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“I served in the IDF 25 years ago, in the intelligence forces. There’s no way Israel did not know of what’s coming. A cat moving alongside the fence is triggering all forces. So this?? 

What happened to the “strongest army in the world”?

How come border crossings were wide open?? Something is VERY WRONG HERE, something is very strange, this chain of events is very unusual and not typical for the Israeli defense system.

To me this surprise attack seems like a planned operation. On all fronts.”

– (Statement by Efrat Fenigson, former IDF intelligence,  October 7, 2023, emphasis added) [1]

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas, … This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”

-( Benjamin Netanyahu, meeting of his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019.  (Haaretz, October 9, 2023, emphasis added)

“These are the basic lines of the national government headed by me [Netanyahu]: The Jewish people have an exclusive and unquestionable right to all areas of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel — in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan, Judea and Samaria.”

– (Benjamin Netanyahu, January 2023. emphasis added) [2]

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

The massive October 7 attack by the “Palestinian resistance group” Hamas on Jewish communities in Israel close to the border with Gaza served the purpose of being the very trigger Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needed to finally secure his dream of all parts of the Land of Israel. Including Gaza.

In the name of the war that Hamas triggered, Netanyahu, together with all his opposition colleagues announced his determination to completely devastate the menace the attackers represented and has urged all citizens of the world’s single biggest open-air concentration camp to move south before they commence with their cleansing procedure.

Airstrikes have already struck several buildings in Gaza, including schools and hospitals, and  the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) says:

“Thousands of people have been killed, including children and women. Gaza is now even running out of body bags. Entire families are being ripped apart.

“At least 1 million people were forced to flee their homes in one week alone. A river of people continues to flow south. No place is safe in Gaza.

“At least 400,000 displaced (persons) are now in UNRWA schools and buildings, and most are not equipped as emergency shelters….

“The UNRWA operations is the largest United Nations footprint in the Gaza Strip, and we are on the verge of collapse.

“This is absolutely unprecedented.”[3]

What we are witnessing folks is the genocide of Palestinians.

And yet Western leaders, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Joe Biden, are passionate about standing alongside Israel referring to it as “self-defence.” [4]

Russia clearly does not have the same latitude. [5][6]

The description is typically referred to as Israel’s 9/11. And just as U.S. President George W Bush “earned” the sympathies of the world, and certainly NATO, in his cry to strike back against the September 11th terrorists, Netanyahu twenty-two years later is similarly benefiting from a lack of criticism given the crisis on his step. [7]

Will 2.3 million Palestinians be moved from their homes or killed in the name of “being with Israel or being with the terrorists?” The Global Research News Hour looks into this matter and the many questions arising from it in a jam-packed sixty minute show.

In our first half hour, two veteran anti-war activists in Canada, Yves Engler and Ken Stone, talk about public actions protesting the Canadian Liberal government and the left-oriented New Democratic Party for appearing to stand “should to shoulder” with Netanyahu and his gang regardless of the clear illegal stance in the present and in the days ahead. In our second half hour, journalist Robert Inlakesh talks about the fake news and dis-information coming from the Israeli side to contaminate the West’s appraisal of the conflict. And finally, Philip Giraldi, a former counter-terrorist expert living in the U.S., spelled out how this attack by Hamas which sparked a brand new war on terrorism was also a false flag incident.

Yves Engler has been dubbed “one of the most important voices on the Canadian Left today” (Briarpatch), “in the mould of I.F. Stone” (Globe and Mail), and “part of that rare but growing group of social critics unafraid to confront Canada’s self-satisfied myths” (Quill & Quire). He has published nine books.

Ken Stone is a long time antiwar, anti-racism, environmental and labour activist, and resident in Hamilton. He is also Treasurer of the Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War. He currently coordinates the Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network.

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show ‘Palestine Files’. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47

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. He is a former counter-terrorism specialist and military analyst for the CIA, and also a founding member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, 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.

(Global Research News Hour Episode 405) 

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1. https://efrat.substack.com/p/israel-hamas-war-an-update

2. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20230103-jewish-supremacy-is-state-policy-says-netanyahu/

3. https://www.globalresearch.ca/unrwa-warns-unprecedented-humanitarian-catastrophe-gaza/5836837

4.  SOLCYRE BURGA (October 8, 2023), ‘Here’s How World Leaders Have Reacted to the Israel-Hamas War’, Time Magazine; https://time.com/6321800/world-leaders-react-hamas-attack-israel/

5. https://www.globalresearch.ca/international-criminal-court-silence-israel-gaza-attacks-utterly-unacceptable/5836827

6. https://www.globalresearch.ca/i-c-c-arrest-warrant-for-vladimir-putin-for-kidnapping-ukrainian-children-borders-on-ridicule/5812752

7. SOLCYRE BURGA op cit

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“I do not condemn Hamas because the resistance of the Palestinian people is a reflex response to their slow genocide…. The people I do condemn are the political class internationally who [support] “Israel’s right to self-defence”. A right they grant to the oppressor but deny to the oppressed. Those are the people who need to be condemned.” —Former UK ambassador Craig Murray “Now that I have your attention.”

“There’s no way Israel did not know of what’s coming… How come border crossings were wide open?” —Efrat Fenigson, former IDF intelligence Oct. 7, 2023

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Israel has been a scofflaw state since its founding, and there are virtually no United Nations resolutions or articles of international law that it does not continually breach. The state was founded on the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinians, and its knee has never been lifted from Palestinian necks. Israel has maintained a military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip since 1967 and a humanitarian siege of Gaza, compared by many to the 2-year Warsaw Ghetto, since 2006. Israel has never stopped its ethnic cleansing or theft of Palestinian resources; its apartheid is enabled by viciously racist textbooks and the total erasure of Palestinians from its history.

It is no secret that many in Israel’s ultra right-wing government have been salivating for an opportunity to ethnically cleanse or otherwise eliminate Palestinians who refuse to be driven from their homeland, particularly those in occupied Gaza. There is evidence that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pretended to be blindsided by what was, in effect, a Hamas prison breakout of October 7th to turn it into an opportunity for genocide.

Hamas announced that the purpose of its incursion into Israel was to obtain hostages in order to exchange them for an estimated 1000 Palestinian prisoners[1]: political prisoners who are routinely tortured and leaders who have never been charged with any crime. The Hamas plan to kidnap Israeli civilians for a prisoner exchange was, in its intent, within its rights. Killing civilians would have been counterproductive, a war crime, and against its interests. But it could have been in Israel’s.

The world community, which annually ignores its contractual legal obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention to protect Palestinian human rights, has responded now with outrage at Israel’s claim of victimhood. While the world community has quietly allowed Israel total impunity for its ongoing crimes against Palestinians, it now responds to Israel’s self-serving outrage by condemning the Palestinian’s only legitimate leadership.

Hamas, elected by all Palestinians under occupation in 2006, has been regarded as incorruptible and dedicated to Palestinian rights. It has called for international law as the basis for peace, which Israel, hoping to illegally annex Palestinian territory, rejects.

Israel’s Efforts to Incite Hatred Against Hamas

Israel’s reaction to the incursion was to immediately attempt to incite hatred against Hamas by falsely claiming that it had “beheaded 40 infants and toddlers”: a lie that was traced to the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu told this to U.S. President  Biden, who announced it publicly; the lie was then “confirmed” twice by CNN’s Sarah Sidner. It has been confirmed to be a fabrication.

It is acknowledged that Israel was explicitly informed about the incursion at least three days before it occurred. With the world’s most sophisticated surveillance system, many believe that Israel had to have known about it far earlier, since the planning had reportedly been in the works for a couple of years. According to Max Blumenthal, Hamas had even created the model of a kibbutz for resistance fighters to practice in. [2]

Israel’s outrageous lie about Hamas “beheading babies” demonstrated its intent to incite hatred of Hamas; its foreknowledge of the incursion gave it an opportunity to ensure there would be enough “innocent civilian deaths” to “justify” a Palestinian genocide.

Israel’s Hannibal Directive allows the IDF to use heavy force when its soldiers are at risk of being taken as hostages, even at the risk of killing the soldiers. It is not difficult to imagine Israel extending this principle when the point of the Hamas incursion was to get hostages for prisoner exchanges.

Possible Evidence that Israel Ensured the Success of the Hamas Incursion

According to former IDF intelligence officer Efrat Fenigson, “The border crossings were wide open.” [3]

Israel had reduced the number of battalions guarding the Gaza border from three to one before the incursion. [4]

The site of the Supernova music festival was chosen two days before the incursion to be at Re’im, about 3 miles from the Gaza border. [5]

Questions About the Music Festival Deaths: Did Israeli Facilitate the Toll? 

Israel claims that Hamas fighters killed hundreds of innocent civilians: claims that have largely not been explained. Assuming that the accusations are legitimate, who were these people and how closely were they connected to the IDF bases and associated kibbuzim that ring Gaza’s border to facilitate their imprisonment? Israeli and Hamas definitions of “innocent civilian” might differ.

The most publicized Israeli claim is that Hamas killed 260 attendees at a music festival held near Gaza’s border. There is quite a bit of footage accessible on the Internet that was apparently taken at that event. The footage that I saw, however, shows no one being shot: it shows people running, cars burned out, drones overhead, and one guy shooting a gun in the air. It is apparent that there is a problem, but no proof of who was causing all “six hours” of it. The Mossad is known to have operatives who appear to be Palestinian, so someone who looks Palestinian may not be part of Palestinian resistance.

It is evident that Hamas did take hostages at the event, and that there was shooting. But given Israel’s eagerness to accuse Hamas of a crime it did not commit, its inflammatory accusation that Hamas killed hundreds of civilians needs to be verified:

Videos of attackers should have included voices; why were they muted?

Canadian/Israeli Shir Georgy died after messaging her father on Saturday morning that she was safe “in a room with a police officer”[6]; how did she die?

The attack on the music site lasted for 6 hours; [7] why were IDF not driven or flown in?

It took Israel 10 hours to get help to the music site; [8] what was Israel waiting for?

There were many burned out cars visible in videos; did Hamas fighters have the ability to destroy cars? Wouldn’t Hamas have wanted to make use of them?

Israeli police and security told escaping music attendees that the major roads were blocked so they had to drive eastward over open, cleared fields [9]; why were major roads out blocked to Israelis at that time? 

Attackers threw grenades into the four underground bunkers where many were hiding; the Hamas men might have discovered the bunkers by following people, but it was not in their interest to kill those who were inaccessible or hiding. 

A Hamas leader apologized for the civilian deaths that Israel claimed their operation had caused, noting that these were not supposed to have happened. [10] But could he have known whether they were responsible for the so-callled “innocent civilians” that Israel claimed? An Israeli witness reported that IDF killed both hostages as well as their captors. [11] Given Israel’s attempts to malign Hamas, there should be independent proof that Hamas fighters were responsible for the “innocent civilian” deaths they were accused of.

Implications for the Future

Israel has made use of the anger it whipped up to wipe out entire neighborhoods of Gaza with massive bombing, and 400,000 Israeli soldiers are reportedly massed at Gaza’s border. It warned Gazans to flee, but there are no exits, and it bombed the “safe” route that it told Palestinans to take. [12]

According to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Israel’s two objectives in going into Gaza are to kill or capture Hamas government leaders, and to identify any Iranian weaponry, which, he claims, could cause Israel to attack Iran. [13] But Israel’s carpet bombing is genocidal rather than targeted. And would Israel allow any identification of Iranian arms to be independently verified? And would such a confirmation constitute legal grounds for an Israeli attack? 

Will the world community continue to tolerate US-backed global chaos?

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Karin Brothers is a freelance writer. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Notes

1. Blumenthal, Max. Interview with Stephen Gardner. Oct. 13, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX3Sqs3gSMs

2: Blumenthal, Max, Mate, Aaron. “Zero hour in Gaza “. The Grayzone live. October 13, 2023.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-p2bjA2b4U

3 Giraldi, Philip and Chossudovsky, Michel. Is the Gaza-Israel Fighting “A False Flag”? They Let it Happen? Their Objective Is “to Wipe Gaza Off the Map”? Global Research. October 15, 2023. https://www.globalresearch.ca/is-the-gaza-israel-fighting-a-false-flag-they-let-it-happen-their-objective-is-to-wipe-gaza-off-the-map/5835310

4 : Blumenthal, Max, Mate, Aaron. “Zero hour in Gaza “. The Grayzone live. October 13, 2023.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-p2bjA2b4U

5, Ibid.

6. Chown, Marco. Israel-Hamas war: Canadian-Israeli Shir Georgy confirmed dead, family says. The Toronto Star. October 14, 2023.  https://www.thestar.com/news/world/israel-hamas-war-canadian-israeli-shir-georgy-confirmed-dead-family-says/article_03c1999d-2349-53bc-9deb-4498f74a2429.html

7. Polglase, Katie. How Hamas trapped civilians at music festival. CNN. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sScDHHNaHjI

8. Ibid.

9, Ibid.

10. Mercouris, Alexander. The Duran. October 14, 2023. Theduran.locals.com

11. Abunimah, Ali and Sheen, David. “Israeli Forces Shot Their Own Civilians, Kibbutz Survivor Says”. Global Research. October 17, 2023. Https://www.globalresearch.ca/israeli-forces-shot-their-own-civilians-kibbutz-survivor-says/5836630

12. Blumenthal, Max, Mate, Aaron. “Zero hour in Gaza “. The Grayzone live. October 13, 2023.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-p2bjA2b4U

13. Polglase, Katie. How Hamas trapped civilians at music festival. CNN. Undated. Accessed Oct. 11.2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sScDHHNaHjI

Featured image is from UNRWA

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A lot has been said about the much-touted fighter jet deliveries to the Kiev regime forces and how this would supposedly “tip the balance of power” in its favor. However, the process has been mired in controversy and difficulties since the very beginning.

It includes everything from problems finding the countries willing to provide the jets to giving Ukrainian pilots enough training to make a difference while also accelerating the process as much as possible. The first obstacle was the language barrier. Of the 32 pilots sent to be trained on how to fly F-16s, only eight spoke English proficiently enough to be able to attend lessons and even they had to be given advanced courses on the usage of complex military nomenclature. Even if it took the pilots less than six months to attain the desired proficiency, that was only enough for them to start basic training on how to fly the jet.

However, being able to fly an aircraft is a far cry from being able to master its usage in combat, particularly against an opponent that not only has massive numerical advantage, but is also decades ahead technologically. Ukrainian pilots themselves admitted that their Soviet-era Su-27s are superior to F-16s.

The Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) operate significantly more advanced jets than the Su-27. In fact, even the modernized Russian Su-27SM3 is much more capable than its Ukrainian counterpart. There are also the newer Su-30SM and Su-30M2, to say nothing of the high-end fighter jets such as the MIG-31BM interceptor, Su-35S or the latest Su-57. The last three are by far the most dangerous fighters of our age, as they’ve proven far more capable than expected by Western military analysts and observers, with even the British military forced to admit it.

And yet, this string of catch-22s is not nearly the end of issues for the Neo-Nazi junta.

Namely, this time, another major problem with fighter jet deliveries from NATO members is not even directly connected to the aircraft themselves, but ground-based air defenses. In essence, what this issue boils down to is the chronic lack of SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems.

Despite losing a large chunk of the territory under its immediate control, the Kiev regime still has one of the largest land areas in Europe and defending it all is simply impossible.

Thus, the Neo-Nazi junta is forced to improvise and prioritize, placing air defenses in the most important cities and oblasts (regions). This results in SAM units being spread thin and with extremely limited logistics, as the stockpile of Soviet-made missiles has effectively run out and the political West has nothing to replace them with.

However, this still doesn’t tackle the more pressing issues that NATO wants resolved before any sort of fighter jet deliveries and that’s the question of air defenses for the airbases where the aircraft would be stationed.

The Kiev regime started preparations to accommodate Western-made jets months ago, including the effective militarization of existing civilian airports and infrastructure. In order to provide adequate security for these ad hoc airbases, additional air defense systems and units will need to be raised, set up and deployed. And yet, the Neo-Nazi junta has neither the human nor industrial resources to accomplish such a laborious task, to say nothing of the financial dependence on its Western puppet masters. SAM systems operators have among the highest casualty rates in the conflict, meaning that the soldiers aren’t exactly racing to join such units.

Thus, the Kiev regime will simply have to sacrifice the protection of important administrative buildings, as well as military and energy infrastructure in order to provide air defense coverage for the new ad hoc airbases housing the Western-made jets. However, even this can’t be done very efficiently. Namely, the Soviet-era SAM systems cannot be readily replaced with US/NATO counterparts for the simple reason that the latter are too expensive, not to mention they have demonstrated no superior capabilities in comparison to Soviet systems. On the contrary, most are even inferior, despite costing significantly more. The primary reason for this is that the Western (in reality mostly American) military doctrine focuses mainly on air superiority, which gives air defenses a secondary role. In essence, it’s sort of like an auxiliary force aiming to simply augment military aircraft.

This is in stark contrast to the Soviet/Russian doctrine that puts a lot of emphasis on ground-based air defenses that are designed to operate independently and even in situations where friendly fighter jets are able to provide little or no air cover whatsoever.

Still, this isn’t where the problems for the Neo-Nazi junta end. In addition to regular long-range missiles and other precision-guided munitions (PGMs), the Russian military is increasingly using extended-range loitering munitions/kamikaze drones, such as the now legendary ZALA “Lancet”. These drones have recently destroyed at least two aircraft parked on runways approximately 100 km away from the frontlines. This was considered effectively impossible, as the Kiev regime forces and their NATO overlords previously believed that the aforementioned drones were only limited to tactical combat situations.

Worse yet, the Neo-Nazi junta mostly lacks adequate defenses against such weapons. And just as the Soviet-era Su-25 attack jet and MiG-29 fighter were destroyed while parked, the same could (or rather would) happen to US-made F-16s. Precisely this might be the reason why Volodymyr Zelensky recently asked NATO to “lease” SAM systems. There’s simply no other way to protect the new militarized airfields without sacrificing something else. And this is without even getting into the aforementioned viability of old F-16s being used against modern Russian jets. What’s more, Sweden has also offered its “Gripen” jets, which I argued would happen well over a year ago. On paper, these fighters are somewhat more capable than F-16s, but Sweden has a very unusual policy of refusing to help a country that bought the jets from it if the said country is engaged in hostilities.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

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Belugas to Butterflies Plagued by Harmful Chemicals

Click here for the interactive map

Important notes:

• Only a subset of animals in a few regions have been studied for specific flame retardants.
• This map shows a selection of peer-reviewed studies; many more exist. 
• Flame retardants are used to meet flammability standards which often do not provide meaningful fire-safety benefitsand can be influenced by flame retardant manufacturers.
• Wildlife & humans are exposed to flame retardants from air, water, & food; see observed health harms below.
• This exposure can continue decades after a specific flame retardant is phased out due to its persistent, mobile, bioaccumulative, & toxic properties.
• Flame retardants should be used only after their lack of health harm and value in preventing fires have been demonstrated.

A Selection of Health Effects of Flame Retardants in Wildlife

Flame Retardant	Animal	Health Impact
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)	Killer Whales	Estimated to threaten long-term viability of >50% global killer whale population
	River Otters	Associated with changes in thyroid & sex hormone levels
	Polar Bears	Associated with changes in thyroid hormone levels
	Beluga Whales	Altered vitamin A and E profiles
	Ringed Seals	Impacted health-related gene transcription
	Killer Whales	Altered gene transcription
PBDEs	American Kestrels	Lowered reproductive success, less copulation & pair bonding
	Sea Lions	Associated with urogenital cancer
	Chinook Salmon	Increased infectious disease susceptibility
	Mice	Decreased thyroid hormone concentrations
	Polar Bears	Associated with changes in thyroid hormone levels
Chlorinated paraffins	Rainbow Trout	Diminished startle response, loss of equilibrium, liver lesions (SCCPs, MCPPs)
	Zebrafish	Altered thyroid hormone levels (SCCPs)
	American Kestrels	Reduced thyroid hormones (SCCPs)
Other halogenated FRs	American Kestrels	Likely obesogenic (DBE-DBCH)
		Reduced vocalization, courtship, egg mass, & male parental behavior (HBCD)
		Thyroid disruption, oxidative stress, altered heart & brain mass (EHTBB, TBPH)
Organophosphate FRs	Rats and Mice	Increased liver and kidney tumors (TCPP)
	Japanese Quail	Thyroidal effects, suppressed growth, reduced metabolic rate (TPhP)
	Zebrafish	Altered motility & anxiety-related behavior (IPP, BPDP, EHDP)
	Mice	Oxidative stress & endocrine disruption, e.g. decreased testosterone (TCEP, TPP)
	Zebrafish	Altered hormone levels, decreased egg production, & malformation (TDCPP)

 

The above health impacts are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to health harms experienced by wildlife due to the use of flame retardant chemicals in products before safety and efficacy are demonstrated. 

Flame retardants also cause health harm in humans, including:

• Endocrine disruption
• Neurodevelopmental effects
• Decreased fertility
• Some cancers

Learn more about flame retardants at SixClasses.org and reducing exposure here.

If you’d like to suggest a new study that could be added to our selection of points, email it to [email protected].

Map designed and produced by Maddie Dolan.

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The Hamas Partnership is confirmed by Netanyahu

“The Cat is Out of the Bag”

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” he [Netanyahu] told a meeting of his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.” (Haaretz, October 9, 2023, emphasis added)

Does this statement not suggest that Netanyahu and his military-intelligence apparatus are responsible for the killings of innocent Israeli civilians? 

“Support” and “Money” for Hamas. 

“Transferring Money to Hamas” on behalf of Netanyahu is confirmed by a Times of Israel October 8, 2023 Report: 

“Hamas was treated as a partner to the detriment of the Palestinian Authority to prevent Abbas from moving towards creating a Palestinian State. Hamas was promoted from a terrorist group to an organization with which Israel conducted negotiations through Egypt, and which was allowed to receive suitcases containing millions of dollars from Qatar through the Gaza crossings.” (emphasis added)

The Dangers of Military Escalation

Let us be under no illusions, this “false flag” operation is a complex military-intelligence undertaking, carefully planned over several years, in liaison and  coordination with US intelligence, the Pentagon and NATO. 

In turn, this action against Palestine is already conducive to a process of military escalation which potentially could engulf a large part of Middle East.

Michel Chossudovsky: Interview with Caroline Mailloux

Video

 

 

To leave a comment or access the Lux Media Rumble page, click the lower right hand corner of the Screen 

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For more details, analysis and history on The Hamas Partnership with Netanyahu, see:

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

By Philip Giraldi and Prof Michel Chossudovsky, October 15, 2023

 

 

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Amazon has introduced two new robots to speed up deliveries, raising concerns among fulfillment center workers that the e-commerce giant might eventually reduce its workforce.

In a blog post on Wednesday, Amazon said its robotics team will begin testing a bipedal robot named “Digit” at a site just south of Seattle. 

“Digit can move, grasp, and handle items in spaces and corners of warehouses in novel ways. Its size and shape are well suited for buildings that are designed for humans, and we believe that there is a big opportunity to scale a mobile manipulator solution, such as Digit, which can work collaboratively with employees,” Amazon said. 

Amazon explained Digit will “help employees with tote recycling, a highly repetitive process of picking up and moving empty totes once inventory has been completely picked out of them.” 

In addition to Digit, Amazon revealed Sequoia, a new robotic system to help fulfill customer orders faster, already operational at a Texas fulfillment center. 

“Sequoia will help us delight customers with greater speed and increased accuracy for delivery estimates, while also improving employee safety at our facilities,” Amazon said, adding it will “identify and store inventory we receive at our fulfillment centers up to 75% faster than we can today.” 

It also “reduces the time it takes to process an order through a fulfillment center by up to 25%, which improves our shipping predictability and increases the number of goods we can offer for Same-Day or Next-Day shipping,” the e-commerce giant added. 

Amazon said it has more than “750,000 robots working collaboratively with our employees, taking on highly repetitive tasks and freeing employees up to better deliver for our customers.”

At some point, Amazon will realize its robot workforce can do a better job fulfilling orders than humans because robots don’t get sick, take breaks, complain, strike, or waste time watching TikTok videos on their smartphones. 

We’ve penned plenty of notes over the years, informing readers about the coming massive layoff wave corporations will have to unleash due to AI. Godman’s Jan Hatzius suggested in a note earlier this year, “Using data on occupational tasks in both the US and Europe, we find that roughly two-thirds of current jobs are exposed to some degree of AI automation, and that generative AI could substitute up to one-fourth of current work. Extrapolating our estimates globally suggests that generative AI could expose the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs to automation” as up to “two thirds of occupations could be partially automated by AI.”

… and more recently, younger folk in the labor market are beginning to realize their days are numbered as AI takes their jobs. 

For more insight into the rapidly evolving job landscape, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu and Sabrina Lam – using data from MSCI – have ranked the industries where AI-driven automation will displace the most workers. 

Now’s the time to evaluate your job and see how automation will impact your industry. 

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To my surprise, the Kim-Putin Summit of September (13-17) 2023 was scarcely analysed by the Western media. This may be due to the poverty of revealed contents of the summit or the fear of mentioning those agreements which were too unfavourable to the West.

What you find, in the major mainstream Western media was only transactional agreement by virtue of which North Korea agrees to send weapons to Ukraine in exchange with military as well as non-military aid to North Korea. But, the summit was far more meaningful and important than what the Western media report. 

As far as I am concerned, the Kim-Putin summit was a milestone event which may lead to new world where the unipolar world led by Washington will end and where the multipoplar world will appear so that several polar countries exist in peace and cooperate for the global prosperity security and stability.

This paper puts focus on the following issues:

• Summit Objectives
• Summit Agreements
• Summit Impact on North Korean Security and Economy 
• Summit Impact on the Global Hegemony Fight

Summit Objectives

This question of summit objectives has two sub-questions. Why did North Korea want the summit? What has motivated Russia to join the summit? 

Why Did North Korea Join the Summit?

The DPRK has the following reasons for joining the summit. 

The first reason is North Korea’s victory over the U.S. in the nuclear dispute allowing Pyongyang to have confidence in its capacity to defend itself from American nuclear attack and its ability to negotiate at the summit as equal. At this point, it seems relevant to see the evolution of the North Korean “nuclear crisis.”

Late President Kim Il-Sung planned the nuclear development to face the American nuclear threat during 39 years from 1953 to 1992. 

Late Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Il provided five occasions to Washington to let North Korea to give up nuclear development but the U.S. blew them all. This has allowed the North Korea to develop nuclear bombs and ICBM. This took 24 years from 1992 to 2016. 

Chairman Kim Jong-Un came along in 2012 and made four nuclear bomb tests and numerous missiles tests.

North Korea tested in 2017 a H-bomb test and in 2018, it launched ICBM, Hwasung-14 in 2017 and, in 2923, Hwasung-18 with a range of 15,000 KM reaching the whole of the U.S. territory. 

The U.S. nuclear game with North Korea is over. North Korea is now a bona fide nuclear state.

The second reason is the de facto Japan-ROK-US military alliance. 

North Korea fears the possible attack by the Japan-ROK-US (JAROKUS) military alliance. Each one of the alliance countries may want to attack North Korea. 

Japan wants it because North Korea is a military threat. 

The U.S. wants it because North Korea has become real nuclear power. 

The PJCSK under Yoon wants it because if Koreas are reunited, Yoon and the PJCSK will be alienated and even punished.

Under such situation, North Korea has to prepare for the possible attack by the combined armed forces of Japan, ROK and the U.S. This is one of the reasons for North Korea to join the summit. Russia-DPRK military cooperation would decrease the danger of a (Japan-ROK-US) JAROKUS attack.

The third reason is the need for North Korea’s participation in Russia’s Far East Development. 

Soon, the Ukraine proxy war will be over with Russia’s victory. Russia’s post-Ukraine proxy war priority is the development of its immense Siberia region. At this moment, only 35% of Siberia is developed. Vladivostok has population of only 600,000. It has unlimited natural resources including gas, oil and variety of minerals.

Moreover, the Arctic region offers various natural resources: 80% of Russian gas, 20% of its oil, 15% of its GDP and 2.5% of its population (Pepe Escobar, 21cir. com. September 16, 2023)

The future of the North Korean economy depends on its integration into the Eurasian economic bloc led by Russia and China.

Why Did Russia Join the Summit?

First, Vladimir Putin intends to make Russian Far East Russia’s growth pole.

Russia needs hard-working North Korean labour force. It needs year-round unfrozen ports of Razin Sonbong located in North Korean’s North East right below the Russian border.

Besides, Russia needs the rich market of the Korean peninsula ready to consume Russian natural resources; the Korean peninsula offers the opportunity of connecting Korea with the Trans-Siberia Railroad which will surely speed up the development of the Fareast Russia.

Second, there is also the worsening global security situation which has led Russia to join the summit. 

The Russia’s military operation in Ukraine has made it sure that the dialogue and the peace between the West and Russia have become impossible. Russia needed a reliable security partner.

North Korea has become a vital partner not only for economic reason but also for security necessity.

Third, during the government of Moon Jae-in representing the liberal nationalist South Korea (LNSK), the ROK-Russia relations had been dynamic and showed great potentials. This was the reason why Russia kept distance from North Korea

But, now, the idiotic pro-Japan conservative Yoon Suk-yeol has become president and joined the Washington war camp and, to make the matter worse, Yoon sent munitions and weapons to Ukraine. This has allowed Russia to upgrade its relations with North Korea and to join the summit. 

Summit Agreements

The summit did not produce any joint statement making it difficult to know concrete agreements. Only thing we can do is to examine strategic places visited by Kim Jong-un and statements made by two leaders and their advisors.

In the light of places visited by Kim Jong-un and the two leaders’ statements, we may be able to identify three areas of agreements: comprehensive cooperation agreement opening door to various types of cooperation, military cooperation agreement and agreement for the promotion of multipolar world order.

Comprehensive cooperation: The agreements seem to be very comprehensive and this is reflected in the statements of the two leaders.

The following statements made by the two leaders and the Kremlin spokesperson seem to indicate wide range of cooperation in years to come.

“Well, there are certain restrictions (sanctions) and Russia complies with all these restrictions. But there are things that we can of course talk about, discuss, think about it.” (Vladimir Putin)

“North Korea is our close neighbour. And, despite any comments from the outside, we will build our relations with our neighbour in a way that is beneficial to us and our neighbour.”(Kremlin spokes person, Dimitry Pescov)

“We have always supported all the decisions by President Putin and those by the Russians people.” (Kim Jung-un)

“In conclusion, I would like to express my confidence that our delegation’s current visit will serve an important moment in the future development and transformation of traditional friendly Russian-DPRK ties into unbreakable relations of strategic cooperation.” (Kim Jung-un)

The military cooperation: The military cooperation was revealed by numerous Kim’s visit to key military facilities and the composition of North Korean delegation, North Korean participation for the Ukraine war and leaders’ statements.

Image: Russian Air Force, RF-81719, Sukhoi Su-35S (Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

Kim’s visits included the site of the production of fighter jets including Su-35 and Su-57, the satellite launch pad of Soyuz-2 space craft at the Vostochuny Cosmodrom, the visit of bombers: TU-16-, TU95M5 and TU22M3 bombers and nuclear submarines.

Kim was accompanied by key people in North Korean national defence including Jo Chun-byong, ruling party member in charge of munitions production policy, Pak Tae-song, Chairman of the space and technology committee and Admiral Kim Byung-sik involved in the production of spy satellite and nuclear capable sub-marine.

It is reported that North Korea was sending to Ukraine munitions and weapons in exchange for Russian military aid.

There are some meaningful statements made by the two leaders.

“We are proud of the development of our space industry, and this ability is now for us. I hope that you and your colleagues are interested.” (Vladimir Putin)

When asked by the media if Russia would help North Korea for the development of satellite technology, Putin answered:

“That is why we are here.”

According to South Korean North Korea experts, in addition to the cooperation for satellite technology and nuclear submarine technology, North Korea will become a part of Russia-DPRK supply chain for military equipment and parts.

Summit Impact on North Korean Security and Economy

The impacts of the summit on North Korea include the liberation from American sanctions, increased protection from the JAROKUS attack, possibility to realize its potential economic growth and North Korea’s role for the creation off the multipolar world

Liberation from American sanctions: After 70 years of fight against American nuclear threat and sanctions, North Korea can finally liberate from American oppression and sanctions owing to the summit which will allow North Korea to integrate its economy with the Eurasian economic bloc led by Russia and China. 

Protection from the JAROKUS attack: the summit has given the warning to ROK, Japan and US  not to think of attacking North Korea, because if they do, it will be door open to WWIII.

Potential economic growth: North Korea has resources for great potential growth. It has well educated and well trained hardworking labour force. It has strategic geopolitical characteristics favouring foreign investments; it has untouched natural resources; it has efficient infrastructure for technological development.

The integration of North Koreans economy into the Eurasian economic bloc provides the opportunity to transform its potential growth into actual growth.

North Korea’s role in the creation of multipolar world: what follows is the elaboration of such role.

Summit Impact on the Global Hegemony Fight

Both Russia and North Korea are known for their criticism of the unipolar world and their conviction for the inevitability of the coming of the multipolar world. 

It appears that, in the summit, the Russia-DPRK cooperation for the creation of multipolar world order was, perhaps, the most important issue discussed. The world knows that Putin has been arguing for the need for multipolar world for decades.

There are some statements referring to the multipolar world:

“The Russian army and people will certainly win a great victory in the strategic struggle for the punishment of a great evil that claim hegemony and feed passionate expansionist illusion.” (Kim Jong-un)

“North Korea not only provides Russia with munitions, but also supports the Kremlin’s efforts to push back against what Mr. Putin describes as Western hegemony.” (Alexander Gabuev in New York Times September 3, 2023)

“The DPRK and the Russian Federation are creating a multi-polar world and building a new, fair and rational international order based on the principle of equality, mutual respect and friendly cooperation.” (Prof. Chung Kiyul, editor- in-chief of the 4th Media, interview with Sputnic, 21cir.com September 14, 2023)

“The Kim-Putin summit first and foremost apparently intends to nullify, pacify, or ruin whatever the U.S. led suicidal nuclear game, especially in Korean peninsula and Ukraine.” (Prof. Chung Kiyul, editor-in chief of the 4th Media, ibid)

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Pyongyang: Then and Now 

THEN: Total Destroyed as a Result of US Bombings (1950-53)

NOW: The Reconstruction of Pyongyang

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In this paper, I will first discus the present state of the global hegemony war on the one hand and on the other, the role of North Korea.

The present state of the hegemony war: It is analysed in terms of falling mono-polar camp force and rising multipolar camp force.

Falling unipolar Camp Force. The following shows the trend of falling power of the unipolar camp.

First, when UN member countries voted for the sanctions against Russia’s military intervention into Ukraine, only 45 countries voted for as against 140 countries against. This means that only 76% of the countries were against the sanctions. 

Second, the NATO countries found themselves in a situation where they have not only exhausted their weapons to aid the Ukraine proxy war, but also their industries were ruined due to their decoupling from Russian economy. What is more terrible is EU’s obligation to import American oil and gas at exorbitant price in comparison with the price of Russian oil and gas.

Third, democracy is falling. The number of countries where democracy has improved fell from 83 to 28, in the period, 2005-2020. The number of countries where democracy deteriorated rose from 52 to 73, in the same period. The number of countries dissatisfied with democracy rose from 48% to 58% in the period, 1995-2020.

Fourth, the US economy is no longer dominant: In 1960, the US GDP was 40% of the global GDP. But in 2019, it represented mere 24% to fall further to 16% in 2023. The use of economic aid as tool of hegemonic domination has been losing its importance.

Fifth, the US-led free-trade agreement, globalization and the global value chain have resulted in the destruction of the potential economic development of developing countries leading to the anti-US movements. 

Moreover, neo-liberalism has contributed to exacerbating the international income distribution in favour of the rich countries at the expense of poor countries’ interests on the one hand, and on the other, increase unequal income distribution within the country in favour of the rich and the powerful.

Sixth, the free trade regime, neoliberal competition, the debt-trap policy of IMF, the corruption of the pro-West leaders of developing countries, multinational corporations’ grave human rights violations and their theft of target countries’ natural resources, forced child labour and destruction of eco-system of the developing world have been the means of exploiting the poor countries. 

Seventh, the endless and limitless sanctions against non-pro-U.S. countries have produced intolerable human misery throughout the world. 

• Nobody knows to what extent the normal development of target countries’ economy has adversely been affected. 
• Nobody knows how many children died due to the sanctions against the imports of medicines. 
• Nobody knows how these sanctions put in danger the safety of the people and the security of the country. 
• Nobody knows by what extent these sanctions have destroyed the potential growth of the target countries. 

Eighth, Washington’s regime-change policy is surely one of the most brutal and merciless destruction of the target countries. Dozens of countries have been targets of Washington’s regime change. The objective of regime change is to force the target country to become Washington’s vassal state and serve the Washington’s interests at the expense of the country’s own interests. In fact, the regime-change  policy is regime-destruction policy.

Ninth, the unchanging Washington’ foreign policy is the strengthening of its military power. Despite its economic weakening, its military expenditure has been increasing leading to less money needed for American citizens’ well being. 

The American share of military expenditures in the world increased from 37% in 1990 to 40% in 2023, while its share in global GDP fell from 24% in 1960 to 16% in 2023. 

This shows to what extent the U.S. attaches importance to its military might. Washington has 750 military bases in more than 85 countries and numerous Special Forces are deployed along with CIA troops. 

The US military is used to intimidate, threaten and even attack countries which do not serve the American interests.

All these elements of the US foreign policy reflect the falling power of the mono-polar world managed by Washington. And this has resulted in the increasing number of countries which seek multi-polar world in which each country can live in peace cooperating with other countries. 

Rising Multi-Polar Camp

The state of rising multi-polar camp may be presented in terms of the following factors: the number of countries in the multipolar camp, various means to fight the mono-polar camp’s offensive and increasing uprisings against pro-West corrupted governments in Africa and elsewhere.

First, the number of countries of the multipolar camp has been increasing. The number of the BRICS has increased from 5 to 11. The new member countries are Argentine, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. In addition, 40 countries would like to join.

It is interesting to note that Iran, leader of the Shia Islam and Saudi Arabia, leader of Sunni Islam are now member of the BRICS. This could imply possible improvement in assuring greater peace in the Middle East and strengthen the multipolar camp.

There is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) which has the following member countries: China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, Pakistan and Iran. In addition, the number of observer countries has been increasing.

BRICS already represent 40% of world population and 25% of the global GPD as against 16% for the U.S. and 30% for G-7 countries. With six new members, its importance in population and GDP will further increase.

Second, there are some economic and financial institutions which will facilitate the creation of the multipolar world. There is the BRICS’s New Development Bank (NDB), the Asia Infrastructure Investments Bank (AIIB), The Belt-Road Initiative (BRI).  

There are also numerous regional multilateral economic organizations designed to assure more independence from the domination of the unipolar camp.

Third, the Global South begins to fight for the freedom from the pro-West political leaders. The best example is the violent military uprisings in French Africa.

In French Africa, the surge of military coups is designed to take away power from the corrupted pro-West government and establish government which would promote the interests of the people. 

The following shows the countries where military coup took place in Africa: Chad (April, 2121), Mali (May, 2021) Guinea (October, 2021), Sudan (October, 2021), Burkina Faso (January, 2022), Niger (July, 2023), Gabon (August, 2023) (Mathew Ehret 21 cir. com September 19, 2023) 

These countries are rich in natural resources including diamond, manganese, uranium, iron, natural gas, oil, fresh water and other natural resources. The exploitation of these resources is monopolized by French companies such as Eramet, and Total SA. 

But, the people live with USD 1.0 a day and the poverty rate is between 30% and 70%. How can this happen in such natural resource-rich countries?

What we see now is the closing of the era of mono-polar camp and the beginning of the multipolar camp.

But, whether we like or not, the unipolar camp remains powerful being capable of threatening the emerging multipolar camp. US dollars still dominates; countless international organization including UN, WTO, WHO, WB, IMF and so many other institutions have been strengthened over decades and serve mainly the interests of the mono-polar camp. 

What is called rule-based laws are conceived and applied in order to protect mainly the interests of the unipolar camp.

Indeed, it is a long way before we see the world in which the U.S. coexist with multipolar countries and cooperate in peace respecting sovereignty of countries for global security and prosperity. 

We can have hope for the leadership of the BRICS and other organizations, but it is long way before it can lead us to the multipolar world. To do so, the people of the multi-polar countries should wake up and fight for the better world.

2023 BRICS Summit (Source: InfoBrics)

Peter Koenig has something to say about it:

So what we expect from BRICS?

“Again we the people, let us wake up and take life in our own hand and minds. Let us not be fooled, confused and divided by deceptive strategies of the self-nominated rulers.” (Peter Koenig, Globalresearch.ca September 19, 2023)

Roles of North Korea: The message of Koenig seems clear. The establishment of a multipolar world can be done only by the people, not by the political leaders. The ordinary people should be the reliable driving force of the noble task of constructing the new world where all countries can live in peace without the fear of being cheated, oppressed and exploited.

In order that the people can lead the march to the multi-polar world, the people should become the master of the country. 

This requires proper doctrines allowing a new way of thinking and doing.

Juche (主體)

Such doctrine includes the North Korean idea of Juche (主體), Juche philosophy (主體思想), Juce behaviour (主體行爲) and Juche system (主體制度).

The sum of these four ways of thinking and doing constitutes Juche doctrine (主體主義).

Juche: Juche means “organiser”, “initiator”, “planner” or “decision maker”. If I organize a seminar, I am the Juche of the seminar. If you decide to sell your house, you are the Juche of house sale. 

In North Korean, Juche must make decisions in autonomous way without interference of outsider. The Jucche may consider other people’s advice, but Juche’s decision should be autonomous and independent 

Juche Philosophy: Now, the Juche philosophy is a little more complex. It refers to the relation of individual with God, with the national leader and with the nation. Each individual determines these relations. That is, each individual in North Korea is the master of everything. 

The core of the Juche philosophy is the relation between individual on the one hand and, on the other, the national leader and the country. 

Here, brace yourself!

You will see a sort of metaphysics of individual’s relation with the national leader and the nation.

According to the Juche metaphysics, individual is “infused” with the leader and the nation so that the three elements of North Korea become “one” and the “same.”

What the individual thinks is what the leader thinks; what the leader thinks is what the nation thinks. 

The suffering of individuals is the suffering of the leader and the nation. The joy and the pains of the leader is the joy and pains of the individuals and the nation.

The core of the Juche philosophy is fact that the Juche of collective life is the individual. That is, the individual is the master. What the leader thinks and does is what individual thinks and does

Long time ago, a North Korean group of beautiful lady cheer leaders came to Pusan city of South Korea for the Asian Game. One day, it was raining and the portrait of Kim Jong-il was wet. Undoubtedly, the cheer leasers might have thought that they were wet, too, because they were Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-il was the cheer leaders.

The cheer leaders were crying seeing their leader’s portrait was wet. I thought that they were acting, but they were sincere.

Juche Behaviour: The Juche philosophy has immense impacts on North Koreans’ behaviours. Let us see the Juche behaviours of the leaders followed by those of the people

Juche Behaviours of leaders: It is a duty for the national leaders to live with the people by visiting farms, factories, schools, hospitals and local communities, because the leaders are the people. 

• Kim Il-sung spent four say a week by visiting and talking to the people to know what the people want. 
• We see often Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un visiting places where the people live and work
• According to a man who knows North Korea very well, in North Korea, there is no military academy. All officers are former simple soldiers. The 4-star general who used to be a simple soldier spends many hours and lives the life of simple soldier every month 

Juche Behaviour of North Korean people: the following summarizes North Korean people’s Juche behaviour.

• North Korean people survived the long march of hunger and suffering in the 1990s.
• North Koreans endured the never ceasing threatening joint military exercises by ROK-US armed forces.
• North Koreans survived the merciless sanctions
• North Koreans do not protest against the leader not because of fear of the authorities but due to their love for the leaders and the country. Remember, the leaders are the people.
• Every North Korean is a soldier and worker making North Korea a powerful military power
• Every North Korean is an intelligence agent preventing spies.

Juche System: Juche behaviour leads to the Juche system of politics, national defence and national economy. The Juche system has produced the following results.

• North Korea has never become vassal state of any country. This is North Korea’s political independence
• North Korea has become a nuclear state capable of defending itself from American nuclear threat. This is North Korea’s autonomous national defence
• North Korean economy has survived the economic sanctions. This is North Korean’s road to self-sufficient national economy.

Coming back to the role of North Korea in the fight for the creation of the multipolar world, I think that the Juche doctrine can contribute to the selection of national leaders who identify themselves with the people. One should avoid leaders who are corrupted by receiving bribes given by foreign forces. Unfortunately, there are too many of them.

The multipolar camp need strong, well motivated, devoted and highly trained people to confront the mighty unipolar camp and construct sustainable multipolar world. 

For this, the multi-polar camp needs Juche force which will be ready to meet head on the offensive of the unipolar camp. 

North Korea is ready to train such force. We remember that the Juche doctrine has played strategic role in the fight against neo-colonialism in developing countries

In fact, by the end of the 1970s, there were 1,000 Juche study centers in the world. In the period, 1972-1989, as many as 33 African countries had Juche Study centers. Even now, a good number of African countries operate such centers including Benin, Congo, Egypt, Guinea, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia and Uganda.

No doubt, North Korea can play various roles for the establishment of the multi-polar world as it becomes more powerful and its economy becomes more developed. 

But, what is needed now is the formation of well trained fighting force that can resist the onslaught of the mono-polar forces and create solid bases for the sustained development of the multi-polar world. North Korea can offer such training.

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Dr. Joseph H. Chung is professor of economics at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM), member of Study Center on Integration and Globalization (CEIM -UQAM). 

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

Featured image: Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin meeting at Vostochny Cosmodrome in Amur Oblast, Russia (13 September 2023) (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)

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It used to be a truth universally acknowledged by citizens of democratic nations that freedom of speech was the basis not just of democracy, but of all human rights.

When a person or group can censor the speech of others, there is – by definition – an imbalance of power. Those exercising the power can decide what information and which opinions are allowed, and which should be suppressed. In order to maintain their power, they will naturally suppress information and views that challenge their position. 

Free speech is the only peaceful way to hold those in power accountable, challenge potentially harmful policies, and expose corruption. Those of us privileged to live in democracies instinctively understand this nearly sacred value of free speech in maintaining our free and open societies.

Or do we?

Alarmingly, it seems like many people in what we call democratic nations are losing that understanding. And they seem willing to cede their freedom of speech to governments, organizations, and Big Tech companies who, supposedly, need to control the flow of information to keep everyone “safe.”

The locus for the disturbing shift away from free speech is the 21st-century’s global public square: the Internet. And the proclaimed reasons for allowing those in power to diminish our free speech on the Internet are: “disinformation” and “hate speech.”

In this article, I will review the three-step process by which anti-disinformation laws are introduced. Then, I will review some of the laws being rolled out in multiple countries almost simultaneously, and what such laws entail in terms of vastly increasing the potential for censorship of the global flow of information.

How to Pass Censorship Laws

Step 1: Declare an existential threat to democracy and human rights 

Step 2: Assert that the solution will protect democracy and human rights

Step 3: Enact anti-democratic, anti-human rights censorship fast and in unison

Lies, propaganda, “deep fakes,” and all manner of misleading information have always been present on the Internet. The vast global information hub that is the World Wide Web inevitably provides opportunities for criminals and other nefarious actors, including child sex traffickers and evil dictators. 

At the same time, the Internet has become the central locus of open discourse for the world’s population, democratizing access to information and the ability to publish one’s views to a global audience.

The good and bad on the Internet reflect the good and bad in the real world. And when we regulate the flow of information on the Internet, the same careful balance between blocking truly dangerous actors, while retaining maximum freedom and democracy, must apply.

Distressingly, the recent slew of laws governing Internet information are significantly skewed in the direction of limiting free speech and increasing censorship. The reason, the regulators claim, is that fake news, disinformation, and hate speech are existential threats to democracy and human rights.

Here are examples of dire warnings, issued by leading international organizations, about catastrophic threats to our very existence purportedly posed by disinformation:

Propaganda, misinformation and fake news have the potential to polarise public opinion, to promote violent extremism and hate speech and, ultimately, to undermine democracies and reduce trust in the democratic processes. –Council of Europe

The world must address the grave global harm caused by the proliferation of hate and lies in the digital space.-United Nations

Online hate speech and disinformation have long incited violence, and sometimes mass atrocities.  –World Economic Forum (WEF)/The New Humanitarian

Considering the existential peril of disinformation and hate speech, these same groups assert that any solution will obviously promote the opposite:

Given such a global threat, we clearly need a global solution. And, of course, such a solution will increase democracy, protect the rights of vulnerable populations, and respect human rights. –WEF

Moreover, beyond a mere assertion that increasing democracy and respecting human rights are built into combating disinformation, international law must be invoked. 

In its Common Agenda Policy Brief from June 2023, Information Integrity on Digital Platforms, the UN details the international legal framework for efforts to counter hate speech and disinformation. 

Image is a screenshot from the UN Report

First, it reminds us that freedom of expression and information are fundamental human rights:

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 19 (2) of the Covenant protect the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, and through any media. 

Linked to freedom of expression, freedom of information is itself a right. The General Assembly has stated: “Freedom of information is a fundamental human right and is the touchstone of all the freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated.” (p. 9)

Then, the UN brief explains that disinformation and hate speech are such colossal, all-encompassing evils that their very existence is antithetical to the enjoyment of any human rights:

Hate speech has been a precursor to atrocity crimes, including genocide. The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide prohibits “direct and public incitement to commit genocide”. 

In its resolution 76/227, adopted in 2021, the General Assembly emphasized that all forms of disinformation can negatively impact the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals. Similarly, in its resolution 49/21, adopted in 2022, the Human Rights Council affirmed that disinformation can negatively affect the enjoyment and realization of all human rights.

This convoluted maze of legalese leads to an absurd, self-contradictory sequence of illogic:

• Everything the UN is supposed to protect is founded on the freedom of information, which along with free speech is a fundamental human right.

• The UN believes hate speech and disinformation destroy all human rights.

• THEREFORE, anything we do to combat hate speech and disinformation protects all human rights, even if it abrogates the fundamental human rights of free speech and information, on which all other rights depend. 

• Because: genocide!

In practice, what this means is that, although the UN at one point in its history considered the freedom of speech and information fundamental to all other rights, it now believes the dangers of hate speech and disinformation eclipse the importance of protecting those rights.

The same warping of democratic values, as delineated by our international governing body, is now occurring in democracies the world over. 

Censorship Laws and Actions All Happening Now

If hate speech and disinformation are the precursors of inevitable genocidal horrors, the only way to protect the world is through a coordinated international effort. Who should lead this campaign?

According to the WEF, “Governments can provide some of the most significant solutions to the crisis by enacting far-reaching regulations.”

Which is exactly what they’re doing.

United States

In the US, freedom of speech is enshrined in the Constitution, so it’s hard to pass laws that might violate it.

Instead, the government can work with academic and nongovernmental organizations to strong-arm social media companies into censoring disfavored content. The result is the Censorship-Industrial Complex, a vast network of government-adjacent academic and nonprofit “anti-disinformation” outfits, all ostensibly mobilized to control online speech in order to protect us from whatever they consider to be the next civilization-annihilating calamity.

The Twitter Files and recent court cases reveal how the US government uses these groups to pressure online platforms to censor content it doesn’t like:

• Twitter Files on Covid
• Discovery in Missouri v Biden Covid censorship lawsuit
• Potential discovery in Berenson v Biden lawsuit

1. THREAD:

THE TWITTER FILES: HOW TWITTER RIGGED THE COVID DEBATE

– By censoring info that was true but inconvenient to U.S. govt. policy
– By discrediting doctors and other experts who disagreed
– By suppressing ordinary users, including some sharing the CDC’s *own data*

— David Zweig (@davidzweig) December 26, 2022

Google

In some cases, companies may even take it upon themselves to control the narrative according to their own politics and professed values, with no need for government intervention. For example: Google, the most powerful information company in the world, has been reported to fix its algorithms to promote, demote, and disappear content according to undisclosed internal “fairness” guidelines.

This was revealed by a whistleblower named Zach Vorhies in his almost completely ignored book, Google Leaks, and by Project Veritas, in a sting operation against Jen Gennai, Google’s Head of Responsible Innovation. 

In their benevolent desire to protect us from hate speech and disinformation, Google/YouTube immediately removed the original Project Veritas video from the Internet.

European Union

The Digital Services Act came into force November 16, 2022. The European Commission rejoiced that “The responsibilities of users, platforms, and public authorities are rebalanced according to European values.” Who decides what the responsibilities and what the “European values” are? 

• very large platforms and very large online search engines [are obligated] to prevent the misuse of their systems by taking risk-based action and by independent audits of their risk management systems

• EU countries will have the primary [oversight] role, supported by a new European Board for Digital Services

Brownstone contributor David Thunder explains how the act provides an essentially unlimited potential for censorship:

This piece of legislation holds freedom of speech hostage to the ideological proclivities of unelected European officials and their armies of “trusted flaggers.” 

The European Commission is also giving itself the power to declare a Europe-wide emergency that would allow it to demand extra interventions by digital platforms to counter a public threat. 

UK

The Online Safety Bill was passed September 19, 2023. The UK government says “It will make social media companies more responsible for their users’ safety on their platforms.”

According to Internet watchdog Reclaim the Net, this bill constitutes one of the widest sweeping attacks on privacy and free speech in a Western democracy:

The bill imbues the government with tremendous power; the capability to demand that online services employ government-approved software to scan through user content, including photos, files, and messages, to identify illegal content. 

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to defending civil liberties in the digital world, warns: “the law would create a blueprint for repression around the world.”

Australia

The Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023 was released in draft form June 25, 2023 and is expected to pass by the end of 2023. the Australian government says:

The new powers will enable the ACMA [Australian Communications and Media Authority] to monitor efforts and require digital platforms to do more, placing Australia at the forefront in tackling harmful online misinformation and disinformation, while balancing freedom of speech.

Reclaim the Net explains:

This legislation hands over a wide range of new powers to ACMA, which includes the enforcement of an industry-wide “standard” that will obligate digital platforms to remove what they determine as misinformation or disinformation. 

Brownstone contributor Rebekah Barnett elaborates:

Controversially, the government will be exempt from the proposed laws, as will professional news outlets, meaning that ACMA will not compel platforms to police misinformation and disinformation disseminated by official government or news sources. 

The legislation will enable the proliferation of official narratives, whether true, false or misleading, while quashing the opportunity for dissenting narratives to compete. 

Canada

The Online Streaming Act (Bill C-10) became law April 27, 2023. Here’s how the Canadian government describes it, as it relates to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC):

The legislation clarifies that online streaming services fall under the Broadcasting Act and ensures that the CRTC has the proper tools to put in place a modern and flexible regulatory framework for broadcasting. These tools include the ability to make rules, gather information, and assign penalties for non-compliance.

According to Open Media, a community-driven digital rights organization,

Bill C-11 gives the CRTC unprecedented regulatory authority to monitor all online audiovisual content. This power extends to penalizing content creators and platforms and through them, content creators that fail to comply. 

World Health Organization

In its proposed new Pandemic Treaty and in the amendments to its International Health Regulations, all of which it hopes to pass in 2024, the WHO seeks to enlist member governments to

Counter and address the negative impacts of health-related misinformation, disinformation, hate speech and stigmatization, especially on social media platforms, on people’s physical and mental health, in order to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, and foster trust in public health systems and authorities.

Brownstone contributor David Bell writes that essentially this will give the WHO, an unelected international body,

power to designate opinions or information as ‘mis-information or disinformation, and require country governments to intervene and stop such expression and dissemination. This … is, of course, incompatible with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but these seem no longer to be guiding principles for the WHO.

Conclusion

We are at a pivotal moment in the history of Western democracies. Governments, organizations and companies have more power than ever to decide what information and views are expressed on the Internet, the global public square of information and ideas.

It is natural that those in power should want to limit expression of ideas and dissemination of information that might challenge their position. They may believe they are using censorship to protect us from grave harms of disinformation and hate speech, or they may be using those reasons cynically to consolidate their control over the flow of information. 

Either way, censorship inevitably entails the suppression of free speech and information, without which democracy cannot exist.

Why are the citizens of democratic nations acquiescing to the usurpation of their fundamental human rights? One reason may be the relatively abstract nature of rights and freedoms in the digital realm.

In the past, when censors burned books or jailed dissidents, citizens could easily recognize these harms and imagine how awful it would be if such negative actions were turned against them. They could also weigh the very personal and imminent negative impact of widespread censorship against much less prevalent dangers, such as child sex trafficking or genocide. Not that those dangers would be ignored or downplayed, but it would be clear that measures to combat such dangers should not include widespread book burning or jailing of regime opponents.

In the virtual world, if it’s not your post that is removed, or your video that is banned, it can be difficult to fathom the wide-ranging harm of massive online information control and censorship. It is also much easier online than in the real world to exaggerate the dangers of relatively rare threats, like pandemics or foreign interference in democratic processes. The same powerful people, governments, and companies that can censor online information can also flood the online space with propaganda, terrifying citizens in the virtual space into giving up their real-world rights.

The conundrum for free and open societies has always been the same: How to protect human rights and democracy from hate speech and disinformation without destroying human rights and democracy in the process.

The answer embodied in the recent coordinated enactment of global censorship laws is not encouraging for the future of free and open societies.

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Debbie Lerman, 2023 Brownstone Fellow, has a degree in English from Harvard. She is a retired science writer and a practicing artist in Philadelphia, PA.

Featured image is from Shutterstock

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***

The world is at war, with active or simmering conflicts in Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Nagorno-Karabakh, destabilizing coups in Niger, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Chad, and Mali, and other nations on the verge of civil or interstate conflicts. The last thing we need in this volatile security environment is an accelerated superpower nuclear arms race.

But don’t tell that to the members of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, which has spent the past year looking at the current challenges facing the United States and coming up with a solution that would make the militarized competition of the Cold War era look quaint.

The commission’s report brings to mind Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 classic, “Dr. Strangelove: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb.” The film underscored the absurdity of the nuclear doctrines of the time, and the insanity of the mindset that had captured political and military leaders of that moment, in an at times humorous take on a subject with a deadly serious potential impact. The new congressional commission report implies that the current strategic environment is more dangerous than at the height of the Cold War, and it adopts an equally dangerous mindset in addressing that alleged situation. Whatever one thinks of the commission’s assessment, its recommendations would increase the risks of war among the superpowers, not reduce them.

The commission’s analysis and recommendations are grounded in an alarmist view of the current geopolitical landscape that departs significantly from reality. Early in the report, the commission makes the following assessment of the challenges facing the United States:

“The new global environment is fundamentally different than anything experienced in the past, even in the darkest days of the Cold War. Today the United States is on the cusp of having not one, but two nuclear peer adversaries, each with ambitions to change the international status quo, by force, if necessary: a situation which the United States did not anticipate and for which it is not prepared.”

First and foremost, it is not clear that either Russia or China seeks or could achieve global domination based on the use of force. Whatever Vladimir Putin’s aspirations may be, the war in Ukraine has exposed deep flaws in Russia’s military capabilities that make it clear that it is in no position to threaten any of the 31 members of the NATO alliance, much less operate on a global basis. It is essential to continue to provide Ukraine with the assistance it needs to defend itself, but assertions that Russia is poised to reshape the entire international system “by force” in light of that conflict are overblown.

As for China, its main challenges to the United States are political and economic, not military. Its increasing military power is primarily focused on its own region, including on the possibility of taking Taiwan by force at some unspecified future date. But the best way to prevent a U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan is to re-establish a common understanding on its status, along the lines of the “One China” policy that has kept the peace in the Taiwan strait for five decades. Doing so would mean that the United States would not support political independence for Taiwan and China would forswear seeking unification with the island by force. Better crisis communications and a “common good” approach to resolving areas of difference – as proposed in a recent issue brief by my Quincy Institute colleague Jake Werner – should supplement the return to a common view on Taiwan. And cooperation on addressing potential existential threats like climate change and preventing future pandemics should take precedence over aggressive posturing and bellicose rhetoric. Sabre rattling and military buildups will make a war over Taiwan more likely, with disastrous consequences for all concerned.

Last but not least, the active U.S. nuclear stockpile of 4,500 long-range nuclear weapons, with over 1,600 deployed, is more than enough to dissuade Russia or China from attacking the United States, for fear of having their societies devastated in return. But a large deployed arsenal does pose a risk of a nuclear confrontation by accident or miscalculation, and an arms racing environment of the kind recommended by the congressional commission would only make matters worse.

Unfortunately, once the commission adopted its overly pessimistic view of Russian and Chinese capabilities and intentions, its recommendations for a more combative U.S. posture followed closely behind. The Pentagon is already in the middle of a $2 trillion, three decades-long initiative to build new nuclear-armed missiles, bombers, and submarines, with new warheads to go with them. Astoundingly, the commission argues that these investments are not enough, and that the U.S. should consider building and deploying more nuclear weapons, even as it endorses dangerous and destabilizing steps like returning to the days of multi-warhead land-based missiles while placing nuclear-armed missiles in East Asia. These steps would only introduce more uncertainty into the calculations of China and Russia, making a nuclear confrontation more likely.

In addition to increasing nuclear risks at what is certain to be an exorbitant price – an issue the report mentions but refuses to address in detail – the document argues for the United States to expand its nuclear arsenal first, and worry about forging significant arms control agreements later. This approach is precisely backwards, and could spark a three-way arms race that will take arms control off the agenda for years to come.

Sometimes congressional commissions come and go without leaving any substantial imprint on government policy. Let’s hope the recommendations of the strategic posture commission fall into that category. But the more likely outcome will be that nuclear hawks – and even moderates who should know better – will brandish the report in their efforts to promote a nuclear buildup that is both enormously risky and immensely expensive. Pushback from advocates of nuclear reductions needs to be heard loud and clear by members of Congress, the administration, and the broader public. We survived the Cold War nuclear arms race in part by sheer luck – we shouldn’t take that risk again.

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William D. Hartung is a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. His work focuses on the arms industry and U.S. military budget.

Featured image is from The Unz Review

---

“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102

PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
–Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute   

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*** 

Israel is using UK arms exports in a genocide against the Palestinian people. The UK government is complicit in these crimes not just by supplying these weapons for decades, but by repeatedly inciting Israel to commit war crimes against Palestinian civilians with impunity, in retaliation for Hamas’ horrific killings and abductions of Israelis including civilians. 

The UK has consistently sold arms to Israel, in spite of its illegal occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem since 1967. Since Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip in 2007 there have been five major military assaults on Gaza in 2008-09, 2012, 2014, and 2021 which killed almost 4,000 Palestinians. In the past 11 days alone at least 2,850 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli bombardments supported by UK arms exports, including 100 children. 

UK industry provides 15% of the components in the F35 stealth combat aircraft that are currently being used  in the bombardment of Gaza. The contract for the components is estimated by Campaign Against Arms Trade to be worth £336m since 2016.

Source: Friends of Al Aqsa

Between 2018 and 2022, the UK exported £146m in arms sales via Single Issue Export Licences. However, a large proportion of military equipment exported is via Open General Export Licences. These open licences, which include the F35 components, lack transparency and allow for unlimited quantities and value of exports of the specified equipment without further monitoring.

According to the SIPRI Arms Transfer Database, Israel has ordered a total of 50 F-35s from the US, of which 36 have so far been delivered, up to the end of 2022. According to the detailed delivery database,114 a total of 6 were delivered in 2022. While the value of UK companies’ F-35 contracts with the prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, are not known, based on the 15% workshare and the estimated $80m a plane unit cost of the F-35, this would suggest that each aircraft involves around $12 million to UK industry. This would imply a value of $72 million (£58m) for total UK deliveries of F-35s to Israel in 2022, far higher than the value of Single Issue Export Licences, and around $432 million (approx. £336m.) since deliveries began in 2016.

Initial statements from the Israeli government committed to perpetrating war crimes. On 7th October in a televised address Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised ‘vengeance’ and ‘revenge’.

“We will turn Gaza into a deserted island.”

On October 8th, the Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Galant declared

“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed”. “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” Galant said. In another video he said “Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything.” 

On 13th October the Israeli Government ordered 1.1 million people living in the north of Gaza within 24 hours to leave ahead of an imminent ground offensive. The United Nations said that it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences and appealed for the order to be rescinded.

Building on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s “unequivocal” support for Israel, Labour leader Keir Starmer refused to condemn the cutting off of water and electricity to an entire population of over 2 million people saying

“I think that Israel does have that right.”

Grant Shapps, secretary of State for Defence, then gave every indication that he supported this obscene order to displace a million people in 24 hours in the midst of active bombardments. 

Despite Israel’s advance notice of intent to violate international law, UK leaders from both parties gave unqualified support for UK arms exports and components to be used in attacks against Palestinian civilians. The reaction from the international community has undoubtedly emboldened the Israeli authorities to commit these crimes with impunity. The United Nations human rights office said on Tuesday that Israel’s siege of Gaza and its evacuation order could amount to the international crime of the forcible transfer of civilians. 

We call on the government to immediately revoke all licences for arms exports to Israel. It is not credible that the UK government or the Leader of the Opposition believe that the siege, bombardments and forcible transfer of civilians of Gaza are compliant with international law. That it includes a significant percentage of components for jets now dropping bombs on Palestinian civilians is unconscionable. To fail to take any meaningful action to mitigate harm to civilians when it was promised by the Israeli government, to support these crimes, is all the more shameful given that the UK has exported millions worth of arms to Israel. 

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“If we don’t get back to our shared humanity, I don’t think we will ever come back from this,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib told protesters. “And to our President: I want him to know, as a Palestinian-American and someone of Muslim faith, I’m not going to forget this. And I think a lot of people are not going to forget this.”

Five hundred people, including two dozen Rabbis, were arrested in Washington, DC on Wednesday as Jewish activists led a protest inside and outside The Capitol. The protesters were demanding lawmakers back a ceasefire in Gaza.

Hundreds of protesters made their way into the rotunda of the Cannon House Office Building where they sang, chanted, and held signs calling for an immediate ceasefire. The activists wore shirts that said “Not in our name” on the front and “Jews say cease fire now.”

The Capitol Police announced they were shutting down roads around the Capitol to ensure the safety of protestors outside.

Hundreds of Jewish activists demand Gaza ceasefire in Capitol (ifnotnow Twitter)

Earlier in the day, more than 5,000 Jewish Americans and their allies gathered on the National Mall. The crowd was addressed by Representatives Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Cori Bush (D-MO).

“We thank our Jewish community for being out here saying ‘Never Again’,” said Bush.

On October 16, Tlaib, Bush, and a number of other progressive House members introduced a resolution calling on the Biden administration to push for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

The legislative effort is backed by dozens of human rights groups, including the Adalah Justice Project, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), and the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR).

“If we don’t get back to our shared humanity, I don’t think we will ever come back from this,” said Tlaib. “And to our President: I want him to know, as a Palestinian-American and someone of Muslim faith, I’m not going to forget this. And I think a lot of people are not going to forget this.”

Thousands of Jewish activists gather in DC to demand Gaza ceasefire (Jewish Voice for Peace Twitter)

Jewish Voice for Peace highlighted the action in a Twitter thread:

Today, 500 Jews were arrested and 10k took to the streets to support and to demand a ceasefire and an end to Palestinian genocide. We shut down congress to draw mass attention to the U.S. complicity in Israel’s ongoing oppression of Palestinians. But our work isn’t done

We can and will stop genocide in Gaza. But this horrific situation was only possible because of the groundwork laid by the Israeli state over 75 years ago. Since 1948, the Israeli government built a system of apartheid and illegal occupation.

Just as we demand an end to genocide in Gaza, we must put the same effort into dismantling the systems of Zionism, apartheid, and colonialism that brought us to this moment.

The only way to peace and safety — for everyone — is through ensuring justice and equality for everyone. That means standing in solidarity with Palestinians. It means building a world beyond Zionism. It means creating systems of safety through solidarity. Will you join us?

Jewish activists arrested in Capitol building (Jewish Voice for Peace Twitter)

Wednesday’s protest came just two days after Jewish activists blocked every entrance to The White House, calling on Biden to back a ceasefire.

“Since we were children, so many of us have told ourselves that we would not stand by if we were ever witnesses to genocidal violence. We told ourselves that we would raise our voices. We told ourselves we would put our bodies on the line. We pledged that such horrors would never again happen on our watch,” said author and activist Naomi Klein, who also addressed the protestors. “The ‘never again’ of our lifetimes is underway in Gaza right now. And we refuse to stand by and watch.”

Protesters gather in Washington, DC (Jewish Voice for Peace Twitter)

The DC chapter of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) smeared the protesters in a statement and asserted that anti-Zionists are antisemitic. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt compared the activists to white supremacists in a tweet.

