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iran’s retaliation to be followed by israhell's retaliation to be followed by iran's retaliation....Love me some Pepe. Pepe Escobar and first met last December, during my first trip to Moscow. We were instant friends. When I arrived in Moscow in the midst of a record-breaking snowstorm, I was standing in line waiting to check in to the hotel and noticed that the man in front of me looked remarkably like Pepe Escobar. The man turned, looked at me, and then said, “Oh my God! You’re Larry Johnson.” And I said, “You look like Pepe Escobar.” He laughed with his iconic good cheer and we immediately agreed to meet for drinks and a snack. This was the birth of a dear friendship.
BY LARRY JOHNSON
Apart from Alastair Crooke, an icon in his own right, I could think of no one better than Pepe with whom to mull over the implications of Iran finally delivering on its promise to retaliate against Israel for the murder of Ismail Haniyeh. Most of the Western media is reporting the Iranian attack as “unprovoked.” Just one more example of the corruption and lies that undergird the so-called free press in the West. There was a lot of behind-the-scenes action, in Israel and in Tehran, that the media is ignoring. The biggest story, one that Pepe brought to light, is the internal ruckus in Iran pitting President Pezeshkian against Ayatollah Khameni. Pezeshkian admitted that he was bamboozled by the West, naively believing that if Iran held back from launching retaliatory missiles at Israel, that Netanyahu would stop the slaughter of Palestinians and that a ceasefire would come to pass. Instead, the promised ceasefire was a deadly trap. According to Lebanon’s foreign minister, Nasrallah had agreed to call a ceasefire and was meeting with an Iranian General to discuss the matter when both were assassinated. Richard Steven Hack has written a good piece explaining how it appears that the ceasefire proposal was a ruse to entrap and murder Nasrallah. This is just one of the issues Pepe and I discuss. Well, the waiting is over and Israel — acting much like Ukraine did before the start of its June 2023 counteroffensive — after announcing it was going to put ground forces into Lebanon, finally pulled the trigger. Were it not for the fact that this escalation is going to lead to needless death and suffering, I would be amused by the term, “limited.” No such thing. That’s like saying, “I’m almost pregnant.” You either are or you are not. If I recall correctly, Vietnam started off as a “limited” military engagement. How did that work out? What is Israel’s military objective? Just put some troops inside Lebanon? Destroy Hezbollah’s fortified emplacements? Advance to the Litani River? It appears that Israel’s blood-crazed leaders have convinced themselves that they have weakened Hezbollah’s command-and-control capabilities and will be able to move quickly through difficult terrain and face little opposition. I think they are making an historic mistake, driven by hubris and arrogance. I make the point in each of the three videos posted below, that Israel failed to defeat Hamas in a tiny area of 141 square miles — 25 miles long and 5.6 miles wide — after 12 months of combat against lightly armed defenders. Now, Israel wants you to believe that it can make quick work in an area that is 2.5 times larger than Gaza — 328 square miles — that is filled with hills, mountains and valleys. Hezbollah is not sitting on its hands, cowering in fear. Hezbollah reports the following actions just today: 1- Targeted an Israeli infantry force at the Al-Sadah site with artillery shells, achieving direct hits. 2- Targeted the Naoura base with a salvo of Fadi 2 rockets in response to the barbaric Israeli invasion of cities, villages and civilians. 3- Targeted the occupied city of Safad with a rocket barrage in response to the barbaric Israeli invasion of cities, villages and civilians. 4- Targeted the settlement of Gesher Haziv with a rocket barrage, in response to the barbaric Israeli attacks on cities, villages and civilians. 5- Targeted the Sa’ar settlement with a rocket barrage, in response to the barbaric Israeli attacks on cities, villages and civilians. 6- Targeted the settlement of Kabri with a rocket salvo, in response to the barbaric Israeli attacks on cities, villages and civilians. 7- Targeted the Kfar Giladi settlement with a Noor missile. 8- At 15:35, a gathering of Israeli soldiers in Beit Sida was targeted with rockets. 9- Targeted a gathering of Israeli soldiers in the Yiftah settlement with rockets and hit them. 10- Targeted a gathering of Israeli soldiers in the Al-Zaourah military base with a rocket salvo. 11- Targeted a number of ballistic missiles northeast of Haifa with a salvo of Fadi 1 rockets, in response to the barbaric Israeli attacks on cities, villages and civilians. 