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The Anniversary of October 7th

Twelve Months That May Have Doomed Both Israel and Global Jewish Power

By Ron Unz • Unz Review • October 7, 2024

Today marks the one year anniversary of the remarkably successful Hamas raid on Israel, in which some 1,500 lightly-armed Islamic militants from Gaza so greatly humiliated the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his country’s entire national security establishment. The consequences of these last twelve months have been enormous, not merely for the Jewish State and the rest of the Middle East, but also for America and the entire world.

For many fatal diseases the cause of death is less the result of the infection itself than that of the defensive immune system, whose massive over-reaction destroys vital tissue, killing the entire organism. And I think that the Hamas raid of October 7, 2023 and the Israeli response may eventually be seen in this light.

Some 1,200 Israelis died that day, probably many or most of them killed by their own country’s panic-stricken and trigger-happy IDF forces, whose Apache helicopters were ordered to blast anything that moved. Although such losses were hardly insignificant in a Jewish population of some 7.2 million and the national humiliation was enormous, if the Israeli government had merely been content to launch a few weeks of punitive bombing attacks against Gaza and then grudgingly accept an exchange of prisoners with its Hamas adversaries, I doubt the results would have been too serious.

Israel had held many thousands of Palestinians without charges or trial and often under brutal conditions, so releasing these in exchange for the 200-odd Israelis Hamas had carried back to Gaza would have meant a huge loss of face for the Jewish State, but hardly a threat to the country’s survival. The Israelis could have merely fired a few of their complacent and incompetent local military commanders and strengthened their Gaza defenses, and matters would have probably gone on much like before.

Israel had been riding high at that point, on the very verge of accomplishing its decades-long project of fully normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia, the most powerful Arab state. Israel’s close friends totally dominated the Biden Administration and Donald Trump promised to do even more for that country if he somehow managed to regain the White House. The country had just celebrated the 75th anniversary of its founding, and its international strategic position seemed better than it had been in many years, so it could have easily taken its Hamas debacle in stride.

But after the events of the last twelve months, I tend to doubt that the country will survive much longer in anything like its existing form, and its collapse may also take down with it the entire political structure of organized Jewry worldwide, which today so heavily dominates both America and much of the rest of the world. While Israel may face very serious risks from the major regional war its government seeks to ignite, I think the greatest threat to its existence comes from the massive distribution of devastating information that has taken place during this last year.

If the Israeli government had cut its losses and exchanged prisoners with Hamas, the country might have been humiliated but Netanyahu would have been utterly destroyed. So partly because of his own desperate political situation, he reacted in very different fashion, unleashing massive, relentless attacks against Gaza’s helpless couple of million civilians, clearly hoping to save his own political skin by using the Hamas raid as an excuse to kill or expel all the Palestinians in that enclave and afterwards in the West Bank. This would have allowed him to establish his name in history as Israel’s second founding father, finally creating the Greater Israel that all of his predecessors had failed to achieve. This bold project was certainly spurred on by the small extremist political parties upon whom the political survival of his government depended, whose ideological leadership regarded those territories as their God-given heritage under the fierce version of the religious Judaism that they followed.

Unfortunately for Netanyahu’s plans, despite all his massive bombing attacks, Gaza’s Palestinians refused to leave, perhaps remembering how their parents or grand-parents had previously been expelled by Zionist militants in 1948 from their homes in Haifa and other cities of what became Israel, as I had discussed in a long December article:

Moreover, despite massive financial lures, over-populated Egypt was adamant that it would not accept a couple of million displaced Gazans, who would likely become a source of social instability and future border clashes with Israel. So with the Gazans refusing to leave and the Egyptians refusing to take them, this left little choice but for the Israelis to keep bombing them in hopes they might change their minds, perhaps further assisted by the pressure of famine as the entrance of food supplies to the besieged enclave was blocked by mobs of angry Israelis.

Hamas and its determined fighters were hidden in their heavily-fortified network of tunnels and during the year that followed IDF troops had little success in rooting them out, suffering continuing casualties along the way and freeing only a tiny number of the Israelis held prisoner.

Angry, frustrated armies naturally tend to take revenge against the entire civilian population of their enemies, and in an August article I’d summarized the unspeakable war crimes that IDF troops were regularly committing against helpless Palestinian civilians, with some of these incidents finally starting to receive coverage in mainstream American media outlets.

According to American physicians interviewed by Politico Magazine and CBS News Sunday Morning, Israeli military snipers have regularly been executing Palestinian toddlers with precisely aimed shots to the head and the heart; indeed, for many years Israelis have proudly marketed tee-shirts boasting of their success in killing pregnant women and children. An article in the New York Times also reported that IDF forces have seized and tortured to death leading Palestinian surgeons and other medical doctors, with some of the survivors describing the horrific torments they endured at the hands of their brutal Israeli captors.

All of these barbaric atrocities have been justified and encouraged by the sweeping public statements of top Israeli leaders. For example, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly identified the Palestinians with the tribe of Amalek, whom the Hebrew god commanded must be exterminated down to the last newborn baby. Just a few days ago, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared that it would be “just and moral” for Israel to totally exterminate all two million Palestinians in Gaza, but he emphasized that world public opinion was currently preventing his government from taking that important step.

Although this officially-stated Israeli goal of eradicating all Palestinian men, women, and children has not yet been achieved, more than ten months of bombs, bullets, and famine have made significant progress in that direction. The Lancet is one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious medical journals and a few weeks ago it published a short piece conservatively estimating that relentless Israeli attacks and the complete destruction of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure may be responsible for nearly 200,000 civilian deaths, a figure many times larger than any previous total mentioned in the media.

The massive, ongoing slaughter of Palestinian civilians together with these widespread, explicit public statements by top Israeli leaders led the esteemed jurists of the International Court of Justice to issue a series of near-unanimous rulings that Israel appeared to be undertaking a campaign of genocide against Gaza’s Palestinians. By late July even the notoriously pro-Israel editors of the English-language Wikipedia had finally endorsed the same conclusion.

In addition to these ongoing massacres, many thousands of Palestinian civilian captives have been seized, none of whom have ever been tried or convicted of anything. But with Israeli prison space overflowing, National Security Minister Itomar Ben-Gvir proposed summarily executing all of them by shooting each one in the head, thereby freeing up their prison space for new waves of captives.

Although the militaries of many countries have occasionally committed massacres or atrocities during wartime, sometimes even with the silent approval of their political leadership, it seems quite unusual to have the latter publicly endorse and advocate such policies, and no similar examples from recent centuries come to mind. I don’t doubt that if television journalists had interviewed Genghis Khan while he was ravaging all of Eurasia with his Mongol hordes, he might have casually made such statements, but I’d always assumed that standards of acceptable international behavior had considerably changed over the last thousand years.

When top leaders regularly issue such wholesale sanguinary declarations, some of their more enthusiastic subordinates may naturally decide to partly implement those same goals on a retail basis. These horrible recent Israeli atrocities merely continued the pattern from earlier this year, which had often been documented on social media by Israelis themselves, eager to emphasize the terrible punishment they were successfully inflicting upon their hated Palestinian foes. As I wrote a few months ago:

Indeed, the Israelis continued to generate an avalanche of gripping content for those videos. Mobs of Israeli activists regularly blocked the passage of food-trucks, and within a few weeks, senior UN officials declared that more than a million Gazans were on the verge of a deadly famine. When the desperate, starving Gazans swarmed one of those few food delivery convoys allowed through, the Israeli military shot and killed more than 100 of them in the “Flour Massacre” and this was later repeated. All these horrific scenes of death and deliberate starvation were broadcast worldwide on social media, with some of the worst examples coming from the accounts of gleeful Israeli soldiers, such as their video of the corpse of a Palestinian child being eaten by a starving dog. Another image showed the remains of a bound Palestinian prisoner who had been crushed flat while still alive by an Israeli tank. According to a European human rights organization, the Israelis had regularly used bulldozers to bury alive large numbers of Palestinians. UN officials reported finding mass graves near several hospitals, with the victims found bound and stripped, shot execution-style. As Internet provocateur Andrew Anglin has pointed out, the behavior of the Israeli Jews does not seem merely evil but “cartoonishly evil,” with all their blatant crimes seeming to be based upon the script of some over-the-top propaganda-film but instead actually taking place in real life.

I also suggested that the near-stranglehold that pro-Israel Jews had gradually gained across American society, especially including politics, academia, and media, was having very fateful consequences. For example, Netanyahu’s deliberate slaughter of tens or even hundreds of thousands of Gazan civilians actually prompted his recent invitation to address a joint session of Congress for an unprecedented fourth time, with his bombastic speech interrupted by 58 standing ovations, coming at a rate of more than once each minute.

Meanwhile, American students had been heavily indoctrinated for generations with an absolute horror of genocide, war crimes, Apartheid, and racial oppression. But when they reacted against full American government support for the worst example of these seen anywhere in the world in many decades, their peaceful protests at elite colleges were brutally suppressed by harsh police crackdowns. This problem arose because their moral instructors had failed to properly emphasize that all those sweeping prohibitions actually included the key exclusionary phrase “except when committed by Jews”…

In one of the highest-profile and most grotesque recent incidents, Israeli doctors reported that a Palestinian captive had been severely injured after being brutally gang-raped and sodomized by nine IDF soldiers. Israeli military leaders have been facing the threat of arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court, so they decided to demonstrate their adherence to international law by having the soldiers arrested and tried, but a huge, violent mob of Jewish activists invaded the army base to free them, and the government later ordered them released. Israeli TV has widely broadcast footage of Palestinian prisoners being raped and sodomized by IDF soldiers, with claims that these brutal scenes were sometimes even live-streamed for the edification of gleeful Israeli political leaders…

Mike Whitney had summarized much of the shocking early evidence in late July when the story first broke in the Israeli media and a more recent article by journalist Jonathan Cook collected together a great deal of the background information. Cook noted that according to human and legal rights groups, Israeli soldiers and police have a very long history of raping and sexually assaulting Palestinians, including children, and such behavior has been endorsed by the country’s highest religious authorities:

In 2016, for example, the Israeli military appointed Colonel Eyal Karim as its chief rabbi, even after he had declared Palestinians to be “animals” and had approved the rape of Palestinian women in the interest of boosting soldiers’ morale.

I’ve always been interested in the Middle East conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, and I’m sure that I’ve followed it much more closely than the vast majority of people. But over the last twelve months I’ve probably devoted more attention to the topic than I had during the previous fifty years combined, and I’d expect that the same may be true for all but those who have long specialized in the subject. Billions around the world who had previously remained totally unaware or had only known of the Palestinians in the vaguest terms have now watched scenes of enormous suffering displayed on their smartphones.

In past decades all of these horrific Israeli crimes might have remained hidden away, kept from the sight of the American public and the rest of the world by the staunchly pro-Israel gatekeepers of the Western mainstream media. But the existence of the Internet drastically changed the informational landscape, especially the relatively uncensored social media platforms of TikTok and Elon Musk’s Twitter, which allowed the rapid dissemination of shocking images. Meanwhile, YouTube channels such as those of Judge Andrew Napolitano gradually brought together a critical mass of highly-credentialed academics, national security experts, and journalists who could share their analysis of events with large audiences around the world.

Two of Napolitano’s regular guests are Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate, earnest young Jewish progressives who run the Grayzone, a webzine and YouTube channel of their own. I noted their lengthy discussion of how the pro-Israel donor class had recently crushed any political dissent within the Democratic Party, despite the overwhelming views of its voter base.

In that same livestream, Blumenthal and Maté also focused on the methods used to keep American elected officials in line on this issue, noting that a few days ago Zionist billionaires spent an almost unprecedented $8 million to defeat Rep. Cori Bush in her own Democratic primary, angry that the black progressive member of “the squad” had called for a ceasefire in Gaza. Just a few weeks earlier, roughly twice as much money had been spent by similar individuals for very similar reasons to successfully eliminate her close political ally Rep. Jamaal Bowman.

Those two primary races were by far the most expensive in American history, and in their aftermath most members of Congress must surely realize that they only remain in office at the sufferance of AIPAC and its ideological allies. Although leading progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denounced the role of big money in those primary races, she was obviously too fearful of pro-Israel donors to even mention whose big money had been involved. The Grayzone editors were far more candid and accurately characterized the dollars as being deployed by “the foreign agents of an Apartheid state.”

Both Blumenthal and Mate had long focused on the plight of the Palestinians, and a couple of years ago I’d read Goliath, the former’s fine 2013 book reporting his personal experiences during his visit to the region.

But despite their previous coverage of the conflict, I do not think that either of them had ever imagined the horrors currently being inflicted upon the suffering Palestinians, nor the total slavish support for Israel expressed by the entire Biden Administration. These developments had ideological consequences and in May I’d described some ironic statements they had made in an earlier podcast:

This massive suppression of all political opposition to Zionism through a mixture of legal, quasi-legal, and illegal means has hardly escaped the notice of various outraged critics. Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate are young Jewish progressives very sharply critical of Israel and its current attack on Gaza, and in their most recent livestream video a day or two before that Congressional vote, they agreed that Zionists were the greatest threat to American freedom and that our country was “under political occupation” by the Israel Lobby.”

They may or may not have been aware that their angry denunciation closely paralleled one of the most notorious Far Right phrases of the last half-century, which condemned America’s existing political system as nothing more than ZOG, a “Zionist Occupation Government.” Over time, obvious factual reality gradually becomes apparent regardless of ideological predispositions.

By August, I noticed that incendiary term had actually been explicitly used in their most recent podcast:

That particular article of mine proved quite popular so it’s possible that my remarks may have directly or indirectly found their way to those individuals. Whether or not that was the case, in their current podcast they mentioned that although they’d always dismissed “ZOG” as some ridiculously antisemitic expression, recent events had demonstrated its reality, and Americans were obviously now living in “one nation under ZOG.” I think this marked an important step forward in their understanding of our world.

Soon afterward, their Grayzone channel was temporarily banned from YouTube, and when it returned a week later, the two hosts nervously joked about the acronym they must carefully avoid uttering, using several rhyming words to enlighten their audience. I suspect that just like them, many other thoughtful Americans have recently begun entertaining ideas that they would have never previously considered possible.

Nearly all of us, members of the media included, live our lives in the media-bubbles that constitute our understanding of the world. When real-life events puncture such a bubble, we are forced to take stock and reassess our view of reality.

Those two young journalists were deeply concerned about America’s current situation, in which so much of the basic democratic system they always assumed seemed to be lost, with political control of our country now being exercised by obvious agents of a ruthless and bloodthirsty foreign power.

Yet oddly enough, although America’s current political predicament might have alarmed some knowledgeable individuals from the first half of the last century, it might not have greatly surprised them. Five or six years ago I read a fascinating book by Prof. Joseph Bendersky, an academic historian specializing in Holocaust Studies and the history of Nazi Germany. As I wrote at the time:

Bendersky devoted ten full years of research to his book, exhaustively mining the archives of American Military Intelligence as well as the personal papers and correspondence of more than 100 senior military figures and intelligence officers. The “Jewish Threat” runs over 500 pages, including some 1350 footnotes, with the listed archival sources alone occupying seven full pages. His subtitle is “Anti-Semitic Politics of the U.S. Army” and he makes an extremely compelling case that during the first half of the twentieth century and even afterward, the top ranks of the U.S. military and especially Military Intelligence heavily subscribed to notions that today would be universally dismissed as “anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.”

Put simply, U.S. military leaders in those decades widely believed that the world faced a direct threat from organized Jewry, which had seized control of Russia and similarly sought to subvert and gain mastery over America and the rest of Western civilization.

In these military circles, there was an overwhelming belief that powerful Jewish elements had financed and led Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution, and were organizing similar Communist movements elsewhere aimed at destroying all existing Gentile elites and imposing Jewish supremacy throughout America and the rest of the Western world. While some of these Communist leaders were “idealists,” many of the Jewish participants were cynical opportunists, seeking to use their gullible followers to destroy their ethnic rivals and thereby gain wealth and supreme power. Although Intelligence officers gradually came to doubt that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was an authentic document, most believed that the notorious work provided a reasonably accurate description of the strategic plans of the Jewish leadership for subverting America and the rest of the world and establishing Jewish rule.

Although Bendersky’s claims are certainly extraordinary ones, he provides an enormous wealth of compelling evidence to support them, quoting or summarizing thousands of declassified Intelligence files, and further supporting his case by drawing from the personal correspondence of many of the officers involved. He conclusively demonstrates that during the very same years that Henry Ford was publishing his controversial series The International Jew, similar ideas, but with a much sharper edge, were ubiquitous within our own Intelligence community. Indeed, whereas Ford mostly focused upon Jewish dishonesty, malfeasance, and corruption, our Military Intelligence professionals viewed organized Jewry as a deadly threat to American society and Western civilization in general. Hence the title of Bendersky’s book.

Let us take a step back and place Bendersky’s findings in their proper context. We must recognize that during much of the era covered by his research, U.S. Military Intelligence constituted nearly the entirety of America’s national security apparatus—being the equivalent of a combined CIA, NSA, and FBI—and was responsible for both international and domestic security, although the latter portfolio had gradually been assumed by J. Edgar Hoover’s own expanding organization by the end of the 1920s.

Bendersky’s years of diligent research demonstrate that for decades these experienced professionals—and many of their top commanding generals—were firmly convinced that major elements of the organized Jewish community were ruthlessly plotting to seize power in America, destroy all our traditional Constitutional liberties, and ultimately gain mastery over the entire world.

