Iran Shuts Down German Soft Power Tool Institute in Tehran in Apparent Tit-for-Tat Move
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 21.08.2024
Diplomatic relations between Iran and Germany have worsened progressively over the past five years thanks to Berlin’s growing propensity to walk lockstep with Washington on an array of issues, from the Iran nuclear deal to attempts to meddle in Iran’s internal affairs, and an effort to chide Tehran for its retaliatory strikes on Israel in April.
The German Foreign Ministry summoned Iran’s ambassador on Tuesday after the Islamic Republic shuttered two branches of German Language Institute of Tehran (formerly the Goethe Institute), which receive funding from the German government and operate under the auspices of the German Embassy.
Iran’s judiciary said it moved to close the “illegal centers” for “breaching” local laws, “committing various illegal actions and extensive financial violations.”
The German Foreign Office slammed the move, saying it was “in no way justifiable,” and that that the institute “is a popular and recognized meeting place where people put a lot of effort into learning languages under difficult circumstances.” The institute’s work is “intended to strengthen the connection between the people of Iran and Germany,” the Foreign Office assured.
The language centers’ closure comes a month after Berlin raided and shut down Islamic Center Hamburg, a Shia Islamic cultural center accused by Berlin of “promoting extremism and radical Islamic ideology,” “spreading aggressive antisemitism,” and providing support for Lebanese political and militia movement Hezbollah, which German authorities deem a “terrorist organization.”
German police also raided 53 affiliated properties across eight German states, banning affiliates in Berlin, Munich and Frankfurt, confiscating assets and shutting down four separate mosques.
German harassment and monitoring of Islamic Center Hamburg goes back to the 1990s. In 2022, its deputy director was expelled from Germany over alleged communications with Hezbollah. In 2023, after the start of the Gaza war, Greens politician Jennifer Jasberg demanded the center’s closure, saying she did not want Hamburg to serve as “a breeding ground for hatred against Israel.”
Iranian authorities blasted Islamic Center Hamburg’s closure as an act of Islamophobia, a boon for terrorism and a move “reminiscent of the racist policies of the Nazi regime.” Iranian acting foreign minister Ali Baqeri slammed the measure as an “unjustified move” that “flouts all principles of freedom of religion and thought.”
Iranian authorities said their investigation into the German Language Institute is ongoing, and indicated that other German state-affiliated entities are being looked at.
While it paints itself as “autonomous and politically independent” and engaged only in the exchange of culture and language, Germany’s Goethe institute has been characterized by some as a tool of soft power for Berlin. Russia froze Goethe Institute bank accounts in Russia in 2023 in a tit-for-tat move after Berlin moved to block the accounts of the Russian House of Science and Art in Berlin several months prior. Moscow said it would unblock the accounts “only after the complete and unconditional unfreezing of the bank accounts” of the Russian center.
The Goethe center was opened in Iran in 1958 under the auspices of the West German government, but saw its activities restricted after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and banned completely in 1987. The institute was reopened in 1995 under the German Language Institute moniker.
Retro Israel panel defies ‘America First’ foreign policy
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos | Responsible Statecraft | July 10, 2024
The National Conservatism Conference, which professes to represent a new conservatism to “understand that the past and future of conservatism are inextricably tied to the idea of the nation, to the principle of national independence, and to the revival of the unique national traditions that alone have the power to bind a people together and bring about their flourishing,” has a foreign policy problem.
On the one hand the organizers and proponents rail against a globalism dominated by supranational neo-liberal institutions, and progressive litmus tests and ideas, but on the other they want borderless solidarity with other like minded nationalists across the globe. And for some reason this precludes them from talking too much about the biggest U.S. foreign policy issue in years, the Ukraine war, for which there is no panel scheduled over the course of the event, Monday through today.
It also means talking about Israel from a predominantly Israeli nationalist perspective. And talking about the Gaza war purely in the frame of Islamic extremism and the “mullocracy” of Iran. In other words, this is only an American interest insofar as, according to the speakers on Tuesday, U.S. presidents are accused of going too easy on Iran, which in part led to the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. And now Washington has to help fix it.
Moreover, American political elites have allowed the “Islamosupremacists” to influence college campuses and Democratic administrations and turn Americans (in this case, Democrats) against not just Israel, but all Jews.
As Ben Weingarten charged in the one Israel panel — “Islam, Israel & the West” — the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas have had a grip on Washington since the George W. Bush administration, where the then-president had the temerity to declare that “Islam is peace.”
If that sounds familiar it is because the same people in the room today, 20 years older and graying at the ears, said the same exact thing after 9/11. But the difference here is that Israel is fighting its own war and making it an American war on terrorism and Islam is not going to work this time. What this national conservatism conference was missing was a true conversation about what is in America’s interest as it pursues policies with Israel, Iran, and the greater Middle East.
Instead we got old chestnuts from Weingarten, an “investigative reporter” for the Federalist, talking about “the troubling views held by large percentages of American Muslims (who) are or subscribe to the same worldview as Islamic supremacists who seek to impose… a theopolitical, Sharia-based ideology on America, wholly antithetical to our constitutional republic; while leftists and Islamic supremacists are in some ways polar opposites, traditional patriotic Americans are the chief stumbling block to each side achieving its objectives.”
To him, American protests against Israel’s military operations in Gaza, which have resulted in at 38,000 (or more) dead, the vast majority of the population displaced and hungry, most of the Strip’s civilian infrastructure (homes, electricity, hospitals, schools) damaged if not destroyed by American-made bombs, is merely the “the predictable consequence of an unholy alliance between progressives and Islamic supremacists that has for several years been fundamentally transforming not only the Democratic Party but America.”
Eugene Kontorovich, an Israeli legal scholar who now teaches at George Mason University’s Anton Scalia Law School, spent his time on the panel railing against international institutions including the United Nations, which he said were dominated by anti-Jewish, pro-Islamist ideologues that were in essence working for Hamas. This conveniently renders, at least to his mind, International Criminal Court charges against Israel, including the deliberate starvation of the Palestinian population, absolutely meaningless (plus, as he has suggested, the U.S. military does it too, a favorite justification among Israeli military apologists since Oct. 7).
Instead he calls the Israel operation in Gaza “clearly the most restrained war in modern times, with the lowest proportion of civilian casualties of any war in modern times.” Again, no conversation about whether the current U.S.-backed strategy will actually protect Israel in the long-term or destroy it from within, or whether it is in America’s interest to push it along.
No doubt, the discussion appealed to the paranoia among this retro crowd that Islamists have more power than they actually have in Washington (which is why Netanyahu is getting a red carpet on Capitol Hill this month, weapons and money slushing to Tel Aviv, and votes sailing through Congress cutting off aid to Palestinians and the very institutions Kontorovich abhors?).
But the National Conservatism conference, founded by the Edmund Burke Foundation under the tutelage of Israeli nationalist Yoram Hazony, should not be confused with the America First foreign policy now being debated in conservative circles today. After three days of programming, that much is clear.
There were a few counterbalances — a thoughtful discussion about the future of NATO, which included realist Sumantra Maitra, and remarks from Elbridge Colby, a self-described conservative realist. During a plenary speech, he said U.S. foreign policy must be rooted in the goals of preserving fundamental American interests of freedom, security, and prosperity, and cast in the lens of prioritization and power balancing. While North Korea, Russia, and Iran pose threats, he contended, they are regional threats to traditional U.S. allies and partners but not existential threats to those aforementioned American core interests. Therefore, he said, they are not foreign policy or security priorities for which the U.S. needs to militarize.
He does suggest, however, that China is a threat to the U.S. economy and the security of our allies in the region, and that requires priority. “Strategy and conservative realism would call for balance of manifest strength in Asia, but also openness to a modus vivendi in China. We must be laser focused on the rightful conservative goal here, to preserve peace, if at all possible, but decent peace, one that ensures Americans are safe, free, and prosperous, and most high necessity prevents China from dominating Asians.”
While not all realists and restrainers agree with Colby’s China perspective here, his brief against the primacist foreign policy of the last 70 years sits well with a growing faction of conservative foreign policy (American interest-focused) today, much to the contrast of the Israel panel dominated by the throw-back ideological rhetoric of the past.
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is Editorial Director of Responsible Statecraft and Senior Advisor at the Quincy Institute.
How Zionist interests are behind British gov’s attempted definition of ‘extremism’
By David Miller | Al Mayadeen | March 28, 2024
The British government has been grappling with the question of extremism for years now. It has failed even to define extremism in any clear fashion, and has been struggling to fight back against an avalanche of criticism that its counter-extremism policies are Islamophobic.
The genocide in Gaza has focused minds in the British elite, because of the massive sympathy for the Palestinians visible on the streets.
The desperate attempts to cast pro-Palestine protestors as genocidal is a desperate attempt to split the movement. The government is trying to reframe “extremism” in such a way that more radical supporters of Palestinian liberation are demonised, criminalised and disavowed by the rest of the movement.
Michael Gove
The minister leading this is the toxic Michael Gove, the most pro-Zionist minister in the government. He has a history of involvement with Zionist lobby groups, and for example, was the first chairman of the Neoconservative and Islamophobic think tank Policy Exchange.
It’s no coincidence that the new policy he is introducing was dreamt up by Policy Exchange in a paper published in 2022. It recommended: Firstly, a consolidated Centre for the Study of Extremism within government, dedicated to the research and diagnosis of Islamist and other forms of extremism. Secondly, a separate communications unit dedicated to publicly combatting disinformation about the Government’s counter-terrorism and counter-extremism strategies. Thirdly, a due diligence unit, which develops and monitors criteria for engagement with community organisations.
Lord Shawcross
All of its main proposals were adopted by Lord William Shawcross in his review of Prevent, published in 2023. Shawcross is famously Islamophobic and his review was even denounced by Amnesty. He was appointed as a senior Fellow at the Policy Exchange in 2018, prior to being appointed to the Prevent Review in 2021.
Shawcross’s recommendations were all accepted by the government, and thus the new policy has effectively been written by a leading Islamophobic think tank.
Blacklisting agency
Among the innovations are a new blacklisting agency in Gove’s department (a so-called counter-extremism centre of excellence) and a change in the status of the Commission for Countering Extremism which changes from being an advisory to an enforcement agency.
Behind Policy Exchange
But behind Policy Exchange lies a shadowy group of foundations which provide cash for its work. Though they are secretive, we can reveal at least two.
The first and most significant is the Charles Wolfson Charitable Trust, which donates almost every year and has given Policy Exchange more than £3 million between 2007 and 2022. The Wolfson family, which runs the trust, are the owners of the Next retail chain. The boss, Simon Wolfson, declined his bonus in 2020-21, and despite this earned almost £3.4 million that year.
The Wolfson family also funds Beit Halochem, which channels money to the occupation forces which it describes as “heroes”. The family also gives money to the Jerusalem Foundation, which is engaged in promoting illegal settlements in occupied East Jerusalem.
Another source of funds is the Rosenkranz Foundation, which has given support to the think tank for more than a decade. Along with other Islamophobic causes. Its director, Robert Rosenkranz, was appointed a director of Policy Exchange in 2010.
In other words, British government policy on extremism is captured by Policy Exchange and Policy Exchange is in part a front for Zionist interests.
Defining ‘extremism’
The British government is in a bind. It can’t define extremism and yet it wants to pretend that it can. An amazing display of the lack of support the proposals have was shown on the BBC Question Time programme, where the presenter Fiona Bruce, after weathering many criticisms asked plaintively: “Let me just ask in the interests of balance, is there anyone here who welcomes what Michael Gove had to say?” She was greeted, as she put it with “not a hand up”.
The government claims that its new policy contains a “new definition” of extremism. But there was never an old definition. And the text they have published is not a definition either. There is still no legal definition of extremism, and this is why the government is at pains to point out that “This definition is not statutory and has no effect on the existing criminal law.”
The reason for this is that the government knows that if it tries and create a statutory definition, it will be subject to legal challenge which it will most probably lose. There is a nervousness about this which is intriguing.
First of all, Michael Gove named five “extremist” organisations under Parliamentary privilege, because he knows he would be subject to legal action were he to name them outside the House.
Disrupting the Palestine solidarity movement
Secondly, though the aim here is to destroy and disrupt the Palestine solidarity movement, primarily, no Palestine-related groups were named.
But pro-Palestine group Friends of al-Aqsa was named in drafts of the speech leaked to the media. It also named the Muslim news site 5Pillars and FoA as “divisive forces within Muslim communities”. The government was too nervous even to name them in Parliament.
