By Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter, 10/11/24

The following article was made possible by paid subscribers of The Dissenter. Become a subscriber and support independent journalism on press freedom.

An Israeli district court ordered Israeli security forces to release American journalist Jeremy Loffredo from detention. 

The police accused Loffredo of “aiding the enemy during wartime” and “providing information to the enemy” and appealed a prior court decision to grant him bail. That appeal was denied.

As reported by the Seventh Eye, an Israeli independent news publication, Loffredo had refused to allow the police to access his phone. Security forces managed to break into the phone in the past 24 hours. An Israeli police official urged the court to extend Loffredo’s detention so that they could examine the phone and collect data that would show that Loffredo committed a crime. 

Judge Chana Miriam Lomp rejected this request. However, the Israeli authorities were permitted to keep Loffredo’s passport and phone, and he was barred from leaving the country until October 20. In the meantime, the Israeli police may attempt to manufacture a case against Loffredo. 

The court was informed by civil rights attorney Lea Tsemel, who is representing Loffredo, that after the Israeli police appealed the bail decision they took advantage of having more time with Loffredo in their custody. He was interrogated in the night without an interpreter.  

Loffredo is a freelancer and contributor to The Grayzone. Hours before Loffredo’s release, the media outlet put out a statement unequivocally rejecting the “outrageous accusations from Israeli police.” 

“We stand by Jeremy’s legitimate reporting. The claim that Loffredo and The Grayzone represent Israel’s enemy in wartime merely suggests that the Israeli government views the American people and free press as a legitimate target,” The Grayzone declared. “We represent no one else.” 

“We will fight these charges and ask that you contact the State Department and urge them to act in defense of their citizen detained in Israel. The U.S. has an obligation to defend its journalists who are merely adhering to their ethical obligation to inform the public of pertinent facts,” the organization added. 

On October 5, The Grayzone posted a video report from Loffredo on Iran’s missile strikes, which occurred on October 1. Loffredo traveled the next day to the area around the Nevatim air base in the Negev Desert and interviewed locals from a nearby Bedouin village. He also traveled to an impact site around the Mossad headquarters. His goal was to see for himself how the Israeli military and intelligence sites were damaged.  

The Israeli military censor had prohibited news media from publishing particular details about the damage caused by Iranian missiles. But a reporter for Ynet, an Israeli news site, published an article on Loffredo’s detention that embedded the video report from Loffredo. This undermined the accusation from police and helped convince the court to order Loffredo’s release.

Nick Schifrin, a foreign affairs and military correspondent for PBS “NewsHour,” was also treated differently by Israeli authorities. He traveled to the impact site near the Mossad headquarters, but apparently police never questioned or detained Schifrin.

“This is the impact site for one of those Iranian ballistic missiles, and if you see the size of this crater, that’s about 30 feet deep and maybe 50 feet wide,” Schifrin reported. “You can see all the debris around here, and to give you a sense of the target for these strikes, that white building back there about 1500 feet behind me is the headquarters of the spy agency, the Mossad.” 

After Schifrin posted this clip, Israeli radio news presenter Eran Cicurel responded,“I think you are breaking the Israeli censorship rules.”

Ynet reported that representatives from the U.S. Embassy attended the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court for [the October 10] hearing on the request of the police to extend his detention.” But as of the morning of October 11, the State Department had yet to make any public statement about the matter.

The reason why Israeli authorities arrested and charged Loffredo instead of Schifrin—or any other international journalists who published supposedly sensitive information on Iran’s strikes—may have something to do with a disinformation or smear campaign that was attempted in June against The Grayzone.

A network of current and former officials and journalists in the U.S. and Israel falsely claimed—through a story later retracted by the Washington Post—that The Grayzone had received payments from Iranian state media. 

The fact that the Israeli security forces still have Loffredo’s phone is alarming for anyone in Israel or the occupied Palestinian Territories, who has communicated with Loffredo.

As highlighted in a report from the Global Investigative Journalism Network in January 2023, “A law enforcement agent scrolling through a journalist’s unlocked phone is already a problematic scenario for press freedom. But this risk is supercharged by technology that can copy and search the entire content of phones and computers, sometimes even if they are locked.”

“Mobile device forensics tools can recover deleted data, as well as lots of data that isn’t visible to the naked eye when scrolling,” Riana Pfefferkorn, a research scholar at Stanford Internet Observatory, told the network.

