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Did Covid Vaccines Really Save Millions?

By Yaakov Ophir | Brownstone Institute | June 21, 2025

Two years have passed since the official end of the Covid-19 pandemic, yet the topic of vaccination remains highly sensitive in both public and scientific discourse. Attempts to question the legitimacy of the mass vaccination campaign or to raise concerns about potential harms are often met with a moral red line: the widely repeated claim that “Covid-19 vaccines have saved millions and millions of lives.”

Remarkably, this assertion was treated as established fact even during the recent U.S. Senate PSI hearing on May 21, 2025, which focused on vaccine-related adverse outcomes.1 Ranking Member Richard Blumenthal opened the hearing with the following statement:

“As we talk about the side effects of COVID vaccines, I think we need to be clear about the most important fact. For all Americans, COVID-19 vaccines have saved millions and millions of lives. There is no scientific question about that fact… One study found that 3 million American deaths were averted…in the United States… I would like this study entered into the record.1

This confident assertion raises a fundamental question: Is there truly solid and conclusive scientific evidence to support the powerful claim that the Covid-19 mass vaccination campaign resulted in a net benefit of millions of lives saved?

Faced with this fundamental question, our research team undertook a structured, step-by-step evaluation of the empirical foundations of the “millions saved” narrative. Building on our prior work,2, 3 we critically examined the hypothetical statistical models that produced this extraordinary figure, as well as multiple randomized controlled trials and large-scale observational studies that served as the empirical basis for the vaccine efficacy estimates fed into these models.

We have now uploaded our full-length article with what we believe to be urgently important findings to a preprint server,4 in order to allow scientists, physicians, and policymakers to independently evaluate the evidence. Because meaningful scientific discourse requires careful scrutiny of the data, we strongly urge readers not to rely solely on the current brief article, but to engage directly with the full analysis presented in our preprint.4

Our goal here is to highlight several central findings that, in our view, demand serious attention, given their direct relevance to one of the most significant public health interventions in modern history: a global, government-backed mass vaccination campaign that, in many countries, was accompanied by mandates and unprecedented restrictions on individual freedoms.

What follows is a concise overview of key insights from our structured analysis that, in our view, every health professional, policymaker, and citizen deserves to consider:

  1. The widely cited claim that “millions of lives were saved” by Covid-19 vaccines is based on hypothetical models that rest on a long sequence of assumptions—many of which are either weak, unvalidated, or demonstrably false (see below). As a result, the outputs of these models are of questionable value and cannot be taken as reliable evidence.
  2. A central assumption underlying these models was that Covid-19 vaccines provided strong and durable protection against infection and transmission. Consider the original statement by Dr. Anthony Fauci, then Chief Medical Advisor to the US President: “When you get vaccinated you not only protect your own health… but also you contribute to the community health by preventing the spread of the virus throughout the community…you become a dead end to the virus” (bold added).5 This assumption—serving as the cornerstone of the mass vaccination campaign—turned out to be false. Real-world data quickly revealed that vaccine efficacy against infection was fragile and short-lived, and efficacy against transmission was never directly studied.
  3. Strikingly, despite the collapse of this original narrative (point 2), the vaccination campaign continued under a revised justification: that the vaccines provide lasting protection against severe illness and death, even after their short-term effect against infection diminishes. It is important to recognize that this updated claim hinges on a conceptual separation between these two types of efficacy—a separation that, as we demonstrate repeatedly in our preprint article, was never empirically validated.
  4. In fact, available data suggest that protection against infection and protection against severe illness or death are closely linked, following a similar trajectory of waning over time. The difference lies primarily in timing, with a natural delay between initial infection and the development of severe outcomes.
  5. To directly assess the validity of this supposed distinction between protection against infection and protection against severe illness, we examined the conditional probability of severe illness among individuals who became infected across several key studies. The results were clear: the apparent protection against severe outcomes was most likely a byproduct of the short-term protection against infection. None of the influential studies we analyzed demonstrated independent or durable protection against severe illness or death.
  6. Notably, some studies stopped tracking severe outcomes precisely at the point when vaccine protection would be expected to wane—paralleling the well-documented decline in protection against infection and the typical delay between infection and the onset of severe illness or death mentioned above. This pattern raises serious concerns about potential misrepresentation or selective reporting of research findings.
  7. Finally, the pivotal randomized controlled trial that led to the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of the Pfizer vaccine showed no meaningful difference between the vaccine and placebo groups in preventing: (1) flu-like symptoms, (2) severe Covid-19, or (3) all-cause mortality. The only significant difference was observed in a non-clinical outcome—laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 infection—and even this result was based on data from no more than 8.24% of participants, collected in a potentially biased manner, as detailed in our preprint.
  8. Notably, no Covid-19-related deaths were recorded in Pfizer’s pivotal trial. This absence raises serious questions about whether the legal and medical criteria for issuing an emergency use authorization were truly met.
  9. Even more importantly, the six-month follow-up trial by Pfizer reported 15 deaths in the vaccine group (n = 21,720), compared to 14 in the placebo group (n = 21,728). Given the large sample size, this lack of mortality benefit should have served as a critical anchor for any hypothetical model or evidence-based discussion regarding the overall benefit of the vaccine.

These findings seriously challenge the notion that Covid-19 vaccines saved millions of lives. Moreover, our in-depth investigation uncovered a broader range of methodological flaws that cast doubt on the overall reliability of the existing evidence base. These include: (a) followup periods that were exceedingly short and inconsistently applied across groups; (b) implausible efficacy signals appearing almost immediately after vaccination—well before full immunization could have occurred biologically; and (c) heavy reliance on observational data vulnerable to Healthy Vaccinee Bias, differential testing rates, and numerous other confounding factors.

