We were searching for a site in the northern Bekaa valley recently bombed by Israel. Hadi knew near which village it was located but, as we drove between large expanses of fertile, well-cultivated fields, it was plain his information was vague.
We pulled up at a garage to ask the way. Lebanon has not gone the way of Western economies in making consumers perform the very service for which they are paying, and in Lebanese service stations they still have attendants. A scruffily dressed old man sat on the front step of a dilapidated and very basic kiosk constructed of concrete blocks. He came over to the driver’s window.
First Hadi ordered fuel, and the old man filled the car, washed the windscreen and took payment. His hair was white and his beard short, but not from the obsessively neat trimming that is universal in Beirut. When he returned with change, Hadi asked him if he knew where to find the bomb site.
The old man replied with questions. I did not understand the Arabic, but from the body language there was a marked shift in the interaction between the two, from the man serving Hadi to the man interrogating Hadi. He lost his shuffle, notably straightened his back and stood taller.
They were talking through the driver’s window, and with a very definite movement the man moved forward and rested his forearm on the sill, intruding his head into the vehicle assertively. He looked at me with searching eyes, and looked at Niels sitting in the back seat with his camera equipment. His questioning of Hadi became terse.
I looked into his eyes. He had the distinct, piercing gaze that I used to note in the special forces officers I occasionally came across in my Foreign Office career. He then walked away from the car, took out his phone and made a call.
After a while he handed the phone to Hadi, who looked both serious and worried. Hadi listened, handed the phone back to the attendant, said goodbye and thank you, and reversed out of the garage. Hadi told us we were not permitted to go to the bomb site.
We had just encountered Hezbollah. The important thing to understand in this encounter is that it is not that the man was an undercover Hezbollah operative posing as a garage attendant. He was a garage attendant who was a Hezbollah operative.
Hezbollah is not an organisation comparable to the IRA, in which a relatively small number of members operated within the context of a community in which they enjoyed very large sympathy. Hezbollah operates in a community in which almost everybody is an activist and pretty well every adult is prepared to pick up a gun or an RPG and knows how to use it.
This is a key to understanding how Hezbollah became the only military force that has ever been able to defeat the IDF in pitched ground warfare. In this respect, Hezbollah’s crucial advantage compared to Hamas is that it has had practical access to weapons deliveries to build its arsenal, whereas Hamas has been greatly constricted by Israel’s control of goods entering Gaza.
Ending the weapons supply to Hezbollah has been a key US/Israeli strategic objective this last year, and they have in large part achieved it. I shall return to that.
On a personal level, this encounter with the garage attendant was fairly typical of my interactions with Hezbollah in my four months in Lebanon. They had detained me in a rather frightening manner on first encounter, and in general treated me with a suspicion which is understandable given my British diplomatic background.
I saw literally thousands of buildings in Lebanon that Israel had destroyed. The most haunting part of the entire experience was the frequent event of finding the clothing and toys of small children among the rubble: I still have bad dreams about it.
However this was the second of the two occasions when we were able to identify that Israel had struck an actual Hezbollah military installation, rather than a civilian building. Both times Hezbollah prevented me from going to see. In terms of maintaining the security of the military site, this strikes me as shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Having been denied access to that particular bomb site, we drove on into the village and met with some locals Hadi knew. In this small village there had been over 70 Israeli bombings, 8 of them since the ceasefire.
They took me to one large house which had been completely destroyed, a pile of rubble spread over a large area. Twelve members of the same family had been killed in this house, seven of them children. The head of the family had left in late afternoon to go to the butcher’s to buy dinner, when his home and family was destroyed behind him.
The explosion was so enormous that the body of one of the children was found in the neighbouring orchard of olive trees, clean across the road, about seventy yards away. Many of the olive trees had been shredded and debris from the house was strewn across the field and beyond.
The next house was not greatly damaged, but there a father and his two daughters were killed by the shock wave as they sat on their terrace drinking coffee.
There are so many important points to make about Hezbollah, but let me start with these three.
The first is that support for Hezbollah among their own Shia communities in Lebanon is extremely strong. They are far more than a military organisation. They are Lebanon’s largest legitimate political party.
At the 2022 election Hezbollah received 19.9% of the vote, and their close ally the Amal Movement received another 10.5%. The party with the second highest vote behind Hezbollah, the neo-fascist Lebanese Forces, received 11.6% of the vote.
[The Lebanese Forces political party should not be confused with the Lebanese Armed Forces, with which it has no connection. The Lebanese Armed Forces remain under effective US control and fired not a shot against the Israeli invasion and occupation. But like so much in Lebanon, the situation should not be simplified and the majority of the rank and file of the LAF are Shia Muslims sympathetic to Hezbollah, and a large majority of the rank and file of any denomination would be happy to fight the Israelis were they ever allowed to do so.]
Under Lebanon’s extraordinary constitution, Lebanese Forces with 11.6% received 19 seats in parliament while Hezbollah with 19.9% received 15 seats. Of which again more later.
But when it comes to political legitimacy, it is worth noting that the combined Hezbollah/Amal vote percentage is equal to the Labour Party percentage at the last General Election in the UK. There is no argument that Hezbollah are not a legitimate democratic political force.
The second point is that it is absolutely wrong to see Lebanon in purely sectarian terms. Hezbollah has supporters and allies across all religions in Lebanon and, in a country where politics is officially and constitutionally organised on religious lines (a “confessional” constitution), there are minor parties of all religions aligned with Hezbollah, of which several had ministers until appointment of the new Cabinet last month (of which again, more later).
Perhaps a quarter of those at the funeral for Nasrallah were not Shia Muslims.
The third point is that Hezbollah is much more than a political party with a military wing. In a country in which central government has all but collapsed (Lebanon has no income tax), Hezbollah provides hospitals, schools, banking, pensions and welfare benefits.
When Niels and I witnessed refugee returns to evacuated areas following the “ceasefire”, a very substantial percentage of the population were waving Hezbollah flags or Lebanese flags, with some waving both. Hezbollah is an integral part of Lebanese society, entirely born within the country out of the resistance to Israel’s 1982 occupation, and is in no sense alien or anti-Lebanese.
The elephant in the room is that in the UK and other Western states, this highly complex social and political movement is designated as a terrorist organisation in its entirety. Ironically, the justification for this given in Westminster in 2019 was that Hezbollah was destabilising the Middle East and prolonging the conflict in Syria – where the very Western powers that proscribed Hezbollah have just assisted another proscribed terrorist group into power.
The truth is that terrorist proscription by the NATO powers of organisations in the Middle East is simply a tool for taking whatever decisions are expedient at that moment to promote the interests of apartheid Israel. The “terrorist acts” of Hezbollah that led to proscription of the entire organisation in 2019 consisted of fighting ISIS, Al Qaeda and Al Nusra in Syria.
We all suffer from the temptation of assuming that others share our prejudices. I assume that like me, many in the West find it difficult to empathise with Hezbollah because of its Islamic philosophy and – I know this is petty – appearance.
Hassan Nasrallah was the most important and steadfast leader of resistance to the mass murderous Zionist project of the last forty years. He was also, by all accounts, a hugely charismatic figure to Arabic speakers. But his very appearance made it easy for him to be represented to Western audiences as an alienating, even evil, character, due to the state-promoted Islamophobia in the Western world which has been universally projected in the media this last quarter century.
But here honesty is required. I myself do not like to see political leaders with a religious function and am simply against theocratic rule. I am entirely in favour of freedom of religion, but utterly opposed to religion ruling any state.
There is an element of smoke and mirrors here. In the glorious mosaic of Lebanon, Hezbollah exist jumbled with those of other sects and religions, and in practice rub along very well.
Nasrallah spoke like all committed Islamists of his desire to seeing a united Muslim rule over Muslim lands, with the state under firmly religious leadership and Sharia law. But in practice Hezbollah are highly tolerant.
In those large areas of Lebanon where they both have physical military control and dominate the elected local authority, Hezbollah do not ban the sale of alcohol by the Christian minority or enforce hair covering, even on Muslims.
This is an area where my prejudices were disabused. I did not expect to find this.
All this caused me some difficulty in Lebanon. I was frequently asked whether I supported Hezbollah. As I was spending much of my time in those areas attacked by Israel – which largely are the Hezbollah areas – in general the question came from Hezbollah supporters.
I would always reply that I supported absolutely the right of occupied people to conduct armed resistance, and the duty to do everything possible to prevent genocide. Both are established principles of international law. But I did not support Hezbollah per se, and would not vote for it were I Lebanese, because it is an openly Islamist organisation and I am opposed to theocratic rule and religious legal codes.
Being in Lebanon did however allow me to overcome some of the gulf of my cultural understanding. The practice of calling those killed by Israel “martyrs” and frequently referring to them as such in conversation, is alien to a Western ear where the word has largely outdated religious connotations.
When you live amongst a community where everybody has friends or relatives who have been killed in the decades-long aggression of Israel, the revering of the fallen as martyrs, and their omnipresence in everyday thought, starts to make much more sense.
Similarly to Western eyes the widespread display of large images of the “martyrs” is peculiar. These are along every roadside and atop every ruin. There are always posters at the site where the person was killed, and frequently dozens of other posters of that individual at sites of importance to them.
I overcame my incomprehension of this practice by thinking of it in reference to my own culture, that these were posters of people put up to mark where they fought and died to defend their wee bit hill and glen. In those terms it made sense to me.
I am extremely conscious that religious faith has played a very positive role in both Palestine and South Lebanon in enabling people to endure the unendurable and to maintain Resistance against impossible odds. But it is not possible to ignore the fact that there remain substantial differences between my world view and an Islamist world view.
This has been brought into urgent focus by the attitude of many Sunni Muslims to the overthrow of Assad in Syria. In my world view, this has been a disaster for the Palestinians. It has seriously and perhaps permanently damaged the flow of arms and other resources to Hezbollah, the Palestinians’ most important ally. And it has enabled the Greater Israel project to expand substantially into Syria.
Try now to imagine that you are a Sunni Muslim scholar who believes that only by becoming Sunni Muslim can people obey God. You believe that the benefit to mankind of bringing Sunni Muslim rule to most of Syria outweighs the loss of part of Syria to Israel. You believe that Palestinian martyrs killed by Israel are going immediately to Heaven anyway, so in spiritual terms there is no real loss to the “martyrs”.
That really is the position of many of the leaders of the Saudi- and Gulf-sponsored Muslim religious community. Just like there are a great many shades of Christian, there are a great many shades of Islam and there are many Muslims, including Sunni Muslims, who would not share that viewpoint. But to a religious Islamist it makes perfect sense.
I cannot find it again because it was deep in replies on a thread, but I had a very interesting exchange with a Muslim intellectual on Twitter on precisely this topic. He accused me of “orientalism” for denigrating an Eastern spiritual viewpoint in favour of a Western secularist narrative, in seeing the installation of HTS as a reverse for Palestine. He pointed out that Hamas, a fellow Sunni Islamist movement, had welcomed the triumph of HTS.
The exchange was welcome for its honesty and intellectual acuity. I said I did not believe Edward Said would have welcomed the accompanying expansion of Israel into Syria or cutting off of supplies to Hezbollah. He called in a nephew of Said to bolster his view that my viewpoint is orientalist.
I have thought about this deeply; I do not think my viewpoint can fairly be described as orientalist. The truth is that all mainstream Western thought would have entirely concurred with the view that the expansion of rule by a particular religious sect was more important than associated temporal reverses that did not affect the faith of the people: but Western thought was exactly that 500 years ago.
I do not see my view as orientalist. I see it as anti-medievalist.
The fall of the Assad regime was deeply desired by Western neoliberals and Zionists in order to replace it with a Western democratic model, and they are desperately pretending that is what they have got in al-Jolani. As atrocities against Shia, Alaouites and Christians in Syria mount, the one thing that cannot be disputed is that al-Jolani is steadfastly Zionist, as he allows Israel daily to occupy more of Syria and destroy more of its infrastructure, without a single shot fired in response.
There is no doubt that the position of the Resistance to an expansionist apartheid Israeli colonial project has worsened considerably since my arrival in Lebanon in October. While Israel could not progress a ground offensive, the almost total absence of any air defences for Lebanon meant it could murder and destroy with impunity from the air.
Israel embarked on a campaign of devastation of purely civilian areas by aerial bombardment. Of that I am an eye witness. I can say from personal inspection that the claims that the tens of thousands of homes destroyed had any military use are a massive lie.
With no defence against a relentless bombing campaign, and with most of their leadership eliminated, Hezbollah were obliged to accede to a suicidally unbalanced “ceasefire agreement”. It is plain on the actual face of the agreement that only one side will cease fire.
All Lebanese groups are to cease fire without qualification whereas Israel is only to cease “offensive” operations. Israel of course claims all its attacks as defensive. This is absolute nonsense, but despite over 500 violations of the ceasefire agreement, killing hundreds of people, Israel has not been held accountable because Hezbollah acceded to a ceasefire guaranteed by a “Mechanism” which is chaired by a United States General.
I think my discussion on this point with the UN Spokesman in Lebanon was extremely important, especially where he explicitly states that the Ceasefire Agreement was drafted by the USA. This link takes you to the key point in the interview.
The members of the “Mechanism” overseeing the ceasefire are the United States, France, Israel (sic), and the Lebanese government of General Aoun, a total US puppet.
Furthermore while the Ceasefire Agreement provides for a zone south of the Litani river from which Hezbollah must remove its weapons, it also calls for Hezbollah disarmament throughout the whole of Lebanon, which the Israelis and Americans have used to justify numerous continuing Israeli strikes in the Bekaa Valley, the Syrian border and even Beirut.
Hezbollah are not a formal party to the Agreement but it was sanctioned by them before signature. Personally I find it difficult to imagine that Nasrallah would ever have accepted such a position.
At the same time, Hezbollah’s domestic political position has been also greatly weakened. They were obliged to accept effectively the US imposition of General Aoun as President, which they had been resisting for over two years. They also then found themselves accepting his nomination of the openly anti-Hezbollah Nawaf Salam as Prime Minister.
I referred earlier to Lebanon’s “confessional” constitutional arrangements, and said I would give more detail. The President must be a Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni and the Speaker of Parliament a Shiite.
But it does not stop there. The governing agreement specifies the division of ministerial positions too. Not only between Sunni, Shia and Christian, but to include several other groupings, of which the best known is Druze and there are others, particularly various specific sects of Christianity.
Hezbollah has operated through the Amal movement in providing the Shiite ministers, but it is a key fact that it has always had important allies among Christian anti-Israeli occupation factions who have filled important ministerial posts.
The loss of Hezbollah power within Lebanon is to be found within the detail of all these ministries. In claiming to appoint a “technocratic”, apolitical administration, Aoun and Salam have in fact excluded most of Hezbollah’s support.
It is in practice almost impossible to find a Shiite in Lebanon who is not pro-Hezbollah, but Aoun and Salam have certainly done their best. More pertinently, they have almost totally excluded Hezbollah and anti-Zionist sympathisers from the ministerial representation of Sunni and the assorted minority and smaller Christian groups, while simultaneously boosting the de facto influence of the fascist Lebanese Forces sympathisers.
Hezbollah has not been this politically weak in the Lebanese institutions for 20 years, which is why the show of mass popular support at Nasrallah’s funeral was so important to them. However, given Lebanon’s electoral system with its deliberate Christian bias, piling up popular support is of little use to Hezbollah electorally. There are Christian MPs in parliament elected with under 500 votes, while Hezbollah could put on another 100,000 votes without significantly increasing their representation.
Crucially the “Ministerial statement” of the aims of the new government excluded resistance to Israel as an objective – a key change – and specified the state’s monopoly on carrying arms, a reference to the full disarmament of Hezbollah.
Finally, of course, Hezbollah’s archenemies, HTS, are now in power in Damascus. Hezbollah fought off repeated Al Qaeda/Al Nusra/ISIS attempts to invade Lebanon and also intervened against these forces within Syria. Al-Jolani coming to power represents a major disruption to Hezbollah’s supply lines from Iran.
The US and Israel are attempting to turn up this pressure by frequent aerial attacks on border crossings from Syria and on Hezbollah individuals within Lebanon. Recently they took the additional measure of banning pilgrimage flights to and from Iran, which greatly angered the Shia community and was aimed at cutting off a route for physical supplies of cash.
What is uncertain is what secret accommodations General Aoun may have reached with Hezbollah, over whether their physical disarmament throughout Lebanon under SCR 1701 and the Ceasefire Agreement is a genuine process or a show. Politically, Aoun and Salam have strongly planted their banner for real disarmament of Hezbollah.
What appears beyond dispute is that the Israelis receive a continued flow of intelligence from Lebanese sources on Hezbollah personnel movements and sites, and the US-sanctioned intense Israeli bombing campaign shows no sign of abating.
We can add to this sad fact that Israel was able to use the Ceasefire Agreement to occupy parts of Southern Lebanon which Hezbollah had successfully defended during the war, and that Israel has destroyed by demolition thousands of homes and other civilian buildings under cover of the ceasefire to add to those destroyed during the war.
Indeed Israel demolishes more buildings in Southern Lebanon every day still, and has now destroyed over 90,000 buildings in Lebanon in total. As I predicted, Israel is building 5 permanent military outposts in Southern Lebanon and has made plain it has no intention of leaving.
The US puppet government in Beirut, like the US puppet government in Damascus, plainly has no intention of any realistic action against de facto Israeli annexation of its land. While Hezbollah has signalled a reversion to past tactics of guerilla warfare, I have serious doubts about both its current capacity, both political and military.
Of the enduring heroism of the people of South Lebanon I have no doubt, and I also have no doubt that as Israel is maintaining an illegal occupation, their legal right of armed resistance in unimpeachable.
It is however foolish not to acknowledge that with Israel expanding into Lebanon and Syria, with US puppet regimes in Syria and Damascus, with genocide about to restart in Gaza and spreading into the West Bank, and with an apparently crazed level of open Zionist support from Trump that is in fact only more honest than the pro-Genocide positions of the large majority of Western governments, the current position looks bleak indeed.
The only grounds for hope is that I cannot imagine that the people of the region are going to tolerate Israeli collaborationist regimes in Damascus, Beirut and Ramallah much longer. Indeed with slight variations you might say the same of the entire Arab world.
I hope you will forgive this being a very personal post as I try to make sense of my experiences and assimilate much new knowledge into my view of the world.
I went to Lebanon knowing literally nobody in the country, and with an introduction to just one person who helped us through immigration, but whose assistance thereafter did not work out. I did so accompanied by Niels as cinematographer, despite my never really having worked in video before, and my not being very accomplished at it. On top of which we had no financial resources except for our crowdfunding, which was not going well.
I now realise just how deeply ignorant I was about Lebanon before arriving.
The truth is, I wanted to go to Gaza but could find no way to get in. I had then had applied to Israel for the required permission from COGAT to enter the West Bank, but had been refused. So Lebanon was the one place under Israeli aggression where I could actually hope to get in to document and report on Israeli atrocities.
This venture was also born out of a rather desperate feeling that I must try to do something. I had been involved in the genesis of the ICJ case and in international campaigning for Palestine, but felt so helpless watching murdered children in Gaza every day on social media, that I felt compelled to do more.
With war against the Israeli invaders raging in Lebanon, I admit I also had a compulsion to share at least some of the danger of those putting their lives at stake. In truth, I felt something of a fraud to be writing about it from home if I was not prepared to experience it.
Well, at times Lebanon really was dangerous for us, but I am extremely proud of what Niels and I achieved. The six mini-documentaries reached millions of people and I think genuinely informed the Western public. I think the interview with the UN was extremely revealing and important and wish I had been able to get a rather wider audience for it. On top of which we produced numerous shorter video pieces, written articles and interviews with alternative media outlets across the globe, as well as doing a lot of Arab mainstream media.
In the end we had to leave because it proved simply not possible to meet the substantial costs of the venture by individual subscriptions and donations, and I ran out of money. It was a bold experiment in being able to do the kind of real, on-the-ground journalism that legacy media has abandoned, but to continue would require more fundraising ability or organisational ability than I possess.
There is no doubt that we suffered – and still suffer – massive social media suppression, and this limitation of reach is what crippled fundraising efforts. Essentially we were asking the same people for donations again and again, which is both impractical and, I admit, I found personally difficult and undignified.
So I shall continue reporting from my base in Scotland, travelling the world as occasion demands. My knowledge has been hugely expanded by my time in Beirut. I will now largely revert to written rather than video format. The struggle for justice goes on, and my commitment to it remains.
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Well done. You have been staunch in your support for the people of Gaza and Lebanon. Standing tall in a vast ocean of cowardly public figures.
Is it true though that the Palestinians support ISIS/ al-Quaeda or whatever the rulers in Damascus are now calling themselves? I read that when Hamas thanked their allies at the start of the “ceasefire” they did not mention a single Sunni group or government.
I suspect they have expressed support somewhere in the hope that Al Jolani will be influenced not to be an Israeli puppet. Improbable to work though.
Thanks Craig, yes, Jolani’s encouragement of zionist expansion into Syria looks predetermined.
I find it disturbing that such a brazen stooge enjoys fierce support from British Muslims who claimed to care passionately about Palestine.
Could be because the antecedents of most British Muslims are from Pakistan & Bangladesh.
So their actual knowledge/connection to the Arab world & Middle East.
Is about as relevent as an average Catholic Pole’s vis-a-vis Latin America.
Point is, just because people share a sectarian denomination, doesn’t mean they actually know or can say anything truly relevant.
This is particularly true of western-born Islamists. They’re a bit thick (or just crude grifters in the case of “Muslim influencers”) quite frankly.
This is not always so. At least, the anti-Russian jihad in Checnya attracted a fair amount of foreigners. The al-Khattab’s (he was also known as “Black Arab” but his true origins remain a mistery, some saying he was and Arab from Jordan or Saudi Arabia while others claimed he was a Yemeni Jew) squad in the 2nd Chechen War numbered up to 5,000 troops, according to Russian reports of the time, and many were foreign volunteers from Kuwait and so on. Al-Qaeda recruited members all over the world, including countries like Indonesia, and so did ISIS, many members of which came from the former Soviet Snackistans in Central Asia.
Anyways, this may have something to do with the fact that they are Indian Muslims. I worked with a woman of this kind; she used to go around in shorts and ran marathons. When I asked how come she’s so emancipated, she replied that Indian Muslims are not like any other Muslims.
Just want to add that Hamas and ISIS is not the same, nor do Hamas support ISIS, Hamas have fought ISIS members inside of Gaza.
This article touch upon the obvious differences:
“What the World Gets Wrong About Hamas”
https://time.com/6329776/hamas-isis-gaza/
Assad/Palestine relations have always been thorny.
Dear Mr. Murray, the millions of people worldwide who have watched and enjoyed your various documentaries from Beirut (not to mention the yet unedited others that we still long to see) are very thankful to you.
We do hope your bad dreams about “finding the clothing and toys of small children among the rubble” will eventually subside. It’s worse in Gaza.
You did well to leave Lebanon without even attending the funeral of the late Hezbollah’s leaders. See what happened to those who did.
Yet, Scotland is not necessarily a much easier ground for an advocate of freedom. But we’ll certainly always support you.