“The ADL is scared because they, like other Jewish establishment organizations, feel like they’re losing the narrative for who gets to speak for American Jews,” wrote Ben Lorber, a member of IfNotNow and JVP. “Frankly, they should be scared. Their bankrupt centrism is the past and groups like [IfNotNow] and JVP are the present and future.”

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Michael Arria is the U.S. correspondent for Mondoweiss. Follow him on Twitter at @michaelarria.

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

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***

From racist tweets to rising hate crimes, the media’s anti-China propaganda has created a climate of aggression.

Two weeks ago, a man drove a car into the Chinese consulate in San Francisco, yelling “Where’s the CCP?” Arab Americans have been targeted during the Persian Gulf War, the War on Terror, and U.S.-backed atrocities in Palestine.

It’s no surprise that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are in the crosshairs of white supremacy as the U.S. targets China. Back in April, a Columbia University survey found that three in four Chinese Americans said they’d suffered racial discrimination in the past 12 months.

When the Trump administration launched the China Initiative to prosecute spies, the Department of Justice racially profiled Chinese Americans and Chinese nationals. Between 2018 and 2022, the number of Chinese researchers who dropped their affiliation with U.S. institutions jumped 23 percent.

The Biden administration has ended the initiative, but the Department of Justice and the congressional anti-China committee are still targeting political leaders in the Chinese community.

As Biden continues the crackdowns of his predecessor, his administration is also escalating in the Asia-Pacific region. From expanding military bases in the Philippines – including one potential base in the works intended to join contingencies in Taiwan – to building a fleet of AI drones to target China, militarists are creating conditions for a hot war in the Pacific.

As the U.S. prepares for war, Forbes published an article on September 25 about an aircraft carrier “kill chain” and its potential use in a war with China. In February, CNN journalists accompanied a U.S. Navy jet approaching Chinese airspace. As a Chinese pilot warned the U.S. to keep a safe distance, an American soldier remarked: “It’s another Friday afternoon in the South China Sea.”

Not only are we normalizing U.S. aggression. We’re also relying on the military-industrial complex as an unbiased source. Pro-war propaganda is derailing China-U.S. ties, increasing anti-Asian hate, and hiding the realities of public opinion across the Pacific.

After launching the AUKUS military pact between Britain and Australia in 2021, as well as stiff export controls designed to limit China’s economy last year, the U.S. began 2023 with what appeared to be an olive branch. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was scheduled to visit China in February. Then came the “spy balloon.”

A Chinese balloon was blown off course and eventually shot down by the U.S. military. The Wall Street Journal and NBC uncritically printed and broadcasted statements from US Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder about the balloon’s surveillance capabilities.

On February 8, citing three unnamed officials, The New York Times said “American intelligence agencies have assessed that China’s spy balloon program is part of global surveillance.”

The same story mentions the U.S. State Department’s briefings to foreign officials that were “designed to show that the balloons are equipped for intelligence gathering and that the Chinese military has been carrying out this collection for years, targeting, among other sites, the territories of Japan, Taiwan, India, and the Philippines.”

On April 3, the BBC and CNN published conflicting stories on the balloon that cited anonymous officials but contained inconsistencies about its ability to take pictures. It wasn’t until June 29 that Ryder admitted no data had been transmitted.

In September, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told CBS the balloon wasn’t even spying. This matched China’s statements about the balloon, as well as that of American meteorologists. But the damage was done. Blinken had postponed his trip to China. He eventually went in June, after a trip to Papua New Guinea, where its student protesters rejected his plans to militarize their country under a security pact.

On May 26, Blinken made a speech, referring to China as a “long-term challenge.” Politico went further, publishing a piece on May 26, called “Blinken calls China ‘most serious long-term’ threat to world order” with a same-day USA Today article also taking the liberty of using challenge and threat interchangeably.

A Princeton University study found Americans who perceive China as a threat were more likely to stereotype Chinese people as untrustworthy and immoral. Intelligence leaks about a China threat combined with the age-old Yellow Peril syndrome have allowed for incessant Sinophobia to dominate our politics.

Misinformation, the Other Pandemic

In May 2020, Trump told a scared country with 1 million recorded COVID-19 cases and almost 100,000 dead that the pandemic was China’s fault. Again, our leaders cited undisclosed intelligence.

For its part, CNN showed images of wet markets after The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Walter Russell Mead called “China Is The Real Sick Man of Asia.” A year later, Politico eventually acknowledged Trump cherry-picked intelligence to support his claims but the Biden administration ended up also seeking to investigate the lab leak theory. And the media went along with it.

For The Wall Street Journal, pro-Iraq War propagandist Michael Gordon co-authored an article claiming that “three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care.”

An anonymous source said, “The information that we had coming from the various sources was of exquisite quality.” But the source admits it’s not known why researchers were sick.

The article relies on the conservative Hudson Institute’s Senior Fellow David Asher’s testimony and the fact that China has not shared the medical records of citizens without potential COVID-19 symptoms. It is even admitted that several other unnamed U.S. officials find the Trump-era intelligence to be exactly what it is – circumstantial.

A year earlier, during the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries moderated by CNN, Dana Bash asked Bernie Sanders: “What consequences should China face for its role in its global crisis?” She asked the question referencing how Wuhan’s authorities silenced Dr. Wenliang but failed to mention China’s People’s Supreme Court condemned the city’s police for doing so.

She also didn’t acknowledge how Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Shi Zhengli revealed in July 2020 that all of the staff and students in her lab tested negative for COVID-19. Shi even shared her research with American scientists. Georgetown University COVID-19 origin specialist Daniel Lucey welcomed Shi’s transparency: “There are a lot of new facts I wasn’t aware of. It’s very exciting to hear this directly from her.”

But from the Page Act of 1875, which stereotyped Chinese as disease carriers, to job discrimination during the pandemic, it is Asian Americans who ultimately pay the price for the media’s irresponsibility and participation in medical racism. They are already among the casualties of the new cold war. But that war not only threatens residents of the U.S. but the entire planet too.

Profit, Not Principle

This summer, the U.S. armed Taiwan under the Foreign Military Transfer program, reserved for sovereign states only. This violates the one-China policy which holds that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge that there is one China. Biden is also trying to include Taiwan weapons funding in a supplemental request to Congress.

Weapons sales to Taiwan go back to the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, as well as Reagan administration’s assurances that the U.S. will keep sending weapons but not play any mediation role between Taipei and Beijing. In 1996, a military standoff between the U.S. and China erupted in the Taiwan Strait, followed by an increasing flow of lethal weaponry up to the present.

The New York Times published a story on September 18, mentioning Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, which it says was “a show of support for the island.”

Never mind that the majority of Taiwan residents surveyed by the Brookings Institute felt her visit was detrimental to their security. The media also often ignores voices from Taiwan who don’t want war, favor reunification, or reject attempts to delete Chinese history in their textbooks.

Still, Fox News continues to give a platform to lawmakers like Representative Young Kim who wrote a piece on September 20 advocating for more military patrols in the South China Sea.

On October 17, The Washington Post published a story about the Pentagon releasing footage of Chinese aircraft intercepting U.S. warplanes over the last two years.

The story does not share the context of U.S. expansionism or how multiple secretaries of defense have threatened Beijing over its disputed maritime borders. Microsoft is even getting in on the action, with articles from CNN and Reuters last month uncritically sharing the software company’s claims that China is using AI to interfere in our elections, despite no evidence shared with the voting public.

It demonstrates how war profiteers are edging us closer to a conflict. From sending the Patriot weapons system to Taiwan to practicing attacks with F-22 Raptors in the occupied Northern Marianas Islands, Lockheed Martin is raking in lucrative contracts while residents of the region fear an outbreak of war.

RTX supplies Israel’s Iron Dome and is now designing engineering systems for gunboats in the Pacific. When arms dealers make money, victims of imperialism die. With strong links to the military, it’s hard to imagine that Microsoft, News Corp, and Warner Bros. Discovery would care as long as their stocks go up too.

Intelligence spooks and media moguls don’t know what’s best for people or the planet. And it’s time for a balanced and nuanced understanding of China. That begins with disarming the discourse and keeping the Pacific peaceful.

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Cale Holmes is an international relations analyst, writer, and environmentalist who has lived in Beijing. He serves as CODEPINK’s China Is Not Our Enemy Campaign Coordinator.

Lawson Adams is a 24-year-old college student in Los Angeles California. Two of his four years in the Navy were spent working at the NSA in Oahu, Hawaii as a Chinese language analyst.

Featured image is from The Unz Review

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Yes, – using “dead Jews” in Israel as Breitbart bitterly calls it, as an emotional pressure to blackmail Republican members of Congress for billions more in Ukraine aid and to secure the continued over-spending by Biden’s own government for months to come.

This is against the will of the majority of House Republicans, who adamantly want to reduce spending and who already once cut out Ukraine spending in the temporary funding until 17 November 2023.

This explosively negative reaction to Biden’s move from the activist Republican wing as presented by Breitbart above was expected.

Yesterday, 19 October 2023, activist-Republicans blocked the move by so-called “moderate” members of Congress (a.k.a. the “uniparty”) to get a more conformist House Speaker elected through the backdoor by empowering the Speaker-pro-tempore, who so far has only got formal duties.

That didn’t work. The activist Republican Rep. Jim Jordan is back on the agenda in the fight for a new House Speaker – and that fight may now take weeks if not months, in which period Congress cannot pass either funding or bills.

The crisis in Ukraine and in US spending and governance is about to get a lot worse – and longer. Meanwhile, as Biden is losing the political funding-game in Washington, and the US is losing the war in Ukraine, things are about to get a lot worse for US troops in the Middle East as well.

In the past 48 hours, US troops in Iraq and Syria have been attacked no less than 7 times. So far, these attacks seems to be only warnings to the US about what is about to happen, once the US uses its two aircraft carriers and 2,000 marines off the coast of Lebanon to attack.

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Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research. 

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While many people are deeply saddened by the escalation of violence in the Arab-Israeli conflict, what’s commonly under-reported is the origin and funding of Hamas.

The Hamas attack on Israeli non-combatant civilians was not at all a blow to Israel’s ruling elite, but, on the contrary, an attack that strengthens their rule that came at a very convenient time for them.

Hamas, for Zionist leaders, is controlled opposition. It’s not controlled like a puppet, but funded and kept in power by Israel because its aims, like those of the corrupt Palestine Authority, are to dominate and control ordinary Palestinians in the name of supposedly standing up against Israel while not doing anything that can actually defeat Israel.

The latter would require waging the class war against the billionaire ruling class of Israel. Hamas and Israel’s leaders need each other; each helps the other keep a grip on its own people, providing the other a perfect enemy with which to frighten its “own people” into obedience.

The Israeli right wing’s seven-decades long strategy has been to use violent ethnic cleansing against Palestinians (read the details here). The aim is to make Palestinians so angry at Israel that they can present them as an existential threat—a bogeyman enemy. Israel’s billionaire ruling class (yes, it has one just like the United States does) pretends to be protecting Israeli Jews from this bogeyman enemy.

This while it uses it to frighten into submission the Israeli working class, who are oppressed economically. The U.S. media censors this because the U.S. billionaire ruling class also has a huge motive for supporting Israel’s ethnic cleansing project.

Failure to understand this means a failure to understand what is going on today in Israel/Palestine.

Source: youtube.com

The Evidence: Israel’s Government Funds Hamas and Works to Keep It in Power

Here I will first present the evidence that the Israeli government funds HAMAS big time and has done so for a long time. Then I will present the evidence that the Israeli government has worked to keep HAMAS in power in Gaza. After this I will explain briefly WHY the Israeli government does this and provide a link to my article that explains in great detail with solid proof why the Israeli government does this.

Here’s Evidence that Israel Funds Hamas

—please follow the hyperlinks and read for yourself the evidence:

a. Here’s evidence that Israel funded Hamas right from its beginning.

b. “Money trail to Hamas begins with Israeli banks” and continues through September 27, 2007

c. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert: Israel continued as of June 30, 2008 to fund Hamas

d. Forbes on January 16, 2009 reports:

“Incredibly, Israel also supplies Hamas with cash. It began transferring truckloads of cash to Gaza after Hamas’ violent takeover of the territory in June 2007.

“The first transfer of more than $51 million (delivered in Israeli shekels) was purportedly to strengthen the influence of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the Gaza Strip and pay the salaries of 35,000 Palestinian Authority employees then allegedly loyal to him. Among those employees, however, were Ismail Haniya, the Hamas-appointed prime minister in Gaza, and Mahmoud Zahar, Hamas’ foreign minister.

“Zahar prides himself on many successful terrorist attacks against Israel, and his position regarding Israel is clear. “All of Palestine, every inch of Palestine belongs to the Muslims,” he has said. If the goal was to strengthen Abbas’ position, the cash should have been delivered to him in the West Bank city of Ramallah. From there, he could have transferred the money to Gaza, as he has done in the past, and claim credit for it.”

e. “Netanyahu: Money to Hamas part of strategy to keep Palestinians divided” reported March 12, 2019 in the Jerusalem Post. 

Of course Netanyahu is just hiding the REAL purpose. Money is fungible, which means that any money Israel gives to Hamas for one purpose just frees up other money for Hamas to use for another purpose. Israeli leaders need Hamas to commit terrorism against ordinary Israeli Jews in order to make the bogeyman enemy maximally frightening (see the many details here).

f. “Beginning in 2018, Qatar’s envoy traveled with millions of dollars packed neatly in Louis Vuitton suitcases from Doha to the Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv and was escorted to the Gaza Strip by Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency. Yossi Cohen, former Mossad chief, even visited Qatar to iron out the details of the arrangement and encouraged the Qataris to keep the dollars coming.

The cash purchased fuel for the besieged strip’s only power plant, funded infrastructure projects, and provided a monthly stipend of $100 to thousands of impoverished Palestinian families. 

“Israeli intelligence officials, however, say they knew that Hamas—the Palestinian group that runs a defacto government in Gaza but is treated by Israel and the United States as a terrorist group—siphoned off the funds. The thinking was that Qatari cash would keep Hamas quiet—that it would essentially buy them off from firing rockets at Israel’s southern cities. 

“But the policy seems to have backfired, several former Israeli officials told Foreign Policy. “Did the Qatari procedure work for us? We don’t think so,” said Colonel Eran Lerman, former deputy national security adviser of the country. 

“In the recent war with Hamas, Israelis were caught off guard by the group’s ability to hit deep inside Israeli cities, with not just Tel Aviv but Jerusalem within their reach. The group fired 4,360 rockets over a period of 11 days, four times more than it did in the 50-day war in 2014.” [June 15, 2021]

g. “For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces: The premier’s policy of treating the terror group as a partner, at the expense of Abbas and Palestinian statehood, has resulted in wounds that will take Israel years to heal from.

“For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.” [October 8, 2023, 3:58 pm]

h. ‘Can Netanyahu survive Hamas’s attack on Israel?

Israelis are increasingly aware of government failures that enabled Hamas’s attack, but that may not be enough to bring the Israeli prime minister down…Netanyahu’s strategy has always been to allow Hamas room for maneuver in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and Palestinian society more generally.

“Those who want to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state should support the strengthening of Hamas and the transfer of money to Hamas,” he stated at a Likud party meeting in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy, to differentiate between the Palestinians in Gaza and the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria.”’ [October 11, 2023]

Here’s Evidence that Israel Certainly Knows that Its Attacks on Gaza Strengthen Hamas

The Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians in Gaza strengthen the Hamas leaders’ grip on power in Gaza. There is plenty of evidence for this mutually beneficial relationship between the Israeli and Hamas leaders:

UPI Terrorism Correspondent, Richard Sale, wrote an article in 2002 titled, “Hamas History Tied to Israel” in which he states:

“Israel and Hamas may currently be locked in deadly combat, but, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials, beginning in the late 1970s, Tel Aviv gave direct and indirect financial aid to Hamas over a period of years.

“Israel aided Hamas directly—the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization),” said Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies.

Israel’s support for Hamas “was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative,” said a former senior CIA official.

Hostage Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit on Hamas poster, reads: “Our heroes prisoners may we have a new Gilad each year” and down :”They (Palestinian prisoners) are not alone” [Source: upload.wikimedia.org]

In 2009, Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University, wrote an article in which he said:

“Resistance movements such as Hezbollah and Hamas, by contrast, can plausibly claim that they forced Israel to withdraw from occupied Arab land while scoring impressive gains at the ballot box; they have also been reasonably free of corruption. As if determined to increase the influence of these radical movements, Israel has undermined Abbas and the PA at every turn…

“But Hamas will not be so easily defeated, even if Israel’s merciless assault and Hamas’s own obduracy have brought untold suffering on the people of Gaza and much of the Strip lies in ruins: like Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006, all it has to do in order to proclaim victory is remain standing.

“The movement continued to fire rockets into Israel under devastating bombardment, and it looks likely to emerge politically stronger when the war is over…”

Hamas leaders at a rally in Gaza. [Source: britannica.com]

John J. Mearsheimer, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, wrote an article (originally for The American Conservative) in 2009 in which he stated:

“More importantly, there is little reason to think that the Israelis can beat Hamas into submission and get the Palestinians to live quietly in a handful of Bantustans inside Greater Israel. Israel has been humiliating, torturing, and killing Palestinians in the Occupied Territories since 1967 and has not come close to cowing them.

“Indeed, Hamas’s reaction to Israel’s brutality seems to lend credence to [Friedrich] Nietzsche’s remark that what does not kill you makes you stronger.” [emphasis added]

Anthony H. Cordesman, who held the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and who was also a national security analyst for ABC News, wrote an article in 2009 in which he stated in regard to the fighting in Gaza:

“At least to date, the reporting from within Gaza indicates that each new Israeli air strike or advance on the ground has increased popular support for Hamas and anger against Israel in Gaza. The same is true in the West Bank and the Islamic world. Iran and Hezbollah are capitalizing on the conflict…

What is the strategic purpose behind the present fighting?…Will Israel end in empowering an enemy in political terms that it defeated in tactical terms?…To [be] blunt, the answer so far seems to be yes.” [emphasis added]

Khalid Amayreh, in his blog in 2009, wrote about the Israeli attack on Gaza in an article titled, “Hamas gaining sympathy as onslaught continue.”

“With the massive Israeli onslaught against the Gaza Strip continuing unabated, and with Israeli political and military leaders threatening to “decimate” Hamas, Palestinian intellectuals as well as ordinary people expect Hamas’s popularity to rise dramatically when the present Israeli campaign is over…”

“Qassem predicted that the current Israeli campaign would actually lead to the boosting of Hamas’s popularity…

“Another Palestinian intellectual, Abdul Bari Atwan, predicts that public support for Hamas will increase as a result of the present Israeli campaign in the Gaza Strip.”

Al Jazeera English made a video report in 2009 titled “War on GAZA: Popular Support” in which they wrote:

“Since beginning its offensive in the Gaza Strip, Israel has repeatedly declared it will maintain attacks to smash what it calls the Hamas terrorist machine. However, as Israel’s bombardment continues, the appeal of Hamas in the Arab world appears to be growing. Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra reports on how the war has left Hamas gaining popular support.” [emphasis added]

Some of these reports are by people who think Israeli leaders don’t realize that their massacres of Palestinians in Gaza strengthen the Hamas leaders’ power there. But there is evidence that the Israeli leaders understand this full well.

There is a video of a talk given by Professor Juan Cole, an expert on the Middle East. The host who introduces Cole name-drops that he recently had lunch with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and then (starting at the 26:56 minute point of the video) reports having heard a startling eyewitness account of the following:  

that during the recent Israeli slaughter of people in Gaza, supposedly to wipe out Hamas, this eyewitness was on the phone directly with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and told him he knew where the Hamas leadership was hiding, and Barack replied, “We know where Hamas’s leadership is hiding, but we’re not going to go further, we are trying to send a message.” 

The video is titled, “Making a National Priority of Engaging the Muslim World and was published March 24, 2009 (Recorded @ uStream.Tv).”

Why Does the Israeli Government Fund and Keep Hamas in Power?

To read the answer to this question, with enormous amounts of proof based on establishment media sources, including Israeli sources, read my article, “The Israeli Government Attacks Ordinary Jews As Well As Palestinians.”

Very briefly, the answer is this. Like the United States, the Israeli government is controlled by a very wealthy Israeli upper class that severely oppresses Israeli Jewish working class people. The Israeli upper class controls the Israeli Jewish working class by pretending to be its protector against its “real enemy—Palestinians.”

To make the Palestinians be an effective bogeyman enemy, the Israeli upper class needs HAMAS to be as frightening to Jews as possible, for HAMAS to declare that it wants Islam to be sovereign in all of Palestine including the part now called Israel, and for HAMAS to deliberately direct lethal violence (suicide bombers in the past and rockets more recently) against noncombatant Israeli Jewish civilians (i.e., to commit terrorism) to make it seem that the Palestinians want to kill all the Jews in Israel and drive them into the sea. 

HAMAS plays the role of Palestinian antisemitic terrorist perfectly; it is exactly what the Israeli ruling class needs to stay in power.

Let’s Put the Purpose of the 2023 Hamas Terrorist Attack on Non-combatant Israeli Civilians in Its Larger Perspective

The purpose of a false flag attack orchestrated by a ruling class is to make one’s own population believe that they are under attack by a foreign (or “other” in some sense) enemy. The purpose is to create fear of a bogeyman enemy so that, by pretending to be protecting one’s population from that enemy, one can thereby make them submit to your authority in the name of patriotism.

This is EXACTLY what the seven decades of Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians (see details about it at here)  has accomplished for the billionaire ruling class of Israel ( as discussed in great detail here.) The purpose of this violent ethnic cleansing has always been to make the Palestinians be a frightening bogeyman enemy.

For the ruling class of Israel, peace with the Palestinians is thus absolutely the LAST thing they want: it would lead to the overthrow of the billionaire class, as my linked article above demonstrates.

So, in this larger perspective, it is virtually OBVIOUS that the Israeli ruling class WANTED Hamas to carry out its suicide bombings in the past and then later its rocket attacks on Israeli non-combatant civilians.

And it is obvious that Israel’s funding of Hamas has, despite the bogus excuses of Israel’s leaders, been for the purpose of making the bogeyman enemy maximally frightening.

And this certainly includes the most recent 2023 Hamas terrorism against Israeli non-combatant civilians. As Israel’s leaders surely know, Israeli massacres of people in Gaza STRENGTHEN, not weaken, Hamas’s control of the Palestinians there. Hamas leaders and Israeli leaders thus have a tacit alliance to keep both of them in power over their own people.

Hamas Is the Enemy of Ordinary Palestinians

The ordinary people who live in Mandate Palestine are in a carefully laid trap. The only way to escape the trap is to first understand that it exists and then to deliberately escape from it, by rejecting the entire “religious war” framework that the trap depends upon.​

When Palestinians engage in actions that are attempts to return to the region of Palestine, now called Israel, that Zionists drove them out of, and when they fight back against the Israeli military who block their path, they strengthen the anti-Zionist movement: they make it clear to the world—and to Israeli Jews—that their aim is not to “drive the Jews into the sea” or “kill all the Jews” but to be allowed to exercise their Right of Return.

But Hamas’s aim is the contrary one, to weaken the anti-Zionist movement by doing things such as firing rockets at Israeli civilians that tell the world it does indeed view ordinary non-combatant Israeli Jews as the enemy.

Look at what Hamas does when ordinary Palestinians try to exercise their Right of Return. In 2011, Palestinians in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank marched to the Israeli border and tried to enter Israel. Israeli military forces fired on them; no surprise. But Hamas also tried to block the Palestinians. As The Columbus Dispatch (and others) reported:​

“In Gaza, the Hamas police stopped buses carrying protesters near the main crossing into Israel, but dozens of demonstrators continued on foot, arriving at a point closer to the Israeli border than they had reached in years and drawing Israeli fire.”

In 2018, Palestinians in Gaza began the wonderful Great March of Return: wonderful because it told the world that the true aim of Palestinians is to be allowed to enjoy their Right of Return, not to “kill all the Jews.” The only violence by Palestinians was in clear self-defense against the Israeli military that was using violence to deny them their Right of Return.

The initiative for this mass action of Palestinians, however, did not come from Hamas but from other Palestinians. Hamas could not prevent it from happening because it was such a popular action, but Hamas tried to end it when it could. As Wikipedia states,

“The first demonstrations were organized by independent activists, but the initiative was soon endorsed by Hamas,[19] the de facto rulers of the Gaza Strip, as well as other major factions in Gaza. The activists who planned the Great March of Return intended it to last only from 30 March 2018 (Land Day) to 15 May (Nakba Day) but the demonstrations continued for almost 18 months until Hamas on 27 December 2019 announced that they would be postponed.[1]” [emphasis added]

The Issue Is Not Violence Versus Non-Violence, but Race/Ethnic War Versus Class War

The Palestinians, like all oppressed people, have a perfect right to use violence in self-defense against those who oppress them violently. This has nothing in common with violence deliberately directed against non-combatant civilians.

Years ago, I wrote about this in an article titled “What Would it Look Like if Hamas and Hezbollah Fought a Class War?”

Please read here the eloquent explanation by a great Palestinian (now a fugitive from Israel), Azmi Bishara, why terrorism (violence against non-combatant civilians) is not resistance and resistance is not terrorism. This article also discusses how the great majority of Muslims worldwide oppose terrorism violence against noncombatant civilians.

The purpose of HAMAS is to enable Zionist leaders to falsely persuade the world that Palestinian resistance to Zionist ethnic cleansing is terrorism. Don’t let the Zionist leaders get away with this. Terrorism is not resistance; and resistance is not terrorism.

What Do Most Palestinians Think About Hamas’ Terrorism?

What ordinary Palestinians and Israelis, as opposed to their respective “leaders,” want can be inferred from an event that I read about back in 2001.

On August 30, 2001 in the West Bank Palestinian village of Ni’elin, Amos Tagouri, a 60-year-old Israeli Jewish cab driver, was having breakfast in a little restaurant just opened by his Palestinian friend, Mursi Amira, when a masked gunman walked up to his table and fatally shot him.

Tagouri was an Israeli Jew in a village of Palestinians who were largely unemployed because Israel wouldn’t let them travel to their former jobs in Israel. But he was highly regarded by the people of Ni’elin.

According to the Boston Globe report of the incident (September 1, 2001), Amira said:

 “Amos was one of us. He knew our culture. If he prayed with us he would have been one of us completely. . . . This is a bigger loss for us than for the Jews…he helped people here a lot. He was not rich, but he drove the farmers to sell their cactus fruit and figs in Israel, and if they didn’t have enough money to pay until after the market, he accepted that…The whole village is angry. The people of this village spit on this. It is an act of cowardice.”

Mustafa Amira, a vegetable stand owner, said, “He helped us. He respected us, we respected him. Hamas, Fatah – I don’t know” who killed him. “I know they are a gang.” Amira’s mother condemned the killers. “They think if they kill him, the Israelis crack down, and the village will be radicalized. I hope it will not happen.”

“The extremists do not want peace,” said Sakhi Hayun, 34, owner of the Sandwich Bar in Modi’in and former employer of Amira and his brother. “That’s why they kill Arab and Israeli civilians in the road. Ninety percent of the people, both Israelis and Arabs, do not support this.”

The Boston Globe reported this as a freak event, calling the village the “rarest of places in the bitter struggle that has convulsed Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories for 11 months—a place where one side cried over a death on the other.” But what happened in Ni’elin is what Arab and Jewish elites are afraid will happen everywhere unless they can prevent it by spreading fear and mistrust with terrorism and government-sponsored discrimination.

This is why, for example, the Israeli government was afraid of the solidarity between Jews and Arabs that was developing in the struggle against the construction of a super highway. On October 15, 2001, Arab residents of Baka al Gharabiya and Jatt demonstrated against the Israeli government’s plan to confiscate 2,800 dunams of their land for the Trans-Israel Highway.

While Arabs in Israel own only 3% of the privately held land, 85% of the land confiscated for the highway (travel on which is restricted for non-Jews) had been taken from Palestinian Israelis, destroying agricultural land they needed to survive.

Jews in Israel rallied to support the Arab protest, arguing that “The highway will effectively deepen cleavages between Jews and Arabs, rich and poor, taking jobs from poor peasants and farmers, to make transportation more convenient for the rich.”

Jewish residents of nearby Kibbutz Magal and Ma’anit told the Israeli government that, if the road must be built, the land confiscation should not discriminate against non-Jews, and for that reason they proposed an alternative plan that entailed giving over some of their land to their Palestinian neighbors in a logical compromise.

But the Israel Lands Authority and Ariel Sharon’s government insisted that the plans move forward without changes. The incident is but one example of why Palestinians are fighting the Israeli government.

Incidents like these show that most people in Palestine and the part of it called Israel want peace and security in a society based on equality, concern for one another and mutual aid. Their leaders want society to be unequal, with them at the top ruling over and dominating everybody else.

The truth is that if the Israeli ruling class stopped treating Palestinians like dirt, then most Palestinians would view Hamas’s violent terrorism against ordinary noncombatant Jews–and any advocacy whatsoever of violence against people just because they are Jews–as criminally immoral behavior.

Why Did Palestinians Vote for Hamas in Gaza?

There are two reasons many Palestinians voted for Hamas in Gaza’s elections.

First, Hamas has two branches, a social work branch and a military branch. The social work branch operates various social services for Palestinians, “from the supply of housing, food and water for the needy to more general functions like financial aid, medical assistance, educational development and religious instruction.” Many Palestinians voted for Hamas to keep these social services going.

Second, the only election competitor to Hamas is the Fatah Party affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organization, which is widely known to be notoriously corrupt and in cahoots with the Israeli government as the party in charge of the Palestine Authority, as discussed here. Many Palestinians voted for Hamas because the alternative was far more corrupt and far more obviously in cahoots with the Israeli government.

Most Muslims in the World, Like Most Jews, Oppose Violence Against Noncombatant Civilians.

Read the linked articles below about this.

Extremism Widely Rejected [from Pew Research]

“Muslims around the world strongly reject violence in the name of Islam. Asked specifically about suicide bombing, clear majorities in most countries say such acts are rarely or never justified as a means of defending Islam from its enemies.

“In most countries where the question was asked, roughly three-quarters or more Muslims reject suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilians. And in most countries, the prevailing view is that such acts are never justified as a means of defending Islam from its enemies.

“Yet there are some countries in which substantial minorities think violence against civilians is at least sometimes justified. This view is particularly widespread among Muslims in the Palestinian territories (40%), Afghanistan (39%), Egypt (29%) and Bangladesh (26%).”

“Almost all radical movements in today’s Islam, anywhere in the world, are tied to Wahhabism, an ultra-conservative, reactionary sect of Islam, which is in control of the political life of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other staunch allies of the West in the Gulf.

“To quote Dr. Abdullah Mohammad Sindi:

“It is very clear from the historical record that without British help neither Wahhabism nor the House of Saud would be in existence today. Wahhabism is a British-inspired fundamentalist movement in Islam.

“Through its defense of the House of Saud, the US also supports Wahhabism directly and indirectly regardless of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Wahhabism is violent, right wing, ultra-conservative, rigid, extremist, reactionary, sexist, and intolerant…””

“Killing of innocent people has no place in Islam…Or the Hadith that states “Whoever kills a mu’ahid [non-combatant, innocent non-Muslims] will not smell the scent of paradise …” (Bukhari). A contextual reading of the Koran or Hadith leads to one conclusion only: there is no justification for the killing of innocent people, whether in Baghdad or Boston. Full stop! The ends do not justify the means in Islamic ethics!

Therefore, associating murder or the killing of innocent people and bystanders to “Islam” is not only abhorrent, but goes against the clear text of Islam.

Also see “Should We Blame Islam for Terrorism?” by David Shariatmadari.

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John Spritzler is a retired Senior Research Scientist at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. He is the editor of PDRBoston.org, the father of three boys and a long-time resident of Boston, MA. John can be reached at [email protected].

Featured image: Members of the Hamas al-Qassam Brigade at an event marking the anniversary of Israel’s 2014 war on Gaza (EPA-EFE/Mohammed Saber via Euractiv)

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As the Israel-Gaza conflict escalates, with the expected involvement of various regional powers, the inclusion of global ones after the United States sent a massive naval force to the Eastern Mediterranean was guaranteed. And indeed, this now includes Russia which decided to send its superfast, high-flying MiG-31 jets to patrol the Black Sea. Namely, on October 18, Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly announced that Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) will deploy MiG-31K/I (interceptors modified into strike fighters) armed with 9-A-7660 “Kinzhal” air-launched hypersonic missiles (usually given the unconfirmed Kh-47M2 designation) in response to large-scale US naval deployments. Although this doesn’t immediately indicate that the jets are on combat duty to tackle the possible involvement of US forces, the “Kinzhal’s” range and speed are more than enough to jeopardize American assets.

With the USS “Dwight D. Eisenhower” Nimitz-class supercarrier (CVN-69) joining the USS “Gerald R. Ford” (CVN-78), the US Navy now operates two carrier strike groups (CSGs) in the Eastern Mediterranean. Combined, both vessels can carry up to 180 aircraft, in addition to other ships escorting them as part of the CSGs. This massive force is a threat to Russian allies in the region, particularly Syria, and by extension, Moscow’s forces deployed in the Middle Eastern country.

The MiG-31s armed with “Kinzhals” and flying over the Black Sea cover the entirety of the Eastern Mediterranean without going anywhere near American CSGs. Namely, although estimates vary significantly, the “Kinzhal’s” range is up to 2000 km, meaning that the MiG-31K/I strike fighters are capable of launching the hypersonic missiles well beyond the range of any US ship-based air defenses, interceptors or similar assets.

It should be noted that the US Navy also sent the USS “Bataan” (LHD-5) Wasp-class amphibious assault ship with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (SOC – Special Operations Capable) and additional naval forces.

The USS “Bataan” can also carry up to 20 aircraft, further reinforcing the already massive US presence in the area. In addition, the 26th MEU has at least 1600 marines, although its full combat strength is up to 2400. Apart from these, the Pentagon deployed other assets such as the A-10 “Thunderbolt II” attack jets, F-15E “Strike Eagle” strike fighters, as well as the B-1B “Lancer” long-range bombers. The latter were sent from their home base in Texas on October 12 and forward deployed to RAF (Royal Air Force) Fairford airbase in the United Kingdom. From there, “Lancers” could launch strikes against targets across the Middle East and elsewhere, jeopardizing at least half a dozen countries in the region.

