Latest Developments

The third-most senior Hamas figure, Saleh al-Arouri, was killed on January 2 in a Beirut blast that Lebanese authorities blamed on Israel. Arouri was among at least four people who died in an Israeli drone strike on a Hamas media office in the southern Dahiyeh suburb of the Lebanese capital, a Hezbollah stronghold, authorities said. Israeli officials had no immediate comment.

After Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, Arouri was the top-ranked Hamas official. He pursued an especially aggressive Palestinian terrorism strategy, with a focus on the West Bank, where he ordered the 2014 abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers, sparking a Gaza war. After a period of being headquartered in Turkey, Arouri relocated to Lebanon, where he spearheaded Hamas coordination with Hezbollah and their shared Iranian patron.

Expert Analysis

“Israel has openly vowed to take the Gaza war to all leaders of Hamas, no matter where they are. That Arouri apparently thought he might be immune in the Hezbollah heartland suggests a major miscalculation on the part of Hamas. The question now is how Hezbollah will calculate the risks of stepping up its own attacks on Israel in retaliation.” — Mark Dubowitz, FDD CEO

“Israel sent a message to all terror allies of Iran that no matter where they hide, they will never be secure. Whether Hamas leaders reside in Qatar, Turkey, Lebanon, or another country, they should assume their days are numbered. Hezbollah’s leadership must also factor this escalation into the group’s next move.” — Richard Goldberg, FDD Senior Advisor

“The elimination of Saleh al-Arouri stands as a significant blow to Hamas and a considerable victory for Israel in its current war against Palestinian terrorist groups. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that this accomplishment is merely one of many goals Israel must achieve in order to dismantle Hamas and its partners.” — Joe Truzman, Research Analyst at FDD’s Long War Journal

Source: FDD

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Much like its ideological counterparts at HispanTV (Iranian-owned) and Actualidad RT (Russian-owned), Telesur wraps its incitement into a sophisticated and slick twenty-four-hour news platform through its website, broadcasts, and social media presence. Though it is difficult to gauge its influence, numbers suggest that Telesur’s message is impactful. Telesur has two million followers on its Spanish X account, 117,500 on its English X account, and more than half a million on Instagram. Its YouTube account has over 1.7 million subscribers, with 100,000 new subscribers and almost 7.4 million video views since October 7 (It also posts its videos on the Daily Motion).

The network traditionally pushes out conspiracy theories, fake news, “whataboutism,” and disinformation that serve a common agenda: demonize the West, undermine the credibility of Western news outlets, paint Western leaders as hypocrites, and promote a narrative of global resistance against America and its allies. Aware that a worldwide audience of half a billion Spanish speakers—including almost sixty million in the U.S.—could be receptive to its anti-imperialist spin, Telesur began broadcasts in 2005. Since then, Telesur has routinely packaged its allies’ imperialism as resistance, their terrorism as anti-terrorism, and their authoritarianism as democracy. It has platformed conspiracy theorists, like Thierry Meyssan, the French author of the 2002 screed, 9/11: The Big Lie, the earliest 9/11 “truther” libel, accusing the United States of orchestrating the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers. It has also peddled anti-Semitic tropes, insinuating that “the Zionist Lobby” manipulates and controls U.S. media, falsely accusing Israelis of trafficking children and Israel of supporting ISIS.

Telesur news coverage since October 7, then, is hardly surprising. However, it has gained a new obsessive intensity, broadcasting a daily media diet of hatred. In its breaking news report on Hamas’ October 7 massacre, Telesur news anchor described that morning’s atrocities as an operation by the Hamas “resistance movement” in response to “continued Israeli aggressions.” The broadcast defined the event as “a new stage in the Palestinian struggle against Zionist occupation.” It then showed its viewers a news segment produced by their Syria-based correspondent, which made no mention of atrocities or Israeli civilian casualties. Telesur’s initial denial and distortion set the stage for the ensuing news coverage, which amplified a pro-Hamas narrative.

For example, after Western media corrected their reporting about Palestinian claims that on October 17, Israel bombarded the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, killing 500 people, Telesur doubled down, relying on a report from Al Jazeera.

Opinion pieces have been even more inflammatory than news segments, consistently espousing bigotry. Telesur commentators have routinely compared Israel to Nazism, denying and, at the same time, justifying the October 7 massacre. On October 9, as the gory details of Hamas atrocities were emerging, a blog entry celebrated them as a “very special page” in the history of the great battles for freedom. On October 15, TeleSur’s special envoy in Lebanon wrote a column entitled “Agony of a macabre implant,” where, after defining Israel as a European colonial-settler “implant” and accusing it of committing genocide, he proceeded to dismiss Hamas’ atrocities, lamenting a “Western media narrative, which focuses on Hamas, and not on the unprecedented fact of the united action of all Palestinian resistance organizations.”

After denial comes the systematic demonization of Israel through the casual recourse to antisemitic tropes, with Israel described as a worthy successor of Nazi Germany. 

On October 16, another blog post accused Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, of pursuing a final solution in Gaza and pleaded that the international community should not allow “the Jews to continue murdering the Palestinians in their land.”

On October 21, another commentator evoked the old Antisemitic canard of Jewish control of world media to denounce what its author considered a global media coverup of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Those controlling the “spiral of silence” in the mainstream media were, according to the author, “the transnational Jewish lobby.” On November 3, the theme of a conspiracy of silence orchestrated by Israel, the United States, and “the hegemonic media” recurred in another column. Its goal, thundered the author, was to enable Israel to turn Gaza into “a Palestinian cemetery.” The next day, Telesur published another blog post accusing Israel, whose creation the author described as the machinations of the “international Zionist oligarchy,” of committing “the third largest genocide in history.” And on November 7, Chilean columnist Pablo Jofre Leal (an author frequently posting on HispanTV as well and a government advisor to Gabriel Boric’s ministry of health in Chile) attacked what he labeled “the Ukraine-Israel national socialist-national Zionist alliance,” called the Hamas massacres a “legitimate action of the Palestinian resistance,” and described Israel’s response as a modern version of 1942 Wannsee Conference, the Nazi gathering that finetuned Hitler’s final solution.

Telesur, whose broadcast includes an English language channel and a Washington, DC, based correspondent, continues to spread misinformation and incitement through the ether, the internet, and social media. Washington, whose battle against disinformation has taken multiple steps to curb Russia’s and Iran’s misinformation channels in the anglosphere, seems mostly oblivious to Spanish language propaganda by Maduro’s Venezuela, despite its ability to shape public opinion in Latin America.

Downplaying the importance of the battle of ideas in Spanish will have long-term implications, especially in Latin America, where the Maduro regime continues to leverage a long history of anti-Americanism to its own advantage. Commenting on Russia’s Spanish language propaganda in Latin America, Southern Command’s General Laura J. Richardson recently said, “In 2020, Russia Today (RT)’s Spanish-language media outlets more than doubled their social media followers from 7 million to over 18 million. These disinformation campaigns are just one part of Russia’s broader efforts to influence national elections throughout the region this year.”

With much of the region’s political winds blowing leftward, the pro-Iran and pro-Hamas echo chamber of the Maduro regime should draw as much urgent attention from the White House and State Department as Russia’s disinformation does.

If Washington does wake up to the threat, it can take three initial steps to address it. First, it can slap sanctions against Telesur, much like it did against Iran’s Press TV, for its key role in supporting censorship and televising forced confessions, and Russian state-owned propaganda outlets for their role in Russia’s disinformation campaign. Second, it can lobby the telecom private sector to have Telesur de-platformed. Third, it can appeal to U.S.-based social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, X, the Daily Motion, and YouTube, to ensure they restrict Venezuelan regime disinformation.

The pro-Hamas, pro-Iran disinformation that Telesur spews daily is inflammatory, inciteful, and rife with antisemitic hatred. Telesur should be treated as a foreign state influence operation of the Maduro dictatorship for its continued rhetoric inciting hatred against Jews and driving global antisemitism. It should not be given free rein. Washington has sanctioned similar media disinformation campaigns before. Telesur should not be an exception.

Source: FDD

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Türkiye’s external assets stood at $289.7 billion as of July, declining by 3.1 percent from the end of 2022, the Central Bank data showed on Sept. 18.

Liabilities against non-residents fell by 5.7 percent to $USD 588.9 billion.

The net International Investment Position (IIP), defined as the difference between Türkiye’s external assets and liabilities, was minus $290 billion at the end of July against the minus $316 billion at the end of last year.

“As regards to sub-items under liabilities, direct investment – equity capital and other capital – at the end of July 2023 recorded $154.6 billion, indicating a 24.3 percent decrease in comparison to the end of the previous year, with the contribution of the changes in the market value and foreign exchange rates,” the bank said.

Portfolio investment decreased by 3.6 percent to $89.9 billion compared to the end of 2022.

Non-residents’ equity holdings stood at 28.1 billion, reflecting a decrease of 2.3, while their holdings of government domestic debt securities fell by 32 percent to $800 million.

FX deposits of non-residents held within the resident banks were at $42.7 billion at the end of July 2023, reflecting an increase of 2.6 percent compared to the end of 2022, while their Turkish Liras deposits increased by 4.4 percent to $14.7 billion.

Source: Hurriyet

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Israel has not only been the victim of a vicious and despicable terrorist attack. It is also the victim of a brazenly cynical move to disrupt the international stage and subvert tranquility in the Middle East. The Israeli-Palestinian powder keg conveniently served to add yet another full scale crisis putting even further pressure on a global order already strained to breaking point. Although no concrete evidence exists of any involvement in the attacks, Russia stands to gain the most from this extra flash point on the world map, as violence and war in the Middle East distracts from Putin’s unjustified war in Eastern Europe and stretches the resources of Ukraine’s allies.

Led by the elusive Mohammed Deif, a series of coordinated and well-executed surprise attacks on 7 October by Hamas caught Israeli defences completely off-guard. The dead run up to 1200 and thousands are wounded as the attacks set off a war against Hamas and Hezbollah, affecting Palestine and Lebanon, and reverberating across Syria and Yemen.

In retrospect, the attack’s material aspects and sophistication seemed to go beyond the known abilities of Hamas. Firstly, there was the advanced technical gear that managed to circumvent Israel’s monitoring capabilities so the attackers could pass undetected. As Israel has state of the art equipment it required equally advanced electronic warfare applications to neutralize it – of the kind only a state actor able to invest in such sophisticated means would be able to provide. The list of countries able to defeat Israeli technical intelligence equipment is small. Secondly, the assault was preceded by an increase in cyberattacks which again would have needed hacking abilities of a particular prowess. Thirdly, Hamas used cryptocurrency to finance its attack, and the links to where the transfers came from still have to be exposed. It should not be surprising therefore, before long speculation arose that there had been help from a powerful state actor, with Iran as the prime suspect. The Iranian envoy to the UN denied Iran’s involvement in the attack saying “We firmly support Palestine, but we are not involved in its response that was carried out alone.” They also added that blaming Iran was a way of justifying Israel’s failure.

However, reports indicate Iran and Hezbollah’s direct involvement in greenlighting and orchestrating the multi-pronged assault by Hamas. According to an October 8 report by The Wall Street Journal, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had been working with Hamas since August to plan the multipronged attacks against Israel. Details of the operation were reportedly discussed at several meetings in Beirut, which were also attended by Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). A Hamas spokesperson confirmed Iranian support to the BBC. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) involvement in the operational planning and execution, if confirmed, may partially explain the sophistication and elevated capabilities exhibited by Hamas in this lethal assault, as well as how this elaborate conspiracy evaded detection by Israeli intelligence. That Iran might have orchestrated this large-scale attack on Israel reiterates Tehran’s attempt to coordinate and facilitate the activities of the so-called “axis of resistance”, through direct operational support and offering safe haven for the enemies of Israel.

But obviously this was much more than just a resistance attack against Israel. The most direct effect of the conflagration, apart from the suffering and destruction, has been the halting of peace talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia. But the ripple effects will extend beyond politics in the Middle East with much wider strategic consequences on the global stage.

A normalization of relations between Tel Aviv and Riyadh would have facilitated the containment of Iran and its terrorist proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah through the added American security guarantees. Sabotaging these talks is therefore a direct gain. Saudi Arabia has not cancelled normalization talks, however a Senior Saudi official has stated everything is on hold. But a cascading effect of Israel’s counterassault, if too violent and draconian, could be that Saudi Arabia suspends talks altogether. After the attacks, there was also an incident in Egypt, where a police officer opened fire and killed two Israeli tourists in Alexandria, increasing the risk that Egypt will be in for Israeli retaliation as well. In a statement published by the White House, US Secretary of State Blinken encouraged Turkey to continue their involvement with an emphasis on efforts to free the hostages. But some assess that behind the scenes, Turkey along with Qatar are in support of Hamas. There is small chance of an Arab block forming against Israel, but the incident in Egypt and the reticent attitude of the other Middle Eastern nations show that some countries are not unhappy to see Israel undermined.

All-out war along the West Bank of course distracts from already ongoing crises the world over, such as the war in Eastern Europe. Israeli media reported that US President Joe Biden, in a conservation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the morning of 8 October 2023, informed the prime minister that additional aid to the IDF was on its way to Israel, and would continue in upcoming days. Several vessels from US Carrier Strike Group 12 moved towards the Eastern Mediterranean in a show of support for Israel. The need to monitor the situation in the Middle East and a possible diverting of resources could negatively impact the support of Ukraine’s allies, all of whom are as impacted by what is happening in Ukraine as this new crisis. Both conflicts are in Europe’s near abroad yet Europe does not have the capability to meaningfully influence events as long as the lack of a real EU common security and defence policy keeps it powerless. Adding another crisis further strains Western ability to maintain peace and global order, opening the door for rogue nations to achieve their goals undisturbed while the West is distracted with two wars in its backyard.

As in crime, in hybrid warfare cui bono is the guiding principle towards finding the ultimate culprit. Which begs the question who stands to gain the most from the global strategic repercussions of this event. A question so loud that there might be cause to speculate that Iran was perhaps inspired to execute this attack by a third nation? In any case all the mayhem and disorder resulting from this serious escalation stands to benefit mainly one party: Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Indirectly the Kremlin enjoys all the benefits from the chaos resulting from this drama. Israel has taken a serious blow and risks losing its credibility by becoming the main force of severe violence in the region. The position of the US is checked in the Middle East once more, but more than that the US has to divert attention and resources from helping Ukraine to assisting Israel, as war fatigue takes an increasing grip on US politics and public opinion. The EU is shown once more to be unable to control events within its near abroad and is relegated to about as much irrelevance as the UN in this matter. It is a perfect storm.

An operation like this could come straight out of the aktivye meriopratia toolbox of the GRU and the KGB’s successor SVR. Indeed, within hours of the attacks Russian disinformation mills put out fake stories about Hamas having gotten its weapons from Ukraine in a blatant but obvious attempt to blur where the weaponry might have come from. So even if not inspired by or even clandestinely masterminded by Russian intelligence, Iran and Hamas’ actions certainly played right into the hands of their Russian friends while serving their own direct interests. On 11 October senior Hamas official Ali Baraka stated on Memri TV their intentions could count on Moscow’s sympathy, indicating that the Kremlin approved the operation and may have known beforehand when it would take place. Last year, a high-level Hamas delegation travelled to Moscow twice to meet with Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov. They discussed working together to weaken the West. It would increasingly seem the contents of those discussions included some concrete actions with beneficial domino effects for all the enemies of peace and stability.

The question is if more is to follow. Unfortunately, it looks like it. Multiple crises coming together towards a global conflagration that breaks the international order seems to be the endgame in the war against the international rules-based order and the West currently being waged by the forces of authoritarianism.

Source: DAFZ

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The Turkish foreign minister said he would meet Amir Abdollahian next Tuesday and “the Iranian President can also visit Turkey in the upcoming days,” according to Al-Monitor.

Iran has stepped up diplomatic efforts regarding Syria. On Wednesday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed Syria, among other things, over the phone.

In the conversation, President Raisi emphasized that regional issues can be resolved only through cooperation and coordination, citing the Caucasus region and Syria as examples. “The Islamic Republic of Iran always emphasizes strengthening regional integration and the harmfulness of foreign interference.”

Regarding the efforts to solve the Syrian issues, Raisi emphasized the centrality of the Astana Framework and announced the readiness of Iran to play an active and constructive role in ending the conflicts and establishing peace in Ukraine, according to a readout by the official website of the Iranian presidency.

Putin, for his part, welcomed Iran’s initiative to establish peace in Ukraine and emphasized coordination to solve the problems of Syria within the Astana Framework.

Earlier in mid-December, the foreign ministers of Iran and Turkey had discussed the latest issues surrounding Syria. In the conversation, the top Iranian diplomat supported pursuing the political process in Syria, saying only through cooperation and coordination among regional nations can lasting security be established in the country.

In early January, Amir Abdollahian spoke with his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad over the phone. They discussed the latest state of bilateral ties as well as developments in Syria and the region.

Amir Abdollahian and Mekdad also underlined the resolve of the high-ranking officials of Iran and Syria to expand bilateral ties in different spheres more than ever before.

The top Syrian diplomat also thanked the Islamic Republic of Iran for its constructive and effective role in fighting terrorism and helping resolve the crisis in Syria through political means including during the Astana peace process.

Mekdad stressed the need for Iran to continue its role in being involved in any political initiative regarding his country.

Also, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Ayman Sosan travelled to Iran last week for talks with Amir Abdollahian and his senior advisor for special political affairs Ali Asghar Khaji.

During his meeting with Sosan, Amir Abdollahian underlined the significance of the outstanding relations between Iran and Syria and the close cooperation of the two countries to establish stability, security and peace in the region.

The Iranian foreign minister also reiterated the necessity of upgrading the ties between the two countries in different spheres and described expansion of cooperation in the field of economy as an inevitable necessity for both countries to best exploit their existing capabilities.

For his part, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Ayman Sosan honored the memory of martyr General Qassem Soleimani and his special role in fighting terrorism in Syria and the region and thanked the Islamic Republic for its support for Syria against terrorism and extremism and for its help in the political resolution of the crisis in Syria.

Source : Tehran Times

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