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“There is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame?”— V for Vendetta

We have arrived at the dystopian future depicted in the 2005 film V for Vendetta, which is no future at all.

Set in the year 2020, V for Vendetta (written and produced by the Wachowskis) provides an eerie glimpse into a parallel universe in which a government-engineered virus wreaks havoc on the world.

-Capitalizing on the people’s fear, a totalitarian government comes to power that knows all, sees all, controls everything and promises safety and security above all.

-Concentration camps (jails, private prisons and detention facilities) have been established to house political prisoners and others deemed to be enemies of the state.

-Executions of undesirables (extremists, troublemakers and the like) are common, while other enemies of the state are made to “disappear.” Populist uprisings and protests are met with extreme force.

-The television networks are controlled by the government with the purpose of perpetuating the regime. And most of the population is hooked into an entertainment mode and are clueless.

Image: This is a poster for V for Vendetta. The poster art copyright is believed to belong to the distributor of the film, Warner Bros., the publisher, Virtual Studios and Silver Pictures, or the graphic artist. (Licensed under Fair Use)

With Vendetta, whose imagery borrows heavily from Nazi Germany’s Third Reich and George Orwell’s 1984, we come full circle.

The corporate state in V conducts mass surveillance on its citizens, helped along by closed-circuit televisions. Also, London is under yellow-coded curfew alerts, similar to the American government’s color-coded Homeland Security Advisory System.

Sounds painfully familiar, doesn’t it?

As director James McTeighe observed about the tyrannical regime in V for Vendetta,

“It really showed what can happen when society is ruled by government, rather than the government being run as a voice of the people. I don’t think it’s such a big leap to say things like that can happen when leaders stop listening to the people.”

Clearly, those we appointed to represent our interests have stopped following the Constitution and listening to the American people.

What will it take for the government to start listening to the people again?

In V for Vendetta, as in my novel The Erik Blair Diaries, the subtext is that authoritarian regimes—through a vicious cycle of manipulation, oppression and fear-mongering—foment violence, manufacture crises, and breed terrorists, thereby giving rise to a recurring cycle of blowback and violence.

Only when the government itself becomes synonymous with the terrorism wreaking havoc in their lives do the people to finally mobilize and stand up to the government’s tyranny.

V, a bold, charismatic freedom fighter, urges the British people to rise up and resist the government. In Vendetta, V the film’s masked crusader blows up the seat of government on November 5, Guy Fawkes Day, while in Erik Blair, freedom fighters plot to unmask the Deep State.

Acts of desperation and outright anarchy are what happens when a parasitical government muzzles the citizenry, fences them in, herds them, brands them, whips them into submission, forces them to ante up the sweat of their brows while giving them little in return, and then provides them with little to no outlet for voicing their discontent: people get desperate, citizens lose hope, and lawful, nonviolent resistance gives way to unlawful, violent resistance.

This way lies madness.

Then again, madness may be unavoidable unless we can wrest back control over our runaway government starting at the local level.

It is time to recalibrate the government.

For years now, we have suffered the injustices, cruelties, corruption and abuse of an entrenched government bureaucracy that has no regard for the Constitution or the rights of the citizenry.

By “government,” I’m not referring to the farce that is the highly partisan, two-party, bureaucracy of the Republicans and Democrats. Rather, I’m referring to “government” with a capital “G,” the entrenched Deep State that is unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and has set itself beyond the reach of the law.

We are overdue for a systemic check on the government’s overreaches and power grabs.

We have lingered too long in this strange twilight zone where ego trumps justice, propaganda perverts truth, and imperial presidents—empowered to indulge their authoritarian tendencies by legalistic courts, corrupt legislatures and a disinterested, distracted populace—rule by fiat rather than by the rule of law.

The COVID-19 pandemic provided the government with the perfect excuse to lay claim to a long laundry list of terrifying lockdown powers (at both the federal and state level) that override the Constitution:

-the ability to suspend the Constitution, indefinitely detain American citizens, bypass the courts, quarantine whole communities or segments of the population,

-override the First Amendment by outlawing religious gatherings and assemblies of more than a few people,

-shut down entire industries and manipulate the economy, muzzle dissidents, reshape financial markets, create a digital currency (and thus further restrict the use of cash), determine who should live or die, and impose health mandates on large segments of the population.

Crises tend to bring out the authoritarian tendencies in government.

That’s no surprise: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Where we find ourselves now is in the unenviable position of needing to rein in all three branches of government—the Executive, the Judicial, and the Legislative—that have exceeded their authority and grown drunk on power.

This is exactly the kind of concentrated, absolute power the founders attempted to guard against by establishing a system of checks of balances that separate and shares power between three co-equal branches: the executive, the legislative and the judiciary.

“The system of checks and balances that the Framers envisioned now lacks effective checks and is no longer in balance,” concludes law professor William P. Marshall. “The implications of this are serious. The Framers designed a system of separation of powers to combat government excess and abuse and to curb incompetence. They also believed that, in the absence of an effective separation-of-powers structure, such ills would inevitably follow. Unfortunately, however, power once taken is not easily surrendered.”

Unadulterated power in any branch of government is a menace to freedom.

There’s no point debating which political party would be more dangerous with these powers.

The fact that any individual—or branch of government—of any political persuasion is empowered to act like a dictator is danger enough.

So, what we can do to wrest back control over a runaway government and an imperial presidency?

It won’t be easy.

We are the unwitting victims of a system so corrupt that those who stand up for the rule of law and aspire to transparency in government are in the minority.

This corruption is so vast it spans all branches of government: from the power-hungry agencies under the executive branch and the corporate puppets within the legislative branch to a judiciary that is, more often than not, elitist and biased towards government entities and corporations.

We are ruled by an elite class of individuals who are completely out of touch with the travails of the average American.

We are viewed as relatively expendable in the eyes of government: faceless numbers of individuals who serve one purpose, which is to keep the government machine running through our labor and our tax dollars. Those in power aren’t losing any sleep over the indignities we are being made to suffer or the possible risks to our health. All they seem to care about are power and control.

We are being made to suffer countless abuses at the government’s hands.

We have little protection against standing armies (domestic and military), invasive surveillance, marauding SWAT teams, an overwhelming government arsenal of assault vehicles and firepower, and a barrage of laws that criminalize everything from vegetable gardens to lemonade stands.

In the name of national security, we’re being subjected to government agencies such as the NSA, FBI and others listening in on our phone calls, reading our mail, monitoring our emails, and carrying out warrantless “black bag” searches of our homes. Adding to the abuse, we have to deal with surveillance cameras mounted on street corners and in traffic lights, weather satellites co-opted for use as spy cameras from space, and thermal sensory imaging devices that can detect heat and movement through the walls of our homes.

That doesn’t even begin to touch on the many ways in which our Fourth Amendment rights are trampled upon by militarized police and SWAT teams empowered to act as laws unto themselves.

In other words, freedom—or what’s left of it—is threatened from every direction.

The predators of the police state are wreaking havoc on our freedoms, our communities, and our lives.

The government doesn’t listen to the citizenry, it refuses to abide by the Constitution, which is our rule of law, and it treats the citizenry as a source of funding and little else.

Police officers are shooting unarmed citizens and their household pets. Government agents—including local police—are being armed to the teeth and encouraged to act like soldiers on a battlefield. Bloated government agencies are fleecing taxpayers.

Government technicians are spying on our emails and phone calls. Government contractors are making a killing by waging endless wars abroad.

In other words, the American police state is alive and well and flourishing.

Nothing has changed, and nothing will change unless we insist on it.

How to do this? It’s not rocket science.

There is no 10-step plan.

If there were a 10-step plan, however, the first step would be as follows: turn off the televisions, tune out the politicians, and do your part to stand up for freedom principles in your own communities.

-Stand up for your own rights, of course, but more importantly, stand up for the rights of those with whom you might disagree.

-Defend freedom at all costs.

-Defend justice at all costs.

-Make no exceptions based on race, religion, creed, politics, immigration status, sexual orientation, etc. Vote like Americans, for a change, not Republicans or Democrats.

-Most of all, use your power—and there is power in our numbers—to nullify anything and everything the government does that undermines the freedom principles on which this nation was founded.

-Don’t play semantics. Don’t justify. Don’t politicize it. If it carries even a whiff of tyranny, oppose it. Demand that your representatives in government cut you a better deal, one that abides by the Constitution and doesn’t just attempt to sidestep it.

That’s their job: make them do it.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, all freedoms hang together. They fall together, as well.

The police state does not discriminate. Eventually, we will all suffer the same fate.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

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

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

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UN relief chief Martin Griffiths, who has been visiting Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, spoke to families in Gaza over the phone from east Jerusalem on Tuesday and said that what they have endured since the start of Israel’s retaliation for Hamas’ deadly 7 October attacks is “beyond devastating”.

“When an eight-year-old tells you that she doesn’t want to die, it’s hard not to feel helpless,” he wrote on social platform X.

Hostages’ Families ‘Living in Agony’

On Monday Mr. Griffiths met in Jerusalem with family members of some of the more than 230 hostages held in Gaza since 7 October. Reportedly about 30 of them kidnapped by Hamas terrorists are children.

The UN relief chief said that for the past weeks these families “have been living in agony, not knowing if their loved ones are dead or alive”, and that he couldn’t “begin to imagine” what they are going through.

The UN has repeatedly called for the immediate and unconditional release of the hostages.

‘Unbearable’ Thought of Children Buried Under Rubble

Reportedly more than 3,450 children have been killed in Gaza according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday.

Another 1,000 children have been reported missing and may be trapped or dead under the rubble, awaiting rescue or recovery, UN humanitarian affairs coordination office OCHA said.

OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke said that it is

“almost unbearable to think about children buried under rubble with very little possibility for getting them out”.

© UNICEF/Mohammad Ajjour | An 11-year-old boy stands at the entrance to his home in Gaza City.

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2,000 U.S. Marines are deployed on board a flotilla near Egypt, aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower is already west of Crete, fighters and refueling aircraft have been stationed in the Gulf, and dozens of planes and special forces are deployed in Cyprus in case of a flare-up between Israel, Hezbollah and Iran

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Three weeks after the Hamas attack that prompted the current war in Gaza, the United States, Britain and other Western countries have amassed offensive, defensive and logistical forces in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The breadth of deployment attests to multiple considered scenarios, including a multidirectional missile attack on Israel; a second, northern front between Israel and Hezbollah; escalation into a regional war; and, finally, consideration of the need to evacuate thousands of Western citizens.

The speed with which these forces have been deployed attests to the lessons the Biden administration learned from the unexpected fall of the Afghan government in the summer of 2021 and the ensuing panicked retreat from Kabul.

Based on open source data, 20 U.S. heavy transport aircraft and about 50 leased civilian transport aircraft – Israeli as well as foreign – have been transporting equipment and armaments from bases in the United States and Europe, and from other logistical centers, since the airlift to Israel started following the October 7 terror attack on southern Israel.

U.S. military reported that the planes carried artillery shells and interceptors for air defense systems to Israel. Additional publications by the Israeli Defense Ministry revealed other military equipment arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport, Ramon Airport (near Eilat) and the Nevatim air force base in southern Israel.

In addition to the increased U.S. supplies to the Israel Defense Forces, the Americans may be increasing inventory in their own emergency warehouses in both Israel and the region.

Alongside the armament transports to Israel, over 25 U.S. heavy transport planes landed as of Tuesday morning at the Muwaffaq Salti Jordanian Air Force base east of Amman, where many U.S. forces are stationed. A USAF F-15E squadron that is normally based in the United Kingdom was deployed to the Jordanian base, as well as special forces from Florida’s Eglin base. Nine German transport aircrafts have also landed on the base in the past two weeks – in part due to a German Eurofighter aircraft deployment drill planned before the war’s outbreak.

The most significant international deployment of forces and equipment remains in Cyprus. More than 40 U.S. transport aircrafts, 20 British transport aircrafts and seven heavy transport helicopters arrived at the British Akrotiri base on the island. They carried equipment, arms and forces. Four Dutch transport planes also arrived on the island, along with about 200 Marines, rapid reaction forces and consular staff, to facilitate emergency evacuation of Dutch citizens from the region in case of a widespread war with Hezbollah. 

Germany also sent four transport aircraft with special forces for rapid reaction, while the Canadian Air Force sent several transport aircraft in preparation for any possible rescue. Planes and forces from other countries have also trickled into the small island.

Lebanon has also seen the arrival of special flights from U.S., British, Canadian, German, Spanish, Dutch and Italian air forces. Some of these landed at a Lebanese army special forces base near Tripoli, in an apparent attempt to prepare a forward operating base in case a mass rescue of their citizens from Lebanon is required due to a full-blown war between Israel and Hezbollah. The choice of location also indicates an assessment that in such a war, Beirut’s international airport will not be used.

In the past two weeks, the United States has also deployed many forces near Iran. Two F-16 and A-10 squadrons were deployed in the Persian Gulf, and in the last few days about 20 more refueling aircraft arrived from the United States. The deployment of refuelers is intended to endow U.S. forces and their allies with operational flexibility, as air refueling allows for longer sorties. Dozens of U.S. transport planes also landed in Iraq, Qatar and Bahrain.

The New Jersey Air National Guard’s 119th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron arrived within U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility, bolstering U.S. posture to defend U.S. forces and deter further aggression in the region.@usairforce @CENTCOM @DeptofDefense pic.twitter.com/5FomJiS0rq

— US AFCENT (@USAFCENT) October 24, 2023

The U.S. Department of Defense has announced an emergency deployment of the ballistic missile-intercepting THAAD battery and other Patriot missile batteries, whose locations have not yet been revealed. Over the past two weeks, U.S. forces stationed in Iraq and eastern Syria have suffered numerous missile and drone attacks from Iranian-backed militias.

The ground interception batteries are augmenting the U.S. Navy’s defense systems, which had already intercepted Iranian missiles and drones launched by the Houthi militia in Yemen toward Israel two weeks ago. These moves are a de-facto realization of the vision for a regional missile defense system that was presented 18 months ago by then-Defense Minister Benny Gantz.

The airborne forces deployed in the area are joined by a huge naval armada. Two weeks ago, aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford and its strike group arrived in the eastern Mediterranean, west of Cyprus, along with about 80 fighter jets, electronic warfare and intelligence aircraft, and five guided-missile destroyers and cruisers.

Two of these – the USS Carney and USS Thomas Hudner – have already left the group and headed south to the Red Sea, where they are stationed in part to provide Israel with an additional layer of air defense. The former intercepted the Houthi missiles and drones headed for Israel earlier this month. A third destroyer, USS Roosevelt, is now back in Spain.

Harrier Jets, attack and transport helicopters and V-22 Ospreys aboard USS Bataan, currently deployed to the Red SeaCredit: U.S. Navy photo

The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower’s carrier strike force, with three accompanying guided-missile destroyers and cruiser, entered the Mediterranean on Saturday and sailed east to the region. As of Tuesday, it is located west of Crete. It is still unclear whether the strike group will stay there or head south to the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf region. 

The Bataan Amphibious Ready Group, carrying the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, has also arrived in the region. The USS Bataan is a small aircraft carrier belonging to the United States Marine Corps. Images released by United States Central Command (CENTCOM) indicate that it carries a number of Harrier fighter aircraft with vertical takeoff and landing capabilities. However, most of its aerial wing is probably made up of assault and transport helicopters and V-22 aircraft, which would serve as a rapid intervention force.

Two other ships in the group, the USS Carter Hall and USS Mesa Verde, are floating ports for the Marines and will serve as a naval operation base for forces in the area (Carter Hall and Bataan are currently in the Red Sea, just south of the Sinai Peninsula; Mesa Verde is in the eastern Mediterranean). The group comprises about 2,000 Marines, who should provide the United States with rapid intervention capabilities – including for civilian rescue and ground attack in the event of a widespread flare-up in the region.

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Featured image: USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and strike group transit the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea, 28 October, 2023Credit: U.S. Navy

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Israeli bombardment of Gaza’s largest refugee camp killed and wounded hundreds of people—many of them women and children—on Tuesday, Palestinian officials said.

Ahmad al-Kahlout, a spokesperson for Gaza’s Interior Ministry, told reporters that the attack “completely destroyed” the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip. Jabalia, along with the nearby al-Shati refugee camp, is located in an Israeli-designated evacuation zone.

“These buildings house hundreds of citizens. The occupation’s air force destroyed this district with six U.S.-made bombs,” said al-Kahlout. “It is the latest massacre caused by Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.”

The director of the nearby Indonesian Hospital said at least 50 people were killed in the strike.

A separate Israeli strike on a home in the al-Shati camp on Tuesday killed at least 10 people, Palestinian media reported.

🔴 GAZA INTERIOR MINISTRY: Jabalyia camp was bombed with 6 bombs, each weighing a ton of explosives. The initial number of victims of the Jabalia camp massacre is estimated at 400, including martyrs and wounded.

FOLLOW OUR LIVE BLOG: https://t.co/qKD0sxzXgp pic.twitter.com/VaxSYFAFfC

— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) October 31, 2023

“There aren’t enough beds. The dead and wounded are on the floor,” al-Khalout continued. “If we don’t have fuel, operations will completely stop. The intensive care units, the kidney care patients, will all lose their lives.”

“In this case,” he added, “the world is signing the death warrant of those people.”

Jabalia—with more than 116,000 registered residents packed in just 1.4 square kilometers—is the largest of Gaza’s eight refugee camps and one of the most densely populated areas on Earth.

The camp, which was established in the wake of the ethnic cleansing of over 750,000 Arabs from Palestine during the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948, was the birthplace of the 1987-93 intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation and oppression.

Israeli forces bombed a United Nations school in Jabalia during the 2014 war on Gaza, killing 15 people—mostly women and children—sheltering there.

Where is the International Criminal Court?!

Israel just carpet bombed an entire neighborhood of 15-30 houses in densely packed Jabalia refugee camp, Gaza, using American bombs.

More than 400 Palestinians killed and wounded so far.

This is not “self-defense”. This is genocide. pic.twitter.com/Pf3ZE55pVw

— sarah (@sahouraxo) October 31, 2023

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said Tuesday that

“the past three weeks have provided devastating proof that disregarding the basic rules of law, international humanitarian law, is increasingly becoming the norm—and not the exception—with innocent civilians killed in unprecedented numbers in the Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians, and in the killing of Palestinian civilians and massive destruction of infrastructure caused by the ongoing Israeli military operation.”

“As we speak… over 2 million Gazans, half of them children, are going through… hell on Earth,” Grandi continued.

“A humanitarian cease-fire, coupled with substantive delivery of humanitarian aid inside Gaza can at least stop this spiral of death,” he added.

Earlier on Tuesday, Gaza health officials said 8,525 people have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 7, when Hamas-led militants infiltrated southern Israel and killed more than 1,400 civilians and soldiers while taking over 200 hostages.

“The victims include 3,542 children and 2,187 women, while 21,543 other people were injured,” Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told reporters in Gaza City.

Some survivors for the Jabalya camp massacre in Gaza, carried out by US-backed Israeli forces only hours ago with US-made weapons. The devastation is beyond words—hundreds murdered, injured, traumatized, and displaced. They were already refugees. pic.twitter.com/XMzgFSl4Rx

— Good Shepherd Collective (@Shepherds4Good) October 31, 2023

Nearly half of all homes in Gaza have also been destroyed or damaged, while more than 1.4 million residents have fled for their lives amid a nascent Israeli ground invasion and genocidal threats and statements from Israel’s leaders.

Israeli public broadcaster Kan said Monday that 1,538 Israeli civilians and troops have been killed by Palestinian militants since October 7.

Aicha Elbasri, a researcher at the Arab Center for Research & Policy Studies, told Al Jazeera after the Jabalia bombing that “what we are watching today is one of the darkest hours of our time.”

“We are watching genocide live,” she added.

[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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Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

Featured image: A view from the area after Israeli airstrikes on Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, on October 31, 2023. [Stringer – Anadolu Agency]

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Initially dismissed by some of Israel’s U.S. supporters as the fantasy of a few fanatics in Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, permanently pushing Palestinians out of Gaza is now confirmed as the preferred policy option of the Israeli Intelligence Ministry.

A leaked document published by local Israeli news outlet Sicha Mekomit reveals a plan to send Gaza residents fleeing into the desert of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, never to return.

The scheme essentially amounts to a repeat of what the Palestinians call the “Nakba”—“Catastrophe,” the 1948 mass expulsion of Arab residents to make way for the founding of the State of Israel.

Dated Oct. 13, the secret deportation directive outlines four stages, some of which have already been executed.

First, all Palestinian civilians are to be told to vacate northern Gaza in advance of Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) ground operations. This is to be sold to the world as an effort to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties while the military targets Hamas. The evacuation warning was announced the same day that the Intelligence Ministry distributed this plan among the Netanyahu cabinet.

Second, the IDF is to begin a sequence of land assaults moving from north to south down the Gaza Strip. In conjunction with sustained airstrikes, the ground campaign aims to physically clear Palestinians, basically bulldozing people off the land.

This stage is currently underway, with Israeli tanks reportedly closing in on Gaza City as of press time. According to the plan, Hamas fighters will be “cleansed,” and the entire Gaza Strip will be permanently occupied by Israel.

Third, all routes out of Gaza—except the Rafah border crossing into Egypt—are to be kept tightly sealed, leaving Palestinians only one way to escape destruction. “It is important to leave the traffic lanes towards the south usable, to allow the evacuation of the civilian population towards Rafah,” the ministry told the cabinet.

Thus far in the war, the Egyptian government’s refusal to accept refugees has upset the full implementation of this phase, but the IDF remains determined to keep pressing Gazans in that direction regardless.

Fourth, if Egypt can be convinced to take the Palestinians, Israel would construct tent cities in the northern Sinai desert and eventually build whole cities to permanently resettle the people that had been expelled from their homes and land.

The Intelligence Ministry recommends creating “a sterile zone of several kilometers inside Egypt and not allow the population to return to activity or residence near the Israeli border”—a forever no-man’s land.

The authors of the policy document say it is absolutely necessary to “motivate” Palestinians to agree to leave and give up their lands via a sustained propaganda effort.

“The messages should revolve around the loss of the land, making clear that there is no longer any hope of returning to the territories that Israel will occupy in the near future,” it says.

The ministry clumsily envisions using residents’ adherence to Islam to convince them to leave.

“Allah made sure that you lost this land because of the leadership of Hamas,” a draft script says. “There is no choice but to move to another place with the help of your Muslim brothers.”

It also calls for the international community, especially Israel’s top ally, the United States, to help implement the expulsion by putting the squeeze on Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to accept Israel’s demands.

Washington is also expected to pressure countries like Greece, Spain, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., and others to take in refugees since it’s not expected that Egypt would take them all. Canada, in particular, is targeted by the ministry for what the document calls its “lenient” immigration policies.

The ethnic cleansing of Gaza is to be pitched in the Western media “in a way that does not incite and blacken Israel.” To avoid it being seen as the mass deportation that it really is, the plot is to be presented as a humanitarian measure that will lead to “fewer casualties among the civilian population.”

The notion that Palestinians would buy into such a self-defeating scheme was delusional.

“We are against transfer to any place, in any form, and we consider it a red line that we will not allow to be crossed,” Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the press. “What happened in 1948 will not be allowed to happen again.”

There has so far been no official Egyptian response to the strategy paper, but throughout the war, al-Sisi’s government has repeatedly stressed it will not accept a deluge of Palestinian refugees. During the 1948 war, Israeli forces drove hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into Egyptian territory and neighboring countries like Jordan.

If a land grab on such a scale were to happen again, it would make a future Palestinian state essentially impossible.

Once the document was leaked to the media, officials with the Netanyahu government immediately tried to downplay its relevance. The Prime Minister’s Office told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that it only represented some “initial thoughts,” not a finalized policy. A spokesperson called it nothing but a “concept paper.”

Pro-government media joined in the effort, saying the Intelligence Ministry is akin to an in-house think tank and does not have any binding authority when it comes to military strategy.

Regardless, the Intelligence Ministry is not the only influential body advocating for a genocidal outcome.

Last week, a scheme was circulated among the Israeli policy establishment by the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, a research group headed by Meir Ben Shabbat. He was previously Netanyahu’s National Security Advisor and is a 30-year veteran of the Shabak, Israel’s secret police agency.

Misgav’s proposal closely mirrors the course of action advocated by the Intelligence Ministry. The author of the Misgav paper is extremist Knesset member Amir Weitmann. He laid out a detailed economic case for forced resettlement, including an assessment of the number of empty homes in Egypt and the financial costs Israel would incur to buy them to house Gazans.

After controversy erupted over the paper, the Misgav Institute removed it from its website, but the goal of injecting the idea of permanent resettlement into the public debate was achieved. The personal connections between Misgav and the government suggest coordination. According to Mekomit, Weitmann is a close associate of Gila Gamliel, the head of the Intelligence Ministry.

It has also been discovered that just over a month ago, the ministry pledged to transfer one million shekels (approx. $250,000 USD) to Misgav’s bank account to “conduct research” on Arab countries. A short time later, Weitmann’s Egyptian housing market analysis appeared.

The ministry claimed the compromised expulsion plan was solely its own work and was not connected to Misgav, but the government document first surfaced on a WhatsApp group populated by extreme right-wing activists who lobby, along with Weitmann, for the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in Gaza.

The sequence of events—with first the Misgav paper and now the Intelligence Ministry strategy statement “leaking”—suggests that there was nothing accidental about either document going public.

Instead, it appears likely that a trial balloon is being floated, perhaps with even Netanyahu’s personal approval, to test domestic Israeli and international reaction to an explicit policy of ethnic cleansing.

Several in the government have concluded that the final expulsion of Gaza’s Palestinian population is the only option. Leaving Hamas in charge is politically impossible after Oct. 7th, and no alternative group exists to take over locally.

A West Bank model of direct Israeli occupation while Palestinians continue to live in the territory isn’t viewed as sustainable in the long term, since political opposition at home and abroad would inevitably escalate.

Letting Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, who already govern the West Bank, take over Gaza is viewed as the worst possible outcome by Intelligence Ministry strategists because it would put the major Palestinian territories—except Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem—under the control of a single government.

Maintaining the physical and political division of the West Bank and Gaza is a must for Israeli policymakers, as this split is one of the primary obstacles blocking the formation of a Palestinian state.

“It is not acceptable for this attack [Oct. 7th] to result in a victory for the Palestinian national movement or to pave the way for the establishment of a Palestinian state,” the Intelligence Ministry concluded.

To prevent that from happening, it has settled on a decision to eliminate the Palestinian people from Gaza. Despite claims to the contrary, it appears the Netanyahu government is following that strategy all the way to its bloody conclusion.

*

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C.J. Atkins is the managing editor at People’s World. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from York University in Toronto and has a research and teaching background in political economy and the politics and ideas of the American left. In addition to his work at People’s World, C.J. currently serves as the Deputy Executive Director of ProudPolitics.

Featured image: Left: The cover page of an Israeli Intelligence Ministry strategy paper advocating the permanent expulsion of all Palestinians from Gaza and the territory’s annexation by Israel. Right: Victims of the next nakba? A Palestinian man comforts his niece wounded in an Israeli strike on her family home in Nusseirat refugee camp, in a hospital in Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip, Sunday, Oct. 22, 2023. | Ali Mahmoud / AP

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***

An article appearing in Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper, written by Health Reporter Carly Weeks, titled “Ontario agency touts safety of updated COVID vaccine” relies on un-named “experts” and an un-named “report” to propagate the Big Lie that the COVID experimental mRNA injections are “safe and effective”.

The first deception is immediate. The subtitle claims “Report based on data collected since December 2020 finds 94.5% of reactions not serious” begs an immediate question. If 94.5% of reactions are not serious then the remaining 5.5% are serious.

Why would one take an experimental injection with a proven dangerous track record when safe therapeutics are available?(1) 

Publicly available CDC VAERS data indicates unequivocally that the injections are neither safe nor effective and that the COVID vaccines are responsible for more deaths than all previous vaccines combined.(2)

The article further suggests that causality has not been proven. But that is not the case either. A study by the Department of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Research Institute Basel titled “Myocardial Injury after COVID-19 mRNA – 1273 Booster Vaccination” demonstrates that 2.8%, or 1 in 35 booster recipients sustained vaccine-associated myocardial injury. Not only is the study named, but it is peer-reviewed and industry-independent.(3)

Myocardial injury, explains Dr. Chris Shoemaker, is permanent, and 50% of those with such injuries die within 5 years.

The unsourced Globe and Mail article in question tacitly suggests that the risk of jab injuries is worth it to address the “pandemic”. But we know that the World Health Organization (WHO) deleted mortality rates from its pandemic definition(4), so the word is almost meaningless, and, per Dr. Ionniditis, the virus has always had Low Infection Fatality Rates (LIFR)(5), plus the fact that therapeutics  have always been available negates the legitimacy of a Public Health Emergency.

Public Health Canada needs to rediscover its Health-oriented roots and stop pushing catastrophically dangerous experimental injections on an increasingly sophisticated Canadian population. People are increasingly aware of the extraordinary excess-death rates directly linked to the mandated experimental COVID injections.(6)

*

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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017. He writes on his website where this article was originally published.

Notes

(1) Video : “Kennedy on Ivermectin Suppression” (Kennedy on Ivermectin Suppression(rumble.com)) Accessed 31 October, 2023

see also: Kennedy on Ivermectin Suppression – Mark Taliano

(2) Mark Taliano, ” Is It Time to Fire Your Doctor? CDC VAERS Records More Deaths from COVID Vaccines Than Total of All Previous Vaccines Combined.” Global Research, 07 September, 2023. (Is It Time to Fire Your Doctor? CDC VAERS Records More Deaths from COVID Vaccines Than Total of All Previous Vaccines Combined – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization) Accessed 31 October, 2023.

(3) Mark Taliano, “One in Thirty-five MRNA Booster Recipients Had Jab-Associated Myocardial Injury.” Global Research, 27 July, 2023. (One in Thirty-five MRNA Booster Recipients Had Jab-Associated Myocardial Injury – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization) Accessed 31 October, 2023.

See also:

Covid Vaccines: Cardiac Damage by LNPs, mRNA and Spike Protein – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization

(4) Mark Taliano, “False Perception Fabrication Inc.” Global Research, 15 April, 2021. (False Perception Fabrication Inc. – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization) Accessed 31 October, 2023.

(5) Mark Taliano, “Covid Tests Are Invalid. Politicians Are Lying.” Global Research, 05 April, 2021. (Covid Tests Are Invalid. Politicians Are Lying. – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization)  Accessed 31 October, 2023.

(6) Rhoda Wilson, “Dr. Denis Rancourt: Covid injections have killed 13 million people worldwide.” The Expose, 26 June, 2023. (Dr. Denis Rancourt: Covid injections have killed 13 million people worldwide – The Expose (expose-news.com)) Accessed 31 October, 2023.

Featured image is from The Daily Bell

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***

Among a number of suggestions in a new document drafted by Israel’s Intelligence Ministry is the possible relocation of the population of the Gaza Strip to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, in the current war’s aftermath.

The document suggests that Israel might initially relocate the population of the Strip to tent cities to be followed later by the establishment of permanent communities in northern Sinai.

The document presents two additional alternatives for the future of the Gaza Strip that do not include population transfer. One would permit the Palestinian Authority, which has partial control of the West Bank and which was ousted from Gaza by Hamas in 2007, to control Gaza with its current residents remaining. Another option would have Israel establish “local Arab rule” by Gaza’s residents who remain in their homes after the collapse of the Hamas regime.

The U.S. has publicly and privately opposed such plans. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called it a “non-starter” after his shuttle diplomacy immediately after October 7, and Joe Biden affirmed to Egypt President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi that “Palestinians in Gaza are not displaced to Egypt or any other nation” as recently as this weekend.

The war erupted on October 7 after Hamas attacked Israeli border communities, killing 1,400 people.

As first reported by Israel’s Hebrew-language Local Call website, the option of settling Gaza’s population in northern Sinai includes a buffer zone of several kilometers that would prevent Gazans from approaching the Israeli border. 

The Intelligence Ministry confirmed the existence of the document, but a source familiar with the drafting of it said the cabinet isn’t expected to debate the proposal and that the Intelligence Ministry is not the government entity that would be responsible for such decision-making.

Sources at the ministry minimized the importance of the document. But it is initial evidence that Israeli government officials are examining exit strategies after Israel’s goal of ending Hamas’ rule in Gaza is achieved. The document acknowledges that the relocation of the population of Gaza would not gain international legitimacy but claims that it would reduce the number of casualties among Gaza’s population.

Following Hamas’ October 7 attack, Israel has responded with massive aerial bombing of Gaza City in the north of the Strip and elsewhere as it seeks to eliminate Hamas as a military force and to remove it from power in Gaza. Israeli authorities have urged the population of the north of the Strip to move south. 

“More than 1.4 million people across Gaza have fled their homes, nearly half crowding into UN schools and shelters, following repeated warnings by the Israeli military that they would be in danger if they remained in northern Gaza,” The Associated Press reported on Sunday.

The Prime Minister’s Office said in response for this article: “This is an initial document of the kind that can be found in dozens of iterations at all levels of the government and the security services. The issue of ‘the day after’ has not been discussed at any official forum in Israel, which is now focused on eliminating Hamas’ governmental and military capabilities.”

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***

An investigative report published by the Intercept, an online journal, recently revealed that the United States was in the process of expanding a “secret military base” in the Negev desert under the control of the State of Israel.

Such a military base provides further proof that Washington regards Tel Aviv as being key to maintaining imperialist dominance in West Asia and North Africa.

The Intercept article written by Ken Klippenstein and Daniel Boguslaw noted that:

“The U.S. Army is quietly moving ahead with construction at Site 512, a classified base perched atop Mt. Har Qeren in the Negev, to include what government records describe as a ‘life support facility’: military speak for barracks-like structures for personnel. Though President Joe Biden and the White House insist that there are no plans to send U.S. troops to Israel amid its war on Hamas, a secret U.S. military presence in Israel already exists. And the government contracts and budget documents show it is evidently growing.” 

In the immediate aftermath of the October 7 Al-Aqsa Flood where combatants from the resistance forces based in Gaza entered Israeli-controlled territory carrying out a series of military operations. Figures on the number of Israeli and allied deaths in those attacks have been given as 1,400 with many more injured.

The capture of more than 200 Israeli soldiers, settlers and tourists by the military wing of Hamas along with the deaths and casualties of hundreds more has created an internal security crisis for Tel Aviv and Washington. Since October 7, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) backed by the U.S. have killed nearly 9,000 people in Gaza and the West Bank.

Of the number of Palestinians killed in aerial strikes and missile launches, more than half were women and children. The IDF has bombed schools, residential neighborhoods, markets, mosques, churches, hospitals and civilian convoys. Since the genocidal onslaught against Gaza and the West Bank was escalated, the U.S. President Joe Biden has refused to condemn the actions of the Israeli government.

Within the deliberations of the United Nations on the siege of Gaza, the U.S. and its allies blocked all Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire and the opening of a humanitarian corridor. The United Nations General Assembly non-binding resolution passed on October 27 calling for a truce and the restoration of adequate humanitarian assistance was voted against by Washington.

IDF Ground Incursion into Gaza

Hundreds of bombing operations daily by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) have paved the way for a limited ground incursion by the IDF where they have met fierce resistance by the Al-Qassam, Al-Quds and other brigades. On October 31, the military attacks by the IDF intensified with the aerial bombardment of three refugee camps in northern and central Gaza.

The Palestine Chronicle said of the IDF attacks:

“Israel carried out several horrific massacres on Tuesday (Oct. 31) in the refugee camps of Jabalia, Shati and Nuseirat, in the northern and central Gaza Strip. A final death count remains unknown, but Gaza Ministry of Health estimates have placed the number of those killed and wounded in Jabalia alone at over 500…. Israeli airstrikes also reached Al-Shati refugee camp, near Gaza City. News reports speak of the destruction of several residential buildings while many families were still inside…. Al-Mohandiseen residential building in Nuseirat was also struck by Israeli bombs. Al-Mohandiseen is a multi-story building located in Nuseirat, in the central part of the Gaza Strip. Many families were reportedly inside the building when it was struck. Scores are believed to be killed and wounded.” 

Obviously, the intent of the IDF and the Pentagon is to kill as many Palestinians as possible while removing the remaining population to neighboring Egypt. Such a strategic plan would involve a military occupation of Gaza once again. This occupation would be reinforced by the U.S. military presence inland and in the eastern Mediterranean.

Consequently, it is not surprising that the Biden administration wants to expand the number of Pentagon troops in the region. These U.S. troops would theoretically be in a position to confront the inevitable escalation of resistance forces within and outside of Palestine who are committed to ending the presence of Washington and its Israeli client state throughout the region.

Press TV claimed in an article which quoted a high-ranking Iranian military official as saying:

“’The Iranian Armed Forces have received information that commanders of the CENTCOM, as well as the U.S. Army and Navy, have teamed up with Israeli commandants at an underground base in Tel Aviv to supervise and direct the Zionist regime’s brutal offensives against Palestinian people,’ Major General Gholam-Ali Rashid, commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, said at a gathering of Iranian police commanders and officials in Tehran on Tuesday. This shows that the United States’ measures run counter to its claim of restraining the war in the region as thousands of destructive bombs and missiles have already been sent to occupied Palestine, and directions plus support for ground battles are being provided [to Israel].’” 

This claim by the Iranian military has also been echoed by the Al-Mayadeen website which emphasized:

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***

 

A leaked document drafted by Israel’s Intelligence Ministry proposes the ethnic cleansing of the approximately 2.3 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip as a potential solution to Israel’s war against Hamas.

The document, dated October 13, was published by the Hebrew language website Sicha Mekomit, and the Israeli government has confirmed its authenticity. According to The Times of Israel, Israeli government officials are downplaying the document, saying it only represents “initial thoughts” and that they are currently focused on the war effort.

The proposed plan would involve pushing the Palestinians out of Gaza into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. They would first live in tent cities until permanent structures are built. The plan also includes a several-kilometer-wide “sterile” buffer zone inside Egypt so the Palestinians could not live on the border.

The document proposes two other potential plans, including handing Gaza over to the Palestinian Authority once Hamas is defeated. Another proposal would involve Israel propping up a new Arab regime in Gaza. But the document says these two proposals would not sufficiently deter future attacks and that the preferred option is cleansing Gaza of Palestinians.

The writers of the document said allowing the PA to administer Gaza is the “most dangerous alternative” of the three options because it could lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

While Israeli government officials are downplaying the document and its existence does not mean it’s a policy Israel will implement, some parts of the proposal are being carried out. The document says the first phase of the plan would be to evacuate the northern Gaza Strip, which Israel has ordered, and to focus airstrikes on the north before a ground invasion.

The biggest impediment to Israel cleansing Gaza of Palestinians is opposition from Egypt and Arab and international pressure. The document says that part of the plan is for the US to exert “pressure on Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the [UAE] to contribute to the initiative either in resources or in accepting displaced persons.”

So far, the US has expressed opposition to the idea of kicking Palestinians out of Gaza. President Biden spoke with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Sunday, and according to the White House, the two leaders discussed the importance of “ensuring that Palestinians in Gaza are not displaced to Egypt or any other nation.”

However, there are indications the US might be preparing for the possibility of an influx of Palestinian refugees leaving Gaza. In a letter to Congress requesting $105 billion to spend on the Gaza war, Ukraine, Taiwan, and other areas, the White House said some of the funding would be needed for the “potential needs of Gazans fleeing to neighboring countries.”

