Saddam's Death, 199 [july-august 2023]
attempt to destroy political holism in the middle east

See also: Page 198: may-june and Page 200: sept 2023


Israel & The Temple Revolution & Unesco & the Temple
Regime Change in Iraq - Overview 2002/2003 - Trump & the Pisces Messiah - Kennedy Speech 1961 - Eisenhower's Social Gospel - "I Have, I Rule and I will Destroy" - Iran & the dialogue of civilizations - Netanyahu & Infantilization of Israel - Jesus & Pophet Muhammed: "Be a stranger in the world" - Ideological Warfare Center - Jewish fundamentalism in the State of Palestine - Palestinian Martyrs and Jewish Heroes - The Balfour Declaration - Trump's move on Jerusalem (2017) - Abbas & Trump's "slap of the century" - John Bolton, prominent war hawk, National Security Adviser to President Trump - Lies & Provocations: France, UK and USA show their dark face - Trump, the 'deal-breaker' - Explaining America’s economic might - Netanyahu & The Survival of the Fittest - Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil’ Is Now Pence’s ‘Wolf Pack of Rogue States’ - Mike Pence & antisemitism - Amnesia of the US Foreign Policy Establishment - Israeli Elections 2019 - Was Jesus a Palestinian? - Labor disappears from Knesset - Settlers from the White House - NO to International Law - Israel & The Three Central Dilemmas - Netanyahu & Neo-Zionism - Secularism & 'Jewish' identity - Pompeo & Christian leadership - Jeremy Corbyn & Jewish Witch Hunt - Trump's Deal of the Century - Netanyahu & the Moongod Abraham - Gantz' betrayal - Trump's sanctions against ICC officials - The Ceasar Act - The Turkey-Armenia conflict - Joe Biden's Running Mate - The UAE-Israel-deal - The Sudan-US-Israel-deal - Robert Fisk Articles" - Joe Biden elected president - The return of Victoria Nuland - Putin 2014: New Rules or a Game without Rules - Alexander Dugin & The Great Awakening - Bennett is an 'evil' and 'wicked' Reform Jew, say haredi MKs - The Taliban enter Kabul - UAE leaders receive Syrian President Assad - Lapid & the Palestinian state - Yusuf al-Qaradawi died in Qatar - Israel heading toward a fascist theocracy - Ukraine is now a failed state: - The Global Civilization Initiative - Assad joins Arab leaders in Jeddah


Index Page - Start

Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was born April 28, 1937 and died December 30, 2006. He was the fifth President of Iraq, holding that position from July 16, 1979 until 9 April 2003. He was one of the leading members of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party, and afterward, the Baghdad-based Ba’ath Party and its regional organization Ba’ath Party, Iraq Region, which advocated ba’athism, an ideological marriage of Arab nationalism with Arab socialism. (Patricia Ramos, july 2013)


How the National Security State Manipulates the News Media
Ted Galen Carpenter, antiwar.com, March 09, 2021

An especially dangerous threat to liberty occurs when members of the press collude with government agencies instead of monitoring and exposing the abuses of those agencies. Unfortunately, collusion is an all-too-common pattern in press coverage of the national security state’s activities. The American people then receive official propaganda disguised as honest reporting and analysis.


"The national security of America and the security of the world could be attained if the American leaders [..] become rational, if America disengages itself from its evil alliance with Zionism, which has been scheming to exploit the world and plunge it in blood and darkness, by using America and some Western countries.
What the American peoples need mostly is someone who tells them the truth, courageously and honestly as it is.
They don’t need fanfares and cheerleaders, if they want to take a lesson from the (sept. 11) event so as to reach a real awakening, in spite of the enormity of the event that hit America.
But the world, including the rulers of America, should say all this to the American peoples, so as to have the courage to tell the truth and act according to what is right and not what to is wrong and unjust, to undertake their responsibilities in fairness and justice, and by recourse to reason..."

Saddam Hussein, INA 15-9-2002


Joe Biden & Truth - 2009

US Vice President Joe Biden said that the new administration would seek the unvarnished truth from its spies, whether or not their information supported the goals of the government.
The Vice President's address was greeted with loud cheers by the several hundred CIA employees who gathered for the swearing in ceremony in the foyer of the Agency's headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
Standing before the wall of 89 stars representing the CIA staff who have died in the line of duty, Mr Biden said:
"We expect you to provide independent analysis, not to engage in group think. We expect you to tell us the facts as you know them wherever they may lead, not what you think we want to hear." (Tim Shipman. 20-2-2009)

"We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people …
The wave of the future is not the conquest of the world by a single dogmatic creed but the liberation of the diverse energies of free nations and free men. …
Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind." John F.Kennedy


“Human beings are members of a whole,
In creation of one essence and soul.
If one member is afflicted with pain,
Other members uneasy will remain.
If you have no sympathy for human pain,
The name of human you can not retain.”

Saadi Shirazi
(Persian poet & humanist, born in Shiraz, Iran, c. 1210)


Flashback- Hanan Ashrawi 2002:
The New Age of Ideology

"The post-September 11 era in the US has heralded in a new age of ideology whose discourse and world views have served not only to accommodate such extremist views as those held by Sharon, but also to provide him with a platform and an influence that were unthinkable only a year ago.
Thus while the American President is busy devising a new Manichean universe of absolute good and absolute evil, pronouncing policy on the basis of a simplistic polarization of the world, and unilaterally defining the terms while categorizing state and non-state actors accordingly, Sharon’s Israel has maneuvered itself into a position of even greater power on the world stage provided explicitly by the US."

Index Page


"Holism is the most fundamental discovery of 20th century science. It is a discovery of every science from astrophysics to quantum physics to environmental science to psychology to anthropology.
It is the discovery that the entire universe is an integral whole, and that the basic organizational principle of the universe is the field principle: the universe consists of fields within fields, levels of wholeness and integration that mirror in fundamental ways, and integrate with, the ultimate, cosmic whole...."
"For many thinkers and religious teachers throughout this history, holism was the dominant thought, and the harmony that it implies has most often been understood to encompass cosmic, civilizational, and personal dimensions. Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Lord Krishna, Lao Tzu, and Confucius all give us visions of transformative harmony, a transformative harmony that derives from a deep relation to the holism of the cosmos."

About political holism

Political holism is based on the recognition that "we" are all members of a single whole. There's no "they," even though "we" are not all alike. Because "we" are all part of the whole, and therefore interdependent, we benefit from cooperating with each other. Political holism is a way of thinking about human cultures and nations as interdependent.
Political holists search for solutions other than war to settle international disagreements. Their model of the world is one in which cooperation and negotiation, even with the enemy, even with the weak, promotes political stability more than warfare.
In an overpopulated world with planet-wide environmental problems, the development of weapons of mass destruction has rendered war obsolete as an effective means to resolve disputes.

Political dualists consider political holists unpatriotic for questioning the necessity to defeat "them." In times of impending war, political dualists tend to measure patriotism by the intensity of one's hostility to the country's immediate enemy.
Naturally, they would view as disloyalty any suggestion that the enemy is not evil, any call for cooperation with the enemy, any criticism of one's own country.
To political dualists, cooperation with the enemy means capitulation, relinquishment of the nation's position of dominance.
At its extreme, political dualism is essentially tribalism. (Betty Craige, 16-8-1997)


Desmond Tutu & Ubuntu

"A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, based from a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed."
"We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole World.
When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity." (Ubuntu info)

Saudi Crown Prince: We will assist in helping
the Palestinians establish a state
Elad Benari, Arutz Sheva, May 19, 2023

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Friday once again stressed the importance the kingdom places on a Palestinian state.
Speaking at the Arab League summit taking place in the country, bin Salman said, according to Channel 12 News, "The Palestinian issue was and still is the main issue of the Arab countries and is at the top of the kingdom's priorities. We will not delay in providing assistance to the Palestinian people in recovering their lands, restoring their legitimate rights and establishing an independent state within the borders of 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital.">BR> Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who attended the summit, said that "commemorating the Nakba at the UN refutes the Zionist narrative."
In addition, he called on the Arab countries to turn to the International Criminal Court over the “Israeli occupation” and charged, "Israel violates the signed agreements and UN resolutions and adheres to the colonial Zionist project which is based on the continuation of the occupation, ethnic cleansing and apartheid."
Haaretz noted that, in a statement summarizing the summit published after its conclusion, the members of the Arab League reaffirmed their support for the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which stipulates that 22 Arab countries will normalize ties with Israel in return for an Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria.
Israel to date has rejected the 2002 Saudi proposal...

Flashback: The Arab Peace Initiative 2002

"Abdallah bin Abdul Aziz is offering Israel full peace, including political, economic and cultural normalization, in return for a full withdrawal from the territories. This is more than a mere license to exist in peace in the region and recognition of the existence of Israel.
This is the political horizon Saudi Arabia, in consultation with Egypt, Jordan and some of the Gulf countries, is willing to give Israel: Complete integration in the region; realization of the vision of the New Middle East; economic and cultural cooperation; falafel in Damascus and stalls in the international market of Dubai; an Israeli flag in Riyadh; programming engineers in Bahrain and gas from Qatar to Israel. This initiative offers Israel the fulfillment of supremely important interests, which are supposed to ease the pain of the concessions.
The importance of the initiative lies in the fact that it is Saudi Arabia that is putting it forward. It comes from the deepest heart of the Arab, and even more importantly, the Islamic world. Saudi Arabia did so, despite the fact that it has no war or border conflicts with Israel, and despite its increasingly growing ties with Iran. A Saudi seal of approval is an Islamic seal of approval, even if it does include Iran, and it is an Arab seal of approval." (Zvi Bar'el - Ha'aretz, 1-3-2002)


Turkey, Egypt fully restore diplomatic ties
after decade-long freeze, Al-Monitor, July 4, 2023

ANKARA — Turkey and Egypt announced on Tuesday the full normalization of relations, ending a nearly a decade-long diplomatic hostilities.
In separate simultaneous statements, both countries said that they decided to reinstate their ambassadors mutually in their respective capitals, fully restoring ties at the highest diplomatic level. Turkey named Salih Mutlu Sen as its ambassador to Cairo and Egypt tapped Amr Elhamamy as its envoy to Ankara, according to the joint statements.
Speaking at a joint presser with his Jordanian counterpart Ayman Safadi, Turkey's new Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Turkey and Egypt were two powerful countries of the region and that the they do not have the "luxury of staying apart" from each other.
"We have now passed an important stage in the normalization efforts. From now on, our relations will continue to progress swiftly in political, economic and other fields," he said.

The two countries severed their diplomatic ties following the 2013 coup that ousted Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-led government of late President Mohamed Morsi.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan emerged as the one of the major international backers of the anti-coup demonstrator with his country turning to a safe haven for the exiled Brotherhood members.
As part of its regional fence mending push started back in 2021, Turkey has extended several olive branches to its former regional rivals, namely, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Israel and Egypt.
Though, the country has managed to improve its relations with the four Middle Eastern powers including fully normalizing its ties with Israel, Egypt has long been dragging its feet against a full normalization with its Eastern Mediterranean neighbor mainly due to Ankara's staunch support of the Brotherhood.
The two capitals are also adding odds over the Libyan conflict and what Cairo describes as Ankara's revisionist policies in the Arab world as part of Erdogan's neo-Ottoman ambitions in the region.


Iran officially becomes full SCO member
By Mehran Shamsuddin, Tehran Times, July 4, 2023

Iran has finished all the procedural measures required for the membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), becoming a full member of the regional bloc.
Iran’s membership was announced during the 23rd summit of the SCO in New Delhi. At the summit, Iran was introduced as the ninth member of the SCO, with other member states welcoming it into the organization.
The process of Iran moving from an observer status to a main member started in September 2021 when Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi appeared at the 21st meeting of the heads of the organization in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.
At the end of that meeting, the heads of the eight main member countries announced their approval of changing the status of Iran to a main member and signed the relevant documents. Accordingly, the technical process of Iran’s membership in the SCO kicked off.
Iran met all the requirements for the membership and fulfilled the procedural obligations in this regard. Ultimately, the Iranian parliament passed the “law of the accession of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.”
On Tuesday, President Raisi virtually participated in the 23rd Council of Heads of State of the SCO, where he delivered a speech as the president of a member state. The other participants welcomed Iran into the SCO.
Iran becoming a full member comes a time when the world order is undergoing a major change in which the West is no longer dominant. This new order is marked by the rise of Asian superpowers and regional powers.

[In his speech] the president noted, “The Islamic Republic of Iran has always declared its full support for the existing mega-projects such as the North-South Corridor and the Belt-Road Project and has made it a priority.
Chabahar ocean port and Chabahar-Sarakhs crossings play an irreplaceable role in connecting the landlocked countries of Central Asia to the Sea of Oman and the Indian Ocean, and we are determined to complete this transit route, and with the efforts of Iranian experts and the joint cooperation of Iran and Russia, the completion of the North-South Corridor rail route has entered the implementation stage.”
Raisi underlined the need for unity and called for respect for the values and sanctities of the nations is a unifying principle...
President Raisi also took a jab at the U.S., saying, “The government that is celebrating its independence anniversary today on the 4th of July violates the independence of many countries and has denied the right to self-determination from many nations, especially the Palestinian nation.”


Israel & the Jenin refugee camp
A year of fighting between Israel and the Palestinians
by Naharnet Newsdesk, 4-7-2023

Airstrikes targeting Palestinian militants in a crowded residential area. Armored bulldozers plowing through narrow streets, crushing cars and piling up debris. Protesters burning tires. A mounting death toll.
Israel's large-scale military raid into the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Monday (july 3) had undeniable similarities with the second Palestinian uprising of the early 2000s — a period that claimed thousands of lives.
But the current fighting is also different from those intense years of violence. It's more limited in scope, with Israeli military operations focused on several strongholds of Palestinian militants.
It's also a symptom of a conflict with no foreseeable end. The Palestinian leadership is weakened, and the Israeli government has been accelerating the expansion of settlements that have eroded any chance of Palestinian statehood.

WHAT IS AN INTIFADA?
The word that means "shaking off" in Arabic was coined to describe an uprising against Israel's military occupation that erupted in 1987. It ended in 1993 with an agreement of mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
What became known as the first intifada was marked by widespread Palestinian protests and a fierce Israeli response. In the second uprising, which began in 2000, Palestinian militants carried out deadly suicide bombings on buses and at restaurants and hotels, eliciting crushing Israeli military reprisals.
The second uprising pitted Palestinian militant groups against a far more powerful Israeli military. Over 4,000 people died, including vast numbers of civilians. Roughly three times as many Palestinians as Israelis were killed.
Israeli crackdowns upended Palestinian lives, including placing tight restrictions on movement that choked the fledgling economy. For Israelis, especially during the frequent bombings of the second intifada, stepping onto a bus or going out to a restaurant was terrifying.
Those events were initially fueled by widespread participation. Many Palestinians in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem — areas captured by Israel in 1967 and claimed by the Palestinians for their state — joined in the protests.
The protests were also driven by the Palestinian leaders, including President Yasser Arafat, whom Israel accused of encouraging and abetting militants.
The intifada petered out after Arafat died in 2004 and the current Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, took power.

SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES
The region has not seen such a sustained cycle of violence since the second uprising, which lasted about five years. More recent periods of bloodshed have not lasted this long or involved such a strong show of force by the military. The tactics seen Monday, with airstrikes, armored bulldozers and a brigade of troops, were a mainstay of the second uprising.
But analysts say that's where the similarities end. Israel's raids over the last year have been smaller in scale. Israel's targets are also more limited to local armed groups and militant cells.
Other differences, analysts say, include the weakened Palestinian leadership and the lack of popular participation. While protests have erupted in response to the raids, they have not engulfed the entire West Bank.


Haaretz | Israel News, Jul 5, 2023
'Your Messianism Is Not Judaism:'
Dozens Protest Coup Outside Extremist Israeli Rabbi's Yeshiva

Dozens of Israeli pro-democracy protesters gathered outside the Har Hamor Yeshiva on Wednesday, which is led by extremist rabbi Zvi Thau – spiritual leader of the anti-LGBTQ Noam party – to demonstrate against the "messianic and dangerous current in the country which is leading the judicial coup," protesters said.
The protesters, mainly army reservists, directed their comments to Rabbi Thau, saying "Your messianism is neither Judaism nor Zionism… we are not the donkey, and you are not the rider." "Rabbi Thau and his disciples are the spiritual teachers of Rothman, Smotrich, Ben-Gvir and the other members of the coalition who are leading the coup," the protesters stated, adding that "Their messianic vision is terrifying. We will not allow having no rights in the Jewish state for women, LGBT people and other minorities." Rabbi Zvi Thau, who is the head of the ultra-nationalist, radical Har Hamor yeshiva, has become a symbol of a particular vision of a Jewish state guided by halakha (Jewish law) and Jewish supremacy, which protesters say will lead to "no rights for women, LGBTQ people and other minorities," and apartheid, with the annexation of the West Bank.
Thau, and his follower Avi Maoz - the founder of the homophobic Noam party - are representatives of a messianic strain of religious Zionist Judaism, which is much more interested in effecting wide-ranging social change, believing in the transformation of the Israeli public sphere into a religious space....”

Wikipedia info

Zvi Yisrael Thau (born 1938) is a Religious Zionist rabbi, a disciple of Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, and co-founder and president of Yeshivat Har Hamor in Jerusalem.
Hans (Zvi Yisrael) Thau was born in Vienna to Galician Jews parents. His father, Avraham Adolph Thau, was a banker, and his mother, Judith Yutah Meisels, was a chemist. After the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany ("Anschluss"), the family left for the Netherlands... At the age of 17, after his mother's death, he immigrated to Israel.
Thau is the ideological leader of the Noam party, a far-right religious Zionist party in Israel whose key issue is the promotion of heteronormative, anti-LGBTQ, and traditionalist policy. Leading up to the 2021 Israeli legislative election, he told followers "these homosexuals, these perverts, are miserable people. We want the voice of truth and the voice of faith and the voice of Torah to sound, and for someone there to cry out all the time... someone who will not rest until this thing is off the agenda."

Jerusalem Post: Tau considers the secular world a threat by Jews who are allegedly trying to alienate fellow Jews from the Torah. His narrative about the secular world is a demonic and extremist narrative.
His Jewish political thought is far from ultra-Orthodoxy, which by and large believes that Jews shouldn’t rush the coming of redemption, but only wait for it patiently.
Tau states that the Zionist secular ideologists and leaders such as Ahad Ha’am and David Ben-Gurion were infidels, that today a small group of lefty fanatics is trying to sabotage the process toward redemption, that the IDF is “in bad hands” and that it is time to respond to trends that are corrupting society...
He concludes that it is time for Religious Zionism to take charge of the country through key positions in the military, state institutions, the judiciary and education. (
Jerusalem Post, 22-6-2017)

Jewish Press, may 2021: The rabbi noted that the plot of the far-left elements is not just to oust Benjamin Netanyahu, “but rather, their purpose is much more alarming and dangerous, in all matters concerning the weakening of the state as the nation-state of our people. The extreme ‘progressive’ left is ready to realize its dangerous ideas, such as the repeal of the Nationality Law, and the declaration of the state as the state of ‘all its citizens,’ in attacking the IDF as the army of the people prepared to defeat our enemies, and in promoting the ideas of ‘postmodernism’ in general, such as the distortion of personal and family consciousness through the education system, and the continuation of the violation of Shabbat as the sanctified day of the Jewish state, the abolition of the Chief Rabbinate and the separation of religion from the state, thus creating a separation between the parts of the nation, God forbid, and all of it in a series of destructive laws that will, of course, include the sanctioning of the status of the judicial system as the decider in any issue of national values.”
Rabbi Thau argues that the only bulwark against such a deterioration of the nation and the state of Israel is Prime Minister Netanyahu...

The “biggest march in Israeli history”
By Eva Roytburg, Jerusalem Post, 21-7-2023

The headquarters for what protest leaders called the “biggest march in Israeli history” was not Kaplan Street, Tel Aviv, but the remote community of Bnei Atarot, population 960, on Wednesday.
A few hundred protesters sprawled throughout the town to rest through the day, after marching nearly 10 km. from Tel Aviv Tuesday night. Around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, over 500 protesters began their walk to Ben Shemen, reciting the popular “de-mo-crat-ia” chant and singing songs against the current government.
The crowd of marchers squeezed onto the shoulder of Highway 40, creating a long trail of blue and white flags that slowed down traffic. Disgruntled commuters honked and some gave them the middle finger.
Police cars both led and trailed the marchers, having approved the route with protest leaders earlier in the day.
Moshe Raban, one of most prominent leaders of the movement, said that when the march ends in front of the Knesset on Saturday night, he expects a massive shoe of support when they arrive.
“This will be a historic moment,” he said. “we’re hoping that the people of Israel will come out with us in the hundreds of thousands.”
“We’re afraid of how this government treats secular education, its racism, its violence, homophobia, chauvinism,” 18-year-old Yonaton Damichsky said. “We’re afraid that in the future our country is going to change. We won’t accept it.”
Damichsky is marching by himself with little more than his sleeping bag strapped to his back. He is a veteran of judicial reform protests, but he sees this as a turning point. “People have jobs, homes, lives, but they left it all to walk five days to Jerusalem,” he said. “


Iraqi prime minister meets Assad
in first Syria visit since 2011
By MEE and agencies, 16-7-2023

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus in the first visit by an Iraqi premier to the country since 2011.
The two discussed a range of issues including the security of their shared 600km border and mitigating the impact of drought. They also agreed to enhance cooperation to reduce drug smuggling.
"I welcome the Iraqi prime minister on this visit, the importance of which comes from the nature of the deep relationship between the two brotherly peoples," said Assad, speaking at the joint press conference.
"This visit is important to take practical steps to strengthen bilateral relations, particularly in light of international circumstances and common challenges, especially the fight against terrorism."
Sudani said Iraq supported the lifting of sanctions on Syria, which have choked the country's economy since the beginning of the civil war in 2011.
Baghdad and Damascus maintained relations throughout the civil war even as other Arab states withdrew their ambassadors and closed their embassies in Syria.
The neighbouring countries, along with Shia armed groups backed by Iran, cooperated in the fight against the Islamic State militant group, which at one point controlled more than a third of Iraq and Syria.
Sudani's visit comes as other countries, including Saudi Arabia, rebuild relations with Damascus after years of tension.


The Democrats Need Kennedy
George D. O’Neill Jr., The Americam Conservative, 20-7-2023

With each passing it day, it looks more likely that former President Donald Trump will emerge as the GOP nominee to face President Joe Biden next year. A rematch of the 2020 election is noticeably uninspiring to the vast majority of Americans. A recent Wall Street Journal article’s title sums it up simply: “No One Is Looking Forward to the 2024 Presidential Election.”
At the same time, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is gaining traction in the polls, much to the consternation of the media.
Kennedy’s appeal among a growing number of Democrat voters should be understood as a rejection of Biden’s repeat bid for the White House...
RFK solves many of the Democrats’ problems. He is younger and more physically fit than Biden. He is engaging and charming to everyday Americans. Kennedy also has a disarming way of violating all of the progressive rules and saying the forbidden words...

Where Kennedy most distinguishes himself is in foreign policy.
Former President Donald Trump has said all of the right things on Ukraine, including recognizing that this is a Washington-created crisis. What Trump fails to acknowledge, however, is how much his son-in-law’s policies at the White House played a role in the current crisis. Foreign policy under Trump was as misguided as under most Republican presidents.
It is here, in this area of foreign policy, where Kennedy offers a stark contrast not only with Biden but also with Trump.
Kennedy recently offered his views on Ukraine, arguing that it was NATO’s aggression that caused the war.
“Pressured by NeoCons in the Biden White House, and by violent fascist elements within the Ukrainian government, Zelensky integrated his army with NATO’s,” Kennedy explained. That provoked Russia.
President Vladimir Putin now finds himself in a war against Ukraine’s corrupt and Nazi-tolerant regime, in an attempt to maintain the status quo and keep NATO at bay. The warmongers in Washington, D.C., ultimately caused the war in Ukraine. And only one candidate is willing to tell the full truth about the origin of this war.

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 was full of promise. His presidency, however, fell far short of the promise. On foreign policy, he was all too willing to listen to Jared Kushner’s globalist advice...
A Kennedy candidacy offers a real alternative to Democrats, and the chance for a real debate for all Americans.


Joe Biden & Netanyahu’s planned judicial overhaul
Elizabeth Hagedorn, Al-Monitor, July 26, 2023


biden & netanyahu

WASHINGTON — In 2014, then-Vice President Joe Biden recalled once signing a photo for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the inscription: “Bibi, I don’t agree with a damn thing you say but I love you.”
Nearly a decade later, the limits of that love-hate relationship are being tested.
As Netanyahu plows ahead with a controversial effort to weaken the country’s judiciary, Biden is left to balance his support for Israel with his disdain for the most right-wing government in its history.
On Monday, Israel’s parliament gave its final approval to the first part of Netanyahu’s planned judicial overhaul, passing a measure that would prevent the Supreme Court from striking down government decisions and appointments deemed "unreasonable."
The Biden administration had issued repeated warnings to Israel over the judicial shakeup it said would undermine the two countries' shared set of democratic values.
While it refrained from directly criticizing Netanyahu’s government, the White House called the 64-0 vote in the Knesset “unfortunate”...
The Biden administration, which has pledged to defend democracy at home and abroad, has struggled to craft a response to what some view as creeping authoritarianism in Israel. It snubbed Netanyahu for months before offering him an in-person meeting invitation, however vague, last week.
Some progressive Democrats say it’s time to move beyond mere statements of disapproval and diplomatic isolation.
Left-leaning advocacy group J Street said in a statement Monday that “business as usual from Congress and the White House is a recipe for terrible failure.” [..]
Few expect Biden will impose practical consequences on Israel, least of all the Palestinians, who’ve been disappointed by the administration’s failure to reverse Trump-era decisions, including shuttering the de facto Palestinian embassy in Jerusalem.
Daoud Kuttab writes that Israel’s pro-democracy protests have largely ignored the Palestinians’ plight: “A very tiny minority of demonstrators actually made the connection between the calls for democracy and justice on the one hand and the continuation of occupation and injustice on the other.”

Ex-Mossad Chief Compares Israeli Right to the KKK
Jonathan Shamir, Haaretz, Jul 27, 2023

The former head of the Mossad, Tamir Pardo, said that “horrible, racist parties” in Netanyahu’s coalition are similar to the notorious American white supremacist Ku Klux Klan.
In a scathing interview with Kan public broadcaster radio on Thursday, Pardo slammed Netanyahu for “taking the Ku Klux Klan and putting them into government.”
When asked if he was referring to the far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich and Yitzhak Wasserlauf, he responded: “Of course.”
“Worse than this, I don’t want to go into examples from the 1930s,” he said, pointing to Smotrich’s comments that the Palestinian town of Huwara should be “wiped out.”
Pardo went on to say that many of the laws that the government is legislating are tantamount to “antisemitic laws,” and would be labelled such were they passed in any other country.
On Tuesday, the Knesset expanded the so-called Admissions Committees Law, which enables small communities to reject applicants they deem “unsuitable," and was described by leading rights organization Adalah as “racist."
The ex-Mossad chief said that he held Netanyahu responsible for the unfolding crisis in the country, and said that his worldview on several key issues “is not so far away” from those of his extremist coalition partners...
His vision is the vision of Smotrich,” Pardo charged.


Will the Triumph of the Messianic
Israeli Far Right Destabilize the Country?
H. Scott Prosterman, Informed Comment, 27-7-2023

The Israeli government voted this week to limit their Supreme Court’s ability to overturn unconstitutional laws after several months of debate.
The reaction from the White House has been nothing short of enabling, with a tepid statement about the importance of consensus building, as if that were important to Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu.
The Knesset passed a law preventing the Supreme Court from striking down laws they find “unreasonable” in light of the country’s basic laws and from nixing governmental appointments on grounds of corruption.
This is the culmination of a campaign by Israeli PM Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, and Ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezelal Smotrich to consolidate their far-right wing coalition power in perpetuity, and to pass anti-democratic legislation to ensure that aim.
This step would aid Netanyahu’s fight against graft and corruption charges, and upend democratic norms in Israel. It would also open the door legislative annexation of Palestinian territories in violation of international law. [..]

Flashback 2017 - The Chabad Message


netanyahu & chabad: we don't search for truth, we are the truth

Haaretz columnist Yossi Verter argues that Netanyahu, “made a blood pact with the racist, messianic, ultra-Orthodox and nationalist State of Judea...
He will now be able to marginalize the Supreme Court, depose the attorney general, and appoint a ‘general prosecutor’ to prosecute his cases.”
Bibi’s “fan base” is the ultra-Orthodox Haredim and far-right settler communities, and he’s granted their entire wish list of agenda items; including ongoing exemption from military service for the Haredim, and the equivalent of Israeli Proud Boys in key ministerial positions.


News | Israel Abraham Accords:
Support for normalisation deals with Israel plummets in Gulf countries
By MEE staff, 31 July 2023

Support for the controversial normalisation deals with Israel have plummeted among Gulf states according to opinion polls commissioned by the Washington Institute, a US-based think tank.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan established official ties with Israel as part of US-brokered Abraham Accords in 2020.
According to the latest surveys, only 27 percent of respondents in the UAE and 20 percent in Bahrain viewed the accords as positive for the region.
That compares with 47 percent and 45 percent in 2020 when the accords were billed as part of a process that may encourage Israel to also work on its conflict with the Palestinians.
In Saudi Arabia, which has not normalised relations with Israel amid a push by Washington for the kingdom to follow in its neighbours' footsteps, support for the accords also fell by half to 20 percent.
Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, said the kingdom will not normalise relations with Israel until Palestinians are granted statehood.
“True normalisation and true stability will only come through giving the Palestinians hope. Through giving the Palestinians dignity, and that requires giving the Palestinians a state,” he said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this year.

Despite support for the accords plunging in Gulf states, trade between the two sides is however on the rise.
In 2022, bilateral trade between Israel and the UAE hit $2.6bn, with that number expected to go up to $3bn this year according to Israeli figures. Since the accords were signed, more than a million Israelis travelled to the UAE although that has very much been a one-sided trend, with few people from the Gulf looking to travel the other way.


Saudi Arabia's 1st ambassador to Palestine
resents letter of credentials
Middle East Monitor, August 13, 2023

The first ambassador appointed by Saudi Arabia to Palestine, Naif bin Bandar Al-Saud, presented on Saturday his letter of credentials to the Palestinian authorities, Anadolu reports.
Ambassador Al-Saud delivered the letter of credentials to Majdi Al-Khalidi, advisor to President Mahmoud Abbas for diplomatic affairs, at the Palestinian Embassy in Jordan, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
The original credentials will be handed over to the Palestinian president soon.
Al-Saud will serve as the non-resident ambassador of Saudi Arabia to Palestine.
Khalidi said this step would contribute to strengthening the bonds between the two brotherly peoples and countries. Al-Saud previously served as the Saudi ambassador to Amman.

Israel: We Will Not Allow Palestine Saudi Envoy
to Have Base in Jerusalem
Palestine Chronicle, August 14, 2023

Israel ruled out on Sunday a diplomatic base in Jerusalem for the new Saudi envoy to the Palestinians, whose appointment comes as Washington tries to forge normalization between Israel and Riyadh, The New Arab reported.
Saudi Ambassador to Jordan, Nayef Al-Sudairi, expanded his credentials on Sunday to include a non-resident envoy to the Palestinians.
A social media post by his embassy in Amman said “consul-general in Jerusalem” was now among Al-Sudairi’s duties. That appeared to correspond with the Palestinians’ long-standing goal of founding a state in territories Israel continues to occupy, with East Jerusalem as the capital.
Israeli occupation authorities, however, bar Palestinian diplomatic activity in the city. “This [Al-Sudairi] could be a delegate who will meet with representatives in the Palestinian Authority,” Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen told Tel Aviv radio station 103 FM.
“We will not allow the opening of any kind of diplomatic mission” in Jerusalem, Cohen added. “Will there be an official physically sitting in Jerusalem? This we will not allow.”


donald trump & the wall

Israel considers Jerusalem to be its capital, despite the United Nations not recognizing it as such. Palestinians maintain that the eastern part of the city should serve as the future capital of a Palestinian state.
The US recognized Jerusalem as the Israeli capital in 2017 under then-President Donald Trump, a decision that was adamantly opposed by Palestinians.
Saudi Arabia officially supports the Palestinian cause and has so far shunned official ties with Israel, although informal relations exist.


Religious nationalists are ascendant in the ‘Jewish state’
By Ghada Karmi, Mondoweiss, August 12, 2023

Israelis have been locked in a battle over the role of Israel’s judiciary in the country for months.
From the start of this year, huge crowds of protestors have filled the streets of towns and cities across Israel every week, supported by senior members of the military, intelligence, and security services.
The issue, in brief, is over the Supreme Court’s power to put a check on government action, without which Israeli governments would be free to pass whatever laws they liked. The protests have failed to change the government’s course so far.

Israel is defined as a “Jewish state,” and according to Israel’s Basic Law in 2018, it is “the nation-state of the Jewish people.” The sole reference point for both these definitions is religion.
After 75 years since Israel’s establishment, there is none other than a religious meaning to the term “Jew” and no such entity as “the Jewish people” outside that meaning.
Judaism, whether practiced or not, was the only factor that united the disparate Jewish groups immigrating to Palestine after 1880, who later became Israelis. They did not originally share a common language — Hebrew was the language of scripture until the advent of political Zionism — or share a specific territory or a uniformly secular culture.

The place of religion in an Israeli state that aimed from the start to fit into the secular Western world has never been resolved.
Zionism arose in a European environment of secular nationalism. Israel’s founders were secular members of East European (Ashkenazi) Jewish communities who knew they could not make their claim to Palestine stick without recourse to the Bible. For that reason, they were obliged to work with orthodox Jews, who were subsequently allowed the privileges of citizenship without its obligations — exempt from serving in the military or paying the same amount of taxes. They were granted generous state subsidies and could live outside mainstream political life altogether if they chose.
It was a price Israel’s early leaders knew they had to pay to preserve the concept of the “Jewish” state, whose justification for usurping someone else’s country was the biblical Jewish “return” to the Promised Land.
Despite that, Israel managed to promote itself as a Western-style secular democracy with a separation between state and religion. That fiction was comfortable for Europeans and Americans and enabled them to include Israel in the western club of nations.
But from the start, religious parties were part of all Israeli governments and are now dominant.
They strike the West as aberrations, but in fact, they are an inevitable consequence of a state set up using a religious justification.
For example, the ultra-religionists in Israel’s current government believe they are behaving quite logically in adhering to Jewish scripture, looking to exert the authority of the Torah in Israeli life, and wishing to put its precepts into modern effect. They believe their increasing takeover of the rest of historic Palestine is in accordance with what God in the Bible promised the Jews (to the exclusion of non-Jews — Palestinians). Their hostility to judicial interference in “the Land of Israel,” what they believe is God’s gift to the Jews, by criticizing illegal acts in the occupied Palestinian territory, is another consequence.

According to the Israeli intellectual Akiva Orr (in his book, The UnJewish State) Israel was set up to answer to the need of secular Jews for a non-religious definition. It failed to do that but instead created a new category, “Israeli,” who is not necessarily Jewish. BR> Orr predicted that, in time, a gulf would grow between the Jewish diaspora and the new Israeli Jews, the problem of identity still unresolved. He was right. But the tragedy for Palestinians is that this internal Jewish drama has been played out on their land and at their expense. And it still is.

Akiva "Aki" Orr (born Karl Sebastian Sonnenberg; June 19, 1931 – February 7, 2013) was an Israeli writer and political activist. He was an outspoken critic of Zionism and supported a one-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

Following the June 1967 Six Day War in which Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai, and the Golan Heights, Aki intensified his activities in educating the Far Left about Zionism and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He was a much sought-after speaker and addressed numerous meetings.
In 1968, he joined the libertarian group Solidarity led by Chris Pallis (a.k.a., Maurice Brinton) and distanced himself from Marxism. He was then greatly influenced by Cornelius Castoriadis. At the same time he continued his intensive activity as a speaker and writer on Zionism and Israel.
In 1990, Aki returned to Israel and continued to speak and write, devoting much energy to propagating a form of anarchism which he called “Autonarchy,” advocating entirely direct decision-making without the mediation of any elected delegates or representatives. (Matzpen Info 2013)


Israel: Far-right security minister Ben Gvir says
his rights outweigh those of Palestinians
By MEE staff, 24 August 2023

Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, said on Wednesday that his rights trumped those of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Speaking in an interview with Israel's Channel 12, Ben Gvir was asked about the increasing tensions in the West Bank, which in recent weeks has seen Palestinians and Israeli settlers being killed.
Ben Gvir said that his rights were “more important” than those of Palestinians and more needed to be done to ensure the security of Jewish settlers.
My right, and my wife’s and my children’s right to get around on the roads in Judea and Samaria, is more important than the right to movement for Arabs,” said Ben Gvir, using Jewish nationalist terms for areas of the West Bank.
Sorry Mohammad,” Ben Gvir went on to tell Channel 12 journalist Mohammad Magadli, “but that’s the reality. That’s the truth. My right to life comes before their right to movement.”
Ben Gvir is himself a settler in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, near the Palestinian city of Hebron.

Ahmad Tibi, an MP and Palestinian citizen of Israel, called Ben Gvir's comments proof that Israel doesn’t value Palestinian life. “For the first time, an Israeli minister admits on air that Israel enforces an apartheid regime, based on Jewish supremacy,” Tibi said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Why is Russia increasing oil production in Iraq?
Simon Watkins, OilPrice|Shafaq News [Iraq] 16-8-2023

Russia took control of the oil sector of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan (KRI) in northern Iraq in 2017 for four key reasons..:
First, the KRI has significant oil and gas reserves.
Second, its troublesome relationship with southern Iraq, governed out of Baghdad, would allow Russia to play the role of mediator between the two parts of the country, giving it leverage over both sides.
Third, this leverage could then be used to extend Russia’s grip over southern Iraq too, which has even more oil and gas reserves.
And fourth, it would enable Russia to stymie any efforts by the U.S. and its allies to begin to rebuild their influence in the country.
This last point found further resonance after March’s resumption of relationship agreement between Iran (Iraq’s chief regional sponsor) and Saudi Arabia, brokered by China.
Specifically, a source who works closely with the European Union’s energy security apparatus exclusively told OilPrice.com at the time, Iran was told by a very high-ranking official from the Kremlin that: “By keeping the West out of energy deals in Iraq – and closer to the new Iran-Saudi axis - the end of Western hegemony in the Middle East will become the decisive chapter in the West’s final demise”.


West Qurna-2 field is located in the southern part of Iraq, 65 kilometers north-west of Basra, a major seaport city, and is one of the world's largest fields. On December 12, 2009 PJSC LUKOIL was awarded a contract for the development of West Qurna-2 field.
With the future of independent oil supplies from the KRI looking highly precarious, Russia is moving firmly into the last phases of its plan for Iraq, as highlighted by serious discussions over the past two weeks for it to increase its presence in the country’s oil fields.
A litmus test for both sides in this respect is Russia finally effecting a major increase in oil production from Iraq’s supergiant West Qurna 2 oil field.
This field – along with the supergiant Rumaila – was cited recently by Iraq’s Oil Ministry as being vital to the country’s plan to increase its oil production capacity to around 7 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2027.

The entire West Qurna oil field, located 65 kilometres northwest of the southern port city of Basra, has total estimated recoverable oil reserves of 43 billion barrels – making it one of the very biggest oil fields in the world. West Qurna 2 has estimated recoverable oil reserves of around 13 billion barrels and, like most of the big fields in Iraq (and Iran, and Saudi Arabia), it benefits from the lowest lifting costs in the world – at just US$1-2 per barrel.

According to an Iran source, Lukoil has increased production over the past few weeks from 400,000 bpd to around 480,000 bpd.
“From this point it could be increased back above 600,000 bpd in just a few weeks, and it looks like the Russians are serious this time he added,” he said. “With the Iran-Saudi deal, the last part of Russia’s move with China to secure the whole region [Middle East] is in play,” he added.
“A unified Iraq is a key element of this, as the three countries together [Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia] are the heart of the Middle East and the heart of its oil and gas reserves, so to have control over that is a huge geopolitical advantage, and one the Americans wanted as well before their plan fell apart,” he concluded.

Simon Watkins Simon Watkins is a former senior FX trader and salesman, financial journalist, and best-selling author. He has written extensively on oil and gas, Forex, equities, bonds, economics and geopolitics for many leading publications...


BRICS announces expansion with inclusion of 6 countries,
including Saudi Arabia, Iran
Hassan Isilow | Anadolu [Turkey] 24.08.2023

The BRICS announced on Thursday that six countries, including Saudi Arabia and Iran, will join the bloc as full members in January next year.
The emerging economies bloc has agreed to expand by inviting six new countries, including Argentina, Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Thursday at the end of the three-day BRICS summit in Johannesburg. These six countries will become full members of the bloc by January 2024, he added.
Ramaphosa said BRICS leaders have tasked their finance ministers and Reserve Bank governors to consider the issue of making payments in their local currencies and a report back will be provided at the next summit.
More than 20 countries have expressed interest in joining the bloc of emerging economies that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his country has always been fully supportive of a BRICS expansion. He added that new members will strengthen the bloc and give it new energy. He said the BRICS expansion is a message to all global institutions to adapt to global times.

In his address on Wednesday, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the bloc is an inclusive formation of developing and emerging economies that are working together to benefit from their rich histories, cultures, and systems in order to advance common prosperity.
“We do so because we know that poverty, inequality, and underdevelopment are the biggest challenges facing humankind,” he said.
Ramaphosa said BRICS is committed to advancing the interests of the global south and is ready to collaborate with all countries seeking to create a more inclusive international order.
“We are confident that this 15th BRICS summit will enrich and inspire our work towards the achievement of a more humane global community,” he said.

Vladimir Putin's Video Address to the
Participants in the BRICS Business Forum
Kremlin Website, August 22, 2023

It is important that this Forum focuses on such pressing issues as the post-pandemic economic recovery of the BRICS states, improvement of citizens' well-being, industrial modernization, development of effective transport and logistics chains, and stimulation of equitable technology transfers.
These challenging and complex tasks need to be tackled against the backdrop of the increasing volatility in stock, currency, energy and food markets, coupled with substantial inflationary pressure stemming from, inter alia, the irresponsible large-scale money creation by a number of countries seeking to mitigate the effects of the pandemic, which has led to the accumulation of private and public debt.

The global economic situation is also seriously affected by the illegitimate sanctions practice and illegal freezing of assets of sovereign states, which essentially amounts to the trampling upon all the basic norms and rules of free trade and economic life – norms and rules that not so long ago seemed immutable.
Shortage of resources, growing inequality, rising unemployment, and aggravation of other chronic problems in the global economy are the direct consequences of this. Prices for food, basic agricultural products and crops are forced up, making the most vulnerable, poor countries suffer the most.

Importantly, under these circumstances, the BRICS states have stepped up their interaction, and our joint work to ensure economic growth and sustainable development brings concrete, tangible results.
The main thing is that our cooperation is based on the principles of equality, partner support, and respect for each other's interests.
And that is what lies at the core of our Association's forward-looking strategic course – the course that reflects the aspirations of most of the world’s community, the so-called global majority.
I would like to point out that the share of the BRICS countries, with their population totalling more than three billion people, now accounts for nearly 26 percent of the global GDP; our five countries are ahead of the G7 in terms of purchasing power parity (the forecast for 2023 is 31.5 percent against 30 percent).

The objective and irreversible process of the de-dollarization of our economic ties is gaining pace.
We are working to fine-tune effective mechanisms for mutual settlements and monetary and financial control. As a result, the share of US dollar in export and import operations within BRICS is declining: last year it stood at only 28.7 percent.
Incidentally, during this summit we will discuss in detail the entire range of issues related to the transition to national currencies in all areas of economic cooperation between our five nations.
The BRICS New Development Bank, which has already become a credible alternative to existing Western development institutions, has a great role to play in these efforts.

Wikipedia Info

The New Development Bank (NDB), formerly referred to as the BRICS Development Bank, is a multilateral development bank established by the BRICS states (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).
According to the Agreement on the NDB, "the Bank shall support public or private projects through loans, guarantees, equity participation and other financial instruments." Moreover, the NDB "shall cooperate with international organizations and other financial entities, and provide technical assistance for projects to be supported by the Bank."
The initial authorized capital of the bank is $100 billion divided into 1 million shares having a par value of $100,000 each. The initial subscribed capital of the NDB is $50 billion divided into paid-in shares ($10 billion) and callable shares ($40 billion). The initial subscribed capital of the bank was equally distributed among the founding members (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa).
The Agreement on the NDB specifies that every member will have one vote and that no member would have any veto powers.
The bank is headquartered in Shanghai, China. The first regional office of the NDB is in Johannesburg, South Africa.The second regional office was established in 2019 in São Paulo, Brazil, followed by GIFT City, India and Moscow, Russia.

Raisi pushes anti-US agenda in BRICS
Al-Monitor News, August 26, 2023

Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi told a summit of the BRICS group of nations that Tehran is determined to help member states ditch the US dollar in their economic dealings.
Raisi was delivering his speech in Johannesburg, South Africa, only a day after BRICS — currently formed by Brazil, Russia, India and China — sent out invitations to Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Ethiopia and Argentina to become new members as of 2024.
"Iran decisively backs up BRICS' efforts toward de-dollarization … using national currencies and strengthening the bloc's mechanisms for payment and financial interactions," Raisi said in comments aired live by Iran's state TV on Thursday.
Sanctioned by the United States and squeezed by banking restrictions, Iran has long been knocking on doors to try to remove the dollar from its foreign business and restore payments for its vital oil sales. To that end, membership in BRICS has recently been a key mission of Iran's Foreign Ministry, with diplomats engaging in hectic negotiations to speed up Tehran's ascension.
The Iranian leadership sees BRICS' challenge to the conventional economic order as an opportunity to weaken US influence on the global stage. Thus Raisi used the sidelines of the Johannesburg summit to discuss the idea with like-minded leaders.
At a meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, the Iranian president said that with Tehran added to the group, BRICS will be more capable in fighting off "American unilateralism."


Michael Jansen: "The global goal of ending extreme poverty
by 2030 is no longer achievable"
Jordan Times Opinion, 24-8-2023

The UN has estimated that "one in every 23 people" in the world needs humanitarian assistance. This means that this year, "a record 339 million people [which amounts to a significant increase" (65 million) from 274 million early in 2022. The UN and its affiliates seek to aid 230 million of the "people most in need across 68 countries" at a cost of $51.5 billion.
Among the most serious crises are in East and Southern Africa where 76.8 million are in want.
In Haiti, Lebanon, Mozambique, Afghanistan, Yemen, Honduras and Myanmar needs are increasing while in 2022 the UN expanded its programme of cash assistance to 6.3 million Ukrainians, a massive increase from 111,000 in 2021 before the 2022-2023 war.
The causes of distress are forced displacement due to conflict, climate change and food insecurity. The other driver of rising humanitarian distress, which few dare to mention, is the sharp reduction in aid funds due to the heavy investment the rich Western powers are making in the Ukraine war.
The stunning size of this investment was published by Euronews citing the German think-tank, the Kiel Institute.
From February 22 and May 2023, the US pledged 71 billion euros in aid to Ukraine while European institutions and governments have pledged 68 billion euros. Of this Europe gives 7.6 billion euros in humanitarian aid while the US has offered 3.6 billion euros.
The US has focused on military aid valued at 43 billion euros, Europe has provided 28 billion euros in military assistance.In addition, the European Union has offered financial loans and subsidies worth 33 billion euros and the US 24 billion euros.
Such spectacular sums have never been provided to UN and other relief agencies seeking to resettle the displaced, feed families, or lift people out of poverty. Consequently, the UN has warned, "The global goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030 is no longer achievable."

Unfortunately, once the Ukraine war ends and the massive NATO investment in death and destruction finishes, even a fraction of the war wasted financial resources will be redirected to humanitarian agencies and the urgent needs of the world's poorest will continue to be ignored.

Antonio Guterres [UN Secretary-General] at the BRICS summit
Johannesburg, 24 August 2023

Ladies and gentlemen,
Let me begin by thanking President Cyril Ramaphosa.
We take great inspiration from the Rainbow Nation’s extraordinary path to unity through action and justice. That is what our world needs. Unity for action. And unity for justice.
We are confronting existential challenges. The climate crisis is spiralling out of control. A global cost-of-living crisis is raging. Poverty, hunger, and inequalities are growing against the objectives of the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development. New technologies are raising red flags, without a global architecture to deal with them. Geopolitical divides and conflicts are multiplying with profound global implications...

We are moving towards a multipolar world, and that is a positive thing. But multipolarity in itself is not enough to guarantee a peaceful or just global community. To be a factor of peace, equity, and justice in international relations, multipolarity must be supported by strong and effective multilateral institutions.
As the global community moves towards multipolarity, we desperately need – and I have been vigorously advocating for – a strengthened and reformed multilateral architecture based on the UN Charter and international law.
For multilateral institutions to remain truly universal, they must reform to reflect today’s power and economic realities, and not the power and economic realities of the post Second World War .

We cannot afford a world with a divided global economy and financial system; with diverging strategies on technology including artificial intelligence; and with conflicting security frameworks.
And so I have come to Johannesburg with a simple message: in a fracturing world with overwhelming crises, there is simply no alternative to cooperation.
We must urgently restore trust and reinvigorate multilateralism for the 21st century. It requires full respect for the UN Charter, international law, universal values, and all human rights – social, cultural, economic, civil, and political. And it requires much greater solidarity...

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