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We are trying our best to figure out – why is Jewry so keen to import as many Muslims to Europe and USA as possible, and at the same time prepare the Gaza genocide? Do they do it out of sheer idealism? Out of compassion (hard to believe)? Or out of silliness? Could it be that this calculating people didn’t take into account that Muslims might react to genocide against Palestinians? Granted, Europeans and Americans did their fair share of protesting, but Jews knew they could shut down the Goyim any time they wanted simply by uttering the magic Jewish spell “Holocaust – Auschwitz”.

Yet Jews understand better than anyone that their “fellow Semites” from the Middle East have not accepted the yoke of Holocaust Guilt. Jews are more aware than anyone that Muslims still chafe over the fact that their Palestinian brothers have been kept in an “open air concentration camp” for the last 50 years. So how can we explain the apparent tactical error when the ADL and other Jewish organizations twisted the arms of European and American leaders to accept hordes of fighting age Muslims just before an Israeli incursion into Gaza? Surely no! They do not make such mistakes!

When on Friday in Dublin a Muslim Ă©migrĂ© from Algeria stabbed an Irish family and incited an anti-Muslim pogrom, we finally got the missing piece of this puzzle. I was waiting for “the rest of the story”, and it was unveiled at a crucial point in the drama – just as Dublin demonstrated en masse against the brutal murder of Gaza children, just when the Irish parliament threatened to expel the Israel ambassador, just as reports of anti-Semitism reached new highs. Just then it seemed that the Jews were beset from all sides, and that the whole world was against them. Of course, in every good story the darkest tidings come just before the dawn.

Jews are professional victims. They are good at it. They are willing to play the bad guy, but only in stories where Jewry is eventually vindicated and expendable Jews martyred. Jewish leaders believe that revenge is best served cold. This answers the question of why they brought Muslim refugees to Europe and America in the first place. Unneeded, unwanted, unrequested (so much for democracy), at a time of growing poverty and debt, the economies bankrupt and populations largely jobless, this is the precise moment that the Jews ostentatiously dumped armies of Muslims into the West.

“I think there is a resurgence of anti-Semitism because at this point in time Europe has not yet learned how to be multicultural. And I think we are going to be part of the throes of that transformation, which must take place. Europe is not going to be the monolithic societies they once were in the last century. Jews are going to be at the centre of that. It’s a huge transformation for Europe to make. They are now going into a multicultural mode and Jews will be resented because of our leading role. But without that leading role and without that transformation, Europe will not survive.” — Barbara Lerner Spectre, a founding director of Paideia, The European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden.

Of course the fury of the hapless natives will be focused upon the Muslim immigrants. Of course the hapless Muslims will resent this. This conflict is not only natural, it is eminently predictable. And of course, wherever reality falls short of the predetermined narrative, the media can be counted on to fill in the gaps.

It’s not difficult to find a Muslim refugee of disturbed mind, to hand him a knife and push him out the door to amok attack. If he didn’t exist, then the Jews would have to create him. Muslim Golems do it with panache.

A Palestinian man, Sirhan Sirhan is doing life in a US jail for the alleged assassination of Robert Kennedy (a brother of JFK), even though RFK’s son, Robert Kennedy Jr, is convinced of his innocence. Most people understand that Sirhan was framed by an international cabal of skilled dealers in narratives. Practically no one in the world believes that Sirhan committed the murder, and yet our wiki-histories still maintain the fiction as though no “conspiracy theory” could stand in the face of an official report. For 55 years, they have held the facts in a kind of fog, admitted and yet plausibly denied. Compared with such imperial stratagems, the stabbing in Dublin is amateur night.

In the same time frame as the Dublin riots, in Netherlands, a Dutch neo-Nazi, Muslim-hater and a big lover of Israel won the elections. This was the culmination of a long-term project of international Jewry. Hand in hand with all the leaders of America and Europe, Israel had carefully played up all the historical ties between the Nazis of Europe and the US. The Internet had been buzzing with neo-Nazi activity. Threats against Jews reached all-time highs. Laws forbidding boycotts were passed. Days Of Remembrance were proclaimed. Standing ovations for Israeli leaders became normalized and then expected. The dramatic tension became unbearable as the leadership demonstrated loyalty to Israel and the people grumbled about Jewish privilege. In the midst of all this anxiety and hostility, the Jewish diaspora coordinated a wave of Muslim immigration with the Israeli war machine, creating a wave of perfectly justified anger at the Gaza genocide.

The anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim reaction was timed to bloom with the Israeli invasion of Gaza, not only in Europe and the US, but also in Russia. You probably have heard about the Jewish pogrom in Dagestan, the only pogrom in human history that occurred without a single Jew. Naturally not a single Jew was harmed, but there was a lot of the usual media noise. Jews and their friends placed hundreds of pictures allegedly depicting the brutal anti-Semites of Dagestan hunting Jews on a commercial flight. Clearly the Dagestanis were little more than pawns in a media trap, drawn to the plane by foreign reports and then ambushed by camera-wielding reporters.

It’s good to keep in mind that Jews are afraid neither of nationalists nor of Nazis. The closer the Nazi is to the top, the more he openly shows his love for Israel. Nationalists Donald Trump and Georgia Meloni adore Israel. White racists either defend Israel or they share racial theory with Jewry. Christian Zionists have integrated worship of the state into their religion. If Jews appear to battle the racists and nationalists, it’s only to keep them fresh in the news. First we must pull back the spring, so that when we release it the firing pin will send the bullet on its way. If the bullet does the damage, the Jew is blameless. Russian Jews did not hesitate to support Navalny the nationalist when his Russian Marches shook Moscow.

Jews as a rule are extreme nationalists, the rabbis struggling to keep the people divided from the Goyim and pristine in their ghettos. Hitlerites tolerated Jewish Nazis, and allowed them to have their own flag and anthem. Hungarian Zionists like Rudolf Kasztner collaborated with the Nazis to transport only the “best” Jews to Palestine.

For a long time Jews practice dialectics as the war strategy. In 19 c. they led the labour movement and the capitalist enrichment. G K Chesterton depicted a Jewish revolutionist being in cahoots with a Jewish capitalist. Now a Jewish supporter of Muslim immigration is in cahoots with Zionist who expels Muslims from their ancestral lands and with a Nazi who rabble-rousing crowds against the Muslims.

 

Russian generals are similar to the US generals depicted in Catch-22, the jolly novel by Joseph Heller: quarrelling, arrogant, caring more about their position and reputation than about the war. They too make their fighters fly more missions, perhaps leading their careers to greater glory. Fighters get killed, but who cares? They were greedy, too, and ready to bomb their own airfields if the enemy paid them enough to do it. The Russian general Ivan Popov was very popular with his troops for his panache, but he was forced out by general Gerasimov, the Head of General Staff. Wagner PMC head Eugene Prigozhin, the hero of Bakhmut, needed ammo, but Shoygu from the MoD lusted after another medal (to add to the 60 he has already amassed), and ammo for the Wagner group was not a priority for him. Prigozhin marched with his army to the gates of Moscow to get Putin’s attention, which he got – along with his ammo after some delay. Some journalists accused Prigozhin of mutiny, but instead he was given millions in roubles and dollars, gold and guns that were taken from him in the aftermath of his escapade. Foreign minister Mr Lavrov described the event as peredryaga, meaning trouble, mess, or confusion. General Popov also wants to speak to Putin, to explain himself, but he has no soldiers to march with him.

Both Popov and Prigozhin openly criticized the way Mr Shoygu of the MoD, and General Gerasimov, his head of Staff, are managing the war in Ukraine. But some US officials and the Russian pro-Western opposition preferred to call their criticism a coup d’état. So many people wanted this coup to happen that now it is difficult to claim it was a nothing-burger. Let’s examine in detail what happened between the Russian state, the General Staff, the Ministry of Defence and the proprietor of Wagner PMC, Mr Prigozhin.

Prigozhin is a Russian billionaire and entrepreneur. He did some catering for the Kremlin (a position of great trust), then delivered meals to schools in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and lately has expanded into media operations. He established the so-called Troll Factory: a major source of influence in Russian social media. Before this, it was the Western intelligence services that ruled supreme in Russian social media, be it Facebook, Instagram or VK. Prigozhin’s Trolls were able to quickly counteract the efforts of Western propaganda warriors, and as a result he became close to Putin personally. Around 2015, he moved from commanding internet trolls to commanding real warriors: he established a private military company called Wagner, after the nickname of its co-founder. They fought for Russia in many countries – in Africa, in Syria, in Latin America. At some point, the Russian state turned to them for help. The head of the General Staff, General Gerasimov personally addressed Mr Prigozhin, and asked him to take part in the Ukraine War. Wagner initially participated in the battle for Popasnaya (Lugansk People Republic). Prigozhin was proud to fight a heroic war for the sake of victory and the glory so desired by men, but after more than a year of fighting Prigozhin could see that the Russian army was not in a hurry for victory. The war seemed designed to achieve a stalemate, not conquest.

The real reason behind the delay is that the Ukrainian resistance was a surprise for Russians. Before the war, they thought it would take a few days. That the Ukrainians won’t fight. That the West wouldn’t supply weapons. Even such knowledgeable and wise people as Anatoly Wasserman thought it will be over in a few days; they only wondered would it be a three-day war, or a four-day war? Putin also had unrealistic expectations of a rapid victory. When the Russian generals saw that this was not going to happen, they began to withdraw South, and they deliberately left expensive military equipment behind them as they retreated. I was told by knowledgeable people that this was a US trap set for Putin.

Here the big dichotomy of Russian politics began to play an important part. There are Yeltsinites and Patriots. An experienced man at the top of the administrative ladder, Shoygu was a Yeltsinite. He was close to Yeltsin, managed his re-election in 1996, led the ruling party, and became a minister in 1992 while Yeltsin was the president and Putin was as yet nobody in St Petersburg. Shoygu was a minister for Emergency Situations (EMERCOM), and later he was selected as Minister of Defence. At thirty-two years in the government, he holds an absolute record. Shoygu is a personal friend of President Putin. So is Mr Abramovich, the oligarch. Yet both Shoygu and Abramovich hold very different views from Mr Putin. Putin seeks Russia’s greatness and independence. On the other hand, Yeltsinites like Shoygu would prefer Russia to be defeated and quietly returned to the Neoliberal policies of Yeltsin’s days. Still, Putin is a man of his word and once upon a time he promised Yeltsin that he would safeguard the Yeltsinites, so he could not easily dismiss Shoygu, even if his war management was atrocious. There is a growing opinion that Shoygu assisted the US in their plans to mislead Putin and trap him in the quagmire of the Ukraine. In not entirely unrelated news, Shoygu is considering the run for presidency in 2024 to supplant Putin. Alternatively, the post of President might be occupied by other pro-Western officials: by the Mayor of Moscow Sergey Sobyanin, or similar figures. All the work done by Putin would be undone, and Russia would return to the days of Yeltsin. Prigozhin would prefer Putin do at least one more term, else he himself might compete for the patriotic electorate.

The role of PMC Wagner in this war has changed unexpectedly. Instead of acting as a special group of assault troops to provide victory in the most crucial battles, the Wagner group has more and more become an infantry unit, albeit a special one, but infantry assigned to trench warfare all the same. What was worse– instead of thanking them for this – they were turned into perpetual beggars for armaments.

In the logic of Prigozhin, this is very strange. If you were called up for military service and asked to shoulder the burden, one shouldn’t have to march to beg for ammunition, getting nothing but excuses and squabbles. In this sense, he considered himself deceived. Furthermore – not an unimportant aspect – is the question of profit. After all, the businessman (including the patriotic businessman) still understands that he must earn money to be able to feed his army. And this was the case for the Wagner group: Prigozhin made sure that his soldiers were fed and dressed. In contrast, the soldiers under the MoD were poorly fed and even worse clad. They had to apply to kind-hearted grannies for socks and underwear.

The generals had stolen the army budget and provided for themselves, while soldiers were unkempt and uncared for. Wagner group soldiers were well provided for, except when it came to Russian arms and ammunition. The MoD had no intention of sharing their armaments with the Wagner group, and Prigozhin began to worry that there was nothing left to share: he suspected that the generals had sold their stores of weapons to enlarge their profits. Moreover, Prigozhin understood (after his previous conflicts with MoD and their squabbles over armaments) that no matter what he did, he was going to be framed as the bad guy.

 
• Category: Foreign Policy, History • Tags: Russia, Syria, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin 

The mystery of the Ukrainian War still eludes its Julius Caesar. Yet more and more crucial details are leaking out. Putin shows his cards, Lukashenko leaks documents, Zelensky tells his stories… The war started once the US achieved a great feat: the consolidation of power over the entire civilised world. Nobody in history could claim such an achievement; not the Roman Empire of old, neither the British Empire, nor Hitler nor Stalin; but the Yanks did it. Their chosen agents and their proxies ruled every important state: England and France, Germany and Japan were all governed by American agents. Germany and Japan may still be occupied by the US army, but even though France has no US troops it is still led by an American agent. Sweden’s American proxy recently agreed to abandon its treasured and profitable neutrality. Finland traded away Russia’s endless supply of cheap gas and wood to become a pawn in the Northern wilderness. These American agents would inflict horrible sufferings on their subjects; they would destroy industries, bring famine and epidemic disease upon their nations, just to follow the magic wand in Washington’s hands. No country is far away from a US military base – they control the world.

Russia and China were subdued, too: they preserve a vestige of independence, but accept US orders. The Russian communism that preserved the huge state through world wars finally fell, and the neo-Liberal regimes that followed sold out or demolished whatever was left standing. The Russians disregarded their own security because they were promised that NATO would never move East into the former Soviet states, but this promise has been ignored. The US openly reneged on its promises, daring Russia to complain. Putin, who has been taking comparatively good care of his people and remains popular with them, demanded that NATO withdraw to the 1997 agreement’s borders. They refused even to discuss it; but still Putin hesitated to confront US global supremacy.

