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East Mediterranean tension boosts France’s arms sales

MEMO | September 26, 2020

French-backed tension between East Mediterranean states and Turkey boosts French arms sales, Paul Iddon, contributor to Forbes, revealed on Thursday.

Iddon noted that French President Emmanuel Macron is a strong critic of Turkey’s foreign policy and poses himself as a supporter of the East Mediterranean states, which are on opposite sides of the tension with Turkey.

Therefore, the French military has participated in a series of military exercises this year with Turkey’s rivals in the Eastern Mediterranean to signal Paris’ support of these countries.

He confirmed that France has shown its support for Greece by deploying two Dassault Rafale fighter jets to the Greek island of Crete, along with a warship in August.

Greece, according to Iddon, turned to France after it had decided to expand its military to buy 18 Rafale jets, including six brand new and 12 second-hand ones that have already served in the French Air Force, noting that Greece is the first European country to buy the Rafale jets.

Iddon also disclosed that Athens already reached a €260 million ($305 million) deal with France to upgrade its existing fleet of Dassault Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets in December 2019. This deal would prevent Turkey from establishing air superiority over the Aegean Sea, or parts of the East Mediterranean.

Meanwhile, the Republic of Cyprus reached a $262 million arms deal with France for short-range Mistral air defence systems and Exocet anti-ship missiles.

These deals are not comparable with those reached between France and Egypt, which has been a major rival of Turkey’s since the current President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi came to power through his military coup in July 2013.

“Under Sisi,” Iddon wrote in Forbes, “Egypt rapidly became a major multi-billion euro French arms client. His country was the first to buy Rafale jets, along with four Gowind corvettes, a FREEM multipurpose frigate, and two Mistral-class amphibious assault ships.”

Iddon concluded: “So long as these territorial disputes and tensions between these countries and Turkey remain unresolved, France isn’t likely going to have any shortage of arms clients in the Eastern Mediterranean anytime soon.”

September 26, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Lebanese PM-designate steps down amid political turmoil

Press TV – September 26, 2020

Lebanon’s Prime Minister-designate Mustapha Adib has announced his resignation amid a deadlock over government formation in the crisis-hit country.

In a televised address on Saturday, Adib said he was stepping down from “the task of forming the government” following a meeting with Lebanese President Michel Aoun.

He also noted that the kind of cabinet that he wanted to establish “was bound to fail” and that he was keen on protecting national unity.

“I apologize to the Lebanese people,” he added.

The announcement came almost a month after Adib, former Lebanese ambassador to Berlin, was appointed by the president to form a new government.

Lebanon is currently mired in the country’s worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history.

It has been waiting for a new administration since outgoing Prime Minister Hassan Diab resigned on August 10, a few days after a powerful explosion in the capital killed more than nearly 200 people, injured thousands and caused losses worth billions of dollars.

The blast took place in Beirut port warehouses storing highly explosive material, specifically ammonium nitrate, commonly used in both fertilizer and bombs.

The explosion — one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions the world has ever seen — flattened much of the strategic port and left buildings in ruin.

Following the blast, the US and European countries have been mounting pressure on Lebanese officials to form a government that secures the West’s interests.

The United States on September 8 slapped sanctions on two former cabinet ministers in Lebanon over support for Hezbollah as it vowed to isolate the resistance movement.

French President Emmanuel Macron paid two visits to Lebanon, where he called for a “new political pact” among Lebanese political factions and said he had proposed a roadmap to authorities to unlock billions of dollars in funds from the international community.

In a meeting with Aoun, Macron threatened Lebanese leaders with sanctions if they do not submit to reforms and a “political change,” Lebanon’s Arabic-language al-Mayadeen television news network reported.

The French president’s colonial-style sojourn sparked a swift backlash among the Lebanese nation.

Many Twitter users denounced what they deemed as interference in the internal affairs of Lebanon, which gained independence from the French colonial rule more than seven decades ago.

September 26, 2020 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

The False Flag Poisoning of Alexei Navalny

By Max Parry • Unz Review • September 24, 2020

On August 20th, Russian opposition figure and self-styled “anti-corruption” activist Alexei Navalny fell seriously ill while in mid-flight from Tomsk, Siberia to the Russian capital. The Moscow-bound plane was abruptly re-routed to make an emergency landing in the Siberian city of Omsk where the anti-Kremlin politician was subsequently hospitalized for suspected poisoning and placed in a medically-induced coma. Two days later, Navalny was airlifted to Germany in an evacuation arranged by a Berlin-based “human rights” NGO at the request of Pussy Riot spokesman Pyotr Verzilov. His transport on a medically-equipped plane with German specialists was permitted by the Russian authorities who now stand accused of culpability in the alleged attack, all in the midst of the ongoing pandemic.

While the Russian doctors in Omsk (who saved Navalny’s life) maintain they did not find any evidence of chemical weapons substances in his system, upon examination the German government quickly announced that its military lab had discovered “unequivocal evidence” Navalny was poisoned by a Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent and demanded an explanation from the Kremlin — without providing any of said evidence to Moscow or the public, of course. Despite being the supposed victim of an extremely deadly military-grade nerve agent, three weeks later Navalny came out his comatose state and off ventilation, defiantly vowing a return to Russia. Was he ever tested for COVID-19? At this point it seems more likely than this propaganda stunt we are expected to believe.

It is unconvincing precisely because it follows a pattern of improbable events questionably attributed to the Kremlin. As many have noted, the incident strikingly resembles the alleged March 2018 poisoning in Salisbury, England of disgraced former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, visiting from Moscow which caused a similar diplomatic row. Skripal, who had been a double agent for MI6 and served ten years imprisonment for high treason, was exiled to the UK after his sentence in a spy-swap between Russia and Britain in 2010. While residing in southern England, Skripal was reportedly in close contact with a security consultant who worked for the author of the salacious but fabricated dossier on U.S. President Donald Trump’s alleged ties to Russia, former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele — and may have even been the source of its unverified contents.

