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Yemen expands front against Israel to include Mediterranean Sea

The Cradle | May 3, 2024

The Yemeni armed forces announced on 3 May the start of the “fourth phase” of escalation against Israel and in support of Palestine, threatening to target Israeli-linked ships “anywhere within our reach.”

Sanaa highlights in a statement that the attacks, which have successfully locked Israel out of the Red Sea, will expand to the Mediterranean Sea. Earlier this year, the Yemeni armed forces expanded the scope of their pro-Palestine operations to include the Indian Ocean, severely affecting the Israeli economy.

Friday’s statement from the Ansarallah-led government also warns Tel Aviv against launching their assault on the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, saying that, with immediate effect, any ships “linked to the provision of supplies and entry into the Palestinian ports under occupation” would be subject to “severe penalties.”

The statement stresses that these ships will not be allowed to “sail through the area of military operations, regardless of their destination.”

The escalation by Yemen was made public by armed forces spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree, who made the announcement in front of hundreds of thousands of Yemenis who continue to gather in the capital every week to show their support for the Palestinians in Gaza.

Since mid-November, Yemen has maintained a naval trade blockade against Israel. The armed forces’ operations remain mostly unaffected despite an illegal US bombing campaign and the heavy militarization of the Red Sea by NATO countries.

“We didn’t necessarily expect this level of threat. There was an uninhibited violence that was quite surprising and very significant. [The Yemenis] do not hesitate to use drones that fly at water level, to explode them on commercial ships, and to fire ballistic missiles,” Jerome Henry, the commander of France’s Aquitaine-class FREMM frigate Alsace, told Le Figaro last month.

Ansarallah leaders have repeatedly stated that the Yemeni operations will continue until Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza comes to a stop and a lasting ceasefire is implemented.

In the face of its failure to deter Yemen, Washington recently offered the country “an acknowledgment of its legitimacy” in exchange for its neutrality in the war on Gaza.

“[Washington] pledged to repair the damages, remove foreign forces from all occupied Yemeni lands and islands, and remove Ansarallah from the State Department’s ‘terrorism list’ – as soon as they stop their attacks in support of Gaza,” according to Yemeni sources who spoke exclusively with The Cradle.

The offer also included “severely reducing” the role of the Saudi-appointed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) and “accelerating the signing of a roadmap” with the Saudi-led coalition to end the nine-year war that has decimated Yemen.

May 3, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

How Biden Showed the World the US & NATO Are Paper Tigers

By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 30.04.2024

On April 13, Iran responded to an Israeli attack on its embassy in Syria by striking Israel with more than 300 drones and missiles. While most were shot down by Israeli and US air defenses, hypersonic missiles fired by Iran hit their targets, showcasing the limits of Western defenses.

US President Joe Biden revealed to the world that the US military is no longer the giant that woke up on December 7, 1941, but a paper tiger unable to exert the power it once held. Both former Chinese leader Mao Zedong and Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden described the United States in this way. Though it may have taken several decades, they are finally being proven correct.

The United States showed in the 1990s and through the start of this century that it was capable of dominating the battlefield when facing opponents with significantly less sophisticated equipment.

But, as American hegemony has slipped, other countries have caught up and in some aspects surpassed the so-called world’s only remaining superpower.

This is evident in the United States’ inability to halt the Yemen Ansar Allah (Houthi) movement’s blockade against ships traveling to Israeli ports and the United States’ failure to prevent Iran’s attack on Israeli military targets.

With the Houthis, the United States has resorted to attempting to bribe the group into stopping their attacks, a tactic that has failed. But the attack by Iran was worse for the perception of American-dominance, because the failure of its weapons were on full display.

While most if not all of the drones sent by Iran were taken out by a combination of Israeli and US air defense systems, the drones were intended to distract and exhaust the defenses and allow Iran’s hypersonic missiles to hit their targets, which most reports say they did.

The attack from Iran showed the world “that US defense capabilities” are “not there,” retired senior security policy analyst Michael Maloof told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Monday.

“The ability to have a strong missile defense is not there, and the Russians [also] have these hypersonic capabilities,” Maloof explained. “[Iran] did hit their targets, and they did it with hypersonics and there was no defense.”

In Ukraine, the situation would be comical were it not so dark. As the Kiev regime hyped what became its failed counteroffensive last year, a succession of NATO equipment was touted as the game changer that would send the Russians into retreat.

First, it was the Bradley Fighting Vehicles, then Leopard tanks, then Challenger tanks, then a growing list of air defense systems and long-range artillery. Russia systematically destroyed them all, proving that NATO weapons are not the pinnacle of modern warfare and in many cases are relics of 20th-century warfare that will act as a gilded millstone around the neck of any army that relies on them in the 21st century.

There was another tank the US provided to Ukraine last summer, but it was not seen on the battlefield until very recently: the Abrams M1 tank. It too was touted as a game changer, but despite Ukraine’s desperate need for armor, they were not used until the battle for Avdeyevka in February of this year.

In September, Sputnik wrote an article highlighting the weaknesses of the Abrams tank, which was responded to by Popular Mechanics. The outlet asserted the Abrams would represent a “huge leap in the capabilities” of Ukrainian armor formations and accused Sputnik of exaggerating “not only the threat to Abrams tanks, but the tank’s vulnerabilities.”

