our live broadcast and our social media platforms are persistent, always perseveres, of and it makes you wonder what is it we're saying that they don't want you to hear? we are the shadow band, we are the censored, we are the voice of the voiceless. we are press tv, this is for palestine, gaza, this is for the child that is searching for. this is not just a war over the stolen land, why do you think little boys are going stones at tanks and we'll never really know how many people are dead, they drop bombs on innocent girls while they sleep in their bed, israel is a of terror state, the terrorist that terrorize i'll testify my television televise, i'm telling lies, how many more resolutions have to be violated, how many more children have to be annihilated, this is not a war, it is systematic genocide, but whatever they try, palestine will never die, freak free palestine. hello, i'm chris williamson and

you're watching palestine declassified. broadcasting twice a week with the only tv show that's dedicated to investigating and exposing the israeli regime's global war against solidarity with the illegally occupied people of palestine. in today's show we'll be revealing the role of the diamond business in sustaining israel. economy, how it supports zionist extremists, its links to illegal settlements and the way in which it's bankrolling genocide in gaza. the tifrabu chakra has been looking into the history of the diamond industry's links to the signist entity, and she filed this report. the diamond industry is vital to the israeli occupations economy. year on year, diamonds are israel's biggest export product. in fact, the zionist entity ranks in the top five countries in the world. diamond exports

despite israel not having a single diamond mine, so where does israel get its diamonds and how does this industry contribute to palestinian disposession? the diamond industry in israel goes back to before the neckbar in 1948. israeli diamond tycoons have long been involved in exploiting resource of rich african countries, extracting their rough diamonds in corrupt deals. the diamonds are then brought to the zionist entity where they are cut and polished before being to of markets in europe, the united states, hong kong and beyond. dan gertler, who has become a billionaire through his deals in the congo, is one of the most prolific and notorious israeli diamond tycoons. gertler comes from one of israel's long established diamond families. his grandfather, moshe schnitzer, was a founding member and the first president of the israel diamond exchange in 1947. gertler first appeared in the congo in 1997 where he was able to gain a'. on the

country's diamond industry through deal he made with congo's president at the time, lawrence cabilla. gertler gained the monopoly in exchange for providing $20 million dollars to kabila to help his war efforts during the second congo war. gutler lost his monopoly in 2001 when lawrence cabilla was assassinated and his son joseph cabila assumed power. despite their friendship, the new congolese president was pressured to end gertler's monopoly. gertler. company only paid $3 million out of the $20 million dollars that were promised and a 2001 un report concluded that gurtler's monopoly had encouraged smuggling and resulted in a significant loss of tax revenue for the congo. however, the loss of the diamond monopoly was only a minor setback for gertler. the tycoon was able to make new arrangement where he could buy stones from congo state own diamond miner, but gentler also began to expand his operations. taking advantage of congo's

copper and cobalt industries, which are notorious for the use of child labor and other human rights abuses. at different times, gertler has been sanctioned by both the trump and biden administrations in the us because of corruption allegations. today, gertler holds ownership in two construction companies registered in canada called green park and green mount, which have been used as fronts for the construction of illegal israeli settlements in the west bank. so in addition to exploiting the congo to help build his own fortune as well as the israeli economy, gurtler is also directly associated with the expanding occupation of palestinian land in the west bank. joining me in the studio, as usual is our residence expert david miller. david is academic and a former professor at bristol university, and he's now a non-resident senior research fellow at the center of islam and global affairs at istanbul zaham university. he's also a co-director of the lobby and watch. spinwatch

and is a leading british scholarly critic of israel. i guess contributor today is kambali musavulli and i spoke to him earlier via skype. kabali is a leading political and cultural voice in democratic republic of congo, and he's been actively involved in campaigns and movements advocating for justice, peace and human rights in the region. his focus is on recognizing and addressing systematic inequalities, historical injustices and human rights violations impact on vulnerable populations. welcome to the show. well, i started by asking kambali to give us a bit more detail about how dan gertler became so close to the kabili family and why he was... able to take control of so many of congo's natural resources. then gutler befrended a a person close to the president of the congo, his son, joseph kabila, joseph kabila, laurent desire kabila who took power in 1996 uh was the

president to tapotu regime, but when he took power, he had challenges, one, after the second war start in 1998. the challenges in buying weapons, so through connections, his son was able to bring them gutler to the president kabila and he facilitated the weapon cell, this is documented in one of the un reports, gottler supported uh the kabila regime in purchasing weapons, but making the deal that gave him access really to power, i mean he's connected directly to the president and he was able to... deliver uh on that, um, what gutler wanted was really the control of congo's diamond trade, that's something that his family is into, and that's something he is also into, so he took control of the diamond trade around that time, and then he moved to other things such as getting mining

asset and so on, but that's really how it connected to the kabila regime and how he was able to gain access to the president to control the diamond industry. david, how does the extraction of rough diamonds from african countries contribute to the economic prosperity of the diamond industry in israel? well, i mean, it's strange, isn't it, because you would think that there wouldn't be a large diamond industry in israel, because there are no diamond mines, but of course the diamonds come from africa mainly, uh, some other places too, but mainly from africa, and the they contribute by by the fact that they diamonds are taken from africa, they're expropriated if you like, and then they're... carton polished and preserv presented into the relevant jewels and stones for onward sale and that's what gives them the value to the economy of israel and if the the diamonds were removed from the economy then the economy would likely crash and it's a very

significant contributor to the stability the economic stability of israel so it's a real issue for them to continue to exploit and expropriate. diamonds from african countries, well i then asked kambali to elaborate on the role of corruption in the diamond trade between israel and african nations, particularly in the context of gertler's dealings in the congo. is really at the center of the damon trade around the world, right? they control the damon trade from antwerp to tel aviv, and then it finds his way all around the world, so what israel is able to do is sanitize blood diamonds, but not only that, the proceeds of diamond cell, but those who are engaged in it, are supporting uh the illegal settlements in palestine, now i'll use the example of dan gurtler for example, gertler has made billions of dollars in diamonds and other

dealings in dlc, but the money that he has accumulated, he has invested into canadian companies construction companies who are building illegal. settlement in the west bank, now that's been already documented, but how did he make his money in the diamond trade and all the money um operations that is doing in drc, so israel pretty much sanitizes uh the illegal dealings across the african continent and some of the israelis who are engaging in this process such as david gutler are getting accessed corrupt leaders and able to have corrupt deals as even documented with the us department of justice. david, how does gertler's ownership of construction companies in canada tie into the expansion of illegal settlements in the west bank? these things sound complicated don't they, but they were he was using these companies as fronts for building settlements in in the west bank uh and there was a big in in the palestinian

village of bilin, and there was a big campaign against that uh and pushback against that, it's not clear, this was in the the late 2000s, it's not clear if those that... continues or if he is involved with other settlements and the reason it's not clear is because he has hundreds and hundreds of different companies and shell companies, he's named i think over 200 times in the panama papers and it's not it's not clear where the... he goes and and and what's what's been done with it? it it would seem likely because the these the complexity of his in secrecy of his financial affairs that he is still involved in the building settlements, but we don't know exactly uh where and how much. well, i then asked kambali, what, what, what sanction taken by the us administrations under trump and biden against gertler due to corruption allegations, and and what impact those sanctions had on his operations? it's been very fascinating watching this case, then gottler was sanctions under the trump

administration in 2017, this was through some the secretary of treasury's office, some of the staffers there who have been following what is happening and specifically around some of the mining deals um he has uh done in drc, what he does, he gets mines through corrupt dealings in drc and sells. zit a penny on the dollar on the international markets and then the money that he get from it he sounds it out to leaders in drc, particularly the former president of the congo joseph cabila and the now decised advisor. now the us sanctioned under trump, but right before trump left power through some of his lawyers and contacts was success. getting trump to remove him from the sanctions weeks days before he left power and

one of his lawyers is alan duts, many people know him in the united states, but they don't even know that alan duts was the lawyer for then gutler dealing with donald trump, he was also donald trump's lawyer for his impeachment case, but after he was removed before trump left power, weeks after biden. to power, we saw a shift where biden put back to sanctions against same, but lately, as document and in african intelligence, there seems to be confusion within the us administration where they are trying to remove him from the sanctions, but the impact the sanctions is what, it stops him from having access to the us dollar, so his bank accounts are frozen, but he's able to circumvent that very easily, all right, one the companies that's allowing. to circonvent that is glencore a swiss company uh this swiss company provides cobalts to a us

company called tesla that makes electric vehicles, but the way it was documented by one of the human rights organization is that um glencore specifically is making payment to him euros and not us dollars to be able to circumvent um the sanctions, but this being added. for a while and it's problematic that the us is actually thinking about removing the sanction on gutler um in principle i don't support the the unilateral position of the us sanctioning countries whenever they choose to, but for the case of den gutler, congolase know what he has done to destroy our country, so we support the sanction and we understand this is a fight amongst the elites and the western nations were trying to remove them, but it should not be allowed to continue uh to engage in the corrupt dealing in drc. david, we heard in latif's report uh

