Ilan Pappé, a renowned Israeli historian, challenges common perceptions of the Gaza Strip’s history. He asserts that prior to 1948, Gaza was not known as a “strip” but was a cosmopolitan town with a rich, diverse culture. In a video circulating online from January 2024, Pappe emphasises that the term “Gaza Strip” emerged post-1948, following the Israeli invasion, reshaping Gaza’s identity and geography.
Shuva’el Ben Natan, an Israeli reservist involved in the killings of Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank for years, was neutralized during combat in southern Lebanon last week.
He had been dispatched to southern Lebanon from Gaza after the Israeli regime announced the “ground invasion” of southern Lebanon recently, which has proved a complete disaster for the regime.
After failing to achieve its key military objectives in the Gaza Strip after one year of genocidal war that has claimed nearly 43,300 lives so far, the Israeli regime ordered a “ground invasion” of southern Lebanon early last month despite warnings from the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah.
Despite its attempts, the Tel Aviv regime has not succeeded in breaching the Lebanese border, facing strong resilience from the Lebanese-based resistance Hezbollah.
According to Israeli media, including Yedioth Ahronoth, around 50,000 Israeli troops as part of five military divisions and reserve brigades have failed to occupy even one Lebanese village or town in more than a month while losing hundreds of soldiers to Lebanese resistance operations in the process.
One of them is Ben Natan, who had the blood of many Palestinian children on his hands.
Just after the Israeli regime launched its genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza in October last year, a hate-spewing military reservist killed 40-year-old Bilal Salah, a Palestinian olive harvester in the village of Sawiya, located south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.
He also participated in the burning of several Palestinian villages, destroying homes and vehicles in the occupied region, according to eyewitness reports.
After that, he was deployed to the besieged coastal Palestinian territory at a time when hospitals and schools were being indiscriminately bombarded and civilians killed in cold blood in broad daylight.
He engaged in horrendous war crimes in Gaza, where he was involved in setting fire to homes and killing Palestinians, including women and children, without regard for human life.
The extent of his brutality became alarmingly evident during his funeral, where his brother Uriyah and friends openly recounted his war crimes and expressed a desire for “revenge.”
Their speeches were subsequently interpreted as explicit admissions of the slain reservist’s heinous atrocities committed against Palestinian civilians, emphasizing his direct involvement in war crimes.
This disturbing portrayal garnered widespread attention as the video of the funeral circulated online, igniting outrage and condemnation among netizens.
During Ben Natan’s funeral, his brother Uriyah delivered a eulogy that shocked many in attendance.
“You entered Gaza to revenge as much as possible, women, children, everyone you saw, as many people as possible, that’s what you wanted,” he exclaimed, referring to his brother’s main motive.
“And on this day, a year after Simchat Torah, when we thought we would massacre the enemy, massacre them all, drive them out of the land, we are here at your funeral… the entire nation of Israel will have the opportunity to avenge your revenge, blood revenge, not the revenge of burning houses, not the revenge of burning trees, not the revenge of burning cars, but the revenge of blood you spilt.”
Uriyah’s words laid bare the chilling extent to which the concept of “massacre” has taken root in the mindset of Israeli settlers, reflecting a deeply ingrained ideology that glorifies violence and vengeance.
Ben Natan’s father also mourned his son by reminiscing about their shared experiences, recalling how they would patrol together while shooting at Palestinians who threw stones, describing their aim to “control and blow them up from a distance.”
During the eulogy that further exposed Ben Natan’s war crimes, an Israeli soldier referenced Ben Natan, saying, “You were the happiest and most optimistic and frivolous person in the platoon. We saw it for the first time in Gaza when you unauthorizedly burnt a house just to lift the atmosphere.”
The statement not only highlighted Ben Natan’s barbaric behavior but also underscored the normalization of violence within Israeli military circles as well as the settler population.
Ben Natan’s barbaric mindset, exposed during his funeral, sheds light on his affiliations with the Hilltop Youth which is a far-right Jewish settler movement in the occupied West Bank led by Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
This group is recognized as one of the most radical factions associated with Israeli settler extremism.
Emerging in the early 2000s, the Hilltop Youth is a loosely organized collective primarily composed of young, extremist Israeli settlers who are driven by the belief that establishing illegal outposts on the forcibly seized Palestinian land is a religious obligation.
The group’s ideology revolves around expanding Jewish presence in the occupied West Bank, an initiative aimed at fulfilling their aspiration for a “Greater Israel.”
Their activities are marked by violent attacks against Palestinian civilians, destruction of property, and instances of verbal harassment, contributing to the ongoing cycle of tension and conflict in the region.
In a poignant reflection on Ben Natan’s funeral, Lebanese Islamic scholar Sayyid Hussain Makke took to X (formerly Twitter) to express a powerful sentiment.
He emphasized that, despite the immense suffering endured by him and many others in Lebanon amid the ongoing massacres, there is no desire for “revenge” against Israeli women and children.
“Despite having lost so many loved ones, and despite my father being abducted by Israel as a teenager, and despite all the suffering inflicted upon us personally since I was born, and despite being displaced with my family right now and after having our whole village destroyed – neither I nor anyone I know has ever wished ‘revenge’ on Israeli women and children,” he wrote.
His remarks highlighted a stark contrast to the narratives perpetuated by settlers’ extremist ideology.
As Israel’s October 1 invasion of Lebanon unfolds, the media’s complicity in shaping public perception raises urgent questions, particularly when viewed through the lens of a controversial 1984 conference where influential advertising and media figures gathered to refine Israel’s narrative strategies. This conference laid the groundwork for a sophisticated propaganda campaign—Hasbara—that sought to sanitize Israel’s actions and cast its military operations in a favorable light. Today, as Western journalists whitewash, distort, and conceal the realities of Israel’s deadly campaign of violence, the enduring legacy of this meeting becomes alarmingly clear, revealing how narratives crafted decades ago continue to shape the coverage of a conflict that claims countless lives.
In the first week of October, Israeli forces fired 355 bullets at a car containing a five-year-old, then shot at rescue workers who rushed to save her life. A horrific crime – yet, per many Western media headlines, she was simply a “girl killed in Gaza.” The circumstances and perpetrators of her death, if mentioned at all, were invariably buried at the bottom of reports, well hidden from the 80% of the news-consuming public who only read headlines, not accompanying articles.
By contrast, on October 15, Sky News was very keen that its viewers know the names and faces of four “teenage” IDF soldiers “killed” in a “Hezbollah drone attack,” humanizing and infantilizing individuals who, by mere token of their service in Israel’s military, are by definition, guilty of genocide. In passing, the same report briskly noted: “‘23 die’ in Gaza school strike.” Their identities, ages, and photos, let alone clarity on who or what murdered them, weren’t provided.
Moreover, the inverted commas incongruously hovering around the number of Palestinians killed subtly undermined that claim’s credibility while reducing the child victims to an afterthought compared to the considerably more important quartet of deceased IDF genocidaires. MintPress News senior staff writer Alan MacLeod put it succinctly when he Tweeted, “In years to come, students in university departments around the world will be studying the propaganda embedded in this headline. It’s truly incredible how much propaganda has been packed into 16 words.”
The mainstream media’s systematic use of distancing and evasive language, omission and other duplicitous chicanery to downplay or outright justify Israel’s murder of innocent civilians while simultaneously dehumanizing their victims and delegitimizing Palestinian resistance against brutal, illegal IDF occupation is as unconscionable as it is well-documented. Amazingly though, ‘twasn’t ever thus. Once upon a time, mainstream news networks exposed Israel’s war crimes without qualification, and anchors and pundits openly condemned these actions on live TV to audiences of millions.
The story of how Western media was transformed into Israel’s doting, servile propaganda appendage is not only a fascinating and sordid hidden chronicle. It is a deeply educational lesson in how imperial power can easily subordinate supposed arbiters of truth to its will. Comprehending how we got to this point equips us with the tools to assess, identify, and deconstruct lies large and small – and effectively challenge and counter not only Israel’s falsehoods but the entire settler colonial endeavor.
‘Neighborhood Bully’
On June 6, 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon. The effort was ostensibly intended to drive Palestinian Liberation Organization freedom fighters away from their positions on Israel’s northern border. But, as the IDF savagely pushed ever-deeper into the country, including Beirut, it became clear that ethnic cleansing, massacres, and land theft were – as in Palestine – the true goal. Throughout the Lebanese capital, news crews from major networks and reporters from the West’s biggest newspapers were waiting.
Israel’s rapacious bloodlust and casual contempt for Arab lives had hitherto been, by and large, successfully concealed from the outside world. Suddenly, though, scenes of deliberate IDF airstrikes on residential housing blocks, Tel Aviv’s trigger-happy soldiers running amok in Beirut’s streets, and hospitals overflowing with civilians suffering from grave injuries, including chemical burns due to Israel’s use of phosphorus shells, were broadcast the world over, to nigh-universal outcry. As veteran NBC news anchor John Chancellor contemporarily explained to Western viewers:
What in the world is going on? Israel’s security problem, on its border, is 50 miles to the south. What’s an Israeli army doing here in Beirut? The answer is we are now dealing with an imperial Israel, which is solving its problems in someone else’s country, world opinion be damned.”
Global shock and repulsion at Israel’s conduct would only ratchet during the IDF’s resultant illegal military occupation of swaths of Lebanon. In September 1982, an Israel-backed armed Christian militia, Phalange, entered Sabra, a Beirut neighborhood home to many Palestinians displaced by the 1948 Nakba. Over a two-day span, they slaughtered up to 3,500 people while mutilating and raping countless others. Again, unfortunately for Tel Aviv, mainstream journalists were on hand to document these heinous crimes first-hand.
To say the least, Israel had an international PR disaster of historic proportions on its blood-soaked hands. The risk that further exposure of its genocidal nature might decisively and permanently shift global opinion in favor of the Palestinians and the Arab world more generally was significant. The attack on Lebanon had already spurred Western news outlets to critically reassess other illegal annexations and occupations in which Israel was and remains engaged. As ABC News reporter Richard Threlkeld commented at the time:
Israel was always that gallant little underdog democracy fighting for survival against all the odds. Now, the Israelis have annexed East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, settled down more or less permanently on the West Bank, and occupied close to half of Lebanon. In the interests of self-defense, that gallant little underdog, Israel, has suddenly started behaving like the neighborhood bully.”