The article concluded that Russian forces “will have to work very hard to kill an Abrams tank.” But when it finally arrived, five tanks were quickly destroyed and at least one tank was captured. Last week, US military officials confirmed to US media that Ukraine had removed the Abrams tanks from the front lines, saying that they are too easily destroyed by Russian drones.

“We saw, as with pretty much every type of tank we’ve seen in this combat that relatively cheap, $500, $1,000 a pop, Kamikaze drones can seriously damage a tank fairly easily,” security and international relations expert Mark Sleboda told Sputnik’s Fault Lines on Monday.

The Abrams tank costs roughly $10 million a piece.

The shattering of NATO’s veneer of invincibility will have geopolitical implications, Maloof argued. “Are we going to … convince the Saudis now that we’re going to defend them, when they saw with their own eyes that whatever layering we performed for the Israelis didn’t work. Are they going to buy into that? No, they’re going to start going their own way, increasingly more so.”

On Tuesday, Iranian Economy Minister Ehsan Khandouzi described his talks with the Minister of Economy and Planning of Saudi Arabia, Faisal F. Alibrahim as “productive.”
“Faisal F. Alibrahim agreed with all [of] Iran’s [economic] proposals,” Khandouzi noted.

“The days of US dominance [are] over, and we’re seeing this now as some 40 countries want to join BRICS and get out from under the dollar,” Maloof explained. “So, all of this is interrelated. It’s all playing [out] in real-time, before our very eyes, and it’s happening very rapidly.”

May 1, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Yemen raps US for obstructing peace, blocking efforts to halt Gaza genocide

Press TV – April 30, 2024

The Yemeni Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has denounced the United States over its role in scuttling UN-brokered peace efforts in the impoverished Arab nation, and its failure to stop the Israeli military’s onslaught against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

“The United States constitutes an obstacle to peace in Yemen, and prevents the ongoing criminal massacre in Gaza from coming to an end,” the ministry said in a statement released on Monday.

Pointing to the Yemeni pro-Palestine maritime operations in the Red Sea, the ministry said they “have humanitarian objectives, and are meant to pressure the Zionist regime into stopping its vicious aggression and lifting its all-out blockade on Gaza.”

The ministry went on to note that the resolution of the Yemen conflict will not stop the country’s naval units from carrying out anti-Israeli operations, emphasizing that the United Nations has been reminded that the agreement with Saudi Arabia for the Yemeni peace roadmap has nothing to do with unfolding developments in Gaza, and that neither Americans nor Britons should be involved in it.

The statement added that the latest remarks by Tim Lenderking, the US special envoy for Yemen, about Yemeni attacks on Israeli-affiliated commercial vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in response to the war on Gaza show that the US is preventing the establishment of peace in Yemen, and is blocking an end to the killings in Gaza and the removal of the siege.

Lenderking told Saudi English-language daily newspaper Arab News in an interview published on April 25 that “the onus (is) on the Houthis to stop the Red Sea attacks, adding, “That can prompt us all to begin to dial back, to de-escalate, to return the situation in Yemen to where it was on Oct. 6, which had considerably more promise and possibility than what exists now, and that’s where we want to return the focus.”

On the Gaza war, Lenderking said, “We cannot escape what’s happening in Gaza,” adding, “Not one single day goes by when the people I talk to about Yemen don’t also talk about Gaza. So we know this is a searing and very, very important situation that must be dealt with.”

The Yemeni foreign ministry statement further criticized Washington for standing “against the will of all world nations, including its own people who are expressing fierce opposition to the involvement of the Biden administration in the heinous crimes that Zionists are committing against Gazans.”

“The US has rather resorted to the brutal suppression of pro-Palestine protests at its own university campuses than to respond to global demands [for an end to Gaza war]. Such conduct has exposed the hollowness of its slogans about democracy,” the ministry pointed out.

The Yemeni Armed Forces have staged numerous pro-Palestinian strikes since October 7, when the Israeli regime began the Gaza war.

American and British warships have been carrying out attacks against the Arab Peninsula nation as means of trying to halt strikes that it has been conducting against Israeli vessels or those heading towards the ports lying in the occupied Palestinian territories.

At least 34,488 Palestinians have been killed and 77,643 others wounded in the brutal Israeli military onslaught that was launched following Al-Aqsa Storm, a retaliatory operation staged by Gaza’s resistance groups.

The US has been the main supporter of Israel, proving it with munitions and political support in its brutal war on Gaza. Washington has also used its veto power to protect Israel against UN resolutions.

April 30, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Interlocking of Strategic Paradigms

By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | April 29, 2024

Theodore Postol, Professor of Science, Technology and National Security Policy at MIT, has provided a forensic analysis of the videos and evidence emerging from Iran’s 13th April swarm drone and missile ‘demonstation’ attack into Israel: A ‘message’, rather than an ‘assault’.

The leading Israeli daily, Yediot Ahoronot, has estimated the cost of attempting to down this Iranian flotilla at between $2-3 billion dollars. The implications of this single number are substantial.