that gertler has been sctioned by the united states, but president trump lifted those sanctions at one point, didn't he? what was the background to that? so trump uh, under trump he was sanctioned uh and because because of his corruption and uh, it puts me in mind really of the the corruption allegations against the engor in in ukraine where similar sorts of allegations were made, and then what happened was that in the dying days of his his presidency, he trump pardoned him, and then immediately after that there was a big backlash because he's evidently very corrupt, and he was allowed a period before the the sanctions were reimposed by biden, there was a period where his money was unfrozen, so we we don't know how much of the money was then extracted from the bank accounts, but but when biden came in pretty sharpish, he was... sanctioned again uh because it's well recognized this is effectively this is mobster and so we have

you again situation where uh an israeli businessman is able to help the israely economy even though his activities are regarded as being corrupt by the us but nevertheless there are those forces in the us which will allow and uh and facilitate that kind of corruption we're going to take pause now to watch our next report about some of the key players in the diamond industry: the global diamond industry is known for its various king pins, one of them is lev leviev, who, like dan gurtler, is a citizen of israel. however, unlike gertler, leviyev was not born into one of israel's diamond families. in 1956, leviyev was born to poor jewish family in uzbekistan and moved to israel when he was teenager. when he left school, he began an apprenticeship learning to cut and polish stones. leviyev soon worked his way into the business of polishing rough

diamonds. at that time the de beer's cartel owned by the south african oppenheimer family had monopoly on diamond production, in fact, it was only with the assistance of the bears that israel's diamond industry came into existence, but leviev was keen to break the bear's monopoly on the world diamond trade. by the 1990s head made successful moves in russia and angola, both of which have large diamond mines, sourcing rough diamonds directly and without interference from the bears. therefore, in addition to becoming a... pillionaire through his activities, leviv was instrumental in bolstering israel's diamond industry, which has now become a rival to the debeas cartel. leviviyev has also used his personal wealth to fund the ultrazionis sect khabad lubovic. leviev and his family are firm supporters of habad and it has been reported that leviyev has

personally donated tens of millions of dollars to the organization. khabad operates all of with the world with over 500 offices and it helps the lobby and fund raise on behalf of israel, including for the israel occupation forces, but leviev's support for fanatical zionism doesn't end there. in 1996, levief took control of the africa israel investments holding company whose fields included real estate and construction. one of its subsiderers is deeply involved in the construction of illegal israeli settlements in the west bank. africa, israel also offers apartments and houses in settlements in the west bank through one of its franchises. the diamond trade is not only instrumental to israel's economy and the expansion of its colonial settlements, but also to the zinist armed forces. in 2010, israeli economist share hevver said that the israeli diamond

industry contributes about $1 billion dollars annually to the israeli military and security industries. he als also said that every time someone buys a diamond that was exported from israel, some of that money ends up in the israeli military. because of this, some campaigners have labeled israeli diamonds, blood diamonds and have called for them to be boycotted. d, we're just in the film there that levy has linked to the ultrazionist uh zianist sect about, mean just elaborate a little bit will you on his? so habbad is this uh historic sec, a sort of outreach version of of a hystic secs and they have 100 different countries that are involved with all over the world and the ultrazionis, they used to be antisianist, now ultrazionist so much so that they have the opened their own offices in in gaza after october 7th and and

uh also are involved in and pushing forward the idea that it's legitimate to kill. babies, even if you're not going to kill the parents, you can kill babies bause they might grow up to threaten us in the future, so it's a really vial organization, organized worldwide, lev is of course russian and habar is organized in russia all across russia actually, which perhaps you wouldn't expect, it's organized even more densely in ukraine, and we've talked about that previous programs, but in russia, leviv has supported many of the the habad activities, habad is even quite close it said to to president. putin so there's a real interesting position there that that habad being a supporter of the ukrainian government against russia, nevertheless has been and remains still quite highly organized throughout russia, does that then explain that because there's so wide spread, does that explain his involvement then? i mean, no, no, i mean levi is is a big huge huge hugely involved with about himself,

and so he he's been supporting them in in russia as well as in in other countries as well, yeah. david, um, how does the diamond trade contribute then to the israeli economy and and it's and its military industries? so i mean we heard in in the film there something about the contribution to the occupation forces, but there's a guy called uh benny steinmets who uh is involved in the diamond trade and he has a steinmets foundation which gives directly to the the israel defense forces so there's a structural relationship there between elements and the diamonds. and and uh the occupation forces in israel itself, so it's a it's a it's a is part of the sort of structural relationship really between the just not. just the supporting the economy of israel, but also directly supporting the the genocidal uh israel defense forces so callalled. well, i also asked cavali about what role does

