“I have no sympathy for what has become of (Israel)”
— Norm Finkelstein
“I have no sympathy for what has become of (Israel)”
— Norm Finkelstein
Ed. Note: Long predicted by Algora, a possible realignment of the Eastern European bloc with Russia is more in the cards than ever. There is an irony there, in that the long-held aspirations of Romanians to bring the sister nation of Moldova back to the motherland might occur, but in the reverse. It might be Romania who is “unifying” to the former Soviet Moldova. There are major repercussions for Europe and the world should Romania move into the Russian space, together with the Hungarian state realigning with Transcarpathia, or Poland moving into the arms of Galicia and Volhynia.
Buffeted by negative economic headwinds and with the political class increasingly reviled over issues such as the migrant crisis, the Post-1991 order in Europe appears to be in terminal decline. In this situation, the birth pangs of something new, but also familiar, can now be observed. Nationalism and genuine Rightist thought is returning to the European scene.
This confirms the era-defining importance of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine in and of itself, but also allows us to speculate on what comes next. As far back as 2014, Russian politicians have advocated for Eastern European nations to join them in a partition of Ukraine and now this seems to be a reality made true. By territorial appeasement, Moscow now has the chance to deliver the death blow to the EU by splitting off its Eastern members. From there, in concert with each other, an alliance can be born, thus establishing a new security framework in Europe in opposition to the liberal one existing in Brussels.
Things are rapidly changing in the world, and this process will undoubtedly continue as the American-led order continues to crumble and decay.
via Rost Online
At a separate event organised by AUR in Iași (Romania), AUR co-founder Claudiu Târziu spoke to a closed audience made up of AUR members and supporters, in what has been called a ”hateful, revisionist speech” by mainstream media and the staunch supporters of the neoliberal American empire because Târziu laid claim to the territories lost by Romania to the USSR after WW2.
Here are the most important excerpts of his speech:
(…) 2024 represents a historic opportunity for the Romanian nation. It isn’t just an opportunity for a political party to gain power, but to achieve the ideal of the Romanian nation, that is to recover our sovereignty, sovereignty which was put in the hands of certain international organisations (…)
Even in these international organisations, Romania can adopt a position of dignity and can reaffirm its sovereignty through hard negotiation like the Hungarians or the Polish (…)
For us to regain our sovereignty we need an adequate mindset, and a strong economy that can afford to fund an army, the army being the number one symbol of a sovereign state. As long as we have an economy built on begging for money guaranteed by the treaties we’ve signed or begging foreigners to invest and develop our country, we cannot speak of independence and sovereignty. As long as we have a small and underequipped army, we cannot speak of independence and sovereignty. With a strong army, a resilient economy, we will be able to afford an independent foreign policy based on our national interests (…)
Lastly, we will not achieve sovereignty until we return to the natural borders of the Romanian state. Bessarabia must return to its motherland, northern Bucovina must not be forgotten, Herța and Transcarpathia (Marmația), all that belonged to Romania shall belong to us again. This is the ideal that we were born for.
Reunification won’t be possible with a lackluster diplomacy conducted by the servants currently in power, that have robbed Romania and sold it for scrap, the servants which you see running towards foreign embassies and foreign capitals to obtain the firman [Firman = an act of recognition signed with the seal of the Ottoman Sultan when Wallachia or Moldavia gained a new prince, the act being a guarantee of the stability of the new ruler which was at risk of being usurped], the approval of others to become presidents, prime-ministers, senate and deputy chamber presidents (…)
165 years later, our situation has improved slightly but not by much. We are a people with a great potential capable to dominate our neighbours. What is preventing us from reaching this potential? Our goal is to carve out a place for Romania among the powerful states of the globe, to make Romania respected, to make our opinions count, and we will start by winning all four elections in 2024 (…)
“At the time when the EU project was strongly influenced by globalist ideology, it began to pursue the creation of a continental superstate, in which national states would dissolve and democratic control would disappear. The globalist project wants the unification of humanity into a large maneuvering mass, consuming goods and services, which will not cause problems for the ruling class. For this, a kind of bureaucratic aristocracy is created.
