The Grayzone's Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate on the stunning victory of George Galloway in the Rochdale parliamentary by-election over a Labour candidate, which he dedicated to the people of Gaza, and the freakout it has caused among the British establishment.
On this stream: George Galloway shocks British establishment with landslide election victory - MSNBC panel fearmongers about "rural rage" - Christian Amanpour interrogates Mark Regev after "aid convoy" results in a "mass casualty event" - and more.
APPENDIX
This is the way to handle media sluts. George Galloway in action.
George Galloway: 'I despise the prime minister'
Sky News Mar 1, 2024 Please note how the Sky News guy ("deputy political editor Sam Coates") tries to bait Galloway into responding to his supposed involvement in "extremist" activities just by demanding a halt in the Western-sponsored Gaza genocide. This is the devious and sanitised way in which Sky News described the video:
Sky's deputy political editor Sam Coates spoke to George Galloway who has just been elected MP for Rochdale. He was asked to respond to these words in the PM's speech about extremism: "It is beyond alarming that last night the Rochdale by-election returned a candidate who dismisses the horror of what happened on October 7th, who glorifies Hezbollah and is endorsed by Nick Griffin, the racist former leader of the BNP."
Sky News, [is a] British satellite, broadcast, and streaming news service that is owned by the British media and telecommunications conglomerate Sky Group, a division of the multinational telecommunications company Comcast. Sky News, headquartered in London, has consistently won plaudits for the breadth and depth of its reporting. The news service was founded by Rupert Murdoch and launched on February 5, 1989, as the first 24-hour news television channel in the United Kingdom.
Comcast, originally a cable service provider, happens to be now a huge media conglomerate that also owns the NBC TV network, one of the world's largest TV/Film production and distribution companies. Comcast acquired control of the company by buying majority interest in the then owner, GE, also a major multinational with enormous footprint in the military industrial business.
The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.
Since the overpaid media shills will never risk their careers to report the truth, the world must rely on citizen journalists to provide the facts that explain reality.
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Streamed live on Feb 17, 2024#russia#putin#biden Western "Leftists" Eulogize and Praise Alexei Navalny, Misty Winston Joins Nick at Noon Live
Nick (deservedly) demolishes Cornel West's praise for Alexei Navalny, outing him for the phony leftist milquetoast establishment critic that he is. Who can trust a man who eulogises a transparent intel asset of Western imperialism?
Navalny was such a Nazi shit that even imperial “human rights” frauds @amnesty temporarily revoked their “prisoner of conscience” label of him. Cornel West is a fucking joke. https://t.co/isYKj7z0ST
Sanders' betrayal, of course, is no surprise. His role as a sheepdog for the imperial establishment, and especially the repugnantly corrupt Democrats, is by now widely recognised by those who pay due attention to deeds and not just words.
The Black Church Provides Cover for Genocide | Joe Biden Lies About Civil Rights Record AGAIN
ABOUT NICK CRUSE • CITIZEN JOURNALIST Back in March, 2022, The Identity Paradox, did an interview with the uber lucid Nick Cruse (see below), that also provided a good intro to what Nick has been doing with his comrades at RBN. Besides Nick, this indispensable network has formidable members like Sabby Sabs and Compton Jay, among others, and all programs are not only entertaining but a fount of rich radical insight into contemporary politics and society. For these and many other reasons, we recommend RBN to all those who are confused about today's insanely devious political topography, or, for that matter, anyone who needs to clean up the accumulated claptrap in the attic.
BONUS FEATURE
THE IDENTITY PARADOX INTRO (From The Need for Black Leftist Media podcast) Interested in an “unapologetic Black, leftist, working-class” perspective on current sociopolitical events? If so, join us as we speak with Nick Cruse, citizen journalist and co-founder of Revolutionary Blackout Network (RBN). We discuss a variety of topics, including the importance of independent Black, working-class commentary in an age of corporatized journalism, the leftist failures of electoral politics in the US, the absence of an established leftist perspective in mainstream media, the challenges of social media activism (particularly the “BreadTube” effect), as well as the potential to change the current status quo through ground-up, working class solidarity.
The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.
Since the overpaid media shills will never risk their careers to report the truth, the world must rely on citizen journalists to provide the facts that explain reality.
