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US embassy blocks Iraq-Lebanon humanitarian air bridge: Report

The Cradle | November 2, 2024

The US embassy in Lebanon has blocked the establishment of a humanitarian air bridge between Baghdad and Beirut, insisting instead that any humanitarian aid for those displaced by the Israeli war be delivered via Jordan “for inspection first,” according to a report by Lebanese daily Al Akhbar.

Washington reportedly also threatened Lebanon’s national airliner, Middle East Airlines (MEA), with sanctions if its planes were used to transport those wounded by Israel’s terror attack that caused communication devices to explode across the country.

Furthermore, the US embassy in Lebanon receives a “daily manifesto” of all passengers traveling through Beirut airport from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

Since the expansion of the US-Israeli war against Lebanon at the start of October, Iraq became one of the top providers of humanitarian aid via land to Lebanon. Nevertheless, Israel’s destruction of the main road connecting Lebanon to Syria has hampered those efforts.

As Washington continues to meddle in Beirut’s internal politics, Al Akhbar reports that the US embassy is behind “mysterious” road works in the Dbayeh area north of Beirut.

“[Bulldozers] began at the beginning of the aggression to open a passage between the sea road adjacent to the [Lebanese Armed Forces’] Al-Fuhoud barracks in Dbayeh and the sea … After some residents became suspicious of these works and asked the army about their nature, the military institution denied any knowledge of the matter,” the report states.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Works and Transport has also denied any knowledge about the construction, which the report says is being undertaken at the request of the US embassy under the “implicit approval” of the Lebanese army’s command to allegedly “prepare for the evacuation” of US citizens.

The news comes on the heels of an Israeli commando operation that saw about two dozen soldiers make land in the northern Lebanese city of Batroun to kidnap a civilian sea captain who Beirut says was “receiving his education at a civilian institute.” Under cover of night and reportedly working alongside the German navy, the Israeli forces took the man, identified as Imad Amhaz and escaped back to sea using speedboats.

Last month, local media reported that the US embassy in Lebanon has been in talks with their local allies to ignite an “internal uprising” that would help Israel achieve its war goals.

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

Biden regime violating US law through MENA troop deployments: House Democrats

Al Mayadeen | November 2, 2024

Five House Democrats warned US President Joe Biden that the deployment of American troops to aid “Israel’s” escalating aggression in the Middle East violates US law, reprimanding the Biden administration amid accusations that it was intentionally dismissing domestic law to support Israeli violence in the region.

In the letter, the Democrats, led by representatives Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush slammed the administration’s unilateral decision to share intelligence with the Israeli military and send troops to “Israel” and the Middle East, saying it constitutes direct engagement in the region’s conflicts.

Consequently, the Constitution and War Powers Resolution of 1973, which lists Congress as the sole power that could declare war and approve the deployment of soldiers, are thereby violated.

The letter stresses that US Congress did not authorize the deployment of troops in the region, adding that the Executive Branch cannot introduce US armed forces into conflicts in the absence of an imminent or actual attack on its sovereignty.

The Israeli expansion of the war throughout the Middle East, particularly in Palestine, Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, was supported by the deployment of thousands of US soldiers in the region. The most recent batch was dispatched to “Israel” to assist with the installation of a $1 billion high-altitude anti-missile system. Additionally, US troops have supported Israeli forces in identifying alleged targets in Gaza.

The lawmakers further stated that the current and any future deployment of US Armed Forces in support of “Israel’s” expanding regional violence qualifies as “hostilities” under the War Powers Resolution and is not in response to an imminent threat to the US. Therefore, these actions lack authorization and fall under Congress’s constitutional authority.

They urged the administration to clarify the extent of US military involvement in “Israel’s” actions and to justify recent strikes against the armed forces in Yemen, additionally highlighting that Congress has the power to withdraw unauthorized troops and halt their participation in the region.

“These destructive wars must end, as must any unauthorized U.S. involvement in them. The American public deserves a say on the issue of war. Thus, Congress’ involvement and debate are necessary,” the letter read.

US deploys B-52s and warships to ME

The United States announced, on Friday, that it would be deploying B-52 bombers, fighter jets, refueling aircraft, and Navy destroyers to the Middle East as part of a realignment of military resources while the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group gets ready to depart the region.

The Pentagon stated that these deployments would occur in the coming months and highlighted the “flexibility of the US military movements around the world.”

“Should Iran, its partners, or its proxies choose to target American personnel or interests in the region during this time, the United States will take every measure necessary to defend our people,” Pentagon spokesperson Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder said in a statement.

Over the past year, the United States has deployed as many as two aircraft carriers to the Middle East amid the ongoing Israeli aggression in Lebanon and Gaza.

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

How a Secluded 1984 Conference Forged Israel’s Unprecedented Influence Over US Media

By Kit Klarenberg | MintPress News | October 31, 2024

As Israel’s October 1 invasion of Lebanon unfolds, the media’s complicity in shaping public perception raises urgent questions, particularly when viewed through the lens of a controversial 1984 conference where influential advertising and media figures gathered to refine Israel’s narrative strategies. This conference laid the groundwork for a sophisticated propaganda campaign—Hasbara—that sought to sanitize Israel’s actions and cast its military operations in a favorable light. Today, as Western journalists whitewash, distort, and conceal the realities of Israel’s deadly campaign of violence, the enduring legacy of this meeting becomes alarmingly clear, revealing how narratives crafted decades ago continue to shape the coverage of a conflict that claims countless lives.

In the first week of October, Israeli forces fired 355 bullets at a car containing a five-year-old, then shot at rescue workers who rushed to save her life. A horrific crime – yet, per many Western media headlines, she was simply a “girl killed in Gaza.” The circumstances and perpetrators of her death, if mentioned at all, were invariably buried at the bottom of reports, well hidden from the 80% of the news-consuming public who only read headlines, not accompanying articles.

By contrast, on October 15, Sky News was very keen that its viewers know the names and faces of four “teenage” IDF soldiers “killed” in a “Hezbollah drone attack,” humanizing and infantilizing individuals who, by mere token of their service in Israel’s military, are by definition, guilty of genocide. In passing, the same report briskly noted: “‘23 die’ in Gaza school strike.” Their identities, ages, and photos, let alone clarity on who or what murdered them, weren’t provided.

Moreover, the inverted commas incongruously hovering around the number of Palestinians killed subtly undermined that claim’s credibility while reducing the child victims to an afterthought compared to the considerably more important quartet of deceased IDF genocidaires. MintPress News senior staff writer Alan MacLeod put it succinctly when he Tweeted, “In years to come, students in university departments around the world will be studying the propaganda embedded in this headline. It’s truly incredible how much propaganda has been packed into 16 words.”

The mainstream media’s systematic use of distancing and evasive language, omission and other duplicitous chicanery to downplay or outright justify Israel’s murder of innocent civilians while simultaneously dehumanizing their victims and delegitimizing Palestinian resistance against brutal, illegal IDF occupation is as unconscionable as it is well-documented. Amazingly though, ‘twasn’t ever thus. Once upon a time, mainstream news networks exposed Israel’s war crimes without qualification, and anchors and pundits openly condemned these actions on live TV to audiences of millions.

The story of how Western media was transformed into Israel’s doting, servile propaganda appendage is not only a fascinating and sordid hidden chronicle. It is a deeply educational lesson in how imperial power can easily subordinate supposed arbiters of truth to its will. Comprehending how we got to this point equips us with the tools to assess, identify, and deconstruct lies large and small – and effectively challenge and counter not only Israel’s falsehoods but the entire settler colonial endeavor.

‘Neighborhood Bully’

On June 6, 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon. The effort was ostensibly intended to drive Palestinian Liberation Organization freedom fighters away from their positions on Israel’s northern border. But, as the IDF savagely pushed ever-deeper into the country, including Beirut, it became clear that ethnic cleansing, massacres, and land theft were – as in Palestine – the true goal. Throughout the Lebanese capital, news crews from major networks and reporters from the West’s biggest newspapers were waiting.

Israel’s rapacious bloodlust and casual contempt for Arab lives had hitherto been, by and large, successfully concealed from the outside world. Suddenly, though, scenes of deliberate IDF airstrikes on residential housing blocks, Tel Aviv’s trigger-happy soldiers running amok in Beirut’s streets, and hospitals overflowing with civilians suffering from grave injuries, including chemical burns due to Israel’s use of phosphorus shells, were broadcast the world over, to nigh-universal outcry. As veteran NBC news anchor John Chancellor contemporarily explained to Western viewers:

What in the world is going on? Israel’s security problem, on its border, is 50 miles to the south. What’s an Israeli army doing here in Beirut? The answer is we are now dealing with an imperial Israel, which is solving its problems in someone else’s country, world opinion be damned.”

