RANT: STRAITEN UP AND FLY RIGHT, AMERICA!

   

Hotel Burgenstock Luceren, Switzerland

YOU KNOW HOW IT IS when you think—watching Trump’s clown car of state beetling off a cliff—you say, heck, I could run the U.S. better than the incompetent current occupant of the White House. In fact, I offer my services—free of charge—to our great neighbour to the south, hoping my lack of citizenship and experience managing anything larger than my pocketbook will be overlooked. So, we’ll see how that goes.

BUT ON AN EVEN MORE RIDICULOUS NOTE, President Trump has once more claimed a peace deal with Iran is imminent, with just some final touches to be ironed out. Great! The price of oil falls and the stock market rises with news of an end to hostilities and a promised return to business as usual. Again. Dear reader, if Trump’s latest pronouncement gives you whiplash and a case of déjà vu, join the crowd. We’ve heard all this from the American president before, thirty-eight times before, as a matter of fact, since the Iran war reignited on February 28, this year. Only scammers and leeches on Wall Street pay any attention to The Donald’s divinations; they know it’s a con and they do their damndest to profit from the presidential pearls of wisdom as they ride to riches on the stock market’s up and down fluctuations. Moneymoneymoney! Most normal people ignore Trumpian proclamations like elevator music or those squeegee-wielding pedlars patrolling our summertime crosswalks and stoplights.

👉BUT what a difference these last few days make! Peace talks in Islamabad between the Americans and Iranians have borne fruit with the June 17 signing of an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) initiating the start of peace talks to resolve the American/Israeli-Iranian War. We must remember that an MoU is not a treaty, nor is it a ceasefire. It is a diplomatic note allowing a respite from attacks by either side for a sixty-day period while the hard work of finalizing a “deal” the Americans can live with, without having to eat too much crow, and one that the Iranians can trust. Not an easy bridge to build, I must say.

There are fourteen points to the document, with particularly thorny issues to be resolved that include the closing American bases in the Gulf states fronting Iran across the Persian Gulf (most were evacuated and subsequently destroyed by Iranian missiles in the early weeks of the war following the February 28 launch of hostilities by U.S. and Israeli forces). There are negotiations around compensation to Iran for damages it incurred during the 110 days of the conflict as well as the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to maritime traffic. Iran will end its blockade* in tandem with America removing its blockade of Iranian shipping. Point One of the MoU is the most difficult needle to thread, namely Iran’s insistence that cessation of hostilities "on all fronts” including Lebanon.

RECALL that Israel has been waging an illegal war of aggression against Hezbollah, the chief militia in Lebanon challenging Israeli aggression that seeks to absorb about one-fifth of the country into “Greater Israel”. Hezbollah acts to defend Lebanese territory because the Lebanese army and government have been mostly neutered by Israel and the United States. Hezbollah is an Iranian ally and the MoU, signed “remotely” on Wednesday by the American and Iranian presidents, stipulates Israel must cease and desist and withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon. President Trump had digitally inked his approval (pending final negotiations) that is diametrically opposed by Israel that wishes to continue its conquest of southern Lebanon unabated. Iran has stated continued Israeli attacks on Hezbollah means the slow-walk of peace talks convening in Switzerland and the closing of the Straits of Hormuz.¹  

Israel does not want there to be a successful treaty ending hostilities between the United States and Iran, that much is obvious by Friday’s bombing of Lebanon which claimed almost thirty lives. Israel will do its best to wreck the talks and force the Americans to restart the war. I was surprised by the welcome news of serious negotiations (the U.S. State Department has sent 300 diplomats, intelligence officials, and technical experts to talks scheduled to begin on Friday.² Iran will send seventy. Point being, that all the necessary personnel will be available to craft the MoU’s goals into a working treaty. Vice President Vance will head up the American delegation.

