Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

From JFK to Donald Trump: How the USA Became Wedded to Zionist Israel

By Rick Sterling | Global Research | March 28, 2025

There are many contrasts between the 35th president, John F. Kennedy, and the 45th and 47th president, Donald J. Trump. One extreme example is regarding U.S. policy toward Israel.

JFK and Israel/Palestine

Unknown to many people today, JFK supported Palestinian rights and sought a sustainable peace in the region.

In 1960, when JFK was campaigning to be president, he spoke at the convention of the Zionists of America. In his speech, Kennedy was complimentary about Israel but frankly said,

“I cannot believe that Israel has any real desire to remain indefinitely a garrison state surrounded by fear and hate.”

That warning, issued when Israel had only existed for 12 years, was ignored. Israel continued to act in an aggressive zionist fashion. 

Kennedy did not just issue warnings. To the chagrin of the Israelis, JFK established friendly relations with Egypt’s President Nasser. The Kennedy administration provided loans and aid to Egypt.

The JFK administration supported UN resolution 194 which called for the right of return for Palestinian refugees driven out of their homeland. Although Israel committed to abide by UN resolutions when it was admitted to the United Nations in 1949, the Israelis reneged on this commitment and were hostile to the resolution. The day before JFK was assassinated, the New York Times reported (p 19), “Israel Dissents as U.N. Group Backs U.S. on Arab Refugees” and “U.S. Stand Angers Israel.” The second item begins, “Premier Levi Eshkol expressed extreme distaste today for the United States’ position in the Palestinian-refugee debate.” 

John Kennedy’s brother Robert was Attorney General and headed the Department of Justice. For two years, up until the end of 1963, the DOJ made increasingly strict demands that the American Zionist Council (AZC)  register as agents of a foreign country. In response, the AZC stalled, delayed, and created the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

The most intense disagreement between Tel Aviv and Washington was regarding the nuclear site under construction at Dimona. JFK was intent on stopping the expansion of countries which possessed nuclear weapons. Although IsraeliPrime Minister Ben-Gurion said the nuclear site was for peaceful purposes, JFK insisted that the US needed to inspect and confirm this. The inspection deadline was December 1963. 

In each of these four areas of contention, US policy changed dramatically after JFK was assassinated and Lyndon Johnson became president. Dimona was never properly inspected, and LBJ did not object to Israeli acquisition of nuclear weapons. The demand that the American Zionist Council register as an agent of a foreign country was dropped. Over time, the US withdrew their support of UN resolution 194, and LBJ was hostile to Nasser and ended US loans and support. Details of this process are described in this article and this book. 

Israel Policy Since JFK and Today

With few exceptions, US policy has been subservient to Israel’s wants ever since JFK.  An extreme low point was the treachery of President Johnson in covering up the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty during the June 1967 “Six Day War”. News about the Israeli killing and injuring of over 200 US sailors was suppressed for decades.   

undefined

Damaged USS Liberty on 9 June 1967, one day after attack (Public Domain)

Now we are in a new extreme low point. In his first presidency, Trump flouted international law and longstanding US policy by moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The significant move was driven by mega donor Sheldon Adelson who wanted it announced on Trump’s first day in office. Another prime concern of Adelson was to torpedo the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran. Trump responded as expected and withdrew the US from the agreement, effectively killing it.

Now President Trump’s administration is trampling on the right to free speech and aggressively suppressing critics of Israel. This repression on behalf of Israel was taking place under Biden but has escalated dramatically. Authorities have imprisoned a perfectly legal resident, Mahmoud Khalil. They have forced Columbia University to punish students without just cause and to impose obvious restrictions and prohibitions on speech and opinion. Why did they do this? It appears to follow the wishes of megadonor Miriam Adelson. She is president and chief funder of the Maccabee Task Force, which has campaigned on these issues for months.

As reported at Responsible Statecraft,

“Adelson’s support for the administration’s campaign to stifle criticism of Israel on college campuses isn’t a new focus but her alignment with the levers of state powers to implement her vision are unprecedented. In fact, tax documents reveal that she is directly overseeing a social media campaign targeting Khalil and Columbia University.” 

In addition to suppressing free speech and punishing critics of Israel, the Trump administration has bombed and attacked an independent country (Yemen) in the service of Israel. They are doing this despite the fact that Yemen did NOT threaten U.S. ships in the region. The Houthi government only threatened Israeli ships after Israel unilaterally broke the ceasefire and prevented food and other necessary humanitarian aid getting into Gaza. Israel, with U.S. support, is blatantly defying the International Court of Justice which ordered Israel to “maintain open the Rafah crossing for unhindered provision at scale of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance” and “immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” Israel is in violation of this order and the US is complicit by providing most of the weapons. 

President Trump, who campaigned and won election on the pledge to STOP needless wars, has started a new war with Yemen which is of no benefit to the US but serves the interests of Netanyahu’s Israel. Will he authorize attacks on Iran, in further subservience to Bibi? 

Corruption of the Political Process 

When Jewish donors to JFK’s 1960 campaign suggested they should determine his Mideast policy, JFK was shocked and definitively said NO. As reported by Seymour Hersh in “The Samson Option”, Kennedy talked with a friend who described what happened: “As an American citizen he (JFK) was outraged to have a zionist group come to him and say, ‘We know your campaign is in trouble. We’re willing to pay your bills if you’ll let us have control of your Middle East policy.” At that time, JFK vowed to change the US electoral system to prevent this corruption if he got elected. As president, he tried, but faced big hurdles and did not succeed.  

Ever since JFK’s death, pro-Israel forces have had undue influence on U.S. policy. If the International Court of Justice decides that Israel is committing genocide, as seems likely, the U.S. will be the primary collaborator in the war crimes. The US is increasingly alone in supporting the zionist state as it practices apartheid within Israel, theft of land in the West Bank, and massacres in Gaza including attacks on hospitals, schools, and UN facilities. Fourteen countries now support South Africa’s charges of genocide against Israel.  

Under Democratic President Joe Biden, U.S. policy to Israel was unwaveringly obsequious. Despite 70% of Democratic Party voters wanting the U.S. to get a ceasefire in Gaza, the Biden/Blinken team refused to do this. The Democratic Party leaders’ zionist ideology combined with zionist financial influence superseded their party members’ wishes. Netanyahu ignored Biden’s “red lines” with impunity.

Republican President Trump has taken this to a new level. His zionist donors determine his Israel policy. To protect Israel, Trump issued an executive order which weaponizes antisemitism. Universities are being compelled to implement a new definition of antisemitism which conflates criticism of Israel with ethnic discrimination. Trump’s campaign to “Make America Great Again” has evolved into “Miriam Adelson Gets All”. 

