The Silent Shame of Health Institutions
J.R. Bruning
For how much longer will health policy ignore multimorbidity, that looming, giant elephant in the room, that propagates and amplifies suffering? For how much longer will the ‘trend’ of increasing diagnoses of multiple health conditions, at younger and younger ages be rendered down by government agencies to better and more efficient services, screening modalities, and drug choices?

Multimorbidity, the presence of many chronic conditions, is the silent shame of health policy.

All too often chronic conditions overlap and accumulate. From cancer, to diabetes, to digestive system diseases, to high blood pressure, to skin conditions in cascades of suffering. Heartbreakingly, these conditions commonly overlap with mental illnesses or disorders. It’s increasingly common for people to be diagnosed with multiple mental conditions, such as having anxiety and depression, or anxiety and schizophrenia.

Calls for equity tend to revolve around medical treatment, even as absurdities and injustices accrue.

Multimorbidity occurs a decade earlier in socioeconomically deprived communities. Doctors are diagnosing multimorbidity at younger and younger ages.

Treatment regimens for people with multiple conditions necessarily entail a polypharmacy approach – the prescribing of multiple medications. One condition may require multiple medications. Thus, with multimorbidity comes increased risk of adverse outcomes and polyiatrogenesis – ‘medical harm caused by medical treatments on multiple fronts simultaneously and in conjunction with one another.’

Side effects, whether short-term or patients’ concerns about long-term harm, are the main reason for non-adherence to prescribed medications.

So ‘equity’ which only implies drug treatment doesn’t involve equity at all.

Poor diets may be foundational to the Western world’s health crisis. But are governments considering this?

The antinomies are piling up.

We are amid a global epidemic of metabolic syndrome. Insulin resistance, obesity, elevated triglyceride levels and low levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and elevated blood pressure haunt the people queuing up to see doctors.

Research, from individual cases to clinical trials, consistently show that diets containing high levels of ultra-processed foods and carbohydrates amplify inflammation, oxidative stress, and insulin resistance. What researchers and scientists are also identifying, at the cellular level, in clinical and medical practice, and at the global level – is that insulin resistance, inflammation, oxidative stress, and nutrient deficiencies from poor diets not only drive metabolic illness, but mental illnesses, compounding suffering.

There is also ample evidence that the metabolic and mental health epidemic that is driving years lost due to disease, reducing productivity, and creating mayhem in personal lives – may be preventable and reversible.

Doctors generally recognise that poor diets are a problem. Ultra-processed foods are strongly associated with adult and childhood ill health. Ultra-processed foods are

‘formulations of ingredients, mostly of exclusive industrial use, typically created by series of industrial techniques and processes (hence ‘ultra-processed’).’

In the USA young people under age 19 consume on average 67% of their diet, while adults consume around 60% of their diet in ultra-processed food. Ultra-processed food contributes 60% of UK children’s calories; 42% of Australian children’s calories and over half the dietary calories for children and adolescents in Canada. In New Zealand in 2009-2010, ultra-processed foods contributed to the 45% (12 months), 42% (24 months), and 51% (60 months) of energy intake to the diets of children.

All too frequently, doctors are diagnosing both metabolic and mental illnesses.

What may be predictable is that a person is likely to develop insulin resistance, inflammation, oxidative stress, and nutrient deficiencies from chronic exposure to ultra-processed food. How this will manifest in a disease or syndrome condition is reflective of a human equivalent of quantum entanglement.

Cascades, feedback loops, and other interdependencies often leave doctors and patients bouncing from one condition to another, and managing medicine side effects and drug-drug relationships as they go.

In New Zealand it is more common to have multiple conditions than a single condition. The costs of having two NCDs simultaneously is typically superadditive and ‘more so for younger adults.’

This information is outside the ‘work programme’ of the top echelons in the Ministry of Health:

Official Information Act (OIA) requests confirm that the Ministries’ Directors General who are responsible for setting policy and long-term strategy aren’t considering these issues. The problem of multimorbidity and the overlapping, entangled relationship with ultra-processed food is outside of the scope of the work programme of the top directorates in our health agency.

New Zealand’s Ministry of Health’s top deputy directors general might be earning a quarter of a million dollars each, but they are ignorant of the relationship of dietary nutrition and mental health. Nor are they seemingly aware of the extent of multimorbidity and the overlap between metabolic and mental illnesses.

Neither the Public Health Agency Deputy Director-General – Dr Andrew Old, nor the Deputy Director-General Evidence, Research and Innovation, Dean Rutherford, nor the Deputy Director-General of Strategy Policy and Legislation, Maree Roberts, nor the Clinical, Community and Mental Health Deputy Director-General Robyn Shearer have been briefed on these relationships.

If they’re not being briefed, policy won’t be developed to address dietary nutrition. Diet will be lower-order.

The OIA request revealed that New Zealand’s Ministry of Health ‘does not widely use the metabolic syndrome classification.’ When I asked ‘How do you classify, or what term do you use to classify the cluster of symptoms characterised by central obesity, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and insulin resistance?’, they responded:

‘The conditions referred to are considered either on their own or as part of a broader cardiovascular disease risk calculation.’

This is interesting. What if governments should be calculating insulin resistance first, in order to then calculate a broader cardiovascular risk? What if insulin resistance, inflammation, and oxidative stress are appearing at younger and younger ages, and ultra-processed food is the major driver?

Pre-diabetes and Type 2 diabetes are driven by too much blood glucose. Type 1 diabetics can’t make insulin, while Type 2 diabetics can’t make enough to compensate for their dietary intake of carbohydrates. One of insulin’s (many) jobs is to tuck away that blood glucose into cells (as fat) but when there are too many dietary carbohydrates pumping up blood glucose, the body can’t keep up. New Zealand practitioners use the HbA1c blood test, which measures the average blood glucose level over the past 2-3 months. In New Zealand, doctors diagnose pre-diabetes if HbA1c levels are 41-49 nmol/mol, and diabetes at levels of 50 nmol/mol and above.

Type 2 diabetes management guidelines recommend that sugar intake should be reduced, while people should aim for consistent carbohydrates across the day. The New Zealand government does not recommend paleo or low-carbohydrate diets.

If you have diabetes you are twice as likely to have heart disease or a stroke, and at a younger age. Prediabetes, which apparently 20% of Kiwis have, is also high-risk due to, as the Ministry of Health states: ‘increased risk of macrovascular complications and early death.’

The question might become – should we be looking at insulin levels, to more sensitively gauge risk at an early stage?

Without more sensitive screens at younger ages these opportunities to repivot to avoid chronic disease are likely to be missed. Currently, Ministry of Health policies are unlikely to justify the funding of tests for insulin resistance by using three simple blood tests: fasting insulin, fasting lipids (cholesterol and triglycerides), and fasting glucose – to estimate where children, young people, and adults stand on the insulin resistance spectrum when other diagnoses pop up.

Yet insulin plays a powerful role in brain health.

Insulin supports neurotransmitter function and brain energy, directly impacting mood and behaviours. Insulin resistance might arrive before mental illness. Harvard-based psychiatrist Chris Palmer recounts in the book Brain Energy, a large 15,000-participant study of young people from age 0-24:

‘Children who had persistently high insulin levels (a sign of insulin resistance) beginning at age nine were five times more likely to be at risk for psychosis, meaning they were showing at least some worrisome signs, and they were three times for likely to already be diagnosed with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia by the time they turned twenty-four. This study clearly demonstrated that insulin resistance comes first, then psychosis.’

Psychiatrist Georgia Ede suggests that high blood glucose and high insulin levels act like a ‘deadly one-two punch’ for the brain, triggering waves of inflammation and oxidative stress. The blood-brain barrier becomes increasingly resistant to chronic high insulin levels. Even though the body might have higher blood insulin, the same may not be true for the brain. As Ede maintains, ‘cells deprived of adequate insulin ‘sputter and struggle to maintain normal operations.’

Looking at the relationship between brain health and high blood glucose and high insulin simply might not be on the programme for strategists looking at long-term planning.

Nor are Directors General in a position to assess the role of food addiction. Ultra-processed food has addictive qualities designed into the product formulations. Food addiction is increasingly recognised as pervasive and difficult to manage as any substance addiction.

But how many children and young people have insulin resistance and are showing markers for inflammation and oxidative stress – in the body and in the brain? To what extent do young people have both insulin resistance and depression resistance or ADHD or bipolar disorder?

This kind of thinking is completely outside the work programme. But insulin levels, inflammation, and oxidative stress may not only be driving chronic illness – but driving the global mental health tsunami.

Metabolic disorders are involved in complex pathways and feedback loops across body systems, and doctors learn this at medical school. Patterns and relationships between hormones, the brain, the gastrointestinal system, kidneys, and liver; as well as problems with joints and bone health, autoimmunity, nerves, and sensory conditions evolve from and revolve around metabolic health.

Nutrition and diet are downplayed in medical school. What doctors don’t learn so much – the cognitive dissonance that they must accept throughout their training – is that metabolic health is commonly (except for some instances) shaped by the quality of dietary nutrition. The aetiology of a given condition can be very different, while the evidence that common chronic and mental illnesses are accompanied by oxidative stress, inflammation, and insulin resistance are primarily driven by diet – is growing stronger and stronger.

But without recognising the overlapping relationships, policy to support healthy diets will remain limp.

What we witness are notions of equity that support pharmaceutical delivery – not health delivery.

What also inevitably happens is that ‘equity’ focuses on medical treatment. When the Ministry of Health prefers to atomise the different conditions or associate them with heart disease – they become single conditions to treat with single drugs. They’re lots of small problems, not one big problem, and insulin resistance is downplayed.

But just as insulin resistance, inflammation, and oxidative stress send cascading impacts across body systems, systemic ignorance sends cascading effects across government departments tasked with ‘improving, promoting, and protecting health.’

It’s an injustice. The literature solidly points to lower socio-economic status driving much poorer diets and increased exposures to ultra-processed food, but the treatments exclusively involve drugs and therapy.

Briefings to Incoming Ministers with the election of new Governments show how ignorance cascades across responsible authorities.

Health New Zealand, Te Whatu Ora’s November 2023 Briefing to the new government outlined the agency’s obligations. However, the ‘health’ targets are medical, and the agency’s focus is on infrastructure, staff, and servicing. The promotion of health, and health equity, which can only be addressed by addressing the determinants of health, is not addressed.

The Māori Health Authority and Health New Zealand Joint Briefing to the Incoming Minister for Mental Health does not address the role of diet and nutrition as a driver of mental illness and disorder in New Zealand. The issue of multimorbidity, the related problem of commensurate metabolic illness, and diet as a driver is outside scope. When the Briefing states that it is important to address the ‘social, cultural, environmental and economic determinants of mental health,’ without any sound policy footing, real movement to address diet will not happen, or will only happen ad hoc.

The Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission, Te Hiringa Mahara’s November 2023 Briefing to Incoming Ministers that went to the Ministers for Health and Mental Health might use the term ‘well-being’ over 120 times – but was silent on the related and overlapping drivers of mental illness which include metabolic or multimorbidity, nutrition, or diet.

Five years earlier, He Ara Ora, New Zealand’s 2018 Mental Health and Addiction enquiry had recognised that tāngata whaiora, people seeking wellness, or service users, also tend to have multiple health conditions. The enquiry recommended that a whole of government approach to well-being, prevention, and social determinants was required. Vague nods were made to diet and nutrition, but this was not sufficiently emphasised as to be a priority.

He Ara Ora was followed by 2020 Long-term pathway to mental well-being viewed nutrition as being one of a range of factors. No policy framework strategically prioritised diet, nutrition, and healthy food. No governmental obligation or commitment was built into policy to improve access to healthy food or nutrition education.

Understanding the science, the relationships, and the drivers of the global epidemic, is ‘outside the work programmes’ of New Zealand’s Ministry of Health and outside the scope of all the related authorities. There is an extraordinary amount of data in the scientific literature, so many case studies, cohort studies, and clinical trials. Popular books are being written, however government agencies remain ignorant.

In the meantime, doctors must deal with the suffering in front of them without an adequate toolkit.

Doctors and pharmacists are faced with a Hobson’s choice of managing multiple chronic conditions and complex drug cocktails, in patients at younger and younger ages. Ultimately, they are treating a patient whom they recognise will only become sicker, cost the health system more, and suffer more.

Currently there is little support for New Zealand medical doctors (known as general practitioners, or GPs) in changing practices and recommendations to support non-pharmaceutical drug treatment approaches. Their medical education does not equip them to recognise the extent to which multiple co-existing conditions may be alleviated or reversed. Doctors are paid to prescribe, to inject, and to screen, not to ameliorate or reverse disease and lessen prescribing. The prescribing of nutrients is discouraged and as doctors do not have nutritional training, they hesitate to prescribe nutrients.

Many do not want to risk going outside treatment guidelines. Recent surges in protocols and guidelines for medical doctors reduce flexibility and narrow treatment choices for doctors. If they were to be reported to the Medical Council of New Zealand, they would risk losing their medical license. They would then be unable to practice.

Inevitably, without Ministry of Health leadership, medical doctors in New Zealand are unlikely to voluntarily prescribe non-drug modalities such as nutritional options to any meaningful extent, for fear of being reported.

Yet some doctors are proactive, such as Dr Glen Davies in Taupo, New Zealand. Some doctors are in a better ‘place’ to work to alleviate and reverse long-term conditions. They may be later in their career, with 10-20 years of research into metabolism, dietary nutrition, and patient care, and motivated to guide a patient through a personal care regime which might alleviate or reverse a patient’s suffering.

Barriers include resourcing. Doctors aren’t paid for reversing disease and taking patients off medications.

Doctors witness daily the hopelessness felt by their patients in dealing with chronic conditions in their short 15-minute consultations, and the vigilance required for dealing with adverse drug effects. Drug non-compliance is associated with adverse effects suffered by patients. Yet without wrap-around support changing treatments, even if it has potential to alleviate multiple conditions, to reduce symptoms, lower prescribing and therefore lessen side effects, is just too uncertain.

They saw what happened to disobedient doctors during Covid-19.

Given such context, what are we to do?

Have open public discussions about doctor-patient relationships and trust. Inform and overlay such conversations by drawing attention to the foundational Hippocratic Oath made by doctors, to first do no harm.

Questions can be asked. If patients were to understand that diet may be an underlying driver of multiple conditions, and a change in diet and improvement in micronutrient status might alleviate suffering – would patients be more likely to change?

Economically, if wrap-around services were provided in clinics to support dietary change, would less harm occur to patients from worsening conditions that accompany many diseases (such as Type 2 diabetes) and the ever-present problem of drug side-effects? Would education and wrap-around services in early childhood and youth delay or prevent the onset of multimorbid diagnoses?

Is it more ethical to give young people a choice of treatment? Could doctors prescribe dietary changes and multinutrients and support change with wrap-around support when children and young people are first diagnosed with a mental health condition – from the clinic, to school, to after school? If that doesn’t work, then prescribe pharmaceutical drugs.

Should children and young people be educated to appreciate the extent to which their consumption of ultra-processed food likely drives their metabolic and mental health conditions? Not just in a blithe ‘eat healthy’ fashion that patently avoids discussing addiction. Through deeper policy mechanisms, including cooking classes and nutritional biology by the implementation of nourishing, low-carbohydrate cooked school lunches.

With officials uninformed, it’s easy to see why funding for Green Prescriptions that would support dietary changes have sputtered out. It’s easy to understand why neither the Ministry of Health nor Pharmac have proactively sourced multi-nutrient treatments that improve resilience to stress and trauma for low-income young people. Why there’s no discussion on a lower side-effect risk for multinutrient treatments. Why are there no policies in the education curriculum diving into the relationship between ultra-processed food and mental and physical health? It’s not in the work programme.

There’s another surfacing dilemma.

Currently, if doctors tell their patients that there is very good evidence that their disease or syndrome could be reversed, and this information is not held as factual information by New Zealand’s Ministry of Health – do doctors risk being accused of spreading misinformation?

Government agencies have pivoted in the past 5 years to focus intensively on the problem of dis- and misinformation. New Zealand’s disinformation project states that

Disinformation is false or modified information knowingly and deliberately shared to cause harm or achieve a broader aim.
Misinformation is information that is false or misleading, though not created or shared with the direct intention of causing harm.
Unfortunately, as we see, there is no division inside the Ministry of Health that reviews the latest evidence in the scientific literature, to ensure that policy decisions correctly reflect the latest evidence.

There is no scientific agency outside the Ministry of Health that has flexibility and the capacity to undertake autonomous, long-term monitoring and research in nutrition, diet, and health. There is no independent, autonomous, public health research facility with sufficient long-term funding to translate dietary and nutritional evidence into policy, particularly if it contradicted current policy positions.

Despite excellent research being undertaken, it is highly controlled, ad hoc, and frequently short-term. Problematically, there is no resourcing for those scientists to meaningfully feedback that information to either the Ministry of Health or to Members of Parliament and government Ministers.

Dietary guidelines can become locked in, and contradictions can fail to be chewed over. Without the capacity to address errors, information can become outdated and misleading. Government agencies and elected members – from local councils all the way up to government Ministers, are dependent on being informed by the Ministry of Health, when it comes to government policy.

When it comes to complex health conditions, and alleviating and reversing metabolic or mental illness, based on different patient capacity – from socio-economic, to cultural, to social, and taking into account capacity for change, what is sound, evidence-based information and what is misinformation?

In the impasse, who can we trust?

Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
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Author

J.R. Bruning is a consultant sociologist (B.Bus.Agribusiness; MA Sociology) based in New Zealand. Her work explores governance cultures, policy and the production of scientific and technical knowledge. Her Master’s thesis explored the ways science policy creates barriers to funding, stymying scientists’ efforts to explore upstream drivers of harm. Bruning is a trustee of Physicians & Scientists for Global Responsibility (PSGR.org.nz). Papers and writing can be found at TalkingRisk.NZ and at JRBruning.Substack.com and at Talking Risk on Rumble.

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Vladimir Putin: Satanism’s political power is waning
When Putin mentioned the “Western vampire ball,” he conveyed a profound message.

Jonas E. Alexis, Senior EditorMarch 19, 2024
VT Condemns the ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINIANS by USA/Israel

$ 280 BILLION US TAXPAYER DOLLARS INVESTED since 1948 in US/Israeli Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation Operation; $ 150B direct "aid" and $ 130B in "Offense" contracts
Source: Embassy of Israel, Washington, D.C. and US Department of State.

…by Jonas E. Alexis, VT Editor

No, Putin did not use the word “satanism” this time, but the words he did use are close enough. Recently, Putin explicitly referred to the ‘Western vampire ball’ and highlighted its imminent collapse before our eyes. First of all, what exactly is a vampire? Let’s consider Dracula, for example. How does he thrive?

Dracula sustains himself by drinking the blood of others, his existence entirely reliant on this gruesome act. This gives him a perverse sense of satisfaction. Therefore, when Putin mentioned the “Western vampire ball,” he conveyed a profound message. Consider how certain groups, such as Jewish Satanists, have metaphysically “drunk the blood” of people across the Middle East. Are they content?

No, because they are Satanists. Their insatiable thirst for blood cannot be satisfied, even with the vast resources of the Middle East and much of the world. When Putin entered the political arena a few years ago, he undoubtedly brought a breath of fresh air everywhere.

Additionally, when he won the election by a landslide, we know that Jewish Satanists in the United States, Neo-Nazis in Ukraine, and even within NATO, must have been trembling because Putin isn’t going to surrender to these ethnic cleansers and nation destroyers. According to Putin,

“Western elites have been ‘tearing to pieces [the] poor peoples of Africa’ and have exploited Latin America and Asia for 500 years.”

Putin doesn’t make statements that he can’t back up. One could argue that he is well-versed in history and political ideology, hence he knows that statements like this would agitate Satanists. But is the statement false? Just take a look at the twentieth century itself, and the evidence clearly shows that Putin is telling the truth. Putin elaborated:

“For centuries, they got used to stuffing their stomachs with human flesh and their pockets with money. But they must realize that this ‘ball of vampires’ is coming to an end.”

From Russia Today:

“Hawkish recent rhetoric by French President Emmanual Macron may have been an emotional outburst after his country retreated from its former colonial domains in Africa, Putin suggested. Paris has accused Moscow of undermining it, although Putin insisted that Russia ‘did not squeeze anyone out’ of the continent.”

Putin has more to say about Satanists who persist in drinking other people’s blood, particularly in Ukraine:

“They were sending their people into the meat grinder. Soldiers were literally barefoot recently [due to supply problems]. For us [the Ukraine conflict] is a matter of life and death; for them it’s a matter of improving their tactical position [globally and in Europe].”



In other words, Putin isn’t going to surrender to Jewish Satanists and Neocon shills. He will continue the fight to the end.

Two thumbs up for Vladimir Putin.

First published on March 18, 2024.


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https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/03/vladimir-putin-satanisms-political-power-is-waning/

ISIS claims responsibility for attack at Moscow-area concert venue that left at least 60 dead
CNN — normal
ISIS has claimed responsibility for an attack at a popular concert hall complex near Moscow Friday after assailants stormed the venue with guns and incendiary devices, killing at least 60 people and injuring 145.

The terror group took responsibility for the attack in a short statement published by ISIS-affiliated news agency Amaq on Telegram on Friday. It did not provide evidence to support the claim.

Video footage from the Crocus City Hall shows the vast complex, which is home to both the music hall and a shopping center, on fire with smoke billowing into the air. State-run RIA Novosti reported the armed individuals “opened fire with automatic weapons” and “threw a grenade or an incendiary bomb, which started a fire.” They then “allegedly fled in a white Renault car,” the news agency said.

State media Russia 24 reported the roof of the venue has partially collapsed.

The fire had been brought largely under control more than six hours later. “There are still some pockets of fire, but the fire has been mostly eliminated,” Moscow governor Andrey Vorobyov said on Telegram.

The deadliest terror attack on Moscow in decades, Friday’s assault came less than a week after President Vladimir Putin won a stage-managed election by an overwhelming majority to secure another term in office, tightening his grip on the country he has ruled since the turn of the century.

With attention focused on the country’s war with neighboring Ukraine, Putin had trumpeted a message of national security before Russians went to the polls.

The carnage broke out before a concert by the band Picnic, according to Russia 24.

“Unidentified people in camouflage broke into Crocus City Hall and started shooting before the start of the concert,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said, cited by TASS.

This screen grab from video shows armed men inside the Crocus City Hall concert venue in Moscow region, Russia. CNN can not verify whether these are the armed attackers or Russian authorities moving in.
Video footage showed panic as the attack unfolded, with crowds of people huddling together, screaming and ducking behind cushioned seats as gunshots started echoing in the vast hall. One group sheltering next to a large wall of windows outside the concert venue were forced to break them to escape the gunfire, video obtained by CNN shows.

Footage geolocated by CNN shows an armed individual starting at least one fire inside the venue. The individual is seen carrying something in their hand and, as they walk off-screen, a bright flash of light from a large flame is seen in the video.

A SWAT team was called to the area and more than 70 ambulance teams and doctors assisted victims.

One hundred and forty-five people have been hospitalized, TASS reported. Sixty people are in a “serious condition.”

According to the Kremlin, Putin was informed about the attack and is being kept updated on measures on the ground.

The president on Saturday wished those injured in the attack a speedy recovery, the state-run RIA-Novosti news agency said. He also “conveyed his gratitude to the doctors,” RIA added.

Around 100 people were evacuated from the building by firefighters, TASS reported.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin called the attack a “terrible tragedy.”

“My condolences to the loved ones of the victims. I gave orders to provide all necessary assistance to everyone who suffered during the incident,” Sobyanin said in a statement.

Sobyanin said on Telegram that he was canceling all sports, cultural and other public events in Moscow this weekend.

Picnic’s manager told state media that the performers were unharmed.

Shaman, the band’s singer, said he would pay for the funerals of the victims and treatment for those injured.

“We are all one big family. And in a family there is no such thing as somebody else’s grief,” the singer, known for his nationalistic views, said in a video posted on the Russian social media network Vkontakte to his more than 600,000 followers.

“My people, any troubles and misfortunes have always united our country. They have made Russia tougher and stronger. It will not be possible to frighten and break us this time either.”

ISIS claims responsibility for Moscow attack that killed 40

02:51 - Source: CNN
US had warned of potential attack

Earlier this month, the US embassy in Russia said it was “monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow,” including concerts. The embassy warned US citizens to avoid large gatherings. On Friday, following reports of the Crocus City Hall attack, it advised US citizens not to travel to Russia.

Starting in November, there has been a steady stream of intelligence that ISIS-K was determined to attack in Russia, according to two sources familiar with the information.

ISIS-K stands for ISIS-Khorasan, the terror organization’s affiliate that is active in Afghanistan and the surrounding region.

US National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the US government had had information about a planned terrorist attack in Moscow – potentially targeting large gatherings, to include concerts – and that this is what prompted the State Department to issue the public advisory.

“The US government also shared this information with Russian authorities in accordance with its longstanding ‘duty to warn’ policy,” Watson said.

In a speech Tuesday, Putin had blasted the American warnings as “provocative,” saying “these actions resemble outright blackmail and the intention to intimidate and destabilize our society.”

In March alone, Russian authorities had thwarted several ISIS-related incidents, according to RIA. On March 3, RIA reported that six ISIS members were killed in a counter-terrorist operation in the Ingush Karabulak; on March 7, it said security services had uncovered and “neutralized” a cell of the banned organization Vilayat Khorasan in the Kaluga region, whose members were planning an attack on a synagogue in Moscow; and on March 20, it said the commander of an ISIS combat group had been detained.

A US official said Friday that Washington had no reason to doubt ISIS’ claim that it was responsible for the latest attack.

International response

Ukraine, which has been embroiled in a war with Russia for more than two years, denied any involvement in the attack.

“Ukraine has never resorted to the use of terrorist methods,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak wrote, in part, in a post on X. He said he believed Russia would use the attack to justify the ongoing conflict and scale up operations as part of “military propaganda” in Ukraine.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres late Friday condemned “in the strongest possible terms today’s terrorist attack” according to a statement released by his deputy spokesperson, Farhan Haq.

“The secretary-general conveys his deep condolences to the bereaved families and the people and the government of the Russian Federation. He wishes those injured a speedy recovery,” the statement said.

In a separate statement, the UN Security Council called the attack “heinous and cowardly.”

Chinese leader Xi Jinping offered his condolences to Putin on Saturday “over the serious terrorist attack that caused heavy casualties,” according to a report from Chinese state media.

French President Emmanuel Macron also condemned the attack. “France expresses its solidarity with the victims, their loved ones and all the Russian people,” the Elysee Palace said, AFP and Reuters reported.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman both also denounced the attack.

CNN’s Eva Rothenberg, Paul Murphy and Hannah Strange contributed to this reporting.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/22/europe/crocus-moscow-shooting/index.html

Angry French farmers storm into Paris agriculture fair.
Protesters clash with police before planned visit by French president Emmanuel Macron.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/24/angry-french-farmers-storm-into-paris-agriculture-fair

MACRON, FRANCE. 3 YEARS IN PRISON FOR CRITICISING PFIZER!!!! NEW LAW.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/YnFe8Sf5gVCp/

France: ANY Criticism Of The mRNA DEATHVAX™ Platform Punishable Up To 3 Years Imprisonment And 45,000 Euros
2nd Smartest Guy in the World
The WEF-captured government of France has pushed through a draconian new law entitled Article 4. This Orwellian and unconstitutional color of law power grab is a purposely poor attempt at obscuring the irrefutable slow kill bioweapon death and destruction data.

What makes Article 4 particularly incendiary is that the majority of the French population has been outright refusing all “vaccinations.” Throttling their free speech as it pertains to gene modifying poisons will only increase the already heightened tensions between the criminal Macron administration and the awakening French populace, by design.


Between WEF puppet Trudeau in Canada and WEF puppet Macron in France, there is now a race to create the most totalitarian technocommunist nation in the West, with France now taking a slight lead; to wit:


These policies and “laws” are nothing more than an extension of the ongoing democide, and the associated iatrocide.

Meanwhile, back in the USSA, the Center for Disease Crimes (CDC) is still at it with their “Trust the Science” mendacity and murder:


Readers of this Substack fully appreciate the myocarditis and turbo cancer epidemics currently underway — not to mention soaring excess non-PSYOP-19 mortality — since the rollout of the “vaccines:”


Removing all BigPharma legal liabilities and prosecuting the various “health” agencies like the FDA, CDC, NIH, et al. has never been more urgent.

France’s Article 4 is just a hint at what is to come, especially if the WHO’s Pandemic Treaty scam ever passes in the various nations that they are attempting to further hijack.

The ❤️ VALENTINES DAY "HEART HEALTH" FLASH SALE ❤️ ends today, so this is your last chance to get 20% off on Doxycycline, as well as Ivermectin, and Fenbendazole by using code VAL20

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https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/02/france-any-criticism-of-mrna-deathvax.html

ENTRY #10 - Get a Grounding Sheet
New opinion: grounding is super powerful.

Schoolboy Macgregor
Hi everyone, I’ve been given cause to return to the subject of grounding, on which I gave a short introduction in Entry #7, and reason to think that it’s more powerful than I first suspected.

In Entry #3, where I presented a case for the use of tobacco in this fight, I reported that I had suffered from shedding related heart problems last year. Going through that wasn’t much fun but my issues eventually subsided and after being alright for about a year, they returned last week.

A shortness of the breath came over me one night. I noticed that my pulse had become much lower, and coldness in the body and extremities soon onset. My heart, which also felt cold, was beset by a tightness and spasming as though it was trying to shift some form of blockage, and I felt like I needed to fight to retain consciousness. I thought I might be able to jumpstart myself by going for a walk, but that didn’t work and the winter chill fast pushed me back inside.

Here we go again, I thought. If I make it out I’m back to the medicines, back to macrodosing the sauna, and back in the woods, but since I’m already using tobacco - I can’t smoke my way out like the last time.

But then, two mornings later, I was completely fine. Having braced myself for a long struggle, everything was back to normal. That was weird - last year this lasted for weeks. Managing to sleep helped, and the day following the relapse I’d been to the sauna, feeling better for it but with the issue undefeated. But how come I’m better all of a sudden? That evening the answer hit me - the night prior I had slept grounded.

After looking into grounding I got one of these mattress sheets that earth when plugged into an electrical socket. Initially I wasn’t hugely confident in its effectiveness. I didn’t register much difference in the quality of my sleep, and didn’t know if the reason I felt more relaxed when I lied on it wasn’t a placebo. Furthermore, you’re meant to check that the socket you plug it into is grounded - and since I didn’t do this, I couldn’t say that any sensation I felt wasn’t the result of me being wired into the mains. So generally, I gave the sheet a miss.

The night that these problems returned I didn’t use the sheet. But the following night, as opposed to covering it with a bed sheet, I slept directly atop it for the first time. And miraculously, I woke up in a state of blessed normality.

A potential stifling effect of the overlaying bed sheet, or that I lacked problems for the sheet to fix when I first used it, may both have been the cause of my doubts. But it’s suffice to say that my doubts are gone, and that the socket works just fine. What I had felt initially wasn’t a result of being plugged into the grid overnight but rather, being plugged into the earth.

Lying on it now, I can feel my blood vessels relax and open up, my breath become deeper, and tension drain from the body. Bits of you start to tingle and there’s a pleasant sensation to relax into as the body is nourished by electrons.

How, precisely, my symptoms came to manifest - I don’t know. And how many of grounding’s array of healing properties were responsible for sorting me out - I also can’t say. It is, however, the case that blood becomes less viscous in a grounded state, whereby the red blood cells are coated with electrons, and charged such that they repel one another, causing the blood to thin and become easier for the heart to pump. That, I imagine, probably had a lot to do with it.


Red blood cells before and after grounding. Source.
Other effects of grounding include but are not limited to: the arrest of excess inflammation, excess electrical charge removal, free radical neutralisation, a ‘calming impact on brain electrical activity’, ‘muscle tension normalisation’, and, as I suspect, improvement to bodily pH levels.

Grounding’s similarity to ASEA Redox Molecules

I’ve noticed that the effects of grounding are striking in their similarity to those of ASEA Redox Molecules, the bedrock supplement to Dr Ariyana Love’s detox protocol.

Over and over, when I see the studied effects of ASEA, I think grounding. EMF mitigation, reduced blood viscosity, mitochondrial support, the fact that it helps with autism. This could of course be two medicines, as it were, sharing the same effects, but the clue is in the name.

‘Redox’ is short for ‘reduction-oxidation’. Reduction-oxidation, if I understand this correctly, being the reactions whereby molecules are either ‘oxidised’, where they lose electrons, or are ‘reduced’, where they gain them (yeah it’s confusing). For us, we’re after the reduction side of the story. Electrons are good for us and we need them. That’s what grounding does, and by the sounds of it, what ASEA does as well.

Though this ASEA stuff works (laboratory and testimonial evidence abound), it’s brutally expensive for most people. If you’re about to die - you don’t care how much it costs, but it does cost enough to price out many who would purchase it, and enough to repel the unconvinced. If it were the case that ASEA could be supplemented, or even replaced by grounding, then that would be a huge move forward for the accessibility of detox.

Get a grounding sheet!

I thought to write this article to relay the message that grounding sheets work, and that I believe them to be more powerful than you might think. It went a bit off piste with the ASEA stuff - further questions will have to be investigated here, for instance - if the effects are the same, what amount of grounding is equal to what dose of ASEA?

But, putting that to one side for now, go and get a grounding sheet!

The one I have is made by the company ‘Rowland Earthing’ - and it may or may not work when used with a bedsheet.

And in other news, subscriber payments are now live❗Donations are like rocket fuel for this publication. As well as being extremely motivating, each one brings me closer to the threshold where I’ll be able to go full time into this project. If you’re able to support me, I would be very grateful 🙏😌

But if you’re on a budget, get the grounding sheet first.

Share THIS SUBSTACK IS ABOUT COVID VACCINE DETOX

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I’m going to have to check that all at some point, but I’m pretty sure it’s on the right lines.


Here's one of my clients sharing his testimony with Grounding technology, a clear example of combining nature with technology for a healing effect.

https://open.substack.com/pub/covidvaccinedetox/p/entry-10-get-a-grounding-sheet?r=1s7u2n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web


https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/02/entry-10-get-grounding-sheet-new.html

Macron and his wife enjoyed a "sumptuous gala dinner"
#MacronDestitution #France #AgriculteurEnColeres

SCENES FROM FRANCE AS THE PEOPLE RISE UP AGAINST THE TYRANNICAL MACRON NWO REGIME
https://www.bitchute.com/video/gMYLhOuFV5jD/

#France
#MacronNousPrendPourDesCons
#AgriculteursEnColere
#agriculteurs #protesters

Agricultores mantienen bloqueadas varias carreteras en Francia en señal de protesta por las políticas del Gobierno de Emmanuel Macron y de la Unión Europea sobre el sector agrícola.

El Gobierno de Francia teme que las manifestaciones se extiendan por todo el país, al igual que lo ocurrido en Países Bajos, Rumanía, Polonia o Alemania.

Javier Milei disertará en el Foro de Davos, cuna del globalismo, el 17 de enero: encuentro con Klaus Schwab y Emmanuel Macron.
https://kontrainfo.com/javier-milei-disertara-en-el-foro-de-davos-cuna-del-globalismo-el-17-de-enero-encuentro-con-klaus-schwab-y-emmanuel-macron/

‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 92: International community rejects Israeli calls for Gaza ethnic cleansing as assault nears three-month mark
Bombardment, death, and starvation continue to take their toll on Gaza, as the international community denounces Israeli ministers’ calls for the ethnic cleansing of the devastated Palestinian territory.

Mondoweiss Palestine BureauJanuary 6, 2024
People look on as the Jordanian army carries an airdrop of medicines and supplies at the Jordanian field hospital in Khan Younis, January 4, 2024. (Photo: © Haitham Imad/EFE via ZUMA Press/APA Images)
Palestinians look on as the Jordanian army carries out an airdrop of medicines and supplies at the Jordanian field hospital in Khan Younis, January 4, 2024. (Photo: © Haitham Imad/EFE via ZUMA Press/APA Images)
Casualties:

22,722 killed* and at least 58,166 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
322 Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
*This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on January 6. Due to breakdowns in communication networks within the Gaza Strip, the Ministry of Health in Gaza has been unable to regularly and accurately update its tolls since mid-November. Some rights groups say the death toll is higher than 30,000 when accounting for those presumed dead.

Key Developments

Israel continues to bombard Gaza relentlessly, killing 122 Palestinians and injuring 256 more in the span of 24 hours.
Gaza’s government media office reports allegations that Israeli forces desecrated graves, seized bodies in al-Tuffah cemetery.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor estimated that 4% of Gaza’s population is either dead, wounded, or missing, as UNICEF warns that 90 percent of children under the age of two are subjected to ‘severe food poverty.’
World Health Organization records almost 600 attacks on Gaza’s healthcare sector since October 7.
UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths: “We continue to demand an immediate end to the war, not just for the people of Gaza and its threatened neighbors, but for the generations to come who will never forget these 90 days of hell and of assaults on the most basic precepts of humanity.”
Meanwhile, Israel’s Knesset hosts calls for UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, to be shuttered.
The international community reacts strongly to Israeli ministers’ calls for Palestinians to be expelled from Gaza, with Scotland’s first minister saying: “That is the textbook definition of ethnic cleansing.”
Congo, Rwanda, and Chad deny reports that their governments have been in talks with Israel to host thousands of Palestinian refugees.
Hezbollah fires dozens of rockets toward northern Israel and occupied Lebanese territories, calling it “the first response” to the assassination of Hamas senior leader Saleh al-Aruri, while Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warns that time is running out to de-escalate hostilities with Lebanon.
“Destruction” is one of the three pillars of peace, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu writes in a Jerusalem Post Op-Ed.
Turkey formally arrests 15 people suspected of having ties with Israel’s Mossad.
Palestinians mourn as bodies of deceased loved one are taken out of the mortuary of Al-Aqsa Hospital for burial in Deir El-Balah, Gaza on January 05, 2024. (Photo: Ali Hamad/APA Images)
Palestinians mourn as bodies of deceased loved one are taken out of the mortuary of Al-Aqsa Hospital for burial in Deir El-Balah, Gaza on January 05, 2024. (Photo: Ali Hamad/APA Images)
Gaza: The war must end, aid groups implore

As the three-month mark since October 7 nears, humanitarian and rights groups are ramping up their pleas for the war to come to an end, as Israeli-inflicted bombardments, death, injury, sickness, and famine plague the entire population of Gaza.

According to WAFA news agency, Israeli airstrikes hit the areas of al-Zawaida, al-Maghazi, Khuza’a, Beit Lahia, and Khan Younis since Friday, adding that Israeli snipers were targeting civilians trying to flee in central Gaza.

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Israeli forces reportedly targeted the vicinity of a number of medical centers, including the European, Al-Amal, and Nasser hospitals in Khan Younis, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in Deir al-Balah. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “hospitals in Gaza and other vital medical infrastructure have been attacked nearly 600 times” since October 7 – averaging more than six attacks per day on Gaza’s strained healthcare system.

According to the Gaza Ministry of Health on Saturday, Israeli forces killed at least 122 Palestinians and injured 256 more in the span of 24 hours, raising the total toll to 22,722 killed and 58,166 wounded since October 7. Thousands more are believed to be either missing or stuck under the rubble.

According to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, 4 percent of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million inhabitants – or around 90,000 people – “are now dead, wounded, or missing,” noting that the onslaught has been a “mass-disabling event.”

Meanwhile, Palestinian resistance groups reported ongoing fighting with Israeli ground forces in the areas of Gaza City, Khan Younis, Bani Suheila, and al-Maghazi.

The Government Media Office reported on Saturday that Israeli bulldozers had flattened through a cemetery in the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of al-Tuffah, destroying graves, running over corpses, and allegedly seizing the bodies of 150 recently deceased Palestinians. “This raises suspicions of another crime, namely the theft of organs of the martyrs,” the office said in a statement. Palestinians have long accused Israel of harvesting the organs of dead Palestinians without their families’ consent, claims that have been corroborated in the past by Israeli doctors.

Almost exactly three months to the day since October 7, humanitarian and human rights groups are multiplying desperate calls for an end to the multifaceted and relentless devastation in Gaza caused by Israel’s merciless pummelling of the small occupied territory.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Al Mezan, and Al-Haq denounced in a statement on Friday Israel’s deliberate attacks on internally displaced people in Gaza.

“The plight of 1.9 million displaced Palestinians, with hundreds of thousands subjected to repeated evacuations amid continuous Israeli bombing, has reached an intolerable level, leaving an indelible mark of shame on the world. Many in Gaza have been compelled to move multiple times, in harsh cold weather, leaving behind all their belongings. They are crammed into limited geographical areas without healthcare and at a time when communicable diseases and epidemics are spreading. People endure starvation and thirst, while Israeli relentless attacks persist,” the rights groups said.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on X that France and Jordan had airdropped aid into Gaza, while British Foreign Secretary David Cameron reiterated on Friday his calls for the entry of more humanitarian aid.

According to UNICEF, 90 percent of children under two in Gaza are now subject to “severe food poverty,” while cases of diarrhea in children under the age of 5 have skyrocketed to 3,200 new cases per day, compared to an average of 2,000 per month prior to October, due to the absence of sufficient hygiene facilities and products and Israel’s destruction of critical infrastructure in Gaza.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) meanwhile reported that Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza was “severely flooded with water and waste […] the consequence of damage to the Abu Rasheed reservoir pumping station and infiltration from the lagoon in Jabalia.” “This poses life-threatening risks of contamination and outbreak of communicable diseases among already vulnerable communities residing in overcrowded conditions,” OCHA wrote.

OCHA Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths delivered an impassioned plea on Friday calling for the international community to bring the deadly conflict to an end.

“We continue to demand an immediate end to the war, not just for the people of Gaza and its threatened neighbors, but for the generations to come who will never forget these 90 days of hell and of assaults on the most basic precepts of humanity,” Griffiths wrote.

“This war should never have started. But it’s long past time for it to end.”

Palestinian children collect firewood at the destroyed Hamad Town residential complex in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, on January 06, 2024. (Photo: Bashar Taleb/APA Images)
Palestinian children collect firewood at the destroyed Hamad Town residential complex in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, on January 06, 2024. (Photo: Bashar Taleb/APA Images)
Hezbollah fires rockets, as Israeli forces injure dozens in the West Bank

One day after a much anticipated speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in the wake of Israel’s assassination of Hamas senior leader Saleh al-Aruri in the suburbs of Beirut, the Lebanese resistance movement fired a volley of rockets towards northern Israel and the occupied Shebaa Farms on Saturday.

Hezbollah said it had launched more than 60 rockets early on Saturday, calling it “the first response to the crime of assassinating the great leader Saleh al-Aruri.” Israeli media reported that rocket sirens were continuing to sound across northern Israel throughout the morning.

Lebanese media meanwhile reported that the Israeli army had carried out a number of strikes in southern Lebanon, injuring at least one person.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant meanwhile warned on Friday that time was running out to de-escalate tensions with Hezbollah and prevent the outbreak of a full-blown war on the northern front.

“We prefer the path of an agreed-upon diplomatic settlement, but we are getting close to the point where the hourglass will turn over,” the Times of Israel quoted him as saying.

Hezbollah is only one of several non-state actors in the region to have taken up arms in support of Palestinians in recent months. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq group claimed on Friday to have launched yet another rocket attack on a U.S. military base in Erbil, while a “maritime security event” was reported on Saturday in the Red Sea, where the Yemeni Houthi group has been launching a series of attacks on commercial vessels in solidarity with Gaza, disrupting a major global trade route.

In the occupied West Bank, local Palestinian resistance groups reported armed confrontations with Israeli forces in Balata refugee camp, Qalqilya, Nablus, Ya’bad, and Tulkarem.

WAFA news agency reported that Israeli soldiers and settlers injured several Palestinians, including a 12-year-old boy, in Tulkarem, Anabta, Shweika, Ya’bad, Tura, Surif, Qabatiya, Madama, and Qatana. Israeli forces reportedly detained two women in Shweika, both wives of Palestinians currently or formerly imprisoned by Israel.

International community rejects Israeli ministers’ calls for Gaza ethnic cleansing

Meanwhile, the international community has been slamming calls by far-right Israeli ministers to expel the majority of Gaza’s population to other countries.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh has reportedly been in contact with senior European Union officials expressing fears that Israel may take advantage of the international community’s humanitarian initiative, such as the transfer of wounded Palestinians for treatment abroad, to permanently displace large swathes of the population.

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna was quoted by WAFA as saying that the calls by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir were “irresponsible and keep us away from a solution.”

“Gaza is a Palestinian land that wants to become part of the future Palestinian state,” she said, seemingly in response to high-level, unilateral discussions within Israeli leadership about the future of Gaza.

While states such as Bahrain and Japan also expressed concern, Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf strongly condemned any plans for Israel to expel Palestinians from Gaza. “That is the textbook definition of ethnic cleansing and must be called out,” he said.

Meanwhile, the governments of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Chad have publicly denied Israeli media reports alleging that the three countries were in talks with Israel to take in thousands of Palestinians.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Turkey on Saturday on the first leg of his latest Mideast tour, where he met President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and reportedly discussed the situation in Gaza.

In a statement on Saturday, Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh said the Palestinian group hoped “that Mr. Blinken has drawn lessons from the past three months and realized the magnitude of the mistakes made by the United States in its blind support of the Zionist occupation […] We also hope that his focus this time will be on ending the aggression as a step towards ending the occupation of all Palestinian land.”

Yet former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, who was visiting Israel on Friday, said it was “so important that the U.S. makes it clear that we are with Israel today, we will be with Israel tomorrow and we will be with Israel every day until the threat of Hamas is eliminated.”

Both Donald Trump, under whom Pence served, and current U.S. President Joe Biden have been staunch supporters of Israel.

Israel’s politicians remain divided on the details

Cracks within the Israeli leadership are becoming more and more apparent after reports emerged this week of shouting matches between the country’s military leadership and the most far-right elements of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government.

Retired army general and former Netanyahu political rival Benny Gantz – who became a war cabinet minister after October 7 – warned the premier that it was his “responsibility to fix this, and to choose between unity and security, or politics.”

As Israeli outlets like Haaretz predict that the opposition against Netanyahu, which had been put on the back burner for the past three months, could once again come to the fore, the embattled prime minister stood his ground in an Op-Ed published by the Jerusalem Post.

“Peace rests upon the three pillars of destruction, demilitarization, and deradicalization,” he wrote, adding that Hamas’ “destruction is the only proportional response to prevent the repeat of such horrific atrocities” committed on October 7.

In his own Op-Ed in the same newspaper, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid criticized Netanyahu and his government’s continued refusal for the P.A. to be involved in the administration of the Gaza Strip after the war, while noting that none of his opponents within Israel have advocated for this option.

“Netanyahu has fabricated a fictional adversary that he pledges to subdue. Let’s hope that at least in this regard, he will do a better job than he has against the real enemies we’ve been fighting in Gaza and on Israel’s northern border,” Lapid wrote.

“What is good for the State of Israel is bad for the maintenance of his government,” he added. “You cannot shape reality when you are dependent on a group of people who deny the existence of that reality.”

As various Israeli political factions debate the finer points of a “day after” plan for which they refuse to involve Palestinians themselves, the families of six Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza landed in Qatar on Friday in hopes of reviving talks for another hostage swap deal, amid growing fears that more of their loved ones could die amid continued Israeli bombardment and starvation of the Gaza Strip.

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https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-92-international-community-rejects-israeli-calls-for-gaza-ethnic-cleansing-as-assault-nears-three-month-mark/