DimitriLascaris

Today, after Guinea-Bissau acceded to Israel's request that it withdraw its flag from two of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla's vessels, organizers of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition held a press conference near Istanbul's historic Blue Mosque. Dimitri Lascaris attended the press conference and heard of the extraordinary lengths to which Israel will go to deprive Palestinians of humanitarian aid. Despite Israel's unconscionable tactics, the Flotilla's organizers declared that they will persevere.

On April 26, 2024, in Istanbul, Turkey, the organizers of the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza announced that, at Israel's request, the government of Guinea-Bissau had withdrawn its flag from two of the three vessels that comprise this year's emergency flotilla to Gaza. As Dimitri Lascaris explains, Guinea-Bissau's action constitutes a flagrant violation of its obligation under Article 1 of the Genocide Convention to prevent genocide.

Today in Istanbul, Chief "Mandla" Mandela, the grandson of Nelson Mandela, delivered a speech to participants in the Freedom Flotilla's emergency mission to Gaza. Afterward, Dimitri Lascaris spoke with Chief Mandela about the tenacious efforts of South African activists to strengthen their government's support for the Palestinian cause.

On the evening of April 23, 2024, humanitarian activists learned that the departure of the Freedom Flotilla's emergency mission to Gaza had been delayed, yet again, by Turkey's Erdoğan government. When they gathered to receive the news of the delay, survivors of Israel's genocide in Gaza spoke of the horrors they experienced at the hands of the Western-backed Israeli regime.

On April 23, 2024, Dimitri Lascaris arrived in Istanbul to join the Gaza Freedom Flotilla 2024. Originally scheduled to complete its latest mission to Gaza in the summer of 2024, the Flotilla's departure was expedited to meet the profound and urgent and needs of Gaza's civilian population. This humanitarian mission confronts, however, one formidable obstacle: the U.S., British and German governments are placing enormous pressure on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to prohibit the Flotilla's departure from Turkey's shores. Will Erdoğan honour the wishes of Turkey's pro-Palestinian electorate, or will he succumb to the dictates of Western imperialists?

On April 17, 2024, as the world waited for Israel's military response to Iran's unprecedented drone and missile strikes, Dimitri Lascaris spoke with Lebanon-based, geopolitical analyst, Laith Marouf. Marouf argues that Israel is now dangerously exposed, particularly after Iran caused extensive damage to a key military installation near Israel's border with Lebanon. According to Marouf, Israel's military is hiding the damage it sustained in the Iranian attacks, and Hezbollah's forces have begun to exploit the vulnerabilities resulting from that damage.

With U.S. documentary film-maker Regis Tremblay, Dimitri Lascaris discusses the geopolitical significance of Iran's drone and missile strikes on Israel. According to Lascaris, Iran now enjoys a dominant position in West Asia, whereas Israel's genocidal regime and its Western backers have entered terminal decline. Western states, Lascaris argues, are responding to the rise of non-Western powers by increasing their already stratospheric military spending, but this will end up bankrupting them and hastening their demise.

On the day following Iran's unprecedented drone and missile strikes on Israel, Dimitri Lascaris spoke with American-born, Iranian professor Mohammad Marandi about the significance of the Iranian strikes. According to Professor Marandi, the era of Iranian "strategic patience" is over and "Iranians have changed the equation". Future aggressions by Israel, he argues, will be met with "disproportionate" Iranian retaliation.

As the dust settled on Iran's drone and missile strikes on Israel, Dimitri Lascaris ranted about the West's acute case of historical amnesia. By avoiding honest discussion about Israel's countless aggressions against Iran, Western political and media elites are dooming us to a devastating war in West Asia.

On April 11, 2024, Yves Engler spoke with Dimitri Lascaris about the efforts of Israel's Western-backed regime to draw the United States and its allies into a devastating war with Iran and its allies. Engler and Lascaris also discussed whether Israel's actions amount to terrorism, and the 'Axis of Resistance' to Western hegemony in West Asia.

On German independent media outlet, AcTVism Munich, Dimitri Lascaris responded to criticisms from German academics of Nicaragua's genocide claim against Germany. Lascaris also discussed Israel's destruction of an Iranian consulate in Syria, Ukraine's proposed membership in NATO and the EU, and Israel's murder of seven aid workers.

On April 6, 2024, from the hills on the outskirts of Kalamata, Greece, Dimitri Lascaris ranted about the arrogance of corporate 'journalists'.

On April 2, 2024, after arriving at the Doha International Airport from Iraq, Dimitri Lascaris described the insane security protocols at Baghdad International Airport and explored what those protocols reveal about the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

On April 1, 2024, Dimitri Lascaris visited the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad. In 2003, as U.S. tanks and troops approached the museum in the criminal invasion of Iraq, museum staff fled for their lives, leaving the museum unprotected. At that point, thieves entered the building and stole a vast, unknown number of precious artifacts. When Donald Rumsfeld, then U.S. Defence Secretary, was asked why U.S. forces did nothing to stop the looting, he replied dismissively "stuff happens".