Skripal and his daughter were discovered unconscious on a park bench, but were said to have been initially contaminated hours earlier by the extremely fast-acting substance applied to the door handle of his residence. Similarly, Alexei Navalny is said to have been contaminated by a water bottle in his hotel room, not in the tea he drank at the Tomsk Bogashevo airport cafe before boarding his flight as originally believed. How is the elapsed time in both of these cases possible? The toxin in Navalny’s case was also not discovered until examination in Germany, meaning a bottle laced with a chemical warfare agent was transported all the way to Berlin? None of those who came to Navalny’s aid or treated him suffered any noxious effects, unlike the Skripals where multiple police officers at least showed minor symptoms. Still, both Navalny and the Skripals fully recovered from their supposed exposure to an extremely lethal toxin considered even more deadly than sarin or VX gas. After their release from the hospital, the Skripals immediately went into hiding which has left the enormous questions surrounding the incident still unresolved two years later. However, the damage was already done as the UK government immediately blamed Moscow and more than 100 Russian diplomats were expelled by Britain and its Western allies.

Months later in June 2018, two British nationals were the victims of an accidental poisoning (one fatally) after they discovered a discarded but unopened perfume bottle containing the same poisonous agent. Then that September, Scotland Yard released CCTV footage of two Russian men alleged to be GRU military intelligence agents in Salisbury at the time of the attack. However, no verifiable evidence was ever provided by the British government showing that the two were responsible, though it was conveniently claimed that the would-be culprits clumsily left vestiges of the fatal chemical agent in their hotel room. So, not only is Russian intelligence incapable of carrying out successful assassinations, but carelessly unable to cover their tracks? The premise was already absurd enough but made even more fanciful by Britain’s refusal to comply with the Chemical Weapons Convention in providing Moscow with requested samples of the toxin which purportedly poisoned the treasonous ex-spook and his daughter. Thus far in the Navalny case, Germany is following the same script.

What a coincidence that the attack comes just as Nord Stream 2, the second line of the massive natural gas pipeline under construction from Russia to Germany opposed by the U.S. and several NATO allies, is near completion. Suddenly, the diplomatic fall-out has put the controversial project in limbo, with Chancellor Angela Merkel and the German government under pressure from Washington to withdraw from the project which would increase Russian influence on Europe’s energy infrastructure and rival the U.S.’s costlier exports. As pointed out by Die Linke’s Dietmar Bartsch, where were the calls to halt the purchase of Saudi oil imports after the grisly murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi? It is clear that the Anglo-Americans are simply desperate to halt the resurgence of Moscow on the international stage, threatening their German counterparts with sanctions as the final sections of the pipeline conveying Russian gas across the Baltic Sea is being constructed. The attack on Navalny could not occur at a more auspicious time for the Atlanticists and a worse time for Moscow.

The notion that Russian President Vladimir Putin would try to assassinate an opposition figure who holds a minuscule 2% support amongst the population, far behind other opponents nonexistent to Western media but the one who just so happens to be favored by Washington, is contrary to any reason or common sense. Not to mention, at the exact moment it would jeopardize a project essential to Russia’s economic growth and frugality, as the pipeline would link Moscow with Western Europe bypassing neighboring transit countries such as the Ukraine (also opposed to Nord Stream 2) which have costly transit fees. Is it really the Russian government who stands to massively benefit from this fiasco? The answer to “cui bono?” could not be more clear: U.S., Saudi and Emirati oil and gas interests, not the Kremlin. Russia was also recently the first nation to develop a COVID-19 vaccine candidate with its Sputnik V registered in August, an international competition that has been heavily politicized by Washington which is eager to cast aspersions on Moscow’s accomplishment. Meanwhile, Germany is also the one Western European country where Washington’s anti-Russian propaganda is falling flat, as recent polls consistently show that the vast majority of Germans don’t see Russia as a threat, likely a result of their high rate of media literacy.

Despite Navalny’s recovery, there are already calls to legislate a ‘Navalny Act’ as a follow-up to the Magnitsky Act, a bipartisan bill previously passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012 under the Obama Administration which sanctioned Russian officials accused of being responsible for the 2009 death of Sergei Magnitsky, an unscrupulous Russian tax lawyer who helped dodgy international financiers like the US-born British tycoon William Browder commit massive tax evasion in Russia. Magnitsky died under mysterious circumstances while in custody awaiting trial for facilitating Browder’s skullduggery and suffering from poor health, with the Russian prison officials first accused of depriving him of medical treatment and then allegedly beating and torturing him to death. The fascinating 2016 documentary The Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes explores the case from the perspective of Westernized Putin critic and filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov, who through the course of his investigation unexpectedly discovers that the mainstream media narrative of Magnitsky’s death was a fiction concocted by Browder. Suddenly, Nekrasov’s entire perspective on Russia comes into question and the film takes on a metanarrative of the nature of propaganda itself.

What we are being told about Navalny is likely another fairy tale like the implausible story forged by Mr. Browder about the death of the auditor he hired to enrich himself exploiting Russia’s tax loopholes. Incredibly, the American-born investor is the grandson of Earl Browder, the leader of the Communist Party USA during its heyday until his expulsion at the end of World War II. When the wartime US-Soviet alliance fell apart and the Cold War began, the elder Browder proved more loyal to American imperialism than the communist movement and presided over the liquidation of the CPUSA until it was reestablished with his dismissal as General Secretary. Having grown up in a Russian-speaking family, decades later his grandson decided to cash in on the collapse of the former Soviet Union through various investment ventures as manager of the hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management. When Putin succeeded Boris Yeltsin and numerous oligarchs went into exile or landed themselves in prison, Bill Browder was forced to flee the country after defrauding the Russian government of millions with the help of the late Mr. Magnitsky.

One of those banished oligarchs, billionaire media tycoon Boris Berezovsky, also died under dubious circumstances in the UK when he was found hanging in his apartment bathroom in Berkshire, England in 2013. Like Magnitsky, Putin and the Russian government were suspected of involvement in Berezovsky’s death by the media without a shred of evidence, even though his suspicious purported “suicide” actually came shortly after expressing a written willingness to return to Russia and reconcile with Putin — which almost certainly would have been a stroke of good luck for Russian counter-intelligence and a threat to the West, not the Kremlin. Berezovsky had been close with a former agent of the Federal Security Service (FSB, the KGB’s successor), Alexander Litvinenko, a defector renowned for claiming he had been ordered by Putin to assassinate Berezovsky and subsequently lived in the UK as a consultant for British intelligence until his own polonium poisoning in 2006, the first of a series of episodes framing Moscow. Consistently, however, in every one of these cases it is never the Kremlin which stands to gain.