Chip Gibbons, the policy director for Defending Rights and Dissent, said, “The arrest of Jeremy Loffredo is deeply troubling. Israel, with its killing and arrest of journalists, anti-democratic military censorship and shuttering of news outlets, has made itself the gravest governmental threat to press freedom.”

The Freedom of the Press Foundation also opposed the arrest and detention of Loffredo, saying, “Every journalist imprisoned is another voice silenced. The public can’t learn what’s happening in Israel and the region if journalists are in jail.” 

“If the theory is that reporters illegally provide enemies with information whenever enemies read the news, that could criminalize a whole lot of journalism.”

Such a theory has surfaced in Espionage Act prosecutions by U.S. prosecutors, particularly the political case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. It would fit the Israeli government’s war on press freedom if their police also subscribed to the dangerous idea that publishing information on the internet is all a journalist has to do to commit the crime of “aiding the enemy during wartime.” 

*For more on Loffredo’s arrest and detention, read The Dissenter’s previous report.

By Tom O’Connor, Newsweek, 10/7/24

The United States will face “dangerous consequences” if it presses on with growing military aid to Ukraine rather than backing a proposed Russian settlement that would see Moscow take over swathes of territory, the man serving as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top diplomat for 20 years said in exclusive responses to Newsweek questions.

Well over two and a half years after Putin ordered a “special military operation” against Ukraine in what has become the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the Kremlin offers a viable blueprint to end the bloodshed and revamp the security architecture of the continent. He accused the U.S.-led NATO military alliance of first sowing the seeds of war a decade ago and continuing to fan the flames.

“Russia is open to a politico-diplomatic settlement that should remove the root causes of the crisis,” he said. “It should aim to end the conflict rather than achieve a ceasefire.”

Russia’s plan would mean Ukraine ceding the substantially Russian held provinces of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia, which were formally annexed by Moscow following an internationally disputed referendum in September 2022, as well as Crimea, seized by Russia and annexed through a similar vote in 2014. Kyiv must also agree to abandon its quest to become a NATO member, and take other steps rejected by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his international supporters, including the U.S.

Kyiv and its foreign backers instead demand an unconditional Russian withdrawal, while Moscow has said an escalating conflict brings NATO closer to a direct clash with Russia, which possesses the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.

“At present, as far as we can see, restoring peace is not part of our adversary’s plan. Zelensky has not revoked his decree banning negotiations with Moscow,” Lavrov said. “Washington and its NATO allies provide political, military and financial support to Kiev so that the war would go on. They are discussing authorizing the AFU [Armed Forces of Ukraine] to use Western long-range missiles to strike deep into Russian territory. ‘Playing with fire’ in this way may lead to dangerous consequences.”

The measures sought by Moscow, Lavrov said, align with the trajectory of a fast-changing world in which Russia has forged a deep partnership with China and has fortified ties with developing nations seeking a greater say on the global stage. Even as Moscow incurs costs, he said that Kyiv and its supporters stand to lose the most in a long war.

“What we have in mind is that the world order needs be adjusted to the current realities,” he said. “Today the world is living through the ‘multipolar moment’. Shifting towards the multi-polar world order is a natural part of power rebalancing, which reflects objective changes in the world economy, finance and geopolitics. The West waited longer than the others, yet it has also started to realize that this process is irreversible.”

Lavrov’s remarks come as the Russian military advances on several key Ukrainian fronts despite simultaneously battling a Ukrainian counterstrike within Russia itself.

Crucial to the course of the war could be the result of the U.S. presidential election on November 5 between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Support for Ukraine has been the subject of political infighting in Western capitals and not least in Washington, which has provided the greatest direct assistance.

“Generally speaking, the outcome of this election makes no difference to us, as the two parties have reached a consensus as to countering our country,” Lavrov said. “On the whole, it would be natural for the White House resident, no matter who they are, to mind their domestic business, rather than looking for adventures tens of thousands miles away from American coasts. I am confident that U.S. electors think the same.”

The following text of the responses has been lightly edited for clarity.

Newsweek: As the Ukraine conflict continues, how different is Russia’s position than in 2022 and how are the costs of conflict being weighed against the progress made toward strategic objectives?

Lavrov: Our position is widely known and remains unchanged. Russia is open to a politico-diplomatic settlement that should remove the root causes of the crisis. It should aim to end the conflict rather than achieve a ceasefire. The West should stop supplying weapons, and Kiev should end the hostilities. Ukraine should return to its neutral, non-bloc and non-nuclear status, protect the Russian language, and respect the rights and freedoms of its citizens.

The Istanbul Agreements initialed on 29 March 2022 by the Russian and Ukrainian delegations could serve as a basis for the settlement. They provide for Kiev’s refusal to join NATO and contain security guarantees for Ukraine while recognizing the realities on the ground at that moment. Needless to say, in over two years, these realities have considerably changed, including in legal terms.

On 14 June, President Vladimir Putin listed prerequisites for the settlement as follows: complete AFU withdrawal from the DPR [Donetsk People’s Republic], LPR [Luhansk People’s Republic], Zaporozhye and Kherson Oblasts; recognition of territorial realities as enshrined in the Russian Constitution; neutral, non-bloc, non-nuclear status for Ukraine; its demilitarization and denazification; securing the rights, freedoms and interests of Russian-speaking citizens; and removal of all sanctions against Russia.

Kiev responded to this statement by an armed incursion into the Kursk Oblast on 6 August. Its patrons – the U.S. and other NATO countries – seek to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. Under the circumstances, we have no choice but to continue our special military operation until the threats posed by Ukraine are removed.

The costs of the conflict are greatest for Ukrainians, who are ruthlessly pushed by their own authorities to the war to be slaughtered there. For Russia, it is about defending its people and vital security interests. Unlike Russia, the U.S. keeps ranting about some sort of “rules,” “way of life” and the like, apparently poorly understanding where Ukraine is and what the stakes in this war are.

Newsweek: How likely do you think it is that a military or diplomatic solution can be achieved, or do you see a greater risk of the conflict spiraling into something even larger with Ukrainian forces receiving more advanced NATO weaponry and entering Russian territory?

Making guesses is not my job. What I want to say is that we have been trying to extinguish this crisis for more than a decade, yet each time we put to paper agreements that suit everyone, Kiev and its masters would backpedal. This exactly happened to the agreement reached in February 2014: it was trampled on by the opposition that committed a coup with the U.S. support. A year later, the Minsk Agreements endorsed by the U.N. Security Council were concluded; these were also sabotaged during seven years, and the leaders of Ukraine, Germany and France, who had signed the document, bragged afterwards that they had never intended to fulfil it. The document initialed in Istanbul in late March 2022 was never signed by Zelensky at the insistence of his Western supervisors, in particular, the then British prime minister.

At present, as far as we can see, restoring peace is not part of our adversary’s plan. Zelensky has not revoked his decree banning negotiations with Moscow. Washington and its NATO allies provide political, military and financial support to Kiev so that the war would go on. They are discussing authorizing the AFU to use Western long-range missiles to strike deep into Russian territory. “Playing with fire” in this way may lead to dangerous consequences. As stated by President Putin, we will take adequate decisions based on our understanding of the threats posed by the West. It is up to you to make conclusions.

Newsweek: What concrete plans does Russia have in line with its strategic partnerships with China and other powers to achieve changes in the current world order and how do you expect these ambitions to play out in areas of intense competition and conflict, including the Middle East?

What we have in mind is that the world order needs be adjusted to the current realities. Today the world is living through the “multipolar moment”. Shifting towards the multi-polar world order is a natural part of power rebalancing, which reflects objective changes in the world economy, finance and geopolitics. The West waited longer than the others, yet it has also started to realize that this process is irreversible.

We are talking about strengthening new centers of power and decision-making in the Global South and East. Instead of seeking hegemony, these centers acknowledge the importance of sovereign equality and civilizational diversity and support mutually beneficial cooperation and respect for each other’s interests.

Multi-polarity manifests itself in the increasing role of regional associations, such as the EAEU [Eurasian Economic Union], SCO [Shanghai Cooperation Organization], ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations], African Union, CELAC [Community of Latin American and Caribbean States] and others. BRICS [led by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa] has become a model of multilateral diplomacy. The U.N. should remain a forum for aligning the interests of all the countries.

We believe that all states, including the United States, should comply with their obligations on an equal basis with others rather than disguise their legal nihilism with mantras of their exceptionality. Here we are supported by the majority of countries, which see how international law is violated with complete impunity in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, just the way it had earlier been violated in Kosovo, Iraq, Libya and many other places.

