DimitriLascaris

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.

On March 20, 2024, Dimitri Lascaris returned to Britain's Akrotiri military base on the southern coast of the island of Cyprus. It has been widely reported that Britain and the U.S. use this military base to supply Israel's military in its current war on Gaza. When Lascaris first visited the base on March 3, 2023, he recorded the departure of a large military transport plane in the direction of Israel. During his March 20 visit, Lascaris observed and recorded the departure of another large military transport plane in the direction of Israel. In the video, Lascaris suggested that that plane was a Hercules transport plane, but after further research, he concluded that it was likely an Airbus A400M Atlas transport aircraft, used by Britain's Royal Air Force. After recording the departure of that aircraft toward Israel, Lascaris visited a local pub known to be frequented by British and American soldiers.

On March 17-18, 2024, Dimitri Lascaris visited Israel's only Red Sea Port in the city of Eilat. Following Israeli media reports that Yemen's attacks on Red Sea shipping had caused a drastic reduction in commercial shipping to and from the port of Eilat, Lascaris found that Eilat's port was empty and eerily quiet.

On March 19, 2024, Dimitri Lascaris visited the Israeli settlement of Sderot, which lies about 1 kilometre from the northern border of the Gaza Strip. Sderot is a prosperous and expanding, Western-style suburbia, funded in part with donations from the Jewish National Fund Australia. Despite the genocide happening a stone's throw away from Sderot, its residents seemed to be going about their business as if life was normal.

On March 16, 2024, Dimitri Lascaris visited the northern border of the Gaza Strip. Standing on a lookout point known as "Camel Hill", Lascaris recorded a massive Israeli airstrike on southern Gaza and numerous overflights by Israeli drones.

On March 14, 2024, Dimitri Lascaris and Palestinian-Canadian artist Rehab Nazzal visited a graveyard in the Jenin refugee camp in occupied Palestine. Hours earlier, an Israeli sniper had shot dead two unarmed Palestinian men who were seeking cover from gunfire at the Jenin Governmental Hospital. Lascaris and Nazzal had hoped to attend the funeral of these men, but they arrived at the graveyard where the men were buried shortly after the completion of the burial. That graveyard was originally intended as the site for a new theatre complex in Jenin, but the large number of Jenin refugees killed by Israeli forces within the past several months forced local authorities to use the site as a cemetery. Throughout their visit to the graveyard, an Israeli drone circled overhead.

On March 13-14, 2024, Dimitri Lascaris and Canadian-Palestinian artist Rehab Nazzal visited the Jenin and Tulkarem refugee camps in occupied Palestine. In both camps, they observed and documented extensive damage to, and destruction of, civilian infrastructure. This is Part II of Lascaris's two-part report on the condition of the camps. In this part, Lascaris surveys some of the damage to Tulkarem refugee camp. Like Jenin, Tulkarem is in the north of the West Bank. It was stablished in 1950 on 0.18 km² by UNRWA. It is the second largest refugee camp in the West Bank.

On the evening of March 14, 2024, as Israel continued to commit genocide against the Palestinian people, Palestinian Muslims gathered at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem for evening prayer. Dimitri Lascaris accompanied worshippers from the Damascus Gate in East Jerusalem to the Mosque. This is what he saw.

On March 13 and 14, 2024, following five months of relentless attacks on Jenin refugee camp by Israel's military, Dimitri Lascaris and Rehab Nazzal found widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure in Jenin.