Just International

Israeli Forces Begin Withdrawal From Parts of Gaza, Leaving Behind ‘Unbelievable, Massive Destruction’

By Quds News Network

Gaza (QNN)- The Israeli military has begun withdrawing its forces behind the line agreed upon in the Gaza deal, leaving behind “unbelievable, massive destruction.”

According to residents who hadn’t fled to the south under Israeli threats and local sources, massive destruction was left behind by Israeli forces after they withdrew behind the line agreed under the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal.

Videos circulating on social media show widespread infrastructure damage and vast areas completely wiped out, including the Jalaa and Sheikh Redwan neighborhoods.

[https://twitter.com/QudsNen/status/1976578198080041253]

[https://twitter.com/QudsNen/status/1976568730961461337]

[https://twitter.com/QudsNen/status/1976543085417865303]

[https://twitter.com/QudsNen/status/1976593834978017612]

According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, Israeli forces have destroyed 367 housing units daily since the start of the genocide in October 2023:

  • Israel has demolished more than one mosque per day on average.
  • It has displaced 394 families every day.
  • It has targeted one shelter or displacement center every three days.
  • It has destroyed one central water well each day.
  • It has damaged 7 kilometers of electricity networks daily.
  • It has destroyed 959 meters of water pipelines every day.
  • It has destroyed 959 meters of sewage networks daily.
  • It has destroyed 4,000 meters of roads per day.

Israel Continues Strikes on Gaza Despite Ceasefire Deal Approval

Israel has launched attacks on Gaza since Friday morning, despite approving a ceasefire deal after two years of genocide.

Local sources said the Israeli military carried out air strikes in Khan Younis in southern Gaza and in Gaza City over the past hours.

Israeli forces have also repeatedly shelled the Katiba area and Hamad City in Khan Younis.

Intense gunfire was reported from Israeli military tanks near the Wadi Gaza Bridge on Salah al-Din Street in central Gaza.

Israeli attack helicopters also targeted a site east of Gaza City, and artillery shelling has also been reported.

The Israeli attacks in the early hours are the first to be reported in Gaza since Israel approved the first phase of a ceasefire deal with Hamas late on Thursday night.

Gaza’s civil defence has also warned people to keep away from the border areas of Gaza City until the official announcement of the withdrawal of Israeli forces.

10 October 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

The Trump-Putin Meeting in Hungary Is the Last Chance for Peace

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts and Dr. Gilbert Doctorow

Gilbert Doctorow and I share the belief that unless Putin responds more firmly than he has been inclined to do to the West’s provocations, war is inevitable.

Hungary, led by the only intelligent leader in Europe, has arranged a meeting in Budapest between Trump and Putin. I suspect that this is the last chance to avoid war. Its success turns on whether Trump can abandon his bully role, understand that the solution requires a NATO pullback from Russia’s borders and a mutual security agreement between Russia and the West, and declare in a press conference that Washington’s support (incitement really) of Ukraine is at an end.

For Putin, I suspect the meeting in Hungary is Putin’s last test of Trump. If Trump fails the test, chances are high that delivery of Tomahawks to Ukraine will result in a Russian declaration of war against Ukraine and quick destruction by conventional means of Ukraine’s ability to continue the conflict. Putin will have reversed his strategy of non-response to provocations and put the West on notice, something he should have done years ago. The likelihood is the Russian Foreign Ministry’s effort to dismiss the Tomahawk threat as terrorism rather than an act of war will fail.

Unless Trump comes to his senses, a brutal demonstration of Russian force is all that can stop the momentum toward a real war.  

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pUbyemlm6s]

Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published.

17 October 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca

President Trump Now Requires Strategic Bombers to ‘Fight Venezuelan Drug Trade’. Oops. Venezuela Is Number One Worldwide in “Strategic Oil Reserves”

By Drago Bosnic

The threat of direct American aggression on Venezuela has been looming for months, with the United States sending joint strike forces and escalating attacks on supposed “drug boats”. It’s pretty amusing to see a nation that has lied about every single casus belli since at least the 1898 Spanish-American War claim that it’s “actually telling the truth this time”.

For some inexplicable reason, the plutocrats, and warmongers  in Washington DC think we’ve all forgotten about the Tonkin Bay “incident”, demonization and countless lies about Serbs in former Yugoslavia, the 9/11 which led to millions of casualties across the Middle East and around the world, etc.

And yet, “just once, just this time”, the US “must be telling the truth” about the mythical “drug trafficking” by Venezuela and its President Nicolas Maduro, the “evil narco boss”.

Of course, we should all just forget and completely ignore the extremely close ties between the enormous US intelligence apparatus and the massive drug industry in Latin America (and elsewhere around the world).

In addition, even CNN admits that the Trump administration’s accusations against Venezuela are not backed up by any verifiable data.

On the contrary, it suggests that Caracas is at the very bottom of the list of countries trafficking narcotics into the US, with Colombia, Peru and Bolivia being far ahead. In fact, the DEA itself claims that 90% of cocaine that reaches America is from Colombia. And yet, Bogota is not getting even a stern look.

In other words, Washington DC couldn’t possibly care less about who’s smuggling drugs into the US. The only thing it cares about is finding a pretext (no matter how ridiculous) to invade yet another sovereign nation.

Now, if the said country is also home to the largest proven oil reserves in the world, that must be a “coincidence” and “stroke of luck” that America “certainly didn’t plan for”

Sardonic jokes aside, the Pentagon itself keeps proving just how ridiculous all these excuses are by sending various weapon systems that undoubtedly cannot be used to stop drug trafficking. Namely, apart from fighter jets and ships armed with “Tomahawk” cruise missiles, the US military is now also sending strategic bombers to “fight off Venezuelan drug boats”. 

American B-52s flew along the Venezuelan coastline on October 15, a day after President Donald Trump ordered another strike on these mythical “drug boats”.

“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with illicit narcoterrorist networks, and was transiting along a known DTO route,” Trump posted on Truth Social, adding: “The strike was conducted in International Waters, and six male narcoterrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike. No U.S. Forces were harmed.”

He insists that the boat was “affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization”, obviously without providing a single shred of verifiable evidence to back up such claims.

This was the fifth known incident where American troops attacked random Venezuelan boats, claiming they’re used for alleged “drug trafficking”. Venezuela reported that nearly 30 people have been killed in these strikes, most of them fishermen.

Since Trump already started using strategic weapons against these “dangerous people”, perhaps he should also order US ICBMs to be fired at these boats, although it’s highly questionable whether they’re actually functional. If that doesn’t work, Trump can always wait for his “orbital weapons” to be built and strike the boats with those. Jokes aside, it’s truly astonishing how each and every US administration stays virtually identical to the previous one.

Namely, nearly every single one in America’s relatively short history has pushed for wars, death and destruction, even when its election rhetoric was “fully pacifist”. Unfortunately, Latin America is highly vulnerable due to Washington DC’s infamous Monroe Doctrine. Venezuela is particularly jeopardized and its leadership is fully aware of that.

This is why Caracas deployed around 15,000 troops in the states of Zulia and Táchira (both bordering Colombia) in late August and early September. These units are mostly comprised of special police and military personnel, indicating that Venezuela is worried about cross-border raids and infiltration. Such measures are perfectly understandable given America’s propensity to use sabotage and terrorist attacks to undermine targeted countries. Back in 2020, the CIA launched the so-called “Operation Gideon” precisely from Colombia.

At the time, two boats carrying approximately 60 insurgents tried infiltrating Venezuela, tasked with instigating an armed rebellion. This was effectively Trump’s “mini-Bay of Pigs” moment, because the group was commanded by two former US Army “Green Berets”, both employed as mercenaries by Silvercorp USA, a Florida-based PMC.

Such private military enterprises are quite common in the US and are used by the Pentagon to maintain plausible deniability in case of failure. Precisely this happened with “Operation Gideon”. Its failure was attributed to multiple factors, with several US intelligence services accusing one another of “major security breaches”. In fact, back in January, Jordan Goudreau, the head of Silvercorp (himself a former “Green Beret”), openly accused the CIA and FBI of “sabotaging the operation”.