Gove stated in the Commons that “Islamism is a totalitarian ideology which … calls for the establishment of an Islamic state governed by sharia law”. He named three groups, the Muslim Association of Britain, Cage, and Mend, all perfectly legal organisations.
Mend immediately challenged Gove “to repeat his claims outside of parliament and without the protection of parliamentary privilege… [to] provide the evidence… that MEND has called for the establishment of an ‘Islamic state governed by sharia law’”.
Even normally staunch allies, such as government adviser John Mann have criticised the policy. He stated that ministers should be prioritising “bringing communities together”. “The government needs to listen to people who are advising that the politics of division will not work,” he told the BBC.
Sophisticated engagement
The division appears to be between those pushing for a Likudnik scorched earth approach and those who favour a “sophisticated engagement” strategy – as it was described by the Zionist think tank Reut and their collaborators the US Zionist spy agency, the Anti-Defamation League in a report in 2016. Back in 2010, the Reut Institute urged Israel’s “intelligence establishment” to “drive [a] wedge between soft and hard critics” abroad. The former should be subject to “sophisticated engagement strategies” while the latter should be subject to “sabotage” and “attack”, it said.
This is not just a political and strategic difference, but a question of defending the millions in state and Zionist funding ploughed into the maintenance of hundreds of jobs in sophisticated engagements, such as the interfaith industry.
Underlying all this, the danger is that the definition best fits genocidal Zionist groups and their supporters within government, most notably Michael Gove himself. The penetration and capture of key elements of security policy by the Zionists is nothing if it is not, as the new so-called definition puts it, an attempt to “undermine, overturn or replace the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights” in the service of attempting to “negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others”, most obviously Muslims and Palestinians and their supporters.
Moscow massacre: Who created Daesh and whose agenda does it serve
By Shabbir Rizvi | Press TV | March 26, 2024
A massive tragedy struck Moscow last week as five armed assailants stormed the Crocus Concert Hall and opened indiscriminate fire on concertgoers, murdering over 130 and wounding many more.
The horrific massacre at the glitzy commercial center, which prompted a massive manhunt, led to the arrest of one assailant at the scene of the crime and others in the Bryansk forest, about 340 km southwest of the Russian capital.
Almost immediately, Daesh (or as the West calls “ISIS”) claimed responsibility for the ghastly massacre, releasing body cam footage of the shooters opening fire on people at the popular concert hall.
Since then, many have raised questions about the terrorist group’s motivations and objectives of the attack – and rightfully so.
Daesh has historically been at the service of Western powers. For example, any time the US needs an excuse to justify military operations from Syria to Iraq – Daesh just happens to raise its ugly face and sow chaos and destabilization.
In fact, Daesh is still the main justification for why the US illegally occupies much of Syria and Iraq – despite Axis of Resistance forces led by the late anti-terror commander General Qassem Soleimani destroying the edifice of the terror group in the region.
Or when Iran faced foreign plots in the form of armed riots in 2022 – rioters that had received training and financial support from American agencies – Daesh took advantage of the chaos and killed over a dozen pilgrims in a cowardly attack on the Shah Cheragh shrine in southern Iran’s Shiraz city.
The timing of the attack came as local security agencies were busy containing the armed rioters, and was seemingly a final bid by foreign hostile powers to foment chaos and disorder in Iran.
Chaos and destabilization are key to the nefarious plots hatched by US imperialists to push their hegemonic agendas. Since the very beginning of the Cold War, the US has been notorious for using mercenary proxy forces in order to advance its imperialistic goals.
So what is Daesh doing in Moscow? Three events come to mind that suggest things aren’t exactly what they seem. In other words, there is more to it than meets the eye.
Let’s switch back to January 2024 – outgoing US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said “Putin faces some nasty surprises on the battlefield this year.”
Nuland was referencing the $60 billion supplemental funding for Ukraine from US Congress – funding that has from the start never been kept track of. Billions of dollars worth of money go into weapons, logistics, and other “aid.” It is no secret that Ukraine has been using mercenaries – even Takfiris.
Daesh fighting in Ukraine is not even a new development. Reports of Daesh fighters fleeing Syria to fight in Ukraine could be recorded as far back as 2015. Fighters were trained under Daesh and then sent to Ukraine to fight Donbas separatists on behalf of the Kiev regime.
We have seen Daesh fighting on the same side as American interests at least twice in recent times – once in Syria against the democratically-elected Syrian government, and second in Ukraine, against Russia – a key US adversary. Also, let’s not forget Afghanistan where Daesh fought the Taliban alongside the US.
Nuland insists that Putin will face challenges on the “battlefield” but Ukrainian drone attacks and bombings throughout Moscow have already set a terroristic precedent for attacks on Russian soil.
A diversity of tactics by employing Takfiri terrorists is still carrying out the same violence by other, more shocking means.
Second, the US knew in advance of a terrorist attack – with the US embassy in Moscow cautioning Americans to avoid large gatherings days before the dastardly attack that claimed more than 130 lives.
In a message to Americans, the embassy stated: “The Embassy is monitoring reports that extremists are planning to attack large gatherings in Moscow, including concerts, in the near future, and US citizens should avoid large gatherings for the next 48 hours.”
Though the message was posted on March 7 and warned of an imminent attack within two days, it seems the US had some damning intelligence. To what degree this information was shared – if it was shared at all – remains unclear.
It is well within the US playbook to post a message of this nature before an attack to absolve themselves of any wrongdoing – but what did the embassy staff and their handlers knew in advance?
The knowledge of the imminent attack also raises other questions. The apprehended shooters revealed they were recruited by unknown people via Telegram, and offered a million rubles for the job.
This is not the modus operandi of Daesh – who typically send fighters on missions that would most certainly ensure they do not survive. However, this does have the markings of the US – which has previously tested Daesh recruitment methods via entrapment cases.
Furthermore, Russian intelligence confirmed years ago that the US has been training Daesh for attacks on Russian soil. So regardless of whether the assailants were Daesh or not, US influence is clearly in one way or another seen in this attack.
Even if Daesh wants to take credit for the attack, ultimately they are just tools in the hands of their American financiers who are seemingly only deployed when the US needs to cause commotion.
And of course, there is the final point – the timing of the attack, and the usage of Daesh itself – corresponds to the international critical lens on Israel.
