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Dear Bobby,

As you know, I have supported your bid for the presidency even before you declared last spring.  I have admired and believed in you for years, and when you entered the race I felt hope for the first time in decades that your non-violent impulses, honed by your tragic family history and a deep revulsion for our country’s imperial wars and violent history, would triumph and usher in a new era of peace.  Despite the naysayers who dismissed you from the start, I said Yes, that you would shock those who ridiculed and maligned you and that you would be the man to carry out President Kennedy’s American University speech and fulfill his and your father’s legacy of “not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women” because “we all breathe the same air” and “we all cherish our children’s futures” and “we are all mortal.”

I suggested that you would heal the divide and not expand it. Seeing you stumble on your way by throwing your full support to the Zionist leaders of Israel has been a body blow to me. At first I thought it might be explained by your reaction to the false antisemitic accusations that were hurled your way once word emerged that you might enter the presidential race. But as time went on it dawned on me that I was wrong and that you were in sync with the powerful Israel Lobby.  So now, I feel as if we are in the tenth round of fight for your soul’s compassion. That you have not defended the children of Gaza and condemned their massacre by the thousands has shocked and sickened me.

As a scholar of religion and its intersection with politics, I have been meditating on current events.

Religion has for a very long time been used as a cover for slaughtering people and seizing their land. This is true for the United States and Israel. It is built into their theological underpinnings. So it should not be at all surprising that the current Israeli massacre of Palestinians is fully supported by the U.S. government led by President Joseph Biden and by almost every presidential aspirant. You, however, as a self-styled anti-war candidate are a great surprise to me, although I may be naïve and shouldn’t be since you gave your unequivocal support to the Israel government a month ago, following the October 7 Hamas-led incursion into Israel that killed innocent Israelis (many of whom were also probably killed by the IDF as Jonathan Cooke has reported). Despite that, I still expected your conscience would surely prompt you to condemn what can only be described as genocide, the slaughter of the innocents in Gaza that is ongoing.

You have undermined your claim to “end the forever wars” and to defend children. Why you have done (or not done) this is a question that so many of your supporters and former supporters are asking. Only you can say.  Perhaps we might only know if you unequivocally condemned Israel’s actions and faced whatever might come your way as a result. This is unlikely, I now realize, but one can still hope. I think it would take a spiritual miracle of moral courage, because of your claim that your historical analysis that you say is sincere and true that Israel now and always has been the just and innocent party and the Palestinians the evil ones. I find your analysis unbelievable and your silence as innocents are being slaughtered indefensible, even as I applaud so many of your other positions, as you know.  Everyone knows that running for the U.S. presidency creates strange bedfellows, but your touting of the Israeli propaganda in which you conflate the Palestinian people with Hamas to justify massacring civilians is beyond strange – it is immoral.

I know how much you respect Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and you no doubt have heard his words before.

“And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular – but one must take it simply because it is right.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

Conscience calls to you, Bobby.  Be true to that voice within. Politic as it may be, there is a heavy burden of guilt for abandoning the Palestinians to slaughter by silence.  King learned this when he saw those photos of the napalmed and dead Vietnamese children and was conscience-stricken to come to Riverside Church in New York to give his speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence.” You can do the same.  The pictures of dead Palestinian children, victims of U.S. support for Israeli bombs, are there to see. Martin quoted your uncle, John, that “those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” He said that we can no longer worship the God of hate and retribution.  He said, “Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted.”

Some of the wounded at al-Shifa hospital (Gaza Health Ministry)

You too, Bobby, can break your silence, step up high and let your conscience also leave you no other choice but to condemn the genocide in Gaza.  As Martin said, “A time comes when silence is betrayal.”

You say you are making “a moral case for Israel” as the justified party in its seventy-five year long war with the Palestinians.  In doing so you have reneged on your campaign promise to emulate President John Kennedy, who would be appalled by your silence. Your website, Kennedy 24, declares that “[you] Kennedy will revive a lost thread of American foreign policy thinking, the one championed by his uncle, John F. Kennedy who, over his 1000 days in office, had become a firm anti-imperialist.”  In genuflecting to the Israel genocide while touting your connection to JFK and your father, Senator Robert Kennedy, you have in fact taken a position toward Israel diametrically opposed to theirs.  One could sense this coming when under pressure this past summer, you withdrew your support for Roger Waters, a strong Palestinian supporter who was falsely accused of being anti-Jewish, and you then allowed your “friend” Rabbi Shmuley Boteach to say that Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian, killed your father in 1968 when you knew that was a lie and was part of a sophisticated intelligence conspiracy to blame the patsy who was said to hate Israel.  To allow Shmuley to audaciously and heartlessly repeat a CIA trope about your father’s assassination was a telltale sign of worse to come.

For both the U.S. and Israel, the Bible has been used to cover up the crimes of their foundings.  They have analogous histories rooted in religious myths.  In both cases, the indigenous peoples were considered less than human – savages, infidels – or in the description of Palestinians by the current Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, “human animals.”  Such racist, dehumanizing language has been repeated time and again throughout the American and Israeli narratives used to justify their crimes against those they killed and whose land they stole.  The gloss of civilized hypocrisy has been unmasked by such language, just as it was when Hitler repeatedly called Jews “vermin.”  Irony aside, the Nazi rhetoric of denigration and racial superiority to justify exterminating Jewish people has been repeatedly mirrored by American and Israeli leaders, whether it was against the Original Free Peoples of North America, Vietnamese, Koreans, Iraqis, etc. or the Palestinians.  It is the master/slave mentality deeply rooted in U.S. and Israel history.

Bobby, you have said that you hope to be the second independent candidate to become president, the first being George Washington.  Yet Washington was a racist and slave owner who supported the extermination of the Indian natives so the white settlers could take their land.  He himself did so, speculating in Native lands together with most of the other prominent politicians from the early days of the Republic, including Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, Andrew Jackson, et al.  For the governors and legislators of the thirteen states it was also open sesame on the seizure of Indian land which required their slaughter in turn.

One can learn this in Peter P. d’Errico’s important recent book, Federal Anti-Indian Law: The Legal Entrapment of Indigenous Peoples, where he makes clear how U.S. law was used to codify such “legal” theft and killing.  Such federal law was, as d’Errico writes, a claim of unlimited U.S. power and not really law at all but the suspension of law as it granted the U.S. government complete authority over Native peoples, their lives, and their land.  Legal theft, in other words.  Like the English justification for their claim to their colonies – the “right of discovery” proclaimed in Henry VII’s commission to John Cabot: “to subdue and take possession of any lands unoccupied by any Christian Power” – a series of three Supreme Court rulings in the 1830s by Chief Justice John Marshall were based on the claim of “Christian discovery,” which in turn was based on a papal grant from Pope Alexander the Sixth in 1493 that gave to Christopher Columbus’s sponsors, Ferdinand and Isabella, ownership of any land Columbus might discover.  This divine right required the killing and subjugation of non-Christian infidels and heathens who were considered brute animals, just as the Palestinians are today.

Similar justifications have been used by Zionists for the killing of Palestinians and the seizure of their land in the name of the Biblical Jewish God and his instructions to them.  This myth claims that God gave them the ancestral Palestinians’ land, therefore, like native peoples of North America who, according to the non-law U.S. Indian law, only had the right of occupancy, the Palestinians could be killed and dispossessed by the God-given rightful owners, which they were in 1948.  Netanyahu has made such claims many times, as have his predecessors.  He calls for a holy war of annihilation against the Palestinians, based on the Hebrew Bible.  This is widely known and has a long history in the Zionist propaganda narrative that has allowed for seventy-five years of killing and the systematic shrinking of Palestinian land to its pitiful size today.

It is interesting to note that the three primary countries that intersect in the use of religious justification for colonial and imperial policies are England, the U.S., and Israel – together with the Papacy and its May 4, 1493 bull Inter Caetera issued by Pope Alexander the Sixth to declare Christian discovery.  I mention this since I am an Irish-American Catholic, and it was the Irish uprising against the English colonial occupiers that has become a key inspiration for anti-colonial rebels throughout the twentieth century and beyond.  I have taken inspiration from my Irish ancestors.  This is your heritage also, Bobby, so it becomes even more surprising that you, even as you tout the American Revolutionary War rebel fighters against the English colonialists, would support the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians.  As a lawyer, you must be aware of Federal Indian Law and how it, like all law, is rooted in a metaphysics of being human; has presuppositions that are brought to the bar, and in the case of federal Indian law, a Christian nomos at odds with that of Native peoples’.

You surely know that the Israeli assault on Gaza is a massive war crime according to international law, and even within the moderate Catholic just war theory, is, by its distorted proportionality, evil and must be rejected as immoral and a terrible sin. 

You claim to want to end all wars but support the ongoing slaughter of thousands upon thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians, including so many children and women.  Nor have you said a word against Biden’s saber rattling with aircraft carriers, U.S. drones, and assistance for Israel’s bloodthirsty assault that raises the threat of a much wider war that could turn nuclear.

Yes, the question is why such silence, which you can break now.  I beg you to speak out.  You are a man of conscience.  MLK, Jr. speaks to us all still.

And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular – but one must take it simply because it is right.

Pax tibi,

Ed

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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).

Featured image is from Bracing Views

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“I don’t think that [the war] is a stalemate,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky told NBC News’ Meet the Press on Sunday.

“They thought they would checkmate us, but,” he insisted, “this didn’t happen.” According to recent interviews, his military leadership disagrees. His political inner circle thinks his insistence is delusional.

Zelensky is facing pressure both from within Ukraine and from without. Growing pressure from within is coming from both the political and military leadership; growing pressure from without is coming from Ukraine’s key partners.

The battle is largely being played out in the Western media. Most intimately, Zelensky has faced criticism from his political inner circle. TIME magazine reports that some of the president’s advisors have become worried that his “belief in Ukraine’s ultimate victory over Russia . . . “verg[es] on the messianic.” One of Zelensky’s “closest aides” said that Zelensky “deludes himself.” The aide complained, “We’re out of options. We’re not winning. But try telling him that.”

Some Zelensky aides say his intransigence hampers Ukraine’s ability to adapt to the changed reality on the battlefield and worry that negotiating a settlement with Russia remains “taboo.”

Domestic criticism is also coming from the top levels of the military. Zelensky is reportedly in conflict with his generals over the conduct of the counteroffensive and over his demands to defend Bakhmut and Avdiivka at any cost, which the military leadership sees as a strategic mistake that is already hurting Ukraine dearly in soldiers and equipment.

A senior Ukrainian military officer said that orders from the president’s office are, at times, disconnected from the battlefield reality and defended some front-line commanders who have begun second-guessing and refusing “orders from the top.”

Zelensky’s struggle with his generals intensified on November 3 when Zelensky fired General Viktor Khorenko, the commander of Ukraine’s special operations forces. The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, General Valery Zaluzhny, did not request his dismissal. The New York Times reports that “It was unclear whether General Zaluzhny, the overall commander of Ukraine’s forces, knew in advance of the planned dismissal” and that “[t]he firing appeared to undercut General Zaluzhny’s authority.”

The firing took U.S. military officers, who “described a close and effective working relationship with” Khorenko, by surprise. Khorenko’s special operations forces had had some success with long-range strikes and sabotage operations behind Russian lines. But the NYT reports that there had been tension over what the military had “perceived as politically guided decisions on strategy” that had been ineffective and costly.

Zelensky’s tensions with his generals reached a peak with Zaluzhny’s November 1 interview with The Economist. He asserted that the war had reached a “stalemate.” He conceded that “There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.”

What’s worse is that Zaluzhny implied that the stalemate would evolve into defeat for Ukraine. A stalemate entails a long war of attrition. In a companion essay published simultaneously by The Economist, he explained that a long war “as a rule, in most cases, is beneficial to one of the parties to the conflict. In our particular case, it is the russian [sic] federation, as it gives it the opportunity to reconstitute and build up its military power.”

Zaluzhny said that in a prolonged war, Ukraine will run out of the “required volume” of missiles and ammunition while Russia, despite sanctions, is increasing its production capabilities. And even if it didn’t run out of weapons, he added, it will run out of men: a war of attrition “leads to the lack of Ukraine’s ability to achieve superiority over the enemy in reserves by increasing their number.” A close Zelensky aide told TIME that, even if the United States gave Ukraine all the weapons it needed, Kyiv doesn’t “have the men to use them.”

Zelensky’s office censured Zaluzhny, saying it “eases the work” of Russia and stirs “panic” among Ukraine’s Western partners. The New York Times calls the censure “a striking public rebuke that signaled an emerging rift between the military and civilian leadership.”

In addition to the pressure coming from within Zelensky’s inner political and military circle, diplomatic pressure is also coming from Zelensky’s international partners.

A November 3 NBC News article reported that “U.S. and European officials have begun quietly talking to the Ukrainian government about what possible peace negotiations with Russia might entail to end the war.” The article went on to say, citing one current and one former senior U.S. official familiar with the discussions, that “the conversations have included very broad outlines of what Ukraine might need to give up to reach a deal.”

The quiet talks suggest agreement by the U.S. and its European allies with Zaluzhny that Ukraine may not achieve its goals on the battlefield, that the realization of their aspirations may continue to dim with prolonged battle, and that some concessions may need to be made.

There is a remarkable convergence in the language used by the U.S. and European officials and the language used by Zaluzhny and Zelensky’s aides. NBC reports that the conversations “began amid concerns among U.S. and European officials that the war has reached a stalemate.” NBC reports that, like Zaluzhny, “[s]ome U.S. military officials have privately begun using the term ‘stalemate’ to describe the current battle in Ukraine.”

Like Zaluzhny and Zelensky’s aides, “Biden administration officials also are worried that Ukraine is running out of forces.” According to “people familiar with the matter,” NBC reported, “President Joe Biden has been intensely focused on Ukraine’s depleting military forces.” “Manpower,” one of those sources is quoted as saying, “is at the top of the administration’s concerns right now.”

Echoing the “close Zelensky aide” quoted in TIME, the same source said, “The U.S. and its allies can provide Ukraine with weaponry, but if they don’t have competent forces to use them it doesn’t do a lot of good.”

These concerns, NBC reported, have led U.S. officials to concede privately that “Ukraine likely only has until the end of the year or shortly thereafter before more urgent discussions about peace negotiations should begin.”

That leaves only a couple of months. With the battlefield turning against Ukraine despite Zelensky’s intransigent “belief in Ukraine’s ultimate victory over Russia,” the pressure targeted at Zelensky seems to be building, from both within and without,, to turn to the diplomatic front and face the beginning of the end of the war.

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Ted Snider is a regular columnist on U.S. foreign policy and history at Antiwar.com and The Libertarian Institute. He is also a frequent contributor to Responsible Statecraft and other outlets.

Featured image: Ukrainian snipers attend shooting training near the front line amid Russia-Ukraine war in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on February 18, 2023. [Source: businessinsider.com]

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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***

Last Tuesday there took place a disgraceful display of visceral malignancy in the United States House of Representatives Chamber in the south wing of the Capitol building. The House, long characterized by its aversion to truth, justice and what was once the American way, has been corrupted by special interests who have effectively bought an overwhelming majority of legislators, to include the leadership of the two major political parties. In the area of foreign policy, as well as a spill-over into many domestic and constitutional issues, there is no more powerful lobby than that of the state of Israel, and its power was on full display on Tuesday afternoon when Representative Rashida Tlaib was censured for the crime of being of Palestinian ancestry and speaking up against the ongoing genocide of her people by the Jewish state. Nearly all Republicans voted to condemn her together with a considerable number of her fellow Democrats.

On the following day, the White House added its own condemnation of Tlaib, referring specifically to the phrase “from the river to the sea” used by her, a slogan conveniently regarded by some like the fanatical Zionist Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as an Arab rallying cry for the eradication of Israel. ADL’s ghastly director Jonathan Greenblatt inevitably equates use of the phrase with “antisemitism” and ADL insists that “’From the River to the Sea’ is a Hamas call to annihilate Israel” while also “claiming [that] it is a rally of coexistence [which] gives cover to terror.” Tlaib, for her part, was resurrecting a memory of the Palestine that once was, and she has asserted that the slogan is “an aspirational call for freedom, human rights and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction or hate.” Pro-Palestinian protesters do also use the slogan as a plea for their long-delayed nationhood, but groups like ADL prefer to claim that the activity provides “material support for Hamas,” and, as Hamas is a US listed terrorist group, that equates to aiding terrorists. Tlaib had also particularly angered the White House through her recently posted online video that accused President Biden of supporting genocide in the Gaza Strip, a seemingly undisputable assertion.

One might argue that even Congressmen are protected by the First Amendment right to free speech, but it is becoming increasingly obvious that the Bill of Rights does not apply when Israel is concerned, either in the halls of Congress or on college campuses, where Palestinian groups are being harassed and banned. The Tlaib censure vote can be seen as part of the bipartisan effort to protect the state of Israel from any and all criticism. Rashida Tlaib broke no law, did not threaten anyone, nor did she call for the destruction of any nation, yet she was excoriated by a series of her comrade-speakers in the House for something akin to a crime against humanity due to her turning against what was repeatedly described as one of America’s closest allies, a best friend and the only democracy in the Middle East, all of which are lies. Israel is no ally, which would require a certain reciprocity, a word that apparently does not exist in Hebrew. And in the current crisis Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demonstrated that he will not be moved by US interests to mitigate the slaughter no matter how much Blinken-Biden suck up to him to make him budge. And as for the claim of democracy, Israel only grants citizenship with full rights to Jews, hardly a democratic measure. Apparently, cutting off the massive amounts of US aid, including the current $14.5 billion to pay for exterminating the Palestinians, is not even on the table. Israel will always get its pound of flesh and will call all the shots in its relationship with Washington.

Tlaib’s comments are in the context of a White House that believes it it is free to send bombs to Israel to slaughter Palestinian children—without even revealing how many plane loads of weapons have been delivered or are on their way. And then there are members of Congress like Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina who are free to advocate a “total war” against what he calls “the most extremist population on Earth,” i.e. the Palestinians. But verbal criticism of what is clearly a genocide and a massive violation of international law that has the US government as an accessory in a war crime is impermissible and there are even concerns that the Tlaib censure could become the foundation for a criminalization of any criticism of Israel under the assumption that all critics are ipso facto antisemites and the comments themselves amount to a “hate crime.”

Consider for a moment the precedents to Tlaib’s disgrace who are still in office untouched by any procedural steps to define what are acceptable rights of legislators. Beyond Senator Lindsey Graham’s unchallenged invitation to a mass murder, there is Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey whose apparent tendency to accept bribes has been 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. Both men are still walking around free of censure!

Israel’s love of the United States is only skin deep, if it as much as that. Recall for a moment the comments by Israeli prime ministers on the nature of the relationship. Consider Ariel Sharon’s 2001 comment:

“Every time we do something you tell me Americans will do this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear, don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it… I don’t care what the American people think, I own the congress!”

Or Netanyahu’s famous quip also in 2001:

“America is a thing you can move very easily!”

So that is what “America’s best friend’s” leadership actually thinks about the United States and its people! It is a cash cow to be milked and otherwise exploited for political cover before being disposed of when its usefulness is gone.

Sharon also famously said

“I vow that if I was just an Israeli civilian and I met a Palestinian, I would burn him and I would make him suffer before killing him.”

It squares the circle on why the Gazans erupted in rage on October 7^th. Palestine was one nation from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea when Israel was founded in 1948. Since that time, Israel has been ethnically cleansing the Palestinians for three quarters of a century, has stolen and plundered their land, has replaced or eradicated hundreds of villages, has besieged Gaza for nearly 2 decades, and has engaged in mass starvation and now in genocidal mass killing. In the fighting preceding Israel’s independence, three quarters of a million Palestinians were driven from their homes and sent into refugee camps by Israeli militias, together with tens of thousands who were killed outright. Now the refugee camps in Gaza are being bombed together with churches, hospitals, schools and apartment blocks and we have only just learned that some Israeli officials are considering using one of their nuclear bombs to completely wipe out Gaza. It is surprising that the Palestinians have shown as much restraint as they have.

Given the damage that a corrupting Israel has done to America’s political system, it is important to ask what good the relationship with Israel has done for the average American whose tax dollars support the Zionist enterprise together with its plan to remove the Palestinians.

The answer is that nothing good has come out of the so-called alliance, which has cost the US $260 billion in direct aid adjusted for inflation since 1946. Plus there is the large sum of $14.5 billion more recently approved and pending currently as some kind of war fund to enable Netanyahu to crush the Palestinians. Israel regularly gets $3.8 billion yearly in direct aid from the US Treasury, a gift from Barack Obama, that is more than what goes to all other countries combined. And there is also more-or-less “off the books” considerable additional money from special and joint military projects, dubious charities and state level development boards that bring the total up to roughly $10 billion per year, which does not include the billions in financial aid that are in reality bribes paid to Egypt and Jordan to maintain peace with the Jewish state. The handout from Uncle Sam helps make Israel a very wealthy country which can afford to give its Jewish citizens free health care and college education as well as subsidized housing.

And being joined at the hip to the Jewish state has a considerable downside, requiring the use of the US United Nations veto at regular intervals to protect the client state as well as involvement in unneeded wars in places like Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Libya with Iran coming up next. Nor has Israel hesitated to kill Americans when it felt that the US was not fully supportive of its interests and the White House is so constrained by its “alliance” that it has essentially covered up the crimes against its own citizens. Last year’s sniper killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, which produced only a whimper from the Jewish dominated State Department, plus acceptance of Israeli lies about the incident, is a prime example. And then there is the killing of 34 sailors and the injuring of 172 more on the USS Liberty in international waters on June 8^th 1967. The US Navy largely unarmed intelligence ship was monitoring the ongoing fighting with Egypt when it was attacked by Israeli planes and torpedo boats. Efforts to send US aircraft carrier warplanes to assist the ship were called back by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who also orchestrated a cover-up exonerating Israel from blame. One hopes he and his Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara are now burning in hell.

The US government is so averse to challenging Israel that many believe that there are other unrevealed influences at play, possibly to include the Jeffrey Epstein/Mossad pedophile sex trafficking caper. It has long been true that candidates for high office in the US are approached by agents of the Zionist lobby and coerced into signing a pledge to support Israel. In return, the candidates who accept receive substantial political contributions and positive media. If they say “no” they are frequently targeted fjor defeat and go the way of Cynthia McKinney, Charles Percy, William Fulbright, Pete McCloskey and Paul Findley.

Congressman James Traficant of Ohio was perhaps the most aggressive voice in Congress in the 1980s and 1990s in expressing a critique of Israel’s power. He was inevitably controversial and was eventually imprisoned for seven years on a corruption charge that many subsequently considered to be a government set up. He had argued, among other things, that

“Israel has a powerful stranglehold on the American government” explaining how Israel was “controlling much of our foreign policy” and “influencing much of our domestic policy.”

He claimed quite plausibly that former Pentagon official Paul Wolfowitz, working for Israel, had “manipulated” President George W. Bush into the disastrous invasion of Iraq.

Traficant maintained in the 1990s that

“We’re conducting the expansionist policy of Israel and everybody’s afraid to say it. They control much of the media, they control much of the commerce of the country, and they control powerfully both bodies of the Congress. They own the Congress.”

If Traficant were still with us, he would be astonished to see how Jewish influence has actually increased, with 35 states having some rules or legislation punishing advocates of boycotts of Israel and bills currently before congress authorizing automatic war against Iran and even the expulsion of Palestinians from the US. The State Department has an ambassador who monitors so-called antisemitism and the White House has recently declared a war against what it describes as “surging antisemitism.”

Currently, everyone opposing the US engagement with Israel in its extermination of the Arab population in the area it controls is being labeled an anti-semite and speaking up for the Palestinians is becoming a good way to get kicked out of university and unemployed. Israel’s friends are busy compiling lists of students who support the Palestinians and are working on schemes to circulate their names to deny them jobs once they graduate. Rashida Tlaib is only the latest affront to the dignity and common sense of the US Constitution but she is certainly not going to be the last victim of the Jewish lobby, which must be labeled for what it is, made to register as the agent of the Israeli apartheid state, and excluded from unilaterally making the policies that all of us Americans have to pay the price for in the Middle East.

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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.

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One of the most common ideological tropes of the contemporary political West is its apparent obsession with environmentalism. The belligerent power pole simply adores to use it as a way to “prove” its supposed “civilizational superiority” over any other country that doesn’t share the same obsession. The much-touted “garden” has started dozens of neocolonialist wars against “jungles” around the world, but there’s no concern for the environment and pollution when it comes to the spreading of “freedom, democracy and human rights”. The “garden’s” bombs and cruise missiles are “obviously no threat” to the natural habitat of thousands of endangered species or an issue when it comes to their preservation.

And yet, the political West still insists on its “moral superiority”, so much so that it’s seeking to codify it in a way that affects its relations with the entire world. Namely, the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), or simply “carbon tax”, is an attempt to force the rest of the world to follow the “garden’s” guidelines on “environmental issues”. The law has been heavily criticized by India and China, both of which are massive production economies. The two Asian giants believe this is effectively an act of economic warfare and a new trade barrier that doesn’t take into account the vastly different stages of socioeconomic development. Neither of the two countries is willing to renounce growth and development.

For instance, China is making unprecedented improvements in the lives of its citizens. In order to continue this path, Beijing needs to give its economy the necessary freedom and resources. And exactly the same can be said about India. Both the China Iron And Steel Association (CISA) and the Indian Commerce Minister have openly spoken out against CBAM. Both countries are taking steps to ameliorate the negative impact of the latest EU tax, but are not hiding their contempt for it. They see it as a sinister way to at least slow down their economic development. On the other hand, Brussels keeps insisting that the new scheme is of critical importance to its plans to achieve zero carbon emissions across six earmarked industries.

According to OilPrice, the CBAM tax regime recently moved into what some legal experts dub the “transition phase”. Namely, since October 1, importers of various commodities (including steel) into the EU need to report the carbon emissions of their products. By 2026, the said importers will also be subject to legal fees. The EU aims to impose CBAM on non-Western countries with significant carbon emissions, but these countries see it as a way to undermine their economic development. And while the stated goal of the “carbon tax” is to force producers to reduce carbon emissions, what it will actually accomplish is an additional increase in the cost of steel, aluminum and other strategically important commodities.

For its part, China has been very vocal regarding CBAM. A few days ago, its steel association called it “a new trade barrier”. According to Reuters, CISA stated that it wants more talks with the EU on the matter. The Chinese organization also insists that “the new ‘carbon tax’ fails to take into account the different phases of development in different countries”, adding that “the levy goes against the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities”. And indeed, many experts predict that CBAM would be the main culprit behind the rising costs of commodities, with the exact numbers going anywhere from 4% to 6%, if not more. This is without even taking into account the effect on other industries.

Understandably, CISA is worried that this would be more than enough to render Chinese exports nonviable. India also shares the same concern and disapproves of the controversial new “carbon tax”, claiming that it would also effectively destroy the competitiveness of its EU-bound export products. Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal recently also criticized CBAM and predicted that the EU would soon realize its mistake, forcing it to stop its implementation. The effort to tackle the “carbon tax” issue isn’t limited to government bodies, as there are also meetings between trade associations and manufacturers that are working together to find the best solution to CBAM.

Just like Beijing, New Delhi also pointed out how the “carbon tax” doesn’t take into account the different stages of socioeconomic development in various countries. Minister Goyal also stated that the Indian government would find a solution, most likely a domestic tax tailored specifically not to negatively affect the country’s economy, while reducing carbon emissions. This would also render CBAM obsolete and, thus, unnecessary. On the other hand, Beijing is likely to respond with its own restrictions on EU exports to China, which could have severe consequences on the already troubled European companies. All this could lead us to an economic “Cold War” that would affect the whole world.

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

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Remembrance Day, or Veterans Day as it is better known in the United States, is the official annual occasion to reflect and memorialize the sacrifices of so many men and women in uniform committed to serving their country during major military conflicts…in particular, World War I, World War II and North Korea. [1 ]

It is said that when the red poppy was first adorned more than a century ago, it was meant to stress the message “Never Again” to exhaust valuable lives in a conflict as horrid as the Great War. But the message has evolved, you might say, into saluting the courage, bravery and derring-do of so many young lads and lasses fighting for their nations, freedoms, etc. [2]

In the past, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief. World War III was something that we thought the invention of the atomic bomb, combined with common sense had torn from the pages of human endeavour. Today, a Third World War is seen as a likely scenario. [3][4]

This massaging of our nation’s mentality toward war has been aided by a special re-framing of our news, our history, and even our education. In Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, corporate power by means of ownership and advertising, ends up compelling the minds of millions in a particular direction, in line with those directing modern methods of communication. Though today, in the age of the internet, we have beyond such archaic methods of control…haven’t we?

Actually, the propagandists of today employ old and new measures to bring the populace in line with the demands of peace through war. The military industrial complex, as coined by the former President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, is now referred to by former CIA analyst Ray McGovern as the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank Complex, or MICIMATT. We will explore a few of these avenues toward everlasting peace through unending wars financed by military industries and their various partners in this chapter of the Global Research News Hour. [5]

In our first half hour, Professor Glenn Diesen pays us a visit elaborating on the themes of his recent book: THE THINK TANK RACKET: Managing the Information War Against Russia. This is a book that points to Think Tanks, full of “experts” and paid for, in large part, by Weapons contractors, guiding politicians and media down the chute of military preparedness. HE also points to how Russia has been a particular victim of these groups.

In our second half hour, Global Research News Hour contributor Paul Graham embarks on a conversation with Canadian writer Owen Schalk, author of the recent book: Canada in Afghanistan: A Story of Military, Diplomatic, Political and Media Failure, 2003-2023. This talk reveals answers to the question of exactly what did Canadians do in the most costly encounter for Canadian soldiers since World War II, why, and what were the consequences now that the Taliban that they sought to overthrow is back in power!

Glenn Diesen is Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway and an editor at the Russia in Global Affairs journal. HE is also the author of THE THINK TANK RACKET: Managing the Information War Against Russia,  Clarity Press. Follow him on Twitter @glenn_diesen.

Owen Schalk is an independent researcher and writer whose work focuses on domestic and foreign policy. His articles have been published by Alborada, Monthly Review and Protean magazine, and he contributes a weekly column to Canadian Dimension. he is the author of Canada in Afghanistan: A Story of Military, Diplomatic, Political and Media Failure, 2003-2023, James Lorimer & Co., 2023. He lives in Petersfield, Manitoba, Canada.

(Global Research News Hour Episode 408)

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Notes:

1. https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance
2. Sarah Young, Sama Javed (November 11, 2021),’Why do some people wear white poppies on Remembrance Day?’, The Independent;  https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/white-poppy-meaning-remembrance-day-colour-b1955754.html
3. https://thebulletin.org/files/1991%20Clock%20Statement.pdf
4. https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2023/states-invest-nuclear-arsenals-geopolitical-relations-deteriorate-new-sipri-yearbook-out-now
5. https://raymcgovern.com/2020/07/10/micimatt-keeping-us-stuck-in-afghanistan/

In una intervista al network statunitense ABC, il premier israeliano Netanyahu così risponde alla domanda se ritiene possibile un cessate-il-fuoco a Gaza: “Un cessate-il-fuoco sarebbe una resa ad Hamas. Sarebbe una vittoria per Hamas, Non sarebbe più possibile di quanto sarebbe stato possibile per voi un cessate-il-fuoco dopo gli attentati di Al Qaeda al World Trade Center”.

Alla domanda su chi dovrebbe governare Gaza a guerra finita, Netanyahu così risponde: “Israele per un periodo indefinito avrà la responsabilità della sicurezza, perché quando non abbiamo tale responsabilità, quello che abbiamo è l’esplosione del terrore di Hamas”. Le parole di Netanyahu vengono così sintetizzate dal New York Times: “Israele governerà Gaza”.

In altre parole Netanyahu annuncia apertamente il piano: impadronirsi di Gaza trasformandola da territorio palestinese in territorio israeliano. Ciò è confermato dal fatto che le forze armate israeliane non solo stanno massacrando la popolazione palestinese, ma stanno rendendo Gaza non più abitabile dai palestinesi: nella parte settentrionale della Striscia hanno già distrutto oltre il 30% di tutti gli edifici. Il piano prevede la successiva apertura di un “corridoio umanitario” per trasferire i palestinesi di Gaza nel deserto egiziano del Sinai, facendo poi lo stesso con i palestinesi della Cisgiordania.
Nel gioco delle parti, si è recato in Israele il Segretario di stato USA Blinken, con lo scopo dichiarato di ottenere un cessate-il-fuoco a Gaza, che Netanyahu ha rifiutato. Dietro questa tragica recita c’è la realtà. Un esempio per tutti: le bombe da una tonnellata a guida satellitare, che gli aerei israeliani sganciano sui quartieri popolari palestinesi, sono fornite a Israele dagli Stati Uniti.

Riguardo alla “esplosione del terrore di Hamas”, che secondo il premier rende necessario che sia Israele a governare Gaza, Netanyahu dimentica quanto da lui stesso dichiarato a una riunione del suo partito nel marzo 2019: “Chiunque voglia ostacolare la creazione di uno Stato palestinese deve sostenere Hamas e trasferire denaro ad Hamas. Questo fa parte della nostra strategia: isolare i palestinesi di Gaza dai palestinesi della Cisgiordania.”

Questi e molti altri fatti (riportati nelle ultime 4 puntate di Grandangolo) dimostrano che i vertici israeliani e i loro servizi segreti non sono stati colti di sorpresa dall’attacco effettuato il 7 Ottobre da Hamas, ma se lo sono fatti fare per attuare il loro piano. Siamo quindi di fronte a qualcosa di analogo a quanto avvenuto negli Stati Uniti l’11 settembre del 2001.

Manlio Dinucci

Video :

https://www.byoblu.com/2023/11/10/netanyahu-israele-governera-gaza/

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Hopium and dejection, fanaticism and pragmatism, reason and dementia are all in full conflict as human civilization wobbles precipitously on the edge of a global abyss. Currently the Middle East stands at the forefront of the devastation wrought by extremism unleashed. Even in the midst of this turmoil, however, there are, here and there, some promising signs of possible redemption. Key developments in these bright spots hold the potential of beginning the process of stopping and reversing humanity’s rapid fall into satanic devastation.

The Canadian province of Alberta where I live is the site of one such possible turnaround. It is becoming a very active laboratory for the testing of all sorts of experiments, interactions and innovations. As the realization continues to sink in of the fuller implications of the biowarfare aimed at all of humankind since the release of the mRNA injections in 2021, Alberta is one of a handful of jurisdictions where there is some potential for citizens to get together to bring a measure of ameliorative rehabilitation to our core institutions.

Rookie Alberta Premier, Danielle Smith, is near the centre of much of the hubbub. Last May Premier Smith’s United Conservative Party (UCP) won a renewed mandate to govern Canada’s most rebellious province. Smith’s still-growing popularity was recently confirmed by her hosting one of the largest annual general meetings of a political party in Canadian history.

Danielle Smith is a sprightly and attractive politician who is emerging as a more intelligent, erudite and abstemious version of populist Alberta Premier, Ralph Klein. I met Premier Klein in person shortly after moving from Ontario to Alberta in the early 1990s to take up my new job as a Native American Studies Prof here on the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains. In a tee-pee encampment at the nearby Blood Reserve, I had a chance to observe that the late Ralph Klein was a pretty good Blackfoot speaker. Legendary for his carousing bouts of partying with average folks, Klein had a gift for relating in a very convivial fashion with all kinds of people and constituencies.

Image: Ralph Klein and Danielle Smith

Like Klein, Premier Smith did a stint as a broadcaster on her way to the province’s top job. While Klein had much help from the media in his ascendance to power, the same was not true of Smith.

At every stage of her campaign to become premier with a majority of seats in the Alberta Legislature, Smith has had to face strong headwinds of hostility from the press. No doubt those who stage manage the rigged theatrics disguised as democracy are loosing sleep because of Premier Smith’s ability to gain public trust in spite of the full force of a well-coordinated media smear campaign aimed against her.

During the recent election campaign, the legacy media lined up strongly to push the agenda and image of Rachel Notley. Between 2015 and 2019, Notley was Premier of Alberta. When she was defeated by the newly-created United Conservative Party, Notley became Leader of the Official Opposition Party in Alberta’s Legislature. As the manufactured COVID crisis touched down in Alberta as well as the rest of the world, Notley’s priority was to join in the unions’ push for more masking, more lockdowns, more mandates, more jabs, and more school tyranny. In fact the word “tyranny” well describes our relationship with our well-bribed and well-coddled governors who refused to protect us from the bioweapon attacks pointed our way.

In making her way into the premier’s job, Smith also had to contend with the divisions that developed in and around the United Conservative Party. The splits occurred when a sizeable portion of UCP members mounted a campaign to remove from office Alberta’s previous premier, Jason Kenney. Kenney had dismayed many Albertans when he went along with the globalists’ Covid policies pushed ahead with particular zeal by the now-notorious Justin Trudeau.

Partly because of these twists and turns, Alberta has come to epitomize some of the larger global trends currently underway. This phenomenon has its roots in the gradual realization among the independent-minded minority that has been paying attention to the coercive contortions executed in the name of a supposed medical fight to vanquish COVID-19.

We the attentive were early to come to the conclusion that the push to inject all the world’s people with the mRNA jabs was not what it was made to seem. The unprecedented procedure was not meant as a remedy for illness. Rather the attempt to universalize the jabs formed the basis of a damaging and deadly attack aimed at the global population.

The real purpose of the COVID jabs was to initiate a number of processes including global depopulation as well as those of the genetic modification of the survivors. As this attack was pushed forward, we began to observe that something fundamental had changed within our governments as reflected in the unreasonable constraints suddenly imposed on our most basic rights and freedoms.

We began to notice the courts in many countries almost uniformly ignored the many codified constitutional protections for our harshly violated rights and freedoms. Again and again judges sided with the unreasonable and unjustified constraints imposed by governments. With their COVID mandates and restrictions, these governments and judges that backed them were not acting in conformity with the principles of credible science.

We began to notice the consistency and the extremity of the media’s blinkered and censorious coverage of the manufactured COVID crisis. This coverage almost uniformly highlighted the interpretations of government officials while banishing from the big media venues highly-credentialed medical experts and practitioners. We began to notice that many of these top experts in their fields were subject to ruthless ad hominem attacks. We began to notice the so many of the genuine experts were subject to interventions by their professional associations whose intent was to damage and deplatform some of their most accomplished members. Ultimately the aim was to Shut the Experts Up.

These realizations were accompanied by a growing awareness that the deaths and serious injuries unleashed by the mRNA injections were far in excess of the problems created by the supposedly new coronavirus. In spite of the barrage of media lies and deceptions, we began to notice all that flowed from the World Health Organization’s empowerment of a worldwide network of Covidian commissars. These commissars basically took on the role of wolves charged to protect citizen chicken coops in one country after the next.

Premier Daniel Smith started her roll to the Premier’s Office by joining our informed minority of Covidian skeptics. In that capacity she assisted in the emergence of a distinctly Albertan version of the worldwide resistance movement that continues to coalesce. By now it is becoming increasingly clear that the originating process was hatched a time when we have a tremendous need for well-organized resistance against the predator class seeking depopulation along with the further enslavement of the survivors of the mRNA/lipid nanoparticle injections.

Defending the “Unvaxxed” from Discriminatory Oppression

Premier Smith’s inaugural UCP AGM in early November of 2023 can be seen as avant garde event giving an early signal of where some of the increasingly well-organized and energized activists in the the struggle against the COVID restrictions and mandates may be headed. We have seen through the lies and deceptions and are well aware that out governments and media have been participants in an ongoing scheme that already has killed and injured many in the global community including in Alberta.

We are aware, moreover, that the push to sterilize, depopulate and conduct unregulated medical experiments on human subjects is far from over and may continue under under a variety of banners including the fake fight to stop the climate from changing. Of course the weird alchemy attending the climate change controversy is becoming integral to the balance of power in Canada’s system of federal-provincial relations, but especially Ottawa-Edmonton relations.

The new premier of Alberta forthrightly condemned the discrimination entailed in the coercive tactics deployed worldwide to universalize the COVID jab. Premier Smith did so during an interval in 2022 after she had replaced Kenney as premier but before she received a popular mandate from the Alberta electorate. She indicated that the apartheid-like restrictions enforced to punish the so-called “unvaxxed” for their medical choices, formed the basis of the most discriminatory process she had ever witnessed in her lifetime.

Many in Canada and throughout the world agreed wholeheartedly with this bold statement, one that will go down in provincial and world history. Nothing quite like Smith’s comment has been uttered so far by any other top official at the head of a government with major economic and political clout. Not surprisingly, the statement proved to be polarizing. The comment sent Rachel Notley and her cheer leaders in the legacy media into spasms of indignant condemnation.

In completely denying the severe discrimination that Notley had herself advocated, the NDP Leader set a classic example of the internal contradictions within the perceptual cosmos of Woke extremism. Notley pushed aside Smith’s observation by falling back on stereotypical examples of racism to rationalize her blindness to the medical apartheid she champions.

Notley refused to address, for starters, her own advocacy of the loss of jobs, income, and access to education in order to severely punish those that refused to bend to the pressure to take the untested experimental injections. These clot shots ended up being just as lethal and injurious as many experts had predicted.

The murderous and injurious outcomes of this concerted attack on the health of the world’s population is becoming increasingly clear in spite of the ongoing cover up of the extent of the enormous crimes against humanity that have taken place and are continuing to take place. So far there has been no honest reckoning in governments and criminal courts with the implications of the huge surges of deaths from 2021 to the present.

These deaths point back to the high rates of injection that lead inexorably to high rates of death by blood clots, heart ailments, supercharged turbocancers, and many other so-called “adverse events.” The plague of death and illnesses from the jabs extend to children and formerly healthy young people. Nevertheless the denial and well-organized cover up and continues. Will Alberta be a place where new ground is broken in terms in terms of holding accountable those responsible for the crimes against humanity that permeate many facets of the manufactured COVID crisis. See this.

Compassionate Conservatism? 

Premier Smith has yet to make good on her promise that the medical apartheid created by the coercive push to universalize the mandated injections will be made subject to the protections of Alberta’s Human Right Act. The need for such protections are especially pertinent now that it has been well documented by Sasha Latapova and others that the jabs are really Pentagon-developed bioweapons disguised as medical cures for a supposedly “novel” coronavirus. See this.

Premier Smith has not yet effectively delivered on her promise to assert the much needed disciplinary control over the free-wheeling medical empire of Alberta Health Services. (AHS). As it now stands, this seemingly unaccountable leviathan effectively forms an unaccountable government within a provincial government. The AHS spends almost half of Alberta’s $70 billion budget.

Like many similar publicly and privately-financed health care organizations throughout the world, the AHS is run by a handful of highly-placed operatives who are well integrated into global networks of related agencies. These agencies include the corporate infrastructure of Big Pharma and the UN’s World Health Organization. The Bill Gates group of “philanthropies” like Gavi are well integrate into the WHO which itself is largely funded by Gates. It is no accident that these supposed “health” organizations as well as the World Economic Forum are headquartered amidst the crime-ridden Swiss-based banking regime.

This regime includes the Bank of International Settlements, the central bank for central bankers still dominated by the circle of families revolving around the Rothschild clan. As was clearly illustrated for the attentive in the course of the COVID Hoax, this transnational network, within which the upper echelons of the AHS reside, can be conceived of collectively as a ruthless mafioso serving some of the most sinister lobbies on Earth.

In her speech at the annual general meeting of the United Conservative Party, Premier Smith promised that she would finally take on the AHS Behemoth that to this day is still promoting toxic fluoride in communal drinking water along with the discredited COVID-19 booster shots. “Decentralization” was the code word Smith used in announcing her plan to fix up or replace the AHS. Without some major rejigging, the AHS will remain unaccountable to the government of Alberta and to the tax payers that fund it.

Premier Smith’s speech was upbeat, tight and effectively delivered. Several times she referred to her core approach to governing Alberta as “compassionate conservatism.” I shall have more to say on Smith’s commitment to compassionate conservatism in light of the obscenities currently unfolding in the Middle East.

To me Smith’s commitment to compassionate conservatism conjures up memories of what used to be called Red Toryism. The Red Tory ideal was embraced, for instance, by Joe Clark. Clark is another Conservative Albertan who was briefly Prime Minister of Canada in 1979-80.

As a compassionate conservative, Premier Smith stands to claim a lot of political turf essentially abandoned by the Liberal and NDP parties. There have moved away from bread and butter issues as well as from the realm of rights and freedoms and civil liberties and even social welfare for average Canadians not engaged in the mysteries of exploring gender pluralism. Whatever their rhetoric, the resort of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his NDP backers to Woke authoritarianism is highlighting the common sense approach of Conservatives at both the national and provincial levels.

As Smith well explained in her AGM speech, a key to financing “compassionate conservatism” in Alberta lies in the conscientious development and wise exploitation of the treasure trove of oil and gas resources in Canada’s most immense and lucrative Oil Patch. The practical side of developing this major natural resource has been infamously attacked by the Trudeau government and especially by its primary green energy crusader, Steven Guilbeault.

In contrast to the Smith government, the Trudeau- Guilbeault duo do not have a solid political base beneath them to support the implementation of their Quixotic and science-bereft plans for a radical transformation of Canada’s political economy.

It seems fitting that Trudeau’s career is plunging in the midst of his attempt to force Albertans to put aside their careful development of one of the greatest energy sources in the world. This development has for some time employed hard-working Canadians from coast to coast to coast, spreading the wealth in ways that have elevated our country’s standard of living in many important ways.

At the heart of the current controversy is the federal government’s attempt to force on Albertans an electrical grid based largely on the highly problematic exploitation of wind and solar power. By investing so much political capital in this thoroughly retarded scheme, Justin Trudeau is being exposed as the rank amateur he is on anything other than plunging Canada into massive debt in order to distribute payola among his political cronies.

The borrowed money is for showering riches on likes of Drag Queen educators as well as contributing at least $10 billion to help along NATO’s sacrifice of Ukrainian soldiers, many of them Nazis, in a war they could never win. Little by little Trudeau escapades are catching up with him in spite of the bribed Canadian media’s efforts to protect him at every turn.

How much longer can Trudeau get away with travesties like honouring Nazi war veterans in Parliament or facing drug busts while supposedly attending to controversial diplomatic business in India? How much longer can Trudeau turn a blind eye to the military training of Khalistani separatists in British Columbia, or continuing to cover up of the lies and crimes of SNC-Lavalin? How much longer can Trudeau evade some reckoning with the overwhelming evidence he enabled the activities of Chinese spies in order to boost the Liberal Party’s otherwise flimsy electoral prospects?

Of course Premier Smith and several UCP cabinet ministers who made public presentations were able to score easy points by pointing much-deserved verbal barbs at Trudeau, an official that might as well be wearing a target on his back.

I was pleased to see the Alberta’s Energy Minister, Brian Jean, become defensive when referring to the wonky concept of “net zero” presently being put front and centre in the oil and gas industry’s environmental negotiations with government. The current point of contention between Ottawa and Edmonton is whether the goal for reaching “net zero” should be 2035 or 2050.

But what exactly is net zero anyway? Is the concept as empty as it seems promising some sort of nirvana to cure all that ails us? What proof is there to support the dubious contention that carbon, life’s main chemical component, is the ultimate enemy? CO2 is plant food that gives us vital oxygen in return. Why mess with such a synergistic exchange?

Jean seemed to apologize to the audience for adopting the empty terminology of “net zero.” He indicated that the Alberta government’s corporate partners in the oil and gas industry insist on using the term. What kind of explanation is that? Why not call the bluff of those engaged in the net zero hoax, part of the climate change chicanery? If the government of Alberta won’t do it, who will?

If the oil and gas industry is going to lead Albertans into a swamp of nonsensical game playing pretending to be science, maybe its time for Albertans to consider exercising our own sovereign proprietorship over our own provincial resource. Perhaps its time to follow Norway’s example of developing oil and gas resources ourselves.

Who is going to make the necessary case that there is no viable Plan B other than adopting much lower standards of living if cheap and muscular oil and gas is to be abandoned in the name going green.

Gaining a Sense of Exhilaration from Voting to Condemn Violations of Our Rights of Self-Determinations

For me, the highlight of the UCP’s AGM took place in the interval following Premier Danielle Smith’s presentation. The exercise was devoted to bringing forward policy proposals authored by several of the UCP’s 87 constituency associations. These policies covered a broad array of subjects.

The underlying design seemed to be to give the grass roots of the UCP membership the opportunity to assert the pre-eminence of the rights and freedoms denied to us so severely throughout the manufactured COVID crisis. Without our ongoing vigilance and willingness to resist, the COVID crimes will be made to merge with other pretexts for globalist agents to diminish us in the name of fighting more overhyped threats to, for instance, our health, our wellness, or our economic viability. In my view, the depopulation agenda is still proceeding.

The following policy proposal, which was passed by about 3000 UCP members in attendance. It gives a good idea of the kind of explanatory justifications presented for consideration to the delegates at the UCP AGM.

Policy Proposal 2 Policy Reference: P-0170

Sponsor: Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul

Article: 403 RIGHTS .1 INFRINGEMENT PROTECTION

The United Conservative Party believes the Government of Alberta should… c) Protect an individual’s right to free expression.

Rationale

Recent events saw Albertans being censored for their scientific, personal, and or religious beliefs regarding government policies because there was a perceived societal benefit to do so. Our Prime Minister, Chief Medical Officers, health care authorities, the media, employers, unions, police, military, border security, schools, universities, businesses, and many other people in positions of authority took it upon themselves to censor, isolate, vilify, placed on leave of absence without pay, and or outright fire people that did not ascribe to their and or the government’s policy of the day. Many professionals, highly educated individuals, and or concerned critical thinking citizens were censored, ridiculed and or otherwise ignored for simply speaking out against and or not accepting the proffered government position on a subject and that may or may not have been correct, and such action on their part is reprehensible. Albertans were singled out and made to suffer hardships for no other reason than their beliefs were different from the authority/authorities in question.

Another policy proposal demands remediation for the travesties that took place in the medical profession. It asserted

Policy Proposal 3 Policy Reference: P-0203

Sponsor: Calgary-Lougheed

Article: 206 HEALTH .7 HEALTH CARE WORKERS RIGHTS

The United Conservative Party believes that the Government of Alberta should… b) Protect a medical practitioner’s right to research, speak, and write; and protect Medical Doctors and all healthcare professionals from having their licenses to practice threatened for publicly expressing professional medical opinions in any public setting.

Rationale

During the Covid-19 crisis doctors had their physician licenses suspended and others lost their positions as university professors for speaking out about things like the importance of getting informed consent. Others were threatened for expressing their concerns about how quickly vaccines were being pushed upon the public without facing the test of time, or for expressing their concerns about serious negative side effects that they had witnessed after their patients had received a Covid-19 vaccine. The ‘scientific method’ requires skepticism and ongoing debate to ensure that medical practices and treatment are safe and effective. To ensure that we have the best medicines, vaccines, and medical practices possible we must always protect freedom of opinion and expression by medical professionals and scientists regardless of whether they are working in society, privately, or at universities, especially during times of crisis.

See this.

The range of topics is impressive. They pertained, for instance, to family farms, race and admission criteria to colleges, the privacy of health care information, the need to protect agricultural soil from the pollution of solar panel complexes, the need to embrace paper ballots and to reject the computerization of voting, the repressive intent of 15 minute cities, parental rights and schooling, the unreasonable prohibition of fertilizer production, pornography in children’s school books, and the need to protect female inmates from rape by other inmates who are male cross dressers pretending to be women.

It would be hard to describe the sense of exhilaration I derived from taking part in this exercise of voting in public in real time, along with thousands of other mostly like-minded people. Many of the subjects on which we voted, involved three hard years on the receiving end of literally thousands of arbitrary dictates whose effect was to overturn many of the most personal aspects of our lives.

Throughout these three years there were no openings at all for us to take part in, nor even respond to, the often ruinous, ridiculous or downright dangerous and damaging impositions that authorities, sometimes with guns, attempted to force on us. If we chose not to comply, the top official in the land deemed us to be nothing less than hate-filled bigots, racists, misogynists or worse.

Finally after all this time, simply holding up a sign along with others saying “yes” to the proposition of never again facing such outrageous dictates from above, seemed comforting. It felt like coming out of a desert lacking the revitalizing waters of self-determination. I can only imagine how distant is the the prospect of voting as we did on matters of such substance among out fellow Covidian skeptics in, say, Ontario or BC.

What will happen to our votes and resolutions? It remains to be seen if Premier Danielle Smith’s custodianship of the Office of Alberta’s Premier will fulfill the promise of the surprising turns of events that began with the manufactured COVID crisis.

Hardly a Peep of Protest to the Savage Massacre Underway in Gaza 

As the official meeting wound down, many conference goers gathered in a hospitality suite where a group called Take Back Alberta gathered to engage in various forms of schmoozing and debriefing. One of the advertised events publicized at the gathering was the upcoming speech in Calgary to be delivered by Ben Shapiro. Indeed, earlier in the day I was approached by a young UCP organizer with an enthusiast suggestion that I should attend the Shapiro event on 16 November.

Some readers will be aware that Ben Shapiro is the principle public figure in the Clear Wire network of “Conservative” bloggers. Shapiro managed to attract Canadian Jordan Peterson into his operation. The relationship was formalized at a meeting in Jerusalem where Shapiro and Peterson sat down in for a meal with Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Since that meeting it has become clear that Peterson is very comfortable promoting Zionist positions in his official position as a prominent member of Shapiro’s Clear Wire Team. Peterson’s orientation was well expressed when he famously texted Benjamin Netanyahu to encourage him to give the Palestinians of the Gaza prison camp “hell.” In the current context this message amounted to an encouragement to kill more Palestinians more quickly.

I took note of the fact that throughout the entire UCP AGM, I did not hear one official or informal mention of the genocidal horror unfolding in Gaza. The silence on such a pertinent subject bothered me, especially in light of Premier Danielle Smith’s frequent references to “compassionate conservatism.”

Indeed even when one puts aside the humanitarian aspects of the Israel-Palestinian confrontation, it seems to me that the Albertan government overseeing one of the largest oil and gas reserves in the world, would want to convey some sense of the implications for the oil and gas sector in North America of what is going on in the Middle East. After all, under the auspices of John D. Rockefeller the oil and gas business was one of first truly globalized modern industries on the planet.

That transnational aspect of the primary energy sources for twentieth and twenty-first century industrialization, is surely a factor that demands some attention and analysis from the government of Alberta. For instance, what are the implications for Alberta of the new alliance of Saudi Arabia and Iran negotiated under the guidance of the Chinese government. Both Saudi Arabia and Iran are famous oil and gas giants?

What are the implications for Alberta of the BRICS coalition that has become more and more cohesive in the course of the war between Russia and the NATO’s proxy army in Ukraine? The silence on such matters from UCP officials makes me think of the Smith government as rather parochial when it comes to Alberta’s part in the worldwide network of major players in the global operations of the oil and gas industry.

These reflections bring me back to Ben Shapiro and his prominent role in interpreting for Israel the conflagration underway in Gaza. This conflagration may go nuclear. It may spark an Arab and Iranian boycott of oil exports, with all that such a development would mean for Alberta.

I felt the impact of the Israel-Gaza crisis when I went to my familiar Albertan news sites on October 8. Our cozy coalition at Western Standard, True North, and Rebel Newswent up in flames when all these venues featured editorials waving the Israel flag and condemning as reprehensible any perspectives that did not conform with those of the Zionist Team.

For the purposes of this essay we can envisage the alliance between Peterson, Shapiro and Netanyahu as representative of the Zionist Team. In Alberta this Team is closely connected to the prominence of the brand of Christian Zionism that predominates in most of the big churches across the province. I am beginning in my writing to try to explore and explain what Christian Zionism is. See for example The Growing Menace of Zionism and Christian Zionism.

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A Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) spokesperson says it “did not censor or ask social media platforms to remove any social media content regarding coronavirus vaccine side effects.”

This denial came in response to Twitter Files published by Matt Taibbi in March, which revealed that SIO’s so-called “Virality Project” had pushed platforms to treat user concerns about vaccine mandates and passports as “disinformation” and to consider “stories of true vaccine side effects” to be actionable content on social media.

The Virality Project was an initiative undertaken jointly by Big Tech, universities, and NGOs to combat “anti-vaccine misinformation.” SIO responded to Taibbi’s Twitter Files by claiming that his findings were “inaccurate and based on distortions of email exchanges in the Twitter Files.” 

But new evidence shows that Stanford lied about the scope of the Virality Project and that its censorship efforts were undertaken on behalf of the US government. 

As Public reported on Tuesday, new documents shared by the House Judiciary Committee revealed that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), created the Virality Project’s predecessor, the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), to censor protected speech. Explains the committee, “EIP reconstituted as the Virality Project” and continued working with the federal government. The Twitter Files also found that the Project partnered “with several government agencies,” including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Office of the Surgeon General, and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). 

Still, Stanford and the mainstream media insist that “disinformation” experts were merely conducting research, and not involved in actual censorship. 

Now, an investigation by Public has uncovered clear evidence that the Project was directly and deliberately involved in successful censorship efforts. Public analyzed a trove of newly released Jira system tickets, the Virality Project’s tipline to social media companies. These tickets overwhelmingly contradict Stanford’s assertion that it did not try to get content censored. 

The Virality Project, acting as a cut-out for DHS and CISA, worked directly with employees at Facebook, Google, YouTube, TikTok, and more, who were all signed up to their Jira system. Those companies regularly assured the Project that they were addressing the content it flagged. Companies responded with comments like, “Thanks for flagging this. We have actioned the content,” or “Thanks for escalating to us — our team is looking into this now.” The Virality Project kept track of actions on the content it flagged, and was frequently successful in getting content labeled or removed by platforms, and in getting users suspended. 

The Virality Project appears to have played a major role in one particularly infamous case of Covid-related censorship. On March 15, 2021, Harvard professor of medicine Martin Kulldorff tweeted,

“Thinking that everyone must be vaccinated is as scientifically flawed as thinking that nobody should. COVID vaccines are important for older high-risk people, and their care-takers. Those with prior natural infection do not need it. Nor children.” 

No. Thinking that everyone must be vaccinated is as scientifically flawed as thinking that nobody should. COVID vaccines are important for older high-risk people, and their care-takers. Those with prior natural infection do not need it. Nor children. https://t.co/qXtpM3QRY3

— Martin Kulldorff (@MartinKulldorff) March 16, 2021

“Dear Twitter Team,” a representative of the Virality Project wrote in response to Kulldorff’s post, “This Tweet directly contradicts CDC’s advice.” 

“Thanks team — we’re looking into this,” a senior Twitter Trust & Safety policy specialist wrote back. 

Kulldorff’s tweet was then labeled as misleading and he was temporarily suspended from the platform. Internally, the Virality Project identified Kulldorff, a renowned biostatistician, as a “repeat offender.”

This process was indeed a deliberate, state-sponsored act of censorship. In many egregious instances, the Virality Project — again, a government cut-out — intentionally and knowingly worked to silence and deplatform social media users. Jira records vindicate the Twitter Files and are evidence of First Amendment violations. 

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Shortly after the start of the war against Gaza, Palestinian trade unions appealed to their colleagues worldwide for a boycott of arms supplies to Israel. That appeal is being heeded in many countries. That list of countries is growing every day. 

When Israel unleashed its ruthless war of revenge against the people of Gaza, Palestinian trade unions appealed to their colleagues worldwide for a boycott of arms deliveries to Israel:

 “As Israel escalates its military campaign, Palestinian trade unions call on our counterparts internationally and all people of conscience to end all forms of complicity with Israel’s crimes – most urgently halting the arms trade with Israel, as well as all funding and military research. The time for action is now – Palestinian lives hang in the balance.”

The Belgian trade unions were the first to set a good example. In a joint press release they called for a stop to arms shipments destined for Israel. They refuse to contribute to the murder of innocent victims and call for an immediate ceasefire.

“We, the various trade unions active in the ground handling sector, call on our members to no longer handle flights shipping military material to Palestine/Israel, as there were clear agreements and rules at the beginning of the conflict with Russia and Ukraine.”

 The Belgian example is being followed in many countries. The list grows every day.

In the United States, part of the United Auto Workers (UAW), which is currently waging a fierce battle for wage increases, is calling for a boycott of Israel.

“We watch with horror as the US sends American troops to assist in an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza. We mourn the loss of civilian life. We categorically reject US support of the murderous Israeli regime in its ongoing genocide of Palestinians, which has killed over 7,000 people and injured 16,000 more in airstrikes since October 7, and has cut off water, food, and power to the population of Gaza.

We call on the UAW to endorse and implement boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS).” 

The United Tech & Allied Workers of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland (UTAW-CWU) join calls from Palestinian trade unions for the international labour movement to end all complicity and take concrete action against arms supplies to Israel.

Source: PoliticsJoe_UK / X 

The Central Trade Union Council of India (AICCTU), which represents more than 600,000 workers, is appealing to unions for a  boycott of arms shipments to Israel.

“We extend our full support to the call by Palestinian trade unions to all workers of the world and their unions to unite and boycott manufacturing or loading of weapons and military equipment destined to Israël and its brutal war.” 

In Brazil, CUT, the largest trade union federation representing more than 7.4 million workers, passed a resolution pledging unwavering support for the Palestinians.

Source: Sumaya Awad / X

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the country’s largest union with 75,000 members, adopted a resolution in solidarity with the Palestinian people, including a call for the government to “end its sale of arms to Israel.”

In Japan, the National Railway Motive Power Union of the town of Chiba (1 million inhabitants) responds to the call of the Palestinian unions. The Japanese government plans to supply weapons and financial aid to Israel, among other things. The railway association wants to prevent this: We wholeheartedly support the fierce struggle of the Palestinian people, and we will fight with all our might to overthrow the Kishida administration, a member of international imperialism: the cause of oppression of the people and the cause of war.”

In Colombia, the miners’ union wants a suspension of the supply of all minerals and fuels to Israel.

“As noted by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, these events ‘do not come in a vacuum’. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation; they have seen their land constantly swallowed up by settlements and plagued by violence.

Their economy was stifled, their people displaced and their homes destroyed. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight are fading.

The Israeli government’s response has been described by President Gustavo Petro as a situation similar to what was experienced in the Nazi concentration camps. It’s a genocide. In light of this barbarity, our President yesterday recalled the Colombian ambassador to Israel for consultations.

We fully support these decisions and encourage the government to suspend shipments of Colombian coal and all metals and minerals to Israel as leverage for an immediate ceasefire, as demanded by civil society, human rights organizations, churches and we join as a trade union organization.

Cease fire now!”

In Barcelona, port workers have decided not to allow materials to be sent to the conflict in the Gaza Strip. They do this for the “sole purpose of protecting the civilian population, regardless of territory. No reason justifies the sacrifice of civilians.”

The dockworkers consider it a collective “obligation” to defend the Universal Declaration of Human Rights “tooth and nail”. They criticize the fact that many countries seem to have forgotten that they signed the Declaration. They point out that these human rights are “currently being violated in Ukraine, Israel and the Palestinian territories”.

The dockers call for an immediate ceasefire and peaceful solutions to the various conflicts.

In Poland, the largest umbrella confederation of trade unions (OPZZ) is calling for an end to military cooperation with Israel.

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Marc Vandepitte is a Belgian economist and philosopher. He writes on North-South relations, Latin America, Cuba, and China. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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We are witnessing a tsunami of cardiac arrests since the advent of the worldwide mass genetic vaccination program. In virtually every case, the COVID-19 vaccination status is not disclosed to the public.

Additionally, the general autopsy can be “normal.” I am commonly asked what should a modern COVID-19 vaccine era cardiac autopsy look like:

1. Gross inspection, heart aorta, great vessels, lungs, pulmonary arteries
2. Heart weight <250 g for women, < 350 g for men
3. Coronary slices for atherosclerosis and thrombus
4. Myocardial slices for evidence of scar, congenital abnormalities, valvular disease.
5. Myocardial immunohistochemical staining for SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein and Nucleocapsid, inflammatory cells, amyloid protein
6. Buccal swab for Arrythmia and Cardiomyopathy Panel (In Vitae or equivalent)
7. Research assays

Anatomic coronary artery disease is highly prevalent in adults and it may be a bystander and not the direct cause of the arrhythmic cardiac arrest. Di Michele et al reported that small micro RNA fragments that are known to regulate genes, and in this circumstance, genes that control cardiac ion channels, do vary up or down in blood and cardiac tissue and help distinguish between a coronary event and a primary arrhythmic event.

Bernini Di Michele A, Onofri V, Pesaresi M, Turchi C. The Role of miRNA Expression Profile in Sudden Cardiac Death Cases. Genes (Basel). 2023 Oct 17;14(10):1954. doi: 10.3390/genes14101954. PMID: 37895303; PMCID: PMC10606010.

At this time it is possible that mRNA and adenoviral DNA vaccines could influence key miRNA’s in the causal pathway to a primary arrhythmic cardiac death in the absence of clinical myocarditis. So if you are involved in a circumstance with a family member or friend with an unexpected cardiac arrest, please push for the fullest autopsy possible. You will only have one shot.

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United States President Joe Biden recently stated that his country is not only “the most powerful in the world”, but also supposedly “in the history of mankind”. And while that assertion is highly debatable to anyone remotely familiar with the actual history of our planet, it’s true that very few countries (if any) can (or could’ve) match the US in terms of military (over)deployment.

Namely, while the exact number is not easy to pinpoint, Washington DC currently operates at least a thousand military bases, logistics hubs and centers, etc. around the globe. The belligerent thalassocracy insists that this is “necessary” to supposedly “maintain global security”. However, the vast majority of the people on our planet are perfectly aware that this is anything but true and that the US and its vassals and satellite states are by far the greatest security threat to anyone in the world.

And yet, in its endless hypocrisy and double standards, Washington DC keeps “expressing concern” when other countries establish a military presence on foreign soil, no matter how minuscule it is in comparison to the US. According to various reports, for the first time in its history, China is planning to establish a permanent military base in the Middle East.  Washington DC is virtually bound to see this “as a significant challenge”, particularly as the planned permanent base is to be in the highly strategic (and volatile) Persian Gulf region. The US itself also has a major military presence, such as the Navy Central Command military infrastructure in Qatar and Bahrain. On November 7, citing “people familiar with the matter”, Bloomberg reported that “President Joe Biden has been briefed on what his advisers see as a Chinese plan to build a military facility in Oman”.

“This comes amid a broader effort by Beijing to deepen defense and diplomatic ties with the Middle East,” the report continues, further adding: “Biden was told that Chinese military officials discussed the matter last month with Omani counterparts, who were said to be amenable to such a deal, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations. They said the two sides agreed to more talks in the coming weeks.”

The exact location of the future Chinese military infrastructure in Oman is still unknown. Back in August, Beijing and Muscat celebrated the 45th anniversary of the establishment of their formal diplomatic relations. In recent decades, the two countries have significantly improved their economic and military relationship, including joint exercises and other activities related to security and national interests. In addition, the port of Muscat is known for regularly hosting the ships of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). Back in mid-October, the Royal Navy of Oman (RNO) and PLAN held joint naval drills and also promised “to expand their naval defense and military cooperation”. It should also be noted that China maintains very close relations with other countries in the region, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which could also be a possible candidate for future Chinese military presence.

At present, the only significant military base that Beijing operates anywhere near the region is its military base in Djibouti, a small country in East Africa. It should be noted that China is prone to establishing a military presence only in areas that its leadership thinks are important for the security of its massive infrastructure projects such as the unprecedented One Belt One Road.

This Chinese-led multinational effort spans almost the entirety of Asia and large parts of Europe. It includes both land and naval facilities and infrastructure with a particular focus on trade and transportation. An important part of the project also includes Beijing’s plans to deepen ties with various major energy producers, a mutually beneficial effort that will further stabilize the otherwise volatile region. Bloomberg also suggested this is a major reason behind strengthened military ties between China and Oman.

And while the US doesn’t have a direct and permanent military presence in Oman (besides naval visits to its ports), it does have an official agreement with Muscat to use the country’s military bases whenever it needs them for operations in the region. This includes the Thumrait airbase of the RAFO (Royal Air Force of Oman), located near the homonymous city in the south of the country. The airbase is often used by the USAF. In addition, the US Navy also has a strong presence in waters off the coast of Oman. Its primary mission in the area is essentially “legalized piracy” that includes hunting for Iranian ships supposedly loaded with oil, weapons or anything else the US considers “illegal”. Needless to say, such activities by the US forces in the region only contribute to unnecessary tensions and destabilization. This stands in stark contrast to China’s plans, as Beijing maintains a strong partnership with everyone in the region.

In the last several years, the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) began warning that China is supposedly “not content with its Djibouti base on the continent’s east coast, but is looking to establish a military presence on the Atlantic”. Washington DC sees this as a major threat to its much-touted “rules-based world order”. However, it’s obvious that Beijing’s military ambitions are nowhere near those of Washington DC and that the Eurasian giant simply wants to ensure the safety of its global infrastructure projects. It’s highly unlikely that the US will be able to force China’s partners in any of the areas where these projects are being conducted to stop them, let alone break growing ties with Beijing. For these countries, the choice is rather simple – it’s crucial to maintain close ties with the world’s most powerful production economy and a country that actually makes long-term investments in socioeconomic development.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

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

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Multiple voting machines in Northampton County in the swing state of Pennsylvania have been shut down due to reports of voting errors, including “votes getting flipped.”

The election issue surfaced in the early hours of Tuesday, which impacted the contest for the Pennsylvania Superior Court between Judge Jack Panella and Judge Victor Stabile.

The Northampton County Elections Office reports that the malfunction seems to manifest itself when a voter chooses between “Yes” and “No” in regard to a candidate vying for a seat on the Superior Court of Appeals.

The selection for the opposing candidate was inaccurately recorded on both the paper ballot and the voting machine.

The error appears to have been confined to the re-election of Superior Court judges and solely manifested itself during the tallying of ballots for those who voted “Yes” for one candidate but “No” for another.

“I’m livid at the election folks and ES&S,” said Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure.

The county has acknowledged the issue in a statement and provided reassurance to the public that efforts are being made to expedite the resolution of the malfunction.

The election officials acknowledged the error in a press release:

Northampton County Elections Office reports an issue with the recording of votes only for the races for retention to the Pennsylvania Superior Court, affecting Judge Jack Panella and Judge Victor P. Stabile.

It appears that when a voter selects a “Yes” or a “No” for one of the candidates for retention to the Pennsylvania Superior Court, the selection is recorded on the paper ballot and on the machine for the other candidate.

The issue is limited to the retention of Superior Court Judges, and is only an issue when recording the votes for when a voter selected a “Yes” for one candidate and a “No” for another candidate.

The Elections Division of the County of Northampton notified all poll workers by text message that they are to instruct voters before the voter enters the voting booth that there is an issue with the recording of their vote for the candidates for retention to the Pennsylvania Superior Court, that the paper receipt will record their selection for retention to the Pennsylvania Superior Court one candidate to the other candidate.

According to Lehigh Valley News, immediately following the opening of polling precincts, when errors with the voting machines were discovered, poll workers across the county discontinued using the machines and resorted to provisional ballots.

As stated in the county’s news release, county officials dispatched text messages to all polling locations in the aftermath of the initial incidents in order to maintain communication and keep poll workers informed of the situation. The occurrence has resulted in significant disturbances to the voting procedure, prompting numerous officials and voters to voice their discontent and apprehensions.

Merissa Hansen, an investigative journalist in Harris County, Texas, reported that there were voting machine issues at multiple locations, leading to shut downs.

I’m hearing from voters across District G about voting machines not working at various locations. Machines down at @FrostwoodElem. A few machines down at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church. Voters being turned away b/c ballot scanners aren’t scanning at River Oaks Elementary and at…

— Merissa Hansen (@merissahansen17) November 7, 2023

“I’m hearing from voters across District G about voting machines not working at various locations. Machines down at @FrostwoodElem. A few machines down at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church. Voters being turned away b/c ballot scanners aren’t scanning at River Oaks Elementary and at River Oaks Park. If you’re having problems please report it here: http://defendmyballot.org.”