It is a remarkable descent from the days when JFK did what was best for the U.S. as well as being best for Palestinians and non-zionist Jews. 

Rick Sterling is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He can be reached at rsterling1@gmail.com.

March 28, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Some New Tales from the Darkside

Beatings and arrests continue both in the US and the Middle East

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • March 27, 2025

The news cycle over the past week has been dominated by reports and analysis of the Signal group chat involving top national security officials discussing aspects of the recent air strikes which have been directed against the Houthis in Yemen. There are four basic issues that are being examined by both the media and by elected and appointed government officials. First is the apparent ignorance of ordering the strike at all since the panel appeared not to know very much about the target or why the US was escalating the conflict. Second, was the possibly accidental inclusion in the list of participants of a journalist who is closely connected to Zionist Israel, having voluntarily served in the Israeli Army as a prison guard, where he may have tortured Palestinians, and who plausibly is a dual national US-Israeli citizen. Third is the security of the Signal technology itself, which was reportedly initially created to permit such sharing of confidential views online for criminal purposes, but which might be vulnerable to penetration by any professional foreign intelligence service including those of Russia, China, the United Kingdom and, of course, Israel, which would have had a serious interest in what Washington was intending to do in Yemen. Fourth, is the question whether Donald Trump knew about the meeting and approved what was being discussed.

My own experience of secure communications enabling meetings goes back nearly fifty years when nearly every national security-linked facility, including Embassies and military bases, had a so called “bubble” which was enclosed and electronically sealed to prevent outside penetration to learn what was being discussed and by whom. Since that time, there have been huge advances in protecting communications but friends who are still in the intelligence community insist that what is being protected can be made vulnerable by the cyber agencies that exist in various competitive countries that spend billions of dollars to do just that.

The participants in the Signal meeting are now scrambling to make their case that they did nothing wrong, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in particular is arguing that the discussion was not classified even though the issue related to sensitive intelligence regarding the United States plans for escalating a war against a country with which it was not technically at war. The deniers are certainly wrong in making that case, either that or they were incapable of understanding what was on the table. The presence of Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic magazine is more difficult to comprehend as he is no friend of the Trump Administration, but it is now being argued that it was either done absentmindedly by Michael Waltz, the national security director who chaired the meeting, or it was caused by a fit of confusion due to the fact that the “Goldberg” who was supposed to be invited was someone else. In any event, Jeffrey Goldberg first surfaced the story of the Signal meeting and then followed up with a full transcript. Was it all some kind of clever ploy to push Trump into making the decision to go full throttle and attack Iran? It would not be above Netanyahu to arrange something that convoluted and flat out evil and we shall see about Iran soon enough, but certainly Goldberg could only have been there due to manipulation of a situation in which he was pursuing a pro-Israel agenda. Waltz is taking credit for the snafu at the moment but that position might change as he comes under more pressure to resign.

In any event, the Signal story will no doubt be discussed and both embellished and dismissed during the next few days, but one thing it does demonstrate is the relative lack of knowledge that comes across as incompetency on the part of the Trump national security team. And the role of Trump himself will also be hotly debated as he has personally been playing a key role in foreign policy decision making, though so far he is only speaking up to support the work of his subordinates.

Actually there are couple of other stories that surfaced last week that I much prefer. First is the ongoing battle to silence, imprison and actually deport anyone who is critical of Israel or of Jewish group behavior. This has been job number one for the Israel Lobby, which has been eminently successful under both the Joe Biden and Donald Trump administrations, so much so that the sentiment that Israel controls America has been growing among the US public to such an extent that it surfaces regularly.

The Justice Department has reportedly acted on President Trump’s Executive Order on Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism, through the formation of a multi-agency Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism. The Task Force’s first priority will be to root out anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses. It is currently on the prowl, visiting four cities (Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Boston) where it will investigate ten elite universities. It has been suggested that Israeli investigators might well be part of the teams that will actually go into the classrooms, dormitories and administrative buildings on campus, all done without search warrants or probable cause. And the universities have basically surrendered over the issue of freedom of speech, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and regarded by many as the “right” that is most vital if the people are to enjoy fundamental liberties.

A recent arrest of a foreign student took place in Somerville Massachusetts on Tuesday March 25th when Turkish graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk was on her way to meet friends at an Iftar dinner to break their Ramadan fast, but she never made it. Instead, the 30-year-old was arrested and physically restrained by six armed plainclothes immigration officers near her apartment, close to Tufts University’s campus where she was a PhD student. Surveillance cameras show how one officer wearing a hat and hoodie grabbed her arms, causing her to shriek in fear while another confiscated her cell phone. The officers reportedly only showed their badges after Ozturk was restrained with her hands cuffed behind her back. According to the University, she was enrolled in a doctorate program at Tufts University on a valid F-1 visa, which allows international students to pursue full time academic studies, in which she was in good standing. A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesman issued a statement on Wednesday claiming that Ozturk “engaged in activities in support of Hamas, that relishes the killing of Americans” but didn’t specify what those alleged activities were. In fact, friends report that Ozturk has not even been active in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. The DHS spokesman never the less pressed on and explained “A visa is a privilege not a right. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated. This is commonsense security.” Nevertheless, no actual charges have been filed against Ozturk but the State Department has indicated that her visa has been terminated and she has been transferred to the Central Louisiana Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Processing Center in Basile, where other students are also being held.

It is believed that Ozturk’s actual “crime” consisted of having cowritten a March 2024 op-ed in the school’s newspaper where she criticized Tufts’ response to the pro-Palestinian movement, calling for the school to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and also urging divestment of any holdings in Israeli companies and government. Ozturk was to a certain extent a victim of vigilante justice. Her photo and details appear on a website called Canary Mission, run by a Jewish extremist group that says it is dedicated to documenting individuals and organizations “that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses and beyond.” Tufts University officials said the school had no prior knowledge of the arrest and did not cooperate with it. Several professors, speaking off the record, were shocked and described how many on campus are fearing what comes next.

One final tale comes from a place formerly known as Palestine, where armed Israeli settlers descended upon the Palestinian village of Susiya in the Masafer Yatta region of the occupied West Bank and assaulted Hamdan Ballal. Ballal is the co-director of the film “No Other Land” which recently has been in the news since it won an Oscar in Hollywood for best documentary. As is always the case when Jews assault Arabs, Israeli soldiers were present at the scene and stood by as Ballal was attacked and beaten along with other local residents, only to then detain him and two other Palestinians overnight in a military base, where they endured further abuse from the “Most Moral Army in the World” before being released.

Of course, President Trump did not register a complaint at the treatment of Ballal. What happened to the Palestinian was not just a random encounter. As co-director of a film that documents the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the violent expansion of Israeli settlements in his region, he has used his platform to speak directly and unapologetically about Israeli apartheid and theft. Friends of Israel clearly see that as a threat and they have succeeded in blocking the showing of the documentary in the US, where it has been unable to obtain a distributor. Targeting Ballal is part of a broader strategy by the Israeli government and groups like the settlers of silencing Palestinian cultural figures and truth-tellers, especially those who succeed in establishing prominent narratives worldwide. The underlying message is that if even an award-winning filmmaker isn’t immune to state violence, then Palestinians should rightly walk in fear or get out. The sad part is that international media, which should have recognized something was wrong when Palestinians without global awards and credentials — students, farmers, mothers, teachers — have been arrested and beaten and tortured by Israeli forces every day, ignored their plight. Their stories do not make headlines. Their names are rarely known. In death, all they become is a number, like the tens of thousands who are buried under rubble in Gaza and who will never be commemorated.

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.

March 27, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

The First Amendment Protects Mahmoud Khalil

By Gary Chartier | The Libertarian Institute | March 26, 2025

One of Donald Trump’s first official actions as president was to sign an executive order designed to protect freedom of expression against government pressure. Soon after, Vice President J.D. Vance issued a vigorous challenge at the Munich Security Conference to speech restrictions in Europe. After years of government assaults on freedom of expression, people who cared about First Amendment values were cautiously optimistic.

Then came the administration’s attempted deportation of Mahmoud Khalil.

Khalil, a permanent legal resident of the United States who is married to an American citizen and who is soon to be a father, was detained by the government after he participated in protests focused on the plight of people in Gaza.

In a court filing supporting the decision to deport him, the administration maintained that his “presence or activities in the United States would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”

Obviously, this can’t mean that he was physically impeding the formulation or implementation of foreign policy. He threatened, if he did, to bring about “serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States” because what he did had the potential to change people’s minds. He was targeted because of the anticipated impact of his actual (and potential) expressive activity.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a similar rationale for Khalil’s deportation. “And if you tell us, when you apply for a visa, ‘I’m coming to the U.S. to participate in pro-Hamas events,’ that runs counter to the foreign policy interest of the United States of America,” according to the Secretary. “If you had told us that you were going to do that, we never would have given you the visa.” (He makes a separate point about Khalil’s involvement in disruptive activities on the Columbia University campus, which I’ll bracket here.)

Rubio’s claim about “the foreign policy interest of the United States” makes sense only if, again, the worry is that the kind of protest in which Khalil was involved risked contributing to changes in policy, or at least signaled Khalil’s personal opposition to the that policy. (Rubio conveniently equates current U.S. foreign policy with “the foreign policy interest of the United States.” But let that slide.)

Khalil has been targeted because of core First Amendment activity: speech and assembly.

Rubio and other defenders of the administration’s position might argue for the legitimacy of Khalil’s deportation by arguing that, as a non-citizen, he’s not protected by the First Amendment. But the Constitution’s language makes no reference to citizens. And there are good reasons for treating it as applicable to Khalil.

The Bill of Rights appears to be intended to apply across the board to those affected by the actions of the U.S. government. Does anyone seriously think that the government could deny non-citizens the protection of the Seventh Amendment right to trial by jury in civil cases, or claim that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of excessive bail is inapplicable to non-citizens? Unless the Constitution explicitly limits a given safeguard to citizens, we should read it as protecting everyone the government can impact.

And permanent residents, like Khalil, seem especially worthy of constitutional protection. After all, they are not tourists or brief visitors. They have established substantial ties to the United States and have demonstrated that they are good neighbors. They are often on the road to citizenship.

Whatever we judge to be the primary focus of the First Amendment, singling our people for sanctions because of what they say is deeply problematic. When the government targets the nonviolent expression of particular ideas, on anyone’s part, it sends the message that those ideas are disfavored and that others expressing them can expect to be penalized. Deporting Khalil because of the potential impact of his expressive acts exerts a chilling effect on the expression of officially disapproved ideas about the Middle East—by citizens as well as non-citizens.

The content-focused rationale the government has offered for Khalil’s deportation is a rationale it could invoke to attack citizens for what they say, too. A U.S. citizen who writes an op-ed criticizing some aspect of current foreign policy and whose action the government believes could influence others to avoid supporting its position could be penalized in multiple ways. Citizens (probably) can’t be deported for political dissent. However, if the rationale the government has offered here is upheld, they could be denied other discretionary benefits.

The First Amendment should also be read as protecting Khalil from deportation for the content of his speech because it doesn’t primarily or exclusively serve the interests of speakers. At least as important is the protection it offers to listeners.

Restricting listeners’ access to information undermines democracy and the free formation of public opinion. The more people have the chance to encounter varied voices, the more they have the chance to weigh arguments, evaluate insights, and assess factual claims for themselves. A government that can filter what people hear can artificially insulate its policies against critical push-back and keep them from being altered in light of relevant facts and norms. (Consider, for instance, how frequently governments that rush to war try to censor not only stories about specific military actions or espionage techniques but also arguments for peace.)

There’s no Middle East exception to the First Amendment. The administration can underscore its commitment to freedom of expression by not acting as if there were. The Constitution weighs strongly against deporting Khalil on the basis of what he’s said. Freeing him will benefit not only him and his family but also all Americans.

March 27, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Ukrainian MP claims Zelensky tried to kill him

Artyom Dmitruk © Social Media
RT | March 23, 2025

Artyom Dmitruk, a fugitive member of the Verkhovna Rada, has claimed that Vladimir Zelensky directed the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) to kidnap and kill him. He said that SBU agents detained and severely beat him during an incident in the Black Sea port city of Odessa in 2022.

Dmitruk was elected to parliament as part of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party in 2019. He was expelled from the party two years later and continued serving as an independent MP.

He fled the country in August 2024, claiming that the authorities had plotted to “liquidate” him.

The Prosecutor General’s Office has since placed Dmitruk on a wanted list on suspicion that he assaulted a police officer and attempted to steal his gun.

In a video posted to X on Friday, Dmitruk detailed his accusations against Zelensky and his chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, as well as sharing photos of his injuries.

“I was brutally beaten, tortured in basements, and nearly killed on Zelensky’s orders for my opposition activities,” the self-exiled politician wrote in an accompanying post. He insisted that the government targeted him because of his “political activities.”

Dmitruk claimed that in 2022, Viktor Dorovsky, the head of the SBU office in Odessa, threatened him over the phone. “We’re going to kill you. We’ll cut your head off,” Dorovsky said, according to Dmitruk.

The politician said that a group of SBU agents abducted him on March 4, 2022 as he was delivering aid to a military checkpoint. According to Dmitruk, the agents put a bag over his head and handcuffed him. “They beat me severely with rifle butts, feet, and hands. I lost consciousness.”

Dmitruk claimed that he was taken to a basement where he was “tortured” and had his nose broken. He said the agents wanted to force him into making incriminating statements. They drove him to several locations, including a regional SBU office, where the threats and beatings continued, he added.

He went on to say that the agents threatened him with a gun and made him promise on camera that he would stop criticizing Zelensky, Yermak, and the government. According to Dmitruk, the agents eventually dropped him off at a parking lot.

“The order to commit these crimes against me was given personally by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Andriy Yermak, and the head of the Odessa SBU Viktor Dorovsky,” Dmitruk wrote on X, using the Ukrainian spelling of the names.

“There are thousands of stories like mine. There are people who have been sitting in the basements of the SBU for more than two years,” he said.

March 23, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

UN Exposes Systematic Zionist Rape of Palestinians

By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | March 22, 2025

On March 13th, the UN Human Rights High Commission published a horrifying report exposing in oft-emetic detail how the Zionist entity has employed “sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinians” on an industrial scale since the Gaza genocide erupted in October 2023. The UN concludes these hideous acts are a central component of Israel’s “broader effort to undermine [Palestinians’] right to self-determination,” their systematic nature pointing unambiguously to endorsement by Tel Aviv’s military and political leaders.

The report records, “sexual and gender-based violence is by no means a new element of the Israeli occupation.” However, in the wake of October 7th, there has been a “sharp increase in sexual violence against Palestinian women and men”, both by Zionist Occupation Forces (ZoF) and settlers. The UN encountered no obstacles collecting voluminous highly incriminating evidence of this vile abuse. In addition to a welter of victim and witness testimony, perpetrators often voyeuristically captured themselves and their confederates openly committing these crimes on camera.

Frequently, these abhorrent images were pridefully posted on the culprits’ personal social media accounts. Such actions amply attest to the culture of total impunity in which ZOF soldiers literally rape and pillage. “Despite the abundance of witness and digital evidence of Israeli soldiers committing crimes in Gaza,” the UN found “there have been no meaningful efforts by Israel to hold the perpetrators accountable.” Requests submitted to Tel Aviv for clarity on investigations into sexual violence committed by Occupation Forces have been ignored:

“The Commission has not seen any evidence that Israeli authorities have taken any effective measures to prevent or stop acts of sexual violence or to identify and punish perpetrators.”

By contrast, the UN documented multiple statements by Zionist entity officials actively supporting ZOF militants accused of sex crimes, and “legitimizing rape and other forms of sexual violence” against Palestinians, particularly detainees. That Israel’s rulers advocate sexually-charged attacks on Palestinians is further reinforced by a deliberate ZOF strike on a women’s rights centre in Gaza, in mid-November 2023. The UN noted the broadside’s “clear gendered dimension,” with soldiers daubing deeply offensive, sexist insults directed at Palestinian women on the building’s inner walls in Hebrew.

Outside, ZOF tanks precisely blitzed the building’s fifth floor, which provided shelter for women and families. That area was “completely destroyed”, but the rest of the building “remained intact”. Mercifully, the site and its surrounding area had been evacuated well in advance of the attack, meaning no one was harmed. The Commission “did not find any military justification” for the ZOF’s targeting of the centre. Yet, from the Zionist entity’s perspective, it undoubtedly served a very specific military purpose.

Collectively, the Commission’s conclusions point ineluctably to the fact that sexuality and gender are now key, dedicated battlegrounds in Israel’s unending erasure of the Palestinians, while sexual abuse, rape, and resultant physical and psychological trauma are entrenched, well-honed weapons in the Zionist entity’s Mephistophelian military arsenal. Gravely, given Tel Aviv’s tendency to export its tools and methods of repression and mass murder abroad, the implications of this grotesque evolution in modern warfare could be global.

‘Foreign Devices’

The UN Commission report contains five separate sections on the Zionist entity’s weaponisation of sexual abuse; “sexual harassment and public shaming of Palestinian women”; “filming and photographing acts of sexual violence against men and boys during arrest”; “sexual violence during ground operations including at checkpoints and evacuations”; “sexual, reproductive and other gender-based violence in detention”; “sexual and gender-based violence by settlers and other civilians.” Each is rife with repulsive descriptions, and stomach-churning attestations.

While ranking circles of hell is a tawdry task, the section detailing sexual violence directed towards male and female Palestinian detainees is most vital to examine. The sheer scale of abuses documented, and consistency of accounts provided by victims imprisoned in over 10 separate Israeli military detention facilities, means it cannot be plausibly argued this savagery is aberrational, or attributable to ‘rogue’ ZOF militants or units. It can only be deliberate, determined policy, signed off and directed at the highest levels.

From October 7th 2023 until July 2024, the UN Commission finds at least 14,000 Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank – among them hundreds of women – were incarcerated by the ZOF. Many were not informed of the reasons for their imprisonment. In case after case, “sexual violence was used as a means of punishment and intimidation from the moment of arrest and throughout [their] detention, including during interrogations and searches”:

“Acts of sexual violence… appear to have been motivated by extreme hatred towards the Palestinian people and a desire to dehumanize and punish them… Forced nudity, with the aim of degrading and humiliating victims in front of both soldiers and other detainees, was frequently used… Male detainees reported ZOF personnel had beaten, kicked, pulled or squeezed their genitals, often while they were naked… In some cases, objects such as metal detectors and batons were used to brutalise them while they were naked.”

The Commission documented widespread rape and sexual assault of male detainees, “including the use of an electrical probe to cause burns to the anus, and the insertion of objects, such as fingers, sticks, broomsticks and vegetables, into the anus and rectum.” One victim was suspended from the ceiling so only his toes touched a chair below, and beaten with tools for hours. During the abuse, a “metal stick” was inserted into his penis roughly 20 times until he began bleeding, before fainting.

The Commission has determined that detainees were routinely subjected to sexual abuse and harassment, and that threats of sexual assault and rape were directed at detainees or their female family members. The Commission received information about detainees being forced to undress and lie on top of each other while subjected to verbal abuse and forced to curse their mothers. They were beaten if they did not comply.

Female detainees were also subjected to sexual harassment, assault, rape, and threats to their lives. One was told by a ZOF soldier he would kill her and burn her children, asking: “How do you want us to rape you? One by one or all together?” Another was threatened with sexual assault in front of her husband, before soldiers spat in her face and beat her until she fainted. Several Palestinian women suffered the heinous indignity of “foreign devices” being inserted into their vaginas or rectums.

Female detainees moreover endured “repeated, prolonged and invasive strip searches, both before and after interrogations.” One Palestinian woman was strip searched in her cell every three hours during her four-day detention, “even though she was menstruating.” Women were regularly forced to remove all their clothes, including veils, in front of male and female ZOF soldiers. Beatings and harassment, while being bombarded with foul insults and sexual slurs, such as “bitch” and “whore”, were also commonplace.

‘Terrible Injustice’

In July 2024, 10 ZOF soldiers were arrested after subjecting a male Palestinian detainee to such vicious sexual violence, he required urgent surgery. The Commission finds this was by no means an isolated incident since October 7th, but it remains the only instance to date of a victim’s tormentors facing repercussions for their unconscionable abuse. Still, the UN refers to this sordid case as “an illustrative example of the culture of impunity” rampant within the Zionist entity’s military and security apparatus:

“Five soldiers were released without charge within a few days and five others were placed under house arrest. In September 2024, a military court eased the conditions of their house arrest, removing the requirement for them to be accompanied by a supervisor during their night-time house arrest and allowing them to submit requests for release during the holidays.”

A since-published indictment records how the five accused soldiers burst into the man’s cell at Sde Teiman detention facility, beat him with batons and tasered him in the head, before forcibly inserting a baton into his mouth, all while intimidating him with a dog. He was also stabbed in the rectum with a sharp object. The attack left the Palestinian with several fractured ribs, a punctured lung, and other life-threatening injuries.

Unmentioned in the report, the initial arrest of the 10 ZOF soldiers responsible for this gruesome barbarity elicited outrage among Israeli citizens, leading to mass protests demanding their release. Nonetheless, the Commission did record how several high-ranking Zionist entity officials expressed outrage at the soldiers’ arrests. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said they had suffered “terrible injustice”. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir stated it was “shameful” that Tel Aviv’s “best heroes” had been subject to such “vicious persecution.”

The Western media remained deathly silent on this open championing of rape as an instrument of terror. The UN Commission’s disturbing findings have likewise fallen on mainstream deaf ears. As ever, news outlets, and the Zionist entity’s Western puppet masters, are complicit by their silence – and it is precisely this silence that encourages and safeguards the ZOF’s culture of impunity. As a result, we can expect the “sharp increase in sexual violence against Palestinian women and men” to only increase in future.

March 22, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Case Against Mahmoud Khalil: How The Israel Lobby Fueled a Campus Crackdown

By Robert Inlakesh | Mint Press News | March 13, 2025

The detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent Palestinian activist involved in organizing at Columbia University, is the result of more than a year of pro-Israeli think-tank propaganda and lobbying efforts to tie the students to Hamas and erode free speech protections in the United States.

Since the first anti-war encampment at Columbia University last April, a network of pro-Israel organizations—including lobby groups, think tanks, and private security firms—has worked to dismantle the student protest movement. Their influence has been evident in the rapid and coordinated response to suppress demonstrations.

Despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s public claim that Khalil is a “Hamas supporter,” no evidence has been provided to substantiate the allegation. In fact, a White House official admitted in an interview with The Free Press that “the allegation here is not that [Khalil] was breaking the law.”

The Trump administration has offered no evidence of illegal or violent activity to justify its efforts to deport Khalil, a Green Card holder. Instead, his removal appears rooted in political disagreement. Washington has made clear that any speech critical of Israel can be labeled as “pro-Hamas” and “antisemitic” without the need to substantiate such claims.

This absence of evidence has been a defining characteristic of the broader campaign—driven by the Israel Lobby—to curtail First Amendment rights on college campuses. While Jewish student groups were among those leading last year’s anti-war encampments, the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters became a particular focus of political scrutiny.

A central figure in this push has been the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a neoconservative think tank frequently cited as a source for alleged links between Hamas and SJP. The FDD’s argument hinges on the claim that the American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), a major supporter of SJP chapters, has ties to individuals formerly associated with charities shuttered for allegedly financing terrorism. One such case, the Holy Land Foundation, resulted in convictions that have since been widely criticized as politically motivated.

The FDD first presented its claims publicly in 2016, but they failed to gain traction, mainly due to a lack of substantive proof. Among its chief concerns was that “AMP does not have to file an IRS 990 form that would make its finances more transparent.” That critique is striking, given that the Quincy Institute recently revealed the FDD itself operates with “dark money” funding and holds a zero transparency rating.

In May 2024, the Washington-based Atlantic Council suggested in an article that Iran was involved in the student protest movement. Corporate media quickly picked up on the claim and attempted to build a case around it. Yet, despite the steady stream of coverage, none of the reports were able to muster any real evidence to back up their accusation.

Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir Technologies—a company with deep ties to the CIA—has taken up a public crusade to reshape discourse on college campuses. His rationale for urgency is blunt: “If we lose the intellectual debate, you will not be able to deploy any army in the West, ever.”

Safra Catz, the Israeli-American CEO of Oracle and one of the highest-earning women in global business has also weighed in on the protests. When asked about the wave of student demonstrations, she framed the issue in starkly militaristic terms:

The reason, in my personal opinion, why they’re out there is because they think Israel is weak. They think the Jews are weak, so they stand up strong. If Israel regains its deterrence capability and America regains their deterrence capability and is strong, they will disperse like they always do. We’ve seen this pattern here in Israel—when the terrorists feel strong, they’re out in the streets. And when Israel comes in hard, they’re hiding under the floor.”

Not only did Catz compare student actions in the United States, framed as part of a “resurgence of antisemitism,” to “terrorists,” but the Israeli-American businesswoman has also contributed to both Donald Trump and Marco Rubio’s political bids in the past. As CEO of Oracle, which owns OpenAI, Catz doubled her company’s investment in Israel following October 7, 2023.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which has repeatedly accused the U.S. student movement of antisemitism and supporting Hamas, has openly called for the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil.

Pro-Israel groups insist that Khalil has ties to Hamas, yet even the Canary Mission—a site notorious for doxxing pro-Palestine university students—could not produce evidence beyond his participation in a protest chant. In its extensive profile on Khalil, the only supposed proof of “support for Hamas” was his involvement in a demonstration where the crowd chanted, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” The site argues that the phrase is pro-Hamas solely because Hamas leader Khaled Mashal has used it in the past.

