Russian diplomat accuses Kiev of genocide
RT | January 20, 2025
The Ukrainian military is conducting “language-based genocide,” senior Russian diplomat Rodion Miroshnik claimed on Sunday.
Captured Ukrainian soldiers “have reported they were given orders to kill Russian speakers,” the official tasked by the Russian Foreign Ministry to record alleged Ukrainian atrocities in the conflict with Russia told Izvestia.
Miroshnik was commenting on the discovery of civilian bodies in a recently-liberated village in Russia’s Kursk Region. He asserted that the alleged Ukrainian policy amounts to “elimination of all civilians” in the area, which Kiev recognizes as Russian.
Russian authorities are investigating Ukrainian troops for suspected terrorism, after the bodies of civilians, who were apparently bound, beaten, and murdered by Kiev’s forces, were discovered in the settlement of Russkoye Porechnoye.
The village remained under Ukrainian control since late August, when it was captured during a Western-supported incursion into the Russian region. The Russian Defense Ministry listed it last Friday as freshly-retaken from Ukrainian forces.
On Sunday, the Foreign Ministry described the discovery as evidence of a “massacre” and the latest confirmation of the “terrorist and neo-Nazi essence of the Kiev regime,” as spokeswoman Maria Zakharova put it. She accused Western supporters of the Ukrainian government of turning a blind eye to Kiev’s crimes, and charged that foreign officials secretly condone such behavior.
The Russian Investigative Committee is probing the Ukrainian military for alleged terrorism, based on the reports from Russkoye Porechnoye. A person convicted of such a crime can be sentenced to life imprisonment in Russia.
A Telegram channel associated with the forces responsible for repelling the Ukrainian incursion in Kursk Region released footage on Saturday of Russian troops inspecting the village and finding seven heavily-decomposed bodies in two separate cellars. In both cases, people were reportedly bound and beaten, before being killed.
At one of the locations, a body was too damaged to tell whether it belonged to a man or a woman, with evidence suggesting the use of explosives. Most of the victims were described as elderly people, who presumably had failed to flee from advancing Ukrainian troops.
Officials have vowed to hold the perpetrators accountable, with Zakharova stating that, in the absence of action by relevant international bodies, Russia will pursue justice on its own.
Local police have received statements concerning over 1,100 people missing since the start of the Ukrainian incursion, acting Governor Aleksand Khinshtein reported earlier this month. Of those, 240 have been located, he added.
I saw shredded bodies scattered on roads and hanging from trees in Lebanon: Journalist
By Hiba Morad | Press TV | January 18, 2025
Steve Sweeney, a British journalist who reported on the recent Israeli war on Lebanon, says he saw shredded and charred bodies, including those of children, scattered on the streets and hanging from trees as the Israeli regime bombed the country.
In a conversation with the Press TV website, Sweeney recounted the harrowing scenes he observed during nearly 70 days of relentless Israeli aggression against the Arab country, which resulted in massive death and destruction of civilians.
“Israel killed women and children in Lebanon. How do I know this? I know this because I saw the bodies. I saw people hanging from trees. I saw the remains of children who had been incinerated in these Israeli strikes,” he stated, presenting graphic details of the Zionist atrocities.
Sweeney, who exposed Israeli Hasbara after reporting how regime forces had stacked dollars and weapons in the basements of Sahel General Hospital in the Lebanese capital, called out the blatant lies propagated by the regime to justify preemptive strikes against displaced civilians and residential areas.
“We saw several massacres. It is difficult to put into words exactly what we witnessed. These were precision strikes, these were deliberate attacks. The goal was to kill the Shia community and instill fear, not just among the Shia, but also among the other communities that were sheltering them,” he noted.
“These people thought they were in safety, they were far away from the frontline of the fighting and they posed no threat to Israel whatsoever. This is a war crime. We saw the Shia community hunted down by Israel across Lebanon.”
According to the principle of proportionality in international law, as outlined in Article 51 of the UN Charter, even if there is a legitimate military target, attacking it is prohibited if the expected harm to civilians or civilian property is excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage.
The rubble of buildings detsroyed in Israeli bombings in Beirut, Lebanon. (Steeve Sweeney/Press TV website)
Witness of the horror
The British journalist, who covered the war in the South, Baalbek, and the North, recalled the horrors he witnessed firsthand.
“There was a period when Israel was striking civilian buildings in civilian areas that were housing those who had already fled from the Israeli aggression in the South. Those who were killed were not Hezbollah fighters or military commanders. They were mainly women and children,” he told the Press TV website.
On December 4, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad told reporters that a total of 316 children and 790 women had been killed in the Israeli assault on Lebanon.
A week after a truce was declared, Abiad reported that the death toll had reached 4,047, with 16,638 others wounded.
“What we saw was horrific, the massacres… We were at sights in Batroun and in Tripoli near the North and we saw scores of people killed, 23 people here, another 27 people there. In Saida we saw the same residential buildings targeted,” Sweeney told the Press TV website.
“I saw photos of a married couple, photos of children, toys and clothes of children among the rubble. It was something like a horror movie. There was massacre after massacre and war crime after war crime, mainly targeting displaced women and children.”
Reflecting on Israeli claims that these attacks were not deliberate, Sweeney dismissed them as blatant falsehoods. He asserted that Israel was losing on the battlefield and failing to achieve any of its military objectives. In response, its strategy shifted toward provoking civil strife and undermining support for the resistance—sending a clear warning to the Lebanese people that those who shelter the displaced would also be targeted.
“Israel wanted to sow discord among the Lebanese but it rather created a united Lebanon, a united people, who were not prepared to allow a component of the Lebanese people to be singled out. This was a war on all Lebanon, targeting the social fabric of the country,” the journalist said.
Lebanese women hold pictures of Hezbollah martyrs. (Steve Sweeney/Press TV website)
South Lebanon experience
Sweeney was among the first journalists to enter southern Lebanese border areas after the ceasefire.
“What we saw in the South was an apocalyptic scene. Village after village, town after town reduced to rubble. As we drove through we saw houses, apartment blocks destroyed, hospitals, schools, churches, mosques, civil defense centers,” he told the Press TV website.
He dismissed the narrative that Israeli forces were targeting only resistance fighters.
“A lie goes halfway around the world before the truth puts its shoes on, this is certainly a lie. Israel has told lie after lie. They say they had targeted a Hezbollah commander for example, yet they hit an entire building that is full of civilians,” he noted.
He hastened to add that the people of Lebanon are unshakeable and uncompromising, having made immense sacrifices yet refusing to submit or surrender.
“I was there at the very moment the people were returning to their homes or what was left of their homes for the very first time since the ceasefire. One woman, in particular, struck me when she was standing in front of her apartment block reduced into rubble, she had lost everything. Yet she said to me that she would give everything to Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and that she would give everything over and over again for the resistance. Then she said: we have two choices, either surrender or resistance.”
The journalist also pointed out that Israel was deliberately targeting infrastructure, as well as touristic and religious sites.
“We saw again in Tyr, the historic seafront which was bombed by Israel in the aggression. It is the destruction of a city that is crucial to Lebanon in terms of tourism, industry, and the economy. Israel destroyed everything in the South to make it uninhabited,” he remarked.
“I attended the funerals of 11 martyrs from Hezbollah who died fighting to defend their land and territory from Israeli invaders, and again this was a quite moving experience for me. The entire village came out in support of the martyrs and I spoke to one of the women whose son was killed. Of course, she was very sad, but she said I have two other sons, and I would be happy to give them as well.”
Sweeney reflected on how, as a Westerner, he had come to understand the concept of martyrdom better.
“I spoke to a Sheikh (cleric) who explained the concept of martyrdom. He said martyrdom is a new life; a concept that is difficult for a Westerner like me to understand, but I kind of understand it more now after my experience in the last three months of the Israeli aggression,” he stated.
“Israel will never be able to destroy Hezbollah. What they do not understand is that they can decapitate leaders, but those will be replaced. The commanders in Hezbollah are replaced and its structure remains intact. But the most important point is that Hezbollah is the people, and it cannot be defeated.”
Describing the people of southern Lebanon, with whom he spent considerable time, Sweeney remarked that they come from a unique path, calling them “a very special, beautiful, and resilient people.”
Threats for revealing truth
Sweeney said he faced abuse, a smear campaign, and death threats for his reportage on the war and for exposing uncomfortable truths about the Zionist aggression on Lebanon.
“I was abused and received some threats from Israelis when I did an investigative report from inside al-Sahel hospital, which Israel claimed Hezbollah hid dollars in the basement; an outlandish claim they also used in Gaza to justify pre-emptive strikes on hospitals like al-Shifa hospital. I was not targeted but they put me on their radar,” Sweeney told the Press TV website.
“I searched every corner, every room including the basement. And all I found was what you find in any hospital anywhere across the world. I had nobody following me around, there was nothing that I was denied access to and I could open any door I wanted and go anywhere I wanted. I opened boxes, tapped the walls to see if there is anything behind them, I checked every inch. This is Israeli Hasbara.”
In one incident, as Sweeney and his colleagues entered Maroun al-Ras, Israel opened fire on them.
“I am not entirely sure if they were firing at us or it was a warning shot, but this is what they are doing to the people of the South, the people who are trying to return to their homes and villages, it is preventing them from doing so and booby-trapping houses and bulldozing buildings.”
On the killing of three of his colleagues in Lebanon, the British journalist said he previously had been in that area and participating in their funerals affected him deeply as a fellow journalist.
“The landscape of journalism particularly in southern Lebanon is one of oppression, and the Press jacket becomes a target. Journalists in Lebanon hold their weapon which is their pen and camera and Israel is afraid of them because there is no escaping from the exposure of what they are doing.”
On the killing of three of his colleagues in Lebanon, the British journalist said he previously had been in that area and participating in their funerals affected him deeply as a fellow journalist.
“The landscape of journalism particularly in southern Lebanon is one of oppression, and the Press jacket becomes a target. Journalists in Lebanon hold their weapon which is their pen and camera and Israel is afraid of them because there is no escaping from the exposure of what they are doing.”
A forever legacy
The journalist said he also visited the site where Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated on September 27 in the suburbs of Beirut.
“It was a moving experience to stand where this great man was killed. His legacy will never die. What struck me the most was that Hassan Nasrallah died among his people, in a residential area—he was among the people,” he told the Press TV website.
“I think that says everything, about who he was, who he is, and his deep connection with the people. He was such an incredible figure. When he spoke to the nation, the whole of Lebanon would stand still and listen, and that was because what he said mattered to everybody. It mattered to the mechanic, the doctor, the student, the worker, it mattered to the United States, and to Israel.”
On September 27, amid indiscriminate aerial bombardments, the Israeli occupation forces dropped over 80 tons of US-made bunker-buster bombs on the southern suburb of Dahiyeh in Beirut, resulting in the assassination of Sayyed Nasrallah and his associates.
The attack followed the assassinations of top-ranking Hezbollah commanders such as Fuad Shukr and Ibrahim Aqil in separate strikes and preceded the killing of Sayyed Hashem Safiuddin, the head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council.
“He was an intelligent and thoughtful leader. If you listen to his speeches, to the power of his words, you understand that he will never truly die — he lives on in the people and in the resistance. His martyrdom is a huge loss, but it is not the end of Nasrallah. His legacy will endure forever,” Sweeney said.
He added that he has spoken to Lebanese people from all communities across the country, and all of them, “without question,” support the resistance against the Zionist enemy.
“They have made it clear: We either surrender or resist. Despite the horrors inflicted by Israel on the people of Lebanon — despite the destruction and the immense damage Israel has caused, not just physical but also psychological and economic, which should not be underestimated — the people of Lebanon remain unbreakable,” he asserted.
“I have heard this from so many people who have lost their homes, lost everything — they will continue to support the resistance. And should Israel attempt to encroach again on Lebanese sovereign territory, it will be met with fierce resistance.”
Sweeney concluded that, based on what he witnessed and experienced, this is not merely an Israeli war on Hezbollah but an Israeli war on all of Lebanon. And Lebanon has chosen resistance. He added.
Did Syria’s new leaders fake an ‘ISIS plot’ to attack the Sayyeda Zainab shrine?
Sayyida Zainab Shrine (January 2025)
The Cradle | January 17, 2025
Syria’s new interim government, led by former Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (previously known as Abu Mohammed al-Julani) has claimed its security services thwarted an attempt by ISIS to bomb the Sayyida Zainab shrine in the southern suburbs of Damascus.
The shrine, attributed to the granddaughter of the Prophet Mohammed and daughter of Imam Ali Ibn Abi Talib is an especially revered site for Shia Muslims worldwide. Known as the Heroine of Karbala, this year, her martyrdom anniversary was commemorated on 15 January, coinciding with the Islamic date 15 Rajab.
According to news website Shia Waves, “Local sources reported a noticeable decrease in the number of visitors to the shrine compared to previous years, attributed to Syria’s ongoing security challenges and political turmoil.”
However, a closer analysis of the details provided by Syrian state media suggests the plot to bomb the shrine was fabricated. The move appears to be an attempt to present the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)-led government as a protector of minorities to western audiences. This portrayal contrasts sharply with its ongoing sectarian cleansing campaigns in Alawite areas of the country.
The would-be false flag also serves the interests of the new Syrian government’s external sponsors. By exaggerating the ISIS threat, it provides the US with a pretext to maintain its illegal military occupation in Syria. Such an attack is all the more possible now that Hezbollah fighters and advisory forces of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have withdrawn from the country, ostensibly to ensure security for the shrine.
US forces currently occupy key oil fields in the north and east of the country and maintain a strategic base at Al-Tanf on the Syria-Iraq-Jordan border. The narrative of an ISIS threat ensures continued justification for these deployments and the exploitation of Syria’s resources.
Additionally, the conspiracy helps establish a narrative of ISIS culpability in advance. This could pave the way for blame to be assigned to the group if any party—whether elements within the Syrian government pursuing the Wahhabi project of targeting Shia and Sufi shrines, or foreign intelligence agencies seeking to destabilize Syria—decides to destroy the Sayyeda Zainab shrine. Such an event would create further chaos, deepening sectarian divides and serving the interests of those looking to fragment and destabilize Syria.
A staged plot
On 11 January, an unnamed official in Syria’s General Intelligence Service claimed four members of the ISIS cell planning an attack on the shrine were arrested.
Syria state TV showed images of the men, blindfolded and standing against a wall in casual civilian clothes, claiming the group consisted of Lebanese nationals and Palestinian-Lebanese. Images also showed a number of grenades and an anti-tank mine that were allegedly to be used for a suicide attack.
However, Karim Franceschi an Italian-Moroccan who fought with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) against ISIS in Kobane in 2014, gave several reasons why the claimed plot to bomb Sayyeda Zainab was manufactured.
Franceschi observed that ISIS attacks on Sayyida Zaynab in Damascus in the past have used parked vehicles—plastic bags, cars, or motorcycles to plant bombs, rather than suicide bombers.
Further, the TM-57 anti-tank mine allegedly meant to be used in the suicide attack was rigged with the wrong fuse.
“Instead, a crude cord and igniter setup—meant for a suicide vest—is shown. This makes no sense. Using a full mine, with its specific anti-tank explosion radius, is inefficient. HTS knows this, making it clear this setup was staged for propaganda. There is no way ISIS or HTS with their extensive knowledge expertise with explosives would make something this sloppily,” Franceschi writes.
Previous ISIS attacks were not so sloppy. A string of ISIS bombings near the shrine in February 2016 killed 134 people, most of them civilians, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). In January 2016, another attack on the shrine claimed by ISIS killed 70 people.
Julani’s PR offensive
One reason for faking the plot is clear based on the statement issued by the unnamed Syrian intelligence official. He told state media the intelligence service is seeking to protect the country’s minorities, by “putting all its capabilities to stand in the face of all attempts to target the Syrian people in all their spectrums.”
The AP promoted this narrative further, reporting that although HTS leader Sharaa was a former leader in Al-Qaeda, which was notorious for calling for committing massacres against Shia in Iraq, he “has preached religious coexistence since assuming power in Damascus.”
Sharaa needs to preach co-existence and protection of minorities to have economic sanctions lifted. Crippling sanctions were imposed on Syria by the US and EU to strangle the economy and impoverish millions of Syrians in an effort to topple the previous government of Bashar al-Assad. Yet even with Assad gone, the “pointlessly cruel” sanctions remain.
Sharaa has admittedly introduced several reforms to improve life for average Syrians, including ending mandatory military service for Syrian men (which at times lasted up to eight years for meager pay), reducing draconian customs fees on imported products such as cell phones, and removing the checkpoints which slowed travel and forced Syrians to pay bribes or risk being arrested and disappearing into the prison system for arbitrary reasons.
But the lifting of the sanctions and allowing for normal economic activity is crucial for Sharaa to maintain popular support, especially given the unpopularity of his and his government’s efforts to establish a fundamentalist Islamic State in the country.
Maintaining leverage through sanctions
Just as the US and EU used sanctions for leverage against Assad, they are doing the same against Sharaa. The Intercept noted that just hours before Assad fell, and when it was obvious Sharaa and HTS would take power in Damascus, the US Congress moved to extend sanctions, rather than simply let them expire.
“Not considering sanctions relief right now is like pulling the rug out from under Syria just when it’s trying to stand,” The Intercept cited Delaney Simon, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, as saying.
Now, EU governments cite the threat to minorities from Sharaa’s security forces, which are comprised of multiple formerly Al-Qaeda linked groups with records of committing massacres against Syria’s Alawites, Druze, and Christians, as an excuse to keep sanctions in place or to reimpose them as “snapback” sanctions in the future.
Considering that the members of the US Congress most responsible for imposing the sanctions, such as French Hill and Joe Wilson, are also rapid pro-Israel supporters, it can be assumed that Sharaa will be asked in the future to sign a peace deal with Israel giving up the occupied Golan Heights to the Zionist entity in exchange for the sanctions being lifted completely and the possible return of recently occupied Syrian territory under Sharaa’s watch.
The spate of sectarian killings
By preaching religious coexistence and claiming to protect the Sayyeda Zainab shrine, Sharaa is also achieving another goal: providing cover for the ongoing campaign of sectarian cleansing that is taking place in Alawite areas of the country, including parts of Homs and the Hama and Latakia country sides.
The extremist sectarian ideology Sharaa previously embraced when dispatching car bombs to kill Shia civilians in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, is the same ideology which the armed factions under the HTS umbrella supporting his rule still embrace.
Militants affiliated with the new Syrian government, including many foreign jihadists from Uzbekistan, Chechnya, and China (Turkmenistan), are kidnapping and murdering members of Syria’s Alawite community based on their religious identity in various parts of Syria.
As a result, reports of sectarian killings by HTS or affiliated militants in Homs, Latakia, and Tartous continue to flood social media.
Syria expert Joshua Landis wrote on X that “Alawites have been attacked, many who have no history of wrongdoing in military or military service whatsoever. Today, there were demonstrations in the Sunni district of Latakia, cursing Alawites.”
Some Alawites are therefore demanding international protection, Landis notes, which further opens the door to the partition of Syria, a key Israeli goal.
To provide just one example, an Alawite man, Sheikh Ali Deeb, and his wife were killed in rural Salamiyah in the village of Dniba during an HTS search operation on 8 January. Their bodies were found on a side road connecting the village of Dniba to the neighboring village of Snida.
A pretext for US occupation
The new Syrian government’s claim to have thwarted the ISIS attack on Sayyeda Zainab also helps Sharaa remain in the good graces of Washington by giving it a pretext to continue the US military occupation of north and east Syria and its oil fields, which provide crude oil to Israel via Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkiye.
In Iraq, the US perfected the strategy of supporting and even creating Al-Qaeda groups (with Kurdish assistance), to justify its invasion and military occupation of the country.
The Bush administration relied on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s presence in Iraqi Kurdistan to justify its invasion of Baghdad in 2003. Zarqawi built Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) with help from Kurdish Jihadists from Ansar al-Islam, which fought for the CIA in Afghanistan in the 1980’s and for Masoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) during the Kurdish civil war in the 1990’s.
Zarqawi’s car and suicide bombs targeting Shia pilgrims continued to justify the US occupation after the pretense of Saddam Hussein’s possession of WMDs collapsed.
A decade later, the US military provided weapons to ISIS to conquer large swathes of western Iraq, including Mosul, the country’s second largest city. US officials then used the existence of the so-called ISIS caliphate to return its forces to Iraq that had left after then Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has refused to sign a status of forces agreement with President Barack Obama guaranteeing non-prosecution of US troops in 2011.
Though ISIS has been defeated in Iraq, current Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani has failed to eject US forces from the country. US officials continue to claim they are still needed to fight ISIS, even though Sudani has repeatedly claimed the terror group no longer poses a threat that Iraqi forces cannot deal with on their own.
The Israeli/Wahhabi project
In a more extreme scenario, it is possible that Sharaa and/or his backers in foreign intelligence agencies may facilitate the destruction of the Sayyida Zainab shrine itself, while blaming it on ISIS. By claiming to thwart fake attacks on the shrine now, HTS is establishing a convenient narrative to claim innocence in the future if an attack does take place.
Attacking and destroying important Muslim shrines, important to both Shia and Sunnis, is a hallmark of AQI under the leadership of Zarqawi and ISIS under the leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Sharaa’s former bosses.
Zarqawi’s AQI is widely viewed as responsible for destroying the golden dome of the Al-Askari Shrine, home to the 10th and 11th Shia Imams, in Samarra in Iraq.
Al Askari shrine (January 2025)
To the delight of the Israelis and neoconservatives in the Bush administration—who sought the partition of the country, as outlined in the Yinon Plan and Clean Break documents—the 2006 attack almost ignited a full-blown sectarian war between Iraq’s Sunni and Shia communities. This catastrophic outcome was narrowly averted, thanks to the influential fatwa issued by Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani.
Before his defeat in Mosul in 2017, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ordered the destruction of the Great Mosque of Al-Nuri and its iconic minaret. ISIS also destroyed the Al-Nabi Yunus Mosque, home to a tomb thought to belong of the Prophet Jonah, claiming that revering the shrine was idolatrous.
Blowing up the Sayyeda Zainab Shrine in Damascus, whether for fundamentalist religious goals or for the sake of creating strategic chaos, would help ensure that the sectarian violence that engulfed Iraq and threatens to engulf Syria now, becomes a reality.
The sectarian chaos will again benefit the occupation state, allowing it to expand its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights and southern Syria, while incentivizing Syria’s Druze to ask for their territory to be incorporated into a Greater Israel to escape the sectarian fire consuming the rest of the country.
Alawites on Syria’s coast may turn north to Turkiye to request protection, or even annexation, if the extremist threat continues. Ankara will in turn be happy to incorporate Syrian territory, along with its offshore gas fields, as part of its ambitions to advance its neo-Ottoman ambitions and become an energy hub and transit point for West Asia gas headed to Europe.
Above all it is crucial to keep in mind that Israel, the US, Turkiye and others that orchestrated the HTS conquest of Syria do not have the well being of Syrians in mind. Many Syrians are happy to have Assad gone, but the future remains fragile and the risk of sectarian war and partition now looms large.
Biden worked ‘tirelessly around the clock’ — to prevent a ceasefire
Time to acknowledge that the president chose the circumstances that led to US complicity
By Trita Parsi | Responsible Statecraft | January 16, 2025
There is little doubt that President-elect Donald Trump’s posture vis-a-vis Israel is a key reason why a ceasefire in Gaza has finally been achieved. According to a diplomat briefed on the matter, this was “the first time there has been real pressure on the Israeli side to accept a deal.”
This means that for 15 months, Israel has dropped American bombs on children in tents, on refugees sheltering in schools, and on patients seeking help in hospitals without President Joe Biden exerting any “real pressure” on Israel to stop.
And once the mere posture of pressure was exerted on Israel by an envoy representing a man who isn’t even President yet, lo and behold, a ceasefire was secured.
All these senseless deaths, all the American credibility lost, all the Biden voters who stayed home in protest on November 5 could have been avoided.
The truth of the matter is that every day for the past year, Biden could have secured a ceasefire by using America’s vast leverage.
And every day for the past year, from all the evidence we have today, Biden chose not to.
That is the crux of the matter. It is precisely the fact that Biden chose this path that will damage America for years to come. It wasn’t that he lacked the ability or strength to stop the carnage. It’s not that he really wanted to stop it but sadly couldn’t. It wasn’t that his hands were tied. It wasn’t that Congress forced him. Or that polls showed that he or Kamala Harris would lose the elections if they pressed Israel. It wasn’t any of that.
Biden was simply in on it. He was on board with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s war plans. He even attended the war cabinet where the plans were adopted.
In an exit interview with the Times of Israel, Biden’s outgoing ambassador to Israel even bragged about the Biden administration never exerting pressure on Netanyahu to halt the killing. “Nothing that we ever said was, Just stop the war,” Ambassador Jack Lew proudly declared.
By willingly making America complicit, Biden’s decisions will have profound and long-lasting strategic repercussions for the American people on par with the damage George W. Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq inflicted on America’s standing, credibility, and security, as well as on the region’s stability.
Biden’s own acting Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), Brett Holmgren, told CBS that “anti-American sentiment fueled by the war in Gaza is at a level not seen since the Iraq war.” Terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS are recruiting on these sentiments and issuing the most specific calls for America in years, according to Holmgren.
So every bomb Biden provided Israel to drop on children in Gaza was not only morally monstrous; it also made Americans less safe.
It will take years for America to recuperate from the damage Biden has inflicted on our standing, our moral compass, our credibility, and on our security. America is still recovering from the sins of the Iraq invasion.
But there will be no healing at all, no bouncing back, unless we admit the errors, hold those responsible accountable, and learn to do better. Just as Bush’s Iraq invasion and Global War on Terror gave birth to the strongest anti-war sentiments among Americans seen in decades, made war-mongering bad politics, and the epithet “neocon” an insult, Biden’s bearhug strategy on and blind deference to Israel must forever be remembered as the original sin that led America down the path of complicity in what most likely amounts to genocide.
Trita Parsi is the co-founder and Executive Vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
Israel making ‘no effort’ to investigate Gaza war crimes allegations: ICC
Press TV – January 17, 2025
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan says Israel has not properly investigated war crimes allegations brought against the regime over its barbarism in the besieged Gaza Strip.
The chief ICC prosecutor in remarks on Friday defended his decision to issue the arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu and his former war minister Yoav Gallant.
Khan emphasized that Israel had made “no real effort” to investigate into the 15-month-long campaign of death and destruction in the besieged Palestinian territory itself.
“We’re here as a court of last resort and … as we speak right now, we haven’t seen any real effort by Israel to take action that would meet the established jurisprudence,” he added.
“The question is have those judges [in Israel], have those prosecutors, have those legal instruments been used to properly scrutinize the allegations that we’ve seen in the occupied Palestinian territories, in the State of Palestine? And I think the answer to that was ‘no’,” Khan said.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Khan also strongly criticized the US House of Representatives’ vote last week to sanction the ICC for issuing an arrest warrant against Netanyahu.
The chief prosecutor says it “is a matter that should make all people of conscience be concerned”.
The US earlier this month approved a bill to sanction the ICC officials in response to the arrest warrants that the tribunal has issued against Israeli authorities for war crimes in the blockaded Palestinian territory.
The chief prosecutor recently submitted his formal response this week to Israel’s appeal challenging the court’s jurisdiction.
Khan noted that the ICC court has jurisdiction over the most serious crimes facing the international community as a whole, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Last year, the ICC, based in The Hague, issued warrants for the arrest of Netanyahu and Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza. Israeli authorities are also accused of using hunger as a weapon in Gaza.
ICC judges are expected to deliver a decision on the matter in the coming months.
In January 2024, the international court of justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel must take all measures within its power to prevent genocide in Gaza. However, the regime has ignored the court’s verdict.
In December 2023, South Africa initiated legal proceedings against Israel, accusing it of breaching the Genocide Convention in its treatment of Palestinians in Gaza.
Cuba has now become the 14th country to join South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ.
Kushner’s Saudi-backed fund doubles stake in firm financing illegal West Bank settlements
The Cradle | January 17, 2025
Affinity Partners, the Saudi-funded hedge firm of President-elect Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, received approval from Israeli regulators to double its stake in Phoenix Financial Ltd., which funds the construction of illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.
Bloomberg reported on 17 January that Affinity could buy an additional 4.95 percent stake in the financial services firm at 37.5 shekels ($10.3) a share.
Phoenix’s share price has surged over 50 percent to around 58.5 shekels apiece since mid-July, when Kushner’s Miami-based firm announced the $128.5 million deal to buy its initial 4.95 percent stake, Bloomberg noted.
Kushner has held up the deal as a sign of his company’s confidence in the war-racked country’s economy.
“Investing in Phoenix in July 2024 was a decision rooted in my belief in Israel’s resiliency and the fundamentals of Phoenix’s business,” Kushner said in a statement to Bloomberg.” Six months later, the increased value of our shares, reaffirms my conviction – both in Israel’s strength and the growing promise of Phoenix.”
Kushner founded Affinity, which has other investments in Israel, including a stake in S Shlomo Holdings’s car and credit division, with $2 billion in Saudi funding after leaving his role as senior White House advisor during the first Trump administration.
Kushner established a close relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) while serving in the White House.
Kushner is the son-in-law of US President-elect Donald Trump and served as his senior White House advisor in his first term. Kushner played a pivotal role in the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and some Arab nations in 2020. Trump is now expected to try bringing Saudi Arabia into the accords.
In addition to receiving backing from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Kushner raised an additional $1.5 billion from the Qatar Investment Authority and Abu Dhabi-based Lunate, bringing its assets under management to $4.6 billion.
Pheonix Financial has financed and insured construction projects throughout Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and the Syrian Golan Heights.
According to the NGO watchdog Who Profits, Phoenix owns an 80 percent stake in a large shopping mall in an illegal East Jerusalem settlement and stakes in various companies operating throughout other settlements.
Phoenix has also helped finance wind and solar projects in illegal Israeli settlements and provided financial services to the local councils of settlements, including the Beitar Illit and Oranit settlements in the West Bank.
Kushner’s investment in Pheonix comes just days before Trump is set to take office once again.
Israeli settler leaders celebrated Trump’s election and anticipate permitting them to annex the West Bank and greatly expand building settlements for Israeli Jews there.
The Israeli government is also seeking to expand the building of Jewish settlements in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
In December, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government announced it would invest more than $11 million to “encourage demographic growth” in the Golan, which Israeli forces first occupied in 1967.
Israel moved to expand its illegal occupation of Syrian territory in the Golan immediately after the Syrian government, led by president Bashar al-Assad, was toppled by militants from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the former Al-Qaeda affiliate, on 8 December.
Houthi: Israel ‘failed miserably’ in onslaught on Gaza Strip
Press TV – January 16, 2025
The leader of Yemen’s Ansarullah resistance movement says Israel “failed miserably” in the Gaza Strip, and that the US and the Tel Aviv regime were forced to accept the ceasefire agreement with Hamas after committing horrific crimes for months.
“The announcement of a ceasefire agreement in Gaza is an important development. The Israeli enemy and the US were forced to agree to the deal after months of horrendous atrocities,” Abdul-Malik al-Houthi said in a televised speech on Thursday evening.
“The Israeli enemy, with full American complicity, continued its efforts to exterminate the Palestinians in Gaza, committing more than 4,050 massacres,” the Ansarullah chief said.
Houthi said the Israeli military indiscriminately targeted all Palestinians in Gaza, attacking all sections of the society in a barbaric manner.
“The Israeli enemy subjected prisoners and captives to the most heinous forms of torture, violating human dignity. The plight of Gaza marks a gross injustice that can neither be denied nor ignored.
“The steadfastness of resistance fighters in Gaza, under the most challenging circumstances and with the most basic means, is truly praiseworthy,” Houthi stated.
The Ansarullah leader emphasized that the Israeli army failed in Gaza despite possessing sophisticated weapons and extensive intelligence operations aimed at ending the resistance front and eliminating all its fighters.
“The Israeli enemy failed in Gaza even though it employed all tactics to decisively win the battle, with full US support. The Palestinians in Gaza stood firm despite being subjected to daily extermination and all forms of terror that many other nations cannot endure.”
The Ansarullah leader said the Americans had no option but to accept an agreement after a major failure.
Many Israeli leaders, media figures, and research centers were in a state of despair and frustration as well, he said.
“The Israeli enemy failed to achieve any of its declared objectives, and dismally could not release its captives without a prisoner exchange deal. It also failed to displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“What the Israeli enemy achieved in Gaza is an enormous record of unprecedented crimes within a limited expanse of land,” Houthi pointed out.
He also noted that the Palestinian nation was not protected by international organizations, which represent themselves as so-called advocates of justice and human rights.
“The United Nations was mocked and ridiculed by Israelis, with criminal [Benjamin] Netanyahu at its very platform. The world body, however, took no concrete action against the Israeli enemy.
“At the very least, the UN should have rinsed out the deep shame of recognizing Israel and granting it membership. The international community did not intervene to impose a no-fly zone over occupied Palestinian terrorists and establish safe zones, as is the case with other regions,” he said.
Houthi criticized Arab governments for their inaction, as well as their abject failure to politically and economically boycott the Zionist regime and support the Palestinian nation.
Elsewhere in his speech, Houthi stated that Yemeni forces have conducted operations to support Gaza under very difficult conditions, emphasizing that such strikes have significantly affected Israel.
“We carried out 1,255 operations involving ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles, drones as well as unmanned underwater vehicles. We worked diligently to do everything possible in support of Gaza, continuously developing our capabilities and escalating our operations,” he said.
Houthi stressed that the US, from the onset of the Gaza genocidal war, sought to provide full protection to Israel, threatening regional countries against taking any action in support of Palestinians.
“The US deployed its naval fleets and provided military and technological protection, intercepting any attacks targeting the Israeli-occupied lands. Certain regimes even collaborated with the US in intercepting missiles and drones launched towards the occupied lands.
“American aircraft carriers and warships initially intercepted some missiles; but now they can barely shoot them down and often resort to retreat,” the Ansarullah leader said.
Houti emphasized that Yemen will continue its pro-Palestinian military operations in case the Israeli enemy insists on its genocidal campaign and reneges on implementing the ceasefire agreement.
He said a total of 106 Yemenis have been killed and another 328 wounded in the course of aggression carried out by the US, Britain and Israel against Yemen.
The Ansarullah leader finally called upon all Yemeni people to participate in mass pro-Palestinian rallies across the country on Friday, reaffirming their unflinching support for Palestinians to the entire world.
In Israel, ADL Chief Jonathan Greenblatt Appears to Call for Using Terrorism to Murder Me and My Friends
By Andrew Anglin | The Daily Stormer | January 15, 2025
The head of the Israeli lobbying group the Anti-Defamation League was in Israel last week, where he appeared to call for using Israeli terrorist tactics to maim and murder “antisemites” who criticize Jews on the internet.
Speaking before the Israeli Knesset, Jonathan Greenblatt bemoaned the fact that people are complaining about Jewish behavior online, saying that Jews are “losing the battle” against “antisemitism.” He framed the fight to silence critics of Israel on the internet as the “eighth front” of Israel’s “seven-front war.” He then said that last year’s terrorist attack against Lebanon, which involved explosives being implanted into pagers which were detonated to mutilate and murder Lebanese people, should be the inspiration for silencing people on the internet.
It would have been bad enough if he had said this as a joke, but based on the context and the way he spoke, there is no indication he was joking.
“We need the kind of genius that manufactured Apollo Gold Pagers and infiltrated Hezbollah for over a decade to prepare for this battle,” Greenblatt said.
He went on to state that terrorism is a characteristic of Jewish people: “This is the kind of ingenuity and inventiveness that have always been a hallmark of the State of Israel, that have always been a characteristic of the Jewish people. I know we can do it.”
You can watch the video above to get the full context of the statement, and see if you think he is saying something different. The most generous interpretation would be that he is saying that it took a certain kind of cunning to do the terrorist attack against Hezbollah and that this type of cunning is needed to silence critics of the Jews. It is seemingly unfathomable that he would want to leave people with the impression he was calling for terrorism against internet critics, and furthermore, he calls on the Israeli Defense Force to form a group to shut down these online critics, which definitely implies he is talking about real violence being used.
However, even if we give him the benefit of the doubt and suppose he is calling for some kind of metaphorical terrorism, we must ask what exactly it is he is talking about doing to prevent people from holding opinions he opposes.
Believing that Jews should not slaughter children in Gaza, or that they shouldn’t push child transsexualism, mass immigration, pornography, abortion, and other socially deleterious schemes in the West is an opinion. How can you stop people from having an opinion, other than by killing them? What are the other options?
The ADL is primarily a censorship group, which lobbies governments to pass laws criminalizing the criticism of Jews, and lobbying Silicon Valley to silence critics of Jews online. This is obviously anti-American, fundamentally, but the ADL is one of many Jewish groups which engages in this activity. Internet censorship is ubiquitous, and even the supposed “free speech absolutist” Elon Musk has recently begun silencing his critics on Twitter.
Jewish groups successfully lobbied for TikTok to be banned in America due to the fact that the Chinese owners feel that Americans have a right to criticize Israel in a way that no American company allows them to.
However, none of this has to do with the government of Israel. If Greenblatt was suggesting that Israel should engage in more active lobbying for internet censorship and hate speech laws, he could have simply said that. Instead, he invoked terrorism and called for the IDF to fight people who criticize Jews online.
Being on the frontlines of criticism of Israel and the collective behavior of individual Jews, I have personally had an adversarial relationship with the ADL for more than a decade, regularly being a target of slander and hate from Jonathan Greenblatt and others in the organization, so this call for the Israeli military to use terrorism to silence people like me is particularly disturbing.
At this point, there is so much criticism directed at Israel, and to some extent also the behavior of diaspora Jews, that it would be virtually impossible to censor all of it. Twitter and Facebook would have to ban tens or hundreds of millions of people, and banning that many people would definitely result in those who weren’t banned criticizing Jews for getting all of those people banned.
However, if the Jews began assassinating critics, that may prove to be a significant deterrent.
Although I’ve said it many times, I want to put it on the record again that I am in very good health, I did not take the coronavirus vaccine so I am not at risk of dying suddenly, and I would never, under any circumstances, kill myself.
The video linked above is a week old and has fewer than 100 views. I have not seen this story reported anywhere else. I hope that others will clip the relevant portions and spread them on Twitter and elsewhere. I would like to see Tucker Carlson, Glenn Greenwald, Judge Napolitano, and others with large platforms addressing these statements by Greenblatt and demanding that he explain what exactly it is he is calling for when he says that terrorism needs to be used to silence people whose opinions he does not like.
The Jewish agenda to shut down freedom of speech was already extreme enough, but calling for violence to be used as a solution to internet posts takes this into a whole new realm. If America was a serious country, traveling to a foreign country and calling for state terrorism against American citizens would be grounds for serious criminal charges.
Support for Gaza Genocide Top Reason Biden Voters Did Not Support Harris
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | January 15, 2025
A new poll shows that the Israeli onslaught in Gaza was the top reason that Americans who turned out for Joe Biden in 2020 did not vote for Kamala Harris in 2024.
The poll, conducted by YouGov and the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project, “found “what few in the Democratic Party have been willing to admit: Vice President Harris lost votes because of the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.”
A press release on the IMEU explains, “29% of voters nationally who voted for Biden in 2020 and did not for Kamala Harris in 2024 say “ending Israel’s violence in Gaza” was the top issue affecting their vote choice.” The economy ranked second at 24%.
After the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, the Biden administration flooded Israel with weapons and other military aid that was used by Tel Aviv to cause mass death and destruction in Gaza. A recent Lancet study found that at least 64,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel over the past 15 months.
Among the dead are tens of thousands of children, many of whom died when Israel dropped American-made bombs from American-made planes. The Lancet study did not count those killed from illness and deprivation caused by the Israeli siege of Gaza. In recent wars, the number of indirect deaths from conflicts is often many times higher than those killed by direct violence.
Before dropping out of the presidential race last summer, President Biden was regularly confronted on the campaign trail by protesters labeling him “genocide Joe.” Several top international aid agencies have determined the Israeli military operations and blockade of Gaza constitute genocide.
The support for Israel, which included at least $22 billion in military aid during the first year of the onslaught, may have cost Kamala the election. YouGov found that the war was the top reason voters did not cast their ballot for Harris in Arizona (38%), Michigan (32%), Wisconsin (32%), and Pennsylvania (19%). Biden won all four states in 2020.
That Democrats viewed the war in Gaza as a genocide should not have come as a surprise to the Harris campaign. In May, a poll found over half of Democratic party voters believed Israel was conducting a genocide.
Still, in the waning days of the 2024 election season, the Harris team refused to say she would cut arm transfers to Israel after taking office. Instead, the campaign notoriously embraced GOP ultra-hawks such as Dick and Liz Cheney.
Türkiye confirms attempt to attack key gas pipeline
RT | January 15, 2025
Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar has confirmed that an attempted attack took place on the TurkStream natural gas pipeline last weekend.
The Russian Defense Ministry had earlier reported that Ukraine targeted the compressor station in Russia’s Krasnodar Region, which supplies gas to TurkStream. The attempted sabotage took place on Saturday and involved nine kamikaze drones launched by Ukrainian forces. According to the ministry, the attack was largely thwarted. One fixed-wing drone crashed close to a gas meter and caused minor damage, which was swiftly addressed by the facility’s personnel, it said.
Speaking to journalists at the Turkish parliament on Wednesday, Bayraktar confirmed that an attack had taken place and provided assurance that the pipeline’s operations had not been affected.
“There was no interruption in gas flow after the attack. The pipeline continues to deliver gas at the same capacity,” he said.
TurkStream is a critical energy corridor, transporting natural gas from Russia to Türkiye under the Black Sea. It also remains the sole route supplying Russian natural gas to southern and southeastern Europe after Ukraine refused to extend a gas transit agreement with Moscow this year.
In 2024, gas shipments via the pipeline increased by 23%, reaching 16.7 billion cubic meters (bcm). The pipeline comprises two sections: one serving Türkiye’s domestic needs, while the other transits gas to Bulgaria through the Strandzha station. This Balkan route extends through Bulgaria and Serbia to Hungary, with connections facilitating the distribution of Russian gas to other EU states. With a total capacity of 31.5 bcm annually, TurkStream plays a vital role in regional energy security.
Russian officials have accused Kiev of attempting to sabotage the energy link on multiple occasions in recent years. In response to the latest attack, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Ukraine of continuing with its policy of “energy terrorism.”
READ MORE: Lavrov blames US for TurkStream attack
During a press conference on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov suggested that the US may have been involved in an attempt to sabotage the gas facility.
“I have a firm belief that the US needs no competitor in any fields, starting with energy,” Lavrov stated.
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Book Review
Palantir CEO Calls for Draft to Fight the Empire’s Wars
Involuntary servitude is good for business
By Kurt Nimmo | Another Day in the Empire | April 20, 2026
In 2025, Alex Karp, the CEO of government and military tech contractor Palantir, published The New York Times best-seller, The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West. The Wall Street Journal praised the book as a cri de coeur, a passionate appeal “that takes aim at the tech industry for abandoning its history of helping America and its allies,” while Wired praised the book as a “readable polemic that skewers Silicon Valley for insufficient patriotism.”
On April 18, 2026, Palantir posted twenty-two points to social media summarizing the book. In addition to taking Silicon Valley to task for insufficient patriotism, advocating a role for AI in forever war, and denouncing the “psychologization of modern politics,” the Palantir post on X declares: “National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost.”
National conscription, a form of involuntary servitude, and the wars it portends, is good for business, especially for corporations within the orbit of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the national security state. Palantir fits comfortably within this amalgamation. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Douglas Macgregor: No Peace – U.S. Prepares for ‘Total War’ Against Iran
- How A Fake Iranian Terror Group Was Invented To Proscribe IRGC in Europe
- Iran’s judiciary rejects Trump’s claim on ‘planned execution’ of 8 women
- Israeli army blows up school in southern Lebanon in violation of ceasefire
- The desalination front: Water as Israel’s Achilles heel
- Washington cuts flow of US dollars to Iraqi central bank until ‘acceptable’ government formed
- China blames US for diplomatic impasse with Iran, urges it to show ‘sincerity’ in talks
- Iran announces new Hormuz restrictions after US ceasefire violations
- After Islamabad: How the Global South Is Reshaping Eurasian Geopolitics
- Is Trump Going for Armageddon?
- If Americans Knew
- Israeli soldiers using sexual assault to force Palestinians out of West Bank, report says
- Top Biden Official Supports Trump Iran Attack, Says Biden May Have Done The Same
- A history of Israel’s invasions of Lebanon
- How the powerful pro-Israel lobby keeps controlling Democrats in the US
- Replay: Israel’s slow ethnic cleansing of Christians from the Holy Land
- 5 times Israelis desecrated Christian sites in the past two years
- US running out of weaponry for Israel’s war; Iran has plenty – Daily Update
- Israel is (still) killing aid workers in Gaza
- Catholics finally splitting with Trump over Iran war and Israel
- Israel’s “Black Wednesday” Massacre Leaves Lebanese Families Giving DNA To ID Loved One’s Remains
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: The Climate May Be 5 Times More Sensitive To Solar Forcing Than Commonly Assumed
- EV Industry Reached $70 Billion In Losses In 2024 Due To Delusional Green Ideologies
- Reality Check: Maldives Have Actually Grown In Size Or Remained Stable Over Recent Decades
- Abrupt Climate Change Also Occurred NATURALLY In The Past …25 Times During Last Ice Age
- Cave Discovery Reveals Today’s Desert Climates Were Recently Far Warmer, Wetter, Teeming With Life
- German Expert: Heat Dome Led To Record Temps In Western USA…Warmer In 1934, 1936
- New Study: No Linear Warming Or Glacier Retreat Along Northern Antarctic Peninsula Since 1980s
- An Inconvenient Tree: Uncovered In Alps… Europe Much Warmer Than Today 6000 Years Ago
- New Study Reports A 60% Slowdown In Greenland’s Ice Loss Rate In The Last Decade
- Low Intensity Tornado Wrecks Major Solar Farm, Creating A Potential Toxic Dump
Aletho News 