Israeli massacres, evacuation orders, torture continue unabated – Day 302
[email protected] August 5, 2024 ceasefire, evacuation orders, freedom flotilla, Gaza education, humanitarian aid, israeli mass surveillance, israeli settler violence, massacre, palestinian prisoner torture, pope francis
An aerial view of the makeshift tents set up in the coastal area as Palestinians, who left their homes due to Israeli attacks, try to survive under difficult conditions in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on May 16, 2024. (photo)
Bombs without warning, Gazans on the move again; more reports of prisoner torture; Gaza’s kids have lost one full school year; Israeli settlers storm Al Aqsa mosque; Israel adds new conditions to ceasefire proposal; Amazon provides storage for Israeli military mass surveillance; US military build-up in Middle East – “for peace”; VP contenders Shapiro & Pritzker are Israel partisans; more.

By IAK staff, from reports.

At least 19 killed when Israel bombs several camps in besieged Gaza Strip


Middle East Monitor reports: At least 19 Palestinians were reportedly killed and several others injured on Sunday in an Israeli attack targeting various areas of the besieged Gaza Strip.

Separately, Israeli army vehicles stationed on the eastern border of the central governorate fired intensively at eastern areas of the Bureij and Maghazi camps.

Children among 30 killed after Israel bombs two schools in Gaza without warning

Al Jazeera reports: At least 30 people have been killed and many others injured in Israeli strikes on two United Nations-run schools in the west of Gaza City.

The latest death toll was reported to Al Jazeera by Dr Marwan al-Hams, the director of hospitals in the Gaza Ministry of Health.

According to the Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza, 80 percent of those killed and injured in the strikes on Sunday on the Hassan Salama and al-Nasr schools were children.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said that the schools, which have been used as shelters by displaced Palestinians, have been severely damaged.

“This is the same exact scenario that we’ve seen in the past few days. What we know for a fact right now is that there is [a] concentration of attacks on evacuation centers. What’s really concerning about that is … that the Israeli military is not giving any prior warning to people inside these evacuation centers,” Mahmoud said.

The correspondent noted that most of the buildings used as shelters for the displaced in Gaza are schools, as they are the only large spaces available now to house a significant number of people.

“This is happening in an unpredictable way, causing severe casualties and increasing the trauma of a population already displaced in some cases up to five, six or seven times across the northern part of the Gaza Strip,” Mahmoud said.

Sunday’s attacks followed the bombing of a school on Saturday by the Israeli army. Following Sunday’s attacks, at least 15 people were killed in Israeli air raids on the Hamama school in the Sheikh Radwan neighbohood in Gaza City, which was sheltering displaced Palestinians.



Israel orders Palestinians to leave from southern, southeastern parts of Khan Younis

Al Jazeera reports: The Israeli military has issued a new order for Palestinians to leave the southern and southeastern parts of Khan Younis in Gaza, according to Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary in Deir el-Balah.

The residents of these areas were warned that “any presence of civilians in these areas is dangerous and of high risk”, she said.

It was not clear where people were expected to flee, as there is no safe place left in the enclave.

Earlier this month, the United Nations said more than 86 percent of Gaza was already affected by Israel’s so-called evacuation orders, with most people asked to live in small “safe zones” that repeatedly come under Israeli attacks.

Palestinian detainees describe torture in Israel’s Ofer Prison

Al Jazeera reports: Three Palestinians from Gaza who are being held in Israel’s Ofer Prison have recounted abuse and mistreatment, according to the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.

Mohammed Jamous, 44; Fadi Ayad, 39; and Fadi Howaydi, 38, told the commission’s lawyer who visited them last week that they were stripped of their clothes, beaten, tortured, bound and blindfolded.

The detainees described Israeli soldiers as “rabid beasts” who took pleasure in their suffering.

“We were turned into prey to these monsters, who enjoyed our hunger, thirst, screams and illnesses. We still do not believe that we are still alive,” a prisoner was quoted as saying.

The abuse, according to the detainees, began immediately upon their detention in Gaza and continued through transportation in military vehicles where they faced insults, degradation and torture.

“Today, we are all sick,” a detainee said, according to the commission. “Our bodies are exhausted, and we have become prey to illness and injury. No medical treatment or medication is provided. Despite these dire conditions, we cling to the hope of returning to our families alive.”

Israel extends detention of 5 soldiers accused of sexually assaulting Gaza prisoner


Middle East Monitor reports: An Israeli military court yesterday extended the detention of five soldiers accused of sexually assaulting a Palestinian prisoner from Gaza in the Sde Teiman detention facility, according to local media.

Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper said that the military court ruled that the men could be held until tomorrow. They are accused of sexually and physically assaulting a Palestinian prisoner from the Gaza Strip.

The newspaper quoted Judge Lt. Col. Toby Hart as saying that there is a reasonable and solid basis to assume that the detainee was harmed, and that there is reasonable suspicion that the five harmed the detainee together.

RECOMMENDED READING: Hostages of Israeli revenge in the Gaza Strip: Testimonies of 100 released Palestinian detainees reveal crimes of torture, cruel treatment.



A year of silence in Gaza’s classrooms: the urgent need for educational revival

ReliefWeb reports: Children in Gaza have lost one year of education. As of 30 July 2024, all the 625,000 enrolled students in Gaza have lost one full scholastic year.

39,000 students missed the Tawjihi (12th grade official exams) for the first time in decades. This means none of them can transition to higher education, and the majority of them may never return to school again.

In place of being full of children eager to learn, school buildings are housing displaced families desperately seeking safety, when they are not being damaged. Mattresses and blankets fill classrooms and hallways; desks are repurposed as walls and wardrobes, and playgrounds are filled with tents and tarpaulins.

This places a massive strain on the limited WASH facilities. At the same time, overcrowding contributes to an unhygienic environment and rapid spread of disease, increased protection risks due to lack of privacy, and damage to furniture and equipment.

These conditions have had a significant negative impact on the mental health and psychosocial well-being of children, teachers, and caregivers, as well as severely harming the ability of children in Gaza to exercise their right to learn.

As of 30 July, according to the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MoEHE) – State of Palestine, 9,211 students and 397 educational staff members have been killed by the Israeli forces, while more than 14,237 students and 2,246 teachers have been injured since 7 October in the Gaza Strip.

The educational infrastructure in Gaza has also been significantly affected with 92.9% of schools sustained some level of damage to their buildings, including Direct hit, Damaged, and Likely damaged.

At least 84.6% of schools require full reconstruction or significant rehabilitation before resuming schooling. One-third of directly hit or heavily damaged schools are UN-run schools under UNRWA’s jurisdiction.

The Israeli military claims its attacks are targeting ‘terrorists’, but most victims have been Gaza’s children
The Israeli military claims its attacks are targeting ‘terrorists’, but most victims have been Gaza’s children (photo)
At least 10,000 Israeli soldiers killed, injured in Gaza war: Report

Andalou Agency reports: At least 10,000 Israeli soldiers have been killed and injured since the outbreak of the Gaza conflict last Oct. 7, according to Israeli media on Sunday.

Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper said some 1,000 soldiers are transferred every month to the Defense Ministry’s rehabilitation department due to injuries sustained in the Gaza war.

“The army is suffering from a shortage of at least 10,000 soldiers killed or wounded during the long months of fighting in the Gaza Strip,” the daily said.

The newspaper criticized the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) for going on summer break from July 22 until mid-October without passing legislation to extend mandatory military service.

According to the newspaper, female soldiers serving in Israel-occupied Syrian Golan Heights were unexpectedly informed of an additional four-month extension of their service.

Illegal Israeli settlers storm Al-Aqsa Mosque amid rise in tensions

Andalou Agency reports: Under Israeli police protection, a mob of illegal Israeli settlers stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem on Sunday.

Israeli forces and illegal settlers entered the flashpoint mosque performing religious rituals while Israeli police established checkpoints around the Old City of East Jerusalem, restricting Palestinian access to the mosque, according to official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Separately, the Palestinian Awqaf and Religious Affairs Ministry released a monthly report detailing increased violations at Al-Aqsa Mosque and Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, reporting that Israel conducted 23 raids on Al-Aqsa Mosques this July.

The report also highlighted that Israeli forces had obstructed the call to prayer at Ibrahimi Mosque 43 times last month and prevented Palestinians from entering the mosque.

The illegal settler incursion came amid rising tensions across the occupied West Bank as Israel continued its brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip, which has killed nearly 40,000 people since last October following a Hamas attack.

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Israel blocking and letting aid rot ‘first phase of its genocide,’: Turkish FM

Al Jazeera reports: Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan says Israel’s practice of blocking aid, killing aid workers, blocking evacuations, and allowing humanitarian supplies to rot are crimes against humanity and the “first phase of the genocide”.

His remarks came after a visit to Egypt’s El Arish port and the Rafah border.

Fidan urged the global community not to remain silent on “Israel’s oppression” and called for “greater efforts” to ensure that aid reaches Gaza without being obstructed or interrupted.

Tel Aviv: Two Israelis Killed, Three Injured, Perpetrator Killed

IMEMC reports: Two Israelis were killed and three others were injured, on Sunday morning, in the city of Holon, south of Tel Aviv in central Israel, while the perpetrator of the attack, a Palestinian man, was killed by occupation police.

Media sources said that a Palestinian man carried out a stabbing attack in the city of Holon, south of Tel Aviv, killing two Israelis and injuring three others, two seriously.

Sources added that an Israeli police officer shot the Palestinian perpetrator, critically injuring him; he later died.

Media sources identified the perpetrator as 35-year-old Ammar Rizq Kamel Odeh, from the central West Bank city of Salfit, while police later arrested a Palestinian man accused of assisting the perpetrator in the attack.

After the attack, Israeli forces closed the northern entrance to the city of Salfit with an iron gate, and prevented Palestinian citizens from entering or leaving the city.

Later, the army invaded the city of Salfit, and stormed the family home of the slain perpetrator, detained and interrogated his family members, and prevented press crews from the area.

Ben-Gvir renews call for more Israeli civilians to take up arms

Al Jazeera reports: In the context of the recent stabbing, Israeli national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir said that he’s calling for more civilians to take up arms and use them. This has been quite a controversial policy that he’s had throughout this war.

He has essentially expedited the way that a regular, average person can obtain a weapon in Israel, and it’s been something that has caused a lot of backlash.

He’s even distributed weapons to people in the occupied West Bank, including settlers.

Israel adds new conditions to Gaza ceasefire proposal


Middle East Monitor reports: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu added a new condition to the proposed prisoner exchange deal, including the deportation of about 150 Palestinian prisoners, according to Israeli media.

Israel’s Channel 13 quoted unnamed informed sources as saying that Netanyahu added several new conditions to the prisoner exchange deal proposal, including the deportation of several Palestinian prisoners who will be released from prisons in Israel under the terms of the deal.

The sources told the Israeli channel that these 150 prisoners are accused of killing Israelis.

They noted that Netanyahu proposes deporting them to countries such as Turkiye or Qatar and banning them from ever returning to the Gaza Strip or the occupied West Bank.

Israel seizes $26m tax funds meant for Palestinian Authority

Al Jazeera reports: Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has ordered the seizure of about 100 million shekels ($26m) of tax funds meant to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority.

He says the money will be given to the families of Israeli victims of “terror” inflicted by Palestinians.

“The fight against terrorism is not only a military fight but a combined fight that includes a war against the wild incitement of the Palestinian Authority and the terrorist funds which it directs from its budget to the families of terrorists,” Smotrich wrote in a post on X.

“We will continue to protect the security of the citizens of Israel and fight with all the tools at our disposal against terrorism and its supporters.”

‘Order from Amazon’: How tech giants are storing mass data for Israel’s war

+972 Magazine reports: A new investigation by +972 and Local Call can reveal that the Israeli army has in fact stored some intelligence information collected via the mass surveillance of Gaza’s population on servers managed by Amazon’s AWS. The investigation can also reveal that certain cloud providers supplied a wealth of AI capabilities and services to Israeli army units since the start of the Gaza war.

Military sources emphasized to +972 and Local Call that the scope of intelligence collected from the surveillance of all Palestinian residents of Gaza is so large that it cannot be stored on military servers alone.

Three sources who took part in Israeli army attacks said that it was used in a number of cases to provide “supplementary information” ahead of airstrikes against suspected military operatives, some of which killed many civilians.

In particular, according to intelligence sources, much more extensive storage capabilities and processing power were needed to keep billions of audio files (as opposed to just textual information or metadata), which compelled the army to turn to the cloud services offered by tech companies.

As +972 and Local Call revealed in a previous investigation, the Israeli army authorized the killing of “hundreds of civilians” in attacks against senior Hamas commanders at the level of brigade commander and sometimes even battalion commander. In some of these cases, security sources explained, Amazon’s cloud was operationalized.

Sources said that the AWS-based system is particularly useful for Israeli intelligence because it can hold information “on everyone,” with no storage limitations.

(Read the full article here.)

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Turkiye blocks Freedom Flotilla setting sail for Gaza


Middle East Monitor reports: Turkish authorities have blocked the new Freedom Flotilla, carrying urgent and lifesaving aid to Gaza in an attempt to break Israel’s siege on the Strip, from departing Istanbul, organisers reported.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition, comprising multiple humanitarian and pro-Palestinian groups, issued a statement on Saturday announcing that they had been awaiting approval from the Istanbul port authority to set sail.

“It has now become clear that the Turkish government will not grant permission,” the statement said.

The coalition added that the government did not offer “any explanation” for preventing the flotilla to sail, but placed the blame on “intense pressure from the United States, the United Kingdom, and perhaps other NATO countries that are strongly allied with Israel.”

