Nasrallah’s Deputy Naim Qassem: Hezbollah will subdue the Israeli Beast
Full Speech by Naim Qassem, Deputy Secretary General of Hezbollah, on October 15, 2024.
Source : Al-Jazeera
Translation : resistancenews.org
In the Name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds. May prayers and salutations be upon the most deserving of creatures, our master, beloved leader, (the Prophet) Abul-Qassim Mohammad, upon his noble and pure family, upon his pious chosen companions, and upon all the Prophets and Righteous, until the Day of Judgment.
Peace be upon you, and God’s Mercy and Blessings.
Israel and its supporters fight, kill, and commit massacres. We find ourselves in a situation that demands we take a stand.
God Almighty has said in His Sacred Book: “Permission to take up arms is hereby granted to those who are attacked; they have suffered injustice. God has all the power to give victory to those who were unjustly expelled from their homes only because they said, “God is our Lord.” Had it not been for God’s repelling some people through the might of the others, the monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques in which God is very often worshipped would have been utterly destroyed. God shall certainly help those who help Him. He is All-powerful and Majestic.” [Qur’an, s. 22, v. 39-40] God Most High has spoken the truth.
We are in the Resistance. We have been uplifted by our great leader, His Eminence Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, may God the Most High be pleased with him, to whom we extend our sincerest greetings. This leader has filled every land with determination, jihad, glory, and victory.
O great leader, you have not abandoned us; your spirit remains with us. Did not the Almighty say: “(The martyrs) are alive with their Lord, receiving their sustenance” [Qur’an, s. 3, v. 169]? Your teachings are our constitution; your words illuminate our path, and your speeches mark the milestones of our journey. You have not left us. The Mujahideen confront their challenges with determination and strength, and your people stand firm, embodying the deep love of God. You have not left us: our hearts are filled with your love, our hope for victory is limitless, and your enemies fear your ghost, seeing you in every mujahid and every person who loves you. Your commands will be executed: we will defeat them and drive them from our land.
I would like to address several points.
First, let us recount what has transpired this year, so that both those close to us and those not so close may understand the vision that guides us and how we perceive the unfolding events. We regard Israel as a usurping and occupying entity, posing a genuine threat to the region and the world. Israel is an expansionist occupation that is not satisfied with Palestine; it seeks to dominate the entire Arab region, the whole Islamic world, and the globe from its position in the region. This occupying force is founded on murder, displacement, massacres, and the worst vices known to this earth. This occupation relies on three pillars: 1) criminality that instills fear, 2) unwavering support from the United States, and 3) time, meaning the notion that what it cannot seize today can be taken tomorrow or the day after.
The Palestinians, led by Hamas, initiated the Al-Aqsa Flood (on October 7) to expel the occupier and declare to the world that 75 years have passed during which the occupation has become entrenched, killing, expanding, displacing, exterminating, and committing every atrocity, leaving us with not an inch of this land. Is it not the right of the Palestinians to act against this occupation, to undermine its presence, and to prevent its continuation? Instead of questioning why the Al-Aqsa Flood occurred, we should ask why the occupation took place. The Al-Aqsa Flood has happened now, after 75 years of occupation. It is a legitimate right—an inherent right for the Palestinians and all who stand beside them.
In Lebanon, we cannot separate Lebanon from Palestine, nor the region from Palestine. Did not the Israelis officially and directly occupy Lebanon in 1978, refusing to leave despite Resolution 425? Did they not occupy again in 1982, maintaining their presence for a total of 22 years, from 1978 to 2000, only to be expelled by the Resistance? Why did Israel persist in occupying Lebanon? It established the Lahd Army, hoping to create a state in southern Lebanon as a precursor to further Israeli colonization, but this plan failed. In 2006, Israel attempted once more to advance into southern Lebanon, only to fail again. Clearly, Lebanon is part of Israel’s expansionist agenda. When Israel appears to cease its expansion, it is merely due to its incapacity; whenever it feels able to expand, it will.
That is why our support for the Palestinians is a support for justice, as they have a legitimate cause. By backing the Palestinians, we restrict Israel’s options for fulfilling its expansionist ambitions. On one hand, we strive to counter the threat to the Palestinians as much as we can, and at the same time, we confront it to prevent the expansion they desire.
Without the United States—the Great Satan—Israel would not have been able to establish such a foothold. The United States seeks a new Middle East. Condoleezza Rice articulated this in 2006, just days after the Israeli attack on Lebanon, when she responded to calls for a ceasefire by saying, “These are the birth pangs of a new Middle East.” However, they failed in 2006.
Today, Netanyahu utters those same words: he desires a “new Middle East.” This means that the United States and Israel, through their crimes and acts of extermination in Palestine, Lebanon, and the region, when the U.S. hands over control to Israel to do as it pleases—mobilizing all its military, political, media, and international resources—are complicit in this project. Thus, we face the threat of a new Middle East shaped by the Israeli-American partnership, executed by the Israeli criminal under the auspices of the Great Satan. When foreigners came to Lebanon with their ambassadors and envoys, asking us through intermediaries or directly to cease our war of support for Gaza so that settlers can return to the north of occupied Palestine, they demanded that we retreat 10 kilometers or more from the border to avoid provoking Israel. They avoid discussing the root of the problem: Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the extermination of the Palestinian people. We replied that they should get a ceasefire in Gaza, after which everything would return to normal in Lebanon, everything would revert to the way it was before. They responded that they couldn’t speak in such terms, and insisted that they wanted to separate Lebanon from Gaza. We did not yield to their demands.
We consider our resistance to be legitimate. It is defensive and has two objectives: rejecting the occupation and liberating the land. O people, you must understand that the project in the region is an expansionist one, and that the Palestinians are fighting for the liberation of their homeland. When we support the Palestinians, it is to help liberate their land and protect ours. And when Iran supports the Palestinians, it is to facilitate the liberation of Palestine, which would also be a blessing for Iran. This is not merely an Iranian project, but a Palestinian endeavor supported by Iran, Hezbollah, Yemen, Iraq, and the free peoples of the region. Is it fair that the entire arrogant imperialist world should support Israel in its aggression while we are denied the right to support the oppressed in their struggle for liberation? Contributing to this cause is an honor for Iran—the Iran of Imam Khomeini, may God sanctify him; the Iran of Imam Khamenei, may God preserve him—who has committed all of Iran’s resources to strengthen the Palestinians. It is Iran’s pride that the great martyr Qassem Soleimani worked to fortify this region in the face of Israeli occupation. In contrast, it is the shame and disgrace of the United States and its allies to support Israel’s criminality and murder.
I’m going to address a question that some people naively ask through the media: “Don’t you see the damage being inflicted in Lebanon?” I ask them: who is responsible for this damage? Is it the one defending the land or the one murdering our people and destroying our infrastructure? In defending ourselves, are we causing harm? Can’t you see that it is Israel that kills, Israel that attacks, Israel that commits these atrocities? I want you to understand that if we do not confront Israel—whether under the pretext of international resolutions meant to protect Lebanon and restore its rights, or the notion that Palestine is not our concern, or any other excuse—Israel will achieve its objectives. This is how Israel operates today: they sow terror, killing children and women and committing horrific massacres to undermine the will of the people. After that, all they have to do is say, “We want this village, we want this town, we want this country,” and people will surrender because they’ve seen what has happened before. But when we stand firm, when we take on the challenge and confront the enemy, when we endure sacrifices and inflict losses upon them, we will have protected generations for decades and centuries to come. It is natural to pay a price when we face the enemy, and these sacrifices—which we honor and praise—are necessary to liberate our land, deter the enemy, and thwart its plans, for the enemy also pays a price.
Secondly, how do we cope? As the Resistance, we fight with honor, targeting their military. Israel acts with monstrosity and ignominy, murdering children, women, the elderly, hospitals, humanitarian workers, and all those in the civilian sphere. Israel’s goal is to destroy and eradicate the Resistance and its people; they want to obliterate everything. When Israel initiated its recent campaign in Lebanon, it established three phases. The first was to strike at our leadership and military capabilities in order to deprive us of our ability to defend ourselves and confront the occupation. The second phase aims to eliminate Hezbollah’s presence. Finally, the third phase seeks to redefine Lebanon to serve Israeli and American interests, allowing them to govern it at will. However, they haven’t even succeeded in achieving the first phase. It is true that we have suffered greatly, and the loss of our leaders, including His Eminence the Secretary General—may God be pleased with him—has been significant and painful. Israel attempted to neutralize our military force by targeting our capabilities and missiles in various locations, but, thank God, they were unable to complete this first phase.
Let me clarify our position: there is only one way to achieve results, recover our territory, and halt the aggression, and that is through the steadfastness of the Resistance and the unity of its people around it. The Secretary General, His Eminence Sayyed Nasrallah—may God be pleased with him—has built a robust Resistance based on faith, trust in God, and preparation of all its capabilities. The mujahideen have hearts that aspire to a dignified life and do not fear death. As for the enemy, because he is morally bankrupt and all the resources at his disposal have proven useless, he has resorted to assassinating members of the Lebanese army, attacking UNIFIL forces, and bombing churches, places of worship, and mosques. Today, he even struck an aid convoy carrying the flag of the International Red Cross, prompting the Commissioner of UNRWA to declare that the agency has never faced such a situation since its inception. Even when Israel attacks UN forces, including UNIFIL, he demands they abandon their positions. Where are the emergency forces? Where is the UN? Where are France, Great Britain, and the United States? Where are all those who constantly lecture us on the necessity of respecting international resolutions? Israel disregards any international resolution. Israel does as it pleases, and international resolutions merely serve to remind Israel of the law, to no effect. Israel answers to no one.
In any case, we are facing a rampaging monster that cannot tolerate resistance preventing it from achieving its goals. But here’s the good news: we are going to grab its leash and take it back to the pen. Just wait and see.
Third, what are the equations of confrontation? We have moved from support (for Gaza) to direct confrontation with Israel since September 17, marked by the pager explosions, which were the first step toward war, culminating on September 27 with the assassination of His Eminence the Secretary General—may his soul be sanctified. Consequently, since September 17, we have entered a new phase: the confrontation of Israeli aggression against Lebanon. We are no longer in the support phase, which involved occasional escalations at the front line (along the border between Lebanon and occupied Palestine). Today, Israel has declared war against us. For the past two weeks, we have started the equation of the battlefield at the front line. The Mujahideen have been engaging the enemy in various locations, including Kfar Kila, Adaisseh, Yaroun, and Mays al-Jabal. In all honesty, their performance on the ground during these two weeks has exceeded their expectations. The mission of the Resistance is not to act as a regular army preventing a regular army from advancing; it is to conduct guerrilla operations against the enemy wherever it may be. So, when the Israelis boast that they have gained hundreds of meters in Lebanon, we respond that they are behind schedule, as they have been unable to advance in the past two weeks. In any case, as they advance, our young fighters are ready for increasingly tough confrontations.
In the first week on the front line, 25 Israeli soldiers were killed and 150 wounded. This was just in the first week. Of course, as usual, Israel has acknowledged only a fraction of those casualties. From one week ago to today—seven days since last Tuesday—we have established a new equation called “inflicting pain on the enemy,” ensuring that he feels the pain. Our missiles will reach Haifa and beyond, as our Sayyed (Nasrallah) wished. You have seen that our drone and missile strikes have reached Tel Aviv. Last Sunday alone, Israel acknowledged 100 killed and wounded—and of course, when Israel claims 100 casualties, we know there are likely more. The strike on Benyamina alone resulted in over 70 casualties. This demonstrates the Resistance’s resolve and capabilities. On Monday, we successfully targeted our missiles at Tel Aviv. Two million settlers from the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, Gush Dan, took shelter. A total of 194 towns and settlements went into their shelters, and warning sirens sounded everywhere. Ben Gurion Airport halted operations. This is all part of the “inflict pain on the enemy” equation, and it will continue.
Sidebar: On october 23rd, Hezbollah stated that the enemy’s losses have reached over 70 killed and more than 600 injured among the officers and soldiers of the Israeli army. Additionally, 28 Merkava tanks, 4 military bulldozers, one armored vehicle, and one troop transport vehicle had been destroyed. Three Hermes 450 drones and one Hermes 900 drone have also been shot down. These figures do not include Israeli losses in the military bases and barracks in the north and interior of occupied Palestine.
I tell you: since the Israeli enemy has targeted all of Lebanon, we have the right, from a defensive position, to target any point within the Israeli entity—whether in the center, north, or south. We will choose any point we deem appropriate. There are no limits in this equation, as Israel has opened this equation. In this regard, I’d like to point out something that many people may not be aware of. While we certainly cannot thank the enemy, it inadvertently aids us in striking back. How so? When we launch a missile, their anti-missile systems engage, and the debris falls on settlements and towns, which is a blessing. It’s not just about what we hit; it’s also about what their anti-missile systems hit when they fall back. Our drones and missiles are active, and sirens sound everywhere. You should understand that the sirens ringing throughout Israel are a sign of the impact on Israeli society.
Western media headlines manufacturing consent for Israeli aggression against Iran
By Ivan Kesic | Press TV | October 27, 2024
In a twisted interpretation and in line with the preestablished propaganda narrative, the Western media unanimously declared Israel’s aggression against Iran as “retaliation.”
From CNN to Fox News to Axios to the New York Times to the Washington Post – all major Western media outlets rallied behind the Tel Aviv regime as it added fuel to the already raging flames.
In the early hours of Saturday, the regime jets carried out a fresh act of aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran, attacking several sites in Tehran, Khuzestan and Ilam provinces with missiles.
Although most of the missiles were intercepted and the military damage was minor, the regime’s move represented a serious escalation as four servicemen on Iranian soil were martyred in the attacks.
The motive for the attack was face-saving after a barrage of Iranian ballistic attacks pounded Israeli military and intelligence sites earlier this month that again laid bare the inefficacy of much-hyped Israeli air defense systems such as Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow.
Iran’s ‘Operation True Promise II’ was carried out as a response to the cowardly assassinations of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Iranian military commander Abbas Nilforoushan by the Israeli regime.
Iran’s military action was in full accordance with its inherent right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, and a direct response to the regime’s repeated acts of aggression, including the violation of Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Manipulative headlines used by major US television networks and newspapers
The same applied to ‘Operation True Promise I’ in April when Iran retaliated after the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate building in the Syrian capital of Damascus.
These facts, however, were deliberately disregarded by most of the Western media outlets while reporting on Saturday’s aggression against Iran, offering the audience a decontextualized interpretation of the Israeli regime as a victim “retaliating” against the Iranian attack.
Manipulative headlines
A cursory look at Western media, of which a sample of about 20 are selected here, it is noticeable that they all shaped the headline in the same suggestive way, using the same terminology.
The term “retaliation” has been used by all these outlets for the Israeli act of aggression against Iran, while also employing other terms such as “reprisal”, “response” and “payback,” while ignoring the full sequence of events that have shaped this region in the past year.
The list of media outlets that employed such terminology includes major US networks CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News, together covering over three-quarters of the American audience.
It also includes six of America’s most circulated newspapers, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and New York Post.
Among them, Fox News went the farthest in its pro-Zionist bias, stating in its headline that Israeli “retaliatory” strikes against Iran followed a “missile barrage targeting Israelis,” although only military targets were precisely targeted and there were no settler casualties.
The Washington Post stated that the Israeli attacks add to the “cycle of tit-for-tat strikes” between the two sides, without specifying who started that cycle by provocatively targeting the other side.
Most other media outlets in the story summary and the text itself treated the Iranian retaliatory ballistic attack as the “cause” and did not mention what preceded it.
In this way, media analysts say, the deception of the majority of the American public has been completely achieved and there has been no progress since the times when by similar propaganda methods they turned the majority of the population for military aggressions in the West Asia region.
Other US media that resorted to the same distortions by describing Israeli aggression as “retaliatory” are the news agency Associated Press (AP), National Public Radio (NPR), the state propaganda broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), news websites Al-Monitor and Axios, etc.
Among the international media, the same terminology in the headlines was also used by the French pan-European television network EuroNews, the newspaper Le Monde, the British television news channel Sky News, the Saudi television network Al Arabiya, Emirati news website The National, and of course, the Israeli media.
Congruently, the headline of the five mentioned major American television networks for the Iranian retaliatory attack from the beginning of the month was again almost uniform, “Iran launches missile attack on Israel,” without mentioning that it was retaliatory in nature.
Headlines in Western media seek to manufacture consent for Israeli terrorism
These identical headlines with unanimous manipulation of the context are by no means a coincidence, according to media analysts, but a reflection of centralized propaganda emanating from the top of the American regime and projected further onto the media and client states.
Such statements and the aforementioned media headlines are the result of unquestioningly following the official American narrative that the Israeli regime is a “victim” and that their aggressions on all surrounding countries are “the right of self-defense.”
Social media users took to X to call out the hypocrisy of Western media outlets.
“This is ridiculous pro-Israel propaganda in the media. Israel’s attack on Iran was not “retaliatory”; Iran’s response to Israel was retaliatory,” wrote journalist Ben Norton.
“Israel started this by first bombing Iran’s consulate in Syria, then launching an attack inside Tehran, then killing an IRGC general.”
Peter Daou, a political analyst, said these distortions are how the propaganda works.
“You’ll notice mainstream US media outlets using the word “retaliatory” in describing Israel’s attack on Iran. That’s how state propaganda works,” he wrote.
Israel’s limited counter to Iran’s massive attack
By Fereshteh Sadeghi | The Cradle | October 27, 2024
After weeks of grandiose threats, Israel struck a number of military sites in Iran over the weekend. While many details of the attack remain unclear, Iran’s leadership suggests that a qualitative response is on the horizon.
Twenty-five days after Iran’s massive 1 October missile attacks on Israel, and following weeks of threats and bluster about its huge preparations, Tel Aviv unleashed its own offensive against military sites of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the early hours of Saturday, 26 October.
The Israeli attack started in the capital, Tehran, where at around 02:15 local time (22:45 GMT), very loud explosions were heard on the western side of the city. Reports which usually are published immediately on the social media platform X, suggested six explosions had been heard.
A multi-wave attack
Footage surfacing afterward — though scarce in number — showed Iranian anti-aircraft guns firing into the sky over Tehran, but no sign of missiles were recorded in those videos. The lack of visible missile evidence sparked debate among analysts, with some suggesting that the occupation state employed tactics designed to evade traditional detection methods, potentially by using low-altitude or stealth drones. But others have questioned whether Israeli jets even entered Iranian airspace.
The second and third waves of strikes came two to four hours later when aerial defense systems became active in Iran’s western province of Ilam and the southwestern province of Khuzestan. This multi-wave strategy indicated a calculated attempt to wear down Iran’s defenses, probing their response times and resilience in multiple regions simultaneously.
With news about the initial raids ebbing, western media began to frame the Israeli strikes as enormous as well as successful. These evidence-free portrayals were met with skepticism from Iranian officials, who emphasized the effectiveness of their air defenses in minimizing any damage from Israeli strikes.
The New York Times wrote, “Israeli jets first targeted air defense batteries and later struck Iran’s missile arrays and production sites.”
Axios quoted Israeli officials as claiming, “Israel had sent a message to Tehran, ahead of the airstrikes, warning the Iranians not to respond.”
In the morning, the Israeli military issued a statement saying “it had completed its strikes but that if Iran makes the mistake of carrying out another attack, Israel will have to fight back.”
The Khatam al-Anbiya Air Defense Base — the central command in charge of defending the skies of Iran — meanwhile announced that:
“Despite all previous warnings from the Iranian authorities to the criminal, illegal Zionist regime against engaging in any form of adventurism, that fake regime in an escalating move struck military locations in Tehran, Ilam, and Khuzestan. The joint aerial defense of the country successfully intercepted and thwarted the aggressor’s raids. Despite that, limited damage was done to some sites with the extent of the harm being investigated.”
The Iranian army later in the day announced the death of at least four officers, including a colonel, killed during Israeli air raids in Khuzestan. An informed source speaking to The Cradle on condition of anonymity reveals that the number of Iranian casualties is higher than what is officially being reported.
What were Tel Aviv’s tactics?
More than 24 hours on, details about the Israeli air raids or the extent of the harm to the Iranian military are unclear and patchy at best. Both sides have a vested interest in controlling the narrative: Tel Aviv to project power and deterrence, and Tehran to maintain an image of resilience and minimize perceived vulnerabilities.
Israel says it deployed over 100 F-35 fighter jets to conduct the offensive. However, an Iranian conservative lawmaker on Saturday morning claimed that the strikes in Tehran were actually carried out by small drones or quadcopters.
Hamid Rasaei wrote on his Telegram channel that “the Zionist regime’s agents in Tehran were involved in those attacks and Iranian anti-aircraft guns fired at those microdrones.”
The narrative in the west of the country was different. Images of an Israeli missile’s booster falling in Iraq’s Salahuddin province suggest Israel used the Golden Horizon Air launched Ballistic Missile to hit Iranian radars in the western belt of the country.
The use of Iraqi airspace by Israel was confirmed by the Khatam Al-Anbiya Air Defense Base. It has blamed the US military for allowing Israel to fire air-launched ballistic missiles into Iranian territory from 100 kilometers deep inside the Iraqi soil. No such permission had been granted from Iraqi authorities.
Baghdad was joined by other Arab capitals in strongly condemning the Israeli attack on Iranian soil without referring to the use of its airspace by Israel. The Cradle’s correspondent in Baghdad says, “Iraq did not approve of the use of its skies, but Prime Minister [Mohammed Shia] al-Sudani has no say in this matter because Washington controls the Iraqi airspace, while Iraqi radar systems are old.”
Khatam al-Anbiya has not mentioned Jordan, a country that denies involvement in the Israeli aerial attack despite its track record of defending the occupation state from previous Iranian retaliatory strikes.
Limited success or major damage?
Although the official Iranian media have downplayed the extent and strength of the Israeli strikes, University of Tehran academic and political analyst Mohammad Marandi tells The Cradle that “it was a big operation on the side of Israel and actually a considerable one, as Israelis did a harm to Iranian radar and defense systems.”
Iranian academic Foad Izadi believes “the Israeli attack was not something that many had expected, much less than what was thought it would do.” But, he emphasizes, “(In essence) Israel has no right to strike Iran, whether the strikes are small, medium or large. Iran is an independent country, and attacking another country is a violation of international law.”
Izadi dismisses western claims that Israel’s patently illegal strikes on Iran are justified as “self-defense,” pointing out that, in all cases, Tel Aviv launched the original aggressions while Tehran was legally retaliating.
“Iran fired a barrage of missiles on Israel for the first time in April in the wake of an Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria, that had been conducted despite Tehran’s previous warnings. The second encounter happened following Israel’s assassination of Hamas’s leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Iran had the right to respond to the killing of its guest, as well as the events that unfolded in Lebanon including Nasrallah’s assassination.”
Izadi points to a stellar performance by Iran’s air defense systems, in which “Iran was basically able to minimize the effect of this aggression” by Israel.
Marandi, who served as a consultant for the Iranian negotiating team at the last round of Vienna nuclear talks, agrees with the assessment that Iran’s air defenses performed well:
“Iranians had conducted security and intelligence operations ahead of the strikes and succeeded in limiting the extent of damage by dummies and decoys as well as spreading misinformation about sensitive sites.”
As he tells The Cradle, the damage inflicted on Iranian military sites was not grave because “the possibility of a direct confrontation with the United States convinced Iranians many years ago to relocate almost all sensitive sites and strategic production facilities underground. Neither warplanes nor missiles are able to penetrate into those underground facilities.”
“What remains on the ground are small workshops producing missile spare parts and they are scattered across the country, but not near borders, that’s why the strike failed to leave a significant harm,” Marandi adds.
True Promise 3?
Saturday’s direct hits on the Iranian capital and Iran’s provincial military facilities were the first since 1987, when former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s military forces rained missiles on Tehran and other Iranian cities. The psychological impact of targeting Tehran itself cannot be overstated; it represents a symbolic blow that challenges Iranian security and sovereignty and will likely necessitate a meaningful and calibrated response.
That notion was reiterated by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has the final word on all national security matters. During a meeting with“Martyrs of Security” family members earlier today, Khamenei pointed out that Israel has yet to learn its lesson:
“They (the Israelis) need to understand the power, determination, and innovation of the Iranian nation and its youth. How to convey this power and resolve of the Iranian nation to the Zionist regime is for our officials to determine, and what is in the best interest of the nation and the country should be done.”
Foad Izadi believes a third Iranian attack against the occupation state is likely because “Iran’s leaders are very much in line with the analysis that attacking the country should not become normalized. Mohammad Marandi says Tehran’s retaliation isn’t a matter of if, but when: “Even if Tehran had not been struck and only Ilam had been targeted by the Israelis, the Iranian leadership would have reacted,” he tells The Cradle.
“Iran’s retaliation to April’s Damascus strike took days. After Haniyeh’s assassination, it took months for Tehran to strike back,” Marandi elaborates. Following the Israeli strikes, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council met to get briefed on the targets that were hit and assess the extent of damage. While a possible Iranian military response was reportedly discussed, there is no information yet on whether that decision has been made.
US complicity in Israel’s assault on Iran ‘quite clear’: Araghchi
Press TV – October 27, 2024
Iran’s foreign minister says the United States’ complicity in Israel’s act of aggression against the country is “quite clear” as it has provided the regime with military equipment and airspace to conduct the terrorist raid.
Abbas Araghchi made the remarks on Sunday, a day after US officials claimed that Washington was not directly involved with the Israeli assault that targeted military installations and claimed the lives of four Iranian Army forces.
“The US is fully behind the Zionist regime and is complicit in all its crimes. In the operation two nights ago, the Americans’ participation is quite clear to us,” he said.
“The least they (the Americans) did was to provide a space corridor for the Zionist regime, as well as the equipment they already supplied [to Israel] somehow for participation in this operation.”
The top diplomat also noted that the United States bears responsibility for its “completely obvious” partnership in the occupying regime’s atrocities and escalation of tensions in West Asia.
He further said that Israel is committing crimes in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon using US weapons and enjoying Washington’s political support.
“It is a well-proven fact that without the US, Israel has no power in the region,” Araghchi emphasized.
In the early hours of Saturday, Israeli warplanes used the space available to the US military in Iraq to fire long-range air-to-air missiles in Iran’s Tehran, Khuzestan, and Ilam provinces in flagrant violation of international law and the UN Charter.
Iran said that the attack was successfully intercepted and countered by the country’s air defense system and that it only caused limited damage to radar sites.
In an X post after the criminal raid, Araghchi said Iran reserves the right to duly respond to this aggression, which cannot be separated from Israel’s genocide in Gaza and bloodshed in Lebanon.
The Kims Are Coming!
By Daniel McAdams | Ron Paul Institute | October 26, 2024
After a few cat and mouse days of Defense Secretary Lloyd “Raytheon” Austin’s denials, the Pentagon finally yesterday affirmed that there was evidence of a North Korean military presence in Russia. Asked what they were doing in Russia, Austin replied, “What exactly they are doing? Left to be seen. These are things that we need to sort out.”
For days, South Korea (no conflict of interest there) and Ukraine (nor there) had been claiming that thousands of North Korean soldiers had swooped in to rescue a beaten and bloodied Russian army from certain defeat at the hands of Ukraine (which has lost nearly a million men at arms in the nearly three year war). As the Russian army accelerates its pace, burning through the last fortified towns in eastern Ukraine, the mainstream media continues – with a few reluctant but panicked exceptions – to push the “Russia is losing” narrative.
The added twist of thousands of “evil communists” from North Korea screaming across the Russian tundra (on horseback, no doubt) promises to add new plot lines to the drama concocted by the mainstream media and most of Washington, and indeed the usual suspects are biting furiously at the bait.
Take US House Intelligence Committee Chairman Michael Turner. He is so outraged that there might be members of the North Korean military in Russia that he actually sent a letter to President Biden calling for war. “If North Korean military forces join Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Fox News reported him to say, “the US should consider the possibility of direct military action.”
Against whom? We are already involved in a proxy war with Russia through Ukraine. We are already directly involved in Israel’s seven-front war against its neighbors and Iran. Who does Chairman Turner think we should attack if North Korean troops are present in Russia? Russia? North Korea? China? All of them?
North Korea and Russia have just signed a treaty whereby their two militaries will more closely collaborate and even come to each other’s aid if one is threatened. While such an agreement may give Turner and the other neocons the vapors, it is nothing different than the mutual defense treaty the US has with its NATO partners and with many others on a bipartisan basis.
Treaties for me but not for thee? Is that the name of the “rules-based international order” game?
The hypocrisy runs even deeper. It is well-known and widely reported that NATO countries are training Ukrainian troops not only in NATO countries but inside Ukraine itself. So it’s absolutely fine for the US and its NATO partners to insert troops inside Ukraine to train its military to kill more Russians and to even operate sophisticated weapons systems inside Ukraine that the Ukrainian military could never operate on its own, but if Russia strikes up a deal with North Korea where the two armies can train together inside Russia, it’s a “red line” (as Chairman Turner wrote) that demands that we start WWIII.
It seems we are not sending our best and brightest to Congress.
What we are witnessing is the birth of a new narrative after some 500 Ukraine narratives have already collapsed under the weight of their own contradictions. Remember the two years of “Russia is losing” narrative? Well just this week NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, General Christopher Cavoli, said in an interview with the German Spiegel magazine that Russia would emerge from this conflict actually STRONGER than when it entered!
But of course they are losing…
So what to do? Just as the Hollywood writers do once a sit-com has run too many seasons and is playing itself out, plot-wise, insert a new character. Insert a new twist, to bamboozle the viewers and give them a new reason to keep watching the program. It’s funny but not funny, because the future of the world hangs in the balance. Just like the film “Idiocracy” has become a documentary in our absurd times, so has “Wag the Dog.” The military industrial complex with its Hollywood-like allies producing endless narratives to keep the gravy train rolling…
P.S. if anyone believes this whole insane and hysterical anti-North Korea narrative is not political…well I have a bridge in Brazoria, TX, to sell you…
This article first appeared as an exclusive for Ron Paul Institute subscribers. Subscribe for free here.
Israel and Ukraine Gaslighting To Cover Up Failures
By Larry C. Johnson | SONAR 21 | October 26, 2024
If bullshit was fungible, both Israel and Ukraine would be rolling in dough and not need another dime of foreign aid. The nonsense spilling out of Tel Aviv and Kiev is legendary and much of the Western public is slurping it up like a ravenous dog eating a bowl of rabbit stew.
Let’s start with Israel. The Zionists used more than 100 aircraft to send an estimated 200 air-launched ballistic missiles into Iran. Israeli aircraft did not dare to fly inside Iran. And what happened? Iran, with Russian help, shot down the majority of the Israeli missiles. Iran showed no signs of panic or anger in the aftermath of the attack — not what one would expect if Israel’s assault had been a smashing success.
Compare for yourself. The first video show’s Iran’s October 1 attack on Israel. The second video shows what happened in the skies over Tehran.
It is true that some of the Israeli missiles got through and killed four Iranian soldiers. Yet, check out this headline in today’s Jerusalem Post:
‘Backbone of Iran’s missile industry’ destroyed by IAF strikes on Islamic Republic
The Zionist spin patrol is working overtime to paint lipstick on their pig operation. The Zionists convinced themselves that Iran’s strike on October 1 was meaningless, notwithstanding clear video — and later satellite imagery — of damage from Iran’s missile barrage. Now, when confronted with evidence of Iranian air defense knocking Israeli missiles from the sky, they simply pretend it did not happen.
Here is a typical response from an ardent Zionist upon reports that Israel’s attack was underway:
The Israeli attack has begun and apparently they had no problem getting past the Iran air defenses. Early reports are about attacks hitting around Tehran which suggests they are going after command and control and possibly military leadership. Too early to know what is happening but by morning the real war will be underway. So far they have not hit the oil which is a surprise as that would finally sink Kamala which Netanyahu wants to do. The oil markets may think this is all OK and oil prices will remain around where they are but this is just chapter one. Before this is over the nukes and oil will get destroyed by Israel. The nukes will be next up as there is no time to lose for Israel to stop any chance of Iran fining some way to use a nuke against Israel.
So, what was Mr. Big Predictor’s reaction as dawn broke in Tehran?
It seems this was a staged attack with the intent to send a message and not to do grave damage. Arab nations were told ahead of time and passed that along to Tehran. We will need to wait a few hours to see what really happened, but it now seems clear this was not the all out attack Israel is capable of and it is instead a tit-for-tat strike to keep the US onside for now until Trump takes over. Israel needs Thaad and supplies of arms for now, so it may be that Netanyahu decided to play ball with DC to get what it needs and not use weapons it currently needs in Lebanon. The oil market will get this wrong and not realize what is yet to happen next time.
What sane folks need to understand is that no amount of evidence will shake the Zionists from their delusional fantasies. It is akin to those Americans who still insist that we could have won in Vietnam. We just didn’t try hard enough.
While Israel is doing its victory dance over its totally awesome, amazing, incredible air strike in Iran, Hezbollah, which was supposedly decapitated and rendered impotent, is stepping up its missile and rocket attacks in Israel. Here is a list of Hezbollah’s operations in the last 24-hours.
1- On the afternoon of Friday, October 25, 2024, a gathering of zionist forces in the “Shoumera” settlement was targeted (https://t.me/PalestineResist/65037) with a guided missile, resulting in confirmed casualties.
2- At 12:15, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64826) a rocket barrage targeted the “Kiryat Shmona” settlement.
3- At 06:00, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64867) a rocket barrage targeted a gathering of zionist forces around the town of Aita al-Shaab.
4- At 11:30, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64868) as part of the Khaybar series of operations and in response to the attacks and massacres committed by the zionist enemy, and with the call “At your service, Nasrallah,” Islamic Resistance fighters launched an aerial attack with a squadron of attack drones on the “Tel Nof” airbase south of “Tel Aviv,” hitting their targets accurately.
5- At 12:15, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64876) a rocket barrage targeted the “Mishar” base (the main intelligence headquarters for the northern region in Safad).
6- At 12:45, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64875) a rocket barrage targeted the “Krayot” north of Haifa.
7- At 13:00, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64954) as part of the Khaybar series of operations and in response to the zionist enemy’s attacks and massacres, and with the call “At your service, Nasrallah,” Islamic Resistance fighters launched a qualitative rocket barrage at zionist forces gathered at the “Ayelet” base.
8- At 13:23, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64877) a rocket barrage targeted a gathering of zionist forces in the Al-Musharifa area in Ras Al-Naqoura.
9- At 13:30, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64925) a rocket barrage targeted a gathering of zionist soldiers in the “Shlomi” settlement.
10- At 13:35, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64926) a rocket barrage targeted the “Metzuba” settlement.
11- At 13:40, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64927) a rocket barrage targeted the “Jaatoun” settlement.
12- At 14:15, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64928) a large rocket barrage targeted the “Yesod HaMa’ala” settlement.
13- At 14:25, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64929) a rocket barrage targeted the Jal al-Alam site.
14- At 16:05, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64932) a rocket barrage targeted the “Habushit” site.
15- At 16:10, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64933) a rocket barrage targeted the “Ma’ale Golani” barracks.
16- At 16:15, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64934) a rocket barrage targeted the “Snir” barracks.
17- At 16:15, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64936) a rocket barrage targeted the “Shear Yeshuv” settlement.
18- At 16:15, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64953) a rocket barrage targeted a gathering of zionist forces east of the town of Markaba.
19- At 17:20, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64955) a large rocket barrage targeted the “Shraga” base.
20- At 18:00, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64985) as part of the Khaybar series of operations and in response to the zionist enemy’s attacks and massacres, and with the call “At your service, Nasrallah,” Islamic Resistance fighters launched an aerial attack with a squadron of attack drones on the “Naoura” base east of Afula, hitting their targets accurately.
21- At 19:30, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/65020) a rocket barrage targeted a gathering of zionist forces in the “Hatzor” settlement.
22- At 23:30, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/65021) as part of the warning (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64999) issued by the Islamic Resistance to various northern settlements, Islamic Resistance fighters launched a rocket barrage on the “Kiryat Shmona” settlement.
Yep. Hezbollah is barely hanging on.
Speaking of barely hanging on, Ukrainian forces are retreating all along the 900-mile front.
Information is coming from the field that our troops, after a big breakthrough, were able to firmly establish themselves in Shakhtyorskoye and continue to push the enemy out of the village.
The prospects for a Shakhtar breakthrough are impressive.
As far as we understand, the goal is to reach Razliv and take up positions on the Volchya River with access to the rear of the enemy garrison in Kurakhovo.
Plus pressure from two flanking directions: on the AFU group in Bogoyavlenka, thus enabling their expedient removal, and on Velikaya Novosyolka – leveling the main “joy” of the counter oink last year.
By the way, the direction of the conscious flight of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to the Dnipropetrovsk region is also a so-so idea – the enemy has no sensible fortifications between Pavlograd and Pokrovsk. So the AFU will not be able to pull off the trick of drawing us to the prepared lines and then splitting up between Pavlograd and Konstantinovka.
Then there is the Ukrainian/CIA story claiming that North Korean troops are fighting on the front because Russia has lost so many men, it had to import new cannon fodder. I believe this story was ginned up by an increasingly desperate CIA in order to create a cover story for bringing South Korean pilots to Romania to fly F-16s. The “news” about the North Korean troops first appeared in the New York Times under David Sanger’s byline on October 8. Sanger has a long history of being a willing conduit for CIA “leaks.”
Marat Khairullin, a Russian war correspondent, explained what was really going on behind the scenes:
Now it has become clear why the North Korea issue is being actively stirred up during the SMO. South Korea is sending its soldiers and officers to fight in Ukraine. Let me remind you that South Korea is a passionate, evil six of the USA (slang for “lackey”- in Russia, 6 is the lowest numbered card in a deck of cards). They are not as smart as Japan, but not as dumb as the Ukraine. Most importantly, they are high-tech. . . .
Last week, the first 16 pilots from South Korea’s 19th Air Wing arrived at NATO’s Romanian air base near Mihail Kogalniceanu. Apparently, South Korea sent the first squadron of the air wing, the most prepared and combat-ready, to the war in full force. This means they are planning to throw them into battle immediately.
Currently, the F-16 fighters allocated to Ukraine are also in Romania – at the Fetești air base on the border with Moldova. As soon as the South Korean pilots go there, this will be an indicator of the imminent use of these aircraft in Ukraine. In addition to the F-16 pilots, pilots of South Korean T-50 combat training aircraft, which are used in the southern army as light attack aircraft, have arrived at the air base in the commune of Mikhail Kogalniceanu. It is assumed that these aircraft may be useful as hunters for “Geraniums” in the protection of the Odessa port.
Remains to be seen if the South Koreans will actually enter the fight. If they do, they will learn that Russia ain’t playing games and many of those pilots will likely die. I discussed this issue with Judge Napolitano. I am also posting a live podcast that Andrei Martyanov and I did with Nima as Israel’s attack was wrapping up Friday night my time.
Federal Judge Upholds Florida Ban on Lab-Grown Meat, as Other States Propose Similar Bans
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | October 23, 2024
A federal judge earlier this month rejected a request by California-based Upside Foods for a preliminary injunction against Florida’s new law banning the manufacture, distribution and sale of “cultivated,” or lab-grown meat.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the ban into law on May 1, making it a second-degree misdemeanor to produce or sell lab-grown meat in the state. The law took effect in July.
Upside Foods, which makes cultivated chicken, sued Florida in August, alleging the ban is unconstitutional and violates two federal laws that preempt Florida from imposing the ban.
A preliminary injunction is typically issued in a lawsuit if the court finds the plaintiff has a good chance of winning its case — a “substantial likelihood of success on the merits,” However, Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker said Upside’s argument, which boiled down to “if it’s a poultry product, states can’t ban it,” was insufficient.
Just because a product falls within the scope of the federal Poultry Products Inspection Act and is under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) regulatory authority does not mean a state is “expressly preempted from banning the sale of that particular kind of poultry product,” Walker wrote.
Upside argued that the ban imposed ingredient and manufacturing requirements that clashed with provisions of the Poultry Products Inspection Act. However, Walker said Upside was unable to identify any federal law or regulation that created an “ingredient requirement” for cultivated meat. He also said that because the company didn’t produce its lab-grown meat in Florida, the manufacturing ban didn’t affect its premises, operations or facilities.
The ruling means the ban will remain in place while the lawsuit challenging its legality moves through the courts.
“We are not surprised by the judge’s rejection of Upside’s preliminary injunction,” Florida Sen. Jay Collins, who co-sponsored the original bill, told The Defender. “The dangers of cultivated meat far outweigh any misleading environmental claims. Floridians will not be lectured by billionaires like Bill Gates on how to feed their families.”
Upside’s attorney, Suranjen Sen from the Institute for Justice, said in a press release that the company plans to appeal the decision and is “confident that the courts will ultimately recognize that Florida cannot ban products simply to protect local industries from honest competition.”
A bench trial is set for Monday, Aug. 18, 2025.
Upside struggled to become profitable
Lab-grown or cultivated meat is produced from cultured stem cells taken from live animals or an animal cell bank and then reproduced in bioreactors using techniques borrowed from Big Pharma.
The cells are “fed” a mixture of sugars, amino and fatty acids, salts and vitamins to make them proliferate quickly. Once they’ve grown into a mass or a sheet — depending on the manufacturer — they are formed into meat-looking shapes like cutlets or nuggets.
Although the companies promote lab-grown meat in part by claiming it has environmental benefits, the process is energy-intensive. Research from the University of California, Davis, found that cultured meat’s environmental impact is likely “orders of magnitude” higher than real meat, based on current production methods.
Attorney Ray Flores, who worked in the natural health industry for 35 years, told The Defender that even if it provides environmental benefits, “Any environmental benefit is greatly outweighed by the possible dangers that these cutting-edge products may pose to one’s health.”
An investigation by The New York Times revealed several incidents during the development of some of Upside’s products that raised safety concerns. The company in 2018 found its chicken cell line contaminated with mouse cells. And in 2019, the cell line was found to be contaminated with rat cells.
Yet, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Upside’s meat was safe for human consumption in 2022, and the USDA approved the sale of products by Upside Foods and Good Meat — the first two companies to go through the regulatory approval process — in June 2023.
That approval made the U.S. the second country in the world, behind Singapore, to allow sales of lab-grown meat. In January, Israel green-lighted the sale of steaks made from cultivated beef cells, The Associated Press reported.
Since the USDA approval, however, Upside has struggled to become profitable.
Upside doesn’t have products available in stores. Partnerships with restaurants are primarily how the company gets its products to consumers.
It had sold its lab-grown chicken to one restaurant in Miami and was planning to showcase it at Miami’s Art Basel event before the ban took effect, according to the judgment.
However, Crunchbase reported that the company halted its plans to develop a major facility in Glenview, Illinois, and restaurants that had tried it out have since pulled it from their menus. San Francisco Michelin-star restaurant Bar Crenn, its final sale venue, confirmed it was pulling the lab-grown meat from the menu in February.
In the original complaint, Upside and the Institute for Justice claim that the “growing patchwork of conflicting state laws governing cultivated meat” makes it more difficult for Upside to partner with national meat distributors “who generally will not carry products they cannot lawfully sell in every state.”
It also makes it more difficult for them to partner with restaurants. If not for the ban, they said, they would be reaching out to several restaurants to create partnerships.
Following the Florida ban, Upside laid off 26 workers.
More states move to ban lab-grown meat, federal regulators eye labeling requirements
A few weeks after Florida passed its bill, Alabama passed a similar law making the manufacture, sale or distribution of food products made from cultured animal cells a Class C misdemeanor, with fines ranging from $100 to $10,000.
Iowa’s governor in May signed a bill prohibiting schools from buying lab-grown meat products and requiring clear labeling for lab-grown meats sold in other venues.
Five other states have proposed similar laws. And in August, Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen signed an executive order banning the state government from purchasing it.
The USDA and the FDA share regulatory responsibility for cultivated meat products. Under the Biden administration’s 2022 plan to advance biotechnology and biomanufacturing innovation, the USDA also announced plans to issue draft guidance on the pre-approval consultation process and the agencies plan to propose rules for labeling cell-cultured meat and poultry sometime in 2024.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
‘Seismic’ Verdicts: SF Transit System Must Pay Almost $8 Million to 6 Workers Fired for Refusing COVID Shots
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | October 25, 2024
The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) must pay about $7.8 million to six former employees who lost their jobs after the district denied their requests for accommodations for religious exemptions from BART’s COVID-19 mandate.
In the largest financial win yet for workers fired for failing to comply with COVID-19 vaccine mandates, a federal jury composed of entirely vaccinated jurors on Wednesday awarded the plaintiffs between approximately $1.2 million and $1.5 million each to compensate for economic losses and mental anguish.
The case is one of hundreds filed across the country since 2021, representing thousands of workers who say they lost their jobs when their employers illegally denied their requests for religious accommodation to the COVID-19 mandate.
“These verdicts are seismic — a 7.8 San Francisco legal earthquake,” Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, which represented the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “This amazing outcome represents so much hard work by our team, perseverance by these clients, and fairness from our judicial system.”
The workers’ attorney, Kevin Snider, told The Defender that because of BART’s mandate, “The workers were forced to either deny their faith or lose their jobs.” He said they chose the latter, demonstrating the sincerity of their religious convictions.
The lawsuit began as three separate cases representing 35 employees fired by BART. The three cases were later consolidated into a single lawsuit. Twenty-nine of the plaintiffs settled with BART, but the remaining six went to trial this month.
“These workers lost their jobs and have struggled for more than two years,” Snider said. “It was a devastating disruption to their lives and to their families. Being able to settle or get a jury verdict helps them to put closure on this and for those who went to trial, they felt heard and understood by a jury, which can be important.”
This was the second time the case went to trial. The first trial ended in a mistrial in July when the jury could not reach a unanimous decision, as required in federal civil trials.
BART, which can appeal the decision, declined to comment. Bloomberg Law reported that BART filed a motion for judgment as a matter of law during the trial, which U.S. District Judge William Alsup said would be argued in December.
The motion argues that the plaintiffs have insufficient evidence to reasonably support their case, even if a jury finds otherwise. In response, the judge can allow the verdict to stand, order a new trial or overrule the jury’s verdict.
Religious objectors had option to comply, retire, resign or be terminated
The plaintiffs first sued BART in December 2022, alleging the agency violated their First Amendment rights to religious freedom and federal and state anti-discrimination laws.
The BART system, which operates in five counties across the San Francisco Bay area, issued a mandate on Oct. 14, 2021, requiring employees to be fully vaccinated as a condition of employment.
Employees could apply for a religious or medical exemption. If granted, BART determined whether to provide them reasonable accommodation. Between October 2021 and February 2022, 204 of Bart’s 4,000-plus employees sought an exemption.
Approximately 179 of those were for religious beliefs by people practicing a variety of religious faiths, including various forms of Christianity, Islam and Ruism, according to Snider.
BART granted 70 of the religious exemptions and denied the rest, according to the complaint.
But even the employees granted an exemption were denied reasonable accommodation so they could continue working. Although BART acknowledged their right to a religious exemption, the agency said it couldn’t reasonably make accommodations, like allowing them to work at home or do weekly testing.
However, 1 in 3 of the employees seeking medical exemption were granted exemption and given accommodation, according to the complaint.
Instead of proceeding on the assumption that the accommodation requests were based on sincerely held religious beliefs, the complaint alleges, BART launched a probe into the sincerity of the employees’ beliefs.
Employees’ claims were investigated using an interviewer template that asked for a detailed explanation of their beliefs and why taking the COVID-19 vaccine would violate them. The template included questions like, “What do you think will happen to you if you take the COVID-19 vaccine?”
BART proceeded to deny all requests for accommodation from religious objectors and gave them the option to comply with the mandate, retire if qualified, resign or be terminated.
All of the plaintiffs refused to comply and lost their jobs.
Over the next couple of years, many of those employees, working with the Pacific Justice Institute, sued BART and settled their cases. The cases that couldn’t reach a settlement proceeded to trial — which Snider said carried a serious risk, because “San Francisco is probably the most difficult venue in the entire country to have a vaccine case.”
The trial happened in two phases. First, the jury was asked to rule on whether BART could have granted the requested accommodations. They rejected the agency’s argument that it couldn’t reasonably accommodate the employees seeking religious exemptions without facing an undue hardship.
Then they heard testimony about the sincerity of the plaintiffs’ religious beliefs and the damages they suffered.
Sinder, whose firm represents plaintiffs alleging religious discrimination in more than a hundred vaccine mandate lawsuits across the country, said that he thought public opinion was slowly changing to favor workers.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Fluoride Finally Declared an “Unreasonable Risk”
A look at the ruling that will have a widespread impact on the health of all American children
By Aaron Siri | Injecting Freedom | October 25, 2024
A seven-year battle between the EPA and the public interest regarding the fluoridation of public drinking water has finally concluded. This is an excellent result by Siri & Glimstad partner Michael Connett in securing a court order against the EPA. Great job, Michael!
U.S. District Court Judge Edward Chen concluded the following in his ruling:
“[T]he Court finds that fluoridation of water at 0.7 milligrams per liter (“mg/L”) – the level presently considered “optimal” in the United States – poses an unreasonable risk of reduced IQ in children… [A] risk sufficient to require the EPA to engage with a regulatory response…”
“There is little dispute in this suit as to whether fluoride poses a hazard to human health. Indeed, EPA’s own expert agrees that fluoride is hazardous at some level of exposure. And ample evidence establishes that a mother’s exposure to fluoride during pregnancy is associated with IQ decrements in her offspring. The United States National Toxicology Program (“NTP”) – the federal agency regarded as experts in toxicity… concluded that fluoride is indeed associated with reduced IQ in children, at least at exposure levels at or above 1.5 mg/L (i.e., “higher” exposure levels)…”
“In all, there is substantial and scientifically credible evidence establishing that fluoride poses a risk to human health; it is associated with a reduction in the IQ of children and is hazardous at dosages that are far too close to fluoride levels in the drinking water of the United States. And this risk is unreasonable under Amended TSCA. Reduced IQ poses serious harm. Studies have linked IQ decrements of even one or two points to e.g., reduced educational attainment, employment status, productivity, and earned wages.”
The NTP report referred to above can be found here. While we wait for the EPA to take the next step, many municipalities have already acted to remove fluoride from their water systems.
US, UK alone in expressing support for Israel’s strike on Iran
The Cradle | October 26, 2024
In the wake of Israel’s long-anticipated attack on Iran early on 26 October, Arab and Islamic countries responded by issuing harsh condemnations of Israel for its aggression, while the US and UK expressed their support for Israel’s assault, claiming it was in self defense.
Israel’s military claimed it carried out “precise strikes” targeting strategic military sites, including ballistic missile manufacturing sites and air defense batteries, on Saturday.
Iran said it “successfully confronted” the Israeli attack by activating its missile defenses.
Below are statements from the foreign ministries and government officials of various countries in response to the Israeli attack.
France urged both parties to refrain from escalation but did not condemn or express support for Israel’s attack.
“France urges the parties to refrain from any escalation and action likely to aggravate the context of extreme tension prevailing in the region,” the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
The US expressed support for Israel’s attack, calling it “self-defense” while stressing its forces did not participate.
“We urge Iran to cease its attacks on Israel so that this cycle of fighting can end without further escalation,” US National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett told reporters.
“Their response was an exercise in self-defense and specifically avoided populated areas and focused solely on military targets, contrary to Iran’s attack against Israel that targeted Israel’s most populous city,” Savett added.
The UK also expressed support for Israel and claimed the attack was in self-defense.
“I am clear that Israel has the right to defend itself against Iranian aggression,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said.
“I’m equally clear that we need to avoid further regional escalation and urge all sides to show restraint. Iran should not respond.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz did not express support for Israel’s actions, but warned Iran not to retaliate. “My message to Iran is clear: We cannot continue with massive reactions of escalation. This must end now. This will provide an opportunity for peaceful development in the Middle East,” Scholz wrote on the social media site X.
In contrast, Jordan’s Foreign Ministry condemned the Israeli attack, calling it a violation of international law, an infringement on sovereignty, and a serious escalation that threatens regional stability and global security.
The Ministry’s spokesperson called on the international community to take responsibility and adopt immediate measures to stop Israel’s aggression on Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon as a first step toward de-escalation.
Saudi Arabia also condemned the Israeli assault but did not mention Israel in its statement.
“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia expresses its condemnation and denunciation of the military targeting of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is a violation of its sovereignty and a violation of international laws and norms,” the official Saudi state news agency said.
“The Kingdom urges all parties to exercise the utmost restraint and reduce escalation,” the statement added.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said it was “gravely concerned” over the escalation in West Asia, including the Israeli air attack on Iran, and condemned all measures that threaten regional security and stability.
The UAE, which Israel views as an ally, issued a statement on its Foreign Ministry’s website saying it “strongly condemns the military targeting of the Islamic Republic of Iran and expresses deep concern over the continued escalation and its impact on regional security and stability.”
The Ministry emphasized the “importance of exercising the highest levels of restraint and wisdom to avoid risks and the expansion of conflict.”
The Iraqi Prime Minister’s office stated that Israel “continues its aggressive policies and expansion of conflict in the region, employing blatant acts of aggression without deterrence. This time, its hand of aggression has targeted the Islamic Republic of Iran through an airstrike on Iranian targets early this morning.”
The statement said Iraq “reiterates its firm stance calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon, and for comprehensive regional and international efforts to support stability in the region.”
Qatar, which has been involved in ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, “expressed its strong condemnation and denunciation of Israel’s targeting of the Islamic Republic of Iran, deeming the act a blatant violation of Iran’s sovereignty and a clear breach of international law.”
Turkiye expressed its “strongest condemnation” of Israel’s military actions, saying Israel was fueling instability in the region.
“Israel, which is committing genocide in Gaza, preparing to annex the West Bank, and killing civilians in Lebanon, has pushed our region to the brink of a bigger war,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said.
Hamas issued a statement through Telegram condemning the Israeli assault and highlighting the role of the US in supporting Israeli crimes.
“The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) strongly condemns the Zionist aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran, targeting military sites in multiple provinces. We consider this a flagrant violation of Iranian sovereignty and an escalation that threatens the security of the region and the safety of its people, placing full responsibility on the occupation for the consequences of this aggression, supported by the United States of America,” the statement said.
Two Governments Linked By Lies and Bloodshed
The United States can never tell the truth about Israel or enforce its own laws
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • October 25, 2024
As the United States national election draws ever nearer the fringe stories that just might influence the outcome are increasing both in magnitude and in number. On Thursday I participated in a fascinating talk sponsored by Washington’s Committee for the Republic, which is “a citizen-based, non-partisan, nonprofit organization founded in 2003 [that] sponsors speakers monthly on challenges to the American Republic, including the military-industrial complex, too-big-to-fail banks, campaign finance, and US competitiveness.” The featured speaker for the evening was Josh Paul who “resigned from the State Department on October 18, 2023, over disagreement with the Biden administration’s unconditional surge of military equipment to Israel. The surge greenlighted Israel to equal or better the instruction of Thucydides: ‘The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.’ Josh is an insider’s insider. He toiled in the State Department for more than 11 years working as a Director in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, which is responsible for US security assistance and arms transfers. He also served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, US Army Staff… Josh holds master’s degrees from the Universities of Georgetown and St Andrews, Scotland. He is currently a Non-Resident Fellow at the organization Democracy Now for the Arab World (DAWN) and a recipient of the 2023 Callaway Award for Civic Courage.”
Josh has cited the wisdom of George Washington’s Farewell Address warning against excessive fondness for any one nation because “[A] passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens.”
One might immediately perceive that George Washington very well described the possible consequences derived from the junior partnership which the United States finds itself locked into in its “wag the dog” relationship with the State of Israel. The “passionate attachment” has been amply demonstrated over the past year of warfare in Gaza in which the US has shamefully showered weapons and money on an Israel that is openly carrying out highly visible war crimes against the Palestinians in an attempt to achieve something like complete removal or extermination of the Gazans.
To my delight, Paul explained how policy making with Israel as the most favored nation works in practice. The United States federal government ignores its own laws to include two amendments of the 1961 Foreign Aid Act, known as the Symington and Glenn amendments, which ban aid to clandestine nuclear powers. Israel has a secret nuclear weapons arsenal that is cleverly ignored through a policy of “nuclear ambiguity” by the US federal government to allow the tribute money payment and other unilateral support to continue. An Energy Department directive actually demands imprisonment for any federal official or contractor who even mentions that Israel might have a nuclear weapons arsenal. To sustain the “nuclear ambiguity” policy on Israel’s weapons program, the government also uses deliberately improper classification to conceal what it is up to.
In addition, there is the Leahy law, which is also completely ignored in its establishment of a process which on paper requires a careful examination of how and when transferred US provided weapons are used, to include examination of possible “gross violations of human rights.” When that is the case, the sale or transfer of weapons is supposed to be denied. Israel, which is committing war crimes right out in the open that amount to a genocide and which has senior government officials calling for extermination of Arabs, is uniquely exempt in practice from such examination while Secretary of State Tony Blinken and his cast of spokesperson-buffoons lie persistently to both the government itself and to the public. They lie every time when they claim that it has not been demonstrated that Israel is guilty of such crimes against humanity, nor even when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly mandates a near complete blockade of food and medicines, resulting in starvation and unneeded deaths.
Paul cited an example of how the system works in practice, with Jewish state demanding weapons often followed up with the Israeli Embassy in Washington calling the White House a few hours later asking “What is the hold up?” The White House then sends word down to the Pentagon and State Department to “Get moving on it!” All other countries seeking to purchase American weapons have to go through the vetting process and stand in line to wait their turn.
It seems that Israel always gets what it wants. There has been a great deal of speculation about the surprise decision by President Joe Biden to deploy in Israel a $1.15 billion Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system which will be manned by roughly 100 American soldiers on the ground. An advanced team of the soldiers and the battery itself were reported as having arrived in Israel shortly after the announcement of the deployment, and it turns out that a second battery was already in place in Israel. The commitment ultimately derives from the Biden regime’s frequently repeated unconditional “ironclad” pledge to defend Israel, but it interestingly creates a potential tripwire situation leading to an escalation and a much larger war if American soldiers should die in an Iranian or Hezbollah attack. And there is little to look for on the upside as the soldiers and equipment will be inside a nation which is neither an actual ally nor a friend, as its leader Prime Minister Netanyahu has demonstrated repeatedly over the past year in rebuffing the many proposals regarding mitigating the horror on display in Gaza put forward by Biden. There is also a political price to pay in terms of the US relationship with nations in the Middle East and beyond as the Jewish state is indubitably carrying out a genocide while apparently simultaneously seeking to go to war with all its neighbors to expand its territory to become “Eretz” or “Greater” Israel and establish itself as the preeminent military power in the Middle East. But, at the same time, Netanyahu knows that he needs an active role by the United States as his partner against major powers like Iran to accomplish that goal, which is perhaps why an insistent Israeli leadership somehow was able to pressure the White House into making a commitment of THAAD in spite of the potentially disastrous possible consequences.
So, the United States has absolutely nothing to gain by sending its batteries and soldiers to serve as potential targets in Israel and much to lose. And there has been serious consideration of what the THAAD would be able to accomplish if it did wind up in the middle of a shooting war. Former CIA and State Department officer Larry Johnson describes the THAAD projectile as “a large bullet that is supposed to strike an in-bound missile and break it up. It is a kinetic weapon, i.e., it does not explode.” It is not clear why Israel, which claims to have the best air-defense system in the world, would want or need the THAAD. Beyond that, there is a logistical problem related to the system which Johnson declares to be that “As a tactical and strategic weapon, THAAD is a bust.” There are only nine THAAD launchers in the entire world. Each launcher has mounted on it eight missiles, which means if Iran fires 100 missiles 84% of them will be safe from THAAD even assuming that 100% of the THAAD projectiles from the two batteries score a direct hit. Reloading the system is also complicated and there is a supply problem. Lockheed Martin apparently built only 1,000 missiles for this system which would mean that there will not be a lot of spare parts sitting around in a warehouse in Israel waiting to be sent to the front. Another point not to be ignored is that each missile costs $12.6 million, not exactly cheap ammunition.
There are a number of other factors that might be in play leading to the deployment. Johnson observes that the White House has been negotiating with Netanyahu over possible plans to attack Iran. He believes that it might be “A tangible gesture of support for Israel by the Biden Administration, [which] may be playing a desperation card in order to persuade Israel not to attack Iran.” Some observers note, however, that such a reckless plan relying on good decisions being made by a nuclear armed Israel might go wrong in a number of ways and become a formula for initiating World War 3, which would certainly kill millions of people. At the same time, it is useful to consider what might be achieved by the introduction of the battery and soldiers into an extremely volatile situation as they alone could not deter or even significantly blunt a major Iranian attack. So what is the motive? And what other elements are playing into the decision? And what does the leak of a Top Secret codeword protected US government document exposing the Israeli secret nuclear arsenal and describing possible Israel preparations for a pending Israeli attack on Iran mean?
Even though time is running out, The Washington Post is reporting that Israel has already decided to attack military sites in Iran before the US election. There is some discussion apparently still going on over whether targeting by Israel (possibly joined by the US) will include oil fields and refineries as well as underground nuclear research sites. Having Washington as a partner in the enterprise is just what Netanyahu wants as initiating a new conflict with Iran will invite Tehran’s retaliation, possibly killing the US military personnel inside Israel, and bingo the US will be at war fighting for Israel, which is something that Biden might actually be trying to avoid at least until the US election is over. That is why he, completely out of character, also warned Israel by way of a letter on October 13th that he would give Israel 30 days to undo the blockade of food and medicine going into Gaza, which is causing mass starvation, on humanitarian grounds or he would consider an embargo on some arms being illegally provided to the Jewish state. It did not take much profound analysis of the statement to realize that 30 days will be after the US election and, no matter who wins, it will not be necessary to do anything to punish Israel. The statement is essentially phony and is all about the election. In fact, as a majority of Democratic Party voters oppose Biden/Kamala’s support of what Israel is doing to the Gazans and Lebanese, it might be intended influence the outcome of a close election.
Which leaves us with the TS document that allegedly exposes elements in the Israeli plan of attack. Who leaked it and why? U.S. officials are scrambling to determine how two leaked, highly US classified documents conveying potential Israeli plans to attack Iran got on the Telegram app. According to the New York Times, the documents were prepared “in recent days” by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which analyzes information and images collected by America’s fleet of spy satellites.
There are several theories regarding these leaked reports. Trita Parsi, the Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, opines that there are five plausible theories for what is behind the leak. The first theory posits an Iranian hacking of the servers of the US intelligence services and leaking the document as part of their psychological warfare against Israel, suggesting that they have learned Tel Aviv’s top secret war plans, possibly delaying what is intended. The second theory is that a dissident within the US government seeking to prevent or delay the war may have leaked it, but an initial internal investigation has reportedly already moved on to looking for possible outside government perpetrators, though that speculation might itself be a lie.
Third, the Biden administration may have carried out the leak itself in order to delay the Israeli attack until after the election. Biden cannot say “no” to Israel, but he might well illegally expose even top secret intelligence with the aim of confusing preparations and delaying Israel’s planned attack.
Fourth, the Israelis may have obtained or even fabricated the report and leaked it themselves with the objective of confusing Iran and inducing it to look for attackers in all the wrong places. And Five, possibly a close American ally — a Five Eyes state (FVEY) or a NATO ally with access to FVEY intelligence — might have leaked it, suggesting that a friendly country’s government might be so frustrated with Biden’s unwillingness to “stop Netanyahu from starting the largest war in the Middle East since World War II that they are taking matters into their own hands to sabotage Netanyahu’s escalation plan.”
When it comes to THAADs or no THAADs or leaks of top-secret intelligence, the Democrats would like to do whatever it takes to establish a narrative that will help them stay in power. That would include creeping dangerously close to getting involved in what might develop into a major war by blindly adhering to the blandishments of one notably rogue nation to help destroy another nation that in no way threatens the United States. Then the White House and State Department will lie about it all, as will Israel, to cover up what the true intentions and motives of the various players were. That will be the sleight of hands that will be playing out in the next few days. Where is the truth? The truth might itself turn out to be a lie!
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.
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By James W. Carden | The Realist Review | June 14, 2026
Joe Biden’s presidency may ultimately come to be seen as a cautionary tale. Here was a president who showed little interest in entertaining arguments that might have contradicted his most deeply held assumptions.[1] And there were precious few within the upper ranks of the administration who might have attempted to do so, after all, only policy hands and political operatives who had come up through the ranks of the Clinton and Obama administrations or had longstanding ties to the citadels of the foreign policy community were invited into the fold. … continue
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