As previously mentioned, all of the aforementioned assets are a threat to Russian forces deployed in the area, as well as to Moscow’s allies, particularly Syria. It should be noted that the forces Washington DC sent so far are absolutely unnecessary against Hamas. In fact, US President Joe Biden himself stated that Israel has “one of the finest fighting forces” and that it’s more than capable of dealing with Hamas. This leaves Russia, Iran and other countries in the Middle East with only one logical conclusion – the newly arrived US forces are there for other reasons. Apart from that, the deployment also coincides with the increase in activities of NATO-backed terrorist groups in Syria. This is particularly true for Turkish-supported jihadists that are now escalating their illegal activities in Syria, particularly in the terrorist-occupied northwestern part of the country, where they could launch offensive operations.

Washington DC could very well use the Israel-Gaza conflict as an opportunity to attack Syria or at the very least Iranian and pro-Iranian forces in the region, which could deeply destabilize Damascus. Moscow is committed to the preservation of Syria, not only because of its strategically important military facilities there, but also because NATO would inevitably turn the unfortunate country into yet another global hotbed of terrorism if President Bashar al-Assad is ever overthrown. It should be noted that Turkey is also deeply involved in this, despite its recent rhetoric condemning Israeli actions in Gaza. And while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan keeps fuming at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, behind the scenes, the two countries are still maintaining close ties. If Ankara had the interests of Palestinians in mind, it wouldn’t coordinate the terrorist groups it supports to escalate in Syria.

As for the Russian military, its deployment of MiG-31s armed with the “Kinzhal” air-launched hypersonic missiles is a prime example of how a very small-scale force can provide a massive asymmetric advantage over much larger US forces. The missile’s blistering speed of up to Mach 12 (or possibly even higher) is a virtually insurmountable obstacle for any air or missile defense system. In fact, despite repeated claims by the mainstream propaganda machine that the Kiev regime forces shot down at least half a dozen “Kinzhals”, the evidence for this is either non-existent or simply laughable. However, the Russian hypersonic missile did destroy at least one battery of the much-touted American “Patriot” SAM (surface-to-air missile) system back in mid-May. More recently, “Kinzhal” was made even more readily available to the VKS, as its Su-34 supersonic, multirole fighter-bombers can also use them now.

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

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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Sydney, Australia – 24 year old Bianca was a broker who was mandated first two COVID-19 Vaccines (AstraZeneca) by her employer. She then had an opportunity to work in Singapore and took 2 more boosters (Pfizer) to please her employer. She was then peer pressured to take another booster, 5th dose (Moderna) in 1st week of Jan. 2023. A week later on Jan. 16 she collapsed in the gym with seizures and died unexpectedly from a ruptured brain aneurysm on Jan. 17, 2023.

Her Full Story

Government Recommendations on Mixing COVID-19 Vaccines

Canada (June 2021)

USA (October 2021)

Europe (November 2021)

Captured Medical Magazines

WHO (2022)

My Take… 

I have done many substack articles on Pfizer & Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccines causing aneurysms, and young people dying suddenly of ruptured brain aneurysms (and occasionally other aneurysms).

One of the most unethical and unscientific things you can do in medicine, is to advise a patient to take and mix experimental pharmaceutical products with no long term safety studies.

Do you see it? Look how they all aggressively promoted mixing and matching”, to the point of fraudulently claiming it provided “superior immunity”. 

Bianca was almost certainly killed by a COVID-19 vaccine, but WHICH ONE?

And there-in lies the real reason for “mixing and matching”.

To make it impossible to trace the vaccine damage to a specific product.

I suspect, this is where all of this leads to:

We are entering an era of mRNA vaccine mixing.

“Triple Vaccine for the Tripledemic”

May the vaccine “mix and match” odds ever be in your favor.

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

Featured image is from COVID Intel

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China’s President Xi Jinping, in his Opening Statement to the 3^rd Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, said that “China is doing well only when the world is doing well, and if China is doing well, the world is doing even better.”

He projected a humankind of community with a shared future.

Continuing with his opening remarks, Xi said,

“One of its [BRI’s] most significant facets, is its emphasis on green infrastructure projects, and renewable energy development. Promoting the ancient Silk Road’s spirit of peace and cooperation, mutual learning and mutual benefits, openness, and win-win, is the most important source of strength for the Belt and Road cooperation.”

The Forum took place from 17-18 October 2023 in Beijing, marking the 10^th Anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which President Xi launched in September 2013 during a state visit to Kazakhstan.  

As a preamble to describing the 3^rd Forum’s forward-looking perspective on the world, The China Daily (19 October 2023) introduced the BRI Forum with its historic past: 

“Over two millennia ago, inspired by a sincere wish for friendship, our ancestors travelled across grasslands and deserts to create a land Silk Road connecting Asia, Europe and Africa, leading the world into an era of extensive cultural exchanges. More than 1,000 years ago, our ancestors set sail and braved the waves to open a maritime Silk Road linking the East and the West, beginning a new phase of closer communication among peoples.”

“Spanning thousands of miles and years, the ancient silk routes were not only routes for trade but also roads for cultural exchanges. They made a great contribution to human progress. In the 1980s, the United Nations and some countries began to envisage the Eurasian Land Bridge, the Silk Road Initiative, and other plans, reflecting a common wish to engage in communication and cooperation.”

“In March 2013, President Xi Jinping proposed the vision of a global community of shared future. In September and October that year, he raised the initiatives of joining with others to build a Silk Road Economic Belt and a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI).”

The forum was attended by 130 countries, of which 24 were represented by their leaders. In glaring absence were dignitaries from the US and Europe, except for Hungary’s Viktor Orban. Other heads of state present were Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Indonesia’s Joko Widodo, as well as many from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Even the Taliban, the quasi-representatives of Afghanistan’s government, sent a delegation. 

Significantly, among the attendees of the 3^rd Belt and Road Forum was UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. 

By contrast, the 2019 forum was attended by 37 world leaders including 5 from Europe, Italy, Greece, Austria, Portugal, and the Czech Republic.

Italy, an important EU member and the only G7 member, is currently part of the Belt and Road. However, Italy did not attend the forum.

Only a year ago, Italy’s PM Giorgia Meloni praised the BRI cooperation between her country and China. In the meantime, under strong pressure from Washington and the EU, she is considering exiting the Belt and Road when the current pact expires in March 2024. It is not done yet as Ms. Meloni is most likely asking for a parliamentary vote on the BRI membership.

See this, Italy: US Pressure to Exit the Chinese “Belt and Road”. To Stay or Not to Stay in the BRI? (25 July 2023).

The following video clip of a CNN interview with PM Meloni and with Ms. Zoe Liu, a Chinese Studies Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations, is quite revealing about the slanted interview style and opinion-making – of western media.

Click here to view the video

The absence of European and other world leaders, plus the strongly pronounced alliance between Presidents Xi and Putin, demonstrating throughout close solidarity, underscored the growing division between East and West, or between the Global South and the Global North.

In other words, a deepening chasm between the world’s two power poles, East and West, is visible at any major world event, when issues of global significance are discussed.

For example, Xi and Putin were leading a small group of country delegations which did not condemn Hamas for attacking Israel, knowing well that for the last seven-plus decades, Israel has increasingly and randomly murdered Palestinians, evermore oppressed Palestine, and in 2007 made Gaza into the world’s largest open-air prison of 2.3 million people.

China has been for many years a strong supporter for Palestine freedom, for a two-state solution. But Israel, with the support of Washington, has no interest in what looks like the only way out, into peace and hopefully over time a harmonious cohabitation of two neighboring sovereign countries.

Most likely, China and Russia know that Israel herself was behind the attack by Hamas. Israel is the presumed creator and funder of Hamas. Making the Hamas October 7 assault a “false flag” – leading to thousands of deaths on both sides, but mostly Palestinians. And the conflict is far from over.

Instead of launching accusations, Russia and China called for a cease-fire and peace negotiations.

It is not to be excluded that as part of a peace proposal, China and Russia may advance the idea of rebuilding Gaza and the West Bank under the Belt and Road Initiative. This might be a plan finding the Global South’s approval.

Just in case, it would be interesting to see the West’s reaction to such a positive and constructive suggestion – much more than has come forward from the west in the last 75 years during which Israel has systematically attempted to annihilate Palestine. 

Xi’s show of solidarity with Putin at the Belt and Road Forum also underscored the deepening division between the world’s major powers. It shows the world that cooperation with the West – a world in harmony — is not part of the Globalists’ agenda.

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Just as a reflection – does anybody really believe that the western so-called leaders, who openly cheer for Israel’s generations-old aggression and now genocide, do not know the truth?

That they do not know who is the real aggressor in this age-old conflict?

At night, before they go to sleep, some of them may even secretly pray for Palestine. 

But they do not dare openly standing up for justice and peace. Why not?

They are only power-thirsty puppets for a huge Financial -Military -IT-Media -Pharma Monster which pulls the strings on all the visible leaders, corporate CEOs, World Economic Forum (WEF), WHO – and yes, also Washington. 

When the majority of these puppets do have the courage to stand up and step out of the Matrix, then war may convert to real peace.

In the meantime, the best we have is the Belt and Road, set out to unite humanity for a shared future of prosperity. 

Since its launch in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative has poured hundreds of billions of dollars equivalent into BRI economic development, mostly infrastructure projects such as the construction of bridges, ports, highways, power plants and telecoms, across Asia, Latin America, Africa, and parts of Europe.

This does not even account for cultural, educational, and scientific interchange between countries, promoted by the BRI. Every interaction between countries and societies is a step towards better understanding, towards peaceful cohabitation.

China’s Foreign Minister, Mr. Wang Yi, in a press conference for Chinese and foreign media, summarized China’s outlook for Belt and Road cooperation as a new stage of high-quality development.

Mr. Yi pointed to four new areas of development and cooperation – which were also covered by President Xi’s opening address.

First, promoting multidimensional connectivity of the Eurasian continent. China proposed to support the building of a multidimensional connectivity network of the Eurasian continent from five aspects, including strengthening railway connectivity based on the China-Europe Railway Express, building a new logistics corridor across the Eurasian continent linked by direct road transportation, building the trans-Caspian international transportation corridor, advancing the “Silk Road Maritime” and the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, and building the Air Silk Road between China and Europe.

Second, BRI’s new stage will be led by the Green Silk Road. China will deepen cooperation with all parties in areas such as green infrastructure, green energy, green finance, and green transportation, step up support for the BRI International Green Development Coalition, implement the Green Investment Principles for the Belt and Road, and make green development a great banner of the Belt and Road.

Third, the new stage will be empowered by the Digital Silk Road. China will work with all parties to foster an open, fair, and non-discriminatory environment for the development of the digital economy, promote the deep integration of digital technology and the real economy, and narrow the digital divide. China has also put forward the Global Initiative for Artificial Intelligence Governance, which is of great significance for improving and strengthening the global digital governance system; and

Fourth, this new stage for China means joining hands with other countries in realizing global modernization. Through Belt and Road cooperation, China will deepen the integration of China’s economy and the world economy. China is firmly committed to building an open world economy, jointly realizing modernization featuring peaceful development, mutually beneficial cooperation, and prosperity for all, implementing the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, and the Global Civilization Initiative proposed by President Xi Jinping, and building a human community with a shared future.

To conclude, Minister Wang Yi stressed that Belt and Road cooperation represents the advancing of the times, and it is the right path forward. He joins President Xi Jinping pointing to the Belt and Road as a vital instrument working towards a community with a shared future for mankind, and with shared prosperity.

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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

Featured image is from CGTN

A escalada na Palestina parece inevitável. Pressionadas pelos setores pró-guerra dos seus países, as delegações ocidentais no Conselho de Segurança das Nações Unidas (CSNU) rejeitaram uma importante resolução proposta pela Federação Russa, que poderia ter garantido um cessar-fogo parcial no conflito. Como resultado da desaprovação, a guerra agravou-se rapidamente e, no dia seguinte à decisão do CSNU, um hospital foi bombardeado em Gaza, gerando uma grave crise humanitária.

O texto russo estabeleceu termos mínimos para pôr fim ao conflito e alcançar uma solução humanitária. A violência contra civis foi absolutamente condenada, com críticas de ambos os lados. Além disso, foi solicitado um cessar-fogo humanitário para permitir medidas de apoio aos civis afetados pelo conflito. A China, os Emirados Árabes Unidos e Moçambique apoiaram a proposta de Moscou.

Contudo, os países ocidentais não parecem interessados ​​em procurar a paz, mas sim em punir coletivamente o povo de Gaza. A resolução foi veementemente contestada pelos EUA, Reino Unido, França e Japão. Somando esses votos às seis abstenções, o resultado foi o fracasso na aprovação da medida.

Nas suas justificações, os países ocidentais afirmaram que o documento russo não poderia ser aceito porque não condenava especificamente o Hamas. Este tipo de retórica parece absolutamente injustificada, uma vez que a condenação de todos os tipos de violência ilegal contra civis foi feita pela Rússia, e não há necessidade de citar os nomes, o que apenas aumentaria ainda mais as tensões.

“Explicando” o seu voto contra a paz, a embaixadora Linda Thomas-Greenfield, representante dos EUA na ONU, disse:

“Infelizmente, a resolução da Rússia apresentada hoje não cumpre todas estas responsabilidades. A resolução da Rússia, apresentada sem quaisquer consultas, não faz qualquer menção ao Hamas – nenhuma. Ao não condenar o Hamas, a Rússia está a dar cobertura a um grupo terrorista que brutaliza civis inocentes. … É ultrajante, é hipócrita e é indefensável. Colegas, os Estados Unidos não poderiam apoiar a resolução da Rússia – que, ao ignorar o terrorismo do Hamas, desonra as vítimas. Concordamos que este Conselho deve tomar medidas e trabalharemos intensamente com todos os membros do Conselho para fazê-lo (…) E não podemos permitir que este Conselho transfira injustamente a culpa para Israel e desculpe o Hamas pelas suas décadas de crueldade.”

Como podemos ver, há uma tentativa desesperada por parte dos EUA de associar a Rússia ao Hamas e torná-la parte no conflito. Mas tudo isto é mentira, uma vez que Moscou tem uma postura neutra face a conflitos duradouros, com uma opinião crítica sobre a atitude de ambos os lados. A Rússia defende uma solução de dois estados, com a Palestina tendo Jerusalém Oriental como capital, o que é uma atitude imparcial na guerra atual. Mas o Ocidente parece disposto a apoiar a política de expansionismo ilimitado de Israel, o que apenas conduzirá a mais conflitos e hostilidade.

Para piorar a situação, a postura belicosa do Ocidente teve rapidamente efeitos diretos na guerra. Em 17 de Outubro, foi lançado um ataque massivo contra o Al Ahli Arab, um hospital cristão em Gaza, matando centenas de civis, incluindo crianças, mulheres e idosos. Israel acusou os palestinos de terem realizado o ataque, mas as evidências sugerem que a culpa é de Tel Aviv. Há até relatos de que o míssil utilizado no crime foi um JDAM fornecido pelos EUA.

Independentemente de quem realizou o ataque, porém, o ponto principal é que isto teria sido evitado se no dia anterior os países ocidentais não tivessem boicotado a proposta russa de um cessar-fogo humanitário. Para endossar o seu apoio irrestrito a Israel, as potências ocidentais aceitaram a possibilidade de escalada e estão agora a ver as consequências das suas ações irresponsáveis.

Em todo o mundo, especialistas já acusam o Ocidente de ser co-responsável pelo massacre do hospital. Por exemplo, o analista político dos Emirados Árabes Unidos, baseado na China, Ebrahim Hashem, disse nas suas redes sociais:

“Quando o bloco ocidental, representado pelos EUA, Reino Unido, França e Japão, votou contra a recente resolução do Conselho de Segurança que apelava ao cessar-fogo humanitário em Gaza, basicamente deram luz verde aos sionistas para cometerem o crime. Estes 4 governos são cúmplices.”

Como resultado, os protestos aumentaram em todo o mundo árabe e islâmico. Os manifestantes apelam à intervenção militar a favor da Palestina e ao fim das relações diplomáticas com o Ocidente e Israel. Além disso, os grupos armados do eixo de resistência liderado pelo Irã parecem estar perto de uma intervenção e há vários sinais de que a guerra na Palestina atingirá a sua dimensão máxima nos próximos dias.

Tudo isto poderia ser evitado se os diplomatas americanos, franceses, ingleses e japoneses priorizassem a paz em detrimento da militância pró-Israel. Mais do que isso, o caso mostra o fracasso da ONU na prevenção de conflitos de grande escala, com a organização a aproximar-se cada vez mais do mesmo fim que a Liga das Nações tinha. Como afirmou a delegação russa, o Conselho de Segurança da ONU tornou-se refém dos interesses do Ocidente.

Neste cenário, ou são realizadas reformas institucionais ou teremos em breve uma situação aberta de conflito global.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

 

Imagem : InfoBrics

Artigo em inglês : If approved by West, Russian resolution could have prevented attack on Gaza hospital, InfoBrics, 18 de Outubro de 2023.

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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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***

President Biden rushed to Israel to give his blessings, and the blessings of the United States, and of anyone else so foolish to join the parade, to whatever Israel and the United States may do after the more than ambiguous attacks of Hamas.

President Biden declared, unambiguously stated, that Hamas had “unleashed pure unadulterated evil on the world.” He was repeating a script that someone on his staff had handed him, and he did so without any feelings or insights, just playing the role assigned to him by the rich and powerful as a pathetically broken man in a hopelessly broken system.

One must ask whether President Biden would know what evil is if it was wrapped around his neck, if it was hugging him like a brother, or if it looked him in the eyes from the other side of the mirror. 

The cynicism with which Biden’s handlers throw around that word “evil” should not blind us to the blight wrought by something horrible that we see all around us; whether it is mothers caring for their sons gone blind from vaccines in Atlanta, or fathers carrying their crumpled daughter’s bodies wrapped in cardboard in Gaza. 

President Biden’s speech was a fraud, but “evil” is no fraud.

Although my focus must fall, perforce, on policy, and I should leave debates on evil to learned professors of philosophy or men and women of the faith, nevertheless I feel compelled to speak out today about evil because our failure to understand the nature of evil will be our undoing. If we fail to grasp evil in its true nature, we may well roll blindly into a world war over the next month that will leave hundreds of millions dead. There is not much time and there is no time for self-deception, for self-indulgence.

Click here to view the video

Evil is real and it is not limited to the teachings of religious scriptures.

Evil is rarely an ugly monster that terrifies children with sharp claws and jagged fangs like Godzilla tearing through Tokyo.

No, evil is often seductive, attractive, and even enticing, leading us to accept it as a friend, an ally, because it flatters us and makes us feel more important than others, because it whispers in our ears that it is okay to do terrible things as long as no one else knows what we have done. 

Evil is invisible; it morphs into one form, and then into another, taking on the attributes that we most desire and then vanishing suddenly, mysteriously, leaving us wondering why we have so much blood on our hands.

Although Hollywood movies suggest that evil is perpetrated by some brilliant genius behind the curtains, more often than not the origins of evil are banal and ordinary, something mentioned in passing at a backyard barbeque. Original acts of evil do not draw attention to themselves at all and therefore are easily passed over without comment.

That is the threat of a banal and undetectable evil that Hannah Arendt described thus:

“Evil is never ‘radical;’ it is only extreme. It possesses neither depth nor any demonic dimension. It can overgrow and lay waste the whole world precisely because it spreads like a fungus on the surface. Evil defies thought because when thought tries to go to the roots of evil, it is frustrated, finding nothing there. That is the ‘banality’ of evil.”

I am struggling to uncover the nature of evil because it threatens us Americans from within.

I am forced to recognize that I do not have to go to Gaza to find evil. No, I do not even need to go beyond the beltway—in fact, I do not even need to leave my comfortable living room and LED TV.

As I watched President Biden there speaking in Israel, I felt as if he was animated by some power beyond himself, and beyond his staff, beyond even his political party. Something was sloughing to Jerusalem to be born in the backrooms of private intelligence firms and weapons contractors hidden behind the Stars and Stripes and the Star of David that adorned the stage.

When President Biden stated,

“I come to Israel with a single message: You are not alone. … As long as the United States stands … we’re going to stand by your side.”

He was suggesting that some horrific war has already been decided by those hidden powers and now it is time for Arabs, and Jews as well, and Americans, to die in large numbers. If it means the end of Israel and the United States, he hints, so be it. “As long at the United States stands” means “until the United States is destroyed.”

When President Biden stated that,

“If Israel didn’t exist, we would have to invent it.”

The investment banks who have made a fortune by using Israel and its security forces, and security IT, to intimidate others and to increase their profits, they most certainly knew what he meant. For, without doubt, the banks will have to invent a new Israel to do their bidding if this one is destroyed by this apocalypse they have planned out.

But perhaps the most disturbing part of the speech came after Biden said that this was not just “Israel’s 9.11,” it was “fifteen 9.11s.” Most people already know, even if they cannot come out and admit it, that 9.11 was the global military-intelligence-finance complex declaring war on the citizens of the Earth.

To think that this is now going to be 15 times the millions killed in blind wars for profit is truly frightening.

Yes, one can almost sense that evil is lurking somewhere there in the corners of Biden’s forced smile. 

And then President Biden described the Israeli response to this “9.11 of their own,” saying,

“I am sure those horrors have tapped into some kind of primal feeling, shock, pain, rage, an all-consuming rage—justice must be done.”

That is to say that an “all-consuming rage” that banishes reason, and stops dead the search for truth, must be the only response possible to this still ambiguous event. That “all-consuming rage” that the commercial media keeps harping on is precisely the door through which the darkest evil can pass unnoticed.

It could be a catastrophic war with Iran　is coming, as Biden implied when he mentioned the movement of military assets such as the USS Ford carrier strike group to the Eastern Mediterranean, to be joined by the aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower.

Most certainly these massive clusters of weapons are not meant to attack the impoverished people huddled in Gaza. They are meant to start bombing Iran at any moment.

The more I thought about this terrible turn of events, the more I was drawn back to the elegant speech that Reverend Martin Luther King delivered on April 4, 1967, exactly one year before he was assassinated, one of the most powerful speeches delivered in American history.

When Dr. King delivered the speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” at Riverside Church in New York City, he revealed to all the true form of a thoughtful and committed man of God who had wrestled with evil, tried to make a deal with lesser evils, and then was forced to come to the painful conclusion that it was his moral duty to break his studied silence about that project of death because it had infected every corner of American society.

Dr. King used the expression “Beyond Vietnam” because he knew that the illness was a spiritual one and it went far beyond the specifics of Vietnam. He did not want to get lost in the details. He spoke to the point,

“The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves organizing “clergy- and laymen-concerned committees” for the next generation.

“The words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, ‘Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.’

“Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken — the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.

“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.

“We must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

“A true revolution of values will look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: ‘This is not just.’”

I had the arrogance and the self-conceit, the confidence and the craftiness to imagine myself as a president. And yet, heeding Dr. King’s words, I must say as that as I witnessed President Biden invoking a new world war like a vengeful god, I felt that must also say, and say loudly and clearly, that this, my brothers and sisters, this is not just.

We are opening the doors for untold evil to spill out over the world, and the cynical backroom boys are betting that we will convince ourselves that because we were not directly involved in this first step of the war, therefore somehow we think that we are not responsible.

Sadly, history will judge us quite differently. 

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This article was originally published on Fear No Evil.

Emanuel Pastreich served as the president of the Asia Institute, a think tank with offices in Washington DC, Seoul, Tokyo and Hanoi. Pastreich also serves as director general of the Institute for Future Urban Environments. Pastreich declared his candidacy for president of the United States as an independent in February, 2020.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: President Joe Biden participates in a restricted bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Hotel Kempinski in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, October 18, 2023. (Official White House Photo by Cameron Smith)

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***

Stunning new video evidence reveals that Israel is likely the culprit behind the al-Ahli hospital bombing which killed more than 500 Palestinians as they slept on the hospital courtyard grounds (right next to the parking lot that was bombed).

Most conservative media publishers in America are missing key, critical evidence that overwhelmingly points to an Israeli-launched air burst bomb being used, specifically to blame Hamas and justify further atrocities in Gaza.

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***

Are you Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Jew? Then why did you remain silent when the IDF illegally annexed land and killed Palestinian children?

Why did you not speak out at such atrocities?

Are Palestinian children not human, do they not bleed? Do their parents not bleed?

Do they not need food as you need food?

Do they not need water to live, as you need water to live? Do they not need electricity?

How would you live without these essentials for human existence?

How would you like to be treated like a caged animal for 16 long years?

Is your life and that of your children of value?

The lives of those who live under the yoke and oppression of the hated IDF are devalued to that of subjugated Untermenschen existing under an illegal regime that has for years been condemned by the United Nations and the Security Council.

Yet the world stands silent until the volcano erupts with a violence that frightens all of us on Earth.

That is the inevitable consequence of remaining mute in the face of prolonged injustice. Because then our children inevitably become Palestinian children.

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Hans Stehling (a pen name) is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: A view of destroyed buildings at the Gaza Strip after Israeli airstrikes that continue on the seventh day in Gaza City, Gaza on October 13, 2023 [Abed Rahim Khatib – Anadolu Agency]

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*** 

 

 

The Zionist issue is not complicated when seen through a wider lens. Israel is a settler-colonial entity. It is an apartheid state in complete violation of international laws and standards.(1) 

Since 1948, the Zionists have been ethnically cleansing, walling-in, and terrorizing the indigenous Palestinians.

Right now, by way of deception, by pretending they are the victims, (the Hamas attack was orchestrated by Zionist intelligence entities)(2)  Zionists are wiping out, slaughtering, and mass-murdering innocent civilian Palestinians trapped in the world’s largest open air concentration camp, Gaza.

Netanyahu has admitted to supporting Hamas with a view to balkanizing Palestinian unity and to preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state. In a March 2019 meeting of his Likud Party’s Knesset members he stated publicly that,

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas … This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.” (3) 

All western media stories about this on-going catastrophe will be lies and deceptions. This is the unstated policy of Western media. It is colonial/imperialist war propaganda.(4)

The current genocide is also part of a bigger story. Lest we forget, Israel also supports al Qaeda and ISIS and criminal terror bombings against Syria and Syrians, all beneath a smokescreen of mainstream war propaganda.(5)

Western governments are a disgrace and an abomination for supporting this genocide, as they do, through their silence, their war propaganda, their political, financial, and military support.

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

Notes

1) Mark Taliano, ” Israel Tries to brand Itself as a peaceful, Democratic Oasis.  Don’t Fall for It.” Global Research. 09 October, 2023. (Israel Tries to Brand Itself as a Peaceful, Democratic Oasis. Don’t Fall for It – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization) Accessed 19 October, 2023.

2) Prof Michel Chossudovsky and Caroline Mailloux, ” Video: Is It A False Flag? “Wiping Gaza Off the Map”. The Dangers of Military Escalation.” Lux Media and Global Research, 17 October, 2023. (Video: Is It A False Flag? “Wiping Gaza Off the Map”. The Dangers of Military Escalation – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization) Accessed 19 October, 2023.

see also:

Video: Israel-Hamas War: Netanyahu’s “Planned Operation on All Fronts”

3) Prof Michel Chossudovsky, “Criminality Beyond Description: Netanyahu Supports both Hamas as well as Al Qaeda Terrorists.” Global Research, 18 October, 2023. (Criminality Beyond Description: Netanyahu Supports both Hamas as well as Al Qaeda Terrorists – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization) Accessed 19 October, 2023.

4) Mark Taliano, “Crimes Against Syria” Global Research, (Video: Crimes Against Syria – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization) Accessed 19 October, 2023.

5) Prof Michel Chossudovsky, “Criminality Beyond Description: Netanyahu Supports both Hamas as well as Al Qaeda Terrorists.” Global Research, 18 October, 2023. (Criminality Beyond Description: Netanyahu Supports both Hamas as well as Al Qaeda Terrorists – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization) Accessed 19 October, 2023.

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*** 

Bayer, which profits from various environmentally harmful and disease-causing chemicals like glyphosate, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) “to develop resource-efficient, climate-resilient solutions for crops, varieties, crop protection, weed and mechanization”.

The ICAR, an apex public sector institution, is responsible for co-ordinating agricultural education and research in India. Predatory corporations like Bayer attempt to co-opt government agencies that can provide access to extensive networks in order to wield influence and market products. It’s a key business strategy.

And this is not lost on the Peoples’ Commission on Public Sector and Services (PCPSS), which includes eminent academics, jurists, erstwhile administrators, trade unionists and social activists. In a recently released statement, it expressed concern that Bayer will exploit the ICAR’s vast infrastructure to pursue its own commercial plans within India.

And those commercial plans are clear: to boost sales of toxic proprietary products by opening up new markets in India as sales stagnate or plummet elsewhere.

Image is from the Public Domain

For example, it was reported in July that German-based Bayer expects to take a €2.5bn ($2.8bn) hit due to slower demand for its glyphosate-based products. Penetrating the huge Indian market represents a massive cash cow for foreign corporations, especially if their genetically engineered (GE), herbicide-tolerant food crops get the go ahead. Proprietary GE seeds are designed to be used with agrochemicals like the herbicide glyphosate.

An analysis of a database of 2018’s top-selling ‘crop protection products’ revealed that the world’s leading agrochemical companies made more than 35% of their sales from pesticides classed as highly hazardous to people, animals or ecosystems. The investigation identified billions of dollars of income for agrochemical giants Bayer, BASF, Corteva, FMC and Syngenta from chemicals found by regulatory authorities to pose health hazards like cancer or reproductive failure.

This investigation was based on an analysis of a huge dataset of pesticide sales from the agribusiness intelligence company Phillips McDougall.

Inadequate state funding is driving the ICAR to enter into agreements with companies like Bayer. However, the PCPSS says that such MoUs make a mockery of the stated government aim to boost self-reliance in India’s agricultural sector.

It argues that considering corporations like Bayer promote the use of toxic chemicals in agriculture, a partnership between the ICAR and Bayer of this kind is irreconcilable with the nationwide mission recently launched by Prime Minister Modi to propagate natural farming as a more sustainable alternative. In this respect, the ICAR’s MoU with Bayer is clearly counter-productive and out of place with the stated priority of the government.

The PCPSS notes that there are several ICAR-sponsored research institutions and state-level agricultural universities which are engaged in outstanding research relevant to Indian agriculture. A number of states have launched their own natural farming missions to free debt trapped farmers from the use of costly chemicals and other unsustainable practices. The PCPSS says it is therefore not clear as to why the ICAR should choose to promote Bayer in multiple areas of agricultural research.

Instead of Institutions promoting agrichemical products marketed by Bayer, the PCPSS asserts that the ICAR should shift its focus to agroecological approaches, biological inputs and integrated farming systems, which will help Indian agriculture in the long run.

Although the government revoked the three farm laws passed in 2021 that would have sounded a neoliberal death knell for Indian agriculture, it now seems to be accelerating the marketisation and corporatisation of the sector through other means. The year-long farmers’ agitation led to the government to revoke the farm laws, but these types of MoUs are one way of achieving what the farm laws failed to do.

The PCPSS wants the government to assure farmers a minimum support price for their produce on the lines recommended by the Swaminathan Committee so that farming may become a remunerative activity. It also urges the government to review the ICAR-Bayer MoU and similar agreements entered into by other official agencies with large corporates, not only in agriculture but also in other fields.

One such MoU was entered into by the Indian government in April 2021 with Microsoft, allowing its local partner, CropData, to leverage a master database of farmers. The MoU seems to be part of the AgriStack policy initiative, which involves the roll out of ‘disruptive’ technologies and digital databases in the agricultural sector.

Microsoft is supposed to help farmers with post-harvest management solutions by building a collaborative platform and capturing agriculture datasets such as crop yields, weather data, market demand and prices (data is the financially lucrative ‘new oil’ for those who own it). In turn, this would create a farmer interface for ‘smart’ agriculture, including post-harvest management and distribution.

CropData is to be granted access to a government database of 50 million farmers and their land records. As the database is developed, it will include farmers’ personal details, profiles of land held, production information and financial details. Microsoft will know more about farmers than farmers know about themselves.

The stated aim is to use digital technology to improve financing, inputs, cultivation and supply and distribution. The unstated aims are to impose a certain model of farming, promote profitable corporate technologies and products, encourage market (corporate) dependency among farmers and create a land market by establishing a system of ‘conclusive titling’ of all land in the country so that ownership can be identified and land can then be bought or taken away.

The plan is that, as farmers lose access to land or can be identified as legal owners, predatory institutional investors and large agribusinesses will buy up and amalgamate holdings, facilitating the further roll out of high-input, corporate-dependent industrial agriculture (and the massive health and environmental costs that it entails).

Indian agriculture has witnessed gross underinvestment over the years, whereby it is now wrongly depicted as a basket case and underperforming and ripe for a sell off to those very interests who had a stake in its underinvestment.

The PCPSS says it is not clear as to why the ICAR should choose to promote Bayer in multiple areas of agricultural research, especially given the government’s stated commitment to natural farming.

However, India has submitted itself to the regime of foreign finance, awaiting signals on how much it can spend, giving up any pretence of economic sovereignty and leaving the space open for private capital to move in and capture markets.

That much has been made clear by the Research Unit for Political Economy in the article ‘Modi’s Farm Produce Act Was Authored Thirty Years Ago, in Washington DC’. The piece states that current agricultural ‘reforms’ are part of a broader process of imperialism’s increasing capture of the Indian economy.

A 1991 World Bank memorandum set out the programme for India. At the time, India was still in its foreign exchange crisis of 1990-91 and had just been subjected to an IMF-monitored ‘structural adjustment’ programme that involved shifting 400 million people from rural India to the cities and corporatising agriculture.

The current administration is attempting to dramatically accelerate the implementation of the above programme. The aim is to drastically dilute the role of the public sector in agriculture, reducing it to a facilitator of private (foreign) capital.

There has been an ongoing strategy to make farming financially non-viable for many of India’s farmers. The number of cultivators in India declined from 166 million to 146 million between 2004 and 2011. Some 6,700 left farming each day. Between 2015 and 2022, the number of cultivators was likely to decrease to around 127 million.

We have seen the running down of the sector for decades, spiralling input costs, withdrawal of government assistance and the impacts of cheap, subsidised imports which depress farmers’ incomes.

The PCPSS is not the first to express concern about the deepening penetration of large, profit-hungry corporations. In late November 2018, a charter was released by the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (an umbrella group of around 250 farmers’ organisations) expressing similar sentiments.

The charter also expressed alarm about the economic, ecological, social and existential crisis of Indian agriculture as well as the persistent state neglect of the sector and discrimination against farming communities.

The repeal of the three farm laws in late 2021 was little more than a tactical manoeuvre. The powerful global interests behind these laws did not simply disappear. As big tech giants team up with traditional agribusiness companies like Bayer, the goal to capture and radically restructure the sector remains and is gaining momentum. The farmers’ struggle in India is far from over.