Now, whether that’s true or not is irrelevant, as Venezuela needs to be prepared for any similar incursions, particularly now that such actions might serve as the vanguard of direct US aggression. As such operations continue to fail (at least partially thanks to the involvement of Russian intelligence that keeps informing Caracas of any foul play), the war junkies in Washington DC are increasingly nervous that their plans for yet another war might fail.

This is why they’re so desperate to ensure a direct confrontation, at any cost. The Venezuelan military is preparing for any eventuality, so it’s activating air and missile defense units, reserve troops and territorial defense forces. Caracas is also preparing for potential guerrilla warfare in case of a full-scale invasion. Although it seems too far-fetched now, such a scenario certainly shouldn’t be discarded.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

17 October 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca

The Budapest Putin-Trump Meeting Might Lead to Something Tangible This Time Around?

By Andrew Korybko

The next Putin-Trump meeting will soon take place in Budapest. Prior to their last one in Anchorage, the vision that they were working towards was a resource-centric strategic partnership that could then become a steppingstone towards a more comprehensive one in the future. For that to happen, either Putin had to freeze the frontlines or Trump had to coerce Zelensky into withdrawing from Donbass, but neither could agree to what was requested of them so their New Détente went nowhere.

Even worse, the Europeans then became serious obstacles to peace, even going as far as teaming up with the Brits and Zelensky to propose dangerous “security guarantees” that riled Russia. Trump ramped up his rhetoric against Putin afterwards, arguably due to him being manipulated by Lindsey Graham and Zelensky, thus culminating in the latest talk about sending Tomahawks to Ukraine. It was within this tense context that they talked again, right before Zelensky’s trip to DC, and agreed to meet in Budapest.

Each side is also coming under a lot of newfound pressure nowadays that conceivably influenced their latest call and plans to meet. From Russia’s side, the new TRIPP corridor will inject Western influence along Russia’s southern flank via NATO member Turkiye (despite Russia’s thaw with Azerbaijan), Poland is reviving its long-lost Great Power status along Russia’s western flank, and Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) revealed last month that French and UK troops are already in Ukraine’s Odessa Region.

As for the newfound pressure that the US is nowadays coming under, this concerns the nascent Sino-Indo rapprochement after America’s bullying of India backfired, Russia finally clinching a long-negotiated deal with China to build the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline on presumably favorable terms for Beijing, and all of this resulting in the failure of Trump 2.0’s Eurasian balancing act. At the same time, Russia and the US could be manipulated into war with one another by possible British and/or Ukrainian false flags.

SVR warned twice about their alleged false flag plots in the Baltic, which was followed by the suspicious drone incident in Poland that was weaponized by deep state elements in a failed bid to manipulate its new president into war with Russia. Shortly afterwards, Estonia claimed that Russia violated its maritime airspace, which led to NATO threatening to shoot down Russian jets, then there was a Russian drone scare in Scandinavia. SVR since warned that Ukraine is now plotting a false flag attack in Poland.

The geostrategic context that was just outlined suggests that a grand compromise might now be possible so as to alleviate some of the aforesaid pressure on each, reduce bilateral tensions, and thus prevent any false flags from manipulating them into war. To that end, Russia might accept some limited Western “security guarantees” for Ukraine, the US might curtail its arms exports to Ukraine and NATO, and then they might clinch their hoped-for strategic resource deals upon freezing or outright ending the conflict.

Informal quid pro quos, such as Russia helping the US “manage” Iran so long as the US gets Zelensky to implement a degree of (at least symbolic) “denazification” and possibly withdraw from Donbass, could also be agreed to for facilitating this arrangement. At the same time, Ukraine, the EU, and the UK might carry out provocations to sabotage the Budapest Summit. In any case, if Putin and Trump do end up meeting again sometime soon, then they’re expected to agree to something tangible this time around.

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Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare.

17 October 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca

President Trump’s Ultimate Intent: The Annexation of Canada, The Annexation of Greenland, the Militarization of the Arctic. Extensive Oil and Gas Reserves

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Author’s Introduction

The article below is of utmost relevance, specifically pertaining to  President Donald Trump’s stance with regard to the Annexation of both Canada and Greenland.

We recall Donald Trump’s statement last December at  his luxury Mar a – Lago residence, in a conversation with Canada’s former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. 

President Elect Donald Trump intimated in no uncertain terms that Prime Minister Trudeau should become Governor of the 51st state of the United States of America.

This was no joking matter. Canada described as the 51st State of the USA signifies the outright Annexation of Canada.

We will also recall the powerful statement of former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien in his Letter to Donald. “From One Old Guy to Another”.  

A few days prior to Trump’s inauguration, Jean Chrétien in an open letter to Trump pointed to:

“The totally unacceptable insults and unprecedented threats to our very sovereignty from U.S. president-elect Donald Trump”. 

“I have two very clear and simple messages. To Donald Trump, from one old guy to another: Give your head a shake! What could make you think that Canadians would ever give up the best country in the world … to join the United States?

I can tell you Canadians prize our independence. We love our country.

We also had the guts to say no to your country when it tried to drag us into a completely unjustified and destabilizing war in Iraq.”[March 2003] (complete text of letter)

Jean Chretien intimated with astute foresight what is now unfolding under the Trump Presidency:

“Now there is another existential threat.

And we once again need to reduce our vulnerability.

That is the challenge for this generation of political leaders “ 

That challenge is currently being addressed by Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government in negotiations pertaining to Trump’s decision to impose (unilaterally) heavy tariffs on commodity trade with Canada.

In early March 2025, Trump threatened Canada and Mexico:

“US President Donald Trump said Thursday [February 28] tariffs of 25% on Mexican and Canadian goods are set to take effect on March 4,while also threatening to impose an additional 10% on Chinese imports on the same date.” (CNN emphasis added

The Annexation of Greenland

Ironically, on that same day, March 4 2025, President Donald Trump: “renewed his threat of using military force to annex Greenland“.

“saying in an NBC News interview he wouldn’t rule it out to make the self-governing Danish territory a part of the United States”

It’s the latest in Trump’s many comments about seizing control of the resource-rich island, which he insists the US needs for national security purposes.

 “I don’t rule it out,” he told NBC News’ Kristen Welker in an interview that aired on Sunday. “I don’t say I’m going to do it, but I don’t rule out anything.”

The Annexation of Canada 

President Trump has been persistent in his intent: As confirmed in an incisive October CBC report: the Annexation of Canada is so to speak “on the Table”.

“Is [Trump] trying to change political views in this country?

If so, that’s foreign interference,” said Dick Fadden, who also headed CSIS and served as national security adviser to former prime minister Stephen Harper.” (CBC)

A recent report by the Globe and Mail  (October 3, 2025) examines the Annexation issue in detail. Professor Franklyn Griffiths intimates that A Trump Annexation would likely start in the North” 

In other words, it would have an impact on “Canada’s maritime sovereignty”.

“Canada needs to consider the possibility that U.S. President Donald Trump will soon, and without our permission, send American warships into and through the waterways of the Canadian Arctic archipelago, commonly known as the Northwest Passage.

We owe it to ourselves to imagine what an imminent show of American force (rather than an invasion) would mean. We should also use the prospect to deal with and not write off Mr. Trump’s threats to annex us.” (Professor Griffiths)

“Starting in the North” is Déjà vu

The issue of annexation of Canada –which is now being cautiously addressed by the Canadian media– goes back to 2004. It relates to the instatement of US Northern Command.

Prime Minister Jean Chretien refused to negotiate with Bush Adminstration, more specifically with Donald Rumsfeld.  He resigned in 2004 in the wake of the war on Iraq. A new Prime Minister was appointed.

That same year, I addressed the issue in an article entitled: Is the Annexation of Canada part of Bush’s Military Agenda? (November 23, 2004) (which at the time was the object of censorship by the Canada’s mainstream media).

Canada’s media was mum on the process of US Militarization of Canada under USNORTHCOM.

Most Canadians are totally unaware that under the clauses of US Northern Command, which were accepted and by Prime Minister Paul Martin the U.S. had acquired  the de facto right to “invade” both Canada and Mexico. (see map below). 

Canada’s Sovereignty in Jeopardy: “51st State”, Déjà Vu: The Militarization of North America under President Donald Trump

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, April 04, 2025

The map below reveals the territory of USNORTHCOM, which allows the US military to deploy from southern border of Mexico and part of the Caribbean up to the North West territories and Canada’s Artic, not to mention the strategic waterways in Canada’ Northern territories.