Global shock and repulsion at Israel’s conduct would only ratchet during the IDF’s resultant illegal military occupation of swaths of Lebanon. In September 1982, an Israel-backed armed Christian militia, Phalange, entered Sabra, a Beirut neighborhood home to many Palestinians displaced by the 1948 Nakba. Over a two-day span, they slaughtered up to 3,500 people while mutilating and raping countless others. Again, unfortunately for Tel Aviv, mainstream journalists were on hand to document these heinous crimes first-hand.

To say the least, Israel had an international PR disaster of historic proportions on its blood-soaked hands. The risk that further exposure of its genocidal nature might decisively and permanently shift global opinion in favor of the Palestinians and the Arab world more generally was significant. The attack on Lebanon had already spurred Western news outlets to critically reassess other illegal annexations and occupations in which Israel was and remains engaged. As ABC News reporter Richard Threlkeld commented at the time:

Israel was always that gallant little underdog democracy fighting for survival against all the odds. Now, the Israelis have annexed East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, settled down more or less permanently on the West Bank, and occupied close to half of Lebanon. In the interests of self-defense, that gallant little underdog, Israel, has suddenly started behaving like the neighborhood bully.”

So it was that in the summer of 1984, the American Jewish Congress (AJC) – a major Zionist lobby organization – convened a conference in Jerusalem, Israel’s Public Image: Problems and Remedies. It was chaired by U.S. advertising supremo Carl Spielgovel, who a decade earlier provided pro bono advice to the Israeli government on strategies for publicly communicating why Tel Aviv refused to adhere to the terms of the Henry Kissinger-brokered 1973 Sinai Accords. Spielgovel later recalled:

It occurred to me then that the Israelis were doing a good job at training their military people, and they were doing a relatively good job at training their diplomatic corps. But they weren’t spending any time training information officers, people who could present Israel’s case to embassies and TV anchormen around the world. Over the years, I made this a personal cause celebre.”

The 1984 Jerusalem conference offered Spielgovel and a welter of Western advertising and public relations executives, media specialists, editors, journalists, and leaders of major Zionist advocacy groups an opportunity to achieve that malign objective. Together, they hammered out a dedicated strategy for ensuring the “crisis” caused by news reporting on the invasion of Lebanon two years earlier would never be repeated. Their antidote? Ceaseless, methodical, and wide-ranging “Hasbara” – Hebrew for propaganda – for “changing people’s minds [and] making them think differently.”

‘Big Scoop’

The AJC subsequently published records of the conference. They offer extraordinarily candid insight into how multiple Hasbara strategies, which have been in perpetual operation ever since were birthed. For example, basic propaganda messages were agreed upon. This included messages that are echoed by Israel’s supporters to this day, emphasizing Israel’s regional importance to the U.S. and Europe, Western cultural and political values, geographic vulnerability, and supposed striving for peace in the face of implacable Palestinian belligerence and intransigence.

As Judith Elizur, an expert in “communications” from Tel Aviv’s Hebrew University, explained:

Because the ‘power dimension’ of Israel’s image is so problematic, it seems to me that Hasbara must concentrate on reinforcing other aspects of Israel that have a positive appeal – medicine, agriculture, science, archaeology… We have been too preoccupied with extinguishing political brush fires. We need to devote more of our resources to long-range image-making. We must recreate a multi-dimensional image of Israel which will assure us the basic support we require in times of crisis.”

There was extensive discussion of how to present “unpalatable policies” to Western populations, and counter the perception of Israel as “Goliath steamrolling” across West Asia, against adversaries “outgunned, outclassed and outmanned” with “no capacity to resist.” The necessity of training the Jewish diaspora in countering criticism of Israel was considered paramount.

AJC’s president lamented that “many American Jews” had condemned the invasion of Lebanon and “did us a terrible disservice.” Any such future “disagreement” would make it “very difficult for us to conduct Hasbara effectively.”

Joseph Block, Pepsi’s former vice president of public relations, stressed the need for a dedicated, 24/7 Israel press operation “equipped to offer foreign journalists an occasional exclusive or scoop” and engage in other media outreach to balance critical coverage and get reporters and newsrooms ‘on side.’ Block lamented that had Israeli officials not “briefed NBC and other networks appropriately” and given them “a big scoop” during Lebanon’s invasion, “a different story would have reached America’s 90 million TV households”:

News doesn’t just jump into a camera. It’s directed. It’s managed. It’s made accessible. Public relations is a process that makes news available in a particular form. In the US, PR is as important as accounting, the law and the military… As a corporate spokesman for two of America’s top 50 corporations, I wish I had a shekel for every time I said, ‘no comment’ to a reporter. I was always careful, however, not to antagonize or intimidate the reporter. I knew I had to live with him or her.”

Yoram Ettinger, media analysis chief at the Israel Information Center, concurred, declaring that media framing on Israel’s actions needed to be determined in advance. “Actions” such as “blowing up houses,” which were “difficult to explain,” could be preemptively justified or at least relativized by placing them “in context” while “[drawing] analogies that others will understand.” This would “help others to interpret their meaning,” per Tel Aviv’s perspectives.

The Conference hoped such efforts would mean “our American friends will be able to take a more activist posture as amplifiers of our policy” and assist them in “tucking away the house problems in a back room.” It was also suggested that on an individual and organizational level, Zionist activists serve as a rapid reaction force, deluging news outlets with complaints en masse should their coverage of Israel be at all critical. One attendee boasted of their personal success in this regard:

One day CBS News Radio reported that an American soldier had been hurt by stepping on an Israeli cluster bomb at the Beirut airport. I called CBS to point out that no one had established the bomb was an Israeli one. One hour later CBS reported that an American soldier had stepped on a bomb; this time the report omitted any reference to Israel.”

‘Frequent Violations’

Another significant recommendation came from Carl Spielgovel: creating a “training program” to bring carefully selected Israeli information specialists into U.S. advertising, PR agencies, and major news outlets. The initiative aimed to equip them with industry insights, ensure Hasbara efforts were maximized, and establish close relationships between Israeli officials and the organizations to which they were assigned.

These “specialists” would operate under the guidance of a U.S.-Israeli council described as “wise persons who can project different scenarios and how to cope with them” on complex issues like “annexation and Jerusalem.” Spielgovel was careful to clarify that he was “not suggesting that we make policy” but rather that “we should make the best minds available to help elucidate the consequences of certain policies.” The goal, he suggested, was to reinforce to the American public that Tel Aviv remains Washington’s “staunch political and military ally.”

Spielgovel further proposed that future AJC conferences should incorporate input from “young people” and people of color to better promote Tel Aviv’s image among diverse “constituencies.” He argued that “Hasbara needs to implant in the consciousness of the world the day-to-day existence” of Israeli citizens, requiring a steady stream of “stories in the arts, business, and cooking sections of U.S. newspapers.” Since then, a dedicated Hasbara program aimed at cultivating skilled Zionist advocates in the U.S. has operated continuously.

Buoyed by its success, the operation soon expanded to include school and university students worldwide, training them to act as vigorous advocates for Israel in classrooms and on campuses. Graduates of these Israeli-funded programs frequently enter influential fields, including journalism, where they continue to promote Hasbara narratives and defend Israel’s actions. The impact on Western media coverage of Palestine has been profound.

To a significant degree, the portrayal of Tel Aviv as “the gallant little underdog democracy fighting for survival against all the odds” has been firmly reestablished. Despite the ongoing crisis in Gaza, mainstream outlets seldom provide context for Palestinian resistance to Israel’s policies of annexation, occupation, and military actions. Coverage nearly always frames Israel’s actions as “self-defense” against “terrorist” threats, with Western journalists keenly aware of potential repercussions for diverging from this narrative.

The rapid reaction force proposed at the 1984 AJC conference remains highly active. An extensive network of Hasbara-trained individuals and Israel lobby organizations is always on standby, ready to pressure and intimidate news outlets if coverage diverges from favorable framing or casts Israel in a critical light. As a senior BBC producer once confided to veteran media critic Greg Philo:

We wait in fear for the telephone call from the Israelis. The only issue we face then is how high up it’s come from them. Has it come from a monitoring group? Has it come from the Israeli embassy? And how high has it gone up our organization? Has it reached the editor or director general? I have had journalists on the phone to me before a major news report, asking which words can I use – ‘is it alright I say this’?”

An October exposé by Al Jazeera, citing testimony from BBC and CNN whistleblowers, detailed “pro-Israel bias in coverage, systematic double standards, and frequent violations of journalistic principles” at both networks. According to insiders, much of this was driven by concerns over how Israeli officials might perceive and react to certain coverage. Independent activists and journalists, however, are not bound by such institutional pressures—and since October 7, 2023, they have mounted a formidable challenge to Hasbara narratives.

Were it not for the persistent investigations by outlets like MintPress News, The Grayzone, and Electronic Intifada, unfounded allegations promoted by Israel since the outset of the Gaza conflict—such as claims of Hamas committing mass rape or beheading infants—might never have been thoroughly debunked and might still shape the “context” for Israel’s actions against Palestinians. Meanwhile, countless concerned citizens have actively challenged Western narratives on the conflict in real-time across social media, a groundswell of critique that may be fueling pushback within some mainstream newsrooms.

It is a poetic irony that the same information warfare techniques once honed under Hasbara are now being directed at Israel and its defenders. For decades, these methods allowed Israel to proceed with its gradual displacement of the Palestinian people, often with tacit approval from Western audiences. But those times seem to be fading. Today, critics and former targets of Israeli policy are effectively using these strategies, wielding what they see as their most potent tools—truth and justice.

Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist and MintPress News contributor exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. His work has previously appeared in The Cradle, Declassified UK, and Grayzone. Follow him on Twitter @KitKlarenberg.

November 2, 2024 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lebanese House Speaker: ‘Israel’ Rejected Lebanon’s Ceasefire Roadmap, Gaza Scenario “Possible”

Al-Manar | November 1, 2024

The Lebanese House Speaker Nabih Berri indicated that the Israeli enemy’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the ceasefire roadmap adopted by the Lebanese government in agreement with the US presidential envoy Amos Hochstein.

Netanyahu obliterated the latest ceasefire opportunity in Lebanon, Speaker Berri said in an interview with the Saudi newspaper, Asharq Al-Awsat.

Speaker Berri noted that the political endeavor aimed at concluding a ceasefire in Lebanon had been postponed till after the US presidential elections, adding that the battlefield would have its say and voicing its concerns and fears of Gaza scenario recurrence in Lebanon.

Hochstein promised to contact us in case of observing positive indications during his meetings in Tel Aviv, Speaker Berri said, adding that the US envoy left without telling us about the results of his visit to the occupation entity.

Speaker Berri reiterated Lebanon’s commitment to the implementation of the UN Resolution 1701 without any amendment.

Meeting with Force Commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), Major General Aroldo Lazaro, Speaker Berri stressed that ‘Israel’ has wasted, at least since last September, more than one tangible opportunity to cease fire, implement Resolution 1701, restore calm and return the displaced persons on both sides of the border.

November 1, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Lebanese PM: ‘Israel’ Rejects Ceasefire, Evacuation Warnings Additional War Crime

Al-Manar | November 1, 2024

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati accused the Zionist entity on Friday of rejecting any ceasefire with Lebanon or any commitment to the UN Resolution 1701.

In a meeting with UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Lt. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro at the Grand Serail, the acting Lebanese premier condemned the expansion of Israeli attacks, saying they signaled a Tel Aviv’s refusal to engage in truce efforts.

“The Israeli enemy’s renewed expansion… and its renewed targeting of Beirut’s Dahiyeh with destructive raids are all stark indicators that confirm the Israeli enemy’s rejection of all efforts being made to secure a ceasefire,” he said.

Mikati denounced the Israeli regime’s evacuation warnings for Baalbek and the southern city of Tyre as an additional war crime.

Meanwhile, he condemned the Israeli assaults on UNIFIL and the threats directed at its personnel, commending “the determination of many friendly nations to support the continuation of UNIFIL’s work in south Lebanon.”

Mikati insisted on the need to preserve the tasks and operational protocols assigned to UNIFIL, which are executed in close cooperation with the Lebanese Army.

The Lebanese PM further reaffirmed Lebanon’s ongoing commitment to the United Nations resolution and its provisions, asserting that “Israeli statements and the diplomatic signals received by Lebanon reflect the enemy’s obstinacy in rejecting proposed solutions and its insistence on a path of killing and destruction. This places the entire international community before its historical and moral responsibilities to stop this aggression.”

November 1, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Here’s why the Israeli military only knows how to fight civilians

By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | October 31, 2024

While it may sound hyperbolic, the Israeli military is only truly prepared to commit high-tech civilian massacres and cannot confront any well-prepared foes. The Zionist regime’s history of asymmetric warfare lulled it into a false sense of security that supplemented their racist worldview, proving catastrophic for them in today’s multi-front war.

Who are the soldiers who make up the military?

In order to understand the Israeli military and how it fights, we first have to understand the society that shapes its soldiers. All Israelis are indoctrinated from a young age with a supremacist ideology through their school system and are geared toward military service from the moment they exit the womb. They believe their army to be “the most moral” on earth, while also believing in the concept of their own supremacy over others.

Any discussion on the Zionist armed forces must begin with recognizing who the Israeli public are because when every one of them finishes high school, they are required to do a 2-3-year stint of mandatory service, which is often followed by reserve service for some time. While there are the likes of the Ultra-Orthodox (Haredim) who do not serve due to religious reasons and liberal Israelis who often use mental health issues as an excuse, most are drafted into some section of the military.

Those soldiers who enter their mandatory years of service, who will actually experience real combat settings, will not enter direct warfare and are instead stationed at checkpoints, do crowd control, or participate in night raids that aim to arrest teenagers who do things like throw stones. This is why many young Israelis find it more mentally stimulating to join the Air Force or work on intelligence. It is not uncommon to find soldiers sitting at checkpoints, bored out of their minds and with frustrated looks. For journalists covering protests across the West Bank, the Israeli soldiers who are deployed to shoot at children/teenagers who burn tires and throw stones act as if they are playing a game of paintball.

These soldiers also quickly gain rank in the Israeli army, earning in a matter of years what most other militaries would usually only issue to their forces after 10 to 15 years of service. These are entitled individuals whose minds aren’t focused and especially over the past decades have become ill-disciplined, permitted to get away with all kinds of decisions they take on an individual basis. It is a citizens’ army, which means that they are very much part of the society as a whole.

If we look at the actions they have been able to commit during armed confrontations, especially inside the Gaza Strip, it is no wonder that they feel emboldened to take matters into their own hands at this time too. This is exemplified through the trend over the past year where their fighters have filmed themselves committing all kinds of crimes and perverted activities, posting this onto social media.

These videos that are posted gleefully on online platforms like Tiktok, where Israeli soldiers wear the underwear of Palestinian women they displaced and killed or blow up/bulldoze civilian homes, are not only reflective of a lack of discipline but also hurt the objectives of the Zionist entity too.

The following are two such cases that highlight how the soldiers damaged the Israeli army’s war efforts: 1) The instant release of information and photos/videos of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, which prevented their superiors from creating a false story about what happened and inflicting a psychological blow. 2) Israeli forces who seized the Rafah Crossing in May filmed themselves callously destroying the site and insulting the Egyptian army while committing an action that technically violated the normalization agreement between Cairo and “Tel Aviv”.

So why can the Israeli army not just clear up this problem? Well, we all saw what happened when 10 soldiers were detained over the gang-rape of a Palestinian detainee; who was being held at the Sde Teiman detention facility without any charge. This led to protests where thousands of Israelis rioted and stormed military facilities in what were dubbed the “right to rape” demonstrations. However, it wasn’t just protesters, the idea of the right of soldiers to gang-rape prisoners was expressed by members of the Israeli Knesset and received support from a large segment of the public.

Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that if the Israeli high command gives the order to begin prosecuting its soldiers for posting videos of themselves burning homes in Gaza and defecating on the floors of houses or committing a litany of other disgusting actions, they would face an internal uprising against such decisions.

What is the Israeli military strategy?

Understanding that Israeli society is inextricably linked to the armed forces, it also helps to shape how we view the mindset of this military. For instance, while in most societies around the world, a civilian death is perceived as more damaging than the death of a soldier, this is precisely the opposite for Israelis. This partly comes down to the supremacist myth of Israeli superiority and also the fact that soldier deaths have not been all that common, with the exception of occasional lone-wolf attacks here and there.

The doctrine of the Israeli military is roughly congruent with that of the US’ Counterinsurgency model that emerged during the so-called “War on Terror” in the early 2000s, yet it differs in key dimensions that make it way less effective than the American military.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Israeli military enjoyed asymmetry on the battlefield, heavily relying on their air force to respond to aggression with a significant force that would complete missions and achieve tactical victories at a very low cost to military personnel. While relying on their superior military vehicles/aircraft during the years of the Second Intifada (2000-2005), the Israelis managed to inflict a defeat on the West Bank-based Resistance groups, the most significant blow being delivered during their 2002 “Operation Defensive Shield” that resulted in around 500 Palestinians being killed.

In the year 2000, the Zionist regime withdrew from South Lebanon – as the situation became costly to their forces – then in 2005, they decided to do the same in the Gaza Strip after failing to crush Hamas during a battle that took place in northern Gaza back in October of 2004.

However, as the Zionists discovered in their 2006 war on Lebanon and later in their countless wars against Gaza, they were now facing a new kind of threat that today they describe as “rocket-based terror armies.” Throughout the past nearly two decades, the Zionist military believed that it could manage the threats posed by both the Palestinian and Lebanese Resistance, needing only to periodically attack in order to maintain “deterrence”.

Yet, between 2019 and 2020, the Israeli military began recalculating and released two important publications: “The Momentum Multiyear Plan” and “The Operational Concept for Victory”. In these documents, it is clear that the Israelis were seeking to adapt to their newly faced challenges. It presents a plan to integrate the developments of the technological “fourth industrial revolution” into military planning, noting that the short military operations that the Zionist armed forces had committed were not delivering the desired image of victory in the face of Iran’s ever-growing military power.

Therefore, the Israelis sought to implement a system that would link all their technological surveillance, reconnaissance, and spyware devices together. We see that in 2021, this new system begins coming into practice as the Zionists brag about their AI systems that helped them conduct the 11-day Gaza war in May of that year. The idea here was to use this system that would be eventually fully integrated to enable the Zionist entity to strike first and deliver undeniable blows resulting in strategic victory.

Then came October 7, when the Hamas-led Operation Al-Aqsa Flood flipped the world upside down for an overconfident Israeli military and its leadership. Suddenly, they were the side that had to muster a response to a blow that completely embarrassed them on every single level, delivered by the least powerful bastion of resistance they faced.

Understanding the Israeli strategy, it shouldn’t come as a surprise also that Hezbollah instantly began targeting the Zionist regime’s reconnaissance and spyware technology during its first phase of the war either.

If we look at their Counterinsurgency strategy in Gaza on the ground, we see that, unlike the US military, they don’t allow infantry to go through and clear buildings before tanks enter an area, instead they use armored vehicles to protect their soldiers and reduce the number of deaths. But the problem with this improvised US Counterinsurgency strategy is that in reducing soldier deaths, it also makes it nearly impossible to properly combat the fighters that they are supposed to be seeking out.

This is because the Israelis are simply too cowardly to follow a traditional Counterinsurgency strategy, attempting to perform this task without the required risk it involves. In the absence of anything to show for their ground operations, which are designed to keep their ill-prepared and ill-disciplined soldiers out of harm’s way, they began to just destroy more and more civilian infrastructure.

What has occurred before our eyes is that the Israelis have been knocked back to their armed strategies of the 1970s, where we see today that they are trying to besiege the Palestinian Resistance in northern Gaza the way they besieged the Egyptian military in 1973. Yet, in the current war inside the Gaza Strip, the Israeli ground forces aren’t prepared for the kind of strategies that were implemented during the October war.

The Israelis needed to reinstate their military dominance and were suddenly placed in the worst possible position, knowing only how to use their technology to kill from a distance, and appearing to have no coherent ground strategies, they were forced to use this rather useless army to achieve extremely difficult goals that their air force and AI tech couldn’t perform for them. In light of this understanding, genocide became the choice and the strategy.

In the past, civilian massacres weren’t simply used for the purpose of shedding blood for no reason – although the Zionist regime had no issue with this at all – the massacres that we saw periodically in Gaza were committed with the goal of inflicting real psychological blows on the Resistance and Palestinian public; in addition to sending a message to the wider region. This time, it is an uncontrolled mass slaughter campaign, allowing their racist unhinged soldiers to do whatever they choose to butcher innocent people and completely destroy the infrastructure of the Gaza Strip.

Why? The Zionist entity realized that it had no military options left and the only way to achieve a victory and rescue the image of strength they had lost was to unleash a genocide, to kill, displace, and destroy everyone and everything. Even their tactical achievements in Lebanon around a month ago are today being swept away by Hezbollah, to which they have no real answer. To their peril, it has become obvious that assassinations and booby-traps cannot achieve a strategic victory and in face-to-face combat, the Lebanese Resistance is clearly superior to them.

October 31, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

US ambassador to Lebanon promotes ‘internal uprising’ to assist Israel: Report

The Cradle | October 29, 2024

A high-ranking Lebanese security source revealed to Al-Akhbar newspaper that the US Ambassador to Lebanon, Lisa Johnson, is continuing her agenda to prepare Lebanon for a “post-Hezbollah era” by mobilizing “internal” forces against the Islamic resistance movement while it fights the Israeli Army.

In discussions with Lebanese politicians, Johnson reportedly said, “Israel cannot achieve everything through war; it’s time for you to do your part and launch an internal uprising under the banner of ‘Enough.'”

The ambassador added, “The Lebanese people must show their desire to rise up and get rid of Hezbollah and return to the context that emerged after the assassination of Rafik Hariri, especially since the regional, international, and field circumstances are in your favor.”

According to the source, the ambassador asked the politicians, “Why do you seem afraid? Hezbollah has been defeated, its leadership is destroyed, and we are with you, and the entire free world stands by your side.”

Johnson encouraged her Lebanese allies to advocate for the election of Lebanese Armed Forces Commander General Joseph Aoun as President of Lebanon, saying, “He (Aoun) will appoint a strong commander for the Lebanese Army, and we will support the Army in restraining all Hezbollah supporters. You will have backing from Arab states and the West. But the time to act is now.”

According to the high-level Lebanese security source, Ambassador Johnson’s allies are conducting incitement operations to stoke internal sectarian tensions in areas where displaced persons, mostly Shia from Beirut’s southern suburbs and the south of Lebanon, are now staying after fleeing their homes due to Israeli bombing.

Lebanon’s society is multi-confessional and multi-national, making the country susceptible to division by outside forces. Lebanon is comprised of Christians (Catholic and Orthodox), Muslims (Sunni and Shia), Druze, and Palestinian and Syrian refugees.

Civil war engulfed Lebanon’s multifaceted society between 1975 to 1990. An estimated 150,000 people were killed.

The source speaking with Al-Akhbar added that “mobilization operations” are being carried out in some neighborhoods and areas controlled by the Lebanese Forces, a right-wing Christian political party, under the pretext of “protecting our areas from the chaos of the displaced and so that they do not turn into occupiers.”

In an effort to weaken Hezbollah, Johnson has also begun calling on politicians, civil organizations, and media professionals with whom she has influence to drive a wedge between Lebanon’s Shia community and Hezbollah.

The source said that Johnson has clearly stated her wish to take advantage of the current Israeli war to completely eliminate Hezbollah, not only militarily but politically as well.

“We do not only want to limit Hezbollah’s influence, but we will strike its support lines, and we are working non-stop to bring down the regime in Iran as well,” Johnson reportedly said.

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

Israeli minister threatens Bashar al-Assad: ‘You are in danger’

The Cradle | October 28, 2024

Israeli government minister and war cabinet member Gideon Saar threatened Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad on 27 October, warning that he will be “in danger” if his country continues to act as a “conduit” for Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah.

Saar – who rejoined Benjamin Netanyahu’s government late last month – said during a conference that Tel Aviv “missed an opportunity” to “collapse” Assad’s government, which was “saved” by Iran and Hezbollah.

Syria must not be permitted “under any circumstances to be a conduit for weapons supply from Iran to Hezbollah,” the minister went on to say, adding that “Israel must make clear to Assad that if he chooses to harm Israeli security in this manner, he places his regime in danger.”

Israel “will not agree to Hezbollah’s renewed buildup of power through Syria, and will not agree to the opening of a front against it from Syrian territory,” he said. “Removing Assad from the Iranian axis will have far-reaching consequences for Israel’s security.”

Israel was heavily involved in supporting extremist groups against the Syrian government at the start of the US-led regime change war against Damascus, which began in 2011.

Fighters from Al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front were given Israeli air cover during the 2014 battles against Syrian government troops and Hezbollah in Quneitra. Wounded Nusra Front fighters were also treated at Israeli hospitals in the occupied Golan Heights.

Over the past several years, Israel’s air force has been waging an unofficial campaign of indiscriminate attacks against Syria, which aim to stifle the flow of weapons from Iran via Syria to the resistance in Lebanon. According to Lebanese analyst and journalist Khalil Nasrallah, this unofficial campaign – dubbed the ‘battle between wars’ – has failed.

Israeli attacks on Syria have increased since the start of the war in Gaza and Lebanon in October last year.

Since Israel’s massive escalation against Lebanon last month, nearly 2,000 people have been killed and over a million displaced. Israel has begun to target Lebanese–Syrian border crossings under the pretext that they are used to facilitate the delivery of Iranian weapons to Lebanon.

Hezbollah has promised its follower base recently that its military capabilities and weapons are in “great shape,” despite Israeli claims to the contrary.

The group has not yet used its more sophisticated and destructive weaponry against Israel.

October 28, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Yezidis in Lebanon Flee the Terror of Israeli Bombs

By William Van Wagenen | The Libertarian Institute | October 28, 2024

Members of the Yezidi religious minority who fled ISIS and other Turkish-backed extremist groups in Syria are now seeking to flee Israel’s relentless bombing campaign in Lebanon.

“They bombed just next to our house. Just five meters from our building. I can’t handle another second here,” said Um Farhad, a Yezidi women living with her husband and two sons in a village near Baalbek in the Bekaa region of eastern Lebanon.

“By God, I don’t know what to do. We don’t know what to do. If we die here or if we don’t die, only God can help us,” she told the Libertarian Institute by phone.

The city of Baalbek, home to ancient Roman ruins, and its surrounding villages have been among the worst hit areas in Lebanon since Israel’s bombing campaign on Lebanon began on September 23.

In the first two days of the Israeli attack, warplanes bombed Baalbek city from all sides, hitting at least twenty-eight towns and villages, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported.

One Israeli strike, in the town of Younine near Baalbek, hit a building housing Syrian workers, killing twenty-three people, mostly women and children.

The Yezidi religious community, whose ancient homeland covers regions throughout Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Armenia was thrust into the international spotlight in 2014, following the genocide carried out against them by ISIS.

In a partnership with Kurdish security forces known as Peshmerga, the notorious terror group massacred thousands of Yezidi men and took thousands of women and children as slaves during an attack on the Sinjar region of Iraq.

But ISIS first grew powerful in neighboring Syria, as part of the broader western-backed insurgency to topple the Syrian government.

Um Farhad and her husband and children fled their home in the Ashrafiyeh neighborhood in Aleppo and came to Lebanon in 2013 after a Free Syrian Army (FSA) sniper shot and injured her son.

Um Farhad now hopes to flee another war, first by escaping the bombing in Baalbek to come to Beirut, and then flee to a safe country. “I just want to keep my family safe and get them to a safe place until the war ends. There is nothing that I care about more than that.”

But reaching safety is difficult. She and her family do not have a car and the road to Beirut is dangerous due to Israeli bombing. Even if they manage to reach the capital, many parts of which are also under heavy Israeli bombardment, they have nowhere to stay.

Over a million Lebanese from the south and east of the country have fled the war and are now displaced. Any open apartments in the major cities of Saida, Beirut, and Tripoli were quickly rented, often at high prices. Spaces in schools converted to shelters in places like the Hamra neighborhood in western Beirut also quickly filled up.

Many displaced Lebanese have had no choice but to live in tents in parks, on sidewalks, on the beach, or under highway overpasses.

Most of the 160 Yezidi families now in Lebanon come from the Kurdish-majority Afrin region in neighboring Syria. They were forced to flee their homes and farms in 2017 when Turkey and its Syrian proxy force, known as the Syrian National Army (SNA), invaded Afrin.

The SNA is comprised of former Syrian “rebels,” including former FSA, Nusra Front, and ISIS members, who fought with western and Israeli backing against the Syrian government starting in 2011. Many view the Yezidis as infidels that deserve to be exterminated.

Many Yezidi homes and farms in Afrin were taken by Turkish troops and their Syrian proxies after the invasion. Afrin is still under Turkish and SNA occupation, making a return to their former home region in Syria impossible.

Mato, a Yezidi man living in a Christian village in the Mount Lebanon region above Beirut, told the Libertarian Institute how he fled to Lebanon after he and his son were pulled off a bus by ISIS fighters while traveling between Aleppo and Afrin. They were imprisoned for four days but finally released after feigning to convert to Islam during a lengthy interrogation by an ISIS emir.

“For sixty years I worked to build a house that Daesh is now staying in,” Mato said. He now works doing manual labor, but there is little work.

Mato lives with his wife and son in a one room hut made of concrete blocks and a dirt floor covered with rugs as the cold mountain winter approaches. Demand for housing drastically increased as many displaced from across Lebanon have come to stay in the village. Before the war, Mato’s rent was $50 per month; now it is $300.

As the numbers of displaced in the village grew, local authorities stopped allowing new displaced families to come there.

Many in Lebanon are reluctant to welcome Syrians and other foreigners they don’t know into their communities, fearing they could be Israeli spies seeking to identify Hezbollah members or give the Israeli military information about locations to bomb.

One Yezidi family that fled from the danger in southern Lebanon to live in a tent in the Mount Lebanon region was forced to leave by local authorities just three days after they arrived.

The high prices resulting from the war have made it difficult for another Yezidi man, Kheiri, who spoke with the Libertarian Institute. “My wife is very sick right now. She is not able to get out of bed. I am not able to afford any medication for her, because rent and food is so expensive. We are old now, in our sixties, so it’s hard to find work,” he explained.

Yezidis in the Mount Lebanon area say the situation could change for the worse any day.

“A few weeks ago, there was a bombing about 3km away. We hope the area is safe now, but no one knows what will happen,” Saad, a Yezidi man living in Mount Lebanon area, told the Libertarian Institute. “When the war first started in Syria, we didn’t worry at first because the problems were far away in the south, in Deraa. But the war quickly moved to Damascus. Finally, it came to us in Aleppo and Afrin in the north. We worry the same thing will happen here and the whole country will be in war.”

The insecurity is made worse because Israel hits not only military, but also civilian, targets. “In war, the airplanes should attack military areas, not civilian areas. But the Israelis are hitting civilians, and this scares us,” Saad stated.

Signs that Israel’s war on Hezbollah may engulf the entire country and target all aspects of Lebanese society continue to emerge.

On October 10, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to inflict “destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza.”

His warning was followed a week later by an Israeli strike on a home in a Christian town of Aitou in the mountains in the north of Lebanon. The strike killed twenty-three people from a Lebanese Shia family displaced from the south.

NBC News described the “overwhelming stench of rotting flesh mixed with concrete dust” pervading the aftermath. “A dead baby inside a destroyed pickup truck; a child’s severed arm buried in nearby rubble; toddler clothing and books shredded; flies swarming as officials collected body parts, some too small for body bags ending up in clear ziplock bags.”

Before the strike, Aitou seemed as far from the violence as possible. Everything “was calm; everything was quiet,” said Illy Edwan, the owner of the villa housing the family.

Amid the chaos, Saad is making an appeal for the protection of Yezidis, an ancient religious minority that has been subject to many campaigns of genocide in its long history. “We are trying to escape from the battle and the conflict. We are suffering a lot now because we are not able to find a safe and secure place. The situation is in crisis. We want to leave Lebanon and go somewhere where there is security and where we can finally just live in peace. This is what we are asking for.”

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

Nasrallah’s Deputy Naim Qassem: Hezbollah will subdue the Israeli Beast

Full Speech by Naim Qassem, Deputy Secretary General of Hezbollah, on October 15, 2024.

Source : Al-Jazeera
Translation : resistancenews.org

In the Name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds. May prayers and salutations be upon the most deserving of creatures, our master, beloved leader, (the Prophet) Abul-Qassim Mohammad, upon his noble and pure family, upon his pious chosen companions, and upon all the Prophets and Righteous, until the Day of Judgment.

Peace be upon you, and God’s Mercy and Blessings.

Israel and its supporters fight, kill, and commit massacres. We find ourselves in a situation that demands we take a stand.

God Almighty has said in His Sacred Book: “Permission to take up arms is hereby granted to those who are attacked; they have suffered injustice. God has all the power to give victory to those who were unjustly expelled from their homes only because they said, “God is our Lord.” Had it not been for God’s repelling some people through the might of the others, the monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques in which God is very often worshipped would have been utterly destroyed. God shall certainly help those who help Him. He is All-powerful and Majestic.” [Qur’an, s. 22, v. 39-40] God Most High has spoken the truth.

We are in the Resistance. We have been uplifted by our great leader, His Eminence Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, may God the Most High be pleased with him, to whom we extend our sincerest greetings. This leader has filled every land with determination, jihad, glory, and victory.

O great leader, you have not abandoned us; your spirit remains with us. Did not the Almighty say: “(The martyrs) are alive with their Lord, receiving their sustenance” [Qur’an, s. 3, v. 169]? Your teachings are our constitution; your words illuminate our path, and your speeches mark the milestones of our journey. You have not left us. The Mujahideen confront their challenges with determination and strength, and your people stand firm, embodying the deep love of God. You have not left us: our hearts are filled with your love, our hope for victory is limitless, and your enemies fear your ghost, seeing you in every mujahid and every person who loves you. Your commands will be executed: we will defeat them and drive them from our land.

I would like to address several points.

First, let us recount what has transpired this year, so that both those close to us and those not so close may understand the vision that guides us and how we perceive the unfolding events. We regard Israel as a usurping and occupying entity, posing a genuine threat to the region and the world. Israel is an expansionist occupation that is not satisfied with Palestine; it seeks to dominate the entire Arab region, the whole Islamic world, and the globe from its position in the region. This occupying force is founded on murder, displacement, massacres, and the worst vices known to this earth. This occupation relies on three pillars: 1) criminality that instills fear, 2) unwavering support from the United States, and 3) time, meaning the notion that what it cannot seize today can be taken tomorrow or the day after.

The Palestinians, led by Hamas, initiated the Al-Aqsa Flood (on October 7) to expel the occupier and declare to the world that 75 years have passed during which the occupation has become entrenched, killing, expanding, displacing, exterminating, and committing every atrocity, leaving us with not an inch of this land. Is it not the right of the Palestinians to act against this occupation, to undermine its presence, and to prevent its continuation? Instead of questioning why the Al-Aqsa Flood occurred, we should ask why the occupation took place. The Al-Aqsa Flood has happened now, after 75 years of occupation. It is a legitimate right—an inherent right for the Palestinians and all who stand beside them.

In Lebanon, we cannot separate Lebanon from Palestine, nor the region from Palestine. Did not the Israelis officially and directly occupy Lebanon in 1978, refusing to leave despite Resolution 425? Did they not occupy again in 1982, maintaining their presence for a total of 22 years, from 1978 to 2000, only to be expelled by the Resistance? Why did Israel persist in occupying Lebanon? It established the Lahd Army, hoping to create a state in southern Lebanon as a precursor to further Israeli colonization, but this plan failed. In 2006, Israel attempted once more to advance into southern Lebanon, only to fail again. Clearly, Lebanon is part of Israel’s expansionist agenda. When Israel appears to cease its expansion, it is merely due to its incapacity; whenever it feels able to expand, it will.

That is why our support for the Palestinians is a support for justice, as they have a legitimate cause. By backing the Palestinians, we restrict Israel’s options for fulfilling its expansionist ambitions. On one hand, we strive to counter the threat to the Palestinians as much as we can, and at the same time, we confront it to prevent the expansion they desire.

Without the United States—the Great Satan—Israel would not have been able to establish such a foothold. The United States seeks a new Middle East. Condoleezza Rice articulated this in 2006, just days after the Israeli attack on Lebanon, when she responded to calls for a ceasefire by saying, “These are the birth pangs of a new Middle East.” However, they failed in 2006.

Today, Netanyahu utters those same words: he desires a “new Middle East.” This means that the United States and Israel, through their crimes and acts of extermination in Palestine, Lebanon, and the region, when the U.S. hands over control to Israel to do as it pleases—mobilizing all its military, political, media, and international resources—are complicit in this project. Thus, we face the threat of a new Middle East shaped by the Israeli-American partnership, executed by the Israeli criminal under the auspices of the Great Satan. When foreigners came to Lebanon with their ambassadors and envoys, asking us through intermediaries or directly to cease our war of support for Gaza so that settlers can return to the north of occupied Palestine, they demanded that we retreat 10 kilometers or more from the border to avoid provoking Israel. They avoid discussing the root of the problem: Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the extermination of the Palestinian people. We replied that they should get a ceasefire in Gaza, after which everything would return to normal in Lebanon, everything would revert to the way it was before. They responded that they couldn’t speak in such terms, and insisted that they wanted to separate Lebanon from Gaza. We did not yield to their demands.

We consider our resistance to be legitimate. It is defensive and has two objectives: rejecting the occupation and liberating the land. O people, you must understand that the project in the region is an expansionist one, and that the Palestinians are fighting for the liberation of their homeland. When we support the Palestinians, it is to help liberate their land and protect ours. And when Iran supports the Palestinians, it is to facilitate the liberation of Palestine, which would also be a blessing for Iran. This is not merely an Iranian project, but a Palestinian endeavor supported by Iran, Hezbollah, Yemen, Iraq, and the free peoples of the region. Is it fair that the entire arrogant imperialist world should support Israel in its aggression while we are denied the right to support the oppressed in their struggle for liberation? Contributing to this cause is an honor for Iran—the Iran of Imam Khomeini, may God sanctify him; the Iran of Imam Khamenei, may God preserve him—who has committed all of Iran’s resources to strengthen the Palestinians. It is Iran’s pride that the great martyr Qassem Soleimani worked to fortify this region in the face of Israeli occupation. In contrast, it is the shame and disgrace of the United States and its allies to support Israel’s criminality and murder.

I’m going to address a question that some people naively ask through the media: “Don’t you see the damage being inflicted in Lebanon?” I ask them: who is responsible for this damage? Is it the one defending the land or the one murdering our people and destroying our infrastructure? In defending ourselves, are we causing harm? Can’t you see that it is Israel that kills, Israel that attacks, Israel that commits these atrocities? I want you to understand that if we do not confront Israel—whether under the pretext of international resolutions meant to protect Lebanon and restore its rights, or the notion that Palestine is not our concern, or any other excuse—Israel will achieve its objectives. This is how Israel operates today: they sow terror, killing children and women and committing horrific massacres to undermine the will of the people. After that, all they have to do is say, “We want this village, we want this town, we want this country,” and people will surrender because they’ve seen what has happened before. But when we stand firm, when we take on the challenge and confront the enemy, when we endure sacrifices and inflict losses upon them, we will have protected generations for decades and centuries to come. It is natural to pay a price when we face the enemy, and these sacrifices—which we honor and praise—are necessary to liberate our land, deter the enemy, and thwart its plans, for the enemy also pays a price.

Secondly, how do we cope? As the Resistance, we fight with honor, targeting their military. Israel acts with monstrosity and ignominy, murdering children, women, the elderly, hospitals, humanitarian workers, and all those in the civilian sphere. Israel’s goal is to destroy and eradicate the Resistance and its people; they want to obliterate everything. When Israel initiated its recent campaign in Lebanon, it established three phases. The first was to strike at our leadership and military capabilities in order to deprive us of our ability to defend ourselves and confront the occupation. The second phase aims to eliminate Hezbollah’s presence. Finally, the third phase seeks to redefine Lebanon to serve Israeli and American interests, allowing them to govern it at will. However, they haven’t even succeeded in achieving the first phase. It is true that we have suffered greatly, and the loss of our leaders, including His Eminence the Secretary General—may God be pleased with him—has been significant and painful. Israel attempted to neutralize our military force by targeting our capabilities and missiles in various locations, but, thank God, they were unable to complete this first phase.

Let me clarify our position: there is only one way to achieve results, recover our territory, and halt the aggression, and that is through the steadfastness of the Resistance and the unity of its people around it. The Secretary General, His Eminence Sayyed Nasrallah—may God be pleased with him—has built a robust Resistance based on faith, trust in God, and preparation of all its capabilities. The mujahideen have hearts that aspire to a dignified life and do not fear death. As for the enemy, because he is morally bankrupt and all the resources at his disposal have proven useless, he has resorted to assassinating members of the Lebanese army, attacking UNIFIL forces, and bombing churches, places of worship, and mosques. Today, he even struck an aid convoy carrying the flag of the International Red Cross, prompting the Commissioner of UNRWA to declare that the agency has never faced such a situation since its inception. Even when Israel attacks UN forces, including UNIFIL, he demands they abandon their positions. Where are the emergency forces? Where is the UN? Where are France, Great Britain, and the United States? Where are all those who constantly lecture us on the necessity of respecting international resolutions? Israel disregards any international resolution. Israel does as it pleases, and international resolutions merely serve to remind Israel of the law, to no effect. Israel answers to no one.

In any case, we are facing a rampaging monster that cannot tolerate resistance preventing it from achieving its goals. But here’s the good news: we are going to grab its leash and take it back to the pen. Just wait and see.

Third, what are the equations of confrontation? We have moved from support (for Gaza) to direct confrontation with Israel since September 17, marked by the pager explosions, which were the first step toward war, culminating on September 27 with the assassination of His Eminence the Secretary General—may his soul be sanctified. Consequently, since September 17, we have entered a new phase: the confrontation of Israeli aggression against Lebanon. We are no longer in the support phase, which involved occasional escalations at the front line (along the border between Lebanon and occupied Palestine). Today, Israel has declared war against us. For the past two weeks, we have started the equation of the battlefield at the front line. The Mujahideen have been engaging the enemy in various locations, including Kfar Kila, Adaisseh, Yaroun, and Mays al-Jabal. In all honesty, their performance on the ground during these two weeks has exceeded their expectations. The mission of the Resistance is not to act as a regular army preventing a regular army from advancing; it is to conduct guerrilla operations against the enemy wherever it may be. So, when the Israelis boast that they have gained hundreds of meters in Lebanon, we respond that they are behind schedule, as they have been unable to advance in the past two weeks. In any case, as they advance, our young fighters are ready for increasingly tough confrontations.

In the first week on the front line, 25 Israeli soldiers were killed and 150 wounded. This was just in the first week. Of course, as usual, Israel has acknowledged only a fraction of those casualties. From one week ago to today—seven days since last Tuesday—we have established a new equation called “inflicting pain on the enemy,” ensuring that he feels the pain. Our missiles will reach Haifa and beyond, as our Sayyed (Nasrallah) wished. You have seen that our drone and missile strikes have reached Tel Aviv. Last Sunday alone, Israel acknowledged 100 killed and wounded—and of course, when Israel claims 100 casualties, we know there are likely more. The strike on Benyamina alone resulted in over 70 casualties. This demonstrates the Resistance’s resolve and capabilities. On Monday, we successfully targeted our missiles at Tel Aviv. Two million settlers from the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, Gush Dan, took shelter. A total of 194 towns and settlements went into their shelters, and warning sirens sounded everywhere. Ben Gurion Airport halted operations. This is all part of the “inflict pain on the enemy” equation, and it will continue.

Sidebar: On october 23rd, Hezbollah stated that the enemy’s losses have reached over 70 killed and more than 600 injured among the officers and soldiers of the Israeli army. Additionally, 28 Merkava tanks, 4 military bulldozers, one armored vehicle, and one troop transport vehicle had been destroyed. Three Hermes 450 drones and one Hermes 900 drone have also been shot down. These figures do not include Israeli losses in the military bases and barracks in the north and interior of occupied Palestine.

I tell you: since the Israeli enemy has targeted all of Lebanon, we have the right, from a defensive position, to target any point within the Israeli entity—whether in the center, north, or south. We will choose any point we deem appropriate. There are no limits in this equation, as Israel has opened this equation. In this regard, I’d like to point out something that many people may not be aware of. While we certainly cannot thank the enemy, it inadvertently aids us in striking back. How so? When we launch a missile, their anti-missile systems engage, and the debris falls on settlements and towns, which is a blessing. It’s not just about what we hit; it’s also about what their anti-missile systems hit when they fall back. Our drones and missiles are active, and sirens sound everywhere. You should understand that the sirens ringing throughout Israel are a sign of the impact on Israeli society.

We will focus our strikes on the Israeli army, its centers of presence, and its barracks. I tell the Israeli home front that the only solution is a ceasefire. I don’t say this from a position of weakness. If the Israelis do not want it, we will continue. After the ceasefire, according to the indirect agreement, the settlers will return to the north, and subsequent stages will take shape. As the war continues, the number of evacuated settlements will multiply, putting hundreds of thousands, if not over two million Israelis, at risk at any moment. Do not believe the claims of your officials about our capabilities; instead, look with your own eyes at the dead and wounded in your army, knowing that what they tell you is far from the truth.

https://x.com/TheCradleMedia/status/1850238987933266212

Look at what is happening in Gaza. In Gaza, the legendary confrontation has persisted for a year, and the Israelis have achieved nothing. Martyr Haniyeh and many other martyrs have fallen, and immense sacrifices have been made: over 40,000 killed, over 100,000 wounded, and over 10,000 missing. Yet they remain steadfast, and the resistance operations continue. What is the Israeli response? Strikes against refugee camps! Near the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital, they hit the tents where children were! Where is the free world? Where are the United States? Where is France? Where is Great Britain? Why do they not denounce these acts? They are all complicit in these crimes by imposing no limits on them. The Israeli army is acting immorally. As far as he is concerned, the issue of the prisoners in Gaza is closed. He does not want them back.

As for the Resistance, I tell you it will not be defeated, because it is its land, and its fighters are aspiring martyrs who accept nothing less than a dignified life. Your army is already defeated and will become even more so, with God’s grace.

Fourthly, if you seek reassurance about Hezbollah, I tell you: Hezbollah is strong, despite the heavy blows suffered after the pager explosions and everything else that has happened. We stated earlier that we have regained our strength on the ground and restored our leadership. The deputies have stepped up in place of the martyrs. I repeat: there is no vacant leadership position; every role now has a commander. The battlefield bears witness to this evolution.

Hezbollah is strong—strong in its mujahideen and capabilities, strong in its cohesion, as is the Amal movement, with this population working together in solid alliance, with strength and determination. It is strong through its allies, the noble media, supporting organizations, and the government that assists. It is strong in the national unity that has silenced dissenting voices to the point where they are unable to express themselves. It is strong due to popular support, and it is grounded in piety, under the leadership of our great leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah—may God the Most High be pleased with him.

I will now conclude with three messages.

The first message is for the Mujahideen: you are the greatest example of jihad and a title of honor and dignity. You are the hope and good news of victory. “Fight them! God will punish them with your hands, cover them with ignominy, grant you victory over them, and heal the hearts of a believing people.” (Quran, S. 9, V. 14). You are the trustees of the martyrs, the wounded, the prisoners, and their families—those who have given and sacrificed what they held dearest for this cause. Our trust in you is immense, and we stand with you and behind you.

The second message is directed to all the Lebanese people. We are one country. Throughout the previous phase, we have worked to build and save this country. It is Israel that disrupts our lives with its continuous aggression. Today, your human solidarity, the national solidarity of all Lebanese denominations and parties, and all religious schools strengthen our cohesion and help build our homeland politically, together, with a clear vision of who our friends and enemies are. We will remain united, with God’s grace, and let no one gamble on the notion that it will be otherwise: Hezbollah will remain at the heart of the action. Whatever happens, the results will come from the battlefield.

The third message is for our grassroots supporters. O our beloved ones, who have been displaced, endured destruction, and made sacrifices, we deeply appreciate your contributions. Your children are on the battlefield while you remain displaced. By God, you are the most honorable, the greatest, and the noblest of people. We share the same destiny; we are one family on a single path. We suffer what you suffer and rejoice in what you celebrate. We understand the sacrifices are immense, but we must endure. Today, we must be patient despite the hardships.

“If a people, one day, aspires to live,
Fate must respond.
The night must end,
The chains must break.” [famous poem by a Tunisian revolutionary].

Victory comes with patience and requires steadfastness.

I repeat the promise of our Sayyed, Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, may God be pleased with him: I assure you that you will return to your homes, which will be rebuilt even more beautifully than before. We have begun laying the groundwork to realize this project once we have completed our struggle and triumphed, enabling us to start the work of reconstruction, with God’s grace, in cooperation with all parties. We will not abandon you, just as we know you will not abandon us.

The enemy will witness what this great resistance and its remarkable people are capable of.

Peace be upon you, and may God’s mercy and blessings be with you.

October 27, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Rewriting Resolution 1701: Hochstein’s diplomatic cover for Israeli expansion

By Anis Raiss | The Cradle | October 25, 2024

On 21 October, Amos Hochstein, born in Israel in 1973 and once an Israeli tank crewman, returned to Lebanon as a US envoy, not to protect peace but to redefine it on Tel Aviv’s terms.

The irony is undeniable: Israel, having lost 28 tanks in almost as many days during its latest invasion attempt, now sends one of its former tank crew members, not in battle, but in diplomacy – to achieve through words what military force could not secure: control over Lebanon through revisions to UN Resolution 1701.

Hochstein’s mission may appear to be an act of diplomacy, but is it really about fostering peace? Or is he aligning with Israeli policy to reframe control while eroding Lebanon’s sovereignty? The diplomatic veneer only thinly conceals the underlying agenda of control.

From Oslo to 1701: Reinterpreting peace for control

The Israeli playbook of manipulating peace processes is nothing new. In a 2001 leaked video, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted about his manipulation of the Oslo Accords, using vague phrases like “military facilities” to tighten Israeli control over contested areas.

Netanyahu openly stated, “America is something that you can easily maneuver,” hinting at the ease with which Israeli influence shapes US diplomacy – a dynamic that is evident today in Hochstein’s actions.

The Israeli army veteran’s push for amendments to Resolution 1701 is a clear continuation of this strategy: advancing the occupation state’s interests under the guise of diplomacy from Washington. Just as Netanyahu reinterpreted the Oslo Accords to solidify Israeli control, Hochstein’s proposed changes to 1701 seek to turn it into a tool for extending Tel Aviv’s influence. This is not diplomacy for peace; it is diplomacy for power.

1701: Israel’s unfinished battle

Resolution 1701, passed by the UN Security Council on 11 August 2006, marked a critical point for Israel, which found itself unable to defeat Hezbollah during the July War despite its advanced military capabilities.

Brokered by then-US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the ceasefire allowed Israel a face-saving exit under the guise of diplomacy rather than face a prolonged, unwinnable battle. But the resolution has since been a point of ongoing contention – one Israel has repeatedly violated.

One notable violation is Israel’s continued occupation of Shebaa Farms, which contravenes both Resolution 1701 and the earlier Resolution 425. Hezbollah’s decision to remain armed, often criticized internationally and in some quarters domestically, becomes a logical and legally justified response under international law, given Israel’s occupation of Lebanese land. The ongoing presence of Israeli forces undermines the very peace that Resolution 1701 aimed to establish.

Tel Aviv’s disregard for the resolution extends beyond territorial occupation. Since 2013, Israel has repeatedly violated Lebanese airspace to conduct strikes on Syria, treating Lebanon’s skies like an unguarded backdoor for foreign interventions.

This belligerent behavior is akin to a trespasser using a neighbor’s yard to attack another – an act that undermines Lebanon’s sovereignty entirely. In August 2019, a significant escalation occurred when Israel launched a drone strike in Beirut, which then-president Michel Aoun condemned as a “declaration of war.”

Moreover, Israel’s occupation of the northern part of Ghajar village further violates both the Blue Line and Resolution 1701. Despite UNIFIL and the Lebanese Armed Forces deploying south of the Litani River, Israel’s persistent refusal to withdraw ensures that peace remains elusive, leaving Lebanon under the constant threat of Israeli aggression.

Rewriting 1701

The amendments proposed by Hochstein to Resolution 1701 reveal Israel’s broader strategy of using international mechanisms to further its objectives. These changes would extend UNIFIL’s jurisdiction two kilometers north of the Litani River, allowing international forces to conduct searches, patrols, and inspections without requiring approval from Lebanese authorities. These inspections can include searching vehicles, private properties, and suspected weapons sites.

Effectively, this is a demand for Lebanon to cede control over its own territory – a clear infringement on its sovereignty. Under the guise of peacekeeping, this would grant Israel indirect control over Lebanon’s internal security dynamics, especially since intelligence for these operations may be influenced by, or even originate from, Israeli sources.

Eyes on the south

Hochstein’s proposal raises critical concerns about intelligence oversight: Who will guide these operations, and how might covert Israeli interests be served? The potential involvement of Israeli tech companies like Toka, co-founded by former prime minister Ehud Barak, is telling.

Toka specializes in advanced surveillance technologies that can hack into and manipulate live or recorded video feeds from public and private security cameras, including those in ports, airports, and border crossings.

If Toka’s technology is deployed in southern Lebanon, it could potentially compromise the very systems used by UNIFIL. This technology, which leaves no trace, could be exploited to monitor Hezbollah and Lebanese military movements, all under the guise of international peacekeeping operations. The consequences would be profound: a complete erosion of Lebanon’s security, replaced by a surveillance network manipulated by Israel to serve its own strategic interests.

Israel’s covert surveillance approach can be seen in how it handles Beirut’s southern suburbs. The infamous Dahiya Doctrine advocates for overwhelming destruction of civilian areas to target Hezbollah strongholds, yet Israel seems to avoid fully enacting this policy – possibly due to its desire to preserve infrastructure that supports covert operations.

Technologies like Toka’s suggest a more calculated plan, enabling 24/7 monitoring of Hezbollah-controlled areas south of the Litani River. Armed with precise intelligence, Israel could execute targeted strikes or assassinations akin to those witnessed during the 2006 war, turning southern Lebanon into a zone of perpetual surveillance and intermittent violence – all under the pretense of adhering to Resolution 1701.

Berri’s rejection

Nabih Berri, long-time leader of the Amal Movement and a staunch ally of Hezbollah, immediately opposed Hochstein’s proposed amendments. As Speaker of Parliament since 1992, Berri has been a key figure in resisting Israeli encroachments and defending Lebanese sovereignty.

His longstanding relationship with Hezbollah and the broader Shia political movement positions him as a critical figure in Lebanon’s struggle against foreign intervention. Upon receiving Hochstein’s proposals, Berri recognized them for what they were: an attempt to undermine Lebanese sovereignty under the guise of enhanced peacekeeping.

While Hochstein framed these amendments as necessary for stability, Berri’s response was clear: the real issue is not a lack of oversight but Israel’s continued violations of Lebanese airspace and territory. As Berri emphasized, any genuine pursuit of peace must begin with holding Israel accountable for its aggression and ensuring it abides by existing UN resolutions.

He also announced that “the consensus among the Lebanese on Resolution 1701 is a rare consensus, and we are committed to it,” adding, “We reject any amendments to Resolution 1701, whether by increase or decrease.”

In an interview with Al Arabiya TV, Berri also stated, “I have been mandated by Hezbollah since 2006, and it agrees to 1701.”

Resolution 1701, meant to establish peace, is being reshaped into a surveillance tool – a mechanism for Israel to achieve what it could not through military means. The use of sophisticated surveillance technology, the selective enforcement of ceasefire terms, and the involvement of international forces all serve to undermine Lebanon’s sovereignty, rendering “peace” a hollow word.

October 25, 2024 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel attacks al-Mayadeen’s office in Beirut

Press TV – October 23, 2024

The Israeli regime has carried out an airstrike against the office of Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen television network in the country’s capital Beirut.

The attack struck the building in the city’s Jnah neighborhood on Wednesday, killing one person and wounding five others, including a child, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

The network said it had fortunately evacuated the building last October after the regime notably escalated its deadly attacks against Lebanon.

Reacting to the attack, al-Mayadeen denounced the regime for targeting a well-known media outlet, but stressed that it would continue to report the truth amid the escalation.

Mahmoud al-Mardawi, a senior official with the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, also condemned the atrocity, hailing the network’s “pioneering work in revealing the truth.”

“Al-Mayadeen, which dismantles the narrative of Zionist sympathizers, is a fighter channel in confronting the enemy, which seeks to cover up the truth and present misleading narratives,” he added.

The Palestinian resistance Mujahideen Movement also condemend the attack, considering it to be “part of the systematic Zionist campaign targeting honorable free media outlets.”

The attack “is clear evidence that the channel is on the right path, and it stands as a badge of honor and pride for this resistance channel,” it noed.

“Despite the unlimited support the Zionist narrative receives from Western media machinery, the enemy has failed to suppress or obscure the voice and image of truth.”

As part of its campaign against the outspoken network, the regime ordered suspension of its operations in the occupied Palestinian territories last November, identifying it as a “threat to Israel’s security.”

In August, the regime renewed the ban and ordered confiscation of the network’s equipment and blocking of its websites.

Since October 7 last year, when it launched a genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and intensified its deadly aggression on Lebanon, the regime has been pursuing a policy of blocking media coverage that could expose its atrocities.

Ever since, it has killed more than 170 journalists in the coastal sliver and Lebanon, including al-Mayadeen correspondent Farah Omar and cameraman Rabih Me’mari.

The duo were killed in an Israeli bombing moments after completing a live broadcast in southern Lebanon.

Last month, the network also announced the death of its journalist Hadi al-Sayyed in an Israeli airstrike that had targeted his home in southern Lebanon.

In January, the Committee to Protect Journalists, a human rights and press freedom group, said the war on Gaza “is more deadly to journalists than any previous war.”

It said the brutal military onslaught had, until that month, “damaged or destroyed an estimated 48 media facilities” in the coastal sliver.

Reporters Without Borders has also denounced the regime for intentionally targeting Palestinian and Lebanese journalists.

October 24, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment