‘Israel’s strikes on Jabalia killed 7 hostages’

Palestine Information Center – November 1, 2023
GAZA – Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said that seven hostages were killed in Tuesday’s Israeli airstrikes on the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza City.
“Seven civilian hostages were killed in the Jabalia massacre, including three foreign passport holders,” al-Qassam Brigades stated on Wednesday.
Israeli warplanes dropped six highly destructive US-made bombs, each of them weighing one ton, on an entire neighborhood in Jabalia refugee camp, killing and injuring hundreds of civilians, mostly women and children.
In this regard, senior Hamas official Ghazi Hammad said that the Israeli occupation army “does not care about the safety of the captives in Gaza regardless of their nationalities.”
Hammad added that his Movement already expressed its willingness to release the foreign prisoners, but the Israeli occupation government obstructed any effort in this regard.
However, he stressed the need now for curbing Israel’s aggression and massacres in Gaza.
UNRWA chief says 70% of Gaza victims are children, women

Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) holds press conference in Jerusalem on October 27, 2023
MEMO | November 1, 2023
Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Organisation for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said 70 per cent of the Palestinian martyrs who have been killed by the ongoing Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip since 7 October are children and women, warning that there is no safe place in Gaza.
He pointed out that churches, mosques, hospitals and civilian facilities housing displaced people have been targeted, describing the Israeli attacks as collective punishment for Palestinians living under siege.
For her part, Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Catherine Russell, explained that the Israeli aggression resulted in the killing of more than 3,400 children and the injury of at least 6,300.
She added that this toll indicates that 420 children were killed or injured every day, stressing “these numbers should shock us to the core.”
She indicated that the Israeli raids resulted in the complete or partial destruction of at least 221 schools and more than 177,000 homes.
Israel pressures Egypt to accept Gaza refugees for foreign debt relief
The Cradle | November 1, 2023
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to pressure Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to take in refugees from the Gaza Strip and has offered that the World Bank write off Egypt’s large foreign debt in return, Israel’s Yediot Ahronoth reported on 31 October.
Recently, Israel also turned to international leaders and asked them to try to convince Egyptian President Sisi to accept refugees in Egypt’s Sinai. Sisi refused the idea, saying that Sinai would become a base for Palestinian resistance groups to attack Israel, creating security problems for Cairo.
Egypt is vulnerable to Israeli pressure as it has suffered from record inflation and foreign currency shortages in recent years, making it difficult for the North African country to repay its external debts and pay for crucial imports, including wheat.
“What is happening now in Gaza is an attempt to force citizens to take shelter and immigrate to Egypt – and we will not accept that,” Sisi emphasized.
Sisi said that if Israel wants to keep Palestinians in Gaza safe from an expected large-scale Israeli ground assault, they should be allowed to evacuate to Israel’s southern Negev desert region and then return after Hamas is defeated.
He added: “Egypt opposes any attempt to resolve the Palestinian issue through military means or through the forced displacement of Palestinians from their land – whatever will be at the expense of the countries of the region.” Sisi said that if his citizens were called upon to do so, millions of them would take to the streets and demonstrate against the passage of Gazans to Sinai.
About 2.4 million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip. At the beginning of the war, many of them flocked towards the Rafah crossing, which was closed.
Netanyahu’s offer to Sisi comes after the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence recommended on 13 October that Israel use the war with Hamas to forcibly transfer Gaza’s 2.3 million residents to Egypt’s Sinai as refugees and prevent them from ever returning, in a repeat of the 1948 Nakba.
The plan was leaked by activists from the Likud party to gauge Israeli and international opinion over such a plan. The Ministry of Intelligence is headed by Gila Gamliel of Likud.
IN 2010, Gamliel and Netanyahu asked then Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to implement the same plan. Mubarak rejected the idea and was deposed in January 2011 following street protests organized and supported by Egyptian activists working in concert with the US State Department.
Netanyahu made a similar request to Mubarak’s successor, Mohammad Morsi, in 2012, which Morsi also rejected.
Sisi then deposed Morsi in 2013. In 2014, Netanyahu made a similar proposal to Sisi in which Israel would annex settlements in the West Bank and Palestinians would receive part of northern Sinai.