The Tel Aviv regime has never been under more pressure and detested to such a degree. Its war crimes in the besieged Gaza Strip and disregard for international law have exposed its illegitimate nature.
The public image of Israel has simply never been worse, and they would need something absolutely horrific – and something they can use to their own benefit politically – to get out of the mess.
So where does Daesh come in? One must recall the first few weeks of the Al Aqsa Storm operation – where Zionist media started a campaign falsely equating Hamas with Daesh (ISIS).
The campaign, circulated with the false slogan “Hamas is ISIS” painted Hamas resistance fighters as Takfiri terrorists in order to gain international support for the Zionist cause.
This backfired massively. Hamas and Daesh are well-known enemies, are not ideologically aligned, and do not consider themselves allies in the slightest matter.
This Zionist lie was so far-fetched that even Western media outlets such as Time magazine, Politico, and AP news agency published articles detailing how the two groups are not alike.
Now, as the Zionist image is in tatters, a Daesh attack works in its favor – as it always has.
Racist Zionist politicians and pundits scrambled to social media to warn the world of “Islamism” and to insist yet again that Daesh is the same as Hamas, warning that if they do not destroy Hamas the world would see these attacks in Europe and in the United States, carried out by Hamas (who have never conducted terrorist operations as all of their targets are military targets, and further Hamas operations are limited to only occupied Palestine).
The attack that killed over a hundred innocents is being used as Israeli propaganda to conduct their own war crimes against the Palestinian people.
At best, this is standard Zionist racism and propaganda. At worst, the Zionists themselves had a direct hand in this, at a bare minimum having some knowledge from US intelligence services.
The entire situation screams of foreign manipulation and shadowy Western actors. Daesh has been the Western tool for over a decade now to sow chaos and mayhem – and it seemingly continues to be a go-to tactic for CIA-Mossad operations.
Over a hundred lives were lost and thousands were changed forever. The world must mourn with Moscow and the Russian people over this horrific loss of life – but it must also remain vigilant and ask the right questions.
Who really benefits from chaos and destruction in Russia? Who really benefits from chaos and destruction in Somalia, Iraq and Syria, where Daesh also operates?
One thing is undeniable: wherever you find Daesh, you will always find the shadow of the US with it.
Shabbir Rizvi is a Chicago-based political analyst with a focus on US internal security and foreign policy.
Terrorist attack in Russia – enemies want to generate domestic instability
By Lucas Leiroz | March 25, 2024
The recent terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall, in the suburbs of Moscow, was undoubtedly one of the greatest tragedies in the recent history of the Russian Federation. More than 130 civilians, including several children, were brutally murdered by gunmen on the night of March 22. The death toll is expected to rise further, considering that there are several people hospitalized.
The criminals who participated in the attack have already been captured by Russian security forces. In total, eleven people were arrested, including the four shooters. The killers were Tajik immigrants, apparently linked to radical Islamic groups. They were arrested on the border of Bryansk oblast while trying to escape into Ukrainian territory. After interrogation, they said they were hired via Telegram. The hirers allegedly gave them the weapons used in the crime and promised a reward of half a million Russian rubles.
Interestingly, immediately after the attack rumors began to circulate in the Western media about alleged ISIS responsibility. American newspapers not only accused the Islamic extremist group, but also emphasized on several occasions that there was no Ukrainian responsibility for the attack. This hypothesis, however, seems untrue given the facts so far elucidated during the investigations.
The killers clearly worked as mercenaries in the attack. Despite being Islamic radicals, there is no evidence that their work in the specific case of Crocus City Hall has any connection with this extremist ideology. The killers’ modus operandi did not appear to be related to ISIS (a group with which they do not appear to have any ties). In addition to killing for money, they tried to escape the place and cross the border into Ukraine, which is not expected from ISIS militants, who almost always carry out suicide attacks in search of “martyrdom”.
It is also necessary to remember that ISIS is currently a weak organization and incapable of carrying out large-scale attacks. Since the Russian intervention in Syria, most of ISIS has been liquidated, with only remaining militias from the original group operating in several countries – including Ukraine itself, where radical Islamic militants are often seen among anti-Russian troops. There appears to be a strategic use of the acronym “ISIS” by Western intelligence, with the attribution of responsibility to the group whenever Washington wants to disguise its own involvement in a crime.
Furthermore, the terrorists tried to escape through the Bryansk border, which is a region heavily protected by Russian forces, with a large presence of minefields. Not even during the recent Ukrainian incursions on the border was there an attempt at a Ukrainian land invasion through Bryansk, which shows how difficult to cross this region is. To try to escape there, the terrorists certainly had solid support from Ukrainian intelligence, with precise data on how to circumvent the Russian defense and escape the minefields – which contradicts the Western narrative about Kiev not participating in the attack.
The reasons why the West wants to disguise Ukrainian participation in the case are easy to understand. Kiev does not act alone in its terrorist acts, always having the co-participation of the West. Being a vassal state, Ukraine only obeys orders from its Western backers, which means that, if there was Ukrainian participation in the attack against Moscow, Western agents certainly cooperated in some way to make the incident happen.
It must be remembered that there have been open threats against Russia from Western leaders for a long time. Recently, US former Under Secretary, Victoria Nuland, promised “surprises” to the Russian government in a statement interpreted by many analysts as a sign that sabotage operations would begin to take place within Russian territory. Furthermore, the American Embassy recently advised US citizens to avoid public gathering in Moscow, citing information about terrorist risk. This information was never shared with the Russian authorities, which indicates that, even if there was no American participation in the attack, there was at least an absence of willingness to act jointly against terror.
It must be remembered that these terrorist attacks occur amid an increase in Ukrainian incursions across the border. The Kiev regime has been bombing peaceful Russian cities, such as Belgorod and Kursk, even though there are no military targets in these regions. There appears to be a clear intention on the part of the regime and its supporters to promote terror deep in Russian territory. Faced with military failure, asymmetrical warfare, using terrorism, is the only “alternative” left for the neo-Nazi regime.
The choice of Central Asian immigrants to play the role of assassins seems even more interesting for the intentions of the Ukrainian regime and the West. Russia’s enemies hope to encourage the growth of racism and ethnic polarization in Russian society, trying to move the majority of the population against immigrants from the post-Soviet space. There is no evidence that such a plan will be successful, given the high level of social cohesion in contemporary Russia, but it is well known that fomenting domestic chaos in Russia is an old plan of the West.
