• "It is obviously un-American for the government to develop a ‘hit list’ of citizens to mute in the public square through secret pressure on communications monopolies."

    This Country Can't Afford A SCOTUS Weak On Internet Censorship
    Joy Pullmann
    The Biden administration attempted to distract the Supreme Court from the voluminous evidence of federal abuse of Americans’ speech rights during oral arguments in Murthy v. Missouri Monday. It sounded like several justices followed the feds’ waving red flag.

    “The government may not use coercive threats to suppress speech, but it is entitled to speak for itself by informing, persuading, or criticizing private speakers,” said Biden administration lawyer Brian Fletcher in his opening remarks. He and several justices asserted government speech prerogatives that would flip the Constitution upside down.

    The government doesn’t have constitutional rights. Constitutional rights belong to the people and restrain the government. The people’s right to speak may not be abridged. Government officials’ speaking, in their official capacities, may certainly be abridged. Indeed, it often must be, precisely to restrict officials from abusing the state’s monopoly on violence to bully citizens into serfdom.

    It is obviously un-American and unconstitutional for the government to develop a “hit list” of citizens to mute in the public square through secret pressure on communications monopolies beholden to the government for their monopoly powers. There is simply no way it’s “protected speech” for the feds to use intermediaries to silence anyone who disagrees with them on internet forums where the majority of the nation’s political organizing and information dissemination occurs.

    Bullying, Not the Bully Pulpit

    What’s happening is not government expressing its views to media, or “encouraging press to suppress their own speech,” as Justice Elena Kagan put it. This is government bullying third parties to suppress Americans’ speech that officials dislike.

    In the newspaper analogy, it would be like government threatening an IRS audit or Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) investigation, or pulling the business license of The Washington Post if the Post published an op-ed from Jay Bhattacharya. As Norwood v. Harrison established in 1973, that’s blatantly unconstitutional. Government cannot “induce, encourage or promote private persons to accomplish what it is constitutionally forbidden to accomplish.”

    Yet, notes Matt Taibbi, some justices and Fletcher “re-framed the outing of extravagantly funded, ongoing content-flagging programs, designed by veterans of foreign counterterrorism operations and targeting the domestic population, as a debate about what Fletcher called ‘classic bully pulpit exhortations.’”

    Every Fake Excuse for Censorship Is Already Illegal

    We have laws against all the harms the government and several justices put forth as excuses for government censorship. Terrorism is illegal. Promoting terrorism is illegal, as an incitement to treason and violence. Inciting children to injure or murder themselves by jumping out windows — a “hypothetical” brought up by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and discussed at length in oral arguments — is illegal.

    If someone is spreading terrorist incitements to violence on Facebook, law enforcement needs to go after the terrorist plotters, not Facebook. Just like it’s unjust to punish gun, knife, and tire iron manufacturers for the people who use their products to murder, it’s unjust and unconstitutional for government to effectively commandeer Facebook under the pretext of all the evils people use it to spread. If they have a problem with those evils, they should address those evils directly, not pressure Facebook to do what they can’t get through Congress like it’s some kind of substitute legislature.

    It’s also ridiculous to, as Jackson and Fletcher did in oral argument, assume that the government is the only possible solution to every social ill. Do these hypothetically window-jumping children not have parents? Teachers? Older siblings? Neighbors? Would the social media companies not have an interest in preventing their products from being used to promote death, and wouldn’t that be an easy thing to explain publicly? Apparently, Jackson couldn’t conceive of any other solution to problems like these than government censorship, when our society has handled far bigger problems like war, pandemics, and foreign invasion without government censorship for 250 years!

    Voters Auditing Government Is Exactly How Our System Should Work

    Fletcher described it as a “problem” that in this case, “two states and five individuals are trying to use the Article III courts to audit all of the executive branch’s communications with and about social media platforms.” That’s called transparency, and it’s only a problem if the government is trying to escape accountability to voters for its actions.

    The people have a fundamental right to audit what their government is doing with public positions, institutions, and funds! How do we have government by consent of the governed if the people can have no idea what their government is doing?

    Under federal laws, all communications like those this lawsuit uncovered are public records. Yet these public records are really hard to get. The executive branch has been effectively nullifying open records laws by absurdly lengthening disclosure times — to as long as 636 days — increasingly forcing citizens to wage expensive lawsuits to get federal agencies to cough up records years beyond the legal deadline.

    Congress should pass a law forcing the automatic disclosure of all government communications with tech monopolies that don’t concern actual classified information and “national security” designations, which the government expands unlawfully to avoid transparency. No justice should support government secrecy about its speech pressure efforts outside of legitimate national security actions.

    Government Is So Big, It’s Always Coercive

    Fletcher’s argument also claimed to draw a line between government persuasion and government coercion. The size and minute harassment powers of our government long ago obliterated any such line, if it ever existed. Federal agencies now have the power to try citizens in non-Article III courts, outside constitutional protections for due process. Citizens can be bankrupted long before they finally get to appeal to a real court. That’s why most of them just do whatever the agencies say, even when it’s clearly unlawful.

    Federal agencies demand power over almost every facet of life, from puddles in people’s backyards to the temperature of cheese served in a tiny restaurant. If they put a target on any normal citizen’s back, he goes bankrupt after regulatory torture.

    As Franklin Roosevelt’s “brain trust” planned, government is now the “senior partner” of every business, giving every “request” from government officials automatic coercion power. Federal agencies have six ways from Sunday of getting back at a noncompliant company, from the EEOC to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to the Environmental Protection Agency to Health and Human Services to Securities and Exchange Commission investigations and more. Use an accurate pronoun? Investigation. Hire “one too many” white guys? Investigation.

    TikTok legislation going through Congress right now would codify federal power to seize social media companies accused of being owned by foreign interests. Shortly after he acquired X, Elon Musk faced a regulatory shakedown costing him tens of millions, and more on the way. He has money like that, but the rest of us don’t.

    Speech from a private citizen does not have the threat of violence behind it. Speech from a government official, on the other hand, absolutely does and always has. Government officials have powers that other people don’t, and those powers are easily abused, which is exactly why we have a Constitution. SCOTUS needs to take this crucial context into account, making constitutional protections stronger because the government is far, far outside its constitutional bounds.

    Big tech companies’ very business model depends on government regulators and can be destroyed — or kneecapped — at the stroke of an activist president’s pen. Or, at least, that’s what the president said when Facebook and Twitter didn’t do what he wanted: Section 230 should “immediately be revoked.” This is a president who claims the executive power to unilaterally rewrite laws, ignore laws, and ignore Supreme Court decisions. It’s a president who issues orders as press releases so they go into effect months before they can even begin to be challenged in court.

    Constitutionally Protected Speech Isn’t Terrorism

    If justices buy the administration’s nice-guy pretenses of “concern about terrorism,” and “once in a lifetime pandemic measures,” they didn’t read the briefs in this case and see that is simply a cover for the U.S. government turning counterterrorism tools on its own citizens in an attempt to control election outcomes. This is precisely what the First Amendment was designed to check, and we Americans need our Supreme Court to understand that and act to protect us. Elections mean nothing when the government is secretly keeping voters from talking to each other.

    The Supreme Court may not be able to return the country to full constitutional government by eradicating the almost entirely unconstitutional administrative state. But it should enforce as many constitutional boundaries as possible on such agencies. That clearly includes prohibiting all of government from outsourcing to allegedly “private” organizations actions that would be illegal for the government to take.

    That includes not just coercive instructions to social media companies, but also developing social media censorship tools and organizations as cutouts for the rogue security state that is targeting peaceful citizens instead of actual terrorists. Even false speech is not domestic terrorism, and no clearheaded Supreme Court justice looking at the evidence could let the Biden administration weaponize antiterrorism measures to strip law-abiding Americans of our fundamental human rights.

    Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist, a happy wife, and the mother of six children. Her ebooks include "Classic Books For Young Children," and "101 Strategies For Living Well Amid Inflation." An 18-year education and politics reporter, Joy has testified before nearly two dozen legislatures on education policy and appeared on major media from Fox News to Ben Shapiro to Dennis Prager. Joy is a grateful graduate of the Hillsdale College honors and journalism programs who identifies as native American and gender natural. Her traditionally published books include "The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids," from Encounter Books.


    https://thefederalist.com/2024/03/21/this-country-cannot-afford-a-weak-supreme-court-decision-on-internet-censorship/

