Julian Assange
650 weeks of deprivation of liberty for telling the truth
650 weeks of deprivation of liberty for telling the truth
The detractors of anything that doesn’t come out of the official media matrix will no doubt immediately focus on the author of the article, certainly finding in him, in a form of Pavlovian reflex, some less than complimentary qualifiers to do, as usual, just one thing: stop the ability to think. However, for those who have the « courage », the interview with Thierry Meyssan that we reproduce here is of great interest, on several levels: the October 7 attack, which had been known to the Netanyahu government for at least a year; the division of Hamas into two branches, one Islamic and supported by the Israeli Prime Minister, the other having joined the Palestinian resistance; the origins of the Muslim Brotherhood and the support it receives from the West; finally, clear, factual statements on Trump’s policies and the future of the West.
Thierry Meyssan, who grants interviews to anyone who asks, without discrimination, explained to Monika Berchvok his analysis of the confrontation in Gaza.
Monika Berchvok: For you, the theory of a surprise attack on October 7 is hard to believe. What are the inconsistencies that make you think of a 9/11-style scenario?
Thierry Meyssan Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government had been alerted by a military intelligence report a year earlier, as reported in the New York Times. He didn’t react. When, this summer, his Defense Minister called him to order in the Council of Ministers, he dismissed him, as Haaretz revealed. However, under pressure from his party, he reinstated it shortly afterwards.
Subsequently, reports piled up on his desk. Among these was one from Intelligence, which he returned to its author as not very credible, and which was returned to him two other times with introductions from different officers.
Or two CIA reports. And yet another move by one of his personal friends, the director of Memri. And as if that wasn’t enough, a phone call from the Egyptian Minister of Intelligence.
Not only did the Prime Minister do nothing, he acted to make the attack easier: he took it upon himself to demobilize the border guards so that no one could intervene when the attack began.
In his Christmas message, the Holy Father twice described the war in Gaza as « unapologetic madness ». Shortly afterwards, however, he referred to the « odious attack of October 7 », meaning that he did not believe that the Israeli war was a response to that attack. He then called for a halt to the fighting and a resolution of the Palestinian question.
MB: So there’s a major rift within the Israeli government? What is the Netanyahu clan’s aim in this operation?
TM: In the months leading up to the Palestinian Resistance attack, Israel was the scene of a coup d’état. This country doesn’t have a constitution, but it does have fundamental laws. They regulate a balance of power by entrusting the judiciary with the ability to neutralize rivalries between the government and the Knesset.
At the instigation of the Law and Liberty Forum, financed by the US-Israeli straussian Elliott Abrams, the Knesset’s Law Committee, chaired by Simtcha Rothman, also chairman of the Law and Liberty Forum, has been unravelling Israel’s institutions. During the summer, the number of monster demonstrations multiplied. But nothing helped. The Netanyahu team has modified the rules for passing laws, eliminated the « reasonability » clause for judicial decisions, strengthened the Prime Minister’s power of appointment, and weakened the role of the ministries’ legal advisors. In the final analysis, the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty has become a mere regulation. Racism has become an opinion like any other. And the ultra-Orthodox were able to gorge themselves on subsidies and various privileges.
Israel today is not at all the same country it was six months ago.
MB: Israeli civil society is divided and seems to be out of breath. Do you think the Zionist model is dead?
TM: Zionism is an ideology from another century. Jewish nationalism in the service of the British Empire. For centuries, Jews were opposed to it, until Theodor Hertzl made it the ideal for some of them.
MB: The situation in Gaza is turning into ethnic cleansing. Is Tsahal capable of taking complete control of this territory and emptying it of its population?
TM: The idea of ethnic cleansing is not new. It is rooted in the positions of the Ukrainian Vladimir Jabotinsky, to whom, in Israel, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir and the Netanyahu family as well as, in the United States, Leo Strauss and Elliott Abrams claimed allegiance. This Jewish supremacist group claims that Palestine is « A land without a people, for a people without a land ». Under these conditions, indigenous Palestinians do not exist. They must leave or be massacred.
To my knowledge, this is the only group in the world today that publicly advocates genocide.
MB: On the Palestinian side, Hamas also seems to be divided between two antagonistic tendencies?
TM: Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Its name is an acronym for « Islamic Resistance Movement », which corresponds to the Arabic word for « zeal ». Its ideology has nothing to do with the liberation of Palestine, but with the establishment of a Caliphate. Its slogan is: « God is its goal, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: jihad is its path and death for the love of God is the highest of its wishes. » Since its creation, it has enjoyed the full support of the Natanyahu family, who saw in it an alternative to Yasser Arafat’s secular Fatah. The Prince of Wales, now Charles III, was one of the Brotherhood’s patrons. Barack Obama has placed a Brotherhood liaison officer on the US National Security Council. A Brotherhood leader was even received at the White House in June 2013.
However, in view of the failure of the Muslim Brotherhood during the so-called « Arab Spring », a faction of Hamas has distanced itself from the Brotherhood. So there is no longer one Hamas, but two. The historic Hamas is governed by Mahmoud Al-Zahar, Guide of the Brotherhood in Gaza. Under his command, the billionaire Khaled Mechaal in Qatar and Yahya Sinwar in Gaza. On the contrary, the branch of Hamas that has joined the Palestinian Resistance is headed by Khalil Hayya.
This division of Hamas is not covered by the Western media, but only by certain Arab media. In October 2022, President Bashar al-Assad reconciled with Khalil Hayya, whereas he refused to receive Khaled Mechaal. In his eyes, and in mine, the Prime Minister of Gaza, Ismail Haniyyeh, organized the attack on the Syrian Palestinian refugee town of Yarmouk in 2012. At the time, Hamas and al-Qaeda fighters had entered the city to eliminate the « enemies of God ». They were accompanied by Israeli Mossad officers and headed for the homes of PFLP cadres, whom they murdered. Among them, a friend of mine. A few days ago, President Bashar el-Assad made a speech against the historic Hamas and for those who have joined the Palestinian Resistance.
MB: What does genuine Palestinian resistance mean to you?
TM: The Palestinian Resistance has nothing to do with the obscurantism of the Muslim Brotherhood, nor with the opportunism of the Hamas billionaires. It’s a national liberation movement in the face of Jewish supremacist colonialism.
MB: Can you tell us more about the history of the Muslim Brotherhood? Is this secret society trying to get back into the game after its defeats in Syria and Egypt?
TM: The Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by Hassan el-Banna in Egypt. I devoted part of my last book to its international history. However, I haven’t been able to find out what support she received in her early days. After the Second World War, it became a tool of the British MI6 and soon of the American CIA. It has set up a « Secret Apparatus » which specializes in political assassinations in Egypt. An Egyptian Freemason, Sayyed Qutob, became his jihad theorist. The Brotherhood’s organization was copied from that of the United Grand Lodge of England. The Brotherhood expanded into Pakistan with Al-Banna’s son-in-law Saïd Ramadan, Tariq Ramadan’s father, and the philosopher Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi.
Later, Ramadan went to Munich to work for the CIA, at Radio Free Europe, alongside the Ukrainian Stepan Bandera, the great mass murderer of Jews.
The Brotherhood began its military action during the North Yemen War in the 1960s, against Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Arab nationalists. But it was with Zbigniew Brzezinski that it became an indispensable player in US strategy in Afghanistan. The latter brought General Zia-ul-Haq’s Brotherist dictatorship to power in Pakistan, and launched the fighters of billionaire Saudi Arabian Brotherist Osama bin Laden against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
During this period, Saudi Arabia used the Islamic World League to arm the Brotherhood with a budget larger than that devoted to its own national army.
The Brotherhood has tried, unsuccessfully, to seize power in several states, notably in Syria with the Hama operation. She was involved in the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where she created the Arab Legion. Osama bin Laden became President Alija Izetbegovic’s military advisor, with US straussian Richard Perle as diplomatic advisor and Frenchman Bernard-Henri Lévy as communications advisor.
But the Brotherhood’s great work only came with al-Qaeda and Daesh. These jihadist organizations, comparable in every way to the historical Hamas, have been used by the CIA and the Pentagon, mainly in Algeria, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Egypt and Tunisia, to destroy the resistance capabilities of Arab countries,
France, which had given sanctuary to their leaders during the Cold War, fought them with the alliance between François Mitterrand and Charles Pasqua. She realized that the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) was just a British maneuver to exclude her from the Maghreb.
Today, however, nobody understands that the Brotherhood is nothing more than a tool for manipulating the masses. Our leaders, from Emmanuel Macron to Jean-Luc Mélenchon, let themselves be fooled by his rhetoric, which they take at face value. They treat it as a religious organization, which it is not.
MB: Qatar’s role is more than a little murky. What’s his place in the conspiracy?
TM: At first, Qatar positioned itself as a neutral power, providing its good offices. But many have expressed concern that it houses the political wing of Hamas, that some are personal friends of the Emir and that it pays Hamas officials in Gaza.
Qatar replied that it was doing all this at the request of the United States, just as it had done for the Taliban.
In fact, after Abdel Fattah al-Sissi overthrew the dictatorship of Mohamed Morsi, at the request of the Egyptian people, 40 million of whom marched, he informed Saudi Arabia that the Brotherhood was preparing a coup against King Salman. Suddenly, the Brotherhood, which had been pampered for years, had become the enemy of the Kingdom. Qatar then publicly assumed its role as sponsor of Islamism, while Crown Prince MBS attempted to open up his country.
When Donald Trump delivered his counter-terrorism speech in Riyadh in 2017, Saudi Arabia warned Qatar to immediately cease relations with the Brotherhood and its militias, Al-Qaeda and Daesh. This was the Gulf crisis.
Things have become clearer in recent days: Emir Al-Thani has sent one of his ministers, Lolwah Al-Khater, to Tel Aviv. She took part in the Israeli war council to iron out difficulties in the hostage release agreement. But she failed to realize that the war cabinet included opponents of Benjamin Netanyahu’s dictatorship, including General Benny Gantz. She showed herself for what she is: not a neutral negotiator, but an authority capable of taking decisions on behalf of Hamas. That’s why, after the meeting, Joshua Zarka, Deputy Director General for Strategic Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, declared that Israel would « settle its accounts with Qatar » as soon as it had completed its role as mediator.
Within the war cabinet, Netanyahu’s opposition began to wonder whether all this, the coup this summer and the attack on October 7, was a staged operation by the Biden administration.
MB: The United States would therefore be in the driver’s seat. What would Biden’s strategy be in the region?
TM: Joe Biden isn’t all there. In the U.S., there’s even a weekly TV show about his health problems and intellectual absences. In its shadow, a small group has revived the strategy of George W. Bush and Barack Obama: to destroy all political structures in the « wider Middle East » except those of Israel.
This is what’s happening in Libya, Sudan and Gaza, and what we’re continuing to do in Yemen.
The Biden administration says it wants to stop the massacre in Gaza, but continues to deliver shells and bombs to keep it going. It claims to want to maintain freedom of movement in the Red Sea, but is forming an international coalition against Ansar Allah, which it wrongly describes as anti-Semitic and which it calls the « Houthis » (i.e. the « al-Houthis family gang »). Washington has just cancelled the signing of a peace treaty in Yemen, under the auspices of the United Nations. He revived a war that had already ended.
MB: In light of this chaos, what is Trump’s track record in Middle East geopolitics? Could his return offer another way out of this conflict?
TM: Donald Trump is a political UFO. It takes its cue from former President Andrew Jackson (1829–1837) and has no connection with Republican or Democratic ideologies. His first decision when he arrived at the White House was to deprive the CIA director of his seat on the National Security Council. This led to his first troubles and the forced resignation of General Mike Flynn.
Donald Trump wanted to solve international problems through trade, not guns. This may be seen as an illusory path, but he is the only US president who has never started a war. He abruptly interrupted Washington’s use of terrorist proxies, notably Al-Qaeda and Daesh. He questioned the role of NATO, a military alliance which aims, in the words of its first Secretary General, to « keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans under control ».
If he were in power, he would help the majority of Israeli citizens get rid of the « revisionist Zionists », i.e. Benjamin Netanyahu’s group; he would continue to implement the Abraham Accords and end Western support for the Muslim Brotherhood; he would help the majority of Ukrainians get rid of Volodymyr Zelensky and make peace with Russia. Etc.
However, Donald Trump is not yet elected, and the team currently in power is trying to force him to abandon his agenda in order to gain access to the White House.
MB: Is the West, embodied by the American-Zionist axis, ultimately doomed to die?
TM: You describe the group that is currently running the political West as « American-Zionist ». That’s one way of looking at it. But I don’t think it’s tied to any one state. These people happen to be in power in the United States and Israel, but they could be elsewhere. They happen to claim to be Jewish nationalists, but they’re not nationalists. These people are supremacists. They reject the equality of human beings, and consider the mass slaughter of human beings to be meaningless. For them, « You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs ».
It was this way of thinking that led to the Second World War and its gigantic massacres of civilians.
Today, many of the world’s leaders realize that they are no different from the Nazis and bring the same horrors. The Third World is now educated and a member of the United Nations. He can’t stand the power of these people. Russia aspires to re-establish the International Law that Tsar Nicholas II created with French Nobel Prize winner Léon Bourgeois at the Hague Conference in 1899. China aspires to Justice and will no longer tolerate « unequal treaties ».
It seems to me that this system of governance is already dead. At the United Nations, the annual resolution calling for an end to the blockade of Cuba was adopted by 197 States to 2 (the United States and Israel). The resolution calling for an immediate and lasting ceasefire in Gaza was adopted by 153 States, which is a little less, but the stakes are much higher. In any case, we can see that a majority is emerging against these people’s policies. When the dam breaks — and we’re close to that moment — the political West will collapse. We absolutely must get off this raft before it sinks.