When more people on Earth begin speaking, writing and reporting the disturbing truth like Mr. Craig Murray, and many others, such as powerfully illustrated by Professor Jeffrey Sachs recently to the European Union Parliament, then it may well become entirely safe for people worldwide to say: “There is still (finally) hope for humanity”.
Thank you kindly for the outstanding journalism. Best regards.
Hi Craig, great work! you manage to explain the complexities of Lebanon in a very sober manner.
I think there is a little mistake in this paragraph, where you say ‘Hamas’ when I think you meant ‘Hezbollah’:
“What is uncertain is what secret accommodations General Aoun may have reached with Hamas, over whether their physical disarmament throughout Lebanon under SCR 1701 and the Ceasefire Agreement is a genuine process or a show. Politically, Aoun and Salam have strongly planted their banner for real disarmament of Hezbollah.”
Thank you, amended
Who cares? Hamas and Hezbollah are one and a same thing for the truth believers.
And YES, Lebanon is a completely complex place, but less than Washington DC.
Who does Zelinskyy think he is? He’s offered the art of the deal, giving up only 50 percent of his country, by none others than Donald/Elon, and he refuses to bend over. Obviously, Vlad is gonna get very mad, and rightly so!
Lo and behold. This may lead to WW3 ! And Scotland won’t be spared…
Other dark side of this new development. What about the rare earths? Vlad and Elon were counting on them. For the same reason. But if Ze keeps fighting, what happens? It’s certainly bad for business. And thus very concerning.
How important are the rare earths? I thought most of the mineral wealth in the region was accounted for by titanium (mostly used for aircraft) and then lithium (batteries).
Agreed, but as I mentioned, what about the missed bounties in Eastern Ukraine?
JD was supposed to shake Ze badly enough to make him surrender. And he failed. The Orange führer had to raise his voice, and eyebrows! Vlad is reportedly very concerned. He knows he cannot manage Russian foreign commercial balance for much longer without Don’s help.
Donald had promised he could solve the SMO in 24 hours. And he delivered. No ceasefire, no rare earths profits, even the EU vassals are thunderstruck. In less than 24 hours.
“One more question” seemed like the cue to Vance.
I didn’t understand what they were saying about Odessa. The question was “Would you be willing to visit Ukraine, Libya, or Odessa, which is going to be a third-year olympic team?”, to which Trump replied “I don’t want to talk about Odessa, let’s not talk about Odessa”. What exactly is a third-year Olympic team, and why was Libya mentioned?
Zelensky may be afraid of a collapse in morale at the front.
He probably doesn’t feel any allegiance to Ukraine at all. He’d love there to be an engagement between Russia and a NATO country.
you speak so confidently of what “vlad” thinks, what is your evidence? are you vouching for the honesty of the guy you call the “orange fuhrer”?
The only way to learn & know the realities of the historic & ongoing systemic daily brutalities in the larger Holy Land is to have spent the time you did on the ground. To see with your own eyes the result of daily Zionist atrocities is essential. For those us who have experienced some of this the difficulty comes in attempting to enlighten those minds still unopened, closed due to decades of entrenched Israeli propaganda in the West. I applaud you sincerely for the principles which obliged you to undertake this recent trip & the thoughtful considered outreach you undertook. Having spent a decade in Al Janoub, 3 years in Gaza & 2 in the West Bank, tho already long ago, as a fellow Brit. I can relate very much to what you have seen & reported. Salam Craig. 🇱🇧 🇵🇸
Thank you for your fantastic reporting and insight, as always. I have dearly valued the incredibly impassioned, detailed and courageous work you’ve done over the years. Glad that you survived unharmed as well!
One question – I don’t doubt it given the utter depravity of the occupiers, but is there anything beyond the fragility of the “ceasefire” in Gaza that makes you think genocide there is about to restart?
well for one thing Israel continues to claim without any evidence that the red haired Bibi kids were murdered by Ham\as with their bare hands, which is exactly on part with their prior justifications for continuing the genocide.
Great work Craig. To bring the truth to us at a time where it is ordinarily so twisted is a great gift.
Thank you Craig. you’re not a young man, nor are you always well, you have family at home, but you’ve shown real courage at a time of your life when most of us just want some peace and quiet. You deserve a medal. You also write extremely well, it’s not just the words, the arguments, the observation, but the wisdom behind them, and what is most refreshing, the admissions throughout as to your own internal discourse and attempts at understanding, in this incredibly complicated scene. You have for a few months taken over the mantle of Robert Fisk, who I sorely miss. You have done your stay in Lebanon justice, and don’t go home feeling you’ve failed in any way whatsoever. But, as you imply, when sense and humanity can no longer gain traction in the wider world, the outlook remains grim.
However complicated things might seem on the ground, an independent alien observer on Mars, with his powerful telescopes, his invisible drones hovering overhead and his ability to tap into any and all communications will tell you it’s actually very simple: This is what happens when a powerful, arrogant, militarist state backed by other powerful militant states, is allowed free rein to install a client regime bearing an extremist, fundamentalist and basically racist ideology in an area of the world where it is not welcome, and which will do anything, trickery, bribing, force, murder, war, to allow this client regime to cause terror and carnage around it in expanding its area and power, its Liebensraum, you might aptly say. . Some folk say that it’s Israel that is the tail, wagging the US dog. I don’t believe this for a second, the US is in total control of everything that happens in Israel and is exerting as much control as it can in the surrounding areas. The bombs that are killing those around you in Lebanon are US bombs, dropped by US jets, directed by US intelligence and backed with US money and political power. Every bomb site you’ve visited is US bomb site, directed with US murderous intent. The US is a rogue state and its minions, especially the UK, are rogue states. complicit in genocide in Gaza, the continued violence, terror and dismay in the Middle East, and complicit in the Nazification of Israel.
What you write is fascinating and interesting, but until the US can be itself isolated and brought to heel – presumably by its own internal contradictions, that’s usually how states fail – the Middle East will suffer the dire consequence for as long as anyone can care to suggest. They may yet get much worse as outrage will inevitably build up in the Arab populations and it will inevitably become uncontainable. It’s happened before and will likely happen again. There are many times more Arabs than there are Israelis, and the Arab population is young and fit and malleable, and will be prepared to die for a cause. The US may control compliant regimes in some Arab states but it doesn’t control a compliant population.
And as for Ukraine, the US has proved again it is a corrupt regime whose only interest is power and money and itself, and anyone who gets in the way, Zelensky, Starmer, Macron, will be trampled on or like a small dog leaping unwelcome on his master, be given a good kick in the balls to tell it to get down. Do I welcome the effort for peace, of course, do I approve of talking to Putin , of course, it’s been horrible seeing the West spurn this diplomacy so disastrously and it’s distressing to see the European leaders bridle and try to undermine these efforts. But instead the US trades a dubious peace and for an imposed vulture capitalism, rampant in the US, now being imposed by existential threats on an impoverished and destroyed Ukraine; whatever remains of its carcass going to have its bones picked bare by the monstrous regime that is the US. Trump is not something unusual or deviant, he is a direct descendant of all that have come before him in his country. . I’m actually beginning to feel rather sorry for Zelensky. I certainly feel sorry for the Ukrainian people. Trump pretends he does, but that of course, is a lie, yet another lie, his efforts to enrich his own country by kicking a nation when it’s down, is beyond contempt. . And it’s beyond contempt that the Western media aren’t saying this too, but no surprise there – they have been happy enough to support a genocide transmitted to our smart phone and computer monitors in real time to the rest of the world’s utter horror and dismay.
Sorry for the rant. I hope you find Edinburgh a less stressful environment, and that your dreams become less disturbing.
nice rant, well formulated, thank you. perhaps on a more optimistic note: “Gaza is Ours”, a Palestinian countervideo that’s circulating in reaction to T’s vile, Ai-generated one on Gaza (talking about resilience!) – https://www.middleeasteye.net/trending/palestinians-gaza-react-counter-video-bizarre-ai-trump-video
“Some folk say that it’s Israel that is the tail, wagging the US dog. I don’t believe this for a second, the US is in total control of everything that happens in Israel”
Sounds like you need some “internal discourse”. What are the institutionalised mechanisms in Israel or relating to Israel through which the US “total control” is exercised?