Taken together, these methodological and empirical concerns not only undermine the foundation of the “millions saved” narrative, but also raise a deeper question: If the evidence is so limited and flawed, how did this narrative gain such dominance in scientific and public discourse?

The issue is not whether some degree of vaccine efficacy was observed at specific moments (e.g., see the fascinating example in our preprint of the Bar-On et al. study on the second booster), but rather how such fleeting observations came to shape the broader public narrative. Isolated data points were elevated and decontextualized, while critical considerations—such as (a) waning immunity, (b) the lack of demonstrated mortality benefit, (c) vaccine breakthrough infections leading to hospitalization or death, and (d) an increasingly robust body of evidence on adverse effects—were systematically sidelined (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Illustrating a Selective Focus on a Transiently Favorable Outcome While Ignoring Concerning Data

This narrowing of focus — peering through the keyhole of one transient success — has allowed a fragile claim to solidify into a powerful myth, reinforced by institutional authority, social conformity, and the systematic suppression of dissenting voices (including our own experience of censorship, as detailed in our preprint).

We therefore call on the scientific and medical communities to take a step back, widen the lens, and return to a foundational principle of medicine: every intervention, no matter how promising, must undergo continuous, evidence-based evaluation of both its benefits and its potential harms. To the best of our knowledge, such a balanced and rigorous appraisal has yet to be applied to the Covid-19 vaccines.

Based on the evidence reviewed in our preprint, we conclude that the claim that “Covid-19 vaccines saved millions and millions of lives”1 is not supported by empirical evidence. While these vaccines were widely promoted as safe and effective, accumulating reports of serious adverse events—such as myocarditis, pericarditis, thrombosis, and neurological symptoms—have been extensively documented across pharmacovigilance systems and in multiple peer-reviewed studies (e.g., 6-16), many co-authored by the last author of the current article.

Notably, this biologically active intervention was administered repeatedly in the form of boosters, thereby compounding potential risks—often in populations with near-zero risk of Covid-related mortality, such as children. Taken together with the lack of demonstrable long-term efficacy presented in our preprint,4 the available evidence suggests that the risk–benefit balance of the Covid-19 vaccines may, in fact, tilt toward the negative end of this fundamental medical equation.17, 18

References

1. Homeland Security. The Corruption of Science and Federal Health Agencies: How Health Officials Downplayed and Hid Myocarditis and Other Adverse Events Associated with the COVID-19 Vaccines.

2. Ophir Y, Shir-Raz Y, Zakov S, McCullough PA. The Efficacy of COVID-19 Vaccine Boosters against Severe Illness and Deaths: Scientific Fact or Wishful Myth?. Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. 2023;28(1). doi: https://www.jpands.org/vol28no1/ophir.pdf.

3. Ophir Y. The Final Brick in the Vaccine Efficacy Narrative ⋆ Brownstone Institute. 2023.

4. Ophir Y, Shir-Raz Y, Zakov S, McCullough PA. A Step-by-Step Evaluation of the Claim That COVID-19 Vaccines Saved Millions of Lives. Researchgate (preprint). 2025. doi: 10.13140/RG.2.2.12897.42085.

5. NEWS C. Transcript: Dr. Anthony Fauci on “Face the Nation,” May 16, 2021. 2021.

6. Rose J. A Report on the US Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) of the COVID-1 9 Messenger Ribonucleic Acid (mRNA) Biologicals. Science, Public Health Policy, and The Law. 2021;2:59–80.

7. Fraiman J, Erviti J, Jones M, et al. Serious adverse events of special interest following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination in randomized trials in adults. Vaccine. 2022;40(40):5798–5805. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2022.08.036.

8. Shir-Raz Y. Breaking: Leaked Video Reveals Serious Side-Effects Related to the Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Covered Up by the Israeli MOH. 2022.

9. Witberg G, Barda N, Hoss S, et al. Myocarditis after Covid-19 Vaccination in a Large Health Care Organization. N Engl J Med. 2021;385(23):2132–2139. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2110737.

10. Chua GT, Kwan MYW, Chui CSL, et al. Epidemiology of Acute Myocarditis/Pericarditis in Hong Kong Adolescents Following Comirnaty Vaccination. Clinical Infectious Diseases. 2021:ciab989. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciab989.

11. Hulscher N, Alexander PE, Amerling R, et al. A Systematic REVIEW of Autopsy findings in deaths after covid-19 vaccination. Forensic Sci Int. 2024:112115. doi: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2024.112115.

12. Oster ME, Shay DK, Su JR, et al. Myocarditis Cases Reported After mRNA-Based COVID-19 Vaccination in the US From December 2020 to August 2021. JAMA. 2022;327(4):331–340. doi: 10.1001/jama.2021.24110.

13. Takada K, Taguchi K, Samura M, et al. SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine-related myocarditis and pericarditis: An analysis of the Japanese Adverse Drug Event Report database. Journal of Infection and Chemotherapy. 2024.

14. McCullough P, Rogers C, Cosgrove K, et al. Association between COVID-19 Vaccination and Neuropsychiatric Conditions. 2025.

15. McCullough PA, Hulscher N. Risk stratification for future cardiac arrest after COVID-19 vaccination. World J Cardiol. 2025;17(2):103909. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v17.i2.103909.

16. Hulscher N, Hodkinson R, Makis W, McCullough PA. Autopsy findings in cases of fatal COVID-19 vaccine-induced myocarditis. ESC Heart Failure. 2024;n/a. doi: 10.1002/ehf2.14680.

17. Mead MN, Seneff S, Wolfinger R, et al. COVID-19 Modified mRNA “Vaccines”: Lessons Learned from Clinical Trials, Mass Vaccination, and the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex, Part 1. International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research. 2024;3(2):1112–1178. doi: 10.56098/fdrasy50.

18. Mead MN, Seneff S, Rose J, Wolfinger R, Hulscher N, McCullough PA. COVID-19 Modified mRNA “Vaccines”: Lessons Learned from Clinical Trials, Mass Vaccination, and the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex, Part 2. International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research. 2024;3(2):1275–1344. doi: 10.56098/w66wjg87.

This article was co-authored by Yaffa Shir-Raz, Shay Zakov, and Peter A. McCullough.

Dr. Yaakov Ophir is Head of the Mental Health Innovation and Ethics Lab at Ariel University and a member of the Steering Committee for the Centre for Human-Inspired Artificial Intelligence (CHIA) at the University of Cambridge. His research explores digital-age psychopathology, AI and VR screening and interventions, and critical psychiatry. His recent book, ADHD Is Not an Illness and Ritalin Is Not a Cure, challenges the dominant biomedical paradigm in psychiatry. As part of his broader commitment to responsible innovation and scientific integrity, Dr. Ophir critically assesses scientific studies related to mental health and medical practice, with particular attention to ethical concerns and the influence of industrial interests. He is also a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in child and family therapy.

June 21, 2025 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

MenQuadfi Approval and the Pyramid Scheme of Vaccine Safety

This is how the game is played

Injecting Freedom by Aaron Siri | June 15, 2025

Recently, FDA shamefully approved Sanofi’s MenQuadfi (a meningococcal vaccine) to be injected into infants 6 weeks to 2 years old based on a trial that compared it to Menveo (another meningococcal vaccine). In the trial, 5.3% of infants receiving MenQuadfi and 3.6% of infants receiving Menveo had a serious adverse reaction (which means something very serious, see the FDA definition). But because these rates were “similar,” this product was deemed “safe” by FDA—because it assumes Menveo is also “safe.”

But Menveo was licensed based on a trial in which Menactra (among other vaccines) was used as a control; and Menactra was licensed based on a trial in which Menomune was used as a control; and Menomune was not licensed based on a proper placebo-controlled trial either. In fact—and this is mind-twisting—the package insert for Menomune lists the clinical trial for Menactra (in which Menomune itself was used as the control) as the basis for its safety. I couldn’t even dream of making this stuff up.

This provides a good example of the vaccine safety pyramid scheme: Menomune was licensed without a proper placebo-controlled trial and was then used as the control to license Menactra; Menactra is then used as the control to license Menveo; and then Menveo is used as the control to license MenQuadfi. And then we get a trial with 5.3% and 3.6% of infants suffering serious adverse reactions and FDA grants licensure.

What makes this even more troubling is that because FDA officials must know these numbers are highly concerning, they have Sanofi conduct a case-by-case review of each serious adverse event. If FDA were confident the control was safe, it would just rely on a statistical comparison between the vaccine being evaluated and the control. But since FDA officials must know Menveo’s safety is unknown (because it was licensed in a trial with a defective control), they ask Sanofi (the company seeking to get approval and profit from this product) to explain away each serious adverse event. And the Sanofi-paid researchers do exactly that in their write-ups to FDA about each serious adverse event.

And when FDA gets these write-ups explaining away each serious adverse event as “unrelated” to MenQuadfi, what does FDA do? The FDA officials reviewing them dutifully agree. What else would they do? Admit that Menveo, used as the control, and which they licensed based on nonsense data, has been harming children? That it is causing 3.6% of children—or even a fraction of that—to have a serious adverse event? If FDA officials do that, the house of cards would start to collapse. It would become clear Menveo wasn’t properly licensed (which it wasn’t), and that Menactra wasn’t properly licensed (which it wasn’t), and the same for Menomune.

FDA’s conflict and bias are dangerous. Letting Sanofi decide if its own product caused harm is beyond dangerous. This entire pyramid scheme, without a valid baseline of safety permitting a statistical comparison, requires injecting a new layer of biased assumptions with each additional licensure.

At this point, the safety of these products is based on dogma and assumptions. FDA has its reputation and any remaining trust to lose—and pharma its billions in profits—if they actually evaluated these products using a true safety comparator. It would reveal the true safety profile of these products (which the reliable data shows will likely be terrifying). Of course, the children whose injuries could be averted by conducting actual safety trials would benefit, but they are not really part of the equation.

References:

MenQuadfi Package Insert

Menveo Package Insert

Menactra Package Insert

Menomune Package Insert

Serious Adverse Event FDA Definition

June 21, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Public Ridicule Hyped Summer Heat Headlines… Meteorologists Losing Credibility

Sensationalist weathermen in Germany losing credibility, get mocked and ridiculed. 

By P Gosselin | No Tricks Zone | June 18, 2025

Meteorologists are discovering that if they want to get attention from the media and more clicks and and likes (short term), then all they have to do is announce fictional heatwaves that weather models routinely hallucinate 10-14 days out. “Temperatures could soar to 40°C!”

German online Weltwoche reports on this phenomenon with a recent article titled: “The “heatwave” to be followed by the “red hot wave”: the climate alarmists are taking themselves to the point of absurdity and losing all credibility.”

In an attempt to sensationalize hot summer weather to convey climate urgency and panic, some German meteorologists have been bombarding their viewers with alarming headlines, like: “This summer threatens to shatter all weather records!”

These climate alarmists have been fixated on regular weather extremes and using dramatic imagery of storms, droughts, and collapsing Swiss mountains to sway public opinion – while totally ignoring the lack of statistical evidence for an increase in such phenomena.

Weltwoche, reports, however, that the increasingly shrill weather rhetoric is backfiring, leading to greater mistrust among a growing number of skeptics who use social media platforms like X to mock and ridicule the sensationalized claims.

Thanks to social media, Weltwoche concludes that the era of media monopolies on truth is over: “But the shriller the battle cries of the climate alarmists, the less credible they become.”

June 21, 2025 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Obama Wants Filters Not Freedom

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | June 21, 2025

Barack Obama’s recent appearance at The Connecticut Forum once again revealed a troubling truth: the political establishment is becoming increasingly comfortable with the idea of government-managed speech.

In an extended conversation with historian Heather Cox Richardson, the former president signaled that his tolerance for open discourse ends where his ideological preferences begin.

Amid warnings about the spread of “propaganda” and falsehoods online, Obama floated the notion of imposing “government regulatory constraints” on digital platforms.

His rationale? To counter business models that, in his opinion, elevate “the most hateful voices or the most polarizing voices or the most dangerous, in the sense of inciting violence.”

But it doesn’t take much reading between the lines to see what’s really being proposed: a top-down mechanism to filter speech based on government-approved standards of truth.

This wasn’t framed as a direct assault on the First Amendment, of course. Obama was careful to qualify that such regulations would remain “consistent with the First Amendment.”

But that’s little comfort when the very premise involves the government determining which voices deserve a platform. Once the state takes a role in deciding what is true or acceptable, the line between moderation and censorship evaporates.

Obama’s remarks included a reference to a saying he alleges is attributed to Russian intelligence and later adopted by Steve Bannon: “You just have to flood the zone with so much poop…that at some point people don’t believe anything.”

This, he argued, is the tactic used by bad actors to disorient the public. What he failed to acknowledge is that the antidote to this isn’t more control, but more speech. Free people, given access to a full spectrum of views, are capable of discerning fact from fiction without government supervision.

The real danger isn’t “too much speech.” It’s the increasing desire to place speech under bureaucratic management.

Obama’s suggestion that some speech is too “hateful” or “dangerous” to be left unchecked invites a future where those in power decide what the public is allowed to hear, a vision completely incompatible with a free society.

And we’ve already seen how that plays out.

The Biden administration made repeated efforts to coerce tech companies into censoring dissenting views during the COVID-19 pandemic, flagging opinions that contradicted official narratives even when they later turned out to be correct.

The justification was always the same: protecting people from harm. But in practice, it meant silencing lawful speech and punishing disagreement.

Obama’s proposal echoes that same authoritarian instinct.

The promise of safeguarding the public from falsehoods is used to justify speech controls that would ultimately chill dissent and punish deviation from dominant narratives. And who decides which views are “too hateful” or “too polarizing”? Politicians? Bureaucrats? Tech executives? The moment that power is granted, it will inevitably be abused.

June 21, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Why BBC editors must one day stand trial for colluding in Israel’s genocide

Journalist Peter Oborne sets out six ways the state broadcaster has wilfully misled audiences on Israel’s destruction of Gaza

By Jonathan Cook | June 20, 2025

Veteran journalist Peter Oborne eviscerated the BBC this week over its shameful reporting of Gaza – and unusually, he managed to do so face-to-face with the BBC’s executive news editor, Richard Burgess, during a parliamentary meeting.

Oborne’s remarks relate to a new and damning report by the Centre for Media Monitoring, which analysed in detail the BBC’s Gaza coverage in the year following Hamas’ one-day attack on 7 October 2023. The report found a “pattern of bias, double standards and silencing of Palestinian voices.” These aren’t editorial slip-ups. They reveal a systematic, long-term skewing of editorial coverage in Israel’s favour.

Oborne was one of several journalists to confront Burgess.

Oborne makes a series of important points that illustrate why the BBC’s slanted, Israel-friendly news agenda amounts to genocide denial, and means executives like Burgess are directly complicit in Israeli war crimes:

1. The BBC has never mentioned the Hannibal directive, invoked by Israel on 7 October 2023, that green-lit the murder of Israeli soldiers and civilians, often by Apache helicopter fire, to prevent them being taken captive by Hamas. The Israeli media has extensively reported on the role of the Hannibal directive in the Israeli military’s response on 7 October, but that coverage has been completely ignored by the BBC and most UK media outlets.

Israel’s invocation of the Hannibal directive – essential context for understanding what happened on 7 October – explains much of the destruction that day in Israel usually attributed to Hamas “barbarism”, such as the graveyard of burnt-out, crumpled cars and the charred, crumbling remains of houses in communities near Gaza.

Hamas, with its light weapons, did not have the ability to inflict this kind of damage on Israel, and we know from Israeli witnesses, video footage and admissions from Israeli military officers that Israel was responsible for at least a share of the carnage that day. How much we will apparently never know because Israel is not willing to investigate itself, and media like the BBC are not doing any investigations themselves, or putting any pressure on Israel to do so.

2. The BBC has never mentioned Israel’s Dahiya doctrine, the basis of its “mowing the lawn” approach to Gaza over the past two decades, in which the Israeli military has intermittently destroyed large swaths of the tiny enclave. The official aim has been to push the population, in the words of Israeli generals, back to the “Stone Age”. The assumption is that, forced into survival mode, Palestinians will not have the energy or will to resist their brutal and illegal subjugation by Israel and that it will be easier for Israel to ethnically cleanse them from their homeland.

