Netanyahu To Rubio: Let’s ‘Finish the Job’ Against Iran

Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in Israel where he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, after which they gave a joint address before reporters in Jerusalem.

This is Rubio’s first Middle East visit since becoming America’s top diplomat. He and Bibi called for the total elimination of Hamas and the return of all the remaining hostages, following three being released on Saturday, including an American dual citizen.

Importantly, Netanyahu declared that Israel and the US should “finish the job” against Iran, a week after Trump in a Fox interview said the choice is on Tehran – either they can do a new deal to monitor their nuclear energy program or possibly get bombed into submission.

Rubio called the Islamic Republic the greatest source of instability in the region, and as a longtime supporter of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“Hamas cannot continue as a military or a government force… they must be eliminated,” Rubio additionally stated alongside Netanyahu, warning that the “gates of hell” could once again be opened against Hamas.

As for Netanyahu, he affirmed: “We discussed Trump’s bold vision for Gaza’s future and will work to ensure that vision becomes a reality.” This vision has been roundly rejected by Arab states, especially Egypt and Jordan.

Trump earlier this month restored “maximum pressure” and fresh sanctions targeting Iranian oil exports, which reflects the policy of his first term, when he pulled the US out of the JCPOA nuclear deal with Tehran.

“Maybe they are trying to get new defense as we speak but their defense is largely gone… Iran is very nervous. I think they’re scared. I think Iran would love to make a deal and I would love to make a deal with them without bombing them,” Trump had said in the remarks just under a week ago.

“Everybody thinks Israel with our help or our approval will go in and bomb the hell out of them,” Trump had added. “I would prefer that not happen. I’d much rather see a deal with Iran where we can do a deal, supervise, check it, inspect it,” the president continued.

That’s when Trump made one of the more interesting and provocative comments of the interview…

There’s two ways to stopping them: With bombs or a written piece of paper.

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Trump Didn’t Invent the Gaza Ethnic Cleansing Plan. It’s Been US Policy Since 2007

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intention from day one of his “revenge” attack on Gaza, launched 16 months ago, was either ethnic cleansing or genocide in Gaza.

His ally in genocide for the next 15 months was former US President Joe Biden. His ally in ethnic cleansing is current US President Donald Trump.

Biden provided the 2,000lb bombs for the genocide. Trump is reportedly providing an even larger munition – the 11-ton MOAB, or massive ordnance air blast bomb, with a mile-wide radius – to further incentivise the population’s exodus.

Biden claimed that Israel was helping the people of Gaza by “carpet bombing” the enclave – in his words – to “eradicate” Hamas. Trump claims he is helping the people of Gaza by “cleaning them out” – in his words – from the resulting “demolition site”.

Biden called the destruction of 70 percent of Gaza’s buildings “self defence”. Trump calls the imminent destruction of the remaining 30 percent “all hell breaking loose”.

Biden claimed to be “working tirelessly for a ceasefire” while encouraging Israel to continue the murder of children month after month.

Trump claims to have negotiated a ceasefire, even as he has turned a blind eye to Israel violating the terms of that ceasefire: by continuing to fire on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank; by refusing entry into Gaza of vital aid trucks; by allowing in almost none of the promised tents or mobile homes; by denying many hundreds of maimed Palestinians treatment abroad; by blocking the return of Palestinians to their homes in northern Gaza; and by failing to engage with the second phase of the ceasefire negotiations.

Those Israeli violations, although widely reported by the media as Hamas “claims”, were confirmed to the New York Times by three Israeli officials and two mediators.

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Spoiler Alert: Ukrainian President Zelensky Says “I Will Never Accept Any Decisions Between the United States and Russia About Ukraine… Never”

Maybe this is why they did not invite him.

Ukrainian president Zelensky sat down with far-left ABC News reporter Kristen Welker on Sunday.

This comes after a Saturday when Zelensky could not stop ranting about the upcoming Trump-Putin talks in Saudi Arabia.

Zelensky on Saturday told reporters it would be more dangerous if President Trump speaks with Putin first before he speaks with Ukraine.

