European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell speaks during a debate on Iran’s retaliatory strike against “Israel”, on Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Strasbourg, eastern France. (AP)
The top EU chief highlights that 35% of Gaza is now fully destroyed as he calls on “Israel” to “respect international law.”
The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, compared yesterday between Gaza now and Germany during World War II, saying that “Israel” has exposed areas in the Gaza Strip to greater destruction than that dealt to cities in Germany back in the 1940s.
During his speech at a plenary session of the European Parliament in the French city of Strasbourg, Borrell cited the climbing casualties of the war on Gaza, saying, “I can say that more than 60% of the physical infrastructure has been damaged, and 35% fully destroyed.”
“The cities in Gaza have been more destroyed than the German cities during the Second World War – just imagine the comparison,” he noted, highlighting the “killing of 249 humanitarian workers and around 100 journalists in Israeli attacks on Gaza.”
It has been confirmed by the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate (PJS) that at least 140 journalists in Gaza have been killed since October 7.
Borrell sees that “Israel must respect international law, implement the International Court of Justice’s provisional measures, ensure the protection of all civilians, and allow humanitarian workers to do their lifesaving job without being targeted.”
Even though Borrell has been more outspoken and critical of “Israel” and its plans alongside the US, it’s noteworthy that the European Union and the United States have been the main allies of “Israel” in its ongoing genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza. Both entities possess the potential to exert pressure on “Israel”, calling for an immediate ceasefire and the unrestricted entry of humanitarian aid.
Palestinians have expressed doubt regarding the EU and US plans, fearing that such moves could be a prelude to international military presence on Palestinian soil and to the expulsion of Palestinians under different pretexts.
Hypocritically, images from the war in Ukraine were allowed to be featured in the exhibition, proving the EU’s clear double standards and selective humanity, particularly its stance on the humanitarian crises in Gaza. (Al Mayadeen English)
The European Parliament removed 14 photos taken by an Al Mayadeen correspondent in the Gaza Strip from a photo exhibition exposing Israeli crimes, revealing the EU’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian content.
As part of the Western media crackdown on Pro-Palestinian content, the European Parliament Secretariat removed 14 photos taken by Al Mayadeen Media Network, from a photo exhibition organized by a leftist parliamentary group.
Al Mayadeen‘s correspondent, Moussa Assi, explained that the organizers planned the exhibition, set on April 16th in Brussels, intending to feature photos revealing the aftermath of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Al Mayadeen Media Network was extended an invite by the organizers to feature photos showing the impact of war, particularly on Gaza’s children, and showcasing the widespread destruction, the condition of Gaza’s hospitals, and more.
He further added that the Parliament Secretariat argued they didn’t have sufficient time to review the photos before displaying them. However, the organizers of the exhibition confirmed they had submitted the photos within the designated timeframe. They asserted that the decision to remove the photos was politically motivated and influenced by pressure from right-winged parties within the European parliament.
On Tuesday, #AlMayadeen was banned from presenting pictures taken in #Gaza in a photo exhibition in Brussels, #Belgium, despite the photographs being coordinated beforehand, in yet another attack on the freedom of press and those who support the #Palestinian cause for liberation… pic.twitter.com/IqcceTl3HA
The organizers requested that our correspondent, a representative of Al Mayadeen Media Network, give a speech at the exhibition where the prohibited photos will be displayed on a screen in the background. However, the EU parliament desk employees intervened, demanded the photos’ removal, and proceeded to cut off the screen cables provocatively.
What happened further indicates that the European Parliament was adamant on preventing the broadcasting of any content that exposes Israeli crimes in Gaza, Hypocritically, images from the war in Ukraine were allowed to be featured in the exhibition, proving the EU’s clear double standards and selective humanity, particularly its stance on the humanitarian crises in Gaza.
Clear attempt to conceal the truth
Some members of the leftist parliamentary group emphasized that the decision does not reflect the stance of the party or the sentiment of the European public, which has shown increasing support for the Palestinian cause.
In his speech, Al Mayadeen’s correspondent mentioned that the European Parliament’s decision to remove the photos is a clear attempt to “conceal the truth” of what is happening in the Gaza Strip and the reality of “Israel’s” ongoing genocide in the Strip.
He referred to the decision as a direct attack on Al Mayadeen, which has been subjected to several attacks concerning the Palestinian cause in occupied Palestine, Lebanon, and other countries on multiple occasions. Our correspondent stressed that Al Mayadeen‘s commitment to always speak the truth has come at a cost, leading to censorship.
The Israeli occupation commits a total of 6 massacres in 24 hours only.
The Health Ministry in Gaza reported that the Israeli occupation committed a total of 6 massacres, killing 62 and injuring 91, in 24 hours only.
This brings the total number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip since the Israeli aggression on Gaza started on October 7 to 33,037, in addition to 75,668 injuries.
Not found
A Palestinian man, Ashraf Abu Daraz, in Gaza says goodbye to his children and pregnant wife, killed in US-UK-EU-armed Israeli airstrikes in Rafah.
The UNSC voted for a ceasefire, the US and Israel know the rules of the US-led ‘rules-based order’ don’t apply to them. pic.twitter.com/ofluuPe3jZ— Afshin Rattansi (@afshinrattansi) April 4, 2024
Compounding the devastation, some victims are still trapped under rubble and on roads, with the Israeli occupation hindering the arrival of ambulance and civil defense teams.
Human Rights Watch declared that the Israeli airstrike on a six-story apartment building in central Gaza on October 31, 2023, amounts to a potential war crime. The attack resulted in the killing of at least 106 civilians, including 54 children, marking one of the deadliest incidents for civilians since October 7.
According to Human Rights Watch, there was no evidence of a military target near the building during the airstrike, rendering it indiscriminate and in violation of the laws of war.
Israeli authorities have not provided any justification for the attack. This incident underscores the significance of the International Criminal Court’s investigation into alleged war crimes committed by “Israel”, particularly given the Israeli military’s history of inadequately addressing such allegations.
Gerry Simpson, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch, condemned the airstrike, emphasizing that it resulted in significant civilian casualties, including children playing football, individuals at the ground-floor grocery store, and forcibly displaced families seeking refuge.
“This strike inflicted massive civilian casualties without an apparent military target – one of scores of attacks causing overwhelming carnage, and highlighting the urgency of the ICC probe,” he stressed.
Farmers set fire to tyres in Brussels as EU officials meet to address concerns – video
Farmers have clashed violently with police in the European quarter of Brussels, spraying officers with liquid manure and setting fire to mounds of tyres, while the EU’s agriculture ministers met to discuss the crisis in their sector.
As farmers also protested in Madrid and on the Polish-German border, at least 900 tractors jammed streets in the centre of the Belgian capital, police said, with protesters throwing bottles and eggs and setting off fireworks while riot police fired water cannon.
Farmers from Spain, Portugal and Italy joined their Belgian counterparts for the latest show of force by a months-long, Europe-wide movement demanding action on high costs, low product prices, cheap non-EU imports and strict EU environmental rules.
Farmers blocked the streets of central Brussels by bringing at least 900 tractors into the city. Photograph: John Thys/AFP/Getty Images
The rolling protests, which on Saturday led to the French president, Emmanuel Macron, being heckled by furious farmers at the Paris agricultural fair, have unnerved leaders before European elections in June that are likely to produce major gains for far-right populist parties.
Ministers were meeting to debate European Commission proposals to ease the pressure on farmers, including simplifying the bloc’s common agricultural policy (CAP) by reducing farm inspections and exempting small farms from some green rules.
“We need something practical, something operational,” said the French agriculture minister, Marc Fesneau, adding that while there was room for “adjustments within the current rules,” meeting some demands “would require changing the legislation”.
Some protesters in Brussels threw bottles and eggs at riot police, who responded by firing water cannon. Photograph: Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images
Fesneau said it did not matter whether the changes were made before or after the European parliament elections, but “what matters now is moving forward. We need to set a goal, lay the foundations of a CAP that reassures people.”
Germany’s agriculture minister, Cem Özdemir, said the EU needed to ensure farmers could make a fair living if they opted for biodiversity and environmental measures. He said the average farmer “spends a quarter of their time at their desks” because of the EU’s “bureaucracy monster”.
David Clarinval, the Belgian agriculture minister, said farmers’ complaints had been “clearly heard” but urged them to refrain from violence, while the Irish agriculture minister, Charlie McConalogue said the priority must be to slash red tape.
A farmer spraying manure at riot police in Brussels on Monday. Photograph: Harry Nakos/AP
The EU should ensure that policies were “straightforward, that they’re proportionate and they’re as simple as possible for farmers to implement”, he said, underlining that “we do respect the massively important work that farmers carry out every day in terms of producing food”.
The EU has already rowed back on several parts of its flagship green deal plan in an effort to appease farmers, scrapping references to farming emissions from its 2040 climate roadmap, withdrawing a law to cut pesticide use and delaying a target for farmers to leave some land fallow to improve biodiversity.
The bloc has also introduced safeguards to stop Ukrainian imports flooding the market under a tariff-free scheme introduced after Russia’s 2022 invasion.
Riot police out in force at an agricultural show in France on Saturday where the president, Emmanuel Macron, was heckled. Photograph: Chesnot/Getty Images
The protest was farmers’ second in Brussels in recent weeks.
“We are getting ignored,” said Marieke Van De Vivere, a farmer from Belgium’s Ghent region. She said ministers should “be reasonable to us, come with us on a day to work on the field, or with the horses or with the animals, to see that it is not very easy … because of the rules they put on us”.
Morgan Ody, from La Via Campesina small farmers’ organisation, said that for most farmers it was “about income. It’s about the fact that we are poor, and that we want to make a decent living,” Ody said.
She called on the EU to set up minimum support prices and exit free trade agreements that enable the import of cheaper foreign produce. “We are not against climate policies. But we know that in order to do the transition, we need higher prices for products because it costs more to produce in an ecological way,” she said.
Spanish farmers protested in Madrid on Monday. Photograph: JJ Guillen/EPA
Farmers also protested on Monday in Madrid, blowing whistles, ringing cowbells and beating drums as they demanded that the EU cut red tape and drop some of the CAP. “The new CAP is ruining our lives,” said Juan Pedro Laguna, 46.
Roberto Rodriguez, who grows cereal and beetroots in the central province of Avila, said it was “impossible to stand these rules, they want us to work on the field during the day and deal with paperwork at night – we’re sick of the bureaucracy”.
Polish farmers protesting against EU regulations and cheap food imports from Ukraine blocked a motorway at a busy border crossing with Germany on Monday and plan to protest in the Polish capital, Warsaw, on Tuesday.
Polish farmers blocked a busy motorway crossing at the border with Germany on Monday. Photograph: John MacDougall/AFP/Getty Images
Adrian Wawrzyniak, a spokesperson for the Solidarity farmers’ union, said that as far as he knew “there are also German farmers on the German side – the crossing is blocked from both sides. This is a show of joint solidarity.”
Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, said on Monday that farmers’ problems needed fixing at an EU level. “Poland is the first EU country [on the border with Ukraine], but in fact it is a problem of the EU as a whole, of EU agriculture as a whole, and it should be considered in this context,” he told a press conference.
The French daily newspaper Liberation has come under fire for publishing a cartoon that mocks fasting Palestinians in Gaza searching for food.
The cartoon by artist Corinne Rey depicts an emaciated Palestinian man chasing after rats and cockroaches amid rubble and destroyed buildings. A woman in the cartoon slaps his hands and admonishes him, stating: “Not before sunset.”
It was shared on X on Monday, with the caption: “Ramadan in Gaza,” referring to the Muslim holy month during which worshippers abstain from all forms of food and drink during the daylight hours.
Social media users slammed the illustration as “racist”, “dehumanising” and a “nauseating” example of public expression as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians face starvation due to Israel’s prevention of aid into the war-battered enclave.
“A prime example of how western and French media dehumanise Palestinians and disregard the current process of genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip,” stated one user on social media.
Another critic of the cartoon wrote that the centre-left paper satirised “the fastest, most catastrophic, deliberate starvation of a population ever… mocking 2.3 million famished Palestinians under US-UK-EU-armed Israeli bombardment, half of which are children”.
The editor-in-chief of Libération is Dov Alfon, formerly of Israeli military intelligence Unit 8200.
Israel cut off all fuel, food, water, aid and electricity to Gaza on 9 October. Its relentless bombing of hospitals bakeries, supermarkets and pharmacies in the besieged strip has led to the complete collapse of the medical sector and forced people to find scraps of food in order to survive.
The UN and several aid agencies have repeatedly warned that Gaza is on the brink of famine, calling for Israel to allow in aid immediately.
At least 27 people have died from malnutrition and dehydration since the start of the war, including a 10-year-old child with cerebral palsy.
‘Repugnant example’
Rey took to X on Tuesday to defend her work, asserting that her drawing aimed to shed light on the despair experienced by Palestinians, “denounce the famine in Gaza”, and also offer a critique of religion.
Petit florilège (tout petit hein) de conneries, menaces et messages antisémites reçus suite à ce dessin publié hier dans Libé. Un dessin (que j’assume parfaitement!) qui souligne le désespoir des palestiniens, dénonce la famine à Gaza et moque aussi l’absurdité de la religion. pic.twitter.com/b3fRwQxyJj
Translation: Small anthology (very small eh) of bullshit, threats and antisemitic messages received following this drawing published yesterday in Libé. A drawing (which I fully take responsibilty for!) which highlights the despair of the Palestinians, denounces the famine in Gaza and also mocks the absurdity of religion.
While some users defended Rey’s cartoon as freedom of expression, others expressed dissatisfaction with what they called a misplaced priority amid the ongoing war.
“A population has been massacred for 4 months and those who are still alive are starving and this bourgeoisie finds it urgent to ‘criticise religion,'” said one user.
Several users also said the illustration was merely another example of systemic discrimation against Muslims and Arabs in French society, which many Muslims say has only increased with start of the war in Gaza.
The cartoon is a “repugnant example of how anti-Palestinian racism and anti-Muslim bigotry has infested large swathes of the left in French society,” one user said.
In February 2023, controversial French satire magazine Charlie Hebdofaced criticism for mocking victims of the Turkey-Syria earthquake, which claimed the lives of over 55,000 people and left tens of thousands injured.
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Genocides in Palestine & Plotted Pandemic for Lethal Vaccines
Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio, born on 24/2/1967 in Borgosesia, started working as a reporter when he was only 19 years old in the alpine area of Valsesia, Piedmont, his birth region in Italy. After studying literature and history at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, he became director of the local newspaper Notizia Oggi Vercelli and specialized in judicial reporting. For about 15 years he is a correspondent from Northern Italy for the Italian newspapers Libero and Il Giornale, also writing important revelations on the Ustica massacre, a report on Freemasonry and organized crime. With independent investigations, he collaborates with Carabinieri and Guardia di Finanza in important investigations that conclude with the arrest of Camorra entrepreneurs or corrupt politicians. In July 2018 he found the counter-information web media Gospa News focused on geopolitics, terrorism, Middle East, and military intelligence. In 2020 published the book, in Italian only, WUHAN-GATES – The New World Order Plot on SARS-Cov-2 manmade focused on the cycle of investigations Wuhan-Gates His investigations was quoted also by The Gateway Pundit, Tasnim and others He worked for many years for the magazine Art & Wine as an art critic and curator.
“To the angel of the church in Smyrna write: These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again.I know your afflictions and your poverty—yet you are rich! I know about the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan”. Saint John Apostle and Evangelist – Book of the Revelation (Rev. 2, 8-10)
In the cover image the prime minister of the Israeli Zionist Regime Benjamin Nethanyau and the “Pope of Freemasonry” Albert Pike
NB – some quotes of American persons have been translated from sources in Italian so forgive any stylistic errors or differences with the original ones
«The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, andblessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near».
This Prologue to the Book of the Revelation (Apocalypse) of Saint John the Evangelist, the only Apostle who died without martyrdom as a reward for his loyalty to Jesus under the cross of Golgotha, reread in recent days, after almost a million deaths caused in recent years by the wars in Ukraine, Syria. Iraq and Libya (to name the best known) and after the genocide of the Israeli army in Palestine in which over 8 thousand children were massacred by bombs in a few weeks together with around 22 thousand adults, we should be inspired by a profound spiritual reflection also by virtue of the prophecy on Armageddon, the final battle of the armies foretold in the Holy Land in the same text on the Apocalypse which in Greek, it is good to remember it only means “revelation”, “prophecy” and not “catastrophe”.
They take on an equally tragic meaning if we think of the holocaust of millions of victims caused both by the pandemic triggered by a SARS-Cov-2 built in the laboratory and by the killer vaccines with which unscrupulous Big Pharma is testing the world population like a massive human guinea-pig to reach the transhumanist goal of eugenic health culture: denial of Nature and the Almighty God of the Judeo-Christian tradition, which has survived 7 thousand years of attempts at annihilation.
