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The Future of UNRWA and Hamas in Gaza

By Rick Sterling | Dissident Voice | June 4, 2024

Peter Ford has an extensive career in the UK Diplomatic Service, including serving as UK Ambassador to Bahrein and then Syria. He then served for many years as Special Representative to the Commissioner General of UNRWA – the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.  In this interview, he discusses the background, importance, and how Israel wants to “replace” UNRWA.

Rick Sterling:  How did you come to work for UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency?

Peter Ford:  Well, ever since I was a young cub Arabist, I have been exposed to the work of UNRWA. My first job was in Lebanon. I saw its work firsthand in the Palestinian camps there. Every exposure I had increased my admiration for the organization. As I approached retirement, I was attracted to the idea of working for UNRWA.

By chance, I read in The Economist magazine that UNRWA was looking to create a new post, a fundraiser in the Arab world. And the requirements were diplomatic experience and knowledge of the Arabic language. Wow, I thought, this is tailor-made for me. And so it proved. I think I was chosen from a shortlist of one.

Knowledge of Arabic was a great help. I didn’t benefit from any support from the British government, I have to say. And that is an issue with UNRWA. Many of the top jobs are earmarked for particular countries. So the Commissioner General, by custom, is always either a European or American. And the deputy head of UNRWA, Deputy Commissioner General, is also an American or a European.

RS:  What does UNRWA do in Gaza and beyond?  How big an organization is it?

PF:  UNRWA  began operations in 1950 in the aftermath of the conflict in Palestine that led to the creation of Israel and the expulsion of half of Palestine’s population. And the mandate given by the UN General Assembly to UNRWA was to look after these refugees and very significantly their children.  The status of refugees was defined as people who were being helped by UNRWA and their descendants. And this became very important because most refugees around the world from other countries, the status of refugee is not handed on father to son or daughter. But in the case of Palestine refugees, because of the special circumstances where they lost their country, their homes and their livelihoods, they were accorded permanent refugee status for as long as they were unable to exercise their right of return.

As the years passed, this became very important politically. And as it became more difficult to envisage the right of return, the mere existence of UNRWA and its according refugee status to several million Palestinians perpetuated the right of return. And this became a major problem with Israel.

From 1950, UNRWA’s mandate has been to look after the relief and welfare of the refugee Palestinians in terms of education, healthcare, social services, the refugee camp infrastructure, houses, the social services for the vulnerable, and some microfinance and job creation  in recent years.

The core activities are the schools. There is a huge network of UNRWA schools and medical centers. And these are spread across the Middle East in Palestine itself, in the occupied West Bank, in Gaza, in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan.

Overall, there are almost 6 million Palestinians who qualify for UNRWA support. And of those, about 1.9 million are in Gaza, and about half a million are in Syria, and the rest are shared between Lebanon and Jordan. So it’s serving almost as a micro-state. Six million people is a big responsibility and one that requires a lot of coordination with the host authorities.

Of these, the most problematic by far is Israel as the occupying power in the West Bank and Gaza.  Relations with other governments have by and large been cooperative. There is occasional friction, but on the whole there are very good relations. It’s often forgotten that Jordan and Lebanon and Syria give a lot of support in addition to the support that UNRWA gives. And they host these millions of refugees without complaint.

RS:  Doesn’t UNRWA in some ways relieve Israel of responsibility for the people that it’s got under its control?

PF:  Well, yes, it does. Under international law, the power that has physical control as the occupying power has responsibility to provide the basic services which UNRWA provides:  healthcare, education, and housing. So this burden is taken off the shoulders of Israel. If UNRWA didn’t exist, the Israelis would have to carry the burden of looking after all those millions of refugees. But you’d be mistaken if you thought they were grateful at all.

RS:  A few months ago, Israel made accusations and somehow persuaded several countries to stop their donations to UNRWA. What do you make of this?

PF:  Well, this was a fabricated story the Israelis came up with about three months after the alleged events, they came up with a story that staff had been involved in the 7th October breakout and had carried out crimes.  This was announced with great fanfare.  Knee-jerk reactions followed on the part of the usual suspects. Americans, Europeans and Britain suspended their vital payments to UNRWA.

UNRWA is a beggar. It’s an international beggar. It receives almost nothing from central UN funds. The rest is voluntary, which makes life very difficult for UNRWA. It has to go cap in hand  and cannot afford to upset any of its important donors. And that means the United States, the EU, and Britain.

In fact, my job, the reason I was recruited, was to try to diversify UNRWA’s funding so that it could be a little less dependent on the Western powers. And I had some success in that, garnering about half a billion dollars of contributions from mainly Gulf and North African countries.

But to go back to your question, Israel came up with this story. Just on the basis of the Israeli accusations, the Western powers cut the aid.  Unwisely, to my mind, UNRWA immediately suspended the staff who were accused. This only tended to give credence to the Israeli claims. But this shows the weakness, the political weakness, of UNRWA. It finds it very difficult to stand up to bullying by these powerful countries, by the United States and Europe.

Eventually, about three weeks ago, an independent investigator, a former French foreign minister, carried out an investigation and concluded that there was no proof.  The Israelis were unable to provide any proof to back up their allegations. And most countries are now going back or have already gone back to lift their suspension.

RS:  I think even the original accusations were that some 12 or 13 individuals from a staff of 13,000 had participated in October 7. And now even that’s been discredited, you’re saying?

PF:  Yes, that’s exactly what has happened. It would have been surprising, actually, if there hadn’t been some younger employees, but the Israelis couldn’t provide evidence for a single one.

RS:  Yes. And I understand that UNRWA  gives the names of all their employees to Israel every year for them to almost vet the list.

PF:  That’s right. Israel has an amazing oversight of the activities of UNRWA, at least as far as the occupied territories are concerned.  Over 90% of the employees of UNRWA are Palestinians, the vast majority of Palestinian refugees themselves. But the hierarchy is Western or non-Palestinian. Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, the top employees, the director general and immediate close staff are European or American, but over 90% of the staff are Palestinians. And that is something the Israelis don’t like either. The Palestinians have agency in the sense of some measure of control over their lives.