I have never believed in the existence of UFOs as alien spacecraft, always dismissing such notions as ridiculous nonsense. But suppose declassified government documents revealed that for decades nearly all of our top Air Force officers had been absolutely convinced of the reality of UFOs. Could I continue my insouciant refusal to even consider such possibilities? At the very least, those revelations would force me to sharply reassess the likely credibility of other individuals who had made similar claims during that same period.

Israel’s leaders may be confident that they can successfully estimate the risks of a military conflict with Hezbollah or Iran, and their calculations might be correct. But I think that the greater danger they face comes in the widening ripples of knowledge that their brutal actions have now spread across much of the American population and the rest of the world.

During the last few months the Israelis have unleashed an unprecedented wave of assassinations against the leaders of their regional adversaries, making absolutely no pretense of respecting national sovereignty, diplomatic immunity, or the basic laws of warfare. In one of the earliest examples, they used a missile-strike to kill the chief Hamas peace negotiator in his Beirut office and later employed similar means to assassinate the Hamas political chief who had replaced him at the negotiating table. That latter assassination took place in Tehran while he was attending the inauguration of the new Iranian president, whose own predecessor had died together with Iran’s finance minister in a highly-suspicious helicopter crash. A few months earlier another Israeli missile-strike had destroyed part of Iran’s embassy compound in Syria, killing several important Iranian generals. An apparent Israeli false-flag attack had killed a dozen Druze children playing soccer in the occupied Golan Heights, and Netanyahu’s government then used that atrocity as an excuse to assassinate a top Hezbollah military official in Beirut.

In September, this campaign of Israeli assassinations massively escalated, as many thousands of booby-trapped electronic pagers and other devices were used to kill or severely maim enormous numbers of Lebanese civilians who were associated with Hezbollah. This was soon followed by the use of some eighty-odd huge bunker-buster bombs to level an entire city block of southern Beirut, successfully assassinating the longtime leader of that organization, whose successor was similarly killed a few days ago under a wave of equally large bombs in that same city. Israeli leaders have regularly declared that they feel free to kill anyone, anywhere in the world whom they consider hostile to their national interests.

The obvious immediate intent of this wave of Israeli assassinations was to provoke Iran into the sort of military retaliation that could bring in a compliant America to destroy that powerful regional rival. Iran’s large retaliatory missile-strike of a few days ago may lead to this result. But whether or not it does, the Israeli assassinations may have other consequences, perhaps far more damaging to the future of the Jewish State.

Although the successful killing of those enemy leaders may have enhanced Israel’s reputation for the ruthless effectiveness of its intelligence services and achieved the tactical result of at least temporarily weakening their opposing organizations, I think there are great strategic risks in undertaking so many high-profile assassinations in such a short period of time. More and more outside observers have probably now become aware of crucial historical matters, long concealed or de-emphasized by our overwhelmingly pro-Israel mainstream media. The reality is that the State of Israel and its Zionist predecessor organizations have a record of bold assassinations almost totally unrivaled in world history. As I originally wrote in 2018:

Indeed, the inclination of the more right-wing Zionist factions toward assassination, terrorism, and other forms of essentially criminal behavior was really quite remarkable. For example, in 1943 Shamir had arranged the assassination of his factional rival, a year after the two men had escaped together from imprisonment for a bank robbery in which bystanders had been killed, and he claimed he had acted to avert the planned assassination of David Ben-Gurion, the top Zionist leader and Israel’s future founding-premier. Shamir and his faction certainly continued this sort of behavior into the 1940s, successfully assassinating Lord Moyne, the British Minister for the Middle East, and Count Folke Bernadotte, the UN Peace Negotiator, though they failed in their other attempts to kill American President Harry Truman and British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin, and their plans to assassinate Winston Churchill apparently never moved past the discussion stage. His group also pioneered the use of terrorist car-bombs and other explosive attacks against innocent civilian targets, all long before any Arabs or Muslims had ever thought of using similar tactics; and Begin’s larger and more “moderate” Zionist faction did much the same.

A very useful source for much of this material, though hardly a complete one, is Rise and Kill First, Ronen Bergman’s fully authorized 2018 history of Mossad assassinations, which runs 750 pages and served as the starting point for my own very lengthy January 2020 analysis of the same subject.

As I described its contents:

The sheer quantity of such foreign assassinations was really quite remarkable, with the knowledgeable reviewer in the New York Times suggesting that the Israeli total over the last half-century or so seemed far greater than that of any other nation. I might even go farther: if we excluded domestic killings, I wouldn’t be surprised if Israel’s body-count greatly exceeded the combined total for that of all other major countries in the world. I think all the lurid revelations of lethal CIA or KGB Cold War assassination plots that I have seen discussed in newspaper articles might fit comfortably into just a chapter or two of Bergman’s extremely long book.

As a very useful supplement to Bergman’s magisterial work, I’d strongly recommend State of Terror, published in 2016 by Thomas Suarez, which I only finally read a couple of weeks ago. Most of the author’s material was based upon declassified British government documents as well as the major newspaper archives of the period he covers, and he provides an enormous wealth of information not available elsewhere.

Although his primary focus was Zionist terrorism, political assassinations are a closely related topic, and he discussed many of these as well. As an example, he explained how the Zionists pioneered the technology of deadly letter-bombs, ruthlessly lacing these with cyanide to increase their effectiveness, and employing them to target a very long list of their perceived enemies, notably including all of Britain’s senior political leaders and America’s president, though those latter efforts proved unsuccessful. Suarez demonstrated that all of Israel’s early leaders were supporters of these policies, and they continued running that country for decades, even into the 1990s.

Suarez’s book is long out of print and used copies on Amazon are exorbitantly priced, but fortunately it is also available on Archive.org, including in PDF and ePub⬇ formats, and I would highly recommend it to those who seek to deepen their understanding of Israel’s creation.

Our word “assassin” comes from the Ismaili sect founded almost a thousand years ago that for nearly two centuries terrorized the entire Middle East with its successful killings of important Muslim and Christian leaders. But with the possible exception of that one non-state organization, I am not aware of any other political entity during the last two thousand years whose record of major political assassinations remotely approaches that of the Israeli state and its Zionist predecessor groups.

For obvious reasons, Bergman’s book had avoided discussing many of the high-profile killings of American or pro-Western leaders that can probably be attributed to Zionist or Israeli forces, notably that of James Forrestal, America’s first secretary of defense and the leading public opponent of Israel’s creation.

American presidents have hardly been immune to such attacks, with repeated Zionist attempts made on the life of President Truman and Mossad defector Victor Ostrovsky revealing the plot to assassinate President George H.W. Bush.

Max Blumenthal grew up in elite Democratic circles in DC, with his father Sydney being a prominent former journalist and influential political operative very close to Hillary Clinton. Presumably based upon the personal knowledge he had picked up in such circles, in a podcast earlier this year he flatly declared that President Barack Obama was extremely fearful that the Israelis might try to assassinate him for his Middle East peacemaking efforts, something I’d occasionally suspected but had never previously heard stated by any knowledgeable insider.

But the highest-profile example of all would certainly be the case of the Kennedy brothers. Our president and his younger brother had made vigorous efforts to block Israel’s nuclear weapons development program and break the power of the growing Israel Lobby by forcing its main organization to register as a foreign agent, and there exists very strong perhaps even overwhelming evidence that the Israeli Mossad played a central role in eliminating them. I’ve discussed that issue at considerable length and would also strongly recommend the 2018 article by French researcher Laurent Guyénot or his more recent short book, which very helpfully summarizes the evidence and can be easily read within just a day or two.

Many patriotic Americans may take in stride the Israeli killing of foreign leaders whom our dishonest pro-Israel media has often falsely portrayed as enemies of the United States. But if those same individuals come to believe that the Israelis have also had a very long record of killing our own American leaders in order to subvert our political system and gain control of our country, the reaction might be far more serious. For decades, such ideas and the supporting evidence have been entirely confined to only the most marginal and isolated of conspiratorial circles, but there now seem quite a few indications that recent events may have propelled them into much more mainstream venues.

Consider Anya Parampil, another young journalist who has spent many years focused on Palestinian issues. Married to Max Blumenthal, she works with him at the Grayzone, and in her many video appearances there and on Napolitano’s channel, I’ve never seen any sign of her support for implausible conspiratorial beliefs. Instead, she has always struck me as someone of very mainstream if strongly progressive views on public policy matters.

Yet in a remarkable half-hour interview last week, she explicitly described Israel as America’s “greatest enemy,” expressing outrage that her country seemed to have lost its political sovereignty to the agents of that murderous foreign state. She went on to suggest that the crucial turning point in our national subjugation had probably come with the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, whose vigorous efforts to prevent Israel from acquiring nuclear weapons had been suddenly ended by his violent death. She also noted that his brother Robert had led the efforts to severely curtail the power of the Israel Lobby, and he too had soon died by an assassin’s hand. I think that her very self-confident public statements on such extremely controversial matters may represent a bellwether, indicating that many of those same ideas are now rapidly but quietly circulating within important mainstream segments of the American population.

Video Link

The JFK Assassination might easily rank as the single most famous incident of the twentieth century and it has been the subject of countless books, articles, and documentaries.

Those Americans who conclude that the Israeli Mossad played a central role in that killing, successfully subverting our entire political system, will naturally consider the implications of that revelation. If a matter of such gigantic magnitude could remain almost totally concealed for more than six decades, they may begin to grow very suspicious about the true nature of other major events as well.

The most obvious and important of these would be the 9/11 Attacks, which killed thousands of Americans. Pro-Israel elements within our national government immediately used these as an excuse to launch a series of wars that destroyed most of Israel’s leading regional rivals, wars that cost our country thousands of additional lives and many trillions of dollars, while killing or displacing millions of Muslim civilians.

As I’ve discussed at considerable length, Israel’s record of international terrorism, quite often of the false-flag variety, is just as unmatched as its record of assassinations, with an Israeli Prime Minister even publicly boasting that he had been the founding father of terrorism across the world.

One of history’s largest terrorist attacks prior to 9/11 was the 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem by Zionist militants dressed as Arabs, which killed 91 people and largely destroyed the structure. In the famous Lavon Affair of 1954, Israeli agents launched a wave of terrorist attacks against Western targets in Egypt, intending to have those blamed on anti-Western Arab groups. There are strong claims that in 1950 Israeli Mossad agents began a series of false-flag terrorist bombings against Jewish targets in Baghdad, successfully using those violent methods to help persuade Iraq’s thousand-year-old Jewish community to emigrate to the Jewish state. In 1967, Israel launched a deliberate air and sea attack against the U.S.S. Liberty, intending to leave no survivors, killing or wounding over 200 American servicemen before word of the attack reached our Sixth Fleet and the Israelis withdrew.

The enormous extent of pro-Israel influence in world political and media circles meant that none of these brutal attacks ever drew serious retaliation, and in nearly all cases, they were quickly thrown down the memory hole, so that today probably no more than one in a hundred Americans is even aware of them. Furthermore, most of these incidents came to light due to chance circumstances, so we may easily suspect that many other attacks of a similar nature have never become part of the historical record.

Once the circumstances of those 2001 terrorist attacks are carefully considered, the evidence that the Israeli Mossad once again played the central role seems extremely strong, even stronger than the case for Mossad’s role in the killing of the Kennedys several decades earlier. No other organization around the world possessed anything like the same set of skills and experience in carrying out such a massive operation, and the FBI quickly rounded up some 200 Mossad agents, many of whom had been located in the immediate vicinity of the destruction and were behaving in very suspicious ways, including five who were caught red-handed, gleefully celebrating the successful attack on the WTC towers.

Although it has been almost totally ignored for more than two decades by our fervently pro-Israel mainstream media, 9/11 researchers have amassed an enormous quantity of compelling evidence implicating Israel and its domestic American collaborators. Much of that evidence has been summarized in a number of our major articles:

  • Israel Did 9/11
    Wyatt Peterson • The Unz Review • September 12, 2024 • 13,300 Words
  • 9/11 Was an Israeli Job
    How America was neoconned into World War IV
    Laurent Guyénot • The Unz Review • September 10, 2018 • 8,500 Words

The greatest terrorist attack in the history of the world took place on 9/11 and it was the worst hostile blow our nation has ever endured. As the true facts of what actually happened on that fateful day quietly circulate in the wake of Israel’s very high-profile assaults on other Middle Eastern countries, I think that the existential risks that country faces may become far greater than anything associated with retaliatory strikes from Iranian ballistic or hypersonic missiles.

Related Reading:

October 7, 2024 Posted by | Book Review, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Pentagon requests $1.2bn to continue Red Sea mission

MEMO | October 5, 2024

Bloomberg revealed on Friday that two documents related to the US Department of Defence, or the Pentagon’s budget, submitted to the defence committees in Congress, confirmed the need to spend $1.2 billion on its operations in the Red Sea to continue confronting Iran and the Yemeni Houthi militia.

The document stated that the Pentagon will spend: “About $1.2 billion to maintain ships deployed as part of operations in the Red Sea and to replenish stocks of missiles fired to repel attacks by Iran and its proxies.”

The agency added: “The spending, detailed in two Sept. 6 budget documents submitted to congressional defence committees and posted online, helps shine a light on the cost of maintaining a stepped-up presence in the region, as well as shooting down drones and missiles deployed by Iran and one of its proxies, the Houthi rebels in Yemen.”

“About $190 million will be spent on the restock of the sea-launched RTX Corp. Standard Missile-3 Block 1B and about $8.5 million will go for more heat-seeking air-to-air AIM-X Sidewinder missiles, according to the documents,” reported Bloomberg.

The article also added that the bulk of the Pentagon’s projected spending for a year’s worth of operations in the Middle East is $300 million for unplanned maintenance on the USS Bataan amphibious assault ship and ships in the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, which conducted operations in the Red Sea, the Pentagon confirmed in the documents.

One of the documents states: “The spending is linked to costs incurred by the DoD within the US Central Command region in responding to the situation in Israel or to hostile actions in the region as a direct result of the situation in Israel.”

Each Standard Missile-3 Block IB costs between $9 and $10 million.

“Two Navy destroyers this week fired about 12 Standard Missiles in defending Israel from another wave of Iranian assaults on Tuesday, according to a Navy official who declined to disclose the exact models and asked not to be identified discussing non-public information. That means this week’s US assistance likely cost about $120 million,” disclosed Bloomberg.

The documents also reveal requests for $276 million for additional SM-6 Standard Missiles and $57.3 million for Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Another $6.7 million is earmarked for the Enhanced Sea Sparrow self-defence missile. All of those weapons are made by RTX.

The Pentagon will also spend $25 million on Boeing Co. Jdam-GPS guidance kits and $7.4 million for its Small Diameter Bomb. An additional $25 million will go to “increase manufacturing sources” for the Standard Missile to support the Pentagon response to what it calls “the situation in Israel”.

Another $20 million will be spent on additional BAE Systems PLC laser-guided Advance Precision Kill Weapon System rockets.

The report noted: “The request includes $26.4 million to replace RTX Coyote Block 2 drone interceptors expended since October 2023 in support of DoD’s response to the situation in Israel.”

October 5, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran to destroy all Israel gas fields, power plants at once if Tel Aviv makes mistake: Deputy IRGC chief

Press TV – October 4, 2024

Iran will simultaneously destroy all of Israel’s energy facilities if the regime attempts any new aggression against Iran, warns IRGC’s deputy-in-command.

General Ali Fadavi told the Lebanese television channel Al-Mayadeen on Friday that the Israeli regime will risk its existence if it attacks Iran.

“If the occupying entity makes a mistake, we will target all its energy resources, power plants, refineries, and gas fields.”

He pointed out that Iran is a large and vast country with many economic centers, while Israel has only three power stations and several refineries.

“We can strike them all at once,” the general asserted.

Iran launched Operation True Promise II late Tuesday in response to the Israeli assassination of late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in April and also the assassination of late Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah along with Iranian military advisor, Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan in September.

Iran fired around 200 ballistic missiles at Israel during that operation, saying 90 percent of them hit their targets.

The Israeli regime has vowed to respond to that attack, with some Zionist officials calling for attacks on Iran’s nuclear energy sites, oil fields, and other scientific and economic infrastructure.

Iran has warned to attack the regime’s infrastructure if it wants to respond to the Iranian retaliation.

‘Israel to receive a devastating response’

Meantime, commander of the Iranian Army Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi told Al-Mayadeen on Friday that the Israeli regime would receive a “severe and devastating response” if it engaged in uncalculated actions.

“We have exercised restraint and patience in the past, but we are ready to deliver a precise and destructive blow at the right time,” he said.

He noted that Iran would respond more forcefully than the level of aggression shown by its enemies if they made a mistake at any level.

October 5, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

West Asian crisis prompts Biden to break ice with Putin

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | October 5, 2024

The US president Joe Biden sprang a surprise during a press gaggle with reporters outside the White House on Thursday when he essentially didn’t rule out a potential meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at the upcoming summits of the Group of 20 or the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. Biden sort of signalled, ‘Barkis is willing.’ As he put it, “I doubt that Putin will show up.” 

As these White House gaggles generally go, Biden deliberately chose to respond to the TASS correspondent who asked the question, who of course knew that Biden knew that a trip by Putin to the Western Hemisphere to attend the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on November 18-19 is under active consideration in the Kremlin.

Biden and Putin have a lot to talk about but what adds up is that Biden signalled his interest in a conversation just a day after the massive Iranian missile strike against Israel, which came as a bolt from the blue and dramatically upended the legacy of his presidency. 