In the US working in the other direction we can see CPMAJO, AIPAC, ADL, Hollywood, Washington and other places crawling with Israeli security contractors, and so on. Is that all a chimera?
Hello Craig. Well done.
Thanks for this article Craig. It describes the people and society so well. There is something rather sad about it, obviously, because the whole situation is so manipulated by the Americans and Israelis, and they go on about democracy whatever that is these days. I can understand your feeling of helplessness, but you did go to Lebanon and bear witness which is hugely more than any of us and the msm have done. The only glimmer of the future I saw was in your description of the garage attendant – Hezbollah is still there, just waiting. After all that, it must be good to be back in Edinburgh with your family. I was born in Edinburgh and used to visit my grandmother as a child – loved the place. It was very different in those days – cobbles and tram cars, etc.
“The fall of the Assad regime was deeply desired by western neoliberals and Zionists in order to replace it with a western democratic model, and they are desperately pretending that is what they have got in al-Jolani”
Perhaps they were desperately pretending that wanted to replace it with a western democratic model.
I think you give these western neoliberals and zionists too much credit. They just want chaos, they have no long term plans, their little brains cannot see too far ahead. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Lebanon. There is no plan for the day after. Democracy doesn’t come into it.
You did your best to report on Israeli war crimes. The only way into Gaza would have been illegal, via smuggling tunnels from Egypt, and in view of continued IDF attacks, very dangerous, apart from the possibility of prosecution on return to the UK for supporting Hamas.
So well done. I’ve passed videos and reports from this website to my MP.
apparently a Palestinian countervideo to T’s distasteful, vile, Ai-generated one on Gaza is doing the rounds – https://www.middleeasteye.net/trending/palestinians-gaza-react-counter-video-bizarre-ai-trump-video
perhaps to convey some optimism in these dark times. and as always mr. Murray, big TQ for the work you do!
Thanks Mary-lou, watched and reposted!
What is the explanation for the non-updating of the Qassam Brigades’ website?
https://en.alqassam.ps/
Is the Fatah leadership stopping it somehow? Or perhaps that’s totally unfair. (Just asking.) Another possibility is technical interference by Zionists or their helpers somewhere along the line.
Brilliant and heartfelt article Craig.
Meanwhile the Neo-Nazi dictator Zelensky – got his arse kicked in the Whitehouse by the Orange Zionist POTUS – and he has now fled to England, where he will meet with the Zionist and Neo-Nazi supporting Starmer.
Huge cuddles from Herr Starmer and two billion tax payers pounds to be going on with. Apparently, the UK stands with Ukraine. Well I have news for keith, I don’t stand with genocidal, stunted nazi Jews. Hopefully, this abomination will finish Starmer. Poor excuse fir a human being.
Stevie Boy.
Here here.
Yes there are many in Britain – who don’t stand with the Zionist Starmer, or the Neo-Nazi dictator Zelensky.
Zelensky has met the British “king”, so the knife is now truly in his back. He’ll be out of office soon, and quite possibly dead.
The “king” is selling his personal brand, indicating that he likes or approves of this or that person, just as Trump does. They’re like twin personifications of vulgar empty brandiness, offering their “qualification”, to use the Hollywood term – their “endorsement”. Of course Brit monarchist cultists don’t notice the similarity or even this disgusting poor taste. Why doesn’t the absurd addled f***witted “king” go the whole hog and post a tweet with an image of an expensive hat with some stolen gemstones on it?
Big ears mum will be rotating like a spit roast in her grave at this travesty.
Meanwhile the ‘coalition of the willing’ or ‘dead men talking’ try to justify their deluded, genocidal, vacuous existence now that the orange one has cut their strings.
How much longer must the tax payer suffer at the hands of these imbecilic c*nts.
Re: ‘the one thing that cannot be disputed is that al-Jolani is steadfastly Zionist’
It most certainly can be disputed. If you ask me, Julani (who these days wishes to be referred to by his birth name of Ahmed al-Sharaa) is about as zionist as he is Assadist. HTS wasn’t attacking Assad’s forces at any point in 2021-23 (bar the occasional raid by their Red Band special forces). In late 2024, though, when the Hezbros in Syria had been recalled back to Lebanon and the opportunity presented itself, that particular state of affairs changed rapidly and we all saw the spectacular results.
Our host is still alive because he’s lucky (which, inter alia, is also the reason that he still owns his house). By contrast, Julani/al-Sharaa is still alive because he’s smart and not suicidal. He’s seen what the IDF has done to Hezbollah and its erstwhile leader Nasrallah – who, don’t forget, was several storeys underground when the Israelis got to him – and doesn’t want to end up in a similar fashion. Why turn a quick, relatively bloodless, victory over Assad into a quick, devastating defeat to Israel? It may be a cliche, but things often do work out for those who are prepared to wait, especially if they use the interim period to consolidate matters, so that in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter too much if they make some minor mistakes when the moment arrives.
Speaking of which: Paragraph 63 – ‘Nawaf Salam as President’ should read ‘Nawaf Salam as Prime Minister’.
—
[ Mod: That error had already been spotted and corrected.
FYI, articles are normally proofread and amended shortly after publication, aided by volunteers who post comments with lists of suggested amendments (preceded by “*** ERRATA ***” so that they’re caught in premod and are only visible to the blog team). ]
We all make minor mistakes, and it’s possibly a little easier in Scotland. If only because of the healthy local beverage. Doune the drinking hole!
But you know, nobody remembers whatever statements were made here less than 6 months ago. Some commentators were confidently predicting a bloodbath following Donald’s election, the invaluable host of this blog was certain Israel could never invade parts of Lebanon for fear of powerful Hezbollah, and our man in Russia was convinced Ukraine would capitulate before New Year’s Eve and Zelenskyy end up in exile, if not in a plane crash…
It’s precisely through such minor mistakes, immediately forgotten hence forgiven, that one keeps a discussion blog running. Et voila.
Thanks for your reply Madison. Yes, we all make minor mistakes, though I seem to be the only person in these comments sections who has been known to issue corrections, usually unbidden. It might not matter whether anyone remembers statements made on here less than six months ago; what matters is whether certain people can remember (or become aware of) ones made less than 12 months ago:
https://www.samuels-solicitors.co.uk/news/defamation-time-limits
As you probably know, unsolicited advice is almost never welcomed.
Otherwise, it’s rather clear that monitoring services are always willing to let some smelt escape, in order to catch some big fish…
Thanks for your reply Madison. Perhaps a lot more of it should be welcomed. I wasn’t referring to ‘monitoring services’ – who appear to be doing significantly less monitoring here than they used to – but rather to m’learned friends, who in these financially strained times still have to put a stuffed vine leaf on the table.
You’re welcome, as opposed to corrections you -bad boy- suggest. Actually, even as I type, this article is still riddled with several typos, grammatical errors and other mistakes, despite the comprehensive proofreading you’ve been reminded of.
As said, it doesn’t really matter. Who cares?
As for those you call “learned friends” (typical British euphemism), don’t you worry. They always manage well. Like our host here, concerned public figures have enough to pay them well through some ‘legal defense fund’.
But libel or slander suits are just kid stuff. As I said, Intelligence Services are offering bait, release spelt and only hook on a big fish. Being detained upon arrival at the airport is just foreplay. Real intercourse comes sometimes much later…
I am relieved you are safely home away from the Israeli drones. Thank you for the on the ground reporting from one of the scenes of these historic crimes. That HTS-supporting scholar you encountered claiming to speak on behalf of Edward Said is only a small part of the HTS propaganda effort in Britain. While you were in Lebanon the self-declared President of Syria sat down for a friendly chat with British establishment talking heads MI6 Rory and unrepentant Alastair.
There was no mention during the interview of Jolani’s prior career of mass-scale sectarian butchery (including children) or the intensifying brutal attacks by his foreign militia men on Syria’s minorities. There was a great deal of talk however of him having embraced ‘democracy’ and liberal DEI values. Indeed MI6 Rory said Jolani is “doing things at a national scale that is much more reminiscent of people like Gandhi or Mandela than of any contemporary European politician.” If the great man is vouched for by The Rest Is Politics lads surely that should silence any scepticism?
Professor David Miller was detained at Heathrow Airport on his way back from Nazrallah’s funeral via Istanbul. Here he recounts in detail his questioning by the Police and their trying to implicate him in breaches of the UK Anti Terrorism legislation. https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/02/27/743610/How-UK-counter-terror-police-colluded-with-Zionists-to-detain-me-after-Beirut-trip
Thanks for this, @Harry. Interesting account, and it’s great that David posted it so quickly and has made his experiences under the boot of Schedule 7 public.
I don’t understand why he writes that his parents would be proud of him for pissing off the Jewish Chronicle. Are all readers supposed to know who is parents were? (Because I don’t.)
Who’s Gary Spedding? Is he related to David Spedding who was head of SIS?
Some of the cancelling crap that DM has been through in the poshboy kingdom for having supported the Palestinians chimes with this:
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/30/it-felt-like-a-dictatorship-uk-teaching-experts-hit-out-at-government-bid-to-cancel-them
The internet is basically the most successful state surveillance and schizo opinion control device ever invented.
How many people have been convicted under Paragraph 18 of Schedule 7 for not answering a police question when detained at a port of entry?
Has anyone ever been convicted of this? You would have thought the regime would trumpet it if some people had. Just wondering whether anyone has ever told them to go and f*** themselves.
Apparently more than 400000 people have been stopped under Schedule 7 since 2009:
https://www.cage.ngo/articles/schedule-7-harassment-at-borders-report-executive-summary
Thirty have been convicted under the schedule, but it’s not clear for what offences, or what sentences the regime handed them.
“The only grounds for hope is that I cannot imagine that the people of the region are going to tolerate Israeli collaborationist regimes in Damascus, Beirut and Ramallah much longer.”
I rather agreed with that. Syria is the big problem (for Israel). They, the Israelis, can hardly keep the territories they occupy in the wide-open plains of Syria for very long. It will soon provoke local resistance against the isolated posts. And again, Julani’s HTS is a small organisation, which doesn’t control much of Syria. There’s a lot to evolve in Syria, and the US has done nothing to ease the lives of Syrians (by easing sanctions). Syrians are sort of in a state of shock at the moment. That will not necessarily last.
Just came across the following on JVLs website, posted three days ago:
Gaza “Through A Child’s Eyes” – a new short film
JVL Introduction
Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP) has many years experience supporting children arrested and under trial in the Israeli military courts system. DCIP has now produced this 22 minute documentary, mainly filmed during the short ceasefire in late November/early December 2023. Through a Child’s Eyes, premiered online on February 25, 2025 and is a must watch and please share as widely as possible. Children – and some parents – speak in an almost chillingly matter of fact way about what had happened to them.
There is no need for us to add any more: we leave it to the children.
LL
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/gaza-through-a-childs-eyes-a-new-short-film/
_______________________
And then there was this, posted yesterday, and no doubt covered by most of the MSM:
MPs call for independent investigation into BBC Gaza documentary
https://www.thejc.com/news/politics/mps-call-for-independent-investigation-into-bbc-gaza-documentary-p9x1jsfo
I happened to catch most of the documentary, by chance, when it was shown on BBC 2 (I just this minute checked, and it was shown twice in fact), and I was somewhat surprised that they were airing such a film/documentary, and especially with such a title – ie Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone – but obviously glad that they were. I thought the BBC would probably get slammed by the zionist propaganda outfits like the CAA and JLM et al for being pro-Palestinian/Hamas, but I didn’t forsee MPs getting involved. So how about them all condemning the BBC for not verifying that the 40 beheaded babies story, and other such atrocity propaganda, were all lies and fabrication. Anyway, I put the following together last night:
I’m sure just about everyone has heard that official Israeli records in 2023 show that only one baby was killed on October 7th – ie 10-month old Mila Cohen – and, as such, prove the 40 beheaded babies story was a falsehood and atrocity propaganda (if you EVER believed it in the first place!), but I’ve not come across Israel itself confirming the fact…. until I happened to find this wikipedia entry yesterday, in which it says:
Although the Israeli government press office confirmed to Le Monde prior to the release of its April 2024 investigation that the baby beheadings did not in fact take place either in Kfar Aza or in any other kibbutz, the French newspaper estimates that Israeli officers maintain an attitude of opportunistic ambiguity towards the hoax, with the intention to “muddy the waters”, concluding that “Israel has done nothing to fight [the hoax] and has more often tried to instrumentalize it than deny it, fueling accusations of media manipulation.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_baby_beheading_hoax
Le Monde Investigation
’40 beheaded babies’: Deconstructing the rumor at the heart of the information battle between Israel and Hamas
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decodeurs/article/2024/04/03/40-beheaded-babies-the-itinerary-of-a-rumor-at-the-heart-of-the-information-battle-between-israel-and-hamas_6667274_8.html
There was no information battle going on between Israel and Hamas of course, just Israel lying through it’s psychopathic mass-murdering teeth over and over and over again.
The wikipedia entry references an excellent Guardian article/opinion piece from the end of May last year entitled ‘Where is Joe Biden’s fury about decapitated Palestinian babies?’, by Arwa Mahdawi. Here’s a passage from it:
This genocide was built on decades of Palestinians being demonized and dehumanized – and public consent for this assault on Gaza was manufactured with the help of dehumanizing narratives designed to ensure nobody could think of a single Palestinian as an innocent civilian or even a human being.
One of the most inflammatory examples was the false rumour that 40 decapitated babies were found in the Kfar Aza kibbutz after the Hamas attack. Hamas, of course, committed atrocities on 7 October, including murdering 38 Israeli children. But the fake news about 40 beheaded babies – which the Israeli government press office has confirmed to Le Monde was not true – was potent and emotive and spread absolutely everywhere, including to and from the White House.
Joe Biden repeated these unverified reports, even when his staff urged him not to. He even lied about seeing pictures of these babies. It was Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction all over again. It was the Kuwait incubator hoax all over again. It laid the basis for genocide; for politicians to look at pictures of Palestinian children, decapitated by US-manufactured missiles, and just shrug.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/30/biden-palestinian-beheaded-israeli-babies
We really need to get the truth out there about the atrocity propaganda, and the proof that it was, and especially the 40 beheaded babies story and the other baby-related stories/falsehoods, because tens of millions of people (in the UK alone) don’t know any different because the WHOLE of the MSM has concealed it from them, and done so deliberately of course, and for the obvious reason.
40 beheaded babies was eventually supplanted as the main genocide justification by the belated claims of mass rape.
The latter hoax is still being promoted to this day by British and US politicians and by Hollywood, despite them all knowing it has been debunked beyond all reasonable doubt.
The mass rape hoax has never been fact-checked by any of the disinformation/ misinformation experts employed by mass media, and never will be, because they are equally committed to trying to justify genocide.
If the BBC ever does anything that shows humanity towards the Palestinians, it’ll be so that SIS can keep its Arab assets sweet. Never trust the British ruling gang on anything.
Stunning article, your personal honesty and courage is very moving, a real insight. Wrestling with personal contradictions and reevaluating different cultural and religious imperatives is crucial to make complex situations understandable to poorly informed westerners. This is something that is completely beyond the ability of a BBC/ Guardian reporter. Well done !
I understand you are planning a series of speaking engagements in community venues please publicise them on your site asap there will be many anxious to pay to attend including me.
Great work Craig, be proud of yourself, compared to majority of people of this world you actually do something of substance, politically.
