# “If We Have To Kill People” TERRIFYING Leaked Audio EXPOSES Israeli Interference in Latin America

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1c7gZbuTeI

[00:00] This week on Double Down News Watch, a shocking story of American and Israeli political meddling in Latin America.
[00:07] If we have to kill people, you can rest assured we will do it.
[00:12] New audio recordings appear to reveal a former president of Honduras, in jail in the US for drug trafficking, was freed by Donald Trump as a result of payments by Israeli-aligned groups.
[00:23] The Israeli Prime Minister is going to back us.
[00:26] We're very grateful to him.
[00:28] The pardon money didn't even come from you.
[00:30] It came from a council of rabbis, from people who back Israel.
[00:34] The Labour Together spying scandal spreads to the heart of the Labour Party and may now implicate the Prime Minister.
[00:40] I can't conceive a situation where at the very least Starmer hasn't been told about it verbally.
[00:45] This would be at the absolute top levels of the Labour Party.
[00:48] And we do a deep dive into the Iranian group supposedly behind recent arson attacks on Jewish sites in London.
[00:55] It's also possible that it's complete nonsense, that Iran was not behind this
[01:00] at all.
[01:00] It's really murky.
[01:02] I mean, that's the reality.
[01:05] We speak to a former undercover agent [music] for the FBI.
[01:07] It seems more fictitious, not fictional, but fictitious.
[01:13] [music] We know who the fear narrative originates from.
[01:16] I'm Richard Sanders and this is your weekly look at the world through independent eyes.
[01:26] On April the 30th, anonymous Honduran journalists working with the Spanish TV station Canal Red began releasing 37 audio recordings of voice notes and telephone conversations between senior Honduran politicians.
[01:39] They revealed an extraordinary story of American and Israeli interference in the country's internal affairs.
[01:47] A story which has been almost entirely ignored by English-speaking media.
[01:49] The tapes feature the country's president Nasry Asfura and former president Juan Orlando Hernández, who was imprisoned in the United States for drug trafficking and
[02:00] then controversially pardoned by President Trump just before last November's elections in Honduras, which were marred by allegations of corruption.
[02:11] Both Asfura and Hernández belong to the right-wing National Party.
[02:13] Shortly before the election, President Trump issued a blunt warning to Honduran voters to vote for the National Party or face a cutoff of aid.
[02:23] As the votes were counted, with the results on a knife's edge, Trump warned there would be hell to pay if the left-wing Liberal Party emerged triumphant.
[02:30] Asfura duly won.
[02:34] The tapes appear to show that the release of former President Hernández from prison in the US was the result of a financial transaction and was facilitated by Israeli interests.
[02:46] The Israeli Prime Minister is going to back us.
[02:48] We're very grateful to him.
[02:51] They had a lot to do with it.
[02:53] In fact, they had everything to do with my release and my negotiation.
[02:58] The pardon money didn't even come from you.
[03:00] It came from a council of rabbis, from people
[03:02] who back Israel.
[03:05] The recordings reveal a plot to reinstall Hernández as president after Asfura has served his four-year term and to turn Honduras into a hub of American and Israeli interests in the region.
[03:17] Hernández denies it's his voice on the recordings.
[03:19] President Asfura has not yet made a formal public statement.
[03:25] Canal Red says it authenticated the tapes.
[03:27] Airshot, an independent sonic investigation company, has examined them and concluded they're likely to be genuine, though the poor quality of the recordings means this evaluation was made with what it calls a moderate degree of confidence.
[03:40] I spoke to one of the journalists behind the story, Valeria Duarte, from Canal Red.
[03:48] Her words are translated from Spanish.
[03:52] First, I'd like to what interest does Israel have in a small Central American country like Honduras?
[03:58] Well, the Israel factor in the Honduras Gate
[04:02] expose has been one of the things that has caught our attention the most.
[04:07] Because Latin America does have a history of political interference by the United States.
[04:11] But what has raised alarm bells is what interest Israel has in a country like Honduras.
[04:19] And not just Honduras, but in Latin America and the Caribbean.
[04:23] Listen to what they say regarding Israel's interest.
[04:27] They describe it in terms of artificial intelligence.
[04:29] In this case, special economic zones where Honduras cedes sovereignty so they can be artificial intelligence investment.
[04:39] So we are talking about a network of money that seeks to implement these zones that are protected, or rather unprotected, by legislation.
[04:49] So they can operate in Latin America and the Caribbean.
[04:51] So what the Honduras Gate expose revealed are precisely these economic and military interests.
[05:02] The recordings appear to show that the
[05:03] release of Juan Orlando Hernandez from prison was the result of financial arrangement.
[05:07] Is that right?
[05:12] Yes, exactly.
[05:14] What Juan Orlando Hernandez says is that the pardon was paid for by people from Israel.
[05:19] He says the pardon was paid for by them, not even by you, he tells current president Nasry Asfura.
[05:27] But we don't know for sure it was the government of Israel.
[05:29] Is that right?
[05:32] No, the audio clips say the Israelis are the ones who paid for this, and we have to thank Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for everything.
[05:40] The audio says that explicitly.
[05:43] Juan Orlando says the one who has been in charge of all of this has been Benjamin Netanyahu.
[05:49] Okay.
[05:49] Do we know who or what organization received the money?
[05:56] No, we don't have information on that.
[05:57] The audio clips don't reveal this type of information.
[06:04] What's the interest of President Trump in having a friendly government in Honduras?
[06:07] In particular, in having Juan Orlando Hernandez as president in 4 years time?
[06:16] Well, for Donald Trump, Juan Orlando Hernandez is a bargaining chip to have control over Honduras.
[06:21] Absolute control over the country.
[06:26] When we talk about absolute control, we are talking about economic and military force.
[06:30] Because in the audio clips of Nasralla Facussé, the current president of Honduras, speaking to Juan Orlando Hernandez, he says,
[06:42] "We have already spoken with the ambassadors."
[06:43] We have already spoken with those we had contact with before.
[06:45] And in these negotiations, we had agreed.
[06:52] Among the special economic zones that operate outside of Honduran law is the construction of military bases.
[06:57] They say they are going to build a military base that will be larger than the one they already have.
[07:00] And note that
[07:05] The American military base located in Honduras is the largest in the region.
[07:12] In the geopolitical war of influence between the US and China, whatever we call it, they explain how they will no longer have any relationship with China.
[07:23] This aligns exactly with the US security doctrine.
[07:31] This is a scandal that extends throughout Latin America.
[07:34] In the recordings, they talk about creating a secret information unit to attack other governments in Latin America.
[07:45] I'm going to play you a couple of clips of Juan Orlando Hernandez.
[07:50] It's necessary for me to have these funds because we are going to open an office here with the help of some Republicans to be able to attack and remove the cancer of the left from Honduras and all of Latin America.
[08:04] We can do great things for all of Latin
[08:06] America.
[08:08] There will be actions against Mexico.
[08:10] There will be actions against Colombia and most importantly against Honduras, against the Zelaya family.
[08:18] Well, it is made explicit that there is a need to strike at progressive governments in Latin America and the Caribbean that are not aligned with US economic interests.
[08:29] We are talking especially about Colombia and Mexico.
