US enlists Cyprus, Jordan, Greece as ‘defensive platforms’ for Israel: Report
The Cradle | August 9, 2024
Washington has enlisted the island nation of Cyprus in its efforts to protect Israel from potential retaliations by Iran and Hezbollah to the recent Israeli attacks on Tehran and Beirut, Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar reported on 9 August.
A US military delegation visited Cyprus this week and held urgent meetings with Cypriot defense and intelligence officials.
“The delegation was accompanied by a logistical, military and security force carrying with it a large amount of equipment, weapons and modern air defense systems, in addition to helicopters,” Al-Akhbar wrote.
Cypriot officials said they had never seen such quantities of weapons before, the report went on to say.
According to the report, the US informed Cyprus that this equipment was “related to tensions in the region” and that the island would serve as “one of the interception platforms against expected attacks from Iran, Yemen and Hezbollah.”
It adds that the UK has reinforced its bases in Cyprus, and has sent experts and air defense equipment to the country.
The UK has two large military bases in Cyprus, which are British sovereign territory and make up 2.5 percent of the island’s area.
Germany has also reportedly expressed an intention to deploy naval forces to Cyprus and to assist in evacuations in case of a large-scale war.
“What further confused Cypriot authorities was the US request for joint military drills with American forces on the island’s land and seas … drills do not happen suddenly, but rather require a program that is prepared at least a year in advance, not 48 hours in advance,” Al-Akhbar said.
“Cypriot officials have been keen to communicate with … the axis of resistance, especially Hezbollah, to convey the message that what is happening ‘is happening against their will, and that they do not want to involve their country in any war.’ They expressed their fear that the island could become an arena for a confrontation with Iran, Hezbollah, and even Ansarallah.”
Yemen’s army and Ansarallah resistance movement is also preparing a response to the Israeli attack on Hodeidah port last month.
The Al-Akhbar report states that these messages are unlikely to change anything in the event of a wide-scale war, given that Cypriot authorities are also coordinating directly with Tel Aviv.
“Opening Cypriot airports and bases to the Israeli enemy to target Lebanon would mean that the Cypriot government is part of the war, and the resistance will deal with it as part of the war,” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech in June, warning Cyprus against taking part in an expanded Israeli war on Lebanon.
Cyprus and Israel have stepped up military cooperation in recent years as part of a joint declaration signed in 2017 and have also carried out several joint military and naval exercises. In 2022, the two states carried out joint military exercises on the island nation’s territory. Cyprus denied Tel Aviv’s declaration at the time that the exercises were meant to simulate war inside Lebanon.
Hebrew newspaper Israel Hayom reported on 11 March this year that Israel is seeking to establish a port in the Cypriot city of Larnaca in case the port of Haifa is closed in a war with Hezbollah.
According to the Al-Akhbar report, Greece and Jordan are also deeply involved in Washington’s defensive plans for Israel.
In April, Jordan played a significant role in intercepting Iranian missiles and drones which targeted Israel in response to its destruction of the Iranian consulate in Damascus and the killing of several of its officials that month.
Israel killed Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on 31 July, as he was visiting Iran as a diplomatic guest while attending the inauguration of the country’s new president. A day earlier, Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander in the Lebanese capital, targeting him in a residential building while killing several civilians, including children, in the process.
Hezbollah and Iran have both vowed severe retaliations to the illegal attacks.
Why The Zionist Entity Decided To Take The Risk Of Regional War?
By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | August 8, 2024
Despite the Israeli-US alliance pulling off two high-profile assassinations within hours and posed as if they are ready for an all-out war, it is clear that they could only handle a regional conflagration which would quickly end in a stalemate. If this escalation goes the wrong way, however, there are only two options left for them, and both are terrible.
The Zionist Entity was faced with a choice, after failing to reach victory in Gaza: either end the war or escalate. It was clear from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the US Congress that the leader of the Entity was bent on escalation and that he would receive bipartisan support in the United States for carrying out actions designed to achieve the desired goal.
Finding their justification in the massacre of 12 Syrian-Druze children in the occupied Golan Heights, quickly jumping to accuse Hezbollah, the Israeli military launched their attack on a multi-story building in southern Beirut. While the Zionists attempted to use the blood of the indigenous people of the Golan, living in Majdal Shams, for their own propaganda purposes, the people refused to allow them and blamed the Zionists for the massacre in their village, as Hezbollah vehemently denied any involvement.
The timing of the massacre came at a convenient time for the Zionist Regime, as the Israeli PM was at the tail end of his trip to the United States. Shortly afterward, the Israelis murdered seven Lebanese and injured around 80 in their attack on the southern suburbs of Beirut. The primary target was Hezbollah military leader Fouad Shokor, who was martyred along with three children and two women on Tuesday, July 30. Then, just hours later, the Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
None of this is by accident and the suggestion that the United States was not involved is simply ludicrous.
What Is The US-Israeli Strategy?
An all-out regional war will result in the annihilation of the Zionist Entity, for even with direct US involvement, the Zionists still can’t win. Even if we assume that nuclear weapons might be used, the firepower of the Resistance is such that the Israelis would experience a similar blow from the sheer scale of missile power directed toward them.
Knowing that victory is not possible, it appears evident, therefore, that strategies are in place to prevent a war from reaching its inevitable conclusion. The Israelis and Americans are frustrated by their devastating failures since the Hamas-led October 7 attack, whether it be in the inability of the Zionist military to secure a victory against the Palestinian Resistance in Gaza, or the US’ embarrassing defeat at the hands of Yemen’s Ansar Allah. The blows dealt to the Zionist Entity, in the security, military, political, societal, and economic spheres, are so great that it is unclear how they can ever recover.
Faced with such a predicament, the US-Israeli alliance had two options, either accept the strategic defeat and pursue a diplomatic solution to the chaos they have wrought over the past 10 months, or, escalate. The assassinations in Beirut and Tehran indicate they chose escalation.
The Israelis themselves have conducted two major war games over the past years, testing the capabilities of the Zionist military to fight a multi-front war, losing both times. Keep in mind that these military exercises were also conducted while assuming that the full strength of the Israeli military would be intact. At this time, the Zionist army is stretched thin, it is undertrained, overworked, and suffers from a lack of motivation and discipline. Additionally, it has lost many of its tanks and armored personnel carriers, as thousands have been damaged and destroyed in Gaza.
It suffices to say that Israel does not possess the capacity to fight the war it is pursuing, which is why the assassinations came as such a shock to many. However, as I have previously written here for Al Mayadeen, the Israelis had one last option left to prolong the war and the strategy is as follows:
Open up a war with Lebanon, but attempt to keep it limited to trade off blows and close the conflict with a stalemate. A war with Hezbollah will bring great carnage to Israeli infrastructure and result in scores of dead Israelis, thereby distracting the population from the war in the Gaza Strip. This would create an environment that could enable the Israeli prime minister to close a ceasefire deal with Hamas in Gaza. From there, the Zionist regime could then pivot to the West Bank, annexing around 60% of its territory and launching a military operation – similar to “Operation Defensive Shield” in 2002 – to murder the majority of the Resistance fighters there.
Under such a scenario, Benjamin Netanyahu will use the assassinations of Resistance leaders as trophies to brag about a supposed victory, while presenting the argument that his regime confronted an existential threat from multiple foes and survived. He will then use the land grab in the West Bank as proof of conquest and the killing of Resistance fighters there as a “security” achievement. This situation is what both the US and their Israeli allies see as the best-case scenario.
However, the situation could quickly spiral out of control and the damage done to the Zionist Entity could prove so great that it remains only a shell of itself if it manages to survive at all. It is a dangerous strategy, to say the very least, and although they may see it as a bold attempt to restore US-Israeli hegemony in West Asia, it also projects weakness and a lack of options. Such a risk, which could result in the end of the Zionist Entity, would only be taken if their backs were against the wall.
If this goes sideways for the Zionists, then they will likely have two options left. The first will be the infamous Samson Option, to use their nuclear weapons. The second could involve the deployment of regional forces into occupied Palestine to prevent the fall of the Zionist Entity.
The first option needs no further explanation; it is pure terror. The second has not been publicly discussed as of now but could also be implemented if it looks like the Israeli regime is about to collapse on the ground and Palestinian territory is close to liberation. If such an event occurs, it is plausible that the Jordanian and Egyptian armies could be deployed into occupied Palestine, in order to prevent the land from being taken over by Resistance fighters who are less likely to engage regional armies, this would also likely involve the presence of the Turkish armed forces who could potentially be deployed as well. Although there is no evidence to support this theory, it might be seen as the only way to de-escalate the situation if the Zionist Entity is on the brink of disintegration.
Regardless, the Zionists have gambled, and only time will tell how this will turn out.
Israel’s allies block Security Council statement condemning Tehran attack
The Cradle | August 1, 2024
The US, UK, and France blocked a Russian-proposed statement at the UN Security Council (UNSC) condemning the assassination of Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Iran’s envoy to the UN Amir Saeid Iravani said on 1 August.
“Russia’s proposed statement condemning Israel’s heinous act was blocked by the US, UK, and France,” Iravani told Russian media following an emergency UNSC meeting on Wednesday night.
“It is now absolutely necessary to hold the occupying [Israeli] regime accountable for the atrocities it committed,” the Iranian diplomat added. “This regime cannot be allowed to escape accountability and consequences for the violations it has committed.”
During the session, Iravani stressed that Tehran “reserves its inherent right to self-defense in accordance with international law” and said that “the responsibility of the United States as a strategic ally and main supporter of the Israeli regime in the region cannot be overlooked in this horrific crime. This act could not [have] occurred without the authorization and intelligence support of the US.”
Permanent UNSC members Russia and China strongly condemned Israel’s attacks on the Iranian and Lebanese capitals, blasting Tel Aviv for once more sabotaging Gaza ceasefire talks and pushing the region to the brink of all-out war.
“China is deeply concerned about the potential for this incident to further destabilize the region,” Fu Cong, China’s permanent representative to the UN, emphasized during the meeting. “China strongly opposes and condemns recent irresponsible actions, including Israel’s attacks on southern Beirut,” he added.
Fu also called on Tel Aviv to cease all military actions in Gaza and appealed to “influential countries” to “put more pressure and work more vigorously … to put out the flames of war in Gaza.”
Russia’s first deputy envoy to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, also condemned Haniyeh’s killing, calling it an “attempt” to drag Iran into war.
“This provocative attack was carried out while the Hamas leader was in Iran on an official invitation to attend the inauguration ceremony of the President-elect of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian. Those behind this political assassination had to realize how dangerous the consequences could have been for the entire region,” Polyansky said.
“The misguided practice of targeted liquidations of prominent political and military figures is bringing the Middle East to the brink of a region-wide war,” the Russian diplomat added.
Feda Abdelhady Nasser, the deputy permanent observer of the State of Palestine to the UN, told the gathered diplomats that the global community “has a choice to make” between “peace and security” or letting “Israel drag us all to the abyss.”
“Israel has been the oppressor, tormentor, and murderer of Palestinians for decades, and it is the longstanding destabilizer of our region,” Nasser highlighted.
Lebanon’s Acting Permanent Representative to the UN, Hadi Hashem, contested Israel’s claims that the attack on the Beirut suburb of Dahye this week was an act of “self-defense.”
“Israel’s claim that it seeks to protect the population it occupies is a display of hypocrisy,” Hachem said, adding, “The real goal of Israel is to prolong and escalate the hostilities. And it is ironic that the killer of tens of thousands of children in Gaza sheds tears for the children of the occupied Syrian Golan.”
Similarly, Syria’s UN ambassador, Qusai al-Dahhak, stressed that “Israel is responsible for the crime in Majdal Shams” and noted that the territory is Syrian, accusing Israel of “weaponizing” the attack on the Druze community “to continue its aggression on the states of the region.”
Robert Wood, deputy US ambassador to the UN, called on UNSC members with influence over Iran “to increase pressure on it to stop escalating its proxy conflict against Israel and other actors.”
France and the UK took a similar line, reiterating a call for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza and condemning what they said was Iranian support for “destabilizing actors in the region.”
Lebanon files complaint at UNSC, ITU, accuses ‘Israel’ of cyberwarfare
Al Mayadeen | August 1, 2024
The Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has filed a complaint with the United Nations Security Council and the Secretary-General of the United Nations through its permanent mission in New York over the Israeli occupation’s repeat violations of Lebanon’s cyberspace.
The complaint calls on Security Council member states to condemn the Israeli cyber attacks on Lebanon, which pose a serious threat to civil aviation services and endanger the security and safety of communication networks, devices, applications, and electronic data in vital Lebanese facilities.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also requested its permanent mission in Geneva to file a complaint with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The complaint urges the ITU to take the necessary technical measures to stop these attacks and assist Lebanon in ensuring the proper functioning of its communication networks.
The Ministry’s actions are based on a report from the Lebanese Ministry of Telecommunications, which revealed the source of interference in northern occupied Palestine that has caused a decline in the accuracy of the Global Positioning System (GPS) in Lebanon, affecting transport and communication services.
The report also indicated the presence of repeated warnings from the Network Time Protocol server, showing the frequent loss of GPS signals and a decline in the quality of service and user experience for mobile network operators.
Since the onset of the Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip in October 2023 and the escalation along the Lebanon-occupied Palestine border area, residents in Beirut have intermittently experienced disruptions in the functioning of widely-used electronic maps, such as Google Maps, and interference with GPS signals.
This disruption in location services for transportation applications, like Uber, is attributed to the interference with GPS signals. Lebanon accuses the Israeli occupation of deliberately causing this interference to hinder land and air transportation amid the ongoing escalation in southern Lebanon.
Not the first complaint
Lebanon’s permanent mission to the United Nations lodged in February a formal complaint to the UN Security Council against the Israeli attacks in South Lebanon, which was not the first time.
The submitted complaint detailed that an Israeli drone, using a guided missile, targeted a residential building in the city of Nabatiyeh, southern Lebanon, resulting in the martyrdom of 10 people, including women and children.
The mission stated that these strikes amount to a “war crime” while addressing the rotating President of the Security Council Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett.
Israeli aggression targets residential building in Beirut Southern Suburb
Al Mayadeen | July 30, 2024
An Israeli strike targeted a residential building in the Southern Suburb of Beirut on Tuesday evening, destroying a substantial section of the structure.
The strike comes after continuous threats by Israeli occupation officials of a substantial aggression on Lebanon, since Saturday.
Al Mayadeen’s correspondent reported that the strike targeted the Southern Suburb of Beirut, where at least one explosion was heard.
In detail, our correspondent said that the strike targeted a residential building in Haret Hreik, resulting in the collapse of a substantial section of the structure.
“Israel” has been threatening a strike against Lebanon, after falsely accusing the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon – Hezbollah, of launching an attack on the Israeli-occupied Syrian town of Majdal Shams.
IOF says it targeted Hezbollah commander
The Israeli occupation forces spokesperson said the military targeted a commander responsible for the alleged Majdal Shams strike. He added that there is “no change in the directives of the Home Front Command,” which are a set of directives issued to settlers in times of war.
Strikes on the Southern Suburb of Beirut have been largely avoided by Israeli authorities, due to the warnings of the Resistance against such an escalation.
The last time an Israeli strike targeted the Suburb was on January 2, 2024, which killed the top Hamas official in Lebanon, martyr Saleh al-Arouri, and others.
Hezbollah responded to the aggression with wide-ranging strikes on Israeli military targets, attacking the Meron Air Traffic Control Base for the first time.
Lavrov: Hezbollah, Lebanese govt. avoid full-scale war with Israel, but some within regime seek conflict
Press TV – July 18, 2024
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement and the Lebanese government do not want a “full-blown war” with Israel but “some” within the regime are seeking it.
Speaking at a press conference at the UN headquarters in New York on Wednesday, the top Russian diplomat said “there’s a suspicion that some circles in Israel are trying to achieve just that.”
Lavrov, citing some American and European analysts, stressed that “escalation, as the practical developments show, is something which Israel is interested in.”
Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging deadly fire since early October, shortly after the regime launched a genocidal war on Gaza following a surprise operation by the Palestinian Hamas resistance group.
Hezbollah has vowed to keep up its retaliatory attacks as long as the Tel Aviv regime continues its Gaza onslaught.
“Hezbollah has been very much restrained in its actions,” Lavrov further said, adding that its leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, has already “delivered a number of public statements which reaffirmed that position.”
“However, the sentiment is that there’s an attempt to provoke them, and to provoke them into a full-blown engagement,” the top Russian diplomat warned.
According a tally by the Associated Press, Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon since October have killed more than 450 people while Hezbollah’s retaliatory attacks have claimed 34 lives.
Israeli media say Hezbollah’s retaliatory strikes have displaced around 60,000 Israeli settlers from northern parts of the occupied lands.
Israel’s war on Gaza slammed as ‘collective punishment’
Elsewhere in his remarks on Wednesday, Lavrov stressed that Israel’s war on the besieged Gaza Strip has crossed the line and is now a form of “collective punishment” on the territory’s 2.3 million Palestinians.
“When it comes to collective punishment in violation of international humanitarian law, one cannot fight against one form of violation through other violations. It’s the same principle here,” he said.
The Tel Aviv regime has killed about 38,800 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in Gaza, since October 7.
Since the start of the war, the United States has supplied Israel with more than 10,000 tons of military equipment and used its veto power against all UN Security Council resolutions that called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Despite the unabated campaign of bloodletting, the occupying regime has so far fallen short of realizing its two main “goals”, namely defeating and eliminating Hamas, and releasing Israeli captives.
Russia Ready for Ukraine Peace Talks With Focus on Clear Security Agreements
Sputnik – 17.07.2024
Russia is ready for negotiations on Ukraine and European security issues and will incorporate safeguards against dual interpretations in any future European security treaty said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
“We are ready for negotiations, but considering the sad experience of talks and consultations with the West and Ukrainians… I hope a treaty will be reached at some stage on European security, and in this context the Ukraine crisis will be resolved,” Lavrov stated during a press conference following a UN Security Council meeting.
“We will, of course, be very careful with the wording and will incorporate safeguards into this document against repeated unscrupulous, unreliable interpretations,” the foreign minister added.
Lavrov emphasized that, unlike China, the West does not address the root causes of the conflict in its initiatives on Ukraine.
“This already concerns the content of the dialogue; China has very clearly indicated in its first initiative the need to start with addressing the root causes of the current crisis in Europe and to work on agreements to eliminate these causes,” he said.
He noted that “no one at the Copenhagen or Burgenstock meetings even mentioned the root causes.”
Thus, the West is trying to push through Volodymyr Zelensky’s plan by all possible means.
“A course has been set to push through at any cost the so-called Zelensky plan, which has a clearly defined form of an ultimatum,” Lavrov emphasized.
Lavrov’s comments were in response to a question about Russia’s possible participation in the second summit on the Ukraine conflict and the outcomes of the recent conference in Switzerland.
On Russia-US Unofficial Contacts Regarding Ukraine
Russia and the United States have held unofficial and so-called “second level” expert level contacts to discuss issues related to the conflict in Ukraine, Minister Lavrov added.
“I will tell you in confidence — we have had unofficial contacts with the Americans involving political experts, political experts who know each other and understand the policies of their governments,” Lavrov told the press conference, adding that Ukraine was on the agenda of such contacts.
Despite the fact that the two countries are holding phone conversations from time to time, there is nothing significant in these talks, he noted.
On Russia’s Readiness to Work With a New US President
Russia will be ready to work with any elected president of the United States, the foreign minister claimed.
“Once again I want to say: we will work, we will be ready to work with any American leader that the American people elect and who … will be ready for an equal, mutually respectful dialogue,” Lavrov said at the press event.
On Israel Seeking to Involve the US in Regional Escalation
It appears that Israel’s goal is to involve the United States in the escalation of tensions with Iran, the minister observed.
“The sense is that they want to provoke them into full-scale involvement with Hezbollah. The purpose of such a provocation, analysts suggest, is to draw the United States directly into the involvement of its armed forces in this [regional] conflict,” Lavrov emphasized.
Russia hopes the West will do everything to ensure that such ideas, “if they exist in the Israeli leadership,” will remain only ideas.
Moscow is doing everything to “calm down the situation,” Lavrov added.
On the Nord Stream Explosions
Russia will continue seeking the truth regarding the explosions of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, Lavrov said.
“We will pursue the truth – since I’ve mentioned the Nord Streams, we’re going to seek the truth,” he highlighted.
Hezbollah-affiliated group launches 1st operation against Israel since Al-Aqsa Flood
MEMO | July 14, 2024
The Lebanese Resistance Brigades, a paramilitary group linked to Hezbollah, claimed responsibility yesterday for a military operation against Israel in southern Lebanon. This announcement marks the group’s first since the launch of Al-Aqsa Flood last year.
Founded by Hezbollah in 1997, the Brigades include volunteer fighters from various Lebanese sects. On Friday, they reported launching rockets at the Israeli ‘Rweisat al-Qarn’ site in the occupied Lebanese Shebaa Farms, achieving a “direct hit.” Hezbollah and Israel have engaged in near-daily exchanges of fire since the war on Gaza began.
Hezbollah which supports Hamas has vowed to cease attacks only with a Gaza ceasefire. The Lebanese government and Hezbollah rejected the occupation state’s demand to evacuate the border area of Hezbollah fighters. Nabih Berri’s parliamentary bloc welcomed international efforts to end Israel’s aggression against Gaza and opposed establishing buffer zones in Lebanon.
In October, the Lebanese Resistance Brigades lost two of its fighters, Ali Kamal Abdel Aal “Jihad” and Hussein Hassan Abdel Aal “Bilal”, from the town of Helta in southern Lebanon, who were martyred while performing their national duty, reports Al Mayadeen.
Cross-border fire continues, with a Lebanese army vehicle recently hit by Israeli gunfire. The personnel escaped unharmed. The Brigades affirmed their mission to resist Israeli occupation and liberate Lebanese territories.
“Our” Man in Israel
By Ted O’Keefe | The Occidental Observer | July 7, 2024
The issue of dual loyalty is an ancient one. As noted in a previous TOO article,
[Stephen] Walt points out that [Dennis] Ross has a long involvement with pro-Israel activist organizations, such as being director of WINEP [Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a pro-Israel think tank headquartered in Washington, DC].
But Ross’s ties to Israel are even deeper than that. Until his appointment as Middle East envoy in the Obama Administration, from 2002–2009 Ross was Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute. This organization has assumed the role of long term planning for the Jewish people, not only in Israel but also the Diaspora. The JPPPI is an independent think tank that reports to the Israeli government and has close ties with other Jewish organizations. Its mission is “to promote the thriving of the Jewish people via professional strategic thinking and planning on issues of primary concern to world Jewry. JPPPI’s work is based on deep commitment to the future of the Jewish people with Israel as its core state.”
The JPPPI’s report Facing Tomorrow 2008 is interesting because it focuses on the threat of Iran and but also because it sees people like Stephen Walt as a threat to Israel:
The Jewish people must, as the highest priority, develop an appropriate response to the Iranian nuclear threat to Israel and to global stability as a whole. While there is no ambiguity about the need to do so in Israel, it is necessary to mobilize Jewish opinion around the world as well. The American Jewish community cannot be intimidated either by a post Iraq syndrome in the United States, or by the false and pernicious allegations of Professors Walt and Mearsheimer, or former President Carter.
In other words, Jews around the world are encouraged to mobilize to combat the threat to Israel represented by Iran. The assumption is that Jews have common interests as Jews no matter what country they happen to live in. Dennis Ross is doing his best to promote exactly this view within the Obama administration.
One might think that such a view would leave Jews in the Diaspora open to the charge of disloyalty, but the problem is easily finessed: Jews in the Diaspora are told to frame Israel’s concerns about Iran as a global threat, not simply as a threat to Israel.
Of course, that’s what we are seeing now. But we needn’t be naïve. Jews like Dennis Ross are clearly far more loyal to Israel than to the US. Speaking as a psychologist, they wouldn’t be able to see a conflict of interest between the US and Israel if it was staring them in the face. Indeed, as Gore Vidal said of Norman Podhoretz, they are unregistered agents of a foreign government.
In a sane society, there would be a huge groundswell of public opposition to Ross’s appointment–as there has been for a number of Obama’s appointments. But that won’t happen.
Since there has been no groundswell of media or public opposition to pro-Israel operatives like Ross at the highest levels of the U.S. government, it’s not surprising that the practice continues. Amos Hochstein is a good contemporary example. Israel and the powerful Lebanon-based Shiite Hezbollah militia are on the brink of open warfare, conflict that could trigger U.S. intervention and escalate to a regional or even a world war. To date these dangers have attracted little notice from the American mass media, ever eager to divert and dissemble from the direr consequences of the Washington regime’s one-sided support for Israel. Small wonder, then, that the media should evince the same reluctance in investigating the shadowy past and dubious allegiance of Hochstein, the emissary the U.S. recently dispatched to “mediate” between Hezbollah and Israel. The following is a brief foray into the workings of the Israel Lobby in the Biden Administration, as well as a primer on the perks of being Jewish in America.
Hochstein’s importance
To be sure, media reports have not slighted Hochstein’s great influence in the Biden White House or his meteoric career. He has been described as “one of President Biden’s closest confidantes [who] has worked with him for many years,” while another Washington insider calls Hochstein “the person who bridges State, Treasury, the White House and Energy”
Fittingly, one of Hochstein’s titles is “Special Presidential Coordinator.”
Yet the media have underplayed, and often ignored, a key fact about Hochstein in his role as an impartial arbiter between Hezbollah and Israel: his birth, youth, and military service in Israel.
Beyond those bare facts about his origins, Hochstein has been remarkably unforthcoming about his life before he arrived in the United States in 1974. While nearly every successful denizen of the D.C. is eager to brandish Ivy League/Seven Sisters (or the equivalent) educational credentials, one may scour the internet (including his page on the usually resume-rich LinkedIn job-hunting site) without finding anything about Hochstein’s education, college or secondary.
Just as murky are the circumstances by which Adam Hochstein, a 21-year-old immigrant with unknown credentials, became a congressional staffer within a year of his arrival in this country, working for Rep. Sam Gejdenson (D-CT) who, like Hochstein, is a Jew.
Despite his youth and inexperience, Hochstein carried out important assignments for Gejdenson. Not yet 25, he traveled to North Korea in 1997 to report on its economic and military situation; still in his twenties, he undertook negotiations with the Iraqi government (against the advice of the U.S. State Department) aimed at “resettling” thousands of Palestinians there in exchange for loosening some of the crippling sanctions then in force there.
Well before 9/11, Hochstein advocated acting against Iraq for harboring “weapons of mass destruction” in a press release issued by Congressman Gejdenson, and soon afterward he was serving as senior advisor to a senator and a governor. Like many members of the permanent government, Hochstein has used hiatuses between his party’s dominance to work in lobbying and industries close to government, in his case capitalizing on energy policy expertise that he seems to have acquired with no expertise in the field. He’s evidently done well, at some point becoming a partner in two D.C. restaurants and a movie theater.
Under Obama, Hochstein (without known diplomatic training or experience) rapidly climbed the ladder at the State Department to become America’s chief energy negotiator, deeply involved in efforts to block Russian natural gas from Europe and to facilitate Israeli access to energy.
During the Trump presidency, Hochstein served on the board of Ukraine’s natural gas company, Naftogaz.
Hochstein’s knowledge of the ins and outs of Ukraine’s shady corrupt energy industry is evidently considerable. In his testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives, Hunter Biden stated that Hochstein had advised him merely to be “very careful” in serving on the board of the notoriously corrupt Burisma corporation.
Hochstein also seems to have had a role in the “whistle blowing” that led to Trump’s first impeachment resulting from a phone call interpreted by Democrats as pressuring Zelensky to investigate Biden family corruption in Ukraine, and to have been advising Zelensky before his election.
It’s also interesting that there is a lack of definitive information on Hochstein’s current citizenship:
According to one report, a State Department source has claimed that he is “not a dual national,” but refused to state if he has renounced his Israeli citizenship, and in fact gave no [details as to Hochstein’s American citizenship.] So the question raised, unanswered— Hochstein’s citizenship is evidently a “carefully guarded secret.” Not acknowledging Hochstein’s Israeli citizenship would be useful because, for example, in Lebanon, where Hochstein has been involved as an American negotiator on the Israeli conflict with Hezbollah, “it is normally illegal for an Israeli” to visit Lebanon.
Even Hezbollah at the time did not comment on the mediator’s nationality or military past, with leader Hassan Nasrallah saying they will “not express an opinion or position related to the demarcation of borders”.
Given all this, it’s hard to disagree with this quote originally from Ha’aretz:
… the American brokerage farce, whose players are almost all American Jews, some of them former or future Israelis. If the United States is a side in the conflict, then it should say so and conduct the negotiation as though Israel is its protégé. And if it really wants to be an honest broker, then come on – Amos Hochstein?…
Lebanese Prime Minister Says His Country in State of War Due to Threats From Israel
Sputnik – 29.06.2024
Lebanon is in a state of war due to threats and aggression from Israel, Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said.
“The threats we see are a kind of psychological warfare. The question that is on everyone’s lips ‘Is it a war?’ Yes, we are in a state of war. Due to Israeli aggression, there are a large number of civilian and non-civilian casualties and destroyed villages,” Mikati said in a statement on Saturday.
On June 18, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that it had approved operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz later said that Israel was “very close” to a decision to “change the rules” against Hezbollah and Lebanon, threatening to destroy the movement “in an all-out war” and to “severely hit” Lebanon.
Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah said that the movement could invade northern Israel if the confrontation intensifies further.
The situation on the Israeli-Lebanese border worsened after the start of Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip in October 2023. The IDF and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters fire at each other’s positions in areas along the border on a daily basis. The Lebanese Foreign Ministry said that around 100,000 people had to leave their homes in border areas, while the Israeli Foreign Ministry said that 80,000 Israelis had to do the same.
If the war expands, will western facilities become the new target banks?
The Cradle | June 28, 2024
Israel’s brutal, nine-month military assault on Gaza has full support from several western-allied states, not only in supplying the occupation army’s war machine with a broad range of armaments and ammunition but also through direct military participation. The United States and Britain, for example, have provided vital reconnaissance and intelligence data and have sent their special forces to assist Israel in military operations.
An 8 June New York Times report revealed that US forces assisted the Israelis in retrieving four Israeli captives from Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least 274 Palestinian civilians and three additional captives and leaving over 698 wounded. According to the paper’s Israeli sources, the US and UK provided intelligence from the air and cyberspace that Israel could not obtain on its own.
On 29 May, the Declassified UK media project reported that London authorized an unprecedented 60 Israel-bound flights using cargo planes that took off from the UK’s RAF Akrotiri air base in Cyprus, a facility covertly used by the US Air Force to move weapons to Israel.
The British government has not revealed the content of the air cargo transported – and maintains that no “lethal aid” is included. London instead claims that RAF flights to the occupation state are used to support its “diplomatic engagement” with Tel Aviv and repatriate British subjects – an odd use of military aircraft when Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport is still operational for regular passenger travel.
London has vigorously invoked its D-Notice since just after the war’s onset, a military and security directive aimed at preventing media outlets from publishing information that could harm national security, specifically relating to British airborne Special Forces (SAS) operations in Gaza. No further information has been revealed since the directive was issued on 28 October 2023.
How western intel penetrates West Asia
But all those concealment efforts were cracked open during Israel’s disproportionate military operation to secure the release of captives during the recent Nuseirat camp fiasco. Trending videos appeared of an Israeli helicopter landing next to the recently-installed $320 million US’ aid pier’ and of ‘aid trucks’ carrying special ops teams that were flanked by armored vehicles during the operation.
Media then reported that dozens of US and UK drones assisted in the Nuseirat camp assault, ostensibly by providing reconnaissance services to the Israeli military.
These incidents highlight not only direct western military participation in the war on Gaza but also the brazen exploitation of diplomatic cover or humanitarian work to prepare and carry out military actions that have led to mass civilian casualties and war crimes, as described by many United Nations institutions.
The question now is whether western facilities and troops will come under target as the war expands, potentially to Lebanon, given the evident collusion of western states in Israel’s aggressions – especially those in flagrant violation of international norms and law.
Although the use of embassies and civilian institutions – in the modern sense – as bases for intelligence gathering and launching special missions is not a new practice and dates back to at least the nineteenth century, current developments in technology and computing have enabled these facilities to act as spying and eavesdropping centers, monitoring and storing information for an entire country.
What was previously impossible has become reality through wireless communication and the Internet. Signal intelligence formerly gained by planting eavesdropping and listening devices can now be accessed via the common smartphone – with data funneled to these centers inside sovereign states.
Aerial view of the US embassy complex, northern Beirut.
‘Second-biggest US Embassy in the world’
Spawling approximately 174 thousand square meters, around 13 kilometers from the Lebanese capital of Beirut, lies the second largest embassy in West Asia – and the world. The new US Embassy in Beirut is surpassed in size only by its counterpart in Baghdad’s “Green Zone.”
Subtracting from the massive size of the embassy and its cost of nearly a billion dollars, there are many questions about the need for such facilities and what they contain.
The computer-generated images published by the embassy show a complex featuring multi-story buildings with tall glass windows, entertainment areas, a swimming pool surrounded by greenery, and views of the Lebanese capital. According to the project website, the complex includes an office, representative housing for employees, community facilities, and associated support facilities.
In May 2023, the Intelligence Online website reported that the massive billion-dollar complex will include a data collection facility, preparing the site as the new regional headquarters for US intelligence. The report says that because of its proximity to Syria, “Lebanon is considered a safe and strategic location for the deployment of intelligence agents already in the region as well as new personnel, who are selected directly from Washington-based agencies.”
Construction of the new US embassy, 13 kilometers north of the Lebanese capital of Beirut.
Although it is not possible to obtain precise information about the design of this embassy, the excavations below surface level, the use of reinforced concrete in the structure, and its fortified location on top of a hill suggest that there is more to its operations, especially since several precedents of the US Beirut diplomatic mission being implicated in the work of intelligence services exist.
The 1983 bombing of the American Embassy revealed a high CIA death toll, with eight killed, including the CIA’s chief West Asia analyst and Near East director, Robert Ames, station chief Kenneth Haass, James Lewis, and most of the CIA’s Beirut employees.
The embassy was not only used as a CIA hub but also as a key regional intelligence base due to Lebanon’s proximity to both the sea and two British NATO bases in southern Cyprus, Dhekelia and Akrotiri, from which reinforcements or helicopter transfers can arrive rapidly onto Lebanese soil. A recent example, in 2020, is Washington’s smuggling of its agent Amer al-Fakhouri from the US embassy using an Osprey helicopter.
British Watchtowers on Lebanon’s borders
On 3 May, Lebanon announced the visit of an official delegation and a senior British intelligence officer the previous month to discuss the construction of new UK-built watchtowers. These are in addition to the more than three dozen watchtowers built by Britain during the Syrian war along the sensitive border between Lebanon and Syria.
According to leaks reported by Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar newspaper, the British delegation had asked the Lebanese army “to approve a plan to establish watchtowers along the border with occupied Palestine, similar to those existing on the eastern and northern borders with Syria.”
Following the low-profile visit, Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati disclosed: “Establishing the towers and taking measures along the border are Israel’s conditions for stopping the war with Lebanon.”
Last February, the Lebanese Foreign Ministry received an official Syrian protest note classifying the British watchtowers as a threat to Syrian national security on several levels. The main threat is the tower systems’ sensitive intelligence and espionage equipment, which “shines deep into Syrian territory and collects information about the Syrian interior.”
According to Al-Akhbar’s report, “the information output from this equipment reaches the hands of the British, and the Israeli enemy benefits from the output to target Syrian territory and carry out strikes deep inside Syria.” The Syrian memorandum also refers to “the presence of some British officers at the towers.”
A 30-foot British watchtower near the Lebanese-Syrian border
Security cameras monitor the surrounding area at a border point on Lebanon’s border with Syria (Photo by the Lebanese Army Command, Orientation Directorate)
The 38 British watchtowers that claim to assist Lebanese authorities in “combating smuggling” raise many questions instead, among them the reasoning behind the erection of such a large number of these structures. Why, too, do the towers contain thermal monitoring, eavesdropping, signal intelligence, and communications equipment – especially in light of the close relationship between Tel Aviv and London and the periodic presence of British officers in these towers under the pretext of training the Lebanese army?
A commanding officer of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), interviewed at length by The Cradle in August 2021, contradicts London’s public claims about the towers, saying: “The aim of the towers today is to monitor the movements of Hezbollah and the Syrians.”
Dutch special forces in Dahiyeh
In March, Hezbollah captured several Dutch military forces operating covertly in Dahiyeh, the southern suburb of Beirut, which hosts several offices of the Lebanese Resistance. The detainees claimed they were operating under cover of the Dutch Embassy in Lebanon and were found with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of military equipment and advanced communications devices on their persons and in their vehicles.
During investigations, the Dutchmen claimed they had entered the southern suburb as part of a training exercise for evacuating Dutch citizens and diplomats in the event of a war. However, no Dutch nationals of the embassy resided in that area. It was also found that the servicemen had not communicated about their mission with the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Lebanese security services, or their country’s embassy.
That same month, a Spanish citizen was arrested for filming inside the same southern suburb of Beirut, only to discover later that he had a diplomatic passport and that his phone contained advanced software that prevented access to its data.
These events and a myriad of other examples show that some western governments continuously use western diplomatic and civilian facilities to gather intelligence or conduct special missions training in sovereign Lebanon.
These actions constitute a clear violation of the Vienna Convention on International Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which prohibit embassy diplomats from carrying out espionage activities. These actions don’t only place civilian populations in danger but also the thousands of professional diplomats in the country, all diplomatic missions, and the civilian facilities used as cover for illicit operations. They also drag otherwise immune diplomatic facilities into the legal framework of “hostilities,” intentionally or accidentally.
This danger is reinforced by Israel’s repeated violations of diplomatic and international norms, which are either ignored or protected by western allied states. Israel’s unprecedented military strikes against Iran’s consulate building in Damascus in April, for instance, did not receive the deserved condemnation from most western capitals, which helped it avoid the requisite UN Security Council censure.
Since the basic value of international norms is the precedent and event on which this law is built, the possibility increases that such western-supported attacks will backfire wildly and lead to the retaliatory targeting of western facilities and embassies – all in the context of new legal precedents and customs created that no longer prohibit strikes on suspect non-military facilities.
It is yet unknown to what extent western governments can expect to maintain their double standards in the application of international law and customs, especially if the Gaza war they are materially supporting expands to Lebanon or other West Asian regions.
The Resistance Axis, which has, in the past nine months, normalized military strikes on Israel, missile attacks on Israel-destined shipping vessels, and weekly strikes on US and UK naval fleets, are but one escalation away – as in, a declared war on Lebanon – to create a new set of target banks that surpass their last ones.
Does that then include the US embassy in Baghdad, the largest in the region – and the world – hosting 10 thousand American employees and troops, or, closer to home, the second largest embassy in West Asia, the US embassy in Beirut?
It is difficult to imagine that such facilities will remain immune if western involvement remains apparent, which we already know to be a constant, daily flow of armaments to fuel Israel’s war machinery and provide Tel Aviv with military intelligence and target banks.
It will be even harder to protect diplomatic missions if they reveal themselves to essentially act as military command centers or intelligence hubs during the conduct of war. Targeting these facilities – which are already in breach of the Vienna Convention – can easily fall within the framework of self-defense and reciprocity as long as western states and Israel continue to normalize these illicit activities.
If the Gaza war established entirely new rules of engagement throughout the region, do Israel’s western allies expect to escape unscathed in an expanded war? How do they think they can arm military aggression against a country and yet remain safely in its capital city?
Featured Video
Trita Parsi: Israel Set a Trap for Total War in the Region
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archive
Zionism’s Violent Legacy
By Donald Neff | Washington Report On Middle East Affairs | January 1996
On January 4, 1948, Jewish terrorists drove a truck loaded with explosives into the center of the all Arab city of Jaffa and detonated it, killing 26 and wounding around 100 Palestinian men, women and children.[1] The attack was the work of the Irgun Zvai Leumi – the “National Military Organization,” also known by the Hebrew letters Etzel – the largest Jewish terrorist group in Palestine. The Irgun was headed by Revisionist Zionist Menachem Begin and had been killing and maiming Arabs, Britons and even Jews for the previous ten years in its efforts to establish a Jewish state.
This terror campaign meant that at the core of Revisionist Zionism there existed a philosophical embrace of violence. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Trita Parsi: Israel Set a Trap for Total War in the Region
- Trump’s Iran war is on an Israeli leash
- Saudi oil boss issues global supply warning
- Riyadh Says Its Oil System Is Intact. The Numbers Say Otherwise.
- Trump and Netanyahu Want to “Finish the Job” on Iran
- US ‘one-sided dictation’ not Iran’s beliefs makes rational talks impossible: Baghaei
- Iran’s Next Strike May Not Explode. It Could Shut You Down /Col Doug Macgregor
- Iran: US political targets legitimate if assassinations return
- Iraq shuts key border crossing with Iran under US pressure: Report
- Undersea Internet cables could be targeted in retaliation for attacks on Iran: IRGC deputy chief
- If Americans Knew
- The Israel Lobby’s Changing Fortunes
- AIPAC has become such a political liability that it’s shifting to a more “nimble” approach to buying politicians
- At least 160 Israeli settler attacks in 2 weeks
- Will Gaza’s Ancient Christian Community Disappear Forever?
- Israel’s vision of regional security rests on keeping Arab states weak
- Heidi Levine recounts how Palestinian youths helped save her in settler attack
- DAILY UPDATE: Latest essential news on Palestine, Israel, & region
- Trump’s Intensifying Sabotage of the ICC, for Israel’s Sake
- Israeli military detain US and UK volunteers in West Bank including Democratic NY politician Brad Lander
- Americans at National Conservatism Conference held in Israel this year criticize Israel
- No Tricks Zone
- E-Cars Reduce CO2 Emissions By Only 41% Compared To Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles
- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Professor Over Past Decades Have Been Proven To Be Poor
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
