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Even when it came to children, German regime ignored own scientists to impose strict COVID vaccine, mask mandates

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | July 31, 2024

Germany’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic was based on political objectives, and the government implemented countermeasures that often contradicted scientific evidence and the opinion of the government’s own scientists, according to documents leaked by a former employee of Germany’s public health agency, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI).

An unnamed whistleblower released the “RKI Files” to investigative journalist Aya Velázquez, who on July 23 published the unredacted files — totaling 3,865 pages — in their entirety on Substack.

The RKI is Germany’s equivalent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S.

According to the German newspaper Schwäbische Zeitung, the RKI Files “contain explosive details” about “child vaccinations and ‘resistance from the population,’” and show “that the RKI took a much more differentiated view of Corona policy than those responsible for politics and most of the media led the population to believe.”

“A whistleblower, a former employee of the RKI, approached me and passed on the data set to me” for reasons of “conscience,” Velázquez wrote on Substack.

According to the files, German regulators sought to skip Phase 3 trials of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine and “go straight into broad application.”

Other revelations include evidence of policymakers targeting and “nudging” children, and knowledge by policymakers and scientists that the COVID-19 vaccines were ineffective and led to severe adverse events.

Despite this knowledge — and for political reasons — government officials pursued measures rewarding the vaccinated and punishing the unvaccinated.

The RKI Files also reveal that policymakers and scientists sought to publicly ignore evidence of a “flattening curve” early in the pandemic, and evidence that masks and mass testing would not be useful in preventing infection.

Although some have questioned the legitimacy of documents contained within the RKI Files, the Robert Koch Institute, in an announcement carried by German news program Tagesschau addressing the publication of unredacted documents, did not confirm or deny the legitimacy of the documents themselves or their contents:

“The Robert Koch Institute has criticized the publication of unredacted minutes of the RKI crisis team on the COVID pandemic. The RKI expressly condemns the unlawful publication of personal data and trade and business secrets of third parties in these data sets and, in particular, any infringement of third-party rights.”

Other German mainstream news media outlets, including the mass-circulation Bild and Zeit newspapers, also reported on the release of the files.

‘Clear evidence that the general public was deliberately deceived’

The RKI Files mirror findings from the United Kingdom’s “Lockdown Files” and admissions last month by Dr. Anthony Fauci during congressional testimony that widespread masking and social distancing measures were enacted despite a lack of scientific evidence.

Widespread “vaccination of children” and policies barring the unvaccinated from many public spaces — for which the RKI “provided supposedly scientific legitimacy” — weren’t based on “rational, scientific considerations” but on “political decisions,” Velázquez wrote.

Stefan Homburg, Ph.D., professor of public finance at the University of Hannover in Germany, was part of a team that worked with the whistleblower to release the unredacted RKI Files. He told The Defender the documents show decisions were made “exclusively by politicians” and that “RKI did not support these measures.”

“We have now clear evidence that the general public was deliberately deceived,” Dutch lawyer Meike Terhorst told The Defender. “Politicians made the decisions, not health authorities.”

Dr. Christof Plothe, a member of the World Council for Health steering committee, told The Defender the files “show that it was never science that initiated ineffective and harmful masking, traumatizing social distancing and lockdowns, or that introduced a novel gene therapy labeled a ‘vaccine’ … It was politicians that demanded the measures.”

Germany’s pandemic-era Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach figures prominently in the documents. Plothe said Lauterbach has “never worked with patients and is a pure lobbyist of Pharma.”

In March 2023, Lauterbach admitted that COVID-19 vaccine adverse events are prevalent and victims are being ignored.

German toxicologist Helmut Sterz, previously a researcher for major pharmaceutical companies — including Pfizer — told The Defender the documents show that pandemic decisions “were made by those who are responsible for the creation of this ‘pandemic’” and that “Real experts ‘disappeared’ from the public debate.”

Germany enacted among the strictest set of COVID-19 restrictions in Europe, according to the Oxford University COVID-19 Government Response Tracker.

“The measures that the German people were subjected to, besides mask mandates and social distancing rules, [include] a ‘lockdown of the unvaccinated’ that banned people from [public places] … Compulsory vaccination was imposed on military members and all people working in the health sector,” Plothe said.

Documents reveal EU discussions to ‘skip the Phase 3 trials’ for Pfizer shot

Pfizer was in discussions with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to “skip the Phase III trials” for the COVID-19 vaccine “and go straight into widespread use,” documents from an April 15, 2020, RKI meeting show.

“Normally, you plan 12-18 months from the start of Phase I. EMA and Pfizer are considering whether to skip Phase III trials and go straight into broad use. If the regulators decide that, then it can go faster than 12-18 months,” the document says.

Minutes from an April 27, 2020, RKI meeting state, “There will be several vaccines that have been developed and tested in a fast-track process. Relevant data will only be collected post-marketing.”

According to German medical magazine Aertzeblatt, RKI documents from January and February 2021, after the first COVID-19 vaccines were introduced and administered, reveal discussions questioning the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, stating it was “less perfect” and its “Ecology needs to be discussed.”

A Jan. 29, 2021 document (page 135), for instance, states that “STIKO [RKI’s Standing Committee on Vaccination] recommends vaccine only for <65-year-olds, as there is a lack of evidence for >65-year-olds, very wide confidence intervals, too uncertain, as two highly effective RNA vaccines are available.”

According to German magazine Tichys Einblick, the documents show that as early as the beginning of 2021,” the RKI knew about serious side effects of vaccinations, for example from AstraZeneca. Nevertheless, shortly afterwards, practically all important top politicians were publicly vaccinated with precisely this shot.”

These admissions came despite public rhetoric at the time stating that the shots would protect against both the spread of and infection from COVID-19.

Problems post-vaccination soon began to pop up in the RKI documents. A Feb. 8, 2021, document references a political furor in Germany after 14 fully vaccinated residents of a nursing home tested positive for COVID-19. The same document admitted that vaccination does not prevent less severe cases of the virus.

RKI documents from March 12 and March 15, 2021, referenced the identification of severe adverse events following AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccination in Denmark, the Netherlands and Austria, and an April 9, 2021, document discusses a high rate of thrombosis cases tied to the AstraZeneca vaccine, particularly in males.

In turn, an April 23, 2021, document references six cases of cerebral thrombosis connected to the Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S. but does not propose changes to Germany’s vaccination recommendations.

“It is particularly bad that the RKI recognized many vaccine injuries caused by AstraZeneca, but did not warn the public,” Homburg said. “The constant political pressure is also remarkable.”

‘It must be cool to get vaccinated’

The RKI Files also revealed efforts on the part of the German government and the country’s public health authorities to specifically target children with COVID-19 restrictions — efforts that were marked by political interference:

  • A May 19, 2021, RKI document states, “Even if STIKO does not recommend vaccination for children, [then-Health Minister Jens] Spahn is still planning a child vaccination program.”
  • A May 21, 2021, document states that while pediatric associations “are reluctant to vaccinate children … Politicians are already preparing vaccination campaigns to vaccinate the relevant age groups.”
  • A July 14, 2021, RKI document reveals discussions of an “influencer vaccination challenge on YouTube” and “developing material for younger target groups,” which would “be approached with more humor” — even vaccine reactions and side effects. “It must be cool to get vaccinated,” the document stated.
  • The minutes of a Dec. 15, 2021, RKI meeting reveal that Germany’s health ministry was “considering booster vaccination of children, although there is no recommendation and in some cases no approval for this.”

Such measures were promoted despite early knowledge that children were not significantly affected by COVID-19. A Feb. 26, 2020, RKI document referred to data from China finding that 2% of cases were in children, while a Nov. 30, 2020, document suggested that school settings were unlikely to contribute to the spread of the virus significantly, but that school closures would “exacerbate” the situation.

And a Dec. 4, 2020, RKI meeting examining data from several countries concluded that school reopenings did not lead to significantly greater spread of the virus.

‘The vaccinated must receive privileges of some kind’

Despite such findings, there was political pressure to reward the vaccinated and punish the unvaccinated, according to the RKI Files.

A Nov. 5, 2021, document said that media rhetoric regarding “a pandemic of the unvaccinated” was “not correct from a scientific point of view,” because “the entire population is contributing” to new waves of infection.

Yet, authorities decided to continue blaming the unvaccinated for the spread of COVID-19, because it would serve “as an appeal to all those who have not been vaccinated to get vaccinated,” according to the document.

The document also noted that Spahn “talks of the [pandemic of the unvaccinated] at every press conference … so it can’t be corrected.” The document contains an acknowledgment, though, that “one should be very careful with the statement that vaccinations protect against any (even asymptomatic) infection” because “as the time between vaccinations increases,” infection becomes more likely.

A May 10, 2021, RKI document contained a determination that telling the truth to the public would “cause great confusion,” while maintaining existing vaccination recommendations would serve “to save [the] vaccine.”

Instead, a Jan. 7, 2022, document stated that “the vaccinated must receive privileges of some kind,” including fewer travel restrictions, and that this was an objective that the German Health Ministry desired, while calling for further “testing of the unvaccinated after entry” into the country.

Similarly, a March 10, 2021, document suggested that COVID-19 vaccination should be promoted to the public as a means “to be able to participate in social life again,” for people who were tired of “bans and restrictions.”

Yet, a Dec. 4, 2020, RKI document suggested that the vaccinated should continue to comply with “hygiene measures,” while a Dec. 30, 2020, document suggested that the vaccinated should still wear masks, “as there is still a risk of transmission.”

German authorities wished to ‘avoid drawing attention’ to flattening curve

The RKI Files further reveal that, early in the COVID-19 pandemic, there was political pressure to maintain restrictions, despite the “flattening of the curve.”

A March 25, 2020, document admitted that “the curve is slowly leveling off,” but said, “We should avoid drawing attention to this in our external communications, to encourage compliance with measures.”

A Nov. 18, 2020, document contains an admission that respiratory illnesses were “well below” the previous year’s level, with a downward trend. Similarly, a Nov. 30, 2020, document states that general respiratory illnesses were “well below previous years.” A Jan. 27, 2021, document stated that a “no-COVID” policy is not feasible.

And according to a Feb. 25, 2022, document, RKI was prevented from downgrading its overall risk assessment of COVID-19 from “very high” to “high” even after the mostly mild symptoms of the Omicron wave were evident, due to intervention from Lauterbach and the German Health Ministry.

Use of masks by general public deemed ‘problematic’ — but imposed anyway 

The RKI Files also contain acknowledgments that masking and testing policies were ineffective in limiting the spread of COVID-19 but were pursued for political reasons:

  • A Jan. 27, 2020, document states that masking “does not make sense” for asymptomatic people, as there was no evidence that it would be a “useful preventive measure for the general population.”
  • An Oct. 23, 2020, document stated that FFP2 masks (similar to N95 masks) would be “misused” by the public and not offer protection, but instead might instill a false sense of security in people. “The harms of FFP2 masks may outweigh benefits,” the document states.
  • An Oct. 30, 2020, document says, “FFP2 masks have no added value if they are not fitted and used correctly” and are useless outside of “occupational health and safety.”
  • A Jan. 13, 2021, document states that FFP2 masks “can lead to health problems for people with preexisting conditions and should therefore remain an individual decision” and that “A general FFP2 mask requirement is not considered sensible.”
  • A Jan. 18, 2021, document found “No technical basis for recommending FFP2 masks for the population,” noting the risk of “undesirable side effects.”

Yet, by July 2, 2021, RKI documents contain suggestions, based on the American Academy of Pediatrics, for general mask wearing for children age 2 and older and that “The wearing of masks should be maintained … even at low incidences and should be understood as maintaining basic measures.”

RKI documents also questioned mass COVID-19 testing. A Feb. 3, 2020, document stated that positive PCR results after recovery “do not necessarily mean infectiousness,” while a July 29, 2020, document found that COVID-19 testing was ineffective, but a “political desire” for testing had to be “met.”

Similarly, a Dec. 16, 2020, RKI document suggested the suspension of elective procedures (planned operations), due to “pressure from the state governments.”

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

August 1, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Missouri AG Andrew Bailey Advocates for Tech-State Separation Criticizes, Big Tech Censorship Influence

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | July 31, 2024

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey wants First Amendment free speech protections to be bolstered and believes that the separation of Tech and State ( creating a “wall of separation” between them) is in order.

This is to make sure government censorship is efficiently prevented going forward, he suggested.

Bailey sat down with journalist Tim Pool, and went through a litany of other issues plaguing political and social democratic processes, most clearly visible in what critics of the current White House consider to be the government colluding with social media companies to suppress lawful speech.

Bailey spoke about the Missouri v. Biden case (which reached the Supreme Court as Murthy v. Missouri) to say that “government coerced censorship” has already been proven, and now that the case has been referred back to a lower court, the discovery process can be used to fully expose what the state AG called, “that vast Censorship Enterprise.”

Regarding the much contested on both sides of the aisle (but for different reasons) Section 230 of the CDA, Bailey agreed with the host that it should not continue in the current form, since platforms are protected for hosting third-party content – and then allowed to freely censor that content.

But the collusion with the government demonstrated in stark terms why Section 230 should be reformed so that it’s “just a shield” for platforms, without also putting the “sword” of censorship in their hands, the interlocutors agreed.

The issue of social media and internet services becoming so widespread they are arguably the most powerful influence on people’s choices – from shopping to politics – means they qualify as the public square.

And on that square, culture can be “fundamentally reshaped,” Bailey said. Platforms banning “misgendering speech” was mentioned as an example.

And back to Section 230, but this time with regards to Wikipedia. Here, the Missouri AG doesn’t believe immunity from the rules should extended to Wikipedia.

This is because whatever is published on Wikipedia is not clearly marked as written by users (such as on social platforms) – this is only visible in the source of a webpage.

“The byline is, ‘from Wikipedia’,” Pool remarked.

“They look like a publisher,” Bailey said, alleging that Section 230 was not designed to protect those.

July 31, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Israel Used Dogs, Waterboarding to Torture Palestinian Prisoners – UN

Sputnik – 31.07.2024

Palestinians in Israeli captivity have been subjected to torture, including electrocution, waterboarding and being attacked by dogs, with at least 53 detainees dying in custody since October 7, the UN human rights watchdog said in a report out Wednesday.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)’s report on the “Detention in the context of the escalation of hostilities in Gaza” looked into testimonies of torture and other ill-treatment committed by Israelis and Palestinian armed groups from October 2023 to June 2024.

“Many of those detained and subsequently released have reported being subject to forms of torture or other ill-treatment, including severe beatings, electrocution, being forced to remain in stress positions for prolonged periods, or waterboarding,” the report read.

Palestinians who spoke with the OHCHR said they had been subjected to violence and humiliation in a systematic manner, “including through repeated serious physical assaults, setting dogs on the detainees, in some cases resulting in attacks and bites, and widespread threats and insults.”

Israel detained large numbers of Palestinians – men, women, children, doctors, journalists, human rights defenders, and patients – in the days after Hamas’ October 7 attack. Of more than 10,000 workers and patients from Gaza who were taken into custody in October, around 1,000 remain unaccounted for. Dozens others have died.

“At least 53 detainees from Gaza and the West Bank have died in Israeli detention since 7 October,” the report said.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said the testimonies gathered by his office and other entities indicated “a range of appalling acts, such as waterboarding and the release of dogs on detainees,” which he described as a “flagrant violation” of international humanitarian law.

July 31, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian prisoner raped by Israeli guards at notorious facility

Press TV – July 30 2024

A Palestinian prisoner has reportedly been subjected to rape by Israeli guards at a notorious facility set up to hold Palestinians after the launch of the regime’s ongoing genocidal war against the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Prisoners Club (PPC), a watchdog, and several Israeli media outlets reported the development on Monday.

“This is a new rape crime committed against a detainee at the Sde Teiman camp (in the Negev Desert) by a group of prison guards,” Abdullah Al-Zaghari, head of the PPC, told AFP.

The victim has suffered serious injury as a result of the abuse and is unable to walk, Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz and public broadcaster KAN reported.

Israeli facilities hold an estimated 9,700 Palestinian prisoners.

Inmates have consistently reported being subjected to torture and sexual abuse.

The regime, however, has significantly ramped up its detention spree in Gaza and the occupied West Bank since October 7, when it brought the coastal sliver under the war.

Ever since, human rights statements and prisoner accounts have been rife with reports of intensified acts of torture by the regime’s forces, including food and water deprivation, intimidation, electrical shocks, mock executions, and violent sexual abuse.

Subsequent to the Monday reports, the Israeli military police allegedly raided the Sde Teiman center as part of an investigation into the case, rounding up 10 troops stationed at the facility.

The police forces were met with resistance on the part of the troops, who barricaded themselves in and used pepper spray to avoid arrest.

The regime’s extremist finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, however, described the suspects as “heroic warriors.”

Itamar Ben-Gvir, a similarly hard-right official, who oversees the prisons where Palestinians are detained, also called the Israeli troops the “best heroes” and described the arrests as “shameful.”

July 30, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel blowing up of drinking water reservoir ‘crime against humanity’: Rafah municipality

MEMO | July 29, 2024

The municipality of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip condemned, on Monday, the Israeli army’s bombing of a drinking water reservoir in the Tal Al-Sultan neighbourhood as a grave violation of humanitarian norms, Anadolu Agency reports.

“The Israeli soldiers’ detonation of the main water reservoir in Tal Al-Sultan is a crime against humanity and perpetuates a policy of collective punishment,” Ahmed Soufi, the Mayor of Rafah, said in a statement.

The incident has raised alarm about the worsening water crisis in the area.

“The destruction of the water reservoir will exacerbate the crisis in the city, and we urge involved international entities to intervene and halt the Israeli occupation’s crimes,” the Mayor said.

Earlier on Monday, the Israeli army acknowledged that their soldiers were responsible for the bombing of the water reservoir in Tal Al-Sultan. According to the Israeli daily, Haaretz, an investigation into the incident has been initiated.

One of the soldiers posted a video of the explosion on social media with the caption “Destruction of the Tel Sultan water reservoir in honour of Shabbat,” the daily said.

In recent days, activists circulated a video on social media showing an Israeli soldier planting an explosive device at the main water reservoir in Tal Al-Sultan, followed by the detonation.

Local institutions and municipalities in Gaza have repeatedly accused the Israeli military of deliberately destroying water networks, wells and desalination plants, exacerbating the drinking water crisis.

Also, fuel restrictions imposed by Israel have further hindered the operation of remaining desalination facilities in the region.

Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since a 7 October, 2023 attack by Hamas.

More than 39,360 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and over 90,900 injured, according to local health authorities.

Over nine months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on 6 May.

July 29, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Netanyahu prevents 150 sick Gaza children from seeking treatment abroad’

Press TV – July 29, 2024

A new report released by Israeli media says the regime’s prime minister has prevented more than 100 sick Gazan children from seeking medical treatment abroad.

The Sunday report by Israel’s Kan public broadcaster said Benjamin Netanyahu has decided to prevent about 150 sick and wounded Palestinian children from leaving Gaza for the United Arab Emirates to receive treatment.

The Kan report said the Palestinian kids were ready to be flown out to the United Arab Emirates on Monday afternoon.

The new development came after the Israeli premier had earlier opposed the establishment of a field hospital in the southern part of the occupied territories for the treatment of Gazan children whose health condition was deteriorating amid the regime’s genocidal war on the besieged territory.

Physicians for Human Rights, which is a US-based non-profit human rights nongovernmental organization, says Israel has consistently failed to fulfill its obligations in this regard in in previous experiences.

While plans had been made for 250 sick and wounded Palestinians to depart Gaza for the UAE during the current week, Palestinian sources in Gaza said those in need of treatment are at least 100 times this number, noting that there are at least 25,000 patients who need to travel abroad.

They added that the number of sick and wounded people who have left the blockaded Palestinian territory since the beginning of the Israeli aggression does not exceed 5,000.

Physicians for Human Rights and a number of other human rights organizations have filed a petition, demanding that patients and wounded people facing life-threatening conditions be allowed to leave Gaza to receive the necessary treatment.

July 29, 2024 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

TikTok to Ban Some Criticisms of Zionism Following Pressure from NGO Backed by Former Israeli Intelligence Officials

Meta’s global head of policy development, Dina Hussein (Left), and TikTok’s head of trust & safety partnerships, Valiant Richey (Right), moments after CyberWell founder Tal-Or Cohen spoke on the same panel as part of the September 2023 Eradicate Hate Global Summit.
By Lee Fang and Jack Poulson | July 28, 2024

The popular social media platform TikTok has agreed “off-the-record” to enacting the same ban on many criticisms of the Israeli government as was adopted by Meta on July 9, according to a statement from the head of the Israeli pressure group CyberWell published on Sunday. As uncovered by the authors through two reports earlier this month, CyberWell is an offshoot of the Israeli government intelligence collection effort known as Keshet David (“David’s Bow”), which was itself spun out of a larger government propaganda effort now known as Voices of Israel.

CyberWell is one of many nonprofit advocacy groups that has leveraged its role as a trusted ‘counter-disinformation’ and ‘anti-hate’ partner to press for its public policy aims. As we previously reported, CyberWell’s campaigns have included attempts to ban the popular slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” as well as criticisms of the Israeli government’s wartime propaganda, including demonstrably false claims from government officials surrounding the killing of “dozens” of babies on October 7th. CyberWell has also pressed for a ban on discussions of the Israeli government’s enactment of the so-called ‘Hannibal Directive’ preference of killing its own citizens rather than allowing them to be taken hostage.

Meta’s recent policy change, which was championed by CyberWell, bans many critical uses of the term ‘Zionist’ – a reference to those who call for an independent state in the Middle East which privileges Jews over other ethnic groups. Meta’s decision recognized that ‘Zionist’ can be used “as shorthand to refer to governments, soldiers, or other specific groups” and therefore punted on the question of whether to ban the critique that “Zionists are war criminals.”

Listen to the audio here:

Roughly seventeen minutes into an interview with Canadian political consultant Warren Kinsella published on Sunday, CyberWell chief executive Tal-Or Cohen responded to a question on whether other social media platforms would be following Meta’s ban on many criticisms of Zionism by stating:

“We’re also a trusted partner of TikTok. And we have been assured by TikTok off-the-record, I’ll say off-the-record, that their policy is the same. Meaning they would be treating Zionism in the same way, okay. So I expect that off-the-record you’re going to actually be seeing statements about that in the coming days. On the record, I can tell you that we’ve been reassured by TikTok that they’re looking at this statement by Meta and that they intend to provide clarification to the public on it soon, okay.”

Ms. Cohen continued that CyberWell plans to fight for the same policies at X and Google: “We all need to look at X and at Google and kind of say … this decision has been widely supported by all of the major Jewish organizations, by a coalition known as the IHRA Coalition,” referencing a pressure campaign for social media platforms to adopt the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) re-definition of antisemitism, for which CyberWell has served as the data provider.

Cohen further stated that: “The next clear move is to call on all social media platforms to actually recognize what is true, which is that ‘Zionist’ is being used as a codeword to spread antisemitism to speak about Jews in hostile and violent ways, and we expect the digital policies that are in place to be applied equally to this form of hate too.”

The host of the interview, Daisy Consulting Group’s Warren Kinsella, was exposed in 2019 for running a smear campaign known as ‘Project Cactus’ to ‘seek and destroy’ the populist People’s Party of Canada and its leader, Maxime Bernier. A source with knowledge of the campaign asserted that Kinsella’s client was the Conservative Party of Canada.

In addition to its ‘trusted partner’ status with Meta and TikTok, CyberWell has also enjoyed close access to U.S. security officials. Ms. Cohen spoke alongside Meta’s global head of policy development, Dina Hussein, and TikTok’s head of trust & safety partnerships, Valiant Richey, during a panel at the Eradicate Hate Global Summit in late September. Beyond participation from multiple FBI agents and an official from the U.S. State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which has come under criticism for its expansive methods of opposing online disinformation, the summit’s keynote speakers included U.S. homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and former Israeli interior minister Natan Sharansky.

CyberWell’s leadership includes several former high-level Israeli security officials, such as Amos Yadlin, the former head of Israel’s military intelligence directorate, Aman.

Sharansky was influential in the creation of the IHRA redefinition of antisemitism, which he has described as a reaction to a United Nations-backed criticism of the Israeli government as an apartheid state through the 2001 Durban declaration, as well as the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Along with celebrity lawyer Alan Dershowitz, Sharansky authored the introduction to a 2019 report from Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs – which originally created Voices of Israel – entitled “Behind the Mask: The Antisemitic Nature of BDS Exposed.”

A subsequent report in early 2021, published jointly by the ministries of strategic and diaspora affairs, “The Hate Factor,” laid out the Israeli government’s strategy for pressuring social media companies to adopt the IHRA redefinition of antisemitism. CyberWell is arguably the embodiment of that strategy.

TikTok and CyberWell did not immediately respond to requests for comment. This article will be amended if comments are received after publication.

July 28, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Meet the Sentient World Simulation: How the Government Predicts the Future

Corbett Report | July 27, 2024

WATCH ON: ARCHIVE / BITCHUTE / ODYSEE / RUMBLE / RUMBLE / SUBSTACK or DOWNLOAD THE MP4

Have you heard of the “Sentient World Simulation”? Do you know that the Defense Department revealed two decades ago that they were working on putting together a real-time model of the earth and every person in it? And do you know that project has effectively been swept under the rug and was never mentioned again? Well, you’re about to! Get ready for this week’s fascinating look back through The Corbett Report archives.

FLASHBACK SHOW NOTES

How the Government Predicts The Future – Inside the “Sentient World Simulation”

Synthetic Environment for Analysis and Simulations

Corbett Report 2012 Data Archive (USB Flash Drive)

TRANSCRIPT

The NSA’s illegal warrantless wiretapping program. The building of the massive NSA data center in Utah to permanently store copies of all digital communication sent around the world. The UK government’s “Communications Data Bill” to monitor emails, instant messages and other personal information. What was dismissed as crazy conspiracy theory just over a decade ago has become, in this post-9/11 era, the all-too-familiar stuff of newspaper headlines and talking head reportage.

In fact, it was about a decade ago that the tactic of the intelligence agencies seemed to change. Instead of keeping their activities classified–referring to the NSA as “No Such Agency,” for example, or officially denying the existence of Echelon–the government increasingly began shoving this information in the public’s face.

GLENN GREENWALD: This was the mindset that in 2002 that led the bush administration to dredge up John Poindexter from wherever it was that he was. And he actually they worked for defense contracts and they dredged him up. And he was going to start the program that they called the “total information awareness program.” And the logo—which I actually looked at in the last couple weeks that you should go and look at, just because you won’t believe how creepy it is—has the pyramid with this huge eye hovering over it, this eye that was gonna be the all-seeing eye.

And the only problem with the total information awareness program was that they just put a name on it that was too honest about what it was. It freaked everybody out and so they had to pretend that they weren’t going to go forward with it. But of course what they did was they incrementally and in a very clear way recreated the total information awareness program under a whole variety of different legislative initiatives. And this idea that every single form of technological communication by law must be constructed to permit government backdoor interception and surveillance is an expression of what this surveillance state mindset is: that there can be no such thing as any form of privacy from the US government. That is the mindset that has led the surveillance state to be this sprawling, vast, ubiquitous and always expanding instrument that state and corporate power users employ in order to safeguard their power.

SOURCE: Glenn Greenwald: Challenging the US Surveillance State 

Perhaps the scariest thing about something like the Total Information Awareness Office is not merely that it was proposed in the first place, or that it incorporated such blatantly creepy Orwellian imagery to convey its true nature and purpose, but that, as we sit here 10 years later, and as the core functions of the TIA office are now being openly performed by the NSA, DHS and other governmental agencies, people are now actively making excuses for this nightmarish police state.

“If you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear” has always been the rallying cry for those who are too afraid of questioning presumed governmental authority to speak out against the surveillance state and the implied assumption of guilt that goes along with it. With feigned bemusement these moral midgets inevitably ask “What’s so bad about the government spying on you, anyway?”

The answer, of course, is that the very question implies that the agencies tasked with carrying out this constant Big Brother surveillance are themselves above reproach, shining lights of moral rectitude who would never abuse this incredible power for nefarious ends. For the unimaginative out there, Hollywood yarns like “Enemy of the State” have provided fictional examples of what can go wrong if someone, somewhere, abuses this power of information and surveillance to target an innocent person in the wrong place at the wrong time.

To be sure, the power that these technologies give for agencies, or corrupt groups within those agencies, to destroy the lives of targeted individuals, is itself a fitting answer to the question of why government surveillance should be troubling to us. But beyond what can happen to specific, targeted individuals in such a scenario, however, is a much larger question: What if this data, our emails, our phone calls, our credit card transactions, our social media posts, our cell phone GPS logs, and all of the hundreds of other pieces of data that are admittedly being collected on us every day, were being fed into a database so gargantuan it contains a digital version of every single person on the planet? And what if that database were being used by the Department of Defense to war game various scenarios, from public reactions to natural disasters to the likelihood of civil unrest in the wake of a declaration of martial law?

Remarkably, this is precisely what is happening.

It is called the “Sentient World Simulation.” The program’s aim, according to its creator, is to be a “continuously running, continually updated mirror model of the real world that can be used to predict and evaluate future events and courses of action.” In practical terms that equates to a computer simulation of the planet complete with billions of “nodes” representing every person on the earth.

The project is based out of Purdue University in Indiana at the Synthetic Environment for Analysis and Simulations Laboaratory. It is led by Alok Chaturvedi, who in addition to heading up the Purdue lab also makes the project commercially available via his private company, Simulex, Inc. which boasts an array of government clients, including the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice, as well as private sector clients like Eli Lilly and Lockheed Martin.

Chatruvedi’s ambition is to create reliable forecasts of future world events based on imagined scenarios. In order to do this, the simulations “gobble up breaking news, census data, economic indicators, and climactic events in the real world, along with proprietary information such as military intelligence.” Although not explicitly stated, the very type of data on digital communications and transactions now being gobbled up by the NSA, DHS and other government agencies make ideal data for creating reliable models of every individuals’ habits, preferences and behaviors that could be used to fine-tune these simulations and give more reliable results. Using this data, the SEAS Laboratory and its Sentient World Simulation offshoot are able to create detailed, operable real-time simulations of at least 62 nations. “The Iraq and Afghanistan computer models,” according to a 2007 Register report on the project, “each has about five million individual nodes representing things such as hospitals, mosques, pipelines, and people.”

At the time of initial reports on the program five years ago, there were only 62 country-level simulations being run by the US Department of Defense. These simulations grouped humans into composites, with 100 individuals acting as a single node. But already at that time, the US Army had used the systems to create a one-to-one level simulation of potential Army recruits. The ultimate aim would be to archive enough data on each individual to be able to make a computer model of everyone on the planet, one that could be used to predict the behaviors and reactions of every single person in the event of various scenarios.

The program can be used to predict what would happen in the event of a large scale tsunami, for example, or how people would react during a bioterror attack. Businesses can use the models to predict how a new product would fare in the market, what kind of marketing plans would be most effective, or how best to streamline a company’s organization.

The original concept paper for the project was published in 2006 and in 2007 it was reported that both Homeland Security and the Defense Department were already using the system to simulate the American public’s reaction to various crises. In the intervening five years, however, there has been almost no coverage at all of the Sentient World Simulation or its progress in achieving a model of the earth.

There is a very good chance that these types of systems are, at least for the moment, pure quackery. Computers are only as valuable as their programming, after all, and the algorithms required to accurately predict responses in chaotic systems with multiple, dimly-understood variables is orders of magnitude beyond what is currently possible. Or is it? One of the great ironies of our time, as Glenn Greenwald goes on to point out in his speech on the surveillance state, is that although we live in a time when it is possible for nebulous government agencies to know every detail of your life, from what you ate for breakfast to where you shopped last night to who your friends are, we are also living in an age of unprecedented ignorance about what are our own governments are actually doing.

GREENWALD: [There’s] one other point that’s worth making about how this works—about how the surveillance State works and how power is exercised through it and this, I think, is probably the most pernicious part—and I refer to this as the one-way mirror. The government’s one-way mirror. At exactly the same time—this is really so remarkable to me—at exactly the same time that the government has been massively expanding its ability to know everything that we’re doing, it has simultaneously erected a wall of secrecy around it that prevents us from knowing anything that they’re doing.

This is the heart of the matter. Somehow we are expected to go along with the sophomoric sophism that “If we have nothing to hide then we have nothing to fear,” yet at the same time we are asked to believe that the government must keep all manner of information secret from the public in order to carry out its work of “protecting” that public.

If the government has nothing to hide, then why doesn’t it release the notes, memoranda and findings of the 9/11 Commission in full and unredacted?

Why doesn’t it release the records of the JFK assassination investigation instead of arguing, as it is, that those records should once again be removed from a declassification review that is to take place in 2013, 50 years after the assassination itself took place?

Why doesn’t it release the full audit trail of what banks received the emergency TARP funds and in what amounts?

Is it because, after all, the government does have something to hide from the public that are its ostensible masters? Is it because the old maxim that “Knowledge is power” is more true than we could ever know, and that the government’s one-way insistence on transparency for the citizens and opacity for itself is a reflection of the power that it holds over us?

The Sentient World Simulation is just one example of one program run by one company for various governmental and Fortune 500 clients. But it is a significant peek behind the curtain at what those who are really running our society want: complete control over every facet of our lives achieved through a complete invasion of everything that was once referred to as “privacy.” To think that this is the only such program that exists, or even that we have any significant details about the ways that the SWS has already been used, would be hopelessly naive.

So where does this leave a public that is at such a disadvantage in this information warfare? A public that is effectively told that anything and everything they do, say or buy, can and will be catalogued by the a.i. control grid even as the details of that grid are to be kept from them? Unfortunately there is no easy way back from the precipice that we were ushered toward with the creation of the national security state and the passage of the National Security Act of 1947. Perhaps we have already stepped over that precipice and there is no going back in the current political paradigm. These are things for an informed, aware, knowledgeable citizenry to decide through a societal dialogue over the nature of and importance of “privacy.”

But without a general awareness that programs like the Sentient World Simulation even exist, what hope do we have in counteracting it?

July 28, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular, Video | | Leave a comment

Palestinian crowd stops PA security forces’ arrest of Tulkarm Battalion commander

An aerial view shows the destruction amidst road damage, potholes and ditches after Israeli forces withdraw from the Nur Shams Refugee Camp in Tulkarm, leaving behind significant destruction in Tulkarm, West Bank on July 09, 2024 [Issam Rimawi – Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | July 27, 2024

A crowd of Palestinians in the city of Tulkarm, north of the West Bank, prevented the Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces from arresting Tulkarm Battalion Commander Muhammad Jaber Abu Shuja (Abu Shuja) from Thabet Thabet Governmental Hospital.

A Quds Press correspondent reported on Friday that PA security forces surrounded Tulkarm Hospital to arrest the Tulkarm Battalion commander, but Palestinians gathered and arrived at the hospital to thwart the arrest operation.

It reported that the Palestinians were able to remove Abu Shuja from the hospital and into the Nour Shams camp after PA security forces withdrew from the hospital’s vicinity.

The Palestinian resistance factions in Tulkarm declared a state of high alert in the Nour Shams camp in Tulkarm to prevent PA forces from arresting the Tulkarm Battalion commander.

Local sources reported heavy gunfire in Tulkarm camp by the Tulkarm Battalion and the Nour Shams camp Battalion directed at the PA security agency.

The Tulkarm Battalion threatened that if the PA forces did not withdraw from Tulkarm city and refrain from arresting the commander, Abu Shuja, the response would be harsh.

The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, and the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement, urged the people of Tulkarm to head towards Tulkarm hospital and lift the siege on the commander of the Al-Quds Brigades Battalion, who was surrounded by PA security services.

July 27, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | Leave a comment

Vaccine Advocate Peter Hotez Calls for Use of Police, Military Against ‘Anti-vaccine Aggression’

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | July 26, 2024

Vaccine advocate and pharmaceutical industry insider Dr. Peter Hotez, long a proponent of the COVID-19 vaccine, said he favors deploying police and military powers against “anti-vaxers,” whom he blamed for causing hundreds of thousands of deaths during the pandemic.

During an interview July 5 at the Simposio Internacional de Actualización en Pediatría (International Symposium of Pediatric Updates) in Cartagena, Colombia, Hotez suggested organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and NATO should target “anti-vaccine aggression.”

Hotez said:

“What I’ve said to the Biden administration is, the health sector can’t solve this on its own. We’re going to have to bring in Homeland Security, the Commerce Department, Justice Department to help us understand how to do this.

I’ve said the same with — I met with Dr. Tedros [director general of the WHO] last month … to say, I don’t know that the World Health Organization can solve this on our own. We need the other United Nations agencies. NATO. This is a security problem because it’s no longer a theoretical construct or some arcane academic exercise. Two hundred thousand Americans died because of anti-vaccine aggression, anti-science aggression.

The full interview was available on YouTube until Wednesday evening, when it was removed. The Defender obtained a video recording of the full interview.

Hotez is dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor University College of Medicine and director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital, one of the sponsors of the symposium, which was organized by the Colombian Pediatric Society.

Aside from being a vaccine proponent and developer — he helped develop the Corbevax COVID-19 vaccine which was administered in India and has received at least $30 million in vaccine development grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — Hotez has crusaded against so-called “misinformation” about vaccines.

In March, The Hill reported that Hotez has found a “‘parallel career’ fighting misinformation.”

Hotez “finds his efforts to combat misinformation to be ‘meaningful,’” and says “pushing back on the anti-vaccine movement is just as important as developing vaccines,” The Hill wrote.

Hotez also holds six patents on the hookworm (helminth) vaccine, and has several listed patent applications as well, including those for SARS-CoV2 vaccines.

“Peter has cashed in significantly on the COVID-19 pandemic and gets a lot of money when shots go into arms,” said Brian Hooker, Chief Scientific Officer for Children’s Health Defense (CHD).

In his July 5 interview, Hotez called for more stringent action against “anti-vaxers,” whom he connected to entities such as the Russian government, and called for medical schools to educate new doctors about anti-vaccine sentiment.

“‘Anti-science’ and ‘anti-vaxxer’ are propaganda terms Hotez uses to establish a power dynamic over anyone who disagrees with him,” said cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough.

“Now Hotez is calling for a security state to enforce his propaganda instead of engaging in much needed dialogue over vaccine safety with a critical appraisal of short- and long-term side effects from the routine childhood vaccine schedule, including the COVID-19 shots,” McCullough added.

According to Harvey Risch, M.D., Ph.D., professor emeritus and senior research scientist in epidemiology (chronic diseases) at the Yale School of Public Health:

“Hotez has spent his entire career developing vaccines which have not achieved success in commercial use. His demands to impose public health martial law are reminiscent of the ‘Comité de salut public’ — ‘Committee of Public Safety’ — that Robespierre used to murder his political opponents [during the French Revolution].”

For Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., professor of international law at the University of Illinois, Hotez’s suggestions are a call to violate established international human rights law.

“Coercing vaccines upon human beings without their informed and voluntary consent violates the Nuremberg Code on Medical Experimentation, which is a crime against humanity,” Boyle said. “What we see at work here with Hotez is the Nazi mentality that pervades so many vaccinologists like him. Hotez is revealing his true colors.”

Independent journalist Paul D. Thacker has investigated Hotez for his site, The Disinformation Chronicle. He said, “This crackpot idea that we should deploy military forces to deal with moms worried about vaccine side effects and children … doesn’t that speak for itself?”

Dr. Sukharit Bhakdi, a microbiologist, questioned Hotez’s scientific credentials:

“Simple fact: Hotez is not a real scientist. He has never published any research article based on true scientific research. His publications transmit his personal opinions and beliefs. He has not conducted a single valid vaccine trial and has zero data to back his claims.

“He has been on the globalist team together with [Dr. Anthony] Fauci et al. and is now turning to violence to silence all dissenters. This very fact disqualifies him as a physician.”

“His evolution over the course of the pandemic is curious as he has become more and more shrill as time goes on,” Hooker said. “It seems he is trying to extend his 15 minutes of fame by ‘jumping the shark’ and inciting gestapo-like measures against ‘anti-vaxers’ and ‘science deniers.’ His definition of science is very ‘Fauci-esque’ indeed.”

Claim that unvaccinated caused ‘hundreds of thousands’ of deaths ‘an obvious untruth’

During his July 5 interview, Hotez asserted that the unvaccinated were responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said:

“There’s anti-vaccine activity in every country, and each has its own unique national flavor. But the part that I’m worried about now is something very dark and accelerating in the United States.

“And the most dramatic evidence for that is what happened during the COVID pandemic … My estimate is 200,000 Americans died needlessly because they refused COVID vaccines in 2021, 2022.”

Hotez did not provide evidence supporting this figure, but it was similar to claims made by Dr. Anthony Fauci during Congressional testimony last month. Without citing evidence, Fauci said the unvaccinated are “probably responsible for an additional 200,000-300,000 deaths” in the U.S.”

Risch called this claim “an obvious untruth.”

“In the face of repeated major empirical CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] evidence and CDC’s public acknowledgement that the mRNA vaccines largely failed to reduce COVID transmission, Hotez absurdly claims that people choosing not to vaccinate themselves have contributed more to deaths from COVID than all of the large-scale breakthrough infections among vaccinated people,” Risch said.

McCullough said, “Hotez presumes COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective as any vaccinologist would dream. Sadly, his fantasy was over before it started. The COVID-19 vaccines were unsafe and failed to reduce hospitalization and death in prospective randomized trials or in valid observational studies. They never stopped transmission.”

“All experts, including Hotez, agreed theoretical protection from COVID-19 vaccines was just a few months, requiring frequent boosters,” McCullough added.

Hotez calls parents who choose not to vaccinate their children ‘victims’

In his interview, Hotez called for action — including more censorship — to counter what he called a “dark and accelerating” and “dangerous” anti-vaccine movement in the U.S. and globally that is “expanding and extending to childhood immunizations in the United States.”

“My worry is that this anti-vaccine movement, and it’s not misinformation or [an] infodemic, as many call it, it’s organized, it’s deliberate, it’s well-financed and it’s politically motivated … I worry that’s now globalizing to other countries on the African continent, in Asia and even Latin America,” he added.

On the topic of childhood vaccinations, Hotez said, “Parents who choose not to vaccinate their kids are victims” of this campaign, and called for medical schools to train doctors on how to respond to parents who oppose vaccinations.

“Pediatricians need to understand what the anti-vaccine ecosystem is, how it’s organized, how it operates, and to get educated about it,” he said. “I think that’s a first step … in our medical schools, in our pediatric residency training, in our conferences like this, being able to describe what this anti-vaccine monster looks like.”

But for journalist Rodney Palmer, formerly of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the increasing reluctance of parents to vaccinate their children is due to mounting concerns about vaccine safety. He said:

“The rising movement questioning the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines appears to be based on mounting evidence from government health data collection agencies and the life insurance industry.

“The fraud and cover-up of ivermectin as an effective prevention and treatment of COVID-19 caused a segment of the population to question the official guidance around vaccines — more so once they were mandated.”

Hotez blamed legacy and traditional media, as well as foreign governments, for fueling anti-vaccine sentiments.

“Fox News is now a source of anti-vaccine disinformation,” Hotez said. “If the parents are watching Fox News every night … They are going to be coming into your practice believing disinformation.”

Turning to social media, Hotez said, “Twitter, since Elon Musk has taken it over, has become an anti-vaccine site dominated by anti-vaccine groups and individuals who are monetizing the internet. They’re selling fake autism cures because they say vaccines cause autism, which they don’t.”

Hotez continues to be active on X.

Adversarial foreign governments are also to blame for propagating anti-vaccine rhetoric, according to Hotez. “For instance, the Russian government, the Putin government, is spreading anti-vaccine propaganda. The goal of this is to destabilize society and to have caused people to question authority,” he said.

Hotez did not provide any information to support this claim. Russia produces the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, under the auspices of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and The Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology — an arm of the Russian federal government.

Hotez calls ‘anti-vaccine movement’ a tool of the ‘far-right’

Hotez also used the interview as an opportunity to plug his upcoming book, “The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science: A Scientist’s Warning.” He said the book “describes [the anti-vaccine] ecosystem and its political leanings in detail.”

According to the book’s publisher, Johns Hopkins University Press, Hotez “explains how anti-science became a major societal and lethal force” and how “the anti-vaccine movement became a tool of far-right political figures around the world.”

In 2022, Hotez fiercely criticized looming Congressional hearings into a possible lab-leak origin of COVID-19 and whether the National Institutes of Health (NIH) prematurely discredited the hypothesis, dismissing this as an “outlandish conspiracy.”

However, Hotez’s own 2012 to 2017 NIH grant — totaling $6.1 million — for the development of a SARS vaccine had the aim of responding to any “accidental release from a laboratory,” in addition to a possible zoonotic (or natural) spillover of the virus.

In a June 2023 interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., CHD’s chairman on leave, podcaster Joe Rogan offered to donate $100,000 to a charity of Hotez’s choice if he agreed to debate Kennedy.

Hotez — with the support of several legacy news media outlets and the American Medical Association — refused Rogan’s offer. He later claimed on social media that a “couple of anti-vaxers” “stalked” and “taunted” him outside his home after he declined the offer to debate Kennedy.

Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

July 26, 2024 Posted by | Book Review, Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

US armed Israel with 25,000-plus bombs, missiles since Oct. 7: Report

Press TV – July 25, 2024

The United States has reportedly armed the Israeli regime with upwards of 25,000 bombs and missiles since October 7, 2023, which marked the onset of Tel Aviv’s yet-ongoing genocidal war against the Gaza Strip.

The New York Times provided the figure on Thursday, citing the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, a think tank.

According to the report, the American arms shipments to the occupied Palestinian territories throughout the war had featured over 20,000 unguided bombs, some 2,600 guided bombs, and 3,000 surgical strike missiles.

The regime launched the war following al-Aqsa Storm, a retaliatory operation staged by Gaza’s resistance groups against the occupied territories.

Ever since, it has been deploying the US-supplied projectiles against numerous civilian targets.

Earlier this month, the regime’s military radio reported that the Israeli Air Force had dropped a total eight US-manufactured JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) bombs against the al-Mawasi refugee camp in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, killing and injuring a total of 390 Palestinians.

In all, the war has so far claimed the lives of more than 39,175 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and wounded 90,257 others.

Last month, The Washington Post reported that the US had supplied the regime with over $6.5 billion in military supplies since the beginning of the brutal military onslaught.

The sheer increase comes while Washington’s annual so-called military aid for Tel Aviv stands at around $3.3 billion.

Washington has also used its veto power on several occasions so far to prevent the UN Security Council from issuing a resolution that would call for implementation of an immediate ceasefire in the war.

The untrammeled American political and military support for the regime comes despite an order issued by the International Court of Justice, the United Nations top court, on the regime back in January to take all measures within its power to prevent genocide in Gaza.

July 26, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Only ‘Brute Force’ Can Force Draft-Age Ukrainians in Europe to Go Home to Face Near-Certain Death

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 26.07.2024

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has urged Warsaw’s European allies to create the right conditions to “encourage” Ukrainians who fled their country after 2022 to return home to fight Russia. There’s nothing short of violence that will force these people to comply, says veteran international affairs observer Dr. Gilbert Doctorow.

“We, as European countries, also need to help” Ukraine as the country faces weapons shortages, war fatigue and dwindling troop numbers, Sikorski said in an interview with Polish radio on Thursday.

“There are hundreds of thousands of potential recruits obliged to defend their motherland living in EU countries, and Poland is in the vanguard of helping Ukraine prepare these people for military service,” the foreign minister said. It’s possible to “impose such conditions” on Ukrainian nationals living in Europe that “will encourage them to fulfill their obligation to defend their homeland,” Sikorski stressed.

“The only ‘encouragement’ that could induce military age Ukrainians to return to their country to fight would be brute force,” Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, a veteran Russia and Eastern European politics expert, told Sputnik, when asked to comment on Sikorski’s remarks.

“These potential conscripts are not vacationing in our resorts. They are here precisely because they fled conscription, which means nearly certain death on the battlefield, given the way that day after day the Russians are killing or gravely injuring more than 2,000 Ukrainian troops, including… some of the country’s best trained and equipped military units,” Doctorow emphasized.

Sikorski’s proposal is illustrative of a modern Polish political class “as delusional as their forefathers” in its fanatical hatred of Russia, according to the observer.

Fortunately, other European countries will hopefully “have some residual commitment to due process, not to mention a certain pacifist leaning,” which should prevent them from following “the despicable recommendations of Mr. Sikorski,” Doctorow believes.

Europe’s political institutions in general are staffed by “followers, not leaders,” Doctorow stressed. Accordingly, their main weathervane on what policy to pursue comes from across the Atlantic, not the EU’s Eastern flank.

“They look to Washington and what they see today is the possibility of a Trump victory which will mean that the USA throws Ukraine under the bus, as it is fashionable to say today. With their nose to the wind, they will not expose themselves to ridicule and protest by following the Polish example,” the observer said.

Poland is currently home to about one million of the estimated 4.25 million Ukrainians who fled Ukraine for European Union countries following the escalation of the Donbass crisis into a full-blown Russia-NATO proxy war. Another 5.5 million have gone to Russia.

The present conflict has thrust Ukraine into an acute, unprecedented and perhaps terminal demographic crisis, with the state’s efforts to forcibly mobilize men aged 18-60 (with those age 25 and above eligible to be sent to the front) threatening to wipe out the country’s working and fighting-age male population. The crisis has become so serious in recent months that Kiev has resorted to recruiting women.

Media, even in the West, have increasingly reported on instances of recruiters drafting the mentally and physically handicapped, grabbing draft-age men off the streets and authorities handing out lengthy prison sentences to conscientious objectors. This heavy-handed approach, a general sense of war weariness and the constant scandals surrounding Volodymyr Zelensky and his allies have given rise to a fledgling resistance movement, including a wave of arson attacks across Ukraine targeting recruitment centers and vehicles.

July 26, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

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