51st State is “No joking matter” 

On October 8, Prime Minister Carney meets President Trump in Washington D.C.

On a positive side:

“The Prime Minister and the President welcomed the progress achieved to date in building a new economic and security relationship between their nations. Canada currently has the best trade agreement of any U.S. trading partner, with 85% of Canada-U.S. trade now tariff-free, and our cooperation is further improving border security” (pm-gc-ca PM of Canada)

[https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1975595527921152306]

17 October 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca

The Outstanding Criminality of Netanyahu, Blair and Trump Must End. Julian Rose

By Julian Rose

It is said that things come in three’s — well so do accomplices in deep crime.

These three deep state operatives have formed a coven to operate as the front line purveyors of a corporate re-branding of Palestine’s Gaza peninsular.

Tony Blair is already a recognised war criminal, having been personally responsible for the mass murder of 300,000 Iraqi citizens, on the basis that Saddam Hussein was in possession of ‘weapons of mass destruction’.

There were no such weapons, as special government weapons advisor Dr David Kelly strongly stated – and paid for his life in doing so. 

But Blair’s bold faced lie set off the 2003 Iraq war, and the bombing into oblivion of the citizens and infrastructure of that tragic country. An action sanctioned by President George Bush and led by US ground forces under the brutal General ‘Rambo’ Schwarzkopf.

Well, now Blair is back, and has teamed up with that other frigidly cold, calculating killer Benjamin Netanyahu, to work out the best way to exterminate the Palestinian race and simultaneously make a profit from its blood.

Netanyahu’s overt act of genocide has earned him a United Nation’s citation as ‘perpetrator of crimes against humanity’. Aside from this, he has broken every international humanitarian treaty of the past century and is subject to arrest in any country with sufficient backbone and moral fiber to carry this through.

However, the USA is not one of those countries. President Donald Trump has vowed to keep rolling out the (blood) red carpet for his dear friend ‘Bibi’s’ Stateside visits.

Trump’s very existence appears to be controlled by Zionist Israel. His big, brash, bully authoritarian despotism has earned him friends in some quarters. Mostly those who think they see some financial advantage by sheltering under his wing.

He has a large “won’t say anything against our saviour” following amongst Republican voters who have been cheering him along his pompous MAGA bonanza.

The absurdity of all this is not seen by the masses. Few seem to realize that America was never ‘great’ in the first place. With a history that commenced with the violent oppression of indigenous Indian tribes and their ultimate incarceration is special ‘reserves’ followed by open encouragement to fall into alcohol and drug addiction. 

USA was pretty much founded on the ethos ‘every man for himself’, which promoted a rush for material wealth and self-interest-driven land grabs, spurred on by an ego fueled belief that ‘big is beautiful’ and ownership is power.

A cruel civil war established the domination of big industry and the industrialisation and intense exploitation of almost everything, including vast areas of what was once the richest farmland in the world.

Or, is ‘once great America’ judged to be so honored due to its bombing and invasion of more than twenty eight countries since 1945, and the murder of countless millions of human beings via a Blitzkrieg policy designed to out-do the example set by Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

What does the bellicose real estate dealer Mr. Trump have to say about being the number one accomplice to the genocide of the Palestinians of Gaza? 

About being the closest partner in Netanyahu’s ethnic cleansing regime? 

About his continued role as weapons supplier for the Zionist supremacist goal of ending any possibility of Palestinians retaining their homes and regaining their rights to territories they have occupied for centuries?

What kind of degraded animal is this pompous poser who wants ‘to make America great again?’

By concentrating on this three-pointed nexus of evil, I don’t wish to obscure the fact that there are hundreds more human clones in positions of power in the world who have equally failed to lift a finger to end the Gaza carnage, or indeed any other acts of war that they themselves have knowingly provoked through a seemingly irreversible obsession with money and power. 

This includes most of the planet’s religious institutions whose lofty rhetoric of “peace and love on earth” has proved entirely empty when put to the actual test of standing up against brutal villainy.

As Trump, Blair and Netanyahu pour over their blueprint for the construction of a ‘Palestine Free Riviera’ over the ashes of a razed Gaza, with its landscape of surreal Trump Towers, glistening steel high-rise apartments and multinational corporate power pyramids – the men, women and children of that territory continue to be subjected to mass starvation, murder, torture and eviction from their already gutted homes.

What more can one say about this despicably cruel carnage that reveals its perpetrators to be deeply sick, psychotic entities who take pleasure in death and operate at the lowest level of existence of the human species.

As long as such psychopathically hardened criminals continue to be allowed to roam this earth, barking out their executioner orders to a brain dead mind controlled military – there can be nothing but bloodshed in store for humanity.

This is an unconscionable prospect.

Therefore, a coalition of the brave, true and noble must be formed to devise and execute a strategy for the immediate arrest and incarceration of Netanyahu and Blair. And, if Trump refuses to use his Presidential powers to intervene in the Gaza massacre, he too must be subject to the same treatment.

These arrests are not something that will happen via the intervention of ‘the justice system’. That is an illusion. Although the case against Israel is soon to be released by the International Court of Justice and will no doubt prompt further vocal saber-rattling.

We have already seen how cowardly and inept is the United Nations in its failure to enforce international criminal court edicts, further exposing its singular lack of determination to install an expanded peace force in Gaza.

The necessary decisive actions will be taken by a new kind of ‘citizen’s law enforcement body’, comprised of those who recognise that only a coming together of individuals willing to take responsibility for decisive intervention to end the murder of their brothers and sisters, will break the otherwise interminable blood bath.

The imperative is for ‘the citizen’s arrest’ to be projected into the international arena. An action that will, in the context of the slaughter of the innocents in Gaza, receive the emotional and actual support of the majority of the people of the world. 

Once on the move, nothing will be able to stop a vast groundswell of humanity from ultimately ending this nightmare.

Such decisive heroic action will light up the world – and once again raise the flag of dignity of the human race. 

It will clear the way for the reestablishment of a refreshed approach to justice, peace and true respect for all forms of life..

A re-sculptured society, carved out by the hands of a citizen led movement whose unstoppable momentum will finally overpower the dark deep state cult that has the world so relentlessly crushed within its deadly embrace.

N.B. As further proof of high ranking duplicity – at the time of writing – King Charles and the British government are honoring President Trump with an exceptionally lavish state banquet in Windsor castle at the expense of the British tax payer. 

*

Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, a writer, geopolitical analyst, international activist and broadcaster.

16 October 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca

BADIL Releases Position Paper on the Israeli Regime’s “Decisive Plan” for Colonial Domination

By BADIL

BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights releases its latest position paper, entitled The Decisive Plan: The Israeli Regime’s Blueprint for Colonial Expansion and Palestinian Subjugation.” Analyzing both its ideological and practical elements, the paper exposes how Bezalel Smotrich’s “Decisive Plan,” presented in 2017, has been institutionalized by the Israeli regime as its operative strategy to impose full “sovereignty” over the West Bank and consolidate colonial domination across all of Mandatory Palestine.

Since the formation of the current Israeli coalition in late 2022, and especially following 7 October 2023, the regime has been implementing the Decisive Plan’s framework through the intensification of existing policies and the creation of new facts, legislation, military and administrative measures on the ground. These include the formal expansion of colonies, the creation of a special ministerial portfolio for Smotrich, the destruction of refugee camps, mass arrests, displacement and the systematic suppression of Palestinian political and economic life. Together, these actions reflect a coordinated effort to entrench Israeli control, erase Palestinian presence, and impose a new colonial status quo.

Far from being a marginal or fringe view, the Decisive Plan represents the direct continuation of Zionist doctrine since its earliest formulations. At its core, the paper demonstrates that the Decisive Plan is the culmination of the Israeli regime’s long-standing colonial objective: maximum amount of land with the minimum number of Palestinians. The Plan’s enforcement is facilitated through the regime’s structural pillars of forced displacement, colonization, and apartheid, which together sustain a system of total domination and denial of Palestinian self-determination. The Decisive Plan outlines three coercive “options” for Palestinians—subjugation, expulsion, or annihilation— mirroring the policies of colony expansion and isolation of Palestinian communities enforced throughout the West Bank. It further highlights how this enforcement parallels the genocide being carried out in the Gaza Strip, revealing a unified strategy of domination across all Mandatory Palestine.