Unfortunately, most people take this site for granted. DONATIONS HAVE ALMOST DRIED UP… PLEASE send what you can today! JUST USE THE BUTTON BELOW
ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS
A society defined by “gender fluid” WOKE IDIOCY will always fail because its leaders cannot process REALITY
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PATRICE GREANVILLE
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For a variety of longstanding cultural and historical reasons the conservative right has always distrusted and rejected the "WOKE" revolution—itself a fraud of stunning proportions—but there are signs that many sectors of the disenfranchised Democrat herd may also find this fake compassionate posture irritating, classist and worse, irrelevant to their more pressing personal issues. The class struggle cannot be denied or buried so easily, as the Dems may soon discover, although the Establishment's incessant propaganda, at all levels, may confuse many and delay the inevitable. Here's a viewpoint from the right that many folks on the margins, homeless, politically speaking, may find now increasingly sensible. My own take is that, as usual, the right. by refusing to pay attention to the multitude of vices and crises issuing from the capitalist matrix, ultimately remain on the surface, thinking that the US ruling class is failing because of its adherence to WOKE values, which is probably demonstrably false. You be the judge.—PG
OpEds
Brighteon Broadcast News, Jan 22, 2024 - A society defined by “gender fluid” WOKE IDIOCY will always fail because its leaders cannot process REALITY
The failure of a 'gender fluid' society: Leaders cannot process reality
Western civilization nations are steeped in "woke idiocy" which is why all their institutions are failing: Military, education, government, finance, culture and more.
No nation steeped in woke idiocy can survive because it self-immolates. Its leaders cannot behave rationally, and nothing that happens in the real world has any impact on policy, since the leaders are self-deluded in their own artificial "woke" realities.
Today's broadcast covers this in great detail, also covering DeSantis bowing out of the election, increasing military failures due to woke policies, and why both Germany and the United States are desperately trying to grant citizenship to millions of illegals to try to bias elections in their favor.
Get the full broadcast here.
P.S. Today's episode also features an interview with attorney Thomas Renz. Don't miss it.
The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are interesting enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.
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Bulletin # 117 / Read this first! | The Depraved Face of Zionism—the Mask Falls Off
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PATRICE GREANVILLE
with
Leon Friedman
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Amazing as it sounds, Israel—a violent and criminal entity since its inception as a Zionist project—has lived almost its entire life inside a huge propaganda bubble that has fooled even people who thought themselves extremely well informed. In that category I count millions of American Jews, many of whom, regrettably, remain stubbornly deaf and blind to the biggest (still unfolding) crime of the 21st century, the Palestinian genocide. The events of October 7th—amply provoked by 75 years of despicable Israeli treatment of Palestinians—and its aftermath, of course, will continue to shake their faith. The same holds for many people living inside the "First World", "The Collective West", the womb of modern imperialism and colonialism, and therefore the matrix of Palestinian victimhood. The relative complacency we have seen in this segment of humanity toward the Palestinian people for almost an entire century is not accidental. This is an information space ferociously hostile to the historical and social truth of the Middle East, Israel in particular, and the world in general. Indeed, "the West" is arguably the area most heavily brainwashed in all of recorded history, indoctrinated 24/7 by the most cynical and efficient opinion manufacturing machine ever developed, far more efficient and totalitarian than what Herr Goebbels could possibly dream.
The seduction has been fatal for the prospects of genuine freedom and egalitarian governance. US culture not only poisons and enslaves the minds of Americans, it poisons the mind of anyone who touches it. As a huge distorter of reality, it has acted as a powerful brake on what otherwise would ave been swifter processes of cultural and political liberation.
Granted, the tools were and remain diabolically effective. Hollywood has long wrapped blatant disinformation in the guise of harmless entertainment. The art of the Big Lie is a Western specialty. The Western powers—Britain, France and the US—were the first to develop mass deception tools, including the bastard child of diplomacy—spying. All forms of conceivable social and political marketing were perfected in America. Public relations? Check. Mass advertising—intrusive, nonstop, ubiquitous? Check. False flags? Check. Demonisation propaganda? Check. Mainstream media posing as news sources instead of self-serving status quo propaganda? Check. Dishonest Manichean historical revisions? Check. Check. We could go on.
