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Washington Trying to Blackmail Armenians in Karabakh Into US-Brokered Talks: Here’s Why

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 14.06.2023

The dispute between Armenians and Azerbaijanis over the landlocked mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh has been a source of severe tensions between the Caucasus nations, with several conflicts fought over the territory over the past 35 years. Moscow has worked tirelessly to mediate the crisis.

Washington is reportedly making a concerted, behind-the-scenes push to interfere directly in negotiations between Azerbaijan and the ethnic Armenian-led unrecognized Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, including by blackmailing the Armenian side with the threat of a fresh round of violence in the region.

Informed sources cited by Russian media indicated that US officials – which until recently had limited their “mediation” efforts to talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia proper, are now trying to force their way into the sensitive negotiations between Baku and Stepanakert (Nagorno-Karabakh’s self-proclaimed capital).

“In the form of an ultimatum, Washington is forcing Nagorno-Karabakh representatives to agree to a meeting with the Azeri side in the near future in a third country under the supervision of American curators. Moreover, the Karabakh leadership has been told that if they refuse, they will be threatened with something close to an Azerbaijani ‘counter-terrorist operation’ in the region,’” the sources indicated.

The “ultimatum” has reportedly been received negatively in Stepanakert overall, but got support from Sergey Ghazaryan, the self-proclaimed republic’s foreign minister.

The past few weeks have seen a flurry of US and EU diplomatic activity in the Southern Caucasus, with Armenia and Azerbaijan’s foreign ministers meeting in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in early May, and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev holding talks in Brussels mediated by European Council chief Charles Michel the same month. In late May, Pashinyan, Aliyev, and Russian President Vladimir Putin held trilateral talks in Moscow. Pashinyan and Aliyev got into an argument much reported on in Western media about transport corridors during the Eurasian Economic Union Summit, with Putin intervening to quell the dispute.

US and EU mediators spoke of “significant progress” in the Armenian-Azeri talks, but few details were made public. However, on May 22, Pashinyan made the bombshell announcement that Yerevan would be ready to recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan if the security of its ethnic Armenian population was guaranteed. This move was sharply criticized by some observers as a de-facto concession by Yerevan to leave the Karabakh issue “practically to the mercy of Western sponsors,” with autonomy guarantees for the region left off the table.

Moscow deployed a 2,000 troop-strong peacekeeping contingent to Nagorno-Karabakh three years ago after the September-November 2020 war, with these forces patrolling the Lachin corridor connecting Armenia proper to Nagorno-Karabakh. Russia’s strategy has revolved around seeking to maintain the status quo, ensuring the safety and security of the local civilian population, and preventing any further hostilities from breaking out.

Concerted Push to Eject Russia From Region

Retired Russian Foreign Ministry senior advisor Alexander Ananiev fears US and its allies and sympathetic actors in Yerevan and Baku have decided to try to remove Russia from its mediation role, and to eliminate Russia’s presence in the Southern Caucasus generally (including through the removal of the Russian military base in Armenia proper, and Yerevan’s withdrawal from Russian-led integration processes and defense agreements).

“Yerevan, with a geopolitical turn away from Russia, wants to receive the support of the West, but, in accordance with the ‘post-Soviet traditions’, not to lose anything from Russia in economics terms. For Baku, it’s important to distance itself from Moscow due to sanctions and the desire to gain a foothold as an important energy supplier to the European Union,” Ananiev wrote in a recent article in a major Russian international affairs journal.

‘Perfect’ Timing

Stanislav Tarasov, a veteran Russian political scientist specializing in Caucasus affairs, points out that the timing of the reported US “mediation effort” in Nagorno-Karabakh lines up perfectly with the signing of a major railway construction agreement by Russian and Iranian officials last month to bring the ambitious North South Transport Corridor one step closer to reality.

“The West offers nothing, have no solution of their own. They play on contradictions between Yerevan and Baku which Moscow is trying to neutralize or eliminate,” Tarasov told Sputnik.

“America’s interests are very simple. First, they would potentially like to use the South Caucasus as a springboard for ‘containing Iran.’ So far, this has not been achieved, although they did manage to carry out an operation to complicate ties between Azerbaijan and Iran. Second, they have managed to preserve a hotbed of regional tension via the Karabakh conflict. Third, the implementation of the North-South Corridor’s transit routes requires huge investments –investments which do not flow to an area facing the potential threat of war. This means Russia will seek to resolve this situation… while the West will try to destabilize it, so that Russia can’t break through the Southern Caucasus and unblock its communications,” the observer explained.

North South Transport Corridor (NSTC)

For Russia, the opening of new trade and transit routes is particularly vital today, Tarasov said, owing to the breakdown in economic relations with the West after the escalation of the Ukraine crisis, which deprived Moscow of key routes for global trade.

Consequently, “in order to block Russia in this region, the West began to put spokes in the wheels, including relating to the peace processes formed which emerged after the Second Karabakh War, but which, unfortunately, could not be fully resolved at the time,” he said.

June 14, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , | Leave a comment

US silence on Nord Stream ‘surprising’ – Beijing

RT | June 14, 2023

Washington should reveal what it knows about last year’s attack on the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines, China has said, responding to recent claims that US intelligence agencies were aware of the plot months in advance.

At a Tuesday press briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin was asked to comment on reports published in German and Dutch media suggesting that a Ukrainian plan to destroy the pipelines was known to the CIA in June of 2022, well before a similar scheme allegedly went forward in September.

“Eight months have passed since the explosion, yet the investigation process has been going slow. It is surprising that the US has remained silent [all] this time,” Wang said, adding that the US “owes the international community an explanation.”

The spokesman called for an “objective, impartial and professional investigation into the explosions” in order to “hold those responsible to account.” He voiced suspicion over Washington’s refusal to “respond to international doubts and concerns.”

German and Dutch outlets have reported that the Netherlands’ intelligence service initially uncovered the plan to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines last summer and later relayed the information to its American counterpart. While the original plot was reportedly called off, they claimed a nearly identical attack was carried out soon after.

The Washington Post published a similar report last week, citing European intelligence documents that were part of a trove of classified material allegedly shared online by a US National Guard airman earlier this year. The newspaper stated the US government had “learned from a close ally that the Ukrainian military had planned a covert attack” on the pipelines, which were built to deliver Russian gas to Germany.

US officials have so far declined to respond to the claims but have insisted that Washington had no part in the sabotage. Ukraine, too, has repeatedly denied any involvement in the bombings.

Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported in February that US President Joe Biden had ordered the CIA to disable the Nord Stream pipelines using NATO military drills as cover.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in March that he “fully agrees” with Hersh’s conclusions, arguing that the US in particular benefited from the attack due to its position as a competing gas supplier to Europe.

June 14, 2023 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

How Will The US Respond After The Failure Of Kiev’s NATO-Backed Counteroffensive?

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | JUNE 14, 2023

Kiev’s NATO–backed counteroffensive has been disastrous, which even the Mainstream Media was forced to acknowledge after it became impossible to deny. CNN revealed that it already lost around 15% of its Bradley infantry fighting vehicles during the first week, while Forbes reported that about the same percentage of German Leopard tanks were destroyed as well as half of its “unique” breaching vehicles. Meanwhile, President Putin claimed that 25-30% of all their total foreign equipment was lost.

Biden’s re-election hinges on the success of the West’s most important military campaign since World War II, thus prompting the question of how the US will respond after its failure. The best-case scenario is that it’ll force Kiev to begin ceasefire talks with Russia aimed at reaching a Korean-like armistice, but that probably won’t happen until all other options are exhausted. These include expanding the conflict to Belarus, Moldova, and/or Russia’s pre-2014 borders and approving a Polish-led military intervention.

All of these options could lead to American-provoked nuclear brinksmanship with Russia, which is already being prepared for as evidenced by NATO’s largest-ever air drills that are presently occurring in Germany and the reported strengthening of its nuclear capabilities on the continent. There’s no chance of this dangerous gamble succeeding and Russia capitulating to blackmail, however, since it’s more than capable of guaranteeing that the West would be totally destroyed if it dared to use nukes first.

Russian subs prowl the oceans and are always ready to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike if the order is given. On the European front, Kaliningrad has been turned into a nuclear-equipped fortress, while tactical nukes are about to be deployed to nearby Belarus. Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missiles can pierce the US’ so-called “missiles defense shield” so there’s no hope of it preventing “mutually assured destruction” in the event that liberal–globalist warmongers decide to strike first.

These purely defensive capabilities should more than suffice for deterring the apocalypse, though it can’t be taken for granted that the US will react rationally after the failure of its proxy’s counteroffensive. Too much is riding on the impossible scenario of Kiev completely removing Russia from all the territory that it claims as its own for Washington to simply accept defeat. Its policymakers might therefore think that they should “escalate to de-escalate” out of desperation to achieve something that can be spun as a “victory”.

There’s no chance that Russia will ever make unilateral concessions on its objective national security interests, let alone in the face of nuclear blackmail, which is why the US’ liberal-globalist warmongers should banish the thought before they put humanity’s existence at risk. Whatever their reaction to the failure of Kiev’s counteroffensive will be, it must be guided by this fact and ideally de-escalate the NATO-Russian proxy war since it’s impossible to achieve anything from further escalating this conflict.

June 14, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

The Exact Moment That ‘Permanent Washington’ Decided To Send Trump To Prison

Full Transcript:

The Biden Administration arrested Donald Trump this afternoon. They had him arraigned and fingerprinted in a Miami Courthouse, like the accused felon he now technically is.

These were the first steps in a process that is designed to put Donald Trump behind bars for the rest of his life.

Cable news carried every moment of it live “it’s unprecedented” they told us with what looked like shock. But they weren’t shocked they knew this was coming. Everyone who’s paid attention knew it was what just happened was always going to happen.

It’s been inevitable since February 16 2016. that’s the day Donald Trump made a blood enemy of the largest and most powerful organization in human history which would be the federal government.

Despite what you may remember it wasn’t anything that Trump had said about immigration, or trade with China, or rapists from Mexico – those are the stories that dominated the headlines that year – “Trump’s a racist they scream stop him.”

But inside Washington that was just noise none of it really rated identity politics doesn’t mean much to permanent Washington what matters – then and now – is foreign policy the invasions and occupations and proxy wars: the decisions that determine which global populations will thrive and which will die. The policies that come with trillion dollar price tags, the ones that over time have made the counties around DC the richest suburbs in the world.

In Washington that’s what actually matters and it’s obvious when you look carefully. When there’s a debate about anything else for example the debt ceiling, both sides take their assigned positions and they start yelling. But when Congress decides to start a war – no matter how foolish or counterproductive or obviously disconnected from America’s core interests that war may be – when that happens the leaders of both parties automatically jump behind it like circus clowns.

And then they stay there, sometimes for decades. They defend that war relentlessly against all evidence, until somebody finally Rings the all clear Bell and they can begin to admit that actually maybe it wasn’t such a great idea. We meant well but it just didn’t work out the good news is we’ve learned a lot of important lessons.

In the end they usually do say something like that, but only after emotions have cooled and the damning details have begun to fade from collective memory. It’s an apology that’s not actually an apology, much less repentance and it’s years too late to matter in any case.

But until then that’s all you’re getting, until then no dissent is allowed – that’s the first rule of Washington.

But somehow Trump didn’t bother to follow it. He is from out of town so maybe he didn’t know it was a rule or maybe he just didn’t care. Either way, seven and a half years later we can point to the precise moment that permanent Washington decided to send Donald Trump to prison. here it is it’s from the Republican candidates debate in Greenville South Carolina:

“we should have never been in Iraq; we have destabilized the Middle East. They lied, okay. They said there were weapons of mass destruction there were none and they knew there were none there were no weapons of mass destruction.”

We should never have been in Iraq, Trump said. We destabilized the Middle East. Now by the time Trump said that a lot of Republican primary voters were starting to reach the same conclusion; how could they not. But it was the next line that doomed Trump to today’s arrest. “They lied” he said, “there were no weapons of mass destruction” and they knew there were none.

Now when he said that a few in the crowd booed, most just sat there in silenced stunned. Can he say that? Well he said it anyway and by saying that he sealed his fate. That was the one thing you were not allowed to say because it implicated too many people on both sides, which on this topic is really just one side.

Hillary Clinton was guilty of it, but so was Paul Ryan. All of them were guilty; they all knew, they all lied, and to a person they hated Donald Trump for exposing them.

After that it was pretty clear that even if he did get elected president Trump was going to have a very hard time controlling the federal government he was supposed to be in charge of. Most of permanent Washington decided that thwarting Trump was the single most important mission in their lives. Everything depended on it, many of them said so publicly. But others didn’t say so publicly; in fact the stealthier ones took another path – they ran toward Trump not away from him. They sucked up to him, they ingratiated themselves- the man they intuitively understood was susceptible to flattery which Trump is, and they did this in order to subvert his new Administration from the inside.