In May 2010, the six-vessel Freedom Flotilla I was intercepted by the Israeli navy, with Israeli commandos boarding the Turkish lead ship, the Mavi Marmara, opening fire and killing nine activists.

Pope Francis says assassinations ‘never a solution’

Al Jazeera reports: Pope Francis has once again appealed to all sides to resume negotiations to achieve an “immediate ceasefire in Gaza and on all fronts”.

The pope also denounced “attacks, even targeted ones, and killings” in an address to thousands of pilgrims and tourists in St Peter’s Square.

Such attacks “can never be a solution”, he said, adding that they “do not help us walk in the path of justice, the path of peace, but generate even more hatred and revenge”.

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US says military moves in Middle East aimed at de-escalating tensions


Reuters reports: The US is deploying additional military might in the Middle East as a defensive measure with a goal of de-escalating tensions in the region, a White House official said on Sunday.

US President, Joe Biden, will convene his national security team in the situation room on Monday to discuss developments in the Middle East, the White House said, adding that he would speak with Jordan’s King Abdullah as well.

US news service, Axios, reported that US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, told his counterpart from G7 countries that Iran and Hezbollah could start attacking Israel as early as Monday, citing three sources briefed on the call. But Blinken, according to Axios, said it was unclear how Iran and Hezbollah would attack and did not know the exact timing.

“The overall goal is to turn the temperature down in the region, deter and defend against those attacks, and avoid regional conflict,” Jonathan Finer, the White House’s deputy National Security Adviser, said on CBS‘ “Face the Nation” program.

VP contenders Shapiro & Pritzker are Israel partisans


Governor Josh Shapiro takes stand in support of Israel. “Israel is a special place – it’s a place where some of us have made friends and spent meaningful time.” – October 18, 2023. By that time, Israeli forces had killed 5,791 people in Gaza since Oct. 7 (including at least 2,055 children (800 more missing) and 1,119 women, and at least 95 in the West Bank); 17,636 injured (15,898 in Gaza – 70% of them women and children – and over 1,738 in the West Bank). About 1.4 million people had been displaced. (screenshot)
Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reports that Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro “has made his Jewish identity central to his career…. ‘Israel not only has a right to defend itself, it has a responsibility to combat Hamas,’ he said recently.”

Ha’aretz continues: “His presence on the ticket would bolster its already historic Jewish presence – Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff is the first Jewish spouse of a U.S. president or vice president in American history.”

“Upon graduating from Georgetown University Law Center, Shapiro worked on Capitol Hill for Jewish lawmakers like Michigan Sen. Carl Levin and Florida Rep. Peter Deutsch, who moved to the Israeli city Ra’anana after failing in his 2004 Senate bid.”

“He has also bucked growing Democratic criticism of Israel’s conduct in Gaza in recent months, insisting to the Jewish Democratic Council of America that “Israel not only has a right to defend itself, I think Israel has a responsibility to combat Hamas head-on and to defeat Hamas.”

Jewish Insider reports: In The New York Times, pollster and former Clinton adviser Mark Penn endorses Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, writing that he “would be the highest-ranking Jewish official in U.S. history. He has supported Israel and has been strongly critical of the campus protests.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports He volunteered in the IDF.

Salon reports: “On the contentious issue of Israel’s relentless war against civilians in Gaza, Shapiro sounds much less bothered by the lethal violence than by U.S. activists for Palestinian lives, many of whom he has demonized.”

The New york Times reports that Shapiro “has been unapologetic in his love for Israel; he has visited often and even proposed to his wife there.”


J.B. Pritzker speaks at Israeli Solidarity Gathering on Oct. 10. (screenshot)
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker also has a long history of support for Israel.

On Oct 10, he spoke at a Jewish United Fund sponsored Israeli Solidarity Gathering, saying: “We need to stand with Israel.”

The Capital News report on the event noted: “Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 800 and wounded more than 4,000 Palestinians in the days following the initial attack.

“Pritzker’s address included a message of support for the Israeli military.

“We pray today for the strength and safety of the men and women of the Israeli Defense Forces as they embark on this most difficult and important mission,” the governor said. “Each step of the way they should know, and the people of Israel should know, that America and Illinois unequivocally stands with them in their battle to end the ongoing Hamas attacks. We stand with Israel.”

By then, Israeli forces had killed 900 in Gaza (over 18 in West Bank), injured 4,500 in Gaza (100 in West Bank), killed 260 children and 230 women; and displaced: 200,000. A large part of Gaza City’s Rimal neighborhood was reduced to rubble after hours of airstrikes. Residents found buildings torn in half or demolished to mounds of concrete and rebar. Cars were flattened and trees burned out on residential streets transformed into moonscapes.” Israel had impsed a ‘total’ blockade on Gaza, including ban on admission of food, electricity and fuel.

On Oct 17 Pritzker announced tax relief for individuals and businesses affected by the attacks that took place in Israel.

In January he opposed a Chicago resolution backing a cease-fire.

The Times of Israel reports: “J.B. Pritzker is the scion of a wealthy Jewish hotelier family long involved in Democratic politics. His sister Penny, a major donor to Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns.”

The Pritzker family (net worth: $32.5B) is one of the wealthiest families in the U.S. It is known for being pro-Israel. The Chicago Tribune reported in 1985: “The Pritzker family buys $500,000 worth of Israel bonds each year and, besides their other philanthropies, also makes donations to universities and institutions in Israel.

JTA reports that J.B. Pritzker “has served on the board of AIPAC.” [Also see this.] He is “the scion of the Hyatt hotel family with deep Jewish community ties.” [His net worth is $3.5B]

Pritzker emceed a fundraiser for Friends of the IDF in 2013.

MORE NEWS:

IMEMC Daily Reports.

Middle East Monitor: Shin Bet prepares underground bunker to protect Netanyahu, senior officials from possible Iran attack

Middle East Monitor: Could the US-China rivalry save the peace process in the Middle East?

The New Arab: Palestine Authority presents Gaza day-after plan, while US truce draft allows Israel to continue war

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – AUGUST 4:

Palestinian death toll from October 7 – August 4: at least 40,186* (39,623 in Gaza* – 11,445 women (30%), 16,251 children as of July 22. [The Ministry’s figures have been contested by the Israeli authorities, although they have been accepted as accurate by Israeli intelligence services, the UN, and WHO. These data are supported by independent analyses, comparing changes in the number of deaths of UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff with those reported by the Ministry, which found claims of data fabrication implausible.]

This is expected to be a significant undercount since thousands of those killed have yet to be identified – and at least 604 in the West Bank (~140 children). This does not include an estimated 10,000 more still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children). Euro-Med Monitor reports 46,848 Palestinian deaths.

Lancet: “Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death9 to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.

Ralph Nader earlier estimated 200,000 Palestinians may have been killed in Gaza.

At least 45 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons (27 from Gaza, 18 from West Bank).
At least 41 Palestinians have died due to malnutrition**.
About 1.7 million, or 75% of Gaza’s population are currently displaced.
2.15 million (out of total population of 2.3 million) are projected to face Crisis or worse levels of food insecurity.
Palestinian injuries from October 7 – August 4: at least 96,818 (including at least 91,469 in Gaza and 5,420 in the West Bank, including 830 children). [It remains unknown how man Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.]

Reported Israeli death toll from October 7 – August 4: ~1,486 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 331 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza; 16 in the West Bank) and~8,730 injured.

Times of Israel reports: The IDF listed 41 soldiers killed due to friendly fire in Gaza and other military-related accidents – nearly 16%.

NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.

*Previously, IAK did not include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile was being disputed. However, given that much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, Israel had previously bombed the hospital and has attacked many others, Israel is prohibiting outside experts from investigating the scene, and since the UN and other agencies are including the deaths from the attack in their cumulative totals, if Americans knew is now also doing so.**

Euro-Med Monitor reports that Gaza’s elderly are dying at an alarmingly high rate. The majority die at home and are buried either close to their residences or in makeshift graves dispersed across the Strip. There are currently more than 140 such cemeteries. Additionally, according to Euromed, thousands have died from starvation, malnourishment, and inadequate medical care; these are considered indirect victims as they were not registered in hospitals.

† For most of the conflict, women and children accounted for about 70% of deaths in Gaza, with children making up a little over 40% of those killed, according to official statistics.

Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here.

Hover over each bar for exact numbers.
Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org
Human rights reports on Israel-Palestine (regularly updated)
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Assassination of Haniyeh an intentional, dangerous escalation – Parsi, Macgregor
When Israel Burned Refugees Alive, Establishment Media Called It a ‘Tragic Accident’
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Col. Douglas MacGregor: US is under the control of Israel, likens Gaza to Warsaw Ghetto

https://israelpalestinenews.org/israeli-massacres-evacuation-orders-torture-continue-unabated-day-302/

Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran
Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran where he had been attending the president’s inauguration.

Head and shoulders photo of Ismail Haniyeh
Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh has been assassinated in Iran’s capital, Tehran, according to a statement from the group that governs Gaza, which blamed Israel for his death.

Haniyeh and one of his bodyguards were killed after the building where they were staying was struck, the statement said, adding that Haniyeh was in Tehran to attend the inauguration ceremony of Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday.

“The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas mourns to our great Palestinian people, to the Arab and Islamic nation, and to all the free people of the world: brother, leader, martyr, Mujahid Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the movement, who was killed in a treacherous Zionist raid on his residence in Tehran,” Hamas said.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) also announced Haniyeh’s death.

“Early this morning, the residence of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran was struck, resulting in his and one of his bodyguards’ martyrdom. The cause is under investigation and will be announced soon,” the IRGC said in a statement, adding that the attack was under investigation.

According to media reports, the Hamas leader was killed when an “airborne guided projectile” hit a special residence for military veterans in the north of Tehran, at which he was staying, at about 2am local time (22:30 GMT on Tuesday).

Israel remained silent on Haniyeh’s death, with media there reporting that the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had ordered cabinet ministers not to comment. Far-right Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, however, celebrated the Hamas leader’s death on social media platform X.

The killing “makes the world a little better,” he wrote in Hebrew.

Israel launched a war in Gaza, promising to eliminate Hamas and kill its leaders after the group attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 200 others captive.

At least 39,400 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war, with 90,996 injured.

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Haniyeh left the Gaza Strip in 2019 and lived in Qatar. The top Hamas leader in Gaza is Yahya Sinwar.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, who is in Deir el-Balah in Gaza, said the killing was “significant” for the people of Gaza because he was leading negotiations that they hoped would lead to a ceasefire.

“Palestinians across Gaza and the West Bank also view Ismail Haniyeh as a moderate leader who is much more pragmatic compared to other leaders who head the military side of the movement,” Mahmoud said.

“He is very popular here. He grew up in a refugee camp. He represents the vast majority of the people who are the descendants of the refugee families who were displaced from the Palestinian territories in 1948.”

Many worry that Haniyeh’s killing could now lead to a further escalation of the conflict, he added.

Tensions were already high after Israel said it targeted a senior Hezbollah commander in a “precision strike” on Beirut on Tuesday.

“This is a huge escalation – what happened yesterday in Lebanon, what’s happening today in Tehran. It’s an escalation by [Israel] and that’s going to have significant ramifications,” Sami al-Arian, the director of the Center for Islam and Global Affairs at Istanbul Zaim University, told Al Jazeera.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/7/31/hamass-political-chief-ismail-haniyeh-assassinated-in-iran-state-media

‘Boycott, protest, speak out’: Experts urge activism against Israel at Paris Olympics
‘Boycott, protest, speak out’: Experts urge activism against Israel at Paris Olympics
- If athletes are sanctioned for refusing to play against Israeli competitors, then that would mean the IOC is 'double punishing' the Palestinians, by allowing Israel to participate and punishing those who stand against Israel’s crime, says analyst Kamel Hawwash
- Israel will use the Olympics as an opportunity to 'sports-wash' the genocide they are committing, says Rebecca O’Keeffe, a member of Irish Sport for Palestine
ISTANBUL
As the Paris Olympics draw near, calls persist for Israel’s expulsion from the world’s biggest sporting event.
From rights groups to athletes, demands are growing for a boycott of Israel over the atrocities taking place in the Gaza Strip, which have led to the death of more than 39,000 Palestinians since Oct. 7 last year.
The Palestine Olympic Committee sent a letter Monday to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) chief, Thomas Bach, asking him to ban Israel.
Meanwhile, petitions and social campaigns have gained momentum. A petition launched by US-based rights group Avaaz garnered over 600,000 signatures, demanding the IOC ban Israel “until their government ceases its assault on innocent civilians in Gaza.”
On the other hand, pro-Palestine activists have mobilized, actively demonstrating in Paris and at the IOC headquarters in the Swiss city of Lausanne.
But with the Games to commence Friday and no ban on Israel yet in sight, experts urge continued activism against Israel’s participation and expressions of solidarity with Gaza throughout the event.
Ban on Israel
Rebecca O’Keeffe, a peace activist and member of Irish Sport for Palestine, has been strongly advocating against Israel and believes it should be banned from the Olympics and Paralympics.
“For decades, apartheid Israel has targeted, abused, injured, and murdered Palestinian athletes and coaches, and this has only intensified during the ongoing genocide.
“Israel has also converted Palestinian sports venues into mass detention centers and continues to play in illegal settlements,” O’Keeffe, a former international basketball player, told Anadolu.
She criticized the IOC for remaining silent, and said that though it claims political neutrality and will not permit political demonstrations, the reality of its stance exposes “blatant double standards and selective morality.”
O’Keeffe said previous action taken by the IOC, including a ban on Apartheid South Africa and on Russia, sets a precedent and gives clear justification to remove Israel from the Games.
“When you consider Israel’s violations of the Olympic Charter, as well as both rulings from the International Court of Justice of plausible genocide and illegal occupation, it should be a clear-cut case in my opinion,” she said.
O’Keeffe said she thinks Israel wants to use the Olympics as an opportunity to “sports-wash the genocide” in Palestinian territories through “overt displays of propaganda, promotion of Zionist nationalism, and inclusion of athletes who have served — or still serve — in the Israeli Occupation Forces.”
In a similar tone, Palestinian political analyst Kamel Hawwash questions why Israel has not been banned from the Games while its forces have been killing Palestinians, many of whom might have participated in the Olympics
“I believe that based on its record, it should be banned from the Olympics and any attempt to say, ‘no it shouldn’t be banned,’ is outrageous and demonstrates a lack of sympathy with the Palestinian people,” Hawwash told Anadolu in a video interview.
He said athletes from other countries that have been banned, pointing to Russia and Belarus, are competing as neutrals.
“If Russia is banned, Israel should be banned too, and that would be equality. It wouldn’t be picking on Israel, but it will be punishing it for its crimes,” said Hawwash.
‘Rambunctious’ street protests
Experts are of the view that during the tournament, the street protests will intensify.
Jules Boykoff, an American author and academic whose research areas include the Olympics, believes that the demonstrations could intensify after the Games begin.
“Activists in France are promising to deliver rambunctious street protests during the Olympic period to raise the issue of Palestinian justice,” he told Anadolu.
Boykoff highlighted how both the IOC and FIFA, the world governing body for football, have gone out of their way to avoid the question of Gaza’s destruction by the Israel Defense Forces, adding that their behavior has been both “hypocritical and shameful” and violates the spirit of their charter documents.
“The IOC, based on its actions, appears impervious to the pleas of activists but street protests could force the question at press conferences,” he said.
Pressure from countries & athletes
Experts also highlight how participating countries and athletes can exercise pressure on Israel and the IOC.
Activist O’Keeffe said that within the IOC, there is a certain set of guidelines outlining athletes’ freedom of expression, recommending familiarization of rights and working within that to apply pressure wherever possible.
“Athletes and countries can also appeal to their politicians to advocate and mobilize on their behalf, and national sporting bodies can release a statement to the IOC,” she said.
Supporters and spectators can follow the BDS movement, sign petitions, email the organizations demanding action, join protests, and boycott commercial sponsors, she added.
On the other hand, analyst Hawwash believes that countries should boycott the Olympics, adding that several countries did this when the Games were held in Russia years ago and that athletes participated in their own capacity
“So, it wouldn’t be a new thing to do to say that countries will boycott the Olympics if Israel participates.”
“If many countries decided to do that, the International Olympics Committee would have to consider banning Israeli athletes from participation.”
O’Keeffe argues that the IOC should remove Israel from the Olympics and Paralympics, adding that if organizations act decisively, countries and athletes would not be put in such positions.
On athletes participating against Israeli competitors, Hawwash said this was a matter of principle.
“I think they should withdraw from facing Israeli athletes, Israeli teams, like the football team,” he said, adding that countries should not put their athletes in such a difficult position and that they themselves should decide they cannot participate in a sporting event since the opponent country is committing war crimes and genocide.
For many athletes, opting out of the Games would be a moral stand that would be on the right side of history, said Hawwash.
On the issue of possible sanctions and bans as faced in the past by athletes who refused to compete against Israeli athletes, the political analyst said:
“If they are sanctioned by the International Olympics Committee, then that would mean the International Olympics Committee is double punishing the Palestinians: One, by allowing Israel to participate and then punishing those who stand against Israel’s crimes and who will withdraw from competitions with Israelis.”
Boykoff maintained that many athletes will feel compelled to speak out.
“Refusing to play against Israeli athletes would raise the issue into the global news cycle, but any athlete who does that risks a backlash from both the IOC and those living under the spell of Israeli impunity.”
Solidarity with Palestinians
Experts also spoke on how participants could express solidarity with the Palestinians.
He said that once the Palestinian flag is raised at the opening of the Olympic Games, “I have no doubt there would be the most audible voice of encouragement and celebration of the Palestinian team that is there.”
That would be the most visible way of showing support, with the whole stadium “on its feet,” said Hawwash.
Other means of expressing support he suggests include displays of the Palestinian flag or keffiyeh by medal winners, along with their own flag
“These are all visible ways of supporting the Palestinians,” he said.
“Countries that support Palestine could invite the Palestinian team to their countries to show their solidarity after the games are finished and that would send the best response to Israel that it is not the victim.”
“It is the Palestinians who are, but that these Palestinians are walking proud and tall, lifting their flag and competing to win,” he said.
Boykoff noted that the Olympics represent the pinnacle of most athletes’ careers, adding that Palestinian athletes would have the support of justice-seekers around the world.
If they feel a bit more wind beneath their wings, that may be why, he added.
For her part, O’Keeffe believes that within the guidelines of freedom of expression, athletes could use any opportunity to mention Palestine during interviews, press conferences, or social media. Understanding the key messages of Palestinian solidarity would also help in this regard.
“Supporters can wave flags, wear various Palestinian symbols, and attend protests that will be taking place in civil society.
“Above all else though, recognize the achievements of these Palestinian athletes, especially in a world that has denied them any semblance of fairness, dignity, or level playing field – all values that are supposed to be promoted by the Olympic Charter.”
Anadolu Agency website contains only a portion of the news stories offered to subscribers in the AA News Broadcasting System (HAS), and in summarized form. Please contact us for subscription options.

http://donshafi911iamthefaceoftruth.blogspot.com/2024/07/boycott-protest-speak-out-experts-urge.html

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/-boycott-protest-speak-out-experts-urge-activism-against-israel-at-paris-olympics/3282958

Ukrainian ‘Caliphate’: What the West prefers not to notice when blaming ISIS for the terrorist attack in Moscow
Kiev’s connections with terrorist groups and Islamists are recognized even in the West. Could Ukrainians be behind the massacre in Crocus City Hall?

Jonas E. Alexis, Senior EditorMarch 27, 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.

On March 22, Russia suffered one of the worst terrorist attacks in recent history, in the course of which 137 people were killed and 182 others were injured. The four terrorists who carried out the attack chose one of the largest exhibition and concert venues in the country, Crocus City Hall, in the city of Krasnogorsk on the outskirts of Moscow, which hosts large events every day.

Even though the investigation is still ongoing, the West has already claimed that the Islamic State (IS) is responsible for the tragedy. This was first reported by some media outlets, including Reuters and CNN, and was later picked up by Western officials. For example, on Monday, this was stated by White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

However, when we compare this terrorist attack with other IS attacks, we notice more differences than similarities.

How IS kills

On that fateful Friday night, a concert by Picnic, a St. Petersburg rock band, was supposed to take place in Crocus City Hall. This fact gave rise to comparisons with the horrible terrorist attack in France in November 2015. Back then, terrorists broke into the Bataclan Theater in Paris, where a concert of the US band Eagles of Death Metal was taking place. IS claimed responsibility for the crime, which left 89 people dead.

Weapon of mass distraction: Is the West scapegoating Islamic State over Moscow attack?

Read more

Weapon of mass distraction: Is the West scapegoating Islamic State over Moscow attack?

In those years, IS became increasingly active throughout the world – but this was actually a sign of its decline. In its heyday, IS didn’t urge its supporters to carry out terrorist attacks, but instead called on them to “fulfill the hijrah” – i.e., move to the territories controlled by the organization. Over ten years ago, this was quite easy to do, since part of the Syrian border with Turkey was controlled by the jihadists, which allowed people to freely cross it and join their ranks.

However, as the terrorists lost many of their territories, their rhetoric changed. Through its information resources, IS urged its followers to commit terrorist acts in places where they lived. This caused an upsurge in violence in Europe: a wave of terror swept through France, Belgium, Germany, the UK, and other countries. In Russia, the North Caucasus became a point of tension.

The strategy was simple – anyone who supported the jihadists, wherever they lived, could record a video with an oath of allegiance to the “caliph,” send it via an automated feedback bot, and then commit a terrorist act. Often it was only the perpetrator who died, but for IS, this didn’t matter – it only cared about being mentioned in connection with the terrorist activity, which is why the organization occasionally took responsibility for crimes that it had nothing to do with.

The terrorist attack in Krasnogorsk, however, doesn’t match this straightforward strategy usually adopted by IS. In fact, the choice of a rock concert as the site of the terrorist attack is almost the only common feature between this attack and other acts of terror it has committed.

What preceded the events at Crocus City Hall

Four people who had not previously known each other were recruited to carry out the terrorist attack. One of them, Shamsidin Fariduni, was in Türkiye in February, and from there he flew to Russia on March 4. He spent at least ten days in Türkiye and investigators are currently determining who he communicated with while there.

According to unofficial information, he met with a certain “Islamic preacher” in Istanbul. However, it is also known that the terrorists corresponded with the “preacher’s assistant.” According to Fariduni, this anonymous person sponsored and organized the terrorist attack.

RT

After arriving in Russia, Fariduni visited Crocus City Hall on March 7 in order to see the site where the crime was to be committed. From this, we may conclude that the attack was to take place soon after his arrival from Türkiye. On the same day, the US embassy in Russia warned its citizens to avoid large gatherings “over the next 48 hours” due to possible attacks by extremists.

The next concert at Crocus City Hall was given by the singer Shaman, who is known for his patriotism. However, his concert on Saturday, March 9 passed without incident. In the following days, there were other performances at the venue, but apparently the terrorists were forced to adjust their plans.

As a result, they chose the concert by the band Picnic, scheduled for March 22. Although this band is not as popular as Shaman, it is also known for its patriotic stance and for donating funds for the needs of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine.

‘The Moscow terror attack was an inside job!’ The strange and twisted world of the West’s political and media Russia haters

Read more

‘The Moscow terror attack was an inside job!’ The strange and twisted world of the West’s political and media Russia haters

What happened afterwards

None of the terrorists planned to “join the Houris in paradise,” as is usual for IS followers. After shooting people in Crocus City Hall and setting the building on fire, they did not attack the special forces which arrived at the scene and instead got in a car and fled from Moscow. Neither did they wear “suicide belts” – a characteristic detail of IS followers who are ready to die after committing their crime.

Another detail which is uncharacteristic for IS is the monetary reward promised to the terrorists. The payment was supposed to be made in two installments – before and after the attack. The terrorists had already received the first payment, amounting to 250,000 rubles ($2,700).

The most important detail is the location where the terrorists were detained. Traffic cameras allowed intelligence services to monitor where they were headed. They were eventually detained on the federal highway M-3 Ukraine – a route which used to connect Russia and Ukraine but lost much of its international importance after the deterioration of relations between the two countries in 2014, and particularly after the start of Russia’s military operation in 2022.

The terrorists were detained after passing the turn to route A240, which leads to Belarus. At that moment, it became obvious that there was only one place where they could be headed: Ukraine.

Despite the fact that the terrorists were armed, only one of them, Mukhammadsobir Fayzov, put up resistance. All of the terrorists were detained alive, which was most likely an order given to the security forces involved in the operation. However, as we mentioned above, the terrorists themselves did not want to die.

RT

Moreover, they knew where to go to save their lives: to the Ukrainian border. Later, in his address to the nation, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that a “window” for passage had been opened for them on the Ukrainian side.

This, too, is uncharacteristic for IS, since someone who carries out a terrorist act, especially an outsider, is always considered “disposable.” Even if he makes it out alive, no one will help him. Moreover, in earlier years, IS usually didn’t take responsibility for an attack if the perpetrator remained alive, as this could harm him during the investigation. However, later the organization no longer cared about this due to the deplorable state in which it found itself.

All this comes down to the fact that compared to other attacks carried out by IS in the past few years, this one is strikingly different when it comes to the level of preparation, detailed planning, and financial compensation.

Dmitry Trenin: The American explanation for the Moscow terror attack doesn’t add up

Read more

Dmitry Trenin: The American explanation for the Moscow terror attack doesn’t add up

What does Ukraine have to do with it?

Having already mentioned Ukraine several times, we must note its links with terrorists. Since 2015, it has been known that the Security Service of Ukraine tried to recruit radical Islamists with the goal of carrying out sabotage and terrorist attacks, etc. on Russian territory. Ukraine’s intelligence services were also active among the terrorists in Syria. This cooperation was marked in particular by the arrival in Ukraine of Chechen terrorist Rustam Azhiev, who served in the International Legion controlled by the Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry.

Azhiev participated in the second Chechen campaign against the Russian Armed Forces and eventually fled to Türkiye. In 2011, he moved to Syria, where he headed the terrorist group Ajnad Al-Kavkaz. Under his command, the militants participated in hostilities against the Syrian Armed Forces and were noted for terrorist attacks directed against civilians. Azhiev operated side-by-side with groups that are recognized as terrorist organizations not only in the United States, but throughout the world. The main ally of Ajnad Al-Kavkaz was Jabhat Al-Nusra in Syria.

Over time, the Russian Armed Forces and Syrian Armed Forces liberated territories from terrorists and significantly reduced their supply base. As a result, Azhiev and his associates became involved in contract killings, extortion, torture, and racketeering. In 2019, Azhiev even had to publicly apologize for the actions of his associates, who kidnapped the wrong person.

The terrorists had been “unemployed” for several years when in 2022, Azhiev and his associates were approached by Ukrainian intelligence services through an intermediary – field commander Akhmed Zakayev. Azhiev and his associates took part in combat operations against the Russian Armed Forces and as a reward, Azhiev was given a Ukrainian passport.