Moreover, the paper underscores the enabling role of Western, colonial states—particularly the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and France—whose political, military, and financial support has allowed the Israeli regime to pursue these crimes with impunity. This complicity has entrenched a global order where genocide, apartheid, and colonial domination are enabled and legitimized.

BADIL calls upon states to fulfill their obligations under international law to end all complicity and co-perpetration of Israeli crimes. This requires the adoption of immediate and concrete measures, including political, economic, and military sanctions against the Israeli regime, as well as the protection and continued operation of UN agencies, particularly UNRWA, in Palestine. Anything less constitutes a greenlight for the continuation of genocide and the complete imposition of Israeli colonial domination.

17 October 2025

Source: badil.org

“Af-Pak” Escalating War and “The Muslim World: A Requiem” — Interviews Available

AP reports: “Pakistan reports a new clash with Afghan forces along border.”

Drop Site News reports: “In Pakistan, thousands of protesters from the religiously conservative Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) party were marching in solidarity with Gaza when police reportedly opened fire directly on the crowd.”

Trump claimed Tuesday, “I spoke to Hamas,” and they said, “Yes sir, we will disarm.” In reality, DSN reports “senior Hamas, Islamic Jihad and figures from other resistance factions have repeatedly rejected disarmament throughout negotiations, including in multiple interviews with Drop Site over the past year.” They also report: “Israel on Tuesday announced it will not abide by the terms of the ceasefire agreement related to humanitarian aid … only half of the agreed number of trucks — 300 trucks — will be allowed to enter.”

JUNAID S. AHMAD, junaidsahmad@gmail.com, @Academicatarms

Ahmad is professor of law, religion, and global politics and is the Director of the Center for the Study of Islam and Decolonization in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Ahmed just wrote the piece “Washington’s Subcontractor: Pakistan and the price of obedience,” in Muslim Views which states: “The generals may have silenced [ousted democratically elected prime minister Imran] Khan’s voice, but not his echo. It reverberates across a nation denied dignity — a roar that grows louder with every crackdown. Cornered at home, Pakistan’s generals have reached for their oldest sedative: war. The clashes with Afghanistan are not accidents of geography but instruments of political survival. Conflict rallies the flag, distracts from repression, and cloaks tyranny in patriotism.”

At the Sharm el-Sheikh summit, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said he wanted to again nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

In Middle East Monitor, Ahmed recently wrote the piece “The silence of the sultans: Muslim regimes and the holocaust of our time” which states: “It’s not that the Muslim world lacks power. Far from it. The Gulf states alone sit atop a financial arsenal large enough to buy and sell entire Western economies — on Tuesdays. Turkey and Pakistan, meanwhile, field massive, sophisticated armed forces. The former is a NATO member with drones and ambitions. The latter is a nuclear-armed state whose generals never tire of reminding the world that they’re ready for ‘full-spectrum deterrence’ — a euphemism for mushroom clouds on demand. And yet, when it came to Gaza, both seemed to have misplaced their playbooks, their backbones, and their sense of duty.”

in “The Muslim World: A Requiem” he writes: “Let us be honest: most Muslim-majority governments today are client states, marionettes in a puppet theatre directed by Western powers, primarily the United States. Iran is the notable exception, though even it often walks the tightrope between pragmatism and defiance. The rest? From Riyadh to Rabat, from Islamabad to Amman, their foreign policies are either written in Washington or blessed by it. One could argue that the only difference between the State Department and the foreign ministries of many Muslim states is the choice of drapes.” His other pieces in Middle East Monitor include “The Zionism of the brass: Why Pakistan’s army won’t defend Gaza” and “The generals and princes are cashing in while Gaza bleeds.”

His recent pieces in The Palestine Chronicle include “Diplomacy or Drama? The Farcical Axis of Washington, Islamabad, and Tel Aviv” and “What Would Muhammad Do? The Answer They Fear.”

He also writes at Counter Currents. Recent pieces there include “Chappelle in Riyadh: From ‘Killing Them Softly’ to Killing His Own Legacy” and “The Saudi–Pakistan Pact: Theater of Complicity.”

Reuters reported: “A live microphone captured Indonesian President Prabowo asking Donald Trump if he could meet his son Eric, an executive vice president of the Trump Organization. ‘I’ll have Eric call. Should I do that? He’s such a good boy,’ Trump said.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020

October 15, 2025

Institute for Public Accuracy
accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org
@accuracy

Junaid S. Ahmad
Professor of Law, Religion, and Global Politics
Director, Center for the Study of Islam and Decolonization (CSID)
Islamabad, Pakistan
@Academicatarms

Nobel Peace Prize winner supports Israel’s genocide & Trump’s war on Venezuela

By BEN NORTON

Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado is a far-right Venezuelan coup-plotter funded by the US government. She supports Israel as it commits genocide and is key to Trump’s regime-change war.

The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to María Corina Machado, a far-right coup leader in Venezuela who has been funded by the US government for decades.

Machado has openly called for the US military to invade Venezuela, in order to overthrow the revolutionary Chavista government of President Nicolás Maduro.

She is at the heart of the war that Donald Trump has waged on Venezuela. Machado has endorsed the US military’s extrajudicial executions of Venezuelans in boats in international waters, echoing the Trump administration’s unsubstantiated, evidence-free claims that it is supposedly killing “drug traffickers”.

Machado also supports the illegal, unilateral US sanctions that have killed hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans.

Likewise, Machado has expressed staunch support for Israel as it carried out genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.

Nobel Peace Prize for war criminals

The fact that a pro-war, far-right coup-plotter like Machado was given a Nobel Peace Prize demonstrates how extremely hypocritical the award is.

This hypocrisy is far from new.

US imperial planner Henry Kissinger was given a so-called Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, despite the fact that he was one of the worst war criminals in modern history, with the blood of millions of victims on his hands, in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Bangladesh, Chile, and beyond.

Former US President Barack Obama also won a so-called Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. His administration then went on to wage nonstop war. Obama bombed seven countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen.

This is by no means the first time that the Norwegian Nobel Committee has been hypocritical. But giving the prize to María Corina Machado is especially outrageous, because it comes precisely at a moment when, one, she has been supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza; and two, she is working with Donald Trump to wage war and use violence to try to overthrow Venezuela’s government.

María Corina Machado supports Israel’s genocidal regime

Machado has openly praised Israel as it has carried out a genocide against the Palestinian people.

A United Nations commission led by renowned experts on international humanitarian law stated clearly that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.

In January 2025, Machado held a call with Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa’ar. She expressed her “gratitude to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel”, adding that she “immensely values the support of the government of Israel”.

The genocidal Israeli regime has refused to recognize the government of Venezuela’s constitutional, internationally recognized President Nicolás Maduro, and has instead recognized US-backed coup leader Edmundo González, who lives in Spain and is a proxy for Machado.

In April 2024, Israel attacked Iran in an act of aggression, and Tehran hit back in self-defense. Machado immediately took to Twitter to condemn Iran. She emphasized her “solidarity with the State of Israel amid the direct aggression by the Iranian regime”.

Machado denounced the supposed “risk represented by the alliance of Iran with the Venezuelan regime”, and she vowed that, if the US can successfully put her in power in Caracas, Machado would form a close alliance with the US and Israel against Iran and the Palestinian people.

In 2023, Machado again tweeted support for Israel, expressing hope that it has a “long and happy existence”, adding that the far-right Venezuelan opposition and the genocidal Israeli regime share common “values”.

One of the clearest illustrations of Machado’s extremist politics came in 2018, when she published an open letter to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, asking the genocidal leader to help her overthrow Venezuelan President Maduro.

Machado requested that Israel, Argentina’s right-wing government, and other countries in the “international community” give the Venezuelan opposition “the necessary support to generate a regime change” against Maduro.

In the letter, Machado cited “the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect”, which was used by the United States to justify its 2011 war on Libya. That US-led NATO war destroyed the central government of what had once been a peaceful, stable, and prosperous oil-rich North African country and turned it into a lawless failed state with open-air slave markets.