China was subdued through commerce, by allowing it to manufacture and sell cheap goods, thus ridding itself of its own poverty. President Xi was obedient to US wishes but still more or less maintains at least the illusion of independence.

The great planet Earth is practically owned by the US. With hundreds of military bases, the dollar as the universal currency – what else do you need? The world is yours! Americans could finally relax and enjoy the good life. But they were too greedy and had too much hubris for their own good. By taking on Russia they may end their hegemony.

They decided to teach Russia’s Putin a lesson. To do this, they used the Desert Storm pattern they employed in 1992 against Saddam Hussein of Iraq. As you may remember, Saddam was told by the US ambassador that the US wouldn’t mind if he grabbed Kuwait, a small but wealthy princedom that was a part of Iraq until it was cut away by the British. Saddam did exactly that, and then he discovered that he had been branded the new Hitler. The US attacked Iraq in what was called the Desert Storm operation; they killed some 40,000 soldiers and caused the death of 200,000 Iraqi civilians. Over the next ten years, the US bled Iraq with sanctions, repeatedly invaded, and finally hanged Saddam. In a similar manner, they convinced Mr Putin that the US would not interfere in the Ukraine. That was a trap, and he walked into it.

The situation in the Ukraine had been troublesome for some time, and was already explosive. The current Kiev regime was established after the coup d’état of 2014, which was engineered by Victoria Nuland and her minyan of Neocons. The regime was generously supported by the US as long as it remained virulently anti-Russian. They began by shelling the predominantly ethnic-Russian Eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas. Though the Kiev regime had signed the Minsk accords promising Donbas some degree of autonomy, they did not follow it, and later admitted they entered into these accords just to get more time to prepare for war with Russia. But Putin is a peaceful man and he didn’t want to send his army to fight. The Russian army was downsized during his rule; expensive weapon systems were either destroyed or mothballed. Putin reduced the military to a rather small professional army ready for minor conflicts on the periphery, relying on the nukes he inherited from the USSR to cover Doomsday scenarios. Everything in between – like the conventional armed struggles that dominated the 20th c – was neglected. Finally, still convinced that the US would not interfere, Putin entered the Ukraine to impose peace.

The sad experience of June 22, 1941 had influenced him. That was the day Germany invaded Russia despite the peace treaty the two countries had. Stalin had learned from his spies of the forthcoming attack, but he did not believe it; he was sure it was just a divisive enemy rumour. The first strike of the German panzers reached the walls of Moscow half a year later. Putin did not want to give the Ukrainians the same chance Stalin gave to Hitler. Strike first! – that is Putin’s motto.

Within a few days, the Russian army was already at the gates of Kiev. It was fast, it was brief, and it was decisive. At the same time, in Istanbul, the representatives of Russia and Ukraine began and promptly initialized a diplomatic agreement. The agreement was obtained through the services of a Russian Jewish oligarch Roman Abramovich, the Chelsea owner, who wanted to avoid sanctions. A man who closely followed these events, Mr Oleg Tsarev (he was a candidate for President of Ukraine in 2014) says Mr Abramovich bribed the Ukrainian leadership so they would quickly agree. The agreement was not bad for the Ukraine: they would have to cut down their army, agree to permanent neutrality, and agree to the Donbas going to Russia. It was reasonable, considering the eight years the Donbas had been shelled by the Ukrainian army. But it was not to be: Mr Johnson, the British Prime Minister, came to Kiev and overbid Mr Abramovich. Ukraine agreed to more war. It was a popular decision in Ukraine: the people wanted war.

A few days before the war the subject had been discussed in the popular Ukrainian talk show of Mr Savik Shuster. Surprisingly, almost 90% of the audience voted for the war, rather than abiding by the Minsk accords. The US insisted on war as well. They felt Putin was caught in their trap. Meanwhile, the Russian army had already begun to withdraw from Kiev and the Kharkov area. The Russian generals moved their heavy weapons back to Russian territory and promptly removed themselves. The withdrawal was tactical – the Russian army in the Ukraine was very small, just enough for a lightening raid and not sufficient for an extended occupation. But it was anyway a humiliating exercise.

Worse, the US and its Ukrainian allies staged a copy of Timisoara in the small town of Bucha, with corpses taken out of graves and the morgue, and then accusing Russian soldiers of atrocities. Timisoara is a Romanian miners’ town where a similar massacre was staged by the CIA in 1989 in order to depose and promptly execute the then ruler, Mr Nicolae Ceausescu.

 
• Category: Foreign Policy, History • Tags: American Military, China, Russia, Ukraine 

For a few months, a colour revolution had been brewing in Israel. Tens of thousands of citizens demonstrated, every Saturday night, predominantly in Tel Aviv, but elsewhere too. The demos caused traffic jams and interfered badly with daily life in the country. At its height, over 250 000 persons participated in one demonstration in Tel Aviv. Then PM Bibi Netanyahu postponed his legal reforms until after the holidays. It helped a bit: the demos slimmed in size and intensity. Frictions with Palestinians have also helped the PM. Still, it was a strong movement, similar to such movements in other countries, such as the Kiev Maidan, the NY Occupy, the Beirut Gucci Revolution, Arab Spring, Velvet Rising, Orange Revolution, Dignity Revolution etc. et al.

Now we have learned something about the central causes of the movement, from the NYT. The NYT discovered, through US intelligence leaks, that the driver behind it and its coordination were supplied by Mossad and Shin Beth, the external and internal intelligence services of the Jewish State. It was not a complete surprise; Israeli media duly informed its consumers that Mossad staff were permitted to participate in the demos; and Mossad’s retired bosses were paraded by the rebels as their leaders. Their deeper participation was discovered by their American brethren. The rebels’ love for America was made quite obvious by their demos at the US embassy. The national blue-and-white banners flew over the crowds stressing their patriotism, together with plentiful stars-and-stripes.

Beside Mossad, the bankers actively supported the revolt. Private banks, Bank of Israel, financial structures – were all for the revolt. So were the Generals, the army and high-ranking officers. And the nasty Schwab, represented by Yuval Noah Harari, was also with them. Amusingly the Israeli government officials characterize the opposition as “the leftists”. Sure, bankers, the Davos crowd and spies are the new communists! Feminists and Soros’s people also support the movement. Meanwhile Justice Minister Yariv Levin has claimed that the US administration is aiding Israeli protesters against the coalition’s judicial reform plan. Washington “is working in cooperation with them on this, as you can see from the things said by the people in the government there,” Levin told haredi (ultra-Orthodox) political operatives, in a video first published by Walla on Monday.

Mr Levin stated that the new government has absolutely no tools – all the banks, the courts, and heads of the army belong to the opposition (or rather, the Deep State). Legal reform is needed in order to level the playing field. Trump found himself in a similar situation but he had no plans about how to fight his way out of it. The difference is that President Trump had sufficient constitutional tools at his disposal, but did not have the actual machinery needed to make use of his constitutional advantages.

Israel is a good place to visit now if you want to learn that Jews are not as smart as they think. You have to be very silly to consider calling bankers and the US State Dept “leftists”. Thomas Friedman, the reliable voice of Establishment, often tells us about the men he hates. The current list includes Putin, Trump, Netanyahu. Here is an example of his latest philippic. To be compared to Putin and Trump is as bad as being compared to Hitler. Netanyahu is now in this company.

