For those who crave more than just reading headlines in their social media feeds. Today's news talk, TNT. And welcome back to the Bennington show with me, Basel Valentine's, bringing in for Patrick today, Tuesday, the 6th of August. And I'm delighted to say I'm joined by Dr. Frank Romano live from Paris. Welcome to the program, Frank. Thanks for having me back, Basel. Now, I have been hoping that by this point, the 6th of August, I'd be talking to you from somewhere south of Cyprus, or even from Gaza itself, wouldn't that be wonderful with the freedom flotilla having been successfully delivered to relief just some of the suffering of the Palestinian people. But unfortunately, you're in Paris, the flotilla has yet to sail. I know it's an incredibly sensitive matter, and you don't want to say too much, but how come you've gone to Paris? And obviously that means departure isn't imminent. Well, Basel, you hit me at the right time because I can now reveal more information. I should be right. As you alluded to, I should be in a boat and should be going up and down with the waves, but so I'm shuttling back and forth from Paris because two weeks ago, we got the news that we are indefinitely blocked in Istanbul. And that's the latest, as you recall, about two months ago, due to the pressure from Israel United States, Guinea, Basel withdrew its flag. And without a flag of a country, we're stuck. We got the flags back, and two or three weeks ago, when I was talking with you, Basel, we were loading. They were loading up the boat, so we're getting ready to go. We have another port, so I can announce that. I can't announce exactly what port it was that won't receive us from that port. Then we will go to Gaza with 5,500 tons of food, water, and medicine. And then we got the notice two weeks ago that we are blocked definitively because now the Turkish government won't let us go. The Turkish government has submitted to pressure from Israel and the United States, probably economic threats and others, to stop us in our tracks. And we have no idea when we're going to go to Gaza now. I mean, there was all that talk a few days ago from Erdogan about invading Israel after the latest round of atrocities, after this assassination of Ismail Hani. To use an old-fashioned English phrase, it seems that Erdogan is all mouth and trousers, Frank. Well, let's recall what a little over a week ago, he said, "We are going to intervene in Israel, implying a military intervention and then lamenting over the famine." And now it's been documented that there's malnutrition and over 50% of Gaza out of one corner of his mouth, he's declaring that on the other corner. He is stopping us in a very hypocritical way from going to bringing Gazans just what they need. No, it's absolutely a bit more, Frank. I mean, the epitome of hypocrisy, and of course, your flotilla hasn't been getting the oxygen of publicity that it deserves. I mean, it's very difficult to find anything about it on international news websites, yet not only Turkey's hypocrisy, but also beyond hypocritical, the arguably worst stance of the United States who are the people putting pressure on the Turks on Israel's behalf. On the one hand, they're saying we have to get more aid into Gaza, but at the same time they're stopping it. I mean, it's just such a desperate reflection on the date of this planet, Frank. Yes, and Kamala Harris was very verbal in lamenting over the suffering of the children, in particular, in Gaza, and the need for a ceasefire, and yet she clearly has paid lip service to this and done nothing. We see no efforts on her part to try to pressure the American government to release its hold. It's to hold on the juggler of Turkey, Turkey being, of course, a member of NATO, and also to stop feeding this massacre through arms sales. We don't see any action, just a lot of talk. Well, you're not kidding. I mean, I don't think Benjamin Netanyahu pays any attention whatsoever to who is in the White House at the moment, worth remembering as well that he and his wife used to turn up for these visits with suitcases full of dirty laundry, actual physically dirty laundry. I'm not speaking just metaphorically about dealing with his own personal political situation. They turned up with their soiled clothes for the staff at the White House to watch. Did you know that, Frank? And the soil clothes epitomizes also the soil politics of Netanyahu and the true reality behind the intentional genocide we see just recently, Basel, that the Israeli agents have released 80 Palestinian bodies that are so decomposed that they cannot be recognized. Some of them, they say, are from the cemeteries that the Israeli military bulldozers have uncovered. The others are prisoners, they are saying, who were mistreated and tortured in prison. Talk about soil clothes, and we talk about possibility of a ceasefire when the intentional genocide is continuing by not allowing trucks into Babraffa, or the Rafa gate and the Karim Shalom gate is another way of saying they are using famine as a weapon that exacerbates the genocide, exacerbates the genocide, especially among children in Gaza. I think the dirty washing is symbolic of the contempt with Netanyahu and his cohorts ultimately hold the United States. They want all the money, all the weapons in it, all the adulation they can get. But there's no real interest in doing anything the United States says. The remote is pressure from anybody in Congress and that person finds themselves faced by a very well-funded APAC, you know, toe the line pro-Israel opponent. I mean, we've even had the ludicrous spectacle of Donald Trump calling Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, who was known as the Senate of a Tel Aviv and made it quite clear Israel is his priority. Trump has gone so far as to say that Schumer has become a Palestinian because of his milk toast criticism of the Israeli regime. I mean, we really are through the looking glass here, Frank. All the usual sort of boundaries and definitions, parameters that we had to deal with the conflict in the 20th century and even the first few years of this century have completely gone out of the window as has international law. Exactly. And speaking of international law, Netanyahu does not even seem to recognize to be affected by any of the decisions by the international court of justice, nor the international criminal court, as we see, we're now pending arrest warrants against him and gallant, which is leveraged because if he gets that arrest warrant, which is impending, he could never leave Israel without being worried about interpol or police of one of the member countries, which are many member countries of the international criminal court, will pick him up, take him to the egg, and try him for war crimes. That's the only leverage, but I don't even think he's concerned about it because United States doesn't hesitate to say, this court's not legitimate. This court doesn't have jurisdiction, even though the court itself, which is the ICC, the highest international court, the criminal court in the world, has said, Palestine's the state, we have jurisdiction, and so does the ICJ, they seem like they're snubbing the international court and law and continue to work with impunity. And as you say, all the principles are out the window, and the United States government is counting on the uncultivated American public to be easily manipulated even for these elections. And that's another issue we could talk about. Here's another worrying dimension of the story, Frank, you're now in France, but only the situation there is anything like as bad as it is in neighbour Germany, where a woman has been fined just a day for using the phrase from the river to the sea, "Palestine will be free." A 22-year-old woman has been fined by a court in Berlin for chanting that particular slogan days after the October 7 attacks, the Tiergarten District Court has handed a 600 euro fine for condoning a criminal act. Now, this is absolutely abysmal stuff, we knew Germany was in a terrible state, seems to have a fetish for genocide, you know, South West Africa, Second World War, and now this one. But this is absolutely extraordinary stuff, I had a heated discussion with a couple of designers on Sunday morning here on today's news talk where I pointed out that that phrase simply means the establishment of a single secular, one person, one vote, equal human rights, non-discriminatory state over the whole of historic Palestine to claim that it is condoning a criminal act. I mean, the Germans have got completely bent out of shape here, Frank. Absolutely, because from the river to the sea, if taken in all the intention of this phrase, it is just as you said, to free Palestine to allow for the Palestinians to create their state and to exist, whereas it's twisted, especially by the Zionist and now Germany and other countries to say, it means to eradicate the Jews, it means to erase the Jews and bring in the Palestinians, which is clearly not the intention of the phrase, but you see how things are twisted and how things are spun by the press to serve certain interests and bring hate and then justify the implementation of these laws, which address the issue of these Western countries that advocate freedom, democracy and freedom of speech, it's anathema to that whole principle of freedom of speech, for instance. No, I couldn't agree with you more, Frank, and I mean, I didn't only hope that she appeals that she has supporters that are willing to take the thing to the high court because we can't go down that road. Under any circumstances, not when there's a genocide going on now, just today, his Polish chief has known as well, has said that that group's response to Israel's attacks will be strong and effective, he was speaking to in an address marking, the one-week memorial of the group's top military commander, Fu'ed Shukur, who was killed on July the 30th in Beirut, southern suburbs, of course, his malhani was killed the same day. Iran has promised a very strong response to that, plans to teach Israel a lesson, and yet, of course, the United States is sending warships to the Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean. All the ingredients are there for a wider regional war. It seems that's what Israel wants. But the longer it goes on that we have this sort of uneasy pause, the more difficult it becomes for the Iranians to strike back without looking like they are the initiators of the Iranians. And we have to see things, Basil, I think, in his perspective. You can pretty much imagine Netanyahu, at least with the issues that you just revealed, on the sidelines, clapping, crazily clapping and saying, "This is exactly what I want," because the bottom line is he wants to maintain his power, and it also justifies him not even considering a ceasefire, because once he does, and even semi-approves it, he's going to be out of office, small, rich and bin Gevir have promised that they will remove themselves from government that happens. All this happening around Iran now saying, "We're going to respond to the Hanyi assassination," and then Hezbollah responding to its commander in Beirut, Mr. Shukr, from being assassinated it, they love it, because they're saying, "This is going to perpetuate war. People are distracted away from any ceasefire, and they're not going to be pressured to a ceasefire because now I can pull the security string and say, 'I am now going to defend Israel with all our might, and I'm going to stay,' and his most important interest, Basil, is simply to stay in power, I think. I think you may be right, Frank. Thanks so much for joining us today on today's news talk. Dr. Frank Romada, and we'll see you again very, very soon. Thank you, Basil. See you soon. Yeah, we're going to take a short break now, and when we come back, I'll be joined from Italy by Haikoku of the Workers' Party of Britain, the social commentator, and we're going to get into the high and poisonous weeds of the British riots. We'll be right back.