Today, Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity that his regime has committed in Gaza.

Venezuela does not have formal diplomatic relations with Israel. They were repeatedly broken by revolutionary former President Hugo Chávez and his successor Maduro, both of whom have been strong supporters of the Palestinian people and have condemned Israel for committing genocide.

María Corina Machado is at the center of Donald Trump’s regime-change war on Venezuela

Giving the so-called Nobel Peace Prize to María Corina Machado is even more outrageous considering that she is at the heart of a war that the US government is currently waging against Venezuela.

Donald Trump has launched multiple military attacks, killing dozens of Venezuelans without charge or trial. In flagrant violation of international law, the US military has repeatedly bombed boats surrounding Venezuela in international waters, claiming without any evidence that they were full of people trafficking “drugs”.

Machado has supported Trump’s attacks on her country, including his extrajudicial executions of Venezuelans without charge or trial.

The Financial Times interviewed Machado, and she admitted that she is working with the US government to try to overthrow Venezuela’s President Maduro.

The FT reported that the “deployment of US warships to the southern Caribbean has encouraged thousands of Venezuelans to join an underground movement preparing to bring down President Nicolás Maduro”.

The Trump administration has sent eight warships and thousands of troops to the Caribbean, the FT reported, along with 10 F-35 jets in Puerto Rico. The newspaper noted that this is the largest US military buildup in the region since the 1994 US invasion of Haiti.

“Top figures in the Venezuelan opposition say they have been in touch with senior Trump administration officials to discuss how to choreograph Maduro’s downfall”, the FT wrote.

The newspaper quoted Machado, who threatened, “This set of internal and external forces have created the conditions for Maduro and his regime to increasingly understand that their time is up and that their best option is to leave power now”.

What does Machado hope to do if the US manages to put her in power?

The far-right opposition leader admitted in another interview with the Financial Times that she wants to privatize Venezuela’s enormous oil reserves.

“We have to privatise and open up the markets, beginning with the energy sector”, Machado told the FT in 2023.

After calling to sell off Venezuela’s state-owned oil company PDVSA, she stressed that the South American nation’s enormous oil and gas reserves, along with its lucrative minerals, “will all be open to private investment”.

The newspaper acknowledged in passing that Machado has a “radical reputation” in Venezuela. This is putting it mildly. Machado is the leader of the far-right extremist wing of Venezuela’s opposition. It is explicitly violent and anti-democratic, and notoriously corrupt.

Trump said he wants to “take over” Venezuela and exploit its oil

During Trump’s first term as US president, he launched another coup attempt in Venezuela.

In 2019, Washington appointed the unelected right-wing opposition figure Juan Guaidó as the so-called “interim president” of Venezuela, despite the fact that he had never participated in a presidential election.

The US and its European allies then proceeded to freeze and steal billions of dollars worth of Venezuelan government assets, which were used to fund the coup attempt — and enrich leading figures from the corrupt Venezuelan opposition.

Trump’s coup attempt clearly failed during his first term. At a Republican Party rally in 2023, he complained that the US empire had been very close to “taking over” Venezuela and pillaging his oil. He fumed:

Venezuela. How about we’re buying oil from Venezuela? When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over. We would have gotten all that oil. It would have been right next door.

In fact, right after the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that it had given its so-called peace prize to Machado, Trump held a press conference in the White House.

There, Trump revealed that Machado had called him on the phone to thank him for helping her try to overthrow Maduro.

Trump boasted that he has been supporting Venezuela’s far-right opposition. These were his remarks:

The person who actually got the Nobel Prize called today [on October 10], called me, and said, “I’m accepting this in honor of you because you really deserved it”.

A very nice thing to do. I didn’t say, “Then give it to me”, though. I think she might have. She was very nice.

And I’ve been, you know, I’ve been helping her along the way. They need a lot of help in Venezuela.

María Corina Machado supports illegal US sanctions that have killed hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans

Machado has also advocated for years for the United States to impose more and more sanctions on Venezuela, which violate international law.

These unilateral coercive measures have killed hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans.

In 2017, when Trump levied heavy sanctions on Venezuela, Machado praised them, writing happily in an approving tweet, “These sanctions are surgical and effective; with a strong financial, commercial, and political impact”.

Then, in 2018, Machado insisted that “the regime will only leave with force”. She demanded “International force: more lawsuits and sanctions”.

International experts have pointed out that the illegal US sanctions on Venezuela are responsible for at least tens of thousands of deaths, and likely hundreds of thousands.

Renowned economists Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs calculated that US sanctions caused more than 40,000 deaths in Venezuela in just one year, from 2017 to 2018.

Their findings were published in a 2019 study at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, DC.

“The sanctions have reduced the availability of food and medicine, and increased disease and mortality”, they wrote.

Weisbrot and Sachs also warned that, “if the sanctions continued, they will almost certainly result in tens of thousands more avoidable deaths”.

The unilateral coercive measures have indeed continued since then, meaning it is likely that hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan civilians have been killed by these illegal US sanctions.

This was implied by another peer-reviewed scientific study, published in 2025 in the world’s leading medical journal, The Lancet.

Unilateral economic sanctions have caused an average of 564,000 excess deaths every single year for the past five decades, the latter study found.

The majority of the deaths from sanctions have been children under the age of five, concluded economists Mark Weisbrot, Francisco Rodríguez, and Silvio Rendón.

The United States is responsible for imposing the majority of unilateral sanctions, in violation of international law.

This means that Nobel “Peace” Prize laureate María Corina Machado has supported illegal coercive measures that killed hundreds of thousands of her countrymen, including many children.

Marco Rubio, Mike Waltz, and other US politicians lobbied Norwegian Nobel Committee for María Corina Machado

US government officials played a key role in lobbying the Norwegian Nobel Committee to give its so-called peace prize to the Venezuelan coup leader.

On August 26, 2024, several right-wing members of the US Congress sent the committee a letter (PDF).

“We write to you in support of the nomination of María Corina Machado for the Nobel Peace Prize”, they said.

The signatories were all Republicans. They included Florida Senators Rick Scott and Marco Rubio and Florida House Representatives Mario Díaz-Balart, María Elvira Salazar, Michael “Mike” Waltz, Neal Dunn, and Carlos A. Gimenez, along with the New York Representative Byron Donalds.

Today, Rubio is the second-most powerful person in the US government after Trump. He is both secretary of state and national security advisor. (Rubio is the second person in US history to simultaneously hold both positions, after war criminal and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Henry Kissinger.)

Mike Waltz previously served as Trump’s national security advisor, and now is US ambassador to the UN.

These are the US government officials who have been working closely with Machado and Venezuela’s extreme, far-right opposition to try to violently overthrow President Maduro.

By giving Machado its “peace” prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee demonstrated that it is willing to act as a tool of US empire, cynically exploiting the discourse of “peace” in order to advocate for more war.

13 October 2025

Source: geopoliticaleconomy.report

October 7, 2023: Is Gaza-Israel Fighting “A False Flag”? They Let It Happen? Their Objective Is “to Wipe Gaza Off the Map”?

By Philip Giraldi and Prof Michel Chossudovsky

First published on October 7, 2023 at the outset of Israel’s act of genocide against Palestine. Revised in April 2024.

There is an ongoing propaganda campaign which categorically denies the existence of a false flag, the objective of which is to justify the genocide against the People of Palestine. 

The evidence is overwhelming.

—May 19, 2024, July 27, 2025, October 7, 2025

Introduction

Was It a False Flag? 

Military operations are invariably planned well in advance. Was “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” a “surprise attack”? Or was it “a False Flag”?

In the words of Philip Giraldi

“As a former intelligence officer, I find it impossible to believe that Israel did not have multiple informants inside Gaza as well as electronic listening devices all along the border wall which would have picked up movements of groups and vehicles.

In other words, the whole thing might be a tissue of lies as is often the case.” 

A Tissue of Lies 

“A Tissue of Lies” has served to justify the killing in the Gaza Strip of more than 35,000 civilians, of which 70% are women and children coupled with total destruction and an endless  string of atrocities. 