There is a reason Putin consistently polls over 70% in favorability with the Russian people and that is his directing the country away from Western domination under the ruinous neoliberal economic policies of his corrupt and inebriated predecessor Boris Yeltsin which auctioned off the former state-owned assets to foreign investors such as Browder and oligarchs like Berezovsky. Meanwhile, Navalny has a level of support well under 5%, with recent polls placing him behind the Communist Party’s Pavel Grudinin and the ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky. While Navalny’s own rhetoric has shifted over the years, he has controversially maintained his own cozy relationship with ethnic nationalists who make up a significant amount of his right-wing populist base, even co-organizing annual marches dominated by racist skinheads.

Navalny infamously coined the slogan “Stop Feeding the Caucasus!” advocated by xenophobic nationalists calling for the defunding and secession of the Muslim-majority North Caucasus from Russia, while making frequent Islamophobic statements and stoking anti-immigrant sentiments against Central Asians. You would never know this reading Western media who have completely sanitized Navalny’s politics (if they ever address them at all), while they remain obsessed with the perceived ingratiation between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin even though the former’s politics have far more in common with Navalny than the Russian President. Given the U.S. support for far right nationalists in the 2014 anti-Russian coup d’etat in Ukraine, Washington has no qualms about backing fascists to undermine Moscow.

In 1831, Russia’s most famous and revered poet, Alexander Pushkin, composed “To the Slanderers of Russia”, a patriotic ode in response to members of the French parliament who were advocating for a military intervention to assist the Polish uprising against the Russian Empire. Pushkin asserted that the Polish uprising was an inter-slavic “ancient, domestic dispute”, while the Poles considered it an issue of national independence which their European allies were eager to exploit against Moscow. For the great Russian writer, the Polish alliance with the tyrant and invader Napoleon was unforgivable. He also reportedly communicated to General Alexander von Benckendorff, the chief of the Tsarist secret police assigned to censor and surveil him, that the Europeans were still bitter over the failed French invasion of Russia in 1812 and had not yet attacked with weapons but were doing so with “daily mad slander.”

Fast forward nearly 200 years later and little has changed in Russia-West relations. The only thing that has arguably transformed is Russia’s standing on the world stage following the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917 and the Soviet Union almost 75 years later, the latter of which was masterminded by a Polish-born National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, whose Russophobic worldview was a product of the deep-seated “ancient, domestic dispute” Pushkin wrote of a century earlier. Contrary to the Western portrayal of the resurgence of Moscow in the new millennia under Vladimir Putin as neo-tsarist expansionism, post-Soviet Russia is actually a relatively weak capitalist state that has found itself a target of regime change by the West which seeks the colonization and balkanization of Eastern Europe.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 caused a spike in oil prices that generated huge profits for Chevron and ExxonMobil, but also had the unintended consequence of benefiting Russia’s state-run oil industry just as Putin was re-nationalizing its energy assets and banishing financial criminals like Browder and Berezovsky. While its strength and influence has certainly been restored, its foreign investments remain low even in the Ukraine where Moscow has been accused of territorial expansion with the so-called “annexation” of Crimea, where the mostly Russian-speaking eastern Ukrainian population actually voted to join its neighbor in a referendum. Russia may no longer be an empire (or communist), but yet it remains in the crosshairs of Western imperialism, whose political leaders and subservient corporate media are still conducting the “mad slander” that Pushkin opined.

Max Parry is an independent journalist and geopolitical analyst. His writing has appeared widely in alternative media. Max may be reached at maxrparry@live.com

September 24, 2020 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Tehran: Guardian report meant to paint black picture of Iran rights situation

Press TV | September 24, 2020

Tehran has denounced a recent report by Britain’s Guardian newspaper about Iran’s treatment of duly convicted prisoners in the country, saying such “commissioned” reports are an attempt to portray the human rights situation inside the Islamic Republic in a negative light.

“The purpose of these commissioned reports, which are meant to paint a black picture of the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially at the current juncture, is crystal clear,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Wednesday.

He also noted that politicking and selective measures on the part of the United States and some European governments have always dealt the biggest blows to the principle of human rights.

Earlier, The Guradian reported that France, Germany and the UK were summoning Iranian envoys in a protest against Iran’s “detention of dual nationals and its treatment of political prisoners.”

Iran’s Ambassador to London Hamid Baeidinejad was summoned by the Foreign Office on Tuesday and the ambassadors to Paris and Berlin are also being called in this week, it added.

Khatibzadeh said that Iran considers the statements and actions of certain European countries as interference in its domestic affairs, adding that relevant authorities have adopted necessary response in this regard and will do so hereafter.

“It is very strange and unbelievable for us that the same countries not only have not reacted to the gross violations of Iranian nation’s rights by the US regime’s inhumane policy of maximum pressure and its oppressive sanctions, but are also fueling it practically by their inaction and are complicit in it,” he emphasized.

The US unleashed the so-called maximum pressure campaign against Iran in 2018, when it left the 2015 multilateral nuclear agreement.

Following its unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Washington targeted the Iranian nation with the “toughest ever” economic sanctions.

Tehran remained fully compliant with the JCPOA for an entire year after the US pullout, waiting for the co-signatories to fulfill their end of the bargain by offsetting the impacts of Washington’s bans on the Iranian economy.

Buckling under Washington’s pressure, the European parties to the JCPOA, namely France, Germany and the UK, failed to do so, causing Tehran to move in May 2019 to suspend its commitments under the accord.

The European inaction comes as the sanctions are taking a heavy toll on the Iranian health sector at a time the Islamic Republic, along with other world nations, is fighting to rein in a deadly coronavirus outbreak.

September 24, 2020 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

Egypt: 320 trillion cubic feet of gas discovered in Eastern Mediterranean

MEMO | September 23, 2020

The Egyptian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Tariq El-Molla, yesterday revealed that 320 trillion cubic feet of gas were discovered in the Eastern Mediterranean region which could turn the area into a global centre for the gas industry.

The seven member states of the East Mediterranean Gas Forum, Egypt, Israel, Cyprus, Greece, Jordan, Italy and the Palestinian National Authority, yesterday officially turned the alliance into a regional organisation headquartered in Cairo.

Speaking at the launching ceremony, El-Molla said the United States wants to join the forum as an observer while France wishes to join as a full member.

The Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum said in a statement that the forum aims to establish a regional market for gas, rationalise the cost of infrastructure and offer competitive prices.

The forum was launched in January 2019 to reinforce cooperation among member states.

However, a spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Ministry, Hami Aksoy, described the forum as an anti-Ankara bloc, adding that transforming it into a regional organisation is “far from reality”.

September 23, 2020 Posted by | Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

France says no ‘tangible’ evidence supporting US allegation of secret Hezbollah explosive stores

RT | September 19, 2020

France has pushed back against Washington’s assertion that Hezbollah has stockpiles of ammonium nitrate stashed around Europe, stating there’s no indication of such stores existing in its own country.

“To our knowledge, there is nothing tangible to confirm such an allegation in France today,” French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Agnes von der Muhll said in response to the US State Department’s alarming claim.

The spokeswoman stressed that France would not allow such “illegal activity” on its territory and that it would respond to such actions with “the greatest firmness.”

On Thursday, Nathan Sales, the US State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism, alleged that Lebanon’s Hezbollah had caches of dangerous chemicals in France, Spain, Italy, and other European states. He said that the chemicals had been smuggled into the country hidden in first-aid kits, but did not provide evidence backing his incendiary accusation.

Hezbollah is creating stockpiles of chemicals so that “it can conduct major terrorist attacks” at the bidding of Tehran, which backs the group, Sales claimed. He alleged that the stores include ammonium nitrate, an industrial chemical linked to the massive explosion that destroyed much of Beirut, Lebanon last month. It’s believed that the blast was triggered by the unsafe storage of the substance.

The United States has designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, but its elected arm is considered a legitimate political organization by France.

Washington recently announced sanctions on two Lebanon-based companies, accusing the companies of being “owned, controlled, or directed by Hezbollah.”

September 19, 2020 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Four ex-directors of French Shia Muslim centre arrested

French policemen in Paris, France on 18 March 2017 [Mustafa Yalçın/Anadolu Agency]

MEMO | September 17, 2020

Four ex-directors of a Shia Muslim centre in France have been arrested over concerns they continued to run the organisation despite it being disbanded by authorities in March last year, Agence France Presse (AFP) reports.

The four directors were taken into custody on Tuesday. Three have been remanded in custody, while one was freed over health concerns.

French prosecutors are reportedly investigating the four men for “participation in or maintenance of a dissolved association”, AFP quoted local sources as saying.

The centre was disbanded last year over allegations members were inciting armed jihadism and condoning the actions of regional players, such as Hezbollah, designated as terrorist organisations by the French government.

According to the report, members of the centre also propagated hate speech and anti-Semitism, as well as inciting violence.

The French court, which confirmed the centre’s closure after an appeal last June, said the activities of the organisation amounted to “propaganda intended to glorify the armed struggle and to provoke hatred and violence”, Le Monde reported.

“In the Zahra Centre, sermons are given which call for a fight against Zionism, against Israel and against Saudi Arabia and which, for some, legitimised armed jihad”, the French daily quoted court officials as saying.

According to the AFP report, the four continued preaching at the Zahra Centre’s site in northern France as well as on social media, despite last year’s order to cease and desist, leading to their arrests.

The Zahra Centre was founded in 2009 by Yahia Gouasmi, an Algerian-born Frenchman who also established an anti-Zionist political party in France in the same year. He is believed to have frequently spoken in support of Hezbollah, according to AFP.

The Zahra Centre was also subject to police scrutiny in October 2018, when local authorities raided the group’s headquarters over suspicions of links to terrorist organisations, Reuters reported.

At least 200 police officers, including elite troopers from Paris, took part in the pre-dawn raid on the Zahra Centre, discovering and seizing a cache of illegal weapons. Three people were remanded in custody over the discovery and the organisation’s French financial assets were frozen.

September 17, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

Germany claims French & Swedish labs ‘confirmed’ Navalny’s Novichok poisoning, as Macron labels incident ‘attempted murder’

RT | September 14, 2020

The German government claimed on Monday that the presence of a substance from the Novichok family of poisons in the system of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny has now been confirmed by three different laboratories.

Two of them are its European Union partners France and Sweden, according to Berlin, which says it has brought in the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to analyze the samples. Officials renewed their demand that Russia explain the incident.

“The federal government involved the OPCW in the analysis of evidence from the Navalny case. The OPCW took samples from Navalny and took the necessary steps to study them in its laboratories,” a German government statement read. “The federal government has also asked its European partners France and Sweden to conduct an independent study. The results of these tests are now available and confirm the German evidence. Independent of the ongoing OPCW investigations, three laboratories have now independently demonstrated the presence of a nerve agent from the Novichok group as the cause of Mr. Navalny’s poisoning.”

The head of German intelligence, Bruno Kahl, said last week that the poison used was stronger than previously known. This raised eyebrows in Russia, given that previous variants of Novichok were supposed to have been devastatingly lethal, and Navalny has survived his alleged poisoning.

“We again call on Russia to explain what happened. We are in close contact with our European partners regarding further steps,” the statement continued.

Meanwhile, after the French tests, French state-run news wire AFP reported that President Emmanuel Macron urged his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to urgently shed light on what he called the “attempted murder” of Navalny.

On September 9, the German Ministry of Defense announced that samples taken from Navalny had been transferred to the OPCW. Moscow has complained about a lack of cooperation from Berlin.

On August 20, a plane carrying Navalny made an emergency landing in Omsk after he suddenly became unwell on a flight from Siberia to Moscow. The anti-corruption activist was taken to hospital, placed in an induced coma, and put on a ventilator. On August 22, he was flown to Germany for treatment.

German doctors said on August 24 that they had found signs of Navalny having been poisoned with substances from the cholinesterase inhibitors group. They added that there was no threat to his life, but there was a possibility there would be long-term effects on his nervous system.

September 14, 2020 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Hypocrisy Thy Name Is Zion

Jewish groups support BLM while ignoring Palestinian genocide

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • September 8, 2020

There is a tendency on the part of major Jewish groups in the United States and in Europe to discover what they describe as anti-Semitism wherever one turns. Last month, a statue of the well-known and highly respected 18th century French writer and political philosopher Voltaire was removed from outside the Académie Française in Paris. Voltaire was a major figure in the “Enlightenment,” during which what we now call science and applied rationalism challenged the authority of the church and the King.

The statue had recently been vandalized by the French version of Black Lives Matter (BLM) because Voltaire had reportedly invested in the French East India Company, which engaged in the triangular trade between Europe, Africa and the New World. The commodities included Africans who were destined to become slaves in the European colonies. Beyond that Voltaire, a man of his times, believed blacks to have “little or no intelligence” and also considered Jews to be born “with raging fanaticism in their hearts.”

Voltaire was reportedly much admired by Hitler, so perhaps it would not be off base to suggest that in France, where the Jewish community is extremely powerful while Africans are not, it was Voltaire cast as the anti-Semite that consigned his statue to a government warehouse never to be seen again. By that reasoning, one expects that the world will soon have a ban on the music of Richard Wagner and Ludwig van Beethoven as they too were admired by Hitler.

The idea that someone can change history by ignoring aspects of it means that school textbooks are being rewritten at a furious pace to make sure that there is overwhelming coverage of the holocaust and black achievement. Also, the erasing of monuments is being pursued with singular intensity in the United States, where the Founding Fathers and other dead white males are being one by one consigned to the trash heap. Doing so, unfortunately, also destroys the learning experience that can be derived from using the monuments as visual mechanisms for confronting and understanding the mistakes made in the past. A commission set up by the mayor of the District of Columbia has, for example, compiled a hit list of monuments and commemorations that must be either removed, renamed or placed into “context.” It includes the Jefferson Memorial and the Washington Monument. The name “Columbia” is, of course, certain to be changed.

Interestingly, Jewish groups in the United States have been in the forefront in supporting BLM’s apparent mission to upend what used to pass for America’s European-derived culture. Ironically, that culture includes free speech, democracy and mercantilism, all of which have greatly benefited Jews. The narrative is, of course, being wrapped around the common cause of blacks and Jews together fighting against the alleged white nationalists who are being blamed by the media for much of the violence taking place even when videos taken at the scenes of the rioting definitely show nearly all black mobs doing the arson and looting.

And blacks who are skeptical of the Jewish role are quickly put in their place, as was Rodney Muhammad of Philadelphia, who was removed from his executive position with the NAACP after expressing skepticism about all the Jewish friends that blacks suddenly appeared to be acquiring, quoting an observation often attributed to the now disgraced Voltaire on a Facebook entry, “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.”

The lead organization in shaping the acceptable narrative is the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which promotes itself as “Fighting Hate for Good.” In other words, anyone on the other side of the narrative is by definition a “hater.” ADL apparently advertised an online discussion topic for August 28th, shortly after the shooting incident in Kenosha Wisconsin that killed two white men and injured a third. The headline reads “Why all white American middle schoolers must publicly condemn the Anti-Semitic murders by white supremacist Kyle Rittenhouse.”

If the ad is indeed genuine, one notes immediately that the killings are being framed as anti-Semitism without any actual evidence to suggest that anything like that was involved or that the shooter knew the religion of those who were confronting him. All three of the “victims” are described as BLM supporters, which they apparently were, but it ignores the fact that they were also Antifa activists and all three had criminal records involving violence. One of them, Joseph Rosenbaum, is, to be sure Jewish, and also a pedophile, and the other two might also be Jews if ADL is correct, but that does not seem to have been material in what took place. Credible accounts of the shooting suggest that Rittenhouse was attacked by the three, one of whom, Grosskreutz, had a gun, and was being beaten on his head with Huber’s sidewalk surfboard. He responded in self-defense.

And ADL is not alone in its defense of BLM. More than six hundred Jewish groups have signed on to a full page newspaper ad supporting the movement. The ad says “We speak with one voice when we say, unequivocally: Black Lives Matter” and then goes on to assert “There are politicians and political movements in this country who build power by deliberately manufacturing fear to divide us against each other. All too often, anti-Semitism is at the center of these manufactured divisions.”

So, once again, it is all about the perpetual victimhood of Jews. That Jews constitute the wealthiest and best educated demographic in the United States would seem to suggest that they are especially favored, which they are, rather than targeted by raging mobs of hillbillies. More than 90% of discretionary Department of Homeland Security funds goes to protect Jewish facilities and the Department of Education and Congress are always prepared to create new rules protecting Jews from feeling “uncomfortable” in their occasional interactions with critics of Israel.

Jews largely think and vote progressive, which is part of the reason for aligning with blacks even though rioting and looting is likely to affect them more than other demographics as many of them might still have businesses in the cities that are most likely to be hit. But there is also a much bigger reason to do so. Many blacks in BLM as well as progressive white supporters were beginning to suggest that the movement should broaden its agenda and recognize inter alia the suffering of others, to include the Palestinian people. A strong show of support from Jewish groups, backed up by what one might presume to be a flow of contributions to the cause, would presumably be a way of nipping that sentiment in the bud just as Jewish donors to the Democratic Party were able to block any language in the party platform sympathetic to the Palestinians.

It is of course the ultimate irony that Jewish groups are very sensitive to the suffering of blacks in the United State while at the same time largely ignoring the war crimes and other devastation going on in Israel and Palestine at the hands of their co-religionists. The beating and shooting of unarmed and non-resisting Palestinians, to include children, the destruction of the livelihoods of farmers, and the demolition of homes to make way for Jewish settlers is beyond belief and is largely invisible as the Jewish influenced U.S. media does not report it. It is, simply put, genocide. And on top of that, Israel has been bombing defenseless civilians in Gaza nearly daily of late, attacking and destabilizing Lebanon and Syria, and also conniving with American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to go to war with Iran.

It should not be surprising if black groups would be suspicious of the motives of the Jewish organizations that suddenly seem to want to be friendly. When Rodney Muhammad was removed from his position with the NAACP in Philadelphia, Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of ADL, tweeted “Credit to Executive Committee of Philly NAACP & National NAACP for taking action here. We hope this will enable new opportunities for collaboration as the local Black & Jewish communities can do more to fight against hate & push for dignity of all people.”

Greenblatt has been a leader in the fight to criminalize both criticism of Israel and also the free speech being exercised by supporters of the non-violent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS). For him, “dignity of all people” clearly does not include Palestinians or even anyone who peacefully supports their cause.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

September 8, 2020 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Current health guidance is utterly WRONG: Saturated fats are good for you. It’s vegetable oils that can kill you

By Malcolm Kendrick | RT | September 2, 2020

The release of previously repressed studies shows that if you substitute saturated fats with polyunsaturated fats, this INCREASES the risk of cardiovascular disease. My fellow doctors need to accept the evidence.

Whilst we are in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, it seems that all other diseases have been relegated to a position of complete irrelevance. Should this be happening? According to the British Heart Foundation, cardiovascular disease kills four hundred and sixty people each and every day in the UK. That’s just shy of 170,000 every year.

Since the start of 2020, Covid-19 has killed 40,000 in the UK, and now kills about ten a day. On the other hand, heart attacks and strokes have killed 115,000, and continue to kill 460 people a day. Which one should we be really concerned about? Have a wild guess on that one.

So I was pleased to see that someone from the other side of the world is still paying attention to the real medical killer. I was pointed to an article in The Australian, based on a study that appeared in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC). The newspaper headline was: “How dairy and fat could save your life,” with the sub-header “A new study confirms decades of research that saturated fats are good for your heart. So why do guidelines still push a non-fat diet?”

The article in the JACC began:

“The recommendation to limit dietary saturated fatty acid (SFA) intake has persisted despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Most recent meta-analyses of randomized trials and observational studies found no beneficial effects of reducing SFA intake on cardiovascular disease (CVD) and total mortality, and instead found protective effects against stroke.”

This is very much grist to my particular mill, as I have been writing articles and books for the past thirty years stating that saturated fat, red meat, and chocolate (dark or otherwise) are completely healthy. In addition, the ‘anti-fat’ dietary guidelines ruthlessly promoted for the past forty years or so are complete nonsense. Although almost universally accepted, they were based on absolutely no research at all. None.

When I state this, most fellow medics look at me in that certain way. Before shuffling sideways. They know, they just know, that saturated fat is bad for you. They will have read no research on the matter – they very rarely do – they have just been told this so-called fact so many times that it has become ‘The Truth’. As someone else once commented, although it is not clear who said it first, “My mind is made up; do not bother me with the facts.”

The problem is that, once someone has made up their mind, based on no facts at all, it is difficult to use facts to change their mind – but I shall have a go anyway. As the article in The Australian noted:

“A newly published study of 195,658 Brits over 10.6 years found ‘no evidence that saturated fat intake was associated with cardiovascular disease. In contrast, the substitution of polyunsaturated for saturated fat was associated with higher CVD risk.”’

Hold on – if you substitute saturated fats with polyunsaturated fats this increases the risk of cardiovascular disease? This is double blasphemy, surely. Even if saturated fats are not harmful, we absolutely know that polyunsaturated fats are healthy – don’t we?

The answer is that we don’t, and part of the reason for this is that research proving that polyunsaturated fats are unhealthy has been ruthlessly suppressed over the years.

In Australia, at the peak of its heart disease epidemic in the 1970s, researchers wanted to prove that saturated fats were bad, and that polyunsaturated fats were good. They found five hundred heart attack survivors from across Sydney and gave half of them safflower oil. They also told them to cut down on saturated fat. The other half were told to get on with life, as before.

In the safflower group, cholesterol levels fell. Hooray. Unfortunately, the group’s members were also far more likely to die. There was a fifty percent increase in deaths in the polyunsaturated safflower oil group. Not only that, but more of them died of cardiovascular disease. These figures were not published at the time. The study was, essentially, buried. However, an intrepid researcher dug the data up and published the results in the BMJ in 2013.

The key statement was this: “… substituting dietary linoleic acid (polyunsaturated fat) in place of saturated fats increased the rates of death from all causes, coronary heart disease, and cardiovascular disease.”

Another study was done in the US at around the same time, in the late sixties, early seventies. This was the Minnesota Coronary Experiment. It was far bigger, involving nearly twenty thousand men. As with the Sydney Diet Heart Study, men were split into two groups. One group was told to eat a high polyunsaturated fat diet, the other to continue with their ‘deadly’ saturated fats.

As with the Sydney study, those eating the polyunsaturated fat saw their cholesterol levels fall. Hooray again. Unfortunately, as before, they also saw the rate of heart disease rise significantly. For each ten percent fall in cholesterol levels, there was a fifteen percent increase in death.

As with the Sydney Heart Health study, the Minnesota study too was buried. The research group who discovered and published the Sydney study also found the buried data for the Minnesota study, and published it. Forty-five years after the study was completed.

But what of the other studies, I hear you cry? The ones which must have proved beyond doubt that saturated fats are bad for you? A reasonable question. The problem is that I cannot show you any, because there are none.

This may seem an extraordinary statement to make, but it can be supported. In 2015, a paper was published looking at the evidence from Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) to support the dietary guidelines which tell us all to avoid saturated fat. Randomized controlled trials are considered the gold standard for medical research.

It stated: “Dietary recommendations were introduced for 220 million US and 56 million UK citizens by 1983, in the absence of supporting evidence from RCTs.”

Yes, no trials, and no evidence – and none since, either.  So no, the recent article in The Australian did not come as any great surprise to me. Nor did the study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. But it was nice to see things confirmed… again.

As for the evidence that ‘super-healthy’ polyunsaturated fats may not be healthy? Again, no surprise. These things… at least, the concentrated goop we call vegetable oils, are almost completely artificial and unknown to the diets of our ancestors.

We were not designed to eat them in any quantity. If we do, they get into our cells and our cell membranes, and gum up the works. Then, as proven by the Sydney and Minnesota studies – and many others – they cause us to die.

In truth, it is not really that saturated fats are good for us. Saturated fats are what nature designed us to eat. It is that, when we substitute them for cheap, manufactured goop, we do very badly.

Sunflower oil sounds lovely and sunny and healthy. But consume too much of it, and you won’t see too many sunrises – ever again. Stick to red meat, saturated fats, and dark chocolate. These are the things nature designed us to eat. So eat them. Like the French, who have the highest consumption of saturated fat in Europe, and its lowest rate of cardiovascular disease.

Malcolm Kendrick is a doctor and author who works as a GP in the National Health Service in England. His blog can be read here and his book, ‘Doctoring Data – How to Sort Out Medical Advice from Medical Nonsense,’ is available here.

September 2, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Macron threatens Lebanon with sanctions unless Beirut brings about ‘real change’ in three months

RT | September 1, 2020

Paris will slap Lebanese elites with sanctions and could even withhold crucial financial aid if Beirut fails to implement reforms, the French president has warned.

The upcoming months would be “fundamental” for what he described as “real change,” Macron told Politico as he was heading to Beirut for a second visit in a month. Should he be not satisfied with the reforms made within the set period of time, punitive measures will follow, he added.

The list of such measures ranges from personal sanctions against members of the Lebanese political elite, to blocking an international financial bailout – vital for a country gripped by a prolonged economic and political crisis, and struggling with the aftermath of the recent major explosion in the capital.

During Macron’s previous visit in early August in the wake of the devastating blast which killed almost 200 people, the French president called for a new, interim government, as well as for an audit of the nation’s central bank and parliamentary elections within a year. Now, he says he wants “credible commitments” from the Lebanese political parties that they will stick to the plan – including a timetable for holding the legislative vote within “six to 12 months.”

The horrific blast aggravated existing problems and provoked violent anti-government demonstrations, forcing Prime Minister Hassan Diab to dissolve the cabinet in early August. A new government has however been slow to emerge, prompting President Macron to intrude on the affairs of the former French protectorate.

Macron stated he is not known for being soft and is not going to back down in Lebanon but is still wary of using what he calls France’s full force and locking horns with Hezbollah. The French president meanwhile blamed Lebanese protesters for the failure to produce a leader powerful enough to bring the country’s political elites under control.

“A name works if the street knows how to produce a leader who leads the revolution, and breaks the system. It didn’t work, at least not today, maybe tomorrow or after tomorrow it will,” he said, commenting on public discontent over the choice of a new prime minister.

Diplomat Mustapha Adib was agreed as the new head of the government just hours before Macron’s arrival in Beirut. However, his candidacy apparently did not sit well with at least some members of the public and Macron was at some point met by a crowd chanting “Adib won’t do!” and “We want Nawaf Salam!”

Salam – a judge with the International Court of Justice – lacks support among the political elites of Lebanon and would hardly be able to fulfil his role as a head of government, Macron said while also explaining that it was not him, who chose Adib and it was not his job “to interfere or approve.”

September 1, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

The Hezbollah-France Twist

By Ghassan Kadi for the Saker Blog | August 20, 2020

The intriguing twists and turns following the catastrophic explosion at Beirut’s Sea Port have thus far had international repercussions, beginning with the visit of French President Marcon to Beirut just three days after the disaster; a visit that could hardly be classified as a visit of a foreign head of state to another country.

Marcon did not go to Lebanon just to meet with Lebanese President Aoun, even though the two did meet.

Macron met with the political leaders of Lebanon; aka the traditional power brokers, including the heads of militia who have steered Lebanon into the 1975-1989 civil war, destroyed the state that was once called the Switzerland of the East, and continued to rule Lebanon thereafter, leading to its almost total demise.

Macron’s visit left behind major pointers:

  1. With the arrogance of a returning colonial head, he literally told the Mafia leaders that he does not trust them. He announced that foreign aid will not be handed to Lebanese authorities and that they all benefited from the collapse of the Central Bank and that they know that he knows that.
  2. He shunned the Lebanese President Aoun at his news conference that followed his meeting with him and had him literally pushed away. This humiliation is forever etched on film.
  3. He promised to return to Lebanon on the 1st of September, the centennial anniversary of Lebanon in its current political and geographical form. He gave the leaders until that date to resolve the endemic problem of corruption otherwise he would bring in a new pact.
  4. What was least reported about his visit was his insistence that Hezbollah was represented in his meeting with Lebanon’s political leaders.

According to international law, French President Macron has no business interfering with Lebanese politics. Reality stipulates otherwise. What Marcon said to Lebanese leaders on the August 7 visit is tantamount to saying that France created Lebanon a hundred years ago, then left it later in Lebanese hands, but the Lebanese failed, and that the leaders have until the 1st of September 2020 (the centenary of the State) to fix it. Either way, Marcon will be back on the 1st of September to recreate Lebanon with or without them.

A few days after his departure, Western frigates steamed into Beirut’s devastated Sea Port and without any coordination with what is left of the Lebanese authorities.

With the military vessels came aid, medical aid in the form of field hospitals, medicines, as well as food and fuel aid, all of which are most welcome and needed by Lebanon. Of note was the ‘miraculous’ international attention and focus on a country and people who have been robbed by their own leaders and punished by the West for having Hezbollah involved in the political process of administering the country.

It would be foolhardy to assume that the Beirut Sea Port disaster and the decision for the UAE and Israel to formally establish a diplomatic relationship a few days later were events that were connected and deliberately planned and timed. Such initiatives take much time to develop. That said, the Beirut disaster might have lubricated some rusty deadlocks and facilitated some movements, decisions, and possibly generated some unforeseeable domino effects.

Whichever way seen, the situation in Lebanon reached a breaking point, perhaps only salvageable by way of radical measures including steps to save its people from certain famine.

As a secular Syrian/Lebanese Levantine who is patriotic and endeavours to see the Levant united, strong and in a position of self-determination, I cannot see a more important political objective to pursue other than achieving the ability of self-determination. After all, this is what all self-respecting people demand and expect.

In the following few paragraphs, I am stating historical facts that do not necessarily reflect my point of view.

Egypt took upon itself the slogan of ‘total liberation of Palestine’ during the era of Egyptian President Nasser from 1952 to 1970. But his successor, Sadat, was the first to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1978. Nearly a decade earlier however, Jordan expelled the PLO from its territory, inadvertently sending its fighters to Lebanon. In 1969, and after a number of clashes between the Lebanese Army and the PLO, a deal was brokered by Egyptian President Nasser between the Lebanese Government and the PLO and which allowed the PLO to use Lebanese soil to launch attacks on Israel. That was known as the Cairo Accord.

For better or for worse, the Cairo Accord marked the end of Lebanon as a neutral state and put it in the forefront of confrontation with Israel.

If we apply the above to the politics and political positions within Lebanon, please allow me to put on the hat of the devil’s advocate and speak on behalf of the anti-Axis of Resistance sector.

As other Arab states have walked away from their roles in being defendants of the Palestinian cause and sold out to the Western Road Map one way or another, many Lebanese who have lived and were brought up with the concept that Lebanon was/is the Switzerland of East, neither accept nor understand why it suddenly became the spearhead of resistance against the Israeli/American/NATO-based influence of hegemony.

If we add to this predicament the modus operandi of Israel and its Western backers, where adversaries and potential ones are given ultimatums to comply to their agendas or face decimation, then Lebanon has been placed in a very dangerous position, and in reality, it was.

Prior to this, after two decades of Arab-Israeli wars, Lebanon remained neutral. Even during the 1967 so-called Six-Days-War, Lebanon maintained its neutral stance and did not partake. With Egypt signing a peace treaty with Israel, and Jordan following, the Axis-of-Resistance was transformed and reduced to the North-East borders of Israel; ie the Syrian/Lebanese-Israeli borders.

Many Syria haters condemn Syria for not opening its borders for direct confrontation with Israel since 1967. What those critics fail to understand is that Syria was not equipped sufficiently to fight a conventional war with Israel; especially after the dismantling of the USSR. Syria however did everything within her power to provide the Axis-of-Resistance forces in Lebanon with all support possible to engage in asymmetric wars with Israel, and the investment paid dividends; the most impressive of which was the liberation of South Lebanon from Israeli forces in May 2000.

Many Lebanese will disagree with the above and proclaim that Lebanon was left alone. In more ways than one, they are right given that, notwithstanding Syria’s support, all of the military confrontations actually took place on Lebanese soil. This ultimately meant that the entire onus of the Arab cause of confrontation with Israel has been thrown on the shoulders of the little state of Lebanon.

Many Lebanese are supportive of this view, including pro Axis-Of-Resistance Lebanese who feel that they have been sold out by Arab complacency and treachery.

In reality, Arabs have to make up their minds and do this collectively. They must either decide to resist the American/Israeli Road Map or agree to endorse it. Neither stand is being taken where instead they stand on a half-way mark; a mark that does not hurt them, but is devastating Lebanon.

Recently, the Arabian Gulf states publicly made direct and indirect indications of desiring peace with Israel. However, they lacked the fortitude to sign peace agreements despite often working together covertly and at times overtly. In the last few days, the United Arab Emirates decided to break the mould and establish reciprocal diplomatic relationships with Israel. This came as no surprise.

Of interest is that Lebanese President Aoun appears to be capitalizing on this event in order to extract himself out of the corner he painted himself in.

Beaten, abandoned and shunned, in a recent address, Aoun hinted to the possibility of negotiating peace with Israel.

Aoun has a long history of a revolving door when it comes to changing allies and enemies. As Army Chief in the early 1980’s, he was an ally of the Christian Militia (Lebanese Forces) and jointly fought the Syrian Army presence in Lebanon. Later that decade, he turned against the ‘Lebanese Forces’ and, in the midst of a sectarian civil war, engaged himself in a bitter Lebanese Christian Maronite versus Christian Maronite battle, causing much devastation to an already shattered Beirut and neighbouring areas. This was just before he was forced into exile in France by the Syrian Army, only to return to Lebanon fifteen years later as an ally of Syria and Hezbollah in 2005.

In his ascendance to the Presidency in 2016, an achievement finally reached at the age of 80, unlike others who virtually inherited the position from their elders, Aoun displayed, at least publicly, a spark which many interpreted as coming from the fact that he, independently, built his own political career.

Senile as he may appear, and under the influence of his highly corrupt son-in-law, Gebran Bassil, he is possibly still capable of finding alternative ways to survive, at least for the continuation of his legacy that could see his son-in-law at the presidential helm.

According to a private political source from a friend who is well connected, away from the public eye, some negotiations are underway between France and Hezbollah. The insistence of France to have Hezbollah represented in the wider meeting of Lebanese leaders with Marcon was only meant to be an introduction for further talks, and specifically to more bilateral talks that involve France and Hezbollah. According to the friend, Macron is trying to push for a French initiative that breaks the deadlock between Hezbollah and the West. The details of such talks are not clear yet, but all parties to be involved will be asked to accept certain concessions.

As a matter of fact, it has been reported recently that Macron has told Trump that the American sanctions on Lebanon are counterproductive. This makes one wonder if this is an attempt on the part of Macron to bolster his initiative with credibility and support from Hezbollah. With this said, Macron will have to take a very long shot to be trusted by Hezbollah, if this is achievable at all.

In the meantime, President Aoun is quite aware of this and is feeling excluded and abandoned, even by Lebanon’s traditional ‘mother’; ie France. He is in desperate need to resurrect his position.

In touting peace talks with Israel, Aoun seems to be making three pertinent statements. He is signaling to Hezbollah that he is prepared to sever his political alliance with them, but more importantly, he is signaling to the whole West, primarily to the USA, that he is a viable negotiation partner, desirous to sign a peace treaty with Israel. He knows how such words resonate to American foreign policy architects. Most importantly perhaps, Aoun is signaling to Macron that it is pay-back time. He is showing Marcon the finger and reciprocating his ‘undiplomatic’ demeanour, presenting to him that he is prepared to marginalize Marcon and France as a whole by directly talking to America, leaving France out of a new historic Middle East peace deal.

Such a desperate attempt may lure America to sit at the negotiating table with Aoun, but it will not resolve the anger and agitation against the leadership regarding the numerous domestic problems leading up to the Sea Port disaster and what followed.

Will the USA swallow Aoun’s bait and go out of its way to save his hide? No one knows. What seems inevitable is that, with or without any warming up of relations between France and Hezbollah, Hezbollah is undertaking much restructuring and reinvention. Hezbollah leadership is quite aware that the time of its political alliance with Aoun is over one way or another, and is currently considering the implementation of many changes, albeit their details remain unclear.

The events of the next few weeks, especially following the upcoming second visit of Macron on the 1st of September, will be pivotal in deciding the fate and roles of all stakeholders and entities that have held the fate of Lebanon in their hands.

August 22, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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