On March 30, 2024, while visiting Baghdad, Dimitri Lascaris spoke with Hussein Barood, the elected spokesman of the Iraqi Movement for the Belt-and-Road Initiative. For years, the movement which Barood represents has advocated for Iraq to become a fully-fledged participant in China's Belt-and-Road Initiative. Although there has been progress in deepening Chinese investment in Iraq, the U.S. government has sought to obstruct Iraqi development by controlling the oil and gas revenues upon which Iraq critically depends.

For nearly four years, Hussein Moanes, a former spokesman for Iraq's Hezbollah Brigrades, was imprisoned by U.S. forces for having engaged in armed resistance to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. After his liberation, he co-founded and became leader of a new political party, Huquq (the Rights Movement). Moanes is now a member of Iraq’s Parliament, along with five other deputies from Huquq. Moanes and his party continue to resist the U.S. occupation of his country, but by political means. For this, the U.S. government recently sanctioned Moanes. On April 1, 2024, in Baghdad’s “green zone”, Dimitri Lascaris spoke with Moanes about the U.S. government's relentless efforts to perpetuate its control of Iraq’s resources, economy and government.

On March 25, 2024, Ammar Al-Moussawi, the Director of International Relations for the political wing of Hezbollah, spoke with Dimitri Lascaris in Beirut, Lebanon. Al-Moussawi is a former member of the Lebanese Parliament. In 1988, his brother was killed in combat against Israeli forces in south Lebanon. Lascaris and Al-Moussawi had a wide-ranging discussion about Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, the occupation of Lebanese lands by Israel, the duty of Arab states to come to the defence of Palestinians, and the possibility of Jews and Arabs living peacefully together in a single state. This is believed to be the first interview by a Canadian journalist of a senior Hezbollah official. Camera-work, editing and translation by Hadi Hoteit.

On March 31, 2024, while in Baghdad, Iraq, Dimitri Lascaris ranted about supporters of Israel who accuse Israel's critics of being supporters of terrorism. Lascaris argues that these accusers are themselves the world's worst supporters of terrorism, and that they have forfeited the right to pass judgment on anyone about anything.

On March 30, 2024, Dimitri Lascaris arrived in Baghdad, visiting the sixth country in his month-long journey to parts of the Middle East in which there is organized resistance to U.S. hegemony.

Few Canadian-Palestinian activists are as radioactive to Zionists as Laith Marouf. This week, during his visit to Lebanon (where Marouf is now based), Dimitri Lascaris caught up with Marouf and asked him to explain why he causes Zionists to go bonkers.

On March 27, 2024, Israel launched an airstrike on northern Lebanon, and another airstrike in the south, killing at least seven Lebanese paramedics. These attacks followed numerous airstrikes by Israel on the Baalbek region, which lies near the Syrian border in the northern half of Lebanon. Dimitri Lascaris visited the Baalbek region on March 27 to report on the damage Israel has inflicted there during the month of March.

Yesterday, while in Beirut, Dimitri Lascaris learned that a 29-year old Hezbollah soldier killed in combat in south Lebanon would be laid to rest, so he drove to the southern suburb of Dahieh to report on his funeral. At one point during the funeral procession, the soldier's young son climbed onto his coffin and raised his fist in defiance.

On March 23, 2024, Dimitri Lascaris visited the Beaufort Castle in south Lebanon. The Castle, which is known in Arabic as Qal'at ash-Shaqif, lies near Lebanon's southeastern border. From the ruins of the Castle, the northern Israeli settlement of Metula is visible. The Castle is also near the predominantly Shia Muslim, Lebanese city of Nabatieh. Located 717 meters above sea level, Beaufort Castle commands large parts of the Upper Galilee and South Lebanon. By the 1982 Lebanon war, it had become a symbol Palestinian resistance to Israeli aggression. Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and former Israeli Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon, visited Beaufort Castle before and after the battle of Beaufort Castle in June 1982. While standing atop the summit of Beaufort Castle, Lascaris interviewed Lebanese journalist Hadi Hoteit. Hoteit described recent attacks by Israeli forces on Nabatieh and the surrounding villages of south Lebanon. According to Hoteit, Israeli forces have repeatedly struck civilian targets in south Lebanon since October 7, 2023, when Palestinian militants attacked Israeli military bases and settlements near the border of Gaza. Lascaris and Hoteit heard several explosions during their interview at Beaufort Castle. After visiting Beaufort Castle, Lascaris and Hoteit travelled by vehicle to Nabatieh. There, they inspected two civilian structures destroyed by Israeli airstrikes within the past two months. In one of those strikes, Israeli forces massacred a Lebanese family of six, including four children. Since the 1982 Lebanon war, Israeli forces have bombed and shelled Nabatieh repeatedly, killing civilians there on multiple occasions.

On March 24, 2024, from Beirut, Lebanon, Dimitri Lascaris explains why Andrew Coyne, a regular guest on the flagship political debate program of Canada's national broadcaster, embodies everything that sucks about Canada's corporate media.

On March 21, 2024, upon his arrival in Beirut, Lebanon, Dimitri Lascaris reflects upon the ten days he just spent in occupied Palestine, in a time of genocide.