On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky firmly rejected any negotiations between the U.S. and Russia that exclude Ukraine.

Kristen Welker:
Something that President Trump said this week—he did not say “yes” when he was asked if he sees Ukraine as an equal member in the peace process. He did say later that Ukraine would have a seat at the table. Have you been given any assurances that Ukraine will have an equal seat at the negotiating table?

Volodymyr Zelensky:
I will never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine. Never. Our people—never. Our adults and children, everybody—it can’t be so. This is a war in Ukraine against us, and it’s our human losses.

We are thankful for all the support, the unity between the USA and Ukraine, the bipartisan unity, and the bipartisan support. We are thankful for all of this. But there is no leader in the world who can really make a deal with Putin without us—about us.

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MAJOR UPDATE: President Trump Says He Is Working on a Plan for Ukraine to Pay Back the $350 Billion the US Sent to Ukraine

President Donald Trump spoke to reporters briefly before he flew to Daytona Beach for the Daytona 500.

During the questions and answers, President Trump made when he announced that Ukraine was going to pay back the estimated $350 billion the US generously sent to the Zelensky regime.

This was a major announcement by President Trump.

Here is the transcript.

Reporter: Would you support Zelinsky’s seeding territory or exchanging territory in any agreement to end the war?

President Trump: Well, he’s going to have to do what he has to do, but his poll numbers aren’t particularly great, to put it mildly. He’s got a country where it’s been savaged and attacked, and he’s got an army that’s been very, very brave, actually, despite the fact that we’ve given him, in my opinion, $350 billion. That’s what the number is. You don’t hear that number. And Europe has given, in my opinion, $100 billion. And they’ve done it in the form of a loan.

And I have a Secretary of Treasury right now who’s actually quite brave. He’s over in Ukraine on a train, and there’s a lot of things happening around that train that aren’t so good. And he’s going there to get a document done where we’re going to be assured that we’re going to, in some form, get this money back because we’re putting up far more money than Europe.

And Europe is in far more danger than we are. We have an ocean in between. Europe has nothing in between. You know what they have in between? They have Ukraine in between. So as you know, Europe is putting up money, and they’re getting it in the form of a loan.

And the United States, under Biden, didn’t do loans. They just handed money. Every time somebody walked in from Ukraine, they just handed them money foolishly. This should have never happened. It should have never started. And once it did, other things should have happened. Other things should have taken place. So we’re getting security on our money. We’re going to have it secured by… They have raw earth, and they have oil and gas, and they have a lot of other things. And we’re asking for security on our money. So does it mean you are not sending any more aid to Ukraine? They’ve agreed to it. Ukraine has agreed to it.

Reporter:  Does it mean you are not sending any more aid to Ukraine?

President Trump:  No, we are, but we want it secured, and the money is going to be secured..

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Military Spending: Trump’s Aim Is True, but He’ll Still Need Help To Make the Shot

“One of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China, President Putin of Russia,” US president Donald Trump said on February 13. “And I want to say, ‘let’s cut our military budget in half.’ And we can do that. And I think we’ll be able to.”

Trump deserves our thanks and support in taking aim at US military spending in general, and at the insanely large, outrageously expensive, and mostly useless US nuclear arsenal in particular.

Making sure he feels lots of public love on the matter is a matter of major importance, because the only thing more rare than such talk from an American president since World War 2 has been real action on the idea.

Dwight Eisenhower made a strong rhetorical lunge against the “military-industrial complex,” but only on his way out of office in his 1960 farewell address.

Eisenhower’s successor, John F. Kennedy, seemed somewhat inclined to agree with Eisenhower on the subject, and likely paid the price for that agreement in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.

Since that time, American presidents have considered themselves on notice to tread lightly where the US war machine is concerned.

So, does he really mean it?

I suspect he does.

Even a man with Trump’s tendencies toward saying whatever pops into his head knows that this kind of talk is politically, maybe even personally, dangerous. There’s no upside to saying it if he doesn’t mean it.

And if he’s really interested, as he claims, in reducing the federal government’s drunken-sailor spending, some of the reduction will have to come out of the Pentagon’s hide.

