The U.S. State Department did not hold a press briefing on Thursday, which is understandable, given the difficulty of keeping up with — much less justifying — the criminality of its ally Israel.
United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, peacekeeper on the “Blue Line” that demarcates the border between Lebanon and Israel in 2009. (UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe)
By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com.au
Listen to Tim Foley reading this article.
I used to be able to write individual articles about the individual bad things the U.S. empire is involved in around the world. These days I’m increasingly finding it necessary to cram a bunch of them into a single daily write-up to touch on as many of them as I can, just to stay on top of things.
On Tuesday, Israel arrested The Grayzone’s Jeremy Loffredo, an American journalist who had recently done some on the ground reporting on last week’s Iranian missile strikes in Israel.
[On Friday, The Grayzone reported that Loffredo is out of jail but unable to leave the country.]
Israeli news outlet Ynet reported that the charges against Loffredo included “aiding the enemy during wartime and providing information to the enemy,” which, as his fellow Grayzone reporter Kit Klarenberg notes, can be punished by the death penalty in Israel.
I have learned that the district court in Israel has ordered US journalist Jeremy Loffredo to be released from custody but has forbidden him from leaving the country for a period of time
Will update as soon as we know more about these terms#FreeJeremyLoffredo pic.twitter.com/2GqskzlDW4
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) October 11, 2024
In a statement, The Grayzone said that officially Israeli police were holding the reporter
“on suspicion of serious security offenses for publicly publishing… the locations of missile drops near or inside sensitive security facilities, with the aim of bringing this to the notice of the enemy and thereby assisting them in their future attacks.”
Loffredo’s report on the missile strikes features footage of explosions at the IDF’s Nevatim Airbase, as well as shots of the location where a missile landed near the headquarters of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. Imagine if an Iranian missile landed right next to the C.I.A. headquarters and the US said a reporter was forbidden on pain of death to report anything about this major news story, even for foreign journalists.
???Military arrested journalist Jeremy Loffredo @loffredojeremy ?
His last video posted on X reports the damage Iran did to Israel’s strategic locations. Damages the mainstream media did not report. Now @X has locked his acct from repost. pic.twitter.com/YKM2wzWDUi
— GenXGirl (@GenXGirl1994) October 9, 2024
Interestingly, the same things were reported on by other foreign news outlets without any arrests being made. As journalist Dan Cohen noted on Twitter, a report from Nick Schifrin of PBS News also featured footage of the blast site near Mossad headquarters, but Schifrin has not been arrested. Perhaps Loffredo is being singled out more because The Grayzone has been reporting on Israel’s lies and criminality than because of his work in this specific instance.
In other news, Axios reports that the U.S. and Israeli governments have moved closer to a consensus on Israel’s coming “major attack” on Iran, with the Biden administration accepting this enormous escalation despite fears that it will spark a large-scale war.
“The Biden administration accepts that Israel will soon launch a major attack on Iran, but it fears that strikes on certain targets could dramatically escalate the regional war,” writes Axios’ Barak Ravid.
A U.N. inquiry has accused Israel of “extermination” because of its systematic destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system via “relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities.”
“The report found that Israeli security forces have deliberately killed, detained and tortured medical personnel and targeted medical vehicles while tightening their siege on Gaza and restricting permits to leave the territory for medical treatment,” a U.N. press release reads.
“These actions constitute the war crimes of willful killing and mistreatment and of the destruction of protected civilian property and the crime against humanity of extermination.”
If past behavior is a reliable indicator, the U.S. will now dismiss these accusations, and Israel will promptly accuse the United Nations of anti-Semitism.
U.S. State Department Spokesperson Mathew Miller with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June 2023. (State Department/ Chuck Kennedy, Public domain)
Israeli forces repeatedly fired on U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon on Thursday, injuring two U.N. workers by causing them to fall from a tower that was struck. Israel has killed hundreds of U.N. humanitarian workers in Gaza over the past year, but extending these attacks to the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon is a significant new addition to the list of Israeli criminality.
Israeli airstrikes in a densely populated residential area of central Beirut have reportedly killed at least 22 people, injuring at least 117.
Israel killed at least 28 people in an airstrike on a school where civilians have been sheltering in Gaza, reportedly including many women and children as per usual. Al Jazeera reports that they’re having trouble identifying and counting the dead because the bodies are so unrecognizably shredded. Dozens more were killed elsewhere in Gaza over the last 24 hours.
In the last 24 hours Israel has:
– opened fire on UN peacekeeping forces in 3 bases
– killed 28 refugees in a school in Gaza
– killed 40 plus civilians in Central Beirutand Nelson Mandela's grandson has been banned from the UK for criticising Israel.
Dystopia is here now.
— Craig Murray (@CraigMurrayOrg) October 10, 2024
And then there’s the New York Times report we discussed this week adding to the mountains upon mountains of evidence that Israeli forces are routinely, deliberately shooting Palestinian children in the head throughout the Gaza Strip. There is too much evidence that this is happening for anyone to legitimately deny it at this point.
On Thursday, the U.S. State Department did not hold a press briefing, which is understandable. If I were in charge of justifying the behavior of the U.S. government and its allies, I wouldn’t want to face the press either.
Caitlin Johnstone’s work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following her on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, YouTube, or throwing some money into her tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy her books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff she publishes is to subscribe to the mailing list at her website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything she publishes. For more info on who she is, where she stands and what she’s trying to do with her platform, click here. All works are co-authored with her American husband Tim Foley.
This article is from CaitlinJohnstone.com.au and re-published with permission.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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This commenter dislikes commenting on2 articles in a row… But… I could not ignore that Caitlin’s article kinda Proves my contention: that ourvnational weapons vending policy seems to come to roost at home!
Is it really ironic that Caitlin & Vijay are both overseas journalists?
Tnx 2 CN we Americans have opportunity to read such content (also US writers tnx CN!)
I figure Caitlin’s grasp of reality is quite firm, especially as opposed to some who leave comments on this particular story.
Thanks CN
Why does israel and the US do all this and lie about it? Because they are the good guys, fighting the good fight.
It feels very much like Israel is our ENEMY!
I agree. That’s the way it looks to me too.
You know I have the distinct feeling that too many Americans are, “catching the fear”, as Hunter S. Thompson might phrase the condition of certain individuals who fail to resist authoritarianism.
A couple of things come to mind.
One being that I recently included the text of an email I sent to the senior Senator from Illinois.
I’m madder than a wet hornet and I really would like for folks to realize the fact, in my opinion, they should be also.
I have observed a steady decline in the function of our government since, yep you guessed it, Nov, 22 1963.
It is a hard fact this government of ours has been on a runaway train to Hell since 1950.
Next was the fact that I failed to generate any comments about the email I sent to my Senator.
I wasn’t surprised, Americans seem unwilling to realize the scope of the problems we are in for if we do not speak out against the constant drift of our government to the right. General Milley’s retirement speech seems to have went unnoticed by a vast majority of Americans.
Bob Woodward releases a new book and catches hell from the public for trying to make a living.
Look folks Gen. Milley is on record, he gave relatively short speech (around 6 minutes) about a year ago. His severe criticism of Trump for inferring that Milley should have or would have been shot in the past for his actions. Calling the orange turd a fascist in the process.
Crickets from the media at large. This not dogdamned acceptable.
Still this stinking albatross hangs from the neck of America.
We got issues kids, severe issues. Netanyahu gets away with murder, we her nothing of Ukraine lately, that news isn’t good folks.
We must remember that all those who where drafted or enlisted in the military services take an oath to serve and protect the Constitution.
As individual citizens, I was drafted and took that oath, we all must realize what will happen if that protection is lost.
We have to do better ourselves and demand better from our government.
Once again I will remind everyone of this quote from Samuel Clemens ” Patriotism is supporting our government when it deserves it and our government when it deserves it.”
To my government I say, cut off Israel and cut your loses in this very ill advised undertaking in Ukraine, an instance, which I have said from the very beginning should have been handled very differently.
Thanks CN
Robert, I agree (especially with line 6). After 9/11 I went down to my local library to compare the US Constitution to the Israeli Constitution…after all, weren’t we best buddies, allis forever, two rocks of democracy…and all that jazz? As I’ve found throughout my life, solving a problem usually involves forming an accurate question. So guess what? ISRAEL DOESN’T HAVE A CONSTITUTION! When I thought about it, I realized I shouldn’t have been too surprised….if our’s begins with the words: “We the People”…..what would their’s begin with?
Since then I have been connecting the dots. One by one they all began to add up to a single picture. The more I have investigated Israel and Zionism the clearer the image has become. First, the origins of the myth of Zionism…a myth that is both Jewish and Christian Fundamentalist. Then came the motive behind the Balfour Declaration and why it was delivered to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild (a British Banker who held a note for WWI)… and whom, by the way, composed the declaration by himself !
Then came the institutionalization of terrorism and assassination. Next, the institutionalization of stealth and secrecy. Followed by the institutionalization of bribery and blackmail.
Then came the derailment of the newly born UN to achieve nationhood above the objections of ALL the Arab States. Then the provocation of all the wars since then to expand their territory. Their attempt to sink the USS Liberty in 1967. Their secret importation of weapons. Their secret armament industry. Their secret development of an atomic bomb(s) to be fueled by weapons grade Uranium pilfered from a mock recycling plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania. An incredibly nefarious plan to steal up to 600 lbs of enriched Uranium under the very nose of NRC inspectors! This scheme would have been impossible under the guidelines of our 35th President….if he had been alive and alerted when it was detected.
So when the question came to me in 2002: “Could Israel have had a motive to assassinate JFK in 1963?”… I had no proof but plenty of dots. I also became aware that another investigator had arrived at the same question long before me. His book is “Final Judgement”(1994) by Michael Collins Piper…is a good source of dots…maybe you have some too?
I’m busy today. I intend to be back later today to address your comment in more detail.
For now though I highly recommend Roger J Mattson’s STEALING THE ATOMIC BOMB – HOW DENIAL AND DECEPTION ARMED ISRAEL
Mattson worked with USAEC technical staff and led a NRC task force that address the Apollo / NUMEC
affair.
Because of current political upheaval caused by the actions of and outlaw nation I must be careful not offend the sensibilities of some of the most deranged and uneducated among us if I expect to be successful in communication with others of my concerns, what I know for fact and what I believe has occurred.
The scope of the story we address here is enormous. However I feel it is so critical it must be told in full.
I’m getting pretty long in the tooth, old, ya know and have experienced a very horrid loss earlier this spring.
This allows me to be less weary, my son strongly supported my beliefs and values I don’t intend to let him, down, may he rest in peace.
I’ll be back.
Ynet’s article included the link to Loffredo’s report which undermined the accusation by police and helped convince the court to order Loffredo’s release; however security forces have his phone alarming to anyone who communicated with Loffredo. The Dissenter
Loffredo’s excellent report locates the 30′ x 50′ craters 1500′ from spy agency Mossad and in the Negev desert at the airport where the comical Wing of Zion is hangared, along with f35s.
“Israel’s government views the American people and free press as legitimate targets.” grayzone
The Dissenter opined that since (Thurs) another Grayzone reporter verbally body-slamed Miller for his BULLSHIT covering up GENOCIDE, that may have provoked Loffredo’s arrest.
Thanks again Caitlin – this is the kind of story our MSM should be reporting but they can’t because if they did, their AIPAC money would be cut off. I have an idea, why doesn’t AIPAC fund their own Genocide/Murder/Ethnic Cleansing, and then that will free the US government coffers to fund the people of the USA with our own tax dollars. Holy cow, what a concept, our tax dollars coming back to support We the People!
Those that support Zionist cause are hypocrites….or has their sense of morality just been inverted? The Western World has not seen this kind of reversed national morality since the days of Goebbels. Kamala and Trump are either hypocrites or moral less amoebas. Either way, why are we presented with such a feeble choice of humans to be the leader of our country? Why have “We the People” failed to demand more honest and upright moral leadership? Clearly, this dangerous condition has infected all of us. Our loss of morality stems from a confused belief in the justness of the Zionist cause. This belief has gotten inside the wire. It has infected our brains. It has been dissolving our country since 1948.
My guess is that if anyone would know, where the missiles landed, it would be Iran’s military. Afterall they hit all their targets, taking due care to avoid civilian targets. So why single out Jeremy Loffredo? exactly for the reason suggested by Caitlin, that is because Grayzone has been very effective in reporting the truth. In the meantime lets pray that Jeremy remains safe and is allowed return home as soon as possible.
It is now as dangerous to practice truthful journalism in Israel due to the fascist ZioNazis, as it is in Ukraine due to the fascist UkroNazis.
A traumatised Julian Assange may testify that the fascist AngloNazis are no better.
A common thread is worldwide financing / bribery / blackmail / propaganda by the fascist AshkeNazis, the Robert Maxwells and Jeffrey Epsteins and Miriam Adelsons and AIPACs of the world.
sorry, Caitlin, please get a firm grip on reality…not the criminality of its ally Israel….do not deviate blame to the executioner but blame fully the criminal in charge…Israel is just a proxy committing crimes ordered by the criminal USofA with impunity…while nations that could stand up against it all united do not have the guts or are too corrupt to stop the criminal USofA…
Great reporting by Jeremy Loffredo (linked in article).
The problem lies directly with this administration and the ass kissing useless congress. Nothing will change in November. The new administration in lockstep with our useless congress will just continue to ignore the American people as long as Israel continues to line their greedy pockets.
Mike in my opinion you make more sense than Konrad. Which, in this case doesn’t take that much effort.
Mike tell me the name of the party that last shut down Israels, blackmail driven payola. I will point out that in reality both parties share an equal blame.
Without making any distinction between the two by accusing only democratic administrations here I will remind you all the hogs in congress are lined up the same trough. And they have been since before the demise of JFK. All the hogs both red and blue.
Let us not forget the Zionists and NEOCONs who constantly fan the flames of hate and discontent right along with Christian Nationalist. Never forget these groups are largely of partisan individuals who still make up a relatively small group of the total American population.
The population of the U.S. as of 2022 is 333.3 million. The groups listed above make a relatively small amount of that number when totaled. The number of total votes in the 2020 Presidential election was 155,507,476. This number is approximately 2/3rds of eligible voters nationwide.
I do agree with your reference to Israelis being the source of lined pockets in congress. Israeli leaning voters are estimated to be around 11% of the total population. If the Israeli leaning voters were 11% of the total number of votes cast in this last election we might be able to determine something, but what I don’t know exactly, since the POTUS 2010 decision in the Citizens United – FEC ruling determined money is speech opened the flood gates
pouring unlimited moneys into campaign funding.
It is the defense industry, the MICCIMAT which burns enormous amounts of cash from the coffers of the U.S. Federal Revenue in an effort to convince the congress they never have enough cash. While Israeli interests whine and pine for more “Defense spending”.
I happen to have a very firm grip on reality and I’m sorry Konrad but you seem to me to have missed some very key points, same as a statistician who can draw a straight line from an unwarranted assumption to a foregone conclusion. Something I’m working to void here.
Additionally on May 8, JCPOA – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between the U.S. and Iran was cancelled by Trump, who pledged he could negotiate a better deal. Another claim he failed to make happen.
I would like to say and do often, you are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts.
Your attempt at projection of guilt here fails short of its goal because you fail to make a coherent argument.
The relationship between the U.S. and Israel does not defy description and this is not the time or place for me to
regurgitate the same factual arguments about the USAEC and one JJ Angleton who have blackmailed the U.S. with the treat of the Israelis going nuclear on their enemies for the last several decades. Thanks largely to their lobby and rampant greed in the congress.
Like with my opinion of trump, the democrats and the republicans, I refuse to give anyone who, in my opinion with all due respect, actually have not proved to me they know squat about the topic at hand.
You ever hear of the USS Liberty?
Thanks CN
State Department closed because — ???
“Everyone is sick of the bullshit.”
Liam Cosgrove, Grayzone reporter, to Matt Miller couple of days back.
hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er2AYtaALPM
Israel is clearly a murderous outlaw country. Moreover, they WANT the rest of the world to know this…possibly before they annihilate all of it with those carefully curated nuclear weapons they stole from their witless benefactor, the United States of America.
All practicing Muslims reportedly receive 72 virgins from Allah upon entry to paradise if they died in a conflict protecting Islam.
Even God himself cannot imagine what Bi Bi Netanyahoo expects in return for his behavior on behalf of Israel (or was it just himself?). No question but the guy has the chutzpa to try to bully even God.
This is exactly the type of activity that abounds when “We, the People’s” interests are ignored by sychophants who are running the the Stare Department.
I wonder, Kamala can you explain this to me? I mean this is ridiculous to point of being obscene.