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Renowned author Colin Todhunter specialises in development, food and agriculture. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image is from Reclaim the Republic

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Read Colin Todhunter’s e-Book entitled

Food, Dispossession and Dependency. Resisting the New World Order

We are currently seeing an acceleration of the corporate consolidation of the entire global agri-food chain. The high-tech/big data conglomerates, including Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Google, have joined traditional agribusiness giants, such as Corteva, Bayer, Cargill and Syngenta, in a quest to impose their model of food and agriculture on the world.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is also involved (documented in ‘Gates to a Global Empire‘ by Navdanya International), whether through buying up huge tracts of farmland, promoting a much-heralded (but failed) ‘green revolution’ for Africa, pushing biosynthetic food and genetic engineering technologies or more generally facilitating the aims of the mega agri-food corporations.

Click here to read.

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***

It’s hardly a secret that the embattled Kiev regime is terrified of the looming prospect of losing access to hundreds of billions of dollars in American military “aid”.

Even before the outbreak of hostilities in Gaza, the United States was going through a political crisis after the GOP warhawk Kevin McCarthy was removed as House speaker.

With him out of the picture, the increasingly less “cooperative” wing of the Republican Party became more dominant in the US Congress and decided to reshuffle the so-called “aid” priorities by refocusing on other hotspots on the geopolitical chessboard. Although they promised to start tackling the ever-growing mountain of domestic issues, they too (over)focused on other countries. And while their initial target was China, the Republicans have now found themselves in a situation where they have to pour additional resources into the Middle East.

The Israel-Hamas conflict became the centerpiece of the mainstream propaganda machine, clearly implying that the Ukrainian crisis lost its importance to the vast majority of regular people in the political West. Terrified of this prospect, Zelensky desperately tried to bring the spotlight back to Ukraine and himself, but failed miserably after he was told that “the time isn’t right”. However, the warhawks don’t want to renounce their favorite cash cow. The Israel-Gaza conflict is highly unlikely to provide as steady of a profit as the Ukrainian one does. What’s more, leaving the Neo-Nazi junta to fend for itself would invariably mean defeat. The political West doesn’t only provide weapons, munitions, logistics, ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance), etc, but also supports the Kiev regime’s economy.

In fact, its entire state apparatus is directly dependent on the US and, to a lesser extent, the European Union. This “life support” on a governmental level has been the source of crawling frustration among the populace in the political West for well over a year and a half at this point.

And while the increasingly impoverished and indebted citizens of Western countries don’t want any “aid” to be sent to anyone until the numerous problems at home are dealt with first, they are somewhat more likely to tolerate it when it’s given to Israel. This is a major issue for the US, as financing two allies/client states simultaneously is very difficult, despite boastful reassurances from the troubled Biden administration. Having to deal with an effectively hostile US Congress, the current government is actively looking for ways to circumvent or at least trick it.

The State Department wants to ease the existing political tensions by (ab)using the ongoing Israel-Gaza crisis.

Namely, the Biden administration is mulling the unification of its “aid” packages for Israel and the Kiev regime. This would accomplish at least two things. First, the government would get on the good side of the US Congress, which is virtually unequivocal in its support for Israel. And second, the US Congress is much less likely to reject the “aid” package if the proposal also includes Israel. In doing so, the Zelensky cash cow stays “in business”, along with all the congressmen who made significant investments in the perpetually avaricious US Military Industrial Complex (MIC). The Pentagon already stated that military aid within the scope of existing agreements has been underway for days and that Israel is receiving “everything it needs”.

According to various reports, this includes air defense and fighter jet munitions. Israel has also requested additional PGMs (precision-guided munitions), SDBs (small-diameter bombs), interceptor missiles for its “Iron Dome” SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems, etc. Officially, Israel receives nearly $4 billion in US military aid each year, although some sources claim that the actual sum is orders of magnitude greater, measuring in tens of billions. Considering how much money the Neo-Nazi junta got so far, the sustainability of this is highly questionable, particularly as Washington DC has been creating enemies left and right. And while Biden keeps parroting about “the most powerful country in human history” and how all this is “a mere speck” for the “omnipotent America“, facts are not exactly in line with such narratives.

At present, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are mostly focused on airstrikes, meaning that they’re using munitions that the Kiev regime forces don’t need yet. However, when Israel launches its ground operations in Gaza, it will require significant amounts of artillery munitions, rockets and missiles to support its tanks and armored vehicles. This is when things could get complicated for the Neo-Nazi junta, as its forces are using enormous amounts of precisely such weapons and munitions. It’s extremely unlikely that the US Congress would prioritize the Kiev regime over Israel, meaning that the former would find itself in an impossible situation, as its needs for munitions have never been met so far, despite hundreds of billions in military “aid”. Having access to even fewer US/NATO weapons would exponentially exacerbate this problem.

However, most Republicans aren’t exactly thrilled with the idea. Many have suggested that “only one” can be financed at the moment, clearly implying it wouldn’t be the Kiev regime, while the so-called uber-hawks proposed even more radical measures, such as the inclusion of Taiwan in the lumped “aid” package. This specific proposal came from House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican infamous for urging Americans to show readiness to die for Taiwanese semiconductors. Expectedly, almost nobody in the US political establishment is talking about the record-breaking debt spiral that is threatening to bankrupt the belligerent thalassocracy.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

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

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

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***

Sometimes a fragment reveals more than a tome. Karma Nabulsi, a politics professor at Oxford University, introduced me to one such fragment. Did I know, she asked, that Winston Churchill sent “the Black and Tans” to Palestine?

That conversation helped me grasp why Irish people tend to feel a sense of affinity with the Palestinians. Our historical experiences are not identical but they do have striking parallels, which I became eager to explore.

This year marks the centenary of the Balfour Declaration. The November 1917 letter to the Zionist movement committed Britain to support the establishment of a “Jewish national home” in Palestine. Through that document, the world’s pre-eminent power gave its backing to a project aimed at colonising with Europeans a land where most of the population was Arab.

Arthur James Balfour, then Britain’s foreign secretary and the declaration’s signatory, had previously served as chief secretary of Ireland. He was best known for ordering police to open fire on an 1887 land reform protest in Mitchelstown, Co Cork. Resulting in three deaths, the incident earned him the sobriquet Bloody Balfour.

Balfour was among many British political figures to leave a deep impression on both Ireland and Palestine. As home secretary in 1916, Herbert Samuel oversaw the internment of almost 2,000 people allegedly involved in the Easter Rising; he also approved Roger Casement’s hanging. Samuel became the first high commissioner of Palestine as Britain took charge of its administration between the two world wars.

Faced with unrest in 1921, Samuel ordered air strikes against Palestinian rioters and declared a state of emergency. At that juncture, Churchill, then colonial secretary, advocated that a “picked force of white gendarmerie” be established for Palestine, according to official records. Churchill’s idea was that the gendarmerie should be comprised of men who had served with crown forces during Ireland’s War of Independence.

Henry Hugh Tudor, commander of the Auxiliaries in Ireland, had advised Churchill that up to 800 “absolutely reliable men” could be made available from those forces. The Auxiliaries had worked alongside the Black and Tans and the two policing divisions were often regarded as synonymous. The gendarmerie founded at Churchill’s initiative contained members of both.

In effect, then, the Black and Tans and the Auxiliaries were assigned to Palestine once their presence in Ireland was no longer deemed necessary. The parallel fascinated me. One of those forces’ most notorious escapades occurred in my hometown – Balbriggan, Co Dublin. As revenge for the killing of a police officer by republicans in September 1920, the forces torched a hosiery factory that was a major local employer, as well as destroying and damaging numerous pubs and houses. The “sack” of Balbriggan, as the incident became known, prompted a Westminster debate about whether the crown forces lacked discipline.

Britain’s imperial archives show that some diplomats asked if the “Black and Tan tradition” was being followed in Palestine. One briefing document apparently written for the British Army pointed to how many members of the Churchill-initiated gendarmerie had formerly been based in Ireland.

“This original composition gave the force a military efficiency, combined with a certain ruthlessness,” the paper added.

Douglas Duff had been stationed with the Black and Tans in Galway before moving to Palestine. His memoirs make clear that he brought a great deal of bigotry with him. Referring to the Palestinians of Haifa, he wrote: “Most of us were so infected by the sense of our own superiority over these ‘lesser breeds’ that we scarcely regarded these people as human.”

Officers who had served in Ireland played a prominent role in quelling protests by Palestinians against the expropriation of land where they lived and farmed. Raymond Cafferata, for example, had been part of the Auxiliaries during the Irish War of Independence. In 1933, he headed a contingent of foot police at a Jaffa demonstration which had been banned. A baton charge that he ordered was commended by British administration in Jerusalem for being “magnificently executed” despite how numerous Palestinians were shot dead during the protest.

Later in the 1930s, a full-scale Palestinian revolt erupted. Grattan Bushe, a legal adviser to the Colonial Office, warned that “repression by force is repeating the mistake which was made in Ireland”. His warning was ignored; military commanders were assured that they could take “whatever measures are necessary”. The measures were to include demolishing much of Jaffa’s old city, imposing collective punishment on villages with rebels in their midst and mass detention in labour camps.

Some of the men behind projects that are still reviled today were originally from Ireland. About £2 million – a huge sum for the 1930s – was spent on erecting a rampart along Palestine’s northern frontier. It was the brainchild of Charles Tegart, a Derry-born police chief. Tegart was something of an innovator. He recommended that the most sophisticated surveillance technology of that era should be installed in “Tegart’s fence”, as the project was dubbed.

The Balfour Declaration’s purpose was to form a “little loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism”, according to Ronald Storrs, “the first military governor of Palestine since Pontius Pilate” (his words). Not everything went to plan: the Zionist movement fell out with and, in the case of two groups, waged a campaign of guerilla warfare against Britain in the 1940s. Storrs’ comment nonetheless encapsulates how the British elite viewed their nearest colony and the Middle East through the same lens.

Image: Lieutenant-General Sir Alan Cunningham, pictured at Lydda Airport in November 1945 on arriving to replace Field Marshal Lord Gort as High Commissioner of Palestine. (Licensed under the Public Domain)

On May 14th, 1948, British rule in Palestine came to an end; Israel declared itself a state that same day. The transition was marked in a low-key ceremony at which Alan Cunningham, the last British high commissioner in Jerusalem, inspected a colour party.

Cunningham had been in charge during the mass expulsion of Palestinians by Zionist forces, an episode called the Nakba or catastrophe. The British authorities chose not to intervene.

The Palestinian flag is being flown over Dublin’s City Hall this month in solidarity with the Nakba’s victims. That is grimly appropriate. Alan Cunningham was born in Dublin.

*

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Author David Cronin is from Balbriggan, the Co Dublin town sacked by the Black and Tans.

David Cronin’s book Balfour’s Shadow: A Century of British Support for Zionism and Israel is published by Pluto Press. plutobooks.com 

Featured image is a NATIONAL POST STAFF PHOTO

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***

Coordinated airstrikes hit two US occupation bases in southern and northeast Syria in the morning of 19 October, in the latest escalation against US troops in West Asia since the start of the Gaza-Israel war.

According to informed sources who spoke with Al-Mayadeen, three drones were able to fly above the Al-Tanf base at the Syrian-Iraqi-Jordanian border and launch several successful airstrikes.

“The attack led to a major alert within [Al-Tanf], with continuous flights of military aircraft and helicopters in the area,” Al-Mayadeen reported.

Sources within the US-led coalition that spoke with Iraq’s Shafaq News on Wednesday claimed that the occupation forces “successfully intercepted and downed two of the drones, but the third managed to target the base.”

The US occupation base at Conoco oil field in Deir Ezzor governorate was also hit by multiple rockets.

No group has taken responsibility for the attacks and no casualties have been reported.

Hours before Thursday’s airstrikes on US troops, the Israeli air force attacked the Syrian army in the southwestern Quneitra governorate, causing material damage. Explosions were also reported in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

US troops stationed in Iraq’s Ain al-Asad airbase were also targeted by airstrikes on Wednesday, which were claimed by the Kataib Hezbollah resistance faction. Although the Pentagon initially claimed its forces repelled the attack, the official story changed to include reports of wounded soldiers as the hours went on.

“The resistance in Iraq has entered the battle of ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’ and directed its strikes at US bases,” the military spokesman for Kataib Hezbollah declared on Thursday.

Since the start of the historic Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in the Gaza envelope, factions within the Resistance Axis in West Asia have warned they are ready to join the battle against Israel in support of the Palestinian cause and that US occupation troops and bases would become “legitimate military targets” if Washington also decides to enter the fray.

As tensions escalate, the Pentagon has deployed multiple warships and thousands of troops to the Israeli coast. The UK, Germany, and the Netherlands have mobilized troops to support Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign against Palestinians.

*

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***

Oct. 2023 – Byron, GA – Hannah Bennett graduated from Middle Georgia State University and started struggling with a “viral infection” in Aug.2022. In Jan. 2023 she was diagnosed with CNS Vasculitis and Oct. 2023 MRI showed progressing atrophy in areas of her brain.

Canadian Health Officials knew about this particular Pfizer side effect:

Nov. 2021 – Oshawa, Ontario, Canada – 31 year old Kayla Jones is a Real Estate Law Clerk and she had 2 Pfizer mRNA vaccine doses (2nd dose June 25, 2021). Her story is fascinating. She crashed her car Sep. 20, 2021 and started having seizures and strokes and was eventually diagnosed with CNS Vasculitis.

But here is a crucial piece of the puzzle. Ontario government officials advised her “No further COVID-19 vaccine until client seen at CNS Vasculitis clinic.”

March 2023 – Andover, MN – Scott Mathison was diagnosed with CNS Vasculitis in Mayo Clinic, after months of ER visits and hospitalizations.

March 2023 – Cocoa, FL – Adam Schmalenberger started having strokes in Oct. 2021 and he was diagnosed with CNS Vasculitis in June 2022 in Mayo Clinic.

Literature

2023 Sep. 29 – Ariyoshi et al – Childhood primary angiitis of the central nervous system following COVID-19 vaccination (BNT162b2/Pfizer-BioNtech): A case report

• 9 year old Japanese boy, previously healthy, had 2 doses of Pfizer mRNA
• 1 day after 2nd Pfizer dose he developed fever and a left-sided headache.
• 6 days after onset of fever, brain MRI showed stenosis at beginning of left middle cerebral artery.
• Testing determined CNS Vasculitis and he was treated with steroids

2021 Nov. 16 – Takeyama et al – Intracerebral hemorrhage due to vasculitis following COVID-19 vaccination: a case report

• 48F Japanese woman had 1st dose of Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA vaccine
• two days after Pfizer she noticed a gradually progressing left hemiparesis.
• Head CT showed intracranial hemorrhage up to 5.6cm and she had a craniotomy
• Pathology showed a neutrophilic vasculitis at the level of capillary to postcapillary venules
• Theory: “pathogenesis of vasculitis following vaccination remains unclear, although an autoimmune mechanism mediated by vaccine proteins has been proposed. Therefore, similar to influenza vaccination, the COVID-19 vaccination may result in vasculitis in several organs”

2022 Sep – Morz et al – A Case Report: Multifocal Necrotizing Encephalitis and Myocarditis after BNT162b2 mRNA Vaccination against COVID-19

• 76M man received three COVID-19 vaccines: AstraZeneca, followed by two Pfizer vaccines in July and December 2021.
• he died 3 weeks after 2nd Pfizer dose.
• Pathology: unexpected acute vasculitis, necrotizing encephalitis, myocarditis
• staining for mRNA Vaccine spike protein revealed presence of spike protein in blood vessel walls

My Take…

This is evidence of INFLAMMATION IN THE BRAIN, caused by COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines.

And the Morz paper showed spike protein in the blood vessel walls causing CNS vasculitis.

Please note how difficult it is to get this diagnosis (2 of the 4 cases I present were made by Neurology specialists at the Mayo Clinic)

This mRNA vaccine injury manifests by strokes or seizures (or both).

Now think of the thousands of young people who are having unexplained strokes (or seizures).

How many of them have post mRNA Vaccine inflammation in the brain and cannot get a proper diagnosis?

Also consider that I provided proof, in this article, of one of the very few COVID-19 Vaccine exemptions ever issued by a Canadian provincial government.

*

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

Featured image is from COVID Intel

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***

Outside of the Middle East and Ukraine, life continues – in some parts of the world, on a positive note.

The West African country, Burkina Faso, had two military coups within 8 months in 2022. The first in January 2022, bringing interim-President Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba to power. Allegedly, due to his incapacity to deal with Islamist insurgency, a second military coup on 22 September 2022 removed him. The new coup leader, Captain Ibrahim Traoré took over as interim leader.

Does the US have a military base in Burkina Faso? According to several international analysts, the United States’s military involvement in Burkina Faso is opaque. However, the Pentagon has a military contingent of about 100 “soldiers” in Burkina. Their role is mainly training Burkinabe’s military, says Major Andrew Caulk, public affairs director for Special Operations Command Africa (SOCAFRICA).

See this.

One might assume that both coups were “engaged” by the US military for a specific purpose: perhaps to get rid of the French influence, and, especially, the enslaving CFA franc currency which is still closely tied to the Banque de France, the French Central Bank and gradually replacing the CFS franc by the US dollar, i.e., an attempt to dollarize the country.

This would tend to make you think that the US wants to take over the role of the “influencer” in this poor West African country, replacing the French; and perhaps with the same stroke move a step closer to dollarizing West- and Central African economies.

Burkina Faso is rich in mineral resources and produces gold, silver, zinc, copper, manganese, phosphate, and limestone in substantial quantities. It also has reserves of diamonds, bauxite, nickel, and vanadium. However, these remain largely unexploited.

In addition, Burkina is a land-locked country, right in the center of West Africa, bordering on Mali to the north and west, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, and Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Togo to the south. Might these be enough reasons of interest for Washington?

Now comes the hammer.

Burkina Faso has just signed a nuclear power deal with Russia.

Burkina Faso and Russia last Friday, 13 October, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the construction of a nuclear power plant in Burkina Faso.

The agreement is a culmination of talks the Burkinabe military ruler Capt. Ibrahim Traore had with President Putin on July 29, 2023 in Moscow, during the Russia-Africa Summit in Moscow. A similar agreement was signed with Mali on the same occasion.

“Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom has signed a memorandum of understanding with Burkina Faso and another with Mali on cooperation in the field of the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. The agreements were signed on 13 October in Moscow on the sidelines of the 6th Russian Energy Week Forum.” See this.

Burkina Faso is one of the least electrified countries globally, with only about 20% of the population having access to electricity, according to the International Energy Atomic Agency. National electrification for Mali is slightly higher with about 30% to 35%.

Russia’s inroads in West Africa are a welcome sign that Africa too will be benefitting from multipolarity in the coming years.

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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

Featured image: Ousmane Bougouma and Vyacheslav Volodin at the “Russia-Africa” parliamentary conference in Moscow on 19 March 2023 (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)

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***

As the deadly Gaza hospital blast has surged into the headlines, the Israeli military and the Hamas terror group have traded accusations, but mounting evidence points to a misfired rocket by the terrorist organization Islamic Jihad—and that the story is being spun into a false anti-Israel narrative.

The hospital is located in the central Gaza Strip, where Israel has been carrying out what it says are precision strikes targeting the Hamas terror group after Hamas operatives raided Israeli communities on Oct. 7, killing hundreds of civilians.

Gruesome scenes from the hospital blast were broadcast widely, with video footage emerging showing a large fireball at or near the building, and photographs of the hospital grounds strewn with bodies of the dead, including children.

Hamas blamed Israeli air strike for the blast and the “horrific massacre,” while Palestinian officials have said the explosion killed as many as 500 people.

The Israeli military said the incident was caused by a rocket fired by terrorists, aimed at Israel, that failed in mid-flight and crashed into the hospital grounds. Israeli officials said that the relatively large explosion at the hospital grounds was caused by a combination of warhead and unspent fuel in the projectile.

Since the initial denials by Israeli forces, numerous pieces of evidence have emerged, including images of the blast site consistent with the types of projectiles fired by Hamas and other terror groups, along with intercepted communications purportedly between Hamas operatives discussing the incident, that lend credence to the Israeli version of events.

A number of news outlets quickly picked up the narrative pushed by Hamas, which was that Israeli air strikes had caused the blast—and the human carnage.

Some lawmakers on Capitol Hill piled on as well, with Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), a member of the left-wing “Squad,” posting on X that Israel “just bombed” the hospital, “killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that.”

Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that. @POTUS this is what happens when you refuse to facilitate a ceasefire & help de-escalate.

Your war and destruction only approach has opened my eyes and many… https://t.co/mZYoifT7bj

— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) October 17, 2023

However, a number of independent experts—along with U.S. intelligence—have cast serious doubt on the Palestinian claim that Israel was responsible.

What exactly happened is about more than being able to point the finger at a guilty party, as it has implications for regional stability.

Following the blast, protesters hurled stones at Palestinian security forces in the West Bank and at riot police in neighboring Jordan, venting their fury.

Elsewhere in Lebanon, demonstrators tried to remove barbed wire that blocked access to the U.S. embassy in Beirut.

A summit planned in Jordan between President Joe Biden, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was canceled after Mr. Abbas withdrew in protest at the hospital blast.

“This war, which has entered a dangerous phase, will plunge the region into an unspeakable disaster,” warned King Abdullah.

Buildings with blown-out windows surrounded the parking lot, some video showed, along with a relatively small crater several feet in diameter on the ground.

much better image showing crater and possible scatter direction of impact debris from direction of impact. https://t.co/ZGikNHKv99
This is a stitched together image of frames from above video to give rough wider angle view and buildings referenced for location match of angle.. pic.twitter.com/TIOmnTGMQX

— Nathan J Hunt (@ISNJH) October 18, 2023

Surrounding the apparent blast site were marks of incendiary damage to trees and buildings, which were standing erect rather than reduced to rubble, which some suggest would have been the case if the blast had been caused by a high-caliber Israeli impact weapon.

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***

What a hell of an ally we have in the Middle East there in Israel. Truly indispensable.

Its warmonger leadership flirts recklessly with World War III – while relying on the geopolitical power of the United States, mind you, to back up its feigned bravado — while it sucks the American treasury dry to the tune of billions of dollars per year and enlists the government to mobilize troops whenever it snaps its fingers.

The Israeli authorities would almost certainly tread more lightly were they not the beneficiaries of a blank moral and literal check from the United States. The stick it carries is way too big for its britches.

Via Times of Israel:

“Israel has asked the United States for $10 billion in emergency military aid…

The aid package is currently being put together by Congress in coordination with the White House…

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said during a visit to Tel Aviv on Sunday that US lawmakers have discussed providing Israel with replacement ammunition for the Iron Dome missile defense system, precision-guided bombs, JDAM kits to turn standard bombs into precision munitions and 155-millimeter ammunition.”

Hold the horses, there.

I’ve been told that Israel, via relentless corporate state media propaganda, is a technological powerhouse with an advanced economy and one of the finest fighting forces on Earth capable of mopping up America’s geopolitical rivals on our behalf. That’s why, the story goes, Israel is such an important and valuable regional ally.

So what does it need ten billion MORE dollars in American money – in addition to the $4 billion it already receives every year as the world’s largest welfare queen — and weapons for?

And why must 2,000 U.S. troops march off to fight on Israel’s behalf?

Via NBC News:

“About 2,000 U.S. troops have been put on prepare-to-deploy orders for possible support to Israel, according to a defense official.

The troops are not being sent anywhere yet, nor would they necessarily go to Israel or Gaza. If they were deployed, they would go to a nearby country to be prepared to support Israel in the war against Hamas, the official said.

These who received the orders were already on 96-hour prepare-to-deploy status, which has now been shortened to 24 hours.”

But for the benevolence of the American citizenry, Israel would have ceased to exist decades ago. In fact, the entire project of the state would never have gotten off the ground in the first place without not just American support but what can only be described as full subsidy.

In return for literally owing its existence to American sponsorship, one might expect unending gratitude and deference by the Israeli state. Perhaps some groveling when it comes begging for backup and more charity.  

Instead, the tail wags the dog.

Entitled neocon “Israel First” millionaire chickenhawks like Ben Shapiro threaten nuclear war from his comfy studio unless John Q. Public taxpayer shuts his antisemitic mouth and hands Israel more money and weapons with a curtsy tossed in for good measure.

When Israel says “jump,” American taxpayers ask “how high”?

That’s called Freedom™. That’s called Democracy™.

Meanwhile, AIPAC and other groups funnel tens of millions of dollars every election cycle into congressional lobbying to subvert the democratic process by bribing American politicians to do Israel’s bidding – and that’s just one of the many shadowy lobbying groups working in the same capacity on Israel’s behalf.

AIPAC and similar groups, like Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI), also pour millions of dollars into their pet political candidate to ensure the loyalty of the American Congress and presidency forever.

Through the multinational corporate state’s proxies like the ADL, Israel smears and censors any American who points out the imbalances in the parasitic U.S.-Israeli relationship as “Nazis” or “domestic terrorists” or whatever.

In some American states, the government forces employees, in clear violation of First Amendment free speech protections, to sign absurd “loyalty oaths” to the Israeli state in which they pledge not to ever support a boycott of Israel.

… And the abuses go on and on – abuses that would outrage and sicken any decent American if it were any other interests committing them aside from Israel, which for labyrinthine reasons enjoys privileges to subvert and distort the American democratic process with impunity.

If Israel wants so desperately war with Iran – which is obviously does — it should be free to do so and reap the geopolitical consequences.

But it won’t get any support – moral or material (except in the form of taxpayer money it extorts through legal theft) – from a Kansas boy like myself. My nationality is American. I am loyal to America – not to the illegitimate government that rules it, but to the ideals upon which this nation was founded, which predate by centuries the creation of the Middle Eastern political entity known as “Israel.”

*Note: As you might have noticed if you follow the news closely, you’re not likely to get this kind of perspectives on the Israel-Gaza conflict from the corporate state media or even, unfortunately, from much of the independent media, a large portion of which for whatever reason sees fit to simp for Israeli geopolitical interests.

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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: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Oct. 12, 2023. – Secretary Antony Blinken on X

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***

A B-52H Stratofortress will land in South Korea for the first time in three decades sometime this week. The US claims the bomber’s mission is to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula. However, North Korea has warned that American military activity in the region has pushed the situation to the brink of a nuclear conflict. 

On Monday, Maj. Rachel Buitrago, spokeswoman for the 7th Air Force at Osan Air Base south of Seoul, said,

“These flyovers, air demonstrations and static displays, including the landing for the B-52 on the peninsula, is part of our continued pledge to promote peace, stability and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula.” 

Since taking office, President Joe Biden has ramped up military activity in East Asia with the goal of intimidating North Korea and China. Washington has inked agreements with Seoul to deploy more arms platforms to South Korea that are capable of launching nuclear weapons. 

Just before the Pentagon announced that the B-52 – which is capable of dropping nuclear bombs – will land at an unnamed South Korean airfield, Washington sent the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier to a South Korean port. 

At an address to the UN General Assembly last month, Kim Song, Pyongyang’s representative at the body, blasted Washington for pushing the situation to the brink of nuclear war.

“Owing to the reckless and continued hysteria of nuclear showdown on the part of the US and its following forces, the year 2023 has been recorded as an extremely dangerous year that the military security situation in and around the Korean peninsula was driven closer to the brink of a nuclear war,” he said. “Due to [Seoul’s] sycophantic and humiliating policy of depending on outside forces, the Korean peninsula is in a hair-trigger situation with imminent danger of nuclear war.” 

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Kyle Anzalone is news editor of the Libertarian Institute, opinion editor of Antiwar.com and co-host of Conflicts of Interest with Will Porter and Connor Freeman.

Featured image: South Korean F-15K Slam Eagles fly alongside U.S. F-16 Fighting Falcons and a B-52H Stratofortress bomber during an air drill near South Korea, July 13, 2023. (South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense)

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“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102

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Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
–Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute   

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***

Who runs the world and what are their goals?

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is setup by Reagan in 1981 to counterbalance the nationalist Arabs in the region like Gaddafi, the Iranians, Iraqis, Algerians, etc, and to tip the oil scales in favor of the Western bankers instead of the Arab people who sit on the oil and own the oil.

What’s going on in Israel today is the latest colonial project for these people.

Watch the entire interview below.

Click here to view Dean Henderson’s archive on Global Research.

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Featured image is a screenshot from the video

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***

Mass opposition to the Israeli government’s genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza continues to mount across the United States and internationally. Despite the combined pressures of relentless propaganda and anti-democratic attacks against expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people, millions of workers and youth throughout the world continue to pour into the streets to protest Israel’s war crimes.

In the United States, where the Biden administration has fully backed the Israeli government, university campuses have emerged as a major battleground in the fight to defend democratic rights and expose the lies used to justify Israel’s policies. As the scale of Israel’s war becomes increasingly clear—including through the mass bombing campaign and the deliberate deprivation of food, water and fuel to the 2.2 million inhabitants of Gaza, half of whom are children—the class lines are being clearly drawn.

On the one side are tens of thousands of students who are fighting to stop Israel’s historic crimes against Gaza; on the other hand are the billionaire CEOs, members of the capitalist ruling class who populate university board rooms and whose checkbooks secure the allegiance of the university administrations.

The recent statements by these figures highlights the right-wing, anti-democratic character of this social layer which exercises vast influence over academia.

At Harvard University, the CEO campaign to blacklist pro-Palestinian students has continued to mount following the events last week, when students were publicly doxxed and threatened with retaliation for signing a statement correctly blaming Israel’s decades-long oppression of the Palestinians for the current conflict.

After public denunciations of the students by Larry Summers, former Harvard president and former US Treasury Secretary, along with calls by Bill Ackman, Harvard alumnus and billionaire hedge fund manager, for the university to release the names of students associated with the statement, a van rode around campus plastered with the pictures and names of protesting students.

Since then, more billionaire donors, aligned with both the Democrats and Republicans, have come forward to slander the students as “antisemitic” and demand that they be “held accountable” for their opposition to Israel’s crimes.

After denouncing the student letter, Ken Griffin, founder and CEO of the hedge fund Citadel, demanded that the university take a harder stance in defense of Israel. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Griffin is the world’s 33rd wealthiest person with an estimated wealth of $36 billion. He has donated more than half a billion dollars to Harvard, including $300 million this year alone.

The New York Times reported a private call between Griffin and Penny Pritzker, billionaire senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation and sister to Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, after which the university issued a second, more forceful statement on the conflict, condemning “the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas.”

Griffin has also joined Ackman’s call for students to be blacklisted, declaring that students associated with the letter would never be hired by Citadel for their “unforgivable” digression.

Students across the US are facing intense retribution for voicing their opposition to the war. At New York University, Ryna Workman, president of the Student Bar Association (SBA), came under vicious attack by the university administration after issuing a principled statement defending Palestinians against Israeli oppression. They were publicly denounced by university administrators; their job offer from the corporate law firm Winston & Strawn was immediately revoked; and the SBA announced that it would remove Workman from their elected position.

At the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), President Liz Magill was forced to issue a second statement on the Israel war, in which she denounced Hamas’s “terrorist assault.” She also capitulated to demands that the administration denounce a Palestinian literature festival held at the university in September, slandering speakers for their opposition to Zionism and the state of Israel, stating they had “a public history of speaking out viciously against the Jewish people.” Among the panelists was Pink Floyd founder Roger Waters, who was banned from campus by the university and had to participate remotely.

Magill’s latest statements followed a concerted campaign by the university’s wealthiest donors and state figures to demand the school align itself with the state of Israel.

Billionaire Jon Huntsman Jr., former governor of Utah who served in the administrations of every president from Ronald Reagan through Donald Trump, announced that his family foundation would “close its checkbook” to Penn for its supposed “moral relativism” in response to what he called the “reprehensible and historic Hamas evil.”

Vahan Gureghian, CEO of CSMI, a for-profit charter school operator, resigned from the Penn Board of Trustees last Friday, describing the Palestine literature festival as an “embrace of antisemitism.”

Another billionaire donor, Marc Rowan, CEO of Apollo Global Management and chair of the Wharton School, Penn’s business school, called for both Magill and the university’s Board of Trustees Chair Scott Bok to be fired and for donors to discontinue funding to the university.

While Griffin, Ackman, Rowan and others have been public in their statements, the Times reported that in its interviews with donors, “the most intense demands have come behind the scenes” from Wall Street financiers who feel they “had a right… to weigh in” but who do “not want to speak publicly on a rapidly evolving issue that has elicited death threats on both sides.”

While students are publicly doxxed, removed from elected academic positions and physically threatened, the financial elite have self-declared their right to dictate university policy and suppress academic freedom in backroom dealings without the threat of public scrutiny.

In addition to blacklisting by major corporations and the American state, students are also confronted with similar attacks against their democratic rights by right-wing professors.

At the University of California, Berkeley, Zionist law Professor Steven Davidoff Soloman published an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday titled, “Don’t Hire My Anti-Semitic Law Students,” in which he equated criticism of Zionism with “anti-Semitism and dehumanizing Jews.”

He menacingly stated that it was “time for the adults to take over” and that students need to “face consequences,” such as being blacklisted by law firms, in order to “straighten up.” In the context of violent police repression against pro-Palestinian protesters internationally, such statements have sinister implications.

Solomon chairs the Board of Directors of the Israel Institute, a Zionist organization which promotes the state of Israel on university campuses and has high level connections to both the US and Israeli governments. It was founded in 2012 by Itamar Rabinovich, former Israeli ambassador to the US, and its funding comes from the Schusterman Family Foundation, which declares on its website that its work “is rooted in a proud embrace of the vision of Zionism embedded in Israel’s founding Declaration of Independence.”

The intensity of the campaign to discredit political opposition to the policies of Israel and its imperialist backers is indicative of a deep-seated fear within these ruling layers that their slanderous propaganda and warmongering is being rejected by millions of people worldwide.

Indeed, despite significant personal victimization, Ryna Workman has issued a second statement, redoubling their demands for an immediate end to Israel’s genocidal war. At Harvard, hundreds of students held a demonstration on Sunday in support of the Palestinians. Internationally, protesters are courageously defying bans against Palestine solidarity protests in the so-called “democratic” countries.

As the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) in the US explained in its recent statement condemning the censorship of anti-war opposition on campuses, the ferocious attacks against students are part of a broader effort by the ruling class to suppress all democratic rights and preempt the growing radicalization of the working class amid the development of the largest strike movement in decades.

Mass opposition to the unfolding genocide against Gaza must be connected to this growing movement of the working class against inequality. The struggle to stop war, to defend democratic rights and to end social inequality are all bound up with the fight to abolish capitalism. The IYSSE calls for the building of a unified movement of the working class and youth in Israel, Palestine, the US, Europe and internationally as the basis for waging such a struggle. We encourage all those who agree with this call to get involved today.

