It is hard to be up to date with any coverage for an ongoing war, especially in the social media age. Things move fast, the information that is real, verified, takes time to be confirmed and understood as factual. Lies, deception and sensationalism spreads fast, it’s produced cheap and nastily with the single purpose of engagement or to manipulate perspectives in those crucial moments of world opinion. Right now, in it’s war on Iran, the US and Israel are engaged in a battle for optics and the decapitation of the Iranian regime.

The genocide in Gaza, attacks on Lebanon and Syria and now the war against Iran are keeping Benjamin Netanyahu in power. He’s been marred in controversies and scandals, the war for now ensure that he survives. But, the ambition to wage war on Iran precedes his present strife.

Since 1979, when the dictator or Shah, was overthrown by a popular revolution made up of numerous factions, Iran has been in the cross hairs. As was the case for the Russian revolution, in Iran the Bolshevik’s replaced the moderates. Iran suffered beneath another repressive regime, one that was born from deranged theological Utopianism. Neighbouring Iraq with support of the West, invaded post-revolution Iran. The pair fought a war of mass death and attrition, in some ways a glimmer of the current Russian-Ukraine war. New technologies, old weapons and the ancient purity of human death.

During this period, Saddam Hussein was embraced by the US. His dictatorship an ally. Iran, despite it’s pariah status received crucial assistance from Israel. The Israeli’s helped keep their complex weapon systems working, supplying them when other nations were not allowed, even playing a crucial role during the Reagan administrations Iran-Contra scandal. Israel was feeding one enemy to fight another. Just as they had once supported Islamic fundamentalists to counterbalance the secular ideological nationalist terror groups, they backed Persians over Arabs.

Once the war on terror was announced, the US government clumped all of it’s ‘most wanted’ nations under one term, “Axis of Evil”. It was marketable, had a catchy ring and to many of the viewers of CNN or Fox, it sounded like something that the ‘coalition of the willing’ should oppose. Allies vs Axis, Central Powers vs Entente, Union vs Confederacy, from the narrative that many had invested their world views on, simply put it was ‘goodies’ vs ‘baddies’.

Iran, the enemy. Even if it had been supportive of the US operations against Afghanistan in 2001, the then crucial Northern Alliance was an Iranian ally as it waged it’s war against the Taliban. Then even Russia was supportive of the US wars on terror. Even if the US had only years earlier been assisting ‘terrorists’ against Russia.

During the Bush presidency Hollywood had moments where it displayed anti-imperialist sentiments and was less jingoistic, such films as Syriana, had the cynical depiction of American policy. General Wesley Clark himself publicly admitted that key nations were on the menu to be toppled. That included Iran. Syria, Iraq, Libya having already since fallen. Israel and the US are separate nations, the relationship between them is however deeply entwined. There is no formal alliance, it has become strategic and imperially ideological. But above all, spiritual.

The criticism of Israeli influence in US politics through AIPAC along with the religious affection that nationalistic Christians have for the State of Israel, reveal a degree of co-dependency. Israel is especially dependent. It needs the United States to retain it’s ambitions and perhaps, some have argued, it’s very survival. Survival as a settler colony ever expanding, not survival as a nation living in peace with it’s neighbours.

Whether Israel would be pushed into the sea by the Arab masses is unlikely, despite the 1973 attempt to do so. The world has mostly changed since then. It has been the Israeli settler colonial ambitions that has threatened the stability of the region. It’s turned the Palestinian into a human being that is on average younger than most other groups, having suffered hardship and loss that is incomprehensible for most other collective groups of individuals to relate with. The occupation of Palestine, and genocide of Gaza as a reaction to the 7^th October terror attacks have become accepted by the international community. Attacking Lebanon and Syria as they have in recent times, with impunity has fostered a hubris which has now led to the attacks on Iran.

For those too young to remember, over twenty years ago, the pretext to invade Iraq was based on theclaim that the regime was developing Weapons of Mass Destruction, WMD’s. It has been proven to be a false claim. Lies, blatant in many cases led to that war. It was a farce that many in the media and international institutions entertained without validating the claims made by the US government. The recent attacks on Iran have also been based on the claim that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. The irony is that if Iran or Iraq for that matter did have nukes, then they would be like North Korea, left mostly alone. When it comes to certain national governments, it does not matter whether the claims are verifiable or not, any pretext is accepted for war. They become stated facts. That is power. Raw, unchecked power.

The world can witness the mass death of people in Gaza at the hands of Israel or in the past, accepted the US mass bombings of South East Asia, then the war on Iraq which led to a decade of starvation and bombings, until out right invasion followed. It’s the assumed right of some nations to kill many people. To claim that it’s in self defence, a pre-emptive war.

The prevailing wisdom of policy wonks and their cheerleaders being that the ‘people’ in the enemy nations must suffer because the populace either voted for the pariah regime or have not over thrown it. The wisdom further declares that if a foreign power, starves and murders enough of them, then the population under attack will embrace the attacking foreign power and overthrow their domestic oppressors. It allows for the killers and their supporters to blame the victims, those dying and suffering, to remove any culpability or responsibility. War is simple. It’s reduced to basic calculations.

How much this war will expand, we shall see. There is a slow rejection of the United States and it’s endless wars. Many of it’s allies are suffering beneath debt and malaise from their own domestic policies that have weakened themselves into fragility. The US itself is roaring with as much bluster as it is might. No matter how many military parades comrade Trump orders.

Israel is not acting alone with reckless abandon, it does so with the support, agreement and the shared desires of the US. The US, as far as it’s history goes, has always found a reason to wage war. Even in the past as it’s leaders criticised imperialism, the US government invested in it’s own versions of it. The US government is fixated with the narrative of being ‘good’. The critics of US or Israeli foreign policy can’t use examples of hypocrisy or reason because the right to war for them is absolute as a religion. It is a national identity. Peace can not be. The identity for both is to conquer the frontiers and to achieve whatever beyond the horizon Utopia on Earth. But for themselves or, theirs. The US needs enemies. It requires them, invented, imagined, or real.

Unfortunately, so long as human beings, those who serve, and the masters themselves believe this to be true, then there can be no peace on earth. There is no acceptance of others, no harmony. Only the belief that good must triumph over evil. The definition of good, and evil for that matter are less about individual consequences or distinctions but instead are based on collective convictions. Therefore individuals suffer, all it comes down to is the mantra that, “we are doing evil, for a greater good. Therefore we are doing good.”Policy and self conviction is based on this.

Or, “better us than them.”

It is absent of any moral good. It’s the same self righteous ambition to conquer, destroy and subjugate that draws back into ancient times. When Alexander was decided to be Great because of his conquests. Caesar embraced as emperor and thus his name enshrined as such, Tsar, Kaiser and so on, despite the genocides he oversaw. Ghengis Khan, the greatest of the Khan’s because of the vicious ability of his warriors to kill and destroy. History glorifies these names, their reigns as great. We do not have the footage or photos of their victims and the carnage, the violence is now trapped only in ink. Even if we could see the visceral violence, it would not dissuade any from supporting, or heralding them. We know this to be true. Right now, we can peer in and see the death of war and most of us, don’t really care or, even cheer for it. And, murmur with truth, “better them than us.”

Israeli and Iranian people are now experiencing modern war. As much as their governments and the profiteers of war promised their protection, the missiles and drones still got through. The Iron Dome and many other incarnations of air defence are as valid as Herman Goering’s promise that no enemy bomber will bomb the Reich. Alas, as was the case then, the bomber indeed did get through. So shall the missiles and drones. And, the civilians die even despite the promises of protection from the governments which created the circumstances for war. The ‘bomber’ shall always get through. Civilians die.

The US has supported Israel with intelligence, air defence and arms for the attack on Iran. Ukraine missed out on allocated weapon systems which were instead sent to Israel in anticipation for the attack. Just as South Vietnam missed out on crucial supplies in 1973 that were then diverted to Israel, the Ukrainians discover who the most favoured nation for the US is. The genocide in Gaza would be impossible if not for US weapons and ammunition, and the war on Iran would be impossible without the US desire to wage it.

One day, the academics, scientists, war masters and political elites embolden by the countless nationalists and welfare dependent will watch the world burn thanks to the governments they do rely on and love. In a colossal series of atomic blasts. If there is any great lesson to be learned from humanity is that it’s never enough. And war, is the testament to that declaration, it’s never enough. It can’t end because we have never had enough of war. Even if it leads to a bitter end, because even then it will be never enough.

God Save The King!

It’s a public holiday and that is enough for many of his subjects to rejoice for. The magical exuberance and privilege to have a sitting regent, whose majestic reign stabs back to times when warlords, bandits and pirates took land, rallied warriors and pillaged the land until they themselves realised that the real booty and bounty is to be found in the permanency of government. Taxation. And, the God granted right to rule, to subjugate the peasantry. To bless useful and otherwise wealthy men as lords, to own populations, as slave, serf and then in time citizen subject. To codify rule into laws, bound in tradition and entwined in uncommon language, legalese and Latin sounds smarter, to own others, with the mystic writ granted to man by God.

God Save the King, even the atheists of state cheer.

The welfare state perhaps saved the Crown. It’s an easy remark to call royalty themselves, welfare queens, but the worlds fetish for sovereign extravagance and the ever evolving traditions that marry religion-state-privilege seems universal. The Royal Family, inc do in fact cost the tax payer and government a lot of money. They also generate it. As landholders, they are able to tax tenants, but they also bring in tourist dollars and make money from royalties, no pun, and merchandising. The mob seem to love them, even if at times they sneer, “he’s not my king’ oh but how they worship the government by which he sits upon, even as a symbol.

King Charles III, formerly Prince Charles, Lady Diana’s cheating husband is not as revered as his dear mother was. It’s hard for spoiled boy kings to be as appealing as their dear old mothers. Elizabeth II and Victoria, ruled for long periods over important eras in British history. Victoria’s reign was at the height of empire, she could look out her window to see no sun setting over her dominion, it is said that 25 percent of the planet was bathed in the pink ink of the British Empire. Her empire. It was an age defined for her namesake. Victorian Era. The Queen ever in black, mourning the loss of her dear Albert. A woman of prudish traits, who exemplified the majesty that only her position could afford. She was empress, prime ministers wrote to her affectionately, foreign leaders could her mother or aunt, she was the mother of imperial dominance.

In her time, pretty little Elizabeth II became queen while the British Empire was in decline. Having barely survived the second world war, and scandals pertaining to the family, the Royals had a new regent. The House of Windsor in the previous war, lost it’s German name, marriage to an American commoner and peace feelers with the Nazi’s all converged to sour the once revered family. In the age of democratic socialism, the NHS and welfare became as much a focus of government as holding onto parts of empire.

Britain rebuilt itself into a command economy, based on the principles of Keynes and war time austerity-planning, was there room for the Empire? The Cold War and insatiable hunger of the welfare state meant that some colonies needed to be kept. You see, these great empires need to steal and plunder the resources of foreign lands in order to maintain their welfare policies. Public education and health is only affordable so long as Malaya and Kenya are robbed. The modern French state is a master at this balancing act, keeping a form of economic empire while satiating the gorged neosocialism at home.

But alas, the colonies became dominions, independent and members of the Commonwealth. British managers and bureaucrats from the civil services helped to steer and guide some into nationhood, while others crumbled into wars of independence. Turns out when Europeans invent nations on a map, arbitrarily the traditional borders soon bludgeon into violent realisation. Elizabeth II reigned over this period, watching her empire decline. Then her nation fumbled into economic ruination. Post War debt to the former colonies of North America, and with a decline in aviation, automobiles, machines and weapon manufacturing. The once mighty industrial bastion became a basket case that only central planning and mass dependency could invigorate. God Save the Queen, for she represented a dignity of a before time. Labours winter of discontent, garbage in the streets, then Thatcherism and the glory of reclaiming the Falklands gave the UK a reprieve for British pride and the dignity of royals.

The rise of the Murdoch press ensured that the establishment and upper toffs were not above reporting. Their dirty laundry and scandals were all public fodder. Advertiser friendly for papers and magazines. Then the shining smile of Lady Diana bought in the tabloid gorged public into the loving fold of the Royals. A return to tradition, a fairy tale. Happy Ever After. Until years later the paparazzi chase Diana into a speeding tunnel, killing her. To live and die by the tabloids.

Lady Diana, Prince Charles had selected wisely. He picked his then underage future wife with devious intentions of making her a Princess. Turns out, for Lady Spencer, it was not a Disney ending despite many attempts at making such a life appealing. The couple adorned magazine covers, just like a Disney poster, one with wide Dumbo ears, the other wearing the pretty pearls of royalty beneath a smile of practised insincerity, the deceit of public navigation. Like a bulimic who pretends to digest, the dear princess understood the need for deception before the public.

It was true love.

Except that true love for our dear prince was another man’s wife. His former teen sweetheart, Camilla Parker Bowles. There is no doubt that they truly love one another, he even once proclaimed his want of being her tampon. The obligation and privilege of royalty meant that their love was denied. True love, was too powerful and despite the contract obligated by the very laws that his rule validates, they betrayed the mythic and magical vows made inside the church that he is the figurehead of. And, love prevailed. Rather human, common even.

Instead of loving them for their love, at risk of exposing the charade of the royal and public good, the then future king was seen as a villain. Lady Diana, the victim. It was with her unfortunate death in 1997 that she achieved a very public martyrdom. A death that the royal family fumbled with their public relations, further harming the brand a little more. Charles invested himself as a father, a lover to Lady Camilla and spokesman to many causes. The tradition of royalty for many is a going through the motions of obligation, a burden of habit. The affection for Elizabeth II and even the late Lady Diana are no longer present, hope was once invested in the prince’s Henry and William now less adored than they once were. Thanks in part to their marriage selections and the public perceptions of them as men, being Mummy boys and all that. Which strangely seems to be a common feature for modern British Kings.

Her Royal Highness, Elizabeth II reigned when Sir Jimmy Savile, rapist and paedophile Knight was at their royal service, it can be reasoned and rationalised that Royals never knew. But, many did know and because of such a man’s fame and public esteem, he was kept dearly protected. Protected by the very public health system, broadcaster and police that have mandated that they are the monopoly of the land. Protected by the British government and due to his closeness with Charles and Diana, by the Royal Family. The truth of power is encapsulated inside of this scandal, as depicted by this one vile man and his many victims.

The establishment, that which needs the common person to validate all it’s power, will trample and disregard the common person not only to retain power but to avoid a slant against it’s credibility. In doing so, it has no credibility. But as an employer, a welfare feeder and with the magic of tradition, reputation and credibility does not matter.

Sir Jimmy became an adviser of sorts. Not as a jester, rather as a high court degenerate in chief.

He helped them with public spin, guided them with charm and how to navigate the fickleness of the mob. He was able to raise money for charity. He did this well and for all of his viscous acts, their seems to be a part of him that sought redemption through deed. The Janus mask of his persona, a conflict between a darkness of degenerate rape and sexual violence, balanced by the philanthropic energies, a light, to help many in need. Because of this greater good reasoning, the intimate turmoil and misery of his victims became hushed out of any public light, the light of his good deeds illuminated upon them with dismissive indignity. Such is power. Such is government. Such is the divine right to rule.

Just like royal family confidant Savile, the Duke of York, Prince Andrew, also likes them young. A man who has his own indulgent tastes, how young and how consenting some were, we are yet to know. Regardless, it’s a very royal thing. The modern world and the confused nature of what is moral and what is not, muddies the waters when viewed through the historical lenses of nostalgic glory. The Kings and the aristocracy of the past were indeed far more degenerate and vile actors. It seems that the modern inheritors are merely abiding in the tradition that they are known for, loved for. The Epstein files, a well known list of public people who may have indulged in the rape or sex acts that could compromise their reputations, includes the Duke of York who has somewhat been cancelled by the family. The Duke was a bonafide hero during the Falklands, flying combat and rescue missions as a helicopter pilot, what glory he may have gained then, remains in the 20^th century, where it once mattered.

In the past, the inventor of the Christian sect known as Anglicanism, King Henry 8^th, had his own particular tastes and ambitions to breed. It was his right. He famously had his six wives, a morbid series of abuse and state sanctioned murder-divorce enshrined him into greatness. He became the head of a nationalised church, could do as he pleased in so far as how marriage and relations went and God, his God, was fine with it all. The morality is in the writ of law, and the religion becomes credible once time and enough followers accumulate. The victims of such a man and his killers, rapists, buried beneath the legalese and legacy of time. His perverse thrusts into royal victims, sanctioned, thus moral, because he is the King.

Scandals are rife among those who live in public life, even before the internet and smart phones, some incidents were recorded and spread among the court and to the common folk. Public brawls like that between King George III and his then drunk playboy son, or the alleged lesbian affair between Queen Anne and Sarah Churchill. King George V’s son being a murder suspect or the murder scandals that reach back hundreds of years. The Royal’s are human beings but through the belief of the common person they are granted a magical lifestyle than transcends anything common. The problem is not in the King or the many Royals, but in the people who make them that. From the guards who are disciplined into robotic discipline, obeying customs of absurd martial tradition that it’s adored because it is a military form. Or the many officials, whether they believe or not, make sure that the government and the Royalty functions, or retains existence. While you may not need the King, he sure needs you. Because you, keep him and others like him on that throne.

I was a guest alongside Rabbi Dovid Feldman and Dr. Zachary Foster to discuss the true nature of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

On May 15, I joined Alana Newman in an X Space as a guest speaker alongside Rabbi Dovid Feldman and historian Dr. Zachary Foster. The discussion has since been published as an episode of Newman’s podcast The Speaker Salon, so you can listen here:

Newman explained how she had always avoided this topic but was prompted to learn more about it by my free e-book A Brief History of Palestine: From Canaan through the Mandate Era, which dispels popular Zionist myths aiming to deny the Palestinians’ own ancient historical connection to the land.

First up was Rabbi Feldman from the Orthodox Jewish organization Neturei Karta. He explained exquisitely the critical distinction between Judaism and Zionism and why the secular political movement of Zionism is anathema to Judaism, and why equating anti-Zionism with “anti-Semitism” is perverse.

Indeed, from Rabbi Feldman’s perspective, Zionism is heretical—and while I have no religious beliefs myself, as someone who has studied the Hebrew Tanakh (the Christian “Old Testament”), I completely concur with the theological underpinnings of that argument.

Indeed, this is something I have been pointing out for many years with respect to the malevolent influence of Christian Zionism.

• Woe to you, Christian Zionists, hypocrites!
• Interview: The Peculiar Alliance Between Christian Zionism and Israel
• To End the Israel-Palestine Conflict, End Christian Zionism

Dr. Foster next explained how he was raised in a Zionist family but became unsettled once realizing that “the core tenet of the Zionist program was replacing Arabs with Jews”, which he felt was a project “born in sin.”

He talked about how Israel was created through ethnic cleansing and is now perpetrating genocide in Gaza, along with covering a broad range of critical background knowledge for understanding the conflict’s true nature.

During my turn in “the hot seat”, as Newman put it, I reiterated the point that Israel’s US-backed crimes against the Palestinians include war crimes and the crimes against humanity of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and now genocide.

• Benny Morris’s Untenable Denial of the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
• ICJ Hears Arguments on Illegality of Israel’s Occupation
• ICJ Declares Israel’s Occupation Illegal
• Interview: The ICJ Ruling on the Illegality of Israel’s Occupation

I explained how a ceasefire had finally been reached between Israel and Hamas earlier this year, but US President Donald Trump encouraged Israel to violate it and resume its genocide, so that’s exactly what Israel did.

• How Trump Approved the Resumption of Israel’s Gaza Genocide

I was next asked about the US “war on terrorism”, so I explained how it ties into the Palestine conflict and, indeed, how it was my inquiries into 9/11 that got me started doing journalism and led to my primary focus being this land struggle in the Middle East.

Next, I explained the requirements of international humanitarian law with respect to protections of civilian persons and objects, and how Israel systematically violates this body of law with intentionally indiscriminate attacks.

Later in the discussion, I covered some of the popular myths about the conflict that I debunked in my book Obstacle to Peace: The US Role in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, such as the myth that the UN created Israel.

I elucidated the critical distinction between the “two-state solution” grounded in the applicability of international law to the conflict and the alternative goal of the US-led so-called “peace process”.

As well, I provided examples from the New York Times about how the mainstream media deceive the American public, serving the propaganda function of manufacturing consent of the US government’s support for Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians.

Listen to the full conversation using the audio player above!

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