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In the video below, Dr Mahathir is speaking at the Global Solidarity and Rally Free Palestine organised by Forces of Renewal for Southeast Asia (FORSEA). Transcript is right after the video.

Transcript

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The October 1962 missile crisis that kept humanity in suspense ended with the signing by Kennedy and Khrushchev of the Nuclear Test Suspension Agreement (1962) which included the withdrawal of Russian missiles into Cuban territory in exchange for the withdrawal of US missiles stationed in Turkey, appearing in its small print the sine qua non condition of “no US invasion of the island.”

This agreement has protected Cuba for 60 years from a US invasion, establishing as a counterpart the figure of the “blockade” that has remained in force to date.

The cessation of the United States blockade against Cuba, demanded for the thirty-first time in the General Assembly of the United Nations and approved overwhelmingly by 187 votes to 2 (US and Israel) and Ukraine’s abstention reaffirm freedom of trade and navigation in the face of an anachronistic blockade imposed by Kennedy in 1962. In addition, the automatic renewal by the US for another year of the trade embargo on the island would threaten the current international financial and political system and could mean losses for Cuba estimated at about $7 billion.

Utopia would be the normalization of relations between Cuba and the US, final destination of a route marked by the necessary (termination of the energy block) and the possible (suspension of the anachronistic blockade) to what seemed impossible (normalization of relations between Cuba and the United States). The road ahead was marked by the challenges of ending the energy blockade of the island,

• Cuba’s withdrawal from the list of “States Sponsoring Terrorism”,
• the repeal of the Helms-Burton Act and finally,
• the suspension of the anachronistic blockade in force since 1962 that would give way to the exchange of ambassadors and the desired normalization of relations between Cuba and the United States.

Ukraine has already received the status of a candidate country for the European Union and in the event that it is admitted as a full member and continues the dispute with Russia, Article 42 of the Treaty on European Union would oblige EU countries to enter into direct conflict with Russia.

Accordingly, the maintenance of the embargo against Cuba could generate a vacuum of unpredictable results in the middle of Cold War 2.0 between the US and Russia that could end up drawing a new geopolitical cartography in the Caribbean.

Thus, Russia would be forced to move its pieces and place them strategically in the so-called US “backyard” with the unequivocal aim of expanding the Russian military radio, as reported to the Russian news agency Sputnik by the Head of the Defense Committee of the Upper House of the Russian Parliament, Victor Borndarev,

“the establishment of a Russian military base in Cuba in a context of increasing US aggression, would respond to National Security interests”, and the Kennedy-Khrushchev Missile Crisis could be revived (October 1962) and the subsequent signature with Khrushchev of the Nuclear Test Suspension Agreement (1962).

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Germán Gorraiz Lopez is a political analyst and frequent contributor to Global Research

Featured image: A US Navy P-2H Neptune of VP-18 flying over a Soviet cargo ship with crated Il-28s on deck during the Cuban Crisis. © Wikipedia

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The announcement late Sunday night by the US Central Command [CENTCOM] headquartered in Doha about the arrival of a Ohio-class American nuclear submarine in its “area of responsibility” presages a significant escalation of the situation around the Palestine-Israel conflict.

It is very rare that the use of these submarines is publicised. The CENTCOM provided no additional details but it posted an image that apparently showed an Ohio-class submarine in Egypt’s Suez Canal Bridge. Interestingly, CENTCOM also separately shared an image of a nuclear-capable B-1 bomber operating in the Middle East. 

Taken together, these US deployments, coming on top of the formidable  presence of two aircraft carriers and warships hundreds of advanced jet fighters in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea respectively, are with an eye on “the other side of the equation,” as Secretary of State Antony Blinken quaintly described Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran during his latest visit to Tel Aviv on Friday.

In a related development, perhaps, the CIA director, William Burns arrived in Israel on Sunday for urgent consultations. The New York Times reported that the US is “looking to expand its intelligence sharing with Israel.” 

Arguably, the most charitable explanation for the deployment of a US nuclear submarine, which forms part of the Pentagon’s “nuclear triad” –Ohio-class boats are the largest submarines ever built for the US Navy — near the war zone is that the Biden Administration is preparing for an escalation of the war into Lebanon to draw out Hezbollah, which may in turn trigger an Iranian reaction. 

In his speech on Friday, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah seemed to anticipate precisely such a turn of events when he explicitly warned the US of consequences that couldn’t be any different from the catastrophic American involvement in Lebanon’s civil war in the early 1980s. Ironically, this is also the 40th anniversary year of the suicide bombing of the barracks housing US forces in Beirut International Airport in October 1983 in which 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers were killed forcing a US withdrawal from Lebanon. (See me blog  Hezbollah takes to the high ground.)

Clearly, the locus of the US strategy in the present Middle situation may be shifting from diplomacy, which has anyway lost traction. Blinken’s desperate attempts to address the mounting international criticism of Israel’s horrific war crimes by diverting attention to a “humanitarian pause” in the fighting, et al, has been unceremoniously shot down by Netanyahu. 

The point is, after pounding Gaza and its people with artillery and bombs, the Israeli army moved in on Friday. So far, it has reportedly advanced to the outskirts of Gaza City but not entered the Hamas stronghold. Fierce urban fighting is expected when it does. 

Equally, the Biden administration’s hurried attempt to promote a vague outline for a post-war Gaza that might include a combination of a revitalised Palestinian Authority, a peacekeeping force, etc.  has been met with a distinct lack of enthusiasm at Blinken’s meeting in the weekend in Amman with the Arab foreign ministers -– from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates –- who instead demanded an immediate ceasefire, while Blinken said Washington wouldn’t push for one. 

Blinken travelled to Ramallah from Amman where the head of the Palestine Authority Mahmoud Abbas also gave him short shrift saying that the PA would only be ready to shoulder full responsibility for the Gaza Strip in the framework of a “comprehensive political solution” that would include the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza — and, furthermore, that security and peace can only be achieved by ending the occupation of the territories of the “State of Palestine,” and by recognising East Jerusalem as its capital. The meeting lasted for less than an hour and ended without public statements. 

Meanwhile, China and the UAE have since called for a closed-door meeting of the UN Security Council in another attempt to seek an immediate ceasefire, which the Biden Administration will certainly oppose. Suffice to say, the Biden Administration feels boxed in and the only way out is by something giving way through exercise of coercive means.

The US is watching with frustration as new regional equations are appearing among Muslim nations. The foreign ministers of Iran and Saudi Arabia held another phone conversation today. The OIC later announced that an extraordinary summit will be held in Riyadh on November 12 at the request of the current chairman, Saudi Arabia, to discuss Israel’s attacks on the Palestinian people. 

Certainly, the Iran-Saudi rapprochement, mediated by Beijing, has profoundly transformed the regional security environment with regional states distinctly preferring to find solutions to their problems without outside interference, and the old schisms and xenophobia promoted by the US to perpetuate its dominance having no takers anymore.

As the death toll in Gaza crosses 10,000, feelings are indeed running high in the Muslim world. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said today that “all the evidence and indications show the direct involvement of the Americans in running the war” in Gaza. Khamenei added that as the war goes on, the reasons behind the US’s direct role would become more explicit.

The Fars News Agency, which is close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, also disclosed that Khamenei held a “recent meeting in Tehran” with the Head of Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh where he told the latter that Tehran’s support for the resistance groups is its “permanent policy.”   

Evidently, Tehran no longer sees a problem in acknowledging its fraternal links with the resistance groups. This is a paradigm shift indicative of the shift in the power dynamic, which the US and Israel are compelled to counter through use of force, Washington’s diplomacy having failed to make headway to isolate Iran. 

The Chief of the Israeli General Staff, Herzi Halevi, said on Sunday during a meeting in the Northern Command,

“We are ready to strike in the north at any moment. We understand that it can happen… We have a clear goal of restoring a significantly better security situation at the borders, not only in the Gaza Strip.” 

No power on earth can stop Israel on its tracks now. Its stability and defence is inextricably linked to this war, which will also ensure abiding US commitment to its security as a key template of American global strategies for the foreseeable future. Therefore, Israel’s best chance of survival lies in expanding the scope of the war in Gaza into Lebanon — and possibly even into Syria — shoulder to shoulder with the Americans. 

There is no question that the location of the US nuclear submarine to the east of Suez is an attempt to intimidate Iran from intervening, while  Israel, with US backing, proceeds to open a second front in Lebanon. The Israeli authorities have announced evacuation of people from settlements located in a zone up to five kms from the border with Lebanon. 

A war of indeterminate timeline is set to begin in the Middle East. As the call of the jihad begins, inevitably, there is no knowing how the 80-year old American president will respond. 

No, this won’t turn into a world war. It will be fought in the Middle East only, but its outcome will significantly impact the making of a new multipolar world order. The past one month has shown the precipitous decline of US influence and the highly volatile global environment since the war began in Ukraine in February last year.

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Featured image: A joint meeting of the US and five Arab foreign ministers took place in Amman on November 4, 2023 to discuss the Palestine question (Source: IP)

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Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) welcomes Canada’s renewed support for a United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on Palestinian refugees, but warns that this lone vote is insufficient in the face of the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza. On November 9, Canada voted in the UNGA’s Fourth Committee for a draft resolution in support of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, after abstaining since 2011. However, in the same meeting, Canada voted against four other resolutions, including two supporting Palestine refugees and one condemning Israeli settlements. CJPME warns that Canada’s less-than-half-hearted approach indicates that it is not serious about addressing the human catastrophe that Israel is creating in Gaza.

“Today’s vote is a necessary correction. It was always absurd for Canada to abstain on UNRWA while giving millions in donations to the agency every year,” said Thomas Woodley, President of CJPME. “However, this is hardly a step forward. Any positive message that Canada intends to send with this vote is vastly outweighed by its continued opposition to every other motion on UNRWA and Palestine refugees,” added Woodley.

CJPME notes that although Canada is a financial supporter of UNRWA, it has failed to directly condemn Israel for its attacks on UNRWA schools, which have killed over 90 UNRWA staff. More than 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza have been forcibly displaced since October 7, and many thousands are sheltering in UNRWA facilities, which have been repeatedly bombed.

The resolutions which Canada voted against during today’s session include:

1. A resolution which recognizes UNRWA and urges the international community to support its work. It passed 160-4.

2. A resolution which reaffirms that Palestinian refugees are entitled to their property, and asks the UN to protect Arab assets and property rights in Israel. It passed 156-6.

3. A resolution to condemn Israel’s illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. It passed 145-7.

“It is shocking that Canada would vote in support of Israeli settlements in a year of unprecedented settlement expansion, and as attacks by Israeli settlers and soldiers have forcibly displaced at least 15 herding communities in the West Bank. Israel’s ongoing colonization of Palestinian land is directly creating new refugees, with Canada’s support,” said Woodley.

There are 10-16 standing resolutions on Palestinian human rights which are considered by the UNGA each year. Although in the early 2000s Canada voted in support of nearly all of them, this approach radically changed under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who in 2011 began voting against nearly every one of these resolutions as a package. In 2019, Trudeau made a small shift by resuming Canada’s vote in favour of a single resolution on Palestinian self-determination. Last year, CJPME published a report titled “Voting Against Its Own Interests,” which revealed that career foreign affairs officials have warned the government behind the scenes that its staunchly pro-Israel voting record at the United Nations contradicts its own values and interests and harms its international reputation. CJPME’s UN Dashboard is an interactive resource which shows how Canada’s votes on these motions have changed from 2000 to the present.

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Featured image: Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) holds press conference in Jerusalem on October 27, 2023 [Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency]

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***

 

 

 

An expansion of the scope of the war in Gaza is “inevitable” due to Israel’s heightened aggression, according to Iran’s foreign minister.

Hossein Amirabdollahian made the statement in a phone conversation with Qatari counterpart Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, Iran’s Press TV reported on Friday.

“Due to the expansion of the intensity of the war against Gaza’s civilian residents, expansion of the scope of the war has become inevitable,” Amirabdollahian said.

It is unclear what he meant by an “inevitable expansion” of the conflict.

Separately, Amirabdollahian said on his X account on Thursday:

“Time is fast running out for Tel Aviv’s crimes to continue.”

زمان برای تداوم جنایات تل‌آویو بسرعت رو به پایان است. تنها فايده نتانياهو اين بود كه پایه‌های رژیم جعلی اسراییل را متزلزل‌تر ساخت و چهره جنایتکار، خشن و متجاوز رژیم صهیونیستی را در قتل‌عام زنان و کودکان در غزه به روشنی و بدون روتوش به نمایش گذاشت. بی تردید آینده از آن فلسطین است.

— H.Amirabdollahian امیرعبداللهیان (@Amirabdolahian) November 9, 2023

“The only benefit of Netanyahu was that he made the foundations of the fake Israeli regime more shaky and showed the criminal, violent, and aggressive face of the Zionist regime in the massacre of women and children in Gaza,” he added.

“Undoubtedly, the future belongs to Palestine,” Amirabdollahian wrote.

Regional tension and cross-border clashes have intensified since Hamas, the Iran-backed group that runs Gaza, attacked Israel on October 7, triggering Israel’s war on the enclave.

Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah armed group, which is allied to Hamas, have swapped attacks. More than 60 Hezbollah fighters and 10 civilians have been killed, Lebanese security officials say. The violence has also killed at least seven Israeli soldiers and one civilian.

United States and coalition troops have been attacked at least 40 times in Iraq and Syria by Iran-backed forces as tensions soar over Israel’s bombardment. Forty-five US troops have been injured.

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement has also launched repeated missile and drone attacks on Israel since October 7, all of which were either shot down or fell short.

In a move viewed as a show of force to regional rivals, and especially Iran, the US announced last week that it has deployed a nuclear-capable submarine in the Middle East.

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Featured image: Hossein Amirabdollahian (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)

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***

The AI Nuke Dilemma

The major nuclear powers of the world now entrust decision-making to the digital bowels of artificial intelligence (immune to radioactive fallout, by the way), which (at best) harbors a moral indifference to humanity’s continued existence and, more likely, views it as a nuisance.

Via Nikkei Asia:

“The Biden administration plans to encourage China to work with the U.S. on international norms for artificial intelligence in weapons systems, a potential new area of cooperation amid tensions between the two powers.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has warned against relying on AI to make decisions involving the use of nuclear weapons and argues that humans should be involved in all critical decisions.

“We’ve seen through history numerous examples of where decision-making could be challenged by not having a human understanding the context of the technology, understanding the background of its use, and really not being able to make the most informed decision,” said Stewart, who suggested that maintaining human involvement in nuclear operations would be in China’s best interest.

The issue of AI use with nuclear weapons would also require discussion with Russia, which continues with its war in Ukraine. Russia has suspended its participation in the last remaining bilateral nuclear arms control arrangement known as New START amid heightened tensions with the West.”

Let’s be honest: the U.S. government is the epicenter of the AI takeover. Anything it accuses China of doing in this domain, including endowing AI with the decision-making capacity to drop nukes, it likely has already or is in the process of doing itself.

The entire point of mutually assured destruction (MAD) doctrine — the sole reason that Earth is still (somewhat) inhabitable in 2023 — is that the human members of human nations would not fire nukes against other nuclear powers because they would understand that it would result in a global catastrophe that they would not likely survive, either as a state or as individuals.

And it’s not just nukes that AI can be used to develop and deploy.

Via Foreign Affairs:

“When drug researchers used AI to develop 40,000 potential biochemical weapons in less than six hours last year, they demonstrated how relatively simple AI systems can be easily adjusted to devastating effect. Sophisticated AI-powered cyberattacks could likewise go haywire, indiscriminately derailing critical systems that societies depend on, not unlike the infamous NotPetya attack, which Russia launched against Ukraine in 2017 but eventually infected computers across the globe. Despite these warning signs, AI technology continues to advance at breakneck speed, causing the safety risks to multiply faster than solutions can be created.”

The regulatory attempts by governments to constrain AI — such as they are — is a giant game of Whac-a-Mole. There is no putting this genie back in the bottle, and it’s certainly not going to happen under the leadership of the Brandon entity, no matter how full of amphetamine they pump him, or future President Karamel-uh, whose only expertise is in whose dick she has to suck to get her next promotion.

Big Pharma Concocts ‘Vaccine’ to Treat Cocaine Addiction 

This is the pharmaceutical- über-alles ideology at work.

To these people, there exists no problem that can’t be solved at the tip of a needle.

Via Japan Today:

“Scientists in Brazil, the world’s second-biggest consumer of cocaine, have announced the development of an innovative new treatment for addiction to the drug and its powerful derivative crack: a vaccine.

Dubbed “Calixcoca,” the test vaccine, which has shown promising results in trials on animals, triggers an immune response that blocks cocaine and crack from reaching the brain, which researchers hope will help users break the cycle of addiction.

Put simply, addicts would no longer get high from the drug.

If the treatment gets regulatory approval, it would be the first time cocaine addiction is treated using a vaccine, said psychiatrist Frederico Garcia, coordinator of the team that developed the treatment at the Federal University of Minas Gerais.

The project won top prize last week – 500,000 euros ($530,000) – at the Euro Health Innovation awards for Latin American medicine, sponsored by pharmaceutical firm Eurofarma.”

Moving forward, literally every social, psychological, cultural, and obviously physical ailment will come with an FDA-approved “vaccine” to treat it.

AI-Controlled Cars Run Down Women, Small Children 

Look, bigot, you’re just going to have to come to terms with the new reality that, on occasion, cars driven by AI are simply going to mow down grandmothers and children in their way.

This is the price of Progress™.

Anyway, it’s their human fault for being small and feeble. If God wanted them to survive the Brave New World, he would’ve fashioned their bones out of titanium instead of calcium — or even better, rendered their consciousness ethereal and non-corporal in his own image like he did with our new AI overlords.

Via The Intercept:

“AV companies hope these driverless vehicles will replace not just Uber, but also human driving as we know it. The underlying technology, however, is still half-baked and error-prone, giving rise to widespread criticisms that companies like Cruise are essentially running beta tests on public streets.

Despite the popular skepticism, Cruise insists its robots are profoundly safer than what they’re aiming to replace: cars driven by people. In an interview last month, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt downplayed safety concerns: “Anything that we do differently than humans is being sensationalized.”

The concerns over Cruise cars came to a head this month. On October 17, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced it was investigating Cruise’s nearly 600-vehicle fleet because of risks posed to other cars and pedestrians. A week later, in San Francisco, where driverless Cruise cars have shuttled passengers since 2021, the California Department of Motor Vehicles announced it was suspending the company’s driverless operations. Following a string of highly public malfunctions and accidents, the immediate cause of the order, the DMV said, was that Cruise withheld footage from a recent incident in which one of its vehicles hit a pedestrian, dragging her 20 feet down the road.

Even before its public relations crisis of recent weeks, though, previously unreported internal materials such as chat logs show Cruise has known internally about two pressing safety issues: Driverless Cruise cars struggled to detect large holes in the road and have so much trouble recognizing children in certain scenarios that they risked hitting them. Yet, until it came under fire this month, Cruise kept its fleet of driverless taxis active, maintaining its regular reassurances of superhuman safety.

“[Cruise’s] internal materials attribute the robot cars’ inability to reliably recognize children under certain conditions to inadequate software and testing. “We have low exposure to small VRUs” — Vulnerable Road Users, a reference to children — “so very few events to estimate risk from,” the materials say. Another section concedes Cruise vehicles’ “lack of a high-precision Small VRU classifier,” or machine learning software that would automatically detect child-shaped objects around the car and maneuver accordingly. The materials say Cruise, in an attempt to compensate for machine learning shortcomings, was relying on human workers behind the scenes to manually identify children encountered by AVs where its software couldn’t do so automatically.”

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This article was originally published on the author’s Substack, Armageddon Prose.

Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is licensed under Wikimedia Commons

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***

Italy is set to become the first country in the world to ban synthetic food, with a bill to prohibit the production, import, and marketing of laboratory-produced food products being debated in the country’s lower house of parliament. Announced by Italian Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida during a recent event in Kilkenny, Ireland, the move is based on the precautionary principle and aims to ensure high quality food for all, rather than just an elite few. While laboratory-grown meat is promoted as environmentally friendly, recent research suggests its carbon footprint is likely to be orders of magnitude higher than that of conventional meat.

Stating that the Italian government wants to create an example on how to regulate synthetic food products, Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida insists everyone should be able to eat well and that high quality food cannot only be produced for the rich elites. Describing laboratory-grown meat as “suicide” for somewhere like Italy, he says the Italian government is campaigning to get its country’s food added to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List.

Lollobrigida believes that approving laboratory-produced food products could ultimately result in the disappearance of fields and farms and that this would create an environmental disaster. The production of foods in bioreactors would not only have a negative environmental impact, he argues, but it could also pose a risk to human health.

A Higher Carbon Footprint Than Regular Beef

While synthetic meat is promoted as being environmentally friendly, on the assumption that its production would involve less land, water, and greenhouse gases than raising cattle, recent research suggests its carbon footprint is likely to be orders of magnitude higher than that of conventional beef. In a study conducted at the University of California, Davis, researchers found that, based on current and near-term production methods, scaling up the manufacture of laboratory-grown meat would be highly energy intensive and have a global warming potential up to 25 times greater than the average for retail beef.

Given this finding it is perhaps ironic that Bill Gates is one of the biggest backers of laboratory-grown meat. Frequently to be heard endorsing warnings on the dangers of climate change, Gates has argued that rich countries should shift entirely to synthetic beef. Cynics might consider his backing of such products to be less about averting global warming and more about securing patents and profits. Viewed in this light, Gates’ new status as America’s biggest private owner of farmland raises all manner of questions.

Thus far only the United States and Singapore have approved any laboratory-grown meat for human consumption. As observers have noted, however, if clearance is gained in the European Union, the bloc’s laws on free movement of goods and services could essentially prevent Italy from enforcing any national ban on these products.

Inspired by the Mediterranean Diet

Several Italian government ministers have cited their country’s famous Mediterranean diet as the inspiration for the new bill. Arguably the most studied diet of the past seventy years, the key components on which it has historically been based include fruit and vegetables in large quantities, whole grains, legumes and nuts, olive oil, yogurt, moderate amounts of cheese, a maximum of around four eggs per week, with small amounts of meat, fish, and wine. Numerous studies have linked the Mediterranean diet to improved health and greater longevity, as well as the prevention of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and other chronic diseases.

In a keynote speech given in October 2014 in the historic town of Barletta in Southern Italy, Dr. Matthias Rath laid out the cornerstones of a new, preventive approach to healthcare. Describing how micronutrient deficiency is the primary cause of chronic disease, he pointed out that the great majority of the substances we require from our daily diets are contained in the fruits, vegetables, and plants that grow in our gardens and farms. This understanding, he explained, paves the way towards the natural control of today’s most common diseases.

Scientific research is increasingly confirming the health benefits of naturally produced organic food. At the same time, the life-shortening effects of ultra-processed foods are rapidly becoming clear. Laboratory-grown meat and other ultra-processed foods are primarily designed to benefit their multibillionaire backers. With it becoming ever more apparent that the modern-day multinational food industry should be seen as part of the ‘business with disease,’ humanity consumes these dangerous new synthetic food products at its peril.

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This article was originally published on Dr. Rath Health Foundation.

Executive Director of the Dr. Rath Health Foundation and one of the coauthors of our explosive book, “The Nazi Roots of the ‘Brussels EU’”, Paul is also our expert on the Codex Alimentarius Commission and has had eye-witness experience, as an official observer delegate, at its meetings. You can find Paul on Twitter at @paulanthtaylor

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from DRHF

***

At the time of writing (November 3, 2023) Israel’s genocidal bombing of Palestinians in Gaza has resulted in 9,227 deaths.

The destruction and devastation are beyond description. The IDF has been instructed to target civilians. Schools, hospitals, churches and mosques are demolished. Victims include 3,826 children and 2,405 women. 

In the words of Canadian journalist Andrew Mitrovica,

“This is not an onslaught. It is not an invasion. It is not even a war. It is a genocide.” …The monstrous plan is as plain as Netanyahu’s wretched character: Be done with Gaza by erasing Gaza.”

“is recommending the forcible and permanent transfer of the Gaza Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinian residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula”, namely to a refugee camp in Egyptian territory.

Only a fraction of Gaza’s 2.2 million will be transferred to the Sinai. The vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza will be the object of the IDF bombing campaign. 

“Secret” bilateral negotiations are on record between Israel-Egypt (initiated in 2021-22) as well as routine consultations with the Pentagon. The “Wiping Gaza of the Map” is actively supported by the US-NATO Military and Intelligence Apparatus. 

 

Video Interview: Michel Chossudovsky with Caroline Mailloux

 

 

To access the Rumble page and/or comment click here or click lower right hand corner of the screen 

***

The 10-page secret document referred to above, dated Oct. 13, 2023, of Israel’s Intelligence Ministry recommends

“a full population transfer as its preferred course of action”.

The document, the authenticity of which was confirmed by Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence, has been translated into English in full here on +972.

See below, click here or below to access complete document (10 pages)

Video: “Wiping Gaza Off The Map”: Big Money Agenda. Confiscating Palestine’s Maritime Natural Gas Reserves

Felicity Arbuthnot, November 4, 2023

The Horrifying Secret Agenda of the UN and WHO: Total Enslavement of Humanity Through a “Global Health Dictatorship”

Peter Koenig, November 2, 2023

Video: Dangerous Crossroads. False Flag Leading to More False Flags? Towards an Extended Middle East War? Netanyahu is An Anti-Semite.

Prof Michel Chossudovsky, November 6, 2023

Summer of Died Suddenly: Women Ages 20-29 Sudden Deaths from June to September 2023

Dr. William Makis, November 7, 2023

Official “Secret” Israeli Document Revealed: Expel All Palestinians from Gaza, Israeli Intelligence Ministry

Yuval Abraham, November 4, 2023

Video: The Worldwide Corona Pandemic. The Most Devastating Crisis in Human History. Michel Chossudovsky

Prof Michel Chossudovsky, November 7, 2023

Historical Analysis (1897-Present): Crimes Committed against the People of Palestine. “Israel, State Sponsor of Terrorism”

Richard Dunn, November 4, 2023

Israel’s 9/11: “The Greater Israel”, Maritime Natural Gas, and the Prospect of a Middle East Multi-Front War

Michael Welch, November 5, 2023

COVID Propaganda Roundup: Unreal Poll Results on Jab Death Toll, the Science™ Concedes the Shots Cause Strokes

Ben Bartee, November 7, 2023

17 Questions to Challenge the Climate Change Crisis

Paul A. Philips, November 4, 2023

11 Children Ages 9-19 Had a Cardiac Arrest at US Schools in the Past Month. Some Schools Are Now Starting to Conduct “Sudden Cardiac Arrest Screening”

Dr. William Makis, November 8, 2023

Israel Declares Most of Humanity Illegitimate and Irrelevant

Ann Garrison, November 6, 2023

The Gaza Genocide Continues. Philip Giraldi

Philip Giraldi, November 6, 2023

Is the Gaza-Israel Fighting “A False Flag”? They Let it Happen? Their Objective Is “to Wipe Gaza Off the Map”?

Philip Giraldi, November 4, 2023

Volodymyr Zelensky Is in a Sea of Troubles

Ted Snider, November 6, 2023

Why Do People Inflict Such Unspeakable Suffering on Their Fellow Human Beings?

Dr. Rudolf Hänsel, November 7, 2023

Gaza Strikes Back. It’s Another 9/11 or Pearl Harbor but Who Actually Did What to Whom? “This Was More Likely a False Flag Operation”

Philip Giraldi, November 5, 2023

Britain’s Special SAS Forces in Gaza. The ICC Must Investigate British Politicians for Gaza War Crimes.

Matt Kennard, November 7, 2023

Preparing the Chessboard for the “Clash of Civilizations”: Divide, Conquer and Rule the “New Middle East”

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, November 5, 2023

What the BBC Fails to Tell You About October 7

Jonathan Cook, November 4, 2023

Why Are Ukrainian POWs Joining the Russian Military?

By Drago Bosnic, November 09, 2023

In late October, the first volunteer battalion consisting entirely of former Ukrainian servicemen was formed after the POWs (prisoners of war) decided to fight in the Russian military. This volunteer battalion, aptly named “Bogdan Khmelnitsky”, is named after one of the most prominent characters in Russian and Ukrainian history.

Censorship Imperils Us When We Are Forbidden to Speak. Free Thinking Dies and People Die. Propaganda Buries the Truth

By Christine E. Black, November 09, 2023

Censorship imperils our cultures and our civilization. When we are prohibited from speaking or writing without threats, shaming, or epithets meant to shut down discussion, free thinking dies. People also die. A censorship industrial complex grew around Covid hysteria, which began as a war on a virus.

Biden-Blinken Failed Diplomacy Results in Genocide in Gaza

By Steven Sahiounie, November 09, 2023

Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote a note to the US State Department staff on October 19. He was aware of growing discontent among his workforce; hurt and disappointed by the unabashed abandonment of diplomatic norms, as the US defended war crimes committed by Israel.

Do You Know What’s in a Vaccine? Chemical Ingredients

By Health Freedom Defense Fund, November 09, 2023

Over the last few decades, the number of chemicals added to foods and other products has skyrocketed. Chemicals are added to “enhance flavor”, make fruits and vegetables look fresh, extend the shelf life of packaged foods and for other invented reasons. A cornucopia of chemicals are also found in lotions and beauty products with the ostensible reason that these chemicals make beauty products feel, look, and smell nice.

White House Orders Pentagon Airstrikes on Eastern Syria

By Abayomi Azikiwe, November 09, 2023

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin says the aerial attacks on a purported weapons storage facility follows previous actions on October 27 in response to the escalation of attacks on United States bases by resistance forces in solidarity with the people of Gaza.

An Alternative to the Suez Canal Is Central to Israel’s Genocide of the Palestinians?

By Yvonne Ridley, November 09, 2023

Gaza is currently being bombed to oblivion by the deranged Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu who wants to deliver The Ben Gurion Canal Project. Yes, Tel Aviv already has a name for the canal which was first proposed back in the Sixties. It would connect the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and would even be named after the first prime minister of Israel.

U.S. Weapons Transfers to Israel Shrouded in Secrecy — But Not Ukraine

By Ken Klippenstein, November 09, 2023

One month since Hamas’s surprise attack, little is known about the weapons the U.S. has provided to Israel. Whereas the Biden administration released a three-page itemized list of weapons provided to Ukraine, down to the exact number of rounds, the information released about weapons sent to Israel could fit in a single sentence.

Israel’s Final Solution for the Palestinians. Chris Hedges

By Chris Hedges, November 09, 2023

I covered the birth of Jewish fascism in Israel. I reported on the extremist Meir Kahane, who was barred from running for office and whose Kach Party was outlawed in 1994 and declared a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States. I attended political rallies held by Benjamin Netanyahu, who received lavish funding from rightwing Americans, when he ran against Yitzhak Rabin, who was negotiating a peace settlement with the Palestinians.

Will Bill Gates’s “Digital ID” Become Mandatory to Participate in Society?

By Patricia Harrity, November 09, 2023

The United Nations, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and partners of the Rockefeller Foundation are launching a campaign to accelerate digital ID, digital payments, and data-sharing rollouts in 50 countries under the umbrella of digital public infrastructure (DPI) by 2028. (Source).

Arab-Iran Amity Is a Geopolitical Reality

By M. K. Bhadrakumar, November 09, 2023

The forthcoming first visit by Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi to Saudi Arabia on November 13 marks a milestone in the rapprochement between the two countries mediated by China in March. The relationship is fast acquiring a qualitatively new level of solidarity in the context of the Palestine-Israel conflict. 

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***

I hate conspiracy theories and fake news. They degrade my profession as a journalist and incite fear, hate and tribulation with the deliberate intention of causing a public backlash. Naturally, there have been all sorts of speculation and rumour around the war in Gaza and the 7 October surprise Hamas attack on the occupation state.

It has been said that the attack was two years in the planning in Gaza, a tiny patch of land riddled with Zionist infiltrators and spies who cajole, bribe and threaten ordinary Palestinians to betray their comrades.

So the question many are asking, with some justification, is why there was such a catastrophic intelligence failure which meant that the attack caught the Israeli military sleeping on the job. In terms of access to eavesdropping technology and defence there is probably no better-equipped military in the world other than in the US, and the Americans maintain secret supply bases in the Zionist state. Israel’s Mossad has earned itself a reputation of being among the finest intelligence gatherers and infiltrators in the world. And yet 7 October saw Hamas fighters breach security fences, invade a music festival and local kibbutzim, and fly in on paragliders without a single challenge. How did this happen?

Some of Israel’s most brutal attacks on innocent Palestinians are made citing “national security” and Israel’s alleged right to defend itself. If it was being attacked by another nation state, fair enough. But an attack by people living under Israel’s brutal military occupation provides no such legal defence. It doesn’t exist.

A good contact and friend of mine who watches the region’s events closely told me simply: “Follow the money.” And that is how, after being nudged and pointed in a variety of directions with annoyingly vague clues, I found myself pouring over a network of paper trails that led to the National Archives, where British secrets lie unseen for at least 30 years and in some cases much, much longer.

By the time they surface, it’s usually far too late to do anything as the guilty have taken their secrets to the grave, but some disclosures do explain the terrible behaviour of governments and rogue politicians. Many of my colleagues are waiting with bated breath for the March 2030 deadline to pass to find out how the Iraq war came about, and if our suspicions about former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s role are as bad as we believe.

This particular paper chase, though, took me to the origins of the Suez Canal, which opened with a grand ceremony on 17 November 1869, 154 years ago this month. Today, 10 per cent of the world’s cargo ships sail through this strategic route between the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea, heading to and from the Indian Ocean and connecting Europe and Asia.

Egypt owns, controls and operates the canal now, but it was once owned by French investors who held half of the canal company’s stock with Egypt’s ruler Sa’id Pasha holding most of the balance. In 1875, a cash crisis forced Sa’id’s successor, Isma’il Pasha, to sell the country’s shares to Britain. The Suez Company operated the canal until Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser tore up the concession in 1956 and transferred the canal’s operation to the state-owned Suez Canal Authority. There then followed the Suez Crisis, also known as the second Arab-Israeli war.

On the same day that the canal was nationalised Nasser also closed the Straits of Tiran to all Israeli ships. The crisis saw the UK, France, and Israel invade Egypt. According to pre-agreed plans prepared by Britain and France, Israel invaded Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula on 29 October 1956, forcing the Egyptians to engage its troops. This gave the excuse for the Anglo-French alliance to declare the fighting to be a threat to stability in the Middle East and enter the war, officially to separate the two forces but, in reality, to regain control of the Suez Canal and bring down the Nasser government.

What does it have to do with 7 October 2023? Well, it just so happens that Gaza is slap bang in the middle of the proposed path of a major second canal in the region.

see Map below. 

Gaza is currently being bombed to oblivion by the deranged Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu who wants to deliver The Ben Gurion Canal Project. Yes, Tel Aviv already has a name for the canal which was first proposed back in the Sixties. It would connect the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and would even be named after the first prime minister of Israel.

The canal would rival Egypt’s Suez Canal, causing a major financial threat to the country and this major trade artery. Remember the global trade disaster caused the huge container ship Ever Given got stuck in the famous canal in 2021? The Straits of Tiran and Suez Canal remained formally closed to Israeli vessels from the creation of Israel in 1948 and the Nakba until the Suez Crisis in 1956. When all land trade routes were blocked by Arab states, Israel’s ability to trade with East Africa and Asia, mainly to import oil from the Persian Gulf, was severely hampered. There have been other obstructions involving Israel forcing its closure in 1956-7 and 1967-75.

If it goes ahead, this new canal will be almost one-third longer than the 193.3 km Suez Canal, at around 292.9 km and an estimated cost of between $16 and $55 billion. Whoever controls the canal will have enormous influence over the global supply routes for oil, grain and shipping. With Gaza razed to the ground, it would enable the canal planners to literally cut corners and reduce costs by diverting the canal straight through the middle of the territory.