“Defense” (a euphemism for military spending, most of which has little or nothing to do with actually defending the US) is the single biggest category of “discretionary” government spending.

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Is a Grand Bargain between US and Russia in the works?

Last month Donald Trump suggested that he would end the war in Ukraine as a gift to the Russian people. The terms of that peace, as far as we know from General Kellogg’s peace plan are unacceptable to Russia and will certainly be rejected. In a subsequent interview Vladimir Putin suggested that the US and Russia should have friendly relations but that they should discuss bigger issues than the war in Ukraine.

He did not elaborate, leaving us to try and guess what the big agenda could be. We know that the Kremlin and many other powers including China, India and Iran are keenly interested in redrawing the Eurasian continent’s security architecture and also improving global economic, financial and trade relations.

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Zelenskiy Refuses To Sign Rare Earth Deal With Trump, Ukrainian Official Mocks, “We Will Send Eggs”

The Washington Post reports that although Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy refused to sign a deal with the United States for $500B in rare earth minerals for the hundreds of billion in aid provided by America for the Ukrainian armed forces, a Ukrainian official mocked the offer, and said Ukraine would send eggs to help Americans.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected a Trump administration request this past week that Kyiv hand over 50 percent of its mineral resources — an extraordinary demand that could significantly overshadow the value of aid that has been sent to Ukraine, wrote WaPo.

“We can consider how to distribute profits when security guarantees are clear. So far, I have not seen that in the document,” he told reporters at an annual gathering of U.S. and European security elite.

“Senior Ukrainian official jokes that to maintain U.S. support, Ukraine would even send a massive shipment of eggs, noting the country’s surplus and rising U.S. prices.”

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Volodymyr Zelenskyy: Ukraine’s president calls for creation of ‘armed forces of Europe’ amid fears of reduction in US support

Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he believes it is time for the creation of an “armed forces of Europe”, adding his army was “not enough”.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, the Ukrainian president said Europe cannot rule out the possibility that “America might say no to Europe on issues that threaten it”.

Ukraine has been defending itself from Russia‘s full-scale invasion for nearly three years.

Mr Zelenskyy noted that many leaders have long spoken about how Europe needs its own military.

“I really believe that time has come,” he told the gathering in Germany.

“The armed forces of Europe must be created.”

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Dictator Zelenskiy Continues To Goad Europe To War, Says He ‘Won’t Take NATO Membership Off The Table’, Says Ukrainians Don’t Want Elections

The fact is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is not a legitimate leader. He has overstayed his electoral mandate for a year. The parliament is not legitimate either.

Zelenskiy will not hold elections because he does not want to lose power, or should we say those who are controlling him do not want to lose power over the war against Russia, and the backroom deals that have been made for natural resources. Zelenskiy also does not want an investigation into the level of obscene grift of Western aid.

Saying Ukrainians do not want an election is a lie. He is extremely unpopular in-country. Much of this animosity towards the Ukrainian President comes from his attacks against Christianity and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

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The Pentagon is Recruiting Elon Musk to Help Them Win a Nuclear War

Donald Trump has announced his intention to build a gigantic anti-ballistic missile system to counter Chinese and Russian nuclear weapons, and he is recruiting Elon Musk to help him. The Pentagon has long dreamed of constructing an American “Iron Dome.” The technology is couched in the defense language – i.e., to make America safe again. But like its Israeli counterpart, it would function as an offensive weapon, giving the United States the ability to launch nuclear attacks anywhere in the world without having to worry about the consequences of a similar response. This power could upend the fragile peace maintained by decades of mutually assured destruction, a doctrine that has underpinned global stability since the 1940s.

A New Global Arms Race

Washington’s war planners have long salivated at the thought of winning a nuclear confrontation and have sought the ability to do so for decades. Some believe that they have found a solution and a savior in the South African-born billionaire and his technology.

Neoconservative think tank the Heritage Foundation published a video last year stating that Musk might have “solved the nuclear threat coming from China.” It claimed that Starlink satellites from his SpaceX company could be easily modified to carry weapons that could shoot down incoming rockets.

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