Our Chinese partners can answer for themselves, but I think and I know that they share our main point, the understanding that security and development are inseparable and indivisible, and that as long as the West continues seeking dominance, the ideals of peace set forth in the Charter of the United Nations will remain a dead letter.

Newsweek: What impact do you expect the U.S. presidential election to have on Russia-U.S. relations if Donald Trump wins or if Kamala Harris wins and how is Russia preparing for either scenario?

Generally speaking, the outcome of this election makes no difference to us, as the two parties have reached a consensus as to countering our country. In case there are political changes in the United States and new proposals to us, we will be ready to consider them and decide whether they meet our interests. At all events, we will promote Russia’s interests decisively, especially as far as its national security is concerned.

On the whole, it would be natural for the White House resident, no matter who they are, to mind their domestic business, rather than looking for adventures tens of thousands miles away from American coasts. I am confident that U.S. electors think the same.

By James Carden, The American Conservative, 9/26/24

On September 12, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took to the upper chamber’s floor to praise the work of the bipartisan Commission on the National Defense Strategy, a congressionally appointed panel run out of the RAND Corporation. McConnell, summarizing the report’s findings, said,

Any of our colleagues who haven’t yet taken a close look at this report should. But I’d like to reiterate a few of its conclusions that I discussed last month as the Appropriations Committee finalized defense spending legislation for the coming year. This ought to grab our attention: 

From the report, quote, “the U.S. military lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat.” 

A further quote, “the U.S. defense industrial base (DIB) is unable to meet the equipment, technology, and munitions needs of the United States and its allies and partners.”

And, quote, “the U.S. public are largely unaware of the dangers the United States faces or the costs (financial and otherwise) required to adequately prepare.”

Writing during the early months of the First World War, the journalist and grand strategist Walter Lippmann observed, “While it takes as much skill to make a sword as a ploughshare, it takes a critical understanding of human values to prefer the ploughshare.”  And, if anything, “human values” are conspicuous by their absence in the recommendations of the RAND Commission on the National Defense Strategy report, which, if implemented, would put the US on a permanent war footing likely to provoke—perhaps concurrently—wars in Asia, Europe, and the Greater Middle East.

Necessarily, then, the report relies heavily on euphemism and the misleadingly anodyne terminology of defense experts. In response to the threat posed by the new “no-limits” partnership between Russia and China, the report recommends what it calls a “Multiple Theater Force Construct” since, in the view of the report’s authors, neither the previous “bipolar Cold War constructs and the two-war construct designed afterward for separate wars against less capable rogue states… meets the dimensions of today’s threat or the wide variety of ways in which and places where conflict could erupt, grow and evolve.”

A combined defense and intelligence budget of roughly $1.4 trillion a year? Not enough! The “Multiple Theater Force Construct” is in reality a bid to create what far less euphemistically and more accurately might be called a “Global War Zone” where, as the report goes on to recommend, the U.S. “must engage globally with a presence—military, diplomatic and economic—to maintain stability and preserve influence worldwide.” 

Presence, not empire. Influence, not imperium.

The report also evinces a deep-seated confusion between the level of defense expenditures and, well, results. The report claims that current defense expenditure of 3 percent of GDP is dangerously low—noting,

During the Cold War, including the Korean War and Vietnam War, DoD spending ranged from 4.9 percent to 16.9 percent of GDP. The comparison to that period is apt in terms of the magnitude of the threat, risks of strategic instability and escalation and need for US global presence.

Yet given the examples (U.S. and allied forces lost roughly 170,000 men in Korea and 280,000 in Vietnam) there is surely a case to be made that might be an inverse relationship between expenditure and security.

The RAND commission speaks of the imperative to further “integrate” with our allies. At multiple points the report insists on the “indispensability” of our allies with whom we must deepen our cooperation. The U.S. “must continue to invest in strengthening its allies and integrating its military (and economic, diplomatic, and industrial) efforts with theirs.” Yet, as we have seen in the case with the now decade-long effort to wrangle Ukraine into NATO’s orbit, the search for endless allies is also a search for endless trouble.

The report is very much a product of the former Democratic Representative Jane Harman, who served as the RAND Commission’s chair.