Professor Postol writes:

“This indicates that the cost of defending against waves of attacks of this type is very likely to be unsustainable against an adequately armed and determined adversary”.
“The videos show an extremely important fact: All of the targets, whether drones or not, are shot down by air-to-air missiles”, [fired from mostly U.S. aircraft. Some 154 aircraft reportedly were aloft at the time] likely firing AIM-9x Sidewinder air to air missiles. The cost of a single Sidewinder air-to-air missile is about $500,000”.

Furthermore:

“The fact that a very large number of unengaged ballistic missiles could be seen glowing as they reenter the atmosphere to lower altitudes [an indication of hyper-speed], indicates that whatever the effects of [Israel’s] David’s Sling and the Arrow missile defenses, they were not especially effective. Thus, the evidence at this point shows that essentially all or most of the arriving long-range ballistic missiles were not intercepted by any of the Israeli air and missile-defense systems”.

Postel adds, “I have analyzed the situation, and have concluded that commercially available optical and computational technology is more than capable of being adapted to a cruise missile guidance system to give it very high precision homing capability … it is my conclusion that the Iranians have already developed precision guided cruise missiles and drones”.

“The implications of this are clear. The cost of shooting down cruise missiles and drones will be very high and might well be unsustainable unless extremely inexpensive and effective anti-air systems can be implemented. At this time, no one has demonstrated a cost-effective defense system that can intercept ballistic missiles with any reliability”.

Just to be clear, Postol is saying that neither the U.S. nor Israel has more than a partial defence to a potential attack of this nature – especially as Iran has dispersed and buried its ballistic missile silos across the entire terrain of Iran under the control of autonomous units which are capable of continuing a war, even were central command and communications to be completely lost.

This amounts to paradigm change – clearly for Israel, for one. The huge physical expenditure on air defence ordinance – 2-3 billion dollars worth – will not be repeated willy-nilly by the U.S. Netanyahu will not easily persuade the U.S. to engage with Israel in any joint venture against Iran, given these unsustainable air-defence costs.

But also, as a second important implication, these Air Defence assets are not just expensive in dollar terms, they simply are not there: i.e. the store cupboard is near empty! And the U.S. lacks the manufacturing capacity to replace these not particularly effective, high cost platforms speedily.

‘Yes, Ukraine’ … the Middle East paradigm interlinks directly with the Ukraine paradigm where Russia has succeeded in destroying so much of the western supplied, air-defence capabilities in Ukraine, giving Russia near complete air dominance over the skies.

Positioning scarce air defence ‘to save Israel’ therefore, exposes Ukraine (and slows the U.S. pivot to China, too). And given the recent passage of the funding Bill for Ukraine in Congress, clearly air defence assets are a priority for sending to Kiev – where the West looks increasingly trapped and rummaging for a way out that does not lead to humiliation.

But before leaving the Middle East paradigm shift, the implications for Netanyahu are already evident: He must therefore focus back to the ‘near enemy’ – the Palestinian sphere or to Lebanon – to provide Israel with the ‘Great Victory’ that his government craves.

In short, the ‘cost’ for Biden of saving Israel from the Iranian flotilla which had been pre-announced by Iran to be demonstrative and not destructive nor lethal is that the White House must put-up with the corollary – an attack on Rafah. But this implies a different form of cost – an electoral erosion through exacerbating domestic tensions arising from the on-going blatant slaughter of Palestinians.

It is not just Israel that bears the weight of the Iranian paradigm shift. Consider the Sunni Arab States that have been working in various forms of collaboration (normalisation) with Israel.

In the event of wider conflict embracing Iran, clearly Israel cannot protect them – as Professor Postol so clearly shows. And can they count on the U.S.? The U.S. faces competing demands for its scarce Air Defences and (for now) Ukraine, and the pivot to China, are higher on the White House priority ladder.

In September 2019, the Saudi Abqaiq oil facility was hit by cruise missiles, which Postol notes, “had an effective accuracy of perhaps a few feet, much more precise than could be achieved with GPS guidance (suggesting an optical and computational guidance system, giving a very precise homing capability)”.

So, after the Iranian active deterrence paradigm shift, and the subsequent Air Defence depletion paradigm shock, the putative coming western paradigm shift (the Third Paradigm) is similarly interlinked with Ukraine.

For the western proxy war with Russia centred on Ukraine has made one thing abundantly clear: this is that the West’s off-shoring of its manufacturing base has left it uncompetitive, both in simple trade terms, and secondly, in limiting western defence manufacturing capacity. It finds (post-13 April) that it does not have the Air Defence assets to go round: ‘saving Israel’; ‘saving Ukraine’ and preparing for war with China.

The western maximalisation of shareholder returns model has not adapted readily to the logistical needs of the present ‘limited’ Ukraine/Russia war, let alone provided positioning for future wars – with Iran and China.

Put plainly, this ‘late stage’ global imperialism has been living a ‘false dawn’: With the economy shifting from manufacturing ‘things’, to the more lucrative sphere of imagining new financial products (such as derivatives) that make a lot of money quickly, but which destabilise society (through increasing disparities of wealth); and which ultimately, de-stabilise the global system itself (as the World Majority states recoil from the loss of sovereignty and autonomy that financialism entails).

