newsweek | Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was booed by members of the audience of The View after expressing regret for his endorsement of President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Boos were heard on Friday morning after the airing of a short clip from a recent Fox News
interview with the actor and professional wrestling star, who is set to
return to the ring for the first time in eight years at this weekend's
WWE WrestleMania event.
Johnson said that he was not "happy with the state of America" in the
clip and revealed that he would not be endorsing Biden in this year's
election because he feels his 2020 endorsement had caused "division."
"The
endorsement that I made years ago with Biden was one that I thought was
the best decision for me at that time," Johnson said. "Am I going to do
that again this year? That answer's no, I'm not going to do that."
"I realized what that caused back then was something that tears me up in my guts—back then and now—which is division," he added.
The View crowd responded to Johnsons remarks by loudly booing, seemingly taking co-host Joy Behar and the show's other co-hosts by surprise with their overwhelmingly negative response.
"Should I pay any attention to someone who gives an interview on Fox
where they lie every day?" Behar asked the crowd, before questioning
whether celebrities should "endorse public figures" or "keep their
politics to themselves."
Some in the audience could be heard responding "no" after Behar asked
if celebrities should make endorsements. A short time later, the crowd
made their opinions on former President Donald Trump's 2024 candidacy clear after co-host Sunny Hostin weighed in.
"I
do think we're living in a time where we have someone [Trump] running
for president that is an existential threat to democracy," Hostin said,
prompting loud cheers and applause from the audience.
"Now is the time—if you have a platform—you must be active, you must speak out," she added, drawing additional applause.
While endorsing Biden in 2020, Johnson described himself as a "political
independent and centrist" who was making his first public endorsement
due to the outcome of the election being "critical."
mid.ru | White House spokesman John Kirby’s statement, made in Washington
shortly after the attack, raised eyebrows even at home, not only outside
the United States. At first, he said he needed “more time, and we need
to learn more information” on the Crocus City Hall attack for the pieces
of the puzzle to fall into place. Finally, one would think, someone
sees reason – we need to wait for at least some preliminary examination
results, for interrogations and investigative actions. But no, after
just a couple of hours, the pieces must have clicked together. The White
House and the State Department declared that Ukraine had no role in the
attack. What grounds or what information did they have to draw this
conclusion? This was absolutely unclear. One thing was clear though.
They started finding excuses for the Kiev regime in order to get
themselves off the hook. Everyone is perfectly aware that there is no
independent Kiev regime without Western financial support or military
aid.
When asked
whether the United States knew about the attack in advance, Mr Kirby
referred the reporter to the State Department. Think about it, this is
important. To answer the question of who was behind the terrorist attack
in Russia, it only took the State Department and the White House a
couple hours. They immediately said who was responsible. But when the
White House was asked whether the Biden administration or the US
intelligence community had officially transferred relevant materials to
Moscow, they couldn’t answer that question. They referred the
journalists to other agencies. How can this be? This is their area of
responsibility and competence. Why were they not ready to answer for
their own actions, while being quick to write a “prescription” for a
case they had absolutely no knowledge of, given that they had no facts
on hand (at least, the United States never said they had any).
Let me remind
you that on March 7, the US Embassy urged its citizens to avoid
shopping malls. The embassies of other NATO countries did the same,
which indicated that their intelligence services had some information
about possible attacks.
The apparent
synchronicity between the condolences extended by the Western
governments and Washington’s statements has not gone unnoticed: US
satellites published them (mostly on social media) only after getting a
clear go-ahead from their Big Brother. A few NATO countries stood out
though. Sweden, a newcomer to NATO, confined itself to a brief comment
that they were “following the developments” in the first hours after the
attack. Only when they caught on to the general tone of other comments
did Stockholm express its condolences in a manner more befitting the
situation. In the same vein, Moldovan officials managed to get out a few
meager words only after harsh condemnation by opposition politicians
and the Russian-speaking diaspora. Moldovan nationals could have been
there – not only Moldovans by passport, but by ethnic origins or
kinship. But the authorities in Chisinau could not find a few words of
sympathy.
Lithuanian
Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis published a totally outrageous
post in response to the attack: “Let's not lose focus.” It isn’t “focus”
that they can lose. They do not want to lose the aim. But then that
should have been the way to say it. Ireland, Canada and New Zealand
tried to remain silent, delaying their response as long as they could.
As I said,
the Zelensky regime was the only one that accused Russia of involvement
in the Crocus attack. Later they said they were misunderstood and they
didn’t mean what they said. No, we got it perfectly right. We saw and we
saved every video, audio, and screenshots of messages posted online or
shown on television during those hours. We saw officials representing
the Kiev regime, and others, who call themselves Ukrainian journalists
(in fact, they are not even propagandists, but simply troubadours of
terror), spend hours ranting about Russia’s guilt and the country’s
leaders’ role in the terrorist attack, under headlines like “Moscow is
killing its own citizens.”
As a
reminder, American liberal Democrats have been financing the terrorist
activities of the Kiev crime ring for a long time, not a year or two, or
even five. It began under the Obama Administration, when Joe Biden, who
is now President of the United States, was Vice President. In ten
years, Ukraine has been transformed by the West into a centre for the
spread of terrorism. However, ignoring this “dancing on the graves”
organised by Ukrainian propagandists, people from all continents are
extending their heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of the
victims, wishing a speedy recovery to the injured and strongly
condemning this terrible attack against innocent civilians.
