Sept. 19—The 120th consecutive online forum of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) was held on Friday, Sept. 19. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute founder and International Peace Coalition initiator, opened the proceedings by noting that the United States has now vetoed six Gaza ceasefire resolutions in the UN Security Council over the past two years, effectively paralyzing that institution. She asked whether any nation at the UN would take the lead in introducing UN General Assembly Resolution 377, “Uniting for Peace” which would enable the UN General Assembly to take action, bypassing the moribund UN Security Council. Israel has ignored the UN’s 12-month deadline to end its unlawful occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which expired on Sept. 18, and a UN commission announced its findings this week that Israel is committing genocide. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told an urban renewal conference that Gaza is being prepared for a “real estate bonanza.”

Harshly criticizing U.S. President Donald Trump for his second state visit to the UK, Zepp-LaRouche asserted that “[F]rom the standpoint of history, it was a complete abomination. President Trump seems to have forgotten what the American Revolution was all about.”

Tectonic Shifts Are Happening

She then reported on a “new tectonic shift”: Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have agreed on a strategic alliance, which includes Pakistan providing Saudi Arabia with a nuclear umbrella. American allies no longer trust the United States for protection after Israel’s attack on Qatar. Egypt’s Foreign Minister Dr. Badr Abdelatty offered congratulations on the new alliance. This “shows a complete realignment,” Zepp-LaRouche said.

“We are sitting on a complete volcano,” she said, because the Western financial system is hopelessly bankrupt. “The anchor of stability,” represented by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Global Governance Initiative should not be dismissed.

Purnima Anand, president of the BRICS International Forum, recounted the history of the BRICS from 2009 to the present. Over the past 80 years, Europe did whatever it wanted and America followed. She described the present world situation as “like a real horror movie.” The governments and think-tanks of the West are silent in the face of atrocities in Gaza. This makes the BRICS absolutely necessary. India’s independence movement is a model of how to achieve objectives without weapons. Social media is helping us, she said, because it gives us a glimpse of what is happening in conflict zones while governments like Israel and Ukraine, which she described as “neocolonialist,” deny access to journalists.

Larry Johnson, former CIA officer and a member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), warned that the assassination of American conservative activist Charlie Kirk is subject to a vast disinformation operation by a foreign intelligence organization. He endorsed an article by Max Blumenthal which offers evidence that Charlie Kirk was undergoing a metamorphosis, away from being an ultra-Zionist. Kirk had hosted a Turning Point USA debate that included Dave Smith, an anti-Zionist Jew. He had had dinner with billionaire Zionist and hedge-fund mogul Bill Ackman, and later said that he had felt physically threatened during the discussion.

“The FBI story surrounding the killer has got some real holes in it,” said Johnson. He added that, unfortunately, FBI Director Kash Patel is part of a campaign to protect Israel.

Johnson noted that Israel’s bombing attack on Doha, Qatar has provoked a coming-together of the Arab/Islamic world that we haven’t seen in some time. Even the King of Jordan Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein, normally a sycophant of the United States, spoke out against Israel at a recent emergency Arab-Islamic Summit, held in Doha on September 15. Shia and Sunni Muslims, who are often at odds, were working together at this conference. There is no way that the attack on Doha could have taken place without the knowledge and possible assistance of the United States, Johnson asserted. What Donald Trump has achieved is the bringing together of the Islamic and Arab worlds.

Iran is a member of BRICS, and its BRICS allies are coming to its aid in the face of the effort by the West to impose “snap-back” sanctions after Iran declined to submit to their demands. Trump’s attempts to bully India into no longer purchasing Russian oil have backfired. “There is no way that India was going to commit economic suicide, just because the U.S. wanted them to,” said Johnson.

IPC moderator Anastasia Battle reported that Trump had recently called President Xi and promised to attend the upcoming APEC summit.

Zepp-LaRouche observed that the idea of bloc-building had caused two world wars, and that we need an alternative policy of non-alignment. She joked that Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize, because his follies have called attention to the importance of non-alignment. She concluded by saying that the world has shifted, and the only thing left that the Western countries can do is to choose cooperation over confrontation.

Direct Action

Sébastien Drochon reported from France on recent literature distributions at government events. The popular mood is shifting away from support for Israel, he said. He and his colleagues had attended a labor demonstration estimated to have included as many as 800,000 to a million.

New York congressional candidate Jose Vega described a rally near the United Nations, where he had spoken in support of UN Resolution 377. He gave a listing of the many distinguished speakers, including Lt. Colonel (ret.) Anthony Aguilar, Josephine Guilbeau, Garland Nixon, Father Harry Bury, and others.

Gerardo Castilleja reported from Mexico, where the country recently celebrated the 215th anniversary of its independence. He spoke of the tradition of Mexican President Benito Juárez, who was an ally of Abraham Lincoln against the British Empire. Castilleja described the Empire as the hidden hand behind both the American Confederacy, and the Imperial French against whom Mexico had fought. Mexican students today are surprised to learn what the BRICS nations have accomplished, Castilleja said; they ask why Mexico is not yet a member.

Jonathan Thron gave a report from Germany. He and his colleagues had distributed leaflets at a 20,000-person demonstration in Berlin organized by the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW party, Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance). The German people want peace, he said, but they don’t know how to attain it, so we must teach them. Three youth contacts helped to distribute leaflets. We were the only voice calling for collaboration with the BRICS, Thron noted. He said that an anti-war rally of this size represents a hopeful shift away from the climate of fear in Germany.

Anastasia Battle, who had recently spent time organizing in Germany, expressed her enthusiasm about the size of the rally. Zepp-LaRouche took a more guarded view, saying, “I don’t think that mobilization is adequate at all,” that the gravity of the situation calls for hundreds of thousands or millions in the streets.

Don’t Brown-Nose the British

Jose Vega and Dennis Small, a leader of the Schiller Institute, discussed the anti-colonial tradition in the United States, particularly the role of Lyndon LaRouche. Vega recalled the speech of President Sukarno at the 1955 Bandung Conference, heralding the role of the American Revolution as the first successful anti-colonial rebellion. Small added, “If President Trump were to remove his nose from the butt of the British Empire, that would be very, very encouraging.”

Zepp-LaRouche said that she shared the hope, expressed by a questioner, that the United States might join the BRICS. “President Trump has proven himself capable of reversing himself several times a day,” she said.

In conclusion, Zepp-LaRouche said that the important question is “the difference between democracy and truth.” Plato had noted that the flip side of democracy is tyranny. You must have tolerance and respect for another person’s opinion, but you must also recognize that there is an objective truth which resides above mere opinion, and the Socratic dialogue provides a path to discovering that truth. She implored participants to help organize for the October 3 anti-war demonstrations in Berlin and Stuttgart.