THE GENOCIDE OF THE PALESTINIANS AND THE HOLOCAUST OF THE VACCINATED
Therefore, the biblical reference in the Book of Revelation to “those who proclaim themselves Jews and are not, but belong to the synagogue of Satan” does not appear in vain in the case of the Zionist leader Netanyahu who is carrying out a genocide of Palestinians after having mass vaccinated his fellow Israelis for a gigantic transversal business between the Weapons Lobby and Big Pharma with American President Joesph Biden.
Modern telecommunications means – where not blocked as in Gaza to prevent reckless reporters from documenting the war crimes ordered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu already renamed “the Hitler of the 21st Century” by Turkish lawyers who demand his indictment – have made the bloody genocide tacitly legalized by the West and carried out in the churches and hospitals of Palestine terrifying, bringing before the eyes and ears cries that implore revenge and make the sense of forgiveness waver even in Christians, all this satanic torment appears comparable screams from the silence imploded in the hearts of children torn by lethal myocarditis or in the brains devoured by turbo-cancer of the victims of adverse reactions to the mRNA Covid vaccines.
Precisely because their roar against death is silent, broken in the throat by a sudden illness of which political, health and judicial authorities too often do not want to detect and reveal traces of the FAILURE OF A SYSTEM. Precisely that of the New World Order which is seeking God’s mercy with the merciless human reason capable of killing an 8-month-old baby girl, Indi Gregory, although she had a concrete hope of being assisted.
THE CATACLYSM FORECAST BY THE “POPE” OF AMERICAN FREEMASONRY
If all this happening is not a coincidence but appears to be an international and historical conspiracy foreseen in very remote times by the American “Pope of Freemasonry”, a Southern general, about whom we have already written, who was among the Confederate supporters of the Civil War but also among the founders of the KuKluxKlan and among the followers of satanic rites: Albert Pike.
We have already mentioned his extensive correspondence with the 33rd degree Freemason of the Supreme Council of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite Giuseppe Mazzini who, thanks to the financing of the hooded friends of the London lodges ready to host him even though he was a fugitive terrorist in Europe, planned the Expedition of the Thousand of Masonic guerrilla Giuseppe Garibaldi with whom the Kingdom of Italy wrested a part of Rome from the Papal State in the gigantic and crude plot against Christianity and the Catholic Church, partly attenuated only by the faith of the Ruling Savoy Dynasty.
But we had missed some passages which in the light of today’s events take on monstrous relevance, furthermore proving the imprint of Freemasonry, like a Mark of the Beast, in every religious and political conflictual drift, prodigiously foreseen in detail by General Pike.
In these first episodes we will analyze the conspiratorial complicity of Freemasonry with Zionism. In the next one with Nazism and Jihadist Islamism, where in a previous investigation we have analyzed the role of hooded men between Capitalism and Communism.
«The Third World War will have to be fomented by taking advantage of the differences stirred up by the agents of the Illuminati between political Zionism and the leaders of the Islamic world. The war will have to be oriented so that Islam (including the State of Israel) destroy each other, while at the same time the remaining nations, once again divided and opposed to each other, will then be forced to fight each other until to complete physical, mental, spiritual and economic exhaustion».
This is what Pike wrote to Mazzini on 15 August 1871 in a letter according to the revelations made by the commodore of the Canadian navy William Guy Carr which he later reported in his famous 1954 book Pawns in the Game. He stated that he learned about the letter from the anti-Mason, Cardinal José María Caro Rodríguez of Santiago, Chile, the author of The Mystery of Freemasonry Unveiled (Hawthorne, California, Christian Book Club of America, 1971).
The Navy official can be considered very reliable as worked also for the Canadian Intelligence Service during World War II, and in 1944 he published Checkmate in the North, a book about an invasion by the Axis forces to take place in the area of the CFB Goose Bay (Canadian Forces Base Goose Bay).
Carr’s books often discuss a Luciferian conspiracy by what he called the “World Revolutionary Movement,” but he later attributed the conspiracy more specifically to the “Synagogue of Satan.”
The term was not a reference to Judaism as he wrote: “I wish to make it clearly and emphatically known that I do not believe the Synagogue of Satan (S.O.S.) is Jewish, but, as Christ told us for a definite purpose, it is comprised of ‘I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.’ (Rev. 2:9 and 3:9)
Albert Pike, the Pope of American Freemasonry
The Canadian commodore reported what we had already mentioned in the previous investigation on Pike and which we will try to contextualize both in the biblical, esoteric and historical context in the following lines.
«The First World War had to be fought to allow the “Illuminati” to overthrow the power of the czars in Russia and transform this country into the fortress of atheist communism. The differences stirred up by “Illuminati” agents between the British and German Empires were used to foment this war. After the war was over, communism had to be built and used to destroy other governments and weaken religions».
Citing Confederate General Pike who was Grand Master of the Mother Lodge of Charleston (but also, in all probability, the only Southerner to have had, until recently, a statue in his memory in the USA sculpted by an Italian but recently destroyed by vandals), the commodore added:
«The Second World War had to be fomented by taking advantage of the difference between fascists and political Zionists. The war had to be fought in order to destroy Nazism and increase the power of political Zionism, in order to allow the establishment of the sovereign state of Israel in Palestine. During the Second World War, a Communist International had to be established as strong as the whole of Christianity. At this point the latter had to be contained and kept under control until required for the final social cataclysm».
On 15 August 1871, as revealed by Carr, the Pope of American Freemasonry Pike revealed to Mazzini that at the end of the Third World War those who aspire to World Government would cause the greatest social cataclysm ever seen.
«We will unleash the nihilists and atheists and provoke a formidable social cataclysm which will clearly show, in all its horror, to the nations, the effect of absolute atheism, the origin of barbarism and bloody subversion».
And then again:
«Then everywhere citizens, forced to defend themselves against a world minority of revolutionaries, these destroyers of civilization, and the multitude disillusioned by Christianity, whose worshipers will be devoid of orientation in search of an ideal, will receive the true light through the universal manifestation of pure doctrine of Lucifer finally revealed to the public eye, a manifestation which will be followed by the destruction of Christianity and atheism conquered and crushed at the same time».
GEOPOLITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE THIRD WORLD WAR IN FRAGMENTS
If we carefully analyze what has happened in the last twenty years, rereading them with the lens of a geopolitical intelligence analysis, we can put together these dramatic events that prove the gradual increase of the Third World War “in a patchy pattern, in fragments, or in small pieces” as defined several times by Pope Francis.
September 11, 2001 – From the World Trade Center to the War in Afghanistan
Avoidable massacre of the attacks on the Twin Towers facilitated by the obstacles posed by the American counter-espionage of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to the investigations of the director of anti-terrorism of the FBI John O’Neill (who died in the World Trade Center where he was hired after being fired following sabotage of his professional activity). The hidden role of the Israeli counter-intelligence Mossad came to light immediately, recently with the disconcerting confirmation that two of the hijackers were collaborating with the CIA.
Palestinian President Abbas issued a decree outlawing the Hamas militias who defeated Fatah (a Palestinian political and paramilitary organization, part of the PLO, of which Yasser Arafat was leader) and therefore removed the Gaza Strip from the control of the Authority Palestinian national authority.
According to various intelligence experts including a former CIA director, Hamas, linked to the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood (sons of another Masonic history…), was financed by the USA and Israel precisely to lead to the Palestinian exodus plan that was configured in recent days after the attacks of 7 October which took the highly expert Israeli secret services (Shin Bet, Mossad and the military Aman) by surprise.
In 2014, ISIS founded by Caliph Al Baghdadi entered the war shortly after his liberation from Camp Bucca where he was detained by the US Army for terrorist activity in Iraq. He was believed to be a Mossad and CIA agent
February 20, 2014 – Start of the War in Ukraine
The second Orange Revolution financed by the Zionist Soros in Kiev explodes in all its violence due to the shooting of mysterious mercenary snipers on Ukrainian policemen and the crowd. It seems like a repeat of what the CIA hatched in 2002 in Caracas. The coup financed by NATO countries materializes with the escape of the legitimately elected president Viktor Fedorovyč Yanukovych to friendly Russia.
From there begins the Donbass Civil War which became a Global Conflict after the start of Moscow’s military operation to protect the pro-Russian victims of genocide by the neo-Nazi guerrillas of the Azov Battalion led by the Kiev Regime and also armed by Israel in an apparent, crazy paradox …
In July, however, the Israelis launched Operation Protective Edge to destroy clandestine tunnels into their country, triggering a resurgence of military clashes. Only on 28 August was a ceasefire declared by both sides but the electoral consultations were postponed and never agreed upon again.
October 2023 – Genocide Planned and Legalized in Gaza
Hamas captures hostages from an Israeli Rave Party and several kibbutz settlers in the illegally occupied territories. Israel responds disproportionately by bombing everyone, women, children, hospitals, churches, UN officials. Few Western politicians denounce a GENOCIDE which instead appears LEGALIZED by almost all NATO countries.
If we correlate the recurring subjects of these events it is easy to deduce that the Third World War in fragments has already been implemented for at least two decades with an enormous occult direction of that NATO evoked by Soros to embody the New World Order.
ANALYSIS OF THE SOCIAL CATALYSM: MANMADE VIRUS PANDEMIC
Let’s go back to the tired “forecasts” of the Freemason Albert Pike and reread a significant phrase:
«We will unleash the nihilists and atheists and provoke a formidable social cataclysm which will clearly show, in all its horror, to the nations, the effect of absolute atheism, the origin of barbarism and bloody subversion».
In 2004 the European Commission chaired by Romano Prodi, a Soros associate, financed the Wuhan Institute of Virology strengthened by the son of President Jiang Zemin, the Executioner of Tiananmen, also in light of an agreement on collaborations for research in the bacteriological field signed with the American president Bill Clinton in 1999.
Now even many US politicians admit their nation’s role in building the laboratory virus. This is denied by the National Intelligence Directorate led by Avril Haines who was deputy CIA director expert in bio-weapons when Fauci was carrying out experiments on Coronaviruses on behalf of the Obama-Biden administration together in Wuhan.
Even the Catholic Church genuflects to the Vaccine GOD.
Let’s reread Pike’s prophecy again, a truly disturbing name when associated with the almost homonymous Covid-19 protein.
«Then everywhere citizens, forced to defend themselves against a world minority of revolutionaries, these destroyers of civilization, and the multitude disillusioned by Christianity, whose worshipers will be devoid of orientation in search of an ideal, will receive the true light through the universal manifestation of pure doctrine of Lucifer finally revealed to the public eye, a manifestation which will be followed by the destruction of Christianity and atheism conquered and crushed at the same Time»
HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FREEMASONRY AND ZIONISM
The detractors of the military geopolitical analyst and writer William Guy Carr who refers to the diabolical plan of the Pope of American Freemasonry are based on the fact that Albert Pike in 1871 could not have known about the birth of Communism, nor of Nazism, nor of Zionism.
Nor even knowing about the two world wars. Unless you were among those who designed them.
This observation can easily be refuted by citing some historical references already mentioned and which we will highlight.
«In July 1782 the Order of the Illuminati allied itself with Freemasonry during the Congress of Wilhelmsbad, which the historian Freemason Albert Mackey defined as ‘the most important Masonic Congress of the eighteenth century’ – we read on the website Freemasonry Unmasked, full of anecdotes and authoritative historical sources – The participants in that Congress had to swear not to reveal the decisions they had made to anyone (see Nesta H. Webster, World Revolution, 1921, page 31)».
Wilhelmsbad Castle was owned by the Ashkenazi Jewish banker (of Khazar-European origins) Mayer Amschel Rothschild who, according to various historians, in 1777 brought together twelve of his most influential friends and convinced them that if they pooled their resources they could dominate the world: this is how the Bavarian Illuminati was born.
The French Revolution confirms their success with the annihilation of the first important Catholic Monarchy. It will be the experience of the Paris Commune of 1871, the regurgitation of the regime of terror, that will inspire Lenin in his plan for the subsequent Bolshevik and Communist revolution.
So Pike was not only still alive at the time but knew the details.
The Independent Order B’nai B’rith or Bené Berith (Hebrew: בני ברית, “sons of the covenant”) is a Jewish lodge founded in 1843 during the presidency of John Tyler and still existing and active. It was founded at the Sinsheimer Café, in the Wall Street neighborhood of New York, by Henry Jones and eleven other people on October 13, 1843. The original name was in German “Bundes-Brueder” (which means “League of Brothers”), in the current one which retains the initials (“BB”).
Most of the founders were German-Jews: that is, Ashkenazi like Mayer Amschel Rothschild but also like his descendant Walter Rothschild, eldest son and heir of the banker Nathan Mayer Rothschild, the first Jewish baron of England.
Walter Rothschild was among the promoters of the declaration for the formation of the Jewish state in Palestine, later earning the merit of becoming president of the Council of Deputies of British Jews from 1925 to 1926.
From these seeds we arrived at 1917 when a letter from the British Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour, addressed to the “Dear Lord Rothschild”, sanctioned Balfour’s declaration which committed the British government to supporting the creation in Palestine of a home for the Jews in respect for the rights of other resident minorities.
How did Albert Pike know all these things before they happened?
Very simple because he was among those who concerted them in 1860 when the Southern general through Young America planned the American Civil War to defend the right to slavery, Mazzini with Young Italy committed himself to the Expedition of the Thousand and Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount of Palmerston, British Secretary of State and exponent of the Grand Lodge of England guaranteed all financial and political support.
The first expressions of proto-Zionism took shape, for example, in the foundation of the Universal Israelite Alliance in 1860, an organization aimed at the emancipation of the Jewish communities in the Middle East and North Africa, and in the publication of various works, including Rome and Jerusalem, written in 1862 by the German Jewish philosopher Moses Hess, Derishat Zion by the Polish-Prussian rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, and the hymn Hatikvah, whose lyrics were written by Naftali Herz Imber and which later became the anthem of the State of Israel.
Zionism draws its roots from the new cultural environment generated in the context of the emancipation of European Jews starting from the French Revolution and throughout the 19th century and from the Haskalah.
The haskalah, with a small delay compared to other Enlightenment movements, arose in Germany and then spread throughout much of Europe and to a small extent also across the Atlantic. The father and inspirer of the movement was Moses Mendelssohn, close to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, a free thinker of Protestant extraction and an energetic defender of the Jews in Germany. The latter introduced Mendelssohn into the world of Berlin intellectuals where he dedicated himself to the composition of philosophical essays and dissertations.
A varied and open movement, the haskalah probably did not close its doors even to exponents of the Frankist heresy, a sort of tail of the messianic movement of Shabatai Zevi which had long been in opposition to official Judaism, perhaps linked to lodges of freemasonry, another force of the times, definitely in relation to the Enlightenment philosophy.
Many Jews influenced by the haskalah and the closeness it brought with European culture were seduced by the possibility of assimilation by embracing Christianity. Just think of the family of Karl Marx, descended from rabbis who converted to Protestantism, as did Mendelssohn’s own daughters. Others, however, laid the foundations of the new science of Judaism, the Wissenschaft des Judentums.
THE LODGES INSPIRED BY THE SON OF THE BIBLICAL MURDERER CAIN
Today we add another detail by recalling the figure of John Theophilus Desaguliers (La Rochelle, 12 March 1683 – Covent Garden, 29 February 1744) who was an English scientist, religious and Freemason of French origins.
Desaguliers emigrated to England in 1694, due to the Edict of Fontainebleau, which revoked the freedom of worship of Protestants. He approached Freemasonry, becoming Grand Master of the First Grand Lodge of England in 1718, and Deputy Grand Master in 1723 and 1725. Under his leadership, the Grand Lodge of London and Freemasonry developed in an “astonishing” way in the islands British, to the point that «in 1740 there were already more than 180 lodges».
Each of the earliest Masonic texts contains some sort of history of the craft, or guild, of Freemasonry. The oldest work of this type, the Royal Manuscript, dating from 1390 to 1425, has a brief history in the introduction, which states that the “craft of Freemasonry” began with Euclid in Egypt, and arrived in England during the reign of ruler Æðelstan.
A little later, the Cooke Manuscript traces Freemasonry to Jabal, son of Lamech (Genesis 4, 20-22), and tells how this knowledge reached Euclid, from him to the children of Israel when they were in Egypt, and so on for an elaborate route to Æðelstan. This myth formed the basis for later manuscript foundations, all of which claim that Freemasonry dates back to Biblical times, and pegs its institutional consolidation in England during the reign of Æðelstan (927-939).
Shortly after the formation of the first Grand Lodge of England, James Anderson was commissioned to summarize these “Gothic constitutions” into a pleasing modern form. The constitutions produced by his work have a more widespread historical introduction than any previous one, and once again connect the history of what Freemasonry had become to its biblical roots, always inserting Euclid into the chain of narrative.
The first question that a connoisseur of Judeo-Christian history should ask is almost banal.