We are
thankful to everyone worldwide who responded with compassion to the
tragic terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall. Heads of state and
government, heads of government agencies, international organisations,
non-profit organisations, religious groups, and concerned citizens have
all shown their sympathy in the face of this terrible tragedy. In
moments like these, the true nature of a person is revealed. However, we
cannot overlook the monstrous and misanthropic remarks made by
Ukrainian professional propagators of terrorism. The actions and
statements of the Kiev regime adepts underscore their moral decline and
ugly Nazi nature. Unfortunately, the mainstream Western media fail to
shed light on this dark side of modern blatant neo-Nazism in Ukraine,
which is rooted in hatred towards all things Russian. They are not
ridiculed in caricatures, nor are they held accountable by international
human rights organisations, or subjected to “cancel culture” for their
reprehensible statements and actions. Instead, they are rewarded with
even more financial support. But for what purpose? As George W. Bush
once remarked, to enable them to kill even more Russians. It appears
that the representatives of the White House and the current Biden
administration have embraced this notion, deeming it a beneficial
arrangement.
strategic culture | Let’s start with the possible chain of events that may have led to
the Crocus terror attack. This is as explosive as it gets. Intel sources
in Moscow discreetly confirm this is one of the FSB’s prime lines of
investigation.
December 4, 2023. Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, Gen Mark Milley, only 3 months after his retirement, tells CIA
mouthpiece The Washington Post: “There should be no Russian who goes to
sleep without wondering if they’re going to get their throat slit in the
middle of the night (…) You gotta get back there and create a campaign
behind the lines.”
January 31: Victoria Nuland travels to Kiev and meets
Budanov. Then, in a dodgy press conference at night in the middle of an
empty street, she promises “nasty surprises” to Putin: code for
asymmetric war.
February 22: Nuland shows up at a Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS) event and doubles down on the “nasty
surprises” and asymmetric war. That may be interpreted as the definitive
signal for Budanov to start deploying dirty ops.
February 25: The New York Times publishes a story about CIA cells in Ukraine: nothing that Russian intel does not already know.
Then, a lull until March 5 – when crucial shadow play may have been
in effect. Privileged scenario: Nuland was a key dirty ops plotter
alongside the CIA and the Ukrainian GUR (Budanov). Rival Deep State
factions got hold of it and maneuvered to “terminate” her one way or
another – because Russian intel would have inevitably connected the
dots.
Yet Nuland, in fact, is not “retired” yet; she’s still presented as
Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and showed up recently in
Rome for a G7-related meeting, although her new job, in theory, seems to
be at Columbia University (a Hillary Clinton maneuver).
Meanwhile, the assets for a major “nasty surprise” are already in
place, in the dark, and totally off radar. The op cannot be called off.
March 5: Little Blinken formally announces Nuland’s “retirement”.
March 7: At least one Tajik among the four-member terror commando visits the Crocus venue and has his photo taken.
March 7-8 at night: U.S. and British embassies
simultaneously announce a possible terror attack on Moscow, telling
their nationals to avoid “concerts” and gatherings within the next two
days.
March 9: Massively popular Russian patriotic singer Shaman
performs at Crocus. That may have been the carefully chosen occasion
targeted for the “nasty surprise” – as it falls only a few days before
the presidential elections, from March 15 to 17. But security at Crocus
was massive, so the op is postponed.
March 22: The Crocus City Hall terror attack.
ISIS-K: the ultimate can of worms
The Budanov connection is betrayed by the modus operandi – similar to
previous Ukraine intel terror attacks against Daria Dugina and Vladimir
Tatarsky: close reconnaissance for days, even weeks; the hit; and then a
dash for the border.
And that brings us to the Tajik connection.
There seem to be holes aplenty in the narrative concocted by the
ragged bunch turned mass killers: following an Islamist preacher on
Telegram; offered what was later established as a puny 500 thousand
rubles (roughly $4,500) for the four of them to shoot random people in a
concert hall; sent half of the funds via Telegram; directed to a
weapons cache where they find AK-12s and hand grenades.
The videos show that they used the machine guns like pros; shots were
accurate, short bursts or single fire; no panic whatsoever; effective
use of hand grenades; fleeing the scene in a flash, just melting away,
almost in time to catch the “window” that would take them across the
border to Ukraine.
All that takes training. And that also applies to facing nasty
counter-interrogation. Still, the FSB seems to have broken them all –
quite literally.
A potential handler has surfaced, named Abdullo Buriyev. Turkish
intel had earlier identified him as a handler for ISIS-K, or Wilayat
Khorasan in Afghanistan. One of the members of the Crocus commando told
the FSB their “acquaintance” Abdullo helped them to buy the car for the
op.
And that leads us to the massive can of worms to end them all: ISIS-K.
The alleged emir of ISIS-K, since 2020, is an Afghan Tajik, Sanaullah
Ghafari. He was not killed in Afghanistan in June 2023, as the
Americans were spinning: he may be currently holed up in Balochistan in
Pakistan.
Yet the real person of interest here is not Tajik Ghafari but Chechen
Abdul Hakim al-Shishani, the former leader of the jihadi outfit Ajnad
al-Kavkaz (“Soldiers of the Caucasus”), who was fighting against the
government in Damascus in Idlib and then escaped to Ukraine because of a
crackdown by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – in another one of those
classic inter-jihadi squabbles.
Shishani was spotted on the border near Belgorod during the recent
attack concocted by Ukrainian intel inside Russia. Call it another
vector of the “nasty surprises”.
Shishani had been in Ukraine for over two years and has acquired
citizenship. He is in fact the sterling connection between the nasty
motley crue Idlib gangs in Syria and GUR in Kiev – as his Chechens
worked closely with Jabhat al-Nusra, which was virtually
indistinguishable from ISIS.
Shishani, fiercely anti-Assad, anti-Putin and anti-Kadyrov, is the
classic “moderate rebel” advertised for years as a “freedom fighter” by
the CIA and the Pentagon.
Some of the four hapless Tajiks seem to have followed
ideological/religious indoctrination on the internet dispensed by
Wilayat Khorasan, or ISIS-K, in a chat room called Rahnamo ba Khuroson.
The indoctrination game happened to be supervised by a Tajik, Salmon
Khurosoni. He’s the guy who made the first move to recruit the commando.
Khurosoni is arguably a messenger between ISIS-K and the CIA.
The problem is the ISIS-K modus operandi for any attack never
features a fistful of dollars: the promise is Paradise via martyrdom.
Yet in this case it seems it’s Khurosoni himself who has approved the
500 thousand ruble reward.