Israel’s settlement movement has sought to reconquer Gaza and re-establish the Gush Katif settlement there ever since then prime minister Ariel Sharon ordered the evacuation of Jewish settlers from the strip in 2005. Israel has maintained a suffocating economic and military siege on Gaza since that time.
Iran FM meets Turkish counterpart In Ankara to discuss Israeli war on Gaza
Press TV – November 1, 2023
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has met with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan In Ankara to discuss efforts needed for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, as the Israeli regime continues its acts of aggression against the besieged enclave.
The two foreign ministers held a meeting behind closed doors in the Turkish capital on Wednesday, to exchange views on finding a solution to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and an immediate end to the Israeli crimes in Gaza, as they discuss the latest developments in the region and some issues of mutual interest.
Amir-Abdollahian and Fidan will participate in a joint press conference after the meeting.
This is the second meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries since the Israeli regime started its brutal war against the Palestinians living in Gaza.
Two weeks ago, Amir-Abdollahian and Fidan met on the sidelines of the extraordinary meeting of the Executive Committee of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Jeddah.
In the meeting, the two sides discussed the current Palestinian developments, especially the disastrous situation in Gaza, and ways of ending the merciless killing of Palestinians by the Israeli regime.
Amir-Abdollahian arrived in Ankara early on Wednesday a day after he took a trip to the Qatari capital of Doha and held meetings with senior Qatari officials, including the Arab country’s Emir, to continue his diplomatic efforts to help find a solution to the crisis in Palestine.
The top Iranian diplomat is also scheduled to meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during the daylong trip.
Tehran has already announced it is ready to use its relations with the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas to work out a ceasefire deal between the group and the Israelis, although Iran does not have any relations with the occupying regime.
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.
The aggression has so far killed 8,610 Palestinians and left more than 23,000 wounded.
Is Government the Cash Cow for Politicians?
Ambition Should Be Tempered by Love of Country, not of Money!
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • OCTOBER 31, 2023
The conflict in Israel-Gaza illustrates perfectly how the United States government runs on corruption, with the deep pocketed Jewish and Israeli lobbies able to buy every national level politician that matters to give the loathsome Benjamin Netanyahu a carte blanche both in terms of a free pass on committing war crimes while also having unlimited access to the US Treasury and the contents of military arsenals. Given that the media is also in the hands of the same malefactors the poorly informed American public can only respond to the pablum that they are being fed about what is going on the world, i.e. Ukraine and Israel good, Russia and Palestine bad.
I am certainly not the first observer of politics in the United States who has noticed how this deterioration has come about in my lifetime, where a country that once upon a time believed in meritocracy has now been corrupted by money, with a ruling class, such as it is, that seems to be wallowing in the green stuff even as it pretends to be promoting policies that help the average American. Right now, the witless President Joe Robinette Biden is working on his latest fraud, consisting of bundling all the money that will be dumped on Israel and Ukraine into a package with Taiwan so it will pass effortlessly through Congress given its hostility both to Russia and China and its deep abiding love for all things Israeli. $100 billion is all Joe wants, $10 billion for Israel immediately and the rest to be doled out, mostly to good old boy Volodymyr Zelensky and a bit for the Taiwanese.
And it might be observed that part of the vast ocean of money somehow seems to stick to the fingers of the pampered residents of Capitol Hill. How, one might ask, did Biden, a blue-collar boy from Scranton Pennsylvania who has spent his entire adult life in government employment and who is married to a school teacher wind up with a net worth in the $9 million dollar range? Of course, it now appears that he received a notable assist from a son named Hunter who is something like a one-man cocaine snorting corruption machine who was more than willing to share his largesse with dad in exchange for a little assistance with foreign despots here and there.
One recalls how back in the seventies there was at least some speculation regarding how President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who spent his entire working life in government, started out raised in poverty and wound up being worth an estimated $15 million at his death in 1973 after he left the presidency, at a time when that was serious money, equal to about $100 million today. He was known to be well-wired into Texas Jewish and pro-Israel circles and appeared to have all the right contacts for making private investments that he did not have to publicly declare.
But no one figured out how to milk the system like the Clintons and I still chuckle when I recall how they tried to take the White House silver with them when they departed the residence. Upon leaving the presidency in 2001 they claimed to be completely broke and even in debt, but adroit manipulation of their Clinton Foundation since that time has produced a windfall of more than $300 million in today’s dollars. It was a pattern imitated by Barack Obama who left office with more cash in hand through the usual mechanism of largely unreadable books ghost written on their behalf that were then hawked in large numbers to Democratic Party constituents to support the cause. Barack’s cash value is now estimated to be in the $70 million range and he also owns substantial properties in Washington, Chicago and, of course, on Martha’s Vineyard, where he has a 29 acre estate valued at $12 million.
Of course, to a certain extent the misbehavior of presidents, at least while they are still in office, is not as egregious as it is for members of Congress and even Supreme Court Justices. Presidents are very visible and surrounded by staff and media witnesses of whatever they are up to while the sins of other senior government officials are more anonymous and they can engage in practices like taking bribes and insider trading based on their prior knowledge of legislation or expenditures that are pending that might produce a windfall profit if one is canny enough to buy the right stock. Congressmen are also well placed to use family members to carry out the trades, avoiding scrutiny of their own banking and investment activities. That has, indeed, been claimed in a number of cases where government officials have been able to accumulate large fortunes while holding office.
And there is no doubt that corruption of one form or another is the game that is played in Congress and elsewhere including at state and local levels. In a sense, it is all around us. The recent exposure of Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey’s apparent tendency to accept bribes was a particularly lurid tale in part because much of the loot consisted of $480,000 in cash stuffed into jacket pockets, closets and in a safe, along with 13 gold bars, two of them marked as 1 Kilogram in weight to the value of more than $100,000. In the garage was an upscale $60,000 Mercedes-Benz convertible that was a gift to Menendez’s then girlfriend, who had wrecked her own vehicle in an accident in which she had struck and killed a pedestrian. The car came from one of the New Jersey businessmen currently involved in the corruption and bribery investigation and no one can quite explain how an accident in which someone had died was never properly investigated by police. Menendez had allegedly helped the businessman by arranging to block a criminal investigation into his company’s activities.
Menendez, a Cuban American regarded as a political hardliner from his bully pulpit as Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has been investigated before over charges of possible corruption, but he has beaten the rap each time. He has currently resigned his chairmanship but has refused to leave the Senate and he claims he is innocent, of course. And as he’s inevitably been a major promoter of Biden’s war on Russia the White House will presumably do everything it can to protect him, but only up to a certain point.
There has been some discussion of the wealth of certain congressmen due to the recent death of 90 year-old Dianne Feinstein, Senator from California, who was regarded as both the wealthiest and oldest of all Senators. She was, in fact, born into a prominent Jewish family in San Francisco and acquired even more money and property from her three husbands, all of whom were also wealthy. It has never been suggested that she exploited her positions as Mayor of San Francisco and in Congress to illegally or otherwise obtain more money, to her credit, possibly because she was already rich. Nevertheless, her death was preceded by some high tone media coverage of the nature of her fortune and the family quarrel that is taking place regarding how all the money and the multiple high end properties will be divided up. By some accounts, Feinstein became a billionaire upon the death of her final husband financier Richard C. Blum in 2022, though who is entitled to what remains of the estate will now undoubtedly be determined through either litigation or negotiation involving her own daughter Katherine and the three daughters sired by Blum in a previous marriage. Far from getting rich off of politics, Blum and Feinstein were major donors to the Democratic Party.
More to the point if one is asking “How did they get so rich?” is the trajectory of former Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul Pelosi. Nancy was one of six children born and raised in an intensely political environment, though having otherwise modest circumstances, in Baltimore. Her father was Baltimore mayor and congressman Thomas D’Alesandro, who was at one time investigated by the FBI but never convicted regarding association with criminals.
