As conflict rises in Israel, Trump offers a relatively noninterventionist reaction among Republican presidential candidates
By Adam Dick | Ron Paul Institute | October 7, 2023
In response to a Saturday attack by Hamas in Israel, Republican Party presidential candidates rushed out statements setting forth their related views. Among these statements, the statement of Donald Trump stood out as relatively noninterventionist.
While placing blame on Hamas, Trump refrained from promising support for the government of Israel in the conflict. This set him apart from the other prominent Republican candidates who made comments pledging support for Israel.
Here is Trump’s Saturday statement on the matter:
These Hamas attacks are a disgrace and Israel has every right to defend itself with overwhelming force. Sadly, American taxpayer dollars helped fund these attacks, which many reports are saying came from the Biden Administration. We brought so much peace to the Middle East through the Abraham Accords, only to see Biden whittle it away at a far more rapid pace than anyone thought possible. Here we go again.
So far so good. Trump is not endorsing in his statement the United States government supporting the Israel government in this conflict. But, there certainly is much pressure on him to make such an endorsement soon.
Other Republican presidential candidates, in contrast, jumped immediately at the opportunity to declare their support for aiding Israel in this new rising conflict. Tara Suter reported Saturday at The Hill on other prominent Republican candidates’ early statements on the matter. Every one of them took a step beyond Trump, pledging their support to the Israel government in the rising conflict.
Below are excerpts from those candidates’ statements presented in Suter’s article.
Doug Burgum: “Iran and its terror sponsors in Gaza are showing the world their true face: pure evil. Israel is at war with brutal terrorists and the United States must provide maximum support to our democratic ally.”
Chris Christie: “We must do whatever it takes to support the State of Israel in its time of grave danger, and we must end the scourge of Iran-backed terrorism.”
Ron DeSantis: “Israel not only has the right to defend itself against these attacks, it has a duty to respond with overwhelming force. I stand with Israel. America must stand with Israel.”
Nikki Haley: “Israel has every right to defend its citizens from terror. We must always stand with Israel and against this Iranian regime.”
Mike Pence: “Our prayers are with the families and soldiers of our most cherished ally. @netanyahu [Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu)] says Israel is ‘at war’ America Stands With Israel[.]”
Vivek Ramaswamy: “Israel’s right to exist & defend itself should never be doubted and Iran-backed Hamas & Hezbollah cannot be allowed to prevail. I stand with Israel and the U.S. should too.”
Tim Scott: “Israel has a right to defend itself and the United States must stand in support of its steadfast ally.”
Can Trump continue to resist the pressure being put on him to declare that he does, and the US government should, “stand with Israel” in regard to this rising conflict? We’ll see. Taking a solitary course concerning this matter would be consistent with Trump’s apparent effort to run as the peace candidate among the contenders in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
Copyright © 2023 by RonPaul Institute
Saudi Arabia willing to forego oil production cuts to secure Israel normalization: Report
The Cradle | October 7, 2023
Saudi Arabia has offered Washington to boost oil production levels next year if crude prices are “too high” as part of negotiations to reach a normalization deal with Israel, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on 6 October.
This plan is allegedly aimed at winning over US lawmakers who are wary about Biden’s “megadeal” with Riyadh, which includes mobilizing US troops in case of an attack in the kingdom.
The deal would also see the US help Saudi Arabia develop a uranium enrichment program.
“Saudi negotiators emphasized that market conditions would guide any action on production, and officials familiar with the talks said the discussions didn’t represent a long-term agreement to cut prices,” the WSJ says.
For the past year, Saudi Arabia has led the powerful OPEC+ bloc into significantly cutting oil production levels to offset the damage caused to the market by western sanctions on Russia’s energy sector.
The ongoing cuts have come despite multiple demands and threats from Washington.
In September, Riyadh, in a joint effort with Moscow, voluntarily extended oil cuts to help maintain the market’s stability. This cut sent oil prices up nearly two percent to $91.08 a barrel.
Per WSJ, Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein flew to Riyadh in late September to warn Saudi officials that soaring oil prices would make winning Washington over on the “megadeal” much harder.
This deal has raised concerns by 20 Democratic senators sent US President Joe Biden a letter on Wednesday regarding the deal. They voiced how he should demand that Israel makes a “meaningful and enforceable” concession to the Palestinian people as part of the normalization deal.
Negotiations are now discussing the defense benefits for Saudi Arabia, which requires US Senate approval for the civilian nuclear site in the Kingdom and billions of dollars in weapons sales.
The deal has left a sour taste in the US public’s mouth. In a poll conducted in September, 3 out of 5 US citizens “feel this is a bad deal for the US.” Those polled added that they don’t feel there’s justification for US soldiers defending the Gulf nation.
It has also caused an uproar in the Islamic world, as many see a normalization agreement with Israel as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause.
Publicly, Riyadh has expressed that any deal with Tel Aviv must also include significant concessions for the Palestinians, including forming an independent state.
The WSJ report was released one day before the Palestinian resistance in Gaza launched its biggest offensive against Israel in Gaza, with officials saying the operation serves as a message to Arab nations who want to normalize ties with Israel.