Around 12 per cent of the world’s trade passes through Suez on 18,000 ships a year, so you can imagine that a lot of countries will be lining up for a share of the deal. The Suez Canal is worth a staggering $9.4 billion to Egypt, which has enjoyed record-breaking revenues this year.

The only thing stopping the newly-revised project from being revived and rubber-stamped is the presence of the Palestinians in Gaza. As far as Netanyahu is concerned they are standing in the way of the project; a project which may earn him forgiveness in Tel Aviv for the intelligence and military shortcomings on 7 October. However, his treacherous sleight of hand will never by forgiven or forgotten by the people of Palestine given the horrors which have descended upon Gaza in the past few weeks.

If this is all being done in the name of potential business deals then it compounds the political and diplomatic disgrace of the shameless Western governments who are complicit in the Palestinian genocide.

The biggest shame, though, belongs to Egypt. Already on the verge of bankruptcy due to President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s profligacy, the emergence of a new canal would have a devastating impact on the Egyptian economy and its people. Heartless dictator Al-Sisi may come to regret putting his trust in Tel Aviv and Western governments above the interests and welfare of two million Palestinians in Gaza.

None of the Middle East leaders, Netanyahu, Biden and Sunak et al in the West emerge from the carnage in Gaza with any degree of integrity intact. Together, they are guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, or at the very least are complicit in such awful crimes leading to genocide.

This didn’t all begin on 7 October; the bombing of Gaza is simply the latest stage of Israel’s slow genocide of the people of Palestine, which has now got up to speed again with the full backing of the Western sponsors of the apartheid state. If they think that killing innocent children and women will bring peace, they are deluded.

Unbridled neoliberal capitalism has destroyed many countries and killed millions of people, and peace and security have rarely been the result. I hope that the evil people responsible will burn in Hell for what they have done to the children of Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and numerous other countries around the world. The survivors need freedom and justice now.

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An authentic democracy cannot be psychopathic because most people are not psychopaths.

Most people would not vote to kill, wound and displace hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians for power, profit or territorial gain. Most people do not accept the great lie of ‘pragmatism’: that ‘the anarchical society’ of international relations mandates psychopathic violence: If ‘we’ don’t behave as psychopaths, somebody else will.

Most people don’t believe the world can be divided between Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ‘children of light’ and ‘children of darkness’.

You don’t need to be a mystic to know that love, kindness, compassion – ‘light’ – arise naturally in all human beings allowed to live in freedom and peace.

So, the Children of Light have now killed 10,022 of the Children of Darkness … including 4,104 literal Children of Darkness, and 2,641 Women of Darkness.

* Persons of Darkness still buried under the rubble not included.https://t.co/RbRbazxKUw pic.twitter.com/dbAv984mfp

— CJ Hopkins (@CJHopkins_Z23) November 6, 2023

We know from our own experience that we are wonderfully happy when overflowing with love and desperately miserable when overflowing with hate.

We know, therefore, that love is suited to human nature and well-being in a way that hatred is certainly not. We know that when hate arises in large numbers of people it is born of suffering, not of some ‘evil’ disposition. We know that the real answer to hate is not violence but justice that alleviates suffering and hate.

Because we are not psychopathic, it is deeply important for us to believe that we are not living in a psychopathic society. When this human need clashes with political reality, examples of cognitive dissonance abound – psychopathic circles have to be squared, 2 + 2 must make 5. This is the task of the propaganda system comprised of the ‘respectable’ political, media and religious institutions of our society.

In an interview with Channel 4 News, the Most Reverend and Right Honourable Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, supplied a particularly stark example. Welby began by affecting a transcendent spiritual impartiality, as one might expect:

‘I’m not pointing fingers’, he said.

The Archbishop of Canterbury tells @mattfrei he is "pointing fingers at Hamas" but says "let's not run to judgement" when asked about those pointing fingers at the Israeli government. pic.twitter.com/TzOm6PwK1D

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) October 22, 2023

Alas, Welby came back to earth with a bump:

‘I do point fingers at Hamas and say this is terrorism at its most extreme and most evil.’

Okay, but then was he also pointing fingers at the Israeli government raining hellfire on Gaza? Welby fell silent, hesitated:

‘It’s not… You can do the… You can say something which in different circumstances might be useful at a time that just makes everything worse… Let’s not run to judgement and blame straight away.’

The archbishop’s power-friendly ethical dissonance becomes even clearer when we recall that, last December, Welby told the BBC that ‘justice demands that there is defeat’ of ‘an evil invasion’ in Ukraine. It was right, he said, for the West to send billions of dollars of weaponry to support a ‘victim nation’ that is ‘being overrun by aggression’. After all, the international community had a ‘duty of care’ to protect weaker nations.

Welby’s failure to condemn any ‘evil’ committed by Israel came long after it had become clear that Israel had been criminally targeting Gaza’s civilian population with collective punishment cutting off water, food and electricity. And of course, by razing whole apartment blocks, indeed whole residential areas, to the ground.

From satellite imagery, The Economist estimated (30 October) that ‘over a tenth of Gaza’s housing stock has been destroyed, leaving more than 280,000 people without homes to which they can return’. The magazine noted:

‘Even Russia, during its siege of Mariupol in Ukraine between February and May 2022, negotiated humanitarian pauses in which some civilians were permitted to leave. Israel has thus far rejected calls, by the European Union and others, for such pauses.’

More recently, the health ministry of the Palestinian Authority has estimated that more than 50% of Gaza’s housing units have been destroyed, nearly 70% of its population has been displaced, 16 out of 35 hospitals that can take in-patients have stopped functioning, 42 UN Relief Agency buildings have been damaged, along with at least seven churches and 55 mosques. According to the World Health Organisation, there have been more than 100 strikes on health facilities. Since 7 October, more than 200 schools have been damaged in Gaza – around 40% of the total number – about forty of them very seriously, according to UNICEF data.

By any standards, this is an awesome level of destruction. In its first 563 days, Russia’s war on Ukraine killed 9,614 Ukrainian civilians, 554 of them children. In its first 25 days, Israel’s war on Gaza killed 8,796 Palestinian civilians, 3,648 of them children. Since the 7 October attacks by Hamas, at least 1,400 Israelis have been killed, including 1,033 civilians and 31 children.

The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres puts the immensity of Israel’s violence in perspective:

‘Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children. Hundreds of girls and boys are reportedly being killed or injured every day. More journalists are reportedly being killed over a four-week period than in any conflict in at least three decades. More United Nations aid workers have been killed than in any comparable period in the history of our organisation.’

On 28 October, Craig Mokhiber, one of the world’s leading international lawyers, director of the UN’s New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, resigned to protest the organisation’s handling of what he called a ‘textbook case of genocide.’ In his resignation letter, Mokhiber wrote:

‘As a human rights lawyer with more than three decades of experience in the field, I know well that the concept of genocide has often been subject to political abuse. But the current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist settler colonial ideology, in continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based entirely upon their status as Arabs, and coupled with explicit statements of intent by leaders in the Israeli government and military, leaves no room for doubt or debate. In Gaza, civilian homes, schools, churches, mosques, and medical institutions are wantonly attacked as thousands of civilians are massacred. In the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, homes are seized and reassigned based entirely on race, and violent settler pogroms are accompanied by Israeli military units.

‘Across the land, Apartheid rules.

‘This is a text-book case of genocide. The European, ethno-nationalist, settler colonial project in Palestine has entered its final phase, toward the expedited destruction of the last remnants of indigenous Palestinian life in Palestine. What’s more, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and much of Europe, are wholly complicit in the horrific assault. Not only are these governments refusing to meet their treaty obligations “to ensure respect” for the Geneva Conventions, but they are in fact actively arming the assault, providing economic and intelligence support, and giving political and diplomatic cover for Israel’s atrocities.’

In an interview with Al Jazeera English, Mokhiber made a further key point:

‘Usually, the most difficult part in proving genocide is intent, because there has to be an intention to destroy, in whole or in part, a particular group. In this case, the intent by Israel’s leaders has been so explicitly stated, and publicly stated, by the prime minister, by the president, by senior cabinet ministers, by military leaders, that that is an easy case to make. It’s on the public record.’

Our ProQuest media database search for ‘Craig Mokhiber’ and ‘Gaza’ delivered four mentions, all in the Guardian. One of these was a smear, another was a single-sentence mention in passing buried in a news piece, a third substantial piece of 667 words, and an additional mention yesterday buried in the penultimate paragraph of an opinion piece. There were no mentions found in any other newspaper and there are none on the BBC website.

On Channel 4 News, Matt Frei asked Welby:

‘What do you say to those demonstrators on the streets of London who are saying this is Israeli genocide against the Palestinians?’

Welby’s sage reply:

‘I say you’ve no understanding of what you’re saying.’

When asked if Israel was acting within international law, Labour’s chivalrous knight, Sir Keir Starmer, said:

‘As to whether each and every act is in accordance with the law, well that will have to be adjudicated in due course. Um, I think it’s unwise for politicians to stand on stages like this, or to sit in television studios, and pronounce day by day which acts may or may not be in accordance with international law.

‘I think it’s not the role of politicians. I don’t think it’s wise to do it. I come with the benefit of a lawyer of having litigated about issues like this in the past. And in my experience, it’d often take weeks or months to assimilate the evidence and to then work out whether there may or may not have been a breach of international law.

‘So, I think the call for politicians to look at half a picture on the screen without the full information and form an instant judgement as to whether it’s this side of the line or the other side of the line is extremely unwise. I’m not going to get involved with that kind of exercise.’

If this sounds like an in-depth, heartfelt response, last year, Starmer was asked:

‘Is Vladimir Putin a war criminal?’

Today Starmer explained he can't say whether a country has committed war crimes because thats not the role of politicians, ok? pic.twitter.com/Dke117LW6E

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) October 31, 2023

Starmer’s reply:

‘Yes.’

On 8 February, Starmer told the House of Commons:

‘Before I entered this House, I had responsibility for fighting for justice in the Hague for victims of Serbian aggression. Does the Prime Minister agree with me that when the war in Ukraine is over, Putin and all his cronies must stand at the Hague and face justice?’

Again, completely contradicting everything he is now saying, Starmer said on 7 March:

‘Vladimir Putin and his criminal cronies must be held to account for their illegal invasion of Ukraine. The UK government must do all it can to ensure the creation of a special tribunal to investigate the crime of aggression.

‘The Ukrainian people deserve justice as well as our continued military, economic, diplomatic, and humanitarian assistance.’

Notice, Starmer was not calling for a ‘no-fly zone’ or a ceasefire – completely unthinkable in relation to Gaza – he was endorsing continued intervention in the form of massive military support for the Ukrainian war effort.

On 17 March, Starmer said:

‘I welcome the International Criminal Court’s decision to open war crime cases against Vladimir Putin and other senior Russian figures for their barbaric actions in Ukraine.’

I welcome the International Criminal Court’s decision to open war crime cases against Vladimir Putin and other senior Russian figures for their barbaric actions in Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/gm6owNZ98h

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) March 17, 2023

There is nothing random, or naïve, about Labour’s hypocrisy and servility to power. Declassified UK reports:

‘Some 13 of the 31 members of Labour’s shadow cabinet have received donations from a prominent pro-Israel lobby group or individual funder, it can be revealed.

‘The list of recipients includes party leader Keir Starmer, his deputy Angela Rayner, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy, and even the former vice-chair of Labour Friends of Palestine, Lisa Nandy, who is now shadow international development minister.’

Britain’s veteran warmongers have been queuing up to persuade the public of the rightness of Starmer’s complicity in genocide. Arch-Blairite former Labour MP Peter Mandelson said:

‘As for Keir Starmer, I would just say this – I think what he’s doing is demonstrating to the British people the sort of toughness and mettle that he would display, if he were to become prime minister of this country. He has been very tough, very realistic…’

In a separate interview, as if reading from the same script, former Tory MP and Thatcherite Michael Portillo opined:

‘I’m amongst those who think that Keir Starmer has done exactly the right thing and has shown a great deal of mettle, which I think will be quite widely admired. And that’s important, I think, for a domestic audience that wonders whether he’s up to being prime minister.’

Dissidents are viewed and treated quite differently. Responding to home secretary Suella Braverman’s suggestion on X (formerly Twitter) that, ‘It is entirely unacceptable to desecrate Armistice Day with a hate march through London’, BBC sports commentator Gary Lineker posted:

‘Marching and calling for a ceasefire and peace so that more innocent children don’t get killed is not really the definition of a hate march.’

Marching and calling for a ceasefire and peace so that more innocent children don’t get killed is not really the definition of a hate march. https://t.co/qLyIqZKhwt

— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) November 3, 2023

Nile Gardiner, a foreign policy analyst, former aide to Margaret Thatcher and contributor to the Telegraph, responded:

‘Gary Lineker’s knowledge of foreign and national security policy is practically zero. His vast narcissism and ego as a BBC football pundit is matched only by his sheer ignorance.’

In reality, of course, narcissism would mean Lineker keeping his head down, banking his huge salary, avoiding the inevitable torrent of abuse, and thus keeping his reputation safe and sound, like so many people do. 

The West’s Vanishing ‘Responsibility to Protect’

It is quite astonishing to reflect that, in 2011, NATO deployed 260 aircraft and 21 ships, launching 26,500 sorties destroying ‘over 5,900 military targets including over 400 artillery or rocket launchers and over 600 tanks or armored vehicles’ in response, not to the mass murder of civilians, but to a merely alleged threat of mass murder posed by Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.

Not that there had been a call for a humanitarian ‘pause’, or a ceasefire, or the introduction of UN peacekeepers – the widespread demand was for massive military intervention. In reality, the NATO ‘no-fly zone’ that instantly became a bombing campaign obliterating Gaddafi’s army was based on a lie. A 9 September 2016 report into the war from the foreign affairs committee of the House of Commons commented:

‘Despite his rhetoric, the proposition that Muammar Gaddafi would have ordered the massacre of civilians in Benghazi was not supported by the available evidence… Muammar Gaddafi’s 40-year record of appalling human rights abuses did not include large-scale attacks on Libyan civilians.’

In February 2011, The Times insisted that ‘there is incontrovertible evidence’ that demonstrators in Benghazi ‘are being blown apart by mortar fire’. Even if accurate, this would have been a pin prick compared to Israeli actions now. This was the response to the Libyan government proposed by The Times:

‘British officials and private citizens must do all they can to cajole, pressure and exhort it out of power.’ (Leading article, ‘In bombing its own civilians, Libya stands exposed as an outlaw regime,’ The Times, 23 February 2011)

By contrast, on 25 October, The Times praised Starmer’s ‘initially assured response to the outbreak of violence that followed Hamas’s terror attacks on Israel on October 7’, which ‘correctly emphasised his party’s unconditional support for the Jewish state’s right to self-defence’.

This was a reference to Starmer’s appalling declaration that Israel ‘does have that right’ to inflict collective punishment on Palestinian civilians by cutting off water, food and electricity.

On 22 March 2011, with NATO bombing of Libya underway, the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland published a piece titled, ‘Though the risks are very real, the case for intervention remains strong’. He meant military intervention, of course – war – insisting that ‘in a global, interdependent world we have a “responsibility to protect” each other’. Freedland now warns against such ‘binary thinking’, as he baulks even at the idea of a ceasefire:

‘It seems such a simple, obvious remedy. Until you stop to wonder how exactly, if it is not defeated, Hamas is to be prevented from regrouping and preparing for yet another attack on the teenagers, festivalgoers and kibbutz families of southern Israel.’ 

Freedland’s article was titled: ‘The tragedy of the Israel-Palestine conflict is this: underneath all the horror is a clash of two just causes’. In ‘Manufacturing Consent’, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky commented on their analysis of media treatment of victims deemed ‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’ by the West:

‘While the coverage of the worthy victim was generous with gory details and quoted expressions of outrage and demands for justice, the coverage of the unworthy victims was low-keyed, designed to keep the lid on emotions and evoking regretful and philosophical generalities on the omnipresence of violence and the inherent tragedy of human life.’ (Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, ‘Manufacturing Consent’, Pantheon Books, 1988, p.39)

The Guardian’s Polly Toynbee also rejected calls for a ceasefire, obfuscating with a tangled web of Welby-style verbiage:

‘That word “ceasefire” has become a symbol and a semantic roadblock, as events rush on and words get left behind. “Ceasefire” has become an ideology rather than a practicality.’

When it comes to Gaza in November 2023, the famous ‘responsibility to protect’ has vanished from thinkable thought. Today, even the responsibility to protest is under legal threat. As for the British government’s response, Peter Oborne describes the shocking truth:

‘Meanwhile, not one government minister, as far as I can see, has condemned the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians in Gaza, or uttered a word of condemnation of the wave of settler attacks including displacement of Palestinian communities – war crimes – across the West Bank. Nor the genocidal language used by too many Israeli leaders.’

In describing the conflict, the BBC is content to use the pro-Israel propaganda construct ‘Israel-Hamas War’.

Israel’s murderous bombardment of Gaza was described by the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen as Israel ‘still pushing forward’. Bowen noted: ‘Palestinians call this genocide’.

It is not just the Palestinians though, as Bowen well knows.

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One month since Hamas’s surprise attack, little is known about the weapons the U.S. has provided to Israel. Whereas the Biden administration released a three-page itemized list of weapons provided to Ukraine, down to the exact number of rounds, the information released about weapons sent to Israel could fit in a single sentence.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby acknowledged the secrecy in an October 23 press briefing, saying that while U.S. security assistance “on a near-daily basis,” he continued,

“We’re being careful not to quantify or get into too much detail about what they’re getting — for their own operational security purposes, of course.”

The argument that transparency would imperil Israel’s operational security — somehow not a concern with Ukraine — is misleading, experts told The Intercept.

“The notion that it would in any way harm the Israeli military’s operational security to provide more information is a cover story for efforts to reduce information on the types of weapons being supplied to Israel and how they are being used,” William Hartung, a fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and expert on weapons sales, told The Intercept. “I think the purposeful lack of transparency over what weapons the U.S. is supplying to Israel ‘on a daily basis’ is tied to the larger administration policy of downplaying the extent to which Israel will use those weapons to commit war crimes and kill civilians in Gaza.”

A retired Marine general who worked in the region, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized by his former employer to speak publicly, attributed the secrecy to the political sensitivity of the conflict. In particular, the retired officer said, weapons used in door-to-door urban warfare, which are likely to result in civilian casualties, are not going to be something the administration wants to publicize. (The National Security Council did not respond to a request for comment.)

In recent years, flare-ups of violence between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip have often entailed Israeli air wars with limited numbers of Israeli troops entering the besieged coastal enclave. The last time there was a large-scale ground incursion by the Israel Defense Forces into Gaza was during the Israelis’ 2014 Operation Protective Edge.

While the 2014 invasion saw Israeli troops in Gaza for less than a month, Israel’s defense minister recently told reporters the war would take at least several months. The goal of removing Hamas completely from power is widely expected to take a significant commitment to a long-term ground presence and heavy urban fighting. According to the New Yorker, Israeli officials told their American counterparts that the war could last 10 years. The Biden administration is reportedly worried that Israel’s military objectives are not achievable.

On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ABC News, “Israel will, for an indefinite period, will have the overall security responsibility because we’ve seen what happens when we don’t have it.”

“Delicate Matter Politically”

Hamas’s attack on Israel, which took place on October 7, resulted in a cascade of arms assistance from the U.S. Though the Biden administration at first declined to identify any specific weapons systems, as details trickled out in the press, it has gradually acknowledged some. These include “precision guided munitions, small diameter bombs, artillery, ammunition, Iron Dome interceptors and other critical equipment,” as Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder has said.

What “other critical equipment” entails remains a mystery, as do specifics about the quantity of arms being supplied, which the administration has refused to disclose. When a reporter asked for a “ballpark” figure for the security assistance during a background press briefing on October 12, the Pentagon demurred. “I’m not going to do that today and would defer you to the government of Israel,” a senior defense official told the reporter.

“To date, U.S. government reporting on arms transfers to Israel has been sporadic and without any meaningful detail,” Stimson Center research analyst Elias Yousif recently concluded. “Updates should be compiled on a single factsheet page, as is the case for Ukraine, and include details on the authorities invoked for the provision of assistance as well as the type and quantity of arms provided with enough specificity to enable public research and assessments.”

Hartung, the Quincy fellow, noted the contrast with the administration’s openness on military aid to Ukraine.

“Transparency on arms transfers to Ukraine came in large part due to the administration’s feeling that they were engaged in a noble venture,” Hartung said. “Although Israel certainly has the right to defend itself against the kind of horrific attack carried out by Hamas, its response — bombing and blockading a whole territory of 2 million people, killing thousands of innocent people in the process — has been described by independent experts as committing war crimes.”

“So even as the Biden administration backs Israel with weapons and rhetoric,” Hartung said, “it is a delicate matter politically to give all the details on U.S. weapons supplied to the Israeli military, some of which will certainly be used in illegal attacks on civilians if the war continues to grind on.”

Beyond just the quantities, there are specific weapons the Pentagon is providing Israel which have not been publicly disclosed, the Marine general told The Intercept.

As the arms continue to flow, dozens of C-17 military transport planes likely carrying munitions have criss-crossed the Atlantic traveling between the United States and Israel, open-source flight tracking data show, with most landing at Nevatim Air Base, an IDF base in Israel’s southern Negev desert. President Joe Biden has requested $14.3 billion in aid for Israel in addition to the over $3 billion in military assistance it already provides. Most recently, the Biden administration is planning to send $320 million in precision Spice bombs to Israel, as multiple outlets informed by Congress reported on Monday.

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Featured image: U.S. Air Force personnel unload a KC-135 Stratotanker at an undisclosed location, designated by the military as within the U.S. Central Command “area of responsibility,” on Oct. 23, 2023. Photo: U.S. Air Force

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­Censorship imperils our cultures and our civilization. When we are prohibited from speaking or writing without threats, shaming, or epithets meant to shut down discussion, free thinking dies. People also die.

A censorship industrial complex grew around Covid hysteria, which began as a war on a virus.

New full-blown wars, with guns, bombs, tanks, and planes, and thousands dead now explode around us as free speech is lost in wars’ rubble, and propaganda buries truths.

With their money, power, and massive influence, private for-profit industries like pharmaceutical companies, influence and capture U.S. agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control, that taxpayers task with regulating products for public safety.

Because of this capture, agencies often fail to protect public while bolstering industry profits. Similarly, with the capture of politicians and policymakers, corporations and contractors profit from wars, as Marine Corp Brigadier General Smedley Butler notes in his book, War is a Racket and as Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against in his 1961 Farewell Address. Corporate and government elites get rich from wars based on lies, such as wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – and they sit rich now in retirement.

What truths might we uncover as we sift through wars’ rubble?

Children and young people didn’t need Covid shots as they were at little risk from serious illness from Covid, and some countries stopped recommending them; the shots may even harm them.

Yet, vaccines are a main source of revenue for pediatricians. A “pandemic of the unvaccinated” never happened though entertainers, highly paid media figures, and politicians viciously maligned those who waited or declined a Covid shot.

Most people contracted Covid anyway, whether they got multiple shots or not. Shots did not prevent transmission. Most dying from the disease now also had multiple shots.

Thousands of Covid vaccine-injured people have been bullied into silence and rendered invisible.

These are all statements we have been forbidden from making in the last few years; those who dare to utter them have faced rancor or ridicule or worse.

• Don’t talk about Covid shots, school and business closings, or the many beloved businesses and churches that closed for good because of bureaucratic mandates.
• Don’t talk about vaccine injuries or deaths or children’s learning losses or epidemics of addictions; don’t talk about child and teen suicides.
• Don’t talk about Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s astute observations that Haiti and Nigeria had the some of the least restrictive Covid policies on earth, had about a one percent Covid vaccine rate, and have had some of the lowest Covid death rates in the world, observations noted in his book, Letter to Liberals.
• Don’t talk about how Covid shots may cause Covid, or how Pfizer’s own product literature states that Covid is one of the side effects of the shot.

When we talk about these topics, listeners often stiffen and bristle, their eyes may go blank as they dismiss us with pity or contempt before we even complete a spoken paragraph.

Now, new disasters and traumas affect the world, and many insist we not talk about them to avoid snarling and insults or worse.

Violence and war have exploded in the Middle East

More unutterable statements come to mind. For instance, criticizing the policies of the Israeli government does not equal anti-Semitism.

Israel is an apartheid state with separations and denials of rights based on race, as Jimmy Carter noted in his 2007 book, Peace Not Apartheid.

Great Britain, the same colonial power that colonized and divided the African continent and other countries like poker chips among winners, made The Balfour Declaration in 1917 that declared a “home for the Jews” in Palestine, where Palestinians already lived.

This was presumptuous and elitist for the British to declare. It was not their place to make such a declaration.

A single, open, and democratic state in Israel with equal rights for all may be the best solution to the conflicts and violence, as Israeli American writer and activist Miko Peled has stated. Peled is the son of an Israeli general and grandson of one of the signers of the Israeli Declaration of Independence. His father was an Israeli war hero turned peace maker. He changed his thinking on Israel; so did Miko Peled. Peled writes his story in his book, The General’s Son and shares his views in talks and interviews, such as this one on the Katie Halper program.

In spite of how propaganda bombards us, we may note as Miko Peled does, that Palestinians are not simply evil barbarians, beheading babies and raping, but rather young men, desperate after years of violence and humiliation, after perhaps losing parents, crushed under the rubble of their apartment building, destroyed by an Israeli bomb, many paid for by U.S. taxpayers, or they may have siblings whose legs had to be amputated after damage from Israeli sniper fire. In what many call an open-air prison, Gazans endure lack of food, water, and electricity.

Islam is not a religion of fanatics and terrorists, in Palestine, or anywhere else, as the media often portrays it. It is one of the world’s major religions. The word Islam means “submission to the will of God.”  The Arabic word “salaam,” which means peace, is part of the common greeting among Muslims all over the world. Spreading peace is a requirement of the faith. Similarly, sharing God’s peace is expected among Christians and Jews.

Christians have been criticized for their views on Israel. An older and much more well-read peace activist friend shared with me that some evangelical Christians who support Israel, stand with Israel, do so because they believe Israel is the final launching pad for the Rapture when Christians will be zapped up to Heaven, and Jewish people will be too if they convert to Christianity. Jewish people who do not will perish. What do Jewish people think of this scenario? What if they do not want to “accept Jesus,” but simply wish to remain Jewish? It is confusing. Plenty of the world’s worst violence has been committed and continues in the name of or under the cover of religion.

Statements we are not supposed to make call us to make them now. Statements I make above could be wrong. Many may disagree with them. However, censorship kills with its shaming epithets meant to shut down discussion and thought, like the labels “anti-Semitic” or “conspiracy theorist,” “science denier” or “anti-Vaxxer.” Censorship imperils us when we are forbidden to speak without threats and insults, such as when we were told, “You don’t care if others die of Covid” if we decided not to wear a mask or to move about freely in 2020 and 2021. Similarly, we were told, “You deserve to be excluded from society if you decline a vaccine” even when some of us had natural immunity or didn’t think we needed it.  Even worse, some of us were told, “You deserve to die – or lose your job or friends or education — if you don’t comply.” Many said such horrible things in the last few years.

In many contexts, we are not permitted to say plainly and openly that Covid shots don’t work; that lockdowns didn’t work; that bureaucrats and politicians should never have closed schools and other community gatherings in 2020 and 2021; and that keeping children out of school was a grave injustice, as writers of The Great Barrington Declaration stated.

Slogans and advertising language often replace free speech and obliterate open thought, as they did during the Covid period, as they do during all wars. Should we be wary of sloganeering and pre-packaged language like “wiped off the map,” “Israel’s 9-11,” “rid the world of evil,” “mushroom cloud,” “weapons of mass destruction,” “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” – sloganeering that stops empathy and reflection, closes debate, and whips populations into war frenzies? Should we question slogans and manipulative phrases? Are lies and machinations operating behind our unreliable mainstream media reports, as they were during Covid hysteria and during the run-up to the Iraq War — as well as past wars? Retired U.S. CIA Officer Dr. Phillip Giraldi notes possible lies about the war in Israel in a recent Global Research article. Did violence begin with attacks from Gaza in early October? How might we question and what might we learn, seeking varied sources like American Friends Service Committee, an organization that has been present in Israel and Palestine for many years? What questions might we ask about slogans like Israel’s “right to exist”? What does that mean? After a suicide bomber killed his niece in Israel years ago, Miko Peled asked questions. He joined dialogue groups of Israelis and Palestinians and changed his thinking.

U.S. military veteran suicides have been at epidemic levels after soldiers returned from multiple deployments in disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, ignited by sloganeering after 9-11 and the launch of the so-called “war on terror,” which was to “rid the world of evil.” How might those veterans react now, hearing this same kind of language about “Israel’s 9-11”? This past week, I learned of another veteran who committed suicide.

Can we keep our minds opened, our hearts softened to alternative perspectives?

During Covid lockdowns, rigid thinking and censorship caused the U.S. to harm its own children relentlessly as their suicides, addictions, developmental delays, learning losses, and despair increased. Children around the world starved, were abused, exploited, and enslaved because of lockdown policies we were forbidden to question. Has an entire generation of young people been harmed?

Free societies do not ban statements and opinions. Free societies permit questions and debate. Statements above may be phrased as questions as well.[2] For instance, do Covid shots work? Have they worked to stop transmission and illness and death? Are Covid vaccine-injured people silenced? Where may we find their stories? Should western cultures have shut down in 2020 in an attempt to avoid a single pathogen? By what authority did bureaucrats suspend the U.S. Constitution in 2020 and forbid assembly, speech, protest, group worship, and community gatherings? What were the harms? Who benefitted from lockdowns and Covid shots and how? How much money changed hands? Who wrote the checks and who got paid?

Why are Palestinian young men fighting now? How do we end the violence and build peace? What has life been like in Gaza and the West Bank of Palestine for the last few decades? Could lockdowns have made life there worse? Israel has been criticized as one of the most repressive countries in the world for Covid restrictions and Covid shot mandates. Even protesting Covid policies is a privilege Palestinians in Gaza would not have had. They have lacked basic medicines, clean water, and schools free of bombings for years.

Was the Balfour Declaration a good idea? Conservative Jewish Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, speaking at a Let the Quran Speak conference, supports Palestinians and criticizes leaders of the state of Israel on religious grounds.

Documentary films like Occupation 101 and Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land provoked my thinking. I helped organize public showings of them when working with peace groups. We led discussions of these films along with War Made Easy, a film based on Norman Solomon’s book by the same name, and The Ground Truth, a film about the horrific effects on the eight-ten percent of the population sent on multiple deployments to fights those wars. In the last few years, the same U.S. government that sent military members to fight and die in catastrophic wars forced Covid shots on them until refusers struck down the unlawful mandates.

Over years, I learn from others’ stories, especially from outsiders and whistleblowers, who were former insiders in the military, in industry, in governments. For example, soldiers sent to fight in wars that most now agree were mistakes speak out against those wars now.

They may have lost limbs or memory or cognitive function from IEDs. They learned and changed and spoke – what we were not allowed to say. Describing this latest violence as “Israel’s 9-11” is especially dangerous as we recall the unfathomable destruction and carnage that such language unleashed on the world more than twenty years ago [3] with the launch of the so-called “war on terror”. What did we learn?  Outsiders and independent thinkers — who have said what was forbidden — have often changed history. From the so-called “war on terror,” the war on a virus, the current war in Israel and Palestine, perhaps they will now.

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Christine E. Black’s poetry has been published in Antietam Review, 13^th Moon, American Journal of Poetry, New Millennium Writings, Nimrod International, Red Rock Review, The Virginia Journal of Education, Friends Journal, The Veteran, Sojourners Magazine, Iris Magazine, English Journal, Amethyst Review, St. Katherine Review, and other publications.

A aproximação entre a Armênia e os EUA parece estar a progredir rapidamente. Um importante oficial militar armênio está na Alemanha em conversações com representantes americanos para assinar um tratado de cooperação entre Yerevan e a OTAN. Esperam-se num futuro próximo medidas para facilitar a ocupação militar ocidental do Cáucaso.

O vice-ministro da defesa e chefe do estado-maior armênio, tenente-general Edvard Asryan, encontra-se na Baviera, onde tem mantido conversações nos últimos dias com o tenente-general da força aérea dos EUA, Steven Basham. O responsável americano é também vice-comandante do US European Command (EUCOM) – a Alemanha é o país anfitrião do EUCOM, razão pela qual a reunião se realiza lá.

Em entrevista à mídia local, Basham afirmou que o encontro é um “marco” na história das relações bilaterais. Ele enfatizou que ambos os países procuram “desenvolver deliberada e incrementalmente as relações de defesa”, razão pela qual se espera que um acordo de cooperação seja assinado em breve. Segundo Asryan, a Armênia quer “tornar os seus militares mais profissionais e capazes” e espera receber dos EUA assistência para alcançar este objetivo.

Ambos os oficiais concordaram que os principais pontos da cooperação bilateral serão nos temas “profissionalização das forças armadas; fortalecimento dos suboficiais profissionais; modernização do sistema de gestão; pacificação; medicina militar; educação militar e treinamento de combate”. Mais detalhes sobre a cooperação deverão ser revelados em breve.

Aparentemente, o governo da Armênia não aprendeu nada com os seus erros recentes. Há alguns meses, a região de Artsakh, de maioria armênia, chamada Nagorno Karabakh pelos azerbaijanos, foi alvo de um processo de humilhação militar e de limpeza étnica, com praticamente toda a população a ser evacuada para território armênio sem que Erevan pudesse fazer algo para proteger seu próprio povo.

Anteriormente, a Armênia tinha assinado um acordo reconhecendo Artsakh como território do Azerbaijão, o que na prática legitimou os movimentos de Baku. Historicamente, a Armênia e a Rússia são aliados próximos e Moscou poderia certamente ter tomado medidas dissuasoras para impedir o expansionismo azerbaijano apoiado pela Turquia. Mas face à capitulação armênia, os russos nada puderam fazer.

Esta situação foi um resultado direto das políticas de afastamento da Rússia e de aproximação ao Ocidente que foram implementadas em Yerevan desde 2018, quando ocorreu uma revolução colorida no país, fazendo com que Nikol Pashinyan, um político por procuração ocidental, se tornasse primeiro-ministro. Desde então, a Armênia minou deliberadamente as suas alianças históricas e procurou o alinhamento automático com o Ocidente, apostando na “amizade” com as potências ocidentais como forma de garantir a estabilidade no Cáucaso face à ameaça representada pelo expansionismo turco.

Obviamente, este caminho escolhido pelos armênios revelou-se um grave erro estratégico. Ao contrário dos russos, o Ocidente não quer estabilidade no Cáucaso, pois os EUA e os seus parceiros estão interessados ​​em causar caos e insegurança nas fronteiras da Rússia. Nisto, americanos, europeus e turcos convergem nos seus interesses – todos querem que o espaço pós-soviético, incluindo o Cáucaso, seja instável e em constante conflito.

Após a derrota militar em 2020 e a crise de Artsakh em 2023, que gerou um grande fluxo migratório e uma crise social na Armênia, Yerevan deveria ter entendido que a sua política anti-Rússia está a levar o país à catástrofe. Mas em vez disso, a Armênia procura ainda mais satisfazer os interesses americanos, negociando “acordos de cooperação militar” que certamente servirão apenas para aumentar ainda mais a dependência da Armênia em relação ao Ocidente, sem qualquer melhoria real na situação do país.

O objetivo americano com a sua cooperação com a Armênia é mantê-lo militarmente enfraquecido e vulnerável às ações do Azerbaijão, para que o governo armênio seja forçado a tomar a mesma atitude que tomou na última crise: solicitar intervenção militar e “missão de manutenção da paz” da OTAN para “proteger os armênios”. Num tal cenário, os turcos também interviriam a favor do Azerbaijão e então o cenário seria inteiramente favorável à OTAN, com tropas americanas, europeias e turcas no ambiente estratégico russo.

A única forma de a Armênia resolver verdadeiramente os seus problemas é através da retoma da parceria estratégica com os russos, uma vez que Moscou é o ator mais interessado na paz no Cáucaso. Infelizmente, desde a mudança de regime de 2018, quase todas as alas da política armênia têm sido controladas por sectores pró-Ocidente e a população tem sofrido um processo de lavagem cerebral anti-russa semelhante ao que aconteceu na Ucrânia em 2014. No entanto, em algum momento os armênios terão de compreender a gravidade da situação e a inviabilidade de uma política de inimizade com a Rússia, caso contrário surgirão novos conflitos na região.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

 

Artigo em inglês :

Armenia obstinately strengthens its alignment with US, InfoBrics, le 8 novembre 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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***

A profound division exists between Zionist advocates of Israel on the one hand, and both secular and religious Jews, on the other, who reject Zionism and thus the very idea of a separate state for the Jews. Most Jews must be somewhere in between. For years, they have cringed at Israel’s actions without, however, questioning the ethnocratic nature of the Israeli state.  For them, “Israel’s right to exist” is sacred because they fear that the only alternative is a physical destruction of Israeli Jews. Even though most of them live in liberal democracies, it is hard for them to fathom that Israel may change its nature, like South Africa did a few decades ago, and become a liberal state with equal rights for everyone on the entire territory under Israeli control between the Mediterranean and the river Jordan.

Israel’s assault on Gaza has made many Jews worldwide, particularly the young, to recoil from any association with the state of Israel. But at least just as many refused to remain “Jews of silence” and came to denounce Israel’s vengeful response to Hamas’ attack on its territory on October 7, 2023.

Especially in the United States, Jews have prominently cried out against the violence in Gaza. Hundreds of protesters closed down New York’s Central Station asking for an immediate ceasefire.

A week earlier, Jews wrapped in prayer shawls staged a sit-in at the U.S. Congress in Washington. After demanding an end to the violence, they opened prayer books and began reciting the ancient words that have steadied Jews for generations. Just a few days ago, Jews unfurled banners reading “Palestinians should be free” at the base of the Statue of Liberty in New York.

Anti-Zionist Ultra-Orthodox Jews have burned Israeli flags at their protests around the world. They believe that the Zionist state is not simply an ‘appropriation’ of their Jewish symbols and identity, but the root cause of a bloody conflict in which innocent Jews and Palestinians suffer.

Indeed, Israel is a Zionist state. Calling it Jewish only creates a confusion because it is hard to define it. Israel embodies European ethnic nationalism shaped in late 19^th century, rather than Judaism that has developed for millennia. From the start, Zionists despised Jews and Judaism as they aimed at breeding a new species: the intrepid Hebrew warrior farmer. They have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Israel has built a mobilized society and a formidable high-tech war machine. As Israeli society has moved steadily to the right, it has consolidated the support of right-wing extremists and racists, including antisemites, around the world, such as white supremacists in the United States.

Source: Democracy Now!

Israel is the most recent settler colony. Rhodesia and Algeria are now a distant memory. South Africa has freed itself from the official apartheid. While settlers in the Americas and Oceania perpetrated genocide against the aboriginals in the 19^th century, Israel initiated massive ethnic cleansing rather late, only in 1947. Some, like the Israeli historian Benny Morris, who documented it, regretted that the Zionists did not complete the job like the white Americans, Argentines or Australians, who wiped out most of the local populations. Indeed, Israel now has under its control approximately equal numbers of Palestinians and Jews, but most Palestinians don’t have political rights.

Many Jews, both in Israel and elsewhere, have been trying to come to terms with the contradictions between the Judaism they profess to adhere to and the Zionist ideology that has taken hold of them. A new variety of Judaism has taken root in Israel: National Judaism, dati-leumi in Hebrew. For some Jews, this new faith assuages these contradictions.

Among its most fervent followers one finds the assassin of prime minister Itzhak Rabin who had attempted to find an accommodation with the Palestinians, and prominent members of today’s Israeli government. National Judaism is also the ideology of many vigilante settlers who, since the onset of the war on Gaza, have intensified the harassment, dispossession, and murder of Palestinians on the West Bank. The vigilantes armed with rifles are proud to complement what the Israeli army is doing with tanks, bombs, and rockets in Gaza.

Quite a few Jews now wonder if this separate state for the Jews chronically generating violence is “good for the Jews.” The tardiness of this questioning reflects the success of Israel’s masquerading as “the Jewish and democratic state”, a theoretical and ideological oxymoron. The bombing of Gaza has punctured that propaganda balloon and exposed Israel’s character as a bellicose settler colony, victim of its own practice of exclusion and oppression.

Many Jews deplore this practice because it contradicts all that Judaism teaches, particularly the core values of humility, compassion, and kindness. They realize that those Jews – in truth, the vast majority of them – who rejected Zionism over a century ago, may have been right. Other Jews also find themselves in an emotional bind. Deeply saddened by Hamas’ attack on Israel and likewise devasted by Israel’s implacable response, they are also worried about the surge in anti-Jewish sentiment all around them.

The deadly Hamas attack of October 7, 2023 shows how Israel’s displacement and oppression of the Palestinians breeds their hatred.  Consequently, it physically endangers Jews in Israel. The subsequent killing of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza imperils Jews both in Israel and elsewhere. (Muslims do become targets too, as the tragic killing of a six-year-old American Palestinian shows.)

When Israel claims to be the state of all the Jews it turns them into hostages of its policies and actions. When Jewish community organizations declare “We stand with Israel!” they act as proxies for Israel rather than representatives of Jews. To be more precise, they represent those Jews whose identity has become mainly political: believers in Israel, right or wrong.

Israel and Zionism have long polarized the Jews. While Jews worldwide are largely split between these “Israel-firsters” and those who denounce Israel, neither camp influences Israel’s actions. They are akin to fans, rooting for one or the other side, watching from the outside as the situation unfolds. Blaming and attacking Jews for Israel’s actions is wrong and antisemitic. It also strengthens the core Zionist claim that Jews can be safe only in Israel.

It remains to be seen whether the fracture between those who hold fast to Jewish moral tradition and the converts to ethnic nationalism may one day be repaired. However fateful for Jews and Judaism, this fracture is less important for Israel, which nowadays counts many more evangelical Christians than Jews among its unconditional supporters.

Massive world-wide protests have so far affected neither Israelis’ vengeful violence in Gaza nor the supply of American weapons to support it. There is reason to despair. But Judaic tradition encourages Jews to continue, even in seemingly hopeless circumstances: “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it…” (Pirke Avot 2:16) This is why many Jews remain at the forefront of the struggle against Israel’s wanton violence. But when the violence ends, many will realize that their protests have emancipated them from Israel’s emotional stranglehold.

This emancipation from the Zionist state has been observed in very different Jewish communities, Ashkenazi and Sephardi, strictly observant and more liberal. Thus, an ultra-Orthodox critic of Israel, usually antagonistic to Reform Judaism, commends a Reform rabbi for saying that “when Israel’s Jewish supporters abroad don’t speak out against disastrous policies that neither guarantee safety for her citizens nor produce the right climate in which to try and reach a just peace with the Palestinians … they are betraying millennial Jewish values.”

The nuclear armed Israel endangers not only the Palestinians and the Jews. It threatens an Armageddon for the region and the Samson option for the world. These apocalyptic scenarios may be triggered if an Israeli government decides that the country cannot cope with an existential threat. This may mean not only the threat of physical destruction but also the looming end of the institutionalized dominance of Israeli Jews over the Palestinians, the end of ethnocracy.

There is hope. England oppressed Ireland for centuries. France and Germany bitterly fought many wars. What will it take for Israelis and Palestinians to live peacefully side by side? Many Jews and many more Palestinians believe that the apartheid-like structure of the Zionist state, which explains why it has lived by the sword since its inception, must change. They know that only when all the inhabitants of the Holy Land enjoy equal rights and have a stake in whatever political arrangement is reached (one state, two states or something else) will the cycle of death stop.

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This article was originally published on Pressenza.

Yakov M. Rabkin, author of “A Threat from Within: A Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism” and “What is Modern Israel?” is professor emeritus of history and associate of the Centre for International Studies at the University of Montreal (CERIUM). His e-mail is [email protected]

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***

I covered the birth of Jewish fascism in Israel. I reported on the extremist Meir Kahane, who was barred from running for office and whose Kach Party was outlawed in 1994 and declared a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States. I attended political rallies held by Benjamin Netanyahu, who received lavish funding from rightwing Americans, when he ran against Yitzhak Rabin, who was negotiating a peace settlement with the Palestinians. Netanyahu’s supporters chanted “Death to Rabin.” They burned an effigy of Rabin dressed in a Nazi uniform. Netanyahu marched in front of a mock funeral for Rabin. 

Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated on Nov. 4, 1995 by a Jewish fanatic. Rabin’s widow, Lehea, blamed Netanyahu and his supporters for her husband’s murder.

Netanyahu, who first became prime minister in 1996, has spent his political career nurturing Jewish extremists, including Avigdor Lieberman, Gideon Sa’ar, Naftali Bennett, and Ayelet Shaked. His father, Benzion — who worked as an assistant to the Zionist pioneer Vladimir Jabotinsky, who Benito Mussolini referred to as “a good fascist” — was a leader in the Herut Party that called on the Jewish state to seize all the land of historic Palestine. Many of those who formed the Herut Party carried out terrorist attacks during the 1948 war that established the state of Israel.

Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Sidney Hook and other Jewish intellectuals, described the Herut Party in a statement published in The New York Times as a “political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to Nazi and Fascist parties.”

There has always been a strain of Jewish fascism within the Zionist project. Now it has taken control of the Israeli state.

“The left is no longer capable of overcoming the toxic ultra-nationalism that has evolved here,” Zeev Sternhell, a Holocaust survivor and Israel’s foremost authority on fascism, warned in 2018, “the kind whose European strain almost wiped out a majority of the Jewish people.” Sternhell added, “[W]e see not just a growing Israeli fascism but racism akin to Nazism in its early stages.” 

The decision to obliterate Gaza has long been the dream of Israel’s crypto-fascists, heirs of Kahane’s movement. These Jewish extremists, which make up the ruling coaltion government, are orchestrating the genocide in Gaza, where hundreds of Palestinians are dying daily.

They champion the iconography and language of their homegrown fascism. Jewish identity and Jewish nationalism are the Zionist versions of blood and soil. Jewish supremacy is sanctified by God, as is the slaughter of the Palestinians, who Netanyahu compared to the Biblical Ammonites, massacred by the Israelites. Enemies — usually Muslims — slated for extinction are subhuman who embody evil. Violence and the threat of violence are the only forms of communication those outside the magical circle of Jewish nationalism understand. Millions of Muslims and Christians, including those with Israeli citizenship, are to be purged. 

A leaked 10-page document from the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence dated Oct. 13, 2023 recommends the forcible and permanent transfer of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million Palestinian residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. 

It is a grave mistake not to take the blood curdling calls for the wholesale eradication and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians seriously. This rhetoric is not hyperbolic. It is a literal prescription. Netanyahu in a tweet, later removed, described the battle with Hamas as a “struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle.” 

These Jewish fanatics have begun their version of the final solution to the Palestinian problem. They dropped 12,000 tons of explosives on Gaza in the first two weeks of assault to obliterate at least 45 percent of Gaza’s housing units, according to the U.N.’s humanitarian office. They have no intention of being detoured, even by Washington.

“It became evident to U.S. officials that Israeli leaders believed mass civilian casualties were an acceptable price in the military campaign,” The New York Times reported.

“In private conversations with American counterparts, Israeli officials referred to how the United States and other allied powers resorted to devastating bombings in Germany and Japan during World War II — including the dropping of the two atomic warheads in Hiroshima and Nagasaki — to try to defeat those countries,” the paper continued.

The goal is a “pure” Israel, cleansed of Palestinian contaminants. Gaza is to become a wasteland. The Palestinians in Gaza will be killed or forced into refugee camps over the border in Egypt. Messianic redemption will take place once the Palestinians are expelled. Jewish extremists call for the Al-Aqsa mosque – the third holiest shrine for Muslims, built on the ruins of the Jewish Second Temple, which was destroyed in 70 CE by the Roman army – to be demolished. The mosque is to be replaced by a “Third” Jewish temple, a move that would set the Muslim world alight. The West Bank, which the zealots call “Judea and Samaria,” will be formally annexed by Israel. Israel, governed by the religious laws imposed by the ultra-orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties, will be a Jewish version of Iran.

It is a short step to total Israeli control over Palestinian land. Israel’s illegal Jewish settlements, restricted military zones, closed highways and army compounds have seized over 60 percent of the West Bank, turning Palestinian towns and villages into ringed ghettos. There are over 65 laws which discriminate directly or indirectly against Palestinian citizens of Israel and those living in the occupied territories. The campaign of indiscriminate killing of Palestinians in the West Bank, many by rogue Jewish militias, along with house and school demolitions and the seizure of remaining Palestinian land will explode. Over 133 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by the Israeli army and Jewish settlers since the Oct. 7 incursion by Hamas and thousands of Palestinians have been rounded up by the Israeli military, beaten, humiliated and imprisoned.

Israel, at the same time, is turning on “Jewish traitors” who refuse to embrace the demented vision of the ruling Jewish fascists and who denounce the horrific violence of the state. The familiar enemies of fascism — journalists, human rights advocates, intellectuals, artists, feminists, liberals, the left, homosexuals and pacifists — are already being targeted. The judiciary, according to plans put forward by Netanyahu, will be neutered. Public debate will wither. Civil society and the rule of law will cease to exist. Those branded as “disloyal” will be deported.

Fascists do not respect the sanctity of life. Human beings, even from their own tribe, are expendable to build their deranged utopia. The zealots in power in Israel could have exchanged the hostages held by Hamas for the thousands of Palestinian hostages held in Israeli prisons, which is why the Israeli hostages were seized. And there is evidence that in the chaotic fighting that took place once Hamas militants entered Israel, the Israeli military decided to target not only Hamas fighters, but the Israeli captives with them. 

“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,” Max Blumenthal writes in The Grayzone.

Tuval Escapa, a member of the security team for Kibbutz Be’eri, Blumenthal notes, set up a hotline to coordinate between kibbutz residents and the Israeli army. 

Escapa 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.”

The newspaper reported that Israeli commanders were “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 housed Israeli Civil Administration officers and soldiers.

Israel, in 1986, instituted a military policy called the Hannibal Directive, apparently named for the Carthaginian general who poisoned himself rather than be captured by the Romans, following the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah. The directive is designed to prevent Israeli troops from falling into enemy hands through the maximum use of force, even at the cost of killing the captured soldiers and civilians. 

The directive was executed during the 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza known as Operation Protective Edge. Hamas fighters on Aug. 1, 2014 captured an Israeli officer, Lt. Hadar Goldin. In response, Israel dropped more than 2,000 bombs, missiles and shells on the area where he was being held. Goldin was killed along with over 100 Palestinian civilians. The directive was supposedly rescinded in 2016.

Gaza is the start. The West Bank is next.  

Israelis who cheer on the Palestinian nightmare will soon endure a nightmare of their own.

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Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. He is the host of show The Chris Hedges Report.

Featured image: Bad Moon Rising – by Mr. Fish

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The political West has been trying to create a perpetual divide between East Slavs for centuries. Various European invaders were perfectly aware that Russia is too big of a bite at its full might, so splitting it up was always the first goal. This was the case from the times of Ancient Russia and the Medieval Kievan Rus’ to the modern-day USSR and Russian Federation. According to various Russian historians, Otto von Bismarck, the mastermind behind the unification of Germany in 1871 and its first chancellor, stated:

“Russia’s strength can only be undermined by the secession of Ukraine. It is necessary to not only cut off Ukraine from Russia, but also to push them into confrontation, to turn two parts of one people against each other and then watch how brothers kill each other.”

Western sources are adamant that Bismarck never said this and that the words were misattributed to him, possibly even misinterpreted and/or taken out of context. However, regardless of whether Bismarck said so or not, the description suits Western (geo)politics toward Russia and Ukraine perfectly. For instance, both the mainstream propaganda machine and various Western institutions are working tirelessly to convince everyone that Russia and Ukraine are supposedly “completely different”.

Obviously, nothing could be further from the truth, primarily for the simple reason that the two countries are inextricably bonded regardless of the current situation. In addition, despite all the mindless propaganda that Russia is supposedly trying to “destroy” Ukraine and the Ukrainian people, the way Moscow has been conducting the special military operation (SMO) tells us a completely different story. After all, if anything, the latest Israel-Gaza escalation has shown the world just how devastating wars can be and just how “held back” Russia has been.

Taking all this into account, many Ukrainians seem to have realized what sort of a tragic mistake has been to buy into the idea that “all Russians are evil” and that fighting against them is the “only way to gain freedom”. Namely, in late October, the first volunteer battalion consisting entirely of former Ukrainian servicemen was formed after the POWs (prisoners of war) decided to fight in the Russian military. This volunteer battalion, aptly named “Bogdan Khmelnitsky”, is named after one of the most prominent characters in Russian and Ukrainian history.

According to military sources, the volunteer battalion joined the “Cascade” tactical formation and it included approximately 70 servicemen. The vast majority of them voluntarily laid down their arms and surrendered to the Russian military. Ukrainian volunteers even signed contracts with the Russian Armed Forces on the same terms any other Russian would. In fact, members of the new “Bogdan Khmelnitsky” battalion confirmed that they joined the unit voluntarily and have also received Russian citizenship. According to South Front, this is what some of them had to say:

“Now we have entered the service in the military unit of the operational combat tactical formation ‘Cascade’ where we will carry out our further service. We will also give an oath at the end of our training. All our guys will take an oath. We came here to the training center about three weeks ago. The mood of all the guys is combative, all of us are full of energy, everyone is eager for knowledge, everyone tries to show his best. Everyone is always ready to tell something, to explain. We are trying to get all the knowledge that instructors give us. The instructors have a wide combat experience. Our guys are eager to train and in their turn, they try to prove to their ‘teachers’ that they can do the same. We were provided with weapons and uniforms as soon as we arrived here, the next day. Each of us received his own assault rifle and served it completely. Then we had training at the training ground, where we sighted our weapons. The instructors also worked with us and helped us a lot.”

The logical question is, why would any captured Ukrainians join the fight on the Russian side given how “evil the Moskaliv” are?

The answer is rather simple. The surrendering Ukrainian POWs had more than enough time to see how the Russian people and military still see the Ukrainian people, despite everything that has been going on in the last nearly a decade. In addition, it’s clear that the majority of Ukrainians don’t support the Neo-Nazi junta in Kiev. In fact, Zelensky owes his victory in the 2019 election to the fact that he ran as a “peace candidate” and essentially lied his way to the top.

What’s more, thousands of Ukrainians routinely refuse to follow the suicidal orders of the superiors whose only goal is to use them as cannon fodder. Many of these soldiers hail from eastern, southern and central regions of Ukraine, as well as from the western parts of Donbass which are still under the control of the Kiev regime forces. Many Ukrainians are now aware of the disastrous consequences of Western (neo)colonialism in Ukraine and just how dangerous this is for the survival of their people and country. Thus, many see the Russian military as the only way to liberate Ukraine from the claws of the political West.

To further illustrate just how tragic it is to see Russians and Ukrainians fight each other, the “Bogdan Khmelnitsky” battalion commander stated that it’s common for Russian soldiers to find their Ukrainian relatives in captivity, which is also one of the reasons to join the Russian military. In addition, many of the forcibly conscripted Ukrainians are perfectly aware of what the Neo-Nazi junta is doing to the people of Ukraine, including to underage kids who are being sold not only into the life of sex slavery, but also to serve as involuntary “organ donors” to rich clients from around the world. Millions of Ukrainians are hostages of the regime the political West installed nearly a decade ago and their only chance for freedom comes from the supposed “enemy” that happens to be their closest kin.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

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

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***

The President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has stated “this is not a war; this is genocide” when referring to the Israeli attack on Gaza.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote a note to the US State Department staff on October 19. He was aware of growing discontent among his workforce; hurt and disappointed by the unabashed abandonment of diplomatic norms, as the US defended war crimes committed by Israel.

Career State Department employees were shaken professionally and personally, and they were not only Muslims, or Arabs.  

“I know that, for many of you, this time has not only been challenging professionally, but personally,” wrote Blinken.

“President [Joe] Biden has made clear from the beginning of the crisis — as I underscored across the region — that while we fully support Israel’s right to defend itself, how it does so matters. That means acting in a way that respects the rule of law and international humanitarian standards, and taking every possible precaution to protect civilian life,” he added, but his words were untrue. When professionals are lied to, they lose respect for their superiors.

The Biden administration’s reaction to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel was to offer unqualified support to the Israelis, insisting they had the right to defend themselves against the militant group.

State Department employees are professionals who are not working for one single Secretary of State, or any one US President. They work for the United States, for the people, and defending the freedom and democracy which makes America great.

When they saw Biden and Blinken supporting the Israeli siege on Gaza, which prevented all water, food, medicine and fuel from entering, they realized they are working for a regime which is complicit in war crimes and in contravention of international law.  It became clear that Blinken was working for the Israelis, and not for American values or a rules-based international order.

Diplomacy Rules

Like any learned skill, there are accepted and time honored characteristics taught to become a diplomat.

The fourth rule of diplomacy, is objectivity and integrity. A diplomat must always be fair and honest, while never allowing personal political or cultural ideas to influence their actions.

On October 9, Blinken gave an emotional speech alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  He stated he was there “not only as the United States Secretary of State but also as a Jew”.

Blinken failed to adhere to the rules of diplomacy by stepping away from representing the US government, and inserting himself into the situation.  Blinken is paid by the American people, which is a secular society, to represent the interests of the whole country, and not Jewish Zionists.

Blinken claimed he represented the US as well as Jews, which is untrue. There are thousands of Jews in Israel, the US and globally who object to the brutality of the Israeli government. 

State Department Employee Resigned

Josh Paul resigned from the State Department on October 18, after having spent more than 11 years in political-military affairs, which handles weapons deals.

“I have had my fair share of debates and discussions and efforts to shift policy on controversial arms sales,” said Paul, who resigned in protest of US arms transfers to Israel.

 “We cannot be both against occupation, and for it. We cannot be both for freedom, and against it. And we cannot be for a better world, while contributing to one that is materially worse,” wrote Josh Paul in his letter of resignation.

“I am leaving today because I believe that in our current course with regards to the continued—indeed, expanded and expedited—provision of lethal arms to Israel—I have reached the end of that bargain.”

Paul sees the rush to send more weapons to a conflict where 10,000 civilians have died, and about one-half include children, is not in the best interest of the US. He wrote about his value judgement to officials, asking for a discussion of other ways to help without adding fuel to the fire, and while some agreed with him privately, none were willing to voice any objection officially to the immediate transfer of US weapons to Israel.

Israel receives about 3.3 billion a year in foreign military financing from the US State Department, which represent about half of the total arms the US supplies globally. The Department of Defense gives to Israel $500 million for missile defense programs.

In an interview with Josh Paul, he explained that Israel is the only country on earth allowed to spend their US arms monies on developing their own weapons, which puts the US in the position of funding a competitor.

Paul further explained the Biden administration’s arms transfer policy includes prior vetting to prevent human rights abuses committed with US weapons. But, in the case of Israel, no process is followed, and in the current war on Gaza, it is clear that the weapons sent to Israel will indeed be used for human rights violations and result in massive civilian casualties.

It was Biden’s double-standard which made Paul resign.  The whole world is held to account for human rights violations and war crimes, but Israel is never criticized by the White House or the Congress.

UN Human Rights Director Resigned

Craig Mokhiber, director of the New York office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, resigned in a letter on October 28.  Mokhiber explained that he was stepping down in protest over the “genocide unfolding before our eyes” in Gaza.

“The current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist settler colonial ideology, in continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging […], coupled with explicit statements of intent by leaders in the Israeli government and military, leaves no room for doubt or debate,” wrote Mokhiber, a US human rights lawyer who joined the UN in 1992 and has served in several conflict zones, including the Palestinian Territories, Afghanistan and Sudan.

“Not only are these governments refusing to meet their treaty obligations ‘to ensure respect’ for the Geneva Conventions, but they are in fact actively arming the assault, providing economic and intelligence support, and giving political and diplomatic cover for Israel’s atrocities,” he said while accusing the West of complicity in Israel’s war on Gaza.

Protesters have been demonstrating across the Arab world, as well as in London, New York, Washington, Paris and Berlin, in support of the people of Gaza.

Blinken in Baghdad

On November 5, Michael Birnbaum from The Washington Post, asked Blinken in a press conference in Baghdad to comment on the future of Gaza.

“But if you project forward into the future, what we all agree is that in defining that future and shaping that future for Gaza, for the West Bank, and ultimately for a Palestinian state, Palestinian voices have to be at the center of that.  The Palestinian Authority is the representative of those voices, so it’s important that it play a leading role,“ said Blinken. 

Blinken has repeatedly referred to the creation of a Palestinian State, which is in line with the US official position of the Two-State solution based on the UN resolution agreed upon decades ago.  Neither Biden, nor Blinken have set forth a process or timeline to achieve the only lasting solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  The White House pays lip-service to the solution, while working directly against any solution, and instead supporting crimes against humanity, and genocide in Gaza.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

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

Featured image: © UNICEF/Mohammad Ajjour A five-year-old boy holds up his cat amidst the wreckage of his home in Gaza.

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***

On November 8th 2023, a virtual launch event took place for what was termed the “50-in-5” agenda.

The United Nations, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and partners of the Rockefeller Foundation are launching a campaign to accelerate digital ID, digital payments, and data-sharing rollouts in 50 countries under the umbrella of digital public infrastructure (DPI) by 2028. (Source).

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has announced plans to roll out “digital IDs” worldwide by the year 2030, and they will be mandatory for people who wish to participate in society, say Reclaim the Net, who advocate for free speech and individual liberty online,

Social Credit System

The push for DigitalPublic Infrastructure (DPI) which includes. “Digital IDs,” vaccine passports, and central bank digital currencies (CBDC) – is being championed by the globalist WEF and unsurprisingly is backed by Bill Gates along with the UN, and the European Union (EU).

The Sociable editor Tim Hinchliffe says “Advocates are adamant that DPI is essential for participation in markets and society — just like we saw with vaccine passports — only on a much broader scope and “If successful, DPI will give governments and corporations the power to implement systems of social credit that can determine where and how you can travel, what you are allowed to consume, and how you will be able to transact with your programmable money.

“Think individual carbon footprint trackers, Ultra Low Emission Zones (ULEZ), and CBDC programmed to restrict “less desirable” purchases — all of which are being pushed by proponents of the great reset.” (Source)

The “50 in 5” Campaign

The “50 in 5” bills itself as “a country-led advocacy campaign. By 2028, the 50-in-5 campaign will have helped 50 countries design, launch, and scale components of their digital public infrastructure,” according to the official announcement. The 50 countries are designated as global testbeds, (guinea pigs) and the DPI’s will first in Africa (sub-Saharan, particularly) and India but the plan is to roll digital IDs globally by 2030 to include all citizens of UN member-states, according to Planet Today

“50 in 5” campaign is also unsurprisingly a collaboration between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations Development Program, the Digital Public Goods Alliance, and Co-Develop. Co-Develop was founded by The Rockefeller Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Nilekani Philanthropies, and the Omidyar Network. The Digital Public Goods Alliance lists both the Gates and Rockefeller foundations in its roadmap showcasing “activities that advance digital public goods,” along with other organisations and several governments. (Source)

Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) is essential for countries to improve their economies & the well-being of people.

Join us for the launch of the #50in5 initiative to discuss how building inclusive DPI can foster strong economies & equitable societies: https://t.co/SB2QDNJp2I pic.twitter.com/S01Rpxq1VP

— UNDP Digital (@UNDPDigital) October 25, 2023

DPIs are being sold as a mechanism for financial inclusion, convenience, improved healthcare, and green progress. but is is an “all-inclusive phrase applied to a looming technocratic governance system powered by three foundational components: digital ID, digital payments like Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), and massive data sharing.”

The World Economic Forum

WEF published a series of articles in September essentially pushing for DPI enforcement and of course, WEF is out there “thinking about the children” like the best of them, “Children’s rights around the world can be boosted by investing in digital public infrastructures,” said one caption in an article published on September the 18th, 2023, entitled

‘Two-thirds of child-related SDGs are off-pace to meet targets’: Here’s why we must invest in digital public infrastructure now.”

“2023 marks the halfway point for achieving the United Nations’ sustainable development goals (SDGs)“, the WEF reminds us, this halfway mark “is an opportunity to “assess and recalibrate” efforts to realise the rights of every child, everywhere and with only seven years to go, to the 2030 target, two-thirds of child-related indicators are off-pace to meet their targets, according to a new UNICEF report, For Every Child a Sustainable Future.

• 1.9 Billion Children Left Behind – If recent progress continues, only 60 countries, home to just 25% of the child population, will have met their targets by 2030, leaving around 1.9 billion children in 140 countries behind.
• The world today looks unlikely to achieve the ambitious goals we set for children in 2015.
• Hunger – The world, is back at hunger levels not seen since 2005, and food prices remain higher in more countries than in the period from 2015 to 2019.
• Children are Lacking Foundational Skills – While in education, data shows that 600 million children and adolescents are not acquiring foundational reading and math skills and 11 million additional ten-year-olds lacking foundational skills.

The “Solution” to the “Problem”? The “problem” the WEF says, has been the pandemic, of course, which “worsened the situation,” and the digital public infrastructure is the “solution.” as it has been identified as a “key transition required for accelerating SDG action and results for children by 2030.”

Protecting the “rights or safety of children” has been a tactic used before by the unelected globalists, while promoting a technocratic system that will actually take away the rights of all individuals, including children.

Reclaim the Net, says that essentially, “DPI is a buzzword used in somewhat interesting/alarming concord by organizations such as the UN, but also the European Union (EU), the Gates Foundation, and of course, the World Economic Forum (WEF) is never quite out of any such picture.

“What DPIs are supposed to do, in the best case scenario, is aid development in a number of ways. Those looking deeper into platitudes and “corporatespeak” coming from these organizations, however, are dismissing the term and the policy as a ruse to speed up the introduction of digital IDs and payments, with a deadline of 2030.”

They conclude, “If you’re a citizen of a UN member-state, and your government (i.e., taxpayers) are contributing to various UN efforts and, you feel either uneasy or just insufficiently informed about all this, well, too bad. They’re going ahead anyway.” (Source).

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Executive Summary

To  access the Full document of the Committee of the Judiciary and Select Subcommittee click image above

The First Amendment to the Constitution rightly limits the government’s role in monitoring and censoring Americans’ speech, but these disinformation researchers (often funded, at least in part, by taxpayer dollars) were not strictly bound by these constitutional guardrails. What the federal government could not do directly, it effectively outsourced to the newly emerging censorship-industrial complex.

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Over the last few decades, the number of chemicals added to foods and other products has skyrocketed. Chemicals are added to “enhance flavor”, make fruits and vegetables look fresh, extend the shelf life of packaged foods and for other invented reasons. A cornucopia of chemicals are also found in lotions and beauty products with the ostensible reason that these chemicals make beauty products feel, look, and smell nice. 

Along with this increase in heavily processed foods has come increased skepticism about the necessity of inserting chemical additives into everything we touch and taste. A significant and growing segment of the US population are beginning to examine the health consequences of ingesting and absorbing these chemical-laden products. 

This growing awareness about the adverse effects of ingesting and absorbing synthetic ingredients and the public’s understanding of the attendant health benefits of consuming products free from synthetic chemicals has prompted consumers to seek out organic ingredient-based items in their foods and skin lotions. 

More people are showing interest in knowing about the ingredients in their food and striving to ‘eat clean.’ This increased awareness is evidenced in the steady growth of the organic food industry and trends in the natural and organic cosmetic industry where demand is higher than ever.

This same level of concern has begun to seep into the public conscience regarding a certain medical product that has mostly avoided scrutiny – the vaccine.

Having been trained to accept that this product is a customary aspect of everyday life, most people haven’t given much thought to what’s inside the vaccine vials. Rarely will the vaccine ritual in the doctor’s office include a discussion about the ingredients which are about to be injected into the patient’s body. It’s highly likely the physicians and nurses themselves don’t know the ingredients of each vaccine.

So what’s in that vial? What’s coming through that needle?

A Partial List of Ingredients

Aluminum: Aluminum salts are used in some vaccine formulations as an adjuvant. An adjuvant is a substance added to vaccines to ostensibly enhance the immune response. Examples of aluminum salts in some vaccines are aluminum hydroxide, aluminum phosphate, alum (potassium aluminum sulfate) or mixed aluminum salts.

In a 2011 study Canadian scientists Professor Christopher Shaw and Dr. Lucija Tomljenovic stated the following:

“Aluminum is an experimentally demonstrated neurotoxin and the most commonly used vaccine adjuvant. In particular, aluminum in adjuvant form carries a risk for autoimmunity, long-term brain inflammation and associated neurological complications and may thus have profound and widespread adverse health consequences.”

Multiple studies have shown that the intramuscularly injected aluminum vaccine adjuvant is absorbed into the systemic circulation and travels to different sites in the body, such as the brain, joints, and the spleen, where it accumulates and is retained for years post-vaccination.

Mercury (thimerosal): Thimerosal is an ethyl mercury-based preservative used in vials that contain more than one dose of a vaccine (multi-dose vials) to prevent germs, bacteria and/or fungi from contaminating the vaccine. While in decline some flu vaccines and childhood vaccines in multi-dose vials still utilize thimerosal.

Mercury is known to be a genotoxic agent, even in minute concentrations, which can damage the genetic information within a cell causing mutations, which may lead to cancer.

A meta-analysis epidemiological study suggested thimerosal containing vaccines significantly increased the risk of neurodevelopmental disorders.

A 2011 study suggested there may be higher rates of blood and brain mercury levels in monkeys exposed to vaccines containing thimerosal.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the U.S. Public Health Service (1999) published a joint statement that urged “all government agencies to work rapidly toward reducing children’s exposure to mercury from all sources.”

Gelatin: Gelatin is used as a stabilizer in some vaccines licensed in the U.S. Stabilizers are added to vaccines to protect the active ingredients from degrading during manufacture, transport and storage. 

Gelatin is a protein obtained from cows or pigs and produced by the partial hydrolysis of collagen extracted by boiling animal parts such as cartilage, tendons, skin, bones and ligaments in water. Some people might have a severe allergic reaction to it.

Certain vaccine viruses are grown on gelatin derived from the ligaments of pigs fed heavy doses of glyphosate in their feed. Gelatin comes from collagen which has lots of glycine. 

Gelatin is one of the most commonly identified causes of allergic reactions to vaccines. 

A 1999 Japanese study showed most anaphylactic reactions and some urticarial reactions to gelatin-containing measles, mumps, and rubella monovalent vaccines were associated with gelatin allergy. Based on these findings Japan removed gelatin from vaccines in 2000.

Formaldehyde: Formaldehyde is used during the manufacture of some vaccines to inactivate viruses (like polio and hepatitis A viruses) or bacterial toxins (like diphtheria and tetanus toxins).

Formaldehyde is a human carcinogen based on evidence from cancer studies in humans and is listed as aknown to be human carcinogen in the National Toxicology Program’s (NTP) Twelfth Report on Carcinogens(2011).

Phenol/Phenoxyethanol: Phenoxyethanol is used in vaccines and biologics as a preservative to prevent microbial growth. 

A 2010 study, The relative toxicity of compounds used as preservatives in vaccines and biologics, assessed the relative cytotoxicity of the levels of the compounds commonly used as preservative in US licensed vaccines and found that for phenoxyethanol it was 4.6-fold, for phenol 12.2-fold and for Thimerosal >330-fold.

They concluded, “None of the compounds commonly used as preservatives in US licensed vaccine/biological preparations can be considered an ideal preservative, and their ability to fully comply with the requirements of the US Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) for preservatives is in doubt.”

Case reports (here, here and here) have suggested a link between phenoxyethanol and urticaria (hives), eczema and anaphylaxis.

Triton X-100: Triton X –100 or octylphenol ethoxylate (OPE) is a surfactant (reducing the surface tension of liquids) and stabilizer present in some influenza vaccines.

OPEs are endocrine disruptors and break down relatively easily into Octylphenols (OPs), which are more harmful. Endocrine disruptors can alter reproductive function, increase incidences of breast cancer, affect growth patterns and neurodevelopment in children and change immune function.

Squalene: Squalene is a naturally-occurring substance derived primarily from shark liver oil. When combined with other ingredients it becomes an adjuvant, which, like aluminum, is added to vaccines to elicit a stronger immune response from the body.

A 2000 study demonstrated that one intradermal injection of squalene adjuvant produced arthritis in rats.

Some believe that Gulf War Syndrome was linked to the presence of squalene in certain lots of the anthrax vaccine.

Beta-propiolactone: Beta-propiolactone (BPL) is a commonly used reagent for the inactivation of viruses for use in vaccine preparations. It has recently been used in the development of an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine preparation. 

Beta-propiolactone is a known carcinogen. Local sarcomas have been produced by subcutaneous injection of beta-propiolactone in rats. In the laboratory sarcomas and squamous papillomas in mice were produced  by a single subcutaneous injection of a minute amount of beta-propiolactone.

Polysorbate 80: Polysorbate 80 is present in some vaccines to stop the vaccine from separating into its component parts. In a PubMed study Polysorbate 80 was described as, “a ubiquitously used solubilizing agent that can cause severe nonimmunologic anaphylactoid reactions.”

In a pharmacological study on mice and rats Polysorbate 80 produced, “mild to moderate depression of the central nervous system with a marked reduction in locomotor activity and rectal temperature, exhibited ataxia and paralytic activity and potentiated the pentobarbital sleeping time.”

The results of that study concluded, “The results of the present study indicate that polysorbate 80 can neither be used as a solvent for isolated tissue experiments nor when considered for intravenous administration.”

Another study from the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) suggested the dietary emulsifier polysorbate 80 may induce low-grade inflammation which may contribute to metabolic diseases and increase the potential for development in colon cancer.

Genetically modified yeast:  S. cerevisiae, a species of yeast, is used in vaccines in a variety of ways. It is used as an adjuvant and now through genetic manipulation it is being used to create artificial antibodies

Studies have suggested that genetically engineered yeast used in vaccines may be a contributing factor to autoimmune disorders.

Monosodium Glutamate (MSG): Monosodium Glutamate is used in small amounts in some vaccines to keep them stable and protect them from losing potency even when exposed to heat and light. 

In a study that looked at rat fertility and MSG consumption the authors found there was a negative impact on the rats’ fertility. 

In another study it was noted that chronic MSG intake caused kidney dysfunction and renal oxidative stress in the animal model.

Cells From Aborted Fetus: Fetal cell lines are used to grow viruses which are then collected from the cell cultures and processed further to produce the vaccine itself. 

The cell lines are propagated from lung tissue of mature aborted and used in the current manufacture of a number of routine vaccines, including measles, mumps and rubella (MMRV), diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis and polio, (DTaP-IPV), Hepatitis A and chickenpox.

Aborted fetal cells are listed on vaccine package inserts as “Human Fetal Diploid Cells.” Two aborted fetal cell lines, WI-38 and MRC-5, have been grown under laboratory conditions since the 1960s. Diploid cells (WI-38, MRC-5) vaccines have their origin in induced abortions.

The use of such cell lines can be profoundly objectionable to segments of the population who hold certain religious and/or philosophical beliefs.

The Italian vaccine research and advocacy organization Corvelva released a study in 2019 regarding the use of aborted fetal cell lines in vaccines.

In their summary they highlighted the following:

• The human genomic DNA contained in this vaccine is clearly, undoubtedly abnormal, presenting important inconsistencies with a typical human genome, that is, with that of a healthy individual. 
• 560 genes known to be associated with forms of cancer were tested and all underwent major modifications. 
• There are variations whose consequences are not even known, not yet appearing in the literature, but which still affect genes involved in the induction of human cancer.
• What is also clearly abnormal is the genome excess showing changes in the number of copies and structural variants.

Serum From Aborted Calf Fetus Blood: The purpose for the fetal bovine serum is to provide a nutrient broth for viruses to grow in cells.

Humane Research Australia describes the process of how the blood is collected, “The blood is collected after the slaughter of a mature female cow, the mother’s uterus containing the calf fetus is removed during the evisceration process and transferred to the blood collection room. A needle is then inserted between the fetus’s ribs directly into its heart and the blood is vacuumed into a sterile collection bag. 

Only fetuses over the age of three months are used otherwise the heart is considered too small to puncture. Once collected, the blood is allowed to clot at room temperature and the serum separated through a process known as refrigerated centrifugation.”

Beyond certain ethical considerations scientists have found that different bovine tissues contain different amounts of the BSE agent. 

Antibiotics: Antibiotics are used during the manufacturing process of some vaccines to stop bacteria growing and contaminating the vaccine. 

Antibiotics found in some vaccines include neomycin, streptomycin, polymyxin b, gentamicin and kanamycin. 

Polymyxin B comes with a warning that, “This medicine has not been fully studied in pregnant women. This medicine may cause kidney problems. This medicine may cause nerve problems”, as well as a laundry list of side effects.

Similar warnings are found with streptomycin, neomycin, gentamicin, and kanamycin. 

A study out of Finland raised concerns about excessive antibiotic use in early childhood which may lead to weight gain and altered gut bacteria.

What Else Could be in That Needle?

The list above is not a complete account of all the ingredients found in various vaccine cocktails. A comprehensive manufacturers’ catalog of ingredients can be found here, here and here.

The reality is that even a complete list issued by the producer doesn’t tell the entire story of what is found in vaccines.

Using an Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope equipped with an X-ray microprobe a group of Italian scientists examined 44 samples of 30 different vaccines and found dangerous contaminants, including metal toxicants in 43 of the 44 samples tested.

In the study, published in the International Journal of Vaccines and Vaccination, the researchers detected lead, chromium, nickel and other metals in every adjuvant sample tested.

Additional metal contaminants identified in 25 of the human vaccines included platinum, silver, bismuth, iron, and chromium. Foreign impurities such as zirconium, hafnium, strontium, tungsten, antimony, bismuth, cerium and were also detected in many of the vaccines tested.

The researchers commenting on their unexpected findings reported:

The quantity of foreign bodies detected and, in some cases, their unusual chemical compositions baffled us. In most circumstances, the combinations detected are very odd as they have no technical use, cannot be found in any material handbook and look like the result of the random formation occurring….In any case, whatever their origin, they should not be present in any injectable medicament, let alone in vaccines, more in particular those meant for infants. [Emphasis added]

When interviewed lead scientist Dr. Antonietta Gatti, of the National Council of Research of Italy and Scientific Director of Nanodiagnostics, explained that the discovery of vaccine impurities shocked the researchers:

Those particles should not have been there. We had never questioned the purity of vaccines before. In fact, for us the problem did not even exist. All injectable solutions had to be perfectly pure and that was an act of faith on which it seemed impossible to have doubts. For that reason, we repeated our analyses several times to be certain. In the end, we accepted the evidence.

Speculating on the potential consequences of these foreign impurities Dr. Gatti stated:

The particles, be they isolated, aggregated or clustered, are not supposed to be there… Our tissues perceive these foreign bodies as potential enemies…Unfortunately, though, the particles we found in vaccines, are not biodegradable. So, all the macrophages’ efforts will be useless, and depending on the exact chemicals involved, the particles may be especially toxic. Cytokines and pro-inflammatory substances in general are released and granulated tissue forms, enveloping the particles. This provokes inflammation which, in the long run, if locally persistent, is known to be a precursor to cancer.

Along with unlisted metal contaminants another unlisted contaminant was noted in some vaccines when a preliminary screening result from Microbe Inotech Laboratories Inc. detected glyphosate in the childhood vaccines they tested.

Merck’s MMR II vaccine had 2.671 parts per billion (ppb) of glyphosate, Sanofi Pasteur’s DTap Adacel vaccine had 0.123 ppb, Novartis’ Influenza Fluvirin had 0.331 ppb, Glaxo Smith Kline’s HepB Energix-B vaccine had 0.325 ppb, Merck’s Pneumococcal Vax Polyvalent Pneumovax 23  had 0.107 ppb of glyphosate.

These findings prompted Moms Across America to send a letter to the FDA, CDC, EPA,NIH and California Department of Health requesting that they test vaccines for glyphosate and recall contaminated vaccines.

MIT scientist Dr. Stephanie Seneff remarked on the route by which glyphosate could get into vaccines:

Collagen is a protein found in large amounts in the ligaments of cows, and these ligaments are often used in the production of gelatin. The MMR vaccine and flu vaccine viruses are grown as live cultures on gelatin sourced from cows fed high concentrations of glyphosate in their GMO Roundup­Ready feed.

What to Do?

Given the complex nature of the composition of vaccines and the paucity of information volunteered to the public on the manufacturing processes and ingredients that go into these products, how does one go about navigating this subject?

Conventional wisdom might suggest, “Ask your doctor.” But how independent are these doctors?

Where do you turn when you discover physicians and pediatricians, who have a legal duty to fully inform patients about vaccine risks and side effects, have ideological and material incentives to avoid presenting specific information that might cause a parent to question a vaccine?

What about educational materials and advice from the agencies tasked with protecting public health? Can we trust the FDA and the CDC to provide detailed and unbiased information when it is known that they get substantial amounts of money from vaccine manufacturers?

Informed consent is a principle in medical ethics and medical law that a patient must have sufficient information and understanding before making decisions about their medical care.This includes being given a thorough account of the risks and benefits of treatments, alternative treatments, the patient’s role in treatment, and their right to refuse treatment. 

Informed and individualized health care decisions about any product one puts into their or their children’s body starts with being fully informed with what is in that product.

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Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin says the aerial attacks on a purported weapons storage facility follows previous actions on October 27 in response to the escalation of attacks on United States bases by resistance forces in solidarity with the people of Gaza

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As the White House continues to suggest the United States government does not want to see the current war against the people of Palestine expand to a regional conflagration, for the second time in the last two weeks Pentagon fighter jets have struck areas which they claim are utilized by resistance forces in Syria.

More than ten thousand people have died at the hands of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) since the launching of Operation Al-Aqsa on October 7.

Resistance organizations and governments from the Islamic Republic of Iran and Yemen to Syria, Iraq and Lebanon have warned that they will respond to the ongoing genocidal siege of the Gaza Strip where 2.3 million people are experiencing daily bombardments. Although the administration of President Joe Biden now claims that it would like to see a “humanitarian pause” in the IDF bombing of Gaza, they have not relented from airlifting even more deadly weapons which are being used against the civilian population in Palestine.

Scenes emanating from Gaza and the West Bank where the Israeli security forces and settler militias are engaging in deadly attacks on Palestinians, have infuriated people throughout the region and the international community. From mass demonstrations to the withdrawal of diplomatic personnel as well as missile attacks on Israeli and U.S. bases have highlighted the increasing hostility towards the State of Israel and its backers in Washington. Despite the calls by millions throughout the world for an immediate ceasefire and the resumption of much-needed humanitarian assistance to the people in Gaza, the Biden administration and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have refused to agree to a cessation of the bombings and ground incursions.

In a report published by the Associated Press on November 8, it says of the current situation:

“The U.S. carried out an airstrike on a weapons warehouse in eastern Syria used by Iranian-backed militias, in retaliation for what has been a growing number of attacks on bases housing U.S. troops in the region for the past several weeks, the Pentagon said. In Wednesday’s strike, two U.S. F-15 fighter jets dropped multiple bombs on a weapons storage facility near Maysulun in Deir el-Zour that was known to be used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, U.S. officials said.”

By framing the response of people throughout the region to the siege on Gaza and increasingly the West Bank as being influenced by the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Washington and Tel Aviv are seeking to build a case among their constituencies for a direct military confrontation with Tehran. However, the Iranian government has repeatedly stated that the decision to launch Operation Al-Aqsa Storm was solely that of Hamas and other resistance movements in Gaza.

Statements of support have of course been forthcoming from Iran. Nonetheless, the U.S. and Israel, by falsely blaming Tehran for funding and coordinating the resistance efforts is a blatant attempt to deflect attention away from the roles of imperialism and Zionism in fomenting dissent among the people throughout the West Asia and North Africa region.

The U.S. utilizes the State of Israel as a bulwark against the liberation movements in Palestine and revolutionary forces in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and other states. For decades, Washington and Wall Street have funded and armed Tel Aviv, empowering the settler-colonial state to engage in the forced removal and repression of the Palestinian people while at the same time attempting to place a stranglehold on the development and sovereignty of states throughout the region.

Character of the Resistance Against Imperialism and Zionism

Since the advent of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Tehran has become a major regional force against the influence of the U.S. and the continued colonization of Palestine. Iran has built alliances with progressive forces in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

On a broader international level, the Iranian government has emerged as an important player in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and other multilateral organizations based in the Global South. A recent visit to the country by the South African Foreign Minister Dr. Naledi Pandor illustrates the growing partnership between Tehran and the African Union member-states.

Iran maintains good relations with the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, the major strategic adversaries to the U.S. and its hegemonic disposition. Over the last few years, Tehran has re-established diplomatic ties with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia depriving Washington of an avenue to destabilize West Asia through the pitting of various Muslim nations against each other.

In Yemen, a state ranked as the least developed in the region, the Ansur Allah movement has gained strength after emerging from years of a war against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) which was instigated by the U.S. Yemen beginning in 2015, was bombed by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and its allies on a daily basis resulting at one point in the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.

An article published in Al Mayadeen on the outlook of Yemen said that:

“The spokesperson for the Ansar Allah movement, Mohammad Abdul Salam, stressed on Wednesday that the Yemeni armed forces will continue their operations to support Palestinians in Gaza until the Israeli aggression stops, confirming that a hostile U.S. spy plane was downed in the airspace of Yemeni territorial waters. Abdul Salam said on X that this operation reaffirms that the Yemeni Armed Forces are ready to confront any hostile actions violating the country’s national sovereignty. Moreover, the reports were confirmed by U.S. officials as cited by Fox News. ‘We can confirm that a U.S. military MQ-9 remotely piloted aircraft was shot down while in international airspace over international waters off the coast of Yemen,’ a Fox News correspondent reported, citing a senior U.S. defense official.”

Lebanon, which shares an extensive border with Occupied Palestine, has witnessed the birth and growth of the Hezbollah resistance movement. Hezbollah fought two wars with Tel Aviv in 2000 and 2006 in which the IDF was halted from making further advances into their territory.

Lebanon Hezbollah elite forces (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)

Hezbollah has an estimated military force of 50,000 fighters with the potential of recruiting another 100,000 more. The movement has built up an arsenal of medium range missiles and drones capable of striking deep inside the Israeli occupied territories.

The Al Mayadeen news agency wrote recently about the organization saying:

“The Lebanese Resistance, Hezbollah, has proved its means to deliver on Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s capabilities to confront U.S. warships and any grave risks that could lead to any regional war, sources familiar with the group’s arsenal supply said. Last week, Sayyed Nasrallah warned Washington that his party has the necessary preparations to confront the U.S. vessels deployed in the region since the beginning of the Israeli aggression on Gaza.  Sources familiar with the party’s arsenal clarified that he was referring to Hezbollah’s anti-ship missile capabilities. Washington has stated that its deployment of naval forces in the Mediterranean, including two aircraft carriers and their support ships, is aimed at deterring ‘Iran to prevent the spread of conflicts involving groups it supports, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’. But Hezbollah perceives the presence of U.S. warships as a direct threat. During his speech, Sayyed Nasrallah said that the U.S. warships in the Mediterranean ‘do not scare us, and will not scare us,’ adding ‘We have prepared for the fleets with which you threaten us.’”

With specific reference to the growth of the resistance forces in Gaza over the last decade, the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, has developed its own cadre of fighters which employ anti-tank weapons and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) now being utilized to inflict damage on the IDF in its ground incursion. Other resistance groupings such as Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and its military wing, al-Quds Brigades, are also engaging the IDF in the liberation struggle to free their territory.

In another report from Al Mayadeen, the news agency emphasizes in relations to the ongoing resistance to the IDF:

“The spokesperson for Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Obeida, announced that the Resistance has completely or partially destroyed 136 Israeli military vehicles in Gaza since the start of the ground invasion. In a televised statement on Wednesday, Abu Obeida confirmed that the occupation forces have suffered significant casualties during confrontations with the Resistance fighters across Gaza axes…. Meanwhile, the Resistance is inflicting heavy losses on the Israeli army despite having ‘no tanks, no aircraft, no armored vehicles, not even a mountain, hill, or difficult terrain’ to fight within. Right after Abu Obeida’s speech, al-Qassam released footage documenting losses incurred by the Israeli army in Gaza in a number of operations carried out by the Resistance fighters.”

Therefore, the Pentagon and IOF airstrikes in Syria are a response to the growing defiance against imperialism and Zionism in West Asia.  These organizations and movements are committed to the liberation of Palestine through the consolidation of an Axis of Resistance. The build up of naval warships and the potential of redeploying U.S. military forces in Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Yemen and possibly Iran will only result in the mounting of casualties and the further deterioration of the image and status of imperialism on a global scale.

The antiwar and peace movements in the western states must recognize the significance of the emerging political trends extending from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf states. Solidarity with the Palestinian struggle will require a deeper analysis of the political trajectory of the U.S. and its allies in order to build an alternative to the imperatives of imperialism.

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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“You must ‘remember what Amalek has done to you,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admonished on October 28, announcing the “second phase,” a ground invasion, of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Amalek, in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), is a nation that ambushed the Israelites making their way to the Promised Land. Following the attack, which the Israelites were able to beat back, God instructed that they must never forget and must wage an eternal war until no trace of Amalek’s existence remains. Generations later, King Saul killed all but the Amalekite king, whose descendent, Haman, generations after that, in the story of Purim, plotted to kill all the Jews in Persia.

Netanyahu is notoriously secular in his private life. But, ever the shrewd politician, scripture is his language of choice to sell his war to Jewish supremacists in Israel and right-wing Evangelicals in the United States.

The victims of Hamas’ vile October 7 attack come from what is referred to as the “Gaza envelope.” Heavy with kibbutzim (intentional collectives, traditionally based around agriculture), its residents are known for being secular and left-leaning.

Asked if losing his parents in Hamas’s terror attack had affected his political views, Maoz Inon, pleaded not for revenge but a reassessment of basing security “on military might.”

Likewise, Yotam Kipnis, in eulogizing for his father, said “We will not stay silent while the cannons roar, and we won’t forget that Dad loved peace. He wasn’t willing to serve in the territories. Do not write my father’s name on a missile, he wouldn’t have wanted that.”

Tom Godo, whose son lived and died in Kibbutz Kissufim, blamed the Netanyahu administration: “The fingers that pulled the trigger and murdered, the hands that held the knives that stabbed and beheaded and slashed were the loyal and determined emissaries of the accursed, messianic and corrupt government [of Israel].”

Even after spending 16 days as a hostage in Gaza, eighty-five-year-old peace activist Yocheved Lifshitz retained her belief in reconciliation. Upon being transferred to the Red Cross, she took the hand of her Hamas handler and bade him “Shalom,” (peace).

It’s not the families of those murdered on October 7, nor the families of the hostages who have been sleeping in tents outside the military headquarters in Tel Aviv demanding all Palestinian political prisoners be released in exchange for their loved ones Netanyahu is invoking Amalek to, but the ideological descendants of Kach.

The religious-nationalist Kach party was founded in 1971 by Brooklyn-born Rabbi Meir Kahane who argued for “the immediate transfer of the Arabs,” whom he referred to as “dogs.” In 1984, the one time his party secured a single seat in the Knesset, Kahane introduced legislation to ban all Jewish-Gentile marriages and sexual relations and revoke the Israeli citizenship of non-Jews.

The Kach party was so violently racist that it was prohibited from running in Israel’s next election, banned entirely in 1994, and defined as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.

In what could be perceived as another iteration of Amalek, in 2019, Kahane follower Itamar Ben Gvir formed the Jewish Power party, an ideological offshoot of Kach. Merging with other far-right fundamentalist parties to form Religious Zionism in 2022, they won the third-largest share of Israel’s parliament seats. This is the audience Netanyahu is addressing, but not only them.

On October 8, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ), which claims to represent millions, sent out an email stating that Hamas’ attack, “was not launched due to grievances over the Israeli ‘occupation’ or any real dangers to the al-Aqsa mosque.” Rather, it was driven by the ancient “Spirit of Amalek.”

On October 24, Christians United for Israel, which boasts a membership of over 10 million, raised $25 million in a single night in support of Israel (they raised and donated $100 million over the week). Standing beside CUFI’s Pastor John Hagee, who in 2008 referred to Hitler as a “hunter” sent by God “to help Jews reach the promised land,” was Israeli Ambassador to Israel Gilan Erdad.

Given their belief that when enough Jews have populated their modern state, the apocalypse will come, and “a sea of [Jewish and Muslim] human blood” will fill the land, it’s hard to think of Evangelical Zionist support for Israel as a heartfelt commitment to the protection of the Jewish people. Despite that, amid declining Jewish-American support for Israel, especially among young Jews, Israel has for years been courtingEvangelical support. However, polls are finding the support of young Evangelicals is also rapidly declining, dropping from 75% to 34% between 2018 and 2021.

Religious nationalism may be soaring in Israel, but that’s not the trend in America. Some people of faith, like Adam Strater, the senior Jewish educator for Georgia Hillels, are even reclaiming the story of Amalek as a model for Jews to reject “the evil impulse,” described in the Zohar (3:160a) and “make the moral choice to reorient the tradition towards a shared sense of solidarity, and ultimately, liberation.” Given the rapidly climbing toll of death in Gaza—over 10,000 people killed already—these changes could not be more welcome or come soon enough.

[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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Ariel Gold is the executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation – USA, the oldest peace and justice organization in the U.S. Previously, she was the national co-director of CODEPINK, where she helped manage the Peace in Ukraine coalition.

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The forthcoming first visit by Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi to Saudi Arabia on November 13 marks a milestone in the rapprochement between the two countries mediated by China in March. The relationship is fast acquiring a qualitatively new level of solidarity in the context of the Palestine-Israel conflict. 

This marks a shift in the tectonic plates in regional politics, which has long been dominated by the United States but no longer so. 

The latest China-UAE initiative on Monday to promote a ceasefire in Gaza was rounded off with an extraordinary spectacle of diplomacy at the UN headquarters in New York as the two countries’ envoys read out together a joint statement to the media. The US was nowhere to be seen. 

The events since October 7 make it abundantly clear that the US attempts to integrate Israel into its Muslim neighbourhood in its terms is a pipe dream — ie., unless and until Israel is willing to turn its sword into plowshares. The ferocity of the Israeli revenge attacks on the people of Gaza — “animals” —  smacks of racism and genocide.  

Iran knew all along the bestiality of the Zionist regime. Saudi Arabia too must be in a chastened mood following the wake-up call that it must first and foremost learn to live in its region. 

Raisi is heading for Saudi Arabia against the backdrop of a historic shift in the power dynamic. King Salman invited Raisi to speak on Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza at a special summit of Arab states, which he is hosting in Riyadh. This signifies a profound Saudi realisation that even its willingness to be involved in the Abraham Accords under American persuasion has alienated the Arab public.  

There is a fallacy in the western discourse about a Russia-China-Iran axis in West Asia. This is a nonsensical misinterpretation. A consistent three-fold foreign policy principle that Iran pursued right from the Islamic Revolution in 1979 is that, one, its strategic autonomy is sacred; two, the countries of the region must take their destiny into their own hands and solve regional issues themselves without involving extra-regional powers, and, three, foster Muslim unity howsoever long and winding that road might seem. 

This principle had severe limitations due to force of circumstances — principally, in the conditions engendered by the colonial policy of divide and rule pursued by the US. Circumstances were even deliberately engineered, such as the Iraq-Iran war, where the US encouraged the regional states to collaborate with Saddam Hussein to launch an aggression against Iran to stymie the Islamic revolution in its infancy. 

Another painful episode was the Syrian conflict. There, again, the US actively canvassed among regional states for a regime change in Damascus with the ultimate objective of targeting Iran by using the terrorist groups that Washington incubated in Occupied Iraq. 

In Syria, the US brilliantly succeeded in pitting the regional states against each other and the result is plain to see in the ruins of what used to be the throbbing heart of Islamic civilisation. At the peak of the conflict, several western intelligence agencies were freely operating in Syria assisting the terrorist groups to rampage the country whose cardinal sin was that, like Iran, it too consistently put primacy on its strategic autonomy and independent foreign policies through the cold war and post-cold war eras alike. 

Suffice to say, the US and Israel met with great success in fragmenting Muslim Middle East by exaggerating the threat perceptions and convincing several Gulf Arab states that they faced direct threats or even attacks by Iranian proxies, as well as alleged Iranian support for dissident movements.

Of course, the US capitalised on it by selling huge volumes of weapons and more importantly, to finesse the petrodollar as a key pillar of the western banking system. As for Israel, it directly benefitted from demonising Iran in order to draw attention away from the Palestine issue, which has all along been the core issue in the Middle East crisis.

Suffice to say, the rollout of the Iran-Saudi-China agreement has reduced the hostility that existed between Riyadh and Tehran for the better part of the recent decades. Both countries sought to build on the momentum generated by the success of the secret Beijing talks with regard to their commitment to non-interference. It must be noted, however, that the relations between Gulf Arab countries and Iran had already improved significantly over the last two years.  

What western analysts miss is that the wealthy Gulf states are fed up with their subaltern life as sidekicks of the US. They want to prioritise their national life in directions they choose and with partners who respect them, eschewing any zero-sum mindset, unlike in the Cold War era, for reasons of ideology or power dynamic. 

That is why, the Biden Administration cannot accept that the Saudis today work with Russia on the OPEC+ platform to fulfil their commitment to extra voluntary oil supply cuts, while also negotiating with the US on nuclear technology, and at the same time moving on the diplomatic track with Beijing to douse the fire set ablaze in the Levant a month ago from spreading to the rest of the West Asian region. 

Evidently, the Saudis are no longer rolling with pleasure at the prospect of a US-Iran confrontation. On the other hand, Saudis and Iranians have a shared concern that their new thinking with primacy on development will dissipate unless there is regional stability and security.

Thus, it is sheer naïveté on the part of Washington to bracket Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran as one grouping — as Blinken did during his latest visit to Tel Aviv on Monday — and juxtapose it with the rest of the region. The canard that Hezbollah and Hamas are “terrorist” movements is about to be exposed. Truth be told, how are they any different from Sinn Féin, which was historically associated with the IRA?  

Such naïveté underlines the absurd US-Israeli-Indian venture to create a West Asian QUAD 2 (“I2U2”), which today looks laughable — or the quixotic plot hatched in New Delhi recently during the G20 summit to get the Saudis on board the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor project, with the fond hope that it “integrates” Israel and creates business for Haifa Port, isolates Iran and Turkey, rubbishes Russia-led International North-South Corridor and shows the middle finger to Beijing’s Belt and Road. Whereas, life is real. 

Taking all things into account, it is the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s regional tour to Israel and his summit with a select group of Arab states in Amman over the last weekend that has turned into a defining moment in the Gaza crisis.

The Arab foreign ministers point blank refused to buy into any of the invidious proposals put forward by Blinken with malicious intentions to preserve Jewish interests —  “humanitarian pause” instead of ceasefire; refugee camps for the people from Gaza escaping from Israel’s horrific, brutal attacks that would be funded with Arab money but would eventually lead to Jewish settlements in Gaza; contours of a post-war arrangement for Gaza that will leave the debris to be handled by the Palestinian Authority and reconstruction to be financed by the Gulf states while Israel continues to dominate it in the all-important security sphere; preventing Iran from going to the rescue of Hezbollah and Hamas as they are put into Israeli meat grinders of American make. 

It was rank hypocrisy. The Arab foreign ministers spoke up in one voice to articulate their counter proposal to Blinken’s — immediate ceasefire. President Biden seems to see the writing on the wall, finally — although,  intrinsically, he continues to be the world’s number one Zionist, as someone once called him, and his motivations are largely borne out of his own political survival as the 2024 election draws closer. 

Be that as it may, the high probability is that it is now a matter of time before the global community insists on stopping the Israeli apartheid state on its tracks. For, when Muslim countries unite, they call the shots in the emerging multipolar world order. Their demand that a settlement of the Palestine problem brooks no further delay has gained resonance, including in the Western Hemisphere. 

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Before Israel’s most deadly and devastating war on Gaza, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) issued repeated reports on conditions in Israeli-occupied Gaza, warning that Israel had a long-term policy of “de-development”.

In a report released on October 25th as Israel carpet bombed Gaza, UNCTAD wrote,

“Since June 2007, Gaza suffered several military operations and has been under a land, sea and air closure. Gazans need permits to move in and out of the strip through two land crossing points controlled by Israel.

“Restrictions on the movement of people and goods, destruction of productive assets in frequent military operations and the ban on the importation of key technologies and inputs have hollowed out Gaza’s economy.

“Investment in 2022 diminished to 10.7 per cent of Gaza’s GDP — or a meagre 1.9 per cent of the Palestinian GDP. Between 2006 and 2022, Gaza’s real GDP per capita shrank by 37 per cebt, while its share in the Palestinian economy contracted from 31 to 17.4 per cent.

“The restrictions on movement also impede access to health and other essential services, as 80 per cent of Gazans depend on international aid.

“Living in Gaza in 2022 meant confinement in one of the most densely populated spaces in the world, without electricity half the time, and without adequate access to clean water or a proper sewage system.

“It meant a 65 per cent probability of being poor, 41 per cent probability of dropping out of the labour force in despair, and for those looking for work, a 45 per cent probability of being unemployed,” the report concludes.

UNCTAD is, of course, correct. But Israel’s systematic “de-development” of Gaza began with its permanent occupation. In 1995, the Washington-based Institute of Palestine Studies published “The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development” by Harvard University’s Sara Roy, who has made truth-telling on Gaza her life’s work. Daughter of two Holocaust survivors, she visited Israel repeatedly and found that neglected Gaza was the victim of Israel’s policy of de-development designed to keep its population in poverty and dependant on Israel. Roy revealed that after conquering Gaza in 1967, Israel had followed a policy of pacification, normalisation and integration.

She said pacification involved not only eliminating resistance but also depopulating the narrow coastal strip by deporting 75,000 of its residens and refusing to allow the return of 25,000-50,000 Gazans who were abroad at the time of the occupation, many of them working in the Gulf and elsewhere. Therefore by 1968, Israel had reduced Gaza’s population by 25 per cent. Israel also encouraged Gazans to move to the West Bank where agricultural jobs were available, diminishing further the number of Gazans living at home. 

Israel normalised relationships between the occupier and indigenous population by encouraging local institutions and charitable organisations to look after the local population. This enabled Israel to shrug off responsibility for Gazans’ welfare although Israel is required to assume this role by International law governing the behaviour of occupying powers.

Israel’s occupation destroyed the economy developed during Egyptian rule (1948-1967) and integrated Gaza into Israel’s economy by linking electricity to its grid, water to its system, and making Gaza totally dependent on Israel for imports and exports and employment. Gazan workers were eventually permitted to take up manual jobs within Israel itself. There was little investment in agriculture, manufacturing, and commercial enterprises, depriving the economy of growth.

There was a brief window of opportunity to change Sara Roy’s grim picture of Gaza between 1993 after the Oslo Accord was signed and 2006-2007. When Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat returned to Gaza in 1994, he based Palestinian Authority governance in Gaza, removing the strip from direct Israeli administration and control. Palestinian planners worked at developing the strip’s infrastrucure and investors built hotels, restaurants, industries and commercial firms. Political institutions were created by 1996 presidential and parliamentary election — praised by ex-US president Jimmy Carter as among the most democratic he ever monitored. President Bill Clinton formally inaugurated Gaza’s international airport in December 1998 and addressed Gazan’s elite at a gathering in the Rashad Shawwa Cultural Centre. Clinton’s visit did not lend momentum to the stalled Oslo peace process which he and then Israeli premier Ehud Barak blamed on Arafat who refused to accept the bad deal which Barak was prepared to offer. This allowed Israel to retain illegally occupied East Jerusalem, land west of its West Bank barrier, and control of the West Bank border with Jordan.

Gaza appeared to be progressing politically and economically until Israel failed to deliver an end to Israel’s occupation by 1999 and the emergence of a Palestinian state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel never had any intention of allowing this to happen. The second intifada erupted in 2000.

As it wound down in 2005, Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza. But, instead of ending its control, Israel besieged and blockaded Gaza and isolated its population. After Hamas triumphed in the 2006 legislative election and expelled Fateh’s corrupt and violent security forces from the strip in June 2007, Israel not only tightened its grip on Gaza but also waged murderous and destructive military campaigns on Gaza in 2008-2009, 2012, 2014 and 2021. Israel’s strategy during these offensives was to “mow the lawn:” to reduce the effectiveness of the Hamas-led resistance.

During its ongoing all-out operation, Israel seeks to eliminate Hamas and is prepared to risk international opprobrium by bombing civilians and destroying homes, hospitals, roads, schools and refugee camps with the ultimate aim of driving all or most of the 2.2 million Gazans from Palestine.

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Viciousness Regnant: Humanitarianism as a Weasel Word

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, November 08, 2023

It may be time to reconsider the use of such words as “humanitarian” and “humanitarianism”.  There has been little of that sort evidenced in the Israel-Hamas War, marked by industrial-mechanised atrocities, enforced deprivation and starvation, orders to evacuate (read expulsion and banishment), preceded by massacres most haunting and visceral.

Enlightenment Is Successful When People’s Consciousness Can be Changed

By Dr. Rudolf Hänsel, November 08, 2023

At a time when humanity is threatened with annihilation through the use of nuclear bombs, we are more dependent than ever on independent and courageous intellectuals to enlighten people, to teach them what is truth and what is a lie. 

11 Children Ages 9-19 Had a Cardiac Arrest at US Schools in the Past Month. Some Schools Are Now Starting to Conduct “Sudden Cardiac Arrest Screening”

By Dr. William Makis, November 08, 2023

14 year old Knox MacEwen is a Western High School Air Force Junior ROTC (Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) student. On Nov. 4 he was running at a Army Junior ROTC exercise when he suffered a cardiac arrest during a 5K run and died in the hospital. His mother is recovering from a hard fought battle with cancer this past year.

Stop Drinking the “Political Kool-Aid”, America: Voting Will Not Save Us

By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead, November 08, 2023

This year’s presidential election, much like every other election in recent years, is what historian Daniel Boorstin referred to as a “pseudo-event”: manufactured, contrived, confected and devoid of any intrinsic value save the value of being advertised. It is the end result of a culture that is moving away from substance toward sensationalism in an era of mass media.

Israel Resorts to Nuclear Blackmail in Gaza

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, November 08, 2023

In addition to promoting genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the Zionist regime is resorting to nuclear blackmail against the Palestinians. In a controversial recent statement, an Israeli top official admitted that using atomic bombs in the Gaza Strip is a “possibility” for Tel Aviv.These words shocked the world and showed the level of unpredictability and irrationality in the Israeli government’s actions.

Over Ten Thousand Killed in Gaza as Biden Administration Transfers More Weapons to the IDF

By Abayomi Azikiwe, November 08, 2023

After more than one month of blanket bombings of the Gaza Strip by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) and the limited incursions into the territory by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), the United States government has refused to even call for a ceasefire after the death tolls exceed ten thousand people.

The Historical Background of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Up to 1914)

By Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović, November 08, 2023

The historical background of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict goes back to 1917 (the Balfour Declaration) and the establishment of the British protectorate over Palestine (the Palestine Mandate) after WWI with its provision for a national home for the Jews, although “officially” not to be at the expense of the local inhabitants – the Palestinians. 

New Zealand Petition to Ban mRNA Agents. Will the Country Make History Again?

By Dr. Emanuel Garcia, November 08, 2023

Many of us suspected from the beginning that the use of a genetic medical technology would invariably hazard alteration of the genome. Despite the assurances we were given that the mRNA in the inoculation agents could never affect our DNA, we remained dubious.

Bill Gates’s “Fake Meat” Banned by Italy Citing “Serious Health Concerns”

By Ethan Huff, November 08, 2023

Numerous recent studies show that lab-grown synthetic meat of the kind being promoted by billionaire eugenicist Bill Gates is triggering the formation of turbo cancers in humans – Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) “vaccines” are doing the same thing, by the way.

Why Israel Wants to Erase Context and History in the War on Gaza

By Ilan Pappe, November 08, 2023

There are several historical contexts for what is going on now in Israel-Palestine that cannot be ignored. The wider historical context goes back to the mid-19th century, when evangelical Christianity in the West turned the idea of the “return of the Jews” into a religious millennial imperative and advocated the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine as part of the steps that would lead to the resurrection of the dead, the return of the Messiah, and the end of time.

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***

Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) applauds today’s call from the Bloc Québécois for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, which was announced by Yves-Francois Blanchet in a press conference this morning. The Bloc joins the NDP, Green Party, many Liberal MPs, civil society, and public opinion in calling for an end to Israel’s military offensive, which has killed more than 10,000 Palestinians in just one month. CJPME thanks the Bloc for adopting this principled position, and urges Prime Minister Trudeau to finally withdraw his support for Israel’s genocidal war.  

“The Bloc and the majority of Quebecers have spoken clearly, the Trudeau government must call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza,” said Thomas Woodley, President of CJPME. “The progressive and humanitarian position is clear: the only way to achieve peace and security is to end the butchery in Gaza. Quebecers know Canada has a responsibility to protect Gazans from the genocidal policies of Israel’s far-right government. When will Trudeau get the message?”

The demand for a ceasefire is already supported by the NDP, Green Party, and many Liberal MPs who signed a statement from the Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Friendship Group. More than 200 Canadian civil society organizations have signed a joint statement urging a ceasefire, and there will be a Day of Action on November 12 to highlight this demand. Every single recipient of Canadian humanitarian aid in Gaza is also pushing for an immediate ceasefire. Yesterday, two public polls (Angus Reid and Mainstreet) showed that a majority of Canadians support the idea of a ceasefire, either full or temporary.

To date, Canada has refused to call for a ceasefire but appears to unconditionally support Israel’s military offensive with the goal of “eliminating” Hamas. On October 28, Canada abstained on a resolution at the United Nations General Assembly in support of a humanitarian truce. At most, Canada has expressed support for limited “humanitarian pauses,” a deeply inadequate demand that has been rejected by Israel. This week, CJPME issued a formal letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau explaining that Canada’s failed approach is only perpetuating further human suffering. Among its demands, CJPME is urging Canada to support an immediate ceasefire, an end to Israel’s siege and occupation, and a suspension of Canada’s two-way military trade with Israel.

“Trudeau has a choice: will he side with the conservatives and continue to be Netanyahu and Biden’s lap dog? Or will he join with progressives throughout Quebec and Canada in calling for an immediate ceasefire?” said Woodley. “The Bloc has chosen to be on the side of peace and justice, we are still waiting to see if Trudeau will choose courage over convenience.”

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Featured image: Made in Israel – by Mr. Fish

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***

Only 93 MPs in Westminster support a parliamentary motion calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, as of 8 November. Some 86% continue to support Israel’s bombing, involving attacks on civilians which have killed over 10,000 Palestinians.

A parliamentary Early Day Motion (EDM) brought by Labour MP Richard Burgon on 8 November has secured 93 signatories – just 14% of the UK’s 650 MPs. A first EDM, brought on 7 October, was signed by 95 MPs.

The EDM condemns the Hamas attacks on Israel and Israel’s siege of Gaza, and calls for the release of Hamas hostages and an immediate ceasefire. 

The Palestinian death toll has now surpassed 10,000, mostly women and children, amid United Nations agencies all calling for a ceasefire.  

Amnesty International has documented “indiscriminate” attacks on civilians, and a team of UN experts has said Israel’s campaign in Gaza involves “crimes against humanity”. A senior UN human rights official has declared:

“We are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes”.

Here are the MPs in our hall of shame.

Click here to see the full list.

MPs Who Have Signed EDM 1, as of 8 November

Click here to see the full list.

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Vicki Thomas is Head of Communications at Declassified UK.

Featured image: MP’s observe a minute’s silence in recognition of those who lost their lives through conflict in Israel and Gaza, 20 October 2023. (Credit – UK Parliament Flickr)

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Einleitung

In einer Zeit, in der die Menschheit bedroht wird, durch den Einsatz von Atombomben vernichtet zu werden, sind wir mehr denn je auf unabhängige und mutige Intellektuelle angewiesen, die die Menschen aufklären, sie lehren, was Wahrheit und was Lüge ist. 

Diese Aufklärung kann jedoch nur dann erfolgreich sein oder wirksam werden, wenn sie das Bewusstsein, das heißt, die Einstellungen des Menschen erreicht und seine Gefühle anspricht. Ansonsten bleibt sie als reine Information nur an der Oberfläche. Einige wenige Beispiele sollen das verdeutlichen. 

Ein Problem ist, dass den Menschen die individuellen und kollektiven Vorurteile nicht bewusst sind und sie deshalb auch nicht zur Verantwortung gezogen werden können. 

Um in die Lage zu kommen, diese Vorurteile aufzugeben, müssen sie durch eine Psychotherapie bewusst gemacht werden. Das ist jederzeit möglich.

Reinigung von individuellen und kollektiven Vorurteilen

Als Psychologe bin ich der Auffassung meines Lehrers Friedrich Liebling, der sich bereits vor einem halben Jahrhundert zum Problem der Aufklärung äußerte:

„Die Politik wir in den Köpfen und Herzen der Menschen vorbereitet; die Menschen handeln morgen so, wie sie heute denken, darum ist die Aufklärung ein Anliegen, dessen Wichtigkeit nicht überschätzt werden kann. 

Der Sinn der aufklärerischen Bemühungen ist die Reinigung des menschlichen Bewusstseins von individuellen und kollektiven Vorurteilen.

Die Zukunft unserer Kultur wird wesentlich davon abhängen, ob es genügend ‚Aufklärer‘ geben wird, die imstande sein werden, den bereiten Volksmassen jene Vorurteile zu nehmen, die der ideologische Hintergrund der Menschheitskatastrophen sind.“ (1)

Individuelle Vorurteile

Ein vielfach anzutreffendes Vorurteil ist zum Beispiel, dass mit den Menschen „nicht gut Kirschen essen ist“. Das soll heißen, dass der Mensch nicht gut oder sozial ist und man deshalb Angst vor ihm haben müsse. Doch diese Einstellung hat – wie viele andere Vorurteile auch – seinen Ursprung in der Kindheit. So kann eine gewalttätige Erziehung der Eltern und Lehrer dazu führen, dass sich beim Kind diese negative Auffassung vom Mitmenschen langsam entwickelt. Sie wird in der Regel bis ins Erwachsenenalter „mitgeschleppt“ und der Mensch handelt dann danach.

In Tat und Wahrheit – das zeigen die Forschungsergebnisse der Psychologie – ist der Mensch von Natur aus ein soziales, friedfertiges und vernunftbegabtes Lebewesen, dass sich gerne mit den Mitmenschen zusammenschließt. Seine Begabung ist nicht angeboren, sondern wird in der Kindheit erworben und kann deshalb zu jeder Zeit gefördert werden.

Oft sind individuelle Vorurteile auch kollektive Vorurteile.

Kollektive Vorurteile

Kollektive Vorurteile, die in einer Gesellschaft mehrheitlich anzutreffen sind und zu den Menschheitskatastrophen führen, sind aus der Zeit der Kolonialisierung, aus den beiden Weltkriegen und ebenso aus den gegenwärtigen Kriegen in der Ukraine und dem Mittleren Osten hinlänglich bekannt und müssen deshalb im Einzelnen nicht aufgezählt werden. Sie werden von der politischen „Elite“ stets als „bewährtes“ Mittel angesehen und benutzt, Kriege gegen ein anderes Volk anzuzetteln.

Bewusstmachung durch Psychotherapie

Wie bereits erwähnt, ist es ein Problem, dass den Menschen die Vorurteile nicht bewusst sind und sie deshalb für deren verheerende Konsequenzen nicht verantwortlich gemacht werden können.

Eine Ausnahme bilden Handlungen von skrupellosen mächtigen „Weltenlenkern“, denen die Vorurteile sehr wohl bewusst sind und die sie gegenüber dem Volk „gewinnbringend“ einsetzen.

Damit eine aufklärende Information nicht an der Oberfläche des menschlichen Bewusstseins ein Schattendasein fristet, ist es notwendig, dass sowohl die individuellen als auch die kollektiven Vorurteile in einer Psychotherapie bewusst gemacht werden. 

Erst wenn das seelische Empfinden, das Gefühlsleben des Menschen angesprochen werden kann, wird er seine Vorurteile, die ihm im Vertrauensverhältnis zum Psychotherapeuten zu Bewusstsein gebracht wurden, in Frage stellen und aufgeben können. Dadurch wird er seiner Natur entsprechend beginnen, menschlich zu fühlen, zu denken – und zu handeln (2).

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist Schul-Rektor, Erziehungswissenschaftler und Diplom-Psychologe. Nach seinen Universitätsstudien wurde er wissenschaftlicher Lehrer in der Erwachsenenbildung. Als Pensionär arbeitete er als Psychotherapeut in eigener Praxis. In seinen Büchern und Fachartikeln fordert er eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung sowie eine Erziehung zu Gemeinsinn und Frieden. Er schreibt regelmäßig für Global Research.   

Noten

1. Hänsel, Rudolf (2023). Sich die Ergebnisse der psychologischen Forschung zu eigen machen! Erkenntnisse aus der Begegnung mit dem Psychologen Friedrich Liebling und seiner freiheitlichen Psychotherapie. Gornji Milanovac
2. A. a. O.

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***

Introduction

At a time when humanity is threatened with annihilation through the use of nuclear bombs, we are more dependent than ever on independent and courageous intellectuals to enlighten people, to teach them what is truth and what is a lie. 

However, this enlightenment can only be successful or effective if it reaches people’s consciousness, i.e. their attitudes and appeals to their emotions. Otherwise, as pure information, it only remains on the surface. A few examples will illustrate this. 

One problem is that people are not aware of individual and collective prejudices and therefore cannot be held accountable. 

In order to be able to give up these prejudices, they must be made conscious through psychotherapy. This is possible at any time.

Cleansing Individual and Collective Prejudices

As a psychologist, I agree with my teacher Friedrich Liebling, who commented on the problem of enlightenment half a century ago:

“Politics is prepared in people’s minds and hearts; people will act tomorrow as they think today, which is why enlightenment is a concern whose importance cannot be overestimated. 

The purpose of Enlightenment endeavours is to purify human consciousness of individual and collective prejudices.

The future of our culture will essentially depend on whether there will be enough ‘enlighteners’ who will be able to remove from the prepared masses those prejudices that are the ideological background of humanity’s catastrophes.” (1)

Individual Prejudices

One common prejudice, for example, is that people are “not good to deal with”. This means that people are not good or social and that we should therefore be afraid of them. However, this attitude – like many other prejudices – has its origins in childhood. A violent upbringing by parents and teachers can lead to a child slowly developing this negative view of other people. It is usually “dragged along” into adulthood and the person then acts accordingly.

In reality – as the results of psychological research show – humans are by nature social, peaceful and rational creatures who like to socialise with others. This talent is not innate, but is acquired in childhood and can therefore be encouraged at any time.

Individual prejudices are often also collective prejudices.

Collective Prejudices

Collective prejudices, which are found in the majority of a society and lead to human catastrophes, are well known from the time of colonisation, from the two world wars and also from the current wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and therefore do not need to be listed in detail. They are always seen and used by the political “elite” as a “tried and tested” means of instigating wars against another people.

Raising Awareness Through Psychotherapy

As already mentioned, it is a problem that people are not aware of their prejudices and therefore cannot be held responsible for their devastating consequences.

One exception is the actions of unscrupulous, powerful “world leaders”, who are well aware of the prejudices and use them “profitably” against the people.

To ensure that enlightening information does not live a shadowy existence on the surface of human consciousness, it is necessary that both individual and collective prejudices are made conscious in psychotherapy. 

Only when a person’s emotional life can be addressed will they be able to question and abandon the prejudices they have been made aware of in their relationship of trust with the psychotherapist. As a result, he will begin to feel, think – and act – in accordance with his nature (2).

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Dr Rudolf Lothar Hänsel is a school rector, educationalist and qualified psychologist. After his university studies, he became an academic teacher in adult education. As a pensioner, he worked as a psychotherapist in his own practice. In his books and specialist articles, he calls for a conscious ethical and moral education of values as well as an education for public spirit and peace. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Notes

(1) Hänsel, Rudolf (2023). Making the results of psychological research your own! Insights from an encounter with the psychologist Friedrich Liebling and his liberal psychotherapy. Gornji Milanovac

(2) A. a. O.

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***

Two weeks after Hamas attacked Israel, University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill issued a revealing salvo in the war of the statements.

Like many other university presidents, she mourned the deaths of Israelis without making any mention of Palestinian loss of life. (As of this writing, over 8,000 Palestinians have been killed—including more than 2,000 children alone.) This dehumanization of Palestinians is common enough to be unremarkable. What was revealing was that Magill’s statement mentioned, and apologized for, a festival of Palestinian literature that had taken place weeks before, referencing the discomfort of some Jewish community members with speakers at the event in the same breath as Hamas.

In my role as an attorney at Palestine Legal, an organization which protects the constitutional and civil rights of people in the United States who speak out for Palestinian freedom, I advised organizers of the Palestine Writes Literature Festival that Magill mentions. (I also attended the festival.) Beyond the free speech issue—what in First Amendment parlance is called viewpoint discrimination—what struck me was the bigoted anti-Palestinian nature of the censorship campaign that sought to ban speakers or prevent the festival from taking place. Pro-Israel groups fear-mongered to local papers that the presence of speakers who supported Palestine posed a threat to the Jewish students housed nearby. At the event itself, police stationed themselves outside the venue as elderly Palestinian aunties and families with children streamed in.

And all this took place before October 7.

Since then, my office has received a tsunami of requests for legal help from people who have been fired, doxxed, canceled, censored, and physically threatened for speaking out for Palestinian freedom. No profession is untouched. We’ve received over 370 calls from lawyers, doctors, journalists, professors, teachers, students, and other workers in nonprofits, government, and the corporate world who have been fired, locked out of email accounts, questioned, or put on leave for signing open letters or retweeting material criticizing Israel or otherwise not sufficiently marching in lockstep behind Israel’s actions.

The range of targets spans Starbucks workers, Harvard students, MSNBC reporters, Pulitzer Prize winners, editors of science journals, and the Hadids. 92NY canceled a talk by Viet Thanh Nguyen after he signed an open letter in the London Review of Books supporting Palestinian rights. Events promoting Nathan Thrall’s A Day in the Life of Abed Salama have likewise been canceled because the book dared to humanize Palestinians. Hollywood agent Maha Dakhil was forced to apologize and resign for calling what Israel is doing genocide, though groups like the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) have said the same. Artforum editor David Velasco has been fired after the magazine published a letter in support of Palestinian liberation.

This repression amounts to a McCarthyite backlash. The climate of censorship, suppression, and intimidation resembles the aftermath of 9/11; it is what the CCR and we at Palestine Legal have called the “Palestine exception to free speech”—the “real cancel culture,” or whatever you want to call it—in action.

At a time when Israel has ordered 1 million Palestinians to leave northern Gaza—the literal definition of ethnic cleansing—and continues to mount air and ground assaults, it’s important to understand that the underlying erasure of Palestinian suffering that undergirds all of this is a form of anti-Palestinian racism. In cases where university administrators have tried to support Palestinian students by expressing symmetric concern for lives lost in both Israel and Gaza, big donors and lobby groups complain that there is not enough sympathy for Israeli victims of Hamas’s attack. While universities have been swift to condemn Russia’s occupation of Ukraine and to support Black or Asian students faced with racist attacks, there is often radio silence when it comes to the suffering of Palestinians. Palestinians, and those who believe they are human beings deserving of rights, are appalled at their institutions’ double standards.

And it’s not just universities. Last week the U.S. Senate passed a resolution condemning Students for Justice in Palestine chapters for statements critical of Israel (which it called a form of “solidarity with the terrorists”). Lamenting the loss of Israeli life, the resolution said nothing about the rights of Palestinians.

Thousands have taken to the street to protest in support of a ceasefire. Students are organizing. Artists and writers, as they have done throughout history, are speaking out. These are people who have acted as our conscience in moments of grave injustice, often at great personal risk. All of this is in addition to the hundreds of regular people without a large audience who have been fired for a tweet, for condemning genocidal statements for what they are, or for simply asking their bosses to express equal concern for the lives of Palestinian civilians.

If we had truly open and informed debate, where journalists were able to accurately report this issue—where students, professors, and artists could write articles and publish freely without fear of employer retaliation—how might U.S. policy change? Would our elected officials stay Israeli airstrikes? Might we be able to stop the ongoing killing and prevent the mass tragedy unfolding before us? Free speech on behalf of Palestinian rights has never been more important than it is now.

Employment attorneys, civil rights attorneys, and First Amendment attorneys—among others—will be challenging many of these actions in the coming weeks. But the legal process is often slow, and not every bad act has a remedy in law. Every writer who is canceled should not have to sue for breach of contract; student groups should not need a team of attorneys just to hold a talk, and professors should not need to retain counsel before posting to Instagram. Even if we had an army of lawyers to represent each individual who is targeted, the chilling effect is real: people will self-censor. Combating this injustice requires social change. That means everyone—journalists, artists, students, teachers, professors, anyone with a social media account or the ability to take to the streets—using the tools at their disposal to stop the censorship campaign and the ethnic cleansing that is taking place.

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Radhika Sainath is a senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal. Together with the Center for Constitutional Rights, she brought a landmark lawsuit against Fordham University after it refused to grant club status to Students for Justice in Palestine.

Featured image: Students rally for Palestine at Harvard University on October 14th, 2023. (Source: Rick Friedman / Alamy Stock Photo)

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***

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that an Israeli minister’s comments about nuking Gaza raised questions about Israel’s unofficial nuclear arsenal.

Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu made the comments on Sunday, saying there are no innocent civilians in Gaza and that dropping nuclear weapons on the enclave is an option for Israel.

Israel is estimated to have somewhere between 90 and 300 nuclear warheads but does not acknowledge its arsenal. Eliyahu’s comments appeared to confirm that Israel has nuclear weapons, going against the Israeli government’s policy of ambiguity on the issue.

“It raised a huge number of questions,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said about Eliyahu’s comments. “The number one question is, did we hear an official declaration that [Israel] has nuclear weapons? Consequently, the next questions that everyone had were: Where are the international organizations, where is the IAEA, where are the inspectors?”

Zakharova also asked where Israel has conducted nuclear tests.

“If this program exists and existed, where were the tests conducted, at what testing grounds? Obviously, apparently not in the region, then where? And isn’t the United States behind all this?” she said.

The US also maintains a policy of ambiguity concerning Israel’s nuclear weapons program. In 2021, Axios reported that President Biden and then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett renewed a decades-old informal agreement on Israel’s nukes.

Every US president since Nixon has agreed not to press Israel to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and in return, Israel agrees not to declare its nuclear arsenal and operate the program covertly.

The ambiguity allows the US to give Israel aid, which is technically illegal due to the existence of Israel’s nuclear arsenal. Under foreign assistance laws, the US cannot provide aid to nuclear-armed states that refuse to sign the NPT.

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

Featured image: File photo provided by Wikipedia shows Israel’s nuclear-capable Jericho II missile carrying the Shavit rocket, which is used for launching satellites into orbit.

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***

Israeli warplanes have continued to attack hospitals in Gaza City.

After another communication and network blackout on Sunday, the Nasser Medical Complex, which has four hospitals, suffered indirect and direct hits from Israeli missiles.

According to the Palestinian health ministry, at least eight Palestinians were killed in the attacks and dozens were wounded.

The medical complex contained the Al-Nasser Children’s Hospital, the Rantisi Specialised Hospital, the Eye Hospital and the Psychiatric Hospital.

“The [Israeli] army called some of our staff that night and said they will create a fire belt around the hospital,” Suleiman Qaoud, a doctor at the Rantisi Hospital said.

At about 6:30pm (16:30 GMT), Israeli warplanes hit the area between the Psychiatric Hospital and the Rantisi hospital wounding 35 people, including some of the medical staff. Two hours later, the Rantisi hospital was hit as well as its southeast and northeast sides.

A children’s cancer ward is located on the northeast side of the hospital, Qaoud said.

“More than 30 children were receiving chemotherapy treatment there,” he said.

The hospital was then attacked for a third time with strikes hitting the grounds where ambulances and other vehicles were parked and where displaced families had taken shelter.

“We have between 80 and 100 patients, and 700 displaced families – that is about 5,000 people,” Qaoud said.

“The solar panels and water tanks were also targeted, meaning that the Rantisi hospital does not have a single drop of running water,” he said.

The attacks on the hospital forced Rabaa al-Radee to take her sick granddaughter, Sidra, for treatment elsewhere. Sidra has cancer and broke her leg in an accident while fleeing from Israeli bombing that hit the school where they were sheltering.

“We got to Kamal Adwan Hospital but they told us to come to the Rantisi hospital instead,” Rabaa said. “Now. the Rantisi is telling us to go to the Shifa Hospital but there are no ambulances or cars on the road.”

At least 16 of the 35 hospitals in Gaza are out of service and 51 of 72 primary healthcare clinics in the besieged enclave have shut down completely.

The Psychiatric Hospital, the only one of its kind in the Gaza Strip, is also no longer able to treat its patients.

“We would take in 50 to 70 patients a day, from those coming to get their medicine to those who came to be treated for psychological trauma due to the sound of constant bombing,” said Jamil Suleiman, the general director of the Psychiatric Hospital.

“Body wounds can heal but psychological wounds are much deeper and need psychiatric treatment,” he said.

If Gaza’s hospitals continue to be attacked, there is no need for the United Nations Security Council or the World Health Organization, Suleiman added.

“If there is no guarantee for a patient’s rights, then there is no point having an international health body just witnessing a population getting slaughtered,” he said.

“Maybe if we were animals, then we’d have our rights.”

The Nasser Medical Complex contains the Al-Nasser Children’s Hospital, the Rantisi Specialised Hospital, the Eye Hospital and the Psychiatric Hospital. [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

A nurse inspects the rooftop of the Rantisi Specialist Hospital for children, which was hit three times along with its solar panels and water tanks. [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

In addition to treating between 80 and 100 patients, the Rantisi hospital is also hosting some 700 families who have been displaced from their homes. [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

Fida al-Wuheidi and her baby daughter Masa were referred to the Rantisi hospital but had yet to been seen by a doctor. [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

Rabaa al-Radee said she is unable to move her granddaughter Sidra, who has cancer and a broken leg, to the Shifa Hospital due to the lack of ambulances and cars on the damaged roads in Gaza. [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

Since October 7, the Israeli offensive has put at least 16 of Gaza’s 35 hospitals out of service. [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

The children’s cancer ward in the Rantisi hospital was damaged by Israeli missiles. [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

Jamil Suleiman, the director-general of the Psychiatric Hospital, surveys the area where four people were killed in an Israeli air raid. [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

The Psychiatric Hospital treats between 50 and 70 patients per day, including those who have been left traumatised by the Israeli bombardment of Gaza. [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

On November 6, Israeli air attacks hit the grounds of the Rantisi Specialist Hospital where displaced families have taken shelter and ambulances are parked. [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

*

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Featured image: Dr Suleiman Qaoud surveys the damage at the Rantisi Specialist Hospital, part of the Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza City, following Israeli missile attacks on November 6, 2023 [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

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***

It may be time to reconsider the use of such words as “humanitarian” and “humanitarianism”.  There has been little of that sort evidenced in the Israel-Hamas War, marked by industrial-mechanised atrocities, enforced deprivation and starvation, orders to evacuate (read expulsion and banishment), preceded by massacres most haunting and visceral.  Its constant evocation by various sides of the conflict have given it a diminishing quality, leaving international relations stirring with cant.

Mind you, the term humanitarian had already been pipped and emptied of any solid meaning in the aftermath of the Cold War.  Humanitarian intervention became a vicious, evangelised concept, enchanting such figures as the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair with its near biblical promise of saving souls and punishing the wicked in NATO’s Kosovo War.  “I saw it as essentially a moral issue,” he claimed in his memoirs.  He would also go on to claim that war was “never civilised” but could be “necessary to uphold civilisation.”

In justifying the use of heavy weaponry under the cover of humanitarianism, civilian populations could be attacked, ostensibly to prevent a manic despot or genocidal tyrant from imposing his will.  It was used repeatedly in the wars connected with the breakup of Yugoslavia, but it made a boisterous, full-throated showing in NATO’s 1999 bombing campaign, when jets became priests administering death to the unwashed and unbelieving.

The use of sinisterly named “smart bombs” and select targeting became the expressions of a war waged in order to protect a select ethnic group (in this case, the Kosovar Albanians) despite the crude destruction of Serbian critical infrastructure, the crippling of the economy, and the killing of journalists who, for the most part, did not necessarily agree with the government of the day.  Along the way, it also meant that NATO could provide exculpatory cover for the violence of the Kosovo Liberation Army against those pedestal-placed nasty Serbs who had fallen behind the very train of history that had venerated them in 1914 and 1941.  That’s humanitarianism for you.

Little wonder, then, that the right of a state to intervene in the affairs of another citing humanitarian grounds was turned on its head by that cunning, monstrous conceit we now know as the Responsibility to Protect.  Its dumpling, soft character was outlined by the Canadian-sponsored International Commission on Intervention and State Responsibility co-chaired by former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans and Algerian diplomat Mohamed Sahnoun.

The commission kneaded the brutal, self-interested formula of force into a saccharine, floury mix that could be sold to bleeding hearts and stony neoconservatives.  “The Commission is of the view that the debate about intervention for human protection purposes should focus not on ‘the right to intervene’ but on the ‘responsibility to protect’.” Politicians, smelling votes and a place in posterity, could feel good about killing again.

R2P, as it came to be known by the technically minded and those sweetly watered by the conference set, has had an abysmal record. A good argument can be made that it needs urgent retirement, if not calm, steady euthanising.  It was tried, and failed, with disastrous results in the Libyan intervention of 2011 that did, at least initially, have Security Council approval.  Those applying force to protect a select, carved out number of civilians from the ghoulish, eccentric Colonel Muammar Qaddafi (the US, France, the UK) eventually decided that regime change – the very thing injuncted against in such interventions – might not be such a bad idea after all.  It was.

The Israel-Hamas War is already heralding the demise of such doctrines. The gloves are off; the weapons are being applied generously; the civilians are dying with sanguinary promptness. Hair-splitters ponder whether human shredded remains can fall within, or without the laws of war.  Dead babies rarely have much of a say at the roundtables of international law, but the Israeli Defence Force never shies away from a chance in pretending to believe that they do, especially when they are Israeli.

In such a situation, other weasel-words have made their way into regular usage, keeping company with the stretchy concepts of “terrorism” and the like.  The latest is the idea of a “humanitarian pause,” a truly cynical howler that is Washington’s preference to an actual ceasefire that would suspend hostilities.  One could only draw the conclusion that humanity’s existence is viciousness stalled by such pauses.

A ceasefire was certainly the preference of the majority who voted for it in the UN General Assembly on October 27.  ResolutionA/ES-10/L.25 titled “Protection of civilians and upholding legal and humanitarian obligations” is also part of the General Assembly’s demand for what it terms a “humanitarian truce”.  From those who voted, 120 were in favour, 14 against, with 45 abstentions.

Israel’s representative, Gilad Menashe Erdan, heatedly denounced the UN as no longer having “even one ounce of legitimacy or relevance”.  The US representative, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, expressed exasperation that Hamas and hostages had been omitted from the resolution. “It is outrageous that this resolution fails to name the perpetrators of the 7 October terrorist attack.”  These were “omissions of evil.”

Perhaps the most interesting observation and view in this volcanic splurge and splutter came from Pakistan’s representative, who called the resolution a “humanitarian” (that word again) text.  Attempts made by Canada to return the focus to Hamas as the cause of the whole bloody affair ignored the issue of Israel’s historical role and its occupation of Palestinian territory.  “Name both or name either.”

For Israel’s backers, an actual cessation of hostilities is frowned upon because it, according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, would simply allow Hamas to regroup. This is a view pushed along by a number of Israel’s standard bearers.  It shows that the Palestinian cause is a dead feature, a deletion in the debate.  The result: massacre unrestrained.

Having decided that Hamas must be destroyed, rather than treated as a protean, ineradicable presence that alters in the face of a vicious policy that refuses to acknowledge Palestinian ills (that policy being territorial, ethnonationalist, religious, and historical), Blinken can then pretend the Biden administration cares about the slaughter of innocents and the mass expulsion of a population.

To make a distinction between combatant and non-combatant, the molten fired freedom fighter and the mindful parent, is one of those fictional games that entertains the classroom of undergraduate fantasy but proves impossible to apply in battle.  The agenda here is unmistakable: Israel, with the assistance and encouragement of the United States, is intent on burying any toothy, sprightly, worthy Palestinian resistance for the next generation.  Should they succeed, they will only do so for a few years, if that.

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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: A woman holding a girl reacts after Israeli airstrikes hit Ridwan neighborhood of Gaza City, Gaza on October 23, 2023. (Source: Anadolu Agency)

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***

“We’ve got to face it. Politics have entered a new stage, the television stage. Instead of long-winded public debates, the people want capsule slogans—‘Time for a change’—‘The mess in Washington’—‘More bang for a buck’—punch lines and glamour.” — A Face in the Crowd (1957)

We are one year out from the 2024 presidential election and as usual, the American people remain eager to be persuaded that a new president in the White House can solve the problems that plague us.

Yet what is being staged is not an election.

It’s a con game, a scam, a grift, a hustle, a bunko, a swindle, a flimflam, a gaffle, and a bamboozle, and “we the people” are nothing more than marks, suckers, stooges, mugs, rubes, or gulls.

We’re being duped into believing that this mockery of a choice between two candidates who are equally unfit for office actually translates to having some say in how the government is run.

To the contrary, this particular con game is part of a long-running, elaborate scam to keep the Deep State in power and leave the populace deluded, distracted and incapable of demanding accountability, transparency and decency from the government and its cohorts.

Politics is entertainment.

It is a heavily scripted, tightly choreographed, star-studded, ratings-driven, mass-marketed, costly exercise in how to sell a product—in this case, a presidential candidate—to dazzled consumers who will choose image over substance almost every time.

This year’s presidential election, much like every other election in recent years, is what historian Daniel Boorstin referred to as a “pseudo-event”: manufactured, contrived, confected and devoid of any intrinsic value save the value of being advertised. It is the end result of a culture that is moving away from substance toward sensationalism in an era of mass media.

As author Noam Chomsky rightly observed,

“It is important to bear in mind that political campaigns are designed by the same people who sell toothpaste and cars.”

In other words, we’re being sold a carefully crafted product by a monied elite who are masters in the art of making the public believe that they need exactly what is being sold to them, whether it’s the latest high-tech gadget, the hottest toy, or the most charismatic politician.

Politics is a reality show, America’s favorite form of entertainment, dominated by money and profit, imagery and spin, hype and personality and guaranteed to ensure that nothing in the way of real truth reaches the populace.

After all, who cares about police shootings, drone killings, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture schemes, private prisons, school-to-prison pipelines, overcriminalization, censorship or any of the other evils that plague our nation when you can be sucked into an alternate reality so emotionally charged and entertaining as to make you forget that you live in a police state.

But make no mistake: Americans only think they’re choosing the next president.

In truth, however, they’re engaging in the illusion of participation culminating in the reassurance ritual of voting. It’s just another Blue Pill, a manufactured reality conjured up by the matrix in order to keep the populace compliant and convinced that their vote counts and that they still have some influence over the political process.

Stop drinking the Kool-Aid, America.

The nation is drowning in debt, crippled by a slowing economy, overrun by militarized police, swarming with surveillance, besieged by endless wars and a military industrial complex intent on starting new ones, and riddled with corrupt politicians at every level of government.

All the while, we’re arguing over which corporate puppet will be given the honor of stealing our money, invading our privacy, abusing our trust, undermining our freedoms, and shackling us with debt and misery for years to come.

Nothing taking place on any Election Day will alleviate the suffering of the American people.

The government as we have come to know it—corrupt, bloated and controlled by big-money corporations, lobbyists and special interest groups—will remain unchanged. And “we the people”—overtaxed, overpoliced, overburdened by big government, underrepresented by those who should speak for us and blissfully ignorant of the prison walls closing in on us—will continue to trudge along a path of misery.

Corporate greed will continue to call the shots in the nation’s capital, while our elected representatives will grow richer and the people poorer. And elections will continue to be driven by war chests and corporate benefactors rather than such values as honesty, integrity and public service. Just consider: it’s estimated that more than $10 billion will be spent on the elections this year, yet not a dime of that money will actually help the average American in their day-to-day struggles to just get by.

And the military industrial complex will continue to bleed us dry. Since 9/11, we’ve spent more than $8 trillion to wage wars abroad. Although the U.S. constitutes barely 5% of the world’s population, America boasts almost 40% of the world’s total military expenditure, spending more on the military than the next 10 biggest spending nations combined. Even with America’s military might spread thin, the war drums continue to sound as the Pentagon polices the rest of the world with counterterror activities in 85 countries.

Americans should be mad as hell.

Many of our politicians live like kings. Chauffeured around in limousines, flying in private jets and eating gourmet meals, all paid for by the American taxpayer, they are far removed from those they represent. Such a luxurious lifestyle makes it difficult to identify with the “little guy”—the roofers, plumbers and blue-collar workers who live from paycheck to paycheck and keep the country running with their hard-earned dollars and the sweat of their brows.

Conveniently, politicians only seem to remember their constituents in the months leading up to an election, and yet “we the people” continue to take the abuse, the neglect, the corruption and the lies. We make excuses for the shoddy treatment, we cover up for them when they cheat on us, and we keep hoping that if we just stick with them long enough, eventually they’ll treat us right.

People get the government they deserve.

No matter who wins the presidential election next year, it’s a sure bet that the losers will be the American people.

As political science professor Gene Sharp notes in starker terms, “Dictators are not in the business of allowing elections that could remove them from their thrones.”

The Establishment—the shadow government and its corporate partners that really run the show, pull the strings and dictate the policies, no matter who occupies the Oval Office—are not going to allow anyone to take office who will unravel their power structures. Those who have attempted to do so in the past have been effectively put out of commission.

So what is the solution to this blatant display of imperial elitism disguising itself as a populist exercise in representative government?

Stop playing the game. Stop supporting the system. Stop defending the insanity.

Washington thrives on money, so stop giving them your money. Stop throwing your hard-earned dollars away on politicians and Super PACs who view you as nothing more than a means to an end. There are countless worthy grassroots organizations and nonprofits working in your community to address real needs like injustice, poverty, homelessness, etc. Support them and you’ll see change you really can believe in in your own backyard.

Politicians depend on votes, so stop giving them your vote unless they have a proven track record of listening to their constituents, abiding by their wishes and working hard to earn and keep their trust.

Stop buying into the lie that your vote matters. As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the only thing you’re accomplishing by taking part in the “reassurance ritual” of voting is sustaining the illusion that we have a democratic republic.

What we have is a dictatorship, or as political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page more accurately term it, we are suffering from an “economic élite domination.”

A healthy, representative government is hard work. It takes a citizenry that is informed about the issues, educated about how the government operates, and willing to make the sacrifices necessary to stay involved, whether that means forgoing Monday night football in order to attend a city council meeting or risking arrest by picketing in front of a politician’s office.

It takes a citizenry willing to do more than grouse and complain. We must act—and act responsibly—keeping in mind that the duties of citizenship extend beyond the act of voting.

As Justice John Josephus Grant warns in the 1943 film A Stranger in Town:

“As citizens, we carry a burning responsibility. It means that when we elect men to public office, we cannot do it as lightly as we flip a coin. It means that after we’ve elected them, we can’t sit back and say: ‘Our job is done. What they do now doesn’t concern us.’ That philosophy of indifference is what the enemies of decent government want. If we allow them to have their way to grow strong and vicious, then the heroic struggle which welded thousands of lovely towns like this into a great nation means nothing. Then we’re not citizens, we’re traitors. The great liberties by which we live have been bought with blood. The kind of government we get is the kind of government we want. Government of the people, by the people and for the people can mean any kind of government. It’s our duty to make it mean only one kind – uncorrupted, free, united.”

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

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

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

They are regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Tom Arthur via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

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***

According to a Bloomberg Report, thousands are reportedly lining up for the opportunity to receive a brain implant from Neuralink, the neurotechnology company co-founded by Elon Musk. This enthusiasm persists despite the invasive nature of the procedure, which involves removing a portion of the skull to implant the device.

Neuralink, established in 2016, has ambitious plans to conduct human trials, aiming to operate on 11 individuals next year and expand to over 22,000 by 2030. The company’s goals are not modest; it seeks to forge a new frontier where humans and machines can interact seamlessly, potentially allowing individuals to communicate or control games through thought alone. Initially, however, the focus is on aiding those with neurological conditions.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has greenlit Neuralink to begin human trials, a significant step forward after initial safety concerns. These concerns included the potential for the device’s wires to shift within the brain or for the chip to overheat.

Despite the risks, the allure of being at the forefront of this groundbreaking technology has garnered a wave of interest from potential volunteers. The procedure, which involves a robot inserting electrodes into the brain, represents a significant leap in neurosurgical techniques and raises questions about the future of human-computer interactions.

Musk’s urgency to advance Neuralink’s progress is driven by competition from other brain-computer interface startups already conducting human trials. His approach, characterized by a “maniacal sense of urgency,” mirrors the intense work ethic seen in his other ventures, Tesla and SpaceX. However, Neuralink’s leadership acknowledges the high stakes, emphasizing the need for caution in their pioneering surgical endeavors.

As Neuralink prepares for its first human trial, the world watches with bated breath, anticipating the potential benefits and mindful of the challenges that lie ahead in this bold intersection of technology and biology.

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Featured image: Thousands of people have expressed interest in participating in the FDA trial for Neuralink, Bloomberg reported. Photo byNurPhoto

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***

In addition to promoting genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the Zionist regime is resorting to nuclear blackmail against the Palestinians. In a controversial recent statement, an Israeli top official admitted that using atomic bombs in the Gaza Strip is a “possibility” for Tel Aviv. These words shocked the world and showed the level of unpredictability and irrationality in the Israeli government’s actions.

The statement was made by the Israeli Minister of Heritage, Amichai Eliyahu, during an interview with local Israeli media. Eliyahu stated that a nuclear attack against the Gaza Strip “is one of the possibilities” that Israel could use in its alleged “war on Hamas.” According to the minister, “there is no such thing as uninvolved civilians in Gaza”, which is why all Palestinian citizens in the region should be punished by the IDF.

Eliyahu, in addition to admitting the nuclear possibility, stated that no humanitarian aid should be given to civilians in Gaza. He compared Gaza’s inhabitants to the German Nazis who killed Jews in WWII and said that the Jewish people “wouldn’t hand the Nazis humanitarian aid.”

The minister’s controversial words led the government to react sharply. Eliyahu was suspended from his post by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In this same sense, his office made a post on social media “denying” his speech, “clarifying” that “Eliyahu’s statements are not based in reality” and adding that Israel’s IDF is “operating in accordance with the highest standards of international law to avoid harming innocents” – which is clearly untrue, as can be seen in the massacre of civilians in Gaza.

Also, Israel’s defense chief, Yoav Gallant, condemned Eliyahu and called his nuclear threat “baseless and irresponsible words.” Expectedly, Netanyahu’s opposition also spoke out on the case, with Yair Lapid calling Eliyahu an “extremist” and hardening his criticism of Netanyahu’s administration team, making the matter a dispute between the different wings of Israeli Zionism.

Internationally, there was also strong pressure as a result of the statement. Arab countries reacted by severely condemning the ministers’ irresponsible statements. For example, UAE spokespersons said in an official report:

“These statements constitute a violation of international law, as well as incitement to commit grave violations of International Humanitarian Law, such as war crimes, and raise grave concerns of an intent to commit genocide”.

The Jordanian government did something similar, releasing a statement asserting that Eliyahu’s words are a “call for genocide and a hate crime that cannot be ignored”. In the same sense, Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit declared:

“Israel possesses nuclear weapons, which is an open secret (…) [The minister’s comments] confirm the truth of the racist view Israelis hold against Palestinians (…) This is the true face of the occupation government.”

Although Eliyahu has already been “punished” for his remarks, it is impossible for there to be “normality” after such declarations. There is an atmosphere of distrust regarding Israeli actions, with a real fear that Eliyahu is not the only official in Tel Aviv thinking about this type of “possibility” for Gaza. With so many war crimes committed by Israel in recent weeks and the deliberate killing of innocent civilians in a “collective punishment” plan against Gaza, it is very likely that Eliyahu’s mentality is not uncommon among Zionist decision-makers.

It is possible that the real intention behind Eliyahu’s suspension is an attempt to silence him – not for having told a “lie”, but for having said something that should not be said. Instead of simply showing that he does not think like his minister, Netanyahu could simply be responding to the pressure of criticism by suspending him. In other words, there are no real guarantees that the Israelis will not consider the “nuclear possibility” against Gaza.

From a rational and strategic point of view, it makes no sense to talk about nuclear weapons in a regional conflict occurring within such a short territorial limit. Radioactive contamination would not be restricted to the Strip but would also reach the territory occupied by Israel. However, unfortunately, there does not seem to be much rationality in the Zionist regime’s decisions.

The very initiative to launch a brutal offensive that is killing thousands of civilians seems absolutely irrational. Israel is becoming an international pariah and is being seen as a genocidal regime by a large number of countries, in addition to more and more states cutting their relations with Tel Aviv. But none of this seems enough for Netanyahu and his advisers to change their minds regarding the supposed “need” to “invade Gaza to destroy Hamas.”

Clearly, revanchism, anti-Palestinian racism and unlimited expansionism are the true guidelines of Zionist foreign policy. The decision-making process is not based on strategic calculations, which makes the situation very unpredictable and worrying. So, in practice, regardless of whether Israel is already considering using nuclear weapons or not, it is very possible that there will soon be this “demand” on the part of the most radical Zionist militants.

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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 X (former Twitter) and Telegram.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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***

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on November 6 the cancellation of the Ukrainian elections. His cancellation of the elections comes as more and more Western commentators highlight Zelensky’s dictatorial tendencies, which are again on display after cancelling the elections under the guise of needing to concentrate on the war with Russia, a conflict Ukraine has no chance of winning, which again, Western experts are also pointing out.

Presidential elections in Ukraine occur every five years, with the next one scheduled in March 2024 since Zelensky was sworn into office in May 2019, meaning that his five-year term will expire in the coming months. However, with the election approaching, it is evident that Zelensky has instead opted to preserve his dictatorial regime rather than risk losing an election that he will be forced to recognise because of pressure from Washington and Brussels to continue the illusion that Ukraine is a democracy.

“And finally, the waves of any politically divisive things must stop,” Zelensky said after announcing the cancellation of elections. “We must realise that now is the time of defence, the time of the battle that determines the fate of the state and people, not the time of manipulations, which only Russia expects from Ukraine. I believe that now is not the right time for elections.”

“And if we need to put an end to a political dispute and continue to work in unity, there are structures in the state that are capable of putting an end to it and giving society all the necessary answers so that there is no room left for conflicts and someone else’s game against Ukraine,” he added. 

It is recalled that Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska said in September that she did not know whether Volodymyr would run for re-election in 2024. Zelenska also said at the time that the country’s ability to organise a free and fair election could factor into whether he would run for a second term.

“It will also depend whether our society would need him as a president, if he will feel that Ukrainian society will no longer wish him to be the president, he will probably not run,” the First Lady said at the time. “But I will support him whatever decision he takes.”

Zelensky, in his announcement, also noted the importance of refraining from grandiose celebrations and divisive political themes during wartime, recognising the suffering and losses faced by the Ukrainian defence forces. He called on all relevant government authorities and structures to work together to address current challenges, including civil authorities, military, legislators, and law enforcement agencies.

“I hope that all relevant structures and authorities will provide concrete solutions to the challenges our country faces today. This applies to civil authorities, the military element of the state, government officials, the Verkhovna Rada, the Security Service and other law enforcement agencies,” said the Ukrainian leader.

In the same announcement on the cancellation of the elections, Zelensky stressed “the need to channel all state resources, budget, attention, emotions and efforts” towards the victory of his country. Zelensky called for allocating budget resources to be prioritised towards defence aid over infrastructure works, stating that this is “the correct approach” to strengthening Ukraine.

Rather, Zelensky is using the war as an excuse to strengthen his power and the regime’s stranglehold over Ukraine. Zelensky’s dictatorial tendencies are beginning to be noticed in the West, with US retired lieutenant colonel Daniel Davis saying that the current situation in Kiev is akin to that just before the collapse of the German Nazi regime.

“During the last days of World War II, Hitler denied reality and kept repeating over and over again: “We will still win.” And now, unfortunately, no matter how unpleasant it would be for us to admit it, Zelensky is falling into the same state,” he said on his YouTube channel.

The expert observes that Zelensky insists that his country’s military has a good chance of triumphing against the Russian troops, yet there are no objective reasons to believe this. Although he makes the analogy with Hitler, he does not delve deeper beyond that.

Nonetheless, at the beginning of the month, Oleksii Arestovych, Zelensky’s adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine, described the Ukrainian president as a “dictator” who has become “divorced from reality.”

Explaining deeper than Davis, Arestovych said,

“First, someone behaves like a dictator and, instead of following the normal path of accelerated development, chooses stagnation. Then someone breeds massive corruption. Then someone breeds hatred for any opinion different from their own.”

Arestovych’s statements were made before Zelensky announced the cancellation of the 2024 presidential election. It can be expected that with the announcement of the cancelling of the elections, the domestic political front in Ukraine will experience even more fractures.

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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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***

After more than one month of blanket bombings of the Gaza Strip by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) and the limited incursions into the territory by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), the United States government has refused to even call for a ceasefire after the death tolls exceed ten thousand people.

The majority of those killed in Gaza are women and children although the regime of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu frequently described all targeted Palestinians as members of the Hamas resistance movement.

Every speech, interview and press briefing from the Israeli administration and the IDF are placed as headlines in western corporate and government-controlled media. In these reports, Hamas is routinely described as a “terrorist” organization being characterized as such by the western imperialist states.

Even the daily statistics provided by the Gaza Health Ministry documenting each confirmed death, are treated with scorn by the Netanyahu government and the White House. U.S. President Joe Biden has stated that he does not believe in the veracity of the data being issued by the Gaza officials.

These utterances by the White House and its spokespersons along with most politicians within the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate are designed to justify the mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. The initiation of Operation Al-Aqsa Storm by the Palestinian resistance forces on October 7 is always presented by the western-based media outlets as far worse than the atrocities committed by the IDF.

Any comparison regarding the number of interviews, quotes, headlines and references between the Israeli government and those that either speak on behalf of the Palestinians or express sympathy and solidarity with their plight clearly reveal that the proponents and apologists for genocide have far greater access to the media. The representatives of the State of Israel coupled with their financial and military backers in Washington dominate the airwaves in a manner which seeks to convince the public that Tel Aviv is the victim in the current phase of this 75-year war which began with the forced removals of 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland in 1948.

Gaza youth load victim into ambulances (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)

Therefore, as many Palestinians have said in the disproportionate time granted to them by the western media houses, the genocidal onslaught against the oppressed people of the country did not begin on October 7. The overall conditions under which Palestinian live is never acknowledged by the U.S. administration and the corporate and western governmentally controlled television and other media sources.

Weapons Continue to Flow to the IDF Amid Calls for a “Humanitarian Pause”

Although the U.S. media and most politicians either ignore or minimize the importance of the mass demonstrations domestically and internationally calling for a ceasefire and solidarity with the cause of the Palestinians, the White House and their allies in Congress have adopted the phrase of a “humanitarian pause.” Activists have ridiculed such language as a disingenuous gesture to the millions of people who staunchly object to the war against the Palestinians.

What does this actually mean in light of the illegal nature of the bombing and ground incursions into the Gaza Strip? If there is a “pause” then this implies that the same bombing operations will continue after a brief period of time. The attempts to replace the legitimate quest for a ceasefire with the notion of a “pause” only means that the White House believes that the present course in the genocidal war is correct.

This is why the continuous supplying of so-called “precision weapons” to the IDF exposes the actual intent of the Biden administration. In addition to the weapons being flown into Israel, there is the deployment of two aircraft carriers in the Eastern Mediterranean, the presence of Pentagon advisors among the Israeli troops, the enhancement of a U.S. military base in the Negev notwithstanding the diplomatic, political and media cover granted on a daily basis to Tel Aviv.

The business magazine Forbes reported on November 6 that:

“The Biden administration will transfer $320 million of precision bombs to Israel as its war with Hamas continues in Gaza, multiple outlets reported — as Israel faces pressure to agree to a pause in fighting. The agreement said Rafael USA, a weapons manufacturer, will transfer bombs to its Israeli parent company for use by Israel, an aid package that includes support and testing, according to correspondence seen by the Wall Street Journal. The Journal reported that the Biden administration formally notified congressional leaders about the transfer on Oct. 31.

The news comes shortly after the White House said President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ‘discussed the possibility of tactical pauses’ to allow civilians to safely depart from fighting areas, amid increasing calls for a ceasefire. As recently as Sunday (Nov. 5), Netanyahu fiercely rejected calls for a ceasefire, saying there would not be one until all Israeli hostages are returned by Gaza-based militant group Hamas, adding ‘we will simply continue until we defeat them.’”

In another report published in the investigative online journal The Intercept written by Ken Klippenstein, it documents the secret weapons transfers from Washington to Tel Aviv:

“One month since Hamas’s surprise attack, little is known about the weapons the U.S. has provided to Israel. Whereas the Biden administration released a three-page itemized list of weapons provided to Ukraine, down to the exact number of rounds, the information released about weapons sent to Israel could fit in a single sentence. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby acknowledged the secrecy in an October 23 press briefing, saying that while U.S. security assistance ‘on a near-daily basis,’ he continued, ‘We’re being careful not to quantify or get into too much detail about what they’re getting — for their own operational security purposes, of course.’” 

As the ground war intensifies inside Gaza, inevitably the number of casualties among IDF troops will increase. After the first few days of the announced invasion by IDF soldiers into northern Gaza, there has not been any specific figures released by Tel Aviv on the number of Israeli troops killed and wounded as well as the disabling and destruction of their tanks and other armored vehicles.

Resistance to the War Against Gaza

The war has already taken on a regional character particularly between the Hezbollah resistance movement and the IDF. Large swaths of territory inside the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) on the border with Lebanon have been evacuated by the settler regime.

There are daily exchanges of rocket fire between Hezbollah and the IDF where the number of casualties continue to mount. At the same time attacks on U.S. military bases and installations in Iraq and Syria are escalating. Affiliates of the regional Axis of Resistance from Yemen, Iraq and Syria have fired rockets into U.S.-occupied areas which indicate the political assessment of these forces that Washington is the main force undergirding the genocidal war against the Palestinians.

Yemen march in solidarity with Palestine (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)

With specific reference to Lebanon, the speech delivered by Hezbollah Secretary General Sheikh Sayeed Hassan Nasrallah drew international attention on November 3. The resistance movement which plays a significant role in the domestic politics and security concerns of Lebanon, fought two major wars with the IDF in 2000 and 2006 repelling Tel Aviv from its deep incursions into the southern region of the country.

Al Mayadeen news website noted from the major policy address by Nasrallah that:

“’Last Friday, Hezbollah Secretary-General, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, declared in a speech that the Lebanese Resistance is ready for any eventuality. All possibilities on our Lebanese front are open and all options are on the table, and we could resort to them at any time,’ he said, making a direct warning to the U.S. that ‘if war breaks out in the region, neither your [U.S.] fleets nor aerial forces will be of any use.’ Reiterating this equation, Sheikh Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s Deputy Chief, warned on Tuesday (Nov. 7) of ‘serious consequences’ should Israel escalate the scope of its aggressions. In an interview with NBC News, he confirmed that Hezbollah participates ‘for the sake of lowering the pressure on Gaza. And for the sake of preventing Israel from achieving its objectives. In addition, as a clear message that if you expand there will be serious consequences.’” 

As public support in the U.S. and Western Europe declines for the unconditional backing given to the Israeli regime, the White House and Congress will suffer the political consequences of their actions. Biden, who already has faced an abysmal approval rating among the U.S. electorate over the last year, has now drawn the ire of significant sections of those who traditionally vote democratic in Congressional and national elections.

However, the Republican party harbors positions on the Palestinian question which are just as dire if not worse than the Democrats. The failure of U.S. foreign policy in West Asia and Eastern Europe is a reflection of the inability of successive administrations to develop and implement a consistent approach to resolving the issues plaguing these geopolitical regions.

At the source of these contradictions is the infeasibility of imperialism in the modern era. There is the pressing need for a new political dispensation inside the U.S. and other western capitalist states. The dependency upon militarism as the cornerstone of Washington’s foreign policy cannot sustain the insatiable need for profits among the ruling class. Therefore, the workers and oppressed peoples within the imperialist states must join together in solidarity with the Global South to ensure the avoidance of another world war while creating the conditions for greater levels of cooperation and international stability among the majority within the world today.

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Khan Yunis, Gaza. Search for bodies under the rubble (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)

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***

The historical background of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict goes back to 1917 (the Balfour Declaration) and the establishment of the British protectorate over Palestine (the Palestine Mandate) after WWI with its provision for a national home for the Jews, although “officially” not to be at the expense of the local inhabitants – the Palestinians. 

The People and the Land

Since the time of the Enlightenment followed by Romanticism, in Western Europe emerged a new trend of group identification of the people as ethnic or ethnocultural nations different from the previous feudal trends from the Middle Ages based on religion, state borders, or social strata belonging. In the course of time, a new trend of people’s identification as a product of the capitalistic system of production and social order became applied across the globe following the process of capitalistic globalization.

As a direct consequence of such development of the group identities, the newly understood nations, especially in the areas under colonial foreign rule, started to demand their national rights but among them, the most important demand was the right to self-rule in a nation-state of their own. In other words, the ethnic or ethnic-confessional groups under foreign oppression demanded the rights of self-determination and political sovereignty. 

Image: Theodor Herzl (1860-1904) (Licensed under the Public Domain)

Since around 1900, both the Jews and the Arab-Palestinians became involved in the process of developing ethnonational consciousness and mobilizing their nations for the sake of achieving national-political goals.

However, one of the focal differences between them in regard to the creation of a nation-state of their own was that the Jews have been spread out across the world (a diaspora) since the fall of Jerusalem and Judea in the 1^st century AD while, in contrast, the Palestinians were concentrated in one place – Palestine. From the very end of the 19^th century, a newly formed Th. Herzl’s Zionist movement had a task to identify land where the Jewish people could immigrate and settle to create their own nation-state. For Theodor Benjamin Zeev Herzl (1860‒1904),

Palestine was historically logical as an optimal land for the Jewish immigrants as it was the land of the Jewish states in the Antiquity. It was, however, an old idea, and Th. Herzl in his book pamphlet (Der Judenstaat) which became the Bible of the Zionist movement was the first to analyze the conditions of the Jews in their assumed “native” land and call for the establishment of a nation-state of the Jews in order to solve the Jewish Question in Europe or better to say to beat traditional European anti-Semitism and modern tendency of the Jewish assimilation. Nonetheless, the focal problem was to somehow convince the Europeans that the Jews had the right to this land even after 2.000 years of emigration in the diaspora around the world.  

However, what was Th. Herzel’s Eretz Yisrael in reality? For all Zionists and the majority of Jews, it was the Promised Land of milk and honey but in reality, the Promised Land was a barren, rocky, and obscure Ottoman province since 1517 settled by the Muslim Arabs as a clear majority population.

On this narrow strip of land of East Mediterranean, the Jews and the Arab Palestinians lived side by side and at the time of the First Zionist Congress (Basel, Switzerland, August 29−31^st, 1897) there were some 400.000 Arabs and some 50.000 Jews. Most of those Palestinian Jews have been bigot Orthodox who entirely depended on their existence on charitable offerings of different Jewish societies in Europe which have been distributed to them by the communal organizations set up mainly for that purpose. 

Palestine

Palestine is a historic land in the Middle East on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea between the River of Jordan and the Mediterranean seacoast. Palestine is called the Holy Land by the Jews, Christians, and Muslims because of its spiritual links with Judaism, Christianity as well as Islam. 

The land experienced many changes and lordships in history followed by changes of frontiers and its political status. For each of the regional denominations, Palestine contains several sacred places. In the so-called biblical times, on the territory of Palestine, the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea existed until the Roman occupation in the 1^st century AD. The final wave of Jewish expulsion to the diaspora from Palestine started after the abortive uprising of Bar Kochba in 132−135. Up to the emergence of Islam, Palestine historically was controlled by the Ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, the Roman Empire, and finally by the Byzantine Empire (the East Roman Empire) alongside the periods of the independence of the Jewish kingdoms. 

The land became occupied by the Muslim Arabians in 634 AD. Since then, Palestine has been populated by a majority of Arabs, although it remained a central reference point to the Jewish people in the diaspora as their “Land of Israel” or Eretz Yisrael. Palestine remained under Muslim rule up to WWI, being part of the Ottoman Empire (1516−1917), when combined the Ottoman and German armies became defeated by the Brits at Megiddo, except for the time during the West European Crusades from 1098 to 1197. The term Palestine was used as the official political title for the land westward of the Jordan River mandated in the interwar and post-WWII period to the United Kingdom (from 1920 up to 1947). 

However, after 1948, the term Palestine continues to be used, but now in order to identify rather a geographical than a political entity. It is used today, particularly in the context of the struggle over the land and political rights of Palestinian Arabs displaced since Israel became established (May 14^th, 1948). and imposed in the wake of the brutal expulsion of Palestinian Arabs known as the Nackba, which resulted in the displacement of 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland.

The Jewish Migrations to Palestine in 1882−1914

As a consequence of renewed pogroms in East Europe in 1881, the first wave of Jewish immigration into Palestine started in 1882 followed by another wave before WWI from 1904 to 1914. The immigration of the Jewish settlers was encouraged by the 1917 Balfour Declaration, and very much intensified since May 1948 when the Zionist State of Israel was proclaimed and established. 

There were historically two types of motives for the Jews to come to Eretz Yisrael (In Hebrew, the “Land of Israel”):

1. The traditional motive was prayer and study, followed by death and burial in the holy soil.
2. Later, since the mid-19^th century, a new type of Jew being secular and in many cases idealistic began to arrive in Palestine but many of them have been driven from their native lands by anti-Semitic persecution.       

In 1882 there was the first organized wave of European Jewish immigration to Palestine. Since the 1897 First World Zionist Congress in Basel, there was an inflow of European Jews into Palestine especially during the British Mandate time followed by the British-allowed policy of land-buying by the Jewish Agency which was, in fact, indirect preparation for the creation of the Jewish nation-state – Israel. In other words, such a policy was designed to alienate land from the Palestinians, stipulating that it could not be in the Arab hands. 

Even before the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Th. Herzl tried to recruit prosperous and rich Jews (like the Rothschild family) to finance his plan of the Jewish emigration and colonization of Palestine but finally failed in his attempt. Th. Herzl decided to turn to the little men – hence his decision to convene the 1897 Basel Congress where according to his diary, he founded the Jewish state. After the congress, he did not waste time in turning his political program into reality but at the same time, he strongly disagreed with the idea of peaceful settlement in Palestine, or according to his own words “gradual Jewish infiltration”, which, in fact, already started even before the Zionist meeting in Basel. 

At that time, Palestine as an Ottoman province did not constitute a single political-administrative unit. The northern districts have been parts of the province of Beirut, and the district of Jerusalem was under the direct authority of the central Ottoman government in Istanbul because of the international significance of the city of Jerusalem and the town of Bethlehem as religious centers equally important for Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. A vast majority of the Arabs either Muslims or Christians have been living in several hundred villages in a rural environment. Concerning the town settlers of Arab origin, the two biggest of them were Jaffa and Nablus together with Jerusalem as economically the most prosperous urban settlements. 

Until WWI, the biggest number of Palestinian Jews was living in four urban settlements of the most important religious significance to them: Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, and Tiberias. They have been followers of traditional, Orthodox religious practices spending much time studying religious texts and depending on the charity of world Jewry for survival.

It has to be noticed that their attachment to Eretz Yisrael was much more religious than of national character and they were not either involved in or supportive of Th. Herzl’s Zionist movement emerged in Europe and was, in fact, brought to Palestine by the Jewish immigrants after 1897.

However, most of the Jewish immigrants to Palestine after 1897 who emigrated from Europe have lived of secular type of life having commitments to the secular goals to create and maintain a modern Jewish nation based on the European standards of the time and to establish an independent Jewish state – modern Israel but not to re-establish a biblical one. During the first year of WWI, the total number of Jews in Palestine reached some 60.000 of whom some 36.000 were settlers since 1897. On the other hand, the total number of the Arab population in Palestine in 1914 was of the order of 683.000.

The second wave of Jewish immigration to Palestine (1904−1914) had many intellectuals and middle-class Jews but the majority of those immigrants have been driven less by a vision of a new state than by the hope of having a new life, free of pogroms and persecutions.

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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is a former university professor in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author

 

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***

On October 24, a statement by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres caused a sharp reaction by Israel. While addressing the UN Security Council, the UN chief said that while he condemned in the strongest terms the massacre committed by Hamas on October 7, he wished to remind the world that it did not take place in a vacuum. He explained that one cannot dissociate 56 years of occupation from our engagement with the tragedy that unfolded on that day.

The Israeli government was quick to condemn the statement. Israeli officials demanded Guterres’s resignation, claiming that he supported Hamas and justified the massacre it carried out. The Israeli media also jumped on the bandwagon, asserting among other things that the UN chief “has demonstrated a stunning degree of moral bankruptcy”.

This reaction suggests that a new type of allegation of anti-Semitism may now be on the table. Until October 7, Israel had pushed for the definition of anti-Semitism to be expanded to include criticism of the Israeli state and questioning the moral basis of Zionism. Now, contextualising and historicising what is going on could also trigger an accusation of anti-Semitism.

The dehistoricisation of these events aids Israel and governments in the West in pursuing policies they shunned in the past due to either ethical, tactical, or strategic considerations.

Thus, the October 7 attack is used by Israel as a pretext to pursue genocidal policies in the Gaza Strip. It is also a pretext for the United States to try and reassert its presence in the Middle East. And it is a pretext for some European countries to violate and limit democratic freedoms in the name of a new “war on terror”.

But there are several historical contexts for what is going on now in Israel-Palestine that cannot be ignored. The wider historical context goes back to the mid-19th century, when evangelical Christianity in the West turned the idea of the “return of the Jews” into a religious millennial imperative and advocated the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine as part of the steps that would lead to the resurrection of the dead, the return of the Messiah, and the end of time.

Theology became policy toward the end of the 19th century and in the years leading up to World War I for two reasons.

First, it worked in the interest of those in Britian wishing to dismantle the Ottoman Empire and incorporate parts of it into the British Empire. Second, it resonated with those within the British aristocracy, both Jews and Christians, who became enchanted with the idea of Zionism as a panacea for the problem of anti-Semitism in Central and Eastern Europe, which had produced an unwelcome wave of Jewish immigration to Britain.

When these two interests fused, they propelled the British government to issue the famous – or infamous – Balfour Declaration in 1917.

Jewish thinkers and activists who redefined Judaism as nationalism hoped this definition would protect Jewish communities from existential danger in Europe by homing in on Palestine as the desired space for “rebirth of the Jewish nation”.

In the process, the cultural and intellectual Zionist project transformed into a settler colonial one – which aimed at Judaising historical Palestine, disregarding the fact that it was inhabited by an Indigenous population.

In turn, the Palestinian society, quite pastoral at that time and in its early stage of modernisation and construction of a national identity, produced its own anti-colonial movement. Its first significant action against the Zionist colonisation project came with al-Buraq Uprising of 1929, and it has not ceased since then.

Another historical context relevant to the present crisis is the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine that included the forceful expulsion of Palestinians into the Gaza Strip from villages on whose ruins some of the Israeli settlements attacked on October 7 were built. These uprooted Palestinians were part of the 750,000 Palestinians who lost their homes and became refugees.

This ethnic cleansing was noted by the world but not condemned. As a result, Israel continued to resort to ethnic cleansing as part of its effort to ensure that it had complete control over historical Palestine with as few of the native Palestinians remaining as possible. This included the expulsion of 300,000 Palestinians during and in the aftermath of the 1967 war, and the expulsion of more than 600,000 from the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip ever since.

There is also the context of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Over the past 50 years, the occupational forces have inflicted persistent collective punishment on the Palestinians in these territories, exposing them to constant harassment by Israeli settlers and security forces and imprisoning hundreds of thousands of them.

Since the election of the present fundamentalist messianic Israeli government in November 2022, all these harsh policies reached unprecedented levels. The number of Palestinians killed, wounded and arrested in the occupied West Bank skyrocketed. On top of that, Israeli government policies towards Christian and Muslim holy places in Jerusalem became even more aggressive.

Finally, there is also the historical context of the 16-year-long siege on Gaza, where almost half of the population are children. In 2018, the UN was already warning that the Gaza Strip would become a place unfit for humans by 2020.

It is important to remember that the siege was imposed in response to democratic elections won by Hamas after the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the territory. Even more important is to go back to the 1990s, when the Gaza Strip was encircled by barbed wire and disconnected from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem in the aftermath of the Oslo Accords.

The isolation of Gaza, the fence around it, and the increased Judaisation of the West Bank were a clear indication that Oslo in the eyes of the Israelis meant an occupation by other means, not a path to genuine peace.

Israel controlled the exit and entry points to the Gaza ghetto, monitoring even the kind of food that entered – at times limiting it to a certain calorie count. Hamas reacted to this debilitating siege by launching rockets on civilian areas in Israel.

The Israeli government claimed these attacks were motivated by the movement’s ideological wish to kill Jews – a new form of Nazim – disregarding the context of both the Nakba and the inhuman and barbaric siege imposed on two million people and the oppression of their compatriots in other parts of historical Palestine.

Hamas, in many ways, was the only Palestinian group that promised to avenge or respond to these policies. The way it decided to respond, however, may bring its own demise, at least in the Gaza Strip, and may also provide a pretext for further oppression of the Palestinian people.

The savageness of its attack cannot be justified in any way, but that does not mean it cannot be explained and contextualised. As horrific as it was, the bad news is that it is not a game-changing event, despite the huge human cost on both sides. What does this mean for the future?

Israel will remain a state established by a settler-colonial movement, which will continue to influence its political DNA and determine its ideological nature. This means that despite its self-framing as the only democracy in the Middle East, it will remain a democracy only for its Jewish citizens.

The internal struggle inside Israel between what one can call the state of Judea – the settlers’ state wishing Israel to be more theocratic and racist – and the state of Israel – wishing to keep the status quo – that preoccupied Israel until October 7 will erupt again. In fact, there are already signs of its return.

Israel will continue to be an apartheid state – as declared by a number of human rights organisations – however the situation in Gaza unfolds. The Palestinians will not disappear and will continue their struggle for liberation, with many civil societies siding with them and their governments backing Israel and providing it with an exceptional immunity.

The way out remains the same: a change of regime in Israel that brings equal rights for everyone from the river to the sea and allows for the return of Palestinian refugees. Otherwise, the cycle of bloodshed will not end.

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Ilan Pappe is the Director of European Center of Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. He has published 15 books on the Middle East and on the Palestine Question. 

Featured image: Another attack on Gaza: Israel squeezing the life of Gaza – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]

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***

In the early days of the covid propaganda onslaught, I thought often — in fact, I yearned — for the possibility that the New Zealand government would once again establish its bona fides on the world stage by taking a sensible position. I imagined our then-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern addressing the nation with ardent resolve not to succumb to a campaign of fear and impulse but to protect the citizenry of this small two-island country at the ends of the earth by zealously guarding our unalienable rights. I spun speeches in my own mind that would seek to calm anxieties about an invisible pathogen, rely on the strength and courage of people to follow established medical principles, acknowledge the critical role of natural immunity if and when illness made inroads, and vigorously pursue early treatment so as to avoid the lurid death scenarios depicted abroad, replete as they were with images of ventilators and overcrowded Intensive Care Units.

That, of course, was not to be.

The government instead assured us that they were the only font of covid truth and that the only way out of the pandemic to end all pandemics was via lockdowns, masks, mandates and universal inoculation with a novel biological agents never adequately tested masquerading as a vaccine. These agents, relying upon the mRNA platform, continue to be used only under provisional consent.

In a recent publication by Acevedo-Whitehouse and Bruno, concerns are raised about the risks of mRNA-based therapies. To quote from this paper’s abstract

“To date, there are no published studies on the biodistribution, cellular uptake, endosomal escape, translation rates, functional half-life and inactivation kinetics of synthetic mRNA, rates and duration of vaccine-induced antigen expression in different cell types. Furthermore, despite the assumption that there is no possibility of genomic integration of therapeutic synthetic mRNA, only one recent study has examined interactions between vaccine mRNA and the genome of transfected cells, and reported that an endogenous retrotransposon, LINE-1 is unsilenced following mRNA entry to the cell, leading to reverse transcription of full length vaccine mRNA sequences, and nuclear entry.”

Many of us suspected from the beginning that the use of a genetic medical technology would invariably hazard alteration of the genome. Despite the assurances we were given that the mRNA in the inoculation agents could never affect our DNA, we remained dubious. And, in fact, we have been correct. Nonetheless plans are afoot to ‘vaccinate’ not only every human being on the planet but also every mammalian food source.

The human genome, the very genetic blueprint of every individual which defines our health and well-being, should be an inviolable entity. 

In the past New Zealand has taken a pioneering position on the use of nuclear arms and energy within the confines of its borders, having passed the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act in 1987. I believe that New Zealand should now, with urgency and immediacy, ban all mRNA-based therapeutics, not only to avoid potentially catastrophic health consequences, but also to safeguard, as a matter of principle, our right to a genetic identity that should be unique and unalterable — not subject to the intrusive artificial manipulations of a State, especially since that State arrogated unto itself the criminal ‘authority’ to mandate these products.

As a consequence I am petitioning the New Zealand government, which in 1893 led the world with respect to women’s suffrage, to ban immediately and urgently all mRNA-based therapeutics.

It reads as follows:

Petition Request

That the House of Representatives ban mRNA-based vaccines and medical interventions in humans and animals in New Zealand.

Petition Reason

I believe that: mRNA therapeutics pose potentially catastrophic dangers; a recent study of the risks of mRNA vaccination shows that it can modify the human genome; many other aspects of mRNA-based therapies are unknown; the human genome is the very genetic blueprint of every individual, defines our health and well-being, and should be an inviolable entity. In the past New Zealand has taken a pioneering position on the use of nuclear arms. We should do so now for mRNA-based interventions.

The link to the petition is here.

I can think of few actions more necessary or noble for a country to take at this time.

Since any person — including non-New Zealand citizens — may petition New Zealand’s Parliament, of any age, I urge you to sign and distribute this as widely as possible.

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Dr. Garcia is a Philadelphia-born psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand in 2006. He has authored articles ranging from explorations of psychoanalytic technique, the psychology of creativity in music (Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Delius), and politics. He is also a poet, novelist and theatrical director. He retired from psychiatric practice in 2021 after working in the public sector in New Zealand. Visit his substack at https://newzealanddoc.substack.com/ where this article was first published.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from COVID Intel

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