More broadly, the global system is close to massive structural change. As the Financial Times warns,

“the U.S. and EU cannot embrace national-security “infant industry” arguments, seize key value chains to narrow inequality, and break the fiscal and monetary ‘rules’, while also using the IMF and World Bank – and the economics profession– to preach free-market best practice to EM ex-China. And China can’t expect others not to copy what it does”. As the FT concludes, “the shift to a new economic paradigm has begun. Where it will end is very much up for grabs.”

‘Up for grabs’: Well, for the FT the answer may be opaque, but for the Global Majority is plain enough – “We’re going back to basics”: A simpler, largely national economy, protected from foreign competition by customs barriers. Call it ‘old- fashioned’ (the concepts have been written about for the last 200 years); yet it is nothing extreme. The notions simply reflect the flip side of the coin to Adam Smith’s doctrines, and that which Friedrich List advanced in his critique of the laissez-faire individualist approach of the Anglo-Americans.

‘European leaders’, however, see the economic paradigm solution differently:

“The ECB’s Panetta gave a speech echoing Mario Draghi’s call for “radical change”: He stated for the EU to thrive it needs a de facto national-security focused POLITICAL economy centered around: reducing dependence on foreign demand; enhancing energy security (green protectionism); advancing production of technology (industrial policy); rethinking participation in global value chains (tariffs/subsidies); governing migration flows (so higher labour costs); enhancing external security (huge funds for defence); and joint investments in European public goods (via Eurobonds … to be bought by ECB QE)”.

The ‘false dawn’ boom in U.S. financial services began as its industrial base was rotting away, and as new wars began to be promoted.

It is easy to see that the U.S. economy now needs structural change. Its real economy has become globally uncompetitive – hence Yellen’s call on China to curb its over-capacity which is hurting western economies.

But is it realistic to think that Europe can manage a relaunch as a ‘defence and national security-led political economy’, as Draghi and Panetta advocate as a continuation of war with Russia? Launched from near ground zero?

Is it realistic to think that the American Security State will allow Europe to do this, having deliberately reduced Europe to economic vassalage through causing it to abandon its prior business model based on cheap energy and selling high-end engineering products to China?

This Draghi-ECB plan represents a huge structural change; one that would take a decade or two to implement and would cost trillions. It would occur too, at a time of inevitable European fiscal austerity. Is there evidence that ordinary Europeans support such radical structural change?

Why then is Europe pursuing a path that embraces huge risks – one that potentially could drag Europe into a whirlpool of tensions ending in war with Russia?

For one main reason: The EU leadership held hubristic ambitions to turn the EU into a ‘geo-political’ empire – a global actor with the heft to join the U.S. at Top Table. To this end, the EU unreservedly offered itself as the auxiliary of the White House Team for their Ukraine project, and acquiesced to the entry price of emptying their armouries and sanctioning the cheap energy on which the economy depended.

It was this decision that has been de-industrialising Europe; that has made what remains of a real economy uncompetitive and triggered the inflation that is undermining living standards. Falling into line with Washington’s failing Ukraine project has released a cascade of disastrous decisions by the EU.

Were this policy line to change, Europe could revert to what it was: a trading association formed of diverse sovereign states. Many Europeans would settle for that: Placing the focus on making Europe competitive again; making Europe a diplomatic actor, rather than as a military actor.

Do Europeans even want to be at the American ‘top table’?

April 29, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US military’s pier in Gaza to cost $320m

MEMO | April 29, 2024

The US military’s cost estimate to build a pier off Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid has risen to $320 million, a US defence official and a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The figure illustrates the massive scale of a construction effort that the Pentagon has said involves about 1,000 US service members, mostly from the Army and Navy.

Still, the cost has roughly doubled from initial estimates earlier this year, according to a person familiar with the matter.

“The cost has not just risen. It has exploded,” Senator Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Democratic-led Senate Armed Services Committee, told Reuters.

“This dangerous effort with marginal benefit will now cost the American taxpayers at least $320 million to operate the pier for only 90 days.”

Democratic President Joe Biden announced the pier in March as aid officials implored Israel to ease access for relief supplies into Gaza over land routes. Biden opted for a sea route for the delivery of aid rather than press Israel to open land borders with Gaza and allow aid into the Strip which is experiencing a “man-made famine”.

Wicker and some other lawmakers have questioned whether the pier is a worthwhile endeavour, particularly given the risk that US military personnel could face if they were targeted during the war.

“For every day this mission continues, the price tag goes up and so does the level of risk for the 1,000 deployed troops within range of Hamas’ rockets,” Wicker said.

Biden has ordered US forces to not step foot on the Gaza shore.

The pier will initially handle 90 trucks a day, but that number could go up to 150 trucks daily when it is fully operational. The United Nations said last week that the daily average number of trucks entering Gaza during April was 200. They have also repeatedly warned that there can be no alternative to a land route for the delivery of aid, adding that though aid being delivered by sea may help Palestinians in Gaza, the amount arriving will be insufficient to stop the spread of famine.

A senior Biden administration official said last week that humanitarian aid coming off the pier will need to pass through Israeli checkpoints on land.

That is despite the aid having already been inspected by Israel in Cyprus before being shipped to Gaza.

