Iran’s Syria envoy rejects reports on cash theft from embassy
Press TV – December 11, 2024
Iran’s ambassador to Syria has rejected reports that some $42 million worth of cash was stolen from the Iranian embassy in Damascus just after staff left it in anticipation of a change of government in the Arab country.
“There was a single dollar. Why should there be $42 million in an embassy,” said Hossein Akbari on Wednesday during an interview with Tasnim news agency.
Akbari said the ransacking of the Iranian embassy, which took place on Monday, was the work of a group of thugs who were not related to armed militants taking control of Damascus after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad left the country last weekend.
He said that only the embassy’s furniture had been damaged during the ransacking, adding that the staff had evacuated all other important items, including computers and technical equipment.
The ambassador said that Iran’s embassy in Damascus is currently under protection like other foreign missions in Syria upon orders issued by the ruling militants.
“I’m sorry for those media outlets that gave such extensive coverage to this fake news,” he said while referring to the domestic circulation of the story on cash theft from the embassy in Syria which he said had originally been reported by anti-Iran platforms outside of the country.
Akbari said that some 10,000 Iranians are currently working or studying in Syria and need to receive regular consular services.
He added that the ruling militants in Damascus have been urging foreign missions to continue their activities, adding that Iran will resume offering consular services in Syria once the Arab country’s transitional government sets up its foreign ministry.
NBC Blasts Trump and Kennedy for Wanting to Conduct Vaccine-Autism Studies
NBC claims this issue has been debunked … but has it?
Injecting Freedom by Aaron Siri | December 8, 2024
NBC today blasted DonaldTrump and RobertKennedyJr for wanting to study a possible connection between “autism and childhood vaccines” because NBC claims it has been “debunked” by “hundreds of studies.” But has it? The answer is unmistakably “no!” Here is the proof:
Most parents with autistic children claim vaccines – including DTaP, Hep B, Hib, PCV13, and IPV, each injected 3 times by 6 months of age – are a cause of their child’s autism.* Yet the studies to support that these vaccines do not cause autism have not been conducted.
In 1986, Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act in which it ordered federal health authorities (HHS) to study whether pertussis vaccine can cause autism due to parental complaints regarding same.
In 1991, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) issued its report on this question and could not find a single study on the question of whether pertussis vaccine causes autism. Meaning, the science had not been done.
In 2012, the IOM was again commissioned to study this question, this time by CDC, and also the question of whether tetanus and diphtheria vaccines can cause autism (DTaP), and again the IOM could not find a single study to support the claim that these vaccines do not cause autism. Not one. But it did find one study supporting that DTaP vaccine is correlated with autism but threw it out since it was based on VAERS data.
In 2018, I deposed the world’s leading vaccinologist about the 2012 finding by the IOM and while admitting there are no studies to support that these vaccines do not cause autism, he said he would nonetheless tell parents vaccines do not cause autism even though he has no evidence to support that claim.
In 2019, we sued CDC for the studies it claims support that the vaccines given in the first six months of life do not cause autism. CDC then identified 20 studies: 18 of those studied a different vaccine (MMR) or an ingredient not in these vaccines (thimerosal), and one irrelevant study looked at antigens. Incredibly, the final study CDC identified was the 2012 IOM review that found no studies supporting that DTaP doesn’t cause autism.
In 2020, in a lawsuit specifically about vaccines and autism, one the world’s leading vaccinologists admitted under oath that there were no studies to support that vaccines given in the first six months of life do not cause autism.
This is why actually studying whether vaccines cause autism is important: Video report
While CDC claims that vaccines do not cause autism, despite demanding the studies to support this claim for the vaccines given in the first six months of life, and asking, suing, deposing, etc., for them for years, we still have not received a single such study.
But NBC doesn’t really care about the facts, rather it just repeats the dogmatic claim that “vaccines do not cause autism” like a mantra.
One final thought: given the lack of studies regarding vaccines and autism – the issue CDC and “health” authorities claimed to have most thoroughly studied – imagine the state of the “science” with regard to the 100 other serious harms (often immune or immune-mediated disorders) parents claim are caused by vaccines. (For more meat on that bone watch Episode 388)
France is a perfect example of centrist elites wrecking the West
By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | December 7, 2024
It is almost as if some EU capitals have a tenacious death wish. After Berlin’s amazing and ongoing self-Morgenthauing act of industrial suicide for the greater glory of America’s NATO and Zelensky’s Ukraine, Paris is now self-Waterlooing. As France’s newly-discharged prime minister Michel Barnier almost correctly noted, the “country is going through a profound crisis.”
‘Almost,’ because it’s not ’going through’, but stuck in it.
Meanwhile, the man who set this train to nowhere in motion with a hissy fit of an early-election at the beginning of June, former investment-banker-turned-president Emmanuel Macron, won’t quit, although he’s politically bankrupt. He also keeps blaming everyone but himself, while promising to provide “stability.”
The president’s obstinacy would be funny if it weren’t so tragic for France. As French newspaper Libération has put it, “how can you embody stability when you’re the one who’s produced the chaos?” But then, to be fair to the former Wunderkind of Centrism, for the West’s “elites” and their offspring, too (Hi there, Crack Hunter, lawless son of Genocide Joe!), taking responsibility is just so passé. More importantly, Macron’s personal if humungous failure as a politician and, worse, national leader is not the whole story.
Despite the broad powers of the French presidency and Macron’s narcissistic tendency to over-estimate his own significance, he has been a devastating catalyst, an unwitting tool of history rather than a mover-and-shaker in his own right. This, not to be misunderstood, does not absolve him of guilt. It simply means that focusing on him is much less interesting than he himself believes.
Instead, the deep crisis that has come to a head with parliament’s sacking, on December 4, of Barnier and his short-lived minority government, is the result of two large social forces, and one overarching trend that pervades in the West and deserves the label of historic.
Regarding the social forces, on one side, there are economic stagnation and budgetary stress, and, on the other, a pervasive loss of popular legitimacy for politics-as-usual and, in addition, of basic trust and confidence. Concerning the historic trend, we’ll get to that in a moment.
As for the economics of the mess, just consider a few basic facts and key indicators: The trigger for the government collapse was, as recently in Germany, a crisis of state finances: Barnier’s short-lived minority government fell over its attempt to push through a budget for 2025. The deficit for this year, 2024, is forecast to reach at least 6% of GDP, which is, of course, twice the official EU limit of 3%.
For comparison, the Russian Finance Ministry estimates that country’s 2024 budget deficit to reach just over 1%. Even accounting for potential bias on the side of a government agency, the difference is striking, especially if you consider that Moscow has been the target of unprecedented Western economic warfare and has also had to mobilize to defeat the West in the proxy war in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, France’s economic growth is at barely 1%, according The Economist and, according to the European Commission, will slow to 0.8% in 2025. Economists say that’s too optimistic. In other words, there is no “growth,” only stagnation-by-another-name. French business struggles with high energy prices, high interest rates, and waning consumer confidence. Major French firms are cutting jobs by the thousands, bankruptcies “are soaring,” and there is a cost-of-living crisis, again similar to the other Sick Man of the EU, Germany. Long gone seem the days when a Franco-German duo was supposed to be the EU’s beating heart.
To round off the misery, Paris sits on sovereign debt totaling almost €3.3 trillion, equivalent to over 110% of GDP. What the EU allows officially is 60%. That’s a situation The Economist calls “alarming,” with fine English understatement. In reality, “alarming” was yesterday. Paris is now at la-merde-is-hitting-the-proverbial-fan level. Just consult the international ratings agencies: Already at the end of October, Moody’s downgraded France’s credit outlook from “stable” to “negative”; now, the agency has reacted to the budding crisis-on-top-of-a-crisis by highlighting France’s political deadlock and concluding that the probability of consolidating its public finances has been reduced. Some French observers at least are wondering if a full credit rating downgrade is coming. And what about Standard and Poor’s and Fitch, Moody’s competitors? Pardon my French, but just don’t ask.
It’s a dismal picture on the economic front but wait till you see the politics and the national mood!
In the most immediate terms, Macron’s reckless early-election gamble in the summer and his devious and undemocratic maneuvering to keep out the victorious Left after his party’s predictable trouncing, has left France, in effect, ungovernable. Barnier’s predictable failure makes no difference to that fact. Fresh parliamentary elections, once again, would probably not help either. And anyhow, they are ruled out by the constitution before next summer.
Macron will now try out yet another prime minister, number six since he became president. That is a high attrition rate: In 7 years, the would-be embodiment of “institutional stability” has gone through as many heads of government as De Gaulle in 19 years.
It’s also an accelerating attrition rate: Macron’s prime ministers get used up ever faster. The future will show if this trend can be broken. If so, then not because of but despite the president’s baneful influence. As a French commentator noted, he won’t provide a solution, but he can still cause a lot of problems.
There are good reasons for declaring this moment the death of Macronism. Its core project of leaving behind the politics of left and right and replacing them with a combination of Centrism and a “Jupiterian” (Macron’s own, early term) personality cult now lies in tatters.
Specifically, Macronism’s claim to, at the very least, stave off the populist right of Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) is a sad joke: No matter what you think about the RN, there is no doubt that its power has never been as great as now, and its chances of capturing the presidency, with or without Marine Le Pen in the lead, have never been better.
Macron has become the Biden of France: in both cases, while building their rule on a promise to keep out right-populist challengers, the two presidents’ incompetence and egotism has facilitated the rise of those challengers.
And how do the French feel in the midst of all of this? Spoiler alert: Not grand. According to French newspaper Le Monde’s summary of comprehensive polling by Ipsos, France is a “country anxious and discontent, hit by a political crisis,” and bereft of trust in its “political personnel and institutions.” In terms of their individual experiences, only 50% are content, 70% believe that the conditions of their life are “less and less favorable,” and 55% say they find it hard to make ends meet.
Regarding their country as a whole, a whopping 87% consider it in decline, which is 18% worse than when Macron was elected for the first time in 2017: National slow claps for “Jupiter.” But the rest of the political elites don’t look much better: Solid, even preponderant majorities consider them “corrupt” (63%), “not representative” (78%), and out for their own, personal good (83%).
In principle, there’s a difference between being miserable and being afraid. But the two states of mind go together really well, too: Almost all of the French (92%) have a bad feeling they are living in a “violent society”, and almost a third think “very violent” is the more precise term. You may say things could hardly get worse. Yet the French firmly believe they can: 89% see violence on the rise, and the majority of those respondents (61%) think it is rising “a lot.”
In sum: A selfish boss from hell (who could fire himself but swears he won’t), no functioning government, a tanking economy, and a mood like there’s no tomorrow. How did that happen to the “Grande Nation”? This is where we get back to the third factor mentioned above: the overarching historic trend. Let’s zoom out from unhappy France and small-minded, selfish Macron, and what we are seeing is an exemplary case of Centrism ruining a country.
True, you would never guess that if you relied on, for instance, The Economist. There, the same old, tired, and dim story is relentlessly told: How a heroic “center” and its stalwart defenders are resisting (or not so much) dastardly attacks from the “populists” and “extremists.” It’s an epic battle of light and darkness, Hobbits and Orcs, almost as if lifted straight from a fantasy novel. It even features glorious last stands: For the New York Times, Britain’s Keir Starmer, “one of the last centrist leaders on the global stage” is “trying to fight populism from the lonely center.” “Remember the Alamo,” I guess.
And yet, look at the real world: Clinton, Biden, Harris, Scholz, Macron, to name only a few – What do they all have in common? They stand for the failed, rejected project of elitist Centrism, dragging down their countries. For a stubborn, snobbish, and manipulative style of politics, complete with lawfare, mass media campaigns of calumny and disinformation, incipient authoritarianism and police-state methods, a dead-end foreign policy of blaming others (Russia and China most of all) for their countries’ problems and decline, and a resolute surrender to the forces of “the market,” which, here, is simply code for globalized capitalist interests.
It is a project that systematically confuses securing the power and privileges of traditional elites with national stability and welfare. Last but not least, its practitioners stand for an aggressive hubris that routinely derides and demonizes all challengers as beyond the pale of propriety. None of this has anything to do with democracy. On the contrary, as Macron’s handling of elections has illustrated, this is a policy of preventing popular participation and empowerment from below. Centrism is in deep crisis. That much, dear Economist, is true. It should be and only has itself to blame.
Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.
Syrian Women Exploited in MI6 Propaganda Ops
By Kit Klarenberg | Global Delinquents | December 5, 2024
The propaganda value of women in conflicts has long-been cynically exploited by Western intelligence services. A leaked CIA memorandum from March 2010 on covert means of increasing flagging support for NATO’s Afghanistan mission noted women “could serve as ideal messengers” in “humanizing” the military occupation. This was due to their “ability to speak personally and credibly about their experiences under the Taliban, their aspirations for the future, and their fears of a Taliban victory”:
“Outreach initiatives that create media opportunities for Afghan women to share their stories… could help to overcome pervasive skepticism among women in Western Europe toward the mission. Media events that feature testimonials by Afghan women would probably be most effective if broadcast on programs that have large and disproportionately female audiences.”
Throughout the US occupation of course, Afghanistan remained one of the worst countries in the world to be a woman, by some margin. Roughly a year after that CIA memo was authored, Gay Girl in Damascus, a blog purportedly written by Syrian-American lesbian Amina Arraf, garnered significant mainstream attention. Widely hailed for her “fearless” and “inspiring” eyewitness reporting, she was lauded as a symbol of the “progressive” revolution erupting in the country.
In June 2011, Amina’s cousin announced on the blog Amina had been kidnapped by three armed men in the Syrian capital. In response, numerous Facebook pages were set up calling for Amina’s release and ‘liked’ by tens of thousands, #FreeAmina trended widely on Twitter, journalists and rights groups begged Western governments to demand her release, and the US State Department announced it was investigating Amina’s disappearance.
Six days later, it was revealed ‘Amina’ was in fact Tom MacMaster, a middle-aged American man living in Scotland, who had penned extensive lesbian literotica fantasies under that alter ego. While corporate news outlets quickly forgot all about the hoax they’d so comprehensively fallen for, their appetite for dubious human interest stories emanating from the crisis wasn’t diminished.
‘Huge Global Coverage’
In July 2019, an image of two young Syrian girls trapped in rubble in opposition-occupied Idlib attempting to haul their sister to safety as she dangled off the precipice of a dilapidated building, their father looking on in horror above, spread far and wide on social media.
The photo, snapped by a photographer for Syrian news service SY24, went viral the world over. Unbeknownst to viewers though, SY24 was created and funded by Global Strategy Network, a prominent British intelligence cutout founded by Richard Barrett, former MI6 counter-terrorism director. In leaked submissions to the British Foreign Office, Global Strategy boasted of how its propaganda “campaigns” broadcast via SY24 generated “huge global coverage,” having been seen by “many hundreds of millions of people,” and “attracting comment as far as the UN Security Council.”
SY24 content was produced by a network of ‘stringers’ in Syria that Global Strategy trained and provided with equipment, including “cameras and video editing software.” The firm drew particular attention to a team of female journalists it had tutored, “who provide about 40 percent of all SY content,” and were part of “a broad ‘network of networks’” enabling the company “to drive stories into the mainstream.”
Global Strategy also established a dedicated centre for training female journalists to produce content for SY24 in Idlib, “accessing stories that male journalists cannot,” which were then shared on social media. It boasted that almost half of SY24’s followers were women, “a remarkably high ratio for Syria-focused platforms.”
Carefully cultivating an entirely misleading image of an inclusive, credible ‘moderate’ Syrian opposition was of paramount importance to British inelligence. It helped whitewash the barbarous nature of the various ‘rebel’ factions London was backing in the region, while simultaneously engendering support among Western citizens for regime change.
In order to engage the “international community” to this end, Global Strategy, in conjunction with ARK – a shadowy “conflict transformation and stabilization consultancy” headed by veteran MI6 officer Alistair Harris – planned “communication surges” around “key dates” such as International Women’s Day.
In a particularly elaborate example of such a “surge”, the pair collaborated on “Back to School”, a campaign in which young Syrians returned to education. Idlib City Council, opposition commanders, and other elements on the ground concurrently engaged in a “unified” communications blitz, using “shared slogans, hashtags and branding.” Rebel fighters were sent to “clear roads” and “enable children and teachers to get to schools,” all the while filmed by the pair’s voluminous local journalist network, footage of which was then “disseminated online and on broadcast channels.”
Ensuring “female teachers” received sizeable coverage in the Western media was a key objective of the campaign. Furthermore, in many leaked files, ARK boasted of the huge network of journalists it had trained and funded in Syria, who would cover such PR stunts, secretly orchestrated by the organisation. Their reports in turn fed to the firm’s “well-established contacts” at major news outlets including Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN, The Guardian, New York Times, and Reuters, “further amplifying their effect.”
‘Thrust by Tragedy’
Other documents make clear ARK well-understood the immense difficulties of promoting the role of women internally and externally during the crisis. One file on “[incorporating] the role of women in the moderate opposition” notes Syrian women in rebel-occupied areas faced “an almost overwhelming variety of problems,” and “the space for women to participate in public life has contracted significantly as the conflict has progressed.”
As a result, ARK was “extremely aware of the risks of promoting women’s participation beyond currently accepted social norms… given the potential to hinder message resonance or result in a backlash against female participation.” It therefore proposed to “subtly reframe the narrative of women… increasing the amount of coverage of their initiatives and opinions as the context allows.”
One means of “subtle reframing” was Moubader (which translates to “person who takes initiative”), a media asset created by ARK in 2015, comprising a “high-quality hard copy monthly magazine with widespread distribution across opposition-held areas of Syria,” with a website and Facebook page boasting almost 200,000 likes. Moubader was established by ARK to achieve “behavioural change” in readers. “Given the importance of broadcast television as a trusted source” in Syria, ARK also sought British intelligence funding to develop a Moubader TV programme, to “leverage stories and values to maximum effect and reach an even wider audience.”
Documents submitted to the Foreign Office by another intelligence cutout, Albany, similarly noted women’s access to education, healthcare, and economic opportunity had “been debilitated” during the crisis, which issues such as early marriage, child military recruitment, and “transactional sex” exacerbated. The UN defines the latter as “non-commercial sexual relationships motivated by an implicit assumption that sex will be exchanged for material support or other benefits.”
Still, Albany considered so many Syrian women having been “thrust by tragedy into head of household and breadwinner positions” over the course of the crisis as a golden opportunity to propagandize them and, in turn, their families, while promoting the ‘inclusive’ nature of the opposition, by creating and partnering with female civil society organizations and journalists.
ARK likewise believed women to be a “critical audience”, given the number of Syrian households with female heads –“up to 70 percent”. So, the organisation sought to ensure they were well-represented in all its domestic and international “broadcast products”, as well as on social media.
‘Female Participation’
Unsurprisingly, the files do not acknowledge the increasingly hostile environment for women in Syria directly resulted from foreign efforts to destabilise and depose its government. ISIS and al-Nusra were and remain rightly notorious for their monstrous treatment of women in the areas they occupied, which included widespread rape, sexual violence and abduction.
However, many armed opposition groups backed by Britain and other foreign powers imposed stringent restrictions on women in the areas they occupied, requiring them to wear hijabs and abayas, doling out extreme punishments for failing to comply, imposing discriminatory measures prohibiting them from moving freely, working, attending school, and more.
There are indications British intelligence was in close quarters with such activities. For instance, in December 2017 BBC documentary Jihadis You Pay For alleged Foreign Office cash distributed on its behalf via contrator Adam Smith International in Syria ended up in the pockets of Free Syrian Police (FSP) officers who not only stood by while women were stoned to death, but closed surrounding roads to facilitate their murder.
The ‘Free Syria Police’ at work
FSP, an unarmed shadow civilian police force operating in opposition-controlled areas, was created, funded and trained under the auspices of the British intelligence-funded Access to Justice and Community Security (AJACS) program. In a perverse irony, leaked Adam Smith International files relating to the project indicate it too sought to exploit women for propaganda purposes, applying a gender policy “to encourage female participation in justice and policing.” The company boasted of how, of the 1,868 police officers it trained under the scheme, six – 0.32 percent – were female.
Quite some “revolution”. As Human Rights Watch noted in 2014, prior to the outbreak of civil war, women and girls across Syria were “largely able to participate in public life, including work and school, and exercise freedom of movement, religion, and conscience.” While the country’s penal code and laws governing issues such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance contained some discriminatory provisions, the country’s constitution guaranteed gender equality.
Israeli Soccer Hooligans Cry Out as They Strike You
By Kevin Barrett – American Free Press – November 22, 2024
On November 7, chaos erupted in the streets of Amsterdam. Soccer hooligans flown in from Israel, flanked by Mossad handlers, watched their their Maccabi Tel Aviv team lose 5-0 to the Dutch team Ajax. After the game, the Maccabi fans ran wild, arming themselves with wood sticks and metal pipes and attacking cabs, busses, police vans, and individuals unlucky enough to cross their path. Palestinian flags—a common sight in the Dutch capital—were torn down. As they rioted, the Maccabi fans showcased their favorite chants, including “There are no schools left in Gaza because there are no children left”; “F*** the Arabs,”; and F*** you terrorists, everybody die.”
A video account of the event by a teenage journalist known as Bender showed that the violence was incited by Israelis, not locals. Bender followed the Israelis from the stadium and filmed them arming themselves and attacking people and vehicles. He was threatened and told to stop filming, presumably by the Mossad handlers overseeing the event.
As often happens, the spectacle of foreign soccer hooligans attacking people in their own city led to a defensive response. Locals confronted the hooligans, in some cases getting the better of physical altercations. A few Israeli thugs managed to get themselves beat up, while others were unceremoniously introduced to the pleasures of swimming in Amsterdam’s insalubrious canals.
If British soccer hooligans had attacked Paris, or German soccer hooligans had attacked Prague, media accounts would have been reasonably evenhanded and accurate. But because the hooligans were Israelis attacking the city of Anne Frank, the media sought to convince the world that a third Holocaust had occurred. (The second, of course, was the Hamas raid of October 7, 2023.)
Here are a selection of headlines:
*Israeli Fans Attacked After Soccer Match in Amsterdam; Violence Condemned as Anti-Semitic (Washington Post ).
*Israeli soccer fans targeted in wave of violence in Amsterdam (Fox).
*Holocaust survivor calls vicious mob attack on Jews in Amsterdam a ‘modern-day Kristallnacht’ (New York Post ).
*Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam ambushed by gangs of anti-Israel attackers shouting ‘Free Palestine,’ Netanyahu sends planes to evacuate citizens (New York Post ).
*The New Kristallnacht: Antisemitic Attacks in Amsterdam Demand Global Action (Times of Israel ).
*Global leaders react to Amsterdam pogrom (The Jerusalem Post ).
*Amsterdam Has Failed Its Jews (Spectator ).
The United States Holocaust Museum issued a statement stating that the Museum “strongly condemns the vicious attacks on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam and the outrageous celebrations of those attacks.” The Anti-Defamation League shrieked about the “obscene, unprovoked violence” which it described as follows: “This is what ‘globalize the intifada’ looks like. Mobs of hate-filled people chasing down and attacking innocent Israeli soccer fans who they have dehumanized as ‘Zionists,’ hunting down and brutalizing ordinary people who came to Amsterdam simply to enjoy a soccer match.”
But why did these Israeli “ordinary people” repeatedly commit assault, battery, and vandalism, long before any locals retaliated? Why did the Israeli attacks on people and vehicles draw no response from local police, who pointedly ignored the rioting until the tables had been turned? And why were the hooligans flanked by Mossad agents as they incited a riot?
Dutch scholar and author Alexander Wolfheze, who was in Amsterdam on November 7, describes the event as a “psy-op.” In a November 12 interview with this author Wolfheze agreed with critics who argue that the Israeli hooligans’ attack on Amsterdam was carefully orchestrated by intelligence professionals in order to produce precisely the headlines listed above, and thousands more like them: “I believe that there are PSYOP aspects (to the hooligans’ attack). It happened just before the anniversary of Kristallnacht, something that the mainstream media did not fail to exploit.”
Dr. Wolfheze added that the November 7 Mossad op was also designed to influence Dutch domestic politics: “Holland is once again at the forefront of the Israelization of Europe, the Zionisation of Europe. Holland was the first country to get a real neo-Zionist government (Geert Wilders). And exactly at that time, after the appointment of this new cabinet, this new government here, and this new reality here, we are seeing this program (total Israeli takeover of Holland -KB) being implemented through the hooligans.”
If Israel can attack your country, pretend to be the victim, and force your entire government and mainstream media to go along with the transparent lie, they basically own you. Fortunately, Israel does not own social media journalists like Bender and Max Blumenthal, both of whom were instrumental in exposing what really happened in Amsterdam.
The Israeli attack on Amsterdam once again illustrated the Jewish State’s perfidy, and provided more evidence that when they cry out as they strike you, it isn’t just a hobby—it’s how they make a living.
Dog Ate My Nord Stream: German Media Doubles Down on Ukrainian Connection Claim
Sputnik – 20.11.2024
Even though the United States has long been identified as the primary suspect in the terrorist attack on the Nord Stream underwater gas pipelines, German media continues peddling the narrative where Ukraine is to blame.
This week, one German magazine presented an account that looks more like a Cold War spy thriller script, detailing an alleged effort by Ukrainian saboteurs to take out Nord Stream.
– The entire operation, codenamed “Diameter” was supposedly carried out by 12 people: 11 men and one woman who was included to help disguise the team as a tourist group
– Five of the group’s members were divers, selected from some 20 candidates
– The bombs – diving tanks loaded with octogen and hexogen explosives – were planted on the seams to ensure maximum damage to the pipelines
– The entire budget of this operation was only $300,000, allegedly donated by some entrepreneur “close to the Ukrainian special forces”
– The plan of this operation was ostensibly presented to Gen. Valery Zaluzhny then-chief of Ukraine’s army, who supposedly liked it so much that he suggested carrying out a similar terrorist act against the TurkStream natural gas pipeline that runs from Russia to Turkiye under the Black Sea. No details of this second operation are provided, save for that it failed
– Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky was allegedly unaware of this entire scheme
– The US purportedly learned of the Ukrainian terrorists’ plan in June 2022, three months before the Nord Stream attack, and demanded that it be called off, to no avail.
In other words, this narrative portrays the US leadership and Zelensky as blameless and pins the blame on a small group of rogue Ukrainian operative, which is very convenient for the US and Ukraine, not to mention Germany who needs to avoid making any uncomfortable discoveries in the Nord Stream affair.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz labels Trump’s pick for intel chief ‘Russian asset’
RT | November 16, 2024
Tulsi Gabbard, US President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for national intelligence director, is “likely a Russian asset,” according to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Florida). In an interview with MSNBC on Friday, Schulz accused Trump of making “irresponsible” choices for his new cabinet.
Gabbard is a former congresswoman from Hawaii and a lieutenant colonel in the US Army Reserve. An outspoken critic of Washington’s military interventions, she left the Democratic party shortly after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Last month she announced that she had joined the Republican Party and was backing Trump. The president-elect announced her nomination earlier this week, saying that Gabbard “will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career” to the US intelligence community, which includes the NSA, CIA, and FBI.
Schultz claimed that appointing Gabbard to the post would be “dangerous,” as it would make her “a direct line” from the US intelligence community “to our enemies.”
“Tulsi Gabbard is someone who has met with war criminals, violated State Department guidance and secretly, clandestinely, went to Syria and met with [President Bashar] Assad. She’s considered to be, by most assessments, a Russian asset,” the congresswoman claimed, saying that she personally considers Gabbard “someone who is likely a Russian asset.” Schultz did not elaborate on her allegations.
Gabbard has not yet commented on Schultz’s accusations. She previously welcomed Trump’s nomination in a post on X, thanking the president-elect for the opportunity to “defend the safety, security and freedom of the American people.”
Twitter users were quick to lambast Schultz’s for her remarks, pointing out that she presented no evidence of Gabbard’s alleged spying on Russia’s behalf and calling her claims “defamatory.” One user noted that “whenever the left doesn’t like somebody – they’re a Russian asset.” Gabbard was not the first of Trump’s picks to be accused of having ties to Russia – earlier on Friday, two top Democratic senators demanded a probe into SpaceX CEO Elon Musk over media claims that he had contacts with senior Russian officials. Trump earlier announced that Musk would head the future Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), tasked with reforming the US government.
In her interview, Schultz called Trump’s entire cabinet reshuffle “the most extreme and dangerous” in history and a “Star Wars bar level craziness.” She noted that while a few of Trump’s picks are passable, most are “individually unqualified.”
Apart from Gabbard, the congresswoman was especially unhappy with the nomination of former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz for attorney general. She claimed it was “breathtaking in its extremism” as Gaetz has “no experience whatsoever with the Justice Department other than being a subject of investigation for sex trafficking minors.”
Iran ‘categorically’ dismisses NYT report about its envoy’s meeting with Musk
Press TV – November 16, 2024
The Iranian Foreign Ministry has “categorically” dismissed an American newspaper report on a meeting between Tehran’s ambassador to the United Nations and Elon Musk, a close ally of US President-elect Donald Trump.
The New York Times on Friday cited two Iranian officials as saying that the meeting between Musk and Iran’s permanent representative to the United Nations Amir Saeid Iravani was held at a secret location in New York on Monday and lasted more than an hour.
The officials reportedly described the discussion as focused on how to defuse tensions between Tehran and Washington.
The Times said Musk, the world’s richest man, himself initiated the meeting, held at a location chosen by the Iranian side.
In an interview with IRNA on Saturday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei rejected the report of the meeting and expressed surprise over “extensive” media coverage by American outlets in this regard.
Iran dismisses claims of Biden letter over Trump assassination attempt
Al Mayadeen | November 15, 2024
Iran’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations dismissed US media reports claiming that Tehran sent a letter to incumbent US President Joe Biden last month, in which it asserted that it did not seek to eliminate former US President Donald Trump.
Citing American officials, The Wall Street Journal claimed Friday that Iran confirmed in a written message to the Biden administration on October 14 that it did not seek to kill Trump, whom Tehran holds directly responsible for the assassination of the former commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force martyr General Qassem Soleimani.
Commenting on these reports, the mission pointed out that it does not issue public statements on the details of official correspondence exchanged between the two countries.
Iran’s UN mission underscored that Tehran has long committed to pursuing the matter of the assassination of martyr Soleimani through legal and judicial means and in full adherence to recognized principles of international law.
In June, Iran issued an indictment against the United States government and American military officials regarding the 2020 assassination of martyr Soleimani.
Ali Alghasi-Mehr, the judiciary chief for Tehran province, said that after collecting more than 12,000 pages of documents, the 164-page indictment was issued against 73 American officials, adding that “all the defendants, who are US statesmen and military officials, have been officially notified of the case and required to introduce their lawyers.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi last week dismissed US allegations linking Tehran to an alleged plot to assassinate Trump.
Earlier, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei also denounced the claim as a “repulsive” scheme orchestrated by “Israel” and opposition groups outside Iran, aimed at complicating matters between the United States and Iran.
Baghaei called the allegations “totally unfounded” and rejected “allegations that Iran is implicated in an assassination attempt targeting former or current American officials.”
The Iranian diplomats’ statements came after US prosecutors announced last week charges related to an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Trump and a prominent Iranian-American opposition journalist.
The US Justice Department alleged that the foiled plot to kill Trump was orchestrated by Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps as retaliation for the assassination of General Soleimani, who was killed in 2020 in a US strike authorized by then-President Trump.
The Truth About the violence in Amsterdam
If Americans Knew • November 13, 2024
See the full video at 
• Sky News DELETES Truth About Israeli …
Owen Jones is a writer and political commentator in the United Kingdom. He is a columnist for The Guardian and the author of two books.
RELATED: “Will the Israel Lobby Cause America’s Downfall?” https://israelpalestinenews.org/will-…
The truth is out there, behind all the lies
By Yvonne Ridley | MEMO | November 12, 2024
There is nothing more noble than telling the truth, and yet for simply delivering nothing but the truth Palestinian journalists are being killed; they — and their families — are targeted by Israeli soldiers in Palestine and Lebanon. The death toll of journalists in Gaza alone has risen to 177, with not one newsroom left standing in the enclave.
Meanwhile, professional liars from the Zionist State’s diplomatic corps deny that its army targets journalists deliberately, even when presented with irrefutable evidence. According to Irish journalist Frank McDonald, “These shameless men and women lie on behalf of a country that is itself built on lies, mythology, terrorism, land theft and deep denial of historical truths, especially about Palestine and what successive Israeli governments have done to the Palestinians.”
Despite the rising death toll of journalists and other civilians across Gaza, the occupied West Bank (including Jerusalem) and Lebanon, Israel never tires of telling the world that it is “the only democracy” in the Middle East; we know that is simply not true on several levels, due to the fact that major human rights bodies have said that it has passed the legal threshold for classification as an apartheid state, including B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Moreover, one of the keystones of democracy is a free press, but since October last year, 21 local radio stations, 15 local and international news agencies, 15 TV stations, six local newspapers, three broadcasting towers, eight print media and 13 media institutions have been destroyed in Gaza.
The Israeli government’s policy of terrorising and killing journalists and its ban on foreign media makes it impossible for journalists like me to get into Gaza so that we can do our jobs and report the truth of what we witness. Not that we would do that any better than the courageous Palestinian journalists, but wherever journalists are banned we all know that it is because powerful people in powerful places do not want anyone shining the light of publicity on their activities.
Meanwhile, Israel pumps out lies on a daily basis using its militarised propaganda machine as well as paid-for stooges who earn a nice living out of promoting the Zionist State as a peace-loving nation and a victim of anti-Semitism.
They are given a free ride by organisations like the BBC.
Any journalist who calls out the egregious lies and victim blaming from the apartheid state’s representative of choice is likely to disappear from public view in what is a time of unprecedented censorship.
A few days ago, we got a close up view of the slick Zionist propaganda machine in action as the notorious Maccabi Tel Aviv football fans wreaked havoc in Amsterdam. Journalists and politicians lined up to condemn the violence in the city of Anne Frank, the Jewish girl who documented her life in hiding from the Nazis during the German occupation of the Netherlands before she was sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where she died.
For two days, these football fans, who have a long and grubby history of violence and racism at home and abroad, took their vile, racist antics to the Arab community in the Dutch capital. The response was one of which any community under fire would be proud; they fought back and defended themselves. The global reaction to this, though, was perverse.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, aka “Frau Genocide”, expressed her outrage in the media without checking the facts. It was enough for her to know that Arabs had resisted Israeli abuse and violence in the home city of Anne Frank so it must be the fault of the immigrant community and not the foul-mouthed yobs from Tel Aviv.
The truth was just an inconvenient fact for von der Leyen and her deputy, as well as the reviled Dutch politician Geert Wilders and Free Press editor Barry Weiss. The latter two referred, somewhat hysterically, to the violence as a “pogrom” against Jews.
Even though elected members of Amsterdam’s city council confirmed to Al Jazeera that the Maccabi fans had ignited the violence, by that time British and European mainstream media were toeing the Tel Aviv line of “Jews under attack”. Words like “pogrom” were employed even though the Zionist narrative was far from the truth.
I am disgusted at the reaction of my colleagues from the mainstream media who fell for the Zionist propaganda.
While heroic Palestinian journalists are risking life and limb to bring cold hard facts to the table, their western counterparts are destroying their own integrity by putting out false information about what happened in Amsterdam last week (and what happens in Palestine under Israeli occupation).
Shameless politicians also sent out messages on social media, with bogus claims of anti-Semitism and helpless Jews under attack in Amsterdam. Investigative journalist and former Labour MP Chris Mullin saw through the lies, though, and asked: “How on earth did these people manage to present themselves as victims?”
The other question we need to ask is whether the Israeli-led violence in Amsterdam was a spillover from the impunity with which Israel is allowed to act in the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Syria and Iran. Do the Israeli thugs in Maccabi Tel Aviv colours, around 80 per cent of whom are thought to be serving in the occupation army which stands accused of committing genocide and war crimes, now feel empowered and entitled to take their thuggery wherever they like? Many may well have mental health issues arising from their experiences in Gaza and the West Bank. Having thugs running amok in Europe boasting about killing Palestinian babies just adds to the evidence lawyers need to prosecute these lawless individuals.
This is something that Frau van der Leyen might want to consider because the more she excuses and justifies the violence of Israelis on Europe’s streets, the more we will be expected to accept such aggression from these psychopaths, and the more danger we will all face.
Predictably, political thugs like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have weaponised anti-Semitism, ignoring the racism and violence of the Israeli football fans which kicked it all off in Amsterdam. When Netanyahu said that he would send the army and aircraft to get the violent Maccabi Tel Aviv fans out of Amsterdam as quickly as possible, it was an exercise in damage limitation, not out of concern for their safety in this bogus “pogrom”.
While I am sure that the 7 October Hamas-led cross-border incursion and its aftermath have had significant emotional and behavioural impacts on the Israeli public, the need for a psychological intervention has increased. If the Western media and politicians were true friends of Israel they’d realise that this is a nation with severe psychological problems that are easily triggered by the very sight of a Palestinian flag. Why else did they attack homes in Amsterdam which had such flags on display?
While it’s increasingly difficult to show any empathy or sympathy for Israeli citizens without comparing and contrasting the cause and effects of 75 years of brutality against the Palestinians, the world needs to open its eyes to the psychotic nature of the settler-colonial state and those who run its brutal military occupation. In the immediate aftermath of 7 October, there was a reported 30 per cent rise in demand for psychiatric drugs. As many as 35 per cent of war-related casualties were also found to be related to psychological issues. It is now clear that the individual mental health needs of Israelis have increased, with talk of an impending mental health “pandemic”.
Israeli Health Minister Uriel Buso has admitted that the rogue state is in the midst of its worst-ever mental health crisis since its establishment. Buso made the comment at the Enosh Mental Health 2024 Conference in Tel Aviv in September.
The crisis can be seen in Israeli football stadiums where, according to this report, the most violent fans come from Beitar Jerusalem, Hapoel Tel Aviv and Maccabi Haifa. While many hoped that 7 October would lead to a change in the mentality that had taken root on the terraces, the reality is completely opposite. Racism, violence and social polarisation have become commonplace in many football stadiums in Israel, says news journalist Ben Goldfriend. His eight-page report on the phenomenon, written in Hebrew, is depressing and strengthens the argument that Israeli football clubs should be banned from UEFA competitions and the national team should be banned from UEFA and FIFA international tournaments.
So far, 112,000 people have signed this petition calling for Israel to be suspended from all international sporting competitions. “In recent years, we have witnessed how the violent and racist atmosphere on the pitches is becoming more and more serious,” said Matan Segal, the director of the Israeli programme to kick racism and violence out of football. “The attempts to address the problems with the same means that were tried in the past have proven to be ineffective.”
The Israeli football season so far has been blighted with numerous incidents of racist chants, including — and this is astonishing — derogatory chants about the Holocaust.
I wonder what Frau Genocide or British Prime Minister Keir Starmer have to say about that.
If our leaders really are concerned about the safety of their own citizens in Europe then a travel ban should be imposed immediately on all Israeli teams and football fans, especially those serving in the rogue Israel Defence Forces. Editors across the media should instruct their best feature writers and investigative reporters to expose the violence of the Zionist State’s sports fans in exactly the same way that they exposed the true nature of English football hooliganism during the 1970s.
Israel’s National Security Council claimed on Sunday that pro-Palestinian groups were calling for attacks on Israelis and Jews in multiple European cities. Including some in the UK, “under the pretence of demonstrations and protests”. As usual, Israel has provided not one jot of evidence for its blatant lie and yet the UK Government and Sir Keir Starmer duly went along with it. “There is no place for anti-Semitism on our streets and we will not allow cultural and sporting events to be hijacked by those who seek to promote hate,” intoned Starmer. “Those who push this poison — offline and online — will face the full force of the law. Police and the security services continue to work to ensure the safety of every community in this country.”
If Starmer was genuine about protecting “every community in this country” he would ban every sporting event involving any team and fans from Israel.
Just consider this: if the Labour Home Secretary Yvette Cooper could ban the grandson of Nelson Mandela from speaking on a UK-wide speaking tour promoting peace and justice, then I’m sure that every legal mechanism is in place to crack down on Israel sports fans who feel emboldened enough to act with impunity and wreak havoc and violence on our streets.
WaPo Putin-Trump call claim ‘pure fiction’ – Kremlin
RT | November 11, 2024
US President-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin did not have a phone conversation about the Ukraine conflict, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.
The Washington Post claimed on Sunday that Trump called Putin after winning his second, albeit non-consecutive term as US president to discuss his vision regarding how the Ukrainian crisis could be deflated. Peskov said on Monday that the article was a “vivid example of the quality of information published by even some respectable outlets.”
“This absolutely does not correspond to reality. This is pure fiction. This information is simply false,” he told the press.
Kiev previously denied the claim made by the Washington Post in its piece that the Ukrainian government was informed about the phone call beforehand and gave its consent to the US-Russian engagement.
“Reports that the Ukrainian side was informed in advance of the alleged call are false,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman told Reuters on Sunday.
Trump had claimed while on the campaign trail that he could end the Ukraine conflict “in 24 hours,” if US voters grant him a second term in office. He reportedly intends to leverage US military and financial aid to Ukraine to pressure both Moscow and Kiev to achieve a compromise.
Russia, which currently has the advantage on the battlefield, has said that it will only accept an outcome that addresses the core causes of the Ukraine conflict. Those include NATO’s enlargement in Europe and Kiev’s discriminatory policies against ethnic Russians, according to Moscow.
The Washington Post reported a phone call between Trump and Putin based on accounts by sources “familiar with the matter,” who spoke on condition of anonymity.
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The Old Testament and the Genocide in Gaza
“You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you. Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; your enemies shall fall by the sword before you.”
Leviticus, Chapter 26, verses 7-9“When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations… then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy.”
Deuteronomy 7:1-2,“…do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them… as the Lord your God has commanded you…”
Deuteronomy 20:16Gilad Atzmon | January 8, 2009
There is not much doubt amongst Biblical scholars that the Hebrew Bible contains some highly charged non-ethical suggestions, some of which are no less than a call for a genocide. Biblical scholar Raymund Schwager has found in the Old Testament 600 passages of explicit violence, 1000 descriptive verses of God’s own violent actions of punishment, 100 passages where God expressly commands others to kill people. Apparently, violence is the most often mentioned activity in the Hebrew Bible.
As devastating as it may be, the Hebrew Bible saturation with violence and extermination of others may throw some light over the horrifying genocide conducted momentarily in Gaza by the Jewish state. … continue
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