[08:33] Whose governments are on the left and are somewhat independent.
[08:37] And both countries have leaders who have rejected US interference in this period of right-wing governments.
[08:44] What Juan Orlando Hernandez says is that he is going to build a communication cell in the US that will also be coordinated by Donald Trump's presidential team to strike and exterminate the cancer of the left.
[08:59] That is to influence public opinion through media warfare.
[09:03] So what is the specific interest of the United States?
[09:07] To overthrow sovereign countries so they can also be aligned with US foreign policy.
[09:14] The name of President Javier Milei of Argentina also appears in the recordings.
[09:18] What's his role?
[09:22] Yes, that is truly striking.
[09:24] Juan Orlando Hernandez confirms it that Javier Milei has already contributed $350,000 in this fight against the left.
[09:34] I say that in quotes because they view everything as a war.
[09:37] There's a war unfolding in the region and they have provided $350,000 to help fund this communication cell based in the United States.
[09:48] Some of the clips are chilling.
[09:50] I'm going to play you the voice of Elan Anders again.
[09:53] If we have to kill people, you can rest assured we will do it.
[10:00] If we have to return to repression to control the country, we'll do it.
[10:04] We have to do everything we can to hold on to power.
[10:07] Everything that happens,
[10:09] deaths, assassinations, kidnappings, we should blame it all on the communists.
[10:17] I'm also going to play you the voice of retired General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, who was the leader of a coup in Honduras in 2009.
[10:30] I have a group that are more or less ready in the armed forces, including the administrator.
[10:35] They're all on board to begin the hunt.
[10:38] I also have a list of people that we have to hit hard to clean out, to disappear in some way.
[10:46] A hunt. What are they talking about here?
[10:50] Well, we are talking about a doctrine of terror. A doctrine of terror that takes us back to Operation Condor of the last century in Latin America and the Caribbean.
[11:01] When the military with complete impunity had the power to persecute opponents, opposition leaders, social organizations
[11:09] and people on the left in the name of the fight against communism.
[11:15] Right now, we are seeing history repeating itself.
[11:18] This time being justified by the fight against drug trafficking.
[11:22] Today specifically, the president of Congress, Thomas Zambrano, has officially granted his full approval for the deployment of the military onto the streets throughout Honduras.
[11:31] We're talking about a process of territorial militarization, not just in Honduras, but in various countries across Latin America.
[11:41] In other audio clips, Juan Orlando Hernández says it doesn't matter how much blood is shed.
[11:47] They will be in government forever and have to do whatever it takes to stay in power.
[11:54] What's been the international reaction to your report?
[11:57] Especially in the United States.
[12:02] Well, there hasn't been much coverage in the United States regarding the Honduras Gate exposé, but in Latin America, it has really caught our attention.
[12:12] But this story will only get bigger, because today Gustavo Petro, the president of Colombia, said he is going to initiate the international trial of Juan Orlando Hernández for his actions.
[12:24] Which should also include other actors heard in the audio recordings.
[12:26] The ones that are actually funding it or who pushed for the pardon.
[12:33] A postscript to this story.
[12:35] This week the BBC published a lengthy interview with former President Juan Orlando Hernández.
[12:41] They failed to ask him about any of this.
[12:47] Israel's Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has posted footage on social media showing the abuse of detained Gaza Flotilla activists.
[12:53] These images provoked outrage in the West, and Israeli officials rushed to scold Ben-Gvir for taking a sledgehammer to their propaganda machine, including a rare rebuke from Prime Minister Netanyahu, who said that they were not in line with Israel's values and norms, as if Ben-Gvir were an extremist outlier.
[13:13] and not the Minister of National Security.
[13:14] Ignoring the rampant abuse, including sexual, reported by previously detained Flotilla activists, and that this is just a snapshot of the inhumane treatment Palestinians are regularly subjected to, with no international pushback at all.
[13:27] Also in Israel, thousands of ultra-nationalists marched through Jerusalem's Old City last week.
[13:37] The annual dance of the flags commemorates Israel's conquest of Jerusalem in 1967.
[13:43] It's a day of terror and intimidation for Palestinians who still constitute the majority of the population in East Jerusalem.
[13:50] The police and army do little to protect them and even children, it seems, have learned impunity.
[13:55] So, what would you do to the Palestinians living here?
[13:57] Here?
[13:59] Like in the Old City?
[14:01] Leave or what?
[14:02] I think Islam is cancer and you don't transfer cancer to another patient.
[14:06] That's not moral.
[14:08] You have to destroy cancer.
[14:09] Only the purple-vested volunteers of We Stand Together, a voluntary organization
[14:13] comprising of Jews and Palestinians, stand between local people and the mob.
[14:18] This is Alon Lee Green, the co-director of We Stand Together.
[14:20] These police officers are removing us.
[14:23] And they see so many settlers shouting death to all Arabs, may your village burn.
[14:28] They see them try to hurt Palestinian businesses, but us they try to remove.
[14:30] The people that come here to try and protect Palestinians, us they're trying to remove.
[14:34] And they are getting protection.
[14:38] Meanwhile, the UK saw its own hate march.
[14:40] The United Kingdom rally descended upon London at the weekend led by far-right activist Stephen Yaxley Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson.
[14:48] While organizers claimed that this would be the biggest patriotic rally so far, it saw less than half of the turnout of their previous march in September.
[14:57] Here are some lowlights.
[14:59] Shut up.
[15:02] What's that?
[15:03] Knock with your sick?
[15:05] Watch your language.
[15:07] This is my little girlfriend.
[15:10] What's your name?
[15:11] I'm 15.
[15:11] I ain't no child bride.
[15:11] How old is
[15:13] She?
[15:15] She's 15.
[15:15] Oh?
[15:16] Are you sure?
[15:17] Hell.
[15:19] Please, I'm going to go to jail in a minute.
[15:24] Police are not
[15:25] No, I'm good, bro.
[15:25] I'm good.
[15:25] Everything you had in the music industry was a joke.
[15:28] Come here, bro.
[15:30] Go back to your
[15:31] Go back to
[15:41] The Robinson rally propelled this man to fame, evangelical pastor and would-be rock star Ricky Dulan.
[15:45] I'm a rock star.
[15:51] I do it for
[15:54] what more
[15:57] I'm a rock rock star.
[16:05] I do it for what
[16:08] A version of this clip that went viral was manipulated by AI to be more out of tune, Dulan says.
[16:13] What's far more
[16:15] Interesting is Dulan's previous appearance in an undercover series called Gold Mafia by Al Jazeera's investigative unit, broadcast in 2023.
[16:24] The series exposed gold smuggling and money laundering in Southern Africa.
[16:28] Dulan is a pastor in the Good News Church run by this man, Ubert Angel.
[16:33] Angel is a senior envoy for the Zimbabwean government and according to Al Jazeera, a key figure in smuggling and money laundering networks.
[16:41] Ricky Dulan is part of his show.
[16:46] You were born in September.
[16:49] Yes.
[16:51] September.
[16:51] As well as holding the mic for him, Dulan acts as Angel's sidekick in business deals.
[16:57] Dulan denies wrongdoing and has not faced any criminal prosecution.
[16:59] But here is some of the highlights from his appearance in the Al Jazeera series.
[17:07] It's it's embarrassing to start with.
[17:09] Well, I like embarrassing cash.
[17:13] The problem is that we want to all be clear.
[17:14] Absolutely.
[17:14] This is black money.
[17:16] This is money which cannot be declared.
[17:18] Okay.
[17:18] And what?
[17:21] As long as you grease the wheels in Africa, you grease the wheels.
[17:23] There's no issue.
[17:25] There can be no issue.
[17:26] It's a good washing machine, right?
[17:28] Yeah.
[17:33] In February, news broke that Labour Together, the think tank that propelled Keir Starmer to power, had been spying on British journalists.
[17:40] Labour Together hired PR firm APCO to dig for dirt on Paul Holden, author of The Fraud, which exposed the fact Labour Together had failed to declare 3/4 of a million pounds in donations.
[17:55] The APCO investigation extended to Gabriel Pogrund of The Sunday Times, who collaborated with Holden on an article about Labour Together in the autumn of 2023.
[18:04] Josh Simons, the director of Labour Together, resigned in disgrace at the end of February and has since resigned as an MP.
[18:11] Now, new evidence has emerged which shows knowledge of the APCO investigation into Paul Holden extended
[18:17] to the very highest levels of the Labour Party and that Keir Starmer himself may be implicated.
[18:24] Paul Holden joined us in the studio.
[18:27] Well, just this past week, I received information on of the think tank Labour Together.
[18:34] The story has been breaking for a while.
[18:36] It's been very much focused on the idea this was a bit of a rogue operation that was being led by Labour Together with Josh Simons, who was the director sort of playing a key role.
[18:44] But the documents show that actually this was effectively a joint Labour Party, Labour Together, APCO strategy.
[18:51] APCO's the reputation management firm that was hired.
[18:53] And this went to the absolute top levels of the Labour Party.
[18:55] We have emails showing that Josh Simons and a very senior employee at APCO Worldwide were meeting or were corresponding with Morgan McSweeney and Paul Ovenden to discuss the report into me.
[19:09] Yeah, that's Morgan McSweeney who at that time was head of campaigns, later became chief of staff after they got got into power and Paul Evan Offerdon who was head of
[19:18] communications at that time and later became head of strategy in number 10.
[19:23] So this is the email that's that you've uncovered and you can see absolutely in this sort of receipt column there's Morgan McSweeney and there's Paul Offerdon.
[19:30] It establishes absolutely beyond doubt that they are communicating with Josh Simon and Labour together about what is a smear campaign against you.
[19:38] And it's very clear from the context of the email as well because it says Tom Tom Harper has just finalized his report into Paul Holden and he'll be delivering it on a certain date.
[19:45] Please can we arrange a meeting to discuss this.
[19:50] Very clear from the context of the email that he's not having to explain who Tom Harper is.
[19:54] He's not having to explain who Apco are.
[19:55] He's not having to explain that there's a report into me.
[19:57] Plainly these people know about it already from the context of the email.
[20:00] This is a long-term discussion and they're expecting to receive it.
[20:03] And now we can see in the order trail is that basically within days of them being informed of this report, Apco then encourages Labour Together to report to the security services.
[20:14] It's a pretty disturbing story because what it shows is that actually this this this
[20:19] really despicable and is a genuinely
[20:21] despicable campaign
[20:23] to investigate me and my family. I've
[20:25] never seen a report that lists my home
[20:27] address for example, identifies my
[20:28] family members. So I think that this is
[20:31] a a very conventional straightforward
[20:32] smear campaign designed to undermine you
[20:35] professionally and effectively ruin your
[20:36] life.
[20:37] That's what it would have done. And in
[20:39] which they they seek to bring the
[20:41] security services on board. They try to
[20:43] get the National Cyber Security Centre
[20:45] to investigate you. To their credit, the
[20:47] National Cyber Security Centre looks at
[20:49] this and says it's all nonsense and
[20:50] won't.
[20:50] Yeah. It does seem like basically they
[20:52] are
[20:53] the National Cyber Security Centre very
[20:54] politely responds to to Labour Together
[20:56] and says you know please forward us your
[20:58] concerns and then you know effectively
[21:00] nothing happens at that point. You know
[21:02] the theory behind that Labour Together
[21:04] and Apco present is that I'm somehow
[21:06] connected to Russia. That I'm part of a
[21:08] pro-Kremlin network of journalists. An
[21:10] absolutely mad allegation, not least
[21:12] because me and my colleague Andrew have
[21:14] investigated Russian oligarchs. We've
[21:15] been, you know, we faced legal
[21:17] extra-legal threats from Russian
[21:18] oligarchs. It's a mad allegation. Until
[21:20] now, what's happened is essentially
[21:22] Labour Together and Josh Simons, who
[21:24] headed it, have been cordoned off. Josh
[21:26] Simons was thrown thrown to the wolves
[21:27] and he was thrown under the bus and and
[21:29] he was the one who took responsibility
[21:31] for it, which is presumably why Josh
[21:32] Simons stabbed Starmer in the back in
[21:35] Wakefield by standing down in Wakefield
[21:37] and and letting Burnham stand, I would
[21:39] imagine. I mean, he's given his own
[21:40] reasons for why he's done it. He
[21:41] believes he's now become a true Andy
[21:43] Burnham believer, according to his
[21:44] version. But what's very clear,
[21:46] absolutely clear, is that this is not
[21:48] like Josh Simons on his own
[21:52] endeavor pursuing some rogue
[21:54] crazy scheme of his own, which is sort
[21:56] of the way it's been presented. This is
[21:58] a
[21:59] a a a response
[22:01] that is that involves the absolute
[22:04] highest [snorts] levels of the Labour
[22:06] Party,
[22:07] people who'd become the highest levels
[22:09] of the Starmer at number 10 operation.
[22:12] And really, I've got to believe, looking
[22:13] at this material and looking Now we know
[22:16] the closeness between Morgan McSweeney
[22:19] and Keir Starmer and the centrality of
[22:22] Overden to the Keir Starmer operation.
[22:23] And also because my book and my work was
[22:26] specifically going to be looking into
[22:28] the relationship between Morgan
[22:29] McSweeney and Keir Starmer
[22:31] and and serious unlawful misconduct,
[22:34] I just cannot see how Starmer wouldn't
[22:36] know about this. I just do not believe,
[22:38] personally in my own mind, I can't
[22:40] conceive a situation where at the very
[22:42] least Starmer hasn't been told about it
[22:44] verbally. Let's just jump backwards for
[22:46] people who are not completely familiar
[22:47] with this story. You wrote a book called
[22:49] The Fraud. In The Fraud, [clears throat]
[22:50] you exposed the fact that Labour
[22:51] Together, the think tank which had
[22:53] propelled Starmer to power, had received
[22:55] 3/4 of a million pounds during the
[22:57] Corbyn era in undeclared funds. And your
[23:00] your big revelation subsequently in the
[23:02] press was that supposedly this was an
[23:05] error.
[23:06] There is very strong evidence it wasn't
[23:08] an error. That Morgan McSweeney, who at
[23:09] that time headed Labour Together, had
[23:12] been told very clearly that he should be
[23:15] he should be reading this. And then what
[23:16] happened is when you collaborated with
[23:18] the Sunday Times
[23:20] Gabriel Pogrund in the Sunday Times to
[23:22] report this
[23:24] Labour Together hired this company Apco
[23:27] to do an investigation into yourself
[23:29] [clears throat] and to Andrew Feinstein
[23:31] who you work with
[23:33] and who also happened to be Keir
[23:35] Starmer's
[23:36] independent opponent in the in the
[23:38] Holborn and St Pancras seat.
[23:40] So you have a straight line from they
[23:41] freak out because actually the story I
[23:44] have is so damaging to this this
[23:46] political project because it shows
[23:48] there's like real issues of property and
[23:50] good governance
[23:51] about the most central players in Keir
[23:53] Starmer's government about Keir Starmer
[23:54] himself. He needs to answer these
[23:55] questions.
[23:56] And then within within a week there's
[23:58] this scheme. We will undermine this
[24:00] reporting. We will make sure that it
[24:02] doesn't have an impact. This is not even
[24:05] nearly finished being investigated where
[24:08] there has to be a proper full inquiry
[24:10] into possibly through the select
[24:11] committee in parliament. You know, it's
[24:13] it's dirty tricks. It's contractors,
[24:16] it's spies, it's smear campaigns, it's
[24:17] evidence being deleted, it's evidence
[24:19] being withheld
[24:20] all in the end
[24:22] to disguise and to distract from and to
[24:24] cover up from the original sin. And I've
[24:26] always said this is the original sin
[24:29] of the Starmer project is that Morgan
[24:31] McSweeney for two and a half years ran a
[24:33] covert campaign
[24:35] to destroy Jeremy Corbyn and stop Keir
[24:37] Starmer's leader with a pot of money he
[24:39] wasn't declaring in violation of
[24:40] electoral law. And when they were
[24:41] investigated by the Electoral Commission
[24:43] it looks like they were in cahoots with
[24:44] him. And that is damning.
[24:46] And the interesting twist here of course
[24:48] is Peter Oborne and myself reported
[24:51] the the the fact that you were being
[24:53] smeared by Labour Together last
[24:55] September. No one [clears throat] was
[24:56] interested at that point. It became a
[24:57] big story at the beginning of this year
[24:59] because Apco somebody on the ground for
[25:01] Apco had rather misunderstood the job
[25:03] and thought their job was to smear
[25:04] everyone and smeared Gabriel Pogrund at
[25:07] The Times. That's the only reason this
[25:08] has become a big story. No one gave a
[25:10] damn when it was just you and Andrew. I
[25:12] think it was two things. The one is that
[25:14] for various reasons obviously we
[25:15] couldn't name that it was Apco back at
[25:18] the time. Then of course when it turns
[25:21] out they're actually going after Gabriel
[25:22] Pogrund and they also listed Henry Dyer
[25:24] who is out of the Guardian and Harry
[25:26] Yorke in like a scope of work document
[25:28] then it really breaks free. Um and
[25:31] there's a sense of like how how dare
[25:33] they go after
[25:34] the establishment journalists. Am I Am I
[25:36] right in thinking that your book The
[25:38] Fraud Mhm. um has still not received a
[25:40] single review in British national media?
[25:42] So the places that have reviewed it I
[25:44] got a review in Politics Home.
[25:46] Um
[25:48] and then a review in I think it's called
[25:51] the is The New European but nowhere else
[25:53] has reviewed it. No, it's extraordinary,
[25:54] isn't it? But they can't ignore it
[25:56] because it's now led to the resignation
[25:58] of three senior figures at number 10
[26:00] including Paul Oakley the the head of
[26:02] strategy who is on on the email
[26:05] um and it fatally undermined Morgan
[26:06] McSweeney as well.
[26:08] And yet even when they're reporting it
[26:10] in news terms they do everything they
[26:11] can not to mention the actual book. No,
[26:14] I mean it does seem like a
[26:16] I'm going to use a an unpleasant analogy
[26:18] I hope you don't mind because I I was Go
[26:20] ahead. I was telling
[26:21] I was telling my partner Jess who you
[26:23] know did such great you know incredible
[26:24] incredible investigative work that that
[26:26] fit into the book. Um
[26:29] was that this is basically like imagine
[26:30] a polite dinner party
[26:32] where somebody
[26:34] emits a disgusting fart.
[26:36] Everybody has to leave the room. It
[26:37] changes all their behavior but none of
[26:39] them can mention it. And I feel like
[26:40] that's what it is. Like I've changed
[26:41] everybody's behavior but nobody
[26:44] for various polite reasons none of them
[26:45] can acknowledge that that's what's
[26:46] actually caused it to happen. So this
[26:48] this weird situation where often I'll
[26:50] have a story which I'm reading and like
[26:52] the story is actually a about me and my
[26:54] experience of the things I've broken,
[26:55] things done to me. And A, I've never
[26:57] been approached for comment, and B, they
[26:59] don't even acknowledge me. It's such a
[27:00] weird experience. I'm like a ghost in
[27:01] the machine that's making it move around
[27:04] and have all these effects and never
[27:05] acknowledge. It's very weird. Paul
[27:06] Holden, the disgusting fart, thank you
[27:08] very much for joining [laughter] us
[27:09] again.
[27:12] Paul Holden's new revelations were
[27:13] published in the Financial Times and the
[27:15] website Democracy for Sale on Wednesday
[27:17] afternoon.
[27:18] As I record this, they've received
[27:20] limited pick up, but they're important.
[27:24] The revelations Labour Together has been
[27:26] spying on Times journalists caused a
[27:28] media storm. The fact that Starmer's
[27:30] inner circle were implicated takes the
[27:33] scandal to a whole new level.
[27:35] Perhaps the fact the new emails mention
[27:37] Paul Holden, but not mainstream media
[27:39] journalists is the explanation.
[27:42] To anyone who's followed this story,
[27:43] Morgan McSweeney's involvement will come
[27:45] as no surprise.
[27:47] Dodgy dossiers have been the modus
[27:49] operandi of the Labour right for at
[27:50] least a decade.
[27:52] Countless [snorts] perfectly decent
[27:54] ordinary Labour Party members have their
[27:56] lives and reputations ruined as a result
[27:58] of anonymous accusations against which
[28:01] they had no comeback.
[28:03] The targets were people on the left and
[28:05] disproportionately Jews and Muslims.
[28:08] The East Ham and West Ham constituency
[28:10] Labour parties in East London were
[28:12] suspended as a result of a secret
[28:14] dossier local members were not even
[28:16] aware existed until researchers from the
[28:18] Al Jazeera series The Labour Files
[28:20] obtained it and showed it to them. An
[28:23] ethnic audit of Labour's disciplinary
[28:25] procedures is desperately needed.
[28:28] Paul Holden would have been just another
[28:30] victim, his life and career destroyed
[28:33] but for three factors.
[28:35] Firstly, he's a very good journalist and
[28:37] through contacts obtained copies of the
[28:39] reports on him.
[28:41] Secondly, the National Cyber Security
[28:43] Centre proved conscientious and
[28:44] professional and saw through Labour
[28:47] Together's crude attempts to frame him.