RT

In 2024, led by Azhiev, the terrorists participated in an attack on border settlements in Belgorod Region. In a video, Azhiev publicly admitted that the purpose of the operation was to destabilize the situation in Russia before and during the presidential elections. This was confirmed by the fact that the attacks stopped right after the elections.

After the terrorist attack in Crocus City Hall, the Austrian newspaper Heute discovered another link between Ukraine and radical Islamists. According to the publication, which cites information from intelligence services, many suspected terrorists had entered the EU from Ukraine. For example, in December 2023, a Tajik citizen and his wife, along with an accomplice, were detained in Vienna. They were preparing an attack on St. Stephen’s Cathedral. The couple had come to the EU from Ukraine in February 2022.

***

Ukraine is the place of residence not only for many terrorists, but also IS administrators and those who sympathize with the terrorists. Some of these people are actively involved in raising funds for imprisoned IS fighters in Syria and Iraq. Some of this money goes to purchasing food and medicines. But quite often, it is spent on buying weapons to carry out attacks inside prisons, and for bribing guards. Since some of the terrorists are officially “employed” in Ukraine’s Defense Ministry and others work for the Security Service of Ukraine, they can both push their employers to organize a terrorist attack or do so on their own, without formally consulting the authorities. Currently, one of the versions is that an employee of the Ukrainian intelligence services could’ve been hiding under the guise of the “preacher’s assistant.”



Moreover, Kiev has prior experience in carrying out terrorist acts on Russian territory – both directly, as in the case of Daria Dugina, and through intermediaries, as in the case of Vladlen Tatarsky. Therefore, using radical Islamists, such as IS followers, to carry out terrorist attacks fully corresponds to Ukraine’s strategy, which comes down to inflicting maximum damage on Russia and its residents.


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Call for immediate cease-fire in Gaza reverberates in Australian parliament
Call for immediate cease-fire in Gaza reverberates in Australian parliament
ISTANBUL

A call for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip was echoed in the Australian parliament on Monday, when a group of people spoke up in support of Palestinians, with the government benches staying silent during the proceedings.

A group of pro-Palestinian people used the gallery section of parliament to demand a cease-fire in Gaza, which has been bombed extensively by Israeli forces since Oct. 7, killing and injuring over 100,000 Palestinians.

According to SBS News, security personnel removed the group, which demanded a "cease-fire now," from the gallery as Australian Attorney General Mark Dreyfus rose to answer a question from a lawmaker.

“Shame, shame,” the protesters yelled.

"You support genocide… Albanese, your hands are red. 15,000 children dead,” the protestors shouted.

Anthony Albanese is the leader of the Australian Labor Party and prime minister.

Video footage of the gallery cannot be made public unless authorized by the Australian parliament speaker.

Greens Senator Max Chandler-Mather came out in support of the protesting group.

“Solidarity with the protestors for Palestine in Question Time (in parliament) today peacefully fighting for a ceasefire and an end to the genocide in Gaza," Chandler-Mather wrote on X. "History will remember you well."

Na'ama Carlin, a sociologist, who posted a video of government officials and lawmakers sitting in the parliament on X, wrote: “Smirking & eye rolling while people who have not been heard in any other platform are MADE to protest at the house of reps (representatives) against this bloody war. Over 30k (30,000) Palestinians massacred by Israel. And you’re EYE ROLLING???”

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on Gaza since a cross-border incursion by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed nearly 1,200 people.

More than 31,600 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have since been killed in the enclave, and nearly 73,700 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of most food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

Anadolu Agency website contains only a portion of the news stories offered to subscribers in the AA News Broadcasting System (HAS), and in summarized form. Please contact us for subscription options.

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/call-for-immediate-cease-fire-in-gaza-reverberates-in-australian-parliament/3167450

The Four Horsemen of Gaza’s Apocalypse. Chris Hedges
Joe Biden relies on advisors who view the world through the prism of the West’s civilizing mission to the “lesser breeds” of the earth to formulate his policies towards Israel and the Middle East.


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***

Joe Biden’s inner circle of strategists for the Middle East — Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan and Brett McGurk — have little understanding of the Muslim world and a deep animus towards Islamic resistance movements. They see Europe, the United States and Israel as involved in a clash of civilizations between the enlightened West and a barbaric Middle East. They believe that violence can bend Palestinians and other Arabs to their will. They champion the overwhelming firepower of the U.S. and Israeli military as the key to regional stability — an illusion that fuels the flames of regional war and perpetuates the genocide in Gaza.

In short, these four men are grossly incompetent. They join the club of other clueless leaders, such as those who waltzed into the suicidal slaughter of World War One, waded into the quagmire of Vietnam or who orchestrated the series of recent military debacles in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Ukraine. They are endowed with the presumptive power vested in the Executive Branch to bypass Congress, to provide weapons to Israel and carry out military strikes in Yemen and Iraq. This inner circle of true believers dismiss the more nuanced and informed counsels in the State Department and the intelligence communities, who view the refusal of the Biden administration to pressure Israel to halt the ongoing genocide as ill-advised and dangerous.

Biden has always been an ardent militarist — he was calling for war with Iraq five years before the U.S. invaded. He built his political career by catering to the distaste of the white middle class for the popular movements, including the anti-war and civil rights movements, that convulsed the country in the 1960s and 1970s. He is a Republican masquerading as a Democrat. He joined Southern segregationists to oppose bringing Black students into Whites-only schools. He opposed federal funding for abortions and supported a constitutional amendment allowing states to restrict abortions. He attacked President George H. W. Bush in 1989 for being too soft in the “war on drugs.” He was one of the architects of the 1994 crime bill and a raft of other draconian laws that more than doubled the U.S. prison population, militarized the police and pushed through drug laws that saw people incarcerated for life without parole. He supported the North American Free Trade Agreement, the greatest betrayal of the working class since the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. He has always been a strident defender of Israel, bragging that he did more fundraisers for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) than any other Senator.

“As many of you heard me say before, were there no Israel, America would have to invent one. We’d have to invent one because… you protect our interests like we protect yours,” Biden said in 2015, to an audience that included the Israeli ambassador, at the 67th Annual Israeli Independence Day Celebration in Washington D.C. During the same speech he said, “The truth of the matter is we need you. The world needs you. Imagine what it would say about humanity and the future of the 21st century if Israel were not sustained, vibrant and free.”

The year before Biden gave a gushing eulogy for Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli prime minister and general who was implicated in massacres of Palestinians, Lebanese and others in Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon — as well as Egyptian prisoners of war — going back to the 1950s. He described Sharon as “part of one of the most remarkable founding generations in the history not of this nation, but of any nation.”

While repudiating Donald Trump and his administration, Biden has not reversed Trump’s abrogation of the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by Barack Obama, or Trump’s sanctions against Iran. He has embraced Trump’s close ties with Saudi Arabia, including the rehabilitation of Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman, following the assassination of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2017 in the consulate of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul. He has not intervened to curb Israeli attacks on Palestinians and settlement expansion in the West Bank. He did not reverse Trump’s moving of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, although the embassy includes land Israel illegally colonized after invading the West Bank and Gaza in 1967.

As a seven-term senator of Delaware, Biden received more financial support from pro-Israel donors than any other senator, since 1990. Biden retains this record despite the fact that his senatorial career ended in 2009, when he became Obama’s vice president. Biden explains his commitment to Israel as “personal” and “political.”

He has parroted back Israeli propaganda — including fabrications about beheaded babies and widespread rape of Israeli women by Hamas fighters — and asked Congress to provide $14 billion in additional aid to Israel since the Oct. 7 attack. He has twice bypassed Congress to supply Israel with thousands of bombs and munitions, including at least 100 2,000-pound bombs, used in the scorched earth campaign in Gaza.

Israel has killed or seriously wounded close to 90,000 Palestinians in Gaza, almost one in every 20 inhabitants. It has destroyed or damaged over 60 percent of the housing. The “safe areas,” to which some 2 million Gazans were instructed to flee in southern Gaza, have been bombed, with thousands of casualties. Palestinians in Gaza now make up 80 percent of all the people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide, according to the U.N. Every person in Gaza is hungry. A quarter of the population are starving and struggling to find food and drinkable water. Famine is imminent. The 335,000 children under the age of five are at high risk of malnutrition. Some 50,000 pregnant women lack healthcare and adequate nutrition.

And it could all end if the U.S. chose to intervene.

“All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the U.S.,” retired Israeli Major General Yitzhak Brick told the Jewish News Syndicate. “The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability… Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.”

Blinken was Biden’s principal foreign policy adviser when Biden was the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. He, along with Biden, lobbied for the invasion of Iraq. When he was Obama’s deputy national security advisor, he advocated the 2011 overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. He opposed withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria. He worked on the disastrous Biden Plan to partition Iraq along ethnic lines.

“Within the Obama White House, Blinken played an influential role in the imposition of sanctions against Russia over the 2014 invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine, and subsequently led ultimately unsuccessful calls for the U.S. to arm Ukraine,” according to the Atlantic Council, NATO’s unofficial think tank.

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



When Blinken landed in Israel following the attacks by Hamas and other resistance groups on Oct. 7, he announced at a press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:

“I come before you not only as the United States Secretary of State, but also as a Jew.”

He attempted, on Israel’s behalf, to lobby Arab leaders to accept the 2.3 million Palestinian refugees Israel intends to ethnically cleanse from Gaza, a request that evoked outrage among Arab leaders.

Sullivan, Biden’s national security advisor, and McGurk, are consummate opportunists, Machiavellian bureaucrats who cater to the reigning centers of power, including the Israel lobby.

Sullivan was the chief architect of Hillary Clinton’s Asia pivot. He backed the corporate and investor rights Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, which was sold as helping the U.S. contain China. Trump ultimately killed the trade agreement in the face of mass opposition from the U.S. public. His focus is thwarting a rising China, including through the expansion of the U.S. military.

While not focused on the Middle East, Sullivan is a foreign policy hawk who has a knee jerk embrace of force to shape the world to U.S. demands. He embraces military Keynesianism, arguing that massive government spending on the weapons industry benefits the domestic economy.

In a 7,000-word essay for Foreign Affairs magazine published five days before the Oct. 7 attacks, which left some 1,200 Israelis dead, Sullivan exposed his lack of understanding of the dynamics of the Middle East.



Screenshot from The New York Times

“Although the Middle East remains beset with perennial challenges,” he writes in the original version of the essay, “the region is quieter than it has been for decades,” adding that in the face of “serious” frictions, “we have de-escalated crises in Gaza.”

Sullivan ignores Palestinian aspirations and Washington’s rhetorical backing for a two-state solution in the article, hastily rewritten in the online version after the Oct. 7 attacks. He writes in his original piece:

At a meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, last year, the president set forth his policy for the Middle East in an address to the leaders of members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Egypt, Iraq, and Jordan. His approach returns discipline to US policy. It emphasizes deterring aggression, de-escalating conflicts, and integrating the region through joint infrastructure projects and new partnerships, including between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

McGurk, the deputy assistant to President Biden and the coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa at the White House National Security Council, was a chief architect of Bush’s “surge” in Iraq, which accelerated the bloodletting. He worked as a legal advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority and the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad. He then became Trump’s anti-ISIS czar.

He does not speak Arabic — none of the four men does — and came to Iraq with no knowledge of its history, peoples or culture. Nevertheless, he helped draft Iraq’s interim constitution and oversaw the legal transition from the Coalition Provisional Authority to an Interim Iraqi Government led by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. McGurk was an early backer of Nouri al-Maliki, who was Iraq’s prime minister between 2006 and 2014. Al-Maliki built a Shi’ite-controlled sectarian state that deeply alienated Sunni Arabs and Kurds. In 2005, McGurk transferred to the National Security Council (NSC), where he served as director for Iraq, and later as special assistant to the president and senior director for Iraq and Afghanistan. He served on the NSC staff from 2005 to 2009. In 2015, he was appointed as Obama’s Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL. He was retained by Trump until his resignation in Dec. 2018.

An article in April 2021 titled “Brett McGurk: A Hero of Our Times,” in New Lines Magazine by former BBC foreign correspondent Paul Wood, paints a scathing portrait of McGurk. Wood writes:

A senior Western diplomat who served in Baghdad told me that McGurk had been an absolute disaster for Iraq. “He is a consummate operator in Washington, but I saw no sign that he was interested in Iraqis or Iraq as a place full of real people. It was simply a bureaucratic and political challenge for him.” One critic who was in Baghdad with McGurk called him Machiavelli reincarnated. “It’s intellect plus ambition plus the utter ruthlessness to rise no matter the cost.”

[….]

A U.S. diplomat who was in the embassy when McGurk arrived found his steady advance astonishing. “Brett only meets people who speak English. … There are like four people in the government who speak English. And somehow he’s now the person who should decide the fate of Iraq? How did this happen?”

Even those who didn’t like McGurk had to admit that he had a formidable intellect — and was a hard worker. He was also a gifted writer, no surprise as he had clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist. His rise mirrored that of an Iraqi politician named Nouri al-Maliki, one careerist helping the other. That is McGurk’s tragedy — and Iraq’s.

[….]

McGurk’s critics say his lack of Arabic meant he missed the vicious, sectarian undertones of what al-Maliki was saying in meetings right from the start. Translators censored or failed to keep up. Like many Americans in Iraq, McGurk was deaf to what was happening around him.

Al-Maliki was the consequence of two mistakes by the U.S. How much McGurk had to do with them remains in dispute. The first mistake was the “80 Percent Solution” for ruling Iraq. The Sunni Arabs were mounting a bloody insurgency, but they were just 20% of the population. The theory was that you could run Iraq with the Kurds and the Shiites. The second error was to identify the Shiites with hardline, religious parties backed by Iran. Al-Maliki, a member of the religious Da’wa Party, was the beneficiary of this.

In a piece in HuffPost in May 2022 by Akbar Shahid Ahmed, titled “Biden’s Top Middle East Advisor ‘Torched the House and Showed Up With a Firehose,’” McGurk is described by a colleague, who asked not to be named, as “the most talented bureaucrat they’ve ever seen, with the worst foreign policy judgment they’ve ever seen.”

McGurk, like others in the Biden administration, is bizarrely focused on what comes after Israel’s genocidal campaign, rather than trying to halt it. McGurk proposed denying humanitarian aid and refusing to implement a pause in the fighting in Gaza until all the Israeli hostages were freed. Biden and his three closest policy advisors have called for the Palestinian Authority — an Israeli puppet regime that is reviled by most Palestinians — to take control of Gaza once Israel finishes leveling it. They have called on Israel — since Oct. 7 — to take steps towards a two-state solution, a plan rejected in an humiliating public rebuke to the the Biden White House by Netanyahu.

The Biden White House spends more time talking to the Israelis and Saudis, who are being lobbied to normalize relations with Israel and help rebuild Gaza, than the Palestinians, who are at best, an afterthought. It believes the key to ending Palestinian resistance is found in Riyadh, summed up in a top-secret document peddled by McGurk called the “Jerusalem-Jeddah Pact,” the HuffPost reported. It is unable or unwilling to curb Israel’s bloodlust, which included missile strikes in a residential neighborhood in Damascus, Syria, on Saturday that killed five military advisors from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and a drone attack in South Lebanon on Sunday, which killed two senior members of Hezbollah. These Israeli provocations will not go unanswered, evidenced by the ballistic missiles and rockets launched on Sunday by militants in western Iraq that targeted U.S. personnel stationed at the al-Assad Airbase.

The Alice-in-Wonderland idea that once the slaughter in Gaza ends a diplomatic pact between Israel and Saudi Arabia will be the key to regional stability is stupefying. Israel’s genocide, and Washington’s complicity, is shredding U.S. credibility and influence, especially in the Global South and the Muslim world. It ensures another generation of enraged Palestinians — whose families have been obliterated and whose homes have been destroyed — seeking vengeance.

The policies embraced by the Biden administration not only blithely ignore the realities in the Arab world, but the realities of an extremist Israeli state that, with Congress bought and paid for by the Israel lobby, couldn’t care less what the Biden White House dreams up. Israel has no intention of creating a viable Palestinian state. Its goal is the ethnic cleansing of the 2.3 million Palestinians from Gaza and the annexation of Gaza by Israel. And when Israel is done with Gaza, it will turn on the West Bank, where Israeli raids now occur on an almost nightly basis and where thousands have been arrested and detained without charge since Oct. 7.

Those running the show in the Biden White House are chasing after rainbows. The march of folly led by these four blind mice perpetuates the cataclysmic suffering of the Palestinians, stokes a regional war and presages another tragic and self-defeating chapter in the two decades of U.S. military fiascos in the Middle East.

*

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https://www.globalresearch.ca/four-horsemen-gaza-apocalypse/5847199

U.S. and Russia ‘can’t stop’ Turkey’s new Syria incursion
By ALEXANDER WARD, MATT BERG and LAWRENCE UKENYE
11/22/2022 03:59 PM EST
Syrian Kurds attend a funeral of people killed in Turkish airstrikes.
Syrian Kurds attend a funeral of people killed in Turkish airstrikes in the village of Al Malikiyah, northern Syria, Monday, Nov. 21, 2022. | Baderkhan Ahmad/AP Photo
Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Matt

With help from Phelim Kine and Lara Seligman

PROGRAMMING NOTE: We’ll be off for Thanksgiving this Thursday and Friday but back to our normal schedule on Monday, Nov. 28.

Turkey is threatening to kill more U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters in Syria — and the United States and Russia might not try very hard to stop it.

Turkish President RECEP TAYYIP ERDOÄžAN vowed to soon launch a ground attack on U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in northern Syria, claiming they were responsible for a deadly terrorist attack last week.

“We have been bearing down on terrorists for a few days with our planes, cannons and guns,” ErdoÄŸan said Tuesday, alluding to Turkey’s recent lethal aerial bombardments in Syria. “God willing, we will root out all of them as soon as possible, together with our tanks, our soldiers.”

It’s unclear if it was Kurdish separatists who killed six people in the heart of Istanbul on Nov. 13. The Kurds deny the allegation, after all. But experts say it has presented ErdoÄŸan with a pretext to delve deeper into northern Syria, a push he’s long wanted to do.

“Turkey is quite serious about the current Syria offensive,” the Middle East Institute’s and St. Lawrence University’s HOWARD EISSENSTAT told NatSec Daily. “This fits with both long-standing Turkish assumptions about its security interests and ErdoÄŸan’s need to look strong in advance of elections scheduled for June. Under the current circumstances, Russia or the U.S. might be able to impose limits on Turkish actions, but they can’t stop them entirely.”

Both have reasons to be worried about Turkey launching a ground attack.

Russia backs Syrian President BASHAR AL-ASSAD while Turkey supports rebels seeking to topple him. “We understand and respect Turkey’s concerns about ensuring its own security,” Kremlin spokesperson DMITRY PESKOV told reporters. “At the same time, we call on all parties to refrain from steps that could lead to the destabilization of the overall situation.”

About 900 U.S. troops, meanwhile, are in Syria to keep ISIS at bay alongside Syrian Democratic Forces and fear heavy fighting could disrupt their plans.

Turkey has a legitimate right to defend itself and its citizens, National Security Council spokesperson JOHN KIRBY told NatSec Daily during a Tuesday news conference, but added cross-border operations “might force a reaction by some of our SDF partners that would limit and constrain their ability to fight against ISIS…and we want to be able to keep the pressure on ISIS.”

“We continue to urge for deescalation on all sides and in our conversations,” Pentagon deputy press secretary SABRINA SINGH later told reporters.

But those statements don’t fully reflect the state of play, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s SONER CAGAPTAY told NatSec Daily, because “Ankara has just about aligned all-stars for an incursion.”

The U.S. may not resist too strongly since it wants Turkey, a NATO ally, to accept Sweden and Finland’s accession to the alliance. Cagaptay said a Monday State Department statement that barely lambasted Turkey over the violence in Syria was evidence of Washington’s light approach. “I can’t recall any statement that nicely worded about Turkey’s incursion into Syria in a long time,” he said.

And Russia is providing millions for Turkey’s economy and energy sector, propping up ErdoÄŸan ahead of next year’s vote. In exchange, experts say ErdoÄŸan may finally accept Assad as Syria’s legitimate ruler, effectively bringing an end to what remains of the war in Syria.

If that’s the case, it seems the U.S. and Russia may stand aside as Turkey kills more Kurds — and American allies — in Syria.

The Inbox

U.S. LEADERS IN ASIA: Vice President KAMALA HARRIS warned of U.S. intervention if China takes aim at the Philippines, our own PHELIM KINE reports.

In a visit to the Philippines, Harris pushed back against Beijing’s expansive territorial claims in the region, pledging $7.5 million for the Philippine Coast Guard. On Monday, Harris also warned of a U.S. response if there is “an armed attack” on Filipino ships or aircraft in the South China Sea, invoking a treaty between the allies.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson ZHAO LIJIAN clapped back on Tuesday, warning that U.S.-Philippines cooperation “should not target or hurt other countries’ interests.”

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN met with his Chinese counterpart in Cambodia on Tuesday, discussing strained bilateral relations and regional and global security issues, the Associated Press’ HENG SINITH reports.

The two met on the sidelines of a regional meeting, marking the second time in six months Austin and Gen. WEI FENGHE met face-to-face. It comes just over a week after President JOE BIDEN met with Chinese leader XI JINPING in Indonesia, a gathering widely seen as an effort to ease tensions between the two world powers.

On the issue of Taiwan, Austin assured Wei of Biden’s commitment to the “one China” policy, but called on China to refrain from taking destabilizing actions toward the island nation, Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. PAT RYDER said.

EUROPE’S NEW MIGRANT INFLUX: Europe is struggling even more to properly welcome thousands of people seeking asylum from war and famine.

Specifically, the EU plus Norway and Switzerland recorded about 564,000 applications in August this year — an increase of 62 percent from the same period last year, according to the European Union Agency for Asylum.

That increase doesn’t include the millions of Ukrainian refugees moving westward since Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24. “Tents and sleeping bags have become a common sight along the canal in central Brussels, as well as in underpasses and railway stations, as some asylum seekers are forced to wait months for shelter after lodging applications,” per The Financial Times’ SAM FLEMING and GUY CHAZAN, underscoring just how overwhelmed the reception system is right now.

NAVY BLAMES IRAN FOR DRONE ATTACK: The U.S. Navy confirmed Iran’s involvement in a Nov. 15 drone attack on a commercial tanker, identifying the drone as a Shahed-136 — the same type Iran has supplied to Russia for use in Ukraine.

The attack fits “a historical pattern of Iran’s increasing use of a lethal capability directly or through its proxies across the Middle East,” reads a statement by U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.

“The Iranian attack on a commercial tanker transiting international waters was deliberate, flagrant and dangerous, endangering the lives of the ship’s crew and destabilizing maritime security in the Middle East,” said Vice Adm. BRAD COOPER, the command’s chief.

U.S. officials had already said they suspected Iran was behind the strike.

IT’S TUESDAY: Thanks for tuning in to NatSec Daily. This space is reserved for the top U.S. and foreign officials, the lawmakers, the lobbyists, the experts and the people like you who care about how the natsec sausage gets made. Aim your tips and comments at [email protected] and [email protected], and follow us on Twitter at @alexbward and @mattberg33.

While you’re at it, follow the rest of POLITICO’s national security team: @nahaltoosi, @woodruffbets, @politicoryan, @PhelimKine, @BryanDBender, @laraseligman, @connorobrienNH, @paulmcleary, @leehudson, @AndrewDesiderio, @magmill95, @ericgeller, @johnnysaks130, @ErinBanco and @Lawrence_Ukenye.

Flashpoints

ARCTIC POWER: Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN touted Moscow’s growing footprint in the Arctic at a Tuesday flag-raising ceremony that commemorated two new nuclear-powered icebreakers that will allow the country to have year-round access to western parts of the Arctic, Reuters reports.

The icebreakers “are part of our large-scale, systematic work to re-equip and replenish the domestic icebreaker fleet, to strengthen Russia’s status as a great Arctic power,” Putin said.

The Arctic has become more significant due to climate change as melting ice has prompted countries like Russia, the U.S. and China to try to increase their influence in the region, which could also affect trade and shipping lane access.

Keystrokes

KISS IT GOODBYE, FOR NOW: The idea of creating a new platform where the government and the private sector can rapidly share data on cyber threats has hit a Fort Meade-sized speed bump: the National Security Agency, our friends over at Morning Cybersecurity (for Pros!) report.

Until recently, the joint collaborative environment looked like a solid bet to make it into the final version of this year’s National Defense Authorization Act, featuring in both the House and Senate markups of the must-pass defense bill.

But the NSA began voicing objections to the JCE in the last few weeks, tilting the scales against the provision on the Hill, two Hill staffers granted anonymity to speak freely about the proposal told MC.

The NSA’s “biggest concern” about the legislation is that it “would overly constrain” the NSA and CISA’s ongoing threat-sharing efforts, ROB JOYCE, the director of NSA’s cybersecurity directorate, told MC.

The Complex

ON THE WAY: The Army is on track to award the multibillion-dollar contract for the UH-60 Black Hawk replacement by the end of the year, our friends over at Morning Defense (for Pros!) report.

Competing for the deal are Bell, with its V-280 Valor tiltrotor, and a Sikorsky-Bell team, with the SB-1 Defiant coaxial helicopter for the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft, Army acquisition chief DOUG BUSH told reporters Monday. Bell estimates the program is worth more than $100 billion because of foreign military sales opportunities.

Black Hawks won’t be phased out of the Army overnight. The service intends to buy them through fiscal 2028 and does not anticipate the replacement to come online until 2035.

On the Hill

NOT WINGING IT: Republicans have an answer for anyone asking about the effect the party’s populist wing might have on foreign policy: Sorry, what?

Lawmakers at the Halifax International Security Forum told our own ANDREW DESIDERIO that “Congress is likely to allocate well more than the $38 billion the Biden administration requested for Ukraine’s military and economic needs as part of a year-end governing funding bill. And that extra infusion is set to advance with the help of senior Republicans, even as influential conservative groups urge a pause.”

That means Republicans predict enough Democrats and Republicans will support the package, drowning out loud voices on the right who don’t want to give Kyiv another penny.

“If we were on the other side of this, they’d be pounding the table saying, ‘Send more money to Ukraine,’” Sen. JIM RISCH (R-Idaho), the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in an interview.

Lawmakers from both parties believe the package will get through Congress before newly elected representatives and senators arrive in Washington.

SEND ARMED DRONES TO UKRAINE: Sixteen senators are urging the Biden administration to give Ukraine armed drones to better repel Russia’s invasion, our own LEE HUDSON reports.

The Biden administration has been hesitant to send the drone to Ukraine due to fears that sensitive technologies aboard the aircraft may end up in Russian hands. An electro-optical/infrared ball on the Gray Eagle provides real-time intelligence, targeting and tracking. The administration was also concerned that the drone and the instruments it carries would pose too many training and logistics challenges for the Ukrainian military.

But the bipartisan group of lawmakers, led by Sens. JONI ERNST (R-Iowa) and JOE MANCHIN (D-W.V.), say the benefits of helping Ukraine take out Russian positions outweigh the risks.

“The MQ-1C could erode Russia’s long-range fires advantage. Most importantly, armed UAS could find and attack Russian warships in the Black Sea, breaking its coercive blockade and alleviate dual pressures on the Ukrainian economy and global food prices,” they wrote in the letter.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the letter.

Broadsides

FIRST IN NATSEC DAILY — CAMPAIGN AGAINST CHIPS IN 889: Loyal NatSec Daily readers will remember our report that two senators want to ban the federal government from acquiring products or services from Chinese chipmakers. Simply put, they want to update Section 889 in the federal code to include three Chinese firms and Chinese-made semiconductors.

Well, the backlash to that bill by Sens. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-N.Y.) and JOHN CORNYN (R-Texas) has begun.

“Left unaddressed, adding the covered semiconductors to part B of section 889 would harm federal agencies’ ability to procure the essential goods and services they need to promote our nation’s well-being, while putting added financial pressure on businesses that are operating in an inflationary economy,” reads a draft letter obtained by NatSec Daily. It’s signed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Aerospace Industries Association, among other groups.

The groups are fine with the section’s Part A, which deals with the procurement of items, even though “it presents federal contractors with costly and complex compliance burdens.” Their main gripe is with Part B because it bans interactions with a contractor that “uses” a banned technology. That makes compliance much harder, they argue. “A company with both federal and nonfederal customers would be barred from selling to the government because it ‘uses’ a coffee service that ‘uses’ the covered semiconductors,” the letter reads.

Some lawmakers in both parties told NatSec Daily they don’t fully support the Schumer-Cornyn bill because of Point B.

The draft note, dated Nov. 22, is addressed to Sens. JACK REED (D-R.I.) and JIM INHOFE (R-Okla.), the top members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Still, much of the non-government national security community is behind the chip ban out of fear China can manipulate the semiconductors for its own purposes. Some of the three companies up for a ban allegedly have ties to China’s military.

An AIA spokesperson said of the reason for sending the letter: “We have serious concerns about the cumulative effect of well-intentioned, but burdensome regulations that could drive small businesses out of the industrial base.”

Transitions

— MICHAEL HOCHMAN is now chief of staff for the White House Office of the National Cyber Director. He previously was deputy chief of staff and deputy general counsel.

— HADY AMR has been named a special representative for Palestinian affairs, the first time the State Department has had a D.C.-based post focused on that issue. He was previously the deputy assistant secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian affairs.

What to Read

— NATHALIE TOCCI, POLITICO: Europe’s Defense Efforts Remain Underwhelming

— BEN OLLERENSHAW and JULIAN SPENCER-CHURCHILL, Real Clear Defense: To Deter China, the U.S. Must Have the Political Courage to Retaliate Against Russia

— ANDREW KREPINEVICH, JR., Foreign Affairs: Is Putin a Rational Actor?

Wednesday Today

— The Hudson Institute, 10 a.m.: “Countering Russian Influence in Georgia”

Have a natsec-centric event coming up? Transitioning to a new defense-adjacent or foreign policy-focused gig? Shoot me an email at [email protected] to be featured in the next edition of the newsletter.

Thanks to our editor, Heidi Vogt, who has aligned the stars to gain full control of this newsletter.

And we thank our producer, Kierra Frazier, who is a star in her own right.



https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2022/11/22/u-s-and-russia-cant-stop-turkeys-new-syria-incursion-00070431

“Soros” French Judges want to Arrest Assad for Douma Chemical Attack! Despite It was a White Helmets False-Flag | VT Foreign Policy
November 16, 2023
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 Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio

VERSIONE IN ITALIANO

Subscribe to the Gospa News Newsletter to read the news as soon as it is published

The Syrian Civil War began way back on March 15, 2011 and after 12 years continues in the now indifference of the media and the Western population, completely indifferent to the continuous appeals of Catholic and Maronite Christian religious people against an interminable persecution by the West.

Despite this, even today there are international bodies that try to prosecute the legitimately elected Syrian president Bashar Al Assad who opposed the regime change planned by the American counter-espionage of the Central Intelligence Agency since 1983 and financed by George Soros since the beginning of the so-called The Arab Springs started by the US Obama-Biden administration in 2011 with the killing of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi who governed Libya triggered the ongoing civil war.

Intel Reminder. CIA TOP SECRET FILE: US WAR IN SYRIA PLANNED SINCE 1983

Despite this, today the judges of France, who was complicit in those NATO violations of territorial sovereignty in the Middle East, instigated by a Soros NGO, want to arrest Assad for the chemical attacks of 2013 even if, as in the case of the subsequent massacre of 7 April 2018, there is a well-founded suspicion that they were False-Flag actions (humanitarian crimes committed “under a false flag” to accuse the adversary) conducted by the infamous White Helmets, in complicity with jihadist terrorist groups, thanks to the training provided by the former soldier of the British secret services James Le Mesurier, who died in a mysterious accident in Istanbul in 2019, and to funding from the USA and the United Kingdom.

An international investigation into the 2018 Douma attack, in fact. confirmed this hypothesis without a shadow of a doubt.

Middle East Escalation toward WW3! Biden challenges Iran with US Strikes on Syrian IRGC Bases

The Syrian Civil War triggered by the CIA, USA and NATO for Oil

The Syrian war continues every day due to rockets launched by HTS terrorists from the Idlib stronghold protected by Turkey and NATO of which it is part, thanks to the TOW anti-tank systems provided by the CIA’s MOM operation started by Obama.

Turkish papers: 21 Erdogan’s jihadist militias supported by Cia, Pentagon and armed with TOW missiles

It takes shape in the continuous bombings that the Israeli Defense Forces air force carries out at least twice a week, which have become daily after the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, and which the US Air Force does not skimp on, especially in the Deir Ezzor area where since he established the Al Tanf military base on the border with Jordan and Iraq he has been stealing hundreds of barrels of Syrian oil every day with the complicity of various jihadist factions or Turkey.

American Shame in Syria: US Persecutes Population with the Sanctions but Steals 66,000 Oil Barrels Every Day

If massive migrations of Christians, Shiite Muslims, Arabs in general and other ethnic minorities continue towards Europe from Syria, it is due to the sanctions imposed by the EU and the USA, recently eased during the terrible earthquake of February 2023, and the violent actions of mercenaries recruited by Turkey from among the former commanders of Al Qaeda and ISIS to conduct the operation called Spring Peace in October 2019 with which it conquered a good portion of Rojava controlled by the Autonomous Administration of North-East Syria founded by the Kurds.

Earthquake Death Toll over 45,000. “In Syria Disaster Exacerbated by US-EU Sanctions” Damasco Foreign Minister said

The Kurds were the main component of the SDF popular army, also composed of Arabs and minimally Christians, which defeated the Islamic State in that area after it had been allowed to grow in Iraq by the US Army with the liberation of Caliph Al Baghdadi detained by them in Camp Buqqa and for the apparent operational inability of the then commander of military operations Lloyd Austin, then rewarded without reason by President Joe Biden with the position of Secretary of the Department of Defense.

In this context of mystifications, lies and falsehoods, the French judges return to the charge against Assad for the chemical attacks of 2013, confirming the old lying story with which NATO justified the removal of Saddam Hussein from the government of Iraq.

CIA, Mossad & Talibans in Jihadist’s New Empire to Use Afghanistan against Iran and Russia

This happens even though an international investigation has shown that these chemical attacks were presumably conducted, as in 2018, by the White Helmets with the complicity of Al Nusra jihadists, an offshoot of Al Qaeda which has now merged into Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

The Douma Investigation by OPCW Experts

«The cover-up of evidence that the Douma incident was staged is not merely misconduct. As the staging of the Douma incident entailed mass murder of civilians, those in OPCW who have suppressed the evidence of staging are, unwittingly or otherwise, colluding with mass murder».

This was the terrible conclusion reached by some British university professors of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media, an independent international organization to facilitate the search for fake news or false flags in the sectors of organized persuasive communication and media coverage, in relation to the current conflict in Syria in 2011 (and related topics).


The incipit and conclusions of the Henderson dossier on the chemical attack in Douma – link in the sources at the bottom of article
The report was drawn up by three professors Paul McKeigue (University of Edinburgh), David Miller (University of Bristol), Piers Robinson (University of Sheffield) and is based on the dossier drawn up by a researcher from the engineering subgroup of the Mission Fact-Finding (FFM ) of the OPCW: the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is an international body, based in The Hague, the Netherlands. investigating the April 2018 chemical attack in the city of Douma, Eastern Ghouta, in the Rif governorate of Damascus.

DOUMA: MASSACRO JIHADISTA CON ARMI CHIMICHE SU 35 VITTIME LEGATE

He referred to engineer Ian Henderson’s dossier on the two main sites (2 and 4 in the study) where the dispersion of liquid chlorine contained in two cylinders occurred which, according to the first controversial testimonies and the OPCW report, fell from the sky: a hypothesis which today is denied by a technical analysis, however kept hidden by the same organization on the prohibition of chemical weapons.

«Our last Briefing Note listed two other key findings:

It is no longer seriously disputed that the hospital scene was staged: there are multiple eyewitness reports supported by video evidence
The case fatality rate of 100%, with no attempt by the victims to escape, is unlike any recorded chlorine attack.
Taken together, these findings establish beyond reasonable doubt that the alleged chemical attack in Douma on 7 April 2018 was staged».

This is what the academics of the Working Group on Syria wrote and was published by Gospa News in May 2019.

Human Organs’ Traffic in Syria ignored by UN: Sana and CBS videos on White Helmets, Al Qaeda & Turkey Crimes

«We conclude that the staging of the Douma incident entailed mass murder of at least 35 civilians to provide the bodies at Location 2. It follows from this that people dressed as White Helmets and endorsed by the leadership of that organization had a key role in this murder».

Among the victims there were also children tied and hung by their feet to be killed by inhaling lethal chemical gases.

The French judges instigated against Assad by Soros’ NGO

It should not be forgotten that the White Helmets were denounced to the UN by Russia as an “international terrorist organization” for complicity with jihadists and for international trafficking of human organs, as confirmed by from a subsequent investigation conducted by TV CBS.

But instead of investigating those responsible for that False-Flag action or the attacks with white phosphorus bombs carried out by President Recep Tayyp Erdogan’s Turkey in Syria, denounced by a Swedish scientist, the West invents another show trial against Assad.

Syria: NATO, UN are responsible for Turkish Use of Chemical Weapons. Swedish-Iranian Expert Dr. Mansoura Accuses

If the lies about NATO wars do not stop, the flood of blood in the Mediterranean and throughout Europe will not be able to stop.

Because it was born over centuries of complicity between Freemasonry and Zionism for the creation of the New World Order theorized by Soros as an evolution of the Atlantic Alliance since 1993,

Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio
© COPYRIGHT GOSPA NEWS
prohibition of reproduction without authorization
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France calls for arrest of Bashar Assad

by Russia Today

All links to previous Gospa News investigations have been added aftermath, for the ties with the topics highlighted

Subscribe to the Gospa News Newsletter to read the news as soon as it is published

French judges have issued international arrest warrants against Syrian President Bashar Assad and other senior officials in his government on war crimes charges stemming from alleged chemical weapons attacks in August 2013.

“TOWARD A NEW WORLD ORDER: The Future of NATO”. Soros’ 1993 Manifesto in which Forecast Ukraine War

The warrants accuse Assad, his brother Maher Assad, and two Syrian generals of complicity in crimes against humanity for their alleged roles in attacks that killed more than 1,000 civilians in the rebel-held areas of Douma and Eastern Ghouta during a bloody civil war, according to reports on Wednesday by Reuters and other media outlets. Paris, formerly Syria’s colonial ruler, claims to have worldwide jurisdiction over war crimes and crimes against humanity.

WAR CRIMES & DECEITS. ICC against Putin! Unpunished NATO Allies: Ukrainian Nazis as Bosnian Butcher, Jihadists General

Wednesday’s media reports cited an unidentified judicial source. A French court has been investigating the 2013 attacks since 2021, and its warrants mark the first international charges over the incidents.

The probe came in response to a criminal complaint lodged by the Syrian Center for Media Freedom and Expression (SCM) and the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), an operation created by leftist billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.

SCM President Mazen Darwish called the warrants “a new victory for the victims, their families, and the survivors,” as well as “a step on the path to justice and sustainable peace in Syria.” Assad has repeatedly denied Western accusations that he used sarin gas and other chemical weapons on his own people.

The administration of then-US President Barack Obama tried to use the 2013 attacks to justify a military intervention in Syria, only to be tripped up when Secretary of State John Kerry was pressed by a reporter on how Damascus could avoid such a response. He replied that Assad would have to turn over all of his chemical weapons and allow unfettered international inspections, which wouldn’t happen. However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov backed the demand, and the Syrian government quickly agreed.

AL BAGHDADI: ISIS CALIPH AND MOSSAD-CIA AGENT HIDDEN BY US

No such solutions were offered when the Syrian government was again accused of chemical weapons attacks in 2017 and 2018. The US launched missile strikes against Syrian government targets in response. French and UK forces participated in the latter strikes. Whistleblowers later alleged that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) doctored a report that was used after the fact to justify the West’s 2018 missile attacks.

read more: Syria shows the way to fighting imperialism, thanks to Russia and China

Assad’s regime has been embroiled in a civil war with insurgents backed by the US and other foreign governments since 2011. The government has regained control of most rebel-held areas, thanks largely to help from Russian and Iranian forces. US troops have illegally occupied oil-rich areas of northeastern Syria since 2014.

Originally published by Russia Today

All links to previous Gospa News investigations have been added aftermath, for the ties with the topics highlighted

Subscribe to the Gospa News Newsletter to read the news as soon as it is published

MAIN SOURCES

DOUMA HENDERSON DOSSIER

GOSPA NEWS – WAR ZONE

GOSPA NEWS – WEAPONS LOBBY DOSSIER

MASSONERIA & SIONISMO – 1. Genocidi da Guerra Mondiale & Pandemia da Laboratorio per Vaccini Killer. “Cataclisma” da Sinagoga di Satana

NATO’s COUP IN UKRAINE: THE GENESIS – 3. Kiev Court sentenced Four Cops, ignoring the Plot of Shady Snipers

MEDITERRANEO DI SANGUE. Libro Profetico sul Medio Oriente dell’ex Funzionario Interpol Italiano in Giordania

CIA, Mossad & Talibans in Jihadist’s New Empire to Use Afghanistan against Iran and Russia

14 Thousand Jihadist Troops in Libya for Turkey Blitz alongside US Weapons’ Lobby, NATO’s Deep State & NWO

Fabio G. C. Carisio
Fabio is investigative journalist since 1991. Now geopolitics, intelligence, military, SARS-Cov-2 manmade, NWO expert and Director-founder of Gospa News: a Christian Information Journal.

His articles were published on many international media and website as SouthFront, Reseau International, Sputnik Italia, United Nation Association Westminster, Global Research, Kolozeg and more…

Most popolar investigation on VT is:

Rumsfeld Shady Heritage in Pandemic: GILEAD’s Intrigues with WHO & Wuhan Lab. Bio-Weapons’ Tests with CIA & Pentagon

Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio, born on 24/2/1967 in Borgosesia, started working as a reporter when he was only 19 years old in the alpine area of Valsesia, Piedmont, his birth region in Italy. After studying literature and history at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, he became director of the local newspaper Notizia Oggi Vercelli and specialized in judicial reporting.

For about 15 years he is a correspondent from Northern Italy for the Italian newspapers Libero and Il Giornale, also writing important revelations on the Ustica massacre, a report on Freemasonry and organized crime.

With independent investigations, he collaborates with Carabinieri and Guardia di Finanza in important investigations that conclude with the arrest of Camorra entrepreneurs or corrupt politicians.

In July 2018 he found the counter-information web media Gospa News focused on geopolitics, terrorism, Middle East, and military intelligence.

In 2020 published the book, in Italian only, WUHAN-GATES – The New World Order Plot on SARS-Cov-2 manmade focused on the cycle of investigations Wuhan-Gates

His investigations was quoted also by The Gateway Pundit, Tasnim and others

He worked for many years for the magazine Art & Wine as an art critic and curator.

VETERANS TODAY OLD POSTS

www.gospanews.net/


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https://open.substack.com/pub/aearnur/p/in-ukraine-the-western-powers-have

IN UKRAINE THE WESTERN POWERS HAVE CREATED A POISONOUS WEB OF LIES
Never before has western society been so heavily propagandised as now. The effort of the western powers to maintain their dominance has overwhelmed all previously held ethical standards.

Aearnur

They did everything possible to convince everyone that Ukraine was in the right, the aggrieved party, victim of an unprovoked attack by an evil adversary whose intent was wholly malicious. No stone was left unturned in this campaign of unrelenting falsehood and purposeful misrepresentation.

Ukraine’s president was portrayed as a modern day Churchill when in fact he was no more than his recent history showed him to be, a second-rate actor and third-rate comedian. Those thousands in Ukraine who bore swastika tattoos we were told to ignore as ‘mostly harmless’ when in fact a significant number of them had already been convicted of crimes including murder, abduction and rape.

A continual array of crimes were attributed to the Russian authorities and their military. Intentional attacks on civilians when the entire Russian campaign was designed to minimise harm to them. It was said that Russia wished to occupy Ukraine in its entirety when the stated goal of Russia was to ensure the safety from harm only of the Russian-speaking majority in Ukraine’s south-east.

Russia was accused of an atrocity in the Ukrainian town of Bucha when all the evidence showed that those killed had been those who had taken assistance from the Russian army and had been killed by Ukrainian special forces after being identified as such by neighbours.

The killing of sheltering civilians in Mariuopol’s oldest theatre by blowing it up was immediately attributed to Russia when again, all existing evidence points to it being carried out by those who hate both Russia and the Russian=speaking majority of the city. A missile attack on a large group of civilians waiting at Kramatorsk train station hoping to leave the city to safety was also attributed to Russia when it was clearly not the case.

The vital aspect of the conflict in Ukraine to understand is the hatred with which Ukrainians living in western Ukraine who speak Ukrainian hold those who live in the east of Ukraine and who speak Russian. That hatred makes them capable of anything that will inflict pain, injury and mortal wounds on those people and in addition lie about the attribution of their acts to harm the reputation of Russia.

The long campaign against Vladimir Putin where the greatest number of falsehoods have been told stems back, not to the year 2000 when he was elected president of Russia but to the year 2007 when it first became clear to the political elites of the western world that he would not be their willing subject as they had thought until that year. It was in Munich in February of 2007 that he stated very clearly in an address to them that Russia would plough its own furrow and not be dictated to by any one nation or group of nations. He became public enemy number one for the western powers at this precise point and has remained so ever since. From that point on he has been portrayed falsely as the Devil Incarnate and a new Hitler.

The misrepresentation of Putin, of Russian intent and activity across every sphere of endeavour, not only within Ukraine continues as a daily routine for every western political and media elite.

When, in the initial years after the Maidan insurrection in Kiev, the Russian-speaking majority in south-eastern Ukraine were shelled remorselessly by the Ukrainian army and its neo-Nazi militia helpers, the impression was always given in western media that their victims were as a result of actions by Russia. This was either clearly inferred or stated baldly as fact. Those who wished to verify the truth had no access to it via any mainstream news entity in the West. Those few who had the interest, who took the time and made the effort soon discovered the extent to which the true facts were being concealed in the West and too, to what degree western audiences were being grievously misled.

The misleading of western audiences regarding events in Ukraine has been constant since the turn of events began there in 2014. A totally one-sided campaign of misinformation has been conducted in the West, a campaign which continues to this day. Only in the last few days in this month of February 2023 the BBC showed film of devastated homes in the south-eastern Ukrainian city of Odessa. The vital context of this destruction that was left unvoiced was that this destruction including the crater in the residential street was caused not by Russian missiles but by sub-standard Ukrainian air-defence missiles that had misfired.

The Ukraine war has exemplified in gruesome and disgusting detail the old adage that the first victim of war is the truth. Propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, psychological operations and every other scurrilous device under the sun has been used to wage yet another war of choice by the West, this time at the enormous and utterly tragic expense of the Ukrainian people.

Russia made every possible effort to avoid this war. From 2014 when hostilities began after the Ukrainian army began attacking the people of the Donbass region of south-eastern Ukraine Russia has sought to map a route to peace. The Minsk process designed to forward this goal proved in vain due to the disingenuous and malicious approach by the western powers to it. They sought, through it, to make successive Ukrainian regimes even more militarily powerful with the eventual aim of waging even more war.

Only a month after Russia was forced by innumerable actions by the West to achieve the aims of protecting the Russian-speaking people of the Donbass region and of itself from a malevolent Ukrainian regime via its becoming a NATO state on its border, Russia initiated peace negotiations. These bore fruit in March 2022 when significant progress was announced from Istanbul where the talks between the two sides where being held. Russia removed its troops from around the capital Kiev, sent there with the goal not of conquest but of bringing the regime there to its senses and to negotiate a peaceful outcome. This avenue toward a peaceful resolution of all areas of concern was swiftly blocked via a visit to Kiev by then British prime minister Boris Johnson. This one act condemned upwards of half a million Ukrainians to their deaths and the potential destruction of Ukraine as a viable state.

Now, after all the misrepresentations, the fabrications, the constant propaganda, fables and bare-faced lies concerning Ukraine, Russia and both their presidents the truth is now beginning to emerge. The western powers are beginning to be perceived as they should be, as a combined malign influence, not only in Ukraine of course but broadly across the world and specifically at the moment in the Middle East where their past influence ought to have warned western populations of how little they could be trusted anywhere.

What has occurred in Ukraine is an unmitigated disaster for the people there. It was an outcome never once desired by Russia and one that Russia strove with every will in the world for the best part of a decade to avoid. However, the aims of the western powers, to weaken and ultimately break up the Russian Federation through the tool of continual war in Ukraine, overruled all hopes of finding a way through to a peaceful resolution of Russia’s clear concerns regarding its safety and that of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine.

Western elite entities engaged in a continual campaign of presenting barriers to conflict resolution, of creating never-ending pressure undermining attempts by Russia to find a peaceful way through to its national security, and finally in an unrelenting campaign of distortion which has been continually fed to western populations right up to the present day.

Alexander Dugin: My Vision For The New World Order, And Gaza War – Alexander Dugin
Kolozeg27/10/2023
Posted on : 09/11/2023
Alexander Dugin: My Vision For The New World Order, And Gaza War – Alexander Dugin
New civilisations are on the rise, including Chinese, Islamic, Indian, African, and Latin American. Russia sees them as potential allies and partners in a genuine and equitable multipolar order, says Aleksandr Dugin.

The current global order appears to be in a state of transition. What we are witnessing is a shift away from a unipolar world, which emerged following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the disintegration of the Soviet bloc, towards a multipolar world.

The foundations of this multipolar world are becoming increasingly evident, with key players including Russia, China, the Islamic world, India, and potentially Africa and Latin America. These entities represent distinct civilisations, many of which are united within the BRICS group.

Notably, after the 2023 Johannesburg summit, this group expanded to include significant countries from the Islamic world, such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Egypt, as well as Ethiopia, bolstering the African perspective, and Argentina, further solidifying the presence of South American nations.



Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud attends a meeting during the 2023 BRICS Summit at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023.

This expansion underscores the growing influence of the multipolar world order while signalling a weakening of Western hegemony.

The US and the West’s determination to preserve unilateral dominance

The United States and Western powers are resolutely clinging to the concept of unilateralism. At the forefront of global leadership, the United States, in particular, is determined to maintain its dominance across military, political, economic, cultural, and ideological realms. This ongoing pursuit of unipolarity stands as the central contradiction of our era, marked by the intensifying struggle between unipolarity and multipolarity.

Within this context, it is imperative to examine the key conflicts and developments in global politics, notably the efforts to undermine Russia as it reasserts its sovereignty and presence as an independent pole. This dynamic helps elucidate the persistent conflict in Ukraine.

The Western world’s support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is driven, in large part, by the desire to prevent Russia from reemerging as an autonomous global actor—an aspiration championed by President Vladimir Putin throughout his tenure.

Putin has bolstered the political sovereignty of the Russian Federation and progressively emphasised Russia’s status as an independent civilisation that not only opposes Western hegemony but also rejects its value system.

Russia has unambiguously affirmed its commitment to traditional values while firmly rebuffing Western liberalism, including its promotion of the gay rights agenda and other Western ideological standards, which Russia perceives as aberrations and deviations.

In response, the West actively supported the 2014 coup in Kyiv, provided extensive military aid to Ukraine, fostered the dissemination of neo-Nazi ideology within the country, and provoked Russia into initiating an extraordinary military operation.

Without Putin’s intervention, Kyiv would likely have taken similar actions independently, leading to the opening of the first front in the fierce struggle between multipolarity and unipolarity in Ukraine.

Simultaneously, Russia, under Putin’s leadership, recognises that it cannot be one of just two poles in this world, as was the case during the Soviet Union era.

New civilisations are on the rise, including Chinese, Islamic, Indian, African, and Latin American. Russia sees them as potential allies and partners in a genuine and equitable multipolar order—a perspective not yet widely acknowledged by the rest of the world.



Burkina Faso’s Capt. Ibrahim Traore, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands before an official ceremony to welcome the leaders of delegations to the Russia Africa Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, July 27, 2023

However, there is a gradual and strengthening awareness of the concept of multipolarity, exemplified by the situation regarding Taiwan, which has been spared from becoming the next flashpoint in the confrontation between unipolarity and multipolarity, particularly in the Pacific region.

New civilisations are on the rise, including Chinese, Islamic, Indian, African, and Latin American. Russia sees them as potential allies and partners in a genuine and equitable multipolar order—a perspective not yet widely acknowledged by the rest of the world.

Israel’s war on Gaza points to broader confrontation

The events in Israel and the Gaza Strip are closely linked to this issue. Two tragic incidents occurred in rapid succession. Firstly, there was a Hamas attack on Israel, resulting in a significant number of civilian casualties and the abduction of hostages.

Subsequently, Israel launched retaliatory strikes on the Gaza Strip, characterised by a high degree of brutality and a substantial number of civilian casualties, especially among women and children. These actions unequivocally constitute violations of human rights and crimes against humanity, and they lack any justifiable rationale.

But at the same time, Israel’s application of the principles of “lex talionis” (a principle that developed at the beginning of Babylonian law and stipulated that a punishment inflicted should correspond in degree and kind to the offence of the wrongdoer, as an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth) resulted in what is described as a widespread genocide and brutal living conditions for Gaza residents.

Both Hamas’s attack and Israel’s response are characterised as actions outside the framework of accepted humanitarian methods to resolve political conflicts.

Subsequently, the geopolitical landscape comes into play, and while the magnitude of Israel’s actions is significantly larger, the evaluation of the situation in the Gaza Strip is not solely contingent on that; rather, it hinges on underlying geopolitical trends.

The events in Israel, including the Hamas attack and Israel’s response, have led to a broader confrontation between the West and the Islamic world. This confrontation stems from what is seen as unconditional and unilateral support for Israel despite the explicit nature of the crimes committed against the civilian population in Gaza.

The Islamic world is portrayed as a distinct pole facing Israel’s actions in Gaza and the broader Palestinian territories while considering the injustices faced by Palestinians who were displaced from their land to live in poor and isolated areas.



People gather around a huge Palestinian flag during a protest against Israel in Istanbul on October 20, 2023.

The unity of the Islamic world has become undeniable, with the Palestinian issue serving as a unifying force that brings together Sunnis, Shiites, Turks, and Iranians, as well as factions involved in internal conflicts in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Libya.

This matter holds direct relevance for countries such as Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Bangladesh.

Furthermore, Muslims residing in the United States of America, Europe, Russia, and Africa cannot remain indifferent. Notably, despite their political disparities, Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and the Jordan River region are joined in a collective effort to safeguard their dignity.

The unity of the Islamic world has become undeniable, with the Palestinian issue serving as a unifying force that brings together Sunnis, Shiites, Turks, and Iranians, as well as factions involved in internal conflicts in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Libya.

The Palestinian cause and the United States

In recent decades, the United States has been successful in preventing Muslims from uniting around the Palestinian issue and encouraging them to normalise relations with Israel.

But such attempts are no longer successful. All these efforts have proven futile in recent weeks as the unequivocal support for Israel continues. Israel’s mass slaughter of civilians in Gaza, witnessed by the entire global community, is compelling the Islamic world to set aside internal differences and contemplate direct confrontation with the West.

Israel, much like Ukraine, serves as nothing more than an instrument of the overbearing and ruthless Western hegemony. It does not shy away from criminal deeds or racist rhetoric and actions.

However, the root of the problem lies not in Israel itself but rather in its role as a geopolitical tool within the framework of a unipolar world. This aligns precisely with what President Vladimir Putin recently articulated when he referred to the web of hostility and conflicts being woven by “spiders,” a metaphor for globalists employing colonialist tactics based on the “divide and rule” principle.

To effectively counter those desperately striving to preserve the unipolar world and Western dominance, it is crucial to comprehend the essence of their strategy. Armed with this understanding, we can consciously construct an alternative model to confront this agenda, move forward confidently and unite towards establishing a multipolar world.

The ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip and Palestine as a whole poses a direct challenge not only to specific groups or even Arabs in general but to the entire Islamic world and Islamic civilisation. It’s increasingly evident that the West has engaged in a confrontation with Islam itself, a reality now acknowledged by many.

Collective need to defend Muslim nations from mistreatement

From nations such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan to regions spanning Tunisia to Bahrain, from Salafists to Sunnis and Sufis, and encompassing various political factions within Palestine, Syria, Libya, Lebanon, as well as the division between Shiites and Sunnis, there is a collective need to defend the dignity of Islamic civilisation. It asserts itself as a sovereign, independent civilisation that rejects any mistreatment.

Erdogan’s mention of jihad as a response to the conflict serves as a reminder of the historical Crusades, yet this analogy doesn’t fully capture the essence of the present situation. Modern Western globalisation has diverged significantly from Christian civilisation, having severed many connections with Christian culture in favour of materialism, atheism, and individualism.

Christianity has little to do with the material sciences or the socio-economic system primarily driven by profit, and it certainly doesn’t endorse the legalisation of deviations or the embrace of pathology as the norm, nor the inclination towards a post-human existence—a concept enthusiastically promoted by Israeli post-humanist philosopher Yuval Harari.

The West, in its contemporary form, represents an anti-Christian phenomenon, lacking any connection to the values of Christianity or the embrace of the Christian cross. It’s essential to recognise that when the Islamic world clashes with the West, it is not engaging in a conflict with the civilisation of Christ but rather with an anti-Christian civilisation, which can be termed the civilisation of the Antichrist.

Russia, as a significant global player, is actively engaged in a war with the West on the soil of Ukraine.



Russian recruits take a train at a railway station in Prudboi, in Russia’s Volgograd region, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022. President Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization, the first since World War II, amid the war in Ukraine.

Unfortunately, due to the influence of Western propaganda, many Islamic countries have not fully grasped the underlying reasons, objectives, and nature of this conflict, often perceiving it as a mere regional dispute. However, as globalisation directly impacts Muslims worldwide, Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine takes on a vastly different significance.

Ultimately, it signifies a clash between a multipolar world and a unipolar one, i.e., this war serves the interests not only of Russia as a global pole but indirectly, or even directly, of all such poles. China is well-equipped to comprehend this, and within the Islamic world, Iran is among those that can grasp this perspective.

Notably, geopolitical awareness has been rapidly on the rise in other Islamic societies, including in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, and Indonesia. This has led to initiatives like the reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran and Turkey’s pursuit of a sovereign policy.

Israel’s mass slaughter of civilians in Gaza, witnessed by the entire global community, is compelling the Islamic world to set aside internal differences and contemplate direct confrontation with the West.

Russian motives and spectre of WWIII

As the Islamic world increasingly recognises itself as a prominent pole and a unified civilisation, the motives behind Russian actions become more apparent and understandable.

President Vladimir Putin has already gained international renown and enjoys significant popularity worldwide, particularly in non-Western countries. This popularity lends precise meaning and clear justification to his strategic decisions.

In essence, Russia is vigorously combating unipolarity, which translates to a broader struggle against globalisation and the Western hegemonic influence. Today, we witness the West, often seen as operating through its proxy, Israel, targeting the Islamic world and subjecting Palestinians to genocide.



A Palestinian carries the body of a child killed in an Israeli raid on the Jabalia Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, on November 1.

This means that the moment of Islam is coming amid this war between Muslims and Western hegemony that could erupt at any moment. Drawing from my knowledge of the Israelis, there is no doubt that they will not stop until they eliminate the Palestinians.

“The war now appears to be truly comprehensive on a board scale.” In this case, first and foremost, the Islamic world has objective allies, such as Russia as well as China, which has the Taiwan problem to solve soon. Additional fronts will probably gradually emerge over time.

The question that arises here is whether this could lead to the outbreak of a third world war. It appears highly likely, and in a sense, it is already underway.

For the war to escalate globally, a critical mass of unresolved contradictions necessitating military resolution is imperative. This condition has been met. The Western powers exhibit no inclination to surrender their dominion voluntarily, and the new poles, emerging independent civilisations, and extensive regions no longer wish to accept this dominance and tolerate it.

Moreover, the failure of the United States and the broader collective West to be the leaders of humanity without abandoning policies that incite and fuel new conflicts and wars has been proven.

The inevitable war must be won.

Today, we witness the West, often seen as operating through its proxy, Israel, targeting the Islamic world and subjecting Palestinian Arabs to genocide. This means that the moment of Islam is coming, amid this war between Muslims and Western hegemony that could erupt at any moment.

Trump v Biden

Ultimately, what role does former US President Donald Trump play in the escalating confrontations between Islam and the West? President Joe Biden staunchly advocates for globalisation, opposes Russia, and fervently supports unipolarity.

This precisely explains his unwavering backing of the new Nazi regime in Kyiv and his complete exoneration of Israel from its actions, including direct genocide.

Trump’s position, however, is different. He embodies a classic nationalist perspective, prioritising the interests of the United States as a nation over hasty plans for global dominance.

Concerning relations with Russia, Trump displays indifference, focusing more on matters of trade and economic competition with China. Nonetheless, he is concurrently subject to and wholly influenced by the potent Zionist lobby within the United States.



Trump and Biden

Therefore, the imminent war between the West and Islam should not be met with complacency, not only from the Western perspective but also from Republicans at large.

In this context, if Trump were to reassume the presidency, it could potentially diminish support for Ukraine, a crucial concern for Russia. However, he might adopt an even more stringent approach towards Muslims and Palestinians, conceivably surpassing the severity of Biden’s policies.

Realism is imperative, and we must prepare for a challenging, serious, and protracted conflict on the horizon.

It is important to realise that this is not a religious conflict but rather a materialistic, atheistic imposter’s war against all traditional religions. This means that the moment for the ultimate battle might be upon us.

Biden staunchly advocates for globalisation, opposes Russia, and fervently supports unipolarity. Trump’s position, however, is different. He embodies a classic nationalist perspective, prioritising the interests of the United States as a nation over hasty plans for global dominance.

Spectre of nuclear war and death of unipolar system

Is the imminent conflict moving toward a nuclear war? This prospect cannot be dismissed, especially considering the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons.

It is improbable that nations possessing strategic nuclear capabilities, such as Russia and NATO countries, would resort to their use, given the catastrophic implications for humanity.

However, considering the possession of nuclear weapons by Israel, Pakistan, and possibly Iran, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that they could be utilised in localised contexts.

What will the configuration of the world order during this impending confrontation be like?

There is no ready answer to such a question. However, one thing can be definitively ruled out, and that is the establishment of a robust, stable, and unipolar global system — a concept fervently championed by proponents of globalisation.

Regardless of the specific circumstances, a unipolar world is an impossibility. The world will either be multipolar or non-existent. The stronger the West’s resolve to uphold its dominance, the fiercer the ensuing battle is likely to be, potentially escalating into a third world war.

Multipolarity will not transpire spontaneously. Now, there is a crucial process of reassembly underway within the Islamic world. If Muslims can unify against a shared formidable adversary, the rise of an Islamic power pole becomes viable.

In my view, the reinstatement of Baghdad and its pivotal role in Iraq could present an ideal resolution. Iraq serves as the convergence point for various major strands of Islamic civilisation, including Arabs, Sunnis, Shiites, Sufis, Salafis, Indo-Europeans, Kurds, and Turks. Baghdad, in particular, has historically been a hub where sciences, religious education, philosophy, and spiritual movements thrived.

Nevertheless, this proposition remains speculative. Nonetheless, it is evident that the Islamic world will require a unifying foundation or common ground.

Baghdad could potentially serve as this platform or as the balance point. However, for this vision to materialise, Iraq must first be liberated from the presence of American forces.



US soldiers play American football before leaving Camp Adder on the outskirts of the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah on December 17, 2011, marking the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

It appears that each power pole must affirm its right to existence through conflict. Russia, upon securing victory in Ukraine, will become a fully sovereign pole. Similarly, once the Taiwan issue is resolved, China will establish itself as a significant pole.

The Islamic world, meanwhile, insists on a fair resolution to the Palestinian problem.

The developments will not halt there; eventually, the roles of India, Africa, and Latin America, which are currently increasingly facing the new forces of colonisation, will also become significant.

Consequently, all the poles in the multipolar world will have to navigate their unique challenges and trials.

Eventually, the roles of India, Africa, and Latin America, which are currently increasingly facing the new forces of colonisation, will also become significant. Consequently, all the poles in the multipolar world will have to navigate their unique challenges and trials.

Multipolarism is probable

Afterwards, we may witness a partial return to the global order that prevailed before Christopher Columbus, where various empires coexisted alongside Western Europe.

These empires included the Chinese, Indian, Russian, Ottoman, and Persian, along with robust independent states in South Asia, Africa, Latin America, and even Oceania. Each of these entities had its distinct political and social systems, which Europeans later equated with barbarism and savagery.

Consequently, multipolarism is entirely plausible, which was the case for humanity before the emergence of Western global imperial politics in the modern era.

This does not imply an immediate establishment of global peace; however, such a multipolar world system would inherently be more just and balanced.

All conflicts would be approached based on a fair and collective stance, in which humanity would be protected from racial injustices akin to those witnessed in Nazi Germany, contemporary Israel, or the aggressive dominance of the global West.

Source: https://en.majalla.com

*Translated and coordinated by Ramia Yahia

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Istanbul, not Constantinople ????
Snapped this rooftop sunset view from the historic district of Istanbul, Turkey ????

Has Turkey Defected to Russia and China?

Turkey, under intense pressure from both the United States and the European Union, this month "abruptly" began to block the transit of sanctioned goods to Russia. This welcome development follows reports that Brian Nelson, the U.S. Treasury's top sanctions official, met with Turkish counterparts last month in Ankara and Istanbul.

Previously, Turkey had aided the Russian war effort by allowing Moscow to use it as a conduit for the flow of goods. Turkish companies had even sold, in violation of U.S. sanctions[Not that the US has any authority or sovereignty over Turkey......], products to Russian companies.

There is, unfortunately, no good news on a more consequential front. Ankara is still blocking the admission of Finland and Sweden to NATO. Both Scandinavian countries, long neutral, applied for membership soon after Russia's invasion of Ukraine last February

...All eyes are now on Turkey's May 14 general election. Erdogan faces stiff opposition, and many think he would lose in a fair contest, especially because of discontent over botched relief efforts after last month's devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake in the southern and central parts of the country.

As a practical matter, there will be no progress on the enlargement of NATO until the vote. As Gregory Copley, president of the International Strategic Studies Association, tells Newsweek, "Erdogan is desperately attempting to show that he is the decisive figure in NATO, not only to gain leverage in the other NATO states but also to show his domestic audience that he is a world leader."

????Source: Newsweek
(https://www.newsweek.com/has-turkey-defected-russia-china-opinion-1787361


Related Reading: U.S. Hegemony Under Attack as Saudis, UAE, India Ignore Threats of Sanctions, Turn to Russia and China

http://mcguiremitchell32.medium.com/us-hegemony-threatened-as-saudis-uae-india-ignore-threats-of-sanctions-turn-to-russia-china-9473f26a6342

#turkey #Russia #china #newsweek #politics

I’ve gotta say! What an impressive ”hub” Istanbul is! Such a nice airport. With a terrace AND a 360-degree tower one can visit.

Good Night Friends.
istanbul - Maiden's Tower