# entry

guid: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/putins-remark-on-readiness-for-talks
title: Putin's Remark on Readiness for Talks on Ukraine Without Preconditions Relevant - Kremlin
author: ;Karl Sanchez
link: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/putins-remark-on-readiness-for-talks
hash: �tL� �ʫ���Z�
content:
<div data-sanitized-class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5350e686-f305-4207-a20d-aeb48c55e075_1920x1080.webp" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM" data-sanitized-class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img"><div data-sanitized-class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5350e686-f305-4207-a20d-aeb48c55e075_1920x1080.webp" width="1456" height="819" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/5350e686-f305-4207-a20d-aeb48c55e075_1920x1080.webp&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:819,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A general view shows the St. Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin's Spasskaya Tower on a sunny autumn day, in Moscow, Russia. - Sputnik International, 1920, 30.04.2025&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null}" alt="A general view shows the St. Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin's Spasskaya Tower on a sunny autumn day, in Moscow, Russia. - Sputnik International, 1920, 30.04.2025" title="A general view shows the St. Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin's Spasskaya Tower on a sunny autumn day, in Moscow, Russia. - Sputnik International, 1920, 30.04.2025" fetchpriority="high" data-sanitized-class="sizing-normal"></picture><div data-sanitized-class="image-link-expand"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></div><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Regarding the spin related to <strong>the reiteration</strong> that Russia is open to negotiations with no preconditions that has confused so many people—and people who ought to know better—Sputnik offers <a href="https://sputnikglobe.com/20250430/putins-remark-on-readiness-for-talks-on-ukraine-without-preconditions-relevant---kremlin-1121955895.html">this clarifying article</a>:</p><blockquote><p>The statement of Russian President Vladimir Putin that Moscow is ready for negotiations on Ukraine without preconditions is still relevant, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.</p><p>"I would like to remind you that a couple of days ago president Putin reaffirmed his readiness for direct negotiations with the Ukrainians without any preconditions. So this readiness is still relevant," Peskov told the Znanie (Knowledge) education forum taking place on the sidelines of the Russian-hosted World Youth Festival.</p><p>Kiev talks about preconditions for the settlement, but this contradicts Putin's position, the official said, adding that Russia has not still heard any signals from Kiev about its readiness for dialogue with Moscow without preconditions.</p><p>Russia-US Diplomatic Dialogue Restored as Moscow is Open to Diplomacy</p><p>Direct contacts between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump will be established if necessary, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.</p><p>"Direct contact at the highest level is always effective and always helps to resolve the rough spots that may arise at the working level, the expert level. If necessary, this direct contact [between Putin and Trump] will be established," Peskov said.</p><p>Channels for dialogue between Russia and the United States have been restored, the official added.</p><p>Putin remains open to political and diplomatic methods of resolving the conflict in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed.</p><p>"Now the president remains open to political and diplomatic methods of resolving this conflict [in Ukraine]. The situation is what it is. We do not hear any reaction from Kiev. The process continues," Peskov told reporters.</p><p>All of Putin's initiatives on Ukraine have been rejected, which forced Russian to start the special military operation, the spokesman explained.</p><p>"A peace agreement should be concluded with Ukraine, not with the United States. America is trying to mediate, and we are grateful to the United States for these truly frantic efforts," Peskov said, adding that Moscow sees that Washington is counting on a "quick success" in peace process on Ukraine, but all details need to be resolved.</p><p>Putin supports the initiative to establish a truce in Ukraine, but it is necessary to take into account several nuances, Peskov added.</p></blockquote><p>That ought to calm the waters and put the spinmasters back into their graves. </p><p>*<br>*<br>*<br><em>Like what you’ve been reading at Karlof1’s Substack? Then please consider subscribing and choosing to make a <strong>monthly/yearly pledge</strong> to enable my efforts in this challenging realm. Thank You!</em></p><p></p><p data-attrs='{"url":"https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?","text":"Subscribe now","action":null,"class":null}' data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton" data-sanitized-class="button-wrapper"><a href="https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?" data-sanitized-class="button primary"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p></p>

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guid: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/victory-day-a-conversation-with-participants
title: Victory Day: A Conversation with Participants in the Educational Marathon "Knowledge. The First."
author: ;Karl Sanchez
link: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/victory-day-a-conversation-with-participants
hash: #�P���i��9�����"
content:
<div data-sanitized-class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffeecae37-37f2-4370-913d-365051e515c4_1880x1160.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM" data-sanitized-class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img"><div data-sanitized-class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffeecae37-37f2-4370-913d-365051e515c4_1880x1160.jpeg" width="1456" height="898" data-attrs='{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/feecae37-37f2-4370-913d-365051e515c4_1880x1160.jpeg","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":898,"width":1456,"resizeWidth":null,"bytes":407596,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":"image/jpeg","href":null,"belowTheFold":false,"topImage":true,"internalRedirect":"https://karlof1.substack.com/i/162574379?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffeecae37-37f2-4370-913d-365051e515c4_1880x1160.jpeg","isProcessing":false,"align":null}' alt="" fetchpriority="high" data-sanitized-class="sizing-normal"></picture><div data-sanitized-class="image-link-expand"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></div><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Continuing his tour of Great Patriotic War historic sites, Putin was back in Moscow where he went to Victory Park’s complex at Poklonnaya Gora, one of the strategic heights in the Moscow region, and its Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945 where <a href="http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/76832">he met</a> with participants in the national educational marathon held from April 28 to April 30 by the all-Russian public and state educational organization "Russian Society "Znanie" whose theme this year is Knowledge First—the two large words on the backdrop behind Putin’s left in the above photo—as it relates to the Great Patriotic War. The audience was a mixture of mostly youngsters along with some adult mentors and Znanie organization personnel. The educational marathon is conducted annually, is very popular and international in scope. Putin’s talk with some of the participants has become an annual tradition. The Kremlin tells us “The event was attended by more than 25 thousand young people, including those from foreign countries. Over three days, 134 lecturers performed at venues across the country: veterans, members of the Free Military Association, war correspondents, athletes, entrepreneurs, scientists and teachers, public and state figures. Here’s the talk:</p><blockquote><p><strong>Vladimir Putin</strong>: Dear friends, good afternoon!</p><p>I am very glad to see you on the eve of such wonderful bright holidays as Victory Day.</p><p>Here are representatives of cultural figures, and our very young specialists in the field of information dissemination and creating the necessary, as it is now fashionable to say, content.</p><p>Of course, all the work of the Znanie society this year is dedicated to the main theme–-Victory Day.</p><p>This is a special day for all of us, for our people, for almost every Russian family. In Soviet times, this holiday was often spoken about with words from the song: this is a holiday with tears in your eyes.</p><p>First of all, it is certainly a holiday, because Victory Day and everything that happened during the Second World War and, as we say for ourselves, the Great Patriotic War, is certainly a triumph of our people, a triumph of the Soviet people and the Russian people. Perhaps, first of all, the Russian people, because if you look at the number of losses, then Russia is part of the Soviet Union, then it was called the RSFSR–-the Russian Soviet Federative [Socialist] Republic, the losses of the RSFSR amounted to about 70 percent, 69-something, almost 70 percent.</p><p>That is why we always emphasize this, it is true: all the peoples of the Soviet Union made a huge contribution, no one spared themselves, everyone worked for the common Victory, but, of course, the Russian Federation, due to its scale, made the maximum contribution to this Victory and most of all laid its sons and daughters on the altar of this Victory, who died defending their homeland and protecting our future.</p><p>When I said that this is a holiday for almost every family, it is natural, because with such huge losses--for the entire Soviet Union it was 27 million people, it is not exactly counted yet, but it is clear that it affected almost every family.<em><strong> And it is extremely important to use modern opportunities to transmit this information, this truth about the past, in this case about the Great Patriotic War and its heroes, to transmit it both today and tomorrow.</strong></em></p><p>What would you like to say in this regard? Of course, those who fought during the Great Patriotic War, gave their lives for our country, for our Homeland, for today, for it to be preserved as such, for new generations to appear in our country, they have accomplished a feat. But they still do it, even those who died defending the Fatherland. Why? <em><strong>Because the memory of their feat is one of the essential principles of all our multinational people. To a large extent, this is Russia, because the historical memory of what was in the past and what is now sets us up for what can and should be in the future.</strong></em> Only by understanding the cost of our present and our future, only by understanding the cost and what our ancestors, our fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, even grandmothers did, defending the Motherland, <em><strong>only by understanding the cost of this work, can we understand who we are, where we came from, what we are our country.</strong></em> And only in this case can we correctly determine the future and priorities of our actions for today, in the medium term and in the longer term.</p><p>Of course, it is very important in this regard to be able and able to correctly, sincerely, if I may say so, to convey all the information about what happened in previous decades, previous years, because<em><strong> only in this way can this information enter the heart of any person and only in this way can it become a part of his soul, and this means that each individual and all of us together will create a single common whole. And we will feel like a united people, which is extremely important.</strong></em></p><p>Modern means of communication, of course, are significantly different from what was before, from books, now they read less, and maybe they go to cinemas less often, I do not know, we need to look at statistics, but this is only a way of communicating information, it is changing. <em><strong>And it is important for us that modern means convey the necessary content to people, content, as it is fashionable to say now, but this should certainly be connected with our desire to do this, and with our abilities to achieve this goal using modern means of delivering this information</strong></em>. And of course, all this should be based on the best traditions of Russian art. And based on these traditions, to shape the day of today and tomorrow, I mean the possibilities of using modern means of communication.</p><p>In this regard, of course, it is very important that modern generations of artists themselves are imbued with this desire to work in this field and would charge around them all who can be involved in this work, and we have a lot of such people.</p><p>Just now a small exhibition was shown.</p><p>Now I will say a few words about the Znanie society. It was initiated by our outstanding scientist and then president of the USSR Academy of Sciences [Sergey] Vavilov. That's how it all started. And indeed, in previous years, even in Soviet times, the title of lecturer was very respected, it was always at a high level.</p><p>But even now, after the revival, after the new incarnation of the society "Knowledge", the work is developing quite quickly and, I would say, effectively. Already 30 thousand lecturers, reaching an audience of 50 million people-this already means something.</p><p>And the level of trust in what the lecture corps of the Znanie society does reaches 80 percent among citizens of the country. This is very serious. And I want to thank everyone who organizes the work of the Znanie Society for this.</p><p>Why? Because it means that the selection of these lecturers is correct. This means that when people listen to them, they trust what they say and how they say it. It is very important. And what, and how—is also still important.</p><p>I was very pleased to see military personnel here. Just now, one of the participants of the special military operation was telling me about his work in the Znanie society. <em><strong>It is very important that our heroes of today work directly with young people, speak directly about what they saw, what they did, how they assess what is happening in the country and in the world as a whole. An extremely important thing.</strong></em></p><p>When I said that for every Russian family, the events of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War are important, including because it affected every family. And I am sure that almost every family remembers their ancestors in one way or another: about grandmothers, grandfathers, great–grandfathers using concrete examples.</p><p>Today, we need to talk about it using concrete examples of our guys who are fighting in the zone of a special military operation, defending the Fatherland, as well as concrete examples of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War. Then, in this case, it will definitely meet with trust and understanding, exactly then it will touch the heart and soul of every person who comes into contact with this information<em><strong>. Only when it is transmitted from heart to heart, using personal examples, does it inspire confidence.</strong></em> This is the first one.</p><p>And the second very important thing. After all, when someone tells us something about their grandparents, we–-you, I, and all the other millions of Russian citizens--perceive it as a part of ourselves. If my father, if my grandfather, great-grandfather was such a hero, then somewhere in the genes and I have it, it means that I can and I should. This is an extremely important thing. I think we need to maintain this in the whole country and at the level of each family. And then, without any doubt, in any field, in any area, we will achieve the desired result and victory. I would like to say this at the very beginning.</p><p>Please, I think we can talk about what you're doing right now. If I can, I will be happy to comment or answer your questions.</p><p>You are welcome.</p><p><strong>Mikhail Dreval:</strong> Mr President, Dasha Dmitrieva, a lecturer at the Znanie Society and a first-year student at St. Petersburg State University, will help me moderate today's meeting.</p><p>Dasha, you have the floor.</p><p><strong>Daria Dmitrieva:</strong> Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, hello!</p><p>Today, our meeting is attended by schoolchildren, students, young cultural figures, lecturers and mentors. But regardless of our age and field of activity, we are united by our love for the Motherland and the desire to preserve the memory of the exploits of our ancestors and contemporaries.</p><p>For me, this topic is also very close. During the Great Patriotic War, my great-grandfather Konarev Grigory Ivanovich singlehandedly destroyed 11 armed Nazis in hand-to-hand combat. And when he left for the front, his daughter, my grandmother, fell fast asleep. And as he was saying goodbye at the train station, he said to his wife: if our daughter opens her eyes now, I will return from the war. The train started moving, and my grandmother woke up, and my great-grandfather, after going through the whole war, returned home.</p><p><em><strong>It seems to me that the history of the Great Patriotic War should be studied primarily through the history of families. They help to look into the heart of each of us, as well as works of culture.</strong></em></p><p>A picture dedicated to the heroic defense of the Brest Fortress is coming out very soon. And today we have with us the producer of this film, actor, People's Artist of Russia Vladimir Mashkov, the film's director Sergey Korotaev and the leading actor Vladislav Miller.</p><p>Vladimir Lvovich, I give you the floor.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Good afternoon, Vladimir Lvovich!</p><p><strong>Vladimir Mashkov:</strong> Hello!</p><p>Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, Dear friends!</p><p>Today we will briefly tell you about the picture that was prepared for the anniversary of our Great Victory. But first of all, I want to say on behalf of all of us.</p><p>Vladimir Vladimirovich, thank you very much for the great work you do to preserve the memory and truth of the Great Patriotic War, and for the great attention you pay to our wonderful and talented youth. Thank you very much from all of us.</p><p>We tried to make the movie sincere, honest, exciting, leaving the word and idea of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Vasilyev_(writer)">Boris Vasiliev</a>, our great writer, with his work"Did not appear on the lists". We really want the audience to share the depth of our characters' feelings after watching this film, and, as you very accurately said, probably,<em><strong> so that every young person asks himself the question: would I be able to do this?</strong></em> That's what I think is very important.</p><p>Young artists of the Oleg Tabakov Theater and students of our theater school took part in the film. They prepared very selflessly–-both psychologically and physically, and watched a huge amount of material.</p><p>This story does not let us go. And now we are preparing a performance that we will combine together with the cinema, when battle scenes will be shown on the screen, which cannot be done in the theater, and live artists will perform dramatic scenes in a live plan. We look forward to the premiere in June.</p><p>And now we want to show you some fragments of our picture, so that you can make an impression.</p><p>Thank you very much.</p><p>(Demonstration of a fragment of the film "Not listed".) [In the video linked at the top the trailer is shown from about the 13:00-17:00 mark.] </p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Yesterday, when we <a href="https://translated.turbopages.org/proxy_u/ru-en.en.705a4583-68129780-f5dbdec0-74722d776562/kremlin.ru/events/president/trips/76831">were</a> in Volgograd, at the initiative of Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko, we talked about this. He was just telling me that he saw this movie. I thanked you very much for this work. I see that it is not in vain, there is something for it.</p><p>Indeed, when we started the meeting, I said that information about the heroic days of the Great Patriotic War should be piercing, reliable, and truthful, and then it will reach the heart.</p><p>Of course, such works of art, and this is certainly a work of art, work for this purpose and work exactly in the way I mentioned. Especially since Vasiliev's books are well known. Thanks to these books, works of cinema art also appeared: "And the dawns here are quiet...", "Tomorrow there was a war" and so on. A whole galaxy of our writers of that time, including <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Sholokhov">Sholokhov</a>, wrote things that still make up the golden part of our literature.</p><p>I must say that everything we know about our history, of course, comes to us from textbooks, it is studied and can be studied by specialists, historians, but the general public gets acquainted with these events thanks to the work of our outstanding writers, cinematographers, musicians, artists. Now we are talking about writers, including Vasiliev, but, say, the period of the Patriotic War of 1812--the vast majority of people know about these events from where? From Leo Tolstoy, "War and Peace", "Borodino" by Lermontov: "Tell me, uncle, it's not for nothing that Moscow, burned down by fire... " - and so on. Everyone from school remembers this, and it causes interest in the events themselves.</p><p>Therefore, it is extremely important that artists are always close to these events and bring us everything related to the heroic pages of our history.</p><p>It's the same with music. It can be the root cause, or rather, the impetus for studying. I have in mind, say, Shostakovich's famous Leningrad Symphony. Then they make films about it, about this music, about how it came about, under what circumstances, and so on. <em><strong>Therefore, it is very important that artists working in different fields and genres address this topic today.</strong></em></p><p>Of course, our life does not consist only of this, it is much more diverse, much more saturated, and the palette of colors is very different, meaning the peaceful part of it, the component. We also have a lot of interesting and important things in our peaceful life that we can be proud of in the old days, which we are proud of today and, I am sure, will be proud of in the future. But things related to heroic pages are extremely important. As I have already said, this is certainly a very important part of our inner world, and the inner world of each individual and all of us together–-in fact, this is what we call "Russia". <em><strong>Because Russia is people, not just a territory.</strong></em></p><p>Thank you very much. I will definitely watch the whole movie.</p><p><strong>Daria Dmitrieva:</strong> And now I would like to give the floor to Artem Zhilyaev. He represents the dynasty of school museum guides in the city of Ivanovo.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> A dynasty of tour guides? Do you have both your mom and dad there? Who does it?</p><p><strong>Alexey Zhilyaev:</strong> I'll tell you about it now.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Please.</p><p><strong>Alexey Zhilyaev:</strong> Good evening, Vladimir Vladimirovich!</p><p>My name is Artem Zhilyaev, I am a representative of the children's public Council of the Victory School Museum from the city of Ivanovo.</p><p>In our school No. 29, a museum of the Normandie–Niemen regiment was opened in 1967. It contains personal belongings of French pilots, the squadron itself, and exhibits of the 18th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment. In total, our museum has more than 2.5 thousand exhibits. Also on May 19, we will open a temporary exhibition dedicated to Georgy Zhukov's personal belongings.</p><p>I myself am a representative of the Zhilyaev dynasty. My uncle was a tour guide more than 35 years ago, and my grandfather Sergey was a tour guide more than 50 years ago.</p><p>I offer you such an initiative--to develop a national-level program to support curatorial activities and create school-based museums. And the best museums could present their exhibitions, and maybe entire expositions at regional sites-whether local history museums of the region, or multimedia platforms "Russia-my History", or in the Victory Museum.</p><p>We will be very grateful for your approval and support for this initiative.</p><p>Thank you.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Thank you for your work and for the people close to you.</p><p>I want to say that school museums are actually a long-standing tradition in Russia. In my opinion, the first school museum appeared somewhere in Siberia, in Irkutsk, in the XVIII century. This is seventeen hundred and some year, I don't remember exactly. That is, a tradition with historical roots. It is very important. Of course, we need to support it. And I will ask my colleagues from the Government to do everything possible to help you and people like you who are engaged in this type of activity.</p><p>It is very important to generalize and make these generalizations from specific things that are related to the small homeland: with the city, with the village, with the republic, with the region, with the region, and so on. Because it makes our common history more visible, meaningful and understandable for each individual living in a particular locality. So very cool. I want to congratulate you on this choice, on this discovery. We will do our best to help you.</p><p>By the way, you mentioned that originally 1967 was the beginning of the museum's work. And it has to do with Normandie–Niemen, right? It's interesting, look, now I'll try to throw a bridge, it's connected with the "Normandy-Niemen", probably the vast majority know what it is. So the French patriots during the Second World War, despite the defeat of France, moved to the Soviet Union, fought with us and so called their combat squadron "Normandy-Niemen". Some of the French patriots fought in partisan detachments called "Poppies", and some–-on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War together with our soldiers.</p><p>There were other people in Europe, in the same France. There was a Marshal Petain, in my opinion, who basically agreed that his homeland was defeated and practically collaborated with Hitler's Germany, formed units that fought at Stalingrad later and so on, in other places.</p><p>We will not go into details now, because this is a difficult page in the history of France. And someone thought that he did the right thing to preserve the French as an ethnic group, as a nation, someone called him a traitor, and after the war he ended up with it–-as a traitor. Now we will not go into details. What is important is that there have always been people who have shared our principles and values, people who are together with us. And today, some citizens of the French Republic, together with our soldiers, are fighting shoulder to shoulder in the special military operation zone, and they also called their unit, like their grandfathers and great – grandfathers, "Normandy-Niemen".</p><p><strong>Daria Dmitrieva:</strong> Mr President, you have mentioned the ways in which information can be conveyed. We understand how important it is for young people to share facts from the history of our country with each other.</p><p>I would like to give the floor to Victoria Agapova, the winner of the Keepers of History project and a blogger.</p><p><strong>V. Agapova:</strong> Mr President, good afternoon!</p><p>My name is Victoria Agapova, Tambov city. I am a two-time winner of the All-Russian contest "Big Change" in the challenge "Remember!" and the author of a historical blog dedicated to the events and heroes of the Great Patriotic War.</p><p>My great-grandfather Boldyrev Alexander Ivanovich was a Hero of the Soviet Union; he defended our country from the Germans in Ukraine and Belarus. He was not only a brave but also a resourceful soldier. Once Alexander Ivanovich saved a damaged self-propelled gun of his comrades-in-arms, using a very unusual method. From his overalls, he made an effigy, which the Germans opened fire on. At the same moment, Alexander Ivanovich rushed to the wrecked car and stole it to his own, thereby saving his friends.</p><p>And there were quite a large number of such feats on the path of my great-grandfather. They inspired me to create a patriotic community where I tell the younger generation about war heroes and their achievements.</p><p><em><strong>I understand that it is necessary to tell the younger generation about the war and historical facts in the language of young people, so that they can understand and be interested</strong></em>. But for me, this is the biggest challenge right now.</p><p>In your opinion, how should we tell the younger generation of our country about the war, about historical facts, about the history of our ancestors, in order to interest them in studying history?</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Vika, how did you learn this story about your great-grandfather?</p><p><strong>V. Agapova:</strong> Family. My mother told me because my great-grandfather lived to see my mother's birth. She told me how he used to come to the village…</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Her grandfather?</p><p><strong>V. Agapova:</strong> Yes.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> You see how. We have already talked about this, and I have already mentioned that it is very important when information is passed from one generation to another in a family. You just said, "My mother told me." You love your mother, and she loves you, there is no doubt about it, it's obvious right away, and you trust her.</p><p>My mother told me–-very little, very little--about some episodes of the war. It is well known that they barely survived-–as I have already said-during the blockade and while their father was fighting at the front, they lost a small child there. When people speak to you who you absolutely, completely trust, it naturally reaches your heart, as I said, and makes you want to do something yourself in order to consolidate this knowledge, consolidate this important information and pass it on.</p><p>Therefore, the surest way is what happens in our families, when from parents to children, from children further to their children, and so on.</p><p><strong>V. Agapova:</strong> Through generations.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Through generations, that's absolutely true. This is the most important thing–-the truthfulness, reliability of information. And, of course, the way this information is conveyed is also important.</p><p>My relatives gave me a letter from my grandfather, which he wrote (I also spoke about it publicly) during the war, his son, who was in the active army. He wrote with mistakes, a country man, a peasant, there are ten mistakes in each sentence.</p><p>What even bothered me? You see, he addresses his son as "you": "Dear Ivan Ivanovich." And then he talks about how his wife, that is, the mother of his son, died. There was a shootout, a bullet hit her in the stomach, and she was dying in his arms, at her grandfather's. And when she was dying, she said… You know, I have also said this, and I will repeat it again, because it is very important, it is a characteristic feature of so many of our people, regardless of their nationality, just Russian people, including Russians. She understands that she is dying, and she says to him (he writes everything in the letter): "Don't cry, don't upset me." When she dies, she thinks about him. As you can imagine, it's incredibly simple. And in the end, the conclusion: "Beat these reptiles!" You understand, the motivation was what. It is he who addresses his son. There are a lot of everyday issues related to the economy and so on, which are not essential in this case.</p><p>But in general, when you take such things in the family… So I took it and read it. You see, I'm an adult—I went to school, I went to university, I worked in the special services, I worked in intelligence for almost 20 years, I think I'm an informed person. I thought I knew everything. But when I picked up the letter and started reading it, I began to look at the events that took place then in a different way, in a different way. I became aware of the "fabric" of the events that took place at that time, understood how people lived, what they lived, how they felt, what they talked about. This eternal truth is the most important thing. It should be reported.</p><p>Of course, it is very important, if we are talking about ways to disseminate information in a broad sense, then it is very important that this work is talented, like, for example, a film, an excerpt from which we have just seen, or works of musical art, fine art. And how do I do, how do we do… I have everything going on just like you do in your family–-just like everyone else.</p><p><strong>V. Agapova:</strong> Thank you very much.</p><p><strong>Daria Dmitrieva:</strong> Yes, indeed, we feel a special connection with the past thanks to our ancestors, their memories, and what remains of them. But a special connection with the military past is felt by those who stand and have stood guard over the Motherland.</p><p>Deputy company commander, Guards Senior Lieutenant Sergey Lobanov is not only a defender of the Motherland, but also a member of the Russian Writers' Union and a poet.</p><p><strong>Sergey Lobanov:</strong> Comrade Supreme Commander-in-Chief! I wish you good health!</p><p>It is a great honor and pleasure for me to attend this meeting. Now we have all watched an excerpt from a movie based on the story of Boris Vasiliev. I am sure that no one among us was left indifferent. And why all this? Because in this work there is a truth, a real trench soldier's truth, which cannot be invented, it must be experienced by participating directly in battles. You know, the poet-front-line soldier of that time Sergey Orlov wrote the following lines very accurately about this:"I carried the lines that smelled like gunpowder out of the shelling on my hands."</p><p>I am very glad that this truth is also present in the works of modern writers, such as Hero of Russia Maxim Bakharev, Oleg Roy, Alexey Presnakov, Alexey Shorokhov and many, many others. These are just some of the names of the large pool of talented, creative people who are born in this difficult, difficult time for Russia.</p><p>Comrade Supreme Commander!</p><p>We are ready to perform any tasks set by you, not only at the front, where the extraction of the desired by means of weapons takes place, but also on the cultural front. Based on this, I ask you to consider the possibility of creating a development program for participants and veterans of a special military operation in the field of culture and art.</p><p>Thank you.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Thank you very much.</p><p>Thank you for what you are doing and have been doing both in the framework of the special military operation and now for your creativity.</p><p>How many such cases were there during the Great Patriotic War, right? <em><strong>The Soviet leadership, by the way, tried to protect our artists, sent them to evacuation and so on.</strong></em> This is well known to everyone. Many, however, volunteered to go to the front and died, very young people. Some of them have written one or two works in their entire lives. When you read them, you get to know them... some of the songs are written like folk songs, the words are folk—but in fact they have authors. Unfortunately, they passed away, died at the front. Because cultural figures are also part of our people, who live together with the people, fight together with the people, achieve victories together with the people and contribute to achieving these victories, because creativity inspires people.</p><p>How many wonderful songs were born during the Great Patriotic War, which we still sing, and do with pleasure, and films, and paintings, and music, and so on. You know, all this was born because creative people faced absolutely unique situations in their lives. And it encouraged them to speak out, write, or write music. I think everyone knows: "Crossing, crossing! Left bank, right bank, rough snow, ice edge… To whom glory, to whom dark water... " And immediately images are born in my head.</p><p>It is important. So, of course, we will do everything to support such–-excuse me, I will say--such guys as you--talented, young, charged with helping the country, helping those people who are close to us, and who not only with the help of weapons, but also with the help of their talent bring victory closer.</p><p>Thank you. We will definitely think about it.</p><p><strong>Sergey Lobanov:</strong> Thank You, Comrade Supreme Commander.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Thank you very much.</p><p><strong>Daria Dmitrieva:</strong> And now I want to pass the floor to another young talent-–my colleague, a lecturer, with whom we once performed side by side at the contest "Knowledge. Lecturer", to Mikhail Domanin.</p><p><strong>Mikhail Domanin:</strong> Hello, dear Vladimir Vladimirovich!</p><p>My name is Domanin Mikhail. I am 17 years old and originally from Chelyabinsk. I'm also a lecturer, as Daria mentioned. I became interested in history in the second grade when I accidentally came across a series of films about the Great Patriotic War "The Great War" on the Internet. I enjoyed telling my peers, even the older kids, about it.</p><p>An even bigger discovery for me occurred when I learned about the contest "Knowledge. Lecturer". I passed the competition, made my first lecture, and now I have a mentor from among the lecturers of "Knowledge"–-Stanislav Amanov. He's also a historian. And you know, we communicate with him as colleagues. I am also proud that I am a lecturer, and I am proud that I firmly follow the precepts of Sergey Ivanovich [Vavilov]. But, in my opinion, most of the work of the lecturer always remains behind the scenes, <em><strong>because for each lecture, in fact, hours of real preparation and sincere enthusiasm for the work of the educator</strong></em>.</p><p>And here's what I thought: a lecturer can be compared to a donor. But if the donor saves lives physically, then the lecturer does it on a mental level: he saves our mind, as you noted, brings knowledge to our hearts, makes it part of our soul. In my opinion, it is important to mention those people who achieve great success in this business, but there are no awards at the national level that would reflect such work.</p><p><em><strong>Tell me, how much is it possible for a title or reward to appear for the guides of real knowledge? For example, "honored educator".</strong></em></p><p>Thank you.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Good idea. I have nothing to add. We have many titles of "honored worker" of such and such sphere. But this is a very important area of activity, as I have already said, 30 thousand people now work only in the system of the Znanie society, and in fact there are many more of them. You mentioned your mentor. Tell me again, who is it?</p><p><strong>Mikhail Domanin:</strong> Stanislav Amanov is a historian.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> How old is he?</p><p><strong>Mikhail Domanin:</strong> Approximately, as Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin said, the graces are not yet on vacation and Lyubov is retired.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Yes. But he's an adult now, a historian.</p><p><strong>Mikhail Domanin:</strong> Yes.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Did you notice what you said when you talked about yourself? You said, " He is also a historian." I was very pleased with this, because you consider yourself… How old are you?"</p><p><strong>M. Domanin:</strong> 17.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> 17. You see, you are quite a young man, but you already consider yourself a historian. I don't want to give an assessment of your knowledge and achievements in this very important field right now. But the fact that you consider yourself a historian is already great, it is already a victory for your mentor. It's great. And I hope that you will continue to be at least interested in this field of activity, the field of science, and make your own contribution to the development of history. History is not a science about the past, it is a science about the future. This is a very important part of our life.</p><p>I want to wish you every success. And thank you for the idea, we will try to implement it.</p><p>Thank you.</p><p><strong>Mikhail Dreval:</strong> Our compatriots abroad today, more than ever, feel the need to preserve the historical truth. I would like to give the floor to the coordinator of the Immortal Regiment movement in Spain, Victoria Samoilova–-one of those who were not afraid to speak out in defense of their country.</p><p>Victoria.</p><p><strong>V. Samoilova:</strong> Hello, Vladimir Vladimirovich!</p><p>Victoria Samoilova, coordinator of the Immortal Regiment.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Is Buenos dias correct?</p><p><strong>V. Samoilova:</strong> That's right.</p><p>Indeed, in recent years our "Immortal Regiment" in Spain is one of the largest in Europe. In general, the international movement "Immortal Regiment" was born in 2013, and the action very quickly began to spread around the world, because people in it feel unity and a reminder of the common historical past, in which that Great Victory against Nazism took place.</p><p>In recent years, our coordinators have experienced huge obstacles, but despite everything, thanks to their courage, our courage, "Immortal Regiments" are held all over the world and in different formats. And often this becomes possible, including thanks to local residents.</p><p>For example, in Spain last year, one of the cities refused to hold an action, and the Spaniards quickly organized a motorcycle rally on their own behalf, so we were able to carry portraits of our heroes, including Spanish heroes who fought in the Red Army, and the Victory Banner, of course.</p><p>At the beginning of April, here at the Victory Museum, we met with the Immortal Regiment coordinators <em><strong>from 52 countries</strong></em> and planned a large-scale celebration of the campaign all over the world,<em><strong> in more than 100 countries.</strong></em> We will continue to make every effort to preserve historical memory.</p><p>Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich,</p><p>Our coordinators have a dream to meet you, tell you about their work, which is not easy, especially in recent years, and personally thank you for your support in preserving justice and historical truth. I very much hope that such a meeting will take place.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> First of all, Victoria, I would like to thank you for devoting your time and even fighting to promote what you believe to be true, what constitutes your beliefs and your inner world, namely objective knowledge about the Second World War in Europe…</p><p>You live in Spain, right?</p><p><strong>V. Samoilova:</strong> Yes.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> And in Spain. In Europe as a whole, there are a lot of people who share our position. Very much. Someone is silent, someone very modestly declares something, so that they are not particularly heard.<em><strong> Of course, there are not many people who, under pressure from the official authorities, have the audacity to express their point of view, and even not only express it, but show that they have it, this is their own point of view. This happens for so many reasons.</strong></em></p><p>The current situation in European countries... we won't go into details now, it will require a separate meeting, and I can talk a lot about it. I just want to say, as I have already said in relation to France: I repeat, there was such a figure there, Marshal Petain, but there were others, such as General de Gaulle. And although the marshal was a hero of the First World War, but in relation to the situation that developed after the defeat of France, he behaved differently: he actually turned part of France into a satellite of Nazi Germany. But there were also those like not Marshal, but General de Gaulle, who created the "Unconquered France" movement, who created all the conditions for the struggle</p><p>It was the same in Spain. We know very well the period of the 1930s, when the Spanish people fought against the rise to power of the fascist dictatorship. We know very well how it all started, with the famous message on the radio: "Cloudless skies over all of Spain." The Nazi coup began. A lot of Spanish patriots were fighting back then, and the Soviet Union was helping to fight Nazism in Spain.</p><p><em><strong>The situation is even more complicated now than it was then. Then everything was clearer: white, black or brown, say, red and brown. It may be more difficult now. But it is all the more important when people like you understand, firstly, what is happening, and secondly, have the courage and courage to clearly state it.</strong></em></p><p>I have no doubt that sooner or later our relations with Europe will be restored. This is absolutely true. This includes relying on people like you, and people who were both born and raised in Spain–-and some Spaniards were born and raised in the Soviet Union, these are the children of just those families who moved to the Soviet Union during the Civil War. There we have someone to lean on.</p><p>But it is very important that even at this very difficult moment, I repeat, there are people like you who have the courage to express their attitude to the events taking place today, and even more so to give an assessment of what happened during the Second World War.</p><p>As for the meeting–-<em><strong>I will do it with pleasure.</strong></em> You just need to choose the time and format. Please send my best wishes to all those who work with you in this noble cause–-defending the truth about World War II.</p><p>Thank you very much.</p><p><strong>Daria Dmitrieva:</strong> Mr President, there are some young people among us whose lives have been greatly transformed by the return of their native regions to our state.</p><p>I want to give the floor to Olga Pashentseva, an activist of the Movement of the First from the Donetsk People's Republic.</p><p><strong>Olga Pashentseva:</strong> Good afternoon!</p><p>My name is Olga Pashentseva, I am 17 years old, I am from the city of Torez, Donetsk People's Republic. I am a volunteer guide of the school museum of military glory.</p><p>Vladimir Vladimirovich, I would like to express my deep gratitude to you. After the reunification with Russia, our life, the life of young people has significantly changed–-new opportunities, various projects, trips and acquaintances with children from all over the country have become available. I have already managed to visit Artek, Smena and become a member of the flagship projects of the Movement of the First.</p><p>Cities and schools were also transformed by patron regions after the reunification. Moreover, each school has thematic spaces, zones where children can learn about public organizations, competitions, projects, and also register in them immediately thanks to QR codes.<em><strong> But, after talking with children from other regions, unfortunately, I found out that not all schools have such thematic zones. And I think it would be great if such spaces appeared in all schools in Russia.</strong></em></p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> First of all, Olya, I would like to thank you for working at the school museum. This is the first one. I hope you are not alone there; your peers, fellow students, and schoolmates are probably there. This is very important because you are a) doing a good job yourself and b) You help others of your age get the information they need, which is very important for the so-called our historical, new regions.</p><p>You are still quite young, but nevertheless, for sure, all this is still preserved in your memory, what happened when this regime came to power, which still rules in Kiev, and how things of a nationalistic nature were imposed.</p><p>Nationalism is the first stage to Nazism, it is the first step, nationalism. Because nationalism is based not just on love for the representatives of one's own ethnic group, but on hatred for others–-that is the essence of nationalism. Patriotism is a different matter altogether. To love your homeland does not mean to hate others. And nationalism is fueled precisely by this—hatred of other countries and other peoples.</p><p><em><strong>And our task is to educate ourselves and the whole world around us in love for each other, namely in love for each other. This is the basis of the universe</strong></em>. Even if we see that something is happening around us that requires our assessment, we should do it first of all in the most objective way, based not on any phobias, but on real facts.</p><p>When you present these facts in the school museum, when you systematize them and present them correctly and beautifully, including not only with the help of drawings and documents, which is very important (it is important that the information is objective), but, perhaps, with the help of some modern means of transmitting information, so, to make it interesting for your fellow students, your schoolmates, then you will achieve the maximum effect.</p><p>As for these spaces that you mentioned, I completely agree with you: it is very important that everything is in full view. And indeed, where this is possible (probably not everywhere else is possible, including in the Donetsk People's Republic, in the Luhansk, Zaporozhye region or in the Kherson region), but where it is possible, of course, it should be done.</p><p>But not only here, but in the whole country, of course, these spaces should be used to the maximum benefit–-both from the point of view of patriotic education, and from the point of view of simply conveying some useful information to people who live in this space and spend a significant part of their lives. And students today spend most of their time in schools, probably, especially if we keep in mind extracurricular activities, most of the day there. So this is very important.</p><p><em><strong>I will definitely talk to the Minister of Education about this.</strong></em></p><p>Thank you.</p><p><strong>Olga Pashentseva:</strong> Thank you very much.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Thank you for the idea.</p><p><strong>Daria Dmitrieva:</strong> Mr President, today many of us have shared the stories of our ancestors, [stories] about representatives of our own kind. In our country, there are people for whom the concepts of "family" and" Homeland " do not just have a common root.</p><p>I want to give the floor to Elena Vinogradova, representative of the Committee of Families of Soldiers of the Fatherland.</p><p><strong>Elena Vinogradova:</strong> Good afternoon, Mr President!</p><p>Today there are so many stories about our ancestors. How similar they are to the stories of our husbands and sons.</p><p>The Committee of Families of Soldiers of the Fatherland pays great attention to patriotic education.</p><p>We are a nation of winners. For so many years they tried to convince us that our Great Victory was the merit of the past, and then we heard that the Victory was not ours either. Who is broadcasting this to us?<em><strong> A nation of losers that has lost on all fronts in this entire period. </strong></em>And we can see what's going on there. <em><strong>Thanks to this, we, mothers and wives, although it may be difficult for us, but we understand the importance, significance and timeliness of a special military operation.</strong></em></p><p>There are heroes in my family, too. One of them is Nikolai Romanov, my grandfather, a participant in the Great Patriotic War. 18 awards. He received the first medal "For Bravery"at the age of 18.</p><p>My grandfather lived a long and happy life and wrote a parting biography for his great-grandchildren. There are such lines: "Dear great-grandchild, be worthy of the memory of your grandfather Nikolai Romanov, keep and protect the honor and dignity of our family."</p><p>My son fulfills the precepts of his great-grandfather. He is a member of a special military operation. Like my grandfather, he is an artilleryman who has been performing combat missions in the Zaporizhia direction since 2022.</p><p>Looking at the connection between generations, a project was born in our family, it is called "I remember your feat, dear!” This project has already become a popular action, and thousands of families from all over our country have shared their stories.</p><p>I took a sample with me to show you.</p><p>Vladimir Vladimirovich, the fact is that for us, the Committee of Families of Soldiers of the Fatherland,<em><strong> it is very important that it is developed, broadcast in educational institutions, in television formats.</strong></em> Because we will do everything possible so that our future generations do not become "Ivans who do not remember their kinship", as is happening now there [in Ukraine]: they have forgotten everything, and they have forgotten their homeland, and their heroic grandfathers.</p><p>So please support our project.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Absolutely.</p><p>What would you like to say? What you have just mentioned is very important, and I also mentioned it during our meeting–-this link between generations is of fundamental importance. It's very important what we feel.</p><p>Tell me again, what is it called, "grandfather behind your back", how does it sound?</p><p><strong>E. Vinogradova:</strong> "I remember your feat, dear! Grandfather is behind me!"</p><p>And we saw [in the excerpt of the film "Not listed"] on the screen–-behind that fighter were his comrades. And here [on the cover of the booklet] are our own grandfathers, and in one line they continue the battle against Nazism on their territory.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Absolutely, absolutely.</p><p><em><strong>Very good idea, and the project is great. We will definitely support you. I'll see how to do it, in what ways, where, what, and how, but not necessarily, because this new product is of fundamental importance. And working in this format, as a rule, brings maximum results.</strong></em></p><p>Now about what you said—that the losing nations are trying to distort history. If you'll excuse me, I'll say a few words to that effect. Here is the girl Victoria from Spain. Here we talked about France. You can also say about other countries, Germany is constantly being played here. You know, in the period before the Great Patriotic War, before the Second World War, we had very good relations with Germany. This was all ideological in nature, but the Communist Party of Germany was one of the most powerful political forces in Germany after the First World War, the Weimar Republic later, and in general. They had very strong ties with the Soviet Union. They were the first victims of Nazism. And then for many years, during the Great Patriotic War, we had a steady reliance on these forces, which, of course, were destroyed, and in many ways destroyed. A well–-known group that our intelligence service relied on is Krasnaya Kapella [<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13856600/">Red Orchestra</a>]. Its representatives worked in all the organs of Nazi Germany, even in the Gestapo. These are people who, as one of the historians wrote, selflessly served their ideological Homeland--the Soviet Union.</p><p>And when the war began, of course, everything was so acute and everything was on the verge of survival of the country and nation–-or the nations that made up the Soviet Union at that time--that then, of course, there were other, tough slogans, including on posters: "Kill the German!" Because everything became so tough It is clear that this also required such rigidity in propaganda.</p><p>Today, when we see tanks with German-made crosses in Ukraine, of course, some associations arise here. Unfortunately, there is no escape from this.</p><p>Of course, what you said is true–-the losing nations are trying to impose and distort something on us. Now I will tell you why, but I think that everyone understands it anyway.</p><p>And we are certainly a nation of winners, a nation in the broadest sense of the word. <em><strong>When I say "nation", I mean all the peoples, all the ethnic groups of the former Soviet Union–-and Russia, of cours</strong></em>e.</p><p>But I would also talk about the winners 'generation and the winners' international. <em><strong>And today we need this international. We need to work with people who think the same way we do in Europe and North America. There are many of them, and we need to combine our efforts.</strong></em></p><p>But, of course, the core, the foundation–-the Victory is based, of course, on the exploits of our people, first of all. And we, being Russians, Tatars, Jews, I don't know, Mordovians, whatever, Chechens, Dagestanis–-we should first of all, of course, talk about this.</p><p>Why is someone from another international, the "brown international", so insistently supporting neo-Nazism, in this case in Ukraine, and trying to dissolve the memory of the exploits of our people, of the exploits of our ancestors, grandfathers and great-grandfathers? Why? <em><strong>Because this purging of historical memory dissolves us, it makes us lose our identity, which means that we lose our inner unity and strength, the unity of our people. A nation that has no past has no future. And this attempt to "dissolve" us all in some kind of amorphous state is not accidental–-it is a purposeful work, in this case against our country, against Russia and against the peoples of the Russian Federation</strong></em>.</p><p>And your work and your project, of course, are aimed at preventing these attacks and, on the contrary, strengthening our unity, strengthening our self-consciousness, our identity, and therefore our internal sovereignty.</p><p>We will definitely support your project. thank you very much.</p><p><strong>M. Dreval:</strong> Most of the historical truth is preserved in archives. I would like to give the floor to Artyom Beloglazov, a professional historian who skillfully works with archival documents.</p><p><strong>Alexander Beloglazov:</strong> Hello, Mr President!</p><p>My name is Artem Beloglazov. I am a historian, engaged in historical and archival expertise and have long been involved in the project "No statute of limitations".</p><p>I am concerned about a very important issue:  <em><strong>the problem of recognizing the genocide of the Soviet people at the international level</strong></em>.</p><p>In our country, 34 trials were held that recognized the crimes of the Nazis in the occupied territory of the USSR as genocide of the Soviet people. A huge number of documents have been declassified that confirm the monstrous nature of the war waged against us by Nazi Germany.</p><p><em><strong>However, it is very common to hear at the international level that the systematic extermination of our compatriots is not genocide.</strong></em></p><p>For example, the siege of Leningrad–-an act of genocide planned by the Germans, during which more than a million Soviet citizens died, mostly from starvation–-is translated into a foreign language as "siege of the city",<em><strong> which fundamentally replaces the essence of this crime</strong></em>.</p><p>My colleagues and I from the National Center for Historical Memory prepared an exhibition entitled "The Siege of Leningrad: The Genocide of the Soviet people during the Great Patriotic War", where we called a spade a spade. It has been exhibited in Moscow, St. Petersburg, on the territory of the Piskarevsky cemetery, as well as at the international level, in particular at the UN Security Council, and will be opened in Geneva to show what our compatriots really went through.</p><p>Vladimir Vladimirovich, please tell me how you respond to attempts by other countries to rewrite the history of the Great Patriotic War. And how to counteract the falsification of history at the level of the younger generation? Also, what prospects do you see for international recognition of the genocide of the Soviet people?</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> First, we draw on the decisions and conclusions of the Nuremberg trials. There everything is basically called by its proper name. They try to forget it, drown it out, obscure it. At the level of our official authorities, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this work is carried out constantly. <em><strong>But it certainly can and will be successful only if people like you, those who have gathered here today, and your like-minded people all over the country will constantly raise these issues.</strong></em></p><p><em><strong>And this is not an empty job, it is not a search for enemies in the past; it is a way to convey to ourselves-–and to our people, and to the whole world the realities of the events that took place then, because these realities largely explain our behavior today.</strong></em> This is very important, it is of practical importance, I can tell you for sure, because we hear, and I sometimes hear from my foreign colleagues, even those who, to put it mildly, do not sympathize with what we are doing in defending our interests, they say: well, yes, of course, the Soviet Union and the Soviet states people have suffered so much, of course, you have the right to think about protecting your interests and ensuring your safety today and for a long historical perspective. <em><strong>This has practical implications. Therefore, we will work on this both through the state and public organizations. I support the projects that have just been mentioned, and all that we are talking about here.</strong></em></p><p>Together, only together will we achieve the desired result. We'll keep working.</p><p><strong>Alexander Beloglazov:</strong> Thank you.</p><p><strong>Daria Dmitrieva:</strong> Mr President, we see that now, just as during the Great Patriotic War, the whole country is helping the front. I believe that the desire to help is a trait that lies not just in the cultural code, but in the genetic code of our people.</p><p>I want to give the floor to Angelina Uzhikovskaya, a volunteer and student of Kursk State University.</p><p><strong>A. Uzhikovskaya:</strong> Hello, Mr President!</p><p>First of all, I would like to congratulate all of us on the long-awaited liberation of the Kursk region from the occupation of Ukrainian military units. Thank you very much for the comprehensive state support for temporary migrants.</p><p>From the first day of the invasion, I myself, together with the team of the Young Guard of United Russia, helped the affected residents. We worked in temporary accommodation centers, humanitarian centers, and warehouses. Volunteers from all over the country came to the Kursk region to help. Some of them were engaged in extremely important and dangerous work: they helped evacuate civilians from the occupied territories. Unfortunately, not all of them returned.</p><p>Vladimir Vladimirovich,<em><strong> volunteer work in the Kursk region has become a symbol of national unity. Therefore, I ask you to consider creating a memorial dedicated to the volunteers of the special military operation in my native region.</strong></em></p><p>Thank you.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> First of all, I would like to thank you and all those who have worked with you and are still working together during this difficult time. It did not end–-yes, the enemy was kicked out of the Kursk region, but there are still cracks in some of them, they are still sitting in some basements. We hear what they say there: they ask for evacuation. I won't go into the details right now. It is impossible to evacuate, because there are scattered groups of two or three people, I repeat, sitting somewhere in the woods, in some burrows, in complete isolation.</p><p>By the way, they are offered to surrender. Some were taken prisoner and sent back to where their colleagues are sitting, with an offer to lay down their weapons. Not an isolated case, just a few days ago.</p><p>As for the volunteers, after all… You know, this is just how search engines work. And volunteers... of course, the volunteer movement is developed all over the world, but it has acquired a special character in our country. We have special people after all.<em><strong> We have very young people who are just starting out in life so imbued with a sense of duty, responsibility and awareness of the importance of what they are doing that they do not feel sorry for themselves.</strong></em></p><p>First of all, I would like to appeal to you, and I hope that your comrades will hear me, to exercise maximum caution. Unfortunately, I am aware of this, and there are also losses among volunteers. We will do our best to support you.</p><p><em><strong>Did you suggest creating a memorial? So let's do it.</strong></em></p><p>So let's do it.</p><p><strong>A. Uzhikovskaya:</strong> Thank you very much.</p><p><strong>Mikhail Dreval:</strong> Mr President, I know you have a very busy schedule. Do you have time to listen to one more participant?</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Come on.</p><p><strong>Daria Dmitrieva:</strong> Today we have a young poet Nikita Gogolev with us.</p><p><strong>Nikolai Gogolev:</strong> Good afternoon, Mr President!</p><p>I am Nikita Gogolev, I am 13 years old, Stavropol Territory, Pyatigorsk.</p><p>All people have something in common. For example, I also practice judo and was born in October, just like you. Now all of us, as our ancestors once did, have united for the common defense of the Motherland, each in his own place. I write poetry and believe that creativity should help us remember what is important.</p><p>Let me read an excerpt from my poem written for the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Please.</p><p><strong>N. Gogolev:</strong> I hear the fanfare of Victory, as my great-grandfather once did.</p><p>Young guys are walking along Krasnaya Square with an orchestra.</p><p>Go, as then, in the 45th, the soldiers of our Victory.</p><p>And great-grandfathers are proud of them, and the enemy is not terrible at all.</p><p>There are young heroes in the ranks, and they have Russia behind them.</p><p>And there is no doubt--the victory will be ours,</p><p>And the enemy will be defeated again, and the peaceful sky above us,</p><p>As a symbol of the Great Victory, fireworks will be painted with flowers!</p><p>(Applause.)</p><p>Vladimir Vladimirovich, meeting you was a long-standing dream for me.</p><p>Thank you.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Thank you very much. I really hope that you will continue… Please sit down.</p><p><strong>Nikolai Gogolev:</strong> Mr President, I was born and raised in the Caucasus. We have a custom that when the older ones speak, the younger ones stand.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Good. The Caucasus has its own traditions. We treat them with great respect, because they largely shape the character of those people who live in this wonderful corner of our country.</p><p>I would like to wish you success in your work. I hope that you will continue to follow this path. What we've all heard is impressive, without a doubt.</p><p>How old are you?"</p><p><strong>N. Gogolev:</strong> 13</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> 13 years old. You see, a very young man, and such things are patriotic [you compose], and how beautifully you present them. I would very much like to see this spread more widely. We will definitely… I will think about it myself, how to make sure that as many people as possible learn about your work not only from your peers, but also from the citizens of our country in general. Thank you for thinking about it.</p><p>What do your parents do?</p><p><strong>Nikolai Gogolev:</strong> My mother is an economist, she used to write poetry too, and at the beginning of my career she helped me with my creative work.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> See how well he said, "At the beginning of my journey." That is, he is no longer at the beginning, he already feels that he is a practically accomplished poet and writer.</p><p>All the best to you. thank you very much. Big greetings to Mom.</p><p><strong>Nikolai Gogolev: </strong>Thank you very much<strong>.</strong> I will definitely pass it on.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Thank you.</p><p>I would like to thank you all for today's meeting and wish you every success. As you may have noticed, I marked many of the things that we discussed today.</p><p>The topic we discussed is clear to us. I would like to note that this topic, of course, is extremely important in itself, but it gives us an opportunity to talk in general about what we do, how we live, what needs to be done in addition to live even better, and what development vectors are particularly important.</p><p>I note all this for myself and will build my own work accordingly, as well as work with my colleagues from the Government, the Presidential Administration, and the heads of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, including those from the Caucasus.</p><p>Thank you very much. Let me wish you good luck and congratulate you on the upcoming holiday - the Great Victory Day!</p><p>Thank you. [My Emphasis] </p></blockquote><div data-sanitized-class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbdb86230-bb3a-44fc-bba1-32da8afe0fe6_1880x1160.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM" data-sanitized-class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img"><div data-sanitized-class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbdb86230-bb3a-44fc-bba1-32da8afe0fe6_1880x1160.jpeg" width="1456" height="898" data-attrs='{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/bdb86230-bb3a-44fc-bba1-32da8afe0fe6_1880x1160.jpeg","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":898,"width":1456,"resizeWidth":null,"bytes":419183,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":"image/jpeg","href":null,"belowTheFold":false,"topImage":false,"internalRedirect":"https://karlof1.substack.com/i/162574379?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbdb86230-bb3a-44fc-bba1-32da8afe0fe6_1880x1160.jpeg","isProcessing":false,"align":null}' alt="" data-sanitized-class="sizing-normal"></picture><div data-sanitized-class="image-link-expand"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></div><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>It’s interesting that poets are always found for these events and usually close the discussion. Lots of writers and everyone seems to have a group or groups they work within. Yes, the volunteers merit many monuments, and not just at the front, but recognition within their small country. The photoshoot has several images at the end showing the interaction between all after the discussion. I do have one objection:  Putin’s “nationalism” I would call chauvinism or exceptionalism and was certainly present within the Russian Empire and to a lesser degree within the USSR. I found the naming of Russophobes/Neonazis “Losers”, which reveals another Russian POV. IMO, Putin did a good job in explaining much of Europe was split over Nazi support. I’d never heard of the Red Orchestra. And as most know, I agree 100% that both Soviet and Chinese must be recognized as THE peoples that suffered the WW2 Holocaust, while others were certainly included, but we’re anywhere close to the main victims. And lastly, I’m impressed by the International Immortal Regiment happenings. Where will the celebration be held tomorrow?</p><p>*<br>*<br>*<br><em>Like what you’ve been reading at Karlof1’s Substack? Then please consider subscribing and choosing to make a <strong>monthly/yearly pledge</strong> to enable my efforts in this challenging realm. Thank You!</em></p><p></p><p></p><p data-attrs='{"url":"https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?","text":"Subscribe now","action":null,"class":null}' data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton" data-sanitized-class="button-wrapper"><a href="https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?" data-sanitized-class="button primary"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p>  </p>

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guid: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/100-days-of-change-the-united-states
author: ;Karl Sanchez
link: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/100-days-of-change-the-united-states
hash: �( p_��i�0��l
title:
100 Days of Change, the United States Has Changed the World, and We Have Fallen Into the "Rabbit Hole"

content:
<div data-sanitized-class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1a64f85b-4be2-4224-af51-abf481462771_1080x1920.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM" data-sanitized-class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img"><div data-sanitized-class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1a64f85b-4be2-4224-af51-abf481462771_1080x1920.jpeg" width="1080" height="1920" data-attrs='{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/1a64f85b-4be2-4224-af51-abf481462771_1080x1920.jpeg","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":1920,"width":1080,"resizeWidth":null,"bytes":1105169,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":"image/jpeg","href":null,"belowTheFold":false,"topImage":true,"internalRedirect":"https://karlof1.substack.com/i/162636054?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1a64f85b-4be2-4224-af51-abf481462771_1080x1920.jpeg","isProcessing":false,"align":null}' alt="" fetchpriority="high" data-sanitized-class="sizing-normal"></picture><div data-sanitized-class="image-link-expand"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></div><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Pepe Escobar initially pointed to this <a href="https://www.guancha.cn/yanmo/2025_04_29_774003_s.shtml">great essay</a> whose content is clear from the title. Eventually, Trump’s behavior is compared to some of China’s past Emperors whose actual doings aren’t critical to know as the context provides enough information. And yes, as with Lewis Carrol’s two books about Alice and her Wonderland, there’s plenty of humor and “gee you know he’s right” moments. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNHBd5t-rk0">Today’s chat</a> between Nima, and Drs. Hudson and Wolff also discussed the many oddities of Trump’s behavior that fit rather well with the prose that follows. </p><blockquote><p>It has only been 100 days since Trump took office, and it seems that 10 years have passed, the United States has changed the world, and we have fallen into the "rabbit hole".</p><p>The rabbit hole of <em>Alice in Wonderland</em> is now described as falling into a bizarre world. There is nothing better for the world than a rabbit hole to account for what happened in 100 days. <em><strong>In the rabbit hole, truth and its opposite can be truth at the same time.</strong></em> In the days to come, there will be many interesting things.</p><p>Trump's character, first and foremost, the white rabbit in a vest and a pocket watch, hurriedly leads the curious us down the rabbit hole. Then he became Humpty Dumpty, arrogantly saying, "When I use a word, it means what I choose, no more, no less".</p><p>He said that the trade deficit between China and the United States is one trillion US dollars, which means one trillion US dollars, no more, no less. He said again, TSMC has increased its capital by 300 billion, which means 300 billion, no more, no less. He also said that the Panama Canal is American, and now it has been "recovered", <em><strong>which means that the United States has been recovered,</strong></em> no more, no less.</p><p><em><strong>Mr. Eggman uses a lot of data and words, the meaning of which is the meaning of his choice, and has nothing to do with the original meaning of the word and the real data, which is our first bizarre experience in the rabbit hole.</strong></em></p><p>On the first day of his inauguration, Trump announced that he would impose 25% tariffs on his neighbors Canada and Mexico, and Canada and Mexico could not believe it, especially the Canadian people, who could not accept that their close neighbors would wield the tariff stick against them, and the US-Mexico-Canada agreement was like a piece of waste paper. It was as if they had walked up to a big mushroom and were coldly thrown by the caterpillar with a philosophical question: "Who are you?" "Are you...... I am...... You and I ...... Who am I? Where am I?<em><strong> A bunch of inexplicable question marks hung on the Canadian's forehead.</strong></em></p><p>On his second day in office, Trump signed an executive order confirming that there are only two genders. American teenagers with 97 genders are confused, and Trump now plays the moral duchess and says to teenagers—<em><strong>never imagine yourself different from what others see you are, or you will not be what others think you should be.</strong></em></p><p>On the ninth day of his inauguration, Trump reformed the federal employment system, a large number of civil servants were furloughed and fired, and people who had lost their livelihood asked Trump's Cheshire cat: Please tell me, where do I go? <em><strong>The Cheshire Cat said that it was all the same, no problem, as long as you went far enough, you would definitely get somewhere.</strong></em></p><p>On the 25th day of his inauguration, Trump met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who came with a big gift of lowering tariffs and buying more fossil fuels and armaments, and asked Trump the same question: Tell me, where do I go? The Cheshire Cat always replied that if you go far enough, you will definitely get somewhere. I don't know if Modi had an epiphany, but<em><strong> in the rabbit hole, there is no answer to the question, and the answer is made up of one question after another.</strong></em></p><p>On the 40th day of his inauguration, Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House, and he now plays the Queen of Hearts, threatening to cut off people's heads at every turn. The Queen said to Zelensky, you have no cards in your hand! Only then did Zelensky know that he was in the White House card room, so he had to helplessly say "I don't want to play cards", and scolded Trump in his heart: "You are just a deck of cards"</p><p>On the 43rd day of his inauguration, Trump and TSMC CEO Wei Zhejia announced in the Roosevelt Room of the White House that TSMC would increase its capital by 100 billion in the United States. <em><strong>Since that day, the Queen of Hearts has been carrying TSMC's head everywhere to show off, and I won 100 billion without spending a dime. No, 200 billion, no, 300 billion!</strong></em></p><p>On his 62nd day in office, Trump thanked Musk for helping astronauts trapped in the "rabbit hole" return to Earth. They went on a business trip for 8 days but worked overtime for 9 months, and experienced an exciting journey because of the failure of the Boeing spacecraft. The day after returning home, Boeing was awarded a major contract to produce America's next-generation fighter jets. Astronauts should be happy for future fighter pilots, because<em><strong> only Boeing's products can take humans down the rabbit hole.</strong></em></p><p>On his 68th day in office, the Trump administration notified Congress that it would formally shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), an organization that not only aids foreign countries but also instigates color revolutions. Foreign netizens who receive money to work for the United States find themselves playing card soldiers in the garden and must secretly paint white roses red because they accidentally plant the wrong flowers, and if they don't, they will be beheaded by the Queen of Hearts.</p><p>On the 73rd day of his inauguration, Trump announced the reciprocal tariff rate, and the world was in an uproar,<em><strong> everyone was pondering the ridiculous "reciprocity" algorithm,</strong></em> Trump and Navarro are now playing "griffons" and "fake turtles", <em><strong>they say that they learn arithmetic not Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, but Ambition, Distraction , Uglification, and Derision.</strong></em></p><p>On this day, investors on Wall Street and around the world finally found themselves falling down the rabbit hole, their money would evaporate, and their lives would not be guaranteed, so they began to sell US stocks, US bonds and US dollars. Analysts say it's an unprecedented "sell-off of America," and<em><strong> that's something that only happens down the rabbit hole.</strong></em></p><p>On the 80th day of his inauguration, Trump announced a 90-day moratorium on so-called "reciprocal tariffs" (except for China), and he now plays the Mad Hatter who offends time, and the offended time is always stuck at the tea party where US stocks, US bonds and US dollars are sold off in large quantities. How boring it is to drink afternoon tea endlessly; Trump has to keep imposing ineffective tariffs on China to "pass the time".</p><p>On the 92nd day of his inauguration, Trump threatened to fire Powell in order to force the Fed to cut interest rates <em><strong>so that time could not be moved forward, because this afternoon tea was too much to drink. </strong></em>The Mad Hatter attacked Powell as "Mr. Too Late", but it was he who offended "Time." The president's pressure on the Fed chair caused the market to collapse even more, and the situation of U.S. stocks, U.S. bonds, and the U.S. dollar accelerated its deterioration.</p><p>On the 93rd day of his inauguration, financial markets were in deep anxiety over Powell's threat of dismissal, and Trump changed his tune and said he had no intention of firing Powell. On the same day, Trump, who has always been tough on China, suddenly denied that he was tough on China, and instead emphasized that he would be friendly. <em><strong>The world gradually figured out the character of Queen of Hearts's "sentencing first, then tried", and no longer worried about what punishment she was sentenced to, because the prosecution had not yet "collected evidence".</strong></em></p><p>On my 100th day on the job, I didn't know what to expect because it was a rabbit hole.</p><p><strong>Which change in Chinese history is most similar to Trump's change?</strong></p><p>In the world civilization, <em><strong>perhaps only China knows best that Trump's change of law is ultimately a chicken feather</strong></em>, because in our long history, there is only one successful case of law change, that is, the change of Tang Taizong led Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui, which created the rule of <a href="https://inf.news/en/history/9fb438784fccc1a0476af6e7f0669ae3.html">Zhenguan</a>. The main reason for the success of Tang Taizong's reform was the gradual adjustment of the system.</p><p>The other changes failed because they were rushed and the New Deal was short-lived. <em><strong>But even the failed changes in China's history have not been more urgent or larger than Trump's</strong></em>. <em><strong>So, in just 100 days, the world has become aware that the odds of Trump losing are very high unless he changes course.</strong></em></p><p>From a historical point of view, although the purpose is to save the country, the essence of the reform of the law is actually a large-scale power struggle. The script is usually that an emperor wants to change the status quo, so he enlists the help of some people on the fringes of the power spectrum to fight the powerful ministers in the core of power and the existing interest structure behind them.</p><p>The vigorous and resolute action in the early stage of the reform of the law has indeed brought about a new atmosphere. But usually the powerful ministers who are being fought just sit on the cold bench and are not defeated, and the interest structure prompts them to unite and wait for the opportunity to fight back. The timing of the destruction of the results of the reform is often after the death of the emperor and the transfer of power. Political "change" is greater than "change of law", <em><strong>so the executor of the change of law will be wiped out together with the new policy.</strong></em></p><p>China's changes have always been infighting, but Trump has drawn almost the entire world into a power struggle. <em><strong>It stands to reason that the larger the scale, the higher the failure rate, because the various power relations are intricate, the variables are proportional to the scale of the struggle, and it is easy to get out of control. The more out of control, the more bizarre the phenomenon, so much so that the world seems to have fallen down a rabbit hole.</strong></em></p><p>So, which of Trump's changes in Chinese history is most like?</p><p>Excluding Fang Xuanling, Guan Zhong, Shang Ying, Wang Mang, Wang Anshi, Zhang Juzheng, and Wuxu Six Gentlemen, these cases of law change can all find similarities with Trump. However, I personally believe that Trump is more like Wang Mang's "Togu reform".</p><p>"There are only two genders", which is normal in other countries, seems to have become an outdated classification in the United States, so Trump wants to "togu", return to the traditional track, and suppress progressive ideology.</p><p>In addition, Trump expressed his dissatisfaction with the status quo by admiring several previous US presidents. For example, Jackson, the seventh president, was praised by Trump for his populist and anti-establishment style of governance. Another example is the 25th president, McKinley, known for his high tariffs, annexation of Hawaii, and control of Cuba and the Philippines, which made Trump fall for himself. "It's still a good old day," Trump and Wang Mang empathize.</p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Mang">Wang Mang</a> was the most special emperor in China other than Wu Zetian, and his "anti-establishment" was manifested in the implementation of bold institutional innovations in the name of "retro". His "populism" is manifested in the extremism of Confucian culture to subdue (buy) almost all the intellectuals in power. <em><strong>These two main features of Wang Mang's reform are similar to Trump's, and they also involve the people of the time in a rabbit hole, and absurdity covers reality.</strong></em></p><p>In terms of foreign policy, Wang Mang advocated "Huairou Anbian" and opposed the use of force, but in practice, he frequently interfered in the internal affairs of other countries, demanded the obedience of foreign races, and copied his new political order, and the result was a war with the Xiongnu and Goguryeo. <em><strong>Although Trump is very rude to foreign countries on the surface and feels very ungentle, he is very similar to Wang Mang at the level of implementation, mainly asking other countries to obey the new order and abandon the old order.</strong></em></p><p>Wang Mang is as happy as Trump, and this kind of political leader is often surrounded by sycophants, and <em><strong>the characteristic of sycophants is that they can't do anything except pat on the back. </strong></em>Wang Mang's accession to the throne with "three resignations and nine resignations", and sycophants made up Fu Rui auspicious omen, <em><strong>which is the same as the American evangelicals calling Trump "God's chosen man" and the Republican Party National Congress calling "God's chosen man", the ancient and modern scenes.</strong></em></p><p>However, after ascending the throne, the emperor had only a handful of "adults in the room", and those who were a little talented were all squeezed out of the core of decision-making. But there is one thing that Trump may be luckier than Wang Mang, that is, less than 100 days in office, <em><strong>Trump found out that the sycophants were bad. The main reason is that China is tough enough and resolutely opposed, and the American creditors are also clever enough to withdraw when they should withdraw, and they quickly exposed the mistakes of the White House.</strong></em></p><p>As we all know, the failure of Wang Mang's reform of the law can be summed up in four points: <em><strong>ideals are divorced from reality, policies lack operability, anger the elite and interest strata, and foreign relations are broken. These four points can probably also summarize the situation of Trump's 100-day change.</strong></em></p><p>Internally, it is Wall Street that Trump is angry with, including his key financiers, and it is the hegemony of the dollar that is being undermined. Externally, China and the EU are rigid about the "new order", and other countries will inevitably turn to the sidelines, because<em><strong> no one is interested in the new order, but they have to make a false deal with Trump for a while.</strong></em></p><p><strong>100 days later</strong></p><p>Having said that, we can't underestimate Trump, even though the law has changed for 100 days and is full of slots, but Washington still benefits. Among other things, Trump plundered $5.2 trillion in domestic and foreign capital in 100 days, five times more than Biden's 4 years in office.</p><p>While we know that this is a maximization of the "aftermath of America" and that the negative consequences may be five times greater than under Biden, Trump still has more than 1,300 days to adjust his policy, and it would be unwise to underestimate his flexibility.</p><p><em><strong>Let's not forget that we are down the rabbit hole, and it is not surprising that US policy has made a 180-degree turn. From China's point of view, Trump still has cards in his hand, and he is very fickle. </strong></em>The fairy tale characters listed in this article, including the Queen of Hearts, the Caterpillar, the Mad Hatter, and the Duchess, are all changeable and take crookedness for common sense. As I said earlier, Trump's turn to China is also in his strategy toolbox.</p><p>To deal with fickle characters, you must keep your distance, never promise anything easily, and don't trust the other party, only the benefits that can be realized immediately are worth negotiating, and you must confirm that the benefits have entered your own pocket before you can give an exchange. The point is that you can reciprocate the peach, but you can't ask for five cents, I'll give a piece, and the reciprocal exchange is the top.</p><p>The world down the rabbit hole is unpredictable, but as long as we stand our ground and believe in it, we can enjoy this amazing journey. [My Emphasis]</p></blockquote><p>I must applaud Yan Mo’s imagination and intellect go construct this tale straddling fantasy and reality. One point Yan fails to mention is the fact that Trump’s Outlaw US Empire is on its downward slope and isn’t nearly as strong as it was even during Trump’s first term. Trying to entice more into the military while drastically mauling the Veterans Administration—almost 100,000 jobs and vital programs axed so far—is but one example of Trump’s rabbit hole policies. As many are pointing out, there’s no certainty at all with anything, so rational planning can’t be done. Some push-back is happening, but the public must realize that the Ds are merely Trump-lite and serve the same interests, which aren’t the general publics. The mid-term elections are 1.5 years away, and a great deal of damage can and will be done before the opportunity to change the Congressional chemistry arrives. That it takes a Chinese writer to inform Americans about Trump’s genuine nature is also a shame.</p><p>*</p><p>*</p><p>*</p><p><em>Like what you’ve been reading at Karlof1’s Substack? Then please consider subscribing and choosing to make a <strong>monthly/yearly pledge</strong> to enable my efforts in this challenging realm. Thank You!</em></p><p></p><p></p><p data-attrs='{"url":"https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?","text":"Subscribe now","action":null,"class":null}' data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton" data-sanitized-class="button-wrapper"><a href="https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?" data-sanitized-class="button primary"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p>         </p>

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guid: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/pepe-escobars-long-awaited-guancha
title: Pepe Escobar's Long Awaited Guancha Interview
author: ;Karl Sanchez
link: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/pepe-escobars-long-awaited-guancha
hash: ���� d�3�6�hq�
content:
<div data-sanitized-class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3442e3ac-53c7-47b2-8477-1a03284036b3_1280x720.webp" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM" data-sanitized-class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img"><div data-sanitized-class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3442e3ac-53c7-47b2-8477-1a03284036b3_1280x720.webp" width="1280" height="720" data-attrs='{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/3442e3ac-53c7-47b2-8477-1a03284036b3_1280x720.webp","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":720,"width":1280,"resizeWidth":null,"bytes":46560,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":"image/webp","href":null,"belowTheFold":false,"topImage":true,"internalRedirect":"https://karlof1.substack.com/i/162781864?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3442e3ac-53c7-47b2-8477-1a03284036b3_1280x720.webp","isProcessing":false,"align":null}' alt="" fetchpriority="high" data-sanitized-class="sizing-normal"></picture><div data-sanitized-class="image-link-expand"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></div><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p></p><p>During Pepe’s talks about his recent time in China he mentioned this interview on several occasions, yet it never surfaced on any Chinese media platform. Finally, one of Guancha’s subsidiaries, Observer.com, <a href="https://www.guancha.cn/PepeEscobar/2025_05_03_774501_s.shtml">published i</a>t and gave it this title: “Trump's crazy policies can only lead to "trade suicide", a big experiment that will affect the world is coming.” Those reading the Gym arre likely to have read Pepe’s articles during his recent China stay and will thus know that it took place about ten days ago. In the interim, little has changed. The transcript leads with an editor’s note before the interview begins:</p><blockquote><p><strong>Editor's note</strong>: Trump's 100-day shock shook the world, and a few executive orders nearly shattered decades of rules-based free trade system. This has not only led to the boiling of public opinion in the United States, but also seriously affected the expectations of countries around the world for future development. At this time, countries around the world are also looking forward to stability, and to responsible countries standing up to fight this chaotic impact.</p><p>To this end, Observer.com sat down with Pepe Escobar, a freelance journalist from Brazil, to analyze the impact of the U.S.-China tariff war from the perspective of a third-world partner and look ahead to the future of the BRICS.</p><p><strong>Observer.com: Trump's tariff war has escalated around the world, especially with China. What aspects of the U.S.-China economic friction are you most concerned about?</strong></p><p><strong>Pepe Escobar:</strong> It's actually a geo-economic war against China, not against the whole world. They initially imposed tariffs on most countries and regions, but it soon became clear that the spearhead of the campaign was directed at China and that it was out of control. Tariff rates have climbed from 54 percent, 104 percent, 125 percent, 145 percent, and now even 245 percent.</p><p>Now, the tariff figures have become meaningless, because under the current tariffs, there are many areas where US-China trade would come to a near standstill. <em><strong>The tariff problem can no longer be solved by economic means, and can only be solved by diplomatic means.</strong></em> But it is simply impossible for the United States, especially Trump, to adopt normal diplomacy to solve this problem, and he is living in his own "bubble". I call him the "conductor" of the "circus", who controls the entire "circus".</p><p>We can look at China's response, and I think the statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry is very appropriate. <em><strong>This series of policies of Trump is not a policy at all, but more like a fantasy.</strong></em></p><p>Trump is surrounded by three people pushing for these policies: Peter Navarro, a senior trade and manufacturing adviser who is anti-China and has no knowledge of China, Stephen Millen, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, who proposed tariffs, and Scott Bessant, the anti-China hawkish Treasury secretary. It was these three people who circled around Mr. Trump, whispering to Mr. Trump, "This will work."</p><p>Now, many very good American economists are bluntly saying, "This is complete madness, and the United States has to turn the ship." But I'm afraid the Trump administration won't do that. Now this head-on conflict is on the table between China and the United States, and <em><strong>most countries in the world are not only morally on China's side, but also understand China's position, and their main trading partner is China.</strong></em> Therefore, the rash introduction of such a crazy policy by the United States in the context of not looking at the global trade pattern at all can only lead to trade suicide in the end.</p><p>This set of US policies has actually pushed the level of global confrontation to another level.</p><p>Although the new Trump administration has adopted a more or less receptive attitude towards Russia, their system will not solve the Ukrainian problem at all. And they have shown an aggressive attitude towards China and Iran at the same time. <em><strong>So when you put the current system of international relations in a global perspective, you will find that the balance of the international system is at both ends of the scale, with a triangular alliance of Russia, China, and Iran on one side, and an isolated superpower on the other.</strong></em> That's not a good thing for America, right?</p><p><strong>Observer: From Brazil's point of view, what kind of public concern has Washington's re-imposed tariffs on steel products under Section 232 provoked public concern?</strong></p><p><strong>Pepe Escobar:</strong> That's a very good question. However, although I am Brazilian, I do not keep up with the domestic situation because I have been living abroad for a long time. I have lived in Europe, the United States, and Asia, and have been in Asia for the past 30 years, so my focus is mainly on the United States, Europe, and Asia as a whole, and I don't know much about the details of Brazil.</p><p>Overall, as a Brazilian, I think the geo-economic situation facing Brazil is very complex – <em><strong>even within Lula's government, there are quite a few officials who are outspoken against working too closely with Russia, China, and even the BRICS. But at the same time, China is Brazil's largest trading partner, far more important than the United States.</strong></em></p><p>Therefore, once the United States imposes tariffs on Brazilian steel or other products, Brazil is bound to react. At the same time, the US lobby in Brazil is extremely strong, and the Lula government must make careful decisions. In any case, Brazil will almost certainly react to the U.S. tariffs.</p><p>Brazil has a strong pro-Trump camp, the Bolsonaro camp, which is naturally opposed to the Lula government, so I think Brazil has to be extra careful in its approach to the U.S.-China relationship. Fortunately, President Lula has a lot of experience in this area. However, US-Brazil relations will still face many fluctuations and challenges in the future.</p><p><strong>Observer.com: Since taking office, Trump has been stirring up the global situation: expelling migrants, alienating European allies, cutting off military aid to Ukraine, imposing massive tariffs, and now a bitter trade war with China. As a front-line observer of the global power shift, what exactly do you think is driving this chaos? Are we witnessing the collapse of the old international order and turning to a scuffle in which countries are cleaning up their own hands?</strong></p><p><strong>Pepe Escobar:</strong> Indeed, we have entered a whole new era compared to three months ago. <em><strong>Three months ago, we could also consider countries ranging from the United States and Canada to Western and Eastern Europe as a "collective West" with a similar will; And now, a country has emerged in the West that is crude and naked in its worship of power.</strong></em></p><p>It bills itself as an "empire" and sends a strong signal to the world: "You all need to do what I want, or either I will impose tariffs, or I will use force." "Other countries of the West were also placed in a vassal position. Trump and his team simply do not see Europe as valuable geopolitically, technologically, or economically. To make matters worse, Trump believes that the United States is paying for Europe's security. So he argues that from now on, if Europe needs to continue to receive U.S. protection, it will have to pay for U.S. military protection.</p><p>At the same time, on the other side of the world, there is a camp of the "Global South" consisting of the majority of the world's countries, with Russia and China as the main leaders. In this camp, China is the world's unrivaled trading power, and the strategic partnership between China and Russia is crucial. <em><strong>The core problem now is that the international financial system is still dominated by the West, especially the United States.</strong></em></p><p>The current tension in the world is stemming from the rise of the "imperial" mentality of the United States. This is evident in the discussion of the annexation of Greenland, the annexation of Canada, and the treatment of other allies as vassals. And<em><strong> this rising trend of "empire" mentality is also evident in its actions against most countries around the world, especially against China</strong></em>.</p><p>It can be said that we are entering a new era of utter disorder,<em><strong> in which the so-called New World Order is essentially a chaos caused by the decline of an empire, and this irreversible decline will make the old empire even more dangerous in its end.</strong></em></p><p><strong>Observer.com: In your latest article, you wrote that "this is a chaotic empire against the BRICS", why do you describe it that way? How should we protect our interests?</strong></p><p><strong>Pepe Escobar:</strong> This spectacle of a "chaotic empire" against the BRICS has become more pronounced this year as the United States escalates its economic and trade war against China, as well as a potential hot war against fellow BRICS member Iran.</p><p>A few months ago, we could have summarized the US actions against the BRICS as a multi-layered "hybrid war" with "color revolutions", economic destruction, and political pressure. Today, the situation is even more complicated, with the United States engaged in a head-on confrontation with two extremely important BRICS countries, China and Iran.</p><p>There is no doubt that China is the primary target of the United States. At the same time, they are trying to use the "divide and rule" strategy of ancient Rome in an attempt to divide Russia and China, but this is not destined to succeed.</p><p><em><strong>I think the BRICS summit in Rio in early July will decide a lot of things.</strong></em> At that meeting, the BRICS countries will decide as a whole how to unite against the runaway empire of the United States, and appeal to the "global majority" – the "Global South" – with practical policies, and try to explore multiple payment methods that bypass the dollar and try to use their own currencies more in internal trade.</p><p>It is crucial that BRICS cooperation go further. At that time, we will see how the "Empire of Chaos" and the "BRICS" will enter the next stage of this contest.</p><p><strong>Observer.com: China's solar panel exports to Brazil will increase by 80% year-on-year in 2023, and clean energy cooperation between China and Brazil is very important for both sides. From your perspective, will the Section 301 tariffs imposed by the United States on Brazilian steel and aluminum interfere with China-Brazil clean energy cooperation?</strong></p><p><strong>Pepe Escobar:</strong> The core purpose of such a "crazy" tariff policy is to undermine cooperation within the BRICS. And Brazil's and China's attempts to circumvent these tariffs will also be an excellent test for countries to circumvent the dollar system. <em><strong>I think in this experiment, we can try to trade with currencies such as the digital yuan</strong></em>.</p><p>However, Brazil's central bank is currently highly aligned with the Fed, and it will not be easy to suddenly pursue a completely different monetary policy and settlement currency. It is not clear to us whether the Lula Government has the political will and capacity to launch this new process.</p><p>But if it can be successful, it will be ideal. <em><strong>Because the most effective way to deal with this global tariff "tsunami" is for countries to conduct bilateral trade in their own currencies, bypassing the U.S. financial channel.</strong></em> This will be an excellent institutional test for Brazil.</p><p><strong>Observer.com: Brazil is sitting on a large nickel mine, but now it is caught in the crossfire of the Chinese mining deal and the Biden climate bill in the United States. And Lula's government is now at war with Washington over tariffs at the WTO. How will Brazil remain active and unsuppressed in this global game? Will Brazil be able to turn this resource duel into a battle to reclaim its technological sovereignty?</strong></p><p><strong>Pepe Escobar:</strong> You just mentioned a key concept-–sovereignty. That's right, it's all about sovereignty. If an emerging country like Brazil is to truly gain sovereignty, it must be free from external pressures. In fact, Brazil has been slower to strengthen its sovereignty because pressure from the United States has had a stronger impact than on Russia and China.</p><p>So, back to the tariffs: if Brazil can circumvent these tariffs by expanding its trade with its major trading partners, especially China, and bypassing dollar settlements, <em><strong>it will be a crucial step towards a new global geo-economic landscape.</strong></em> This will be a key test, as trade between ASEAN and China is increasingly settled in RMB and other local currencies, and we need to extend this to the BRICS.</p><p>Within the BRICS, a blockchain-based multilateral digital settlement platform has been theoretically proposed, the "BRICS Bridge" proposed by Russia in February 2024. Although Brazil has not yet joined the system, if successful, it will provide the possibility of bypassing the traditional monetary system altogether, especially the US dollar.</p><p>In addition, the People's Bank of China is also promoting a mechanism called "mBridge", which can also support BRICS countries in advancing related experiments. <em><strong>In the coming months and beyond, testing platforms such as BRICS will be crucial. Once this alternative payment system is in place, member states will be able to bypass U.S. financial controls entirely.</strong></em></p><p><strong>Observer.com: You were banned from Facebook and Twitter, what happened? What are your plans for the future?</strong></p><p><strong>Pepe Escobar:</strong> I was first banned from Facebook and never got unblocked. At the time, I was working with Hong Kong's Asia Times, and their lawyer sent a letter to Facebook asking for an explanation, but they never responded.</p><p>Twitter's situation was different, I was banned for my reporting on Iran and Iraq. It wasn't until Musk took over and bought Twitter that my accounts and those of some other journalists and analysts were restored. Scott Ritter (a well-known political commentator on the Internet, a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer, and former U.N. arms control mission in Iraq) had the same fate as I did, and we returned to X at the same time in the same week. To say the least, Musk was concerned about Twitter's previous ban on journalists.</p><p><strong>Observer.com: After these events, what do you think of freedom of speech in the West? On the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the trade war, and the Middle East issues that you are familiar with, how can the United States shape public opinion to create a favorable environment for itself?</strong></p><p><strong>Pepe Escobar:</strong> <em><strong>The U.S. controls the global soft power industry, and that's a big problem. What they do best, and probably the only thing they do, is to build, change, twist the narrative, and constantly push the envelope. </strong></em>They do this because they control global social media and discourse. It can be said that having mastered the "operating system" was precisely the great advantage of the empire.</p><p>We cannot claim that the West–-especially Europe-–truly has freedom of speech. In the United States, despite the new administration's attempts to promote that "freedom of expression on social media has been fully realized," there is still a no-go zone for speech: criticism of Israel in the United States and claims of genocide in Gaza will be banned.</p><p>The situation is even more dire in Europe, and if you criticize EU or European Commission policy, it will be seen as crossing the line. In addition, if you oppose the theory of the Russian threat and do not express an anti-Russian position, it is equally difficult to speak out, and you must condemn Russia every day. <em><strong>In general, the so-called "freedom of speech" in the West is nothing more than an illusion and does not exist at all. In contrast, in Asia, for example, the space for speech is much more relaxed.</strong></em></p><p><strong>Observer: Do you think countries in the Global South can use the BRICS+ mechanism to reshape the development discourse and innovate in sustainable development, technology transfer and multilateral financing paradigms?</strong></p><p><strong>Pepe Escobar:</strong> For all this, the BRICS itself is the best laboratory. I spent almost half a year in Moscow last year, following the preparations for the BRICS summit in Kazan last October, so I had the opportunity to interact with many members of the BRICS Business Council. They were trying to talk about different settlement and payment mechanisms, technological innovations, and artificial intelligence.</p><p>They told me that because we are a group of people sitting at the same table, all decisions need to be made by consensus, so it is complicated and difficult to reach an agreement. But on the other hand, it's unprecedented, because we're testing what's possible and exploring something completely new.</p><p>Based on this, I came up with the concept of <em><strong>the "Brics Lab". At the moment, the BRICS bloc is like a huge laboratory, they are already testing various economic models and technological exchanges.</strong></em> Maybe this year or next year, we're going to see a lot of test results.</p><p>We need to promote these policies within the BRICS member states first; If feasible, a pilot project between BRICS members and their partners will be carried out to expand cooperation to 14 to 19 countries, and then to other countries in the Global South.</p><p>We are now in a big era, because the BRICS countries may be about to advance a big experiment that will affect the world. Now, in the face of a US-sponsored trade war against most of the BRICS countries, all parties must step up and step up testing. But based on my experience with these people last year,<em><strong> the outlook is very optimistic, because they know that there is no choice in the future, only to develop independently. And now the trade war has added pressure and impetus to this experiment.</strong></em></p><p>Now for the countries of the "Global South", whether it is technology, economics or trade, the relevant construction of the countries of the "Global South" needs to consider how to bypass the United States. Everyone knows that this is the only way out. Finally, I would like to conclude today's interview with a hopeful remark –</p><p>Although the road is dark now, we can already see the stars ahead. [Bolded Italics My Emphasis]</p></blockquote><p>I found it odd that after Pepe’s disclaimer about events in Brazil that the line of questioning continued to include it which Pepe deftly dodged like some politicians. His key points were the BRICS must act and act together. Given events that happened after the interview India will be even more important because it must ignore the Outlaw US Empire’s attempt to further destabilize South Asia for it’s the only Kashmir terrorist act cui bono actor as Pakistan has nothing to gain from antagonizing both India and China. Pepe’s correct that the Empire’s declining and these acts by Trump are those the world should anticipate as it seeks to preserve its rapidly waning global hegemony. Pepe’s reports often mention China’s technological advances, but oddly there was no discussion of that. Implied by Pepe is China’s political decision to stand tall instead of bow-down relative to the Outlaw US Empire’s actions. IMO, it’s vital for China to finally become visible as the leading nation fighting Trump’s Trade War and to speak resolutely. Clearly China’s stance enabled Japanese parliamentarian Shinji Oguma <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIao2kkB7Gg">to call out</a> the Empire as “extortionist” and more. I’d like to see more of that spirit. The BRICS Summit in Brazil is only two months away and the world needs to see more China-like behavior coming from the “lab.”</p><p>*<br>*<br>*<br><em>Like what you’ve been reading at Karlof1’s Substack? Then please consider subscribing and choosing to make a <strong>monthly/yearly pledge</strong> to enable my efforts in this challenging realm. Thank You!</em></p><p></p><p></p><p data-attrs='{"url":"https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?","text":"Subscribe now","action":null,"class":null}' data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton" data-sanitized-class="button-wrapper"><a href="https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?" data-sanitized-class="button primary"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p>           </p>

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guid: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/medvedev-on-may-day-and-victory-day
title: Medvedev on May Day &amp; Victory Day Warning to Kiev Nazis
author: ;Karl Sanchez
link: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/medvedev-on-may-day-and-victory-day
hash: r��U�E!�D\@yZ�P�
content:
<div data-sanitized-class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2c70c5d3-e247-472d-befd-cfb8df0cd844_1440x810.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM" data-sanitized-class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img"><div data-sanitized-class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2c70c5d3-e247-472d-befd-cfb8df0cd844_1440x810.jpeg" width="1440" height="810" data-attrs='{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/2c70c5d3-e247-472d-befd-cfb8df0cd844_1440x810.jpeg","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":810,"width":1440,"resizeWidth":null,"bytes":null,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":null,"href":null,"belowTheFold":false,"topImage":true,"internalRedirect":null,"isProcessing":false,"align":null}' alt="" fetchpriority="high" data-sanitized-class="sizing-normal"></picture><div data-sanitized-class="image-link-expand"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></div><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p></p><p>I haven’t translated and published anything by Dmitry recently and decided to consult <a href="https://t.me/s/medvedev_telegram">his Telegram</a> after seeing a blurb at RT. Martyanov has posted <a href="https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/">on his site</a> several video clips of various other parade participants rehearsing making it clear that there’s plenty of excitement prior to the parade. The Nazis of course would very much like to create havoc for the celebration, but must weigh the costs, although they’ve mostly ignored them in the past. Currently, Russia sees the UK being the main backer of the Nazis, although in reality the Outlaw US Empire remains #1 regardless Trump’s antics. Along with the rest of the world Russia celebrates May Day—the first—as International Labor Day, which the Outlaw US Empire refused to do since that celebration supports Labor, Peace and Socialism as President Clevland said at the time when voicing support for the alternative in September. That the USA needed to be exceptionally different is clear from the several competing histories and the fact that Oregon made the first Saturday in June its Labor Day holiday, which was the first nationally. But that takes us away from the remarks made by our friend Dmitry on April 30 in anticipation of the following day:</p><blockquote><p><strong>About the International Labor</strong><br><br>Day If there was a reward for valiant labor in the United States, then its current president could become its recipient for the first hundred days of work, and especially for the beginning of the tariff battle.<br><br>At the same time, the hammer and sickle of his tariffs are directed against everyone.<br><br>Close neighbors are suffering, degenerates are crying in Foggy Albion, the half-witted old woman Europe is raging. They are having a hard time at all. They have to bow to make a ritual deal codenamed "kiss my ass". And then in the south of Europe, the light is gone... (Yes! Yes! Everyone understands who did it...)<br><br>China, however, has its own huge resources and a giant domestic market, and therefore its economy will certainly withstand any pressure. Here Trump made a mistake.<br><br>We almost do not trade with America, and the new brutal tariffs do not apply to us. They make no sense when there are illegal "restrictive measures", of which there are already 30,000 pieces!<br><br>But Trump broke the Kyiv regime to pay for American aid with minerals. <em><strong>Now military supplies will have to be paid for with the national wealth of the disappearing country.</strong></em> And the US Senate, led by the Republicans, is preparing to impose another "crushing sanctions" against us. Let's look at the response of the new administration. Trump's ratings have gone down, the "deep state" is putting up fierce resistance to him.<br><br>May is off to a stormy start. And by no means peaceful. Victory Day is still ahead.<br><br>Happy holiday! Happy May 1st! [My Emphasis]  </p></blockquote><p>Yes, plenty of events for Dmitri’s comic performance. But this next bit IMO is rather serious, and we know Mr. Mededev can get very serious:</p><blockquote><p>The green unshaven chump said that he rejects Putin's proposal for a three-day truce on May 9 and cannot ensure the safety of world leaders in Moscow.<br><br>And who is looking for his guarantees? Just a verbal provocation. No more than that.<br><br><em><strong>Nita understands that in the event of a real provocation on Victory Day, no one guarantees that May 10 will come to Kyiv</strong></em>. [My Emphasis] </p></blockquote><p>What’s the threshold for a “real provocation”? Most readers know I’ve opined the Nazis will try to disrupt the celebration in as many locations as possible, not just Moscow. There isn’t much of anything to do for us spectators at a distance but to wait and see what happens.</p><p>*<br>*<br>*<br><em>Like what you’ve been reading at Karlof1’s Substack? Then please consider subscribing and choosing to make a <strong>monthly/yearly pledge</strong> to enable my efforts in this challenging realm. Thank You!</em></p><p></p><p data-attrs='{"url":"https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?","text":"Subscribe now","action":null,"class":null}' data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton" data-sanitized-class="button-wrapper"><a href="https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?" data-sanitized-class="button primary"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p></p>

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guid: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/two-expertru-essays-and-rossiya-1s
title: Two Expert.Ru Essays &amp; Rossiya 1's 25th Anniversary Documentary on Putin
author: ;Karl Sanchez
link: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/two-expertru-essays-and-rossiya-1s
hash: O���z̦�� ����r
content:
<div data-sanitized-class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F55040306-7377-4721-8480-a879f94eebd8_780x398.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM" data-sanitized-class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img"><div data-sanitized-class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F55040306-7377-4721-8480-a879f94eebd8_780x398.jpeg" width="780" height="398" data-attrs='{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/55040306-7377-4721-8480-a879f94eebd8_780x398.jpeg","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":398,"width":780,"resizeWidth":null,"bytes":111800,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":"image/jpeg","href":null,"belowTheFold":false,"topImage":true,"internalRedirect":"https://karlof1.substack.com/i/162843585?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F55040306-7377-4721-8480-a879f94eebd8_780x398.jpeg","isProcessing":false,"align":null}' alt="" fetchpriority="high" data-sanitized-class="sizing-normal"></picture><div data-sanitized-class="image-link-expand"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></div><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p></p><p>Broadcaster <em>Rossiya 1</em> produced a documentary film dedicated to Putin’s 25th anniversary as Russia’s leader,<em> Russia. The Kremlin. Putin. 25 Years</em>. <em>Sputnik</em> <a href="https://en.sputniknews.africa/20250504/1072630866.html?ysclid=ma9xc92y8b531736536">compiled a list</a> of “key statements by Putin” with the last three asking the question on many minds, not just Russians:</p><blockquote><p>On a successor:<br><br>▪ Russia should foster individuals capable of earning the public’s trust;<br><br>▪ The president said he observes and assesses each person's potential when thinking about a successor;<br><br>▪ He constantly considers the question of a possible successor, but it is up to the Russian people to make a final decision on who will be the next leader of Russia. </p></blockquote><p>I’ve only found<a href="https://vk.com/video-212998710_456259425?to=L3ZpZGVvLTIxMjk5ODcxMF80NTYyNTk0MjU/eXNjbGlkPW1hOXhvcnFpM2o3OTMyNDE1OTk-"> one source</a> for the video which is 1:38 in length and all in Russian. I hope we’ll soon be provided with a dubbed English translation, but I haven’t looked for one yet. I see that Martyanov has used a specific portion of the film<a href="https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2025/05/this-is-for-concerned-citizens-and.html"> to make an important observation</a>, and based on past practice, I expect him to post an English overdubbed version, probably Monday. Thanks to Martyanov, I was able to obtain the <a href="https://smotrim.ru/brand/71557?utm_source=internal&amp;utm_medium=main&amp;utm_campaign=main2-promo">primary link to the video</a> and much more, although it’s still all in Russian.   </p><p>I continue to discover key Russian journals that feature writings by Russia’s ruling and advisory classes: <em>эксперт</em> or <em>Expert. </em>The first is from 28 April by Timofey Bordachev, Professor at the Higher School of Economics and Programme Director of the Valdai Club, whose writings have been featured by the Gym before. His essay is titled: </p><blockquote><p>We go our own way: Russian Foreign Policy as a Cultural Phenomenon</p><p>"Only crows fly," says an old proverb adopted in the Vladimir-Suzdal land, where, after the crushing Batu Khan invasion, the revival of the Russian state began at the end of the 13th century. It began so that 250 years later, a power arose in the east of Europe, the power of which and the right to make decisions independently could not be questioned. <em><strong>In the first two and a half centuries of the history of our new statehood, the experience of war and diplomacy was accumulated, which remains the basis of Russian foreign policy culture to this day. The goal has always been the same: to preserve the ability to always determine one's own future.</strong></em></p><p>The methods for achieving this goal remained very diverse, but they always relied on <em><strong>polyvariance—the absence of invariable "stratagems," any ideological dogmas, and unpredictability for adversaries</strong></em>. The civilizational country, which in less than a century (1552-1637) went from the Volga to the Pacific Ocean, did not create anything similar to European or Asian strategic foreign policy doctrines, simply because it never needed them: the natural inclination to non-standard solutions does not allow for a matrix of foreign policy activity.</p><p>But these features of the national foreign policy culture did not appear immediately. Until the middle of the thirteenth century, the Russian lands did not differ much from the rest of Eastern Europe. And they could well repeat the fate of other Slavic peoples who eventually fell under German or Turkish influence. <em><strong>The "heroic", according to the apt definition of Lev Gumilev, period of our history was distinguished by fragmentation, competition of ambitions of cities and princes. And the complete absence of grounds for creating a single state.</strong></em></p><p>There was no practical need for unification: geography allowed the city-states of Russia to cope with everything on their own, and the climate never contributed to their intensive social and economic interaction. In other words, up to the second half of the thirteenth century, we followed the same path as the rest of the small peoples of Eastern Europe.</p><p>However, a "wondrous" event, as Nikolai Gogol put it, happened: in 1237, invincible hordes of Mongol rulers invaded Russia and literally demolished most of its most powerful state centers. The largest foreign policy catastrophe became, according to the classic, precisely a miraculous event, because after it we had, firstly, an understandable reason to create a single state, and secondly, pragmatism and<em><strong> the ability to bend without breaking</strong></em>. For the next 250 years, the Russians became tributaries of the Golden Horde, but were never its slaves.</p><p>All relations between the Russian lands and the Golden Horde were a continuous struggle, in which direct clashes were interspersed with cooperation. In the process, the very "sharp Moscow sword" was forged—<em><strong>the Russian state as a military organization of the people inhabiting it.</strong></em> And there was a feature of foreign policy culture that remains with us today–-<em><strong>the absence of a clear line between conflict and cooperation, war and peace.</strong></em> For several centuries, these phenomena flowed into one another, without causing any cognitive dissonance in our glorious ancestors.</p><p>At the same time, centuries of relations with neighbors that looked invincible have formed such a feature of our foreign policy culture<em><strong> as the absence of a connection between the strength of the enemy and the justice of his claims.</strong></em> In Russia, the Western European idea that injustice is inevitable in relations between people and states has not historically taken root. Thomas Hobbes's theory says that force creates the right to a higher position. <em><strong>For Russia, force is only the most important factor in relations, but never what determines the laws.</strong></em> In the famous song about the Crimean Khan's march on Moscow in the 16th century, one of the first lines is "the Crimean Tsar is riding the dog."<em><strong> He is a "tsar" because he has a powerful military force. But he is a "dog" because the truth is not on his side.</strong></em> Similarly, after the end of the Cold War, <em><strong>recognizing the power of the West did not mean for Russia simultaneously recognizing the rightness of its actions.</strong></em></p><p>Demography, a direct consequence of the climate, has always remained our problem, although it created the basis for the integration of peoples. Only at the end of the 18th century, Russia became equal in population to France. Although even then it occupied a space several times larger than the whole of Europe.</p><p>The Russian lands had no allies.</p><p>“Russian foreign policy culture is based on the knowledge that no one will solve our problems for us, and there cannot and should not be allies on whom Russia's survival depends.”</p><p>Although Russia itself has always been and remains a loyal ally that can be relied on even in the most difficult situations.</p><p>In the middle of the XV century, the Moscow Grand Duke Vasily Vasilyevich decided to settle his allies on the eastern borders of Russia—the Kazan princes Kassim and Yakub. <em><strong>The history of the multinational Russian state begins, in which the main thing is not religious affiliation, but devotion to the country in solving defense problems.</strong></em></p><p><em><strong>In this, by the way, Russia differs from Europe from the very beginning.</strong></em> The evolution of Russian society became mosaic, because each ethnoconfessional group (or system of such) included in it acquired its own pace and speed of development. In Europe, this could not be the case,<em><strong> since the pragmatism of secular rulers was always limited by the power of the church.</strong></em> The Spanish kings completed their reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula by killing, expelling, or forcing the Arabs and Jews who inhabited it to be baptized.<em><strong> In Russia, each ethnic group was included as it was, and then it was only a matter of serving the common national interests of defense. </strong></em>Christianization was welcomed, but it was never a condition for public service.</p><p>Russia's modern foreign policy culture and strategy are based on historical tradition in several of its dimensions at once. Firstly, this is the already mentioned basis of the raison d'être of statehood–-defense against external challenges, which is now being transformed into a general development strategy in a changing and unpredictable world.</p><p>Secondly, both then and now, all efforts are subordinated to the solution of one task--<em><strong>to preserve the freedom to choose the path under any circumstances.</strong></em> In general, the independence of determining the trajectory of its development is the strategy of the country, for which it is most unnatural to create hard-core doctrinal guidelines. <em><strong>Also because ideology is needed to create doctrines and strategies. And this has not historically been characteristic of Russia.</strong></em></p><p>Thirdly, Russia never has "eternal" opponents. The history of the first centuries of Muscovite statehood has convinced us that today's irreconcilable enemy may become part of the Russian state the day after tomorrow. No country in the world, except Russia, has known the experience of completely absorbing its most dangerous enemy. <em><strong>For more than 250 years, the Golden Horde was a formidable neighbor. However, in 1504, the Horde fell, and 50 years later, almost all its peoples and cities became equal parts of the expanding Russian state, the aristocracy merged with the Russian one.</strong></em></p><p>And, finally, deep in history are the roots of the Russian "operational code", or method of waging a struggle (diplomatic or military). In its history, Russia has won few wars by exerting all its capabilities. <em><strong>As a rule, victory was achieved by prolonged exhaustion of the enemy, gradually creating the basis for him to realize the hopelessness of resistance. </strong></em>The Golden Horde was defeated in an almost bloodless stand on the Ugra River in 1480, and the second "eternal" enemy, Poland, was not defeated in a decisive battle, but reduced to an insignificant position by the pressure of Russian power over several centuries.</p><p>“<em><strong>For Russia, the main thing has always been not the brightness of victory, but the achievement of the desired result. Therefore, among other things, Russia is always open to negotiations: political goals invariably prevail over military ones.</strong></em>”</p><p>Moreover, it cannot be said about Russia that its domestic policy affects foreign policy—<em><strong>they are simply intertwined.</strong></em> And any large-scale foreign policy action is aimed at solving the problem of internal consolidation of society in order to achieve the strategic objectives of its development at a certain stage. Just as for the Moscow princes of the early time, the fight against foreign opponents was a way to unite the Russian lands.</p><p>Now the geopolitical landscape around Russia is changing again. The West, led by the United States, remains the most powerful force, but its possibilities are not unlimited. China is increasing its influence on the world, but so far it is behaving with restraint. Europe, which has historically been the main source of threat for Russia, is leaving the historical stage because it cannot create its own image of the future. Russia, the United States and China have such an image. Therefore, relations in the "triangle" will become decisive for world politics in the coming decades. And then India may join the “troika”--it is still lagging behind in terms of development but also has its own unique image of the future.</p><p>Does this mean that the Western direction will cease to be the main direction for Russian foreign policy? After all, the foundations of the science of international relations say that the most important geographical direction is the one from which the greatest danger can be expected. Most likely, in this regard, unfortunately, nothing will change. Europe has ceased to be the center of world politics, but it still remains at its center, since it is here that the most difficult border between Russia and America lies.</p><p>But we can get real resources for development only through the development of Eurasia. Friendly relations with neighbors in the East are necessary for the peaceful development of our own territory and population. It seems that this can create the material basis for the most important thing in any Russian image of the future-–the ability to go its own way. [My Emphasis]</p></blockquote><p>Russian historians of Russia have always emphasized the Mongol period as crucial for its contribution to Russia’s development. <a href="http://gumilevica.kulichki.net/works.html">Lev Gumilev’s works</a> I now have access to, and now Gym readers do too, although it’s all in Russian. Lavrov is very influenced by his work and has<a href="http://gumilevica.kulichki.net/LSB/lsb2002.htm"> high praise</a>.  As the essay shows, Russia uses a different lens to look at the world that’s proven highly successful. That Russians weren’t taught religious-based hatreds unlike Europe and its English-speaking colonies is also a very crucial difference. The short-lived period of Great Russian Chauvinism was destroyed by Revolutions and Wars, while constant existential pressure over the last 100+ years contributed greatly to Russian cohesion as a multinational people the West thought would be easy to exploit, which proved to be its greatest error, IMO. My last observation is related to Russia and Law—that Law isn’t dependent on power, that Law is superior to Might Makes Right. That ought to help readers understand why the UN Charter is still held in high esteem by Putin, Lavrov, and other high ranking Russians despite the West ignoring it because they think their power is more consequential. When we look at something very fundamental regarding Law like contract law and its basis in honesty and honor and the fact those are the only ways to build a business relationship, we can understand why Law is superior to force—force/power can wither and die while honesty and honor can be infinite.</p><p>*****************************    </p><p>The next essay, published on 29 April, is by a well-placed person of importance as shown by his introductory bio: Alexander Yakovenko, Head of the Committee on Global Problems and International Security of the Scientific and Expert Council of the Security Council of the Russian Federation:</p><blockquote><p>From globalization to protectionism: A paradigm shift without a declaration of war</p><p>The all-out tariff aggression of the Donald Trump administration suggests that, as on the eve of the First World War, globalization is fraught with a return to protectionism–-as part of the inevitable correction of its unintended consequences by the key affected players and the fixation of a new balance of power by the winners.</p><p>Then, at the beginning of the last century, Germany, the United States and Russia were winning, and Great Britain had to squeeze in. <em><strong>Therefore, London did not particularly object to a major European war, realizing that Berlin intended to unleash it, among other things, as a means of restraining the development of Russia</strong></em>, whose economy was then growing at a rate comparable to the current Chinese one. <em><strong>According to the calculations of those years, by 2050 the population of Russia was supposed to be 600 million people, and it was supposed to become the dominant (in the understanding of the Western elites) economic power not only in Europe, but also in all of Eurasia.</strong></em></p><p>The British stubbornly refused, despite the insistence of St. Petersburg (this was the main mission of the then Russian ambassador Alexander Benckendorff), to declare publicly or convey to Berlin through diplomatic channels that they would side with France and Russia in the event of German aggression. In fact, this is what happened, but the opportunity to prevent a European catastrophe was missed. Berlin, which until recently had offered London an alliance in the event of French aggression against the British Isles (a direct reference to the times of Napoleon), was shocked, but the deed was done: war was declared on Russia, and France then declared war on Germany.</p><p>Obviously, now the list of losers is much longer. <em><strong>It is headed by America, but also by the entire European Union and Great Britain. </strong></em>China and a number of other countries, including India and Russia, have benefited the most. <em><strong>This time, Beijing and Moscow have become the objects of deterrence.</strong></em> Over the past three years, Moscow has proved its self-sufficiency, mobilization potential, and at the same time has set high standards for modern warfare. <em><strong>Hence Trump's policy of normalizing relations with Russia,</strong></em> which will bring Russian-American relations to an unprecedented level of positive and equal cooperation in peacetime. India is of interest to the United States as a counterbalance to China, which is becoming the main object of containment and even isolation by Washington.</p><p><em><strong>The nuclear factor ensures the relatively peaceful nature of the current transformation of the world and the reflection of the new balance of power in the world order. </strong></em>As the Americans themselves expect, by 2030 China will be militarily equal to America, including its nuclear missile potential. <em><strong>Then, naturally, the task of its forceful deterrence will disappear.</strong></em> However, the experience of the SVO in Ukraine has shown that it will be difficult for the United States to confront China far from its borders - if Beijing decides to force the reunification of Taiwan. In any case, the threat of nuclear war will not be able to scare Beijing, since the equation of strategic deterrence has already become trilateral—with the participation of Russia: it is stupid to destroy each other in full view of Russia. <em><strong>In fact, this is all about Trump's pacifism: he excludes the option of war.</strong></em></p><p>Washington's economic aggression remains, albeit clearly belated. It is not only about the significant trade, economic and investment interdependence between the United States and China, as indicated by the first salvos in this trade war. <em><strong>China has created a network structure of relevant relations with all US allies, including European ones, and much more broadly</strong></em>. <em><strong>In the face of geopolitical turmoil, no one is ready to sacrifice their economic well-being for the sake of restoring "American greatness" in Trump's interpretation</strong></em>.</p><p>Washington will have to face a united front of beneficiaries of the 40-year globalization of the world economic system. <em><strong>Allied Europe will have a motive to prevent Trump from succeeding and thereby doom his conservative revolution to failure</strong></em>. But the West will remain in the usual system of geopolitical coordinates.</p><p>The task clearly turned out to be more difficult than originally assumed.<em><strong> A long-term comprehensive strategy will be required, taking into account, among other things, the interests of American business.</strong></em> It can be assumed that this will be something similar to Roosevelt's New Deal, with the only amendment that it will require a smooth entry into protectionism with a parallel solution to such problems as balancing the federal budget and the national debt. <em><strong>Monetary shocks affecting the future of the Fed and the dollar are not excluded. Thus, multiple issues of both the dollar and government bonds cannot be ruled out. Then the question of assets denominated in old, unsecured dollars, as well as Treasuries issued with a yield of zero or so (although they will have to be repaid), will become acute. The peculiarity of capitalism is that assets can instantly be zeroed out and even acquire a negative value.</strong></em></p><p>One of the Roman historians describes an episode when a young man from an aristocratic family comes to a patrician for advice, who makes the following verdict: <em><strong>his financial problems are such that they can be solved only through a civil war, that is, they are insoluble in the existing legal order</strong></em>. It is possible that this is also true for the Trump administration. Then it will be a quasi-civil war within the United States with a decisive role for the state and a "clean slate" in foreign economic terms, since this is quite in the power of America as the main shareholder of the global monetary and financial system.</p><p>In the meantime, everything suggests that there is a slowdown in global growth and world trade in the face of the uncertainty that has already developed in the first hundred days of Trump's presidency. The IMF's annual report is indicative, according to which this year global growth will fall to 2.8% (from 3.3% this year), for the United States - to 1.8% (from 2.8%) and the EU - to 0.8% (from 0.9%). China will suffer significantly - up to 4.0% (from 5.0%). In the medium term, exports to the United States may decline in the range from 19.3 to 27.6%.</p><p>Of interest are the estimates of the report of the BlackRock megafund, which manages $10.5 trillion in assets around the world.<em><strong> It emphasizes the importance of energy security, which will be associated with the development of artificial intelligence</strong></em> (it is mentioned that <em><strong>China is building nuclear power plants with a total capacity of 100 gigawatts, as a result of which it will account for half of all global nuclear power generation)</strong></em>, and the prospects for infrastructure modernization with a global investment of $68 trillion by 2040. Among other things, the importance of tokenization for both payments and investments is noted.</p><p>In general, experts expect the trade war to escalate, and its effect will accumulate over time, which will be associated with distortions affecting capital accumulation and productivity losses due to the redistribution of resources. Tariffs will act as shock therapy both for America itself and for the countries against which they are imposed. At the same time, global inflation may increase slightly but then decline due to a drop in economic activity. The accumulation of distortions caused by non-market measures may eventually have a widespread impact.</p><p>This, in principle, is the price of global transformation. Self-sufficient countries, such as the United States and Russia, and <em><strong>those countries that manage to create relatively closed trade, economic, and monetary settlement orders within their macro-regions will be in an advantageous position.</strong></em></p><p>Emissions of power politics in international relations cannot be ruled out either. Historical experience shows that the object always has an advantage and can "wait around the corner" for the subject of the policy directed against it. This happened to Russia in Ukraine, but the same can happen to China, as, by the way, has already happened to it within the framework of globalization launched by the Americans. <em><strong>Only this time they can "double down" and rewrite the rules of the game imposed on them, reshaping the geopolitical coordinate system into a geo-economic one.</strong></em> It will be society against society, and then it will be difficult to say on whose side time is on. [My Emphasis]</p></blockquote><p>IMO, Trump’s attempt to reset relations with Russia will fail, which is the end game that’s now emerging. I do hope Yakovenko is correct on the use of nukes, but I don’t think his assumption about Trump’s pacifism is correct. As with his first term, he’s surrounded by Neocons and Zionists along with Neoliberal financial advisors. Long term planning is also something Americans don’t do. IMO, it’s best to look at FDR and the New Deal as an anomaly within US history as the Empire was still rising, while now it’s steadily declining with its deplorable financial state leading the way down—Parasites like Black Rock cannot be seen as strengths within the US economy as they take, not add. As mentioned in several articles and comments recently, China’s electrical power production is surpassing the combined efforts of the other leading nations—it’s planned very well for the future. And the final plus for both Russia, China and those associated with both is the overall geoeconomic system they continue to build in a manner the Outlaw US Empire will have great difficulty in defeating. And then there’s the idea that the Empire is self-sufficient like Russia; IMO, that hypothesis is incorrect. Historically, the Empire has greatly depended on the infusion of high intellect and their ideas via immigrants, people it’s now shunning that have returned home where their contributions are very welcome. I don’t see the BRICS or SCO rewriting the rules of the game. In their oratory, their leaders embrace the UN and WTO rule systems, while they find the Bretton Woods financial system to be the unfair component. I expect a new system to be made available to the world that bypasses the unfair system, and it’s a development the Empire is powerless to stop. I see time being on the side of the Global Majority, but there are many obstacles that will need to be overcome and buried over the next 75 years.</p><p>*<br>*<br>*<br><em>Like what you’ve been reading at Karlof1’s Substack? Then please consider subscribing and choosing to make a <strong>monthly/yearly pledge</strong> to enable my efforts in this challenging realm. Thank You!</em></p><p></p><p data-attrs='{"url":"https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?","text":"Subscribe now","action":null,"class":null}' data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton" data-sanitized-class="button-wrapper"><a href="https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?" data-sanitized-class="button primary"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p></p><p> </p>

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guid: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/russias-economic-powerhouse
title: москва: Russia's Economic Powerhouse
author: ;Karl Sanchez
link: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/russias-economic-powerhouse
hash: v,� �K��Z'��n
content:
<div data-sanitized-class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fee424eb7-8d44-4907-90ff-ea9326efc8b6_1920x1080.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM" data-sanitized-class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img"><div data-sanitized-class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fee424eb7-8d44-4907-90ff-ea9326efc8b6_1920x1080.jpeg" width="1456" height="819" data-attrs='{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/ee424eb7-8d44-4907-90ff-ea9326efc8b6_1920x1080.jpeg","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":819,"width":1456,"resizeWidth":null,"bytes":606188,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":"image/jpeg","href":null,"belowTheFold":false,"topImage":true,"internalRedirect":"https://karlof1.substack.com/i/162909195?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fee424eb7-8d44-4907-90ff-ea9326efc8b6_1920x1080.jpeg","isProcessing":false,"align":null}' alt="" fetchpriority="high" data-sanitized-class="sizing-normal"></picture><div data-sanitized-class="image-link-expand"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></div><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Most of Moscow</p><div data-sanitized-class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb2af1068-e567-4589-a5ae-bed91ae09e02_960x540.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM" data-sanitized-class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img"><div data-sanitized-class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb2af1068-e567-4589-a5ae-bed91ae09e02_960x540.jpeg" width="960" height="540" data-attrs='{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/b2af1068-e567-4589-a5ae-bed91ae09e02_960x540.jpeg","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":540,"width":960,"resizeWidth":null,"bytes":566031,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":"image/jpeg","href":null,"belowTheFold":false,"topImage":false,"internalRedirect":"https://karlof1.substack.com/i/162909195?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb2af1068-e567-4589-a5ae-bed91ae09e02_960x540.jpeg","isProcessing":false,"align":null}' alt="" data-sanitized-class="sizing-normal"></picture><div data-sanitized-class="image-link-expand"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></div><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>The new Moscow skyline emphasizing its skyscrapers.</p><div data-sanitized-class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F95a5b93c-778e-4dbe-84d7-08056cc01bc0_2400x1350.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM" data-sanitized-class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img"><div data-sanitized-class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F95a5b93c-778e-4dbe-84d7-08056cc01bc0_2400x1350.jpeg" width="1456" height="819" data-attrs='{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/95a5b93c-778e-4dbe-84d7-08056cc01bc0_2400x1350.jpeg","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":819,"width":1456,"resizeWidth":null,"bytes":751960,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":"image/jpeg","href":null,"belowTheFold":false,"topImage":false,"internalRedirect":"https://karlof1.substack.com/i/162909195?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F95a5b93c-778e-4dbe-84d7-08056cc01bc0_2400x1350.jpeg","isProcessing":false,"align":null}' alt="" data-sanitized-class="sizing-normal"></picture><div data-sanitized-class="image-link-expand"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></div><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>One postcard photo</p><div data-sanitized-class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff0117224-aa69-4594-b9e1-f5f3c37a4632_1200x576.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM" data-sanitized-class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img"><div data-sanitized-class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff0117224-aa69-4594-b9e1-f5f3c37a4632_1200x576.jpeg" width="1200" height="576" data-attrs='{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/f0117224-aa69-4594-b9e1-f5f3c37a4632_1200x576.jpeg","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":576,"width":1200,"resizeWidth":null,"bytes":368672,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":"image/jpeg","href":null,"belowTheFold":false,"topImage":false,"internalRedirect":"https://karlof1.substack.com/i/162909195?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff0117224-aa69-4594-b9e1-f5f3c37a4632_1200x576.jpeg","isProcessing":false,"align":null}' alt="" data-sanitized-class="sizing-normal"></picture><div data-sanitized-class="image-link-expand"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></div><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>And another.  Online image albums are filled with thousands of pics many of them equally spectacular making it very hard to choose just a few representatives. To properly visit this imperial city would take two weeks at minimum yet much would still be missed. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Sobyanin">Sergey Sobyanin</a> has served as Moscow Mayor since 2010 and along with his team has turned the city into a gem. Many alt-media personalities that have visited Moscow over the past year proclaim it to be superior to New York in many ways. As you’ll read in the chat that follows, Moscow remains Russia’s economic engine despite efforts by the federal government to spread its economic dynamics further throughout Russia—it’s actually done a good job of that, but Moscow continues to replace the growth that’s exported with new entities and keeps itself booming; and the reason for that is excellent planning by all three governing entities—Moscow Region, City of Moscow, and the Federal government. And now for <a href="http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/76842">the chat</a> between two longstanding friends and political allies:</p><blockquote><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Good afternoon!</p><p>Sergey Semyonovich, Moscow traditionally shows very good indicators in almost all areas, including investment. How do you rate it?</p><p><strong>Sobyanin:</strong> Mr President, despite all the objective difficulties–-and we always have objective difficulties--even in the current difficult situation, we may sometimes lack them to demonstrate such good results.</p><p><em><strong>Over the past year, the economy has grown by 5.5 percent, and in general, in six years, during the pandemic, sanctions, and so on, the economy of Moscow has grown by a quarter. </strong></em>This is a good dynamic.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Good dynamics, plus 25 percent.</p><p><strong>Sergei Sobyanin: </strong>And every year we are going to make a profit.</p><p>The dynamics of investments is also quite good:<em><strong> it has doubled in comparable prices over the past six years.</strong></em> In almost all industries.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin: </strong>Moscow's share in the country's economy is also significant: over 21 percent.</p><p><strong>Sergei Sobyanin:</strong> <em><strong>21 percent is not even counting the financial sector.</strong></em> We are still the financial center of the country, and when GRP [Gross Regional Product] is counted, the financial sector is not counted, and <em><strong>we have about 600 thousand people working there, a significant sector of the economy.</strong></em> But even so, the share is quite large.</p><p>Which, of course, cannot fail to please–-we have already talked about this, and you were at our enterprises–-manufacturing and industrial production is growing. <em><strong>In recent years, we have seen a modern, new industrialization of Moscow.</strong></em> You remember these processes when the factories moved away from us to other regions. <em><strong>Today we see the opposite process, because today high-tech production requires appropriate personnel.</strong></em></p><p>Therefore, the reverse process is underway. <em><strong>Even if we look at the turnover of high-tech industries, which generally accounts for about a third of the country's industry, the growth has also tripled.</strong></em> These include electronics, computer manufacturing, sophisticated technologies, and so on.</p><p><em><strong>The last year was generally explosive for us, because the accumulated effect of investments, introduced a number of high-tech industries, which began to replace imported equipment supplies.</strong></em> You can see, 100 percent, what a jump there was last year. This, of course, is impressive.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> <em><strong>221.5 percent.</strong></em></p><p><strong>Sergei Sobyanin:</strong> Yes.</p><p>Thanks to all the efforts of the Government of the Russian Federation, the tasks you set, and the situation we are in: at the time of COVID, the first jump was (this is the IT sector), and today it is almost spasmodic, in arithmetic progression. <em><strong>We have increased it fourfold in recent years.</strong></em> You can see how the growth is progressing. [Referring to charts.]</p><p>The first jump occurred when COVID started in our country, because information systems were actively in demand. But even now, the growth is even stronger, and the base there is already so decent, and the growth continues. <em><strong>Because there is a massive substitution of imported software.</strong></em></p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong><em><strong> In 2023-222 percent, and in 2024-316.5 percent.</strong></em></p><p><strong>Sergey Sobyanin:</strong> Four times the height.</p><p>Vladimir Vladimirovich, what else can I bring you to? Not all cities move so fast. <em><strong>You once set a goal to make Moscow one of the top five cities in the world in terms of economy and purchasing power parity. We were in fifth place in 2020 and reached the second place in the world in 2023. And nearby cities are very serious. Of course, I think it will be difficult to keep this place, given the fact that China is developing, its cities.</strong></em></p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin: </strong>The dynamics are great.</p><p><strong>Sergey Sobyanin:</strong> We are also not standing still. Taking into account the groundwork: investments, human resources, the return of industry, high-tech,<em><strong> I think we will still be able to maintain this position. At least, we hope that we will be in the top three cities.</strong></em></p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin: </strong>Good potential.</p><p><strong>Sergei Sobyanin:</strong> Apart from the economy, Mr President, social security and social infrastructure are of course important for citizens. In accordance with the national education development project, we decided to invest in the construction and modernization of schools. The program was created. And we have set a task to reconstruct all the schools in Moscow that require it. We used to build 40-50 schools each. Now, in addition to the fact that we will build 60 educational buildings, we will also reconstruct hundreds of schools. This is a big, global, and serious task. <em><strong>I am sure that we will succeed. In a few years, we plan to have all schools in Moscow up-to-date.</strong></em></p><p>You <a href="https://translated.turbopages.org/proxy_u/ru-en.en.9723bdc3-681913e9-184337e0-74722d776562/kremlin.ru/events/president/news/75251">were</a> in one of the colleges, centers. We continue to implement this task. Last year, college admissions were already over 100,000, including city, federal, and private colleges. Nevertheless, this figure is already serious. We started with 60, now 100, and we plan to reach 150 in the future. Students study well and enjoy it, because colleges are becoming modern and in demand. 95 percent of children after college get a job in a profession, and the salaries are not bad.</p><p>An even more ambitious health program. <em><strong>We are finishing the program of reconstruction of polyclinics. We had 350 clinics in a dilapidated state. Now there are very few of them left in 2024, and this year we will finish this program. All our clinics will be reconstructed or built anew.</strong></em> And this is a serious modernization.</p><p>The same thing happens in hospitals. Of course, the situation there is more complicated: <em><strong>we have to build about 1 million square meters of new hospitals and reconstruct about the same amount.</strong></em> We also started this program. Today the situation is quite good, there are not so many buildings left, 30 buildings. I think that we will complete this program within three or four years.</p><p>New polyclinics look no worse than private ones, with an interior design, appropriate branding, new, modern medical buildings, also at the world level.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> We've been to some of them.</p><p><strong>Sergei Sobyanin:</strong> Yes, we were in the Morozov hospital, and after that we introduced a whole new series.</p><p>Remember, you <a href="https://translated.turbopages.org/proxy_u/ru-en.en.9723bdc3-681913e9-184337e0-74722d776562/kremlin.ru/events/president/news/73453">were</a> at our X-ray and MRI data processing center and set a task for us to extend the services that we developed in Moscow with artificial intelligence for image processing to other regions. In fact, we have completed this task, connected 70 regions, and now we process three times as many images from the regions per month as we process our own images.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Because this is also a very convenient service for the regions.</p><p><strong>Sergei Sobyanin:</strong> Yes, absolutely. <em><strong>And you don't need to create it in every region, because the more data artificial intelligence processes, the better it works. Therefore, most likely, centralization is needed here.</strong></em> Together with the Ministry of Health, we have signed a corresponding agreement and are starting to work. Very good story.</p><p>And as a result, the development of the economy, health care, and a healthy lifestyle. <em><strong>We have come close to 80 years of life expectancy last year–-79.5.</strong></em></p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin: </strong>Yes, this is the result of 2024, in my opinion.</p><p><strong>Sergei Sobyanin:</strong> Yes, this is the result of 2024—already somewhere on the verge of 80 years, such a good European result, the world result as a whole, taking into account the fact that our climate is completely different in any case.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> Yes.</p><p><strong>Sergei Sobyanin:</strong> And on your instructions--I can't help but report–-<em><strong>we are continuing the program of infrastructure support, development and reconstruction with our twin cities of Donetsk and Luhansk.</strong></em> <em><strong>More than two thousand objects were reconstructed, more than a thousand kilometers of utility networks and millions of square meters of roads were restored.</strong></em></p><p>We are also continuing an active program for this year. If in previous years we were mainly engaged in engineering infrastructure, now we have already begun to move on to improving public spaces: parks, roads, streets, and so on. This is not just engineering infrastructure, infrastructure for living, for public spaces.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> <em><strong>It is very important that people feel that positive changes are taking place in their current life.</strong></em></p><p><strong>Sergei Sobyanin:</strong> When you are inside, it is somehow invisible, but when you go out into courtyards, parks, squares, it is, of course, very noticeable and gives a positive result.</p><p><strong>Vladimir Putin:</strong> These are all opportunities that arise as a result of economic development. And the fact that <em><strong>Moscow ranked second among major megacities in terms of purchasing power parity after New York, and the difference is not very large,</strong></em> is, of course, the basis for solving social issues, including schools, clinics, hospitals, hospitals, and so on. This is very cool. Good.</p><p><strong>Sergei Sobyanin:</strong> Thank you for your support, Mr President. [My Emphasis] </p></blockquote><p>Reports I read from New York City are very troubling—massive vacancy rate in office buildings; subway is now a vast homeless shelter with associated crime and health issues; it’s still not advised to walk in Central Park after dark; crime and filth are both very high in all districts; and the city is on the edge of bankruptcy again. What makes NYC #1 is the vast amount of parasitical wealth within the financial district and those it employs. What’s being improved in Moscow is becoming dilapidated in NYC. In its short note on this chat, <em>TASS<a href="https://tass.com/economy/1953109?ysclid=mabevbcrj5253421896"> </a></em><a href="https://tass.com/economy/1953109?ysclid=mabevbcrj5253421896">reported</a> Russia’s economy in the first quarter grew 2% most likely led by Moscow’s excellent performance. Median salary in Moscow is 1,369,700 rubles. The current ruble/dollar exchange rate is just under 82 whereas on Jan first it was roughly 102, which is when I said buy rubles. Thus, the 1,369,700 rubles is about $16,700. Here’s<a href="https://copound.com/cost-of-living-moscow-t2089"> one of the many site</a>s providing cost of living info.    </p><p>Given the continuing high rate of investment into Moscow along with its construction program, Moscow will likely continue to boom in-line with Mayor Sobyanin’s expectations. And that will provide the means to continue Moscow’s efforts to help the new regions upgrade their infrastructure and expand their economic horizons. And of course, people will continue to be attracted to the Moscow region despite the government’s plans to promote growth in Russia’s other regions.</p><p>*<br>*<br>*<br><em>Like what you’ve been reading at Karlof1’s Substack? Then please consider subscribing and choosing to make a <strong>monthly/yearly pledge</strong> to enable my efforts in this challenging realm. Thank You!</em></p><p></p><p></p><p data-attrs='{"url":"https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?","text":"Subscribe now","action":null,"class":null}' data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton" data-sanitized-class="button-wrapper"><a href="https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?" data-sanitized-class="button primary"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p>  </p>

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guid: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/bordachev-the-game-of-empire-begins
title: Bordachev: The Game of Empire Begins in the World
author: ;Karl Sanchez
link: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/bordachev-the-game-of-empire-begins
hash: ���R e_9vv�dr�t
content:
<div data-sanitized-class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F96fb9565-3934-44de-8291-8688517ffc9c_807x410.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM" data-sanitized-class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img"><div data-sanitized-class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F96fb9565-3934-44de-8291-8688517ffc9c_807x410.jpeg" width="807" height="410" data-attrs='{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/96fb9565-3934-44de-8291-8688517ffc9c_807x410.jpeg","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":410,"width":807,"resizeWidth":null,"bytes":null,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":null,"href":null,"belowTheFold":false,"topImage":true,"internalRedirect":null,"isProcessing":false,"align":null}' alt="" fetchpriority="high" data-sanitized-class="sizing-normal"></picture><div data-sanitized-class="image-link-expand"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></div><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Just a few days after his essay in <em>Expert</em> was published, Timofey Bordachev wrote another that <a href="https://vz.ru/opinions/2025/4/30/1329299.html">was published</a> by <em>Vzglad</em> on 30 April having a decidedly different outlook that also begs the question about where this academic has spent his life when he opines that Empire is only now just beginning to return as an entity. But before becoming too critical, let’s read what he wrote and then make an assessment:</p><blockquote><p>Soon, empire may become a fashionable word for discussing the direction in which the political organization of the world is moving. Donald Trump's constant talk about the annexation of the territories of Canada and Greenland to the United States, the <a href="https://vz.ru/world/2025/4/24/1328105.html">stuttering</a> of Dutch politicians about the desire to divide Belgium–-all these are only the first swallows of a large discussion that will inevitably occur as the order that was created in the second half of the twentieth century is destroyed.</p><p>This order, we recall, was based on granting independence to the maximum number of peoples, and <em><strong>the United States, which promoted this concept, always proceeded from the fact that it is much easier to economically subordinate small and weak countries than to cope with large territorial powers.</strong></em></p><p>The West is starting a new "game in the empire", and the rest are taking a closer look, but they will not necessarily pick it up. And as always, Russia is behaving with restraint, <em><strong>whose intention to allegedly restore the "empire" is one of the most replicated by the military propaganda of the United States and Europe.</strong></em> Especially when it comes to our policy in relations with the countries of the former USSR. And Russian observers, to be honest, may come up with different ideas in cases where the situation in neighboring countries looks tragic, and hostile powers seek to use their territory to harm Russia.</p><p>In scientific and popular literature, the concept of "empire" is one of the most compromised–-primarily by the efforts of American authors.<em><strong> In the mass consciousness, it is associated either with the ancient world or with the era when aging European empires, including Russia, sought to impose their will on the rest of humanity. </strong></em>As a result, they only unleashed the First World War of 1914-1918, as a result of which almost everyone died, physically or politically. At that time, the United States, <em><strong>which rejected the imperial idea</strong></em>, and Russia, which successfully revived in its new capacity as the USSR, came to the forefront of world politics. <em><strong>Although soon they themselves began to call each other empires, thereby strengthening the negative perception of this concept.</strong></em></p><p>Be that as it may, pronouncing the word "empire" in relation to the desired strategic goal of the development of the state's foreign policy even now remains the lot of very great originals. <em><strong>Moreover, all the countries of the World Majority friendly to Russia cannot stand empires</strong></em>.<em><strong> For them, these are European colonizers, from whom nothing good happened</strong></em>: first a complete plunder of resources, and then neocolonial enslavement through bribing the elites and unilateral economic agreements.</p><p><em><strong>In this regard, Russia has never been an empire in the European sense of the word,</strong></em> since its most important organizing principle was precisely the integration of local elites into their own country and the development of new possessions. The most striking indicator is the demographic statistics of Central Asia since its entry into Russia, including, of course, its stay in the USSR. There is reason to suspect that even now the demographic boom in the five republics of the region is based on the health care and social policies created in the last century. And it is not known how long it will last if our friends in the region move towards the civilization of South Asia, but with much worse climatic conditions.</p><p>Be that as it may, <em><strong>the concept of empire still remains predominantly negative</strong></em>. At the same time,<em><strong> in the last couple of decades, we have begun to actively use it in relation to the United States or Europe. The American empire has even become a quite common category of journalistic discussion, denoting the ability of the United States to use many countries for the purposes of its foreign policy and its development. </strong></em>As for Europe, the matter, as always, was limited to words. European powers retained some influence on their former colonies for a long time. But it can in no way be called imperial even in the most distant approximation. And talk about the European Union as an empire in general quickly became a joke. The "blooming <a href="https://vz.ru/opinions/2023/8/28/1227663.html">garden</a>" has gone anywhere, but an empire associated with formidability and the ability to expand its borders uncontrollably is not at all about modern Europe.</p><p>However, now there are several signs that empires may return to world politics not only in the form of gloomy shadows of the past. First of all, in its functional sense, as a way to organize a space of security and development in conditions when chaos is growing around us, for the people who are creating an empire (here is Trump's "make America great again") and other peoples for whose fate the empire takes responsibility. It should be emphasized that such discussions are becoming inevitable in a world where other major formats no longer work, and problems are only growing, whether we like it or not.</p><p>The West is conducting this discussion in different words than those written in history textbooks. <em><strong>But it means precisely the creation of good conditions for its citizens through the physical extension of its power over wider geographical spaces.</strong></em> And it is no longer possible to do this by the previous methods–-through economic cooperation. Too strong competition from other major powers: it is not for nothing that Trump insists that if Canada and Greenland are not taken by the United States, then China or Russia will be there. Russia is not going to do this, of course. But the fact that direct administrative control is needed to be confident in the future is gradually becoming axiomatic.</p><p>There are several reasons, and all of them are material in nature–-not invented by political scientists but proven by life itself. <em><strong>International institutions are poorly coping with their tasks. As a result of the sabotage of the West, the UN is becoming almost a representative organization.</strong></em> Although we will still fight to preserve its central role and the primacy of international law. Perhaps even successfully. But the weakening of international organizations of the 20th century has not yet contributed much to the emergence of new ones. The only impressive exception is BRICS. However, it does not pretend to replace the national elites of the member countries in solving their main problems.</p><p>The European Union, an old-style organization, is slowly sliding towards disintegration. Other international organizations do not know the answer to the question of how to force their members to fulfill their obligations. This means that those great powers that create and maintain all the world's numerous institutions risk being disappointed.</p><p>Discussions about the imperial order are also facilitated by the processes taking place in the field of advanced science and technology. Unlike some colleagues, the author of this text is not a sophisticated observer of this area of development. However, even a superficial observation of the debate suggests that the <a href="https://vz.ru/opinions/2025/2/3/1312330.html">competition</a> of artificial intelligence models can lead to the formation of <em><strong>"digital empires"–-not new states, but zones of unconditional <a href="https://vz.ru/opinions/2025/4/22/1327561.html">dominance</a> of technological giants from capable countries.</strong></em> Another important factor is that some countries are failing in their responsibilities to ensure peace for their neighbors. It also makes us think that the imperial order is not so obsolete.</p><p>However, the imperial order is terribly expensive. Even the empires of the West paid a lot to maintain their incredible size–-everyone knows Kipling's lines about the difficult fate of British retired soldiers.<em><strong> And so Britain or France gladly got rid of overseas territories in the middle of the last century.</strong></em> Russia came to understand that it did not need all the territories later–-this was partly the reason for the collapse of the country that we were all proud of–-the USSR. Although even now, in the same Tbilisi, among the local intelligentsia, there are those who welcome the return of the beautiful city to the number of capitals of a huge power. And themselves–-as part of its multinational elite.</p><p>The second most important obstacle to the restoration of empires, including those around Russia, is the contribution of new territories to the stability and development of the main metropolis. Russia is not seeking to recreate an empire around itself now, because it itself is a state of a new type, where classical imperial features are combined with features that are completely unsuitable for Europe. First of all, the equality of inhabiting peoples. Such equality requires cultural affinity, or at least the presence of a foundation for it. Russia before the October Revolution, and then the USSR, obviously went beyond the boundaries when an empire can be beneficial, not harmful. <em><strong>And we now need to develop new approaches to how to ensure the security of our neighbors without causing damage to ourselves.</strong></em> [My Emphasis]</p></blockquote><p>IMO, the author needs to rewrite his essay since its actual thesis is stated in his conclusion. There’s a lot of muck to wade through, most of it bolded. At the start, we have a description of how the Outlaw US Empire has managed itself for most of its existence. Next is a reference to EU/NATO’s propaganda that Russia seeks to revive the USSR and resubordinate Europe. As an educator from the American system, US history textbooks do not mention empire or imperialism and those two concepts must be explained to students. Empires reign throughout ancient history, but a more honest approach is to say that they’re a constant and still in existence today. I have no idea where the author got the notion that the Outlaw US Empire “rejected the imperial idea” during WW1, unless he interprets Wilson’s 14 Points as being anti-Imperialist. Wilson was running the American Empire and denied many at Versailles their right to self-determination—most famously the Vietnamese. American financial dominance was swiftly turned into economic imperialism via “Dollar Diplomacy” and the wars and interventions made roughly from 1898 to 1932. Empires have never been about uplifting the living standards of the Metropole’s citizens—elites were always the beneficiaries and that remains true today as we watch Trump escalate the Class War. The global balance of power between the Collective Western Empire, the Outlaw US Empire and the Global Majority was such that the UN and its institutions were never allowed to do what they were designed to, mainly because the two empires violated the UN Charter with impunity and still do despite the Outlaw US Empire’s hostile takeover of the Collective Western Empire. France and UK did not want to relinquish their Empires; they were denuded of them by the Outlaw US Empire which took what it wanted. France was able to fight that the best since it wasn’t chained to US War Loans that needed to be repaid. And then we have the international trading and finance systems as proof of America’s intent even before the war ended. The beginnings of a discussion about the possible evolution of Capitalism into a new format based on new technologies has begun and spawned new concepts like Technofeudalism and Cloud Capital. These are related to the actions by Neoliberal rent seekers—financialized capitalism—that currently is dismantling western industry. </p><p>The new concept of Civilizational States is aimed at isolating the Outlaw US Empire, which isn’t civilizational, but is rather an extension of European Feudalism and an Imperialistic Vaticanized Christianity and lacks any moral underpinning or ethical philosophy that could be termed humanistic. In his previous essay, Bordachev insisted that Russia needed to chart its own path while also being a Global majority leader. The one commonality facing the Global Majority is the Outlaw US Empire’s escalation of hegemony that threatens all national sovereignty, which it’s doing economically because it now lacks the military power to coerce the world as it has for over 100 years. What Russia needs to do is implement Bordachev’s closing sentence while helping the Global Majority to stand tall and not capitulate to the Empire’s Trade War.</p><p>*<br>*<br>*<br><em>Like what you’ve been reading at Karlof1’s Substack? Then please consider subscribing and choosing to make a <strong>monthly/yearly pledge</strong> to enable my efforts in this challenging realm. Thank You!</em></p><p></p><p></p><p data-attrs='{"url":"https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?","text":"Subscribe now","action":null,"class":null}' data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton" data-sanitized-class="button-wrapper"><a href="https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?" data-sanitized-class="button primary"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p> </p>

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guid: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/trade-war-update-make-americans-grow
title: Trade War Update: Make Americans Grow Angry
author: ;Karl Sanchez
link: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/trade-war-update-make-americans-grow
hash: �a�f���5��
content:
<div data-sanitized-class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F51b9cfb9-67bc-446f-bc80-e6b26bcbc82d_1024x750.webp" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM" data-sanitized-class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img"><div data-sanitized-class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F51b9cfb9-67bc-446f-bc80-e6b26bcbc82d_1024x750.webp" width="1024" height="750" data-attrs='{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/51b9cfb9-67bc-446f-bc80-e6b26bcbc82d_1024x750.webp","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":750,"width":1024,"resizeWidth":null,"bytes":186492,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":"image/webp","href":null,"belowTheFold":false,"topImage":true,"internalRedirect":"https://karlof1.substack.com/i/162989597?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F51b9cfb9-67bc-446f-bc80-e6b26bcbc82d_1024x750.webp","isProcessing":false,"align":null}' alt="" fetchpriority="high" data-sanitized-class="sizing-normal"></picture><div data-sanitized-class="image-link-expand"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></div><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p></p><p>China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs <a href="https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202505/1333410.shtml">again refutes</a> Trump’s lies that China is negotiating—China is not:</p><blockquote><p>In response to a question on how far China and the US are from formally initiating trade negotiations and whether China is willing to participate in negotiations only if the US lowers tariffs first, given that US President Donald Trump said in an interview with NBC that he will not drop tariffs to get China to negotiating table, Lin Jian, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said on Tuesday that this tariff war was launched by the US. China's position is consistent and clear: We will fight, if fight we must. Our doors are open, if the US wants to talk. <br><br>The US side recently keeps saying that it wants to negotiate with China. There are no winners in tariff and trade wars, and if the US side really wants to solve the problem through dialogue and negotiation, it should stop threatening and pressuring, and engage in dialogue with China on the basis of equality, respect and mutual benefit, Lin noted.</p></blockquote><p>As with Russia’s well stated position on negotiations, China's also being ignored while Trump conducts megaphone diplomacy trying to position the Outlaw US Empire as victim instead of aggression initiator as it was with Ukraine. The situation with shipping and retailer inventories within the Empire will soon become critical as Gene Seroka, Port of Los Angeles Executive Director informed Bloomberg in <a href="https://x.com/SpencerHakimian/status/1918658473807532439">this 3.5-minute clip</a>. Bloomberg’s reporters focused mostly on clothing while today’s <em><a href="https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202505/1333368.shtml">Global Times</a></em> focused on housing construction and related household items:</p><blockquote><p>US homeowners bear brunt of tariffs: Chinese suppliers</p><p>On April 2, the day when the US administration announced its so-called "reciprocal tariffs" affecting more than 180 countries and regions around the world, a merchant surnamed Xiong from Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province, felt perplexed.<br><br>"It is hard to tell how the tariffs will impact our business and like many others we have drawn up backup plans," said Xiong, general manager of a construction company which operates a customized summer house construction business.<br><br>However, while Xiong was worried about the potential impact of the tariffs on his business, he got an invitation. "On this very day, we actually received an invitation from a client based in Boston to conduct an on-site survey at the latter's ski resort, and if this deal is finalized, it will generate $2 million in revenue for us," Xiong said.<br><br>As Xiong flew to meet his client, whose company had booked his flight, he asked, "are you not concerned about the tariffs?"<br><br><strong>Passing on costs</strong><br><br>Xiong said his client told him that "<em><strong>life has to continue even with the tariff, and having no revenue at the ski resort is unacceptable... the only way is to swallow the tariff first and then eventually pass on the increased costs to visitors to the resort, through ways such as higher administration fees</strong></em>."<br><br>Xiong's experience on what US officials call "Liberation Day" is just one example illustrating the resilience of mutually beneficial trade flow and business ties between American and Chinese companies in the area of residential and commercial building and maintenance. <br><br>Several Chinese suppliers have also seen the negative impact of the hefty tariffs imposed by the US on the sector; however, <em><strong>the impact will mostly be felt by US consumers, as the tariffs will add up the building cost for American homes and lower Americans' living standards.</strong></em><br><br>Although large portion of US home building materials come from Canada and Mexico, industry players pointed out that <em><strong>tariffs on a wide variety of goods from China will also inevitably increase costs in the US home building and construction sector.</strong></em><br><br>The US administration has imposed 145 percent tariffs on Chinese goods and 10 percent tariffs on imports from most other countries. The tariffs will affect Chinese products essential to the US home building and construction sector. From lawn mowers to DIY toolboxes, <em><strong>US homeowners will face higher prices due to the tariffs</strong></em>, several representatives from Chinese suppliers said. <br><br>China is a major supplier of many key materials for the US construction industry, Ye Wen, owner of a home building materials company based in South China's Guangdong Province, told the Global Times.<br><br>"From my observation and information gathered from expo clients, <em><strong>'Made in China' fasteners (nails and screws), LED lighting, and decorative building materials accounted for nearly half the US market share,</strong></em>" Ye said.<br><br>Despite additional costs resulting from the tariffs, Chinese products remain the top choice for the US purchasing managers due to their stable quality, comprehensive supply chain advantages, and responsiveness, Ye said. <br><br>Zhong Shangtian, another owner of a home construction company based in Guangdong, told the Global Times that in addition to bolts and nuts, and hardware accessories, the US is heavily reliant on Chinese-made drywall, timber and wood products such as plywood and magnesium oxide wallboard, a newer type of home building material, for which the US heavily relies on Chinese producers.<br><br>It is true that many of these products can be and are produced in the US, or Canada, but low-cost offerings from China remain something that US builders rely on... "just imagine the cost benefits if we are talking about large residential district or commercial projects," Zhong said. "<em><strong>To block Chinese-made goods is to rob this cost-effective option from homebuyers</strong></em>."<br><br>Meanwhile, Chinese companies have been actively coping with the US tariffs. Chinese suppliers interviewed by the Global Times said that they have worked on ways to diversify their markets, such as making new entries into the ASEAN and European markets, as the US tariffs eroded some of the market demand. <em><strong>None of them is willing to eat the tariffs as it is far beyond their margin and their products can find a buyer in other markets.</strong></em><br><br><strong>Diminished outlook</strong><br><br>These warnings coincided with an estimate from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), a US industry association, which pegged<em><strong> the typical cost impact of recent tariffs at $10,900 per home,</strong></em> despite ongoing fluctuations in the US tariff policy since early April.<br><br>The duties in place on imported steel, aluminum, and other metals have already driven up prices, including for essential supplies like nails, screws, bolts, and fasteners that builders use by the millions, according to New York-based US business media outlet Inc.com.<br><br>"There is virtually no short-term replacement of 'Made in China' goods, due to Chinese manufacturers' production capacity, technological sophistication, and supply chain stability that guarantee project progress," Ye said.<br><br>"Looking down the pipeline, I think housing accessibility in the US will be compromised because of the sweeping tariffs, new home prices will rise in particular, some developers will choose to delay the projects, and middle- and low-income American households and first-time homebuyers will bear the brunt of it," Ye said.<br><br><em><strong>The NAHB estimates that $204 billion worth of goods were used in the construction of both new multifamily and single-family housing in 2024 and approximately 7 percent of all goods used in new residential construction are sourced from foreign countries.</strong></em><br><br>Overall, builders estimate that recent tariffs have added an average of $10,900 to the cost of each new home, according to the NAHB, citing data from an April survey conducted with the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index. <em><strong>This came on top of a 34 percent rise in the cost of building materials since December 2020, which is far higher than the rate of inflation, the NAHB said.</strong></em><br><br>Anirban Basu, chief economist at US industry body Associated Builders and Contractors, told Inc.com that "<em><strong>these tariffs have already materially diminished the outlook for construction activity in 2025</strong></em>." [My Emphasis]</p></blockquote><p>Housing construction was one of the few bright spots within the Outlaw US Empire’s economy, although the continued reliance of the suburban settlement construction pattern greatly impacts energy and other infrastructure efficiency negatively. And the cost of cookie-cutter tilt-ups in suburban tracts averages $210,000 in the lower housing cost states (when I looked at such housing in Colorado during 1990 the cost for a modest house was $90,000); unfortunately, many such tracts include McMansions that skew the average. As Hudson and articles about housing note, most homeowners spend 40% of their income on their home. While most current homeowners will handle house-related tariff inflation, new homeowners needing to furnish their homes and purchase tools to manage their landscape will be hit hard. But price hikes are only one factor of concern as the Port Director said; what’s critical is inventories and looming shortages beginning as soon as mid-June for all products. </p><p>And contrary to many expectations is the fact that all sectors of US exports are also being affected by the Trade War as <a href="https://www.guancha.cn/internation/2025_05_06_774809.shtml">this </a><em><a href="https://www.guancha.cn/internation/2025_05_06_774809.shtml">Guancha</a></em><a href="https://www.guancha.cn/internation/2025_05_06_774809.shtml"> news item</a> reported today:  </p><blockquote><p><strong>US press: The impact of Trump's tariffs has worsened, and almost all US exports have been hit</strong></p><p>According to a report by the U.S. Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC) on May 6, due to U.S. President Trump's insistence on provoking a "tariff war", many companies canceled manufacturing orders, and <em><strong>U.S. imports plummeted, and now it has further evolved into a nationwide decline in U.S. exports. Almost all U.S. exports have been hit, with agricultural products being hit particularly hard.</strong></em></p><p>According to the report, Vizion, a trade tracking agency, analyzed container booking data before and after Trump's tariffs went into effect, and they found that exports at most ports across the United States have seen a significant decline.</p><p>The Port of Portland, for example, saw its largest decline in exports by 51 percent. Exports from the Port of Tacoma, a large agricultural export port with corn and soybeans, were also down 28 percent, with agricultural products shipped mainly to China, Japan and South Korea. Exports at the Port of Los Angeles fell 17 percent, Savannah Ports, which have the largest container exports of agricultural products this year, fell 13 percent and Norfolk lost 12 percent.</p><p>Other ports saw smaller declines, such as the Port of Houston and Seattle, where exports fell by 3 percent and 3.5 percent, respectively. But Ben Tracy, Vizion's vice president of strategic business development, noted: "It's clear that almost all U.S. exports have taken a hit. ”</p><p>This confirms what the U.S. agriculture industry has been warning about its lack of ability to sell its produce to global markets.</p></blockquote><div data-sanitized-class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6feec37b-5152-4e18-9b8d-19f21a2729de_675x740.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM" data-sanitized-class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img"><div data-sanitized-class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6feec37b-5152-4e18-9b8d-19f21a2729de_675x740.jpeg" width="675" height="740" data-attrs='{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/6feec37b-5152-4e18-9b8d-19f21a2729de_675x740.jpeg","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":740,"width":675,"resizeWidth":null,"bytes":132305,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":"image/jpeg","href":null,"belowTheFold":true,"topImage":false,"internalRedirect":"https://karlof1.substack.com/i/162989597?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6feec37b-5152-4e18-9b8d-19f21a2729de_675x740.jpeg","isProcessing":false,"align":null}' alt="" loading="lazy" data-sanitized-class="sizing-normal"></picture><div data-sanitized-class="image-link-expand"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></div><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><blockquote><p><em><strong>CNBC noted that the decline in exports was related to a decrease in container ships destined for the United States, as some companies were forced to cancel manufacturing orders, causing some Chinese factories and cargo ships to stop entering the United States.</strong></em> Tariffs have led to a rapid decline in U.S. imports, with port data tracked by Vizion showing a <em><strong>43% week-on-week decline in container volumes at U.S. ports from April 21 to April 28.</strong></em></p><p>Kyle Henderson, CEO of Vizion, said: "We haven't seen anything like this since the pandemic interrupted in 2020. <em><strong>This means that shipments that were scheduled to arrive in the next six to eight weeks will not be delivered at all. </strong></em>As tariffs push up costs, small businesses are suspending orders, and goods that once had reliable shipping channels are now doubling in price, forcing importers to make difficult choices.”</p><p><em><strong>Retailers have been urging U.S. consumers to buy goods as soon as possible, and data from Bank of America's global research unit suggests that warning may be correct.</strong></em> The agency's latest forecast data shows that the number of container ships entering the U.S. port of Los Angeles will fall further in May, and the trade dispute will lead to a 15 to 20 percent reduction in the number of U.S. containers imported from Asia in the coming weeks.</p><p>The Bank of America report pointed out that despite the early "stockpiling" of goods by U.S. businesses at the beginning of the year, there has been no significant increase in commodity inventories,<em><strong> many retailers may only have one to two months of inventory</strong></em>, and any unforeseen demand or supply disruption could affect retailers' supply of goods and commodity prices in the United States.</p><p>CNBC said that in the second half of this year, the United States will usher in the peak shopping season such as National Day on July 4, "Black Friday" in November and "Cyber Monday" in December, and <em><strong>retailers now need to source goods and prepare for the holidays, so this June could be a "turning point" for the US supply chain</strong></em>, "either lock in the success of the holiday in advance or have to resign to fate".</p><p>Kipling Louttit, executive director of the Southern California Maritime Exchange, said tracking data showed that only 14 cargo ships had arrived in the last three days, and only 10 were scheduled to arrive in the next three days, but the "normal level of activity" over the three days should be 17 cargo ships.</p><p><em><strong>He warned that the reduction in the number of cargo ships and containers arriving in the United States will further translate into a surplus of labor, trucks, trains and other parts of the supply chain, and that "they will lose their jobs because of the decrease in cargo arrivals."</strong></em></p><p>Matson, a Hawaii-based cargo ship operator that offers expedited shipping services from China to Long Beach, California, has seen a 30 percent drop in container volumes from a year earlier than Trump tariffs since April went into effect. Matson has lowered his outlook for 2025 on May 5, citing tariffs, trade regulatory measures, U.S. economic issues and geopolitical issues.</p><p>Matt Cox, CEO of Matson, said on the earnings call: "We have limited visibility into our container demand. We expect container volumes to decline year-on-year in Q2 and at this point, it is difficult to determine whether the lower levels are temporary or will persist longer in 2025. The duration of the period of declining demand may depend on ongoing negotiations, as well as the timing of possible tariff adjustments. ”</p><p>On May 6, local time, data released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and the U.S. Census Bureau showed that the U.S. international trade deficit in March 2025 was $140.5 billion, up from $123.2 billion in February, a record high. Exports in March were $278.5 billion and imports were $419 billion. [My Emphasis]</p></blockquote><p>The above outcomes were all predicted by responsible economists and studiously ignored by Team Trump. Now we turn to the Trade War’s effects on the Tech War as described by this <em>Global Times</em> item: <a href="https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202505/1333460.shtml">How US abuse of tariffs against China affects Apple – and why China holds the cards</a>:</p><div data-sanitized-class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28df64f6-211a-46ee-be11-34c6c2ea171d_1200x720.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM" data-sanitized-class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img"><div data-sanitized-class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28df64f6-211a-46ee-be11-34c6c2ea171d_1200x720.jpeg" width="1200" height="720" data-attrs='{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/28df64f6-211a-46ee-be11-34c6c2ea171d_1200x720.jpeg","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":720,"width":1200,"resizeWidth":null,"bytes":239517,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":"image/jpeg","href":null,"belowTheFold":true,"topImage":false,"internalRedirect":"https://karlof1.substack.com/i/162989597?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28df64f6-211a-46ee-be11-34c6c2ea171d_1200x720.jpeg","isProcessing":false,"align":null}' alt="" loading="lazy" data-sanitized-class="sizing-normal"></picture><div data-sanitized-class="image-link-expand"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></div><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><blockquote><p>In recent days, international media have been paying close attention to Apple CEO Tim Cook's warnings about the potential impact of the tariff war on Apple's earnings. As one of the world's most valuable companies, Apple has a significant influence on the US economy, the global economy and people's lifestyles. <em><strong>The challenges that Apple faces are inevitably the challenges posed by the tariff war initiated by the US.</strong></em> The New York Times even published an article calling on Americans to replace their iPhones, while Bloomberg ran a headline: "Apple Reaches Critical Juncture With Tariffs, AI and Services Turmoil."<em><strong> This likely means that America's tariff war has also reached a critical juncture.</strong></em><br><br>Apple CEO Tim Cook recently announced during the company's second-quarter earnings call that <em><strong>US tariffs on Chinese imports will cost the company an extra $900 million in the June quarter alone.</strong></em> <br><br><em><strong>In response, Apple plans to shift most of its iPhone assembly to India for the US market. The company has already moved the assembly of iPads, Macs, Apple Watches and AirPods to Vietnam to reduce its dependence on China.</strong></em><br><br>Irrespective of where production shifts, <em><strong>the inescapable consequence of Washington's tariffs will be a surge in prices, presenting a significant challenge for American consumers.</strong></em> <br><br>Unlike shoes or hats, which you might buy less if prices increase, smartphones, especially iPhones, are a different story. iPhones, which currently dominate about half the US smartphone market, have become an integral part of the people's daily lives. Let's face it: Many Americans would feel lost without their iPhones, even for a day or just a few hours.<br><br>Politicians in DC have long hoped Apple would bring production back home. However,<em><strong> Apple's dependence on China for production and market growth has only deepened since the Obama era.</strong></em> The US cannot take on iPhone production in terms of technology or workforce. <em><strong>About 90 percent of Apple products are now assembled in China, not to mention the thousands of apps developed for Apple devices.</strong></em><br><br><em><strong>If the US were to mandate that all iPhone assembly be done domestically, the financial implications would be significant. Wedbush analysts estimate that the cost of a single iPhone could triple, reaching around $3,500.</strong></em> Other calculations suggest that such a move could require hundreds of billions of dollars. These figures underscore the substantial economic impact of moving iPhone assembly back to the US.<br><br>Apple has shifted some assembly lines to countries such as India and Vietnam, but many components are still made in China. <em><strong>That's because China continues to lead the world in key manufacturing technologies, and there aren't easy alternatives for many parts. In other words,</strong></em> Apple's supply chain is tightly linked to China. <em><strong>This fact also means China holds essential the cards in any trade dispute.</strong></em><br><br>A recent New York Times article entitled "You Should Think About Replacing Your iPhone—Now" <em><strong>points out that the US lacks the manufacturing expertise, competitive industrial clusters, and even the population density required to make Apple products en masse.</strong></em> <br><br>Some in Washington argue that China benefits more from China-US trade. But look at Apple: In 2023 alone, Apple's revenue from the Greater China region reached $73 billion—accounting for about 19 percent of its global revenue.<br><br>China will continue to innovate and grow, no matter what. In the long run, what will the US stand to lose? Anyone with a bit of strategic vision already knows the answer. [My Emphasis]</p></blockquote><p>Well, I don’t miss not having an iPhone or a “smart phone”; I have a very basic flip-phone that fills my cell phone requirement. And we aren’t an Apple household either since we have none of its products. But I’m certainly aware of Apple’s tech prowess and business impact. As the author notes, Apple’s experience is the same as most tech companies in their relations with China. In <a href="https://www.guancha.cn/Sukui/2025_05_06_774691_s.shtml">an article</a> about China’s shipbuilding industry and the attempts by Biden then Trump to wage war on that portion of Chinese industry, the following is also appropriate for all China’s manufacturing:</p><blockquote><p>For all ship types, China's manufacturing accounts for only 23% of the world's ships in use, and with the current number of ships under construction, this proportion has only risen to 25%, and if only the ships under construction are counted, then the proportion of China-made ships can reach 53%. <em><strong>Taking into account the price, the value of all ships manufactured and being built in China will not exceed 20%, which is roughly the same as China's share of the world's population. China is a large country with a huge population, more than the population of all countries in the entire Western world (about 1.1 billion people), and it should not be surprising that the size of any industry in China is comparable to that of the entire Western world.</strong></em> [My Emphasis]   </p></blockquote><p>It really is that simple—China’s population and geographic size dictate how large its agriculture and industry—its economy—will become. That it has millions of engineers and other tech professionals indicates it will eventually become a top tech leader which it’s been demonstrating. India has a similar potential that unlike the Outlaw US Empire China welcomes, not fears. That the Outlaw US Empire disdains industrial policy and has even viewed it as evil is its choice, which is one main reason why it now lags behind global trend setters. And something similar can be said about education policy which is where all those engineers emerge from. The truth of the matter is ordinary Americans and Europeans have had very little say in the way their economies are designed and who they are made to serve. A quick look at where wealth is concentrated gives the game away, or ought to—today’s Western economies are designed to serve the elites, the top 10%, not the majority, and have been structured that way for many decades, prior to WW1 in most cases. China and Russia primarily have political-economies that are structured differently—they aim to serve the majority, not a tiny minority or Oligarchy—and more nations are joining their geopolitical efforts to create fairness and harmony so humanity can prosper. Standing against those efforts are the Collective West’s Neoliberals and Neocons with Trump standing as their leader—Trump wants to return society to the Gilded Age of 1880-1910, which is what all his policies are designed for. </p><div data-sanitized-class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa68d06d4-1c9f-4078-9d56-b4a099d3d09b_1022x591.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM" data-sanitized-class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img"><div data-sanitized-class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa68d06d4-1c9f-4078-9d56-b4a099d3d09b_1022x591.png" width="1022" height="591" data-attrs='{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/a68d06d4-1c9f-4078-9d56-b4a099d3d09b_1022x591.png","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":591,"width":1022,"resizeWidth":null,"bytes":228408,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":"image/png","href":null,"belowTheFold":true,"topImage":false,"internalRedirect":"https://karlof1.substack.com/i/162989597?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa68d06d4-1c9f-4078-9d56-b4a099d3d09b_1022x591.png","isProcessing":false,"align":null}' alt="" loading="lazy" data-sanitized-class="sizing-normal"></picture><div data-sanitized-class="image-link-expand"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></div><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>The cartoon explains a lot regarding the Empire at the very critical juncture of 1912 when several different future paths were possible besides the one we experienced. However, one political faction is omitted from the cartoon—the Socialists—and also vote that Labor isn’t depicted, while the majority of Americans weren’t legally allowed to vote—Women. So, as with the 1787 Constitution that established Oligarch rule, the 1912 election established Neoliberal rule, with only a brief interlude from 1933-1941, and created the economic and ideological structures that now imprison most of the nation and keep it from combining into a community to overcome the oligarchs. Perhaps this time with Make Americans Grow Angry the greater mass of the public will have an epiphany and combine to forge a different future path than that being forced upon one and all.</p><p>*<br>*<br>*<br><em>Like what you’ve been reading at Karlof1’s Substack? Then please consider subscribing and choosing to make a <strong>monthly/yearly pledge</strong> to enable my efforts in this challenging realm. Thank You!</em></p><p></p><p></p><p data-attrs='{"url":"https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?","text":"Subscribe now","action":null,"class":null}' data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton" data-sanitized-class="button-wrapper"><a href="https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?" data-sanitized-class="button primary"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p> </p><p></p><p></p><p> </p>

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guid: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/lavrovs-80th-anniversary-victory
title: Lavrov's 80th Anniversary Victory Day Ceremonial Speech
author: ;Karl Sanchez
link: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/lavrovs-80th-anniversary-victory
hash: 砅����灗��S
content:
<div data-sanitized-class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa8c0f1f7-981e-4d30-b846-e1d8b81dc66b_1361x695.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM" data-sanitized-class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img"><div data-sanitized-class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa8c0f1f7-981e-4d30-b846-e1d8b81dc66b_1361x695.png" width="1361" height="695" data-attrs='{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/a8c0f1f7-981e-4d30-b846-e1d8b81dc66b_1361x695.png","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":695,"width":1361,"resizeWidth":null,"bytes":1231688,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":"image/png","href":null,"belowTheFold":false,"topImage":true,"internalRedirect":"https://karlof1.substack.com/i/163011032?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa8c0f1f7-981e-4d30-b846-e1d8b81dc66b_1361x695.png","isProcessing":false,"align":null}' alt="" fetchpriority="high" data-sanitized-class="sizing-normal"></picture><div data-sanitized-class="image-link-expand"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></div><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>I’ve yet to see Lavrov in his state uniform with his awards. One would think that on this occasion he’d be dressed in that attire, but as you see he’s wearing his usual business suit uniform. The occasion is the MFA’s own <a href="https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/news/2014026/">Wreath Laying Ceremony </a>that takes place inside its building. After Russia’s anthem plays during the video’s opening minute, Lavrov delivers his speech without notes or teleprompter. It’s rather different from what we usually hear as you’ll experience if you listen to him. It would’ve been nice if the video showed more than the speech, the ceremony itself specifically. </p><blockquote><p>Dear Colleagues,</p><p>Dear friends,</p><p>These days we are celebrating a great date–-the 80th anniversary of the glorious Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War. Today, we, as part of the Ministry's staff, with the participation of our veterans and young people,<em><strong> must take an oath to be forever faithful to the achievements, feats and heroism that ensured the life of our state, our common homeland–-the Soviet Union and the future of future generations.</strong></em></p><p>In those years, many employees of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs and foreign trade colleagues went to the front together with the soldiers of the Red Army and, together with the militia, defended our capital and Motherland. They ensured their contribution to this Great Victory. At the same time, diplomats who remained at work in the People's Commissariat, together with their fellow Chekists and intelligence officers, provided diplomatic and foreign policy support for the heroic struggle of the Soviet people to save Europe from Nazism. They did everything to receive and use information that was designed to strengthen the unity of the anti-Hitler coalition <em><strong>and prevent the Nazis from concluding separate deals. And there were such attempts.</strong></em></p><p>Throughout the war, diplomats in their posts did everything necessary to prevent betrayal. <em><strong>These documents have now been declassified and are being published. We found out in advance about the preparations, primarily with the participation of the British, for Operation Unthinkable. It was indeed unthinkable, because it involved an attack on the Soviet Union with the aim of inflicting a "strategic defeat" on it (as it sounds familiar now). Today, that experience is invaluable to us. </strong></em>The experience of building a coalition, but exclusively based on our own interests, without naivety, without excessive trust in empty promises. President Vladimir Putin spoke about this in detail in one of his interviews recently.</p><p><em><strong>Now they have also rallied against us under the banner of Nazism (and in the literal sense of the word),</strong></em> supporting the openly racist and anti-Russian regime of Vladimir Zelensky, which holds torchlight processions and throws fighters with chevrons of Nazi divisions on their sleeves into the meat grinder. <em><strong>Just as in the framework of Operation Unthinkable, we are threatened with a "strategic defeat" on the battlefield.</strong></em></p><p>It is important not only to preserve the memory of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War and World War II, who ensured our future and current development (I am sure that we will develop for many decades and centuries to come), but also to remember the diplomatic experience and lessons of those events. <em><strong>These lessons are invaluable, especially in the current situation, when almost all of Europe is again waging war against us, placed under arms and under Nazi banners.</strong></em></p><p>These days, for the first time in our country, 80 “eternal flames” are lit. <em><strong>There was a tradition to take a particle of the "eternal flame" in the Alexander Garden and transport it to someone's small homeland.</strong></em> Most recently, such an action was carried out by residents of Lugansk. And a number of other cities carry out similar actions. It is symbolic that this happens shortly after Easter, when a particle of the Holy Fire from Jerusalem is carried around the world and a bright day is celebrated–-Sunday. <em><strong>Victory for us is also the Sunday of our entire people, our history, traditions and pride.</strong></em> We are obliged to pass on these feelings to our children and grandchildren, just as our mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers passed these feelings on to us.</p><p>I would like to congratulate the Foreign Ministry staff, employees of our missions in the regions of the Russian Federation, embassies and consulates on the upcoming Great Victory Day. Special congratulations to our veterans, who, as always, are on duty. They symbolize the connection between generations that allowed us to survive and emerge strengthened from a variety of situations, including those related to wars and diplomatic battles.</p><p><em><strong>Everything is still ahead. No one promised that it would be possible to solve all problems in one sitting. Life requires constant effort.</strong></em> I hope that our team, which has repeatedly proved its capabilities in the most difficult situations, will continue to implement with honour the foreign policy defined by President Vladimir Putin. It is aimed at unconditionally ensuring the legitimate and vital interests of the Russian Federation in the international arena, <em><strong>leaving the door open for honest cooperation with all those who are ready to work on such an equal and mutually </strong></em>beneficial basis.</p><p>Happy holiday once again! [My Emphasis]</p></blockquote><p>If you listened before you read, you’ll understand the reason for the rather somber delivery—Unthinkably, the Anti-Nazi war is again thrust upon Russia. IMO, Lavrov’s message merits nationwide distribution by all Russian media, not confined to the MFA’s website. Note at the opening the Soviet Union lives on, which IMO is right and proper. Eventually its constituent members in their collective status will be far more powerful and prosperous once the rude shock of separation and attempts at further destabilization finally subside in perhaps another generation or two. Those 20-40 years represent only a short period of time for the thousand plus year-old Russian Civilizational State. Those with a deep knowledge of 20th Century History will understand the gravity of Lavrov’s words, which is also why the “connections between generations” is so important for Russia and Russians as well as for all former Soviet peoples—all must remain on their guard as long as the West conducts Imperialism.</p><p>*<br>*<br>*<br><em>Like what you’ve been reading at Karlof1’s Substack? Then please consider subscribing and choosing to make a <strong>monthly/yearly pledge</strong> to enable my efforts in this challenging realm. Thank You!</em></p><p></p><p></p><p data-attrs='{"url":"https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?","text":"Subscribe now","action":null,"class":null}' data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton" data-sanitized-class="button-wrapper"><a href="https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?" data-sanitized-class="button primary"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p>  </p>

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guid: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/breaking-news-mofcom-agrees-to-talk
title: Breaking News: MOFCOM Agrees to Talk to Outlaw US Empire
author: ;Karl Sanchez
link: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/breaking-news-mofcom-agrees-to-talk
hash: �hSi�m-M&ҨxpK
content:
<div data-sanitized-class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb9a1eb5c-03aa-498a-8a18-9f88ad170bec_1200x675.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM" data-sanitized-class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img"><div data-sanitized-class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb9a1eb5c-03aa-498a-8a18-9f88ad170bec_1200x675.jpeg" width="1200" height="675" data-attrs='{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/b9a1eb5c-03aa-498a-8a18-9f88ad170bec_1200x675.jpeg","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":675,"width":1200,"resizeWidth":null,"bytes":null,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":null,"href":null,"belowTheFold":false,"topImage":true,"internalRedirect":null,"isProcessing":false,"align":null}' alt="" fetchpriority="high" data-sanitized-class="sizing-normal"></picture><div data-sanitized-class="image-link-expand"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></div><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>China’s Ministry of Commerce in a press statement followed by Q&amp;A has said it will engage in talks with the Outlaw US Empire. I’ll let <a href="https://www.guancha.cn/internation/2025_05_07_774811.shtml">the following PR</a> speak for itself:</p><blockquote><p>According to the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Commerce on May 7, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that at the invitation of the Swiss government, He Lifeng, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council, will visit Switzerland from May 9 to 12 to hold talks with Swiss leaders and relevant parties. During his visit to Switzerland, Vice Premier He Lifeng, as the Chinese leader of China-US economic and trade relations, will hold talks with US Secretary of the Treasury Bessant, the US leader. From May 12 to 16, Vice Premier He Lifeng will go to France to co-chair the 10th China-France High-level Economic and Financial Dialogue with the French side.</p><p><strong>The spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce remarks reporters' questions on the high-level economic and trade talks between China and the United States</strong></p><p>A reporter asked: On the morning of May 7, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that Vice Premier He Lifeng will visit Switzerland from May 9 to 12, during which he will hold talks with the US side. Could the Ministry of Commerce tell us more about the background and considerations of the talks?</p><p>A: Since taking office, the new US administration has adopted <em><strong>a series of illegal and unreasonable unilateral tariff measures,</strong></em> which have seriously impacted China-US economic and trade relations, seriously disrupted the international economic and trade order, and brought severe challenges to the recovery and growth of the world economy. In order to defend its legitimate rights and interests, China has taken resolute and forceful countermeasures. Recently, the US high-level has been easing its grip on adjusting tariff measures and<em><strong> has taken the initiative to convey information to the Chinese side through various channels, hoping to discuss with the Chinese side on tariffs and other issues</strong></em>. The Chinese side carefully assessed the US information. After fully considering global expectations, China's interests, and the demands of the U.S. industry and consumers, China decided to agree to engage with the U.S. side. Vice Premier He Lifeng, as the Chinese leader of China-US economic and trade relations, will hold talks with US Treasury Secretary Bessant during his visit to Switzerland.</p><p><em><strong>China's position is consistent, and China's determination to safeguard its own development interests will not change, and its position and goal of safeguarding international fairness and justice and the international economic and trade order will not change, regardless of whether it is a fight or a negotiation</strong></em>. Fight, accompany to the end; talk, the door is open. <em><strong>Any dialogue and negotiation must be carried out on the premise of mutual respect, consultation on an equal footing and mutual benefit.</strong></em> There is an old Chinese saying, "Listen to their words and watch their deeds". <em><strong>If the US wants to resolve the issue through negotiations, it must face up to the serious negative impact of unilateral tariff measures on itself and the world, face up to international economic and trade rules, fairness and justice, and the voices of reason from all walks of life, show sincerity in talks, correct its wrong practices, work with China in the same direction, and resolve both sides' concerns through consultation on an equal footing. If the US says one thing and does another or even attempts to continue to engage in coercion and blackmail under the guise of talks, China will never agree, let alone seek any agreement at the expense of its principled position and international fairness and justice.</strong></em></p><p>The Chinese side noted that some economies are also negotiating with the US side. What needs to be emphasized is that appeasement cannot be exchanged for peace, compromise will not be respected, and <em><strong>adhering to a principled stand and upholding fairness and justice is the correct way to safeguard one's own interests.</strong></em> No matter how the international situation changes, China will unswervingly expand opening-up, unswervingly <em><strong>uphold the multilateral trading system with the WTO at its core,</strong></em> and unswervingly share development opportunities with other countries in the world. <em><strong>China stands ready to work with all parties to deepen mutually beneficial cooperation, strengthen communication and coordination, jointly resist unilateral protectionism and hegemonic bullying, jointly uphold free trade and multilateralism, and promote economic globalization that benefits and inclusiveness</strong></em>. [My Emphasis]</p></blockquote><p>That’s one very strong statement that’s almost Red Queen-like as the Empire is deemed guilty of illegalities prior to any trial, although I’m sure the Global Majority would agree. The second paragraph of the Answer is a very terse lecture given to the Empire from the party having leverage consisting of truth, law and justice on its side. It will be interesting to see how US Media spins this.</p><p>*<br>*<br>*<br><em>Like what you’ve been reading at Karlof1’s Substack? Then please consider subscribing and choosing to make a <strong>monthly/yearly pledge</strong> to enable my efforts in this challenging realm. Thank You!</em></p><p></p><p data-attrs='{"url":"https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?","text":"Subscribe now","action":null,"class":null}' data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton" data-sanitized-class="button-wrapper"><a href="https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?" data-sanitized-class="button primary"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p></p>

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guid: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/further-examination-of-mofcoms-statement
title: Further Examination of MOFCOM's Statement &amp; China's Intentions
author: ;Karl Sanchez
link: https://karlof1.substack.com/p/further-examination-of-mofcoms-statement
hash: b�l^Ȍ�ڭ���k^�
content:
<div data-sanitized-class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F096ba5c7-3108-46e3-8fb0-4489fe4b7605_1280x720.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM" data-sanitized-class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img"><div data-sanitized-class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F096ba5c7-3108-46e3-8fb0-4489fe4b7605_1280x720.jpeg" width="1280" height="720" data-attrs='{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/096ba5c7-3108-46e3-8fb0-4489fe4b7605_1280x720.jpeg","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":720,"width":1280,"resizeWidth":null,"bytes":207482,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":"image/jpeg","href":null,"belowTheFold":false,"topImage":true,"internalRedirect":"https://karlof1.substack.com/i/163071170?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F096ba5c7-3108-46e3-8fb0-4489fe4b7605_1280x720.jpeg","isProcessing":false,"align":null}' alt="" fetchpriority="high" data-sanitized-class="sizing-normal"></picture><div data-sanitized-class="image-link-expand"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></div><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p></p><p>In a follow up to last night’s breaking news from China’s MOFCOM (Ministry of Commerce), we have <a href="https://www.guancha.cn/Guanxin/2025_05_07_774861.shtml">another article</a> placed on<em> Guancha</em> that further parses what was said and what ought to be expected. Its title: </p><h4><strong>Concern: China will engage with the US with a scrutinist mentality</strong></h4><blockquote><p>China and the United States are finally going to talk, and this news has become the top priority in the field of public opinion at home and abroad today. According to the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Commerce, Vice Premier He Lifeng will visit Switzerland from May 9 to 12, during which Vice Premier He Lifeng, as the Chinese leader of China-US economic and trade relations, will hold talks with US Secretary of the Treasury Bessant.</p><p>It needs to be said that this is a positive sign. <em><strong>The global trade impasse caused by the brazen trade war launched by the United States has been going on for some time, and all parties are suffering losses and injuries, especially the United States itself.</strong></em> China is a veritable force in the world's anti-trade war. Because China has withstood most of Washington's firepower, some countries have been able to "steal peace." <em><strong>It is because China has withstood Washington's almost frenzied tariff attacks that the US top brass has been forced to keep unleashing on adjusting tariff measures without waiting for a phone call, and to take the initiative to send messages to the Chinese side through various channels in the hope of talking with the Chinese side.</strong></em> "Fight, accompany to the end; talks, the door is open," China's position is consistent. <em><strong>It is only when the United States realizes that it is impossible to subdue China through trade blackmail and bullying that it will be more proactive in talking.</strong></em></p><p>Please note the statement of the spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce: China has carefully assessed the information of the US side. After fully considering global expectations, China's interests, and the demands of the U.S. industry and consumers, China decided to agree<em><strong> to engage</strong></em> with the U.S. side. <em><strong>"Engagement" is not negotiation; "engagement" means that the channel is connected first, which is one level lower than negotiation, and the wording is very exquisite, which shows that China's intentions and sincerity towards the US side need to be observed and confirmed, and it needs to "listen to its words and watch its deeds". </strong></em>To a certain extent, it can be said that <em><strong>China's engagement with the US with the mentality of a reviewer is in the hands of the Chinese side as to whether to shift from "engagement" to "negotiation" or to suspend "engagement"</strong></em>. <em><strong>China's move is neither compromise nor credulity, but a strategic response to the US initiative. The Chinese side did not lower the bottom line of principles, but took the engagement as an opportunity to observe whether the US side is really sincere in correcting its mistakes.</strong></em></p><p>Some netizens wondered, "Is this a smoke bomb or a delaying tactic by the United States?" <em><strong>In fact, there is no need to overthink that if the US side does not match its words and deeds and tries to continue to exert pressure under the guise of engagement, China has already made it clear that it "will never seek any agreement at the expense of its principled position and international fairness and justice." Regardless of the outcome, this engagement will provide the Chinese side with more information and experience for future games.</strong></em> As we all know, the negotiating table is also an important battleground. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in 1945, in order to expose Chiang Kai-shek's conspiracy of "fake democracy and real civil war", Chairman Mao went to Chongqing in person to negotiate with Chiang Kai-shek. Although the negotiations failed to prevent the civil war, this action demonstrated to the people of the whole country and the world the sincerity of the Chinese Communist Party in striving for peace, exposed the true face of Chiang Kai-shek, and won the moral high ground for the subsequent struggle.</p><p>There are similarities in this economic and trade engagement between China and the United States. <em><strong>Even if the US side lacks the sincerity to negotiate on an equal footing, China can further reveal its true intentions to the international community through contacts</strong></em>. As the spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce said, "China's determination to safeguard its own development interests will not change, and its position and goal of safeguarding international fairness and justice and safeguarding the international economic and trade order will not change."</p><p>During the arduous years of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, China and the United States "fought and talked, talked and fought" on the battlefield, and negotiations and operations complemented each other. The heroic performance of the volunteers on the battlefield portrayed the prestige of the country and the army and won a favorable position for the game at the negotiation table. <em><strong>The current economic and trade game between China and the United States also requires a combination of strength on the battlefield and wisdom at the negotiating table.</strong></em></p><p>In the face of tariff wars and trade wars under maximum pressure from the United States, China's economy has shown unimaginable resilience and strength.<em><strong> Since 2018</strong></em>, China has withstood the pressure, steadily promoted high-quality development, made remarkable progress in scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance, and continued to enhance the stability of industrial and supply chains. <em><strong>These achievements prove that US unilateralism will not work in the face of China. Behind this engagement is China's self-confidence in firmly following its own development path. </strong></em>No matter what the US side does, China will be able to respond to all changes without change, handle its own affairs well, and lay a solid foundation for engagement and games. [My Emphasis]</p></blockquote><p>I note the Covid Year wasn’t included since its actual root has yet to be discovered, but some version of a Trade War with China’s been in the Outlaw US Empire’s policy mix since the Obama regime, although the inane aspect of its policy was to continue to strengthen China via continual offshoring of industry while trying to negate the outcomes of that policy which was and is a stronger China. What IMO needs to be acknowledged is China’s ability to see and comprehend the Empire’s policy aims and to craft a policy that would use the Empire’s efforts to China’s advantage. I’m also curious to see if the US side takes advantage of this open information provided by China on its position, which is uncannily similar to Russia providing its basic negotiating position on Ukraine that by its actions Team Trump never bothered reading. IMO, there’s a very strong possibility Bessant will prove an ass and bungle the engagement. And China’s position is very public as you’re reading it here.</p><p>I linked to <a href="https://yandex.com/video/preview/14655760606589129355">this video interview</a> by Bloomberg TV with Port of Los Angeles Director Gene Seroka who explained the impact on his and other US ports, consumer pricing, and how this affects the ordering schedule for retailers along with other business effects, and I link to it again because it provides info all readers ought to be aware of. What isn’t said by Seroka and other US commentators is China businesses have other outlets for their goods—there are many more market opportunities than the US market beginning with the Chinese market with its one billion people—over three times the US market size. The US was once the market of last resort which fueled the indispensable nation myth, but that’s no longer the case. Outside the close to four billion people composed of China, India, and the Collective West is another four billion that are rising in their economic power and market importance. About one billion are already well connected to China via RCEP and ASEAN. As Team Biden discovered in 2021 when it was lectured by their Chinese opposites in Alaska, the Outlaw US Empire no longer has any position of strength in relation to China. That if China is disrespected, it will get up and leave the table. </p><p>*<br>*<br>*<br><em>Like what you’ve been reading at Karlof1’s Substack? Then please consider subscribing and choosing to make a <strong>monthly/yearly pledge</strong> to enable my efforts in this challenging realm. Thank You!</em></p><p></p><p></p><p data-attrs='{"url":"https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?","text":"Subscribe now","action":null,"class":null}' data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton" data-sanitized-class="button-wrapper"><a href="https://karlof1.substack.com/subscribe?" data-sanitized-class="button primary"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p>    </p><p></p>

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guid: http://www.globalresearch.ca/?p=5448778
title: Comment l’Armée rouge a vaincu l’Allemagne nazie
author: ;Dr. Jacques R. Pauwels
link: https://www.mondialisation.ca/comment-larmee-rouge-a-vaincu-lallemagne-nazie/5448778
hash: H��o�OA��T�/Q��
tags: #Francais @fr #Mobile
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content:
Le 8 mai est le 80e anniversaire de la victoire des Alliés sur l’Allemagne nazie et la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale qui a coûté la vie à plus de 60 millions de personnes. A en croire les films hollywoodiens, tout se serait joué lors de combats héroïques entre soldats américains et allemands ou japonais. Les historiens sont toutefois unanimes: l’Allemagne nazie a été vaincue par l’Armée rouge.


guid: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/finkelstein-interviews-cornel-west
title: Finkelstein Interviews Cornel West
author: ;Norman Finkelstein
link: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/finkelstein-interviews-cornel-west
hash: 5��8 �t��ڳ�e�
content:
<p>Please visit the link to view the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdLyAnmHsXE">VIDEO HERE</a></p><div data-sanitized-class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F412ef45d-dc02-44f7-a4da-a9911fe3a1c5_550x309.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM" data-sanitized-class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img"><div data-sanitized-class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F412ef45d-dc02-44f7-a4da-a9911fe3a1c5_550x309.jpeg" width="550" height="309" data-attrs='{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/412ef45d-dc02-44f7-a4da-a9911fe3a1c5_550x309.jpeg","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":309,"width":550,"resizeWidth":null,"bytes":30298,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":"image/jpeg","href":null,"belowTheFold":false,"topImage":true,"internalRedirect":null,"isProcessing":false,"align":null}' alt="" fetchpriority="high" data-sanitized-class="sizing-normal"></picture><div data-sanitized-class="image-link-expand"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></div><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p></p>

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guid: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/deborah-maccoby-tutors-bar-mitzvah
title: Deborah Maccoby Tutors Bar Mitzvah Boy Benny Shapiro on Jewish History
author: ;Norman Finkelstein
link: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/deborah-maccoby-tutors-bar-mitzvah
hash: �N��0UJ�;;�� �
content:
<p>THE BEN SHAPIRO VERSION OF ANCIENT JEWISH HISTORY: 3: THE HASMONEAN DYNASTY</p><p>In support of his claim that “Israel is historically Jewish territory”, Ben Shapiro states: “The Hasmonean Dynasty was founded in 166 BC”.</p><p>It is puzzling that Mr Shapiro chooses this date, because 167/166 BCE is the date of the beginning of the Maccabean Revolt of Judaea against the Syrian Greek Empire, also known as the Seleucid Empire – a rebellion that provides the historical background to the Jewish festival of Chanukah (which started this year on the evening of Thursday, December 7). The Maccabean Revolt, led by Judas Maccabeus and his band of brothers, began in 167/166 BCE and lasted, through various phases, till 142 BCE, when Judaea gained its independence.</p><p>The Maccabees became war-leaders in 167/166 BCE; but it is generally agreed that the Hasmonean Dynasty (named after an ancestor called Hasmon) was founded in 141 BCE by Judas’s brother, Simon (Judas himself was killed in battle in 161 BCE). To quote the <em>Jewish Encyclopedia</em>:</p><blockquote><p>The high-priestly and princely dignity of the Hasmoneans was founded by a resolution, adopted in Sept., 141 B. C., at a large assembly “of the priests and the people and of the elders of the land, to the effect that Simon should be their leader and high priest forever, until there should arise a faithful prophet” (I Macc. xiv. 41). Recognition of the new dynasty by the Romans was accorded by the Senate about 139 B. C. when the delegation of Simon was in Rome. Therefore, from a historic point of view, one can speak of a Hasmonean dynasty only as beginning with Simon.¹</p></blockquote><p>So Mr Shapiro has once again got the date wrong. But I believe this is more than a simple error of fact. Mr Shapiro has deliberately mixed up the Maccabean Revolt with the Hasmonean Dynasty, to try to make out that the two are more or less the same thing. Of course, they are (literally) related; but the two are diametrically opposed. </p><p> HISTORICAL BACKGROUND TO THE MACCABEAN REVOLT</p><p>To bring out the difference between the Maccabean Revolt and the Hasmonean Dynasty, we need first some very brief historical background.</p><p>In the early sixth century BCE, the Southern Kingdom of Judah was conquered and destroyed as a kingdom by the Babylonians, and part of the population of Judah was deported to Babylon. But during the sixth century BCE, the Babylonian Empire was defeated and taken over by the Persian Empire; and at the end of the sixth century BCE, Cyrus the Great, the King of Persia, allowed the Jews to return to Palestine. </p><p>Many Jews stayed in Babylon, where they had established a prosperous community with a flourishing culture – Babylon was the New York of its day. But a contingent of Jewish families went back. They settled in a very small area around Jerusalem known as Judaea; and here they rebuilt the Temple, which the Babylonians had destroyed. The Jews concentrated on their rich internal religious development – strongly influenced by the experience of having been in Babylon – and avoided participation in the political events of the time.  Since the vast majority of the Kings of Israel and Judah had “done evil in the sight of the Lord”² (to which evil the Jews attributed the destructions of Israel and Judah), the Judaeans decided to do without Kings. Judaea was a republican theocracy governed by Priests and Scribes.</p><p>In the second century BCE, Palestine came under the rule of the Seleucid Empire. (Alexander the Great of Macedonia had, in his turn, defeated the Persian Empire; after his death in 323 BCE, his vast Macedonian-Greek Empire was split up; and Palestine came first under the mild and tolerant rule of the Ptolemies of Egypt, but later under the much harsher rule of the Seleucids.) One of the Seleucid rulers, the mad Emperor Antiochus Epiphanes, who identified himself with Zeus, was determined to convert the Jews to the Greek religion by force. Antiochus marched on Jerusalem with his army, desecrated the Temple, set up a shrine within it to Zeus (i.e., himself), on whose altar pigs were sacrificed, and issued decrees forcing the Jews to abandon Judaism. The outraged people rose in rebellion, led by Judas Maccabeus and his band of brothers.</p><p>THE HASMONEAN DYNASTY</p><p>In 104 BCE, Simon’s grandson, Aristobulus I, “put a diadem on his head”³ (in the words of the first century CE Jewish historian Josephus) and declared himself King of Judaea. But, just as the Kings of Israel and Judah had been challenged by the Prophets, so the Kings of Judaea were now challenged by the successors to the Prophets, the Rabbis, who had been slowly emerging as a group⁴ and had become the real authority among the people. As the Hasmoneans turned into a royal family, the Priests tended to side with the aristocracy and royal family, while the Rabbis had become the leaders of the people.⁵</p><p>The Rabbis had supported the Maccabean Revolt and the High Priesthood and Governorship of Simon, but they were bitterly opposed to the assumption of royalty by the Hasmoneans. It is forbidden in Jewish Law to combine the High Priesthood with the Monarchy.⁶ And in any case, the Rabbis didn’t like Kings. Relations between the Rabbis and people, on the one side, and the Hasmonean Dynasty, on the other, deteriorated, during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus, the brother and successor of Aristobulus I, to the point of civil war, during which many Jews went to fight for the Seleucid Empire. To quote the historian Simon Schama:</p><blockquote><p> The indignation turned lethal, opening a murderous six-year Jewish civil war (not always sufficiently registered in popular histories of the Maccabean period), in which thousands of disaffected Jews joined the army of the Seleucid Demetrius (so recently the enemy), in the hopes of overthrowing the iniquitous Hasmoneans. Fifty thousand were slaughtered in the bloody conflict, the climax of which was the rout of Jannaeus by Demetrius and his Jewish auxiliaries. But his [i.e. Jannaeus’s] throne and state were saved by the usual sudden need of the Greek ruler to retreat abruptly back north and east, allowing Jannaeus to return to Judaea and inflict a horrifying retribution on the disloyal. His revenge culminated in a mass crucifixion of eight hundred of the Jews he judged most guilty in front of the king-priest while he was feasting “with his concubines”, looking on as the wives and children had their throats slit before their crucified husbands and fathers.⁷</p></blockquote><p>This is the Hasmonean Dynasty that Mr Shapiro cites in support of his claim that “Israel is historically Jewish land”. It is true – and this is precisely why Mr Shapiro brings in the Hasmonean Dynasty – that the Hasmonean Kings greatly expanded the territory of Judaea. They never conquered the whole land, but took many neighbouring territories, including Iturea and Idumea, the inhabitants of which areas the Hasmoneans forced to convert to Judaism (including forced circumcisions for men).⁸ So, ironically, the Hasmonean Dynasty turned into the same kind of tyrannical regime against which Judas Maccabeus had fought. Still more ironically, from the Idumeans, who had been forcibly converted and circumcised, came the nemesis of the Hasmonean Dynasty: the Herodian Dynasty. The Romans conquered and occupied Jerusalem in 67 BCE and installed, as client-kings, the Herodian Dynasty – who were originally Idumeans -- in place of the Hasmoneans. Herod the Great had most of the Hasmoneans put to death (including his wife, the beautiful Hasmonean princess Mariamne, whom he suspected of unfaithfulness). The Hasmonean Dynasty had lasted just 75 years. </p><p>THE RABBIS AND CHANUKAH</p><p>Such was the animosity that the Rabbis felt against the Hasmonean Dynasty that they left out the two Books of Maccabees from the Hebrew Bible (these two books were preserved in the Apocrypha, which was compiled by Christians). In the liturgy for Chanukah composed by the Rabbis in the first centuries CE, the festival celebrates, not the victories achieved by the Maccabees, but a miracle that the Rabbis claimed took place during the re-dedication of the Temple.</p><p>According to this story (which is not mentioned in the two Books of Maccabees), the Seleucids had polluted all the flasks of holy olive oil that were used to light the Menorah, the seven-branched candlestick in the Temple – all except one small flask. It took eight days to prepare more holy olive oil; but, according to the legend, that small flask lasted eight days. In celebration of the miracle, the festival lasts eight days; and each family lights eight candles (preferably olive oil cups rather than wax candles) in a candlestick called a menorah; one candle the first night, two on the second, and so on.</p><p>In addition, the Rabbis downplayed the festival of Chanukah as much as they could without abolishing it; it could not be abolished because  a) the historical memory of the Maccabean Revolt was still strong in the early centuries CE; b) Chanukah is based (like Christmas) on an ancient pagan winter solstice festival of lights, celebrating the birth of the new Sun; this answers to a basic human need. But Chanukah is essentially a very minor festival; in contrast to most other Jewish festivals, work is permitted on all the eight days (except the Sabbath). Chanukah has only become prominent as a Jewish alternative to Christmas. </p><p>To bring the rabbis’ anti-militaristic message home, the <em>haftorah</em> -- reading from the Prophets – in the synagogue service on the Sabbath during Chanukah is a passage from the sixth century BCE Prophet Zechariah (who prophesied at about the time the Jews returned from Babylon) about a vision in which an angel tells him: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts” [“Hosts” here means “hosts of angels”] (4: 6). </p><p>CONCLUSION </p><p>Mr Shapiro has once again got the date wrong. But, in my view, he did so deliberately, in order to associate the Hasmonean Dynasty with the heroism of the Maccabean Revolt. It is historically true that the Hasmonean Dynasty greatly expanded its territory; but, by bringing in the Hasmoneans to support his claim that “Israel” (by which he appears to mean the whole land even though – as pointed out in Part 1, the whole land has never been called Israel) “is historically Jewish territory”, Mr Shapiro implicitly condoned violent conquest and forced conversions and circumcisions. He also implicitly endorsed the  corrupt and cruel Hasmonean Dynasty, which the Rabbis and the people hated and regarded as un-Jewish. The Maccabean Revolt was a genuine struggle of a people for political, cultural and religious freedom. The irony that Israel is destroying the political, cultural and religious identity of the Palestinians – indeed, going even further now by practising ethnic cleansing and genocide -- while celebrating Chanukah is obvious. The Hasmonean Dynasty betrayed not only the Maccabean Revolt, but the vision of a just society, without kings, nationalism, and militarism, that had inspired the Jews who returned from Babylon. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit” – a prophetic warning ignored both by the Hasmonean Dynasty and the modern State of Israel.</p><p></p><ol><li><p><a href="https://substack.com/redirect/a46587e5-c251-407d-b1dd-399207b26ea1?j=eyJ1IjoiMXU1MW02In0.t7iqfBfozlUw_CTosck4r7vsbr8Fj0vo8OMlJso7zDA">https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7319-hasmoneans</a></p></li><li><p>e. g. 1 Kings, 15: 26.</p></li><li><p>Flavius Josephus, <em>Antiquities of the Jews</em>, XIII.11.1.</p></li><li><p>See R. Travers Herford, <em>The Pharisees</em> (1924: Boston, 1962), pp. 28-46.</p></li><li><p>See Josephus, <em>op. cit.,</em> XIII.10.2: Josephus writes that the Rabbis (known as Pharisees) “have the multitude on their side”, whereas their theological opponents, the Sadducees, who were mostly Priests, “are able to persuade none but the rich”. The Sadducees regarded the first five books of the Bible (known as the Torah) as closed and finished, but the Pharisees interpreted them according to an unwritten tradition known as the Oral Tradition: “The Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observations by succession from their fathers which are not written in the Laws of Moses; and for that reason it is that the Sadducees reject them , and say that we are to esteem those observances to be obligatory which are in the written word, but not to observe what are derived from the tradition of our forefathers. And concerning these things it is that great disputes and differences have arisen among them, while the Sadducees are able to persuade none but the rich, and have not the populace obsequious to them, but the Pharisees have the multitude on their side”.</p></li><li><p>According to Genesis 49: 10, a King can only come from the tribe of Judah. According to Numbers 3: 6-9, a High Priest can only come from the tribe of Levi.</p></li><li><p>Simon Schama, <em>op. cit.,</em> pp. 126-127. See also Josephus, <em>op. cit.,</em> XIII.14.2.</p></li><li><p><em>Ibid.</em>, XIII.9.1 and 11.3.</p></li></ol><p></p>

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guid: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/sam-harris-savant-idiot
title: SAM HARRIS: SAVANT IDIOT
author: ;Norman Finkelstein
link: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/sam-harris-savant-idiot
hash: R�w 2*�1F�G٣�
content:
<p>Media performer Sam Harris recently appeared on Piers Morgan’s program. Affecting a flat effect—cool, rational—he used this platform to weigh in on irrational, fanatical Muslims. A clip was first shown of a Muslim (he is identified as the offspring of a Hamas leader) who expostulates that all Muslims are evil. This apparently deranged (or highly remunerated) fellow is a throwback to the days when Peter Lorre, eyes screwed up, was a stand-in for the wily, sinister Other. Mr. Harris seizes on this Archetypal Muslim as proof positive that “It should be obvious to everyone that we have a vast number of people in the Muslim community worldwide ... who are powerfully deranged.” His evidence for this sweepingly “obvious” fact? Except for the hapless (or, if he’s generously compensated, very happy) Muslim exhibited on the program, and the fact that Mr. Harris is introduced as “one of the world’s great thinkers” (he’s Jewish, so the praise is redundant), the only proof adduced by Mr. Harris is that the Muslim world produces a prodigious number of suicide bombers—not least, children whose parents have been “rigging them to explode.” He cites no numbers or statistics. Indeed, he cites nothing. There is, of course, by now a vast scholarly corpus on suicide bombers—their origins, motivations, the support they garner. But Mr. Harris doesn’t engage it. Instead: here’s a clip of an apparently deranged Muslim saying Muslims are deranged; Mr. Harris is a genius (he’s Jewish, isn’t he?); ergo it’s “obvious” that he’s right.</p><p>To be sure, it’s clearly possible that a large swath of a population can be unhinged; at any rate, temporarily. Witness Germany and Japan from the peak to denouement of World War 2. Or, to consider an example closer at hand: Israel. The Jewish state has launched a war of annihilation against the people of Gaza. The number of genocidal statements uttered by prominent Israelis at every level of the state and civil society since October 7 can by now fill a hefty chunk of cyberspace. But Mr. Harris is not in the least perturbed. Why is that?</p><p>First, as a pop secular prophet, indiscriminate mass killing only outrages Mr. Harris’s moral sensibility if it springs from religion. But the protagonists on all sides in the unprecedented bloodlettings of WW1 and WW2—and for that matter the Vietnam War, presided over by “the best and the brightest”—were secular or in thrall to secular ideologies. Was that really better? Indeed, it’s gone over Mr. Harris’s bigoted skull that the most lethal ideologies in the modern epoch have sprung not from religious but secular fanaticism. Hitler, Stalin, Kissinger: they can rightly be accused of many things but pathological religiosity is not one of them. In any event, the animating ideology in Israel is a heady brew of terrestrial calculation and super-terrestrial frenzy. Just a “tiny minority of Jews in Israel,” Harris caveats, “are motivated by their religious fanaticism.” Even were that so (which is most doubtful), it’s hard to figure why maniacal laicism isn’t also odious. Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeatedly gestured to the Old Testament as he avows that Israel is waging a war against “Amalek”—i.e., every man, woman, and child in Gaza—“a war between the children of light and the children of darkness.” Does it really matter whether the register of this genocidal invocation is secular or theocratic?</p><p>Short of wiping out the entire population in one fell swoop—not easy with the social media at high alert—Israel’s repeatedly stated next-best objective has been to make Gaza uninhabitable. “Whoever returns here, if they return here after, will find scorched earth,” a senior Israeli official in Gaza projected. “No houses, no agriculture, no nothing. They have no future.” Israel implemented a total blockade of Gaza barring entry of any food, water, fuel or electricity; in other words, it’s relying not on prayers exhorting the Almighty’s wrath but on a resolutely secular recipe for genocide that passes Mr. Harris’s taste-test. Unsurprisingly, mass starvation and the spread of lethal diseases have ensued. Israel simultaneously unleashed a biblically indiscriminate (but also targeted) campaign of death and destruction that, by every metric—intensity of bombing and payload size; pace and level of devastation; total civilian casualties as well as women and children versus men killed—puts the hecatomb Israel has inflicted on Gaza in a category all its own in the 21st century; and, by some measures, it occupies a unique category going as far back as World War 2 (if compared, e.g., to the Allied terror bombing of German cities). “Gaza is one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history,” a U.S. military historian observes.</p><p>The U.N. relief chief describes the humanitarian situation in Gaza as the “worst ever” in his long career, while the European Union foreign affairs chief calls the situation “catastrophic, apocalyptic.” Israel has killed at least 20,000 Gazans, seventy percent of them women and children. The proportion of men, women and children killed roughly approximates the distribution of men, women, and children in Gaza’s total population—which shouldn’t surprise if the massive bombing and artillery fire is largely indiscriminate. On average, Israel has killed 160 children per day in Gaza; the next highest number among conflict zones in the world is seven (in Syria), while as many children have already been killed in Gaza as in all conflict zones for the three years 2020, 2021, 2022 combined. In order to make Gaza uninhabitable, Israel has reduced to rubble Gaza’s civilian infrastructure. The Financial Times reports that Israel has already achieved half its objective: “Israel’s incursion has left northern Gaza virtually uninhabitable.” Its methodical targeting of Gaza’s hospitals has breached, in the annals of modern warfare, a negative threshold of barbarism.</p><p>Notwithstanding this ghastly record, nearly 60 percent of Israeli Jews believed a month into the assault that Israel had deployed too little force in Gaza, while less than two percent believed that Israel used too much force. Israel has a citizen army. Its combatants executing singly and en masse this genocide are broadly representative of Israeli Jewish society. In other words, overwhelmingly, Israeli Jews are either by their actions or vicariously war criminals. But there’s more. Consider the Jewish diaspora. As the genocide proceeds apace, fully 81 percent of American Jews oppose and just 12 percent support a ceasefire. (I would be remiss if I didn’t pay tribute to the deeply inspiring Jewish youth who have stood in the forefront of the resistance to Israel’s genocide.) Based on these salient data points, it would appear “obvious that a vast number of people in the Jewish community worldwide ... are powerfully deranged.” Mr. Harris kvells that “There are 15 million Jews on Earth, most of them are impressively secular.” It happens that they are also in the grip of an impressively genocidal rage. “Most of them,” he reassures, “believe very little that would motivate them to die for their religious identity.” But they manifestly do believe enough to kill with abandon the people of Gaza on account of their religious (or is it secular—for the love of Yahweh, what difference does it make?!) identity.</p><p>It has been purported in extenuation of ordinary Germans that the Nazis installed a totalitarian state that repressed all dissent and concealed the genocide in the fog of war. Of course, ordinary Germans who wanted to know did know that if not exactly a genocide then still something monstrous was unfolding on the Eastern front. But later on, Germans could still cling to the alibi—in varying degrees disingenuous—that they didn’t know (or fell victim to ubiquitous Nazi propaganda about a “Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy”), and wouldn’t have approved if they did know (or couldn’t but obey coercive orders). Israeli (as well as diasporan) Jews don’t have these excuses. Israel was no doubt traumatized by October 7. But the facts remain that they democratically elected the government and overwhelmingly support the government’s prosecution of a genocide; that they have ready access to information about the genocide in a free and open media both inside and via the Web outside Israel. The genocide in Gaza is unfolding in real time in broad daylight before the eyes of Israeli (and diasporan) Jews and 60 percent literally can’t get enough of it.</p><p>But, lo!, we mustn’t miss the forest from the trees. Not the Jews, counsels our cool, rational Jewish genius (redundancy duly noted) but, on the contrary, it’s the Muslims who “it is obvious ... are powerfully deranged.”</p><p>*</p><p>Second, if there are “so many casualties” in Gaza, Mr. Harris explains—parroting with consummate insipidness every other apologist—that’s because Israel</p><blockquote><p>is fighting a terrorist organization ... that is using its own population as human shields. It has strategically embedded itself among civilians.... It put its headquarters under a hospital. It prevents civilians from leaving to safer areas.... This is the issue: we are dealing with a suicidal death cult.</p></blockquote><p>But stepping outside this secular jihadi’s tent, isn’t it—dare I say—obvious that, if Israel has inflicted unprecedented death and destruction on Gaza, that’s because that’s its objective? It is not “fighting a terrorist organization,” it is fighting the people—the existence—of Gaza. The media reflexively declare that this is an “Israel-Hamas War.” But that is already swallowing the Big Lie of Israeli propaganda. Israel is not targeting “terrorists” supposedly hiding behind “human shields.” On the contrary, it’s targeting the “human shields” themselves.</p><p>Of course, Israel wants to liquidate Hamas, but it rightly apprehends that another, more deadly Hamas will emerge in its place. If Hamas were eliminated, it would still be a Pyrrhic victory. Gaza itself must be destroyed. Indeed, that speck of land has always been a thorn at Israel’s side as Gazans stubbornly resisted Israeli repression. Israel eventually alit on the objective of subjugating Gaza by reducing it—in the words of Amira Hass—to a “giant concentration camp.” In large part it succeeded. Head of Israel’s National Security Council Giora Eiland in 2004 himself pronounced Gaza a “huge concentration camp.” But when Hamas won democratic elections in 2006 and consolidated its hold over Gaza, Israel confronted a new dilemma. Hamas was feeling its way towards a comprehensive settlement with Israel on the consensus basis of international law and U.N. resolutions. In other words, Hamas was engaging in another of those dastardly “peace offensives” that have always filled Israeli leaders with holy terror. They will only accept a victor’s peace; not one among equals under the law. So Israel imposed a suffocating economic blockade on Gaza and periodically “mowed the lawn” in order to rupture the spine of any resistance to its rule.</p><p>But on October 7, the reality lit up that Israel’s strategy had failed. The people of Gaza refused to languish and die in a concentration camp. The slaves had gone into revolt. And like our own homegrown Nat Turner revolt, they (in part) struck out indiscriminately at their oppressors. It created a crisis for Israeli society but also—to recycle the old cliché—presented an opportunity. To once and for all rid Israel of the Gaza thorn. To free itself not just of this generation of “terrorists” but as well the more than one million children in Gaza representing the next “terrorist” generation. Israel initially set its sights on dumping Gaza’s inhabitants in the Sinai desert but Egypt nixed the ethnically cleansing. Israel next proceeded to repurpose Gaza concentration camp as a death camp. (The Nazis turned to genocide when the advent of world war preempted the deportation of Jews.) It did scrape against the limits imposed by the formally genocide-intolerant international community. But that factor, critical as it was, bore on the genocide’s efficiency quotient (Israel couldn’t outright nuke Gaza), not on the genocidal intent. And Israel could always count on useful idiots abroad to disguise and defend its genocide by endlessly reciting the incantation: “Israel is fighting a terrorist organization ... that is using its own population as human shields.”</p><p>If Human Rights Watch reports that Israel is systematically targeting hospitals without military justification, that’s because Israel is “fighting a terrorist organization ... using its own population as human shields.” (Memo to Mr. Harris: a detailed investigation by the Washington Post has debunked the agitprop that Hamas “put its headquarters” under al-Shifa hospital.) If the U.N. reports that the number of its staff killed by Israel in Gaza is unprecedented in the organization’s history, that’s because Israel is “fighting a terrorist organization ... using its own population as human shields.” If the Committee to Protect Journalists reports that Israel not only killed more journalists in Gaza during the first 10 weeks than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year, but that it has also targeted the families of journalists, that’s because Israel is “fighting a terrorist organization ... using its own population as human shields.” If Israel has killed more healthcare workers in Gaza than the total number killed across all conflict zones every year in recent memory, that’s because it is “fighting a terrorist organization ... using its own population as human shields.” If Israel murders in broad daylight bare-chested civilians hoisting a white flag, that’s because it is “fighting a terrorist organization ... using its own population as human shields.” If Israeli snipers assassinate Christian women seeking refuge in a church, that’s because Israel is “fighting a terrorist organization ... using its own population as human shields.” If CNN reports that “Israeli soldiers raiding a hospital ... desecrated the bodies of dead patients with bulldozers, let a military dog maul a man in a wheelchair, and shot multiple doctors even after vetting them for terror links,” that’s because Israel is “fighting a terrorist organization ... using its own population as human shields.” If Human Rights Watch reports that Israel is “using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare,” that’s because it is fighting “a terrorist organization ... using its own population as human shields.” If the New York Times reports that Israel dropped 2,000-pound bombs on areas that Israel itself designated safe havens, that’s because it is “fighting a terrorist organization ... using its own population as human shields.” (Memo to Mr. Harris: There are no “safer areas” in Gaza.) And on and on. However incongruous, however absurd, however ludicrous, however preposterous—however utterly divorced from and irrelevant to unfolding reality the recitation of this mantra has become, it still doesn’t faze these crazed cult members as they keep repeating it day in and day out. Om. Hari Krishna. Hara Kiri....</p><p>But Mr. Harris doesn’t just extenuate the genocide. He implicitly endows it with a positive content. Every Muslim—including every Muslim child—he enlightens listeners, is an actual or potential suicide bomber imperiling Western civilization. Isn’t it only a flea’s hop to infer that Israel is doing the (secular) Lord’s work in Gaza as it wages a civilizational war against “deranged” Muslim culture and even if one million children—pardon me: children who have been “rigged to explode”—might die? Mr. Harris somehow construes that it takes enormous moral courage to expose this Muslim peril on Piers Morgan’s program. Indeed, it takes as much courage as the German professor in the midst of the Nazi holocaust who sounded the alarm that “parasitic” Jewish culture was imperiling Aryan civilization.</p><p>Mr Harris proclaims that “This is the issue: we are dealing with a suicidal death cult.” I’m afraid, however, that the real issue is this: We are dealing with a Ziontology murder cult; and Mr. Harris is one of its gurus.</p><p></p>

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guid: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/mouin-rabbani-netanyahu-and-senior
title: Mouin Rabbani: Netanyahu and Senior Israeli Officials Advocate 'Voluntary' Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza
author: ;Norman Finkelstein
link: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/mouin-rabbani-netanyahu-and-senior
hash: ��\zx��䏪o�
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<p>Senior Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, are again publicly advocating the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip. Their proposals are being presented as voluntary emigration schemes, in which Israel is merely playing the role of Good Samaritan, selflessly mediating with foreign governments to find new homes for destitute and desperate Palestinians. But it is ethnic cleansing all the same.</p><p>Alarm bells should have started ringing in early November when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other Western politicians began insisting there could be “no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza”. Rather than rejecting any mass removal of Palestinians, Blinken and colleagues objected only to optically challenging expulsions at gunpoint. The option of “voluntary” displacement by leaving residents of the Gaza Strip with no choice but departure was pointedly left open. </p><p>Ethnic cleansing, or “transfer” as it is known in Israeli parlance, has a long pedigree that goes back to the late-nineteenth-century beginnings of the Zionist movement. While the early Zionists adopted the slogan, “A Land Without a People for a People Without a Land”, the evidence demonstrates that, from the very outset, their leaders knew better. More to the point, they clearly understood that the Palestinians formed the main obstacle to the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. This is for the simple reason that to them a “Jewish state” denotes one in which its Jewish population acquires and maintains unchallenged demographic, territorial, and political supremacy. </p><p>Enter “transfer”. As early as 1895 Theodor Herzl, the founder of the contemporary Zionist movement, identified the necessity of removing the inhabitants of Palestine in the following terms: <strong>“We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country ... expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.” David Ben-Gurion (</strong>née Grün), Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, and later Israel’s first prime minister, was more blunt. In a 1937 letter to his son, he wrote: “We must expel the Arabs and take their place”. </p><p>Writing in his diary in 1940 Yosef Weitz, a senior Jewish National Fund official who chaired the influential Transfer Committee before and during the Nakba (“Catastrophe”), and became known as the Architect of Transfer, put it thus: “The only solution is a Land of Israel devoid of Arabs. There is no room here for compromise. They must all be moved. Not one village, not one tribe can remain. Only through this transfer of the Arabs living in the Land of Israel will redemption come”. His diaries are littered with similar sentiments. </p><p>The point of the above is not to demonstrate that individual Zionist leaders held such views, but that the senior leadership of the Zionist movement consistently considered the ethnic cleansing of Palestine an objective and priority. Initiatives such as the Transfer Committee, and Plan Dalet, initially formulated in 1944 and described by the pre-eminent Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi as the “Master Plan for the Conquest of Palestine”, additionally demonstrate that the Zionist movement actively planned for it. The 1948 Nakba, during which more than four-fifths of Palestinians residing in territory that came under Israeli rule were ethnically cleansed, should therefore be seen as the fulfilment of a longstanding ambition and implementation of a key policy. A product of design, not of war. Historical Christmas footnote: the Palestinian town of Nazareth was spared a similar fate only because the commander of Israeli forces that seized the city, a Canadian Jew named Ben Dunkelman, disobeyed orders to expel the population. He was relieved of his command the following day.</p><p>That the Nakba was a product of design is further substantiated by the Transfer Committee’s terms of reference. These comprised not only proposals for the expulsion of the Palestinians but, just as importantly, active measures to prevent their return; destroy their homes and villages; expropriate their property; and resettle these territories with Jewish immigrants. Weitz, together with fellow Committee members Eliahu Sassoon and Ezra Danin, on 5 June 1948 presented a three-page blueprint, entitled “Scheme for the Solution of the Arab Problem in the State of Israel”, to Prime Minister Ben-Gurion to achieve these goals. According to leading Israeli historian Benny Morris, “there is no doubt Ben-Gurion agreed to Weitz’s scheme”, which included “what amounted to an enormous project of destruction” that saw more then 450 Palestinian villages razed to the ground.</p><p>The understandable focus on the expulsions of 1948 often overlooks the fact that ethnic cleansing remains incomplete unless its victims are barred from returning to their homes by a combination of armed force and legislation, and thereafter replaced by others. It is Israel’s determination to make Palestinian dispossession permanent that distinguishes Palestinian refugees from many other war refugees. </p><p>After 1948 Israel put out a whole series of fabrications to shift responsibility for the transformation of the Palestinians into dispossessed and stateless refugees onto the Arab states and the refugees themselves. These included claims that the refugees voluntarily left (they were either expelled or fled in justified terror); that Arab radio broadcasts ordered the Palestinians to flee (in fact they were encouraged to stay put); that Israel conducted a population exchange with Arab states (there was nothing of the sort); and the bizarre argument that because they’re Arabs, Palestinians had numerous other states while Jews have only Israel (by the same logic Sikhs would be entitled to seize British Columbia and deport its population to either the rest of Canada or the United States). More importantly, even if uniformly substantiated none of these pretexts entitles Israel to prohibit the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes at the conclusion of hostilities. It is, furthermore, a right that was consecrated in United Nations General Assembly 194 of 11 December 1948, which has been re-affirmed repeatedly since.</p><p>In 1967 Israel seized the remaining 22 per cent of Mandatory Palestine – the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip. Depopulation in these territories operated differently than in 1948. Most importantly Israel, in addition to prohibiting the return of Palestinians who fled hostilities during the 1967 June War, and encouraging others to leave (by for example providing a daily bus service from Gaza City to the Allenby Bridge connecting the West Bank to Jordan), during the summer of 1967 conducted a census. Any resident who was not present during the census was ineligible for an Israeli identity document and automatically lost their right of residency. </p><p>As a result the population of these territories declined by more than twenty per cent overnight. Many of those thus displaced were already refugees from 1948. Aqbat Jabr Refugee Camp near Jericho for example, until 1967 the West Bank’s largest, became a virtual ghost town after almost all its inhabitants became refugees once again in Jordan. So many Palestinians from the Gaza Strip ended up in Jordan that a new refugee camp, Gaza Camp, was established on the outskirts of Jerash. The occupied Palestinian territories would not recover their 1967 population levels until the early 1980s.</p><p>Within the West Bank there were also cases of mass expulsion. These included the town of Qalqilya, which was additionally slated for demolition but to which its residents were later permitted to return. Those of ‘Imwas (the Biblical Emmaus), Bayt Nuba, and Yalu in Jerusalem’s Latrun salient were less fortunate. They were summarily expelled (many today live in Ramallah’s Qaddura Refugee Camp), their villages demolished and annexed to Israel, and replaced by Canada Park, so named because the project was completed with donations from the Canadian Jewish community. Within Jerusalem’s Old City the historic Mughrabi Quarter, abutting the Haram al-Sharif, was summarily razed to make way for a plaza astride the Wailing Wall. With many residents given only minutes to evacuate their homes, several were killed when the bulldozers went to work. According to Eitan Ben-Moshe, an engineer who oversaw the atrocity, “We threw out the wreckage of houses together with the Arab corpses”.</p><p>In subsequent years Israel employed all kinds of administrative shenanigans to further reduce the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Until the 1993 Oslo Accords, for example, an exit permit from Israel’s military government was required to leave the occupied territories. It was valid for only three years, and thereafter renewable annually for a maximum of three additional years, for a fee, at an Israeli consulate. If a Palestinian lost an exit permit, or failed to renew an exit permit prior to its expiration for any reason (including bureaucratic foot-dragging), or couldn’t pay the renewal fee, or failed to return to Palestine prior to its expiration, that Palestinian automatically lost residency rights. Separately, Israel over the years deported numerous activists and community leaders, primarily to Jordan and Lebanon. During the late 1960s and 1970s it also exiled Gaza Palestinians accused of resisting the occupation, along with their families, to prison camps in the occupied Sinai Peninsula. Among those who spent time there was the iconic Palestinian leader Haidar Abdel-Shafi.</p><p>A particularly notable case of administrative deportations occurred in 1992, after Israeli special forces botched an operation to rescue an Israeli soldier who had been seized by Hamas to exchange him for their imprisoned leader, Shaikh Ahmad Yasin. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin ordered the summary deportation of approximately 400 Palestinians, many of them prisoners affiliated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad (PIJ), none accused of involvement in the incident that led to Rabin’s frenzied rage. </p><p>In contrast to previous deportations, which were considered permanent, these were for one- and two-year terms. In its rush to carry out the deportations under cover of night, Israel expelled a number of Palestinians who were not on its list, and left behind others who were. Needless to say the mass expulsion was, as always in such matters, approved by Israel’s High Court of Justice after minor modifications. It ruled, among other things, that this was not a collective deportation but rather a collection of individual deportations. Perhaps more significantly the deportees were stuck in an inhospitable no-man’s land, Marj al-Zuhur, because Lebanon refused to facilitate the deportations by receiving them. During their involuntary residence in Marj al-Zuhur, assistance came primarily from Hizballah, and it was during this period that relations between Hamas, PIJ, and Hizballah were solidified.</p><p>With the focus in recent years on the intensified campaigns of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, it is often forgotten that for decades the primary target for depopulation was the Gaza Strip, and particularly its refugee population which accounts for approximately three-quarters of the territory’s residents. Even before it occupied Gaza in 1967, Israel regularly promoted initiatives to achieve the “thinning” of its refugee population, with destinations as far afield as Libya and Iraq. Not without reason, Israel’s leaders felt uncomfortable with the presence of so many ethnically-cleansed Palestinians within walking distance of their former homes. After 1967 it encouraged Palestinian emigration from the Gaza Strip to not only foreign countries but also the West Bank. </p><p>In 1969 Israel even devised a scheme to send 60,000 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Paraguay with offers of lucrative employment. The plan was negotiated between Paraguay’s military dictator Alfredo Stroessner and Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence agency. It was of course purely coincidental that shortly thereafter Mossad discovered it no longer had the resources to hunt Nazi fugitives in Paraguay, which had been their destinations of choice. The scheme was discontinued when several of its victims, upon realising the promise of a new life of comfort was all a sham, shot up the Israeli embassy in Asuncion, killing one of its staff. </p><p>In the decades since, “transfer”, often presented as the encouragement of voluntary emigration either by providing material incentives or making the conditions of life impossible, has become increasingly mainstreamed in Israeli political life. In 2019, for example, a “senior government official”, quoted in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, expressed a willingness to help Palestinians emigrate from the Gaza Strip. </p><p>Mass expulsion has been gaining its share of adherents as well, and it is a position that is today represented within Israel’s coalition government. As has the idea that “transfer" should include Palestinian citizens of Israel. Avigdor Lieberman for example, several years ago Israel’s Minister of Defense, is an advocate of not only emptying the West Bank and Gaza Strip of Palestinians, but of getting rid of Palestinian citizens of Israel as well. As one might expect from a minister in charge of the Israeli military, he is also an advocate of “beheading” disloyal Palestinian citizens of Israel with “an axe”.</p><p>Against this background Israel saw the attacks of 7 October as not only a threat but also as an opportunity. Fortified with unconditional US and European support, Israeli political and military leaders immediately began promoting the transfer of Gaza’s Palestinian population to the Sinai desert. The proposal was enthusiastically embraced by the United States, and by Secretary of State Antony Blinken in particular. As ever hopelessly out of his depth when it comes to the Middle East, he appears to have genuinely believed he could recruit or pressure Washington’s Arab client regimes to make Israel’s wish a reality. Given Egyptian strongman Abdel-Fatah Sisi’s economic troubles, the fallout of the Menendez scandal, and looming Egyptian presidential elections, it was suggested to him by the Washington echo chamber that it would take only an IMF loan, debt relief, and a promise to file away Menendez to bring Cairo on board. As so often when it comes to the Middle East Blinken, armed only with Israel’s latest wish list, didn’t have a clue his indecent proposal would be categorically rejected, first and foremost by Egypt.  </p><p>The fallback position is opposition to “forcible displacement” at the point of a gun, while anything else is fair game. This includes reducing the Gaza Strip to rubble in what may well be the most intensive bombing campaign in history; a genocidal assault on an entire society that has killed civilians at an unprecedentedly rapid pace; the deliberate destruction of an entire civilian infrastructure, including the targeted obliteration of its health and education sectors; the highest proportion of households in hunger crisis ever recorded globally and the real prospect of pre-meditated famine; severance of the water and electricity supply leading to acute thirst, widespread consumption of non-potable water, and termination of sewage treatment; and promotion of a sharp rise in infectious disease. One Israeli soldier has already died of a fungal infection resulting from the collapse in sanitation he helped bring about in the Gaza Strip. How many Palestinians have been consumed by similar illness we do not know, but it is reasonable to assume that children and the elderly are hit particularly hard.</p><p>In other words, if desperate Palestinians seek to flee this seventh circle of hell to save their skins, that’s considered voluntary emigration, their choice. If they cannot remain in the Gaza Strip because Israel has made it unfit for human habitation with US weapons, that is a voluntary choice that will be respected. And the US and Israel are only here to help, like Mother Theresa determined to assist every last one of them whether they like it or not. Danny Danon, a member of parliament who was previously Israel’s envoy to the United Nations (the guy who sounds like Elmer Fudd), recently held up the mass displacement of Syrians to multiple shores during the past decade as an example to be emulated. “Even if each country receives ten thousand, twenty thousand Gazans, this is significant”. Asked about Danon’s proposal at a Likud meeting on Christmas Day, Netanyahu responded, “We are working on it. Our problem is [finding] the countries that are willing to absorb [them].” As an editorial in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz put it on 27 December: “Israeli lawmakers keep pushing for transfer under the guise of humanitarian aid”.</p><p>Not to be outdone by the politicians, the Jerusalem Post ran an opinion piece entitled “Why Moving to the Sinai Peninsula is The Solution for Gaza’s Palestinians”. “Sinai”, its author Joel Roskin enthused, “comprises one of the most suitable places on Earth to provide the people of Gaza with hope and a peaceful future”. Not individual Gazans, but “the people of Gaza”. Notably, such proposals consistently take it as a given that those departing will never return. One waits with baited breath for the European Union is expected to respond to these calls for mass expulsion with further investigations of Palestinian textbooks.</p><p>While ethnic cleansing has been intrinsic to Zionist/Israeli ideology and practice from the very outset, it also has a flip side: the 1948 expulsion of the Palestinians expanded what had been a conflict between the Zionist movement and the Palestinians into a regional, Arab-Israeli one. The second Nakba Israel is currently inflicting on the Gaza Strip similarly appears well on its way to instigating the renewal of hostilities across the Middle East. </p><p>As importantly, the 1948 Nakba did not defeat the Palestinians, who initiated their struggle from the camps of exile, those in the Gaza Strip most prominently among them. It would take a Blinken level of foolishness to assume the expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip would produce a different outcome.</p><div><hr></div><p><em>A Statement by Norman Finkelstein: I am determined not to monetize my social media. However, I am dependent on a three-person technical crew. Your contributions to support their vital work will be greatly appreciated. All proceeds will go to the technical crew.</em></p><p></p>

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<p>PRAMILA PATTEN’S RAPE FANTASIES</p><p>A Critical Analysis of the UN Report on Sexual Violence during the 7 October Attack</p><div data-component-name="PreformattedTextBlockToDOM" data-sanitized-class="preformatted-block"><label contenteditable="false" data-sanitized-class="hide-text">Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published</label><pre data-sanitized-class="text">                                                                        <strong> I.
                                                               </strong></pre></div><div data-component-name="PreformattedTextBlockToDOM" data-sanitized-class="preformatted-block"><label contenteditable="false" data-sanitized-class="hide-text">Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published</label><pre data-sanitized-class="text"><strong>                                                               The Mission</strong></pre></div><p>1.      The United Nations has published numerous reports on the Israel-Palestine conflict.  In general, stringent standards of evidence and law have been applied. (See for example the voluminous reports on, respectively, Israel’s <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/special-sessions/session9/fact-finding-mission">2008-9 assault</a> on Gaza, and Israel’s 2018 repression of the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/co-iopt/report2018-opt">Great March of Return in Gaza</a>.)  But, succumbing to U.S.-Israeli pressure, the UN has on occasion also whitewashed Israel.  (See for example the report commissioned by the Secretary-General regarding Israel’s 2010 <a href="https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/720841?ln=en">assault on a humanitarian convoy</a> headed for Gaza, and the report on Israel’s <a href="https://www.inew.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/A_HRC_CRP_4.pdf">2014 assault on Gaza</a>.)</p><p>2.      A new report, commissioned by the Secretary-General, has just been released (“Mission Report: Official visit of the Office of the SRSG-SVC to Israel and the Occupied West Bank, 29 January-14 February 2024”).  The primary author of the report is Pramila Patten, the “UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict.”  The subject-matter of this report is sexual violence committed by Gaza-based Palestinians on 7 October 2023.  Especially in light of the incendiary subject-matter, it is a skimpy document running to a mere 17 pages.  The UN report on violence during the 2018 Great March of Return clocked in at a hefty 250 pages.</p><p>3.      The Patten mission’s mandate perplexes.  Its initial press release (24 January 2024) states that its purpose was to “gather, analyze and verify relevant information regarding allegations of” sexual violence.  But it also emphatically states that, although it included a small team of technical experts, the “mission is neither intended nor mandated to be investigative in nature.”  If, on the one hand, the mission was mandated to “gather, analyze and verify” evidence of sexual violence, and refers in the report to its “findings” and to having “verified” alleged instances of sexual violence; yet, on the other hand, the mission emphatically declares that it wasn’t “investigative in nature”—then what exactly was it?  The press release further states that the mission “aims to give voice to survivors, witnesses, recently released hostages” of sexual violence.  But if it wasn’t an investigative body, it’s cause for wonder how it would even know whose “voice” to give voice to.  Isn’t this putting the cart before the horse?</p><p>4.      The report renders discrete judgments that even a bona fide investigative body normally wouldn’t be competent to make.  It teases out legal delineations—“reasonable grounds to believe” versus “clear and convincing information” (also: “a finding of fact”)—rarely found in reports issued by the UN (or human rights groups).  The standard practice is to identify possible (“reasonable grounds to believe”) breaches of international humanitarian and human rights law and then call for a formal investigation.  But the Patten mission, although confessedly something less than an investigative body, makes judgments that go well beyond those of a typical investigative body to the point of near-certainty (“a finding of fact”) befitting the final verdict in a court of law.  What’s yet more odd, the Patten mission renders these fine determinations even as it acknowledges severe constraints imposed by limited evidence and time. </p><p>5.      If it wasn’t a bona fide investigative body; if sufficient evidence was hard to come by; if it was pressed for time to complete its mission—if all this is true, then it’s unclear why the Patten mission reached <em>any</em> conclusions, be they tentative or certain.  Why this rush to judgment?  And if this non-investigative body also wasn’t in a position to “give voice” to the victims of sexual violence before said victimhood was at least tentatively established by an official investigative body, it’s hard to make out what was the point of this mission.  It’s not as if Israel hasn’t already made on its own, and via overwhelmingly sympathetic media abroad, its very best evidentiary case a thousand times over. </p><p>6.      In this regard it can’t but be wondered why Israel extended the “invitation” to Pramila Patten in the first place and why the Patten mission “benefited from the full cooperation of the Government of Israel.”  This was unprecedented, a first.  In the past as well as in the instant case, Israel has consistently and categorically refused to cooperate with formal UN investigations.  If the evidence Israel has assembled is so robust—the Patten mission concluded that hostages were almost certainly raped—what did it have to fear from an official UN investigation carried out by competent and experienced personnel?  The stock reply is: the UN is biased against Israel.  But the Patten mission was itself mandated by the UN.  If Israel invited Patten’s UN mission, but has firmly barred entry to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the International Commission of Inquiry, surely there must be a reason.  Alas, Patten never explores—let alone answers—this tantalizing question.</p><div data-component-name="PreformattedTextBlockToDOM" data-sanitized-class="preformatted-block"><label contenteditable="false" data-sanitized-class="hide-text">Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published</label><pre data-sanitized-class="text">                                                                      <strong>   II.
                                                             </strong></pre></div><div data-component-name="PreformattedTextBlockToDOM" data-sanitized-class="preformatted-block"><label contenteditable="false" data-sanitized-class="hide-text">Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published</label><pre data-sanitized-class="text"><strong>                                                               The Evidence</strong></pre></div><p>7.      The Patten mission visited Israel for a little over two weeks.  It met with various national ministries, intelligence agencies, and senior government officials; visited “with the support of the Israeli authorities” the sites of the attacks on 7 October; viewed photographic and video evidence overwhelmingly curated by the Israeli government or available in open sources; interviewed survivors of 7 October, released hostages, and first-responders.  In other words, on one side it was an Israeli full-court press, and on the opposite side, it was the sort of tour “Friends of the Soviet Union” used to go on in Stalin’s day and “Friends of the People’s Republic of China” in Mao’s day.  If any dissent, even a peep, from the official “narrative” was uttered by the mission’s Israeli interlocutors, if the mission stumbled on some irreconcilable finding that incensed its Israeli interlocutors—the report makes no mention of it.  Put otherwise, if the mission didn’t question let alone undermine the current Israeli “narrative,” then it’s small wonder that they got on swimmingly.</p><p>8.      The report states that “the national authorities faced numerous challenges in the collection of evidence and pursuit of their investigations.” Consequently, Israel is said to have possessed and could only make available “very limited forensic” evidence, while “a high number of bodies with destructive burn damage ... made the identification of potential crimes of sexual violence impossible.”  In addition, the mission met with only “a small number of survivors and/or witnesses ... who provided information on instances of sexual violence.”  The “very limited” to “small”  to “impossible” evidence did not, however, deter the non-investigative mission from drawing fine legal discriminations, not to mention a near-definitive “finding of fact.”</p><p>9.      The report further states that “While the mission team was able to meet with some released hostages as well as with some survivors and witnesses of the attacks<em>, it did not meet with any survivor-victim of sexual violence from 7 October despite concerted efforts encouraging them to come forward </em>(emphasis added).  Doesn’t it give pause that, more than three months after the attack, none of the alleged victims of—according to the Israeli government and the <em>New York Times</em>—rampant, systematic sexual violence on 7 October stepped forward to testify before the mission?  Not one.  The report endeavors to paper over this glaring lacuna by pointing up “the lack of trust by survivors” in the United Nations.  But in the instant case, it was the Israeli government itself that orchestrated this UN mission’s visit.  It’s hard to fathom that in a country celebrated for its tribal closing of ranks in the face of external danger, and—not incidentally—in a culture known for its libertine sexual frankness, not a single victim of not just rape but sexual violence of any type was willing, and couldn’t be coaxed, to testify before a Government-blessed mission at such an existential moment in the nation’s history. </p><div data-component-name="PreformattedTextBlockToDOM" data-sanitized-class="preformatted-block"><label contenteditable="false" data-sanitized-class="hide-text">Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published</label><pre data-sanitized-class="text">                                                                              <strong>III.   </strong></pre></div><div data-component-name="PreformattedTextBlockToDOM" data-sanitized-class="preformatted-block"><label contenteditable="false" data-sanitized-class="hide-text">Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published</label><pre data-sanitized-class="text"><strong>
                                                                    The Findings                                                                       </strong>                                                                                                                  </pre></div><p>10.   The Patten mission that was <em>not</em> “investigative in nature” nonetheless concludes that “there are reasonable grounds to believe” that sexual violence, “including rape and gang rape,” occurred.  It bases its findings on these pieces of evidence:</p><blockquote><p>·       “[F]ully naked or partially naked bodies from the waist down were recovered—mostly women—with hands tied and shot multiple times, often in the head.... Although circumstantial, such a pattern of undressing and restraining of victims may be indicative of some forms of sexual violence.”  It may be indicative; it also may not be.  The mission itself concedes—albeit buried at the<em> tail end of the report</em>—that “in the medicolegal assessment of available photos and videos, no tangible indications of rape could be identified,” <em>and</em> “no digital evidence specifically depicting acts of sexual violence was found in open sources,” <em>and</em> “no discernible pattern of genital mutilation could be established.”  It takes time for the magnitude of this admission to sink in.  Consider further this detail: “The mission team ... reviewed over 5,000 photos, around 50 hours and several audio files of footage of the attacks, provided partly by various state agencies and through an independent online review of various open sources, to identify potential instances and indications of conflict-related sexual violence. The content encompassed the actual attacks and their immediate aftermath, captured through militants’ bodycams and dashcams, individual cellphones, CCTV, and traffic surveillance cameras.”  <em>Fully 5,000 photos and 50 hours of footage, from every conceivable angle and by every conceivable electronic device—yet the mission was unable to isolate a single direct image of sexual violence, even as no less than gang rapes were allegedly occurring in open space</em>.  If the report was properly packaged and publicized, the title would read: “October 7: No Direct Material Evidence of Rape.”</p><p>·       “Based on the examination of available information, including credible statements by eyewitnesses, there are reasonable grounds to believe that multiple incidents of rape, including gang rape, occurred in and around the Nova [music] festival site.  Credible information was obtained regarding multiple incidents whereby victims were subjected to rape and then killed.”  (The report also makes fleeting mention without passing judgment on alleged acts of necrophilia.) The report does not specify how many of these credible eyewitnesses it interviewed.  And crucially, it does not quantify even roughly how many instances of sexual violence are alleged to have occurred: “multiple” can denote “more than once” or “manifold” (<em>Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary</em>, Fifth Edition).  Surely it makes a difference whether the Patten mission is attesting to 2, 20, 200, or 2,000 instances of “rape and/or gang rape.”  Why then the sloppy—indeed, professionally irresponsible—vagueness? </p><p>·       “There are reasonable grounds to believe that sexual violence occurred on and around Road 232.  Credible information based on corroborating witness accounts describes an incident involving the rape of two women.” </p><p>·       “There are reasonable grounds to believe that sexual violence occurred in kibbutz Re’im, including rape. This included the rape of a woman outside of a bomb shelter at the entrance of kibbutz Re’im, which was corroborated by witness testimonies and digital material.” </p></blockquote><p>In sum, the non-investigative investigative Patten mission, basing itself on an unspecified number of “credible” witnesses, found “reasonable grounds” to conclude or “verified” that “multiple”—which, for all one knows, might mean <em>two</em>—instances of rape occurred at the music festival and another three instances of rape occurred on a road and in a kibbutz.  Two plus three equals five.  Appalling, no doubt, but also a far cry from allegations by Israel and its media stenographers that Hamas carried out “systematic” and “widespread” rape as a “weapon” of war.</p><p>11.   The report goes on to state that “[a]t least two of the allegations of sexual violence [at kibbutz Be’eri] previously reported were determined by the mission team to be unfounded, due to either new superseding information or inconsistency in the information gathered.”  It further notes alleged instances of sexual violence at other locales “which could not be verified.”  The report does not state whether Israel publicly withdrew the allegations of sexual violence that it itself now privately concedes to have been false.  Surely that piece of information would be of crucial importance in assessing other allegations propagated by Israel that “could not be verified.”  In fact, the Israeli government has <em>not</em> publicly retracted all its “unfounded” allegations.  It is also cause for wonder why the mission benignly characterizes the false claims of sexual violence as innocent mistakes by Israel and doesn’t entertain the possibility of calculated disinformation that was subsequently exposed.  Was the “beheaded babies” horror tale also an accounting error?</p><p>12.   The report states that, “[b]ased on the first-hand accounts of released hostages, the mission team received clear and convincing information that sexual violence, including rape, sexualized torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment occurred against some women and children during their time in captivity and has reasonable grounds to believe that this violence may be ongoing.”  Of all the findings of this non-investigative investigative body, this is surely the most explosive.  The stakes couldn’t be higher: it provides a plausible pretext for Israel to urgently proceed on its offensive even as Gazan children starve—<em>Israeli women and children held in captivity are still being raped and sexually tortured!</em>  Yet, the report dispatches this charge unequivocally validated by the mission in all of <em>one</em> <em>sentence</em>.  Whereas “clear and convincing information” crosses the highest threshold, the mission doesn’t disclose the evidentiary basis for its conclusive finding.  The report states that it is “[b]ased on the first-hand accounts of released hostages,” but this wording obscures whether or not the mission actually met with them, and it is left to the imagination why these “first-hand accounts” standing on their own would, or could, be dispositive<strong>.  </strong>If hostage rape victims held in captivity for months did in fact meet with the mission, then it baffles why not a single one of the 7 October rape victims who weren’t held hostage stepped forward.  The report ascertains that “some” of the hostages were raped; but what prevented the mission from specifying exactly how many?  It purports “reasonable grounds to believe” that the rape and sexual torture are ongoing; but how can it possibly know this?  If Israel possessed <em>any</em> evidence that the hostages still in captivity were being raped, surely it would have broadcast it far and wide. The non-investigative Patten mission would appear to be not only investigative but, to boot, clairvoyant.  It gets curiouser and curiouser.  Hamas has indignantly denied the rape charge, while this charge has played a salient role in demonizing Hamas.  If while in captivity the released hostages had been personally raped or could bear personal witness to Hamas’s sexual savagery, then why didn’t Hamas simply kill them instead of setting them free: who would know?  The mission states that it adhered to a “survivor/victim-centered” approach.  It would appear that this approach required total suspension of the critical faculty.</p><p>13.   The Patten mission states that it was “unable to establish the prevalence” of sexual violence “during and after the 7 October attacks,” and that a “comprehensive assessment ... would require a fully-fledged investigation by competent bodies with adequate time and capacity.”  But truth be told: if it wasn’t a “competent” investigative body, then it was “unable to establish” <em>anything</em>.  Further, its vague quantification, as well as its repeated references to “circumstantial” evidence that “may be indicative” and to allegations that “couldn’t be verified,” certainly gave credence to the official Israeli “narrative” that the sexual violence was widespread.</p><div data-component-name="PreformattedTextBlockToDOM" data-sanitized-class="preformatted-block"><label contenteditable="false" data-sanitized-class="hide-text">Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published</label><pre data-sanitized-class="text">                                                                           <strong>IV.
                                                                 </strong>                                      </pre></div><div data-component-name="PreformattedTextBlockToDOM" data-sanitized-class="preformatted-block"><label contenteditable="false" data-sanitized-class="hide-text">Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published</label><pre data-sanitized-class="text">                                                       <strong>         Final Observations      </strong>                                                                                                                                                   </pre></div><p>14.   The report concedes that “the information gathered by the mission team was in a large part sourced from Israeli national institutions,” while the report’s findings carry bare minimum weight as the “mission is neither intended nor mandated to be investigative in nature.”  The only discernible purposes of Patten’s tawdry mission reduce to, first, acting as yet another purveyor, vehicle, conduit, and conveyance of the “evidence” Israel has been propagating since 7 October, and, second, lending the UN’s authoritative imprimatur to this “evidence.”  The analysis presented here began with the puzzle, What exactly is the Patten mission?  That question can now be tentatively answered.  It is neither an investigative nor a quasi- investigative body.  On the contrary, it is a stage production directed by the UN bureaucracy to appease Israel and its powerful backer in Washington.  How and why Ms. Patten came to play the starring role in this theatrical extravaganza are of secondary importance.</p><p>15.   The Patten mission “benefitted from the full cooperation of the Government of Israel.”  Yet, it couldn’t locate a <em>single</em> victim of sexual violence or a <em>single</em> piece of direct evidence, be it forensic or digital, of sexual violence on 7 October.  It therefore beggars belief that rampant sexual violence occurred on that day.  The allegation that Hamas systematically utilized rape as a weapon of war can be safely deposited in the same dumpster as the debunked allegation that Hamas built a mammoth command-and-control center beneath al-Shifa hospital. </p><p>16.   The report describes “three cumulative waves of attacks” from Gaza on 7 October: first, “Hamas commandos”; then, sundry “paramilitary organizations ... that joined the ongoing operation”; and finally, unaffiliated, random “armed and unarmed individuals.”  The report further states that “it did not gather information and/or draw conclusions on attribution of alleged violations to specific armed groups.”  The available evidence is entirely consistent with the postulate that, if rapes did occur on 7 October—and most likely they did—these were isolated incidents perpetrated in the main by Gaza riff-raff and hooligans who entered Israel in the third wave.  It is this writer’s considered opinion—admittedly speculative in nature but nonetheless grounded in the known details of the 7 October attack, its modus operandi, and the predispositions of its perpetrators—that this is the most plausible scenario. </p><p>[The quoted passages in this article are culled from both the Executive Summary and the body of the Patten mission report.]</p>


guid: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/moron-specialis
title: MORON SPECIALIS
author: ;Norman Finkelstein
link: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/moron-specialis
hash: ��Ň�}�LT��
content:
<div data-sanitized-class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe8633a75-0277-4555-a854-651be69d8fea_620x332.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM" data-sanitized-class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img"><div data-sanitized-class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe8633a75-0277-4555-a854-651be69d8fea_620x332.png" width="620" height="332" data-attrs='{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/e8633a75-0277-4555-a854-651be69d8fea_620x332.png","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":332,"width":620,"resizeWidth":null,"bytes":301480,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":"image/png","href":null,"belowTheFold":false,"topImage":true,"internalRedirect":null,"isProcessing":false,"align":null}' alt="" fetchpriority="high" data-sanitized-class="sizing-normal"></picture><div data-sanitized-class="image-link-expand"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></div><div data-sanitized-class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>I have been challenged on one—and only one—point in the Lex Fridman debate.  Here is the relevant excerpt from the official transcript.  I have filled in the legal term that I used and placed it in upper case:</p><div data-component-name="PreformattedTextBlockToDOM" data-sanitized-class="preformatted-block"><label contenteditable="false" data-sanitized-class="hide-text">Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published</label><pre data-sanitized-class="text"><strong>          STEVEN BONNELL</strong><a href="https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D1X_KdkoGxSs%26t%3D11878&amp;data=05%7C02%7C%7C062b7419721b4b5ff47608dc4963fa08%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638465940946144935%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=lZc0VN%2B6E8Orp6sHn7mCPKPiMNfl8%2Fr6YmHW0PndpfU%3D&amp;reserved=0">(03:17:58)</a> I don’t know if you used the phrase dolus specialis, that the intentional part of genocide-</pre></div><div data-component-name="PreformattedTextBlockToDOM" data-sanitized-class="preformatted-block"><label contenteditable="false" data-sanitized-class="hide-text">Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published</label><pre data-sanitized-class="text"><strong>          MOUIN RABBANI </strong><a href="https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D1X_KdkoGxSs%26t%3D11878&amp;data=05%7C02%7C%7C062b7419721b4b5ff47608dc4963fa08%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638465940946156242%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=6PPWK2oTiiNQWX8h%2FdpiyyqMMALoJP9Z4znZ85QRo4Y%3D&amp;reserved=0">(03:17:58)</a> I don’t know that term.</pre></div><div data-component-name="PreformattedTextBlockToDOM" data-sanitized-class="preformatted-block"><label contenteditable="false" data-sanitized-class="hide-text">Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published</label><pre data-sanitized-class="text"><strong>          STEVEN BONNELL </strong><a href="https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D1X_KdkoGxSs%26t%3D11915&amp;data=05%7C02%7C%7C062b7419721b4b5ff47608dc4963fa08%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638465940946163582%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=5F25tNZ8wn2CKsI1ZllKWKl152rkQF3gZoULcy90Sgo%3D&amp;reserved=0">(03:18:35)</a> I think it’s called dolus specialis, it’s the most important part of genocide, which is proving it is a highly special intent to commit genocide. It’s possible that Israel could-</pre></div><div data-component-name="PreformattedTextBlockToDOM" data-sanitized-class="preformatted-block"><label contenteditable="false" data-sanitized-class="hide-text">Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published</label><pre data-sanitized-class="text"><strong>         NORMAN FINKELSTEIN </strong><a href="https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D1X_KdkoGxSs%26t%3D11923&amp;data=05%7C02%7C%7C062b7419721b4b5ff47608dc4963fa08%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638465940946170576%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=6QOp0ksw02nu%2FLRw5WN2SPOAyp6EAO5Wu8I69uinGog%3D&amp;reserved=0">(03:18:43)</a> That’s MENS REA 03:18:43].</pre></div><div data-component-name="PreformattedTextBlockToDOM" data-sanitized-class="preformatted-block"><label contenteditable="false" data-sanitized-class="hide-text">Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published</label><pre data-sanitized-class="text"><strong>           STEVEN BONNELL </strong><a href="https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D1X_KdkoGxSs%26t%3D11926&amp;data=05%7C02%7C%7C062b7419721b4b5ff47608dc4963fa08%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638465940946177509%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=ENP3UBPBY03yIv7LYg2d33xY%2B1dZsEr94%2BajVtJlxKk%3D&amp;reserved=0">(03:18:46)</a> Yes, I understand the state of mind, but for genocide, it’s called dolus specialis. It’s a highly special intent. Did you read the case?</pre></div><div data-component-name="PreformattedTextBlockToDOM" data-sanitized-class="preformatted-block"><label contenteditable="false" data-sanitized-class="hide-text">Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published</label><pre data-sanitized-class="text"><strong>          NORMAN FINKELSTEIN </strong><a href="https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D1X_KdkoGxSs%26t%3D11927&amp;data=05%7C02%7C%7C062b7419721b4b5ff47608dc4963fa08%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638465940946184449%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=zAJJequsrtalrfWTJcH9gxSYGuhXFWczOMF8fk8d3aM%3D&amp;reserved=0">(03:18:47)</a> Yeah.</pre></div><div data-component-name="PreformattedTextBlockToDOM" data-sanitized-class="preformatted-block"><label contenteditable="false" data-sanitized-class="hide-text">Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published</label><pre data-sanitized-class="text"><strong>         STEVEN BONNELL </strong><a href="https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D1X_KdkoGxSs%26t%3D11934&amp;data=05%7C02%7C%7C062b7419721b4b5ff47608dc4963fa08%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638465940946191553%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=%2FBGXhqdrCcPpoQyjyGPM1V%2FAMEtBShbzpRXPiQ4%2BxiE%3D&amp;reserved=0">(03:18:54)</a> It is a highly special intent [inaudible 03:18:56]-</pre></div><p>MENS REA (criminal intent, from the Latin for “guilty mind”) denotes the legal principle at stake while DOLUS SPECIALIS (criminal intent to commit genocide) denotes one application of it.  Here is an example of this usage from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda:</p><blockquote><p><strong> </strong>“In considering whether a perpetrator had the requisite mens rea, regard must be had to his mode of participation in the given crime. Under the Bisesero Indictment, Elizaphan Ntakirutimana was convicted of aiding and abetting genocide while Gérard Ntakirutimana was convicted of committing genocide.  The requisite mens rea for aiding and abetting genocide is the accomplice’s knowledge of the genocidal intent of the principal perpetrators. From the evidence, the Trial Chamber found that the attackers in Bisesero had the specific genocidal intent. Furthermore, in the view of the Appëals Chamber, it is clear that Elizaphan Ntakirutimana knew of this intent. The Trial Chamber found that Elizaphan Ntakirutimana was present during several attacks on refugees in Bisesero, including situations where the armed attackers sang: ‘Exterminate t .... Let them; look for them everywhere; kill them; and ... exterminate them’, while chasing and killing Tutsis. It is from this, as well as from Iris transporting the armed attackers and directing them toward fleeing Tutsi refugees that the Trial Chamber found that Elizaphan Ntaldrutimana had the requisite intent to commit genocide, convicting him of aiding and abetting genocide. In the view of the Appeals Chamber, it is not necessary to consider whether the Trial Chamber correctly concluded that Elizaphan Ntakirutimana had the specific intent to commit genocide, given that it convicted him not of committing that crime, but rather of aiding and abetting genocide, a mode of criminal participation which does not require the specific intent. The Appeals Chamber finds that Elizaphan Ntakirutimana knew of the genocidal intent of the attackers whom he aided and abetted in the perpetration of genocide in Bisesero and, therefore, that he possessed the requisite mens rea for that crime.” (<a href="https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fucr.irmct.org%2FLegalRef%2FCMSDocStore%2FPublic%2FEnglish%2FJudgement%2FNotIndexable%2FICTR-96-17%2FMSC12461R0000545560.PDF&amp;data=05%7C02%7C%7C062b7419721b4b5ff47608dc4963fa08%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638465940946198546%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=cFzQ%2FXHIrht7tTJkiJ9tDRIkGtkE%2F%2Fs42fzfmK8TTDY%3D&amp;reserved=0">https://ucr.irmct.org/LegalRef/CMSDocStore/Public/English/Judgement/NotIndexable/ICTR-96-17/MSC12461R0000545560.PDF</a>)</p></blockquote><p></p><p>Did these distinguished judges err by referring to mens rea and not dolus specialis?  I was stating the obvious that the critical point of contention in a genocide case is proving criminal INTENT (“That’s mens rea”), and of course everyone in the room understood that the threshold under the Genocide Convention is proving criminal INTENT to commit genocide.  Speaking of fantastic morons, I wonder how Mr. Vermicelli is doing.</p><div data-attrs='{"url":"https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/subscribe?","text":"Subscribe","language":"en"}' data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM" data-sanitized-class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor"><div data-sanitized-class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div data-sanitized-class="preamble"><p data-sanitized-class="cta-caption">Thanks for reading Norman Finkelstein! 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guid: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/lex-fridman-asks-does-israel-target
title: LEX FRIDMAN ASKS: DOES ISRAEL TARGET CIVILIANS?
author: ;Norman Finkelstein
link: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/lex-fridman-asks-does-israel-target
hash: bp�4W����d��q�Y
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<p>In the course of a recent debate, moderator Lex Fridman posed the question, “Do you think there is a policy, top down from the IDF to target civilians?” (from the official transcript). Both Mouin Rabbani and I answered in the affirmative. Someone seated next to Professor Morris indignantly retorted that the notion of “a whole apparatus that tries to murder” was a “ridiculous argument.” To settle this matter, leaving not a smidgen of doubt, I recalled Gaza’s Great March of Return that began in March 2018. A distinguished independent international Commission of inquiry afterwards investigated these protests and produced a voluminous report running to fully 250 single-spaced pages (from which I will be quoting). The report states that at its inception the protests “could be characterized as a genuine popular festive event, with tens of thousands of people ... gathering around traditional activities, concerts, barbecues, cultural activities and sports games.” When Israel perpetrated a large scale massacre six weeks later on May 14, “anger over [the] killings and injuries drove groups of youths to engage in more violent actions.”</p><p>How did Israel respond to the overwhelmingly peaceful protesters as they gathered on March 30 and for weeks thereafter engaged in nonviolent demonstrations? It assembled along the perimeter of Gaza, according to Israeli officials, “specially trained snipers, in order to ensure accurate and measured use” of live ammunition. The IDF subsequently stated that “nothing was carried out uncontrolled; everything was accurate and measured, and we know where every bullet landed,” while then-Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman stated that “Israeli soldiers did what was necessary. I think all our soldiers deserve a medal.” The Commission of inquiry found that “demonstrators who were hundreds of meters away from the Israeli forces and visibly engaged in civilian activities were intentionally shot. Journalists and health workers who were clearly marked as such were shot, as were children, women, and persons with disabilities;” it also found “reasonable grounds to believe that the Israeli security forces killed and maimed Palestinian demonstrators who did not pose an imminent threat of death or serious injury to others when they were shot.” A large portion of the report documents in detail “emblematic” killings and injuries inflicted by Israel’s precision snipers. Herewith a tiny sample of these typical incidents as described by the Commission:</p><blockquote><p>Mohammad Obeid, a 24-year-old footballer for the Al Salah Sports Club…, took out his telephone and began recording a “selfie” video. An Israeli Security Forces sniper shot him in the right side of his right leg as he filmed himself approximately 150 meters from the separation fence. The bullet passed through his right leg and hit his left leg just above the knee, shattering the base of his femur.… He was standing alone. The area was quiet and calm, there was no shooting from the Israeli side, no tear gas, no stone throwing from the Palestinian side, no one had set fire to tires.… Mohammad was speaking calmly and filming himself when the ISF sniper shot him.</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>Yousef Kronz was a 19-year-old student journalist when he attended the demonstration.…He wore a blue “PRESS” vest and carried his photography equipment, including a camera and a tripod. He sat cross-legged on top of a sand dune to take photographs of the demonstrators, at least 800 meters from the separation fence. After approximately 40 minutes…, as he stood up, the ISF shot him with two bullets in immediate succession which hit him in the right knee and the left knee.… Yousef’s right leg was later amputated.</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>Abed Hawajri was a 41-year-old man…. The ISF shot him in the abdomen.… Abed was standing near the back of a crowd when shot, with nothing in his hands…, approximately 150 meters from the fence. He was taken to the hospital and died the same day.</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>A 16-year-old boy climbed onto high ground … approximately 300 meters from the separation fence. He was distributing sandwiches to demonstrators. The ISF then shot him in the face with a single bullet, which entered his nose and exited his skull. As a result of his injuries, he had a fractured jaw, is deaf in one ear and is unable to taste or smell.</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>Naji Abu Hojayeer was a 25-year-old mechanic…. An ISF soldier … shot him in the abdomen…. He died the same day.… Naji was standing 300 meters from the separation fence when he was shot. He was wrapped in a Palestinian flag, surrounded by hundreds of people.</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>Mohammad Ajouri, a 17-year-old … member of the Palestinian Athletics Organization…handed out onions and water to protestors to relieve symptoms of teargas inhalation. When he was approximately 300 meters away from the fence, ISF soldiers shot Mohammad in the back of his right leg. Doctors had to amputate his leg as a result.</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>Jihad Abu Jamous was a 30-year-old man…. ISF soldiers shot him in the head with live ammunition when he was approximately 250 to 300 meters from the fence. He died immediately.</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>Alaa Dali is a 21-year-old cyclist for the Palestinian Cycling Team. He had earned a slot to participate in the Asian Games in the summer of 2018.… An ISF sniper shot him in his right leg … as he stood alone watching the demonstration approximately 300 meters from the separation fence … while wearing his cycling gear and holding his bicycle. The nearest demonstrator was approximately 15 meters in front of him.… Doctors amputated Alaa’s leg above the knee in order to save his life.</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>Ali Khafajah was a university student…. ISF soldiers shot him in the head with live ammunition…. Ali was talking on his phone while standing in a crowd about 150 meters from the separation fence when he was shot.… He died at the hospital.</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>The ISF shot 14-year-old Mohammad Ayoub … in the head…. Mohammad was at least 200 meters from the separation fence when the ISF shot him.</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>The ISF shot 14-year-old Haytham Jamal in the abdomen. He was killed with a single shot as he stood in a crowd watching the ISF fire tear gas at another group of demonstrators.</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>Majdi Al Satari was an 11-year-old child…. He was shot in the head by live ammunition by an ISF sharpshooter while attending the protest…. Majdi died of severe brain lacerations ….Majdi was shot while standing … about 100 meters away from the security fence.</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>ISF soldiers shot 16-year-old Ahmad Abu Tyoor in the thigh as he danced a traditional Palestinian dance alone with his hands in the air, around 10-15 meters from the separation fence. The bullet severed his femoral artery and he died of his wounds the following day.</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>The ISF shot 11-year-old Nasser Mosabeh in the back of the head…. Nasser had been helping his two volunteer paramedic sisters treating injured people…. When the victim was shot, he was under a tree, 250 meters from the fence…. The bullet entered the right side of his head behind his ear and parts of his skull and brain were found close to his body.</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>Musa Abu Hassainen was a 35-year-old Civil Defense paramedic. ISF soldiers killed him with a shot to the chest … while he was wearing a high-visibility Civil Defense vest.… He was approximately 250-300 meters from the fence when ISF soldiers shot him.</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>Abed Abdullah Al Qotati was a 22-year-old volunteer paramedic…. ISF soldiers shot him in the chest in Rafah … as he was tending to an injured demonstrator near the separation fence. Abdullah was wearing a white paramedic jacket and carrying a red first-aid kit when the ISF soldiers shot him.… He died of bleeding and lacerations to his thoracic organs.</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>Tarek Loubani is a Canadian-Palestinian physician.… The ISF shot him as he stood among a group of paramedics wearing his hospital uniform. He was shot with one bullet that passed through both legs. Visibility was clear. There were no demonstrators near the group of medics and there was no shooting from the ISF either immediately before or after he was shot.</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>The ISF shot a 24-year-old freelance photojournalist … in the abdomen with live ammunition. He was standing with his back to the separation fence, around 300 meters away. When he was shot he was taking a break from photographing along with two other photojournalists from international news agencies. He was wearing a blue vest marked “PRESS” and the bullet entered his mid-section just below the vest.</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>The ISF shot 30-year-old journalist Yasser Murtaja with live ammunition in the lower abdomen as he covered the demonstration site…. Yasser was wearing a dark blue bulletproof vest clearly marked with the word “PRESS,” and a blue helmet.… He was standing approximately 300 meters from the separation fence, behind a large group of demonstrators. Visibility was good, and there were no other shots fired in the vicinity at the time. The gunshot hit him in the abdomen…, and [he] died of his injuries the following morning.</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>The ISF killed Ahmed Abu Hussein, a 24-year-old journalist…. Publicly available video footage of Ahmed’s shooting ... clearly shows him standing still taking photographs of demonstrators…. At the moment he was shot, Abu Hussein was approximately 250-300 meters from the fence. He was clearly marked as a journalist, wearing a blue helmet and a blue vest marked “PRESS.”</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>Fadi Abu Salmi was a 29-year-old double amputee…. The ISF shot him in the chest…. He died immediately. The ISF shot him … as he sat in his wheelchair under a tree approximately 250-300 meters from the separation fence with two friends.</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>Ahmad Abu Aqel was 24 years old…. He walked with crutches…. He sat down alone on a small sand hill … approximately 150 meters from the separation fence … with his back towards the fence. The ISF shot him in the back of the head…. He died the same day.</p></blockquote><p>***</p><p>The wonder is that in the here and now it can still be doubted that Israel targets civilians: Haven’t the UN, senior public officials, humanitarian organizations, and human rights groups explicitly and unequivocally denounced Israel for using starvation “as a weapon of war. Israel is provoking famine” (EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell)?</p><div data-attrs='{"url":"https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/subscribe?","text":"Subscribe","language":"en"}' data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM" data-sanitized-class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor"><div data-sanitized-class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div data-sanitized-class="preamble"><p data-sanitized-class="cta-caption">Thanks for reading Norman Finkelstein! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.</p></div><div data-sanitized-class="fake-input-wrapper"><div data-sanitized-class="fake-input"></div><div data-sanitized-class="fake-button"></div></div></div></div>


guid: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/two-or-three-quotes-that-you-use
title: “TWO OR THREE QUOTES THAT YOU USE TO PUSH PEOPLE AROUND”
author: ;Norman Finkelstein
link: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/two-or-three-quotes-that-you-use
hash: �mi�l48��m���?
content:
<p>In a recent debate, someone seated next to Professor Benny Morris lectured me on the impossibility that Israel systematically breaches the laws of war. It was stated that Israel only approved and launched precision attacks directed at legitimate military targets:</p><p>“I think that it’s important that when we talk about military strikes or we talk about things especially involving bombings or drone attacks, these are things that are signed off by multiple different layers of command, by multiple people involved in an operation, including intelligence gathering, including weaponeering, and they also have typically lawyers involved.” (from the official transcript)</p><p>It was further stated that the whole of my contrary evidence comprises “two or three quotes that you use to push people around.”</p><p>In 2014 Israel launched Operation Protective Edge against Gaza. Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, observed after touring the ravaged Strip, “I’ve never seen such massive destruction ever before.” According to the vagrant seated next to Professor Morris, “I think Protective Edge was 2014, but I’m just saying that the coordination in the military is pretty tight.” Was this destruction then the result of “pretty tight” precision attacks directed at military targets? An unimpeachable source definitively answers this question. Eyewitness accounts by Israeli combatants were compiled in a large dossier by Breaking the Silence, an Israeli non-governmental organization comprising former Israeli soldiers (“This is How We Fought in Gaza,” 2014). None of the hundreds of testimonies collected by this organization over more than a decade has ever been proven false, and all of them were approved for publication by the IDF censor. The leadership of Breaking the Silence is not conventionally leftist—it does not support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, opposes criminal prosecution of Israeli officers, and prudently fudges its own findings—while most of the soldier-witnesses themselves do not even appear contrite. Here’s a tiny sample of the “pretty tight” precision attacks directed exclusively at military targets:</p><p>“Shooting to kill. This is combat in an urban area, we’re in a war zone. The saying was: ‘There’s no such thing there as a person who is uninvolved.’ In that situation, anyone there is involved.”</p><p>*</p><p>“People who look at you from the window of a house that is in your designated area—they, to put it mildly, won’t look anymore.”</p><p>*</p><p>“The inclination is to avoid taking risks—rather to destroy everything we come across.”</p><p>*</p><p>“The assumption being that the moment we went into Gaza, anyone who dared poke his head out was a terrorist. . . , you are allowed to open fire.”</p><p>*</p><p>“The idea was, if you spot something—shoot. . . . Whether it posed a threat or not wasn’t a question, and that makes sense to me. If you shoot someone in Gaza it’s cool, no big deal. . . . They made it clear that there were no uninvolved civilians.”</p><p>*</p><p>“When we left after the operation, it was just a barren stretch of desert. . . . We spoke about it a lot amongst ourselves, the guys from the company, how crazy the amount of damage we did there was. I quote: ‘Listen man, it’s crazy what went on in there,’ ‘Listen man, we really messed them up,’ ‘Fuck, check it out, there’s nothing at all left . . . , it’s nothing but desert now, that’s crazy.’”</p><p>*</p><p>“I remember that the level of destruction looked insane to me.”</p><p>*</p><p>“The formal rules of engagement—I don’t know if for all soldiers—were, ‘Anything still there is as good as dead. Anything you see moving in the neighborhoods you’re in is not supposed to be there. The Palestinian civilians know they are not supposed to be there. Therefore whoever you see there, you kill.’ The commander [gave the order] ‘Anything you see in the neighborhoods you’re in, anything within a reasonable distance, say between zero and 200 meters—is dead on the spot. No authorization needed.’ . . . The working assumption states—and I want to stress that this is a quote of sorts: that anyone located in an IDF area, in areas the IDF took over—is not [considered] a civilian. That is the working assumption. We entered Gaza with that in mind, with an insane amount of firepower.”</p><p>*</p><p>“The instruction was: ‘Anyone you identify in the area—you shoot.’”</p><p>*</p><p>“It all looked like a science fiction movie . . . serious levels of destruction everywhere. . . . Everything was really in ruins. And non-stop fire all the time.”</p><p>*</p><p>“The instructions are to shoot right away. Whoever you spot—be they armed or unarmed, no matter what. The instructions are very clear. Any person you run into, that you see with your eyes—shoot to kill. It’s an explicit instruction.”</p><p>*</p><p>“I remember it, all the tanks were standing in a row, and I personally asked my commander: ‘Where are we firing at?’ He told me: ‘Pick wherever you feel like it.’”</p><p>*</p><p>“Before the entrance on foot to Gaza, a crazy amount of artillery was fired at the entire area. . . . Before a tank makes any movement it fires, every time. Those guys were trigger happy, totally crazy. Those were their orders, I’m certain of it, there’s no chance anybody would just go around shooting like that.”</p><p>*</p><p>“The explosions’ effects cause major amounts of damage, but that doesn’t interest anyone. ‘Use it, use it, explosives can’t be taken back,’ the platoon commander says, ‘I don’t want to leave explosives on me.’”</p><p>*</p><p>“I don’t really remember what was discussed in terms of formal instructions before we entered, and after we entered nobody really cared about the formal instructions anyway. That’s what we knew. Every tank commander knew, and even the simple soldiers knew,</p><p>that if something turns out to be not OK, they can say they saw something suspicious. They’ve got backup. They won’t ever be tried.”</p><p>*</p><p>“Our view was of the center of the Strip. Let’s say it was a real fireworks display. From a distance it looked pretty cool. . . . If you looked through a night vision scope you saw crazy wreckage, it was a real trip.”</p><p>*</p><p>“You’re shooting at anything that moves—and also at what isn’t moving, crazy amounts. . . . It also becomes a bit like a computer game, totally cool and real.”</p><p>*</p><p>“There were no rules of engagement. If you see anyone in that area, that person is a terrorist.”</p><p>*</p><p>“They went in just to destroy stuff. Just to purposely destroy stuff.”</p><p>*</p><p>“The rules of engagement were very, very lax. I wouldn’t say that they shot anything that moved—but they didn’t request authorization to fire either. There was no such thing as requesting authorization. Just fire.”</p><p>*</p><p>“That’s how it was, really—every tank just firing whatever it wanted to. And during the offensive, no one shot at us—not before it, not during it, and not after it. I remember that when we started withdrawing with the tanks, I looked toward the neighborhood, and I could simply see an entire neighborhood up in flames, like in the movies. Columns of smoke everywhere, the neighborhood in pieces, houses on the ground, and like, people were living there, but nobody had fired at us yet. We were firing purposelessly.”</p><p>*</p><p>“It was total destruction in there—the photos on line are child’s play compared to what we saw there in reality. . . . I never saw anything like it.”</p><p>*</p><p>“We were firing purposelessly all day long. Hamas was nowhere to be seen. . . . And the rules of engagement were pretty easy-going—I was shocked when I first heard them.”</p><p>*</p><p>“Everything is a suspicious spot. This is Gaza, you’re firing at everything.”</p><p>*</p><p>“They explained what you do if you see a civilian. They explained that that’s the way it is in combat. It was shoot to kill immediately if you see stuff. . . . Really, they did say, ‘If you see someone—shoot him.’”</p><p>*</p><p>“If it looks like a man, shoot. It was simple: You’re in a motherfucking combat zone. A few hours before you went in the whole area was bombed, if there’s anyone there who doesn’t clearly look innocent, you apparently need to shoot that person.”</p><p>*</p><p>“The unfathomable number of dead on one of the sides, the unimaginable level of destruction, the way militant cells and people were regarded as targets and not as living beings—that’s something that troubles me.”</p><p>*</p><p>“It’s destruction on a whole other level. . . . We just couldn’t believe it.”</p><p>*</p><p>“The briefing on rules of engagement was [to open first at], ‘Anything you think you should [open fire at]. . . . Anyone you spot that you can be positive is not the IDF.’ The only emphasis regarding rules of engagement was to make sure you weren’t firing at IDF forces, but other than that, ‘Any person you see.’ From the very start they told us, ‘Shoot to kill.’”</p><p>*</p><p>“The air force carries out an insane amount of strikes in Gaza during an operation like ‘Protective Edge.’”</p><p>*</p><p>“Shells are being fired all the time. Even if we aren’t actually going to enter: shells, shells, shells. A suspicious structure, an open area, a field, a place where a tunnel shaft could be—fire, fire, fire.”</p><p>***</p><p>If “these are things that are signed off by multiple different layers of command, by multiple people involved in an operation, including intelligence gathering, including weaponeering, and they also have typically lawyers involved,” if “the coordination in the military is pretty tight”—then, doesn’t that, on the contrary, PROVE that Israel has premeditatedly, systematically and egregiously breached the laws of war?</p><p>***</p><p>The collection fittingly concludes with this testimony:</p><p>“You leave Gaza and the most obvious question is, ‘Did you kill anybody?’ What can you do—even if you’ll meet the most left-wing girl in the world, eventually she’ll start thinking, ‘Did you ever kill somebody, or not.’ And what can you do about it, most people in our society consider that to be a badge of honor. So everybody wants to come out of there with that feeling of satisfaction.”</p><div data-attrs='{"url":"https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/subscribe?","text":"Subscribe","language":"en"}' data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM" data-sanitized-class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor"><div data-sanitized-class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div data-sanitized-class="preamble"><p data-sanitized-class="cta-caption">Thanks for reading Norman Finkelstein! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.</p></div><div data-sanitized-class="fake-input-wrapper"><div data-sanitized-class="fake-input"></div><div data-sanitized-class="fake-button"></div></div></div></div>


guid: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/you-can-run-but-you-cant-hide-boxer
title: “YOU CAN RUN BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE” (boxer Joe Louis)
author: ;Norman Finkelstein
link: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/you-can-run-but-you-cant-hide-boxer
hash: E����L}~�����
content:
<p>In a recent <a href="https://lexfridman.com/israel-palestine-debate-transcript/">debate</a> moderated by Lex Fridman, I challenged Professor Benny Morris to answer my detailed book chapter on his scholarship (“History by Subtraction,” in my book Knowing Too Much). The point at issue was simple and straightforward: Morris has repudiated his original historical conclusions without demonstrating why his old evidence was wrong or even acknowledging his dramatic reversal. For example, Morris originally stated that “the fear of territorial displacement and dispossession was to be the chief motor of Arab antagonism to Zionism” and, further, that this Arab fear was rationally based: “transfer was inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism—because it sought to transform a land which was ‘Arab’ into a ‘Jewish’ state and a Jewish state could not have arisen without a major displacement of Arab population.” In other words, if Palestinian Arabs opposed Zionism, it was because the Zionists intended to expel them. Morris adduced a wealth of primary sources to sustain this contention. But he has now done a volte-face. He purports that transfer “had not been part of the original Zionist ideology,” and it was only later adopted by the Zionist movement in reaction to “expulsionist or terroristic violence by the Arabs.” Expulsion has inexplicably metamorphosed from an “inevitable and inbuilt” tenet of Zionism into a reaction “triggered” by expulsionist Arab threats and assaults. The root cause of the conflict was no longer the rational Arab fear of Zionist expulsion but, on the contrary, an irrational Arab hatred of Jews. Morris thus displaced the moral onus of the conflict from Zionist expulsion to Arab expulsion. It’s hard to conceive a more drastic revision. A historian is of course within his right to reconsider his prior conclusions. But Morris doesn’t provide a shred of evidence that his original conclusions were wrong; he doesn’t even acknowledge that he has diametrically reversed himself. Indeed, his current rightwing opinions amount to a negation of his very own scholarship. In the debate Morris clearly stated that he would accept my challenge (2:37:13). Alas, he recently informed me that he wouldn’t be responding. I cannot say I was altogether surprised. Discretion, after all, is the better part of valor. Herewith my reply to Professor Morris’s abrupt change of heart:</p><p><strong>“I am in receipt of your curt reply: ‘I'm afraid the tone of the chapter precludes a serious dialogue.’ You can obviously exercise the option of establishing at the outset that you find the tone of my critique objectionable, even outrageous, yet still proceed to answer the substantive points at issue. The great sociologist Raul Hilberg—he was, incidentally, a rightwing Republican and fastidious in his professional comportment—had this to say during my abortive tenure bid: ‘leaving aside the question of style—and here, I agree that it’s not my style either—the substance of the matter is most important here, particularly because Finkelstein, when he published this book [The Holocaust Industry], was alone. It takes an enormous amount of academic courage to speak the truth when no one else is out there to support him.’ I would further submit that you yourself are not exactly renowned as a paragon of academic civility. In response to my close parsing of your book on the Palestinian refugee question, here’s how you described me and my scholarship in an academic journal: ‘forever a purveyor of Jewish malice,’ ‘palpable nonsense,’ ‘dishonesty of a high order,’ ‘dishonest and reprehensible point,’ ‘trickery,’ ‘twisted, distorted, and hoodwinked,’ ‘spurious, twisted scholarship,’ etc. (Oddly, you concluded by deploring my lack of ‘civilized academic argumentation.’) I have nonetheless, and unhesitatingly, acknowledged the indispensability of your scholarship. I did not exploit your adjectival frenzy as a pretext to evade engaging your work. Quite the contrary. I plunged into your oeuvre, read and reread it, before proceeding to critique it. I should hope that you will reconsider your decision. Millions of viewers of the Lex Fridman debate heard you commit yourself to answering me, and many—not least myself—look forward with great curiosity to your learned response. It would be most regrettable if your failure to stand by your word is construed as an act of intellectual cowardice—to wit, you couldn’t coherently answer my substantive claim that you have reversed your original scholarly findings without adducing any new evidence.”</strong></p>


guid: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/starve-or-leave
title: STARVE OR LEAVE
author: ;Norman Finkelstein
link: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/starve-or-leave
hash: SfYA"��<�'��)�-
content:
<p>Let’s cut to the chase: of course Israel deliberately targeted the WCK relief convoy. Not only do all the material facts point to this conclusion. There also aren’t any grounds to doubt it; the heavy burden of proof falls on Israel to demonstrate that it was not a premeditated strike. On October 8, 2023, Israel announced a total blockade of Gaza: no food, fuel, water, or electricity would be allowed in. The rationale behind this order was laid out by former Israeli National Security Council head Giora Eiland: “Israel should not allow any economic assistance. The people should be told that they have two choices: to stay and to starve, or to leave.” For the next two weeks, Israel blocked the entry of any aid into Gaza. Flagrant mass murder not being a good look, President Biden counseled Prime Minister Netanyahu to lighten up a bit. Israel tweaked its murder plan so as to pass muster with its enablers in Washington. But it did not alter the essence of its game-plan. Human Rights Watch documented in December that Israel was “using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.” Normally reticent senior international and humanitarian officials have in recent weeks openly charged that “Starvation is used as a weapon of war. Israel is provoking famine." (Josop Borrell, EU foreign policy chief) If—as everyone seems to agree—Israel’s declared objective is to starve Gaza’s civilian population, then: HOW COULD IT NOT PLUG THE HOLES IN ITS MURDER PLAN BY TARGETING INTERNATIONAL RELIEF ORGANIZATIONS? And in fact it’s mission accomplished: international aid operations in Gaza have largely ceased “as a result of recent attacks on humanitarian workers by the IDF.” (“Letter to the White House and National Security Council,” April 4, 2024) But it might be wondered: Wasn’t it foolhardy for Israel to risk international opprobrium? Not at all. Israel has targeted by various metrics an historically unprecedented number of hospitals, medics, journalists, and aid workers; it has killed an unprecedented number of women and children. It is ever testing the limits of the permissible. So far, it’s successfully crossed every downward threshold into barbarism with impunity. It’s impossible to predict in advance which story will be picked up by the fickle international media and which story will just get passing notice. The latest atrocity could just as easily have been subsumed in a paragraph on the inside pages under the title “Aid workers killed in Gaza.” The only error Israel might have—it’s too soon to tell—committed was anticipating that it would get another free pass. Indeed, Israel’s news bureau in the US, the New York Times, is already spinning the story to exonerate Israel: “botched operation ... mistakes and misjudgments ... accidental killing.” (“Back-to-Back Israeli Strikes Show Tragic Gaps in Choosing Targets,” April 4, 2024) It’s also being said that it’s not senior Israeli officials but on the contrary IDF field commanders and soldiers who are out of control, or that Israel’s resort to AI is behind the hecatomb in Gaza. That’s all bullshit. During its periodic “mowing-the-lawn” hi-tech murder sprees in Gaza (Operation Cast Lead, Operation Protective Edge), Israel has always used DISCRIMINATELY INDISCRIMINATE firepower to terrorize Gaza’s civilian population into submission. The nub of the problem is neither disciplinary nor technical. It’s Israel’s murder plan: to make Gaza unlivable and to force its people to decide—starve or leave.</p><div data-attrs='{"url":"https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/subscribe?","text":"Subscribe","language":"en"}' data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM" data-sanitized-class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor"><div data-sanitized-class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div data-sanitized-class="preamble"><p data-sanitized-class="cta-caption">Thanks for reading Norman Finkelstein! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.</p></div><div data-sanitized-class="fake-input-wrapper"><div data-sanitized-class="fake-input"></div><div data-sanitized-class="fake-button"></div></div></div></div>


guid: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/israels-moral-dilemma-april-5-2024
title: ISRAEL’S MORAL DILEMMA (April 5, 2024)
author: ;Norman Finkelstein
link: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/israels-moral-dilemma-april-5-2024
hash: �B�=��QQ��W�<
content:
<p>This morning the New York Times reported the findings of the IDF “investigation” into the WCK killings: “grave mistake ... errors in decision-making.” It’s a mystery why the Times ran this redundant story. It had already determined what happened yesterday BEFORE the “investigation”: “mistakes and misjudgments.” How did the Times know this ahead of the “investigation”? The IDF told it so before the “investigation.” The Times reporters covering today’s story are named Aaron Boxerman and Adam Ragson. Both of them previously worked in Jerusalem for the Israeli propaganda rag sheet, Times of Israel. Theirs must have been a most smooth transition from Israel’s Jerusalem disinformation bureau to Israel’s New York disinformation bureau. Still, wouldn’t a cost-cutting expert recommend that the Times just reprint IDF press releases without the intermediary of “reporters”?</p><p>The IDF fired on the second and third cars in the WCK caravan after survivors of the first targeted assassination sought refuge in them. Targeting the survivors of an initial attack is IDF standard operating procedure; one of the tricks of the (satanic) trade. Here are a couple of typical examples from Operation Protective Edge (2014):</p><div data-attrs='{"url":"https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/subscribe?","text":"Subscribe","language":"en"}' data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM" data-sanitized-class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor"><div data-sanitized-class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div data-sanitized-class="preamble"><p data-sanitized-class="cta-caption">Thanks for reading Norman Finkelstein! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.</p></div><div data-sanitized-class="fake-input-wrapper"><div data-sanitized-class="fake-input"></div><div data-sanitized-class="fake-button"></div></div></div></div><p>A MULTIPLE DRONE-MISSILE ATTACK wounded nine civilians, including three children, in the vicinity of a mosque. Another drone missile targeted an ambulance just as it headed back to the hospital loaded with several of the wounded, incinerating eight people, including the three children, two medics, and a volunteer. Yet another drone-missile attack targeted a second ambulance that arrived belatedly on the scene. A witness recalled, “What we saw was really horrible. The ambulance looked like a tree branch that was completely charred. The bodies had no parts—no legs, no hands—they were severely burned.” (Amnesty International, “Black Friday”)</p><p>*</p><p>THE ROOF OF A HOME WAS HIT by high-explosive mortar shells that killed eight family members, including seven children aged between three and nine, who were playing there, and their grandfather aged seventy. Israel purported that the attack was in response to an “anti-tank missile” and a “burst of mortar” fired from the neighborhood that injured one soldier. The IDF then fired “another round of shells” ten minutes later “just as three ambulances and the paramedics arrived at the scene,” which also hit “many of the people who had gathered around the [family] house to try and help survivors.” A UN investigation headed by a New York State judge quoted a journalist eyewitness who was “stunned” by the “apparent targeting of ambulances and journalists who had rushed to provide assistance to the injured and cover the incident.” It further noted that eyewitness accounts “are corroborated by two video recordings,” one of which showed a “dying cameraman continuing to film, and the ambulances being hit by a rocket.” As a result of the second round of shelling, 23 persons were killed and 178 others injured. (“Report of the Detailed Findings of the Independent Committee of Inquiry”)</p><p>*</p><p>The Times reports that, on account of the “errors” in the WCK massacre, two officers would be dismissed from their positions and three others would suffer a “reprimand.”</p><p>Although naive observers were appalled at such leniency, this was by Israeli standards actually a harsh punishment. During Operation Cast Lead (2008-9), Israel killed 1,400 Gazans, up to 80 percent of whom were civilians and 350 children. Human Rights organizations documented massive war crimes committed by the IDF. How did Israel punish the perpetrators? A handful of soldiers suffered disciplinary sanctions such as an officer who was “severely reprimanded,” while the harshest sentence meted out was a seven-and-a-half-month prison term to a soldier who had stolen a credit card. During their attack on a humanitarian convoy of vessels headed towards Gaza (2010), Israeli commandos killed 10 unarmed passengers aboard the flagship Mavi Marmara. The punishment? A corporal was sentenced to five months in prison for stealing a laptop computer, two camera lenses, and a compass. During Operation Protective Edge, Israel killed 2,200 Gazans, of whom 70 percent were civilians and 550 children. “I can say without hesitation,” Gaza specialist Sara Roy of Harvard University observed, “that I have never seen the kind of human, physical, and psychological destruction that I see there today.” The punishment? Three Israeli soldiers were indicted for stealing $600 from a Palestinian home.</p><p>Truth be told, Israel confronts an excruciating dilemma. It is a war crime to deliberately target or indiscriminately attack a civilian or civilian object. The World Bank’s “Gaza Strip Interim Damage Assessment” (March 2024) reports that since October 7 Israel has, among other things, damaged or destroyed 290,820 housing units (of which 76% were totally destroyed), and as a result “more than 1.08 million people will not be able to return to their homes.” It has killed more than 31,000 Gazans (of whom 70% are women and children) and wounded 75,000 others. The objective of the Israeli assault has been to, once and for all, solve the Gaza “problem.” It has carried out a deliberately indiscriminate assault targeting Gaza’s entire civilian population and infrastructure. If this or that killed Gazan proves to be a militant or this or that destroyed housing unit stands above a tunnel, it amounts to little more than the margin of error in the totality of this onslaught. Here, then, is Israel’s moral dilemma: were it to prosecute every war criminal in its ranks, there wouldn’t be anyone left to finish the job in Gaza.</p><div data-attrs='{"url":"https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/subscribe?","text":"Subscribe","language":"en"}' data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM" data-sanitized-class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor"><div data-sanitized-class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div data-sanitized-class="preamble"><p data-sanitized-class="cta-caption">Thanks for reading Norman Finkelstein! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.</p></div><div data-sanitized-class="fake-input-wrapper"><div data-sanitized-class="fake-input"></div><div data-sanitized-class="fake-button"></div></div></div></div>


guid: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/the-insipid-flatness-of-our-present
author: ;Norman Finkelstein
link: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/the-insipid-flatness-of-our-present
hash: � q�{���A�f��<Z
title:
“THE INSIPID FLATNESS OF OUR PRESENT BOURGEOISIE IS TO BE MEASURED BY THE ALTITUDE OF ITS ‘GREAT INTELLECTS’” (Karl Marx, CAPITAL)

content:
<p>The last time billionaire Bill Ackman was heard from, he perpetrated the most brazen assault on academic freedom in our country’s history. He engineered a coup that toppled Harvard president Claudine Gay by publicly threatening to withhold megabucks in alumni contributions if the Board of Trustees did not dismiss her. What was Gay’s crime? She was insufficiently repressive of student outrage at Israel’s genocide in Gaza. It is not, however, as if Ackman is a Zionist. Social critic Irving Howe once quipped that, if you have enough money to purchase a one-way ticket to Israel but don’t, then you’re not a Zionist. So no, Ackman is not a lover of Zion. Rather, he’s a typical Jewish supremacist. The notion that a Jew—or, in the case at hand, the Jewish State—can be anything less than the paragon of virtue amounts to a blood libel. When Ackman’s coup plans began to falter, he went after Gay for plagiarism. But, alas, Yahweh proved to be a mischievous God. It was miraculously revealed that Ackman’s wife had herself plagiarized in her doctoral dissertation. The difference was that Gay lifted passages from scholarly publications, whereas Ackman’s wife plagiarized Wikipedia. In a world replete with ironic coincidences that almost make one a believer, it appears that Ackman’s wife was channeling Mr. VermiNcelli, or vice versa.</p><p>In any event, Ackman is back. Now that the Gaza genocide that he facilitated is getting a bad rap, Ackman’s decided to cover his pig’s feet with the philanthropist’s white gloves. He’s touting enlightened “high-level thoughts on a potential solution to Gaza.” Except as an articulation of his infinite self-regard, it’s hard to make out what exactly makes his insipid banalities “high-level.” The essence of his supposed genius comes down to two steps. (1) Rebuild Gaza as a “model city” with “modern infrastructure.” Open any book on the so-called peace process and you’ll come across the same tired cliché of turning Gaza into the Singapore of the Middle East. “Imagine if Hamas had just a 2 percent interest in building Gaza,” peace process macher Dennis Ross pontificated a few months ago, “they could have turned Gaza into Singapore." (2) The hitch in this plan is, of course, political: Gazans want to control their own fate, while Ackman wants them to be “governed by a consortium of Gulf states.” To square this circle, Ackman proposes a “high level” solution: defeat Hamas. How original. In his words, “Civilians in Rafah are moved to a refugee camp safe zone built in the Negev desert adjoining Gaza,” so that “the IDF destroys Hamas.” Setting aside that this scenario is as fantastical as his Emerald City over the rainbow, it also prompts this heretical thought: If Hamas must be destroyed because it killed 1,200 Israelis including 36 children on October 7, shouldn’t the population of Israel also be moved to a refugee safe zone built in the Negev desert so that Hamas can destroy Israel’s genocidal government and army that have murdered to date 32,000 Gazans including 13,000 children?</p><p>Ackman requests constructive criticism. Here’s mine: Stop making a fool of yourself by defending your wife’s plagiarism and marketing your drivel as “high-level thoughts.”</p><div data-attrs='{"url":"https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/subscribe?","text":"Subscribe","language":"en"}' data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM" data-sanitized-class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor"><div data-sanitized-class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div data-sanitized-class="preamble"><p data-sanitized-class="cta-caption">Thanks for reading Norman Finkelstein! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.</p></div><div data-sanitized-class="fake-input-wrapper"><div data-sanitized-class="fake-input"></div><div data-sanitized-class="fake-button"></div></div></div></div>


guid: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/when-its-okay-to-nuke-a-country
title: WHEN IT’S OKAY TO NUKE A COUNTRY
author: ;Norman Finkelstein
link: https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/when-its-okay-to-nuke-a-country
hash: P!ȉT����H$hI�
content:
<p>Historian Benny Morris supports Prime Minister Netanyahu’s resolve to attack Rafah (“Israel’s Security Depends on Rafah,” NY Times, 11 April 2024). Normally home to 280,000 Gazans, Rafah now also contains 1.2 million internal refugees swept into the city during Israel’s massive ethnic cleansing the past six months. It’s probably the most densely populated spot on God’s earth. In a disingenuous wordplay, Morris designates these 1.5 million Gazans a “human shield.” This locution denotes the involuntary conscription by an armed force of civilians to protect itself. But Hamas didn’t conscript these forsaken souls as shields; it was Israel that drove them there while now purporting that it must kill them to get at Hamas. Morris’s article is couched in this propagandistic idiom. He still refers to the casualty figures as based on the “Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry” even as independent professional studies have confirmed these figures, and they are almost certainly an underestimate. He states that the current 33,000 figure “includes the more than 12,000 Hamas fighters the Israeli military claims to have killed these past six months.” In fact, the casualty figures Israel alleged in its previous “operations”—dutifully repeated by Morris in his books—wildly differed from the findings of human rights groups, while Israel has bandied about a mass of wildly discrepant figures of militants killed during the past six months. The IDF hasn’t even a clue how many Hamas combatants have been killed: it’s almost certain that most militants have fallen victim anonymously alongside civilians in the course of Israel’s deliberately indiscriminate terror assault on Gazan society; there have only been a handful of “battles” where Hamas corpses can ultimately be counted while, judging by previous Israeli operations—in which its “crazy” and “insane” firepower overwhelmed Hamas fighters and thus they rarely made it to actual combat—there cannot have been many Hamas battlefield corpses in the latest round to add up; the IDF doesn’t usually enter the Hamas tunnels it discovers but just explodes the shafts; Israel routinely classifies any dead adult male it stumbles upon during its “operations” as a Hamas “terrorist.” Meanwhile, Israel’s prime minister recently avowed that the IDF has killed only one civilian for every Hamas militant it killed. Does Morris believe this?</p><p>Morris justified an Israeli assault on the grounds that Rafah is the last stronghold of Hamas in Gaza; that an “expansive Hamas tunnel system” lies beneath Rafah; and that the “Hamas battalions” numbering “thousands of its fighters” ensconced in these tunnels must be “obliterated.” How does he know all this? Yes, Israel alleges that Hamas has built 450 miles of tunnels beneath Gaza. But that figure exceeds in length the famed sprawling, ramified New York City subway system (430 miles of tunnels), and, if true, every 1,200 hundred feet along minuscule Gaza’s 5-mile-long width, there is yet another 25-mile-long tunnel stretching its full length. Is that credible? It’s also anyone’s guess whether “Hamas battalions” are hiding in Rafah. Just a few months ago Israel alleged that Hamas’s command-and-control center lurked beneath al-Shifa hospital. Then it alleged that Hamas’s leaders had fled to Khan Younis. And on and on. Even as each claim proved to be false, they did nonetheless serve as a useful pretext to pulverize the infrastructure of another parcel of land as Israel proceeded to make Gaza uninhabitable. It seems that—with an assist from Morris—that fate now awaits Rafah.</p><div data-attrs='{"url":"https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/subscribe?","text":"Subscribe","language":"en"}' data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM" data-sanitized-class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor"><div data-sanitized-class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div data-sanitized-class="preamble"><p data-sanitized-class="cta-caption">Thanks for reading Norman Finkelstein! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.</p></div><div data-sanitized-class="fake-input-wrapper"><div data-sanitized-class="fake-input"></div><div data-sanitized-class="fake-button"></div></div></div></div><p>Morris’s admonition that Hamas must suffer total defeat places him squarely within the consensus of Israeli politics. But the Israeli political spectrum is off the spectrum. There’s no center let alone left in Israeli politics: there’s only a right, a far right, and an ultra right. On the US political spectrum Morris’s opinion is echoed in a new publication by the neocon Jewish Institute for National Security of America: Hamas must be “effectively destroyed”; Israel must inflict a “visible and overwhelming defeat of Hamas.” (JINSA, “The Day After: A Plan for Gaza,” March 2024) The lead authors of this report are John Hannah, Elliott Abrams, and Lewis Libby. This trio was last heard from when they played crucial roles in the George W. Bush administration’s decision to unseat Saddam. So if you’re curious where Morris is coming from, think of the—crazed—mindset that brought us Iraq.</p><p>Morris anticipates that if the attack on Rafah goes ahead, “the additional civilian casualties and the attendant further disruption of humanitarian aid ... will ratchet up condemnation of Israel’s conduct by its Western allies, led by the United States.” Notice his one and only concern is that the assault won’t go over well in the West. A just-released report by the respected International Crisis Group observes that Israel’s “stated goals of destroying Hamas and toppling the government” cannot be reconciled with “saving what remains of Gaza and preventing mass death from starvation and disease.” It’s one or the other. The report concludes that “The goal of toppling Hamas cannot justify abetting a famine that could claim tens of thousands of lives.” (“Stopping Famine in Gaza,” April 2024) But the moral dilemma of pursuing an assault that could result in a hecatomb doesn’t even register for Morris. His moral calculus only reckons the diplomatic fallout. Here again, he is an Everyman Israeli.</p><p>Professor Morris was once a serious historian. Like everyone else, he had his biases, but his books were replete with rich archival findings. But, per the generality of Israelis, he has in recent decades become so consumed by hatred and contempt of Palestinians, so given to bile-filled <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/2004-01-08/ty-article/survival-of-the-fittest/0000017f-e874-dc7e-adff-f8fdc87a0000">rants</a>, that not a word he says can any longer be trusted. (I publicly challenged Morris during a debate to answer my stringent parsing of his recent scholarly output. Morris agreed—but then abruptly, albeit predictably, backed out after reading my analysis.) He has exploited his deserved past reputation to disseminate Israeli state propaganda. Like the JINSA neocons, he has been repeatedly exhorting the US to join Israel in an attack on Iran. What’s more, he has even rattled the threat that, if Israel has to go it alone, it will have no recourse except to nuke Iran:</p><p>“Realistic leaders in Washington and Jerusalem cannot allow Teheran to have the Bomb. And, in the coming months or year, must do what is necessary to halt and destroy the Iranian nuclear project. And if this involves a protracted, conventional air assault on the Iranian nuclear facilities—then so be it. The Iranians will have brought that assault on their own heads. And, if conventional weapons cannot do the job—and if Israel is forced to go the course alone, it is doubtful that its conventional capabilities will be sufficient to destroy the Iranian nuclear project. Then non-conventional weaponry will have to be used to stymie the project. And many innocent Iranians will die. But the Iranians will have brought this upon themselves by bringing to power and leaving in power a leadership that will have forced Israelis to do what was necessary in order to survive.” (“A Second Holocaust?: The threat to Israel” (2 May 2008; <a href="http://www.mideastfreedomforum.org/de/node/66">www.mideastfreedomforum.org/de/node/66</a>)</p><p>It’s a most intriguing proposition. If the Iranian people elected their current government, then, if they are wiped out in a nuclear attack, “they will have brought this upon themselves.” Doesn’t it then follow that, if the Israeli people elected their current genocidal government—indeed, according to polls, overwhelmingly support the genocide—then “they will have brought this upon themselves” if ...?</p><div data-attrs='{"url":"https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/subscribe?","text":"Subscribe","language":"en"}' data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM" data-sanitized-class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor"><div data-sanitized-class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div data-sanitized-class="preamble"><p data-sanitized-class="cta-caption">Thanks for reading Norman Finkelstein! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.</p></div><div data-sanitized-class="fake-input-wrapper"><div data-sanitized-class="fake-input"></div><div data-sanitized-class="fake-button"></div></div></div></div>