Nancy Pelosi and Hubbie Paul moved to California in 1969 after college and six years spent in New York City. She quickly became involved in local Democratic Party politics while he established himself as a businessman, specializing in real estate and high-tech investment, aided by his brother Ronald Pelosi who was a member of the San Francisco city and county Board of Supervisors. Nancy and Paul have five children. Nancy, who is 83 years old, initially won her congressional seat in a special election in San Francisco in 1987. She became first woman Speaker, though she lost her position recently as a result of the swing of the House to the Republicans in the 2020 election. She has announced that she will not be running for office in 2024 and will retire. She and her husband have indicated that they will live in their mansion in the upscale Pacific Heights district of San Francisco, though they have a vineyard in Napa Valley and additional properties in San Francisco. They are staying in the city in spite of an incident in October 2022, while Pelosi was in Washington, DC, in which an intruder entered their home demanding to know her whereabouts. He then attacked Paul Pelosi, with a hammer. Police arrested the attacker, 42-year-old David DePape, and he has been charged with assault and attempted kidnapping.
As of 2021, Pelosi’s net worth, as revealed by her government financial disclosure forms and other sources, was estimated to be at $120 million, more than doubling her $58 million valuation in 2009 and making her the 6th richest person in Congress. She indicated on her disclosure form that her principal source of income was her government salary, which peaked at $223,500 when she was speaker. She and her husband hold properties “worth at least $14.65 million, including the St. Helena vineyard in Napa Valley worth at least $5 million” and commercial properties.
According to investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald, the Pelosis have traded $33 million worth of tech stocks over the past two years, including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google. In May and June 2021, Pelosi’s husband purchased stocks in tech companies such as Alphabet, Amazon, and Apple, netting a gain of $5.3 million, while Nancy was working on anti-trust legislation to better regulate the tech industry, which many considered to be a clear conflict of interest as well as a case of potential insider trading. Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, had actually called Pelosi to lobby her in opposition to the new proposed regulations and, in their discussion, she openly opposed increasing regulations on stock trades by members of congress, stating that “we’re a free market economy” and congresspeople “should be able to participate in that”.
This comment attracted strong criticism including from some Democrats: “Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) tweeted: ‘No. It cannot be a perk of the job for Members to trade on access to information.’ Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) – one of the wealthiest members of Congress thanks to his business career that included leading his family’s distillery as well as the gelato brand Talenti – echoed: ‘I disagree with the Speaker.’ And Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.), who represents one of the most competitive districts in the nation, wrote that ‘I disagree strongly’ with Pelosi’s stance. ‘Americans are losing trust in government and we need to show we serve the people, not our personal/political self-interest.’ Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who has said that she doesn’t hold individual stocks or digital assets, reiterated late Friday that she thinks letting members of Congress trade individual stocks is a bad look. ‘There is no reason members of Congress should hold and trade individual stock when we write major policy and have access to sensitive information,’ Ocasio-Cortez said. ‘There are many ways members can invest w/o creating actual or appeared conflict of interest, like thrift savings plans or index funds.’”
So evidently Nancy Pelosi and many other congressmen believe that it is just fine to be regulating industries and also allowing the regulators to benefit materially when it is anticipated that the measures taken will improve those industries’ stock market standing or profitability. Doing so is a well-established principle referred to as insider trading and hers is an interesting viewpoint. It perhaps explains why there are so many multi-millionaires and possibly even a billionaire or two in Congress!
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Former Jan 6th Prosecutor Runs For Congress, Focusing Campaign on Tackling “Conspiracy Theories” On Social Media

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | October 31, 2023
A counter-terrorism (national security) prosecutor who made a name for himself – or so he hopes – by going after participants in the January 6 riots is now hoping to capitalize on his previous career by switching directly to politics.
Will Rollins has announced that he is running for Congress in California, with his platform based on changing regulations that govern Big Tech’s social media, in order to combat what he considers to be conspiracy theories – such as QAnon and Covid-related issues – but also more vaguely, to take on “spreading division based on lies.”
In announcing the congressional run, Rollins revealed that his political efforts are based on the thinking that divisions in the US are not the result of, say, differing political and ideological beliefs within a free electorate, but of “democracy-eroding lies” that the media, Big Tech, and extremists, all help spread.
Apparently, there is such a thing as a democracy to erode, even if everyone gets corralled into the same place regarding some basic issues. And speaking of which, Rollins is warning that without his plan to hold said entities – media outlets, tech companies, and “extremists” – accountable, the US will be “exploited” by China and Russia.
This is his plan:
“Update regulations to break down information bubbles and propaganda networks to protect the public’s right to be informed; Require more transparency in advertising, so that we know whether what we’re consuming online was written by a human or a Russian bot; Create accountability for harmful lies and conspiracy theories amplified by Big Tech.”
From insisting on preventing “divisions” (but having to qualify his claims that “adversaries” from around the world tried to “capitalize” on those divisions post-January 6 by saying they reportedly tried this) – Rollings suddenly goes on to justify his policies by saying new rules around tech, etc., are needed in order to “incentivize the presentation of multiple views.”
But these will have to be “vetted” and approved of before being allowed to be presented, let alone incentivized, it appears from the musings Rollings is posting online.
Perhaps the most interesting thing that has come out of this candidacy so far is the revealing of the political and ideological profile of one of the January 6 prosecutors.
Maidan snipers: The founding myth of ‘new’ Ukraine has been proven to be a lie. Why is the West silent?
By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | October 31, 2023
Earlier this month, a district court in Kiev announced its findings in a case that had dragged on since 2015, handing down sentences to five former officers of the long-dissolved ‘Berkut’ police unit. The ex-police grouping become internationally known during the 2013/14 protests which culminated with the violent ‘Maidan.’
Charged with involvement in the shooting of anti-government protesters by snipers in the center of the Ukrainian capital on February 20, 2014, four of the accused – three of them in absentia – were found guilty and sentenced to terms between five years and life. One was acquitted.
Politically, this was, or should have been, Ukraine’s single most important trial since independence in 1991. The judges closed – at least for now as appeals have already been announced – the country’s attempt to come to terms judicially with the darkest moment of what has been called a “revolution,” as well as a “coup”: the fall of the government of former President Viktor Yanukovich under pressure from initially peaceful – then violent – street protests and Western meddling. The events producing regime change and geopolitical re-orientation unfolded over three months, but the killing of almost 50 protesters that February was a crucial tipping point.
The case quickly became known as the “snipers’ massacre” or the “Maidan massacre.” The shootings were squarely blamed on Yanukovich and his administration and seemed to rule out domestic compromise and confirm Western and Ukrainian pro-insurgent narratives, casting the crisis as a national and democratic freedom struggle against a corrupt and oppressive regime beholden to Moscow. Neither the disproportionate role of an aggressive and manipulative Ukrainian far right nor the ruthless geopolitics of the West had a place in this framing. Within days after the killings, a last attempt to stop the spiral of escalation by an internationally mediated agreement failed, Yanukovych fled to Russia, and Moscow’s troops were on the move in Crimea.
Then things got worse. Clashes between Kiev’s new government and rebels in Donbass evolved into an initially intense, then mostly slow-burn, regional civil war, including limited Russian interventions. The best chance for peace, the 2015 Minsk 2 Agreement, was sabotaged systematically by Kiev and its Western supporters, and, after February 2022, Ukraine became the theater of a proxy war of the collective West against Russia. The West and Ukraine are now likely to lose this conflict at immense cost in lives and wealth, mostly to Ukraine. International tension is extremely high, trust has evaporated, and meaningful communication is almost impossible.
Ukraine and the world could be in a much better place if the last days of February 2014 had played out differently, allowing for the compromise already negotiated between Ukraine’s government and the insurgents to take hold. The Maidan Massacre was not the only but the single most important shove toward an ever-widening conflict, especially as the dominant Western narrative about the killings has remained the same, blaming only the old regime and rejecting any challenge to the narrative as a pro-Russian “information war.” Here was the perfect story, in short, to emotionally legitimize not only support but uncritical backing for Kiev, the rejection and sabotage of any concessions to Ukraine’s domestic rebels in the East, and vilifying any effective cooperation with Moscow.
But what if we were not told the truth about the killings? That is the key claim advanced by Canadian-Ukrainian political scientist Ivan Katchanovski. Katchanovski (who also recently exposed the scandal around the honoring of a Waffen-SS veteran by the Canadian parliament) has long argued that “the Maidan massacre was a false-flag mass killing of … protestors and … police in order to seize power in Ukraine. It was conducted with the involvement of oligarchic and far-right elements of the Maidan opposition using concealed groups of Maidan snipers in Maidan-controlled buildings.”
The rich detail of Katchanovski’s findings cannot be reproduced here, but three points should be noted: Snipers belonging to the insurgents’ side started shooting at the police on the morning of February 20; key positions, such as in the Hotel Ukraina and a conservatory, from which these policemen were attacked and later Maidan protesters as well, were and remained under the control of insurgent units (not the police); and after 9.00 am, protesters, too, were shot by insurgent snipers (again: not by the police).
In sum, two things happened, according to Katchanovski’s findings: Insurgent snipers first shot at the police to provoke an escalation, and then, in addition, even killed protesters – that is, those on their own side. At the same time, Katchanovski does not rule out the possibility that the police also shot protesters. But his careful analysis of video and other evidence shows that many victims, likely the majority, were targeted by insurgent shooters.
Katchanovski has come to these conclusions through years-long, rigorous, and exhaustive forensic research, as summarized in his peer-reviewed article “The ‘Snipers’ Massacre’ on the Maidan in Ukraine” in Cogent Social Sciences, an academic journal published by Taylor and Francis. He has not been the only one reaching such or similar results, but his work is the most thorough and important independent investigation. Clearly, that is why, due to its political implications, he has had to withstand being smeared as a “conspiracy theorist” and pro-Kremlin information warrior; his work has been censored; and he has suffered severe retaliation by attempts at professional and social marginalization and the pseudo-legal confiscation of his family’s property in Ukraine.
Ukrainian courts are not politically independent. Judges, whatever their own views or professional ethics, work under the threat of ostracism and violence from Ukraine’s far right (at least). And yet, as Katchanovski has pointed out, buried in the million-word findings of the recent verdict, the court has recognized several facts that confirm his interpretation of the Maidan Massacre, including the following: four police officers were killed and 39 wounded by insurgent snipers; snipers shot from buildings under insurgent control; and it cannot be ruled out that eight victims were killed and 20 injured by “unknown” perpetrators who were not from the police.
While Katchanovski is to be admired for his research and steadfastness, what is especially important here is that the long backlash against his research is a symptom of something larger that is badly amiss in both Ukraine and the West. Even now, the Ukrainian information war outlet Euromaidan Press, for instance, still combines a personal attack on Katchanovski with disinforming its readers, claiming that the verdict somehow contradicts his findings (which are, by the way, badly misrepresented).
The opposite is the case.
This is just the latest example of a deep culture of disinformation and self-disinformation that has taken root in the West. While Western elites may well lie deliberately much of the time, substantial parts of the Western media, it seems, have come to not only believe these lies – or those of favorites, clients, and allies – but to defend them with a vigor that betrays psychological investment.
The emotionally-charged reality denial around Hillary Clinton’s richly-deserved defeat in the US election of 2016 (“Russiagate”), the bizarre doublethink regarding Western forces (and/or Ukraine) blowing up Nord Stream (thereby committing an act of war among “allies” and of eco-terrorism), Israel’s “right to defend itself” interpreted as the permission to commit crimes against humanity with Western support – all are instances of a form of collective self-indulgence. Too many people in the West still claiming to be the world’s “value” guardian practice lying and lying to themselves as if it were their special birthright.
Yet these lies and fiercely guarded illusions corrupt individuals and politics, polarize societies, disrupt international relations and, last but not least, cost lives – thousands, tens of thousands, and, in the case of Ukraine by now, hundreds of thousands. Conflict is a normal part of human life, and, to some extent, inevitable.
Driving yourself insane with dishonesty is not. And it certainly does not help keep the peace.
Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany at Koç University in Istanbul working on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory. Follow Tarik on X @tarikcyrilamar





