therefore, the presence of sudden deaths among the police is even more alarming and requires investigations. To join the police, you must have robust health and physical constitution. It is a basic requirement to enter the police force. So, if someone joins, it means they are healthy and should not die after two years. We have our dear Rafaela De Luca, who entered and died after three years of service. So, what caused this death?
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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.
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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In a Security Council meeting discussing the sabotage of the Nordstream Pipeline, Professor Jeffrey Sachs delivered a brilliant speech, supporting the report by Journalist Seymour Hersh, and demanding that the crime be investigated by the United Nations.
Former CIA analyst Ray MacGovern attested to the impeccable journalist credentials of Seymour Hersh, and also demanded an investigation into the perpetrator of the crime. Needless to say, such an investigation has not, to date, been held, no doubt because revelation of the identity of the perpetrator would shatter its claim to virtue. Sweden coyly stated that it knew the identity of the perpetrator, but would not reveal it for “security reasons.” One must ask: Whose security?
On January 24 Ukraine euphorically celebrated its downing of the Russian IL-76 aircraft. When it was soon revealed that the Russian plane was carrying 65 Ukrainian Prisoners of War for a prisoner “swap,” and that the euphoric Ukrainians were celebrating the murder of their own citizens, as well as the deaths of the 6 Russians piloting the plane, the celebration ceased, and Ukraine swiftly attempted to backpedal, denying culpability for the murders, going so far as to suggest that it was a Russian “false flag operation.” At the opening of his 11AM press conference that day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced the tragedy, and demanded an emergency meeting be held that afternoon at 3PM. Needless to say, the French presidency of the Security Council refused to hold such an emergency meeting, though the event was horrific. No investigation has followed. Foreign Minister Lavrov enumerated a long list of crimes, for which Russia was blamed, with no evidence whatsoever. Lavrov mentioned the Bucha incident, which the mainstream media trumpeted, without evidence, blaming Russia, whose forces had left Bucha three days before corpses were “discovered.” The identities of the corpses had still not been established, and Russia’s insistence on learning the names of the victims “discovered” in Bucha, three days after the departure of the Russians, was ignored. No credible investigation into the truth of the perpetrators of that event has ever been undertaken.
Image: The Skripals (Source: RTE)
Foreign Minister Lavrov also mentioned the case of the Skripals, dead in London, and for which they were also, without evidence, held responsible. Russia had repeatedly demanded an impartial investigation into that case, and needless to say, such an investigation was not undertaken.
The promiscuity with which blame is attributed to one State, and impunity granted to others leaves no doubt that justice is violated, facts and history distorted, and the very credibility of the United Nations is shredded, as its weight is thrown in support of nations guilty of war crimes, the innocent are convicted, and the criminals are exonerated.
The case of Yugoslavia is one of the most egregious examples of this violation of truth. Organ harvesting by the KLA is ignored, as Milosovic is convicted, and NATO’s use of depleted uranium in its bombing of Belgrade, which has led to widespread cancers among civilians, has the blessing of the Security Council. As the accusation was finally hurled at US Senator Joseph McCarthy many decades ago: “Have they no decency?” This betrayal of the hopes of the founder of the United Nations, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is unconscionable.
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Carla Stea is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and Global Research’s Correspondent at UN headquarters, New York.
Featured image: Gas emanating from the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the Baltic Sea, September 28, 2022. / Swedish Coast Guard.
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Former Pakistani Prime Minister and chairman of the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, Imran Khan, and former Foreign Affairs Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi were sentenced to ten years in prison for allegedly violating the Official Secrets Act, Pakistani TV channel GEO reported on January 30.
Imprisoned since August 2023 after being convicted and sentenced to three years on corruption charges, 71-year-old Khan pleaded not guilty to charges of leaking state secrets that dealt a new blow to his chances of contesting Pakistan’s general elections in February.
According to Al Jazeera, the charges relate to a confidential cable called a cipher sent to Islamabad by Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington last year, which Khan is accused of making public. Khan’s defence disputed the accusation, stating that the former prime minister had already claimed that the cable’s contents appeared in the media from other sources.
For Khan, the cable is proof of a conspiracy by the Pakistani military and the US government to overthrow his government in 2022 after he visited Moscow shortly before the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine. Washington and Pakistan’s military deny the accusations.
The verdict was announced by special court judge Abdul Hasnat Zulqarnain during the hearing at Adiala Jail in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi, in the presence of leaders of both parties.
Syed Zulfiqar Bukhari, a spokesperson for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, told the media outside the courts that PTI will challenge the court’s decision.
“This was pretty much a writing on the wall,” he said, adding that the trial against Khan was held in an “unlawful manner.”