Saudi Arabia’s shadowy role in the Ghouta chemical attack
There is now substantial evidence Saudi intelligence conducted false flag chemical attacks in Syria to trigger US military intervention and regime change
By William Van Wagenen | The Cradle | October 6, 2023
On 13 September, acclaimed US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh revealed a crucial five-page memo prepared for the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) on 20 June, 2013. This document contained alarming details about the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front’s disturbing plan to manufacture sarin nerve gas with the aim of executing a chemical attack within Syria.
The significance of this memo extends beyond its surface, as it adds to the mounting evidence pointing toward Saudi intelligence’s involvement in orchestrating a false flag chemical attack in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta a month later, on 21 August 2013.
The attack resulted in the tragic deaths of numerous civilians and nearly triggered a western military intervention in support of Islamist militant factions aiming to overthrow the Syrian government.
Nusra’s sarin procurement
The DIA memo, which provides details obtained by US National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance, states that in April and May that year, “several Turkey and Saudi-based chemical facilitators” working for the Nusra Front “were attempting to obtain sarin precursors in bulk, tens of kilograms, likely for the anticipated large-scale production effort in Syria.”
Notably, the memo identifies three Nusra operatives — Abd al-Ghani, Kifah Ibrahim, and Adil Mahmud — who planned to perfect “a process for making sarin, then go to Syria to train others to begin large scale production at an unidentified lab in Syria.” Ibrahim and Mahmud were both captured in Iraq in May 2013, according to the memo.
The revelation that the NSA had identified Nusra operatives seeking sarin precursors in Saudi Arabia raises the implication that Saudi intelligence, then under the leadership of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, would also have been aware of these activities.
This implies that Riyadh might have either actively facilitated Nusra in obtaining sarin precursors or chosen not to interfere, allowing these sinister plans to progress unimpeded.
The memo further states that:
“The Syria-based part of this effort [to produce sarin] may have begun as early as late 2012. Abu Muhammad al-Hamawi, the [Nusra Front] emir for Hamah, was attempting to obtain phosphorous trichloride, a key sarin precursor, in December 2012. We cannot definitively connect this to the sarin cell, but it could very well be linked.”
Saudi’s ‘southern strategy’
According to US-based, regime-change advocate Charles Lister and Swedish journalist Aron Lund, Abu Muhammad al-Hamawi is also known as Sheikh Saleh al-Hamawi, a Syrian from the town of Halfaya in Hama. He was one of six founders of the Nusra Front and a recipient of Saudi support.
The timeframe in December 2012, when Hamawi was purportedly seeking sarin precursors, coincides with the period when Prince Bandar bin Sultan — the well-connected former Saudi ambassador to Washington — oversaw the implementation of Saudi intelligence’s “southern strategy” to shift the focus of the conflict towards Damascus.
Bandar had assumed the position of director of Saudi intelligence in mid-2012 and established an operations center in Jordan to covertly direct efforts against the Syrian government. He came into his role with guns blazing: on July 18, armed elements turned their sights to the capital city, beginning with the Damascus bombing of Syria’s National Security headquarters, which killed key officials in Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle.
The New York Times reported that in November 2012, a “cataract of weapons” procured by Saudi intelligence began flowing from Jordan into Syria. While the weapons were publicly presented as going to so-called “moderates” in the Free Syrian Army (FSA), US officials acknowledged that many of them ended up in the hands of “hard-line Islamic Jihadists.”
In February 2013, the Washington Post interviewed Hamawi, identifying him as an FSA rather than a Nusra commander (the FSA and Nusra collaborated closely and, in many cases, were indistinguishable).
Hamawi suggested his units had received weapons shipments in previous weeks from Saudi Arabia as part of Bandar’s southern strategy while stating that “Deraa and Damascus are the key fronts on the revolution, and Damascus is where it is going to end.”
According to a leaked NSA document, Prince Bandar’s subordinate, National Security Council deputy chief Prince Salman bin Sultan, provided 120 tons of explosives and other weaponry to opposition forces, giving them direct instructions to “light up Damascus” and “flatten” the airport in March 2013.
Regiment 111
In December 2012, several jihadist groups spearheaded by the Nusra Front captured a Syrian army base in the Aleppo countryside known as Regiment 111. The base contained stocks of mustard gas, chlorine, and sarin, which Nusra seized. Katibat al-Muhajireen, an Islamist armed group of foreign fighters supported by British intelligence, also participated in the capture of Regiment 111.
It is highly probable that US intelligence was aware of Nusra’s acquisition of these chemical weapons. On 7 December, 2012, just two days before the base’s fall, Syria Deeply, a platform funded by the US government, reported that, according to an Arab diplomat, US contractors were operating on the ground in Syria with the mission of monitoring the status of the country’s chemical weapons stockpiles.
The diplomat said there “are 24-hour Skype links connecting the US with rebel brigades to enhance monitoring of chemical weapons sites on the ground.”
Just as jihadists backed by Saudi and western intelligence were about to acquire sarin (or the components to create sarin) from Regiment 111, US officials began floating accusations that the Syrian government was preparing to use chemical weapons. US officials also cited these claims as a justification for possible western military intervention.
Predictably, the Syrian opposition soon asserted that the Syrian government had employed chemical weapons. On 25 December 2012, a Syrian army defector claimed to Al-Jazeera that the Syrian government had used a nerve gas resembling sarin in an attack on Homs. However, the evidence supporting these allegations was so flimsy that even US officials promptly dismissed them.
Nonetheless, Prince Bandar saw an opportunity in this incident. In February 2013, he tried to persuade the White House that Syria’s Assad had crossed US President Barack Obama’s “red line” by employing chemical weapons.
US response and arming opposition
Several months later, evidence began to emerge suggesting that the Nusra Front had managed to obtain or produce some low-grade sarin. On 19 March, 2013, a rocket containing chemical agents was launched at the town of Khan al-Assal in Aleppo province, resulting in the death of 25 individuals.
Notably, among the casualties, 16 were Syrian soldiers, a detail that raised doubts about Assad’s culpability in the attack.
On 5 May that year, UN investigator Carla del Ponte said she had gathered testimony indicating that sarin had been used by “the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities.”
Bolstering del Ponte’s claim, Reuters reported on 30 May that Turkish authorities detained 12 Nusra Front militants in possession of 4.5lb of sarin gas, while a Nusra fighter who helped capture the Regiment 111 base later speculated that Nusra had carried out the Khan al-Assal attack with the sarin captured at the base.
When the Syrian army and allied-Hezbollah forces captured the strategic town of Qusair on the Lebanon border in June, officials in Washington began to panic, believing that drastic measures were needed “to stem the tide of Assad victories.”
Amid calls for a no fly zone in Syria from prominent US lawmakers and the media, the Pentagon announced it was sending F-16s and Patriot missile batteries to Jordan. Although Obama refused direct military intervention, his administration issued a special assessment claiming the Syrian government had used chemical weapons and announcing that the US would now arm extremist opposition groups directly.
But for Prince Bandar, this was not enough. Reuters reported that Saudi officials, including the late King Abdullah and Prince Bandar, “want more US involvement … They are really worried about the attitude in Washington.”
Foreign support for Syrian ‘rebels’
On 20 June, the DIA memo revealed by Seymour Hersh was written and distributed, confirming that the Nusra Front was seeking to produce sarin. But this information was ignored, and western officials continued to make new fabricated claims that Damascus had carried out chemical attacks, including in Saraqeb, Sheikh Maqsoud, and Jobar.
It is in this context that Prince Bandar, with the help of his counterparts in US and Israeli intelligence, prepared to launch a massive “rebel” assault on Damascus.
The French newspaper La Figaro reported that according to its sources, the “first Syrian contingents trained in guerrilla warfare by the Americans in Jordan have been in action since mid-August in southern Syria, in the Deraa region. A first group of 300 men, probably supported by Israeli and Jordanian commandos, as well as by men from the CIA, would have crossed the border on August 17. A second would have joined them on the 19th.”
The stage was now set for a US air campaign to aid Bandar’s jihadist groups amassing near Damascus. However, a trigger was still needed to force Obama to authorize it.
The Ghouta attack
On the morning of 21 August 2013, a flurry of videos appeared on social media allegedly showing the aftermath of a mass chemical attack carried out by the Syrian army in Ghouta, killing 1,429 civilians, including 456 children.
The New York Times reported that “Within hours, [Obama] administration officials began signaling that they were preparing for an immediate military strike to punish the Syrian government,” reversing Obama’s previous reluctance.
The following day, 22 August, La Figaro published its report about the jihadist offensive on Damascus, stating “the anti-Assad operation has begun.”
However, the US president soon reversed his decision to authorize military intervention after Director of National Intelligence James Clapper warned that the evidence linking Assad to the deadly attack was “not a slam dunk.”
In the absence of a wide-scale US bombing campaign, the armed offensive on Damascus failed after 15 days of brutal fighting.
In their interim report released in September 2013, UN investigators later confirmed sarin had been used in Ghouta.
The UN team did not have a mandate to attribute responsibility for the Ghouta attack, however, a detailed analysis published in 2021 by Rootclaim showed that the Saudi-backed Liwa al-Islam fired the sarin-filled rockets in Ghouta – not the Syrian army.
Furthermore, the conclusive UN report released in December 2013 corroborated that jihadist groups had indeed used small quantities of sarin in attacks against Syrian soldiers in the Damascus suburb of Jobar on 24 August and in Ashrafiah Sahnaya in the capital’s countryside on 25 August.
Continued false flag attacks
Jordanian journalist Yahya Ababneh visited Ghouta days after the attack and interviewed several opposition fighters, their families, local doctors, and civilians. According to his sources, local armed groups received chemical weapons via Saudi Prince Bandar and were responsible for carrying out the Ghouta attack.
Ababneh reported that fighters he spoke with “reported that their salaries came from the Saudi government” and that “Prince Bandar is referred to as ‘al-Habib’ or ‘the lover’ by al-Qaeda militants fighting in Syria.”
One month later, a senior UN official who dealt directly with Syrian affairs claimed that according to fighters in Ghouta, “Saudi intelligence was behind the attacks, and unfortunately nobody will dare say that.”
Syria Deeply reported in December 2012 that as part of a special task force sent to Jordan, the “US and its allies have hired contractors to train some Syrian rebel brigades in chemical weapons security.”
After Ghouta, jihadist groups supported by the CIA, Saudi intelligence, and Mossad continued to stage false flag chemical attacks blamed on Assad, most notably in Khan Sheikhoun in April 2017, and Douma in April 2018.
Saudi-funded sedition
The Saudi role in such false flags was further illustrated in March 2018 when the Syrian army liberated some Eastern Ghouta farmlands and discovered a well-equipped chemical laboratory run by Saudi-backed Liwa al-Islam (by then known as Jaish al-Islam).
The Cradle columnist Sharmine Narwani visited the lab that year and reported that it was packed with equipment, chemical substances, and munitions. The equipment included a US-manufactured gas compressor for which Saudi Arabia put out tenders in 2015.
In the nine months leading up to the Ghouta false-flag incident, Nusra operatives were actively seeking sarin precursors in Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, a Nusra commander in Syria, identified by the DIA as being involved in seeking sarin precursors, had received Saudi military support.
Saudi intelligence was not only arming and financing jihadist groups but was also issuing direct orders for attacks in Damascus. Liwa al-Islam fired the sarin-filled rockets at Ghouta at a critical juncture when a major offensive on Damascus, planned by Saudi intelligence in cooperation with the CIA and Mossad, was about to commence.
The broader pattern of false flag chemical attacks blamed on the Syrian government, such as those in Khan Sheikhoun and Douma, further underscores the potential Saudi role in such operations.
Considering the documented evidence, it becomes increasingly implausible to suggest that Liwa al-Islam acted alone in the Ghouta false-flag attack. The incident resulted in the deaths of numerous Syrian civilians, including women and children, and nearly led to western military intervention, aligning with the objectives of US, Saudi, and allied intelligence agencies seeking to overthrow the Syrian government.
Iran Withdraws IAEA Designation of French, German Inspectors
Al-Manar | September 17, 2023
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) director general said on Saturday that Iran has withdrawn the designation of a number of the agency’s inspectors with Iranian media reporting that those inspectors are from France and Germany.
Iran’s move seems to have been made in response to a recent hostile and unconstructive move by the IAEA’s Board of Governors against Tehran, which was sponsored by the E3 (the UK, France and Germany) and the United States, Tasnim news agency reported.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi in a statement condemned what he called Iran’s “disproportionate and unprecedented” move to withdraw the designation of several of the agency’s “most experienced” inspectors assigned to conduct verification activities in the country under the NPT Safeguards Agreement.
He said Iran’s unilateral measure affects the IAEA’s “normal planning and conduct” verification activities in the country and “openly contradicts the cooperation that should exist between the Agency and Iran.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani reacted to the latest claim made by the IAEA chief, saying the United States and the three European parties to the 2015 nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) have abused the UN nuclear watchdog with the purpose of achieving their own political objectives.
“Unfortunately, despite Iran’s positive, constructive and continuous interaction with the IAEA, the three European countries and the United States abused the Agency’s Board of Governors for their own political purposes with … the aim of damaging the atmosphere of cooperation between Iran and the Agency,” Kanaani said, referring to the three European countries.
He said Iran has previously warned against the consequences of such efforts to politicize the UN nuclear agency.
The spokesman reiterated that Iran made the decision in accordance with Article 9 of the agreement between the Islamic Republic and the IAEA for the application of safeguards in connection with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Kanaani once again urged the Western countries to stop abusing international organizations, including the IAEA, and allow such world bodies to carry out their “professional and neutral” activities under no political pressure.
He, however, said Iran emphasizes the need for the IAEA’s impartiality and will continue its positive cooperation based on bilateral agreement.
On Wednesday, the IAEA’s Board of Governors issued a Western-sponsored statement that accused Iran of non-compliance with its safeguards commitments.
The document, signed by 62 member states of the agency, called upon Iran to take steps to address outstanding safeguards issues and provide the IAEA with information concerning its new nuclear facilities.
Separately on Wednesday, the three European signatories of the 2015 nuclear deal, France, Britain and Germany, also issued a joint statement on the sidelines of the meeting of the IAEA’s Board of Governors.
They accused Iran of non-compliance with the nuclear deal, even though it was the United States that unilaterally abandoned the deal in 2018 and put its fate in limbo.
Kanaani rejected the statement as politically motivated, saying Iran and the IAEA have made “considerable progress” in boosting cooperation.
Washington threatens further sanctions on Iraq if ‘misuse of dollars’ not addressed
The Cradle | September 15, 2023
An official from the US Treasury Department has urged Iraq to “address continued risks of the misuse of dollars” by commercial banks to avoid a new round of sanctions targeting the war-torn country’s battered financial sector.
Although nearly a third of Iraq’s 72 banks are now banned from facilitating dollar transactions due to unilateral US measures, a Treasury official who spoke anonymously with Reuters on 14 September said Iraqi banks were still operating with risks “that must be remediated.”
In July, Washington blacklisted 14 commercial banks accused of facilitating US dollar transactions to Iran, a country Washington seeks to strangulate economically.
The unilateral measures led to increased demand for the greenback on the black market and damaged the exchange rate of the dinar.
With more than $100 billion in reserves held by US banks, Baghdad heavily relies on US authorities’ goodwill to ensure its economy doesn’t collapse entirely. Furthermore, since 2003, all Iraqi oil revenues have been paid into an account with the US Federal Reserve, allowing Washington to control the Iraqi economy and pressure its government.
The warning from Washington came on the heels of a visit by US Assistant Treasury Secretary Elizabeth Rosenberg to Baghdad this week, where she met with the Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI), Ali al-Alaq. The two discussed “bilateral relations and measures taken by the bank to fight money laundering and terrorist financing,” according to a statement released by the US Treasury.
Since 2022, the CBI has enforced tighter regulations under US pressure to ensure dollars do not reach Iran. Bank clients wishing to transfer dollar funds must apply through an online platform and provide detailed information on end recipients before a transfer is approved.
July’s sanctions were the latest effort by Washington to coercively intervene in Iraq’s economy, to the detriment of the country the US army illegally invaded and occupied in 2003. US efforts include blocking Iraqi payments for Iranian natural gas, which has led to power blackouts amid Iraq’s blistering hot summer.
What Should We Do About the Powerful Israel Lobby?
Make them register as “foreign agents”
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • SEPTEMBER 12, 2023
World Jewry is on the attack against Elon Musk, who has threatened to sue the Jewish advocacy group Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for as much as $22 billion for defaming him and doing material damage amounting to many billions of dollars to his company X, which used to be known as Twitter, falsely smearing the platform and its owner for allegedly providing an antisemitic haven for “hate speech.” Per Musk, the ADL has gone so far as to put pressure on potential advertisers not to do business with him and to engage in a total boycott of X.
I for one can only say “Thank you Mr. Musk and it is only regrettable that no one did anything against an organization dedicated to spewing hatred directed against many Americans while also seeking to deprive an entire nation of constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech. And while you are at it, I would also recommend that you take a look at the other groups that are partners in Zionist crime, most significantly the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which has now created a PAC dedicated to defeating any politician who is known to be critical of Israel. After the 2020 national election, AIPAC boasted that the PAC that it had set up had raised $17 million to defeat candidates critical of Israel, while also supporting those politicians who were friends, 95% of whom were elected. To pretend that the Lobby exists to provide some kind of perspective or balance in foreign policy is a case of who is kidding whom on the issue of Israel. ADL and AIPAC are dedicated to enriching and protecting a foreign country that is on a daily basis engaged in a broad series of crimes against humanity as well as war crimes and which is characterized by persecution based on religion and race. ADL and AIPAC have no concern for what damage is done to the American people due to their persistent corruption of our body politic and media to achieve their treasonous objectives.”
So what has the physically hideous and mentally deficient Mr. Jonathan Greenblatt, the Chief Executive Officer of ADL, been up to and why has it taken so long for some Americans, to include Musk and Tucker Carlson, to react to being abused, stripped of rights, and vilified every time anyone dares to speak up? Well, the simple answer is that anyone who dares to challenge Israel’s vile behavior or Jewish control over large parts of the United States economy plus near total dominance of its political class can count on being attacked in the media and labeled an antisemite, which means that, increasingly, one might well be charged with a “hate crime” which can bring with it both civil and criminal penalties. Even at the state level, in 35 jurisdictions, one can now even be denied a job or benefits for supporting an economic boycott of the Jewish state.
Greenblatt and company believe that they can get away with murder, both metaphorically and literally, because they are protected by their money, media access and the political cover that they have flat out bought and also obtained through intimidation and threats. The interaction with Tucker Carlson began when Greenblatt began fulminating over Tucker’s willingness to discuss on his talk show controversial subjects that are familiar to conservatives but are generally banned by the media, to include “replacement theory.” The theory suggests that the decline of birth rates of whites is deliberate due to government policies that make it economically difficult to raise more than one or two children. The decline in workers is being replaced by the hordes of illegal immigrants allowed into the country, which will produce a permanent Democratic Party majority that will be docile and controllable. Jewish groups are seen as enthusiastic for the open borders and cultural and political shifts that go with them.
Greenblatt and the ADL initially focused on Tucker Carlson in particular given his high profile and popularity. Greenblatt repeatedly demanded that Fox News fire Tucker for discussing the “great replacement” theory as well as other white-nationalist talking points. Greenblatt has denounced Carlston’s alleged willingness “To use his platform as a megaphone to spread the toxic, antisemitic, and xenophobic ‘great replacement theory’ is a repugnant and dangerous abuse of his platform.” He called on advertisers to stop supporting the Carlson program and Fox with their dollars. Also, under-fire conservative Republican Representative Matt Gaetz subsequently became involved in the argument, saying that Tucker Carlson is correct about openly discussing white nationalist ‘replacement’ conspiracy theory and he called out Greenblatt and the ADL as “racist,” i.e. “anti-white.” Carlson has retorted that the ADL is trying to destroy freedom of speech in the United States, most particularly whenever the issue under discussion is the abuse of Jewish power or Israel.
Greenblatt was delighted, invoking woke buzzwords to confirm his own superior ethical status, when Carlson was fired in April, tweeting that “It’s about time. For far too long, Tucker Carlson has used his primetime show to spew antisemitic, racist, xenophobic & anti-LGBTQ hate to millions.” Apparently Greenblatt is not disturbed by racism and xenophobia and related crimes against humanity in Israel, but that is to be expected.
Musk’s history with Greenblatt is revealing. Shortly after Musk obtained control of Twitter in April 2022, he was contacted and pressured by ADL in a bid to remove what Greenblatt described as antisemitic content. Twitter’s CEO Linda Yaccarino negotiated the issue, but Musk believes that the platform should be characterized by allowing all forms of legal speech, and beyond excluding sites calling for violence, Twitter became exemplary as a free speech zone. Free speech includes criticism of the Jewish religion, Jewish group behavior and the Jewish state of Israel, even including doubting the evidence for the perpetual victimhood holocaust myth, all of which Greenblatt regards as antisemitism and therefore hate crimes. As the disagreement with ADL heated up, the hashtag #BanTheADL began to appear and it has now become the most used tag with more than a quarter of a million appearances on X. Greenblatt has denounced the users of the hashtag as “white supremacists,” in line with his apparent belief that antisemites and other racist evildoers are basically political conservatives. Musk responded to Greenblatt’s “intimidation tactics” by suggesting that “Perhaps we should run a poll on this… with the ‘we’re labeling everything we don’t like as hateful/racist/dangerous/far-right’ BS.” He also observed accurately that “The ADL, because they are so aggressive in their demands to ban social media accounts for even minor infractions, are ironically the biggest generators of anti-Semitism on this platform.”
One hopes that Elon Musk’s proposed lawsuit will proceed and bring about the dismantlement of ADL and the dethronement of Greenblatt, but as important as the free speech issue is, there is also another aspect to the entitlement and immunity that groups representing narrowly construed Jewish and Israeli interests currently enjoy. ADL is firmly entrenched with the power brokers in Washington and is even involved in training new FBI agents how to recognize antisemites and other types of racists. Nevertheless, one might suggest that the labeling of all critics and many white Americans as antisemites just might be a weapon that is beginning to lose its effectiveness since it is used so promiscuously by Greenblatt and others.
Beyond constitutional rights, there is a national security issue which no one in government dares touch and that is the corruption of American foreign policy on behalf of the state of Israel by Greenblatt and his friends. Jewish and Israeli power is sometimes jokingly referred to as “wag the dog” but when it is employed to involve America in unnecessary wars and to gift one of the world’s wealthiest countries with billions of dollars in “aid” every year, something is seriously wrong. And it all happens out in the open due to something called “hubris” whereby most major Jewish organizations meet regularly with Israeli Embassy diplomats and spies to cooperate on activities that benefit both Israel and its Jewish partners.
A key bit of legislation intended to monitor the activities of foreign agents residing in the US is the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (22 U.S.C. § 611 et seq.) which “imposes public disclosure obligations on persons representing foreign interest. It requires ‘foreign agents’—defined as individuals or entities engaged in domestic lobbying or advocacy for foreign governments, organizations, or persons (‘foreign principals’)—to register with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and disclose their relationship, activities, and related financial compensation. FARA does not prohibit lobbying for foreign interests, nor does it ban or restrict any specific activities. Its explicit purpose is to promote transparency with respect to foreign influence over American public opinion, policy, and laws; to that end, the DOJ is required to make such information publicly available. FARA was enacted in 1938 primarily to counter Nazi propaganda.”
The actual legislation, which perfectly describes groups like ADL and AIPAC interact with the Israeli government, reads as follows: “The term ‘agent of a foreign principal’ means–(1) any person who acts as an agent, representative, employee, or servant, or any person who acts in any other capacity at the order, request, or under the direction or control, of a foreign principal or of a person any of whose activities are directly or indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, financed, or subsidized in whole or in major part by a foreign principal, and who directly or through any other person (i) engages within the United States in political activities for or in the interests of such foreign principal.”
Famously, President John F. Kennedy tried to compel AIPAC’s predecessor organization the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs to register under FARA, but he was assassinated before that could be accomplished. He also was seeking to block Israel’s nuclear program, which has suggested the obvious conclusion about how and why he died. That aside, for today’s US government the question becomes, “When is our Attorney General Merrick Garland, who seems to be preoccupied with finding Russian war criminals in Ukraine and white supremacists in America, going to enforce the FARA statute on the numerous Jewish organizations like ADL and AIPAC and compel them to register?” That will require them to be transparent both on their “foreign” relationships and also reveal the sources of their funding. ADL had a reported $238 million in assets in 2021. The act of registering will also confirm that they do no routinely represent American interests but rather Israeli priorities, which will hopefully shift the public perception on what they represent. Jewish and Zionist Garland who works for a declared Zionist president who claims to be Catholic is hardly likely to do the right thing, but we can always hope that ADL’s recent foray will prove to be a step too far!
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
US, Bahrain to Sign Strategic Security and Economic Agreement
By Connor Freeman | The Libertarian Institute | September 11, 2023
The US and Bahrain will ink a deal to upgrade the two nations’ strategic partnership this week, according to Axios. One source briefed on the issue said the White House hopes to use this deal as a framework for other regional agreements. The Joe Biden administration is currently striving to induce Riyadh into normalizing with apartheid Israel.
Washington and Manama have a strong partnership, the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet is headquartered at a large base in Bahrain. Since 2002, the Gulf Kingdom has been a major non-NATO ally of the United States, though this does not include a security commitment.
Two sources familiar with the upcoming deal told Axios, “[it] includes a commitment to consult and provide assistance if Bahrain faces an imminent security threat.” Another source explained that the deal outlines an economic partnership between the two countries, and cooperation involving “trusted technologies.”
Though legally binding, the security commitment will fall short of the NATO-style Article 5 guarantee which Riyadh is reportedly seeking in exchange for normalizing ties with Tel Aviv. Bahrain likely desired a bolstered commitment because of the threat of war with Iran.
However, in March, Beijing achieved a diplomatic feat by brokering a peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran. This has sparked a regional realignment with Iran’s ally Damascus being welcomed back into the Arab League after being suspended for more than a decade.
The report says Bahrain’s Crown Prince and Prime Minister Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa is expected to sign the deal during a visit to Washington this week where he will be meeting with Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.
Last week, Brett McGurk, Biden’s top Middle East official on the National Security Council, visited Bahrain for meetings, discussing the final details of this new agreement, with the Crown Prince as well as other officials.
Bahrain is also a signatory of the Abraham Accords which is a thinly veiled foundation for a regional military coalition led by the US and Israel eyeing Iran. Under the accords, Gulf dictatorships such as Bahrain recognize Israel – absent a Palestinian state or end to the apartheid regime – and in turn receive increased access to advanced weapon systems manufactured by the US military-industrial complex. Washington is attempting to exploit the arms deals as a way of securing concessions from regional countries, namely downgrading economic ties with China.
Recent polling has shown that as a result of Israeli massacres and war crimes committed against the occupied Palestinians, the Abraham Accords are becoming increasingly unpopular among the populace in signatory states including Bahrain and the UAE. During recent months, the US has expanded its military presence in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East in preparation for a confrontation with Tehran. This weekend, David Barnea, the chief of the Israeli Mossad, declared Tel Aviv will launch another assassination campaign within the Islamic Republic.
The West appears to be preparing another regime change ‘uprising’ in Syria
By Eva Bartlett | RT | September 12, 2023
Twelve years on, the West’s war on Syria continues, with seemingly new plans to destabilize the country and overthrow its leadership. This after years of brutal sanctions against (and crocodile tears for) the Syrian people.
Earlier this year, a discussion between journalist Edward Xu and Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the UN secretary-general, went viral when Xu’s questions led to a bold-faced display of feigned ignorance on the UN spokesman’s part. Asked whether he thought the presence of the US military in Syria was illegal or not, Haq stammered out, “There’s no US armed forces inside of Syria…I believe there’s military activity, but in terms of a ground presence in Syria, I’m not aware of that.”
Xu had referred to a US airstrike the day prior that had killed 11 people in Syria and asked for Haq’s comment on whether or not Syria’s territorial integrity should be respected. Haq called for “foreign forces” to exercise restraint, but presumably he didn’t mean US forces – since, of course, according to him, none were there.
Haq’s claim of not being aware of the illegal presence of at least 900 US troops on the ground in Syria is contradicted by US officials’ statements clearly indicating such a presence exists and will remain for “many, many, years and decades to come,” as General Mark Milley, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in late August. Of course the US has no plans of leaving Syria – why would it, when there are so many natural resources left to plunder (oil, gas, wheat…), as the US and its proxies have been doing for years. Former President Donald Trump even bragged about this in November 2019, saying, “We’re keeping the oil… We left troops behind only for the oil.”
While the Xu-Haq exchange took place last March, it remains very relevant today as the US and its allies gear up to cause more instability in Syria, with the same old goal of overthrowing the Syrian government.
Syria 2011 destabilization ‘protests’ anew?
British journalist Vanessa Beeley recently reported on potential new Western efforts to destabilize Syria, fomenting unrest much like in 2011. But this time, the unrest is being fomented in Sweida province, with Israel playing an instrumental role, she said.
In a subsequent interview on Redacted, Beeley stated the number of US military personnel and contractors on the ground in northeast Syria is somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000. The US, she said, continues to use al-Tanf, its illegal military base in the southeast of the country on the borders with Iraq and Jordan, to train still more militants to eventually have them take control over part of the Syrian-Jordanian border and thus close off an important land border for Syria.
Worse still is the prospect of Syria 2011 all over, with the US and allies, “training 16,000 Druze fighters in Sweida,” with the intent of sowing chaos as in 2011. “There is a very small minority here that is – with the backing of Israel and the US – looking for autonomy, very similar to the Kurdish project in the northeast, and a federalist project to separate them from the Syrian State and to create an independent statelet,” Beeley said. “This is part of the US-Israeli plan to Balkanize Syria and divide it into warring statelets. This movement is basically now being power multiplied by the US at al-Tanf.”
She also highlighted a recent visit by three US congressmen to a district in northern Syria controlled by terrorist factions, pointing out that they had entered Syria illegally (as Western politicians and corporate media prefer to do) to fraternize with terrorist groups (as Western politicians and media prefer to do).
Syrian analyst Kevork Almassian recently commented on the Sweida protests, noting that “the leaders of the protesters are calling for political decentralization, which is the fancy word for partition and autonomy of the province from Damascus.”
Syria’s economy is in shambles now, largely a result of the US-led war on Syria and years of steadily more brutal Western sanctions. “Can someone please explain to me how political decentralization will solve the [economic] misery, and why no one from these leaders of the protesters are asking the EU the US to lift the draconian sanctions against them that is causing all this misery?” Almassian asked.
“Why is no one from these so-called leaders of the protesters saying let’s go and liberate the eastern shore of the Euphrates from the American occupation forces who are occupying their oil and wheat fields?”
Good questions, as was his question on who benefits from the sectarian partitioning of Syria. The Syrian people? No. The US, Israel and allies? Bingo.
‘Anti-terrorist’ resolution forgotten in favor of regime change
In her Redacted interview, Beeley stated, “What we’re basically seeing is a resurgence of the kind of 2011 narrative of peaceful protests in the south, the desire to overthrow Bashar al-Assad. UN officials are calling for resolution 2254 which is effectively regime change and political interference in the political process in Syria.” The resolution she is referring to, adopted in 2015, called for “free and fair elections” under UN supervision to be held in Syria within 18 months, among other things.
Back in 2016, I interviewed Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban, a political and media advisor to Assad. When emphasizing how the West was fanning, not fighting, terrorism in Syria, she addressed UNSC Resolutions 2254 and the lesser-mentioned 2253, which entails stopping terrorism in Syria and prosecuting those who support, facilitate, or participate in the direct or indirect financing of activities carried out by ISIS, al-Qaida and associated groups.
Shaaban said, “You want to implement 2254? Implement 2253 first, and then it would be very easy to implement 2254. This is the double-standards of the West: they address their audience with having a stand against terrorism and wanting to fight terrorism, when in reality they are facilitating terrorism and not even mentioning even a Security Council Resolution under the 7th Chapter that was taken 24 hours before 2254.”
Washington can claim its troops are in Syria to “fight ISIS,” but as I wrote some years ago, these claims are transparently fake, with multiple instances of the US-led coalition offering no resistance to terrorist advances or even facilitating their victories against Syrian forces.
In just one of the more recent reports of US theft of Syrian oil, Syrian media on August 24 reported that a convoy of 60 tankers loaded with crude oil exited Syria to US occupation bases in Iraq. In August 2022, Syria’s Oil Ministry stated that “US occupation forces and their mercenaries steal up to 66,000 barrels every single day from the fields occupied in the eastern region,” amounting to around 83% of Syria’s daily oil production, the Cradle reported.
As Milley boasted, the US intends to (illegally) remain in Syria for a long time. Not to “fight terrorism” but to destabilize the country still more, impoverish and kill the people still more, and loot its resources still more.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).
Vivek Caves on Plan to Cut Aid to Israel: ‘We Would Never Cut Off Aid to Israel Until Israel Told Us They Were Ready’
By Chris Menahan | Information Liberation | August 27, 2023
GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy ran away from his proposal to cut aid to Israel by 2028 on Saturday, instead promising that he would provide endless US aid to Israel “until Israel told us they were ready for it” to be cut off.
“To be clear, we would never cut off aid to Israel unless Israel told us they were ready for it,” Ramaswamy told an Israeli news outlet in an interview he shared to his own Twitter page.
“The US-Israel relationship will be stronger by the end of my first term than it has ever been in US history and than it ever will be under any of those other administrations if anybody else is elected,” he said.
The idea Israel would ever ask the US to stop giving them billions of US taxpayer dollars for free is just comical. As I noted earlier this week, Israel regularly uses the billions we give them to buy US treasuries — effectively lending us back our own aid money and charging us interest. The US Treasury’s latest numbers showed Israel is currently holding $46 billion in US treasuries.
Ramaswamy also pledged that he wants to expand the Abraham Accords — a scam worked out by the Israel lobby which consists of bribing Arab kings to normalize relations with Israel by offering them billions of US taxpayer dollars and high-tech weaponry which can be used to oppress their own populations — with the “Abraham Accords 2.0.”
He said his “2.0” plan would bring “Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar [and] Indonesia” into the pact (aka bribery scheme).
“The other area where I think the US-Israel partnership is critical is staying strong with respect to making sure Iran never ever ever becomes a nuclear power — even has basic nuclear capabilities — we will never allow that to happen on our watch,” Ramaswamy said.
Fellow GOP presidential contender Nimrata “Nikki Haley” Randhawa called Ramaswamy out during the debate on Wednesday for wanting “to go and defund Israel.”
“You want to cut the aid off!” Randhawa said. “Let me tell you, it’s not that Israel needs America, America needs Israel!”
It only took Ramaswamy three days to not only abandon but completely reverse his “America First” policy.