The West and Ukraine want to make ordinary Russians feel insecure and start criticizing the government. They are working to recover a scenario similar to that of the 1990s and 2000s, when several terrorist attacks affected the main Russian cities. By awakening such traumas and memories in the Russian people, Western intelligence networks hope to succeed in creating a crisis of legitimacy against the government in the country.
However, the tendency is for precisely the opposite to occur: the more it is attacked, the more the Russian people endorse the government and support the special military operation, as they understand that this is the only way to neutralize terror.
Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
You can follow Lucas on X (former Twitter) and Telegram.
Abolish the FBI
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | January 23, 2024
Among the worst mistakes America has ever made is to bring into existence the Federal Bureau of Investigation — the FBI.
A national police force is an essential part of any tyrannical regime. Just look at any tyrannical foreign regime, either right wing and left wing, over the past 100 years. I will guarantee you that you will find a national police force. It serves as a useful adjunct to a big military-intelligence establishment to keep people in line.
Of course, we are all familiar with such things as COINTELPRO and the FBI’s murder of innocent people at Waco and Ruby Ridge. We are also familiar with the FBI’s fierce opposition to Martin Luther King and the civll-rights movement as well as the virtual certainty that the FBI orchestrated King’s murder. We are also familiar with former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s longtime penchant for keeping secret files on people’s personal lives with the aim of blackmailing them into supporting whatever the FBI wants. We are also familiar with the FBI’s ardent support of the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and the anti-communist crusade. We are also familiar with the FBI’s active role in America’s political system.
Less familiar is the FBI’s ubiquitous practice of inducing people to commit crimes in order to justify its continued existence and its continued receipt of taxpayer-funded largess. That practice involves entrapping people into committing crimes and then proudly patting itself on the back for “keeping America safe” by supposedly busting dangerous criminals.
An example of this sordid practice is detailed in a January 19, 2024, article in the New York Times that involved four men whose lives were partially destroyed by the FBI as part of its attempt to make itself look good by creating and encouraging a crime supposedly committed by those four men.
The four men — James Cromitie, Laguerre Payen, David Williams and Onta Williams — were from Newburgh, New York, and became known as the “Newburgh Four.” Given the FBI’s history of viewing Martin Luther King and the civil-rights movement as communist agents, it’s not surprising that the FBI targeted four Black men for its entrapment scheme. The fact that they were poor also figured into the FBI’s plot, given that the FBI used the lure of big amounts of taxpayer money to induce the men to commit a crime.
The scheme was part of the FBI’s post-9/11 plot to invent criminal conspiracies to commit terrorist attacks. That’s what the FBI did with the Newburgh Four. The FBI used the services of an informant named Shahed Hussain. The FBI had Hussain infiltrate various mosques and identify poor people who could be induced to engage in acts of terrorism. That would enable the FBI to exclaim, “We’ve busted terrorists! We’re keeping you safe! Give us more taxpayer money!”
Hussain promised the Newburgh Four $250,000 if they would agree to participate in a terrorist plot. After several months of refusing the offer, the four black men, at least one of whom was unemployed and broke, agreed to participate in bomb plots at various synagogues.
The men were busted and given 25-year jail sentences. They had served 14 years in jail until a heroic federal judge recently ordered their release. As reported in the New York Times article, the judge, Colleen McMahon, called the case “notorious.” She pointed out that “nothing about the crimes of conviction” had been of the “defendants’ own making.” She pointed out that the FBI’s agent in the crime, Shahed Hussain, was a “small time grifter and petty drug dealer.”
Judge McMahon correctly pointed out that the “real lead conspirator was the United States.” She added, “The F.B.I. invented the conspiracy; identified the targets; manufactured the ordnance.” The New York Times pointed out that McMahon added that the FBI “federalized” the charges — ensuring long prison terms — by driving several of the men into Connecticut to view the “bombs.”
After 14 years in jail on FBI-manufactured crimes, the Newburgh Four are free. But the best way to ensure that the FBI doesn’t destroy other people’s lives is to abolish it. Its dismantling would go a long way toward restoring freedom and justice in America. Anyway, criminal justice belongs at the state and local level, not the federal level.
India Jumps on Washington’s ‘China Containment’ Bandwagon
By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – 15.12.2023
China’s fast-expanding global influence – especially, in the context of the Gaza war – has already emerged as a key issue for Washington. The US is already in a state of denial, and China’s rising global status is turning into too big an issue for New Delhi to handle without entering into a formal anti-China alliance being put together by the US. Therefore, there is an added incentive for New Delhi to reinforce its alliance with the US in an even more anti-China way. This was the major development out of the fifth annual US-India “2+2 dialogue” held on November 10, 2023, in India. As a result, India is reinforcing Washington’s global position on almost all key flashpoints, ranging from Ukraine, and Palestine to the Indo-Pacific region.
The joint statement that came out of New Delhi points in this direction. The statement noted both countries as “natural and trusted partners” seeking “to promote a resilient, rules-based international order with respect for international law, including the UN Charter, sovereignty and territorial integrity” and taking steps to develop a joint approach to “developments in the Indo-Pacific, Middle East, Ukraine among other regions. The ministers expressed mutual deep concern over the war in Ukraine and its tragic humanitarian consequences”.
The joint vision is a prelude to a strategic alliance between New Delhi and Washington. For decades, India championed ‘non-alignment’. But, in the wake of profound shifts in the world due to the two ongoing military conflicts in Eastern Europe (Ukraine) and the Middle East (Palestine), the geopolitical landscape is shaking badly, forcing a great many countries to adjust their positions.
The fact that India is essentially reinforcing Washington’s position against China (and even Russia vis-à-vis Ukraine) means that India is also supporting Washington against two of its key competitors with a view to neutralising their bid to make the world multipolar. This is the key part of India’s shifting foreign policy. Where India might have previously sensed a place for itself in a multipolar world, that dream remains far from close to being realised within today’s polarised global context. Its reason is that the struggle between the US and China, on the one hand and between Russia and NATO, on the other hand, has strengthened US rivals far more than it has benefitted the US. The fact that China is gaining influence means the gap between India and China is, instead of shrinking, fast expanding. China’s economy is already five times larger than India’s, with a GDP of US$ 17.7 trillion versus India’s GDP of US$ 3.2 trillion. The same goes for both countries’ military power.
