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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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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.

Featured image: Drone by Underway in Ireland is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 / Flickr

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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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***

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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On Monday night, the US and its allies voted down a UN Security Council resolution that would have called for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza as civilians in the enclave are under a brutal siege.

The resolution was proposed by Russia and was also supported by China, Gabon, Mozambique, and the UAE. But the US, Britain, France, and Japan voted against the resolution. Six countries abstained: Albania, Brazil, Ecuador, Ghana, Malta, and Switzerland.

US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield slammed the resolution because it did not condemn Hamas.

“By failing to condemn Hamas, Russia is giving cover to a terrorist group that brutalizes innocent civilians. It is outrageous, hypocritical, and indefensible,” she said.

Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s representative to the UN, slammed the US and its allies, saying they “basically stomped” on hopes for a ceasefire in Gaza by voting down the resolution.

“We are extremely concerned by the unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and the very high risk of the conflict spreading,” he said.

The Biden administration has refused to call for a ceasefire in Gaza as it’s strongly backing Israel. The State Department even gave instructions to its diplomats not to mention the idea of “de-escalation” when discussing the onslaught.

Gaza has been cut off from electricity, water, fuel, and food as relentless airstrikes are pounding the enclave, leaving thousands dead. Israel has not allowed any humanitarian aid to enter Gaza from Egypt despite US claims that it’s working to facilitate the deliveries.

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

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***

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.

This is being articulated by Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken along with all administration officials and the overwhelming number of Congressional leaders as the United Nations and other international humanitarian agencies are advocating for the opening of a corridor to allow water, food, medical services and electricity to reduce the consistent injuring and deaths among the Palestinians.

Democratic Party Senate leader Chuck Schumer visited Israel as well for the same purpose of “legitimizing” the U.S. funding, arming and coordination of the national oppression of the Palestinian people and the destabilization and domination of the neighboring states of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. While Schumer was in Tel Aviv, hundreds of his fellow Jewish Americans were holding a vigil outside his Brooklyn home saying that they did not want to be a party to the systematic genocide against the Palestinian people. Dozens of these demonstrators against Schumer were arrested by police for their refusal to move away from his residence. (See this)

Judging from these official delegations and the statements of unconditional support for Israel by Democratic and Republican politicians, it portends much for the status and future of imperialism in this geopolitical region as well as the entire international community. Biden has ordered the deployment of two warships to the region and 2,000 Pentagon troops.

On October 16, the White House announced that Biden would travel to Tel Aviv on the 18th to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is heading a self-proclaimed unity “war cabinet”. The Biden trip is an effort to project a false legitimacy for a politico-military posture aimed at justifying the elimination of as many Palestinians as possible. Biden, by disregarding the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, cannot be considered an honest broker concerned about the plight of the Palestinians.

Biden was also scheduled to visit the Kingdom of Jordan for a meeting with the leader of Amman, King Abdallah II, and the President of Egypt, Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi. The subject of this meeting, it is claimed by the State Department, was to urge the opening of a humanitarian corridor to address the worsening situation in Gaza among the Palestinians.  Nonetheless, if Biden was really concerned about the displaced, wounded and killed Palestinians in Gaza, his administration would have condemned the role of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in the carpet bombing of residential neighborhoods, convoys of fleeing civilians and medical personnel. Being the largest recipient of U.S. aid, Tel Aviv would have had its assistance suspended as opposed to being increased.

After 11 days of the IDF bombing of Gaza, Biden and his administration has expressed absolutely no sympathy for the Palestinians and is more concerned with maintaining imperialist dominance than saving the lives of the Palestinians and their neighbors. The culpability for the mass carnage inflicted upon the people of Gaza can only be viewed as the by-product of the Biden administration failed foreign policy in Palestine.

IDF Bombs Hospital in Gaza

One of the worst massacres since the IDF bombing began against Gaza, was the air strikes on the al-Ahli Hospital administered by the Anglican Diocese, which reportedly killed at least 500 people on October 17. An IDF spokesman said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) earlier in the day that Tel Aviv did not have to explain to anyone the character of the military tactics they have used in the killing of over 3,000 Palestinians in the previous 11 days.

Al-Ahli Hospital medical staff did a press conference on the recent airstrike which killed hundreds of Palestinians

The bombing of the hospital was preceded by IDF strikes against a school which resulted in the deaths of many children. Al-Ahli Hospital was not only the scene of treating infirm and injured people, it was serving as a safe zone away from the relentless bombing by the IDF on residential population centers. An estimated 4,000 displaced persons had been sheltering there away from the IDF aerial bombardments taking place around the clock. This same hospital had been struck in an Israeli air strike on October 14.

In a report published by the Associated Press:

“A senior Palestinian official says President Mahmoud Abbas has canceled his participation in a meeting scheduled Wednesday (Oct. 18) with President Joe Biden and other Mideast leaders.

Abbas was scheduled to join Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi at Wednesday’s summit in Amman, Jordan, where they are to discuss the latest Israel-Hamas war with Biden. But the senior official said Abbas was withdrawing to protest an alleged Israeli airstrike on a hospital in Gaza that Hamas health officials say has killed over 500 people. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the cancellation has not been formally announced. The Health Ministry run by Hamas said an Israeli airstrike on Tuesday (Oct. 17) hit a Gaza City hospital packed with wounded and other Palestinians seeking shelter, killing hundreds. If confirmed, the attack would be by far the deadliest Israeli airstrike in five wars fought since 2008. The health ministry, which is run by Hamas, said at least 500 people had been killed. Photos purportedly from al-Ahli Hospital shared widely on social video showed fire engulfing the building, widespread damage and bodies scattered in the wreckage. The photos could not be independently verified.” 

Another report from the Al Jazeera news network further confirms the horrors of the al-Ahli Hospital bombing. Any attack on a health facility cannot be justified by the United Nations or any other international humanitarian agency.

Al Jazeera said in the immediate aftermath of the air strike that:

“Hundreds of people have been killed in an Israeli air raid on a hospital in the besieged Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian authorities. The health ministry in Gaza said on Tuesday that at least 500 people were killed in the air raid on Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in central Gaza. The Hamas group, which governs the Palestinian territory, said the attack was a ‘war crime’. Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said there were no details on the hospital deaths. ‘We will get the details and update the public. I don’t know whether to say whether it was an Israeli air strike,’ he said. Images shared on social media appeared to show fire engulfing the building, widespread damage and bodies scattered in the wreckage. Since Israel began pounding Gaza from the air on October 7, tens of thousands of people seeking refuge from the bombardment have fled to hospitals throughout Gaza. The World Health Organization condemned the attack and demanded the immediate protection of civilians and health care in the Palestinian enclave.” 

The Israeli government and military rapidly changed its narrative surrounding the air strikes at the healthcare facility and shelter in Gaza City. Initially, the assertion by Israel was that they were warning Palestinians to leave the northern areas of Gaza and to head to cities in the South.

Even after people were evacuating large swaths of the Gaza Strip, convoys were bombed while en route. At the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, the Israelis denied the transport of essential food, water, medicines and other supplies to be provided to the Palestinians.

Palestine Chronicle deconstructed the shifting story by Tel Aviv regarding the deadly bombing of the al-Ahli Hospital, noting:
“So far, two different positions have been declared by the Israeli government.  At precisely 9:37 p.m., Palestine time, Al Jazeera Arabic live blog, citing Israeli military spokesman, wrote:

ISRAELI ARMY SPOKESMAN: ‘We had warned to evacuate the Baptist Hospital (Al-Ahli) and 5 other hospitals so that Hamas would not take them as a refuge.’ This statement was indeed consistent with other statements made by Al-Ahli hospital administration following the massacre. It said that they had been threatened that if they did not evacuate the hospital, the hospital would be bombed…. When the news of the massacre began circulating, and gruesome images of mutilated bodies of children and civilians began appearing on TV channels and social media platforms, the Israeli position began shifting. The Chinese news agency, Xinhua, reported that the Israeli military had changed its story. ‘The Israeli military said that the killing of hundreds of people at a hospital in the Gaza Strip (…) was caused by a failed rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a militant group in Gaza,’ Xinhua reported. But this cannot possibly be the case, for several reasons: First, no one in the Palestinian Resistance in Gaza has bombs with this kind of destructive capabilities. Second, the Israeli military had already made it clear, in its initial statement, that it was the party behind the mass killing. Third, Israel had in fact already bombed that same hospital, only a few days earlier, specifically on Saturday, October 14. The bombing then resulted in infrastructural damage. Fourth, Israel has bombed other hospitals as well, including Al-Dura hospital and the Indonesian hospital, among others. Fifth, soon before the massacre, Israeli aircraft also carried out a strike against a UNRWA-run school, sheltering civilians, in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp, in the central Gaza Strip, killing and wounding dozens. And finally, and perhaps even more important, is the fact that the Israeli army continued bombing hospitals, even following the news of the great massacre. One of these hospitals was the European Hospital in Gaza. ‘Al Jazeera’s correspondent reported that the Israeli occupation forces bombed the vicinity of the Gaza European Hospital in Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip,’ Aljazeera Live Blog reported.” 

Days of Mourning and Outrage

There were immediate political responses throughout the world to the IDF bombing of al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza. Demonstrations erupted in Amman, Jordan; Rabat in the Kingdom of Morocco; Sana’a the capital of Yemen; the cities of Ottawa and Montreal Canada; Ramallah on the West Bank of occupied Palestine, among many others. In Lebanon, the Hezbollah resistance movement called for a “Day of Outrage” throughout the country neighboring Palestine for October 18.

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands took place in several cities after the news of the hospital bombing spread throughout the globe. Iranian political and religious leaders condemned the bombing and called upon the Palestinians and all people of goodwill to resist the Israeli regime.

In the North African state of Egypt, Al Jazeera reported on October 17:

“Egyptians continue to take to the streets in the country’s capital, and other parts of the country early on Wednesday, amid simmering anger over the deadly strike in Gaza. Al Jazeera Arabic is reporting that Egyptian opposition parties led protests in front of the U.S. embassy in Cairo, in which several political and civic movement figures participated. In Giza, dozens went out in a night march denouncing the Israeli aggression. Egyptian activists posted on their pages on the social networking site, Facebook, video clips of a mass demonstration that began in Giza’s Al-Hosary Square, denouncing the Gaza attack, which Palestinian officials blame on Israel.” 

These acts by the State of Israel, which are backed by Washington, will make it extremely difficult for the U.S. to be viewed as a viable force for peace and security throughout the globe. People in the U.S. must reject the imperialist program of the ruling class and join with the world’s majority in demanding the liberation and statehood for Palestine.

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

All images in this article are from the author

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*** 

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.

It seems our government is captured and risks our lives and welfare in the interest of another country.

It seems everyone in Washington, Republicans and Democrats, especially Republicans, have intense war fever. While Washington quickly escalated the conflict by deploying US military forces to the area, the Republican Senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, blames  escalation on Iran and issues a threat: “if you escalate this war, we’re coming for you.” Graham continues with his threats, in our name, to Iran saying the US will “knock Iran out of the oil business.” Like Israel and the Jewish-American neoconservatives, Graham’s target is the Lebanese militia, Hezbollah: “I am poised to use military force to destroy the source of funding for Hamas and Hezbollah.”

Another House Republican, this one from Texas, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, says he is writing legislation for authority to commit the US military to Israel’s war on Palestine.

What we are witnessing is Republicans who are as extreme as Hamas. Is this insanity real, or is this showmanship, with political campaign funding in mind, for the US military/security complex who will greatly benefit from America “affording two wars?”

We are also witnessing the total failure of Western leadership, not only in Washington but throughout the Western world. Instead of escalating the situation by sending military forces, Washington should have used its offices to calm matters down. Why did not Washington calm the situation down instead of blowing it up?

This website speculates that the US forces accumulating in the war zone are a “war fleet,” the purpose of which is to finally bring regime change to Syria and kick out the Russians in an act of revenge for the Russians preventing President Obama’s planned overthrow of the Assad government.  

I can understand that the Biden regime’s neoconservatives want to continue their policy of cleansing the Middle East for Israeli expansion, but how safe is it to assume that Putin will run away with his tail between his legs? This would finish Putin as a leader of the dissident world and probably also finish him inside Russia. A show of Russian cowardice would certainly provoke an escalation of NATO’s involvement in Ukraine. It seems certain that a US attack on Syria would result in military conflict between the US and Russia.

The Israelis have been massacring Palestinians and stealing their country bit by bit since 1947, and no one has ever done anything about it. The UN passes resolutions, but the US vetoes them. So this final time Netanyahu expects no opposition, indeed, he expects help from the US and its empire in the commission of his war crimes.  

It is clear to me that the situation is awash in miscalculations. Hezbollah is a match for Israel. Indeed, the militia has twice defeated the vaunted Israeli Army and driven them out of Lebanon despite Israel’s air power. Syria’s army is battle hardened from fighting the mercenaries Washington sent to overthrow Assad. Like Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran has fervor and a large number of missiles that can hit Israel. If, as is claimed, 5,000 missiles from Hamas overwhelmed Israel’s Iron Dome, the Iron Dome has no chance against 100,000 or 200,000 missiles.

If Israel’s army is sent into Gaza, Hamas will keep it there, and Israel risks being overrun by Hezbollah, Syria, and Iraq and Iran should they care to participate. Faced with Israel’s defeat, Washington would commit its forces with catastrophic consequences.

We are experiencing on the part of Israel and the US a total lack of judgment. The risks are being ignored. It is starting to look like the Armageddon that Revelation describes.  

The problem for humanity is that it has developed weapons that are capable of destroying all life, and these weapons are in the hands of emotional people incapable of restraint and reason.  

I have been, and continue to be, concerned about the conflict in Ukraine spiraling out of control. The situation developing in the Middle East is more dangerous. There doesn’t seem to be sufficient recognition of this danger. The war propaganda from the presstitutes is extreme and blinds people to reality. Those in office think they are in control, but they are not. 

Possibly Russia could prevent a wider conflict by raising its military presence in Syria, but Putin is not proactive.  

You tell me, where are the leaders to prevent a catastrophe?

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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

Atrocities must be reported as wide as can be. The globe’s population, East and West, North and South, must know what we are living today.

The Zionist-Israeli genocide has no borders, no limits. It is beyond anything Mother Earth has experienced in recent history.

News just in: Israel bombed the largest national hospital in Gaza, leaving at least 500 dead, and more than 600 hundreds injured. The death toll may undoubtedly rise.

This is what TeleSur reports (translated from Spanish by Deepl.com):

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared three days of mourning following the Israeli bombing of the Arab National Hospital.

An Israeli bombing killed at least 500 people at a hospital in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday and 600 others were wounded, the health ministry of the Palestinian territory ruled by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) said. 

“The massacre at the Arab National Hospital is unprecedented in our history. While we have witnessed tragedies in past wars and days, what happened tonight is tantamount to genocide,” said spokesman Mahmoud Basal.

The communication office of the enclave authorities denounced a “war crime”.

In addition, in the 10 days of the totally imbalanced war – at least 3,000 Gazan inhabitants have lost their lives.

A Call on humanity: The world must stand up against these crimes, genocide no end, and stop Israel in one way or another NOW.

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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.

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*** 

The Israeli occupation carried out a massacre before the entire world as it bombed a hospital housing over a thousand civilians, killing hundreds in the process.

Palestinian media reported that Al-Maamadani Hospital was housing over a thousand people, including Palestinian refugees, patients, and media personnel.

The Government Media Office: #Israel committed a war crime, targeting the courtyard of the Baptist Hospital.

Hundreds of displaced Gazans had been taking shelter in the courtyard of the hospital thinking that it would be safe because it is a hospital sponsored by Christian… pic.twitter.com/PiZin8jqDH

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) October 17, 2023

Preliminary reports suggest that no less than 800 people were martyred in the Israeli aggression.

⚡️#BREAKING Spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Gaza: More than 500 victims were killed in the zionist regime airstrike on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital#IsraelGazaWar #GazaAttack #PalestineGenocide #غزة_تزحف_الى_القدس #IsraeliNewNazism #PalestineWillBeFree #Gaza 3000… pic.twitter.com/w9yqhbV1Ao

— Bachhan Pandey (@zaidlala786) October 17, 2023

The Israeli occupation forces bombed the Palestinian Hospital as Gaza continues reporting that its health sector is suffering in light of the crisis, with medicine and medical supplies being at risk of running out.

#Watch | The moment "Israel" bombed the Al-Maamadani Hospital where it committed a massacre that reportedly called no less than 800 people thus far.#Gaza #GazaUnderAttack pic.twitter.com/bHbSD0CrFH

— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) October 17, 2023

A video that went viral on social media showed the moment of the strike. It depicts an extremely fast object that hit the hospital in the terminal phase.

Some Israeli and pro-Israeli accounts claimed it was a failed resistance launch, in a weak attempt to shift the blame off the Israeli occupation and demonize the resistance factions. Based on the speed of the object it’s not possible for it to be a dud missile, as rockets failing to accelerate would have much lower speeds. 

The speed difference can be easily identified between gliding munition launched from the air and failing-to-accelerate dud missiles. Hence, the object that hit the hospital was most definitely an Israeli airstrike.

Despite global appeals to protect healthcare facilities from Israeli airstrikes and forced displacement orders, Israeli threats have targeted hospitals in the Gaza Strip, endangering the well-being of patients and the wounded. “Israel” demanded on Saturday that al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza forcibly evacuate its patients and staff within two hours.

Israeli warplanes also conducted airstrikes in the vicinity of the hospital in Tel al-Zaatar, northern Gaza, as part of their attempt to exert pressure on the hospital and expedite the displacement process. 

In the same context, al-Durra Children’s Hospital in the east of the Gaza Strip was forced to evacuate its staff and patients after it was pounded with white phosphorus munitions.

This situation unfolds as the healthcare system in Gaza faces a severe crisis, marked by dwindling medication supplies and electricity shortages due to the total Israeli blockade.

Palestinian Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra told Al Mayadeen, on Thursday, that Gaza was hours away from essential services completely shutting down, and the health sector is in collapse.

“Medicines are dwindling and have almost run out,” Al-Qidra said, noting that only life-saving units were operating in Gaza’s hospitals due to the existing fuel shortages.

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*** 

The former diplomat’s detention is just the latest example of British terror laws being used to harass and intimidate dissidents, while brazenly prying into their private affairs.

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. 

Murray, a proud Scottish nationalist, flew back to Glasgow after several days in Reykjavik, where he attended a popular Palestine solidarity event, and also met with high-ranking representatives of the Assange Campaign, which raises awareness about the plight of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Once his travel documents were processed at passport control, the officer informed him he would be detained for questioning. They then led him to a small backroom to be grilled by three nameless British counter-terror agents.

Murray told The Grayzone that British police warned him he would be committing a criminal offense and would be prosecuted if he refused to answer questions, answered untruthfully, deliberately withheld information, or refused to provide passcodes for his electronic devices. After his phone and laptop were seized for analysis, the interrogation began.

“First, they grilled me about the private Assange Campaign meeting,” Murray told The Grayzone. “You might think they would ask who was there, but they didn’t,” he said, adding, “my guess is they somehow knew already.”

Instead, “all the questions were financial,” Murray says. According to the former British ambassador, officers wanted to know “whether I get money for my contributions to the Campaign, if I get paid by WikiLeaks, Don’t Extradite Assange, even Julian’s family.”

“The answer each time was ‘no,’” Murray says, explaining: “My sources of income and where my money comes from were of particular interest to the officers.”

The one-time diplomat’s popular personal blog was also of interest to the officers, who reportedly demanded Murray tell them whether anyone else had access to it or could publish content on the platform, and if anyone other than himself authored any of its posts.

Strangely, Murray said he was not asked about a single article published on his website. Equally puzzling, he remarked, were the questions about the Palestine solidarity event he attended. 

Officers apparently wanted to know why Murray had attended in the first place — “a strange question to ask of someone attending a protest,” he told The Grayzone. Nonetheless, he made it clear that he had gone because he was friends with one of the speakers, a former Icelandic interior minister.

Police reportedly also demanded details on the content of various speakers’ addresses at the event — information which Murray says he could not offer as he doesn’t speak Icelandic. When asked if he planned to attend any similar pro-Palestine events in Britain, he told them, “probably.”

“The weirdest question was, ‘how do I judge whether to share a platform with someone or not?’” Murray says, adding: “I do so based on who’s organizing the event.”

In this particular case, Murray continued,

“it was [the] Palestine Solidarity Committee, so I was confident I was in safe hands.” Still, it struck the former ambassador as a bizarre line of questioning.

“My lawyer has never heard of such a question being asked during interrogations before,” Murray said, adding that “they speculate police have a surveillance photo of me in the proximity of someone they consider a ‘terrorist.’”

“I’ve no idea who that could be,” the outspoken human rights campaigner admitted. But, as he quickly observed: “If you attend a rally where 200,000 people are present, you can’t know who everyone is!”

Murray has since consulted with lawyers, who informed him that according to Section 7 of the 2000 Terrorism Act — the draconian legislation under which he was subjected to the intensive questioning — he would be legally entitled to consult a lawyer if the interrogation lasted longer than an hour. 

‘A Sledgehammer to Crack a Nut’

Once the hour of questioning was up, the officers sent him on his way, but failed to return his phone or laptop.

“I’m used to the idea of British and American spies having my computers,” Murray said.

On a trip to Germany at the end of 2022, two laptops belonging to Murray were stolen in separate locations. The second laptop happened to have been a locally-bought replacement for the first. He believes the thefts were “probably” carried out by “security services,” an interpretation reinforced by the fact the first laptop was stored in a bag containing a large sum of cash, along with vital heart medicine. The culprits inexplicably ignored the former, while pocketing the latter. 

When probed by counter-terror cops about the contents of his laptop, Murray says he openly disclosed that device contained copies of leaked private emails of Stewart McDonald, a hawkish, deep state-connected Scottish National Party.

But “I’m not worried about any content on there,” he explained, so “it’s not a problem they have it.”

“I told the officers I pitied whichever poor bastard has to wade through McDonald’s emails,” he joked.

“Interestingly,” Murray notes, “one of them volunteered in response that the contents of seized digital devices are sifted electronically, rather than an individual going over the whole contents.”

“Presumably, algorithms run by keyword searches do the legwork, and whatever that throws up is studied and shared with different agencies,” he speculates.

Murray’s lawyers are now looking into the stop, with an eye on whether his interrogators told him the truth before his questioning began. 

This April, British counter-terror police detained the French publisher and political activist Ernest Moret, who had led large protests in Paris against the neoliberal reforms of President Emmanuel Macron. Moret was detained under the same powers as Murray, then arrested when he refused to hand over passcodes to his electronic devices. He was ultimately held in British custody for almost 24 hours. 

In July, a damning report by Britain’s terror legislation watchdog concluded the officers who detained Moret had made “exaggerated and overbearing” threats when they claimed that he would never again be able to travel overseas if he didn’t disclose information, as he’d be listed as a terrorist in international intelligence databases. The report also found police grilled him illegitimately regarding legally privileged conversations he had with his lawyer during the interrogation.

Schedule 7 is “powerful” and “must therefore be exercised with due care,” the reviewer said, before ultimately comparing police’s usage of the legislation to interrogate Moret to “using a sledgehammer to crack a nut”:

“This was an investigation into public order for which counter-terrorism powers were never intended to be used,” the report noted, concluding “the rights of free expression and protest are too important in a democracy to allow individuals to be investigated for potential terrorism merely because they may have been involved in protests that have turned violent.”

But when it comes to carrying out political detentions, the legislation in question is not the only one in British officers’ arsenal.

Absent from the report was any reference to Schedule 3, Section 4 of Britain’s 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Act, which was used to authorize the detention of this journalist at London’s Luton Airport this May. The provision grants authorities sweeping powers to delve into the personal and professional affairs of dissidents. According to Murray, British counter-terror cops appear to have approached him using “the same playbook” they employed with me.

Under the 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Act, which has been harshly criticized by the UN, an individual can be said to be serving “hostile” foreign powers without even knowing or intending to — or the powers in question being aware they are. This Orwellian precept was reinforced by London’s new National Security Act, which was passed in July 2023.

Anyone who has agitated the British national security state and plans on traveling to the UK may want to be careful what they keep on their devices. As one of Ernest Moret’s interrogators boasted to him, Britain is “the only country where authorities can download and keep information from private devices” forever.

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Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions.

Featured image is from The Grayzone

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***

 

 

 

 

It took place with hardly any debate, though it interested some parliamentary members at the committee stage. The Australian state of Victoria now faces laws that will lock a person up for 12 months or punish individuals with fines of A$23,000 or above if they dare enact a gesture. That gesture is giving, with intent, the Nazi salute.

Victoria had already banned displays of the Nazi Hakenkreuz last December, imposing fines of approximately A$22,000 or a period of 12 months’ imprisonment for breaching the injunction. (That notably, had no effect whatsoever.) But vocal advocates such as Dr Dvir Abramovich of the Anti-Defamation Commission always wanted more. “To see the Hitler salute, it’s as threatening as being confronted with a gun,” he explained to Australia’s SBS network. “It is a weapon in my view.  It is an unacceptable reality that in 2023, it is still legal.”

On August 29, the Victorian Premier’s office announced that, “The Nazi salute and other gestures and symbols used by the Nazi party will be banned in Victoria under new reforms to prevent hateful conduct and address the harm that it causes the community.” To aid that reformist claim, Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes duly introduced the Summary Offences (Nazi Salute Prohibition) Bill 2023 into Parliament, intending “to send a clear message that Nazi ideology and the hatred it represents is not tolerated in Victoria.”

On August 30, the Minister for Police, Crime Prevention and Racing (such a comic combination is standard in Australian States), predictably tabled a “statement of compatibility” with the state’s Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (Vic).  “Under the Charter, rights can be subject to limits that are reasonable and justifiable in a free and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom. Rights may be limited in order to protect other rights.”

According to the Minister, Anthony Carbines, public displays or the “performance of Nazi gestures, particularly the Nazi salute, and other Nazi symbols impinges” the right of people to enjoy their human rights without discrimination. The minister specifically notes the threat to “the dignity and self-worth of groups that have been historically persecuted by the Nazi Party and targeted by neo-Nazi groups,” among them the Jewish community, LGBTIQ+ individuals and people with disability.

Across Australian territories and states, including New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Tasmania and Western Australia, such measures are being enacted, though with an initial focus on banning Nazi symbols.

Ultimately, laws explicitly punishing such conduct must be judged by their effect. Blanket bans are usually the sign that the account of ideas has been overdrawn, if not closed altogether. We are told that prohibiting such symbols, and the salute, is intended to stifle the “recruitment drive” for far-right groups. “To the often alienated and angry young men attracted to far-right ideologies, photos of groups of men making the Nazi salute offer a sense of a collective and belonging,” writes the anthropologically attuned Josh Roose.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), an agency prone to sketchy assessments at the best of times, is concerned about the lowest common denominator. “Extremist insignia [are] an effective propaganda tool because they are easy to remember and understand. They also can transcend language, cultural and ethnic divides; creating and distributing them is not limited to a select few or one cultural or language group.” The conclusion, it follows, is that a ban is good to keep the thickos in check.

If that is the purpose, that it can hardly be said to have worked in a number of jurisdictions keen to stomp out the twitch felt in the arms of some individuals. In Europe, where the Nazi salute is banned on pain of various grades of penalty (Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland, for instance), nationalist movements can hardly be said to have felt awe and trepidation at such regulations.

While Victoria’s parliamentarians have acted out their somnambulistic rituals in passing this reactive legislation, aided, no doubt, by the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas War, a sprinkling of Australian commentary has been wise to failing of such prohibitions.

Lydia Khalil of the Lowy Institute says with crisp confidence that such bans do little to “decrease anti-Semitism, the hateful targeting of LGBTQ communities or counter right-wing and fascist extremists. If anything, it may make matters worse.” Case in point: the rise of right-wing extremism in Germany, with 2021 being a particularly notable year.  In December 2022, Khalil reminds readers, German security forces “arrested more than two dozen people for an expansive plot to overthrow the state.” Those same security forces, ironically enough, are facing the threat of infiltration by neo-Nazi groups. So much for the laws against the salute.

Greg Barton, Chair of Global Islamic Politics at Deakin University, though more cautious than Khalil, is also wise to the fact that banning Nazi symbols might well “only serve to amplify the groups’ message and draw attention to their hateful cause.” Small organisations with minimal political clout and influence, such as the puny National Socialist Network, suddenly have something to talk about, if only because they are being spoken about. “Prosecuting them for symbolic action risks giving them the very thing they so desperately want: attention.” (Khalil also remarks on this same point: [I]f there’s anything that these neo-Nazi groups want, it’s a reaction.”)

The explanatory memorandum behind the Nazi Salute Prohibition bill does what so many such instruments do when a crisis is inflated and fattened by unimaginative politicians. Has Victoria seen thousands march and salute to the Horst Wessel Lied, rioting with hearty hatred? Hardly. But something must be seen to be done or, as the memorandum says, “The purpose of this amendment is to address the recent increase in the public display and performance of the Nazi salute in Victoria.” That way, the political representatives can always give the impression that something threatening and noxious is being dealt with, however large that threat is, while drawing attention to the seductive allure of doing so. That way, the problem is not solved but compounded.

In terms of symbolism and the state’s efforts to criminalise displays, the sharper tools in the box of extremist politics can always come up with another gesture, if not another symbol altogether. (Admittedly, many such characters lack imagination and would prefer to stick with the traditional staple of the salute and Hakenkreuz.) An example of such subversive responses is the use of the OK symbol in place of the salute. The normally banal can then be suffused with ideological potency, while baffling law enforcement. There will always be issues of difficulty, then, in discharging the burden of proof.

Evidently, Victoria’s authorities think they can afford to expend resources upon what would essentially be fatuous prosecutions, when existing criminal laws are already in place to achieve much the same purpose. And how fabulous it will be to see prosecutions stumble over what is accepted as satirical depiction and what is not. How the ghost of Charlie Chaplin and the working pen of Larry David must delight when such buffoonery manifests.

As for the parliamentarians themselves, having done and dusted the bill with speed verging on irresponsibility, they could then turn their minds to far worthier concerns: expressing outrage at the banning of Sprite the rescue dog from their place of work.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image: Members of the Hitler Youth in Berlin performing the Nazi salute at a rally in 1933 (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 de)

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***

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.

Israel didn’t just cleanse Palestinians in 1948, when it was founded as a Western colonial project, and again under cover of a regional war in 1967. It also worked to ethnically cleanse Palestinians every day between those dates and afterwards. The aim was to move them off their historic lands, and either expel them beyond Israel’s new, expanded borders or concentrate them into small ghettoes inside those borders – as a holding measure until they could be expelled outside the borders.

The ‘settler’ project, as we call it, is a misnomer. It’s really Israel’s ethnic cleansing programme. Israel even has a special word for it in Hebrew: ‘Judaisation’, or making the land Jewish. It is official government policy.

Gaza was the largest of the Palestinian reservations created by Israel’s ethnic cleansing programme, and the most overcrowded. To stop the inhabitants spilling out, Israel built a fence-barrier in the early 1990s to pen them in. Then when policing became too hard from within the prison, Israel pulled back in 2005 to the outer perimeter barrier.

New technology allowed Israel to besiege Gaza remotely by land, sea and air in 2007, limiting the entry of food and vital items like medicine and cement for construction. Automated gun towers shot anyone who came near the fence. The navy patrolled the sea, stopping boats straying more than a kilometre or two off shore. And drones watched 24 hours a day from the sky.

The people of Gaza were sealed in and largely forgotten, except when they lobbed a few rockets over the fence – to international indignation. If they fired too many rockets, Israel bombed them mercilessly and occasionally launched a ground invasion. The rocket threat was increasingly neutralised by a rocket interception system, paid for by the US, called Iron Dome.

Palestinians tried to be more inventive in finding ways to break out of their prison. They built tunnels. But Israel found ways to identify those that ran close to the fence and destroyed them.

Palestinians tried to get attention by protesting en masse at the fence. Israeli snipers were ordered to shoot them in the legs, leading to thousands of amputees.

The ‘deterrence’ seemed to work. Israel could once again sit back and let the Palestinians rot in Gaza. ‘Quiet’ had been restored.

Until, that is, last weekend when Hamas broke out briefly and ran amok, killing civilians and soldiers alike.

So Israel now needs a new policy. It looks like the ethnic cleansing programme is being applied to Gaza anew. The half of the population in the enclave’s north is being herded south, where there are not the resources to cope with them. And even if there were, Israel has cut off food, water and power to everyone in Gaza.

The enclave is quickly becoming a pressure cooker. The pressure is meant to build on Egypt to allow the Palestinians entry into Sinai on ‘humanitarian’ grounds.

Whatever the media are telling you, the ‘conflict’ – that is, Israel’s ethnic cleansing programme – started long before Hamas appeared on the scene. In fact, Hamas emerged very late, as the predictable response to Israel’s violent colonisation project.

And no turning point was reached a week ago. This has all been playing out in slow motion for more than 100 years.

Ignore the fake news. Israel isn’t defending itself. It’s enforcing its right to continue ethnically cleansing Palestinians.

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Featured image is from JCB

The Kuala Lumpur declaration was initially adopted eighteen years in December 2005 as a consensus statement on the need to end all wars of aggression as a means to ensuring the survival of humanity.

“Killings in war are as criminal as the killings within societies in times of peace. Since killings in peace time are subject to the domestic law of crime, killings in war must likewise be subject to the international law of crimes. This should be so irrespective of whether these killings in war are authorized or permitted by domestic law.”

In 2023, we are at the crossroads of the most serious crisis in World History. More than ever the Kuala Lumpur Initiative launched in 2005 by Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad should be widely understood and applied.

The Pentagon, NATO and the State of Israel are the protagonists of war and war crimes. 

The US has embarked upon the ultimate war crime, a military adventure, “a long war”, which threatens the future of humanity. The Pentagon’s global military design is one of world conquest.

The military deployment of US-NATO forces is occurring in several regions of the world simultaneously, resulting in millions of civilian deaths and countless atrocities.

Bear in mind, the KL Declaration also calls for the criminalization of the military industrial complex including the so-called defense contractors as well as the science labs which conceptualize and develop advanced weapons systems: 

“All commercial, financial, industrial and scientific activities that aid and abet war should be criminalised.” 

The KL declaration also targets the corporate media as well as Hollywood which routinely glorifies acts of killing and destruction. 

Since its adoption in 2005, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal (KLWCT) has passed two important  judgements: against George W. Bush, Dick Cheney et al for war crimes in Iraq, and against the State of Israel on charges of genocide against the people of Palestine. 

Global Research has been associated with the Kuala Lumpur initiative from the very outset in December 2005

Michel Chossudovsky, Signatory of the 2005  KL  Initiative and Member of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (KLWCC), Global Research, February 3, 2014, June 23, 2023, October 18, 2023

 

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“The Criminalisation of War”

Text of Declaration

15 December 2005

THE Kuala Lumpur Global Peace Forum of concerned peoples from all five continents

UNITED in the belief that peace is the essential condition for the survival and well-being of the human race,

DETERMINED to promote peace and save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,

OUTRAGED over the frequent resort to war in the settlement of disputes between nations,

DISTURBED that militarists are preparing for more wars,

TROUBLED that use of armed force increases insecurity for all,

TERRIFIED that the possession of nuclear weapons and the imminent risk of nuclear war will lead to the annihilation of life on earth.

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Signatories of the 2005 Kuala Lumpur Declaration. From Left to Right: Francis A.Boyle, Helen Caldicott,  Denis J. Halliday, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, Hans-Christof Von Sponeck, Michel Chossudovsky, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf

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To achieve peace we now declare that:

1. Wars increasingly involve the killing of innocent people and are, therefore, abhorrent and criminal.
2. Killings in war are as criminal as the killings within societies in times of peace.
3. Since killings in peace time are subject to the domestic law of crime, killings in war must likewise be subject to the international law of crimes. This should be so irrespective of whether these killings in war are authorized or permitted by domestic law.
4. All commercial, financial, industrial and scientific activities that aid and abet war should be criminalised.
5. All national leaders who initiate aggression must be subjected to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
6. All nations must strengthen the resolve to accept the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter and institute methods to settle international disputes by peaceful means and to renounce war.
7. Armed force shall not be used except when authorised by a Resolution passed by two-thirds majority of the total membership of the General Assembly of the United Nations.
8. All legislators and all members of Government must affirm their belief in peace and pledge to strive for peace.
9. Political parties all over the world must include peace as one of their principal objectives.
10. Non-Governmental Organisations committed to the promotion of peace should be set up in all nations.
11. Public servants and professionals, in particular in the medical, legal, educational and scientific fields, must promote peace and campaign actively against war.
12. The media must actively oppose war and the incitement to war and consciously promote the peaceful settlement of international disputes.
13. Entertainment media must cease to glorify war and violence and should instead cultivate the ethos of peace.
14. All religious leaders must condemn war and promote peace.

To these ends the Forum resolves to establish a permanent Secretariat in Kuala Lumpur to –

IMPLEMENT this Initiative.

OPPOSE policies and programmes that incite war.

SEEK the cooperation of NGOs worldwide to achieve the goals of this Initiative.

Signed by:

Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf

Prof. Francis A. Boyle

Dr. Helen Caldicott

Mr. Matthias Chang

Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

Prof Shad Saleem Faruqi

Mr Denis J. Halliday

Dato’ Mukhriz Mahathir

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar

Dato’ Michael O.K. Yeoh

Mr. Hans-Christof Von Sponeck

Second Nakba: The Start of Monumental Destruction of the Middle East?

By Peter Koenig, October 17, 2023

Israeli intel, as well as that of Egypt, the UK, the US, Brussels – EU – knew about the impending attack, planned by Israel in coordination with Hamas. A Jewish charity leader says Netanyahu ordered the Israeli military to stand down for 7 hours during the Hamas invasion.

Short Introduction to Middle Eastern Studies: What Is the Middle East as a Region?

By Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović, October 17, 2023

Middle Eastern Studies are a multicomplex research discipline devoted to  bettering knowledge and understanding of different cultures, nationalities, and complexities of the world’s region conventionally known as the Middle East. Its geography stretches from Egypt to Iran and from Syria to Yemen.

Seventeen COVID Pandemic Lies We’ve Been Told

By Richard Gale and Dr. Gary Null, October 17, 2023

Aside from the “infodemic versus plandemic” debate, what is now certain is that much of what our federal health officials and their mainstream media mouthpieces told us during these three-plus years was patently false and untrue. 

New Zealand: “COVID Apocalypse” and the Illusions of Progress

By Dr. Emanuel Garcia, October 17, 2023

Prominent and beloved and ‘benevolent’ figures like primate researcher Jane Goodall are openly espousing the virtues of depopulation, while ‘excess deaths’ are besieging us, cancers are proliferating, and the adverse effects of the Jab are being shoved under the rug and attributed to ‘long covid’, as if short covid wasn’t enough.

Postcards from a Police State: 22 Years of Blowback from the USA Patriot Act

By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead, October 17, 2023

Here in the United States, as we approach the 22^nd anniversary of the USA Patriot Act on October 26, we’re still grappling with the blowback that arises from allowing one’s freedoms to be eviscerated in exchange for the phantom promise of security. Here are a few lessons that we never learned or learned too late.

Hamas’ Attack on Israel Is Puzzling: “Hamas Fighters entered Israel without being detected.” Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, October 17, 2023

The Hamas attack has something of 9/11’s flavor. Just as every aspect of the US National Security State failed simultaneously on September 11, 2001, Israel’s security system, including the Iron Dome the US constructed for Israel, simultaneously failed.

Bibi Netanyahu: Israel Must “Support Bolstering Hamas and Transferring Money to Hamas”

By Ben Bartee, October 17, 2023

Straight from the horse’s mouth, here’s how Netanyahu schemed behind the scenes for years to promote the terrorist group he now publicly decries and postures as the savior from.

Israel-Palestine Conflict: Huge Casualties and Humanitarian Disaster. Peace Talks Needed

By Steven Sahiounie, October 17, 2023

The Palestinian civilians are trapped, and some do not support Hamas, but are caught as innocent bystanders in an armed conflict, between Hamas and Israel. Resistance to an occupation is guaranteed by international law, but the targeting of civilians is prohibited.

Second Time in 48 Hours, Israel Attacks Aleppo International Airport and Puts It Out of Service

By The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, October 17, 2023

Israeli strikes targeted Aleppo International Airport hours after it returned back to operate, putting it out of service again. This is the second attack on Aleppo International Airport in 48 hours.

China’s Middle East Ambitions Being Tested by Israel-Gaza War

By Ahmed Adel, October 17, 2023

The reason for China’s declared “neutral position” in the war between Israel and Gaza is that US influence in the region may increase, writes the Financial Times newspaper, with reference to diplomats and analysts. However, this so-called neutral position is not having the desired effect as Israel is becoming outraged in what they perceive as “pro-Palestine neutrality.”

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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*** 

Middle Eastern Studies are a multicomplex research discipline devoted to  bettering knowledge and understanding of different cultures, nationalities, and complexities of the world’s region conventionally known as the Middle East. Its geography stretches from Egypt to Iran and from Syria to Yemen.

In principle, the crucial mark of the region is the predominant Arab culture with some contrasts in the cultural habits between, for instance, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Besides, the cultural features of several other ethnic and confessional groups of the Middle East give a more comprehensive picture of the region’s peoples and challenges.

The Middle East was the home of the earliest civilizations in the world’s history. The first urbanizations and literacy started there. The region of the Middle East usually covers the territories from the eastern littoral of the Mediterranean Sea up to India in the East.

In a broader sense, geographically, the region encompasses territories of the East Mediterranean and Central Asia but many American academicians, politicians, and journalists regard as a single region the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). 

In principle, the real Middle East is composed of 14 countries: Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran (+ unrecognized Palestine).

These countries are bounded by six major waterways: the Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea, Persian Gulf, and Caspian Sea (in fact, lake).

It has to be noticed here that Turkey (Asia Minor) which from the 14^th century till 1918 has been a center of the powerful Ottoman Empire that unified a major portion of the region is conventionally considered as a part of the Middle East.

However, from an academic viewpoint based on the traditional British approach, Asia Minor together with the Balkans belong to the Near East but not to the Middle East. In other words, the Balkan Peninsula and the peninsula of Asia Minor are two halves of the same bridge that connects Central Europe with the Middle East.

Nevertheless, Turkey is a non-Arab country even though its inhabitants are predominantly (98%) Muslims (Sunni) whose dominant language is Turkish. Turkey’s 82 million people are composed of ethnic Turkish majority and some ethnic minorities who speak Arabic, Kurdish, and Greek. 

The region of the Middle East is an area where geography and history are important factors in the contemporary lives of the people. There are many native peoples of the region for whom the Middle East is considered as the Arab homeland.

It refers to those lands in which the Arabic language (with all dialects) is spoken. It is, basically, a unique region in the world regarding geography, geopolitics, and geostrategy as here three continents are meeting each other (Europe, Africa, and Asia) and as the region which was a focal point of the development of the first civilizations.

Geologically, its topography was transformed after the Ice Age from a climate that supported the grasslands and waterways into vast steppes and deserts. Around 2000 B.C., the pastoral people of Aryans, also called  Indo-Iranians migrated into India and West as well as Central Asia, including today’s Iran (Persia) and surrounding countries.

Strategically, the Middle East was considered all the time to be an extremely valuable geostrategic territory as being a crossroad for trade, faith, conflicts, and cultural development.

In principle, the crucial mark of the region is the predominant Arab culture with some contrasts in the cultural habits between, for instance, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Besides, the cultural features of several other ethnic and confessional groups of the Middle East give a more comprehensive picture of the region’s peoples and challenges.

For thousands of years, many waves of migration to the region made the Middle East ethnically and culturally very multifarious: from the Semitic Sumerians from Central Asia up to present-day Korean, Indian, or Filipino economic immigrants who are searching for jobs in the oil-rich regional countries.

For instance, at the end of the last century, more than 3 million workers from India and other parts of Asia arrived in the region to build a modern infrastructure.

On the one hand, the majority of the inhabitants of the Middle East have many things in common like the Arab language and culture, the religion of Islam but on the other hand, different ethnic minorities exist in each of those regional countries while the Islamic religion is divided into two factions: the Sunni (majority) and the Shia (minority). 

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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is a former university professor in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Israel continua a adiar o seu tão esperado ataque terrestre à Faixa de Gaza. Apesar dos brutais bombardeamentos contra instalações civis e do cerco criminoso imposto ao povo palestino, as forças armadas de Israel (IDF) parecem estar a evitar o lançamento de uma ofensiva de infantaria, adiando repetidamente os planos de entrada de tropas terrestres no território palestino. Propagandistas e militantes sionistas acreditam que isto seria uma espécie de “gesto de boa vontade” por parte de Tel Aviv, mas é mais provável que Israel tenha medo dos fortes impactos que tal ataque teria sobre as suas forças.

Em 13 de Outubro, o governo israelita emitiu um ultimato à população palestina no norte da Faixa de Gaza. De acordo com o comunicado israelita, os civis da região tinham vinte e quatro horas para evacuar as suas casas. Após o final deste período, um ataque massivo da infantaria israelense começaria.

Obviamente não foi possível retirar todos os civis da zona, pois o tempo estabelecido foi muito curto. Além disso, as estradas de Gaza estão gravemente danificadas pelos bombardeamentos israelitas, tornando ainda mais difícil a fuga dos cidadãos. No entanto, após o término do prazo de evacuação, as IDF, em vez de lançar a sua ofensiva, deram algumas horas adicionais para completar a evacuação.

Não importa quantas horas ou dias fossem concedidos ao povo palestino, todos os esforços para evacuar completamente os civis seriam inúteis. Com a região devastada por bombardeamentos e más condições de transporte, tal processo só poderia ser concluído ao longo de um período de tempo muito longo – talvez semanas ou meses. Além disso, há muitas pessoas que não podem sair, como bebês em incubadoras, bem como idosos e feridos em tratamento médico. Os hospitais locais já informaram que se a evacuação ocorrer muitas pessoas morrerão, mas isso não parece suficiente para fazer Israel repensar as suas tácticas anti-humanitárias.

Esta grave situação mobilizou o mundo não-ocidental para agir diplomaticamente contra Israel. O governo russo comparou o caso ao cerco nazista imposto aos soviéticos durante a segunda guerra mundial. E, agindo de uma forma militarmente ousada, o governo iraniano alertou Tel Aviv sobre as possíveis consequências se as IDF entrassem em Gaza por terra – sugerindo que tal medida poderia legitimar a intervenção iraniana no conflito.

No sábado, 14 de outubro, Israel anunciou que a sua ofensiva tinha sido adiada por razões meteorológicas, usando as chuvas e inundações que ocorreram no país durante o fim de semana como desculpa para evitar a escalada militar. Embora seja possível que o clima tenha influenciado a tomada de decisões militares israelitas, é provável que o medo do envolvimento iraniano tenha sido a verdadeira razão para Tel Aviv repensar a sua estratégia. Um fato que apoia este argumento é a insistência israelense em adiar a ofensiva, embora as condições meteorológicas tenham melhorado rapidamente na região no dia seguinte.

Alguns propagandistas e militantes sionistas de Tel Aviv também tentam retratar o adiamento como uma espécie de “boa vontade diplomática”, mas isto não parece fazer sentido. Israel tem bombardeado e sitiado Gaza há mais de uma semana e cometido inúmeras atrocidades e violações dos direitos humanos. Não há razão para acreditar que exista qualquer preocupação com o bem-estar dos civis palestinos por parte do governo israelita – que, apesar de adiar a ofensiva terrestre, continua a impedir que água, alimentos e medicamentos cheguem a Gaza.

O que parece estar a acontecer é simplesmente uma onda de medo em Tel Aviv. Um ataque terrestre iniciará automaticamente uma guerra de atrito, que certamente será prolongada, exaustiva e perigosa para as IDF. Os estrategistas israelitas temem que as suas forças entrem num ciclo vicioso de conflito direto e violência que não terminará em breve, culminando numa guerra prolongada que afetaria gravemente a estabilidade da região.

Apesar de ser incomparavelmente mais forte que os seus inimigos palestinos, o sistema de defesa de Israel parece ser um “tigre de papel” se analisado em profundidade. O país dispõe de poucos recursos materiais e humanos para travar conflitos exaustivos. Não é por acaso que existe um sistema de recrutamento obrigatório em Israel para todos os cidadãos. Com uma população de nove milhões de habitantes, Israel precisa de utilizar praticamente todos os seus cidadãos para manter a máquina militar a funcionar com padrões de segurança adequados.

O país não possui a estrutura necessária para manter a sociedade civil funcionando enquanto há um conflito. Israel pode facilmente derrotar inimigos regionais mais fracos em confrontos de curto prazo, mas tende a ter muitos problemas em situações prolongadas. E há razões suficientes para acreditar que uma guerra em Gaza seria longa. Sem espaço suficiente para se desenvolver militarmente na superfície, o Hamas investiu pesadamente na construção de bunkers e canais subterrâneos através dos quais os seus soldados transportam pessoas e equipamentos. As IDF poderiam invadir e ocupar muitos territórios, mas ainda assim seriam vulneráveis ​​às tácticas de guerrilha do Hamas, formando uma espécie de “cenário do Vietnam”.

Além disso, o alerta do Irã é preocupante. Mesmo que não envie as suas tropas regulares, Teerão poderia ajudar os palestinos mobilizando os seus grupos proxies, como o Hezbollah (que já está de fato envolvido na guerra) e os Houthis do Iêmen, aumentando significativamente o poder de fogo dos palestinos. Há também o factor diplomático e econômico, com os países islâmicos e antiocidentais a mobilizarem-se fortemente para pressionar Tel Aviv a parar a sua agressão.

Na verdade, parece que o governo israelita se colocou numa espiral de problemas. Se invadir Gaza, haverá muitos riscos, mas se cancelar a invasão, Netanyahu ficará desmoralizado por não cumprir a sua promessa. Na prática, parece que mesmo sendo militarmente mais fraco, o Hamas está conseguindo usar o fator não militar do conflito para obter vantagem contra o inimigo num confronto assimétrico – que não é decidido na linha de frente. A Palestina está tentando vencer a guerra mesmo perdendo as batalhas.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

 

Artigo em inglês : IDF fears starting war of attrition, InfoBrics, 16 de Outubro de 2023.

Imagem : InfoBrics

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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***

Countries worldwide have just covered up their own fraud about a vote that happened in the United Nations which also affects the WHO and what they deemed they are able to do to us in the future. 

78th UN General Assembly 2023: The UN tried to pass a political declaration on 20th of September 2023, which was opposed by 11 countries via a letter to the UNGA President, copying UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

The UNGA’s 78th president Dennis Francis approved a ‘historic’ but non-binding political declaration on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. 

So what did the 11 countries object to?

1. No consent, lack of transparency and illegal unilateral coercive measures 
2. Unfair practices including veto, lack of inclusion, absence of balance and neglect
3. Forced consensus, bulldozing, and ignoring repeated breaking of silence 
4. Call to Action: Recall of the nature and legal standing of UN meetings

Watch the video below.

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*** 

Well, we’ve had elections in New Zealand and a whole new government will be taking the reins of power, ostensibly. Labour is out and National is in, with a coalition partner, and the freedom parties failed to unite and exceed the five percent threshold needed for Parliamentary presence. Nonetheless a seasoned politician who began to espouse freedom principles in his campaign has made the cut, so we may have a foot in the door.

As far as I have been concerned, the establishment Uniparty will do nothing to extricate our country from the crushing globalist embrace of the World Economic Forum or the World Health Organization, and if and when another phony pandemic is declared, it will be ‘interesting’ to see how ‘the people’ respond to another governmental attempt to deprive us of our inalienable rights.

Nonetheless, I have many reasons to be grateful to the covid apocalypse that beset us these past four years. The veil of institutional honesty having been rent, a vista into terrain hitherto unknown was bequeathed — the terrain of deep corruption and rot wherein trusted and revered entities revealed themselves to be thoroughly malicious and bent on reversing a millennia of progress.

Take Medicine, for example. Damn the Hippocratic Oath, dash natural immunity, don’t worry about informed consent: figure out instead ever more ingenious ways to make sure that every living mammal has some form of mRNA within its bloodstream, even if it takes genetically-engineered mosquitoes to do the dirty work which clumsy needles couldn’t comprehensively accomplish.

And when any antediluvian doctors cavil, doctors who have raised eyebrows about the headlong rush to the final solution offered by inoculation and questioned the wisdom of breath-depriving masks, make their lives hell. Launch probes, suspend or cancel licences, and threaten them with fines or even prison for the crime of voicing concerns and wondering how the very foundations of their profession could have been so thoroughly vaporized overnight.

But thanks to these past four years, I have educated myself about many aspects of medical care and the history of the pharmaceutical industry, about the climate scam being perpetrated, about the endless wars that have continued beyond the one to end all wars, and about the sheer and utter indifference of authorities, such as they are, inclusive of our representative governments in the so-called Free World, to our deaths and lives.

Prominent and beloved and ‘benevolent’ figures like primate researcher Jane Goodall are openly espousing the virtues of depopulation, while ‘excess deaths’ are besieging us, cancers are proliferating, and the adverse effects of the Jab are being shoved under the rug and attributed to ‘long covid’, as if short covid wasn’t enough.

This indifference to the well-being of the dirty masses is nothing new, but the scale is such as to give even a hardened psychopath pause. We’re being hurt, we’re being maimed, we’re being killed, and we’re being mesmerized by the Agents of the Agenda to celebrate our immolation, in numbers that are immense.

The 20th Century brought the Nazi Holocaust, the genocides of Stalin and Mao, the nuclear annihilation of inhabited Japanese cities, the Korean and Vietnamese wars, and a variety of coups and massacres. 9/11 became the pretext for further martial excursions in the Middle East and significant constraints upon individual autonomy, and with covid State-sponsored terror reached novel heights and breadth.

About a year ago, I happened to be in Wellington during a climate change march. I watched as the stream of mostly youthful humanity meandered its way through the city centre, shouting and screaming and chanting and waving signs about carbon dioxide. I thought about quietly taking a few people aside to ask some meaningful questions, but I desisted — it would have been impossible, I would never have been heard. And as I ruminated I experienced a frisson of fear — real fear, not the kind manufactured by a controlled media phalanx about an invisible and never very lethal pathogen. It was fear of a mob.

I remembered the very many who masked up and looked with hostility upon those who preferred not to; I remembered the virulence of the attacks upon those of us who refused to be injected, even from colleagues in Medicine; and I remembered the threats of politicians to hunt us down.If there is Progress it will be measured by tolerance, and thoughtfulness, and discussion and debate, and the insistence of the majority on the preservation of human freedom and choice. It will favour Peace over War, Liberty over Control, and Reflection over Impulse.

Virtually everything the authorities told us about covid has been a lie. Seeing through this Big Lie allows us to see through the long and sordid chain of others — and it allows us to prepare for future assaults upon language and history and perception as well.

No matter who sits in Parliament it will be up to us, we people on the ground, either to comply with lawless State directives, or not. It has always been this way and always will, and our free choice between doing what is good and what is ill can never disappear.

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Dr. Garcia is a Philadelphia-born psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand in 2006. He has authored articles ranging from explorations of psychoanalytic technique, the psychology of creativity in music (Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Delius), and politics. He is also a poet, novelist and theatrical director. He retired from psychiatric practice in 2021 after working in the public sector in New Zealand. Visit his substack at https://newzealanddoc.substack.com/

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

A successful unification of the Korean Peninsula must be based on a vision for the nation rooted in both universal values and the distinct traditions of the Korean people.

If the establishment of a unified Korea as a constitutional republic is to follow the model offered by the United States, the critical step would be the drafting of a constitution that lays out the contours for that new nation’s government and the principles undergirding it.

That means selecting the best practices and policies, and the most relevant to the needs of the current age, from models for good governance found in the collective wisdom of mankind, and doing so in a manner that is inspiring for the Korean people, and that serves as a model for the nations of the world.

In this respect, the Korean dream advanced by Dr. Hyunjin Preston Moon, a visionary plan for a new nation on the peninsula that brings together the best of West and East, will inspire the drafting of this constitution.

The constitution for a unified Korea will serve as the foundation for the republic, describing concretely the institutional structures and the principles of governance that govern them, thereby establishing a common understanding of the legal process to be followed going forward, while setting limits on the authority of each branch of government that will be essential for stability over the long term.

The constitution should assure a process for understanding the needs of society, the principles of morality and the best way to implement those solutions in policy, while guarding against creeping tyranny by assuring a logical separation of powers.

The United States Constitution is a blending of varied strands of political philosophy. We can observe in the Constitution institutional precedents taken from Greece and Rome, but also from medieval and enlightenment governance in England, France and Germany. A trained eye can detect bits of the Iroquois Great Law, and even of Confucian practice as it was introduced into the Enlightenment debate in Europe on governance.

The constitution of a united Korea should also be a creative work with roots deep in our common past, a text that appeals to universal human values and morals, and that sends out sparks of inspiration to all Koreans, and to all the world, as did the American constitution in 1787.

The intellectual dynamic animating the American Constitution is powered by the synthesis of the political philosophy of the ancient Greeks and Romans with practical precedents in later history for deliberative democracy such as the Magna Carta of 1215, or the Roundheads’ defense of the democratic Parliament in seventeenth-century England.

We can imagine a constitution for a unified Korea that will derive its power from a further synthesis, this time between the tradition of the constitutional republic without a monarch that is put forth in the U.S. Constitution, Korea’s own traditions of good governance and ethical behavior, and the larger mansions of moral philosophy in East Asia, mainly those of Confucianism and Buddhism.

A Korean Constitutional Convention

All of the models for good governance in the Western and Eastern traditions will not mean much if Koreans are not able to hold a constitutional convention in which the greatest ethical and intellectual minds of the age come together for an open debate dedicated to addressing the spiritual and material needs of the people, not personal gain, and if the consensus of those great minds is not written up in powerful and clear language that can inspire citizens for the ages.

The constitution produced by the constitutional convention for a united Korea must have cultural depth and moral power on both the Western and Eastern sides so that it will be accepted by Koreans of the North and the South (and around the world) assuasive, authoritative and universal.

First, we need individuals who are morally upstanding, intellectually informed, dedicated to the public good, and who have a keen sense of their role in long arc of history. That moral stature must be accompanied with an openness to new potentials and eternal creativity.

They need not, should not, be individuals with identical concepts of what government should be. The convention should be a symphony in which different themes and melodies are blended together in the give and take, the debate, and the resulting harmony produced in debates, for example between those favoring a strong central government and those opposed, between those favoring individual rights and those favoring the common good, serves to create a balanced conception of the whole that will rise above the capacity of any one author.

We know that in the American case those at the convention, James Madison, George Mason, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams (by correspondence), and Alexander Hamilton, articulated profoundly different perspectives on how government could realize the potential of humanity.

The Constitutional Convention went on in Philadelphia from May 25 to Sept. 17 of 1787, bringing together a group of visionary political figures who were devoted to an honest debate on the strengths and weaknesses of previous traditions of governance. It took months of concentrated debate, draft after draft, to come up with a vision for how the United States of America would be governed in a democratic, transparent, and accountable manner so as to represent the needs of the people and to protect the rights of the minority and to express that vision in a manner that was accessible to citizens.

In the Korean case, it should be a select group of committed Koreans, from North and South Korea, and from the Korean diaspora, who are ready to devote themselves to the drafting of this constitution based on ideals and profound contemplation of the needs of the people, a group that includes people with different perspectives on governance who are capable of creative dialog and compromise.

The constitution will be accepted by the people, not on the basis of how famous its drafters are, or how much money and coverage in the media they receive, but rather on the basis of their vision of what humanity is capable of, and how they express that potential in an inspiring manner.

It is essential that the planners of the convention make room for the organic meetings of minds, take the time to read through classic books on governance and to discuss them in an unpressured environment, while at the same time avoiding imposing on the natural process by which the constitution takes form and is then drafted.

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This article was originally published on Korea Times.

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: The Demilitarized Zone compared to the earlier 38th parallel de facto border (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

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*** 

“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”—Hermann Goering, German military commander and Hitler’s designated successor

For those who remember the days and months that followed 9/11, there is an unnerving feeling of déjà vu about the Hamas attacks on Israel.

The same shocking images of carnage and grief dominating the news. The same disbelief that anyone could be so hateful, so monstrous, so evil as to do this to another human being. The same outpourings of support and unity from around the world. The same shared fear that this could easily have happened to us or our loved ones.

Now once again the drums of war are sounding on the world stage, not that they ever really stopped. Israel is preparing to invade Gaza, the Palestinians are nearing a humanitarian crisis, and the rest of the world is bracing for whatever blowback comes next.

Here in the United States, as we approach the 22^nd anniversary of the USA Patriot Act on October 26, we’re still grappling with the blowback that arises from allowing one’s freedoms to be eviscerated in exchange for the phantom promise of security.

Here are a few lessons that we never learned or learned too late.

Mammoth legislation that expands the government’s powers at the citizenry’s expense will not make anyone safer. Rushed through Congress a mere 45 days after the 9/11 attacks, the USA Patriot Act drove a stake through the heart of the Bill of Rights, undermined civil liberties, expanded the government’s powers and opened the door to far-reaching surveillance by the government on American citizens.

Pre-emptive strikes will only lead to further blowback. Not content to wage war against Afghanistan, which served as the base for Osama bin Laden, the U.S. embarked on a pre-emptive war against Iraq in order to “stop any adversary challenging America’s military superiority and adopt a strike-first policy against terrorist threats ‘before they’re fully formed.’” We are still suffering the consequences of this failed policy, which resulted in lives lost, taxpayer dollars wasted, the fomenting of hatred against the U.S. and the further radicalization of terrorist cells.

War is costly. There are many reasons to go to war, but those who have advocated that the U.S. remain at war, year after year, are the very entities that have profited most from these endless military occupations and exercises. Thus far, the U.S. taxpayer has been made to shell out more than $8 trillion to wage wars abroad, including the lifetime price of health care for disabled veterans and interest on the national debt. That also does not include the more than hundreds of thousands of civilians killed, or the millions displaced from their homes as a result of endless drone strikes and violence.

The tactics and weapons of war, once deployed abroad, will eventually be used against the citizenry at home. The horrors that took place at Abu Ghraib, the American-run prison in Iraq, involved “US military personnel humiliating, hurting and abusing Iraqi prisoners in a myriad of perverse ways. While American servicemen and women smiled and gave thumbs up, naked men were threatened by dogs, or were hooded, forced into sexual positions, placed standing with wires attached to their bodies, or left bleeding on prison floors.” Adding to the descent into moral depravity, the United States government legalized the use of torture, including waterboarding, in violation of international law and in the so-called pursuit of national security. The ramifications have been far-reaching, with domestic police mirroring a battlefield mindset in their encounters with American citizens, including the use of torture tactics at secret locations such as Homan Square in Chicago.

Allowing the government to spy on the citizenry will not reduce acts of terrorism, but it will result in a watched, submissive, surveillance society. Not only did the USA Patriot Act normalize the government’s mass surveillance powers, but it also dramatically expanded the government’s authority to spy on its own citizens without much of any oversight. Thus, a byproduct of this post 9/11-age in which we live, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency is listening in and tracking your behavior. This doesn’t even begin to touch on the corporate trackers that monitor your purchases, web browsing, Facebook posts and other activities taking place in the cyber sphere. We have all become data collected in government files.

News cycle distractions are calibrated to ensure that you lose sight of what the government is doing. The average American has a hard time keeping up with and remembering all of the “events,” manufactured or otherwise, which occur like clockwork and keep us distracted, deluded, amused, and insulated from the reality of the American police state. Whether these events are critical or unimportant, when we’re being bombarded with wall-to-wall news coverage and news cycles that change every few days, it’s difficult to stay focused on one thing—namely, holding the government accountable to abiding by the rule of law—and the powers-that-be understand this. In this way, regularly scheduled trivia and/or distractions that keep the citizenry tuned into the various breaking news headlines and entertainment spectacles also keep them tuned out to the government’s steady encroachments on their freedoms.

If you stop holding the government accountable to the rule of law, the only laws it abides by will be the ones used to clamp down on the citizenry. Having failed to hold government officials accountable to abiding by the rule of law, the American people have found themselves saddled with a government that skirts, flouts and violates the Constitution with little consequence. Overcriminalization, asset forfeiture schemes, police brutality, profit-driven prisons, warrantless surveillance, SWAT team raids, indefinite detentions, covert agencies, and secret courts are just a few of the egregious practices carried out by a government that operates beyond the reach of the law.

Do not turn your country into a battlefield, your citizens into enemy combatants, and your law enforcement officers into extensions of the military. A standing army—something that propelled the early colonists into revolution—strips the citizenry of any vestige of freedom. How can there be any semblance of freedom when there are tanks in the streets, military encampments in cities, Blackhawk helicopters and armed drones patrolling overhead? It was for this reason that those who established America vested control of the military in a civilian government, with a civilian commander-in-chief. They did not want a military government, ruled by force. Rather, they opted for a republic bound by the rule of law: the U.S. Constitution. Unfortunately, we in America now find ourselves struggling to retain some semblance of freedom in the face of police and law enforcement agencies that look and act like the military and have just as little regard for the Fourth Amendment, laws such as the NDAA that allow the military to arrest and indefinitely detain American citizens, and military drills that acclimate the American people to the sight of armored tanks in the streets, military encampments in cities, and combat aircraft patrolling overhead.

As long as you remain fearful and distrustful of each other, you will be incapable of standing united against any threats posed by a power-hungry government. Early on, U.S. officials solved the problem of how to implement their authoritarian policies without incurring a citizen uprising: fear. The powers-that-be want us to feel threatened by forces beyond our control (terrorists, shooters, bombers). They want us afraid and dependent on the government and its militarized armies for our safety and well-being. Most of all, they want us distrustful of each other, divided by our prejudices, and at each other’s throats.

Once you trade your freedom for security, the terrorists win. We’ve walked a strange and harrowing road since September 11, 2001, littered with the debris of our once-vaunted liberties. We have gone from a nation that took great pride in being a model of a representative democracy to being a model of how to persuade a freedom-loving people to march in lockstep with a police state. And in so doing, we have proven Osama Bin Laden right. He warned that “freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general — into an unbearable hell and a choking life.”

It took a long time to clear away the rubble from the 9/11 attacks.

Yet as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, 22 years after the USA Patriot Act was unleashed on a vulnerable nation, we are still reeling from the destruction it has wrought on our freedoms.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

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

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

They are regular contributors to Global Research.

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*** 

I am being asked about the Israeli-Palestine conflict, which seems to be taking attention away from the Ukraine-Russia conflict.  People, by which I mean people who pay attention, are wondering why the Palestinians would attack Israel like this as it provides Netanyahu with an excuse to grab the remaining bits of Palestine and destroy the Gaza strip, thus disposing of  the two-state solution by conquest. Who can blame Israel after Palestinians killed Israelis and took hostages?  

I have heard the official explanation of Palestinian perfidy, but I don’t have an explanation for the attack. It seems it would have to be more than perfidy. I do agree with readers that it seems a curious thing for Hamas to do as it plays into Israel’s hands. I also agree that there is something else strange about the attack. How did drones and so many rockets, allegedly from Iran, and some say Ukraine, get into the Gaza strip, and how did the Hamas attackers get into Israel?

The Hamas attack has something of 9/11’s flavor. Just as every aspect of the US National Security State failed simultaneously on September 11, 2001, Israel’s security system, including the Iron Dome the US constructed for Israel, simultaneously failed.

Mysteriously, the Hamas fighters entered Israel on the ground and through the air and on the sea without being detected.

Mysteriously, large quantities of weapons entered Palestine through Israel without being detected.

This is too much convenient failure to be believable. It will be interesting to see if anyone in Israel is held accountable for the total security failure. In the US no one was held accountable for the security failures on September 11, which should have  told us a lot.

Not knowing, we can but speculate. We have a motive. Israel can now steal the rest of Palestine. 

Another motive might be that Israel can expand the conflict into a wider war and succeed this time in grabbing the water resources of southern Lebanon. It could even get nastier with Israeli moves against Syria and Iran. 

Oil prices could go sky high causing world disruption. A victorious war and the end of the Palestinian problem would free Netanyahu from his legal and political problems. There is a lot to think about. 

But let’s move on to the security failure that made the attack possible. Why would Netanyahu enable Hamas to attack Israel by standing down Israel security? It seems a nonsensical suggestion, but isn’t as it creates the conditions in which Israel can absorb all that remains of Palestine, just as 9/11 created the conditions for the neoconservatives to launch the wars they had planned in the Middle East.

The difficult question is why would the Palestinians bring on their own destruction by attacking Israel when Hamas has no prospect of defeating Israel? 

Again, we can only speculate. It could be an Israeli operation from start to finish. Israel infiltrates Hamas, just as the FBI infiltrates Trump supporters and patriotic groups now called domestic terrorists. 

The Israeli agents play up Israel’s abuse of the Palestinians.

Netanyahu helps them along by blowing up the sacred Mosque. The agents come up with an attack plan made possible with weapons from Iran and devices from Iran to jam Israeli security. They go about this carefully, relying on the decades of anger and hurt and the prospect of release from impotence to crowd out Hamas’ reason.

I don’t say these speculations suffice as the explanation. But I would not be surprised if these speculations, if investigated, would prove to be closer to the truth than whatever official narrative emerges.

*

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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: PALESTINIAN MEMBERS OF THE EZZ AL-DIN AL QASSAM BRIGADES, THE MILITARY WING OF HAMAS BURN MILITARY ARMORED VEHICLE BELONGING TO ISRAELI FORCES NEAR GAZA STRIP, GAZA ON OCTOBER 07, 2023. PHOTO BY STR APAIMAGES

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*** 

Bibi Netanyahu and his ideological ilk represent more of an existential threat to the continued existence of the Israeli state – and possibly the world if it gets dragged into its geopolitical melodrama — than any foreign adversary ever could hope to.

What many casual news consumers might not know, even ones who consider themselves “informed” – in large part because MSNBC/CIA-funded Washington Post would never tell them – is that Hamas is in no small measure a creation of the Israeli state.

This is not to mean “creation of the Israeli state” in the figurative, obscure sense of “Israel forced the birth of Hamas-style militancy through its Apartheid policies in the Gaza Strip,” although that is certainly true.

I literally mean to say the Israeli government actively and directly participated in creating and propping up Hamas in the service of its own political machinations.

Straight from the horse’s mouth, here’s how Netanyahu schemed behind the scenes for years to promote the terrorist group he now publicly decries and postures as the savior from.

Via Haaretz:

“Effectively, Netanyahu’s entire worldview collapsed over the course of a single day. He was convinced that he could make deals with corrupt Arab tyrants while ignoring the cornerstone of the Arab-Jewish conflict, the Palestinians. His life’s work was to turn the ship of state from the course steered by his predecessors, from Yitzhak Rabin to Ehud Olmert, and make the two-state solution impossible. En route to this goal, he found a partner in Hamas.

‘Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,’ he 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.”

On learning that Netanyahu told his comrades this, one might ask obvious questions:

Why would Netanyahu be interested in keeping Palestine balkanized politically?

Especially when all the government publicly proclaims to desire is peace with its Arab neighbors? Wouldn’t a stable Palestinian state not obsessed with annihilating the Jews serve those purported Israeli interests?

Well, a non-militant Palestinian state might serve the interests of an average Israeli living in a village on the border of Gaza, but not Netanyahu’s interests nor those of the base of fanatical religious warmongers he caters to.

Keeping Hamas alive and well-funded, as Netanyahu explicitly called for, creates permanent instability. Instability, in turn, lends itself to either active war or the constant threat of war, not peace. And war is the health of the Israeli state.

If peace broke out in the Middle East, creatures like Netanyahu would be liable to suddenly find themselves out of a job. They might have to make an honest day’s living for once in their miserable lives.

Netanyahu feeds politically as a result of endless conflict with Israel’s regional rivals. War breathes life into his otherwise listless and deflated political ideology. What other ideas for governance has this warmonger ever had except more war?

In the immediate term, war furthermore keeps him out of jail for the time being, as he was under serious, career-threatening legal scrutiny for corruption allegations at the time of the Hamas attack. Now, as the Israeli citizenry “rallies around the flag,” the nation temporarily forgoes internal political conflict.

Netanyahu and the self-styled Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, are two peas in a pod in this regard. War is the health of their respective states, and they and their parties are the primary beneficiaries. Without it, they would be nothing but your average middle-aged, flabby slobs schlubbing their way through life.

In fact, in much the same way that there is no way Israeli intelligence was unaware of impending Hamas attacks, I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that Netanyahu and Khamenei are coordinating behind the scenes to see if they can’t finagle a potentially apocalyptic regional, if not global, war out of the current mess – and, again, if possible, drag the United States, Russia, and God knows what other states into it in the process.

Of course, neither the Supreme Leader (what a stupid title) nor Netanyahu will be doing any fighting themselves. They’re much too cowardly and physically flimsy for any of that. Those personal traits are largely why they’re politicians in the first place.

They’ll simply puppeteer the apocalypse from behind the scenes. It’ll be poor kids conscripted from dusty villages sent to the meat grinder.

How history has a way of rhyming! Back in the 1980s, in an entirely different conflict in the same region of the world, it was the United States that propped up a band of religious fanatics fighting, at the time, the Soviet Union that had “invaded and occupied Afghanistan in 1979”.

Ronald Reagan’s Deep State handlers went so far as to invite them to the White House.

As unstable religious fanatics who feed off perpetual war, they eventually switched allegiances and set their sights on the United States, of course.

Many people living quiet lives in New York City died as a result, but the American neocons got a whole fresh set of wars out of the deal, with fresh license to kill more poor people overseas.

Raytheon and Boeing stocks went through the roof. The Middle East was further destabilized, giving rise to ISIS, a failed state in Libya, and guaranteeing future war.

And around and around we go, pretending as if the vaunted statesmen who start wars for a living are anything other than bloodthirsty warmongers playing geopolitical chess with other people’s children. 

But they’re brave and serious leaders of resolve, and I and anyone else who challenges them are the “domestic terrorists,” per the ADL, of course.

*

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

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

Featured image is from IMEMC

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*** 

On October 7, shortly after the Hamas attack on Israel, PM Benjamin Netanyahu declared the offensive as Israel’s 9/11. He is right in more ways than one. The US 9/11 was a horrendous and deadly false flag, and so is the Israeli one, or the so-called Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, assault by Hamas.

Both 9/11’s are meant to “justify” endless and crushing retributions. In the US, an endless and worldwide war on “terror” which means the entire world, as Washington sees fit, according to its “rules-based order.” Misbehaving nations are simply sanctioned and crushed, forced to their knees.

Israeli intel, as well as that of Egypt, the UK, the US, Brussels – EU – knew about the impending attack, planned by Israel in coordination with Hamas. A Jewish charity leader says Netanyahu ordered the Israeli military to stand down for 7 hours during the Hamas invasion.

CONFIRMED: Netanyahu ordered the Israeli military to STAND DOWN for 7 HOURS during the Hamas invasion.

I sat down with Jewish Charity leader, Cecily Routman, who received intel directly from her Israeli Rabbi and other top level government sources.

While I do not agree with… pic.twitter.com/2liNmdJ7fZ

— Lauren Witzke (@LaurenWitzkeDE) October 15, 2023

For Israel, it justifies a stepped-up war on Palestine, the end of Gaza, eventually forcing 2.3 million Gazans to flee through Rafah into the Sinai Peninsula in northeast Egypt.

Despite the official rejection of Israel to establish a corridor for Gazan refugees – an agreement with Israel and Washington to starve to death as many Palestinians as possible – Egypt eventually may allow to open the Rafah border for “humanitarian reasons.” It is all part of the deal. See video below.

This was planned for years.

Hamas was set up and funded by Israel and the US/UK secret services.

Hamas must do the bidding of its masters – namely periodically shooting back at aggressive Israeli attacks at Palestine settlements, mostly in the Gaza strip, and eventually launching a massive attack on Israel (on 7 October), thus, provoking an even more gigantic and deadly act of retribution – one that may not end until Palestine is erased from the map.

And then onwards – for the creation of Greater Israel, in the process absorbing one third to half of the current Middle East.

For broader understanding of the Israel-Palestine war, see also this.

Once Gaza is Off the Map

Once Gaza is off the map, next is the end of the entire West Bank. In fact, the war on the Palestinian West Bank settlements has already begun.

As all attention is on Gaza being ransacked, leveled, and “emptied” by the Israeli killing machine, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are already bulldozing villages in the West Bank, killing resisting Palestinians.

Today, reports from northern Israel, the border to Lebanon, accuse Hezbollah of firing rockets into Israel, having killed at least one Israeli. It must be understood that Hezbollah is also a creation of Israel, Mossad and allied Western secret services; with the same purpose as Hamas.

It may become an endless war for the conquest of the Middle East, for Greater Israel, an expanded home for the Chosen People. As long as the Zionist Israel – in contrast to normal Jewish Israeli – gets full support from the West in terms of weapons, money and cheers for her atrocities — Israel is on a free ascent to become the emperor’s full-fledged partner in crime, eventually exceeding that power, to rule the world. That is the “Chosen People’s ambition”.

But who knows whether this Kazarian-Zionist genocide on Palestine will go down in the West as easily as COVID did. In this case, it may backfire. There are massive pro-Palestinian protests in London, Paris, Berlin, and many more European cities, despite France’s Macron’s and Germany’s Scholz’s threat to forbid all pro-Palestinian demonstrations and to arrest and punish all perpetrators.

Other EU members are following the same dictate.

So far, they are not listening to the wannabe “new royals” of France and Germany. Immense pro-Palestinian manifestations took place in Paris and other cities of France last night; similarly in Germany.

Demonstration repression may be possible for a few hundred people, but not with tens and hundreds of thousands – into the millions.

In his explosive and informative piece, “The Nakba that Israel has started will backfire”, David Hearst describes the possible extent of destruction – as a monumental catastrophe, or “Nakba”, Netanyahu may have just started. See this.

The first “Nakba” refers to the violent mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

Before the forceful, UK-sponsored and UN-decided, establishment of Israel in the midst of Palestine – no consultation, no negotiations – Palestine was a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society, living in harmony, including with Jewish settlers.

Things changed to the extreme. Knesset member Revital Gotliv called a few days ago on Israel to consider using a nuclear bomb on Gaza, posting on social media,

“Only an explosion that shakes the Middle East will restore this country’s dignity, strength, and security! It’s time to kiss doomsday” (David Hearst).

Maybe two decades ago, a Hindu guru who, acting as a medium for a disciple, claiming to be able to read into the future through the minds of able believers, said his devotee, in a state of trance, looking several hundred years ahead, saw the world as a harmonious clean and little populated paradise. Except, there was one region that was fenced and locked off for the rest of the world, due to dangers from war-like destruction and toxicity – that was the Middle East.

There is no proof for this story. And even if the predictions were true at the time, it does not mean that it will happen, as humans are dynamic beings with the capacity to change course.

There is no proof either the predictions took place. All links or references have disappeared from the internet. But given Netanyahu’s threats already on day one of IDF’s counteroffensive, “This is just the beginning” and “This will be a long war,” may indicate that this long-back Hindu prediction may not be far off.

No matter what prediction may be made at some point in time, and may even be true at that time, men can shape their own future. It is a question of mankind’s collective willpower. If enough people believe and work for PEACE and a harmonious future and cohabitation between different factions of populations – it is possible.

Why is this message important even though not proven?

It demonstrates at what level of total annihilation humanity has arrived. Wars everywhere, killing randomly and for more power, by weapons from the military industrial complex (MIC), bio weapons, directed energy weapons (DEW), as well as targeted weather and climate modification weapons (HAARP – High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program), by geoengineering the ionosphere.

These modern weaponry developments should incite reflections on how to exit the ever more violent and destructive Matrix. The faster and the more people exit the Matrix, the better humanity’s chances to salvage our civilization, not by revising it; but by a restart – outside of any given structure or Matrix.

Oslo Accords I and II

Back to Israel-Palestine – In the 1990s, there were the Oslo accords I and II. They were a historic hope for permanent peace and cohabitation of Israel and Palestine in a two-state solution.

Oslo I – In January 1993 in Oslo, Norway, sponsored by the Norwegian Minister of Defense (later Foreign Affairs), Jorgen Holst and his wife Marianne Heiberg, the so-called Oslo I Accords were signed by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Negotiator Mahmoud Abbas, representing Yasser Arafat, then PLO Chairman.

In September 1993, US President Bill Clinton hosted a formal and famous signing ceremony in Washington D.C. The Oslo Accords were a pivotal milestone in Israeli-Palestinian relations, aimed at propelling the peace process forward and providing for the expansion of Palestinian self-rule throughout most of the West Bank.

As a first and immediate step, Israel and the PLO agreed on withdrawal of Israel’s occupation from the Gaza Strip and Jericho.

This was Step One for an Oslo-planned two-state solution which would be negotiated within the coming five years. Two sovereign nations with the same rights to live peacefully as neighbors, side by side.

Oslo II was signed in Taba, Egypt, in 1995. It was to set out specific territories in the West Bank to become part of Palestine.

The accords failed because the agreements were not honored by Israel, which, from the beginning, had no interest in a two-state solution. Also, because self-governing for Palestine included managing their water resources, the water on or under Palestinian territories.

Some 80% of all water resources of the combined Israeli-Palestinian territory belong to Palestine. Water being of extreme importance in this dry, desert-like part of the world, this was unacceptable to Israel.

As it stands now, Israel appropriates the water resources for her own use – and leaves some to Palestine as Israel sees fit.

The Oslo Accords did not create a definite Palestinian state. The Palestinian-American philosopher, Edward Said, described them as a “Palestinian Versailles.” [The Treaty of Versailles was the Peace Agreement after WWI. The treaty gave some German territories to neighboring countries and placed other German territories under international supervision.]

Escalation at Warp Speed. Genocide

Today, the war is escalating at warp speed. The Israeli offensive in Gaza has caused hundreds if not thousands of deaths, and driven already close to a million people out of their homes in northern Gaza, fleeing towards southern Gaza, where many of them are amassing at the Rafah border with Egypt, hoping to eventually escape into Egypt’s Sinai territory.

In the meantime, journalist Maha Hussaini, describes the situation in Gaza on her dying cellphone. See below.

Israel has cut all electricity, fuel, food deliveries, internet connection and vital water supply.

Israel has also implemented a total news blackout from Gaza. Under “humanitarian pressure” from the west, Israel has said today they will reinstate water supply for Gaza.

Journalists are in hiding, but report with the last minutes of their cellphones energy to the outside world. Then, there will be silence.

At least nine journalists, who were caught by the Israeli offensive in Gaza at home or on their way to southern Gaza, were killed, as described by Maha Hussaini. But she says, we will stay steadfast and report whenever and however we can.

There is hope, always hope, as long as the sun shines on Mother Earth. But humanity must fundamentally change. It is a question of conscious awakening. Either by the elite, pretending ruling the planet, or by the very military fighting each other – in Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, Russia and anywhere in the world.

If they become conscious of what they are doing, engaging in wars, not only putting their own lives on the line for the interests of a small elite, and killing their brethren on the other side of the frontline; if they wake up, stop shooting, bombing and hating, and instead go home to their families, start loving their own lives, and the lives of their unbeknown enemies – all wars and killing will stop.

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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: 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 reason for China’s declared “neutral position” in the war between Israel and Gaza is that US influence in the region may increase, writes the Financial Times newspaper, with reference to diplomats and analysts. However, this so-called neutral position is not having the desired effect as Israel is becoming outraged in what they perceive as “pro-Palestine neutrality.”

According to the publication, the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East could become a major test for China, which seeks to strengthen its influence in the region that is “traditionally dominated by the US.” The US continues to be the strongest military power in the Middle East, and in the current crisis, it has already “demonstrated its might” by sending two groups of aircraft carriers, the USS Eisenhower and the USS Gerald R Ford, to the Eastern Mediterranean, the newspaper continues.

Furthermore, Washington remains the “main diplomatic player in the region, despite Arab concerns that it has been disengaging” and is Israel’s biggest ally.

At the same time, China, whose economic role in the region has grown rapidly in recent decades, is on good terms with almost all players, especially Iran, the main backer of Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. It is recalled that under the draft of the 25-year agreement signed in 2020, China will invest $400 billion in Iran’s economy in exchange for discounted oil.

The publication recalls that in recent years, Beijing played an important role in attracting four Middle Eastern countries – Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates – to the BRICS group and contributed to the successful mediation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, something which outraged Washington.

Analysts also note that after the start of the war between Israel and Gaza, China “struck a neutral tone that angered many Israelis and western countries,” calling on both sides to “remain calm” and not condemning the actions of the Palestinian faction.

“It’s true that China can negotiate something between Saudi Arabia and Iran, but that’s not creating any great confidence on the Israeli side,” said a diplomat cited by the Financial Times. Therefore, according to the diplomat, if China does not choose a side soon, it cannot arbitrate or mediate the conflict.

Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi told his Iranian counterpart Amir-Abdollahian during their meeting on October 15 in Beijing that

“the root cause… of the Palestine-Israel situation is that the Palestinian people’s right to statehood has been set aside for a long time.”

“This historical injustice should end as soon as possible,” Wang said, adding that “China will continue to stand on the side of peace and support the just cause of the Palestinian people in safeguarding their national rights.”

On the same day as his meeting with Amir-Abdollahian, Wang said in a call with Saudi Arabia’s Prince Faisal bin Farhan that Israel’s actions were now “beyond the scope of self-defence” and the Israeli government must “cease its collective punishment of the people of Gaza.”

“(Israel) should listen earnestly to the calls of the international community and the UN secretary general, and cease its collective punishment of the people of Gaza,” Wang added.

By describing the Israel-Palestine conflict as a “historical injustice” for the Palestinians, Beijing is now accused of having “pro-Palestine neutrality.” It was also noted that China’s official statements on the conflict have not specifically named Hamas in their condemnations of violence, leading to criticism in Israel.

Nonetheless, China’s special envoy on Middle Eastern issues, Zhai Jun, will visit the Middle East next week to push for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza conflict and promote peace talks. Zhai also called Israeli officials last week to reaffirm that China “has no selfish interests on the Palestinian issue but has always stood on the side of peace, on the side of fairness and justice” and that “China is willing to work with the international community to promote peace and encourage talks.”

Although his rhetoric was one of a neutral third party who could mediate on the issue, Wang’s statements consolidated Israel’s suspicions that China is not neutral.

Beijing will attempt to play an enhanced role in efforts to end the war to secure its economic interests and capitalise on the Arab states’ frustration with the US. It remains to be seen if they can achieve the same level of success as they did in reconciling Saudi Arabia and Iran to establish itself as a great power in the region because this is essentially decided on whether Israel views China as a trusted mediator, which at this point in time appears doubtful.

*

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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Silent Crow News

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*** 

On October 7, Hamas, the group that controls Gaza, launched a rare surprise attack on Israel that led to massive retaliatory airstrikes on Gaza and other punitive measures, including power outages.

Huge Casualties and Humanitarian Disaster

This new round of the Hamas-Israeli conflict has pushed the Palestinian death toll to more than 2,200, with over 8,700 injuries, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry on October 14. The Israeli fatalities since October 7 have reached around 1,300, while nearly 3,400 were injured, Israeli media reported on October 13, citing official sources.

The Israeli response has been a siege and air attack on Gaza, which holds about 2.3 million civilians who have found it nearly impossible to leave the area under the current situation. Gaza has hence been described as the “largest open-air concentration camp on earth.”

The Palestinian civilians are trapped, and some do not support Hamas, but are caught as innocent bystanders in an armed conflict, between Hamas and Israel. Resistance to an occupation is guaranteed by international law, but the targeting of civilians is prohibited.

Yet, we are now witnessing a growing humanitarian disaster. Israel has prevented all food, water, fuel and electricity from being supplied to Gaza. Israel claims this is because it is in a state of war, and it considers the people in Gaza “the enemy.” Jennifer Austin, director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) reported they have run out of food, water and shelter for displaced Palestinians.

The current ongoing conflict in Gaza is also threatening to grow and engulf the whole Middle East. Many experts warn of an impending regional war, which may include Israel, Lebanon, Syria and possibly Iran.

Experts believe the catalyst which would spark an escalation into a broader war, might be the ground invasion planned by Israel. Israel’s military has told more than a million people living in the northern Gaza Strip to evacuate, to move south in the besieged enclave, as fighting between it and Hamas continues.

Israeli military vehicles in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon, October 8, 2023. /Xinhua

Spillover Effects

And the spillover effects might cause even more casualties and other consequences as well.

Israel and several Arab countries have signed a normalization agreement called by the U.S. administration, the Abraham Accords. Arab countries like UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco have signed, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in late September that it was “likely” Israel will reach a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia, in what would mark a seismic foreign policy shift for both countries as they edge closer to reaching a deal mediated by the U.S.

However, Saudi Arabia has signaled that the negotiating process has ceased in light of the current ongoing conflict in Gaza. The Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman had previously had a policy which supported the creation of a Palestinian State before normalization could occur, and recent negotiations were coming close to an agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia; but that is now halted.

Israel has told Chevron to shut down a major natural gas field amid the latest round of conflict, which caused European gas prices to rise. Rising prices in gas and oil would reflect uncertainty over whether the conflict will widen to a regional conflict.

While the conflict so far has not impacted oil supplies, the future is uncertain. The U.S. and Israel are looking for a link between the Hamas attack and Iran. Tehran denies a link, but if the U.S. and Israel manufacture a link to Iran, then that may lead to a cut in Iranian oil output.  Experts warn that if the Strait of Hormuz was affected, the price of oil could go way above $100 per barrel.

If gas and oil prices skyrocket because of the conflict that will make inflation even a bigger problem on both sides of the Atlantic, people will be further engulfed in a cost of living crisis.

Talks and Peace Needed, Not More Arms and Violence

The Foreign Ministry of China has stated,

“the fundamental way out of the conflict lies in implementing the two-state solution and establishing an independent State of Palestine.”

Although the U.S. agreed to the UN resolution which outlines the two-state solution between Israel and Palestine, more peace talks, or negotiations should be promoted by the U.S.

Besides China, other nations such as Russia, and the 22 member states of the Arab League have also urged the implementation of a two-state solution as outlined in UN resolution 194. In November 2013, the newest resolution was passed 165 to 6, with 6 abstentions, with Israel and the United States voting against. The American response to the situation is to move yet another aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean.

America should not be blamed alone, as the European Union, Canada, and Australia among others have followed the directives of Washington, D.C. The so-called Western world has lined up like toy soldiers to march to the orders of the policy of the White House.

The international community shouldn’t stand idly by while watching the suffering, hunger and thirst of those who are suffering in the conflict and with nowhere to hide. The right way to advance the two-state solution is to resume peace talks as soon as possible. All mechanisms for peace must play a positive role.

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This article was originally published on CGTN.

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

Featured image: Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, October 9, 2023. (Source: CGTN)

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***

Oct. 4, 2023 – Providence, RI – Paramedic Rocio Mondragon was diagnosed with Stage 2 Breast Cancer Triple Negative which quickly became Stage 4 metastatic to the brain after chemo and radiation (treatment failure). 

Sep. 29, 2023 – Calgary, AB – Craig Nichol has been a Paramedic for 10 years. In July 2022 he was diagnosed with Stage 3B Colo-Rectal cancer (Turbo Cancer), by April he had a 10.5 hour surgery to remove as much tumor as possible but his cancer is spreading too rapidly and as of July 2023 he has Stage 4 Colorectal cancer metastatic to liver, peritoneal lesions and lungs.

Sep. 19, 2023 – Coryell County, TX – 61 year old Trent Makare was a paramedic. He died suddenly of a heart attack.

Sep. 5, 2023 – Bolton, ON – 28 year old Meghan Duca was mandated COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines to keep her job She was just diagnosed with Stage 4 Breast Cancer that spread to her spine.

Aug. 17, 2023 – Baltimore, MD – 43 year old David Lee Spicer, Veteran EMT/Firefighter, Baltimore City Fire Department, died suddenly, cause of death not reported.

Aug. 15, 2023 – Scottsburg, IN – 34 year old Devonnia Tscheulin, a Paramedic and Deputy Chief for Scott County EMS died suddenly from “complications during delivery” of her third child.

Aug. 5, 2023 – Fort Erie, Ontario – 64 year old Alan Doneff died unexpectedly after a short battle with cancer.

July 29, 2023 – Franklin, TX – 52 year old Rene Ferrell, US Air Force Veteran, police officer, firefighter & paramedic died suddenly on July 29, 2023.

July 5, 2023 – James Bay, ON – 23 year old Arjanan Sivasathiyarajah, a paramedic who started working a few weeks prior in the Kashechewan First Nation, went missing from a boat on the Albany River and his body was recovered on July 5.

June 27, 2023 – Baton Rouge, LA – 28 year old EMT Kymber Nezat (who was pregnant) and Paramedic Hunter Fruge were involved in a collision with their Ambulance, Kymber died. Cause of the crash is unknown (For unknown reasons, the Acadian ambulance struck the back of a Nissan Altima, before swerving past the centerline and into the Southbound lane. Subsequently, the ambulance collided head-on with a Coca Cola truck.)

June 14, 2023 – North Vancouver, BC – 42 year old paramedic Ryan Vena died in his sleep. “The cause of this death is still unknown.”

June 8, 2023 – Johns Hopkins – 37 year old Nicholas Nick Dye, EMT, engineer, resident physician, died unexpectedly.

May 13, 2023 – Huntersville, NC – Paramedic Mark Hayes had a “medical emergency” while on duty and died suddenly.

May 11, 2023 – Toronto, ON – 53 year old paramedic Marc Salmanovitch died suddenly on May 11, 2023.

My Take… 

Sudden deaths in COVID-19 mRNA Vaccinated professions continue at a record rate.

Vast majority appear to be sudden cardiac arrests or heart attacks, others include:

• 4 out of 14 are dealing with Stage 4 Turbo Cancer (one died)
• 1 died in his sleep
• 1 had a medical emergency while on duty and died
• 1 died while taking time off boating on an Ontario River
• 1 died in an unusual ambulance crash (she was pregnant at the time)
• 1 died from complications of childbirth

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

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*** 

Israeli strikes targeted Aleppo International Airport hours after it returned back to operate, putting it out of service again.

This is the second attack on Aleppo International Airport in 48 hours.

Earlier today, Aleppo International Airport returned to work, less than 48 hours after the Israeli strikes on Thursday afternoon, October 12, which put Aleppo and Damascus international airports out of service, while airlines continue to programme their flights through Latakia Airport “Hmaimim”, pending the repair of the damaged parts of the tarmac of Damascus International Airport, which is almost completed by the efforts of maintenance teams.

SOHR sources confirmed that striking Damascus and Aleppo international airports was warning messages to prevent Iranian aircraft from landing at the airports and was not related to the shelling of the occupied Golan.

Israel simultaneously struck Damascus and Aleppo international airports with two raids, and the strikes affected the airports’ tarmac, putting them out of service, while air defences tried to counter the raids.

Flights were turned to Latakia airport “Hmaimim”, hours after the two airports were targeted.

SOHR sources confirmed that the two targeted airports had not witnessed any arrival of the military shipments of the Iranian militias, and that the Israeli targets came only to put the two airports out of service.

SOHR documented 34 attacks in 2023: 26 airstrikes and eight rocket attacks by ground forces, during which Israel targeted several positions in Syria, destroying nearly 71 targets, including buildings, weapons and ammunitions warehouses, headquarters, centres and vehicles.

These strikes killed 72 combatants and injured 85 others.

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Protests against Netanyahu’s legal reform, which annulled the separation of powers, would have had as a side effect the appearance of fissures in the areas of Israeli Defense and Intelligence, due to the refusal of a significant number of reservists to join vital posts for the Israeli Defense, many of them grouped in the “Brothers and Sisters in Arms” block.

Taking advantage of the alleged security holes in the Israeli Defense caused by the schism between the reservists and Netanyahu, the armed wing of the Islamist group Hamas, launched the largest military offensive since 2007 with the infiltration of tens of its members in Israeli localities and the launching of thousands of projectiles against wide areas, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem with the provisional result of about 1500 Israeli victims.

Netanyahu of the resounding Israeli security failure to belittle Egyptian information. Thus, according to Egyptian sources, 10 days earlier they allegedly warned Netanyahu that Hamas was preparing a major offensive that ended with about 1500 Israeli victims and according to a survey by The Jerusalem Post, 80% of the respondents say that “the Government is mainly responsible for the infiltration of Palestinian militias” and 56% think that “Netanyahu should resign at the end of the current war.”

But the second Palestinian Nakba will be inevitable if the United States does not intervene and forces the Netanyahu government to stop the asymmetric punishment of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip in the form of continuous bombings and the cut in the supply of electricity and water to the Gazan population.

Such asymmetrical punishment would have triggered a wave of global support for the people of Gaza, coupled with the growing disaffection of Israeli society towards Netanyahu, could lead to the resignation of his Government and the subsequent convocation of new elections to facilitate the formation of a new Israeli Salvation Government whose primary task will be to try to re-edit the Oslo Accords that allow the peaceful coexistence of Two peoples in Two States.

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Germán Gorraiz Lopez is a political analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

May 10, 2023 – Pasig, Philippines – 26 year old Fatima Villaflor had her COVID-19 mRNA booster shot in April 2022 and a week later she developed fever, chills, rash and muscle pain. She was diagnosed with AOSD (Adult Onset Still’s Disease) and continues to struggle 1 year later.

Sep. 2023 – Barrie, ON, Canada – Emily had COVID-19 vaccines and was diagnosed with AOSD. Also myocarditis and pericarditis. She is still struggling 2 years later.

May 12, 2023 – Fargo, ND – In April, 22 year old Noah Rooney presented with high grade fever, severe body aches, swollen muscles, and after extensive testing was diagnosed with AOSD. His liver started failing and he was diagnosed with HLH or MAS (Macrophage Activation Syndrome) and died suddenly on May 12, 2023.

Jan. 2023 – Phoenix, AZ – Shaley Lynn (Stone) was hospitalized for 8 weeks with pain, blackouts, etc, and was eventually diagnosed with AOSD and HLH (Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis). She had a bone marrow transplant and still struggles 2 years later.

April 2022 – Canton, SD – 20 year old Logan Kuper developed AOSD 3 weeks after his COVID-19 mRNA Booster. He is doing well with Kineret (Anakinra).

Jan. 28, 2022 (VAERS 2082404) – 33 year old Brandon Pollet from Louisiana had 2nd dose of Pfizer mRNA in Aug. 2021, 3 days later developed fever, chills – was diagnosed with AOSD with 1st Hospital stay Oct. 21-Nov. 2, 2021, then in ICU from Dec. 12, 2021 – was eventually diagnosed with refractory HLH complicated by cytopenias, polymicrobial infections & multi-organ failure, and died Jan. 28, 2022.

Cases in Literature

• 57 year old woman had 2nd dose of Moderna mRNA
• one week later developed skin rash, then referred to hospital 3 weeks later after they didn’t go away with topical steroids and oral antihistamines
• she had papules and plaques on her trunk and extremities, proximal muscle pain, and swelling in her thumbs and wrists.
• She was diagnosed with AOSD (Adult Onset Stills Disease)
• Theory: “pathogen-associated- (PAMPs) or damage-associated molecular patterns may activate the immune system in genetically predisposed patients, leading to IL-1β and IL-18 overproduction, known as a “cytokine storm””
  • The SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins are potent PAMPs, whereas the nucleocapsid proteins can block IL-1β release
  • “mRNA vaccines encode only spike protein and thus may disturb the host immune system.”

2021 Dec – Park et al – Adult-onset Still’s Disease after BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine

• 36F South Korean woman had 1st dose of Pfizer mRNA
• 10 days later developed high spiking fever, chills, sore throat
• hospitalized with joint pain in hands and ankles, mildly enlarged lymph nodes and salmon pink maculopapular rash on the trunk

2021 Nov – Jeon et al – A flare of Still’s disease following COVID-19 vaccination in a 34-year-old patient.

• 34F South Korean woman received 1st dose of AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine 9 days before presenting to ER with fever and rash
• I’m giving an AstraZeneca case to show it’s not exclusively an mRNA problem.

2021 – Yamamoto et al – Flare-up of adult-onset Still’s disease after receiving a second dose of BNT162b2 COVID-19 mRNA vaccine.

• 37F Japanese woman had 2nd dose of Pfizer mRNA
• a few days later she started having fever, rash, sore throat and polyarthritis and presented two months later
• she had a prior history of AOSD 13 years earlier and had experienced relapses and remissions, but for 2 years prior to Pfizer she had no episodes

Literature Review

• Adult-onset Still’s disease (AOSD) is the adult form of systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis which is a rare systemic inflammatory disorder that primarily affects young adults and mainly involves innate immune response.
• It corresponds to an aberrant inflammatory response whose precise etiology remains unknown.
• The role of an infectious (viral or bacterial) or non-infectious triggering factor on the ground of genetic susceptibility is generally accepted.
• The diagnosis generally remains a diagnosis of exclusion based on nonspecific clinical criteria (called Yamaguchi’s Criteria)
• AOSD is a rare, multisystem auto-inflammatory disorder characterized by fever, rash, arthritis, and hyperleukocytosis
• AOSD is 5x more frequently reported with COVID-19 vaccines than other drugs
• 144 cases with COVID-19 Vaccines in WHO VigiAccess, 15 from literature
• median age 43.4 years, female 52%, male 48%
• Time to onset ranged from 0 days to 6 months with a median of 8 days.
• 80% of AOSD occurred during the 1st three weeks and mostly with Pfizer
• Most of the cases (86.8%) have been reported as serious including 18 (11.3%) life-threatening conditions and two (1.2%) fatal outcomes.
• All cases required hospitalization
• More than 80% of AOSD had hyperferritinemia
• 12% of AOSD cases had a co-reported myocarditis or pericarditis
• 7% of AOSD cases were also diagnosed with HLH
• 2% of AOSD cases had HLH and myocarditis
• HLH (Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) also known as macrophage activation syndrome (MAS) is considered as the most serious life-threatening complication of AOSD

COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Immune System Damage 

(2022 Feb – Kim et al) give a nice summary:

• “AOSD is a rare systemic auto-inflammatory disorder characterized by high spiking fever, arthritis, an evanescent salmon-colored rash, and lab abnormalities including leukocytosis, high serum ferritin, elevated liver enzymes, and elevated acute phase reactants (APRs) such as ESR and CRP. “
• “Pathogenesis of AOSD remains unclear; however, dysregulation of the inflammasome complex with overproduction of pro-inflammatory cytokines(e.g., TNF-α, IL-1, IL-6, IL-18, and interferon-γ) appears to play a pivotal role. “
• “Treatment using biologics targeting these cytokines, such as the IL-6 receptor antagonist TCZ and IL-1 receptor antagonist Anakinra, has become an attractive therapeutic option in the recent years”
• COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine: “Possible pathologic mechanism is that mRNA transcribes into spike proteins which are displayed on antigen-presenting cells by molecular mimicry, leading to an acute immune response.
  • Another potential cause is that the mRNA vaccine acts as an adjuvant and stimulates innate immunity through endosomal and cytoplasmic immune receptors, such as Toll-like receptors
  • Pfizer mRNA vaccines may induce a significant increase in IL-6, IL-15, and interferon-γ, which play an important role in the pathogenesis of AOSD.

(2021 Dec – Park et al):

• Although the exact pathogenic mechanism of AOSD is not fully understood, innate immune system activation, rather than adaptive immunity, is implicated in the pathogenesis of AOSD.
• Danger signals such as pathogen-associated molecular patterns or damage associated molecular patterns are transmitted to macrophages and neutrophils via Toll-like receptors (TLR) leading to overproduction of interleukin (IL)-1β, which ultimately results in intense innate immune cell activation and overproduction of several proinflammatory cytokines, called ‘cytokine storm’.

My Take… 

• Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines severely damage the Immune System, which can cause a number of diseases
• Adult Onset Still’s Disease (AOSD) is one such disease of Immune damage
• EPOCH TIMES has an October 12, 2023 Article out called:
• COVID-19 Vaccines ‘May Trigger’ Rheumatic Inflammatory Diseases: Study
  • “A new review suggests that COVID vaccines “may trigger” rheumatic immune-mediated inflammatory diseases, including arthritis, vasculitis, lupus, and adult-onset Still’s Disease.”

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

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*** 

We are outraged by, mourn deeply, and unequivocally condemn the horrific actions of Hamas. According to Israeli sources, more than 1,200 people were killed and 2,900 injured, most of whom were civilians, and over 100 individuals (including children, women, and the elderly) were taken as hostages into Gaza. 

We call for the immediate release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian political prisoners.

Tikkun magazine and Beyt Tikkun: A Synagogue without Walls partnered with others to write a joint statement that we hope can help us rise above divisiveness and division and call us to our highest selves. 

What follows is our joint statement. We invite everyone who agrees with our statement to add your name. You can read the statement below and add your name by clicking here.

Solidarity with Israel/Palestine

This statement is written and signed by Palestinians, Jews, and others who are committed to holding complex truths and striving to overcome polarization. We feel the pain of our people, identify with their pain, and need to work together to uplift our shared humanity. 

The unfolding horror in Israel and Gaza is an escalation of decades of state-sanctioned violence by Israel against Palestinians. We condemn the horrific actions of Hamas against Israeli civilians. We likewise condemn Israel’s unbridled bombing and cutting off access to all basic needs, including food, water, electricity, and medical care. Attacks on Palestinian and Israeli civilians are repugnant. 

Israeli violence against Palestinians has been intentionally hidden, slow, and steady. Contrary to what the media is reporting, this attack was not unprovoked. The Israeli and American governments have worked together to suppress and deny the inhumane acts against Palestinians that have led to this moment. There are Palestinians and Jews who have been raising red flags and warning about this inevitable outcome for decades, only to be dismissed and ignored.

The world’s failure to challenge Israel’s ongoing occupation, apartheid, and unbridled violence by settlers and soldiers in the West Bank provides the context for what is happening now. The recent Israeli government’s escalation of violence, encroachment of Al Aqsa Mosque, and its 16-year siege of Gaza has led to the current explosion.

We repeat: the brutality of Hamas’ attack on Israeli civilians is unjustified. 

As we watch the violent attacks and rallying of xenophobia on both sides, we are brokenhearted. Although it feels like a time to stand with “our people,” we know this is a time to come together. This is a time of great suffering for all; a time of painful emotions. It is only by recognizing our shared fears and our shared tears that we will find our way through this nightmare. It is a struggle we need to undertake jointly. 

When we fall back into our separate and distinct identities we risk becoming part of the problem, not the solution. Both peoples suffer from ongoing trauma. We are all on high alert. The fear is palpable. And it is easy for us to objectify the ‘other.’ 

We seek a third path that neither perpetuates a xenophobic response nor sustains an unjust status quo. This moment calls us to slow down, sit with the pain and complexity, and grapple with our discomfort. It is a moment for digging deep, seeing across differences, and remembering our deep yearning for peace and justice. It is only through compassion and empathy that we will find a different way. 

We recognize and uplift the humanity of all peoples in Israel/Palestine. 

We call for an immediate ceasefire from Hamas and Israel.

We demand that basic needs be provided to Gazans. 

We demand that the United States provide only humanitarian support to Israel and Gaza. 

We support the creation of a movement that recognizes and affirms the humanity, dignity, and desire of both peoples to live in peace through reconciliation and justice.

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*** 

An Israeli woman who survived the Hamas assault on settlements near the Gaza boundary on 7 October says Israeli civilians were “undoubtedly” killed by their own security forces.

It happened when Israeli forces engaged in fierce gun battles with Palestinian fighters in Kibbutz Be’eri and fired indiscriminately at both the fighters and their Israeli prisoners.

“They eliminated everyone, including the hostages,” she told Israeli radio. “There was very, very heavy crossfire” and even tank shelling.

The woman, 44-year-old mother of three Yasmin Porat, said that prior to that, she and other civilians had been held by the Palestinians for several hours and treated “humanely.” She had fled the nearby “Nova” rave.

A recording of her interview, from the radio program Haboker Hazeh (“This Morning”) hosted by Aryeh Golan on state broadcaster Kan, has been circulating on social media.

The interview has been translated by The Electronic Intifada. You can listen to it with English subtitles in this video and a transcript is at the end of this article:

Notably, the interview is not included in the online version of Haboker Hazeh for 15 October, the episode in which it apparently aired.

It may well have been censored due to its explosive nature.

Porat, who is from Kabri, a settlement near the Lebanese border, undoubtedly experienced terrible things and saw many noncombatants killed. Her own partner, Tal Katz, is among the dead.

However, her account undermines Israel’s official story of deliberate, wanton murder by the Palestinian fighters.

Although it no longer appears on the Kan website, there can be little doubt about the recording’s authenticity.

At least one Hebrew-language account posted part of the interview on Twitter, now officially called X, and accused Kan of functioning as “media in the service of Hamas.”

Porat also gave her account to the Israeli newspaper Maariv.

However, the Maariv story, published on 9 October, makes no specific mention of civilians being killed by Israeli forces.

And in a half-hour interview with Israel’s Channel 12 on Thursday, Porat speaks of intense gunfire after Israeli forces arrived. Porat herself received a bullet in the thigh.

Treated “Humanely”

Not only does Porat tell Kan that Israelis were killed in the heavy counterattack by Israeli security forces, but she says she and other captive civilians were well treated by the Palestinian fighters.

Porat had been attending the “Nova” rave when the Hamas assault began with missiles and motorized paragliders. She and her partner Tal Katz escaped by car to nearby Kibbutz Be’eri where many of the events she describes in her media interviews took place.

According to Porat speaking to Maariv, she and Katz initially sought refuge in the house of a couple called Adi and Hadas Dagan. After the Palestinian fighters found them they were all taken to another house, where eight people were already being held captive and one person was dead.

Porat said that the wife of the dead man “told us that when they [the Hamas fighters] tried to enter, the guy tried to prevent them from entering and grabbed the door. They shot at the door and he was killed. They did not execute them.”

“They did not abuse us. They treated us very humanely,” Porat explained to a surprised Golan in the Kan radio interview.

“By that I mean they guard us,” she said. “They give us something to drink here and there. When they see we are nervous they calm us down. It was very frightening but no one treated us violently. Luckily nothing happened to me like what I heard in the media.”

“They were very humane towards us,” Porat said in her Channel 12 interview. She recalled that one Palestinian fighter who spoke Hebrew, “told me, ‘Look at me well, we’re not going to kill you. We want to take you to Gaza. We are not going to kill you. So be calm, you’re not going to die.’ That’s what he told me, in those words.”

“I was calm because I knew nothing would happen to me,” she added.

“They told us that we would not die, that they wanted to take us to Gaza and that the next day they would return us to the border,” Porat told Maariv.

In the Channel 12 interview, Porat elaborates that although the Palestinian fighters all had loaded weapons, she never saw them shoot captives or threaten them with their guns.

In addition to providing the captives with drinking water, she said the fighters let them go outside to the lawn because it was hot, especially as the electricity was cut.

Young and Scared

About eight hours after the start of the Hamas attack and about half an hour after Porat’s calls to the police, Israeli forces arrived and chaos ensued, Porat told Kan.

“At first there was no [Israeli] security force with us,” Porat recalled, noting that her first call to the Israeli police went unanswered. “We were the ones who called the police, together with the abductors because the abductors wanted the police to arrive. Because their objective was to kidnap us to Gaza.”

“They understand that soldiers will not kill hostages. So they want to come out with us alive and for the police to permit it,” Porat told Channel 12.

Though the Israeli captives numbered only a dozen, Porat was instructed to tell Israeli police that 40 of them were being held by the Hamas fighters, who themselves numbered between 40 and 50 men mostly in their 20s, by Porat’s estimate. They themselves were young and scared, she told Channel 12.

A fighter Porat described as a commander in his 30s asked to speak to the police and was put on with an Arabic-speaking Israeli officer.

After their brief conversation, the four dozen or so Palestinian fighters and their dozen Israeli prisoners awaited the arrival of the army, with some of the group spilling outside to the garden for relief from the afternoon heat.

Hails of Bullets, Mortars and Tank Shells

Israeli forces announced their arrival with a hail of gunfire, catching the fighters and their Israeli captives by surprise.

“We were outside and suddenly there was a volley of bullets at us from the [Israeli unit] YAMAM. We all started running to find cover, Porat told Channel 12.”

Porat said she surrendered to the Israeli soldiers half an hour into the fierce gun battle that consisted of “tens and hundreds and thousands of bullets and mortars flying in the air,” and that one of the Palestinian fighters, a commander, decided to surrender and used her in effect as a human shield.

“He starts to disrobe,” Porat recalled to Kan’s Aryeh Golan. “He calls to me and he starts to leave the house with me, under fire. At that time I yell to the [Israeli commandos] … when they can hear me, to stop firing.”

“And then they heard me and stopped firing,” she added. “I see people from the kibbutz on the lawn. There are five or six hostages lying on the ground outside. Just like sheep to the slaughter, between the shooting of our commandos and the terrorists.”

“The terrorists shot them?” Golan asks.

“No, they were killed by the crossfire,” Porat responds. “Understand there was very, very heavy crossfire.”

Golan presses: “So our forces may have shot them?”

“Undoubtedly,” the former captive responds, and adds, “They eliminated everyone, including the hostages because there was very, very heavy crossfire.”

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

Porat and the man who took her captive both survived. The Palestinian was taken prisoner by Israeli forces. But according to Porat, almost everyone else in the settlement was killed, wounded or missing, believed to have been taken to Gaza.

Porat told Kan she lost dozens of friends who had been at the rave – people she would regularly see at parties in Israel’s trance scene.

“I’m angry at the state, I’m angry at the army,” Porat told Maariv. “For 10 hours the kibbutz was abandoned.”

The joint American-Israeli effort to paint Hamas as worse than ISIS in order to justify Israel’s unfolding genocide against the civilian population in Gaza depends on the international public not seeing or hearing accounts like Porat’s.

Israeli leaders, already under intense criticism for failing to anticipate and prevent the Hamas offensive, will also not want their catastrophic failures to be compounded by knowledge that many of the Israelis who died may well have been killed by “friendly fire” in a disastrous Israeli counterattack.

Hannibal Directive?

Saleh al-Arouri, a senior Hamas military commander, has directly addressed Israel’s claims that his fighters set out to deliberately kill as many civilians as possible.

The Israeli propaganda campaign has included lurid atrocity tales – for which no evidence has been produced whatsoever – that Palestinians beheaded dozens of Israeli babies and that women were raped.

Al-Arouri said in an interview with Al Jazeera on Thursday that fighters of his organization’s military force, the Qassam Brigades, were under strict protocol to not harm civilians.

But al-Arouri said that after Israel’s Gaza division – the army unit that surrounds the Gaza Strip – collapsed much more quickly than expected, people in Gaza rushed to the boundary area after learning it had been opened, causing chaos. He said this may have included other armed persons who were not part of Qassam.

Al-Arouri said that this caused Qassam fighters to engage with soldiers, settlement guards and armed residents, which led to civilian deaths.

Al-Arouri also invoked the possibility Israel used the so-called Hannibal Directive – a protocol that allows Israeli forces to use overwhelming force to kill one of their own captured soldiers rather than allow them to be taken prisoner.

The rationale for the Hannibal Directive is to avoid allowing an enemy to have captives that can be used in prisoner exchange negotiations.

However in this case, if the directive was implemented by Israeli forces, it would have been used against civilians.

Al-Arouri told Al Jazeera, “We are certain that young men [fighters] were bombed along with the prisoners who were with them.”

Porat’s account, among others, underscores the need for an independent investigation, one which Israel is unlikely ever to permit.

The current propaganda narrative is simply too valuable to the genocidaires in Tel Aviv.

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Ali Abunimah is executive director of The Electronic Intifada.

David Sheen is the author of Kahanism and American Politics: The Democratic Party’s Decades-Long Courtship of Racist Fanatics.

Featured image: Yasmin Porat, a survivor of the bloodshed at Kibbutz Be’eri, near the boundary with Gaza, says many Israeli civilians were killed by Israeli forces. (Source: TEI)

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Transcript of the Kan interview with Yasmin Porat

Yasmin Porat: For an hour they were banging about 10 terrorists on the reinforced safe room. There were screams in Arabic and it was a very tense hour. And we felt great fear that’s indescribable. After an hour they managed to break in and they removed the four of us to a nearby house where there were already eight other additional hostages. We joined those eight and we were about 12 hostages with 40 terrorists that were guarding us. I’m keeping the story short.

Aryeh Golan: Did they abuse you?

Yasmin Porat: They did not abuse us. They treated us very humanely, meaning …

Aryeh Golan: Humanely? Really?

Yasmin Porat: Yes, by that I mean they guard us. They give us something to drink here and there. When they see we are nervous, they calm us down. It was very frightening but no one treated us violently. Luckily nothing happened to me like what I heard in the media.

Aryeh Golan: Horrible, horrific things occurred.

Yasmin Porat: True. But after two hours briefly at first there was no [Israeli] security force with us. We were the ones who called the police together with the abductors because the abductors wanted the police to arrive. Because their objective was to kidnap us to Gaza.

[SKIP OR CUT IN AUDIO]

Yasmin Porat: Meanwhile one of the terrorists decides to surrender, the terrorist I made a connection with. Over the course of those two hours I connected with some of the abductors, those that guarded the hostages.

Aryeh Golan: Yes

Yasmin Porat: And he decides to use me as a human shield. He decides to surrender. I am not aware of it in those moments its in retrospect. He starts to disrobe, he takes he calls to me and he starts to leave the house with me, under fire. At that time I yelled to the YAMAM [Israeli commandos] when we were already when they can hear me, to stop firing.

Aryeh Golan: Yes

Yasmin Porat: And then they hear me and stop firing. I see on the lawn, in the garden of the people from the kibbutz. There are five or six hostages lying on the ground outside, just like sheep to the slaughter, between the shooting of our [fighters] and the terrorists.

Aryeh Golan: The terrorists shot them?

Yasmin Porat: No, they were killed by the crossfire. Understand there was very, very heavy crossfire.

Aryeh Golan: So our forces may have shot them?

Yasmin Porat: Undoubtedly.

Aryeh Golan: When they tried to eliminate the abductors, Hamas?

Yasmin Porat: They eliminated everyone, including the hostages. Because there was very, very heavy crossfire. I was freed at approximately 5:30. The fighting apparently ended at 8:30. After insane crossfire, two tank shells were shot into the house. Its a small kibbutz house, nothing big. You saw it on the news.

Aryeh Golan: Yes

Yasmin Porat: Not a large place. And at that moment everyone was killed. There was quiet, except for one person limping, Hadas [Dagan], in the garden.

Aryeh Golan: How were they all killed?

Yasmin Porat: From the crossfire.

Aryeh Golan: Crossfire, so it could also be from our forces?

Yasmin Porat: Undoubtedly.

Aryeh Golan: Really?

Yasmin Porat: That’s what I believe.

Aryeh Golan: Oy it sounds so bad.

Yasmin Porat: Yes. And everyone died.

Aryeh Golan: And you, thanks to that terrorist who decided to give himself up …

Yasmin Porat: Exactly.

Aryeh Golan: And you survived and all the rest were killed there.

Yasmin Porat: Except for one other woman who survived, they found her later [trails off]. The person who dealt with the event checked her or something. They found her when she lifted her head, amongst all the bodies. And then, simply …

Aryeh Golan: And your partner, who was with you?

Yasmin Porat: Killed.

Aryeh Golan: He was killed too?

Yasmin Porat: Yes. Everyone was killed there. Just horrible.

Aryeh Golan: Have you returned to Kabri?

Yasmin Porat: I returned to Kabri and then the chaos started there.

Aryeh Golan: In the north?

Yasmin Porat: Yes. So now I’m a guest. I’m being hosted in a lovely way in Kibbutz Ein Harod. And I’m here for now.

Aryeh Golan: You’re in the [Jezreel] Valley now. Alright, Yasmin, you’ve undergone a horrific experience.

Yasmin Porat: True.

Aryeh Golan: You lost your partner, you saw people killed alongside you.

Yasmin Porat: And I …

Aryeh Golan: [INTERRUPTS] What happened to that terrorist who gave himself up?

Yasmin Porat: He is still arrested, and he was just called in for interrogation to help … You know, he will be interrogated about the accused. And sadly dozens more of my friends were killed because …

Aryeh Golan: [INTERRUPTS] Dozens of friends?

Yasmin Porat: Yes because its a community, the trance scene, we go to the same parties. It means that besides my partner, I knew dozens and hundreds [CUT OFF]

*

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