Today's news talk radio TNT. Back to the Patrick Hennigson show with me Basil Valentine today, Wednesday, the 7th of August. Now the last time I had my current guest on, our topic was the global and legal constitutional crisis. I've updated that now to are we on the brink of World War three, such is the situation internationally following the assassinations of Ismail Hanayi and the Hezbollah leader and to unpick this very complex global geopolitical situation. I'm delighted to say I'm joined on the line by Professor Emeritus Anthony Hall. Welcome to the program, Anthony. Hi, I'm delighted to be here. I mean, like I said in my preamble, two weeks ago, we thought the world was in crisis with the United States and obviously Israel ignoring the ICJ ruling on the West Bank and Gaza. The whole occupation, they've just reconfirmed, is illegal. The genocide continues since then, we've had two high profile assassinations and the threat of imminent and major retaliation by both Hezbollah and Iran. Now, in your remotest recent sub-step, you talk about Hezbollah because I for one, and I'm sure a lot of our viewers and listeners could do with some greater education about the organization and how they came to have such a powerful position in Lebanon. They're also well represented in the parliament, I believe, and the party of God, terrorists, about all the people in the West know about them. So do please enlighten us, Tony, given that the United States and even possibly Britain could well be at war with them within the next few days. Yes, I'm happy to talk about Hezbollah. And I did meet a number of Hezbollah folks in Lebanon when I was there in 2019 as a guest of the New Horizon Conference, an Iranian conference in Lebanon. And I realized as I was going to meet Hezbollah, how little we learn about Hezbollah. It's kind of almost banished from the media, maybe some reference to a terrorist group, just another terrorist group. Hezbollah is a very, very substantial organization, it's deep, I have a seven-hour video on my latest sub-step post, the funeral of Commander Thawood Sukra, who was assassinated in Hezbollah area in southern Beirut, and it was incredibly elaborate, this funeral, with a huge number of people taking part. And it obviously manifests a person of great importance to this major community in the Middle East, because Hezbollah is, you could call it, it has a military aspect to it, a very important military aspect to it, but it is a fully cultural group with social services and culture with a deep involvement in the government of Lebanon and many of the people in Hezbollah are Lebanese, they're Shiite Muslim, and they definitely go back to the inception of the Islamic Republic of Iran, they very quickly got together the founders of Hezbollah and the founders of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, of course, being the significant one, and they worked on how to create an organization that would stand up to Israel. And if it wasn't for Hezbollah, I don't think there would be a Lebanon right now. Hezbollah is the major bastion which prevents Israel from just coming and taking over Lebanon, which it tried to do, famously is the IDF experienced its first big public defeat in Lebanon in 2006, and so this Hezbollah group has developed one thing I know when I go to Iran, I see a great emphasis on missiles and specializing, it seems that is the whole specialty of the technocracy of Iran is in the realm of missiles. When I was in Lebanon meeting Hezbollah, I also met a group called the Houthis of Yemen, and they were attending the conference, and they were kind of very gregarious folks, very delightful folks, and of course, this development of a network that Iran has with Hezbollah, particularly with the Houthis who have really surprised the world with their interventions in the Red Sea of really changing the whole system of global transport by being aggressive with those powers or those companies involved with the powers that are supporting the assault, the genocidal assault in Gaza and also the West Bank. So this rise of a sort of Iranian approach to a system of power, this is very important. Now what was not true when I first went to Iran in 2014 was that there were good relations with Russia, but now the relations between Russia and Iran, and you know, so I'm addressing Iran now, but it's a big part of the who is Hezbollah and what is Hezbollah all about. So the Iranian position now is deeply involved with that of Russia, and I was thinking in preparing for this talk this morning, this morning here, that if it wasn't for Putin, Putin is still able to keep a cool head, and you know, where he might have plunged the world into nuclear holocaust, you know, several times now, the man is able to restrain himself and discipline his emotions and take time to step back and try to see the larger picture. So I noticed and I was pleased to notice that Putin, his people are conferring with Iran, and Putin is penciling that Iran be very careful not to go over a red line, to take an appropriate stand for the humiliation and the violations of killing Ishmael Hania in Tehran and all that implies, just hours afterwards, Qumanda Sukhra was hit in a southern district in Beirut, 74 people were killed, not killed, but injured, but three people were killed along with him. It was a kind of gory event, and so last week, you know, since we've talked, this assassination spree that Israel entitled itself to go on, you know, killing the main negotiator, like that's some negotiation when you're in a negotiation and your response to a negotiator across from you is to murder him, which is what has happened. So there is Russia, I think, counseling Iran, and you know, they have a great collaboration when it comes to armaments and instruments of war, and Iran has been helping Russia supply Russia, which needs a lot of materials for war with the aggressive Ukraine. Iran has been helping Russia, but now Russia, I think, is exporting some very high-tech missile technology to Iran, but at the same time, counseling, you know, keep this within a range, don't kill Israeli civilians, do this in a military way. And so it's very interesting to see how the region is really off-kilter now, everybody waiting for what is going to happen, everybody keeps saying, "Well, it's going to be tomorrow, it's going to be very, very soon," but it seems like some kind of major strategic moves are being made in terms of moving around hardware and software, moving around personnel, maybe. And anyway, it seems comforting to me that Putin and the supreme leader seem to be coming to some kind of understanding, and this would be obviously a protection from going into a huge regional war if Israel and the United States have to also consider that if they get too deeply into invading Iran, they're going to inflame Russia to come in, along with Russia is very closely China. And so Iran has, in recent years, moved very dramatically, diplomatically, to establish improved relations with Russia and China to be very instrumental in supplying China with energy resources which it needs. Iran, Russia, China are very closely connected to what we call the BRICS. The BRICS are, in my view, they're oriented towards the south of the world, but they are the former colonies. In 1945, there were 50 countries in the United Nations. Now there is 194 nations in the United Nations. And those three quarters of nations that have been added since 1945, those are former colonies of Great Britain, of France, of Belgium, and such. And so they used to call themselves the non-aligned movement. They didn't want to be captured by either the US Empire or the Soviet Empire, the socialist empire, the capitalist empire. They wanted to be non-aligned. So this non-aligned movement, and Iran was a very important part of that, have now reconfigured themselves, and they're known as BRICS, and they're increasingly representing a challenge to the predominant banking system. It seems that the US-Israel military establishment, it has a lot to do with intimidating people to adhere to the dominant financial structure based in the federal reserve in the United States and the Bank of England and the city of England and such, the idea of having an alternative system, a multilateral system, where sovereign countries can go about their business and not be subjected to this tyranny, to this effort to monopolize global financial transactions, which has been the case since World War II. Of course, BRICS is challenging all of that. So there is Putin right in the center of it, and I'm glad to see that sane mind prevailing in this context. Yes, the Iranian response has been long awaited, and the longer it goes on, the easier it becomes for the Israelis to portray Iran as initiating the violence. That's the problem, really, the longer the pause. Then once again, the Israelis have the opportunity to present themselves as victims. This heinous act serves only to escalate the existing tensions, potentially leading to a wider conflict that could involve the entire region. So said the Gambian Foreign Minister Mamadou Tangara, whose country currently chairs the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which has been meeting in Jeddah, 57 member states in that. But they never seem to do anything, Anthony, one of the reasons why people around the world, including in Western nations, are so frustrated, is because Saudi Arabia could turn off the oil to Israel. Egypt is quite capable of causing all sorts of problems. Erdogan, now he says that he might invade Israel on the one hand, but I heard from Dr. Frank Romano yesterday, who's been waiting with the Freedom Flotilla in Istanbul for several months to take aid to Gaza, much needed 5,000 tons, I believe, by no means a token gesture. They've been stuck in port because of pressure from the Israelis and the Americans to which era the one has caved in. So all these fine words and talk about regional escalation, we don't want the regional escalation, but the suffering of the Palestinian people goes on, and it seems Arab leaders just talk. Well, that is the case, and let's face it, the Arab world is largely connected to the imperial world and the era when Britain and France and such had a major say. And so the leadership in these countries, the Amirs and the Shakes and the people who were there with some kind of hereditary claim are often very out of step with the people, with the actual people. And you might have some excuse for elections here and there, but I think this whole situation has identified a serious situation. Netanyahu was able to play with this situation through the Abraham Accords and many of the Arabic leaders signed off and signed into closer relations with Israel to the astonishment and upsetting, upset of their own local people. And I noticed some of the Arab leaders are directing criticism at Iran because Iran tends to emphasize that why aren't the Arab countries living up to what their people want to do and their people are by and large, very protective and identify with the Palestinians. Actually, I think the whole colonized world identify with the Palestinians. Indeed, and I would count the British people amongst that. After all, we are subjects, not citizens, Tony, and as a citizen of Canada, you too are ultimately underneath the ground. Yes, this is really, we really have to take into account that we too in the West live in Zionist dominated colonies. And really, what we think is sort of irrelevant. The decisions are being made at places like Davos, and we're left out of it all together, and we can even be, you know, depopulated and subjected to all these weird experiments taking place in the name of public health and such. And so, you know, we can identify with the people we see in these Arab countries and say, well, we feel the same way. And so, this is, I think, one of the truly cosmic aspects of this Palestinian Gaza West Bank issue having such a spotlight on it, that it shows so clearly who's in charge, like who's in charge of American campuses. This billionaire class of Zionists can snap their finger and suddenly, oh, yeah, we'll give you control of the curriculum, we'll give you control of who could be hired and fired. So, there's academic freedom gone in, you know, our universities and in our research institutes. And science is just for sale. So, when the Woke group started to, a number of them, identify with the Palestinians as human beings who are being slaughtered and demean in a outrageous way, you know, it seems to me they ceased to be woke, and now they're barking up the right tree. So, we are in a kind of a situation where, you know, we've never really had a global revolution, we've had, you know, lots of talk about it in communist internationalism and such. But now, it seems that, you know, it's sort of up to us, we the people, to somehow inflict on our governments that you can't just act on our behalf when you're not acting on our behalf. And so, we're going to have to find a way to take you down or discipline you are, you know, that this is an underlying dynamic, which is, you know, to me, very, very promising, because we're living in intolerable conditions right now all over the world. We the people who are having this genocide pushed down a throne. Absolutely, governments point to this sort of thin veneer of so-called democracy in Britain. We had a recent general election and the governing party Labour have a thumping majority, they are effectively an elected dictatorship for the next five years. But I'd put the word elected in double quote marks because they got no more than a just about a third of the voting public supported them, and little more than half the public voted. So in other words, a maximum of one in six adults, and that doesn't include people who aren't even on the electoral roll. So less than one in six adults put an X in the box next to the Labour candidate's name, and yet they have can't belongs to do whatever they like on the international stage. And domestically, you know, democracy is supposed to mean a greater consensus, surely that there is more to democracy if it's to mean anything than simply an entirely inadequate plebiscite once every five years. You only have to look at the United States to see how hopelessly compromised their democracy is by money, much a bit, of course, coming from the distorting hand of APAC Tony. Yes, and of course, whether you're Republican or Democrat or with Robert F. Kennedy, it's Zionists who are in control, the Zionists control, you know, all the parties, all the major parties. So there's really no debate in our legislatures, Congress's parliaments, and there's no debate in media, and there's very little debate in universities. When I see what's going on in Britain, I'm wondering, is this some kind of version of a colour revolution? It's very clearly the starmer government wants to do a police state type of action. So they need the justification to do it. When I saw Tommy Robinson involved at the beginning, I said, aha, you know, there is a real shill sold out to Zionists. Yeah, you have the English Defense League and all this discussion about immigration, but along comes Tommy Robinson, and it all becomes about hating Muslims and being anti-Muslim, which suits the Zionist agenda just fine. And so is it really all these people are motivated to do what they do and rise up throughout Britain, or are the usual suspects somewhere handing out money behind the scenes? Certainly Tommy Robinson, you know, we saw an equivalent of that in Canada, where a Christian Zionist leader, Pavlowski, Arthur Pavlowski took control of the whole coronavirus sort of freedom movement on behalf of Christian Zionism and rebel news. So this issue of, well, democracy means you get to choose what variety of Zionists you want, but that's the end of it. And it's difficult to talk about. It's really dangerous to talk about. So we see, you know, Bannon arguing and whatnot, but he doesn't talk about the fact that, you know, Trump is as equally under the Zionist shoe as Biden and Camilla and Waltz. Yeah, no, absolutely Trump, of course, very close to the late Sheldon Adelson. And now to his widow. And Adelson has accepted the money. You know, Trump has accepted the 100,000, the 100 million to sell out the West Bank to now where does Trump get the power to charge 100 million for the West Bank? I mean, it was kind of weird when the British government was selling Palestine to the Zionists back in the day. You know, where does how is it that Trump gets to sell off the, you know, the different agencies in Palestine? What are the, what are the heights, you know, where the the Druze soccer kids? What are those heights called? Gulen Heights. Gulen Heights, yeah. I mean, he, you know, they made a deal for the Gulen Heights. Again, with Trump involved. So he's already filled up his pockets with the money to sell the West Bank. Obviously, an in total contradiction of international law, Nicholas so is the grandson of the late Winston Churchill, made a speech after the ICJ ruling, saying, look, we either apply international law equally and fairly, however, difficult, however, uncomfortable it may be. And he was referring to the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank or these institutions, which we created after the Second World War are dead, stone dead, and we are in the law of the jungle. Now, I would venture to suggest we've been in the war law of the jungle probably for 62 years since the assassination of John Kennedy. Would you be inclined to agree, Tony? Absolutely, I would agree. And what about Winston Churchill, who was financing him? I mean, he had strong Zionist ties through the instrument of money. We could have seen a different tee or replay of this.
