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In episode #419 of the Sunday Wire, host Patrick Henningsen speaks with special guest, author and jazz & world music artist of note, Gilad Atzmon, to discuss the incredible drama at the Azovstal Industrial Plant in Mariupol, where Ukraine’s Zelensky regime and its western media counterparts attempted to erect a modern mythology and grand narrative around the Azov Battalion holdouts hiding underneath the city’s final battle zone. Gilad also discusses the construction of Zelensky’s public image in the West, his Jewish identity and relationship to Israel. Combined together, many of these facets reveal the inconvenient truth about the West’s Ukraine project, and how far western democracies have drifted from their Athenian morals, ethics and principles. See Gilad’s work at: www.gilad.co.uk

The USA, Britain and NATO believe that the war in Ukraine makes Russia weak, reduces Putin into an Amalek figure, makes NATO strong and will lead to an extensive boost to the USA’s military industrial complex. Accordingly, Biden, Johnson and NATO want an indefinite continuation of the war.

It is time to identify who needs the war to continue as Biden is not alone on that front. Zelensky also wants the war to continue. He knows that any agreement with Russia would make his situation ‘very complicated.’ Ukrainian nationalists who appear to be bravely fighting the Russian army and are lauded by every Western MSM outlet, won’t accept a single territorial concession. It is hard to imagine the war coming to an end without such a concession especially given Russia’s clear territorial gains in the south, the east and the north. And Zelensky, the actor, knows that his current theatrical role is, beyond doubt, the peak of his career. From now on it is downhill. For Zelensky, the war ought to continue forever.

And what about the Ukrainian people, do they want the war to end? It depends who you ask. If you follow the British and American press you are given the impression that Ukrainians are united behind their leader in a collective and suicidal mission. But the truth is that four million have left the country, ten million have been displaced within Ukraine and these numbers are increasing daily. The country is being systematically destroyed, some of its cities reduced to dust. If this is what the people want, as the BBC wants us to believe, the war will never end. If, instead, the Ukrainians are ordinary human beings, which is more likely and an intelligent assumption, they must be very tired of the disaster inflicted on them by their leader and the warmongering West. As ordinary human beings, Ukrainians care for the future of the land, their kids, their cities, their culture, their heritage – they may well want to preserve it all rather than to die in the ‘name of it.’

We often read that Zelensky pleads with Israel to broker a peace deal with Russia despite the fact that Israel isn’t exactly the most natural candidate as a broker for harmonious coexistence. A lot has been written in recent years about the Israeli and Ukrainian fantasy of replacing Russia as Europe’s primary suppliers of gas. The current war in Ukraine positions Israel as the potential primary European gas supplier. This week Israel’s prominent news channel N12 stated that “Israel will help Europe to cut itself off from Russian gas.” N12 reports that in a Paris International Energy Agency conference the Israeli Energy Minister began discussions regarding the immediate export of Israeli gas to Europe.

Why did Putin rush to save Syria and the Assad regime? One answer is that Russia needed a Mediterranean port for its navy. Why would the Russians need such a port on the Eastern Mediterranean shore? One possible answer: Putin understood that he might have to interfere with a potential underwater gas pipe from Gaza’s seashore to Greece. The port of Latakia places the Russian Navy in a crucial strategic position to undermine such a project. In other words, despite his current collaboration with Israel on Syria, Putin has known for a while that a naval conflict with Israel is inevitable. Of course, the Israelis also know that.

But Israel’s enthusiasm for the ‘peace negotiator role’ has other crucial ingredients. Israel’s current economic strength is largely the outcome of the Jewish state establishing itself as a safe haven for Russian oligarchs’ mammon, and many of these oligarchs are Jewish and also Israeli citizens. If Israel becomes a ‘peace broker’ then Israel, due to neutrality, won’t have to participate in the sanction carnival against Russia. If the war goes on indefinitely, Israel won’t just maintain the constant flow of Russian wealth into its banks, it will actually become the primary escape route for Russian money. For the obvious reasons, Zelensky insists peace talks resume in Jerusalem under the auspices of PM Bennett. Putin, however, doesn’t seem enthusiastic about the Jerusalem option. He may grasp by now what Israel is like and what it is after.

Putin is a living riddle. I have good reason to believe that he isn’t mentally unstable as he is often described in Western MSM. More likely, this experienced tactician has some geo-political and militarily objectives in mind. But the problem is that no one seems to know what these objectives are. I, for instance, don’t believe that Putin intended to invade Kyiv or any other large Ukrainian city except perhaps strategic assets such as Mariupol. I am also convinced that Putin didn’t plan to ‘impose regime change’ in Ukraine. Putin probably saw a growing military danger from Ukraine and its expanding Western inclinations. He most likely wanted to obliterate Ukraine’s military ability and by doing so, deliver a clear message to every Eastern European country. Putin wanted and still desires to eventually settle the conflict with Ukraine’s democratically elected leader, i.e. Zelensky. More than anyone around, Putin needs Zelensky well and alive at least until the conclusion of his military manoeuvre.

As such Putin may be the only player in this horrid deadly theatre with a clear exit strategy and a plan for future coexistence. He may be the only world leader who envisages an end to this conflict. His vision may be unacceptable to the entire West at this stage. It may be very unpopular in Ukraine and for obvious reasons. But as it seems no one in the West has dared to challenge Russia militarily and I guess that this is partially because no one in the Western military elite really buys into the popular narrative of the Russian army being ‘weak’ and ‘defeated.’

It occurs to me that when Biden called for Putin’s removal in Poland yesterday, it is because Putin is aiming at a conclusive end to this tragic drama in Ukraine, hopefully soon, while Biden and his many partners see a benefit to prolonging this disaster forever.

Jerusalem 1973

Ashraf Marwan is a controversial figure within Israel’s intelligence community. Some regard him as Israel’s best ever Arab spy, others see him as an Egyptian spymaster who misled the Israeli military ahead of the 1973 war that was a military disaster for the Jewish state. In June 2007, Marwan ‘fell’ from the balcony of his London house. His wife and many commentators accused the Mossad of the assassination.

Marwan was born in 1944 to an influential Egyptian family. At the age of 21 he married Mona Nasser, president Gamal Abdel Nasser’s second daughter and secured his place in the corridors of power in 1960s Cairo.

Following its humiliating defeat in the 1967 war, Egypt started to prepare its military to take back the Sinai peninsula. Marwan was privy to Egypt’s best-kept secrets; its war plans, detailed accounts of military exercises, original documentation of Egypt’s arms deals with the Soviet Union and other countries, military tactics, the minutes from meetings of the high command, transcripts of Sadat’s private conversations with world leaders, etc. All of that allowed him to provide Israel with invaluable information about the coming war.

The intelligence that Marwan provided to the Mossad made its way to the desks of Israeli political and military leaders and shaped Israel’s so-called post ‘67 strategic ‘concept’ – the belief that Egypt’s Sadat wouldn’t launch a war against Israel unless his minimum requirements were fulfilled. Without long-range attack aircraft and long range Scud missiles, Israel was made to believe, Egypt could not overcome Israeli air superiority and would not launch a war.

The reports that Marwan provided to Israel contained precious information that, although accurate, systematically contributed to Israel’s misconceptions about Egypt’s aspirations, plans and capabilities.

In April 1973, Marwan persuaded the Mossad that Egypt planned an attack on Israel in mid-May. As a result, Israel raised its military to red alert, but that May war never happened. In late September, Marwan once again convinced the Mossad of an Egyptian plan for an attack, but this time the Mossad had lost its credibility and until the last minute, the IDF military chiefs treated Marwan’s information with suspicion. They basically ignored him.

A few hours before it began, Marwan provided the Mossad with a final warning that a war was about to launch. Late on the 5th of October 1973, Tzvi Zamir, the head of the Mossad, met Marwan in London and learned that a war would start the following day at 6pm. The war did indeed start the next day, four hours earlier than predicted. The 1973 war is considered by Israel to be its most humiliating and scandalous military blunder. Israel was totally unprepared. IDF battalions on the frontline were exposed to a full-on Egyptian and Syrian assault. They were wiped out within hours. Some rightly argue that it is only because the Egyptian and Syrian armies had limited plans in terms of territorial gains that Israel survived this war militarily and exists to this day. Most Israeli military commentators agree that it was not the IDF generals who saved the country but the foot soldiers on the ground who fought heroically with their backs to the wall.

General Eli Zeira, then Director of Israeli military intelligence is regarded as a major contributor to the 1973 military blunder. Zeira claims that it was Marwan’s earlier misleading information that led to Israel’s ‘misconception’ of Egypt’s true intentions. Zeira argues that Marwan was a ‘double agent’ or more rightly, a skilful Egyptian spymaster, who brilliantly managed to deceive the Israelis into a delusional ‘misconception’ of the conflict. Those who believe that Marwan was assassinated by the Mossad tend to accept General Zeira’s opinion.

Kyiv 2022

For months and months America, Britain and NATO warned the Ukrainians that Russia was planning a war. The Americans in particular have made it clear that they were privy to information, that although it couldn’t be shared with the general public, indicated that Putin was planning an imminent attack. Naturally, not many people bought into these repeated American warnings: by now American and British intelligence have been involved in too many blunders and spectacular lies (among them phantasmic WMD in Iraq and chemical attacks in Syria) that no one, including the Ukrainians, has taken these military institutions seriously. It was also evident that, even more than Ukraine or Russia wanted or needed a military conflict, it was Washington and London that desired one. Ukraine has become an energy hub following the discovery of large reserves of gas and oil within its territory. The West saw it as an alternative to Russia as the major gas supplier to Europe.

As happened with Marwan in 1973, someone ‘helped’ the Pentagon to build a ‘concept’ of an ‘imaginary Russian campaign.’ In American’s delusional war plan, Putin would capture Ukraine’s Russian speaking regions in the East and might also attempt to seize some ground in the south to create a land passage to Crimea. This war would have come to an end within a short time as its military objectives were limited. Ukraine would accept the Russian territorial gains as it would allow Ukraine to rid itself of its most problematic and contested regions. Russia would be condemned but, in this scenario, when peace prevails, Ukraine would be able to join the EU and maybe even NATO and most important, become Europe’s prime energy supplier.

This ‘concept’ of a war may well have been induced by a Putin / Marwan figure. It misled the Americans and the Brits to build a completely wrong strategic and geopolitical vision. The Ukrainian military was foolish enough to follow the Pentagon’s intelligence scenario and deployed its elite units to the East. Those units prepared themselves for an express war on some disputed but defined territories. But that wasn’t the war that happened. Instead what transpired was tragic for Ukraine and its military. Just before the 24 February Russian invasion, it became clear that Russia had extended its military drills to Belarus. Days later, Russia launched its military campaign. Russia’s main effort was launched from Belarus and it was aimed at the Ukrainian capital Kyiv not the Eastern regions as predicted. In a simple move, the Russian Army basically managed to cut off most of the Ukrainian Army far from the capital and with no supply routes or logistical support from the West.

By attacking Ukraine from Belarus, the Russians copied Hitler’s Belgium manoeuvre. In 1940 the French waited for the German Panzers on the vastly fortified Maginot Line. But the Germans bypassed the Maginot Line and went into France through Belgium and headed straight to France’s soft belly and Paris. That left the French military stranded at the Maginot line and exposed from the rear as the enemy was then behind them. It would have helped if American, British and Ukrainian generals had spent some time learning military history or even watching some relevant Youtube history channel documentaries.

Putin is not a military general. He is a modernist leader, a trained spymaster and strategist who understands that war is a continuation of politics by other means (Clausewitz). Accordingly, if we want to grasp Putin’s motives we should refrain from trying to assess Russia’s military campaign in terms of ‘strict military objectives.’ We should instead look at the military campaign as a political instrument that is set to mobilize a global and regional geopolitical shift and on a mammoth scale.

It is clear that Putin’s army is doing its best to avoid civilian casualties. It uses siege tactics as opposed to the barbarian American ‘Shock and Awe’ doctrine. Furthermore, the Russian military works hard not to dismantle the Ukrainian military. Instead it encircles cities and is cutting out the Ukrainian army in the East and South of the country. The Russian military has dismantled Ukraine’s ability to regroup, let alone counter attack. Western military analysts have agreed that clear evidence of the Ukrainian army’s growing disability is that Ukraine’s army didn’t manage to seriously damage the 60 km Russian convoy on its way to Kyiv despite the fact that the convoy stood still for more than 10 days. In the last 24 hours, Russia has made it clear to the West that any Western military supply to Ukraine will be treated as a legitimate military target. In other words, the elite Ukrainian army in the East is now a defunct military force; it can defend the cities, it can mount guerrilla attacks on stretched Russian military logistics but it cannot regroup into a fighting force that can alter the battleground.

Putin’s army, as military experts agree, enjoys massive firepower. It is hardly a secret that Russia’s artillery is a deadly force and there is no force that can match it anywhere in the world. The military rationale for this is plain. The USSR never trusted the quality and the loyalty of its foot soldiers. While it counted on the soldiers’ mass impact, their sheer numbers, it also invented the means, the technology, the tactics and the doctrine to win the battle from afar in preparation for the masses to move in. It was Red artillery that knocked down the 3rd Reich Army. Similarly, flattening enemy cities is something the USSR and modern Russia are famous for. Russia enjoys this power, but it has refrained, so far, from deploying this ability in Ukraine. Russia has displayed this capability rather than deploying it. According to military analysts, Russia hasn’t even begun to utilize its superior air power other than assuring its total air superiority over Ukraine.

The Russian army’s tactic has been to mount pressure on cities’ outskirts, demonstrating Russian military might and then opening corridors for humanitarian convoys. And this is the trick. Russia is creating a flood of refugees to the west. Due to the Ukrainian government ban on men 18-60 leaving the country, we are talking about women and children. So far there are about 2.5 million Ukrainian refugees but this number could increase dramatically. And the question follows: will Germany be happy to accept another million refugees that aren’t a working force? What about France and Britain, the USA, Canada, all those countries that pushed Zalansky and Ukraine into a war but were quick to leave the Ukrainian people to their fate?

Sooner or later, Putin believes, Europe will accept his entire list of demands and will lift the list of sanctions, and may even compensate him for his losses on oil sales all in a desperate attempt to stop the tsunami of Ukrainian refugees. By the time the guns cool down, many Ukrainians may actually prefer to stay in Germany, France, Britain and Poland. This will lead, at least in Putin’s mind, to a demographic shift in the ethnic balance in favor of the Russian ethnic groups in Ukraine. Within the context of such a shift, Putin will be able to dominate the situation in his neighbour state by political and even democratic means.

Putin’s plan is not new. It already succeeded in Syria.

When the West realised that Syria was on foot to Europe, it was very quick to allow Putin to win the battle for Assad at the expense of America’s hegemony in the Middle East. Putin now deploys basically the same tactics. He may be cruel or even barbarian but stupid or irrational he isn’t.

The main question is how is it possible that our Western political and media elite are clueless about Putin and Russia’s moves? How is it possible that not one Western military analyst can connect the dots and see through the fog of this horrid war? The reason is obvious: no gifted people see a potential career in military or public service these days. Gifted people prefer the corporate world, banks, high tech, data and media giants. The result is that Western generals and intelligence experts are not very gifted. The situation of our Western political class is even more depressing. Not only are our politicians those who weren’t gifted enough to join the corporate route, they are also uniquely unethical. They are there to fulfil the most sinister plans of their globalist masters and they do it all at our expense.

I have little doubt that an experienced politician like Angela Merkel wouldn’t have let the Ukraine situation escalate into a global disaster. She, like Putin, was properly trained for her job, understanding the deep distinction between strategy and tactics. She, like Putin, was trained to think five steps ahead. As far as I can tell there is no one in the West who understands Putin, who can read his mind. Instead they attribute to the Russian leader psychotic characteristics in a desperate attempt to hide the depth of the hopeless and tragic situation the West inflicted on itself and on Ukraine in particular.

Meanwhile Putin is taking the most spectacular measures to protect his life and his regime. We in the west find it ‘laughable,’ but Putin knows very well that the only way the West can deal with its own incapacity is to eliminate him and his regime one way or another.

There is a growing debate in the USA about Critical Race Theory (CRT). Peculiarly enough, CRT’s opponents insist that the ‘Marxist’ discourse must be uprooted from American culture and the education system. I am puzzled by it, as I cannot think of anything more removed from Marx’s thinking than CRT.

Marx offered an economic analysis based on class division. For Marx, those at the bottom of the class stratum were destined to unite regardless of their race, gender, or sexual orientation. Marx as such was race-blind. However, his vision was unifying as far as at least the working class are concerned. But Critical Race Theory aims in the complete opposite direction. CRT’s advocates believe that people are and should be defined politically by their biology: by their skin colour, often by their gender and/or sexual orientation. CRT attempts to fight racism, not by eliminating it but actually elevating biological determinism into a constant battleground.

Critical race theorists aren’t too original on that biological determinist front. Already in the late 19th century, Zionism called the Jews to identify politically with their biology. Hitler’s call for the Aryan people to do the same happened about two decades later. Ironically, even the so-called Jewish ‘anti’ racists within the ‘Jews only’ anti-Zionist political cells (such as JVP, JVL, IJAN) follow the exact Zionist and Hitlerian agenda. They also insist on identifying politically and ideologically as ‘a race.’*

One may wonder at this stage why people within the conservative right refer to CRT as ‘Marxist’ despite it having nothing to do with Marx and having much to do (ideologically) with Zionism and Hitlerian biologism. One option is that people within the American Right believe that the reference to Marx communicates well with their supporting crowd. Another slightly less genuine option is that Marx is a code name for a ‘subversive Jew-related discourse.’ The American conservative universe is largely inspired by Israeli nationalism, however it is disgusted by Soros-type cosmopolitan interventionism. The American Right may be using codified language to tackle its own paralysis. It clearly struggles to call a spade a spade.

Considering the above it is fascinating to examine the Jewish American take on the CRT debate.

Last month Jewish Historian Henry Abramson used the Jewish Telegraphic Agency platform to inform us that “anyone teaching the past by skipping over the unpleasant parts isn’t teaching history. They are engaged in propaganda.” This firm statement took me by surprise. Like Abramson I oppose all forms of memory laws that restrict the free historical discussion. Yet, Jewish institutions are invested heavily in policing the historical debate. They often castigate as Holocaust Deniers everyone who dares to question the primacy of Jewish suffering or even offer a slightly unorthodox vision of WWII. The Jewish intellectual tradition isn’t famous for its list of historical texts either, quite the opposite. There is a complete lack of Judaic historical texts in between Flavius Josephus (AD37-AD100) and Heinrich Graetz (1817-1891). The rabbinical universe has tended to skip the historical tradition because the Talmud and Torah are there to determine the manner in which Jews react to the universe around them. Israeli historian Shlomo Sand has pointed out that the Jews and Zionists in particular largely invent their past to fit with their political, existential, and spiritual interests. Maybe it shouldn’t be down to Jewish institutions to preach how to discuss the past.

Abramson is upset by the fact that in “nearly two dozen states, the movement to impose restrictions on the teaching of history is gaining momentum.” Abramson is also upset by the new Polish memory law and Putin dictating a vision of the Holodomor. Maybe before I delve into Abramson’s concern, I should mention that using Google search, I didn’t manage to find any opposition made by Abramson to the Israeli Nakba Law that similarly restricts the discussion on the Israeli 1948 ethnic cleansing crime.

Abramson claims that opponents of CRT attempt to avoid the discussion over the “controversial and painful moments in America’s history.” I am not sure that this is the case. I am not sure that America can or even intends to deny its problematic abusive past, but I do know that every black academic who attempted to discuss the role of Jews in the African slave trade has witnessed hell breaking loose. I highly recommend Abramson and everyone else read Prof. Tony Martin’s spectacular The Jewish Onslaught , a reportage of an orchestrated and abusive Jewish institutional campaign against a Black scholar who didn’t follow the script and tried to examine what was the role of some Jews in the African Slave Trade.

For Abramson and others, CRT is a study of the impact of systemic racism. It is the adherence to the belief “that the legacy of slavery is baked into American society and culture to such a degree that African-Americans continue to suffer long-term, systemic economic harm.” It suggests that discussing reparations should be on the national agenda.

The truth of the matter is that many of those who oppose CRT would agree with Abramson that racism is alive and kicking in the USA. A few may even suggest using America’s aid to Israel as reparation for the black slavery’s offspring. Would the JTA, AIPAC or Abramson join such a call for overdue justice? I doubt it.

The JTA insists to give the impression that Jews and Blacks are both share a similar marginalized past. Abramson writes: “Blacks were, like Jews, forbidden to buy homes in newly developed suburbs, while white Americans received help from the government to purchase homes in these leafy neighborhoods and to build generational wealth.” Yet, there is one difference our Jewish ‘historian’ forgets to mention: Jews immigrated to America voluntarily. For them, America was a ‘Golden Medina’ (Golden Land), the true promised land of free opportunities and ultimate capitalism. Blacks, on the other hand, made their way to the ‘land of the free’ chained in salve ships. Jews came to America in their search for better life, they faced obstacles but prevailed, and are now amongst the most privileged ethnic groups in the USA, if not the most privileged. Blacks were brought over to be exploited as slave labour. They had a very different beginning in the USA. The attempt to compare between the two is intellectually dishonest to say the least, but it may come to serve a purpose.

A decade ago in a rare moment of honesty, Philip Weiss, the dominant contributor to the Jewish pro-Palestinian outlet Mondoweiss, admitted to me in an interview that it wasn’t altruism that motivated his pro-Palestinian stand. It was “Jewish self-interest.” I learned a lot from this encounter with the Jewish activist and since then I have been very suspicious of Jewish solidarity projects. I somehow always see the self-interest popping out at one stage or another.

Jewish institutions and individuals have been involved in most solidarity projects in the last century. They insist to save the working class, to universalize civil rights, to liberate women and gays, and of course the transsexual. The outcome has never been too good. Instead of marching society forward as a whole, we ended up with an amalgam of conflicts that practically resembles the Twelve Tribes of Israel.