So it was that in the summer of 1984, the American Jewish Congress (AJC) – a major Zionist lobby organization – convened a conference in Jerusalem, Israel’s Public Image: Problems and Remedies. It was chaired by U.S. advertising supremo Carl Spielgovel, who a decade earlier provided pro bono advice to the Israeli government on strategies for publicly communicating why Tel Aviv refused to adhere to the terms of the Henry Kissinger-brokered 1973 Sinai Accords. Spielgovel later recalled:
It occurred to me then that the Israelis were doing a good job at training their military people, and they were doing a relatively good job at training their diplomatic corps. But they weren’t spending any time training information officers, people who could present Israel’s case to embassies and TV anchormen around the world. Over the years, I made this a personal cause celebre.”
The 1984 Jerusalem conference offered Spielgovel and a welter of Western advertising and public relations executives, media specialists, editors, journalists, and leaders of major Zionist advocacy groups an opportunity to achieve that malign objective. Together, they hammered out a dedicated strategy for ensuring the “crisis” caused by news reporting on the invasion of Lebanon two years earlier would never be repeated. Their antidote? Ceaseless, methodical, and wide-ranging “Hasbara” – Hebrew for propaganda – for “changing people’s minds [and] making them think differently.”
‘Big Scoop’
The AJC subsequently published records of the conference. They offer extraordinarily candid insight into how multiple Hasbara strategies, which have been in perpetual operation ever since were birthed. For example, basic propaganda messages were agreed upon. This included messages that are echoed by Israel’s supporters to this day, emphasizing Israel’s regional importance to the U.S. and Europe, Western cultural and political values, geographic vulnerability, and supposed striving for peace in the face of implacable Palestinian belligerence and intransigence.
As Judith Elizur, an expert in “communications” from Tel Aviv’s Hebrew University, explained:
Because the ‘power dimension’ of Israel’s image is so problematic, it seems to me that Hasbara must concentrate on reinforcing other aspects of Israel that have a positive appeal – medicine, agriculture, science, archaeology… We have been too preoccupied with extinguishing political brush fires. We need to devote more of our resources to long-range image-making. We must recreate a multi-dimensional image of Israel which will assure us the basic support we require in times of crisis.”
There was extensive discussion of how to present “unpalatable policies” to Western populations, and counter the perception of Israel as “Goliath steamrolling” across West Asia, against adversaries “outgunned, outclassed and outmanned” with “no capacity to resist.” The necessity of training the Jewish diaspora in countering criticism of Israel was considered paramount.
AJC’s president lamented that “many American Jews” had condemned the invasion of Lebanon and “did us a terrible disservice.” Any such future “disagreement” would make it “very difficult for us to conduct Hasbara effectively.”
Joseph Block, Pepsi’s former vice president of public relations, stressed the need for a dedicated, 24/7 Israel press operation “equipped to offer foreign journalists an occasional exclusive or scoop” and engage in other media outreach to balance critical coverage and get reporters and newsrooms ‘on side.’ Block lamented that had Israeli officials not “briefed NBC and other networks appropriately” and given them “a big scoop” during Lebanon’s invasion, “a different story would have reached America’s 90 million TV households”:
News doesn’t just jump into a camera. It’s directed. It’s managed. It’s made accessible. Public relations is a process that makes news available in a particular form. In the US, PR is as important as accounting, the law and the military… As a corporate spokesman for two of America’s top 50 corporations, I wish I had a shekel for every time I said, ‘no comment’ to a reporter. I was always careful, however, not to antagonize or intimidate the reporter. I knew I had to live with him or her.”
Yoram Ettinger, media analysis chief at the Israel Information Center, concurred, declaring that media framing on Israel’s actions needed to be determined in advance. “Actions” such as “blowing up houses,” which were “difficult to explain,” could be preemptively justified or at least relativized by placing them “in context” while “[drawing] analogies that others will understand.” This would “help others to interpret their meaning,” per Tel Aviv’s perspectives.
The Conference hoped such efforts would mean “our American friends will be able to take a more activist posture as amplifiers of our policy” and assist them in “tucking away the house problems in a back room.” It was also suggested that on an individual and organizational level, Zionist activists serve as a rapid reaction force, deluging news outlets with complaints en masse should their coverage of Israel be at all critical. One attendee boasted of their personal success in this regard:
One day CBS News Radio reported that an American soldier had been hurt by stepping on an Israeli cluster bomb at the Beirut airport. I called CBS to point out that no one had established the bomb was an Israeli one. One hour later CBS reported that an American soldier had stepped on a bomb; this time the report omitted any reference to Israel.”
‘Frequent Violations’
Another significant recommendation came from Carl Spielgovel: creating a “training program” to bring carefully selected Israeli information specialists into U.S. advertising, PR agencies, and major news outlets. The initiative aimed to equip them with industry insights, ensure Hasbara efforts were maximized, and establish close relationships between Israeli officials and the organizations to which they were assigned.
These “specialists” would operate under the guidance of a U.S.-Israeli council described as “wise persons who can project different scenarios and how to cope with them” on complex issues like “annexation and Jerusalem.” Spielgovel was careful to clarify that he was “not suggesting that we make policy” but rather that “we should make the best minds available to help elucidate the consequences of certain policies.” The goal, he suggested, was to reinforce to the American public that Tel Aviv remains Washington’s “staunch political and military ally.”
Spielgovel further proposed that future AJC conferences should incorporate input from “young people” and people of color to better promote Tel Aviv’s image among diverse “constituencies.” He argued that “Hasbara needs to implant in the consciousness of the world the day-to-day existence” of Israeli citizens, requiring a steady stream of “stories in the arts, business, and cooking sections of U.S. newspapers.” Since then, a dedicated Hasbara program aimed at cultivating skilled Zionist advocates in the U.S. has operated continuously.
Buoyed by its success, the operation soon expanded to include school and university students worldwide, training them to act as vigorous advocates for Israel in classrooms and on campuses. Graduates of these Israeli-funded programs frequently enter influential fields, including journalism, where they continue to promote Hasbara narratives and defend Israel’s actions. The impact on Western media coverage of Palestine has been profound.
To a significant degree, the portrayal of Tel Aviv as “the gallant little underdog democracy fighting for survival against all the odds” has been firmly reestablished. Despite the ongoing crisis in Gaza, mainstream outlets seldom provide context for Palestinian resistance to Israel’s policies of annexation, occupation, and military actions. Coverage nearly always frames Israel’s actions as “self-defense” against “terrorist” threats, with Western journalists keenly aware of potential repercussions for diverging from this narrative.
The rapid reaction force proposed at the 1984 AJC conference remains highly active. An extensive network of Hasbara-trained individuals and Israel lobby organizations is always on standby, ready to pressure and intimidate news outlets if coverage diverges from favorable framing or casts Israel in a critical light. As a senior BBC producer once confided to veteran media critic Greg Philo:
We wait in fear for the telephone call from the Israelis. The only issue we face then is how high up it’s come from them. Has it come from a monitoring group? Has it come from the Israeli embassy? And how high has it gone up our organization? Has it reached the editor or director general? I have had journalists on the phone to me before a major news report, asking which words can I use – ‘is it alright I say this’?”
An October exposé by Al Jazeera, citing testimony from BBC and CNN whistleblowers, detailed “pro-Israel bias in coverage, systematic double standards, and frequent violations of journalistic principles” at both networks. According to insiders, much of this was driven by concerns over how Israeli officials might perceive and react to certain coverage. Independent activists and journalists, however, are not bound by such institutional pressures—and since October 7, 2023, they have mounted a formidable challenge to Hasbara narratives.
Were it not for the persistent investigations by outlets like MintPress News, The Grayzone, and Electronic Intifada, unfounded allegations promoted by Israel since the outset of the Gaza conflict—such as claims of Hamas committing mass rape or beheading infants—might never have been thoroughly debunked and might still shape the “context” for Israel’s actions against Palestinians. Meanwhile, countless concerned citizens have actively challenged Western narratives on the conflict in real-time across social media, a groundswell of critique that may be fueling pushback within some mainstream newsrooms.
It is a poetic irony that the same information warfare techniques once honed under Hasbara are now being directed at Israel and its defenders. For decades, these methods allowed Israel to proceed with its gradual displacement of the Palestinian people, often with tacit approval from Western audiences. But those times seem to be fading. Today, critics and former targets of Israeli policy are effectively using these strategies, wielding what they see as their most potent tools—truth and justice.
Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist and MintPress News contributor exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. His work has previously appeared in The Cradle, Declassified UK, and Grayzone. Follow him on Twitter @KitKlarenberg.
Russia must work to strengthen its Navy to counteract NATO’s continued efforts to establish dominance in the Black Sea, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aide Nikolay Patrushev has said.
During a meeting with the command of the Russian Navy and the Black Sea Fleet, Patrushev, who serves as the chairman of the Maritime Collegium, pointed out that pushing Russia out of the Black Sea has long been one of the primary goals of Washington and its allies.
“Historical facts show that pushing Russia away from the Black Sea shores has traditionally been considered one of the key tasks in Anglo-Saxon politics. And today, the collective West, led by the United States, is hatching plans to establish its own long-term presence in the Black Sea and along its perimeter to the detriment of the legitimate interests of our country,” Patrushev said.
He added that the US and its NATO allies are currently “hatching plans” to expand their naval presence in the Black Sea through the use of Europe’s internal waterways for military purposes; in this case, to access it through the Danube.
“Reducing Russia’s role as a maritime power in the Black Sea region is one of the areas of action of unfriendly Western states in the context of their policy aimed at inflicting a strategic defeat on our country,” he said, noting that the increase of NATO’s presence is also a violation of the Montreux Convention, which limits the presence of military vessels in the straits between the Black and Mediterranean seas.
Patrushev also pointed out that according to Russia’s maritime doctrine, the Black Sea and the Azov Sea are regarded as key regions for the protection of the country’s national interests in the global ocean space.
He stressed that it was necessary to ensure “a balance of power” in the region and increase the universality of the Russian Navy and expand its range of its tasks to help protect national interests.
In July, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky had signed a decree outlining the country’s maritime security strategy, which included the establishment of a permanent NATO presence in the Black Sea and the organization of maritime patrols in the Azov-Black Sea basin in coordination with Kiev’s partner countries.
