Israel planned to retaliate against Iran immediately following Tehran’s drone and missile attack on Saturday, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to hold off after speaking with US President Joe Biden, Israeli media have reported.

According to the public broadcaster Kan, the war cabinet in West Jerusalem had already approved a range of responses – depending on the scope of the Iranian attack – that would have taken place as early as Sunday. 

“The response won’t be what was planned any longer, diplomatic sensitivities won out,” the outlet quoted a senior source within the government. “There will be a response, but it seems it will be different from what was planned.”

The United States, having learnt nothing from the 20th Century, is, quite characteristically, spoiling for a fight with one of the great success stories of our time, China, on the basis of nothing more than a doltishly unfounded fear of this success and an ever so faintly emerging spectre of American fragility. A Fragility across not only its military and political power, but, as well, across its bellicose and tottering brand of democracy.

FOI access to an exchange of letters between PM Albanese and Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, was denied on the grounds that it would “damage bilateral relations.” Yet “Albo’s warm letter” was widely shared by Australia’s publicly subsidised Israel lobby groups.

The scam is that the letter was leaked on its way to the post office or from a diplomatic bag and ended up with the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA).

The provenance and content of Albanese’s leaked letter appear to have been discussed in early July 2022, when Mark Leibler (the leader of the Australia Israel Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) met with Herzog in Jerusalem. It was reported that Herzog told Leibler “how delighted he was to receive a very warm letter” from the newly elected Prime Minister of Australia.

Building on an unprecedented wave of settler violence in 2023, Israeli attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have intensified since October 7, with over 400 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces and settlers over the past five months. Last week, the Biden administration imposed sanctions on three Israeli settlers and two Israeli outposts in the occupied West Bank for assaulting, harassing and threatening Palestinians, and violently expelling many from their land.

Belgian police barricaded the entrance to a conference of national conservatives in the capital of the EU for several hours, in what participants denounced as censorship and political repression.

The event, dubbed NatCon, drew populists from both Europe and the US to Claridge, a venue in central Brussels. As Brexit architect Nigel Farage spoke on Tuesday, police blocked the entrance and prevented keynote speaker Eric Zemmour – a former French presidential candidate – from entering. 

“I knew I wouldn’t be welcome back in Brussels,” Farage, a former MEP, joked on stage, calling the attempt to cancel the event “simply monstrous.”

'Then CBS Fired You?': Jim Jordan Questions Catherine Herridge About Reporting On Biden, Hunter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWfgnID6rao

GUS: THE RIF WAR WAS A COLONIALIST'S WAR (1921-1926) BETWEEN THE SPANISH (HELPED BY THE FRENCH FROM 1924 — WHO ELSE?) AND THE MOROCCAN LOCALS... BUT THE MOROCCANS WERE TRIBAL AND SOMEWHAT DIVIDED... HISTORY SEEMS TO FAIL RECORDING THIS DIVISION WHICH COULD HAVE LED TO THE REAL DEMISE OF THE TRIBES VERSUS THE COLONIALISTS... HERE ONE NEEDS TO READ SAINT EXUPERY TO UNDERSTAND THESE DIVISIONS, in Terre des Hommes (Wind, Sand and Stars):

If you want to convince someone who does not refuse war of the horror of war, do not treat him as a barbarian: try to understand him before judging him.

Some days I wake up and don’t recognise the country we have become. It is not the country I grew up in. It is not a country I can be proud of. It is not a country that has a bright future under current leadership.

Today was such a day. Iran launched its much-anticipated strikes against Israel, a clearly articulated response to Israeli airstrikes on the Iranian Consulate facilities in Damascus Syria on 1 April 2024 which reportedly killed 16 people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqbeyB20b9M

Megyn Kelly Describes Unprecedented Moments as Trump Goes on Trial in NYC, and Iran Attacks Israel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roXt6b0QHEU

New York: Donald Trump has kicked off his historic first criminal trial by trying unsuccessfully to remove the presiding judge before appearing to doze off during legal arguments.

In a heavily fortified New York courtroom on Monday (local time), the former president’s defence team and prosecutors also began the exhaustive task of selecting a 12-person jury from a pool of about 500 people to take part in the case, which centres on Trump’s alleged attempt to cover up a sex scandal ahead of the 2016 election.

A Sydney bishop has been allegedly stabbed during a church service in the city's south-west on Monday night [15/04/2024], where police officers were also injured.

The attack occurred at the Assyrian Orthodox Church, Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley, with graphic video showing a man lunging at Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel with something in his hand during a mass that was being broadcast online.

NSW Ambulance said three other people were also stabbed.

A male was arrested at the scene and "has been removed from the church and taken to an undisclosed location," according to NSW Police.

Suddenly, financial markets have become highly volatile, with the escalation of Middle East hostilities and last week’s increased US inflation reading generating tension and uncertainty.

The US dollar is surging and creating dilemmas for central bankers elsewhere.

Stephen Bartholomeusz

GUSNOTE: THIS IS NOT SUDDEN... THE WRITING WAS ON THE WALL FOR A WHILE....

Oil prices, already above $US90 a barrel, could go higher and add to the challenges faced by economic managers, depending on how Israel responds to the weekend barrage of drones and missiles.

Gold prices are at record levels despite the strength of the US dollar.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin, like Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, “will not stop once the war against Ukraine is over.” The German government, meanwhile, continues to arm neo-Nazi units in Ukraine.

“Putin will not stop once the war against Ukraine is over,” Pistorius said in Berlin on Wednesday, at the launch of a book on Britain’s wartime prime minister, Winston Churchill.

Putin “has made that clear,” Pistorius continued. “Just as clearly as Hitler, who also always said that he would not stop.”

Eric Zuesse (blogs at https://theduran.com/author/eric-zuesse/)