Let’s Not Forget JFK’s Attitude Toward Russia
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | March 4, 2025
In the aftermath of the tirade at the White House among President Trump, Vice-President Vance, and Ukrainian President Zelensky, both conservatives and liberals (i.e., “progressives” or leftists) are going ballistic over Trump’s friendly attitude toward Russia. They are pointing out that since at least the end of World War II, the official attitude of the U.S. government has always been that Russia is to be considered a threat to U.S. “national security” as well as an official enemy, rival, opponent, or competitor of the United States. They say that Trump’s positive overtures to Russia are unprecedented.
For example, consider a March 2 article in the New York Times entitled “Trump Is Doing Real Damage to America” by David French, which states that after World War II, “both parties saw the Soviet Union as the grave national security threat it was. For decades, both parties were more or less committed to a strategy of containment that sought to keep Soviet tyranny at bay.” French also suggests that America’s “fundamental identity” lies to this very day in a continued commitment to NATO and a continuous antipathy toward Russia.
French’s mindset is pretty much mirrored in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in a March 3 article entitled “Trump’s Embrace of Russia Rocks NATO Alliance” by Daniel Michaels. The article states: “The American president’s embrace of Russia, an adversary that has worked for years to undermine U.S. global leadership, runs counter to decades of Western policy. The U.S. and its allies founded the North Atlantic Treaty Organization 75 years ago as protection against Soviet Russia.”
There is one notable omission from both articles, however, an omission that occurs in other articles along these same lines in the mainstream press. That omission is President John F. Kennedy and, specifically, Kennedy’s move toward peaceful, friendly, and normal relations with Soviet Russia and, for that matter, with the rest of the communist world.
Why would members of the mainstream press fail to point out this one important exception to the official policy of perpetual hostility and antipathy toward Russia? After all, they have to be familiar with Kennedy’s June 10, 1963, commencement address at American University — a speech that became known famously as Kennedy’s Peace Speech.
My hunch is that the reason the mainstream press omits this major exception to its official anti-Russia historical narrative is twofold: (1) It would cause them to have to explain why Kennedy was trying to change America’s direction, something that the mainstreamers would prefer not to do and (2) It would cause them to have to address the uncomfortable subject of the JFK assassination, something the mainstream press has always been loathe to do.
By the time JFK delivered his speech, he had achieved a “breakthrough’ that enabled him to see that the Cold War was just one great big racket, one that was not only extremely dangerous but also one that was being used to justify the conversion of the federal government from its founding system of a limited-government republic to a national-security state, a totalitarian type of system in which the federal government wields omnipotent powers, including assassination, torture, and indefinite detention. He had achieved this breakthrough after experiencing the national-security establishment’s perfidy in the Bay of Pigs fiasco, its advocacy of a surprise first-strike nuclear attack on Russia, its infamous Operation Northwoods proposal, and its highly dangerous and irresponsible actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
To get a sense of the dramatic and revolutionary shift JFK was taking America, it is necessary to read or listen to the entire speech, which can be done here. To get a sense of why there was so much anger, hatred, and distrust for Kennedy within the U.S. government and the mainstream press, consider the following excerpts from his speech:
I also believe that we must reexamine our own attitude–as individuals and as a Nation–for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward–by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the cold war and toward freedom and peace here at home.
First: Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable–that mankind is doomed–that we are gripped by forces we cannot control.
We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade–therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable–and we believe they can do it again.
I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of peace and good will of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the value of hopes and dreams but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal….
So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all peoples to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it.
Second: Let us reexamine our attitude toward the Soviet Union….
No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue. As Americans, we find communism profoundly repugnant as a negation of personal freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements–in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture and in acts of courage.
Among the many traits the peoples of our two countries have in common, none is stronger than our mutual abhorrence of war. Almost unique among the major world powers, we have never been at war with each other. And no nation in the history of battle ever suffered more than the Soviet Union suffered in the course of the Second World War. At least 20 million lost their lives. Countless millions of homes and farms were burned or sacked. A third of the nation’s territory, including nearly two thirds of its industrial base, was turned into a wasteland–a loss equivalent to the devastation of this country east of Chicago….
I am taking this opportunity, therefore, to announce two important decisions in this regard.
First: Chairman Khrushchev, Prime Minister Macmillan, and I have agreed that high-level discussions will shortly begin in Moscow looking toward early agreement on a comprehensive test ban treaty. Our hopes must be tempered with the caution of history–but with our hopes go the hopes of all mankind.
While JFK did not formally declare an end to the Cold War, every official within the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA — as well as their Operation Mockingbird assets within the mainstream press — fully understood that that was the import of his Peace Speech. Thus, it is not difficult to see why U.S. officials deemed Kennedy to be a grave threat to “national security.” The president who they considered to be a naive, incompetent, traitorous womanizer was not only taking America down a road to communist defeat in the Cold War, he was also implicitly challenging the need for a totalitarian-like national-security state for America. JFK’s Peace Speech was effectively a declaration of war by the executive branch of the U.S. government against the national-security branch.
JFK’s Peace Speech left the national-security establishment with a deeply discomforting choice: Sit back and let Kennedy take the country down or keep America “safe” by eliminating Kennedy. See FFF’s book JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated by Douglas P. Horne, who served on the staff of the Assassination Records Review Board and JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters by James W. Douglass. Also see The Kennedy Autopsy and An Encounter with Evil by Jacob Hornberger.
Do you see why the mainstream press would prefer to airbrush John Kennedy’s decision to end the Cold War racket and move America toward peaceful and harmonious relations with Russia out of America’s history? If they include that major exception in their official historical narrative, they would have to explain the reasons for Kennedy’s decision as well as delve into the national-security establishment’s motive for eliminating him. They then have to explain how his assassination restored things to “normal” — with the continuation of the Cold War, the war in Vietnam, which ended up sacrificing more than 58,000 American men for nothing, the never-ending support of the Cold War dinosaur known as NATO, and the perpetual anti-Russia mindset that pervades America today.
Russia ready to facilitate US-Iran negotiations – Kremlin
RT | March 4, 2025
Russia is ready to broker talks between the US and Iran, including on Tehran’s nuclear program and its regional proxy network, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Bloomberg on Tuesday.
Trump expressed interest in talking to Iran about those issues, both in his phone call to Putin in February and via representatives at the high-level US-Russian meeting in Riyadh just days later, the news agency wrote, citing anonymous officials.
“Russia believes that the United States and Iran should resolve all problems through negotiations,” Peskov told Bloomberg when asked about such contact.
Moscow “is ready to do everything in its power to achieve this,” he added.
US President Donald Trump returned to his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran last month, just weeks after Moscow and Tehran signed a landmark strategic partnership agreement. Trump’s executive order said that Washington would ramp up sanctions on Iran, aiming to disrupt its nuclear program, conventional missile deployment, and network of regional proxy groups.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry has said the country is building up its defenses, citing regular threats from US ally Israel.
“The Israeli regime’s FM and other officials keep threatening Iran with military action while the West continues to blame Iran for its defense capability. This is outrageous & irrational,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said last week. Given that Israel is “addicted to aggression and lawless behavior,” it is “responsible and essential to maximize our defense capabilities,” he stressed.
The day before, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar warned that a “military option” should be on the table to stop the potential weaponization of Tehran’s nuclear program.
Israel and the West have long seen Iran’s uranium enrichment activities as a secret attempt to develop nuclear weapons – allegations that Tehran has repeatedly denied.
While Trump has touted harsher sanctions, he has also signaled that he is interested in signing a “verified nuclear peace agreement” with Tehran.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has stressed that talks with the US are unlikely to bear fruit, citing the prior nuclear deal Trump unilaterally left during his first presidency.
Democracy does not ‘die in darkness,’ it is dying in the EU right now
By Tarik Cyril | RT | March 4, 2025
Quiz time: What do Germany, Moldova, and Romania (in alphabetical order) have in common? They look so different, don’t they?
Germany is a traditional, large, and at this point still relatively well-off (if less and less so due to obedient self-Morgenthauing for the greater glory of Ukraine) member of the Cold War “West” (give and take a “re-unification” and all that). Currently, it has a population of over 83 million people and a GDP equivalent to $4.53 trillion. Romania is an ex-Soviet satellite with just above 19 million citizens and a GDP less than a tenth of the German one (at $343.8 billion). Moldova, which emerged from a former Soviet republic, is the smallest: 2.4 million people and a GDP of $16.5 billion.
And yet, look more closely, and they are not so different: They are all either inside the EU and NATO (Germany and Romania) or attached to these two organizations as an outside yet important strategic asset (the case of Moldova – despite and in de facto breach of its constitutionally anchored neutrality, as it happens). And also, all three have serious problems with conducting fair and clean elections. What a coincidence. Not.
Let’s take a quick look at each case: In Germany’s recent federal election, the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) failed to cross the threshold to representation in parliament – 5% of the national vote – by the thinnest of margins: The party officially garnered 4.972% of the vote. In absolute numbers, almost 2,469,000 Germans voted for the BSW (with the decisive so-called “second vote”). Only 0.028% – about 13,000 to 14,000 votes – more and the party would have passed the 5% barrier.
Even extremely tight results can, of course, be real and legitimate. The problem in Germany now is that there is steadily accumulating evidence that the elections were compromised by serious flaws and repeated errors. What makes this even more urgent is the fact that there seems to be a clear pattern with mistakes occurring not randomly but mostly at the cost of the BSW.
We already know about two key problems, although not much more than one week has passed after the election on February 23: First, about 230,000 German voters live abroad, but many of them could not cast their vote because the necessary documents reached them too late, sometimes even only after the elections. Of course, we cannot tell how exactly these voters would have voted if given the chance. But that is not the point. The fact alone that they could not participate casts severe doubt on the legitimacy of the results. And especially in the case of the BSW where so few additional votes would have been enough to principally change the outcome, that is, secure seats – and probably two to three dozen – in the next parliament.
The second even more disturbing issue is that there is ever more evidence of actual BSW votes inside Germany being allocated to another party. In the case of the major city of Aachen, for instance, a result of 7.24% for the BSW was registered for the “Bündnis für Deutschland” (an entirely different and much smaller party with no chance of parliamentary representation to begin with). The BSW vote was erroneously registered as 0%. Only protests by local BSW voters brought the scandal to light.
German mainstream media are trying to depict what happened in Aachen as an exception. Yet by now there are reports of similar “errors” from all over Germany – and don’t forget that the process of looking for these cases has only just started. In sum, there are good reasons – and they are getting better by the day – for believing that, for the BSW, the difference between correct and incorrect election procedures actually amounts to the one between being and not being in parliament. That implies, of course, that all those citizens who have voted for the BSW may well have been deprived of their proper democratic representation as foreseen by law.
Is there a motive for foul play? You bet. The BSW, an insurgent party combining leftwing social with rightwing cultural and migration-policy positions, has been hounded as too friendly toward Russia because it is demanding peace in Ukraine; it also has been outspoken about its opposition to basing fresh US missiles in Germany and to Israel’s crimes as well.
In Germany as it is now, these are all reasons for neo-McCarthyite smear campaigns and repression by – at least – dirty media tricks, all of which has already happened. It is entirely possible that a wave of deliberate local “mistakes” was added to that nasty tool box. And, a slightly different issue, asserting the BSW’s legal rights now will be especially difficult, in particular because a revision of the election result to include the party in parliament would immediately upset the complicated arithmetic of government coalition building. The BSW and its voters, in short, may well have been cheated, and they may be cheated again in case they seek redress.
The fact that one problem with those German elections has to do with voters living abroad rings a bell called Moldova, of course. There, last November, Maia Sandu narrowly won a presidential election that involved massively manipulating the outside-the-country vote. In essence, Moldovans abroad, especially in Russia, likely to vote against her were, in effect, disenfranchised by making it impossible for them to actually cast their vote; Moldovans more likely to vote for her, in the West, faced no such problems.
This crude trickery was decisive: Without it Sandu would have lost and her left-wing rival Alexandr Stoianoglo would have won. In the West, whose candidate Sandu has been, this outcome was, of course, hailed as a victory for “democracy,” a pro-EU choice, and a defeat of “Russian meddling.” As so often, it is hard to decide what is more jaw-dropping: the Orwellian reversal of reality or the Freudian projection of the West’s own manipulation on the big bad Russian Other.
That projection, in any case, is also in play in Romania. Indeed, at this point, the Romanian case of electoral foul play is clearly the most brutal one. There, the gist of a long saga beginning last November, too, is simple: Calin Georgescu, an insurgent newcomer is very likely to win presidential elections. Yet he is being denounced as a far-right populist and – drum roll – as somehow in cahoots with Russia, too.
The consequences were not surprising, except in how drastic things have gotten: First, when Georgescu was close to winning one election, the Constitutional Court abused its power to cancel the whole exercise. The pretext was a file of pseudo-evidence cobbled together by Romania’s security services that, by now, even Western mainstream media admit is ridiculously shoddy.
As you would expect, this open assault on their right to vote has made Romanians support Georgescu more, not less, as polls show. Since the next try at elections is now due to take place in May and Georgescu is still the frontrunner, the authorities have followed up with even more ham-fisted repression. This time, Georgescu was temporarily and dramatically detained – on the way to registering his renewed candidacy – and then accused of half a dozen serious crimes. His access to social media has been curtailed; his team and associates are being raked with searches, charges, and, of course, media attacks. It is possible that he will be deprived of his right to stand for the election.
Georgescu’s supporters have held large demonstrations; he himself has appealed for help in his struggle against Romania’s “deep state” to the Trump administration in Washington. Trump’s de facto right-hand man, tech oligarch Elon Musk, has used his X platform to signal support for Georgescu. And not long ago, US Vice President J.D. Vance warned the Europeans over the first round of attacks on Georgescu.
Yet Romania’s key role in NATO strategies is certain to be a key reason the NATO-skeptic and sovereigntist Georgescu has run into such massive trouble, not only from Romanian mainstream elites but also, behind the scenes, those still running the EU. With Washington now revising its approach to both Russia and its NATO clients in Europe, Georgescu’s fate could well hinge on one of the greatest geopolitical shifts of this century. And that shift might favor him.
Maia Sandu’s crooked victory in Moldova is not up for revision. The chances for the BSW of finding redress should be good, but, in reality, they are not, unfortunately. Georgescu’s luck, though, may turn again. He already has massive electoral support; he may well get even more precisely because of the escalation of dirty tricks used against him, and he has the US de facto on his side.
What is certain, in any case, is one simple fact: the “garden” West, with its endless talk of “values” and “rules” does not, in practice, believe in real elections. Instead, geopolitics prevail. And, tragically, those geopolitics are not only overbearing but stupid. Driven by an obsession with fighting Russia (and China, of course; and the Trumpist US, too, if need be) and rejecting diplomacy as such, this is a West ready to sacrifice whatever little democracy it may have left to a delusion of grandeur that will be its downfall.
Tarik Cyril Amar ia a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.
UN demands answers from UK on terror law abuse
By Kit Klarenberg | The Grayzone | March 1, 2025
As the British state harasses and arrests a growing number of activists and dissident journalists, including the author of this piece, UN rapporteurs delivered a forceful letter of protest to London condemning its abuse of counter-terror legislation.
In December 2024, a quartet of UN rapporteurs focused on “peaceful assembly and of association” and the “right to privacy” delivered a strongly-worded letter to the British government. Expressing grave concerns about the potential “misapplication of counter-terrorism laws” to arrest, detain, interrogate and surveil dissident activists and journalists, including The Grayzone’s Kit Klarenberg, they demanded clarity on a number of serious issues. Given 60 days to respond, London remained suspiciously silent.
As a result, the UN’s correspondence with the British government has now been made public. The rapporteurs were clearly disturbed by reports of Schedule 7 of the 2000 Terrorism Act, and Schedule 3 of the 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act, which covers “hostile” state threats, “being used to examine and obtain data from journalists and activists Johanna Ross, John Laughland, Kit Klarenberg, Craig Murray and Richard Medhurst in circumstances where they appear to have no credible connection to ‘terrorist’ or ‘hostile’ activity.”
While awaiting a reply that never came, the UN “urged” British authorities to undertake “interim measures” to prevent any recurrence of potential human rights breaches under counter-terror legislation, and “ensure the accountability” of anyone responsible for “alleged violations.” Evidently undeterred by pressure from the UN, Britain has continued to escalate its war on dissidents.
Since the UN issued its letter of protest, British activists and journalists have since been arrested, raided, and prosecuted, including Asa Winstanley, Tony Greenstein, Sarah Wilkinson, Palestine Action cofounder Richard Barnard, and academic David Miller.
The UN letter focused on how “powers under counter-terrorism legislation have been used on multiple occasions to examine, detain, and arrest journalists and activists, particularly at the UK border.” Individuals “who are critical of Western foreign policy in the context of the conflict in the Middle East and the Russia-Ukraine war are especially affected by the reported misuse of these powers,” the rapporteurs wrote.
Ominously, the UN rapporteurs suggested this could amount to “over-use [or] misuse” of British counter-terrorism legislation “to target legitimate freedom of expression and opinion, including public interest media reporting, and related freedoms of peaceful assembly and association, and political dissent or activism.”
“Vague and broad” laws mean mass-persecution
The UN rapporteurs were especially scathing in their critique of the powers used to harass and potentially incarcerate targets. They charged that Schedule 7 of the 2000 Terrorism Act “may be unjustifiably used against journalists and activists who are critical of Western foreign policy.” In each case they investigated, detentions under this legislation were “premeditated [and] examination, confiscation of devices, and DNA prints were conducted despite the apparent absence of a credible ‘terrorist’ connection” with the individual in question.
Such promiscuous application of ostensible counter-terrorism laws creates the unavoidable “risk of intimidating, deterring, and disrupting the ability of journalists to report on topics of public importance without self-censorship” in Britain. This “serious chilling effect,” the rapporteurs cautioned, could extend well beyond media, and “unjustifiably interfere with the rights to freedom of expression and opinion and participation in public life” across “civil society and legitimate political and public discourse.”
The UN took repeated aim “at the vagueness and overbreadth” of the 2000 Terrorism Act’s criminalisation of “expressing an opinion or belief…supportive of a proscribed organisation.” The legislation’s terms provide no definition whatsoever of the term “support”, an “ambiguous” deficiency that “may unjustifiably criminalize” legitimate opinions “not rationally, proximately or causally related to actual terrorist violence or harms.” They noted this prohibition “goes well beyond the accepted restrictions on freedom of expression under international law concerning the prohibition of incitement to violence or hate speech.”
Indeed, “speech that is neither necessary nor proportionate to criminalize, including legitimate debates about the de-proscription of an organization and disagreement with a government’s decision to proscribe” could be categorized as “supporting” a terrorist group under the 2000 Terrorism Act’s sweeping terms. This is especially problematic given certain factions proscribed by Britain, such as Hamas or Hezbollah, may be “de facto authorities performing a diversity of civilian functions, including governance, humanitarian and medical activities, and provision of social services, public utilities and education”:
“Expressing support for any of these ordinary civilian activities by the organization could constitute expressing support for it, no matter how remote such expression is from support for any violent terrorist acts by the group.”
Working for “hostile” governments without knowing
Similar alarm was sounded about the wording of Schedule 3 of the 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Act, under which The Grayzone’s Kit Klarenberg was detained upon returning to his home city of London in May 2023. It stipulates that anyone entering British territory suspected of “hostile activity” on behalf of a foreign power can be held against their will and interrogated for up to six hours, while the contents of their digital devices are seized and stored. Non-compliance automatically results in arrest.
See the notice of detention issued by British state security to journalist Kit Klarenberg under Schedule 3 of the UK’s Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act of 2019 here.
Ever more disturbingly, Schedule 3 is suspicionless. Under the legislation’s terms, “it is immaterial whether a person is aware that activity in which they are or have been engaged is hostile activity, or whether a state for or on behalf of which, or in the interests of which, a hostile act is carried out has instigated, sanctioned, or is otherwise aware of, the carrying out of the act.” In other words, no conspirator in a suspected conspiracy has to have consented to potentially illegal activity.
“Hostile acts” are defined as any behavior deemed threatening to London’s “national security” or “economic well-being.” Again, the rapporteurs condemned this language as “vague and over-broad.” They concluded the phrasing granted British authorities “extraordinary discretion” to engage in “unnecessary, disproportionate or otherwise arbitrary interferences in the rights to liberty and privacy” of individuals detained under these powers. Moreover, as the Act’s targets are not formally under formal criminal investigation or arrest, or suspected of having committed any offense, they have no right to remain silent.
The UN branded this distinction as “artificial… given the punitive sanctions for non-compliance,” branding it as “inconsistent with the accepted meaning of ‘arrest’ or ‘detention’” under Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The “extreme breadth” of Schedule 3 also “enables unnecessary, disproportionate, arbitrary or discriminatory interference with an individual’s rights, including freedom from arbitrary detention, freedom of movement…and the rights to leave and enter one’s own country.” Article 17 of the ICCPR also states:
“No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with [their] privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on [their] honour and reputation.”
This is explicitly contrary to Klarenberg’s May 2023 experience at Luton airport. There, as the rapporteurs documented, he was “fingerprinted, subjected to oral DNA swabs, and photographed by the examining officer,” while asked excessively invasive questions about his financial affairs, personal and professional relationships, and living situation in his adopted home country of Serbia. His belongings were extensively “searched and he was compelled to provide the passwords to his digital devices, which included a smartphone, tablet, and two cameras.”
Not only was all data on these devices copied, but “the memory cards and SIM cards of the electronic devices were copied outside the interrogation room” and “retained by the police.” As of the letter’s dispatch, one of Klarenberg’s memory cards had “been retained for a period exceeding a year and five months” by British authorities, suggesting he “remains under criminal investigation” for uncertain offenses he did not knowingly or willingly commit.
The rapporteurs noted Klarenberg was among several journalists detained by British border officials whose “electronic devices [were] confiscated for a significant period of time and have not been updated on the use, retention or destruction of their data, or advised in relation to their personal data protection rights.” In many cases, these seized items have never been returned, without satisfactory explanation or seeming legal justification.
New British laws further criminalize dissent
In closing, the UN rapporteurs “encouraged” London to repeal legislation under which dissidents have been persecuted, or “amend it to protect freedom of expression, and…develop prosecutorial guidelines for its appropriate use to avoid the unnecessary or disproportionate incrimination of political dissent.” They further implored London to “indicate how the application of counter-terrorism laws” against activists and journalists “is consistent with international human rights law, and an appropriate application of the law,” while providing “an update on the retention of data taken from the journalists.”
They went on to “urge” the British government to “consider the growing number of instances” where laws purportedly intended to deal with violent terrorist threats “may have been inappropriately directed towards journalists and activists, and to consider addressing this through amendments to the legislation, guidance for relevant officials, and training of border security officers.” Britain’s failure to respond to the UN’s letter, and ever-ratcheting attacks on domestic dissent subsequently, amply indicate these entreaties have fallen on determinedly deaf ears.
In December 2023, Britain rammed through a new round of draconian legislation reinforcing and further codifying the “vague and over-broad” terms of the laws condemned by the UN, under the auspices of the National Security Act. Its terms introduce a number of completely new criminal offenses with severe penalties, and wide-ranging consequences for freedom of speech. Explicitly enacted to neutralize investigative journalism and prevent the emergence of a new WikiLeaks, the Act is so expansive, individuals will almost inevitably break the law without wanting to, intending to, or even knowing they have.
British journalist Johnny Miller seeks asylum in Russia following campaign of harassment
At almost exactly the same time when UN rapporteurs complained to the British government about its abuse of “counter-terror” legislation to persecute dissidents, independent journalist Johnny Miller was granted asylum in Russia. Miller, a British citizen, had reported from the front lines of the Ukraine proxy war for two-and-a-half years. During this period, supporters of the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky subjected him to a campaign of intensive harassment, hacking his digital devices and Telegram account, bombarding him and his family with anonymous death threats, and publicly stalking him.
Miller told The Grayzone he’s not sure who or what was ultimately behind the campaign of harassment, but strongly suspects British and/or Ukrainian intelligence played a role. He says it was evident from the start of 2024 his movements in Moscow were being closely tracked while he travelled around the city, and seemingly in advance. At repeated meetings with friends and sources in bars, cafes and restaurants in the Russian capital, individuals would be waiting there for him, staring at him menacingly:
“It might sound crazy, but I think that’s the point. The purpose was to drive me insane, and make me look insane if I ever spoke up about this publicly. But these intimidating encounters from afar happened too many times to be a coincidence, and were witnessed by those I met with. One of them was George Dusoe, a US diplomat who quit out of protest over Gaza, after growing disillusionment with US government policy, and then moved to Russia.”
Miller met with Dusoe for a coffee a day before a formal interview. Afterwards, as they headed for the central Moscow metro, Dusoe quietly informed him they were being followed by multiple people. “He’d not only experienced that personally while posted abroad, but was specially trained in how to spot and evade it,” Miller noted. While the pair eventually eluded their stalkers, losing them in the metro, the experience shook Miller.
To this day, he can’t help but wonder, “what if I was alone, and this happened at night?,” citing the example of Adrian Bocquet. A French military veteran, he travelled to Ukraine in April 2022, witnessed Kiev’s forces commit countless grave war crimes, publicly testified to these atrocities while disputing Western claims of Russian atrocities in Bucha after returning home, then was stabbed in Turkey by Ukrainian nationalists. Miller is understandably relieved to finally be granted a degree of legal protection, personally and professionally:
“Their aim was to make me so scared for my life I stopped my work, and they almost succeeded. The psychological impact was massive, it was a form of warfare, and it stressed me like nothing I’ve ever experienced before,” he commented. “It’s a sick irony that one of the main reasons I sought asylum in Russia is [in order] to apply for a new passport, I would’ve had to give the British embassy in Moscow my address. No way!”
While detained in Luton airport in May 2023, The Grayzone’s Kit Klarenberg was not only forced under threat of arrest and prosecution to provide British counter-terror police his apartment address in Belgrade, but its location within the building, how much he paid for rent, and whether energy bills were included in that price. To what malign ends this information was put isn’t clear. From Miller’s point of view, British intelligence is determined to harass dissidents wherever they are, inside the country or thousands of miles away.
Kaja Kallas is ill-equipped to take stock of EU foreign policy after Zelensky’s drubbing in the White House
By Ian Proud | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 4, 2025
Now that Zelensky has been battered by Trump and abandoned by Starmer, he can fall back of Europe’s leading diplomat, Kaja Kallas. God help us all.
The earth is still shaking from President Trump and Vice President Vance’s tag team annihilation of Volodymir Zelensky at the White House. The 27 February meeting between Trump and Keir Starmer was a more convivial affair, with the British Prime Minister quiet on Ukraine while promoting the idea of much prized trade talks with America. That was the first signal of the UK getting real about its foreign policy disaster in Ukraine and recognising that it needs trade with America far more than it needs the huge cost of propping up an unwinnable war.
This leaves Zelensky’s fate in the hands of the European Union. And with Kaja Kallas, the current EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the omens aren’t promising.
Kallas’ problem is threefold.
First, she is not diplomatic.
If the biggest foreign policy challenge in Kallas’ in-tray right now is the war in Ukraine, then her ingrained hatred of Russia makes her a singularly bad choice as Europe’s lead diplomat.
Her worldview is carved out of her experience growing up in the Soviet Union the child of a woman who was deported to Siberia in 1949. She looks at Russia through a shattered lens of Estonia’s suffering during the so-called communist terror after the end of World War II.
How she sees events in Ukraine today is simply a continuum of the folklore of her life. Russia is the hated enemy, and, at some point, Russia will return to conquer Estonia once more. In her statements before war in Ukraine started, Kallas reaffirmed her view that Estonia could be the next country that Russia invades. As a NATO country, I have never seen any evidence that Russia has a plan to do this.
Kallas has called for NATO troops to be deployed to Ukraine, to ensure Russia’s total defeat. She has suggested that Russia be broken up into a series of smaller states. She once implied that Ukraine should inflict more civilian casualties on Russian citizens, to balance the number of casualties in Ukraine. Even as President Trump has said that NATO membership for Ukraine is unrealistic, she has continued to push for this to be kept on the table, despite it having been a redline for Russia for nineteen years.
Almost everything that she says is rooted in her unshakeable belief that defeating Russia is vital for the world to become a safer place.
The world is full of extremists, of course. However, she claims to be the leading diplomat of Europe. She seems singularly ill-suited to that role. But will nonetheless still support Zelensky, I’m sure.
Which ushers in her second problem, the absence of a democratic mandate.
Countries that are sceptical about the European project often express concerns about the lack of democratic accountability of EU institutions.
No one voted for Kallas to occupy her office in Brussels. While Zelensky has only been unelected since May of 2024, Kallas will only ever be an unelected apparatchik.
When the European Union’s role was focussed on creating a united economic, social and cultural space among nations after the ravages of World War II, it found peace by opening up borders. However, as it has grown, Europe has become increasingly bureaucratic. Following agreement of the Lisbon Treaty, the creation of a High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security with a newly formed European External Action Service, continued this centralising trend.
Without any democratic mandate, occupants of the High Representative role have struggled for relevance. Outside of trade policy, individual Member States still manage their own bilateral diplomacy. And as the war in Ukraine has backfired on Europe through economic decline and political dissent, so Europeans countries have sought their divergent paths.
That has left ineffectual figures like Josep Borrel and ideologues like Kallas unable to play the sort of coordinating role that they yearn for.
So, in practice, Kallas’ influence on the actions of Member States is limited, although she has considerable power to cause harm through inflammatory public statements. This is a huge challenge when dealing with countries like Russia, where the leaders there understand fully the limitations on Kallas’ role and ignore her. Instead, Russia focusses its influencing efforts on key EU members states, especially in Central Europe.
Even though Kallas can call for the continued isolation of Russia as support for Zelensky rapidly crumbles, she has no real power to enforce that. She lacks a mandate.
So herein lies her third problem.
Kaja Kallas has no strategy.
There is a huge risk that Kallas is seen as a single-issue High Representative, as her main effort appears to be on the war in Ukraine.
She appears intent only on sustaining the decade-long European zeitgeist on non-engagement with Russia, whatever the economic cost. But in that regard, not only is she not bringing new ideas on foreign policy, her lack of flexibility will make her look out of touch at a time when Europe is facing significant economic and political challenges caused by the war. Arriving into the job in December, Kallas has brought plenty of heat, but no light.
Donald Trump has now arrived heralding a seismic shift in U.S. policy and she still thinks the earth is flat. She has criticised President Trump’s radical shift towards direct engagement with Russia without offering a compelling alternative vision.
The ‘Russia is coming for Europe next’ continues to be the rhetorical life-raft that she clings to as she tries desperately to help the now stranded Zelensky fight to the last Ukrainian.
Kallas is certainly not the author of the EU policy that has tried explicitly to isolate Russia on the world stage. But she has worked tirelessly to keep it alive, together with all the other tropes about how to handle Russia and why an end to the war can never be contemplated.
Of course, that position may have been sustainable while Joe Biden was still in power and the U.S. were arguably more gung-ho about pushing an unwinnable war in Europe.
But Donald Trump’s devastating take-down of Zelensky in the White House will force an immediate reckoning on the European policy establishment about what to do for Ukraine, and for Zelensky. Kaja Kallas has neither the skills, the mandate nor the plan to chart a credible way forward.
Russia’s Resurgence and the Evolving US-Russia Relations
By Abbas Hashemite – New Eastern Outlook – March 4, 2025
Since World War II, Russia and the US have been fierce rivals, but with Donald Trump’s re-election and Russia’s rise as a superpower, the US is now shifting toward fostering cordial ties.
Russia’s Resurgence and the Evolving US-Russia Relations
The Cold War resulted in the collapse of the Soviet Union, creating a unipolar world order led by the United States. Since the culmination of the Cold War, the US has been following a more hardline foreign policy towards its rivals and allies, tarnishing its soft image around the globe. However, its economic and military supremacy helped it to sustain its position as the sole superpower of the world for almost 3 decades. The United States has been alluring third-world countries through economic aid to achieve its geopolitical interests in different regions. It also coerced weak countries militarily to support its foreign policy interests.
Nonetheless, the rapid rise of Russia and China has provided third-world countries with new military and economic giants, transforming the global geopolitical landscape. Russia’s influence is rapidly rising among the Muslim and African countries. It is also known as the leading country of the BRICS organization. Moscow is also leading the de-dollarization movement under the banner of the BRICS. Global oil trade in non-US dollar currencies has already reached 20 percent in 2020-23 from a mere 2 percent in 2000-2010. More than 40 countries are demonstrating their interest in the BRICS membership, signaling the decline of the US-led unipolar world order. The rise of BRICS has significantly enhanced Russia’s diplomatic influence. Most third-world countries seek to establish cordial relations with Moscow due to its policy of noninterference and its inclusive foreign policy.
The Strain in US-Israel Relations and Russia’s Global Stature
On the other hand, the US support to Israel in its war crimes in Gaza and its veto of the UN ceasefire resolutions have ruptured its international image. Israel has been the largest recipient of US aid since its creation. Despite all international condemnations and appeals, the Biden administration provided billions of dollars of US aid, both military and financial, to Israel. It also provided diplomatic support to Israel, further deepening the international resentment against the United States. Meanwhile, the Putin administration proved to be a staunch supporter of human rights and justice by speaking for the rights of Palestinian citizens. In the past few years, President Putin has become one of the strongest voices against Islamophobia.
Due to his vision, Russia has regained its position as the superpower of the world. Russia’s soft image has risen to an unprecedented level under his presidency. Moreover, the failure of the US sanctions to bankrupt Russia is often attributed to his leadership skills. It is also due to his leadership that the United States has been unable to isolate Moscow diplomatically. The Biden administration’s policy of weakening Russia by ensnaring it in an invincible conflict with Ukraine also seems to be collapsing due to the victories of the Russian forces.
US and Russia’s Changing Relations
The incumbent US President Donald Trump has always admired the leadership skills and personality of President Putin. He has consistently criticized Ukraine’s unwarranted provocation of Russia. President Trump is aware that the U.S. is not in a position to defeat or compete with Russia’s rise. The recent summit between Sergei Lavrov, the Secretary of State of Russia, and his American counterpart, to lay a foundation for the meeting of the leaders of the two countries and Trump’s aggressive rhetoric towards Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is a big diplomatic win for Moscow. President Trump has also praised President Putin for his seriousness to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict. All these developments have further elevated the diplomatic stature of Russia internationally.
In a surprising move, the United States voted against a Ukrainian resolution, blaming Moscow for its invasion, in the United Nations, marking a significant shift in the US policy under President Trump. Instead, the U.S. introduced a new resolution, titled The Path to Peace, which featured neutral language and called for a lasting peace. This sent a chill down the spines of the European leaders, as they knew that Ukraine could not win against Russia without the US support. This development holds immense significance and can be seen as a diplomatic win for Russia and Washington’s acceptance of defeat as a global hegemon. It is this sense of defeat that encourages the US to foster ties with Moscow.
Although President Trump has repeatedly threatened the BRICS nations about the de-dollarization campaign, the growing interest of the middle powers in the BRICS membership and their tilt towards Russia indicates that the US needs to establish cordial ties with Moscow to avoid isolation in the new multipolar world order. Washington stood victorious in the first Cold War, but the current developments demonstrate that it has already lost the Cold War 2.0. Russia, as always, seems to be open to diplomatic negotiations with the United States and is also ready for a peaceful solution to its conflict with Ukraine, but it will never compromise on its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Reality confronts the Euro ruling-strata – ‘Through the tear in the fantasy bubble, they see their own demise’
By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 4, 2025
They (the Euro-élites) don’t have a chance: “If Trump imposes this tariff [25%], the U.S. will be in a serious trade conflict with the EU”, the Norwegian Prime Minister threatens. And what if Brussels does retaliate?
“They can try, but they can’t”, Trump responded. Von der Leyen has, however, already promised that she will retaliate. Nonetheless, the combined suite of the Anglo administrative forces is still unlikely to compel Trump to put U.S. military troops on the ground in Ukraine to protect European interests (and investments!).
The reality is that every European NATO member – to varying degrees of self-embarrassment – admits publicly now that none of them want to participate in securing Ukraine without having U.S. military troops provide ‘backstop’ to those European forces. This is a palpably obvious scheme to inveigle Trump into continuing the Ukraine war – as is Macron and Starmer’s dangling of the mineral deal to try to trick Trump to recommit to the Ukraine war. Trump plainly sees through these ploys.
The fly in the ointment, however, is that Zelensky seemingly fears a ceasefire, more than he fears losing further ground on the battlefield. He too, seems to need the war to continue (to preserve continuing in power, possibly).
Trump calling time on the Ukraine war that has been lost has seemingly caused European elites to enter some form of cognitive dissonance. Of course, it has been clear for some time that Ukraine would not retake its 1991 borders, nor force Russia into a negotiating position weak enough for the West to be able to dictate its own cessation terms.
As Adam Collingwood writes:
“Trump has torn a huge rip in the interface layer of the fantasy bubble … the governing élite [in the wake of Trump’s pivot] can see not just an electoral setback, but rather a literal catastrophe. A defeat in war, with [Europe] left largely defenceless; a de-industrialising economy; crumbling public services and infrastructure; large fiscal deficits; stagnating living standards; social and ethnic disharmony – and a powerful populist insurgency led by enemies just as grave as Trump and Putin in the Manichean struggle against vestiges of liberal times – and strategically sandwiched between two leaders that both despise and disdain them …”.
“In other words, through the tear in the fantasy bubble, Europe’s elites see their own demise …”.
“Anybody who could see reality knew that things would only get worse on the war front from autumn 2023, but from their fantasy bubble, our élites couldn’t see it. Vladimir Putin, like the ‘Deplorables’ and ‘Gammons’ at home, was an atavistic daemon who would inevitably be slain on the inexorable march to liberal progressive utopia”.
Many in the Euro ruling-strata clearly are furious. Yet what can Britain or Germany actually do? It has quickly become clear that European states do not have the military capacity to intervene in Ukraine in any concerted manner. But more than anything, as Conor Gallagher points out, it is the European economy, circling the drain – largely as a result of the war against Russia – that is dragging reality to the forefront.
The new German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has shown himself to be the most implacable European leader advocating both military expansion and youth conscription – in what amounts to an European resistance model mounted to confront Trump’s pivot to Russia.
Yet Merz’s winning CDU/CSU achieved only 28% of votes cast, whilst losing significant voter share. Hardly an outstanding mandate for confronting both Russia – and America – together!
“I am communicating closely with a lot of prime ministers, and heads of EU states and for me it is an absolute priority to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible, so that we achieve independence from the U.S., step by step”, Friedrich Merz said.
Second place in the German election was taken by the Alternative for Germany (AfD) with 20% of the national vote. The party was the top vote getter in the 25-45 year-old demographic. It supports good relations with Russia, an end to the Ukraine war, and it wants to work with Team Trump, too.
Yet AfD absurdly is outcast under the ‘firewall rules’. As a ‘populist’ party with a strong youth vote, it becomes automatically relegated to the ‘wrong side’ of the EU firewall. Merz has already refused to share power with them, leaving the CDU as pig-in-the-middle, squeezed between the failing SPD, which lost the most voter share, and the AfD and Der Linke, another firewall outcast, which, like AfD, gained voter share, especially among the under-45s.
The rub here – and it is a big one – is that the AfD and the Left Party, Die Linke (8.8%), which was the top vote getter in the 18-24 demographic, are both anti-war. Together these two have more than one third of the votes in parliament – a blocking minority for many important votes, especially for constitutional changes.
This will be a big headache for Merz, as Wolfgang Münchau explains:
“For one thing, the new Chancellor had wanted to travel to the NATO summit this June, with a strong commitment to higher defence spending. And even though the Left Party and the AfD hate each other in every other respect, they agree that they won’t give Merz the money to strengthen the Bundeswehr. More important, though, is the fact that they won’t support a reform to the constitutional fiscal rules (the debt brake) that Merz and the SPD are desperate for”.
The Rules are complicated, but in gist dictate that if Germany wants to spend more money on defence and aid to Ukraine, it had to be saved from elsewhere in the budget (most likely from social spending). But politically, saving on social spending to pay for Ukraine hasn’t played well with the German electorate. The last coalition failed on precisely this issue.
Even with the Greens, Merz still will be short of the two-thirds majority necessary to make constitutional changes, and the ‘Centre’ just doesn’t have the fiscal space for challenging Russia without U.S. funding. Von der Leyen will try to ‘magic’ money for defence from somewhere, “but German youth are voting against the Establishment parties who are hated. They can build a few Leopards if they want. They won’t get recruits”.
Whilst the EU and Britain are proposing to raise billions to arm themselves against some imaginary Russian invasion, it will be done against the backdrop of Trump saying explicitly – on the threat of a Russian invasion of NATO – “I don’t believe that; I don’t believe it, not one little bit”.
Another Euro-shibboleth ripped by Trump.
Thus, how will the European public, which has largely soured on the Ukraine war, react to higher energy costs and more tax and social service cuts, in order to pursue an unwinnable war in Ukraine? Starmer already has been warned that the (government debt) ‘bond vigilantes’ will react badly to yet more UK government debt as the fiscal situation wobbles precariously.
There are no obvious solutions to Europe’s current predicament: It is, on one hand, an existential conundrum for Merz. And on the other, it is the same one that dogs the EU as a whole: To get anything done, a parliamentary majority is a basic necessity.
The ‘firewall’, though primordially intended to protect the ‘Centrists’ in Brussels from Rightist ‘populists’, was subsequently turbo-charged in Brussels by Biden’s issuing of a foreign policy determination to all U.S. foreign policy ‘actors’ to the effect that populism was a ‘threat to democracy’ and must be contested.
The practical outcome however, has been that across the EU, blocking coalitions were formed of odd (minority party) bed-fellows agreeing to keep the Centrists in power, but which rather has led to endless stasis and an ever increasing detachment from ‘we, the people’.
Angela Merkel governed in this way, kicking the can of reform down the road for years – until the situation ultimately became (and still is) insoluble.
“Can another coalition of short-sighted centrists arrest the decline of the economy, fix the failure of leadership, and free the nation from its pernicious political trap? I think we know the answer”, writes Wolfgang Münchau.
There lies a bigger problem however: As Vance very explicitly warned at the recent Munich Security Forum, Europe’s enemy lies not with Russia; It lies within. It derives, Vance implied, from the fact of having a permanent bureaucracy, assuming to itself the exclusive prerogative of autonomous governing power, yet incrementally becoming ever-more remote from its own base.
Tear down the firewalls, Vance advocated, in order to return to the (abandoned) principles of that earlier democracy originally shared between the U.S. and Europe. Implicitly, Vance is targeting the Brussels Administrative (Deep) State.
The Eurocrats see in this new front an alternate American-supported attack on their Administrative State – and perceive therein their own demise.
In the U.S., there is acknowledgement that there is an “institutional resistance to Trump” in the DOD, DOJ and the FBI. It proves, Margot Cleveland argues, that those touting the need for “institutional resistance” and the supposed independence from the executive branch, are the opponents to democracy – and to Trump.
Given the close nexus between the U.S., the British and European Deep States, the question arises as to why there is such strong parallel resistance to Trump amongst European leaders also.
Ostensibly, it is not in Europe’s interest to mount a concerted resistance against the U.S. President over a failed war. Is the European frenzy then fuelled by a wider (U.S.) Deep State desire to neuter the ‘Trump Revolution’ by demonstrating, in addition to the U.S. domestic opposition at home, that Trump is causing havoc amongst the U.S.’ European allies? Is Europe being pushed further down this path than they would otherwise have chosen to venture?
For Germany to change course – albeit unthinkable for Merz – it would require only a minimal amount of imagination to envision Germany again linked to Eurasia. The AfD gained 20% of the vote on just such a platform. Really, there probably is little other option.
‘Zelensky wants forever war’ – Musk piles on after Zelensky says the war is far from over
By Liz Heflin | Remix News | March 4, 2025
After Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that an agreement to end the war between Ukraine and Russia is still “very, very far away,” Elon Musk went on the offensive against the Ukrainian leader, accusing him of wanting the war to go on.
While U.S. President Trump said Zelensky’s words were “the worst statement” possible and that “America will not put up with it for much longer” just before cutting all funding to the war-torn nation, Musk reacted by calling Zelensky “evil” for wanting “a forever war, a never-ending graft meat grinder.”
Musk also took to posting other accounts commenting on the issue, including a repost of a clip of David Sacks, who said that Democrats increasingly support endless war.
“Zelensky basically says the war needs to go on forever. If the war is over, he loses power. He canceled elections there. If he stands for elections there, he’s very unpopular, despite what the fake USAID polls say,” said Sacks.
“The Democrats have become the Party of forever war. Remember this was Joe Biden’s war. He easily could have ended this war in the first month if he agreed to the Istanbul Accords, which said that all Ukraine had to do was stay neutral and basically agree not to become part of NATO. Biden said that was unacceptable, and that’s why the war continued.”
The condemnation of Zelensky comes at a time when Ukrainians are increasingly being dragged off the street and being sent to the front.
Political commentator for Magyar Nemzet, Zsolt Bayer, wrote up a piece in response to yet another video of a young man being dragged away for military duty in Ukraine. “I’ve been watching these videos for years …and I’ve been horrified by them all for years. And I imagine what would happen if these… these… these I don’t know what kind of horrors happened anywhere else,” he wrote.
He went on to say, “This is not a country, this is not a state, this is a rotten mafia-monster state that makes death lists, that deprives its citizens of the most basic human rights, that treats men like animals – and that in the meantime dreams of EU membership, scolds, demands, and loudly explains to everyone and anyone what to do, how to support, finance, and arm this scum.”
Remix News has reported extensively on Ukraine’s issues with manpower, boots on the ground, as its troops dwindle from ongoing casualties as well as hundreds of thousands fleeing service.
Forced conscription is real and most believe largely undocumented. The Hungarian community in Ukraine is said to have been badly targeted, culminating in an incident last May where relatives of forced draftees erected barricades in front of a recruitment center, demanding their husbands and sons be released.
EU’s support for Zelensky brings Washington-Brussels relations to the brink of collapse
By Ahmed Adel | March 4, 2025
Following the reactions of European leaders to the on-camera spat at the White House between Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on February 28, relations between the US president and much of the European Union establishment are reaching a breaking point. The EU establishment has firmly sided with Zelensky and his warmongering policies, contrary to common sense and the peace efforts of Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
On March 2, an informal meeting of European leaders and Canada was held in London. Following the meeting, it was announced that Ukraine would receive more military aid and sanctions on Russia, territories would be returned to Ukraine, and the United Kingdom, with other nations, would form a military coalition to get boots on the ground.
By reacting the way they did, EU leaders have once again shown that they are undermining peace, just as then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson did when he sabotaged the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul in early 2022. However, just as Johnson was not punished for prolonging death and war in Ukraine, it is unlikely that EU leaders will ever be held accountable for their actions, especially German, Polish and Baltic politicians, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and many others in Brussels who agree on a policy of aligning with Zelensky and anti-Trump policies.
Following the spat between the US and Ukrainian presidents, European leaders sent messages of solidarity with Kiev. Many European leaders posted a uniform message on their social media accounts that they “stand with Ukraine.”
A sign of the growing rift between Washington and Brussels, particularly after the chaotic meeting between Trump and Zelensky, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said: “Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge.”
It is also recalled that during his visit to the White House on February 24, French President Emmanuel Macron tried to deceive Trump and drag him down a path the US president did not want to take. It became clear to Trump that he could not count on European politicians.
If it was not clear following the meeting with Macron, it certainly became clear to Trump when British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was a guest in the Oval Office on February 27, particularly after US Vice President J.D. Vance blasted Britain’s descent into authoritarianism and lack of free speech.
It is expected that in the coming period, there will be very strong obstructions from the EU to any agreement between Trump and Putin. There will also be such obstructions within the US, especially from the remnants of the Deep State and the mainstream media that are still critical of Trump and loyal to ultraliberal policies. The very core of the EU – the European Commission, the leadership of the European Council, the majority in the European Parliament, as well as the leading EU leaders are also of the same view, which is opposite to the rest of the world that advocates for peace.
The EU itself is divided into states that supported peace efforts and distanced themselves from Brussels—primarily the political leaderships of Slovakia and Hungary, but also the leaders of the second-largest party in Germany, the AfD, Marine Le Pen in France, and the leaders of other sovereigntist parties across Europe.
European leaders have not changed their support for war since an attempt was made to end the conflict under conditions that were even more favorable for Kiev at the time. Now, as Trump highlighted in his meeting with Zelensky, Ukraine does not “have the cards right now.”
“You’re not in a good position. You don’t have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards. You’re playing cards. You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War III,” Trump said to a shocked Zelensky.
Of course, Zelensky denied Trump’s statements, stuttering, “I’m not playing cards” and “What are you speaking about?”
The US president’s main priority is normalizing relations with Moscow, including ending the conflict in Ukraine. Normalization will remain a priority even if the Kiev regime and European leaders do not agree to it.
Nonetheless, it appears that parts of Europe have not yet given up on the Trump administration, like Kaja Kallas has. Starmer announced on March 2 that Britain, France, and Ukraine have agreed to work on a ceasefire plan to present to Washington.
“We’ve now agreed that the United Kingdom, along with France and possibly one or two others, will work with Ukraine on a plan to stop the fighting, and then we’ll discuss that plan with the United States,” Starmer told the BBC.
This was followed by Zelensky announcing on the same day as Starmer’s statement that he was “ready to sign” the minerals agreement with Trump.
However, given the EU’s growing hostility to Trump and resistance to peace, the US president has little incentive to take the Franco-Anglo peace plan seriously since they have been harbingers to continue the war. Trump will continue pursuing a peace plan, even if it intensifies hostility between Europe and Washington.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
War and Peace in Ukraine
John Mearsheimer, Glenn Diesen & Pavel Shchelin with Diana Panchenko
Glenn Diesen | February 27, 2025
I had the great pleasure to participate in a discussion on a Ukrainian political program on the topic of “War and Peace”. Why did the war start, and how can it end? The war began as a result of the Western-backed coup in 2014 that stripped Ukraine of its neutrality, and peace will unavoidably depend on restoring Ukraine’s neutrality. A humiliating peace entails no NATO membership, painful territorial concessions, and no security guarantees – although this is also the best possible option.
- Host: Diana Panchenko – Ukraine’s “Journalist of the Year” in 2020 and listed among Ukraine’s top 10 influential women
- Guests: John J. Mearsheimer, Glenn Diesen and Pavel Shchelin
Hamas explained why it attacked Israel on October 7, 2023
If Americans Knew | March 3, 2025
On January 20, 2024 Hamas, the Palestinian Resistance Movement, issued a 16-page document entitled “Our Narrative–Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” that explains their plans and actions.
This helps to answer the question some Americans ask: Why did Hamas launch the attack?
As Americans read and consider the following, perhaps they will consider an equally important question: Why did we allow our government to enable Israel’s violent, decades-long ethnic cleansing project against Palestinians?
To see the full document and its images, click the PDF here. Below is the document’s text (IAK has bolded some portions and added a few editor’s notes).
TEXT:
In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
Our steadfast Palestinian people,
The Arab & Islamic nations;
The free peoples worldwide and those who advocate for freedom, justice and human dignity
In light of the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and as our people continue their battle for independence, dignity and breaking-free from the longest-ever occupation during which they have drawn the finest displays of bravery and heroism in confronting the Israeli murder machine and aggression. We would like to clarify to our people and the free peoples of the world the reality of what happened on Oct. 7, the motives behind, its general context related to the Palestinian cause, as well as a refutation to the Israeli allegations and to put the facts into perspective.
Why Operation Al-Aqsa Flood?
1. 1- The battle of the Palestinian people against occupation and colonialism did not start on Oct. 7, but started 105 years ago, including 30 years of British colonialism and 75 years of Zionist occupation. In 1918, the Palestinian people owned 98.5% of the Palestine land and represented 92% of the population on the land of Palestine.
While the Jews, who were brought to Palestine in mass immigration campaigns in coordination between the British colonial authorities and the Zionist Movement, managed to seize control of not more than 6% of the lands in Palestine and to be 31% of the population prior to 1948 when the Zionist Entity was announced on the historic land of Palestine. [Editor’s note: See this]
At that time, the Palestinian people were denied from the right to self- determination and the Zionist gangs engaged in an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Palestinian people aimed at expelling them from their lands and areas. As a result, the Zionist gangs seized control by force of 77% of the land of Palestine where they expelled 57% of the people of Palestine and destroyed over 500 Palestinian villages and towns, and committed dozens of massacres against the Palestinians which all culminated in the establishment of the Zionist Entity in 1948. Moreover, in continuation of the aggression, the Israeli forces in 1967 occupied the rest of Palestine including the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem in addition to Arab territories around Palestine.
2. 2- Over these long decades, the Palestinian people suffered all forms of oppression, injustice, expropriation of their fundamental rights and the apartheid policies. The Gaza Strip, for example, suffered as of 2007 from a suffocating blockade over 17 years which turned it to be the largest open-air prison in the world. The Palestinian people in Gaza also suffered from five destructive wars\ aggressions all of which “Israel” was the offending party.
The people in Gaza in 2018 also initiated the Great March of Return demonstrations to peacefully protest the Israeli blockade, their misery humanitarian conditions and to demand their right-to-return. However, the Israeli occupation forces responded to these protests with brutal force by which 360 Palestinians were killed and 19,000 others were injured including over 5,000 children in a matter of few months. [Editor’s note: See this]
3. According official figures, in the period between (January 2000 and September 2023), the Israeli occupation killed 11,299 Palestinians and injured 156,768 others, the great majority of them were civilians. Unfortunately, the US administration and its allies did not pay attention to the suffering of the Palestinian people over the past years but provided cover to the Israeli aggression.
They only lamented the Israeli soldiers who were killed on Oct. 7 even without seeking the truth of what happened, and wrongfully walked behind the Israeli narrative in condemning an alleged targeting of Israeli civilians. The US administration provided the financial and military support to the Israeli occupation massacres against the Palestinian civilians and the brutal aggression on the Gaza Strip, and still the US officials continue to ignore what the Israeli occupation forces commit in Gaza of mass killing. [Editor’s note: see this.]
4. The Israeli violations and brutality were documented by many UN organizations and international human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and even documented by Israeli human rights groups. [See this.]
However, these reports and testimonies were ignored and the Israeli occupation is yet to be held accountable. For example, on Oct. 29, 2021, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan insulted the UN system by tearing up a report for the UN Human Rights Council during an address at the General Assembly, and threw it in a dustbin before leaving the podium. Yet, he was appointed in the following year – 2022 – to the post of vice-president of the UN General Assembly.
5. The US administration and its western allies have always been treating Israel as a state above the law; they provide it with the needed cover to maintain prolonging the occupation and cracking down the Palestinian people, and also allowing “Israel” to exploit such situation to expropriate further Palestinian lands and to Judaize their sanctities and holy sites. Despite the fact that the UN had issued more than 900 resolutions over the past 75 years in favor of the Palestinian people, “Israel” rejected to abide by any of these resolutions, and the US VETO was always present at the UN Security Council to prevent any condemnation to “Israel’s” policies and violations. That’s why we see the US and other western countries complicit and partners to the Israeli occupation in its crimes and in the continued suffering of the Palestinian people. [See this.]
6. As for “the peaceful settlement process”. Despite the fact that the Oslo Accords signed in 1993 with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) stipulated the establishment of a Palestinian independent state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip; “Israel” systematically destroyed every possibility to establish the Palestinian state through a wide campaign of settlements’ construction and Judaization of the Palestinian lands in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem. The backers of the peace process after 30 years realized that they have reached an impasse and that such process had catastrophic results on the Palestinian people.
The Israeli officials confirmed at several occasions their absolute rejection to the establishment of a Palestinian state. Just one month before Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a map of a so-called “New Middle East,” depicting “Israel” stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea including the West Bank and Gaza. The entire world at that – UN General Assembly’s – podium were silent towards his speech full of arrogance and ignorance towards the rights of the Palestinian people.
7. After 75 years of relentless occupation and suffering, and after failing all initiatives for liberation and return to our people, and also after the disastrous results of the so-called peace process, what did the world expect from the Palestinian people to do in response to the following:
♦ The Israeli Judaization plans to the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, its temporal and spatial division attempts, as well as the intensification of the Israeli settlers’ incursions into the holy mosque.
♦ The practices of the extremist and right-wing Israeli government which is practically taking steps towards annexing the entire West Bank and Jerusalem into the so-called “Israel’s sovereignty” amid plans on the Israeli official table to expel Palestinians from their homes and areas.
♦ The thousands of Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails who are experiencing deprivation of their basic rights as well as assaults and humiliations under direct supervision of the Israeli fascist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
♦ The unjust air, sea, and land blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip over 17 years.
♦ The expansion of the Israeli settlements across the West Bank in an unprecedented level, as well as the daily violence perpetrated by settlers against Palestinians and their properties.
♦ The seven million Palestinians living in extreme conditions in refugee camps and other areas who wish to return to their lands, and who were expelled 75 years ago.
♦ The failure of the international community and the complicit of superpowers to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
What was expected from the Palestinian people after all of that? To keep waiting and to keep counting on the helpless UN! Or to take the initiative in defending the Palestinian people, lands, rights and sanctities; knowing that the defense act is a right enshrined in international laws, norms and conventions.
Proceeding from the above, Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7 was a necessary step and a normal response to confront all Israeli conspiracies against the Palestinian people and their cause. It was a defensive act in the frame of getting rid of the Israeli occupation, reclaiming the Palestinian rights and on the way for liberation and independence like all peoples around the world did.
Second
The events of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and responses to the Israeli allegations
In light of the Israeli fabricated accusations and allegations over Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7 and its repercussions, we in the Islamic Resistance Movement – Hamas clarify the following:
1. Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7 targeted the Israeli military sites, and sought to arrest the enemy’s soldiers to pressure on the Israeli authorities to release the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails through a prisoners exchange deal. Therefore, the operation focused on destroying the Israeli army’s Gaza Division, the Israeli military sites stationed near the Israeli settlements around Gaza.
2. Avoiding harm to civilians, especially children, women and elderly people is a religious and moral commitment by all the Al-Qassam Brigades’ fighters. We reiterate that the Palestinian resistance was fully disciplined and committed to the Islamic values during the operation and that the Palestinian fighters only targeted the occupation soldiers and those who carried weapons against our people. In the meantime, the Palestinian fighters were keen to avoid harming civilians despite the fact that the resistance does not possess precise weapons. In addition, if there was any case of targeting civilians; it happened accidently and in the course of the confrontation with the occupation forces. [Editor’s note: when the barrier that had been imprisoning Gaza for over 20 years was breached, many people not part of Hamas’ trained fighters, including other armed groups not under Hamas, also escaped.]
Since its establishment in 1987, the Hamas Movement committed itself to avoiding harm to civilians. After Zionist criminal Baruch Goldstein in 1994 committed a massacre against Palestinian worshippers in the Al-Ibrahimi Mosque in occupied Hebron City, the Hamas Movement announced an initiative to avoid civilians the brunt of fighting by all parties, but the Israeli occupation rejected it and even did not give any comment on it. The Hamas Movement also repeated such calls several times, but received by a deaf ear from the Israeli occupation which continued its deliberate targeting and killing of Palestinian civilians.
[Editor’s note: The precursor to Hamas was different from extremist groups that we think of today, like Al-Qaeda or ISIS. It started out by focusing on social welfare programs, providing education, food and other social services to Palestinians. It eventually began to engage in resistance activities against the Israeli occupation and expanded land theft, such as attacks on military posts and capturing Israeli soldiers. After an extremist Israeli killed 29 Palestinians while they were praying, Hamas also began targeting civilians. See this and this and this and this.]
3. Maybe some faults happened during Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’s implementation due to the rapid collapse of the Israeli security and military system, and the chaos caused along the border areas with Gaza.
As attested by many, the Hamas Movement dealt in a positive and kind manner with all civilians who have been held in Gaza, and sought from the earliest days of the aggression to release them, and that’s what happened during the week-long humanitarian truce where those civilians were released in exchange of releasing Palestinian women and children from Israeli jails. [Editor’s note: For how this was reported to Americans see this.]
4. What the Israeli occupation promoted of allegations that the Al-Qassam Brigades on Oct. 7 were targeting Israeli civilians are nothing but complete lies and fabrications. [Editor’s Note: See this] The source of these allegations is the Israeli official narrative and no independent source proved any of them. It is a well-known fact that the Israeli official narrative had always sought to demonize the Palestinian resistance, while also legalizing its brutal aggression on Gaza.
Here are some details that go against the Israeli allegations:
♦ Video clips taken on that day – Oct. 7 – along with the testimonies by Israelis themselves that were released later showed that the Al-Qassam Brigades’ fighters didn’t target civilians, and many Israelis were killed by the Israeli army and police due to their confusion. [See this.]
♦ It has also been firmly refuted the lie of the “40 beheaded babies” by the Palestinian fighters, and even Israeli sources denied this lie. Many of the western media agencies unfortunately adopted this allegation and promoted it.
♦ The suggestion that the Palestinian fighters committed rape against Israeli women was fully denied including by the Hamas Movement. A report by the Mondoweiss news website on Dec. 1, 2023, among others, said there is lack of any evidence of “mass rape” allegedly perpetrated by Hamas members on Oct. 7 and that Israel used such allegation “to fuel the genocide in Gaza.” [See this.]
♦ According to two reports by the Israeli Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on Oct. 10 and the Haaretz newspaper on Nov. 18, many Israeli civilians were killed by an Israeli military helicopter especially those who were in the Nova music festival near Gaza where 364 Israeli civilians were killed. The two reports said the Hamas fighters reached the area of the festival without any prior knowledge of the festival, where the Israeli helicopter opened fire on both the Hamas fighters and the participants in the festival. The Yedioth Ahronoth also said the Israeli army, to prevent further infiltrations from Gaza and to prevent any Israelis being arrested by the Palestinian fighters, struck over 300 targets in areas surrounding the Gaza Strip.
♦ Other Israeli testimonies confirmed that the Israeli army raids and soldiers’ operations killed many Israeli captives and their captors. The Israeli occupation army bombed the houses in the Israeli settlements where Palestinian fighters and Israelis were inside in a clear application of the Israeli army notorious “Hannibal Directive” which clearly says that “better a dead civilian hostage or soldier than taken alive” to avoid engaging in a prisoners swap with the Palestinian resistance.
♦ Furthermore, the occupation authorities revised the number of their killed soldiers and civilians from 1,400 to 1,200, after finding that 200-burnt corpses had belonged to the Palestinian fighters who were killed and mixed with Israeli corpses. This means that the one who killed the fighters is the one who killed the Israelis, knowing that only the Israeli army possesses military planes that killed, burned and destroyed Israeli areas on Oct. 7.
♦ The Israeli heavy aerial raids across Gaza that led to the death of nearly 60 Israeli captives also prove that the Israeli occupation does not care about the life of their captives in Gaza.
5. It is also a matter of fact that a number of Israeli settlers in settlements around Gaza were armed, and clashed with Palestinian fighters on Oct. 7. Those settlers were registered as civilians while the fact is they were armed men fighting alongside the Israeli army.
6. When speaking about Israeli civilians, it must be known that conscription applies to all Israelis above the age of 18 – males who served 32 months of military service and females who served 24 months – where all can carry and use arms. This is based on the Israeli security theory of an “armed people” which turned the Israeli entity into “an army with a country attached.”
7. The brutal killing of civilians is a systematic approach of the Israeli entity, and one of the means to humiliate the Palestinian people. The mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza is a clear evidence of such approach.
8. The Al Jazeera news channel said in a documentary that in one month of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, the daily average killing of Palestinian children in Gaza was 136, while the average of children killing in Ukraine – in the course of the Russian-Ukrainian war – was one child every day.
9. Those who defend the Israeli aggression do not look at the events in an objective manner but rather go to justify the Israeli mass killing of Palestinians by saying there would be casualties among civilians when attacking the Hamas fighters. However, they would not use such assumption when it comes to the Al-Aqsa Flood event on Oct. 7.
10. We are confident that any fair and independent inquiries will prove the truth of our narrative and will prove the scale of lies and misleading information in the Israeli side. This also includes the Israeli allegations regarding the hospitals in Gaza that the Palestinian resistance used them as command centers; an allegation that was not proven and was refuted by reports of many western press agencies. [See this]
Third
Towards a transparent international investigationrd
1. Palestine is a member-state of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and it acceded to its Rome Statute in 2015. When Palestine asked for investigation into Israeli war crimes committed on its territories, it was faced by Israeli intransigence and rejection, and threats to punish the Palestinians for the request to ICC. It is also unfortunate to mention that there were great powers, which claim to be holding values of justice, completely sided with the occupation narrative and stood against the Palestinian moves in the international justice system. These powers want to keep “Israel” as a state above the law and to ensure it escapes liability and accountability.
2. We urge these countries, especially the US administration, Germany, Canada and the UK, if they are meant for justice to prevail as they claim, they are ought to announce their support to the course of the investigation in all crimes committed in occupied Palestine and to give full support for the international courts to effectively do their job.
3. Despite having doubts from these countries to stand by justice, we still urge the ICC Prosecutor and his team to immediately and urgently come to occupied Palestine to look into the crimes and violations committed there, rather than merely observing the situation remotely or being subject to the Israeli restrictions.
4. In Dec. 2022, when the UN General Assembly passed a resolution seeking opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legal consequences of “Israel’s” illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, those (few) countries who back “Israel” announced their rejection to the move that was approved by nearly 100 countries. And when our people – and their legal and rights groups – sought to pursue prosecutions against the Israeli war criminals in front of the European countries courts – through the system of universal jurisdiction – the European regimes obstructed the moves in favor of the Israeli war criminals to remain running free.
5. The events of Oct. 7 must be put in its broader context, and that all cases of struggle against colonialism and occupation in our contemporary time be evoked. These experiences of struggle show that in the same level of oppression committed by the occupier; there would be an equivalent response by the people under occupation. [See this.]
6. The Palestinian people and peoples across the world realize the scale of lies and deception these governments that back the Israeli narrative practice in their attempts to justify their blind bias and to cover the Israeli crimes. These countries know the root causes of the conflict which are the occupation and the denial of the right of the Palestinian people to live in dignity on their lands. These countries show no interest towards the continuation of the unjust blockade on millions of Palestinians in Gaza, and also show no interest towards the thousands of Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails held under conditions where their basic rights are mostly denied.
7. We hail the free people of the world from all religions, ethnicities and backgrounds who rally in all capitals and cities worldwide to voice their rejection to the Israeli crimes and massacres, and to show their support for the rights of the Palestinian people and their just cause.
Fourth
A reminder to the world, who is Hamas?
1. The Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” is a Palestinian Islamic national liberation and resistance movement. Its goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project. Its frame of reference is Islam, which determines its principles, objectives and means. Hamas rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds.
2. Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.
3. The Palestinian people have always stood against oppression, injustice, and the committing of massacres against civilians regardless of who commit them. And based on our religious and moral values, we clearly stated our rejection to what the Jews were exposed to by the Nazi Germany. Here, we remind that the Jewish problem in essence was a European problem, while the Arab and Islamic environment was – across history – a safe haven to the Jewish people and to other peoples of other beliefs and ethnicities. The Arab and Islamic environment was an example to co-existence, cultural interaction and religious freedoms. The current conflict is caused by the Zionist aggressive behavior and its alliance with the western colonial powers; therefore, we reject the exploitation of the Jewish suffering in Europe to justify the oppression against our people in Palestine.
4. The Hamas Movement according to international laws and norms is a national liberation movement that has clear goals and mission. It gets its legitimacy to resist the occupation from the Palestinian right to self-defense, liberation and self-determination. Hamas has always been keen to restrict its fight and resistance with the Israeli occupation on the occupied Palestinian territory, yet, the Israeli occupation did not abide by that and committed massacres and killings against the Palestinians outside Palestine.
5. We stress that resisting the occupation with all means including the armed resistance is a legitimized right by all norms, divine religions, the international laws including the Geneva Conventions and its first additional protocol and the related UN resolutions e.g. The UN General Assembly Resolution 3236, adopted by the 29th session of the General Assembly on Nov. 22, 1974 which affirmed the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people in Palestine, including the right to self-determination and the right to return to “their homes and property from where they were expelled, displaced and uprooted.” [See this.]
6. Our steadfast Palestinian people and their resistance are waging a heroic battle to defend their land and national rights against the longest and brutalist colonial occupation. The Palestinian people are confronting an unprecedented Israeli aggression that committed heinous massacres against Palestinian civilians, most of them were children and women. In the course of the aggression on Gaza, the Israeli occupation deprived our people in Gaza of food, water, medicines and fuel, and simply deprived them from all means of life. In the meantime, the Israeli warplanes savagely struck all Gaza infrastructures and public buildings including schools, universities, mosques, churches and hospitals in a clear sign of ethnic cleansing aimed at expelling the Palestinian people from Gaza. Yet, the backers of the Israeli occupation did nothing but kept the genocide ongoing against our people. [See this.]
7. The Israeli occupation’s use of the “self-defense” pretext to justify its oppression against the Palestinian people is a process of lie, deception and turning the facts. The Israeli entity has no right to defend its crimes and occupation but the Palestinian people who have such right to oblige the occupier to end the occupation. In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) gave an advisory opinion in the case concerning the “Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” which stated that “Israel” – the brutal occupying force – cannot rely on a right of self-defense to build such wall on the Palestinian territory. Furthermore, Gaza under the international law is still an occupied land, thus, the justifications for waging the aggression on Gaza is baseless and lacks its legal capacity, as well as lacks the essence of the self-defense idea.
Fifth
What is needed?
Occupation is occupation no matter how it describes or names itself, and remains a tool to break the will of the peoples and to keep oppressing them. On the other side, the experiences of the peoples\nations across history on how to break away from occupation and colonialism confirm that the resistance is the strategic approach and the only way to liberation and ending the occupation. Have any nation been liberated from occupation without struggle, resistance or sacrifice?
The humanitarian, ethical and legal imperatives necessitate all countries around the world to back the resistance of the Palestinian people not to collude against it. They are supposed to confront the occupation crimes and aggression, as well as to support the struggle of the Palestinian people to liberate their lands and to practice their right to self-determination like all peoples across the globe. Based on that we call for the following:
1. The immediate halt of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, the crimes and ethnic cleansing committed against the entire Gaza population, to open the crossings and allow the entry of the humanitarian aid into Gaza including the reconstruction tools.
2. To hold the Israeli occupation legally accountable for what it caused of human suffering towards the Palestinian people, and to charge it for the crimes against civilians, infrastructure, hospitals, educational facilities, mosques and churches.
3. The support of the Palestinian resistance in the face of the Israeli occupation with all possible means as a legitimized right under the international laws and norms.
4. We call upon the free peoples across the world, especially those nations who were colonized and realize the suffering of the Palestinian people, to take serious and effective positions against the double standard policies adopted by powers\countries that back the Israeli occupation. We call on these nations to initiate a global solidarity movement with the Palestinian people and to emphasize the values of justice and equality and the right of the peoples to live in freedom and dignity.
5. The superpowers, especially the US, the UK and France among others, must stop providing the Zionist entity with cover from accountability, and to stop dealing with it as a country above the law. Such unjust behavior by these countries allowed the Israeli occupation over 75 years to commit the worst crimes ever against the Palestinian people, land and sanctities. We urge the countries across the globe, today and more than before, to uphold their responsibilities towards the international law and the relevant UN resolutions that call for ending the occupation.
6. We categorically reject any international or Israeli projects aimed at deciding the future of Gaza that only serve to prolong the occupation. We stress that the Palestinian people have the capacity to decide their future and to arrange their internal affairs, and thus no party in the world has the right to impose any form of guardianship on the Palestinian people or decide on their behalf.
7. We urge for standing against the Israeli attempts to cause another wave of expulsion – or a new Nakba – to the Palestinians especially in the lands occupied in 1948 and the West Bank. We stress that there will be no expulsion to Sinai or Jordan or any other place, and if there is any relocation to the Palestinians, it will be towards their homes and areas they were expelled from in 1948, as affirmed by many UN resolutions.
8. We call for keeping the popular pressure around the world until ending the occupation; we call for standing against the normalization attempts with the Israeli entity and for a comprehensive boycott to the Israeli occupation and its backers.
Israel deliberately targeted archaeological sites in Gaza, Palestinian minister says
MEMO | March 3, 2025
Israel “deliberately” targeted archaeological sites in Gaza during more than 15 months of war, Palestinian Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Hani Al-Hayek, said yesterday. He went on to describe Israel’s actions as a genocide.
His remarks came during the closing session of a training workshop in Cairo, organised by the Palestinian Centre for Cultural Heritage Preservation (CCHP) in cooperation with the Egyptian Heritage Rescue Foundation (EHRF), according to the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa.
During the workshop, Al-Hayek pointed out that “more than 226 archaeological and historical sites in Gaza have suffered severe damage,” adding that work is underway to develop a comprehensive action plan to rescue and restore the cultural heritage in the region.
He added: “The Israeli occupation deliberately targeted archaeological sites in Gaza, but we are determined to rebuild and restore them. These sites are an important part of the history of the Palestinian people on this land, and it is our duty to return them to their former state.”
On 6 February, French archaeologist Simon Brelaud warned that the Israeli occupation army had destroyed most of Gaza’s historical landmarks, stressing that this “puts the future of archaeology in the region at risk.”
Gaza is an ancient region that has witnessed several civilisations, including the Pharaonic, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Canaanite, Phoenician and finally, Islamic.
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Joe Biden’s presidency may ultimately come to be seen as a cautionary tale. Here was a president who showed little interest in entertaining arguments that might have contradicted his most deeply held assumptions.[1] And there were precious few within the upper ranks of the administration who might have attempted to do so, after all, only policy hands and political operatives who had come up through the ranks of the Clinton and Obama administrations or had longstanding ties to the citadels of the foreign policy community were invited into the fold. … continue
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