And not really news but as people like us early on said, Israel killed their own on october 7, even reports from Israel now admit this, even though no clarity how many israelis that were actually gunned down by IDF:
“IDF carried out Hannibal Directive, new ‘Sword of Damocles’ operation on October 7”
“… was carrying out the “Hannibal Directive” of gunning down anything that moved around the Israel-Gaza border.”
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-844008#google_vignette
Is it not interesting by the way how the west glorify Ukraine when they “sacrifice” themselves on the battlefield but when Palestinians, Lebanese do the same, it is considered twisted religious irrationality by the same west.
“it is considered twisted religious irrationality by the same west” – Yes, or “terrorism”.
I am not sure for how much longer the notion of “the West” is going to be of utility to radical critics. (I put it like that because it may well remain of utility to its regimes internally.) “The West” is basically the USA’s Compradore Club for Protestant and Catholic elites (UCCPAC), with a few non-Russian Orthodox-cultural elites allowed NATO membership, such as in Greece and Bulgaria, and who mostly all get their weapons from the same suppliers and where the bourgeois all have the same kinda electronic equipment in their homes and cars. “The West” are as degenerate a bunch of scum and filth as their oligarchic “opponents” elsewhere in the world, any day of the week. (Note to Foreign Office dudes reading this – yes really.)
* except US Democrats, regardless of genocide.
What differences in foreign policy have there been between the Democrats and Republicans?
The supply of weapons to Ukraine is one example – something to do with a land-use deal desired by the oligarch currently in the Oval Office, which is unlikely to come off, IMO, any more than his proposal of a “great deal” did with North Korea. But what else has there been, since say the late 1940s? Both Democrats and Republicans have been for NATO, Fulbright, NED, wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and doing everything the Zionists tell them.
The only reason I’d have voted for Harris is because an attempt to stop fascism by voting is probably worth the small amount of effort required even if it’s extremely likely not to work. I will never vote Labour while Starmer is the leader.
You would have rewarded them for every atrocity you witnessed over 15 months. A pitiless racist genocide orders of magnitude more horrific than anything you’ve ever seen the West perpetrate, including the fascist horrors of 2016-2020.
What assurances did Kamala Harris provide you with that she would bring a stop to Israel “defending itself” against the women and children of Gaza? Her utterances on the subject were only notable for trying to shame anti-genocide protesters and for cynically hyping a crude “mass rape” hoax, manufactured to try and justify the Democrats’ endless conveyor belt of 2,000lb bombs.
OK @Joel, you have a point.
Although Harris may have been better inside the USA than Trump. But I was expecting a bloodbath within a week of 20 Jan which didn’t happen. Then again the plan AIUI is to deport 11m immigrants so we will see how that goes.
Or vice versa. Fully agree, Red.
Life would be so much simpler if there actually were good guys and bad guys facing each others. But past elementary school, things get a lot more complicated.
Don’t worry about the Foreign Office. They’re currently trying to avoid getting the same treatment as US agencies.
You know, special relationship…
Thank you Mr Murray and Mr Ladefoged.
Many people say the war started when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, in fact the war was germinated well before that, Zbigniew Brzezinski thought that Ukraine was the key to US hegemony in Europe, deprive Russia of influence in Ukraine and Russia would be much more deminished, various US Presidents took this up and wanted Ukraine to be members of NATO, this expansion was a source of much consternation to Russia, and many political scientists warned at the time this decision would be a most regretful one, even the German and French governments did not want Ukraine to join NATO, they eventually fell in line with a little pressure from the US. V Nuland spent $6 billion dollars through the National Endowment for Democracy and caused the coup to replace the legitimate Ukrainian President to flee the country, to be replaced with V Nulands hand picked Ukrainian cabinet, the rest is history. The US started the war, with Biden leading the charge, now that they are losing, they want to walk away and try to blame other people. Typical US behavior as was the case in Vietnam and Afghanistan.
A broken clock is right twice a day, and Trump is right to end this debacle, which should never have started, with the needless loss of so many lives. It takes a fool like Starmer to insist the war must continue and many more billions of pounds wasted in a forlorn attempt to delay the inevitable. The right to self determination set out in the UN charter was disregarded by the ‘West’ who insisted that those Oblast’s and Crimea who had voted to leave Ukraine should be restored to Ukraine.They wanted to leave Ukraine as was their right because the Minsk agreements were torn up and were preparing to be invaded by a Ukraine army built up and armed by NATO. This interview of S Lavrov by Tucker Carson is excellent..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuLKzcwHX_4
Joe Lauria puts the Ukraine timeline into context in this excellent piece.
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/25/ukraine-timeline-tells-the-tale/
Harry Law
Thanks for a tankie’s history of the Russian attempt to reconquer Ukraine.
No mention of the wishes of the Ukrainian people – correctly as after all from the tankie POV it is the intentions of Great Russia that matter.
@JK – Consider the wishes of the people who actually live in the six disputed territories.
You also seem to view the USSR as having been an instrument of Russia which is way wide of the mark.
Brian Red
From https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/sounds/lyrics/anthem.htm
The union of the indestructible free republics
has united Great Russia forever.
May the created will of the people
prosper, the United, mighty Soviet Union.
Reminiscent of the rarely used verse of God Save …
Verse 6: Lord grant that Marshal Wade, may by thy mighty aid, victory bring. May he sedition hush, and like a torrent rush, rebellious Scots to crush. God save the King!
Yes, well done finding that. It’s possibly your best premise in support of your claim. But the translation you quote is crap. First off, it was the union that was called unbreakable, not the republics. More importantly, the song doesn’t say that the union united great Russia. It says great Russia welded together the union. That translation swaps the subject and object around.
The internal public relations of the USSR in places like Azerbaijan, Armenia, Lithuania, etc., weren’t based on the idea of living under Russian rule – sorry but they weren’t. If you wanted to say there was domination from Moscow, now that would be something different.
Take a look at say the Aliyev clan in Azerbaijan.
Or consider Stalin (and his pal Beria) for that matter.
Yes Harry, it did. All those western leaders who pledged to support the ceasefire agreement in the Minsk 1/2 agreements did nothing to stop Ukraine’s shelling of Donbass and Luhansk. It is their support for Ukrainian’s inability to even discuss and or accept talks of an autonomous region of mainly Russian speaking folk in the east that gave the green light to carry on with the war.
That was the point to make peace, but not one of the western leaders saw the writing on the wall.
The Russophobics had it. And idiots such as Johnson and Truss merely encouraged the right sector and leftover Nazis to carry on with threats and western bile, when they could have stood out by promoting dialogue and diplomacy.
Thank you Craig for showing us all the strains you must have been under in your unrivalled exposure of Zionist atrocities in South Lebanon and the Bekaa valley. There is not one mainstream journalist that can even reach your quality and openness of observation.
In the Forum I have posted the full interview with Francesca Albanese by German daily JUNGE WELT, machine-translated:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/israel-the-crucible-of-evil/page/3/#post-103168
From: Issue of 01.03.2025 , page 1 (supplement) / weekend supplement
genocide in Palestine
“If we are against it, we have to say so”
On the role of the international community in the Israeli genocide in Palestine. A conversation with Francesca Albanese
Interview: Fabian Linder
I haven’t seen any news on the box today, but I assume this has been reported – ie that BN/Israel has halted aid into Gaza because of Hamas’s refusal to extend first phase of truce:
“Israel halts aid into Gaza, citing Hamas refusal to extend first phase of truce
Jerusalem claims US backs move to push extension of now-expired 1st phase of ceasefire rather than negotiating 2nd phase; PM: ‘Humanitarian aid turned into terrorist budget against us’
Israel said Sunday it would not allow any more goods to enter Gaza over what it called Hamas’s refusal to accept a proposal to extend the expiring initial stage of the ceasefire and hostage release deal, and threatened “additional consequences” and a return to war.”
And get this, which are just the sort of B/S lies BN and Co sprout again and again and again:
«Netanyahu also claimed at his weekly cabinet meeting that Hamas is diverting aid entering the Strip for its own use.
“Hamas is currently taking control of all supplies and goods sent to the Gaza Strip. It is abusing the Gazan population who are trying to receive the aid, it is shooting at them, and is turning humanitarian aid into a terrorist budget directed against us,” he said.»
My word, what a coincidence that just when BN stops the aid going into Gaza to force Hamas to agree to his new conditions, it should transpire that Hamas is not only diverting aid for its own use, but also shooting at people blah, blah, blah. Yep, and the media pretend they believe him! What a joke. Oh, and in case you didn’t know:
«Israel announced it was adopting a previously unpublicized “Witkoff plan” early Sunday as the first stage of the ceasefire deal expired and the sides failed to negotiate a second phase.
According to Israel’s account of Witkoff’s proposal, the halt in fighting would extend until the end of Passover on April 19. Under the plan, half of the remaining hostages — living and dead — would be released on the first day of the extended ceasefire, and the remaining captives would be released at the end of the period if a permanent ceasefire is reached.
Netanyahu denied that Israel was shirking its commitment to negotiate the second phase, saying Witkoff proposed the extension after he understood there was no way to bridge Israeli and Hamas positions on moving to the next stage.
“He even defined his proposal as a corridor for negotiations on phase two,” said Netanyahu. “Israel is ready for this.”
Hmm, anyone know what it is/was that couldn’t be bridged?! And I think we can be about 10,000% certain that the following is another falsehood:
Both sides stopped short of saying the ceasefire had ended, though Palestinians reported several killed in an Israeli strike in Beit Hanoun Sunday morning.
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed the strike, saying a drone was used to hit suspects spotted planting explosives near troops stationed in the Strip.»
Yeah, like fuck they were! As if!!
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-halts-aid-into-gaza-over-hamas-refusal-to-extend-first-phase-of-truce/?utm_source=article_hpsidebar&utm_medium=desktop_site&utm_campaign=liveblog-march-2-2025
Please check out the whole article… and see even more B/S lies.
To myself it looks like Netanyahu and his crazies are going to walk through Trump’s agreement re: second phase.
Meaning renewing attacks on The Gazans and more attacks on The West Bank too with a view to occupying there too.
Trump is not necessarily getting his own way on Ukraine ( I hear that the Mineral Wealth in Ukraine is not all that) so what is Trumps agenda for us watching schmucks?
I suspect it is a pose for his MAGA Base in the role of looking like getting some money back for the folks but, in a different way and means.
If the Europeans and Brexited Britain fall for his trick of them paying to protect themselves against the Evil Empire then they deserve all that they are not going to get.
Macron and others ‘ lent’ Ukraine the money to fight Russia and they want their ‘ Aid ‘ back just as much as Trump does.
Grubby stuff – no defence of alleged Freedom and alleged Democracy there .
But, that is how Imperialists ( former and current ) act – guardians of our way of life supposedly, whilst playing robbers and bandits with and ordinary people’s lives and incomes.
The massive mistake that Zelensky made came about because he was listening and taking advice from a group of self deceivers namely, The European and UK Leaders.
They think that they are the equal of the mighty US so it was no surprise that Zelensky after the self big – upping thought he could demand anything from Trump other than a Mineral Deal.
After Trump went candescent Orange with rage – he and the Europeans were left in no doubt as to who Top Dog in The Western World.
Now – they are running around like headless chickens.
It’s all fakery yet again as Europe facing Russia on its own also needs protection from the US – maybe even more so than Ukraine as its economies are far bigger.
So, Sir Kier Scammer can imagine all sorts in his head – as can Macron but as he knows and I know it is not worth anything without the backside cover of the US.
No fan of Trump or Vance but they couldn’t understand the heavy hint that they were giving Zelensky that signing the deal would give automatic protection to Ukraine if US personnel were in Ukraine looking for mythical minerals.
The reason he refused is unknown but I suspect that yet again the UK is in there somewhere playing games.
After all the huffing- bluffing and puffing Trump will force them to go along with his Ceasefire Plan.
Because Europe need protecting too.
Unfortunately the same can not be said of Israel and while there is lot of focus on Ukraine – Netanyahu will come out to play again.
Get to Iran though and hello potential WW3.
Trump doesn’t want one in Ukraine but he is sure a hell chancing that in the Middle East if the US and Israel attack Iran.
I haven´t watched the film but since its Oscar night this moment – a glimpse into the ideology behind capitalist distribution companies:
“The Oscar-Nominated Documentary US Distributors Won’t Touch”
By Agnitra Ghosh
“No Other Land bravely captures Israel’s evictions of Palestinians in the West Bank. It could win an Oscar on Sunday, but it couldn’t secure a US distributor.”
https://jacobin.com/2025/02/oscar-documentary-west-bank-occupation
And the scale of boycott is gigantic:
“Even Abraham has experienced fallout: after his speech at the Berlin Film Festival, he received death threats, while a right-wing Israeli mob threatened his family members.
(…)
Despite its critical acclaim and an impressive record of accolades at international festivals — not to mention its status as the highest-grossing film in its Oscar category — No Other Land has not been touched by US distributors, and the producers have finally opted to independently release the documentary to reach an American viewership. Further, in India, No Other Land was abruptly removed from the lineup in MAMI Mumbai Film Festival and the Dharamshala International Film Festival.”
Similiar situation in Germany. Especially with theatres that call themselves “progressive” or left-leaning.
Very subdued reporting of its award in the media too. The BBC radio news bulletins shunned it. I doubt if anyone except the most dedicated Oscar-watchers even know that it exists, let alone has triumphed.
They’ve been suppressing the genocide in Gaza from day one. It’s more imperative than ever now that they’re trying to reinvent Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, Von der Leyen &c. as deeply-principled, heroic figures
It’s confusing that there’s a Kurdish Hezbollah of different origin and other Islamic sect. I guess they would also be opposed to Israel.
Yet the Kurdish nationalists now tend to the secular. In Turkey they’re been Marxist, even though Marxism, for theoretical reasons, apparently denied that the Kurdish regions are colonised. Even though they are by four modern countries that emerged from Ottoman and Persian empires. Yet Kurdish groups are also criticised for having sided with Ottomans against Armenians, or now for being proxies for US-Israeli in some areas. While relations with Russia are described as ambivalent and contradictory. Uh what a mess.
” Marxism, for theoretical reasons, apparently denied that the Kurdish regions are colonised”
Is this somethin that Marx said or something an individual marxist said? Are their marxists who don’t agree with this?
Karl Marx, in his later years, famously declared “I am not a marxist.”
Had he lived half a century later, he might have added “or only from the Groucho wing”.
There may be, it says “the Marxist left generally”. That’s a 2024 article, Decolonisation Agriculture
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01436597.2024.2374521#d1e189
It also says
“The lack of recognition of Kurdistan as a colony extends to much of the Marxian academic work, [which] after the Second World War understood colonialism within a world system characterised by unequal economic relations between states “
Worrying times for US puppet leaders, though, after Friday’s events. The UK media fawning all over Zelenskyy in his ridiculous get-up this weekend but his position is plainly untenable – even if the Ukrainian people are half as supportive towards him as our mainstream journalists pretend (which I very much doubt).
Tom74
What’s the issue with Zelenskiy’s clothes?
You know perfectly well. He doesn’t even wear a tie, like you and I do!
Watch our host Craig. Even in war-torn Beirut, he always had one!
The way people dress is very telling, even more than the way they speak…
Elon Musk, Trump’s de facto Prime Minister, doesn’t wear business wear in the Oval Office.
Didn’t Churchill wear a semi naval outfit when PM?
What’s the big deal about Zelinskiy wearing what he wants?
Just bullying…
https://youtube.com/shorts/bJSYN2jh1xY?si=73oHXsgbOkJiXpn4
Comment on Musk’s clothing choices.