One of the loudest voices behind the crackdown on campus protests is Trump’s UN ambassador, Elise Stefanik, who has openly boasted about her role in forcing the resignations of five university presidents. Even Columbia University’s decision to give in to pressure from pro-Israel lobbying groups did not shield it from White House retaliation. The administration still moved to strip $400 million in federal funding from the university, sending a clear warning to other institutions.

This multi-pronged assault on free speech—built on baseless accusations of Hamas ties and antisemitism—is now being used to justify the deportation of a permanent U.S. resident whose wife and future child are American citizens. The campaign is part of a broader effort to erode First Amendment protections under the guise of national security.

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show ‘Palestine Files’. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47

March 21, 2025 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US arrests Georgetown University student for criticizing Israel

Indian citizen Badar Khan Suri has been arrested in the US over criticism of Israel
Press TV – March 20, 2025

Indian citizen and Georgetown University student Badar Khan Suri has been arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents due to his criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Sari, who is a post-doctorate fellow in peace and conflict studies at Georgetown University in Washington, is currently being held at an ICE detention facility in Virginia without contact with lawyers and family.

ICE has detained Sari even though he is a US permanent resident.

After his arrest, the dean of Georgetown University made a statement that Sari had not engaged in any illegal activities or posed a threat to campus security.

In a statement, the University Board of Georgetown Law SJP has called his arrest to be for expressing “constitutionally protected speech,” warning that if such arrests continue “higher education will crumble.”

Sari is believed to have been specifically targeted because of the anti-genocide activism of his wife Mapheze Saleh.

Saleh, a US citizen, is a prominent pro-Palestine activist who has come under attack by pro-Israel political organizations.

Jenin Younes, a lawyer and civil liberties expert, believes that Sari’s arrest is a case of citizens being held guilty by association.

“If they can’t target a Palestinian activist for deportation because they’re a citizen, they’ll target their spouse instead,” Younes said in an interview.

Imprisoning and punishing family members of political dissidents is a common repression tactic used by dictatorial regimes.

March 20, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Google to acquire Israeli firm staffed by former Unit 8200 officers

The Cradle | March 20, 2025

On 18 March, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, announced plans to acquire the Israeli cloud security startup Wiz in a $32 billion deal, marking one of the largest-ever influxes of former Israeli intelligence officers into a US tech company.

“Google LLC today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Wiz, Inc., a leading cloud security platform headquartered in New York, for $32 billion, subject to closing adjustments, in an all-cash transaction,” the US tech giant said on Tuesday.

Reports from western media indicate that following the acquisition, Wiz will keep its brand and operate independently from Google. Additionally, an extra retention bonus will be offered to employees, potentially totaling $1 billion, along with a break-up fee that Google would owe to Wiz if antitrust regulators block the deal.

The Israeli tech company was founded in 2020 by four former members of Unit 8200.

Wiz employs around 1,995 people, with most of its sales and marketing personnel located in North America and Europe. However, most of its engineering staff is based in Tel Aviv, a major hub for cybersecurity talent primarily linked to Unit 8200 alumni.

A 2018 study cited by Haaretz estimated that 80 percent of the 2,300 people who founded Israel’s 700 cybersecurity companies at the time had come through Israeli army intelligence. Two years earlier, Forbes estimated that over 1,000 companies were founded by Unit 8200 alumni.

“There are at least five tech companies started by Unit 8200 alumni publicly traded in the US, together worth around $160 billion. Private companies started by ex-8200 soldiers are worth billions more,” the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported last year.

“While Unit 8200 alumni once talked about their service in hushed tones, they now tout it in press releases to attract clients and investment money for their startups,” the report highlights.

As an integral part of Israel’s intelligence apparatus, Unit 8200 conducts signal intelligence (SIGINT) and cyber operations, emphasizing advanced technology, cybersecurity, and intelligence gathering.

Unit 8200 played a crucial role in the planning and execution of Israel’s pager terror attacks in Lebanon last year. Specifically, western security sources revealed that the unit was involved in embedding explosives inside the pagers ordered by Hezbollah, with the operation reportedly taking over a year to plan.

The Israeli spy unit is developing an artificial intelligence (AI) tool similar to ChatGPT, which is “capable of answering questions about people it is monitoring and providing insights into the massive volumes of surveillance data it collects.”

“It’s not just about preventing shooting attacks, I can track human rights activists, monitor Palestinian construction in Area C [of the West Bank]. I have more tools to know what every person in the West Bank is doing,” an informed source told The Guardian earlier this month.

March 20, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Anne Applebaum of the Atlantic Magazine & Columbia’s Pulitzer Board advocated killing Palestinian journalists

Why does the “safety” framework never apply to Arab students?

By Adam Johnson | The Column | March 14, 2025

In 2002, Columbia University Pulitzer Prize board member, alleged “anti-authoritarian” expert, and Atlantic Magazine columnist Anne Applebaum explicitly advocated in Slate magazine that Israel kill Palestinian journalists for the crime of making Israelis and Americans look bad. In her article, “Kill The Messenger,” there is little subtlety or equivocation about not only Israel’s right to blow up Palestinian media infrastructure, but to kill reporters for simply doing their job:

“… the official Palestinian media is the right place for Israel to focus its ire. In fact, in the reporting of the Middle East conflict, which almost always focuses on yesterday’s violence and today’s body count, the crucial role of the Voice of Palestine—the official broadcasting arm of the Palestinian Authority—has often been overlooked. Nor is the problem just radio and television. If you want to understand why the Oslo peace process failed, or where suicide martyrs come from, it is worth taking a closer look at all the Palestinian Authority’s official media…

Until then, the Voice of Palestine will remain what it has become: a combatant—and therefore a legitimate target—in a painful, never-ending, low-intensity war.”

This article, which Applebaum has never explained or renounced, is useful when contextualizing the current witch hunt on college campuses targeting anti-Gaza genocide protestors under the Planck Length-thin auspices of promoting “student safety” and “combatting anti-semitism.”

What’s especially noteworthy is that Applebaum never even bothers laundering her promotion of the execution of Palestinians media workers in the language of “terrorism” or “material support for terrorism”—she is simply lobbying Israel kill Palestinian media workers for the mere fact that they are making Israel and the US look bad. Indeed, a key example of coverage justifying their killing Appelbaum cites is an extremely banal political cartoon. As she writes:

… they are subtly, and sometimes not so subtly, anti-American. A recent cartoon in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, the Palestinian Authority official daily, showed a blindfolded George Bush aiming missiles indiscriminately at a dartboard covered with the names of Arab states. One of his darts had hit the bull’s eye marked “Afghanistan.” Another had gone astray and hit an Arab man in the back. The caption read, “The war in Afghanistan is only the beginning.” While there is plenty of other anti-Americanism in other Palestinian media, and indeed in Arab media everywhere, this is the voice of the Palestinian Authority, the government of Yasser Arafat, a frequent visitor to the White House.

Applebaum believes a cartoon depicting George W. Bush as a warmonger makes Palestinian media a legitimate target worthy of summary killing. “Anti-Americanism,” one is lead to believe is not only a form of racism but a mode of speech that strips one of their protected civilian status.

This is an extraordinary, illiberal, and racist opinion, yet Applebaum is allowed to remain in good standing among liberal and academic elites because racism and casual bloodlust targeting Palestinians and Arabs simply doesn’t register or matter in the “student safety” calculus.

Imagine, if you will, a Columbia professor or Pulitzer prize committee member advocating the summary killing of Israeli or American media workers because they undermined the cause of Palestinian liberation in their reporting. If this article surfaced it would stir up immediate outrage and condemnation, the academic in question would be quickly fired, apologies would be made and and new policies would be promised. But with Applebaum calling for the killing of Palestinian reporters, an article that goes semi-viral on Twitter every few months, no one cares. Nothing happens. It’s just another routine, normal Serious Foreign Policy opinion from a Serious Foreign Policy Expert.

Columbia University President Katrina Armstrong is currently working with Trump officials, DHS, ICE, and other government agents seeking to deport and imprison anti-Israel protestors for the simple fact that—according to Trump officials themselves— they have ideological viewpoints the Trump regime doesn’t like. Columbia, and many other universities, are maximally complying with these demands ostensibly to promote “campus safety” and “combat hatred.” Indeed, making students “feel safe” has been the high-minded liberal reason for virtually every university administrator cracking down on free speech, both before and after Trump took office. “We are focused,” Armstrong said in a press release last year, “on ensuring [student] safety, supporting their wellbeing, and protecting their ability to learn.”

“I have said it before, and I will say it again,” Armstrong insisted, “discrimination and harassment, including hate language, calls for violence, and the targeting of any individuals or groups based on their beliefs, ancestry, religion, gender identity, or any other identity or affiliation have no place at Columbia.”

Except that it does. Columbia, which manages and awards the Pulitzer prize, has no problem putting someone with a history of advocating the killing of Arab civilians in a position of power, helping determine who in journalism is worthy of its highest award, and creating an atmosphere on campus that makes clear to its Palestinian students that they are subhuman and unworthy of normal protections under the laws of war.

March 19, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Using Medicalization to Suppress the Exercise of First Amendment Rights

By Adam Dick | Ron Paul Institute | March 19, 2025

A repugnant tactic of authoritarianism is categorizing people’s desire for or exercise of freedom as illness that government should suppress. An example of this was the deeming of dissidents in the Soviet Union as mentally ill to justify their detention and punishment.

In America, there has long been resistance against an effort to similarly have the United States government medicalize the exercise of gun rights as a means to circumvent the constitutional protection of the right to bear arms contained in the Second Amendment. In the 1990s this resistance led to congressional imposition of a spending prohibition against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) advocating or promoting gun control.

The effort to prevent the US government from using medicalization to crack down on gun rights appears to have had a success in the new Trump administration with the removal from the HHS website of a guns and public health advisory from the preceding Biden administration. Abené Clayton reported Monday at the Guardian :

The Trump administration has removed former surgeon general Vivek Murthy’s advisory on gun violence as a public health issue from the US Department of Health and Human Services’ website. This move was made to comply with Donald Trump’s executive order to protect second amendment rights, a White House official told the Guardian.

The strange thing is that while the Trump administration appears to be taking action to cut off HHS threats to Second Amendment rights, HHS is helping lead Trump administration efforts to expand US government threats to First Amendment rights. Medicalization to restrict free speech, assembly, and petition is on the ascendancy at HHS as demonstrated by a March 3 announcement by HHS, the Department of Education (ED), and the General Services Administration (GSA) concerning the US government’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, created the month before, reviewing actions or inactions of Columbia University relative to “antisemitism” and potential penalties that may be imposed upon that university. This is all justified in the announcement by reference to a January 29 executive order of President Donald Trump that employs a peculiarly expanded definition of antisemitism incorporated into an executive order from Trump’s first term that includes positions against the Israel government in addition to the commonly understood definition that concerns positions against an ethnicity or religion.

“Anti-Semitism – like racism – is a spiritual and moral malady that sickens societies and kills people with lethalities comparable to history’s most deadly plagues,” declared HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in the announcement. That is medicalization in a nutshell: Your “bad thoughts” are a plague the government must stop to protect public health.

Four days later — on March 7, HHS, ED, and GSA were back with a new announcement that, due to review by the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, about 400 million dollars in US grants to Columbia University had been canceled, with more grant cancelations expected to follow. Then, on March 13 the HHS, ED, and GSA followed up with a letter to Columbia University using the denial of funding as leverage to demand the university crack down on free speech, assembly and petition, as well as change, and even hand to US government control over, a variety of university policies and procedures.

Meanwhile, the US government is making an example of Mahmoud Khalil who was involved in protests challenging US foreign policy and related to Israel at Columbia University. The US government has arrested and detained him, and is seeking his deportation, because Khalil apparently did nothing more than exercise First Amendment protected rights.

These actions against Columbia University are not one-off. A February 28 press release from the Department of Justice (DOJ) listed ten universities — Columbia University plus George Washington University; Harvard University; Johns Hopkins University; New York University; Northwestern University; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Minnesota; and the University of Southern California — as subject to visits from the Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism because their campuses “have experienced antisemitic incidents since October 2023.” Expect the list to keep growing.

Leo Terrell, described in the February DOJ press release as “[l]eading Task Force member and Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights,” made clear in an included quote that the Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism means business. He stated:

The Task Force’s mandate is to bring the full force of the federal government to bear in our effort to eradicate Anti-Semitism, particularly in schools. These visits are just one of many steps this Administration is taking to deliver on that commitment.

It looks like we are witnessing the beginning of a major crackdown on First Amendment rights. The US government, however, will claim this development is nothing to worry about because the purpose is to make America healthy again.

March 19, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | Leave a comment

NSW Premier Chris Minns Calls Free Speech a Government Liability

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | March 18, 2025

Chris Minns, Premier of New South Wales, Australia, has done something that politicians rarely do — he’s said the quiet part out loud. In a rare moment of honesty, he’s admitted that the government sees free speech as a liability.

“I recognize and I fully said from the beginning, we don’t have the same freedom of speech laws that they have in the United States, and the reason for that is that we want to hold together a multicultural community and have people live in peace.”

Meaning: Your rights are negotiable, and the price is social harmony — as defined by the state.

The absurdity of this argument is hard to overstate. Historically, the country thrived on its rough-and-tumble political culture, where disagreements were hashed out in public rather than smothered under layers of legalese. The idea that Australians must now muzzle themselves to accommodate imported conflicts is an outright admission of failure by the political class.

Minns and his allies argue that restricting speech is necessary because multiculturalism has made Australia too volatile to handle open debate. But let’s take a step back. Why is Australia suddenly on edge? Is it because everyday Australians have become more hateful and intolerant, or is it because the government has spent decades encouraging division through identity politics?

The immediate context for Minns’ comments is the recent passage of hate speech laws, pushed through Parliament in a frenzy of moral panic. The justification? A crisis that turned out to be a hoax, reportedly concocted by criminals looking for lighter sentences — something the government allegedly knew early on.

MLC John Ruddick didn’t mince words when he addressed this in Parliament:

“Parliament was misinformed by the Minns government about the urgency of the bills referred to in one A, B, and C… this House calls on the Minns government to repeal the bills… and apologize for both misleading this Parliament, preventing a Parliamentary Inquiry, and further curbing free speech principles by these reactionary bills.”

Minns’ response? Doubling down:

“There have been some that have been agitating in the Parliament to nullify the laws to remove them off the statute books. Think about what kind of toxic message that would send to the NSW community.

“And I think the advocates for those changes need to explain what do they want people to have the right to say?

“What kind of racist abuse do they want to see or to be able to lawfully see on the streets of Sydney?”

This is an old trick — framing any challenge to speech restrictions as a demand for open racism. It’s dishonest, it’s lazy, and it conveniently ignores the fact that these laws will never be enforced evenly.

These laws will be used against dissenters. Against people who question government policies. Against critics of the ruling ideology.

If democracy means anything, it means the right to speak freely — even when that speech is unpopular. Even when it makes politicians uncomfortable. Because when free speech is sacrificed on the altar of “social harmony,” what you’re left with isn’t peace — it’s silence. And that silence is exactly what governments crave.

March 19, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Rick Sanchez “threatened with prison” over work with RT

RT | March 18, 2025

Former RT host and longtime television journalist Rick Sanchez has spoken about his experience with the Russian broadcaster in a newly released interview with Tucker Carlson. Once one of RT’s highest-rated anchors, Sanchez revealed that he was forced out of his job last summer under pressure from the administration of former US President Joe Biden, which he says even threatened him with prison over ties with RT. He also revealed that his departure was foreshadowed by an unexpected phone call from an “old friend,” a warning which he described as a case study in the decline of free speech in the US.

Press freedom in the US

Sanchez has criticized the state of press freedom in the US, particularly under the Biden administration. The veteran journalist expressed concerns over increasing restrictions on alternative media voices, arguing that journalists who deviate from government-approved narratives often face professional consequences. He described a growing atmosphere of intolerance for dissenting perspectives, particularly regarding coverage of international conflicts.

Sanchez claimed that mainstream media outlets have become overly aligned with government interests, limiting diverse viewpoints and discouraging critical journalism. “If you don’t toe the line, if you don’t say what they want you to say, you’re out,” he said, emphasizing the pressures faced by journalists covering global affairs, especially those related to Russia and Ukraine. He suggested that reporters are under immense pressure to conform to prevailing narratives or risk retaliation.

Experience working for RT

Reflecting on his time at the Russian news network RT, Sanchez described it as an unexpectedly positive experience. He recalled initially joining the network with some hesitation but soon realizing that he was given considerable editorial freedom.

Sanchez noted that, unlike in many Western outlets, he was not instructed on what to say or how to frame his reports. He characterized his time at RT as “almost nirvana” in terms of journalistic independence, a stark contrast to his experience in US media. However, he also acknowledged that working for a Russian-backed network came with significant scrutiny, particularly from American authorities.

Mysterious phone call from an “old friend”

Sanchez also revealed that he had received a cryptic telephone call from an “old friend” shortly before he was forced to cut ties with RT. He described the conversation as unsettling, with the caller warning him that the people at the government agency he now works for “don’t necessarily like some of the things that you’re saying.”

While he did not disclose the caller’s identity, Sanchez suggested that the person had inside knowledge of actions being taken against him and that the call was meant to intimidate him into resigning before more severe repercussions followed.

Threats of prison

Expanding on the pressures he faced, Sanchez stated that he was not only forced to leave RT but also threatened with legal action. He alleged that US authorities made it clear that his association with the network could result in imprisonment.

“They were like, no, you violate the order and you’re going to prison,” Sanchez revealed, emphasizing the seriousness of the threats. While he did not specify the exact nature of the charges he was warned about, he argued that such actions demonstrate how far the US government is willing to go to suppress dissenting voices.

US tendency to create a villain

One of the central themes of Sanchez’s interview was the American tendency to create a villain in political discourse. He observed that the US media frequently needs an adversary to rally public opinion against, whether it be Russia, China, or a domestic political figure.

Sanchez warned that this pattern stifles critical thinking and forces audiences into a black-and-white worldview where certain countries or individuals are portrayed as purely evil while others are beyond reproach. He argued that this mindset contributes to unnecessary conflicts and prevents meaningful diplomatic engagement.

Sanchez’s perspective on the state of US media

Sanchez offered a harsh critique of American journalism, claiming that many mainstream outlets have abandoned their role as independent watchdogs. He accused the media of prioritizing corporate and political interests over factual reporting, resulting in a narrow and often misleading portrayal of global events.

He further claimed that media consolidation has contributed to the problem, as a handful of powerful companies control most of the news Americans consume. This, according to Sanchez, has led to an environment where only certain viewpoints are allowed airtime, while dissenting opinions are marginalized or outright censored.

Pinning hopes on Trump to reverse trend

Looking ahead, Sanchez expressed hope that US President Donald Trump could lead to a reversal of sanctions imposed on RT and other alternative media sources. He suggested that Trump, who has had a contentious relationship with mainstream US media, might be more inclined to allow greater media pluralism.

“The Trump administration will undo this because things are moving and there’s negotiations now with Russia,” Sanchez said. “And I understand the Trump administration is trying to remove some of the silly sanctions that we have on them that are just ridiculous.”

Sanchez argued that lifting restrictions on foreign-backed outlets would be a step toward restoring genuine press freedom and allowing Americans access to a broader range of perspectives. He concluded that, regardless of political affiliations, the suppression of alternative voices ultimately harms democracy.

March 18, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »