‘Israel’ withholding IOF October 7 testimonies from US investigators
Al Mayadeen | September 6, 2024
“Israel” refused to allow US investigators to gather testimonies from the occupation’s military forces (IOF) regarding October 7 in fear of being tried for war crimes, Israeli newspaper Hapeles reported Thursday, adding that investigators collected eyewitness accounts from settlers who experienced the event.
As part of a collaboration between Tel Aviv and Washington to file indictments against high-ranking Hamas officials in the US courts for the October 7 operation, the Israeli police’s Lahav 433 crime unit allowed the collection of testimonies as evidence against the Palestinian Resistance, according to Haredi.
However, Motti Levy, the state attorney and head of Lahav, did not share any of the testimonies gathered from the approximately 700 soldiers interviewed.
The testimony collections were part of an Israeli investigation. However, the testimonies were not provided to the US due to fears that they would be used as evidence to prosecute IOF soldiers in the US and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, Haredi reported.
Israeli deputy legal advisor to the government, Gil Limon, traveled to the US two months ago to meet with Levy as part of the investigation.
The state attorney was criticized by the occupation’s police on Wednesday for failing to file charges against Hamas leaders in “Israel” like the US, according to the KAN public broadcaster.
US charges Hamas leaders over Operation Al-Aqsa Flood
The US Justice Department took an unsurprising action on Wednesday by charging prominent Palestinian Resistance figures, notably new Hamas Political Bureau chief, Yahya Sinwar, with a hefty array of charges—conspiracy to support a “foreign terrorist organization that resulted in death, conspiracy to murder US nationals, and conspiracy to finance terrorism.”
The DOJ has also added Iran and Hezbollah to the list for allegedly providing Hamas with cash, rockets, and other military supplies.
“Israel” has committed atrocities in Gaza, and the ICC is anticipated to file arrest warrants for its leaders for genocide in the Strip.
The complaint was initially filed under seal in February to allow time for the US to attempt to apprehend then-Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and other defendants. However, it was unsealed on Tuesday following Haniyeh’s “death” in July and other regional developments that reduced the necessity for confidentiality, according to the Justice Department.
It is worth noting that “Israel” assassinated Haniyeh by an airstrike on his residence in Tehran.
“The charges unsealed today are just one part of our effort to target every aspect of Hamas’ operations,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a video statement. “These actions will not be our last.”
The charges also target other Hamas leaders, including Marwan Issa, the deputy head of Hamas’ armed wing in Gaza, Khaled Mashaal, a former leader of Hamas and Haniyeh’s deputy currently residing in Doha, Mohammad Deif, the military leader of Hamas, and Ali Baraka, who manages Hamas’ external relations from Lebanon.
Iran rejects US accusations of electoral interference
Al Mayadeen | September 6, 2024
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Nasser Kanaani rejected the US accusations against Iran, alongside other countries, of launching a campaign to interfere with the results of the upcoming presidential elections.
“Once again, we reject these unfounded accusations, which serve domestic political purposes in the United States,” he said in response to US Attorney General Merrick Garland’s allegations.
The diplomat asserted that US officials cannot reform their own deeply rooted structural, political, and social problems by deflecting responsibility onto others.
Kanaani added that the US accusations divert attention from its own record of disruptive and illegal actions against other countries.
In a joint statement with the FBI and several other US intelligence agencies, Iran was accused of conducting cyberattacks targeting the presidential campaigns of Republican candidate Donald Trump and his Democratic counterpart Kamala Harris.
Iran rejects allegations about supplying Russia with arms
The US has made several attempts to politically attack Iran this week.
Iran’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations Amir Saeid Iravani strongly rejected on Thursday claims made by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France regarding alleged Iranian arms sales and transfers to Russia.
In a letter addressed to the UN Security Council, Iravani stated that the US and its allies “cannot hide the fact that the shipment of advanced Western weaponry, particularly by the United States, has prolonged the war in Ukraine and caused harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure.”
Iravani pointed out that the representatives of France and the UK made false allegations under UN Security Council Resolution 2231 (2015), while the US representative not only reiterated those claims but also accused Iran of supporting terrorism. He emphasized that “these baseless and misleading accusations are categorically rejected.”
“It is laughable that three countries, which are directly involved in the Ukraine war and actively fueling the conflict, would brazenly accuse the Islamic Republic of intervening in the war,” Iravani said, reaffirming Tehran’s commitment to adhering to international humanitarian law.
These remarks come in response to a recent Bloomberg report, which, citing unnamed sources, claimed that European officials expect Iran to soon deliver Iranian-made ballistic missiles to Russia for use in the Ukraine war.
Iran has consistently denied accusations of providing military support to Russia in the Ukraine war, stressing that such claims were part of a “broader effort to incite hostility against the Islamic Republic.”
Hunter Biden’s Guilty Plea: Penance or Plot to Clear Harris of Blot of Biden Family Corruption?
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 06.09.2024
President Joe Biden’s son Hunter has pleaded guilty to all nine counts against him in a sprawling, $1.4 million tax evasion case highlighting his history of indulgence in drugs and hookers.
The surprise resolution of the case came just days before opening statements in his trial were set to begin. If it had proceeded, the trial would have likely run through the remainder of Joe Biden’s presidency, and proven politically damaging for the Biden’s successor – Vice President Kamala Harris, just two months out from the November 5 election.
Hunter Biden faces up to 17 years in jail and fines of up to $1.2 million in the tax case, although observers expect leniency for the 54-year-old businessman – whose business allegedly included an elaborate influence-peddling scheme involving the selling of access to his powerful father for cash. Sentencing in the tax case is set for December 16.
The guilty plea adds to Biden’s conviction in a Delaware court in June on three felony counts related to a 2018 handgun purchase, for which he could get up to 25 years in jail. The judge in the case did not set a sentencing date.
Hunter Biden has followed his father like a corruption ball and chain since 2020 when, just weeks from the November election, the New York Post began the publication of a series of stories based on information from his recovered lost laptop about his alleged pay-to-play dealings. The stories threatened to derail the Biden campaign, were it not for social media companies’ move to censor them as ‘Russian disinformation’ – claims which tech execs including Mark Zuckerberg later confirmed were bogus.
The Harris campaign has already made a push to carefully distance itself from Biden on some issues, from capital gains taxes to the Border wall, and may now hope that Biden’s tax charges guilty plea will conclude the Hunter Biden saga, or at least leave him out of the spotlight until safely after the election.
American universities rolling out BANS on anti-Israel protests; any criticism of Zionism to be considered “hate speech”
By Ethan Huff | News Target | September 4, 2024
Following the lead of New York University (NYU), American colleges and universities are imposing new rules to ban all criticism of Israel as “hate speech” and “antisemitism.”
At least 17 schools, including NYU, have already altered their policies to punish students and faculty for disagreeing with Israel’s war on Gaza. Some are prohibiting all Israel-related protests while others are going so far as to ban entire student organizations on campus.
In more extreme cases, schools are prohibiting students and faculty from protesting even online while others are expanding their conduct codes to basically keep quiet about Zionism or else face a school tribunal, of sorts, for punishment.
Indiana University, for instance, changed its “expressive activity” policy to ban all protests within 25 feet of university buildings and demonstrations that block “any building, facility, driveway, parking lot or parking ramp.”
The University of South Florida is banning all protests after 5 p.m., as well as during the entire final two weeks of every semester. If USF students want to set up a tent or canopy on campus, they will now be required to first get approval – and under no circumstances can anything be left out overnight without prior authorization.
(Related: Some teachers and preachers of prophecy, including Amir Tsarfati, want to justify genocide by claiming that the mass killing of Palestinians is God’s will for Israel.)
Zuckerberg, a true Zionist lapdog
At Vanderbilt University, all demonstrations that “require individuals to sleep or gather overnight” are now strictly prohibited. All on-campus displays from now on must also be during daylight hours only, and for no longer than three consecutive days at a time.
The University of California (UC) system says that encampments are no longer allowed on any of its 10 campuses. Protesters are also strictly prohibited from wearing masks or otherwise disguising their identity now that the people doing it are protesting Israel rather than destroying property in solidary with George Floyd.