Why do the Freemasons, due to fabulous legendary and historical beliefs, trace Freemasonry to one of the descendants of the murderer Cain and not to the third son of Adam named Set from whom the Semitic culture was born?
In France, Chevalier (Knight) Ramsay’s 1737 conference added Crusader Freemasons to the family tree claiming that they had revived the craft with secrets recovered in the Holy Land, under the patronage of the Knights Hospitaller. At this point, the “history” of the profession of continental Freemasonry separated from that of Freemasonry in England which in the meantime had published its “charter”.
THE SCHSM ON THE GREAT ARCHITECT OF THE UNIVERSE
The Constitutions of the Free-Masons, “for the use of the lodges” in London and Westminster, was published in 1723. It was edited by the Presbyterian clergyman James Anderson, by order of John Theophilus Desaguliers, and approved by a committee of the grand lodge under its control. The work was reprinted in Philadelphia in 1734 by Benjamin Franklin, who in that year became Grand Master of the Pennsylvania Freemasons. It was also translated into Dutch (1736), German (1741) and French (1745).
Anderson was minister of the Presbyterian church in Swallow Street, London, which had formerly been a Huguenot church, and whose pastor in the 1690s was Desaguliers’ father. At the time of his meeting with Desaguliers, he appears to have presented himself as a Talmudic scholar.
In various historical testimonies that we summarize for brevity, Anderson himself seems to imply the existence of an Italian Grand Lodge.
In Naples in 1728 he saw the light of the first regular Masonic lodge established in Italy, La Perfetta Unione. Raised by the will of the Prince of San Severo, it had Egyptian symbols such as the pyramid, the Sphinx and the radiant sun in its emblem. Subsequently, the English lodge (“La Loggia degli Inglesi”) was established in Florence, founded in 1731 and Freemasonry spread rapidly, despite a series of papal prohibitions.
But already ahead the so-called Great Schism occurred. According to a widespread opinion, the schism between French and English Freemasonry originates from the general assembly of the Grand Orient of France in September 1877. Accepting the recommendation contained in a report by the Protestant pastor (and Freemason) Frédéric Desmons, the assembly decided by a majority of amend its constitutions by inserting the formula “its principles are absolute freedom of conscience and human solidarity”. This replaced the previous statement “its principles are the existence of God, the immortality of the soul and human solidarity”.
The reaction of the United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE) was the resolution of March 1878 which reiterated “That the Grand Lodge, while anxious to welcome in the most fraternal spirit the Brethren of any foreign Grand Lodge whose proceedings are conducted according to the Ancient cornerstones of the Order, among which the first and most important is the faith in T. G. A. O. T. U. [“the great Architect of the universe”, in English acronym], cannot recognize as ‘true and genuine’ Brothers all those who have been initiated in lodges that deny or ignore that faith.”
FREEMASONRY SIMILAR TO THE BEAST OF THE APOCALYPSE
Having concluded this long but necessary historical digression on Freemasonry implemented with various Wikipedia sources, let’s return to the beginning. To the book of the Apocalypse of Saint John and the disturbing esoteric symbolisms.
If we summarize the historical notes above we can easily conclude that the first promoters of Zionism in the USA were the founders of the B’nai B’rith Lodge composed of Ashkenazi Jews (as Adolph Hitler is also believed to be) that the historians of Jewish culture they define the “13th Tribe of Israel” as they derive from the diaspora of the Khazars who had converted to Judaism
While in Europe it spread thanks to the Rothschild Dynasty (Red Shield) which was the first to weave subversive plots with an anti-Catholic vocation from the birth of the Bavarian Illuminati up to the pact of terror for the French Revolution from which the liberation of the proto- Zionism together with that Masonic concept of “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité” imposed by guillotining even the elderly nobles of the Catholic Vendée French region.
«Then everywhere citizens, forced to defend themselves against a world minority of revolutionaries, these destroyers of civilization, and the multitude disillusioned by Christianity, whose worshipers will be devoid of orientation in search of an ideal, will receive the true light through the universal manifestation of pure doctrine of Lucifer finally revealed to the public eye, a manifestation which will be followed by the destruction of Christianity and atheism conquered and crushed at the same time».
But following this hermeneutical path to the Book of the Apocalypse, one of the most important allegories comes to mind with disconcerting and terrifying impetus:
«The dragon stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast. People worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it?» (Rev. 13, 1-4)
The prophet Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist delves into the concept with an aura vision
«Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon.It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed» (Rev. 13, 11-12)
It is not really scary to note how traditional esoteric Freemasonry became manifest thanks to the Anglican political schism of the Protestants and allowed Pharisaic Judaism, defeated by the Diaspora after the Crucifixion of the Messiah awaited by the Jews, to be reborn in its Talmudic form with Judaism then became with Zionism the most powerful component of the New World Order?
We have historical clues that help identify Freemasonry as one of the two apocalyptic Beasts. But this theme will be explored in greater depth if and when we receive from the Holy Spirit the gift of the wisdom necessary to interpret it. Therefore today we cannot help but insinuate doubt…
POWER OF CHRIST IN THE PROPHECY OF SAINT JOHN THE APOSTLE
But it is precisely Chapter 12 of the Book of the Apocalypse (Rev. 12, 7-12) which comes to illuminate with a radiant dawn of hope the dangers of all of us Christians who strive to be among those “who listen to the words of this prophecy and put into practice the things that are written in it”:
«Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him».
“Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.”
Since Saint John was the only Apostle who died without martyrdom for his loyalty to Jesus Christ under the cross and also survived the hell of imprisonment on Patmos (where he received the visions and locutions collected in the Apocalypse), it is probably very useful to start believing him…
Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio, born on 24/2/1967 in Borgosesia, started working as a reporter when he was only 19 years old in the alpine area of Valsesia, Piedmont, his birth region in Italy. After studying literature and history at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, he became director of the local newspaper Notizia Oggi Vercelli and specialized in judicial reporting.
For about 15 years he is a correspondent from Northern Italy for the Italian newspapers Libero and Il Giornale, also writing important revelations on the Ustica massacre, a report on Freemasonry and organized crime.
With independent investigations, he collaborates with Carabinieri and Guardia di Finanza in important investigations that conclude with the arrest of Camorra entrepreneurs or corrupt politicians.
In July 2018 he found the counter-information web media Gospa News focused on geopolitics, terrorism, Middle East, and military intelligence.
In 2020 published the book, in Italian only, WUHAN-GATES – The New World Order Plot on SARS-Cov-2 manmade focused on the cycle of investigations Wuhan-Gates
His investigations was quoted also by The Gateway Pundit, Tasnim and others
He worked for many years for the magazine Art & Wine as an art critic and curator.
US President Joe Biden coughs as he delivers the State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on March 7, 2024. (AFP)
During his State of the Union address, the US President calls on “Israel” not to turn humanitarian assistance into “a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip.”
US President Joe Biden announced Friday during his State of the Union address that he is directing his military to lead the mission that will establish a temporary pier that will bring humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.
“Tonight, I’m directing the US military to lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the Gaza coast that can receive large ships carrying food, water, medicine, and temporary shelters,” he said during his speech.
“No USboots will be on the ground,” Biden claimed.
He added that the temporary pier would enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza, but stressed that “Israel” must play its part in the process for it to be successful.
Earlier, a senior Biden administration official said the temporary port will feature a pier that will “provide the capacity for hundreds of additional truckloads of assistance each day.”
According to the official, the shipments will be screened by the United States and partners in European Union member Cyprus.
Gazans are facing dire shortages of food, water, and medicine, with the United Nations warning of the risk of famine. The entire population of 2.2 million is in crisis or worse levels of food insecurity, according to the World Food Program.
Biden on Friday called on the Israeli occupation entity to “allow more aid into Gaza and ensure that humanitarian workers aren’t caught in the crossfire.”
“To the leadership of Israel I say this — Humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip. Protecting and saving innocent lives has to be a priority,” he said in his annual address.
The US President reiterated his claim that “Israel has a right to go after Hamas,” but mentioned that the Israeli forces also have “a fundamental responsibility to protect innocent civilians in Gaza.”
He added that the Palestinian Resistance movement Hamas could end the fighting by releasing the captives, “laying down arms, and surrendering those responsible for October 7.”
Biden addressed the families of captives held by the Resistance saying, “I pledge to all the families that we will not rest” until they are released.
He called the impact on Gaza “heartbreaking”, recalling that “this war has taken a greater toll on innocent civilians than all previous wars in Gaza combined.”
He also acknowledged that “more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed. Most of whom are not Hamas. Thousands and thousands are innocent women and children.”
Biden claimed that his administration has been “working nonstop to establish an immediate ceasefire that would last for six weeks.”
According to the US President, the six-week truce would ensure the release of the captives held in Gaza, “ease the intolerable humanitarian crisis, and build toward something more enduring.”
He also reiterated his support for the creation of a Palestinian state, adding that “the only real solution is a two-state solution.”
“I say this as a lifelong supporter of Israel. My entire career, no one has a stronger record with Israel. I challenge any of you here,” Biden added.
Outside the US Capitol, where Biden delivered his speech, dozens of pro-Palestine protesters held a demonstration against the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip.
Calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, the protesters blocked part of Pennsylvania Avenue and held a large Palestinian flag.
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) March 8, 2024
The demonstration coincided with a similar one outside the White House, where the crowd called on the Biden administration to end its support to the Israeli occupation entity.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the United States has clandestinely approved and executed more than 100 arms deals and foreign military sales to the Israeli regime since the onset of the war on Gaza in October 2023.
A photo posted by the Yemeni Military media depicting vehicles carrying the Al-Mandib-2 anti-ship cruise missile during the 21 September revolution commemoration parade, Sanaa, 2022 (Military Media)
US’ inability or restriction of the US Navy to counteract these disruptive and economically impactful acts should be a source of national embarrassment, says Rich Lowry, the editor-in-chief of National Review.
Rich Lowry, the editor-in-chief of National Review, wrote a piece in which he acknowledged that the sole superpower in the world [the United States] has failed to safeguard one of the most crucial global trade routes from “a band of third-world rebels”.
He gushed: “Welcome to the latest humiliation of a Biden-administration foreign policy premised on not being overly provocative toward our enemies.”
Following a prolonged series of operations by the Yemeni Armed Forces in Yemen, shipping firms have declared their intention to steer clear of the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab, a narrow passage linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.
This marks “a setback for freedom of navigation”, a cornerstone of the U.S.-led global order, and a significant triumph for the Yemeni Armed Forces. They have capitalized on drones, missiles, and attempted ship seizures to gain an advantage over the world’s preeminent navy.
That’s the take offered by Lowry who further argued that a minor waterway is not being discussed but a critical route for East-West trade. Approximately 12 percent of global trade and a substantial volume of oil from the Gulf traverse the Red Sea, as per Lowry.
In Lowry’s view, the interruption of this trade essentially provided the Yemeni Armed Forces with “global reach”. Shipping insurance rates are increasing, and businesses are opting to avoid the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, a crucial shortcut linking Europe and Asia. Instead, they are opting for a longer and more costly route around the Cape of Good Hope.
The gist of Lowry’s argument is that the inability or restriction of the US Navy to counteract these disruptive and economically impactful acts should be a source of national embarrassment.
The Red Sea as a war zone
On Monday, and under the guise of securing international maritime trade routes, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the establishment of Operation Prosperity Guardian, a 10-nation “multinational security initiative under the umbrella of the Combined Maritime Forces and the leadership of its Task Force 153, which focuses on security in the Red Sea.”
Earlier today, mobilizing efforts in the face of the Yemeni forces, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin invited dozens of nations to take steps to address the operation conducted in the Red Sea as he spoke at a defense ministerial to tout a new military operation to secure commerce in the waterway.
“We’re all here because many countries can directly contribute to our common efforts to keep strategic waterways safe,” Austin said, according to prepared remarks.
Calling Yemen’s attacks “reckless”, he described it as “a serious international problem” that needs “a firm international response,” which, as revealed earlier, will bring “together multiple countries to include the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles, and Spain.”
Meanwhile, the Associated Press, which cited an unnamed defense official, reported that several other countries have also agreed to be involved in the operation but preferred not to be named.
While the main claimed reason behind establishing the maritime coalition was the Yemeni operations, which focused solely on Israeli ships and interests, the occupation entity was not named in the list of members of the newly created force.
No further details were unveiled regarding the task force or how it will conduct its operations, amid rising concerns that it might turn the Red Sea into a military confrontations zone and that its publicly declared mission is only part of its real objectives in the strategic trade route, but it is expected to become clearer in the coming weeks.
No compromise on Palestine
In response to Western warnings and pressure on Yemen to stop its operations, the head of Sanaa’s negotiating delegation, Mohammad Abdul Salam, affirmed that “the Red Sea is safe for everyone except ships affiliated with the Israeli enemy,” emphasizing that “Yemeni operations have a significant economic impact on Israel.”
Abdul Salam emphasized that “any actions taken by the Yemeni Armed Forces are linked to lifting the blockade on Gaza and halting the aggression against the Strip.”
“The Palestinian cause does not tolerate compromise, and we cannot accept what is happening to the people of Gaza,” he warned.
Additionally, Ali al-Qahoum, a member of the political bureau of the Yemeni Ansar Allah, echoed last week the same sentiment, underlining that Yemen will not abandon the Palestinian cause no matter what, despite American, Western, and Israeli threats.
The Yemeni official warned that “those who provide protection to Israel should bear the consequences,” stressing that Yemen “will spare no effort or resources in supporting Palestine and Gaza until victory and the eradication of Israel.”
Elsewhere, al-Qahoum made it clear that Yemen has all the defensive options to respond to any hostile actions by the US, “Israel”, and the West, with surprises that are beyond imagination.
He assured that Yemen possesses all the factors of strength and resilience that qualify it to be pivotal and influential in international equations, with elements of strength that make it steadfast in supporting Palestine.
Five million dollars to assassinate him.. Who is the spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces, Brigadier General Yahya Saree?
The definitive answer: Has Washington declared war on Sanaa in the Red Sea? / Reality with Khalil Nasrallah
Why did Saudi Arabia and Egypt not participate in the American naval alliance in the Red Sea?
Egypt and Saudi Arabia “We reject the alliance against Yemen” and America threatens to block the Renaissance Dam with the Emirates and rapid support in Sudan
Evening | Will the Red Sea Front expand the conflict or be a pressing factor to suppress it? | 12-19-2023
Special coverage | The New Middle East Project: An American Dream Relapsed Again | 2023-12-20
وأشار، خلال احتفال تكريمي أقامه حزب الله للشهداء مهدي محمد عطوي، حسين عباس فصاعي وابراهيم حبيب الدبق في كونين، أن «ما يحصل في غزة اليوم له ارتباط بكل قضايا أمتنا الأساسية، وبالقدس والمقدسات، وبكل قضية فلسطين، وبكل مواجهتنا مع هذا العدو المتغطرس على مستوى لبنان وكل المنطقة».
ولفت صفي الدين إلى أنّ «العالم كله يعلم اليوم أن ما يفعله الصهاينة في أطفال وشيوخ ونساء غزة إضافة إلى هذا الدمار فيها، هو فعل أميركي وأوروبي، وبالتالي، فإن كل زعيم دولي جاء إلى الكيان الغاصب ليؤيّد ويدعم وليشد على عضد هؤلاء الصهاينة، هو شريك في هذه الدماء والمجازر».
أكد رئيس المجلس التنفيذي في حزب الله، السيد هاشم صفي الدين، أنّ «مجازر غزة ستزيد من الشعوب الإسلامية والعربية تمسكًا وقناعة بالمقاومة، وستزيد المقاومين تمسكًا وقناعة واعتقادًا بصوابية ما ذهبوا إليه في المقاومة، وسيزيدنا جميعًا قناعة واعتقادًا ثابتًا راسخًا أنّ مع هذه العصابات الأميركية والأوروبية والإسرائيلية لا ينفع إلاّ لغة المقاومة والسلاح والصواريخ، ولذا سوف نكون حاضرين في كل جبهة بصواريخنا وسلاحنا».
وقال إنّ «ما حصل ويحصل في غزة يوصلنا إلى عدة نتائج، أحدها، أن أميركا ومعظم الدول الأوروبية والغربية مع أميركا، هي ليست دولًا، وجيوشها ليست جيوشًا لدول كما يقولون، وإنما هؤلاء عصابات ومافيا قتل وتجار دماء، وأميركا حقيقتها عصابة، والدول الأوروبية التي تحمي الكيان الصهيوني وتساهم في قتل الأطفال، هم عصابات وليسوا دولًا، ولا يجوز أن يتم التعاطي مع هذه الدول أنها دولًا حقيقية تؤمن بقوانين ومعايير إنسانية أو دولية أو تدافع عن حقوق الإنسان أو أي شيء من هذا النوع».