This is the second time that Khan has been indicted on the same charges, after a higher court quashed an earlier indictment on technical grounds, saying the correct procedure was not followed. A new trial, conducted in prison for security reasons, is expected to begin on February 1, in the presence of his lawyers, family and some selected journalists.
Khan has already had dozens of lawsuits filed against him, denounced by his defence as an attempt to banish him from politics. Although a higher court suspended the corruption sentence, he remains in prison on other cases, including a charge of instigating violence following one of his arrests.
Elections in Pakistan are to be held on February 8, and this decision against the PTI leader can prove to be decisive in the upcoming elections. However, a 10-year sentence is unlikely to be carried out and will likely be rejected – if not cleared – in Pakistan’s High Court or Supreme Court.
Pakistan’s pro-US establishment expects this, but the verdict was important to try to demoralise Khan and his supporters ahead of the highly contentious elections. It is telling that the court conducted the trial without allowing any media or public access and reportedly rejected the defence’s request to cross-examine the prosecution’s witnesses and experts, making it obvious that the proceedings were a sham.
Khan’s sister, Begum Khanum, told the media outside the courthouse that it was a “very painful day for Pakistan.”
“We only got five minutes for cross-examination in the court. This is such an important case and this is how it was handled? If they cannot give us justice, we will get justice ourselves,” she added.
Although Khan has remained jailed for many months, he remains highly popular and still managed to engage with his supporters through ingenious means, such as communicating via audio clips generated by artificial intelligence (AI).
It is recalled that a 4-minute video was posted on Khan’s X account on January 21, in which the AI-generated voice of the former prime minister speaks about civilian deaths in Gaza and the war in Ukraine, sending a warning to the international community that “the world is heading towards a grave international crisis.”
The AI video also mentioned how Pakistan is struggling with internal conflict, especially since “the entire state machinery” is violating laws to keep him and the PTI out of the electoral process. Little would he have predicted that just over a week after the AI video, he would be sentenced to a decade in prison.
AI is proving to be a useful political tool for the PTI as Khan remains imprisoned, a media ban on PTI is enforced, and its leaders are stopped from holding public rallies. As the PTI is finding ingenious methods to overcome the difficulties, the pro-US establishment of Pakistan has taken drastic measures to imprison him for ten years. However, as said, the sentence will unlikely be carried out as the deep and evident corruption will be one step too far for Pakistan’s High and Supreme courts.
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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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The Trump administration dusted off the 19th century Monroe Doctrine that subjugates the nations of the region to U.S. interests. The Biden administration, instead of reversing course, followed suit, with disastrous results for the region and a migration crisis that threatens Biden’s re-election.
It has left most of Trump’s sanctions against Venezuela and Cuba intact and has tightened those against Nicaragua.
Image: The US government continues to view Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido (left) as the rightful leader of Venezuela, not Nicolas Maduro (right). (Alexandros Michailidis/StringerAl/Shutterstock)
U.S. policy towards Venezuela has been a fiasco. Try as it might, both Trump and Biden were unable to depose President Maduro and found themselves stuck with a self-proclaimed president, Juan Guaidó. U.S. support for Guaidó backfired as he was held responsibility for massive corruption involving Venezuelan assets abroad that were turned over to him. Now Washington is openly siding with presidential hopeful María Corina Machado, who has a long history of engagement in violent disruptions and has called on the U.S. to invade her country. The Venezuelan people have paid a heavy price for the debacle, which has included crippling economic sanctions and coup attempts. The U.S. has also paid a price in terms of its prestige internationally.
This is only one example of a string of disastrous policies toward Latin America.
Instead of continuing down this imperial path of endless confrontation, U.S. policymakers need to stop, recalibrate, and design an entirely new approach to inter-American relations. This is particularly urgent as the continent is in the throes of an economic recession that is compounded by low commodity prices, a belly-up tourist industry and the drying up of remittances from outside.
A good reference point for a policy makeover is Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor Policy” in the 1930s, which represented an abrupt break with the interventionism of that time. FDR abandoned “gunboat diplomacy” in which Marines were sent throughout the region to impose U.S. will. Though his policies were criticized for not going far enough, he did bring back U.S. Marines from Nicaragua, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and scrapped the Platt Amendment that allowed the U.S. to intervene unilaterally in Cuban affairs.
So what would a Good Neighbor Policy for the 21st Century look like? Here are some key planks:
An end to military intervention.
The illegal use of military force has been a hallmark of U.S. policy in the region, as we see from the deployment of Marines in the Dominican Republic in 1965, Grenada in 1983, Panama in 1989; involvement in military actions leading to the Guatemalan coup in 1954 and destabilization in Nicaragua in the 1980s; support for coups in Brazil in 1964, Chile in 1973 and elsewhere. A Good Neighbor Policy would not only renounce the use of military force, but even the threat of such force (as in “all options are on the table”), particularly because such threats are illegal under international law.
U.S. military intimidation also comes in the form of U.S. bases that dot the continent from Cuba to Colombia to further south. These installations are often resisted by local communities, as was the case of the Manta Base in Ecuador that was shut down in 2008 and the ongoing opposition against the Guantanamo Base in Cuba. U.S. bases in Latin America are a violation of local sovereignty and should be closed, with the lands cleaned up and returned to their rightful owners.
Another form of military intervention is the financing and training of local military and police forces. Most of the U.S. assistance sent to Latin America, particularly Central America, goes towards funding security forces, resulting in the militarization of police and borders, and leading to greater police brutality, extrajudicial killings and repression of migrants.
The training school in Ft. Benning, Georgia, formerly called the “School of the Americas,” graduated some of the continent’s worst human rights abusers. Even today, U.S.-trained forces are involved in egregious abuses, including the assassination of activists like Berta Cáceres in Honduras. U.S. programs to confront drugs, from the Merida Initiative in Mexico to Plan Colombia, have not stopped the flow of drugs but have poured massive amounts of weapons into the region and led to more killings, torture and gang violence. Latin American governments need to clean up their own national police forces and link them to communities, a more effective way to combat drug trafficking than the militarization that Washington has promoted. The greatest contribution the U.S. can make to putting an end to the narcotics scourge in Latin America is to control the U.S. market for those drugs through responsible reforms and to prevent the sale of U.S.-made weapons to drug cartels.
No more political meddling.
While the U.S. public has been shocked by charges of Russian interference in its elections, this kind of meddling is par for the course in Latin America. USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), created in 1983 as a neutral sounding alternative to the CIA, spend millions of tax-payer dollars to undermine progressive movements. Following the election of Hugo Chávez in 1998, for instance, NED ramped up its assistance to conservative groups in Venezuela (which became the foundation’s number one Latin American recipient) as a leadup to regime change attempts.
An end to the use of economic blackmail.
The U.S. government uses economic pressure to impose its will. The Trump administration threatened to halt remittances to Mexico to extract concessions from the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador on immigration issues. A similar threat persuaded many voters in El Salvador’s 2004 presidential elections to refrain from voting for the candidate of the left-leaning Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN).
The U.S. also uses economic coercion. For the past 60 years, U.S. administrations have sanctioned Cuba—a policy that has not successfully led to regime change but has made living conditions harder for the Cuban people. The same is true in Venezuela, where one study says that in just 2017-2018, over 40,000 Venezuelans died as a result of sanctions. With coronavirus, these sanctions have become even more deadly. A Good Neighbor Policy would lift the economic sanctions against Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua and help them recover economically.
Support trade policies that lift people out of poverty and protect the environment.
U.S. free trade agreements with Latin America have been good for the elites and U.S. corporations, but have increased economic inequality, eroded labor rights, destroyed the livelihoods of small farmers, furthered the privatization of public services, and compromised national sovereignty. When indebted nations seek loans from international financial institutions, the loans have been conditioned on the imposition of neoliberal policies that exacerbate all ofthese trends.
In terms of the environment, too often the U.S. government has sided with global oil and mining interests when local communities in Latin America and the Caribbean have challenged resource-extracting projects that threaten their environment and endanger public health. We must launch a new era of energy and natural resource cooperation that prioritizes renewable sources of energy, green jobs, and good environmental stewardship.
Massive protests against neoliberal policies erupted throughout Latin America shortly prior to the pandemic and will return with a vengeance unless countries are free to explore alternatives to neoliberal policies. A New Good Neighbor Policy would cease imposing economic conditions on Latin American governments and would call on the International Monetary Fund to do the same. An example of international cooperation is China’s “Belt and Road Initiative,” which, even with some downsides, has generated goodwill in the Global South by prioritizing investments in much-needed infrastructure projects without conditioning its funding on any aspect of government policy.
Humane immigration policy.
Throughout history, U.S. administrations have refused to take responsibility for the ways the U.S. has spurred mass migration north, including unfair trade agreements, support for dictators, climate change, drug consumption and the export of gangs. Instead, immigrants have been used and abused as a source of cheap labor, and vilified according to the political winds. President Obama was the deporter-in-chief; President Trump has been caging children, building walls, and shutting off avenues for people to seek asylum; President Biden is better than his predecessor when it comes to rhetoric, but not so much action-wise. A Good Neighbor policy would dismantle ICE and the cruel deportation centers; it would provide the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States a path to citizenship; and it would respect the international right of people to seek asylum.
Recognition of Latin America’s cultural contributions.
President Trump’s blatant disrespect towards Latin Americans and immigrants, including his call for building a wall “paid for by Mexico,” intensified racist attitudes among his base which has continued ever since. A new Latin America policy would not only counter racism but would uplift the region’s exceptional cultural richness. The controversy surrounding the extensive commercial promotion of the novel “American Dirt,” written by a U.S. author about the Mexican immigration experience, is an example of the underestimation of talent south of the border. The contributions of the continent’s indigenous population should also be appreciated and justly compensated, such as the centuries-old medicinal cures that are often exploited by U.S.-based pharmaceutical companies.
An all-encompassing expression of goodwill in the form of a New Good Neighbor Policy will meet resistance from vested economic and military interests, as well as those persuaded by racist arguments. But the vast majority of people in the United States have nothing to lose by it and, in fact, have much to gain. Universal threats, such as coronavirus and the climate crisis, have taught us the limits of borders and should act as incentives to construct a Good Neighbor Policy for the 21st Century based on those principles of non-intervention and mutual respect.
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Steve Ellner has taught economic history at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela since 1977. His recent books include his edited Latin America’s Pink Tide: Breakthroughs and Shortcomings (2020) and his co-edited Latin American Social Movements and Progressive Governments (2022), both published by Rowman & Littlefield. Follow him on Twitter: @sellner74
Featured image: Brazilian President Getúlio Vargas (left) and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt (right) in 1936 (From the Public Domain)
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The following text is Chapter XII of Michel Chossudovsky’s book.
***
The Worldwide Corona Crisis,
Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
Global Debt and Neoliberal “Shock Treatment”
by
Michel Chossudovsky
Introduction
The March 11, 2020 (simultaneous) closing down of the national economies of approximately 190 member states of the UN is diabolical and unprecedented. Millions of people have lost their jobs and their lifelong savings. In developing countries, poverty, famine and despair prevail. The closure of national economies has led to a spiraling global debt. Increasingly, national governments are controlled by the creditors, which are currently financing the social safety nets, corporate bailouts and handouts.
While this model of “global intervention” is unprecedented, it has certain features reminiscent of the country-level macro-economic reforms including the imposition of strong “economic medicine” by the IMF. To address this issue, let us examine the history of so-called “economic shock treatment” (a term first used in the 1970s).1
Flashback to Chile, September 11, 1973
As a visiting professor at the Catholic University of Chile, I lived through the military coup directed against the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. It was a CIA operation led by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger coupled with devastating macro-economic reforms.
In the month following the coup d’etat, the price of bread increased from 11 to 40 escudos overnight.2 This engineered collapse of both real wages and employment under the Pinochet dictatorship was conducive to a nationwide process of impoverishment.
Chilean leader Augusto Pinochet shaking hands with U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1976 (By Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Chile. – Archivo General Histórico del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, licensed under CC BY 2.0 cl)
While food prices had skyrocketed, wages had been frozen to ensure “economic stability and stave off inflationary pressures.” From one day to the next, an entire country had been precipitated into abysmal poverty; in less than a year, the price of bread in Chile increased 36 times and 85 percent of the Chilean population had been driven below the poverty line. That was Chile’s 1973 “Reset”.
Two and a half years later in 1976, I returned to Latin America as a visiting professor at the National University of Cordoba in the northern industrial heartland of Argentina. My stay coincided with another military coup d’état in March 1976.
Behind the massacres and human rights violations, “free market” macro-economic reforms had also been prescribed – this time under the supervision of Argentina’s New York creditors, including David Rockefeller who was a friend of the Junta’s Minister of Economy José Alfredo Martinez de Hoz.3
Image: David Rockefeller meets Dictator Jorge Videla (right) and Minister of Finance Martinez de Hoz, 1978? (Source: Plaza de Mayo)
Chile and Argentina were “dress rehearsals” for things to come. The imposition of the IMF-World Bank Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) was imposed on more than 100 countries starting in the early 1980s (see Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, Global Research, 2003).4
A notorious example of the “free market”: Peru in August 1990 was punished for not conforming to IMF diktats; the price of fuel was hiked up 31 times and the price of bread increased more than 12 times in a single day.5 These reforms – carried out in the name of “democracy” – were far more devastating than those applied in Chile and Argentina under the fist of military rule.
The March 2020 Lockdown. “Economic Warfare”
And now on March 11, 2020, we enter a new phase of macro-economic destabilization, which is more devastating and destructive than 40 years of “shock treatment” and austerity measures imposed by the IMF on behalf of dominant financial interests.
There is rupture, a historical break as well as continuity. It’s “neoliberalism to the nth degree”.
Closure of the Global Economy: Economic and Social Impacts at the Level of the Entire Planet
Compare what is happening to the global economy today with the country by country “negotiated” macro-economic measures imposed by creditors under the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP). The March 11, 2020 “Global Adjustment” was not negotiated with national governments. It was imposed by a “public-private partnership”, sustained by fake science, supported by media propaganda and accepted by co-opted and corrupt politicians.
“Engineered” Social Inequality and Impoverishment. The Globalization of Poverty
Compare the March 11, 2020 “Global Adjustment” “guidelines” affecting the entire planet to Chile on September 11, 1973.
In a bitter irony, the same Big Money interests behind the 2020 “Global Adjustment” were actively involved in Chile (1973) and Argentina (1976). Remember “Operation Condor” and the “Dirty War” (Guerra Sucia).
There is continuity. The same powerful financial interests including the IMF and the World Bank bureaucracies in liaison with the Federal Reserve, Wall Street, The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the World Economic Forum (WEF) are currently involved in preparing and managing the post-pandemic “new normal” debt operations (on behalf of the creditors) under the Great Reset.
Henry Kissinger was involved in coordinating Chile’s 9/11, 1973 “Reset”.
The Thrust of “Depopulation” Under the Great Reset?
Illustration by Global Research/image of Henry Kissinger is from White House Photographic Office/PD-USGOV, licensed under the Public Domain
Today, Henry Kissinger is a firm supporter alongside the Gates Foundation (which is also firmly committed to depopulation) of the Great Reset under the auspices of the World Economic Forum (WEF) (see Chapter XIII).
No need to negotiate with national governments nor carry out “regime change”. The March 11, 2020 lockdown project constitutes a “Global Adjustment” which triggers bankruptcies, unemployment and privatization on a much larger scale affecting in one fell swoop the national economies of more than 150 countries.
And this whole process is presented to public opinion as a means to combating the “killer virus” which, according to the CDC and the WHO is similar to seasonal influenza (see Chapter III).
The Hegemonic Power Structure of Global Capitalism
Big Money including the billionaire foundations are the driving force. It’s a complex alliance of Wall Street and the banking establishment, the Big Oil and Energy Conglomerates, the so-called “Defense Contractors”, Big Pharma, the Biotech Conglomerates, the Corporate Media, the Telecom, Communications and Digital Technology Giants, together with a network of think tanks, lobby groups, research labs, etc. The ownership of intellectual property also plays a central role.
This powerful digital-financial decision-making network also involves major creditor and banking institutions: the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank (ECB), the IMF, the World Bank, the regional development banks, and the Basel-based Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which plays a key strategic role.
“… a combined 20 trillion dollars in managed assets…. Conservatively counting, a four to five-fold leverage power (i.e. some US$ 80 to 100 trillion)”. These powerful financial conglomerates have a leverage in excess of the the world’s GDP which is of the order of about 82 trillion dollars.”7
In turn, the upper echelons of the US state apparatus (and Washington’s Western allies) are directly or indirectly involved, including the Pentagon, US Intelligence (and its research labs), the health authorities, Homeland Security and the US State Department (including US embassies in over 150 countries).
The “Real Economy” and “Big Money”
Why are these COVID lockdown policies spearheading bankruptcy, poverty and unemployment?
Global capitalism is not monolithic. There is indeed “a class conflict” “between the super rich and the vast majority of the world population”.
But there is also intense rivalry within the capitalist system; namely a conflict between “Big Money Capital” and what might be described as “Real Capitalism” which consists of corporations in different areas of productive activity at the national and regional levels. It also includes small and medium-sized enterprises.
What is ongoing is a process of concentration of wealth (and control of advanced technologies) unprecedented in world history, whereby the financial establishment (i.e. the multi-billion dollar creditors) are slated to appropriate the real assets of both bankrupt companies as well as state assets.
The “real economy” constitutes “the economic landscape” of real economic activity: productive assets, agriculture, industry, services, economic and social infrastructure, investment, employment, etc. The real economy at the global and national levels is being targeted by the lockdown and closure of economic activity. The Global Money financial institutions are the “creditors” of the real economy.
The individuals and organizations involved in the October 18, 2019 201 Simulation are now involved in the actual management of the crisis once it went live on January 30, 2020 under the WHO’s Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), which in turn set the stage for the February 2020 financial crisis and the March lockdown (see Chapter I).
The lockdown and closure of national economies has triggered several waves of mass unemployment coupled with the engineered bankruptcy (applied worldwide) of small and medium-sized enterprises (see Chapter IV).
All of which is spearheaded by the installation of a global totalitarian state which is intent upon breaking all forms of protest and resistance.
The COVID vaccination program (including the embedded digital passport and the QR Code) is an integral part of a global totalitarian regime (see Chapter VIII and Chapter XIII).
What is the infamous ID2020? It is an alliance of public-private partners, including UN agencies and civil society. It’s an electronic ID program that uses generalized vaccination as a platform for digital identity. The program harnesses existing birth registration and vaccination operations to provide newborns with a portable and persistent biometrically-linked digital identity.red zones, face masks, social distancing, lockdown. (Peter Koenig, March 12, 2020)8
“The Great Reset”
The same powerful creditors which triggered the COVID global debt crisis are now establishing a “new normal” which essentially consists in imposing what the World Economic Forum describes as the “Great Reset”.
Using COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions to push through this transformation, the Great Reset is being rolled out under the guise of a ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ in which older enterprises are to be driven to bankruptcy or absorbed into monopolies, effectively shutting down huge sections of the pre-COVID economy. Economies are being ‘restructured’ and many jobs will be carried out by AI-driven machines.
The jobless (and there will be many) would be placed on some kind of universal basic income and have their debts (indebtedness and bankruptcy on a massive scale is the deliberate result of lockdowns and restrictions) written off in return for handing their assets to the state or more precisely to the financial institutions helping to drive this Great Reset. The WEF says the public will ‘rent’ everything they require: stripping the right of ownership under the guise of ‘sustainable consumption’ and ‘saving the planet’. Of course, the tiny elite who rolled out this great reset will own everything. (Colin Todhunter,Dystopian Great Reset, November 9, 2020)9
Push the Reset Button
The World Economic Forum’s Great Reset has been long in the making. “Push the reset button” with a view to saving the world economy was announced by WEF Chairman Klaus Schwab in January 2014, six years prior to the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“What we want to do in Davos this year [2014] is to Push the Reset Button, the world is too much caught in a crisis mode.”
Two years later in a 2016 interview with the Swiss French language TV network (RTS), Klaus Schwab talked about implanting microchips in human bodies, which in essence is the basis of the “experimental” COVID mRNA vaccine.
“What we see is a kind of fusion of the physical, digital and biological world,” said Klaus Schwab.
Schwab explained that human beings will soon receive a chip which will be implanted in their bodies in order to merge with the digital world.
RTS: “When will that happen?
KS: “Certainly in the next ten years.
“We could imagine that we will implant them in our brain or in our skin.”
“And then we can imagine that there is direct communication between the brain and the digital World.”
Screenshot from the video / Copyright Global Research
June 2020. The WEF Officially Announces the Great Reset
“The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world to create a healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous future.” -Klaus Schwab, WEF (June 2020)
What is envisaged under “the Great Reset” is a scenario whereby the global creditors will have appropriated by 2030 the world’s wealth while impoverishing large sectors of the world population.
The United Nations: An Instrument of Global Governance on Behalf of an Unelected Public-Private Partnership
The UN system is also complicit. It has endorsed “Global Governance” and the Great Reset. And so has the Vatican.
Image: Antonio Guterres (By U.S. Mission Photo by Eric Bridiers/Flickr, licensed under the Public Domain)
While UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres rightfully acknowledges that the pandemic is “more than a health crisis”, no meaningful analysis or debate under UN auspices as to the real causes of this crisis has been undertaken.
According to a September 2020 UN Report:
“Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost.The lives of billions of people have been disrupted. In addition to the health impacts, COVID-19 has exposed and exacerbated deep inequalities … It has affected us as individuals, as families, communities and societies. It has had an impact on every generation, including on those not yet born. The crisis has highlighted fragilities within and among nations, as well as in our systems for mounting a coordinated global response to shared threats. (UN Report)10
The far-reaching decisions which triggered social and economic destruction worldwide are not mentioned. No debate in the UN Security Council. Consensus among all five permanent members of the UNSC.
V the Virus is casually held responsible for the process of economic destruction.
The World Economic Forum’s “public-private partnership” project entitled “Reimagine and Reset Our World” has been endorsed by the United Nations.
Flashback to George Kennan and the Truman Doctrine in the late 1940s. Kennan believed that the UN provided a useful way to “connect power with morality,” using morality as a means to rubber-stamp America’s “humanitarian wars”.
The COVID crisis, the lockdown measures and the mRNA vaccine are the culmination of a historical process.
The lockdown and closure of the global economy are “weapons of mass destruction” which in the real sense of the word“destroy people’s lives”. Amply documented, the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine is best described as a “killer vaccine”.