The California State University (CSU) has implemented the same new rules as the UC system at its 23 statewide campuses.
At Rutgers University in New Jersey, the entire chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is prohibited from the campus until July 2025, which is the same thing George Washington University did except that GWU also kicked out Jewish Voices for Peace, an anti-Zionist Jewish organization.
At Columbia University, SJP is permanently banned from having an Instagram account. The school is so involved in making this new rule stick that it convinced Meta to send a notice to its SJP chapter informing members that their group’s account “doesn’t follow our Community Guidelines.”
The list goes on and on as the Zionist contingent in America makes its moves trying to silence all of their critics. They are really playing their hand now and showing just how many schools, government agencies, corporations and other institutions are under their thumb, hence the systematic abolition of free speech we are witnessing.
It turns out that one of the first entities to start doing all this was Facebook (Meta), which has been working on trying to silence anti-Zionist speech on its platform since at least 2020 when Mark Zuckerberg issued new speech codes banning all Holocaust denial and other content that depicts “Jewish people running the world or controlling major institutions such as media networks, the economy or the government.”
“The idea of banning content that promotes stereotypes of Jewish global control came up a year ago, in a meeting with several Jewish groups convened by Facebook, and was pushed primarily by the World Jewish Congress,” The Jewish Daily Forward reported at the time.
‘How I Got Fired From The CIA’: Philip Giraldi Tells All
By Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge – September 6, 2024
Americans are by now familiar with a handful of whistleblowers who after spending years employed by the US intelligence community (IC) eventually saw enough to make them angry and throw away the safety of their future government careers by exposing state secrets to the public. Names like Snowden, Manning, Kiriakou or John Stockwell, William Binney and Thomas Drake (both of NSA whistleblower fame) are well-known, especially in independent and alternative media circles.
But lesser known are the names of those abruptly fired and dismissed from their posts as analysts or as officers for merely questioning and pushing back in real time against what they understood to be disastrous and criminal foreign action and policy. We suspect that this list of names, still largely unknown to the public or media, is much bigger than anyone knows. Such ex-employees of the CIA, NSA, DIA or other alphabet soup agencies typically have their security clearances revoked and are threatened with criminal prosecution should they ever reveal state secrets and classified information. The possibility of future employment even in the civilian world then comes under threat. This means most of them remain unknown.
Typically the American public only finds out about massive covert CIA operations or US war plans long after the fact. For example, the intelligence community knew that the Bush-Cheney White House was gearing up for a ‘shock and awe’ invasion of Iraq for at least many months before it happened. Or for another example, the truth about the CIA’s covert program to overthrow Syria’s Assad (called ‘Timber Sycamore’) finally leaked to The New York Times at least half a decade after it began. Intelligence planners under President Obama understood that the US was arming and training al-Qaeda linked Libyan rebels to overthrow and execute Gaddafi. And all the while, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was getting briefed on these US-backed ‘rebels’ conducting extermination campaigns against ethnic minorities. Such horrific and suppressed truths only typically come out years or decades after they happen.
But again, what of those rare voices who dissent in real time and quietly suffer the full retribution of the national security deep state, far from the public eye? ZeroHedge was able to hear directly from one such rare dissenter in the Washington D.C. area this weekend. Former CIA operations officer Philip Giraldi spent over two decades in the agency, which took him around the world. We heard his fascinating and alarming story of “How I Got Fired From The CIA” during a closed-door session at the Ron Paul Institute‘s Liberty Platform conference held in Dulles, Virginia.
Below are ex-CIA Giraldi’s words recounting how his long career led up to a difficult show-down with CIA leadership, and what happened next, as transcribed directly by ZeroHedge [emphasis ours].
* * *
After graduate school and following time in the US Army as an intelligence officer, I joined the CIA. I was an operations officer, which means a spy. I was sent to a lot of nice places to live in, starting with Rome. And then I was in Hamburg and then I was in Istanbul, and then Barcelona. After Barcelona I left the agency for a while and came back as a contractor after 9/11, and I was there for another three years.
How I got in trouble with the agency was… after I came back as a contractor I was sent to Afghanistan – this was after we had overrun it. It didn’t take me long to figure out that we had replaced the Taliban by becoming worse than the Taliban.
And there was no evidence whatsoever coming from CIA analysts that [Osama] bin Laden [and the Afghan government] had actually been involved in 9/11, and so it was a bit of a contradictory assignment, and I became suspicious after that concerning the bogus things going on and what was developing inside the government.
So a couple years later I was back at CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia and working with them on basic security issues. I had been a counterterrorism specialist and so I was working on different groups that they were considering to be ‘over horizon’ threats to the United States. This was a new concept, this threat. The tune that was being played in Washington was that ‘we are threatened’.
Anyway, while I was doing this I was also talking to a number of my friends who were classmates [from prior schooling and training early in his career] who were analysts and they at this point were very senior analysts in the agency. And the United States meanwhile was preparing to attack Iraq because Iraq was ‘a threat’.
And these friends of mine who were analysts saw all of the raw information that went into what the US government was seeing and they said, “you know this is all bullshit, this is all a lie – the intelligence that’s coming in is fake. And this fake intelligence is being used to justify starting another war.”
So anyway I got ‘converted’ and I started to be somewhat outspoken on the issue of why we should not be going into Iraq and we should leave this alone. And word of this got around [the agency].
So they called me in, they polygraphed me. They wanted to know who among all of my friends have similar views. I refused to cooperate and they said at that point, “well you failed your polygraph exam, we want to take away your security clearance.“
So this was after twenty-one years in the agency, they took away my clearance, and I was basically fired. So it’s kind of an interesting tale. I think it’s probably shaped my thinking ever since then. I’m automatically suspicious of people who talk about justifications for wars. I think I will continue for the rest of my life to be that way. Thank you.
My Biggest Battle – The Movie
August 21, 2024
Narrator: John Bowe
HART:
A new documentary titled “My Biggest Battle” explores the life-altering journey of renowned
extreme triathlete Heiko Sepp after receiving a COVID-19 vaccination. The 35-minute film
highlights Heiko’s incredible athletic accomplishments, the onset of debilitating health
complications, and his relentless search for answers while suffering from post-vaccination
injuries.
“My Biggest Battle” is more than just a documentary—it’s a conversation starter. Our hope is
that Heiko’s battle encourages the public to share this powerful film to raise awareness about
the challenges faced by individuals like Heiko. By sharing his story, you contribute to an
important dialogue supporting those impacted by vaccine-related events.
The documentary paints a vivid picture of Heiko’s life in Norway, where he lives with his wife
and their two young sons. Known for his remarkable achievements in extreme triathlons,
including podium placements in grueling races like the Norseman, Heiko’s passion for the sport
is central to his identity. However, everything changed in September 2021 when Heiko received
his second COVID-19 vaccination. What began as chest pain rapidly escalated into a series of
debilitating symptoms, including heart inflammation, joint pain, and muscle spasms, leaving
Heiko’s once vibrant life shrouded in pain and uncertainty.
The film follows Heiko’s challenging journey through countless hospital visits, medical tests, and
consultations with healthcare professionals. Despite his lifelong peak health and athletic
prowess, Heiko faces a healthcare system that offers few answers and little relief. As Heiko’s
search for a diagnosis leads him to an esteemed immunologist, the documentary delves into the
emerging understanding of vaccine-induced autoimmunity and its implications for people like
Heiko. The film concludes with a message of hope and resilience, raising critical questions
about vaccine safety and healthcare accessibility.
FUNDRAISER FOR HEIKO’S FAMILY:
Due to Heiko’s illness, he has been unable to maintain stable employment, depleting his
savings on costly private treatments. Facing the brink of bankruptcy, Heiko has launched a
personal fundraiser to alleviate the financial strain and continue his necessary treatments.
Despite the risks, Heiko’s decision to share his story is vital, bringing attention to post
vaccination injuries—a topic few are willing to address.
We urge the media and public to support Heiko’s fundraiser and spread the word about his
story.
Support Heiko’s Fundraiser: GoFundMe
CONTACT INFORMATION:
heikoseppfilm@gmail.com
http://www.heikosepp.com
Heiko’s story of injury after the first dose and yet still being advised to take a second shot with devastating consequences, is unfortunately a common occurrence. Any doctor will tell you that if you have penicillin allergy you must never receive it again, and yet the medical profession seemed happy to follow this quite extraordinary advice re covid vaccines, as if they couldn’t get the mantra ‘Safe & Effective’ out of their minds. His story of the failures of the medical profession in Norway to diagnose and treat him, is also mirrored across the world.
Global Gas Demand to Grow by at Least 10% Over Next 20 Years – Russian Energy Ministry
Sputnik – 04.09.2024
VLADIVOSTOK, Russia – Global demand for gas is set to increase by at least 10–12% over the next 20 years, with the possibility for even higher growth, Russian First Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin has said.
“The demand for gas is increasing globally. It will grow by at least 10-12% over the next 20 years, up to 4.5-4.6 trillion cubic meters of gas per year. However, the potential is even greater,” Sorokin said on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF).
At the same time, global demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) is expected to rise to 580–600 million tonnes over the next six to seven years, up from the current 400 million tonnes. Over the next 20 years, demand could reach up to 700 million tonnes, which would allow LNG to surpass pipeline gas in terms of trade, Sorokin added.
The Eastern Economic Forum began on Tuesday and will run through Friday. It is being hosted by the Far Eastern Federal University in Russia’s Pacific coast city of Vladivostok. Sputnik is the general information partner of the EEF 2024.
If TikTok Is Liable for ‘Blackout Challenge’ Video — Is Facebook Liable for Sharing CDC Press Releases Advising COVID Patients Not to Take Ivermectin?
By Josh Mitteldorf, Ph.D. | The Defender |September 4, 2024
A federal appeals court in Philadelphia last week handed down a decision that could have outsized effects on internet censorship.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit ruled that a lawsuit filed against TikTok by the mother of a 10-year-old girl seeking to hold the social media platform liable for her daughter’s death can proceed.
The 3rd Circuit is the same court that in July threw out the “Protocol 7” fraud case against Merck.
The lawsuit against TikTok centered around a video posted on the social media platform of a person asphyxiating herself until she passed out, and challenging viewers to upload videos of themselves.
The plaintiff, Tawainna Anderson, was the mother of the girl who died trying.
Clearly, the people who offer such “challenges” online are guilty of a provocation that predictably will result in some people dying.
However, the legal question is whether the host site, TikTok in this case, can be held liable for the algorithm that offered this video in someone’s personal feed.
The Communications Decency Act of 1996 includes Section 230, which explicitly immunizes social media websites for content they did not create but was uploaded by others.
In Anderson v. TikTok, the Court recognized this provision but argued that the TikTok algorithm “amalgamat[ed]” third-party videos that the algorithm predicted would interest particular users.
It is the amalgamation — (automatically) prepared for the deceased plaintiff — that creates liability for TikTok.
An appeals court decision is, by convention, precedent, not only for other states of the 3rd Circuit but generally for any federal court anywhere. This one raises a number of questions and possibilities.
Legal decisions often have unintended consequences
TikTok, known as a free-speech platform, has been targeted by the U.S. Congress. In April, President Joe Biden signed into law a bill that would ban TikTok from app stores in the U.S. unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, sold TikTok to a more friendly parent company by the end of 2024.
Telegram is another free-speech platform under attack. Telegram’s founding CEO, Pavel Durov, was arrested last week in Paris, reportedly for refusing to comply with French government requests for users’ confidential information.
Durov is Russian, but he grew up in Italy and now lives in Dubai.
Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube also “amalgamate” content and recommend videos to users. But it is difficult to imagine a U.S. court treating Facebook or YouTube the way they treat TikTok and Telegram.
During the pandemic, Google, Twitter and Facebook actively directed subscribers to videos that discouraged the use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as early treatments for COVID-19.
Heirs of a future plaintiff who died of COVID-19 might argue that the person would not have died if the messages in his inbox had not steered him away from life-saving early treatments.
It is a safe bet that the 3rd Circuit never intended to create an obligation for Facebook to fact-check press releases from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — but this could be the consequence if the 3rd Circuit’s decision in Anderson v. TikTok is cited as precedent in future lawsuits against social media.
Aside from government sources, there is a great deal of medical information online. Dr. Joseph Mercola recommends that you irrigate the nose with peroxide. Dr. Aseem Malhotra recommends you stop taking statins. Deepak Chopra has advice for avoiding suicidal depression.
Inevitably, this advice will be helpful to some and harmful to others. Can YouTube be sued for directing me to a Chopra video, in which the advice turns out to be wrong for me?
The U.S. Army makes recruitment videos, and Facebook sends them to unemployed teenagers. Predictably, some of them enlist in the Army and are deployed to places where they die. Can Facebook be sued for these deaths?
Algorithms that drive cars have been field-tested for several years now, and have caused deaths of pedestrians and motorists. Can the programmers be held liable for what their algorithms do?
Legal decisions often have unintended consequences. We will be interested to see where this one goes.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Unions condemn British police for arresting independent journalist
RT | September 5, 2024
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and UK’s National Union of Journalists (NUJ) have condemned the recent arrest in the UK of independent reporter Richard Medhurst. In a joint letter addressed to New Scotland Yard anti-terrorism head Matt Jukes and dated Tuesday, the unions said they were “shocked” and “concerned” over what they consider “efforts to stifle press freedom.”
A British citizen of Syrian descent, Medhurst was arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport on August 15. According to his own account provided to several media outlets, he was pulled off a plane and taken to a police station, where he was held for over 24 hours. His phone and work equipment were seized, while Medhurst himself was subjected to a search and a questioning.
He was told he was arrested under Section 12 of the UK’s Terrorism Act 2000 on charges of “expressing an opinion or a belief that is supportive of a proscribed organization.” He was eventually let go, but said he does not yet know whether he will be charged with any offense.
Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, and Anthony Bellanger, IFJ general secretary, said Medhurst’s arrest “will likely have a chilling effect on journalists in the UK and worldwide,” as they would now fear arrest by UK authorities “simply for carrying out their work.”
“Both the NUJ and IFJ are shocked at the increased use of terrorism legislation by the British police in this manner. Journalism is not a crime,” they stated, arguing that the “powers contained in anti-terror legislation must be deployed proportionately – not wielded against journalists in ways that inevitably stifle press freedom.” They requested a meeting with Jukes, urging UK authorities to provide “clarity” on Medhurst’s case.
The Terrorism Act 2000 gives police wide powers to prosecute and punish offenses linked with terrorism. Its Section 12 criminalizes anyone who “invites support” for an organization designated as terrorist or “expresses an opinion or belief that is supportive” of it. A person found guilty of an offense under this section could face imprisonment for up to 14 years and a hefty fine.
Medhurst told the Anadolu news agency that he was never given a clear reason for his detention, but said it was likely linked to his reporting on the war in Gaza. The journalist is a vocal supporter of Palestine and its militant group Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by the UK government.
He also warned that his arrest could set a dangerous precedent, noting that London is increasingly using the Terrorism Act “not against terrorists, but against political dissidents.”
Medhurst covers international affairs on his YouTube channel and hosts a program on Iran’s Press TV, while also publishing opinion pieces in other outlets. He previously contributed several articles to RT.
Why would six Israelis receive more attention than 41,000 murdered Palestinians
By Jamal Kanj | Al Mayadeen | September 5, 2024
On September 1, 2024, 27 Palestinian families woke up to mourn their loved ones, including at least 11 who were killed at a supposedly “safe” shelter, in Safad School in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood east of Gaza City. On the same day, the Israeli occupation military recovered the bodies of six Israeli captives, who were killed as a direct or indirect result of an Israeli incursion into a tunnel in Rafah.
By the end of the day, the smiling faces and names of these six Israelis were prominently featured across digital and print media, while the murdered Palestinians were reduced to mere statistics, nameless and faceless. Both groups, however, share one tragic commonality: their demise was caused by the same killer. Indiscriminate bombing is a murder without distinction.
Despite being warned of the risk of attempting to retrieve the captives by force, Netanyahu opted to sacrifice them to eliminate a political burden that could be seen as an obstacle to achieving his “war goals.” Their disappearance — by a deal or death — would free Netanyahu’s hand and ease pressure from the public, who otherwise supports his war of genocide in Gaza.
Inarguably, there is an inherent interest for the Palestinian Resistance in protecting the lives of the Israelis, simply to exchange them with Palestinian hostages held in Israeli jails. On the other hand, the Netanyahu coalition government has a political motive to reduce the value of Israeli captives in the hands of the Palestinians, and their death could be an option.
The Israeli public protesting in the streets today, individually and collectively, is responsible for nurturing Netanyahu’s unrealistic war objectives. The findings of a Pew Research poll conducted last March and April revealed that 67% of Israelis supported Netanyahu’s “war goals.” In fact, a staggering 86% believed Palestinians in Gaza should not have self-governance, not even the Palestinian Authority. Less than half of Israelis supported a prisoner exchange, and 60% opposed halting the war for any such exchange.
In December 2023, support for Netanyahu’s war goals was even higher, between 76 and 84%. It’s significant to mention that the support for the war among Israeli Jews mirrored that of Jewish Americans. In the US, 62% of American Jews approved “Israel’s” war conduct, compared to 38% of the general American population.
These statistics reflect a broader issue of deep-seated Israeli-Jewish dehumanization of Palestinians. A bigotry germinated in the political Zionist culture, where in the Israeli religious and cultural plurality most Jews perceive themselves to be more equal than non-Jews. Before anyone from the professional victim pack cries out on October 7, this predominant attitude among Israeli Jews is neither an anomaly nor a new phenomenon.
In a 2016 poll, an undisputed majority of Jewish Israelis (79%) believed that Jews are entitled to “preferential treatment” over non-Jews. When asked if Palestinians should be deported from their homes, the majority of Israelis agreed.
Imagine, the American Jewish leadership protestation if 40% (1/2 of the Israeli percentage) of white or Christian Americans supported a preference over the other. In the meantime, progressive Americans can ruminate on their reaction if a similar percentage of Americans favored expelling Native Americans from their homes.
Palestinians need not imagine, for this is what they face under the American-financed Israeli apartheid.
It is this Israeli public mindset that drove Netanyahu and his racist ministers to take a chance to recover the Israeli captives by force, calculating that success would yield significant political rewards from the same public who is protesting today. In case of failure, the retrieval of bodies reduces the value of the exchange for the Palestinian Resistance. In other words, the Netanyahu coalition favors playing the victim over dead Israelis rather than releasing Palestinian hostages from Israeli jails.
Currently, there are approximately 97 Israeli captives held in Gaza, with 33 confirmed dead, mostly due to “Israel’s” indiscriminate bombings. Additionally, Netanyahu has “successfully” recovered the bodies of 37 dead settlers in the past eleven months. Despite this blunder, Netanyahu capitalized on the innate anti-Palestinian Israeli Jewish bigotry to maintain strong support among Israelis and American Jews for the war of genocide in Gaza.
This time, however, the same public who supported Netanyahu’s “war goals,” amassed in the streets of Tel Aviv blaming him for choosing to save his government coalition at the expense of Israeli captives. Even US President Joe Biden broke his public silence blaming Netanyahu for not doing enough to reach a deal.
Biden’s latest remarks belied statements by his own government officials who absolved the Israeli Prime Minister regarding the ceasefire negotiation. Last week, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken claimed Netanyahu had accepted the so-called “bridging proposal,” while CIA Deputy Director, David Cohen blamed the Palestinian Resistance for the breakdown in ceasefire talks.
To contextualize the extent of the influence of the Israeli firsters within the Biden administration, consider recent developments in “Israel”. During last week’s Israeli cabinet meeting, the Minister of War stormed out accusing Netanyahu of endangering the lives of Israeli captives. Meanwhile, the otherwise pro-genocide Israeli public, filled the streets protesting Netanyahu’s new conditions on the American ceasefire plan. This is while American officials and Israeli firsters, Sayanim, including Zionists like Blinken and Cohen, continue to provide Netanyahu with political cover to further his intransigence.
Western appeasement of “Israel”, based on the flawed belief that this would give them leverage over Israeli leaders, is rooted in a corrupt philosophy promoted by Israeli firsters, Sayanim. Israeli firsters in the West use their positions to sanctify Israeli Jewish life while demonizing Palestinian one. In the media, the Sayanim sanitize Israeli atrocities against Palestinians, and as government officials, they help “Israel” escape accountability and avoid global scrutiny.
Surrounded by Sayanim, Joe Biden has been beguiled by Israeli firsters throughout his political career. This is one of the many reasons the “sanctified” six Israeli Jews count more than the lives of the 41,000 “dehumanized” Palestinians.
Russia not to blame for diminishing role of dollar – Putin
RT | September 5, 2024
Russia is not behind the emerging global trend towards dropping the US dollar in trade, President Vladimir Putin told the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on Thursday.
The event is being attended by members of the BRICS economic bloc, including India and China – both of which are actively using national currencies to settle transactions with Russia.
However, Moscow is not pursuing a “policy of de-dollarization,” Putin said during a plenary session at the forum.
He said the US dollar had become the dominant currency after World War II, when Washington successfully capitalized on the outcome of the conflict. Today, however, the ill-conceived and unprofessional actions of the US government are pushing countries to abandon the reserve currency, he added.
”Russia did not refuse to settle transactions in dollars, rather it was refused this option,” said Putin.
After the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, the US cut off Russia’s central bank from dollar transactions and later banned the export of dollar banknotes to the country as part of an unprecedented sanctions campaign against Moscow.
As a result, Russia and its BRICS partners are now using national currencies in 65% of mutual trade settlements, Putin said.
The BRICS economic bloc was founded in 2006 by Brazil, Russia, India, and China, with South Africa joining in 2011. Russia currently holds the chairmanship of the bloc. Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates joined the group at the start of this year. Earlier this week, Türkiye formally applied to become a member.
The United States has been widely accused of using the dollar as a weapon against its rivals by imposing sanctions and freezing assets. Foreign Affairs magazine wrote in June that the sanctions on Russia “undoubtedly left other central banks wondering whether their own dollar-denominated rainy-day funds would be locked up should their governments run afoul of Washington.”
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Seyed M. Marandi: US-Iran War Inevitable: Kuwait and Bahrain May Fall
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Oil and the Israel Lobby
Reknowned economist M. Shahid Alam offers this excellent critique of Noam Chomsky’s defective analysis of the relative influence of Oil versus the Israel lobby over US foreign policy: … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- ICC ignored ‘very well-documented’ NATO crimes – ex-Libyan minister
- SNSC secretary dismisses US response to Iran’s conditions as ‘inadequate’
- Sanaa says Taiz roads open, secure for residents, warns Saudi forces
- Iraqi resistance group urges Saudi leadership to admit defeat, lift Yemen siege
- Trump’s Retreat: How Al-Aqsa Flood Took Down the US Empire
- Israel’s Military Actions in Lebanon Grossly Violate International Law — Lavrov
- Seyed M. Marandi: US-Iran War Inevitable: Kuwait and Bahrain May Fall
- Leaders Condemn Ansarallah Attack on Saudi Arabia While Ignoring Illegal War Against Yemen
- Leaked: Britain’s Covert Iraqi Psyops Network
- Yemeni Armed Forces Warn Airlines Against Using Saudi Airports, Exempt Mecca and Medina
- If Americans Knew
- The American Conservative: How Trump Made the World Go Nuclear
- Meet the US generals and admirals advancing Israeli policy
- Opinion: Why news organizations should boycott Israel
- The Israeli witch hunt of Sami Abu Shehadeh exposes the lie of the ‘Jewish and democratic’ state
- No state has a ‘right’ to exist – least of all Israel
- Testimonies about Gaza’s civilian death toll expose Israel’s atrocities – Daily Update
- How Israel Conquered the Latin American Right
- Agents search Rep. Omar’s Washington home in criminal probe as she vows she won’t ‘be silenced’
- “The Rule Was: ‘Shoot Everyone You See'”
- Israel goes ballistic over Nobel Laureate Navi Pillay
- No Tricks Zone
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
