Democracy does not ‘die in darkness,’ it is dying in the EU right now
By Tarik Cyril | RT | March 4, 2025
Quiz time: What do Germany, Moldova, and Romania (in alphabetical order) have in common? They look so different, don’t they?
Germany is a traditional, large, and at this point still relatively well-off (if less and less so due to obedient self-Morgenthauing for the greater glory of Ukraine) member of the Cold War “West” (give and take a “re-unification” and all that). Currently, it has a population of over 83 million people and a GDP equivalent to $4.53 trillion. Romania is an ex-Soviet satellite with just above 19 million citizens and a GDP less than a tenth of the German one (at $343.8 billion). Moldova, which emerged from a former Soviet republic, is the smallest: 2.4 million people and a GDP of $16.5 billion.
And yet, look more closely, and they are not so different: They are all either inside the EU and NATO (Germany and Romania) or attached to these two organizations as an outside yet important strategic asset (the case of Moldova – despite and in de facto breach of its constitutionally anchored neutrality, as it happens). And also, all three have serious problems with conducting fair and clean elections. What a coincidence. Not.
Let’s take a quick look at each case: In Germany’s recent federal election, the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) failed to cross the threshold to representation in parliament – 5% of the national vote – by the thinnest of margins: The party officially garnered 4.972% of the vote. In absolute numbers, almost 2,469,000 Germans voted for the BSW (with the decisive so-called “second vote”). Only 0.028% – about 13,000 to 14,000 votes – more and the party would have passed the 5% barrier.
Even extremely tight results can, of course, be real and legitimate. The problem in Germany now is that there is steadily accumulating evidence that the elections were compromised by serious flaws and repeated errors. What makes this even more urgent is the fact that there seems to be a clear pattern with mistakes occurring not randomly but mostly at the cost of the BSW.
We already know about two key problems, although not much more than one week has passed after the election on February 23: First, about 230,000 German voters live abroad, but many of them could not cast their vote because the necessary documents reached them too late, sometimes even only after the elections. Of course, we cannot tell how exactly these voters would have voted if given the chance. But that is not the point. The fact alone that they could not participate casts severe doubt on the legitimacy of the results. And especially in the case of the BSW where so few additional votes would have been enough to principally change the outcome, that is, secure seats – and probably two to three dozen – in the next parliament.
The second even more disturbing issue is that there is ever more evidence of actual BSW votes inside Germany being allocated to another party. In the case of the major city of Aachen, for instance, a result of 7.24% for the BSW was registered for the “Bündnis für Deutschland” (an entirely different and much smaller party with no chance of parliamentary representation to begin with). The BSW vote was erroneously registered as 0%. Only protests by local BSW voters brought the scandal to light.
German mainstream media are trying to depict what happened in Aachen as an exception. Yet by now there are reports of similar “errors” from all over Germany – and don’t forget that the process of looking for these cases has only just started. In sum, there are good reasons – and they are getting better by the day – for believing that, for the BSW, the difference between correct and incorrect election procedures actually amounts to the one between being and not being in parliament. That implies, of course, that all those citizens who have voted for the BSW may well have been deprived of their proper democratic representation as foreseen by law.
Is there a motive for foul play? You bet. The BSW, an insurgent party combining leftwing social with rightwing cultural and migration-policy positions, has been hounded as too friendly toward Russia because it is demanding peace in Ukraine; it also has been outspoken about its opposition to basing fresh US missiles in Germany and to Israel’s crimes as well.
In Germany as it is now, these are all reasons for neo-McCarthyite smear campaigns and repression by – at least – dirty media tricks, all of which has already happened. It is entirely possible that a wave of deliberate local “mistakes” was added to that nasty tool box. And, a slightly different issue, asserting the BSW’s legal rights now will be especially difficult, in particular because a revision of the election result to include the party in parliament would immediately upset the complicated arithmetic of government coalition building. The BSW and its voters, in short, may well have been cheated, and they may be cheated again in case they seek redress.
The fact that one problem with those German elections has to do with voters living abroad rings a bell called Moldova, of course. There, last November, Maia Sandu narrowly won a presidential election that involved massively manipulating the outside-the-country vote. In essence, Moldovans abroad, especially in Russia, likely to vote against her were, in effect, disenfranchised by making it impossible for them to actually cast their vote; Moldovans more likely to vote for her, in the West, faced no such problems.
This crude trickery was decisive: Without it Sandu would have lost and her left-wing rival Alexandr Stoianoglo would have won. In the West, whose candidate Sandu has been, this outcome was, of course, hailed as a victory for “democracy,” a pro-EU choice, and a defeat of “Russian meddling.” As so often, it is hard to decide what is more jaw-dropping: the Orwellian reversal of reality or the Freudian projection of the West’s own manipulation on the big bad Russian Other.
That projection, in any case, is also in play in Romania. Indeed, at this point, the Romanian case of electoral foul play is clearly the most brutal one. There, the gist of a long saga beginning last November, too, is simple: Calin Georgescu, an insurgent newcomer is very likely to win presidential elections. Yet he is being denounced as a far-right populist and – drum roll – as somehow in cahoots with Russia, too.
The consequences were not surprising, except in how drastic things have gotten: First, when Georgescu was close to winning one election, the Constitutional Court abused its power to cancel the whole exercise. The pretext was a file of pseudo-evidence cobbled together by Romania’s security services that, by now, even Western mainstream media admit is ridiculously shoddy.
As you would expect, this open assault on their right to vote has made Romanians support Georgescu more, not less, as polls show. Since the next try at elections is now due to take place in May and Georgescu is still the frontrunner, the authorities have followed up with even more ham-fisted repression. This time, Georgescu was temporarily and dramatically detained – on the way to registering his renewed candidacy – and then accused of half a dozen serious crimes. His access to social media has been curtailed; his team and associates are being raked with searches, charges, and, of course, media attacks. It is possible that he will be deprived of his right to stand for the election.
Georgescu’s supporters have held large demonstrations; he himself has appealed for help in his struggle against Romania’s “deep state” to the Trump administration in Washington. Trump’s de facto right-hand man, tech oligarch Elon Musk, has used his X platform to signal support for Georgescu. And not long ago, US Vice President J.D. Vance warned the Europeans over the first round of attacks on Georgescu.
Yet Romania’s key role in NATO strategies is certain to be a key reason the NATO-skeptic and sovereigntist Georgescu has run into such massive trouble, not only from Romanian mainstream elites but also, behind the scenes, those still running the EU. With Washington now revising its approach to both Russia and its NATO clients in Europe, Georgescu’s fate could well hinge on one of the greatest geopolitical shifts of this century. And that shift might favor him.
Maia Sandu’s crooked victory in Moldova is not up for revision. The chances for the BSW of finding redress should be good, but, in reality, they are not, unfortunately. Georgescu’s luck, though, may turn again. He already has massive electoral support; he may well get even more precisely because of the escalation of dirty tricks used against him, and he has the US de facto on his side.
What is certain, in any case, is one simple fact: the “garden” West, with its endless talk of “values” and “rules” does not, in practice, believe in real elections. Instead, geopolitics prevail. And, tragically, those geopolitics are not only overbearing but stupid. Driven by an obsession with fighting Russia (and China, of course; and the Trumpist US, too, if need be) and rejecting diplomacy as such, this is a West ready to sacrifice whatever little democracy it may have left to a delusion of grandeur that will be its downfall.
Tarik Cyril Amar ia a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.
UN demands answers from UK on terror law abuse
By Kit Klarenberg | The Grayzone | March 1, 2025
As the British state harasses and arrests a growing number of activists and dissident journalists, including the author of this piece, UN rapporteurs delivered a forceful letter of protest to London condemning its abuse of counter-terror legislation.
In December 2024, a quartet of UN rapporteurs focused on “peaceful assembly and of association” and the “right to privacy” delivered a strongly-worded letter to the British government. Expressing grave concerns about the potential “misapplication of counter-terrorism laws” to arrest, detain, interrogate and surveil dissident activists and journalists, including The Grayzone’s Kit Klarenberg, they demanded clarity on a number of serious issues. Given 60 days to respond, London remained suspiciously silent.
As a result, the UN’s correspondence with the British government has now been made public. The rapporteurs were clearly disturbed by reports of Schedule 7 of the 2000 Terrorism Act, and Schedule 3 of the 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act, which covers “hostile” state threats, “being used to examine and obtain data from journalists and activists Johanna Ross, John Laughland, Kit Klarenberg, Craig Murray and Richard Medhurst in circumstances where they appear to have no credible connection to ‘terrorist’ or ‘hostile’ activity.”
While awaiting a reply that never came, the UN “urged” British authorities to undertake “interim measures” to prevent any recurrence of potential human rights breaches under counter-terror legislation, and “ensure the accountability” of anyone responsible for “alleged violations.” Evidently undeterred by pressure from the UN, Britain has continued to escalate its war on dissidents.
Since the UN issued its letter of protest, British activists and journalists have since been arrested, raided, and prosecuted, including Asa Winstanley, Tony Greenstein, Sarah Wilkinson, Palestine Action cofounder Richard Barnard, and academic David Miller.
The UN letter focused on how “powers under counter-terrorism legislation have been used on multiple occasions to examine, detain, and arrest journalists and activists, particularly at the UK border.” Individuals “who are critical of Western foreign policy in the context of the conflict in the Middle East and the Russia-Ukraine war are especially affected by the reported misuse of these powers,” the rapporteurs wrote.
Ominously, the UN rapporteurs suggested this could amount to “over-use [or] misuse” of British counter-terrorism legislation “to target legitimate freedom of expression and opinion, including public interest media reporting, and related freedoms of peaceful assembly and association, and political dissent or activism.”
“Vague and broad” laws mean mass-persecution
The UN rapporteurs were especially scathing in their critique of the powers used to harass and potentially incarcerate targets. They charged that Schedule 7 of the 2000 Terrorism Act “may be unjustifiably used against journalists and activists who are critical of Western foreign policy.” In each case they investigated, detentions under this legislation were “premeditated [and] examination, confiscation of devices, and DNA prints were conducted despite the apparent absence of a credible ‘terrorist’ connection” with the individual in question.
Such promiscuous application of ostensible counter-terrorism laws creates the unavoidable “risk of intimidating, deterring, and disrupting the ability of journalists to report on topics of public importance without self-censorship” in Britain. This “serious chilling effect,” the rapporteurs cautioned, could extend well beyond media, and “unjustifiably interfere with the rights to freedom of expression and opinion and participation in public life” across “civil society and legitimate political and public discourse.”
The UN took repeated aim “at the vagueness and overbreadth” of the 2000 Terrorism Act’s criminalisation of “expressing an opinion or belief…supportive of a proscribed organisation.” The legislation’s terms provide no definition whatsoever of the term “support”, an “ambiguous” deficiency that “may unjustifiably criminalize” legitimate opinions “not rationally, proximately or causally related to actual terrorist violence or harms.” They noted this prohibition “goes well beyond the accepted restrictions on freedom of expression under international law concerning the prohibition of incitement to violence or hate speech.”
Indeed, “speech that is neither necessary nor proportionate to criminalize, including legitimate debates about the de-proscription of an organization and disagreement with a government’s decision to proscribe” could be categorized as “supporting” a terrorist group under the 2000 Terrorism Act’s sweeping terms. This is especially problematic given certain factions proscribed by Britain, such as Hamas or Hezbollah, may be “de facto authorities performing a diversity of civilian functions, including governance, humanitarian and medical activities, and provision of social services, public utilities and education”:
“Expressing support for any of these ordinary civilian activities by the organization could constitute expressing support for it, no matter how remote such expression is from support for any violent terrorist acts by the group.”
Working for “hostile” governments without knowing
Similar alarm was sounded about the wording of Schedule 3 of the 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Act, under which The Grayzone’s Kit Klarenberg was detained upon returning to his home city of London in May 2023. It stipulates that anyone entering British territory suspected of “hostile activity” on behalf of a foreign power can be held against their will and interrogated for up to six hours, while the contents of their digital devices are seized and stored. Non-compliance automatically results in arrest.
See the notice of detention issued by British state security to journalist Kit Klarenberg under Schedule 3 of the UK’s Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act of 2019 here.
Ever more disturbingly, Schedule 3 is suspicionless. Under the legislation’s terms, “it is immaterial whether a person is aware that activity in which they are or have been engaged is hostile activity, or whether a state for or on behalf of which, or in the interests of which, a hostile act is carried out has instigated, sanctioned, or is otherwise aware of, the carrying out of the act.” In other words, no conspirator in a suspected conspiracy has to have consented to potentially illegal activity.
“Hostile acts” are defined as any behavior deemed threatening to London’s “national security” or “economic well-being.” Again, the rapporteurs condemned this language as “vague and over-broad.” They concluded the phrasing granted British authorities “extraordinary discretion” to engage in “unnecessary, disproportionate or otherwise arbitrary interferences in the rights to liberty and privacy” of individuals detained under these powers. Moreover, as the Act’s targets are not formally under formal criminal investigation or arrest, or suspected of having committed any offense, they have no right to remain silent.
The UN branded this distinction as “artificial… given the punitive sanctions for non-compliance,” branding it as “inconsistent with the accepted meaning of ‘arrest’ or ‘detention’” under Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The “extreme breadth” of Schedule 3 also “enables unnecessary, disproportionate, arbitrary or discriminatory interference with an individual’s rights, including freedom from arbitrary detention, freedom of movement…and the rights to leave and enter one’s own country.” Article 17 of the ICCPR also states:
“No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with [their] privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on [their] honour and reputation.”
This is explicitly contrary to Klarenberg’s May 2023 experience at Luton airport. There, as the rapporteurs documented, he was “fingerprinted, subjected to oral DNA swabs, and photographed by the examining officer,” while asked excessively invasive questions about his financial affairs, personal and professional relationships, and living situation in his adopted home country of Serbia. His belongings were extensively “searched and he was compelled to provide the passwords to his digital devices, which included a smartphone, tablet, and two cameras.”
Not only was all data on these devices copied, but “the memory cards and SIM cards of the electronic devices were copied outside the interrogation room” and “retained by the police.” As of the letter’s dispatch, one of Klarenberg’s memory cards had “been retained for a period exceeding a year and five months” by British authorities, suggesting he “remains under criminal investigation” for uncertain offenses he did not knowingly or willingly commit.
The rapporteurs noted Klarenberg was among several journalists detained by British border officials whose “electronic devices [were] confiscated for a significant period of time and have not been updated on the use, retention or destruction of their data, or advised in relation to their personal data protection rights.” In many cases, these seized items have never been returned, without satisfactory explanation or seeming legal justification.
New British laws further criminalize dissent
In closing, the UN rapporteurs “encouraged” London to repeal legislation under which dissidents have been persecuted, or “amend it to protect freedom of expression, and…develop prosecutorial guidelines for its appropriate use to avoid the unnecessary or disproportionate incrimination of political dissent.” They further implored London to “indicate how the application of counter-terrorism laws” against activists and journalists “is consistent with international human rights law, and an appropriate application of the law,” while providing “an update on the retention of data taken from the journalists.”
They went on to “urge” the British government to “consider the growing number of instances” where laws purportedly intended to deal with violent terrorist threats “may have been inappropriately directed towards journalists and activists, and to consider addressing this through amendments to the legislation, guidance for relevant officials, and training of border security officers.” Britain’s failure to respond to the UN’s letter, and ever-ratcheting attacks on domestic dissent subsequently, amply indicate these entreaties have fallen on determinedly deaf ears.
In December 2023, Britain rammed through a new round of draconian legislation reinforcing and further codifying the “vague and over-broad” terms of the laws condemned by the UN, under the auspices of the National Security Act. Its terms introduce a number of completely new criminal offenses with severe penalties, and wide-ranging consequences for freedom of speech. Explicitly enacted to neutralize investigative journalism and prevent the emergence of a new WikiLeaks, the Act is so expansive, individuals will almost inevitably break the law without wanting to, intending to, or even knowing they have.
British journalist Johnny Miller seeks asylum in Russia following campaign of harassment
At almost exactly the same time when UN rapporteurs complained to the British government about its abuse of “counter-terror” legislation to persecute dissidents, independent journalist Johnny Miller was granted asylum in Russia. Miller, a British citizen, had reported from the front lines of the Ukraine proxy war for two-and-a-half years. During this period, supporters of the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky subjected him to a campaign of intensive harassment, hacking his digital devices and Telegram account, bombarding him and his family with anonymous death threats, and publicly stalking him.
Miller told The Grayzone he’s not sure who or what was ultimately behind the campaign of harassment, but strongly suspects British and/or Ukrainian intelligence played a role. He says it was evident from the start of 2024 his movements in Moscow were being closely tracked while he travelled around the city, and seemingly in advance. At repeated meetings with friends and sources in bars, cafes and restaurants in the Russian capital, individuals would be waiting there for him, staring at him menacingly:
“It might sound crazy, but I think that’s the point. The purpose was to drive me insane, and make me look insane if I ever spoke up about this publicly. But these intimidating encounters from afar happened too many times to be a coincidence, and were witnessed by those I met with. One of them was George Dusoe, a US diplomat who quit out of protest over Gaza, after growing disillusionment with US government policy, and then moved to Russia.”
Miller met with Dusoe for a coffee a day before a formal interview. Afterwards, as they headed for the central Moscow metro, Dusoe quietly informed him they were being followed by multiple people. “He’d not only experienced that personally while posted abroad, but was specially trained in how to spot and evade it,” Miller noted. While the pair eventually eluded their stalkers, losing them in the metro, the experience shook Miller.
To this day, he can’t help but wonder, “what if I was alone, and this happened at night?,” citing the example of Adrian Bocquet. A French military veteran, he travelled to Ukraine in April 2022, witnessed Kiev’s forces commit countless grave war crimes, publicly testified to these atrocities while disputing Western claims of Russian atrocities in Bucha after returning home, then was stabbed in Turkey by Ukrainian nationalists. Miller is understandably relieved to finally be granted a degree of legal protection, personally and professionally:
“Their aim was to make me so scared for my life I stopped my work, and they almost succeeded. The psychological impact was massive, it was a form of warfare, and it stressed me like nothing I’ve ever experienced before,” he commented. “It’s a sick irony that one of the main reasons I sought asylum in Russia is [in order] to apply for a new passport, I would’ve had to give the British embassy in Moscow my address. No way!”
While detained in Luton airport in May 2023, The Grayzone’s Kit Klarenberg was not only forced under threat of arrest and prosecution to provide British counter-terror police his apartment address in Belgrade, but its location within the building, how much he paid for rent, and whether energy bills were included in that price. To what malign ends this information was put isn’t clear. From Miller’s point of view, British intelligence is determined to harass dissidents wherever they are, inside the country or thousands of miles away.
Hamas explained why it attacked Israel on October 7, 2023
If Americans Knew | March 3, 2025
On January 20, 2024 Hamas, the Palestinian Resistance Movement, issued a 16-page document entitled “Our Narrative–Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” that explains their plans and actions.
This helps to answer the question some Americans ask: Why did Hamas launch the attack?
As Americans read and consider the following, perhaps they will consider an equally important question: Why did we allow our government to enable Israel’s violent, decades-long ethnic cleansing project against Palestinians?
To see the full document and its images, click the PDF here. Below is the document’s text (IAK has bolded some portions and added a few editor’s notes).
TEXT:
In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
Our steadfast Palestinian people,
The Arab & Islamic nations;
The free peoples worldwide and those who advocate for freedom, justice and human dignity
In light of the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and as our people continue their battle for independence, dignity and breaking-free from the longest-ever occupation during which they have drawn the finest displays of bravery and heroism in confronting the Israeli murder machine and aggression. We would like to clarify to our people and the free peoples of the world the reality of what happened on Oct. 7, the motives behind, its general context related to the Palestinian cause, as well as a refutation to the Israeli allegations and to put the facts into perspective.
Why Operation Al-Aqsa Flood?
1. 1- The battle of the Palestinian people against occupation and colonialism did not start on Oct. 7, but started 105 years ago, including 30 years of British colonialism and 75 years of Zionist occupation. In 1918, the Palestinian people owned 98.5% of the Palestine land and represented 92% of the population on the land of Palestine.
While the Jews, who were brought to Palestine in mass immigration campaigns in coordination between the British colonial authorities and the Zionist Movement, managed to seize control of not more than 6% of the lands in Palestine and to be 31% of the population prior to 1948 when the Zionist Entity was announced on the historic land of Palestine. [Editor’s note: See this]
At that time, the Palestinian people were denied from the right to self- determination and the Zionist gangs engaged in an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Palestinian people aimed at expelling them from their lands and areas. As a result, the Zionist gangs seized control by force of 77% of the land of Palestine where they expelled 57% of the people of Palestine and destroyed over 500 Palestinian villages and towns, and committed dozens of massacres against the Palestinians which all culminated in the establishment of the Zionist Entity in 1948. Moreover, in continuation of the aggression, the Israeli forces in 1967 occupied the rest of Palestine including the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem in addition to Arab territories around Palestine.
2. 2- Over these long decades, the Palestinian people suffered all forms of oppression, injustice, expropriation of their fundamental rights and the apartheid policies. The Gaza Strip, for example, suffered as of 2007 from a suffocating blockade over 17 years which turned it to be the largest open-air prison in the world. The Palestinian people in Gaza also suffered from five destructive wars\ aggressions all of which “Israel” was the offending party.
The people in Gaza in 2018 also initiated the Great March of Return demonstrations to peacefully protest the Israeli blockade, their misery humanitarian conditions and to demand their right-to-return. However, the Israeli occupation forces responded to these protests with brutal force by which 360 Palestinians were killed and 19,000 others were injured including over 5,000 children in a matter of few months. [Editor’s note: See this]
3. According official figures, in the period between (January 2000 and September 2023), the Israeli occupation killed 11,299 Palestinians and injured 156,768 others, the great majority of them were civilians. Unfortunately, the US administration and its allies did not pay attention to the suffering of the Palestinian people over the past years but provided cover to the Israeli aggression.
They only lamented the Israeli soldiers who were killed on Oct. 7 even without seeking the truth of what happened, and wrongfully walked behind the Israeli narrative in condemning an alleged targeting of Israeli civilians. The US administration provided the financial and military support to the Israeli occupation massacres against the Palestinian civilians and the brutal aggression on the Gaza Strip, and still the US officials continue to ignore what the Israeli occupation forces commit in Gaza of mass killing. [Editor’s note: see this.]
4. The Israeli violations and brutality were documented by many UN organizations and international human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and even documented by Israeli human rights groups. [See this.]
However, these reports and testimonies were ignored and the Israeli occupation is yet to be held accountable. For example, on Oct. 29, 2021, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan insulted the UN system by tearing up a report for the UN Human Rights Council during an address at the General Assembly, and threw it in a dustbin before leaving the podium. Yet, he was appointed in the following year – 2022 – to the post of vice-president of the UN General Assembly.
5. The US administration and its western allies have always been treating Israel as a state above the law; they provide it with the needed cover to maintain prolonging the occupation and cracking down the Palestinian people, and also allowing “Israel” to exploit such situation to expropriate further Palestinian lands and to Judaize their sanctities and holy sites. Despite the fact that the UN had issued more than 900 resolutions over the past 75 years in favor of the Palestinian people, “Israel” rejected to abide by any of these resolutions, and the US VETO was always present at the UN Security Council to prevent any condemnation to “Israel’s” policies and violations. That’s why we see the US and other western countries complicit and partners to the Israeli occupation in its crimes and in the continued suffering of the Palestinian people. [See this.]
6. As for “the peaceful settlement process”. Despite the fact that the Oslo Accords signed in 1993 with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) stipulated the establishment of a Palestinian independent state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip; “Israel” systematically destroyed every possibility to establish the Palestinian state through a wide campaign of settlements’ construction and Judaization of the Palestinian lands in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem. The backers of the peace process after 30 years realized that they have reached an impasse and that such process had catastrophic results on the Palestinian people.
The Israeli officials confirmed at several occasions their absolute rejection to the establishment of a Palestinian state. Just one month before Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a map of a so-called “New Middle East,” depicting “Israel” stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea including the West Bank and Gaza. The entire world at that – UN General Assembly’s – podium were silent towards his speech full of arrogance and ignorance towards the rights of the Palestinian people.
7. After 75 years of relentless occupation and suffering, and after failing all initiatives for liberation and return to our people, and also after the disastrous results of the so-called peace process, what did the world expect from the Palestinian people to do in response to the following:
♦ The Israeli Judaization plans to the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, its temporal and spatial division attempts, as well as the intensification of the Israeli settlers’ incursions into the holy mosque.
♦ The practices of the extremist and right-wing Israeli government which is practically taking steps towards annexing the entire West Bank and Jerusalem into the so-called “Israel’s sovereignty” amid plans on the Israeli official table to expel Palestinians from their homes and areas.
♦ The thousands of Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails who are experiencing deprivation of their basic rights as well as assaults and humiliations under direct supervision of the Israeli fascist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
♦ The unjust air, sea, and land blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip over 17 years.
♦ The expansion of the Israeli settlements across the West Bank in an unprecedented level, as well as the daily violence perpetrated by settlers against Palestinians and their properties.
♦ The seven million Palestinians living in extreme conditions in refugee camps and other areas who wish to return to their lands, and who were expelled 75 years ago.
♦ The failure of the international community and the complicit of superpowers to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
What was expected from the Palestinian people after all of that? To keep waiting and to keep counting on the helpless UN! Or to take the initiative in defending the Palestinian people, lands, rights and sanctities; knowing that the defense act is a right enshrined in international laws, norms and conventions.
Proceeding from the above, Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7 was a necessary step and a normal response to confront all Israeli conspiracies against the Palestinian people and their cause. It was a defensive act in the frame of getting rid of the Israeli occupation, reclaiming the Palestinian rights and on the way for liberation and independence like all peoples around the world did.
Second
The events of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and responses to the Israeli allegations
In light of the Israeli fabricated accusations and allegations over Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7 and its repercussions, we in the Islamic Resistance Movement – Hamas clarify the following:
1. Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7 targeted the Israeli military sites, and sought to arrest the enemy’s soldiers to pressure on the Israeli authorities to release the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails through a prisoners exchange deal. Therefore, the operation focused on destroying the Israeli army’s Gaza Division, the Israeli military sites stationed near the Israeli settlements around Gaza.
2. Avoiding harm to civilians, especially children, women and elderly people is a religious and moral commitment by all the Al-Qassam Brigades’ fighters. We reiterate that the Palestinian resistance was fully disciplined and committed to the Islamic values during the operation and that the Palestinian fighters only targeted the occupation soldiers and those who carried weapons against our people. In the meantime, the Palestinian fighters were keen to avoid harming civilians despite the fact that the resistance does not possess precise weapons. In addition, if there was any case of targeting civilians; it happened accidently and in the course of the confrontation with the occupation forces. [Editor’s note: when the barrier that had been imprisoning Gaza for over 20 years was breached, many people not part of Hamas’ trained fighters, including other armed groups not under Hamas, also escaped.]
Since its establishment in 1987, the Hamas Movement committed itself to avoiding harm to civilians. After Zionist criminal Baruch Goldstein in 1994 committed a massacre against Palestinian worshippers in the Al-Ibrahimi Mosque in occupied Hebron City, the Hamas Movement announced an initiative to avoid civilians the brunt of fighting by all parties, but the Israeli occupation rejected it and even did not give any comment on it. The Hamas Movement also repeated such calls several times, but received by a deaf ear from the Israeli occupation which continued its deliberate targeting and killing of Palestinian civilians.
[Editor’s note: The precursor to Hamas was different from extremist groups that we think of today, like Al-Qaeda or ISIS. It started out by focusing on social welfare programs, providing education, food and other social services to Palestinians. It eventually began to engage in resistance activities against the Israeli occupation and expanded land theft, such as attacks on military posts and capturing Israeli soldiers. After an extremist Israeli killed 29 Palestinians while they were praying, Hamas also began targeting civilians. See this and this and this and this.]
3. Maybe some faults happened during Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’s implementation due to the rapid collapse of the Israeli security and military system, and the chaos caused along the border areas with Gaza.
As attested by many, the Hamas Movement dealt in a positive and kind manner with all civilians who have been held in Gaza, and sought from the earliest days of the aggression to release them, and that’s what happened during the week-long humanitarian truce where those civilians were released in exchange of releasing Palestinian women and children from Israeli jails. [Editor’s note: For how this was reported to Americans see this.]
4. What the Israeli occupation promoted of allegations that the Al-Qassam Brigades on Oct. 7 were targeting Israeli civilians are nothing but complete lies and fabrications. [Editor’s Note: See this] The source of these allegations is the Israeli official narrative and no independent source proved any of them. It is a well-known fact that the Israeli official narrative had always sought to demonize the Palestinian resistance, while also legalizing its brutal aggression on Gaza.
Here are some details that go against the Israeli allegations:
♦ Video clips taken on that day – Oct. 7 – along with the testimonies by Israelis themselves that were released later showed that the Al-Qassam Brigades’ fighters didn’t target civilians, and many Israelis were killed by the Israeli army and police due to their confusion. [See this.]
♦ It has also been firmly refuted the lie of the “40 beheaded babies” by the Palestinian fighters, and even Israeli sources denied this lie. Many of the western media agencies unfortunately adopted this allegation and promoted it.
♦ The suggestion that the Palestinian fighters committed rape against Israeli women was fully denied including by the Hamas Movement. A report by the Mondoweiss news website on Dec. 1, 2023, among others, said there is lack of any evidence of “mass rape” allegedly perpetrated by Hamas members on Oct. 7 and that Israel used such allegation “to fuel the genocide in Gaza.” [See this.]
♦ According to two reports by the Israeli Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on Oct. 10 and the Haaretz newspaper on Nov. 18, many Israeli civilians were killed by an Israeli military helicopter especially those who were in the Nova music festival near Gaza where 364 Israeli civilians were killed. The two reports said the Hamas fighters reached the area of the festival without any prior knowledge of the festival, where the Israeli helicopter opened fire on both the Hamas fighters and the participants in the festival. The Yedioth Ahronoth also said the Israeli army, to prevent further infiltrations from Gaza and to prevent any Israelis being arrested by the Palestinian fighters, struck over 300 targets in areas surrounding the Gaza Strip.
♦ Other Israeli testimonies confirmed that the Israeli army raids and soldiers’ operations killed many Israeli captives and their captors. The Israeli occupation army bombed the houses in the Israeli settlements where Palestinian fighters and Israelis were inside in a clear application of the Israeli army notorious “Hannibal Directive” which clearly says that “better a dead civilian hostage or soldier than taken alive” to avoid engaging in a prisoners swap with the Palestinian resistance.
♦ Furthermore, the occupation authorities revised the number of their killed soldiers and civilians from 1,400 to 1,200, after finding that 200-burnt corpses had belonged to the Palestinian fighters who were killed and mixed with Israeli corpses. This means that the one who killed the fighters is the one who killed the Israelis, knowing that only the Israeli army possesses military planes that killed, burned and destroyed Israeli areas on Oct. 7.
♦ The Israeli heavy aerial raids across Gaza that led to the death of nearly 60 Israeli captives also prove that the Israeli occupation does not care about the life of their captives in Gaza.
5. It is also a matter of fact that a number of Israeli settlers in settlements around Gaza were armed, and clashed with Palestinian fighters on Oct. 7. Those settlers were registered as civilians while the fact is they were armed men fighting alongside the Israeli army.
6. When speaking about Israeli civilians, it must be known that conscription applies to all Israelis above the age of 18 – males who served 32 months of military service and females who served 24 months – where all can carry and use arms. This is based on the Israeli security theory of an “armed people” which turned the Israeli entity into “an army with a country attached.”
7. The brutal killing of civilians is a systematic approach of the Israeli entity, and one of the means to humiliate the Palestinian people. The mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza is a clear evidence of such approach.
8. The Al Jazeera news channel said in a documentary that in one month of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, the daily average killing of Palestinian children in Gaza was 136, while the average of children killing in Ukraine – in the course of the Russian-Ukrainian war – was one child every day.
9. Those who defend the Israeli aggression do not look at the events in an objective manner but rather go to justify the Israeli mass killing of Palestinians by saying there would be casualties among civilians when attacking the Hamas fighters. However, they would not use such assumption when it comes to the Al-Aqsa Flood event on Oct. 7.
10. We are confident that any fair and independent inquiries will prove the truth of our narrative and will prove the scale of lies and misleading information in the Israeli side. This also includes the Israeli allegations regarding the hospitals in Gaza that the Palestinian resistance used them as command centers; an allegation that was not proven and was refuted by reports of many western press agencies. [See this]
Third
Towards a transparent international investigationrd
1. Palestine is a member-state of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and it acceded to its Rome Statute in 2015. When Palestine asked for investigation into Israeli war crimes committed on its territories, it was faced by Israeli intransigence and rejection, and threats to punish the Palestinians for the request to ICC. It is also unfortunate to mention that there were great powers, which claim to be holding values of justice, completely sided with the occupation narrative and stood against the Palestinian moves in the international justice system. These powers want to keep “Israel” as a state above the law and to ensure it escapes liability and accountability.
2. We urge these countries, especially the US administration, Germany, Canada and the UK, if they are meant for justice to prevail as they claim, they are ought to announce their support to the course of the investigation in all crimes committed in occupied Palestine and to give full support for the international courts to effectively do their job.
3. Despite having doubts from these countries to stand by justice, we still urge the ICC Prosecutor and his team to immediately and urgently come to occupied Palestine to look into the crimes and violations committed there, rather than merely observing the situation remotely or being subject to the Israeli restrictions.
4. In Dec. 2022, when the UN General Assembly passed a resolution seeking opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legal consequences of “Israel’s” illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, those (few) countries who back “Israel” announced their rejection to the move that was approved by nearly 100 countries. And when our people – and their legal and rights groups – sought to pursue prosecutions against the Israeli war criminals in front of the European countries courts – through the system of universal jurisdiction – the European regimes obstructed the moves in favor of the Israeli war criminals to remain running free.
5. The events of Oct. 7 must be put in its broader context, and that all cases of struggle against colonialism and occupation in our contemporary time be evoked. These experiences of struggle show that in the same level of oppression committed by the occupier; there would be an equivalent response by the people under occupation. [See this.]
6. The Palestinian people and peoples across the world realize the scale of lies and deception these governments that back the Israeli narrative practice in their attempts to justify their blind bias and to cover the Israeli crimes. These countries know the root causes of the conflict which are the occupation and the denial of the right of the Palestinian people to live in dignity on their lands. These countries show no interest towards the continuation of the unjust blockade on millions of Palestinians in Gaza, and also show no interest towards the thousands of Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails held under conditions where their basic rights are mostly denied.
7. We hail the free people of the world from all religions, ethnicities and backgrounds who rally in all capitals and cities worldwide to voice their rejection to the Israeli crimes and massacres, and to show their support for the rights of the Palestinian people and their just cause.
Fourth
A reminder to the world, who is Hamas?
1. The Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” is a Palestinian Islamic national liberation and resistance movement. Its goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project. Its frame of reference is Islam, which determines its principles, objectives and means. Hamas rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds.
2. Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.
3. The Palestinian people have always stood against oppression, injustice, and the committing of massacres against civilians regardless of who commit them. And based on our religious and moral values, we clearly stated our rejection to what the Jews were exposed to by the Nazi Germany. Here, we remind that the Jewish problem in essence was a European problem, while the Arab and Islamic environment was – across history – a safe haven to the Jewish people and to other peoples of other beliefs and ethnicities. The Arab and Islamic environment was an example to co-existence, cultural interaction and religious freedoms. The current conflict is caused by the Zionist aggressive behavior and its alliance with the western colonial powers; therefore, we reject the exploitation of the Jewish suffering in Europe to justify the oppression against our people in Palestine.
4. The Hamas Movement according to international laws and norms is a national liberation movement that has clear goals and mission. It gets its legitimacy to resist the occupation from the Palestinian right to self-defense, liberation and self-determination. Hamas has always been keen to restrict its fight and resistance with the Israeli occupation on the occupied Palestinian territory, yet, the Israeli occupation did not abide by that and committed massacres and killings against the Palestinians outside Palestine.
5. We stress that resisting the occupation with all means including the armed resistance is a legitimized right by all norms, divine religions, the international laws including the Geneva Conventions and its first additional protocol and the related UN resolutions e.g. The UN General Assembly Resolution 3236, adopted by the 29th session of the General Assembly on Nov. 22, 1974 which affirmed the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people in Palestine, including the right to self-determination and the right to return to “their homes and property from where they were expelled, displaced and uprooted.” [See this.]
6. Our steadfast Palestinian people and their resistance are waging a heroic battle to defend their land and national rights against the longest and brutalist colonial occupation. The Palestinian people are confronting an unprecedented Israeli aggression that committed heinous massacres against Palestinian civilians, most of them were children and women. In the course of the aggression on Gaza, the Israeli occupation deprived our people in Gaza of food, water, medicines and fuel, and simply deprived them from all means of life. In the meantime, the Israeli warplanes savagely struck all Gaza infrastructures and public buildings including schools, universities, mosques, churches and hospitals in a clear sign of ethnic cleansing aimed at expelling the Palestinian people from Gaza. Yet, the backers of the Israeli occupation did nothing but kept the genocide ongoing against our people. [See this.]
7. The Israeli occupation’s use of the “self-defense” pretext to justify its oppression against the Palestinian people is a process of lie, deception and turning the facts. The Israeli entity has no right to defend its crimes and occupation but the Palestinian people who have such right to oblige the occupier to end the occupation. In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) gave an advisory opinion in the case concerning the “Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” which stated that “Israel” – the brutal occupying force – cannot rely on a right of self-defense to build such wall on the Palestinian territory. Furthermore, Gaza under the international law is still an occupied land, thus, the justifications for waging the aggression on Gaza is baseless and lacks its legal capacity, as well as lacks the essence of the self-defense idea.
Fifth
What is needed?
Occupation is occupation no matter how it describes or names itself, and remains a tool to break the will of the peoples and to keep oppressing them. On the other side, the experiences of the peoples\nations across history on how to break away from occupation and colonialism confirm that the resistance is the strategic approach and the only way to liberation and ending the occupation. Have any nation been liberated from occupation without struggle, resistance or sacrifice?
The humanitarian, ethical and legal imperatives necessitate all countries around the world to back the resistance of the Palestinian people not to collude against it. They are supposed to confront the occupation crimes and aggression, as well as to support the struggle of the Palestinian people to liberate their lands and to practice their right to self-determination like all peoples across the globe. Based on that we call for the following:
1. The immediate halt of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, the crimes and ethnic cleansing committed against the entire Gaza population, to open the crossings and allow the entry of the humanitarian aid into Gaza including the reconstruction tools.
2. To hold the Israeli occupation legally accountable for what it caused of human suffering towards the Palestinian people, and to charge it for the crimes against civilians, infrastructure, hospitals, educational facilities, mosques and churches.
3. The support of the Palestinian resistance in the face of the Israeli occupation with all possible means as a legitimized right under the international laws and norms.
4. We call upon the free peoples across the world, especially those nations who were colonized and realize the suffering of the Palestinian people, to take serious and effective positions against the double standard policies adopted by powers\countries that back the Israeli occupation. We call on these nations to initiate a global solidarity movement with the Palestinian people and to emphasize the values of justice and equality and the right of the peoples to live in freedom and dignity.
5. The superpowers, especially the US, the UK and France among others, must stop providing the Zionist entity with cover from accountability, and to stop dealing with it as a country above the law. Such unjust behavior by these countries allowed the Israeli occupation over 75 years to commit the worst crimes ever against the Palestinian people, land and sanctities. We urge the countries across the globe, today and more than before, to uphold their responsibilities towards the international law and the relevant UN resolutions that call for ending the occupation.
6. We categorically reject any international or Israeli projects aimed at deciding the future of Gaza that only serve to prolong the occupation. We stress that the Palestinian people have the capacity to decide their future and to arrange their internal affairs, and thus no party in the world has the right to impose any form of guardianship on the Palestinian people or decide on their behalf.
7. We urge for standing against the Israeli attempts to cause another wave of expulsion – or a new Nakba – to the Palestinians especially in the lands occupied in 1948 and the West Bank. We stress that there will be no expulsion to Sinai or Jordan or any other place, and if there is any relocation to the Palestinians, it will be towards their homes and areas they were expelled from in 1948, as affirmed by many UN resolutions.
8. We call for keeping the popular pressure around the world until ending the occupation; we call for standing against the normalization attempts with the Israeli entity and for a comprehensive boycott to the Israeli occupation and its backers.
Arrest of activist Yves Engler and unchecked growth of Zionist network in Canada
By Ivan Kesic | Press TV | March 3, 2025
Attempts to harass and intimidate pro-Palestine voices through fabricated and politically-motivated legal cases have intensified in the West, further revealing the dangerous tactics and mechanisms adopted by the organized Zionist network.
Numerous such cases have emerged recently, including in recent weeks, involving prominent journalists and activists such as Ali Abunimah in Switzerland, Richard Medhurst in Austria, David Miller in England, and Yves Engler in Canada.
What is common between these cases is a pattern of prolonged detentions, often lasting hours or even days, on false charges or vague suspicions. Those targeted are treated as criminals, subjected to incoherent interrogations, and in many instances, thrown in jails.
Press TV recently published firsthand accounts from Medhurst and Miller, both longtime contributors to Iran’s leading international news network, detailing their experiences.
Miller emphasized that activists and journalists are prime targets of the Zionist lobby, which exerts pressure to harass or detain pro-Palestine voices across Western countries.
This was further corroborated by the recent case of Yves Engler in Canada, where the prominent author and activist was detained for five days.
Engler, who occasionally appears on Press TV as a commentator, in a statement posted on his website outlined the methods employed by Zionist lobbyists to intimidate people like him.
Based in Montreal, Engler has been an outspoken critic of the Israeli regime and its lobbyists. He has authored 13 books on Canadian history and foreign policy, including Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid, which exposes Canada’s longstanding support for the Israeli regime.
Legal harassment of Yves Engler
On February 18, Engler received a call from a Montreal police officer named Crivello, who instructed him to appear at the downtown police station two days later, where he would be charged with harassment and indecent communication.
The officer explained that a complaint had been filed against him months earlier by a legal firm representing Dahlia Kurtz, a well-known Zionist rabble-rouser and outspoken supporter of the 16-month-long genocide in Gaza.
Engler had previously criticized Kurtz’s racist and violent anti-Palestinian posts on X in a polite and measured manner. He recalled her first – and only – reaction.
“Tomorrow the Montreal police will arrest me for posting to social media against Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” Engler wrote in an article police reached out to him over Kurtz’s complaint.
Pointing out that he had “responded to Kurtz’s racist, violent, anti-Palestinian posts on X”, Engler said he had not harassed the influencer, who “supports killing Palestinian children” and “openly calls for state violence against those challenging Canadian complicity in genocide.”
“I’ve never met Kurtz. Nor have I messaged or emailed her. Nor have I threatened her. I don’t even follow her on X (Twitter’s algorithm puts her posts in my feed).”
In early July 2024, Kurtz quoted one of his posts and wrote: “Hello, Engler Yves. I’m advising you in this one message only that you are harassing me. You’re threatening and you’re making me afraid for my safety. You must stop this harassment – and communication with me. Stop now.”
His statements that she referenced, posted a few days earlier, read: “Racist Dahlia supports killing Palestinian children. 20,000 is not enough, she wants even more Palestinian blood spilled.”
Her response was a blatant lie. Engler had never threatened, harassed, or contacted her—neither publicly nor privately via messages or emails—nor was he following her on X.
Despite this, her exaggerated claims of victimhood escalated beyond false public accusations to the extent of hiring a law firm to pursue criminal charges against him.
On the morning of February 20, Engler was taken into custody at the police station, where an officer informed him that he would be detained overnight or until he was brought before a judge.
Citing the alleged risk of recidivism, authorities held him in custody for a total of five days.
Public support for Engler
Engler’s imprisonment drew widespread anger and outrage among pro-Palestinian and human rights activists, who staged protests outside the police station and courthouse for several days.
A day before his arrest, an article on his website in which he detailed the situation, prompted the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute to launch an email campaign.
In response to his initial call, over 4,000 people emailed Montreal police inspector Crivello, demanding the charges be dropped. Soon after, more than 6,000 others sent emails to the Montreal police chief and mayor, echoing the same demand.
Organizations such as PEN Canada and PEN America, Canadian Senator Yuen Pau Woo, and journalists Ali Abunimah, Glenn Greenwald, Caitlin Johnstone, and Aaron Maté all spoke out about the case, either through statements or articles, expressing deep concern over the charges.
Singer David Rovics composed the song “What’s Going On Here, Montreal?” in response to Engler’s imprisonment and Kurtz’s violent anti-Palestinian rhetoric.
Musician Roger Waters created a short social media clip on Engler’s arrest over pro-Palestine advocacy, which garnered hundreds of thousands of views.
According to Engler, the presence of protesters during the final hours of his detention may have influenced the judicial decision to acquit him and order his release.
He also suggested that their activism contributed to more respectful treatment from the guards.
Yves Engler celebrates his release
Key Zionist rabble-rousers
After his release, Engler expressed gratitude to his supporters for their consistent backing and shared further details about the legal manipulations he encountered during his five-day detention.
He emphasized that his brief imprisonment was insignificant compared to the suffering of thousands of Palestinian abductees languishing in Israeli jails, some of whom endure incarceration for decades.
When questioned by police investigator Crivello, Engler did not deny that he had referred to Kurtz on the X platform as a “genocide supporter” and a “fascist”, labels he asserted were accurate based on their relevant definitions.
He further clarified that he had never met Kurtz nor communicated directly with her via text or email, suggesting that her claims of receiving “threats” and fearing for her safety were outright fabrications.
As a condition of his release, the investigator required him to agree to cease all interaction with Kurtz, a condition Engler stated he was willing to accept to regain his freedom.
In other words, he would no longer reference her content on social media, critique her chauvinistic outbursts and insults toward individuals or groups, or expose her attempts to play the victim.
Additionally, the investigator asked Engler’s lawyer, John Philpot, to agree that Engler would refrain from discussing the case – a request he believed was intended to shield the police, Kurtz, and her legal team from public scrutiny and embarrassment.
However, it appeared that the primary objective of the Zionist network was to completely silence Engler and apply similar tactics to other uninformed pro-Palestinian activists.
Engler had already rejected this condition before his detention, calling it “a flagrant violation of his freedom of expression” and stating he was willing to remain incarcerated until a judge ruled on whether such a restriction was legally permissible.
After spending five days in detention, he was released on February 24 without any restrictions on his ability to discuss the charges against him for his anti-Zionist activism.
He described this as “a small win for free expression and Palestine campaigning.”
“In court, the judge effectively forced the Crown to drop its bid to prevent me from mentioning arch anti-Palestinian Dahlia Kurtz. The Crown [government] sought to restrict my ability to name the Jewish supremacist who instigated a police complaint against me,” he said.
Rather than granting them anonymity, he publicly exposed those suing him, the legal firm they hired, their methods, and all related details – boldly refusing to be silenced.
Dahlia Kurtz proudly poses in the occupied territories as columns of smoke from Israeli bombing rise over Gaza Strip
Who is Dahlia Kurtz?
Dahlia Kurtz is a Canadian Jewish Zionist hate-monger who positioned herself as the leading advocate for the Israeli regime in Canada during the West-backed Israeli genocidal war against Gaza.
She unconditionally defends all Israeli military actions and has never condemned their crimes against Palestinians, instead dismissing their suffering as if it does not exist.
Yet, she has been seen proudly posing in the occupied Palestinian territories with plumes of smoke rising from an Israeli bombing on the Gaza Strip in the background.
On her website, Kurtz openly flaunts these images and reveals that she was on a “media mission” to the occupied territories, where she met with Israeli officials, implying direct ties to the regime’s vast propaganda apparatus.
She has organized events where she trained Zionist settlers and other lobbyists to operate according to a specific six-point plan she obtained during these visits.
Her social media rhetoric is saturated with Israeli disinformation, fact distortion, manipulative techniques, and the dehumanization and demonization of Palestinians. Yet she has never faced legal consequences for her actions.
Among the countless examples, she has claimed that Palestinians “know only terror,” suggested that there are no innocent Palestinians even in images of thousands of gathered Gazans, and mocked Palestinian children suffering from hunger and freezing temperatures – calling their parents “genocidal” and “obese,” among other remarks.
Following the ceasefire, she declared, “Gaza is still standing. The world has never witnessed such restraint” – a statement completely at odds with UN reports documenting destruction of civilian infrastructure on an unprecedented scale.
Regarding Jewish anti-Zionist protesters outside the Canadian Parliament, she claimed they “love Gaza too much,” using quotation marks to suggest they were fake Jews, and added that she would personally fund their deportation to Gaza.
Kurtz aggressively cultivates a victimhood narrative, frequently emphasizing that she is a short, weak woman, allegedly the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, and an independent actor. She presents herself as the ultimate symbol of the “victim” while branding critics and dissenters as “threateners.”
As Engler highlights, her image-building and propaganda efforts are bolstered by certain Canadian media outlets and politicians who seek to persuade the public that Canadian Jews are the real victims, with Kurtz positioned as a heroic figure pushing back against Canada’s so-called Jew-hate problem.
She also receives direct legal support from the Montreal-based law firm Spiegel Sohmer, particularly from litigation lawyer Neil Oberman, who is involved in Engler’s case.
Despite her claims of acting independently and financing her efforts on her own, all evidence suggests that she is merely the visible face of a well-organized Zionist network.
Neil Oberman (right) gives a political speech
Who is Neil Oberman?
Neil G. Oberman is not just a randomly selected lawyer to sue Engler. He is a key figure in the Zionist network, with deep ties to the Israeli regime and its lobby groups in Canada.
A Canadian Jewish Zionist like Kurtz, Oberman is a founding member of the Quebec Jewish Legal Alliance (QJLA), an organization that has recently made headlines for its desperate attempts to suppress local pro-Palestinian protests.
The QJLA works closely with Federation CJA, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), and other Zionist advocacy groups, engaging in numerous pro-Israeli initiatives and programs.
Oberman has personally delivered pro-Israeli lectures, instructing audiences on strategic positioning, activism tactics, and the politicians and universities to target.
He is also a board member of Technion Canada, the Canadian branch of the Haifa-based university long criticized by international Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activists for its collaboration with the Israeli military and leading arms manufacturers.
Since last year, Oberman has been the Conservative Party of Canada’s candidate for the Mount Royal riding in the upcoming federal election.
His campaign is backed by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Hampstead Mayor Jeremy Levi, two of Canada’s most fervent Zionists, who reportedly helped raise $200,000 for his campaign late last year.
Engler notes that he is merely Oberman’s latest target, as the lawyer has already launched a series of lawsuits in recent months against various institutions and individuals who oppose Israel’s genocidal policies against Palestinians in the occupied territories.
Oberman’s legal targets
Among his first individual targets in late 2023 was journalist Max Blumenthal, whom he threatened with a frivolous lawsuit on behalf of Lauren Wise – a Zionist author who notoriously wished for a woman to be “raped and dragged in the streets in front of her kids” for flying a Palestinian flag.
In the first six months of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Oberman and the QJLA actively worked to suppress pro-Palestinian protests in Montreal, sending legal threats to Mayor Valérie Plante and denouncing her for allowing what he called “hate festivals.”
He also attempted to dismantle a pro-Palestinian encampment at McGill University through various legal maneuvers, but a Quebec Superior Court judge rejected an injunction request filed by two Zionist students represented by Oberman.
However, he did secure an injunction banning protests at a Jewish community building and synagogue and later expanded the ruling to include two dozen institutions for six months.
Oberman also issued legal warnings to Concordia University regarding pro-Palestinian rallies, but after being rebuffed, he lashed out at the institution, declaring: “You don’t know Neil Oberman, you don’t know the Alliance [QJLA], and you don’t know what’s coming next. This is a war!”
Frustrated by his failure to impose a 100-meter protest ban around 154 university buildings, he and other Zionists went so far as to accuse Iran of orchestrating the demonstrations at a Canadian university.
In November 2024, he collaborated with pro-Israeli pressure groups to block a visit by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese at McGill Law School. Despite their efforts, she delivered a speech commending pro-Palestinian students.
On this occasion, Oberman openly acknowledged his cooperation with several Zionist organizations, including the Jewish Law Students Association (JLSA), Israel on Campus, Students Supporting Israel (SSI), and UN Watch.
Neil Oberman (right), UN Watch’s head Hillel Neuer (center) and Hamstead Mayor Jeremy Levi (left) campaigning against Francesca Albanese’s speech at McGill University
Engler confronts Oberman
Engler personally confronted Oberman in order to question him about Israeli genocidal crimes against Palestinians in Gaza – a moment he documented on the X platform.
Oberman initially tried to evade the exchange by falsely claiming that Engler was addressing the “wrong person.” However, when Engler pressed him about the 15,000 Palestinian children killed by the Canada-backed regime, Oberman snapped aggressively, ordering him to back off and threatening to sue.
According to Engler’s lawyer, John Philpot, Oberman played a crucial role in Engler’s five-day detention. Kurtz’s original complaint from last summer had been dismissed by police, and charges were only pursued after Oberman intervened.
Philpot noted that in a minor case like Engler’s, the standard police response would typically be to instruct the accused to avoid contacting the complainant.
However, the authorities imposed additional conditions on Engler, including an unusual demand that he refrain from revealing the identity of those suing him.
The latest victim of false accusations from Kurtz and Oberman is Canadian Senator Yuen Pau Woo, known for his vocal criticism of the Tel Aviv regime and advocacy for Palestinian rights.
As in Engler’s case – where Woo had publicly expressed support during his detention – Kurtz now alleges that Woo “incited hate, aggression, and violence” against her through a series of X posts.
The Zionist modus operandi
The duo’s actions, legal maneuvers, and overall conduct illustrate the broader strategy used by the Zionist network to suppress pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist voices.
In an April 2023 lecture to pro-Israeli agents, Oberman urged them to rethink their approach to advocacy, warning: “If you act like sheep, you’re going to get treated like a sheep. If you don’t want to be a sheep, be a wolf. Stand up and be heard. You have to be heard, and to be heard, you have to take action.”
Oberman exemplified this doctrine when confronted by Engler about the mass murder of Palestinian children, refusing to address the issue and instead resorting to intimidation and legal threats.
Kurtz follows a similar pattern. Despite being publicly called out hundreds of times for glorifying Israeli crimes, she consistently ignores the criticism, sticking to her narrative.
Justifying the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians is both demanding and time-consuming. Instead, Zionist advocates and their allies in Western media often opt to ignore these atrocities altogether, pretending they do not exist.
When a dissenter gains too much visibility and disrupts their propaganda efforts, they shift tactics –playing the victim, issuing veiled threats, and ultimately resorting to baseless legal action.
Both Kurtz, online, and Oberman, in person, portrayed themselves as victims – falsely implying that Engler had privately threatened them, when in reality, they were the ones harassing him.
The charges they file have no real legal merit and serve purely as intimidation tactics. However, they still drain their targets’ time, resources, and mental energy.
These lawsuits are also leveraged in parallel smear campaigns, with media headlines falsely implying that Engler was arrested for harassment.
For activists, filing counter-charges for false accusations, a lesser offense legally, requires hiring a lawyer and securing financial resources. Meanwhile, well-funded Zionist legal groups face no such obstacles.
The attempt to condition Engler’s release on refraining from criticizing Zionist activists or discussing the lawsuit, according to observers, is a clear indication that the Zionist network in Canada has a premeditated strategy to silence other pro-Palestinian activists in the same manner.
Tulsi Gabbard questions if Ukraine is ‘aligned’ with US values
RT | March 3, 2025
Ukraine and many of its European backers may not be aligned with the US values of freedom, peace, and democracy shared by President Donald Trump, according to Washington’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.
In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Gabbard was asked about last week’s heated exchange at the White House involving Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and Trump and his vice president, J.D. Vance. The tense meeting ended with Zelensky abruptly leaving the White House after being accused by Trump of ingratitude, “gambling with World War III,” and refusing to seek peace with Russia.
The incident has sparked a backlash from Trump’s critics, including several EU leaders, who have accused him of “bullying” Zelensky. However, according to Gabbard, anyone who has criticized Trump over his interaction with the Ukrainian leader is merely showing that they are “not committed to peace.”
“Many of these European countries, and Zelensky himself, who claim to be standing and fighting for the cause of freedom and democracy” are actually acting contrary to these values, Gabbard stated.
“When we actually look at what’s happening in reality in these countries, as well as with Zelensky’s government in Ukraine, it is the exact opposite,” she added. Gabbard pointed to the lack of elections in Ukraine, Kiev’s criminalization of opposition parties, the shutting down of Orthodox churches, and the complete government control over media outlets.
“It begs the question. It’s clear they’re standing against [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. But what are they actually really fighting for, and are they aligned with the values that they claim to hold in agreement with [the US], which are the values of freedom, peace and true security,” Gabbard said.
The DNI chief further criticized Washington’s EU partners, recalling Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference, where he accused European countries of implementing policies that “undermine democracy” and show that they “don’t actually believe in the voices of the people.”
“We’re seeing this in the United Kingdom, we’re seeing this in Germany, we saw it with the tossing out of the elections in Romania,” Gabbard said, suggesting that this shows a “huge divergence” between US values and those of the European nations that have backed Zelensky.
Russia has also suggested that last week’s clash between Zelensky and Trump once again proved that Kiev is not genuinely interested in peace. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stressed that the Ukrainian leader’s behavior in the Oval Office “demonstrated how difficult it will be to get on the path of a settlement around Ukraine.”
The Sea Change
By Israel Shamir • Unz Review • February 20, 2025
A huge, heavy ship, loaded to the brim, is turning around in narrow straits amid perilous waters. Thus, the world is performing a rare volte face under the daring captainship of Donald Trump and his breakneck mates Elon Musk and JD Vance. They couldn’t have cut it any closer – already we felt the breath of our doom. Whether the peril be nuclear mushrooms or pandemics crafted in Pentagon biolabs, or some other totally unpredicted collapse concocted by Schwab and his ilk – our new captain seems to recognize Scylla and Charybdis. Our fragile life was about to collapse when the young programmers of DOGE dove into deep cellars of hidden data and uncovered the pearls: millions of dollars earmarked for broken Haiti to make a dream home for Chelsey Clinton; millions of social security checks being sent to beneficiaries 150 years old and older; millions earmarked for regime change, for neutering boys and girls, for planting tempest and reaping storm all over the world. And after this brief but tempestuous overture rung, above the furious sounds of battle, the telephone; the telephone call of captain Trump to captain Putin.
God revealed His mercy and tender caring for us, calming the storm at the very last moment. It is a perfect replay of the Cuban Missile Crisis multiplied by a factor of one hundred. The voices calling for global nuclear holocaust were becoming increasingly frequent and shrill recently. Now one can hope they will be pushed back to the fringe. US and Russian delegations meeting again in Riyadh have agreed to restore the normal civilized diplomatic routine: appoint ambassadors, open missions, increase tenfold the embassy staff. Since Obama’s days the embassies had been run down to the bare minimum.
Immediately the Economist and similar rags have tried to spoil the mood. The Ukrainian crisis has not been solved yet, the war still goes on, they cry. Trump can’t be relied upon, they fume impotently. I always rely upon the Economist as a perfect inverse barometer; whatever they say we may consider pure enemy hasbara. They show Trump talking to Putin with the text “The worst nightmare of Europe”. For me, the worst nightmare would be ruins of Gaza or nuclear waste of Hiroshima, for them, peace would be the worst.
Our enemies do not want us to rejoice ever, but these are the days we could and should be glad. The Ukrainian war is a minor event compared with such a worldwide tectonic shift. The West has tried to isolate, break and consume Russia for many years, once it became aware that Putin is not a new Yeltsin, that he is a stubborn, strong-willed leader, a man like Hamlet: though you can fret him, you cannot play upon him. And ever since that time, over many years, Russia has suffered in isolation, while all the world press blamed Putin and incited legions of tiny dogs from Estonia to the Ukraine to bite him. Such conflict was inevitable because Russia and the West had different interpretations of 1991. For the West, it was the final defeat of Russian independence. For Russia, it was a lesson learned. Never again will Russia attempt to play by Western rules. So how could anyone solve such an intractable divergence of opinion? It took just one call from Donald Trump.
The Ukraine war is a small thing in comparison: Russia wants its seat at the table with the big boys, it wants to be safe, not besieged. Russia wants Western troops and arms as far from its borders as was promised to Gorbachev, this is important. The Ukraine war will be terminated in due time by diplomatic negotiations between civilized adversaries, as it should be. NATO’s war policy has revealed that the majority of the European states, governed by enemies of Trump, are also enemies of democracy. JD Vance was right: they forgot they should listen to their people instead of dictating to them.
In the UK, the popular leader Jeremy Corbyn had been dismissed on the phony accusation of anti-Semitism, and replaced by an extremely pro-Jewish and anti-Russian PM. He is, of course, pro-war. He also detains hundreds and thousands of his citizens for the terrible crime of a post in the social network, or a demonstration, or even worse: a silent prayer. In England, a silent prayer in your own house is a crime, too. France continues to be ruled by Macron, an ex-Rothschild banker, also (of course) warlike. In Germany, there are elections coming soon, but mainstream German politicians are all liberal-left and of course pro-war. In liberal Germany, prison waits for anybody stepping beyond the red line. They imprisoned and amputated the legs of the brilliant and daring lawyer Horst Mahler for a gesture. However, the fresh wind of Trump’s populist revolution blows over Germany as well.
Not only does the far-right AfD call for peace, so does the far-left BSW! The German civil society association Kulturtreff held two rallies in Berlin and Frankfurt under the slogan «No vote for NATO vassals, immediate peace for Europe!». The protesters demanded immediate peace negotiations, an end to the war in the Ukraine, an end to arms supplies to the Ukrainian state, and the restoration of economic and political cooperation between Germany and Russia. Kulturtreff states that «the current main opposition party CDU/CSU wants as does the ruling left-liberal coalition for the war in Europe to continue. The leading political parties of Germany do not have a single new solution in their program». The speakers supported the point of view of US Vice President Vance at the Munich Conference, who pointed out that the political elite of Europe is deeply disconnected from the real interests of the European people.
In Munich, there was a big demo, organised by followers of Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek socialist. They are called DiEM25, and they also call for peace and friendship with Russia.
Bear in mind that all calls for peace are forbidden in Europe; if you look for “Germany peace demo” in Google it shows you rallies for climate, or a rally for migrants, or some rally against a local version of Donald Trump; but no peace demo will be shown, unless it is full of blue-and-yellow banners demanding more war. In the UK and Germany, you might get a visit from the local gestapo if you click a cautious *like* under an anti-war post in your social network. In Sweden, a minister explained why the people are not allowed to decide their NATO status: “Membership in NATO is too important to ask the people to approve of it.” A Swedish journalist wrote in the Facebook:
In Russia, the anti-Putin and pro-Western opposition, as run by Navalny and ilk, relocated abroad claiming hatred of war. But they couldn’t retain that pretence for long. At first, they supported Israel’s war against the Palestinian people, and this was important because some 70 per cent of Russian oppositionists who left Russia after February 2022 landed in Israel. Obviously, they considered themselves Jewish, and Israel recognised them as Jews. It may be true that not everyone who opposes Putin is a Jew, but to a great extent it was true and to a great extent Jews continue to finance anti-Putin organizations in Russia. And now, with the first sight of Trump’s international thaw and the possibility of terminating the war in the Ukraine, these emigres have collectively called for more war. This was the end of the anti-war movement in the Russian World, in the archipelago of Russian-speaking communities – it seems that Russia’s counter-elites will not be happy until they see the Russian army defeated. They dream of US Abrams tanks rolling through Red Square, with Putin executed like Saddam Hussein, but instead those Abrams tanks (30 or 31 delivered to Zelensky) burned in the fields of Novorossia, far away indeed from Moscow.
However, many people, including first of all the parents of Russian teenagers, were excited by Trump’s call for peace, as the war in the Ukraine was a big bloodletting for Russians and Ukrainians alike. Although Russia’s fighters are all well-paid volunteers, there is no doubt that the Russian people will be happy when this war is concluded.
For the Russian leadership, the most important goal was defined in the so-called “Putin’s Ultimatum” of December 2021 (I wrote about it at length here: To Make Sense of War). Putin’s draft treaty called for an immediate end to NATO’s drive Nach Osten, keeping all Western armies and weapons out of former USSR republics. Now it seems this goal will finally be obtained.
It seems that we are at the brink of a great sea change. President Donald Trump has already given us a basket of blessings. There is a song Jews sing at Passover: if He would give us only this, it would be enough, Dayeinu. It is perfectly suitable in this case. If Trump only saved us from World War III, it would be enough. If he only disclosed the dark secrets of USAID, it would be enough. But let’s not forget to thank him, even if it be just for a moment while we think of what we want next. Such as a drawback is his policy towards Palestine. Let’s hope that it will remain just silly talk.
The Atlantic Magazine gives us reason for some hope: it claimed Trump is building the most anti-Semitic cabinet in decades. It certainly has fewer Jews than the Biden’s cabinet, and less belligerence coming with fewer Jews.
Hamas decries as ‘war crime’ Israeli suspension of humanitarian aid to Gaza
The Cradle | March 2, 2025
Israel has accepted a proposal brought by US envoy Steve Witkoff to extend the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement for another 42 days, facing rejection from the Hamas movement.
As a result of Hamas’s rejection – which stems from the resistance movement’s insistence on abiding by the terms of what was initially agreed upon – Israel announced on 2 March that it halted the entry of aid and supplies into the Gaza Strip.
“With the end of the first stage of the prisoner swap deal and following Hamas’ rejection of Witkoff’s proposal to continue negotiations – which Israel agreed to – Prime Minister Netanyahu has decided to halt all imports of goods and supplies to the Gaza Strip as of today,” said the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement.
“Israel will not allow a ceasefire without the release of its prisoners. If Hamas continues to refuse, there will be further consequences,” the premier’s office added.
The extension deal agreed to by Netanyahu calls for the release of half of the estimated 22 living captives in Gaza, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
According to Netanyahu, the Witkoff plan gives Israel the right to resume the war after the 42-day extension if talks do not progress. Israel’s Channel 12 reported that the prime minister has approved a potential call-up of 400,000 reserve soldiers.
“The decision we made last night to completely halt the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza until Hamas is destroyed or surrenders completely and all our hostages are returned is an important step in the right direction— ‘standing at the gates of hell,’” said Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
“Now, we must open these gates as quickly and as lethally as possible against the cruel enemy until absolute victory,” he added.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid blasted the government’s decision.
“The prisoner exchange deal has been halted. Humanitarian aid to Gaza has been stopped. The government has approved the mobilization of 400,000 reserve soldiers. What is the goal? What objective has Israel set for itself? Has the government decided to abandon the prisoners, and if so, why? For what greater national purpose? If we return to war, what is the objective of the war? Who will replace Hamas in the end?” Lapid said.
“Once again, the government is acting without a plan, without a vision. We can only hope things turn out okay—because that seems to be the extent of their planning.”
Phase one of the Gaza ceasefire was due to end on Saturday. Israel has been pushing for the extension in recent days and has continuously delayed the start of negotiations for the second phase, violating the original ceasefire agreement.
“The statement issued by the office of the terrorist occupation Prime Minister Netanyahu, regarding his approval of American proposals to extend the first phase of the agreement under arrangements that violate the ceasefire agreement in Gaza is a blatant attempt to evade the agreement and avoid entering negotiations for its second phase,” Hamas said in a statement.
“Netanyahu’s decision to halt humanitarian aid is a form of blackmail, a war crime, and a blatant violation of the agreement,” it went on to say.
Since the morning of 2 March, Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed at least four Palestinians. Israel has been violating the ceasefire daily since it was reached in January, carrying out deadly attacks and consistently holding up the entry of aid and essentials into Gaza.
Euro-Med Monitor documents ‘shocking’ crimes, torture against Palestinian prisoners
Press TV – February 28, 2025
An independent Geneva-based human rights organization says the tragic and shocking health condition of the Palestinian prisoners recently freed under the multistage ceasefire agreement with Hamas shows the Tel Aviv regime’s “ongoing use of torture to terrorize and persecute” them.
The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said in a statement on Thursday that the traces of torture were evident on the prisoners’ frail bodies, reflecting the extent of the systematic crimes and inhumane treatment they endured, which exceeded all moral and legal boundaries.
“All evidence indicates that Israel continues to use torture as a weapon to intimidate and persecute prisoners and detainees and to break their will until the last moments of their detention,” the organization said.
The Switzerland-based group noted that its field team documented serious injuries among the prisoners and detainees, including amputations and severe swelling resulting from torture, in addition to extreme weakness and fatigue.
It added that the released prisoners revealed that they had been subjected to brutal beatings, abuse, and continuous threats right up to the last moments before their release, despite the lack of any specific charges against the majority of them.
The organization stressed that the brutal torture and deliberate medical neglect faced by prisoners and detainees have reached shocking levels that surpass all moral and legal limits.
It noted that Israel’s ongoing use of brutal torture and deliberate medical neglect against Palestinian prisoners and detainees proves its systematic intent to intimidate them and break their will.
The rights group emphasized that such actions constitute blatant war crimes and crimes against humanity, as reliable information has indicated the death of dozens of prisoners inside Israeli prisons and detention centers, while Israel continues to hide any data related to them.
It called on all concerned countries and organizations to take immediate and decisive action to stop these systematic crimes, underlining the need to intensify human rights and media efforts to highlight the suffering of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, and to work towards holding the occupiers accountable and forcing them to end these ongoing violations.
Israeli authorities released 641 Palestinian prisoners in the “Flood of Freedom” deal early on Thursday, as part of the ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreements with Hamas, after delaying their release for almost a week.
The physical status of the released prisoners showed that they had been deprived of adequate food throughout their detention, with testimonies confirming that they received minimal amounts of food, while some were denied food and sleep as a form of harsh and deliberate punishment.
Germany to combat ‘conspiracy theories’
RT | February 28, 2025
Germans who suspect that their relatives or friends have fallen for conspiracy theories can now seek official guidance, the Interior Ministry has announced. The government has launched a nationwide consultation center to combat “lies and disinformation.”
Known as the Advice Compass on Conspiracy Thinking, the service was launched on Thursday and is accessible online or by phone. According to the ministry, it aims to provide “the most tailored help and advice possible” for those seeking guidance.
The center offers consultations and can refer individuals to specialized agencies if necessary, according to Minister for Family Affairs Lisa Paus, without specifying which agencies will be involved.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said that an “open dialogue on equal terms” is often difficult with individuals deeply immersed in conspiracy beliefs. She hailed the initiative as “an important building block in the holistic fight against extremism and disinformation.”
Paus described conspiracy theories as “poison for our democracy” and a burden on families and colleagues. The Interior Ministry claimed that these beliefs can lead to extremist ideologies and incite violence, highlighting anti-Semitic conspiracies as a major concern.
The German authorities have been raising the alarm over the supposed rise of conspiracy theories. This trend is often linked to the Querdenker (lateral thinking) movement, which emerged during the Covid-19 pandemic to oppose lockdown measures and other government policies. Since then, Querdenker groups have organized protests against Germany’s foreign policy and weapons supplies to Kiev, which began in 2022 following the escalation of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
Some factions have also called for “regionality, direct democracy, and limiting the power” of the federal government. Officials and media outlets often associate Querdenker groups with conspiracy theories and far-right organizations.
In 2021, the German domestic security agency (BfV) announced it would closely monitor some Querdenker groups, claiming that they could try to “delegitimize” the state and use legitimate protest to “provoke escalation.”
The announcement of the Advice Compass came just days after the right-wing Alternative for Germany party (AfD) secured second place in snap parliamentary elections, receiving 20.8% of the vote – a significant rise from the 10.4% they received in 2021. Despite the gains, the party remains ostracized by the other major political parties and is frequently labeled ‘far-right’ by officials and media.
EU’s Kallas blasts Trump over ‘Russian talking points’
RT | February 28, 2025
The European Union’s top diplomat has suggested that US President Donald Trump has adopted Russian narratives about the Ukraine conflict. Kaja Kallas also expressed concern over Washington’s supposed drift away from its long-time European allies.
Kallas, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy and former Estonian Prime Minister (2021-2024), is known for her hawkish views on foreign policy.
In an interview with the media outlet Axios on Thursday, she said it had been “uncomfortable” to hear Trump and other senior US officials “repeating Russian narratives and talking points” in recent weeks.
“The statements made towards us are quite strong. The statements regarding Russia are very friendly. It is a change,” Kallas observed. She claimed that if Russia is allowed “back around the international table like nothing has happened,” more armed conflicts will follow, and not only in Europe.
The diplomat also insisted that while US officials are free to “talk with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin all they want… in order for any kind of deal to be implemented, they need the Europeans.” Failure to include the EU and Ukraine in negotiations would prevent any agreement from being implemented, Kallas argued.
Both the bloc’s representatives and officials from Kiev were excluded from the US-Russia negotiations held in Saudi Arabia earlier this month. Washington and Moscow have argued that no other parties were invited because the talks centered on first restoring bilateral relations.
Kallas also balked at criticisms regarding the state of democracy in the EU voiced by US Vice President J.D. Vance at the Munich Security Conference – a speech praised as “brilliant” by Trump. “I refuse to accept that criticism, because it’s just simply not true,” she said.
On Monday, the diplomat similarly remarked that “if [we] look at the messages that come from the US, then it is clear that the Russian narrative is there, very strongly represented.”
Last week, she warned Washington against walking “into the Russian traps,” alleging that Moscow had emerged as the “winner” from the talks in Riyadh.
In recent weeks, Trump has made several critical remarks toward the Ukrainian leadership, characterizing Vladimir Zelensky as a “dictator without elections,” and suggesting that Kiev bears responsibility for letting the hostilities flare up in 2022. While the US head of state has since somewhat toned down his comments, a marked departure from the policy course pursued by his predecessor, Joe Biden, remains evident.
Covid Response at Five Years: Introduction
Brownstone Institute | February 27, 2025
This is the way the world ends,” T.S. Eliot wrote in 1925. “Not with a bang but a whimper.” Ninety-five years later, the pre-Covid world ended with a nationwide sigh of submission. Democrats remained silent as government mandates transferred trillions of dollars from the working class to tech oligarchs. Republicans dithered as states criminalized church attendance. Libertarians stood by as the nation shuttered the doors of small businesses. College students obediently forfeited their freedoms and moved into their parents’ basements, liberals accepted widespread surveillance campaigns, and conservatives greenlit the printing of 300 years’ worth of money in sixty days.
With rare exception, March 2020 was a bipartisan, intergenerational capitulation to fear and hysteria. Those who dared to object to the freshly-mandated orthodoxy were subject to widespread contempt, derision, and censorship as the US Security State and a subservient media corps muzzled their protests. The most dominant forces in society used the opportunity to their advantage, pillaging the nation’s treasury and overthrowing law and tradition. Their campaign was devoid of the triumph of Yorktown, the bloodshed of Antietam, or the sacrifices of Omaha Beach. Without a single bullet, they overtook the republic, overturning the Bill of Rights in a quiet coup d’état.
Perhaps no episode better exemplified this phenomenon than the House of Representatives on March 27, 2020. That day, the House planned to pass the largest spending bill in American history, the CARES Act, without a recorded vote. The $2 trillion price tag was more money than Congress spent on the entire Iraq War, twice as much as the cost of the Vietnam War, and thirteen times more than Congress’s annual allocation for Medicaid – all adjusted for inflation. No House Democrats objected, nor did 195 out of 196 House Republicans. For 434 members of the House, there were no concerns of fiscal responsibility or electoral accountability. There wouldn’t be a whimper, let alone a bang; there wouldn’t even be a recorded vote.
But there was one voice of dissent. When Representative Thomas Massie learned of his colleagues’ plan, he drove overnight from Garrison, Kentucky to the Capitol. “I came here to make sure our republic doesn’t die by unanimous consent and empty chamber,” he announced on the floor.
Democrats, the self-professed guardians of democracy, did not heed his call to fulfill their obligation to represent their constituents. Republicans, supposed defenders of originalism and the rule of law, ignored Massie’s invocation of the constitutional requirement for a quorum to be present to conduct business in the House. The supreme law of the land gave way to the hysteria of coronavirus, and the Kentucky Congressman became the target of a bipartisan character assassination.
President Trump called Massie a “third rate Grandstander” and urged Republicans to expel him from the party. John Kerry wrote that Massie had “tested positive for being an asshole” and should be “quarantined to prevent the spread of his massive stupidity.” President Trump responded, “Never knew John Kerry had such a good sense of humor! Very impressed!”
Republican Senator Dan Sullivan quipped to Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Mahoney, “What a dumbass.” Mahoney was so proud of the conversation that he took to Twitter. “I can confirm that @RepThomasMassie is indeed a dumbass,” he posted.
Two days later, President Trump signed the CARES Act. He bragged that it was the “single-biggest economic relief package in American history.” He continued, “It’s $2.2 billion, but it actually goes up to 6.2 — potentially — billion dollars — trillion dollars. So you’re talking about 6.2 trillion-dollar bill. Nothing like that.”
The bipartisan Covid regime stood behind the President smiling. Senator McConnell called it a “proud moment for our country.” Rep. Kevin McCarthy and Vice President Pence offered similar praise. Trump thanked Dr. Anthony Fauci, who remarked, “I feel really, really good about what’s happening today.” Deborah Birx added her support for the bill, as did Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin. The President then handed Dr. Fauci and others the pens that he used to sign the law. Before leaving, he took time to chastise Rep. Massie again, calling him “totally out of line.”
By the end of March 2020, the pre-Covid world was over. Corona was the supreme law of the land.
The Press Conference That Changed the World
On March 16, 2020, Donald Trump, Deborah Birx, and Anthony Fauci held a White House press conference on the coronavirus. After nearly an hour of unremarkable questions and answers, a reporter asked whether the government was suggesting that “bars and restaurants should shut down over the next fifteen days.”
President Trump ceded the microphone to Birx. As she stumbled through her answer, Fauci flashed a hand signal to indicate that he wished to step in. He walked to the podium and opened a small document. There was no indication that President Trump knew what was coming next or that he had read the paper.
Is the government calling for a shutdown for 15 days? Fauci took the microphone. “The small print here. It’s really small print,” he began. President Trump was distracted. He pointed at someone in the audience and appeared unconcerned with Fauci’s answer. “America’s doctor” continued at the microphone as his boss engaged in a side conversation with someone in the audience.
“In states with evidence of community transmission, bars, restaurants, food courts, gyms and other indoor and outdoor venues where groups of people congregate should be closed.” Birx grinned in the background as she listened to the plan to shut down the country. Fauci walked away from the podium, nodded at Birx, and smiled as the press prepared a new question.
The plan that gave them unbridled joy was unprecedented in “public health.” Despite firsthand knowledge of smallpox and Yellow Fever, the Framers had not written epidemic contingencies into the Bill of Rights. The nation had not suspended the Constitution for pandemics in 1957 (Hong Kong flu), 1921 (Diphtheria), 1918 (Spanish flu), or 1849 (Cholera). This time, however, it would be different.
The press conference that day was never meant to be a temporary means to flatten the curve; it was the beginning, “a first step,” toward their vision to “rebuild the infrastructures of human existence,” they later admitted. “We worked simultaneously to develop the flattening-the-curve guidance,” Birx reflected in her memoir. “Getting buy-in on the simple mitigation measures every American could take was just the first step leading to longer and more aggressive interventions.” After demanding that buy-in on March 16, the pre-Covid world was over. Longer and more aggressive interventions became reality.
The following day, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security called the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a guide on who was permitted to work and who was subjected to lockdowns. The order divided Americans into two classes: essential and nonessential. Media, Big Tech, and commercial facilities like Costco and Walmart were exempt from the lockdown orders while small businesses, churches, gyms, restaurants, and public schools were shut down. With just one administrative order, America suddenly became an explicitly class-based society in which liberty depended on political favoritism.
On March 21, an image of the Statue of Liberty locked in her apartment appeared on the front page of the New York Post. “CITY UNDER LOCKDOWN,” the paper announced. States chained playgrounds and criminalized recreation. The schools closed, businesses failed, and hysteria ran rampant.
War Fever
When Massie arrived at the Capitol, a war-like fervor had taken over the country. Publications including Politico, ABC, and The Hill compared the respiratory virus to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. On March 23, the New York Times published “What 9/11 Taught Us About Leadership in a Crisis,” offering “lessons for today’s leaders” in response to a “similar challenge.”
The column did not warn against the dangers of impulsive responses leading to unintended consequences, unaccountable government agencies, unscrupulous ideologues, and untold federal expenditures. There were no analyses of how temporary national fear could lead to trillions of dollars wasted on disastrous initiatives. Instead, the “similar challenge” led to familiar smear campaigns.
Thomas Massie and Barbara Lee have very little in common; Massie, an MIT alumnus, styles himself a “high-tech redneck.” His Christmas card featured his family of seven holding guns with the caption “Santa, please bring ammo.” Lee, a California Democrat, volunteered for Oakland’s Black Panther Party and marched alongside Nancy Pelosi at the “Women’s March.” Both, however, stood as lone voices of dissent in the two most defining crises of this century. They served as Cassandras, issuing prophetic warnings that drew the ire of disastrous bipartisan consensus.
In September 2001, Lee was the only member of Congress to oppose the authorization to use military force. With the rubble still smoldering at the World Trade Center, she warned Americans that the AUMF provided “a blank check to the president to attack anyone involved in the Sept. 11 events — anywhere, in any country, without regard to our nation’s long-term foreign policy, economic and national security interests, and without time limit.” A jingoistic press attacked Lee as “un-American,” and she received bipartisan condemnation from her peers in Congress.
When Massie took the House floor nineteen years later, American troops were still in Afghanistan, and the “blank check” had been used to support bombings in at least ten other countries. Like Lee, Massie’s dissent was prescient. He warned that the Covid payments benefited “banks and corporations” over “working class Americans,” that the spending programs were riddled with waste, that the bill transferred dangerous power to an unaccountable Federal Reserve, and that the increased debt would be costly for the American people.
In retrospect, Massie’s points were obvious. The Covid response became the most disruptive and destructive public policy in Western history. The lockdowns destroyed the middle class while the pandemic minted a new billionaire every day. Childhood suicides skyrocketed, and school closures created an educational crisis. People lost jobs, friends, and basic rights for challenging Covid orthodoxy. The Federal Reserve printed three hundred years’ worth of spending in two months. The PPP Program cost nearly $300,000 per job “saved,” and fraudsters stole $200 billion from Covid relief programs. The federal deficit more than tripled, adding over $3 trillion to the national debt. Studies found the pandemic response will cost Americans $16 trillion over the next decade.
What We Knew Then
Time vindicated Massie, but the pro-lockdown advocates have not demonstrated remorse. To evade responsibility for their catastrophic policies, many cower behind the excuse that we didn’t know then what we know now. “I think we would’ve done everything differently,” Gavin Newsom reflected in September 2023. “We didn’t know what we didn’t know.” “Let’s declare a pandemic amnesty,” The Atlantic published in October 2022. The precautions may have been “totally misguided,” wrote Brown Professor Emily Oster, an advocate for school closures, lockdowns, universal masking, and vaccine mandates. “But the thing is: We didn’t know.”
But the evidence from March 2020 refutes the Rumsfeldian invocation of unknown unknowns.
On February 3, 2020, the Diamond Princess cruise ship was set to return to harbor in Japan. When reports emerged that there had been an outbreak of the novel coronavirus aboard the ship, authorities kept it in the water to quarantine. Suddenly, the ship’s 3,700 passengers and crew members became the first contained study of Covid. The New York Times described it as a “floating, mini-version of Wuhan.” The Guardian called it a “coronavirus breeding ground.” It remained in quarantine for almost a month, and passengers lived under strict lockdown orders as their community went through the largest outbreak of Covid outside China.
The ship administered over 3,000 PCR tests. By the time the last passengers left the boat on March 1, at least two things were clear: the virus spread rapidly in close quarters, and it posed no significant threat to non-senior citizens.
There were 2,469 passengers on the ship under the age of 70. Zero of them died despite being held on a cruise ship without access to proper medical care. There were over 1,000 people on the ship between 70 and 79. Six died after testing positive for Covid. Out of the 216 people on the ship between 80 and 89, just one died with Covid.
Those points became even more clear in the ensuing weeks.
On March 2, over 800 public health scientists warned against lockdowns, quarantines, and restrictions in an open letter. ABC reported that Covid likely only posed a threat to the elderly. So did Slate, Haaretz, and the Wall Street Journal. On March 8, Dr. Peter C Gøtzsche wrote that we were “the victims of mass panic,” noting that “the average age of those who died after coronavirus infection was 81… [and] they also often had comorbidity.”
On March 11, Stanford Professor John Ioannidis published a peer-reviewed paper that warned of “an epidemic of false claims and potentially harmful actions.” He predicted the hysteria surrounding the coronavirus would lead to drastically exaggerated case fatality ratios and society-wide collateral damage from unscientific mitigation efforts like lockdowns. “We’re falling into a trap of sensationalism,” Dr. Ioannidis told interviewers two weeks later. “We have gone into a complete panic state.”
On March 13, Michael Burry, the hedge fund manager famously portrayed by Christian Bale in The Big Short, tweeted: “With COVID-19, the hysteria appears to me worse than the reality, but after the stampede, it won’t matter whether what started it justified it.” Ten days later, he wrote: “If COVID-19 testing were universal, the fatality rate would be less than 0.2%,” adding that there was no justification “for sweeping government policies, lacking any and all nuance, that destroy the lives, jobs, and businesses of the other 99.8%.”
By March 15, there were widespread studies on the mental health ramifications of lockdowns, the health impact of shuttering the economy, and the harms of overreacting to the virus.
Even the Covid regime’s wildly inaccurate models, which overestimated the fatality rate of Covid by multitudes, could not justify the response. One of the main bases for lockdown policies was Neil Ferguson’s Imperial College London report from March 16. Ferguson’s model overestimated the impact of Covid on various age groups by degrees of hundreds but conceded that the young faced no substantial risk from the virus. It predicted a 0.002% fatality rate for ages 0-9 and a 0.006% fatality rate for ages 10-19. For comparison, the fatality rate for the flu “is estimated to be around 0.1%,” according to NPR.
On March 20, Yale Professor David Katz wrote in the New York Times: “Is Our Fight Against Coronavirus Worse Than the Disease?” He explained:
“I am deeply concerned that the social, economic and public health consequences of this near total meltdown of normal life — schools and businesses closed, gatherings banned — will be long lasting and calamitous, possibly graver than the direct toll of the virus itself. The stock market will bounce back in time, but many businesses never will. The unemployment, impoverishment and despair likely to result will be public health scourges of the first order.”
He cited data from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and South Korea which suggested that 99% of active cases in the general population were “mild” and did not require medical treatment. He referenced the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which housed “a contained, older population,” as further proof that the virus appeared harmless to non-senior citizens.
Later that month, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya called for “immediate steps to evaluate the empirical basis of the current lockdowns” in the Wall Street Journal. The same week, Ann Coulter published “How do we Flatten the Curve on Panic?” She wrote: “If, as the evidence suggests, the Chinese virus is enormously dangerous to people with certain medical conditions and those over 70 years old, but a much smaller danger to those under 70, then shutting down the entire country indefinitely is probably a bad idea.”
Harvard Medical School Professor Dr. Martin Kulldorff wrote in April, “COVID-19 Counter Measures Should be Age Specific.” He explained:
“Among COVID-19 exposed individuals, people in their 70s have roughly twice the mortality of those in their 60s, 10 times the mortality of those in their 50s, 40 times that of those in their 40s, 100 times that of those in their 30s, 300 times that of those in their 20s, and a mortality that is more than 3000 times higher than for children. Since COVID-19 operates in a highly age specific manner, mandated counter measures must also be age specific. If not, lives will be unnecessarily lost.”
On April 7, Burry called on states to lift their lockdown orders, which he decried as “ruining innumerable lives in a criminally unjust manner.” On April 9, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who later became the Surgeon General of Florida, wrote in the Wall Street Journal: “Lockdowns Won’t Stop the Spread.” Ten days later, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp reopened his state. “Our next measured step is driven by data and guided by state public health officials,” Kemp explained. Shortly thereafter, Governor Ron DeSantis lifted Covid restrictions in Florida.
Brian Kemp, Thomas Massie, and Ron DeSantis didn’t flip a coin on the Covid issue. They knew they’d be accused of endangering fellow citizens, killing grandmas, and overrunning the healthcare system. If they nodded along to the consensus like their peers, then they could have increased their power and perhaps won an Emmy like Andrew Cuomo. Joining the herd was socially and politically fashionable, but their rationality stood athwart the prevailing madness.
Wisdom was in short supply in American government and media. Anthony Fauci and President Trump attacked Kemp for reopening Georgia. The New York Times stoked racial animus to criticize opponents of the Covid regime, telling its readers that “black residents” would have to “bear the brunt” of Kemp’s decision to “reopen many businesses over objections from President Trump and others.” The New York Daily News referred to “Florida Morons” daring to go to the beach that summer, and the Washington Post, Newsweek, and MSNBC chastised “DeathSantis.” While the slanders and hysteria were temporary, a radical and insidious movement sought to permanently transform the country.
The Quiet Coup
Amid the name-calling and memorable headlines of school closures, arrests for paddle boarding, and urban anarchy, the nation underwent a coup d’état in 2020. The First Amendment and freedom of speech were replaced by a censorship operation designed to silence citizens. The Fourth Amendment was supplanted by a system of mass surveillance. Jury trials and the Seventh Amendment disappeared in favor of government-provided legal immunity for the nation’s most powerful political force. Americans found they suddenly lived under a police state without the freedom to travel. Due process disappeared as the government issued edicts to determine who could and could not work. Equal application of the law was a relic of the past as a self-appointed caste of Brahmins exempted themselves and their political allies from the authoritarian orders that applied to the masses.
The groups that implemented this system also benefited from it. State and federal government agencies gained tremendous power. Unshackled from the restraints of the Bill of Rights, they used the pretext of “public health” to reshape society and abolish personal liberties. Social media giants assisted these efforts, using their power to silence critics of the new Leviathan. Big Pharma enjoyed record profits and government-provided legal immunity. In just one year, the Covid response transferred over $3.7 trillion from the working class to billionaires. To replace our liberties, Big Government, Big Tech, and Big Pharma offer a new ruling order of suppression of dissent, surveillance of the masses, and indemnity of the powerful.
The hegemonic triumvirate framed their agenda with favorable marketing strategies. Eviscerating the First Amendment became monitoring misinformation. Warrantless surveillance fell under the public health umbrella of contact tracing. The fusion of corporate and state power advertised itself as public-private partnerships. House arrest received a social media rebranding of #stayathomesavelives. Within months, business owners replaced their “We stand with first responders” signs with “Going out of business” announcements.
Once the rule of law had been overturned, the culture was soon to follow.
Ten weeks after the press conference that changed the world, a Minnesota police officer put his knee on the neck of a Covid-infected, fentanyl-laced career criminal. This led to cardiopulmonary arrest, the death of the man, and a cultural revolution. The BLM and Antifa violent protests in reaction to the death of George Floyd sparked 120 days of rioting and looting in the summer of 2020. Over 35 people died, 1,500 police officers were injured, and rioters caused $2 billion in property damage. CNN covered the resulting arson in Wisconsin with the chyron “FIERY BUT MOSTLY PEACEFUL PROTESTS.”
With the notable exception of Senator Tom Cotton, politicians were largely complicit in the mass looting and violence. President Trump was absent; while the cities burned on the weekend of May 30, the Commander-in-Chief was uncharacteristically silent. His only communication was that the Secret Service had kept him and his family safe.
Others seemed to encourage the destruction. Kamala Harris raised money to pay bail for looters and rioters arrested in Minneapolis. Tim Walz’s wife, then Minnesota’s First Lady, told the press that she “kept the windows open as long as [she] could” in order to smell “the burning tires” from the riots. Nikki Haley tweeted, “the death of George Floyd was personal and painful for many. In order to heal, it needs to be personal and painful for everyone.”
And painful it was. Just hours before Haley’s demand for communal suffering, rioters set fire to Minneapolis’s Third Precinct police building. Thousands celebrated around the building as it burned. They looted the evidence rooms as the police inside fled under the mayor’s orders. Two days later, the mobs in St. Louis killed 77-year-old former policeman David Dorn. His death was broadcast on Facebook Live.
Every major institution cowered to the demands of the rising Jacobins. Once proud institutions released statements of self-flagellation, statues of American heroes came toppling down, and crime skyrocketed. In Minnesota alone, aggravated assault increased 25%, robberies increased 26%, arson increased 54%, and murder increased 58%. Vandals toppled Minneapolis’s statue of George Washington and covered it in paint. Minnesota State University removed its statue of Abraham Lincoln from its campus display after 100 years after students complained that it perpetuated systemic racism.
None of this concerned the truth behind Floyd’s death. Typically, deaths in individuals with fentanyl concentrations over 3 ng/ml are considered overdoses. Floyd’s toxicology report revealed 11 ng/ml of fentanyl, 5.6 ng/ml of norfentanyl, and 19 ng/ml of methamphetamine. Floyd’s autopsy concluded that there were “no life-threatening injuries identified,” and the county medical examiner told the local prosecutor that there “were no medical indications of asphyxia or strangulation.” He asked, “What happens when the actual evidence doesn’t match up with the public narrative that everyone’s already decided on?”
Evidently, the answer was a nationwide cultural upheaval. The wreckage spread through the country and beyond June 2020. The racial reckoning left no American institution untouched. “New homicide records were set in 2021 in Philadelphia, Columbus, Indianapolis, Rochester, Louisville, Toledo, Baton Rouge, St. Paul, Portland, and elsewhere,” Heather MacDonald writes in When Race Trumps Merit. “The violence continued into 2022. January 2022 was Baltimore’s deadliest month in nearly 50 years.” New York City removed statues of Thomas Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt; California vagrants toppled tributes to Ulysses S. Grant, Francis Scott Key, and Francis Drake; San Francisco vandals dragged statues and prepared to toss them into a fountain until they learned the fountain was a memorial to AIDS victims. Oregon criminals desecrated statues of T.R., Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington.
At Rockefeller University, they removed the portraits of scientists who won the Nobel Prize because they were white men. The University of Pennsylvania took down a portrait of William Shakespeare because it failed to “affirm their commitment to a more inclusive mission for the English Department.” The soon-to-be 46th President and his allies announced that there would be racial prerequisites for the selection of its highest-ranking officials – including the Vice President, a Supreme Court Justice, and the Senator from California. The private sector was even worse: in the year after the George Floyd riots, just 6% of new S&P jobs went to white applicants, a result that required mass discrimination.
By Independence Day 2020, the coup d’état had succeeded. The rule of law had been overturned. Former bedrock principles of the Republic – freedom of speech, freedom to travel, freedom from surveillance – were sacrificed upon the altar of public health. A culture that had once championed meritocracy became obsessed with berating the identity of the majority of its population. Hypocrisy in the ruling class grew to the point that there was no longer equal application of the law. The most powerful groups augmented their wealth while the working class suffered under despotism.
This series is meant to outline the freedoms that we sacrificed, and, just as importantly, the people and institutions that benefited from the erosion of our liberties. There are no allegations of the pandemic’s causes. Those speculations, intriguing as they may be, are unnecessary to demonstrate the coordinated upheaval that took place. The bedrocks of liberty enshrined in the Bill of Rights disappeared while the nation panicked. The most powerful people profited while the weakest suffered. Under the pretense of “public health,” the Republic was overturned.
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Book Review
On Herd Mentality
By Jeb Smith | April 14, 2026
I no longer trust “we the people,” because of the powers influencing them. Media and government schooling form their general ideas on reality and governance. Therefore, it’s not a case of the voter choosing the politicians. Instead, the system is conditioning and conforming the voter to the authorities’ desires.
In democracies, the people are kept occupied working and paying taxes, too busy to acquire information outside the approved sources. You will find they know and care far more about the next iPhone than political philosophy. Of those who hold some interest, 95% just toe the party line, holding the same opinion as the primary media source they listen to. They lack both the desire and time to expand their horizons.
Media’s purpose is to conform people’s thought to a preferred goal, which is why Republican and Democratic voters both firmly hold their parties’ general stances, reciting the same talking points. The people do not originate ideas; their thoughts are fed to them by the media so they can consume, digest, and parrot back whatever they are served. When it comes to politics, we rarely think for ourselves. We are told what to think.
Watch PBS, MSNBC and read your local newspaper for six months, and you will receive a particular view and understanding of the world. Then listen to The Mike Church Show, The Blaze, and The Daily Wire, and you will get not just another perspective but a whole different world of facts and events. The world people believe they live in can be entirely different depending on their news sources.
We enjoy seeing the enemy humiliated, which describes why those engulfed in politics love their preferred media sources; they keep returning for more like a drug addict. Networks ensure their “experts” align with the worldview they and their audience desire. The people who watch PBS, BBC, and so forth expect a specific perspective to be presented. Fox News watchers demand the same. In doing this, we both encourage and assure we are misled.
In their book Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government, professors Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels argue, based on substantial research, that voters do not decide the party platform and agenda. Instead, the parties control the “ideologies” of the voters. When the party the voter identifies with changes its position, the individuals also change theirs. They discovered the individual would quickly adopt the views of their group; they will ignore or change their own opinions over time to fit in with the collective they identify with. Achen and Bartels wrote “group memberships largely drove policy views, not vice versa.” … continue
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