وشدد على أنّ «الذي يُساهم في قتل أطفال غزة على مرأى من كل العالم دون أن تتحرك مشاعره على الإطلاق، ليسوا أسوياء على المستوى الإنساني، وهم من الطغاة والجبابرة ومن الذين قتلت المشاعر الإنسانية في قلوبهم، ولذا ليس مسموحًا لأحد بعد الآن أن يأتي إلى بلداننا أو لأي سفارة غربية أو أميركية لتقدّم النصائح وفق معاييرها الخاصة على مستوى حقوق الإنسان والمطالب المختلفة التي يتحدثون بها ليلًا نهارًا».
وقال إنّ «الجواب الذي يجب أن يكون اليوم لكل الأميركيين والغربيين والصهاينة، هو أن المقاومين في بلدنا ومنطقتنا، متمسكون بسلاحهم وبمقاومتهم، وجاهزون دائمًا على خط المقاومة والجهاد والسلاح إلى آخر الطريق».
وأكد صفي الدين أنّ «كل ما يفعله وما سيفعله الأميركي والإسرائيلي ومن ومعهما مع الشعب الفلسطيني سواء في غزة أو في الضفة التي تنتفض اليوم، أو على مستوى التهديدات للمقاومين على امتداد منطقتنا، سوف يذهب مع الرياح».
وأضاف: «إذا كان الأميركي يستعجل الامتحانات والابتلاءات والتحديات، فعليه أن يعلم أنّ في أمتنا أبطالًا ومقاومين نفضوا غبار الذل وتاريخ المذلة عن أمتهم، وهم جاهزون في الميدان وكل مكان».
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah speaks via a video link during a ceremony marking Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, in the southern of Beirut, Lebanon, October 2, 2023 (AP)
In a speech commemorating the birthday of Prophet Mohammad, Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah discussed several issues including Syrian displacement to Lebanon and Lebanon’s border with occupied Palestine, among other important issues.
The United States holds the responsibility for the displacement of Syrian citizens, Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said during a speech commemorating the birthday of Prophet Muhammad.
The Resistance leader called on officials to implement a unified national plan of action which they could present to the international community and later to the caretaker government, governmental institutions, the Lebanese Army, and Lebanese security forces, in order to resolve the crisis resulting from the displacement of Syrians to Lebanon.
He added that Lebanese political parties believe that the displacement of Syrians to Lebanon has become an economic, security, and demographic threat to Lebanon.
However, the leader did stress that the Lebanese people must treat displaced Syrians within the framework of laws and morals and not be driven into waves of hostility against them.
The leader said that addressing the issues resulting from the US’ role in Syria will greatly alleviate the burdens off Lebanon. Sayyed Nasrallah said the US created both security and economic pressures on the Syrian people forcing them out of the country.
In particular, the Ceasar Act has put great pressure on both Syria and Lebanon, as Sayyed Nasrallah reiterated that for the latter to survive, the “Ceasar must be lifted.”
He emphasized that if the United States were to eliminate its sanctions on Syria, hundreds of thousands of displaced Syrians would return to their country.
Furthermore, Hezbollah’s Secretary-General called on officials to produce statistics on Syrians in Lebanon, which the country has lacked since the beginning of the war on Syria in 2011. He also stressed the need to differentiate between those displaced and those who have been integrated into the country’s workforce.
Sayyed Nasrallah touched on the wave of Syrian migration to Europe through Lebanon, warning that the European Union would eagerly meet any Lebanese demands on the issue to prevent a further influx of refugees.
Finally, regarding this matter, the Resistance leader urged security forces to dismantle people smuggling networks in the country.
Addressing the issue of Lebanon setting its borders in stone, Sayyed Nasrallah underlined that the usage of the term “demarcating Lebanon’s land borders with occupied Palestine” is inaccurate because the borders were already demarcated.
Any mediation regarding the issue, if it occurs, will focus on the northern Ghajar region due to the issue of the two tents, Sayyed Nasrallah said.
Tensions along the occupied Palestinian-Lebanese border have been escalating for several months. The issue of tents erected by Hezbollah within Lebanese territories in the Shebaa Farms region continues to generate tension within Israeli security and military establishments, despite Hezbollah’s recent dismantling of one of the tents.
Tensions have recently risen between Lebanon and the Israeli occupation after the latter’s violations in the northern part of Al-Ghajar — a town at the border with Occupied Palestine — represented in the construction of a barbed wire fence and a concrete wall around the entire town.
Hezbollah in June set up two tents in the Lebanese Shebaa Farms. Commenting on the tents and in response to a question about what he would have done were he the current Israeli occupation Chief of Staff, Halutz indicated that three months have passed since the tents were set up, adding that calling for action now could lead the situation to spiral out of control. While he stressed that demarcation is the responsibility of the state, “it accepts mediation and negotiations. We are not concerned with acceptance or rejection,” suggesting that any mediation would focus on the northern Ghajar region.
Sayyed Nasrallah stressed the separation between the land border issue and the presidential issue.
“Some believe that we may make concessions on the land borders, that is, give up land, in order to gain support for our candidate, former Minister Suleiman Franjieh,” he said.
“This has no realistic basis.” Likewise, Sayyed Nasrallah said that some people link the land borders and the Iran nuclear deal, but “this has not been brought up on the Iranian-US negotiating table previously.”
“We do not compromise when it comes to our maritime or land rights,” he said. “Any step toward liberation will be taken in close cooperation between the state and the Resistance.”
Speaking separately of Lebanon’s gas blocks, Sayyed Nasrallah said: “All indicators are positive regarding Block 9, which is confirmed by the existing consortium’s bidding on Blocks 8 and 10.”
Going back to the presidential issue, Sayyed Nasrallah affirmed that “there was an opportunity in the dialogue that President Berri called for talks, but this opportunity was wasted by political pettiness.”
On the Prophet’s birthday
The leader commended “the great, magnificent, and beautiful Yemeni celebration of the Prophet’s Birthday, despite the difficult living and security conditions,” that the country is experiencing due to a US-Saudi-led blockade.
He called on Muslims to pay the event more attention, saying that the Prophet’s Birthday is the “greatest day of joy.”
At the same time, he condemned a terrorist bombing of a mosque by extremists in Pakistan during the special Muslim occasion.
He also urged the Arab nation to bear responsibility for the events taking place in Palestine, including the desecration of the al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied al-Quds. Sayyed Nasrallah stressed that if settlers’ incursions into the Muslims’ first Qibla continue, the Mosque’s compound will be divided between Muslims and Jews.
The leader also condemned states that seek to or have normalized relations with “Israel”, saying that they have abounded Palestine and strengthened the occupation by doing so, in what constitutes intolerable action.
“When a country normalizes, it must be condemned… it is an attack on Palestinian land and Islamic and Christian sanctities.”
Soft power weakens nations
On soft power and media warfare, the leader said that these two strategies have proven to be “more effective than military combat in weakening nations, and some countries have withstood military confrontations but lost in the soft and media war.”
Sayyed Nasrallah concluded: “When the Arab and Egyptian armies united and were supported by some countries in the October War, “Israel” trembled; this unity almost achieved a decisive historical victory,” in 1973.
After decades of setbacks, the upcoming integration of Iraq and Iran’s railways promises to boost bilateral trade, religious and cultural tourism, and economic prosperity – with significant regional and global implications.
The groundbreaking cross-border railway project connecting Shalamcheh in Iran to Basra in Iraq relaunched on 2 September.
The news came a belated 46 years after it was first announced in 1978 – a year before Iran’s Islamic Revolution took the world by storm.
In the aftermath of the revolution, and because of the outbreak of the subsequent Iran–Iraq War (1980-88), the railway initiative remained on hold for several decades. Although the project would have reaped significant benefits for both countries – spurring successive governments to pursue its completion – it is Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi and Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani who managed to strike the deal.
At the railway’s inauguration ceremony, Sudani helped lay the project’s foundation stone alongside Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber, who said the completion of the project would significantly boost trade exchanges between the two countries by connecting their respective railway systems and aligning these with international transport routes.
Map of Shalamcheh-Basra Railway
Tourism and trade relations
Upon its completion in two years, the Shalamcheh-Basra Railway will span 32 kilometers, include three stations, and a bridge connecting Iran with Iraq across the Shatt al-Arab – all constructed with Iran’s support.
Maytham al-Safi, information director at Iraq’s Ministry of Transport, tells The Cradle that “the railway line will eventually link to the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala” in order to facilitate the transportation of pilgrims visiting shrine cities to and from Iraq.
Iraq and Iran share a border that stretches approximately 1600 kilometers, as well as numerous religious, cultural, and tourism similarities. Each year, around 3 million Iranians make pilgrimages to the Shia holy shrines in Iraq, while 2 to 3 million Iraqis visit Iran, home to the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad and the influential Qom seminary.
In 2018,about 24 percent of all tourists visiting Iran came from Iraq, the largest of any country. Iran also boasts a significant health tourism industry – ranking 46th globally – and Iraqis constitute the second-largest group of health tourists to Iran after Afghanistan.
Despite these significant cultural ties, the volume of trade between the two countries has remained dismal. Even in the most optimistic scenario, Tehran and Baghdad have achieved only 50 percent of their targeted $20 billion in trade.
Several factors have contributed to this: a decline in electricity trade; reductions in gasoline and diesel exports; competition from Iran’s commercial rivals like China, India, the US, Turkiye, and the UAE; excessive commercial bureaucracy between the two states; and a lack of efficient and rapid transit capabilities to Iraq.
Iran-Iraq trade decline
According to the latest statistics, non-oil trade between Iraq and Iran reached $8.9 billion in 2021, but over the past two years, Iran’s exports to Iraq have declined in 20 different categories. Farzad Pilten, head of the West Asia office of the Iran Trade Development Organization, noted a 60 percent decrease in gas exports and an 80 percent decrease in gasoline exports to Iraq.
Iran’s performance has lagged behind other exporters, slipping to fourth place in exports to Iraq after the UAE, Turkiye, and China.
The decrease in exports between Iran and Iraq can be attributed to various factors, notably the insufficient transportation infrastructure connecting the two countries. Much of this trade relies on a very inefficient transportation of goods by road. As Javad Hedayati, director general of Iran’s International Transit and Transport, explains, Iranian trucks transport goods to the shared border, where they are laboriously unloaded and handed over to Iraqi trucks:
“In this mode of interaction, trucks carrying cargo due to congestion sometimes have to wait for more than four days at the borders to receive their turn and unload their cargo, while the cost of stopping them at the border is more than $200 per day.”
The completion of the Shalamcheh-Basra Railway project promises to significantly boost trade by reducing transit costs by up to 20 percent, and help Iraq offset its staggering trade imbalance. In 2018, Iran exported approximately $9 billion worth of goods to Iraq, while Iraq’s exports to Iran amounted to a mere $58 million.
Iran’s transit hub ambition
Iran’s strategic goal of becoming a key regional transit hub is closely tied to its ideal geographical location at the crossroads of Asia and Europe. Recognizing this geopolitical opportunity, the Raisi administration – which has heavily prioritized the “Looking to the East” and “Neighborhood” policies – has embarked on ambitious plans to harness this potential.
Iran already has a domestic railway network that spans 14,300 kilometers, with plans to add an additional 10,000 kilometers via 36 ongoing rail projects. Impressively, the country has established seven cross-border connections to neighboring railway networks and achieved self-sufficiency in engineering services, railway construction, and rail production – even exporting domestically-produced railroad cars and train engines.
Iran is currently strategically positioned along two international railway routes: the East-West and International North-South Transport Corridors (INSTC). The east-west route connects ASEAN countries and China to European markets, while the INSTC transit route links Russia to India via Iran.
The Shalamcheh-Basra rail project particularly complements the East-West railway connection. Via Iraq, Iran will be able to connect to the Syrian port of Latakia and its transit capacities, which might be vital to Europe.
The Iran-Iran railway also opens up the possibility of connecting with other Persian Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. There are reports that Saudi Arabia is exploring the idea of linking railroads to Iran through Kuwait and Basra, which would create a direct rail connection between Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.
Iraq’s role in global transport
Iraq, on the other hand, stands to benefit from improved access to markets in Central Asian countries, Afghanistan, and Azerbaijan via its rail link to Iran. A southern Iraqi railway which already transports more than 6 million tons of cargo, could boost the exchange of goods to over 20 million tons upon completion of the Iran-Iraq rail connection.
Furthermore, Shia pilgrims from Azerbaijan would have easier access to the holy city of Karbala via this railway, generating transit and tourism income for Iraq. Hafez Sadatnejad, manager of the Shalamcheh-Basra railway project, adds that the rail link with allow for the transportation of 4 million pilgrims to the pilgrimage cities of Mashhad, Qom, and Karbala in both countries.
By integrating this railway with Iran’s considerable capacities in the Khorramshahr and Imam Khomeini ports, cargo from different countries can be efficiently transported to the country’s southern waters. Iran’s extensive port infrastructure plays a crucial role in its foreign trade, with a target of achieving a cargo handling capacity of 500 million tons within the next five years.
For Iraq, the railway link with Iran is part of a broader and more ambitious project that extends from China to Europe. As economist Maitham al-Amili explains to The Cradle:
“Despite what is said that the goal of the project is to facilitate the transportation of travelers between Iraq and Iran, it is part of a larger project that will contribute to diversifying Iraq’s financial resources by making it a transit corridor for millions of tons of goods if completed.”
On 20 August, the Iraqi Ministry of Transport announced an agreement with Turkiye to link Iraqi railways to Turkish railways via a 133-kilometre line, with the aim of linking the grand port of Al-Faw to Europe, all within what is known as the “Development Road.”
Amili believes that Iraq has a role in the new global transportation project that “extends from China through Iraq to Syria, by land and sea through the port of Al-Faw.”
A hard American veto
Iraq’s geostrategic location as a bridge between West Asia and Europe favors its position as “a major complement to the global transportation map linking Asian countries to the European Union,” says economist Nabil al-Marsoumi:
“Rail transport is the safest means of transport, in addition to being inexpensive, and it always brings economic prosperity to the countries that rely on it, as in China and other countries…the multiplicity of ports to Iraq will enhance the opportunities to encourage its industries and increase its exports, not only oil, but also in the agricultural, petrochemical, and other sectors.”
Mazen al-Ashaiqer, also an economist, warns that “Iraq needs to diversify its transport lines with neighboring countries, especially for passengers, with the increasing tourist traffic to and from the country, with added economic importance if a rail or sea connection with China is achieved, making it a corridor towards Europe.”
These ambitions come with notable challenges and geopolitical complexities. Political analyst Mahmoud al-Hashemi says that “there are major American obstacles that Iraq’s plans for sea and land connectivity with Iran and China will face.”
“The US is well aware of the positive impact of these projects on Iraq, but it wants this country to be part of its conflict with China, Iran, and Russia.”
A senior government source reveals to The Cradle that “there has been an international conflict going on for more than ten years to control international transport lines, at the center of which are Iraq and Syria, and its main poles are China, Russia, Iran, and the United States.”
He says that a transportation project is being sought by some countries to link China with Iraq and Iran, all the way to the port of Latakia on the Mediterranean Sea, to shorten the sea transport route via the Red Sea or the Atlantic Ocean to Europe, “But we cannot say that the Basra-Shalamcheh railway line is part of this project.”
The same source attributes the mobilization of US forces along the Iraqi-Syrian border and the arming of local tribes to “Washington’s attempts to block the railway project from Basra to the port of Latakia via the Syrian cities of Albukamal and Deir ez-Zor.”
This is in addition to the express land line that will connect Iran to Syria via Al-Qaim border crossing, as it will constitute a new victory in the soft economic war ongoing between China and Russia on the one hand and the US on the other hand.
Shalamcheh-Basra Railway and the region
The influence of US propaganda on shaping public opinion in Iraq regarding economic and security cooperation with Iran is a notable concern. Speaking to The Cradle, Iraqi journalist Hassan al-Shammari points out that both “local and international media are subject to an American media machine to direct public opinion in accordance with its policies.”
According to Shammari, “any observer of the Iraqi media will notice that they welcome, or at least turn a blind eye to, any projects between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, Jordan or Turkiye, for example, while an organized media attack is launched against any similar project with Iran.” He adds:
“This is what accompanied the announcement of the railway connection project with Iran, while there is no criticism of the railway connection with Turkiye within the development road project, or of the railway connection with Saudi Arabia.”
Opponents of the railway connection with Iran often express concerns about its potential impact on the grand port of Al-Faw. Former Basra governor Wael Abdul Latif and former Minister of Transport Amer Abdul-Jabbar have warned that the railway may divert shipping traffic to Iranian ports, leading to increased prices and a reduction in port efficiency.
However, as Iraqi government spokesman Bassem al-Awadi confirmed in a recent press conference:
“The government laid the foundation stone for the project after an economic feasibility study, ensuring Iraq’s economic and political security, and not compromising the country’s sovereignty and economy.”
