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Germany arming for possible conflict with Russia – Reuters

RT | May 26, 2025

The German military must significantly increase its weapons stockpile by 2029, the year the current government anticipates a potential threat from Russia, according to a directive issued by the country’s defense chief, obtained by Reuters.

The order, titled ‘Directive Priorities for the Bolstering of Readiness’, was signed on May 19 by Carsten Breuer, the inspector general of the Bundeswehr, the news agency reported on Sunday.

Moscow has denied that it has any aggressive intentions toward NATO countries, dismissing Western speculation of a possible attack as fearmongering aimed at justifying extensive militarization by the bloc’s European members.

Breuer’s order emphasizes the procurement of advanced air defense systems and long-range precision strike capabilities effective at ranges exceeding 500km. He has also reportedly directed the military to increase the stockpiling of various types of ammunition and to develop new capacities in electronic warfare, as well as space-based systems for both defensive and offensive missions.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced on Monday that his government has lifted restrictions on the range of weapons it can supply to Ukraine to fight Russia. The news is perceived as a hint at the possible delivery of long-range Taurus missiles, which the previous government refused to donate.

In March, the German parliament amended the nation’s law to exempt military spending from the ‘debt brake’, a measure that limits government borrowing. Merz has proposed allocating up to 5% of the nation’s GDP to security-related projects by 2032, a significant increase from the current level of around 2%. He claimed that this expenditure would transform the Bundeswehr into Europe’s most formidable military force.

The rearmament plans necessitate a corresponding increase in personnel. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius indicated in a recent interview that the ruling coalition aims to introduce a recruitment model similar to Sweden’s, potentially ending the current volunteer-only system as early as next year.

The military initiatives come amid economic challenges, including de-industrialization and stagnation. On Sunday, the newspaper Bild said that ThyssenKrupp, a company with over two centuries of history, is undergoing a significant restructuring amounting to dissolution. According to the report, the company plans to reduce its headquarters staff from 500 to 100, transfer its steel mills to Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, sell its naval shipyard Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) in the public market, and divest most other divisions.

May 26, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

How Russia Quietly Revolutionised Warfare

By Kit Klarenberg | Global Delinquents | May 25, 2025

On May 23rd, The Times published an extraordinarily candid probe into how militarised drones have irrevocably revolutionised warfare in the 21st century, with Russia far at the forefront of this radical shakeup of how conflicts are waged. Meanwhile, there is little indication NATO members even vaguely comprehend this battlefield reality, let alone a single one of them is undertaking any serious measures whatsoever to prepare for conflict such as that currently unfolding and evolving daily throughout Ukraine’s eastern steppe.

The Times piece is a first-person report of a visit to the assorted headquarters of Kiev’s 93rd Mechanised Brigade, in basements of abandoned buildings and homes throughout the Donetsk city of Kostiantynivka. It’s a devastating picture of the realities of war in the era of drones, which has “[altered] the physical make-up of the front line, the tactics of the war and the psychology of the soldiers fighting it,” while “having a devastating impact on Ukraine’s logistical ability.”

At one stage, The Times reporter was warned they were standing nine kilometres – 5.5 miles – from the nearest Russian position, and thus “well inside the kill range.” A Ukrainian soldier told them with a shrug, this was “now an easy range in which to die”:

“No other weapon type has changed the face of the war here so much or so fast as the FPV drone. Almost any vehicle within five kilometres of the front is as good as finished. Anything moving out to ten kilometres is in danger. Drone strikes at 15 or 20 km are not that unusual.”

Since the proxy war erupted, both Ukraine and Russia have innovated in the field of FPV drones to an unprecedented degree. Kiev has become so reliant on drones, they are her “weapon of choice.” Yet, as The Times records, Russia has now decisively “taken the lead in the drone race, outproducing Kyiv in the manufacture and use of medium-range FPV drones and fibre optic variants that have changed the shape of the entire 1,200 km front line.”

Not only are FPVs “dramatically” striking ever-deeper into Ukrainian territory, but fibre optic FPV drones have gained “dark prominence over the killing fields.” While emulating the quadcopters equipped with munitions typically deployed by both sides previously, this “highly manoeuvrable killer drone” is connected directly to pilots by “a gossamer thin fibre optic thread.” This makes the contraptions difficult to track, and impervious to electronic jamming. A local infantry battalion commander told The Times:

“The changes posed by drones are so fast that concepts we implemented just a month ago no longer work now. We live in a space of perpetual fast adaptation. In the past week alone, Russian drone strike ranges have increased by four kilometres.”

These developments have sent Ukrainian forces scurrying en masse to regroup at regular, abrupt intervals ever-further away from the front line (also known as “zero point”), while logistical convoys to Kramatorsk – “long considered the bastion of Ukraine’s defence of the Donbas region” – have been repeatedly struck. One lieutenant recorded how Russian drones “swarm our armoured vehicles whenever they get near the zero point,” obliterating them and their crews. He believes drones represent such a world-changing military hazard, “the days of the tank are truly over.”

‘Danger Estimate’

The “drone-filled skies” of Donbass are so deadly, getting soldiers and equipment to the ever-expanding frontline and back is not only a logistical and practical horror, but also a frequently suicidal task. The Times reports that until late 2023, Ukrainian infantrymen “were usually carried to a position near the front in armoured personnel carriers, walking the last few hundred metres on foot.” Today, they are dropped off up to eight kilometres away at night, walking “meandering routes through trees to avoid detection, just to take up their positions.”

Rotations from the frontline have also vastly extended in length. While at the start of 2024 Ukrainian soldiers spent “a week or two” at zero point, now they’re routinely trapped there for months at a time, “often devoid of almost any other human contact, resupplied with water, rations and ammunition by agricultural drones.” Resultantly too, “casualty evacuation has become a nightmare.” Wounded fighters are “commonly” rescued at night, and “even then the operation is fraught.” A senior logistician for the 93rd Brigade’s drone crews lamented:

“As a word ‘stressful’ doesn’t even come close to describing it. Every mission I think, ‘God forbid we get a casualty and have to work out how to get them back’.”

Ukrainian soldiers always keep shotguns close, to attempt to blast attacking drones out of the sky

Each night too, the Brigade’s frontline drone crews are resupplied with batteries, drone frames and munitions. Logistics teams are dropped off up to seven kilometres from the frontline, then carry up to 36 kilograms of equipment forward on foot. The risk to these crews is “enormous”. One driver was quoted as saying he conducted three missions nightly, “and I never know if each one will be my last, if I’m going to make it there and back in one piece.”

The Times records how a logistics vehicle was recently struck by a Russian drone while returning from a resupply mission. The driver lost an arm, but there were so many drones buzzing nearby, he couldn’t be evacuated from the position for five hours, so bled to death. Five Ukrainian armoured vehicles were destroyed by drones in the same sector the next day. However, none of this is seeping out to the world via the mainstream media, which once published videos of Ukrainian strikes on Russia daily.

As The Times notes, drones have adversely affected a core component of Kiev’s war effort – “media communications”. The 93rd Brigade was once “renowned for allowing reporters good access to…the war from the front.” Now though, “access for journalists has been dramatically reduced,” with “many media organisations…reluctant to commit reporters into areas within 15 km of the front.” Ukrainian brigades are likewise “wary” of the risks “they expose their own troops to in taking journalists by vehicle to the front.”

The Times reports that in 2023, the 93rd Brigade’s press officer “organised hundreds of visits to the front by reporters.” The number of visitors has now “dwindled to a trickle”. Since the proxy war’s eruption, the psychological field of battle has been where Ukraine has performed most effectively, eagerly assisted in its propaganda efforts by a media apparatus reflexively reporting the fantastical claims of officials in Kiev and their Western proxy backers as fact. Now, those days are long over. The press officer complained:

“The risks get bigger and bigger, and the coverage gets less and less. We get a journalist’s request to go to the front now and we wonder how rational is it? What is the danger estimate? What is the benefit?”

‘Technological Adaptations’

The Times report is a vanishingly rare mainstream acknowledgement of how the conflict currently raging Donbass is a war unlike any other in history, and its key spheres of battle are wholly unfamiliar to Western militaries. Despite this media omertà, the proxy conflict’s unparalleled operating environment, and obvious lessons, have not gone entirely unheeded in certain elite quarters. Nonetheless, despite alarm bells ringing accordingly, they are clearly falling on deaf ears in American and European centres of power.

In September 2024, Britain’s House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee published a bombshell reportUkraine: a wake-up call. It found the proxy war had “exposed fundamental weaknesses” in the “military strength” of both Britain and NATO, concluding London was effectively defenceless, with its “small” military reliant on unaffordable “status symbols” such as non-functional aircraft carriers. The country lacks the ammunition, armour, equipment, industrial capacity, personnel and vehicles to withstand a Donbass-style conflict for more than a few weeks at absolute most.

Amidst relentless condemnation of the state of Britain’s armed forces, the report contained a dedicated section on how “the use of drones in Ukraine” had “exposed the sheer variety of possible drone threats in a conflict scenario, ranging from disposable and commercially available drones to high-end, sophisticated ones.” It noted the development has “inserted an extra layer of weaponry between the land and air domains” and augmented “existing capabilities that both sides have, particularly offering new defensive options in the absence of air superiority.”

As such, the House of Lords Committee called for London to “invest in research and development to maintain a strategic edge in drone technology (including amphibious drones), and support the rapid development of new technologies that can compete in contested environments.” It urged decisionmakers to constantly consider and monitor “the pace of technological adaptations on and off the battlefield,” and the Ministry of Defence “to support continuous adaptation,” such as “[incorporating] learning on the use of drones in Ukraine across all domains.”

The report went entirely unremarked upon by the media contemporaneously, and today there is no sign of its multiple urgent calls to action having produced any meaningful results in any tangible regard in Britain’s armed forces. Similarly, despite NATO officials warning the alliance is wholly dependent on US electronic warfare capabilities, which in any event are woefully inferior to Russia’s own, public indications of Western leaders or militaries taking the drone warfare revolution seriously are unforthcoming. Should they end up in direct conflict with Russia, they’ll be in for quite a shock.