After handler Buriyev relayed the instructions, the commando sent the bayat
– the ISIS pledge of allegiance – to Khurosoni. Ukraine may not have
been their final destination. Another foreign intel connection – not
identified by FSB sources – would have sent them to Turkey, and then
Afghanistan.
That’s exactly where Khurosoni is to be found. Khurosoni may have
been the ideological mastermind of Crocus. But, crucially, he’s not the
client.
The Ukrainian love affair with terror gangs
Ukrainian intel, SBU and GUR, have been using the “Islamic” terror
galaxy as they please since the first Chechnya war in the mid-1990s.
Milley and Nuland of course knew it, as there were serious rifts in the
past, for instance, between GUR and the CIA.
Following the symbiosis of any Ukrainian government post-1991 with
assorted terror/jihadi outfits, Kiev post-Maidan turbo-charged these
connections especially with Idlib gangs, as well as north Caucasus
outfits, from the Chechen Shishani to ISIS in Syria and then ISIS-K. GUR
routinely aims to recruit ISIS and ISIS-K denizens via online chat
rooms. Exactly the modus operandi that led to Crocus.
One “Azan” association, founded in 2017 by Anvar Derkach, a member of
the Hizb ut-Tahrir, actually facilitates terrorist life in Ukraine,
Tatars from Crimea included – from lodging to juridical assistance.
The FSB investigation is establishing a trail: Crocus was planned by
pros – and certainly not by a bunch of low-IQ Tajik dregs. Not by
ISIS-K, but by GUR. A classic false flag, with the clueless Tajiks under
the impression that they were working for ISIS-K.
The FSB investigation is also unveiling the standard modus operandi
of online terror, everywhere. A recruiter focuses on a specific profile;
adapts himself to the candidate, especially his – low – IQ; provides
him with the minimum necessary for a job; then the candidate/executor
become disposable.
Everyone in Russia remembers that during the first attack on the
Crimea bridge, the driver of the kamikaze truck was blissfully unaware
of what he was carrying,
As for ISIS, everyone seriously following West Asia knows that’s a
gigantic diversionist scam, complete with the Americans transferring
ISIS operatives from the Al-Tanf base to the eastern Euphrates, and then
to Afghanistan after the Hegemon’s humiliating “withdrawal”. Project
ISIS-K actually started in 2021, after it became pointless to use ISIS
goons imported from Syria to block the relentless progress of the
Taliban.
Ace Russian war correspondent Marat Khairullin has added another juicy morsel to this funky salad: he convincingly unveils the MI6 angle in the Crocus City Hall terror attack (in English here, in two parts, posted by “S”).
The FSB is right in the middle of the painstaking process of cracking
most, if not all ISIS-K-CIA/MI6 connections. Once it’s all established,
there will be hell to pay.
But that won’t be the end of the story. Countless terror networks are
not controlled by Western intel – although they will work with Western
intel via middlemen, usually Salafist “preachers” who deal with
Saudi/Gulf intel agencies.
The case of the CIA flying “black” helicopters to extract jihadists
from Syria and drop them in Afghanistan is more like an exception – in
terms of direct contact – than the norm. So the FSB and the Kremlin will
be very careful when it comes to directly accusing the CIA and MI6 of
managing these networks.
But even with plausible deniability, the Crocus investigation seems
to be leading exactly to where Moscow wants it: uncovering the crucial
middleman. And everything seems to be pointing to Budanov and his goons.
Ramzan Kadyrov dropped an extra clue. He said the Crocus “curators”
chose on purpose to instrumentalize elements of an ethnic minority –
Tajiks – who barely speak Russian to open up new wounds in a
multinational nation where dozens of ethnicities live side by side for
centuries.
In the end, it didn’t work. The Russian population has handed to the
Kremlin total carte blanche to exercise brutal, maximum punishment –
whatever and wherever it takes.
TAE | From what I’ve read so far, ISIS is about the least likely suspect
for the Crocus massacre. If only because the CIA fingered them within
minutes of the event. Russia will need to do a very thorough
investigation, and hard evidence, to keep its people calm. Andrew
Korybko has more:
Andrew Korybko:
Speculation has swirled since Friday night’s terroristattack
at the Crocus City Hall venue in Moscow over whether ISIS-K was really
responsible like the group claimed or if Ukraine’s military-intelligence
service GUR orchestrated everything under the cover of its agents
posing as members of that group. The Mainstream Media is running with
the first scenario while doing their utmost to discredit the second, but
recalling the GUR’s terrorist history and ties with radical Islamists
shows that it’s not above suspicion.
The modern-day GUR is a product of the CIA, which certainly shared
with its protégés everything that it learned while waging the ongoing HybridWar
on Syria, not to mention their terrorist contacts as well. It was
through this meticulous cultivation that GUR chief Kirill Budanov
obtained his bloodlust that was on full display last spring when he declared
that “we’ve been killing Russians and we will keep killing Russians
anywhere on the face of this world until the complete victory of
Ukraine.”
For as lethal as the GUR has become over the past decade, it’s still a
CIA knockoff, which is why it’s expected to make sloppy mistakes from
time to time. This is relevant when it comes to the latest attack after
ISIS-K claimed responsibility using an outdated news template,
thus suggesting that someone else claimed credit in their name at first
but then ISIS-K opportunistically ran with it for clout. Considering
its terrorist history and ties with radical Islamists, that mysterious
actor was arguably the GUR.
What likely happened is that their agents posed as members of that
terrorist group in order to retain plausible deniability in case the
planned attack was foiled or the terrorists were caught afterwards. One
of the Tajiks who was captured in the car that was racing towards the
Ukrainian border claimed
that they were recruited by the curators of a radical Telegram channel
just a month ago to carry out the attack using already cached arms in
exchange for a debit card payment of around $5000 each.
These nationals were probably chosen by the GUR since some of them
are predisposed to religious radicalism due to the lingering legacy of
Tajikistan’s Islamist-inspired civil war from the 1990s, their country
abuts ISIS-K’s Afghan headquarters, and they have visa-free travel privileges to Russia.
Accordingly, they were allegedly recruited via a radical Telegram
channel, ISIS-K’s involvement doesn’t seem entirely implausible, and
they were able to easily enter Russia with minimal scrutiny.
They weren’t radical enough to go out with guns blazing or in a
suicide blast like ISIS-K is known for, however, but were still
sufficiently sympathetic with that group’s ideology to carry out what
they believed was its latest mission in exchange for money. This
explains why they fled from the scene of the crime, which is contrary to
what any affiliate of that group would ever do, after machine-gunning
dozens of people and setting fire to the venue.
Had they reached Ukraine, where the FSB confirmed that they had contacts and President Putin said
that “a window was prepared for them…to cross over”, then they’d likely
have been killed by the GUR to cover everything up. It shouldn’t be
forgotten that this group learned how to conduct terrorism from the CIA,
which in turn perfected this practice in Syria over the past 13 years
of the Hybrid War that it’s been waging there, but the GUR is still a
knockoff and that’s why they made three sloppy mistakes.
In the order that they occurred, their first mistake was recruiting
people who weren’t ready to fight to the death at the scene of their
forthcoming terrorist attack. This led to the culprits being captured
and spilling the beans about how they were recruited in exchange for
money, which is one of the signs that ISIS-K wasn’t behind what happened
since their members always expect to die as “martyrs”. Accordingly, the
fact that this mistake was made suggests that the GUR was desperate to
go through with their plans.
The second mistake was that they didn’t tell their proxies to flee to
a safe house right after the attack to meet a contact that’ll then help
them reach the border later on but who’d actually kill them once they
meet in order to cover everything up. This led to them racing towards
the Ukrainian border, thus showing everyone that they at the very least
felt that they’d find sanctuary there, which made Russia’s claim of
Ukrainian involvement much more believable for many skeptical
Westerners.
And finally, the last mistake was that the GUR used an outdated news
template to claim credit for the attack on behalf of ISIS-K, who they
correctly predicted would opportunistically run with it for clout. By
doing so, however, they signaled that the group itself didn’t play a
role in organizing what happened otherwise their more modern template
would have been used instead. Taken together, these three sloppy
mistakes discredited the Mainstream Media’s narrative and drew attention
to the GUR instead.
Coupled with its terrorist history and ties with radical Islamic
groups, which respectively prove that it has the capabilities and intent
to carry out the Crocus attack as well as the knowledge required to
impersonate extremists online for recruiting purposes, all of this makes
the GUR the prime suspect. It learned everything about terrorism from
the CIA, but since it’s still a knockoff, it made a series of sloppy
mistakes that resulted in incriminating Ukraine instead of lending false
credence to the ISIS-K narrative.
strategic culture |Exhibit 1: Friday, March 22, 2024. It’s War. The Kremlin, via Peskov, finally admits it, on the record.
The money quote:
“Russia cannot allow the existence on its borders of a state that has
a documented intention to use any methods to take Crimea away from it,
not to mention the territory of new regions.”
Translation: the Hegemon-constructed Kiev mongrel is doomed, one way
or another. The Kremlin signal: “We haven’t even started” starts now.
Exhibit 2: Friday afternoon, a few hours after Peskov. Confirmed by a serious European – not Russian – source. The first counter-signal.
Regular troops from France, Germany and Poland have arrived, by rail
and air, to Cherkassy, south of Kiev. A substantial force. No numbers
leaked. They are being housed in schools. For all practical purposes,
this is a NATO force.
That signals, “Let the games begin”. From a Russian point of view, Mr. Khinzal’s business cards are set to be in great demand.
Exhibit 3: Friday evening. Terror attack on Crocus City, a
music venue northwest of Moscow. A heavily trained commando shoots
people on sight, point blank, in cold blood, then sets a concert hall on
fire. The definitive counter-signal: with the battlefield collapsing,
all that’s left is terrorism in Moscow.
And just as terror was striking Moscow, the US and the UK, in
southwest Asia, was bombing Sana’a, the Yemeni capital, with at least
five strikes.
Some nifty coordination. Yemen has just clinched a strategic deal in
Oman with Russia-China for no-hassle navigation in the Red Sea, and is
among the top candidates for BRICS+ expansion at the summit in Kazan
next October.
Not only the Houthis are spectacularly defeating thalassocracy, they
have the Russia-China strategic partnership on their side. Assuring
China and Russia that their ships can sail through the Bab-al-Mandeb,
Red Sea and Gulf of Aden with no problems is exchanged with total
political support from Beijing and Moscow.
The sponsors remain the same
Deep in the night in Moscow, before dawn on Saturday 23. Virtually no
one is sleeping. Rumors dance like dervishes on countless screens. Of
course nothing has been confirmed – yet. Only the FSB will have answers.
A massive investigation is in progress.
The timing of the Crocus massacre is quite intriguing. On a Friday
during Ramadan. Real Muslims would not even think about perpetrating a
mass murder of unarmed civilians under such a holy occasion. Compare it
with the ISIS card being frantically branded by the usual suspects.
Let’s go pop. To quote Talking Heads: “This ain’t no party/ this
ain’t no disco/ this ain’t no fooling around”. Oh no; it’s more like an
all-American psy op. ISIS are cartoonish mercenaries/goons. Not real
Muslims. And everyone knows who finances and weaponizes them.
That leads to the most possible scenario, before the FSB weighs in:
ISIS goons imported from the Syria battleground – as it stands, probably
Tajiks – trained by CIA and MI6, working on behalf of the Ukrainian
SBU. Several witnesses at Crocus referred to “Wahhabis” – as in the
commando killers did not look like Slavs.
It was up to Serbia’s Aleksandar Vucic to cut to the chase. He
directly connected the “warnings” in early March from American and
British embassies directed at their citizens not to visit public places
in Moscow with CIA/MI6 intel having inside info about possible
terrorism, and not disclosing it to Moscow.
The plot thickens when it is established that Crocus is owned by the
Agalarovs: an Azeri-Russian billionaire family, very close friends of…
apnews | Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who made history as his country’s
first gay and first biracial leader, announced Wednesday that he is
stepping down for reasons that he said were both personal and political.
Varadkar announced Wednesday he is quitting immediately as head
of the center-right Fine Gael party, part of Ireland’s coalition
government. He’ll be replaced as prime minister in April after a party
leadership contest.
“My reasons for stepping down now are personal
and political, but mainly political,” Varadkar said, without
elaborating. He said he plans to remain in parliament as a backbench
lawmaker and has “definite” future plans.
Varadkar, 45, has had two spells as taoiseach, or prime minister — between 2017 and 2020, and again since December 2022 as part of a job-share with Micheál Martin, head of coalition partner Fianna Fáil.
He was the country’s youngest-ever leader when first elected, as well
as Ireland’s first openly gay prime minister. Varadkar, whose mother is
Irish and father is Indian, was also Ireland’s first biracial
taoiseach.
“I’m proud that we have made the country a more equal and more modern
place,” Varadkar said in a resignation statement in Dublin.
Varadkar was first elected to parliament in 2007, and once said he’d quit politics by the age of 50.
He led Ireland during the years after Britain’s 2016 decision to
leave the European Union. Brexit had huge implications for Ireland, an
EU member that shares a border with the U.K.’s Northern Ireland.
U.K.-Ireland relations were strained while hardcore Brexit-backer Boris
Johnson was U.K. leader, but have steadied since the arrival of Prime
Minister Rishi Sunak.
Varadkar recently returned from Washington, where he met President Joe Biden and other political leaders as part of the Irish prime minister’s traditional St. Patrick’s Day visit to the United States.
thecradle | Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on 7 November said that recent remarks by Israeli Minister of Heritage Amihai Eliyahu, in which he said dropping a nuclear bomb in the Gaza Strip is “a possibility,” raised a multitude of questions.
"It
raised a great number of questions. Question number one: Does this mean
we are hearing an official statement acknowledging [Israel’s]
possession of nuclear weapons? Accordingly, the next set of questions
that everyone has is: Where are the international organizations,
including the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency]; where are the
inspectors?" Zakharova said during a televised interview.
Estimates of Israel's nuclear stockpile
range between 80 and 400 warheads, which can be delivered via aircraft,
submarine-launched cruise missiles, and the Jericho series of
intermediate to intercontinental-range ballistic missiles.
Its
first deliverable nuclear weapon is thought to have been completed in
late 1966 or early 1967, making it the sixth country in the world to
have developed them.
Israel
has never openly tested its nuclear weapons nor signed the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), making it the world’s only
unacknowledged atomic power. The country has also never been subjected
to an inspection from the UN nuclear watchdog.
Asked
in an interview with Radio Kol Berama last week whether an atomic bomb
should be dropped on Gaza, Israeli minister Eliyahu answered: “This is
one of the possibilities.”
Eliyahu,
from the Jewish supremacist Religious Zionist party, stated further
that “there is no such thing as uninvolved civilians in Gaza” and that,
therefore, no humanitarian aid should be allowed into the besieged
enclave.
He also expressed
his support for depopulating Gaza and reconquering it to reestablish
Jewish settlements there. Regarding the Palestinian population, he said:
“They can go to Ireland or deserts; the monsters in Gaza should find a
solution by themselves.”
Eliyahu added that anyone waving a Palestinian or Hamas flag “shouldn’t continue living on the face of the earth.”
In
response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suspended Eliyahu
from participating in cabinet meetings and dismissed his statement,
calling it "not based in reality."
Russia's UN envoy has previously stated that, as an occupying state, Israel has “no right" to self-defense.
catyjohnstone | Propagandists
are used to having a lot more wiggle room to work with than this.
They’re used to interfacing with a complex matrix of narrative and
manipulating it to distort the public’s understanding of what’s going
on. But raw video footage of a mother clutching the tattered remains of a
child is not narrative. Satellite images of powdered city blocks are
not narrative. It’s just reality. Right there in your face.
Western civilization is dominated by propaganda. The “freedom” and “democracy” we think we have is an illusion that has been carefully cultivated by those who manipulate the way we think, speak, act and vote by mass-scale psychological manipulation
— as Chomsky says, propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to
a totalitarian state. A mind-controlled dystopia is not some dark
future that awaits humanity if things go terribly wrong for us; it is already presently the case.
The Gaza massacre throws a big fat monkey wrench in all that, because the raw data
coming out of it is so transparently horrifying that no amount of
narrative spin can make it look acceptable. The fact that the US and its
allies are helping Israel murder children by the thousands is a giant
glitch in the narrative matrix.
The
longer this continues, the more people are going to wake up out of the
propaganda-induced coma the empire has had them in all their lives. The
more people are going to realize that their government is not what it
has been pretending to be and the media have not been telling them the
truth about the world. As the western empire backs the slaughter of
thousands of children, the discrepancies between what the propaganda
tells us about our society and what our society actually is are being
brightly illuminated.
By
murdering thousands of children in Gaza, the empire has exposed its
true face in front of everyone. And the people aren’t liking what they
see.
Eyes are opening everywhere. People are being radicalized in record numbers. The streets are being flooded with protesters.
Very inconvenient questions are being asked. Rigorous scrutiny is being
applied in places it was seldom applied before. Light is shining in
through cracks that weren’t there before.
This
is all so, so horrible and so, so painful to watch day in and day out.
But something is moving underneath it all. Something big. The empire has
done irreparable harm to its ability to keep everyone sleeping and
complacent going forward. A healthy world may be in our future yet.
BBC |US
President Joe Biden has said a deadly blast at a Gaza hospital appears
to have been caused by Palestinian militants, backing Israel's account
of the incident as he visits the country.
Mr Biden, who landed in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, said he was "deeply saddened and outraged" by the explosion.