As the Shalamcheh-Basra Railway project advances, it serves as a poignant symbol of progress toward enhanced shared prosperity for, and a new level of connectivity between, Iraq and Iran.
This often-overlooked region within West Asia is poised to leave an indelible mark on global trade and transportation in the years ahead, contributing to broader regional integration and ushering in a new era of economic and logistical cooperation.The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
The United States of America decided in 2011 to destroy a politically and economically independent nation just because it does not comply with US administration’s policies in the Middle East.
USA ordered most of the world countries to dispatch terrorists in order to fight the safe civilians and army soldiers in Syria in 2011. Since the military war failed to subdue Syria, the operators in Washington escalated the pressures by passing a law that bans any economic cooperation with Damascus.
As a result of around 13 years of a terrorist war and an economic siege, the Syrian people suffered harsh living conditions deteriorating on a daily basis.
The Syrian laymen found themselves obliged to search for a source of an acceptable income even it costs them to take the risk of crossing the borders illegally and dangerously (via illegitimate boats).
Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan were their main destination before they moved into Europe and other continents.
In the case of Lebanon, the situation was very dramatic since it has been suffering from an unprecedented socioeconomic situation in addition to fragile infrastructure and public services.
Around 2 million Syrian refugees in the 10452-square-kilometer small country with a population of 4 millions makes the Lebanese situation harsher.as the percentage of the Syrian refugees out of the total population is expected to be much higher during the upcoming years.
Thus, the overburdened nation finds itself obliged to seek a solution for this dilemma as the US administration and the European Union have rejected all the proposals to let the refugees back to their homeland.
The Lebanese caretaker government held last Monday a session to discuss the Syrian refugees crisis, assigning the foreign minister, Abdullah Abou Habib, to lead an official delegation to Syria to discuss the issue of the displaced.
After the session, the Minister of Culture Mohammad Al-Mortada published via X platform a post that explains the decisions of the Lebanese government, indicating that Lebanon has got fed up with the NGOs preventing the return of the Syrian refugees.
Al-Mortada warned that such organization would be dissolved, hinting that Lebanon would not be able to prevent boats carrying the Syrian refugees into Europe.
لمن لم يفهم من "المجتمع الدولي"ما تقرّر في جلسة اليوم، خذْ علماً بالاهمّ: ١- اليوم جرى انذار ادواتكم، اي "المنظّمات غير الحكومية" ان لبنان طفح كيله منهم ولن يرضى ان يستمر ارضاً مستباحةً من قبلهم وان عليهم ان يخضعوا للتنسيق والرقابة وإلاّ سيجري سحب العلم والخبر وحلّهم….عجّل… pic.twitter.com/qoeqxSP10S
— القاضي محمد وسام المرتضى وزير الثقافة (@JugeMMourtada) September 11, 2023
Two days later, Abou Habib contacted his Syrian counterpart, Faisal Mekdad. They agreed to hold a meeting between them shortly upon Minister Bou Habib’s return from New York, where he will participate alongside Premier Najib Mikati in the work of the United Nations General Assembly, and will meet there with the Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister, who will represent his country in UN meetings.
Lebanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdallah Bou Habib (photo from archive).
The Syrian Foreign Minister welcomed the visit of Minister Bou Habib and the accompanying delegation to Damascus, expressing his readiness for all cooperation that falls in the interest of the two countries.
The Lebanese Minister of Social Affairs Hector Hajjar told Al-Manar that Europe will recognize that Lebanon will be the transit stage of the Syrian refugees, adding that Lebanon will not be able to provide the displaced with the suitable living conditions.
Hajjar pointed out that the European states, mainly Cyprus, have notified the Lebanese authorities about their worries pertaining the flock of Syrian refugees into Europe illegally by sea or legally through airports.
Lebanese caretaker social affairs minister Hector Hajjar
One of the biggest announcements to come out of the G20 summit in New Delhi was the launch of an ambitious plan to build an economic corridor linking Europe with the Middle East and India via rail and sea.
A 325-word Memorandum of Understanding inked by India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, France, Italy, the European Union and the United States, outlines how this newly envisaged network would help boost trade, deliver energy resources and improve digital connectivity.
The so-called India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, or IMEC, comprises two separate routes – an east corridor linking India to the Gulf monarchies and a northern corridor connecting the Arab states to Europe.
“Israel” is not a signatory but is mentioned in the MoU as one of the transit points for goods and services moving through the ship-to-rail network.
For “Israeli” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been desperately trying to normalize ties with Saudi Arabia, it didn’t matter whether Tel Aviv is a signatory or not. He jumped on the news coming out of New Delhi and declared that “Israel” was “a central junction in this economic corridor”, which would “change the face of the Middle East.”
Netanyahu isn’t the only one hyping up the project. Some in the mainstream media have already dubbed it a “game-changer”, and the White House claims the corridor is ushering in a “new era of connectivity.” But is the planned trade route any of those things?
There is no alternative to the alternative
The unveiling of IMEC was almost immediately characterized as a challenge to China’s Belt and Road Initiative [BRI].
The latter is the world’s largest infrastructure project that seeks to connect Asia with Africa and Europe via land and maritime networks with the aim of advancing integration, increasing trade and stimulating economic growth.
Naturally, this massive Chinese foreign policy undertaking is perceived as a major threat to US hegemony. Washington responded by peddling the narrative that the BRI is a debt trap as it leaned on ‘allies’ to abandon the Chinese program while trying to improve its own competitiveness on the global stage.
IMEC is supposed to be part of the Biden administration’s alternative to the BRI. It’s true that both initiatives share many of the same objectives and methods of implementation. In theory, at least, both are designed to connect manufacturers in Asia with consumers in the West, while implementing infrastructure projects along the corridors.
But the BRI has already lived up to the hype and will make for tough competition. The Chinese have invested around $1 trillion into the scheme that now extends across 150 countries, including IMEC signatories, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. And unlike “Israel”, these two countries are the actual “central junction” in the new economic corridor.
Here, it’s important to note that China is already Saudi Arabia’s largest trading partner and the biggest investor in the Kingdom’s economy.
Speculation about the Americans trying to rip India out of BRICS, while working to help New Delhi replace the Chinese as Riyadh’s key trading partner may very well be accurate. But these are unrealistic objectives.
The Chinese are investing billions into the Saudi economy while New Delhi is looking for cash injections from Riyadh. According to modest projections, the Saudis will cough up around $100 billion for India’s economy in the coming years while the current turnover of more than $50 billion is also the result of Riyadh’s investments in this partnership.
Furthermore, the West’s failure to ‘Ukrainize’ the G20 summit in New Delhi is just another reminder that India has no interest in abandoning its role in the expanding BRICS bloc. Instead, both India and Saudi Arabia, along with the rest of the Global South, have embraced multipolarity and are exploring numerous multilateral frameworks for advancing their national interests.
As such, China’s BRI and the billions it pumps into the Saudi economy will undoubtedly remain a priority for Riyadh. As the Saudis and Emiratis forge ahead with the diversification of their economic relations, including the expansion of ties with Iran, they are likely to seek the integration of the BRI and IMEC into a single global artery of logistics. This integration with existing networks is perhaps the only logical step for realizing IMEC’s true potential.
The main speedbump is the US, which wants to use the initiative as a political tool against China and Russia and grow its influence in the countries along the corridor rather than focus on mutual economic development.
Still No Framework for Normalization
With numerous transportation and logistics projects springing up across the Eurasia region, Gulf states haven’t failed to realize their infrastructure potential. The member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council are mapping out their own sea and land freight routes, which led to the revival of the massive Gulf Railway project.
The railway system, which is expected to be completed by 2025 and cost around $250 billion, will link all six GCC members. Presumably, this is the same railway system that “Israel” wants to plug in to guarantee its place in IMEC and normalize ties with Saudi Arabia.
In July, Netanyahu announced plans for the construction of a $27 billion rail expansion that could provide overland links to Saudi Arabia in the future. But the Saudis still haven’t responded to that announcement.
That same month, Biden himself said that “Israel” and Saudi Arabia were a long way from a normalization agreement. Meanwhile, his national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, admitted on the way to the G20 summit in India that there is still no actual framework for normalization.
When asked whether IMEC was part of normalization efforts between Riyadh and Tel Aviv, the State Department’s Matthew Miller said, “No, it is separate.”
It probably doesn’t help that the Biden administration has a tumultuous relationship with both the Netanyahu government and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman.
Some of the elements for normalization are undoubtedly on the table. However, nothing has been finalized.
Of course, it makes far more sense for the Gulf Railway project to be directed towards Syria and Lebanon, which are perfectly positioned for the role of a bridge in any future India-Europe economic corridor.
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Episode 38 of 60 Minutes – September 10, 2023 – A maneuver against China after the failure of Russia’s siege in New Delhi…and what is Qatar doing?
The Ukraine conflict and the Black Sea grain deal have highlighted the ‘geopolitics of wheat’ and helped Russia gain leverage over Europe while expanding its influence in Africa and the Global South.
In the complex fabric of international relations, the interaction between geopolitics and trade – particularly of vital commodities – often occupies a key position. Nowhere is this more evident today than in the grain trade agreement between Russia and Ukraine, known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative.
Nestled within the fertile plains of Eastern Europe, Russia, and Ukraine stand as formidable players in the global cereal production arena, particularly in the domain of wheat cultivation. Their collaborative efforts significantly contribute to stabilizing global food prices and securing the food supply for numerous countries.
But the historical, political, and regional intricacies inherent to these two states have often cast shadows over their global economic interdependence, a situation further exacerbated by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
Major players in the global grain market
On 22 July, 2022, a landmark agreement was brokered with the mediation of Turkiye and the UN, in which Russia and Ukraine would facilitate grain exports from both countries to global markets.
Central to this agreement was the establishment of a secure maritime route in the Black Sea – traversing the Bosphorus Strait in northwestern Turkiye – that would ensure the safe transit of grain shipments to and from Ukrainian ports.
Moreover, the accord envisioned the creation of a joint coordination center comprised of representatives from the three states who would be tasked with monitoring and inspecting ships to prevent the transportation of weapons.
Map of Black Sea Grain Initiative Shipping Route
The global significance of this agreement cannot be overstated, given the pivotal roles that Russia and Ukraine occupy as the world’s foremost cereal exporters. According to the World Food Program, Ukrainian cereals sustained the diets of approximately 400 million people globally in 2021.
Yet due to the ongoing proxy conflict in Ukraine, the number of individuals experiencing acute hunger is projected to surge by 47 million, representing a 17 percent increase, with the majority of those affected residing in sub-Saharan Africa.
Russia and Ukraine collectively account for a substantial share of the global grain market, with Russia being the leading wheat exporter (20 percent of global exports) and Ukraine following closely behind as the fifth-largest (10 percent of global exports).
Additionally, the two neighbors jointly contribute 25 percent of the world’s barley exports and 15 percent of maize exports. In 2021, Russia recorded wheat exports valued at $8.92 billion, with major destinations including Egypt ($2.44 billion), Turkiye ($1.79 billion), Nigeria ($493 million), Azerbaijan ($339 million), and Saudi Arabia ($316 million).
During the same year, Ukraine’s wheat exports totaled $5.87 billion, with key destinations being Egypt ($851 million), Indonesia ($640 million), Pakistan ($594 million), Nigeria ($490 million) and Ethiopia ($440 million).
However, the outbreak of war has severely impacted Ukrainian wheat exports, causing them to plummet from 21 million tons in the 2019-20 season to 16.8 million tons in 2022-2023, with a further decline to 10.5 million tons anticipated in the next year.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) predicts that Ukraine’s wheat production will dwindle to 17.5 million tons, marking the lowest level since 2012-2013.
Despite western efforts to stifle Russia’s economy, Moscow has emerged as the primary beneficiary of this decline, effectively filling the void left by reduced Ukrainian exports. Russian wheat exports soared to a record-breaking 45.0 million tons in the 2022/2023 season, reflecting a remarkable 36 percent increase from the previous year and surpassing the previous record set in the 2017-2018 season by 3.5 million tons.
Thanks to competitive prices and abundant supplies, the USDA anticipates that Russia will account for over 20 percent of the global wheat trade in the 2022-2023 season, with Russian wheat stocks projected to reach their highest levels in nearly three decades.
Data from the Russian state statistics service Rosstat reveals that grain stocks until May 2023 were 61.5 percent higher than the previous year, while wheat stocks increased by 69.4 percent. Russian wheat exports are poised to set a new record at 47.5 million tons in the 2023-2024 season, surpassing exports from the EU (38.5 million tons), Canada (26.5 million tons), Australia (25 million tons), and Argentina (11 million tons).
Disparities within the Black Sea Grain Initiative
According to EU data, nearly 33 million tons of cereals and other foodstuffs were exported through the Black Sea Grain Initiative. UN data further reveals that these cereals and food were shipped to 45 countries spanning three continents, with 46 percent going to Asia, 40 percent to Western Europe, 12 percent to Africa, and 1 percent to Eastern Europe.
The primary exports include maize (51 percent), wheat (27 percent), sunflower flour (6 percent), sunflower oil (5 percent), barley (4 percent), rapeseed (3 percent), and others (4 percent).
But to Moscow’s consternation – and contrary to its expectations – UN figures indicate that 90 percent of maize and 60 percent of wheat exported through the initiative found their way to high- and upper-middle-income countries, while only 10 percent of maize and 40 percent of wheat went to low- and middle-income countries.
These figures very clearly underscore the deal’s importance to Europeans. While initially aimed at meeting the food needs of poorer nations, it has instead overwhelmingly served the interests of western countries. Low-income states benefited from only 9 percent of total wheat exports and zero maize exports through this agreement.
This explains the west’s keen efforts to re-engage with the agreement after Russia’s July withdrawal from the deal, in which Moscow made clear that the west’s failure to fulfill its Russian grain export commitments scuttled the agreement’s renewal.
More grain for the Global South
This situation is not unfamiliar to Europeans. The stark contrast between western rhetoric and actions has become increasingly evident, contributing significantly to the competition between the Global South and major powers.
While the EU vocally advocated for a grain agreement to “avert a worsening food crisis” in impoverished countries – but hoarded the grain for its own use – Russia exported 11.5 million tons of cereals to Africa in 2022 and nearly 10 million tons in the first half of 2023.
During the recent Russia-Africa summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, the Central African Republic, and Eritrea would each receive between 25,000 and 50,000 tons of grain, with Moscow also covering the shipping costs.
Impact of Russia’s grain diplomacy
Russian grain diplomacy has become a valuable card for Moscow to influence opinion in the African continent, which it has been able to further capitalize on after the shocking self-interest Europeans displayed during the last grain deal.
Russia’s conditions for rejoining the grain agreement have sparked a complex diplomatic situation with significant implications. Moscow’s demands include the reconnection of its state agricultural bank to the international bank messaging system SWIFT, a more equitable distribution of grain to poorer countries, especially in Africa, and the rollback of sanctions affecting export processes and logistics.
The UN proposed a compromise that would connect a ‘subsidiary’ of Russia’s State Agricultural Bank to SWIFT, but Moscow insisted that the connection must be a direct one.
For Russia, the grain deal represents leverage over Europe, given the potential impact of rising food prices on European countries already grappling with a self-inflicted energy crisis. With Moscow’s withdrawal from the agreement, global grain prices surged, affecting wheat, rice, vegetable oil, and sunflower oil.
As a mediator in this ongoing conflict, Turkiye also has a vested interest in the deal’s restoration. Success in persuading Russia to return to the agreement would bolster Ankara’s diplomatic standing, particularly in its relations with the west.
Moreover, ‘food politics’ are not restricted to the Russia-west conflict: Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia have imposed bans on the transportation of Ukrainian cereal products through their territories to protect their own farmers from cheap Ukrainian imports. While the bans are set to expire this month, these countries intend to extend them, further underscoring the need to resume the grain agreement.
Europe’s options appear limited, as the deal not only contributes to food security but also significantly impacts the west’s image in the Global South. Russia is keenly aware of this and actively works to publicize the destinations of Ukrainian grain while positioning itself as a guarantor of food security in numerous African countries, including Egypt.
Russian grain diplomacy has thus become a strategic tool for Moscow to project itself as a benefactor to Global South countries and to promote multipolarity that seeks less dependence on the west. With revenues and resources both in Russian hands, this is not a scenario in which Europe and the US can emerge unscathed.
By Chay Bowes, journalist and geopolitical analyst, MA in Strategic Studies, RT correspondent
As the West’s proxy war in Ukraine slips inexorably towards utter failure, the neocons behind the debacle are faced with dwindling avenues of retreat.
Early confidence that Russia, in its current form, would collapse under the pressure of the harshest sanctions regime in history failed to materialize. Early Russian miscalculations on the battlefield were not followed by a military meltdown, but by a pragmatic display of strategic adaptability, which is begrudgingly admired in the military war rooms of the West. The Russian army, far from falling apart, has steeled itself into making bold decisions to retreat when prudent and advance when required, both of which have proven devastating for their Ukrainian opponents. It follows that, as the Western political elites that cultivated this conflict peer into another winter of political, military, and potentially economic discontent, it is now that we potentially face the most dangerous period in Europe since the outbreak of WWII.
The catalyst for a wider war in Europe isn’t, in fact, a limited conflict in Ukraine in itself, one that started in 2014 and, notably, had been largely ignored by Western powers for almost a decade. The real issue is that NATO, which is currently engaged in a proxy War with Russia, is facing a ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t’ scenario regarding its growing military involvement in Ukraine. If the US-led bloc escalates further as defeat looms, it could likely lead to direct confrontation with Russia. If it doesn’t, its proxy will collapse and leave Russia victorious, a fate once utterly unthinkable in Brussels, Washington, and London, but now becoming a nightmarish reality.
Such a defeat would be devastating and potentially terminal for the prestige and reputation of the whole NATO brand. After all, despite the Soviet Union having long ceased to exist, the bloc still markets itself as an indispensable bulwark against imagined Russian expansionism. In the event of an increasingly likely Ukrainian defeat, that ‘essential partner’ in ‘countering Russia’ will have been proven utterly impotent and largely irrelevant. More cynically, the vast US arms industry would also be denied a huge and lucrative market. So, how does a multi billion-dollar machine that has prophesied absolute victory against Russia even begin to contemplate defeat? And how do senior EU bureaucrats like Ursula Von der Leyen climb down from their quasi-religious devotion to the ‘cause’ of utterly defeating Russia, which she has shamelessly evangelized for over a year and a half? Lastly, how does the American administration, which has gone politically, morally, and economically ‘all in’ against Russia in Ukraine, contemplate what amounts to an increasingly inevitable European version of Afghanistan 2.0?
They will need to do two things: Firstly, find someone to blame for their defeat and secondly, find a new enemy to deflect public opinion onto. The ‘someone to blame’ will be quite easy to identify – the narrative will be flush with attacks on states like Hungary, China, and to some extent India, who will be accused of “undermining the unified effort needed to isolate and defeat Russia.”
Blaming Ukraine itself will also be central to this narrative. Western media will insure it’s singled out as incapable of ‘taking the medicine’ proffered by NATO and therefore suffering the consequences, not listening to Western military advice, failing to utilize Western aid correctly and, of course – given that little has been done by Zelensky to tackle the endemic corruption in Ukraine – this fact will be easily weaponized against him and used to lubricate a slick narrative of ‘we tried to help them, but they simply couldn’t be saved from themselves’.
The ‘shift focus to another enemy’ narrative is the simplest and most obvious – that will be China. NATO is already trying to expand its influence in Asia, including via a planned ‘liaison office’ in Japan. The ‘China is the real threat’ narrative is bubbling steadily to the surface in Western media.
And, most worryingly, should Western powers fail to make their case for ‘plausible deniability’ around the culpability for this war, there is always the option of further escalating it. Such an escalation could rapidly lead to direct confrontation between NATO and Russia, an outcome no lucid observer on either side of the debate could or should be contemplating. The problem is, rational assessment and negotiation seem to have become so rare in Washington and Kiev that a devastating escalation could, quite remarkably, be considered an option by the deluded neocon think-tank advisers wielding disproportionate influence over an increasingly desperate political class in Washington and Brussels. In the event that NATO does indeed sanction a direct intervention into Ukraine, it will, of course, be justified as a ‘peacekeeping’ or humanitarian intervention by Polish or Romanian troops, but the categorization of the ‘mission’ will become gloriously irrelevant when the first clashes with Russian forces occur, followed by a potentially rapid spiral into all-out war between Russia and NATO.
It could be argued that the process to disassociate from Ukraine has already started, beginning with the embarrassment Zelensky faced at the recent NATO summit and progressing with the open spats between Western ‘partners’ over whether to give Ukraine ever deadlier weapons to essentially insure its self-destruction.
From here on out one thing is abundantly clear, nothing will happen by accident when it comes to the EU and NATO’s interaction with the Zelensky regime. Whatever comes next may need to be spun both ways, to either pull out or to escalate. A case in point is the blame game being openly acted out around the obvious failure of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, with open finger-pointing in the Western media by Ukrainian officials like the ambassador to Germany, Aleksey Makeev. Kiev’s top man in Germany recently blamed the West for the bloody failure of the ill-fated project, suggesting it was solely due to European and American delays in shipping weapons and cash to Kiev. According to the ambassador, it was this Western failure that apparently allowed the Russians to build their defenses in eastern Ukraine, where tens of thousands of unfortunate Ukrainian conscripts have met their fate in the past three months.
In the real world, the counteroffensive, which has now become a slow-motion calamity, had been telegraphed to the Russians and the wider world for almost a year and will surely be recalled as one of the greatest military misadventures in history. The fact that the Ukrainian regime openly advertised its intentions, even loudly pointing out the avenue of assault and strategic goals, is conveniently ignored by the likes of Makeev. It now seems apparent that Kiev believed that its overt saber-rattling would stimulate faster and larger weapons shipments from its increasingly concerned partners – it didn’t, and by the time those very same sponsors’ patience ran out with Kiev’s lack of progress on the battlefield, it was glaringly obvious any offensive against long-prepared Russian defenses was doomed to fail. Yet, because of Kiev’s PR need and demands from Western political elites, the counteroffensive began, wiping out entire battalions of Ukrainian troops and burning through a huge portion of the Western heavy weapons previously provided.
The situation evokes a kind of tragic romantic folly, with Ukraine desperate to woo NATO and the EU to the point of suicide, NATO and the EU playing the aloof lover; never having really considered marriage but willing to allow its admirer to throw itself onto the spears of the real object of their attention – Russia. Of course, the real concern now preoccupying the EU-NATO cabal is how to survive this tawdry affair and move on. While the hapless Jens Stoltenberg would have us believe NATO has never been stronger, the reality is far less rosy for the ‘defensive alliance’ that has bombed its way across Europe and the Middle East, and now seeks to expand to the Pacific. The reality is that the Ukraine conflict could destroy NATO. It has become something of a modern day League of Nations, adept at admonishing small fish, but utterly incapable of standing toe to toe with any peer adversary, a failed political institution, posing as a military alliance, that in reality would collapse in the face of a direct challenge from either Russia or China. Of course, it seems that NATO has also willfully fallen under the spell of its own propaganda.
The big question now is whether the bloc would in reality contemplate a direct confrontation with Russia in Ukraine? Or will the Western political elites who built the scaffold the Ukrainian conflict is now blazing on choose to reverse through blame or escalate through desperation?
One thing is indisputable: The fate of NATO and its credibility as a ‘defensive alliance’ is irrevocably intertwined with the outcome of the Ukrainian conflict, yet because NATO is, in reality, a political rather than military institution, these crucial issues will never be debated openly, as the answers would be akin to a priest announcing the nonexistence of God from the pulpit.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Save the Children report on north-east Syria detention camps.
Vanessa Beeley Save the Children report on north-east Syria detention camps.
The West accuses Russia of human rights abuses against children, they should look in the mirror
June 2023 – On International Children’s Day, Ambassador Neil Holland says that Ukraine’s children are paying the price of Russian aggression.
Neil Holland was appointed Head of the United Kingdom’s Delegation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in May 2023.
In June 2023 Holland made a statement to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OCSE) – ‘Russia’s brutality towards Ukraine’s children’ in which he said:
Mr. Chair, we also continue to receive disturbing reports of the forced deportation of Ukrainian children by the Russian authorities. As the most recent Moscow Mechanism Report makes clear, these children are exposed to the deep trauma of being separated from their parents. They suffer violations and abuses of their rights, including being forced to relinquish their Ukrainian identity and participate in Russia-centric education. Russia’s forced deportation and attempted indoctrination of Ukrainian children is a despicable and systematic attempt to erase Ukraine’s future.
Holland claims that:
“Each day that Russia chooses to press on with its illegal and unprovoked invasion, Ukrainian children suffer. Children who have their whole lives ahead of them. Children whose futures the Russian authorities seem determined to take away.”
Reality is different to UK FCDO propaganda
The UN Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine said there was evidence of the illegal transfer of hundreds of Ukrainian children to Russia.
In November 2022 I visited eastern Russia and met with refugee families including children in Sterlitamak and the Bashkortostan region. I visited more than three community centres and summer camps that had been converted into reception complexes for these temporarily displaced people who had already endured nine years of ethnic cleansing pogroms by the Kiev regime and Nazi cohorts.
One particular camp was organised in 24 hours to receive refugees from the Mariupol area in April 2022. More than 200 refugees were brought by train to the station in the city before being picked up and driven to the camp.
Psychological help was provided upon arrival for the traumatised families. Medicine and medical care is free with doctors and pharmacists on site.
In March 2023 the UK State media outlet and narrative manager, the BBC, reported:
In some cases, parents or children told the Commission that once in Russia-controlled areas, transferred children were made to wear “dirty clothes, were screamed at, and called names.” They also said that “some children with disabilities did not receive adequate care and medication.”
Cabins with water, electricity and heating are provided for all families. Even family pets were vaccinated, vet checked and welcomed. Residents are given three meals per day, children can play outside or inside in safety and there are playgrounds, football pitches and climbing frames in the grounds of the facility.
The children are being helped to keep up their schooling & integrated into the Russian curriculum. Citizenship is now being organised for those who want it but they all have been given the same labour rights etc as Russian citizens. Free buses are laid on every day to take the families into the town centre.
Margarita Bolycheva who is with the state committee of the Republic of Bashkortostan on foreign economic relations told me she had spent time with Syrian refugees in Berlin and that I should compare their treatment by the German government to the reception given to the refugees from Donbass.
As I said in November 2022:
She is absolutely right. There is no comparison. Here in Russia these displaced people are treated with respect and compassion. They are treated like human beings.
British and EU record of inhumanity towards foreign national children in Syria
In January 2023 a report by Human Rights Watch described the inhumane conditions that British and other nationality children were being forced to endure in north-east Syria.
Caveat: I blame HRW and Amnesty International for much of the propaganda that has provided justification for the regime change war against Syria since 2011. However individuals working for these organisations do provide valuable information from time to time and this report confirms what I have already heard from one or two decent journalists who were able to visit the ISIS camps in the north-east prior to the visits of the HRW staff.
Of the nearly 42,000 foreign Islamic State (ISIS) suspects and family members from 60 countries currently detained in northeast Syria, most are children. Many were taken to Syria by parents who sought to join ISIS or live in the “caliphate.” Others were born in Syria under areas of ISIS control or in the camps where families with alleged ISIS links are detained. Nearly 80 percent of the children are under the age of 12, and far too young to have played an active role in ISIS, yet many governments refuse to take these young nationals back, citing national security concerns or fearing public backlash.
The children are detained in such dire conditions that it might amount to torture. They face increasing risks of becoming victims of torture or radicalisation and recruitment by ISIS. Many children in the ISIS holding camps in north-east Syria – under US direct and proxy occupation – were found to be suicidal.
Many United Nations, counterterrorism, and security experts warn that abandoning these children in the camps and prisons carries greater national security risks than bringing them home.
As of January 23, 2023, nearly 42,000 foreigners remain held in the region along with more than 23,000 Syrians. Nearly 37,000 foreign nationals are detained in al-Hol and Roj, two locked, sprawling camps primarily holding the wives, other adult female relatives, and children of male ISIS suspects. Nearly 27,000 foreigners in the camps are from neighboring Iraq, while nearly 10,000 others are from about 60 other countries. More than 60 percent of the camp detainees are children. Nearly 80 percent of the children are under the age of 12, and 30 percent are age 5 or younger. Approximately 5,000 other foreigners are held in prisons and “rehabilitation” centers, including up to several hundred children.
Detention based only on family ties is collective punishment of these children which amounts to a war crime. Governments whose citizens languish in these makeshift detention camps are complicit in the abuse of these children.
Conditions for these children in Al Hol and Roj camps are “life-threatening, deeply degrading, and in many case, inhumane; their cumulative psychological impact may amount to torture. Medical care, clean water, as well as education and recreation for children are grossly inadequate.”
It is claimed that an estimated 371 children have died in 2019 in Al Hol camp, from preventable disease or hypothermia.
Children have also drowned in sewage pits, died in tent fires, and been hit and killed by water trucks. These children come from many of the countries that have been responsible for the regime change war waged against Syria since 2011.
They suffer violations and abuses of their rights, including being forced to relinquish their Ukrainian identity and participate in Russia-centric education. Neil Holland
According to the HRW report – some younger children attend informal preschool, but most children have no access to education and have missed out on years of schooling.
The camps have become increasingly dangerous and violent, as detainees, including many loyal to ISIS, have carried out attacks against other detainees, camp authorities, and aid workers. The UNreported that 90 people were murdered in al-Hol in 2021, and 42 from January to mid-November 2022.
Child rape and trafficking is rife in these camps.
Conditions are even worse in the prisons and makeshift detention centers where the SDF is holding up to 1,000 detainees, from about 20 countries, who are boys or who were apprehended before they turned 18. In the prisons, overcrowding initially was so severe that many of the detainees slept shoulder to shoulder. Many imprisoned Syrian and foreign boys were initially held in cells with men.
In January 2022, ISIS attacked one prison holding about 700 boys in the city of al-Haskah, sparking a 10-day battle with SDF fighters backed by US and UK forces.
According to local reports more than 500 were killed in this attack including several children. The information and accountability vacuum surrounding the fate of these children could easily suggest that there were more fatalities or disappearances.
Foreign boys can be forcibly removed from their mothers without warning and transferred to “rehabilitation centers”. The majority are as young as 10 and 12. Mothers are not informed of the whereabouts of their sons for weeks, months or not at all. Foreign boys are regularly not allowed contact with their mothers or siblings.
According to Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism:
“The de facto culling, separation, and warehousing of adolescent boys from their mothers is an abhorrent practice inconsistent with the dignity of the child and inconsistent with the most essential of rights any child is entitled to in any circumstances.”
From the HRW report:
From October 2022 to January 14, 2023, at least 10 countries brought some or more nationals home: 1,245 (more than half of them children) toIraq, 4 women and 13 children to Australia, 1 woman and 2 children to Barbados, 2 women and 2 children to Canada, 16 women and 42 children to France, 5 women and 7 children to Germany, 12 women and 28 children to the Netherlands, 38 children to Russia, 1 woman and 1 child to the United Kingdom, and 2 women and 13 children to Spain. France repatriated an additional 15 women and 32 children on January 24, 2023. [Emphasis added]
Russia is one of the countries that has repatriated the majority of nationals in the ISIS camps.
Save the Children noted in December 2022, at current rates, repatriating the more than 23,000 foreign children still held in northeast Syria could take up to three decades.
It has been proven that repatriation and rehabilitation has been largely successful and that the children do return to normalcy after time.
When asked how the child is adjusting overall to their new country of residence, 89 percent of respondents to the online survey—comprised of family members, teachers, and social workers—reported that the child was doing “very well” or “quite well.” Only 4 percent said the child was having difficulties.
According to HRW:
In a bitter irony, many of the same countries with nationals languishing in the camps have accepted thousands of refugee children, who, like children in the camps, have often survived displacement, conflict-related violence, family separation or loss, and interrupted schooling. Canada, for example, accepted approximately 20,000 child refugees from Syria in 2015-2016, and resettled over 3,800 school-aged children from Afghanistan after the Taliban retook power. It has also offered refuge for thousands of children fleeing the war in Ukraine.
EU countries like France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden have made policy choices that increase the difficulty for children to reintegrate and may even cause additional harm. In these countries authorities have immediately separated children from their mothers if the mother is under investigation for offenses related to ISIS without evaluating if separation is in the child’s best interests. This causes significant emotional and psychological distress for the child.
Grandparents or other family members can face arduous investigations before being allowed to assume care of the children, even if they have been in contact with the authorities for years. “In one case, for example, a girl arrived in France at age 5 but spent three years in foster care, even though her grandparents had sought custody even before she came home.”
More than 60 British children trapped in north-east Syria
In 2019 the then UK security minister, Ben Wallace, said he would not put officials’ lives at risk to rescue UK citizens who went to Syria and Iraq to join Islamic State, insisting “actions have consequences”.
“I’m not putting at risk British people’s lives to go looking for terrorists or former terrorists in a failed state,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Alison Griffin, Save the Children’s Head of Conflict and Humanitarian Campaigns, said:
Children in Syria who have fled ISIS-held areas are innocent. Their short lives have been full of violence and fear but with the right care they can bounce back, recover and amaze us. They deserve that chance, no matter what they’ve been dragged into by the decisions of adults.
For the British children among them we can and must give them the safety they need by bringing them to be cared for in the UK.
According to Save the Children there are more than 60 British children trapped in north-east Syria after fleeing ISIS controlled areas. The children, many under five years old, have endured cycles of displacement and inhumane conditions in the various detention camps while British officials condemn them to this life of torture and abuse without conscience.
As Alison Griffin stated:
Children whose parents are alive are just as innocent as those who have been orphaned. All have been put through unimaginable horrors. The Foreign Secretary has said he wants to ensure ‘innocents are not caught in the crossfire’. To play his part to achieve that, he needs to act now while there’s still a window of opportunity and bring all the UK’s children home.
Older children who have lived under ISIS occupation will have witnessed appalling acts of savagery which include beheadings, crucifixion and mass killings. These experiences leave the children with physical and psychological scars and increase their vulnerability to radicalisation and recruitment by ISIS.
One British mother with two young children, a baby and an under five, had fled the “hell” of Baghouz where in 2019 the U.S. criminally bombed women and children during the last days of the ISIS occupation. “Her youngest baby was close to death with bronchiolitis when they arrived at the camp” in north-east Syria.
In 2019, the U.S. military killed dozens of people in Syria, including women and children, in airstrikes conducted during the final days of the war against the Islamic State, but did not disclose its actions for more than two years.
The New York Times reported on the war crime in November 2021:
In the last days of the battle against the Islamic State in Syria, when members of the once-fierce caliphate were cornered in a dirt field next to a town called Baghuz, a U.S. military drone circled high overhead, hunting for military targets. But it saw only a large crowd of women and children huddled against a river bank.
Without warning, an American F-15E attack jet streaked across the drone’s high-definition field of vision and dropped a 500-pound bomb on the crowd, swallowing it in a shuddering blast. As the smoke cleared, a few people stumbled away in search of cover. Then a jet tracking them dropped one 2,000-pound bomb, then another, killing most of the survivors.
UK is funding the expansion of ISIS holding camps
In 2021 the UK provided funding for the expansion of one of the ISIS camps in Hasakah, north-east Syria. Rather than repatriate British nationals the UK FCDO condemned them to a life imprisonment in conditions that are described as inhumane by various Human Rights groups.
According to a report in Defense One – the effort will double in size the current facility at Hasakah, a series of three converted school buildings that holds roughly 5,000 prisoners, according to British Army Maj. Gen. Kevin Copsey, the coalition’s deputy commander for strategy.
A British Ministry of Defense spokesperson confirmed that the U.K. is funding the Hasakah effort, which Copsey called “quite a significant expansion.”
Lt. Gen. Paul Calvert, the commander of the U.S.-led mission admitted the dangers that children faced in Al Hol camp:
A huge proportion of the 65,000 people living at al Hol are children, with two-thirds under the age of 18 and over half under the age of 12. The wives of ISIS fighters are carrying out a daily indoctrination program, he said, and so-called “cubs” are “exported back through the rat lines coming out of al Hol that pushes them down into the Badia desert for additional training and use as [ISIS] fighters.
So, not only is the UK FCDO not showing any enthusiasm for repatriation of British nationals caught up in a terrorist proxy war against the Syrian people that the British regime is facilitating – they are also callously condemning the children of ISIS brides to a lifetime of incarceration with a high risk of abuse, exploitation, trafficking, rape and extremist indoctrination.
Russia’s forced deportation and attempted indoctrination of Ukrainian children is a despicable and systematic attempt to erase Ukraine’s future. Neil Holland
ISIS organ trafficking and role as assassins for the US alliance in Syria
ISIS is also known for increasing revenue through organ trafficking particularly from child victims. According to the World Health Organisation illegal organ trading generates between $600 million and $1.2 billion in profits each year.
Reports from the beginning of the ISIS insurgence in Syria have talked about “medical schools” in northern Syria where organs are extracted. The Iraqi Newsreported that IS has kidnapped and sold many children in Syria to Turkish organ traffickers in order to finance its operations.
“We… have no reason to doubt them given other similar atrocities that have been documented and other heinous crimes for which ISIL has proudly taken credit,” the U.S. State Department said in response to charges of IS’s organ harvesting. In December, the U.S. government revealed that it had obtained an ISIS document during a raid by Special Forces in Syria. “The apostate’s life and organs do not have to be respected and may be taken with impunity,” the document said.
The US military occupiers and oil, private security contractors working in north-east Syria are well aware of these ISIS operations. The UK, a strategic US ally in Syria must also be cognizant of these heinous trafficking rings that will prey on the children trapped in this hostile environment abandoned by their respective governments.
The reality is that the Pentagon has refused to vet proxy militias including ISIS for human rights abuses – apparently preferring to turn a blind eye to the revenue-producing crimes committed by terrorist groups under their control.
It is already wellevidenced that ISIS is not an enemy of the US in Syria and Iraq. Very recently, in March 2023, the Pentagon was reported to be training brigades of ISIS and assorted terrorist groups to increase attacks on civilians, infrastructure and Syrian Arab Army positions.
Why was a very recent Al Monitor detailed report on women’s harrowing accounts of experiences in Syria’s trafficking networks retracted and with no trace on the archive websites?
The shame of Shamima Begum
A spy working for the Canadian Intelligence services smuggled Shamima Begum into Syria and Britain later conspired to cover up Canada’s role in the operation, a new book has claimed. – The Telegraph
Begum was just 15 when she travelled to Syria with Amira Abase, 15, and Kadiza Sultana, 16, fellow pupils at Bethnal Green Academy in east London, in 2015. She was a child.
“Britain has lauded its efforts to stop Isis and the grooming of our children by spending millions of pounds on the Prevent programme and online monitoring.
“However, at the very same time we have been co-operating with a western ally, trading sensitive intelligence with them whilst they have effectively been nabbing British children and trafficking them across the Syrian border for delivery to Isis all in the name of intelligence-gathering.”
Begum was stripped of her citizenship by then-Home-Secretary Sajid Javid. Javid effectively offered 28 days amnesty to British nationals fighting with Al Qaeda, in Idlib, in 2019 but condemned Begum to stateless abuse in Syria despite the UK Intelligence alleged role in her being trafficked as an ISIS bride, aged 15.
A New Yorker headline in 2020 asked a pertinent question:
If Shamima Begum, the ISIS bride, is no longer British, what does citizenship mean?
2019: Begum identified herself to Anthony Loyd, a war reporter for the Times, after he had stopped by the al-Hawl camp on the last day of an assignment. “I am a sister from London. I’m a Bethnal Green girl,” Begum told Loyd. She was anxious about her unborn child. “I’m scared that this baby is going to get sick in this camp,” Begum said. “That’s why I really want to get back to Britain, because I know it will get taken care of, health-wise at least.” Loyd’s story ran on the front page of the newspaper. Five days later, Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary at the time, stripped Begum of her citizenship. Her baby, a boy named Jarrah, died of a respiratory infection, when he was three weeks old.
When human rights reports were circulating in 2019, estimating 60 British children and 30 women in north-east Syria ISIS prisons, the British government said that, since the United Kingdom does not have a consulate in Syria, it would not be able to “provide assistance”. Since then a handful of orphans have allegedly been repatriated.
At the time of Begum being stripped of her citizenship – the British regime had a policy of turning problematic citizens into former citizens.
Richard Barrett, former head of global counter-terrorism for MI6 told the New Yorker:
I think the government position is precisely that. If there is a way of getting rid of the problem to somewhere else, let’s get rid of the problem somewhere else.
Since 2006, Home Secretaries have been able to deprive a person of her British citizenship if it is “conducive to the public good”—a subjective rather than a strict legal test—as long as it does not leave her stateless.
Journalist Anthony Loyd pointed out the UK FCDO manipulation of the law:
International law forbids governments from rendering their citizens stateless. The British government has justified taking away Begum’s nationality on the grounds that her mother is Bangladeshi, and so she is eligible for citizenship until the age of twenty-one. This is a fiction. Begum has never lived in Bangladesh.
This is a purely political decision. Why one would think that Bangladesh had any better capacity to deal with somebody? It doesn’t make any sense.
In refusing Begum’s appeal last week, the U.K.’s Special Immigration Appeals Commission acknowledged that her situation at the al-Roj refugee camp, in northern Syria, exposes her to the risk of torture and degrading treatment.
Anthony Loyd the Times reporter who met with Begum “ was struck by her guilelessness. She was awkward but direct.”. Yes, she was “unfazed” by some of the ISIS atrocities she had witnessed but I have personally met children who could describe terrorist crucifixion of relatives without batting an eyelid after being incarcerated by Western-backed terrorists for years in different areas of Syria. War does that to children.
Former British Ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford gave me this statement:
The UK, so apparently solicitous regarding the children of Ukraine, appears less concerned about some of its own. To the extent in fact of denying them not just a right of abode in the UK but even a right to UK nationality. The most well known case is that of Shamima Begum, an East London teenager encouraged by British government propaganda demonising Assad to join ISIS, and subsequently stripped of her nationality and forced to fester for years in the extremism incubators which are the ISIS prisoner camps in US/UK-controlled Northern Syria.
The sins of mothers being visited on the children, Begum’s children, are consequently also denied their birthright, a chance to live in Britain. For a government which behaves this despicably towards children of its own nation to posture as a children’s champion is a sickening hypocrisy.
Conclusion – the West is collectively hypocritical and is content to incarcerate their own child nationals and put them at risk of torture, abuse and death at hands of terrorists they control
For a government which behaves this despicably towards children of its own nation to posture as a children’s champion is a sickening hypocrisy. – Peter Ford
None of these children, Begum included, exploited and abused by their state of birth should be punished for the alleged crimes of their relatives. The only constructive solution is for western regimes to repatriate their child nationals and provide psychological and trauma support to enable them to reintegrate into society and into their culture of origin.
HRW report:
The unlawful detention in northeast Syria of 23,000 foreign children from dozens of countries has deprived them of their basic rights as children, including the rights to a nationality, health, education, family unity, and freedom from mistreatment and arbitrary detention. Those who have died because of the conditions or circumstances of their detention have been denied the right to life itself.
The HRW report concludes that although several countries have marginally increased the repatriation of child nationals, the rate remains indefensibly low.
Western regimes continue to outsource responsibility for their child nationals to militants, terrorists, child and organ traffickers in north-east Syria. In the process ‘the children’s countries of origin are re-victimizing children who have already endured unimaginable horrors’.
While the West bears responsibility for the mass imprisonment of child nationals in squalid environments where they are preyed upon by all manner of criminals while depriving these children of any meaningful rehabilitation, identity or hope, they cannot take the moral high ground and prosecute Russia for unsubstantiated claims of child abduction in a war zone that the West created.
Officials from the US, UK, and EU are planning to “jointly press” the UAE into halting shipments of goods to Russia that “could help Moscow in its war against Ukraine,’ according to western officials who spoke with the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
Several US and European officials started a trip to the Gulf monarchy on 4 September “as part of a collective global push to keep computer chips, electronic components, and other so-called dual-use products” away from Russia.
Western envoys also traveled “jointly and separately” to countries such as Turkiye and Kazakhstan to pressure authorities into preventing western dual-use products from reaching Russia.
Despite ongoing pressure from the west, Abu Dhabi has not enforced sanctions imposed on Russia, instead deepening cooperation with the Kremlin. Nonetheless, the Gulf nation has condemned the invasion of Ukraine at the UN several times, and an Emirati official told the WSJ that the country enforces UN-imposed sanctions on Russia.
The official added the Gulf state is monitoring the export of dual-use products and is committed to protecting “the integrity of the global financial system.”
In response to the position taken by the UAE, US officials publicly labeled the UAE “a country of focus” earlier this year as they look to clamp down on Russia’s ties with independent nations.
Dubai, in particular, has reaped the benefits of the Emirati government’s neutrality, as Russian nationals have become the largest buying group of real estate in the luxurious Emirate, which has also become a hub for Russian oil traders.
The new pressure campaign from the west comes less than two weeks after the UAE was officially invited to join the Russian and Chinese-led BRICS+ group of nations.
In his famous anti-Vietnam War speech, the late senator from South Dakota George McGovern told fellow Congressional leaders, “This chamber reeks of blood.”
On Saturday, journalist Max Blumenthal opened a hard-hitting talk at the Ron Paul Institute’s “Which Way America…?” conference in D.C.by quoting those words, but applied them to the US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
Blumenthal said that in Ukraine, Washington continues “wasting the lives and bodies of over 150,000 men, and that’s according to the Pentagon.” Citing recent studies on the immense numbers of Ukrainians who have lost limbs after a year-and-a-half of fighting (which could be surpassing WWI rates), he said the true Ukraine casualty count could be closer to 500,000 – which marks a monumental tragedy and disaster.
The GrayZone journalist then said of today’s Congress that “this chamber” not only “reeks of blood” but.. “they have wasted Ukrainian society on the mantle of anti-Russia hysteria” – as lawmakers in lockstep with the Biden administration continue to sink billions into Kiev.
Beltway liberal elites, Blumenthal asserted, still think Russia must be punished given they see Moscow as having brought the “bad orange man” to power in 2016. This is a big ideological aspect to what motivates the hawks, he said.
Further, Blumenthal explained that what’s happening here is that the US ruling class has “militarized the culture wars while depicting Ukraine as the ‘woke side’ vs. Russia as backwards and oppressive.”
But more importantly, the real “victors” are the major US defense contractors and their appendages like the K street neocon lobbying firms. Blumenthal highlighted that these, and the Biden administration, are operating with the bigger vision in mind of turning Ukraine into Europe’s “big Israel”.
By this is meant a permanently militarized ‘Spartan’ wartime state, which is funded and weaponized by Washington in perpetuity, and possesses all the latest cutting edge Western defense tech. But like with the state of things long evident inside Israel (in particular oppression of both Palestinians and Israeli political dissenters), democracy must be eroded at home for this to happen. Still, the defense tech peddlers in the military-industrial complex will ‘win’ no matter how much Ukrainian society and its people are sacrificed.
“In order to defend democracy in Ukraine, democracy must be curtailed at home,” Blumenthal emphasized, drawing lessons from current examples of oppression of free speech in the West, particularly related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
He noted here that his own investigative media outlet, The GrayZone, has had the bulk of its funding frozen by the popular platform GoFundMe. The outlet explained days ago [emphasis ZH]:
By this point, we had raised over $90,000 from over 1100 contributors. The generous contributions from our audience were accompanied by hundreds of messages of effusive support for our factual journalism holding imperial power to account.
And now, Gofundme is holding the donations hostage, refusing to transfer them to us, while failing to inform donors that it has effectively seized their money. The for-profit site has similarly refused to explain its freezing of their donations, issuing nothing more than a vague allusion – “some external concerns” – to pressure from powerful outside forces.
Gofundme’s financial sabotage follows the de facto sanctions imposed by Venmo and Paypal on our managing editor, Wyatt Reed, after he reported on the Ukrainian military’s targeting of civilians from the separatist side of the Donbas region.
Again, this is why Blumenthal could draw on recent personal experience in telling the Ron Paul conference audience that “democracy must be curtailed” in America in order to keep unlimited taxpayer dollars flowing into the Zelensky government’s coffers.
Blumenthal continued… but “now Russia has no incentive to negotiate” given they have the clear military momentum amid a failing Ukraine counteroffensive. The US and UK likely had a window of opportunity in the initial months of the war to more easily open up serious diplomatic peace negotiations, but this was actively thwarted.
“We cannot have peace negotiations while war is being incentivized [by Washington interests] to this point,” he continued while also referencing neocons like Bill Kristol, who has been leading a charge to silence any dissenting views from among Republican nominees and politicians on Ukraine.
“These operatives need constant opportunities” which a permanent proxy war in Europe enables, Blumenthal continued – just like with the constant and historic billions in aid flowing to Israel, which serves to cyclically fuel the accompanying global reach and outsized influence of the Israel lobby.
On this question of whether negotiations are possible even from Kiev’s perspective, Zero Hedge asked Blumenthal what he thinks would happen in the unlikely scenario that Zelensky himself suddenly pursued peace talks with the Russians. Blumenthal responded as follows:
“If Zelensky were to pursue peace talks now before he’s re-elected… due to the kind of social forces that have been unleashed by Maidan, he will face a far-right Nazi insurgency in his own country, and he will become public enemy number one among some of the most violent and militarized forces.
…Which is why he went and met with Andriy Biletsky, the founder of Azov. Zelensky was elected on a platform of peace by 73% of the population because you still had the ethnic Russian population participating in Ukrainian society. They have been completely driven out and the constituency he’s working with is completely different now.”
Below: Last month, Ukrainian President Zelensky held court with one of the most notorious neo-Nazis in modern Ukrainian history, Azov Battalion founder Andriy Biletsky.
Turning Ukraine into “a big Israel” will involve long-term funding to shape and place “America’s unsinkable aircraft carrier not in the Middle East but in Europe,” Blumenthal said.
But as Ukrainians continue to be slaughtered, it won’t be a happy situation for a country to become a “big Israel”, Blumenthal concluded.
Former US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro (from 2011 to 2017) is helping to push this Ukraine as “big Israel” concept forward, Blumenthal pointed out.