Under such cover, the US empire and its accomplices have conducted horrid genocides and massive assasinations before. Literally murdering or pulverising tens of millions of people. Just think of Korea—“the forgotten war”, where between 2.5 and 4 million were killed just in North Korea—that is, 20% of the population. While some bloodthirsty US generals clamored for the green light to nuke China. Not content with that, the Big Bully—with a huge garrison in the South and in official control of Seoul’s armed forces—has kept North Korea largely isolated, often on the brink of famine, and constantly threatened by a new all-out attack. It is a tribute to the much-maligned communist system that rules the DPRK, that the nation has managed against such odds to build a credible deterrent military boasting even nuclear weapons, and an egalitarian economy in which no citizen lacks all essentials (they are guaranteed by the Constitution), from food and housing to full education and healthcare, plus safe and well-compensated employment. Just look at North Korea with impartial eyes, if you can, and see for yourselves. The clean, orderly streets. The Metro system that shames New York City’s. The hospital networks. The North Korean cars (I guess you didn't know the DPRK also produces cars, trucks and what not). The impeccable schools, sports arenas accessible to all free, of course, and so on. (Unfortunately, for most Americans, as well as people using Western media, seeing any country in the non-capitalist world, especially one that continues to defy the West, like the DPRK, with comprehending eyes, let alone sympathetic eyes, is impossible. For that to happen the big curtain of lies has to be utterly destroyed. If you do a YouTube search for "North Korea" anything—documentaries, society, politics, history, whatever— I guarantee ALL you'll get is a ton of filthy, malicious propaganda. There have been a handful of exceptions here and there but over time they have mysteriously vanished).
The Korean case is an immense tragedy, but Vietnam, Indonesia, the Middle East, many parts of Latin America and Africa, were also slaughterhouses. We are talking here mostly indiscriminate mass murder. Just like we see in Gaza, today, except that now, thanks to advances in digital media, and the fact the West, despite its cynical censorship regime can't yet silence all voices, the world can finally see what is really going on, literally in realtime, and two factors make the learning experience all the more irrefutable.
First, besides the now massive and still growing amount of visual, textual, digital, and material evidence to Israeli criminality, there are brave and highly cogent witnesses to this genocide, and they are finding ever larger audiences. I'm speaking here of people like the formidable Norman Finkelstein, whose primary fields of research are the politics of the Holocaust and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Dr Finkelstein has tried to explain the ugly racism of Zionism for generations, written several books on the subject, attended (and won) innumerable debates, but attained only middling success. It took the Gazan catastrophe to finally catapult his voice to more significant platforms, in this case social media, even though, as we could expect, he remains invisible to mainstream publics. The same is true for other invaluable voices: Max Blumenthal, Aaron Maté, Daniel Cohen (whose documentary Killing Gaza, made with Max Blumenthal is a must-see), Abby Martin, another fierce truth-teller about the Middle East, Vanessa Beeley, Eva Bartlett, and others of similar merit. And there are also, naturally, the scores of Palestinian and even Jewish journalists who have documented the depraved actions of the Zionist state, and in far too many cases, to the revolting silence of the cowardly and disgustingly careerist corporate media, been murdered by the IDF, the Israeli Death Forces, with complete impunity. And then there is of course unique figures like Miko Peled, former Israeli special forces, son of a prominent Israeli general—one of the "founders" of Israel—now turned 100% anti-Zionist and human rights advocate for the Palestinians. In this regard I doubt there is a more compelling, comprehensive and didactic video about Zionism than Peled's interview with Chris Hedges:
or, Peled's presentation with Max Blumenthal, editor in chief of The Grayzone:
(Both of these videos are in this edition of the Bulletin, so I urge you to look for them and spend a few hours absorbing their eye-opening information.)
Larry simply marvels at the sheer chutzpa exhibited by Netanyahu and his cabinet of fellow unrepentant sociopaths. Almost incredulously, he quotes a portion of the South Africa complaint dealing with Israel's "genocidal intent":
Evidence of Israeli State officials’ specific intent (‘dolus specialis’) to commit and persist in committing genocidal acts or to fail to prevent them has been significant and overt since October 2023. Those statements of intent — when combined with the level of killing, maiming, displacement and destruction on the ground, together with the siege — evidence an unfolding and continuing genocide. They include statements by the following individuals in the positions of the highest responsibility:
Israeli Minister of Defence: On 9 October 2023, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant in an Israeli Army ‘situation update’ advised that Israel was “imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”452 He also informed troops on the Gaza border that he had “released all the restraints”,453 stating in terms that: “Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything. If it doesn’t take one day, it will take a week. It will take weeks or even months, we will reach all places.”454 He further announced that Israel was moving to “a full scale response” and that he had “removed every restriction” on Israeli forces.455
Israeli Minister for National Security: On 10 November 2023, Itamar Ben-Gvir clarified the government’s position in a televised address, stating: “[t]o be clear, when we say that Hamas should be destroyed, it also means those who celebrate, those who support, and those who hand out candy — they’re all terrorists, and they should also be destroyed.”456
Israeli Minister of Energy and Infrastructure: ‘Tweeting’ on 13 October 2023, Israel Katz stated: “All the civilian population in Gaza is ordered to leave immediately. We will win. They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave the world.”457
flattened, simply a pleasure for the eyes … We must talk about the day after. In my mind, we will hand over lots to all those who fought for Gaza over the years and to those evicted from Gush Katif” [a former Israeli settlement].460 He later argued against humanitarian aid as “[w]e wouldn’t hand the Nazis humanitarian aid”, and “there is no such thing as uninvolved civilians in Gaza”.461 He also posited a nuclear attack on the Gaza Strip.462
Larry adds,
This is only a portion of this section of the complaint. There are five more pages of similar, ghastly quotes. I give Amichai Eliyahu credit for one of the most abjectly stupid comments. He said, “[w]e wouldn’t hand the Nazis humanitarian aid”. That statement proves genocidal intent. How so? Because the U.S. and the Brits did provide Nazis with humanitarian aid during and after the war. Nazi soldiers captured during the Battle of the Bulge were not lined up and shot. Israel’s brutal treatment of the Palestinians is shocking most of the world with each passing day.