Israel's military said it was caused by a failed Palestinian rocket launch.
But Palestinian officials said an Israeli air strike hit the hospital.
Health officials in Gaza have said almost 500 people were killed in the explosion, but no death toll has been confirmed.
Meanwhile,
Mr Biden has announced that an agreement has been reached with Israel
to allow humanitarian aid to move from Egypt into Gaza. However, Israel
said it would not allow any aid to pass through its own territory until
hostages being held by Hamas are released.
'Deeply saddened and outraged'
Mr Biden's high-stakes visit has been overshadowed by the blast at the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital on Tuesday evening, which has further inflamed tensions and sparked protests across the region.
He
landed in Tel Aviv on Wednesday where he was greeted warmly by Israel's
Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, before the pair hosted a joint news
conference.
"I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday," Mr Biden said.
"Based
on what I've seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team,
not you," he told Mr Netanyahu. "But there's a lot of people out there
not sure so we have to overcome a lot of things."
Mr
Biden was later asked by reporters what led him to conclude that Israel
was not responsible, and said: "The data I was shown by my defence
department."
In
the news conference, he reiterated his support for Israel and condemned
the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which launched an unprecedented
attack on Israel from Gaza on 7 October that left 1,400 people dead.
At least 3,000 people have been killed in retaliatory Israeli strikes on Gaza, according to Palestinian health official.
Mr
Biden had planned to travel from Israel to Jordan to meet King
Abdullah, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian
President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, but that leg of the trip was cancelled
after the hospital blast on Tuesday.
Jordan
cancelled the meeting and condemned what it called "a great calamity
and a heinous war crime". The White House, meanwhile, said the decision
had been "made in a mutual way" and Mr Biden would call Mr Abbas and Mr
Sisi on his return flight to the US.
johnhelmer.net | In the first direct Russian warning
to the US Navy force in the Eastern Mediterranean, Zakharova added:
“So far we see that the situation is developing along the path of
escalation. There is a great risk of involving third forces in this
conflict. And this is fraught with long-term consequences for the region
and for the world.”
Putin followed in the evening on the telephone with the Turkish
President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “The need for an immediate ceasefire by
both sides and the resumption of the negotiation process was
emphasised,” according to the Kremlin’s communiqué.
“Mutual readiness to actively contribute to this was expressed…Separate
issues of Russian-Turkish cooperation in various fields were also
touched upon.”
Erdogan’s press release
was more revealing. He and Putin had “touched upon what initiatives can
be taken to meet humanitarian needs in the region, as the Turkish
president told Putin that targeting civilian settlements is worrying and
Türkiye does not welcome such move.” Erdogan’s twitter announcement
adds: “President Erdoğan and President Putin of Russia also exchanged
views on potential initiatives to meet humanitarian needs in the
region.”
This is a hint that Erdogan and Putin are contemplating a Turkish
ship convoy of aid to Gaza, protected from Israeli attack by the Russian
Navy from its Tartous base on the Syrian coast, and by the Russian Air
Force from Hmeimim. This humanitarian operation by sea would aim at
breaking the blockade of the coast by the Israelis, and running the
gauntlet of the USS Gerald Ford and its squadron further offshore. If this operation, a reminder of the Gaza Flotilla of 2010,
is in planning now – the open signals are warning Washington and the
US Navy to expect it – then the confrontation, and the risk to the US
and Israel of strategic defeat at sea, are unprecedented.
The planning of Russian military protection of seaborne humanitarian aid convoys to the Gaza also extends to Egypt.
This was touched on in the conversation which Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry had with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. That was followed by Egyptian press disclosure
of Israeli warnings, following by bombings, to stop Egyptian trucks
delivering aid into Gaza across the Rafah land bridge at the southern
end of Gaza.
An alternative Egyptian option is a naval convoy. If this will be
coordinated through the Kremlin and the Russian Defense Ministry with an
Erdogan-Putin plan of a Turkish convoy sailing from the north, the
escalation to regional and superpower level will have materialised
before the Israeli invasion of Gaza can preempt it.
The Russian Defense Ministry has not been silent towards Israel in
the past. Since the ambush by the Israel Air Force of the Russian Il-20
surveillance aircraft, and the killing of its 15-man crew in September
2018, the General Staff has said it has been reserving its moves against the Israelis while identifying them as the enemy.
Vzglyad, the Moscow platform for Russian military and security thinking, editorialised on April 17, 2023,
that in siding with the Ukraine during the Special Military Operation,
the Israeli government had become Russia’s adversary: “The time has come
to take a new position on the Palestinian issue. To take the
celebration of Al-Quds Day to a new level, as well as to take a more
pro-Palestinian position in the Middle East conflict. To stand on the
side of those who help Russia within the framework of their own
interests (Iran, Saudi Arabia) against those who help our enemies. And
thereby to send a very clear signal to the world – a signal that Russia
will treat its partners exactly as they treat it. To help supporters –
and not to act in the interests of opponents.”
The creation of a humanitarian corridor was explicitly mentioned in the Foreign Ministry briefing on Tuesday. “Tensions
are rising in the West Bank of the Jordan River. There are high risks
of the conflict spreading to the area of the Lebanese-Israeli border and
drawing new parties into it. A large-scale humanitarian catastrophe is
unfolding before our eyes. The main thing now is to cease fire and stop
the bloodshed. We support the efforts of interested parties aimed at
solving this priority task. This would make it possible to avoid new
victims, end the suffering of the civilian population, ensure its
evacuation through humanitarian corridors and prevent the situation from
sliding into a region-wide humanitarian catastrophe. This is not just a
crisis or an emergency. We are talking about the fate of millions of
people.”
Spokesman Zakharova also struck at the CIA and the Pentagon for their
surprise defeat by Hamas. “How did it happen that in a year; that’s how
much time the operation was being prepared for, then carried out now in
a few days, the United States as Israel’s closest ally did not warn
about this? They have satellites everywhere, appropriate tracking
devices, military bases, including in the region. There are all the
possibilities to carry out, not just monitoring, but surveillance — the
facts speak for themselves — of all information circulating on
American-made equipment (hardware and software). For the whole year of
preparing such a large-scale operation, the United States with all the
power of its special services did not transmit anything to Israel as
intelligence…How did it happen that during the whole year of preparation
of the corresponding operation in the Middle East, the United States
did not transmit any information to its partners in Israel?”
By contrast, the Foreign Ministry spokesman said, “for two months at
the end of 2021 and two months at the beginning of 2022, the United
States at all levels told how Russia would ‘attack’ Ukraine. This was
done specifically to create an information backdrop in order to divert
the eyes of the whole world from how, for all these years, the United
States and their NATO colleagues (primarily the United Kingdom) have
been pumping Ukraine with weapons and creating the anti-Russia project,
an anti-Russian springboard…After the corresponding instruction from
Washington, a multiple increase in the shelling of Donbass by the regime
of V.A. Zelensky followed. Then, in late 2021-early 2022, the US ‘knew
everything’ and told everyone. But in the area of their direct
responsibility — the Middle East has always been one of them — in
relation to the closest ally over which the American protectorate is
carried out, the US special services, the State Department and the White
House did not transmit any information necessary for self-defence.”
the cradle | Hamas did
not coordinate its military operation with any of its Resistance Axis
allies. It also did not plan to achieve the stunning results that were
soon to follow. The Qassam Brigades' immediate goal was only to destroy
Israeli army positions around the Gaza Strip and capture as many
soldiers as possible, which they could later exchange for the thousands
of Palestinian captives in Israeli prisons.
But
the Palestinian resistance forces were taken by surprise at the laxity
of the occupation army. Contrary to expectations, they stumbled upon
security vacuums and poorly guarded military sites in which a large
number of enemy soldiers and officers were fast asleep. It was this
unexpected opportunity that prodded the Palestinian fighters to reach
for bigger gains.
Hamas'
military leadership planned to carry out this operation in complete
secrecy. Just weeks earlier, their fighters had conducted military
maneuvers/exercises that were observed by the Israelis. But Tel Aviv's
rather complacent intelligence assessment had been that "Hamas is
training for what it does not dare to do." The Israelis, in short,
thought that Hamas was merely flexing in order to gain financial
concessions for Gaza. No actual operation was ever expected by Israel's
military brass.
The veil of
secrecy over the operation also extended to the Hamas fighters who
carried out the attack. Sources close to Hamas say that their cadres
believed, until the morning of the operation, that they were assembling
for a training exercise, not for the real thing.
Very
few knew details of the comprehensive attack plan. Even Hamas' allies
in Lebanon and Iran learned of the operation at zero o'clock and not a
moment before, according to well-informed sources in the Resistance
Axis.
Even
for this axis, the Hamas operation went beyond all possible
expectations. Although true that many of the Hamas tactics employed are
shared among the Axis' fighters in Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, and Yemen,
the innovation in the Al-Aqsa Flood operation was the signature of the
Al-Qassam Brigades, and particularly its brilliant leader Muhammad Deif.
The
operation was coordinated with remarkable professionalism: accurate and
detailed intelligence was amassed, high-level training exercises
organized, secrecy was paramount, and superior coordination was
established between the myriad drones, paratroopers, and vast majority
of Hamas fighters who crossed into the occupation state, through tunnels
and above ground.
Al Qassam also planned to target Israeli communications towers and all military sites surrounding Gaza. From
a military perspective, this was a near-perfect operation that led to
the destruction of all the facilities of the Israeli army's “Gaza
Division" and the annihilation of entire Israeli brigades. For Israel,
this was a total humiliation - something it had never experienced
before, even in the devastating 1973 Arab-Israeli war.
A zero-sum game
With
the support of the collective west, Israel is now assembling a plan to
restore its deterrence. Operation Al-Aqsa Flood didn't only affect the
Israelis - it has also endangered western deterrence throughout West
Asia and the Arab world. The decline in Israel's deterrent capacity
correlates directly with the weakening of western hegemony in the
region.
While
Israel has been scurrying around to mobilize its troops and equipment
for a counterattack, the Americans sent messages to the Resistance Axis -
specifically Iran and Hezbollah - saying, essentially: “We don’t want
this to escalate. We want and need stability on the Lebanese border with
Israel. We are urging you not to interfere in this war.”
The
messages were sent on 7 October, as events unfolded, and through more
than one medium. Hezbollah's response was seen on the ground the very
next morning, when it bombed Israeli army positions in the occupied
Lebanese Shebaa Farms. This was a warning message, which was clarified
further by Hezbollah's Executive Council Chief Hashem Safi Al-Din when
he said: “We will not remain neutral in this battle.”
Neither
will Washington, which immediately announced $8 billion in aid to
Israel, and sent an aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
The US cannot afford for Israel to take more losses, but how far will
they go to deter Tel Aviv's adversaries?
Within
the axis of resistance, from Iran to Gaza, there is a uniform decision
to prevent the defeat of any of the principal allies. As this axis made
clear during the Syrian war, a major attack on one will be viewed as an
attack on all. Today, their red line is preventing the collapse of the
resistance in Gaza.
Israel's
urgent need to restore its deterrence is not, however, possible without
destroying Gaza's resistance factions. Both Netanyahu and Israeli
Defense Minister Yoav Galant have ominously warned that Tel Aviv’s
response to Gaza’s attack will “change the Middle East.” Those are
fighting words indeed: the US called for the birthing of a “new Middle
East” during Israel's month-long bombardment of Lebanon in July 2006.
Tel
Aviv and Washington want to take down the Palestinian resistance while
ensuring that no other battle fronts flare up to distract from that
mission. Of course, the Resistance Axis principals will seek to do
exactly the opposite, doing what is necessary to distract Israel from
its strategic objective.