There those who decide are not elected, but appoint each other. They are not noble by blood, they are noble by relationship. They are accountable to no one and abuse their status as senior EU officials. It is an attack on freedom after all. This is why we are against the United States of Europe. But all these shortcomings can be fixed. In the European Parliament there are also representatives of parties in government in some member states which support family, faith, national sovereignty and the right to freedom. I am referring to the PiS parties in Poland, FIDESZ in Hungary, which hold power in their countries, or Vox, which is about to come to power in Spain. Why wouldn’t we also have a political force that would defend Romania’s interest from healthy positions?”, senator Claudiu Târziu asked.
According to him, AUR will join the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, which is led by representatives of PiS, Vox and the Fratelli party in Italy.
Have you heard of Secret Governance in the US?
This is a half-hour interview of Emanuel Pastreich, best known for his brief attempt at running for the presidency of the US on behalf of the Green Party in 2020. You can watch the whole interview, but our video starts at minute 25, almost at the end (so you might need to wait a bit for the whole video to download). That’s when Emanuel Pastreich makes the best, succint description of what is meant by the Secret Governance in the US.
These are the 3 measures imposed on the unsuspecting populace by the governing elites. 1. Rule through classified directives; 2. Rule through secret laws passed by the Congress; and 3. Rule through secret non-disclosure “agreements”.
This is how democracies maintain the facade of the Potemkin village where people believe in the “one man, one vote” democratic outcome. At one point in the interview, Pastreich attempts to bring into discussion the other form of governance – in the so-called authoritarian states – no less undemocratic, but the interviewer, the lovely Oksana Boyko, interrupts him mercilessly and moves the discussion back to the US system of governance.
Israeli Settler vandalism: Palestinian private car parking lot burned down, Palestinian cars destroyed!
“Happened in our village Beitin, Ramallah.
Settlers from the nearby settlement Beit-el lit up every single car on fire around 3-4 am”
by Timur Fomenko, political analyst
The US and UK are currently waging a bombing campaign against the Ansar Allah militia group in Yemen, commonly known as the Houthis. The Houthis have been responding to the ongoing conflict in Gaza by attacking shipping lanes in the Red Sea, attempting to use the geopolitically critical Gulf of Aden to strangle one of the world’s most important commercial routes, and therefore escalating pressure on the West to end the conflict.
Of course, the US has been completely unreasonable in its unconditional backing of Israel’s military campaign, and rather than confronting the problem directly, it has proposed another idea – to outsource both blame and resolution to China and ask Beijing to help end the conflict. This is not a new tactic by Washington, as it has done the same thing with the Russia-Ukraine war, crafting a narrative that it is China’s “responsibility” to end it, of course, conveniently on terms that are favorable to America.
In reality, the US has absolutely no chance of getting China to end these respective conflicts, primarily because it is in China’s best interests not to secure outcomes that amount to geopolitical gains for America. However, that is the point in itself, as the US wants to intentionally frame Beijing as “the bad guy” and therefore push the perception that Beijing is a challenge to the international order and a threat to peace. The US is effectively trying to gaslight China by making it look morally bad for conflict Washington itself creates and not agreeing to the outcomes Washington wants. It is a blame game.
American foreign policy has little room for compromise and is driven by a zero-sum mindset that emphasizes absolute strategic gains for the US at all costs. The US does not negotiate with its adversaries for the sake of peace, but rather attempts to maintain a long-term strategic posture in the hope they, through pressure or other means, eventually capitulate to US preferences. For example, the US position regarding the Ukraine war has never been to negotiate with Russia or respect its strategic space but to attempt to impose a strategic defeat on Moscow and enable further expansion of NATO, which in turn is another vehicle for American pressure. Even as this approach is proving increasingly ineffective, there’s no shift in Washington’s foreign policy in sight.
Similarly, the US has been happy to offer unconditional backing to Israel in its war in Gaza, despite claiming to push for peace. Washington has allowed the conflict to continue and avoided calling for a ceasefire at all costs. It then responds harshly to the instability the conflict creates, such as attacks from the Houthis. Logically speaking, Houthi attacks would stop if the US ended the conflict in Gaza, but that’s just how US foreign policy thinking works. There must never under any circumstances be concessions regarding the strategic status quo, only a doubling down on the current position with any options necessary. That’s the thinking that led Washington to scrapping the Iran nuclear deal and allowing a peace process with North Korea to collapse.
Now, the US is articulating a strategy whereby when conflict occurs, it tries to outsource responsibility by blaming the lack of peace on China. As the narrative generally goes, “If only China would act and stop this, then there would be peace,” whether it be in Gaza, Yemen, Ukraine, or wherever. Of course, that peace is strictly conditional on terms the US has set and not terms that China itself might want to set. If Beijing does press for peace but on alternative terms to what America wants, such as attempting to mediate in Ukraine rather than pushing for the collapse of Russia, those peace terms are quickly rejected and condemned by the mainstream media.
What we have is a no-win situation where Beijing is framed as a perpetuating, if not instigating, force in conflicts, no matter what it does. China is portrayed as actively preventing peace, or alternatively, enabling the “enemy” side to continue its perceived aggression and offering terms that favor said “enemy,” and therefore is complicit in antagonism towards the West. China is therefore made out as a threat to the international order and world peace unless it agrees to exactly what the US wants, which of course, logically works against the interests of China as a whole. Why, for example, would China agree to crippling Russia? Or turn against its strategic partner, Iran? This narrative always and deliberately ignores the role that the US has played in instigating, escalating, and perpetuating the given conflicts at hand and pushes the “good vs. evil” binary rather than acknowledging the complex realities of geopolitics.
In reality, China is always careful to explicitly take no sides in such conflicts and strives for balance, such as when it mediated between Iran and Saudi Arabia. However, for the US, which thinks only about zero-sum political gains as opposed to peace in the interests of all, this will never ever be acceptable. Therefore China remains a villain and a threat.
Putin and Lukashenko on GLOBAL WARMING – Watch light-hearted exchange between the 2 leaders and Russian researchers warning of just 10 thousand more years of heat.
“Normal, it means we’ll live a little longer” – Putin shares a laugh with Belarus Prez next to him (00:17).
by German Gorraiz Lopez
After Brexit, Germany’s hypothetical exit from the EU would provoke the liquidation of the Eurozone and lead to the gestation of a new European economic map with a return to national economic compartments.
The Doctrine of the “Debt Brake”
As Joel Kotkin points out in Forbes magazine, for decades “the countries of the North (Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Finland and the United Kingdom) have compensated for very low fertility rates and declining domestic demand by accepting immigrants and by creating highly productive export-oriented economies”. In line with this, Germany introduced in its Constitution in 2009 the doctrine of the ‘Schuldenbremse’ (debt brake) with the principal objective that “every generation should pay its expenses and not consume (in the form of debt) the taxes that their children will pay “.
Germany achieved successive economic surpluses in the last five years because the ECB’s zero or negative interest rates required less money to pay public debt and allowed Germany to accumulate reserves, which enabled them to address the social crisis of COVID-19 with a massive investment boost estimated at €20 billion to kick-start the economy.
A traffic jam for the German locomotive
However, according to an analysis by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), at present Germany is burdened by the war in Ukraine and by the total cut off of the Russian gas supply, which has have already caused a contraction of about €100 billion (2.5% of GDP). This contraction cause collateral damage, pushing the economy into recession and raising the unemployment rate, combined with runaway inflation and the loss of trade surpluses.
Thus, according to euronews.com <http://euronews.com/> , the German locomotive lost steam in the fourth quarter of 2023 (negative growth of 0.3% of GDP) due to higher energy prices, reduced industrial production due to weak European demand, stagnating domestic consumption and the loss of competitiveness vis-à-vis the rest of the world — which has resulted in a severe decline of 1.2% in exports in 2023.
At the same time, ECB interest rates rose to 4.5%. That, combined with the rampant inflation of 5.9% in 2023, caused real wages to stagnate in Germany. Fiscal adjustments and cuts in agricultural subsidies have put the German countryside and the other trade unions on the warpath.
Charles Dumas (Lombard Street Research London) argues that “Returning to a cherished German mark would squeeze profits, increase productivity and raise consumers’ real incomes, because instead of lending savings surpluses to peripheral countries, Germans could enjoy better living standards in their country”.
Increase in social fracture
According to a recent EU report, 7.5 million Germans work in the low-income sector (mini-jobs), and according to the NGO Paritätischer Gesamtverband, 14% of the people in Germany (16.6% of the population) are at risk of poverty.
This, together with the high proportion of immigrants in Germany (almost 20%), will exacerbate xenophobic feelings in German society (especially among East Germans), due to the reduction in the labour supply, fierce competition for jobs, and the conversion of many outlying neighbourhoods into genuine ghettos of immigrants. Thus, a spectacular rise of ultra-right groups is foreseeable in the 2025 elections.
On the way to Dexit?
According to a survey conducted by TNS-Emnid for the weekly magazine Focus, 26% of Germans would consider supporting a party that wants to take Germany out of the euro. The rising star in the German political firmament, “Alternative for Germany” (AfD ), was initially formed by academics and businessmen but it has been radicalized. It has adopted clearly xenophobic postulates, such as the possible expulsion of millions of foreign citizens, and they are considering proposing a referendum on Germany’s exit from the Euro (Dexit).
This hypothetical exit of Germany from the Euro would mean the beginning of the end for the Eurozone and the formation of a new European economic map that will mean the return to the fixed economic compartments — and the triumph of the US in achieving the Balkanization of Europe.
by Tarik Cyril Amar via RT
The Hague-based court has not called for a ceasefire and has no enforcement power, but its decision is resounding nonetheless
The United Nations’ International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled on the case that South Africa had brought against Israel. Those who mistake realism for simplistic materialism – the ‘it’s only there if I can touch it’ variety – may underestimate the significance of that ruling. In reality, it is historic. Here’s why.
First, and most importantly, the court has ruled against Israel. South Africa’s well-prepared brief was over 80 pages long, closely argued, and very detailed. But its gist was simple: It had applied to the ICJ – which only handles cases between countries, not individuals – to find that Israel is committing genocide in its attack on Gaza, thereby infringing on fundamental Palestinian rights as brutally as possible.
Such a finding always takes years. For now, at this preliminary stage, South Africa’s immediate request was for the judges to decide that there is, in essence, a high enough probability of this genocide taking place to do two things: First, continue the case (instead of dismissing it) and, secondly, issue an injunction (in this context called “preliminary measures”) ordering Israel to abstain from its genocidal actions so that the rights of its Palestinian victims receive due protection.
The court has done both, with a majority of 15 to 2. One of the two judges dissenting is from Israel. Those voting, in effect, against Tel Aviv included even the president of the court, from the US, and the judge from Germany, a country that has taken a self-damagingly pro-Israel line. As to the Israeli pseudo-argument claiming ‘self-defense,’ the court rightly ignored it. (Occupying powers simply do not have that right regarding occupied entities under international law. Period.)
This is a clear victory for South Africa – and for Palestine and Palestinians – and a crushing defeat for Israel, as even Kenneth Roth, head of thoroughly pro-Western Human Rights Watch recognizes with commendable clarity.
It is true that the ICJ has no power to enforce its rulings. That would have to come through the UN Security Council, where the US is protecting Israel, whatever it does, including genocide. Yet there are good reasons why representatives of Israel have reacted with statements so arrogant and aggressive that they only further damage Tel Aviv’s badly damaged international standing:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for instance, has displayed his legal nihilism by dismissing as “outrageous” the closely reasoned finding of the court, at which Israel had every opportunity to argue its case. Israel’s far-right Minister of National Security, convicted racist and terrorist supporter Itamar Ben-Gvir, has derided the ruling with an X post simply saying: “Hague schmague.”
And, of course, as always, everyone not toeing Israel’s line is smeared as an “antisemite”: The ICJ is now joining the UN, the World Health Organization and, by now, almost everyone and everything outside the ideological bubble of Zionism on the list of those slandered in this manner. (One side effect of this rampant abuse of the accusation of antisemitism is, of course, that soon it won’t be taken seriously anymore, even when it should. And we will have Israel to thank for that.)
Notwithstanding the ICJ’s lack of an army to compel Tel Aviv to obey the law, these outbursts of rage betray great fear. You may ask why. After all, the one thing the ICJ did not do was order a ceasefire. Some commenters have focused on that fact, to argue – gleefully on the side of Israel and its allies, with great disappointment on the side of Israel’s victims, opponents, and critics – that this vitiates the ruling.
They are wrong. As, for instance, the Palestinian legal expert Nimer Sultany(based at the London School of Oriental and Asian Studies) has explained, a direct ceasefire order was always unlikely. There are several reasons for that: The ICJ cannot issue such an order to Hamas, so issuing one to Israel alone would have been difficult in principle and, by the way, would also have provided ammunition for Israeli propaganda. Since only the UN Security Council could give teeth to the ICJ’s ruling, trying to decree such a one-sided ceasefire would have made it easier for the US to sabotage the Council by discrediting the court’s ruling as biased. Although it was consistent for South Africa to ask for a ceasefire at the ICJ, the best institution to order one is still the Security Council. And it is plausible to interpret the specific demands that the ICJ has made of Israel as practicable only under an official or de-facto ceasefire. Indeed, Arab countries are now, it seems, gearing up to take that position and use the court’s ruling to demand a ceasefire at the Security Council. This may very well fail again, but even that failure will serve to weaken the position of the US, Israel’s vital sponsor.
Beyond the issue of the ceasefire, there are other – and, from an Israeli perspective, probably more frightening – factors. For even if the US keeps shielding Israel, this is a bigger world. Western governments and politicians that have supported Tel Aviv unconditionally – with arms, diplomatic and public-relations cover, and by repressing Israel’s critics – will feel a chill: The UN Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute don’t just condemn perpetrating a genocide but also not preventing or being complicit in one.
With the ICJ now having confirmed at the very least that genocide is probable enough to merit a case and require immediate action, Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, Ursula von der Leyen, Olaf Scholz, Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, Annalena Baerbock, to name only a few, should start worrying: While the ICJ does not go after individuals, the International Criminal Court (ICC) does. Despite dragging its feet as much as it could, it is now especially likely to be compelled to open a full-fledged investigation.
In addition, cases can also be brought under national jurisdictions. All of this will take years. But it could end very badly for hubris-addled Western politicians who never imagined that such charges could escape their control (where they serve as politicized tools to go after African leaders and geopolitical opponents) and become their very own, potentially life-changing problem. In sum, the cost of siding with Israel has gone up. Not all but most politicians are solid opportunists. Tel Aviv will find it harder to mobilize its friends.
It is true that some Western governments and leaders, for instance, Canada or Rishi Sunak, have hurried to show their disdain for international law by attacking the ICJ’s ruling. But there’s an element of desperate bravado, of whistling in a darkening forest. And there’s a Catch-22 as well: Because, the more representatives of the West display their arrogance, the more they alienate the world. They may think that they are relieving Israel’s isolation. In reality, they are joining it on its downward trajectory: They are showing, once again, that their touted “rules-based order” is the opposite of the equal rule of international law for all.
Non-Western powers like China and Russia that have long resisted the hypocrisy of that ‘rules-based order’ and are not complicit in Israel’s atrocities, are earning global good will and geopolitical advantage. Hence, their positions and strategy will be confirmed by the ICJ ruling. This, as well, will weaken Israel further in the international arena.
If the world is bigger than the US or the West, it also contains much more than politics in the narrow sense of the term. In the realm of narratives, this is also a harsh setback for Israel and its supporters: Those who arrogantly dismissed the South African case as baseless or “a mockery,” for instance in The Economist, are now paying with their credibility. Their value as weapons in Israel’s struggle for global public opinion is reduced.
Last but not least, the domains of politics and narratives intersect, of course, with that of war: It is inevitable that those fighting Israel with arms will feel encouraged, and rightly so. For forces such as the Palestinian Resistance, the Ansar Allah (Houthi) movement de facto ruling Yemen, Hezbollah, and Iran, this ICJ ruling coincides with Israel’s military failure in Gaza: For while its troops have massacred civilians (and obsessively recorded proud evidence of their crimes that is now coming to haunt them), they are far from either “eradicating Hamas”(the putative war aim) or freeing the hostages by force. Seeing that Israel’s international isolation is getting worse, its opponents will have ever less reason to give up.
This, in short, was a great setback for Israel. Its political model, combining apartheid, militarism, and a might-makes-right outlook, is not ‘working’ any longer, not even on its own terms. The future is not predictable. That Israel will be in worsening trouble is.
“Israel is now officially on trial for genocide.
That means all third parties that have offered material support for this gen**ide, including the UK and US, are on trial for complicity.”
by Sergey Markov
The order to kill Ukrainian prisoners was given not by Zelensky, but by Zaluzhny. Zelensky, on the contrary, wanted to make the most of the prisoner exchange on January 24 to celebrate his birthday on January 25. Make yourself the main hero of the military exchange and rescue. And use it to strengthen its declining popularity. Events have already been prepared there.
But Zaluzhny gave the order to shoot down the plane and thus broke this scenario for Zelensky.
This conspiracy theory is most widespread informally in Kyiv. Officially, of course, they say that Russia is to blame for everything, but unofficially they believe that this is a struggle between Zaluzhny and Zelensky.