The cat is out of the bag. Netanyahu has tacitly acknowledged that it was “A False Flag” which was intent upon justifying a carefully planned genocidal attack against Palestine: 

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” he [Netanyahu] told a meeting of his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.” (Haaretz, October 9, 2023, emphasis added)

Does this candid statement not suggest that Netanyahu and his military-intelligence apparatus are responsible for the killings of innocent Israeli civilians? 

On that same day of October 7, 2023 Netanyahu launched a carefully planned military operation against the Gaza Strip entitled “State of Readiness For War”.  

Military operations are invariably planned well in advance.

Had “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” been a “surprise attack” as parroted by the media, Netanyahu’s “State of Readiness For War” could not have been carried out (at short notice) on that same day, namely October 7, 2023. 

South Africa’s Legal Procedure against the State of Israel 

On January 11, 2024, the Republic of South Africa  presented to The Hague World Court, a carefully formulated legal procedure against the State of Israel predicated on The Genocide Convention.

This legal procedure, however, has not contributed to repealing the ongoing genocide and saving the lives of tens of thousands of civilians.

I should mention that the False Flag issue —which constitutes a crime against humanity— was casually ignored by the ICJ.

Our suggestion is that an investigation followed by a legal procedure pertaining to the “False Flag” should be undertaken.

The heads of State and heads of government who have endorsed Israel’s Genocidal Acts are from a legal standpoint complicit. 

The ICJ Judgement was contradictory. The Presiding Judge (former legal advisor to Hillary Clinton) was in conflict of interest: 

The ICJ Judgment of January 26, 2024 assigns the Netanyahu government representing the State of Israel –accused by the Republic of South Africa of genocide against the People of Palestine– with a mandate to “take all measures within its power” to “prevent and punish” those responsible for having committed “Genocidal Acts”. (under Article IV of the Genocide Convention)

Sounds contradictory? What the ICJ judgment intimates –from a twisted legal standpoint– is that Netanyahu’s Cabinet which was “appointed” to implement  the “prevent and punish” mandate cannot be accused of having committed “Genocidal Acts”.

See

“Fake Justice” at The Hague: The ICJ “Appoints” Netanyahu to “Prevent” and “Punish” Those Responsible for “Genocidal Acts”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, April 24, 2024

Our intent is to provide a broad and detailed understanding of the false flag issue pertaining to Palestine.

The titles of the videos, articles and texts presented below:  

  1. Is the Gaza-Israel Fighting “A False Flag”? They Let it Happen? Their Objective Is “to Wipe Gaza Off the Map”?, by Dr. Philip Giraldi. 
  2. Video: ICJ Hearings in The Hague, 
  3. Text of Israel’s Secret Intelligence Memorandum. Planning the Forcible Exclusion of Palestinians from Their Homeland
  4. Video: “False Flag. Wiping Gaza Off the Map”, Interview. Michel Chossudovsky with Caroline Mailloux
  5. “False Flag. Wiping Gaza Off the Map”, by Michel Chossudovsky
  6. Gaza Strikes Back. It’s Another 9/11 or Pearl Harbor? But Who Actually Did What to Whom? “This Was More Likely a False Flag Operation”, by Philip Giraldi 

In solidarity with the People of Palestine.

—Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, January 11, 2024, September 14, 2024, July 27, 2025

Part I

Is the Gaza-Israel Fighting “A False Flag”?

They Let it Happen?

Their Objective Is “to Wipe Gaza Off the Map”?

by Dr. Philip Giraldi 

October 8, 2023

Am I the only one who read about a speech given by Netanyahu or someone in his cabinet about a week ago in which he/they in passing referred to a “developing security situation” which rather suggests (to me) that they might have known about developments in Gaza and chose to let it happen so they can wipe Gaza off the map in retaliation and, possibly relying on the US pledge to have Israel’s “back,” then implicating Iran and attacking that country.

I cannot find a link to it, but have a fairly strong recollection of what I read as I thought at the time it would serve as a pretext for another massacre of Palestinians.

As a former intelligence officer, I find it impossible to believe that Israel did not have multiple informants inside Gaza as well as electronic listening devices all along the border wall which would have picked up movements of groups and vehicles.

In other words, the whole thing might be a tissue of lies as is often the case.

And as is also ALWAYS the case Joe Biden is preparing to send some billions of dollars to poor little Israel to pay for “defending” itself.

Part II

VIDEO. ICJ Hearings in The Hague

January 2024

ICJ Hearings 

1. January 11, 2024. Click Here to View the ICJ Hearings,

2. January 12, 2024. Israel’s Legal Team’s response to South Africa, ICJ The Hague at 10 am. Video in Real Time 

3. Video: South Africa’s Closing Argument against Israel for Genocide. January 11 Hearing at the World Court

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4oRlvP4gsY]

Part III

Israel’s Secret Intelligence Memorandum

Planning the Forcible Exclusion of Palestinians from Their Homeland

by Michel Chossudovsky

October 2023

An official “secret” memorandum authored by Israel’s  Ministry of Intelligence “is recommending the forcible and permanent transfer of the Gaza Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinian residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula”, namely to a refugee camp in Egyptian territory. There are indications of Israel-Egypt negotiations  as well as consultations with the U.S. 

The 10-page document, dated Oct. 13, 2023, bears the logo of the Intelligence Ministry … assesses three options regarding the future of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip … It recommends a full population transfer as its preferred course of action. … The document, the authenticity of which was confirmed by the ministry, has been translated into English in full here on +972.

See below, click here or below to access complete document (10 pages)

For further details and analysis see:

“Wiping Gaza Off the Map”: Israel’s “Secret” Intelligence Memorandum “Option C” by Michel Chossudovsky

Part IV 

Video: “False Flag. Wiping Gaza Off the Map”

Interview: Michel Chossudovsky and Caroline Mailloux 

October 17, 2023

[https://rumble.com/v3prb44-michel-chossudovsky-false-flag-eradicating-gaza-from-the-map.html]

To comment or access Rumble 

Part V

“False Flag”. Wiping Gaza Off the Map

by

Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

October 12, 2023

Introduction

Early Saturday October 7, 2023, Hamas launched “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” led by Hamas’ Military Chief Mohammed Deif. On that same day, Netanyahu confirmed a so-called “State of Readiness For War”.  

Military operations are invariably planned well in advance (See Netanyahu’s January 2023 statement below). Was “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” a “surprise attack” ?

U.S. intelligence say they weren’t aware of an impending Hamas attack. 

“One would have to be almost hopelessly naïve to buy the corporate state media line that the Hamas invasion  was an Israeli “intelligence failure”. Mossad is one of, if not the, most powerful intelligence agencies on the planet.”

Did Netanyahu and his vast military and intelligence apparatus (Mossad et al) have foreknowledge of the Hamas attack which has resulted in countless deaths of Israelis and Palestinians.

Was a carefully formulated Israeli plan to wage an all out war against Palestinians envisaged prior to the launching by Hamas of  “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm”? This was not a failure of Israeli Intelligence, as conveyed by the media. Quite the opposite. 

Evidence and testimonies suggest that the Netanyahu government had foreknowledge of the actions of Hamas which have resulted in hundreds of Israeli and Palestinian deaths. And “They Let it Happen”:

“Hamas fired between 2-5 thousand rockets at Israel and hundreds of Israeli are dead, while dozens of Israelis were captured as prisoners of war. In the ensuing air response by Israel, hundreds of Palestinians were killed in Gaza.” (Stephen Sahiounie)  

Following the Al Aqsa Storm Operation on October 7, Israel‘s defence minister described Palestinians as “human animals” and vowed to “act accordingly,” as fighter jets unleashed a massive bombing of the Gaza Strip home of 2.3 million Palestinians…” (Middle East Eye). A complete blockade on the Gaza Strip was initiated on October 9, 2023 consisting in   blocking and obstructing the importation of food, water, fuel, and essential commodities to 2.3 Million Palestinians. It’s an outright crime against humanity. It’s genocide. 

It is worth noting, that Netanyahu’s military actions are not targeting HAMAS, quite the opposite: he is targeting 2.3 million innocent Palestinian civilians, in blatant violation of the Four Basic Principles of  The Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC): 

“….respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects [schools, hospitals and residential areas], the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.” [Additional Protocol 1, Article 48]

Ironically, according to Scott Ritter, Hamas’ has acquired U.S. weapons in Ukraine. 

