“Jerusalem al-Quds: Eternal Capital of Palestine” Conference in Mashhad, Iran

By
  
(17 May 2018)


L to R: Alexander Dugin, Arash Darya-Bandari, Reza Montazami, Scott Bennett, Philip Giraldi
Mashhad, Iran
6:00 pm, Al-Ghadir Hotel lobby
The post-conference wrap-up session for the 6th New Horizons Conference just finished an hour ago. Its theme “Jerusalem al-Quds: Eternal Capital of Palestine” was painfully timely, since Trump chose this week to move the US Embassy to Occupied Jerusalem al-Quds and tear up the Iran nuclear deal in acts of obsequious fealty to Netanyahu. Meanwhile, Israeli sharpshooters mowed down thousands of unarmed Palestinians with live gunfire and exploding bullets. Being here in Mashhad for this event was an act of protest against such insane barbarity—as I will tell the DHS interrogators when I arrive home in the United States.
This year’s conference was the first to include former US military, intelligence, and diplomatic people, including my Veterans Today colleague Jim Dean, former CIA officer Philip Giraldi,  US Army psy-ops whistleblower Scott Bennett, and ex-State Department whistleblower Michael Springmann. It also included a born-in-Israel guest, Miko Peled, son of the Israeli 1967 war hero general Matti Peled.
In the past, people with US government backgrounds and Israelis were off limits due to the Iranian government frowning on issuing visas for such people. I argued strenuously for including them, and am very happy to see the Iranian decision-makers choosing to do so.
Below is the final statement I read aloud at the conclusion of the Conference.

6th International New Horizons Conference Summary

By Kevin Barrett, Muslim-Christian-Jewish Alliance for Truth (MUJCA.org) and TruthJihad.com
New Horizons Conferences, held fairly regularly in Iran, bring together dozens of the world’s most provocative thinkers and activists.  I have attended five of the six New Horizons Conferences and can unequivocally affirm that they are the most interesting intellectual get-togethers I have ever experienced.
Attendees represent a considerable portion of our planet’s national, ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity. They also represent wildly diverse projects and ideologies. But I believe all participants agree on two things: We support the transition from a unipolar world system to a multipolar one; and we support the liberation of Palestine.
This year’s conference coincides with Trump’s moving the US Embassy to Occupied Jersualem. Trump’s move symbolically supports the Zionist claim to Jerusalem—a claim that grossly violates international law, basic justice, and simple common sense. The notion that tribalist fanatics purporting to represent fewer than 20 million Jews (most of whom are not especially religious) should invade, occupy, ethnically cleanse, and assert sole ownership of a land that is holy to roughly four billion people, virtually all of them Christians and Muslims, is an absurdity and an abomination. There is only one possible response to such a ludicrous and criminal project: This will not stand!
Participants in the New Horizons Conferences have come to their shared anti-Zionist position from a wide variety of starting points. Some, especially those of us who were educated in the West, began as true-believing adherents of the religion of secular humanism, which holds the human being and his or her individual aspirations (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) as the one thing that is truly sacred. Corollaries of this secular humanist religion, which is the dominant creed of Western elites, include an individualist conception of human rights; special protected status to “oppressed minorities” that include majorities (women) and economically privileged groups (Jews, homosexuals); belief in never-ending “progress”; sacred and unquestionable narratives of mass human sacrifice events  (the Holocaust, 9/11); a materialist rather than spiritualist worldview; and a patronizing dismissal of traditional religion.
The secular humanist religion of Western elites is rarely recognized as a religion by its adherents, in the same way that fish are rarely aware of water. It is only when the fish leaves water that it becomes aware of what it used to be swimming in. Likewise, when those of us formed in an orthodox Western milieu come to New Horizons conferences in Iran, we often experience intellectual culture shock when we encounter the worldviews of those who have left Western elite orthodoxy even further behind than we ourselves have. And although we may in fact have good reasons for disagreeing with some of the unorthodox perspectives we encounter in Iran, we should also remain humble enough to recognize that we may have something to learn from them. In that spirit of the eternal quest for truth through questioning and humility I wish all of you a pleasant and productive return home. May God bless and protect you and help us all work together for a better world.

Veterans Today Editor Jim Dean looks pretty sharp in a keffiyeh -but what is he saying in Farsi?

 

Alexander Dugin, one of the world’s most influential intellectuals

 

Rabbi Dovid Weiss, the world’s best-known anti-Zionist Jewish leader, is a regular at New Horizons conferences

US Army psy-ops whistleblower Scott Bennett

 

Alison Weir, author of Against Our Better Judgment

 

Miko Peled, author of The General’s Son, engaged in lively discussion

 

Noted Catholic intellectual E. Michael Jones moonlighting as art critic

 

NYC Congressional candidate Sander Hicks sings out for Palestine

 

Ex-CIA officer Philip Giraldi tells the hard truths about Zionism—and its horrific effects on America

 

Renowned international journalist Pepe Escobar contemplates Paint for Palestine
Kevin Barrett

Dr. Kevin Barrett, a Ph.D. Arabist-Islamologist, is one of America’s best-known critics of the War on Terror.
He is host of TRUTH JIHAD RADIO; a hard driving weekly radio show funded by listener donations at Patreon.com and FALSE FLAG WEEKLY NEWS (FFWN); a audio-video show produced by Tony Hall, Allan Reese, and Kevin himself. FFWN is funded through FundRazr.
He also has appeared many times on Fox, CNN, PBS and other broadcast outlets, and has inspired feature stories and op-eds in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune, and other leading publications.
Dr. Barrett has taught at colleges and universities in San Francisco, Paris, and Wisconsin; where he ran for Congress in 2008. He currently works as a nonprofit organizer, author, and talk radio host.
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