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Statement by Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades top military commander

MEMO | October 7, 2023

On the military operation against the Israeli occupation across the borderline of the Gaza Strip, the commander-in-chief of Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades, Mohammed Deif, states the following:

The Zionist colonial occupation occupied our Palestinian homeland and displaced our people, destroyed our towns and villages, committed hundreds of massacres against our people, killing children, women and elderly people and demolishing homes with their inhabitants inside in violation of all international norms, laws and human rights conventions.

We have previously warned the Israeli occupation against continuing their crimes and appealed to world leaders to work on putting an end to the Israeli crimes against our Palestinian people and detainees, their holy sites and homeland and to put pressure on the Israeli occupation to abide by international law and resolutions.

Neither did the Israeli occupation leaders heed our demands, nor did the world leaders act in this regard.

Instead, the Israeli occupation intensified its crimes, crossing all red lines, particularly in occupied Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque – the Muslims’ first Qibla and third holiest site.

The Israeli occupation forces have escalated their raids into the Al-Aqsa Mosque, desecrating the Muslim sacred sites and repeatedly attacking worshippers, particularly women, children and elderly people.

Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation banned the Palestinian citizens from accessing the Al-Aqsa Mosque and allowed Israeli colonial settlers to defile the Muslim sacred site and conduct daily raids into the Muslim holy compound.

During such raids, Israeli colonial settlers performed religious rituals and prayers and blew the horn at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. They have declared their intentions to build their purported temple on the ruins of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

They also insulted our Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) inside the Al-Aqsa compound, tore up the Quran and brought dogs into the Muslim sacred site.

Each day, the Israeli colonial settlers attempt to impose a new fait accompli on the ground, attack the Palestinian citizens of occupied Jerusalem and steal their homes and property.

The Israeli occupation has desecrated the Al-Aqsa Mosque, from which the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) ascended to heaven on the Al-Isra wa Al-Mi’raj journey.

Hundreds of Palestinian citizens have been killed and wounded so far this year in crimes committed by the Israeli occupation and colonial settlers.

In the meantime, the Israeli occupation is holding thousands of Palestinian detainees in its prisons, where they are subjected to the most heinous forms of oppression, torture and humiliation.

Hundreds of Palestinian detainees have been jailed for over 20 years; dozens more have suffered cancers and other diseases; several more have died as a result of medical negligence and deliberate slow-death policies.

However, our calls for a humanitarian swap deal were met with rejection by the Israeli occupation.

The Israeli occupation forces storm the towns and villages of the occupied West Bank on a daily basis, raiding and ransacking Palestinian homes and shooting and detaining Palestinian citizens.

Hundreds of Palestinian citizens have been killed and wounded in crimes committed by the Israeli occupation.

October 7, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Moscow and Kiev react to Israel-Palestine escalation

A destroyed Israeli Merkava tank on Israel-Gaza border in Gaza Strip, Gaza on October 07, 2023. © Getty Images / Anadolu Agency / Abed Rahim Khatib
RT | October 7, 2023

Russia and Ukraine, which have been locked in a major conflict for more than a year and a half, have reacted to the escalation of hostilities between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

On Saturday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov urged both sides of the conflict to cease hostilities immediately. Russia’s stance on the latest Israel-Palestine escalation was further explained by the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, who released a special statement on the matter.

“We call on the Palestinian and Israeli sides for an immediate ceasefire, renunciation of violence, exercising necessary restraint, and the launch, with the assistance of the international community, of a negotiation process aimed at establishing a comprehensive, lasting, and much-awaited peace in the Middle East,” Zakharova said.

The escalation in the region is yet another manifestation of the “closed cycle of violence,” the spokeswoman noted, adding that Russia believes the 75-year-long conflict cannot be solved through military means. The flare-up is a “result of a chronic failure to comply with relevant UN and Security Council resolutions,” as well as a derailment of the peace process by the collective West, Zakharova explained.

Meanwhile, Kiev proclaimed its full support for Israel, denouncing Hamas as “terrorists.”

“Ukraine strongly condemns the ongoing terrorist attacks against Israel, including rocket attacks against the civilian population in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. We express our support for Israel in its right to defend itself and its people,” the Ukrainian foreign minister wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

This stance was amplified by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, who took to Telegram to urge the “whole world” to support Israel in its fight against Palestinians.

“Horrible reports from Israel. My condolences to everyone whose family and friends died in the terrorist attack … Israel’s right to defense is beyond any doubt,” Zelensky stated.

Hamas initiated a major assault on Israel early on Saturday, launching dozens of rockets from Gaza, as well as attacking border checkpoints and infiltrating multiple locations across southern Israel. Footage circulating online suggests multiple Israeli military installations were overrun by Hamas militants, with a significant number of Israelis, both servicemen and civilians, killed or captured.

Israel responded with massive airstrikes on Gaza, which have already killed more than 150 people and injured nearly 1,000, according to the local health authority. Israel has also announced the mobilization of military reservists, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying the country was now “at war.”

October 7, 2023 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli settlers captured as Hamas and PIJ fighters overrun the Israeli army near the Gaza border

The Cradle | October 7, 2023

Palestinian resistance factions from the Gaza Strip have taken control of over a dozen illegal settlements in southern Israel as part of ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Floods,’ which has been raging since the early hours of 7 October.

Fighters from Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) say they hold at least 50 prisoners of war (POW) after overrunning many Israeli checkpoints and neighborhoods. Israeli media says the death toll from the operation has reached 100, with close 1,000 injured.

In describing the operation, Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri told Al Jazeera: “We managed to kill and capture many Israeli soldiers. The fighting is still on. As to our prisoners, I say, your freedom is looming large. What we have in hand will see you set free. The longer fighting continues, the higher the number of prisoners will become.”

Footage across social media has shown the extent of the resistance’s advance, as Israeli soldiers lay dead in many streets while settlers had to run for their lives or surrender to the armed groups.

https://twitter.com/TheCradleMedia/status/1710605327501017461

Among those captured is Israeli General Nimrod Aloni, the commander of the Depth Corps, a unit that coordinates the army’s long-range operations “deep in enemy territory.”

The spokesman for Hamas’ armed wing, Abu Hamza, confirmed that fighters from the Al-Quds Brigades and the Al-Qassam Brigades were at the front of today’s incursion, saying that the Gaza resistance recorded “a new chapter of victory” and “broke the prestige of the enemy entity,” with “a resounding historical shock.”

“Al-Aqsa Flood [revealed Israel] as an illusion made of dust and capable of being defeated and broken.”

In response, Tel Aviv has been conducting air raids inside the Gaza Strip, a coastal area considered the world’s largest open-air prison, leaving over 200 Palestinians dead and 1,600 injured. Survivors of the onslaught say they are “bracing” for the continued Israeli response as Hamas declared, “We are ready for an [Israeli] land invasion.”

Saturday’s operation caught the world by surprise, with even former Israeli security officials calling it a “colossal failure” of the intelligence apparatus, which failed to detect the launch of about 7,000 rockets from Gaza.

“All of Israel is asking itself: Where is the [army], where is the police, where is the security?” the former head of the Israeli Navy said during a TV interview. “It’s a colossal failure; the hierarchies have simply failed, with vast consequences.”

In response to the crisis, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared his country at “war” to the support of his western allies. However, the offensive may throw a wrench at ongoing normalization talks with Saudi Arabia.

In a statement, kingdom officials said: “[Saudi Arabia] repeatedly warned of the consequences of [the deterioration] of the situation as a result of the occupation as well as of depriving the Palestinian people of their legitimate rights and [not halting] systematic provocations against their holy [sites].”

The UAE, which normalized ties with Israel in 2020, issued a statement “[expressing] its deep concern over the escalation of violence between Israelis and Palestinians,” also calling “for an immediate cessation of the escalation and protection of the lives of civilians.”

Support for the operation has poured in from the regional resistance, with Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah calling it a “triumphant operation [and] a decisive response to the ongoing crimes of the occupation.”

Nasrallah also said the Lebanese resistance is “closely following the significant developments [in Palestine]” and “looking at the field conditions with utmost interest.”

Similarly, Yemen’s Ansarallah said that “[Operation Al-Aqsa Flood] revealed the weakness, fragility, and impotence of the temporary zionist entity and showed the world the strength and effectiveness of the resistance in Palestine and its ability to strike the ‘Israeli’ depths, storm the settlements, kill the zionists, and capture their soldiers.”

For Israel, support has poured in from the west, with French President Emmanuel Macron saying via statement, “France stands in solidarity with Israel and the Israelis, committed to their security and their right to defend themselves.”

The White House issued a similar statement, describing Saturday’s resistance operation as “appalling terrorist attacks.”

October 7, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Saudi Arabia willing to forego oil production cuts to secure Israel normalization: Report

The Cradle | October 7, 2023

Saudi Arabia has offered Washington to boost oil production levels next year if crude prices are “too high” as part of negotiations to reach a normalization deal with Israel, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on 6 October. 

This plan is allegedly aimed at winning over US lawmakers who are wary about Biden’s “megadeal” with Riyadh, which includes mobilizing US troops in case of an attack in the kingdom.

The deal would also see the US help Saudi Arabia develop a uranium enrichment program.

“Saudi negotiators emphasized that market conditions would guide any action on production, and officials familiar with the talks said the discussions didn’t represent a long-term agreement to cut prices,” the WSJ says.

For the past year, Saudi Arabia has led the powerful OPEC+ bloc into significantly cutting oil production levels to offset the damage caused to the market by western sanctions on Russia’s energy sector.

The ongoing cuts have come despite multiple demands and threats from Washington.

In September, Riyadh, in a joint effort with Moscow, voluntarily extended oil cuts to help maintain the market’s stability. This cut sent oil prices up nearly two percent to $91.08 a barrel. 

Per WSJ, Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein flew to Riyadh in late September to warn Saudi officials that soaring oil prices would make winning Washington over on the “megadeal” much harder.

This deal has raised concerns by 20 Democratic senators sent US President Joe Biden a letter on Wednesday regarding the deal. They voiced how he should demand that Israel makes a “meaningful and enforceable” concession to the Palestinian people as part of the normalization deal. 

Negotiations are now discussing the defense benefits for Saudi Arabia, which requires US Senate approval for the civilian nuclear site in the Kingdom and billions of dollars in weapons sales.

The deal has left a sour taste in the US public’s mouth. In a poll conducted in September, 3 out of 5 US citizens “feel this is a bad deal for the US.” Those polled added that they don’t feel there’s justification for US soldiers defending the Gulf nation.

It has also caused an uproar in the Islamic world, as many see a normalization agreement with Israel as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause.

Publicly, Riyadh has expressed that any deal with Tel Aviv must also include significant concessions for the Palestinians, including forming an independent state.

The WSJ report was released one day before the Palestinian resistance in Gaza launched its biggest offensive against Israel in Gaza, with officials saying the operation serves as a message to Arab nations who want to normalize ties with Israel.

October 7, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Palestine: The Resistance Rises toward Revolution, Return and Liberation

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network | October 7, 2023

As the morning dawns on 7 October 2023, the resistance is rising throughout occupied Palestine, smashing the siege on Gaza with a comprehensive offensive confronting the occupier by land and air, taking control of Palestinian land, seizing occupation settlers and soldiers and launching thousands of missiles as Palestinian resistance forces fight to advance return and the liberation of Palestine.

The new resistance operation, titled the Al-Aqsa Flood by Mohammed Deif, commander in chief of the Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, comes on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 war in which Egypt reclaimed the occupied Sinai from Zionist occupation, and is set to alter the direction of the struggle in occupied Palestine, moving from resistance toward revolution and liberation.

The resistance operation comes in response to the ongoing stream of crimes against the Palestinian people, the daily murder of Palestinians on the streets of the West Bank of occupied Palestine, the siege on Gaza, the theft of land for settlements, the denial of refugees’ right to return, imposing exile for over 75 years, the torture and attacks on the Palestinian prisoners, the ongoing invasions of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the 75 years of Zionist occupation and over 100 years of imperialist domination and colonialism throughout occupied Palestine.

It also comes to bring about the liberation of Palestinian prisoners, as part and parcel of the Palestinian people and land. The occupation has repeatedly dragged its feet in conducting a prisoner exchange with the resistance, and now the resistance has announced that it has taken a significant number of prisoners from among the occupation soldiers and settlers in order to liberate the 5,250 Palestinian prisoners in occupation prions, including the 1350 jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention, 39 women and 170 children. The resistance is taking new steps to liberate Palestinian land, to confront the settlement project and to liberate the prisoners from a position of power.

News is developing rapidly; however it is clear that the Palestinian resistance is determined to reset the status quo in the region and uncover the reality that the Zionist regime can no longer rely on its technological strength and imperialist weaponry to impose its domination on the Palestinian people. In particular, coming as it does on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 war, it is a decisive rebuke to the entire path of Oslo and normalization imposed upon the Palestinian and Arab people for the past 50 years, indicating a new path forward with a clear goal: liberation, and nothing less. It builds upon the liberation of south Lebanon from occupation by the Lebanese resistance, led by Hezbollah, in 2000, and the defeat of the Zionist invasion of Lebanon in 2006, as well as the successive heroic battles waged by the Palestinian resistance throughout occupied Palestine and especially from its base area of resistance land in Gaza.

In his statement announcing the operation, Deif said: “Starting from today, security coordination ends. Today, the people reclaim their revolution, correct their path, and return to the march of return.” He called upon all to participate in the resistance, and specifically to all the forces of resistance in the region, in Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Yemen, and all of the Arab peoples from the Gulf to the ocean, to join in this battle, which is their battle for freedom, dignity and liberation, declaring, “it is time for the forces of Arab resistance to unite.”

Samidoun joins the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, in calling “the masses of our Palestinian people, supporters of the resistance in exile and diaspora, allies from the liberation forces and movements, and solidarity committees with the Palestinian people everywhere, to express their support for the heroic Palestinian resistance, raise the flag of Palestine and the banners of resistance, and organize popular, political and media demonstrations and events to expose the Zionist crimes against our people in occupied Palestine…. The heroic Palestinian resistance has opened a chapter of battles of dignity and pride at the dawn of October 7, 2023, and it is now responding to decades of continuous and repeated Zionist, American and European aggression against the masses of our Arab and Islamic nation from the ocean to the Gulf, and in the face of the wars of starvation and siege that the United States and its agents have engineered against our peoples in the region, especially in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran.”

As the Palestinian resistance confronts occupation forces, it is critical that internationalists everywhere speak out, mobilize and act to confront the U.S.-led imperialist system, including the EU states, Britain and all complicit powers to end their ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people, and to defend the resistance. These crimes are reflected not only in the Balfour Declaration and the $3.8 billion in U.S. military aid to the occupation regime annually, but in the racist assaults on the Palestinian people in exile and diaspora throughout Europe, and especially in Germany, for speaking out and organizing to take up their role in the cause, for their return to Palestine and the liberation of their land.

Imperialism is the primary enemy of the Palestinian cause, creating the Zionist project and arming it to the teeth as a mechanism of attack against the Arab and Iranian peoples, alongside Zionism, the “Israeli” occupation regime and reactionary, complicit Arab forces.

Today, the resistance is making clear that despite the weaponry and brutality of the occupier, the promise of liberation is closer than ever before.

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.

October 7, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Dozens of Israeli jets strike Gaza

RT | October 7, 2023

Dozens of Israeli jets have struck Hamas targets in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have said. The airstrikes were launched in response to a surprise attack unleashed by the Palestinian armed group against Israel on Saturday morning.

IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said “Hamas terrorists” had infiltrated the Israeli territory from land, sea and air.

More than 2,200 rockets have been fired from Gaza, according to the spokesman. Hamas claimed that it used more than 5,000 projectiles in just the first 20 minutes of its attack.

Rocket sirens have been heard in many places across Israel, including Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Beersheba, and Ashkelon.

There were at least seven instances of fighting between IDF troops and Hamas militants, Hagari said.

According to the Times of Israel newspaper, gun battles have been underway in and around the towns of Kfar Aza, Sderot, Sufa, Nahal Oz, Magen, Be’eri, and the IDF’s Re’im military base.

In an earlier statement, the IDF said it had declared “a state of readiness for war” due to the attack. “Hamas terror organization will pay a very heavy price,” it warned.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said he had approved a call-up of reservists in response to the actions by Hamas.

At least six people are believed to have been killed in Israel on Saturday. Four died in missile strikes in the town of Kuseife and one in the Gderot area.

The head of Sha’ar HaNegev town Ofir Liebstein was also shot dead in a gunfight with Hamas militants. “Ofir was killed when he went to defend a town during the terrorist attack,” the local administration said.

Information coming from medical institutions across Israel suggests that more than 200 people were wounded, including many in serious condition.

Some videos uploaded online during the day purportedly show a number of IDF troops being killed and captured by Hamas fighters. There’s also social media footage and photos of what appears to be a burning Israeli tank and Palestinians celebrating the seizure of a US-made Humvee military vehicle from the IDF. The videos have yet to be verified.

October 7, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , | Leave a comment

Glorifying hate, the Golda movie shows that Zionism remains unrepentant

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | October 4, 2023

A new movie glorifying the legacy of Zionist leader and Israel’s fourth Prime Minister, Golda Meir, has been released in selected cinemas in the US and Europe. Golda is typical Israeli propaganda. The Israeli director, Guy Nattiv, has tried to whitewash Meir’s legacy of violence and open anti-Arab racism through portraying her as the “Iron Lady” of Israel, a “lioness” who triumphed as a politician and persisted as a military leader.

The narrative in the movie gets more complicated when Ukraine is thrown into the mix. “When I was a little girl in Ukraine, people were beating Jews with clubs,” says actor Helen Mirren as the eponymous main character. “I am not that little girl any more.”

Placing the movie’s geographical and historical context around Ukraine is critical to Golda. The director taps shrewdly into the media-infused imagery of Ukrainian heroics against advancing Russian armies, thus rewriting the legacy not only of Meir, but also of Zionism. The message gleaned is that, although at times the morality of the choices of Zionism is not always perfect, neither Meir nor the founders of Zionism had a choice; existential wars in a world filled with enemies, pogroms and anti-Semites require difficult choices.

The movie is centred around these supposedly difficult choices during the 1973 war, when Meir was prime minister of Israel. She served in that role between 1969 and 1974.

Like most Zionist Israeli leaders, she is presented as someone in constant conflict between multiple loyalties to ethnic, cultural, religious and national identities. For Meir, the conflict was resolved through the prioritising of Jewish identity exclusively. This was demonstrated in the famous exchange that she had with then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

In a letter to Meir, Kissinger said that he considered himself “an American first, secretary of state second, and a Jew third.” In response, she accentuated her own priorities, and how she wanted to perceive Kissinger’s relationship to Israel. “In Israel,” she pointed out, “we read from right to left.”

Propaganda aside, when Golda Meir arrived in Palestine in 1921 at the age of 23, she did not come directly from Kyiv, which was then within the Russian empire, but from the United States. It was mostly in the city of Milwaukee that she developed her ideas about Zionism, and the supposedly innate right of all Zionist Jews to “return” to Palestine, no matter where they were born.

Neither Palestinians nor Arabs victimised Jewish communities in Russia or anywhere else in Europe

Meir’s hatred for Palestinians and Arabs was, therefore, formulated long before she met a single Palestinian. Neither Palestinians nor Arabs played any role in the victimisation of Jewish communities in the Russian empire or anywhere else in Europe. This indicates that anti-Arab racism — a staple in Meir’s political discourse throughout her life — is an outcome of largely historical Western dynamics.

Arabs viewed Zionists as colonialists and imperialists. They did not oppose them because Arabs were anti-Semitic. They viewed the Zionists in Palestine through the same lens and logic that led them to oppose French colonialism in Syria, the British in Egypt and the Italians in Libya. Zionist and pro-Israel historians, however, have laboured to create a clear distinction between Western colonialism in the Middle East and Zionist colonialism in Palestine.

Such misinterpretation of history hardly examines the issue in a truthful manner. Worse, at times, Zionist colonialism is presented not as a British implant in Palestine through the Balfour Declaration, but as an opposing political force to British colonialism and “mandate” in Palestine.

Much of Meir’s political life is based on the same legacy, which is shared by all founders of Zionism: she wanted to be part of constructing a Zionist state in Palestine, today’s Israel, while simultaneously denying the very existence of the Palestinians who have lived for numerous generations on that same land.

“Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us,” she once said, sowing the seed of the racist notion that Arabs and Palestinians hate their children. This played a major role in the portrayal of Palestinians in US media during the Second Intifada (2000-2005).

In an interview with the Sunday Times in June 1969, Meir denied the very existence of Palestinians. “It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country from them. They did not exist.” She maintained that line until her death in 1978. In an interview with the New York Times in 1972, she insisted: “I said there never was a Palestinian nation.”

Meir, however, could hardly be credited for originating that racist notion, which has been functional in dehumanising the Palestinians throughout recent history. Indeed, such language was fundamental to the early Zionists who saw in Palestine “a land without a people for a people without a land”, and it remains useful to modern Zionists. Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s extreme far-right minister of finance, declared recently that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people” during a visit to France.

The intellectual orientation of the Golda movie can be seen in two different ways: one, as creative Israeli hasbara aimed at taking advantage of a growing worldwide movement that celebrates women and their roles and contributions in society; and, two, as an act of desperation.

The Israeli brand has lost much of its former appeal as a liberal, democratic and even “socialist” project. Such labels are hardly marketable when many Israelis are themselves questioning if their “democratic state” is even a democracy at all.

When images of Israeli military brutality and racism are viewed daily by millions of people across the world, it is difficult for Israel to portray itself as a “beacon of light” and democracy in an otherwise backward, undemocratic and violent Middle East. This is why Golda is a functional piece of propaganda, albeit its impact is, at best, limited in both time and scope. At best, it is a belated attempt to reinvent Zionism.

Palestinians living under Israel’s brutal military occupation — in fact, the whole war-torn region — are in urgent need of a future that is founded on justice, freedom, equality and lasting peace. Glorifying war and lionising racist individuals like Golda Meir cannot be the way to achieve this.

October 7, 2023 Posted by | Film Review | , , | Leave a comment

Primodos: another example of MHRA’s failure to “put patients first”

UK took 20 years to withdraw drug after harms were first made known

Health Advisory & Recovery Team | October 4, 2023

Most people are aware of Thalidomide, many are aware of Valproate, but there are several other drugs that have caused birth defects in children that are less well known including Debendox, Carbimazole and Primodos.

Primodos families achieved a main house parliamentary debate on 7th September led by Yasmin Qureshi. Whilst the House was not well attended, every single MP in the Chamber was on the side of the families and little effort was made to defend Government and regulator action.

Yasmin Quereshi explained:

“Children were born with serious deformities due to the hormone pregnancy test drug Primodos, which was taken by expectant mothers between 1953 and 1975”

“The UK regulator first received a warning about the drug in 1958. A definitive study was published in 1967, which linked birth defects to the synthetic hormones in Primodos. Baroness Cumberlege concluded that Primodos should have been removed from the market in 1967. The UK regulator failed in its duty of care to women: Primodos was eventually withdrawn in 1978, 20 years after the first warning.”

Finland, Sweden, Holland and Norway banned the use of hormone pregnancy tests at least 7 years earlier by 1971. MPs passionately recounted many stories of harm caused to their constituents, including Allan Dorans who explained the impact on Nan’s daughter Michelle in 1975, 4-5 years after it was withdrawn in other countries.

Why is the UK always so late to act on medicine harm?

You may say “that was 50 years ago”, things have changed, but MHRA’s lack of action on AstraZeneca covid vaccines resulted in patient deaths as recently as 2021. If anything, the MHRA’s recent transformation from “From watchdog to regulator” (as proclaimed by June Raine) is making things worse. As was pointed out several times during the debate, Primodos was 40 times the strength of the contraceptive pill, this is a risk a lay person can understand, why didn’t the regulator?

Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg stated “The drug was used in South Korea and Germany as an abortifacient. It was used to procure abortions.” Why would MHRA allow a drug that is used overseas for abortions, as a pregnancy test? It would be reasonable to assume there could be a risk of miscarriage. Why did MHRA reject Professor Carl Heneghan’s (director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University) report showing “a clear association” between Primodos and several forms of malformation? Why hasn’t MHRA taken the actions recommended by the Cumberlege report? The yellowcard system is clearly not fit for purpose and is resulting in unnecessary harm to patients.

The Perseus Group believes that a large part of the problem is that medicine safety doesn’t follow the best practice safety management practices of other safety critical sectors like aviation or nuclear. For example, MHRA does not set safety thresholds for the number of deaths/injuries which is allowed before a medicine is suspended. Previous Inquiries, such as the Cumberlege Inquiry, do little or nothing to improve the fundamentals of MHRA’s safety management because there is no input from those involved in managing safety in other safety critical sectors.

The Government committed to take action on Primodos after the Cumberlege report (if fact Primodos was a key driver resulting in the commissioning of the report), but they have limited that action to pelvic mesh and Valproate. The Patient Safety Commissioner role was created to close the gap but again her scope has been limited to mesh and Valproate. Primodos families have been fighting for decades for redress but the system is against them, they have been failed by the Government, the legal system and the regulator.

There are dozens of medicine and medical device victim groups (antidepressants, morning sickness medicines, vaccines etc) fighting their own battles for justice, what is the underlying theme?

A regulator failing to do their duty to keep people safe, influenced by pharmaceutical companies and defended by the Government.

Esther McVey stated “Sadly, Primodos is not an isolated case, and we have seen many examples over the years of our regulatory bodies failing to keep patients safe from new medicines and medical devices. In 2013, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency listed 27 medicines that had been withdrawn on safety grounds. The average time they were on the market was 11 years. I wonder how many times we will allow history to repeat itself. There have been reports and reviews calling for reform, and back in 2004 the Health Committee undertook an inquiry into the influence of the pharmaceutical industry. It noted, of drug companies, the ‘closeness that has developed between regulators and companies’”

Of MRHA’s 16 board members, 6 have Declarations of Interest relating to healthcare companies including pharmaceutical giants such as Sanofi, AstraZeneca and Pfizer. Pharmaceutical companies have been given immunity for several medicines by the Government, incentivizing them to support the pharmaceutical companies position rather than the victims. Pharmaceutical companies already have deep pockets, why are the Government willing to support them rather than those harmed?

Sitting from the outside, I see many victim groups fighting their individual battles in silos. Imagine their power if they all came together as a single voice demanding reform of MHRA? 22 MPs spoke in the Primodos debate, every single one of them wanting justice for the victims. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Maria Caulfield has agreed to meet with families and review the findings of the Cumberlege report, so this looks like a small step forwards for this group or at least a little more hope.

Do we now have the critical mass to demand reform of MHRA? If everyone came together, could we get a regulator that prioritises patient safety over pharmaceutical company profits?

Will the media start joining the dots?

October 6, 2023 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

NZ doctors avoided Covid jabs while insisting the public had them

By Guy Hatchard | TCW Defending Freedom | October 5, 2023

The New Zealand Ministry of Health granted vaccine exemptions to hundreds among its key staff whilst hypocritically insisting that the public be vaccinated.

An Official Information Act (OIA) request to the ministry dated August 2, 2023 asked the following question:

‘According to the legislation at the time in 2021, there were operational exemptions available for those who were not getting vaccinated against Covid-19. How many requests were received? How many were approved by the ministry?’

Matt Hannant, Interim Director, Prevention, National Public Health Service, replied:

‘From 13 November 2021 to 26 September 2022, a total of 478 applications for Significant Service Disruption exemption (SSD) were received. 103 applications were granted, covering approximately 11,005 workers. Please note that it is not possible to provide the exact number of workers that were covered by SSDs. This is because it was possible for an organisation to submit an application to cover more than one worker.’

So exactly how many Ministry of Health staff and associated contractors benefited from the vaccine exemptions? I have made inquiries and found some staff prepared to leak information. One source has told me that 95 consultants in the Dunedin region alone benefited from vaccine exemptions. Another source has pointed to a group of doctors working in Northland who arranged among themselves to remain unvaccinated. The total appears to run to hundreds and possibly more.

It seems that those granted exemptions were restrained by gagging orders so that they could not tell anyone that they had been granted exemptions: it was a secretive process that the Ministry of Health was anxious to hide from the public.

In any case, any doctor advising a patient that mRNA Covid vaccination might be risky faced disciplinary action, and many were suspended.

So medical staff allowed themselves to be manipulated into a position whereby, if they were unvaccinated themselves, they were still required to advise their patients to vaccinate, a recipe for widespread hypocrisy in the health service.

This process was certainly approved by Dr Ashley Bloomfield (then chief executive of the Ministry of Health) who gained considerable notoriety by refusing vaccine exemptions to those among the public severely injured by their first jab, insisting that they continue with a vaccination schedule. Given Dr Bloomfield’s close working relationship with Jacinda Ardern and Chris Hipkins (then Health Minister, now Prime Minister) it is quite likely that they approved it. The opposition leaders were also likely kept in the loop.

The criteria for granting exemptions apparently entailed an assessment concerning how vital staff were to the working of the health service. In other words, senior figures and those holding key surgical positions could insist that they remain unvaccinated and continue to be allowed to work. Meanwhile unvaccinated nurses, for example, could not gain exemptions and lost their positions.

If senior staff who wished to remain unvaccinated had spoken out publicly, the issue of Covid vaccine safety might have been given a public airing. Instead the Ministry of Health and the government kept a lid on all and any discussion. It did so through liaison with mainstream and social media outlets to censor content and through tight control of staff.

Senior medical staff who chose to remain unvaccinated may have been aware of a 2019 paper in Frontiers in Oncology journal entitled Gene Therapy Leaves a Vicious Cycle which reported:

‘Gene therapy has been caught in a vicious cycle for nearly two decades owing to immune response, insertional mutagenesis, viral tropism, off-target activity, unwanted clinical outcomes (ranging from illness to death of participants in clinical trials), and patchy regulations.’

As someone who has analysed social data over the last fifty years, I do sympathise with the doctors who opted for caution. That would be a normal reaction to new medications. It takes years to assess safety. So how unsafe is the mRNA Covid vaccine? Extremely unsafe, as shown by the 2023 excess death data across OECD nations.

The most highly Covid vaccinated nations in the OECD are in order Portugal, Chile, Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, Spain and Australia. Their average percentage of the population vaccinated is 91 per cent. Their average rate of excess deaths so far in 2023 is 12 per cent above the five-year historical average.

The least Covid vaccinated nations in the OECD are Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Poland, Estonia, Czech Republic, Hungary and Switzerland. Their average percentage of the population vaccinated is just 63 per cent. Their average rate of excess deaths so far in 2023 is 0 per cent compared to the five-year historical average. In other words, they have averaged a normal death rate.

Anyone who suggests that the death rate among the unvaccinated is higher than the vaccinated is running against the tide of evidence. This view doesn’t fit with the international data.

The standard way to resolve this inconsistency would be to refer to prospective studies which assemble two matched groups, vaccinate one group and leave the other unvaccinated and measure what happens over a significantly long period. In the normal course of vaccine approval this would have been done for around ten years prior to approval. No one has done this.

In the Pfizer trial the unvaccinated control group were all vaccinated after a few months, ensuring that long-term comparative outcomes are unavailable. In any case, during those few months more people died in the vaccine group than the unvaccinated control group. There are also many studies differentiating the outcomes of the vaccinated and unvaccinated that we have reported including journal citations.

How concerning is the excess death problem? According to the OECD there were 1.2 million excess deaths in 2022 among their member countries, with a combined population of 1.2 billion: one excess death in every 1,000 people.

Now it is becoming accepted that both Covid and Covid vaccination began their lives in a biotech lab, it doesn’t seem to much matter what proportion of excess deaths are due to Covid and what to Covid vaccination, but for the record in 2022 there were approximately 200,000 deaths ‘with Covid’ in the OECD. In summary, OECD excess deaths not attributable to Covid were one million in 2022 alone. This probably extends to a few millions worldwide, about the same as the annual deaths during World War one.

You can see why it is so important for those involved in creating Covid policy and enforcing mandates to make sure that everyone continues to believe that more unvaccinated die than vaccinated because otherwise their narrative that Covid policy is saving millions of lives completely falls apart.

In this light we can now assess the motivations of those still poking fun at the vaccine injured or accusing the ‘vaccine hesitant’ of seeking to undermine the government. For example the New Zealand Disinformation Project, funded by the Prime Minister’s Office, in common with many politicians, have described vaccine injury as a conspiracy theory. They are trying to hide their own mistakes which have undermined the health of the nation.

For the last couple of years the Hatchard Report has had a simple lament: ‘No one in authority seems prepared to ask why excess deaths are occurring at an unprecedented rate’. Deaths are in fact a very stable part of life. In a normal year there are no excess deaths. Insurance actuaries calculate how many of us will die and when with great accuracy, and set life insurance premiums accordingly. Right now, actuaries must be having sleepless nights because something has gone terribly wrong that has not happened at any other time during the last 100 years outside war and conflict zones: a great many people are falling ill and dying when they should be alive and well.

The Ministry of Health has been hiding these disturbing facts while quietly and hypocritically acknowledging their staff have a right to avoid these risks. They have not just gaslighted the public, they have recklessly put the public’s lives at great risk. This has broken families and communities, pitting one against another. It has caused tragedies affecting families across the nation, while the Ministry of Health and the government are going through tortuous and secret processes in order to conceal what is happening. Moreover they have plans to continue to roll out more experimental vaccines.

October 6, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

Facebook Censors Report On Study About Covid Vaccine mRNA Found in Breast Milk

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | October 6, 2023

Facebook has once more found itself at the helm of controversy regarding the censorship of accurate information concerning COVID-19. This is not the maiden voyage of the social media giant into the tempestuous waters of information control; earlier this year, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg conceded to having stifled truthful content about the pandemic at the behest of establishment voices.

His admission followed on the heels of both the US government and the World Health Organization declaring the curtain call on the COVID-19 public health emergency. This prompted Meta to retrench its medical “misinformation” policy, albeit the platform seemingly persists in its endeavor to silence certain narratives.

As reported by Public, the latest instance of censorship came to light when Facebook initiated a fact-check, labeled, and curtailed the visibility of an article titled “Covid Vaccine mRNA In Breast Milk Shows CDC Lied About Safety.” The scrutiny led by Facebook was not aimed at debunking the veracity of the article but instead was targeted at what it deemed as “missing context.”

The article, based on a recent Lancet study, brought to the public’s attention evidence of trace amounts of vaccine mRNA in breast milk, a finding that contradicts previous assurances by the CDC.

Despite the fact that these women were side-stepped in the original vaccine trials, they were given the green light for vaccination, based on the CDC’s now-questionable advice.

Facebook’s audit extrapolated the “context” that pregnant women ought to proceed with vaccination, thereby sidelining the primary discourse of the article which was to shed light on the misleading information dispersed by the CDC.

The methodology employed by Facebook in this instance extends beyond a mere examination of facts. By reducing the spread of the article, the platform effectively stifles a critical examination of the claims made by government health authorities, thereby undermining the public’s right to be informed and to engage in crucial discourse.

Facebook’s ongoing dalliance with censorship, especially of critical health-related information, raises significant questions about the role of social media platforms in the contemporary information ecosystem. The unfurling narrative underscores the necessity for a transparent, decentralized, and accountable framework for information dissemination, one that is immune to undue influence and serves the collective endeavor for truth.

October 6, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

The High Stakes in the Legal Battle for Free Speech

Brownstone Institute | October 6, 2023

The ongoing war between the US Security State and the First Amendment is perhaps the most underreported development of the 21st century. Now, Missouri v. Biden may bring it to the Supreme Court.

Just two decades ago, the internet promised liberation as dictatorships would cave to the emerging swell of information. That was the hope, at least.

“There’s no question China has been trying to crack down on the internet,” President Clinton said in 2000. “Good luck. That’s sort of like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.”

That optimism did not come to fruition. Instead of Westernizing the Orient, technology laid the foundation for the US Security State to pursue unprecedented social control.

At first, the conflict appeared to be between rank-and-file military members and transgressive cyber actors. Julian Assange and Edward Snowden seemed like mere hackers, not harbingers for the impending suspension of American liberty.

The battle suddenly became a civilizational struggle in 2020. A highly efficient technocracy declared war against the Bill of Rights. The US Security State shut down American society, eradicated due process, and captured the public health apparatus. The CIA bribed scientists to cover up the origins of Covid, and the Department of Homeland Security dictated what Americans could and could not see in their newsfeeds. The FBI helped banish the country’s oldest newspaper from Twitter for reporting on its preferred candidate’s son.

When Clinton made his “Jell-O” comment, few of us could imagine that we’d live in such a country. We trusted our courts and our elected government to protect us. We thought the rule of law was sacrosanct. We were wrong.

Now, however, the judiciary has the opportunity to reclaim the First Amendment from the tyranny of the Security State in Missouri v. Biden.

Missouri v. Biden and the CISA Injunction

Tuesday, the Fifth Circuit reinstated an injunction against CISA, an agency in the Department of Homeland Security, that prohibits its agents from colluding with social media companies to promote censorship of any kind.

The case demonstrates how far the United States has strayed from its former free speech ethos. CISA held ongoing meetings with social media platforms to “push them to adopt more restrictive policies on censoring election-related speech,” according to the Fifth Circuit. This included criticism of lockdowns, vaccines, and the Hunter Biden laptop. Through a process known as “switchboarding,” CISA officials dictated to Big Tech platforms what content was “true” or “false,” which became Orwellian euphemisms for acceptable and prohibited speech.

CISA’s leaders reveled in their usurpation of the First Amendment. They overturned hundreds of years of free speech protections, appointing themselves the arbiters of truth. Without freedom of “election-related speech,” we no longer live in a democracy. They pursued a faceless dictatorship.

They sought to eradicate dissent surrounding the policies that they imposed. CISA had been responsible for dividing the workforce into categories of “essential” and “nonessential” in March 2020. Hours later, the order became the basis for the country’s first “stay-at-home” order, a process that quickly spiraled into a previously unimaginable assault on Americans’ civil liberties.

CISA betrayed the country’s founding principle. A group of unelected bureaucrats hijacked American society without ever having a vote cast in their names. They disregarded the First Amendment, due process, and elected government in their pursuit of power.

The Framers understood that liberty relied on the free flow of information. They were well aware of the dangers of widespread lies and an incendiary press corps, but tyranny presented a far greater risk to society. Government could not be trusted to wield power over the minds of men, so they enshrined freedom of press, worship, and speech in our Constitution.

The Security State unwound those liberties. White House officials used the power of the federal government to suppress dissent. The Biden Administration launched an interagency attack on free speech. The Covid regime’s coup d’etat continued unimpeded until Judge Terry Doughty’s July 4 injunction.

Now, the Fifth Circuit has remedied its previous error by reinstating the injunction against CISA. The case may now head to the Supreme Court, where the Justices would have the opportunity to dismantle the technocratic censorship operation at the heart of the Covid response.

The war is far from won. Julian Assange remains in jail alongside terrorists for publishing news reports that undermined the Security State’s deceit surrounding the War on Terror. Edward Snowden is banished from his homeland for exposing the lies of James Clapper.

President Biden’s “misinformation” crusade shows no signs of retreat entering the 2024 election cycle. Social media is still censored. Your Google results are still gamed at the behest of powerful state actors.  YouTube has proudly announced that it will censor content based on the diktats of the World Health Organization. Say the wrong thing on LinkedIn and you are toast.

Among the large players, only X, formerly known as Twitter, is eschewing routine takedowns of speech deemed oppositional to regime priorities. That is truly only because one man had the means to buy and the drive to liberate it from the Censorship Industrial Complex, for now.

Tuesday’s decision reaffirmed what the Supreme Court called the “bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment” in 1989: “that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”

Rebuilding from the wreckage of Covid will require reclaiming those fundamental pillars of American society. The freedom to speak was not the first right earned by a people in revolt against ancient-world forms of statism but it might be the most essential. That’s why it is instantiated in the very first amendment to the Bill of Rights.

If the regime can control the public mind, they can control everything else too. A loss here is a loss everywhere.

October 6, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , , | Leave a comment