RS:  I have the impression that UNRWA has done a very good job in the education field. And that, again, is something Israel doesn’t like.

PF:  Yes, Israel doesn’t like the fact that so many Palestinians have received a good education under UNRWA’s supervision.  Many Palestinians have gone on to higher education, to distinguished professorships having emerged from UNRWA schools in the camps over the years.

It’s a badge of honor for a Palestinian to have passed through an UNRWA school. In Syria, where I was, Syrians wanted to enroll in UNRWA schools. It was one of the bribes that we could use to leverage favors from the Syrian government. So that’s testimony to how good these schools are and their reputation.

A bone of contention with the Israelis concerns what’s taught in the schools. And again, the Israelis make lurid, unsupported claims about the pupils being taught Palestinian propaganda. And this is just fake news. In the UNRWA schools, they follow the curricula of the Arab country or authority where they are.

So UNRWA schools follow the curriculum of the Palestine Authority, which is vetted by Israel, of course. In Jordan, they follow the Jordanian curriculum, etcetera. But the Israelis love to make up any propaganda they can about UNRWA, and they try to limit UNRWA funding. They use any method to try to stymie, block, or make more difficult the operations of UNRWA. They really do want to bring an end to this agency.

In a way, you can understand it because the agency is synonymous with Palestinian rights and in particular with the right of return. This implies the Palestinians have a right to return to those towns and villages from which their forebears were expelled back in 1948.

So this is why UNRWA is a thorn in the side of Israel and one they would love to destroy completely. Their ambition has no limit. And we’ve seen this during the Gaza crisis. They have used this to try to exclude UNRWA, make propaganda against UNRWA, and create substitutes for UNRWA. Creating a substitute is the latest strategy. The organization that had some of its staff killed by the Israelis is one of these. In fact, that organization was particularly friendly to the Israelis and the Israelis facilitated its entry to Gaza. And it was a tragic irony that the Israelis ended up killing employees of this agency, World Central Kitchen. The Israelis aim to replace UNRWA with organizations they can control like this. That’s part of the plan with the port to be created by the Americans and the British in northern Gaza. It would be serviced by organizations other than UNRWA.

RS:  What’s the status of UNRWA in Gaza now? Is is able to operate as in the past, or are they being restricted?

PF:  UNRWA is very much restricted as far as traditional activities are concerned. The healthcare clinics, hospitals and schools have been either destroyed or badly damaged or they don’t have equipment or they don’t have medicines. So there’s no schooling going on except in home environments. But on the other hand, UNRWA is busier than ever on relief services. It’s more like 1950 when UNRWA was providing tents and the most basic water and food supplies.  You’ll recall that UNRWA stands for UN Relief and Works. And by “works” was meant education, healthcare, and housing. Today UNRWA is doing far more relief than works.

RS:  We’ve seen pictures of  thousands of tents to temporarily house the hundreds of thousands and even more than a million refugees. Have those been set up by UNRWA?

PF:  Yes, and temporary housing also happens in the UNRWA schools. These are now occupied by many thousands of families. The schools are being converted into accommodation. And the healthcare centers, to the extent it’s physically possible. And the hospitals, they’ve also been converted into temporary housing. There are other UN agencies involved. It wouldn’t be fair not to mention the UNICEF, the Children’s Agency, the food agency, all the international agencies are there.

RS:  What do you think will be UNRWA s role in the future?

PF:  In the future? Well, in a single sentence, its role will be to run Gaza alongside Hamas. Now, that’s controversial, obviously. But I think that the day after will look very much like the day before. I don’t think the Israelis will succeed in crushing Hamas.

Eventually the Israelis will be forced to withdraw as they have been forced to withdraw in the past. There will be vastly more reconstruction to do. But UNRWA has the experience and the workforce in place.  Any outside agency would have to bring in thousands of workers.

And after the Israelis leave, of course, the authorities, which are bound to be the people with guns, the resistance, will be more than glad to go back to the old basis of effectively a condominium with the UN agencies. And this is as it should be.

RS:  Some people think that October 7 and what’s happened since then has really changed things. Is that your perspective also?

PF:  Wishful thinking is not a good basis for policy. And I’m afraid the Israelis, indulged by their Western backers, go in a lot for wishful thinking. Though in the last couple of months, one hears less about the day after. It seems the Israelis are focused on just how the hell can they get out, how can they extricate themselves without massive humiliation? There’s very little chatter now about bringing in an Arab defense force to police the Gaza Strip or any nonsense like that. So I believe there will be no alternative. The day after will look like the day before.

RS:  What do you think of the latest (May 31) Biden plan?

PF:  Better late than never. As much by what it omits as by what it says. The plan recognizes that Israel must withdraw with Hamas undefeated and set to resume control of Gaza. All fantasizing about ‘eliminating’ Hamas, about setting up a quisling regime, about an Arab peacekeeping force, about two states – all dropped. It is an unspeakable, unbearable tragedy that it took this amount of killing, maiming and mindless destruction with American bombs to come to this obvious realization.

June 4, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Eight months into the Gaza war, a depleted Israeli military is on the brink of “collapse”

As Israel faces severe personnel shortages, fatigue and desertion, and political leadership focus on survival, a top general predicts the end of Israel is near.

By Dan Cohen | Uncaptured Media | June 3, 2024

On October 9, two days after the surprise Hamas military assault on Israeli bases and settlements surrounding Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to defeat Hamas.

However, eight months later, Israel has failed to achieve its stated goal. Instead, it is facing unprecedented international isolation, political instability, charges of genocide at the top world court, and arrest warrants for its leadership. With no end in sight as Netanyahu rejects ceasefire proposals, the Israeli military is now facing its most dire challenge yet: Personnel shortages, fatigue and desertion.

A series of articles in Israeli media reveal the depths of the challenge Israel is facing.

Amir Rapaport, a top Israeli journalist with close links to the military establishment, wrote that army brass are worried by “the physical and mental exhaustion and burnout of the soldiers, particularly those in regular service, alongside a severe shortage of commanders.”

He added that these shortages are “present throughout the ranks of the military, with the most severe shortage among field-grade commanders — platoon and company commanders, and even beyond that. Training each commander is a process that takes years, and the shortage is felt everywhere.”