12- At 23:20, the movements of Israeli enemy soldiers in the orchards opposite the towns of Adaisseh and Kfar Kila were targeted with appropriate weapons, achieving confirmed hits.” Expect more of the same in the coming days and weeks. Israel tried this stunt in 2006 and Hezbollah fought it to a standstill, with Israel having to retreat. This time, Hezbollah is armed with rockets, missiles, drones and artillery that it did not have in 2006. Unlike the “easy” time Israel had bombing defenseless people in Gaza, Israel is going to face stiff opposition. I want to clarify the specious claim that “Iran is the major sponsor of terrorism,” by reposting a graph from my previous post, Exploding Myths of Middle East Terrorism. Not a single one of these groups is being funded, trained or armed by Iran. That is five years of data. Claiming Iran of massive sponsor of terrorism is debunked by the simple fact that the most active organizations accused of carrying out terrorist attacks by the U.S. Department of State (using statistical data collected by NCTC) are not creatures of Iran. Iran’s crime is that it supports Hezbollah and Hamas. As I reported in my article on “Myths,” the data collected and disseminated by the Israeli Foreign Ministryshows that both groups have been involved in relatively few “terrorist” attacks inside Israel over the last 24 years. When you compare the number of Israelis killed by Palestinian “terrorist” attacks with the number of Palestinian civilians killed by Israel, Israel has an eight-to-one advantage. Using terrorism as an excuse to kill civilians is terrorism. I started the day discussing this issue with the Judge. We had some technical glitches. At first, I thought it was my internet (I had to install a temporary WiFi system because my fiber optic cable was cut accidentally). But it was the Judge’s system that was overloaded. Still, I was able to make my key points. https://youtube.com/watch?v=TLGifNu-XZI%3Ffeature%3DoembedI was able to have a more detailed discussion with Nima regarding the start of the Israeli ground operation and the current state of Hezbollah after the recent casualties of several key leaders. https://youtube.com/watch?v=aRvh4bvKj5U%3Fstart%3D2606%26feature%3DoembedThen there is Ukraine. Remember that war? Danny Davis and I “dive deep” on the military realities plaguing Ukraine and favoring Russia. https://youtube.com/watch?v=09dtElhJZN0%3Ffeature%3DoembedI thank you for your invaluable support by taking time to read or comment. I do not charge a subscription fee nor do I accept advertising. I want the content to be accessible to everyone interested in the issues I am discussing. However, if you wish to make a donation, you need only to follow this link.
https://sonar21.com/pepe-escobar-and-i-discuss-irans-missile-retaliation/
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psycho-israhelli....
TEL AVIV (Sputnik) - Israel has the right and the duty to respond to Iran's recent attack, and it will do so, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday.
"Iran has launched hundreds of missiles into our territory and on our cities twice, carrying out one of the largest ballistic missile attacks in history," Netanyahu said in his address to the nation.
"No country in the world would allow such an attack on its cities and citizens, and this also applies to the State of Israel," he insisted. "Israel has the duty and right to defend itself and respond to these attacks, and we will do so."
Earlier on Saturday, Israeli Army Radio reported that the IDF was preparing for a serious and major retaliation to Iran's attack, and that it hoped for assistance from partners in the region.
The Times of Israel reported that US Central Command chief General Michael Kurilla arrived in Israel to meet with Israeli defense and military officials amid the IDF's preparations.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20241005/netanyahu-says-israel-has-right-duty-to-respond-to-iranian-missile-attack-1120432468.html
BIBI IS A PSYCHOPATH....
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bibi is mad.....
The Zionist invasion of Lebanon isn’t just about Lebanon. It isn’t even primarily about Lebanon. Rather, it is an attempt to provoke a huge regional war, under cover of which the Zionist messianic-millenarian fanatics hope to murder and expel the remaining Palestinians from Palestine. (Yes, they do want to exterminate Lebanese too.) Whether they lose that war, as seems likely, or “win” a Pyrrhic victory that turns the world decisively against them, their project is finished.
Below is the full article I wrote and submitted to the Crescent two weeks ago on the accelerating slow-motion holocaust of the West Bank. -KB
Crescent International
The zionist entity’s terrorist attacks on Lebanon on September 17/18 and 23 have horrified the world. In the first attack, dozens of people were killed, and thousands wounded, when pagers and radios began exploding. The carnage was indiscriminate. Countless civilians, including many women and children, were killed or maimed by the explosions.
On September 23, the zionists launched hundreds of air strikes on South Lebanon, the Beka‘a Valley as well as South Beirut. At least 569 people were killed and more than 1850 wounded. These attacks continued the following day raising fears that it might erupt in a regional war with catastrophic consequences.
Let us return to the attack in which pagers and radio sets exploded. Mohamad Hasan Sweidan noted that the 9/17 terror attacks have global ramifications:
This shift in the rules of engagement where civilians are targeted not just on the battlefield but in their homes threatens to plunge the world into a new era of insecurity and uncertainty. Governments and citizens alike must now contend with the possibility that the next device they purchase could be weaponized against them as Israel’s aggression moves beyond traditional warfare into the realm of global terror.
The terrorist attack was, like so much else that “Israel” does, a blatant violation of international law. Article 7(2) of the Amended Protocol II of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons prohibits the use of booby-trapped devices like pagers, phones, and radios. NPR reported:
A group of United Nations human rights experts called the simultaneous explosions “terrifying” violations of international law. “To the extent that international humanitarian law applies at the time of the attacks there was no way of knowing who possessed each device and who was nearby” the experts said. “Simultaneous attacks by thousands of devices would inevitably violate humanitarian law by failing to verify each target and distinguish between protected civilians and those who could potentially be attacked for taking a direct part in hostilities.”
The terror attack on Lebanon was followed by a massive bombing campaign. As usual, the zionists managed to kill large numbers of civilians. Clearly, they are doing everything they can to incite a regional war.
Why would “Israel” want to provoke a huge war in which it would likely suffer massive damage, if not complete annihilation? The zionist entity’s leadership is dominated by messianic millenarian maniacs, not rational statesmen. Though many are atheists, they believe the God they don’t believe in gave them all of Palestine—and quite possibly everything from the Nile to the Euphrates, or maybe even the entire planet. From the very beginning of the zionist movement, that long-term plan of ethnic cleansing and permanent expansion has been assiduously pursued.
Currently the zionists are gambling on finishing the genocide of Palestine while simultaneously stealing part of Lebanon. As they continue their murderous onslaught on Gaza, which has killed more than 41,000 people in less than a year, they have accelerated attacks on the West Bank. As of September 22, Israeli settlers and their military allies have killed 716 Palestinians and injured more than 5700. Additionally, the zionists have “arrested” (kidnapped) more than 10,000 Palestinian hostages, who are being held in atrocious conditions and being subjected to unspeakable tortures.
The surging zionist violence against West Bank civilians has led the head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service, Ronen Bar, to issue a stark warning to Netanyahu. Haaretz reported:
Last week the head of the Shin Bet Ronen Bar warned in a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others that Jewish terrorism is endangering Israel’s existence. The leaders of the Jewish terrorists “want to cause the system to lose control, causing indescribable damage to Israel,” Bar wrote…
Bar’s complaint about Jewish terrorism was subsequently endorsed by the Israeli Defense Forces. But it fell on deaf ears. Netanyahu heads an extremist cabinet featuring such messianic-millenarian lunatics as Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. They and their supporters believe that God will help them massacre and expel all Palestinians from Palestine.
Netanyahu, who inherited an atheist version of messianic-millenarian extremism from his father, Benzion Netanyahu, does not expect God to assist his genocide, but intends to do it himself. Indeed, he has devoted his entire political career to that task.
Netanyahu’s argument with other zionists is not about whether or not the Palestinians should be eliminated via genocide—all “Israeli” leaders agree on that basic point—but only on the timetable. Netanyahu is in a hurry and willing to take big risks, while more “moderately genocidal” zionists think it would be wiser to conduct the slaughters and expulsions step-by-step. As Hagai El-Ad recently wrote in The New York Times:
In 1975, the defense minister, Shimon Peres, who went on to sign the initial Oslo Accord agreement, said of occupied land, “The debate going on today is not about the very need for settlement, not even about its map or dimensions, but about the procedures for organizing it.” He added, “More than a debate about vision, it’s a debate about timing.”
The radical zionist plan to accelerate the Palestinian genocide has been picking up steam inside “Israel” for years. Even before the Aqsa Storm operation of October 7, 2023, mainstream zionist politicians had begun calling for a “second Nakba” to complete the Palestinian Holocaust.
In June 2022, over a year before last October’s raid, the Israeli magazine +972published an article headlined “How threats of a second Nakba went mainstream.” The authors noted that “prominent right-wing figures are now openly advocating mass expulsion to preserve Jewish supremacy…Coming from mainstream right-wing leaders such as Katz, Galant and Dayan as opposed to the usual suspects for ‘extremist’ rhetoric such as Itamar Ben Gvir, the Nakba is presented as a legitimate policy decision akin to a speeding ticket or a fine for greenhouse gas emissions.”
While the world’s attention is focused on the genocide of Gaza, the zionists are ramping up their West Bank terrorism aimed at paving the way for the forced expulsion of the Palestinians into Jordan. World Socialist Website reports: “On August 27 the IDF sent hundreds of ground soldiers, drones, warplanes, and bulldozers into the cities of Tulkarm and Jenin, as well as the Al Fara refugee camp near Tubas, in the largest military operation in the West Bank since 2002.” Rampaging settlers took advantage of the invasion and drove 119 Palestinians out of their homes, erecting armed outposts and eliminating the Palestinians’ access to water.
The accelerating small-scale ethnic cleansings in the West Bank could be preludes to full-blown genocide. Ultimately the zionists hope to kill or expel all of the nearly three million Palestinians who live there, and many fear the attempt could come sooner rather than later.
The zionists have no qualms about committing such atrocities because they believe the Palestinians, like all non-Jews, are mere animals. The former chief rabbi of Israel, Ovadia Yosef, compared non-Jews to donkeys and explained that “goyim [non-Jews] were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world—only to serve the people of Israel.” Many other Zionist leaders have echoed the same sentiments, or worse. The current Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, has called the Palestinians “human animals.”
If the zionists try to drive three million Palestinians into Jordan, that would be “a declaration of war” on Jordan, according to Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi—just as a similar move to drive Gazans into Egypt would be a declaration of war on that country. Genocidal crimes on such a colossal scale would presumably also be unacceptable to the Jordanian and Egyptian governments’ American backers, and to the region as a whole.
Such horrific crimes could only be committed under cover of a larger regional war. And that is what the zionists have been trying to incite with their ongoing series of atrocities and assassinations.
But the zionist strategy is backfiring. The whole world, led by the Global South, is appalled and disgusted by the genocide. “Israel” is rapidly losing legitimacy. Its economy is in tatters, thanks in part to Yemen’s shutdown of Eilat, its Red Sea port.
Settlers in the north have fled Hizbullah’s rockets, which fall as retaliation for the genocide of Gaza. As many as half a million “Israelis” have evacuated from their settler colony. Seeing all this, the Axis of Resistance pursues a policy of strategic patience, based on the Sun Tzu dictum “Never interrupt your enemy while he is in the middle of making a mistake.”
Thus far the zionists’ plans to incite a huge war are failing. A desperate zionist attempt to quickly expel millions of Palestinians would likely drive the last nail into the coffin of “Israel.” Its latest escalation against Hizbullah in Lebanon is part of the same failed policy that would only hasten the demise of the illegitimate entity.
https://www.unz.com/kbarrett/zionists-invade-lebanon-to-accelerate-murder-expulsion-of-all-palestinians/
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compensation...........
TEL AVIV (Sputnik) - The administration of US President Joe Biden has offered Israel a "compensation package" if it refrains from striking some Iranian targets in response to the recent missile attack on the Jewish state, Israeli state broadcaster Kan reported on Sunday.
According to the broadcaster, following the Iranian ballistic missile attack on Israel on October 1, talks were held between Israeli and US officials on a retaliatory strike.
During the talks, US officials offered their Israeli counterparts broad diplomatic support and additional military assistance if certain targets in Iran were not attacked, the publication said.
A senior Israeli official, cited by the broadcaster, said that Israel "always takes into account the opinion of the United States, our ally, and is ready to listen to them, but will do everything necessary to protect citizens and the security of the country."
Israel has officially stated that a response would be given to the Iranian attack, but the method of response, place and time of the strike were still at the planning or approval stage. The commander of the US Central Command, Gen. Michael Kurilla, who is currently in Israel, is attending meetings of the leadership of the security bloc, where this operation is being discussed, according to Kan.
On October 1, Iran for the second time in history subjected Israel to a massive missile attack, calling it an act of self-defense. The Israeli military says that about 180 ballistic missiles were launched, most of which were intercepted. Footage on social networks shows the aftermath of the shelling in different parts of Israel. According to the Israeli authorities, the shelling did not cause any casualties among the country's citizens. Several media outlets reported the death of one person, presumably a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip, on the West Bank of the Jordan River.
The Iranians claim that the missiles hit Israeli military targets, while the Israelis say the damage was "minimal." They promise to strike back, and the United States to aid its main Middle Eastern ally. After Iran's missile strike on Israel, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the administration of US President Joe Biden had failed in the Middle East, demonstrating complete helplessness in resolving crises.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20241006/us-offers-israel-compensation-for-avoiding-attacks-on-some-iranian-targets---reports-1120450251.html
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