All this is most unexpected: Bibi was a favourite child of American politicians, and he was met with multiple ovations by Congress. But he is too much of a man and America prefers itself and its allies to be managed by somebody softer. A woman, or an immigrant, or a homosexual, as in the UK, will be very acceptable to them. Somebody who will take orders.

The casus belli for the colour revolution was judicial reform. In other words, something of little importance. Israel is blessed with a strange system where judges are elected by judges. An outsider can never really comprehend, – or indeed break into this system. But it is in no way a hot topic. Nobody cares about it, just as nobody understands the proposed new judicial machinery. It is just something alighted upon to send people out onto the streets to demonstrate and shout. Most ridiculous are the pieties enunciated about how Israeli â€democracy’ must be preserved: a â€democracy’ where half of the population has no right to vote. But they swear by it and are ready to take on anything in order to defend â€democracy’.

These democracy lovers do not even consider Palestinians as human beings. Even Oriental Jews and Orthodox Jews are not good enough for them. And this has been their undoing. There are a few ways to reach a majority in Parliament – you have to co-opt believing Jews or Oriental Jews. And Palestinians, to be sure. But Ashkenazi Jews do not want to part with – or dilute their power. If they can’t win the elections, they will go for a colour revolution. However, they underestimated Bibi Netanyahu.

Netanyahu is a very experienced politician. He has minimised the danger by denying reports of the situation and organised a demo of his supporters, after Passover. This drew 200,000 participants, beating many of the Tel Aviv demos. After that he indulged in his usual chicanery. He knows that Israeli Jews love wars, especially safe wars. For such a purpose he has far-right politician, Itamar Ben Gvir. He is a rather pleasant looking and relatively young man, a Temple Mount dreamer.

He walked up the Temple Mount and provoked the ire of the Palestinian worshippers (it was during Ramadan, the holy month). As a result hundreds of them have been beaten and arrested inside the al Aqsa mosque. As expected the actions provoked a response from a small group of militants called Islamic Jihad. The Jihad people, according to the Israeli version, fired “a thousand missiles” into Israel. I do not believe this number: it defies logic that a thousand missiles were fired and nobody was hurt. (One 80-year old lady died, but at that age it can happen anyhow.) A person responsible for anti-missile defence claimed that the system counts self-destruction of their missiles as “successful hits”. Or alternatively it could be just a fantasy number. Israel attacked the Gaza strip with its US-supplied ammunition and killed 35 persons, including children.

8-year old Laian was killed at her home in Gaza. This bloodletting immediately pacified the rebellious Israelis. They did not want to fight for â€democracy’ anymore, they did not care about the choice of judges. They only wanted Palestinian blood. They got blood but that is all. Netanyahu knew that. He has used this tactic before. A war in Gaza is always successful, because Gaza has no weapons to defend itself. It is as safe as shooting fish in a barrel.

As an Israeli leader Netanyahu is not too bloodthirsty. He never led his country into a really dangerous war. He keeps bombing Syria and Gaza; Gaza is defenceless and Syria is (partly) US – occupied. He also kills Palestinians on the West Bank: his gangs of killers in Arab dress, the so-called mustaarvim roam Nablus and Jenin assassinating potential freedom fighters. Already over 60 are killed there from beginning of the year. Now he has promised Islamic Jihad that the assassinations will cease; but his promises aren’t worth much. He has allowed himself to get close to Putin, for good reasons of his own.

 

Iran, a member of the Axis of Evil, has been attacked by the Forces of Good. Will it come to the Third World War? We shall see. But now from the beginning.

After the recent elections, Bibi Netanyahu had formed his sixth government after one-and-a-half-year break and Israelis opposing Bibi began a street revolt against the new government. They took a leaf from the Ukraine-2014 book, and created a Maidan in Tel Aviv, with up to a hundred thousand citizens gathering in neighbourhood squares every Sabbath. The would-be-revolutionaries are similar to US Democrats, while the government supporters remind us of US Republicans. To complicate the comparison further, note that Israeli Jews predominantly support US Republicans, and US Jews vote for the Dems. Yet this colour revolution on the streets and squares of Tel Aviv is a pro-American revolt (as is usual for colour revolutions). And US Dems, with their Israeli analogues are used to winning their revolutions, by whatever means necessary.

The new government has declared a plan for legal reform, directly confronting the Judicial Branch which has historically dominated the Executive Branch in Israel. Israeli judges do not like strong men, and often torpedo their measures. High Court judges are elected by other judges, and the High Court can overturn any Parliamentary or Government decision. In Israel, there is the additional ethnic tension between European (Ashkenazi) Jews and Oriental (Sephardic) Jews. All of them are against the Palestinians – with exception of the Communists. It would be a mistake to consider some of them being on the Left. There is practically no Left in Israel. This title has been seized by the gender-obsessed lesbians of Tel Aviv. As for Israeli men, they choose between Rightist or Far-Rightist.

Bibi Netanyahu is greatly disliked by many, but the majority still votes for him.

His enemies hope to use their tame judges to send Netanyahu to jail for some terrible crime, like receiving a box of cigars from a friendly Hollywood producer.

Meanwhile they have derailed Arye Der’i, the minister of Interior. They think he does not deserve to be a minister. Bibi plans to enact a law that will strip the courts of their powers to bar a minister, or even to deal with their persons. The government coalition intends to enact the law Do Not Touch Der’i. But Bibi is even more worried about himself.

He thinks the judges will remove him from office and send him to jail. To defend himself he has decided to stir up the Iranians. Bibi has long record of poking Iran. Years ago he presented a drawing of an Iranian nuclear bomb – to the amusement of the world. After that, he fought against the nuclear deal between the US and Iran. Over the years, he has tried to convince each US President to bomb Iran – after his own generals refused to undertake the enterprise. Now he sends some drones over to bomb an Isfahan installation, hoping it will incite an Iranian response and unite people of Israel behind him.

The Iranians have not responded, yet. As long as Israel does not officially admit the act of war, one can expect any Iranian response to be similarly deniable, as it has been all the previous times. To be sure they knew that Israel destroyed Iranian trucks along the Syrian border, yet Iran refused to be drawn in. Israeli aggression is sanctioned by the US, and the US is still too strong to be effectively retaliated against by Iran – or even by Russia, a country with feeling of friendship to Iran. The US spends more money on defence than all the rest of mankind, and it still packs a punch. To add insult to injury, the bottomless military budget does not hurt the pocketbooks of American citizens; they just add it to their debt.

Recently a Jewish gentleman-of-the-press, Mr Bret Stephens, unfavourably compared Mr Netanyahu to Mr Zelensky, in an article called A Tale of Two Jewish Leaders, in NY Times. Unfortunately, his case fails when it is confronted with reality. Mr Zelensky pulled the Ukraine into war with Russia. He caused more than half of its population to leave the country. He is leading the Ukraine into economic collapse and military defeat.

On the other hand, Bibi Netanyahu has been cautious and prudent with his country. One obvious difference is that Zelensky has deliberately dragged the Ukraine into unconditional war against Russia, while Netanyahu has repeatedly scored political points against Iran without committing to his people to total war. Now, inspired by Bret Stephens and other media figures, Bibi has been driven to openly attacking Iran.

Neocons may love Israel, but they dream of the Jewish state fighting on the front lines of the American Empire. Netanyahu’s current problem is that he wants to keep his friendship with Russia, and the Neocons will not allow him that. Indeed, today the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the new Israeli government said he intends to visit Kiev immediately. Israel has been a consistent supporter of Ukrainian ambitions. The previous government led by Mr Bennett and Mr Lapid sent 500 war advisers to help the Ukrainian army, and it was openly hostile to Putin.

Russia has condemned in the strongest terms the US/Israeli attack on Iran. Russia considers the US to be the primary instigator of the two. This is by no means certain – Bibi has had a long time feud with Iran. Still, the prudent Mr Netanyahu has avoided open warfare. Yet now it seems he would go to war so that American Neocons might approve of him.

Meanwhile the Palestinian front is warming up. It is not obvious whether the Third Intifada (uprising) has begun, but it is certainly not far away. For a long time, the Palestinians have been left alone but not at peace. They are murdered by the defence forces at an average of one or two per day, each day. And then there was the Israeli attack on the Jenin refugee camp with its ten victims. The Palestinians responded with three attacks in Jerusalem; ten Israelis were killed. Although the attack in Jenin passed without any comments, the counter-attack in Jerusalem awoke President Biden to condemnation. He said, “This was an attack against the civilized world.” The initial Israeli attack was not even mentioned. Israeli atrocities do not bother the civilised world.

In a relatively new development, one of the counter-attacks in Jerusalem was ascribed to “a terrorist, 13”. Yes, thirteen-year-old boy was called “a terrorist”, and was killed on the spot. But seven children of his age were killed last month, and 34 last year.

The raid on Jenin was probably a stunt by the new government. The Palestinians did not join in the demonstrations against Netanyahu. They reasonably thought that these political struggles are an internal Jewish affair. But the extreme Nationalists in the government, Mr Smotrich and Mr Ben-Gvir, have wanted for a long time to implement a Final Solution for the Palestinian Problem; whether to kill them or to transfer them abroad. This is probably the reason behind the recent rise of anti-Palestinian violence, and the current wave of victims can be laid at their doorstep.

Ben-Gvir and Smotrich fit right into the Ukrainian adventure. They are typical Banderites. They are chickenhawks who might join the Azov regiment any time. They are doing their best to destroy the myth that “Jews can’t be Nazis”. They certainly talk the talk, and the rhetoric is becoming ever more extreme. Yet the difference between them and ordinary Israelis is minor. These two want to ruin villages and starve people, but many other members of Knesset will agree to it. The adversaries of Netanyahu care about preserving the High Court with its privileges, and what happens to the Palestinians makes no difference to them.

 

We have been struggling to understand the tragic events in the Ukraine, poring over a stream of current events to discover the master plan behind Putin’s strategy. We failed. Then we looked back to December last year. Suddenly it all clicked.

On December 15, 2021 Russia sent an ultimatum to the US and NATO. Two days later it was published, and the Russian Foreign Office invited the West to sign up and to agree to it, or at least begin discussing it. Not only was it not signed, it wasn’t even properly acknowledged. It was blatantly ignored, as though it were a demand from a teenager to an adult.

Pity, for it would have saved the world from the Ukraine War and Europeans from expensive bills, and the US from the terrible destruction and massive deaths of WWIII. Putin had made clear what he wanted, and it was a reasonable request. All that happened subsequently was brought about in order to achieve, at least, an adult discussion of these documents.

Putin sent the army to Kazakhstan, and in February to the Ukraine, and more recently his army has begun destroying Ukrainian infrastructure, which they had refrained from damaging before.

There is a Russian joke about a man who frequently visited somebody else’s wife. The husband found him and threw him from the window. When he came home a few days later, he discovered his wife’s lover with his legs and arms in a cast. He carried him to the window, but before casting him down, said to him: “Friend, this is my wife. Lay off!” And the lover replied: “Why didn’t you say so at once? Why did you only hint at it?”

NATO and the US should have listened to Putin in December ’21, instead of waiting until December ’22. All the sorrows of the Ukraine have come from subtle hints from Mr Putin, who was not even very interested in the Ukraine.

Let us see what Russia wants from the US.

Article 1

The Parties shall cooperate on the basis of principles of indivisible, equal and undiminished security and to these ends:

  • shall not undertake actions nor participate in or support activities that affect the security of the other Party;
  • shall not implement security measures adopted by each Party individually or in the framework of an international organization, military alliance or coalition that could undermine core security interests of the other Party.

Article 2

The Parties shall seek to ensure that all international organizations, military alliances and coalitions in which at least one of the Parties is taking part adhere to the principles contained in the Charter of the United Nations.

Article 3

The Parties shall not use the territories of other States with a view to preparing or carrying out an armed attack against the other Party or other actions affecting core security interests of the other Party.

Article 4

The United States of America shall undertake to prevent further eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and deny accession to the Alliance to the States of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The United States of America shall not establish military bases in the territory of the States of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics that are not members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, use their infrastructure for any military activities or develop bilateral military cooperation with them.

Article 5

The Parties shall refrain from deploying their armed forces and armaments, including in the framework of international organizations, military alliances or coalitions, in the areas where such deployment could be perceived by the other Party as a threat to its national security, with the exception of such deployment within the national territories of the Parties.

The Parties shall refrain from flying heavy bombers equipped for nuclear or non-nuclear armaments or deploying surface warships of any type, including in the framework of international organizations, military alliances or coalitions, in the areas outside national airspace and national territorial waters respectively, from where they can attack targets in the territory of the other Party.

The Parties shall maintain dialogue and cooperate to improve mechanisms to prevent dangerous military activities on and over the high seas, including agreeing on the maximum approach distance between warships and aircraft.

Article 6

The Parties shall undertake not to deploy ground-launched intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles outside their national territories, as well as in the areas of their national territories, from which such weapons can attack targets in the national territory of the other Party.

Article 7

The Parties shall refrain from deploying nuclear weapons outside their national territories and return such weapons already deployed outside their national territories at the time of the entry into force of the Treaty to their national territories. The Parties shall eliminate all existing infrastructure for deployment of nuclear weapons outside their national territories.

The Parties shall not train military and civilian personnel from non-nuclear countries to use nuclear weapons. The Parties shall not conduct exercises or training for general-purpose forces, that include scenarios involving the use of nuclear weapons.

Pay heed to Articles 4, 5 and 6. They are relevant for the case of Ukraine.

Let us see the Russian proposal to NATO, starting with Article 4:

Article 4

The Russian Federation and all the Parties that were member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as of 27 May 1997, respectively, shall not deploy military forces and weaponry on the territory of any of the other States in Europe in addition to the forces stationed on that territory as of 27 May 1997. With the consent of all the Parties such deployments can take place in exceptional cases to eliminate a threat to security of one or more Parties.

Article 5

The Parties shall not deploy land-based intermediate- and short-range missiles in areas allowing them to reach the territory of the other Parties.

Article 6

All member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization commit themselves to refrain from any further enlargement of NATO, including the accession of Ukraine as well as other States.

Article 7

The Parties that are member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization shall not conduct any military activity on the territory of Ukraine as well as other States in the Eastern Europe, in the South Caucasus and in Central Asia.

In order to exclude incidents the Russian Federation and the Parties that are member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization shall not conduct military exercises or other military activities above the brigade level in a zone of agreed width and configuration on each side of the border line of the Russian Federation and the states in a military alliance with it, as well as Parties that are member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

 

People do not like liberals – well-wishing, wishy-washy liberals. They prefer man-eating crocodiles. Israelis voted out their liberal PM Lapid and returned Bibi Netanyahu to Balfour Street. Bibi was out of office for all of one and a half years, and at that time enlightened Israelites (mainly Ashkenazi Jews) voted and voted to find who should take his place. They decided they wanted anybody who is not Bibi. You’d think there would be plenty of candidates, but no! Despite five rounds of elections, no stable government was formed. Politicians are very selfish creatures, and they can’t agree easily. Now after all they voted – not only Bibi back into power, but two awful racist reactionary believers in Jewish supremacy, named Smotrich and Ben Gvir. These two guys, or rather their party called Religious Zionists, gained an unbelievable 14 seats in Parliament (Knesset). Their like had never had so many seats before.

Meir Kahane was the first of their ilk. He won one seat in the 1984 elections; the next elections he was banned from running, and an anti-racist law forbade his followers from running either. Parliamentarians didn’t want to hear him, and when he did speak, he spoke to an empty hall.

There was a religious Zionist party MAFDAL at that time, but it was soft and liberal compared to Kahane. There were fierce extreme nationalist parties like Moledet, but they were small and not religious.

New Religious Zionist Party embraced sheer Kahanism and became the third biggest party in 2022. Its leader Ben Gvir reportedly had a portrait of Baruch Golstein, mass killer at the Hebron Mosque, in his living room. He also called for the deportation from Israel of an Arab politician, Mr Ayman Odeh of Hadash. He had a long list of offences committed as a leader of settler youth and was indicted a few times for hate speech. He is an Oriental Jew by birth, and a lawyer by profession. Bibi Netanyahu supported a merger of his party with two other radical groups and ensured their participation in the elections. The US had already in May this year removed Kahanists from their list of terrorist groups.

At the same time leftist parties Labour and left-of-Labour Meretz crashed. Meretz is completely out, while Labour is down to 5 mandates. Both parties were led by feminist women, and both activated the gender agenda, like the US Democrats. This proved a way to disaster as Israel has real problems – relations between Arabs and Jews; expensive housing; low salaries – and gender problems do not matter much. This Knesset will have fewer women than it has had for years; because the Meretz is out with all its ladies.

When Israel was established, Labour and MAPAM (the former name of Meretz) were the biggest parties, while Herut (the former name of Likud) was a tiny party. Things changed, and now the leftists have lost. And they are not even mourned. American media tried to hide this confusing news. Mondoweiss reported:

The main New York Times news story — which was buried in the print edition on page 10 rather than put on the front page where it belonged — partly sanitized Ben-Gvir’s party by calling it “an ultranationalist religious alliance” that is “far right.”

Even more offensively, the Times report then insinuated that “many right-wing Jewish Israeli voters” had supported Ben-Gvir because they were “unsettled by Arab participation in Israel’s outgoing government.” This is astonishing media malpractice. The implication is that Jewish Israelis turned toward an extreme racist mainly because they were “unsettled” that the previous government, led by Yair Lapid, had been supported by a small party representing some Palestinian citizens of Israel.

The truth is more along these lines: “Many right-wing Israeli voters are â€unsettled’ that any Palestinians live in Israel or in the occupied territories at all.” Any cub reporter could have gone to the Ben-Gvir party’s post-election celebration last night and gotten some hair-raising racist quotes in a couple of nano-seconds — but the Times has a long-standing tradition of hiding such viciousness.

The Times report did improve. Reporter Patrick Kingsley smuggled in some telling details about Ben-Gvir, including that “until recently, he hung a portrait in his home of Baruch Goldstein, who shot dead 29 Palestinians in a West Bank mosque in 1994.”

National Public Radio’s coverage was even worse. Daniel Estrin’s 3-minute on-the-spot report simply called Ben-Gvir “a far right provocateur” — but failed to mention that Netanyahu will now have to give him an influential ministry. Even worse, Estrin described Ben-Gvir’s campaign as “calling for tough law enforcement against Palestinians and Palestinian citizens of Israel.” The insinuation is clear: it’s the Palestinians who are â€lawless’ — instead of second-class citizens living under what all major human rights groups have called a system of “apartheid.”

By contrast, the Washington Post did much better. Its very first sentence accurately reported that the election results are “a stunning victory for Israel’s far right — a once fringe, aggressively anti-democratic, fundamentally racist movement that in a number of weeks may man the country’s most influential seats of power.”

But maybe the Post’s senior editors got scared by how honest their reporters were. Because at 8:30 a.m. this morning, you couldn’t find this news report anywhere on the paper’s online home page.

Now it will be a serious struggle for the Biden administration to stop Ben Gvir from taking a seat in the government. But it is doubtful this will succeed.

Haaretz newspaper came out with the headline: Israel Election: A Quasi-fascist, Ultra-religious Government for a Country That Deserves Better. It isn’t true: the country does not deserve better. The Left pushed for gay community, while Arabs and Russians were discriminated against. When the Left ruled they kept half of the population disenfranchised. Monopolies ruled in Israel, even then. They had a choice – to link up with Palestinians or with settlers. They preferred neither and received nothing.

This is also a part of a global pattern. The Left lost in Sweden, too. The idea of the Left that they can ban right-wing parties is a mistake. But the idea of banning far left and far right is a sure way to lose.

 

The war was predominantly dull; with little movement. Trench warfare as in WWI. The big mistake was at the beginning when Russia tried to take a country of 40m with a few soldiers. The Head of Russian Intelligence Mr Naryshkin recently admitted that Russia had no reliable intelligence on Ukraine. For many years, since 1991, Russian intelligence service did not follow developments in the Ukraine. So Russia went to war, hoping the Ukrainians would greet their soldiers with flowers. It ended with a big retreat of the Russian troops. Putin thought he could make an agreement with Kiev, but it turns out the Ukraine signs agreements one day and reneges on them the next day. So it went on, until half a year later the Russian army began mobilization of its reserves.

It was not all bad: Russia had good and bad moments in its fight with Ukraine. A good moment was the capture of Mariupol on the Azov Sea coast. A bad moment was the Kharkov retreat. A silly moment was the grain deal and the withdrawal from Serpent Island. Moments of trouble were when the US/UK marines exploded the gas pipelines and when Daria Dougin was assassinated. A moment of truth is the present critique of the army commanders, including calls for the Defence Minister to shoot himself. People are unhappy with the way the Russian army is acting. The explosion on the Crimea Bridge has made this feeling acute.

And at this moment Putin called General Surovikin to take charge of the war in Ukraine. Surovikin is a popular general who commanded the Syrian operation and he has been nicknamed “General Armageddon” for obvious reasons. And Gen. Armageddon did what the people wanted: he launched dozens of cruise missiles on Ukrainian cities. Kiev has been attacked for the first time; electricity was knocked out in many places, including Kharkov. Until now Putin took care of the Ukraine infrastructure as if it were his own. Now this has changed. One thing remained: the Russians try to preserve civilians, as opposed to the Ukrainian military who do not mind killing civilians.

The war started because since the 2014 coup the Ukrainians had been shelling the Donbas, a predominantly Russian-populated area in the South East of the country. Putin tried to solve the conflict by the Minsk agreement, which promised an autonomous Donbas within federal Ukraine. The Ukrainians signed the Minsk agreement but had no intention of observing its articles. They killed thousands of people from the Donbas, mainly by shelling their shops, schools, and even streets. The nationalists of the Azov Battalion were especially ferocious towards the Donbas people. When Russian troops came to help the Donbas in February this year, the Azov fighters retreated to the vast underground caverns of Mariupol steel works.

However, they surrendered soon enough: to be sealed in caverns is not much fun, though they had food and water. Some two thousand fighters went into captivity. The people of the Donbas wanted to send them to a tribunal together with foreign mercenaries. But Moscow overruled them and they were exchanged for Russian POWs, and, annoyingly, for an opposition politician. Some Azov POWs were killed by the Kiev shelling of the POW camp: they apparently had begun to reveal harmful truths about their actions. The exchanged Azov fighters were carried by an oligarch, the Russian Jew Roman Abramovitch, in his private jet to the UAE. This also annoyed the people, who would have preferred them to stand trial.

The patriotic Russians were quite upset by the way war was conducted. They felt that the Russian commanders were too soft on the Ukraine while the Ukrainians continued shelling the Donbas. Russian writers and artists often supported the Ukraine. In Moscow, money was gathered for the Ukraine, not for the Russian army. Now, General Armageddon’s blitz has changed this feeling, but still the Ukraine has many supporters in Russia in pro-Western circles. That is not likely to change soon: 30 years of pro-Western politics can’t be undone in a moment. Frustration was high, because the Donbas was shelled but Kiev was unharmed.

It seems that is Putin soft-pedalling the campaign: he still hopes for positive changes after the US midterm elections, and in keeping the Third World on his side. Time will show whether this is a reasonable hope. The Western mainstream media is batting for the Ukraine. Russians killed are presented as victims of Russian ethnic cleansing, as in Bucha and Izium. The grain deal was concluded only because the media screamed about starving Africa. It was a flop: only 2% of the wheat went to poor countries while the rest went to the EU. Russians also gave away Serpent Island, a perfect base for starting a landing operation in Odessa.

The Ukrainian elite receive a lot of money, and high level contacts and appreciation. Mrs Zelensky was wined and dined by HRH the Princess of Wales. They are not going to like peace and being consigned to obscurity. Putin’s desires are quite irrelevant now as the big customer of the Ukraine is the US/UK, and they gain from war. The war is paid for by Europe; the US gets profits. Now the US sells liquefied gas for 4 times the Russian price, and the Europeans pay.

Sure, it is costly for the Ukrainian people; they suffer under Russian missiles. But the US does not care. For them it is profitable. German industries will probably go down: even better for the US. They hope they will relocate to the US.

There is no doubt the Russian gas pipelines were severed by US/UK sabotage. Russian sources name even the person who did it (Lt. Chris Bianchi). Now we learn that NATO tried to bomb the gas pipelines in 2015 for the first time, but they were apprehended. Only now has it become known. Alas, Sweden does not want to allow Russian access to the site of explosion; nor does it wants to share the results of its investigation. The terrorists did a messy job: they left one pipeline untouched, so the Russians and the Germans can start pumping gas right away if there is the political will. But it’s unclear whether the Germans have any political will outside of conforming to US wishes.

The US’s Party of War is very strong and Russians have no chance of defeating it. But it does not mean a nuclear war is unavoidable. Neither the US or RF Presidents wants it. Probably the conventional war will go on without crossing to the nuclear threshold. The peace agreement probably will fall short of the wishes of both sides, but Russians are unwilling to enter another Minsk agreement just to be abused by Kiev.

Russia and Sanctions

The main US/EU weapons against Russia are sanctions and the Iron Curtain. While sanctions have made only a little dent in the fabric of Russian society, this is not the case with the Iron Curtain. It is painful and annoying. For the last 30 years, Russians have got used to travelling to Europe. Now they have to change their habits. Yes, Russians can travel to Turkey and to Israel, to India and to Latin America, but Europe was nearby and friendly. Now it is difficult to reach: usually they can via a flight to Istanbul, but for much more money. It is especially painful for wealthy Russians: they used to spend their weekends in Paris and London; not anymore.

Sanctions are probably disturbing for businessmen, but ordinary people notice them less in Russia than in Europe. Meat is good and plentiful; gas is cheap; theatre is good and inexpensive. The whole Ring of the Nibelungs (four extra-long operas) can be heard for a hundred dollars.

 
• Category: Foreign Policy • Tags: NATO, Nord Stream Pipelines, Russia, Ukraine 

The immediate beginning of the trouble was a Geneva summit between two presidents that apparently went wrong. We don’t know what went wrong. The pro-Western Russian officials ran away to Georgia and Israel; they are being replaced by anti-Western officials. This East-West break will not be reversed with ease.

Russians are very similar to Ukrainians. Both are stubborn fighters. Throughout the 20th century they chose different strategies: Russians became internationalists, Ukrainians preferred nationalism. The Ukrainian nationalism was anti-Russian, while Russians harbored no negative feeling towards Ukrainians. It was natural for Ukrainians to flirt with anti-Russian powers. Yet when Ukrainian officials began to declare themselves NATO allies, even the most international Russians became alarmed.

Both Rome’s Pope and Noam Chomsky were capable of understanding the immediate casus belli behind Ukraine: NATO had barked at Putin’s door, and he reacted. In December 2021 Putin diplomatically proposed that NATO withdraw to its mid-1990’s line, and moreover he suggested that peaceful discussion about NATO’s borders might prevent future conflict. Putin proposed an international agreement on NATO’s borders, a political solution that everyone could agree on. This proposal was disregarded with nonchalance; NATO refused to discuss the idea. Putin was rightfully irritated. Further attempts to argue across the West/East divide weren’t successful. The West declined Putin’s politics. And the war began.

NATO began shipping in armaments and ammunition, and deployed their spies. Their intelligence gathering allowed them to sink a big Russian ship named Moscow. They provided the coordinates in real-time for Russian ships and planes. From the very beginning it was clear that Russia fights NATO more than Ukrainians, who they consider to be brothers. This wartime pathos was quite an unexpected development. Putin had always been known as a soft leader; he refused to be drawn into wars. Russia has avoided war for many years under Putin’s rule; and generations of Russians have become used to a peaceful and prosperous life. Suddenly, by circumstances beyond their control, they have been switched to life under war and sanctions.

In hindsight there were plenty of warnings. Russians were blocked from the Olympic games by an international conspiracy of blatant hypocrisy. Russian athletes were accused of doping. Now, Western athletes also use doping, but they know how to get around the rules. The Norwegians claimed they have asthma, and they need special performance-enhancing drugs to heal it. The Americans had excuses of their own, and so did the athletes of many other nations. Russian RUSADA man Mr. Grigori Rodchenkov was bribed by the US to deliver proof of Russian doping. The Russians claim the evidence was falsified. In any case the Russian official defected westward, in a step unseen since the Cold War. Russia was tagged as a pariah throughout the games; she was not allowed to play her national anthem nor display her flag. Russians have been persecuted by the Olympic establishment for generations. There is an undeclared war against Russian athletes; here is the full story. The pattern is undeniable. Russian athletes are routinely penalized for activities that other nations practice with impunity. This has to stop.

Fortunately for everyone, the war in Ukraine has practically dried up. The Ukrainian leadership desperately begs for UN help to keep the war going, as if the Azov Battalion and the rest of the violent, cruel, thuggish militants need to be paid to shoot people. US Democrats have drafted a nearly $40 billion Ukraine War aid package, which was recently single-handedly blocked by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. The Ukraine War has become a political football in the USA. Both the Neocons on the right and the Neoliberals on the left hope to ride this war into Congress.

Russians are unhappy with war as a solution for the Ukraine crisis. They speak of “betrayal”, and that means the political steam behind the offensive is getting thin. Instead, Russians think they can derail the NATO war and the international sanctions by judiciously withholding Europe’s gas and oil. The Arab Oil Embargo brought the US to its knees in the 1970’s using just that strategy. NATO exists to fight wars; bringing war to NATO simply feeds it. The only way to defeat NATO is to starve it. Russia has great quantities of oil, gas and wheat. She produces aluminum, iron, coal, steel, titanium and cheap electricity. The Russian economy has been called “bulletproof” because of its ability to withstand geopolitical shocks.

How exactly are sanctions hurting Russia? Banking freezes are simply pushing Russia into the waiting arms of China, which literally has an unlimited need for Russian energy and commodities. The US Petrodollar is on the cusp of being denominated in Roubles. Stories of boycotts by Twitter, Facebook and Pornhub underscore the ludicrous nature of Western sanctions. “EU blacklists Abramovich, targets energy, luxury sectors…” It seems that only Russia’s Jewish Mafia will be hurt by the international sanctions. The efficacy of Western sanctions is being wildly exaggerated by the Western media and the implacable coming of winter has always been a harbinger of Russian victory. As Biden says, “It will be a very Dark Winter.”

Germany needs Russian energy. It always has. It always will. There is simply no other option for Germany. As the home base of NATO, Germany is in a unique position to forge a lasting peace with Russia. Germans might benefit greatly from increased trade to the East along such routes as the China-Europe Railway Express, but they remain choked by their old millstones. The business of war is no longer profitable. The big players are now supplying China with everything it needs to manufacture the world’s wealth, and Russia is in a unique position to be a major producer. The rest of Europe is also conveniently located to benefit from the new Chinese empire, if they could only cease squabbling long enough to draw a profit. The dying Anglo-American empire is the only entity that profits from division along the Eurasian continent.

 
• Category: Foreign Policy • Tags: American Military, NATO, Russia, Ukraine 

The second month of Ukraine War was quite slow moving. Line of contact hardly moved. Ukrainians fought insistently. After one month, the most important event was not a military victory, but financial one. Russians couldn’t sell their oil and gas for euro or dollars. Putin ordered to sell gas for roubles. This is the end of sanctions: Putin turned sanctions upside down. Europeans complained: they say it’s unfair. They proposed to buy gas but to keep Euros on a closed account. They say it would be fair, but Russians refused this scheme. Rouble is going up, dollar and euro are going down to pre-war values.

The Poles plan to enter the war and snatch Western Ukraine. It was part of Poland before the WW2. Before Stalin joined it to Soviet Ukraine. Now is the time to restore it to Poland, decided Poles. Poles think it is the time; some Russians agree, and some Russians disagree. Russia has no interest to keep Galicia.

Hungarians want to restore Hungary rule over Western Ukraine. And Romania, too! Then Ukraine will be divided between its four neighbours; Poland, Hungary, Romania and Russia.

NATO planned to enter the war; but didn’t after all. Kosovo is not a part of Ukraine, but Serbia claims it. They say, if Russians claim Crimea, they can claim Kosovo. And China can claim Taiwan. (China claims Taiwan but softly.)

Why the war began? The problem started with a Putin’s complaint. The Russian president wanted NATO to roll back from Eastern Europe to old Soviet borders. The Ukrainian President wanted NATO to stand firm. As the result, Ukrainians were supported by NATO. Russia expected it, and began the war.

The atrocities (Ukrainian upon Russian) are a part of Banderite tactics. Even in 1944 they did it many times, and Ukrainians suffered the results. We know of these tactics, though Mr Khrushchev tried to silence the horror. He sided with Ukrainians, and released captive Banderites. Yesterday in Istanbul there were a peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. Surprisingly, the peace talks were successful. The sides agreed to lay off Kiev.

The Russians lost many soldiers; so did the Ukrainians. Now people can’t understand what was the reason for war. Putin is known as hard-line politician; why did he agree to cease-fire? Or maybe he didn’t? In a day or two, we shall know. Today, it’s not clear. Some people claim the agreement of Mr Medinsky with Mr Zelensky is the agreement of Russia and Ukraine; others deny it. Rouble rally is the result, they say.

Very dubious result, anyway. Russia will retreat from this agreement; or will interpret it differently. Rouble is now pegged to gold at 5000 Rouble per gram.

 
• Category: Foreign Policy • Tags: Russia, Ukraine 
Israel Shamir
About Israel Shamir

Israel Shamir has written extensively on public affairs, primarily relating to the Israel/Palestine conflict and Russia, including three books, Galilee Flowers, Cabbala of Power and Masters of Discourse available in English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Norwegian, Swedish, Italian, and Hungarian.

He describes himself as a native of Novosibirsk, Siberia, who he moved to Israel in 1969, served as paratrooper in the army and fought in the 1973 war, afterwards turning to journalism and writing. During the late 1970s, he joined the BBC in London later living in Japan. After returning to Israel in 1980, Shamir wrote for the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz, and was the Knesset spokesman for the Israel Socialist Party (Mapam), also translating and annotating the cryptic works of S.Y. Agnon, the only Hebrew Nobel Prize winning writer, from the original Hebrew into Russian.

His perspective on the Israel/Palestine conflict was summed up in The Pine and the Olive, published in 1988 and republished in 2004. That same year, he was received in the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem and Holy Land, being baptised Adam by Archbishop Theodosius Attalla Hanna. He now lives in Jaffa and spends much time in Moscow and Stockholm; he is father of three sons.