leviyev's position with africa israel investments play in the construction of illegal israeli settlements in the west bank. yeah, i'm not very close familiar with his dealings and that's why in the beginning i shared that is very important to look at israeli citizens. opening on african continent in a particular sense right, we have very corrupt israelis who have corporations who have mining assets who are engaged in agriculture and so on who have how was put it even corrupt dealings on the african continent and praised in israel and no accountability for it right, we even have security companies also setting up cameras, security cameras training uh officials and military officials on the african continent. i use the case of the drc, one of the things that really uh was very disturbing after

october 7th, 2023 is that over 200 israeli defense force uh reservists left the drc to go pretty much what i say kill palestinians. didn't even know we had over 200. idf soldiers in drc, what are they doing? they were training the republican guard uh in drc, the republican guard is the military that protects the president, and this republican card was accused with evidence of killing civilians just few months from october, august of 2023, in the city of goma, hundreds of protesters were killed by republican gold trained by the rdf, so when i'm looking at specifically israeli uh citizens engaging on the african continent, i'm looking at it as a whole. israel as a state has engaged in protecting um the their interests, beat the

citizens who are doing corrupt dealings on the continent or corporations who are also exploiting the world, so the challenge should not just be on the individual, it should be on israel of netanhou that there should be sanction that should pr should be bear on them, and for the international solidarity to speed palestine to understand that israel gets his well from the african continent and solidarity with africans is what's going to stop the apart that's taking place in palestine. david, i mean levi has a relationship with the trump family, doesn't he? um, what do you think that tells us? well, interesting, isn't it, because we just been talking about gurtler having the relationship with the trump family, and now so does, so does levi have he in fact was involved in a deal with ' trump's son-in-law, jared kushner, who of course is the the even more fanatical supporter of havad than trump himself is, and the deal involves um taking

options on part of the old new york times building, something like $300 million dollars or something, and so there's there's those connec connections there as well, let's remember that that um jarena was the unofficial point man, wasn't officially on staff at the white house, but he had an unofficial role under president trump where he's is in charge of the abraham accords, so uh, which of course is the normalization process between the saudis, the uae, bahrain, and the zionist entity itself, so there's a kind of financial relationship as well there, so the relationship between kuschner and the saudis, in financial deals, the relationship with the various israeli deals including one we're talking about, this is an indication of the way in which the the trump family is fundamentally embroiled in structural conflicts of interest. uh with the whole question of israel, so it's not just a question of what they might think about israel, of course the fanatical scientists, but also that they are deeply, deeply involved in financial uh wheeling and dealing

and probably irregularities in relation to the whole normalization agenda. what do you think this says then about us democracy then, the the you know the the the kind of influence that these characters like this have these super rich people? well don't we laugh, of course there's no democracy in in the us, it's a joke of. is even worse than the system in the uk, which itself is saying something, which is saying something, so look, the the the whole way, the way the whole issue here is that you know, if you have biden, you have a deeply pro israel genocidal policy, if you have trump, you have a deeply pro israel genocidal policy, there are differences of course, in particular in financial relationships, but but but the the differences are small, yeah, really overall, well, i'm afraid that's all we've got time for today, so thanks so... and thank you to our guest kambali musavali and our resident expert professor david miller. remember you can follow the show on facebook, twitter and telegram where we post regular clips and updates. you can also help us to cattract the

disinformation pedal by the corporate. media about palestine and the resistance to design entity by showing today's program on your social media platforms, so until next time when palestine declassified, we'll be back with more forensic investigations and analysis. this is chris williamson, saying bye for now. this week on expose, benjam. netanyahu vows to reject any calls to help the rafah invasion as he and joe biden intensified their staged public spat over zionist israel's genocide in gaza. now following the statement made by former president donald trump that there would be a blood bath if he is not elected in november, left this politicians and media personalities completely lose it on social media. and lastly, a recent politico ipso survey reveals that 50% of americans think trump is guilty.

and ought to be tried before the 2024 presidential election. stay tuned for expose. the truth is just the revelation away. the dispute between iran and kuwait over the rs gas field grabs the headlines from time to time. but what's the whole story about? is just another tension underway in west asia? what's the significance of rash gas field? what is kuwait's position? what is tehran's position? why is saudi arabia engage in dispute out of the blue? and has there been an attempt to reach deal. these and more. on

this edition of iran today.