This was Not a “Surprise Attack”

Was the Hamas Attack a “False Flag”? 

“I served in the IDF 25 years ago, in the intelligence forces. There’s no way Israel did not know of what’s coming.

A cat moving alongside the fence is triggering all forces. So this??

What happened to the “strongest army in the world”?

How come border crossings were wide open?? Something is VERY WRONG HERE, something is very strange, this chain of events is very unusual and not typical for the Israeli defense system.

To me this suprise attack seems like a planned operation. On all fronts. 

If I was a conspiracy theorist I would say that this feels like the work of the Deep State.  

It feels like the people of Israel and the people of Palestine have been sold, once again, to the higher powers that be. 

(Statement by Efrat Fenigson, former IDF intelligence,  October 7, 2023, emphasis added)

Ironically, the media (NBC) is now contending that the “Hamas attack bears hallmarks of Iranian involvement”

History: The Relationship between Mossad and Hamas

What is the relationship between Mossad and Hamas? Is Hamas an “intelligence asset”? There is a long history. 

Hamas (Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya) (Islamic Resistance Movement), was founded in 1987 by Sheik Ahmed Yassin. It was supported at the outset by Israeli intelligence as a means to weaken the Palestinian Authority:

“Thanks to Mossad, (Israel’s “Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks”), Hamas was allowed to reinforce its presence in the occupied territories. Meanwhile, Arafat’s Fatah Movement for National Liberation as well as the Palestinian Left were subjected to the most brutal form of repression and intimidation.

Let us not forget that it was Israel, which in fact created Hamas. According to Zeev Sternell, historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, “Israel thought that it was a smart ploy to push the Islamists against the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO)”. (L’Humanité, translated from French)

The links of Hamas to Mossad and US intelligence have been acknowledged by Rep. Ron Paul in a statement to the U.S Congress: “Hamas Was Started by Israel”?

“You know Hamas, if you look at the history, you’ll find out that Hamas was encouraged and really started by Israel because they wanted Hamas to counteract Yasser Arafat… (Rep. Ron Paul, 2011)

What this statement entails is that Hamas is and remains “an intelligence asset”, namely “an “asset” to intelligence agencies”

See also the WSJ (January 24, 2009) “How Israel helped to Spawn Hamas”. 

Instead of trying to curb Gaza’s Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah. (WSJ, emphasis added)

“The Hamas Partnership” is confirmed by Netanyahu

“The Cat is Out of the Bag”

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” he [Netanyahu] told a meeting of his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.” (Haaretz, October 9, 2023, emphasis added)

Does this statement not suggest that Netanyahu and his military-intelligence apparatus are responsible for the killings of innocent Israeli civilians? 

“Support” and “Money” for Hamas. 

“Transferring Money to Hamas” on behalf of Netanyahu is confirmed by a Times of Israel October 8, 2023 Report: 

“Hamas was treated as a partner to the detriment of the Palestinian Authority to prevent Abbas from moving towards creating a Palestinian State. Hamas was promoted from a terrorist group to an organization with which Israel conducted negotiations through Egypt, and which was allowed to receive suitcases containing millions of dollars from Qatar through the Gaza crossings.” (emphasis added)

The Dangers of Military Escalation?

Let us be under no illusions, this “false flag” operation is a complex military-intelligence undertaking, carefully planned over several years, in liaison and  coordination with US intelligence, the Pentagon and NATO. 

In turn, this action against Palestine is already conducive to a process of military escalation which potentially could engulf a large part of Middle East.

Israel is a de facto member NATO (with a special status) since 2004, involving active military and intelligence coordination as well as consultations pertaining to the occupied territories.

Military cooperation with both the Pentagon and NATO is viewed by Israel’s Defence Force (IDF) as a means to “enhance Israel’s deterrence capability regarding potential enemies threatening it, mainly Iran and Syria.”

The premise of NATO-Israel military cooperation is that “Israel is under attack”. Does Israel’s agreement with the Atlantic Alliance “obligate” NATO “to come to the rescue of Israel” under the doctrine of “collective security” (Article 5 of the Washington treaty)?

In recent developments, U.S. military deployments in the Middle East are ongoing allegedly to avoid escalation.

According to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg:

There is always the risk that nations and/or organisations hostile to Israel will take try to take advantage. And that includes, for instance, organisations like Hezbollah or a country like Iran. So this is a message to countries and organisations hostile to Israel that they should not try to utilise the situation. And the United States have deployed, or has deployed more military forces in the region, not least to deter any escalation or prevent any escalation of the situation. (NATO Press Conference, Brussels, October 12, 2023, emphasis added) 

Netanyahu’s “New Stage”

“The Long War” against Palestine

Netanyahu’s stated objective, which constitutes a new stage in the 75 year old war (since Nakba, 1948) against the people of Palestine is no longer predicated on “Apartheid” or “Separation”. This new stage –which is also directed against Israelis who want peace— consists in “total appropriation” as well as the outright exclusion of the Palestinian people from their homeland:

“These are the basic lines of the national government headed by me [Netanyahu]: The Jewish people have an exclusive and unquestionable right to all areas of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel — in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan, Judea and Samaria.” (Netanyahu January 2023. emphasis added)

We bring to the attention of our readers the incisive analysis of  Dr. Philip Giraldi pointing to the likelihood of a “False Flag’”. 

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, October 8, 2023, Above text updated on October 12, 2023

Part VI

Gaza Strikes Back. It’s Another 9/11 or Pearl Harbor?

But Who Actually Did What to Whom?

“This Was More Likely a False Flag Operation”

by

Dr Philip Giraldi

October 16, 2023

“As a former on-the-ground intelligence officer, I am somewhat convinced that this was likely more like a false flag operation rather than a case of institutional failure on the part of the Israelis.”

It’s amazing how America’s thought-controlled media is able to come up with a suitable narrative almost immediately whenever there is an international incident that might be subject to multiple interpretations.

***

Since 1948 Israel has expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes,

has occupied nearly all of the historic Palestine, has empowered its army to kill thousands of local people, and

has more recently established an apartheid regime that even denies that Palestinian Arabs are human in the same sense that Jews are.

Netanyahu-allied government minister Ayelet Shaked memorably has called for Israel not only to exterminate all Palestinian children, whom she has described as “little snakes,” but also to kill their mothers who gave birth to them.

But when the Arabs strike back against the hatred that confronts them with their limited resources it is Israel that is described as the victimand the Palestinians who are dehumanized and portrayed as the “terrorists.”

Media in the US and Europe were quick to label the Hamas offensive breaching the formidable Israeli border defenses as “Israel’s 9/11” or even “Israel’s Pearl Harbor” to establish the context that the Israelis have been on the receiving end of an “unprovoked” attack by a cruel and heartless enemy.

Israel has responded to the attack with a heavy bombardment of Gaza that has destroyed infrastructure, including hospitals and schools, while also cutting off food supplies, water and electricity.

It has demanded that residents of north Gaza, all 1.1 million of them, evacuate to make way for a possible ground offensive but there is nowhere to go as all the borders are closed, and the United Nations is calling it a demand with “devastating humanitarian consequences.” Journalist Peter Beinart has commented “This is a monstrous crime. It’s happening in plain view, with US support.”

And the United States government is indeed typically on the same page as Israel. President Joe Bidenciting fabricated stories about dead Jewish babies, speaks of how Israel has a “duty” to defend itself, while the Palestinians somehow have no right to protect themselves at all, much less to rise up against their persecutors in a struggle for freedom.

And Washington has also unhesitatingly chosen to directly involve itself in the conflict, completely on the side of the Jewish state, asserting repeatedly that “Israel has a right to defend itself” and telling the Israelis that “we have your back” while also dispatching two aircraft carrier groups to the scene of the fighting as well as the 101st Airborne to Jordan and increasing the readiness of Marines stationed in Kuwait.

The White House could have taken more aggressive steps to encourage a ceasefire and talks but has chosen instead to issue essentially toothless calls to let the trapped civilians escape while also backing a devastating Israeli military response.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Oct. 12, 2023. – Secretary Antony Blinken on X

Israel is also hosting the worthless and brain dead Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin who will be providing advice along the lines of his insightful comment that Hamas is “evil” and “worse than ISIS.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken is already in Jerusalem, announcing that the US is there to support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s unity government “as long as America exists” after first saying “I come before you not only as the United States Secretary of State, but also as a Jew.”