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Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.

Featured image is from The Grayzone

Is the U.S. Government the “Cash Cow” for Politicians? “How Did They Get So Rich?”

By Philip Giraldi, November 01, 2023

Right now, the witless President Joe Robinette Biden is working on his latest fraud, consisting of bundling all the money that will be dumped on Israel and Ukraine into a package with Taiwan so it will pass effortlessly through Congress given its hostility both to Russia and China and its deep abiding love for all things Israeli.

US Stands Isolated in Backing Gaza Massacre

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, October 31, 2023

On Friday, October 27, the nations of the world voted in the UN General Assembly, by a vote of 120 to 14, for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities” in Gaza. The resolution was sponsored by the government of sometime U.S. ally King Abdullah of Jordan. 

Israel Having “Serious Problems” with Its Ground Invasion Plan. “Are Special Units of the U.S. Military Fighting Alongside the Israelis”?

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, October 31, 2023

Confirming what several experts had predicted, Tel Aviv is having many problems in its ground invasion plan in Gaza. In recent days, several reports are showing that Israel’s long-awaited ground operation has already begun, but it has been extremely frustrating for Israeli ambitions.

BRICS Cooperation with Africa: An Economic Platform for China and Russia. Cooperation with the “Global South”

By Yaroslav Lissovolik and Kester Kenn Klomegah, October 31, 2023

According to authentic reports, a number of African countries such as Algeria, Angola, DR Congo, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia, Uganda and Zimbabwe have expressed interest in joining BRICS. Egypt and Ethiopia have gained full-fledged membership in BRICS during the last summit held Johannesburg, South Africa.

Allied Healthcare Workers Harmed by COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines and Mandates

By Dr. William Makis, October 31, 2023

Janee Rogers Gibbs is a Speech-Language Pathologist. Dx: elevated troponins, irregular EKG and MYOCARDITIS. “Cause is unknown…haven’t had COVID that I know of but was FULLY VACCINATED.”

US Congress: Reject Bill to Support Forced Israeli Displacement of Palestinians to Third Countries

By Democracy for the Arab World Now, October 31, 2023

The United States should oppose any Israeli actions that could result in the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, said Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN). The group urged Congress to reject any supplementary funding bills that propose funding humanitarian aid to Palestinians who have been displaced from Gaza to neighboring countries.

First Nord Stream, Now the “Mysterious Rupture” of the Balticconnector Pipeline: What Is Happening to European Baltic Gas Pipelines?

By eugyppius, October 31, 2023

A year and two weeks after the Nord Stream bombings, in the early morning of 8 October 2023, a second Baltic pipeline experienced a mysterious rupture. This time it was the undersea Balticconnector, which connects the Finnish and Estonian gas grids.

Genocidal Onslaught of Gaza, Not Yet Shocking Conscience of the World

By Irwin Jerome, October 31, 2023

Israel’s Zionists in Gaza, the West Bank, and Palestine at large, continue to indifferently slaughter innocent civilian Palestinian men, women, children and babies as if they are nothing more than hated and despised beasts to be totally eradicated from off of the face of Israel and the Earth.

October 7 Testimonies Reveal Israel’s Military ‘Shelling’ Israeli Citizens with Tanks, Missiles

By Max Blumenthal, October 31, 2023

Israel’s military received orders to shell Israeli homes and even their own bases as they were overwhelmed by Hamas militants on October 7. How many Israeli citizens said to have been “burned alive” were actually killed by friendly fire?

The New Cold War in the Arctic. U.S. Military Installations in Greenland

By Adam Federman, October 31, 2023

Originally built following a 1951 bilateral defense agreement with Denmark — which granted the United States broad authority to operate on the island — Thule became the staging ground for a U.S. nuclear weapons program that was kept hidden from Greenland’s people.

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Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) emphatically condemns the current Israeli ground invasion of the besieged Gaza Strip. In a major and preventable escalation, Israeli ground forces have begun operating in Gaza since October 28 after indiscriminately bombing Gaza for over 21 days. Over 8500 Palestinians have already been killed, including over 3500 children, and over 1 million people have been displaced. CJPME argues that Canada’s refusal to de-escalate the war is a major failure of diplomacy, and reiterates its call for an immediate ceasefire.

“For over 75 years Israel has tried to bomb its way to peace and security, but that strategy has failed,” said CJPME President Thomas Woodley. “This ground invasion is the continuation of Israel’s futile policies of military aggression and apartheid towards Palestinians. The international community must reject Israel’s collective punishment of the civilian population of Gaza,” added Woodley.

To date, Canada has refused to endorse calls from international civil society for an immediate cessation of hostilities in Israel and Palestine but has instead expressed its support for Israel’s “right to defend itself.” Furthermore, CJPME believes Israel has been emboldened to launch this ground war because Canada and other countries have shielded Israel from international condemnation and public outrage over ongoing violations of international law, including through Canada’s shameful abstention on last week’s United Nations resolution for a humanitarian truce. Canada has consistently worked against diplomatic accountability for Israel throughout all UN bodies, whether the General Assembly, the International Court of Justice, or the International Criminal Court. This approach has prevented Canada from playing a constructive role both with Israel’s current invasion of Gaza, and with Israel’s 56-year-old belligerent occupation of Palestine more generally.

“This invasion is a failure of Canadian diplomacy,” said President Thomas Woodley. “From day one, we could have called for an immediate ceasefire. Instead, Prime Minister Trudeau has mindlessly defended Israeli violence, despite weeks of egregious breaches of international law by Israel in Gaza.” CJPME considers that Canada’s flagrant hypocrisy on Israel-Gaza demonstrates that its foreign policy is broken and its global leadership is in shambles.

CJPME points out the blatant contradiction between Canada’s touting of the international rules-based order when Russia annexes Ukrainian territory, and its disregard for this same order when Israel annexes Palestine. CJPME is deeply concerned that, unchecked by international accountability, the Israeli ground invasion will lead to the further dispossession and annexation of the northern Gaza Strip and an ever-expanding humanitarian disaster in an already unstable region. CJPME is also monitoring the human rights situation of Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where over 100 Palestinians have been killed and thousands more detained since Oct 7th. In addition, CJPME warns that Canada’s lopsided pro-Israel position will lead to its increasing diplomatic isolation from the majority of the world’s governments – two-thirds of whom supported last week’s UN resolution for a humanitarian truce.

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Featured image: Trudeau and Netanyahu in 2019 (Source: Yves Engler)

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***

The conflict in Israel-Gaza illustrates perfectly how the United States government runs on corruption, with the deep pocketed Jewish and Israeli lobbies able to buy every national level politician that matters to give the loathsome Benjamin Netanyahu a carte blanche both in terms of a free pass on committing war crimes while also having unlimited access to the US Treasury and the contents of military arsenals.

Given that the media is also in the hands of the same malefactors the poorly informed American public can only respond to the pablum that they are being fed about what is going on the world, i.e. Ukraine and Israel good, Russia and Palestine bad.

I am certainly not the first observer of politics in the United States who has noticed how this deterioration has come about in my lifetime, where a country that once upon a time believed in meritocracy has now been corrupted by money, with a ruling class, such as it is, that seems to be wallowing in the green stuff even as it pretends to be promoting policies that help the average American.

Right now, the witless President Joe Robinette Biden is working on his latest fraud, consisting of bundling all the money that will be dumped on Israel and Ukraine into a package with Taiwan so it will pass effortlessly through Congress given its hostility both to Russia and China and its deep abiding love for all things Israeli. $100 billion is all Joe wants, $10 billion for Israel immediately and the rest to be doled out, mostly to good old boy Volodymyr Zelensky and a bit for the Taiwanese.

And it might be observed that part of the vast ocean of money somehow seems to stick to the fingers of the pampered residents of Capitol Hill. How, one might ask, did Biden, a blue-collar boy from Scranton Pennsylvania who has spent his entire adult life in government employment and who is married to a school teacher wind up with a net worth in the $9 million dollar range? Of course, it now appears that he received a notable assist from a son named Hunter who is something like a one-man cocaine snorting corruption machine who was more than willing to share his largesse with dad in exchange for a little assistance with foreign despots here and there.

One recalls how back in the seventies there was at least some speculation regarding how President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who spent his entire working life in government, started out raised in poverty and wound up being worth an estimated $15 million at his death in 1973 after he left the presidency, at a time when that was serious money, equal to about $100 million today. He was known to be well-wired into Texas Jewish and pro-Israel circles and appeared to have all the right contacts for making private investments that he did not have to publicly declare.

But no one figured out how to milk the system like the Clintons and I still chuckle when I recall how they tried to take the White House silver with them when the departed the residence.

Upon leaving the presidency in 2001 they claimed to be completely broke and even in debt, but adroit manipulation of their Clinton Foundation since that time has produced a windfall of more than $300 million in today’s dollars.

It was a pattern imitated by Barack Obama who left office with more cash in hand through the usual mechanism of largely unreadable books ghost written on their behalf that were then hawked in large numbers to Democratic Party constituents to support the cause.

Barack’s cash value is now estimated to be in the $70 million range and he also owns substantial properties in Washington, Chicago and, of course, on Martha’s Vineyard, where he has a 29 acre estate valued at $12 million.

Of course, to a certain extent the misbehavior of presidents, at least while they are still in office, is not as egregious as it is for members of Congress and even Supreme Court Justices.

Presidents are very visible and surrounded by staff and media witnesses of whatever they are up to while the sins of other senior government officials are more anonymous and they can engage is practices like taking bribes and insider trading based on their prior knowledge of legislation or expenditures that are pending that might produce a windfall profit if one is canny enough to buy the right stock. Congressmen are also well placed to use family members to carry out the trades, avoiding scrutiny of their own banking and investment activities. That has, indeed, been claimed in a number of cases where government officials have been able to accumulate large fortunes while holding office.

And there is no doubt that corruption of one form or another is the game that is played in Congress and elsewhere including at state and local levels. In a sense, it is all around us. The recent exposure of Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey’s apparent tendency to accept bribes was a particularly lurid tale in part because much of the loot consisted of $480,000 in cash stuffed into jacket pockets, closets and in a safe, along with 13 gold bars, two of them marked as 1 Kilogram in weight to the value of more than $100,000.

In the garage was an upscale $60,000 Mercedes-Benz convertible that was a gift to Menendez’s then girlfriend, who had wrecked her own vehicle in an accident in which she had struck and killed a pedestrian. The car came from one of the New Jersey businessmen currently involved in the corruption and bribery investigation and no one can quite explain how an accident in which someone had died was never properly investigated by police. Menendez had allegedly helped the businessman by arranging to block a criminal investigation into his company’s activities.

Menendez, a Cuban American regarded as a political hardliner from his bully pulpit as Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has been investigated before over charges of possible corruption, but he has beaten the rap each time. He has currently resigned his chairmanship but has refused to leave the Senate and he claims he is innocent, of course. And as he is inevitably been a major promoter of Biden’s war on Russia the White House will presumably do everything it can to protect him, but only up to a certain point.

There has been some discussion of the wealth of certain congressmen due to the recent death of 90 year-old Dianne Feinstein, Senator from California, who was regarded as both the wealthiest and oldest of all Senators. She was, in fact, born into a prominent Jewish family in San Francisco and acquired even more money and property from her three husbands, all of whom were also wealthy.

It has never been suggested that she exploited her positions as Mayor of San Francisco and in Congress to illegally or otherwise obtain more money, to her credit, possibly because she was already rich. Nevertheless, her death was preceded by some high tone media coverage of the nature of her fortune and the family quarrel that is taking place regarding how all the money and the multiple high end properties will be divided up.

By some accounts, Feinstein became a billionaire upon the death of her final husband financier Richard C. Blum in 2022, though who is entitled to what remains of the estate will now undoubtedly be determined through either litigation or negotiation involving her own daughter Katherine and the three daughters sired by Blum in a previous marriage. Far from getting rich off of politics, Blum and Feinstein were major donors to the Democratic Party.

More to the point if one is asking “How did they get so rich?” is the trajectory of former Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul Pelosi. Nancy was one of six children born and raised in an intensely political environment, though having otherwise modest circumstances, in Baltimore. Her father was Baltimore mayor and congressman Thomas D’Alesandro, who was at one time investigated by the FBI but never convicted regarding association with criminals.

Nancy Pelosi and Hubbie Paul moved to California in 1969 after college and six years spent in New York City.

She quickly became involved in local Democratic Party politics while he established himself as a businessman, specializing in real estate and high-tech investment, aided by his brother Ronald Pelosi who was a member of the San Francisco city and county Board of Supervisors.

Nancy and Paul have five children. Nancy, who is 83 years old, initially won her congressional seat in a special election in San Francisco in 1987.

She became first woman Speaker, though she lost her position recently as a result of the swing of the House to the Republicans in the 2020 election. She has announced that she will not be running for office in 2024 and will retire. She and her husband have indicated that they will live in their mansion in the upscale Pacific Heights district of San Francisco, though they have a vineyard in Napa Valley and additional properties in San Francisco. They are staying in the city in spite of an incident in October 2022, while Pelosi was in Washington, DC, in which an intruder entered their home demanding to know her whereabouts. He then attacked Paul Pelosi, with a hammer. Police arrested the attacker, 42-year-old David DePape, and he has been charged with assault and attempted kidnapping.

As of 2021, Pelosi’s net worth, as revealed by her government financial disclosure forms and other sources, was estimated to be at $120 million, more than doubling her $58 million valuation in 2009 and making her the 6th richest person in Congress. She indicated on her disclosure form that her principal source of income was her government salary, which peaked at $223,500 when she was speaker. She and her husband hold properties “worth at least $14.65 million, including the St. Helena vineyard in Napa Valley worth at least $5 million” and commercial properties.

According to investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald, the Pelosis have traded $33 million worth of tech stocks over the past two years, including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google. In May and June 2021, Pelosi’s husband purchased stocks in tech companies such as Alphabet, Amazon, and Apple, netting a gain of $5.3 million, while Nancy was working on anti-trust legislation to better regulate the tech industry, which many considered to be a clear conflict of interest as well as a case of potential insider trading.

Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, had actually called Pelosi to lobby her in opposition to the new proposed regulations and, in their discussion, she openly opposed increasing regulations on stock trades by members of congress, stating that “we’re a free market economy” and congresspeople “should be able to participate in that”.

This comment attracted strong criticism including from some Democrats: “Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) tweeted: ‘No. It cannot be a perk of the job for Members to trade on access to information.’ Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) – one of the wealthiest members of Congress thanks to his business career that included leading his family’s distillery as well as the gelato brand Talenti – echoed: ‘I disagree with the Speaker.’ And Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.), who represents one of the most competitive districts in the nation, wrote that ‘I disagree strongly’ with Pelosi’s stance. ‘Americans are losing trust in government and we need to show we serve the people, not our personal/political self-interest.’ Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who has said that she doesn’t hold individual stocks or digital assets, reiterated late Friday that she thinks letting members of Congress trade individual stocks is a bad look. ‘There is no reason members of Congress should hold and trade individual stock when we write major policy and have access to sensitive information,’ Ocasio-Cortez said. ‘There are many ways members can invest w/o creating actual or appeared conflict of interest, like thrift savings plans or index funds.’”

So evidently Nancy Pelosi and many other congressmen believe that it is just fine to be regulating industries and also allowing the regulators to benefit materially when it is anticipated that the measures taken will improve those industries’ stock market standing or profitability. Doing so is a well-established principle referred to as insider trading and hers is an interesting viewpoint. It perhaps explains why there are so many multi-millionaires and possibly even a billionaire or two in Congress!

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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: Pelosi at the LBJ Presidential Library in 2022 (Licensed under the Public domain)

Israel continua a enfrentar sérias dificuldades na condução da sua operação terrestre na Faixa de Gaza. Muitos fatores tornam o campo de batalha local extremamente difícil para as IDF, principalmente pelo fato de as tropas do Hamas utilizarem uma rede complexa de túneis para se movimentarem, armazenarem armas e realizarem ataques surpresa. Além disso, os destroços dos edifícios destruídos pelas IDF também se tornaram um obstáculo para as tropas israelenses e as unidades especiais americanas envolvidas na operação.

Confirmando o que vários especialistas previram, Tel Aviv está a ter muitos problemas no seu plano de invasão terrestre em Gaza. Nos últimos dias, vários relatórios mostram que a tão esperada operação terrestre de Israel já começou, mas tem sido extremamente frustrante para as ambições israelitas. Entre 22 e 27 de Outubro, ocorreram importantes ataques contra Gaza, mas aparentemente os movimentos foram rapidamente neutralizados pelas forças do Hamas.

Em 27 de outubro, Netanyahu fez uma declaração pública anunciando oficialmente que a “nova fase” da guerra já havia começado. Segundo ele, os objetivos dos ataques terrestres são destruir as capacidades políticas e militares do Hamas, além de resgatar cidadãos israelitas capturados.

“Ontem à noite, forças terrestres adicionais entraram em Gaza, marcando o início da segunda fase da guerra, cujo objetivo é destruir as capacidades militares e políticas do Hamas e trazer de volta os nossos cidadãos raptados”, disse Netanyahu. O chefe do estado-maior das IDF, General Herzi Halevi, aconselhou: “Não há conquistas sem riscos e não há vitória sem que os preços sejam pagos. Para expor o inimigo e destruí-lo, não há outra maneira senão entrar no seu território com grande força.”

Acredita-se que unidades especiais das forças armadas americanas estejam lutando ao lado dos israelenses nos ataques terrestres. Há relatos de que a unidade especial “Delta” dos EUA está participando das operações, mas Washington evita comentar publicamente o caso. Porém, nem com este tipo de ajuda é possível realizar uma incursão incisiva. Em 25 de outubro, o ex-conselheiro do Pentágono Douglas Macgregor disse que as tropas israelenses e americanas que tentaram entrar em Gaza foram “despedaçadas e sofreram pesadas perdas”.

Tudo isso foi previsto pelos especialistas. As tropas israelenses têm grandes dificuldades em levar a cabo o combate físico e não são habilidosas em situações de atritos prolongados. O mesmo se pode dizer das unidades especiais americanas, que não têm experiência na região de Gaza. Por outro lado, o Hamas e as milícias aliadas estão familiarizados com a geografia local, conhecem o território melhor que o inimigo e têm a vantagem de utilizar os seus túneis subterrâneos tanto para realizar ataques surpresa como para fugir quando sofrem perdas.

A única forma de a operação terrestre ser realizada com sucesso por Israel é aumentar consideravelmente os níveis de violência, oque tende a causar muitos efeitos colaterais e baixas civis. Israel depende de operações combinadas de ataques terrestres e bombardeamentos aéreos extremamente violentos, o que está a aumentar ainda mais o número de vítimas civis. Na prática, o governo israelita está a ser gravemente afetado por esta estratégia, uma vez que as reações internacionais à violência sionista são negativas, gerando pressão política e diplomática contra Tel Aviv.

Preocupados com o crescimento dessa pressão, as autoridades americanas aconselharam Israel a repensar a sua estratégia de invasão terrestre. O que foi planejado para ser uma invasão definitiva com grande número de tropas tornou-se uma sequência de pequenos assaltos terrestres com número reduzido de soldados e unidades especiais. Os relatórios mostram que as autoridades americanas estão a tentar evitar que ocorra um banho de sangue nas regiões densamente povoadas de Gaza – não porque exista uma preocupação humanitária genuína, mas porque afeta a imagem diplomática de Israel e dos seus apoiadores americanos. Isto explica por que nos últimos dias Tel Aviv tem lançado ataques em pequena escala.

O problema é que este plano também não terá sucesso, uma vez que o Hamas está a revelar-se suficientemente forte para repelir os invasores. As constantes derrotas aumentam a pressão interna na sociedade israelense e obrigam o governo a aumentar a violência com bombardeios – o que por sua vez gera pressão internacional dado o impacto humanitário. Com isto, o governo israelita parece mais uma vez estar numa armadilha da qual não pode escapar.

Há outro factor que também prejudica consideravelmente as IDF. Como resultado dos bombardeamentos, há muitos destroços de edifícios desabados nas ruas de Gaza. As estradas e aldeias estão danificadas e há todo tipo de obstáculos no terreno. Isto dificulta muito o trânsito de tanques e veículos blindados. Este tipo de equipamento apresenta sérias dificuldades de operação em áreas urbanas, especialmente com escombros nas ruas, razão pela qual as IDF necessitarão certamente de contar quase exclusivamente com a sua infantaria, aumentando substancialmente as hipóteses de atritos prolongados.

Na verdade, a escolha de Israel de travar uma guerra total em Gaza parece ter sido extremamente anti-estratégica. Qualquer passo dado pelo estado sionista terá consequências graves. Pequenas incursões serão derrotadas, grandes bombardeamentos gerarão pressão internacional e uma invasão em grande escala levará a uma intervenção do Eixo da Resistência, criando novos flancos.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

Artigo em inglês :

https://infobrics.org/post/39724/

Imagem : InfoBrics

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

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

 

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Oct. 26, 2023 – Parsons, KS – Leah Steinle Newland is an Occupational Therapist. She just had large blood clots removed from her lungs.

This article covers injuries to: 

• physical therapist or physiotherapists
• occupational therapists
• Speech pathologists
• medical assistants
• surgical assistants
• dental assistants
• lab technicians

Oct. 24, 2023 – Wasco, CA – Destiny Millan was a dental assistant. She died suddenly on Oct. 23, 2023.

Oct. 14, 2023 – Pittsfield, MA – Nicolette Enhorning-Picton is a dental hygienist who just had a stroke. She is also a high level athlete, ski patrol instructor, Ironman competitor.

Oct. 12, 2023 – South Bend, IN – Lisa Dover is a dental assistant who was just diagnosed with Stage 3 Metastatic Breast Cancer.

Oct. 11, 2023 – Revere, MA – 26 year old Gabriella Martinelli is a medical assistant. She was just diagnosed with acute liver failure and will need a liver transplant.

Sep. 25, 2023 – Miami, FL – 52 year old Ana Rodriguez Sire is a medical assistant who suffered a stroke on Sep. 25, 2023.

Sep. 22, 2023 – Union, OH – 27 year old Lacey Hite (Medical Lab Technician) mandated to take COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines by her employer, collapsed hours before her wedding and died suddenly on Sep. 22, 2023.

Sep. 21, 2023 – Gilbert, AZ – Elexus Renee is a dental assistant who was just diagnosed with Stage 2B Ovarian Cancer.

Sep. 4, 2023 – Eureka, CA – Joy DeJonge was just diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that is making her very sick.

Sep. 2, 2023 – Chicago, IL – Natalia is a dental assistant who was diagnosed with 2 different BREAST cancers, one Stage 3 and one Stage 1.

Sep. 1, 2023 – Reno, NV – Sep. 1, 2023 Karen Kottinger is a physiotherapist. She was diagnosed with Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer with liver metastases.

Aug. 25, 2023 – Bossier City, LA – Janee Rogers Gibbs is a Speech-Language Pathologist. Dx: elevated troponins, irregular EKG and MYOCARDITIS “Cause is unknown…haven’t had COVID that I know of but was FULLY VACCINATED.”

Click here to read the full article.

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

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My task is to write articles for New Cold War. Although this multi-part series is my responsibility, it is the result of a collective effort by the six of us during and since our return to our respective countries from China. From day one, we immediately came together, with the common goal of bringing the reality of the Tibetan Plateau to international public opinion.

The Tibetan Plateau comprises the Tibet Autonomous Region and a large part of Qinghai province. It extends west to Sichuan province and south to the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Why the “roof of the world”? The Tibetan Plateau has an average altitude of around 4,500 metres. It is the world’s highest and largest plateau above sea level, covering an area of 2.5 million square kilometres.

The mere mention of the word “Tibet” by Professor Radhika triggered in my mind, just two days before her invitation, the August 22, 2023 announcement by U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken of “Visa Restrictions to Address Forced Assimilation in Tibet.” The reason given by Blinken for this new sanction against individuals is “their involvement in the forcible assimilation of more than one million Tibetan children in government-run boarding schools. These coercive policies seek to eliminate Tibet’s distinct linguistic, cultural, and religious traditions among younger generations of Tibetans.” However, there is not a single source that provides facts to support this accusation.

On February 6, 2023, in a complementary statement, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights wrote:

“We are very disturbed that in recent years the residential school system for Tibetan children appears to act as a mandatory large-scale programme intended to assimilate Tibetans into majority Han culture, contrary to international human rights standards.”

Once again, no sources, just baseless assertions.

On September 14, in Beijing, we held an exchange at the Chinese Tibetology Research Center (CTRC). The Center was represented by Zha Luo, Director of the CTRC’s Institute of Social and Economic Studies. A prolific author on Tibet, he informed us that, in August 2023, over 300 Tibetology researchers from China and abroad had gathered in Beijing for a major international seminar to promote Tibetan studies.

The seminar has been held since 1991. As one of the largest international academic events in the field of Tibetan studies, the seminar is an important platform for Tibetology scholars in China and abroad to present the latest research findings and deepen exchanges and cooperation, according to the CTRC. During the event, scholars discussed topics such as education, Tibetan Buddhism, and social transformation and change, as well as architecture and living conditions on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

Photo Credit: H. Weldin

Zha Luo also assured us that we would visit a boarding school during our visit to the Plateau. We did indeed visit one, and as with our exchange with the CTRC in Beijing, we were able to ask any questions we might have had. And so, we did, as we shall see later in this series. Although the aforementioned complaints against China regarding boarding schools did not name any individuals, we were there. We saw and heard the reality, not only on-site, but throughout the trip: a true revelation.

Thus, the orientation of this series of articles is not at all defensive with regard to conditions on the Tibetan Plateau. In addition to frank exchanges with the CTRC and numerous on-site visits, the conclusion is that we must avoid limiting ourselves to mere refutations of the U.S.-led story. Indeed, the reality of the Tibetan Plateau that we discovered is so steeped in the promotion of Tibetan language, culture, history, heritage and religion that asserting that Tibet is not this or that, as promoted by the United States, cannot do justice to the reality of the Tibetan Plateau. If this orientation would have been adopted, this multi-part series would amount to a series of innuendoes that I would like to avoid. It is about what Tibet is, not what it is not.

What’s more, Tibetan reality is so blatantly different from the corporate media’s misinformation that the series can hopefully shed a little more light on the region’s other main issue – the neighbouring Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region – by asking the question “Now that the reality of Tibet is further revealed, can people believe the U.S. narrative of so-called oppression and genocide against the Uygurs?”

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This article was originally published on New Cold War.

Arnold August is an award-winning journalist and author of three acclaimed books. His three books on Cuba-US-Latin America have been acclaimed by experts in the field. In 2013, he was awarded the Félix Elmuza Award by the Association of Cuban Journalists and contributes to outlets in English, Spanish and French in many parts of the world. He serves as a Contributing Editor for The Canada Files.

Featured image is from NCW

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The United States should oppose any Israeli actions that could result in the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, said Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN). The group urged Congress to reject any supplementary funding bills that propose funding humanitarian aid to Palestinians who have been displaced from Gaza to neighboring countries.

Israeli actions, statements, and policy directives, including a leaked policy document drafted by the Israeli intelligence ministry that recommends the permanent forced transfer of Palestinians in Gaza to Sinai indicate that Israel is involved in forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza to third countries.

“The Biden administration isn’t just giving a green light for ethnic cleansing—it’s bankrolling it,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, DAWN’s Executive Director. “Gaslighting Americans into facilitating long-held Israeli plans to depopulate Gaza under the cover of ‘humanitarian aid’ is a cruel and grotesque hoax.” 

On October 20, 2023, the White House sent a request to Congress for supplemental funding for the current fiscal year, which, among other things, includes logistical, infrastructure, and other material support to make possible housing displaced Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring countries. This section of the request states: 

These resources would support displaced and conflict affected civilians, including Palestinian refugees in Gaza and the West Bank, and to [sic] address potential needs of Gazans fleeing to neighboring countries. This would include food and nonfood items, healthcare, emergency shelter support, water and sanitation assistance, and emergency protection. This would also include potential critical humanitarian infrastructure costs needed for the refugee population to provide access to basic, life-sustaining support. This crisis could well result in displacement across [the] border and higher regional humanitarian needs, and funding may be used to meet evolving programming requirements outside of Gaza.

“The best way to protect Palestinian civilians from the wrath of war is to announce and enforce a ceasefire,” said Raed Jarrar, DAWN’s advocacy director. “Rather than pushing Palestinians to Egypt, Israel should allow Palestinian civilians to cross the apartheid fence into Israel. Maybe Palestinians can set up tent cities in the same towns and villages they were displaced from during the first Nakba 75 years ago.” 

Congress should vote no on any bill mirroring this language or any authorization for funding activities, infrastructure, or aid outside of Israel and Palestine because they effectively facilitate, fund and reward the forced transfer of Palestinians.

Supporting Israeli efforts to forcibly transfer Palestinians to Egypt would make U.S. officials liable for complicity in war crimes. Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court includes the “Deportation or forcible transfer of population” as a war crime. Article 25 of the same statute defines individual criminal responsibility and states that a person shall be criminally responsible and liable for punishment for a crime within the jurisdiction of the Court if that person “aids, abets or otherwise assists in its commission or its attempted commission, including providing the means for its commission.”

“Both by word and by deed, Israeli officials are pursuing a broader strategy to permanently remove Palestinians from their native lands, and counting on the US to pay for it,” said Whitson. “Congress should vote against any aid package that could support these acts, which amount to violations of human rights and grave breaches of the laws of war.”

Palestinian civil society organizations, prominent analysts, politicians, and many others are raising alarm bells about Israeli plans to forcibly displaced Palestinians from Gaza, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, and even Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. According to UNRWA, some 1.4 million out of Gaza’s 2.3 million population are now internally displaced, with over 613,000 taking refuge in facilities that are holding up to 12 times their design capacity. 

There is ample evidence that Israel is working to ensure that Gaza is uninhabitable and to force Palestinians to flee to Egypt. Since October 10, 2023, Israel has imposed a “complete siege” on Gaza, cutting off the distribution of fuel, food, water, medicine, and electricity, in violation of the laws of war. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Israel has destroyed or damaged at least 42 percent of all housing units in the Gaza Strip. Israeli leaflets and automated phone messages have warned Gaza residents that they will be identified as accomplices “in a terrorist organization” if they don’t relocate, a move that contravenes international law on coercive displacement. Israeli airstrikes have not only targeted northern Gaza but have continued to bombard southern regions, leaving no safe havens for civilians. 

A leaflet carrying the insignia of the Israeli military reading in Arabic: “Anyone who chooses not to leave from the north of the [Gaza] Strip to south of Wadi Gaza may be determined an accomplice in a terrorist organization.” (Source: Amnesty International/X)

The Israeli government appears to be implementing a plan to permanently move Palestinians in Gaza to Egypt. On October 28, 2023, a local Israeli newspaper leaked a policy memo by the Israeli Intelligence Ministry that recommends forcibly and permanently transferring the Gaza population to Sinai, and harnessing the international community for the move. The document also suggests promoting a dedicated campaign for the residents of Gaza that will “motivate them to agree to the plan.” In addition, the Misgav Institute recently published a plan for the “relocation and final settlement of the entire Gaza population.” The Misgav Institute is headed by former Netanyahu National Security Advisor Meir Ben Shabbat, who remains influential in Israeli security circles. Other influential Israeli think tanks have also supported the proposal, further amplifying the rhetoric surrounding the potential mass displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.

Recent remarks by notable Israeli officials underscore Israeli plans to ensure that Gaza is uninhabitable, forcing Palestinians to flee to Egypt. Yoav Galant, the defense minister, declared that Gaza will never return to what it was. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the Palestinian population in Gaza directly, telling them to “leave now.” Former Israeli National Security Council head Giora Eiland argued that

“Israel needs to create a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, compelling tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands to seek refuge in Egypt or the Gulf.”

Israeli war cabinet member and minister Gideon Sa’ar stated:

“We must make the end of our campaign clear to everyone around us. Whoever starts a war against Israel must lose territory.”

“Rather than demanding a ceasefire to protect surviving Palestinian civilians from further atrocities, the Biden administration is cynically manipulating us into accepting ‘aid’ to expelled Palestinians as a consolation prize,” said Whitson. 

Any forced movement of some or all Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt would be a grave breach of international humanitarian law. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva  Convention prohibits the individual or mass forcible transfer or deportation of protected persons to any other country, regardless of the motive. It would also constitute a grave breach of Article 17(2) of the Second Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits ordering or forcing a civilian population to be displaced. Deportation and forcible population transfer are crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has an active investigation into the situation in Palestine which includes the current war. 

The international community has rightfully been calling for humanitarian corridors to ensure that vital supplies—primarily food, water, and fuel for electricity generators—are able to enter Gaza. Likewise, safe zones are an important tool for the protection of civilians in armed conflict. Palestinian human rights organizations also have pleaded for international protection against ethnic cleansing after Defense Galant cut off food and water to millions of Palestinians in Gaza. 

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“A time for Peace and a time for War” quotes Netanyahu, on trial for corruption in Israel, as his IDF military has now killed 3200 children in Gaza, in just three weeks up to today, Monday 30 October 2023.

These blood-soaked days will live in infamy, as very soon Netanyahu’s men will have killed over 10,000 civilians of whom all were unarmed.

It must take a lot of bravery for an IDF pilot in an F-35/-16 attack aircraft, to bomb to bits a hospital with all its patients on the basis that there were Hamas fighters therein.

These bombings by Israeli aircraft are demonstrably a crime against humanity – a war crime.

Netanyahu must be indicted and brought before the ICC in The Hague, as soon as possible. If no such action is taken, then others will emulate him, in future conflicts in London, Paris, New York or anywhere else.

All because the international community failed to prosecute those responsible for the blatant violation of international law and the provisions of the Geneva Conventions.

This is worse than in any conflict since WW2 including the current war in Ukraine.

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Hans Stehling is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Made in Israel – by Mr. Fish

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On Friday, October 27, the nations of the world voted in the UN General Assembly, by a vote of 120 to 14, for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities” in Gaza. The resolution was sponsored by the government of sometime U.S. ally King Abdullah of Jordan. 

Israel’s UN Ambassador responded with utter disdain, accusing those who voted in favor of the “ridiculous resolution” of supporting “the defense of Nazi terrorists” over Israel. In Gaza, Israel’s response to the global call for a truce was to escalate its bombing and expand its ground invasion.

The U.S. corporate media have not helped Americans understand how isolated our government is in its unconditional support and resupply of weapons for Israel’s genocidal military campaign, which has killed over 8,000 Palestinians, 30% of them women and 40% of them children, while destroying hospitals, apartment buildings, streets and schools, and turning Gaza into nothing short of hell on Earth for the bereaved survivors. According to Save the Children, Israel has killed more children in Gaza in three weeks than have been killed in all global conflicts since 2019.

The UN vote makes it clear how diplomatically isolated Israel and the United States are. The mere 12 countries that sided with Israel and the U.S. in the General Assembly were 4 from eastern Europe (Austria, Croatia, Czechia and Hungary); 2 from Latin America (Guatemala and Paraguay); and 6 small island nations in the Pacific. 

Not a single country from western Europe, Africa, the mainland of Asia, the Caribbean or the Middle East voted with the U.S. and Israel. The countries that voted for a truce included many traditional U.S. allies (France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Norway, Ireland, Switzerland, New Zealand), while other U.S. allies like the U.K., Germany, Canada and Japan were among the 45 countries that abstained.

Israel and the United States are not only diplomatically isolated, but their governments are out of touch with their own people. As Israel prepared to launch its ground invasion of Gaza, a Maariv poll of Israelis found that public support for an immediate large-scale ground offensive of Gaza had fallen from 65% on October 17th to only 29% a week later. 

Israelis, like the rest of the world, are watching the horrors of the massacre in Gaza, and have realized that their government has no real plan beyond massive, indiscriminate violence for its stated goal of destroying Hamas, which may well be unachievable no matter how many Israeli soldiers, prisoners captured on October 7 and Palestinian civilians it is ready to sacrifice. 

In the United States, a Data for Progress poll, published on October 20, found that 66% of Americans wanted their government to “call for a ceasefire and a deescalation of violence in Gaza,” and to “leverage its close diplomatic relationship with Israel to prevent further violence and civilian deaths.” 

Support was across party lines, but, for a Democratic administration and Democratic members of Congress, the 80% of Democrats who agreed with the poll’s statement should have been a wake-up call. Evidently they slept through the alarm, as Congress passed a bill promising unconditional military support for Israel’s campaign in Gaza by 412 votes to 10 on October 24, a green light for the anticipated escalation that followed. 

By October 30, only 18 members of Congress had signed the resolution introduced by Rep. Cori Bush calling for an “immediate de-escalation and ceasefire.” The new House Speaker Mike Johnson has pledged that the first piece of binding legislation he will put to the floor is one to spend $14 billion to resupply Israel with weapons, a bill that is likely to sail through with overwhelming support from both parties.

The impotence of the U.S. government to contain the chaos its policies have unleashed can hardly be exaggerated. The U.S. embassy in Beirut has posted a message to all U.S. citizens to leave Lebanon immediately. It says, “You should have a plan of action for crisis situations that does not rely on U.S. government assistance,” and tells them they will have to sign a promissory note to reimburse the U.S. government if it helps to evacuate them. 

So the results of the U.S. government’s massive investments in the power to kill and destroy have left it unable to protect or help its own citizens around the world. It instead directs them to a State Department web page titled “What the Department of State Can and Can’t Do in a Crisis.”  

The current international isolation of the United States stands in sharp contrast to the way that Biden’s defeat of Trump in 2020 was welcomed around the world. Biden promised a new era of U.S. diplomacy, an end to U.S. wars in the Middle East, and renewed international cooperation on the most serious problems facing the world. 

Instead, his policies are the worst of all worlds, continuing Trump’s ratcheting up of military spending and his illegal sanctions against Iran, Cuba and a dozen other countries, while shifting Trump’s Cold War with Russia and China into overdrive, and now fueling and escalating catastrophic proxy wars in Ukraine and Palestine.

But alternatives to American “leadership” are finally emerging. The UN Security Council is immobilized by self-serving U.S. and Russian vetoes, and exclusive rich boys’ clubs like the G7 and the World Economic Forum have only further entrenched neocolonialism and inequality. But now the world is turning to more representative fora like the UN General Assembly, the G20, G77, BRICS and regional groupings like the African Union, ASEAN and CELAC to more honestly debate our common problems and find new ways to solve them.

As the world comes together to build a post-neocolonial, multipolar world, U.S. propaganda is losing its power to shape the way people look at each new crisis. Israeli and U.S. officials, including Biden, have done their best to cast doubt on the death toll in Gaza, but these numbers are meticulously documented by Palestinian health authorities and accepted by the World Health Organization, UN agencies and NGOs that work there. 

U.S. officials and media are more inclined to listen to Israeli officials than Palestinian ones, but this only increases U.S. isolation by making it complicit in Israeli propaganda, both in fact and in the eyes of people and governments around the world.

King Abdullah of Jordan, President Sisi of Egypt and Palestinian leader Abu Mazen canceled a meeting with Biden after Israel apparently killed hundreds of people with what appeared to be an air-burst bomb, as they sheltered at the Anglican Church’s Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City. Biden validated Abdullah, Sisi and Abu Mazen’s decision by doing exactly as they feared and publicly claiming that “the other team” was responsible for the hospital bombing.

Al-Ahli Hospital medical personnel in the aftermath of the bombing 

While Palestinian officials have identified over 8,000 people killed in Gaza, Israeli officials have so far only identified 933 of the 1,300 or 1,400 people they say were killed in the Palestinian attack on October 7th. 

The Ha’aretz newspaper in Israel has a web page with photos, names, ages and some personal details of the people killed in Israel who have been identified. At the prompting of the Israeli military, many Western politicians and media have painted the Palestinian attack as a massacre of civilians, so it may come as a surprise to see that at least 361 of the 933 dead so far identified were in fact soldiers, police and security officers. 

But Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian fighters also killed hundreds of civilians on October 7, as surely as Israel’s air strikes have killed thousands of civilians in Gaza. The prisoners they took back to Gaza also included both soldiers and civilians.

Ha’aretz’s records also raise questions about another story that has been widely repeated by Western media and politicians, including President Biden, which is that Israeli soldiers found 40 dead babies who had been decapitated by Hamas. There are 7 children below the age of 10 among the 572 civilian dead identified in Ha’aretz, but the youngest was 4 years old, not a baby. As with all these questions, we don’t know the answers, but we should be skeptical of unverified atrocity claims, especially since Israel has lied about previous war crimes and resisted independent, international investigations of them.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union left the United States with no rival to act as a check on its leaders’ unbridled and often unrealistic ambitions for global power, the U.S. has squandered a historic chance to build a peaceful, just and sustainable country, with shared prosperity for us and our neighbors around the world.

Our leaders’ illusion of military superiority has been a poison pill that has undermined every aspect of post-Cold War U.S. foreign policy. It has led them down a dead end from where they can no longer imagine alternatives to fighting and killing or arming their proxies to fight and kill, even as the consequences of these policies have become so deadly and destabilizing that they undermine the position of the United States in the world and leave it increasingly isolated.

Apart from the United States, the world is remarkably united behind the goal of ending the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories it occupied in 1967. The United States should stop fueling the occupation with an endless supply of weapons, and stop diplomatically shielding Israel from international efforts to end the occupation. Since the United States has utterly failed in its role as a mediator and honest broker between Israel and Palestine, acting instead as a party to the conflict on Israel’s side, it must now step aside to allow real mediators to take on that role.

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Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and the author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies are the authors of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, published by OR Books in November 2022.

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Israel continues to face serious difficulties in conducting its ground operation in the Gaza Strip. Many factors make the local battlefield extremely difficult for the IDF, most notably the fact that Hamas troops use a complex network of tunnels to move, store weapons and carry out surprise attacks. Furthermore, the debris from buildings destroyed by the IDF also became an obstacle for Israeli troops and American special units involved in the operation.

Confirming what several experts had predicted, Tel Aviv is having many problems in its ground invasion plan in Gaza. In recent days, several reports are showing that Israel’s long-awaited ground operation has already begun, but it has been extremely frustrating for Israeli ambitions. Between October 22nd and 27th, there were important raids against Gaza, but apparently the moves were quickly neutralized by Hamas forces.

On October 27, Netanyahu made a public statement officially announcing that the “new phase” of the war had already begun. According to him, the objectives of the ground raids are to destroy Hamas’ political and military capabilities, in addition to rescuing captured Israeli citizens.

“Last night, additional ground forces entered Gaza, marking the beginning of the second stage of the war, whose goal is to destroy the military and political capabilities of Hamas and to bring our kidnapped citizens back”, Netanyahu said.

In the same vein, IDF’s Chief of Staff, General Herzi Halevi, advised:

“There are no achievements without risks, and there is no victory without prices being paid. In order to expose the enemy and destroy it, there is no other way but to enter its territory with great force.”

Special units of the American military are believed to be fighting alongside the Israelis in the ground raids. There are reports that the US “Delta” special unit is participating in the operations, but Washington is avoiding commenting on the case publicly. However, not even with this type of help is it possible to carry out an incisive incursion. On October 25, former Pentagon adviser Douglas Macgregor said that Israeli and American troops who attempted to enter Gaza were “shot to pieces and took heavy losses”.

All of this was predicted by the experts. Israeli troops have great difficulties in carrying out physical combat and are not skilled in situations of prolonged frictions. The same can be said about American special units, which have no experience in the Gaza region. On the other hand, Hamas and allied militias are familiar to the local geography, know the territory better than the enemy and have the advantage of using their underground tunnels both to carry out surprise attacks and to evade when they suffer losses.

The only way for the land operation to be carried out successfully by Israel is to considerably increase the levels of violence, which tends to cause many side effects and civilian casualties. Israel is relying on combined operations of ground raids and extremely violent aerial bombardments, which is further increasing the number of civilian casualties. In practice, the Israeli government is being severely affected by this strategy, as international reactions to Zionist violence are negative, generating political and diplomatic pressure against Tel Aviv.

Concerned about the growth of this pressure, American officials reportedly advised Israel to rethink its land invasion strategy. What was planned to be a definitive invasion with a large number of troops became a sequence of small ground assaults with a reduced number of soldiers and special units. Reports show that American officials are trying to prevent a bloodbath from occurring in the densely populated regions of Gaza – not because there is a genuine humanitarian concern, but because it affects the diplomatic image of Israel and its American supporters. This explains why in recent days Tel Aviv has been launching small-scale raids.

The problem is that this plan is also unlikely to be successful, as Hamas is proving strong enough to repel the invaders. The constant defeats increase internal pressure in Israeli society and force the government to increase violence with bombings – which in turn generates international pressure given the humanitarian impact. With this, the Israeli government once again appears to be in a trap from which it cannot escape.

There is another factor that also harms the IDF considerably. As a result of the bombings, there are many debris from collapsed buildings in Gaza’s streets. The roads and villages are damaged and there are all sorts of obstacles on the ground. This makes the transit of tanks and armored vehicles very difficult. This type of equipment has serious difficulties operating in urban areas, especially with debris on the streets, which is why the IDF will certainly need to rely almost exclusively on its infantry, substantially increasing the chances of prolonged frictions.

In fact, Israel’s choice to wage an all-out war in Gaza appears to have been extremely anti-strategic. Any step taken by the Zionist state will have serious consequences. Small incursions will be defeated, large bombing will generate international pressure and a large-scale invasion will lead to an intervention by the Axis of Resistance, creating new flanks.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

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In the spring of 1953, when Regina Kristiansen was 14, she and her family were forced to leave their village of Uummannaq in northwestern Greenland, hundreds of miles above the Arctic Circle. At the behest of Danish authorities, who promised them new homes, they were given just a few days to gather their belongings. Kristiansen drove a dogsled across the ice for two days before reaching a barren island in Baffin Bay. Along with seven other families, they lived in makeshift tents for months as storms lashed the shore and winter approached. One woman gave birth in the tents. Another, a village elder, died before Denmark finished building their homes.

Altogether, 116 people from 26 families left Uummannaq, and their homes were burned to the ground. At the time, the Danish government — then a waning colonial power — characterized the move as voluntary. But in fact, the families were evicted to allow for the expansion of a U.S. Air Force base called Thule. The 233,000-acre base and deepwater port is one of the largest U.S. military installations in the world, and it played a prominent role in North American missile defense during the Cold War. It has also been a source of some of the U.S. military’s most closely held secrets.

Originally built following a 1951 bilateral defense agreement with Denmark — which granted the United States broad authority to operate on the island — Thule became the staging ground for a U.S. nuclear weapons program that was kept hidden from Greenland’s people. A missile launch facility, code-named ​“Project Iceworm,” was built deep under the ice sheet east of Thule, and, in 1968, a B-52 bomber carrying four thermonuclear bombs crashed a few miles from what had been Uummannaq. At one point, America had 17 military installations in Greenland, reflecting the Pentagon’s long-held view of the country as the ​“world’s largest stationary aircraft carrier.”

Kristiansen, 85, now lives in the mainland village of Qaanaaq, where many of the families driven from Uummannaq eventually settled. From her modest two-story home, she can see the island where her family first landed in 1953. Like her father and many others in this remote village — Greenland’s northernmost settlement — Kristiansen once worked at Thule. She has relatives in Texas. But she recalls with anger and grief how they were treated.

Before leaving Uummannaq, the families gathered at the cemetery to say goodbye. ​“We are leaving our graves behind,” her parents told her. ​“We are leaving our loved ones behind. We are leaving because the Americans are coming.”

This April, 70 years later, the U.S. military held a ceremony at the base during Greenland Heritage Week and acknowledged the ​“hardship and pain” caused by the relocation. The purpose of the event was to unveil a new name for the facility: Pituffik, a Greenlandic word that refers to the larger region, where Inuit hunters have lived for millennia, since Greenland’s first inhabitants traveled over the ice from Canada some 4,500 years ago. But despite the gesture of a name change, the ceremony, attended by top Danish and U.S. defense officials, also signaled America’s return.

Regina Kristiansen, 85, was among those evicted from Uummannaq, Greenland, in 1953, so the United States could expand Thule Air Base (now known as Pituffik Space Base). PHOTO BY ADAM FEDERMAN

Over the past 15 years, a quiet race has been underway among the world’s superpowers to gain control over the Arctic, with the United States, Russia and China all vying for dominance in a region with enormous strategic and economic value.

In 2019, President Donald Trump was widely ridiculed for offering to buy Greenland, which is still a Danish territory. But his ham-fisted bid, and the headlines it generated, aligned with decades of thinking that Greenland is essentially European real estate or an extension of North America. (President Harry Truman similarly tried to purchase Greenland in 1946, and first Norway, then Denmark have claimed the country since the 13^th century.)

Although Trump’s offer was rebuffed, a number of behind-the-scenes efforts to exert U.S. influence followed. Some were soft-power moves to bolster Greenland’s economy through investments in trade, tourism and mining. Since 2019, the State Department has been working with Greenland’s government to survey the island’s resource-rich southern tier and streamline its regulatory and permitting system. In 2020, the United States reopened its consulate in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, after an absence of nearly 70 years.

Some efforts are more akin to hard power, though, like the U.S. military’s imminent plans to spend millions of dollars on upgrades at Pituffik and its hopes to expand surveillance capabilities elsewhere in the nation.

The United States’ efforts to reclaim Greenland were precipitated by Russia’s military buildup in the Arctic and China’s push to become a regional power broker. Since 2005, Russia has revived more than a dozen Cold War-era military bases across the Arctic and, as sea ice diminishes, is ramping up use of the Northern Sea Route to ship oil and gas to Asia. As the war in Ukraine depletes Russia’s conventional forces, the Russian military has doubled down on its nuclear presence along the Kola Peninsula, which borders Finland and Norway. Then there’s the fact that the shortest route for a nuclear missile from Russia to America is over the North Pole, making Greenland the first land-based opportunity to detect an incoming missile.

But it’s not just Russia the United States is worried about. As the world seeks to develop the supply chains needed to produce the minerals used in batteries, electric vehicles, fighter jets and missile guidance systems, Greenland has become particularly attractive, given its proximity to North America and the fact that, by one estimate, the country holds a quarter of the world’s rare earth elements.

China, which currently dominates the rare earth market, declared itself a ​“near-Arctic state” in 2018, signaling its intent to expand its reach in Greenland through mining and infrastructure investments. But the United States has worked hard to keep China out. After a Chinese state-owned firm bid on three new airports in Greenland in 2018, Secretary of Defense James Mattis told his Danish counterpart to block the deal, making clear, in the words of the Wall Street Journal, that ​“Beijing must not be allowed to militarize this stretch of the Arctic.”

“The United States is not here just to make Greenland happy,” says Jørgen Hammeken-Holm, permanent secretary for Greenland’s natural resources and justice ministries. ​“They’re here on their own agenda. We know that very well.”

In many ways, Greenland finds itself at the center of a familiar story, one that the roughly 600 residents of Qaanaaq continue to live with. Earlier this year, a United Nations special rapporteur visited Greenland to outline threats facing the indigenous population. Recalling what happened 70 years ago, he wrote, ​“I remain preoccupied with the adverse environmental and social effects of military activities carried out in Greenland without the free, prior and informed consent of the Inuit people.”

But Greenlanders are equally preoccupied with the future and what a new Cold War in the Arctic will bring.

Arctic Rearmament

Approaching Nuuk by plane, the uniformity of the ice sheet has a mesmerizing effect. Its terminus, about 70 miles from the city, reveals a dazzling network of glacial rivers that form one of the largest fjord systems in the world. Scale is disorienting here. With three times the land of Texas and a population just under 57,000 people, Greenland is the most sparsely populated nation on earth. No roads connect its towns and villages, some of which are accessible only by boat. Most of the country is covered in ice.

Yet parts of Greenland are booming.

In 1953, when the United States was preparing to establish an embassy in Copenhagen, it closed its consulate in Nuuk, then a small village of 1,600 people. Today, at close to 20,000 people, Nuuk is a bustling diplomatic hub, expected to grow rapidly over the next decade. When I arrived in June, I shared a cab from the airport with a military analyst from the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence, in town to attend a NATO conference on Arctic security and surveillance. The week prior, the U.S. Coast Guard had participated in naval exercises with Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command, headquartered in Nuuk and responsible for the maritime defense of Greenland and the Faroe Islands, another former Danish colony. When the U.S. Consulate reopened in 2020, it was originally housed in the same building as the Joint Arctic Command, fueling talk among the diplomatic corps that Denmark was aligning itself too closely with U.S. interests. (The U.S. Consulate has since moved down the street.)

There are signs of construction everywhere in Nuuk, beginning with its airport, which is currently upgrading its terminal and runway. A conspicuous new ​“satellite town,” built on the hills just outside of the city, houses a large cadre of diplomats and Danish military personnel. The European Union announced plans to open an office in Nuuk in 2023. And 13 other countries, including Russia, have opened honorary consuls in the city, many recently established.

“It’s not accidental that our renewed interest in Greenland’s economic security coincides with the reopening of our diplomatic presence in Nuuk and the renewed desire [for our military] to operate more routinely out of northern Greenland,” says Joshua Tallis, an expert in maritime security with the Center for Naval Analyses, the Navy’s federally funded research center. ​“Those things are directly related to one another.”

While Greenland remains part of Denmark, it has far more autonomy today than it did during the height of the Cold War. In 1979, Greenland’s majority Inuit population voted in favor of home rule, establishing a parliamentary system and gaining control over internal affairs, initially including education and the environment and later natural resources too. In 2004, the U.S.-Denmark defense agreement was updated to provide assurances that Greenland would be included in discussions of U.S. military policy in the country. But Denmark — which provides more than half of Greenland’s budget — retains control of security and foreign policy.

To Sara Olsvig, a former member of both the Danish and Greenlandic parliaments and current chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council — an international nonprofit that advocates for indigenous rights — America’s objectives in Greenland are obvious: Its military wants to maintain access to existing U.S. and Danish military bases (and possibly expand them), while its government wants Greenland’s mineral riches.

“There’s a clear interest to the U.S., which is shared by other NATO members,” says Olsvig. ​“That there’s a huge island with lots of resources that is geopolitically in a very important spot. And everyone around the table knows that. Including Greenland.”

The village of Qaanaaq lies about 70 miles from Thule Air Base and is the settlement closest to a proposed titanium mine. PHOTO BY ADAM FEDERMAN

Russia’s recent revival of its Arctic military presence is part of why the Pituffik base is, once again, a U.S. priority. A top official at the base recently told Inside Climate News that Pituffik’s radar installation covers ​“the entirety of Russia” and plays an important role in current U.S. operations, given the ​“heightened state” of affairs stemming from the war in Ukraine. After decades of comparative neglect, the United States is planning to spend $3.95 billion on maintenance and upgrades to the base through 2034. But there are indications the United States has more ambitious plans.

In January, the Air Force deployed F-35 fighter jets from Alaska to Pituffik for the first time ever, as part of a joint U.S. Canadian military exercise. In late July, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced it was seeking contractors capable of constructing new runways, aircraft fueling facilities and munitions storage at the base, renovations estimated to cost nearly $99 million.

The military has been tight-lipped about these developments. Asked if there are plans to expand the base, a spokesperson for Space Operations Command responded, ​“We can’t speculate on the future military presence at Pituffik Space base.” The Army Corps didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.

But among military analysts, it’s well known that the United States would like to strengthen its surveillance capabilities in Greenland, particularly along the country’s less-developed eastern flank, improving U.S. and NATO capacity to monitor the straits through which Russian nuclear submarines must pass to reach the North Atlantic. In May 2022, a U.S. delegation traveled to Greenland to explore the possibility of establishing new radar installations elsewhere in the country. And there’s been academic discussion (including at a Danish military academy) about building a new deepwater port in the south that could support U.S. submarines and commercial ships, says Rasmus Leander Nielsen, head of the University of Greenland’s Center for Foreign and Security Policy.

The United States isn’t keeping its ambitions entirely secret, though. This summer, a nuclear-powered U.S. submarine made a port visit to Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands — something Denmark didn’t allow during the Cold War — following a similar visit to Iceland in April. According to the Navy Times, it was a demonstration ​“of the U.S. military’s ability to project power throughout the North Atlantic region.” At the same time, the Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency, which manages military supply chains, has been working to expand maritime refueling capabilities in the region, with Navy Cmdr. Joshua Fischer explaining, ​“Endeavors such as this will lay the groundwork for future mission success in the High North and Arctic as our Navy expands into more northern operations.”

Since 2020, the United States has also begun sending bombers on missions near the Kola Peninsula, where Russia’s largest fleet of nuclear-armed submarines is based. It’s a clear signal that the United States is prepared to attack Russia’s major military installations, says Michael Klare, a peace and world security studies professor for the Five College Consortium in Massachusetts, who has written extensively on U.S. military activity around the world.

Illustration by Derik Hobbs

All of these developments are happening in the shadow of Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has upended regional power dynamics.

Since the war began, the Arctic Council, the region’s premier forum for diplomacy, has paused nearly all engagement with Russia. In April, Finland became a member of NATO, with Sweden expected to follow suit, meaning every Arctic nation except Russia will soon be part of the military alliance. Denmark — which recently pledged to increase military spending to $21 billion, with significant earmarks for Arctic initiatives — is currently negotiating a new bilateral defense agreement that could allow U.S. military forces to deploy on Danish land. U.S.-Russian relations have reached a new low, with Russia suspending participation in its last remaining nuclear arms treaty with the United States and America ceasing to share information about its nuclear stockpiles with Russia. And in early October, an analysis of satellite imagery by the New York Times suggested that Russia may be preparing to resume testing of a new nuclear-powered missile in the Arctic, which some have dubbed a ​“flying Chernobyl.” Days later, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to confirm that Russia has completed a ​“successful test” of the missile and warned the country’s parliament could pull out of a treaty banning nuclear tests.

“Supposedly we live in an era of MAD — mutual assured destruction — with no incentive for either side to start a nuclear war,” says Klare. ​“But that’s being eroded.” 

War by Other Means

Not all signs of a Cold War revival are so obvious. In 2021, the U.S. Army published a policy blueprint, ​“Regaining Arctic Dominance,” that identified four primary drivers of this great northern power competition. After military developments, which focused on Russia and China, the second strongest driver was the Arctic’s ​“vast deposits” of mineral and energy resources. These include base metals, such as copper and nickel, as well as highly coveted rare earth metals, which are used in everything from electric vehicles and wind turbines to aircraft engines and advanced weaponry.

Thomas Qujaukitsok prepares for a narwhal hunt at the mouth of the North Water Polynya in Baffin Bay on the west coast of Greenland. PHOTO BY ADAM FEDERMAN

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Adam Federman is a reporting fellow with Type Investigations whose work has appeared in Politico, the Washington Post, Wiredand other publications. He is the author of Fasting and Feasting: The Life of Visionary Food Writer Patience Gray.

Featured image: Panigpak Daorana, resident of Qaanaaq, says the village itself is unlikely to benefit from new mining developments in Greenland. PHOTO BY ADAM FEDERMAN

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Our thanks to Daily Mail Online for having brought this article to our attention

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Israel’s ambassador to the UN displayed a yellow star reminiscent of Holocaust victims on his chest Monday, provocatively pledging to wear the badge until members of the Security Council condemn Hamas ‘atrocities.’

The state has previously called for Secretary General Antonio Guterres to resign after he said last week that the October 7 Hamas attack that killed 1,400 ‘didn’t happen in a vacuum.’  

‘Some of you have learned nothing in the past 80 years. Some of you have forgotten why this body was established,’ envoy Gilad Erdan said. 

Erdan denounced the Security Council for ‘staying silent’ over the unprecedented deadly attacks by Hamas Palestinian militants against Israel.

The deeply divided 15-member council has not adopted a single resolution on the three-week-long war between Israel and Hamas.

‘So, I will remind you. From this day on, each time you look at me you will remember what staying silent in the face of evil means,’ the ambassador said.

‘Just like my grandparents, and the grandparents of millions of Jews, from now on my team and I will wear yellow stars,’ he said, standing up to affix one on the breast of his suit inscribed with the words ‘Never Again,’ in reference to the yellow stars Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis.

But Erdan will wear it ‘as a symbol of pride,’ he said.

‘We will wear this star until you wake up and condemn the atrocities of Hamas.’

His wearing of the badge, which has come to symbolise the oppression of Jews since its imposition in Nazi-occupied Europe, was swiftly criticised by Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, which urged him to wear the Israeli flag instead. 

‘This act disgraces the victims of the Holocaust as well as the state of Israel,’ Yad Vashem chairman Dani Dayan said in a Hebrew-language post on X, formerly Twitter.

‘The yellow star symbolises the helplessness of the Jewish people and their being at the mercy of others. We now have an independent state and a strong army. We are the masters of our own fate. 

‘Today we will fasten to our lapel a blue and white flag, not a yellow star.’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the October 7 attacks the worst against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.

For weeks the Security Council has been riven by divisions over the war and its impact, rejecting four draft resolutions about the conflict.

Some texts were blocked by the United States, a close Israel ally, because they did not mention Israel’s right to defend itself.

Another presented by the Americans was stymied by Russia and China in particular because it did not clearly call for a ceasefire.

Jews wearing Star of David badges, Lodz Ghetto, Poland, World War II, 1940-1944

A gold Star of David with the words ‘Never Again’ is worn by Israel United Nations Ambassador Gilad Erdan as he speaks during a Security Council meeting

In light of the impasse, the UN General Assembly last Friday adopted by a large majority a nonbinding resolution requesting an ‘immediate humanitarian truce,’ but not mentioning Hamas.

Israel, through Erdan, blasted the text, saying it will ‘go down as infamy.’

Click here to read the full article on Daily Mail Online.

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Featured image: UN Envoy Gilad Erdan and his mission wearing a yellow Star of David at the UNSC, October 30, 2023. (Source: Twitter)

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As stipulated by the guidelines, Russia takes over the rotating chairmanship of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) from January 2024. There are high hopes a lot more will change, especially towards widening its numerical strength and increase support for the Global South. In addition, there is also the expectation that BRICS will consolidate its role within the emerging geopolitical processes and global competition for Africa. China and Russia are currently making efforts to assert influence more aggressively, despite the challenges and obstacles, in cooperating with Africa. 

According to authentic reports, a number of African countries such as Algeria, Angola, DR Congo, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia, Uganda and Zimbabwe have expressed interest in joining BRICS. Egypt and Ethiopia have gained full-fledged membership in BRICS during the last summit held Johannesburg, South Africa.

In this insightful interview, Kester Kenn Komegah attempted to find out more about the future relationship of BRICS with Africa, and aspects of Russia’s policy towards Africa from Yaroslav Lissovolik, who is the founder of BRICS+ Analytics – a think-tank that explores the potential of the BRICS+ format in the global economy. Lissovolik, previously worked as chief economist and head of research in Deutsche Bank Russia, the Eurasian Development Bank as well as Sberbank. He also worked as an Advisor to Russia’s Executive Director in the International Monetary Fund. Here are excerpts of our wide-ranging discussion:-

Kester Kenn Komegah (KKK): As Russia prepares to take over the rotating chairmanship of BRICS group in January 2024, what are some of the expectations?

Yaroslav Lissovolik (YL): The expectation is that Russia will likely pursue a broad agenda with closer connectivity of BRICS to Africa being one of its key items. one of the possible directions in Russia’s chairmanship may be the path of “integration of integrations” — the creation of a cooperation platform for the regional organizations of the Global South such as the Eurasian Economic Union and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as well as BRICS. This may be complemented by efforts to add more economic weight to the BRICS grouping via developing the payment mechanisms within BRICS to conduct settlements in national currencies. There may also be the continuation of the BRICS expansion process with possible further steps to expand the core as well as to create a group of BRICS partners from among the leading members of the developing world community.    

KKK: Can China and Russia (both BRICS members) halt the current U.S. global dominance? What mechanisms are available for effecting this process?

YL: Within BRICS both China and Russia will likely cooperate towards creating those financial and economic mechanisms that are lacking in the global economy. The purpose of BRICS is not to undermine any economy, but to create cooperative platforms for economic cooperation among developing countries. In fact, the BRICS  and BRICS+ formats may in the future be complemented by what I called the BRICS++ format that could include the participation of developed economies, regional blocs and their development institutions. My view is that BRICS will develop along a path of becoming the most inclusive and open platform in the global economy that may serve as the basis for a revitalized and more sustainable globalization effort. Such a platform may with time include the participation of the Bretton Woods institutions and other key players of the global economy from the Western world.   

Overall, there are not too many economic mechanisms created thus far by the BRICS — the main economic contribution of the BRICS has been the creation of the New Development Bank (NDB) and the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA). The BRICS NDB is set to expand its membership to include more developing economies. There are also plans within BRICS to widen the mandate of the BRICS CRA to make it more effective in supporting member countries. What is lacking at this stage is a financial mechanism that would facilitate the payments in national currencies among the BRICS economies — discussions on the creation of such a mechanism (widely referred to as BRICS Pay) have been ongoing since at least 2017, but progress in this area has been moderate at best. Furthermore, the issue of the creation of a common currency or an accounting unit for all BRICS countries has also progressed slowly.  

KKK: What are your views about the key challenges confronting BRICS in pursuit of leading the emerging reconfiguration and new political and economic architecture?

YL: The main challenges facing the BRICS grouping have to do with a lack of an ambitious economic agenda. Thus far the strong momentum exhibited by BRICS on the international stage is mostly political/geopolitical as reflected in the sizeable number of developing countries expressing their desire to join the grouping. This widening of the ranks of the BRICS bloc renders the attainment of consensus even more difficult — something that will be critical in adopting decisions on economic cooperation. And on the economic front there are still a lot of issues that are yet to be addressed — apart from the financial track related to the common payment systems and a potential common currency/accounting unit, another crucial theme is trade liberalization among the BRICS economies and across the economies of the Global South more broadly. The BRICS need an ambitious trade liberalization agenda that would favour developing economies, especially Africa. At this stage, import tariffs in BRICS countries are relatively high, especially on agricultural products — there is significant scope for the BRICS economies to lower trade barriers to support the modernization of Africa and other regions of the Global South. 

KKK: There has been much talk on Global South and Africa is geographically located there. What are Africa’s weaknesses and strengths in this rising multipolarity?

YL: One of the most significant strengths wielded by Africa on the international stage is its rising solidarity and rising coordination of the continent’s economies on the international stage. This is vividly exemplified by the rising prominence of the African Union (AU) in some of the key international fora. The AU in 2023 became a member of the G20, while also becoming increasingly active in international mediation efforts and discussions on economic cooperation with other regional blocs. The AU has been also successful in advancing the project of Africa’s regional integration via the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Again, the best way in which the BRICS could contribute towards the success of this regional integration project is via greater trade openness to African economies. The success of the AfCFTA would go a long way towards overcoming the limitations faced by Africa’s economy in terms of low intra-continental regional connectivity and trade.  

KKK: Let’s finally talk about some specific tangible roles Africa could play in the geopolitical changes and process. Do you think the African Union also need some urgent reforms to perform effectively?

YL: In my view, Africa could play a crucial role in the coming years both at the level of the developing world and globally. In particular, the African Union given its membership in the G20 and South Africa’s presidency in the G20 in 2025 could launch important initiatives aimed at boosting the resiliency of the global economy. One such initiative could involve the creation of a platform for regional blocs such as the AU, MERCOSUR, ASEAN, EU and other blocs in which G20 countries are members. Such a platform for regional arrangements could be launched as a G20 engagement group, the R20 or regional 20 — in effect it would represent a new level of global governance formed by regional integration arrangements and their development institutions. Thus far there is no mechanism for a horizontal coordination of regional integration groups and their development institutions in the world economy. A similar effort could be undertaken by the African Union within the realm of the Global South — the AU could lead the establishment of economic linkages with other regional blocs from the developing world, including MERCOSUR, SCO, EAEU and ASEAN. Such a platform could serve as a basis for an expanded BRICS+ circle that would encompass the majority of developing economies.  

In the longer term, the AU could also participate in the reconstruction and the reform of the main global institutions and fora such as the WTO, the G20 and the UN Security Council. With respect to both the WTO there may be a case for the African Union becoming a member of this organization, just like it did in the case of the G20 alongside the EU as a regional bloc. In this scenario, the AU could represent the developing world in both the WTO and the G20 with initiatives countering protectionism and beggar-thy-neighbour policies that have become so prevalent over the course of the past decade. As the role of the AU gains traction in the world economy, there may be a stronger case for Africa’s greater representation in the UN governing bodies such as the UN Security Council. Overall, the main potential for Africa and the African Union in my view lies in pursuing the path of «integration of integrations», i.e. the building of cooperative linkages and platforms between Africa’s regional integration projects and development institutions with regional peers elsewhere in the world economy. This process of greater cooperation among the regional integration blocs is only starting and the African Union could lead this important process that opens up new communication lines and possibilities for cooperation in the world economy.  

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

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***

At a time when European Union leaders have just met to address the crises in Eastern Europe and Gaza, Budapest and Bratislava threaten to break the bloc’s unity over military support for Ukraine, reported the Financial Times newspaper on October 27. The article comes as EU member states disagreed on a budget allocating €50 billion to Kiev and, according to a statement issued after the first day of the EU leaders’ summit, they will try and reach an agreement before the end of the year.

Financial and military support from Brussels has been essential for Kiev since the start of the conflict in February 2022. Nonetheless, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his newly elected Slovak counterpart, Robert Fico, have spoken out against maintaining that support, which requires the unanimity of the 27 member states of the European bloc.

Image: President Putin meeting with Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico in June 2015 (Source: President of Russia/Twitter)

According to the British newspaper, Fico said before the EU summit that his country would not vote in favour of any new measures to help Ukraine or to impose more sanctions on Russia without a full assessment of how those could affect decisions in Slovakia. Not only Fico but Orban’s longstanding position on the war has irked Brussels, too.

“This is a very worrisome development and changes the dynamic,” a senior bloc official involved in arms supply projects to Ukraine told the Financial Times when commenting on Hungary and Slovakia. “It could be a real problem.”

EU support to Kiev is delivered bilaterally but can be reimbursed by a fund managed by Brussels and financed by Member States, which requires unanimous consent to complete. The last increase to that fund occurred in January, and Hungary’s veto has blocked subsequent attempts to complete it. However, Orban has now found a new ally in Fico and is no longer the sole sane voice of the EU.

It is recalled that Orban met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on October 26 in China and said he was “proud” of his country’s commitment to Moscow. In fact, upon arrival at the European summit, Orban stated that Hungary has a “clear and transparent policy” of engagement with Russia and Putin. 

“We would like to keep open all the communication lines to the Russians, otherwise there will be no chance of peace,” he said.

Budapest cited the situation with the OTP bank as the main grievance of this initiative, on which the unlocking of a tranche of 500 million euros for Ukraine from the EU Peace Fund will depend. Orban stressed to the Kossuth radio station that he was waiting for a delegation from the Office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Hungary to discuss the current problem.

In Orban’s opinion, Western countries do not dare to recognise Ukraine’s inability to win on the battlefield, saying,

“It is absolutely clear that the Ukrainians won’t win on the front lines. All military experts talk and write about it, but politicians dare not admit they have chosen a flawed strategy. You fight, you shed blood — many people died, Ukraine’s losses are enormous — in return, we give you money and military equipment.”

In turn, Fiсo pointed out the high level of corruption in Ukraine. Earlier, he informed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that Slovakia was only willing to provide humanitarian aid to the country. The Prime Minister stressed that the head of the European Commission respected the sovereign right of member states not to provide military support to Kiev.

It is likely that Brussels will put more pressure on Orban and Fiсo for their defiance. Both central European countries will most likely eventually agree on a certain amount of money to the Ukrainian Armed Forces for some concessions, but over time, more EU countries will begin to oppose financing, just as Slovakia’s recent turn has demonstrated.

Until that time arrives, though, the fact that Hungary and Slovakia have exercised their right of veto could have serious consequences, and they will likely face threats of being deprived of money from development funds. As expected, Baltic leaders especially received the news of the lack of agreement with negativity.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda described Orban’s rapprochement with Putin as “regrettable” and said that it sent a “very wrong message” not only to Kiev but to the entire European continent.

For her part, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas stated that the lack of effort by some member states to support Ukraine militarily could send “a signal that we do not take defence seriously enough.”

“I am very concerned that some are giving signals that we cannot do it and that we do not even aspire to do it,” she said.

However, this is expected from the Baltic minnows, which are amongst the most rabid Russophobes in Europe. More importantly, they do not wield great influence in Europe, and rather, the more important countries have been more restrained in their criticisms of Orban, once again demonstrating how fractured the bloc is.

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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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***

On 26 September 2022, the Nord Stream pipelines bringing Russian gas to Germany via the Baltic Sea were attacked in a series of clandestine bombings. According to Seymour Hersh, the sabotage was planned by the Biden administration in late 2021, and carried out by U.S. Navy divers in collaboration with Norway. While Hersh’s report remains unconfirmed, the sabotage was almost surely a NATO operation.

A recent report in The Washington Post, detailing the assistance the CIA has provided to the Ukrainian SBU in their attacks on high-profile targets like Darya Dugina, Valery Gerasimov (who narrowly survived) and the Kerch Bridge, contains a buried denial by anonymous “Ukraine officials” that their agents were “directly involved in the … attack on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline,” while repeating that Western intelligence assessments hold “that Ukraine was linked to the plot.” I take this to mean that Ukrainian intelligence was responsible for planting the false trail of evidence pointing to the Andromeda, while other NATO parties carried out the actual bombing.

A year and two weeks after the Nord Stream bombings, in the early morning of 8 October 2023, a second Baltic pipeline experienced a mysterious rupture. This time it was the undersea Balticconnector, which connects the Finnish and Estonian gas grids. The sudden pressure collapse occurred around the same time that sensors detected damage to undersea telecommunications cables running from Estonia to Finland and Sweden. The damage to the cables was minor, but the Balticonnector will take at least until April 2024 to repair. Since Finland stopped importing Russian gas in 2022, the country relies heavily on LNG imports from the United States, and the pipeline outage is not projected to have serious implications for the gas supply in either Estonia or Finland.

The timing of the damage aligned with the movements of a Hong Kong-flagged container ship named NewNew Polar Bear, on its 3–8 October voyage from the Russian naval base at Baltiysk (near Kaliningrad) to St. Petersburg:

This useful graphic from Welt. The orange/yellow line represents the path of the NewNew Polar Bear, the green line the telecommunications cables, and the blue line the Balticconnector. The purple circles indicate the points of damage.

On Tuesday, Finnish authorities confirmed suspicions that the damage was caused by a 6-tonne anchor, which they have recovered from the seabed:

The National Bureau of Investigation stated at the press conference today that it has made progress in the investigation of the gas pipeline damage. …

General Head of Investigation Detective Superintendent Risto Lohi described that on the seabed, a 1.5 to 4 metre-wide dragging trail is seen to lead to the point of damage in the gas pipeline.

In the distance of a few metres from the gas pipeline damage point, there was an anchor which is believed to have caused the wide dragging trail and the damage itself.

Early this morning the anchor was lifted up. There are traces in it which indicate that it has been in contact with the gas pipeline, Lohi says. 

From the finding point of the anchor onward, a narrow dragging trace is to be seen and it matches size-wise with the part connecting the anchor to the chain. 

These observations in connection with data analysed on the traffic of the vessels have corroborated the main line of investigation concerning the role of the vessel Newnew Polar Bear of a Chinese shipping company and flying the flag of Hong Kong in the incident.

From the Finnish press release. See also these photos of the trench which the anchor dragged into the seabed.

While Finnish authorities remain noncommittal on the question of sabotage, Swedish investigators insist that the damage to their telecommunications cables was intentional. Analysts also have a hard time understanding how a container ship could have unknowingly dropped a 6-tonne anchor, let alone dragged it over many kilometres without anybody noticing:

“I’ve never seen an anchor manoeuvre under eight knots of speed,” says [Stefan Krüger, Professor for Shipping Security at TU Harburg]. He also considers it unlikely that the anchor could have dropped unnoticed due to a technical problem, based on his experience of ships of this size.

“When an anchor blows out of the winch, it will awaken half the ship. It makes a hell of a noise,” says Krüger, adding that in such cases the anchor chain usually breaks completely. “You don’t drag a fallen anchor across the seabed for kilometres.”

But this is exactly what the furrow found by divers points to … “If these accounts turn out to be accurate, the most plausible explanation would be that the captain knew exactly what he was doing,” Krüger says.

The Russian maritime journalist Mikhail Voytenko, on the other hand, argues that the damage was accidental, though his reasoning is far from convincing, and seems even to suggest the opposite scenario of a symbolic reprisal for Nord Stream:

Intentional sabotage is highly improbable, for just one sound reason – this NewNew Polar Bear ship is a darling of Russia and China, both shipping and media. She’s the first to launch a new direct China-Russia container service via the Northern Sea Route, hailed by national media as a breakthrough and a blow to Western attempts to blockade Russian sea trade. It’s just unthinkable, that of all ships, this one could be used for bombardment of pipeline with her anchors (that in itself being a rather stupid idea).

The captain of the NewNew Polar Bear docked his vessel at St. Petersburg on 8 October, hours after allegedly rupturing the Balticconnector. Then, as Finnish investigators scrambled to figure out what had happened to their pipeline, he steered his ship back through the Baltic.

More from the Finnish press release:

…Lohi stated that NewNew Polar Bear was contacted several times, but they were not willing to cooperate.

The police had no competence to take any coercive measures against the vessel, since it sailed in the exclusive economic zone of Finland, which is out of the police competence in this respect, Lohi says.

While the Finns watched, the NewNew Polar Bear sailed north around the Scandinavian peninsula into the Russian waters of the White Sea, docking at the port of Arkhangelsk on 21 October. The next day, this press photo of the ship made the rounds, showing a pointedly missing port anchor:

If you look closely, you’ll notice another oddity, namely the collapsing starboard-side containers. Apparently, NewNew Polar Bear’s escape was not uneventful.

The ship’s owners have obtained permission from Russia to take the Northern Sea Route east into the Pacific, with assistance from a state-owned Russian ice-breaker. As the Barents Observer reports, a prior permission had listed the NewNew Polar Bear’s operator as Hainan Xin Xin Yang Shipping Co., but the current license reveals the vessel is now being run by Torgmoll, “a Russian-registered company with offices in Moscow and Shanghai.”

According to Torgmoll’s website, the company is specialising on logistics between China and Europe, and is keenly interested in developing Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. The company is represented with a member in the Russian-Chinese Business Forum, and is headed by Yelena V. Maksimova.

Judging from a Russian business registry, Maksimova is connected with Ke Jin, a representative of the NewNew Shipping Line in Russia.

Speaking at a conference in Moscow this summer, Ke Jin said that NewNew Shipping Line planned to put five ships to sea on a container route between ports in Russia and China in 2023 with transit through the Northern Sea Route (NSR).

One of these ships, Ke Jin said, would sail from Arkhangelsk to China. This would be the NewNew Polar Bear. If this is a backhanded reprisal for Nord Stream, then we can say it was planned since at least last summer, months after Finland officially joined NATO on 4 April 2023.

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***

Israel’s Zionists in Gaza, the West Bank, and Palestine at large, continue to indifferently slaughter innocent civilian Palestinian men, women, children and babies as if they are nothing more than hated and despised beasts to be totally eradicated from off of the face of Israel and the Earth.

Yet the mass conscience and consciousness of the world’s humans hasn’t yet become shocked enough to drop everything they’re doing – flocking instead by the hundreds of thousands in America and around the globe to:

–Attend the latest competitive, corporately promoted sports event, while using all their creative human energies to idly argue about who is going to win or loose;

–plan their upcoming fantasy Halloween costumes for yet another anticipated bacchanalian

–Trick-or-Treat night-out-on-the-town; plan for a sumptuous, bountiful Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends, or;

–ready themselves for yet another year’s anticipated imagined fantasy arrival of Santa Claus down the chimney of their gayly-decorated cozy homes .

Meanwhile, in the United States, poor wretched sods, like Robert Card, a U.S. Army Reservist weapons instructor and fired worker at a recycling centre, decided the best action he could take for himself to address the woeful state of the world was to become a mass killer and just recycle 18 innocent Americans, and then recycle himself along with them by committing suicide.

Yet another sad, pathetic, minor punctuation mark to the real 2023 crisis in human affairs underway in Gaza, the West Bank, the whole of Palestine and the world. 

While the only thing the mass total of politicians in its U.S. House of Representatives and United Nations Security Council can think to do to stop the on-going massacre in Gaza is to vote or not vote again, like they repeatedly did in their war against Russia in Ukraine, against any ceasefire or diplomatic negotiations.

Instead, they can only think to do is send thousands more assault weapons so Israel’s radical Zionist Nationalist Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, can pass them out to crazed Zionist Jewish settler-colonists to use, willy-nilly, against still more innocent, unarmed Palestinian civilians they hate with a passion with no one in authority willing or able to stop them.

While yet another Carrier Battle Group, filled with battle-trained Marines, is sent into the waters around Israel, ready to assist the Zionist Israeli’s in their, once and for all, utter annihilation of their “Palestinian Problem” that has plagued them ever since the Zionist Jews violent mass occupation [in 1948] of the ancient holy lands of Palestine. Isn’t that a nice solution to yet another ugly human disaster in the world?

With Israel’s clearly blatant. patently genocidal war against the Palestinian peoples arrogantly, grotesquely, unfolding before all of humanity’s eyes, the world clearly is at a critical crossroads in evolution of the homo sapiens species. Either it is fast completely reverting to its earlier very primitive, fascist, might makes right, state of previous centuries, or the human species is now entering into a very difficult birthing process of something that’s screaming to we humans to become more advanced and evolved.

So far, however, its the old male cretin thugs like Biden, Netanyahu and their ilk, and gross propaganda lies and manipulations by their clever wordsmiths, who still rule the roost, because the people still, basically, are too primitive, stupid and unaware to see beyond their own crude, dumb noses.

At any rate, two excellent examples of an always higher feminine consciousness constantly at work that seeks to combat this old male nemesis, are rightly aghast, as we all should be, at what is happening at present in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel, who, like many of us, almost can’t believe the grotesqueness of all is actually happening. At Listen to the conversation of two such evolved feminists with one another.

Abby Martin since her formative days as a radical activist at the University of California, Santa Cruz is a genuine Keeper of the Truth, as the old saying goes, who unabashedly speaks truth to power, as does Rania Khalek of Dispatches From the Underclass.

Another fellow humanist who also questions the madness of what we humans are currently doing in Gaza, Ukraine and elsewhere in the world at large, is Michael Brenner, Professor Emeritus in International Affairs at the University of Pittsburg and a Fellow of the Center of Transatlantic Relations at SAIS/John Hopkins.

Brenner has authored what he calls the Final Scene: “America – its vassal train in tow”, Brenner contends, “is committing moral suicide in Palestine.” Brenner goes on in the Final Scene to say: 

‘The political consequences will be profound, and as enduring as the complete discrediting of the country’s standing as a positive presence in world affairs. Encouragement of, and participation in the murderous Israel assault on Gazans has been accompanied by a torrent of lies and deceptions which discredit anything we shall do or say. The reference points for this harsh judgment are not the mythic image of “the city on the Hill;” the last, best hope of mankind; the indispensable nation for achieving global peace and stability: the Providential people born in a state of Original Virtue destined to lead the world down the path of Enlightenment. None of those idealistic standards. No, we are debased when measured against the prosaic standards of human decency, of responsible statecraft, of a decent respect for the opinions of humankind.”

Brenner further contends:

“Some might rightly say that America has behaved in similarly atrocious ways in the past – and that it always restored its sense of self-respect and effectiveness abroad. Decimation of the native population; the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the wanton killing and destruction in Vietnam, and – more recently – the horrendous consequences of our interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. The last two mentioned being highlighted by the razing of Falluja (twice), Mosul and Raqqa that can be seen as the template for what we and the Israelis are now doing in Gaza. The practical difference – as opposed to the moral one – is the unique attention focused on events there. After all, this is the Holy Land for the three Abrahamic religions, the main protagonist is the Jewish state of Israel founded in the wake of the Holocaust, the conflict’s powerful resonance with large communities of co-religionists in Western capitals. It is a Passion Play with rival scripts. Ours will not be the anointed one.

Moreover, it is occurring at a time when the tectonic plates of the political world are shifting, when the old constellations of power and of influence are being successfully challenged, when America has responded to feelings of self-doubt as the ordained global guide and overseer by compulsive, futile displays of muscle flexing. Anxiety and self-doubt masked by false bravado is the hallmark sentiment among the country’s political elites. That is a poor starting point for a reengagement with reality. Americans are too attached to their exalted self-image, too narcissistic – collectively and individually, too lacking in self-awareness, too leaderless to make that wrenching adaptation. Instead, we are about to see an epic act to prove that reality is only what the United States wills it to be: the girding of loins for war on Iran. It will end badly – very badly. Leaving a diminished, aggrieved but unrepentant America.”

The little bells are tinkling. Bow down

They are bringing the sacrament to a dying God

Meanwhile, the carnage befalling Palestine, Palestinians & the World, grows worse with every passing minute, hour and day:

“Please, if you can hear us, tell the world that we are isolated now in Gaza” (israelpalestinenews.org)

Finally, in closing, what follows is this writer’s own “kick at the can” entitled, “We Humans Continue To Indifferently Massacre the Earth & One Another.”

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The writer Jerome Irwin is a Canadian-American writer who originally was a Criminology student working in one of America’s local police departments. For decades, Irwin has sought to call world attention to problems of environmental degradation and unsustainability caused by a host of environmental-ecological-spiritual issues that exist between the conflicting world philosophies of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples.

Irwin is the author of the book, “The Wild Gentle Ones; A Turtle Island Odyssey” (www.turtle-island-odyssey.com), a spiritual odyssey among the native peoples of North America that has led to numerous articles pertaining to: Ireland’s Fenian Movement; native peoples Dakota Access Pipeline Resistance Movement; AIPAC, Israel & the U.S. Congress anti-BDS Movement; the historic Battle for Palestine & Siege of Gaza, as well as; the many violations constantly being waged by industrial-corporate-military-propaganda interests against the World’s Collective Soul. The author and his wife are long-time residents on the North Shore of British Columbia.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

Last Saturday’s huge demonstration against the war on Gaza and for justice for Palestine was remarkable. Overwhelmingly young, multicultural, energetic and united, it had another striking phenomenon, missing from mainstream media reports.

Despite the rhetoric of politicians, media commentators and Jewish community “leaders” claiming that a pro-Palestine march through central London would be a huge affront and danger to Jews, right there among the marchers was a large Jewish bloc, mobilised by several different groups.

This wasn’t the first time that Jews from different organisations were marching for Palestinian rights and justice, but the scale, demography, and spirit was different.

The bloc comprised people from their twenties to their eighties, with the balance tipped much more towards the younger age group.

There was an assertiveness and self-confidence in their political views expressed on hand-made placards:

“Jews Against Genocide,”

“Jews against War Crimes,”

“Not in our Name” (with a star of David),

“Jews Stand for Palestine.”

It took place in a period when Israel has officially declared itself at war, and there is tremendous pressure within the Jewish community to keep any dissent safely behind closed doors.

Two days earlier, though, Na’amod (Hebrew for “We will stand”) UK Jews against the Occupation, held a solemn event in Parliament Square mobilising 400 Jews.

They condemned both the horrific Hamas action against Israeli civilians on October 7 and the continued revenge attacks by Israel’s military that within a few days exceeded those numbers, with many deaths of children, the toll from which is still rising.

Source: Democracy Now!

Na’amodniks held banners that plainly said:

“UK Jews demand: Stop the Genocide. End the Siege.”

Knowing that Israel’s government and self-proclaimed “leaders” of Britain’s Jews do not speak for you is one thing. Saying so publicly and so starkly, is much harder. And it’s not just here. In the US, thousands of young Jews have mobilised around the message:

“We refuse to let our grief be used as a justification for further bloodshed and a second Nakba.”

Jewish activists call for Gaza ceasefire in DC. October 18, 2023 (JVP Twitter)

Younger Jewish radicals are crossing lines that go beyond criticising the occupation with its daily human rights abuses, towards a broader critique of zionism as a whole.

Before WWII, zionism was a minority opinion in most Jewish communities around the world. The Holocaust and its aftermath changed that, irrevocably it seemed.

Large numbers of survivors languishing in Displaced Persons (DP) camps had no wish to return to countries where the Nazis had murdered their families but the doors to Western nations were hard to prise open.

Many in the DP camps looked towards Palestine as a place of refuge. Jewish minorities in Western countries, unable to help those refugees, became emotionally drawn towards zionism, and didn’t question what Israel’s creation would mean for people already living in Palestine.

Especially from the 1960s onwards, zionism became a dominant ideology in Jewish life in Britain. This coincided with a relative improvement in the material lives of many Jews who became more suburbanised and middle-class.

In Jewish educational institutions, synagogue Sunday schools, summer camps and Jewish schools, pro-zionism and Hebrew culture became the norm during the 1950s and ‘60s.

The “Jerusalem Programme” adopted in 1968 sought to turn a generalised sympathy towards Israel among ordinary diaspora Jews into an imperative. It promoted a political stance asserting the “centrality of Israel” in Jewish life and the “unity of the Jewish people” through “its bond to its historic homeland Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel).”

Official zionist bodies, resourced by the Israeli state, set up cultural programmes to reinforce this identification within diaspora communities.

The first Jerusalem Programme of the early 1950s had spoken mainly of “ingathering the exiles” (regarding Jews in the diaspora as “exiles” rather than fully fledged citizens of their countries). It encouraged emigration to the new state, “aliyah,” which means “ascending,” and spoke of fostering Jewish consciousness “by propagating the zionist idea,” stressing “Hebrew education” and “Hebrew language.”

The 1968 programme went much further, declaring zionism to be “the National Liberation Movement of the Jewish people.”

The zionist project in Palestine had set about the erasure of Palestinian history through building on and renaming Palestinian villages, ethnically cleansed in the wars of 1948 and beyond.

More widely the zionist project began to downgrade and ideologically erase longstanding Jewish diaspora cultures and languages and powerful Jewish alternatives to zionism that rose within them.

The self-confident challenge to zionist imperatives, epitomised by the Jewish bloc last week, was an expression of the growing interest in reviving those alternatives.

From political zionism’s inception in 1897 until WWII, zionists struggled to make headway in overwhelmingly working-class Jewish communities. This was the case both in the US and Europe, especially in inter-war Poland, home to Europe’s largest Jewish community.

Activists who rejected Jewish nationalism in favour of class politics joined communist and socialist parties in different countries, and largely became less attached to Jewish identity.

But the most powerful secular left-wing alternative to zionism, born in the very same year as the conference that proclaimed political zionism, was Bundism – a Jewish socialist workers’ movement with an internationalist and anti-nationalist outlook.

Its philosophy of doykayt (here-ness), stated in Yiddish, was:

“Dortn vu mir lebn, dort is undzer land” — “There where we live, that is our country.”

It saw a Jewish future as minorities in the diaspora, not in a fortress-style Jewish nation state.

The Bund promoted a sophisticated multicultural model for ensuring that minority rights were enhanced as fully as possible within the states where they and other minorities lived.

More than an orthodox political programme for winning a better future, Bundism specifically advanced a modern secular Jewish cultural identity, especially through Yiddish language, libraries, sports clubs, schools, newspapers, discussion circles, children’s and youth movements, a women’s movement, in which they gave agency to the grassroots.

Within the socialist movement they put great stress on inner democracy and clashed with advocates of more centralist models, including communists, not just with Lenin in 1903, but in Poland in the 1930s and other arenas.

In Britain, before WWI, anarchists and Bundists, who opposed Jewish nationalism, were the beating heart of progressive campaigns, especially in Britain’s largest Jewish community in London‘s East End.

Between the wars, the Communist Party attracted many Jewish members there. Despite sharp differences, the ABC of Anarchists, Bundists and Communists shared an emphasis on class politics and rejection of Jewish nationalism.

The Bund was decimated in the Holocaust, during which its members played a key role in ghetto resistance. Its postwar remnants were scattered in several countries and continued activities within their means, including in Britain, but were politically marginalised by the dominance of zionism.

Bundists in New York issued a statement in 1947 against partition of Palestine:

“The peaceful coexistence of Jews and Arabs must be brought about by the renunciation of the zionist goal of an independent Jewish state on the part of the Jewish community (and)…by the Arabs’ recognition of the democratic principle that a country belongs to its entire population.

“Palestine should thus be regarded as belonging both to the Arabs and the Jews. Palestine should become an independent state. Its freedom and equal rights of its two communities should be internationally guaranteed.”

The Jewish Socialists’ group has recently published a pamphlet: The Jewish Workers’ Bund Past, Present Future which includes articles by individual Bundists who were members or close to our group, and combines these with those of present-day activists influenced by Bundism. It also includes rare documentation on the terrible treatment by zionists of Bundists in the DP camps who were resisting pressure to become part of the war in Palestine.

Today in Israel, Mesarvot — the Refuser Solidarity Network — operate as a support network for Israeli conscientious objectors.

It is heartening that Bundist ideas are attracting renewed interest and providing an anti-nationalist frame of reference among Jewish radicals today.

Older and more progressive ideas are finding a renewed life and relevance and a new audience in our dangerous and unpredictable times.

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Featured image: NOBLE ASPIRATIONS: (Left) ’Where we live, there is our country! Vote List 9, Bund’ and ‘A democratic republic! Full national and political rights for Jews!,’ Bund election poster in Kiev, 1917; (below) Group portrait of the first-grade class of the Bundist school in Kalisz, central Poland, 1930-1934 Photo: Public Domain

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Israel to cut Gaza links after war, said a Financial Times headline last weekend, with no attribution or quotation marks. As if such a cut could happen.

What Israel says goes.

This sums up much of western mainstream media coverage of Israel and Palestine over the past 22 years, and especially the BBC’s. This is because, since the Second Intifada in 2001, the realities and origins of Israel’s 75-year campaign to oust or subdue the Palestinians have never been properly explained.

The long displacement of the Palestinian nation and its reduction by means of expulsion, attrition, containment and violence have rarely been granted corrective context in our media.

Now, it seems the BBC and others are making desperate attempts to put this right, with background analysis and explanatory programmes, such as the series last week on BBC Radio 4, Understand: Israel and the Palestinians. But it is all much too late.

Israel, after the 7 October attack by Palestinian fighters, has been able to grasp the moral high ground and portray the breakout and killings as “unprovoked”, with western reporters’ acceptance. It became, in the eyes of the West, simply a robust response to terrorism.

In the same FT, HA Hellyer, from the Royal United Services Institute, a London military think-tank, is quoted repeating points by analysts such as Greg Philo and Mike Berry, in their two books Bad News from Israel and More Bad News from Israel, and myself, in the Guardian and elsewhere, made during and after the Second Intifada.

“There are scores of international journalists in Israel who can cover every detail of every atrocity,” Hellyer said. “But there is nothing of similar depth available when it comes to the incredible civilian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza.”

This, crucially, he went on, has the effect of dehumanising Palestinian victims.

“This means… ” he said, “that westerners are more immune to Palestinian civilian suffering than to Israeli suffering.”

So, basically, Israelis are “people like us”, and Palestinians are an incoherent and anonymous mass.

BBC’s Global Reach

The BBC news teams and their producers and editors also have to fight a pervasive and often vicious campaign against them by pro-Zionist interests and a print media almost uniformly pro-Israel.

Pro-Israel groups choose to see the tragedies in Palestine and Israel through the lens of atrocities against Israelis. For various reasons, these groups are eager to do the BBC down, destroy it if possible, so that the debate about whether the BBC should call Hamas fighters “terrorists” or not has consistently been of far greater import than the unprecedented slaughter of trapped civilians in Gaza.

This way, the corporation will, it is reckoned, bend under the weight of public and political opprobrium. It often does.

The BBC is vitally important in any media reckoning because of its European and global reach and its reputation for fair and objective news and analysis.

I have been a strong and vocal critic of BBC Israel/Palestine coverage for 23 years, since the outbreak of the Second Intifada, not so much for its reporting but the way the coverage is shaped and introduced from London.

This manipulation, sometimes unknowing and cultural, but often done under great political pressure – and echoed by ITN, Sky and, to a lesser extent, Channel 4 – has broadly held that the violence in the region is an Israeli response to Palestinian attack. The reporting of this latest calamitous turn of events started that way, and Israel has largely kept the initiative. But is it beginning to change?

BBC and other mainstream TV and radio journalists have started to grill Israeli spokespeople.

Mishal Husain, on the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme on 18 October, at 08:16, insisted to an Israeli colonel that an independent investigation would be the best way to find out who really attacked al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City on 17 October (he was outraged).

BBC outlets have featured prominently strong and reasoned Palestinian voices, such as Mustafa Barghouti, of the Palestinian National Initiative; the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot; and Ghada Karmi, the British-Palestinian academic and activist forced as a child from West Jerusalem early in the Nakba.

Nour Odeh, from Ramallah, articulately explained why she was not going to be hustled into condemning the Hamas attacks of 7 October, a favourite trope of western interviewers.

“They are already overwhelmed”

Former spokeswoman for the Palestinian Authority Nour Odeh says she fears there will be a “complete breakdown” at hospitals in Gaza following Israeli bombings. #Newsnight https://t.co/EUeNjaVuOc pic.twitter.com/g7TBNmh6el

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) October 10, 2023

Overwhelming Pressure

The bombing of the al-Ahli hospital is a prime example of what the BBC faces in terms of overwhelming Israeli and domestic Zionist pressure.

In my view, as a former BBC Middle East Correspondent who many times had to make instant live reporting judgements based on knowledge, experience and observation, the BBC reporter Jon Donnison, was justified in reporting that

“the Israelis are investigating… but it is hard to see what else this could be [than an Israeli strike]… given the size of the explosion… when we have seen rockets fired out of Gaza we have never seen explosions of that scale… but it is still to be verified”.

What he said bore the weight of available evidence and was carefully caveated.

The BBC immediately criticised Donnison after Zionist and government outcry.

Had Donnison said that, against all experience, Hamas might have hit the hospital by accident, no one would have said a word. It is ingrained, still, in the western psyche that, in the final analysis, the state, in this case Israel, has the benefit of the doubt, not its victims.

Even during a broadly sensible inquest into coverage on BBC Radio 4’s The Media Show on 18 October, the BBC’s bias peeped through.

The presenter asked a journalist who had managed to film Hamas inside Gaza, in its tunnels, in the past, whether she would do the same after “the horrors of 7 October”?  The implication was that only Hamas provides horror. Why did he not ask his own news team, Jeremy Bowen, for example, if after what Israel has repeatedly done in Gaza since 2007 he would still be prepared to talk to an Israeli military spokesman?

The UK government and opposition statements of unflinching support for Israel – “We want you to win,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem, on camera – gave the British right-wing print media cover as they largely toed that line.

The more liberal-ish press wavered. The I ran a prominent story saying that government ministers believed the BBC was undermining diplomacy in the Middle East (the al-Ahli hospital story).

Trepidation Remains

The Guardian published Palestinian reaction and supportive analysis and comment, and, like the FT, carried moving stories about the women TV reporters who, under enormous danger, brought the stories of Gaza’s stricken people to the screens of Al Jazeera and the Arabic-language, US-owned TV station Alhurra.

The BBC also reported well and vividly on the surge in settler and Israeli army killings and attacks on civilians in the West Bank, one in Qusra, near Nablus, where four Palestinians were shot dead and the subsequent funeral was attacked. Seventy-five West Bank Palestinians were killed in the week after 7 October.

But trepidation remains. The Guardian reportedly commissioned then dropped a piece by US lawyer Dylan Saba on the suppression and censorship of the Palestinian voice in the US. Saba received no explanation. The piece eventually was published by N+1.

The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, in London, asked Mandy Turner, a professor of conflict, peace and humanitarian affairs at the University of Manchester and a Palestine-Israel expert, for an article on “why ‘peace’ had been shattered between Palestinians and-Israelis?” (as if there was “a peace”.) Unhappy with the edits that this “independent voice” had insisted on, Turner withdrew her article.

She eventually published it elsewhere.

Then came the Guardian’s sacking of Steve Bell, its noted cartoonist of more than 40 years’ standing, for a cartoon showing Netanyahu preparing to excise surgically from his belly a portion of flesh with an outline shaped like the Gaza Strip.

When I saw it, I channelled David Levine’s 1966 cartoon in the New York Review of Books of then-US President Lyndon Johnson showing off a Vietnam-shaped scar on his abdomen. This was exactly what Bell said he was inspired by.

But the Guardian saw, or chose under pressure to see, a reference to Shylock, the much put-upon Jew in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. How this might be seen as antisemitic is a long discussion for another article. Anyway, Bell lost the argument in what appears to have been a fit of Guardianesque trepidation.

Encouraging Signs

This is not a definitive moment to sum up the trends in the UK’s mainstream media, but there are indications that sense is starting to prevail, at least in some quarters. 

On 20 October, Philip Stephens (who was part of the BBC board of governors panel which reported very fairly on impartiality in the BBC’s Israel-Palestine coverage in April 2006) asked in a Financial Times opinion piece:

“When does a determination to destroy Hamas bleed into indiscriminate violence against the trapped Palestinians… unlike the buildings of Gaza, the Palestinian aspiration to statehood cannot be bombed to dust. Israel’s long-term security demands it sets off again on the path to a political solution.”

In a leader, the same newspaper raised the question of “a grave violation of international law” in holding a population under siege. Other respectable voices have cited “collective punishment”. All these and more are war crimes.

These are not questions that have been at the forefront of British media coverage since the effective collapse of any chance of a two-state solution 23 years ago. Nor has there been much honest reporting about the many excesses of violence and dispossession the Palestinians have endured at the hands of Israel and its western supporters since 1948.

For our media, Israel’s security and its alliance with the West always trump Palestinian rights, freedom, justice and self-determination.

There might be a few encouraging signs, with the British media at last asking: how did this begin? What comes after?

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Tim Llewellyn is a former BBC Middle East Correspondent, based in Beirut from1976-80 and Nicosia 1987-92, and reported for the Corporation on Middle East matters as a freelance until 2002. He has since, inter alia, written a book, Spirit of the Phenix: Beirut and the Story of Lebanon, published by I.B.Tauris, and acted as a persistent critic of the British mainstream media, especially BBC TV and radio coverage of the Israel-Palestine issue. Llewellyn is also an Executive Committee member of the Balfour Project, which advocates equal rights for all in Israel-Palestine.

Featured image is from Jewish Voice for Labour

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***

In the geopolitical theatre, the intricate interplay between sovereign states and international law forms the bedrock upon which global order rests. However, a troubling pattern has emerged, raising questions about the accountability of powerful nations in adhering to international resolutions and laws. At the centre of this discourse lies the state of Israel, whose actions have often skirted the boundaries of international norms with apparent impunity. The recurring narrative of Israel’s non-compliance with international resolutions and its apparent disregard for global legal frameworks raises significant concerns about the sanctity of international law.

Israel’s continued defiance of international and United Nations resolutions has eroded the efficacy of these institutions, casting a shadow over their ability to ensure compliance and foster global stability. The persistent occupation of Palestinian territories, in contravention of multiple UN Security Council resolutions, has not only led to a protracted conflict but has also set a dangerous precedent for other nations to flout international norms with impunity. The absence of meaningful consequences for Israel’s actions not only undermines the credibility of the UN but also emboldens other nations to flout international law when it suits their interests.

In recent developments, the UN General Assembly approved a resolution calling for a humanitarian truce in Gaza, underscoring the urgent need for alleviating the dire humanitarian situation in the region. However, the pressing question remains: Will Israel abide by this resolution? The history of Israel’s responses to similar calls for ceasefire and humanitarian aid leaves room for skepticism. The absence of concrete mechanisms to enforce compliance raises doubts about the efficacy of such resolutions and the ability of the international community to compel Israel to adhere to them.

Israel’s track record of selectively adhering to international resolutions and its persistent defiance of UN mandates pose a formidable challenge to the implementation of the newly proposed humanitarian truce. The absence of accountability mechanisms has emboldened Israel in the past, allowing it to operate with relative autonomy despite widespread international condemnation. The lack of tangible consequences for non-compliance has created an environment where Israel’s actions are often met with little more than diplomatic reprimands, failing to yield any substantial change in behaviour.

Given the influential backing of certain global powers, the prospects of meaningful enforcement mechanisms being imposed on Israel remain slim. The unwavering support from powerful allies has shielded Israel from significant repercussions, thus creating an environment where international resolutions and calls for humanitarian aid are often met with calculated indifference. This shield of protection renders the prospects of outside forces compelling Israel to comply with the humanitarian truce resolution even more daunting.

Moreover, the absence of a unified and concerted approach from the international community further undermines the effectiveness of the UN resolution. The lack of a consolidated stance among member states weakens the UN’s ability to exert meaningful pressure on Israel, allowing the nation to operate with a sense of immunity from external intervention. The fractured nature of the international response not only dilutes the impact of the resolution but also perpetuates the cycle of non-compliance with international law.

Despite the prevailing challenges, the need for concerted international action to enforce the humanitarian truce in Gaza remains paramount. The urgency of the humanitarian crisis demands a unified and resolute response from the international community to ensure the protection of innocent civilian lives. By fostering a cohesive and unwavering approach to compelling Israel’s compliance with the resolution, the global community can send a strong message about the sanctity of international law and the imperative of safeguarding human rights, even in the face of political complexities and power dynamics.

Only through a resolute and collective commitment to upholding the principles of humanitarian aid and the sanctity of human life can the global community hope to foster a world order that is characterised by empathy, justice, and respect for international law. The success of the resolution hinges on the global community’s ability to transcend geopolitical interests and work in unison to hold all nations accountable for their actions, regardless of their power and influence.

The complex web of international law, carefully woven to safeguard the sovereignty and rights of nations and individuals, is rendered ineffective in the face of Israel’s continued transgressions. From settlements in the West Bank to the controversial annexation of East Jerusalem, Israel’s actions have consistently defied the provisions laid out in various international agreements, including the Fourth Geneva Convention. The flagrant violation of these agreements not only deepens the chasm of mistrust between Israel and Palestine but also undermines the spirit of cooperation and diplomacy that the international community strives to foster.

The influence of powerful allies and their vested interests further complicates the enforcement of international law. The unwavering support extended to Israel by influential global powers has shielded the nation from meaningful repercussions, effectively granting it carte blanche to act with apparent impunity. This bolstering of Israel’s position on the global stage has created an imbalance of power that undermines the principle of equality among nations, further eroding the foundations of international law.

Furthermore, the prevalence of a selective approach to enforcing international resolutions and law calls into question the integrity of the global community. The dichotomy between the swift enforcement of sanctions and embargoes on certain nations and the leniency extended to Israel paints a picture of a fragmented and skewed international legal system. This skewed approach not only fosters disillusionment among nations striving to adhere to global norms but also erodes the credibility of international institutions that are tasked with upholding the sanctity of international law.

The repercussions of Israel’s unchecked power reverberate far beyond the borders of the Middle East, casting a pall over the efficacy and relevance of the United Nations and international law. As we navigate the complex landscape of global diplomacy, the need for an equitable and impartial approach to enforcing international law has never been more critical. It is imperative that the global community takes concerted and unwavering steps to ensure that no nation, regardless of its power or influence, remains above the reach of international law. Only through a collective commitment to upholding the tenets of international law can we foster a world order that is characterised by justice, equity, and peace for all nations.

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Featured image is from National File

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***

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spain’s acting social rights minister on Sunday urged Europe to act urgently against “planned genocide” in Palestine, reports Anadolu Agency.

Ione Belarra’s remarks came in a video shared on her X account, in which she spoke to reporters during a pro-Palestine protest in Madrid.

“Today we are here accompanying all the decent people of our country and also all those people throughout Europe who want to ask and demand an end once and for all to this planned genocide, this ethnic cleansing of the people of Palestine that is being carried out by the State of Israel,” Belarra said.

Click here to view the video.

The European leaders, including the Spanish, are “not up to the gravity of the circumstances,” she said and stressed:

“We do not want to be complicit in this planned genocide and we think that Europe must act urgently. I believe that Europe is going to pay dearly for this hypocrisy.”

She continued:

“The public is astonished to see how the whole position of the European Union is subordinated to the interests of the United States and the State of Israel.”

Saying that such a position can change today, the minister called on European countries once again to suspend diplomatic relations with Israel, and apply exemplary economic sanctions against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the entire political leadership, as well as an arms embargo.

“Of course, (we should) take Netanyahu to the International Criminal Court to be judged as what he is, a war criminal,” she said and added: “I insist, not with our silence and not with our complicity. We need the European Union to act.”

Israel has heavily bombarded Gaza since October 7 when the Palestinian group Hamas carried out a cross-border attack, killing 1,400 people, and taking many hostages.

The number of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza has risen to 8,005, including 3,342 children, 2,062 women, and 460 elderly, according to the Health Ministry.

The Israeli army’s spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, on Saturday announced “expanding its operations,” and moving to the “next phase of our war against Hamas,” which includes ground operations.

Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are also grappling with shortages of food, water, fuel, and medicine due to Israel’s blockade of the enclave.

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Israel’s military received orders to shell Israeli homes and even their own bases as they were overwhelmed by Hamas militants on October 7. How many Israeli citizens said to have been “burned alive” were actually killed by friendly fire?

Several new testimonies by Israeli witnesses to the October 7 Hamas surprise attack on southern Israel adds to growing evidence that the Israeli military killed its own citizens as they fought to neutralize Palestinian gunmen.

Tuval Escapa, a member of the security team for Kibbutz Be’eri, set up a hotline to coordinate between kibbutz residents and the Israeli army. He told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that as desperation began to set in,

“the commanders in the field made difficult decisions – including shelling houses on their occupants in order to eliminate the terrorists along with the hostages.”

A separate report published in Haaretz noted that the Israeli military was “compelled to request an aerial strike” against its own facility inside the Erez Crossing to Gaza “in order to repulse the terrorists” who had seized control. That base was filled with Israeli Civil Administration officers and soldiers at the time.

These reports indicate that orders came down from the military’s high command to attack homes and and other areas inside Israel, even at the cost of many Israeli lives.

An Israeli woman named Yasmin Porat confirmed in an interview with Israel Radio that the military “undoubtedly” killed numerous Israeli noncombatants during gun battles with Hamas militants on October 7.

“They eliminated everyone, including the hostages,” she stated, referring to Israeli special forces.

As David Sheen and Ali Abunimah reported in Electronic Intifada, Porat described “very, very heavy crossfire” and Israeli tank shelling, which led to many casualties among Israelis.

While being held by the Hamas gunmen, Porat recalled,

“They did not abuse us. We were treated very humanely… No one treated us violently.”

She added,

“The objective was to kidnap us to Gaza, not to murder us.”

According to Haaretz, the army was only able to restore control over Be’eri after admittedly “shelling” the homes of Israelis who had been taken captive.

“The price was terrible: at least 112 Be’eri residents were killed,” the paper chronicled. “Others were kidnapped. Yesterday, 11 days after the massacre, the bodies of a mother and her son were discovered in one of the destroyed houses. It is believed that more bodies are still lying in the rubble.”

Much of the shelling in Be’eri was carried out by Israeli tank crews. As a reporter for the Israeli Foreign Ministry-sponsored outlet i24 noted during a visit to Be’eri,

“small and quaint homes [were] bombarded or destroyed,” and “well-maintained lawns [were] ripped up by the tracks of an armored vehicle, perhaps a tank.”

Apache attack helicopters also figured heavily in the Israeli military’s response on October 7. Pilots have told Israeli media they scrambled to the battlefield without any intelligence, unable to differentiate between Hamas fighters and Israeli noncombatants, and yet determined to “empty the belly” of their war machines.

“I find myself in a dilemma as to what to shoot at, because there are so many of them,” one Apache pilot commented.

Video filmed by uniformed Hamas gunmen makes it clear they intentionally shot many Israelis with Kalashnikov rifles on October 7. However, the Israeli government has not been content to rely on verified video evidence. Instead, it continues to push discredited claims of “beheaded babies” while distributing photographs of “bodies burned beyond recognition”to insist that militants sadistically immolated their captives, and even raped some before torching them alive.

The objective behind Tel Aviv’s atrocity exhibition is clear: to paint Hamas as “worse than ISIS” while cultivating support for the Israeli army’s ongoing bombardment of the Gaza Strip, which has left over 7000 dead, including at least 2500 children at the time of publication. While hundreds of wounded children in Gaza have been treated for what a surgeon described as “fourth degree burns” caused by novel weapons, the Western media’s focus remains trained on Israeli citizens supposedly “burned alive” on October 7.

Yet the mounting evidence of friendly fire orders handed down by Israeli army commanders strongly suggests that at least some of the most jarring images of charred Israeli corpses, Israeli homes reduced to rubble and burned out hulks of vehicles presented to Western media were, in fact, the handiwork of tank crews and helicopter pilots blanketing Israeli territory with shells, cannon fire and Hellfire missiles.

Indeed, it appears that on October 7, Israel’s military resorted to the same tactics it has employed against civilians in Gaza, driving up the death toll of its own citizens with the indiscriminate use of heavy weapons.

Israel Bombs Its Own Base, Nerve Center of the Gaza Siege

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood at 6 AM on October 7, quickly overwhelming the military bases from which Israel maintain its siege of the Gaza Strip. Chief among the objectives outlined by Hamas and PIJ was the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, including as many as 700 children passing through the system each year along with 1264 Palestinians currently being held without charges.

The 2011 swap for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured five years prior and released in exchange for 1027 prisoners, provided clear inspiration for Al-Aqsa Flood. By storming military bases and kibbutzes, the Palestinian militants aimed to capture as many Israeli soldiers and civilians as possible, and bring them back to Gaza alive.

The lighting assault immediately overwhelmed Israel’s Gaza Division. Video recorded from GoPro cameras mounted on the helmets of Palestinian fighters shows Israeli soldiers cut down in rapid succession, many still dressed in underwear and caught off guard. At least 340 active soldiers and intelligence officers were killed on October 7, accounting for close to 50% of confirmed Israeli deaths. The casualties included high ranking officers like Col. Jonathan Steinberg, the commander of Israel’s Nahal Brigade. (Many first responders and armed Israeli civilians were also killed).

The Erez Crossing is the home of a massive military and Coordination of Government Activities in the [Occupied] Territories (COGAT) facility which functions as the nerve center of Israel’s siege on Gaza. When it was overrun by Palestinian fighters on October 7 with droves of army bureaucrats inside, the Israeli military flew into a panic.

According to Haaretz, the commander of the Gaza Division, Brig. Gen. Avi Rosenfeld,

“entrenched himself in the division’s subterranean war room together with a handful of male and female soldiers, trying desperately to rescue and organize the sector under attack. Many of the soldiers, most of them not combat personnel, were killed or wounded outside. The division was compelled to request an aerial strike against the [Erez Crossing] base itself in order to repulse the terrorists.”

Video released by Israel’s COGAT ten days after the battle – and the Israeli airstrike – shows severe structural damage to the roof of the Erez Crossing facility.

🔴 Israeli officials returned to the Erez Crossing on Israel's border with Gaza today for the time since the war's outbreak

Ministry of Defense personnel assessed the damage caused by Hamas terrorists to the crossing's infrastructure pic.twitter.com/Ax5t0UDGNR

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) October 17, 2023

Israeli Apache Helicopters Attack Inside Israel: “I find myself in a dilemma as to what to shoot at”

By 10:30 AM, according to an account the military gave to the Israeli news outlet Mako, “most of the [Palestinian] forces from the original invasion wave had already left the area for Gaza.” But with the rapid collapse of the Israeli military’s Gaza Division, looters, common onlookers and low-level guerrillas not necessarily under the command of Hamas flowed freely into Israel.

By this point, Israel’s two Apache helicopter squadrons had 8 choppers in the air, “and there was almost no intelligence to help make fateful decisions,” Mako reported. The squadrons did not reach full strength until noon.

As the wave of infiltrations from Gaza drove chaos on the ground, discombobulated Israeli pilots unleashed a frenzy of missile and machine gun salvos: “The Apache pilots testify that they fired a huge amount of munitions, emptied the ‘belly of the helicopter’ in minutes, flew to re-arm and returned to the air, again and again. But it didn’t help and they understand it,” Mako reported.

The Apache helicopters appear to have focused on vehicles streaming back into Gaza from the Nova electronic music festival and nearby kibbutzes, attacked cars with apparent knowledge that Israeli captives could be inside. They also fired on unarmed people exiting cars or walking on foot through the fields on the periphery of Gaza.

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸Israeli AH-64 Apache attacking Hamas fighters with it's cannon and missiles. pic.twitter.com/flzwHYP7dg

— Heyman_101 (@SU_57R) October 9, 2023

In an interview with Israel’s Mako news outlet, one Apache pilot reflected on the tortuous dilemma of whether to shoot at people and cars returning to Gaza. He knew that many of those vehicles may have contained Israeli captives. But he chose to open fire anyway.

“I choose targets like that,” the pilot reflected, “where I tell myself that the chance that I am shooting here on hostages as well is low.”

However, he admitted that his judgment “was not 100%.”

“I understand that we have to shoot here and quickly,” the commander of the Apache unit, Lt. Col. E., told Mako in a separate report. “Shooting at people in our territory – this is something I never thought I would do.”

Lt. Col. A., a reserve pilot in the same unit, described a fog of confusion:

“I find myself in a dilemma as to what to shoot at, because there are so many of them.”

A report on the Apache squadrons by the Israeli outlet Yedioth Aharanoth noted that

“the pilots realized that there was tremendous difficulty in distinguishing within the occupied outposts and settlements who was a terrorist and who was a soldier or civilian… The rate of fire against the thousands of terrorists was tremendous at first, and only at a certain point did the pilots begin to slow down the attacks and carefully select the targets.”

A squadron commander explained to Mako how he nearly attacked the home of an Israeli family occupied by Hamas militants, and wound up firing next to it with cannon rounds.

“Our forces hadn’t had time to reach this settlement yet,” the pilot recalled, “and I’ve already run out of missiles there, which is the more accurate weaponry.”

With the family inside a fortified bomb shelter,

the pilot “decided to shoot a cannon 30 meters from this house, a very difficult decision. I shoot so that if they are currently there, they will hear the bombs inside the house, that they understand that it is known they are there, and with the hope that they will leave that house. I am also telling you the truth, it crossed my mind that I was shooting at the house.”

Ultimately, the Israeli helicopter pilots blamed clever Hamas tactics for their inability to distinguish between the armed militants and Israeli non-combatants.

“The Hamas army, it turns out, deliberately made it difficult for the helicopter pilots and the operators of the UAVs,” Yedioth Aharanoth claimed.

According to the Israeli paper,

“it became clear that the invading forces were asked in the last briefings to walk slowly into the settlements and outposts or within them, and under no circumstances to run, in order to make the pilots think they were Israelis. This deception worked for a considerable time , until the Apache pilots realized that they had to skip all the restrictions. It was only around 9:00 a.m. that some of them began to spray the terrorists with the cannons on their own, without authorization from superiors.”

And so, without any intelligence or ability to distinguish between Palestinian and Israeli, the pilots let loose a fury of cannon and missile fire onto Israeli areas below.

One of many homes in Kibbutz Be’eri which appears to have been shelled with heavy weapons

Israel’s Military “Eliminated Everyone, Including the Hostages,” Firing Tank Shells Into Kibbutz Homes

Photos of the aftermath of the fighting inside kibbutzes like Be’eri – and of the Israeli bombardment of these communities – show rubble and charred homes that resemble the aftermath of Israeli tank and artillery attacks inside Gaza. As Tuval Escapa, the security coordinator at Kibbutz Be’eri, told Haaretz, Israeli army commanders had ordered the “shelling [of] houses on their occupants in order to eliminate the terrorists along with the hostages.”

Yasmin Porat, an attendee of the Nova music festival who fled into Kibbutz Be’eri, told Israeli Radio that when Israeli special forces arrived during a hostage standoff,

“They eliminated everyone, including the hostages because there was very, very heavy crossfire.”

“After insane crossfire,” Porat continued, “two tank shells were shot into the house. It’s a small kibbutz house, nothing big.”

Destroyed homes in Kibbutz Be’eri following the fighting on October 7, which included Israeli tank shelling of residences

A video posted by the Telegram account of Israel’s South Responders shows the bodies of Israelis discovered below the rubble of a home destroyed by a powerful explosive blast – likely a tank shell. The right-wing New York Post ran a report on a similar incident about a boy’s body found scorched beneath the ruins of his home in Be’eri.

The phenomenon of charred corpses whose hands and ankles had been tied, and who were found in groups beneath the rubble of destroyed homes, also raises questions about “friendly” tank fire.

Yasmin Porat, the hostage who survived a standoff at Be’eri, described how Hamas militants tied her partner’s hands behind his back. After one militant commander surrendered, using her as a human shield to ensure his safety, she saw her partner lying on the ground, still alive. She stated that Israeli security forces “undoubtedly” killed him and the other hostages as they opened fire on the remaining militants inside, including with tank shells.

Israeli security forces also opened fire on fleeing Israelis whom they mistook for Hamas gunmen. A resident of Ashkelon named Danielle Rachiel described nearly being killed after escaping from the Nova music festival when it was attacked by militants from Gaza.

“As we reached the roundabout [at a kibbutz], we saw Israeli security forces!” Rachiel recalled. “We held our heads down [because] we automatically knew they’d be suspicious of us, in a small beat-up car… from the same direction the terrorists were coming from. Our forces began shooting at us!”

“When our forces fired at us, our windows shattered,” she continued. It was only when they shouted in Hebrew, “We’re Israelis!” that the shooting stopped, and they were taken to safety.

Some Israelis were not as lucky as Rachiel. Adi Ohana was shot dead by Israeli police near his home after being mistaken for a Palestinian guerrilla.

“An innocent man was killed in the most negligent way possible,” his niece complained.

Israeli media is now filling up with reports of the military gunning down fellow Israelis, even as they were defending their homes from Palestinian gunmen.

Did Israel’s Now-disappeared “Hamas Atrocity” Photos Depict Dead Hamas Fighters?

Among the most gruesome videos of the aftermath of October 7, also published on the Telegram account of South Responders, shows a car full of charred corpses (below) at the entrance of Kibbutz Be’eri. The Israeli government has portrayed these casualties as Israeli victims of sadistic Hamas violence. However, the melted steel body and collapsed roof of the car, and the comprehensively scorched corpses inside, evidence a direct hit from a Hellfire missile.

It is also possible that the male occupants of the car were Hamas activists who had streamed in after the fences were breached. They may have also been returning to Gaza with Israeli captives inside their car.

Israel’s UN ambassador, Gilad Erdan, appears to have promoted photos showing dead Hamas fighters during his October 26 tirade at the United Nations. Erdan gesticulated angrily at the podium, bellowing that “we are fighting animals” before whipping out a paper displaying a QR code captionioned, “Scan to see Hamas’ atrocities.”

When I scanned the code that day at noon, I found around 8 grisly images of burned bodies and blackened body parts. One showed a pile of completely charred male corpses piled into a dumpster. Would Israeli rescuers and medics have disposed of dead Jewish Israelis in such a fashion?

All Israelis killed on October 7 appear to have been collected in individual body bags and transported to morgues. Meanwhile, numerous videos recorded by Israelis showed them defiling the corpses of Hamas gunmen killed by security forces – stripping them naked, urinating on them, and mutilating their bodies. Throwing their bodies in a dumpster would seem to be a part of the de facto policy of corpse abuse.

Just over twelve hours after Ambassador Erdan promoted the supposed Hamas atrocity photos at the UN, the Google Drive file contained only one brief video. Among the mysteriously disappeared photos was the image of the dumpster filled with burned bodies. Had it been deleted because it showed Hamas fighters torched by a Hellfire missile, and not Israelis “burned to death” by Hamas?

Israeli ambassador Gilad Erdan at the UN, October 26. The QR code he displayed currently leads to a 404 notice.

Destruction Reminiscent of Israeli Attacks on Gaza

Some rescuers who arrived at sites of carnage in southern Israel after October 7 said they had never seen such destruction. For those who have borne witness to Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip, however, the images of bombed-out homes and burned cars should have been familiar.

While reporting on Israel’s 51 day-long assault on Gaza in 2014, I came across a destroyed vehicle in central Gaza City belonging to a young taxi driver named Fadel Alawan who had been assassinated by an Israeli drone after he unwittingly dropped a wounded Hamas fighter off at a nearby hospital. Inside the car, the remains of Alawan’s sandal could still be seen melted into the gas pedal.

By the afternoon of October 7, placid settlements and desert roads across southern Israel were charred and lined with bombed-out cars that looked much like Alawan’s. Were the lightly-armed Hamas fighters actually capable of exacting destruction on such a comprehensive scale?

Fadel Alawah drove a wounded man to a hospital, not knowing he was a fighter. Here's what a drone did to his car: pic.twitter.com/84GTpgPxSo

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) August 16, 2014

Is the Israeli Government Distributing Photos of Friendly Fire Casualties?

This October 23, Israel’s government gathered members of the international press for an off-the-record propaganda session. Inside a closed military base, officials bombarded the press with snuff films and a collection of lurid allegations of “harrowing scenes of murder, torture and decapitation from Hamas’s October 7 onslaught,” according to the Times of Israel.

Hundreds of journalists and photographers from media companies all over the world attended today the screening of a film of assorted footage showing the extent of the horrors committed by Hamas.

Footage was taken from numerous sources, including from bodycams worn by the… pic.twitter.com/c2HRdI98Lh

— (((Emanuel Miller))) 🌻 (@emanumiller) October 23, 2023

In perhaps the most unsettling document presented by the Israeli government, reporters were treated to video showing “a partially burned woman’s corpse, with a mutilated head… The dead woman’s dress is pulled up to her waist and her underpants have been removed,” according to the Times of Israel.

Daniel Amram, the most popular private news blogger in Israel, tweeted the video of the woman’s burned corpse, claiming that “she was raped and burned alive.”

Dear @GretaThunberg, please watch this family who just found her sister after she was raped and burned alive,
they can't even recognize her. their own sister.
They do it in the name of "free palestine" today you gave them a reason and justification to continue. Be proud. pic.twitter.com/UDh1a1pz9g

— daniel amram – דניאל עמרם (@danielamram3) October 20, 2023

In fact, the young woman appeared to have been killed instantly by a powerful blast. And she seemed to have been removed from the car in which she was seated – and which may have belonged to a captor from Gaza. The vehicle was comprehensively destroyed and situated on a dirt field, as many others attacked by Apache helicopters were. She was scantily clad with her legs spread apart.

Though she had attended the Nova electronic music festival, where many female attendees dressed in skimpy attire, and her bent limbs were typical of a body that had been seated in a car after rigor mortis, Israeli pundits and officials ran with the claim she had been raped.

But the allegations of sexual assault have so far proven baseless. Israeli army spokesman Mickey Edelstein insisted to reporters at the October 23 press briefing that “we have evidence” of rape, but when asked for proof, he told the Times of Israel, “we cannot share it.”

Was this young woman yet another casualty of the Israeli military’s friendly fire orders? Only an independent investigation can determine the truth.

Israel’s Military Kills Israeli Captives Inside Gaza, Grumbles About Their Release

Inside Gaza, where some 200 Israeli citizens are held hostage, there is little doubt about who is killing the captives. On October 26, the Hamas armed wing known as the Al-Qassam Brigades announced that Israel had killed “almost 50 captives” in missile strikes.

If Israel’s military had intentionally targeted areas where it knew the captives were held, its actions would have been consistent with Israel’s Hannibal Directive. The military procedure was established in 1986 following the Jibril Agreement, a deal in which Israel traded 1150 Palestinian prisoners for three Israeli soldiers. Following heavy political backlash, the Israeli military drafted a secret field order to prevent future kidnappings. The proposed operation drew its name from the Carthaginian general who chose to poison himself rather than be held captive by the enemy.

The last confirmed application of the Hannibal Directive took place on August 1, 2014 in Rafah, Gaza, when Hamas fighters captured an Israeli officer, Lt. Hadar Goldin, prompting the military to unleash more than 2000 bombs, missiles and shells on the area, killing the soldier along with over 100 Palestinian civilians.

Whether or not Israel is intentionally killing its captive citizens in Gaza, it has proven strangely allergic to their immediate release. On October 22, after refusing an offer from Hamas to release 50 hostages in exchange for fuel, Israel rejected an offer from Hamas to free Yocheved Lifshitz, an 85-year-old Israeli peace activist, and her 79-year-old friend, Nurit Cooper.

When Israel agreed to their release a day later, video showed Liftshitz clasping hands with a Hamas militant and intoning “Shalom” to him as he escorted her out of Gaza. During a press conference that day, she recounted the humane treatment she received from her captors.

Following her release from Gaza by Hamas, 85 year old Yosheved Lifshitz is interviewed about her experience in captivity. pic.twitter.com/MOTEJ82BmB

— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) October 24, 2023

The spectacle of Lifshitz’s release was treated as a propaganda disaster by the Israeli government’s spinmeisters, with officials grumbling that allowing her to speak publicly was a grave “mistake.”

The Israeli military was no less displeased by her sudden freedom. As the Times of Israel reported,

“The army is concerned that further hostage releases by Hamas could lead the political leadership to delay a ground incursion or even halt it midway.”

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The editor-in-chief of The Grayzone, Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including best-selling Republican Gomorrah, Goliath, The Fifty One Day War, and The Management of Savagery. He has produced print articles for an array of publications, many video reports, and several documentaries, including Killing Gaza. Blumenthal founded The Grayzone in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on America’s state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions.

All images in this article are from TG

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We repost this incisive article by Rima Najjar, first published in 2018, which focusses on the plight and courage of the Palestinian people and the history Israeli bombings of Gaza. 

***

Despite Israel’s intensive cover-up of its ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people, stark images and indisputable facts continue to seep through from the Gaza Strip.

The world has never witnessed a braver, more steadfast and resolute people than the en-caged Palestinians of Gaza — and that goes for every man, woman and child, from Hamas down, enduring unspeakable conditions and saying, in a voice that should be familiar to most Americans, give me liberty or give me death.

We have all witnessed what Israel’s response to this anguished cry has been and the ultimate sacrifices the Palestinians in Gaza continue to pay, most recently with the life of a young paramedic, Razan Najjar (21).

Razan Najjar’s hometown of Salama, five kilometers east of Jaffa, is now on Visualizing Palestine’s map “Short Walk Home; Long Walk to Freedom” – revealing what Haaretz hides by insidiously (given the context of the Great March of Return)  referring to her “hometown” as Khuza’a, instead.  More than 70 percent of the Palestinian population on the Gaza Strip are refugees from their hometowns, now usurped by Jews.

That any person with an ounce of human empathy would write about Israel’s so-called “humanitarian aid” to the Palestinians of Gaza or deny the misery of their human condition as exiles and refugees from their homes and lands just a few kilometers away fills me with an unbearable sorrow and rage.

Western media continue to use the Jewish state of Israel as a foil to Islam by saying very little about Israel’s avowedly religious character and a lot about Hamas’s.

Now, more than ever, Israel’s “security” has become an automatic euphemism for fending off Islam [currently in the shape of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran], and perpetuating Western hegemony.

The reality, though, is that Israel’s modernization is skin deep, as the reigning paradigm for its continued existence is not a simple secular nationalism for all who live in it but an ideologically exclusionary social and political policy toward non-Jews based on an ancient tribal identity.

Israel’s worldwide hasbara machine continues to deny the fundamental human rights of Palestinians, and in doing so, dehumanizes them. As this headline says, ‘When Tel Aviv goes to war, universities and activists are organized to beat back the bad news.’

“Israel not to blame for Palestinian deaths; Hamas is to blame” are the links I found on Google from every conceivable source for the first few pages of an inquiry into the legality of the blockade. It was only on page five (in my own search) that I came to: Don’t Blame Hamas for the Gaza Bloodshed from Human Rights Watch.

Israeli propaganda deflects the situation and blames the victim even as reports, such as the following on Israel’s horrific blockade of the Gaza Strip by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, continue to detail the disastrous situation there:

“Despite widespread recognition that the situation in Gaza is unsustainable, unliveable, and in many ways horrific, little progress has been made in improving the humanitarian situation of the people there.”

Israel has a long history of running afoul of international law and then trying to “talk away” its violations by employing lawyers to find legal technical loopholes to squeeze itself through and avoid complying with various international conventions to which it is a party. If you search the Internet, you will find many examples of this unconscionable legal “disputation”.

A quick example is Israel’s 1967 military occupation of the rest of the territory of Arab Palestine. In 1948, as many people are now aware, the European settler-colonial Zionist movement set up shop on 78 percent of historic Palestine as a Jewish state by ethnic cleansing most of the non-Jewish Palestinian Arab population.

Israel now claims that it does not “legally” occupy the remaining 1967 territory it invaded, and therefore it does not have to abide by the Geneva Convention. 

In fact, you will find people all over the internet still “disputing” all kinds of facts related to the violent establishment of Israel on most of the territory called Palestine and described on maps as Palestine for centuries. 

The disputations include preposterous statements denying both the existence of Palestine as a geographic region as well as the existence of non-Jewish Palestinian Arabs and their claim to the land on which they had existed for millennia.

The legal semantics regarding Israel’s siege of Gaza revolve around whether “Israel and Hamas” are involved in an “international armed conflict” (IAC) or not. If they are, that supposedly gives Israel the right to blockade Gaza. The legality of Israel’s blockade of Gaza, according to this version of events,

“seems to depend on its willingness to concede that it is occupying Gaza and is thus in an IAC with Hamas. But Israel does not want to do that, because it would then be bound by the very restrictive rules of belligerent occupation in the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

In an alternative strategy, when Israel finds itself under international attack on a certain issue, it uses its powerful ally, the U.S., to veto or influence outcomes involving UN “panels” in its favor.

In the case of the siege of the Gaza Strip and the question of the legality of that siege, here is a Haaretz headline that sums up the situation:

“Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip violates international law, a panel of human rights experts reporting to a UN body said on Tuesday, disputing a conclusion reached by a separate UN probe into Israel’s raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship.”

In an honors dissertation (2011), Elisha A. Kemp argues that

“The blockade is disproportionate and therefore illegal under international law. In assessing proportionality, the harm to the civilian population must be looked at as a whole. The combined harm the land blockade and naval blockade cause the civilian population in Gaza greatly outweigh any military advantage Israel derives from the naval blockade. Under the Oslo Accords, Israel already has the power to prevent missiles from being imported. The naval blockade is an unnecessary measure.”

When will the West learn that its allegiance to a Jewish state in Palestine is devoid of all human decency and compassion?

*

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Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The Roots of Radicalism and the Structure of Evil. “The Israeli Slaughter of Palestinians Is Evident for All to See”. Edward Curtin

By Edward Curtin, October 30, 2023

The United States government exists to wage war. In its present form, it would crumble without it; and in its present form, it will crumble with it. Only a radical structural change will prevent this. For war-making is at the core of its budget, its raison d’être – 816.7 billion for the Fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act alone – a deficit-financed sum that tells only part of the story.

Did Russia Really “Steal” American Hypersonic Technology? Or Does the U.S. “Lag Far Behind”?

By Drago Bosnic, October 30, 2023

On October 23, former US President Donald Trump held a rally in Derry, New Hampshire. During the speech, Trump made several accusations on the account of his predecessor Barack Obama. Among other things, he claimed that the latter was responsible for Russia’s ability to build “super-duper rockets”, a colloquialism of Trump’s mint that broadly refers to hypersonic weapons.

COVID Vaccines: Cardiac Damage by LNPs, mRNA and Spike Protein

By Dr. William Makis, October 30, 2023

Lipid Nanoparticles (LNPs) with mRNA are delivered throughout the body, including the heart, and they can be found throughout the heart, in cardiac cells as well as non-cardiac cells. LNPs increase certain inflammatory cytokines that may contribute to heart inflammation (varies with type of LNP and mRNA inside).

Muddled Interventions: Haiti, the UN and Resolution 2699

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, October 30, 2023

A country broken by constant foreign interventions, its tyrannical regimes propped up by the back brace of the United States (when it wasn’t intervening to adjust it), marred by appalling natural disasters, tells a sad tale of the crippled Haitian state. 

Alleged “Democracies” and Middle East Kingdoms Share Responsibility for Gaza Massacre

By Azhar Azam, October 30, 2023

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu indeed is heading the most right-wing government of ultranationalist Jews in Israeli history. His top aides want to tighten the country’s control on the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, Israel captured in 1967 and Palestinians aspire to make their future state. 

“A Textbook Case of Genocide Unfolding in Front of our Eyes.” The Military Industrial Complex and the “Corporate Enablers” of Israel’s War on Gaza

By Molly Gott and Derek Seidman, October 30, 2023

Five of the top six global defense corporations are based in the U.S. They are Lockheed Martin, RTX (formerly Raytheon), Northrop Grumman, Boeing and General Dynamics. All five have long sold weapons to Israel that are used against Palestinians, and they have been mentioned in the news recently as being tied to weapons sales or potential weapons sales around the current assault on Gaza.

US Secretly Expands Classified Military Base in Occupied Territories: Report

By Pars Today, October 30, 2023

In a report on Saturday, the American news organization The Intercept said that the Pentagon was quietly moving ahead to construct facilities for American troops at its secret military base – codenamed Site 512 – deep within the Negev Desert, just 20 miles from the Gaza Strip.

March 9, 2022: Biden Signed the Death Warrant on American Freedom. The Digital Takeover of the Financial System

By James G. Rickards, October 30, 2023

Where were you on March 9, 2022, when President Biden signed the death warrant on American freedom? On that day, in a hushed ceremony at the White House without the approval of Congress, the states or the American people, Biden signed into law Executive Order 14067.

10 Questions for US Media Covering Gaza War. Ralph Nader

By Ralph Nader, October 30, 2023

Why is Congress preparing to appropriate over $14 billion to Israel in military and other aid without any public hearings and without any demonstrated fiscal need by Israel, a prosperous economic, technological, and military superpower with a social safety net superior to that of the U.S.?

Israel’s Terrifying Arsenal of Robot Weaponry: How AI-powered Turrets, Remote-control Boats and Unmanned Attack Bots Will be Used as the IDF Prepares for a Full-scale Ground Invasion of Gaza

By William Hunter, October 30, 2023

Along the border wall separating Israel and the Gaza Strip, tens of thousands of soldiers are making the final preparations for a full-scale ground invasion. But soon, the sight of massed troops might seem as much a relic of the past as knights on horseback appear to us now. 

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***

On October 23, former US President Donald Trump held a rally in Derry, New Hampshire. During the speech, Trump made several accusations on the account of his predecessor Barack Obama. Among other things, he claimed that the latter was responsible for Russia’s ability to build “super-duper rockets”, a colloquialism of Trump’s mint that broadly refers to hypersonic weapons.

“Russia stole the super. We call them the super-dupers, right? They go superfast. They stole that during the Obama administration. They stole the plans. It was all very highly classified. They stole the plans and they built it,” he said at the rally.

Trump didn’t go into details about the supposed “intellectual property theft” and given the rather rudimentary phraseology he used (or the complete lack thereof), he probably couldn’t.

Trump’s extremely limited understanding of advanced military technology, combined with an attempt to appease his potential voters resulted in an “unfortunate” choice of words. While it’s true that the United States has a number of hypersonic weapons programs, the reality is that the country lags far behind both Russia and China in terms of deployment and weapons capabilities. Worse yet, even regional powers such as North Korea and Iran are now either on par with the US or have even eclipsed it in both the deployment and the overall performance of such weapons.

Currently, the weapons Washington DC can field are nonexistent. As previously mentioned, the Pentagon is working on several programs, but is nowhere near an operational weapon, despite claims and futile attempts to present itself as a global leader in such technologies.

On the other hand, Russia has already deployed HGVs (Hypersonic Glide Vehicles) and HCMs (Hypersonic Cruise Missiles), both ship and ground-based, as well as air-launched hypersonic missiles that aren’t based on either, but a highly maneuverable propulsion technology derived from earlier ballistic missiles (primarily the legendary Soviet-era “Oka-U”). Thus, the claim that Russia “stole” the required technology from the US under the Obama administration is completely illogical, given that Washington DC is the one significantly lagging behind Moscow, not vice versa.

Another important thing to note is that it’s also impossible to just “give” someone such advanced technology as if it were a physical object that one loses the moment they part ways with it.

This laughable claim has been parroted by many US officials in an attempt to support the myth of America’s supposed “technological superiority”.

In order to better understand just how far behind the US is, we’ll use the example of HGVs only, without going into details about other types of weapons that the belligerent thalassocracy is years away from deployment. Publicly available stats of deployed and prospective strategic HGVs are certainly not conclusive, as the actual data is indeed highly classified. However, the information published so far indicates the following.

Russian “Avangard” HGV: maximum speed – Mach 28 (34301.23 km/h or 9.6 km/s). Operational status – Active (2019).

China’s DF-ZF HGV: speed – classified, presumed to be between Mach 5 (6,173 km/h or 1.7 km/s) and Mach 10 (12,360 km/h or 3.4 km/s). Operational status – Active (2019).

American AGM-183A ARRW: maximum speed – claimed to be Mach 8 (9,541 km/h; 2.7 km/s). Operational status – initially planned for deployment in 2023, canceled after repeated failures and/or falsely reported “successful” launches.

It should be noted that the cancelation of the air-launched AGM-183A was a major setback for the US, as it came the furthest in the development of at least nine R&D programs currently underway. It’s unclear if the US was motivated by the sheer embarrassment of being so far behind or some other reasoning, but the US Army officially announced it would induct the land-based LRHW (Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon) into service, even though the weapon had no successful operational tests.

What’s more, in early September, the Pentagon canceled testing for the third time in a row and announced it would be postponing it, which is wholly unheard of for a weapon system that’s already supposed to be “operational”.

Worse yet, American military experts keep parroting that the missile is “far more advanced” than the Russian 9-A-7660 “Kinzhal” because its range and speed are 2,875 km and Mach 17 (20,275 km/h or 5.8 km/s), respectively. Indeed, on paper, the LRHW’s speed is approximately 50-70% greater than the “Kinzhal’s”. However, in reality, those numbers mean nothing, because they are based on program calculations, not actual tests. As previously mentioned, not a single operational LRHW has been fired so far. Also, it’s important to understand that there is a vastly different technological approach in the development of two weapons. The “Kinzhal” is not an HGV, meaning that LRHW should be compared to “Avangard” or DF-ZF.

Firstly, HGVs are not exactly missiles. Namely, they are unpowered and require a launch vehicle or a booster. The AGM-183A ARRW that the United States recently canceled went through a rather rocky R&D process, with the weapon initially being unable to go past the Mach 5 mark, which is the bare minimum required to attain hypersonic speed (5+ times faster than the speed of sound). Lockheed Martin’s R&D team projected that the weapon is capable of speeds of up to Mach 20, but encountered insurmountable obstacles while trying to achieve it. The problem mainly involves the HGV’s (in)ability to survive extreme heat generated during hypersonic flight, probably resulting in the destruction of its highly sensitive microelectronics.

While the US is struggling to make a functioning HGV, which is by far the highest level of hypersonic technology a country could possibly develop, Russia is quite literally decades ahead, both in weapon capabilities and deployment. Namely, Moscow recently rearmed half of its ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) with HGV warheads. On the other hand, Russia is also even further ahead in the development of hypersonic missiles such as the “Kinzhal” and the scramjet-powered “Zircon”, in addition to a plethora of other types such as SAMs (surface-to-air missiles) and AA (air-to-air) hypersonic missiles it uses on its unrivaled air defense platforms and superb fighter jets.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

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***

Image Source: Sep.19, 2023 – Nakahara et al

Papers reviewed 

• Oct. 12, 2023 – Schreckenberg et al – Cardiac side effects of RNA-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccines: Hidden cardiotoxic effects of mRNA-1273 and BNT162b2 on ventricular myocyte function and structure

• Sep. 19, 2023 – Nakahara et al – Assessment of Myocardial ¹⁸F-FDG Uptake at PET/CT in Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2–vaccinated and Nonvaccinated Patients
• Aug. 17, 2023 – Parry et al – ‘Spikeopathy’: COVID-19 Spike Protein Is Pathogenic, from Both Virus and Vaccine mRNA
• May 5, 2023 – Barmada et al – Cytokinopathy with aberrant cytotoxic lymphocytes and profibrotic myeloid response in SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine–associated myocarditis

Oct. 12, 2023 – Schreckenberg et al – Cardiac side effects of RNA-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccines: Hidden cardiotoxic effects of mRNA-1273 and BNT162b2 on ventricular myocyte function and structure

• Germany/Hungary study
• studied Pfizer & Moderna COVID-19 mRNA jab effects on adult rat heart cells
• at 24 hours, heart cells looked and functioned normally (Pfizer and Moderna)
• at 48 hours, Moderna treated heart cells had arrhythmic, irregular, partially peristaltic contracting myocytes
• at 72 hours, Moderna treated heart cells almost completely stopped functioning
• at 48 hours, Pfizer treated heart cells contracted rhythmically and uniformly, but showed increase in cell shortening, contraction velocity, relaxation velocity
• at 72 hours, Pfizer treated heart cells, only 27% contract normally.
• mRNA detected all over the heart, taken up by heart cells but also non-heart cells like endothelial cells and fibroblasts (more mRNA uptake than heart cells).
• spike protein was detected at 48 hours for Pfizer and Moderna
• Discussion:
  • Pfizer and Moderna mRNA sequences are different, LNPs are different.
  • LNP-mRNA didn’t damage heart cells in this study, but not possible to make any conclusions as LNP controls are not available to study
  • enough spike protein must be translated to cause heart cell damage by both Pfizer and Moderna
  • Pfizer and Moderna cause abnormalities in heart cell function but through different mechanisms
    • Moderna causes dysfunction of calcium channels leading to arrhythmic and irregular contractions
    • Pfizer messes with PKA (protein Kinase A), causes sustained PKA activation, stimulation of beta-adrenergic signaling – increased heart rate
    • Increasing Pfizer dose 3x doesn’t give Moderna effects at all.
  • Both Pfizer and Moderna mechanisms are risk factors for sudden cardiac death, ventricular tachyarrhythmias and contractile dysfunction.
  • Both Pfizer and Moderna cause cardiomyopathy, which is clinically diagnosed as myocarditis or pericarditis.

Sep. 19, 2023 – Nakahara et al – Assessment of Myocardial ¹⁸F-FDG Uptake at PET/CT in Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2–vaccinated and Nonvaccinated Patients 

• Japanese retrospective study looked at imaging vaccinated and unvaccinated patients with radioactively labeled sugar (FDG) and PET/CT (normally used to diagnose cancer or inflammatory diseases)
• Vaccinated patients had higher FDG uptake than unvaccinated for up to 6 months after their 2nd mRNA dose, but not longer than 6 months.
• Pfizer patients had similar uptake to Moderna patients
• Abnormal uptake in lymph nodes was seen up to 4 months
• Conclusions:
  • Pfizer and Moderna cause heart inflammation that can last up to 6 months after last dose (although this is not the ideal imaging test for this)
  • Pfizer and Moderna cause a similar degree of heart inflammation
  • Pfizer and Moderna also cause inflammation in the lymph nodes on the injected side for up to 4 months

Aug. 17, 2023 – Parry et al – ‘Spikeopathy’: COVID-19 Spike Protein Is Pathogenic, from Both Virus and Vaccine mRNA

• SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is pathogenic, whether from the virus, mRNA or adenovectorDNA vaccines.
• Biodistribution rodent study data show lipid nanoparticles carry mRNA to all organs and cross blood-brain and blood-placenta barriers. Some of these tissues are likely to be impervious to viral infection; therefore, the biohazard is particularly from vaccination.
• Lipid-nanoparticles have inflammatory properties.
• Modification of mRNA with N1-methylpseudouridine for increased stability leads to the production of spike proteins for months. It is uncertain how many cells and from which organs mRNA spike proteins are produced, and therefore, the exact effective dose delivered per vaccine vial is unknown.
• Long-term fate of mRNA within cells is currently unknown.
• mRNA and adenovector DNA vaccines act as ‘synthetic viruses’.
• In the young and healthy, and even in many older individuals with vulnerable comorbidities, the encoding-based COVID-19 vaccines will likely transfect a far more diverse set of tissues than infection by the virus itself.
• Evidence suggests reverse transcription of mRNA into a DNA copy is possible. This further suggests the possibility of intergenerational transmission if germline cells incorporate the DNA copy into the host genome.
• Production of foreign proteins such as spike protein on cell surfaces can induce autoimmune responses and tissue damage. This has profoundly negative implications for any future mRNA-based drug or vaccine.
• Spike protein exerts its pathophysiological effects (‘spikeopathy’) via several mechanisms that lead to inflammation, thrombogenesis, and endotheliitis-related tissue damage and prion-related dysregulation.
• Interaction of the vaccine-encoded spike protein with ACE-2, P53 and BRCA1 suggests a wide range of possible biological interference with oncological potential.
• Adverse event data from official pharmacovigilance databases, an FDA-Pfizer report obtained via FOI, show high rates and multiple organ systems affected: primarily neurological, cardiovascular, and reproductive.
• Pfizer and Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccines’ clinical trial data independently interpreted has been peer-review and published to show an unfavourable risk/benefit, especially in the non-elderly. The risks for children clearly outweigh the benefits.
• Repeated COVID-19 vaccine booster doses appear to induce tolerance and may contribute to recurrent COVID-19 infection and ‘long COVID’.
• Treatment modalities for ‘spikeopathy’-related pathology in many organ systems, require urgent research and provision to millions of sufferers of long-term COVID-19 vaccine injuries.

Gene-based technologies:

• unprecedented number of adverse events appears to be associated with the spike proteins produced by the gene-based technologies employed by Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, J&J
• Non-western countries use small quantities of gene-based vaccines: Sputnik V and EpiVacCorona COVID-19 vaccines in Russia, iNCOVACC in India, and Convidecia in China – but majority are traditional protein-based or inactivated virus non-genetic vaccines.
• mRNA never used before (only in experimental settings, to treat metastatic cancer)
• viral-vectorDNA vaccines had limited use in Ebola, Dengue, Japanese encephalitis
• Operation Warp Speed / Department of Defense – many safety testing and toxicology protocols were bypassed to get Emergency Use Authorization status.
• Pfizer biodistribution study (42 rats injected with 50ug mRNA, 21 rates 100 ug)
  • by 48hr, 75% of the injection left the injection site for elsewhere
  • LNPs go mostly to liver & spleen, but also everywhere else
  • small mRNA quantities in liver & lymph nodes can produce high levels of spike protein – can’t predict spike production
• mRNA found in blood plasma at 28 days, in lymph nodes at 60 days after jab.
• LNP-mRNA complexes are around 100nm in size, should be processed by liver but they’re bound by macrophages (Kupffer cells) which slows down their processing
• Pfizer & Moderna LNPs are significantly inflammatory on their own
• Novavax has spike proteins bound to a lipid nanoparticle – can cause myocarditis (the nanoparticle itself could be causing the myocarditis)
• Astrazeneca vector DNA also found distantly (bone marrow, liver, spleen, lung)
• AstraZeneca spike protein has been found in clots and brain vessel walls

Traditional Vaccines in India and China Not Causing High Number of Adverse Events:

• Traditional vaccines: inactivated virus vaccine technologies such as Covaxin manufactured by Bharat Biotech in India, and CoronaVac made by Sinovac in China
• also traditional recombinant protein-based COVID-19 vaccines such as Spikogen, jointly developed by Australian and Iranian-based companies
• Traditional COVID-19 vaccines have not produced the high rates of adverse event reports that characterize the gene-based COVID-19 vaccines.
• This is further evidence that the risk is in the body-wide biodistribution and prolonged production of spike proteins.
• It points to pathogenicity of the spike protein and, given the evidence described above, also the lipid-nanoparticle carrier matrix.

Autoimmune Risk of Foreign Antigens Presented by the Body’s Own Cells

• spike protein is innately toxic
• even if it wasn’t toxic, it is still foreign and could produce autoimmune damage
• LNP delivers mRNA to all organs
• expression of spike on cell surfaces and as a soluble protein within organs and blood stream induces T-cell destruction of cells, and B-cell antibodies that can cause immune complex deposition further damaging tissues

Virus Spike vs Vaccine Spike 

• natural course of new pandemic viruses is to become more infectious and less pathogenic with time
• Omicron has been highly infectious but significantly less pathogenic than original Wuhan strain or delta
• If a person suffers wide biodistribution of LNP/mRNA, they produce much more spike than with natural virus – especially if young and healthy
• The elderly and those with co-morbidities have greater risk of serious COVID infection deep in the lungs and systemically (unlike young people)

Cardiovascular Pathogenesis

• there are 432 COVID-19 Vaccine Cardiac Injury papers published (myocarditis, pericarditis, cardiomyopathy, myocardial infarction, hypertension, aortic dissection, POTS, tachycardia and conduction disturbance”
• Yonker et al found free spike protein in blood of 16 young people who developed post vaccine myocarditis
• Avolio et al found spike disrupts heart cell function via CD147 receptor
• Cao et al found in a mouse study spike causes cardiac fibrosis and myocardial contractile impairment that gives rise to cardiomyopathy
• Baumeier et al looked at 15 cases with biopsy and raised the issue whether myocarditis is autoimmune
• Barmada et al ruled out spike protein molecular mimicry
• Spike protein myocarditis has also been reported with AstraZeneca, J&J and Novavax
• Myocarditis has been grossly underestimated, Thailand study shows 3.5% (1 in 30) for male adolescents and Swiss study (Muller) shows 2.8%. (1 in 35)
• Subclinical myocarditis inducing cardiac fibrosis as foci for later arrhythmia under stress is a possible explanation for the epidemic of sudden deaths in youths and young to middle-aged adults since the advent of the COVID-19 vaccines
• Manno et al studied 13 patients, median age 15 years, affected by myocarditis or pericarditis after COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine (11 after Pfizer, 2 after Moderna) – at 3 months follow-up, most still showed persistent myocardial injury.

May 5, 2023 – Barmada et al – Cytokinopathy with aberrant cytotoxic lymphocytes and profibrotic myeloid response in SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine–associated myocarditis

• studied 23 patients with vaccine associated myocarditis and/or pericarditis
• cohort was 87% male and average age 17 years
• no evidence of eosinophilia or elevated Th2 cytokines – so not a hypersensitivity or eosinophilic myocarditis
• no evidence of cardiac targeted autoantibodies, no B-cell clonal expansion or somatic hypermutation – no evidence of autoimmune myocarditis
• found a systemic cytokinopathy and activated cytotoxic lymphocytes
  • NK (natural killer) cells were activated and dysregulated
  • found elevated serum IL-15 (potent activator of NK and T cells)
  • found elevated chemokines (CXCL10, CCL4) which stimulate CXCR3 and CCR5 receptors on T-cells – play key role in activated T-cell infiltration of cardiac tissue
  • found no monoclonal expansion = antigen independent, cytokine dependent activation after vaccination
• Imaging done months after vaccination showed persistent cardiac abnormalities, suggesting cardiac fibrosis.
• supported by cardiac biopsy reports showing macrophage infiltration of heart tissue
• why worse after 2nd dose? – significant increase in IL-15 and CXCL10 in some people that drives heart inflammation
• LNP also highly inflammatory, but through different cytokines – IL-1b and IL-6, and it varies depending on type of LNP and mRNA
• LNPs may be contributing to heart inflammation

My Take…

These four studies, all published in the last 4 months, add to the growing body of evidence of COVID-19 Vaccine Injury to the heart.

I will summarize the key findings as follows:

• Lipid Nanoparticles (LNPs) with mRNA are delivered throughout the body, including the heart, and they can be found throughout the heart, in cardiac cells as well as non-cardiac cells.
• LNPs increase certain inflammatory cytokines that may contribute to heart inflammation (varies with type of LNP and mRNA inside)
• Novavax nanoparticles are also inflammatory and can cause heart inflammation
• Pfizer & Moderna spike proteins are different, their LNPs are different
• Pfizer & Moderna modified mRNA is long-lasting – found in blood plasma at 28 days, in lymph nodes at 60 days after jab
• Vaccine spike production is unpredictable, small amounts of mRNA in distant locations can produce high quantities of spike protein
• Myocarditis: Can be caused by Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, J&J, Novavax – the spike protein is the problem that’s causing heart inflammation and all of these COVID-19 vaccines produce spike protein.
• Both Pfizer and Moderna spike proteins impair heart cell function, but in completely different ways, once enough spike protein is made by heart cells
• Both Pfizer and Moderna spike proteins cause cardiomyopathy which is clinically diagnosed as myocarditis or pericarditis
• 3x dose of Pfizer mRNA does not produce effects seen with Moderna, it just worsens Pfizer effects
• On metabolic imaging (FDG PET/CT) the heart inflammation caused by Pfizer and Moderna looks similar and can last up to 6 months
• On metabolic imaging (FDG PET/CT), axillary lymph node inflammation on the side of mRNA injection, can last up to 4 months.
• myocarditis is not an autoimmune process, it is a cytokinopathy
  • Pfizer & Moderna vaccination increases systemic inflammatory cytokines, some of which stimulate cytotoxic NK cells and T-cells which infiltrate cardiac tissue and cause inflammation
  • Pfizer & Moderna spike proteins ALSO directly impair heart cell function by affecting contractility via sustained stimulation of Protein Kinase A (Pfizer) or messing with calcium channels (Moderna)
• Imaging done months after vaccination shows cardiac abnormalities persist –cardiac fibrosis (scarring), which increases risk of arrhythmia that can lead to sudden cardiac death.
• risk of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine myocarditis is as high as 1 in 30 or 1 in 35 per one dose of vaccine.

Many questions still remain: 

• who is at risk of developing myocarditis and why? More common in young males.
• LNPs on their own probably contribute to myocarditis, but how?
• What is the best method of screening for mRNA induced subclinical myocarditis (when there are no symptoms)?
• What prophylactic supplements or treatments can be given to COVID-19 Vaccinated individuals to reduce the risk of, or prevent sudden cardiac arrest and 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.

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A country broken by constant foreign interventions, its tyrannical regimes propped up by the back brace of the United States (when it wasn’t intervening to adjust it), marred by appalling natural disasters, tells a sad tale of the crippled Haitian state.  Haiti’s political existence is the stuff and stuffing of pornographic violence, the crutch upon which moralists can always point to as the end, doom and despair that needs change.  Every conundrum needs its intrusive deliverer, even though that deliverer is bound to make things worse.

Lately, those stale themes have now percolated through the corridors of the United Nations to renewed interest.  The staleness is evident in the menu: servings of failed state canapes; vicious, murderous, raping, pillaging gangs as the main musical score; collapse of civic institutions as the dessert. It’s the sort of menu to rile and aggravate any mission or charity, and yet, military-security interventions continue to capture the feeble imagination.

Since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021, the constant theme in reporting from Haiti is that of rampant, freely operating gangs.  Sophie Hills, a staff writer of the Christian Science Monitor, offered this description in October last year: “Armed gangs have immobilized the capital, Port-au-Prince, shutting down the already troubled economy and creating fear among citizens to even walk the streets.”

This October 23, the UN special envoy to Haiti, María Isabel Salvador, reported to the UN Security Council that the situation had continued “to deteriorate as growing gang violence plunge the lives of the people of Haiti into disarray and major crimes are rising sharply to new record highs.”  These included killings and sexual violence, the latter marked by instances of rape and mutilation.

To add further complexity to the situation, vigilante groups such as the “Bwa Kale” movement have responded through resorting to lynching (395 alleged gang members are said to have perished in that gruesome way between April 24 and September).

Image is from Haiti Libre

Moïse’s opportunistic replacement, Ariel Henry, has served as acting prime minister, persistently calling for foreign intervention to right the worn vessel he is steering into a sunset oblivion. 

The past presidential elections were last held in 2016, but Henry has not deemed it appropriate to stage elections, preferring the bureaucratic formula of a High Transition Council (HTC) tasked with eventually achieving that goal.  When the announcement establishing the body was made in February, Henry loftily claimed that this was “the beginning of the end of dysfunction in our democratic institutions.”

These weak assertions have not translated into credible change on the ground.  The contempt with which the HTC has been viewed was indicated by the news from the UN envoy that its Secretary General had been kidnapped by gang members posing as police officers.

In September, Henry addressed the UN hoping to add some mettle to the Haitian National Police, urging the Security Council to adopt measures under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to “authorize the deployment of a multinational support mission to underpin the security of Haiti”.

The measure can be read as a stalling measure to keep Henry and his Haitian Tèt Kale Party (PHTK) ensconced.  This is certainly the view of the National Haitian-American Elected Officials Network (NHAEON) and the Family Action Network Movement (FANM).  In their September letter to President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the organisations warned that,

“Any military intervention supporting Haiti’s corrupt, repressive, unelected regime will likely exacerbate the current political crisis to a catastrophic one.”  The move would “further entrench the regime, deepening Haiti’s political crisis while generating significant civilian casualties and migration pressure.”

In its eternal wisdom, the United Nations Security Council felt that an intervention force consisting of Kenyan police, supplemented by assistance from other states, would be required for this mission.  Resolution 2699, establishing a Multinational Security Support Mission led by Kenya, received a vote of 13 in favour, with Russia and China abstaining.  This would entail a co-deployment with Haitian personnel who have melted before the marauding gangs. Thus, history continues to rhyme (the US occupation, 1915-1934 and the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) from 2004-2017).

Armed gangs feature as a demonic presence in the UN deliberations, regularly paired with such opaque terms as “a multidimensional crisis”.  It is telling that the cliché-governed reasons for that crisis never focus on how the gang phenomenon took root, not least those mouldering state institutions that have failed to protect the populace. Little wonder then, that the Russian representative Vassily Nebenzia felt that sending in armed elements was “an extreme measure” that unnecessarily invoked the provisions of Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations.

Undeterred by such views, the US representative Jeffrey Delaurentis noted that the mission would require the “inclusion of dedicated expertise in anti-gang operations, community-oriented policing, and children and women’s protection.”  That Washington approved the measure can be put down to endorsing a policy which might discourage – if only in the short term – the arrival of Haitian asylum seekers which have been turned around en masse.

Despite claiming a different tack from his predecessor in approaching the troubled Caribbean state, President Biden has sought to restrict the influx of Haitian applications using, for instance, Title 42, a Trump policy put in place to deport individuals who pose a pandemic risk, in spite of any asylum credentials they might have.  Within 12 months, the Biden administration was responsible for expelling more than 20,000 Haitians – or as many as the combined totals of three different presidents over two decades.

Resolution 2699 also suffers from another glaring fault.  Kenya’s dominant contribution to the exercise has raised searching questions back home.  Opposition politician Ekuru Aukot, himself a lawyer who had aided in drafting Kenya’s revised 2010 constitution, saw no legal basis for the government to authorise the Haitian deployment.  In his view, the deployment was unconstitutional, lacking any legal backbone or treaty.

In granting Aukot an interim injunction, this point was considered by the Nairobi High Court worthy of resolution.  Judge Enock Mwita was “satisfied that the application and petition raise substantial issues of national importance and public interest and require urgent consideration.”  The judge accordingly issued a conservatory order “restraining the respondents from deploying police officers to Haiti or any other country until 24^th October 2023.”

On October 24, Judge Mwita extended the duration of the interim order till November 9, when an open session is scheduled for the petition to be argued.  “This court became seized of this matter earlier than everyone else and it would not make sense for it to set aside or allow the interim orders to lapse.”  The whole operation risks being scuttled even before it sets sail.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected] 

Featured image: It took Haiti 122 years to pay off its debt of independence, a neocolonial strategy that remains in place and leads to chronic underdevelopment. Photo: Juvenal Balán

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A spree of Israeli merciless bombings on Gaza Israel’s attacks has slaughtered more than 7,000 Palestinians including 3,000 children. The situation is gruesome for 1.4 million internally displaced, 50,000 pregnant women and thousands of injured, being crucified over fast-depleting water, food, fuel, electricity and health necessities and deadly infectious diseases.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu indeed is heading the most right-wing government of ultranationalist Jews in Israeli history. His top aides want to tighten the country’s control on the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, Israel captured in 1967 and Palestinians aspire to make their future state. Extreme rightist Zionists have unvaryingly used dehumanizing language against Palestinians and Arabs by calling them as “drugged cockroaches” and seeking to make their life “unbearable.”

After Hamas’ deadliest Oct 7 attacks since the 1973 Yom Kippur (Arab-Israel) War, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant promised “no gas, no food, no electricity” to Palestinians, describing them as “human animals.” Israeli General Ghassan Alian sought same treatment and said “you wanted hell, you will get hell.”

Netanyahu’s fellow party member Ariel Kallner demanded a neo-Nakba, launching a much stronger mass displacement and ethnic-cleansing of Palestinians than that of 1948. Israeli President Isaac Herzog suggested civilians were legitimate targets. Palestinians are sought to flee to Jordan or face a “Great Nakba.”

Ruthless Israeli regime is getting unreserved diplomatic and military support from Washington to implement its horrific agenda. US President Joe Biden immediately pledged to send ammunition to Israel. During his visit to Israel, he told Netanyahu “I’m a Zionist.” Presidential hopeful Nikki Haley patted Netanyahu “finish them.” We are in a religious war…Level the place,” said Senator Lindsey Graham. Anthony Blinken ignited controversy by posing himself as “not only as the United States Secretary of State but also as a Jew.”

Many evangelical Christians believe the existence of Israel is crucial for “fulfilling the prophecy” vis-à-vis Armageddon.

Baptist preacher and Fox News contributor Robert Jeffress, who once insisted “God gave Jerusalem – and the rest of the Holy Land – to the Jewish people,” cited the Bible to declare it a “worldwide conflict.” As this year marks 50^th anniversary of the Arab-Israeli War, some in the US even want Israel to end this war in Iran.

US unflinching support to Israel’s brutality reached the tipping point once latter devastated al-Ahli Hospital. Biden singled out an “errant rocket fired by a terrorist group” and wailed about Israel’s victimization. His counterparts such as Canada’s Justin Trudeau and UK’s Rishi Sunak back his stance, saying Israel has no role in the blast; one wonders how they will discharge Israel of 76 attacks on healthcare facilities in Gaza, affecting 34 including 19 hospitals per WHO.

On top of $3.8 billion of military assistance to Israel every year, Biden has asked Congress to approve $14 billion for his ally’s war chest as part of a $105 billion aid package. Next day, the Pentagon announced it would send missile defense systems to the Middle East. The US has also scaled up its naval power through two aircraft carriers and 2,000 Marines.

Biden’s assertion not to back a ceasefire, until all hostages are released, is telling. The US State Department is rather emphatic:

“Any ceasefire would give Hamas the ability to rest.. get ready to continue launching terrorist attacks against Israel,” indicating Washington has permitted Tel Aviv to kill Palestinians with absolute impunity.

What a turnaround! Washington, London and most European capitals that championed human rights and stood with Ukraine against Russia have suddenly become more pronounced in defending Israeli human rights violations in Gaza, termed as a “flagrant and obvious” western hypocrisy by Human Rights Watch. Ironically, same day Biden announced $100 million in aid to Palestinians, Israel besieged them and snapped them of water, basic human right, food and other services.

By funding Israel’s savagery and rejecting aid agencies’ calls of ceasefire, Biden and Western leaders share responsibility of Israel’s willful and systematic domicide and genocide of Palestinians. After Israel’s shelling on a refugee camp in Gaza, the Obama administration in 2014 had at least called out Israel, demanding it avoid stocking humanitarian disasters.

This administration deserves more condemnation also because just this year, it has passed a revised Conventional Arms Transfer Policy to ensure these weapons don’t facilitate or contribute to “violations of human rights or international humanitarian law,” which requires to spare civilians and protect hospitals.

Biden’s policy sparked a dissent within the White House, resulting in senior State official resignation since he saw the approach of arming Israel “shortsighted, destructive, unjust and contradictory,” and chided Congress for not taking human rights issues “seriously.” America’s iniquitous use of veto power to deny “humanitarian pauses” will be instructive to analyze its eccentric approach to human rights.

US discrimination of Palestinians enraged the Arab and Muslim world. A furious Amman, following the hospital blast, panned Tel Aviv for pushing the region to “brink of the abyss” and shelved a four-way summit comprising leaders from US, Egypt, Jordan and Palestinian, hinting at US aversion to end “war and massacre against Palestinians.”

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and UAE too strongly reproached and held Israel responsible for the detonation of the hospital. Blinken, by making it “clear” to Amman, Doha, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and Cairo “the United States stands with Israel” helped fuel anti-Israel sentiment.

When a Wall Street Journal report alleged that Iran had “helped plot” attacks on Israel, Tel Aviv rejected the claim. Biden endorsed Israel and witnessed “no clear evidence.” Israel and the US ostensibly didn’t want to open new war fronts. Iran too exercised caution to prevent escalation with either; Hezbollah, notwithstanding launching small-scale attacks on Israel, assured Lebanese government it will not enter the war.

Despite extreme rhetoric, Iran has avoided a direct military standoff with Israel or US and it’s highly unlikely they will engage in a conflict except for trading barbs. Israel’s attack on Gaza rather allows Iran to gain leverage in negotiations with America such as gaining access to its $6 billion, already transferred to Qatar but are staved off by Washington, as part of a US-Iran prisoner swap deal.

Possibility of war spilling over and gripping the region is however real. US warnings to Iran and deployment of two aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean raise the prospects of such a tragedy. Blinken says they are “meant as a deterrent”; it serves twin US objectives: bolster Israel security and strengthen America’s posture in gas-rich zone. But at the same time, it could further spell crisis across the region and beyond for Turkey’s Erdogan has cautioned this hinders his efforts to promote peace and will lead to “serious massacres” in Gaza.

Biden contends Hamas attacks aim to disrupt normalization process between Israel and Saudi Arabia; his marked tendency toward Israel undermines likelihood of any deal. Due to Israeli onslaught, Riyadh – which “every day” was getting closer to Tel Aviv and with whom Netanyahu preempted a deal as “within reach” – was forced to take a jab at western “double standards” and Israeli “criminal practices.”

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in his meeting with Sunak, described Israeli targeting of Gazans “heinous crime.” Nevertheless, Riyadh is also pursuing to normalize ties with Israel. Just last month, Saudi Arabia alongside Jordan and UAE agreed to join Biden’s plan to build India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor that also included Israel.

Most countries in the wider Mideast have developed relations with Israel. UAE in 2021 – after normalization in 20220, which Palestinians branded as “despicable,” “betrayal,” and an expected “poison dagger” from an Arab country – opened an embassy in Tel Aviv and became only the third major Arab state to maintain full diplomatic relations with Israel. Cairo and Amman signed peace treaties with Israel in 1979 and 1994.

After Erdogan last year characterized Herzog’s visit to Ankara as “historic” and a turning point” in the bilateral relationship, Turkey restored formal ties with Israel. Qatar cut ties with Israel in 2009 over the Gaza war and has held Israel “solely responsible” for the escalation, condemning Israeli strikes on al-Ahli Hospital; it’s diplomatically and militarily too weak to be heard internationally.

Palestinians would see these developments anxiously since they could force Arab states to moderate their criticism of Israel, encouraging it to mete out more severe punishment to them including through “new Nakba”. Their suspicions aren’t unfounded given UAE in 2021 deplored west’s failure to designate Hama as terrorist organizations and recently called its attack a “serious and grave escalation.”

About 1.4 million Palestinians – including one million children, facing “critical and protection and humanitarian crisis”– need an immediate ceasefire and assistance. These kids are shaking with fear as Israeli bombs keep hunting them to enforce the principle of Israel’s right of self-defense. While western leaders must not give an unfettered authority and allow Israel to quench its bloodthirst by killing Gazans, regional countries should also stop weighing up their selfish interests before the situation spirals out of control and heat of war reaches their palaces.

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Azhar Azam is a geopolitical analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Mideast Discourse

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

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At the time of this publication, over 6,500 people have been killed in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, including more than 2,700 children, with many thousands more people injured or missing. Israel has told 1.1 million people to flee northern Gaza, which many fear is a pretext for ethnic cleansing. Thousands of buildings and homes have been obliterated. Palestinians in Gaza are being choked of water, fuel and other supplies by the Israeli government. With a ground invasion by Israeli forces imminent, and fears of a wider war, there may be no end in sight to the bombardment for Palestinians.

Voices across the world are sounding the alarm over the barbarous and catastrophic scope of the assault. One expert has called the situation “a textbook case of genocide unfolding in front of our eyes.”

A UN official stated that the transfer of Palestianians in Gaza would be “the largest instance of ethnic cleansing in the history of this tormented land.”

Amnesty International has documented “damning evidence of war crimes,” stating that Israel’s “cataclysmic assault on the occupied Gaza Strip” has seen “indiscriminate attacks” that have “caused mass civilian casualties and must be investigated as war crimes.” 

All of this is being abetted by top U.S. defense corporations who profit from selling weapons to the Israeli government that have been used relentlessly against Palestinian civilians. In his October 20 speech calling for billions in weapons shipments to Israel and Ukraine, President Biden invoked “patriotic American workers” who are “building the arsenal of democracy and serving the cause of freedom,” but it’s the defense company CEOs who rake in tens of millions a year, and Wall Street shareholders, who are the real beneficiaries of warmongering. Just a few days ago, RTX (formerly Raytheon) executives raved about billions in weapon sales, set only to increase with the current wars, noting that “[a]cross the entire Raytheon portfolio, you’re going to see the benefit of this restocking.”

Moreover, the current onslaught is also enabled by billionaires who donate huge sums to rightwing pro-Israel Super PACs pushing for continued violence — and the elected officials who eagerly accept their donations.

This primer maps out some of the major defense companies propping up and profiting from, and some of the billionaire donors enabling, the ongoing war against Palestinians in Gaza.  

Weapons Manufacturers 

Five of the top six global defense corporations are based in the U.S. They are Lockheed Martin, RTX (formerly Raytheon), Northrop Grumman, Boeing and General Dynamics. All five have long sold weapons to Israel that are used against Palestinians, and they have been mentioned in the news recently as being tied to weapons sales or potential weapons sales around the current assault on Gaza. Most of their stock prices shot up with the onset of the current war.

These five companies took in an astounding $196 billion in military-related revenue in 2022. Their five CEOs rake in huge amounts of compensation. From 2020 to 2022, these five CEOs together have taken in around $318 million in total compensation — salary, stock awards, and other forms of payment. Moreover, the CEOs own massive amounts of corporate stock, meaning they profit handsomely when stock prices go up. These CEOs are powerful figures, often also serving as company chairs and presidents, and having influential ties to the wider corporate and political world.

Weapons CEOs

Click here for the interactive graph.

The top shareholders in these five defense companies largely consist of big asset managers, or big banks with asset management wings, that include BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, Fidelity, Capital Group, Wellington, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Newport Trust Company, Longview Asset Management, Massachusetts Financial Services Company, Geode Capital, and Bank of America.

Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin is the world’s top defense company by revenue. In 2022, it took in $66 billion in revenue, of which 96%, or $63.3 billion, was in defense revenue.

Lockheed Martin has supplied weapons to Israel for decades to use against Palestinians. According to the watchdog site Investigate, Lockheed’s weapons have been used in attacks that “include war crimes that Israel has committed during several major military offensives against the Gaza Strip.” According to the Financial Review, Israel is currently seeking Hellfire missiles, which are made by Lockheed Martin. 

Lockheed Martin’s stock price soared with Israel’s war on Gaza.

Lockheed Martin’s CEO Jim Taiclet took in over $66 million in total compensation from 2020 to 2022. As of February 24, 2023, he owned 56,054 total common shares and stock units with the company. As of the closing of the U.S. stock market on October 23, 2023, Lockheed’s share price was $446.16, meaning his stock holdings could be worth $25 million. Taiclet is a board member of the Council on Foreign Relations, perhaps the most influential U.S. foreign policy establishment think tank.

According the business data website Whalewisdom, Lockheeds’s top five shareholders are:

All told, these five asset managers together own more than a 34% stake in Lockheed Martin. The next top five shareholders are Charles Schwab, Morgan Stanley, Geode Capital, Bank of America, and Capital Research Global Investors.

Lockheed Martin’s Lead Independent Director is Daniel F. Akerson, a former Vice Chairman of private equity giant Carlyle Group and former CEO of General Motors. Lockheed’s board also includes a slew of revolving door and influential figures, such as former Obama Secretary of Homeland Security and current Paul Weiss law firm partner, Jeh Johnson, as well as Vicki A. Hollub, the President and CEO of oil giant Occidental Petroleum.

RTX (Raytheon)

RTX (formally Raytheon Technologies) is the second-top defense company in the world by revenue. In 2022, it took in $67.1 billion in revenue, of which 59%, or $39.6 billion, was in defense revenue.

According to the watchdog site Investigate, Raytheon has consistently and extensively supplied Israel with weapons used in Gaza over the past two decades. For example, “[i]n its frequent military offensives against Gaza,” says Investigate, “the Israeli military uses Raytheon’s 5,000-pound GBU-28 “bunker buster” and laser-guided Paveway bombs, as well as AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground missiles, AIM-9X missiles, AIM-120 Sidewinder missiles, and TWO long-range missiles.”

On October 17, the New York Times reported that the Biden administration was “already moving to send additional ammunition and Iron Dome interceptor missiles” made by Raytheon. Like many other weapons companies, Raytheon’s stock also jumped with the war on Gaza.

RTX’s CEO Gregory J. Hayes took in over $63 million in total compensation from 2020 to 2022. As of February 8, 2023, he beneficially owned 801,339 total shares of RTX stock. Hayes sits on the boards of both the Business Roundtable and fossil fuel giant Phillips 66.

According the business data website Whalewisdom, RTX’s top five shareholders are:

All told, these five asset managers together own a nearly 32% stake in RTX. The next top five shareholders are Wellington, JPMorgan Chase, Dodge & Cox, Morgan Stanley, and Geode Capital. 

RTX’s board contains revolving door figures such as former Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert O. Work, and former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, James A. Winnefeld Jr.

Northrop Grumman 

Northrop Grumman is the world’s third biggest defense company in the world by revenue. In 2022, it took in$36.6 billion in revenue, of which 89%, or $32.4 billion, was in defense revenue.

According to the watchdog site Investigate, Northrop Grumman “supplies the Israeli military with a wide variety of weapons, including various missile systems. The company’s technologies are also integrated into Israel’s main weapon systems, including its fighter jets, missile ships, and trainer aircraft.” The company has provided Israel weapons for decades and, says Investigate, “these weapons have repeatedly been used against Palestinian civilians, resulting in numerous casualties as well as mass destruction of homes and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, and water and electric systems.”

With Israel’s current war on Gaza, Northrop Grumman’s stock price boomed. 

Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy J. Warden took in over $61 million in total compensation from 2020 to 2022. As of March 15, 2023, she owned 161,231 shares of company stock, currently worth around $78 million. Warden also sits on the board of pharmaceutical giant Merck, and she is a member of the Business Roundtable

According the business data website Whalewisdom, Northrop Grumman’s top five shareholders are:

All told, these five asset managers together own a nearly 35% stake in Northrop Grumman. The next top five shareholders are FMR LLC (Fidelity), Bank of America, Massachusetts Financial Services Company, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley.

Northrop Grumman’s Lead Independent Director is Madeleine A. Kleiner, who is also on the board of fastfood chain Jack in the Box. Northrup compensated her with $361,122 in 2022. Kleiner is also on the board of the Ladies Professional Golf Association. Other Northrup board members include David Abney, former Chairman and CEO of UPS; Arvind Krishna, Chairman and CEO of IBM; and Thomas M. Schoewe, a former top executive for Walmart, and a former director of private equity giant KKR, and a current director of General Motors. 

Boeing

Boeing is the world’s fifth biggest defense company in the world by revenue. In 2022, it took in $66.6 billion in revenue, of which 46%, or $30.8 billion, was in defense revenue.

On October 17, 2023, the New York Times reported that “[n]ew shipments of small, 250-pound guided bombs made by Boeing are… being sent to Israel, as are additional gear that converts older, crude bombs into precision-guided “smart” munitions.” The Financial Review reports that “joint direct attack munitions (JDAMs)… and small diameter bombs (SDBs)” produced by Boeing are being sought by Israel. The watchdog site Investigate has documented Boeing extensive weapons shipments to Israel that have been used against Palestinians over the years.  

Boeing CEO David Calhoun took in over $64 million in total compensation from 2020 to 2022. He currently holds 193,247 shares of Boeing stock, worth nearly $35 million. Calhoun is a former executive of the private equity giant Blackstone Group. He sits on the board of directors of Caterpillar and is a member of the Business Roundtable. Calhoun is also the Vice Rector of the Board of Trustees of Virginia Tech.

According the business data website Whalewisdom, Boeing’s top five shareholders are:

All told, these five asset managers together own more than a 27% stake in Boeing. The next top five shareholders are Capital World Investors, Loomis Sayles, Capital Research Global Investors, Geode Capital, and Morgan Stanley.

Boeing’s board chair is Lawrence W. Kellner. In his role, Boeing compensated him with $616,000 in 2022. Kellner is also on the board of ExxonMobil. Boeing’s board also includes, among others, Lynn J. Good, the chairman and CEO of utilities giant Duke Energy; Sabrina Soussan, the chairman and CEO of water privatization giant Suez; and Ronald A. Williams, the former chairman and CEO of healthcare giant Aetna.

General Dynamics is the world’s sixth biggest defense company in the world by revenue. In 2022, it took in$39.4 billion in revenue, of which 77%, or $30.4 billion, was in defense revenue.

General Dynamics

The Financial Review reports that, currently, “Israel will also need 120mm-calibre tank rounds, made by General Dynamics.” The watchdog site Investigate documents General Dynamics extensive business with Israel. For example, it notes that “General Dynamics’ MK-84 2,000-pound bombs have been used extensively by the Israeli Air Force during its frequent assaults on Gaza, including in 2021 and in multiple suspected war crimes in 2014.”

General Dynamics stock shot up with Israel’s attacks on Gaza

General Dynamics CEO Phebe N. Novakovic took in over $64 million in total compensation from 2020 to 2022. As of March 8, 2023, she held 1,616,279 shares of total common stock and equivalents. Novakovic sits on the board of banking giant JPMorgan Chase. She is a member of the Business Roundtable and a trustee of the foreign policy think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies.

According the business data website Whalewisdom, General Dynamic’s top five shareholders are:

All told, these five asset managers together own a nearly 35% stake in General Dynamic. The next top five shareholders are State Street, Capital Research Global Investors, Bank of America, Massachusetts Financial Services Company, and JPMorgan Chase.

General Dynamics’ Lead Independent Director is Laura J. Schumacher, who is also a director of CrowdStrike Holdings, a cyber security company. General Dynamics compensated Schumacher with $330,336 in 2022. General Dynamics board also includes Jim Mattis, former Secretary of Defense for Donald Trump and a commander during the invasion and occupation of Iraq who investigative news sources have suggested could be tied to war crimes in Iraq.

Top 5 Shareholders of Top 5 Defense Companies

Click here for the interactive graph.

Funders of Right Wing, Pro-Israel Super PACs 

In the early weeks of Israel’s war on Gaza, lobbying groups including The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and Democratic Majority for Israel have been active in Washington, calling on lawmakers to send money and weapons to Israel. AIPAC was pushing for a funding package even before President Biden introduced his proposal to lawmakers. Democratic Majority for Israel, which was launched by AIPAC operatives in 2019 to shore up support for Israel within the Democratic Party, has been holding briefings for members of Congress, including one that featured former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett as a guest speaker. 

In 2022, AIPAC was far and away the biggest spender among pro-Israel organizations in the U.S. According to OpenSecrets, AIPAC gave $12 million to candidates and parties during the 2021-2022 election cycle. $7.9 million went to Democrats and $4.7 million went to Republicans. AIPAC’s Super PAC, United Democracy Project, also spent $26 million in a massive push to influence the 2022 Democratic primaries by spending against progressive Democratic candidates that AIPAC considered to be not supportive enough of Israel. The group spent an additional $2 million in lobbying last year. 

The chart below shows the top five Congressional recipients of Pro-Israel campaign contributions in the 2022 election cycle, according to OpenSecrets. 

To read  the complete “Eyes on the Ties” article click here

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Featured image: Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, October 9, 2023. (Source: CGTN)

Israel’s genocide in Gaza has shocked the conscience of the entire world, with an endless flow of videos and images of Palestinian children cut into pieces by American bombs dropped by Israeli warplanes deliberately intended to destroy a civilian population.

Despite the explicitly genocidal rhetoric of Israeli officials, Western leaders continue to proclaim their support for Israel’s right to “defend itself.”

But this war on Gaza is different from past wars, not only in the level of Israeli aggression, but in the reaction on the street, from the Middle East to the United States.

Israel is losing the narrative war. Most people want to see a ceasefire and tens of thousands have protested across the US to demonstrate their opposition to Biden’s unconditional support for this genocide.

To discuss Israel’s genocidal onslaught in Gaza ahead of a looming ground invasion and how it has the potential to snowball into a catastrophic regional war, Rania Khalek was joined by journalist Abby Martin, creator and host of The Empire Files.

Video. Rania Khalek and Abby Martin 

A atitude irresponsável de algumas autoridades americanas em relação aos atuais acontecimentos na Ucrânia e em Israel pode ter razões que vão além da política. As emoções pessoais e os sentimentos de vingança podem ajudar a explicar as ações irracionais de algumas figuras públicas importantes na política dos EUA.

Em várias declarações recentes, o secretário de estado dos EUA, Anthony Blinken, deixou clara a sua posição etnicamente motivada de total apoio a Israel, ignorando as nuances políticas específicas do caso e deixando uma espécie de revanchismo anti-palestino guiar as suas atitudes. Não foi por acaso que durante o seu discurso em Tel Aviv sobre a atual crise em Gaza, Blinken afirmou que falava não apenas como secretário de estado dos EUA, “mas também como isralense”.

Um detalhe curioso e digno de nota nas palavras de Blinken durante sua viagem a Tel Aviv é que ele também menciona que seus ancestrais foram perseguidos “na Rússia”, deixando claro que a Ucrânia fazia parte da Rússia e confirmando a obviedade histórica de que a Ucrânia nunca existiu como um país antes do fim da URSS. Mais uma vez, discursos contraditórios de responsáveis ​​ocidentais refutam as próprias narrativas de Kiev e da OTAN.

“Apresento-me a vós não apenas como secretário de estado dos Estados Unidos, mas também como israelense (…) O meu avô, Maurice Blinken, fugiu de perseguições na Rússia. O meu padrasto, Samuel Pisar, sobreviveu aos campos de concentração – Auschwitz, Dachau, Majdanek”, disse.

Na verdade, esta origem étnica também pode explicar a postura irracional de apoio irrestrito à Ucrânia, amplamente promovida por Blinken. Num artigo recente, um importante jornal ocidental descreveu Blinken como “um símbolo de solidariedade entre os EUA e os israelo-ucranianos”, elogiando as raízes familiares do secretário e o seu papel atual na política de apoio dos EUA a Kiev.

Na mesma postagem, o autor faz alguns comentários adicionais sobre a história pessoal de Blinken, mostrando detalhes sobre as origens de sua família. De acordo com a biografia, os antepassados ​​do secretário fugiram da Ucrânia russa para os EUA nos primeiros anos do século XX – e a razão para isso foram precisamente os sentimentos anti-semitas dos ucranianos.

“Em 1904, um judeu ucraniano de 25 anos chamado Meir Blinken e a sua jovem família começaram a estabelecer uma nova vida no Lower East Side de Nova Iorque. Embora estivessem longe de casa, não estavam de forma alguma sozinhos. Na verdade, eram apenas uma entre milhares de famílias que chegaram à América depois de fugirem da Ucrânia para escapar ao terror anti-semita”, lê-se no artigo.

Aparentemente, sem querer, o autor parece confirmar que as tendências antissemitas já eram fortes na Ucrânia naquela época. Estas tendências provêm historicamente da influência da Europa Ocidental em algumas regiões ucranianas e foram fortemente encorajadas durante a segunda guerra mundial, quando organizações ultranacionalistas adotaram o anti-semitismo e o racismo anti-russo como parte da sua ideologia fascista. A Rússia Soviética destruiu estes movimentos, abolindo as organizações fascistas ucranianas, minando a influência ocidental e integrando as diferentes etnias da região na sociedade soviética.

No entanto, após o fim da URSS, o Ocidente começou a encorajar o ressurgimento do nacionalismo ucraniano e a reabilitar o fascismo como ideologia, resultando na situação atual em que um regime neonazista funciona como proxy da OTAN numa guerra contra a Rússia. Ironicamente, Blinken está cooperando com este regime. Enquanto os seus antepassados fugiram do anti-semitismo ucraniano, Blinken está agora a ajudar a aumentar ainda mais a hegemonia de uma mentalidade racista na Ucrânia.

Não é novidade que israelenses confusos por emoções pessoais e desconhecedores dasua história comecem a apoiar ideologias anti-semitas e fascistas. O próprio presidente ucraniano, Vladimir Zelensky, é judeu e mesmo assim lidera uma junta neonazista. No mesmo sentido, Blinken faz todos os esforços possíveis para garantir que os EUA continuem a apoiar a política racista e genocida de Kiev, apesar de ele próprio ser descendente de uma família que sofreu com o anti-semitismo ucraniano.

O apoio de Blinken a Israel mostra algo semelhante. O estado sionista utiliza o sofrimento histórico do povo judeu de uma forma oportunista, a fim de justificar políticas de limpeza étnica, apartheid e genocídio contra os palestinos– fazendo com que pareçam práticas nazistas, tanto na Alemanha passada como na Ucrânia actual. Blinken elogia a sua ascendência como o principal fator de apoio a Israel, quando na verdade ele deveria, como judeu, sentir-se compelido a combater todas as formas de racismo e supremacismo ideológico, já que o seu povo foi vítima deste tipo de mentalidade muitas vezes na história.

Na verdade, em vez de usarem o elevado orgulho racial para justificar o ódio e a vingança, os líderes ocidentais, ucranianos e israelitas deveriam procurar uma melhor compreensão dos problemas do racismo e da supremacia. Discursos confusos e contraditórios como o de Blinken mostram como a irracionalidade toma conta do processo de tomada de decisão ocidental, levando a uma política externa desastrosa que está a conduzir o mundo para uma catástrofe.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

 

 

 

Artigo em inglês : Blinken praises his Jewish ancestry while contradicts Western narratives about Ukraine, 28 de Outubro de 2023.

Imagem : InfoBrics

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

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

 

 

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In a report on Saturday, the American news organization The Intercept said that the Pentagon was quietly moving ahead to construct facilities for American troops at its secret military base – codenamed Site 512 – deep within the Negev Desert, just 20 miles from the Gaza Strip.

It added that the longstanding Site 512 is in fact a radar facility, whose mission is monitoring the skies for missile attacks against Israel, yet it failed to detect thousands of rockets fired by the Palestinian Hamas resistance group on October 7 as it focused on possible incoming missiles from Iran, more than 700 miles away.

The Pentagon awarded the $35.8 million US troop facility contract to add barracks-like structures for US personnel to Site 512, which is atop Mt. Har Qeren in the Negev, almost two months before the current war between Israel and Hamas began, it said.

The report comes as US President Joe Biden and his administration claim that Washington has no plan whatsoever to deploy US troops inside the Occupied Palestine to engage in the current war but an [alleged] secret US military presence in the Occupied Territories already exists, and government contracts and budget documents show it is evidently increasing. 

“Sometimes something is treated as an official secret not in the hope that an adversary would never find out about it but rather [because] the US government, for diplomatic or political reasons, does not want to officially acknowledge it,” Paul Pillar, a former chief analyst at the CIA’s counter-terrorism center who said he had no specific knowledge of the base, told The Intercept.

“In this case, perhaps the base will be used to support operations elsewhere in West Asia in which any acknowledgment that they were staged from Israel, or involved any cooperation with Israel, would be inconvenient and likely to elicit more negative reactions than the operations otherwise would elicit,” he added.

The Pentagon claims to have prepared 2,000 personnel and a range of units on a heightened standby for potential deployment to the Occupied Palestine, stressing that these forces are not intended to serve in combat roles and are purportedly tasked with advising and medical roles.

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Featured image is from PT

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My title is redundant for a reason, since the root of the word radical is the Latin word, radix, meaning root. For I mean to show how the use and misuse of language, its history or etymology, and ours as etymological animals as the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gassett called us, is crucial for understanding our world, a world once again teetering on the edge of a world war that will almost inexorably turn nuclear as events are proceeding. If our language is corrupted, as it surely is, and political propaganda flourishes as a result, the correct use of our language and the meaning of words becomes an obligation of anyone who uses them – that is, everyone, especially writers.

The United States government exists to wage war. In its present form, it would crumble without it; and in its present form, it will crumble with it. Only a radical structural change will prevent this. For war-making is at the core of its budget, its raison d’être – 816.7 billion for the Fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act alone – a deficit-financed sum that tells only part of the story. This amount that finances the military-industrial complex and its blood money is for a country that has never been invaded, is bordered by friendly neighbors, and is oceans away from the multitude of countries its leaders attack and call our enemies. The U.S. wages wars around the world because killing is its lifeblood, its structural essence.

In writing of the misuse of language, George Orwell wrote,

“It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”

So with these words Orwell slyly places us within the enigma of the chicken and the egg, a conundrum or paradox that relates to my theme in a weird way, but which I will directly ignore.

By radical I do not mean the widespread political usage as in radical-right or radical-left or radical meaning one who plays the role through dress or demeanor. 

I am using the word in its primary meaning – a radical is one who is rooted in the earth, which means everyone.  Everyone therefore is mortal, human not a god, and comes from the earth and returns to it.  Everyone is radical in this sense, although they may try to deny it.  And the more one feels alive the more one senses one will die and doesn’t like the thought, therefore many tamp down their aliveness in order to reduce their fear of death.  The best way to do this is to disappear into the crowd, to become a conventional person.  To act as if one didn’t know that one’s political leaders were in love with death and killing and were not obedient cogs in a vast systemic killing machine.  Maybe the unconscious assumption is that these “leaders” can kill death for you by killing vast numbers of people and make you feel someone has control of this thing called death.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who stood strongly against the Vietnam War and marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., put the basic sense of radical well when he said:

Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. . . . get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.

To be radically amazed that we exist is to be equally amazed that we will die.  And there’s the rub.

Yesterday I got in our car and drove away to meet a journalist friend. It was evening and my wife had previously used the car. I had just spent time following all the dreadful news about the massive slaughter by Israel of Palestinians in Gaza, including the death of more than 3,000 children whose numbers are climbing fast. Visions of those children and babies played havoc with my spirits, and I kept thinking of my own children and the love and tenderness that comes with being a  parent.  A musical cd that my wife had been listening to started playing. The case was on the console. It was Sacred Arias by Andrea Bocelli. He of the majestic voice was singing Silent Night. I was overwhelmed with tears by his passionate words:

Silent night! Holy night!
All is calm, all is bright
round yon Virgin Mother and Child,
Holy infant so tender and mild,
sleep in Heavenly peace!
sleep in Heavenly peace!

I saw nights in Gaza as Israeli bombs burst and shattered everyone and everything to bits, all the holy infants, the children and adults.

I felt beside myself with grief, a U.S. citizen driving down a safe country road contemplating the savagery of my nation and its support for the Israeli government’s brutality and mass killings of Palestinians for all the world to see on screens everywhere.

I felt ashamed to live in a land where justice is a game reserved for rhetoric alone as it joins in the massacre of the innocent, as it always has, now together with the apartheid Israeli regime.

I thought of all the compromised politicians who pledge their allegiance to the killers, Biden and all his presidential predecessors, now including the aspirant Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a man with a conscience on many important issues whom I have supported in his quest for the presidency, but a man whose conscience has abandoned him when it comes to the Palestinians, as Scott Ritter has recently documented. I have privately urged Kennedy to reconsider his “unwavering, resolute, and practical” support for the Israeli government following the Gaza breakout of October 7, but to no avail.  In fact, I have been trying to get him to withdraw his unconditional support for Israel since the summer when he withdrew his support for Roger Waters, marched with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach in the Israel parade in NYC, and allowed Boteach to say that Sirhan Sirah had killed his father without correcting him since he knew it was an egregious lie. My failure in this regard deeply saddens me.

Image is from Silent Crow News

I felt betrayed again – perhaps you will call me naïve – as when I was young and last put my trust in voting for a US presidential candidate in 1972.  I thought I had learned to radically grasp the systematically corrupt nature of the U.S. warfare state.  Now more than three weeks have passed and Bobby Kennedy has remained silent, only to ask for our prayers for the victims of the mass shooting in Maine.  For the Palestinians, not a word. Although he considers the Israeli-Palestinian situation complicated, there is nothing complicated about genocide; it doesn’t necessitate long analyses and discussions with advisers.  The facts of the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza are evident for all to see, if they wish.  Bobby Kennedy has turned away.  And I have now sadly turned away from him.

I remembered the Gospel words I heard long ago about the fulfillment of the words of the prophet Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loudly lamenting: it was Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted because they were no more.”  But this time it is not the Jewish Rachel, for Herod has assumed the name Netanyahu and his U.S. allies, and the weeping ones are Palestinian mothers and fathers. 

Nothing can justify such slaughter, not the terrible killings of innocent Israelis on October 7 that I denounce; not the fear that the birth of messengers of peace might strike into Herod/Netanyahu’s heart – nothing!  Seventy-five years of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians continues apace. The Jewish child Jesus, the radical preacher of love and peace for all people, didn’t die on a private cross, nor do the Palestinians.  So it goes.

I thought of the indescribable sweet wonder of holding your baby in your arms while realizing how many Palestinian parents have been holding their dead children in theirs.  Rage welled up in me at the obscenity of those who support this and those who shut their eyes to it and those who remain silent.

I realized that as a Christian I am baptized into the human family, not some special in-group, which is the opposite of Jesus’s message.  Every child is holy and innocent and to massacre them is evil.  And to remain silent as it happens is to be complicit in evil.

I remembered how these many ongoing weeks of terror started and thought of a poem that is succinctly apposite: Harlem by Langston Hughes:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-
and then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

And I thought that he could have omitted that final question mark because we have our answer, then and now.

Then the music stopped and I arrived at my destination to meet my friend.

Yes, to be radical is to be rooted in the earth and to realize all people are part of the human family, each of us made of flesh and blood and therefore sisters and brothers deserving of justice, peace, and dignity.  But this is just a first step in the grasping of the full dimension of the radical vision.  It can end in fluff if a second step is not taken: to use our freedom to uproot ourselves from the conventional government and mass media propaganda and mind control that clouds our understanding of how the world works. This takes study and work and an understanding of the historical and systemic roots of all the alleged “unprovoked” violence that ravages our world.

Thus the existential and socio-historical merge in the radical vision that allows us to grasp the structures of evil and our personal responsibility.

Today that obligation is clear: To oppose the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians.

Otherwise we are guilty bystanders.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, 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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***

Papers Reviewed:

• Oct. 26, 2023 Wilkinson et al – A Brighton Collaboration standardized template with key considerations for a benefit/risk assessment for the Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine (NVX-CoV2373), a recombinant spike protein vaccine with Matrix-M adjuvant to prevent disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 viruses

• Oct. 18, 2023 – COVID-19 Update: New Novavax Vaccine Formulation for 2023-2024
• June 2023 Smith et al – Safety of the NVX-CoV2373 COVID-19 vaccine in randomized placebo-controlled clinical trials
• Feb. 2023 Saint-Gerons et al – Myopericarditis Associated with the Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine (NVX-CoV2373): A Retrospective Analysis of Individual Case Safety Reports from VigiBase
• Dec. 2022 Ahmad et al – Myopericarditis following both BNT162b2 and NVX-CoV2373

• June 7 2022 – U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Novavax COVID-19 vaccine (NVX-CoV2373) VRBPAC briefing document. Updated 2022

Oct. 26, 2023 Wilkinson et al – A Brighton Collaboration standardized template with key considerations for a benefit/risk assessment for the Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine (NVX-CoV2373), a recombinant spike protein vaccine with Matrix-M adjuvant to prevent disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 viruses.

• “Novavax, Inc. has developed a recombinant protein vaccine formulated with the saponin-based Matrix-M™ adjuvant (referred to as NVX-CoV2373) against SARS-CoV-2”
• “SARS-CoV-2 recombinant spike (rS) nanoparticle consists of a highly purified protein constructed from the full-length, wild-type SARS-CoV-2 spike. This protein is based on the spike gene sequence from the original Wuhan-Hu-1 strain and is produced using a baculovirus expression system in an insect cell line that is derived from Sf9 cells of the Spodoptera frugiperda species”
  • “Notably, the flexibility of this step allows for the use of alternative genetic constructs as needed, such as the S-proteins from new SARS-CoV-2 variants”
  • “recombinant spike protein was modified to contain amino acid substitutionsin the S1/S2 furin cleavage and two proline substitutions in the S2 domain to confer protease resistance and to produce a stable prefusion conformation”
  • “the recombinant baculovirus is replicated in Sf9 cells and NVX-CoV2373 spike gene is transcribed, translated, and post-translationally modified (i.e. glycosylated), resulting in high-yield production of the recombinant SARS-CoV-2 S-protein in a native trimer conformation. Next, the trimers are harvested, purified by column chromatography and filtration, and dialyzed into a detergent-containing buffer solution wherein they self-assemble into ~ 60 nanometer particles arranged around a polysorbate 80 core.”
  • In the final step, the S-protein nanoparticles are formulated with Matrix-M saponin-based adjuvant (Matrix-M^TM)
  • “formulation with Matrix-M, a potent and stable adjuvant studied in over 37,000 individuals, allows for antigen dose sparing and enhanced immune responses while maintaining a favorable safety profile”
• In over 40 countries, NVX-CoV2373 is either authorized for emergency use or has received full approval
• SAFETY: “NVX-CoV2373 safety has been assessed throughout the comprehensive non-clinical and clinical development programs and in post authorization safety surveillance. No risks were identified in the nonclinical development program while data supported the dose and regimen approved for human use. The NVX-CoV2373 safety profile indicates this vaccine is well tolerated as demonstrated by data from over 31,000 participants receiving NVX-CoV2373 across 5 randomized controlled clinical trials.”
• Novavax = 5 ug (Wuhan strain spike protein) + 50 ug Matrix-M
  • “there is paucity of evidence about the longevity of the antibody response to COVID-19 infection…therefore, reinfection with COVID-19 is possible”
  • The Matrix-M adjuvant is manufactured by mixing defined, partially purified extracts of the bark of the Quillaja saponaria Molina tree, termed Fraction A and Fraction C, with cholesterol and phosphatidylcholine in the presence of a detergent.
  • The resulting spherical immune stimulating complexes are particles of approximately 40 nm diameter, are remarkably stable, held together by the strong affinity between saponin and cholesterol. The particle also provides chemical stability to the fragile saponin molecules under conditions where free saponins degrade quickly.
  • Matrix-M adjuvant administration was generally well tolerated in humansand animals. Toxicology data from animal studies to evaluate Matrix-M adjuvant, alone or co-administered with different vaccine antigens, did not demonstrate relevant systemic or organ-specific toxicities. There were transient and inconsistent reductions in body weight and red cell mass parameters
  • Matrix-M has been tested with Influenza, RSV and Ebola nanoparticle vaccines
  • “immunostimulation from Matrix-M adjuvant may also contribute to immunotoxicity”
  • biodistribution studies of Matrix-M have been done in rodents
  • biodistribution of nanoparticle-spike hasn’t been done – WHY? – “We anticipate that the co-formulated vaccine will follow a conventional protein antigen trafficking pathway following intramuscular administration: the antigen taken up by dendritic cells will migrate to the draining lymph node where it is processed and presented to T cells by antigen-presenting cells and initiate the immune response. Therefore, we expect that detectable antigen distribution would mostly be limited to local lymph nodes”
  • No studies have been performed to measure persistence in local or distal tissues due to the very low microgram doses of antigen, it will be difficult to detect in serum and tissues.
  • delivery in the context of a saponin adjuvant is designed to facilitate transport to the draining lymph nodes rather than formation of a local depot.
  • “Novavax expects a low potential for serious unwanted effects and toxicities in neonates, infants, and children”
  • “Novavax expects a low potential for serious unwanted effects and toxicities in pregnant women and fetuses”
  • “Novavax does not believe there are other special populations which would be more susceptible for serious unwanted effects and toxicities”

Oct. 18, 2023 – COVID-19 Update: New Novavax Vaccine Formulation for 2023-2024.

• original formulation of Novavax vaccine is no longer authorized for use in US
• 2023-2024 formulation of the Novavax vaccine contains the spike protein of the XBB.1.5 Omicron strain of SARS-CoV-2.
• No clinical studies evaluating the SAFETY or effectiveness of the 2023-2024 Novavax vaccine are available
• “The updated Novavax COVID-19 vaccine is indicated for use in persons ≥12 years old who have not already received another 2023-2024 COVID-19 vaccine formulation”
• WARNING: “Those who have not previously been vaccinated against COVID-19should receive 2 doses; the product labeling recommends that they be given 3 weeks apart, but according to the CDC, an 8-week interval between doses might be optimal for some patients (especially adolescent and young adult males) to reduce the risk of myocarditis and pericarditis”

June 2023 Smith et al – Safety of the NVX-CoV2373 COVID-19 vaccine in randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial.

• 4 Clinical Trials with 30,058 getting Novavax, 19,892 getting placebo
• 11.4% had a Grade 3+ systemic reaction within 7 days (3.6% for placebo)
• 21 deaths or 0.07% (12 deaths or 0.06% in placebo)
• “Grade 3–4 events were more frequent in vaccine recipients than placebo recipients, which is not unexpected for an adjuvanted vaccine compared to a saline placebo. SAE rates reported by participants who received NVX-CoV2373 or placebo were similar”
• “Following marketing authorization of NVX-CoV2373, reports of myocarditis and pericarditis were received from several regions, including Australia and the European Union. Based on a review of the cumulative post-authorization reports, myocarditis and pericarditis are now considered identified risks for NVX-CoV2373”
• “It is unclear what specific mechanism causes the cardiac tissue inflammation.”

Feb. 2023 Saint-Gerons et al – Myopericarditis Associated with the Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine (NVX-CoV2373): A Retrospective Analysis of Individual Case Safety Reports from VigiBase. 

• 61 safety reports for myocarditis and pericarditis reported to regulators, 24 serious, 19 required hospitalization, 3 were life threatening, 1 disabling, none were fatal
• median age 36 years old, 62%, 38% women
• 70% had chest pain
• median period to onset 3 days after jab
• only 13% recovered
• “disproportionality signal was found for NVX-CoV2373 (Novavax) vaccine in line with the mRNA vaccines, and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in particular”
• AstraZeneca had elevated risk of myocarditis but only 1/10th that of Pfizer or Novavax.
• “More research would be needed to understand the role of nanoparticles in the potential risk of vaccine-induced myocarditis.”
• Interpretation: Novavax has myocarditis risk comparable to Pfizer mRNA

Dec. 2022 Ahmad et al – Myopericarditis following both BNT162b2 and NVX-CoV2373.

• This case report presents 2 cases of pericarditis and myocarditis recurrence within 1 week following booster dose vaccination with NVX-CoV2373
• both cases has similar clinical presentations:
  • both subjects had mirroring events following their BNT162b2 and NVX-CoV2373 vaccinations
  • As young individuals who had reactions within 7 days of a non-first dose vaccination, both also fit the same demographic usually seen in post-mRNA vaccine myopericarditis
  • Both fulfill the criteria of myopericarditis, with presentations of pleuritic chest pain and ECG
• Theory:
  • Pfizer myocarditis – immunogenicity of the lipid nano particle (LNP) sheath required to deliver mRNA to host cells – potential cause for either direct damage to the myocardial cells, or as another trigger for immune dysregulation.
  • nanoparticles are also used in the NVX-CoV2373 vaccine, which is required for incorporation of the S-protein into the host

June 7 2022 – U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Novavax COVID-19 vaccine (NVX-CoV2373) VRBPAC briefing document. Updated 2022.

My Take… 

The “Good News”

• It’s not an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine
• It doesn’t have a Pfizer or Moderna Lipid Nanoparticle
• it has a finite quantity of spike protein that is alleged to be 5 ug
• No “DNA contamination” (hopefully)
• according to the company it has an “acceptable safety profile”

The Bad

• It uses Wuhan spike protein
• 1:1400 died in Novavax Clinical Trials (21 deaths from 30,000 participants)
• myocarditis and pericarditis are now considered identified risks for NVX-CoV2373
  • There were 5 cases of myocarditis/pericarditis in the Novavax Clinical Trials, 4 were “serious” and hospitalized
  • Company doesn’t know the specific mechanism that causes cardiac tissue inflammation (myocarditis/pericarditis)
• Study by Saint-Gerons et al analyzed 61 cases of myocarditis/pericarditis reported to regulators, 62% men
  • rate of myocarditis similar to Pfizer mRNA COVID-19 vaccines (suggesting nanoparticle involvement)
  • only 13% recovered
• FDA Briefing Document (June 2022)
  • Immune mediated medical conditions related to Novavax: Alopecia, autoimmune thyroid disease, Bell’s Palsy, psoriasis, thrombocytopenia, peripheral neuropathy, rheumatoid arthritis, uveitis (these are all associated with spike protein damage seen with mRNA vaccines after systemic distribution of LNP/mRNA!)
  • according to FDA, risk of myocarditis after Novavax could be higher than mRNA COVID-19 vaccines

The Ugly 

original Novavax is no longer on the market in the US

2023-2024 formulation of Novavax with XBB.1.5 spike protein has no clinical studies evaluating safety or effectiveness

• Spike proteins are mixed in a detergent solution where they “self-assemble” around a Polysorbate-80 core
  • “polysorbate 80 is not an inert compound and has been implicated in a number of systemic and injection- and infusion-site adverse events (ISAEs)”
• ALSO contains a saponin-based Matrix-M adjuvant (40nm nanoparticle, remarkably stable, held together by saponin-cholesterol interactions” (in rodents causes decreased body weight and red cell mass) – “may contribute to immunotoxicity”
• biodistribution of Novavax nanoparticle-spike has never been done and company “assumes” that it “mostly” stays in local lymph nodes because it should behave like a “conventional protein antigen” (it’s NOT, it’s a nanoparticle)
• No studies have been performed to measure nanoparticle-spike persistence in local or distal tissues
• “Novavax expects a low potential for serious unwanted effects and toxicities in neonates, infants, and children” (they don’t know)
• “Novavax expects a low potential for serious unwanted effects and toxicities in pregnant women and fetuses” (they don’t know)
• “Novavax does not believe there are other special populations which would be more susceptible for serious unwanted effects and toxicities” (they don’t know)

Concluding Thoughts 

• Novavax is made of 2 nanoparticles, a 60nm Polysorbate-80/Wuhan-spike rosette and 40nm Matrix-M (saponin-cholesterol)
• it seems they got away with not calling Matrix-M a nanoparticle by calling it an “adjuvant” instead, something that’s added to stimulate an immune response, but it’s a nanoparticle.
  • Matrix-M is a nanoparticle: “The Matrix-M adjuvant consists of two distinct fractions of saponins purified from the Quillaja saponaria Molina tree, combined with cholesterol and phospholipids to form 40-nm open cage-like nanoparticles”
• Both are made in detergent solutions, and the Polysorbate-80 core and the Matrix-M are not inert – both could cause immunotoxicity and adverse events – these risks have not been studied
• Novavax causes myocarditis comparable to Pfizer, only 13% recover!
• Novavax never did a biodistribution study on the Polysorbate-80/Wuhan-spike but it’s proven to get in the bloodstream and go systemic because the FDA Briefing document outlines many immune adverse events all over the body.
• Novavax also never did studies on persistence of spike in local or distant tissues and organs.
• Novavax – no data on safety in neonates, infants, children
• Novavax – no data on safety in pregnancy
• 11.4% had a Grade 3+ systemic reaction within 7 days with no long term safety data.

Novavax is a dual nanoparticle vaccine with toxic original Wuhan spike protein, with very serious adverse events (myocarditis, systemic immune injury), very serious potential risks (never-studied systemic distribution of two nanoparticles causing spike protein injury with potential additional toxicity of Polysorbate-80 and Matrix-M) and far too many unknowns.

Does any of this sound “safe” to you?

Caveat Emptor!

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***

More than 8,000 Palestinians have been killed in the last three weeks in Gaza.

Every day of this atrocious and ever-expanding Israeli onslaught at least a 1,000 more will be murdered.

Schools and hospitals are being targeted. The unspoken yet deliberate objective is to kill Palestinian children. 

More than 40% of the casualties are children.

Mosques, churches, residential areas, bakeries, communications infrastructure are targeted.  Water, electricity and fuel have been cut off to Gaza and more than 200,000 housing units have been destroyed.

“Hundreds of besieged Palestinians, mostly children, are writing their names on arms, legs, in case they lose life in Israeli bombing…

Al-Saba is one among hundreds of Palestinians, especially children, who are marking their body parts with names, so they can be identified in case they lose their life in the ongoing conflict, which began on Oct. 7…”

Last image: Some of the wounded at al-Shifa hospital (Gaza Health Ministry)

Referencing Palestinian Health authorities, the report stated that at least 3,324 children have been murdered so far and 36 were killed in the West Bank.

In comparison, reports from the UN Secretary-General on children and armed conflict show that a total of 2,985 children were killed in 24 countries in 2022, 2,515 in 2021, and 2,674 in 2020 across 22 countries.

[Al Mayadeen English, October 30, 2023]

CBC Radio Report, October 30, 2023

People of the World,

Please stand up, call on the conscience of the decision makers in your governments to find ways to stop Israel’s genocide and to help rescue, heal and feed the people of Gaza.

Ignore the abhorrent war orders from the European Union and from Washington.

Take matters in your own hands and do what your heart and conscience say.

 

The Centre for Research on Globalization, October 30, 2023

Forward this message far and wide.

This short text was prepared by Peter Koenig, Michel Chossudovsky and Jezile Torculas.

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***

Where were you on March 9, 2022, when President Biden signed the death warrant on American freedom?

On that day, in a hushed ceremony at the White House without the approval of Congress, the states or the American people, Biden signed into law Executive Order 14067.

Buried in his order are a few paragraphs, titled Section 4. The language in Section 4 makes Order 14067 the most treacherous act by a sitting president in the history of our republic.

That’s because Section 4 sets the stage for legal government surveillance of all U.S. citizens, total control over your bank accounts and purchases and the ability to silence all dissenting voices for good.

In this new war on freedom, they aren’t coming for your guns. No, they’re thinking much bigger than that.

They’re coming for your money.

And it’s already started. These efforts are stepping up and taking on a nefarious tone that also involves surveillance and loss of our freedoms under the guise of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), or Biden Bucks as I call them.

If you had asked me about this two years ago, I would have said the U.S. is taking a rather studious approach to it. It was too important to not be involved in, but the U.S. did not seem to be in any hurry to actually implement it.

There were studies, and I would have said my estimate at the time would have been, “OK, China has it. Europe, maybe another year. The U.S. might be three or four years down the road because the dollar’s too important. They don’t want to race into it. They want to get it right. There are a lot of ways to mess it up.”

But that’s changed under Joe Biden.

Biden has now fast-tracked this thing. We’ve moved pretty quickly from what I would call a research phase to an implementation phase. So I give it the name Biden Bucks, because Joe Biden will prove to have been responsible for actually implementing this at a very quick tempo in the United States.

Not Cryptocurrencies

CBDCs are digital money, not cryptocurrencies. The differences between CBDCs and crypto are important.

Cryptocurrencies are recorded on a blockchain, which is a particular type of ledger that shows every transaction ever made in each currency.

Cryptos also claim to offer anonymity and decentralization, which are said to be virtues but are actually fatal flaws because the “anonymity” is a greater cover for crime and fraud.

I worked with the U.S. Strategic Command to unravel crypto ownership when Isis was using digital tokens to finance its caliphate in 2015–2016. It’s not easy to pierce the veil, but it can be done.

By contrast, CBDCs do not use blockchain; they have a digital ledger accounting system, but it’s not a blockchain. They’re the opposite of decentralized; they are highly centralized under the control of a single issuer, usually a central bank.

There’s no anonymity. The issuer knows every account holder and every transaction — that’s the whole idea.

CBDCs are promoted on the idea that transactions are faster, cheaper and more secure when all money is digital and controlled by a government.

Compared with credit cards, debit cards, wire transfers, Venmo and PayPal, that may be true. Those systems have multiple intermediaries and layers of fees, so CBDCs may actually be able to streamline payments and make the payment system more efficient.

But while the government positions CBDCs as a benefit to consumers in performing transactions, including faster settlements, better security, ease of use and transaction costs that are lower than with cash, it’s also crucial to think through the implications of the technology and how it could negatively affect the economy and our individual rights.

The Death of Privacy

The first part of the hidden agenda is to eliminate cash. If you’re the government and you want the central bank digital currency to succeed, you have to eliminate cash because it’s your competition.

Cash is anonymous. If you pay for something with cash, the purchase can’t be directly tied to you. That’s not true of Biden Bucks.

The government knows exactly what you’re buying, to whom you’re making donations and (by extension) what you’re reading based on which books you buy, etc.

That means we’ve come very far down the road toward thought control, censorship and selective law enforcement against political enemies.

It’s a government that looks like the state ruled by Big Brother in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.

The government might want to freeze your account, they might want to seize your assets, they might want to put an expiration date on your money.

Imagine you get paid and the government says, “OK, you got the money. Nice job, but that money is going to evaporate or disappear if you don’t spend it in the next six months.” How’s that for a stimulus program?

None of these things is possible if there’s cash around. But if you get rid of cash and force everyone into a digital system, then you can do these kinds of things.

That means fiscal policy can actually be dictated by Biden Bucks. With total control of your money, the government can conduct fiscal policy at will.

What if the government wanted to stimulate the economy and increase the amount of consumer spending? They could simply send you a letter that states, for example, “You must spend $200 in the next 30 days or we will take $100 out of your account as a penalty.”

As most citizens will not want to risk losing $100, they will spend the amount requested and create stimulus in the economy as the government had wanted.

This could also work in the opposite direction. Say the government wanted to cool down the economy and not have as much money in circulation. They could encourage savings by requesting a certain balance in your account be kept and not spent.

If you went under that set balance, a penalty would be triggered.

Private Banks Are Pushing CBDCs

All that being said, the digital takeover of the financial system is not an all-or-nothing event, and it will happen in stages and not all at once. When the CBDCs are finally rolled out, it may be a bit of an anticlimax if private companies have already eliminated cash and invaded privacy on their own.

For example, the Italian bank Intesa SanPaolo has begun forcing customers to use an all-digital mobile phone service with no ability for customers to visit a branch or interact with a human bank official.

This is exactly what the world of CBDCs will be like except that a private bank will be doing the dirty work and not waiting for a government mandate. The CBDC effort in Europe will inevitably involve the European Central Bank (ECB) since they are the issuer of the euro and will be in charge of the digital ledger of transactions.

Still, private banks are not waiting for the ECB and are laying the groundwork today for a world without cash or human bankers.

All that’s left is a digital ledger and total surveillance of everything you do.

Again, the endgame for CBDCs would closely resemble George Orwell’s dystopian Nineteen Eighty-Four. It would be a world of negative interest rates, forced tax collection, government confiscation, account freezes and constant surveillance.

You might not be able to fight back easily in the world of Biden Bucks, but it can be done.

There is one nondigital, nonhackable, nontraceable form of money you can still use.

It’s called gold (and silver). I urge you to get your hands on some while you still can.

*

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James G. Rickards is the editor of Strategic Intelligence, Project Prophesy, Crash Speculator, and Gold Speculator. He is an American lawyer, economist, and investment banker with 40 years of experience working in capital markets on Wall Street. He was the principal negotiator of the rescue of Long-Term Capital Management L.P. (LTCM) by the U.S Federal Reserve in 1998. His clients include institutional investors and government directorates.

Featured image is from DR

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***

Amnesty International is issuing an urgent call for an immediate ceasefire by all parties in the occupied Gaza Strip and Israel to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid for people in Gaza amidst an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.

“Over the past two and a half weeks we have witnessed horror unfolding on an unimaginable scale in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. More than 2 million people in the Gaza Strip are struggling to survive amidst a catastrophic humanitarian crisis and the level of civilian casualties has been unprecedented. Over 6546 people have been killed in Gaza and at least 1,400 in Israel and thousands more have been injured. More than 200 people have been taken hostage by Hamas. Serious violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes, by all parties to the conflict continue unabated. In the face of such unprecedented devastation and suffering, humanity must prevail,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

“Urgent action is needed to protect civilians and prevent further staggering levels of human suffering. We urge all members of the international community to come together to demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire by all parties in the conflict.”

Amnesty International joins the Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, the UN agencies working in Palestine, and many human rights experts, represented by a long list of UN special procedures, who are also calling for a ceasefire, along with the UN Secretary General and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Since the horrific attacks in southern Israel on 7 October, in which Hamas and other armed groups killed at least 1,400 people and took over 200 hostages, most of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities, Israeli forces have launched thousands of air and ground strikes on the Gaza Strip, killing more than 6,546 people, mostly civilians, including at least 2,704 children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. More than 17,439  have been injured and over 2,000 bodies are still trapped beneath the rubble while the health sector is on its knees.

The looming ground offensive by Israeli forces into Gaza is likely to have cataclysmic consequences for Gaza’s civilians, as foretold by the ominous threats issued by the Israeli military to civilians remaining in northern Gaza. Civilians in Israel also continue to come under attack from indiscriminate rocket fire from Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza.

“In the face of the unprecedented humanitarian disaster in Gaza that is growing worse by the day, an immediate ceasefire by all parties is vital to enable aid agencies to get sufficient relief into the Strip and to distribute it safely and unconditionally. It would give hospitals an opportunity to receive life-saving medicines,  water and equipment they desperately need as well as to repair damaged wards,” said Agnès Callamard. 

“An immediate ceasefire is also the most effective way to protect civilians as warring parties continue to commit grave violations. It could prevent the mounting civilian death toll in Gaza and could also provide an opportunity to secure the safe release of hostages.”

Amnesty International has documented evidence of war crimes by Israeli forces and Hamas and other armed groups. A ceasefire could also enable independent investigations into human rights violations and war crimes by all parties to be carried out, including by the International Criminal Court and the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Their work is vital as ending the longstanding impunity for war crimes and crimes against humanity and securing justice and reparation for victims are essential to prevent recurrence of these atrocities and to address the root causes of the conflict, such as Israel’s system of apartheid imposed on all Palestinians.

Amnesty International also reiterates its calls for:

• An end to unlawful attacks, including indiscriminate attacks, direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, and disproportionate attacks 
• Israel to immediately allow unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid into the occupied Gaza Strip’s civilians, lift its 16-year illegal blockade on Gaza, and grant immediate access to the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory
• The international community to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on all parties to the conflict given that serious violations amounting to crimes under international law are being committed.
• The International Criminal Court’s ongoing investigation into the situation of Palestine to proceed and to receive full support and all necessary resources.
• Hamas and all other armed groups to release unconditionally and immediately all civilian hostages and to treat all those being held captive humanely, including by providing medical treatment, pending their release.
• Israel to release all Palestinians who are arbitrarily detained.
• The root causes of the conflict to be addressed, including through dismantling Israel’s system of apartheid against all Palestinians.

Demand a ceasefire by all parties to end civilian suffering, sign your name here.

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Featured image is from Craig Murray

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***

In the midst of extensive coverage of the war in Gaza, there are questions that the U.S. mass media should address:

1. How did Hamas, with tiny Gaza surrounded by a 17-year Israeli blockade, subjected to unparalleled electronic surveillance, with spies and informants, and augmented by an overwhelming air, sea, and land military presence, manage to get these weapons and associated technology for their October 7 surprise raid?

2. What is the connection between the stunning failure of the Israeli government to protect its people on the border and the policy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu? Recall The New York Times (October 22, 2023) article by prominent journalist, Roger Cohen, to wit:

“All means were good to undo the notion of Palestinian statehood. In 2019, Mr. Netanyahu told a meeting of his center-right Likud party: ‘Those who want to thwart the possibility of a Palestinian state should support the strengthening of Hamas and the transfer of money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy.’” (Note: Israel and the U.S. fostered the rise of Islamic Hamas in 1987 to counter the secular Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)).

3. Why is Congress preparing to appropriate over $14 billion to Israel in military and other aid without any public hearings and without any demonstrated fiscal need by Israel, a prosperous economic, technological, and military superpower with a social safety net superior to that of the U.S.? USDA just reported over 44 million Americans struggled with hunger in 2022. This, in the midst of a childcare crisis. Should U.S. taxpayers be expected to pay for Netanyahu’s colossal intelligence/military collapse?

4. Why hasn’t the media reported on President Joe Biden’s statement that the Gaza Health Ministry’s body count (now over 7,000 fatalities) is exaggerated? All indications, however, are that it is a large undercount by Hamas to minimize its inability to protect its people. Israel has fired over 8,000 powerful precision munitions and bombs so far. These have struck many thousands of inhabited buildings—homes, apartments buildings, over 120 health facilities, ambulances, crowded markets, fleeing refugees, schools, water and sewage systems, and electric networks—implementing Israeli military orders to cut off all food, water, fuel, medicine, and electricity to this already impoverished densely packed area the size of Philadelphia. For those not directly slain, the deadly harm caused by no food, water, medicine, medical facilities, and fuel will lead to even more deaths and serious injuries.

Note that over three-quarters of Gaza’s population consists of children and women. Soon there will be thousands of babies born to die in the rubble. Other Palestinians will perish from untreated diseases, injuries, dehydration, and from drinking contaminated water. With crumbled sanitation facilities, physicians are fearing a deadly cholera epidemic.

Israel bombed the Rafah crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border. Only a tiny trickle of trucks are now allowed there by Israel to carry food and water. Fuel for hospital generators still remains blocked.

5. Why can’t Biden even persuade Israel to let 600 desperate Americans out of the Gaza firestorm?

6. Why isn’t the mass media making a bigger issue out of Israel’s long-time practices of blocking journalists from entering Gaza, including European, American, and Israeli journalists? The only television crews left are Gazan-residing Al Jazeera reporters. Israeli bombs have already killed 26 journalists in the Gaza Strip since October 7th. Is Israel targeting journalists’ families? Gaza bureau chief of Al Jazeera Wael Al-Dahdouh’s family was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Wednesday.

7. Why isn’t the mainstream U.S. media giving adequate space and voice to groups advocating a cease-fire and humanitarian aid? The message of Israeli peace groups’ peaceful solutions are drowned out by the media’s addiction to interviews with military tacticians. Much time and space are being given to hawks pushing for a war that could flash outside of Gaza big time. Shouldn’t groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace, the Arab-American Institute, Veterans for Peace, and associations of clergy have their views and activities reported?

8. Why is the coverage of the war overlooking the Geneva Conventions, the United Nations Charter, and the many provisions of international law that all the parties, including the U.S., have been violating? (See the October 24, 2023 letter to President Biden). Under international law, Biden has made the U.S. an active “co-belligerent” of the Israeli government’s vocal demolition of the 2.3 million inhabitants in Gaza, who are mostly descendants of Palestinian refugees driven from their homes in 1948. (See, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide).

9. What about the human-interest stories that would be revealing? For example: How do Israeli F-16 pilots feel about their daily bombing of the completely defenseless Gazan civilian population and its life-sustaining infrastructures? What are the courageous Israeli human rights and refuseniks thinking and doing in a climate of serious repression of their views as a result of Netanyahu’s defense collapse on October 7?

10. Where is the media attention on the statements from Israeli military commentators, who, for years have declared high-tech U.S.-backed, nuclear-armed Israel to be more secure than at any time in its history? Israel is reasserting its overwhelming military domination of the entire region, fully backed by U.S. militarism.

Historians remind us that in a gridlocked conflict over time, it is the most powerful party’s responsibility to lead the way to peace.

Establishing a two-state solution has been supported by Palestinians. All the Arab nations, starting with the Arab League peace proposal in 2002, support this solution as well. It is up to Israel and the U.S., assuming annexation of what is left of Palestine is not Israel’s objective. (See, the March 29, 2002 New York Times article: “Mideast Turmoil; Text of the Peace Proposals Backed by the Arab League”).

More media attention on this subject matter is much needed.

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

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Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate and the author of “The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future” (2012). His new book is, “Wrecking America: How Trump’s Lies and Lawbreaking Betray All” (2020, co-authored with Mark Green).

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***

If Shakespeare were alive today, he might rethink his famous line “What’s in a name?” after witnessing Israeli bombing in the besieged Palestinian enclave of Gaza. 

Sitting inside Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, amid wails and mourning, Ahmed Abu Al-Saba, 35, is inscribing his name on his arm.

“We write our names on our hands and the names of our children on their hands to enable our bodies to be identified if the (Israeli) occupation planes bomb us,” Al-Saba told Anadolu.

In the famous tragedy, Juliet asks Romeo “What’s in a name?” to convey the idea that the naming of things is irrelevant: “A rose is a rose by any other name.”

But in Gaza today, hundreds of children are lining up in hospitals to register their names on their hands.

Al-Saba is one among hundreds of Palestinians, especially children, who are marking their body parts with names, so they can be identified in case they lose their life in the ongoing conflict, which began on Oct. 7.

At least 2,055 children have been killed by Israeli attacks since Tel Aviv began its bombardment of the besieged Palestinian enclave two weeks ago.

Running for their lives amid the ruins of their houses and properties, suffering Palestinians have been making sure they are identified in case they are next in the targeted attacks by Israeli forces.

Al-Saba said: “There are many martyrs, especially children, whose families are difficult to reach.”  

‘Occupation Does Not Discriminate, and Bombs Everywhere’

The scenes of bombarded neighborhoods in Gaza reveal a story of catastrophe and devastation. Over a million people have been forcibly displaced, and hundreds are taking refuge in hospitals and UN-run schools.

“The occupation does not discriminate between anyone and bombs everywhere,” Al-Saba said.

At least 5,087 Palestinians, including 1,023 women and 2,055 children, have been killed by Israeli attacks on Gaza, while 15,273 others have been injured.

“The families wrote their names on their hands and legs so they could be identified after being bombed by Israel, using American-made and American-supplied death bombs,” Palestinian academic Sami Al-Arian wrote on X.​​​​​​​

“Their innocent blood is on the hands of (US President Joe) Biden and his bloodthirsty friends. In their world, Palestinian children don’t deserve to live, while Israeli criminals are protected and praised,” Al-Arian said, adding: “Damn your racism and hypocrisy!”

The conflict in Gaza, which has been under Israeli bombardment and a blockade since Oct. 7, began when Hamas initiated Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, a multi-pronged surprise attack that included a barrage of rocket launches and infiltrations into Israel by land, sea and air.

It said the incursion was in retaliation for the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque and growing violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians.

The Israeli military then launched Operation Swords of Iron against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip.

Around 1,400 Israelis have been killed since Oct. 7.  

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Featured image: A woman holding a girl reacts after Israeli airstrikes hit Ridwan neighborhood of Gaza City, Gaza on October 23, 2023. (Source: AA)

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***

Two months before Hamas attacked Israel, the Pentagon awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to build U.S. troop facilities for a secret base it maintains deep within Israel’s Negev desert, just 20 miles from Gaza. Code-named “Site 512,” the longstanding U.S. base is a radar facility that monitors the skies for missile attacks on Israel. 

On October 7, however, when thousands of Hamas rockets were launched, Site 512 saw nothing — because it is focused on Iran, more than 700 miles away.

The U.S. Army is quietly moving ahead with construction at Site 512, a classified base perched atop Mt. Har Qeren in the Negev, to include what government records describe as a “life support facility”: military speak for barracks-like structures for personnel.

Though President Joe Biden and the White House insist that there are no plans to send U.S. troops to Israel amid its war on Hamas, a secret U.S. military presence in Israel already exists. And the government contracts and budget documents show it is evidently growing. 

The $35.8 million U.S. troop facility, not publicly announced or previously reported, was obliquely referenced in an August 2 contract announcement by the Pentagon. Though the Defense Department has taken pains to obscure the site’s true nature — describing it in other records merely as a “classified worldwide” project — budget documents reviewed by The Intercept reveal that it is part of Site 512. (The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

“Sometimes something is treated as an official secret not in the hope that an adversary would never find out about it but rather [because] the U.S. government, for diplomatic or political reasons, does not want to officially acknowledge it,” Paul Pillar, a former chief analyst at the CIA’s counterterrorism center who said he had no specific knowledge of the base, told The Intercept. “In this case, perhaps the base will be used to support operations elsewhere in the Middle East in which any acknowledgment that they were staged from Israel, or involved any cooperation with Israel, would be inconvenient and likely to elicit more negative reactions than the operations otherwise would elicit.”

Rare acknowledgment of the U.S. military presence in Israel came in 2017, when the two countries inaugurated a military site that the U.S. government-funded Voice of America deemed “the first American military base on Israeli soil.” Israeli Air Force’s Brig. Gen. Tzvika Haimovitch called it “historic.” He said, “We established an American base in the State of Israel, in the Israel Defense Forces, for the first time.” 

A day later, the U.S. military denied that it was an American base, insisting that it was merely a “living facility” for U.S. service members working at an Israeli base. 

The U.S. military employs similar euphemistic language to characterize the new facility in Israel, which its procurement records describe as a “life support area.” Such obfuscation is typical of U.S. military sites the Pentagon wants to conceal. Site 512 has previously been referred to as a “cooperative security location”: a designation that is intended to confer a low-cost, light footprint presence but has been applied to bases that, as The Intercept has previously reported, can house as many as 1,000 troops.

Site 512, however, wasn’t established to contend with a threat to Israel from Palestinian militants but the danger posed by Iranian mid-range missiles.

The overwhelming focus on Iran continues to play out in the U.S. government’s response to the Hamas attack. In an attempt to counter Iran — which aids both Hamas and Israel’s rival to the north, Hezbollah, a Lebanese political group with a robust military wing, both of which are considered terror groups by the U.S. — the Pentagon has vastly expanded its presence in the Middle East. Following the attack, the U.S. doubled the number of fighter jets in the region and deployed two aircraft carriers off the coast of Israel. 

Top Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have nonetheless castigated Biden for his purported “weakness on Iran.” While some media accounts have said Iran played a role in planning the Hamas attack, there have been indications from the U.S. intelligence community that Iranian officials were surprised by the attack.

The history of the U.S.–Israel relationship may be behind the failure to acknowledge the base, said an expert on overseas U.S. military bases.

“My speculation is that the secrecy is a holdover from when U.S. presidential administrations tried to offer a pretense of not siding with Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab conflicts,” David Vine, a professor of anthropology at American University, told The Intercept. “The announcement of U.S. military bases in Israel in recent years likely reflects the dropping of that pretense and a desire to more publicly proclaim support for Israel.”

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Featured image: U.S. Air Force airmen hand off cargo to the Israeli military at Nevatim Air Base, Israel, on Oct. 15, 2023. Photo: Edgar Grimaldo/U.S. Air Force

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***

A report by Save the Children states that more children have been killed in Gaza since the attacks on October 7 than those killed in conflicts around the world every year since 2019.

Referencing Palestinian Health authorities, the report stated that at least 3,324 children have been murdered so far and 36 were killed in the West Bank.

In comparison, reports from the UN Secretary-General on children and armed conflict show that a total of 2,985 children were killed in 24 countries in 2022, 2,515 in 2021, and 2,674 in 2020 across 22 countries.

Jason Lee, Save the Children’s country director for the occupied Palestinian territory, explained,

“One child’s death is one too many, but these are grave violations of epic proportions,” adding, “A ceasefire is the only way to ensure their safety. The international community must put people before politics – every day spent debating is leaving children killed and injured. Children must be protected at all times, especially when they are seeking safety in schools and hospitals.”

As of yet, 1,000 children remain missing in Gaza and may be under the rubble. It is worth noting that children constitute over 40% of the more than 8,000 people confirmed dead in Gaza. 

A typical 15-year-old in Gaza has lived through five periods of intensive bombardment: 2008-9, 2012, 2014, 2021, and now 2023.

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Featured image source

Video: “Wiping Gaza Off the Map”: Big Money Agenda. Confiscating Palestine’s Maritime Natural Gas Reserves

By Felicity Arbuthnot and Prof Michel Chossudovsky, October 30, 2023

In the current context, Israel’s “All Goes to Plan” option consists in bypassing Palestine and “Wiping Gaza off the Map”,  as well confiscating ALL Gaza’s maritime offshore gas reserves, worth billions of dollars. 

The Afterlife: A Trick or a Treat? Halloween Celebrations Past and Present

By Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin, October 30, 2023

Halloween is creeping up on us again replete with all its ghostly traditions celebrated all over the world. Also known as All Saints’ Eve, it is the time in the liturgical year or Christian year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed. 

Biden’s Bungles Over Gaza

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, October 29, 2023

The main press stable was keen to see the scrappy benefits of the 31-hour visit to Israel by US President Joe Biden. On National Public Radio (NPR), Scott Neuman expressed the view that the “largely symbolic” visit did yield a few “concrete accomplishments” including an announcement of $100 million in Palestinian aid, convincing Israel to permit humanitarian aid into Gaza and persuade Egypt’s strongman president Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to open up an access route via land into southern Gaza.  

Operation False Flag to Set the Middle East on Fire

By Manlio Dinucci, October 28, 2023

The bombs Israel is using on Gaza were supplied by the United States: there are about 10 thousand powerful small-diameter bombs guided on targets via the U.S. GPS system.

Israel’s 9/11: The War Waged Far Away from the “Only Democratic Country in the Middle East.” The GRNH with Michael Welch

By Michael Welch, Abayomi Azikiwe, and Chris Cook, October 28, 2023

A representative from the non-profit organization Palestine Legal, which provides legal support to the Palestine solidarity movement, found that they had received a surge in requests for assistance in the last two weeks. Many of these individuals, including university students, professors, and journalists said they faced negative consequences in their workplaces for statements they made on their social media posts in support of Palestinian rights!

Widening the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Yellow Journalism Stoking Potential War on Iran

By Jeremy Kuzmarov, October 29, 2023

On October 8, The Wall Street Journal accused Iran of helping to plan the Tribe of Nova massacre; a Hamas terrorist attack on an Israeli music festival that has triggered renewed outbreak of war in the Middle East.

Pro-Israel War Propaganda and Censorship

By Margaret Kimberley, October 30, 2023

Israel’s rationale for indiscriminate bombing in Gaza is collective punishment by its own admission. Regardless of what acts were committed by Hamas forces on October 7, killing entire Palestinian families in retaliation is indefensible under international law.

Israel-Palestine War: Israel Plans to Flood Hamas Tunnels with Nerve Gas, Source Says

By David Hearst, October 30, 2023

Palestinian groups expect Israel to flood Hamas tunnels with a type of nerve gas or chemical weapon under the surveillance of US Delta Force commandos as part of a surprise attack on the Gaza Strip, a senior Arab source familiar with the Palestinian groups told Middle East Eye.

Thou Shalt Not Kill. Dennis Kucinich

By Dennis Kucinich, October 30, 2023

As a member of the US Congress for 16 years, I gave over 500 speeches warning about the consequences of US wars against Afghanistan, the Balkans, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria. I spoke for the imperative of peace in the Middle East, on behalf of Israelis and the Palestinians alike. I met with leaders of many countries who were grappling to keep their nations out of conflict and I came to understand the role some in the US government have played to intentionally catalyze war, fueling arms sales globally, without regard for the consequences. 

Four Professional International Cyclists Forced to Retire Due to “Cardiac Issues.” Many Amateur Cyclists Dying Suddenly

By Dr. William Makis, October 27, 2023

28 year old Danish rider Niklas Eg has been forced to retire due to inexplicable instances of irregular heart rate during his training sessions. His medical team has still not determined the cause of the irregular heart rate.

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Along the border wall separating Israel and the Gaza Strip, tens of thousands of soldiers are making the final preparations for a full-scale ground invasion. 

But soon, the sight of massed troops might seem as much a relic of the past as knights on horseback appear to us now. 

That’s because the wars of the future will not only be fought by humans, but also by machines.

Already, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has developed and deployed a staggering arsenal of robotic and autonomous weapons which may soon see their first deployment at scale.

From AI-powered turrets and drones to robotic tanks and boats these terrifying weapons will soon play a critical role in the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Already, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has developed and deployed a staggering arsenal of robotic and autonomous weapons which may soon see their first deployment at scale (Source: Daily Mail Online)

Harop Suicide Drone

The Harop is a loitering suicide drone capable of carrying a 35lbs (16kg) explosive warhead to strike a target up to 620 miles (1,000km) away.

Developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), Israel’s state-owned weapons manufacturer, the Harop is able to autonomously search for, identify, and attack targets.

While measuring 8ft (2.4 metres) long and almost 10ft (three metres) across, the drone can fold its wings to be launched from a container on land or sea. 

The operator can designate a ‘holding area’ where the drone will automatically fly to and wait, as well as a set of criteria for targets.

When the Harop identifies a target meeting its criteria, it will automatically attack, diving at speeds of up to 250 miles/hour, slamming directly into the target and detonating the explosives. 

The enormous drone uses a ‘man-in-the-loop’ operating system aimed at reducing collateral damage.

This means that while the attack sequence is largely autonomous, a human controller can intervene at any point to call off the attack or take direct control of the drone.

The man-in-the-loop system is a major change from the earlier ‘Harpy’ drone, which struck targets without any human control or intervention.

The Harop is also enormously expensive with costs for foreign nations ranging around $800,000 to $1 million (£659,760-£824,700) per drone.

AI Turrets

In 2022, the residents of a large Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank felt first-hand the ways that autonomous weapons systems are changing the nature of war.

In the Al-Aroub refugee camp – a frequent flashpoint for protests – Israel installed AI-powered turrets capable of firing sponge-tipped bullets, tear gas, and stun grenades.

Created by weapons firm, Smart Shooter, the turrets use an AI system which automatically identifies, tracks, and locks on to targets considered hostile. 

The autonomous fire-control system, called SMASH, still requires a soldier to open fire even if they no longer aim the weapon.

In the firm’s marketing, this system is called ‘One Shot—One Hit’ and claims that it ‘combines simple to install hardware with advanced image-processing software to turn basic small arms into 21st century smart weapons’.

The turret uses less-than-lethal munitions, however, these have also been controversial due to the level of harm they can cause.

Sponge-tipped bullets have reportedly caused fractured skulls and serious injuries, while death or long-term injury due to tear gas inhalation is possible.

A spokesperson for the IDF said in a statement that the system would not be extended to use live fire.

‘As part of the army’s improved preparations for confronting people disrupting order in the area, it is examining the possibility of using remotely-controlled systems for the employment of approved measures of crowd dispersal,’ the spokesperson told Haaretz.

Rotem 

Light enough to be carried in a backpack, but strong enough to punch through two feet of armour plating; the Rotem suicide drone is a formidable threat in urban warfare.

The Rotem, also designed by IAI, is operated in the same way as a commercial quadcopter drone.

The operator can see from the drone’s perspective via a tablet and use an onboard array of sensors to find targets.

Light enough to be carried in a backpack, but strong enough to punch through two feet of armour plating; the Rotem suicide drone is a formidable threat in urban warfare (Source: Daily Mail Online)

The Rotem, also designed by IAI, is operated in the same way as a commercial quadcopter drone (Source: Daily Mail Online)

Able to manoeuvre in tight spaces and equipped with automated obstacle avoidance, Rotem has been tailored to the IDF’s requirements for precision urban combat. 

The drone is also able to return safely if not detonated, a vital feature for a piece of kit costing tens of thousands of dollars. 

Much like other drones used by the IDF, the Rotem is also a loitering suicide munition. 

The drone can ‘perch and stare’, automatically landing on buildings or hills and waiting to ambush targets.

According to the drone’s product page, the drone ‘autonomously detects and locates enemy hostile fire sources like artillery, rockets, and missiles launchers, then investigates and engages a direct attack.’

It is not specified how much human control is involved in this process though it likely is a human-in-the-loop system. 

Rex MKII

Designed to ‘keep troops out of harm’s way’ the Rex MKII is one of the most advanced autonomous combat robots in the world.

Equipped to be both a transport or reconnaissance vehicle and a weapons platform, this hybrid vehicle can operate silently for up to 43 miles (70km) and up to 248 miles (400km) using its onboard generator. 

Controlled by IAI’s proprietary AI Machine Learning software, the Rex completes tasks with complete autonomy. 

It can be loaded with weapons including a 7.62mm machine gun, 50 calibre heavy machine gun, or 30mm cannon.

According to IAI, the onboard technology uses ‘sensor-to-shooter loops’ to select targets autonomously in real-time.

However, a human soldier is required to press the trigger and authorise firing on targets. 

RoBattle

RoBattle forms part of a series of robotic and semi-autonomous weapons being rolled out by the IDF on the Israel-Gaza border.

Weighing seven tons and about the size of a small car, the RoBattle is designed to perform tasks that otherwise would be carried out by human soldiers.

Part of the IDF’s growing robotic arsenal, RoBattle is meant to take on dangerous tasks that would have otherwise been assigned to human soldiers (Source: Daily Mail Online)

For maximum flexibility, it can be equipped with a range of different payloads including sensors and radars, manipulator arms, or remotely controlled weapons. 

Weaponised versions of the robot use the Pitbull remote weapons systems designed by Israeli weapons developer General Robotics.

According to IAI, the RoBattle autonomously performs ‘Advance Guard, ambushes, acts as a decoy, convoy & force protection, combat Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition & Reconnaissance (ISTAR), and advance attack capabilities.’

Sensors combined with onboard AI allow the robot to respond to threats around it, although it is not clear how much human authorisation is required for the use of lethal force.

Protector 

The first unmanned surface vessel developed for the Israeli Navy, the Protector is a highly independent remote control vehicle.

The protector has been in service since 2014 as part of patrols along Israel’s coast, although it has mainly been used by the Republic of Singapore Navy in anti-piracy missions.

The Protector is a rigid inflatable boat capable of cruising at 55 miles/hour (88km/h).

Equipped with both a water cannon for non-lethal use and remote-controlled weapons systems, this robot can be deployed in several different roles.

Initially only armed with small weapons, the Protector has also test-fired missiles in trials. 

However, the Israeli Navy has now terminated the programme to use unmanned surface vessels.

Guardium 

The Guardium is one of the few robotic weapons that is directly developed by the IDF for their use in conflict with Gaza.

Since 2008, this semi-autonomous scout vehicle has been patrolling Gaza’s border fence as part of anti-terror and anti-smuggling operations.

While not equipped with any weaponry, the Guardium is a vital source of surveillance for Israeli forces.

The Guardium was designed specifically to patrol the Gaza border and uses a 360-degree camera and loudspeaker to search for potential terrorist threats (Source: Daily Mail Online)

With 360-degree cameras and a loudspeaker, this highly mobile vehicle can hit 50 miles/hour (80km/h) and operate for days at a time without a recharge.

The Guardium can be either controlled remotely or operate autonomously for long periods.

According to the IDF, the vehicle is operated with joysticks, gear pedals, a steering wheel, and monitors which broadcast a live feed from the field

The IDF also notes that all Guardium drivers are women.

Lt. Avidav, head of the Guardium Division, wrote in an IDF blog post: ‘Applicants must be able to focus intensively since the job demands being glued to a screen without interruption for six hour shifts.’

Spike Firefly

The Spike Firefly is the very latest in the IDF’s arsenal of remote weapons, having been first used in combat earlier this year. 

About the size of a carton of milk and weighing only 6.6lbs (3kg), the Spike Firefly is a suicide drone designed specifically for use in dense urban environments like Gaza.

The weapon is placed on its end, armed, and then piloted by a soldier using a tablet.

With a flight range of about 15 minutes, the drone is designed to bring small amounts of explosives to enemy combatants otherwise hidden out of sight.  

IDF soldiers flew six of these drones into houses around the Jenin refugee camp to destroy terrorist targets including a command centre that housed dozens of explosive charges. 

Crucially, the IDF claims that no Palestinian civilians were killed during the operation.

The drone can also operate autonomously and explode over predesignated targets, although a human operator is always able to call off the attack at any point.  

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Featured image: The Harop is a loitering suicide drone capable of carrying a 35lbs (16kg) explosive warhead to strike a target up to 620 miles (1,000km) away (Source: Daily Mail Online)

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“I have been informed that I am being replaced as the Editor in Chief of @eLife for retweeting a @TheOnion piece that calls out indifference to the lives of Palestinian civilians.” —Michael B. Eisen 

Michael B. Eisen is just the latest victim of unrelenting pro-Israel war propaganda spread by the state and by its friends in corporate media. The scorched earth policy is operating in the United States and in its allied nations such as Canada, where physician Dr. Ben Thomson was suspended from his job after posting on the X platform,

“No babies were beheaded, there have been no confirmed reports of rapes. You repeat this nonsense out of racism. In the meantime, Palestinians are experiencing genocide and war crimes and you are silent. History will judge you very badly.”

Everything Thomson said is true. The beheaded baby trope was made up out of whole cloth and Palestinians are the group being subjected to war crimes.

War crimes are very clearly defined in international law. Geneva Conventions IV, Article 33 explains, “No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.”

Israel’s rationale for indiscriminate bombing in Gaza is collective punishment by its own admission. Regardless of what acts were committed by Hamas forces on October 7, killing entire Palestinian families in retaliation is indefensible under international law. Yet this clearly documented doctrine that is ordinarily upheld as an international norm no longer applies because the U.S. finds doing so to be a great inconvenience. 

Foreign policy under the Biden administration has reached its nadir as fantasies about breaking up Russia or containing China are unchecked by a president who truly believes that U.S. power is unlimited and can accomplish anything he wants it to. When asked on the program 60 Minutes if the U.S. will have difficulty carrying on proxy wars in Ukraine and Israel simultaneously, Biden’s reply exposed his simple minded and dangerous belief about U.S. power. “No. We’re the United States of America for God’s sake, the most powerful nation in the history– not in the world, in the history of the world. The history of the world. We can take care of both of these and still maintain our overall international defense.”

Biden thinks that U.S. power can create any outcome that he may dream up, that Russia will allow Ukraine to be used as a point of attack or that the rest of the world will stand by passively and silently as the U.S. gives Israel carte blanche to kill thousands of people.

Joe Biden’s recent trip to Israel was an unmitigated disaster because of his arrogance and stupidity. He was originally scheduled to meet King Abdullah of Jordan and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt along with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But the bombing of the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza was an affront to every Arab country, even those like Egypt and Jordan who maintain friendly ties with the U.S. 

Biden’s incompetence and his ill-considered decision to go to Israel at all and to publicly agree with the Israeli claim that a misfired Hamas rocket hit the hospital and not the Israeli air force, made the king and the president look bad in the eyes of their people. It is one thing to be perceived as a U.S. puppet, it is quite another to be seen with a U.S. president who sides with Israel as atrocities are being committed. 

The foreign policy debacle was not described as such in U.S. corporate media. His failure to engage Arab leaders was swept under the rug and disappeared into a black hole. The president’s televised address was replete with trite platitudes and was devoid of anything other than unquestioned support of Israel with an odd swipe at Vladimir Putin thrown in for good measure. Actually the Putin reference was not so odd. The point of the speech was to announce a request to congress to allocate $61 billion to Ukraine and $14 billion to Israel and $7 billion to Taiwan. Why Taiwan? Biden’s calculus is to antagonize China in the process of creating more bloodshed in Gaza and Ukraine. Apparently the most powerful country in the history of the world believes that the more risks to world peace the better. 

This full court press of a pro-Zionist narrative that connects the white house to the television networks and national newspapers has also given a green light to Israel’s supporters to practice their own form of collective punishment. A social media post can end a job or as Harvard and Columbia University law students discovered, even the prospect of a job offer. 

The 1950s McCarthy era is remembered for the blacklists which effectively deprived anyone of a public life if they were said to be a communist or a leftist of any stripe. Now 70 years later the same imperative to silence those who stray from official doctrine is being whipped up again. The U.S. and Canada are not alone as European allies France and Germany banned any pro-Palestine protests from taking place. A French official said,

“Pro-Palestinian demonstrations must be prohibited because they are likely to generate disturbances to the public order.” 

He was correct in one sense. Public denunciations of imperialist policies do disturb the public order and that is a good thing for anyone who believes in democratic rights. But democracy is the last thing that the U.S. and its friends want. It is difficult to support Israeli government carnage if people don’t fear being beat down. Intimidation is the whole point of the exercise and anyone who dares to show even a little empathy with Palestine is quickly used to make an example. 

Writer Viet Thanh Nguyen had the temerity to sign a letter which expressed sympathy for Israeli and Palestinian deaths but which added,

“But the unprecedented and indiscriminate violence that is still escalating against the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, with the financial and political support of Western powers, can and must be brought to an end.”

That sentiment was enough for his speech at the 92nd Street Y in New York City to be canceled. 

The censorship begins at the very top. The State Department told employees that they were not to use phrases containing the words

• “de-escalation/ceasefire,”
• “end to violence/bloodshed”
• and “restoring calm”

in any press materials. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre labeled congressional calls for de-escalation as “repugnant” and added for good measure, “There are not two sides here. There are not two sides.” 

From the president on down, people in this country have been told that there is only one side, the side of Israel, and that anyone who says otherwise is to be ignored or shouted down. Of course big law firms and hospitals can fire people who dare to break the spell of American exceptionalism when a presidential administration gives even tacit permission to punish those who speak up. 

Yet people are speaking up. The corporate media may give little attention to or smear the thousands of people who protest Israel’s war crimes all over the country.

They have done so in the thousands despite the threats lodged against them. Biden and his team of amateurs may think that the U.S. cannot suffer any setbacks, but history shows that power is not unlimited. Billions of dollars and press collusion notwithstanding, U.S. policy of supporting Israel threatens that region and the whole house of cards of bad U.S. foreign policy decisions from Ukraine to Taiwan. Perhaps they know that and realize that they must enforce conformity. But history shows that can’t last forever either.

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Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on the Twitter and Telegram platforms. She can be reached via email at margaret.kimberley(at)blackagendareport.com.

Featured image is from BAR

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“We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones.” – Stephen King

Halloween is creeping up on us again replete with all its ghostly traditions celebrated all over the world.

Also known as All Saints’ Eve, it is the time in the liturgical year or Christian year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed. It is followed by All Saints’ Day, also known as All Hallows’ Day on the 1 November, and All Souls’ Day, a day of prayer and remembrance for the faithful departed, observed by certain Christian denominations on 2 November.

However, it is also believed that Halloween is rooted in the ancient pagan Gaelic festival of Samhain which marks the change of seasons and the approach of winter. Samhain begins at sunset on October 31 and continues until sunset on November 1, marking the end of harvest and the start of winter. This Celtic pagan holiday followed the great cycle of life as part of their year-round celebrations of nature along with Imbolc (February 1), Beltane (May 1) and Lughnasadh (August 1).

During Samhain people would:

“bring their cattle back from the summer pastures and slaughter livestock in preparation for the upcoming winter. They would also light ritual bonfires for protection and cleansing as they wished to mimic the sun and hold back the darkness. It was also a time when people believed that spirits or fairies (the Aos Sí ) were more likely to pass into our world. […] Dead and departed relatives played a central role in the tradition, as the connection between the living and dead was believed to be stronger at Samhain, and there was a chance to communicate. Souls of the deceased were thought to return to their homes. Feasts were held and places were set at tables as a way to welcome them home. Food and drink was offered to the unpredictable spirits and fairies to ensure continued health and good fortune.”

Dancing around the bonfire. The Graphic | 7 January 1893

The Celts believed in an afterlife called the Otherworld which was similar to this life but “without all the negative elements like disease, pain, and sorrow.”

Therefore, the Celts had little to fear from death when their soul left their body, or as the Celts believed, their head.

As Christianity spread in pagan communities, the church leaders attempted to incorporate Samhain into the Christian calendar. The Roman Empire had conquered the majority of Celtic lands by A.D. 43 and combined two Roman festivals, Feralia and Pomona with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain. Feralia was similar to Samhain as the Romans commemorated the passing of their dead, while Pomona, whose symbol was the apple, was the Roman goddess of fruit and trees, and may be the origin of the apple games of Halloween.

Some centuries later the church moved again to supplant the pagan traditions with Christian ones:

“On May 13, A.D. 609, Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome in honor of all Christian martyrs, and the Catholic feast of All Martyrs Day was established in the Western church. Pope Gregory III later expanded the festival to include all saints as well as all martyrs, and moved the observance from May 13 to November 1. By the 9th century, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands, where it gradually blended with and supplanted older Celtic rites. In A.D. 1000, the church made November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead.”

While on the surface the changes from the Celtic Otherworld to the Christian concepts of Heaven, Purgatory and Hell may not seem very radical yet when one looks further into the different beliefs about the afterlife a very different story emerges.

The Otherworld

The Celtic Otherworld is “more usually described as a paradisal fairyland than a scary place” and sometimes described as an island to the west in the Ocean and “even shown on some maps of Ireland during the medieval era.” It has been called, or places in the Otherworld have been called, “Tír nAill (“the other land”), Tír Tairngire (“land of promise/promised land”), Tír na nÓg (“land of the young/land of youth”), Tír fo Thuinn (“land under the wave”), Tír na mBeo (“land of the living”), Mag Mell (“plain of delight”), Mag Findargat (“the white-silver plain”), Mag Argatnél (“the silver-cloud plain”), Mag Ildathach (“the multicoloured plain”), Mag Cíuin (“the gentle plain”), and Emain Ablach (possibly “isle of apples”).”

As can be seen from the names given to the places of the Otherworld there are two important, salient points. One is the positive, almost welcoming aspect of the descriptions implied, and secondly their close relationship with nature and places in the real world. The Otherworld is described “either as a parallel world that exists alongside our own, or as a heavenly land beyond the sea or under the earth,” and could be entered through “ancient burial mounds or caves, or by going under water or across the western sea.”

We may then ask who could enter the Otherworld in the afterlife?

“Although there are no surviving texts from the continent which comment on this, on the basis of comparisons with comparable societies and burial practices we can guess that both the gods and the ancestral dead were believed to inhabit the Otherworld. The earliest literary texts in Irish reflect exactly this idea.”

These deductions about the afterlife then reflect the nature-based ideology of pagan religion which is focused on the cycles of nature, and also the fact that we ourselves are part of that nature, thus both the ancestral dead and the gods inhabited the Otherworld. It seems that the dead entered the Otherworld fairly quickly and could even return to visit the living when the darkness started to take over from the light at Samhain. Even the living could visit the Otherworld but these visits would have their own drawbacks, for example, Oisín discovers that what had only seemed a short stay in Tír na nÓg had been hundreds of years in the real world.

Ghosts walk the night in Brittany by F. De Haenen | The Graphic | 5 November 1910

Christian Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory

The differences between nature-based paganism and the Master and Martyr ethics of Christianity mean that entry to heaven is not guaranteed and may even be delayed for a long time in purgatory. For example:

“Christianity considers the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to entail the final judgment by God of all people who have ever lived, resulting in the approval of some and the penalizing of most. […] Belief in the Last Judgment (often linked with the general judgment) is held firmly in Catholicism. Immediately upon death each person undergoes the particular judgment, and depending upon one’s behavior on earth, goes to heaven, purgatory, or hell. Those in purgatory will always reach heaven, but those in hell will be there eternally.”

Hell is often depicted with fire and torture of the guilty. Thus, Christianity brings a strong element of fear into perceptions of the afterlife. The people whose behaviour needs to be controlled are frightened into being good and given long promises about eventual eternal bliss at the end of time.

The patriarchal element of Christianity and its desire to control and direct the remnants of pagan religion gave rise to other important aspects of Halloween. The dark symbolism of witches on broomsticks with black cats are an essential element of the Halloween imagery. By late medieval/early modern Europe, fears about witchcraft rose to fever pitch and sometimes led to large-scale witch-hunts. The Church saw these women (whose knowledge of nature was transformed into healing homoeopathic treatments) as a threat to their authority and demonised them before their own communities.

The witches “occasionally functioned as midwives, assisting the delivery and birth of babies, aiding the mother with different plant-based medicines to help with the pain of childbirth. […] The word Witch comes from the word for ‘wise one’ that was ‘Wicca’, and who were once considered wise soon became something to be feared and avoided.”

“Halloween Days”, article from American newspaper, The Sunday Oregonian, 1916

Like many traditional festivals Halloween has different historical sources, pagan and Christian, that have come together to form the holiday as we know it today.

Jack-o’-lantern

Jack-o’-lantern represents the soul caught between heaven and hell who can know no rest and must wander on the earth forever. It is believed to originate in an old Irish folk tale from the mid-18th century which tells of Stingy Jack, “a lazy yet shrewd blacksmith who uses a cross to trap Satan.”

A plaster cast of a traditional Irish Jack-o’-Lantern in the Museum of Country Life, Ireland. Rutabaga or turnip were often used.

Jack tricks Satan who lets him go only after he agrees to never take his soul. When the blacksmith dies he is considered too sinful to enter heaven. He could not enter hell either and asks Satan how he will be able to see his way in the dark. Satan’s response was to toss him “a burning coal, to light his way. Jack carved out one of his turnips (which were his favorite food), put the coal inside it, and began endlessly wandering the Earth for a resting place.”

The Irish emigrants to the United States are believed to have switched the turnip for a pumpkin as it was more accessible and easier to carve. Ironically, in Ireland now, pumpkins are grown and sold to make modern Jack-o’-lanterns.

Modern carving of a Cornish Jack-o’-Lantern made from a turnip.

Door to Door Traditions

Another American tradition, trick-or-treating, has also taken root in Ireland in recent decades. As a child growing up in the United States, I also went trick-or-treating in Boston. However, after our move to Dublin, our trick-or-treating questions at Halloween were met with bewilderment as Irish people were used to a simple request for ‘anything for the Halloween party’.

The tradition of going door to door on Halloween may come from the belief that supernatural beings, or the souls of the dead, roamed the earth at this time and needed to be appeased. In Europe, from the 12th century, special ‘soul cakes’ would be baked and shared. People would pray for the poor souls of the dead (in purgatory) in return for soul cakes. In Ireland and Scotland “mumming and guising (going door-to-door in disguise and performing in exchange for food) was taken up as another variation on these ancient customs. Pranks were thought to be a way of confounding evil spirits. Pranks at Samhain date as far back as 1736 in Scotland and Ireland, and this led to Samhain being dubbed ‘Mischief Night.’”

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The Guardian’s main headline today is the Israeli propaganda framing of last night’s huge massacre.

The Zionist grip on the political and media class is stark. Ordinary citizens are left with feelings ranging from rage to deep sorrow, but with a feeling of helplessness at having no power and no genuine voice in the country where they live. The bought-and-paid-for politicians intone “Israel’s right to self-defence” as justifying the slaughter of any number of Palestinian children.

They pretend they do not see the obvious genocide which is happening before their eyes. The Guardian’s framing of the death of hundreds, probably thousands, of young children last night, as destruction of Hamas tunnels, ought to be astonishing. Sadly it is entirely unsurprising.

Here is a reminder of how it works. Joan Ryan MP secretly filmed talking to Shai Masot of the Israeli Embassy in London.

Labour MP Joan Ryan discussing a £1M "donation" from the Israeli Embassy with Shai Masot, an Israeli agent plotting to "take down" MPs hostile to Israel.

No biggie. It's not as if Joan helped "take down" Jeremy Corbyn or anything.

Oh, hang on. She did.pic.twitter.com/5doWEquCri

— Frank Owen's Legendary Paintbrush🥀🇵🇸🇾🇪 (@OwenPaintbrush) September 8, 2023

Last night, well after the latest extreme massacre phase had started, the BBC 10 o’clock evening news presented a single volley of Hamas no-warhead popgun missiles – which as usual killed nobody – as equivalent to the massive Israeli high explosive bombardment. They then featured a lengthy interview with a “heroic” clean-cut Israeli soldier who fought a Hamas attack on a military base on 7 October despite being wounded, and who explained that the attacks on Gaza are justified as they will free Israel from terrorism.

All this while the massive massacre was in progress in Gaza. The strange thing is, the BBC and the Guardian, and nearly the entire rest of the MSM, pump out their propaganda as though we have no other access to information or understanding of what is happening.

More than that, there seems to be a presumption that the general population harbour the same Zionist assumptions which the journalists are paid to promote. Well, we don’t. It feels like something has snapped, not only in Palestine but in the UK and much of Europe, where the process of alienation between the governed and the ruling classes has been accelerated.

Democracy has been failing in the West for a while – to take the UK as an example, the idea that a “choice” between Sunak and Starmer offers any kind of democratic alternative is risible. There are key moments in societal breakdown, and this is one.

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Featured image: Official portrait of Joan Ryan (Licensed under CC BY 3.0)

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Palestinian groups expect Israel to flood Hamas tunnels with a type of nerve gas or chemical weapon under the surveillance of US Delta Force commandos as part of a surprise attack on the Gaza Strip, a senior Arab source familiar with the Palestinian groups told Middle East Eye.

Israel and the US hope to achieve the element of surprise in order to penetrate Hamas tunnels, rescue an estimated 220 hostages, and kill thousands of soldiers belonging to Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades, the source said, noting that the information they received came from a leak originating in the US.

Middle East Eye cannot independently verify the information in the leak.

“The plan hinges on the element of surprise so as to decisively win the battle, using internationally forbidden gases, particularly nerve gas, and chemical weapons. Large quantities of nerve gas would be pumped into the tunnels,” the source said.

The source added that the US Delta Force will oversee “large quantities of nerve gas being pumped into Hamas tunnels, capable of paralysing the bodily movement for a period of time between six and 12 hours.

“Inhaled or absorbed through the skin, most nerve gases can kill in anywhere between one to 10 minutes by crippling the respiratory centre of the central nervous system and paralysing the muscles around the lungs.

Symptoms of exposure to the agent include nausea and violent headaches, blurred vision, drooling, muscle convulsions, respiratory arrest and loss of consciousness.

“During this period, the tunnels would be penetrated, the hostages rescued and thousands of al-Qassam soldiers killed,” the source added.

US Department of Defense Spokesperson Sabrina Singh commented on the leak saying, “This is not true and this reporting is inaccurate.”

MEE reached out to the White House for comment but did not receive a response by time of publication.

The US is coordinating with Israel ahead of its expected invasion of Gaza, with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin holding near-daily phone calls with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, to discuss operations.

Senior US military officials with knowledge of urban warfare have also been dispatched to Israel.

Deception Campaign

The source said that Israel’s delay in its ground invasion was misinformation aimed at gaining the element of surprise in a multifaceted attack that will include Israeli commandos landing in northern Gaza and along the coast.

The operational details of the attack have already been agreed upon, according to the source.

On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel had agreed to delay its expected ground invasion to allow the US more time to place air defence systems in the region.

Netanyahu said later on Wednesday that Israel is preparing a ground invasion but gave no indication of timing or other details.

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***

The International Federation of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) on Friday described the situation in Gaza as “catastrophic” as the lack of fuel, it said, would turn the hospitals into graves. 

“The humanitarian situation in Gaza is more than catastrophic in the light of 12 hospitals and 32 healthcare centers becoming out of service due to lack of fuel or being bombed,” Mey Sayegh, head of IFRC communications, told Anadolu.

She added that the amount of aid that has entered Gaza since late last week, when Israel started letting in a trickle of aid trucks, does not even meet 4% of the needs of the people of Gaza.

She warned that Gaza has been without drinkable water and electricity for three weeks, and Palestinians each are getting per day an average of one to three liters of water, far away from the UN declared average of 15 liters per day for each person in times of catastrophes.

Sayegh also warned that the lack of fuel in Gaza would affect the security of water for people, might lead to diseases and epidemics, and would affect the humanitarian operations across Gaza.

“We, as IFRC, which is comprised of 191 Red Cross and Red Crescent societies worldwide have appealed since the start of the conflict to the necessity of allowing fuel entry into Gaza,” the IFRC official said.

Sayegh also called for protecting the civilians who deliver the humanitarian aid, as she said four staff from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society were killed while on duty.

The conflict in Gaza began when the Palestinian group Hamas initiated Operation Al-Aqsa Flood – a multi-pronged surprise attack on Oct. 7 that included a barrage of rocket launches and infiltrations into Israel by land, sea, and air.

Hamas said the incursion was in retaliation for the storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and growing violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians.

The Israeli military then launched a relentless bombardment of Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip.

Over 8,700 people have been killed in the conflict, including at least 7,326 Palestinians and 1,400 Israelis.

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Featured image: International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) vehicles transport Palestinians whose homes were destroyed in the attacks to safe areas (Source: AA)

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***

 

 

 

When will we ever learn?

As a member of the US Congress for 16 years, I gave over 500 speeches warning about the consequences of US wars against Afghanistan, the Balkans, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria. I spoke for the imperative of peace in the Middle East, on behalf of Israelis and the Palestinians alike. I met with leaders of many countries who were grappling to keep their nations out of conflict and I came to understand the role some in the US government have played to intentionally catalyze war, fueling arms sales globally, without regard for the consequences. The consequences are here! 

We are cartwheeling towards a massive East v. West war with religious and ethnic overtones.  This seemingly inexorable March of (nuclear) Folly, will ultimately pit the United States militarily against China, Russia and their allies.

The US, with its political divisions on full display, functions now only for purposes of funding wars.  Otherwise, the government will shut down over its inability to balance the books from the expenses of previous wars which were put on the national credit card. 

The polarization of US politics, the cognitively impaired and failing executive branch, the instability of the congressional leadership, the purblind partisanship, the ideologically, click-bait driven media has produced a mad blood lust for war against Iran and acceleration toward the abyss.

Through illegal war after illegal war, the US has demoralized and demonized itself against the rest of the world. It is the US and Israel against the Arab, Muslim, Chinese, Russian, Iranian, Turks, et al.  The probability of nuclear war is higher than it has been since the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 16-28, 1962, when President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev found an off ramp averting annihilation.  Today, the price of nuclear vengeance and retribution would be the deaths of at least five billion people, and the end of life on planet Earth.

The Biden foreign policy has always been a shambles.  It has been based on military domination, economic coercion, and ideological arrogance which has swept up in its maw the Democratic party.  The war in Ukraine, for example, meant to weaken Russia, has strengthened it economically and politically at the cost of the lives of 350,000 of the flower of Ukrainian youth.  The US has rattled China over Taiwan, pretending we can intimidate the Chinese Navy and Coast Guard in their own front yard.

The latent virus of megalomania has so excited America’s leaders that it has accelerated the formation of an alliance against our nation, which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Diplomacy has become an abattoir. Blood lust blinds, sweeping aside primal human sympathies, exciting those ancient emotions to declare enemies, take up the cudgel and beat those enemies to death.  

We are at an exceedingly dangerous moment of world crisis when the fragile bonds which connect us, each to the other, are being torn asunder by acts of mass murder, the miasma of apartheid, oppression and occupation, stereotyping, racism, bigotry, accelerating mistrust, desire for vengeance and retribution, compelling a dialectic of conflict which could lead to the destruction of the world.    

Our survival as a species depends upon surmounting moments such as these, making of human relations a science, and human and ecological security the highest purpose of the work of people everywhere. When our brothers and sisters are killing each other, it is imperative, in the name of all humanity, that we intervene to stop the killing so that all may survive. 

Like an unruly child, our government is out of control.  We must call out now, hastened by whatever survival instinct that yet resides in us, and say STOP IT!

Stop the escalation. 

Stop the militarization. 

Stop the race toward the abyss.

It bears reflection at this moment that some of the same individuals, including President Biden, who led us into the disastrous Ukraine war and before that into devastating wars which killed over a million people in Iraq and Libya, are now leading the US into war against Iran … and World War III. 

The US is now defending itself by bombing sites assumed to be Iranian proxies in Syria. The panoply of offensive materiel which the US is pouring into the region suggests preparations are being made to attack Iran, which in turn will prompt other nations to respond.

Now comes the Middle East conflict between Hamas and Israel. Instead of playing peacemaker, a role which ultimately protects Israel from destruction, the US is enabling the wholesale slaughter of Gazans, naively warning all others to step aside while standing guard with aircraft carriers and planes, emplacing US troops, and putting all US service personnel in the region at grave risk. 

This is the Netanyahu-Ben Gvir government has fearfully approached a ground invasion while  collective punishment having been previously meted out from the air to over 7,000  of Gaza’s civilian population. The air attack and the ground invasion are retribution for Hamas’ horrific attack on October 7^th, which resulted in the murder of 1,400 Israelis, most of them civilians. Under such circumstances, the hostages in Gaza are damned from above and below.

On October 7^th, shattered were the myths of the omni-competent Mossad and the technologically superior Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) which were powerful deterrent factors against attacks.  Israeli movements into Gaza will find synchronous advancement in the north, by Hezbollah, across the Lebanese border and attacks soon coming from many directions.

The continued bombing of the Palestinians in Gaza is inciting hundreds of millions of Muslims in the region who were already on edge because of the desecration of the Al Aqsa Mosque on October 4^th, 2023, which could have played a role inciting Hamas’ Oct. 7^th unjustified planned massacre.

Masked in the attack on Gaza is the agenda of Israel’s far-right ultranationalist government to establish an ethnically-pure religious state, removing the Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank, and the realization of the establishment of the prophesied Third Temple, which means razing Al Aqsa, the third holiest site in Islam. 

I believe in the protection and survival of Israelis and Palestinians. I believe in the protection and survival of all people.

The protection and survival of Israel or Palestine is not furthered by the bombing, starvation, and mass killings of innocents. It is a form of suicide presenting as homicide.

It is time to stop taking sides and start working instead for the goal of a just peace.

I oppose the killing of innocents whatever their race, color, creed, nationality or nation.  There are hundreds of millions of Muslims and Arabs in the neighborhood now seething at the injustices of the massacre of innocents, and only nine million Israelis…

The whole world is watching.  The region is waiting.  The Times of Israel reports today that as of October 29^th, Israeli citizens who happen to be Palestinians, will be shot at public protests. Does anyone think the murders of Palestinians in the West Bank, together with those who will be shot for protesting, will not result in a sharp upcycling of violence in the region?

Hamas’ charter calls for the destruction of Israel through Jihad.   Those on both sides who advocate kill or be killed are on the ascendant.  Let us stand, then, in the place where all this killing leads, to northern Israel, on Mount Megiddo, (original Hebrew Har Megiddo, Anglicized to Armageddon). 

The final battle awaits with nuclear missiles as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, then the Second Coming of Christ on the Mount of Olives, and the establishment of the Third Temple supplanting Al Aqsa. 

Frankly, I’d rather watch the Netflix version.

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Featured image: “Peace Dove” by Jose Trujillo