It makes sense for India to, at least for now, drive its growth and rise within a bipolar world. And, to achieve that, New Delhi has decided to shake hands with Washington. It needs to have Washington on its side in order to neutralise what New Delhi sees as China’s hegemonic rise in Asia and beyond.
With a view to presenting a competition to China, both Washington and New Delhi are also targeting Afghanistan, where the Taliban appear to have developed strong working ties with Beijing. Notably, the logic of Beijing’s normalised ties with the Taliban is underpinned by non-interference in questions and issues of Afghanistan’s politics and society under Taliban rule. While short of recognition, the Taliban’s ties with Beijing – and the fact that Kabul has been successful in largely preventing terror attacks on Chinese interests in Afghanistan – has strengthened the group’s claims to power. For China, these ties matter because Afghanistan is a strategic territory within Beijing’s BRI projects. Therefore, China became the first country to appoint a formal ambassador to Kabul in October, and both countries are already talking about opening the Wakhan Corridor to boost trade and ultimately open a new territorial link between China and Central Asia via Afghanistan.
However, the US and India see these developments differently. Whereas Washington sees it as yet another diplomatic success for China and a step towards the consolidation of its Silk Roads projects, for India, Beijing’s success means that its hopes for developing any ties with the Taliban have shrunk significantly. There is, therefore, an incentive for New Delhi to join hands with Washington to attack the Taliban because it cannot possibly compete with China in Afghanistan. It is for this reason that Afghanistan featured prominently in the meeting. The joint statement basically sought to de-legitimise the Taliban (to internationally complicate China’s terms of engagement with the group) when it said that,
“The Ministers called on the Taliban to adhere to their commitment to prevent any group or individual from using the territory of Afghanistan to threaten the security of any country, and noted UNSC Resolution 2593 (2021), which demands that Afghan territory not be used to threaten or attack any country or to shelter or train terrorists, or to plan or finance terrorist attacks”.
The statement also targeted the Taliban’s handling of human and women’s rights. This growing convergence could have crucial implications for the future of Asia. India’s growing willingness to toe the US line could significantly militarise Asia. New Delhi is all set to host the next meeting of the QUAD, a group comprising India, the US, Australia, and Japan. Although it is not yet a military alliance, it appears to be moving in this direction due to the recent emphasis we have seen on the security aspect in the “2+2 dialogue”. To quote the joint statement,
“The Ministers reaffirmed the importance of a free, open, inclusive and resilient Indo-Pacific and renewed their shared desire to consolidate their dialogue and collaboration through the Quad. They emphasized the important role of the Quad as a force for global good for the peoples of the Indo-Pacific.”
Being seen as a “force for global good” only implies the idea that the US and India see a lot of geopolitical potential in the alliance in terms of achieving a common global objective, i.e., keeping the US-led “rule-based” international order intact. While the US has long been pushing for making the QUAD a military alliance, India’s close embrace of the US will significantly facilitate this possibility.
Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs.
Three Palestinian students shot, wounded in US state of Vermont
Palestinian college students Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Ali and Kenan Abdulhamid were shot walking down the street in Vermont on November 25, 2023.
Press TV – November 26, 2023
Three Palestinian college students have been shot and wounded in the US state of Vermont, in what is perceived to be an Islamophobic act amid unfaltering US support for the Israeli regime’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Burlington Police said that officers responded to a call on Saturday evening and found two shooting victims, with the third a short distance away, all close to the University of Vermont campus.
One victim was reportedly shot in the back while another is said to have been shot in the chest and a third sustained minor injuries.
Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Kingdom identified the students as Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdelhamid and Tahseen Ahmed.
He posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that each of the victims was wearing the Palestinian Keffiyeh when they were attacked, identifying them as “three young Palestinian men.”
“The hate crimes against Palestinians must stop. Palestinians everywhere need protection,” Zomlot wrote on X.
Meanwhile, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said in a news release that they “have reason to believe this shooting occurred because the victims are Arab.”
The ADC said the students were speaking Arabic when the gunman yelled at them and opened fire.
“The surge in anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian sentiment we are experiencing is unprecedented, and this is another example of that hate turning violent,” said ADC National Executive Director in a statement on Sunday.
Burlington Police Chief said the shooter or shooters have not been identified or apprehended, adding the police department is “at the earliest stages of investigating this crime.”
The shooting is part of a broader surge in hate crimes against Muslims and Arabs in the United States.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the US largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization reported receiving 1,283 requests for help and reports of bias from the beginning of October to early November, an increase of 216 percent compared to 2022.
US Lawmaker Slams Pro-Israel Lobby: ‘I Don’t Give a F*** About AIPAC’
Sputnik – 07.11.2023
A congressional lawmaker from Wisconsin recently took the gloves off in an interview with US media about the influence of the Zionist group in Washington politics.
US Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) sharply criticized the influence of the pro-Israel lobby in US politics on Monday, singling out the role of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
“It’s time to call them out for what they are – a front group for conservative policy here in the US – instead of being afraid of them,” said Pocan in an interview with US media.
“I don’t give a f*** about AIPAC – period. I think they’re a cancerous presence on our democracy and politics in general, and if I can be a surgeon, that’s great.”
The statement represents the latest salvo in an ongoing feud between Pocan and the historically influential lobbying group. Last month, AIPAC accused Pocan and several Democratic members of the US House of “trying to keep Hamas in power” in a post on the X social media platform.
The accusation came after several lawmakers voted against a bill expressing unconditional support for Israel’s military action in Gaza (Pocan was not among them). Nine Democratic lawmakers were joined by US Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) in opposing the bill, with Massie stating opposition to the bill’s support for sanctions and implied future commitment of US troops in the conflict.
I condemn the barbaric attack on Israel and I affirm Israel’s right to defend itself.
However, I will not be voting for House Resolution 771 today because:
1) It calls for sanctions on a sovereign country. Sanctions are a prelude to war and hurt the citizens of the country more…
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) October 25, 2023
Pocan responded on the platform, posting “AIPAC is good at not telling the truth… We just don’t support killing kids, which it seems you do.”
At least 4,100 minors and 10,022 people in total have been killed in Israel’s ongoing attacks on the besieged Gaza Strip over the last month, according to latest figures provided by officials.
Additionally, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed 155 people in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, territory illegally occupied by Israel under international law since 1967.
Pro-Israel lobbying groups like AIPAC have helped make Israel the single largest recipient of US foreign aid since World War II, procuring as much as $3.9 billion in yearly assistance for the country.
Criticizing Israel and the influence of the pro-Israel lobby has proven taboo in US politics. US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), one of only three Muslim members of US Congress, was denounced as antisemitic after criticizing the influence of Zionist lobbyists in 2019. The incident saw her attract criticism from prominent members of her own party, including Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former US President Bill Clinton.
Omar was again castigated after a post on social media criticizing Israel in 2021. Omar shared recordings of a threatening voicemail she received in response to public criticism against her at the time, including threatening messages such as “Muslims are terrorists” and one caller saying he hopes her campaign volunteers “get what’s f***ing coming to you.” Public treatment of Muslim officials such as Omar and fellow Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), the only Palestinian member of US Congress, has prompted discussion of the role of Islamophobia and Orientalism in public life.
Orientalism is prejudice against people from the Middle East and Middle Eastern culture. The term was popularized by Palestinian scholar Edward Said in his 1978 book “Orientalism,” which argued that domination of the region is fueled by Western contempt and stereotypical assumptions about the Arab world.
A recent study by researchers at Brown University found that as many as 3.8 million people have been killed amidst US-backed military action in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and other countries in the 21st century. US interference in the region has been ongoing for decades, and includes a CIA-backed coup in Iran in 1953, US funding of Mujahideen forces in Afghanistan since the late 1970s, and continued US military support for Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.
Grooming our children, Part 1: Getting parents out of the picture
By Belinda Brown | TCW Defending Freedom | November 2, 2023
Are parents aware of what children from four years old are being taught about sex in our schools? Belinda Brown thinks not. In a series of articles she makes the case that, with the agreement of the Department for Education, our children are being exposed to what is tantamount to a national grooming programme. The first step of this successful sex educators’ coup, she explains today, was to get parents out of the picture, to take over their role, and then deny them any access to lessons. Miriam Cates is one MP who is fighting back.
IN JUNE Conservative MP Miriam Cates introduced the ‘sex education transparency’ Private Members’ Bill, putting Rishi Sunak under pressure to give schools a legal duty to publish materials used in sex education lessons. Backed by 70 Conservative MPs, the aim of the Bill is to secure parents’ rights to see their children’s Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) lesson plans: rights which parents thought they had, only to find them being denied.
Cates had already called for an urgent Government review into what was being taught in RSE since this programme was rolled out in September 2020, of such concern were the materials and lessons parents gleaned from their children. RSE, it emerged, was the brainchild of the ‘progressive’ independent Sex Education Forum, a busy organisation with a stipend of £200,000 a year and a clear ‘beyond biology’ agenda. The Prime Minister responded to Cates’s call and ordered the review last March. Unaccountably, his Secretary of State for Education, Gillian Keegan, refused to publish the findings and has no plans to do so. Why, we do not know. MPs had claimed the Department for Education’s (DfE) most recent relationships and sex education guidance, produced in 2019 in consultation with the LGBT+ charity Stonewall, had allowed ‘activist groups’ to overly influence teaching materials. The guidance does not set age limits on what can be taught.
In the meanwhile, the position of parents has not changed. One story catalysed Cates’s most recent initiative. Two years ago, Clare Page found out that her daughter had been taught at school that ‘heteronormativity’ (preferring the opposite sex) was a bad thing and had been told that she should be ‘sex positive’. Like any decent mother, she wanted to know more. Her request to see the material used in her daughter’s classroom was turned down, first by the Information Commissioner’s Office and then by a first-tier tribunal. She was not even allowed to find out whether her daughter had been taught by the ‘master fetish trainer’ who worked for the School of Sexuality Education (SSE) employed by her daughter’s school.
Page’s case marks another step in the long march through the institutions whereby parents are being excluded from once personal and family-based aspects of their children’s upbringing, now inappropriately and dangerously taken over by schools.
Her experience is far from exceptional. In Wales, where children are being exposed to a mandatory diet of explicit and highly ideological sex education, parents are not allowed to remove their children from these classes. Attempts to do so are repeatedly turned down.
Likewise, parents such as those trying to protect their children from sexual extremism in the London Borough of Redbridge are portrayed as religious fundamentalists and radical homophobic Islamists.
Some schools and local authorities even have a policy of not informing parents when a child expresses what the school categorises as ‘feelings of gender distress,’ a study found, though this flies in the face of safeguarding rules. More recent research indicates that it could be that the school’s teaching that is the source of distress.
In theory, parents do have rights in law. Under the European Convention of Human Rights, ‘the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching is in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions’. The 2002 Education Act Guidance repeatedly emphasises the role of parents. ‘Teaching must be done with respect to the backgrounds and beliefs of pupils and parents . . . All schools should work closely with parents when planning and delivering these subjects. Schools should ensure that parents know what will be taught and when, and clearly communicate the fact.’
Yet this is not happening. Any criticism that teaching places insufficient emphasis on the value of traditional marriage between a man and a woman, for example, is ignored.
When the School of Sexuality Education complained that the Department of Education’s guidance gave ‘problematic credence’ to long-term relationships and marriage, they had the government’s ear (p10). These sex education activists ‘provide in-school workshops on consent, sexual health, porn and positive relationships’. Their approach, they say, is rights-based – whose rights they do not say. They proclaim themselves as ‘sex-positive, non-binary and trauma informed’.
When they criticised the guidance section that suggested that primary schools should only teach pupils about LGBT when it was ‘age appropriate’ rather than from reception, these phrases were obligingly removed by the DfE.
Gillian Keegan should ask herself who these sex education providers are and why they want the material they are pushing at our children to be unrestricted by age.
This contempt for parents was expressed early on in an ‘Educate and Celebrate’ guidebook foisted on schools. Their proposal was that rather than get parents’ permission for children to attend LGBT events, they would organise LGBT events in the school (p24). When parents tried to protect their children from all this, they were told they were breaking the law.
The result of the government’s inadequate guidance, Cates says, is ‘a permission slip for teaching almost anything that is loosely associated with gender, sexuality or sexual practice – often with an assumption of the earlier, the better’ (p71).
Without providing any apparent curriculum, and without parents able to monitor what was being taught, these so-called specialist sex ‘educators’, heavily funded by the government, with clearly articulated curricula and political agendas, have zealously filled the gap.
Foremost of these is the ideology of queer theory that asserts that ‘heteronormativity’ – the natural biological sex preference for the opposite sex, should be ‘smashed’. It rejects all ‘binaries’ including distinctions between homosexuality and heterosexuality, male and female, and even more disturbingly, between adult and child.
This is the ideology that’s the foundation of the RSE curriculum that a Conservative government has sanctioned. It will be explored in greater depth in the rest of the series. Parents have a right to know, reject it and protest.
To be continued.
Why a global anti-Hamas coalition pushed by Macron is a bad idea
By Rachel Marsden | RT | November 2, 2023
Last week, standing beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a visit to Jerusalem, French President Emmanuel Macron suggested recycling the global coalition of 86 nations against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) to focus on Hamas.
“Hamas is a terrorist group, whose objective is the destruction of the state of Israel. This is also the case of ISIS, of Al-Qaeda, of all those associated with them, either by actions or by intentions,” Macron said, betraying a short and selective memory. The stated goal of IS wasn’t to eradicate Israel – it was to establish a caliphate in Syria and Iraq, then broaden it into Arab countries. IS was first and foremost a threat to the stability of Syria – the same country whose government the US and its Western allies actively hindered in its fight against terrorism by making a failed attempt at overthrowing President Bashar Assad through Pentagon and CIA-backed training and equipping of “Syrian rebel” jihadists. As for Al-Qaeda, Israel was even reportedly at one point helping treat wounded militants from the group who were fighting their common enemy, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, in Syria – in turn effectively hindering the fight against IS, as Syria and Hezbollah worked to destroy it.
The Global Coalition against Daesh (another name for IS), founded in 2014, explicitly excluded Russia, whose invitation by Damascus to help it eradicate the terrorist threat can be largely credited for Syria’s stabilization, and the fact that it’s rare to even hear any talk of IS anymore. Russia’s involvement in neutralizing the terrorist group, coupled with former US President Donald Trump’s refusal to continue funding Washington’s incursion into Syria, beyond hunkering down in the oil-rich Kurdish part, was the ultimate key to IS’ defeat. So with apparently little left for it to do now, Macron recommends that the coalition that mostly sat and watched – while Russia, Iran, and Syria did the heavy lifting – take on Hamas. Who does he think is going to do the work this time? Russia, which is still excluded from the coalition? Syria, which has recently taken incoming missile fire from Israel? Iran’s Hezbollah allies, who lost 1,000 men fighting IS in Syria – and whom Netanyahu has placed in the same basket as Hamas as an enemy of Israel? Good luck with that.
So with the most effective anti-IS fighters excluded from fighting Hamas, who’s left in Macron’s proposed coalition? There’s the Global South, including some African countries that just kicked out French troops for their own failed counterterrorism missions which had led to multiple coups and the flourishing of jihadism. It’s doubtful these nations will now be keen to embark on yet another counterterrorism mission alongside the same forces that they just expelled.
Then there are all those members of the international community who are quietly thinking what United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres dared to say aloud last week – that Hamas’ brutal attack on October 7, which left close to a thousand civilians and hundreds of military and security personnel dead, “did not happen in a vacuum.” He was, of course, hinting at Israel’s longstanding, UN-recognized oppression of civilians in Gaza. His statement begs yet another question: Is Hamas really a global threat? Or is it just Israel’s problem?
Anti-Israel unrest has reverberated outside of the immediate conflict zone, including in Western Europe and the US, but these protests have nothing to do with Hamas. Instead, citizens elsewhere in the world are merely reacting to perceived injustices, particularly in light of what they consider to be an overwhelmingly pro-Israel bias on the part of the Western establishment, which initially and drastically minimized concerns over the protection of Palestinian civilians. So any global action against Hamas seems futile.
The anti-IS coalition targeted the terror group’s propaganda, with its website stating that IS’ “use of social media tied to acts of terrorism is well-documented. In response, Coalition partners are working together to expose the falsehoods that lie at the heart” of its ideology. They’re free to do that, but why bother when there’s already open debate among those who have the opportunity to see reports from the ground and assess the situation for themselves? Governments can’t be trusted not to promote their own propaganda under the guise of combating it – all to secure an advantage for their preferred narrative.
Just consider the recent example of propaganda emitted by one of the self-styled gatekeepers of truth: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “Russia and Hamas are alike… their essence is the same,” she said. Nah, actually they aren’t the same at all. And not even Israel has been saying that, but still, “Vladimir Putin wants to wipe Ukraine from the map. Hamas, supported by Iran, wants to wipe Israel from the map,” von der Leyen explained. Besides the hot take on Putin’s intentions regarding Ukraine, that’s like saying that since Warren Buffet has a bank account, and I have a bank account, then I’m also a billionaire. This is exactly the kind of nonsense that Western anti-propaganda campaigns end up spewing.
The anti-IS coalition was made to tackle IS. If that’s no longer an issue, then just toss it in the trash. How many interventionist entities does the West need to spearhead, anyway? There are already more than enough vehicles and coordination mechanisms for intelligence sharing, propagandizing, and security operations. Besides, there’s no proof that better intelligence could have helped Israel when Egyptian and American officials have claimed that Netanyahu had warning of the impending Hamas attack. About the only thing that more useless Western-led bureaucracy would help is the West’s own hunger for more of it.
Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist, and host of independently produced talk-shows in French and English.
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The lies about the 1967 war are still more powerful than the truth
By Alan Hart | June 4, 2012
In retrospect it can be seen that the 1967 war, the Six Days War, was the turning point in the relationship between the Zionist state of Israel and the Jews of the world (the majority of Jews who prefer to live not in Israel but as citizens of many other nations). Until the 1967 war, and with the exception of a minority of who were politically active, most non-Israeli Jews did not have – how can I put it? – a great empathy with Zionism’s child. Israel was there and, in the sub-consciousness, a refuge of last resort; but the Jewish nationalism it represented had not generated the overtly enthusiastic support of the Jews of the world. The Jews of Israel were in their chosen place and the Jews of the world were in their chosen places. There was not, so to speak, a great feeling of togetherness. At a point David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father and first prime minister, was so disillusioned by the indifference of world Jewry that he went public with his criticism – not enough Jews were coming to live in Israel.
So how and why did the 1967 war transform the relationship between the Jews of the world and Israel? … continue
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