Trump's Attempt to Secure Hormuz Backfires; Shipping Does A Runner!

Professor’s BLISTERING Takedown Of ABC’s Iran Claim Is A Must Watch!

Right, so ABC Australia’s flagship current-affairs programme, 7.30, invited Professor Mohammad Marandi on to discuss Iran, apparently under the impression he had never done a television interview before. Because this was either a spectacular insult to his intelligence or to ours. Possibly both. The woman interviewing him was Sarah Ferguson, the long-serving host of 7.30, with a reputation for combative interviews. She has built a career on pressing difficult guests, so this was not some nervous junior presenter accidentally getting out of their depth. And yet Ferguson opened as though Marandi would simply accept every Western premise placed in front of him, nod politely, and begin answering from inside their framing. Oh dear! Now, Marandi is hardly famous for sitting there quietly while presenters load the questions against him. ABC knew exactly who they had booked. They knew he challenges wording, rejects premises and turns questions back on the people asking them, especially if they are dishonest in their framing. So when Ferguson did what establishment media figures always do, he did exactly what anybody who had watched him before should have expected. Only this time he did it and then some.

Türkiye Hammers Netanyahu’s Syria Plans - There’s No Hiding From This!

Right, so Donald Trump has turned up in Ankara, Turkey and casually reopened a question Israel desperately wanted kept shut: Turkey getting back into the F-35 programme. At the same time, Turkey has helped Syria install a new radar at Damascus airport, which means the skies Israel has spent years treating like its own private bypass might not be quite so empty anymore, so perhaps those settlers who have been getting comfy on the wrong side of Israel’s undefined border might like to get back on the right side of it. And then Mark Rutte the apparent Secretary General of NATO, but better known right now as an echo for whatever dross seems to fall out of Little Donnie’s puckered punim ends up getting asked the fairly obvious question. If this growing clash between Israel and Turkey turns into an actual confrontation, what does NATO actually do? Now, you’d think that would be the easy bit. Turkey is in NATO. Article 5 is the famous one. Attack one, attack all. It’s practically printed on the mugs. Except Rutte doesn’t go there.

Trump Said He’d Hit Iran Hard - Iran Sent This Back IN PIECES!

Right, so Trump says America hit Iran “very hard”. NATO’s Mark Rutte, a man who sold out his last ounce of dignity along with his spine for a seat right next to Little Donnie says it was “absolutely necessary,” because of course of he did. US Central Command, CENTCOM, says it was all about protecting commercial shipping and innocent civilian mariners. And then because they tempted fate too much, the inevitable balls up happened. A fishing pier on fire. Fishermen reported dead. A railway bridge hit miles inland. American bases coming under fire in return, because Iran was never going to let that go. And then Iran releasing footage of one of now precious few American Reaper drones dropping out of the sky in bits. Safe. Controlled. Necessary. You can pick whichever US backed claim you like. The pictures don’t seem especially interested in playing ball. Now, before anybody tries to turn this into “Iran attacked shipping, so America had to respond”, let’s put the order of events back where it belongs. Washington started this war. The disruption in the Strait followed from that. Iran has struck vessels that deviated from the routes and instructions it had laid down – the Strait is their sovereign waters, they control the traffic - but that is not some clean, standalone justification America can point to while pretending everything began there. Every road leads back to the same place: the United States opened the conflict, widened it, all for Israel lest we forget, and is now using the consequences of its own escalation as permission for even more escalation. They started the confrontation, created the conditions, and now want credit for responding to them. That is not defence. It is an alibi written after the fact.

Trump's Attempt to Secure Hormuz Backfires; Shipping Does A Runner!

Right, so Donald Trump has managed to restart his Iran war using a photograph from the last one. He’s posted this to Truth Social That fire allegedly showing the latest attacks on the Iran’s coastal city of Chabahar? It’s from June of last year. Not this attack. Not this week. Not even this year. And while Trump was busy passing off last year’s flames as proof of this year’s brilliance, these were the actual images coming out of Chabahar. Fresh attacks. Fresh damage. Fresh consequences, because Iran have no more taken it on the chin this time around as they did the times before. Because then the tankers started turning around. Then Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar were dragged into the response. So, in the space of a few hours, Trump’s claims were caught out, shipping started going the wrong way, and his great display of restored control began spreading across the Gulf like somebody had kicked over a petrol can. The picture wasn’t fake, but the pitch was. And it only got worse from there.

Ireland Hits Israeli Settlers With A New Trade Ban; Then The Bigger Threat Emerges

Right, so Ireland has pushed a total ban on goods from Israel’s illegal settlements through the Dáil and on into the Seanad. And the amount of trade involved is about €200,000 a year. Two hundred grand. Now, to most normal people, that is still a lot of money. You’d notice if somebody removed €200,000 from your bank account. I certainly would if I had it to begin with. But in terms of international trade, this is loose change. It’s a couple of crates, some produce, a few bits and pieces from settlements in the occupied West Bank. And yet getting even this tiny measure through has taken eight years, multiple governments, legal warnings, American pressure and enough political shuffling to wear a groove in the floor of Leinster House. Which rather gives the game away. Because Israel’s problem here is not the €200,000. It is the fact that Ireland has built a barrier at all. Now, before anybody runs off with the wrong version of this, Ireland has not banned every Israeli product. This is not Irish customs charging through Tesco with a clipboard, hurling Israeli hummus into evidence bags and demanding to know where the avocados were on the night in question. There is therefore still work to do for those of us of a BDS persuasion, but bear in mind it has taken 8 years to get this far, at least they are moving in the right direction. This is a ban aimed at goods made in designated Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem. It is not operating at customs yet. The bill still has to finish its legislative journey through that upper house now and be formally brought into force, so a bit of awareness being raised about this still seems appropriate and yet it’s worth bearing in mind that this bill passed in the Dáil without ever needing a vote. Think about that.