The Phantom Ceasefire 142


The Phantom Ceasefire is simply Trump’s off ramp. He announces a ceasefire and bows out, having been advised that regime change would only be achievable with extreme military commitment and massive cost in lives and treasure.

You can never trust the Israelis – or indeed the Americans – with either a ceasefire or a negotiation. Reuters reported that a senior Iranian official had confirmed the ceasefire had been agreed. Israel then repeated precisely what I had seen in Beirut – massive carpet bombing of the city just before the 3.30am deadline for the Israel/Iran ceasefire.

 

That picture is Beirut literally minutes before the ceasefire came into effect. Israel then proceeded to violate the ceasefire anyway, and has done so virtually every single day in the past months of ceasefire, often several times a day, racking up over 1,000 violations.

The Iranians very sensibly responded to last night’s carpet bombing with a missile salvo. Israel has claimed a violation of the ceasefire (as ever the aggressor is the “victim”) and fighting has resumed.

I believe this may be for the best. Although it does benefit Netanyahu – who for domestic reasons is desperate to avoid peace – the Israelis would never have observed a ceasefire and would have used it to replenish their exhausted missile defence systems, with help from the USA, UK and the other genocide participants.

The Iranian “attack” on the US airbase in Qatar was purely performative. They used old, expendable, low-level missiles certain to be shot down and warned that they were coming. It was part of the structure of Trump’s off ramp.

So the question now is whether Netanyahu can drag Trump back into the war. I am hopeful he will not. Trump will be able to say that he has, with his strikes on Iran, redeemed the hundreds of millions of Zionist dollars that got him elected. I guess we will discover in the next week or two whether that money really is all that was motivating him, or whether Musk was right about Trump’s appearance in the Epstein files. For what it is worth, I think that Trump’s street cunning and independent access to East European models were probably enough to keep him out of that trap. But we will see,

Without the USA, Netanyahu has opened a war that will not remain popular very long. Keeping Israel’s settler colonists – who are hilariously cowardly when faced with anybody who can actually fight back – locked in as human shields is going to have interesting social consequences for the terrorist entity.

Meanwhile the shooting of Palestinians in the Gaza food queues and the dispossessions and killings in the West Bank continue apace.

The UK government is sending planes to bring back dual UK/Israeli nationals. That includes active IDF participants in genocide.

FCDO official guidance reads:

Lammy has made a decision to airlift back those Israeli passport-carrying colonists who are also British nationals. This directly contradicts British government longstanding policy of not assisting dual nationals in their country of second nationality. This policy is normally rigorously enforced, even (and perhaps especially) in times of war. There is a huge contrast between the red carpet for Israeli war criminals returning to the UK and the appalling treatment of thousands of British Sudanese families in the 2023 evacuation from Khartoum.

The Iranians have already done a great service to humanity by puncturing the facade of Israeli invincibility. They have also laid bare the appalling Zionism of Arab ruling elites and their sectarian propagandists, in a way which they believe the Arab populations understand. The ramifications of the last two weeks following Israel’s attack on Iran will play out over years. But this is part of the process of the disintegration of the colonial settler state.

 

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142 thoughts on “The Phantom Ceasefire

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    • Bayard

      No wonder the government was so pissed off. Public property? Nah, fill yer boots, mate. Private property belonging to mates, “You’re banned!”.

    • Tom74

      Call me cynical, but I very much doubt anyone could vandalise British military assets without a great deal of inside information – it was plainly some kind of inside job (not the RAF but other government actors) or a foreign ‘friendly’ power as a threat. The mainstream media are almost certainly spinning fairytales here, probably to cover up for the intelligence agencies, of whatever country.

    • MR MARK CUTTS

      Republicofscotland.

      Imagine if your about 15/16 and the only employment prospect open to use is to make bombs or go and fight Russia.

      It will create ‘ growth ‘ alright but only for coffin makers and Funeral Directors.

      Another Private Sector/State Initiative.

      ‘ Lendmeamissile.com ‘

      I can see it now and I can see nany educated youngsters high tailing it abroad.

      A lot of Ukranian’s were wise enough to do that as they saw the writing on the wall.

      And they won’t be going back.

      You could not blame them – that’s exactly what I would do.

      • Republicofscotland

        MR MARK CUTTS

        Now I understand why Starmer is slashing the welfare budget – he’s looking for cannon fodder.

      • Bayard

        “A lot of Ukranian’s were wise enough to do that as they saw the writing on the wall.”

        I remember in 2022, the MSM were shouting about Ukranians fleeing the evil Russians, when it was pretty bloody obvious they were taking advantage of a heaven-sent opportunity to get out of what had been until recently the most corrupt country in Europe.

          • Bayard

            Now that the red mist has subsided, try reading my comment again. You might then notice that I wrote “until recently the most corrupt country in Europe”, so quoting figures from last year is irrelevant. You might also notice I wrote “I remember in 2022, the MSM were shouting about Ukranians fleeing the evil Russians, ” so don’t need to be reminded of the official line that you are so keen to parrot. Yes, some of them were fleeing a war zone, but many were from the other side of Ukraine or fled into Russia.

          • Mr V

            If you’re dumb enough to believe Russia is in 154th place in corruption out of 190 countries, below multiple semi-failed African and Asian states where law enforcement is pretty much dead, you’re dumber than your boots. This is exactly the kind of racist propaganda about Russia NATO was pushing for 20+ years now loudly announcing Russian subhumans need to rip chips out of western appliances to make anything more complicated than a showel and will run out of rockets, tanks and planes in 3 days (any day now, since february of 2022) – and somehow, Russia still didn’t collapse but jumped Japan and Germany and is now 4th biggest economy on Earth…

          • Pears Morgaine

            Transparency International are the authority on corruption; probably why they were banned in Russia:-

            https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2024

            By PPP Russia is 4th but at $7.19tn long way behind 3rd place India $17.35tn and less than twice much smaller France and the UK, c.$4.5tn. In terms of GDP Russia ranks 11th, just below Brasil and above Spain.

            Economists are warning that the Russian economy is in serious trouble, even the Kremlin’s finance minister has warned that the country is ‘teetering on the brink of recession’. I suppose he’s a NATO propagandist as well.

          • Bayard

            “Transparency International are the authority on corruption probably why they were banned in Russia:-”

            Presumably its a case of “this organisation will be considered an authority by the people who consider this sort of organisation an authority”. If you had an organisation going around telling lies about you, wouldn’t you take some measures to shut them up?

            Also TI get 68% of their funding from government agencies or multilateral institutions, every single one of which is in what is loosely referred to as the West. Even if he who pays the piper doesn’t call the tune, this reflects far worse on TI than Russia’s ban reflects on Russia.

          • Pears Morgaine

            The solution is to fix the problem not to silence anyone daring to draw attention to it.

  • Brian Sides

    44 killed in Palestine by attack drones why do images of Terminator come to mind.
    If this is a cease fire then does that mean killing people quieting for food will get worse after the ceasefire.
    Mean while if you throw paint at a war plane you are a terrorist but throw paint at a painting you are a naughty boy/girl

  • SA

    Its official Europe is preparing for war. NATO members have undertaken to increase arms spending to 5% of GDP and Starmer is giving a speech to get Brits to start preparing for war with Russia or is with Iran on behalf of Israel? Anyway I am out now to stock with food cans ready to go to my bunker.

    • Alyson

      How much of ‘our’ Defence capability is UK owned? The ‘MOD’ weapons testing which was closing the sea to fishing boats a couple of weeks ago, is an Israeli owned company which bought the former MOD site freehold for a very low price. They were testing attack drones. When I recall there was discussion in the media a few years ago, about privatising warfare, it seemed that these would be mercenary forces that would still be under government direction, but also intending to act to plunder stuff in other countries, far far away, and see profit from their engagements.

      This mix of privately owned refuelling planes which may have been hired for use at the Cyprus base, raises the question of who owns the armaments and who has control over where they get deployed. The arms companies which make the weapons – who do they sell them to? How much control and oversight does the government have over where they go?

      David Cameron was the arms fairs salesman, who was very active in promoting arms companies at arms fairs, and was open to lobbyists who could pay between £10,000 and £50,000 a head to dine with him, depending on how close they got to sit.

      And Theresa May’s first visitor to number 10 on the day she moved in, was Henry Kissinger. We paid little attention to her husband’s sources of income, nor did we consider he might be engaged in any of her professional decisions as PM.

      Hindsight reveals the gaps between what we thought was happening then, and where we find ourselves today

      • Bayard

        “The arms companies which make the weapons – who do they sell them to? How much control and oversight does the government have over where they go?”

        I remember reading some years ago that if the arms companies actually paid for what they are given for free in the way of publicity, testing and sales effort by the UK government and were not subsidised in any way, the government would be able to give every man, woman and child in the UK £20,000. (Of course they wouldn’t, they’d blow it some pointless boondoggle, but they could.)

      • Alyson

        British politics.

        The retired businessman has donated millions to politicians, facilitated Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s rise to power, helped destroy the movement around Jeremy Corbyn, and, above all, has made sure that both major parties support Israel and its expansionist project in the Middle East.

        MintPress News profiles perhaps the most influential man in the pro-Israel lobby and lifts the veil of anonymity he hides behind.

        “Chinn, McEvoy told MintPress, plays an “important but overlooked role in British politics.” Since the 1980s, he noted, Chinn has funded both Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) and Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), pressure groups within the U.K.’s two largest political parties. He was also a member of the executive committee of the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM), the most influential pro-Israel lobbying organization in the United Kingdom.

        “Quantitative analyses of these groups’ activities are instructive,” McEvoy said, adding:

        Eighty percent of Tory MPs are members of CFI and, between 2012 and 2022, the organization paid for elected members to go on more overseas trips than any other donor. Last year, LFI counted some 75 MPs as supporters, while 32 sitting Labour members had accepted funding from the group. For its part, BICOM has flown scores of journalists to Tel Aviv since the turn of the century.”

        As such, Chinn sits at the head of a massive influence operation aiming to make sure that Great Britain continues to support Israeli interests. The scope of this operation is staggering; pro-Israel lobby groups have funded the majority of the British cabinet. In total, 13 out of 25 sitting cabinet members have accepted money directly from Chinn, or pro-Israel groups, according to McEvoy’s investigation.

        This includes many extremely powerful figures, such as Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, and Health Secretary Wes Streeting. Chinn himself has donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to these individuals.

        Without a doubt, though, the most important recipient of his largesse is Prime Minister Keir Starmer himself. In 2020, Chinn donated £50,000 (approximately $68,000) to Starmer, bankrolling his campaign to become leader of the Labour Party. The donation was not registered until five days after the election.“

        https://www.mintpressnews.com/trevor-chinn-british-politics-israel/290044

  • Harry Law

    Professor Richard Wolff has this take on Israel Iran conflict, he is so simple in describing the facts concerning settle colonialism, it is not possible to continue this project, as was possible 2 centuries ago. This Israeli project will fail. I agree with him, Israel is despised by most people in the world and is only surviving because of Western leaders propping it up with military and financial assistance and its veto at the UNSC.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C3-TeuudPI

  • Peter Mo

    Could someone confirm this.

    Is Raffi Grossi head of the IEAE a Jewish Zionist who got his position by heavy support of Mike Pompeo who himself got into Trumps first cabinet by being an extreme anti Iran hawk?
    I’ve watched Grossi’s interviews and I can spot a fraud after years of experience watching and listening to these sorts. The guy speaks in an evil double speak way. The timing of his unjustified assessment of Iran’s compliance was just too coincidental.

  • Pip

    Syria, Lebanon and Iran all came from a document near November 2024. The document was highly critical of London’s failure to take Syria and other insulting stuff they did not like. London was the architect behind Syria 1&2, Ukraine, and Iran. You have to understand how useless and stupid those people are. The information they refer regarding Iran is old but I assess they are still using it. However that same data was semi exposed and published by Tenet in a CIA threats and analysis report and available to the public. Shortly after that report Tenet left the agency. it may be the case that Tenet was unaware of a plot to carry out a false flag by state operatives and did not know or did know and sought to avert it after considering the global consequences arising from that operation.

    • Peter Mo

      Yes I agree its baffling. Now listening to the anti Iran proponents many come up with the justification of bombing Iran because of the quote ” Iran wants to wipe Israel of the map” This is about 20 years old and was a mis translation. The correct translation referred to the Zionist regime in Israel. It had nothing to do with physical violence and was thoroughly debunked. If that’s the worst they can think of against Iran then truly Iran is a model state.

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