The Israeli military admits to the deaths of 644 soldiers, and 3,703 injuries since October 7. However, that injury figure is almost certainly an undercount. In April, the Israeli outlet Calcalist reported that 7,200 soldiers were injured, nearly double what the government’s official statistics revealed. Those numbers have surely increased by now as the Palestinian resistance in Gaza has carried out numerous successful attacks on invading Israeli forces.

Those that continue to fight are tasked with operating in areas that the Israeli military declared were conquered months ago. On January 6, Israel claimed that Hamas had been defeated in Jabaliya refugee camp. However, soldiers returned there in May, waging a 20-day operation that many described as “Sisyphean” – a reference to the Greek myth about a king punished with the endless task of moving a boulder up a steep hill, only to watch it roll down again.

One company commander in the 196th Battalion complained, “It’s frustrating to see this, seven and a half months after the war began.”

Missing from mainstream accounts is that Israel committed heinous massacres in its second failed reconquest of Jabaliya, leaving decomposing bodies amid large swaths of rubble.

Meanwhile, an IDF Manpower Directorate survey published by the Israeli news site Ynet found that only 42% of Israeli military career officers indicated that they would like to continue serving in the military, compared to 49% in August 2023. This decrease shocked Israeli army brass, which had assumed that morale would increase in times of war.

“The long war is exhausting, family life is affected for both men and women who don’t see their spouses and children, and the compensation is inadequate given the long working hours alongside the stress and responsibility involved in some roles,” the article notes.

Beyond the personal aspects, Israel’s abject failure to defeat Hamas or bring back prisoners of war alive has affected their willingness to continue fighting.

“The sense of failure haunts the officers, and they don’t want to serve in a failed organization,” according to a senior officer quote in the article.

Indeed, some reserve soldiers have refused to fight. In April, 30 paratroopers from a reserve company informed their commanders that they would not show up for duty because of burnout. The company commander complained to Channel 12 that morale among the soldiers  is “very low.”

‘The IDF and the state are going to collapse from within’

Major General Yitzhak Brik, the former military ombudsman who earned the nickname “Prophet of Wrath” for accurately predicting long before October 7 that Israel was totally unprepared for an imminent regional war, has penned a column warning that Israel has already lost the war against Hamas and the political and military leadership’s refusal to recognize this fact is driving Israel into an “abyss.”

“One fact is clear and certain, and I sign it knowing the facts – the IDF does not have the power to win this war against Hamas, and certainly not against Hezbollah. I think so not because we don’t want to win, but God simply does not have our hand to do so. Our army is tiny and worn out and has no surplus of forces. In this situation, every day that the war continues, our situation is getting worse,” Brik wrote.

If the war is not immediately stopped, Brik warns, the Israeli state will soon come to an end.

“The IDF and the state are going to collapse from within. The collapse of the state is only a matter of time because we may lose it if a complete regional war also breaks out. The ‘captains’ at the political and military levels, who are leading the war in Gaza, do not want to acknowledge the harsh facts for which they are responsible. They have only one agenda – to continue the fighting at any cost because it’s the only thing that guarantees them the continuation of holding their positions for another short period of time.”

While Israel struggles to make any achievement in Gaza beyond committing genocide, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich fantasizes about conquering the much stronger Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and conquering southern Lebanon “up to the Litani.”

“Many who heard his remarks raised questions about the IDF’s ability to carry out such a mission,” Rappaport commented on Smotrich’s statement.

Brik’s warning about the leadership is even more dire.

“They must be stopped, they are leading the people of Israel like sheep to the slaughter; This is a group that has gone completely and utterly out of its mind and ‘went off the rails’. Not saving the country stands before their eyes, but saving themselves and their survival in power.”

Brik compares Israel’s fate to the biblical Bar Kochva revolt, when Jewish zealots attempted to rise up against the Roman empire, but suffered a historic defeat and brought massive casualties to the Jewish population. While Jews see the failed uprising as a warning against false messiahs, Zionist ideologies did the opposite, taking inspiration and naming themselves after its central figures.

With the physically and morally depleted Israeli military treading water (more accurately, blood) in Gaza, and the Biden administration refusing to use its leverage to compel Netanyahu to sign a ceasefire agreement, it may be Israel’s closest allies that push Israel into the end times scenario Brik envisions.

June 4, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | 1 Comment

The end of an era: pro-Palestine language exposes Israel and Zionism

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | June 4, 2024

If anyone was to argue that a top Spanish government official would one day declare that, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, it would have seemed ludicrous. But this is precisely how Yolanda Diaz, Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister, concluded a statement on 23 May, a few days before Spain officially recognised Palestine as a state.

The Spanish recognition of Palestine, along with that of Norway and Ireland, is important. Western Europe is finally catching up with the rest of the world regarding the significance of a strong international position in support of the Palestinian people and in rejection of Israel’s genocidal practices in occupied Palestine.

Equally important, though, is the changing political discourse regarding both Palestine and Israel in Europe and around the world.

Almost immediately after the start of the latest Israeli war on Gaza, some European countries imposed restrictions on pro-Palestinian protests; some even banned the Palestinian flag, which was perceived, through some twisted logic, as an “anti-Semitic” symbol.

The unprecedented solidarity with Israel at the start of the war, however, turned into an outright political, legal and moral liability for the pro-Israel western governments. Thus, a slow shift began, leading to a near-complete transformation in the position of some governments, and a partial but clear shift of the political discourse by others.

The early ban on pro-Palestinian protests was impossible to maintain in the face of millions of angry European citizens who took to the streets and called on their governments to end their blind support for the occupation state. On 30 May, the mere fact that private French broadcaster TF1 hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu led to large, spontaneous protests by French citizens, who called on their media to deny alleged war criminals the chance to address the public on air.

Failing to push back against the pro-Palestine narrative, on 31 May the French government decided to disinvite Israeli arms companies from participating in one of the world’s largest military expos, Eurosatory, scheduled for 17-21 June.

Even countries like Canada and Germany, which supported the Israeli genocide against Palestinians until very recently, also began to change their choice of language. Such a change is happening in Israel itself and among pro-Israel intellectuals and journalists in mainstream media. In a widely read column, New York Times writer Thomas Friedman attacked Netanyahu in March, accusing him of being the “worst leader in Jewish history, not just in Israeli history.”

Unpacking Friedman’s statement requires another column, for such language continues to feed on the persisting illusion, at least in his mind, that Israel serves as a representation, not simply of its own citizens, but also of all Jews, past and present.

As for the language used in Israel, it is coalescing into two major and competing discourses: one irrationally ruthless, represented by far-right Ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, and, in fact, by Netanyahu himself; and another which is more pragmatic, albeit equally militant and anti-Palestinian. While the first group would like to see Palestinians slaughtered in large numbers or wiped out by a nuclear bomb, the other realises that the military option, at least for now, is no longer viable.

“The Israeli army does not have the ability to win this war against Hamas, and certainly not against Hezbollah,” Israeli Army Reserve Major General Yitzhak Brik told Maariv on 30 May. Brik, one of Israel’s most respected military men, is but one of many such individuals who are now essentially repeating the same wisdom.

Strangely, when Israel’s Minister of Heritage Amihai Eliyahu suggested the “option” of dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip, his words reeked of desperation, not confidence.

Prior to the war, the Israeli political discourse regarding Gaza revolved around specific terminology: “deterrence”, for example, represented in the occasional one-sided war, often referred to as “mowing the lawn”, “security” and “self-defence”.

Billions of dollars have been generated over the years by war profiteers in Israel, the US and Europe, all in the name of keeping Gaza besieged and subdued. Now the name of the game is all about existential wars, the future of the Jewish people, and the possible end of Israel, if not Zionism itself.

While it is true that Netanyahu fears that an end to the war will be a terrible conclusion to his supposedly triumphant legacy as the “protector” of Israel, there is more to the story. If the war ends without Israel restoring its so-called deterrence factor and security, it will be forced to contend with the fact that the Palestinian people cannot be relegated to the status of nonentities, and that their legitimate rights cannot be overlooked or otherwise violated.

For Israel, such a realisation would be an end to its settler-colonial project, which began more than a hundred years ago.

Moreover, the perceptions and language pertaining to Palestine and Israel are changing among ordinary people across the world. The misconception of the Palestinian “terrorist” is being replaced by the very accurate depiction of the Israeli as a war criminal, a categorisation that is now consistent with the views of the world’s main international legal institutions.

Israel now stands in near-complete isolation, due, in large part, to its genocide in Gaza, as well as the courage and steadfastness of the Palestinian people. To that must now be added global solidarity with the Palestinian cause. It really is the end of an era.

June 4, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Experts warn of consequences of American universities divesting from Israeli companies

MEMO | June 3, 2024

Israeli economic and legal experts have warned that if the administrations of prestigious American universities meet the demands of the students who demonstrated and set up encampments on campuses in protest against the Israeli war on Gaza, this will have consequences on the Israeli economy, and on the high-tech field, in particular, according to quotes by The Globes newspaper on today, Monday.

Prestigious universities, including Harvard, Johns Hopkins and the University of Minnesota, pledged, during negotiations with the protesting students, to take into account and discuss the students’ demands regarding investments in Israel. A number of universities responded to these demands, although Israeli experts said that implementing this is not easy, according to the newspaper.

Prominent American universities have large investment funds, each containing billions of dollars in employee and retiree funds, in addition to funds accumulated over the years in a manner similar to private capital funds.

Some of this money is invested in shares of foreign companies, and about 20 per cent of it is invested in alternative investments, which include investments in real estate and goods, as well as in private capital funds and venture capital funds, many of which invest in Israel.

Harvard University announced that it does not rule out a discussion on divestment from Israel, “as in the past it divested from fossil fuels and South Africa” according to what some of the university’s leaders wrote in an article published by the New York Times.

Johns Hopkins University said that it will “examine the main questions of the protestors regarding divestment”, while the University of Washington decided to meet with representatives of the protest “on divestment demands”.

Rutgers, Minnesota and Wisconsin universities issued similar decisions, as well Toronto Metropolitan (TMU) and McMaster in Canada. Occidental College in Los Angeles and Brown University, Rhode Island decided to vote on the issue of divesting from Israel.

The newspaper reported that Harvard University invested $200 million directly in Israeli companies in 2020.

Protesting students at the University of Minnesota said that the University invested $2.4 million in Israeli tech companies and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.

The newspaper quoted economic expert, Zeev Holtzman, as saying, “since universities not only represent major investment institutions but also aspire to be a moral compass, the decision against Israel would cause severe harm.”

The newspaper believes that the main difficulty that would pose a challenge to divestment is that long-term investments include commitments that cannot be breached. The newspaper mentioned legislation being passed in the US against boycotting Israel.

According to the former Deputy Attorney General of the Israeli government, Roy Schondorf, “Universities that decide to withdraw investments may face sanctions and be considered as violating their duties of loyalty.”

June 4, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , | 2 Comments

US Battle-Test Anti-Drone Weapon for War with Russia in Gaza

M-LID on Gaza Pier
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | June 4, 2024

The US has deployed a new combat vehicle designed to help Ukraine repel Russian drone attacks to Gaza to field-test the new weapon. Russian forces have made territorial gains in Ukraine, in part, by overwhelming Kiev’s air defenses.

The Pentagon has deployed two Mobile-Low, Slow, Small-Unmanned Aircraft Integrated Defeat Systems (M-LIDS) to Gaza, according to The Telegraph. The outlet reports, “The US Army sailed some of its coastal landing ships to Gaza as part of the US military’s humanitarian flotilla, the ships carried one of the initial M-LIDS vehicle sets.” It adds,  “At least one M-LIDS vehicle rolled down the pier and took up station at the edge of the beach.”

The Telegraph described the operation as “A pre-war test, if you will. In Gaza.”

M-LIDS is an anti-drone weapon the US is designing in response to the war in Ukraine. It consists of a set of sensors and a 30-mm chain gun mounted on top of multiple mine-resistant vehicles that targets small drones. Moscow and Kiev have used hundreds of thousands of small drones during the war, and the UAVs played roles in both Ukraine and Russia’s successful offensives.

The M-LIDS were part of Biden’s $320 million aid pier for Gaza. While the President promised the pier would not see American boots on the ground, the M-LIDS were photographed in very shallow water.

Biden’s pier has so far proven to be a disaster. The costs have skyrocketed, three US troops have been injured, the pier was dislodged by mild weather, and it delivered a minimal amount of aid into Gaza during the few days it was active.

Additionally, the M-LIDS deployment to Gaza in coordination with the Israeli military adds to the case that the US is responsible for Israeli war crimes in Gaza. The ICJ has ruled that it is plausible Israel has conducted genocide in Gaza, and the ICC indicted the Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister for war crimes committed against the Palestinians.

June 4, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Persecution against Scott Ritter shows US not democracy anymore

By Lucas Leiroz | June 4, 2024

The persecution of political dissidents in the US is becoming commonplace. People who oppose Washington’s aggressive foreign policy are being seen as enemies and treated as criminals, even when there is no plausible reason to charge them. Recently, military analyst Scott Ritter had his passport confiscated by US authorities without any specific reason, showing the advanced levels of tyranny in the country.

Ritter was on a plane at the New York airport. His plan was to travel to the Russian Federation, as he had a special invitation to participate in the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, which will begin in the next few days. Ritter was already boarding when three policemen suddenly forcibly removed him and seized his documents. When asked about the reason for this action, the policemen said they were following orders from the US State Department and refused to clarify any details about the case.

“I was boarding the flight. Three [police] officers pulled me aside. They took my passport. When asked why, they said ‘orders of the State Department’. They had no further information for me (…) They pulled my bags off the plane, then escorted me out of the airport. They kept my passport,” he told journalists.

Without his passport, Ritter is unable to leave the US territory. In practice, he will begin living under a regime similar to house arrest, not only being monitored by American authorities, but also being prevented from leaving the country. It is curious that this happened precisely during a trip by Ritter to Russia. It seems that Washington is trying to make it clear to all its citizens that there will be no tolerance for citizens who maintain any form of ties with Moscow.

Ritter has long been one of the most vocal critics of military support for Ukraine. In his interviews and articles, he openly advocates for an end to arms supply and for a friendly policy between the US and Russia. Ritter has repeatedly exposed the truth about Ukrainian Nazism and Western collusion with ultranationalism and racism. In addition, his main work as a military analyst consists of providing detailed, technical analyses that show the situation of the sides in the conflict.

While Western media have long claimed that Kiev is “winning the war,” Ritter has emerged as a dissenting voice proving the opposite, saying that military control of the conflict belongs to the Russian Federation. He has refuted fallacious narratives such as the “Ukrainian victory in Kiev” or the “Kherson counteroffensive.” Using impartial and technical military analysis, Ritter has substantiated each of his arguments about Russia winning the war. Today, his work is recognized as one of the best among military experts around the world, with many of his predictions having come true.

This is not the first time that Ritter has suffered persecution in his own country. In the past, he has been criticized, defamed and even detained by American authorities because of his stance against Washington’s war initiatives. Ritter severely criticized the American decision to invade Iraq, stating that there were no weapons of mass destruction in the country. At the time, he was a UN weapons inspector and had privileged information about the real situation in the Middle East.

Currently, in addition to providing military analysis on the war in Ukraine, Ritter has also been strongly critical of Israeli violence in the Gaza Strip, which has certainly generated discontent among radical Zionists in American domestic politics. In addition, he has worked to refute fallacies and stereotypes about Russia and the Russian people, making frequent trips to Russia to show the local reality. Recently, Ritter was in Chechnya, Moscow and St. Petersburg and spoke to the Western media about what real life is like in Russia today, explaining that the country is in a favorable economic situation, without any effect of Western sanctions.

It is already clear that persecution is the fate of any American dissident. When US citizens disagree with their country’s policies, the authorities attack, arrest and defame them. Unfortunately, this is the reality in the country that claims to be the global guardian of democracy. However, this lie is increasingly discredited. Despite all the propaganda efforts, it is already clear to the world that the US is no longer a democracy.

Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.

You can follow Lucas on X (former Twitter) and Telegram.

June 4, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , | 4 Comments

NATO member declares intent to join BRICS

RT | June 4, 2024

Türkiye will seek to join the BRICS group of nations and intends to bring up the issue at an upcoming meeting of the economic bloc’s foreign-ministers in Russia, Ankara’s chief diplomat Hakan Fidan announced on Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters while on a three-day visit to China, Fidan stated that Türkiye has long been waiting to become a member of the European Union, but has for years faced opposition from some of that bloc’s members. In this context, Ankara is now considering BRICS as an alternative platform for integration, the minister explained.

”We cannot ignore the fact that BRICS, as an important cooperation platform, offers some other countries a good alternative,” Fidan said, noting that while the group still has “a long way to go,” Ankara sees the “potential in BRICS.”

During an event at the Center for China and Globalization (CCG) in Beijing, Fidan said he was looking forward to attending the meeting of group’s foreign ministers, which will include representatives from Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The event is set to take place next week in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod.

Moscow has welcomed Ankara’s interest in joining BRICS. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stated that the topic of Türkiye’s membership in the group will be featured on the agenda of next week’s summit, which this year is being chaired by Russia.

Peskov noted, however, that the economic bloc may not be able to fully satisfy the interests of all the numerous countries that have expressed a desire to join BRICS. Nevertheless, he stated that “such an active interest” is welcomed and that the group will do everything within its power to maintain contact with all interested nations.

Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also noted that the doors of BRICS are open to the representatives of the most “diverse economic and political systems and macro-regions.”

The only condition to join the group is a commitment to work on the basis of the key principle of the sovereign equality of states – something Russia’s Western colleagues appear to be struggling with, Lavrov commented.

June 4, 2024 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Columbia Law Review website put offline to censor Palestinian scholar

The Cradle | June 4, 2024

The Columbia Law Review (CLR) board of directors has taken down the publication’s website in response to its editors publishing a lengthy article about the Nakba by a Palestinian legal scholar, The Intercept reported on 4 June.

The CLR publishes scholarly articles, essays, and student notes and is edited by Columbia Law School students.

Five months ago, editors of the CLR  had reached out to Palestinian human rights lawyer Rabea Eghbariah, asking him to contribute an article establishing the “Nakba” as a formal legal concept. Palestinians use the word, which means “catastrophe” in Arabic, to refer to the expulsion and dispossession of 750,000 Palestinians by Zionist militias in 1948.

The Nakba cleansed Palestine of most of its indigenous Muslim and Christian inhabitants, paving the way for the establishment of the state of Israel for Jews from Europe and elsewhere.

Eghbariah is completing his doctoral studies at Harvard Law School and has tried landmark Palestinian civil rights cases before the Israeli Supreme Court. A previous article he prepared about the Nakba for the Harvard Law Review was also censored at the last minute.

He noted that in its current case charging Israel with genocide at the International Court of Justice, South Africa’s legal team referred to the Palestinian “ongoing Nakba” as the context for the current genocide case.

Eghbariah’s article for the CLR, which is more than 100 pages long, underwent a rigorous editorial process before publication, with input from 30 CLR members.

“Every single piece that we publish goes through an incredibly, incredibly rigorous publication process. We just have high publication standards,” said Jamie Jenkins, one of the main editors. Jenkins noted the piece was given even more scrutiny because of the controversial nature of the subject matter. “So there was some additional work put into it, but in general, it was the same steps of production.”

However, when the article was scheduled to be published in the May edition, members of the CLR board of directors insisted that publication be delayed and made the unusual request that the article be sent to the rest of the law review for additional scrutiny.

Fearing a draft of the article would be leaked, the editors finally published it on 3 June at 2:30 am.

In response, the board of directors contacted the editors again, requesting the entire May edition to be taken down. When the editorial leadership refused the request, the entire CLR website was taken down and remains offline as of 4 June.

Since the beginning of the war on Gaza, pro-Israel lobby groups and business elites in the US have sought to suppress the speech of Palestinians and those opposing Israel’s war on Gaza, including through police suppression of protests at universities, limiting the scope and reach of pro-Palestinian social media posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and by banning Tik Tok.

Despite this, the horrific images of Israeli bombs killing Palestinian women and children over the past seven months have made it difficult for pro-Israel interests to control the perception of events. Israel’s war on Gaza is now widely viewed as genocide.

The Intercept adds that both Eghbariah and numerous editors at the CLR remain committed to the importance of the legal scholarship concerning the Nakba.

“What we need to do is to acknowledge the Nakba as its own independent framework that intersects and overlaps with genocide and apartheid,” Eghbariah told The Intercept while adding that the Nakba also “stands as a distinct framework that can be understood as its own crime with a distinctive historical analytical foundation structure and purpose.”

June 4, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Biden says Ukraine mightn’t join NATO

US ‘President’ Joe Biden © Jim WATSON/AFP
RT | June 4, 2024

US President Joe Biden’s vision of peace for Ukraine does not mean having that country as part of the US-led military bloc, according to his interview with Time magazine, published on Tuesday.

Biden sat down with Time’s editor in chief and Washington bureau chief at the White House on May 28, speaking about his policy on Ukraine, China, Israel and election-related matters.

“Peace looks like making sure Russia never, never, never, never occupies Ukraine. That’s what peace looks like. And it doesn’t mean NATO, they are part of NATO,” Biden said, when asked about the endgame in Ukraine.

“It means we have a relationship with them like we do with other countries, where we supply weapons so they can defend themselves in the future,” he added. “But it is not, if you notice, I was the one when – and you guys did report it at TIME – the one that I was saying that I am not prepared to support the NATOization of Ukraine.”

Biden then argued that the West is “on a slippery slope for war if we don’t do something about Ukraine,” and that if Kiev falls then “you’ll see Poland go, and you’ll see all those nations along the actual border of Russia, from the Balkans and Belarus, all those, they’re going to make their own accommodations.”

According to Biden, he approved the release of intelligence about the Russian “invasion” of Ukraine “to let the world know we were still in charge. We still know what’s going on.”

“We are, we are the world power,” the 81-year-old Democrat told Time. As proof, he pointed to the June 2021 summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Switzerland, where the Russian leader allegedly said he wanted to see “the Finlandization of NATO.”

“I told him, he’s gonna get not the Finlandization [of NATO but], the NATOization of Finland. And everybody thought, including you guys, thought I was crazy,” Biden said. “And guess what? I did it. I did it. And we’re now the strongest nation.”

In December 2021, Russia sent the US and NATO two draft security treaties, seeking a pledge that Ukraine would never join the US-led bloc, among other things. In January 2022, Washington and Brussels snubbed Moscow’s proposal, insisting that NATO has an “open door” policy not subject to outside veto. The Russian military operation in Ukraine began a month later.

June 4, 2024 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | , , | 1 Comment

Syria on the brink of recovery as Qatar and Turkey change their policies

By Steven Sahiounie | Mideast Discourse | June 3, 2024

The Emir of Qatar, Tamim al Thani, recently said that he supports the street protests in Idlib, where people are protesting the dictatorial rule of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorist group.
This marks a monumental change in policy for Qatar, and maybe the first step toward restoring diplomatic ties with Syria.

Beginning in 2011, and the Obama administration’s US-NATO war on Syria for regime change, Qatar has been a close and loyal ally to the US, and was used as a financial backer of the various terrorist groups brought into Turkey, and trucked across the border to Idlib.

Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber bin Mohammed bin Thani Al Thani, former Prime Minister of Qatar, and foreign minister until 2013, gave an interview in which he admitted Qatar provided the money to bankroll the terrorists in Syria as they attacked the Syrian people and state. He made it clear that the cash delivered was sanctioned, and administered by the US in Turkey. Qatar was not working alone, but under a strictly controlled partnership with the US government.

In 2017, President Trump shut down the CIA operation Timber Sycamore which ran the failed project to overthrow the Syrian government.

Qatar is now turning their back on the terrorists who occupy Idlib. Mohamed al-Julani is the leader of HTS. He is Syrian, raised in Saudi Arabia, fought with Al Qaeda in Iraq against the US, aligned with ISIS founder Baghdadi, came to Syria from Iraq to develop Jibhat al-Nusra, the Al Qaeda branch in Syria.

Once Jibhat al-Nusra became an outlawed terrorist group, Julani switched the name to HTS in order to preserve his support from Washington, DC. Even though the US has a $10 million bounty on his head issued by the US Treasury Department, he is safe and secure in Idlib, where American journalists have visited him for interviews, in which he has sported a suit and tie, wishing to present himself as a western-leaning terrorist that the US can count on.

When the Syrian Arab Army and the Russian military would fire a bullet towards the terrorists in Idlib, the US would denounce it as an attack on innocent civilians. This kept Julani safe and secure, and in charge of humanitarian aid coming across the border from Turkey. The aid was from the UN and various international charities. While the 3 million people living in Idlib are not all terrorists, all the aid passes through the hands of Julani and his henchmen. If you bow down to Julani, you get your share of rations, but if you have complained, you are denied. Those who are cut off from the aid can buy their supplies from Julani at his Hamra Shopping Mall, which he built in Idlib, where he sells all the surplus aid sent to Idlib.

The civilians in Idlib have taken to the streets protesting the rule of HTS. Many people have been arrested by HTS, some tortured, and others killed. The people are demanding that Julani leave.

They are asking for freedom and a fair administration. The various aid agencies have complained that HTS will not allow any free programs for women, such as learning employable skills. Women there are not allowed to seek employment, except in places which are only female. HTS rules with a strict form of Islamic law, which they interpret to their benefit.
Saudi Arabia and Syria have established full normal relations, with an exchange of ambassadors. At the Arab League Summit in May in Bahrain, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohamed bin Salman (MBS) met personally with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. They also met at the previous Arab League Summit in Saudi Arabia.

MBS recently announced a humanitarian grant to the UN to repair 17 hospitals in Syria which had been damaged in the 7.8 earthquake which killed 10 thousand in Syria.

MBS also sent spare parts for the Syrian Air commercial planes, which had suffered under US sanctions and were prevented from maintaining their safety by Washington. Recently, the very first planes of Syrians began flying to Saudi Arabia for the first time in 12 years, to perform the Haj pilgrimage.

On May 30, the leader of Iraq said he hopes to announce a Turkey-Syria normalization soon. Turkey, like Qatar, had been supporting the various terrorist groups in Syria in cooperation with the US.

Turkey also has made a turn-around in their position, and has been looking for a way to exit Idlib and the other areas it occupies in Syria, in preparation of a re-set with Damascus.

The relationship between the US and Ankara has remained tense after the US partnered with the Syrian Defense Forces (SDF). Turkey considers the SDF as a branch of the PKK, the outlawed international terrorists group who has killed 30,000 people over three decades, while wanting to establish a Kurdish State.

The SDF are planning to have elections on June 11 in an effort to gain western support for a Kurdish State. Erdogan has stated Turkey will never allow this to happen.

If the SDF were to lay down their arms, they could repair their relationship with Damascus, and at the same time Turkey could then withdraw their occupation forces from Syria. With Turkey out of Syria, their normalization process could begin.

When the SDF have repaired their broken relationship with Damascus, and the Turkish threat no longer exists, then the US military can withdraw their 900 occupation force from Syria.

Recently, General Mazloum, the leader of the SDF, said that the problems between the Kurds and Damascus are internal problems, and cautioned against any foreign interference, especially from Turkey.

The situation is changing rapidly in Syria. The economy is collapsed, with the inflation rate over 100% in the last year due to crippling US sanctions. Because the US military is occupying the largest oil and gas field in Syria, this prevents the production of electricity for the national grid, and Syrians are living with three hours of electricity per day.

US sanctions prevent some of the most vital medicines from being imported, as western medical companies are fearful of running afoul of the US sanctions, and have produced a culture of over-compliance, which deprives Syrian citizens’ life-saving medicines and medical supplies.

The battlefields have been silent for years, and the silence grew into a status-quo, where the American and Turkish foreign policy prevented a resolution to the conflict that has destroyed lives and prompted the largest human migration in recent history as Syrians have sought work abroad.

Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar all played significant roles assigned to them by the US State Department under the Obama administration. There is a light at the end of the tunnel with the reversal of policies toward Syria, and Qatar and Turkey are set to play major roles in the recovery process in Syria. These reversals are also significant as they mark a change in the relationship between the US and several regional countries. This is part of the ‘New Middle East’ that Washington called for, but the role the US played has left them the loser.

June 4, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Threat to Arrest Russian Journalists Signals Growing Political Persecution in West

By John Miles – Sputnik – 04.06.2024

Western governments are increasingly turning towards overt methods of repression as they lose their grip on control of the masses.

The Clooney Foundation for Justice (CFJ) has been forced to disavow comments by a legal director with the organization calling for the arrest of Russian journalists after intense backlash.

Anna Neistat, who leads the foundation’s The Docket project, claimed Thursday that her team is urging international authorities to prosecute Russian reporters.

“We want them to travel to other countries and be arrested there,” said Neistat, revealing that she is pressuring the European Union and International Criminal Court to pursue the matter. Neistat made the comments during an interview with the US state-backed propaganda outlet Voice of America.

The organization has since backpedaled on the provocative claim with a statement asserting that “someone in our foundation misspoke,” but observers see the proposal as yet another sign of the West’s growing authoritarianism and intolerance of dissenting voices.

Author and political analyst Caleb Maupin joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Monday to discuss the incident.

“There’s a lot of things to keep in mind in reaction to this news story,” said the author and reporter. “The first of which is that the European Union has basically already outlawed all Russian media within the EU space, right? You can’t watch RT. Websites are suppressed, blocked, and it’s pretty hard to look at Russian media in the EU.”

“RT France has been shut down. You can’t watch RT in Belgium, you can’t watch RT in EU countries,” he continued. “What is a little bit different, though, about this is that this was specifically aimed at journalists who would report in Russian, for Russian audiences, but would do so from EU countries. And the idea was that they would be charged, and what’s interesting also is that the warrants for their arrest would be secret.”

“They would be arrested upon arrival and it would be a way to basically just kidnap these reporters and journalists and hold them hostage. And, if you look at it, it’s a particularly nasty proposal. And that’s probably why I noticed that George Clooney is now backing away from it and saying, ‘oh, people from our foundation misspoke, we didn’t mean this,’ etcetera.”