Readers may recall that in 2006 Harman was picked up on a wiretap promising an Israeli spy she would lobby federal prosecutors to go easy on two officials from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. In return for that assistance, the Israeli agent offered to lobby then-Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi to name Harman as chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

In a normal country, Harman’s offer to undermine a federal case to benefit a foreign power, as a sitting member of Congress no less, would have landed her in prison. At the very least, she’d be treated as persona non grata among the great and good of Washington. But instead Harman, wife of a California billionaire who later became the owner of Newsweek, was appointed to the CIA’s External Advisory Board only a couple of years after her quid pro quo was caught on tape. Still more, the commission was rife with conflicts of interest, as a report by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft pointed out last year.

That said, if the authors of the RAND report are cognizant of any risks in creating a Global War Zone, they keep it to themselves. Might a conventional military build up in the Indo-Pacific prompt China to achieve nuclear parity with the US? Is the establishment’s nonchalance with regard to the risks of provoking Russia a reasonable position in light of the recent admission by CIA Director William Burns that “there was a moment in the fall of 2022” when he thought “there was a genuine risk” of the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons by Russia? RAND is likewise silent as to whether there exist alternative grand strategies that might better suit the moment, such as retrenchment.

In the end, the RAND report leads one to a conclusion that can’t be avoided: The U.S. establishment is itself a threat to U.S. national security.

According to this update from Kit Klarenberg, Jeremy Loffredo has been charged with aiding and abetting the enemy in Israel and could face either life imprisonment in Israel’s prison system – which is notoriously rife with torture and rape – or the death penalty.

YouTube link here.

Israel Charges American Journalist With ‘Aiding The Enemy’ For Reporting On Iranian Missile Strikes

By Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter, 10/10/24

The following article was made possible by paid subscribers of The Dissenter. Become a subscriber and support independent journalism on press freedom.

The Israeli government arrested, detained, and charged American journalist Jeremy Loffredo with “aiding the enemy during wartime and providing information to the enemy.”

According to Israeli news site Ynet, Loffredo was arrested by security forces on “suspicion of endangering national security after reporting on where missiles landed in the attack launched by Iran earlier this month including in the [Israeli military’s] Nevatim Air Base and an intelligence base in central Israel.”

Loffredo appeared in an Israeli Magistrate’s Court on October 10 after being detained for nearly a day and a half. He was taken to an Israeli military base along with at least four other journalists, who were later released. 

Defense attorney Leah Tsemel, who is representing Loffredo, told Ynet, “He published the information openly and fully, without attempting to hide anything. If this information constitutes aiding the enemy, many other journalists in Israel, including Israeli reporters, should also be arrested.”

“A spy would not have acted so publicly and transparently,” Tsemel added. 

The Seventh Eye, which describes itself as “Israel’s only independent and investigative magazine devoted entirely to journalism, the media, freedom of speech and transparency,” reported that Israeli authorities informed the court that Loffredo was arrested for publicizing the location of where missiles landed. He allegedly intended to bring this information to the attention of “the enemy” (Iran) to assist them in future attacks. 

Judge Zion Sahrai said that Loffredo had published “confidential information” which was prohibited by the Israeli military censor. However, the court was presented with evidence that an article from Ynet reporter Liran Tamari was published on Loffredo’s detention with the Grayzone report from Loffredo embedded. 

The Israeli military censor allegedly approved the publication of a Ynet report with details of Loffredo’s arrest and the publications that resulted in his detention. That led Saharai to grant bail to Loffredo until the police appealed and claimed that Ynet had published the article before obtaining approval from the censor. 

Evidence that Nick Schifrin, a foreign affairs and military correspondent for PBS “NewsHour,” had traveled to the area nearby the Mossad headquarters like Loffredo was also presented.

“This is the impact site for one of those Iranian ballistic missiles, and if you see the size of this crater, that’s about 30 feet deep and maybe 50 feet wide. You can see all the debris around here, and to give you a sense of the target for these strikes, that white building back there about 1500 feet behind me is the headquarters of the spy agency, the Mossad.” 

Israeli radio news presenter Eran Cicurel responded to Schifrin after he posted his report. “I think you are breaking the Israeli censorship rules.”

On October 5, The Grayzone posted a video report from Loffredo on Iran’s strikes. He went to the area around the Nevatim air base and interviewed locals from a nearby Bedouin village. He later traveled to the area around the Mossad headquarters. His goal was to see for himself where Iranian missiles had landed. 