May 26, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Russian missiles ‘fool’ US-made Patriots – Ukrainian military

RT | May 26, 2025

US-designed Patriot air defense systems are struggling to keep pace with Russia’s missile technology, particularly the Iskander missiles, Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Igor Ignat admitted on Monday.

Kiev has long praised the MIM-104 Patriot as a vital part of its arsenal following the deployment of the first battery in April 2023. But the American system is showing critical limitations in the face of Russia’s weaponry, Ignat told Le Monde in an interview.

“The Iskander missiles perform evasive maneuvers in the final phase, thwarting the Patriot’s trajectory calculations,” he said. “In addition, the Iskander can drop decoys capable of fooling Patriot missiles.”

While Ukrainian officials previously lauded the Patriot system for its ability to intercept Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, Moscow has questioned such claims. Russian officials also argue that Kiev often overstates the number of missiles it downs compared to the number actually launched.

As of May, Ukraine is reported to have six active Patriot systems, primarily donated by the US and Germany, with additional components provided by the Netherlands and Romania.

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has called the Patriot system the only viable defense against Russian strikes, and has stated an aim to acquire a total of 25 units. He recently proposed that Kiev’s European backers fund the purchase of an additional ten systems for Ukraine at a cost of $15 billion. However, the administration of US President Donald Trump has dismissed the proposal as unrealistic.

Ukraine also faces dwindling supplies of interceptor missiles for its Western-donated platforms, even as Russian forces adapt their drone tactics to circumvent existing countermeasures.

Ukrainian forces have escalated their own drone offensives against Russia, moving from overnight attacks to continuous launches throughout the day. The shift comes amid increased pressure from Washington for continued direct peace negotiations. On Sunday, Trump expressed frustration with the lack of progress, blaming both Moscow and Kiev.

May 26, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

New York Times On Climate Change: Two Candidates For Quote Of The Day

By Francis Menton | Manhattan Contrarian | May 21, 2025

Over at the New York Times today, print edition, there is a big front page article documenting how their side is losing the latest battle in the climate wars. The headline is “U.S. Embraces Climate Denial In Science Cuts.” (online headline somewhat different). Also in the Times today (online version) is a feature called “Quote of the Day.” Today’s “quote of the day,” as selected by the Times, is taken from the “climate denial” article just previously linked. Here it is:

“It’s as if we’re in the Dark Ages.”

This quote is attributed to one Rachel Cleetus, identified as senior policy director with the climate and energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

But then, if you take some time to read the article, you come to what I would propose as another excellent candidate for quote of the day. It’s from Brooke Rollins, recently confirmed as the new Secretary of Agriculture in the Trump administration. Here it is:

“We’re not doing that climate change, you know, crud, anymore.”

The focus of the article is what the Times calls “getting rid of data.” In Times spin, the purpose is to “halt the national discussion about how to deal with global warming.” But what kind of “data” are we talking about here? The article is short on specifics as to which exact data series are being cut back or eliminated, let alone whether those series are accurate or useful. But there is enough to give you a general idea:

In recent weeks, more than 500 people have left the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the government’s premier agency for climate and weather science. . . . NOAA also stopped monthly briefing calls on climate change, and the president’s proposed budget would eliminate funding for the agency’s weather and climate research. The administration has purged the phrases “climate crisis” and “climate science” from government websites.

Ah, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). They’re the people who, via their branch called NCEI, put out the so-called “surface temperature” series that have been systematically altered to create a falsely-enhanced warming trend to support regular claims of “warmest day/month/year ever.” This is the subject of my now 33-part series “The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time.”

Let me remind you of the basics of the temperature-alteration scam: (1) the surface temperature records as presented by NOAA/NCEI are not raw instrumental data, but rather have been altered, (2) NOAA admits that it alters the records, (3) NOAA gives seemingly-plausible reasons for altering the records (e.g., to account to station moves and instrument changes), (4) however, the alterations as implemented are not associated with any specific issues like station moves and instrument changes, and (5) the alterations systematically enhance the reported warming trend and are used to support the “climate crisis” narrative. For more detail, go to Part XXXIII of the “Greatest Scientific Fraud” series. Here are just a couple of backup points in case you are skeptical:

  • As to whether NOAA alters the raw data, from ABC News, February 25, 2025, “Yes, NOAA adjusts its historical weather data: Here’s why.” Excerpt: “When digging into conspiracies claiming that the federal agency “manipulates” its historical weather data, ABC News chief meteorologist and chief climate correspondent Ginger Zee was able to confirm that it was true — but that the routine, public adjustments to records happen for good reason. . . . NCEI [a branch of NOAA] adjusts weather data to account for factors like instrument changes, station relocation and urbanization, and it does so through peer-reviewed studies that are published through its federal website.”

  • As to whether the data alterations implemented by NOAA/NCEI can be tied to any specific legitimate bases like station moves or instrumentation changes, I cite a 2022 article by O’Neill, et al. (17 co-authors) from the journal Atmosphere, title “Evaluation of the Homogenization Adjustments Applied to European Temperature Records in the Global Historical Climatology Network Dataset.” I couldn’t get a pithy quote from the article, but here is my summary: “[The authors attempt] to reverse-engineer the adjustments to figure out what NCEI is doing, and particularly whether NCEI is validly identifying station discontinuities, such as moves or instrumentation changes, that might give rise to valid adjustments. The bottom line is that the adjusters make no attempt to tie adjustments to any specific event that would give rise to legitimate homogenization, and that many of the alterations appear ridiculous and completely beyond justification. . . .” There is much, much more detail if you follow the links.

