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Hezbollah confirms Hassan Nasrallah assassinated by Israel

The Cradle | September 28, 2024

Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah confirmed on 28 September the assassination of its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah during intense Israeli airstrikes that hit Beirut’s southern suburbs on Friday.

“His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General of Hezbollah, has joined his great and immortal martyred comrades, whose path he led for nearly thirty years, during which he led them from victory to victory, succeeding the Master of the Martyrs of the Islamic Resistance in 1992 until the liberation of Lebanon in 2000 and to the glorious divine victory in 2006 and all the battles of honor and sacrifice, arriving at the battle of support and heroism in support of Palestine, Gaza, and the oppressed Palestinian people,” the statement released by the Lebanese resistance reads.

“The leadership of Hezbollah pledges to the highest, most sacred, and most precious martyr in our journey full of sacrifices and martyrs that it will continue its jihad in confronting the enemy, in support of Gaza and Palestine, and in defense of Lebanon and its steadfast and honorable people,” the statement adds.

Hezbollah also stressed that its leader “is still among us with his thought, spirit, line, and sacred approach, and you are committed to the pledge of loyalty and commitment to resistance and sacrifice until victory.”

Nasrallah was killed during an Israeli carpet bombing campaign on the Lebanese capital that destroyed several residential buildings and displaced tens of thousands of civilians. The attack reportedly targeted the main headquarters of the Lebanese resistance movement.

Earlier on Saturday the Israeli army confirmed Nasrallah’s assassination alongside other top resistance leaders. Israeli authorities told the New York Times (NYT) that they had been tracking Nasrallah “for months,” adding that “more than 80 bombs were dropped over a period of several minutes to kill him.”

Born in 1960 to a Shia Muslim family in a poor area of east Beirut, Nasrallah briefly joined the Amal Movement as a young man, inspired by its leader Sayyed Musa Sadr.

In late 1976 Nasrallah left for Najaf in Iraq to study at the city’s religious seminary, where he met Lebanese scholar Abbas Mussawi. After the 1978 Baathist crackdown on Shia Muslims Nasrallah and Mussawi returned to Lebanon where he continued his studies.

Nasrallah became head of Hezbollah’s executive council and a member of its shura council in 1985. Seven years later, Mussawi, serving as Hezbollah’s secretary general, was assassinated along with his wife and child in an Israeli airstrike.

Speaking at his funeral, Nasrallah said, “By murdering … Sayyed Abbas Mussawi, they sought to kill our spirit of resistance and destroy our will for jihad. But his blood will continue to simmer in our veins, only strengthening our determination to move forward and intensifying our enthusiasm to pursue the path.”

“America will remain the primary enemy of this nation and the greatest Satan of all. Israel will forever be, in our eyes, a cancerous growth that must be eradicated, an artificial entity that should be removed, even if all the rulers of the world recognize it. Palestine—all of Palestine—will remain part of this nation, and we shall not relinquish a single grain of its sand.”

According to Iranian General Hossein Hamedani, following the assassination of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani by the US in 2020, Tehran tasked Nasrallah with uniting its armed allies in Iraq. He also supervised the overall policy for the Resistance Axis during the US-backed Syrian war.

One day after the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, Nasrallah declared the opening of a “front in southern Lebanon to support Palestinian resistance,” vowing over the past year that the effort would remain active until the war in Gaza ends.

“Our commanders, fighters, women, and children will be martyred; we are united in sacrifice – this is the reality of resistance, and this is our path until the day of judgment,” Nasrallah said during a televised speech earlier this year following the Israeli assassination of Hezbollah senior commander Fuad Shukr.

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

Let’s Force Antony Blinken to Resign

No, it would be even better to arrest him for war crimes

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • September 27, 2024

Some might argue that Antony Blinken is the worst Secretary of State that the United States has ever had to suffer under even though the competition for that accolade is fierce and includes his recent predecessor Hillary Clinton. Clinton, who more than anyone launched the war against Africa’s most developed nation, is remembered fondly for her giggled, grinning response when she was informed how deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had died after having a bayonet inserted in his anus when he was captured by rebels while on the run after being removed from power by the US and its NATO allies. She said “We came, we saw and he died!” All right, so it wasn’t exactly Julius Caesar’s terse description of the outcome of his Second Civil War battle against Pharnaces II of Pontus at Zela (modern-day Zile, Turkey) in 47 BC. Caesar said “Veni, vidi, vici!” (I came, I saw, I conquered) but it was likely the best plagiarism that a Clinton could come up with.

Joe Lauria of Consortium News observes how deep the State Department rot goes as “Barack Obama also let Hillary Clinton, the ‘Queen of Warmongers,’ bring Neocon Queen Victoria Nuland into his administration. Donald Trump let neocons John Bolton and Mike Pompeo into his. And Biden has Blinken (and for a time Nuland too.) Instead of banishing these people, they are allowed to linger and drag the US into evermore perilous failures: Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza and Ukraine, leaving behind a mountain of squandered dollars and an ocean of blood.”

To be sure, the United States has developed a politico/economic system based on corruption by special interests and tribalism that fails to benefit the country and its citizens in almost every respect. Due in part to runaway military spending on unnecessary and avoidable wars, the country is running a deficit so huge that it will inevitably lead to a financial crash that will be devastating to ordinary Americans. The nation’s health care system is both broken and often prohibitively expensive, with the US delivering the worst results in medical services for any developed nation. To pretend that everything is just fine, the politicians lie and lie and lie, so much so that the joke has become current “How do you know that a politician is lying?” Answer: “When his or her lips are moving!”

My favorite recent big lies by a politician have to be President Joe Biden’s assertions crammed into an 11 minute speech on July 24th which included that he had ended his candidacy for reelection as president in order to “save democracy” in the United States. The president is 81 and his failing mental state has been widely observed but in his first White House appearance since he quit the race on July 21st, he felt compelled to say that he felt his record as president “merited a second term” but that “nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy.” Of course, one might well argue that if democracy is failing it must largely be the fault of the president and his cabinet which control the courts and justice department and run both police and intelligence services as well as having the ability to place disinformation to counter criticism in the national media. Who’s driving the car Joe?

Biden also claimed that “I’m the first president in this century to report to the American people that the United States is not at war anywhere in the world,” even though it is engaged in a military occupation of one quarter of Syria to include combat operations against government forces, bombing Yemen, and conducting counterterrorism operations in Iraq in spite of the fact that the country’s parliament and government have three times asked the US to leave. The US is as well supporting and enabling financially, logistically and with intelligence the large and bloody conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, which did not threaten the US and could have been avoided completely.

Israel is, of course, a special case even given the appalling record exhibited by US foreign policy “experts in place” screwing up the world since 9/11. Before Israel’s likely demolition/destruction of the World Trade Center towers on that day, one would never have imagined the control that the Jewish Lobby has since obtained over the US foreign policy as well as over many domestic policies. This is largely thanks to the alarmingly pro-Israel measures that have been advanced by an ignorant and reckless Donald Trump followed by the totally mindless and heedless Joe Biden. Biden has a majority of Jews occupying senior positions in his administration and it is fair to say that Jews are at the controls for Middle Eastern policy as well as what is playing out in Ukraine. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is little more than a spokesman and advocate for Israel as he made clear when he arrived in Ben Gurion Airport a day after the Hamas October 7th 2023 attack and announced that “I come before you as a Jew…” and followed that up with his family holocaust history, though he failed to mention that his stepfather Samuel Pisar worked as private secretary for Robert Maxwell, a leading Israeli spy. That fact plus the occasional claims that he is an Israeli-American dual national, like Biden’s top Middle East negotiator Amos Hochstein, makes me wonder how Blinken ever got a security clearance in the first place. And let’s not forget about Congress, where pro-Israel fanatics have taken complete control (with the sole exception of Tom Massie) of the Republican Party.

This corruption and control of the federal government is exercised through over-the-top political donations and favorable media coverage dependent on each Congressman’s support for Israel. It also means using prominent Jewish journalists to discredit critics as antisemites and holocaust deniers. And it is all bought with cash on the line. A story is currently circulating indicating that Miriam Adelson, Israel-born heiress to the Sheldon Adelson multi-billion dollar casino fortune, has offered Trump $100 million as a political campaign contribution if he will promise to enable Israeli annexation of all of historic Palestine after he wins the November election. Just watch it happen if he wins.

Blinken is more into the straight-faced lie, particularly when he is on guard to protect Israel from any criticism up to and including a clearly visible genocide that is taking place, and that is where the latest saga involving him has gained momentum. It has picked up speed to such an extent that people who normally are afraid to challenge the Israel Lobby are beginning to take notice and are calling for Blinken’s resignation. I would personally prefer that he be flat out fired as an accessory to war crimes and genocide and imprisoned, with a black mark in perpetuum etched next to his name. But I would regret that either outcome would only free him up to take a salary increase as a front office toady with any one of a number of deep-pockets Israel Lobby components. Somehow folks who betray their loyalty oaths and ignore their allegiance to this country to “help” Israel when taking senior level government jobs always land on their feet when their betrayal becomes too obvious and they have to step down. Note for example the case of Victoria Nudelman who was recently the number two top official at the State Department and was the driving force behind war between Ukraine and Russia.

The most recent bit of over-the-top lying to cover up Israeli crimes has plenty of blood all over it, which is a development that doesn’t seem to bother Mr. Blinken as long as it is nearly all Palestinian. He is now, however, facing calls for his resignation after he had reportedly ignored assessments by two government agencies which concluded that Israel was deliberately and maliciously blocking American humanitarian aid to Gaza. Blinken’s monstrous behavior was recently exposed in an investigation by ProPublica which revealed that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department’s refugee bureau had both communicated their concerns about what was happening to Blinken and other top government officials in April. According to US law, countries that block US humanitarian aid cannot receive arms shipments, but Washington has provided Tel Aviv with billions of dollars in military aid and arms sales with only one short pause throughout the course of the entire Israeli assault on Gaza.

The 17-page USAID report that was presented to Blinken detailed “instances of Israeli interference with aid efforts, including killing aid workers, razing agricultural structures, bombing ambulances and hospitals, sitting on supply depots and routinely turning away trucks full of food and medicine.” Nevertheless, on May 10th, Blinken delivered a State Department report to Congress asserting that Israel had not blocked aid to Gaza despite the findings of the report, which went on to describe the situation in Gaza as “one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in the world.” USAID officials also specifically recommended that all arms exports to Israel be paused until the situation is resolved. The State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, concurred and recommended that the Foreign Assistance Act be triggered to freeze the $830 million in US aid for arms for Israel that was already in the pipeline. Senior officials in the department concluded that “facts on the ground indicate US humanitarian assistance is being restricted.” One State Department official, Stacy Gilbert, resigned over Blinken’s final report to Congress, saying in a statement following her departure that “there is abundant evidence showing Israel is responsible for blocking aid” and that “to deny this is absurd and shameful.”

Israel for its part has not been shy about how it is “security controlling” aid shipments as part of its full siege of the enclave, blocking entry of food, medical equipment and supplies, and even water and electricity. Truck convoys of food have been allowed to rot at checkpoints. At least 34 children have died of malnutrition due to the blockade in 2024 alone and the war crime of deliberate starvation is one of the charges that has been levelled against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan’s application for arrest warrants in May.

Calls for Blinken to resign from his post have followed from some of the numerous critics of US policy. “Antony Blinken lied to Congress even though he knew Israel was deliberately starving Gaza – all to keep arming the genocide. We demand that @SecBlinken resign and that @JoeBiden and @KamalaHarris stop illegally arming Israel NOW!” tweeted Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) also called for Blinken to step down. “We’re calling for the resignation of @SecBlinken after @propublica reports revealed he misled Congress about Israel’s deliberate blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza – a violation of US law. The American people deserve leaders who tell the truth. It’s time to hold the Biden administration accountable for its ongoing complicity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza. #ResignBlinken #FreeGaza #EndTheBlockade,” the group wrote on X.

So what will happen next? Probably nothing. One observer opined that Congress was very pleased to be lied to in “defense” of Israel and would have certainly denounced Blinken for speaking the truth. So the fact that Blinken is lying should really surprise no one as he knows he will get away with it. Australian journalist Caitlin Johnstone explains it this way: “Israel must be protected because it is the last bastion of freedom and democracy in the middle east, no matter how many journalists it has to assassinate, no matter how many press institutions it needs to shut down, no matter how many protests its supporters need to dismantle, no matter how much free speech it needs to eliminate, no matter how many civil rights it needs to erase, and no matter how many elections its lobbyists need to buy.” Nevertheless, international charitable organizations that aren’t affiliated with any single nation have been waking up to the reality of the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, with some also saying repeatedly for months that Israel is blocking humanitarian aid as also independent journalists have been reporting, some of whom, like targeted aid workers, have been killed by Israel while investigating the story. And yet the United States has consistently denied knowledge of these war crimes, with the denials being most particularly verbalized by Tony Blinken. Since Congress and the White House have the power to decide which lies are okay and which lies are not, Blinken will shrug and continue to lie and will probably continue to serve as Secretary of State if Kamala Harris is elected. That has unfortunately become the American way.

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

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

Yemeni naval forces launch largest-ever attack on US warships in Red Sea

Press TV – September 27, 2024

A high-profile Yemeni military official says the country’s naval units have launched their largest-ever attack on United States Navy warships in the Red Sea, demonstrating their solid support for Palestinian and Lebanese nations amid the relentless Israeli aggression and in retaliation for the US-British attacks on the Arab country.

Brigadier General Yahya Saree, spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces, stated on Friday that the Yemeni military had carried out the operation against three American destroyers as they were heading towards the occupied territories to support the Israeli enemy.

He added that the large-scale maritime operation involved naval, air defense and missile forces of the Yemeni army, and was carried out with 23 ballistic and winged missiles besides kamikaze drones.

Saree underscored that the operation resulted in a direct hit against the three destroyers.

The senior Yemeni military figure said the missile attack was the largest of its kind in the course of anti-Israeli maritime operations, and also came in reprisal of joint US-British strikes on the Arab country.

Saree further noted that Yemeni armed forces are prepared to conduct more qualitative military operations in support of Palestinians and Lebanese resistance fighters, who are courageously confronting the US-backed Israeli aggression in defense of the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

He said his country’s military will continue its anti-Israel operations until the Tel Aviv regime halts its onslaught against Gaza and eases restrictions on supplies of humanitarian aid for its Palestinian population.

Yemenis have declared their open support for Palestine’s struggle against the Israeli occupation since the regime launched a devastating war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after the territory’s Palestinian resistance movements carried out surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity.

The Yemeni Armed Forces have said they will not stop their attacks until unrelenting Israeli ground and aerial offensives in Gaza end.

So far, Israel has killed over 41,530 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured more than 96,000 others in Gaza.

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

At the UN, Netanyahu blames Israel’s isolation on ‘anti-Semitism’

The Cradle | September 27, 2024

Speaking at the UN General Assembly on 27 September, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed the condemnation of Israel at the UN and International Criminal Court (ICC) on anti-Semitism, saying allegations of war crimes have nothing to do with Israel’s actions, including its slaughter and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.

“It’s not about Gaza,” he claimed. “It’s about Israel” and its very existence.

“[U]ntil this anti-Semitic swamp is drained, the UN will be viewed by fair-minded people everywhere as nothing more than a contemptuous farce,” Netanyahu claimed.

“What hypocrisy. What a double standard. What a joke,” he said to applause from Israel supporters.

The assembly hall was otherwise almost empty after several delegations walked out as Netanyahu reached the podium.

On 27 September, the UN member states voted overwhelmingly in the General Assembly to adopt a resolution calling on Israel to comply with international law, withdraw its military forces, immediately cease all new settlement activity, evacuate all settlers from occupied land, and dismantle parts of the separation wall it constructed inside the occupied West Bank.

In May, ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan applied for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare and intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population.

However, four months later, ICC judges have still not approved or denied the applications. There is no deadline for judges to come to a decision.

In his UN speech, Netanyahu signaled there would be no immediate end to the Israeli army’s ongoing assault on Lebanon, which has killed over 700 people in less than a week, despite calls from US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron for a ceasefire.

Netanyahu said his military would keep striking Hezbollah in Lebanon with “all our might.”

‘We’re at war with Hezbollah,’ he said. ‘As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice. And Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their homes safely.”

His speech comes as Israeli officials said they were preparing for a potential ground invasion of Lebanon.

September 27, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel secures $8.7bn military aid package from Washington

The Cradle | September 26, 2024

Israel said on 26 September it had secured an $8.7 billion aid package from the US government to support its ongoing military assaults on Lebanon and Gaza and to maintain a “qualitative military edge in the region,” Reuters reported on 26 September.

The package includes $3.5 billion for critical military purchases and $5.2 billion for air defense systems, including the Iron Dome anti-missile system, David’s Sling, and an advanced laser system.

US support for Israel’s missile defense systems is crucial to shield Israeli military installations and infrastructure from Hezbollah’s large missile and rocket stocks.

While Israeli warplanes have devastated south and east Lebanon with airstrikes since Monday, killing over 600 Lebanese and Syrians, Hezbollah has hit numerous targets in the vicinity of the city of the Israeli city of Haifa, as well as an Israeli intelligence base on the outskirts of Tel Avi in central Israel.

Israel also needs US munitions and financial support to continue its horrific bombing campaign of Gaza, which is nearing its twelfth month and has killed over 40,000 people and destroyed large swathes of the crowded strip.

The aid announcement came after a meeting at the Pentagon between Eyal Zamir, the director general of Israel’s defense ministry, and US defense officials, including acting Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Amanda Dory.

“This substantial investment will significantly strengthen critical systems such as Iron Dome and David’s Sling while supporting the continued development of an advanced high-powered laser defense system currently in its later stages of development,” Israel’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The deal illustrates the “strong and enduring strategic partnership between Israel and the United States and the ironclad commitment to Israel’s security,” the statement added.

Reuters reported in late June that Tel Aviv’s allies in Washington had sent more than 10,000 highly destructive 2,000-pound bombs and thousands of Hellfire missiles since the start of the war in Gaza last October.

The news agency added that Washington had transferred at least 14,000 of the MK-84 2,000-pound bombs, 6,500 500-pound bombs, 3,000 Hellfire precision-guided air-to-ground missiles, 1,000 bunker-buster bombs, 2,600 air-dropped small-diameter bombs, and other munitions.

Since 7 October of last year, news channels and social media sites have shown a steady stream of videos and images of Palestinian men, women, and children who have been torn apart by US bombs.

September 26, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Video, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel systematically destroys Gaza farmland to starve the population: Euro-Med

Palestinian Information Center – September 26,2024

GAZA – The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has said that Israel’s destruction of hundreds of dunums of vegetable farmland in the northern Gaza Strip reflects its insistence on the mass extermination of Palestinians.

In a statement on Thursday, Euro-Med accused the Israeli army of seeking to deprive the Palestinians in Gaza of agricultural production and food supplies and destroy the resources vital for their survival in order to create living conditions that lead to their starvation and death.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army has been imposing an illegal siege on Gaza and severely restricting the entry of aid to its areas for almost a year, Euro-Med added.

Israel’s destruction of farmland in northern Gaza is part of the systematic plan it has been pursuing against the Gaza population since October 2023, Euro-Med said.

“The occupation forces have taken about 80 percent of the agricultural land out of service in the Gaza Strip, either through isolating it as a prelude to illegally annexing it by force to the buffer zone in violation of international law or destroying and bulldozing it,” Euro-Med explained.

Euro-Med said that its field team documented “the incursion of Israeli forces accompanied by bulldozers on Tuesday morning, September 25, into ash-Shima area in Beit Lahia, north of Gaza, and the bulldozing of over 500 dunums of land that had been recently replanted by Palestinians with vegetables to meet the needs of the citizens living in northern Gaza, who are facing systematic starvation and an arbitrary blockade.”

“The Israeli army’s destruction of these swaths of agricultural land, mostly planted with eggplants, reflects Israel’s insistence on depriving the population of relying on the local agricultural food basket, while blocking the access of adequate quantities of vegetables and food supplies to the northern Gaza Strip, which has led to the outbreak of severe famine to the point that a large part of the population was forced to eat tree leaves and grind animal feed before turning it into bread in order to stay alive,” Euro-Med said.

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

We need to call out the hypocrisy of the humanitarian paradigm

By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | September 26, 2024

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the Lebanese people before bombing their country was eerily similar to the rhetoric usually associated with Gaza. Hezbollah, he told the Lebanese, are using them as human shields and hiding weapons in their homes; the latter was made to sound more familiar by mentioning specific family rooms: “Rockets in your living rooms and missiles in your garage.” To seal Israel’s impunity in Lebanon after telling the Lebanese population to flee from his army’s bombs, Netanyahu added, “Don’t let Hezbollah endanger your lives.” As Israel’s kill toll rises in Lebanon, almost 500,000 Lebanese have been forcibly displaced from their homes in a matter of two days. This can be added to the 1.9 million Palestinian civilians who have been forcibly displaced from their homes in Gaza by Israel.

Meanwhile, the US reached for its playbook on Gaza and endorsed Israel’s right to defend itself, this time allegedly from Hezbollah. “No nation should have to live with these threats right across their border, right next door,” said US White House National Security Spokesperson John Kirby.

How about people not having to live with Israel’s threats at their border or in their homes, Mr Kirby?

Israel has invaded Lebanon on at least five occasions since the late seventies, remember, not including numerous air strikes.

Now diplomats are revealing that the genocide in Gaza is only the beginning of the chaos in the Middle East and the humanitarian paradigm is the only way for them to feign political concern. So blatantly is the world supporting Israel’s actions, that it has come to the point where a failed humanitarian paradigm remains at the forefront of the international agenda, and the discrepancy is rarely called out.

The international community sustains this discrepancy between colonial violence, war, genocide and humanitarian aid. The former reigns supreme and yields profits. Humanitarian aid, on the other hand, works like a defunct charity to make sure that the displaced remain too busy trying to survive to do anything untoward against those responsible for their situation. They face a daily struggle to survive Israeli aggression, bombs and the international community’s collaboration allowing Israel to eliminate who it chooses for territorial gain. “Greater Israel” is the Zionist objective.

We now see that speaking out against breaches of international law is being criminalised, and being taught not to speak out is normalised; in turn, the normalisation of complicity in genocide and forced displacement completes the cycle. World leaders, we are told, must be allowed to talk and lead uninterrupted, and they will decide which nation is to be massacred, displaced, forced to live in temporary shelters while foraging for food, waiting for a temporary pause in the slaughter to receive polio vaccines and be killed later; letting Israel control the lives and deaths of civilians, and all because the international community offers humanitarian aid in return for silence. For the victims, the humanitarian paradigm is a failure on so many levels, a licence to silence criticism and an open invitation to perpetual displacement and premeditated murder.

What do we make out of humanitarian aid as a political paradigm? How is a bare minimum of shelter against biting cold an acceptable measure, when tents provide no shelter against bombs and bullets? Why is it acceptable that countries bolstering Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its war in Lebanon get to dictate who gets humanitarian aid, and when?

The Norwegian Refugee Council-led Shelter Cluster has estimated that it would take aid agencies more than two years to deliver 25,000 sealing kits to Gaza at the current rate of two truckloads per week. In the face of humanitarian aid being weaponised — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken misled Congress about Israel blocking aid to Gaza, for example — leading to the slow death of its intended recipients, why is the world keeping silent? We need to call out the hypocrisy of the humanitarian paradigm.

September 26, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hezbollah bombs Israeli arms factory, forces fighter jets to withdraw

Al Mayadeen | September 25, 2024

The Islamic Resistance in Lebanon – Hezbollah announced Wednesday that its fighters launched rockets targeting a bomb material factory in Zikhron, occupied southern Haifa, using a barrage of Fadi-3 rockets.

For the second time on Wednesday, Hezbollah struck the settlement of Kiryat Motzkin with volleys of Fadi-1 rockets. Concurrently, Hezbollah’s air defense units engaged two hostile fighter jets near the Lebanese towns of Houla and Mays al-Jabal to force them out of Lebanese airspace.

In its statements, Hezbollah emphasized that these operations were carried out in support of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and their Resistance, while also defending Lebanon and its citizens.

The Lebanese Resistance has expanded its strikes toward Israeli occupation military bases in northern occupied Palestine, landing precise and direct hits despite an unprecedented Israeli assault on various regions in the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon.

Israeli media reported that air raid sirens sounded in the settlements of Gonen, Lahavot Habashan, and Kiryat Shmona in the Houla Valley.

‘No region in Israel outside combat zone’

Israeli settlers in areas stretching from Katzrin in the North to Rosh Pina, Safed, and Mount Meron were advised to stay near bomb shelters.

“There is no region in Israel that is outside the combat zone in the past 24 hours, from Mount Hermon to the Arava Valley,” a correspondent for the Israeli Army Radio said.

These operations add to previous attacks carried out earlier in the day, including Hezbollah’s targeting of the Mossad headquarters in the outskirts of Tel Aviv with a Qader-1 ballistic missile. This facility was responsible for orchestrating assassinations and detonating pagers and handheld radio receivers in Lebanon.

Hezbollah had inflicted significant losses on the Israeli occupation through the expansion of its operations,  with Israeli media saying “Isreal” has lost an estimated $1.07 billion over the past two days alone.

The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation (KAN) reported that “Israel’s” strikes on Lebanon on Monday cost the entity some 650 million shekels ($173 million). Officials have underlined that if the airstrikes campaign on Lebanon protracts beyond 10 days, it would require the approval of an additional budget breach.

Israeli media quoted a former official from the Shin Bet security service as saying, “The capability of Hezbollah to launch rockets towards central Israel should not be underestimated.”

The former official added, “What [Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan] Nasrallah did today is just a small preview of what he has in store.”

In an interview with the Israeli Channel 12, retired Israeli brigadier general and former financial advisor to the military’s chief of staff, Reem Aminoach, said the escalating use of missile interceptors is a major factor contributing to the significant increase in daily operational costs.

September 25, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

USAID memo exposes Blinken’s involvement in starving Palestinians

Al Mayadeen | September 25, 2024

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration have said that “Israel” is blocking humanitarian aid heading to the Gaza Strip.

In a 17-page memo sent to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in April, USAID told top US diplomats that US law requires the administration to cut off weapons shipments to governments that prevent the delivery of US-backed humanitarian aid. The refugees bureau also delivered a similar evaluation.

If acted upon, the assessment would cause tremulous changes to the Israeli regime’s supply of weapons, as the US delivers the majority of weapons through which the regime carries out its aggression.

According to ProPublica, both Blinken and the administration of President Joe Biden refused to accept the conclusions reached by the two US agencies.

“We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of US humanitarian assistance,” Blinken said on May 10 to Congress, after receiving the reports.

Crimes, recommendations ignored 

USAID’s memo also highlighted a series of grave actions by the Israeli regime, including the killing of aid workers, the destruction of agricultural infrastructure, the bombing of ambulances and hospitals, the occupation of supply depots, and the frequent rejection of trucks carrying vital food and medical supplies.

Moreover, the head of the State Department’s refugees bureau determined that the Israeli regime was blocking humanitarian aid and that the Foreign Assistance Act should be triggered to stop nearly $830 million in taxpayer dollars allocated for military aid to the Israeli occupation, according to ProPublica, which cited emails it had obtained.

Stacy Gilbert, a former senior civil-military advisor in the Refugees Bureau, resigned in protest over the wording of Blinken’s report to Congress, which she had been helping to draft. In a statement released shortly after her departure, and reported by The Washington Post and other outlets, she wrote, “There is abundant evidence showing Israel is responsible for blocking aid. To deny this is absurd and shameful.”

Hamas: Blinken, Biden’s actions are shameful

Islamic Resistance Movement – Hamas released a statement, commenting on ProPublica‘s report on Wednesday.

Hamas condemned Bliken and Biden’s deliberate concealment of evidence of “Israel’s” non-compliance with US aid missions during his addresses to Congress.

The movement said that Blinken did so, in complicity with Biden, “Out of fear that it would impact weapons supplies to the occupation’s military.”

It said that the revelations serve as evidence of Washington’s involvement in the genocide of the Palestinian people.

“This criminal conduct by Blinken demands that honorable members of the US Congress and American judicial bodies investigate his actions, which have led to the deaths of thousands of our people,” Hamas underlined.

“We call on international judicial institutions, foremost among them the International Criminal Court, to take these reports seriously and take the necessary legal action against Blinken,” the movement urged.

Hamas stressed that Blinken had participated in the deliberate starvation and the genocide of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip through his actions.

September 25, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Biden’s ‘Performative’ Lecture on Democracy at UN Belies True US Role in World

By John Miles – Sputnik – 25.09.2024

Biden has made his claimed struggle for democracy a primary argument for the Democratic Party’s campaign against former President Donald Trump, but a closer look reveals the malign role of the United States in preserving countries’ sovereignty and self-rule.

US President Joe Biden spoke before the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday, taking the opportunity to deliver what is likely one of the final major speeches of his political career.

The yearly gathering of world leaders and diplomats, which takes place each September in New York City, has served as the backdrop for several significant moments throughout its almost 80-year history. Cuban revolutionary Ché Guevara addressed the assembly in 1964, touting Havana’s literacy campaign and assailing US intervention in Latin America. Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi delivered a highly memorable speech in 2009, as did ex-Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who blasted George Bush, neoliberalism, and the US War on Terror in a 2006 broadside.

The week-long event provides an important forum for developing nations, who are briefly granted equal footing with great world powers. But the General Assembly is often criticized as a “talk shop” by those who claim the recognition granted to countries is more symbolic than tangible. Author and analyst Caleb Maupin joined Sputnik’s The Final Countdown program Tuesday to discuss the 78th session of the annual event and break down Biden’s address before the international audience.

“He talked about democracy and how he’s committed to democracy,” said Maupin, noting that Biden touched on themes he has frequently spoken about during the 2024 presidential election season. “He talked against Russia. He talked against Venezuela. He talked against the Palestinians. He talked up support for Israel. Joe Biden made a series of remarks going over standard US foreign policy.”

“Joe Biden really likes to do these kinds of performative, ideological shows, and that’s what his summit for democracy that he bragged about in his UN speech was,” the analyst claimed. “He loves to do these little performances where he talks about how he’s sticking up for democracy and democratic ideals.”

Biden has made his claimed struggle for democracy a primary argument for the Democratic Party’s campaign against former President Donald Trump, but a closer look reveals the malign role of the United States in preserving countries’ sovereignty and self-rule. A 2015 study found the US provides military support to 73% of nations labeled “dictatorships,” with Saudi Arabia and Juan Orlando Hernández’s oppressive former regime in Honduras providing perhaps the most prominent examples.

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, still lauded as one of America’s most admired and consequential statesmen, made his contempt for democracy clear in 1970, when he vowed to intervene in Chile if the country elected an anti-imperialist leader. “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people,” said the controversial figure, who spearheaded a campaign of social and economic subversion of the Latin American country after the election of Salvador Allende.

Three years later Chile’s democratically-elected president would be removed in a bloody US-backed military putsch, ushering in almost two decades of bloody dictatorship resulting in the death and torture of tens of thousands. The model was duplicated in Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina in a campaign of state terror and repression known as Plan Cóndor.

The US has worked to support coups and subvert democracy in dozens of countries around the globe, but its role in Palestine has generated perhaps the most attention in recent years. The United States has frequently undermined the influence of the UN and the force of international law in the name of defending Israel from criticism, recently downplaying the importance of a vote by the UN Security Council that called on the country to end its campaign in Gaza. The US has also led a group of Western countries in defunding the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), a crucial lifeline for refugees facing hunger and displacement that Israel has long viewed as an impediment.

“There is a lot of criticism that can be leveled at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency,” noted Maupin. “[With] Israel though, in particular, there is a political issue there, which is the UN frequently criticizes Israel and calls out Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians.”

“Israel considers any connection with the legitimate elected government of Gaza, which is Hamas… support for terrorism,” he continued. “If the UN set up a health care clinic and an elected official who’s part of the government in Gaza – that would be a member of Hamas – showed up and got health care, that would be considered aid to terrorism.”

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed the country’s actual views on democracy in leaked audio of comments from 2006, in which she demonstrated that the United States’ support for democratic elections is highly contingent upon voters choosing candidates in line with views and policies supported by Washington.

“I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I think that was a big mistake,” Clinton said of the ballot that brought Hamas’s armed resistance movement to power in Gaza.

“If we were going to push for an election then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win,” she claimed, appearing to suggest the United States should have intervened to rig the outcome.

September 25, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Towards a Greater Middle Eastern War & Defeat in Ukraine

Colonel Douglas Macgregor, interviewed by Professor Glenn Diesen

Video at Odyssee
Glenn Diesen | September 24, 2024

I spoke with Colonel Douglas Macgregor about the deteriorating situation in the Middle East and Ukraine. Colonel Macgregor was a senior advisor to the Secretary of Defence under President Trump, he has written several books on military strategy, and is the CEO of Our Country Our Choice which seeks among other things to challenge the bipartisan support for the militarisation of US foreign policy

The war in Gaza has now spread into Lebanon and can seemingly no longer be contained, which threatens to pull in other actors in the region such as Iran. However, leaders in the region are already facing angry populations for failing to take a more hardline position against Israel and the US. Yemen is already striking ships passing through the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, while attacks have also increased on US occupation troops in Syria and Iraq. The US and Israel continue to play good cop / bad cop in which the US provides the weapons and intelligence for the onslaught, while simultaneously complaining they are not able to impose a ceasefire. Israel is in deep trouble as its military exhausts itself and there are no desirable paths to peace, which is why pulling the US into a wider war appears to be the sole solution.

In Ukraine, the situation is also deteriorating quickly as the army suffers from a shortage of manpower, armoured vehicles, ammunition, air defences, aircrafts, and a multitude of other areas. Furthermore, Ukraine’s electric grids are severely damaged, the economy falters, the public grows more unhappy with the aggressive “recruitment” of new soldiers, while political divisions are yet again emerging in Kiev. In the West, there are fewer and fewer weapons to be sent and the US is seemingly reluctant to become directly involved in deep strikes within Russian territory as it will trigger a NATO-Russia war with the possibility of a nuclear exchange. War fatigue is growing throughout the West, with the exception of the UK which remains gung-ho for more war. When the US sabotaged the Minsk agreement and the Istanbul peace agreement, the objective was to use Ukrainians as a proxy to bleed and exhaust Russia to knock it out from the ranks of great powers, and thereafter shift focus to breaking China and thus restoring US global primacy. Instead, we are seeing a Russian victory, a pending unmitigated disaster in the Middle East, while the global majority is constructing a post-American world with BRICS.

We have crossed the point of no return in terms of reaching a peace in Ukraine and the Middle East. The world is heading towards major wars – and the US is approaching this dangerous situation with empty slogans rather than a strategy.

September 24, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Video | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US deploying more troops to West Asia amid Israeli escalation of violence

Press TV – September 23, 2024

The US Department of Defense has decided to deploy more boots to West Asia amid the Israeli escalation of war in the region.

Additional US troops will be deployed to the Middle East in response to a sharp spike in violence between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon that has raised the risk of a greater regional war, the Pentagon spokesperson said on Monday.

Gen. Pat Ryder announced the new deployment without providing details on how many additional forces would be needed or what they would be tasked to do.

“In light of increased tension in the Middle East and out of an abundance of caution, we are sending a small number of additional US military personnel forward to augment our forces that are already in the region. But for operational security reasons, I’m not going to comment on or provide specifics.”

The United Nations has sounded the alarm, warning that the escalating violence between the Israeli regime forces and the Hezbollah resistance movement in Lebanon was catapulting the Middle East conflict “to another level”.

Prior to the latest escalation of violence, the Pentagon had announced that the approximately 40,000 US troops deployed in the region were “enough to protect Israel.”

In addition to tens of thousands of troops in the Middle East region, the Pentagon has warships, fighter jets, and air defense systems deployed to protect both its forces and the Israeli regime.

Ryder warned of the potential for the Israel-Hezbollah violence to escalate, calling for a diplomatic solution.

“Clearly there is the potential for these tit-for-tat operations between Israel and Hezbollah to escalate and to potentially spiral out of control into a wider regional war, which is why it’s so important that we resolve… the situation through diplomacy,” Ryder said.

Middle East tensions rose sharply after the Israeli assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Hezbollah commander Fuad Shakr in Beirut at the end of July, prompting the Pentagon to begin sending additional US troops to the region. The US military claimed the additional American troops would not be engaged by the Israeli forces for “offensive” operations against Hezbollah.

Pentagon’s announcement comes as fears of a broader regional war grow, with Israel striking hundreds of targets in Lebanon following Israel’s communication devices terror attacks which targeted Hezbollah cadre and civilians with exploding pagers earlier this week. The attacks killed 37 Lebanese and injured thousands more.

World powers have called on the Israeli regime and Hezbollah to pull back from the brink of an all-out war, with the focus of violence shifting sharply in recent days from Israel’s southern front with Gaza to its northern border with Lebanon.

Hezbollah, a powerful political and military force in Lebanon, has exchanged near-daily fire with the Israeli regime forces in support of the defenseless Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) and the Ansarallah-led government of Yemen stand alongside Hamas and Hezbollah, targeting US and Israeli positions in the region in an effort to oppose Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

The occupying zionist regime forces launched the genocidal war on helpless Palestinians trapped in Gaza almost a year ago in early October, which has claimed the lives of more than 41,400 people, most of them innocent women and children.

September 23, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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