“The arrest of Jeremy Loffredo is deeply troubling. Israel, with its killing and arrest of journalists, anti-democratic military censorship and shuttering of news outlets, has made itself the gravest governmental threat to press freedom,” declared Chip Gibbons, policy director for Defending Rights and Dissent.

Gibbons contended the U.S. State Department must “use its unique leverage over Israel” to secure the release of Loffredo.

Emphasizing that the Israeli government is “among the world’s leading jailers of journalists,” the Freedom of the Press Foundation condemned the detention of Loffredo. It also said President Joe Biden’s administration must demand that Israeli officials explain why Loffredo was detained and charged.

“If the theory is that reporters illegally provide enemies with information whenever enemies read the news, that could criminalize a whole lot of journalism,” the press freedom organization further stated.

The Iranian military launched 200 ballistic missiles on October 1 that targeted Israeli military and intelligence sites. A number of the missiles hit Nevatim air base in the Negev Desert as well as an area near the headquarters for Mossad, Israel’s spy agency.

There is no doubt that the extent of the damage done by Iranian missiles was newsworthy. The Israeli military immediately claimed that no aircraft or critical infrastructure was harmed. 

The Telegraph, based in the U.K., published an article on October 3 under the headline, “Pictured: Israeli air base hit in Iranian missile strike.” 

“Nevatim is reported to be home to the Israeli Air Force’s most advanced aircraft, including US-produced F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter jets,” reported Paul Nuki, the media outlet’s global health security editor in Tel Aviv.

Nuki further noted, “The image shows serious damage to the roof of an aircraft hangar, with a hole torn through it. Another impact appears to have hit a road on the base.”

CNN, which is known to allow the Israeli military forces to censor their coverage, published a live update on October 1 under the headline, “The areas targeted in Iran’s missile strike on Israel.”

The update featured “CNN analysis of geolocated videos of the attack” that clearly stated that Iran’s military had targeted “the headquarters of Mossad, Nevatim Air Base and Tel Nof Air Base.” It mentioned videos that showed “at least two missiles falling near the Mossad HQ in Tel Aviv’s Glilot neighborhood, a densely populated area with a number of residential and commercial buildings.”

“In southern Israel’s Negev desert, videos show a significant number of Iranian rockets hitting the Nevatim base,” the update added. 

Another report from the Washington Post, “Iranian missiles hit Israeli military sites, visuals show,” featured satellite imagery that showed “what appears to be at least one destroyed building at Nevatim,” and “a large hole in the roof of an aircraft hangar and several impact craters.” 

Loffredo’s journalism did not “aid” Iran any more than CNN, the Telegraph, the Washington Post, or any other media organization did when they analyzed satellite images and video footage to confirm where Iranian missiles landed. (Or Schifrin who traveled to an impact site near the Mossad for PBS “NewsHour.”)

But the reason why Israeli authorities arrested and charged Loffredo instead of Schifrin—or any other American journalists who published sensitive information on Iran’s strikes—may have something to do with a disinformation or smear campaign that was previously attempted in June against The Grayzone.

A network of current and former officials and journalists in the U.S. and Israel falsely claimed—through a story later retracted by the Washington Post—that The Grayzone had received payments from Iranian state media. 

In 2023, the Russian government’s Federal Security Service accused Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich of collecting “state secrets” about “Russia’s military-industrial complex” to further the U.S. government’s objectives in the war in Ukraine. He was reportedly investigating the Wagner paramilitary group and Russia charged him with espionage.

Israeli authorities charging Loffredo is no different, and in Gershkovich’s case, there was worldwide pressure on the Russian government to release him immediately. 

As Gibbons declared, “Press freedom cannot be based on selective solidarity. All journalists under attack by all governments deserve our unconditional support for their freedom.”

YouTube link here.

Film description from Center for Citizen Initiatives:

“John F. Kennedy contended with the fear of nuclear war with Russia and fought what that fear might lead to forcefully.  He also confronted the grave responsibility held by a free press in keeping Americans informed of what their government was doing to face that danger.  Do we not live in similar times?

The documentary…explains eloquently President Kennedy’s efforts to improve US-Russia relations that led to the peaceful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and to the nuclear test ban treaty. It also explains the resistance that President Kennedy faced from those in his own administration who were opposed to such efforts.”