A partial list of key elements of Shapiro’s road map for Ukraine was previously published by The Atlantic Council as follows:
Security first: Every Israeli government promises, first and foremost, that it will deliver security—and knows it will be judged on this pledge. Ordinary citizens, not just politicians, pay close attention to security threats—both from across borders and from internal sources— and much of the public chooses who to elect by that metric alone.
The whole population plays a role: The Israeli model goes further than Zelenskyy’s vision of security services deployed to civilian spaces: Most young Israeli adults serve in the military, and many are employed in security-related professions following their service. A common purpose unites the citizenry, making them ready to endure shared sacrifice. Civilians recognize their responsibility to follow security protocols and contribute to the cause. Some even arm themselves (though under strict supervision) to do so. The widespread mobilization of Ukrainian society in collective defense suggests that the country has this potential. In his comments, Zelenskyy reflected this reality when he said security would “come from the strength of every house, every building, every person.”
Self-defense is the only way: If there’s any single principle that animates Israel’s security doctrine, it’s that Israel will defend itself, by itself—and rely on no other country to fight its battles. The tragedies of Jewish history have embedded that lesson deep in the nation’s soul. Ukraine’s own trauma, forced to fight alone against a larger aggressor, reinforces a similar conclusion: Don’t depend on the guarantees of others.
But maintain active defense partnerships: Self-defense doesn’t mean total isolation. Israel maintains active defense partnerships, chiefly with the United States, which provides generous military assistance, but also with other nations with whom it shares intelligence, technology, and training. While Ukraine will probably not join NATO any time soon, it can deepen security partnerships with Alliance members and receive aid, weaponry, intelligence, and training to bolster its self-defense.
Intelligence dominance: From its earliest days, Israel has invested deeply in its intelligence capabilities to ensure that it has the means to detect and deter its enemies—and, when needed, act proactively to strike them. Ukraine will need to upgrade its intelligence services to compete against Russian capabilities and ensure that it’s prepared to prevent and repulse Russian attacks.
Technology is key: Although it relies on US assistance, Israel also chooses homegrown technology solutions for many of its greatest challenges. Multi-layer rocket and missile defenses, counter-drone systems, and tunnel detection technology are just recent examples. Ukraine—already home to bright technological minds—will know what threats it faces more than any partner; investing in its own solutions will allow it to be most responsive and adapt to new threats.
The BRICS revealed its geopolitical priorities when it added three Persian Gulf states to its once exclusive roster of members. Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have been strategically included to put an end to the petrodollar.
The leitmotif of the BRICS Summit meeting in Johannesburg on 22-24 August has been, expectedly, the expansion of the group to include six more member states. While this itself is a stand-alone event, in reality, it dovetails nicely into the group’s core agenda of global multipolarity and the creation of a fairer international trade and finance architecture that is crucial to economic growth.
The Johannesburg II Declaration adopted at the end of the summit modestly mentions toward the very end of the document that the addition of six more members stemmed out of a “consensus on the guiding principles, standards, criteria and procedures of the BRICS expansion process.”
However, the list of six countries – Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE – also gives away some other important clues. For starters, this BRICS consensus is anchored in a profound Russian-Chinese understanding. Also, the BRICS is declaring itself to be a non-western grouping. There is no question that BRICS ascribes the highest importance to Africa and the Persian Gulf region, with Egypt and Ethiopia, the two ancient civilization-states, as the “lynchpin.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov later disclosed that the “consensus” was reached through some “lively discussions” and some serious considerations:
“The weight, prominence and importance of the candidates and their international standing were the primary factors for us. It is our shared view that we must recruit like-minded countries into our ranks that believe in a multipolar world order and the need for more democracy and justice in international relations. We need those who champion a bigger role for the Global South in global governance. Six countries whose accession was announced today fully meet these criteria.”
The BRICS expansion process was thought to be very controversial, but the unity of the group held nicely. The mother of all surprises has been India’s shift to a proactive role, belying all western predictions. This creates a new ambiance for the India-China relationship, as President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi indeed broke the ice.
With so much focus on West Asia and Africa, Brazil may have seemed like an outlier, but Argentina’s inclusion calmed Brazil’s sense of unease; China sought Ethiopia’s inclusion; Russia wanted Egypt’s inclusion. India, too was gratified that it enjoys historically friendly and close relations with all six newcomers.
Credit for this may need to go to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, whose diplomatic skill and sheer perseverance put together the algorithm behind the BRICS expansion.
Lavrov has visited Pretoria no less than four times after Russia’s special military operations [SMO] began in February last year. To be sure, the Kremlin’s hearts and minds machine was steaming ahead: South Africa hosted a joint military exercise with Russia on the first anniversary of the SMO, and President Cyril Ramaphosa visited Moscow twice this year. Simply put, he held President Vladimir Putin’s hands as Russia asserted its “non-isolation.” The BRICS summit’s outcome bears testimony to it.
Unravelling of the petrodollar
But what truly stands out in the BRICS expansion is the preponderance of member states from the Persian Gulf region — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Iran.
So, what has been the game plan in bringing on board three of the world’s most important energy superpowers? Putin has voiced more than once the Russian assessment that for a long time to come, the world economy, including the western economies, cannot do without hydrocarbons as a major source of energy to run efficient, cost-effective means of production.
Russia and Saudi Arabia alone account for a quarter of the world’s oil production. Russia and Iran hold the world’s first and second-largest gas reserves in the world.
If the Ukraine war has shown anything, it is that countries rich in commodities cannot be browbeaten. The issue here is about the willingness and space that these resource-rich states enjoyed to exercise their strategic autonomy. The Cold War era didn’t allow for any space. But the co-relation of forces has dramatically changed, especially as the post-Cold War “unipolar moment” has vanished.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE exemplify this best. Having been close US allies for decades, they are now diversifying their external relations, including with China and Russia, whom Washington regards as sworn enemies. Iran, too, under the burden of extreme US and EU sanctions, today boasts a strategic partnership with both Moscow and Beijing.
The salience here is that these three oil-producing countries are also open to trading oil in non-dollar currencies. What the US did to Russia last year by seizing its hundreds of billions of dollar reserves sent shock waves all across the so-called petrodollar states of the Persian Gulf and beyond.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov expressed satisfaction a few weeks ago that the process of de-dollarization in the global economy “is going relentlessly. The use of national currencies has already become a reality now, a reality growing at a global scale. Not merely countries facing sanction restrictions but also the ones not facing them are resorting to this practice – they understand the benefits of this regime in the foreign economic [activity].”
In fact, in July, “non-sanctioned” India and the UAE signed an agreement to settle trade in rupees instead of dollars, boosting India’s efforts to cut transaction costs by eliminating dollar conversions. One needs only to know that India-UAE bilateral trade last year was a whopping $84.5 billion. The first transactions between the two countries under the new agreement, including in oil and gold, have already commenced.
All indications are that the possible creation of a single BRICS currency figured in the discussions in Johannesburg. Putin made a reference to it in his media statement, saying: “I believe that a single settlement currency definitely deserves our attention. This is a complex issue, but we have to move towards resolving it in one way or another.”
There is every likelihood that this complex discussion will advance through the next two BRICS summits in 2024 and 2025 under the presidency of Russia and Brazil, respectively, two member states that are supportive of the idea of a common currency.
In sum, with the induction of the three major oil-producing nations of the Persian Gulf, BRICS 2023 will mark the beginning of the petrodollar’s unraveling. This is a huge step toward a multipolar world. The new settlement mechanisms, common currency, et al, will steadily dethrone the dollar, liberating the world economy from the clutches of the US Federal Reserve.
Fortifying the Global South
The rationale behind the induction of the three West Asian oil states — along with Egypt and Ethiopia — can also be assessed in terms of the imperatives of regional connectivity with the African continent, which Russia and China regard as being on the cusp of a historic economic transformation. By 2050, manufacturing spending alone is projected to reach $1 trillion in Africa, offering tremendous opportunities for global businesses.
But effective intra-African integration will be critical to the continent’s economic transformation. Russia hopes to connect the Persian Gulf region to the International North–South Transport Corridor, a 7,200-km-long multi-mode network of ship, rail, and road route for moving freight, and extend it further beyond to the African market.
Moscow is discussing with Cairo the establishment of a special economic zone in the vicinity of the Suez Canal. Saudi Arabia is expanding a sweeping railway network connecting the north and south. A string of new ports is being planned along the Saudi and Emirati coastline.
In the final analysis, the big question is whether what took place in Johannesburg is the expansion of BRICS as a “stand-alone” event. Certainly, the overnight appearance of six important states under its canopy – who will assume full BRICS membership from 1 January, 2024 – short-circuited all procedural, protracted procedures as is customary in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) or the European Union.
The sense of urgency is palpable. No questions asked; no interrogation ensued; no compliance report expected from the new hand-picked member states. The countries, each a regional power with its own credentials, simply walked into a red carpet welcome.
To be sure, much confabulation and quiet discussions between Russia and China paved the way. Russians are superb in distinguishing tactics from strategy, and in this case, they happen to blend with the world order that Moscow has been espousing.
Taken together with the profound reform of trade and payments that is already in the works, what is happening is no less than the replacement of the international trading system that has been governed exclusively by the west for the past few centuries with the objective of transferring wealth from the rest of the world to their manicured “garden.” Unless the collective west shows the sagacity to adjust to new realities, weeds may soon start taking over its “garden” and turn it into a jungle. Europe’s economic recovery is going to be challenging.
Turbulent times ahead
In sum, the historical significance of the BRICS expansion needs to be weighed in the following terms: First, Iran and two erstwhile US regional allies, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, get much-needed space to negotiate an equal relationship with Washington based on mutual respect and benefit. Make no mistake, they are in a mood to capitalize on it.
Second, the western dominance of West Asia is ending, in a historical sense, heralding a profound shift in the regional order. The process that China kickstarted – with quiet Russian support from behind the curtain – in mediating the Saudi-Iranian reconciliation will now advance toward its logical conclusion sooner rather than later.
This means that the west’s colonial mindset of “divide and rule” will have no takers anymore among regional states. Thus, what happened in Johannesburg would be consequential for Israel and Turkey as well.
Finally, most importantly, the de-dollarization process, which would have moved at a snail’s pace, will now accelerate. What Putin had warned when the Biden administration imposed the “sanctions from hell” against Russia — especially its ouster from the SWIFT payment system —namely, that there would be a very heavy price to pay by the United States, is coming true. The blowback is only beginning in the international financial and trading system.
The west simply cannot win in the looming confrontation with the Global Majority. And the transition can be addressed by Washington only through reconciliation with Moscow and Beijing, not an easy poison for the Americans to swallow.
That will have to begin with an end to the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and a retreat or abandonment of the attempt to fuel tensions with China over Taiwan. On the other hand, any change of course in the US strategy away from its belligerent militarized policies will have long-term implications for the entire US-led western alliance system, while in the short term, impacting President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign, too. The humiliating defeat in the Ukraine war cannot be covered up any longer.
The times ahead will be turbulent as the old, self-centered, hegemonic western mindset won’t surrender easily. As for the entrenched interest groups in the US and Europe, their basic instinct will be to manufacture delaying tactics to stall the march of history. But it won’t work if BRICS stays the course.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
A general view of a base of the United Nations peacekeeping forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) at the border between Lebanon and occupied Palestine, in the southern village of Markaba, Friday, April 7, 2023 (AP)
As the UNIFIL mission nears its expiry date, the US, France, and their allies, seek to turn UNIFIL into an independent body unlinked to the Lebanese Armed Forces in favor of Israeli security.
The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) mission is set to expire on August 31st, 2023, and as such the UN Security Council (UNSC) has begun discussions to renew the UNIFIL missions in Lebanon. However, the UNSC has been seeking to implement certain changes pertaining to the extent and limitations of the UNIFIL activities in Lebanon as those are bound, for now, by a certain agreement between Lebanon, through its Armed Forces, and the UNSC.
In a new report published by the Lebanese newspaper, Al-Akhbar, it was revealed that Lebanon’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Abdullah Bou Habib was two days late to join the UNSC meetings debating the decision to extend the UNIFIL mission on August 31st, and the framework anticipated the new era.
Lebanon delays engagement: ‘cannot persuade the West’
While Bou Habib flew to join the council on Thursday morning, the Lebanese Diplomatic-Military delegation, set to conduct discussions, according to Al-Akhbar, aims to “coordinate with members of the Council, in particular the major Powers, to arrive at a formula suited to Lebanon’s prerogatives in terms of the competence of the international forces.”
The Lebanese authorities, according to the report, had not been keeping up with the military, political, and diplomatic movement of the US, France, and their allies, vis-a-vis the decision to extend UNIFIL. Only two months ago Lebanon began tracking such movements despite the fact that tensions at the southern Israeli withdrawal line have been mounting for several months.
The delay reminded the report and brought back memories of a similar incident that happened a year ago when Lebanon was also delayed in engaging in the extension talks resulting in the country playing “the role of recipient of the extension resolution,” which was amended.
Al-Akhbar notes that last year, the amendments included granting the UNIFIL mission the “freedom of movement to their soldiers and vehicles without keeping pace with or taking authorization from the [Lebanese] army.” In other words, UNIFIL will be able to move amidst local regions both announced and unannounced and independent of Lebanese Armed Forces convoys.
Al-Akhbar stressed that such actions made the Lebanese authorities appear to continue to be “prisoners of the same [old] policies that are based on the satisfaction of the major Powers, especially the United States.”
According to Al-Akhbar, communications between Bou Habib and Lebanese Prime Miniter of the caretaker government Najib Mikati depicted great pessimism in Lebanon’s ability to alter any of the already suggested and drafted amendments made by the US, France, and allies, during the past two months. As such, it appeared, Al-Akhbar underscored, that the most the two officials had hoped for was “a reference, albeit shy, to the importance of coordination between the international forces and the Lebanese Armed Forces.”
The report noted that alongside Mikati and Bou Habib, a number of government and military officials either allied to the US or are considered in a way affiliated to it, have argued that “Lebanon cannot persuade the West.” As a result, it added, there has been a clear crackdown amongst the negotiation military-diplomatic delegation at the UNSC given that those not close to the US argued that “Lebanon can work vigorously with Russian and Chinese support to achieve the goal.”
Americo-Israeli goals embedded in extension clauses
Al-Akhbar also revealed, citing its sources, that the US has been exerting pressure on Lebanese officials to adhere to the new French draft of the extension of the UNIFIL.
On Monday, August 21, Washington’s Security Council delegate, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, opened her statement at the UNSC with a discussion of events in Occupied Palestine, condemning the operations carried out by the Resistance as it aims to liberate the country from Israeli occupation.
The delegate then connects the events and Israeli security concerns with Lebanese events and the new French draft for the UNIFIL extension.
Thomas-Greenfield said “The United States also remains deeply concerned by Hezbollah’s provocative actions along the blue line. This represents an increasing threat to Lebanon’s peace and security, as well as Israel’s,” adding that “We [US] are committed to extending a robust UNIFIL Mission that can perform its duties independent of the Lebanese Armed Forces.”
In this statement for Thomas-Greefield, the US has integrated and linked the renewal of UNIFIL with the “freedom of movement clause”. Al-Akhbar highlighted the equation imposed by the US delegate as such: “There is no going back and no extension without freedom of movement.”
Not only did the US link the “freedom of movement” clause as a prerequisite for the extension of UNIFIL, Thomas-Greenfield, according to the report, had also added a clause stating there will be imposed “national duties that will correct the performance of the Lebanese Armed Forces accused by America, Israel and their allies of not carrying out their border duties to pursue Hezbollah’s activities.”
Al-Akhbar sources further indicated that in addition, the renewal decision “may entail a decision by the European Community directing its UNIFIL units, in particular France, which has over 900 military personnel, to take appropriate action to carry out its mission and to maintain the security of its soldiers and civilians.”
Al-Akhbar then went on to link the delay of Bou Habib, which was allegedly due to a lack of funds for travel, to the submission of some Lebanese authorities to US pressure and demands. Al-Akhbar revealed that Bou Habib was clearly under US pressure, a hypothesis further proven when the Ministry of Finance announced, on August 23, that it had disbursed travel provisions as early as July 19.
The newspaper’s report also emphasized that not only did Mikati delay Bou Habib’s travel, he even withdrew his delegate, Ziad Mikati, from the military-diplomatic delegation accompanying Bou Habib to New York, noting that Ziad Mikati was withdrawn from the delegation right before Bou Habib would have requested, on behalf of Hezbollah and Amal movement, to join Bou Habib as part of the diplomatic-military delegation.
According to the newly published report, Mikati has positioned himself in a non-confrontational manner, saying that the extension has become a reality, a fait accompli, regardless of Lebanon’s concerns regarding the amendments, including freedom of movement. There is no need to confront America and France.”
It is also worth noting that Bou Habib had reduced his stay in New York to four days despite that it was initially supposed to extend from August 22 until September 1.
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 