[28:50] Thirdly, incompetent researchers at the
[28:52] PR firm APCO included mainstream media
[28:56] journalists in their smears, prompting a
[28:58] backlash.
[29:00] Even so, the Guardian was initially
[29:02] quite prepared to be a vehicle for
[29:03] smears against Paul and only backed off
[29:06] when he threatened legal action.
[29:09] The Starmer-McSweeney project never had
[29:11] the confidence to charm, cajole, or
[29:13] persuade. Instead, it relied on the
[29:16] clunking fist of the party's
[29:17] disciplinary unit and a compliant,
[29:19] complicit media prepared to swallow any
[29:22] smear against the left, no matter how
[29:25] absurd.
[29:26] Today, it stands exposed as an empty,
[29:29] soulless husk of a political movement,
[29:32] visibly withering and dying before our
[29:34] eyes.
[29:35] Its end can't come soon enough. Next up,
[29:38] Lorna with the news in brief from
[29:40] independent media.
[29:44] Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that
[29:46] Israeli soldiers stationed in southern
[29:48] Lebanon are complaining about an erosion
[29:51] of operational discipline, with
[29:52] commanders ordering unnecessary daytime
[29:54] missions that expose troops to
[29:56] Hezbollah's explosive drones. Israeli
[29:59] operations in southern Lebanon have
[30:01] largely focused on the systematic
[30:02] destruction of buildings, replicating
[30:05] Israeli activity in Gaza. Military
[30:07] personnel told Haaretz that these
[30:09] missions violate existing safety
[30:10] directives designed to mitigate the
[30:13] evolving drone threat by favoring
[30:15] nighttime movement,
[30:17] and signal a prioritization of
[30:18] infrastructure demolition over troop
[30:20] safety. A special report for Scotland's
[30:23] national newspaper exposes a neo-Nazi
[30:25] fight club that is increasingly
[30:27] targeting Scottish teens for
[30:29] recruitment. The Caledonia Club, as it's
[30:31] known, forms part of a wider
[30:33] international white supremacist network,
[30:36] first promoted in 2017 by American
[30:38] extremist Robert Rundo. The club model
[30:41] is described as a wolf in sheep's
[30:42] clothing, promising disillusioned young
[30:44] men fitness, brotherhood, identity, and
[30:47] self-improvement while delivering
[30:49] extremist indoctrination and
[30:51] militia-style training. Middle East Eye
[30:53] reports that a Palestine action prisoner
[30:55] with muscular dystrophy is being forced
[30:57] to crawl like a wounded dog in a London
[31:00] prison. Muhammad Umair Khalid has been
[31:02] held on remand since July 2025 with his
[31:05] mobility deteriorating significantly to
[31:08] the point where he can no longer walk.
[31:10] Khalid missed several neurology
[31:11] appointments after the prison failed to
[31:13] supply a wheelchair, and the one
[31:15] eventually provided was too big to fit
[31:17] in his cell. During a fire evacuation in
[31:20] April, he was left alone locked up in
[31:22] his cell. Khalid says, "They're quite
[31:25] literally treating me as if I am just
[31:27] some wounded animal." Sources have told
[31:30] Middle East Eye that last month the
[31:31] International Criminal Court filed a
[31:33] secret arrest warrant application for
[31:36] Israel's Finance Minister Bezalel
[31:38] Smotrich for war crimes and crimes
[31:40] against humanity against Palestinians in
[31:42] the occupied West Bank. Smotrich lives
[31:45] in a West Bank settlement considered
[31:47] illegal under international law and is a
[31:50] loud proponent of annexing the territory
[31:52] and for the return of Israeli settlers
[31:54] to Gaza.
[31:56] The ICC already has arrest warrants out
[31:58] for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
[32:00] Netanyahu and former Minister for
[32:02] Defense Yoav Gallant.
[32:08] [snorts]
[32:13] Arsenal may have won the title, but it's
[32:15] Liverpool here on top of a league that
[32:17] no one should want to win. War on Want
[32:19] has produced a report listing Premier
[32:21] League football clubs by the degree of
[32:23] complicity of their sponsors in Israeli
[32:25] apartheid and war crimes. Liverpool
[32:27] comes top because of its association
[32:29] with Alphabet, a cloud service provider
[32:31] for Israeli surveillance systems, and
[32:34] Expedia, which offers rentals in illegal
[32:36] Israeli settlements. The report calls on
[32:39] clubs to adopt clear ethical sponsorship
[32:42] standards.
[32:46] In recent months, London's Jewish
[32:47] community has been traumatized by a
[32:49] series of arson attacks. The best known
[32:52] was the burning of four ambulances
[32:54] belonging to the Jewish charity Hatzalah
[32:56] at the end of March. The attacks have
[32:58] been claimed by an organization called
[32:59] Harakat al-Shabab al-Islamiya,
[33:02] which means Islamic Movement of the
[33:04] Companions of the Righteous, which
[33:06] police say is linked to Iranian
[33:08] intelligence. A number of those arrested
[33:11] were petty paid criminals. Combined with
[33:14] the lethal attack on a synagogue in
[33:16] Manchester last October and the stabbing
[33:18] of two Jewish men in Golders Green 3
[33:20] weeks ago, the attacks have caused very
[33:22] real fear and distress.
[33:25] It's a subject that requires the most
[33:27] serious journalism.
[33:29] Instead, we get this. We've been offered
[33:32] money to commit crimes in the UK,
[33:35] apparently on behalf of Iran. Our
[33:37] undercover team has been speaking to a
[33:39] man on Telegram who claims to be linked
[33:42] to Iran's intelligence service. And
[33:44] within just 15 messages, we were given a
[33:47] job. Print out a photo of Trump and
[33:50] Netanyahu, they said. Set it on fire in
[33:53] one of London's famous streets and send
[33:55] a video of it. This is the first step in
[33:58] building trust and I will pay for it.
[34:00] That's from the radio station LBC.
[34:03] Now, if you're perhaps skeptical that
[34:06] you can actually contact Iran's
[34:07] intelligence services through a Telegram
[34:09] page and they'll pay you a fiver to
[34:11] carry out attacks in London, LBC had
[34:14] experts lined up. First of all, the
[34:16] Henry Jackson Society. What you found at
[34:20] LBC is
[34:22] uh completely part of a pattern that has
[34:25] existed for a number of years now.
[34:26] Iranian The IRGC in general
[34:29] um forces have shifted to using proxy by
[34:33] hire um methods to recruit locals. The
[34:38] Henry Jackson Society is a right-wing
[34:40] security think tank which advocates
[34:42] aggressively for an interventionist
[34:44] foreign policy.
[34:45] It is not a respected source of
[34:47] counter-terrorism analysis.
[34:50] It gets worse. Next, the campaign
[34:52] against anti-Semitism. So, it's quite
[34:54] something now to see it in black and
[34:56] white. If anyone ever doubted it, it's
[34:59] incontrovertible proof that this country
[35:02] is being subverted subverted by foreign
[35:05] influence. Okay, let's just dwell for a
[35:07] moment on the campaign against
[35:09] anti-Semitism. It recently brought a
[35:11] court case against the comedian Reginald
[35:13] Hunter for anti-Semitism which was
[35:15] thrown out by the judge in
[35:16] extraordinarily contemptuous terms. The
[35:19] true and sole motive in seeking to
[35:21] prosecute Reginald Hunter is to have him
[35:24] canceled, the judge ruled. I have no
[35:26] doubt that the prosecution is abusive.
[35:29] He also described it as misleading and
[35:31] vexatious. He concluded, I direct that a
[35:35] copy of this judgment must be disclosed
[35:37] by the campaign against anti-Semitism
[35:39] and attached by it in all future
[35:41] applications. In other words, the judge
[35:43] found the campaign against
[35:44] anti-Semitism's behavior so dishonest,
[35:47] he actually ruled that a health warning
[35:49] be attached to any future legal actions
[35:52] brought by them. Incredibly, the BBC
[35:54] continues to interview the campaign
[35:56] against anti-Semitism as representative
[35:59] of the broader Jewish community.
[36:01] It's quite absurd that LBC uses them as
[36:04] counter-terrorism experts. We decided it
[36:07] might be a good idea to speak to someone
[36:08] who actually knows what they're talking
[36:10] about. We invited in an independent
[36:12] American investigator with a fascinating
[36:15] back story. So, James, thank you for
[36:17] joining us. Thank you for having me. How
[36:19] is it you became involved in the world
[36:20] of radical Islamic groups originally?
[36:23] Well, I converted to Islam in 1997 in
[36:26] Chicago, Illinois and ended up moving to
[36:29] Houston, Texas where I became a media
[36:32] representative for the Islamic Circle of
[36:35] North America, also creating a law
[36:38] enforcement program on
[36:40] diversity and hate crimes. In the course
[36:44] of these training programs that I would
[36:46] do monthly, I came across a
[36:49] a plot by my own friends who are working
[36:51] closely with me on these programs um
[36:55] to join Al-Qaeda in Iraq. I had a
[36:58] contact in the FBI at that time. I was
[37:00] concerned. I didn't really want to
[37:02] tell on my friends or anything like
[37:04] that, but I brought it to them as a
[37:07] concern and
[37:09] they obviously picked that up and
[37:10] thought it was a real a real threat. And
[37:12] so I eventually decided to
[37:16] try to head that off and worked with the
[37:19] FBI. So you you were effectively
[37:22] undercover within this organization for
[37:24] for a while.
[37:24] undercover cover for 3 years. You now
[37:26] live in Britain. You've lived in Britain
[37:27] for some years. These attacks that have
[37:30] happened in North London, they've been
[37:31] claimed by a group it's Harakat
[37:33] al-Shabab al-Yamin. They are supposedly
[37:36] according to press reports Iranian
[37:38] aligned. What do you make of them? Does
[37:40] it seem like an authentic group to you?
[37:43] To me
[37:44] it seems more fictitious, not fictional
[37:47] but fictitious. They are presenting
[37:50] themselves as something that they're
[37:51] not. They produce their statements in
[37:54] three languages
[37:56] Arabic, English, and Hebrew, but they do
[37:58] not produce in Persian.
[38:00] In Farsi, in the language of Iran.
[38:03] That's right. That's right. You feel
[38:05] there's a problem with the Arabic as
[38:06] well that they use. Yes, particularly
[38:08] the Arabic and I looked at their
[38:11] their foundational statement which has a
[38:13] Quran verse on it and in that Quran
[38:17] verse the word "jahidu" is misspelled.
[38:20] Jahidu meaning means to strive, which is
[38:23] a command. Religious Muslim groups
[38:25] certainly would not
[38:27] um misspell the Quran. There's an issue
[38:29] as well as I understand that they use
[38:30] the term the land of Israel, Eretz
[38:32] Israel.
[38:34] This is something that I found very
[38:35] striking. So, the land of Israel or
[38:37] Eretz Israel is something very dear to
[38:40] the heart of a Zionist, a religious
[38:41] Zionist. Um a Muslim group, particularly
[38:45] Axis of Resistance, is not going to say
[38:47] the land of Israel. They might say
[38:48] Zionist entity or they might say the
[38:51] occupation. Also, the idea that they're
[38:53] Iranian aligned. Now, this has been
[38:55] repeated again and again across the
[38:57] media. They themselves don't claim that
[38:59] in any way, do they? You've written
[39:00] about this and identified what you call
[39:02] a pipeline by which this story emerged
[39:05] and which connected this group to Iran.
[39:07] Talk talk me through that. Yes, I
[39:09] discovered this pipeline, what I call a
[39:11] um
[39:12] a laundering of information pipeline. It
[39:14] first appears in an article in The Long
[39:17] Journal by the Federation of the Defense
[39:20] of Democracies, which is a pro-Israel
[39:22] group, pro-Israel special interest
[39:25] group. And that is the very first
[39:27] suggestion of it. But, it is picked up
[39:29] by the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora
[39:31] Affairs. And what they did is formalize
[39:33] this piece by creating a report and
[39:36] publishing it on their website. It's
[39:37] quite a detailed report. From that uh
[39:40] source, um it it is picked up by the uh
[39:44] International Center for
[39:45] Counter-Terrorism, which is in and of
[39:47] itself an independent organization, but
[39:50] based on the Israeli information,
[39:53] um it suddenly became uh
[39:56] laundered. It became something that our
[39:58] media can pick up and uh and publish
[40:01] themselves. I've read through these
[40:03] reports. Their evidence for this this
[40:06] group being Iranian linked is that the
[40:09] statement put out by the group is picked
[40:12] up initially by pro-Iranian Shia
[40:15] militias in Iraq. They may simply have
[40:18] picked it up. I mean they they may have
[40:19] seen this video or had it pushed towards
[40:22] them. And this is the sort of thing they
[40:24] publicize so they publicized it.
[40:25] Exactly. That's that's very possible. In
[40:27] this context, I I want to show you
[40:29] another video here.
[40:43] That is a video that's being shot within
[40:44] 5 minutes of the attack happening. The
[40:47] the voice you can hear is speaking in
[40:49] Yiddish.
[40:50] So almost certainly a member of the
[40:52] local Orthodox community. They're there
[40:53] within sort of 5 minutes of of the
[40:55] attack happening.
[40:57] The voice is saying there's no one else
[40:59] here. I'm the only one here. There's no
[41:00] one from the
[41:01] from the emergency services. Now, what's
[41:04] fascinating about that video is that it
[41:06] is reproduced on the X feed of a man
[41:09] called Moshi Schwartz who works for a
[41:12] well-known
[41:14] out news outlet media outlet in New York
[41:17] which services the Orthodox community.
[41:20] And it's reproduced by and and he
[41:21] reproduces it he posts identifying it as
[41:24] an anti-Semitic attack. Okay? And he
[41:27] posted it within 24 minutes of it
[41:29] happening which is very very fast. Now,
[41:31] to be very clear here,
[41:32] I'm not saying that that means they must
[41:35] have had prior knowledge and are
[41:36] complicit. All I'm pointing out and you
[41:39] know, the Orthodox community is a very
[41:40] close-knit. This man was a very
[41:41] well-known journalist. You know, it's
[41:42] it's perfectly possible that that the
[41:44] information does transmit itself that
[41:47] quickly.
[41:48] I'm just comparing it with this evidence
[41:50] of the Iraqi Shia groups and pointing
[41:52] out that the speed with which something
[41:54] is reported by an outlet does not mean
[41:56] necessarily that they are complicit.
[41:59] Right. And I think that we should be
[42:01] very careful about who we say is
[42:05] who is this group
[42:07] and we know who it isn't, right? It is
[42:10] not likely not an Islamic group is
[42:13] likely not a Shia group that is linked
[42:15] to Iran.
[42:17] Um, but we don't know who the group is
[42:19] and I think that we know who
[42:22] uh the uh fear narrative originates
[42:26] from. James, thank you very much for
[42:28] joining us. Thank you for having me,
[42:29] Richard.
[42:31] Events in London are following a very
[42:32] similar pattern to a series of attacks
[42:35] on Jewish property in Australia in 2024
[42:38] and 2025. I spoke to a Jewish Australian
[42:41] journalist I enormously admire. His name
[42:43] is Anthony Loewenstein. He's the author
[42:45] of a superb book on how Israel achieved
[42:48] preeminence in the fields of security
[42:50] and surveillance called The Palestine
[42:52] Laboratory. He's also presented a number
[42:55] of documentaries on Al Jazeera. So,
[42:57] Anthony, talk me through what happened
[42:59] in Australia last year with these arson
[43:02] attacks and so on.
[43:04] So, really since October 7th, 2023,
[43:06] there was pretty soon after the attack
[43:08] in uh Israel, there was a I wouldn't say
[43:13] explosion, but there was a rise in
[43:15] anti-Semitic attacks, apparently
[43:17] anti-Semitic attacks. Graffiti daubed on
[43:21] synagogues, on buildings, on cars. There
[43:24] were firebombings of synagogues. There
[43:27] were other attacks across Sydney and
[43:29] Melbourne. No one in those attacks were
[43:31] killed,
[43:33] but it understandably caused disquiet in
[43:35] the Jewish community. The thing that
[43:37] caught my eye about the Australian
[43:39] attacks is as I understand it emerged
[43:41] that many of the people who were
[43:42] subsequently arrested, and there were
[43:44] arrests and trials and so on. They
[43:46] turned out to be petty criminals who
[43:48] were being paid. Is that right? Correct.
[43:50] So, essentially there's been a number of
[43:51] arrests in the last about 6 to 12
[43:53] months. There's been a number of trials
[43:56] and I think I'm confident in saying in
[43:59] every single case, it was shown, and
[44:02] this was shown by the prosecution rather
[44:04] than the defense, none of these were
[44:06] ideological people. They were not haters
[44:09] of Israel, they were not haters of Jews,
[44:11] they were not anti-Semitic, they weren't
[44:13] I'm not defending their actions, but I'm
[44:15] saying it wasn't based on a
[44:17] you know, fanatical anti-Semitism. It
[44:20] wasn't that at all. They were being paid
[44:23] by criminal groups that was established.
[44:26] And that in some ways added to the
[44:28] confusion of people of wondering of what
[44:30] the hell is going on here. Why is this
[44:32] being done and who whose whose agenda is
[44:34] being served by these kinds of attacks?
[44:37] Well, it begs the question who who was
[44:38] at the end of the chain? Who was paying
[44:40] them? So, what emerged in the end? Cuz I
[44:41] think in the end the Australian
[44:42] government did point the finger at Iran,
[44:44] didn't they?
[44:45] Indeed. So, in the end there was a a
[44:47] hastily called press conference last
[44:49] year by Anthony Albanese, our Prime
[44:50] Minister, the head of ASIO, our
[44:52] intelligence service, essentially saying
[44:54] that after a lot of investigation, it
[44:56] was established that Iran was behind
[44:58] this. This is this is what they said.
[45:00] They didn't present any hard evidence
[45:02] for this, but Iran was blamed. Within a
[45:04] matter of days, the Iranian ambassador
[45:06] to Australia was kicked out of the
[45:07] country. And when this was announced, I
[45:11] think a lot of people, including
[45:12] colleagues of mine, journalistic
[45:13] colleagues, were
[45:15] on the one hand fascinated by what was
[45:17] being alleged, but also slightly baffled
[45:19] when still to this day, there's been no
[45:21] evidence. Hard evidence shown. The
[45:23] government says we can't release
[45:24] evidence.
[45:25] We've been told that the Israelis did
[45:28] provide some assistance in the
[45:29] investigation, which obviously did ring
[45:31] a few alarm bells. Doesn't automatically
[45:33] mean it's us, but certainly it rings
[45:36] alarm bells.
[45:37] So,
[45:39] here we are months and months after the
[45:41] Prime Minister makes this pretty
[45:42] startling allegation, and we're not
[45:45] really any closer to understanding
[45:48] why did Iran do this? I am still left
[45:51] with a lot more questions than answers,
[45:52] as many of my colleagues are.
[45:55] Now, the Iranian foreign minister at the
[45:57] time that the Iranian ambassador was
[45:58] kicked out said Well, he denied that it
[46:02] was Iran behind it and said, "Why would
[46:04] we do this? What what what possible
[46:06] interest does it serve?" Hasn't he got a
[46:07] point? I mean, how does this serve
[46:09] Iran's interest? It's a good question.
[46:11] The so-called logic would be that these
[46:14] kinds of attacks create insecurity for
[46:16] Australia, insecurity for Jews, and
[46:20] therefore it creates disquiet. Somehow,
[46:24] it's a different
[46:25] It's a form of warfare without launching
[46:28] an official war. Now,
[46:31] is it credible? Um
[46:33] I don't think it's impossible that's the
[46:35] case. It's also possible that it's
[46:37] complete nonsense, that Iran was not
[46:39] behind this at all.
[46:42] And the only
[46:43] group, in some ways, that really have
[46:46] benefited from
[46:48] these attacks, when I say benefited, I'm
[46:51] not talking in a financial sense, but
[46:52] benefited in a
[46:54] maybe ideological sense, actually, in a
[46:56] way, are the so-called pro-Israel
[46:58] community here in Australia. I don't
[47:00] want to dismiss it entirely, but I think
[47:02] it's a mistake to automatically presume
[47:04] that it was definitely Iran as the
[47:06] Australian government has claimed. It's
[47:08] really murky. I mean, that's
[47:10] the reality. And there is a long history
[47:13] of various false flag attacks that have
[47:17] happened in the past, historically,
[47:19] committed by not just Israel, but
[47:21] certainly Israel in the last really 70
[47:23] years in various countries in the Middle
[47:25] East and beyond. Is it conceivable that
[47:28] the Israelis would do this? Because if
[47:30] you look at who who benefits, it's very
[47:32] hard to see how the Iranians benefit.
[47:34] But certainly here, the attacks are
[47:36] instantly used to drive the narrative,
[47:39] the political narrative, that there
[47:40] needs to be a crackdown on
[47:41] pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Was that
[47:43] the same in Australia?
[47:44] Absolutely. Indeed. I mean, Australia
[47:47] has had, like the UK, of course, we're a
[47:48] smaller country, but very, very large
[47:51] pro-Palestine protests for week after
[47:53] week after week. The numbers are a bit
[47:54] smaller than your country, of course,
[47:56] cuz we're a lot smaller population. And
[47:57] there's no doubt that it was used by
[48:01] pro-Israel forces, conservative
[48:03] politicians, and frankly, even elements
[48:05] of the Labour government here. And the
[48:08] impact, I think, has been, to some
[48:09] extent, had a bit of a chilling effect
[48:12] on many people who would normally have
[48:13] protested. In the past, does Israel have
[48:16] any sort of a track record of launching
[48:18] false flags in the past, doing attacks
[48:20] which it sought to blame on its enemies?
[48:23] I mean, the short answer is yes.
[48:25] This is not conjecture or my opinion.
[48:28] There's strong evidence that, for
[48:29] example, in the early 1950s, soon after
[48:31] the establishment of Israel,
[48:33] there was a desire to get more Jews,
[48:36] essentially, in the Jewish state. And
[48:38] there were Israeli intelligence officers
[48:41] who committed terrorist acts in, for
[48:43] example, Baghdad, which now has very few
[48:45] Jews, but at the time had far more.
[48:47] That's been
[48:49] wouldn't say 100% proven, but pretty
[48:51] likely that it was committed by
[48:54] Israeli intelligence officers in the
[48:56] idea that it would scare Jews to leave
[48:59] and come to Israel to be new arrivals.
[49:03] Ari Ben Menashe, who was a former
[49:05] Israeli intelligence officer, who is
[49:08] currently a businessman in Canada, he
[49:10] wrote a book a number of years ago
[49:11] talking about these issues about Israel.
[49:14] And yes, he's a controversial figure,
[49:17] and some people contest what he says,
[49:18] but he has alleged in a number of cases
[49:22] over the years, particularly in the '70s
[49:24] and '80s, that Israel was directly
[49:26] involved in paying certain Palestinian
[49:29] groups to commit terrorism.
[49:32] Rather than So, not necessarily the
[49:34] attacks don't happen, but they're
[49:36] actually being paid to commit terrorism
[49:38] against various interests, which are
[49:41] then used by Israel to support its
[49:43] agenda.
[49:45] So, has this happened in the past? Yes.
[49:48] Is it conceivable it's happening again?
[49:50] Yes.
[49:51] Doesn't necessarily mean that what's
[49:53] happening in the UK or Australia is
[49:55] that. And it's worth saying that in the
[49:58] last year and a half since these attacks
[50:00] have happened in Australia, myself as a
[50:02] journalist and many others have tried to
[50:04] do a lot of investigation to find out
[50:06] any evidence
[50:09] to back up whether
[50:11] Iran is behind it or Israel is behind it
[50:13] or, you know, Vanuashu was behind it,
[50:16] God knows who.
[50:17] And the short answer is we've found very
[50:19] little.
[50:20] Well, sorry. But with Israel, zero.
[50:24] Even with Iran, there's not much
[50:27] publicly available evidence beyond what
[50:29] the government intelligence services
[50:31] say.
[50:32] So, you're left with a
[50:34] As someone who's as you have, Richard,
[50:36] written about intelligence services for
[50:37] a long time, do they lie? Yes. Is it
[50:40] also possibly true? Yes.
[50:42] So, you're kind of left in the middle,
[50:44] right? It's very hard to know.
[50:46] Now, we should be very clear here that
[50:47] we're talking about attacks in Australia
[50:49] or in Britain in the last couple of
[50:50] years, which are attacks of vandalism on
[50:53] Jewish properties, synagogues, and so
[50:55] on. They're They're attacks against
[50:56] property. We're not talking here about
[50:58] the the terrible shootings at Bondi
[50:59] Beach, the murders in in Manchester.
[51:02] It's very important to make that
[51:03] distinction. We're not talking about
[51:04] those attacks. No. And the attacks on
[51:06] Bondi, which happened on the 14th of
[51:08] December last year, were from what we
[51:10] now know was almost certainly
[51:12] ISIS-inspired, ISIS-backed attacks by
[51:15] two
[51:16] men, the father and the son. The father
[51:18] was shot, the son is facing trial and
[51:20] will be on trial in the next couple of
[51:22] years. But no, there is which is a very
[51:24] different case. And also, it's important
[51:26] to say it's not necessarily binary, that
[51:27] it's either the Iranians or the
[51:28] Israelis. I mean, there have been a
[51:29] number of very strange and murky cases
[51:32] in in recent years. There was a case in
[51:33] 2017, wasn't there? There was a whole
[51:36] wave of threats
[51:38] against synagogues and so on. It turned
[51:40] out to be a sort of rogue Israeli who
[51:42] wasn't working for the Israeli state. In
[51:44] fact, he was eventually imprisoned in
[51:45] Israel. So, there's that third option,
[51:47] isn't there?
[51:47] Yes.
[51:48] Someone who is mentally unstable,
[51:51] someone who is sick, someone who
[51:54] might have a certain feeling about
[51:57] what's happening in the Middle East, but
[51:58] not necessarily ideological. I think
[52:00] that is worth saying, but I think it
[52:02] does play into that narrative that says
[52:04] that it's unsafe for Jews, and therefore
[52:07] governments and media have a supposed
[52:09] responsibility to almost cushion the
[52:11] Jewish community in cotton wool, and not
[52:14] ask the legitimate serious questions
[52:15] that exist. And in Australia at least,
[52:18] and I know in the UK with some
[52:19] exceptions,
[52:21] those kind of questions are not being
[52:22] asked deliberately. As you say, it's all
[52:25] extremely murky. Um but thank you very
[52:28] much for joining us, Anthony. Thanks for
[52:30] having me, Richard.
[52:31] We thought long and hard before
[52:33] exploring this subject, because it
[52:35] inevitably opens you up to charges of
[52:37] being an anti-Semitic conspiracy
[52:39] theorist.
[52:40] If you think that, just do the research,
[52:43] do the legwork, and take a look at the
[52:45] trials arising from attacks on Jewish
[52:48] property over the last few years. It's
[52:50] extraordinary how often it turns out not
[52:53] to have been an anti-Semite. In
[52:56] contrast, the far more numerous, but far
[52:57] less reported attacks on mosques and
[53:00] other Muslim sites have invariably
[53:02] turned out to be precisely what you
[53:04] would expect, right-wing racists. The
[53:07] reporting of these stories is causing
[53:09] very real distress to the Jewish
[53:11] community.
[53:12] They're also patently being used to
[53:14] drive anti-Palestinian political
[53:16] agendas. To simply swallow
[53:18] unquestioningly what you're being fed by
[53:20] the government, the police, and the
[53:22] security services is journalistically
[53:24] unprofessional and irresponsible.
[53:27] In fact, it's not journalism at all.
[53:31] We'll see you next week.
[53:35] Here at Double Down News Watch, we
[53:37] depend on you. We have no billionaire
[53:39] owners or sugar daddies. It's that which
[53:41] enables us to be fearless and
[53:43] independent in our coverage. If you
[53:45] value independent media and the
[53:47] alternative perspective it provides,
[53:49] please do sign up to Double Down News on
[53:51] Patreon and support us in any way that
[53:54] you can.