The Telegraph has removed an article from its website about the close ties between Hezbollah and the Christian town of Ras Baalbek in northeastern Lebanon. The story, which was accessible for just around a day, portrayed the militant movement in a positive light while mentioning local resentment of Israel.

The story was published on Monday amid the ongoing Israeli military offensive against Hezbollah that began earlier this month and has already left more than 880 people dead, over 2,000 injured, and around one million displaced.

West Jerusalem launched the campaign after Hezbollah launched waves of strikes on the Jewish state in retaliation for the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in a joint US-Israeli campaign against Iran.

According to the now inaccessible article, the residents of Ras Baalbek formed a strong bond with Hezbollah when the militants came to their defense against attacks by Islamic State (IS, former ISIS) from 2013 to 2017. Hezbollah also reportedly aided the town with medical care during the Covid-19 pandemic, supplied electricity generators, and even Christmas trees.

https://www.rt.com/news/636209-telegraph-removes-article-christians-hezbollah/

THE STORY THAT FOLLOWS WAS THE ONE DELETED BY THE PUBLISHER [BUT RETAINED BY THE DATA-HOLDERS]

Christians and Hezbollah unite against 'Epstein empire'

Story by Paul Nuki, Simon Townsley

The complexity of Lebanon is apparent in few places more than Ras Baalbek, a Catholic Christian town in Lebanon’s northern Bekaa Valley close to the borders with Syria.

The town, which boasts two Byzantine churches, has teamed up with Hezbollah in a bid to preserve its heritage and protect its 6,000 devout Catholic residents.

So close are the two communities that the Iranian-backed militant group buys a Christmas tree each year for the village.

“The relationship between the village and Hezbollah is stronger than with the Pope,” Rifiat Nasrallah, 60, a quarryman and village leader whose marble sarcophagi line the village cemetery, told The Telegraph during a visit in the midst of war.

“The Vatican did nothing for us but Hezbollah spilt their blood to protect us. The Pope only has prayers.”

Two soldiers from the Lebanese army, whose political leaders have vowed to disarm Hezbollah, sit in Mr Nasrallah’s home as he explains the local politics. A crucifix hangs next to a portrait of Hassan Nasrallah (no relation), Hezbollah’s former secretary general, on one of the room’s walls.

The Bekaa Valley is beautiful, dangerous and cosmopolitan in equal measures. Christian, Sunni and Shia Muslim villages sit cheek by jowl.

As The Telegraph drives there, Israeli jets and drones are hunting Hezbollah positions in the hills to the west after the militants let rip one of their long-range ground-to-ground missiles towards “the entity” the previous night.

These missiles are large and said to be launched from adapted shipping containers carried by articulated trucks, which makes the drive there hazardous.

But the threat that brought the Christians of Ras Baalbek and Hezbollah close came from the east. The village sits at the foothills of the arid Qalamoun mountains, over which you can trek just a few kilometres into Syria.

It was from there, between 2013 and 2017 during the height of the Syrian civil war, that Islamic State (IS) fighters launched several assaults on the village, threatening to wipe it from the map and behead its Catholic residents.

“The first attack came from a village called Qasr, just seven kilometres from here in Syria. IS came over the hills and reached the edge of the village and kidnapped some of my workers and tortured them,” he said.

“At first, it was only Hezbollah and the villagers who fought back against the Salafists. We fought together with missiles and rockets. Many were wounded and some died. I was almost killed with shrapnel in my back from a mortar.”

Mr Nasrallah did not say so, but the bond between the villagers and Hezbollah, is a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” – or that’s how it started.

During the Syrian civil war, Hezbollah sent thousands of fighters in support of the Iranian-backed Assad regime. Their adversaries included jihadist organisations such as Isis and the al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra.

When IS first struck on Lebanese soil in 2013, the group was quick to the defence of the villagers, unlike the Lebanese army, which only became involved later.

“The army was weak. The leader of the army at the time was not strong. He did not have the political support for the fight. Only later in 2015 and 2017 did they help,” said Mr Nasrallah

One of the two Lebanese soldiers said: “I lost five friends. One Humvee we were following was blown up by a mine. Three colleagues died in that. We had good-quality soldiers but, at first, we lacked logistics and equipment.”

In 2017, the Lebanese army did see IS off, and is credited for doing so in much of Lebanon. The Dawn of the Jurds (hills) anti-terror operation was documented in official dispatches at the time.

“The army liberated today around 30 square kilometres, making the total liberated space since the beginning… now around 80 square kilometres out of 120 square kilometres,” said an official army memo dated Aug 20 2017.

It added: “During the military operations, three soldiers fell and a fourth was severely injured as a result of the explosion of a landmine that hit a military vehicle. Moreover, two other soldiers were slightly injured during the clashes while the operations resulted in the death of 15 terrorists and the destruction of 12 posts containing caves, tunnels, communication paths, fortifications and different weapons.”

Today in Lebanon there are again widespread fears, so far unsubstantiated, that Syria will become involved in the war. Hezbollah suspects that the Israelis are making use of Syrian airspace to launch commando attacks on places like Nabi Sheet, which was attacked two weeks ago. And the Christians of Ras Baalbek are worried about renewed attacks from Syrian Salafist groups like IS.

“His history speaks for itself”, said Mr Nasrallah of Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, the new Syrian president, who once led the al-Nusra Front, the al-Qaeda affiliate that fought against Hezbollah in Syria. “We have a saying, ‘You cannot change a wild animal. He is what he is’. And he is at our border.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/christians-and-hezbollah-unite-against-epstein-empire/ar-AA1ZcAt2

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiRuq--x_nA&t=318s

Musician Fired After Gaza Remarks and Zionist Lobby Pressure| The West Report

Concert pianist Jason Gillham is taking the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra to court after his performance was cancelled following remarks about the killing of journalists in Gaza. The dispute has become a broader fight over censorship, political expression and whether artists can speak freely from the stage without fear of punishment. This episode looks at the legal case, what Gillham said, how the MSO responded, and what the outcome could mean for free speech in the arts

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

A specter is haunting Europe – the specter of Ashab al-Yamin. Officially known as “Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia (HAYI),” or the “Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right,” the group mysteriously appeared in early March, and, according to mainstream media, it’s taking the continent by storm.

But a closer look at the supposedly Iran-backed terror organization suggests that it does not exist in any concrete form, and may be a confection of Israeli intelligence.

Though the nebulous HAYI claimed credit for torching ambulances belonging to a Jewish community organization in London on March 23, two suspects in the attack have been released on bail, and are not charged with any terror-related crimes. What’s more, London Metropolitan Police have so far refused to release the men’s names, raising questions about their identities. Were they even Muslim? 

HAYI’s first public mention in the West came on March 9, when the previously non-existent organization released a video showing an explosive device detonating outside a synagogue in Liege, Belgium, alongside a statement taking credit for the attack. Within hours, the group had somehow been identified by the “SITE Intelligence Group,” an Israeli-led private intelligence firm founded in the aftermath of Sept. 11 to cash in on the newly-minted Global War on Terror.

The materials HAYI published were promptly circulated on social media by Joe Truzman, a self-described “Senior Research analyst examining Palestinian armed groups and Iranian proxy organizations” at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), a neoconservative DC-based think tank founded in 2001 with the stated goal of working to “enhance Israel’s image.” As The Grayzone reported, the Trump White House plagiarized its public justification for attacking Iran word-for-word from an FDD paper. 

Though Truzman declined to state where he’d found the materials, he wrote that “Telegram channels linked to the Axis of Resistance… widely disseminated the publications,” using a reference to a variety of resistance factions sympathetic to Iran and Palestine throughout the greater Middle East. The group he linked to, a popular Telegram channel called Sabereen News, made it clear they were reposting the video, which they said was the work of a group calling themselves “the companions.” 

Almost immediately, Truzman began asserting that these “companions” were all but guaranteed to be a Tehran-linked cutout. For starters, he told British media, “their logo with the wording is a sign of a classic Iranian front organization.” And Iran had already threatened to carry out just such a wave of attacks, Truzman claimed. After all, he wrote, “On March 8, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, Iran’s deputy-foreign minister, warned that if a European country joined the US and Israel in the current war against the Islamic Republic, it would be a ‘legitimate’ target ‘for Iranian retaliation.’”

Over the next two weeks, the shadowy group would go on to take credit for burning a vehicle in a Jewish neighborhood in Antwerp, arson at a synagogue in Rotterdam, explosions near a Jewish school and financial office building in Amsterdam, firebombing Jewish-dedicated ambulances in London, and an unspecified attack in Greece. 

So far, the only media outlet to have interviewed a member of HAYI is CBS News, which was recently purchased by David Ellison, the ultra-Zionist billionaire son of the largest individual donor to Israel’s military, Larry Ellison, who happens to be a close friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Bari Weiss, the editor-in-chief installed by Ellison at CBS, is a self-described “Zionist fanatic.”

Perfectly timed to set off another wave of security state theatrics and hysteria over rising antisemitism and Iranian infiltration, Israeli assets leaped on the narrative that a trans-continental IRGC sleeper cell had been unleashed upon the Old World. Yossi Kuperwasser, the former head of the IDF’s intelligence research division, was quoted in one British outlet as confirming that Iran “has dormant cells that could try and carry out terror attacks.” He added, “they are probably working to wake them up now.”

For those with their critical faculties still intact, the strange wave of attacks raised red flags – and acute suspicions of false flags.

Cui bono?

Among the oddest qualities of the attacks supposedly carried out by HAYI were the targets. The countries in which the attacks occurred did not correspond with those Iran would likely single out for retaliation. 

Belgium, the second-most targeted country, has explicitly and repeatedly ruled outjoining the US-Israeli war, which it describes as contrary to international law. Most of the strange explosions have been concentrated in the Netherlands, which sent a single frigate to the eastern Mediterranean. However, its involvement pales in comparison to a country like France, which has not been hit by HAYI once despite sending an aircraft carrier and several other military assets.

Strikes by Iran on these countries would therefore serve little political purpose. After all, if the attackers hoped to deter states from further involvement in the war, they would likely focus on the leading European participants, such as France, Britain, and Italy. Yet just one of those countries has experienced a purported HAYI attack, and only on a single occasion.

The actions by various European police agencies do not match up with the details of the alleged crimes, either. Following an attack on Hatzalah Jewish charity ambulances in London on March 23, police simply allowed the perpetrators to walk free on bail, demonstrating a level of leniency unlikely to be extended to a suspected Iranian spy. For Hatzalah, the incident was a blessing in disguise; the British government has since pledged to replace their damaged ambulances with four brand-new vehicles for free, and the organization has already exploited the situation to rake in over 2 million pounds in donations.

At the time of publication, London Metropolitan Police have yet to release the names of the two suspects in the attack, and the British press has seemingly moved on from the incident.

On the same evening as the ambulance attack in London, two minors were arrested for burning a car in Antwerp, Belgium. Though the crime occurred in a Jewish neighborhood, the victim was reported to be a Moroccan woman named Fatia. Her vehicle, she told a Belgian outlet, had been the subject of a smash-and-grab by vandals who wanted the jewels she’d been keeping in the car.

“Whether they were actually targeting Jewish people doesn’t matter,” she stated.

For many experts, HAYI’s written messages raised serious questions as well. As a Dutch professor who specializes in transnational militant Shiite groups told a national outlet, “The fact that this group clearly cannot read or write Arabic fluently like a native speaker means that I do not entirely regard them as a seriously organized radicalized sleeper cell.”

In the group’s materials, the logo changes significantly from one message to another, strongly suggesting they were hastily created with AI. The communiques also contain highly questionable language, beginning with a March 20th statement which referenced the “nation of Israel.” A post several days later claiming credit for burning ambulances in London referred four times in English and Arabic to “Israel” or “the Land of Israel.” The Hebrew translation of the statement raised even more questions, as it referred to a rabbi’s move to the country as “making aliyah to the Land of Israel” – a phrase employed almost exclusively by Zionists.

Official Iranian broadcasts, like those of virtually every Islamic resistance group on the planet, generally refrain from using such language, which they view as legitimizing the apartheid state, and they tend to prefer terms like “Zionist regime” and “occupied Palestine” instead. The language used in the communique by the supposed Iran-linked group is far more characteristic of Israeli speech patterns.

From Iraq to Australia, Israel’s dark record raises questions

There is, of course, an alternative explanation for why someone would want to carry out a series of low-impact, relatively harmless bombings of Jewish sites. The same strategy was allegedly employed by Zionist spies in Iraq in the early 1950s following Israel’s creation, when at least five bombings targeting Jewish locations were carried out. Israeli historian Avi Shlaim later uncovered extensive evidence that Israeli intelligence perpetrated a majority of the attacks in an effort to encourage a Jewish exodus to Israel.

Yaakov Karkoukli, a member of the Iraqi Zionist underground who worked closely with convicted Israeli spy Yusef Basri at the time, told Shlaim that this was a deliberate strategy “to terrorize and not to kill” Jews in the region and force their resettlement. 

If that was the case, the strategy worked to perfection. Within several years, over 95% of Iraq’s Jews had migrated.

The pattern appears to have continued in the decades since. Other observers have drawn attention to bizarre incidents like the 1994 car bombing of the Israeli embassy in London, which left twenty people injured with mostly minor wounds. In the aftermath, it became clear that the main organizer, a man going by the name of “Reda Moghrabi,” had vanished. In his place, two Palestinian academics who were active in local solidarity movements, Samar Alami and Jawad Botmeh, were ultimately convicted of conspiring to bomb the embassy – despite being nowhere near the embassy at the time of detonation, and despite the Israeli embassy camera nearby mysteriously malfunctioning that day. Both later concluded that “Moghrabi” was likely a Mossad agent operating under an alias.

Years later, MI5 whistleblower Annie Machon openly stated that the 1994 bombing was a “false flag attack” by Israel. Speaking to an interviewer, Machon noted that the senior MI5 agent in charge of the agency’s investigation concluded that “Mossad… had bombed their own embassy.”

The senior MI5 “said that [Israel] did it for two reasons,” Machon explained. Primarily, she said, Israeli officials “were always hassling MI5 for increased security around their embassy and other interests in London, because London had a reputation of giving safe haven to Arab dissidents from around the world at that point.”

But “MI5 kept saying, ‘well, there’s no reason to increase the threat assessment. You don’t need extra protection.’ So, letting off a controlled explosion outside, of course, they immediately got what they wanted there.”

Secondly, Machon explained, “two innocent Palestinians were arrested, charged, and convicted of conspiracy to cause that attack. And they were very active in a Palestinian support network in London,” which had been involved in “campaigning for people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,” who were “gaining quote a lot of support” in Britain. “By arresting these people and framing them for an attack, and sticking them in prison, the whole network just shattered and hasn’t got back on its feet to this day.”

“So that would be a clear political advantage for Mossad to have achieved in London, by framing these innocent people for an attack which was carried out by Mossad.”

There’s a major possibility a similar plan was set in motion in Australia much more recently. When a wave of attacks on Jewish communities quickly followed Australian Prime Minister Antony Albanese’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state in 2025, the media there immediately pinned the blame on Iran. This belief, it turned out, was also based on Israeli influence.

As The Grayzone reported at the time, Australia’s Sky News revealed that Israel originally provided Australia’s intelligence agency, ASIO, with a “tip off, or lead, in relation to one of the firebombings” which indicated that a spate of attacks “was orchestrated by Iran.”

In December, when a pair of ISIS sympathizers attacked a Hanukkah ceremony on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu immediately blamedan unspecified “Iranian-backed foreign terror cell,” prompting Canberra to expel Iran’s ambassador. He also singled out Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, accusing him of inspiring the attack by recognizing a Palestinian state.

Two months later, Israeli President Isaac Herzog flew into Canberra to promote Israel’s planned assault on Iran. During his trip, Herzog held an unprecedented secret meeting with ASIO Director General Mike Burgess. 

“The president met with the Director-General of Security, and was briefed by ASIO’s counter-terrorism team on their work following the Bondi attack,” an ASIO spokesperson claimed after the meeting was revealed.

https://thegrayzone.com/2026/03/28/iran-terror-cell-europe/

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

AS MENTIONED BEFORE, ASIO, MOSSAD, ETC.....