The prospect of checkpoints raises questions about possible delays even after aid reaches shore. The United Nations has long complained of obstacles to getting aid in and distributing it throughout Gaza.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the Internatinal Court of Justice (ICJ), which in an interim ruling in January, called on the occupation state to ensure no genocidal acts are carried out by its officials or army and to allow for the unhindered delivery of aid to civilians in Gaza.

Palestinians fear the US pier will be used to forcibly displaced civilians from Gaza or to commandeer the occupied territory’s offshore natural resources.

April 29, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Yemen downs third US MQ-9 Reaper drone since November

The Cradle | April 27, 2024

The spokesman for the Yemeni armed forces, Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, announced on 27 April that Sanaa downed another MQ-9 Reaper drone and that its troops successfully targeted the British-owned MV Andromeda Star crude oil tanker.

According to the US Central Command (CENTCOM), the Yemeni armed forces launched three anti-ship ballistic missiles into the Red Sea, causing minor damage to the Andromeda Star.

One of the missiles landed near a second vessel, the MV Maisha, but it was not damaged, CENTCOM said.

On Saturday, an unnamed US military official confirmed to CBS News that an MQ-9 Reaper drone “crashed” inside Yemen early on Friday and said an investigation is underway.

According to Saree, the $30 million drone was shot down by Yemeni air defenses in Sadaa province.

Yemen has downed three MQ-9 Reaper drones since the start of its operations in support of Palestine last November, costing the US government at least $90 million.

Despite launching an illegal war on the Arab world’s poorest country, the US has failed to deter attacks on the Red Sea and Indian Ocean by Sanaa.

The Yemeni armed forces initially targeted only Israeli-linked ships passing through the Bab al-Mandab Strait but expanded the operation to include US and UK ships after Washington and London began bombing the country.

An EU naval mission to “protect navigation” in the Red Sea has also failed to deter the attacks, as officials from Germany and France have said that the situation “remains the same.”

In the face of its failure, Washington recently offered Yemeni officials “an acknowledgment of its legitimacy” in exchange for its neutrality in the war on Gaza.

“[Washington] pledged to repair the damages, remove foreign forces from all occupied Yemeni lands and islands, and remove Ansarallah from the State Department’s ‘terrorism list’ – as soon as they stop their attacks in support of Gaza,” according to Yemeni sources who spoke exclusively with The Cradle.

The offer also included “severely reducing” the role of the Saudi-appointed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) and “accelerating the signing of a roadmap” with the Saudi-led coalition to end the nine-year war that has decimated Yemen.

Nevertheless, Yemeni officials have maintained that their operations in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and the Indian Ocean will continue until Israel stops the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

On 22 April, the Yemeni armed forces announced that they would expand military operations against Israeli-linked ships in the Red and Arabian Seas and the Indian Ocean following the discovery of mass graves around several of Gaza’s hospitals.

April 28, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US & UK Reduced Naval Presence in Red Sea – Houthi Leader

Sputnik – 26.04.2024

The United States and the United Kingdom have scaled down their naval presence in the Red Sea despite lack of abatement in the intensity of attacks carried out by Yemen’s Houthis rebels on Israeli-linked ships, the rebel movement’s leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, said on Thursday.

“Our operations have not decreased, as the Americans claim, presenting this as their achievement, but rather the movement of their warships has decreased. There has been an 80% reduction in the movement of US Navy ships, not our operations,” al-Houthi was quoted by Iranian broadcaster Almasirah as saying on the occasion of 200 days of hostilities in the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, al-Houthi said that since the beginning of hostilities in Gaza, they have attacked 102 Israeli-affiliated ships, an equivalent of one ship every two days.

“The American and British enemies have failed to ensure the movement of Israel-bound ships despite constant and intensive monitoring. As long as the blockade and aggression against the Gaza Strip continues, operations in the southern Red Sea will continue,” al-Houthi said.

Moreover, the leader of the movement also known as Ansar Allah said that there was an ongoing effort to expand and strengthen operations in the Indian Ocean in ways that “the Americans, the British, the Israelis, and perhaps the rest of the world cannot envision.”

His statements came a day after the movement announced attacks on a US ship and a destroyer in the Gulf of Aden and an Israeli ship MSC Veracruz in the Indian Ocean after a week-long standoff.

Houthis have been launching attacks on commercial and military vessels in the region for months, in response to Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip. The attacks prompted the US to form a multinational coalition to protect shipping in the area, as well as to strike Houthi targets on the ground.

April 26, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pakistan under risk of sanctions over trade deal with Iran: Washington

The Cradle | April 24, 2024

Washington threatened Pakistan with sanctions on 23 April over a trade agreement recently signed with Iran.

“We advise anyone considering business deals with Iran to be aware of the potential risk of sanctions. Ultimately, the Government of Pakistan can speak to their own foreign policy pursuits,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said on 23 April.

The warning came after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi arrived in Pakistan on 22 April and met with top officials, including Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

“Both sides agreed to increase the volume of bilateral trade to 10 billion US dollars in the next five years,” Sharif’s office said in a statement.

Raisi and Sharif also discussed during the visit the importance of energy cooperation between Tehran and Islamabad.

A gas pipeline project between the two, dating back over a decade and aimed at allowing the flow of Iranian gas into Pakistan, has been consistently held up by the US.

A US official revealed last month that Washington has set a “goal” to prevent the construction of the Iran–Pakistan gas pipeline. The project has been delayed by nearly a decade in large part due to US economic pressure.

“I fully support the efforts by the US government to prevent this pipeline from happening,” US Assistant Secretary Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, Donald Lu, said during a congressional hearing on 19 March. “We are working toward that goal,” he stressed.

On Wednesday, Iran and Pakistan issued a joint statement calling on the UN Security Council “to prevent Israel’s regime from its adventurism in the region and its illegal acts attacking its neighbors and targeting foreign diplomatic facilities.”

The statement also called “for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, unimpeded humanitarian access to the besieged people of Gaza, return of the displaced Palestinians, as well as ensuring accountability of the crimes being committed by the Israeli regime. They reiterated their support for a just, comprehensive, and durable solution based on the aspirations of the people of Palestine,” according to the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

April 24, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sponsor of TikTok Ban & Iran-Palestine Sanctions Gets 1,400% Bump in AIPAC Donations

By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 22.04.2024

The 21st Century Peace through Strength Act passed the US House of Representatives on Saturday, as part of a package of bills that also included military aid to Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific.

US Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), who sponsored the 21st Century Peace through Strength Act that passed the US House of Representatives, saw contributions to his campaign from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) increase an incredible 1,413% during the 2024 election cycle when compared to the 2022 cycle.

The 21st Century Peace through Strength Act includes the REPO Act, which enables Biden to seize Russian assets frozen in US banks and send them to Ukraine, a provision that will essentially ban TikTok from the US, and also contains sanctions against Palestinian resistance groups.

According to a statement released by McCaul when the bill was introduced, it will be “the most comprehensive sanctions against Iran [that] Congress has passed in years.” The legislation is expected to clear the Senate and be signed into law by US President Joe Biden this week.

While it is unclear if, how, or why AIPAC would push for the theft of Russian assets, the other major provisions of the bill are directly related to issues AIPAC and other pro-Israeli lobbying groups advocate for.

The sanction provisions of the bill are self-evidently pro-Israel actions, designed explicitly to harm Israel’s adversaries in the region. The TikTok ban is slightly obscured, but the app has been blamed by politicians and Jewish groups alike for the rise in support among young people for the Palestinian cause.

In late October, US Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) called the app a “purveyor of virulent antisemitic lies,” on Twitter.

Billionaire Bill Ackman, one of Israel’s most virulent supporters who gained infamy last year after publicly doxing Ivy League students who made pro-Palestinian statements, blamed the app directly for the support of Palestine among America’s youth. “TikTok is massively manipulating public opinion,” he wrote.

“Compare the generational differences on support for Hamas. 51% of the TikTok generation say that Hamas’ barbaric acts are justified,” Ackman wrote on Twitter/X while saying TikTok should “probably” be banned.

Ackman’s sentiments were reflected by McCaul himself in November, when he, too, blamed TikTok and China specifically for young people turning against Israel’s actions in Gaza.

“China controls the algorithms on TikTok, so if you type in Israel or Palestine you are going to get a lot of pro-Palestinian, Hamas material and videos pop up and that’s primarily the source of education for our young people,” claimed McCaul.

It is not just politicians blaming TikTok for the rise in support for Palestinians, Jewish groups have as well.

In December, Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt blamed TikTok for “intensifying antisemitism” and anti-Zionism.

“TikTok, if you will, is the 24/7 news channel of so many of our young people and it’s like Al Jazeera on steroids, amplifying and intensifying the antisemitism and the anti-Zion[ism] with no repercussions,” Greenblatt claimed on American television.

For years, McCaul was a non-entity for pro-Israel lobbying groups like AIPAC. Elected in 2004, McCaul received no contributions from pro-Israel groups until the 2020 cycle when another group, Pro-Israel America PAC contributed $32,600 to his campaign, his largest donor that year, according to Open Secrets.

The next cycle, McCaul received $7,900 from AIPAC itself in addition to another $6,000 from other pro-Israel groups. But, it was not until this year that McCaul became the Republican darling for AIPAC in the House of Representatives.

To date, McCaul has received $119,550 from AIPAC in 2024 alone, a 1,413% increase and by far his largest contributor, dwarfing the second place Axxess Technology Solutions which donated $16,600.

Open Secrets lists the “pro-Israel industry,” including AIPAC, as having contributed $372,468 to McCaul’s campaign overall in 2024, a 681% increase from the $47,673 in contributions he received from the “pro-Israel industry” in 2022.

This cycle, McCaul is AIPAC’s top Republican recipient in the House and is the sixth overall House recipient of AIPAC funds. Only Democratic Reps. Ritchie Torres (NY), Hakeem Jeffries (NY), Kathy Manning (NC), Josh Gottheimer (NJ) and Pete Aguilar (CA) sit above McCaul on the list. All of them voted for the bill.

Of the bill’s 10 co-sponsors, all Republicans, four of them list AIPAC as their top contributor for this year: Reps. Joe Wilson (SC), Mark Green (TN), Doug Lamborn (CO), and Dan Crenshaw (TX). Another co-sponsor, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (PA) lists AIPAC as his second-largest contributor. Only Delegate Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen from American Samoa, who does not have voting rights in the House, and US Rep. Maria Salazar (FL) co-sponsored the bill without taking campaign contributions from AIPAC or any other pro-Israel group.

Sputnik emailed McCaul’s campaign for comment on the increase in AIPAC contributions, but did not receive a response by press time.

April 22, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Final Nail in America’s Coffin?

By Ron Paul | April 22, 2024

When future historians go searching for the final nail in the US coffin, they may well settle on the date April 20, 2024.

On that day Congress passed legislation to fund two and a half wars, hand what’s left of our privacy over to the CIA and NSA, and give the US president the power to shut down whatever part of the Internet he disagrees with.

The nearly $100 billion grossly misnamed “National Security Supplemental” guarantees that Ukrainians will continue to die in that country’s unwinnable war with Russia, that Palestinian civilians will continue to be slaughtered in Gaza with US weapons, and that the neocons will continue to push us toward a war with China.

It was a total victory for the war party.

The huge spending bill is all about politics for Biden, yet so many Republicans simply went along with it. The last thing the people running Biden’s White House want to see as a close election approaches are ads blaming Biden for “losing Ukraine.”

The US and its allies have already sent over $300 billion to Ukraine and the country is still losing its war with Russia. Nobody believes another $60 billion will pull a victory from the jaws of defeat. But this additional money is meant to keep up appearances until November at the expense of Americans who are forced to pay for it and Ukrainians who are forced to die for it.

Speaker Johnson could not have passed these monstrosities without the full support of House Democrats, as the majority of Republicans voted against more money for Ukraine. So in the worst example of “bipartisanship,” Johnson reached across the aisle, stiffed the Republican majority that elected him Speaker, and pushed through a massive gift to the warfare/(corporate) welfare state.

After the House voted to send another $60 billion to notoriously corrupt Ukraine, Members waved Ukrainian flags on the House Floor and chanted “Ukraine, Ukraine.” While I find it distasteful and disgusting, in some way it seemed fitting. After all, they may as well chant the name of a foreign country because they certainly don’t care about this country!

Along with sending $100 billion that we don’t have to fund more overseas war, Speaker Johnson threw in another version of the Tik Tok ban, which gives Joe Biden and future presidents the power to shut down websites at will by simply declaring them to be “foreign adversary controlled.”

Not to be outdone, the US Senate on that same day passed the extension of Section 702 of the FISA Act, which not only allowed the government to continue spying on us without a warrant, but also contained new language massively expanding how they can spy on us.

Many conservative voters are asking what the point of Republican control of the House is if the agenda is determined by Democrats. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is even reported to have bragged to his colleagues about how easily Speaker Johnson gave Democrats everything they wanted and asked for nothing in return.

What is the silver lining in all this bad news? Most Republicans in the House voted against continuing the Ukraine war. That’s a good start. Our ideas are growing, not only across the country but even in the DC swamp. Take courage and don’t give up! Work for peace!

April 22, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Election Interference: The Elephant in the Room

By Kevin Barrett | American Free Press

The term election interference entered the American lexicon in late 2016. Following Donald Trump’s surprising victory, allegations that Russia had somehow rigged the contest for Trump were heavily publicized. The so-called Trump-Russia scandal was used to hobble Trump’s presidency, even though the 2019 Mueller Report and subsequent investigations found little support for the allegations.

Now Israel, of all countries, is whining about election interference. Israeli officials and their bought-and-paid-for American mouthpieces have charged that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s call for new elections in Israel is—as Zionist flack and death squad organizer Elliot Abrams put it— “unconscionable interference in the internal politics of another democracy.”

Do countries interfere in each others’ elections? Of course they do. The US is a repeat offender. But Israel’s interference in American politics dwarfs anything America has ever done.

Actually, to say that Israel interferes in US elections is an understatement. Israel practically owns US elections. Former six-term congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) has revealed that shortly after she arrived in Washington, she was pressured to swear a loyalty oath to Israel. She was told that virtually all congressional representatives take the oath, and that any who resist face formidable obstacles to re-election. (Imagine if the Kremlin were making US officials swear loyalty oaths to Russia!)

AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is by far the most powerful lobby in Washington. Though it pretends to be a domestic group, AIPAC is a front for the Israeli government. Its predecessor, The American Zionist Council (AZC), was investigated by the Eisenhower Administration before it was finally forced to register as a foreign agent by President John F. Kennedy in 1962. Kennedy, who had dedicated himself to shutting down Israel’s nuclear program, was then removed in a coup and replaced with rabid Zionist Lyndon Johnson, who allowed the Israel lobby to change disguises from AZC to AIPAC. (Johnson also facilitated Israel’s nuclear bomb program, including the theft of American nuclear materials and weapons, and rubber-stamped Israel’s 1967 war of aggression, including its false-flag murder of 34 sailors aboard the USS Liberty.)

Since the Kennedy assassinations of 1963 and 1968, Israel’s death grip on American politics has kept getting stronger. American politicians who try to represent America rather than Israel—including Senators William Fulbright, Chuck Percy, and James Abourezk, and Congressmen Paul Findley, Pete McCloskey, and Cynthia McKinney—are unceremoniously ejected from office by the state of Israel and its American agents. Those who stand in the way of Israel’s capture of the US military to wage its wars, like Senator Paul Wellstone, risk being removed from office “with extreme prejudice.”

How does Israel control American politics? First, Israel’s agents dominate American media. Alfred Lilienthal observed that at the time of the Nakba (Palestinian holocaust) of 1948: “The capture of the American press by Jewish nationalism was, in fact, incredibly complete.” In 1972, Richard Nixon and Billy Graham agreed that the Jewish “stranglehold” on media “has got to be broken or the country’s going down the drain.” More recently, the Jewish ex-New York Times journalist Philip Weiss asked “Do Jews Dominate in American Media?” and answered “yes.” Weiss observes that media-dominant Jews are mostly partisans of Israel and produce biased coverage to benefit the self-proclaimed Jewish state.

Why didn’t Nixon speak out publicly? Because the Jewish-dominated media would have immediately destroyed him.

Israel’s indirect but effective domination of American media gives Tel Aviv the power to shape Americans’ perceptions. Through its media dominance, Israel rules the American “Overton window,” the spectrum of legitimate mainstream debate, while marginalizing those who threaten its interests as “conspiracy theorists” and “anti-Semites.” Zionist media power can anoint candidates, cover up crimes, and even start wars.

Another key to Israel’s domination of American politics was succinctly summarized by Rep. Ilhan Omar: “It’s the Benjamins, baby.” Pro-Israel Jews provide a massive share of the bribes, euphemistically described as “campaign contributions,” that power the American political system. Sociologist James Petras, author of The Power of Israel in the United States, has written that the Israel lobby is funded by dozens of billionaires and thousands of millionaires who could all say, like the Democrats’ leading funder Haim Saban: “I’m a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel.”

Finally, Jewish-dominated organized crime, working in tandem with Israel’s black-ops-focused intelligence agencies, exerts a massive yet mostly-invisible influence on American politics. Meyer Lansky, the loyal-to-Israel mobster who controlled J. Edgar Hoover, and Jeffrey Epstein, another notorious Mossad blackmailer of American politicians, are well-known examples. Israel and its criminal accomplices have repeatedly upended American politics, most obviously with the Kennedy assassinations and 9/11.

Today, as the entire American political class endorses the genocide of Gaza, the whole world can see that the US, like Palestine, is a nation under occupation.

April 22, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Pariah’ Israel Dragging US ‘Into Garbage Bin of History’

By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 20.04.2024

On Friday, the US vetoed granting Palestine full membership in the UN, which was promised to the Palestinians in 1948 when the state of Israel was created. The US has been Israel’s strongest supporter in the UN, previously vetoing three ceasefire resolutions before finally allowing a fourth to pass through abstention last month.

Earlier, Israel struck Iran in response to Iran’s attack last week, which was itself a response to Israel attacking Iran’s consulate in Damascus earlier this month. The attack, which was described by both sides as minor, came after Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would not respond until after Passover, which runs from April 22 to April 30.

Israel’s apparent insistence on launching a regional war in the Middle East is dragging the United States with it “Into the garbage bin of history,” and US lawmakers seem willing to watch it happen, journalist Esteban Carrillo, the head of news at The Cradle, told Sputnik’s Political Misfits on Friday.

While discussing the recent US vote against Palestinian statehood in the UN, Carrillo explained that it is working against US interests.

“It’s completely a case of the tail wagging the dog. And US politicians just seem so content to just go along with it,” he explained. “What does Netanyahu have over the heads of these people? Because it doesn’t seem like they are even willing to consider at this point stepping away from this pariah that is just dragging them down into the garbage bin of history.”

Tensions between Iran and Israel seem to have cooled somewhat after Israel’s attack was so minor. Explosions were heard near an Iranian base outside of Isfahan, but Iran claimed there was no damage or injuries. A second attack against the city of Tabriz was likewise thwarted.

The attack, which Iran claims came from within its own territory, seemed designed to make Israel not appear “as weak as they are,” Carrillo explained. “After six months of flattening Gaza and killing tens of thousands of Palestinians, they have failed to achieve a single strategic objective against Hamas.”

However, the small scope of the attack also seemed designed to allow Israel to “play tough guy” without igniting a larger conflict.

“Iran’s response over [Friday morning’s] attack is essentially summed up in ‘what strike? What happened? Our air defenses took everything down,’” said Carrillo.

But that doesn’t mean Israel is finished. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is still determined to keep the war going to ward off political and legal challenges facing him. “I don’t think that we’re out of the water yet in terms of [Israel] dragging the United States into a regional war,” Carrillo explained, adding earlier that it isn’t hard to convince US lawmakers to join fights. “The United States government for so long now, hasn’t seen a war they didn’t want to be a part of.”

“The Israeli government currently, I don’t see them having an exit. They retaliated in such a small way overnight against Iran. That doesn’t mean they’re not going to try to do something in Lebanon, and that doesn’t mean at all that they’re not going to try to do something in Gaza,” Carrillo said, noting reports that the US is now on board with an Israeli plan to invade the southern Gazan city of Rafa, where roughly 1.5 million Palestinians fled to after being forcibly displaced by Israel.

April 20, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

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