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Featured image: Harvard University Widener Library [Photo by Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0]

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In today’s tense Israel, it seems no issue is protected from political polarisation – not even the near-sacrosanct concern of Israelis whose relatives are being held captive in the Gaza Strip.

Several families of captives are camped outside governmental offices in central Tel Aviv’s Kirya, hoping their presence will maintain pressure on authorities to secure their loved ones.

Israel says 199 people were taken to Gaza on 7 October, during the surprise Palestinian attack that killed around 1,400 Israelis.

Since the attack, Israel has bombed Gaza relentlessly, killing at least 3,000 Palestinians. Hamas, who led the 7 October attack, claims some Israeli captives have also been killed in the bombing.

The group of families in Kirya is tight-knit and supportive. But on Monday, a man they did not recognise appeared in their midst, accusing them of being left-wingers trying to harm the government.

He said they were part of the protest movement, which before the outbreak of war had staged weekly demonstrations against the government’s judicial reforms in that exact spot.

The presence of Yishai Hadas, a prominent anti-government protester, may have contributed to this framing. However, according to the parents of one captive, Hadas sat with them of his own accord, simply to show solidarity.

Police stationed nearby quickly overpowered the troublemaker and detained him for further questioning. Yet it wasn’t the first time that the families’ united front had been challenged.

A day earlier, another unfamiliar man had appeared among them just before a meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and representatives of the families.

It was Zvika Mor, the father of a young man taken to Gaza, who claimed that captives should not be returned at the expense of Israel’s war effort against Hamas.

The overriding message coming from the captives’ families has been that Israel should put the well-being of the Israelis being held in Gaza above all else.

Mor, meanwhile, insisted that the Israeli assault on Gaza should take priority, adding that he is willing to sacrifice his son for this purpose.

Michal, one of the group of relatives in Kirya, told Middle East Eye:

“We don’t know who he is and he has the right to think that way, of course. But no one knows him, and we have a bad feeling that he was planted by someone from the government. It’s a very unpleasant feeling.”

Demanding Attention

Avihai Brodetz, whose wife and children are captives of Hamas, was the first person to stage this sit-in outside Tel Aviv’s governmental offices. On Saturday, his was joined by more than 1,000 others – captives’ families and friends, as well as supportive strangers – in a protest.

The wall of the Kirya offices is plastered with photos of Israelis believed to be held in Gaza, or people who are simply still missing.

Relatives and friends of the captives are here to try and tell anyone they can about the people being held in Gaza, hoping attention will encourage the government and the world to work harder for their release.

One of those captives is Abigail, a three-year-old girl, whose parents were killed in a kibbutz near the boundary with Gaza.

“Little Abigail was playing outside when Hamas entered the settlement and started shooting everywhere,” says Michal, a relative holding up the girl’s photograph.

“Her parents were killed immediately, so the neighbours took her to their home, but later Hamas came to them too and they were all taken to Gaza.”

Relatives like Michal express dismay at the lack of action and communication from the government.

“Do they want the world to exert a lot of pressure? Is there a deal brewing that we don’t know about?” Michal asks.

“But for now, they are there. Children, women, old people – it’s crazy, really crazy. I wonder if anyone [in the government] understands that this is really happening, really happening here and now, that they are all there in Gaza.”

Nathan, whose friend is being held in Gaza with her children, says:

“Now everyone is busy with the war, and no one up there has a free ear for our pain.”

Also at the gathering is a 22-year-old woman named Shir. Her friend Romi, whom she met in the army, is among the captives.

Romi was one of around 4,000 young Israelis attending a rave outside the Reim kibbutz when it was attacked by Palestinian fighters. The bodies of 260 Israelis were recovered from the site of the party.

“The feeling is hard, there is no one to talk to, we lost our sense of personal security,” Shir says.

“Hamas came here, entered our villages and communities and our homes, murdered and took prisoners – who could have imagined that such a thing would happen to us? Even in the script of an action series, this was unthinkable.”

Some in Israel believe the government is focused only on the military campaign. Others think it is hoping international pressure will help free the captives, many of whom are citizens of foreign countries.

When asked about her position, Shir hesitates.

“Personally, I feel that we have not had a government for a very long time. There is no one to talk to, no one listens to us. The prime minister has not even taken responsibility in all the speeches he has given since Saturday,” she says, adding that the captives do not seem to be the government’s first priority.

Shir is due to study medicine in Poland soon. She’s not sure she’ll ever come back.

“It is not safe here, it is impossible to raise children here. There is no future and I know that the situation of the Jews in the world is also not safe – there is no way out.”

Prisoner Swap

Shira, the mother of Liry, an 18-year-old soldier taken to Gaza, says she’s camped out in Kirya so the government cannot ignore them.

“Hamas has thousands of prisoners in Israel, including minors and women and adults, let them have them,” she says.

Shira’s daughter had just started her military service in Nahal Oz, a kibbutz near Gaza.

“I know for sure she was kidnapped,” says Shira, who has seen footage of Liry in Gaza.

“We identified her and the army confirmed that it was her. She came in handcuffed, in pajamas but healthy and unharmed,” Shira adds.

“I think the government needs to understand that Hamas took our hostages in order to reach a deal to release their captives. It is quite clear. So go ahead, set them free.”

Shira believes Israeli public opinion is behind them.

“It crosses political positions, religious and secular people – everyone is with us.”

But just a few metres away is another encampment of captives’ families where the message is quite different.

In this place are four families, mostly settlers, including Mor. They are calling for the war not to be obstructed by attempts to free captives like their relatives.

Separating the two camps are two armed police officers. One tells MEE:

“There are a lot of emotions here, so we are providing security.”

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Featured image: Relatives of captive Israelis comfort each other in Tel Aviv, on 14 October (Reuters)

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On 15 October 2023, over 800 scholars and practitioners of international law, conflict studies and genocide studies signed a public statement warning of the possibility of genocide being perpetrated by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Signatories include prominent Holocaust and genocide studies scholars, as well as many international law and TWAIL scholars. The text of the statement and list of signatures is below, and a pdf version can be accessed here.

Public Statement: Scholars Warn of Potential Genocide in Gaza

15 October 2023

As scholars and practitioners of international law, conflict studies and genocide studies, we are compelled to sound the alarm about the possibility of the crime of genocide being perpetrated by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. We do not do so lightly, recognising the weight of this crime, but the gravity of the current situation demands it. 

The pre-existing conditions in the Gaza Strip had already prompted discussions of genocide prior to the current escalation – such as by the National Lawyers Guild in 2014, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine in 2014, and the Center for Constitutional Rights in 2016. Scholars have warned over the years that the siege of Gaza may amount to a “prelude to genocide” or a “slow-motion genocide”. The prevalence of racist and dehumanising language and hate speech in social media was also noted in a warning issued in July 2014 by the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect, in response to Israel’s conduct against the protected Palestinian population. The Special Advisers noted that individual Israelis had disseminated messages that could be dehumanising to the Palestinians and that had called for the killing of members of this group, and reiterated that incitement to commit atrocity crimes is prohibited under international law. 

Israel’s current military offensive on the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023, however, is unprecedented in scale and severity, and consequently in its ramifications for the population of Gaza. Following the incursion by Palestinian armed groups on 7 October 2023, including criminal attacks against Israeli civilians, the Gaza Strip has been subjected to incessant and indiscriminate bombardment by Israeli forces. Between 7 October and 9:00 a.m. on 15 October, there have been 2,329 Palestinians killed and 9,042 Palestinians injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza, including over 724 children, huge swathes of neighbourhoods and entire families across Gaza have been obliterated. Israel’s Defence Minister ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip prohibiting the supply of fuel, electricity, water and other essential necessities. This terminology itself indicates an intensification of an already illegal, potentially genocidal siege to an outright destructive assault. 

Late on 12 October, the Israeli authorities issued an order for more than 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip to leave their homes and flee to the south of Gaza within 24 hours, knowing that this would be practically impossible for many. Palestinians who did start to evacuate south reported that civilians and ambulances were targeted and hit by Israeli airstrikes on the designated “safe route”, killing at least 70 Palestinians who were fleeing to seek refuge. The ICRC stated that “the evacuation orders, coupled with the complete siege” are incompatible with international humanitarian law. Almost half a million Palestinians have already been displaced, and Israeli forces have bombed the only possible exit route that Israel does not control, the Rafah crossing to Egypt multiple times. The World Health Organisation published a warning that “[f]orcing more than 2000 patients to relocate to southern Gaza, where health facilities are already running at maximum capacity and unable to absorb a dramatic rise in the number patients, could be tantamount to a death sentence”.

The horrific attacks in Israel cannot justify the limitless destruction of Gaza. The evacuation orders, coupled with the complete siege, are not compatible with IHL.

We are committed to providing aid to Gaza and we reiterate our readiness to visit the hostages there.

Read…

— ICRC (@ICRC) October 13, 2023

There has also been an escalation of violence, arrests, expulsions, and destruction of whole Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem. Since 7 October, Israeli settlers, with the backing of the army and police, have attacked and shot Palestinian civilians at point blank range (as documented in the villages of a-Tuwani and Qusra), have invaded their homes and assaulted residents. A number of Palestinian communities have already been forced to abandon their homes, after which settlers arrived and destroyed their property. Between 7 – 15 October, Al-Haq documented the killing by Israeli military and settlers of 55 Palestinians in the West Bank, and more the injury of 1,200 Palestinians there.

Statements of Israeli officials since 7 October 2023 suggest that beyond the killings and restriction of basic conditions for life perpetrated against Palestinians in Gaza, there are also indications that the ongoing and imminent Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip are being conducted with potentially genocidal intent. Language used by Israeli political and military figures appears to reproduce rhetoric and tropes associated with genocide and incitement to genocide. Dehumanising descriptions of Palestinians have been prevalent. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared on 9 October that “we are fighting human animals and we act accordingly”. He subsequently announced that Israel was moving to “a full-scale response” and that he had “removed every restriction” on Israeli forces, as well as stating: “Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything.” On 10 October, the head of the Israeli army’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, addressed a message directly to Gaza residents: “Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water, there will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell”. The same day, Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari acknowledged the wanton and intentionally destructive nature of Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza: “The emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy.” 

Since 2007, Israel has defined the Gaza Strip as a whole as an “enemy entity”. On 7 October, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Gazans would pay an “immense price” for the actions of Hamas fighters. He asserted that Israel will wage a prolonged offensive and will turn parts of Gaza’s densely populated urban centres “into rubble”. Israel’s President emphasised that the Israeli authorities view the entire Palestinian population of Gaza as responsible for the actions of militant groups, and subject accordingly to collective punishment and unrestricted use of force: “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true”. Israeli Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Israel Katz added: “All the civilian population in Gaza is ordered to leave immediately. We will win. They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave the world.”

Evidence of incitement to genocide has also been present in Israeli public discourse. This ranges from statements by elected officials – such as Knesset member Ariel Kallner’s call on 7 October for “one goal: Nakba! [catastrophe for Palestinians] A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 1948” – to public banners displayed in Israeli cities calling for a “victory” signified by “zero population in Gaza” and the “annihilation of Gaza”. On national television, security correspondent Alon Ben David relayed the Israeli military’s plan to destroy Gaza City, Jabaliyya, Beit Lahiya, and Beit Hanun. Such statements are not new and resonate with a wider Israeli discourse showcasing the intent for elimination and genocide against the Palestinian people. Earlier in the year, for example, Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich called Palestinians “repugnant”, “disgusting” and called for “wiping out” the entire Palestinian village of Huwwara in the West Bank. 

Those banners appeared in several Israeli roads and seem to represent what is taking place in Gaza: One says that “victory” means “0 residents in Gaza”, and the second says “mass destruction of Gaza”.

Netanyahu in his latest speech mentioned the Holocaust. In the current… pic.twitter.com/RmB7sbmPmM

— Sami Abou Shahadeh (@ShahadehAbou) October 13, 2023

Military sources to Israeli TV: "Gaza will become a city of tents. There will be no buildings…"

Genocidal intentions https://t.co/HvFKIMZqOl

— Nimer Sultany (@NimerSultany) October 10, 2023

On 12 October 2023, a group of UN Special Rapporteurs’ condemned “Israel’s indiscriminate military attacks against the already exhausted Palestinian people of Gaza, comprising over 2.3 million people, nearly half of whom are children. They have lived under unlawful blockade for 16 years, and already gone through five major brutal wars, which remain unaccounted for”. The UN experts warned against “the withholding of essential supplies such as food, water, electricity and medicines. Such actions will precipitate a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where its population is now at inescapable risk of starvation. Intentional starvation is a crime against humanity”. On 14 October 2023, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory warned against “a repeat of the 1948 Nakba, and the 1967 Naksa, yet on a larger scale” as Israel carries out “mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians under the fog of war”. 

The Palestinian people constitute a national group for the purposes of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention). The Palestinians of the Gaza Strip constitute a substantial proportion of the Palestinian nation, and are being targeted by Israel because they are Palestinian. The Palestinian population of Gaza appears to be presently subjected by the Israeli forces and authorities to widespread killing, bodily and mental harm, and unviable conditions of life – against a backdrop of Israeli statements which evidence signs of intent to physically destroy the population. 

Article II of the Genocide Convention provides that “genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

• (a) Killing members of the group;
• (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
• (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
• (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
• (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

All states are bound as a matter of law by the principle that genocide is a crime prohibited under international law. The International Court of Justice has affirmed that the prohibition of genocide is a peremptory norm of international law from which no derogation is allowed. The Convention provides that individuals who attempt genocide or who incite to genocide “shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals”.

Article I of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide provides that:

“The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish”.

The International Court of Justice has clarified that

“a State’s obligation to prevent, and the corresponding duty to act, arise at the instant that the State learns of, or should normally have learned of, the existence of a serious risk that genocide will be committed. From that moment onwards, if the State has available to it means likely to have a deterrent effect on those suspected of preparing genocide, or reasonably suspected of harbouring specific intent (dolus specialis), it is under a duty to make such use of these means as the circumstances permit”.

Palestinian human rights organisations, Jewish civil society groups, Holocaust and genocide studies scholars and others have by now warned of an imminent genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza. We emphasise the existence of a serious risk of genocide being committed in the Gaza Strip. 

The undersigned urgently appeal to states to take concrete and meaningful steps to individually and collectively prevent genocidal acts, in line with their legal duty to prevent the crime of genocide. They must protect the Palestinian population, and ensure that Israel refrains from any further incitement to genocide and from the perpetration of conduct prohibited by Article II of the Genocide Convention.

All states should immediately act under Article VIII, and should call upon the competent organs of the United Nations, particularly the UN General Assembly, to take urgent action under the Charter of the United Nations appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide. We note specifically the role of the General Assembly here, given that the Security Council is compromised by the United States and the United Kingdom (both permanent veto-holding members) sending military forces to the eastern Mediterranean in support of Israel. 

We recall that in 1982, the General Assembly condemned the massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps as “an act of genocide”. We note also that the state of Palestine is entitled to initiate, in accordance with Article IX of the Genocide Convention, proceedings before the International Court of Justice in order to prevent the perpetration of genocidal acts.

Finally, we call on all relevant UN bodies, including the Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, as well as the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to immediately intervene, to carry out the necessary investigations and invoke the necessary warning procedures to protect the Palestinian population from genocide.

Click here for the list of signatories.

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It is one thing to read a review of this important and compelling film – a tour de force – and another to watch it. The former fades into insignificance when one takes an hour-and-a-half to immerse oneself in its tragic yet revelatory story. For in it we see and hear a dying man speak eloquently of how he accepted the role that life brought him – a 9/11 truthteller and peace apostle – and now, as he departs the stage, hopes this last effort will ease his exit and help fulfill his mission as a man of peace.

Because Graeme MacQueen was my close friend for the last ten years of his life, I found it very hard to watch this film since his death on April 25^th is still raw and painful. For more than three years he suffered greatly and yet found the strength to cooperate with his colleague Ted Walter in the making of this important film. Walter’s direction admirably portrays MacQueen’s nobility by having Graeme narrate his life’s work interspersed with documentary footage that illuminates the truth about many issues, most notably the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent anthrax attacks. The result is a very powerful and important lesson in personal courage and historical truth.

From the opening scenes we see Graeme tell it bluntly and hopefully: that the official story of 9/11 is a fraud, and that because his life’s work has been to oppose war, he hopes he has fulfilled his “mission.” Humble as he was, it is inspiring to hear him speak of his mission, which is another word for vocation or calling, a mystery beyond analysis.

“Peace, War, and 9/11” can be viewed here and here. Or you can watch it below.

A long-time professor of religious studies at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada where he was the Founding Director of the Center for Peace Studies and a Buddhist scholar, he was also a peace activist, who traveled to El Salvador and worked with peace groups to learn for himself the truth about other conflicts and help resolve them. His writing and research were meticulously logical and evidence based to a fault, and it would be impossible to accuse him of ever reaching rash conclusions based on speculation.

While there are powerful documentaries that focus exclusively on facts and are narrated by omniscient and objective narrators, Peace, War, and 9/11, while also based on proven facts, is doubly powerful because it is told by a man whose personal story is a moving example of one who, from a young age, was inspired by a reverence for life and the embrace of non-violence, and whose vocation long preceded his scholarly and anti-war pursuits.

The documentary footage begins with a clip from President John Kennedy’s indispensable American University speech of June 10, 1963 where he appeals for an end to the Cold War, the abolishment of nuclear weapons, the end of a Pax Americana, and the establishment of a genuine peace:

“. . . the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living – the kind that enables men and women to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children – not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women – not merely peace in our time but peace in all time.” 

This clip sets the stage for all that follows, for it is implied that this speech, among his other anti-war actions, led to JFK’s assassination by the CIA. The film makes similar points about the assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy. The point is clear: Peacemaking is a dangerous activity, but it is necessary if we are to reverence life and live by conscience.

To listen to MacQueen give his analysis of war as a system, at times cold and others hot, not one event but a series of events – a tumor on human society as he describes it (echoing the tumors that are killing him) – is to receive a concise lesson on war and peace. The film illustrates his words with powerful footage from Vietnam, the Tonkin Gulf, Pearl Harbor, the words of the warmaking class, etc. all leading to the attacks of September 11, 2001.

He explains how his suspicions about those events gradually grew until in 2005 he read an article by David Ray Griffin that startled him. It was about the testimony of New York City firefighters who heard explosions in the Twin Towers. This prompted him to pursue what his scholarship had prepared him for: the careful pursuit of textual analysis in pursuit of evidence, and so he read the 12,000 pages of the World Trade Center task force report only to discover that 118 NY firefighters talked about explosions throughout the towers and 10 did not. The more he studied, the more he found additional eyewitness, such as police officers, to bring the number to 156. Such eye witness testimony, reinforced by the first reports from television announcers kept adding up, as thermite was found in the dust of the towers. The evidence for controlled demolition of the buildings kept increasing; he concludes that “the evidence is overwhelming.” His words are supported by confirmatory video from many of the people he mentions. This video testimony makes this film so powerful.

From there he dissects the same day emergence of the official narrative which blamed Osama bin Laden for 9/11 without any evidence to support it. It became the propaganda narrative of good versus evil. Evidence for the alleged 19 hijackers was not produced, then or ever. War was simply declared against the bad guys, who were declared guilty by fiat.

Finally, Graeme analyzes the anthrax letters that were sent in the weeks following September 11. Only five people died but the effects were profound. He leads the viewer through his important research as presented in The 2001 Anthrax Deception. His book shows conclusively that the anthrax attacks were an inside job coming from a U.S. government lab, not an Al-Qaeda operation. Nevertheless, this led to the Patriot Act, the invasion of Afghanistan, and in 2003 the invasion of Iraq, although all were based on lies. And significantly, if the anthrax attacks were an inside job which he conclusively proves, so too were those of September 11^th, as some of the alleged hijackers, particularly the leader Mohamed Atta, were involved in the anthrax deceptions.

He concludes by saying many people don’t get the deep state because they can’t imagine treachery of this kind and scope. He accuses many traditional leftists of falling down on the job of showing how 9/11 was a propaganda coup based on “mendacity and deception.” Many such leftists who have often been critics of U.S. domestic and foreign policy – and we are shown pictures of Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges, Amy Goodman, Glen Greenwald, et al. – have also refused to even discuss the matter. This Graeme says “is probably from fears of looking ridiculous and admitting you were wrong for years and years on a really important topic.” Here I must disagree with my dear friend, for this seems to me false, for these same people could have examined the evidence as Graeme did when he jumped into his research starting in 2005. They adamantly refused then and now and so have given cover for the justification of the endless U.S. wars on terror that are ongoing. I do not believe this was because of “looking ridiculous.” It is more insidious than that.

We see an interview with General Wesley Clarke who says he was shown a paper in the Pentagon in late September 2001 where he was informed that the U.S. was not going to just invade Afghanistan but Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finally Iran. Graeme makes clear that any country that dares to resist the U.S. “and our Israeli companions” will be attacked and destroyed. This is the war system at work.  It is, as he says, all about collective punishment; the warfare states will attack you and kill you in large numbers even if you individually have had nothing to do with any of this. Systemic killing is at the heart of this state terrorism, as the Israeli massacres of Palestinians has long shown, even as I write.

To cap off his analysis, we are shown video of the collapse of Building 7 at the World Trade Center. It was not hit by a plane and came down in free-fall speed at 5:20 P.M. It was clearly taken down by controlled demolition and its fall was predicted by 60 firefighters in advance. It was the final crime committed that day, one that it has taken many people years to discover, if they have.

“We haven’t tried very hard to abolish war,” Graeme says at the end. It is “this mutually reinforcing tumor on societies” that many don’t understand because of its systemic nature and because they don’t take the time to read and study closely all the official narratives that explain it as unavoidable. These are lies. Yet just as 19^th century crusaders for justice finally abolished slavery and started a gradual process to try to stop wars – to no avail – the fight goes on.  As JFK said at American University, “We all cherish our children’s future.  And we are all mortal.”

This deeply moving film will elucidate and edify those who care for the world’s children. While one man’s story, it is universal. Graeme MacQueen has departed this earth, but he has fulfilled his mission as a man of peace. “You do your best,” he tells us. What more can we ask of him, and ourselves as well.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.”

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Behind the Curtain.

Edward Curtin is a prominent author, researcher and sociologist based in Western Massachusetts. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

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***

Joining me today to discuss war, peace and the future of humanity is Daniele Ganser, an historian, author, energy and peace researcher and head of the Swiss Institute for Peace and Energy Research (SIPER).

He is the author of the groundbreaking book on Operation Gladio, NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe, and joins us to today to discuss his latest book, USA: The Ruthless Empire.

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***

Let’s say it again: The BIGGEST fake news comes from the establishment media. When the stakes are high, it barely bothers to hide its role as mouthpiece for Western propaganda.

This is another Iraqi WMD moment. We are being gaslit. Believe your eyes and ears, and the laws of physics, not the lies being peddled by our leaders and media about last night’s missile strike on the Baptist hospital in Gaza:

1. No Palestinian group has a rocket that can hit a hospital, killing hundreds. What they have are glorified fireworks that can cause minor damage and the occasional death or two. If Hamas or Islamic Jihad could cause the kind of damage that happened last night, you would hear about it happening in Tel Aviv or Ashkelon too. You don’t, because they can’t.

2. Israel’s apologists (and there are lots of them) are sharing all sorts of videos unrelated to the hospital strike. But the video of the strike itself shows that an incredibly large and powerful weapon is used. Listen to the noise the missile makes just before the hit – that whooshing noise is caused by its phenomenal velocity as it cuts through the air. That is not the noise of a falling Palestinian rocket.

UPDATE: Israeli warplanes bombed Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City; More than 800 Palestinians were bombedhttps://t.co/8IpoFZoKnD pic.twitter.com/qLSAztg2OG

— Local Focus – Security Alerts (@LocalFocus1) October 17, 2023

If you watch videos being shared of Palestinian rockets being fired, notice how slowly they travel. Almost at a snail’s pace. If they fail, they drop at free-fall speed, not the near-supersonic speed of the missile that hit the hospital. To think otherwise is to misunderstand the laws of physics.

3. Israel’s apologists are trying to further muddy the waters by suggesting that either a Palestinian rocket fell, or was intercepted, and the rocket or fragments of it hit a very large ammo dump in the hospital. Let’s just accept the racist premise that hundreds of families were quite happy to seek safety next to a huge stash of explosives in the middle of a relentless Israeli bombing campaign. Let’s also accept the fantastical idea that a falling glorified firework or fragment of it could penetrate the hospital’s strong walls and set off such an explosion. If all this was true, you would still see a series of secondary explosions as the arms were detonated by the initial explosion. You don’t because there is only one explosion – from an enormous missile.

4. It’s a desperate psyop, so Israel has now released a recording of two Hamas militants conveniently having a chat after the missile strike, discussing whether they or Islamic Jihad did it. This is the same Israel that did not detect months of planning by Hamas that was needed to organise its breakout 10 days ago. But Israel got lucky this time, it seems, and just happened to be listening in when Huey and Louie decided to self-incriminate.

Remember Israel has a whole unit of ‘mistaravim’, Israeli Jewish undercover agents trained to pose as Palestinians and secretly operate among Palestinians. Israel produced a highly popular TV series about such people, set in Gaza, called Fauda. You have to be beyond credulous to think that Israel couldn’t, and wouldn’t, rig up a call like this to fool us, just as it regularly fools Palestinians in Gaza.

Most of the people spreading these lies know they are lies, including the media, and most especially the Middle East and defence correspondents. At least a few, like the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen and Jon Donnison, are trying cautiously to suggest it’s unlikely a Hamas rocket could cause damage on the scale seen at the Gaza hospital. But it’s not unlikely. It’s impossible, and they know it. They just don’t dare say it.

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***

A war with China may not be inevitable, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks observed recently, but it’s a genuine possibility and so this country must be prepared to fight and win. But victory in such a conflict will not, she suggested, come easily. China enjoys an advantage in certain measures of military power, including the number of ships, guns, and missiles it can deploy. While America’s equivalents may be more advanced and capable, they also cost far more to produce and so can only be procured in smaller numbers. To overcome such a dilemma in any future conflict, Hicks suggested, our costly crewed weapons systems must be accompanied by hordes of uncrewed autonomous ships, planes, and tanks.

To ensure that America will possess sufficient numbers of “all-domain attritable [that is, expendable] autonomous” weapons when a war with China breaks out, Hicks announced a major new Pentagon program dubbed the Replicator Initiative. “Replicator is meant to help us overcome [China’s] biggest advantage, which is mass. More ships. More missiles. More people,” she told the National Defense Industrial Association as August ended.

Because we can’t match our adversaries “ship-for-ship and shot-for-shot,” given the prohibitive costs of traditional weapons systems (which must include space for their human crews), we’ll overpower them instead with swarms of autonomous weapons — unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs and UASs), unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), unmanned surface vessels (USVs), and unmanned subsea vessels (UUVs, or drone submarines), all governed by artificial intelligence (AI) and capable of independent action.

“We’ll counter the [Chinese military’s] mass with mass of our own,” she declared, “but ours will be harder to plan for, harder to hit, harder to beat.”

Needless to say, Hicks’ announcement of the Replicator Initiative has raised many questions in the military-industrial-congressional complex and elsewhere about this country’s ability to produce such a vast array of technologically-advanced weaponry in a short period of time. The U.S. military does, of course, already possess an array of remotely piloted drones like the infamous Predator and Reaper aircraft used in this country’s Global War on Terror to hunt and kill enemy militants (and often nearby villagers as well). Those are not, however, capable of operating autonomously in swarms, as envisioned by Hicks. Even if Congress were to vote the needed hundreds of billions of dollars to develop such weapons — and, at the moment, there’s no certainty of that — and even if the Pentagon could overcome its own bureaucratic inertia in passing such funds on to defense contractors, will those companies be capable of developing the necessary advanced software and hardware anytime soon? Who knows?

After all, the Department of Defense has already awarded many millions of dollars to assorted AI start-ups and traditional contractors over the past half-dozen years to develop advanced UAVs, UGVs, USVs, and UUVs, and yet not a single one is in full-scale production. The Navy, for example, first began funding the development and construction of a prototype Extra-Large Unmanned Undersea Vessel (XLUUV) in 2019. But as of today, no finished submarine has yet been delivered, and none are expected to be combat-ready for years. Other major autonomous weapons projects like the Air Force’s “loyal wingman” drone, intended to accompany fighter planes on high-risk missions over enemy territory, seem to be on a similar track.

Still, questions about this country’s ability to deliver such systems on the tight timetable Hicks announced should be the least of our concerns. Far more worrisome is the likelihood that such a drive will ignite a major new global arms race with China and Russia, ensuring that future battlefields will be populated with untold thousands (tens of thousands?) of drone weapons, overwhelming human commanders and increasing the risk of nuclear war.

The Illusion of U.S. Drone Dominance

In making the case for the Replicator Initiative, Hicks touted America’s advantage in technological creativity and know-how. “We out-match adversaries by out-thinking, out-strategizing, and out-maneuvering them,” she insisted. “We augment manufacturing and mobilization with our real comparative advantage, which is the innovation and spirit of our people.”

From her perspective, China, Russia, and this country’s other adversaries are more reliant on traditional forms of military mass (“more ships, more missiles, more people”) because they lack the natural birthright of all Americans, that “innovative spirit.” As she asserted, “We don’t use our people as cannon fodder like some competitors do,” we win by “out-thinking” them.

Putting aside the ethno-nationalism, even racism, in those remarks (bringing up centuries-old Western claims that Asians and Slavs are intellectually inferior and so more submissive to czars and emperors), such an outlook is still dangerously flawed and inaccurate. China and Russia have no lack of smart, creative scientists and engineers and, far from trailing the United States in the development of autonomous weaponry, have actually taken the lead in certain areas.

You need look no further than the Pentagon’s own publications to learn about China’s advances in autonomous weapons systems. In the 2022 edition of its annual report on “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China [PRC],” it affirmed that China is continuing with its “comprehensive UAS [unmanned aerial system, another term for UAVs] modernization efforts, highlighted by the routine appearance of ever more sophisticated UASs across theater and echelon levels.”

That report also indicated that China is making rapid advances in the development of AI software for use by autonomous weapons systems in complex combat operations of exactly the sort envisioned by Deputy Secretary Hicks:

“In addition to maturing their current capabilities, China is also signaling its efforts in next generation capabilities… In these concepts, PRC developers are demonstrating an interest in additional growth beyond [intelligence and electronic warfare missions] into both air-to-air and air-to-ground combat, with a substantial amount of development displaying efforts to produce swarming capability for operational applications.”

The Department of Defense seldom reveals its sources for such assertions, making it difficult for outside analysts to assess their validity. As a result, it’s hard to know how far ahead (or behind) the Chinese actually are when it comes to the critical AI software needed to manage such complex drone operations. However, many Western analysts do believe that China leads in certain areas of AI and autonomy. Its military has, in fact, regularly flown advanced UAVs in large-scale combat maneuvers around the island of Taiwan, demonstrating a capacity to employ such systems in complex operations.

Remains of Shahed 136 and its engine in Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)

Russia is thought to lag behind China and the U.S. in developing and fielding advanced autonomous weapons but has nevertheless demonstrated a significant capacity to use UAVs in its war on Ukraine. It has deployed large swarms of semi-autonomous Iranian-made Shahed-136 suicide drones in attacks on its cities and electrical systems, causing widespread death and destruction. In August, the New York Times reported that Russia was producing and flying a homemade version of the Shahed-136, dubbed the Geran-2 (as in Geranium-2). The Russians have also used the Orlan-10 reconnaissance drone to identify Ukrainian military positions for future attacks by artillery and rockets.

Recognizing the important role played by UAVs of all types in its present war, Russia’s leaders have initiated a crash program to vastly multiply its production of such devices. On June 28th, the government approved a “Development Strategy for Unmanned Aviation Until 2030.” It called for exponential growth in UAV output, which, according to reports, is expected to increase from approximately 13,000 per year between 2023 and 2026 to 26,000 annually from 2027 to 2030 and 35,500 after that.

Of course, many Western analysts believe that Russia is incapable of fulfilling such a plan thanks to Western sanctions and an insufficient number of skilled personnel. Those sanctions have, for instance, dried up supplies of computer chips and other vital components for advanced UAVs. Meanwhile, the Ukraine war’s insatiable manpower requirements and the flight of so many tech-savvy Russians from the country to avoid military service could make scaling up UAV design and production more difficult. Nonetheless, placing a high priority on such weapons, the Russians will undoubtedly seek workaround strategies to increase their production.

On the Future Great-Power Battlefield

Given all of this, it should be evident that going to war with China or Russia in the not-so-distant future on the assumption that the U.S. will enjoy a significant advantage in autonomous weaponry would be delusional — and very dangerous. Yes, both of those potential adversaries currently trail the U.S. in certain categories of autonomous weapons like uncrewed surface and sub-surface combat systems, but they will still be capable of filling the skies with multitudes of drones and seeding any battlefield with hordes of autonomous combat vehicles, including uncrewed tanks and artillery systems.

It would, in fact, be reasonable to assume that any future great-power conflict — a U.S.-China war over Taiwan, for example — will be characterized by the concentration of approximately equal formations of traditional military mass (composed largely of crewed weapons systems) and uncrewed autonomous versions of the same, incorporating multitudes of AI-governed drones.

How would such a conflict play out? It seems unlikely that either side would achieve a swift, one-sided victory. Instead, both would be far more likely to experience massive losses of weapons systems and warriors, with vast swarms of drones only intensifying the destruction by attacking anything left unscathed by traditional weaponry. Many, if not most of those drones would undoubtedly also be destroyed in the process — they are, after all, designed to be “attritable” — but enough would survive to decimate remaining enemy formations.

The toll of such a conflict would surely be colossal. Last year, to get some sense of what might be expected from a war over Taiwan, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) conducted repeated “tabletop” exercise versions of such a war (using assorted tokens to represent the brigades, fleets, and squadrons of the opposing sides). Each time, they assumed that China had launched an amphibious invasion of Taiwan and that the U.S. and Japan would come to that island’s aid. Each time, the outcome was similar: China was thwarted in its attempt, but the island itself was utterly devastated and the U.S. and Japanese militaries suffered losses of a sort not experienced since World War II.

Under the rules of the exercise, the commanders on both sides (actually, former American military and diplomatic personnel) were prohibited from using nuclear weapons when faced with major setbacks. But was that realistic? Not so, say the authors of a report on a similar exercise conducted by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), also in 2022. Its version, like the CSIS one, involved an attempted Chinese invasion of Taiwan followed by an all-out American drive to eject the invaders, resulting in a Chinese defeat accompanied by massive losses on both sides. Not constrained, however, by rules banning the use of nuclear weapons, the “red team,” simulating China and growing increasingly desperate, issued nuclear threats of the sort employed by Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding the war in Ukraine. They finally detonated a nuclear explosion off the coast of Hawaii to demonstrate China’s willingness to inflict far greater harm (at which point the game ended).

By then, however, the exercise had demonstrated “how quickly a conflict could escalate, with both China and the United States crossing red lines.” The CNAS report further suggested that, in an actual war, “China may be willing to brandish nuclear weapons or conduct a limited demonstration of its nuclear capability in an effort to prevent or end U.S. involvement in a conflict with Taiwan.” (Nothing was said about the possibility that the Americans could do anything similar.)

Neither of those exercises specifically dealt with the role of autonomous weapons in their imaginary battle scenarios, but they both suggest that any party in such a confrontation would employ every weapon at its disposal in a desperate bid to achieve victory (or avert defeat). The result would likely be ever-spiraling losses and increasingly dangerous escalatory measures. As growing numbers of autonomous weapons become available, they, too, will be thrown into the fight, further magnifying those very escalatory pressures. With swarms of such devices battling other swarms — at sea, in the air, and on the ground — the risk of catastrophic defeat will loom ever larger and the temptation to employ nuclear weapons that much harder to resist. Whatever fantasies of American dominance Deputy Secretary Hicks might be harboring in promoting the Replicator Initiative, a safer, more stable world is not among the likely outcomes.

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Michael T. Klare, a TomDispatch regular, is the five-college professor emeritus of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and a senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association. He is the author of 15 books, the latest of which is All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change. He is a founder of the Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy.

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***

July 24, 2023 – Walnut Creek, CA – 37 year old Iraq War Veteran Joseph Kim fought a 54 day battle with testicular cancer, and died on July 24, 2023.

Oct. 18, 2023 – Gunnison, CO – 26 year old Dylan Miller was diagnosed with Stage 1 testicular cancer in April 2023, but by Oct.2023 it returned and he has 4 different types of cancer in the recurrent tumor (!)

Oct. 17, 2023 – Famington, MI – Ben Cousens was diagnosed with Stage 4 testicular cancer in March 2023 with “innumerable amount of nodules on his lungs” and a “very large mass in his lower back and mass on his testicle”. He has had surgery and chemo and is waiting for next step in treatment.

Oct. 15, 2023 – Cincinnati, OH – 21 year old Ben Schlaack was diagnosed with aggressive testicular cancer and had surgery. After surgery they discovered it had spread to lymph nodes.

Oct. 9, 2023 – Winter Springs, FL – 22 year old Chase Dowling had a benign testicular tumor removed in April 2023. It returned in Oct.2023 and is now metastatic in his lymph nodes. Benign to metastatic in 5 months!

Oct. 6, 2023 – Grottoes, VA – Chris Roberts had extensive surgery for testicular cancer in Dec. 2022 and was clear of cancer in April 2023. However, in May 2023, he was found to have bone marrow metastases and the cancer came back a different, more aggressive type: embryonic neuroectodermal, with a terminal diagnosis.

Oct. 2, 2023 – Melbourne, Australia – Scott was diagnosed with two different types of cancer in both testicles in May 2023. He had them removed, however after surgery, imaging showed cancer spread to his lymph nodes.

Sep. 25, 2023 – San Antonio, TX – 18 year old Nehemiah Alvarado, a gifted carpenter, was diagnosed with Stage 4 Testicular Cancer with lung metastases. He had chemo and surgery, however, his cancer continues to progress.

Sep. 24, 2023 – Barrie, ON – 29 year old Saifali Mansabdar was diagnosed with blood clots around the heart and lungs on Feb. 15, 2023 and testicular cancer. He then suffered 2 cardiac arrests on Sep. 11, 2023, putting him in coma, and he died on Sep. 24, 2023.

Sep. 10, 2023 – UK – 33 year old Paddy Dowling was diagnosed with testicular cancer in January 2023 and was told he had 90% chance of beating it. His cancer resisted chemo and radiation, he developed brain metastases and died 8 months after diagnosis.

Sep. 1, 2023 – Falfurrias, TX – 18 year old Kaidyn Longoria was diagnosed with Stage 4 testicular cancer in March 2023, metastatic to right lung. After 1st round of chemo he had a cardiac arrest, brain bleed, and was found to have two brain lesions. But he finished 4 rounds of chemo and is currently in remission.

Aug. 28, 2023 – Westland, MI – Mike Trader has two small girls. He was diagnosed with Testicular cancer but it has spread to retroperitoneal lymph nodes and there is another cancerous growth.

Aug. 14, 2023 – San Antonio, TX – 23 year old Irvin Alan Tapia was diagnosed with testicular cancer on June 25, 2023 and died 50 days later on Aug. 14, 2023.

Aug. 11, 2023 – Colona, IL – 21 year old Kaden was diagnosed with 2 types of testicular cancer on July 7, 2023. After surgery, his PET scan on Aug. 7, 2023 showed that the State 2 cancer had metastasized to 3 of his lymph nodes.

Aug. 9, 2023 – The Dalles, OR – Cody Ricks was diagnosed with testicular cancer Sep. 2022 and after chemo and surgery he was clear of cancer. However, it returned on May 22, 2023 and had to have a stem cell transplant.

July 12, 2023 – Bremen, IN – Craig Allen was diagnosed with Stage 3c Testicular cancer in Jan. 2023, however, it was resistant to a chemo protocol that’s 85% successful and progressed. Now he needs more aggressive chemo.

July 10, 2023 – Charlton, QLD, Australia – 24 year old Benny was diagnosed with Testicular cancer in March 2023. Had surgery and chemo but on July 4, 2023 he was told the chemo didn’t work and cancer spread to his brain liver, and kidneys, then the spleen.

July 7, 2023 – Manassas, VA 24 year old Christian A. Merse had late stage germ cell testicular cancer that invaded his organs within weeks. It was treatment resistant & he died.

July 7, 2023 – Overland Park, KS 23 year old Peyton Rowe was diagnosed: Stage 3C Testicular cancer spread to his lymph nodes, spine & lungs. “Tumor was very aggressive.”

June 14, 2023 – Metairie, LA – 20 year old Bryan Ibanez is a NURSING student at Missouri State U. In Sep. 2022 he was diagnosed with Stage 2 testicular cancer which turned to Stage 4 with lung metastases by May 2023. Bryan spent his high school years working at a local nursing home as a dedicated CNA.

Read all cases here.

My Take… 

There is a very strong signal with Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines and hyper aggressive Testicular “Turbo Cancer”.

• Unique Features of mRNA Induced Testicular Turbo Cancer include:
• Young age at presentation (teens, 20s, 30s)
• Stage 4 presentation, or a lower stage that rapidly progresses
• can have multiple tumor types
• surgeons discover further spread after surgery (orchiectomy)
• very resistant to chemo and radiation
• very aggressive metastatic spread to organs and bones
• testicular cancer recurrences often transform into more aggressive type
• very poor prognosis

Recent news on cancer excess deaths in 2022:

Edward Dowd has released new data on Cancer excess deaths in England and Wales and the data looks horrible.

Turbo Cancer skyrocketed in 2022 and I believe there has been a further worsening in 2023:

Sep. 2022 News – BioNTech CLAIMS TO CURE ONE TESTICULAR CANCER PATIENT

“BNT211’s therapeutic approach combines two of BioNTech’s platforms—an autologous CAR-T cell therapy targeting the oncofetal antigen Claudin-6 (CLDN6) with a CLDN6-encoding CAR-T cell amplifying RNA vaccine (CARVac).

“Particularly encouraging, according to BioNTech, were the clinical responses were seen in patients with testicular cancer treated with the larger dose:  One complete response, three partial responses and two stable diseases were seen”

“Antitumor activity was higher at the higher dose of CAR-T cells and when combined with the mRNA vaccine.”

“In June (2022), BNT211 received the European Medicines Agency (EMA)’s Priority Medicines (PRIME) designation for the third- or later-line treatment of testicular germ cell tumors.”

“This new dataset further supports the encouraging results we have seen for BNT211 to date,” said Prof. Özlem Türeci, MD, Co-Founder and chief medical officer at BioNTech. “Together with the recently granted PRIME designation for BNT211 in testicular cancer it also reinforces our strategy to combine two of our key technology platforms in hard-to-treat tumor indications.”

“Tumor indications included testicular cancer (13 patients), ovarian cancer (four), endometrial cancer, fallopian tube cancer, sarcoma, gastric cancer (one patient each) and one patient with a tumor of unknown primary origin”

What is CAR-T cell Therapy: “Currently available CAR-T cell therapies are customized for each individual patient. They are made by collecting T cells from the patient and re-engineering them in the laboratory to produce proteins on their surface called chimeric antigen receptors, or CARs. The CARs recognize and bind to specific proteins, or antigens, on the surface of cancer cells. 

After the revamped T-cells are “expanded” into the millions in the laboratory, they’re then infused back into the patient. If all goes as planned, the CAR-T cells will continue to multiply in the patient’s body and, with guidance from their engineered receptor, recognize and kill any cancer cells that harbor the target antigen on their surfaces.

Conclusion

Pfizer’s partner, BioNTech already has a combination testicular cancer treatment in Clinical Trials (called BNT211) that combines CAR-T cell therapy (something that works) with an mRNA cancer vaccine (something that doesn’t work).

Notice that this therapy is designed for reproductive cancers for both men and women.

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

Featured image is from COVID Intel

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I was greeted this morning by a Tweet reminding me of the pure vitriol, contempt, and threats of reprisal for the “unvaccinated” those who made the wise choice of declining COVID-19 vaccination. Remember the novel vaccines were originally Pfizer, Moderna, and Janssen. All were genetic with no data on how long the genetic code would stay in the body, how long the lethal Spike protein would be produced, and with no assurances that the vaccine would protect against severe outcomes including hospitalization and death. The real victims of vaccine propaganda were those who rolled up their sleeves.

They did this on every single thing related to the Covid Deception, Illegally Censored the Truth, Isolated people to control their ability to hear the TRUTH from those of us that saw through it…they do this on the Wars and everything else…Go to School with this Clip, Think… pic.twitter.com/q0KlrtK53B

— DavidCWillisUSA (@DavidCWillisUSA) October 18, 2023

I responded with a perspective from clinical practice:

“Everyday without prejudice or malice I take care of vaccinated with neuropathy, blood clots, heart damage and help families cope with vaccine cardiac arrest. I don’t blame them for their unhinged, hateful propaganda—they are the ones sick and dying not the unvaccinated.”

At this time there are no apologies, no requests for forgiveness from media anchors. So many people around the world were victims of an effective PSYOP engineered by the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex and facilitated by the group psychological phenomenon of mass formation psychosis. If those spewing propaganda said they took the vaccines, we should believe them. If they are not telling us they are on their ninth shot by now, we should assume they are declining any more injections in quiet, shameful regret.

In clinical practice we are seeing new blood clots and hearing about cardiac arrests two years after the initial series of mRNA vaccines in 2021. More disease will occur in the now silent, vaccinated. Each person who propagandized and was in the mass formation themselves, evidenced by their personal vaccine card, will have to reconcile the unwise health choice of getting injected with pseudo-uridinated synthetic genetic code, loading their bodies with long-lasting viral Spike protein engineered in a Chinese biosecurity lab.

I have not found a single vaccinated person who is declining Base Spike Detoxification with the combination of Nattokinase, Bromelain, and Curcumin.

Albeit, many patients out of my circles are likely seeing doctors and pondering together the source of mysterious nerve damage, strokes, heart disease, blood clots, and weird immunological problems. According to HHS and all major medical societies at this time, COVID-19 illness before or after vaccination is to blame for the new problems, not the the long-lasting vaccine pumping Spike protein into their tissues, organs, and bloodstreams.

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The al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital, which was bombed by Israel on Tuesday night, killing at least 471 Palestinians, was one of several hospitals in the Gaza Strip to be warned by Israel to clear out, or face being hit by air strikes.

At the time of the devastating strike, the Anglican-run hospital was providing treatment and shelter to hundreds of Palestinians wounded and displaced by Israel’s 12-day war on the besieged enclave.

The hospital had received threats from Israel to either evacuate or be bombed, according to the Palestinian health ministry. 

The ministry told Middle East Eye the Israeli army told all hospitals in northern Gaza and the central Gaza City last week to clear out. The Palestinian health ministry rejected the threats and refused to leave vulnerable patients. 

Gaza-based doctor Sohaib al-Hems said staff of al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia and the Public Aid Hospitals in Gaza City refused to leave.

The director of al-Awda hospital said it would be “impossible” to transport the sick and wounded. 

Even in the south – where Israeli authorities had forcibly ejected more than one million Palestinians to – hospitals were given orders to clear out or face air strikes.

Among those was the Kuwait Speciality Hospital, which received Israeli orders to clear out but whose staff also refused to leave.

In total, at least 22 hospitals have received Israeli threats since 7 October. Here is a list of hospitals in areas ordered by the military to clear out, in addition to two hospitals that received similar warnings in the south.

• Kamal Adwan Hospital – northern Gaza
• Al-Awda Hospital – northern Gaza
• Indonesian Hospital – northern Gaza
• Balsam Hospital – northern Gaza
• Karama Hospital Gaza – northern Gaza 
• Al Shifa Hospital – Gaza City 
• Al-Quds Hospital – Gaza City 
• Jordanian Field Hospital in Gaza – Gaza City 
• El-Dorra Paediatric Hospital – Gaza City
• Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital – Gaza City 
• Al-Wafa Medical Centre – Gaza City
• Al-Ahli al-Arabi Baptist Hospital – Gaza City 
• Public Aid Hospital – Gaza City
• Al Rantissi – Alnasr Hospital for Children – Gaza City
• St John Eye Hospital – Gaza City
• Patient Friend’s Benevolent Society – Gaza City 
• Assahaba Medical Complex Society – Gaza City
• Gaza Eye Hospital – Gaza City 
• Jenin Hospital – Gaza City 
• Gaza Psychiatric Hospital – Gaza City 
• European Gaza Hospital – southern Gaza 
• Kuwait Speciality Hospital – southern Gaza

At least 37 Palestinian doctors and paramedics had been killed by Israel in Gaza before Tuesday night’s attack, according to the Palestinian health and interior ministries. 

A total of 33 hospitals and clinics and 23 ambulances have been put out of service by Israeli strikes, the ministries said. 

Even before the war began, Gaza’s hospitals had been struggling to cope under the restrictions of Israel’s 15-year blockade of the enclave.

In the first half of 2023, Israeli authorities deprived life-saving healthcare to almost 400 Palestinian children in Gaza by refusing to allow them to leave to the occupied West Bank for treatment. 

While tens of thousands of patients are granted medical referrals outside of Gaza by the Palestinian Authority each year, almost a third of them are denied exit permits by Israel. 

Now, during the war, hospitals are close to breaking point under Israel’s unrelenting bombing campaign and the complete seige that has cut off electricity, food, water and other resources from the enclave. 

Some hospitals, such as Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, Gaza’s only oncology hospital, were forced to announce their closure because of fuel shortages.

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In this groundbreaking book, renowned Israeli historian Ilan Pappe offers impressive archival evidence to demonstrate that from its very inception a central plank in Israel’s founding ideology was the forcible removal of the indigenous population, a strategy that continues to the present day.

Brief excerpt from the book: 

Watch the video below for the full review.

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Paul Williams is a blogger and bibliophile based in London and the South of France.

United States “Facilitates” Dire Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza. Joe Biden: “Defend the State of Israel.” The True Face of Imperialism

By Abayomi Azikiwe, October 18, 2023

President Joe Biden of the United States has emphasized daily that the principal foreign policy objective for Washington in West Asia and North Africa is to defend and bolster the State of Israel.

From Auschwitz to Gaza: The History of Mass Murder and Genocide

By Prof. Anthony J. Hall, October 18, 2023

As I am writing, a massive genocidal assault is underway on the stateless people of Gaza. Most of the 2.3 million people in Gaza were born into this open air prison where Israel is using its absolute control over what can be brought in and carried out to deny the inhabitants food, water supplies, electricity, and fuel.

The Criminal Nature of International Justice: International Criminal Court’s (ICC) Total Silence on Israel Gaza Attacks

By Burak Bir, October 18, 2023

The systematic targeting of a civilian population, as is the case with Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip, can be a “crime against humanity and the continued silence of the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the matter is “utterly unacceptable,” according to a legal expert.

One Palestinian Child in Gaza Killed Every 15 Minutes by Israeli Forces

By Defense for Children Palestine, October 18, 2023

More than 1,000 Palestinian children in Gaza have been killed by Israeli forces since October 7 as surviving children suffer untold physical and emotional consequences as a result of intensive Israeli bombardment and unprecedented internal displacement.

Can Washington Simultaneously Handle Two War Theaters? Zelensky’s Failed Bid to Meet Netanyahu Signals Ending of Western Interest?

By Ahmed Adel, October 18, 2023

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky wanted to visit Israel on October 16 to express his support for the country, but Israeli authorities made it clear to him that “the time is not right,” reported Israeli outlet Ynet. This was a humiliating rejection for Zelensky, a Jew, considering other world leaders are expected to visit the Jewish State in the coming days.

Netanyahu and the Banality of Evil

By Germán Gorraiz López, October 18, 2023

Netanyahu would be cornered by the international community’s revulsion at the violation of human rights in Gaza and by the growing disaffection towards his government of Israeli society that cannot forgive the security flaws in the Israeli defense that would have led to the murder of about 1500 Israelis and the kidnapping of 200 people by Hamas.

UNRWA Warns of Unprecedented Humanitarian Catastrophe in Gaza

By Philippe Lazzarini, October 18, 2023

As of today, my UNRWA colleagues in Gaza are no longer able to provide humanitarian assistance. As I speak with you, Gaza is running out of water and electricity. In fact, Gaza is being strangled and it seems that the world right now has lost its humanity. If we look at the issue of water – we all know water is life – Gaza is running out of water, and Gaza is running out of life. Soon, I believe, with this there will be no food or medicine either.  

Rushing into Catastrophe. Intense War Fever in Washington. “America Can Afford Two Wars”…?

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, October 18, 2023

The Biden regime refuses to defend US borders but does not hesitate to rush aircraft carrier task forces and the 101st US Airborne Division to defend Israel’s borders. “We have Israel’s back,” endlessly proclaims America’ Jewish Secretary of State.  “America can afford two wars,” proclaims America’s Jewish Secretary of the Treasury. But forget protecting our own border and the burdens on American taxpayers.

Former Ambassador and Assange Advocate Craig Murray Detained Under UK Terror Laws

By Kit Klarenberg, October 18, 2023

On the morning of October 16, counter-terror police in Glasgow Airport detained journalist, whistleblower, human rights campaigner, and former British diplomat Craig Murray upon his return from Iceland. After grilling him intensively about his political beliefs, officers seized Murray’s phone and laptop. 

What the Media “Forgets to Tell You” About Israel and Gaza. Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing Program. Jonathan Cook

By Jonathan Cook, October 18, 2023

The missing context for what’s happening in Gaza is that Israel has been working night and day to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people from their homeland since even before Israel become a state – when it was known as the Zionist movement.

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GR Note: This is a carefully research video. As of approximately 40’00”, it includes statements of a religious nature which some readers might find inappropriate and/or misleading.

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***

The UK should suspend all weapons export licenses to Israel because there is a clear risk British arms may be used to violate international humanitarian law, two organisations have warned the government.

Palestinian human rights organisation Al Haq and the UK-based Global Legal Action Network made their case in a letter sent on Monday to Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch.

Their call comes as a reported Israeli air strike hit al-Ahli al-Arab Hospital in Gaza City where many had sheltered and sought treatment on Tuesday evening, killing at least 500 people. 

The 25-page letter lists a dozen Israeli violations of international humanitarian law committed over years, including the demolition of homes in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, the killing of protesters and journalists, and the 16-year siege of Gaza.

But it says the Israeli response since the Hamas attack on 7 October “represents very serious, widespread violence on a greater scale than anything witnessed by Gazans until now”.

“This escalation very clearly justifies a suspension of arms sales,” the letter says.

A spokesperson for the Department of Business and Trade told Middle East Eye on Wednesday:

 “At present there are no immediate plans to stop arms export licences to Israel.

“All export licences are kept under continual review, with applications assessed on a case-by-case basis against strict criteria.”

The UK government has granted weapons export licenses for the sale of a wide range of items in recent years including components for combat aircraft, military radars and targeting equipment and body armour.

According to the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), British companies provide 15 percent of the components for the F35 stealth combat aircraft which Israel is currently using to bomb Gaza.

Since 2016, CAAT estimates that the contract for those components alone is worth over $409mn.

The organisations which wrote to Badenoch say that all of the items sold are capable of being used in Israel’s actions against Palestinians and, therefore, licences for them should not be issued.

Lawyers representing the two groups have given Badenoch until 30 October to respond to their letter after which they say their clients will “consider issuing judicial review proceedings” before the High Court.

Dearbhla Minogue, a senior lawyer with GLAN said:

“This challenge was already necessary before the current decimation of Gaza – now it is even more urgent. 

“States like the United Kingdom are emboldening the Israeli government’s brutality – especially when they actually supply them with the means to subjugate and kill Palestinians.”

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The systematic targeting of a civilian population, as is the case with Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip, can be a “crime against humanity and the continued silence of the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the matter is “utterly unacceptable,” according to a legal expert.

For over 10 days, Israel has been bombing the besieged Palestinian territory, with the death toll now nearing 3,000, among them at least 750 children.

Israeli attacks have targeted buildings in densely populated residential areas, which it claims were being used by the Palestinian group Hamas.

Airstrikes have also struck hospitals and schools, as confirmed by UN agencies like the World Health Organization and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Several healthcare and humanitarian workers have been killed in the Israeli offensive, along with journalists and officials of local civil and rescue services.

Adding to the humanitarian catastrophe is Israel’s decision to cut off water, electricity and other supplies to Gaza, leaving the population of some 2 million in a dire situation without the very basic needs, eliciting repeated warnings from the UN and other rights groups.

Then there is the evacuation order for northern Gaza, affecting more than 1 million people, almost half the strip’s entire population.

The order itself has been severely criticized by international organizations and rights groups, who have termed it a “forced transfer” and a war crime.

Another major violation by Israel has been the use of white phosphorus in its attacks on Gaza. The Israeli military denies that, but it was proven by groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, with the latter’s investigation including photos captured by Anadolu.

Ahmed Abofoul, legal researcher and advocacy officer at rights organization Al-Haq, emphasized that Israel’s actions in Gaza are “a war crime,” while the targeting of civilian infrastructure and civilian population could also amount to “a crime against humanity.”

There have been “very disturbing, genocidal statements” by Israeli politicians, like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying that they will be “turning Gaza into rubble,” he pointed out.

For Abofoul, who is also an international lawyer based in The Hague, the inaction of the ICC is “utterly unacceptable.”

“It’s important to note that the ICC prosecutor has the mandate not only to investigate crimes, but also to issue preventive statements, which are early warning statements that can provide deterrence,” he explained.

It is also “shameful” that the international community is not really even pushing for a cease-fire, and instead has been supporting Israel by sending weapons, he added.

Abofoul said the “collective punishment” inflicted on Palestinians by Israel through its indiscriminate attacks and total siege “could even be argued to be an act of genocide.”

“We’ve heard those statements by Israel where there seems to be a complete disregard of innocent civilian lives,” he said.

On the use of white phosphorus, he stressed that these weapons, by their very nature, are indiscriminate and always affect civilian populations.

“They know it and they use it and, therefore, it may amount to a war crime,” he said.

‘Further Squeezing the Civilian Population’

On Israel’s order for more than 1 million Gazans to move to the south, Abofoul emphasized that most of the civilian infrastructure, the main center, emergency and rescue services, and major hospitals, including the biggest one Al-Shifa Hospital, are in the northern part.

“So, effectively what Israel is doing is further squeezing the civilian population in Gaza and, in half of its space, with no electricity, no food, no properly equipped hospitals,” he added.

He pointed out that there is no safe passage and nobody knows which evacuation routes are safe.

“Nobody can trust that Israel won’t target civilians,” said Abofoul, referring to a recent attack that resulted in civilian casualties on a route that the Israeli army had designated as safe for civilians.

“People don’t know where to go and even those who want to leave. They don’t know how to leave … the UN itself announced that this is virtually impossible. So in a way Israel is asking the impossible,” he added.

He emphasized that all of this is a result of “75 years of oppression, of denying the Palestinian people their basic human rights.”

Abofoul also pointed out that Hamas emerged in 1987, 20 years after Palestinian territories were occupied in 1967.

“For 20 years, there was no peace before Hamas … so it’s important to put things into context,” he said.

Abofoul also questioned why Israel, often defined by the West as the “only democracy in the Middle East,” refuses to go to any court “as any civilized nation would do.”

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Featured image is from Rick Bajornas/United Nations/Flickr

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***

More than 1,000 Palestinian children in Gaza have been killed by Israeli forces since October 7 as surviving children suffer untold physical and emotional consequences as a result of intensive Israeli bombardment and unprecedented internal displacement.

Israeli forces have killed a Palestinian child approximately every 15 minutes since the Israeli military unleashed a massive military offensive on the Gaza Strip on October 7 after Palestinian armed groups fired rockets toward Israel and breached the Israeli perimeter fence surrounding Gaza, launching attacks inside Israel. Israeli forces initiated a large-scale military operation dubbed Operation Iron Swords.

“The repercussions of this war will not only affect the victims we have lost, some of which are still trapped under the rubble of their homes, and not only the residential areas that have been completely destroyed, including our own homes, but the psychological impact on us civilians and our children will be catastrophic,” said Mohammad Abu Rukbeh, senior Gaza field researcher at DCIP.

The fatality and injury numbers provided by the Ministry of Health in Gaza only account for people admitted to hospitals, so at least an estimated additional 1,000 Palestinians are missing under the rubble of destroyed buildings, according to the Ministry of Interior, indicating the actual death toll is much higher.

Palestinian children who have so far survived the Israeli military’s intense bombing across the Gaza Strip are suffering in an increasingly dire humanmade humanitarian crisis, compounding existing mental and emotional traumas sustained from 16 years of siege and Israeli military offensives.

An estimated one million Palestinians in Gaza are displaced, according to the UN, including more than 600,000 people hosted in the central and southern parts of Gaza, according to UN OCHA.

Since October 11 at 2 p.m. Gaza has experienced a full electricity blackout after Israeli authorities cut the electricity and fuel supply on October 7 and the Gaza Power Plant depleted its reserves, according to UN OCHA. The lack of electricity has exacerbated the existing food crisis as refrigeration is not possible and irrigation and agricultural activity has ground to a halt. Fuel reserves and backup generators at hospitals are not expected to last more than 24 hours.

Israeli authorities cut water supply to Gaza on October 9, and since then, all three water desalination plants in Gaza have been forced to cease operations, according to UN OCHA. The vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza have no access to clean drinking water, and some have resorted to drinking dirty well water, raising concerns for waterborne diseases. Even though Israeli authorities claimed to resume water supply to southern Gaza yesterday, there is no electricity to operate water pumps, Israeli airstrikes have damaged many water lines, and very little water in Gaza is drinkable in the first place.

The psychological toll on Palestinian children in Gaza is further underscored by the pre-existing challenges they faced prior to the recent series of Israeli military attacks.

• One in four was already in need of psychosocial support, according to UNICEF in 2018.
• More than half depend on some form of humanitarian assistance for survival, according to UNICEF in 2018.
• Four out of five children are living with depression, grief, and fear, according to a 2022 report from Save the Children.

The trauma experienced by Palestinian children in Gaza extends beyond personal suffering. Witnessing the deaths of other children compounds their distress, leaving indelible scars on their mental well-being. Entire families are being wiped out in the blink of an eye, shattering the very foundations of these households. Children, who once found comfort in the embrace of their families, are now left orphaned. The emotional repercussions for these children are profound, as they grapple not only with the pain of the current situation in their city but also with the daunting challenge of navigating life without the foundational support of their families.

Israeli airstrikes have destroyed two of the three main lines for mobile communication in the Gaza Strip, according to UN OCHA. The Palestinian Telecommunications Company (Paltel) is still able to provide minimal internet connectivity across Gaza, but fears connection will be completely lost if there is any additional damage to the lines.

“The State of Israel has no choice but to turn Gaza into a place that is temporarily or permanently impossible to live in,” reservist Major General Giora Eiland told Israeli media. “Creating a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a necessary means to achieve the goal. Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.”

“Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water [in Gaza], there will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell,” said Major General Ghassan Alian, head of Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).

Under international law, genocide is prohibited and constitutes the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group, in whole or in part. Genocide can result from killing or by creating conditions of life that are so unbearable it brings about the group’s destruction.

International humanitarian law prohibits indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks and requires all parties to an armed conflict to distinguish between military targets, civilians, and civilian objects. Deploying explosive weapons in densely-populated civilian areas constitutes indiscriminate attacks and carrying out direct attacks against civilians or civilian objects amounts to war crimes.

Israeli authorities have imposed a closure policy against the Gaza Strip since 2007 by strictly controlling and limiting the entry and exit of individuals; maintaining harsh restrictions on imports including food, construction materials, fuel, and other essential items; as well as prohibiting exports. Israel continues to maintain complete control over the Gaza Strip’s borders, airspace, and territorial waters.

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“In a few days,” writes Amira Hass, the veteran Israeli correspondent who has reported for decades from the Occupied Territories, “Israelis went through what Palestinians have experienced as a matter of routine for decades, and are still experiencing,” including “military incursions, death, cruelty, slain children, bodies piled up in the road, siege, fear, anxiety over loved ones, captivity… and searing humiliation.”

The Hamas-led operation against Israeli military bases and civilian neighborhoods killed more than 1,300 Israelis, along with at least 120 taken hostage. While enduring that type of violence may be routine for Palestinians, Gaza is now facing the most calamitous Israeli military assault to date.

In less than one week, as of this writing, Israel has killed more than 2,300 people, including 724 children.

Israeli strikes have hit residential buildings, mosques, schools, hospitals, universities, and fleeing civilians. Israel has intensified its already crippling blockade by cutting off all food, water, and electricity. It has ordered the expulsion of 1.1 million residents of northern Gaza, “a death sentence for the sick and injured,” the World Health Organization warns.

If Israel does not restore Gaza’s water supply, the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency says, “people will start dying of severe dehydration.”

With a ground invasion looming, Israel is threatening atrocities on an even larger scale, all while espousing rhetoric that calls for ethnic cleansing or even genocide.

Justifying what he called the “complete siege” of Gaza, Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant declared that his government is “fighting against human animals.” According to former Israeli Deputy Foreign minister Danny Ayalon, the Israeli plan is to force Palestinians into the “almost endless space in the Sinai desert, just on the other side of Gaza,” where they can live in “tent cities.”

Israeli president Isaac Herzog effectively declared that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, home to “an entire nation… that is responsible.” Invoking the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians before and after Israel’s founding in May 1948, known as the Nakba (“catastrophe”), Ariel Kallner, an Israeli parliamentarian, said that Israel has “one goal”: a “Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of ‘48.”

Even as the threat of regional escalation grows, the Biden administration fully endorses Israel’s blood lust. Calls for a ceasefire, the White House press secretary declared, are “repugnant.” State Department employees have even been instructed to avoid mentioning the terms “de-escalation/ceasefire,” “end to violence/bloodshed” and “restoring calm.”

Biden’s stance is shared across both political parties, with only a handful of lawmakers demanding a ceasefire. As the US backs Israel’s assault, “we may be about to see massive ethnic cleansing” in Gaza, one European Union official has warned.

As in previous cases, the Western media and political establishment justifies the prevailing support for attacking Gaza by asserting that Israel has “the right to defend itself”, and has no other option against Palestinian militants who refuse to accept its existence.

As a legal matter, the former assertion is false: while Israel has an internationally recognized right to defend itself from an attack, it does not have the right to commit war crimes against a besieged civilian population.

Moreover, Israel is not “defending itself” against an external aggressor, but an imprisoned internal population that also has a recognized right to resist military occupation (but not, as is evident, to kill and kidnap Israeli civilians).

To adopt the Israeli-US narrative, therefore, requires “ignoring Israel’s structural violence and cruelty,” Amira Hass writes, “and the context of the Palestinian people’s ongoing dispossession from their land.”

That Israel is “defending itself” from a people that it has colonized has long been acknowledged at the highest levels. At a 1956 funeral for an Israeli soldier killed by Palestinians in Gaza, Gen. Moshe Dayan, one of Israel’s most famed military leaders, advised the following:

Let us not cast the blame on the murderers today. Why should we deplore their burning hatred for us? For eight years they have been sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we have been transforming the lands and villages, where they and their fathers dwelt, into our estate. 

Dayan, having led Israeli forces in the military campaign during Israel’s founding in 1948, recognized that his country originated with the dispossession of Palestinians and theft of their homes.

Yet his acknowledgment was not an act of remorse. Rather than attempt to reverse or redress the forced expulsion of Palestinians, Dayan went on to decree that Israel should maintain the colonization with even more aggression:

We are a generation that settles the land and without the steel helmet and the cannon’s maw, we will not be able to plant a tree and build a home… Let us not fear to look squarely at the hatred that consumes and fills the lives of hundreds of Arabs who live around us.

Let us not drop our gaze, lest our arms weaken. That is the fate of our generation. That is our choice – to be ready and armed, tough and hard – or else the sword shall fall from our hands and our lives will be cut short.

Gen. Moshe Dayan delivers a eulogy for slain Israeli soldier Roi Rutenberg — April 19, 1956.

In the nearly 70 years since Dayan spoke those words, Israel has heeded them by expanding its theft of Palestinian land and creating new generations of refugees.

As B’Tselem, the leading Israeli human rights group, acknowledged in 2021, this has turned Israel into “an apartheid regime” that “promotes and perpetuates Jewish supremacy between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.”

A foundational moment for Israel’s apartheid regime was its 1967 conquest of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which brought millions of Palestinians under Israeli military occupation. As he did in 1956, Dayan candidly articulated what became the guiding policy:

“You Palestinians, as a nation, don’t want us today, but we’ll change your attitude by forcing our presence on you.” Under Israeli rule, the Israeli general said, occupied Palestinians will “live like dogs, and whoever will leave, will leave.”

For Gaza, one of the world’s most densely populated areas, this forced Israeli occupation has confined a population of 2.3 million, more than half of them children, to what former UK Prime Minister David Cameron has described as “an open-air prison,” or what Hebrew University Professor Baruch Kimmerling called “the largest concentration camp ever to exist.”

Israel’s famed 2005 “disengagement” has been falsely described as an end to the occupation of Gaza when, in fact, it only deepened the torment. After years of defacto blockades, Israel imposed a full siege in 2007. This was Israel and Washington’s response to Hamas’ surprise victory in Palestinian legislative elections the previous year, when voters shunned the corrupt and inept Western-backed Palestinian Authority.

Hamas then took full control of Gaza in a preemptive operation against a US-backed coup plot that sought to undermine its electoral gains. Hillary Clinton later lamented that the US failed to rig the Palestinian vote. “If we were going to push for an election, then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win,” she said.

Because it failed to thwart Palestinian democracy, Israel, again with US backing, turned to punishing Gazan civilians for voting the wrong way.

Controlling the flow of goods and energy to Gaza, Israel restricted food imports based on a calculation of the precise number of calories that would be needed to ravage them without triggering a full-blown malnutrition crisis. “The idea,” Israeli advisor Dov Weisglass explained, “is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.”

Under Israeli control, over 90% of Gaza’s water became unfit for human consumption. In 2018, the United Nations declared conditions to be so dire that the territory could become “uninhabitable” within years. The Israeli siege has been accompanied by periodic military assaults that killed, wounded, and displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians.

Israel’s commitment to enforcing the dispossession and occupation of Palestinians has also led it to undermine any prospect of the two-state solution that it claimed to support.

The 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) were “founded on a neo-colonialist basis,” in the words of former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben–Ami.

“One of the meanings of Oslo,” Ben Ami explained, “was that the PLO was eventually Israel’s collaborator in the task of stifling the intifada,” – a grassroots and largely non-violent uprising against Israeli occupation – thereby “cutting short what was clearly an authentically democratic struggle for Palestinian independence.”

Oslo’s Israeli architects, including Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, never “wanted the autonomy to usher in a Palestinian state.”

As a neo-colonial endeavor disguised as a “peace process,” the Oslo era saw a doubling of the Israeli settlement population in its first eight years. Israel’s so-called “generous peace offer” at Camp David in July 2000 – widely cited by Israeli officials and Western pundits as proof of an Israeli willingness to “compromise,” and a Palestinian refusal to “co-exist” – was in fact a perpetuation of Oslo’s neocolonial ruse.

As Ben-Ami, who took part in the summit as a top Israeli negotiator, himself acknowledged years later: “If I were a Palestinian I would have rejected Camp David, as well.”

In 2002, the Arab League offered Israel full normalization in return for a withdrawal from all Arab territories (Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian) that it occupied in 1967; the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital; and a “just resolution” to the refugee issue.

The initiative was subsequently endorsed by Iran, which signed on to a December 2017 declaration calling for a “two-state solution with east Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine.”

The proposal would require Israel to end its occupation of the West Bank and abandon the illegal settlement blocs, which carve up Palestinian land and disproportionately consume precious water reserves. Later on, the Arab League signaled that it would accept mutually agreed land swaps, as the Palestinian Authority had already done, that could keep some settlement areas under Israeli control.

But even the most far-reaching Israeli offer, presented by lame-duck Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2008, rejected parity in any territorial exchange. As veteran Israeli negotiator Michael Herzog wrote in 2011: “No Israeli government to date has accepted the Palestinian stipulation that land swaps be fully equal in size and ‘quality.’”

Israel has repeatedly rejected the Arab League’s diplomatic initiative and even refused to accept it as a basis for further negotiations. In shunning the two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, Israel has shown a less accommodating position than even what Hamas, at one point, claimed to support.

In a March 2008 interview, Khalid Mishal, head of Hamas’s political bureau, stated that “most Palestinian forces, including Hamas, accept a state on the 1967 borders.” In 2013, Ghazi Hamad, Hamas’ deputy foreign minister, reaffirmed this stance: “We agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, within the 1967 borders, and that this would include a solution to the refugee problem.”

While Hamas explicitly rejected any recognition of Israel, its acceptance of a Palestinian state within the boundaries the Occupied Territories – about 22% of historic Palestine — constituted a tacit recognition of Israel’s internationally recognized borders on the other side.

This contrasted with Israel’s position, which nominally accepted the notion of a Palestinian state, but remained committed to keeping the large West Bank settlement blocs that would make such a state non-contiguous and therefore untenable.

Having thwarted the prospect of a two-state solution, Israel has also violently crushed any hope of non-violent Palestinian resistance. In March 2018, tens of thousands of Palestinians launched the Great March of Return, a campaign to break the Gaza siege. “Gaza is a ghetto and what’s happening… is a ghetto uprising,” veteran Israeli journalist Gideon Levy wrote.

Israel responded to the ghetto uprising by gunning down at least 214 Palestinians, including 46 children, and wounding over 36,000. Western pundits who had loudly implored Palestinians to take up Gandhian non-violence fell resoundingly silent.

The Netanyahu government, meanwhile, returned to a longtime policy of propping up Hamas’ rule, recognizing that the group’s global isolation and internal divisions could be exploited to undermine the possibility of the Palestinian state that some Hamas leaders had claimed to accept.

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” Netanyahu explained to Likud Party members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”

Having successfully deepened Palestinian isolation, Netanyahu’s government has intensified the oppression. The guiding Israeli policy, Netanyahu’s government declared in December 2022, is that “the Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel.”

This included Gaza, Cabinet Minister Orit Strock explained in March of this year. “I believe that, at the end of the day, the sin of the [Gaza] disengagement will be reversed,” Strock said. “Sadly, a return to the Gaza Strip will involve many casualties… But ultimately it is part of the Land of Israel, and a day will come when we will return to it.”

Tareq Bacouni, a former senior analyst for the International Crisis Group, summarizes how Netanyahu’s supremacist rule has recently trampled the inalienable rights of Palestinians:

Under the most right-wing government in its history, Israel has carried out large-scale invasions of Palestinian refugee camps and towns in the West Bank, killing and wounding scores of people.

Armed Israeli fighters have burst into Palestinian streets and homes on an almost nightly basis, often picking children out of their beds in the middle of the night to be taken into administrative detention—acts of terror that have gone largely unreported in the Western press.

The state has accelerated its expulsions of Palestinians from their homes in Jerusalem and the West Bank and expanded the construction of illegal settlements.

Settlers have waged weekly assaults on Palestinian villages, attacking and in some cases killing Palestinians, setting fire to their homes, and destroying their property, often under the protection of Israeli soldiers. The domestic secret police has facilitated and fomented violence against Palestinian citizens.

Senior members of Israel’s government and messianic Jewish extremists have been increasingly aggressive in their provocations in and around the Noble Sanctuary Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem. In the weeks leading to Hamas’s offensive, the state tightened the blockade on Gaza by still further restricting movement in and out.

Having always chosen occupation and supremacy over peace and security, Israel has now opted to further devastate, displace, and murder occupied Palestinians in retaliation against those who have fought back.

Zaha Hassan and Daniel Levy, former advisers for their respective Palestinian and Israeli governments, offer three points of agreement that could help end the current crisis:

First, the militant attack on Israeli civilians was unconscionable, inhumane and in violation of international law. Second, Israel’s collective punishment against Palestinian civilians and its actions in Gaza are unconscionable, inhumane and a violation of international law.

And, third, one must address the context of occupation and apartheid in which this is unfolding if one is to maintain integrity and be able to plot a strategy going forward in which both Palestinians and Israelis can live in freedom and security.

If we can hold these three truths, then it will be possible to prevent further casualties, secure the release of prisoners and step back from the precipice.

Hassan and Levy condition their guidance on the principle that “one accepts the humanity and equality of all people without discrimination or distinction.” Israel has explicitly rejected this principle since its founding. And with Washington’s support, Israel’s determination to enforce the dispossession and subjugation of Palestinians is yielding a new ethnic cleansing campaign before our eyes.

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***

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky wanted to visit Israel on October 16 to express his support for the country, but Israeli authorities made it clear to him that “the time is not right,” reported Israeli outlet Ynet. This was a humiliating rejection for Zelensky, a Jew, considering other world leaders are expected to visit the Jewish State in the coming days.

As Israeli media wrote on October 16, the Ukrainian leader had planned to travel with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. At the same time, Ynet sources stressed that Zelensky could travel to Israel later.

By wanting to meet immediately, Zelensky exposes that he is petrified of Ukraine now being ignored and sidelined as the globe’s attention shifts to the Middle East, and for this reason, he wants to link the conflict in Eastern Europe as a common struggle – something Israel is evidently not tolerating at this moment in time.  

Israel appears determined to eradicate Hamas and other extremist elements from Gaza, even if it comes at a horrific civilian cost. Due to this apparent commitment, Israel faces a multi-front war because Hezbollah threatens to intervene if a ground assault on Gaza is launched. As the Jewish state faces a potentially long and bloody war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not have time to entertain Zelensky or deal with the consequences of the inevitably anti-Russia statements the Ukrainian president will make.

For this reason, it is more practical for Netanyahu to reject the solidarity meeting request rather than reassure Moscow that Israel does not connect its war against Hamas to the war in Eastern Europe as Zelensky does.

Compounding Zelensky’s humiliation is the recent news that US President Joe Biden and likely Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis are expected to visit Israel in the coming days, raising the question of why “the time is not right” for Zelensky to visit.

In addition to Netanyahu not wanting to be distracted with other foreign policy matters, especially regarding Russia, Israel does not want to share the world’s focus with Ukraine as there is now competition for foreign aid. Ukraine has dominated the world’s attention since February 2022, even to the detriment of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, and has absolutely nothing to show for it all. Meanwhile, Israel has been a major non-NATO Ally since even before Ukraine became an independent country and was always going to be an immediate priority over Ukraine.

At the same time, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv on October 16 to promise support before the ground operation in the Gaza Strip and to inform Israeli authorities about his meetings with leaders of Arab states. It would be imagined that if Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba had requested an official visit to Israel, the request would be declined, again demonstrating that Israel prioritises countries.

The US is obviously the world’s current greatest superpower, even in its declining state, while Greece is one of the few countries in the region that is friendly to Israel. Ukraine has no value to Israel, especially during this crisis. Therefore, Netanyahu identifies that Zelensky’s visit would only waste his time and would only bring benefit to Ukraine and not to Israel.

It is recalled that Zelensky said on October 11, when speaking of the Israel-Gaza conflict potentially affecting weapons being supplied to Ukraine, that “of course, everybody’s afraid, and I think also Russia’s counting on it, on dividing support.” For this reason, he attempted to meet with Netanyahu only days after his statement to try and link the two conflicts as inseparable – an unashamed lie and a desperate bid to ensure that Western interests, weapons, and funds continue flowing into Ukraine.

Ukraine is seeking more weapons for its troops to regain ground from Russian forces before the winter weather sets in, an unlikely task since the Ukrainian military has barely captured any territory when it launched its long-awaited “spring offensive” at the beginning of summer. However, Israel’s own ammunition concerns and the US’ previous steps to transfer ammunition from the Middle Eastern country to Kiev are fuelling growing opposition in Washington, where calls for weapons transfers to Israel instead of Ukraine are already being heard.

Such a shift of attention from the Ukrainian crisis to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis threatens to seriously undermine the ability of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to continue its military campaign against Russia. This comes when Ukrainian forces recover from months of failed offensives and recent casualties in the tens of thousands. Therefore, Israel rejecting Zelensky’s request to meet Netanyahu is not only humiliating but could signify the beginning of the end of Western interest in Ukraine.

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

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***

The Israeli society of the 21st century (80% of Jews versus 20% of the Arab population), would be a melting pot of races, customs, languages and values that would only have in common their Hebrew origin and in which a silent blow would be produced by an ultra orthodox minority , the “haredim.”

Although they represent only 10% of its population, the ultra-orthodox would be a state within the state, ready to swallow all the sensitive areas of power of the Jewish state (Interior, Housing, Mossad and the IDF commanders or Jewish army) and try to impose the “Halacha” or Jewish law to more than 40% of the population that declares itself secular, segment of European filiation, immersed in Western culture and way of life and that wants to be governed by civil law as in other formal western democracies.

Einstein and Exclusionary Zionism

In 1938, the visionary Einstein warned of the dangers of exclusionary Zionism by stating:

“I would like a reasonable agreement to be reached with the Arabs on the basis of a peaceful life together as I think this would be preferable to the creation of a Jewish state.”

It is impossible to germinate in the twenty-first century given the absence on both sides of valid interlocutors to negotiate a lasting peace that implies the mutual recognition of the States of Israel and Palestine.

Thus, former President Jimmy Carter, who went down in history when he achieved the historic Camp David agreement between Israel and Egypt in 1979 in his book ‘Palestine, Peace not Apartheid’, denounces the “system of apartheid that Israel applies to the Palestinians.”

Likewise, in the aforementioned book he denounces “Israel’s non-compliance with the commitments made in 2003 under the auspices of George W. Bush“, which included demands for a total and permanent freeze on Jewish settler settlements in the West Bank as well as the right of return for the nearly 800,000 Palestinians who were forced to leave Israel following its statehood in 1948 (Nakba).

This roadmap was initially accepted by Israel and subsequently ratified by Olmert and Abbas at the Annapolis Summit (2007) with the requirement of “to put an end to the policy of building settlements in the West Bank and to relax the military controls that constrict the daily life of the Palestinians to a paroxysm”.  This dystopian situation led the Jewish Civil Rights activist and Holocaust survivor, Israel Shakak to claim “The Nazis made me fear being Jewish and the Israelis embarrass me to be Jewish”.

Thus, according to the civil rights survey “Association for Civil Rights in Israel Annual Report for 2007” published by the newspaper Haaretz, the number of Jews who express feelings of hatred towards Arabs has tripled and about 60% of Israeli Jews would already oppose the equal rights of their Arab compatriots and in favor of the increase of the apartheid regime in the Palestinian ghettos of West Bank and Gaza.

In these ghettos, the Palestinian population would be subject to the military-juridical regime instead of relying on civilian power like the Israeli one, with which the vast majority of Israeli society would be silent accomplices and necessary collaborators in the implementation of xenophobic sentiment against the Arab-Israeli population.

Netanyahu and the Banality of Evil

The German-Jewish political theorist Hannah Arendt in her book “Eichmann in Jerusalem”, subtitled “A report on the banality of evil” coined the expression “banality of evil” to express that “some individuals act within the rules of the system to which they belong without reflecting on their actions”.

Consequently, the use by Israel of systematic torture, the apartheid of the Palestinian people, the surgical removal of Hamas terrorist elements and other evil practices, would not be considered on the basis of its effects or its final result provided that the orders to execute them come from higher echelons, leaving the Israeli government of Netanyahu as the only one responsible to history.

Arendt helped us to understand the reasons for the renunciation of the individual of his critical capacity (freedom), while alerting us to the need to be always vigilant before the foreseeable repetition of the “banalization of evil” by the rulers of any political system, including sui generis Jewish democracy.

If we extrapolate Arendt’s reflection on Adolf Eichmann to the current situation in the Gaza Strip,

“the military commanders of the Tzahal would not present the traits of murderous psychopaths, but would be mere bureaucrats who would carry out orders without thinking about their consequences and without discerning the good or evil of their actions”.

However, according to Maximilian Korstanje “fear and not the banality of evil, makes man renounce his critical will, but it is important not to lose sight that in that act the subject remains ethically responsible for his resignation” and Israeli commanders and soldiers would be complicit in human rights violations committed in the Gaza Strip under Netanyahu.

Netanyahu would be cornered by the international community’s revulsion at the violation of human rights in Gaza and by the growing disaffection towards his government of Israeli society that cannot forgive the security flaws in the Israeli defense that would have led to the murder of about 1500 Israelis and the kidnapping of 200 people by Hamas.

According to a survey by The Jerusalem Post, 80% of those polled say that “the Government is primarily responsible for the infiltration of Palestinian militias” and 56% think that “Netanyahu should resign at the end of the current war”.

In the event that Israeli society does not react against the barbarity of Netanyahu and demands his resignation and the initiation of a criminal trial for his negligent management, we will see the strengthening of the political figure of Netanyahu which would be the prelude to a subsequent totalitarian drift.

This involution could culminate in the establishment of a theocratic regime in the Israeli State in the next five years, which will mean that large sectors of lay and urban Israeli youth will have to choose to join the list of remote-controlled settlers by the Haredim or emigrate to the West to escape the theocratic-military dystopia.

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Germán Gorraiz López is a political analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

On October 9, two days into the current Israel-Hamas war – in which the Israeli army appears intent on semi-obliterating the Gaza Strip – the website of the New York-based magazine Women’s Health published some guidelines on “How To Cope With The Trauma Of Violent Images And Videos Of Hamas’ Attack on Israel”.

It is unsurprising, of course, that the potential for trauma has been detected solely as a reaction to Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel and not to, say, the past 75 years of Israeli violence and ethnic cleansing of Palestine – the cumulative depraved barbarity of which is what prompted Hamas’s actions in the first place.

After all, Israel’s carefully crafted monopoly on victimisation and the attendant dehumanisation of Palestinians means that footage of the ongoing Israeli terrorisation of Gaza has never compelled US media outlets to prescribe “steps to protect your mental health”.

And yet the Women’s Health intervention constitutes a novel sort of twist on the victimisation theme, in which even the vicarious trauma that is allegedly intermittently experienced by US audiences trumps the unmitigated trauma suffered by the people upon whom Israel wages perpetual war.

The article quotes a clinical psychologist in New York on why it can be so upsetting to encounter violent images in one’s social media feed: “We’re empathetic people. We can picture ourselves in someone else’s shoes.”

But selective empathy is not empathetic at all. This is particularly the case when “empathy” for Israel happens to be so politically expedient in terms of justifying obscene quantities of US military aid to that country and the slaughter of folks whose existence complicates the US-Israeli vision of the world.

In the United States, my estranged homeland, the very emotion of empathy has been under sustained assault by a politico-economic system that thrives on alienation and the eradication of communal bonds. When empathy can be weaponised, however, leaders from across what passes as a political spectrum in the US come out in droves to “stand with Israel”.

To be sure, the Israeli monopoly on victimisation defies logic and reality – and casting the state of Israel in the role of pre-eminent victim is a bit like granting the status of victimhood to an assault rifle.

Recall that the foundational episode of the whole “Israeli-Palestinian conflict” consisted of Israel’s violent self-invention on Palestinian land in 1948, which entailed the destruction of some 530 Palestinian villages, the killing of 15,000 Palestinians, and the expulsion of three-quarters of a million more.

And the bloody pattern has only continued since, with Palestinians consistently dying in disproportionate numbers even while being cast as the aggressors and victimisers. Take Operation Protective Edge in 2014, when the Israeli army killed 2,251 people in the Gaza Strip in 50 days, including 299 women and 551 children. Six Israeli civilians were killed and 67 soldiers.

In Operation Pillar of Defence in November 2012, the Israeli army killed 167 Palestinians while suffering six fatalities in return. In Operation Cast Lead, which Israel launched in Gaza at the end of 2008, more than 1,400 Palestinians were killed, primarily civilians. Among them were 400 children. Three Israeli civilians were also killed along with 10 soldiers.

After the 2012 Israeli assault on Gaza, Israeli journalist Gideon Levy took to the pages of the Haaretz newspaper to remind readers that, “since the first Qassam rocket fell on Israel in April 2001, 59 Israelis have been killed – and 4,717 Palestinians.” Noting that this proportion was “horrifying”, Levy ventured that “it ought to disturb every Israeli”.

Of course, “ought” is still the operative word. But to be “disturbed” by the horrifying context in which Palestinians have now existed for more than seven and a half decades would require empathy – which would in turn require an acknowledgement of Palestinian humanity, rather than the propagation of a pernicious US-backed narrative affirming the infinitely superior value of Israeli over Palestinian life.

Also highly disturbing is that, while this narrative dehumanises Palestinians to the point of effectively denying them the right to emotional and psychological suffering, Israel plays up its emotional casualties as a means of garnering additional empathy.

Following Operation Cast Lead, for example, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs broadcast a total of 770 Israeli casualties, of which no fewer than 584 were victims of “shock and anxiety syndrome”.

Similarly, following the 34-day Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006 that killed some 1,200 people in that country, the Israeli Health Ministry reported that out of the 4,262 Israeli civilians who had been “treated in hospitals for injuries” a full 2,773 were suffering from “shock and anxiety”.

While the Israeli state’s obsession with air raid sirens and apocalyptic discourse is no doubt useful in helping to generate general anxiety, a tally of “shock and anxiety” victims in the Gaza Strip would presumably produce a number in the vicinity of 2.3 million, the current population of the Palestinian enclave.

As former Oxfam spokesman Karl Schembri once mused:

“How can you talk about post-traumatic stress interventions in Gaza when people are still in a constant state of trauma?”

Constant anguish has been ensured by all manner of external stimuli, including the asphyxiating Israeli siege of Gaza, regular Israeli massacres, the pulverisation of apartment buildings and neighbourhoods, and the use of drones and sonic booms to obliterate any potential for even a moment of peace.

Now, as the Israeli army goes about carpet-bombing Gaza and a horrifying amount of blood remains to be spilled, “empathy” remains firmly entrenched in Israel’s arsenal – and it is a deadly weapon indeed.

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Belén Fernández is the author of Inside Siglo XXI: Locked Up in Mexico’s Largest Immigration Center (OR Books, 2022), Checkpoint Zipolite: Quarantine in a Small Place (OR Books, 2021), Exile: Rejecting America and Finding the World (OR Books, 2019), Martyrs Never Die: Travels through South Lebanon (Warscapes, 2016), and The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work (Verso, 2011). She is a contributing editor at Jacobin Magazine, and has written for the New York Times, the London Review of Books blog, Current Affairs, and Middle East Eye, among numerous other publications.

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***

As of today, my UNRWA colleagues in Gaza are no longer able to provide humanitarian assistance.

As I speak with you, Gaza is running out of water and electricity. In fact, Gaza is being strangled and it seems that the world right now has lost its humanity.

If we look at the issue of water – we all know water is life – Gaza is running out of water, and Gaza is running out of life. Soon, I believe, with this there will be no food or medicine either.  

There is not one drop of water, not one grain of wheat, not a litre of fuel that has been allowed into the Gaza Strip for the last eight days.  

The number of people seeking shelter in our schools and other UNRWA facilities in the south is absolutely overwhelming, and we do not have any more the capacity to deal with them.

My team, who relocated to Rafah to sustain operations following the Israeli ultimatum, is working in the same building as thousands of desperate displaced people rationing also their food and water.

In fact, an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding before our eyes.

And already – and we should always remember that – before the war, Gaza was under a blockade for 16 years, and basically, more than 60 per cent of the population was already relying on international food assistance. It was already before the war a humanitarian welfare society.

Every hour, we receive more and more desperate calls for help from people across the Strip.    

We, as UNRWA, have already lost 14 staff members. They were teachers, engineers, guards and psychologists, an engineer and a gynecologist. Most of our 13,000 UNRWA staff in the Gaza Strip are now displaced or out of their homes. 

My colleague Kamal lost his cousin and her entire family. My colleague Helen and her children were pulled out of the rubble. I was so relieved to learn that they were still alive. 

My colleague Inas fears that Gaza will no longer exist. Every story coming out of Gaza is about survival, despair and loss. 

Thousands of people have been killed, including children and women. Gaza is now even running out of body bags. Entire families are being ripped apart.  

At least 1 million people were forced to flee their homes in one week alone. A river of people continues to flow south. No place is safe in Gaza.

At least 400,000 displaced (persons) are now in UNRWA schools and buildings, and most are not equipped as emergency shelters.

Sanitary conditions are just appalling, and we have reports in our logistics base, for example, where hundreds of people are just sharing one toilet.

Old people, children, pregnant women, people with disabilities are just being deprived of their basic human dignity, and this is a total disgrace! Unless we bring now supplies into Gaza, UNRWA and aid workers will not, be able to continue humanitarian operations.  

The UNRWA operations is the largest United Nations footprint in the Gaza Strip, and we are on the verge of collapse.

This is absolutely unprecedented.  

We keep reminding that International Humanitarian Law has now to be at the center of our concerns. Wars, all wars, even this war, have laws.  

International humanitarian law is the law of any armed conflict. It explicitly sets the minimum standards that must prevail at any, any time.   

The protection of the wounded and civilians, including humanitarian workers, is non-negotiable under humanitarian law. Last week’s attack on Israel was horrendous – devastating images and testimonies continue to come out.   

The attack and the taking of hostages are a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law. But the answer to killing civilians cannot be to kill more civilians.  

Imposing a siege and bombarding civilian infrastructure in a densely populated area will not bring peace and security to the region.  

The siege in Gaza, the way it is imposed, is nothing else than collective punishment. So, before it is too late, the siege must be lifted and aid agencies must be able to safely bring in essential supplies such as fuel, water, food and medicine. And we need this NOW.

Over the last few days, we have advocated for fuel to come in because we need fuel for the water station and the desalination plant in the south of Gaza. Unfortunately, we still have no fuel.

All parties must facilitate a humanitarian corridor so we can reach all those in need of support.   

UNRWA and aid agencies must be able to do their work and save lives. And we must do so safely, without risking our own lives. 

Finally, we are also calling for a suspension of hostilities for humanitarian reasons, and this needs to take place without any delay if we want to spare loss of more lives.

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Philippe Lazzarini is Commissioner-General, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

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*** 

US President Joe Biden’s visit to the Middle East was in peril on Wednesday after US allies cancelled a summit of Arab leaders in Jordan, and Iran-backed forces called for “a day of rage”, following a deadly strike on a Gaza hospital housing hundreds of wounded and displaced Palestinians.

Protests erupted at US embassies across the region on Tuesday night in an outpouring of fury at the US for supporting Israel after the blast ripped through al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City leaving more than 500 Palestinians dead.

In Beirut and Baghdad demonstrators tried to break through security barriers at US embassies, while protestors in Amman, where US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was staying, denounced Biden.

Biden said he was “outraged and deeply saddened” by the strike and that “the United States stands unequivocally for the protection of civilian life during conflict.” 

Palestinian officials and leaders across the Middle East, including Washington’s closest Arab allies, have blamed Israel, whereas Israel has said a malfunctioning rocket launched by Islamic Jihad was responsible for the blast. The group has denied the allegation.

The strike underscores how Washington’s unconditional support for Israel since the 7 October attacks on southern Israel by Palestinian fighters is breeding resentment towards the US in the Arab world. 

Such anger could jeopardise Washington’s stated desire to prevent a widening of the war.

The hospital bombing has already yielded one diplomatic casualty.

As Biden’s Air Force One took off for the region, Jordan announced it was cancelling a summit in Amman between the US president, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

King Abdullah called the bombing a “heinous war crime,” while Sisi condemned it as a “clear violation of international law”.

Even the UAE, one of Israel’s key allies in the region, said Israel had attacked the hospital.

The cancellation means Biden will only meet Israeli leaders during his visit, a move likely to further fuel criticism that the US is not addressing regional concerns about the war’s impact on Palestinians and the security complaints of its Arab allies.

“The complete siding with Israel is unprecedented,” Marwan Muasher, a former Jordanian foreign minister who served as Amman’s first ambassador to Israel told MEE, warning that the rage against Israel and the US in the Arab world had reached “boiling level”.

“There is anger everywhere now in the Arab world. And a sense that the US is totally insensitive to a Palestinian population under siege.”

Biden’s trip comes as Washington’s top diplomat, Antony Blinken, came out empty-handed in a round of shuttle diplomacy this week that involved trying to broker a deal to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza from Egypt.

While analysts say getting aid into Gaza is a priority for the administration, Biden aims to demonstrate solidarity with Israel after the 7 October attack, which Israel and its allies have compared to 11 September 2001 and Pearl Harbor in the US.

To that end, the Biden administration has thrown its full weight behind Israel.

US military aid is pouring into the country with no conditions, according to John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said that the security assistance will be “non-negotiable” and continue to “flow at the speed of war”.  

In previous wars fought by Israel, Washington has stood by its ally, but then gradually nudged it into negotiations.

During the 1973 war, the US withheld military aid to Israel as it engaged in combat against Syria and Egypt to bring them to the negotiating table, laying the foundations for an Egypt-Israel peace deal

More recently, Biden came out in strong support for Israel during its 2021 attack on the Gaza Strip, but eventually nudged it into a truce with armed groups in Gaza brokered by Egypt.

To be sure, for critics of Israel, none of those US attempts have gone far enough – but they have kept a lid on simmering tensions and allowed Washington to lean on traditional Arab partners like Jordan and Egypt to help stabilise the region.

‘Eliminate Hamas’

James Jeffrey, a former US ambassador in the region who now heads the Wilson Center’s Middle East programme, said Washington’s response to this war had to be viewed differently because of the sophistication demonstrated by Hamas during its recent assault on Israel.

The group’s military capabilities caught both the Israelis and Washington off guard.

The surprise attack on 7 October left at least 1,400 Israelis dead. In response, Israel launched a devastating bombing campaign on the besieged Gaza Strip that has killed more than 3,500 Palestinians, including more than 1,000 children and 936 women.

“This is a turning point in the Middle East,” Jeffrey said.

“Hamas’ ability to overcome an entire Israeli military defence line puts this war at the level of Yom Kippur,” he added, referencing the 1973 war between Israel and Arab states that resulted in the US military going on Defcon 3 alert, the highest state of peacetime readiness.

“No recent war has threatened the US-based Middle East system so much as this, and that is how the administration views it,” he said.

“In order to eliminate Hamas, Biden has been willing to accept a dramatic risk of civilian casualties and humanitarian disaster.”

While the administration continues to back Israel, in the last few days there has been a subtle rhetorical emphasis on limiting civilian casualties from US officials, including Blinken, who called for Israel “to use every possible precaution to avoid harm to civilians”.

For most in the Arab world, that refrain is less than lip service, as Israel continues to impose a complete blockade of Gaza preventing the entry of nearly all food, fuel and water. But analysts say within Biden’s visit of support for Israel, there is a note of caution.

President’s Prestige

Firas Maksad, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, told MEE that while the Biden administration had sent a clear “green light” for Israel to invade Gaza, the trip was also a way to gain some breathing space in order to forestall an Israeli ground invasion likely to cause huge casualties on both sides.

“The White House does not want to risk the prestige of the presidency and have Biden in Israel when it launches a bloody incursion into Gaza,” Maksad said.

“In the administration’s thinking Biden’s visit buys them time on the invasion, at least three days, maybe four.”

The clearest indication that the Biden administration is looking to shape Israel’s response to the Hamas attack was Biden’s warning in a CBS 60-Minutes interview on Sunday that any move by Israel to occupy the Gaza Strip “would be a big mistake”.

“It’s remarkable that statement came out publicly,” a US official speaking to MEE on condition of anonymity said.

The official said the US is asking Israel what its plans for the Gaza Strip would be after a potential ground invasion and providing input on the hazards of urban warfare from the US’s recent experience in the 2004 battle for Fallujah and campaign to oust the Islamic State group from Mosul.

The US also wants to avoid an Israeli military response that could draw in Iran and its proxies, especially Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement. Iran’s foreign minister warned on Monday that it would activate its network of militias on“multiple fronts” against Israel if it continued attacks on Gaza.

Can the US Deter Hezbollah?

The exchange of fire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon’s south intensified on Tuesday. So far the skirmishes have been carefully managed to avoid escalation, experts say.

“What’s been happening is a choreographed version of peace fighting. Israel and Hezbollah are sending diplomatic demarches by rocket as opposed to courier. But that can change fast,” Jeffrey said.

If Israel is forced to fight Hamas in the south and Hezbollah in the north it could suck the US into a new Middle East war during an election year.

In a bid to deter Iran, the US has dispatched the USS Gerald R Ford Carrier Strike Group to the eastern Mediterranean. A second carrier group, the USS Dwight D Eisenhower, is also en route.

The US is sending a rapid response force of about 2,000 Marines and sailors to the eastern Mediterranean that could be deployed in a non-combat role, and is gearing up to deploy even more.

The build-up of forces in the eastern Mediterranean has been “unprecedented”, a former senior US official told MEE, and in line with US war planning of steps to take should Israel face an existential military threat.

“Prior to this crisis, the US had stripped the majority of its high-end combat forces from the region. The cruisers, destroyers and military aircraft that could deter Iran were taken out. The US has shown with a lot of speed that it can rapidly put them back in place when needed,” the official said.

But the fragility of the situation was underscored after the al-Ahli al-Arab Hospital strike when Hezbollah called for a “day of rage”. On Wednesday, the US issued a “Do not travel” alert level for Lebanon and allowed some embassy workers to leave the country.

The last time Israel fought a full war with Hezbollah was 2006. Since then the group has massively expanded its missile arsenal from about 14,000 to 150,000 analysts say. Its troops have also been battle-tested in Syria.

Mick Mulroy, a former CIA officer and Pentagon official, said the “unprecedented” US force posture “should be enough to give pause to Hezbollah,” but the Biden administration has to be willing to use it: that would mean ballistic missiles defence systems on US destroyers shooting down a Hezbollah rocket if the situation escalated.

“Bluffing does not work in this area of the world.”

Normalisation Shattered

Muasher, the former Jordanian diplomat who is now a vice president at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said he is less concerned that Hezbollah would escalate the conflict, and more concerned the US was ignoring the roots of the war by ignoring a two-state solution, and instead “laying the stage for a mass expulsion of Palestinian civilians from the Gaza Strip”. 

Both Egypt and Jordan have framed any attempt by Israel to evict Palestinians from Gaza or the occupied West Bank into their countries as a red line. 

“That’s where the real risk of expansion of the conflict lies,” he said.

“For years, the US has publicly reduced peacemaking to normalisation agreements between Israel and the Arab world, giving the impression that regional peace is possible even if peace with the Palestinians is not.

“This argument has been shattered,” he said.

The Biden administration’s efforts to broker a normalisation deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel have collapsed amid the fighting. Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (known as MBS) has voiced strong support for Palestine and refused to condemn Hamas.

And instead of speaking to Israel, Riyadh is talking to Tehran.

MBS held his first phone call with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi last week and on Wednesday, Riyadh convened a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Countries to address the war. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian will attend the event, according to Iranian media.

All of this will weigh on Biden’s mind as he prepares to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government is weighing what would be a bloody invasion of Gaza.

The White House says Biden plans to ask Netanyahu “tough questions” and discuss the humanitarian situation in Gaza, along with Israel’s plans going forward in the war. 

If Biden’s visit does buy the US time, it is going to be welcomed by US diplomats. Washington needs every second.

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