Don’t be surprised if the Middle East crisis dominates a Biden-Putin summit in Rio de Janeiro — that is, if such a meeting takes place. The Ukraine war is coasting inexorably toward a Russian victory. Biden’s interest lies in making sure somehow that Ukraine’s capitulation — and NATO’s humiliation — get carried over to January 20. But Putin must cooperate. This is one thing.  

Meanwhile, what causes sleepless nights for Biden is the situation in the Middle East, which may cascade uncontrollably toward a regional war. Here, Putin is not the problem but can be the solution. This needs some explaining. 

To be sure, policy differences have arisen between Biden and Netanyahu which is only to be expected given their sense of priorities respectively as politicians. It may seem the current crisis in the US-Israeli relationship is rather severe but how much of it is for the optics or, how little of it is for real is the moot point. Certainly, even a transition from war to a new diplomatic order is currently not in the cards. 

However, the US and Israel are also joined at the hips. There is no question that Biden is allowing seamless assistance to flow to Israel in its war effort and for keeping its economy afloat. And the US is blocking all moves in the UN Security Council calling for a ceasefire, which means that peacemaking efforts cannot even begin. 

Iran’s missile attack on Israel, in this context, needs to be put in perspective. Rather than an act of belligerence, it can be seen as a coercive measure to force Israel to abandon its ground operation in Lebanon. President Masoud Pezeshkian has disclosed that Iran exercised utmost restraint so far to stop Israeli atrocities only because of pleas by Western leaders that negotiations leading to a potential ceasefire in Gaza were at a crucial stage. But the West didn’t keep its promise leaving Iran no option but to act. 

Passivity or inaction in the face of Israel’s relentless rampage against the Palestinian population aimed at ethnic cleansing created a distressing situation for Iran as the saviour of oppressed Muslims. Besides, Iran’s entire strategy of deterrence came under challenge too. 

Biden is today like a cat on a hot tin roof. A Middle Eastern war is the last thing he wants. But he has no control over Netanyahu who is already plotting the next move on the escalation ladder. As for Iran, its sense of exasperation over western perfidy and moral bankruptcy is palpable. The US’ credibility has suffered a severe beating all across the West Asian region. 

Enter Putin. On the Middle Eastern chessboard, Russia’s role assumes great importance. Russia-Iran relations touch an unprecedented level today. Russian statements have become highly critical of Israel in recent years. Russia has openly kept contacts with the groups constituting the Axis of Resistance. 

Russian diplomacy is moving with a ‘big picture’ in mind to bring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the centre stage of international politics. In the past year, security consultations between Moscow and Tehran notably intensified. Some reports have appeared about Russia transferring advanced military equipment to strengthen Iran’s air defence capabilities. 

Significantly, Russia was the only country that Iran informed in advance about its missile strike against Israel. According to the well-known US podcast Judge Napolitano: Judging Freedom (below),  the Russian naval fleet in the East Mediterranean downed 13 Israeli missiles last week near Lebanon. 

Apparently, a frantic Netanyahu has been trying to reach Putin on phone for the past few days but the call is yet to materialise. On the diplomatic track too, Russia has underscored the highest importance it attaches to the relations with Iran. 

Clearly, the US senses the imperative to engage with Russia. What may be acceptable can be proportional strikes by the two West Asian protagonists, couched in carefully calibrated media campaigns. For example, targeted attacks on individual military installations, which would save face for Israel and avoid a major war — it’s a preferable scenario for Iran too, because it avoids unnecessary risks and preserves the trump cards for a game that promises to be long drawn out. 

In the final analysis, what matters is the US-Israeli intentions. The Financial Times cited Israeli sources to the effect that the game plan is to inflict maximum damage to Iran’s economy so as to trigger the latent ‘protest potential’ of Iranian society. The Israeli hope is apparently that a credible regime change agenda will find resonance in Washington and attract US intervention. 

Anyway, Biden’s move to engage with Putin suggests that a US military intervention is to be ruled out. On the other hand, the historic Russian—Iranian security pact, which is expected to be signed during the forthcoming BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, on October 20-22, gives Iran vastly more strategic depth to negotiate with the West.

Russia’s own interest lies in boosting Iran’s defence capability and pressing ahead with broad-based bilateral cooperation anchored on the economic agenda in the conditions under sanctions while on a parallel track advancing Iran’s integration into Moscow’s Greater Eurasia project. In short, Russia is uniquely placed today as a stakeholder in a stable and predictable Iran at peace with itself and the region. 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters in Moscow Thursday, “We are in the closest contact with Iran on the current situation. We share a wonderful experience of cooperation in various fields. I think this is the moment when our relations are particularly important.” By the way, President Pezeshkian received the visiting  Prime Minister of Russia Mikhail Mishustin on Monday, September 30 in Tehran just hours ahead of the launch of the Iranian ballistic missiles against Israel.   

At a meeting of the UN Security Council dedicated to West Asian developments, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya stated on Wednesday, “As part of its mandate to maintain international peace and security, the UN Security Council must compel Israel to immediately cease hostilities. You and I also should make every effort to create conditions for a political and diplomatic settlement. In this context, we take note of Tehran’s signal that it is not willing to whip up confrontation any further.” 

Interestingly, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov lost no time to pick up the threads of Biden’s remark on a meeting with Putin. He said on Friday, “There have been no talks on this issue and as of today, at this moment, there are no prerequisites for it. However, the president has repeatedly stated that he remained open for all contacts.” 

October 5, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Collapsing Empire: Iran Throws Down Gauntlet

By Kit Klarenberg | Global Delinquents | October 4, 2024

On October 1st, Iran launched scores of missiles at the Zionist entity, in response to the murder of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, among many brazen provocations and escalations targeting the Resistance in recent months. Voluminous footage of key Israeli infrastructure, including military and intelligence sites, being comprehensively flattened by the Islamic Republic’s inexorable onslaught has circulated widely, amply contradicting predictable claims emanating from Tel Aviv and Washington that the blitzkrieg was successfully repelled by Western air defence systems.

It is the largest, most devastating attack on the Zionist entity in its 76-year history. The full impact is not yet apparent. While US officials worriedly warned hours in advance they possessed “indications” Iran was preparing to attack Israel, the incursion’s timing, scale, and severity caught all concerned by surprise. Washington dispatching thousands more troops across West Asia in the days prior, explicitly in Israel’s defence, was evidently no deterrent to Tehran.

That deployment came replete with a supposedly rock-solid Pentagon pledge to come to the rescue should the Islamic Republic seek to repeat the historic, wide-ranging drone and rocket barrage to which it subjected the Zionist entity in April. Department of Defense apparatchiks boldly declared they and Tel Aviv alike were “even better prepared for a new Iranian attack” than last time round. The ease with which Israel’s purportedly impregnable Iron Dome was bested exposes this braggadocio as hopeless hubris at best, dangerous delusion at worst.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is ever-cautious, and has acted with extraordinary restraint since the 21st century Holocaust erupted in Gaza. Some analysts have interpreted this implacable self-control, and Tehran’s lack of immediate backlash against acts such as the audacious assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil, as not merely rigid reluctance to escalate into all-out war with Israel and its Western backers, but an inability to respond at all. Tel Aviv’s unprecedented October 1st battering should dispel any such inference.

Senior Israeli politician Yair Golan, who returned to Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) service following October 7th, has branded Iran’s latest assault a “declaration of war” against the Zionist entity. Notorious Benny Gantz boasts Tel Aviv “has capabilities that were developed for years to strike Iran, and the government has [our] full backing to act with force and determination.” Meanwhile, IOF spokesperson Daniel Hagari declares, “there was a serious attack on us and there will be serious consequences.”

The IRGC appears to have calculated such threats and pronouncements will be as empty and meaningless as the Pentagon’s pledge to be “better prepared” for a future Iranian strike. At the very least, the Islamic Republic fears no Anglo-Israeli retaliation to its latest broadside. That may mean Tehran has grounds to believe the balance of power in the region, and in any future large-scale conflict with the Zionist entity and West, has irrevocably tipped in favour of the Resistance.

Eerily, a little-noticed report published September 19th by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), a powerful and shadowy Zionist lobby organisation, inadvertently reached this same conclusion. It laid out in forensic detail how the Empire will be on the defence, and at grave disadvantage, in all-out hot war with Iran. Along the way, a blueprint for Resistance victory was plainly sketched. With Tehran having thrown down a gauntlet on October 1st, we could now be seeing that plan being put into action.

‘Gaining Overmatch’

Titled U.S. Bases in the Middle East: Overcoming the Tyranny of Geography, JINSA’s report was authored by former CENTCOM commander Frank McKenzie, who oversaw the Empire’s disastrous retreat from Afghanistan. It appraises the viability, value, and force projection capabilities of current US military installations throughout West Asia, focusing on Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE. The findings are stark, calling for an immediate overhaul of American basing across the region:

“Our current basing structure, inherited from years of haphazard decision-making, and driven by divergent operational and political principles, has yielded installations that are not optimally situated for the most likely threats of today and the future in the region.”

Despite mentioning “threats” in plural, JINSA’s sole focus is the Islamic Republic. While a myriad of issues with the Empire’s modern day positioning throughout West Asia are identified, the “most important” conclusion drawn is that Washington’s “current basing array detracts from our ability to deter Iran and fight them effectively in a high-intensity scenario.” McKenzie is nonetheless at pains to portray Tehran as somewhat feeble and vulnerable:

“The Iranians have no army that can be deployed as an invading force. They have a small and ineffective navy, and in practical terms, no air force. Their missile and drone force, though, is capable of gaining overmatch against many of its neighbors… they can deploy more attacking missiles and drones than can be defended against.”

As such, JINSA notes, “a theater-level war with Iran would be a war of missiles and drones,” and Tehran’s April 13th attack on Israel was a “comprehensive demonstration of Iranian operational design.” The IRGC sought to overwhelm the Zionist entity’s air defences and radar systems with waves of low-cost drones and cruise missiles, to “make it difficult for Iron Dome or Patriot to engage the ballistic missiles that followed.”

McKenzie correctly forecast that the April strike would “probably remain the basic template for large-scale Iranian attacks.” He appraised the effort – “at least conceptually” – as “a sound one,” from which “there are lessons for all to learn.” The most pressing and “obvious” takeout was, “for the defenders of the Gulf, it will be a war of strike aircraft, tankers, and air and missile defense… and here is the problem”:

“These aircraft are largely based at locations along the southern coast of the Arabian Gulf… an artifact of planning against Russian incursions in the 1970s, and the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns of the early decades of this century. They are close to Iran, which means they have a short trip to the fight… but that is also their great vulnerability. They are so close to Iran that it takes but five minutes or less for missiles launched from Iran to reach their bases.”

The “thousands of short-range missiles” Iran possesses are also a key negative “factor”, offering “no strategic depth.” While an F-35 fighter jet “is very hard to hit in the air… on the ground it is nothing more than a very expensive and vulnerable chunk of metal sitting in the sun.” Refuelling and rearming facilities on US bases in West Asia “are also vulnerable, and they cannot be moved.” Most damagingly of all:

“These bases are all defended by Patriot and other defensive systems. Unfortunately, at such close range to Iran, the ability of the attacker to mass fires and overwhelm the defense is very real.”

In closing his roadmap to Tehran’s victory, McKenzie bitterly laments, “it is hard to escape the conclusion that our current basing structure is poorly postured for the most likely fight that will emerge.” The Empire “will not be able to maintain these bases in a full-throated conflict, because they will be rendered unusable by sustained Iranian attack.” Imperial overreach in West Asia has now fallen victim to “the simple tyranny of geography.” And all along, the Islamic Republic has been taking rigorous notes:

“The Iranians can see this problem just as clearly as we do, and that is one of the reasons why they have created their large and highly capable missile and drone force.”

‘Nothing But Force’

For all the JINSA report’s doom and gloom, McKenzie does express some optimism – of the most fantastical, self-deceived kind. For one, he suggests Iran cannot threaten the Empire’s “carrier-based aviation” capabilities. Still, he concedes “there aren’t enough carriers, and therefore naval aviation will probably not be the central weapon in a fires war with Iran.” The former CENTCOM chief also conveniently overlooks AnsarAllah’s recent crushing defeat of the US Navy during Operation Prosperity Guardian, which unambiguously exposed the redundancy of US aircraft carriers altogether.

Elsewhere, McKenzie declares that the Empire “needs to move aggressively to develop basing alternatives that demonstrate that it is prepared to fight and prevail in a sustained high-intensity war” with Tehran, and therefore “overcome unfavorable basing geography.” One radical solution proposed by the JINSA report is to “consider basing in Israel”. US military presence in Tel Aviv has already been slowly growing over recent years. While largely unacknowledged and downplayed, it has proven incredibly controversial every step of the way.

In September 2017, the IOF announced the arrival of America’s first permanent military installation in the Zionist entity. Such was the backlash domestically and regionally, officials in Washington raced to deny this was the case, prompting a major cleanup of IOF websites referencing the site. Any move to create a fully-fledged US base in Israel, explicitly for war-fighting purposes, would inevitably spark even greater outcry, and be considered as a major escalation by the Resistance, demanding a drastic response.

Such an eventuality undoubtedly didn’t occur to the former CENTCOM chief. His analysis is hazardously unsound and fallacious in other areas too. On top of Israel’s “geographic advantages”, he praises Tel Aviv’s “powerful, proven air and missile defense capability.” It was this “competence”, combined with “US and allied assistance, and the cooperation and assistance of Arab neighbors”, that ensured Iran’s April strike on the Zionist entity was a “failure”, McKenzie muses.

He appraises this group effort, which supposedly prevented Iran from delivering decapitation strikes against the Zionist entity’s military and intelligence structure, as “in every measurable way… a remarkable success story.” If McKenzie’s view was shared by the Pentagon, this may explain why the US was so caught off guard by, and ill-prepared for, Tehran’s recent bludgeoning of Israel. Far from an embarrassing cataclysm, the April effort was a spectacular success, which exposed Israel’s fatal weaknesses, and reshaped West Asia forever.

Far from wanting to deliver a death blow, the Islamic Republic sought to deliver a measured, well-advertised show of strength, while avoiding further escalation, and a wider response. In the process, the IRGC demonstrated that if it wished, in future its missiles could successfully bypass the Iron Dome, and would wreak immense destruction. Then, a “new equation” was spelled out by a Corps Commander:

“If from now on the Zionist regime attacks our interests, assets, personalities, and citizens, at any point we will attack against them.”

That message was evidently not received in corridors of power in Brussels, London, Tel Aviv, and Washington. This is apparent from JINSA’s report, which states “events of the past two months clearly show that Iran can be deterred from undertaking irresponsible and deadly attacks in the region,” in reference to a lack of retaliation to the Zionist entity’s provocations during this time. It seems the finest Western military minds fell into the trap of believing no response was forthcoming from Tehran, because there couldn’t and wouldn’t be.

Fast forward today, and the question of whether the battlefield primacy of the Resistance in West Asia will finally be comprehended by their adversaries, in light of October 1st, remains an open one. As Russian military strategist Igor Korotchenko once observed, “this Anglo-Saxon breed understands nothing but force.”

October 4, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran’s oil production nears pre-sanctions levels: Report

The Cradle | October 4, 2024

Iran’s oil production is running at almost full capacity despite US sanctions, amid Israeli threats to target Tehran’s oil infrastructure in an expanded regional war, Bloomberg reported on 4 October.

The Islamic Republic’s oil output has reached 3.4 million barrels per day, just a few hundred thousand barrels below a previous high of 3.9 million.

After US President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the JCPOA nuclear deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran, Tehran’s production dropped as low as two million barrels per day.

Iran now sells much of its oil to China at reduced prices, as Beijing has been willing to ignore US sanctions seeking to block the sales.

“Iran is having success exporting thanks to a willing customer in China, the increased sophistication of illicit transportation channels, and the relatively low interest in the US to take action,” said Henning Gloystein and Greg Brew, analysts at Eurasia Group. “There’s a risk that Israel strikes Iranian oil facilities.”

According to Bloomberg, Tehran’s increased sales to China have taken place with the “tacit approval” of the White House, as US President Joe Biden and his advisors have eased sanctions enforcement to keep gasoline prices low.

In August 2023, before the wars in Gaza and Lebanon began, Bloomberg reported that “months of secretive diplomacy” between the US and Iran “have yielded progress on prisoner exchanges, the unblocking of frozen assets, and possibly even Iran’s enrichment of uranium. They also seem to have produced an informal arrangement on oil flows.”

Israel reportedly threatened to bomb Iran’s nuclear or oil facilities following Tehran’s large-scale missile attack on Israel.

Iran fired as many as 400 ballistic missiles at Israel on 1 October in retaliation for its killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut on 27 September.

In an off-the-cuff remark to a reporter, Biden said that his administration has been “discussing” possible Israeli plans to attack Iran’s oil industry in retaliation for the Iranian attack.

Bloomberg added that world oil prices jumped five percent on Thursday after Biden’s comment.

October 4, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

With 100 flights, Starmer pursues Sunak’s policy of spying on Gaza

Al Mayadeen | October 3, 2024

The British Labour administration has ordered 100 surveillance flights over Gaza to help “Israel’, Declassified UK reported. Since Keir Starmer took over on July 5, there has been an average of more than one daily flight.

Despite halting 30 arms export licenses for “Israel” last month, alleging “a clear risk” that the weapons would be used in a “serious violation” of international law, the espionage flights have continued unabated.

Although the Ministry of Defense (MoD) declined to provide information, Declassified independently discovered planes departing from Akrotiri, Britain’s massive airbase on Cyprus, to fly over Gaza under Starmer’s supervision.

In August, the Labour Party’s first month in power, the Royal Air Force (RAF) performed 42 missions over Gaza.

Pro-Palestine and anti-war demonstrators took to the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force Akrotiri Airbase in Cyprus to denounce the UK’s implicit backing of the Israeli violations and aggression in Gaza and Lebanon.

On Monday evening, Starmer dispatched a massive A400M military cargo jet from Akrotiri to Tel Aviv. The jet can transport 116 fully equipped soldiers and 81,600-pounds of cargo.

Again on Tuesday evening, the UK sent Typhoon fighters from Cyprus to defend “Israel” from Iranian rockets.

Surveillance alleged to be for captive rescue ops

The UK planes are thought to have captured up to 500 hours of film of Gaza, carried out by the Shadow R1, an intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance (ISTAR) aircraft.

Earlier this month, Liberal Democrat MP Mike Martin, a former British army officer who fought in Afghanistan, questioned the military if “UK intelligence is passed to Israel for the purposes of military targeting.”

Labour’s armed forces minister, Luke Pollard, reacted, stating the surveillance planes were “solely tasked to support hostage rescue.”

In addition, an Israeli insider told The New York Times that a covert British espionage team was sent to “Israel” early in its operation on Gaza.

The UK team “adds value” to its intelligence activities, he said, adding that Britain provides intelligence that “Israel can collect on its own.” There is no proof that the new Labour administration brought this surveillance crew back from “Israel”.

The surveillance flights began immediately after Labour gained control, with 11 flights in its first week in power.

Despite no flights taking off between September 10 to 17 following Labour’s suspension of some weaponry transfers to”Israel”, they quickly continued.

Over the last week, more than one plane has flown over Gaza for almost five hours every day from Cyprus.

After Labour seized control in July, 23 British planes flew over Gaza, followed by 42 in August and 33 in September. An additional two flights took off on Tuesday, October 1.

According to a representative for the Ministry of Defense, the UK’s focus is to release captives only.

“Our mandate is narrowly defined to focus on securing the release of the hostages only, including British nationals, with the RAF routinely conducting unarmed flights since December 2023 for this sole purpose.”

In a discussion immediately following the announcement, five different MPs questioned Conservative defense secretary Grant Shapps if he would share footage from the planes with the ICC if it revealed evidence of war crimes. He always delivered evasive answers.

Nevertheless, the Ministry of Defense stated last week that “in line with our international obligations, we would consider any formal request from the International Criminal Court to provide information relating to investigations into war crimes.”

October 3, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

J.D. Vance, Israel Firster

By Adam Dick | Peace and Prosperity Blog | October 2, 2024

Donald Trump likes to talk about how he puts America first. Last night, Trump’s presidential race running mate J.D. Vance made it clear that Vance has other priorities. In answer to the first question of the vice-presidential debate, Vance asserted that his allegiance is to Israel first. Indeed, he suggested that America does not even come in second.

Here is how Vance responded to debate moderator Margaret Brennan’s question of if Vance would “support or oppose a preemptive strike by Israel on Iran”:

Now, you asked about a preemptive strike, Margaret, and I want to answer the question. Look, it is up to Israel what they think they need to do to keep their country safe, and we should support our allies wherever they are when they are fighting the bad guys. I think that’s the right approach to take with the Israel question.

Vance here supports the US acting as Israel’s devoted servant in support of whatever “fighting” Israel decides to pursue against Iran. According to Vance, the decision-making is all at the discretion of the Israel government. The US just tags along, providing unwavering support.

Note also the use of the plural “allies” by Vance. To how many other foreign governments is Vance supporting US servitude to advance their fights against “bad guys”? Is Vance for America third, twelfth, twenty-fifth? Who knows? What is his current list of allies that he puts before America?

October 2, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Iran missile attack: what we learned last night

Mindless march to World War 3 may have hit a brick wall yesterday

Alex Krainer’s TrendCompass | October 2, 2024

During the night of 2nd October 2024, Iran unleashed their operation “True Promise 2,” launching between 200 and 400 ballistic missiles into Israel. As the video footage coming from Israel has shown, many of these missiles reached their targets inflicting extensive damage on the ground. Apparently, some offshore gas platforms were also struck. Claims and counterclaims are a bit all over the place at the moment: Israelis have claimed that the Iranian attack failed and that most of the missiles were intercepted. Netanyahu’s aide Hananya Naftali even tweeted a “BRAVO” to Israel’s aerial defence systems for intercepting “nearly all the missiles.”

But the footage from last night gives a very different impression; it corroborates those who claimed that many missiles hit their targets. A few of the videos also confirm that the Iranians do indeed possess hypersonic missiles. We also know now that these have a long range and seem accurate enough. This lesson alone could be a game changer.

Why hypersonic missiles are a game changer

Hypersonic missiles can’t be intercepted. The most advanced Western air defence systems can shoot down incoming projectiles flying at up to mach 3. So far as the Patriot Missiles are concerned, their success rate is very poor even at that. Nothing in Western powers’ arsenal can defend against hypersonic missiles and this certainly got the Pentagon’s attention. The implication is that all US Navy assets and military bases in the Middle East are defenceless, and that Iran has the capability to strike them.

During yesterday’s attack, two U.S. destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean launched twelve SM-3 ballistic missile interceptor rockets, their most advanced air defence system. The problem is that the current production rate of SM-3s is down to zero! Thus, even if SM-3s are effective, Western air defence systems are not for the long haul and will deplete rapidly in case of further escalation.

At the same time, Iran has many thousands of missiles ready. Here’s what CSIS says about Irans’ arsenal:

“Iran possesses the largest and most diverse missile arsenal in the Middle East, with thousands of ballistic and cruise missiles, some capable of striking as far as Israel and southeast Europe. For the past decade, Iran has invested significantly to improve these weapons’ precision and lethality. Such developments have made Iran’s missile forces… a credible threat to U.S. and partner military forces in the region.”

Hezbollah can shoot 3,000 missiles a day?

Then there’s Hezbollah. According to a 130-page report titled, “The Most Deadly War of All,” compiled by a group of six Israeli think-tanks and based on three years of research and the opinions of over 100 Israeli defence experts and IDF commanders, war on Hezbollah would be, as the report’s title suggests, the most deadly war of all for Israel. According to the report, Hezbollah would be capable of launching 2,500 to 3,000 missiles per day, a combination of long-range precision guided and unguided rockets.

The barrages would be launched toward specific targets in Israel with the potential of destroying the Iron Dome air-defence capability. IDF’s reserves of Iron Dome and David’s Sling interceptor missiles would likely be depleted within a few days from the start of a full-scale war with Hezbollah, leaving Israel exposed to thousands of missiles and drones launched by Hezbollah. This all could result in thousands of casualties and widespread panic among the settlement populations (already an estimated 200,000 settlers have abandoned their settlements  in the north of Israel since the start of hostilities).

Not to mention, both Iran and Hezbollah have been preparing for this outbreak for over two decades now, and the Iranians now promised a much more painful strike if Israel decides to escalate further. Western powers won’t be able to stem the tsunami that Netanyahu is working to unleash, any more than the Operation Prosperity Guardian in the Red Sea has been able to restrain the Ansarallah in Yemen. But therein lies the good news, I think.

The good news, inshallah!

Certain political factions in Israel and in the West have been working overtime to provoke a major war and draw in both Iran and the United States. Some of the pro-Israel voices are utterly rapturous about the prospect; the things they say sound utterly deranged and surreal. It’s as though they convinced themselves that Israel is somehow endowed with superpowers and that it can instantly turn anyone they wish into a smoldering heap of ashes. They also seem to think that by killing Hassan Nasrallah, Israel eliminated Hezbollah. They ignore the fact that Hezbollah is a very extensive military and political organization. If the Israelis bombed the Vatican tomorrow and killed the pope, that wouldn’t be the end of Catholic Church.

Indeed, very childish and dangerous delusions gripped the most fanatical cohort of Israel supporters and saner heads must by now be aware of the extremely reckless adventure they’re dragging us all into. If a wider war erupts, all of US, UK and NATO assets in the Middle East are sitting ducks and will be destroyed or expelled from the region.

Furthermore, an interruption of crude oil traffic from the Persian Gulf would inflict a devastating blow to G7 economies at a time when they least need it. In addition, all of this could be hitting the proverbial fan just ahead of the elections, and they haven’t even managed to assassinate Trump yet! It is all reckless in the extreme; the odds of victory (which is yet to be defined) are slim to none, while a cataclysmic failure is nearly certain.

I may be succumbing to wishful thinking myself, but I believe that we will shortly see leaders in the West pull hard on the handbrake and effect the quickest 180 degree turn yet! In the end, perhaps they will arrive at the calculation that sacrificing Benjamin Netanyahu and allowing Israel a break so they can sober up and reassess their predicament is a much better deal than following the unhinged fanatics and committing a collective suicide. We’ll know soon enough. Who knows, maybe we can avoid World War 3.

October 2, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Yemeni Armed Forces struck deep into ‘Israel’ with Quds-5 cruise missiles

Al Mayadeen | October 2, 2024

The missile force of the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) struck military sites deep into the Israeli occupation entity using three Quds-5 cruise missiles that successfully reached their targets, YAF spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree announced on Wednesday.

Saree pointed out that the Israeli occupation authorities remain tight-lipped about the outcomes of the latest operation, adding that it comes in support of the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples and in solidarity with their Resistance.

He extended the YAF’s congratulations on Iran’s Operation True Promise 2 against the Israeli occupation entity and affirmed their readiness to participate in any joint military operations in support of the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples, as well as in response to any Israeli aggression targeting support fronts.

The spokesperson warned that the continued American and British support for “Israel” places US and British interests in the region under fire.

The Brigadier General also underlined that the YAF will not hesitate to expand their military operations against “Israel” and those backing it until the aggression on Gaza ceases and the blockade imposed on the Strip is lifted and the aggression on Lebanon is ended.

Quds-5; one of Yemen’s advanced missiles

The Quds-5 cruise missile has entered service and is part of the long-range Quds system, a senior Yemeni military source told Al Mayadeen on Wednesday.

According to the source, Quds-5 is capable of traveling more than 2,000 kilometers and enjoys high stealth and maneuverability features.

It is also considered one of Yemen’s advanced missiles, designed for surface-to-surface strikes against military and vital targets.

The senior military source emphasized that the Quds-5 is characterized by its high speed, immense destructive power, and ability to penetrate all types of air defenses deployed in the region.

“The enemy was previously taken by surprise with the Quds-3 missile, and we say today that the fifth generation [of this missile] has entered the battlefield.”

“More is yet to come,” they added.

The latest top-tier attack comes a day after Saree announced that the YAF’s naval, missile, and UAV forces carried out three military operations in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

The first operation targeted the Cordelia Moon British oil tanker in the Red Sea using eight ballistic and cruise missiles, a drone, and an uncrewed surface boat, resulting in severe damages.

The second and third operations targeted the Marathopolis tanker in the Indian Ocean with a cruise missile and a drone for violating the maritime ban imposed by the YAF on ships sailing in the designated operations zone toward the occupied ports of Palestine, Saree said.

Earlier, the spokesperson confirmed that the YAF’s UAV force struck an Israeli military target in occupied Yafa (Eilat) using a Yafa-type drone, as well as other military targets in occupied Umm al-Rashrash (Eilat) with four Samad-4 drones, pointing out that the two operations achieved their objectives precisely.

October 2, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Iron Dome Proved to Be a Bust’: Iran Strikes Israel in Retaliation for Assassinations

By John Miles – Sputnik – October 2, 2024

Iran launched a significant retaliatory attack against Israel late Tuesday night, ending months of speculation about how or whether the country would strike back after its provocative killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

The United States reportedly provided Iran with assurances after the attack against Haniyeh in July that Israel and the US would move constructively towards the establishment of a Palestinian state, ending Israel’s military aggression against its neighbors and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where over 42,000 have died according to figures reported by the territory’s health ministry. Tel Aviv’s deadly attack against Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon last week dashed hopes of a cessation of violence as Israel claims it is preparing for a broader invasion of Lebanon.

“I’ve seen the videos and you can see the missiles continue to rain down and hit targets. Israel is imposing a news blackout,” former CIA analyst Larry Johnson said. “They don’t want the knowledge out there about what happened. But Iran made sure that it was not going to hit and run the risk of killing hundreds or thousands of Israeli civilians.”

“They were not going to act like the Israelis,” the analyst claimed. “They really consider themselves, if you will, more humane, more honorable, and by virtue of their action, I think they can make that case.”

Johnson claimed Iran was forced to strike Israel after false assurances from the United States that Israel would cease attacks on its neighbors after its killing of Haniyeh. Iran previously launched a retaliatory attack on Israel in April after Tel Aviv’s bombing of the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria killed two Iranian generals. The codename Operation True Promise was announced for the strike.

Iran’s Tuesday attack, dubbed Operation True Promise II, appears significantly more substantial than April’s strike in which the vast majority of Iranian missiles, rockets and drones were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome. Iran was reportedly able to successfully strike Israeli military targets Tuesday, including an Israeli air base where multiple US-provided F-35 aircraft were hit. Johnson claimed Israel’s attack against Nasrallah would’ve been launched from an F-35; the fighter jet would be key to any Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

The commentator compared Israel’s Iron Dome to the US Patriot missile system, claiming the US is unable to replenish the defense system rapidly enough to allow Israel to fight a long war of attrition.

“Lockheed Martin… can make about one and a half, one and a quarter [missiles] a day,” said Johnson. “I think Israel’s in a similar situation… [Iran] put Israel on notice, ‘If you launch any further strikes against us in any retaliation, we’re going to hit you harder next time and with more lethality.’ So this right now has a chance to really get out of control.”

“I cannot rule out that Israel is going to try to launch some conventional weapons at Iran, but I think they’re going to be defeated,” Johnson claimed.

“Israel may be tempted to try to use a nuclear device against an Iranian target,” he warned. “If that happens then we’re going to really be into another dimension, and this is going to get very, very serious. It’s already a serious situation, but it will get absolutely dangerous.”

The analyst suggested Israel would not be able to support military engagement against multiple enemies, even with the United States backing it up.

“Israel is not in a position to fight a multi-front war and it does not have the strategic depth to fight wars of attrition. And that’s exactly what it’s got itself into now,” Johnson pointed out. “It’s not going to be able to finish off Hezbollah in a week. It couldn’t even finish off Hamas in 12 months. It’s not going to be able to finish off Syria, finish off the Houthis or finish off Iran… That’s what Israel fails to understand. It does not have the ability to sustain itself in these kinds of operations for an extended period of time.”

“If US ships are involved that are off the coast of Iran, then we’ll see Iran react and they may even end up attacking some US ships,” he continued. “But they’ll certainly retaliate against Israel. Israel is not out of the woods at all, despite all the delusional nonsense that the extreme Zionist supporters are saying when they say, ‘oh, Iran didn’t touch us, Iran didn’t hurt us at all.’ Nonsense.”

The development comes as Democrats attempt to hold onto the White House in November’s presidential election, with former President Donald Trump casting himself as a defender of Israel. Vice President Kamala Harris will attempt to do the same, Johnson claimed, while also trying to prevent a regional conflagration in the Middle East before the election.

“The politics are going to dictate a lot of strategic military decisions, unfortunately,” said Johnson.

October 2, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

US deploys thousands of troops to Middle East as tensions rise

Al Mayadeen | October 1, 2024

Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters on Monday said the US is increasing its military presence in the Middle East by deploying a “few thousand” additional troops.

According to a statement, this includes bringing in new units and extending the stay of those already stationed there.

“A certain number of units already deployed to the Middle East region… will be extended and the forces due to rotate into theater to replace them will now instead augment” those that are already there, Singh said.

“These augmented forces include F-16, F-15E, A-10, F-22 fighter aircraft and associated personnel,” Singh added, noting that there will be “an additional few thousand” personnel in the region as a result.

This comes in light of heightened escalations amid the start of “Israel’s” “localized and targeted” aggression of Lebanon.

The latest attacks on US positions in the region include a strike on the US military’s Victoria base near Baghdad Airport, occurring late Monday into Tuesday.

The Yemeni Armed Forces have also struck Israeli military targets earlier today using long-range multi-purpose one-way assault Samad 4 drone.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah continues its operations targeting Israeli movements within the occupied Palestinian territories.

Iran also launched a response to the Israeli assassinations of martyrs Haniyeh, Sayyed Nasrallah, and General Nilforooshian earlier, launching hundreds of rockets toward occupied Palestine.

Heightened escalations

On Monday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin expressed support to Israeli Security Minister Yoav Gallant for “dismantling attack infrastructure” belonging to Hezbollah.

Austin also warned Iran of “serious consequences” should it directly strike “Israel” in retaliation for attacks on the Lebanese Resistance group.

On Tuesday, Hezbollah Political Council member Mahmoud Qomati said in an interview with Al Mayadeen that Hezbollah’s allies “will intervene if the battle expands.”

Qomati warned that southern Lebanon “will become a graveyard for the occupation forces” should they enter, highlighting the Resistance’s vast arsenal of unused weapons and the fighters’ readiness to engage with Israeli forces.

Addressing observers, Qomati said the Resistance was rebuilt immediately following the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

The legacy of Sayyed Nasrallah is well-maintained, he said, adding, “his trust is in our hands and will remain so with every leader and fighter.”

Qomati also reiterated Hezbollah’s stance, which had been affirmed by the late Secretary-General since the beginning of the Israeli occupation’s war on Gaza, stressing that the party “will not halt its support unless a comprehensive proposal is put forward, including a ceasefire in Gaza.”

October 1, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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