    Join ➡️ @MartinKulldorf
    "It is obviously un-American for the government to develop a ‘hit list’ of citizens to mute in the public square through secret pressure on communications monopolies." This Country Can't Afford A SCOTUS Weak On Internet Censorship Joy Pullmann The Biden administration attempted to distract the Supreme Court from the voluminous evidence of federal abuse of Americans’ speech rights during oral arguments in Murthy v. Missouri Monday. It sounded like several justices followed the feds’ waving red flag. “The government may not use coercive threats to suppress speech, but it is entitled to speak for itself by informing, persuading, or criticizing private speakers,” said Biden administration lawyer Brian Fletcher in his opening remarks. He and several justices asserted government speech prerogatives that would flip the Constitution upside down. The government doesn’t have constitutional rights. Constitutional rights belong to the people and restrain the government. The people’s right to speak may not be abridged. Government officials’ speaking, in their official capacities, may certainly be abridged. Indeed, it often must be, precisely to restrict officials from abusing the state’s monopoly on violence to bully citizens into serfdom. It is obviously un-American and unconstitutional for the government to develop a “hit list” of citizens to mute in the public square through secret pressure on communications monopolies beholden to the government for their monopoly powers. There is simply no way it’s “protected speech” for the feds to use intermediaries to silence anyone who disagrees with them on internet forums where the majority of the nation’s political organizing and information dissemination occurs. Bullying, Not the Bully Pulpit What’s happening is not government expressing its views to media, or “encouraging press to suppress their own speech,” as Justice Elena Kagan put it. This is government bullying third parties to suppress Americans’ speech that officials dislike. In the newspaper analogy, it would be like government threatening an IRS audit or Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) investigation, or pulling the business license of The Washington Post if the Post published an op-ed from Jay Bhattacharya. As Norwood v. Harrison established in 1973, that’s blatantly unconstitutional. Government cannot “induce, encourage or promote private persons to accomplish what it is constitutionally forbidden to accomplish.” Yet, notes Matt Taibbi, some justices and Fletcher “re-framed the outing of extravagantly funded, ongoing content-flagging programs, designed by veterans of foreign counterterrorism operations and targeting the domestic population, as a debate about what Fletcher called ‘classic bully pulpit exhortations.’” Every Fake Excuse for Censorship Is Already Illegal We have laws against all the harms the government and several justices put forth as excuses for government censorship. Terrorism is illegal. Promoting terrorism is illegal, as an incitement to treason and violence. Inciting children to injure or murder themselves by jumping out windows — a “hypothetical” brought up by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and discussed at length in oral arguments — is illegal. If someone is spreading terrorist incitements to violence on Facebook, law enforcement needs to go after the terrorist plotters, not Facebook. Just like it’s unjust to punish gun, knife, and tire iron manufacturers for the people who use their products to murder, it’s unjust and unconstitutional for government to effectively commandeer Facebook under the pretext of all the evils people use it to spread. If they have a problem with those evils, they should address those evils directly, not pressure Facebook to do what they can’t get through Congress like it’s some kind of substitute legislature. It’s also ridiculous to, as Jackson and Fletcher did in oral argument, assume that the government is the only possible solution to every social ill. Do these hypothetically window-jumping children not have parents? Teachers? Older siblings? Neighbors? Would the social media companies not have an interest in preventing their products from being used to promote death, and wouldn’t that be an easy thing to explain publicly? Apparently, Jackson couldn’t conceive of any other solution to problems like these than government censorship, when our society has handled far bigger problems like war, pandemics, and foreign invasion without government censorship for 250 years! Voters Auditing Government Is Exactly How Our System Should Work Fletcher described it as a “problem” that in this case, “two states and five individuals are trying to use the Article III courts to audit all of the executive branch’s communications with and about social media platforms.” That’s called transparency, and it’s only a problem if the government is trying to escape accountability to voters for its actions. The people have a fundamental right to audit what their government is doing with public positions, institutions, and funds! How do we have government by consent of the governed if the people can have no idea what their government is doing? Under federal laws, all communications like those this lawsuit uncovered are public records. Yet these public records are really hard to get. The executive branch has been effectively nullifying open records laws by absurdly lengthening disclosure times — to as long as 636 days — increasingly forcing citizens to wage expensive lawsuits to get federal agencies to cough up records years beyond the legal deadline. Congress should pass a law forcing the automatic disclosure of all government communications with tech monopolies that don’t concern actual classified information and “national security” designations, which the government expands unlawfully to avoid transparency. No justice should support government secrecy about its speech pressure efforts outside of legitimate national security actions. Government Is So Big, It’s Always Coercive Fletcher’s argument also claimed to draw a line between government persuasion and government coercion. The size and minute harassment powers of our government long ago obliterated any such line, if it ever existed. Federal agencies now have the power to try citizens in non-Article III courts, outside constitutional protections for due process. Citizens can be bankrupted long before they finally get to appeal to a real court. That’s why most of them just do whatever the agencies say, even when it’s clearly unlawful. Federal agencies demand power over almost every facet of life, from puddles in people’s backyards to the temperature of cheese served in a tiny restaurant. If they put a target on any normal citizen’s back, he goes bankrupt after regulatory torture. As Franklin Roosevelt’s “brain trust” planned, government is now the “senior partner” of every business, giving every “request” from government officials automatic coercion power. Federal agencies have six ways from Sunday of getting back at a noncompliant company, from the EEOC to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to the Environmental Protection Agency to Health and Human Services to Securities and Exchange Commission investigations and more. Use an accurate pronoun? Investigation. Hire “one too many” white guys? Investigation. TikTok legislation going through Congress right now would codify federal power to seize social media companies accused of being owned by foreign interests. Shortly after he acquired X, Elon Musk faced a regulatory shakedown costing him tens of millions, and more on the way. He has money like that, but the rest of us don’t. Speech from a private citizen does not have the threat of violence behind it. Speech from a government official, on the other hand, absolutely does and always has. Government officials have powers that other people don’t, and those powers are easily abused, which is exactly why we have a Constitution. SCOTUS needs to take this crucial context into account, making constitutional protections stronger because the government is far, far outside its constitutional bounds. Big tech companies’ very business model depends on government regulators and can be destroyed — or kneecapped — at the stroke of an activist president’s pen. Or, at least, that’s what the president said when Facebook and Twitter didn’t do what he wanted: Section 230 should “immediately be revoked.” This is a president who claims the executive power to unilaterally rewrite laws, ignore laws, and ignore Supreme Court decisions. It’s a president who issues orders as press releases so they go into effect months before they can even begin to be challenged in court. Constitutionally Protected Speech Isn’t Terrorism If justices buy the administration’s nice-guy pretenses of “concern about terrorism,” and “once in a lifetime pandemic measures,” they didn’t read the briefs in this case and see that is simply a cover for the U.S. government turning counterterrorism tools on its own citizens in an attempt to control election outcomes. This is precisely what the First Amendment was designed to check, and we Americans need our Supreme Court to understand that and act to protect us. Elections mean nothing when the government is secretly keeping voters from talking to each other. The Supreme Court may not be able to return the country to full constitutional government by eradicating the almost entirely unconstitutional administrative state. But it should enforce as many constitutional boundaries as possible on such agencies. That clearly includes prohibiting all of government from outsourcing to allegedly “private” organizations actions that would be illegal for the government to take. That includes not just coercive instructions to social media companies, but also developing social media censorship tools and organizations as cutouts for the rogue security state that is targeting peaceful citizens instead of actual terrorists. Even false speech is not domestic terrorism, and no clearheaded Supreme Court justice looking at the evidence could let the Biden administration weaponize antiterrorism measures to strip law-abiding Americans of our fundamental human rights. Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist, a happy wife, and the mother of six children. Her ebooks include "Classic Books For Young Children," and "101 Strategies For Living Well Amid Inflation." An 18-year education and politics reporter, Joy has testified before nearly two dozen legislatures on education policy and appeared on major media from Fox News to Ben Shapiro to Dennis Prager. Joy is a grateful graduate of the Hillsdale College honors and journalism programs who identifies as native American and gender natural. Her traditionally published books include "The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids," from Encounter Books. https://thefederalist.com/2024/03/21/this-country-cannot-afford-a-weak-supreme-court-decision-on-internet-censorship/ Join ➡️ @MartinKulldorf
    THEFEDERALIST.COM
    This Country Can't Afford A SCOTUS Weak On Internet Censorship
    It is obviously un-American for the government to develop a 'hit list' of citizens to mute through secret pressure on tech monopolies.
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  • ‘Too big to fail’ was bad enough for the banks. Now we have ‘too many to fail.’
    Last Updated: Feb. 13, 2024 at 1:20 p.m. ET

    People line up outside of the shuttered Silicon Valley Bank headquarters on March 10, 2023, in Santa Clara, Calif.
    Getty Images
    Almost a year after the mini banking crisis in the United States, it is worth revisiting the episode. Was it just a tempest in a teacup? Was there really a systemic threat, or was it just a problem with a few banks? Should the interventions by the U.S. Federal Reserve and Treasury worry or comfort us?

    Recall that three mid-size U.S. banks suddenly failed around March 2023. The most prominent was Silicon Valley Bank, which became the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history, after Washington Mutual in 2008. Roughly 90% of the deposits at SVB were uninsured, and uninsured deposits are prone to runs. Making matters worse, SVB had invested significant sums in long-term bonds, the market value of which fell as interest rates rose. When SVB sold some of these holdings to raise funds, the unrealized losses embedded in its bond portfolio started coming to light. A failed equity offering then triggered a classic bank run.

    It is convenient to think that these issues were confined to just a few rogue banks. But the problem was systemic.

    When the Fed engages in quantitative easing (QE), it buys bonds from financial institutions. Typically, those sellers then deposit the money in their bank, and this results in a large increase in uninsured deposits in the banking system. On the banks’ asset side, there is a corresponding increase in central-bank reserves. This is stable, since reserves are the most liquid asset on the planet and can be used to satisfy any impatient depositors who come for their money. Unfortunately, a number of smaller banks (with less than $50 billion in assets) moved away from this stable position as QE continued.

    Historically, smaller U.S. banks financed themselves conservatively, with uninsured demandable deposits accounting for only around 10% of their liabilities. Yet by the time the Fed was done with its pandemic-era QE, these banks’ uninsured demandable deposits exceeded 30% of liabilities. Though that level was still far below SVB’s, these institutions clearly had drunk from the same firehose.

    Smaller banks were also more conservative about liquidity in the past. At the outset of QE in late 2008, banks with less than $50 billion in assets had reserves (and other assets that could be used to borrow reserves) that exceeded the uninsured demandable deposits they had issued. By early 2023, however, they had issued runnable claims (in aggregate) that were one and a half times the size of their liquid assets. Instead of holding liquid reserves, their assets were now more weighted toward long-term securities and term lending, including a significant share of commercial real-estate (CRE) loans.

    Advertisement
    Thus, as the Fed raised interest rates, the economic value of these banks’ assets fell sharply. Some of the fall was hidden by accounting sleight of hand, but SVB’s sudden demise caused investors to scrutinize banks’ balance sheets more carefully. What they saw did not instill confidence. The KBW Nasdaq Bank Index duly fell by over 25%, and deposits started flowing out of a large number of banks, many of which lacked the liquidity to accommodate the sudden outflows. The risk of contagious runs across smaller banks was real, as was the possibly of the problem spreading more widely.

    The Treasury essentially took bank runs off the table, while the Fed provided banks the funds to accommodate the continuing — though no longer panicked — depositor outflows.

    Importantly, as private money flowed to large banks, very little flowed to small- and medium-size institutions. That is why the authorities had to come to the rescue. Soon after SVB’s demise, the Treasury signaled that no uninsured depositor in small banks would suffer losses in any further bank collapses.

    The Fed opened a generous new facility that lent money for up to one year to banks against the par, or face value, of the securities they held on their balance sheets, without adjusting for the erosion in the value of these securities from higher interest rates. And the Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBanks) — effectively an arm of the U.S. government — increased its lending to stressed banks, with total advances to the banking system having already tripled between March 2022 and March 2023 amid the Fed’s policy tightening. Borrowing by small- and medium-size banks from these official sources skyrocketed.

    The Treasury essentially took bank runs off the table, while the Fed provided banks the funds to accommodate the continuing — though no longer panicked — depositor outflows. A potential banking crisis was converted into a slow-burning problem for banks as they recognized and absorbed the losses on their balance sheets.

    Just recently, New York Community Bancorp NYCB, -5.17%, which bought parts of one of the banks that failed in 2023, reminded us that this process is still underway when it announced large losses. With the Russell microcap index of small companies significantly underperforming the S&P 100 index OEX of the largest companies since March 2023, it appears that smaller banks’ troubles have weighed on their traditional clients: small- and medium-size companies.

    Where does that leave us? Although the situation could have been much worse if the Treasury and the Fed had not stepped in, the seeming ease with which the panic was arrested allowed public attention to move on. Apart from die-hard libertarians, no one seems to care much about the extent of the intervention that was needed to rescue the smaller banks, nor has there been any broad inquiry into the circumstances that led to the vulnerabilities.

    As a result, several questions remain unanswered. To what extent were the seeds of the 2023 banking stress sown by the pandemic-induced monetary stimulus and lax supervision of what banks did with the money? Did advances by the FHLBanks delay failed banks’ efforts to raise capital? Are banks that relied on official backstops after SVB’s failure keeping afloat distressed CRE borrowers, and therefore merely postponing an eventual reckoning?

    It is not good for capitalism when those who knowingly take risks — bankers and uninsured depositors, in this case — pay no price when a risk materializes. Despite sweeping banking reforms over the past 15 years, the authorities have once again shown that they are willing to bail out market players if enough of them have taken the same risk.

    “Too big to fail” was bad enough, but now we have “too many to fail.” The mini-crisis of March 2023 was much more than a footnote in banking history. We cannot afford to bury it.

    Raghuram G. Rajan, a former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, is professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the author, most recently, of Monetary Policy and Its Unintended Consequences (The MIT Press, 2023). Viral V. Acharya, a former deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, is professor of economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business.

    This commentary was published with the permission of Project Syndicate — The Danger of Forgetting the 2023 Banking Crisis.

    More: Regional-bank bondholders seem unworried by New York Community Bank’s problems

    Also read: Recession in 2024? A quarter of economists think it will happen.


    😎🇺🇸🦅 PAR-TY… 🎉. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/too-big-to-fail-was-bad-enough-for-the-banks-now-we-have-too-many-to-fail-d89dcdda
    ‘Too big to fail’ was bad enough for the banks. Now we have ‘too many to fail.’ Last Updated: Feb. 13, 2024 at 1:20 p.m. ET People line up outside of the shuttered Silicon Valley Bank headquarters on March 10, 2023, in Santa Clara, Calif. Getty Images Almost a year after the mini banking crisis in the United States, it is worth revisiting the episode. Was it just a tempest in a teacup? Was there really a systemic threat, or was it just a problem with a few banks? Should the interventions by the U.S. Federal Reserve and Treasury worry or comfort us? Recall that three mid-size U.S. banks suddenly failed around March 2023. The most prominent was Silicon Valley Bank, which became the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history, after Washington Mutual in 2008. Roughly 90% of the deposits at SVB were uninsured, and uninsured deposits are prone to runs. Making matters worse, SVB had invested significant sums in long-term bonds, the market value of which fell as interest rates rose. When SVB sold some of these holdings to raise funds, the unrealized losses embedded in its bond portfolio started coming to light. A failed equity offering then triggered a classic bank run. It is convenient to think that these issues were confined to just a few rogue banks. But the problem was systemic. When the Fed engages in quantitative easing (QE), it buys bonds from financial institutions. Typically, those sellers then deposit the money in their bank, and this results in a large increase in uninsured deposits in the banking system. On the banks’ asset side, there is a corresponding increase in central-bank reserves. This is stable, since reserves are the most liquid asset on the planet and can be used to satisfy any impatient depositors who come for their money. Unfortunately, a number of smaller banks (with less than $50 billion in assets) moved away from this stable position as QE continued. Historically, smaller U.S. banks financed themselves conservatively, with uninsured demandable deposits accounting for only around 10% of their liabilities. Yet by the time the Fed was done with its pandemic-era QE, these banks’ uninsured demandable deposits exceeded 30% of liabilities. Though that level was still far below SVB’s, these institutions clearly had drunk from the same firehose. Smaller banks were also more conservative about liquidity in the past. At the outset of QE in late 2008, banks with less than $50 billion in assets had reserves (and other assets that could be used to borrow reserves) that exceeded the uninsured demandable deposits they had issued. By early 2023, however, they had issued runnable claims (in aggregate) that were one and a half times the size of their liquid assets. Instead of holding liquid reserves, their assets were now more weighted toward long-term securities and term lending, including a significant share of commercial real-estate (CRE) loans. Advertisement Thus, as the Fed raised interest rates, the economic value of these banks’ assets fell sharply. Some of the fall was hidden by accounting sleight of hand, but SVB’s sudden demise caused investors to scrutinize banks’ balance sheets more carefully. What they saw did not instill confidence. The KBW Nasdaq Bank Index duly fell by over 25%, and deposits started flowing out of a large number of banks, many of which lacked the liquidity to accommodate the sudden outflows. The risk of contagious runs across smaller banks was real, as was the possibly of the problem spreading more widely. The Treasury essentially took bank runs off the table, while the Fed provided banks the funds to accommodate the continuing — though no longer panicked — depositor outflows. Importantly, as private money flowed to large banks, very little flowed to small- and medium-size institutions. That is why the authorities had to come to the rescue. Soon after SVB’s demise, the Treasury signaled that no uninsured depositor in small banks would suffer losses in any further bank collapses. The Fed opened a generous new facility that lent money for up to one year to banks against the par, or face value, of the securities they held on their balance sheets, without adjusting for the erosion in the value of these securities from higher interest rates. And the Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBanks) — effectively an arm of the U.S. government — increased its lending to stressed banks, with total advances to the banking system having already tripled between March 2022 and March 2023 amid the Fed’s policy tightening. Borrowing by small- and medium-size banks from these official sources skyrocketed. The Treasury essentially took bank runs off the table, while the Fed provided banks the funds to accommodate the continuing — though no longer panicked — depositor outflows. A potential banking crisis was converted into a slow-burning problem for banks as they recognized and absorbed the losses on their balance sheets. Just recently, New York Community Bancorp NYCB, -5.17%, which bought parts of one of the banks that failed in 2023, reminded us that this process is still underway when it announced large losses. With the Russell microcap index of small companies significantly underperforming the S&P 100 index OEX of the largest companies since March 2023, it appears that smaller banks’ troubles have weighed on their traditional clients: small- and medium-size companies. Where does that leave us? Although the situation could have been much worse if the Treasury and the Fed had not stepped in, the seeming ease with which the panic was arrested allowed public attention to move on. Apart from die-hard libertarians, no one seems to care much about the extent of the intervention that was needed to rescue the smaller banks, nor has there been any broad inquiry into the circumstances that led to the vulnerabilities. As a result, several questions remain unanswered. To what extent were the seeds of the 2023 banking stress sown by the pandemic-induced monetary stimulus and lax supervision of what banks did with the money? Did advances by the FHLBanks delay failed banks’ efforts to raise capital? Are banks that relied on official backstops after SVB’s failure keeping afloat distressed CRE borrowers, and therefore merely postponing an eventual reckoning? It is not good for capitalism when those who knowingly take risks — bankers and uninsured depositors, in this case — pay no price when a risk materializes. Despite sweeping banking reforms over the past 15 years, the authorities have once again shown that they are willing to bail out market players if enough of them have taken the same risk. “Too big to fail” was bad enough, but now we have “too many to fail.” The mini-crisis of March 2023 was much more than a footnote in banking history. We cannot afford to bury it. Raghuram G. Rajan, a former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, is professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the author, most recently, of Monetary Policy and Its Unintended Consequences (The MIT Press, 2023). Viral V. Acharya, a former deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, is professor of economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business. This commentary was published with the permission of Project Syndicate — The Danger of Forgetting the 2023 Banking Crisis. More: Regional-bank bondholders seem unworried by New York Community Bank’s problems Also read: Recession in 2024? A quarter of economists think it will happen. 😎🇺🇸🦅 PAR-TY… 🎉. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/too-big-to-fail-was-bad-enough-for-the-banks-now-we-have-too-many-to-fail-d89dcdda
    WWW.MARKETWATCH.COM
    ‘Too big to fail’ was bad enough for the banks. Now we have ‘too many to fail.’
    The failures may have been confined to just a few rogue banks, but the problem is systemic.
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  • 🧑‍⚖️🚨51-year-old #BrianSewell was caught in the middle of a #Bitcoin fraud and the #UnitedStates Securities & Exchange Commission (#SEC) levied charges on him for this crime.
    🧑‍⚖️🚨51-year-old #BrianSewell was caught in the middle of a #Bitcoin fraud and the #UnitedStates Securities & Exchange Commission (#SEC) levied charges on him for this crime.
    Like
    1
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  • 👩‍⚖️👨‍⚖️The #US Securities & Exchange Commission (#SEC) approved the launch of 11 exchange-traded funds (#ETFs) investing directly in #Bitcoin.

    It will open up access to the largest #cryptocurrency in the traditional US #financial market and beyond.
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  • Israel’s 9/11: “The Greater Israel”, Maritime Natural Gas, and the Prospect of a Middle East Multi-Front War
    Transcript Included


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    “Yes, this could end up being a multi-front war. Now if this becomes a multi-front war, it is a regional war that will escalate to a global war. No question about it! The Chinese and the Russians back the Iranians.” – Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya (From this week’s interview.)

    “Israel needs the United States in this fight, and the way to get the United States into this fight is to provoke a large scale attack from Iran or an Iranian proxy. That’s I think the game that’s being played right now. So, where I see this going Michael, is we are heading to a major, major war in the Middle East.” – Dimitri Lascaris (From this week’s interview.)

    LISTEN TO THE SHOW


    Click to download the audio (MP3 format)
    “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible.”

    “go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.” [1]

    These are the statements made by the Prime Minister of the country ranked 15th in the world in total military expenditures – and a major ally of the United States. And Canada.

    President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, for all their proclaiming of upholding science, for their respect for progressive political values, still seem to be prepared to support an apparent “religious fanatic” spouting claims from the same book of the Old Testament that proclaimed that the sun stood still in the sky while the forces of the children of Israel pounded the enemy of the day.

    “Then Joshua spoke to the Lord on the day when the Lord delivered the Amorites before the children of Israel; and he said in the sight of Israel: ‘Sun, stand still [dom] upon Gibeon; and you, Moon, in the valley of Ayalon.’” (Joshua 10:12)

    The dead in Gaza have now vastly outnumbered those who died in Israel. The Israeli Defense Forces have slowly begun a ground invasion of Northern Gaza.

    Meanwhile, the U.S. has positioned aircraft carriers. guided missile ships, Bataan ARG ships, aerial defense and Tomahawk cruise missiles, THAAD and Patriot missiles, and 2,500 marines in the Middle East in addition to two F-16 an A10 Squadron and 20 refuelling tankers in the Persian Gulf. [2]

    These developments are disturbing. Just as Russian forces parked their troops at the border with Ukraine for months before eventually charging in on the 24th of February of last year, one can only wonder what new development Uncle Sam is waiting for before the second shoe drops.

    It’s been said that war is good for business, as was the case with World War I and World War II. And right now, one can see where certain elite figures might welcome and even agitate for another major financial windfall.

    However, the citizens of countries around the world, including the U.S. are protesting Israel’s action in sizes growing every weekend. November 4 is expected to be the largest Palestine solidarity protest in history. [3]

    The Great Plan for Gaza, supposedly to prevent any more terror attacks from Hamas, may escalate into other areas supporting Palestinians, from Lebanon, to Syria and Iran and ultimately to the United States, Russia and China. Is the epic World War III finally on the collective plate of humanity? One of many questions to be probed on this week’s Global Research News Hour.

    Our first guest, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, returns to the Global Research News Hour to share one of his own analyses of the Israel-Gaza conflict, explains how the October 7 attack by Hamas was an early “Christmas present” for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, talks about the disinformation surrounding the crimes of Hamas, focuses on Natural Gas as a prize for Netanyahu’s biblical crusade, and mentions how Iranian involvement could spark a horrific cataclysm.

    Our second guest, Dimitri Lascaris, took a trip to Lebanon since the Israel-Gaza war was underway. He brings an assessment of how forces there could be shaping into a second front against Israel, how he sees the war escalating to a broader front, and how the people of the West wanting to thwart the plans of Israel should take to the streets and “protest like Hell.”

    Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is an award-winning author and geopolitical analyst, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is the author of The Globalization of NATO (Clarity Press) and a forthcoming book The War on Libya and the Re-Colonization of Africa. He has also contributed to several other books ranging from cultural critique to international relations. He is a Sociologist and Research Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He published an article on November 26, 2022: Preparing the Chessboard for the “Clash of Civilizations”: Divide, Conquer and Rule the “New Middle East”

    Dimitri Lascaris is a lawyer, a journalist and an activist. From 2004 to 2016 he was a member of Canada’s leading class action law firm Siskinds LLP. He now works pro-bono legal cases. In 2020, he ran for the leadership of the Green Party of Canada and placed second with 45.5% of the membership.

    (Global Research News Hour Episode 407)

    LISTEN TO THE SHOW


    Click to download the audio (MP3 format)
    Transcript of Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, October 31, 2023.

    Part One

    Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya: One thing I’d like to start off with is, you brought up September 11th, or 9/11 as it is colloquially called. People have paralleled this, called this Israel’s 9/11. Well, you should – the audience should remember that the president of the United States, George W. Bush Jr., was very unpopular before 9/11. There was a lot of problems in the United States, and all that disappeared. His popularity went up and it was – it allowed for this new militarized foreign policy to come into play. Now, the same thing is happening with Israel, although Israel’s foreign policy has always been militaristic. And I think it’s even a misnomer to call it a foreign policy, because it’s dealing – we’re dealing with occupation here.

    Second point I’d like to bring is: pardon me, but I will use some religious expressions. Christmas came early for Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr. Netanyahu, he was under investigation by the Israeli judicial system. There is so much evidence to prove that Mr. Netanyahu was going to be found guilty.

    Definitely, the courts were going to throw the book at him. His solution to this was to politicize the judicial system of Israel, the state of Israel.

    So, what he was doing is basically he wanted to have control over the judicial system by changing the law and, basically, the constitutional structure of Israel. Re-wiring it, whereas the court system, which has always been independent, the judicial branch has been independent from the executive and legislative branches in Israel, the Prime Minister’s office and the Knesset. He wanted to basically subordinate it. This basically resulted in a civil war in Israel.

    What do I mean by a “civil war”? I mean, that the country was divided heavily. There were protests, the rule of law was not being followed. Benjamin Netanyahu started even re-channelling security and military and police assets to Tel Aviv and other major centres against protesters, you know. Because the protesters were not letting up, they were getting stronger. He was trying to outlaw them. So, this was the dynamics in Israel, and even the President of Israel, on the records, said he was afraid there would be a civil war.

    So, what this – what happened in Israel with the October 7th, actually froze this civil war. It put it on ice. And it gave Mr. Netanyahu, I think, he thought, a gift. But in the end, he’s going to realize that this is not a gift. It’s actually going to hurt him in the end. What he has done, he has made many strategic blunders. He has blamed all the Israeli securities for what’s happened.

    The second point in regards to this constellation of what I’m talking about that I’d like to make audiences think about: what happened with the Egyptians – I don’t want to segue – is they sent intelligence to Netanyahu saying that there – Palestinians are in Gaza, Hamas, and other Palestinian resistance fighters, they’re going to do something. So, a message was sent.

    And even the United States government, the US Congress, Senate Foreign Affairs committee has testified that this is correct. The Israeli government knew days beforehand that something was going to happen.

    Now, someone can say they were distracted, someone can say they underestimated it, and someone can say they looked the other way. It’s possible, all these are possibilities. So, this was very convenient for Netanyahu. That’s what I’d like to put forward.

    Of course, there are people who are conspiratorial-minded and they think that maybe Hamas was manipulated into doing this. Maybe the Palestinians were manipulated into doing this. These are all possibilities that can’t be ruled out. But I want to talk on sureties, on facts that we know. We know that there were problems in Israel with Netanyahu. We knew that he was in legal trouble. We knew his popularity was diving. And we also know that the Israeli economy is not as robust as it was before. The handouts coming from the West, the United States, are still coming, but there’s economic problems in the West and that is also affecting Israel. And the Israelis also have their eyes on the Gaza Strip’s territorial waters where there are massive natural gas reserves.

    So, in the Eastern Mediterranean, Cyprus, where there was conflict between the Turks, the Greeks, Cypriots, and even Israelis over natural gas. Syria, Lebanon, and the Gaza Strip all have large amounts of natural gas, and the Israelis want this. It’s specifically Northern Gaza, just to let you know.

    If you look on a map, you can find the maps. Anybody who wants to in this age of technology can find maps showing the gas reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean. You’ll see Northern Gaza, which the Israelis want evacuated, has a lot of natural gas.

    So, did Hamas give them moral grounds to do this? Absolutely not, I disagree. First of all, I want to point out that Hamas is being typecast in the wrong way. In many ways, the situation is misrepresented. First of all, Hamas is a resistance group that is not solely a militia. It is a political party as well. It has a militia branch. The militia branch, the militants, the resistance fighters, or as the Israelis call them, and the Canadian government, terrorists. They were the ones who launched this as a joint Palestinian operation. It was not just Hamas. It was different Palestinian resistance groups. They released a letter about it when they did it. And they did not expect it to be so easy.

    Why? I cannot say why it was so easy. Maybe it’s because the resources weren’t there. Maybe it’s because Israel is not as strong as people think. Maybe that they planned this so well. But the Israeli defences fell immediately. So much so, that —

    Global Research: Do you think —

    MDN: — civilians from Gaza were —

    GR: But, sorry to interrupt. Basically, what you’re saying is: it doesn’t – I mean, they might have had foreknowledge, or they may not. But either way, I guess Netanyahu was kind of, you know, rubbing his hands together saying, ‘Okay, this is our opportunity.’

    MDN: Exactly, —

    GR: I mean, that —

    MDN: — you hit the nail right on the head. So, this was opportunistic. So, this is the parallel with September 11th: the United States used this as an excuse to invade Afghanistan. Geostrategically, very important placement between Pakistan, India, Iran, China, and the former Soviet Union. It used this to invade Iraq to steal Iraq’s oil. It used this as an excuse to go into other countries in the region that we call the Middle East. Longest serving prime minister of Israel.

    Yeah, basically Christmas came early for him. And he used this opportunity to justify what is undoubtedly a genocidal attack on a predominantly civilian – like, almost all of these people are civilians. We cannot forget that the Gaza Strip is the most densely populated place on the Earth. That the Gaza Strip is – the distance in the Gaza Strip is less than the distance of a marathon. People who run the Boston Marathon run a longer distance than the entire length of the Gaza Strip, all right? So, you can run the Boston Marathon and that’s a longer distance of land than the Gaza Strip, that’s just to put it into comparison. And the majority of people there are children.

    GR: 2.3 million people in that space.

    MDN: 2.3 million prisoners, essentially. It has been called by Jimmy Carter, former US president, a man who supported Israel, he has – he basically said it was an open-air prison. Many Israelis themselves say that. The United Nations says that. How many people and how many qualified people have to say this for those people in the rest of the world who disagree and support Israel to see that this is an open-air prison and it’s unacceptable to do that.

    And this is not a defensive war, this is not a war. First of all, the language, as a sociologist – a sociologist who studies power, who has throughout his life studied power dynamics and how language is used to exercise power relationships and to show them and to instruct people, I can tell you that it’s not a war. And legally, it’s not a war, it’s an occupation. And there’s a resistance to an occupation. Nobody would say anything about the Chinese in Nanking who resisted the Japanese attacks on Nanking. Nobody would say anything about the French Resistance. Now, the French Resistance did some really bad things to Nazis, or German soldiers, all right? People do bad things in war. And I’m not here to justify them. I, actually, morally think that one civilian getting killed is unjustifiable.

    So, that said, Hamas has been smeared. How do I believe Hamas has been smeared? I can tell you from the first days they said they beheaded people. There was absolutely no evidence, and this type of nonsense, or propaganda, has been used many times.

    Then, they talked about rape. I highly doubt that there was rape. It’s possible, but that would not be the trend. I mean, there was no – I don’t believe that there was massive rape and people were intentionally raping. I believe that there was an attack. And I believe that the light of the event will become clearer over time of exactly what happened. There still is this fog of war over what happened.

    So, when I heard about children being beheaded and 40 children being beheaded, I knew immediately that’s not true. The reason I knew it’s not true, one of the reasons I knew it’s not true is because there is a history of Israel and the United States using these type of statements and then retracting them or forgetting about them, and just using it to rile people up, to work up people’s emotions.

    So, they said 40 kids and now, everybody, all these politicians started talking about ‘Beheaded kids, beheaded kids.’ A gentleman by the name of Ben Shapiro started saying ‘40 kids, 40 kids,’ and then when he was asked to provide evidence, he brought a picture that later, experts said used AI. And it was just one kid and nobody third party, nobody in a position of authority even authenticated it.

    The Israeli president started presenting Al Qaeda booklets – I don’t know if you’re aware – he did a press conference and he said this Al Qaeda booklet was found amongst Hamas fighters. He expects us to believe Hamas fighters within an hour were planning on building chemical weapons, and they’re using a manual in English? The front of the manual says Al Qaeda in English. That was clearly meant for a foreign audience. No Hamas fighter would have a paper manual that says Al Qaeda. It would use the Arabic language with squiggly writing. The script wouldn’t be Latin and the language wouldn’t be English.

    GR: I’m reminded of the 1991 Persian Gulf War where they took the nurses talking about incubator baby being thrown on the floor by Iraqi —

    MDN: Exactly.

    GR:— soldiers. (inaudible)

    MDN: Exactly. A PR company. She was trained by (Hill and Knowlton), a PR company, who was – she was pretending to be a nurse. But she was really the Kuwaiti ambassador’s daughter. She gave a false testimony to the US Congress, George H. Bush (SIC) used it to start war. In fact, Michael, that is exactly what I thought of when I heard “beheaded children.” I thought of that. I don’t think they went around beheading children.

    These are people under occupation and I don’t think that they want to necessarily spread the same misery that they’ve been facing through an occupation that I actually, in my head, I recall biblical stories of the pharaoh, what he did to the children of Israel. And I parallel this to that. Like, you know, all those things that are described in the Bible that were done to the children of Israel, the Palestinians today are facing that from a modern Netanyahu or a pharaonic Egypt embodied in this state of Israel. The other propaganda —

    GR: How is —

    MDN: — was the rapes. There’s no evidence. They never provided any – I don’t believe anything unless they provide evidence. And they have not provided —

    GR: (inaudible, 14:17) —

    MDN: — any evidence.

    GR: Going, like the Yinon Plan going way, way back, you know, in which they’re wanting to expand, you know. And that’s something that’s been happening, you know, going into West Bank and Gaza. But they’re aiming to go also to expand, at least according to articles, into Syria and into – also into parts of North Africa. I’m wondering —

    MDN: Well, they have —

    GR: — like, the —

    MDN: — expanded, Michael. They’re already annexed Golan Heights in Syria. They already occupy the Shebaa Farms still in Lebanon. They had a plan to annex a lot of Lebanon. It didn’t work, because the Lebanese resistance was so strong with the Iranian support.

    The view of the Israelis is not necessarily to physically occupy land, as you can see in Gaza. Gaza, and officially and under technical and legal terms and in practice, is occupied. But no Israeli army has been on Gazan territory. They control the airwaves, they control the borders. What is imported was exported. The finances. They control the skies, they control the seas. So, that’s how they occupy Gaza, still. There’s still legally the occupational power of who’s responsible for the civilians. Israeli is still, under International Law, responsible for the civilians. A responsibility that it has intentionally neglected.

    But in regards to expanding Israeli influence, they don’t necessarily see this as physical, territorial gains. They see this as – it does include that, but they see this as economic influence. Which is why there is this normalization, the Abraham Accords. They see themselves as being the economic, I would say, gendarme of the United States.

    Now, I want to also point out that the Yinon Plan is not necessarily just about Israel. It’s about Israel serving a great power’s interest in the regions. So, Israel would be the local bully, or the local policeman. I don’t want to use the word “police” because they enforce the law. So, maybe local bandit of a great power like the United States.

    I have to also point this out since we’re talking about the subject: the Jewish people themselves are victims of the state of Israel. And what do I mean by this? The state of Israel thrives on anti-Semitism. It thrives on this. And in the sense that when people dislike or there’s bad things happening to them, some might turn to Israel. Some might think the only place in the world we got to go is Israel. So, it thrives on this and it gives it a raison d’etre. It uses this to justify its existence and this colonialism.

    When in reality, specifically in that region of the world, anti-Semitism in terms of negative views towards Jews was not really a common thing. Most Muslim Arabs and Christian Arabs, as well as Jewish Arabs, and other people, ethnic people of those three faiths, got along. Jews, Muslims, Christians predominantly lived together in peace. When they say they haven’t lived together, that’s ahistorical. It’s not historically correct.

    So, Israel thrives on these things and it wants the region, that region of the world, to be redrawn in a Zionist image. What do I mean by Zionist image? It wants states that are homogeneous and solely made for specific ethno-sectarian religious groups. So, a Kurdish state or a Shiite Arab state or a Sunni Muslim Arab state. It wants that. And that’s not how the world really is. People live together of different faiths and creeds – I mean, different creeds and colours. And that’s how that region really is. It’s always been a mixed region, you can look at Lebanon: Orthodox Christians, various Catholic Christians, even Protestants living together with different types of Shiite Muslims such as Alawites and Jaafaris and Sunni Muslims, as well as Druze.

    Palestine was just like this before the Israelis came. Different Christians, Palestinian Christians, Palestinian Muslims, both Shiite and Sunni, the North had Shiite, as well as Druze and Jews. Palestinian Jews, until this day, there are even Palestinian Jews still in the West Bank, they’re called Samaritans. They call them Samartians. This area was a place of coexistence, and the state of Israel, the experiment of Israel, tried to erase this and create a model of a homogeneous state, although Israel is not a homogeneous state in many ways. There are many cleavages there between different types of Jews in terms of where they originate from and in terms of different sects of Judaism. As well as different ethnicities. Like, for example, there are Israeli citizens who are Palestinian, they call them Israeli Arabs. Some of them are Christian and many of them are Muslim. Twenty percent, roughly, they even have seats in the Knesset.

    The Yinon Plan though, however, going back to it – sorry, I might have sidetracked a little. It wants to redraw the region in this model of Zionism in terms of just homogeneous states. And to do this would mean war and partition. Just think of what happened in India and Pakistan and the misery that came with it and the tensions between a fraternal people. Indians and Pakistanis are more or less the same people. But until —

    GR: You mentioned in —

    MDN: — this day there’s animosity between them.

    —Intermission—

    Part 2

    GR: What about the other states that are going to fight back. I mean you have Hezbollah in Lebanon, you have Hamas, of course. There’s also things that Palestinians could do in the West Bank. There’s even the topic of Iran being (inaudible), a five front war against Israel. Do you think —

    MDN: Okay, that’s a great subject you’re bringing up. I, first of all, I have to be very frank. I have never considered the Israelis to be this juggernaut militarily. I always thought it was an illusion. And myself being a former soldier, you know, as a former serviceman in the military myself, I always looked at how they – I mean, I always looked at generally a lot of the things that they did in their military and it was very questionable on how professional they were.

    So, I mean I don’t think that this is a strong military in many ways. And answering your question, they’re very good at beating up civilians, you know? They’re very good at going at against countries that had civil wars and who have been downgraded and, you know, their military has been broken. They’re very good at sucker shots, like against Syria while there’s internal fighting and the military is worn down. Going against Lebanon after a bloody civil war when everyone is divided. They’re very good at bombing Iraq while it’s at war with Iran. So, they can do things like that and assassinations. But when it comes to an actual, conventional war, I think they’ll lose.

    Now, they always – looking at what military historians talk about their success in the Yom Kippur War, for example. You have to remember, the Arab armies they fought at were also – fought with were also fledgling armies. Those Arab armies were fledgling. They were not well organized. They were young, they were new. Those states also freshly became independent. And they were not as well-armed, in many cases. So, the Israelis have used this propaganda and this image to make themselves look like this Goliath in the region, which I have never agreed with and I want to make that clear. I have always seen it as an illusion. And that’s another point I make. The Israelis are very good at casting illusions. And for them, always their deterrent power was their most prized possession. And that’s why they’re good at making illusions as deterrents.

    If they fight against the Iranians, I think that the – first of all, the Israelis won’t fight against the Iranians. It would be the United States. That’s why the US Navy is there. That’s why those US Navy battle groups are there. So, the United States, ironically, calls for constraint while it funnels weapons into that region to Israel. While it stops ceasefires, while it’s there to fight. That’s some strange definition of constraint. The Iranians and the Americans are negotiations. There are negotiations going between them. As well as Hamas through Qatar. In fact, the Iranians even said there was talk about sending the Israeli captives to Iran, through Turkish or Qatari intermediaries.

    So, yes, this could end up being a multi-front war. Now, if this becomes a multi-front war, it is a regional war that will escalate to a global war. No question about it. The Chinese and the Russians back the Iranians. There was an Iranian advisor who came to Beijing, government advisor, two weeks ago. More or less, when I listen to him, he said, essentially, it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.

    So, the conflict will escalate. But it’s not because this is something that’s going to happen in the Middle East, because all these states there are at each other’s throats. I think it’s by design that the United States is trying to create a broader, three-front conflict. I’m not going to use the word ‘war’ yet, between Russia, China, and Iran. They’ve already started war in Eastern Europe using Ukraine. Now in Palestine, they’re using the Palestinians and the Israelis to create a front there. In Chinese Taipei, which is basically, more or less, a rogue province of China, as Beijing sees it, they’re arming Taipei. And there’s a connection.

    In fact, the funding that Mr. Biden is sending right now is for all three of these places. Maybe Israel has priority, but it’s all three of them. There is a connection: the conflicts in the Middle East and in Eastern Europe will go to the – are being pushed in the Asia Pacific region. And definitely, the Chinese are cognizant about this. And the Chinese position against Israel on this has been very assertive. And I think, very fair in terms of International Law.

    And definitely, the Chinese public, more or less, are not supportive of Israel. In the Chinese public, if you go on Weebo, TikTok, WeChat, if you look at all these, majority of the Chinese public are against Israel. And the Israelis actually have agents trying to push their propaganda and win hearts and minds in the People’s Republic of China and it’s not successful. The Chinese understand what’s at stake, they understand that this is connected to great power maneuvers. At the end of the day, the United States is – this goes back to Washington. It’s not a question of —

    GR: I want —

    MDN: — what television is necessarily doing.

    GR:Yeah. Mahdi, unfortunately we’re starting to run out of time. I wanted to basically give you a chance to maybe remark on anything that you haven’t remarked on yet or maybe emphasize the things that you have. Basically, you know, say in terms of this war where, you know, there are citizens all over the place who are still determined to – who are resisting, you know, in numbers like —

    MDN: Well, —

    GR: — what we’ve seen since 20 years ago. What do you think we should say to the citizens to communicate the importance of this situation and maybe —

    MDN: So, —

    GR:— things like what you do and how to stop it.

    MDN: I’m not anybody special to pontificate to other people on how to follow their moral compasses. But I do think that time is running out for a lot of innocent people. So, I believe that if you have no – if you can do something to help, do it. If you can’t do something positive to help, then at least speak about it. Speak out against that evil or negativity or darkness. And if you cannot do that, and you’re (inaudible) hate it in your heart, dislike it in your heart. What I have to say is: I think time is running out for a lot of innocent people. There is a genocide, no question about it. When you listen to Israeli media and Israeli leaders, they are talking about genocide. Like the president of Israel said this is a collective crime, all Palestinians are guilty. Hamas represents them, it’s their government, they’re all guilty. The Israeli defence minister called them “human animals.”

    A few years ago, they said they would even do another Holocaust there, a few years ago. I mean, Benjamin Netanyahu invoked the Bible and a people that were erased in the Bible. So, they are going to do this. And in fact, in Israel, there is a government document that has been circulated by Israeli media that calls for the ethnic cleansing, or genocide, in Palestine, where all of the Palestinians will be forced to go into the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt and never allowed to come back. They will never be allowed to come back. They will be kicked off the land and forced to live in a tent city in the Sinai, kilometres away from the border with Gaza. And that document actually goes out of it’s way to tell them – they want to tell them that God punished them. That’s what they’d like to tell them, that God punished the Palestinian people and that’s why they’re there. This is actually an Israeli government document from the intelligence services, that they put together.

    The final thing I have to say is that I hope that peace prevails, but I think that, in the end, this is going to hurt Israel and the United States. They will be the two biggest losers from this. That is my strong belief, this will actually backfire against Israel. They are actually committing political suicide. And you can see that the whole world is waking up in this age of social media technology and realizing what they are doing. And in that sense, there is a danger for the supporters of Israel who are trying to outlaw supporting Palestinians.

    So, in Europe, in France and Germany, at the start, they were trying to ban rallies in support of Palestine. And then, there are people Orwellianly trying to say if you support Palestinian rights and freedom, it means you support terrorism or Hamas. Hamas is not the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian people are not Hamas. But I also think Hamas is being misrepresented, as well. I want to point that out. A lot of things you’re hearing, you should double-check. And in much of the world, they are not considered a terrorist organization in a large part of the world. They are considered a resistance group.

    Whether you like their politics and their tactics and their ideology, they are considered a resistance group. So, those are some things that I want to put out there. And I hope this fighting stops, but in the end I think that we all need to speak out in whatever way we can to stop it.

    The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM out of the University of Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca .

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    Notes:

    https://www.infowars.com/posts/netanyahu-declaring-invasion-you-must-remember-what-amalek-has-done-to-you-says-our-holy-bible/
    Avi Scharf and Anshel Pfeffer (Oct 31, 2023), ‘OSINT Shows Third U.S. Naval Group Arrives in Mideast, Countries Prep to Evacuate Thousands’, Haaretz; https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2023-10-31/ty-article-magazine/.premium/osint-third-u-s-naval-group-arrives-in-mideast-countries-prep-to-evacuate-thousands/0000018b-854f-d805-a98f-b5df147e0000
    https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/11/01/biggest-palestine-solidarity-march-in-us-history-expected-to-take-place-on-saturday/
    Related Articles from our Archives
    Israel’s 9/11: “The Greater Israel”, Maritime Natural Gas, and the Prospect of a Middle East Multi-Front War Transcript Included All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name. To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles. a a*** “Yes, this could end up being a multi-front war. Now if this becomes a multi-front war, it is a regional war that will escalate to a global war. No question about it! The Chinese and the Russians back the Iranians.” – Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya (From this week’s interview.) “Israel needs the United States in this fight, and the way to get the United States into this fight is to provoke a large scale attack from Iran or an Iranian proxy. That’s I think the game that’s being played right now. So, where I see this going Michael, is we are heading to a major, major war in the Middle East.” – Dimitri Lascaris (From this week’s interview.) LISTEN TO THE SHOW Click to download the audio (MP3 format) “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible.” “go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.” [1] These are the statements made by the Prime Minister of the country ranked 15th in the world in total military expenditures – and a major ally of the United States. And Canada. President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, for all their proclaiming of upholding science, for their respect for progressive political values, still seem to be prepared to support an apparent “religious fanatic” spouting claims from the same book of the Old Testament that proclaimed that the sun stood still in the sky while the forces of the children of Israel pounded the enemy of the day. “Then Joshua spoke to the Lord on the day when the Lord delivered the Amorites before the children of Israel; and he said in the sight of Israel: ‘Sun, stand still [dom] upon Gibeon; and you, Moon, in the valley of Ayalon.’” (Joshua 10:12) The dead in Gaza have now vastly outnumbered those who died in Israel. The Israeli Defense Forces have slowly begun a ground invasion of Northern Gaza. Meanwhile, the U.S. has positioned aircraft carriers. guided missile ships, Bataan ARG ships, aerial defense and Tomahawk cruise missiles, THAAD and Patriot missiles, and 2,500 marines in the Middle East in addition to two F-16 an A10 Squadron and 20 refuelling tankers in the Persian Gulf. [2] These developments are disturbing. Just as Russian forces parked their troops at the border with Ukraine for months before eventually charging in on the 24th of February of last year, one can only wonder what new development Uncle Sam is waiting for before the second shoe drops. It’s been said that war is good for business, as was the case with World War I and World War II. And right now, one can see where certain elite figures might welcome and even agitate for another major financial windfall. However, the citizens of countries around the world, including the U.S. are protesting Israel’s action in sizes growing every weekend. November 4 is expected to be the largest Palestine solidarity protest in history. [3] The Great Plan for Gaza, supposedly to prevent any more terror attacks from Hamas, may escalate into other areas supporting Palestinians, from Lebanon, to Syria and Iran and ultimately to the United States, Russia and China. Is the epic World War III finally on the collective plate of humanity? One of many questions to be probed on this week’s Global Research News Hour. Our first guest, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, returns to the Global Research News Hour to share one of his own analyses of the Israel-Gaza conflict, explains how the October 7 attack by Hamas was an early “Christmas present” for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, talks about the disinformation surrounding the crimes of Hamas, focuses on Natural Gas as a prize for Netanyahu’s biblical crusade, and mentions how Iranian involvement could spark a horrific cataclysm. Our second guest, Dimitri Lascaris, took a trip to Lebanon since the Israel-Gaza war was underway. He brings an assessment of how forces there could be shaping into a second front against Israel, how he sees the war escalating to a broader front, and how the people of the West wanting to thwart the plans of Israel should take to the streets and “protest like Hell.” Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is an award-winning author and geopolitical analyst, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is the author of The Globalization of NATO (Clarity Press) and a forthcoming book The War on Libya and the Re-Colonization of Africa. He has also contributed to several other books ranging from cultural critique to international relations. He is a Sociologist and Research Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He published an article on November 26, 2022: Preparing the Chessboard for the “Clash of Civilizations”: Divide, Conquer and Rule the “New Middle East” Dimitri Lascaris is a lawyer, a journalist and an activist. From 2004 to 2016 he was a member of Canada’s leading class action law firm Siskinds LLP. He now works pro-bono legal cases. In 2020, he ran for the leadership of the Green Party of Canada and placed second with 45.5% of the membership. (Global Research News Hour Episode 407) LISTEN TO THE SHOW Click to download the audio (MP3 format) Transcript of Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, October 31, 2023. Part One Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya: One thing I’d like to start off with is, you brought up September 11th, or 9/11 as it is colloquially called. People have paralleled this, called this Israel’s 9/11. Well, you should – the audience should remember that the president of the United States, George W. Bush Jr., was very unpopular before 9/11. There was a lot of problems in the United States, and all that disappeared. His popularity went up and it was – it allowed for this new militarized foreign policy to come into play. Now, the same thing is happening with Israel, although Israel’s foreign policy has always been militaristic. And I think it’s even a misnomer to call it a foreign policy, because it’s dealing – we’re dealing with occupation here. Second point I’d like to bring is: pardon me, but I will use some religious expressions. Christmas came early for Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr. Netanyahu, he was under investigation by the Israeli judicial system. There is so much evidence to prove that Mr. Netanyahu was going to be found guilty. Definitely, the courts were going to throw the book at him. His solution to this was to politicize the judicial system of Israel, the state of Israel. So, what he was doing is basically he wanted to have control over the judicial system by changing the law and, basically, the constitutional structure of Israel. Re-wiring it, whereas the court system, which has always been independent, the judicial branch has been independent from the executive and legislative branches in Israel, the Prime Minister’s office and the Knesset. He wanted to basically subordinate it. This basically resulted in a civil war in Israel. What do I mean by a “civil war”? I mean, that the country was divided heavily. There were protests, the rule of law was not being followed. Benjamin Netanyahu started even re-channelling security and military and police assets to Tel Aviv and other major centres against protesters, you know. Because the protesters were not letting up, they were getting stronger. He was trying to outlaw them. So, this was the dynamics in Israel, and even the President of Israel, on the records, said he was afraid there would be a civil war. So, what this – what happened in Israel with the October 7th, actually froze this civil war. It put it on ice. And it gave Mr. Netanyahu, I think, he thought, a gift. But in the end, he’s going to realize that this is not a gift. It’s actually going to hurt him in the end. What he has done, he has made many strategic blunders. He has blamed all the Israeli securities for what’s happened. The second point in regards to this constellation of what I’m talking about that I’d like to make audiences think about: what happened with the Egyptians – I don’t want to segue – is they sent intelligence to Netanyahu saying that there – Palestinians are in Gaza, Hamas, and other Palestinian resistance fighters, they’re going to do something. So, a message was sent. And even the United States government, the US Congress, Senate Foreign Affairs committee has testified that this is correct. The Israeli government knew days beforehand that something was going to happen. Now, someone can say they were distracted, someone can say they underestimated it, and someone can say they looked the other way. It’s possible, all these are possibilities. So, this was very convenient for Netanyahu. That’s what I’d like to put forward. Of course, there are people who are conspiratorial-minded and they think that maybe Hamas was manipulated into doing this. Maybe the Palestinians were manipulated into doing this. These are all possibilities that can’t be ruled out. But I want to talk on sureties, on facts that we know. We know that there were problems in Israel with Netanyahu. We knew that he was in legal trouble. We knew his popularity was diving. And we also know that the Israeli economy is not as robust as it was before. The handouts coming from the West, the United States, are still coming, but there’s economic problems in the West and that is also affecting Israel. And the Israelis also have their eyes on the Gaza Strip’s territorial waters where there are massive natural gas reserves. So, in the Eastern Mediterranean, Cyprus, where there was conflict between the Turks, the Greeks, Cypriots, and even Israelis over natural gas. Syria, Lebanon, and the Gaza Strip all have large amounts of natural gas, and the Israelis want this. It’s specifically Northern Gaza, just to let you know. If you look on a map, you can find the maps. Anybody who wants to in this age of technology can find maps showing the gas reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean. You’ll see Northern Gaza, which the Israelis want evacuated, has a lot of natural gas. So, did Hamas give them moral grounds to do this? Absolutely not, I disagree. First of all, I want to point out that Hamas is being typecast in the wrong way. In many ways, the situation is misrepresented. First of all, Hamas is a resistance group that is not solely a militia. It is a political party as well. It has a militia branch. The militia branch, the militants, the resistance fighters, or as the Israelis call them, and the Canadian government, terrorists. They were the ones who launched this as a joint Palestinian operation. It was not just Hamas. It was different Palestinian resistance groups. They released a letter about it when they did it. And they did not expect it to be so easy. Why? I cannot say why it was so easy. Maybe it’s because the resources weren’t there. Maybe it’s because Israel is not as strong as people think. Maybe that they planned this so well. But the Israeli defences fell immediately. So much so, that — Global Research: Do you think — MDN: — civilians from Gaza were — GR: But, sorry to interrupt. Basically, what you’re saying is: it doesn’t – I mean, they might have had foreknowledge, or they may not. But either way, I guess Netanyahu was kind of, you know, rubbing his hands together saying, ‘Okay, this is our opportunity.’ MDN: Exactly, — GR: I mean, that — MDN: — you hit the nail right on the head. So, this was opportunistic. So, this is the parallel with September 11th: the United States used this as an excuse to invade Afghanistan. Geostrategically, very important placement between Pakistan, India, Iran, China, and the former Soviet Union. It used this to invade Iraq to steal Iraq’s oil. It used this as an excuse to go into other countries in the region that we call the Middle East. Longest serving prime minister of Israel. Yeah, basically Christmas came early for him. And he used this opportunity to justify what is undoubtedly a genocidal attack on a predominantly civilian – like, almost all of these people are civilians. We cannot forget that the Gaza Strip is the most densely populated place on the Earth. That the Gaza Strip is – the distance in the Gaza Strip is less than the distance of a marathon. People who run the Boston Marathon run a longer distance than the entire length of the Gaza Strip, all right? So, you can run the Boston Marathon and that’s a longer distance of land than the Gaza Strip, that’s just to put it into comparison. And the majority of people there are children. GR: 2.3 million people in that space. MDN: 2.3 million prisoners, essentially. It has been called by Jimmy Carter, former US president, a man who supported Israel, he has – he basically said it was an open-air prison. Many Israelis themselves say that. The United Nations says that. How many people and how many qualified people have to say this for those people in the rest of the world who disagree and support Israel to see that this is an open-air prison and it’s unacceptable to do that. And this is not a defensive war, this is not a war. First of all, the language, as a sociologist – a sociologist who studies power, who has throughout his life studied power dynamics and how language is used to exercise power relationships and to show them and to instruct people, I can tell you that it’s not a war. And legally, it’s not a war, it’s an occupation. And there’s a resistance to an occupation. Nobody would say anything about the Chinese in Nanking who resisted the Japanese attacks on Nanking. Nobody would say anything about the French Resistance. Now, the French Resistance did some really bad things to Nazis, or German soldiers, all right? People do bad things in war. And I’m not here to justify them. I, actually, morally think that one civilian getting killed is unjustifiable. So, that said, Hamas has been smeared. How do I believe Hamas has been smeared? I can tell you from the first days they said they beheaded people. There was absolutely no evidence, and this type of nonsense, or propaganda, has been used many times. Then, they talked about rape. I highly doubt that there was rape. It’s possible, but that would not be the trend. I mean, there was no – I don’t believe that there was massive rape and people were intentionally raping. I believe that there was an attack. And I believe that the light of the event will become clearer over time of exactly what happened. There still is this fog of war over what happened. So, when I heard about children being beheaded and 40 children being beheaded, I knew immediately that’s not true. The reason I knew it’s not true, one of the reasons I knew it’s not true is because there is a history of Israel and the United States using these type of statements and then retracting them or forgetting about them, and just using it to rile people up, to work up people’s emotions. So, they said 40 kids and now, everybody, all these politicians started talking about ‘Beheaded kids, beheaded kids.’ A gentleman by the name of Ben Shapiro started saying ‘40 kids, 40 kids,’ and then when he was asked to provide evidence, he brought a picture that later, experts said used AI. And it was just one kid and nobody third party, nobody in a position of authority even authenticated it. The Israeli president started presenting Al Qaeda booklets – I don’t know if you’re aware – he did a press conference and he said this Al Qaeda booklet was found amongst Hamas fighters. He expects us to believe Hamas fighters within an hour were planning on building chemical weapons, and they’re using a manual in English? The front of the manual says Al Qaeda in English. That was clearly meant for a foreign audience. No Hamas fighter would have a paper manual that says Al Qaeda. It would use the Arabic language with squiggly writing. The script wouldn’t be Latin and the language wouldn’t be English. GR: I’m reminded of the 1991 Persian Gulf War where they took the nurses talking about incubator baby being thrown on the floor by Iraqi — MDN: Exactly. GR:— soldiers. (inaudible) MDN: Exactly. A PR company. She was trained by (Hill and Knowlton), a PR company, who was – she was pretending to be a nurse. But she was really the Kuwaiti ambassador’s daughter. She gave a false testimony to the US Congress, George H. Bush (SIC) used it to start war. In fact, Michael, that is exactly what I thought of when I heard “beheaded children.” I thought of that. I don’t think they went around beheading children. These are people under occupation and I don’t think that they want to necessarily spread the same misery that they’ve been facing through an occupation that I actually, in my head, I recall biblical stories of the pharaoh, what he did to the children of Israel. And I parallel this to that. Like, you know, all those things that are described in the Bible that were done to the children of Israel, the Palestinians today are facing that from a modern Netanyahu or a pharaonic Egypt embodied in this state of Israel. The other propaganda — GR: How is — MDN: — was the rapes. There’s no evidence. They never provided any – I don’t believe anything unless they provide evidence. And they have not provided — GR: (inaudible, 14:17) — MDN: — any evidence. GR: Going, like the Yinon Plan going way, way back, you know, in which they’re wanting to expand, you know. And that’s something that’s been happening, you know, going into West Bank and Gaza. But they’re aiming to go also to expand, at least according to articles, into Syria and into – also into parts of North Africa. I’m wondering — MDN: Well, they have — GR: — like, the — MDN: — expanded, Michael. They’re already annexed Golan Heights in Syria. They already occupy the Shebaa Farms still in Lebanon. They had a plan to annex a lot of Lebanon. It didn’t work, because the Lebanese resistance was so strong with the Iranian support. The view of the Israelis is not necessarily to physically occupy land, as you can see in Gaza. Gaza, and officially and under technical and legal terms and in practice, is occupied. But no Israeli army has been on Gazan territory. They control the airwaves, they control the borders. What is imported was exported. The finances. They control the skies, they control the seas. So, that’s how they occupy Gaza, still. There’s still legally the occupational power of who’s responsible for the civilians. Israeli is still, under International Law, responsible for the civilians. A responsibility that it has intentionally neglected. But in regards to expanding Israeli influence, they don’t necessarily see this as physical, territorial gains. They see this as – it does include that, but they see this as economic influence. Which is why there is this normalization, the Abraham Accords. They see themselves as being the economic, I would say, gendarme of the United States. Now, I want to also point out that the Yinon Plan is not necessarily just about Israel. It’s about Israel serving a great power’s interest in the regions. So, Israel would be the local bully, or the local policeman. I don’t want to use the word “police” because they enforce the law. So, maybe local bandit of a great power like the United States. I have to also point this out since we’re talking about the subject: the Jewish people themselves are victims of the state of Israel. And what do I mean by this? The state of Israel thrives on anti-Semitism. It thrives on this. And in the sense that when people dislike or there’s bad things happening to them, some might turn to Israel. Some might think the only place in the world we got to go is Israel. So, it thrives on this and it gives it a raison d’etre. It uses this to justify its existence and this colonialism. When in reality, specifically in that region of the world, anti-Semitism in terms of negative views towards Jews was not really a common thing. Most Muslim Arabs and Christian Arabs, as well as Jewish Arabs, and other people, ethnic people of those three faiths, got along. Jews, Muslims, Christians predominantly lived together in peace. When they say they haven’t lived together, that’s ahistorical. It’s not historically correct. So, Israel thrives on these things and it wants the region, that region of the world, to be redrawn in a Zionist image. What do I mean by Zionist image? It wants states that are homogeneous and solely made for specific ethno-sectarian religious groups. So, a Kurdish state or a Shiite Arab state or a Sunni Muslim Arab state. It wants that. And that’s not how the world really is. People live together of different faiths and creeds – I mean, different creeds and colours. And that’s how that region really is. It’s always been a mixed region, you can look at Lebanon: Orthodox Christians, various Catholic Christians, even Protestants living together with different types of Shiite Muslims such as Alawites and Jaafaris and Sunni Muslims, as well as Druze. Palestine was just like this before the Israelis came. Different Christians, Palestinian Christians, Palestinian Muslims, both Shiite and Sunni, the North had Shiite, as well as Druze and Jews. Palestinian Jews, until this day, there are even Palestinian Jews still in the West Bank, they’re called Samaritans. They call them Samartians. This area was a place of coexistence, and the state of Israel, the experiment of Israel, tried to erase this and create a model of a homogeneous state, although Israel is not a homogeneous state in many ways. There are many cleavages there between different types of Jews in terms of where they originate from and in terms of different sects of Judaism. As well as different ethnicities. Like, for example, there are Israeli citizens who are Palestinian, they call them Israeli Arabs. Some of them are Christian and many of them are Muslim. Twenty percent, roughly, they even have seats in the Knesset. The Yinon Plan though, however, going back to it – sorry, I might have sidetracked a little. It wants to redraw the region in this model of Zionism in terms of just homogeneous states. And to do this would mean war and partition. Just think of what happened in India and Pakistan and the misery that came with it and the tensions between a fraternal people. Indians and Pakistanis are more or less the same people. But until — GR: You mentioned in — MDN: — this day there’s animosity between them. —Intermission— Part 2 GR: What about the other states that are going to fight back. I mean you have Hezbollah in Lebanon, you have Hamas, of course. There’s also things that Palestinians could do in the West Bank. There’s even the topic of Iran being (inaudible), a five front war against Israel. Do you think — MDN: Okay, that’s a great subject you’re bringing up. I, first of all, I have to be very frank. I have never considered the Israelis to be this juggernaut militarily. I always thought it was an illusion. And myself being a former soldier, you know, as a former serviceman in the military myself, I always looked at how they – I mean, I always looked at generally a lot of the things that they did in their military and it was very questionable on how professional they were. So, I mean I don’t think that this is a strong military in many ways. And answering your question, they’re very good at beating up civilians, you know? They’re very good at going at against countries that had civil wars and who have been downgraded and, you know, their military has been broken. They’re very good at sucker shots, like against Syria while there’s internal fighting and the military is worn down. Going against Lebanon after a bloody civil war when everyone is divided. They’re very good at bombing Iraq while it’s at war with Iran. So, they can do things like that and assassinations. But when it comes to an actual, conventional war, I think they’ll lose. Now, they always – looking at what military historians talk about their success in the Yom Kippur War, for example. You have to remember, the Arab armies they fought at were also – fought with were also fledgling armies. Those Arab armies were fledgling. They were not well organized. They were young, they were new. Those states also freshly became independent. And they were not as well-armed, in many cases. So, the Israelis have used this propaganda and this image to make themselves look like this Goliath in the region, which I have never agreed with and I want to make that clear. I have always seen it as an illusion. And that’s another point I make. The Israelis are very good at casting illusions. And for them, always their deterrent power was their most prized possession. And that’s why they’re good at making illusions as deterrents. If they fight against the Iranians, I think that the – first of all, the Israelis won’t fight against the Iranians. It would be the United States. That’s why the US Navy is there. That’s why those US Navy battle groups are there. So, the United States, ironically, calls for constraint while it funnels weapons into that region to Israel. While it stops ceasefires, while it’s there to fight. That’s some strange definition of constraint. The Iranians and the Americans are negotiations. There are negotiations going between them. As well as Hamas through Qatar. In fact, the Iranians even said there was talk about sending the Israeli captives to Iran, through Turkish or Qatari intermediaries. So, yes, this could end up being a multi-front war. Now, if this becomes a multi-front war, it is a regional war that will escalate to a global war. No question about it. The Chinese and the Russians back the Iranians. There was an Iranian advisor who came to Beijing, government advisor, two weeks ago. More or less, when I listen to him, he said, essentially, it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. So, the conflict will escalate. But it’s not because this is something that’s going to happen in the Middle East, because all these states there are at each other’s throats. I think it’s by design that the United States is trying to create a broader, three-front conflict. I’m not going to use the word ‘war’ yet, between Russia, China, and Iran. They’ve already started war in Eastern Europe using Ukraine. Now in Palestine, they’re using the Palestinians and the Israelis to create a front there. In Chinese Taipei, which is basically, more or less, a rogue province of China, as Beijing sees it, they’re arming Taipei. And there’s a connection. In fact, the funding that Mr. Biden is sending right now is for all three of these places. Maybe Israel has priority, but it’s all three of them. There is a connection: the conflicts in the Middle East and in Eastern Europe will go to the – are being pushed in the Asia Pacific region. And definitely, the Chinese are cognizant about this. And the Chinese position against Israel on this has been very assertive. And I think, very fair in terms of International Law. And definitely, the Chinese public, more or less, are not supportive of Israel. In the Chinese public, if you go on Weebo, TikTok, WeChat, if you look at all these, majority of the Chinese public are against Israel. And the Israelis actually have agents trying to push their propaganda and win hearts and minds in the People’s Republic of China and it’s not successful. The Chinese understand what’s at stake, they understand that this is connected to great power maneuvers. At the end of the day, the United States is – this goes back to Washington. It’s not a question of — GR: I want — MDN: — what television is necessarily doing. GR:Yeah. Mahdi, unfortunately we’re starting to run out of time. I wanted to basically give you a chance to maybe remark on anything that you haven’t remarked on yet or maybe emphasize the things that you have. Basically, you know, say in terms of this war where, you know, there are citizens all over the place who are still determined to – who are resisting, you know, in numbers like — MDN: Well, — GR: — what we’ve seen since 20 years ago. What do you think we should say to the citizens to communicate the importance of this situation and maybe — MDN: So, — GR:— things like what you do and how to stop it. MDN: I’m not anybody special to pontificate to other people on how to follow their moral compasses. But I do think that time is running out for a lot of innocent people. So, I believe that if you have no – if you can do something to help, do it. If you can’t do something positive to help, then at least speak about it. Speak out against that evil or negativity or darkness. And if you cannot do that, and you’re (inaudible) hate it in your heart, dislike it in your heart. What I have to say is: I think time is running out for a lot of innocent people. There is a genocide, no question about it. When you listen to Israeli media and Israeli leaders, they are talking about genocide. Like the president of Israel said this is a collective crime, all Palestinians are guilty. Hamas represents them, it’s their government, they’re all guilty. The Israeli defence minister called them “human animals.” A few years ago, they said they would even do another Holocaust there, a few years ago. I mean, Benjamin Netanyahu invoked the Bible and a people that were erased in the Bible. So, they are going to do this. And in fact, in Israel, there is a government document that has been circulated by Israeli media that calls for the ethnic cleansing, or genocide, in Palestine, where all of the Palestinians will be forced to go into the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt and never allowed to come back. They will never be allowed to come back. They will be kicked off the land and forced to live in a tent city in the Sinai, kilometres away from the border with Gaza. And that document actually goes out of it’s way to tell them – they want to tell them that God punished them. That’s what they’d like to tell them, that God punished the Palestinian people and that’s why they’re there. This is actually an Israeli government document from the intelligence services, that they put together. The final thing I have to say is that I hope that peace prevails, but I think that, in the end, this is going to hurt Israel and the United States. They will be the two biggest losers from this. That is my strong belief, this will actually backfire against Israel. They are actually committing political suicide. And you can see that the whole world is waking up in this age of social media technology and realizing what they are doing. And in that sense, there is a danger for the supporters of Israel who are trying to outlaw supporting Palestinians. So, in Europe, in France and Germany, at the start, they were trying to ban rallies in support of Palestine. And then, there are people Orwellianly trying to say if you support Palestinian rights and freedom, it means you support terrorism or Hamas. Hamas is not the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian people are not Hamas. But I also think Hamas is being misrepresented, as well. I want to point that out. A lot of things you’re hearing, you should double-check. And in much of the world, they are not considered a terrorist organization in a large part of the world. They are considered a resistance group. Whether you like their politics and their tactics and their ideology, they are considered a resistance group. So, those are some things that I want to put out there. And I hope this fighting stops, but in the end I think that we all need to speak out in whatever way we can to stop it. The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM out of the University of Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca . Other stations airing the show: CIXX 106.9 FM, broadcasting from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. It airs Sundays at 6am. WZBC 90.3 FM in Newton Massachusetts is Boston College Radio and broadcasts to the greater Boston area. The Global Research News Hour airs during Truth and Justice Radio which starts Sunday at 6am. Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 7pm. CJMP 90.1 FM, Powell River Community Radio, airs the Global Research News Hour every Saturday at 8am. Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday afternoon from 3-4pm. Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 9am pacific time. Notes: https://www.infowars.com/posts/netanyahu-declaring-invasion-you-must-remember-what-amalek-has-done-to-you-says-our-holy-bible/ Avi Scharf and Anshel Pfeffer (Oct 31, 2023), ‘OSINT Shows Third U.S. Naval Group Arrives in Mideast, Countries Prep to Evacuate Thousands’, Haaretz; https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2023-10-31/ty-article-magazine/.premium/osint-third-u-s-naval-group-arrives-in-mideast-countries-prep-to-evacuate-thousands/0000018b-854f-d805-a98f-b5df147e0000 https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/11/01/biggest-palestine-solidarity-march-in-us-history-expected-to-take-place-on-saturday/ Related Articles from our Archives
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    Is he correct? Why is he re-echoing the message of Gary Gensler? What is his intention?
    As Hivers and Lions, how do you see this kind of message? What is your response to this kind of doomsday scenario?
    If you want to check the article that I discussed here, kindly click this link
    Grace and peace!
    https://3speak.tv/watch?v=rzc24-nftbbg/loxjkpvm Of course the title needs qualification. The days of cryptocurrencies are over as far as their status as non-securities are concerned. That's the message of Itai Avneri, the Chief Operating Officer of INX. Is he correct? Why is he re-echoing the message of Gary Gensler? What is his intention? As Hivers and Lions, how do you see this kind of message? What is your response to this kind of doomsday scenario? If you want to check the article that I discussed here, kindly click this link Grace and peace!
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  • ⚡️Bitcoin is better than the dollar if the U.S. defaults

    Bloomberg conducted a poll on how you would save your money if a US default became a reality. Most standardly chose gold, but 2nd and 3rd place showed an interesting result????

    ➡️ Buying bonds of a country in default is extremely risky, but there is confidence that the default will be short-lived and purely technical. That's why many decided to buy Treasury securities at a discount????

    ➡️ Bitcoin came in third place, overtaking the dollar due to the interest of retail investors. The first cryptocurrency showed its protective properties during the collapse of banks, and the default is of a similar nature

    #somee#bitcoin#cryptocurrency#
    ⚡️Bitcoin is better than the dollar if the U.S. defaults Bloomberg conducted a poll on how you would save your money if a US default became a reality. Most standardly chose gold, but 2nd and 3rd place showed an interesting result???? ➡️ Buying bonds of a country in default is extremely risky, but there is confidence that the default will be short-lived and purely technical. That's why many decided to buy Treasury securities at a discount???? ➡️ Bitcoin came in third place, overtaking the dollar due to the interest of retail investors. The first cryptocurrency showed its protective properties during the collapse of banks, and the default is of a similar nature #somee#bitcoin#cryptocurrency#
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  • ???????? SEC: "Creating cryptocurrency regulation rules can take years, we are in no hurry!"

    The SEC will continue to use enforcement actions against the crypto industry, but these actions will "inform" market participants about yet unplanned regulatory rules.

    Gensler's public statements are not official statements of the Securities and Exchange Commission!

    #somee#bitcoin#crypto#binance#sec#
    ???????? SEC: "Creating cryptocurrency regulation rules can take years, we are in no hurry!" The SEC will continue to use enforcement actions against the crypto industry, but these actions will "inform" market participants about yet unplanned regulatory rules. Gensler's public statements are not official statements of the Securities and Exchange Commission! #somee#bitcoin#crypto#binance#sec#
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  • US is trying to destroy cryptocurrencies, reveals leaked document. A document shared by Eleanor Terrett, a Fox journalist, shows how the US is waging this war. In this document the SEC should be the agency responsible for overseeing the crypto sector, that almost all cryptocurrencies are securities, and that the safety of citizens would not be the first interest of governments and regulation would be a way to end the industry.
    US is trying to destroy cryptocurrencies, reveals leaked document. A document shared by Eleanor Terrett, a Fox journalist, shows how the US is waging this war. In this document the SEC should be the agency responsible for overseeing the crypto sector, that almost all cryptocurrencies are securities, and that the safety of citizens would not be the first interest of governments and regulation would be a way to end the industry.
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  • ???? Sam Bankman-Fried has filed motions to dismiss all but three charges in the criminal case against him.

    The charges he is not contesting are:

    5. Conspiracy to commit commodities fraud.

    6. Conspiracy to commit securities fraud.

    11. Conspiracy to commit money laundering.

    #somee
    #ftx
    #crypto
    #bitcoin
    #sambankman
    #cryptocurrency
    ???? Sam Bankman-Fried has filed motions to dismiss all but three charges in the criminal case against him. The charges he is not contesting are: 5. Conspiracy to commit commodities fraud. 6. Conspiracy to commit securities fraud. 11. Conspiracy to commit money laundering. #somee #ftx #crypto #bitcoin #sambankman #cryptocurrency
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  • U.S security exchange Commission (SEC) has been given 10 days ultimatum to make clarity on what security assets are in cryptocurrency space, this was followed after Coinbase complaint over how SEC applies securities law to digital assets.

    #awesme #somee #crypto #social #security


    [Image source](https://www.instagram.com/p/Cr0v-Dos_rt/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=)

    U.S security exchange Commission (SEC) has been given 10 days ultimatum to make clarity on what security assets are in cryptocurrency space, this was followed after Coinbase complaint over how SEC applies securities law to digital assets. #awesme #somee #crypto #social #security [Image source](https://www.instagram.com/p/Cr0v-Dos_rt/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=)
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