Haaretz | (archived) The
disaster that befell Israel on the holiday of Simchat Torah is the
clear responsibility of one person: Benjamin Netanyahu. The prime
minister, who has prided himself on his vast political experience and
irreplaceable wisdom in security matters, completely failed to identify
the dangers he was consciously leading Israel into when establishing a
government of annexation and dispossession, when appointing Bezalel
Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir to key positions, while embracing a foreign
policy that openly ignored the existence and rights of Palestinians.
Netanyahu
will certainly try to evade his responsibility and cast the blame on
the heads of the army, Military Intelligence and the Shin Bet security
service who, like their predecessors on the eve of the Yom Kippur War,
saw a low probability of war with their preparations for a Hamas attack proving flawed.
They
scorned the enemy and its offensive military capabilities. Over the
next days and weeks, when the depth of Israel Defense Forces and
intelligence failures come to light, a justified demand to replace them
and take stock will surely arise.
However,
the military and intelligence failure does not absolve Netanyahu of his
overall responsibility for the crisis, as he is the ultimate arbiter of
Israeli foreign and security affairs. Netanyahu is no novice in this
role, like Ehud Olmert was in the Second Lebanon War. Nor is he ignorant
in military matters, as Golda Meir in 1973 and Menachem Begin in 1982
claimed to be.
Netanyahu
also shaped the policy embraced by the short-lived “government of
change” led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid: a multidimensional effort
to crush the Palestinian national movement in both its wings, in Gaza
and the West Bank, at a price that would seem acceptable to the Israeli
public.
In
the past, Netanyahu marketed himself as a cautious leader who eschewed
wars and multiple casualties on Israel’s side. After his victory in the
last election, he replaced this caution with the policy of a
“fully-right government,” with overt steps taken to annex the West Bank, to carry out ethnic cleansing in parts of the Oslo-defined Area C, including the Hebron Hills and the Jordan Valley.
This
also included a massive expansion of settlements and bolstering of the
Jewish presence on Temple Mount, near the Al-Aqsa Mosque, as well as
boasts of an impending peace deal with the Saudis in which the
Palestinians would get nothing, with open talk of a “second Nakba” in
his governing coalition. As expected, signs of an outbreak of
hostilities began in the West Bank, where Palestinians started feeling
the heavier hand of the Israeli occupier. Hamas exploited the
opportunity in order to launch its surprise attack on Saturday.
Above
all, the danger looming over Israel in recent years has been fully
realized. A prime minister indicted in three corruption cases cannot
look after state affairs, as national interests will necessarily be
subordinate to extricating him from a possible conviction and jail time.
This
was the reason for establishing this horrific coalition and the
judicial coup advanced by Netanyahu, and for the enfeeblement of top
army and intelligence officers, who were perceived as political
opponents. The price was paid by the victims of the invasion in the Western Negev.
timesofindia | NEW DELHI: Israel carried out deadly air strikes and pounded hundreds of locations in Gaza on Sunday, a day after suffering its bloodiest attack in decades when Hamas fighters rampaged through Israeli towns, killing hundreds and abducting an unknown number of others, threatening a major new war in the Middle East.
Across the Middle East, there were demonstrations in support of Hamas while Iran and Hezbollah praised the attack.
Western countries, led by the United States, have denounced the attack by Hamas, while President Joe Biden issued a blunt warning to Iran and other countries: "This is not a moment for any party hostile to Israel to exploit these attacks."
Israel pounds Gaza after deadly Hamas raid as conflict threatens to spiral
Osama Hamdan, Hamas leader in Lebanon, said Saturday's operation should make Arab states realise that accepting Israeli security demands would not bring peace. Our guns and rockets are with you: Hezbollah tells Hamas
In a sign the conflict could quickly spread beyond Gaza, Israeli artillery responded to mortar fire from Lebanon and drone strikes hit a post of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia along Israel's northern border on Sunday.
Hezbollah said in a statement that it had carried out a rocket and artillery attack on three posts including a "radar site" in the Shebaa Farms, a slice of land occupied by Israel since 1967 that Lebanon claims. Israel responded with artillery fire on southern Lebanon. There were no reports of casualties.
Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine said his group's "guns and rockets" were with Hamas. "Our history, our guns and our rockets are with you. Everything we have is with you," Safieddine said at an event in the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahieh on Beirut's outskirts in solidarity with the Palestinian fighters.
Hezbollah and Israel exchange fire as Israeli soldiers battle Hamas on second day of surprise attack
Hezbollah fought a war with Israel in 2006 and tensions have regularly flared since.
"We recommend Hezbollah not to come into this and I don't think they will," Israel's army spokesperson said.
Taliban fighters to join Palestine conflict?
Meanwhile, some media reports also stated that the Taliban regime in Afghanistan has requested the Iranian and Iraqi governments to provide safe passage to its fighters so they can join the conflict in Palestine. Most of the reports have cited a social media account on X by the name 'Taliban Public Relations Department'. The authenticity of the social media account has not been verified.
Several media reports have cited a Taliban spokesperson who denied that any such request had been sent to Iran or Iraq.
Ever since storming to power in Kabul after US troops pulled out in August 2021, the Taliban has been attempting -- with little success -- to train its fighters to use US military hardware that has been left behind. The fighters are, however, well armed.
More than $7.1 billion in US-funded military equipment was in the possession of the Afghan government when it fell to the Taliban in August 2021, according to a Defense Department report. Though more than half of it was ground vehicles, it also included more than 316,000 weapons plus ammunition and other accessories.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, meanwhile, said the assault that began in Gaza will spread to the West Bank and Jerusalem. Gazans have lived under an Israeli blockade for 16 years, since Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007.
Why is al-Aqsa at the centre of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
In a speech, Haniyeh highlighted what he called threats to Jerusalem's al-Aqsa Mosque, a site that is also holy to Jews who know it as the Temple Mount, the continuation of Israel's blockade on Gaza and Israeli normalisation with countries in the region.
"How many times have we warned you that the Palestinian people have been living in refugee camps for 75 years, and you refuse to recognise the rights of our people?"
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