Johnson concludes his article with this admission:
As someone who once considered himself a supporter of Israel, I am no longer. This is murder on a mass scale and it is indiscriminate and it disgusts me. Israel is not only carelessly killing Palestinian civilians, it is killing itself. I am not the only one sickened and exhausted by the Zionist extremism. And, as I have noted in previous posts, there are Jews who feel the same. I hope the ICJ finds the courage to do what is right.
Let me conclude this intro by strongly recommending two more posts. One with Sabby Sabs, discussing what humanity must do after a Gaza ceasefire. "The ceasefire, notes the Bronx Antiwar Coalition, is but the first step toward a long and inevitably difficult process to bring international peace to multiple countries on the basis of justice, and that begins with the trying and sentencing of highly placed war criminals in Israel and throughout the West."
The second strong recommend concerns Garland Nixon's "trifecta"—
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UNITED AGAINST NUCLEAR IRAN: THE SHADOWY, INTELLIGENCE-LINKED GROUP DRIVING THE US TOWARDS WAR WITH IRAN
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Most of the world has watched the Israeli assault on Gaza in horror. As tens of thousands have been killed and millions displaced, tens of millions of people around the world have poured onto the streets to demand an end to the violence. But a few select others have taken to the pages of our most influential media to demand an escalation of the violence and that the United States help Israel strike not just Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon but Iran as well.
“I might have once favored a cease-fire with Hamas, but not now,” wrote Bush-era diplomat Dennis Ross in The New York Times, explaining that “if Hamas is perceived as winning, it will validate the group’s ideology of rejection, give leverage and momentum to Iran and its collaborators and put [our] own governments on the defensive.”
In the wake of Hamas’ October 7 assault, arch-neoconservative official John Bolton was invited on CNN, where he claimed that what we witnessed was really an “Iranian attack on Israel using Hamas as a surrogate” and that the U.S. must immediately respond. When asked whether he had any evidence, given the implications of what he was saying, he shrugged and replied, “This is not a court of law.”
On December 28, Bolton doubled down on his hawkish stance, writing in the pages of Britain’s Daily Telegraph that “The West may now have no option but to attack Iran” – a position he has held for at least a decade.
Meanwhile, in an interview with Saudi state-funded broadcaster Iran International, senior Bush official Mark Wallace bellowed that, “This is Iran’s work. Iran will suffer at the hands of retribution and will suffer the consequences of supporting this terror group and its horrific attack on Israel.” Wallace continued:
No civilized country wants further conflict. But the Iranians are forcing the civilized world’s hand. And you will see a dramatic response soon as the United States, Israel, and our allies begin to position assets around the world in preparation.”
If there was any doubt as to what sort of “dramatic response” Wallace wanted to see, he added a message to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps: “I look forward to seeing you hanged from the end of one of your own ropes.”
Iran was recently the victim of a deadly terrorist attack. As mourners commemorated the U.S. assassination of Qassem Soleimani, two bombs exploded, killing 91 and injuring hundreds more. In this context, it was understandable why Iranian officials pointed the finger at the U.S. and Israel.
Iran International: How a network of Western and Saudi interests converged to create the ultimate propaganda tool in a failed bid to overthrow the government of Iran.
What these individuals all have in common is that they are board members of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), a shadowy but influential organization dedicated to pushing the West toward a military confrontation with the Islamic Republic.
Founded in 2008, the group is led by neoconservative hawks and has close ties to both U.S. and Israeli intelligence. It does not divulge where it receives its copious funding. However, it is known that right-wing Israeli-American billionaire Sheldon Adelson was a source. There is strong circumstantial evidence that Gulf dictatorships may also be bankrolling the group, although UANI has strongly denied this. In 2019, Iran designatedUANI as a terrorist organization.
When asked by MintPress what he made of UANI’s recent statements, Eli Clifton, one of the few investigative journalists to have covered the group, said, “It’s very consistent with the positions and advocacy that the organization has taken since its inception.” Adding,
United Against Nuclear Iran does not miss an opportunity to try to bring the United States closer to a military conflict with Iran. And on the other side of the equation, they also have worked very hard to oppose efforts to de-escalate the U.S.-Iran relationship.”
UANI’s board is a who’s who of high state, military and intelligence officials from around the Western world. Among its more notable members include:
CEO Mark Wallace, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and deputy campaign manager for George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection.
Chairman Joe Lieberman, former senator and Democratic vice-presidential nominee for the 2000 election.
Tamir Pardo, Director of the Mossad, 2011-2016.
Dennis Ross, former State Department Director of Policy Planning and former Middle East Envoy under George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
Field Marshall Lord Charles Guthrie, ex-Chief of Staff of the U.K. Armed Forces.
Jeb Bush, former Governor of Florida.
Frances Townsend, Homeland Security Advisor to President George W. Bush.
John Bolton, former U.S. National Security Advisor and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.
Roger Noriega, former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and Ambassador to the Organization of American States.
Otto Reich, former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and architect of the 2002 U.S. coup against Venezuela.
Michael Singh, White House Senior Director for Near East and North African Affairs, 2007-2008.
Giulio Terzi di Sant-Agata, former Italian Foreign Minister.
Robert Hill, former Minister of Defense of Australia.
Jack David, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction, 2004-2006.
Mark Kirk, U.S. Senator for Illinois, 2010-2017.
Lt. Gen. Sir Graeme Lamb, ex-Director of U.K. Special Forces and Commander of the British Field Army.
Norman Roule, former CIA Division Chief and National Intelligence Manager for Iran at the Director of National Intelligence.
Irwin Cotler, Canadian Minister of Justice and Attorney General, 2003-2006.
Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones, U.K. Minister of State for Security and Counter Terrorism, 2010-2011.
For 15 years, UANI has organized conferences, published reports, and lobbied politicians and governments, all with one goal: pushing a neoconservative line on Iran. “UANI are a force multiplier. They provide at least the veneer of an intellectual infrastructure for the Iran hawk movement. They did not invent being hawkish on Iran, but they sure made it a heck of a lot easier,” Ben Freeman, Director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy Programat the Quincy Institute, told MintPress.
Find someone who loves you as much as the Washington Post loves demanding we bomb Iran. pic.twitter.com/O2gBOKbvM1
For such a large, well-financed, and influential organization filled with senior officials, United Against Nuclear Iran keeps its funding sources very quiet. However, in 2015, Clifton was able to obtain a UANI donor list for the 2013 financial year. By far and away, the largest funders were billionaire New York-based investor Thomas Kaplan and multibillionaire Israeli-American casino mogul Sheldon Adelson.
Kaplan, whose $843,000 donation supplied around half the group’s 2013 funding, is a venture capitalist investor concentrating on metals, particularly gold. He is the chairman of Tigris Financial and the Electrum Group LLC. Both of Kaplan’s firms employ UANI CEO Mark Wallace as CEO and COO, respectively.
A 2010 Wall Street Journal article titled “Tigris Financial Goes All-in on Gold” noted that the company had bet billions of dollars on the price of gold rising, more than the reserves of the Brazilian central bank. As Clifton has noted, both Kaplan and Wallace have marketed gold to clients as the perfect commodity to hold if there is increased instability in the Middle East. Therefore, both Kaplan and Wallace stand to make massive sums if the U.S. or Israel were to attack Iran, making their UANI warmongering a gigantic and potentially profitable conflict of interest.
Adelson provided the majority of the rest of UANI’s funding. The world’s 18th-richest individual at the time of his 2021 death, the tycoon turned his economic empire into a political one, supporting ultraconservative causes in both the United States and Israel. Between 2010 and 2020, he and his wife donated more than $500 million to the Republican Party, becoming GOP kingmakers in the process. He would often vet Republican presidential candidates at his casino in Las Vegas, and it was often said that this “Adelson Primary” was almost as important as the public one.
An ardent Zionist, Adelson bankrolled numerous pro-Israel lobby projects, such as AIPAC, One Jerusalem and Taglit Birthright. He also owned Israel Hayom, the country’s most-read newspaper, with 31% of the national share. Relentlessly pro-Netanyahu, it was said that the Israeli prime minister asked his friend Adelson to set up a newspaper to help his political career.
Adelson and his influence have been one of the driving forces of American hostility towards Iran. In 2013, during a conversation with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, he called for the United States to stop negotiating and drop a nuclear bomb on Iran to show that “we mean business.”
A potential third, even more controversial, source of funding is the Gulf monarchies of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Leaked emails show UANI officials soliciting support from the Emirati royal family. Both Mark Wallace and Frances Townsend, for example, emailed the Emirati Ambassador to the U.S. detailing cost estimates for upcoming events and inquiring about support from the UAE.
Thomas Kaplan himself is extraordinarily close to the nation. “The country and the leadership of the UAE, I would say, are my closest partners in more facets of my life than anyone else other than my wife,” he told the Emirati outlet, The National News, which also detailed his friendship with Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed.
PUTTING IRAN IN THE CROSSHAIRS
One of United Against Nuclear Iran’s primary activities, Iranian political commenter Ali Alizadeh told MintPress, is to create a worldwide “culture of fear and anxiety for investing in Iran.” The group attempts to persuade businesses to divest from the Islamic Republic and sign their certification pledge, which reads as follows:
The undersigned [Name], the [Title] of [Company] (the “Company”), does hereby certify on behalf of the Company that until the Iranian regime verifiably abandons its drive for nuclear weapons, support for terrorism, routine human rights violations, hostage-taking, and rampant anti-Americanism as state policy, that neither the Company nor any subsidiary or affiliate of the Company, directly or through an agent, representative or intermediary.”
One corporation that UANI targeted was the industrial machinery firm Caterpillar. UANI hectored the firm, even erecting a roadside billboard outside its headquarters in Peoria, IL, insinuating that they were aiding Iran in constructing a nuclear weapon. Caterpillar quickly ordered its Iran projects terminated. Wallace took heart from his group’s victory and warned that other businesses would be targeted.
These have included French companies such as Airbus and Peugeot-Citroen, who were threatened with legal action. In 2019, UANI earned an official rebuke from the Russian Foreign Ministry for attempting to intimidate Russian corporations trading with Tehran. “We think such actions are unacceptable and deeply concerning,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova. “Attempts to pressure and threaten Russian business … are a follow-up on the dishonorable anti-Iranian cause by the U.S. administration,” she added, hinting at collusion between the government and the supposedly non-governmental organization.
Some of UANI’s campaigns have been markedly petty, including pressuring New York City hotels to cancel bookings with Iranian officials (including then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) visiting the city on United Nations business. Others, however, have been devastating to the Iranian economy, such as the SWIFT international money transfer terminating its relationship with Tehran, cutting the country off from the global banking system.
While the group presents itself as against a nuclear Iran, UANI was strangely opposed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – the deal between Iran and the West that limited the former’s nuclear technology research in exchange for sanctions relief from the latter. As MintPress reported at the time, UANI spent millions on T.V. advertisements trashing the agreement. As Wallace noted, “We have a multi-million-dollar budget, and we are in it for the long haul. Money continues to pour in.”
After the JCPOA was signed, UANI hosted a summit attended by senior Israeli, Emirati, and Bahraini officials, touting its failures. Once UANI’s John Bolton was named Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor, he persuaded the president to withdraw entirely from the deal. Bolton has deep connections to the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), an exiled Iranian political group widely identified as a terrorist organization. He has, for some time, considered them a government in waiting after the U.S. overthrows the current administration. “Before 2019, we will celebrate in Tehran,” he told the group in 2018, predicting that, with him at the helm, the Trump administration would soon cause the downfall of the Iranian government.
Bolton has long been a hardliner on regime change. “To stop Iran’s bomb, bomb Iran,” read the title of his 2015 New York Times op-ed. Yet this appears to be the dominant position at UANI. In March, Ross published an articlein The Atlantic headlined “Iran needs to believe America’s threat,” which demanded that the U.S. “take forceful action to check Tehran’s progress toward a nuclear bomb.” Failure to do so, Ross claimed, would provoke Israel to do so itself – a “much more dangerous scenario,” according to him. Yet only two years previously, Ross called on the U.S. to “give Israel a big bomb” to “deter Iran,” noting that the “best way” to stop the Iranian nuclear program was to supply Israel with its own nukes, thereby taken as a given that Iran was indeed pursuing nuclear weapons itself (a highly questionable claim at the time) and ignoring Israel’s already existing 200+ stockpile of nuclear missiles.
“It doesn’t seem like UANI ever really took seriously the possibility of a diplomatic means to constrain Iran from continuing to increase its enrichment levels and moving towards a nuclear weapon,” Clifton told MintPress. “As a matter of fact, they generally fought tooth and nail against the JCPOA. They are eager to push the United States toward confrontation with Iran using the possibility of Iranian nuclear weapons as a reason,” he added.
INTELLIGENCE CONNECTIONS
That UANI is headed by so many state, military and intelligence leaders begs the question: to what extent is this really a non-governmental organization? “That is one of the dirty secrets of think tanks: they are very often holding tanks for government officials,” Freeman said, adding:
The Trump folks all had to leave office when Biden won, so a lot of them ended up in think tanks for a while, four years, let’s say. And if Trump wins again, they will bounce back into government. And the same is true of Democratic administrations, too.”
The U.S. government also clearly has a longstanding policy of outsourcing much of its work to “private” groups in order to avoid further scrutiny. Many of the CIA’s most controversial activities, for example, have been farmed out to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a technically non-governmental organization funded entirely by Washington and staffed with ex-state officials. In recent years, the NED has funneled millions of dollars to protest leaders in Hong Kong, organized an attempted color revolution in Cuba, organized anti-government rock concerts in Venezuela, and propped up dozens of media organizations in Ukraine.
Documents reviewed by MPN show that CIA cutout the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) spent over $22 million on propaganda efforts in Ukraine
These sorts of institutions blur the line between public and private sectors. But a 2014 legal case raises even more questions about UANI’s connections to the U.S. government. After UANI accused Greek shipping magnate Victor Restis of working with the Iranian government, he sued them for libel. In an unprecedented move for what was a private, commercial lawsuit, Attorney General Eric Holder intervened in the lawsuit, ordering the judge to shut the case down on the grounds that, if it continued, it would expose key U.S. national security secrets. The case was immediately dropped without explanation.
In the past, when the Justice Department has invoked state secrets, a high-ranking state official has offered a public statement as to why. Yet, this time, nothing was offered. Reporters at the time speculated that much of the material Restis wanted to make public was possibly given to UANI by either the CIA or Mossad, which would have revealed a network of collusion between state intelligence agencies and a supposedly independent, private non-profit. Given the glut of ex-Mossad and CIA chiefs at UANI, this speculation is perhaps not as wild as it might seem.
UANI’s funders certainly also have extensive connections to Israel. Kaplan is the son-in-law of Israeli billionaire Leon Recanati and is said to be close with Prime Ministers Naftali Bennet and Yair Lapid. He has also employed a number of Israeli officials at his businesses. An example of this is Olivia Blechner, who, in 2007, left her role as the Director of Academic Affairs at the Israeli Consulate General in New York to become Executive Vice-President of Investor Relations and Research at Kaplan’s Electrum Group – a rather perplexing career move.
Adelson, meanwhile, was given what amounted to an official state funeral in Israel, one that even Prime Minister Netanyahu attended. He was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem – one of the holiest sites in Judaism and an honor that very few figures receive.
A NETWORK OF REGIME CHANGE GROUPS
While United Against Nuclear Iran is already a notable enough organization, it is actually merely part of a large group of shadowy non-governmental groups working to cause unrest and, ultimately, regime change in Iran. These groups all share overlapping goals, funders and key individuals.
One example of this is the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), a non-profit that purports to exist to “combat the growing threat posed by extremist ideologies.” Yet the group focuses largely on Islamist extremism – and only those groups that are enemies of the U.S., Israel and the Gulf Monarchies (about whose extremism and violence the CEP has nothing to say). Ten members of the CEP’s leadership council are also on UANI’s board, including Wallace, who is CEO of both organizations.
Another group headed by Wallace is the Jewish Committee to Support Women Life Freedom in Iran. This organization claims to be focused on improving women’s rights in Iran. It very quickly, however, divulges that this is a vehicle for regime change. On its homepage, for example, it writes:
These freedom fighters continue with no sign of relenting on their calls for regime change. Calls for “Woman Life Freedom” and the removal of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei echo from rooftops, down street corridors, across campus hallways, and on government billboards. These brave Iranians have expressed their hatred for the ruling clerics not only in their words, but in their actions.”
Seven members of the Jewish Committee to Support Women Life Freedom in Iran’s steering group – including Wallace and Kaplan – also lead UANI.
In 2018, Iranian authorities arrested eight individuals working with Panthera inside the country. All eight were convicted of spying on behalf of the U.S. and Israel. While many in the West decried the trials as politically motivated, any organization led by these figures is bound to cause suspicions.
This is especially the case as Wallace is also a founder of PaykanArtCar, an organization that attempts to use art to, in its words, “advocate for the restoration of human rights and dignity for all in Iran.” All three team members of PaykanArtCar also work at UANI.
The final group in this Iran regime change network is the International Convention for the Future of Iran. Set up by Wallace himself, the organization’s website explains that it exists to “end the repression of the regime and bring true change to Iran.” Further purposes are to “connect the Iranian opposition in exile [i.e., the MEK] with policymakers in the United States and internationally” and to “offer program grants and technical support” to groups working to overthrow the government. However, judging by the lack of updates and the group’s Twitter profile having only 31 followers, it appears that it has not had much success achieving its goals.
In short, then, there exists a network of American NGOs with the mission statements of helping Iran, opposing Iran, preserving Iran, and bombing Iran, all staffed by largely the same ex-U.S. government officials.
Iran, however, is not the only target in Wallace’s sights. It appears that he is also trying to give Turkey similar treatment. Wallace is the CEO of the Turkish Democracy Project, a non-profit established to oppose the rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who, it says, has “dramatically altered Turkey’s position in the international community and its status as a free and liberal democracy.” The Turkish Democracy Project denounces what it calls Erdoğan’s “destabilizing actions in and beyond the region, his systemic corruption, support for extremism, and disregard for democracy and human rights.” There are no Turkish people among the Turkish Democracy Project’s leadership. But there are seven UANI board members at the top, calling the shots.
A LESSON FROM HISTORY
The history of Iran has been intimately intertwined with the United States since at least 1953 when Washington orchestrated a successful coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh had refused U.S. demands to stamp out Communist influences in his country and had nationalized the nation’s oil. The U.S. installed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as a puppet ruler. An unpopular and authoritarian ruler, the Shah was overthrown in the Revolution of 1979. Since then, it has become a target for regime change, and its nuclear program is something of an obsession in the West.
Often orchestrated by UANI officials while they were in government, the U.S. has carried out a sustained economic war against Tehran, attempting to collapse its economy. American sanctions have severely hurt Iran’s ability to both buy and sell goods on the open market and have harmed the value of the Iranian rial. As prices and inflation rose rapidly, ordinary people lost their savings.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. turned the screw once again, intimidating both businesses and nations into refusing to sell Tehran vital medical supplies. Eventually, the World Health Organization stepped in and directly supplied it with provisions – a factor in the Trump administration’s decision to pull out of the agency.
While U.S. actions have severely harmed the Iranian economy, a future bright spot may come in the form of BRICS, the economic bloc that Iran – along with Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE – joined on January 1. American economic power on the global stage appears to be waning. However, This new reality might spur Washington policymakers to reconsider a military option, as UANI desperately wants them to.
It is perfectly reasonable to be worried about Iran – or any country, for that matter – developing atomic bombs. Nuclear weapons pose an existential threat to human civilization, and more actors with access to them increase the likelihood of a devastating confrontation. Already in the region, India, Pakistan, Israel and Russia possess them. But it is only the United States that has ever used them in anger, dropping two on Japan and coming close to doing so in China, Korea and Vietnam. And given the U.S.’ recent track record of attacking countries that do notpossess weapons of mass destruction (e.g., Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan) and not touching those who do (such as North Korea), it is entirely understandable why Iran might want one. As Freeman said:
I certainly do not want Iran to get a nuclear weapon. But at the same time, you can also believe that it would be catastrophic if the U.S. were to engage in a war with Iran…And the concern with groups like UANI is that they are taking that [the worry of Iran getting a nuclear weapon] and pushing that argument to a point where it might lead to an active conflict.”
The slaughter in Gaza has been horrifying enough. More than 22,000 people have been killed in the Israeli invasion, and a further 1.9 million displaced. Israel is also simultaneously bombing the West Bank, Syria and Lebanon. The U.S. is facilitating this, sending billions of dollars in weaponry, pledging iron-clad political support to Israel, silencing critics of its actions, and vetoing United Nations resolutions.
But United Against Nuclear Iran is eager to escalate the situation to a vastly greater level, urging Washington to attack a well-armed country of nearly 90 million people, erroneously claiming that Iran is behind every Hamas or Hezbollah action. “This is not a nuclear non-proliferation organization” Clifton said, noting that there are plenty of genuine already existing peace and environmental groups worried about nuclear weapons that either supported the JCPOA or said it did not go far enough. “Their focus is more on working towards regime change in Iran rather than actually supporting efforts that might prevent Iranian nuclear weapons,” he added.
IF UANI gets its way, a conflict with Iran might spark a Third World War. And yet they are receiving virtually no pushback to their ultra-hawkish pronouncements, largely because they operate in the shadows and receive virtually no public scrutiny. It is, therefore, imperative for all those who value peace to quickly change that and expose the organization for what it is.
Feature photo | Illustration by MintPress News
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