👉Trump, for his part, must put pressure on the Netanyahu government to stand down. We’ll see who blinks first in their pissing contest. If Trump does not get a deal and the Straits remain hopelessly choked off, Americans will see dramatic price rises in gasoline and other goods. The pain caused by a shuttered Hormuz Strait will trigger a global recession, possibly even a depression along the lines of the one experienced during the 1930s. Will Trump grow a pair and use the very real influence he has over Israel—withholding financial, military and diplomatic supports without which Israel could not conduct its wars of aggression—and curb the pariah state’s  military adventures in the Levant? Israel is the wild card in all this. Note that the MoU is between the United States and Iran. Not Israel. There is some suggestion that Netanyahu was caught flat-footed by the MoU’s fourteen-point proposed treaty plan and Trump signing off on it. Thus far Israel does not seem inclined to stop its aggression in Lebanon and elsewhere. But, we’ll see what the next few days will bring.

 

THIS IS INTERESTING: Recall two, three months ago the major talking points of mainstream pundits and from the Trump administration was of Iran signing onto a new nuclear deal, giving up its stockpile of enriched uranium and cancelling its nuclear programs, both civilian and military. Or else! Next in line was limits on Iran’s missile holdings. They must comply! Lots of strum und drang around these two.  Now, the focus is on reopening the Straits of Hormuz and getting oil and other commodities to market a.s.a.p. Because of its blockade, Iran has found the leverage to take the Americans down a peg or two and compel the superpower to reach a negotiated settlement, one that Iran can live with. Seemingly, Iran’s blockade of the Straits, with its global ramifications looming ever-larger “concentrates the mind” of the American president, “wonderfully.”     

👉ON Thursday, complying with the MoU, the American blockade of Iranian shipping was lifted.

👉ON Friday Iran announced it would lift fees for ships passing through the Straits for the duration of the 60-day negotiation cycle which was due to start on Friday.³

  

👉[UPDATE: As of this writing the initial meeting between American and Iranian delegates has taken place on Sunday in Lucerne, Switzerland. The American delegation was headed by VP Vance, but for some reason the dynamic duo of Kushner and Witkoff were included as part of the U.S. team. These two bozos have failed at every diplomatic mission they've been on, and the Iranians don't trust them; recall last June how the "Twelve Day War" was launched just as peace negotiations with Witkoff and Kushner were taking place in a transparent bid to 'sucker punch' the Iranians. 

ADDITIONALLY, there is some confusion as to whether the Hormuz Strait is open or not. They were closed, apparently by Iran, as a consequence of Israel's continuing bombardments in Lebanon. Will Israeli war-making scuttle the talks? After all, Iran has demanded Israel cease and desist it's aggressions against Lebanon's Hezbollah militia as well as against the Iranian homeland. Of course, Trump tweets his usual threats, blahblahblah, so we'll wait and see if round two of the talks will continue as scheduled.]

  

👉IT'S not yet time for popping champagne corks, not by a long shot. Let’s hope all this dancing around the negotiating table is just political jitters and doesn’t turn into a zero-sum game of musical chairs. Buckle the fuck up, people!

 

 

FROM THE FILES OF "CARNIVAL TIMES"--

THE EVER-P0PULAR COLUMN “I DON’T BELIEVE

WHAT I JUST READ!”👇

 

HERE’S SOMETHING that should give all of us pause: Recent statements by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich:

“With all due respect to the Americans, Israel must make it clear to the entire world that the blood of our sons and the security of our citizens are not forfeit. All of Lebanon must burn,” he wrote.

“Our supreme duty is to protect the citizens of Israel and the soldiers of the IDF, and this commitment takes precedence over every other consideration,” he added.

Ben-Gvir noted he had conveyed his position directly to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “I told the Prime Minister, even in our private meetings: For every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep.”

Calling for a harsher attack, he added that in the Middle East it was necessary to “go berserk. To obliterate. To crush the terror.”

Another extremist minister, Bezalel Smotrich, wrote on X, “A tough morning... Time to speak with fire. To open the gates of hell.”

 

THE TWO ARE MEMBERS of the Israeli government. Their language is beyond the pale of reasoned, political discourse and is immersed in the language, tropes and emotionalism of fascism. One could easily imagine such words atop the gates at Auschwitz. They are part of the Israeli cabinet which leads a government whose military possesses nuclear weapons. With such statesmen at the helm, what could possibly go wrong?

 

CHEERS, JAKE. __________________________ 

* THERE ARE numerous states that have already negotiated (i.e. paid Iran toll fees to use the Strait; still, there is a major backlog of ships yet to transit the vital chokepoint.

1. Point One of the MoU presumes America will curb its ‘attack dog’ in West Asia (Middle East) and bring Israel to heel. It remains to be seen whether Trump has the cojones to stand up to Netanyahu and the Israeli lobby in the United States (and perhaps the threat of incriminating Epstein files being released which may be in the possession of Israel’s Mossad or deep state operators in the U.S.).

2. I told you so, I told you so… The Swiss talks have been postponed ostensively due to scheduling issues with VP Vance but more likely because of Israel’s continued bombing of southern Lebanon after Wednesday’s digital inking of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) by President Trump and Iran's president, Masoud Pezeshkian. Netanyahu, for his part, refuses to pull his troops out of Lebanon and vows to continue what critics are calling his ‘Gazafication’ of Lebanese villages south of the Litani River. Iran postponed sending its delegation to Switzerland, likely in response to the on-going aggression perpetuated by the IDF (Israeli Defence Force).  As stated in the above👆 UPDATE, the opening session of peace talks in Switzerland were held on Sunday.       

3. Personally, I think Iran is lifting its foot off the American neck prematurely. A growing oil-shortage crisis that will become obvious even to the most oblivious Western government, including the United States, will be hitting hard this fall. NatGas shortages, high prices at the pump, lower farm yields (from a lack of fossil fuel feedstocks for fertilizers and pesticides), issues with computer chip manufacturing because of a lack of Persian Gulf helium (Helium!? Who knew?) along with global manufacturing, shipping, and supply chains that will all be affected by the outcome of the Swiss talks. The looming crises may encourage the American president to make a deal with Iran, pronto. How long the talks will take, is anyone’s guess. 

 

 

 

NEWS OF THE WORLD: BITS AND BITES FOR THE NEW YEAR

  

👉FOR SOME TIME NOW, most of us have come to the realization that the American president, Donald Trump, is either demented or senile or both. He has become, in a remarkably short time, an emperor with no clothes; butt-naked, self-absorbed, capricious, whose ire is easily aroused against friend and foe alike. It's quite possible that Trump is not his own man and is beholden to donors, or members of the deep state, or the MIC (Military-Industrial Complex). His uncompromising support of Israel, clearly guilty of war crimes and genocide, seems inexplicable unless you assume there’s some “compromat” about, perhaps beach-blanket-bingo pics from Epstein Isle that found their way into the hands of Israeli security services. Who knows?

His kooky trade policies: sanctions on again, off again. Most recently, because Carney seemed to criticize him in Davos (he did) the day before he came and delivered his usual rambling, cranky, talking points, now he's “decertified” several types of Bombardier business-class jets to get even. (Maybe he was pissed that Carney got a standing ovation and he received only sparce applause?) We'll see where this goes. His domestic clusterfuck around his ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) brownshirts officers killing innocent American citizens while searching for illegal immigrants in Minneapolis is eroding support among younger voters. As is his criminal support for the beyond-the-pale administration of “Bibi” Netanyahu as the prime minister of Israel conducts a genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza before the eyes of the world.

BTW, young people are fleeing TikTok, now that it’s been bought by Zionist billionaire Larry Ellison and coverage of cute kittens dancing competes with tips on how to tighten one’s derriere. Under thirty-fives are finding other venues and platforms to gather news of the world, like the latest from Gaza and other crimes scenes.

What will happen in the next while around Venezuela? Greenland? Canada? Will Trump continue half-heartedly supporting Zelensky or drop him like a hot potato? And what about the New START arms limitation treaty which ends in five days?! Will Trump renew it for a year while the U.S. and Russia negotiate a new one? I doubt it, and that may be another sign he is not his own man and bows to behind-the-scenes pressures. Will TACO Trump launch an attack on Iran even with the danger of a major Iranian response against American bases in the region and Israel? Can Israel survive an all-out missile and drone attack from Iran? Will it resort to nuclear weapons if it appears it is losing? It's quite possible. And then the world will change in ways we can’t yet apprehend. 

So, stop fucking around Mr. TACO! Man-up and do what is necessary to end this dangerous sabre-rattling. There’s already enough blood spilled on your watch.

Screw it for now. A hit of Soma, the latest feelie, and I'm right as rain.

 

👉AT THE DAVOS CONFAB earlier this month, Canada’s PM, Mark Carney, gave a memorable speech that went viral a couple of weeks ago. I know what many of you are thinking: ‘Jake, how can you say with a straight face that a Canadian politician could give a speech that was in any way memorable?’ True enough, dear readers. So, it goes without saying that I was more than a little surprised when our Prime Minister laid bare in Davos a couple of whopping truths rarely spoken by Western politicians and their hangers-on. His speech came after months of roiling and thrashing about on the part of the American president, with buckets venom upended on his neighbours, friends and foes. Including Canada. Carney’s Davos debut (as Canadian PM) came after a career in finance (at the giant, “vampire-squid” investment bank, Goldman-Sachs), and serving as head of both Canada’s and England’s central banks. On 23 April 2025 he was installed as Canada’s twenty-fourth Prime Minister, following Justin Trudeau’s departure from politics in late January 2025.

 

FUN FACT: Originally, in the mid-Twentieth Century, during the Cold War, global economies were divided into the ‘First World’, composed of democratic, capitalist, industrialized NATO countries aligned with the United States; the ‘Second World’ was composed of the USSR, other communist countries, and Warsaw Pact countries aligned with the USSR; and the ‘Third World’ originally referred to non-aligned countries that were members of neither bloc. Today, the ‘Third World’ usually refers to impoverished and mostly Global South countries. 

 

MARK CARNEY IS NO RADICAL—he’s very much an ‘insider’, an elite member in the globalist, neo-liberal, IMF, World Bank, de-industrialism, financialization, free trade, post-WWII economic order. He’s a banker; he doesn’t want to tear down the system that, for decades, benefited ‘First World’ countries and their elites. Yet, his Davos speech, in which he said the world order was entering a “rupture” with the past, was interesting because he said the quiet part out loud to an audience of his peers. He said the system, also dubbed the “rules-based international order” is no longer working. Instead, “Great Power” rivalry, where the use of military force and economic sanctions has eroded the fiction that Western governments, particularly the United States (though Carney doesn’t mention it by name), all act in accordance with international law or promote rules that facilitate trade and regulate interactions between countries in a fair and equitable manner.😆

CARNEY SAID it had all been a lie—that we were not the ‘good guys’, that actions taken by powerful nations against weaker ones were not done because they were upholding “democracy” or “freedom” or “good governance”. They were done to advance Great Power dominance, period, and operated less from United Nations’ principles and international laws than from rules made by stronger nations for their own benefit. It was a convenient and profitable fiction for the countries promoting it, including nations within the hegemon's orbit.

 

THAT FICTION Carney ripped away, leaving the ugly scar exposed for all to see. The PM stated, bluntly, that everyone knew* the ‘rules based international order’ was a fiction but we went along with it because we benefited, were made rich by it. We rode the coattails of the United States for decades, “comfortably numb” to how often America’s actions benefited us at the expense of blood and treasure levied against other nations. Trump’s actions in the first year of his second presidency exposes the hypocrisy so evident in the West’s preeminent nation—that it wasn’t a good-faith actor abiding by rules along with the rest of us.

Carney said that we in the West promoted the lie when we claimed we believed in the so-called rules-based international order. We didn’t, actually, but we went along with the masquerade. The Prime Minister made his Davos speech at a time when it's becoming clear that the United States no longer wishes to pretend it abides by international laws when they prove inconvenient. As a global hegemon since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States uses military force, sanctioning and coercion against whomever it considers an enemy or peer competitor. Even countries once considered allies are now being targeted with sanctions or by threats of invasion or by other coercive methods. 

Since he’s returned to office, Trump has taunted Canada about becoming the fifty-first state. His actions vis-à-vis Venezuela and potential actions against Greenland no doubt convinced Carney that Canada needs to diversify its trading networks and to form new alliances and not be so dependant on the US market. In his speech, he said middle-powers like Canada need to come together with other middle-powers to push back, or better weather the times when hegemons, old and new, begin using their power untempered by law, rule or morality.

 

“We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.” (Joseph Goebbels Stephen Miller, White House Deputy Chief of Staff. CNN interview, with Jake Tapper 3 January 2025.)

 

AND IF ANYONE THINKS the above quote is hyperbolic and not representative of the Trump administration or of Trump himself, think again. Listen to what Trump himself has been saying about acquiring Greenland, “the easy way or the hard way,” to name just one piece of real estate the president is interested in adding to his portfolio. He sounds like he’s channeling Don Corleone these days more than anything else. So, keep your head down and don’t fly your kite in stormy weather.¹

 

👉RECALL the case of Montrealer, Eves Engler—political activist, author, and recent NDP leadership candidate who, in 2025, was charged with “harassment” of the pro-Israel social media influencer, Dahlia Kurtz, and spent five days in jail while the charges were processed. The complaint stemmed from Engler’s social media replies to Kurtz’s posts on X, some months prior to his arrest. Kurtz is a rabid Israeli apologist and Engler challenged her assertions by replying to some of her posts. He says: “I’ve had no other interaction with Dahlia Kurtz in my life except for responding to her anti-Palestinian and pro-genocide messages on X.” (Rabble.ca) He was told by the arresting officer he would be granted bail with the stipulation he does not write about police actions in his case, a requirement both Engler and his lawyer rejected. He was released on bail after a few days. Subsequently, he wrote posts critical of the police in their zeal to defend Kurtz’s right to publish pro-Israel posts while denying Engler’s right to challenge her positions. 

 

His supporters started a letter writing campaign after Engler suggested in his blog one be started for which he was charged with “harassment” of the arresting officer who received about two-thousand emails supporting Engler. The officer complained that having to deal with so many emails limited her ability to perform other police duties. [Set up an email filter. Easypeasy. Ed.] He was subsequently charged with four offences including “intimidation” of the snowflake officer in question. IIUC, he was found guilty and has an upcoming sentencing date in April.

This is an example of “lawfare” used by the state to intimidate and silence critics, especially critics of Israel and its Hasbara minions in Canada like Kurtz. If Yves receives anything more than a slap on the wrist or a small fine, it will be obvious that the government is trying to silence his voice and that censorship is alive and well in Canada. Who’s next? Keep your eyes open, folks.   

 

👉BITE OF GOOD NEWS: The Appeals Court of Canada ruled the Trudeau government’s use of the Emergencies Act in February 2022 to break up the “Freedom Convoy” trucker protests in Ottawa and several key border towns infringed on protestor’s Charter rights. Three Court of Appeals Justices agreed with Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley² in his earlier ruling that the threat posed by the protestors did not rise to a level that warranted the federal government’s invocation the Emergencies Act. [That’s the updated version of the War Measures Act, invoked by Trudeau senior in 1970 during the “October Crisis”. The Emergencies Act (1988) had never been used before young Justin wielded it to batter the protesting truckers. Ed]. The federal government appealed Justice Mosley’s ruling and on 23 January 2026 the Appeals Court upheld Mosley’s ruling.

 

The Emergencies Act’s purpose is to give a range of additional powers to the federal government in situations that, “cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.” It may be invoked when “an emergency arises from threats to the security of Canada that is so serious as to be a national emergency.” The Act uses the CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) definition of a serious threat “which includes serious violence against persons or property, espionage, foreign interference or an intent to overthrow the government by violence.” Hardly the characteristics of the Ottawa protests. Though they were unruly, noisy and disruptive, the Federal Court of Appeals upheld the lower court ruling that the protests fell well short of a threat to national security and should have been dealt with through regular policing and laws.

   

CHEERS, JAKE. _____________________________________

 

* Perhaps I’m being unfair. Given the thick swamp of propaganda that Western publics are forced to wade through, particularly since 2001, it is understandable that most people still swallow the mainstream pap fed to them 24/7. Politicians, military leaders, academics, analysts, etc., should  know better, and Carney is saying most do know the “rules-based international order” story was hooey, but they went along to get along. Carney says the lies we told ourselves and the world—endlessly! —that we were the good guys, that it was those evil [take your pick] doing bad things to their populations, to other countries etc., that those lies hid the truth: It was Great Power machinations and little fish devilry that roiled beneath the fiction of international laws that prove inconvenient and vexatious to hegemons. 

The powerful accept the rule of law when it favours them. And they ignore it when it doesn’t. Now, it seems, the United States no longer needs to use such fictions, or excuses, couching their real-politic actions as “defending democracy” or some other vacuous and meaningless trope. For example, Trump says he wants Greenland because it is “necessary for U.S. security”, period. Never mind that its part of Denmark, a NATO ally. And never mind that Denmark would welcome any additional American bases or investments in Greenland.

 

👉SO here we are today with institutions, laws, agreements, treaties, legal processes fair and unbiased and, most recently, laws guaranteeing the sovereignty of nations (Gaza, Venezuela, Greenland, Canada?), that are being shredded by the country that once exemplified and promoted the rule of law and unbiased, international ‘rules of the road’ for all. It’s a sorry state of affairs, I’m sure you’ll agree.

 

1. Critics of Carney's speech call it hypocritical because it’s only now, when Canada is 'on the menu', that he speaks out, denouncing the system that for decades Canadians and other Western sycophants benefited from, with our obsequiousness before the hegemon’s court extending to the unwritten rule never to speak about the emperor and the fact he has no clothes.

A further criticism of Carney is his solution to defend against our great neighbour to the south—that other middle-powers need to act in concert to push back or soften the harms done, but keeping intact the visibly failing system of late-stage capitalism, with all its inequities, instead of looking for other ways to organize our economies and our foreign and domestic affairs. Nevertheless, the first half of Carney’s Davos speech came as something akin to a breath of fresh air. Stay tuned.🙋

 

2. The legal advocacy group, Canadian Constitution Foundation took the government to court. The case was heard by Justice Mosley who ruled in 23 January 2024 that the government failed to provide convincing arguments the trucker protests were a threat to Canadian security, and that its actions to shut down and remove trucks outside Parliament Hill, and in particular the freezing of protestors’ and supporters’ bank accounts in order to break the blockades, was an overreach by the government and unlawful. The government subsequently appealed the decision, but the Federal Court of Appeals upheld Justice Mosey’s ruling last week.

 

 

 

 

 

NoW UPDATES: GAZA: YES, VIRGINIA, IT REALLY IS A GENOCIDE: STAGE THREE

 

IN A HEARTFELT INTERVIEW (at the 1:02 mark of the YouTube podcast) on Monday with Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal, Lt. Col. Anthony Aguilar (Ret.) discusses why he became a whistleblower and reveals how the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) is complicit in war crimes in the Gaza Strip. Aguilar, a 25-year combat veteran and Green Beret with the American military, who had worked for GHF since late May, said Gaza was like nothing he’d ever seen in all his deployments to war zones in Iraq, Afghanistan, Jordon and elsewhere. He said that the former ISIS stronghold of Mosul in northern Iraq, a city that had been mostly destroyed by Russian and American bombardments, even it still had remnants of a functioning civic and social “life” available to its remaining population.  

Not so in Gaza, Aguilar points out, where the links and nodes making for a viable society, from farmland and orchards to apartment buildings, hospitals, schools, pubic buildings, mosques, churches, businesses, power stations, roads, water and sewage facilities, even graveyards*, have been systematically turned to rubble by the IDF (Israeli Defence Force), forcing most of the 2.1-million Palestinian inhabitants to live in tents or out in the open, with only four GHF distribution sites currently operating to provide them with food where, in the past, there had been four-hundred aid centers run by UNRWA.¹

The deaths from starvation we have witnessed these past months have increased with grim frequency in recent weeks and are now daily occurrences. And the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is woefully inadequate in addressing the humanitarian crisis. But then, it was never meant to provide Gazans with food aid and humanitarian supplies commensurate with their needs. Its inability to even remotely supply Palestinians with their basic needs is not a failure of the system. Rather, it is a feature.

 

Aguilar soon realized he was witnessing the weaponizing of aid in the guise of so-called ‘humanitarian’ assistance, the protocols of which Google’s AI helpfully summarizes as: “…a set of principles and guidelines that govern the delivery of aid during crises, ensuring it is delivered effectively, impartially, and with respect for human dignity.” [It seems even a set of algorithms has more empathy and respect for human life than GHF and its site-boss subsidiaries UG Solutions and Safe Reach Solutions!²  Just sayin’. Ed]

 

👉I REFER the reader to a study I posted earlier by Israeli academic Yaakov Garb, here, that analyzes the physical layout of the GHF aid sites and concludes they were designed for military purposes and crowd control, not for humanitarian aid services. For example, Aguilar noted that all the sites have CCTV cameras stationed around the perimeter to monitor the crowds with one camera per site dedicated to collecting facial recognition data on Palestinians accessing the aid centres. Early on, he was puzzled by how narrow the entrance was to the food distribution  arena, funneling Gazans, as it did, into a narrow band that allowed through only one person at a time. He thought it was inefficient and stressful to the hungry crowds waiting in line. Then he noticed how the camera recording facial recognition scans was pointed at the receiving entrance where people's faces were momentarily framed, making for clearer identification of each  and every Palestinian as they entered. Thus, the physical layout of the aid centers, recalling the Garb study, is neither effective, impartial (how many will be screened and deemed ineligible for aid in such a system?), nor is it respectful for “human dignity”. Not by a long shot! The aid sites are designed to serve the needs of the Israeli military. 

 

IN ADDITION, Aguilar was puzzled by the size of one GHF aid centre near Rafah. The footprint of the place was so large that all the GHF sites could be put inside its borders with room to spare. He discussed this with co-workers and concluded it was to be the location of the first “concentration camp” that would eventually hold several hundred-thousand Palestinians who must enter the camp to get food, but are not allowed to leave (unless they leave Palestine altogether). The rest must either live out their lives behind barbed wire, monitored 24/7 with hi-tech screening and guarded by thousands of IDF troops and mercenaries civilian contractors, or else they must die. 

👉Aguilar calls the evolving Rafah camp system as "Stage Three". The first stage was the destruction of Gaza's infrastructure. (Only Gaza City remains mostly intact with Israel recently calling up 60,000 reservists to lay seige to it.) The second stage was the displacement of the population to the southern tip of the enclave. The third, imprisoning the entire population in concentration camps in what was the city of Rafah along the Egyptian border. The fourth stage, the "Final Solution", would be expelling or otherwise eliminating all Gazan Palestinians from Palestine.

 

ONE OF THE MOST COMPELLING  and disturbing observations Aguilar made during his time as a UGS contractor was during a rotation when he was stationed in the control room monitoring the live feed from the site's CCTV cameras. The cameras showed the line of Palestinians as they entered the ‘funnel’, packed tightly together in the narrowing entryway to the central food distribution arena. One Palestinian father lifted his two young sons up to sit atop the berm that formed one wall of the funnel so his children wouldn’t be crushed by the crowd. Inside the control room, the Israeli liaison officer told Aguilar to tell his UGS guards to remove the children from atop the berm. Aguilar said they were handling the situation and to let his guards do their work. The liaison officer then phoned his IDF counterparts, speaking in Hebrew, so Aguilar didn’t understand what he was saying. A UGS staff member who spoke Hebrew told Aguilar the officer called for military snipers to target the two boys. Fortunately, in the meantime, they climbed back down to join their father, but Aguilar was shocked that the Israeli officer would call on snipers to shoot children. This made a great impression on him, causing him to reflect on what kind of outfit he was involved with and whether he should leave. Shortly afterward Aguilar had a conversation with his supervisor who said he should not go against the wishes of "the client". When Aguilar asked him what he meant, his supervisor said the IDF was the client and UGS took their marching orders from them! A 'charitable' organization running its operation at the behest of an occupying army....hmmmm? A conflict of interest, one would think. Humanitarian aid? Nuh-uh.

 

👉Finally, I think for Anthony Aguilar the straw that broke the camel’s back and made him decide to become a whistleblower, exposing the the policies and practices of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, its sub-contractors, and IDF soldiers guarding the sites' perimeters, came when  a 10-year-old Palestine boy named Amir, who'd walked 10km barefoot to get a few scraps of food, came forward and kissed his hand, thanking him for the tiny amount of aid he’d gotten. Tragically, Amir was killed a short time later when IDF soldiers fired into the crowd near the distribution site that, presumably, failed to disperse quickly enough. [Naughty! Bad crowd! Bad! Ed.]

 

IF ONLY our political leaders had such moral courage to stand up like Anthony Aguilar and say: “I will abide this no longer!” And then shun (in the fullest sense of the word) this half-mad, pariah  state called Israel.

 

FUN FACT: Switzerland has ordered the dissolution of the Swiss branch of GHF because the foundation did not fulfill its duties and obligations under Swiss laws of incorporation. And here the word “sketchy” should come to mind! The short-lived ‘charitable’ organization’s duties were taken up by its Delaware, USA incorporated partner of the same name and tasked with raising funds to staff and run the day-to-day operations. The on-the-ground work would ultimately be done by two private contractor companies  UG Solutions (Aguilar's former employer) and Safe Reach Solutions.

 

Aguilar was hired by UGS to be part of the security team at the four food distribution sites in southern Gaza. Point being, that UGS is there to make money and has no experience in running humanitarian aid distribution centers, and the same goes for the foundation side of things, that Aguilar suggests is little more than a shell company.

BTW: Just who funds GHF is apparently a secret. Wanna bet a good chunk of change comes from the Israeli government, Zionist billionaires, the CIA, leftover USAID slush funds and perhaps an EU state or two that wants to continue supporting Israel, but on the down-low (wink-wink), so as not to rile their populations that are increasingly critical of the "Jewish state". 😉

 

FUN FACT: Nearly 2,000 Palestinians seeking food aid have been murdered by IDF soldiers at or near GHF food distribution sites and over 13,500 have been wounded. One commentator suggests the much larger “wounded” figure indicates a deliberate policy on the part of the Israeli military to stress Gazan health services by causing mass casualty events. Nice touch. 👌

 

FUN FACT: 266 people so far have died of starvation since the Gaza genocide began on 7/10/23, including 122 children.

 

FUN FACT: Since October 2023, over 230 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Israeli bombardments and targeted assassinations, including six Al Jazeera journalists killed last week. And over 1,500 medical services personnel have been killed during the same period. [Fun new word: "Medicide"]

 

CHEERS, JAKE. ____________________________________

 

* ANUDDER FUN NEW WORD: "Necroviolence”—“Violence performed and produced through the specific treatment of corpses that is perceived to be offensive, sacrilegious, or inhumane by the perpetrator, the victim (and her or his cultural group), or both.” - Jason De Leon in The Land of Open Graves, p.69 [2]

 

1. There are other charitable organizations operating in Gaza, but not nearly at the scale they were at prior to October 7/23. They are hampered by desperate Palestinians looting vans and trucks, criminal gangs, the same, and by the destroyed transportation infrastructure making access to Palestinians in need difficult. But the plan is for GHF to scale up to feeding the entire Gazan population. HOWEVER, the real ‘plan’ is to lure Palestinians into southern Gaza using food aid as bait, to corral them in one area until such a time as they emigrate, ‘voluntarily’ or otherwise, or else die in the giant concentration camps the Israeli government is building on the ruins of Rafah City. Not to put too fine a point on it but using food as a weapon and deliberately starving a civilian population are war crimes. They are against the Geneva Conventions and just about any international law you’d care to mention and, as a crime against humanity, those who perpetrate such heinous acts should be given the same sentences dished out at the Nuremberg trials following the end of WWII.

 

2. UG Solutions (UGS) is a private military contractor that provides guns for hire armed personnel to various hot spots around the world. It, along with Safe Reach Solutions (SRS), provide security at the various distribution sites in Gaza. And they are set to expand operations when Israel finishes building its hellscape concentration camp system in Rafah, something former American diplomat Chas Freeman scathingly calls: "Auschwitz on the Mediterranean." 

 

[1 phoney "shell" foundation + 2 guns-for-hire sub-contractors = 0 humanitarian aid. It's just math! You can't argue with the math, damn it! 😖]