Blinken’s explicit association of his personal religion with his official role as a representative of the US government makes clear that a key element in why he is there is because he is “a Jew.” Perhaps he should recuse himself from policy making involving Israel as being “a Jew” would not appear to be a United States national interest and is likely to produce irrational responses to developing situations.

If all of this sounds a lot like Ukraine it should, except that in Ukraine the US and NATO are fighting against Russia, which is being demonized for occupying what is claimed Ukrainian territory, whereas in Palestine they are supporting the occupier of actual Palestinian territory, Israel.

Funny thing that, and the word “hypocrisy” comes immediately to mind. As it turns out, however, I am somewhat on the same page as much of the media, agreeing that the Hamas incursion is something like 9/11, though I am sure that my take would not be found acceptable to the CNN Jake Tappers of this world.

My thinking is that Israel knew in advance about 9/11 in the United States due to its extensive spying network and chose not to share the information because it was to their advantage not to do so.

Indeed, a pleased Netanyahu even stated several years later that “9/11 was a good thing because it made the United States join us in our fight.”

That the attacks killed 3,000 Americans did not bother the Israeli government as Israel has a long history of killing Americans when it can benefit from so doing, starting with the attack on the USS Liberty in 1967 which killed 34 sailors.

So too in this case in Gaza, Netanyahu may have decided to encourage an unexpected development, making it like 9/11, that would enable him to escalate and “mow the grass” as the Israelis put it, in the remainder of Arab Palestine.

And bear in mind that the actual incident that triggered the uprising was a rampage involving at least 800 Israeli settlers in and around the al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, beating pilgrims and destroying Palestinian shops, all without any interference from the nearby Israeli security forces. The rioting was clearly allowed and even encouraged by the government.

Drawing on my experience as a former on-the-ground intelligence officer, I am somewhat convinced that this was likely more like a false flag operation rather than a case of institutional failure on the part of the Israelis.

Israel had an extensive electronic and physical wall backed by soldiers and weaponry that completely surrounded Gaza on the landward side, so effective that it was claimed that not even a mouse could get in.

The Mediterranean side of Gaza was also tightly controlled by the Israeli Navy and boats to and from Gaza were completely blocked.

Egypt tightly controlled the southern part of Gaza bordering on the Sinai. So Gaza was under 24/7 complete surveillance and control at all times. Israeli military intelligence also certainly had a network of recruited informants inside Gaza who would report on any training or movements, easy enough to do when you can approach people who are starving and make them an offer they cannot refuse just for providing information on what they see and hear.

And then there was a warning from the Egyptian government to Israel ten days before the Hamas attack, with Egypt’s Intelligence Minister General Abbas Kamel personally calling Netanyahu and sharing intelligence suggesting that the Gazans were likely to do “something unusual, a terrible operation.” Other media accounts reveal how Hamas trained and practiced their maneuvers publicly. There were also assessments made by US intelligence, which were shared with Israel, suggesting that something was afoot. So, given all of the evidence, there likely was no intelligence failure to anticipate and counter the Hamas attack but rather a political decision made by the Israeli government that knew what might be coming and chose to let it proceed to provide a casus belli to destroy Gaza, vowing that “Every member of Hamas is a dead man,” and then go on from there. And “from there” might well include Lebanon, Syria and Iran, possibly with the assistance of the United States to do the heavy lifting. Iran in particular is already being blamed by the usual suspects as a party involved in the Hamas attack, so far without any evidence whatsoever, which is typical of how these stories evolve.

And Israel has moved far to the right politically to such an extent that it might appreciate a little ethnic cleansing to demonstrate its seriousness. Netanyahu and other senior government officials in his cabinet have recently been making passing references to a “developing security situation” in the country to justify the intensifying of the raids by the army against Palestinian towns and refugee camps. The new government in Israel has also placed police under the control of ultra-nationalist Jewish Power party head Itamar Ben-Gvir as National Security Minister. He has been exploiting his position to call in particular for a war to destroy Hamas in Gaza, which is precisely what is happening. Gaza might be of particular interest to Ben-Gvir and others as it uniquely shelters an armed and organized resistance in the form of Hamas, which, oddly, was founded with the support of Israel to split the Palestinian political resistance with Fatah controlling the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza.

There is another issue relating to the recent fighting that one would like to know the answer to, namely how did Hamas get its weapons in the first place?

Some were clearly manufactured from parts and scrap but others were sophisticated and, as Gaza is blockaded on all sides, smuggling them in becomes problematical. One argument is that they were supplied by Iran and others to be brought in by tunnels, but the tunnels on two sides would end up in Israel and on the third side in Egypt. The fourth side is the Mediterranean Sea. So how did they arrive? Is there a possible triple or even quadruple cross taking place with different parties lying to each other? And should there be concerns that after the American armada arrives off the coast of Gaza there just might be some kind of false flag incident engineered by Netanyahu that will involve Washington directly in the fighting?

And there is what amounts to a related issue that should be of concern to everyone in the US and generically speaking the “Western world” where human rights are at least nominally respected. The message from almost all Western governments is that Israel has a carte blanche to do whatever it likes even when it involves war crimes to include mass forced displacement or genocide. In this case, the coordinated government-media response which is intended to protect Israel from any criticism almost immediately began circulating fabricated tales of atrocities while also delivering a hit on freedom of speech and association. President Biden, who should be trying to defuse the crisis, is instead adding fuel to the flames, saying of Hamas that “Pure, unadulterated evil has been unleashed on the earth!”

In Florida the arch Zionist stooge Governor Ron Desantis met with Jewish leaders in a synagogue to announce draconian measures against Iran to include sanctions on companies that are in any way linked to that country. One might point out that those businesses have done nothing wrong and Desantis also called for “eradication of Hamas from the earth.” His intellectual depth was at the same time revealed when he said the US should not take in any Gazan refugees because they are “antisemites.”

And in South Carolina, America’s favorite he/she Senator Lindsey Graham is calling for a US attack on Iran as well as declaring the war against Hamas to be “a religious war” and urging the Israeli army to invade Gaza and do “Whatever the hell you have to do to” to “level the place.”

And the Europeans are equally spineless in their deference to Israel. The Israeli president declared the that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, and not long after that top European Union representatives met with him to offer their unqualified support. Meanwhile in France, the spineless and feckless government of Emmanuel Macron has sought to outlaw any gathering that expresses support for Palestinian rights.

And in the UK, the Home Secretary Suella Braverman has proposed criminalizing any protest against Israeli actions or anything in support of Palestine to include banning any public display of the Palestinian national flag, which she regards as a “criminal offense toward the Jewish community in Britain.”

She has also said that “I would encourage police to consider whether chants such as: ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ should be understood as an expression of a violent desire to see Israel erased from the world, and whether its use in certain contexts may amount to a racially aggravated section 5 public order offence.” Berlin’s Public Prosecutor’s Office has also classified the use of the expression as a “criminal offense.” The manner in which most Western political elites are lining up unquestionably and even enthusiastically behind Israel and its craven leaders’ desire for bloody vengeance is truly shocking but comes as no surprise.

Beyond the issue of Gaza itself, some in Israel are arguing that Netanyahu has personally benefitted from the unrest through the creation of the national unity government which has ended for the time being the huge demonstrations protesting his judicial reform proposals. If all of this comes together politically as it might in the next several weeks, we could be seeing the initial steps in what will develop into the complete ethnic cleansing of what was once Palestine, in line with Netanyahu’s assertion that “the Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop the settlement of all parts of the Land of Israel.” So all of the former Palestine is now a land to be defined by its Jewishness where Jews are in full control and are free to do whatever they want without any objection, referred to by the Israeli government as “an exclusive right to self-determination.” And it has all possibly been brought to fruition by the enablement provided by the current developments in Gaza.

The original source of Dr. Giraldi’s October 16, 2023 article. 

Gaza Strikes Back. It’s Another 9/11 or Pearl Harbor but Who Actually Did What to Whom? “This Was More Likely a False Flag Operation”

By Philip Giraldi, October 16, 2023

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

9 October 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca