Between the threats, accusations and strange decisions, it’s hard to keep up with it all.
On the same day that President Trump demanded ‘unconditional surrender’ from Tehran, Israeli tanks allegedly killed 51 Palestinians who were queuing for food/aid in Gaza.
Guess which story got more news coverage?
Maybe the killings in Gaza are just so commonplace that they barely even warrant discussion now.
Indeed while Israel is bombing Iranian sites, it has still also bombing in Lebanon and Syria.
The latest bombing in Syria was in fact very close to Damascus. But they need to bomb Russia if they’re still trying to get rid of Assad.
And of course the bombing in Gaza continues unabated, but gaining less attention.
Welcome to Benjamin Netanyahu‘s ‘New Middle East’, I suppose.
Meanwhile, even as President Trump was casually posting about letting Iran’s Supreme Leader live “for now”, Netanyahu and others were conveniently reiterating the claim that Iran was behind the assassination attempts on Trump last year.
These claims were most prominent in November, around the time of the 2024 election.
Does anyone believe that the Iranians tried to assassinate Trump? Maybe the same people who believed Saddam had sent the anthrax letters in 2001?
Well, the arrest of the Afghan national, Farhad Shakeri, late last year appears to be the main evidence. It’s certainly possible: though the information on the case is convoluted and Shakeri’s story isn’t necessarily the most convincing.
Clearly the assassination attempt is being used as additional justification for regime change in Tehran.
If the whole assassination thing rested entirely on the Shakeri case (two others were arrested as well, US nationals), I might accept it as face value. After all, it seems well established that Iran does have agents abroad to carry out these kinds of things, the same way Russia does or Israel does – especially the latter, which has Mossad agents all over the world.
The attack on Salman Rushdie a couple of years ago is an example, however, of Iran’s possible reach.
Here’s my problem with this Trump assassination claim, however. Firstly, Trump was actually mentioning Iranian involvement in trying to assassinate him as early as last summer. Which would imply he was suggesting Iran was involved in the July 13th Pennsylvania incident.
The ‘proven’ Iranian assassination plot wasn’t revealed until November.
Also, if Trump genuinely believed Iran had tried to kill him, there’s no way he would’ve been this quiet, this laid back, about it.
He would’ve been ranting and raving about it all year – and vowing vengeance. Instead, he’s mentioned it a few times in passing: and now it’s being conveniently focused on again in the lead-in to a potential US attack on Iran.
Additionally, had it been clearly known that a foreign country had tried to assassinate the US President, wouldn’t the FBI and other authorities in the US have made a much bigger deal of it? And wouldn’t retaliatory action have been taken immediately?
Also, whatever the truth is about the Shakeri case, the July 13th assassination incident was an obvious hoax, designed to empower Trump into a second presidency.
It was also a Jewish ritual to anoint Trump as High Priest: see here, particularly regarding the ritual of the bloodied right ear.
I’m not saying the Iran assassination allegation isn’t true. Just that it’s a little convenient for the ‘Iran tried to assassinate Trump’ thing to be brought up right now.
Kind of like how the killing of PC Yvonne Ridley was being brought up again when we were trying to justify military intervention in Libya in 2011. The murder of Yvonne Ridley in London was likely not done by Libyans at all, as I examined in The Libya Conspiracy book and also in this in-depth piece about the 7/7 London Bombings.
Given that Netanyahu and Trump have both now suggested the idea of assassinating Iran’s Supreme Leader, all would seem fair and square anyway. Not that the Ayatollahs deserve much sympathy: but then they were pretty much put there by the British and Americans in the first place.
Speaking of assassinations, Israel – on its first night of bombing in Iran – assassinated Iran’s chief negotiator for the nuclear talks.
Whether the talks between the US and Iran were ever anything more than a ruse to begin with is debatable. But assassinating the negotiator – and at a time when the US was still saying it was invested in the negotiations – is a next level of ruthless.
Note that the Israelis have also previously assassinated Hamas negotiators too – specifically at points in time where Hamas were actively in negotiations for hostage exchanges.
So, ‘no negotiations’ seems to be the rule in Tel Aviv: no Iranian deal and no Israeli hostages back from Gaza. Just bombing and destruction.
Just pushing on with the psychopathic, apocalyptic programme.
When was the last time anyone in the Israeli government even mentioned those hostages, by the way? The script has completely changed.
And it keeps changing – not by accident. A few weeks ago half the world, including Israeli allies, were talking about the genocide in Gaza and pressuring Tel Aviv to stop the war crimes.
Now, helpfully, everyone’s talking about Iran instead – and many of the same people who were (belatedly) condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza are instead championing Israel’s actions in Iran, portraying them as doing a great service for the West.
Conveniently for Trump too, no one’s talking about the Epstein thing. Or the embarrassing military parade last weekend. Or the manufactured bullshit in Los Angeles.
It’s great timing.
The fact again that some 51 Palestinians were killed while queuing for food in Gaza in one go and it barely made the news headlines is not a coincidence.
This narrative of Israel fighting the West’s war or fighting on behalf of the world is not new, by the way.
Netanyahu is using it now to frame the attacks in Iran: but he previously framed the War in Gaza exactly the same way, arguing that Israel was fighting Hamas for the sake of Western civilisation.
Even though Hamas has never expressed the slightest interest in international terrorism – nor ever had the capacity for such activity anyway.
But the amount of credence and platforming given to Netanyahu’s scripts remains extraordinary – particularly for a War Criminal with an outstanding warrant for his arrest (not to mention facing criminal proceedings in his own country).
Oh, wait – did I just mention international law? Sorry, I forgot we don’t do that anymore. How embarrassingly twentieth century of me.