Because Israel has been implementing this military doctrine – a form of collective punishment and therefore indisputably a war crime – for at least 20 years, it is critically important in any analysis of the events that led up to 7 October, or of the genocidal campaign of destruction Israel launched subsequently.

The BBC’s refusal even to acknowledge the doctrine’s existence leaves audiences gravely misinformed about Israel’s historical abuses of Gaza, and deprived of context to interpret the campaign of destruction by Israel over the past 20 months.

3. The BBC has utterly failed to report the many dozens of genocidal statements from Israeli officials since 7 October – again vital context for audiences to understand Israel’s goals in Gaza.

Perhaps most egregiously, the BBC has not reported Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s biblically-inspired comparison of the Palestinians to “Amalek” – a people the Jews were instructed by God to wipe from the face of the earth. Netanyahu knew this clearly genocidal statement would have especial resonance with what now amounts to a majority of the combat soldiers in Gaza who belong to extreme religious communities that view the Bible as the literal truth.

The hardest thing to prove in genocide is intent. And yet the reason Israel’s violence in Gaza is so clearly genocidal is that every senior official from the prime minister down has repeatedly told us that genocide is their intent. The decision not to inform audiences of these public statements is not journalism. It is pro-Israel disinformation and genocide denial.

4. By contrast, as Oborne notes, on more than 100 occasions when guests have tried to refer to what is happening in Gaza as a genocide, BBC staff have immediately shut them down on air. As other investigations have shown, the BBC has strictly enforced a policy not only of banning the use of the term “genocide” by its own journalists in reference to Gaza but of depriving others – from Palestinians to western medical volunteers and international law experts – of the right to use the term as well. Again, this is pure genocide denial.

5. Oborne also points to the fact that the BBC has largely ignored Israel’s campaign of murdering Palestinian journalists in Gaza. A greater number have been killed by Israel in its war on the tiny enclave than the total number of journalists killed in all other major conflicts of the past 160 years combined.

The BBC has reported just 6 per cent of the more than 225 journalists killed by Israel in Gaza, compared to 62 per cent of the far smaller number of journalists killed in Ukraine. This is once again vital context for understanding that Israel’s goals are genocidal. It hopes to exterminate the main witnesses to its crimes.

6. Oborne adds a point of his own. He notes that the distinguished Israeli historian Avi Shlaim lives in the UK and teaches at Oxford University. Unlike the Israeli spokespeople familiar to BBC audiences, who are paid to muddy the waters and deny Israel’s genocide, Shlaim is both knowledgeable about the history of Israeli colonisation of Palestine and truly independent. He is in a position to dispassionately provide the context BBC audiences need to make judgments about what is going on and who is responsible for it.

And yet extraordinarily, Shlaim has never been invited on by the BBC. He is only too ready to do interviews. He has done them for Al Jazeera, for example. But he isn’t invited on because, it seems, he is “the wrong sort of Jew”. His research has led him to a series of highly critical conclusions about Israel’s historical and current treatment of the Palestinians. He calls what Israel is doing in Gaza a genocide. He is one of the prominent Israelis we are never allowed to hear from, because they are likely to make more credible and mainstream a narrative the BBC wishes to present as fringe, loopy and antisemitic. Again, what the BBC is doing – paid for by British taxpayers – isn’t journalism. It is propaganda for a foreign state.

Burgess’ answer is a long-winded shrugging of the shoulders, a BBC executive’s way of acting clueless – an equivalent of Manuel, the dim-witted Spanish waiter in the classic comedy show Fawlty Towers, saying: “I know nothing.”

Other lowlights from Burgess include his responding to a pointed question from Declassified journalist Hamza Yusuf on why the BBC has not given attention to British spy planes operating over Gaza from RAF base Akrotiri on Cyprus. “I don’t think we should overplay the UK’s contribution to what’s happening in Israel,” Burgess answers.

So the British state broadcaster has decided that its duty is not to investigate the nature of British state assistance to Israel in Gaza, even though most experts agree what Israel is doing there amounts to genocide. Burgess thinks scrutiny of British state complicity would be “overplaying” British collusion, even though the BBC has not actually investigated the extent or nature of that collusion to have reached a conclusion. This is the very antithesis of what journalism is there to do: monitor the centres of power, not exonerate such power-centres before they have even been scrutinised.

Labour MP Andy McDonald responded to Burgess: “To underplay the role of the UK is an error.”

It is more than that. It is journalistic complicity in British and Israeli state war crimes.

Here are a few key statistical findings from the Centre for Media Monitoring’s report on BBC coverage of Gaza over the year following 7 October 2023:

  • The BBC ran more than 30 times more victim profiles of Israelis than Palestinians.
  • The BBC interviewed more than twice as many Israelis as Palestinians.
  • The BBC asked 38 of its guests to condemn Hamas. It asked no one to condemn Israel’s mass killing of civilians, or its attacks on hospitals and schools.
  • Only 0.5% of BBC articles mentioned Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine.The BBC mentioned “occupation” – the essential context for understanding the relationship between Israel and Palestinians – only 14 times in news articles when providing context to the events of 7 October 2023. That amounted to 0.3% of articles. Additional context – decades of Israeli apartheid rule and Israel’s 17-year blockade of Gaza — were entirely missing from the coverage.
  • The BBC described Israeli captives as “hostages”, while Palestinian detainees, including children held without charge, were called “prisoners”. During one major hostage exchange in which 90 Palestinians were swapped for three Israelis, 70% of BBC articles focused on those three Israelis.
  • The BBC covered Ukraine with twice as many articles as Gaza in the time period, even though the Gaza story was newer and Israeli crimes even graver than Russia ones. The corporation was twice as likely to use sympathetic language for Ukrainian victims than it was for Palestinian victims.
  • In coverage, Palestinians were usually described as having “died” or been “killed” in air strikes, without mention of who launched those strikes. Israeli victims, on the other hand, were “massacred”, “slaughtered” and “butchered” – and the author of the violence was named, even though, as we have seen, the Hannibal directive clouded the picture in at least some of those cases.

As is only too evident watching Burgess respond, he is not there to learn from the state broadcaster’s glaring mistakes – because systematic BBC pro-Israel bias isn’t a mistake. It’s precisely what the BBC is there to do.

June 21, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

UK seeks to ban Palestine Action over RAF base protest

Al Mayadeen | June 21, 2025

British news outlets on Saturday revealed that the UK government is preparing to ban Palestine Action, a pro-Palestinian direct action group, by classifying it as a terrorist organization. This move, spearheaded by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, is expected to be announced in a ministerial statement on Monday and will require parliamentary approval. If enacted, the ban would criminalize membership and support for the group under the Terrorism Act 2000.

The proposed proscription follows a high-profile protest at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where Palestine Action activists gained access to the military airbase and sprayed red paint on two aircraft. The group described the action as part of a campaign to disrupt the UK’s complicity in “Israel’s” assault on Gaza. “Activists have interrupted Britain’s direct participation in the commission of genocide and war crimes across the Middle East,” the group said.

Video footage released by the group showed two individuals entering the base at night on electric scooters, with one spraying red paint into the engine of a Voyager aircraft, used to transport British leaders and refuel allied jets. A spokesperson for the group declared: “Despite publicly condemning the Israeli government, Britain continues to send military cargo, fly spy planes over Gaza and refuel US and Israeli fighter jets.”

Though the RAF claimed the damage is being assessed and does not expect major operational disruptions, the incident has sparked a wider security review across UK military bases. The government’s response has drawn criticism for targeting activism rather than addressing its own military entanglements.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the protest as “disgraceful” and labeled it “an act of vandalism,” while counter-terrorism police and the Ministry of Defence continue their investigations.

Disruptive Solidarity

Founded in 2020 by Huda Ammori, a British-Palestinian activist, and Richard Barnard, Palestine Action is known for its non-violent yet disruptive tactics aimed at corporations that profit from the Israeli military-industrial complex.

The group has previously shut down two Elbit Systems-linked arms factories in Oldham and Tamworth and forced companies like Dean Group International to cut contracts with Israeli weapons manufacturers. Their disruptive tactics—ranging from factory occupations and sabotage to sustained divestment pressure, have challenged British institutions to reckon with their role in supplying the machinery of occupation.

Friday’s action at Brize Norton marks one of the group’s most significant actions yet, directly confronting a military base central to the UK’s support operations.

Critics say the proscription is a politically motivated attempt to silence dissent against Britain’s role in arming and supporting “Israel”. “We represent every person who stands for Palestinian liberation. If they want to ban us, they ban us all,” Palestine Action posted on X. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign called the move “outrageous,” defending the group as a non-violent direct action network.

The planned ban raises serious concerns about the criminalization of solidarity with Palestine and the suppression of dissent.

June 21, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Two doctors, child killed in Israeli airstrike on Iranian hospitals

Al Mayadeen | June 21, 2025

Iranian Health Minister Mohammad Reza Zafarghandi announced on Saturday that recent Israeli airstrikes on Iran have resulted in the deaths of two female doctors and a child, and left several medical staff injured. The attacks reportedly involved direct strikes on hospitals and emergency vehicles.

According to Zafarghandi, one of the doctors was a pediatrician, while the other, a gynecologist, was killed along with her child while performing her medical duties.

The Israeli assault targeted three hospitals and six ambulances engaged in transporting the wounded. The Ministry of Health identified the affected medical facilities as:

  1. Hakim Children’s Hospital in Tehran – June 13
  2. Primary Healthcare Center in Qasr-e Shirin – June 13
  3. Farabi Hospital in Kermanshah – June 16
  4. Iranian Red Crescent Society Center in Tehran – June 18

According to the Iranian Health Ministry, at least 430 civilians have been killed and more than 3,500 injured since the beginning of the Israeli aggression.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei on Monday said “Israel” was deliberately targeting civilian areas, stating that the attacks were “a grave violation of international law and a war crime,” reportedly directed by Israeli security officials.

“History will judge,” he warned, adding, “eternal shame awaits the regime’s backers and apologists.”

June 21, 2025 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

US presses Iran nuclear threat narrative despite IAEA’s denial

RT | June 21, 2025

US ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea stated at a UN Security Council meeting on Friday that Iran must be stopped from developing a nuclear bomb, despite IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi recently saying the agency found no evidence that Tehran is pursuing such a weapon. Analysts say Washington’s narrative resembles past efforts to justify regime change in the Middle East.

Last week, Israel launched airstrikes on Iran, citing an imminent threat that Tehran would make a nuclear weapon. Iran, insisting its nuclear program is peaceful, retaliated with strikes on Israeli targets. The Israeli assault came days after the IAEA reported that Iran had enriched uranium to 60% – which is short of the 90% required for weapons.

However, since the strikes started, Grossi has claimed that his agency had no proof that Iran was actually trying to build a nuclear weapon, stressing that enriched uranium alone does not constitute a bomb. US intelligence agencies also maintain there is no evidence Iran is pursuing nuclear arms. Nevertheless, President Donald Trump has claimed Iran was “very close” to acquiring a bomb and warned the US could intervene if it doesn’t agree to scrap its nuclear program.