European countries have made increasingly aggressive attempts in recent years to restrict media and control the flow of information across the continent. The EU has outright banned Russian media outlets from broadcasting within the 27-nation bloc, but measures have been taken against third-party platforms, as well. The video sharing website Rumble was forced to block French users from accessing the platform after refusing to comply with government demands to block Russian content.

Politicians in the UK have also explored blocking the website, and the country recently detained journalist Kit Klarenberg at an airport in London, questioning him for five hours about his political views.

Across the Atlantic, the United States has famously condemned journalist Julian Assange to 12 years of effective confinement after the Wikileaks founder published leaked material revealing US war crimes in Iraq. Former CIA director and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made plans to kidnap and murder the firebrand transparency activist, it was recently revealed.

The uproar over the CFJ’s comments comes as Sputnik contributor Scott Ritter was denied travel to speak at a conference in Russia Monday, having his passport confiscated by authorities on apparent orders from the US State Department. Free speech concerns have also been raised over police crackdowns on campus pro-Palestine encampments, a move demanded by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I will say, though, that the Ukrainians have been saying this from the beginning,” said Maupin of the calls to arrest Russian journalists. “I mean, they have this list of ‘information terrorists’ – which I’m proudly on, by the way, I’m listed by the Ukrainian government as an ‘information terrorist’ – and they have been calling for the assassination and murder of journalists, and they’ve done it since the war has begun.”

“This is not a change for Ukraine. What’s changed here is that the Clooney Foundation made such a statement and wanted to enlist EU governments in carrying it out.”

Western governments are usually more subtle in their attempts to control information, noted Maupin, typically relying more on efforts to influence popular narratives rather than outright censorship. The move towards more overt repression may be seen as a response to the increased transparency allowed by the Internet, or perhaps another sign of the West’s loss of power as a multipolar world order comes into view.

“They like subtly bringing up points they like,” Maupin noted. “Finding people who say things that they agree with and boosting them rather than saying it themselves. This is how the intelligence world works, and a huge amount of what the American intelligence apparatus does is construct media narratives and insert ideas into media discourse.”
“A lot of what the intelligence apparatus does is just boost certain messages and try to control the conversation in a subtle way to advance US foreign policy goals.”

June 4, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

The Kremlin may rest easy: Europe is a paper tiger

By Gilbert Doctorow | June 4, 2024

Having committed to an outlay of 60 euros for a social club luncheon which was to be addressed by the Belgian minister of defense, Admiral Michel Hofman, speaking on how the ministry is preparing for what it calls ‘geopolitical evolution,’ meaning World War III, I was more than a little disappointed to learn, as we were standing by our seats awaiting our ‘at ease’ orders, that our speaker would be a no-show. Apparently he was called away to confer with colleagues in the government, and since this government has only one week to enjoy its perquisites before it is swept away by the June 9th parliamentary elections, the minister’s priorities are understandable if unforgivable from our perspective as paying guests.

Happily, however, at the initiative of the club’s president and of some attendees who have military standing, a chap from the ministry who is responsible for human resources was rushed in, had a quick bite to eat now that we all had advanced to the main course while awaiting his arrival, and then provided us all with what I am about to present below.

For obvious reasons, HR is in the spotlight now that the number one question facing this and other member states of NATO and of the EU is whether they can and will rise to the challenge of a Russian ‘imperialist menace’ and do the right thing, namely impose mandatory military service on the young and swell the ranks of their military forces. At my table, there was already a lively discussion of the socializing benefits of national service for the young, as if this issue were entirely separate from its context of a coming war that will utterly destroy the Continent.

If I may telegraph my punches, the key learning from the talk of our stand-in speaker is that there is no money to pay for masses of conscripts. Indeed, the Ministry is already struggling to cope with personnel costs that eat up between 80 and 85% of the defense budget. Belgium may have just 18,000 men in the services, but it would appear that keeping them in clothes, food and pensions is already a great burden. Moreover, given the professionalization of the armed forces in recent decades, it is estimated that it takes 18 months to bring a new recruit up to speed on the equipment he is supposed to be using on the missions of his units. Six months or even a year in uniform will not do much to make the recruits net contributors to the nation’s defense.

Yes, the Belgian military is tiny. Our admiral has under him a total of 5 mine sweepers, 2 frigates and 2 patrol boats (source: Wikipedia). For that reason the principal concern is the first from among what our speaker called the three ‘coups’ of war making – solidarity with fellow NATO members, self-defense, and facilitating the ‘arrival of the cavalry’ which means giving logistical support through the port of Antwerp to arriving forces and equipment from North America.

After all, in Belgium the second ‘coup,’ defending itself, comes down to air defense, for which it is today utterly unprepared, like all other EU member states, as we know not just from the hints of today’s speaker but from full-blown articles these past several days in The Financial Times. And as for the ‘cavalry,’ it seems that this ministry does not count on the reliability of Washington any longer.

There you have it in a nutshell: Belgium cannot and will not increase its armed forces; and Belgium is wholly committed to solidarity with its NATO confrères for the simple reason that it has no independent military capabilities. Indeed, as our speaker noted, one of the most positive consequences of the Ukraine-Russia war has been to drive solidarity among NATO members to new heights. This can only be to Belgium’s benefit.

Or can it?

Usually in luncheons like this, we have a fairly generous time allotted to Q&A, but today we were running late by the time we reached desert and the microphone was given to only one person. By the luck of being seated close to the dais and of being quickest to raise my hand, that person was me.

And so I posed my question: is solidarity really so fine when the policy of NATO is to issue ever more provocations to the Russians, to pose what they consider to be existential threats, including the shipment of F16s to Ukraine and the latest decision to ‘free the hands of Kiev’ to use the long range missiles being provided to it by the US, by the UK, by France to strike deep into the Russian heartland. If NATO member states are not prepared today physically and morally to enter into a direct, frontal war with Russia then why are we doing this?

Dear readers, you will not be surprised to hear that I got no answer to my question worth repeating.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

June 4, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | 1 Comment

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