What we are dealing with are extensive “crimes against humanity”.
President Joe Biden and the “Great Reset”
Joe Biden is a groomed politician, a trusted proxy, serving the interests of the financial establishment.
Let’s not forget that Joe Biden was a firm supporter of the invasion of Iraq on the grounds that Saddam Hussein “had weapons of mass destruction”. “The American people were deceived into this war”, said Senator Dick Durbin. Do not let yourself be deceived again by Joe Biden.11
Evolving acronyms: 9/11, GWOT, WMD and now COVID. Biden was rewarded for having supported the invasion of Iraq.
During the election campaign, Fox News described Biden as a “socialist” who threatens capitalism; “Joe Biden’s disturbing connection to the socialist ‘Great Reset’ movement”.
While this is absolute nonsense, many “progressives” and anti-war activists have endorsed Joe Biden without analyzing the broader consequences of the Biden presidency.
“The Great Reset” is socially divisive, it’s racist. It is a diabolical project of global capitalism. It constitutes a threat to the large majority of American workers as well as to small and medium-sized enterprises. It also undermines several important sectors of the capitalist economy.
The Biden Presidency and the Lockdown
With regard to COVID, Biden is firmly committed to maintaining the partial closing down of both the US economy and the global economy as a means to “combating the killer virus”.
President Biden is a firm supporter of the corona lockdown. He not only endorses the adoption of staunch COVID-19 lockdown policies, his administration is committed to the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” and the “vaccine passport” as an integral part of US foreign policy, to be implemented or more correctly “imposed” worldwide.
In turn, the Biden-Harris administration will attempt to override all forms of popular resistance to the coronavirus lockdown.
What is unfolding is a new and destructive phase of US imperialism. It’s a totalitarian project of economic and social engineering, which ultimately destroys people’s lives worldwide. This “novel” neoliberal agenda using the corona lockdown as an instrument of social oppression has been endorsed by President Biden and the leadership of the Democratic Party.
The Biden White House is committed to the instatement of what David Rockefeller called “Global Governance”.
The Protest Movement
It should be noted that the protest movement in the US against the lockdown is weak. In fact there is no coherent grassroots national protest movement. Why? Because “progressive forces” including leftist intellectuals, NGO leaders, trade union and labor leaders — most of whom are aligned with the Democratic Party — have from the outset been supportive of the lockdown. And they are also supportive of Joe Biden.
In a bitter irony, anti-war activists as well as the critics of neoliberalism have endorsed Joe Biden.
Unless there is significant protest and organized resistance, nationally and internationally, the Great Reset will be embedded in both domestic and US foreign policy agendas of the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration.
It’s what you call imperialism with a “human face”.
Where Is the Protest Movement Against This Unelected Corona “Public-Private Partnership”?
The same philanthropic foundations (Rockefeller, Ford, Soros, et al.) which are the unspoken architects of the “Great Reset” and “Global Governance” are also involved in (generously) financing climate change activism, the Extinction Rebellion, the World Social Forum, Black Lives Matter, LGBT, et al.
What this means is that the grassroots of these social movements are often misled and betrayed by their leaders who are routinely co-opted and generously rewarded by a handful of corporate foundations.
The World Social Forum (WSF), which is commemorating its 21st anniversary, brings together committed anti-globalization activists from all over the world. But who controls the WSF? From the outset in January 2001, it was (initially) funded by the Ford Foundation.
It’s what you call “manufactured dissent” (far more insidious than Herman-Chomsky’s “manufactured consent”).
The objective of the financial elites “has been to fragment the people’s movement into a vast “do it yourself” mosaic. Activism tends to be piecemeal. There is no integrated anti-globalization anti-war movement.” (Michel Chossudovsky, Manufacturing Dissent, Global Research, 2010)12
In the words of McGeorge Bundy, President of the Ford Foundation (1966-1979):
“Everything the [Ford] Foundation did could be regarded as “making the world safe for capitalism”, reducing social tensions by helping to comfort the afflicted, provide safety valves for the angry, and improve the functioning of government.13
The protest movement against the Great Reset which constitutes a “global coup d’état” requires a process of worldwide mobilization:
“There can be no meaningful mass movement when dissent is generously funded by those same corporate interests [WEF, Gates, Ford, et al.] which are the target of the protest movement”.14
*
Notes
1 Michel Chossudovsky, April-June 1975. Hacia El Nuevo Modelo Económico Chileno Inflación Y Redistribución Del Ingreso. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20856482?refreqid=excelsior%3A9228243fa26a81bb3c2b0c2d58094922&seq=1
2 Ibid.
3 Michel Chossudovsky, April 16, 1977. Legitimised Violence and Economic Policy in Argentina. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4365500?seq=1
6 National Security Council, December 10, 1974. Implications of Worldwide Population Growth For U.S. Security and Overseas Interests (THE KISSINGER REPORT). https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PCAAB500.pdf
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.”
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
A few weeks ago, newly elected Slovakia Prime Minister Robert Fico clearly outlined his governing party’s position on rejecting the WHO Pandemic Treaty. This time, Slovakia leads the way again and provides the “template” on how to approach the crimes and fraud committed during the COVID-19 pandemic by the politicians who were in power at the time.
The US Marine Corps (USMC) is set to deploy its advanced Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) to the Pacific despite questions about its readiness, maintenance and operation amid recent restrictions on surf-based use of the platform.
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) is the advocacy agent of Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA, representing Jewish Federations across Canada. CIJA is a national, non-partisan, non-profit organization whose mission is to preserve and protect Jewish life in Canada through advocacy and to advance the public policy interests of Canada’s organized Jewish community.
Thousands of Israeli ministers, rabbis, public figures and parliament members attended a conference on Sunday in Jerusalem, calling for the resettlement of Gaza and making statements widely deemed to be genocidal.
Pentagon procurement contracts show that the US is planning to station B61-12 nuclear warheads at RAF Lakenheath, a base in Suffolk, England. The US pulled its nuclear weapons out of the UK in 2008, and its decision to redeploy them demonstrates the low state of US-Russia relations.
After the consummation of the Brexit, the hypothetical exit of Germany from the Euro would provoke the liquidation of the Eurozone and the gestation of a new European economic cartography that will involve the return to the hermetic economic compartments.
Israel’s closest allies have cut funding and are now doing their level-best to prevent the relief agency from operating in Gaza. This is a very serious situation that could have dire consequences for Palestinians who currently have no access to food, medicine or clean water. As unbelievable as it sounds, Israel appears to be implementing a strategy aimed at deliberately starving millions of civilians to death.
The US military school at West Point participates in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. This is done by West Point lying away Israel’s genocide – and pretending to be “experts” claiming that Israel “protects” civilians.
Mexico is furious and demands an investigation into how belt-fed machine guns, rocket launchers, and grenades are ending up in the hands of cartel members, the country’s top diplomat said.
Coming on top of reports of American soldiers going down like nine-pins on a drone strike against the super secret CIA station for intelligence and covert operations on the Syrian-Jordanian border, ’nyet’ is the word from Beijing to the Biden administration’s entreaties seeking intervention with Tehran to rein in the Houthis of Yemen, against the foreboding backdrop of the Axis of Resistance expanding its operations against American and Israeli interests.
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
Video: “Wiping Gaza Off The Map”: Big Money Agenda. Confiscating Palestine’s Maritime Natural Gas Reserves
Evidence Relating to NASA Moon Landings, Unexplained Flaws: What Is Reality? What Is Illusion?
Video: Archbishop Carlo Vigano. A False Pandemic and The Imposition of A False Vaccine. A Criminal Plan of World Depopulation
Excess Deaths and Depopulation: Shall We Sit Around in Our Insouciance and Permit This to Happen?
WEF – Davos 2024. The World Is Falling Apart But the Show Must Go On…
Hypothetical “Disease X”: The WHO Pandemic Treaty is A Fraud. Demands Compliance for “Next Pandemic”
The Next Crisis “Bigger than Covid”: Paralysis of Power Supply, Communications, Transportation. The WEF “Cyber Attack” Scenario, “Usher In the Great Reset”
Will Disease X be Leaked in 2025?
Breaking: Florida Will be the First Jurisdiction to Halt COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines
Silencing the Lambs. How Propaganda Works. John Pilger, His Legacy Will Live
British Airways Leads the World in Flight Attendant Sudden Collapses and Deaths in 2023
Expanding Middle East War. Planned US-Israeli Attack on Iran, The War on Energy, Strategic Waterways
Tucker Carlson Surveys the Ruins of Canada After Eight Years of Trudeau
The Criminalization of International Justice, Putting an End to the Genocide against the People of Palestine. Nuremberg Principle IV
5G Danger: 13 Reasons 5G Wireless Technology Will Be a Catastrophe for Humanity
The West’s Lunatic Woke Agenda
The WEF and WHO – Are They Running a Death Cult? A WHO / Pharma controlled Worldwide Tyrannical “health system”
Preparing for Hypothetical “Disease X”: COVID Having Failed to Do the Job, Bill Gates Is Making a Second Run at “Culling the World Population”
Rethinking Srebrenica