Shea declared the US “continues to stand with Israel” and backs its campaign against “Iran’s nuclear ambitions.” She insisted that the US “can no longer ignore that Iran has all that it needs to achieve a nuclear weapon,” lacking only a decision from its supreme leader.

Some analysts say US rhetoric on Iran echoes President George W. Bush’s 2002 claims about Iraqi WMDs, which led to a US invasion despite no stockpiles being found. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon told journalist Tucker Carlson this week that the entire operation against Iran “that came out of nowhere” is in fact an attempt by the US “deep state” to orchestrate regime change in Iran.

“We have a system that has its own national security policy… that is the fight we have to take on today,” Bannon stated, suggesting that Trump should not succumb to pressure from US war hawks and involve American military in the conflict. Tucker Carlson also said that while he supports Trump, he fears the consequences if he yields to pressure and joins the Israeli strikes. “I think we’re gonna see the end of the American empire,” he warned, criticizing Washington hawks for dragging the country into another war.

Journalist Steve Coll told NPR this week that using US intelligence to justify strikes mirrors the Iraq war narrative. He noted that while Israel calls its attacks preemptive, the objective remains vague.

“[Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu has spoken of regime change and urged Iranians to rise up – just like George H.W. Bush did in 1991 with Iraq,” Coll said. “There’s no sign of a planned invasion, yet talk of toppling Iran’s government persists.”

Other observers, including former US President Bill Clinton, suggested Israel’s “undeclared war” on Iran may also be driven by another goal – Netanyahu’s desire to stay in power. Shea made a notable slip during her UN remarks, initially blaming Israel for “chaos and terror” in the Middle East before correcting herself to attribute it to Iran. RT’s Rick Sanchez and journalist Chay Bowes called her words a “Freudian slip” while discussing the situation in an episode of Sanchez Effect on Friday, with Sanchez adding, “She accidentally said the truth out loud.”

June 21, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Europe’s risky war on Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’

By Anatol Lieven | Responsible Statecraft | June 16, 2025

The European Union’s latest moves (as part of its 17th package of sanctions against Russia declared in May) to target much more intensively Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” of oil tankers and other vessels illustrate the danger that, as long as the Ukraine war continues, so will the risk of an incident that will draw NATO and the EU into a direct military clash with Russia.

The EU sanctions involve bans on access to the ports, national waters and maritime economic zones of EU states. Ships that enter these waters risk seizure and confiscation. It does not appear that Washington was consulted about this decision, despite the obvious risks to the U.S.

As part of this strategy, on May 15, an Estonian patrol boat attempted to stop and inspect a tanker in the Gulf of Finland. Russia sent up a fighter jet that flew over the Estonian vessel (allegedly briefly trespassing into Estonian waters), and the Estonians backed off — this time. In January, the German navy seized a Panamanian-flagged tanker, the Eventin, in the Baltic after its engines failed and it drifted into German territorial waters.

Sweden has now announced that starting on July 1 its navy will stop, inspect and potentially seize all suspect vessels transiting its exclusive economic zone, and is deploying the Swedish air force to back up this threat. Since the combined maritime economic zones of Sweden and the three Baltic states cover the whole of the central Baltic Sea, this amounts to a virtual threat to cut off all Russian trade exiting Russia via the Baltic — which would indeed be a very serious economic blow to Moscow.

It would also threaten to cut off Russia’s exclave of Kaliningrad, which is surrounded by Poland, from access to Russia by sea.

This is the kind of action that has traditionally led to war. The Swedish assumption seems to be that the Russian navy and air force in the Baltic are now so weak — and so surrounded by NATO territory — that there is nothing Moscow can do about this. However, it is very unlikely that the Swedes would take this step unless they also believe that in the event of a clash, Washington will come to Sweden’s defense — even though the EU and Swedish decisions were made without U.S. approval and are not strictly covered by NATO’s Article 5 commitment.

And despite all the hysterical language about Russia being “at war” with NATO countries, these moves by the EU and Sweden are also based on an assumption that Russia will not in fact lose its temper and react with military force. European policymakers might however want to think about a number of things: for example, what would the U.S. do if ships carrying U.S. cargo were intercepted by foreign warships? We know perfectly well that the U.S. would blow the warships concerned out of the water and declare that it had done so in defense of the sacred rule of free navigation — in which the EU also professes to believe.

EU leaders, and admirals, should also spend some time on Russian social media, and read the incessant attacks on the Putin administration by hardliners arguing precisely that Moscow has been far too soft and restrained in its response to Western provocations, and that this restraint has encouraged the West to escalate more and more. Such hardliners (especially within the security forces) are by far the greatest internal political threat that Putin faces.

It is important to note in this regard that moves to damage Russia’s “shadow fleet” have not been restricted to sanctions. In recent months there have been a string of attacks on such vessels in the Mediterranean with limpet mines and other explosive devices — developments that have been virtually ignored by Western media.

In December 2024, the Russian cargo ship Ursa Major sank off Libya after an explosion in which two crewmembers were killed. The Reuters headline reporting these attacks was rather characteristic: “Three tankers damaged by blasts in Mediterranean in the last month, causes unknown, sources say.” Unknown, really? Who do we think were the likely perpetrators? Laotian special forces? Martians? And what are European governments doing to investigate these causes?

If the Russians do sink a Swedish or Estonian warship, the Trump administration will face a terribly difficult decision on how to respond to a crisis that is not of its own choosing: intervene and risk a direct war with Russia, or stand aside and ensure a deep crisis with Europe. The U.S. administration would therefore be both wise and entirely within its rights to state publicly that it does not endorse and will not help to enforce this decision.

Washington also needs — finally — to pay attention to what the rest of the world thinks about all this. The overwhelming majority of senators who are proposing to impose 500% tariffs on any country that buys Russian energy have apparently not realized that one of the two biggest countries in this category is India — now universally regarded in Washington as a vital U.S. partner in Asia. And now America’s European allies are relying on U.S. support to seize ships providing that energy to India.

The U.S. administration would also be wise to warn European countries that if this strategy leads to maritime clashes with Russia, they will have to deal with the consequences themselves. Especially given the new risk of war with Iran, the last thing Washington needs now is a new flare-up of tension with Moscow necessitating major U.S. military deployments to Europe. And the last thing the world economy needs are moves likely to lead to a still greater surge in world energy prices.

European governments and establishments seem to have lost any ability to analyze the possible wider consequences of their actions. So — not for the first time — America will have to do their thinking for them.

Anatol Lieven is Director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He was formerly a professor at Georgetown University in Qatar and in the War Studies Department of King’s College London.

June 21, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Video | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran-Israel War: China Refuses to React, and That’s the Strategy

GVS Deep Dive | June 17, 2025

As Israel and Iran edge closer to full-scale war, one major power is choosing silence over escalation: China. Despite being Iran’s largest oil customer and a self-declared counterbalance to U.S. dominance, Beijing has refused to take sides.

In this GVS Deep Dive, we examine:
🔹 China’s muted response to Israel’s airstrikes on Iranian nuclear sites
🔹 President Xi Jinping’s cautious diplomacy at the Central Asia Summit
🔹 Trump’s Truth Social posts warning 10 million Iranians to evacuate Tehran
🔹 The G7’s pro-Israel stance and growing Western military buildup in the Gulf
🔹 Why China sees wars like this as disruptions—not opportunities
🔹 And how China’s “smart diplomacy” and non-intervention policy are reshaping the rules of global power

While the West fuels chaos, China plays the long game. But the real question is: Can it afford to stay out if this war explodes into something bigger?

Najma tweets @MinhasNajma

Najma Minhas is Managing Editor, Global Village Space. She has worked with National Economic Research Associates (NERA) in New York, Lehman Brothers in London and Standard Chartered Bank in Pakistan. Before launching GVS, she worked as a consultant with World Bank, and USAID. Najma studied Economics at London School of Economics and International Relations at Columbia University, NewYork. She tweets at @MinhasNajma.

June 21, 2025 Posted by | Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Iranian missile strikes at the heart of Israel’s cyber empire in Beer al-Sabe

Press TV – June 20, 2025

A day after the Israeli regime launched multiple coordinated cyberattacks targeting Iran’s banking network and state television, Iran responded with a missile strike on what is widely regarded as the regime’s cyber capital.

On Friday morning, Iranian armed forces initiated a new wave of Operation True Promise III, striking many important Israeli military, intelligence, and industrial sites that support the regime’s aggression — whether in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, or Iran.

One of the principal targets was Beer al-Sabe, considered the stronghold of the Israeli regime’s cyber industry and a central hub in its global cyber warfare apparatus.

According to Israeli media reports, the missile fired by Iran successfully evaded the regime’s multi-layered air defense systems. Despite initial detection, the missile intercept systems failed to neutralize the projectile.

The aftermath of the precision-guided strike showed thick plumes of smoke rising from a building reduced to rubble — identified as a key center of the Israeli cyber army.

Located near Ben-Gurion University, Beer al-Sabe is home to the Advanced Technologies Park (ATP) — a sprawling complex where the regime’s cyber warfare operations against countries like Iran are developed and coordinated.

This park houses major cybersecurity firms closely tied to the Israeli military and intelligence apparatuses, alongside multinational tech giants such as IBM, PayPal, and Oracle.

More critically, the city functions as a node for the integration of military and intelligence assets, with significant parts of Unit 8200 — Israel’s main cyber intelligence and surveillance division — based in Beer al-Sabe.

Within this ecosystem, the occupation army, private cyber firms, and academic institutions affiliated with the regime work in unison, using cyber warfare as a tool of settler-colonialism and expansionism in the region and beyond.

Ben-Gurion University itself plays a pivotal role in the regime’s cybersecurity research and collaborates extensively with its military and intelligence branches to develop offensive cyber capabilities in brazen breach of international laws.

Successive Israeli regimes have poured substantial investments into Beer al-Sabe to cement its status as the cyber capital of the Zionist entity, inviting top global cyber firms to set up operations there.

The regime has long weaponized cyberattacks to achieve its strategic objectives.

In 2009-2010, it partnered with the United States to launch a major cyberattack on Iran’s nuclear facilities — damaging centrifuges — marking one of the first known uses of cyber technology for destructive purposes, despite Iranian sites being under the UN surveillance.

Over the years, it has carried out cyberattacks on Iranian ports, fuel distribution networks, and railway systems, in blatant violation of international norms governing cyberspace.

The regime has also targeted resistance movements like Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, aiming to disrupt their communications and operations.

At the core of these operations is Unit 8200, a division that has gained notoriety for leading the Israeli military’s cyber intelligence and hacking efforts, conducting widespread surveillance, espionage, and offensive digital campaigns.

The regime has also deployed cyber tools to spy on governments and institutions around the world. Tools such as Pegasus spyware, developed by Israel’s NSO Group, have been used to covertly infiltrate mobile devices for intelligence gathering.

Given this record, regional cybersecurity officials say Friday’s Iranian missile strike on Beer al-Sabe was a long-overdue response to years of cyber aggression emanating from the city.

June 21, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

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