It is not clear from the Times article whether the 500 recent departures from NOAA include the people who have been carrying out this temperature alteration scam. If those people aren’t gone yet, with any luck they will be soon; and maybe we’ll even get some details of how they have been practicing their dark arts.

Meanwhile, back in the world of climate reality, the Real Clear Foundation on Monday (May 19) held something they called the “Energy Future Forum.” Conference co-chairs David DesRosiers and Mark Mills gave opening key-notes. Kevin Killough of Just the News published a summary of the conference on May 20. From DesRosiers’ remarks:

“I think we’ve gone from scarcity to abundance — from the green gospel of scarcity and its Trinitarian ESG god — to the promised land of abundance guided by the values of affordability and reliability,” David DesRosiers, conference co-chair and founder of the RealClear Foundation, said.

And from Mills:

While many tech companies, such as Microsoft, embraced net-zero goals, Mills explained that the energy demands of data centers forced companies to contend with the reality that although fashionable in some circles, intermittent wind and solar power are not adequate. “Eventually, reality rears its ugly head, and we recalibrate around what reality permits,” Mills said.

Bottom line: the Times can scream all it wants, but the world is moving on. From my point of view, it can’t happen too fast.

May 25, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

London Times Condemns Shadow Censorship While Quietly Endorsing Selective Speech Control

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | May 25, 2025

The London Times editorial board recently delivered a pointed critique of groups like the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), accusing them of acting as “self-appointed censors” who operate “in the shadows” and pose a “threat to free speech.”

Yet, in the same breath, the Times reveals its own willingness to endorse a selective approach to censorship, so long as the targets align with its own criteria.

While the editorial draws a firm line between malicious falsehoods and legitimate dissent, it doesn’t reject censorship outright.

Instead, it carves out an exception: “harmful disinformation, such as a doctored video designed to cause distress or inflame tensions, is one thing; legitimate journalism seeking to question the status quo is quite another.”

That distinction may sound reasonable on the surface, but it hinges entirely on who gets to decide what counts as “harmful.” In practice, this gives room for silencing speech under subjective definitions, provided those definitions align with elite sensibilities.

The Global Disinformation Index, a little-known nonprofit founded in 2018, has taken it upon itself to grade news organizations based on vague notions of “trustworthiness.”

Its reports, which have been used to influence online advertising decisions, can financially strangle outlets by placing them on exclusion lists. Once flagged, a publication can see its ad revenue evaporate as advertisers steer clear, often without the public, or the publication, ever knowing why.

Their influence far exceeds that of traditional editors or publishers, largely because they operate through algorithms and financial incentives, targeting revenue rather than content directly.

The Times editorial stops short of fully embracing the principle of open inquiry. While decrying the secrecy and self-importance of outfits like the GDI, it leaves the door open to censorship, provided it’s targeted at the content they believe crosses an undefined line into “harm.”

This undermines the editorial’s own warning about the chilling effect of selective enforcement. Once any authority is granted the power to judge truth in service of suppressing it, the essential freedom of press and expression is already compromised.

By calling for protection of “legitimate journalism” while conceding the need to crack down on “harmful disinformation,” the Times falls into the same trap it criticizes. It grants a moral and editorial license to define acceptability, not based on transparency, accountability, or open debate, but on perceived intent and potential impact. The risk, as always, is that this standard will be wielded not to protect the public, but to shield the powerful.

May 25, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

Do You Condemn October 7? China Says “No”

By Mike Whitney • Unz Review • May 25, 2025

China has never explicitly condemned the attacks of October 7. In China’s view, October 7 can’t be separated from the more than seven decades of Israeli brutality, apartheid and occupation. Naturally, this has drawn harsh criticism from Israel which expressed its “deep disappointment” over China’s refusal to repudiate Hamas. Even so, China has not caved in to Israeli pressure or softened its rhetoric. Quite the contrary, on February 22, 2024, Ma Xinmin—a legal advisor to China’s Foreign Ministry and a member of the International Law Commission—summarized China’s views of Hamas’ activities during a presentation to the International Court of Justice at The Hague. Here’s part of what he said:

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict stems from Israel’s prolonged occupation of Palestinian territory and Israel’s longstanding oppression of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people fight against Israeli oppression and their struggle for completing the establishment of an independent state on the occupied territory are essentially just actions for restoring their legitimate rights. The right to self-determination served as the precise legal foundation for this struggle. MEMRI

The fact that China chose a legal scholar—who is a member of the International Law Commission—to argue their case, underscores the importance China places on the broader legal issue of whether the Hamas attack was justifiable under international law. Ma concludes that the attack was not only justifiable, but that the militants involved in the attack had an “inalienable right” to conduct operations that were aimed at ending the Israeli occupation. Here’s Ma:

The Palestinian people’s use of force to resist foreign oppression and complete the establishment of an independent state is an inalienable right …. The struggle waged by peoples for their liberation, right to self-determination, including armed struggle against colonialism, occupation, aggression, domination against foreign forces should not be considered terrorism.” MEMRI

Ma’s statement should not be construed as support for the injuring or killing of innocent civilians. It is, however, a powerful defense of the right of persecuted people to participate in armed struggle against their oppressors.