Moscow responded to the move by pointing out that a “concentrated presence” of NATO ships in the Black Sea represented a threat to Russia’s national security and that it would respond by taking measures to protect its interests in the region.
Sky News host Chris Kenny slams the overwhelming “climate alarmism” among Western media which is catastrophising and scaring children.
“When it comes to climate change and climate alarmism, it is almost pointless fighting back,” Mr Kenny said.
“But I’m going to keep pointing it out because, you know, facts matter. Now people hate to challenge this stuff because then they’re called climate deniers and they’re mocked, shunned or even abused. So, for the record, yes, the climate is changing.”
The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic sent a letter Wednesday to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland accusing the former governor of providing false statements to the panel when he testified on June 11.
In the Republican-led committee’s referral, it says Cuomo “knowingly and willfully made materially false statements” to the panel during its investigation into the New York’s Covid-19 response. The statements in question stem from exchanges about a New York state Department of Health report on nursing home infections and deaths that was released on July 6, 2020.
The report caught my eye because I have long followed the New York nursing home scandal, which I thoroughly investigated for our book The Courage to Face COVID-19: Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex.
This particular chapter about the mindbogglingly stupid and criminal pandemic response is so noteworthy that I believe it is worth republishing.
CHAPTER 11: “Cuomosexuals”
On the same day (March 23) that Dr. Bright initiated his scheme to restrict hydroxychloroquine to hospitalized patients, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued the following executive order:
No pharmacist shall dispense hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine except when written as prescribed as an FDA-approved indication; or as part of a state approved clinical trial related to COVID-19 for a patient who has tested positive for COVID-19 with such test result documented as part of the prescription. No other experimental or prophylactic use shall be permitted …
This order prohibited New York pharmacies from filling off-label prescriptions for Covid patients. The exceptionally determined Dr. Zelenko found a way to get around it, but it made his practice much more difficult.
Two days later, on March 25, the New York Department of Health issued the following directive to nursing home administrators:
No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the NH solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19. NHs are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission.
As anyone who has ever worked in a nursing home knows, respiratory viruses can rip through the facility and cause severe illness. Virulent common cold rhinovirus outbreaks have resulted in multiple deaths in this setting. By March 25, it was crystal clear that the risk of severe disease and death from COVID-19 is by far the highest for patients over the age of seventy-five. Thus, ordering “confirmed or suspected” Covid patients to be readmitted to nursing homes was the equivalent of forcing foxes into henhouses. What was the New York State Health Department thinking?
On March 27, the United States set the world record of COVID-19 cases, and New York City was the nation’s epicenter—a five-alarm fire of serious infections. On April 10, New York State recorded more Covid cases than any country on earth except the United States in total and its nursing homes were devastated by the contagion. The legacy media was slow to notice this, perhaps because it was blinded by Governor Cuomo’s stardom. He gave daily press conferences in which he spoke about the measures he and his team were taking to keep New Yorkers safe. Millions across the country watched these performances for which he later received an Emmy.
As the spring wore on, reports of mass casualty events in nursing homes emerged, and these drew scrutiny to the Health Department’s March 25 directive. On May 21, the Associated Press reported that over 4,500 Covid patients had been sent back into New York nursing homes. This number would later be revised upward to over 9,000. The AP report coincided with growing suspicion the Health Department wasn’t being transparent about mortality data in these facilities. Suspicion was confirmed on January 28, 2021, when New York Attorney General Latitia James reported that the Department of Health had undercounted nursing home deaths by 50%.
On February 11, 2021, the New York Post published a leaked audio recording of Governor Cuomo’s secretary, Melissa DeRosa, speaking confidentially with the New York State Democratic Committee. On this tape she can be heard apologizing for concealing nursing home data. Though mealy-mouthed, her apology revealed that Cuomo’s team had acted out of fear of getting into trouble with the DOJ.
Basically, we froze because then we were in a position where we weren’t sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice or what we give to you guys and what we start saying was going to be used against us, and we weren’t sure if there was going to be an investigation.
After making this confession, she changed the subject to “the context” of their decision—namely, they were concerned that President Trump would try to politicize the incident in the upcoming election.
“Right around the same time, he [Trump] turns this into a giant political football,” she told the Committee.
For many who followed the New York nursing home story, it seemed emblematic of many pathologies afflicting the U.S. political and media class. First was the nepotism of the Cuomo family, with CNN Anchor Chris and Governor Andrew regularly putting on shows for their fawning, sentimental fans, many of whom called themselves “Cuomosexuals.” T-shirts, hats, coffee mugs, and even a popular music video appeared bearing the term’s definition: In love with competent, reassuring governance by a leader who uses complete sentences and displays common sense during a pandemic.
The Governor’s cult of personality yielded a $5.2 million book deal with Penguin Random House, initiated by an acquiring editor on March 19, 2020, three days before the state went into lockdown. The deal for American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic stipulated the book be ready for publication before the November elections. Governor Cuomo purportedly wrote a 70,000-word typescript in three months while at the same time executing his duties as full-time “Leader” in handling New York’s Covid crisis. The state ethics board approved the deal on the condition that no state resources were used in the book’s production, but that didn’t stop Cuomo from using his staff and a ghostwriter.
Complementing the governor’s book deal was his Emmy Award. As Bruce Paisner, CEO of the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, explained in his announcement of November 20, 2020:
The Governor’s 111 daily briefings worked so well because he effectively created television shows, with characters, plot lines, and stories of success and failure. People around the world tuned in to find out what was going on, and New York tough became a symbol of the determination to fight back.
All these awards and extravagant expressions of adulation for the Governor’s leadership overlooked his executive order impeding access to hydroxychloroquine and his Health Department’s catastrophic directive to nursing homes. Protecting nursing homes was the only contagion control policy for which there was a crystal clear rationale. While general lockdowns did little to stop the spread, extraordinary measures to secure nursing homes probably would have given some protection to society’s most vulnerable. Instead, the New York Health Department sent thousands of Covid patients back into these facilities and then concealed the ensuing death toll. On June 2, 2020, USA Today reported that “Over the last three months, more than 40,600 long-term care residents and workers have died of COVID-19—about 40% of the nation’s death toll attributed to the coronavirus …”
After flying high in 2020, the Cuomo brothers fell back to earth in 2021, when multiple women accused the Governor of sexual harassment. He was then further accused of using his executive power to suppress these allegations. Chris Cuomo was likewise accused of using his powerful media connections to aid and abet his brother in the concealment.
A cynic might be tempted to wonder about the timing of the sexual misconduct allegations—right as reports emerged that New York Attorney General Letitia James, U.S. Attorney Seth Ducharme of the Eastern District of New York, and the FBI were opening investigations into allegations of malfeasance resulting in nursing home deaths. Especially disturbing was the allegation that Governor Cuomo provided legal immunity to nursing home executives from whom he received campaign contributions, possibly giving them carte blanche to cut costs at the expense of the care and safety of their residents. As the Attorney General stated in her preliminary findings:
On March 23, Governor Cuomo created limited immunity provisions for health care providers relating to COVID-19. The Emergency Disaster Treatment Protection Act (EDTPA) provides immunity to health care professionals from potential liability arising from certain decisions, actions and/or omissions related to the care of individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. While it is reasonable to provide some protections for health care workers making impossible health care decisions in good faith during an unprecedented public health crisis, it would not be appropriate or just for nursing homes owners to interpret this action as providing blanket immunity for causing harm to residents.
With multiple allegations of sexual misconduct made in March 2021, the subject in mainstream media reporting was largely changed from New York State’s possible liability for the preventable deaths of thousands to Governor Cuomo’s inappropriate behavior with women.
On August 7, 2021, the New Yorker published a coda to Governor Cuomo’s rise to superstardom and his crashing fall from grace. In an essay titled, Diving Into the Subconscious of the “Cuomosexual,” reporter Lizzie Widdicombe posed the question:
How could we have witnessed the Governor’s narcissism, bullying, and hackneyed paternalism and found these qualities attractive?
To answer it, she interviewed psychoanalyst Virginia Goldner, who explained that Governor Cuomo “was radiating an eroticized masculinity that has within it hostility and a little tenderness. That combination of soft and hard—mostly hard, but also soft—is what so many women crave in some way.”
Dr. Goldner’s remarks pointed to a key feature of how the public responded to official Covid policy. Approval of policies had little to do with their substance. Mostly it derived from impressions of the personal qualities, political affiliation, and perceived authority of the officials who presented the policies. Governor Cuomo exuded masculine confidence and gave the impression of taking bold action against a foreign invader. His performances were fascinating to watch, but they had little to do with reality.
By late March of 2020, the virus had spread far beyond the possibility of being contained. The Swedish state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, pointed this out in a March 28, 2020 New York Times interview, but no major public health official in the United States acknowledged this reality. Because the virus was far beyond containment, it was unlikely that any of Governor Cuomo’s contagion control orders such as his statewide lockdown or shutdown of “nonessential businesses” made any positive difference. He was awarded an Emmy for embodying “the determination to fight back” against the virus. In fact, he disarmed New Yorkers by impeding their access to the only weapon (hydroxychloroquine) known at the time for fighting it. Covid patients, including thousands of sitting ducks in nursing homes, were consequently left defenseless.
Few Americans today would try to justify the United States government taking part in the Korean War in the 1950s. Even most of those who would make such an attempt would ground their argument in asserting there was a special need back then, as part of the Cold War, to prevent the expansion of communism.
The Cold War is long over. So, why are still today tens of thousands of US soldiers in South Korea, and many more nearby, ready to resume fighting in the long paused Korean War at a moment’s notice? Inertia? Bloodlust? Reluctance of the military bureaucracy to give up any of its size and scope? The desire of the military-industrial complex to wring every possible dollar it can from the American people?
None of these reasons seems very persuasive. Instead of preparing to restart the war that wrought enormous death and destruction the first time around, US officials should be preparing for the US military to finally exit Korea.
Yet, there was US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Wednesday not just saying he has declared to the South Korea defense minister “that the United States remains fully committed to the defense” of South Korea. Further, Austin pledged that the US government’s “extended deterrence commitment” to South Korea “remains ironclad” and that that commitment “is backed by the full range of America’s conventional, missile defense, nuclear and advanced non-nuclear capabilities.”
There you go, the US secretary of defense is threatening going nuclear in a war for which the now generally rejected reason for the US becoming involved in it disappeared decades ago. The defense secretary is mad for war. In this condition he reflects US government policy.
The House report on HHS Covid propaganda is devastating. The Biden administration spent almost $1 billion to push falsehoods about Covid vaccines, boosters, and masks on the American people. If a pharma company had run the campaign, it would have been fined out of existence.
HHS engaged a PR firm, the Fors Marsh Group (FMG), for the propaganda campaign. The main goal was to increase Covid vax uptake. The strategy: 1. Exaggerate Covid mortality risk 2. Downplay the fact that there was no good evidence that the Covid vax stops transmission.
The propaganda campaign extended beyond vax uptake and included exaggerating mask efficacy and pushing for social distancing and school closures.
Ultimately, since the messaging did not match reality, the campaign collapsed public trust in public health.
The PR firm (FMG) drew most of its faulty science from the CDC’s “guidance,” which ignoredthe FDA’s findings on the vaccine’s limitations, as well as scientific findings from other countries that contradicted CDC groupthink.
The report details the CDC’s mask flip-flopping through the years. It’s especially infuriating to recall the CDC’s weird, anti-scientific, anti-human focus on masking toddlers with cloth masks into 2022.
President Biden’s Covid advisor Ashish K. Jha waited until Dec. 2022 (right after leaving government service) to tell the country that “[t]here is no study in the world that shows that masks work that well.” What took him so long?
In 2021, formerCDC director, Rochelle Walensky rewrote CDC guidance on social distancing at the behest of the national teachers’ union, guaranteeing that schools would remain closed to in-person learning for many months.
During this period, the PR firm FMG put out ads telling parents that schools would close unless kids masked up, stayed away from friends, and got Covid-vaccinated.
In March 2021, even as the CDC told the American people that the vaxxed did not need to mask, the PR firm ran ads saying that masks were still needed, even for the vaxxed. “It’s not time to ease up” we were told, in the absence of evidence any of that did any good.
In 2021, to support the Biden/Harris administration’s push for vax mandates, the PR firm pushed the false idea that the vax stopped Covid transmission. When people started getting “breakthrough” infections, public trust in public health collapsed.
Later, when the FDA approved the vax for 12 to 15-year-old kids, the PR firm told parents that schools could open in fall 2021 only if they got their kids vaccinated. These ads never mentioned side effects like myocarditis due to the vax.
HHS has scrubbed the propaganda ads from this era from its web pages. It’s easy to see why. They are embarrassing. They tell kids, in effect, that they should treat other kids like biohazards unless they are vaccinated.
When the Delta variant arrived, the PR firm doubled down on fear-mongering, masking, and social distancing.
In September 2021, CDC director Walensky overruled the agency’s external experts to recommend the booster to all adults rather than just the elderly. The director’s action was “highly unusual” and went beyond the FDA’s approval of the booster for only the elderly.
The PR campaign and the CDC persistently overestimated the mortality risk of Covid infection in kids to scare parents into vaccinating their children with the Covid vax.
In Aug. 2021, the military imposed its Covid vax mandate, leading to 8,300 servicemen being discharged. Since 2023, the DOD has been trying to get the discharged servicemen to reenlist. What harm has been done to American national security by the vax mandate?
The Biden/Harris administration imposed the OSHA, CMS, and military vax mandates, even though the CDC knew that the Delta variant evaded vaccine immunity. The PR campaign studiously avoided informing Americans about waning vaccine efficacy in the face of variants.
The propaganda campaign hired celebrities and influencers to “persuade” children to get the Covid vax.
I think if a celebrity is paid to advertise a faulty product, that celebrity should be partially liable if the product harms some people.
In the absence of evidence, the propaganda campaign ran ads telling parents that the vaccine would prevent their kids from getting Long Covid.
With the collapse in public trust in the CDC, parents have begun to question all CDC advice. Predictably, the HHS propaganda campaign has led to a decline in the uptake of routine childhood vaccines.
The report makes several recommendations, including formally defining the CDC’s core mission to focus on disease prevention, forcing HHS propaganda to abide by the FDA’s product labeling rules, and revamping the process of evaluating vaccine safety.
Probably the most important recommendation: HHS should never again adopt a policy of silencing dissenting scientists in an attempt to create an illusion of consensus in favor of CDC groupthink.
You can find a copy of the full House report here. The HHS must take its findings seriously if there is any hope for public health to regain public.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is a physician, epidemiologist and health economist. He is Professor at Stanford Medical School, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research, a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, a Faculty Member at the Stanford Freeman Spogli Institute, and a Fellow at the Academy of Science and Freedom. His research focuses on the economics of health care around the world with a particular emphasis on the health and well-being of vulnerable populations. Co-Author of the Great Barrington Declaration.
Internal information has revealed that Canadian doctors are questioning the morality of euthanizing vulnerable and impoverished patients who are choosing death not just because of illness, but because of poverty and loneliness.
According to internal information published October 16 by the Associated Press, poverty and loneliness are two popular reasons for choosing euthanasia in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, a phenomenon which has left doctors grappling with the morality of the deadly practice.
“On private forums, doctors and nurses have expressed deep discomfort with ending the lives of vulnerable people whose deaths were avoidable,” the report found.
Canada has one of the most permissive euthanasia programs in the world, euphemistically called “Medical Assistance in Dying.” First introduced in 2016, MAiD was initially only available to those who were terminally ill. However, in 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government expanded the deadly practice to be available to those who are not at risk of death but who suffer from chronic illness. It is worth noting that whether someone is terminally ill or just chronically ill, it is gravely immoral to intentionally kill a human person, a truth infallibly affirmed by the Catholic Church.
In its report, the Associated Press revealed that internal information shows that this 2021 expansion of MAiD has led to a significant number of people in Ontario’s poorest areas seeking MAiD when their pain might be alleviated by “money, adequate housing or social connections.”
While pro-euthanasia Dying with Dignity Association President Dr. Konia Trouton assured the AP that killing patients for vulnerability or financial reasons alone is “completely forbidden,” it remains true that patients themselves suffering with these conditions are factoring that in when opting for death.
In one case, a doctor told forum participants that a middle-aged worker, whose ankle and back injuries had left him unable to work, felt that the government’s insufficient support was “leaving (him) with no choice but to pursue MAiD.”
While the man was eligible under the current MAiD law, the doctor was hesitant to euthanatize him since he had listed the reduced government payments as a key factor in his request.
In another case, a doctor revealed that a patient with a serious lung disease was seeking MAiD “mostly because he is homeless, in debt and cannot tolerate the idea of (long-term care) of any kind.”
While the doctor was hesitant, some on the forum encouraged him to euthanize the man, claiming that “looking at the wall or ceiling waiting to be fed … to have diapers changed” was sufficiently painful. The doctor finally agreed to euthanize his patient.
Other cases included an obese woman who described herself as a “useless body taking up space,” which one doctor argued met the requirements for MAiD since obesity is “a medical condition which is indeed grievous and irremediable.”
In another case, an 80-year-old woman who required dialysis sought MAiD after she lost her husband, sibling and cat in a six-week period. Some doctors argued that the loss of her husband would make her pain unbearable, while others recommended grief counseling.
Overall, in Ontario 116 of 4,528 euthanasia deaths in 2023 involved non-terminal patients, with many of those killed being from impoverished communities.
2023 data from Ontario’s chief coroner revealed that over three quarters of those euthanized when their death wasn’t imminent required disability support before their death.
Similarly, nearly 29% of those killed when they were not terminally ill lived in the poorest parts of Ontario, while only 20% of the province’s general population lives in those areas.
While some doctors appeared to have little to no qualms about killing Ontario’s vulnerable, others questioned the morality of killing their patients instead of offering real care to those in need.
“I don’t want (euthanasia) to become the solution to every kind of suffering out there,” one physician wrote on the forum.
“I have great discomfort with the idea of MAiD being driven by social circumstances,” another admitted. “I don’t have a good solution to social deprivation either, so I feel pretty useless when I receive requests like this.”
While some doctors prefer patient care to MAiD, Trudeau and his government have worked to expand MAiD thirteen-fold since it was legalized, making it the fastest growing euthanasia program in the world.
Currently, wait times to receive care in Canada have increased to an average of 27.7 weeks, leading some Canadians to despair and opt for euthanasia instead of waiting for assistance. At the same time, sick and elderly Canadians who have refused to end their lives via MAiD have reported being called “selfish” by their providers.
The most recent reports show that MAiD is the sixth highest cause of death in Canada. However, it was not listed as such in Statistics Canada’s top 10 leading causes of death from 2019 to 2022.
When asked why MAiD was left off the list, the agency said that it records the illnesses that led Canadians to choose to end their lives via euthanasia, not the actual cause of death, as the primary cause of death.
According to Health Canada, in 2022, 13,241 Canadians died by MAiD lethal injections. This accounts for 4.1 percent of all deaths in the country for that year, a 31.2 percent increase from 2021.
Russia considers NATO’s incursion into Ukraine to be an existential threat, and NATO has openly stated its intention to make Ukraine a member state after the war. Without a political settlement that restores Ukraine’s neutrality, Russia will therefore likely annex the strategic territories it cannot accept ending up under NATO control and then turn what remains of Ukraine into a dysfunctional rump state. As the war is being lost, the rational policy for the Europeans would therefore be to offer an agreement based on ending NATO’s eastward expansion to save Ukrainian lives, territory and the nation itself. Yet, no European leader has been able to even suggest such a solution publicly. Why?
Present the average European politician, journalist or academic with the following thought experiment: If you were an advisor to the Kremlin, what would be your advice to Russia if there are no negotiations to resolve the Ukraine War? Most would feel morally compelled to give ridiculous answers such as advising the Kremlin to capitulate and withdraw, even if Russia is on the cusp of victory. Any impulse to adhere to reason and address Russia’s security concerns would likely be deterred by the threat of being shamed for “legitimising” Russia’s invasion.
What explains the decline of strategic thinking, pragmatism and rationality in European politics?
Europe’s Reality as a Social Construction
The political class that emerged in Europe after the Cold War have become excessively ideological and committed to narratives to socially construct new realities. The Europeans embrace of postmodernism entails questioning the existence of objective reality as our understanding of reality is shaped by language, culture and unique historical perspectives. The postmodernists therefore often seek to change narratives and language as a source of political power. If reality is a social construction, then the grand narratives can be more important than facts. Indeed, ideological narratives must be defended from inconvenient facts.
The European project had the benign intentions of creating a common liberal democratic European identity that would transcend the divisive national rivalry and power politics of the past. The relevance of objective reality is contested, and narratives about reality are believed to reflect power structures that can be dismantled and reorganised.
The prevalence of constructivism and focus on “speech acts” in the EU has led to the belief that even using realist analysis and discussing competing national interests entail legitimising realpolitik and thus socially constructing a more dangerous reality. Speech acts refer to the use of language as a source of power by constructing political realities and influencing outcomes. By reducing the focus on security competition in the international system, it is assumed that power politics can be mitigated.
Is it possible to socially construct a new reality? Do we transcend security competition by not addressing it or do we neglect the responsible management of security competition. Can we transcend national rivalries by focusing on common values or does the neglect of national interests result in decline?
Socially Constructing a New Europe
The concept of the “rhetorical trap” explains how the EU reached a consensus to offer membership to Central and Eastern European states when it was not in the self-interest of all EU member states to do so. The rhetorical trap was set by first having member states accept the ideological premise that the legitimacy of the EU project was based on the integration of liberal democratic states. By appealing to the values and norms as the foundation of the EU, a rhetorical trap was set as the sense of moral obligation shamed EU member states from vetoing the enlargement process. The use of language and framing could thus influence European states to not act in their own interests as they were shamed into compliance.
Schimmelfennig, who introduced the concept of the rhetorical trap, argues that “politics is a struggle over legitimacy, and this struggle is fought out with rhetorical arguments”.[1] The rhetorical trap simplifies a complex issue into a binary choice of either supporting the enlargement process or betraying liberal democratic ideals. The moral framing shuts down important discussions about the potential downsides of accepting new members and how to address these challenges in the best way. Dissent could be crushed as framing the issue as a moral imperative meant that those who even questioned the moral framing could be accused of undermining the sacred values that uphold the legitimacy of the entire European project.
The concept of “Euro-speak” entails using emotional rhetoric to legitimise an EU-centric understanding of Europe that de-legitimises alternative concepts of Europe. Centralising decision-making and transferring power from elected parliaments to Brussels is typically referred to as “European integration”, “more Europe”, or “ever-closer Union”. Neighbouring non-member states that adhere to the EU’s external governance are making the “European choice”, confirming their “European perspective”, and embracing “shared values”. Dissent can be delegitimised as “populism”, “nationalism”, “Euro-phobia” and “anti-Europeanism”, which undermines the “common voice”, “solidarity” and the “European dream”.
The language has also changed in terms of how the West asserts power in the world. Torture is “enhanced interrogation techniques”, gunboat diplomacy is “freedom of navigation”, dominance is “negotiations from a position of strength”, subversion is “democracy promotion”, coup is “democratic revolution”, invasion is “humanitarian intervention”, secession is “self-determination”, propaganda is “public diplomacy”, censorship is “content moderation”, and the more recent example of China’s competitive advantage that is labelled “over-capacity”. George Orwell’s concept of Newspeak entailed constraining language to the point it became impossible to express dissent.
NATO and the EU: Redividing Europe or “European Integration”
Western leaders initially recognised that abandoning an inclusive pan-European security architecture by expanding NATO and the EU would likely provoke another Cold War. The predictable consequence of constructing a new Europe without Russia would be to redivide the continent and then fight over where the new dividing lines should be drawn.
President Bill Clinton cautioned in January 1994 that NATO expansion risked to “draw a newline between East and West that could create a self-fulfilling prophecy of future confrontation”.[2] Clinton’s Secretary of Defence, William Perry, even considered resigning in opposition to expanding NATO. Perry noted that most people in the administration knew the betrayal would create conflicts with Russia, yet they believed it did not matter as Russia was weak.[3] George Kennan, Jack Matlock and a multitude of American political leaders also framed it as a betrayal against Russia and warned against redividing Europe. These concerns were also shared by many European leaders.
What happened to the discourse and warnings about instigating another Cold War? The narrative of the EU and NATO as a “force for good” that advance liberal democratic values had to be defended against the “outdated” narrative of power politics. Russian criticism of reviving the zero-sum security architecture of bloc politics was presented as evidence of Russia’s “zero-sum mentality”. Russia’s inability to recognise that NATO and the EU were positive-sum actors that transcend power politics allegedly revealed Russia’s inability to overcome the dangerous mindset of realpolitik, which was caused by Russia’s enduring authoritarianism and great power ambitions. The EU was merely constructing a “ring of friends”, while Russia allegedly demanded “spheres of influence”.
Russia was presented with the dilemma of either embracing the role of an apprentice aiming to join the civilised world by accepting NATO’s dominant role as a force for good, or Russia could resist NATO’s expansionism and “out-of-area missions” but then be treated as a dangerous force to be contained. Either way, Russia would not have a seat at the table in Europe. Liberal democratic tropes justified why the largest state in Europe should eventually be the only state without representation.
The expansion of NATO and the EU as exclusive blocs also imposes an “us-or-them” dilemma on the deeply divided societies in Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. Yet, rather than recognising the predictable destabilisation of divided societies in a divided Europe, it is presented as positive-sum “European integration” despite the implicit decoupling from Russia. Societies prioritising closer relations with Russia rather than NATO and the EU are delegitimised for rejecting democracy while their leaders are dismissed as authoritarian “Putinists” who deprive their people of their European dream.
The moral framing of the world convinced European leaders to support a coup to pull Ukraine into the NATO orbit. It was common knowledge that only a small minority of Ukrainians desired NATO membership and that it would likely trigger a war, yet liberal democratic rhetoric still convinced European leaders to ignore reality and support disastrous policies. Common sense could be shamed.
Western political leaders, journalists and academics seeking to mitigate the security competition by addressing Russia’s legitimate security concerns are similarly accused of carrying water for Putin, repeating Kremlin talking points, “legitimising” Russian policies, and undermining liberal democracy. With the binary moral framing of good versus evil, intellectual pluralism and dissent are castigated as immoral.
Besides being plagued by war, Europe is also undergoing economic decline. The Europeans are buying Russian energy through India as an intermediary as they are morally obliged to follow failed sanctions. The virtue-signalling contributes to European industries becoming less competitive. The de-industrialisation of Europe is also caused by the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines, yet the event that is destroying decades of industrial development is memory-holed as the only two suspects are the US and Ukraine. Furthermore, the US offers subsidies to the subsequent uncompetitive European industries if they relocate across the Atlantic. In the absence of acceptable narratives, the Europeans simply keep silent and do not defend their national interests. The narrative of liberal democracies united by values rather than divided by competing interests must be defended from inconvenient facts.
Diplomacy, Neutrality & the Virtue of War
Diplomacy does not conform with the constructivist effort to socially construct a new reality. The point of departure in international security is the security competition in which efforts to increase the security of a state can decrease the security of another. Diplomacy entails enhancing mutual understanding and pursuing compromise to mitigate the security competition.
The social constructivists often consider diplomacy to be problematic as it “legitimises” the security competition that recognises NATO can undermine legitimate Russian security interests. Furthermore, it risks legitimising the opponent and creating a moral equivalency between Western states and Russia. The European elites believe that [they can] legitimise outdated and dangerous concepts of power politics by engaging in mutual understanding. The absurd conviction that negotiation is “appeasement” has become normalised in Europe.
Diplomacy therefore has been reimagined as a relationship between a subject and an object, between a teacher and a student. In this relationship, NATO and the EU consider their role as “socialising” other states. As a civilising teacher, the Enlightened West uses diplomacy as a pedagogic instrument in which states are “punished” or “rewarded” by their preparedness to accept unilateral concessions. While diplomacy historically has been imperative during times of crisis, the European elites believe they must instead punish “bad behaviour” by suspending diplomacy once a crisis breaks out. Meeting with opponents during crises runs the risk of legitimising them.
Neutrality was until recently considered a moral stance that mitigates security competition and enables a state to serve as a mediator rather than becoming entangled and escalating conflicts. In a struggle between good and evil, neutrality is also deemed to be immoral. The belt of neutral states that existed between NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries has now been dismantled and even war becomes a virtuous defence of moral principles.
How to Restore Rationality & Correct the Post-Cold War Mistakes?
The failure to establish a mutually acceptable post-Cold War settlement that would remove the dividing lines in Europe and enhance indivisible security has resulted in a predictable catastrophe. Yet, course correction requires nothing less than reconsidering the policies of the past 30 years and the concept of Europe at a moment when animosity is rampant on both sides. The European project was envisioned as the embodiment of Fukuyama’s “end of history” thesis and an entire political class has based their legitimacy on conforming to the idea that developing a Europe without Russia was a recipe for peace and stability.
Does Europe have the rationality, political imagination and courage to critically assess its own mistakes and contribution to the current crisis, or will all criticism continue to be denounced as a threat to liberal democracy?
[1] Schimmelfennig, Frank, 2003. The EU, NATO and the integration of Europe: Rules and rhetoric, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, page 208.
[2] B. Clinton, ‘Remarks to Multinational Audience of Future Leaders of Europe’, US Diplomatic Mission to Germany, 9 January 1994.
[3] J. Borger, ‘Russian hostility ‘partly caused by west’, claims former US defence head’, The Guardian, 9 March 2016.
“It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”
Henry Kissinger’s much-quoted statement after the American friend, dictator Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, took power in Vietnam in 1963 and shot the previous American friend, dictator Ngô Ðình Diệm, was reported by William F. Buckley Jr. When the Americans fled Vietnam headlong a decade later, they left their friends in the care of the communist Việt Cộng.
Meanwhile, Kissinger’s statement could be confirmed by a respectable line of other American friends, haphazardly Reza Shah Pahlavi, expelled from Iran in 1979, Saddam Hussein, executed in 2006, Afghan Mujahideen, recruited in 1978 to fight the USSR and then as the Taliban and Al-Qaeda prominent US enemies, Iraqi Kurds and Shiites, incited to rise against Saddam in 1991 and left to his retaliation, Mikheil Saakashvili, in 2008 incited to attack Russian regions of Georgia, today in a Georgian prison, Afghan friends, after fleeing in 2020 left in the care of the Taliban. And of course: Russia after 1992 and China in the new century. And: Ukraine and Europe since 2014.
“America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests,” Kissinger explained.
Ukrainian friend
Recently, I have come across a number of reflections from analysts and commentators expressing wonder at how unreasonable the US government is in encouraging Ukraine to further escalate a lost war. It is a natural curiosity, for a normal person who is repulsed by killing, tries to resolve disputes through negotiations, and sees war as the ultimate tragedy.
Any reasonable person would expect that if Ukraine has strong ties to both the EU and the Eurasian Union, it can play a useful role as a bridge between them. They would expect the conflict between the government and the protesters to end with a round table agreement. When it had already bloody escalated, they would have expected that the EU, Russia and the US would jointly enforce the agreement between Yanukovych and the opposition against armed fighters and that the shooting would be investigated by an international commission. When the coup government took power, they would expect pressure to be exerted on it not to provoke Russian-speaking Ukrainians with hostile actions. When the anti-coup federalists in the east refused to recognize the coup government, they would have expected the international community to push for the federalization of the country and the creation of a government with a share of both parts in order to preserve its integrity. As the Kiev government had already sent an army against the anti-coup federalists, they would have expected the international community to at least prevent massacres of the civilian population by artillery, rocket fire and aerial bombardment.
I also had a possible explanation:
However, if the task was to “force Russia to decide whether to intervene”, the entire Ukrainian development suddenly appears completely understandable and logical. Its strategy was outlined already in March by George Friedman: it will be fought on the battlefields of Ukraine and Moldova by an alliance of Visegrad battlegroups led by Poland, Romania and Azerbaijan.
The strategy wasn’t fulfilled in 2014. Russia decided not to intervene, the Visegrad battlegroups showed no interest, and the anti-coup federalists not only defended themselves, but inflicted a significant defeat on the Ukrainian army. America’s friend needed more thorough preparation.
The faked Minsk II agreement gave it eight years. During that time, anti-Russian hatred was whipped up, the country committed itself to its tradition of pro-Nazi war against Russia, and the army was trained for it and armed with the most modern technology. All that remained was to overcome Russian hesitancy to intervene.
Promises of admission to NATO, spectacular war preparations, plans to install medium-range missiles, the prospect of arming with nuclear weapons, terror against the Donbas population and the planned offensive to break its resistance finally convinced Russia of the necessity of at least a special military operation with the aim of ousting Zelensky’s government and replacing it with a more accommodating one in the manner of Prague 1968. However, the landing was already expected at the airport in Hostomel and the special military operation turned into an open war.
And again, one can wonder:
Why did the West stubbornly insist on expanding NATO to Ukraine when all the experts warned that it would inevitably lead to war? Against what Russian attack were they arming Ukraine when Russia refrained from intervening in 2014, when it would have had the best conditions for it? Why did they convince Ukraine not to respect the Minsk agreements, when they were the only guarantee of peace and – except for Crimea – its territorial integrity? Why did no one mention the protection of ethnic minorities when the Kyiv government ostracized the Russian-speaking population? Why didn’t anyone speak about the ongoing shelling of Donbas cities? Why did the West refuse to even consider the Russian proposal for a European security architecture? Why did they encourage Zelensky toward further and further provocations with strategic partnerships, ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons? Why did they prevent him from concluding the Istanbul peace agreement in March 2022, a month after the fighting began?
And again, a plausible explanation can be offered, which makes the entire Ukrainian development suddenly appear completely understandable and logical:
The brief was to “force Russia to decide whether to intervene.” The Russo-Ukrainian war is not an accident of the reckless policy of the West, but its carefully prepared goal.
A specific feature of American political culture is the public availability of information. There is no need to speculate, interpret and theorize.
“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union,” reads the Wolfowitz Doctrine of 1992. “Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire,” writes Zbigniew Brzezinski in 1997. “The West wants to finish the job begun with the fall of the Berlin Wall and continue Europe’s march to the east… The great prize is Ukraine,” Washington Post writes in 2004.
“Yats[eniuk] is the guy who’s got the economic experience, the governing experience,” claimed Victoria Nuland while designing a new Ukrainian government on February 6, 2014.
“The [Donbas] settlements shall be liberated one by one, with armor going in first and wiping out the remaining pockets of resistance,” instructed the RAND Corporation in order to provoke Russian intervention and, after failing that, in April 2019 it developed a detailed scenario “Overextending and Unbalancing Russia.”
In June 2022, the American Helsinki Commission convened a conference on “Decolonizing (fragmentation) Russia.”
“Ukraine has trillions of dollars worth of critical minerals in their country. Vladimir Putin cannot be allowed to access that money,” Senator Lindsey Graham explained.
But first, friend Zelensky has to be convinced. The Russian army is equipped with outdated weapons and suffers from a lack of ammunition, low morale and poor command. Against the Ukrainian army, with modern arms and trained according to NATO guidelines, it has no chance, they lied to him. Ukraine is a bright beacon of Western democracy against Putin’s dark Eastern dictatorship, they flattered him. When Russia attacks, we will impose unprecedented economic sanctions against it, its economy will collapse, hunger will drive people into the streets, and Putin’s regime will be overthrown, they fantasized. And in particular, they promised military aid in a form that convinced him that NATO armies would rush to his aid.
Sobering up came immediately. Like Saakashvili before him, he quickly found out that “We are defending our state alone, the most powerful forces of the world are watching from afar,” that “NATO is afraid of a confrontation with Russia”. Too late. Requests for the establishment of a no-fly zone remained unheeded, requests for tanks, missiles and planes were half-heard with long reluctance only when the situation became critical, not even a desperate attempt to fire a missile at Poland and pass it off as a Russian attack on a NATO state was taken. Zelensky only receives promises of help for as long as it takes. “We have never spent money so well,” Lindsey Graham assures him, “Russians are dying”.
However, after the failed summer offensive of 2023, the money channel is also closing. America’s self-sacrificing friend Ukraine, with hundreds of thousands dead and tens of millions of refugees, faces financial, economic, military, geographic, demographic and political collapse. They won’t even allow part of Ukraine’s astronomical debts to be forgiven. Instead, Western corporations are buying up its remaining assets – agricultural, mineral and industrial – on the cheap.
Russian friend
In 1992, Paul Wolfowitz could have only one new rival in mind, posing a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union: the connection of Europe with Russia, especially German technology and capital with Russian natural resources, the Common European House from Lisbon to Vladivostok. And finally, Europe itself on the path to integration. China, America’s friend then, was not considered as a rival yet.
However, the way to prevent the emergence of a European-Russian rival is clear: divide et impera. To enrage them against each other, to weaken both and to induce a war between them. America has systematically devoted itself to this for thirty years. The nagging questions are answered.
The first decade was spent in the spirit of all-embracing friendship between the US, Russia and European countries, confirmed by the Malta Summit in 1989. American advisers rushed to help the Russian friend with neoliberal economic reforms, advantageously bought up Russian assets, liquidated its nuclear weapons, took away its experts and fissile material, established contacts with the new Russian oligarchs. Financial loans were rejected; the goal was to weaken Russia. Friend Russia sank to the brink of collapse.
Europe, economically consolidated and united by the values of peaceful coexistence, the rule of law, the social market and human rights, was a different issue. The path led in a detour, from the East, through New Europe, the post-communist states, with whose new elites the Americans had close relations since the days of dissent. It was no more difficult to introduce radical neoliberal reforms in countries disoriented by disintegration and profitably privatize their state assets than in Russia, but their role did not end there. In 1993, at the time of Russia’s deepest decline, Václav Havel and Lech Walęsa suddenly began to fear “Russian expansionism” and, “in order to preserve peace in Europe,” insisted on admission to NATO.
This is the key moment. For the first time, it was said that Russia is a threat to Europe and that NATO should expand to the East.
The first three countries are accepted in 1999 at the same time as the outbreak of the first international war in Europe since 1945 and the first combat engagement of NATO in its history, the bombing of Yugoslavia, Russia’s closest ally. Viktor Orbán prevented further escalation by rejecting the demand that Hungary invade Yugoslavia.
European friend
In the following years, the US achieved four key goals in Europe: to portray Russia as a dangerous enemy and isolate it from Europe, to expand NATO to its borders, to subjugate European political elites unconditionally, and finally to weaken Europe.
The last one was initiated by President Trump in 2017 with sanctions against the supply of cheap Russian gas, a symbol of European-Russian integration, with the aim of replacing it with expensive American gas. This is followed by measures against European trade surpluses and tariffs on steel, aluminum and cars. Significant are the references to Europe’s inability to defend itself against Russian aggression and its dependence on American intelligence and defense. They demand an increase in the military spending of NATO states to 2% of GDP, or more billions of European taxes for the US arms industry.
The 2020-2021 Covid operation was not targeted specifically against Europe, but it contributed to its weakening no less than other measures. In addition to the additional billions of dollars of European taxpayers transferred to pharmaceutical companies for absurdly high prices orders for ineffective vaccines, and in addition to the economic collapse due to lockdowns, it further deepened the decay of the already broken cohesion of European communities, increased the tension between establishments and citizens, and helped destroy democracy through censorship and repression.
With the rise of Joe Biden, Victoria Nuland and Antony Blinken, the architects of the Ukrainian-Russian war, the weakening of the European friend takes a turn. European politicians are pressured to agree to the termination of the Nord Stream and the introduction of “unprecedented sanctions” against Russia in the event of “aggression against Ukraine”, which even Zelensky himself does not believe in at the time. But Biden knows that he will eventually force Russia to intervene.
The Russian invasion unleashes a fanatical anti-Russian campaign. With outrageous rhetoric unheard since the 1950s, an orgy of unprecedented sanctions, the termination of the Nord Stream project sealed by its sabotage, the seizure of bank reserves and the disconnection of Russia from the banking system, and the boycott of Russian culture, sports, vodka and cats, the rift between Europe and Russia is complete.
Let’s not be fooled by the rhetoric. Nominally, the aim of the sanctions is to weaken Russia, but their – intended – parallel effect is to weaken Europe. Anti-Russian hysteria masks the demagogic arguments about “dependence on Russian gas” and the “financing of Russian aggression” as a pretext to replace cheap Russian resources, to which it owes its economic rise, with overpriced American ones. The sanctions affect more or less all European trade with Russia. Imports from Russia fell by 85% from early 2022 to May 2023, exports by 65%. Unlike Russia, which was able to compensate for the shortfall in Asia, Europe does not have a comparable replacement.
The pressure to disengage from trade with China, justified by alleged security risks and trade sanctions, pursues the same goal. However, unlike Russia, China is the EU’s largest trading partner with a 21% share of imports, larger than the US (12%) one, so the pressure rather encouraged latent reservations towards the US and resulted in only a vague formulation of prospective “risk reduction”.
The main drain on the European economy is, of course, Ukraine.
Arms deliveries have emptied European military warehouses, which will need to be replenished with state-of-the-art American technology. Not only to supplement, but also to increase thoroughly, because “after the victory in Ukraine, Russia plans to invade other European states”.
And let’s not overlook the differences. While European weapons for Ukraine are a taxpayer-funded gift, American ones are subject to a lend-lease agreement. Ukraine will pay them back for decades – by cheaply selling off land and raw materials to BlackRock and other American corporations.
The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022, provides $783 billion in subsidies to US-based businesses. This, in addition to the significant difference in energy prices, is another effective incentive for European companies to relocate to the US.
An overlooked financial drain are the consequences of American aggression paid for by European taxes. Refugees from countries ravaged by American aggression at the beginning of the century already meant a considerable burden for Europe. Illegal trafficking structures, establishing with them, quickly compensated for the drop in demand in West Asia with inexhaustible resources in Africa, especially after the destruction of Libya, which until then had functioned as a filter. The Ukrainian war then drove out millions of others, to whom Europe provides above-standard conditions for political reasons. Even more serious than the economic costs themselves are the social, political and cultural consequences, the polarization and disintegration of the European value system.
Even in 2011, GDP per capita in the EU was slightly higher than in the US ($15,800/$14,700 USD). Twelve years later, it is a third lower ($18,350/$27,400). Europe is in a phase of deindustrialization, which the crisis of the automobile industry due to cheap Chinese competition will significantly accelerate. While the USA has greatly strengthened its economy through the war, its European friend is facing a long-term economic and political decline.
Israeli friend
The relationship between the US and Israel, as observers note, has no parallels in history. It appears as if little Israel is the despotic ruler of the superpower USA. It collects an annual tribute from them, sends their army against its rivals, uses their veto in the Security Council to ensure its own impunity, has them finance the genocide of the Palestinians, drains their weapons potential, forces them to violate their own laws prohibiting the supply of arms to states developing nuclear weapons and is obstructing American humanitarian aid. In order to stifle criticism, it will abolish their constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression and lead the US into international isolation.
At the same time, Israel has no mercy for its vassal. In 1967, it stole material for the development of the atomic bomb from the US, and there are indications of Israeli participation in the assassination of JF Kennedy, who wanted to prevent the nuclear armament of Israel. In the same year, Israel tried to sink the American ship Liberty and blame it on Egypt to get the US military to fight its war. Israel maintains an extensive espionage network in the US, steals their know-how without scruples and occasionally even sells it on. Very strong indications point to its involvement in the terrorist attacks of 9/11, with the intention of pushing the US into wars against its rivals. For years, it has been trying to provoke the US into war against the last of them, Iran, and after October 7, 2023, into a war against the Axis of Resistance. Israel infiltrated and paralyzed US intelligence services to make investigations of Israeli activities impossible, forged pretexts for war actions, and distorted information provided to the public and government administration.
It could be described as an example of a fatal friendship with Israel, but the reality is more complex. Some observers believe that it is the US, on the contrary, that is ruthlessly using Israel – down to the last Israeli – as a battering ram to control Arab oil resources. Its fate would thus follow the fate of Ukraine and other American friends.
However, it is more likely that both countries are controlled by the same globalist cartel, called in the US the Israel Lobby. Its members operate in the public only partially, but they own a significant part of the American media and allocate funds to the election campaigns of more or less all senators and members of the House of Representatives. Some of them have dual nationalities, but the preferred identity is Greater Israel (Eretz Israel). It is not only made up of Jewish Zionists, its larger part is made up of Christian Zionists with a broad background in evangelical communities. And to be consistent, it is not the only one, it seamlessly blends with other cartels, such as the military-industrial, banking, pharmaceutical ones. Thus, their members jointly created a new aristocratic social class of the type of Mussolini’s ”fascio”, which holds the US, Israel and other Western countries under tight control.
Since October, over half a million Jews who had somewhere to go have left Israel. This is almost as many as the number of Palestinians expelled during the Nakba of 1948. The outlook for others is all the more bleak because Israel has burned all the bridges behind it. There is nowhere left to go to.
Facit
One of the hallmarks of psychopathic individuals — and communities — is a headlong fixation on an immediate goal with no plans for what then and what if it doesn’t work out, with complete ignorance of background, context, side effects, and consequences.
Current conflicts illustrate the characteristic. “Mission accomplished,” cheered GW Bush after the defeat of Saddam Hussain. His uncompromising threats to North Korea led to the emergence of another nuclear power. The result of Israeli aggression was the creation of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Axis of Resistance. The consequence of mobbing Iran is that it has become the undisputed leading power in West Asia. Unprecedented sanctions catapulted Russia to the world’s fourth largest economy in purchasing power parity. The identification of Russia and China as the biggest threats has created the BRICS+ bloc the most economically and politically significant global actor. The confiscation of Russian assets and the cutting off of Russia from the international banking system led to the gradual decline of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency and a prospective non-dollar banking system. The unscrupulous arming and support of Ukraine and Israel brought both countries to the brink of extinction. And the quest for totalitarian control of their own society brings even the US itself to the brink of collapse.
The domination of European countries by international power cartels under American domination threatens even Europe with the prospect of war and long-term decline. Logical starting points – gradually detaching from the sinking American Titanic, returning to a Europe of peaceful coexistence, the rule of law, the social market and human rights, and a reorientation towards multipolar politics and economics – run into internal and external obstacles.
Of the internal ones, it is primarily the infiltration of European politics by personalities dependent – pragmatically, career-wise, through corruption, compromise, threats – on power cartels. The role of the fifth column is played by the post-communists, especially the Baltic countries, over which they took control without resistance immediately after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. However, the attraction of global dominance is not alien to the European cultural tradition of exceptionalism, wars, colonialism and conquest. Finally, decades of ideological indoctrination have shaped the attitudes and, in particular, the fanatical aversion of a significant portion of the European population in favor of Western anti-Russian, anti-Islamic, and anti-Chinese narratives.
The external obstacles are mainly the expected reactions of powerful cartels to the threat of loss of influence. A small sample are the reactions of the European bureaucracy to the dissenting positions of Hungary, Slovakia, or Poland. A more massive movement away from the US is likely to be met – if they are still capable – with the full weight of US resources – from political pressure and economic sanctions to the mobilization of hidden structures to color revolutions and false flag actions.
The whole world, and Europe in particular, is currently in a stage that will decide the developments of the coming decades. Western dominance is being eroded faster and faster by desperate attempts to maintain it. At the same time, it must be admitted that European attitudes can only influence the speed, but not the direction. The only thing it can influence is its own future: Europe as an insignificant relic of bygone times or as an equal partner in a multipolar world.
The weeks and months after November 5th will tell us more.
Since the Zionist entity’s 21st century Holocaust in Gaza began, Israeli officials, pundits, journalists, and their Western opposite numbers have endlessly invoked the sinister spectre of “terrorism” to justify the industrial-scale slaughter of Palestinians. It is because of “terrorism”, twice-failed US Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton representatively wrote for The Atlantic in November 2023, “Hamas must be permanently erased.” Destroyed hospitals and schools and civilians killed en masse are reasonable “collateral damage.” Such is the unparalleled evil of “terrorists.”
Yet, the relentless stream of heart-rending clips documenting the Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) Holocaust deluging social media feeds the world over, and the ever-ratcheting child death toll has compelled countless citizens to ask, “if Hamas are terrorists, then what are Zionists?”. Similar questions were posed during the Empire’s long-running “War on Terror”. Then, the purported global threat of “terrorism” was exploited throughout the West to savage civil liberties and demonise Muslims at home, while waging relentless criminal “interventions” abroad.
Mainstream usage of the term precipitouslyplummeted thereafter. It is only now regaining popular currency due to the Gaza genocide. This is no accident. As we shall see, Zionists – specifically Israel’s veteran leader Benjamin Netanyahu – were fundamental to concocting mainstream conceptions of “terrorism”, explicitly to delegitimize anti-imperial struggles, while validating Western state violence directed at oppressed peoples across the Global South. The impact of this informational assault can be felt in every corner of the world today – not least Gaza.
Usage of the term ‘terrorism’ 1960 – 2020, per Google
‘First Strike’
In fact, one might reasonably conclude the specific foundations of Nakba 2.0, which continues to unfold in grisly real-time right now, were laid decades ago, as a result of the connivances of Netanyahu, the international Zionist lobby, and US Central Intelligence Agency. What follows is the little-known history of how “terrorism” came to be. A majority of the world’s population – the Palestinian people in particular – live with the monstrous consequences every day.
Our story starts in 1976, at the peak of détente between the US and Soviet Union. After two-and-a-half decades of bitter enmity, the two superpowers had resolved to peaceful coexistence at the start of the decade. They collaborated to systematically dismantle structures and doctrines that defined the immediate post-World War II era, such as Mutually Assured Destruction (M.A.D.).
In May that year, the CIA produced its annual National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a comprehensive report combining data from various intelligence agencies, intended to be a basis for crafting foreign policy. In keeping with the past five years, it concluded the Soviets were in severe economic decline, favoured diplomacy over conflict, and desperately sought an end to the Cold War. Such findings lay behind Washington’s push for détente, and Moscow’s eager acceptance of major disarmament and arms control treaties.
However, newly-appointed CIA director George H. W. Bush categorically rejected these conclusions. He sought a second opinion, so constructed an independent intelligence cell to review the NIE. Known asTeam B, it was composed of hardcore Cold Warriors, defence industry-funded hawks, and rabid anti-Communists. Among them were several individuals who would later become leading figures in the neoconservative movement, such as Paul Wolfowitz. Also present were infamous CIA and Pentagon dark arts specialists who had been professionally ostracised due to détente.
Team B duly reviewed the NIE, and rubbished each and every one of the Agency’s findings. Rather than dilapidated, impoverished and teetering on total collapse, the Soviet Union was, in fact, more deadly and dangerous than ever, having constructed a vast array of “first strike” capabilities right under the CIA’s nose. To reach these bombshell conclusions, Team B relied on a confounding hodgepodge of peculiar logical fallacy, paranoid theorising, crazed conspiratorial conjecture, unsupported value judgments, and amateurish circular reasoning.
An explainer on Team B authored by one of its members, in a Zionist rag
For example, Team B repeatedly assessed that a lack of evidence Moscow possessed weapons systems, military technology, or surveillance capabilities comparable or superior to Washington’s own was inverse proof the Soviets, in fact, did. Moscow’s innovations were just so sophisticated and innovative, Team B concluded, they couldn’t be detected or even comprehended by the West. Team B’s analysis was confirmed to be a total fantasy after the USSR collapsed. Yet, its methods informed all subsequent NIEs throughout the Cold War, and likely endure today.
On June 27th of that year, mere weeks after Team B was set to work on reigniting the Cold War, Air France Flight 139, en route to Paris from Tel Aviv, was hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Redirected to a Ugandan airport, the plane was greeted on the runway by Idi Amin’s military, who ushered the passengers – the majority being Jewish or Israeli – into the terminal, watched over by scores of soldiers, intended to prevent their escape or rescue.
The hijackers relayed a demand to the government of Israel. Unless a ransom of $5 million was paid to them and 53 Palestinian prisoners were released from jail, the hostages would be executed. In response, 100 elite IOF commandos launched an audacious action to free the hostages. Their mission – known as the Entebbe Raid – was a stunning success. All but four hostages were rescued alive, and the IOF lost just one commander – Yonatan (Jonathan) Netanyahu, the older brother of Israel’s current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
For years by that point, Israeli officials had been attempting to popularise the term “terrorism” to explain the motivations and actions of Palestinian freedom fighters. That way, their righteous fury at repression could be reframed as a destructive ideology of violence for violence’s sake without rationale, and Zionist colonial tyranny as warranted self-defence. This effort became turbocharged in September 1972, when the kidnapping of 11 Israeli athletes at that year’s Olympics in Munich by Palestinian militants ended with all hostages murdered.
This particularly public bloodshed centred world attention on Israel, and left Western citizens wondering what could’ve possibly inspired such violence. Zionists had hitherto managed to largely conceal their systematic, state-enforced repression and displacement of Palestinians from the outside world. Journalists were kept well away from the scenes of major crimes. At the same time, Amnesty International’s Israeli branch was secretly financed and directed by Tel Aviv’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to whitewash facts on the ground.
For the Netanyahu family, the Entebbe raid was a tragedy – but also an ideal opportunity to validate and internationalise the concept of “terrorism,” as espoused by Zionists. In 1979, Benjamin Netanyahu founded the Jonathan Institute, in honour of his slain brother. Its purpose, he said, was:
“To focus public attention on the grave threat that international terrorism poses to all democratic societies, to study the real nature of today’s terrorism, and to propose measures for combating and defeating the international terror movements.”
In July that year, the Institute convened the Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism (JCIT) in Jerusalem’s Hilton Hotel. It gathered together a 700-strong mob of Israeli government officials, US lawmakers, intelligence operatives from across the ‘Five Eyes’ global spying network, and Western foreign policy apparatchiks. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many representatives of Team B were in attendance. Over four days and seven separate sessions, speaker after speaker painted a disturbing picture of the worldwide phenomenon of “terrorism.”
They unanimously declared that all “terrorists” constituted a single, organised political movement that was being secretly financed, armed, trained, and directed by the Soviet Union. This devilish nexus, it was claimed, posed a mortal threat to Western democracy, freedom, and security, requiring a coordinated response. Eerily, as academic Diana Ralphlater observed, the JCIT’s collective prescription for tackling this purported menace was precisely what transpired just over two decades later during the “War on Terror”:
“[This included] pre-emptive attacks on states alleged to support ‘terrorists’; an elaborate intelligence system apparatus; slashed civil liberties, particularly for Palestinians targeted as potential terrorists, including detention without charge, and torture; and propaganda to dehumanize ‘terrorists’ in the eyes of the public.”
Israel’s then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin addressed the JCIT’s opening session. He set the tone by claiming Western state violence was ultimately “a fight for freedom or liberation” and, therefore, fundamentally opposed to “terrorism.” He concluded his remarks by imploring the assembled throng to go forth and promote the conference’s message once it was over. Which they did.
‘Insufficient Evidence’
Among JCIT’s attendees was American author and journalist Claire Sterling, who cut her teeth as a reporter decades earlier at the Overseas News Agency, an MI6 propaganda operation seeking to boost US public support for entering World War II. Following the conference, she frequently amplified the claims of JCIT speakers in articles for prominent newspapers, leading to an epic March 1981front-page exposé in The New York Times – Terrorism: Tracing The International Network.
A book published later that year, The Terror Network, expanded significantly on Sterling’s oeuvre, and firmly cemented the notion of Moscow as a grand spider sat in the middle of a vast, globe-spanning web of deadly political violence in the Western public mind. It caused a sensation upon release, receiving rave reviews from major news outlets, being translated into 22 languages, and becoming a bestseller in several countries.
The Terror Network had a particularly potent impact on newly-inaugurated President Ronald Reagan and his CIA chief William Casey. Committed anti-Communists, they entered office desperately seeking a pretext for brutally crushing left-wing, nationalist opposition to US imperialism in Latin America. Sterling’s work provided ample ammunition for achieving that bloodsoaked objective and was key to the White House decisively shattering détente, a process begun by Team B five years earlier.
Consequently, “The Terror Network” was circulated among US lawmakers and heavily promoted overseas on the Reagan administration’s dime. Casey furthermore tasked his Agency with verifying its thesis. They quickly assessed Sterling’s work to be irredeemable garbage, ironically enough, as it washeavily influenced by CIA black propaganda. Enraged, Casey demanded the evaluation be revised. Anupdated appraisal was less scathing but nonetheless stressed the book was “uneven and the reliability of its sources varies widely,” while “significant portions” were “incorrect.”
Still dissatisfied, Casey asked a CIA “senior review panel” charged with scrutinising Langley’s formal estimates to write their own report on the subject. They concluded the Soviets did offer limited financial, material and practical assistance to a handful of anti-imperial Global South liberation movements, some of which were labelled “terrorists” by Western powers. But there was “insufficient evidence” of Muscovite culpability for the entire global phenomenon of “terrorism,” let alone funding and directing such entities as dedicated policy.
Undeterred, when Casey personally delivered the report to Reagan, heallegedly said of its findings, “of course, Mr. President, you and I know better.” So it was CIA-backed death squads ran roughshod across Washington’s “backyard” throughout the 1980s, in the name of neutralising alleged Soviet influence in the region. Their actions were heavily informed by the Agency’s guerrilla warfare manual, which encouraged assassinations of government officials and civilian leaders and deadly attacks on “soft targets” such as schools and hospitals. “Terrorism”, in other words.
‘We Are All Palestinians’
Another example of Reagan’s “terrorism” was sponsoring Afghanistan’s Mujahideen resistance fighters in their battle with – ironically enough – the Soviet Red Army. This policy endured after the “Evil Empire” was vanquished. The same militants were transported by the CIA and MI6 to Bosnia andKosovo in the 1990s, to aid and abet Yugoslavia’s painful, forced death.
When these covert actions produced [MIHOP or LIHOP] “blowback” in the form of the 9/11 attacks, several individuals who attended the JCIT, and their acolytes, were elevated to the Bush administration due to their supposed “terrorism” expertise. Meanwhile, with public and state-level fears of “terrorism” ramping up significantly the world over, many Western countries turned to Israel for advice and guidance on how to tackle the issue. AsNentyahu bragged in 2008:
“We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq.”
This was not only because 9/11 “swung American public opinion in [Israel’s] favour.” In a blink, Zionist repression and slaughter were transformed from a source of international embarrassment and obloquy into a compelling sales pitch and unique selling point for Tel Aviv’s welter of “defence” and “security” firms. The Occupied Territories became laboratories, their inhabitants test subjects, upon whom new weaponry, surveillance methods, and pacification techniques could be trialled by the IOF, then marketed and sold overseas.
It is not for nothing that graphic videos showcasing IOF “surgical strikes” on Palestinians, their homes, schools, and hospitals are proudly displayed at international arms fairs, while private demonstrations of invasive surveillance tools such as Pegasus routinely wow repressive foreign security and intelligence agencies behind-closed-doors.
On top of a significant financial benefit, there is a diplomatic dividend too. Israel secures invaluable censure-stifling goodwill from customers, therefore permitting the Zionist project of permanently purging Palestine of its indigenous inhabitants to persist untrammelled. While the streets of almost every major Western city have regularly teemed with pro-Palestine fervour ever since the entity’s attack on Gaza began in October 2023, protesters’ elected representatives are at best silent, at worst actively complicit.
Impassioned chants of “We are all Palestinians!” have been afrequent fixture at these events. This rallying call is highly apposite, for in addition to expressing sympathy and solidarity with the Palestinian people, it is urgently incumbent upon us all to reflect upon how the very same techniques and technologies of control and oppression to which they have been so cruelly subjected daily for decades are now firmly trained on us as well, as a result of Israel’s invention of “terrorism.” It is no exaggeration to say Palestinians are canaries in the coalmine of humanity.
By Jonas E. Alexis | Veterans Today | July 23, 2017
Israeli Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu seems to have picked up where the late Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef left off. The Israeli army, Eliyahu said, must slaughter the Palestinians “and leave no one alive.” The Palestinians, the good rabbi continued, must be “destroyed and crushed in order to end violence.” Here is Eliyahu’s algorithm:
“If they don’t stop after we kill 100, then we must kill 1,000. And if they do not stop after 1,000, then we must kill 10,000. If they still don’t stop we must kill 100,000, even a million.”
There is more to this “logic” than meets the eye and ear. Eliyahu even postulated that the Israeli army ought not to get involved in arresting Palestinians because “If you leave him alive, there is a fear that he will be released and kill other people. We must eradicate this evil from within our midst.”
You may say that this is just an isolated case. No Israeli official believes that, right? … continue
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