There were a number of these and you could spot them immediately: they were flatterers. Invariably the ones who flattered Trump the most hated him the most and disagreed the most strongly with his views. You saw them in the hallways of the White House and at press conferences; they were there slobbering over their boss with elaborate self-abasement as if they were addressing a monarch or a God.

It was a scene from the ottoman Court – it was filthy and decadent and it was false. Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, Lindsey Graham in the Congress. They all called Trump a Visionary genius… up until the moment he lost power and then they unsheathed their real agenda – as always the neocon war agenda – and they piled on with maximum Force.

Here’s Mike Pompeo for example on Fox news this morning:

“President Trump had classified documents where he shouldn’t have had them. And then when given the opportunity to return them he chose not to do that for whatever reason… when somebody identifies that you got to turn them in. So that’s just inconsistent with protecting America’s soldiers sailors, airmen and marines… and if the allegations are true some of these were pretty serious important documents… so that’s wrong”

May future historians hoping to unlock the mysteries of late empire Washington study that clip, because it will reveal everything. That very same Mike Pompeo – the one who’s sneering at Donald Trump on TV this morning – that guy served Donald Trump as both CIA director and as Secretary of State. Those are the two most powerful jobs in the federal government and as he worked in those jobs, Pompeo promised – in fact he swore – to support the president’s agenda.

Why? because that’s the way a democracy works: you vote for a candidate in the belief that his appointees will carry out the policies that you voted for. It’s not about the president, it’s about you the voter.

But Pompeo didn’t do that he didn’t even try to do that. In fact he undermined Trump’s often stated commitment to peace and non-intervention abroad at every turn; his every waking hour was devoted to fomenting war in some Far Away foreign country or other. Iran, Syria Russia, North Korea… the list goes on but rather than telling Trump that he disagree with his ideas as a man would, Pompeo toadied up to Trump – a man he despised – in the oiliest, most over-the-top way imaginable.

Ask anyone who worked in that white house at the time who is the appointee most likely to tell Donald Trump on a daily basis that he was handsome, virile, sleek and powerful. “Mike Pompeo” that will be the consensus answer. Those of us who saw firsthand Pompeo’s relentless cow Towing will never forget it – it was indelibly repulsive. No one with self-respect could do something like that, but Mike Pompeo did it effortlessly with relish and Verve. Now this same person is telling Fox News viewers that he fears for the safety of our military, our soldiers “Sailors Airmen and Marines” in the approved phrase, because Donald Trump took some classified documents home and didn’t immediately return them to the National Archives.

What a lie that is: Mike Pompeo knows that’s a lie. He spent his entire life in Washington. Washington is a city where internal memos about Labor Day are classified because everything is classified. Your government has classified more than a billion Federal documents most of them boring and pointless and a danger to no one, and locked them away in secret. You can’t see them because you may be an American citizen, but not really… and therefore you don’t have the necessary clearances to know what’s going on.

And by the way none of this is done in order to make America safer any more than Covid restrictions were designed to keep you healthy. No it’s a caste system that’s the point, and you’re the Untouchable in this hierarchy.

Mike Pompeo knows that, everybody who works in Washington knows that.

How many secret documents do you think Dick Cheney took home with him while he was running the Iraq War? How many did his wife read? She never had a clearance. We’ll never know the answer because there is no chance Dick Cheney will ever be investigated, or his staffers will be told to wear wires in his presence. He will never be indicted for this.

Of course not: Dick Cheney is a neocon Donald Trump is not. Dick Cheney supports war with Russia, Trump does not. That’s the difference: the rest is just a distraction.

The prosecution of Donald Trump is transparently political. He’s literally Joe Biden’s main political opponent. He’s polling over 60 percent among Republican voters right now. So Joe Biden is doing what no president has ever dared to do. He’s using law enforcement to lock up his chief rival: that’s happening right now, and anyone who denies it’s happening is lying to you.

But actually it’s worse than that Trump’s prosecution isn’t just political, it’s ideological. Nobody with Trump’s views is allowed to have power in this country. Criticize our Wars and you’re disqualified, if you keep it up we’ll send you to prison.

That’s the message Washington is sending, not just the Democratic party is sending but both parties are sending.

Like so many Republicans, for example, the supposedly conservative governor of Texas Greg Abbott spent yesterday totally ignoring the destruction of the American justice system. Instead, he signed a highly important bill called the crown act which according to the celebratory tweet Abbott sent commemorating it will “prohibit discrimination based on Textures and hairstyles historically associated with race.” In other words in Texas cornrows are now protected by law, having unapproved views about Ukraine is not.

That’s fine with most elected Republicans: they find Trump tiresome and embarrassing, their donors hate him; they will not be sad if he dies in jail.

But what about voters: what are they learning from this spectacle? Well mostly they’re learning that they have no power at all because nobody cares about them.

But they already knew that. Unlike so many of our elected leaders, they have been to America recently. They know what it looks like. Have you seen it? If you’ve got a few days this summer find out take a road trip and see for yourself Drive 500 miles in any direction and then come home. How are things looking? Well they should look great – the federal government spent six and a half trillion dollars last year. That’s more than any government has ever spent ever. So at the very least you would expect pristine public roads. Oh no that’s not what you see when you drive around this country – there are potholes and Jersey barriers everywhere. Looks like Tegucigalpa before the Chinese decided to rebuild the infrastructure of Honduras. We don’t have China buying our roads so they’re falling apart.

You’d think the people you would pass on your road trip would look happy and prosperous; again this is a very rich country. But a lot of them don’t. Quite a few appear to be strung out on drugs. You see them shuffling by shuttered storefronts in small towns. And you wonder as you see all of this where did all the money go, it’s certainly not here?

Well, it’s in Washington, it’s in Fairfax, in Loudoun counties, and in leafy perfectly manicured Northwest D.C. And of course a huge chunk of it went to Ukraine to Zelenski and his friends. Not because you voted for that; you didn’t vote to give it to them you never would, but because Joe Biden and his many allies from Chuck Schumer to Mitch McConnell to Paul Ryan and every single news anchor on all of Television all of them believe that Ukraine its borders its future its infrastructure are all more important than the town that you live in.

They sincerely think that, and it’s obvious everyone in power thinks that… except for Donald Trump.

Whatever else you say about him, Trump is the one guy with an actual shot of becoming president who dissents from Washington’s long-standing pointless War agenda. And for that that one fact they are trying to take Trump out before you can vote for him and that should upset you more than anything that’s happened in American politics in your lifetime.

Even if you don’t plan to vote for Donald Trump, even if you would die before voting for Donald Trump – which is your right and a lot of good people feel that way – even still, the destruction of our democracy which is the right of Voters to support any candidate they want, even candidates who don’t want war with Russia, the destruction of that should keep you up at night.

Yes, Donald Trump was a flawed man but his sins are minor compared to those of his persecutors.

In this life we don’t get to choose our Martyrs we can only choose our principles… and America’s are at stake.

June 13, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Soldiers Shoot Dead Palestinian Two-Year-Old

While Blinken tells AIPAC of Team Biden’s “iron clad” support for Israel

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • JUNE 13, 2023

There would appear to be no limit to Israeli bestiality towards the Palestinians and likewise no limit to how much that brutality has been enabled by the positions taken by successive US governments and the national media. Indeed, the self-defined Jewish state, which ironically claims to be a democracy, is perhaps the leading human rights violator in all the world due to its officially condoned genocide directed against the Palestinian people and its bombing and killing of neighboring Syrians and Lebanese without providing any convincing evidence that it is being threatened by them.

That apartheid Israel is essentially a criminal state that blithely goes about killing and stealing from the original inhabitants of the Middle East region might well be accepted as substantially true by most observers. But even given all of that, there is sometimes a story that emerges that is so shocking and disturbing that it becomes difficult to contemplate why the rest of the world has not risen-up and demanded an end to Israeli atrocities.

One such story is the recent murder by Israeli soldiers of a two-year-old boy Mohammad al-Tamimi. Unfortunately, heavily armed Israelis illegally occupying the West Bank and killing Palestinian children is not a rare occurrence. Fully 27 children have suffered that fate in the past six months, including some children being killed by Israeli bombing and rockets in Gaza. And the stories are often the same, with the Israeli government claiming that there were “terrorist threats,” often deliberately contrived provocations that rapidly develop into shooting ranges with the unarmed Palestinians as targets.

In this case, Mohammad al-Tamini was with his father, Haytam al-Tamimi, and had just been buckled into the back seat of the family car to go on a short trip to visit an uncle in a nearby village to celebrate an aunt’s birthday. The al-Tamimis live in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, located twelve miles northwest of Ramallah, which passes for the capital of what fragments of land the Palestinians have been able to preserve as a symbol of their national identity. The Israelis de facto are occupiers of nearly all of the West Bank and have military outposts scattered through the region to protect the armed and illegal Jewish settlers who are constantly harassing the remaining Palestinians and destroying their crops to force them to emigrate. The remaining Palestinians in their villages and towns are constantly under siege and are subject to checkpoints, arbitrary arrests, and even murder at the hands of the Israel Defense Forces. One observer notes how the remaining Arab “communities are actually Palestinian enclaves that are prisons” with heavily armed 18 year old Israeli conscript soldiers free to run amok as they see fit. And when a Palestinian is killed, the Israeli soldiers know well that they will not in any way be punished. An Israeli peace group has calculated that between 2017 and 2021 a soldier who murdered a civilian faced only a 0.87% probability that he would be investigated and indicted. There were only 11 such indictments in those years and the punishments eventually meted out were slaps on the wrist.

On June 1st, Mohammad was the victim of a band of Israeli soldiers, who later claimed to be chasing a car from which shots had allegedly been fired at a nearby illegal Jewish settlement Neveh Tzuf. The problem with the tale is that no one heard any shots until the Israeli soldiers blocked the village entrance before arriving in the center of Nabi Saleh in their jeeps and starting shooting in all directions. They then settled in for a few hours to engage in a bit of tormenting of the local residents by beating them and even firing at them at close range. Haytam Tamimi and his son Muhammad were among five Palestinians injured during the raid.

Seated in their vehicle, Mohammad was shot through the head and his father was wounded in the shoulder, apparently by fire from a sniper. Taken to a hospital, Mohammad lingered for four days before dying on Monday June 5th. His body was returned to his village for burial, which took place on the following day, but even then the Israelis chose not to avoid interfering in what was a tragic ceremony. Before and during the funeral, the Israeli military had surrounded the village and later that afternoon, while mourners were gathered at the al-Tamimi grandparents’ home, they entered into it for the third time since Mohammad was shot, beating and shooting villagers, injuring six people. One man sustained a gunshot wound in the pelvis, with the bullet entering his intestines. A woman was struck in her face with a rifle butt while another mourner was hit in the face with a rubber-coated steel bullet.

Ironically, on same day that Mohammad died the American Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) at its annual policy summit in Washington. AIPAC, it might be observed, exists to promote Israeli interests, which should make it subject to registry under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) but no one in the White House seems interested in enforcing that particular law or any other existing legislation pertaining to secret nuclear arsenals when Israel is involved. The last president who tried to register AIPAC’s predecessor organization the American Zionist Council was John F. Kennedy, and consider what happened to him possibly as a result.

Blinken, is himself a Jew and an avowed Zionist in an Administration awash with Jews and Zionists to include President Joe Biden, a supermarket Catholic, who calls himself a Zionist and effectively swears fealty to the Jewish state. Blinken is not really very good at blaming Israel for anything and when he is with a hardline Jewish gathering like the AIPAC Summit he is fully energized while he is making the audience feel good about its love for Israel. He enthused how the US-Israel partnership “touches on every aspect of our lives, from security to business, from energy to public health. And the depth and breadth of that partnership between our governments are matched only by the strength of the ties between our peoples. This partnership between the United States and Israel is indispensable.”

Blinken chose not to acknowledge that the “indispensable ties” between the US and the Jewish state is attributable to the large scale corruption of America’s political system by Israel and its Lobby to achieve such a status. And inevitably, Blinken made sure his friends in AIPAC understood that the Biden Administration sees the “blame” for the unrest in the Middle East just as does the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Iran and Palestinian “terrorists” are largely at fault and Israel is the perpetual victim. He recalled how “Over the past several years, we’ve seen a rising tide of horrific violence that’s tragically and senselessly resulted in the loss of life of scores of civilians on both sides. That violence must end; its perpetrators must face equal justice under the law. The recent acts of terrorism – including nearly 1,000 rocket attacks launched toward Israel over just three days, some of them targeting Jerusalem – demonstrate the daily threat under which Israelis are forced to live. The fatal event at the border with Egypt – which resulted in the deaths of three Israeli soldiers – is another tragic reminder of these daily dangers.”

Blinken did not seem interested in the dead Palestinian children nor in the murder of Palestinian-American Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli soldiers back in May 2022. He is more enthusiastic when he is telling AIPAC how much US Treasury money and other goodies are flowing to a wealthy Israel from the American taxpayer, describing how “Now, we have to start from this. The US-Israel relationship is underwritten by the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security. That commitment is non-negotiable; it is ironclad. We are – we are providing $3.3 billion in foreign military financing to Israel each year. On top of that, Israel receives $500 million in funding for missile defense. Tens of millions more for new counter-drone and anti-tunneling technologies. That is in keeping with the 2016 memorandum of understanding negotiated by the Obama-Biden administration – and it is more than at any point in the history of our relationship. We’re also delivering an additional $1 billion in funding to replenish supplies for Israel’s Iron Dome, the missile defense system that we developed together and that has saved countless lives. All of this – all of this has been secured in partnership with our Congress, with bipartisan support. We’re also expanding our joint military exercises that improve how our forces work together seamlessly. This year, we have more joint exercises scheduled than at any point in our history. We’re also conducting joint research and development on advanced military capabilities, working together on cutting-edge defense systems, including Israel’s new laser-focused Iron Beam. This robust support continues to be critical in [my emphasis] maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge, buttressing its ability to defend itself, and to advancing our national interests. America is more secure when Israel is strong.” [My emphasis]

It is interesting how Blinken concludes his argument supporting throwing bushels of money to Israel based on serving an American “national interest” and making us “more secure,” which is a complete lie, similar to what is being promoted to explain why we are in Ukraine. Maybe the Administration might consider some new talking points as the lies are getting ever more preposterous and the deficit spending of trillions of dollars has reached the point of no return. Blinken also lies big time when he attempts to resurrect the totally dead two state solution to Israel-Palestine, saying “Israel was founded — our partnership was built — on democratic values which include equal access by all people to their rights. And a two-state solution is vital to preserving Israel’s identity as a Jewish and democratic state.”

Blinken should perhaps be someday reincarnated as a Palestinian who has just lost his livelihood and home to an “equal access” Jewish settler and who every day experiences the Israeli organized increasing state violence that is directed against him. That might provide a different perspective. And it is interesting to note that the threat to Blinken’s imaginary two-state solution is also framed as coming from the Palestinians rather than from Israel. He denounced in his speech to AIPAC “any actions taken by any party that undermine the prospects of a two-state solution. That includes acts of terrorism, payments to terrorists in prison, violence against civilians, incitement to violence.” Take note that bombing and shooting children is not included, which is an Israeli speciality.

And, by the way Mr. Blinken, Israel was not founded on “democratic values.” It engaged in a massive program of ethnic cleansing that defined its creation — the Nakba for Palestinians, which killed thousands and drove at least 650,000 civilians from their homes. For the first 19 years of Israel’s existence, its Arab “citizens” were ruled under martial law and since then Palestinians have been legally discriminated against with Jewish supremacy and entitlement serving as the defining characteristics of the state.

Interestingly, in contrast to Blinken and Biden, at least one US Senator appears to have a conscience regarding dead people and he is surprisingly enough a Democrat! Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is calling on the Joe Biden administration to “publicly release its findings” into the shooting death of Shireen Abu Akleh. Van Hollen believes that a report compiled by the US security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority shortly after the fact provides important information about the “the conduct of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) unit involved in that operation as well as other IDF units operating in the West Bank.” He commented “I strongly believe that its public release is vital to ensuring transparency and accountability in the shooting death of American citizen and journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and to avoiding future preventable and wrongful deaths – goals we should all support.” Van Hollen has been denied access to the classified State Department report over the past eleven months, which has been attributed to Biden Administration desire to block any demands for accountability on the part of Israel.

Van Hollen obviously was not briefed on the fact that Israel has a White House approved license to kill Americans and just about anyone else due to its “chosen” status. He should check out what happened to the death by Israeli army bulldozer of Rachel Corrie in 2003 and to the 34 sailors murdered and another 172 wounded by an Israeli attack on the USS Liberty on June 8th, 1967. When the Liberty was struggling to stay afloat President Lyndon Johnson ordered a cover-up which has led to Washington de facto taking orders from Tel Aviv and paying what amounts to an annual tribute to Israel as outlined in some detail by Blinken in his AIPAC speech. So, there you have it. We have on one hand a militarized ethno-religious state that rules over a suppressed minority with terror and killing that is being coddled by both US Republican and Democratic administrations because of Jewish power and, more to the point, the corruption obtainable by money and knowing how to use it for political advantage.

Killing a two-year-old little boy sitting in a car with his father is only the most recent of Israel’s war and human rights crimes, but it is particularly heinous and no one in the White House or State Department dares say squat. The murders in Palestine and the fantasy denial of Israeli culpability for anything by Blinken and Biden as well as by Donald Trump when he was in office speak for themselves. Who really rules the United States? What kind of monsters have we become under neocon/Zionist control? Is the bell that is tolling ringing for the demise of us as a nation? Ask about all those things now, because when Biden’s War on Antisemitism really goes into high gear one will likely be facing a jail sentence just for daring to pose those questions.

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.

June 13, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Mass Masking Again in the USA?

June 13, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | , | Leave a comment

Is the Dam About to Burst on the Biden Crime Family?

By Andy Behlen | The Libertarian Institute | June 13, 2023

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said on June 5 that the FBI has a file on an informant that accuses President Joe Biden and his family of accepting millions of dollars in bribes.

“It suggests a pattern of bribery where payments would be made through shell accounts and multiple banks,” Comer said last week.

Comer described the informant as a trusted and “highly credible” source to the FBI.

FBI Director Christopher Wray initially refused to hand the committee the document, known as an FD-1023 form, which was dated from June 2020. Comer threatened to hold Wray in contempt of Congress over it. The committee even drafted a contempt resolution. But Wray yielded last week and allowed members of the committee to review the document.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), a Republican member of the House oversight committee, tweeted “The (FBI) is afraid their informant will be killed if unmasked, based on the info he has brought forward about the Biden family.” Neither Comer nor any other committee member have echoed that sentiment.

The draft of the contempt resolution and memos from Committee staff provided a few details about the GOP’s latest allegations against the Biden family.

“Without having custody of the FD-1023 form… the Committee cannot assess whether the allegations in the document pose a national security risk,” the resolution stated. “Because of the FBI’s refusal to cooperate with our investigation, the Committee cannot use the allegations in the FD-1023 form to evaluate whether anyone from the Biden family received payments from the foreign national, how much those payments entailed, if they were made, and what, if any, companies (including shell companies) were used to make such payments.”

A memo dated March 16, 2023, detailed bank records that the committee subpoenaed. According to the memo, one of Biden family business associates, Mr. John Robinson Walker (Rob Walker), “transferred over $1.3 million in payments to Biden family members and their companies between 2015 and 2017, which he received from foreign companies and foreign nationals. The Rob Walker accounts made payments while then-Vice President Biden held public office.”

A second memo dated May 10, 2023, outlined additional bank record subpoenas:

“Through the Second Bank Records Memorandum, the Committee released several new findings. First, Biden family members and business associates created a web of over twenty companies—most of which were limited liability companies formed during Joe Biden’s vice presidency. Bank records showed the Biden family, their business associates, and their companies received over $10 million from foreign nationals’ companies. The Committee has identified payments to Biden family members from foreign companies while Joe Biden served as Vice President and after he left public office.”

After reviewing the FD-1023 form last week, Republican committee members confirmed that the allegations involve Hunter Biden’s relationship with the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings.

It’s no secret that the Biden family has profited from business overseas, especially in Ukraine. But according to mainstream media reporting, all of this is perfectly fine and has nothing to do with corruption—even when a $5 million bribe shows up to shut down an investigation into the company that paid the president’s son $1 million a year.

On June 13, 2020, Reuters reported that Ukrainian authorities detained three individuals for offering $5 million in bribes to stop a corruption investigation into Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder and former president of Burisma Holdings..

The president’s son Hunter Biden joined the board of directors of Burisma Holdings in 2014, a position he held until 2019.

In 2020, Ukrainian anti-corruption officials were quick to exonerate the Bidens from any connection to the bribes.

“Let’s put an end to this once and for all. Biden Jr. and Biden Sr. do not appear in this particular proceeding,” said Nazar Kholodnytsky, head of the anti-corruption investigations in 2020.

The New York Post reported last week that Burisma paid Hunter Biden $83,333 per month while his father served as U.S. Vice President, according to invoices on the famous abandoned laptop. Those payments dropped by half after his father left office. Hunter Biden resigned from the Burisma board in 2019 while his father announced his presidential campaign.

In addition, Fox News reported last week on emails found on the laptop between the President’s son and Vadym Pozharskyi, an advisor to the Burisma board. In one exchange, Hunter Biden asked Pozharskyi to pass along his thanks to Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky for birthday gifts he received in 2016.

“Finally- thank (Zlochevsky) for the beautiful birthday gifts it was far too extravagant but much appreciated,” Hunter Biden said in the email dated February 4, 2016.

The emails did not indicate what the gifts were.

In March 2016, then-Vice President Joe Biden famously leveraged $1 billion in aid to Ukraine in order for the country to oust its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin. Shokin had investigated Burisma Holdings in 2014 for money laundering.

In 2018 Biden bragged to the Council on Foreign Relations about his strong-armed negotiations with then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to get Shokin removed: “I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch, he got fired.”

But those close to the president said the threat to withhold aid had nothing to do with Burisma or Hunter Biden. A USA Today “Fact Check” from 2020 claims the reason was because Shokin did too little to fight corruption:

“Mike Carpenter, who served as a foreign policy adviser to the then-vice president, told USA TODAY that Shokin ‘never went after any corrupt individuals at all’ and ‘never prosecuted any high-profile cases of corruption.’”

That’s right—the Ukrainian prosecutor who investigated Burisma for money laundering “never went after any corrupt individuals at all.” To say otherwise would imply that Shokin may have had a case against Burisma and the President’s son.

Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) dropped a bombshell on Monday, saying that a Burisma executive at the center of the latest allegations has audio recording of then-vice president Biden accepting bribes, and that the FBI redacted this information in the FD-1023 form that the House Oversight Committee reviewed last week.

“The 1023 produced to that House Committee redacted reference that the foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversations with them—17 total recordings,” Grassley said in a speech on the Senate floor.

“These recordings were allegedly kept as a sort of insurance policy for the foreign national in case he got into a tight spot. The 1023 also indicates that then-Vice President Joe Biden may have been involved in Burisma employing Hunter Biden,” Grassley said.

Reporting on the development, Kerry Picket of The Washington Times wrote, “Mr. Grassley smelled a political double standard.”

“Special Counsel Jack Smith, who indicted former President Donald Trump on 37 counts, used an audio recording against former President Donald Trump and alleged Mr. Trump retained nuclear secrets and papers on foreign weapons systems at his Mar-a-Lago estate and waved around military plans to persons without proper clearance in 2021,” the article continued. “Mr. Grassley asked whether Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss was doing anything with respect to the alleged recordings of the Bidens ‘that are apparently relevant to a high-stakes bribery scheme.’”

It should be noted that the GOP’s investigation into Biden family corruption all began with tech companies’ efforts to censor stories about the Hunter Biden laptop in the leadup to the 2020 elections. Photos from the laptop purport to show Hunter Biden smoking crack and cavorting with hookers during the time when he sat on Burisma’s board of directors.

Andy Behlen is a reporter for the Fayette County Record, a twice-weekly newspaper in La Grange, Texas.

June 13, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , | Leave a comment

Ukrainian gas executive has Biden ‘bribe’ recordings – US senator

RT | June 13, 2023

A Ukrainian gas executive who claimed to have paid bribes to US President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, retained more than a dozen recordings of his conversations with them as an “insurance policy,” Republican Senator Chuck Grassley has said, citing FBI documents.

In a statement published on Monday, the GOP lawmaker urged the Justice Department to release a full, unredacted copy of FBI files that allegedly outline a criminal bribery scheme between the Biden family and Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings. The documents are reportedly based on FBI interviews with a “highly credible” confidential source who described several interactions with a top Burisma executive starting in 2015, when Biden was serving as vice president.

While the FBI shared the documents with select lawmakers last week, Grassley said key sections had been redacted, including “reference that the foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversations with them. Seventeen total recordings.”

The Burisma executive kept the recordings “as a sort of insurance policy” in case he “got into a tight spot,” according to the senator, who said he had seen the full documents. He did not indicate what might have been said in the audio, however.

Senator Grassley and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer first highlighted the alleged bribes in May, citing a whistleblower who revealed the FBI was in possession of documents detailing its interviews with the confidential source. The Oversight Committee then subpoenaed the bureau for the records, which were only shared in redacted form last week after lawmakers threatened to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress.

The documents are said to show that the unnamed Burisma executive discussed $5 million payments he allegedly made to both Joe and Hunter Biden during the Barack Obama presidency. Despite having little experience in the energy sector, the younger Biden was employed on Burisma’s board of directors between 2014 and 2019 and received more than $50,000 per month.

The Burisma official allegedly explained that the company had to “pay the Bidens” because a Ukrainian prosecutor was investigating the company. While Joe Biden recently dismissed the bribery allegations as “a bunch of malarkey,” he has acknowledged that he was responsible for the firing of Ukraine’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma and its executives for corruption at the time. Biden said he did so by threatening to withhold US aid, but insists Shokin was replaced for refusing to go after corruption.

June 13, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , | Leave a comment

White House to Provide Ukraine With Depleted Uranium Tank Shells – Reports

Sputnik – 13.06.2023

The administration of US President Joe Biden is going to approve the provision of depleted uranium tank munitions to Ukraine, US media reported on Tuesday, citing US officials.

After weeks of internal debated on how to equip the Abrams tanks that the United States has provided to Kiev the White House is expected to agree on the transferring of depleted uranium tank shells to Ukraine, the newspaper said, citing administration sources.

Although some officials say that there are no serious obstacles to approving the shipment of depleted uranium munitions, others express concern that due to the transfer of such shells, Washington could be criticized for providing weapons that pose a danger to human health and the environment, according to the newspaper.

In addition, the White House is still discussing the possibility of providing cluster munitions to Ukraine, among other arms, according to the news outlet.

In late April, UK Deputy Defense Minister James Heappey said that London had sent Kiev thousands of shells for the Challenger 2 main battle tanks it donated, including some with depleted uranium. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, commenting on the transfer of depleted uranium shells to Ukraine, said that London will have to bear responsibility for the consequences.

June 13, 2023 Posted by | War Crimes | | Leave a comment

Ukrainian military lost most of the M2 Bradley AFVs that were used in its recent counter-offensive

By Ahmed Adel | June 13, 2023

Ukrainian soldiers said that most US-made M2 Bradley armoured vehicles were destroyed during the counter-offensive in the Zaporozhye region. According to AFP, the vehicles were destroyed just outside the small town of Orikhiv.

“Of nine vehicles attached to the group’s mechanised infantry unit — not the only one involved in the battle — six were wrecked, three damaged but repairable, and one was unscathed,” AFP reported, adding that a Ukrainian soldier said only “very small progress” was made against the Russian army.

“Who would be happy receiving those orders, ‘Go and take those Russian positions which are well protected’?” a senior officer, who asked not to be identified, said according to AFP.

In early June, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said that in the direction of Zaporozhye, Ukrainian troops consisting of 1,500 fighters and 150 armoured vehicles tried to break through Russian defences but lost up to 350 troops and 30 tanks in two hours. The minister stressed that the Ukrainian brigade was stopped in all zones toward Zaporozhye.

With the Ukrainian offensive underway, Kiev has virtually no gains to show. In contrast, images of destroyed Leopard tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles used by Ukrainian troops have circulated on social media. For this reason, several experts have warned about a heavy military defeat for Ukraine and another geopolitical failure for NATO, which again is resorting to intervention in remote territories outside its jurisdiction to achieve its objectives against Russia.

While the US and its allies have generously provided Ukraine with weapons and military vehicles during the current conflict, Ukrainian forces are institutionally and operationally incapable of successfully absorbing the wide and inconsistent array of equipment and weaponry on the battlefield.

Nonetheless, the US and the UK need Ukraine to launch a counteroffensive as they are the main financiers of Kiev’s escalation but are experiencing growing poverty and economic crises and therefore need to justify to their citizens the vast money sent to Ukraine.

Former Central Intelligence Agency agent and Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, Philip Giraldi, warned that Western media are trying to make it appear that the Ukrainian counter-offensive is succeeding and that Ukraine’s forces are encroaching on Russian positions. In this sense, and despite what is happening on the battlefield, Giraldi stressed that US, UK, and German politicians are obliged to speak positively about the situation in Ukraine.

Despite the rhetoric, images of destroyed M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and German-built Leopard 2A6 tanks abandoned and burning on the Ukrainian battlefield, the harsh truth about the futility of defeating Russia is starting to sink in. The reality is that Ukraine never had the capabilities to achieve its stated goal of piercing Russian defences to sever the land bridge connecting Crimea to Russia proper.

The Western hope was that Russia would be demoralised by these casualties and accept a negotiated end to the conflict on terms acceptable to Ukraine and its Western allies. Evidently, Ukraine and its allies have failed.

The genesis of this failure can be attributed to two things. First, the low opinion that Ukraine and its NATO allies had of the combat capabilities of the Russian Army and the forces deployed in the Zaporozhye region, and second, the unrealistic expectations placed on the NATO training and equipment that were provided to Ukrainian forces and assigned to the task of breaking through Russian defences.

It is reasonable to assume that, using intelligence assessments that highlighted perceived command and control weaknesses and low morale among Russian forces, NATO and Ukrainian military planners believed that Russian defences in the Zaporozhye sector would collapse under the weight of a NATO-style assault.

Although fighting in Zaporozhye is not yet over, initial results on the battlefield show that contrary to the expectations of Ukraine and its NATO partners, the Russian military professionally performed their tasks, decisively defeating Ukrainian forces. NATO and Ukraine gambled that Russia lacked the military capability to successfully implement its military doctrine, believing that Russian command teams lacked the necessary communications to coordinate the complex operations needed and that Russian forces — especially those that were recently mobilised — lacked the training and morale to perform well in stressful combat conditions.

NATO and the Ukrainian high command threw the Ukrainian brigades into the grip of the Russian defensive lines without adequate fire support, thinking that the Russians were unable to maximise their superiority in artillery and air power to neutralise and destroy the forces of Ukrainian attackers before they could generate the momentum expected. Instead, this led to the humiliating loss of most of the US-made M2 Bradley provided to the Ukrainian military for this front.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

June 13, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

Dr. McCullough Testifies in the Pennsylvania Senate

Four Domains of COVID-19 Vaccine Injury Syndromes Revealed

By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH | Courageous Discourse | June 9, 2023

On Friday June 9, 2023, I returned to the Pennsylvania Senate on request by former military officer and American hero, Senator Doug Mastriano (R-33). The session was co-chaired by Senator Cris Dush (R-25). Co-presenters included Steve Kirsch, Founder of the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, and attorney Tom Renz. I organized my comments along the lines of this outline:

  1. Update on the US design and blueprint of SARS-CoV-2 from Baric et al at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, funding by the NIH and outsourcing of the research plans via the EcoHealth Alliance to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in Wuhan, China.
  2. COVID-19 vaccine injury syndromes
    1. Cardiovascular
    2. Neurological
    3. Thrombotic
    4. Immunological
  3. Questions from Senators and Representatives answered
    1. Shedding
    2. Risk benefit analysis of COVID-19 vaccines
    3. Failure of vaccine efficacy
    4. Reason why SARS-CoV-2 was created
    5. Global results of mass indiscriminate COVID-19 vaccination—winners and losers

June 13, 2023 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Permanent Apartheid in Palestine: This is why Israel wants to reactivate E1 Plan

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | June 12, 2023

The Israeli government is at it again, actively discussing the construction of thousands of illegal settlement units as part of a massive settlement expansion scheme known as E1.

Though Israeli construction in the East Jerusalem area has supposedly been halted under international pressure, the Israeli government has found ways to keep the plan alive.

It did so through constant expansion of the various settlements in the name of ‘natural expansion’, confiscation of Palestinian land and the ruthless yet routine demolition of Palestinian homes.

But why does Washington, Israel’s main defender and benefactor, oppose, at least verbally, the construction in E1, while turning a blind eye to illegal construction throughout the West Bank?

The answer lies in the fact that E1 will further expand the Jerusalem municipal boundaries, minimise any Palestinian demographic presence in the city (from the current 42 per cent to about 20 per cent), and prejudice any political solution that includes East Jerusalem.

East Jerusalem is a Palestinian city, occupied by Israel during the June 1967 war. It is recognized by the United Nations and international law as part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Israel should have neither legal rights nor jurisdiction there.

Washington, which rarely cares about the rights of Palestinians, is concerned that, without East Jerusalem as part of the political equation, any discussion of a ‘two-state solution’ will become forever obsolete.

In other words, the US is more worried about the political, not territorial consequences of the Israeli decision. Indeed, the US’s entire political program in Palestine and Israel is situated within the two-state solution template. Without it, Washington’s role would cease to serve any purpose.

This is precisely why US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, criticized Israeli settlements during his speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on 5 June.

Though he covered the habitual US commitment to Israel’s security, describing it as “non-negotiable” and “ironclad”, he also warned against “any move toward annexation of the West Bank … disruption of the historic status quo at holy sites (and) the continuing demolitions of homes.”

These steps, and more, will “damage prospects for two states”, the cornerstone of US foreign policy in the Middle East.

Israel, on the other hand, is neither interested in a two-state, one-state nor any ‘solution’ to its military occupation and apartheid in Palestine. Instead, Tel Aviv is working towards a specific end, a formula of permanent domination, one that would satisfy its quest for ‘security’, demographic superiority and ‘defensible’ borders.

It matters little that Israel’s vision for its own border lines is largely inconsistent with international law. All that matters to the current, in fact, all Israeli governments, are the ‘national interests’ of the country’s Jewish population, whose future has been linked to the crushing of political aspirations and civil rights of the country’s native Arab, Palestinian inhabitants.

Jerusalem’s particular significance stems from two factors: one, its historical, spiritual, economic and administrative centrality to all Palestinians and, two, the fact that it has been the Holy Grail of Israel’s settler colonialism in Palestine for the last 75 years.

A quick look at the map of Occupied East Jerusalem is enough to explain Israel’s ultimate motive in the Palestinian city: Maximum land with an absolute Jewish majority.

For this to take place, much work has to be done, namely ensuring the territorial continuity between the massive illegal Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Adumim and Jerusalem.

Israel’s motives are not a secret. A long report by the Zionist Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs champions and illustrates Tel Aviv’s objectives in detail. The report warns against allowing “security and urban discontinuity between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim, or the reversion of Jerusalem to a border-town status … that would preclude the city’s eastward development.”

The reference to ‘eastward development’ is particularly dangerous, as many illegal Jewish settlements have purposely been planted in various parts of the West Bank, all the way to the Jordan Valley for the sole purpose of linking them all up, thus dividing the West Bank into two main regions, south and north.

Considering the current administration and ‘security’ divisions of the Occupied West Bank, a major territorial division will deny Palestinians any sense of physical continuity, let alone statehood. In other words, apartheid will become permanent and, from Israel’s perspective, also sustainable.

As for the westward expansion, connecting Ma’ale Adumim to the so-called “metropolitan Jerusalem” through construction in E1 will help Israel resolve a fundamental component of its expansionist strategy. According to the Zionist Jerusalem Centre, such a merger will “incorporate both settlement and security as two vital, complementary components of Israel’s national interest.”

And, wherever there is Israeli construction in Occupied Palestine, there is always the destruction of Palestinian properties and confiscation of land.

According to the European Union Office in Palestine, in 2022, 28,208 illegal settlement units “were advanced” in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, compared to 22,030 in 2021. A higher number is expected in 2023.

As for Palestinian home demolition, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) paints a grim picture: in the first quarter of 2023 alone, 290 Palestinian structures in East Jerusalem and the West Bank were demolished or seized. This represents an increase of 46 per cent, compared to the same period of the previous year.

East Jerusalem has had a major share of this destruction, specifically 95 homes and other structures between 1 January and 28 March, according to the World Council of Churches. The outcome has been the displacement of 149 Palestinians. Among them, 88 children have been rendered homeless.

The price of Israel’s major plans in East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank is not just humanitarian. It is essentially political, aimed at cutting off Palestinian communities from one another, isolating Jerusalem completely, and ensuring a Jewish demographic majority for generations to come.

Though Secretary Blinken tries to emphasise the danger of such actions to the two-state solution, the real danger lies in the fact that such measures threaten the very fabric of Palestinian society and the political future of the Palestinian people.

Israel’s quest to reactivate its E1 plan requires not just mere condemnation, but tangible and decisive action, especially as Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government is more unhinged than ever before.

June 12, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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