Most readers don’t know that China resisted Israel’s coercion and defended international law as it relates to the October 7 attacks. They don’t know that China took a stand on a matter of principle and never flinched. Of course, most people don’t realize that of the 195 countries in the world, only 13 officially designate Hamas as a “terrorist organization”. Many believe that the terrorist moniker is applied universally and that the rest of humanity see the world through the same distorted lens as people in America. But they don’t. They see Hamas as a national liberation movement that was duly elected to govern Gaza in 2006 following “free and fair” elections that were forced on the Palestinians by the Bush administration. Now Hamas is being used as the pretext for the slaughter women and children in Gaza on an industrial scale. Most Western leaders have expressed their support for Israel’s 18-month bloodbath, while China has not only opposed it but also defended the Palestinians right to armed struggle. Here’s Professor Richard Falk, a leading scholar in international law and former UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine:

“The right of resistance was affirmed during the decolonization process in the 1980s and 1990s, and this included the right to armed resistance. However, this resistance is subject to compliance with international laws of war.”

Even the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law”.

Israel does not comply with international laws of war—for example, the entire situation in Gaza is one of the most flagrant violations of Israel’s complete disregard, not only for the laws of war, but for the entire apparatus of international and humanitarian laws.

Palestinians, on the other hand, who are in a permanent state of self-defense, are driven by a different set of values than Israel. One is that they are fully aware of the need to maintain moral legitimacy in their methods of resistance….

“To the extent that there is real evidence of atrocities accompanying the October 7 attack, those would constitute violations, but the attack itself is something that, in context, appears entirely justifiable and long overdue,” Falk said. Palestine Chronicle

This is why Israel has fabricated so many stories about beheaded babies, mass rape and the killing of innocent civilians. The intention is to persuade the public that October 7 was not a legitimate expression of political resistance but a wanton act of terror aimed at ordinary people. Western analysts typically focus on fake atrocities that are used to drown out any reasonable discussion about historic oppression or political realities. Here’s Falk again:

One of the tactics used by the West and Israel has been to almost succeed in decontextualizing October 7 so that it appears to have come out of the blue... The UN Secretary-General was even defamed as an antisemite for merely pointing out the most obvious fact—that there had been a long history of abuse of the Palestinian people leading up to it,” he added, referring to Antonio Guterres’ simply stating that October 7 “did not happen in a vacuum”. (Palestine Chronicle)

“Decontextualizing October 7”?

Precisely. The case for genocide is made on the basis that October 7 can be removed from its broader historical “context” and seen as a “stand alone” event that requires a particularly violent response. But October 7 is not a stand-alone event; it is the unavoidable explosion of collective resistance to decades of ethnic hatred and brutality aimed at a particular people who have been stripped of their civil rights and left to languish in an apartheid state. Here’s Ma again:

“Our state is obliged to promote the realization of the right to self-determination and to refrain from any forceful action, which deprives people of that right. In pursuit of their right to self-determination, these people have the right to engage in struggles, seek and receive support on the basis of that right….

“Numerous UN General Assembly resolutions recognize the legitimacy of struggle by all available means, including armed struggle, by peoples under colonial domination or foreign occupation, to realize the right to self-determination.
MEMRI

Video Link

Naturally, Ma’s speech has largely been blacked out in the western media where anything that doesn’t jibe with the Israeli narrative (that October 7 was an act of terrorism) winds up “on the cutting room floor”. We are confident that if Ma’s powerful moral statement was more widely circulated, Israel’s support in the US would crumble.

China Offers To Rebuild Gaza

China has supported every UN Resolution aimed at providing humanitarian relief to the people in Gaza. They have been staunch supporters of Palestinian statehood and the two-state solution from the beginning. They have repeatedly called for an end to the fighting and an immediate ceasefire. They have even met with leaders of Hamas and Fatah (in April and July 2024) to see if reconciliation between the two groups was possible in order to promote Palestinian unity. Finally, China has repeatedly offered to “rebuild Gaza” following the end of hostilities which underscores Beijing’s commitment to an independent Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel.

At every opportunity, China has supported policies aimed at de-escalation, reconciliation and peace. They have exhibited the type of ‘moral clarity’ and moral leadership we would like to see from the United States but never do. It is China’s moral clarity that “guides its decisions, even in complex or ambiguous situations, without being swayed by competing interests or relativism. It’s about aligning actions with a consistent moral framework, often rooted in universal values like honesty, fairness, or compassion.”

Israel’s savagery in Gaza suggests that the West is in a state of irreversible moral collapse. We should be grateful that China is stepping in to fill the void and lead the world into the next century.

On one of the most consequential issues of our time, China has come down on the side of decency and humanity.

May 25, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s deadly aid plan for Gaza delayed due to ‘logistical issues’

The Cradle | May 25, 2025

The Israeli and US-led aid distribution mechanism, which was meant to be launched on 25 May, has been delayed, as UN agencies continue to reject participation in the controversial plan.

Correspondent for Israel’s Channel 12, Tamir Morag, confirmed the new postponement of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). He also accused Hamas of looting humanitarian aid, a claim repeated by Israel, which the UN says there is no evidence for.

Security sources cited in other Hebrew media reports say the UN has doubled down on its rejection of the aid distribution plan, and that “logistical issues” have delayed its launch.

This comes after Israeli media cited suppliers as saying last week that nobody is able to fulfill the plan’s “huge” requirements.

GHF was conceived at the very start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. While US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said when the plan was unveiled this month that it would be “inaccurate” to call it an “Israeli plan,” the project has its roots in Tel Aviv.

According to the New York Times, the details of the plan were first discussed by a group of officials and businesspeople with ties to the Israeli government, called the Mikveh Yisrael Forum, who came up with an idea that aims to bypass the UN and all other humanitarian groups in Gaza.

The Washington Post reports that the initiative’s planning documents anticipated the widespread condemnation and likening of the plan’s distribution centers to “concentration camps with biometrics.”

Even some within the Israeli military establishment have questioned whether the plan could potentially lead to chaos, the report says.

GHF relies on the use of private US contractors who will be in charge of several distribution centers in south and central Gaza. Palestinians in other areas who have had their homes destroyed and have already been displaced multiple times will have to travel across the strip under bombardment to secure aid, while forfeiting the right to return home.

The UN has said the mechanism is designed to reinforce Israel’s plan to displace Gaza’s entire population southward.

It has also condemned Israel’s plan to employ facial recognition technology aimed at screening Palestinians in exchange for humanitarian aid.

“It appears the design of a plan presented by Israel to the humanitarian community will increase ongoing suffering of children and families in the Gaza Strip … The use of humanitarian aid as a bait to force displacement, especially from the north to the south, will create this impossible choice: a choice between displacement and death,” UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said earlier this month.

Gaza’s Government Media Office warned on Saturday that the levels of aid currently entering the strip are less than one percent of what the population needs.

Meanwhile, Israel continues to target Palestinian security officers guarding aid and preventing it from being looted by Israeli-backed gangs.

According to multiple reports, ISIS-linked gang leader Abu Shabab, responsible for the looting of aid under Israeli protection throughout the war, has now “established a fortified base in an Israeli-controlled zone in Rafah.”

May 25, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli settlers escalate violence, forced displacement across occupied West Bank

Photo credit: AFP via Getty Images
The Cradle | May 25, 2025

The last few days have witnessed a dangerous escalation of violence, theft, and vandalism against Palestinians by illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

Settlers attacked Palestinians in the Al-Auja Waterfall area in Jericho on 25 May for the third time in one day, as part of ongoing efforts to displace families who have lived in the area for decades and establish a new illegal settlement outpost.

This came a day after settlers, under the protection of the Israeli army, cut off the water supply to the area.

In the Salim plain east of the occupied city of Nablus, settlers also continued to set fire to wheat fields on Sunday, coinciding with separate attacks on Palestinian livestock herders in the northern Jordan Valley area.

On Saturday, at least 40 dunams of wheat fields in the village of Sebastia near Nablus were set ablaze by illegal settlers.

“The colonists came from the Shavei Shomron settlement and a newly established outpost in the area. The arson targeted farmland in the village’s plain, destroying crops owned by local Palestinian residents,” Mohammad Azem, head of the Sebastia municipality, told WAFA news agency on 24 May.

Large amounts of crops were totally destroyed, decimating the livelihoods of the local Palestinian landowners.

At least 70 olive trees belonging to a Palestinian farmer in Hebron were uprooted by settlers on the same day.

The attacks on Saturday came as Israeli occupation troops carried out a large-scale arrest campaign across the West Bank.

Last week, around 150 Palestinians were forced by settlers to leave the village of Mughayyir al-Deir east of Ramallah, following the establishment of a new illegal outpost there and five days of attacks and intimidation.

Settlers harassed Palestinian men while they were dismantling the metal and wooden frameworks of their houses and preparing to evacuate. One of the attackers was Elisha Yered, a member of the extremist Hilltop Youth group who is subject to UK and EU sanctions for numerous crimes against Palestinians.

“This is what redemption looks like! This is a relatively large outpost that contained about 150 people from the enemy population, but it was broken,” he boasted.

Just four days ago, settlers under army protection attacked Palestinians and set fire to homes and vehicles in the town of Bruqin in the northern West Bank. Bruqin and the nearby village of Kafr al-Dik have been under a tight army siege and continuous attacks since the killing of a settler in a shooting on a settlement in the area earlier this month.

Illegal land grabs and expansion of settlements have continued brazenly by the Israeli government, in stark violation of international law.

The UN Human Rights Office noted in a report in March that there has been a significant expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied territory, citing reports from Israeli NGOs indicating that tens of thousands of new housing units are scheduled to be built in new or existing settlements.

Since the start of this year, Israeli occupation forces have been been carrying out a deadly military operation and siege against several West Bank cities. The operation began on 21 January and was dubbed Iron Wall.

According to the UN, at least 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced from their homes, as Israel continues to systematically demolish Palestinian houses in the refugee camps of Jenin and Tulkarem.

May 25, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Will the international community rethink its support for Israel’s security narrative?

By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | May 24, 2025

Earlier this week, Israel fired warning shots at an international diplomatic delegation in the occupied West Bank. According to the Israeli military, the delegation “deviated from the approved route and entered an area where they were not authorised to be”. The delegation was visiting the Jenin refugee camp, which both Israel and the Palestinian Authority have targeted in a bid to extinguish the Palestinian anti-colonial resistance. Over 22,000 Palestinians have been displaced from Jenin.

The diplomatic delegation was targeted just a day after the EU said it would be reviewing the EU-Israel Association Agreement. In response to the Israeli military’s actions, several governments spoke up immediately, condemning the threat to the diplomats’ lives and asking for immediate investigations. Diplomats, after all, have diplomatic immunity, as UN spokesperson Stephanie Dujarric swiftly reminded. “Diplomats who are doing their work should never be shot at, attacked in any way, shape or form,” Dujarric stated.

But what governments and UN representatives are leaving out is the fact that diplomats witnessed Israel’s security narrative in action against them. Israel’s action was not a mere breach of diplomatic immunity. It was a taste of what the settler-colonial entity feels entitled to impart to anyone who oversteps its imagined boundaries.

The question is, therefore, how far has the international community normalised Israel’s security narrative? The answer will give an idea of how far reaching Israel perceives its security narrative to be.

When the international community upholds Israel’s purported right to defend itself, it automatically applies Israel’s security narrative against the Palestinians who have the right to resist colonisation by all means. The same warped politics was applied to the genocide in Gaza since October 2023.

But Israel internationalised its security narrative. It exported the narrative to all corners of the world, marketed it when the US embarked on its War on Terror, and consolidated the principle through the sales of military and surveillance technology. The UN endorsed it at a global level; individual countries followed suit. Diplomacy became beholden to Israel’s security narrative, as did the Palestinian right of return, the two-state paradigm and even mere symbolic recognition of a Palestinian state. The EU’s illusory state-building, associated with the PA and the occupied West Bank, was also controlled by Israel’s security narrative. As were the EU’s infrastructure and development projects, many of which were destroyed by Israel under the pretext of security. When diplomats and UN personnel were refused entry by Israel, international condemnation was softer than a lullaby. And when Israel’s targeted assassinations involved violating other nations’ sovereignty, Israel’s security narrative took precedence. After all, Israel had a reason that the international community pledged to support – the complete colonisation of Palestine.

Through complicity and silence, the international community enabled a colonial ideology to shape all political and humanitarian initiatives. By enabling and being complicit in colonisation, the international community assumed immunity from Israel’s bullets. But nothing and no one is immune in a colonial framework.

Of course, the countries whose diplomats were targeted in Jenin are expected to take care of their own. But have world leaders paused to realise that ignoring or normalising the consequences of Israel’s security narrative can spill out to endanger the entire world?

Unlike the limits within which Palestinian anti-colonial resistance fights its battle, Israel has embroiled the entire world in its colonial violence and genocide. Israel presented Palestinians as a threat to its colonial establishment that must be annihilated. To promote its security narrative, Israel equated the Palestinian people with international terror. It sold genocide in Gaza as moral and the world acquiesced. After Gaza, does the international community really think that Israel will shy away from firing at diplomats?

We must also take note of the fact that Israel fired warning shots at diplomats in the occupied West Bank, which is the international community’s playground when it comes to its donor funding schemes. Far removed from Gaza, the international community would have us believe, simply because of its investments which create an illusion of prosperity. It only took a few Israeli bullets targeting international diplomats for governments to shatter the illusion they promote.

Will the international community now pause to at least rethink who Israel considers an enemy? Alongside Palestinians, UN personnel have been killed in Gaza, as have humanitarian workers. Yet even in these cases, the international community was more concerned with enabling Israel to continue its genocide. Besides normalising Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, the deliberate, targeted killing of international aid workers, despite the initial outcry, was also normalised as collateral damage.

Without safeguarding Palestinians from genocide and all forms of Israel colonial violence, the international community’s safety will be breached over and over again. And while international safety is gradually eroded, Palestinians are being murdered, forcibly displaced and ethnically cleansed, in the name of security.

Israel’s security narrative is a dangerous spectrum that must be seen as a whole. To see the entirety of it, the international community must turn its attention to the colonised Palestinian population, who have been beaten, shot at, detained, tortured and murdered, merely for inhabiting their own land. Not by sending delegations on exploitative tours that do nothing to end colonialism, but by protecting Palestinians and their anti-colonial resistance.

Can the international community at least acknowledge that, despite the support it has given to Israel, it finds itself in a position where power and vulnerability meet in a space that is still controlled by Israel and its colonial violence? How profitable is it to support the colonisation of Palestine and the genocide of its people, when Israel’s aggression against the international community remains unacknowledged except through stale condemnations?

A breach of diplomatic immunity is an offence. Genocide is a war crime. This is the spectrum that Israel’s security narrative dominates, financed by the same governments who paid money into colonisation and genocide. The only difference is that the international community endorses the illusion of a single enemy as fabricated by Israel – the Palestinians – even though Israel targets anything and anyone standing in its way. Israel is a threat to security, but unfortunately for Palestinians and the rest of the world, it doesn’t stand alone.

May 25, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

SignalGate 2.0 and the Casual Indifference to War

By Abigail R. Hall | Independent Institute | May 23, 2025

We recently learned that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shared details of impending drone strikes on Yemen in a group chat with his wife, brother and personal attorney. If this story sounds familiar, it’s because it comes just weeks after national security leaders—including Hegseth—accidentally added Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to a Signal chat.

The outrage is understandable. Why were military plans shared on an unsecured channel? Were U.S. personnel put at risk? Why did the president not respond strongly to this apparent breach? And of course, the attempted cover-up is making headlines, too.

Something else strikes me. Few seem angry that the government conducts offensive military operations in a country with which we are not formally at war. Headline after headline emphasizes the leaking of war plans—not the “war” itself.

I’ve studied conflict for over a decade. From terrorism and counterterrorism to the development of drone technology and how foreign intervention alters domestic institutions, I know what war does. It kills. It destroys property and devastates economies. It enables people to do the unthinkable—to rape, torture, maim children, and use them as soldiers. War destroys.

Yet, our secretary of defense tells his brother about coming strikes with the same gravity as he’d relay his grocery list.

What’s equally jarring is the public reaction. People aren’t aghast that U.S. drones are killing people in Yemen. People aren’t batting an eye over officials bypassing Congress’s war powers.

We are more concerned about the data leak than about what the data contains.

This indifference isn’t new. In my research, I’ve documented how Americans have become desensitized to war. We’ve been in some state of conflict for more than 93 percent of the calendar years between 1775 and 2018.

I’ve studied how the typical American is constantly exposed to pro-military, pro-U.S. foreign policy messaging. For example, television shows and movies are often subject to editorial review by the Department of Defense in exchange for using military hardware and personnel. We see that messaging in sports, too. In football, we have “bombs,” “blitzes” and “trenches” around the line of scrimmage. We “blow away” the opposing team. We have military homecomings on the pitcher’s mound or centerfield and celebrate without ever asking why our military personnel are deployed in the first place.

Meanwhile, modern technology allows us to easily wash our hands of misgivings.

Drone technology lets officials sell us on the supposed—and false—“surgical precision” of drone strikes, effectively sanitizing the violence. We “eliminate” or “neutralize” “high-value targets” and “combatants.” Never mind that intelligence failures are common and that many of those “combatants” were labeled as such because they happened to be “military-aged males,” or MAM. In other words, they were males aged 14-65 in a strike zone. And what of the civilians, the women and the children? Unfortunate “collateral damage.”

As a result, most of us don’t recognize America’s massive military boot print. How many Americans know the United States operates 750 military bases in more than 70 countries? How many know about the U.S. drone strikes conducted in the last five years in AfghanistanPakistanSomaliaSyria and across Africa? Hundreds of civilians were killed.

For too long, we’ve failed to ask policymakers and ourselves the hard questions. We don’t need to ask about the leaks; we need to ask about the normalization of perpetual war. We need to ask about the moral costs of our government’s actions and about whether our proactive, military-forward policy is truly in our best interests.

May 25, 2025 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | | Leave a comment

US de facto financing persecution of Christians in Ukraine – Tucker Carlson

RT | May 25, 2025

The US is essentially facilitating the persecution of Christians in Ukraine by supporting the Kiev government, which has been waging a purge campaign against the nation’s canonical Orthodox church, American journalist Tucker Carlson has said.

Carlson made the statement during an interview with a former Ukrainian MP, Vadim Novinsky, released on Friday.

“Every day, churches and temples are seized by soldiers with machine guns who come in, throw out priests, beat believers, children, old people, women…” the former lawmaker stated, adding that “it is happening all over Ukraine.”

“I think very few Americans understand the degree to which the Ukrainian government under [Vladimir] Zelensky has persecuted the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” Carlson said.

The former Fox News host then asked Novinsky what he would like to say to the American lawmakers who have nevertheless approved financial aid to Kiev. “The Speaker of the House of the United States Congress is a man who describes himself as a Christian and he has been paying for this,” the journalist said, referring to Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican.

The former Ukrainian MP replied that he would like to see the US aid going directly to ordinary Ukrainians and not the authorities, who “live in parallel realities.”

US government agencies appropriated a total of $182.8 billion on various forms of assistance to Kiev between 2022 and the end of 2024, according to Ukraine Oversight, an official portal that tracks such expenditures.

Last week, US President Donald Trump stated he was concerned that billions of dollars were being wasted on aid to Ukraine. He said Congress was “very upset about it” and that lawmakers were asking where all the money was going.

Kiev has accused the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) of maintaining ties to Russia even though it declared independence from the Moscow Patriarchate in May 2022. The crackdown has included numerous arrests of clergymen and church raids, one of the most notorious of which took place in the catacombs of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, where holy relics are kept.

Last year, Zelensky signed legislation allowing the state to ban religious organizations affiliated with governments that Kiev deems “aggressors,” effectively targeting the UOC.

Earlier this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow would not abandon the Orthodox believers in Ukraine and vowed to make sure that “their lawful rights are respected.”

May 25, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment