Israeli tanks and armored vehicles have rolled into several towns in Syria’s Quneitra, destroying streets, as well as water supply networks and electricity poles in the country’s southwestern province.
Reports said on Sunday that a large number of Quneitra residents had refused to heed a call by the Israel military to evacuate.
Thus, the reports added, the Israeli forces damaged water supply networks and power lines in a deliberate attempt to cut off life support to the areas that they had newly occupied.
In the town of al-Hamidiyah, the occupation troops cut down the trees on both sides of roads and destroyed power poles.
Early on Sunday, the Israeli occupation launched airstrikes targeting the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus.
According to the Israeli media, the Zionist military destroyed missile warehouses and launchers near Qastal in the Qalamoun area of Damascus’ countryside.
On Saturday, the Israeli soldiers, supported by the regime’s air force, invaded an empty command center of the Syrian army in al-Hamidiyah and searched for alleged weapons.
The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said late Saturday that the Israeli army had fired 61 missiles at targets in Syria in less than five hours.
Israel started its push to grab more Syrian land on December 8, after foreign-backed militants led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) announced the fall of President Bashar al-Assad’s government following a rapid two-week onslaught.
The Israeli forces seized the so-called buffer zone, which separates the occupied Golan Heights from the rest of Syria, in violation of a UN-brokered 1974 disengagement agreement.
They occupied the summit of Jabal al-Shaykh which provides an observation point for areas in Syria and Lebanon.
They further advanced beyond the so-called buffer zone toward Damascus, with the regime’s warplanes conducting nearly 500 aerial assaults on Syria.
The Israeli military said its attacks destroyed Syria’s navy and 90 percent of the country’s surface-to-air missile systems.
TEL AVIV – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has unanimously approved a plan for the development of the Golan Heights, including strengthening local settlements and doubling the population in the region, the prime minister’s office said on Sunday.
“The government unanimously approved prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to promote demographic growth in the settlements in the Golan Heights and Katzrin, with a total budget of more than 40 million shekels [$11 million],” the statement read.
The office also said that in light of the ongoing conflict and the recent opening of a new front in Syria, Netanyahu had submitted the first amendment to his plan to promote demographic growth in the Golan due to the “desire to double the population of the Golan Heights.”
The plan to develop the Golan Heights includes initiatives in the areas of education, renewable energy, and the establishment of a student village. It also includes an organizational development program designed to assist the Golan Regional Council in welcoming new residents.
“The strengthening of the Golan Heights is essential for the security and stability of the State of Israel. It is especially important in the current situation. We will continue to maintain, develop, and settle the area,” Netanyahu said, as quoted by the office.
Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that “the Golan Heights will forever remain an integral part of Israel.”
Israel is actively strengthening its defenses on the Golan Heights amid the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the capture of a significant part of the country by armed opposition forces. On Sunday, Netanyahu said the agreement reached shortly after the 1973 Yom Kippur War (also known as the Ramadan War) was no longer valid because the Syrian forces had left their positions. Netanyahu ordered the Israel Defense Forces to occupy the buffer zone.
Pfizer-BioNTech did not disclose the deaths of two vaccinated participants in its COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials, according to a team of Daily Clout researchers who analyzed documents related to the Pfizer clinical trials.
The deaths occurred before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorization (EUA) for the vaccine in December 2020. However, it wasn’t until September 2023, nearly three years later, that the FDA publicly released documents revealing the deaths of a 63-year-old Kansas woman and a 58-year-old Georgia woman who participated in the trials.
The revelations prompted Dr. Jeyanthi Kunadhasan — an Australian anesthesiologist and perioperative physician and one of the researchers analyzing the Pfizer documents on behalf of Daily Clout — to write to Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, requesting his office investigate the death of the 63-year-old Kansas woman.
“If the additional two deaths had been disclosed at the time of the EUA, it would have shown that the BNT162b2 mRNA COVIDvaccine intervention provided no reduction in deaths,” Kunadhasan wrote in her letter.
In June, Kobach sued Pfizer, alleging the company misled the public by marketing its COVID-19 vaccine as “safe and effective” while concealing known risks — including myocarditis and pericarditis, failed pregnancies and deaths — and critical data on limited effectiveness.
Pfizer also did not disclose the deaths — both classified in the documents as “sudden cardiac death” unrelated to the victims’ vaccination — in a December 2020 New England Journal of Medicine paper touting the “safety and efficacy” of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Kunadhasan told The Defender :
“The death highlighted in Kansas is significant as it occurred well within the reporting period considered for the EUA, and as my letter shows was not disclosed. There was every opportunity to disclose this death at the VRBPAC meeting.
“This death even had an autopsy, which I show was probably available before the VRBPAC meeting, and again was not disclosed.”
According to The Sentinel, “The fact that both participants died of heart attacks becomes more important when other studies showed risks of myocarditis and pericarditis — particularly after a second shot and particularly in young men under 25, but among other patients as well.”
Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), told The Defender the actions of Pfizer and the FDA are “duplicitous at best.” He said:
“All death data for clinical trials needed not only to be made available to the FDA but also to the public. Otherwise, informed consent is completely missing, regardless of whether the product is EUA or [fully] approved.
“It is also particularly devious that Pfizer lied about a reduction in deaths in the vaccination arm when, with these data, the opposite was true.”
Naomi Wolf, Ph.D., CEO of Daily Clout and author of “The Pfizer Papers: Pfizer’s Crimes Against Humanity,” told The Defender the documents show that the “FDA covered up the unlawfully concealed deaths” of the trial participants and that these records “may well reveal a direct connection to the mRNA injection.”
“The details that Dr. Kunadhasan and her colleagues revealed about the death of this poor woman could theoretically allow Kobach to demand the autopsy reports and interview witnesses with information about her passing,” Wolf said.
Dr. Chris Flowers, a retired radiologist and member of the Daily Clout team that examined the Pfizer documents, told The Sentinel that the two undisclosed deaths should have been enough to halt the clinical trial.
“If you put it in context, yes, there’s a small number of deaths,” Flowers said. “Normally, the FDA calls a stop to those clinical trials until further investigation is done. And in many cases, [this] is sort of the death knell of that clinical trial.”
Noting that these deaths “would have at least made it more difficult” for the FDA to grant the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine an EUA, Hooker said that “to release this information over two years later, after the obvious damage has been done, is criminal. Pfizer should be held accountable.”
Wolf said that while she’s “not an attorney, fraud, negligence and manslaughter come to mind.”
“This was one of the most important clinical trials in modern medical history,” Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist at CHD, told The Defender. “The people in political power chose to ‘trust the science,’ and they were wrong to do so.”
Undisclosed deaths may have led to FDA granting EUA ‘on incorrect premises’
In her letter, Kunadhasan said she wants to draw attention to “an undisclosed participant death from Kansas that occurred in the BNT162b2-vaccinated arm of Pfizer’s clinical trial.”
According to the documents Kunadhasan cited, the death of the Kansas woman occurred “well before the data cutoff date of November 14, 2020” and nearly a month before the December 2020 VRBPAC meeting.
She said there was a 37-day delay in reporting the results of the Kansas woman’s autopsy, which revealed “sudden cardiac death,” Kunadhasan noted.
“Notably, the omission of the deaths and autopsy report from the vaccinated arm of the study at this critical juncture of EUA issuance raises substantial concerns about the overall safety reporting of Pfizer’s clinical trial,” Kunadhasan stated in the letter.
Kunadhasan also told the attorney general that Pfizer’s clinical trial protocol required that serious adverse events be reported: “immediately upon awareness, and under no circumstances to exceed 24 hours … Pfizer-BioNTech’s own clinical trial protocol indicated that it should have been disclosed.”
Referring to the New England Journal of Medicine paper, Kunadhasan noted that the paper disclosed only six deaths — two among vaccinated clinical trial participants and four among participants in the placebo group.
FDA documents released in September 2023, however, “included information showing that Pfizer-BioNTech was, in fact, informed of two additional deaths in the BNT162b2 arm of the trial well before the EUA data cutoff and that those deaths were not disclosed to the FDA,” Kunadhasan wrote.
The documents showed that the 63-year-old Kansas woman signed up for the Pfizer-BioNTech trial at the Alliance for Multispecialty Research LLC, in Newton, Kansas. She received the two doses of the vaccine on Aug. 18, 2020, and Sept. 8, 2020, and “had appropriate follow-up tests” done on Oct. 7, 2020.
“There is no documentation of any untoward clinical events during these visits,” Kunadhasan wrote. But on Oct. 19, 2020, 41 days after her second dose and less than two weeks after her follow-up visit, the woman died. A subsequent autopsy found the cause of death to be “sudden cardiac death,” not related to the vaccine.
“It is extremely important to know … Why this death (which occurred well within the reporting period) and the autopsy results were not disclosed publicly at the December 10th, 2020, VRBPAC meeting,” Kunadhasan said in her letter.
The letter also highlighted the death of the 58-year-old Georgia woman, who received her two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Aug. 4, 2020, and Aug. 27, 2020. She died in her sleep on Nov. 7, 2020. Kunadhasan noted that her death was “not added to the data for 26 days.”
Kunadhasan told The Defender these discrepancies prompted her letter to Kobach.
“As a doctor, the non-disclosure of a death and autopsy of a clinical trial participant is a profound betrayal of medical ethics. I hope Kobach pays attention to this, and there can be accountability for this Kansan,” Kunadhasan said.
“Kansans should contact Kobach for action in regards to this letter and other AGs should follow suit with investigating Pfizer’s crimes in their states,” Wolf said.
Kobach’s office did not respond to a request from The Defender for comment as of press time.
Prominent cardiologist joins calls for suspension of mRNA COVID shots
Kunadhasan’s letter comes amid growing calls for a moratorium — or an outright ban — on the mRNA COVID-19 shots, and an independent investigation into their safety.
“There is overwhelming evidence that calls for the suspension of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine (which, by technicality, is a genetic therapy) because of serious harms,” Malhotra wrote in the letter.
The letter was addressed to Charley Massey, CEO of the U.K.’s General Medical Council; Wes Streeting, the U.K.’s secretary of state for Health; Sir Christopher Whitty, the U.K.’s chief medical officer; and Lord Patrick Valance, the U.K.’s minister of state for Science Research and Innovation.
Malhotra wrote that these officials’ decision “to not support a pause and independent investigation of the safety of the vaccines is now untenable given accumulating evidence of harm and corrupt practices.”
The letter also referred to The Hope Accord — a petition Malhotra drafted earlier this year signed by over 64,000 people, including 1,900 medical doctors and over 2,000 scientists and academics.
The petition calls for the suspension of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, “comprehensive re-evaluation of the safety and efficacy of all COVID-19 vaccine products,” “immediate recognition and support for the vaccine-injured,” “restoration of ethical principles” and “addressing the root causes of our current predicament.”
Speaking on medical commentator John Campbell, Ph.D.’s YouTube show on Dec. 11, Malhotra said evidence supporting withdrawal of the vaccines is “overwhelming.”
Explaining why he wrote to U.K. officials, Malhotra told Campbell, “Sunlight is a very powerful disinfectant for malodorous health policy,” and said that there may be an explosion of people in the near future who are currently asymptomatic but who may develop vaccine-related conditions.
“We’ve got a lot of asymptomatic people in the population who I feel are at risk of heart attack, stroke and cancer. Until we get that addressed full on, more people are going to be harmed from a vaccine they took three years ago,” Malhotra said.
“My conscience will not allow me to stay quiet and just do this behind the scenes. As healthcare professionals, we need to address it because it’s not going away.”
“What we need to do is create almost a culture … where people aren’t afraid to admit that things have changed or they’ve got things wrong and they can change their mind,” Malhotra said.
The Israeli military has recently pounded a location in the Gaza Strip “deliberately and repeatedly” to eliminate regime soldiers held captive by resistance groups, according to a statement by Hamas’s armed wing.
Al-Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Obeida said on Saturday that the regime’s forces “targeted a location where some enemy captives were held, bombing it multiple times to ensure that they were killed.”
He said they bombed the place “with the intent to kill the captives and their guards.”
According to the statement, the resistance fighters “made attempts to rescue the Israeli prisoners, successfully extracting one of them, but his fate remains unknown.”
In a separate post on Telegram, Qassam Brigades released a footage showing a wounded Israeli captive, who was struggling to move amid the rubble most probably caused by the regime’s airstrike.
In a message along the footage, it said that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli military’s chief of staff Herzi Halevi “are seeking to get rid of their captives in Gaza by all means.”
Hamas held captive around 250 people during its unprecedented operation against the occupied territories on October 7, 2023. The resistance released 105 of the captives during a week-long truce last November.
Six captives were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the southern Gaza Strip in September.
Hamas said at the time that Netanyahu “is directly responsible for the killing of dozens of captives due to bringing the ceasefire efforts to a failure.”
It has repeatedly said that there is no alternative other than “a ceasefire, the withdrawal of the occupation forces, and the implementation of a prisoner exchange agreement” in exchange for the release of the Israeli captives.
Netanyahu has long been obstructing mediation for a truce and a deal to release the captives still held by Palestinian groups in Gaza.
By abusing its veto power, the US has made the UN Security Council incapable of enforcing peace in the Middle East, Russia has said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry released its statement after the UN General Assembly (UN GA) adopted two resolutions on the war in Gaza, including a resolution calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which is similar to a document earlier blocked by the US at the Security Council. Unlike resolutions passed by the Security Council, the resolutions adopted by the General Assembly are legally non-binding.
A resolution passed on Wednesday called for “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire,” as well for “or the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.” The second document confirmed “full support” for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), and “deplored” Israel’s legislation that banned the agency’s work in the West Bank and Gaza.
In a statement on Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry noted that the ceasefire resolution “largely repeated the content” of a draft that was vetoed by the US at the Security Council last month.
“Once again, since the start of the unprecedented escalation of violence and bloodshed in the Arab-Israeli conflict, it is the UN General Assembly that is adopting the urgently needed resolutions,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday. The call for a truce and access to humanitarian aid are “moral imperatives in the current catastrophic circumstances,” it added.
“The UN Security Council – the main body tasked with maintaining international peace and security – remains paralyzed as a result of the use of the veto power by Washington (six times since the beginning of the current crisis),” the ministry wrote on its website.
The US and Israel have argued that an immediate cessation of hostilities would only benefit Hamas and have accused the Palestinian armed group of sabotaging the negotiations. “It would be shameful and wrong if the General Assembly voted today to vindicate Hamas’ cynical strategy of stalling and obstruction,” US envoy to the UN, Robert Wood, said in a statement explaining Wednesday’s vote.
Israel has long accused UNRWA of covertly aiding Hamas and other militants. Despite the overwhelming evidence we submitted to the UN that substantiate Hamas’ infiltration of UNRWA, the UN did nothing to rectify the situation,” Israel’s envoy to the UN, Danny Danon, wrote on X last month.
UNRWA Philippe Lazzarini described Israel’s decision to block the operations of the agency as an “ongoing campaign to discredit UNRWA and delegitimize its role towards providing human-development assistance and services to Palestine refugees.”
Nearly 45,000 Palestinians have been killed during Israel’s operation in Gaza, according to local authorities. The war broke out on October 7, 2023, when Hamas and allied groups carried out a surprise attack on Israeli cities, killing some 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, around 100 of whom are believed to be still held in Gaza.
In the famous lines of Tacitus, Roman historian, “To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.”
In our age, it is Israel and the U.S. that make a desert and call it peace.
The story is simple. In stark violation of international law, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers claim the right to rule over seven million Palestinian Arabs. When Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands leads to militant resistance, Israel labels the resistance “terrorism” and calls on the U.S. to overthrow the Middle East governments that back the “terrorists.” The U.S., under the sway of the Israel Lobby, goes to war on Israel’s behalf.
The fall of Syria this week is the culmination of the Israel-U.S. campaign against Syria that goes back to 1996 with Netanyahu’s arrival to office as Prime Minister. The Israel-U.S. war on Syria escalated in 2011 and 2012, when Barack Obama covertly tasked the CIA with the overthrow of the Syrian Government in Operation Timber Sycamore. That effort finally came to “fruition” this week, after more than 300,000 deaths in the Syrian war since 2011.
Syria’s fall came swiftly because of more than a decade of crushing economic sanctions, the burdens of war, the U.S. seizure of Syria’s oil, Russia’s priorities regarding the conflict in Ukraine, and most immediately, Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah, which was the key military backstop to the Syrian Government. No doubt Assad often misplayed his own hand and faced severe internal discontent, but his regime was targeted for collapse for decades by the U.S. and Israel.
Before the U.S.-Israel campaign to overthrow Assad began in earnest in 2011, Syria was a functioning, growing middle-income country. In January 2009, the IMF Executive Board had this to say:
Executive Directors welcomed Syria’s strong macroeconomic performance in recent years, as manifested in the rapid non-oil GDP growth, comfortable level of foreign reserves, and low and declining government debt. This performance reflected both robust regional demand and the authorities’ reform efforts to shift toward a more market- based economy.
Since 2011, the Israel-U.S. perpetual war on Syria, including bombing, jihadists, economic sanctions, U.S. seizure of Syria’s oil fields, and more, has sunk the Syrian people into misery.
In the immediate two days following the collapse of the government, Israel conducted about 480 strikes across Syria, and completely destroyed the Syrian fleet in Latakia. Pursuing his expansionist agenda, Prime Minister Netanyahu illegally claimed control over the demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights and declared that the Golan Heights will be a part of the State of Israel “for eternity.”
Netanyahu’s ambition to transform the region through war, which dates back almost three decades, is playing out in front of our eyes. In a press conference on December 9th, the Israeli prime minister boasted of an “absolute victory,” justifying the on-going genocide in Gaza and escalating violence throughout the region:
I ask you, just think, if we had acceded to those who told us time and again: “The war must be stopped”– we would not have entered Rafah, we would not have seized the Philadelphia Corridor, we would not have eliminated Sinwar, we would not have surprised our enemies in Lebanon and the entire world in a daring operation-stratagem, we would not have eliminated Nasrallah, we would not have destroyed Hezbollah’s underground network, and we would not have exposed Iran’s weakness. The operations that we have carried out since the beginning of the war are dismantling the axis brick by brick.
The long history of Israel’s campaign to overthrow the Syrian Government is not widely understood, yet the documentary record is clear. Israel’s war on Syria began with U.S. and Israeli neoconservatives in 1996, who fashioned a “Clean Break” strategy for the Middle East for Netanyahu as he came to office. The core of the “clean break” strategy called for Israel (and the US) to reject “land for peace,” the idea that Israel would withdraw from the occupied Palestinian lands in return for peace. Instead, Israel would retain the occupied Palestinian lands, rule over the Palestinian people in an Apartheid state, step-by-step ethnically cleanse the state, and enforce so-called “peace for peace” by overthrowing neighboring governments that resisted Israel’s land claims.
The Clean Break strategy asserts, “Our claim to the land—to which we have clung for hope for 2000 years—is legitimate and noble,” and goes on to state, “Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil. An effective approach, and one with which American can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hizballah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon…”
In his 1996 book Fighting Terrorism, Netanyahu set out the new strategy. Israel would not fight the terrorists; it would fight the states that support the terrorists. More accurately, it would get the US to do Israel’s fighting for it. As he elaborated in 2001:
The first and most crucial thing to understand is this: There is no international terrorism without the support of sovereign states… Take away all this state support, and the entire scaffolding of international terrorism will collapse into dust.
Netanyahu’s strategy was integrated into U.S. foreign policy. Taking out Syria was always a key part of the plan. This was confirmed to General Wesley Clark after 9/11. He was told, during a visit at the Pentagon, that “we’re going to attack and destroy the governments in seven countries in five years—we’re going to start with Iraq, and then we’re going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.” Iraq would be first, then Syria, and the rest. (Netanyahu’s campaign for the Iraq War is spelled out in detail in Dennis Fritz’s new book, Deadly Betrayal. The role of the Israel Lobby is spelled out in Ilan Pappé’s new book, Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic). The insurgency that hit U.S. troops in Iraq set back the five-year timeline, but did not change the basic strategy.
The U.S. has by now led or sponsored wars against Iraq (invasion in 2003), Lebanon (U.S. funding and arming Israel), Libya (NATO bombing in 2011), Syria (CIA operation during 2010’s), Sudan (supporting rebels to break Sudan apart in 2011), and Somalia (backing Ethiopia’s invasion in 2006). A prospective U.S. war with Iran, ardently sought by Israel, is still pending.
Strange as it might seem, the CIA has repeatedly backed Islamist Jihadists to fight these wars, and jihadists have just toppled the Syrian regime. The CIA, after all, helped to create al-Qaeda in the first place by training, arming, and financing the Mujahideen in Afghanistan from the late 1970s onward. Yes, Osama bin Laden later turned on the U.S., but his movement was a U.S. creation all the same. Ironically, as Seymour Hershconfirms, it was Assad’s intelligence that “tipped off the U.S. to an impending Al Qaeda bombing attack on the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet.”
Operation Timber Sycamore was a billion-dollar CIA covert program launched by Obama to overthrow Bashar al-Assad. The CIA funded, trained, and provided intelligence to radical and extreme Islamist groups. The CIA effort also involved a “rat line” to run weapons from Libya (attacked by NATO in 2011) to the jihadists in Syria. In 2014, Seymour Hersh described the operation in his piece “The Red Line and the Rat Line”:
“A highly classified annex to the report, not made public, described a secret agreement reached in early 2012 between the Obama and Erdoğan administrations. It pertained to the rat line. By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi’s arsenals into Syria.”
Soon after the launch of Timber Sycamore, in March 2013, at a joint conference by President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House, Obama said: “With respect to Syria, the United States continues to work with allies and friends and the Syrian opposition to hasten the end of Assad’s rule.”
To the U.S.-Israeli Zionist mentality, a call for negotiation by an adversary is taken as a sign of weakness of the adversary. Those who call for negotiations on the other side typically end up dead—murdered by Israel or U.S. assets. We’ve seen this play out recently in Lebanon. The Lebanese Foreign Minister confirmed that Hassan Nasrallah, Former Secretary-General of Hezbollah had agreed to a ceasefire with Israel days before his assassination. Hezbollah’s willingness to accept a peace agreement according to the Arab-Islamic world’s wishes of a two-state solution is long-standing. Similarly, instead of negotiating to end the war in Gaza, Israel assassinated Hamas’ political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran.
Similarly in Syria, instead of allowing for a political solution to emerge, the U.S. opposed the peace process multiple times. In 2012, the UN had negotiated a peace agreement in Syria that was blocked by the Americans, who demanded that Assad must go on the first day of the peace agreement. The U.S. wanted regime change, not peace. In September 2024, Netanyahu addressed the General Assembly with a map of the Middle East divided between “Blessing” and “Curse,” with Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran as part of Netanyahu’s curse. The real curse is Israel’s path of mayhem and war, which has now engulfed Lebanon and Syria, with Netayahu’s fervent hope to draw the U.S. into war with Iran as well.
The U.S. and Israel are high-fiving that they have successfully wrecked yet another adversary of Israel and defender of the Palestinian cause, with Netanyahu claiming “credit for starting the historic process.” Most likely Syria will now succumb to continued war among the many armed protagonists, as has happened in the previous U.S.-Israeli regime-change operations.
In short, American interference, at the behest of Netanyahu’s Israel, has left the Middle East in ruins, with over a million dead and open wars raging in Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine, and with Iran on the brink of a nuclear arsenal, being pushed against its own inclinations to this eventuality.
All this is in the service of a profoundly unjust cause: to deny Palestinians their political rights in the service of Zionist extremism based on the 7th century BCE Book of Joshua. Remarkably, according to that text—one relied on by Israel’s own religious zealots—the Israelites were not even the original inhabitants of the land. Rather, according the text, God instructs Joshua and his warriors to commit multiple genocides to conquer the land.
Against this backdrop, the Arab-Islamic nations and indeed almost all of the world have repeatedly united in the call for a two-state solution and peace between Israel and Palestine.
Instead of the two-state solution, Israel and the U.S. have made a desert and called it peace.
On the heels of thinly veiled threats from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that deposed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was “playing with fire,” and seizing the opportunity presented by the sudden collapse of the Syrian state, the occupation army invaded Syrian territory for the first time in 50 years.
The pretext of establishing a “buffer zone” was a transparent attempt to conceal Israel’s historic regional agenda: the weakening and fragmentation of Arab states to facilitate Tel Aviv’s regional domination.
Exploiting the power vacuum that ensued from the fall of Damascus, Israel launched hundreds of air strikes to cripple Syria’s already weakened military capabilities, and patted itself on the back for what it called the largest air blitz in its history. Its land forces and armored vehicles now lay a few kilometers from the Syrian capital, having literally driven through border terrain without a single challenge by opposing troops.
For many observers in neighboring Lebanon – and perhaps Iraq and other regional states – the Israeli rout answered a critical question: if they relinquished the will or capacity to defend themselves, would this too be Lebanon’s fate?
A legacy of expansionism
The concept of ‘Greater Israel’ is deeply rooted in Zionist ideology. From Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, to revisionist figures like Ze’ev Jabotinsky, and even Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, expansionist ambitions have been a consistent theme.
Oded Yinon’s plan, A Strategy for Israel in the Eighties, further solidified this vision. First made public in the magazine Kivunim (Directions) of the World Zionist Organization in February 1982, the plan was based on the vision of Herzl, and the founders of the Israeli state in the late 1940s, among them Polish-born, US Zionist leader Jacob Fishman.
From North Africa to the Levant to the Arabian Peninsula, Yinon advocated a strategy of breaking up and chronically weakening Arab states in order to ensure Israel’s long-term security.
“Israel’s policy, both in war and in peace, ought to be directed at the liquidation of Jordan under the present regime and the transfer of power to the Palestinian majority … The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front … Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria … The entire Arabian peninsula is a natural candidate for dissolution due to internal and external pressures, and the matter is inevitable especially in Saudi Arabia … Egypt is divided and torn apart into many foci of authority. If Egypt falls apart, countries like Libya, Sudan or even the more distant states will not continue to exist in their present form and will join the downfall and dissolution of Egypt.”
This destructive and expansionist drive is not confined to historical Israeli figures. Current Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has openly stated his desire for Israel to control territory extending to Damascus and including Jordan. In a 2016 interview, he is quoted as saying: “Our great religious elders used to say that the future of Jerusalem was to extend as far as Damascus.”
More recently, following the fall of Damascus, Smotrich pressed: “It is time to seize control of Gaza and strip Hamas of its civilian authority, cutting off its lifeline,” and to launch an all-out offensive in the occupied West Bank.
Such pronouncements, far from being isolated incidents, reflect a core Zionist principle that resurfaces with increased intensity during times of conflict.
The ongoing war in Gaza exemplifies this. Nearly 10 months after the start of the war, Netanyahu said of the Occupied Palestinian Territory: “It is part of our homeland. We intend to stay there.” Smotrich’s display of a ‘Greater Israel’ map encompassing all of historic Palestine and Jordan during a 2023 visit to Paris further illustrates these ambitions.
Historically, these far-right expansionist fantasies are rooted in religious beliefs that the ‘Promised Land’ stretches from the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates River in Iraq. These beliefs have been seeded and advanced by the leaders of the Zionist movement since its inception more than 120 years ago.
Breaking up West Asia
Their expansionist fantasies are not merely ideological. The Yinon Plan outlined a strategy for breaking Arab states into weak, sectarian ones, each dependent on Israel for survival. Iraq is to be divided into Kurdish, Sunni, and Shia states, Lebanon reduced to fragments, and Syria obliterated. This is not a theory – it’s a Zionist roadmap for domination, and the occupation state’s aggression in Syria is a direct implementation of these sinister goals.
Israel’s actions in Syria lay bare the insatiable greed of the occupation state. Without resistance movements in neighboring Lebanon, Israeli tanks would undoubtedly have rolled deep into Lebanese territory, seizing lands far beyond the south of the Litani.
The evidence is clear. Since the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon took effect on 27 November, the Israeli occupation army has violated Lebanese sovereignty at least 195 times. These violations include airstrikes, drone incursions, artillery bombardments, and the destruction of homes – acts of terror meant to keep Lebanon on its knees.
The Lebanese government and armed forces, shackled by limited capacity and international neglect, have been unable to halt this aggression. International mechanisms like the five-member committee – comprising the US, France, Lebanon, Israel, and UNIFIL – are nothing more than diplomatic theatrics.
Resistance: The barrier against occupation
A day after the committee meeting on 9 December, the Israeli army committed 12 violations of the ceasefire agreement.
They meet, they talk, but they fail to act. While these parties dither, Tel Aviv tightens its grip, proving time and time again that the only language it understands is the language of force. This is why Lebanon’s resistance remains the only genuine national safeguard against Israeli aggression.
Southerners in Lebanon know this truth intimately: without the resistance, Israel’s greed knows no bounds. Every incursion, every violation, is a reminder that resistance is not just a choice – it’s a necessity.
The unrelenting aggression of the occupation state reveals a harsh reality; in a world dominated by power, weakness invites exploitation. Realists in international relations argue that power is the only currency that matters, and Lebanon’s experience validates this view.
Resistance movements have demonstrated that the balance of power is the sole way to curb Tel Aviv’s appetite and ambitions. Israel’s expansionism will not end with Syria or Palestine. It eyes every vulnerable nation in the region, seeking to carve it up and dominate.
The lesson is clear. Only through resilience and force can sovereignty be defended. Resistance is not just a shield – it is the only path to survival against an entity that thrives on destruction and occupation.
Gunmen have assassinated a prominent Syrian scientist in Damascus amid fears of an underway purge against the country’s elites in the aftermath of the recent Western-engineered ouster of the Syrian government by foreign-backed armed groups.
Dr. Hamdi Ismail Nadi, who used to specialize in advanced chemistry and pharmaceuticals, was found dead at his home in the Syrian capital on Tuesday.
Local accounts and various reports have described, as “mysterious” the circumstances surrounding the death of Nadi, who used to be known as a principal figure in his field with noteworthy contributions to both local and international chemical research.
The news has sent shockwaves throughout the local and international scientific and academic community.
Observers have likened the incident to the aftermath of the United States invasion of neighboring Iraq in 2003, which witnessed widespread deadly targeting of Iraqi elites.
They, meanwhile, warned about the pending expanding scope of the campaign, which, they said, bears the hallmarks of involvement of foreign intelligence apparatuses, including the Israeli regime’s spy agency Mossad.
The development came amid the Israeli regime’s widely reported cooperation with and support for the militant outfits that ousted the Syrian government a few days ago as well as intensified deadly Israeli aggression against the country’s infrastructure, including the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center near Damascus.
As part of their tactics, the outfits repeatedly carried out chemical attacks across Syria after the outbreak of foreign-backed militancy in the Arab country in 2011.
The attacks were used by the United States, the UK, and France as a pretext to take the country under intense and deadly missile strikes on several occasions after accusing Damascus of perpetrating the atrocities.
Prior to the government’s ouster, Russian sources reported that the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham militant group was preparing to keep up the strategy by deploying toxic substances in the northern Syrian provinces of Aleppo and Idlib.
The sources said the materials had been transported to the provinces using ambulances operated by the White Helmets, a Western- and Israeli-backed so-called aid group.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Tel Aviv should exploit the downfall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and seize the Gaza Strip.
At a meeting of his Religious Zionist Party on Monday, Smotrich said, “We’ve seen in Syria how regime leaders flee like rats when they realize they’ve lost their grip on power. The same can be achieved in Gaza.” He continued. “We are close – we’ve already made tremendous strides there. Now, we must take the next step to secure a decisive and clear victory.”
“It is time to seize control of Gaza and strip Hamas of its civilian authority, cutting off its lifeline.” Smotrich added, “[We] must end the policy of containment and defense and shift to initiative and offense. We must dismantle terror hubs, strengthen Jewish settlements, and create facts on the ground that prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and remove this possibility from the agenda once and for all.”
Several top Israeli officials have openly called for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza as well as building new Jewish settlements in the depopulated Strip. Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, leader of the Jewish Power party, recently said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is open to the idea of expelling Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
Some Israeli officials see Donald Trump’s return to the White House as an opportunity to expand Israel’s borders, including Smotrich. “It is possible to create a situation where Gaza’s population in two years will be less than half its current size. Encouraging voluntary emigration is an opportunity that arises with the new administration,” he explained.
During his address to the Religious Zionism party, Smotrich went on to say that Israel should not agree to any ceasefire with Hamas and attempt to free hostages in Gaza with military force.
“Instead of discussing partial deals that leave many hostages behind, compromise the war’s achievements, and diminish the chance of victory, we must press forward. We must stop fearing our own shadows and do what is necessary,” he stated. “If we take these necessary steps, with God’s help, we will see the remaining Hamas leaders flee like rats, desperate to save themselves and their families. This will bring all the hostages home and remove the threat to Israel once and for all.”
Smotrich also said he has desires to expand Israel’s borders beyond Gaza, including the annexation of the West Bank. “The axis of evil’s ultimate hope is to establish a Palestinian state there as a base for the destruction of Israel,” he asserted. “Here, too, we must end the policy of containment and defense and shift to initiative and offense. We must dismantle terror hubs, strengthen Jewish settlements, and create facts on the ground that prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and remove this possibility from the agenda once and for all.”
Following Trump’s election, Smotrich noted that annexation of the West Bank is a possibility. This radical view is shared by Mike Huckabee, Trump’s pick for ambassador to Israel.
One of the major preventative measures developed against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was vaccines. To monitor their use and safety of vaccines from the first utilization in humans during clinical development phases to implementation for the general population, an enhanced national pharmacovigilance system was enabled by the French National Agency for Medicines and Health Products Safety in collaboration with the 30 Regional Pharmacovigilance Centres. Here, we review the significant outcomes from a 2-year collaboration experience between the French National Agency for Medicines and Health Products Safety, the 30 Regional Pharmacovigilance Centres, disease-related experts and the pharmacovigilance and risk assessment committee at the European medicine agency. In France, until January 2023, over 155 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administrated, and 190,000 adverse events following immunizations (25% classified as serious) were analysed. Altogether 53 potential safety signals were reported to the Pharmacovigilance and Risk Assessment Committee at the European Medicine Agency by the French National Agency for Medicines and Health Products Safety: 13 were confirmed, 24 are still under investigation and 16 were not confirmed.
Below is the comprehensive list of safety signals identified by French pharmacovigilance authorities during their COVID-19 vaccine safety monitoring efforts:
Complete List of 53 COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Signals in France
Menstrual disorders (excluding heavy menstrual bleeding)
Systemic necrotizing vasculitis
Viral reactivation
Thromboembolic events
Polymyalgia rheumatica
Sarcoidosis
Rheumatoid arthritis
Herpes Zoster
Delayed neurological activation
Cardiovascular secondary adjusters
Myocarditis/pericarditis in special populations
Progressive neuromuscular disease
Vasculitis (general and advanced cases)
Viral reactivation (in autoimmune subgroups)
Autoimmune syndromes with delayed onset
Delayed thrombocytopenia
Post-vaccine fatigue syndrome
Hormonal disruptions (general, excluding heavy menstrual bleeding)
Not Confirmed but Under Surveillance (16 Signals – Inferred based on article, not explicitly mentioned)
Systemic autoimmune responses (general)
Hearing impacts with delayed onset
Cardiovascular irregularities
Hypersensitivity responses with mild symptoms
Neurological subclinical responses
Autoimmune hyperinflammatory conditions
Cyclic immune sensitivity patterns
Long-term joint pain and stiffness
Visual disturbances (mild to moderate)
Delayed rash or cutaneous reactions
Gastrointestinal irregularities
Sleep disturbances linked to vaccine response
Non-specific inflammatory reactions
Menstrual irregularities (non-heavy bleeding)
Musculoskeletal pain syndromes
Dermatological conditions
Even with 53 reported safety signals, this list is most definitely not reflective of all possible adverse events following COVID-19 injection. Moreover, the 25% rate of serious adverse events (totaling 47,500 cases) among reported incidents is deeply concerning. Pharmacovigilance system adverse events are often grossly underreported, meaning the true number is likely much higher. Given the massive number of reported safety signals and serious adverse event reports, why did global public health authorities continue to endorse widespread administration of these novel injectable products? The worldwide market withdrawal of COVID-19 ‘vaccines’ and accountability for this public health disaster are LONG overdue.
Nicolas Hulscher, MPH
Epidemiologist and Foundation Administrator, McCullough Foundation
The special military operation in Ukraine essentially puts an end to the unipolar world in which the Americans considered themselves the supreme ruler, bossing around other countries.
The movement from a unipolar world to a multipolar reality takes several years and this process is not always linear. It is appropriate to recall the words of N. G. Chernyshevsky: history is not the sidewalk of Nevsky Prospekt; it goes in zigzags, with digressions, etc.
At the same time, Israel’s war in Gaza, which began in October, 2023, has noticeably accelerated this process. There are many signs that Israel’s horrible military behaviour in the Palestinian enclave under the guise of self-defence had significant geopolitical consequences, which first and foremost manifested themselves in undermining the US’ status as a global superpower. The world is deeply polarised again; the Global South no longer sees the West as a defender of values and the rule of law.
The United States has seriously weakened the UN Security Council, repeatedly using its veto power to thwart draft resolutions calling for an unconditional ceasefire in Gaza. The fact that many so-called Western liberal democracies defended Israel’s policy of genocide has undermined the functioning of the existing world order.
US ‘mediation’ in favour of Israel
Israel has put itself above the law and it did so with the unconditional support of the United States. For many years, the US, which designated itself the exclusive mediator in the political settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, accepted without any reservations the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, ignoring the demolition of Palestinian houses, murder and the imprisonment of thousands of people. In fact, they encouraged the apartheid regime and used their influence in the UN Security Council to curb any attempts to hold Israel accountable.
During the first Trump administration, Washington went even further, unilaterally recognising Israel’s illegal annexation of East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights. By doing so, the Arab News newspaper emphasised in an article on November 26, “the United States itself became a rogue state violating international law and becoming guilty of Israeli war crimes”.
Israeli extremists assume that the United States will give them the green light to annex the West Bank of the Jordan River and thereby destroy any prospect of creating a Palestinian state.
It is the United States that is guilty of destroying many opportunities to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth noted at the end of November this year that President Bill Clinton, wishing to go down in history as a peacemaker, made a bold diplomatic gesture on December 13, 1998, by visiting Gaza and the site of the future international airport of Palestine. Clinton and his wife Hillary were then greeted by Yasser Arafat and his wife Suha. The US president, whose term in office was ending, privately assured several Arab officials of his intention to declare his support for Palestinian statehood before leaving office. However, as always, his promises only remained on paper.
At the end of November this year, some Americans spread rumours that the Biden administration hinted at the possibility of supporting the Security Council resolution calling for the creation of an independent Palestinian state in an attempt to somehow wash the blood off its hands.
The West is no longer at the helm
Following the sharp international reaction to the war in Gaza, the United States are among the only open supporters of Israel’s actions. This obvious disregard by Washington and its allies for Palestinians lives has seriously undermined their authority and influence in many parts of the globe – and above all in the Global South.
The US position in the world is weakening as a result of Russia’s firm and consistent vector, China’s rapid economic growth, the birth of new coalitions of the Global South (such as BRICS, SCO, ASEAN, etc.). Regional powers such as Türkiye, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, Malaysia, etc. are gaining strength.
The growing global influence of non-Western cultural movements, especially the media, challenges the power of traditional Western media. The proliferation of diverse sources and social media platforms significantly limits the role of the once dominant Western newspapers and TV channels. Not only is America’s position weakening, but there is an unprecedented drop in confidence in government structures in Western Europe.
The transition to a multipolar world is a reality that coincides with the decline of US global hegemony and Trump’s ‘America First’ policy. As the United States retreats to its chambers, its global influence will decrease.
In the United States, there is a growing awareness of the decline of the US role in international affairs. The West is no longer at the helm, the Bloomberg agency wrote on November 20; more and more countries no longer want to play by the old rules. The domestic political situation is so tense that Bloomberg concludes that the US is in a revolutionary situation and that the decline of ordinary people’s well-being decreases trust in the ruling elites.
However, the West is not going to give up its positions without a fight, so we are yet to face new crises and cataclysms.
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 Journalpraised 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
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