Drop Site (12/1/25): “The deadly assault last week near the White House was like a scene drawn from the world that the suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, once inhabited in Afghanistan and which was shaped by the U.S.-led War on Terror during the last two decades.
Opinion writing about last month’s National Guard shooting in Washington, DC, serves as the latest example of US corporate media’s role in whitewashing US foreign policy.
The post-9/11 wars directly caused nearly a million deaths and dealt significant “blowback”—unintended repercussions experienced by the US as a result of its foreign policy—including rising extremist crimes by those with military backgrounds, according to a 2024 University of Maryland study.
On November 26, two members of the West Virginia National Guard—who were part of Trump’s National Guard deployment to DC—were shot without provocation, and one of the soldiers died from her injuries.
Law enforcement quickly named the shooting suspect as 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a former member of a CIA-backed Afghan force called “Zero Units.” These units reportedly killed civilians (ProPublica, 12/15/22, 1/5/23) and committed war crimes (Intercept, 12/18/20).
While Lakanwal is not accused of committing crimes abroad, and his motives for the alleged shooting remain unclear, he “suffered from mental health issues and was disturbed by the casualties his unit had caused,” a childhood friend told the New York Times (11/27/25).
Lakanwal was briefly imprisoned in Afghanistan, alongside other members of his Zero Unit team, after team members killed Afghan police members in a dispute over Taliban prisoners, Drop Site News (12/1/25) reported. Lakanwal had “long shown signs of significant psychological instability and drug use, even before he left Afghanistan,” Drop Site also detailed, citing multiple sources from the US and from his home province of Khost, Afghanistan.
While NPR‘s headline (12/1/25) described the suspect as having a “personal crisis,” the story quotes a resettlement volunteer saying he believed Lakanwal was “suffering from both PTSD and from his work with the US military in Afghanistan.”
He was “left deeply troubled by the death of a close friend and fellow Afghan commander in 2024,” who unsuccessfully sought asylum in the US, CBS News (12/1/25) wrote, citing a former Afghan commando. In June, Lakanwal sought help from a CIA program meant to help Zero Unit veterans with immigration issues, but his last post wasn’t answered and was deleted by the chat’s administrator, according to Rolling Stone (12/1/25).
Although there were other, more individual factors that seemed to affect Lakanwal—an NPR headline (12/1/25) described him as undergoing a “personal crisis”—even the personal in such cases may be political. A refugee resettlement volunteer quoted by NPR wrote before the attack that Lakanwal was “suffering from both PTSD and from his work with the US military in Afghanistan.” When mental and emotional damage from combat experience is turned outward, that’s a classic example of blowback.
‘Realities of blowback’
Spencer Ackerman (Zeteo, 11/28/25): “Much of the CIA’s Afghan workforce remains shrouded in official secrecy. But what is known about them is their wanton brutality, licensed and materially supported by the United States…. There is bound to be immense psychological damage when making someone, particularly a teenager, into a member of a death squad.”
Spencer Ackerman, national security journalist and author of the Forever Wars newsletter, penned an incisive editorial for independent news website Zeteo (11/28/25) on the blowback theory:
Lakanwal’s shooting spree is not the result of importing Afghan culture to America. While much will surely be revealed in Lakanwal’s upcoming trial, it looks more like the result of importing American culture to Afghanistan. The realities of blowback—the violence America experiences as the unintended consequences of the violence of US foreign policy—are what the US needs to examine in the wake of this horrifying murder if it expects to prevent the next one.
By contrast, six out of the eight US corporate media editorials and op-eds that covered the shooting ignored the extensive news reporting that suggests Lakanwal’s US military experience had a negative impact on his mental state, diverting attention to other aspects of the story, like the role of Trump’s National Guard deployment, Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, or Lakanwal’s immigration status.
These opinions did little to challenge the stance of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who has claimed (Newsweek, 11/30/25) that Lakanwal was likely “radicalized” after entering the US, and blamed—somewhat inconsistently—his entry on Biden’s vetting process. (If Lakanwal only developed radical views after he came to the US, how would vetting have caught them?)
One op-ed didn’t mention Lakanwal’s military experience at all (New York Post, 11/28/25). Three of the pieces briefly referenced his CIA ties—either treating them as a positive thing (“he had cooperated with the CIA in his home country and had been vetted by the American intelligence community”—Washington Post, 11/27/25; “the CIA said the man had been part of a CIA-backed Afghan ‘partner force’ in Kandahar province, one of the most dangerous places during the war”—Wall Street Journal, 11/28/25) or more neutrally (New York Post, 11/29/25). Another noted that he “served alongside US troops in Afghanistan” (New York Post, 11/27/25). But none of those made the connection between Lakanwal’s military background and his reported mental health struggles.
The New York Times editorial board (11/27/25), for its part, wrote that “he was described by a friend as a young man troubled by mental illness, as is so often the case in similar crimes,” and added in the same paragraph that “he reportedly had worked alongside the American intelligence services in his country,” without connecting the two—despite its paper’s own reporting (11/27/25) confirming Lakanwal’s mental health struggles related to his military experience.
Diverting attention
The New York Times editorial board (11/27/25) repeated the handwashing cliché: “No one, including the president, is responsible for this tragedy, except for its perpetrator.”
The New YorkTimes and Washington Post tried to relieve Trump of any blame for the shooting. The Times (11/27/25) opined that “no one, including the president, is responsible for this tragedy, except for its perpetrator”:
It should be possible to understand both that Mr. Trump’s use of the National Guard has been outrageous and that the use did not cause this shooting.
The Washington Post editorial board (11/27/25)—which has grown more right-wing since Trump’s inauguration—took it a step further when it wrote that “blaming the [National Guard’s] presence for provoking this monstrous act is inappropriate.”
The Wall Street Journal editorial board (11/28/25), meanwhile, attributed blame to Biden’s 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan:
When and how the shooter was approved for entry will become clearer, and no doubt an orderly withdrawal would have allowed more careful investigation. This is one more cost of the Biden administration’s Afghan failure.
The negative framing of Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal is hardly a surprise for the Journal’s editorial board, which has a history of hammering that point home (e.g., 8/15/21, 8/19/21, 4/26/23, 9/9/24). But there is no evidence that an “orderly withdrawal” from Afghanistan would have allowed a “more careful investigation” of Lakanwal’s background.
After all, Lakanwal was vetted before he worked with the CIA in Afghanistan, and he—like all of the tens of thousands of Afghans resettled in the US through the Biden-era Operation Allies Welcome program—“underwent thorough vetting by counterterrorism authorities before entering the United States,” involving the Department of Homeland Security, FBI, CIA and the National Counterterrorism Center, the Washington Post (11/28/25) reported.
That reporting contradicts the paper’s own editorial board (11/27/25), which claimed a day earlier that “it’s been obvious for years that vetting was insufficiently thorough.” “The Biden team’s failure to prepare for the fall of Kabul inevitably brought some dangerous people into the country,” the editorial said, who “should be identified and repatriated.”
Professional Islamophobe Douglas Murray (New York Post, 11/27/25) argued that the DC shooting showed Trump was right to call for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”
While the WashingtonPost, Wall Street Journal and New YorkTimes acknowledged that not every Afghan refugee should be punished for the shooting, the right-wing New York Post editorial board (11/29/25) argued that the incident necessitated a “top-to-bottom overhaul of immigration law.”
The New York Post published two more guest essays that expanded upon that argument. Far-right British-American journalist Douglas Murray argued in the Post (11/27/25) that “you cannot just leave borders open, or allow in large numbers of people with totally different value systems from your own.”
Mediaite editor Isaac Schorr (New York Post, 11/28/25) added that implementing “a rigorous, multi-layered ideological testing process to determine their suitability for life in America” should include a “one-half-strike-and-you’re-out process to prove they want to be ‘American’ in the truest sense of the word.”
‘Assimilation-focused immigration’
Bob Elston (USA Today, 12/4/25): “Many Afghans fought side by side with US servicemembers. Some were given a pathway to this country, and the vast majority of them now reside here peacefully.”
USA Today was the lone US corporate media outlet to acknowledge in its opinion section that Lakanwal’s military experience had a negative impact on his mental state. Bob Elston, a grant writer for a refugee resettlement agency and former US State Department analyst, noted in a guest essay (12/4/25) that Lakanwal’s
commando unit in Afghanistan routinely went on missions targeting some of the most dangerous members of the Taliban, the Islamic State terrorist network and Al Qaeda.
It is not difficult to imagine he came away from those experiences with post-traumatic stress disorder, like so many US servicemembers involved in the war.
Elston argued that the US must reopen its immigration refugee pathway program, which Trump froze and defunded upon his inauguration.
Two days later, right-wing USA Today columnist Dace Potas (12/6/25) acknowledged that Lakanwal “had helped CIA operations” and “had difficulties assimilating due to post-traumatic stress disorder.” Yet he still argued that US immigration policy needs to be reworked to “assimilation-focused immigration and a merit-based criteria.”
Blaming one tragic act on a community of 200,000 people, as the New York Post (and Trump) repeatedly did, is blatantly absurd and racist. Legal immigrants are 74% less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans, while illegal immigrants are half as likely, according to the libertarian think tank Cato Institute analysis of data from 2010 through 2023.
Although the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal mostly challenged this racist argument, their other opinions remained limited to the political blame game between the Trump and Biden administrations, and in doing so, ignored one of the most important issues that needed to be publicly discussed: the consequences of US foreign intervention.
Jessica Kutz (19th, 11/21/25): “At the same time that tradeswomen are urging more to be done to address gender-based violence in the workplace, the Trump administration has curtailed resources.”
Media coverage focuses on violence: “If it bleeds, it leads.” Yeah, but only some violence, sometimes. How much have you read, for example, about Amber Czech?
She was a 20-year-old welder in Minnesota, and as the 19th’s Jessica Kutz (11/21/25) notes, in one of the rare media acknowledgements, “Women make up just 6% of welders in the country, and, as with other male-dominated occupations, it came with the risk of isolation and bullying.”
In Czech’s case, that bullying ended with a male coworker allegedly bludgeoning her to death, because, as he told law enforcement, he didn’t like her, and had been planning to murder her for some time.
I saw reports on this from tradeswomen outlets, social media and some local outlets. But it seemed to barely rate as a national story; that coverage came largely from outlets that lean heavily on crime coverage (e.g., New York Post, 11/13/25; New York Daily News, 11/13/25; People, 11/14/25).
It has nothing to tell us, evidently, about broader trends or influences. In this case, it seems, it’s just an errant individual. Nothing to see here.
The 19th reported:
Last fall, the Tradeswomen Taskforce and Equal Rights Advocates, a nonprofit focused on gender justice in workplaces, won a $350,000 grant to address gender-based violence in the workplace.
The Trump administration canceled that program.
The New York Times‘ Ross Douthat (11/6/25) hosted a debate between two conservative women over exactly how feminism had been bad for the workplace.
Meanwhile in Italy, parliament passed a law recognizing the crime of femicide, or gender-based violence against women, becoming the 30th country to do so. It’s far from a panacea—difficult to prosecute, and reliant on a carceral solution—but it acknowledges the problem and creates a way to clearly track it. In the United States, femicide rates are estimated to be more than seven times higher than in Italy, yet it prompts little media attention or outrage (Ms., 4/17/25).
The New York Times apparently didn’t have space to cover Czech’s murder, but they did have room for Ross Douthat to host a debate (11/6/25) on “Did Women Ruin the Workplace”—later changed to “Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace?”—and for David French (10/23/25) to muse on “How Women Destroyed the West.”
As bipartisan criticism intensifies over U.S. attacks on alleged “drug boats” in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, the White House is defending a September 2 operation that killed 11 people. The Washington Post reports Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a second attack to kill two survivors of an initial strike, an order that legal experts say would constitute a war crime. The White House on Monday confirmed the second strike but said the authorization came not from Hegseth, but from Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley, then head of Joint Special Operations Command.
This comes as Hegseth threatens to court-martial Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, a former naval officer, after Kelly and five other Democratic veterans urged service members to refuse unlawful commands.
“Killing civilians who are not engaged in armed conflict against us is a war crime,” says law professor David Cole of Georgetown University.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Forty years after the bombing of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour, award-winning journalist and author David Robie has revisited the ship’s fateful last mission — a journey that became a defining chapter in New Zealand’s identity as a nuclear-free nation.
It captures the courage of those who stood up to nuclear colonialism in the Pacific and draws striking parallels with the existential challenges the region now faces — from climate change to renewed geopolitical tensions.
“The new edition has a completely new 40-page section covering the last decade and the transition in global emphasis from ‘nuclear to climate crisis survivors’, plus new exposés about the French spy ‘blunderwatergate’. Ironically, the nuclear risks have also returned to the fore again,” Robie told The Australia Today.
“The book deals with a lot of critical issues impacting on the Pacific, and is expanded a lot and quite different from the last edition in 2015.”
In May 1985, the Rainbow Warrior embarked on a humanitarian mission unlike any before it. The crew helped 320 Rongelap Islanders relocate to a safer island after decades of radioactive contamination from US nuclear testing at Bikini and Enewetak atolls.
Robie, who joined the ship in Hawai’i as a journalist, recalls the deep humanity of that voyage.
Back in 1985: Journalist David Robie (centre) pictured with two Rainbow Warrior crew members, Henk Haazen (left) and the late Davey Edward, the chief engineer. Robie spent 11 weeks on the ship, covering the evacuation of the Rongelap Islanders. Image: Inner City News
Humanitarian voyage
“The fact that this was a humanitarian voyage . . . helping the people of Rongelap in the Marshall Islands, it was going to be quite momentous,” he told Pacific Media Network News.
“It’s incredible for an island community where the land is so much part of their existence, their spirituality and their ethos.”
The Rainbow Warrior sailing in the Marshall Islands in May 1985 before the Rongelap relocation mission. Image: David Robie/Café Pacific Media
The relocation was both heartbreaking and historic. Islanders dismantled their homes over three days, leaving behind everything except their white-stone church.
“I remember one older woman sitting on the deck among the remnants of their homes,” Robie recalls.
Their ship’s banner, Nuclear Free Pacific, fluttered as both a declaration and a demand. The Rainbow Warrior became a symbol of Pacific solidarity, linking environmentalism with human rights in a region scarred by the atomic age.
On 10 July 1985, the Rainbow Warrior was docked at Auckland’s Marsden Wharf when two underwater bombs tore through its hull. The explosions, planted by French secret agents, sank the vessel and killed Portuguese-Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira.
The front page of The New Zealand Herald on 12 July 1985 — two days after the bombing. Image: NZH screenshot
Bombing shockwaves The bombing sent shockwaves through New Zealand and the world. When French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius finally admitted that his country’s intelligence service had carried out the attack, outrage turned to defiance. New Zealand’s resolve to remain nuclear-free only strengthened.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark. Image: Kate Flanagan /www.helenclarknz.com
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark contributes a new prologue to the 40th anniversary edition, reflecting on the meaning of the bombing and the enduring relevance of the country’s nuclear-free stance.
“The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior and the death of Fernando Pereira was both a tragic and a seminal moment in the long campaign for a nuclear-free Pacific,” she writes.
“It was so startling that many of us still remember where we were when the news came through.”
Clark warns that history’s lessons are being forgotten. “Australia’s decision to enter a nuclear submarine purchase programme with the United States is one of those storm clouds gathering,” she writes.
“New Zealand should be a voice for de-escalation, not for enthusiastic expansion of nuclear submarine fleets in the Pacific.”
Clark’s message in the prologue is clear: the values that shaped New Zealand’s independent foreign policy in the 1980s — diplomacy, peace and disarmament — must not be abandoned in the face of modern power politics.
Author David Robie and the Rainbow Warrior III. Image: Facebook/David Robie
Geopolitical threats
Robie adds that the book also explores “the geopolitical threats to the region with unresolved independence issues, such as the West Papuan self-determination struggle in Melanesia.”
Clark’s call to action, Robie told The Australia Today, resonates with the Pacific’s broader fight for justice.
“She warns against AUKUS and calls for the country to ‘link with the many small and middle powers across regions who have a vision for a world characterised by solidarity and peace, which can rise to the occasion to combat the existential challenges it faces — including of nuclear weapons, climate change, and artificial intelligence.’”
Author David Robie with a copy of Eyes of Fire during a recent interview with RNZ Pacific. Image: Facebook/David Robie
When Eyes of Fire was first published, it instantly became a rallying point for young activists and journalists across the Pacific. Robie’s reporting — which earned him New Zealand’s Media Peace Prize 40 years ago — revealed the human toll of nuclear testing and state-sponsored secrecy.
Today, his new edition reframes that struggle within the context of climate change, which he describes as “the new existential crisis for Pacific peoples.” He sees the same forces of denial, delay, and power imbalance at play.
“This whole renewal of climate denialism, refusal by major states to realise that the solutions are incredibly urgent, and the United States up until recently was an important part of that whole process about facing up to the climate crisis,” Robie says.
“It’s even more important now for activism, and also for the smaller countries that are reasonably progressive, to take the lead.”
For Robie, Eyes of Fire is not just a history book — it’s a call to conscience.
“I hope it helps to inspire others, especially younger people, to get out there and really take action,” he says.
“The future is in your hands.”
“You can’t sink a rainbow” slogan on board the Rainbow Warrior III. Image: David Robie 2025
The Rainbow Warrior returned to Aotearoa in July to mark the 40th anniversary of the bombing. Forty years on, the story of the Rainbow Warrior continues to burn — not as a relic of the past, but as a beacon for the Pacific’s future through Robie’s Eyes of Fire.
Sitiveni Rabuka, the instigator of Fiji’s coup culture, took to the witness stand for the first time today — fronting the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Suva.
The TRC was set up by Rabuka’s coalition government with the aim of promoting truth-telling and reconciliation regarding political upheavals dating back to 1987.
The five-member TRC began its work earlier this year. It was led by Dr Marcus Brand, who was appointed in January, and has reportedly already finished his role.
Rabuka had stated earlier this year he would “voluntarily appear” before the commission and disclose names of individuals involved in his two racist coups almost four decades ago.
The man, often referred to as “Rambo” for his military past, has been a permanent fixture in the Fijian political landscape since first overthrowing a democratically elected government as a 38-year-old lieutenant-colonel.
But now, at 77, he has a weatherbeaten face yet still carries the resolute confidence of a young soldier. He faced the TRC commissioners, wearing a tie in the colours of the Fiji Army, to give a much-anticipated testimony by Fijians locally and in the diaspora.
He began by revisiting his childhood and the influences in his life that shaped his worldview. He fundamentally accepted the actions of 1987 were rooted in his racial worldview.
Protecting Indigenous Fijians
He acknowledged those actions were a result of his background, being raised in an “insulated” environment (i.e. village, boarding school, military), and it is his view that he was acting to protect Indigenous Fijians.
Asked if the coups had served their purpose, Rabuka said: “The coups have brought out more of a self-realisation of who we are, what we’re doing, where we need to be.”
“If that is a positive outcome of the coup, I encourage all of us to do that. Let us be aware of the sensitivity of numbers, the sensitivity of a perceived imbalance in the distribution of assets, or whatever.”
But perhaps the most important response from him came toward the end of the almost 1hr 50min submission to a question from the facilitator and veteran journalist Netani Rika, who asked Rabuka: “Do you see the removal of immunity for coup perpetrators from the [2013] Constitution as a way towards preventing a repeat of these incidents [coups]?”
“There should be [a] very objective assessment of what can be done,” Rabuka replied.
“There are certain things that we cannot do unless we all agree [to] leave the amendment to the [2013] Constitution open to the people. If that is the will of the people, let it be.
“At the moment our hands are tied,” confirming indirectly that the removal of immunity for coup perpetrators is off the table as it stands.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
“Israel appears set on destroying the framework created to ensure compliance with international law . . . ”, the International Court of Justice heard in April 2025.
To a similar effect, Norway’s Development Minister said in May that Israel was setting a dangerous precedent for international human rights law violations in Gaza.
Both accounts stem from the belief that Israel’s crimes in Gaza are so extreme that they have broadened the scope of impunity under international law. That would make future conflicts more fluid and the world more dangerous, possibly precipitating the emergence of a New World Order.
The First World Order emerged in 1920 with the creation of the League of Nations, the first intergovernmental organisation. The goal was to prevent conflicts and wars from ever happening again. But because of, inter alia, structural weaknesses and the unresolved injustice of the defeated parties, the Second World War erupted in 1939 and the world order crumbled.
The horrors of the Second World War thus paved the way to the emergence of the Second World Order. It rallied universalism with the establishment of the United Nations and the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This was reinforced by numerous bodies and treaties to maximise compliance with international law.
While International law was never perfect, let alone fully implementable, it has had an indirect, normative influence on shaping domestic politics, academia, civil society, and journalism. It set in motion the emergence of a global rights-based consciousness, setting a frame of reference against which states are morally and legally judged, even if lacked enforcement.
‘Self-defence’ claim Israel is the product of the Second World Order. It was initially legitimised by the UN Partition Plan of Palestine in November 1947, and was admitted as a full UN member state in May 1949.
It is today a signatory of multiple UN treaties and engages with international law in various domains. Yet for years it has employed quasi-legal concepts hoping to inject dangerous exceptions in the law tailored to its own image.
It dealt with international law based more on self-perceived legitimacy (via historical victimhood or Biblical ties to the land of Palestine) than objective legality. That resulted in the production of Israeli societal beliefs regarding the country’s boundless right to, say, “self-defence”, that only few in the international community shared.
This exclusive outlook was helped, ironically, by international law’s own lingua franca, its rhetorical nature. It equipped Tel Aviv, like several other states, with the linguistic tools to justify themselves.
Think of how Israelis defend their military occupation of Palestinians by quoting legal arguments regarding self-defence. Or by re-interpreting the UN Resolution 242, which calls for the “withdrawal from territories occupied in 1967”, to mean not “all” territories.
They also argue that the Gaza Strip was not occupied since 2005. But ignore Israel’s continued “effective control” over it, which makes it an occupation as per the Fourth Hague Convention.
And while Israel isn’t a party to the Convention, it is customary international law, and therefore binding.
Dahiya Doctrine In the same vein, Tel Aviv’s ratification in 1995 of the convention on certain conventional weapons, did not stop it deploying cluster bombs against civilians in Beirut’s southern Dahiya’s district in 2006.
The Israeli army readily denied it was in violation of international law, because “they warned the area’s population”.
It is in Dahiya that a new legal threshold was crossed, or rather twisted. One that would define Israel’s next military campaigns, namely “The Dahiya Doctrine”. It permits the unleashing of extraordinary force against the civilian population and infrastructure.
While a clear violation of international law’s “principle of proportionality”, Israeli officials often justified the attacks as lawful for they target the civilian bedding of “terrorists”.
Needless to say, the Israeli definition of terrorism encapsulates almost every act of dissidence directed at the state, or Jews. Regardless of the legitimacy of that act, and irrespective of its form — violent or passive.
Israel would upscale the Dahiya Doctrine in its consecutive onslaughts on Gaza since 2008, while continuing to pay lip service to international law.
After 7 October 2023, even the words of justification had been abandoned. Calls by Israeli officials and some journalists to commit war crimes in Gaza, including genocide, were mostly unapologetic.
Save for the gas chambers, the Israeli army committed every atrocity imaginable against Gaza’s civilians. Gaza became the world’s largest graveyard of children. Most hospitals, schools, and universities were destroyed, alongside nearly 80 percent of the Strip’s infrastructure and homes.
More journalists were targeted and killed in Gaza than both world wars, the Vietnam War, wars in Yugoslavia, and the war in Afghanistan combined. And unknown to modern conflict, Israel systematically went after aid workers, including UN-associated ones.
Enemies and allies The gun barrels were then turned against the very representative of international law, the UN. In October 2024, the Knesset banned the UNRWA — going even further by labelling it a “terrorist organisation”.
Sure, Israel has long looked at the UN as biased, and saw the UNRWA as detrimental to Tel Aviv’s wishes to erase the Palestinian refugee problem from existence. But after October 7, not only did Israel unleash a genocidal war against Palestinians, it used quasi-legal instrument and military prowess to neutralise the legal bodies that may limit its scope.
This is unprecedented in the United Nation’s history.
Yet, despite its unbridled brutality, Israel could have been kept at bay had it not been for the US support.
Indeed, the White House helped Israel normalise its violations of international law in two ways. Firstly, by emphasising the “reason of the state” doctrine over international law. The White House under Biden and Trump, almost fully embraced the Israeli narrative of self-defence after October 7, even when it was evident that the Israelis went too far in Gaza.
Secondly, the US was already waging its own lateral war on international law. In February 2025, Donald Trump issued an Executive Order authorising sanctions on the ICC and its Chief Prosecutor.
It expanded the sanctions on four ICC officials in August, saying they had been pivotal in efforts to prosecute Americans and Israelis.
Trump had withdrawn from the UN Human Rights Council in 2018, allegedly over anti-Israel bias. The Biden administration re-joined in 2021 despite being critical of the council’s “disproportionate attention on Israel”. But in 2025 Trump re-withdrew from the organisation.
Ultimately, whether Israel is being driven by a sense of doom post-October 7, one that has overshadowed rationality, or it is rationally using whatever necessary militarily capacity it has to achieve its war objectives, matters little.
Whatever the explanation, what stands is that Israel’s unprecedented crimes set a trajectory in the international system. There is now a possibility that under the increasing normalisation of such crimes, the system will ultimately break.
But if the trajectory follows the same pattern as in the past 100 years, then the crisis may usher in a third world order. A rectifying phase. But that remains speculative, for the path of history is not linear.
Dr Emad Moussa is a Palestinian-British researcher and writer specialising in the political psychology of intergroup and conflict dynamics, focusing on MENA with a special interest in Israel/Palestine. He has a background in human rights and journalism. Follow him on Twitter: @emadmoussa
Fiji marked the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls this week with the government saying the day is a reminder that for too many women and girls violence is a daily reality — not a headline or a statistic.
The day also kicked off 16 days of activism against gender-based violence — a worldwide UN campaign running from November 25 to December 10.
The country’s Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection Sashi Kiran told Parliament violence against women and girls was not limited to the private sphere — “it permeates every dimension of society”.
“Addressing this issue is therefore not only a woman’s matter; it is a national priority — requiring engagement from every sector, every institution and every leader in our country.
“It manifests in various forms including physical, emotional, sexual and economic abuse as well as harmful practices such as trafficking.”
She said the cost of violence against females was estimated to be equivalent to seven percent of Fiji’s gross domestic product (GDP), affecting families, the health system, productivity and the nation’s development.
“The cost of violence is not only emotional — it is national.”
She pointed out several statistics, including that around 60 percent of Fijian women had experienced some form of violence in their lifetime; girls as young as 13 remained the most vulnerable to sexual assault; and from 2020-2024, more than 4000 child sexual offences were reported — most involving young girls.
“Our response must be survivor-centred, and above all accessible to everyone — including women and girls with disabilities and those from diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.”
In the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Western Pacific Region, more than a quarter of girls and women experience some form of intimate partner or sexual violence.
But WHO said in several Pacific island countries and areas, the prevalence of lifetime intimate partner violence is as high as one in two women.
WHO’s western Pacific director, Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala, said governments and communities must use data to drive stronger policies, scale up prevention efforts, and invest in health system readiness, “so every girl is protected and woman is empowered”.
WHO said while the numbers were grim, a survey on “health system readiness to respond to interpersonal violence” pointed to an encouraging policy environment.
“Many countries are integrating strategies to prevent violence against women and girls into their national multisectoral plans, and acknowledging the key role that health systems must play in tackling this societal problem.
“However, the survey also highlights challenges in implementing these strategies.”
A missing story thread of the Epstein scandal involves his connection to and service in behalf of Israel. Yes, we know the marketing platitude: “sex sells.” It goes without saying, genocide doesn’t. But there is a connection: The confederacy of pervs of the economic elite’s sense of entitlement includes possessing a proprietary attitude towards all they survey — whether it involves exploitation of the bodies of women and teenage girls or parceling off for profit the real estate of Gaza by means of ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Ecocide, perpetual war, for profit Big Medicine, non-living wages, exorbitant rent and housing cost — all have the same root cause: structures of power created for the massive exploitation of the powerless.
Term it, The Epstein Island of Everyday Capitalist Reality.
Seems like yesterday, Trump seemed to thrive in his persona of a pervy creepopathic tub of noxious goo. But the mania attendant to the predilection has, by all indications, caused him to lapse into a doom spiral.
Study his face. There is no amount of fake tan lacquer that can continue to camouflage the rot festering in his rancid soul nor hide the signs auguring that he is nearing a collapse into his corrupt and rotted out core.
Trump is the emblem of the massive animus required to distract from the decaying conditions of neoliberal capitalism and overstretched empire. All nations have bodies buried on their property. But empires are maintained by the mindset, evinced in a collective basis, and, on a subliminal basis, mimicked below by its citizenry, of criminals, from grifters to cold blooded assassins.
Masked thugs intimidate on the streets and demand compliance. Financial malfeasance is the economic order of the era. And the spilled blood of the innocent is the calling card of the state.
Crime pays and pays (obscenely) well. Yet the hyper-vigilance, hubris, and manic cope needed to maintain the rampant criminality will, after a time, exhaust the enterprise. The players will get sloppy, first from overconfidence then from fatigue.
Trump, face to cankles, is an object lesson on the phenomenon.
Trump, character-wise, in regard to his predecessors to the US presidency, is about as odious as a specimen that ever slouched through the precincts of the White House.
Bear in mind, though, as with Trump, the previous occupant, Biden, was an enabler of genocide. Previously, Obama bragged about being an ardent murderer-by-predator-drone and evinced equal zeal in acting as an operative for Big Banks and corporate oligarchs in general. The Bush (i.e., Cheney) administration lied the nation into foreign wars and (and with the help of congressional Democrats) expanded the National Security State. Bill Clinton continued the Cold War after the collapse of the USSR, lorded over racist, police state enhancing crime legislation, and cut Welfare benefits for impoverished children. The geriatric Howdy Doody puppet of the economic elite and war profiteers, Ronald Reagan, following the tentative measures of Jimmy Carter, ushered in, in full force, the Neoliberal Era, as his handlers waged a series of covert, imperialist wars abroad. Richard Nixon initiated the fascist contrivance known as the War On Drugs — an authoritarian campaign waged against minorities and the counter culture, perpetrated a covert war in Laos and Cambodia that caused the subsequent deaths of millions, and there is no need to elaborate on the crimes known as the Watergate Scandal that led to his political undoing.
All of the Executive Office’s gallery of ne’er-do-wells (a quaint term for men responsible for so much death and suffering) actions culminated in the rise of the US empire-undermining, shambling embodiment of The Second Law Of Thermodynamics in (dismal) human form, Donald J. Trump.
As far as odiousness of character goes, Trump faces stiff competition insofar as the succession of racists, corrupt tools of capitalism, war criminals, and enablers and perpetrators of ethnic cleansing and genocide who held the office of president before him.
Crime Boss-in-Chief peruses the rogue gallery of his predecessors
Yes, Trump is an ugly man. But the question remains: Is he making the US an uglier place or is he merely exposing what was always hidden in plain sight?
Witness the recent Jennifer Jacobs outage. When the Bloomberg News reporter questioned Trump aboard Air Force One as to whether he had knowledge of incriminating information contained within the Epstein files, he pointed his finger in a threatening manner towards the journalist’s face, and stabbing the air in front of her, snarled the now notorious ad hominem, “Quiet! Quiet, piggy!”
A crucial question:
Did any of the corporate press who witnessed the affront come to the woman’s defense — or even press the Swine-in-Chief to answer her question?
Thus we are presented with an object lesson on the reason Epstein’s et al. criminal activity went on unacknowledged and unreported for as long as it did.
The fact does not bode well regarding whether Epstein’s power-filthy cohorts in crime will ever face justice.
And finally regarding the aesthetics of facial features — who is it exactly that possesses a porcine-adjacent countenance. (No AI enhancement required.)
Swinish over-consumption at the fossil fuel feeding trough:
Trump on climate change at the recent Saudi-US so-called “Investment” conference:
I’m all for climate change… It’s climate change that’s destroying the world, remember? The world was supposed to have been gone two years ago. The world was gonna burn up, but it actually got much cooler. It’s a little conspiracy. We have to investigate them immediately. They probably are being investigated.
When the sundowner years begin to descend on a lifelong grifter he will be given, to a greater and greater degree, to believe his own grift. Conversely, an accomplished con artist is aware of the realities of the world at large because verisimilitude is crucial to the success of the con; he risks exposure by not being nimble enough to know the difference between the actual situation at hand and his own lies. Between his advancing age, his physical decline and his worsening affliction of gold fever Trump’s deteriorating condition appears to be accelerating at an exponential rate. His mental acuity is dropping at a faster than beaters on the used car market.
Withal, Trump:
My pollsters said, ‘Sir, if George Washington and Abraham Lincoln came back from the dead and they went for the president, vice president as a combination, you’d be beating them by 25 points.
Trump has always had a hostile relationship with the realm of fact and truth, but as age-related dementia is setting in his talent or grift is losing its ability to ensnare the credulous and even seduce the stupid.
Trump’s state of mind displays both the most the infantile omniscience of toddler and the unhinged rage of a nursing home malcontent. Still in their prime High Dollar hustlers (e.g., a bone saw aficionado Saudi monarch) have discerned he, like an infant reaching for a set of jangling keys, is dazzled by the scintillation of gold. Flattered and bedazzled when gifted with shiny objects, he can be bended to their will.
President Sundowner rises at morning and dispatches the following into his Truth Social Dominion Of Onset Dementia Palaver:
For his political rivals to be dispatched to the gallows and hung by the neck, insisting ”It’s what George Washington would do.”
As events proceed increasingly beyond his raging will and his poll numbers continue to spiral southward, even in the red state south, expect more old man flings his pudding cup at nursing home staff outbursts. Trump’s, like his partner in unfettered exploitation Jeffrey Epstein, time of unaccountability for his action seems to be at an end. Could the Empire Of Endless Exploitation be in the initial stage of foundering?
Tech Oligarch loony muffin Peter Thiel rants any restraint pertaining to capitalists’ proclivity to view the body of planet earth as rife for exploitation in the manner Trump and Epstein viewed the underage bodies of teenage beauty contestants should be regarded as evidence that the Antichrist is guiding the events of the day and The Beast Of Revelations’ ten crowns of blasphemy are cresting the waves of Mayor Elect Mamdani’s New York Harbor.
Although Thiel’s declaration is the crackbrained stuff of fascist boilerplate and borderline psychotic fantasy of the kind that malignant narcissistic personality types are prone to sputter when under duress, the fantasy is revealing: The billionaire economic elite believe any curtailing of their privilege and power would seem like the world coming to an end.
Call me an operative of the Antichrist or a treasonous leftard but I am all in for giving the times a sustained push in that direction.
“The Great Red Dragon and the Beast from the Sea,” William Blake
The Fijian Media Association (FMA) has demanded better police protection after a journalist working for the state broadcaster Fiji Broadcasting Corporation (FBC) was violently attacked outside a courthouse
In a statement today, the FMA again called for police to be more vigilant in managing security and threats outside the Suva High Court in the capital after another Fijian journalist was violently attacked by a convicted murderer leaving under police guard.
Journalist Apenisa Waqairadovu of the FBC suffered injuries to his arms and hands after he was attacked by Sairusi Ceinaturaga, who had just been convicted of murdering the one-year-old child of his de facto partner, the FMA stated.
After his conviction, Ceinaturaga walked out of the courtroom in handcuffs, followed a metre or two behind by a police officer who was outrun and scrambled to catch up when Ceinaturaga chased the journalist.
Ceinaturaga threatened Waqairadovu, swore and ran after him before pushing him down the stairs.
“This has been happening too often to journalists outside the courtroom, and we do not see any improved process despite our repeated calls for stronger security and protection,” the FMA stated.
“We have been consistently calling for urgent action from police to protect media workers — even after another convicted murderer Tevita Kapawale tried to attack journalists outside the courthouse in August.
‘Physical threats every year’
“Journalists have faced physical threats every year while covering court cases, and the Fiji Police Force’s repeated failure to provide adequate security for media personnel is unacceptable.
“The media plays a vital role in ensuring transparency and accountability in our justice system. Journalists have the right to report on matters of public interest without fear of violence or intimidation.”
The FMA is now demanding the Fiji Police Force immediately implement proper security protocols for court proceedings, including secure perimeters during prisoner transport and adequate police presence to protect journalists from violent offenders — the same call it made following the August incident.
The FMA says police must do better and relook at how they provide security at the courthouse.
“In the past officers would surround the accused person and escort him out, not let them just walk out with officers strolling at the back.
“In this case the journalist kept their distance but was still chased down and attacked and this is totally unacceptable.”
The FMA said reporters covered court stories in order to inform the public and to ensure that justice was served under the law.
“We are again urging the public to appreciate and understand the role journalists play in providing the coverage of how justice and the rule of law is administered in this country.”
More To The Story: John J. Lennon thinks true crime is exploitative—and he has a unique perspective. In 2001, he killed a man on a street in New York City. He was convicted of murder several years later and given the maximum sentence—25 years to life in prison—on top of three additional years for two other convictions. From behind bars, he began reckoning with his crime through in-prison writing workshops and soon fell in love with journalism. He’s since made a name for himself as an incarcerated journalist and has been published in The Atlantic, Esquire, and the New York Times Magazine, often writing about the criminal justice system and conditions in correctional facilities, all from the inside. In the decades Lennon’s been behind bars, America has become increasingly fixated on stories like his—true crime—through endless podcasts, documentary series, and streaming shows. But Lennon argues that tragedy is too often being turned into entertainment. True crime “creates this thirst for punishment,” he says. On this week’s More To The Story, Lennon joins with host Al Letson to discuss how his first book, The Tragedy of True Crime: Four Guilty Men and the Stories That Define Us, inverts the basic structure of the true crime genre. They also discuss how his portrayal on a cable news show hosted by Chris Cuomo inspired him to write the book and how Lennon now views the murder he committed almost a quarter-century ago.
Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson
Israeli prison guards punish the prisoners “by breaking their thumbs” said a released detainee as lawyers speak out about torture, abuse, rape, starving and killings in a notorious underground Israeli prison facility where detainees are held without sunlight, brutalised.
And nobody in New Zealand says a word.
Scores of detainees from Gaza have also been held in a notorious Israeli military detention camp known as Sde Teiman, where reports of killings, torture and sexual violence, including rape, have been rife since the Gaza war began in October 2023.
And Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has not said anything about a new law that Israel just voted for that would impose the death penalty for so-called “terrorism” offences based on “racist” motives against Israelis.
That’s a law exclusively aimed at Palestinians while Israeli settlers are exempt.
Go ahead, terrorise the people living there.
Winston Peters is silent on behalf of you and me. He’s representing us on the world stage.
We not only do not condemn this, we don’t even mention it. New Zealand doesn’t care.
They are not us, they are not “we”.
Gerard Otto is a digital creator, satirist and independent commentator on politics and the media through his G News column and video reports. This article is an excerpt from a G News commentary and republished with permission.
UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese talks to journalist Chris Hedges about her new report that examines how 60+ countries are complicit in Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity demonstrated to the world in a “livestreamed atrocity”.
INTERVIEW:The Chris Hedges Report
After two years of genocide, it is no longer possible to hide complicity in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians. Entire countries and corporations are — according to multiple reports by UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese — either directly or indirectly involved in Israel’s economic proliferation.
In her latest report, Gaza Genocide: a collective crime, Albanese details the role 63 nations played in supporting Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians. She chronicles how countries like the United States, which directly funds and arms Israel, are a part of a vast global economic web.
This network includes dozens of other countries that contribute with seemingly minor components, such as warplane wheels.
Rejection of this system is imperative, Albanese says. These same technologies used to destroy the lives of Palestinians will inevitably be turned against the citizens of Israel’s funders.
“Palestine today is a metaphor of our life and where our life is going to go,” Albanese warns.
“Every worker today should draw a lesson from what’s happening to the Palestinians, because the large injustice system is connected and makes all of us connected to what’s happening there.”
The transcript: Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on Palestine, in her latest report, Gaza Genocide: a collective crime, calls out the role 63 nations have in sustaining the Israeli genocide. Albanese, who because of sanctions imposed on her by the Trump administration, had to address the UN General Assembly from the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation in Cape Town, South Africa, slams what she calls “decades of moral and political failure.”
“Through unlawful actions and deliberate omissions, too many states have harmed, founded and shielded Israel’s militarized apartheid, allowing its settler colonial enterprise to metastasize into genocide, the ultimate crime against the indigenous people of Palestine,” she told the UN.
The genocide, she notes, has diplomatic protection in international “fora meant to preserve peace,” military ties ranging from weapons sales to joint trainings that “fed the genocidal machinery,” the unchallenged weaponization of aid, and trade with entities like the European Union, which had sanctioned Russia over Ukraine yet continued doing business with Israel.
The 24-page report details how the “live-streamed atrocity” is facilitated by third states. She excoriates the United States for providing “diplomatic cover” for Israel, using its veto power at the UN Security Council seven times and controlling ceasefire negotiations. Other Western nations, the report noted, collaborate with abstentions, delays and watered-down draft resolutions, providing Israel with weapons, “even as the evidence of genocide … mounted.”
The report chastised the US Congress for passing a $26.4 billion arms package for Israel, although Israel was at the time threatening to invade Rafah in defiance of the Biden administration’s demand that Rafah be spared.
The report also condemns Germany, the second-largest arms exporter to Israel during the genocide, for weapons shipments that include everything from “frigates to torpedoes,” as well as the United Kingdom, which has allegedly flown more than 600 surveillance missions over Gaza since war broke out in October 2023.
At the same time, Arab states have not severed ties with Israel. Egypt, for example, maintained “significant security and economic relations with Israel, including energy cooperation and the closing of the Rafah crossing” during the war.
Francesca Albanese talks to Chris Hedges Video: The Chris Hedges Report
The Gaza genocide, the report states, “exposed an unprecedented chasm between peoples and their governments, betraying the trust on which global peace and security rest.” Her report coincides with the ceasefire that isn’t. More than 300 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israel since the ceasefire was announced two weeks ago.
The first major ceasefire breach on October 19 led to Israeli air strikes that killed 100 Palestinians and wounded 150 others. Palestinians in Gaza continue to endure daily bombings that obliterate buildings and homes. Shelling and gunfire continue to kill and wound civilians, while drones continue to hover overhead broadcasting ominous threats.
Essential food items, humanitarian aid and medical supplies remain scarce because of the ongoing Israeli siege. And the Israeli army controls more than half of the Gaza Strip, shooting anyone, including families, who come too close to its invisible border known as the “yellow line”.
Joining me to discuss her report, the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the complicity of numerous states in sustaining the genocide in Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on Palestine.
Before we get into the report, let’s talk a little bit about what’s happening in Gaza. It’s just a complete disconnect between what is described by the international community, i.e. “a ceasefire”, the pace may have slowed down, but nothing’s changed.
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Yes, thank you for having me, Chris. I do agree that it seems that there is a complete disconnect between reality and political discourse. Because after the ceasefire, the attention has been forced to shift from Gaza elsewhere.
I do believe, for example, that the increased attention to the catastrophic situation in Sudan, which has been such for years now, all of a sudden is due to the fact that there is a need for, especially from Western countries and the US, Israel and their acolytes to focus on a new emergency.
‘There is the pretence that there is peace, there is no need to protest anymore because finally, there is peace. There is no peace.’
There is the pretence that there is peace, there is no need to protest anymore because finally, there is peace. There is no peace. I mean, the Palestinians have not seen a day of peace because Israel has continued to fire, to use violence against the Palestinians in Gaza. Over 230 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire, 100 of them in one day in 24 hours, including 50 children.
And starvation continues. Yes, there has been an increase in the number of trucks, but far, far below what is needed with much confusion because it’s very hard to deliver aid. All the more, Israel maintains a control over 50 percent of the Gaza Strip while the entire Gaza population is amassed in small portions, guarded portions of the territory.
So there is no peace. Meanwhile, while the Security Council seems to be ready to approve a Security Council resolution that will create a non-acronistic form of tutelage, of trusteeship over Palestine, over Gaza, the West Bank is abandoned to the violence and the ethnic cleansing pushed by armed settlers and soldiers while Israel jails continue to fill up with bodies to torture of adults and children alike. This is the reality in the occupied Palestinian territory today and so it makes absolutely no sense where the political discourse is.
CHRIS HEDGES: Two issues about Gaza. One, of course, Israel has seized over 50% or occupies over 50 percent of Gaza. And as I understand it, they’re not allowing any reconstruction supplies, including cement, in.
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: This is also my understanding. They have allowed in food, water and some essential materials needed for hospitals, mainly camp hospitals, tents. But anything related to sustainability is prohibited.
There are many food items that are also prohibited because they are considered luxurious. And the question, Chris, is, and this is why I harbor so much frustration these days toward member states because in the case of genocide, you have heard yourself the argument, well, the recalcitrance of certain states to use the genocide framework saying — and it’s pure nonsense from a legal point of view — but saying, well, the International Court of Justice has not concluded that it’s genocide.
Well, it has concluded already that there is a risk of genocide two years ago, in January, 2024. But however, even when the court does conclude on something relevant like in July, 2024, that the occupation is illegal and must be dismantled totally and unconditionally, this should be the starting point of any peace related or forward-looking discussions.
Instead of deliberating how to force Israel to withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territory, member states continue to maintain dialogue with Israel as Israel has sovereignty over the territory. See, so it’s completely dystopic, the future they are leading Palestinians out of despair into.
But they are also forcing the popular movement, the global movement that has formed made of young people and workers to stop. Because look at what’s happening in France, in Italy, in Germany, in the UK — any kind of attempt at maintaining the light turned on Palestine from Gaza to the West Bank is assaulted. Protests, conferences, there is a very active assault on anything that concerns Palestine.
So this is why I’m saying we are far, far beyond the mismanagement of the lack of understanding, I mean the negligence in approaching the question of Palestine, it’s active complicity to sustain Israel in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
CHRIS HEDGES: Which, as you point out in your report, has been true from the beginning despite a slight change in rhetoric recognising the two-state solution. The UK did this while only cutting back on shipments by 10 percent.
But I want to ask before we get into the report, what do you think Israel’s goal is? Is it just to slow-walk the genocide until it can resume it? Is it to create this appalling, uninhabitable, unlivable ghetto? What do you think Israel’s goal is?
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: I think that now more than ever it is impossible to separate and distinguish the goals of Israel from the goals of the United States. We tend to have a fragmented view of what happens, analysing for example the relationship between Lebanon and Israel, between Iran and Israel, or between Israel and the Palestinians.
‘One of the things that Palestine has made me realise is the meaning of “Greater Israel” because I do believe that what the current leadership in Israel has in mind and it’s supported by many willing or not in the Israeli society, many who are fine with the erasure of the Palestinians.’
In fact, do, I mean, one of the things that Palestine has made me realise is the meaning of “Greater Israel” because I do believe that what the current leadership in Israel has in mind and it’s supported by many willing or not in the Israeli society, many who are fine with the erasure of the Palestinians.
But there is this idea of Greater Israel and for a long time I have been among those who thought, who were wondering what it is, this “Greater Israel” because of course you look at the map by Israeli leaders in several occasions with this Greater Israel going from the Nile to the Euphrates and you say come on they cannot do that, they cannot occupy Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq.
But then everything changes when you look at it from a non-territorial border expansion perspective. And if you think that in fact domination can be exerted, established, other than by expanding the physical borders and through military occupation, but through domination and financial control, control from outside, power domination, you see that the Greater Israel project has already started and it’s very advanced.
Look at the annihilation of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon. So all those who were historically considered not friends of Israel have been annihilated. And the other Arab countries that remain either do not have the capacity to confront Israel and perish the thought they explored the idea of unity among them or with others. And the others are fine with it.
Ultimately, I think that Greater Israel is the quintessential explanation of the US imperialistic design in that part of the world for which the Palestinians remain a thorn in the side not just for Israel but for the imperialistic project itself because the Palestinians are still there resisting.
They don’t want to go, they don’t want to be tamed, they don’t want to be dominated so they are the last line, the last frontier of resistance, both physically and in the imagination. And therefore, you see, the fierceness against them has scaled up, with the US now getting ready with boots on the ground to get rid of them. This is my interpretation of the general design behind Israel-United States, where Israelis are going to pay a heavy price like many in the region, not just the Palestinians.
CHRIS HEDGES:So you see the imposition of American troops in Gaza as another step forward to the depopulation of Gaza.
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Yes, yes, yes, I don’t trust any promise made to the Palestinians either by Israel or by the United States because what I’ve seen over the past two years shows me, demonstrates to all of us in fact, that they don’t care at all about the Palestinians. Otherwise, they would have seen their suffering.
‘The beginning of genocide has changed my perception of the world in a way, for me personally, it’s the end of an era of innocence when I really believed that the United Nations were a place where things could still be advanced in the pursuit of peace.’
It’s just not like people like us who can really divide their life. Is it pre-genocide? Does it happen to you as well? Are you talking of pre-genocide or after genocide? Because in fact, the beginning of genocide has changed my perception of the world in a way, for me personally, it’s the end of an era of innocence when I really believed that the United Nations were a place where things could still be advanced in the pursuit of peace.
Now I don’t think so, which doesn’t mean that I think that the UN is over, but in order not to be over, in order to make sense to the people, it is to be led by dignity, principles like dignity, equality and freedom for all. And we are absolutely far from that today.
CHRIS HEDGES: And what is it that brought you to this decision? Is it the acceptance of this faux ceasefire on the part of the UN, or was it before this moment?
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: No, it’s before. It’s before. It’s the fact that for two years most states, primarily in the West, but with the acquiescence of other states in the region have supported the Israeli mantra of “self-defence”.
Sorry, it was a mantra because again, self-defence has a very, I’m not saying that Israel had no right to protect itself. Of course Israel had suffered a ferocious attack on October 7. Some say similar to the attacks it had inflicted on the Palestinians. Others say more brutal, say less brutal. It doesn’t matter.
Israel suffered a horrible, violent attack. Israeli civilians suffered a horrible attack on October 7th. But hey, this didn’t give the possibility to Israel to invoke Article 51 of the UN Charter, meaning the right to wage a war.
This is not legal. And on this I can say I’m surprised by how conservative are member states when it comes to the interpretation of international law, except on this, in the sense that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has already set the limits of the right of invoking self-defence for member states.
And it can only be done against states where there is a concrete threat that the state will attack which is not the case here. So yes, Israel could defend itself, but not wage a war. And while the war was clearly identifiable more for its crimes than not its tendency to avoid crimes, member states have continued to say nothing and it was very extreme violence against the Palestinians in Gaza but also against the Palestinians in the West Bank. And for two years they’ve not used their power to stop it.
So I’m convinced that in order to have a political shift vis-à-vis Israel, there must be a political shift at the country level, because governments are completely subdued to the dictates of the US. Of course, if the US wanted, this would stop, but the US with this constellation of figures in the government is not going to stop.
And plus look at how the West in particular has contributed to dehumanise the Palestinians. Even today you hear people saying yes, Palestinians have been killed in these numbers because they’ve been used as human shields when the only evidence that they’ve been used as human shields is against Israel because Israel has used Palestinians as human shields in the West Bank and in Gaza alike.
You see Palestinians have returned to be wrapped into this colonial tropism of them being the savages, the barbarians, in a way, they have brought havoc upon themselves. This is the narrative that the West has used toward the Palestinians. And by doing that, it has created, they have created the fertile ground for Israel’s impunity.
CHRIS HEDGES: Let’s talk about the nations that you single out in your report that have continued to sustain the genocide, either through weapons shipments, but also the commercial interests. I think your previous report talked about the money that was being made off of the genocide. Just lay out the extent of that collaboration and to the extent that you can, the sums of money involved.
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Yeah, yeah, let me start with introducing generally two components, the military component and the trade and investment ones, which are quite interrelated. And states have, in general, I name 62 states, primarily Western states, but with substantive collaboration of states from the Global South, global majority, including some Arab states.
So they have altogether ignored, obscured and somewhat even profited from Israel’s violations of international law through military and economic channels. So military cooperation through arms trades or intelligence sharing has fueled Israel’s war machine during the occupation, the illegal occupation, and especially during the genocide while the United States and Germany alone have provided about 90 percent of Israel’s arms export.
At least 26 states have supplied or facilitated the transfer of arms or components, while many others have continued to buy weapons tested on the Palestinians. And this is why in my previous report, the ones looking at the private sector, I was shocked to see how much the Israeli stock exchange had gone up during the genocide.
And this is particularly because of a growth in the military industry. On the other hand, there is the trade and investment sector. Both have sustained and profited from Israel’s economy. Think that between 2023, 2024, actually the end of 2022 and 2024, exports of electronics, pharmaceuticals, energy minerals and what is called the dual-use have totaled almost US$500 billion, helping Israel finance its military occupation.
Now one third of this trade is with the European Union while the rest is complemented by North American countries, the US and Canada, who have free trade agreements with Israel and several Arab states that have continued to deepen economic ties.
Only a few states have marginally reduced trade during the genocide, but in general the indirect commercial flows, including with states that have supposedly no diplomatic relations with Israel, have continued undisturbed.
It’s a very grim picture of the reality. But let me add just one extra element. I do believe that in many respects, the problem is ideological. As I said, there is a tendency to treat Ukraine, for example, vis-a-vis Russia, in a very different fashion than Palestine versus Israel. And this is why I think there is an element of Orientalism that accompanies also the tragedy of the Palestinian people.
CHRIS HEDGES:Talk a little bit about the kinds of weapons that have been shipped to Israel. These are, and we should be clear that, of course, the Palestinians do not have a conventional army, don’t have a navy, they don’t have an air force, they don’t have mechanized units, including tanks, they don’t have artillery, and yet the weapons shipments that are coming in are some of the most sophisticated armaments that are used in a conventional war.
And as a leaked Israeli report, I think it was +972, provided, 83 percent of the people killed in Gaza are civilians.
FRANCISCA ALBANESE: Yes, yes. First of all, there are two things that are weapons, what is considered conventional weapons and dual-use. And both should have been suspended according to the decision of the International Court of Justice concerning Israel in the Nicaragua v. Germany case.
Meanwhile, there are two things: there is the transfer of weapons directly to Israel, and this includes aircraft, materials to compose the drones, because Israel doesn’t produce anything on its own, it requires components — artillery shells, for example, cannon ammunition, rifles, anti-tank missiles, bombs.
So these are all things that have been provided primarily by the United States. Germany, which is the second largest arms exporter to Israel has supplied a range of weapons from frigates to torpedoes.
And also, and then there is Italy, which has also provided spare parts for bombs and airplanes and the United Kingdom, who has played a key role in providing intelligence. And there is also the question of the UN. Not everything is easy to track because the United States have traveled … the United States are the prime provider of weapons, also because they are the assembler of the F-35 programme.
So there are 17 or 19 countries which cooperate and all of them say, well, you know, I mean, yes, I know that the F-35 is used in Israel, by Israel, but I only contribute to a small part. I only contribute to the wheels. I only contribute to the wings. I only provide these hooks or this engine.
Well, everything is assembled in the US and then sold or transferred or gifted to Israel. And it’s extremely problematic because this is why I say it’s a collective crime, because no one can assume the responsibility on their own but eventually all together they contribute to make this genocide implicating so many countries.
CHRIS HEDGES: So Francesca, Israel is the ninth largest arms exporter in the world. To what extent do those relationships have? I mean, I think one of the largest purchasers of Israeli drones is India. We’ve seen India shift its position vis-a-vis Palestine.
Historically, it’s always stood with the Palestinian people. That’s no longer true under [Narendra] Modi. To what extent do those ties affect the response by the 63 some states that you write about for collaborating with the genocide.
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: So let me first expand on this. Weapon and military technology sale is a core component of Israel’s economy. And since 2024, it has constituted one third of Israeli exports. And of course, there are two elements connected to this, is that these exports enhances Israel’s manufacturing capacity, but also horribly worsens the life of the Palestinians because Israeli military technology is tested on the Palestinians under occupation or other people under other Israeli related military activities.
Now, the fact that the arms export has increased of nearly 20 percent during the genocide, doubling toward Europe. And only the trade with Europe accounts for over 50 percent of Israeli military sales, selling to so many other countries, including in the Global South, the Asia and Pacific states in the Asia-Pacific region account for 23 percent of the purchase, with India being probably the major. But also 12 percent of the weapons tested on the Palestinians are purchased by Arab countries under the Abraham Accords. So what does it tell us?
It explains what you were hinting at in the question, the fact that this is also reflected in the political shift toward Israel that has been recorded at the General Assembly level. If you see how some African countries and Asian countries, including India, are behaving vis-a-vis Israel, it’s 180 degrees turn compared to where they were in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.
This is because on the one hand, Israel is embedded in the global economy, but also it’s a global economy that is veering toward ultra liberal, I mean, it’s following ultra-liberalist ideologies and therefore capital and wealth and accumulation of resources, including military power, comes first.
‘It’s very sad, but this is the reality . . . since the end of the Cold War that there has been an increasing globalisation of the system where the common denominator is force.’
It’s very sad, but this is the reality. And it’s important to know because this is a long, as I was hinting before, my sense is that this is a long term trajectory that didn’t start on October 7, 2023. I mean, probably since the end of the Cold War that there has been an increasing globalisation of the system where the common denominator is force.
I mean, there is this, not a common denominator, but the unifying factor for many is force, how the monopoly of force that comes with weapons, capital and algorithms. And yeah, this is where the world is going.
CHRIS HEDGES: Well, we’ve seen these weapons systems which of course are tested. They’re sold as bad. say the term is battle tested without naming the Palestinians, but they are sold to Greece to hold back migrants coming from North Africa. They are used along the border in the United States with Mexico.
And it’s not just that these weapons are “battle tested” on the Palestinians and we haven’t even spoken about these huge surveillance systems, but the very methods of control, the way they’re used are exported through military advisors.
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Of course, because in fact, the Israeli population is made almost entirely of soldiers. Of course, there are those who do not enlist in the army for religious reasons or because they are contentious objectors, they’re a tiny minority. But the majority of the people of Israelis go through the army.
And then many of them transfer their know-how or what they have been doing into their next career steps. So the fact that Israel, as I was documenting in my previous report, Israel’s startup economy has a huge dark side to the fact that it’s connected to the military industry and to the surveillance industry.
There is a significant body of Israeli citizens who are going around providing advice, intelligence and training in the Global South both to mercenaries and states proper like Morocco. So there is an Israelisation and Palestinianisation of the international relations or rather of the relations between individuals and states.
And I think the interesting thing, this is why I’m saying Palestine is such a revealer, it’s because, as you say, eventually these tools of control and securitisation have concentrated in the hands of those who are fortifying borders at the expense of refugees and migrants.
So it’s really clear what’s happening here. There are oligarchs who are getting richer and richer and more and more protected in their fortresses where the state is providing the fertile ground to have it, but it’s not states that are benefiting from this inequality, because the majority of the people within states, look at the US, but also in Europe, are not benefiting from anything, in fact.
They’re victims. This is why you equally exploit it. This is why I’m saying it’s another degree of suffering, of course, than the Palestinians. But every worker today should draw a lesson from what’s happening to the Palestinians, because the large injustice system is connected and makes all of us connected to what’s happening there.
CHRIS HEDGES: Well, internally as well. I mean, with Sikh farmers who were protesting Modi were out on the roads, suddenly, over their heads were Israeli-made drones dropping tear gas canisters.
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Yeah, exactly. Drones are one of the most exported devices from Israel’s technology and they are in use by Frontex to surveil the Mediterranean Sea, as you were saying, the US-Mexican border. But more and more, they’re getting into people’s lives.
Also look at the way certain technologies have been perfected across borders. I remember earlier this summer, this is very anecdotal, I’ve not done research on it, but I knew that we were seeing something quite and horribly revolutionary.
This year, this summer during the protests in Serbia, where students and ordinary citizens were taken to the streets against the government and have been protesting for one year now, people in Serbia. I saw the use of these sound weapons, oxygen-fed weapons.
So there are bombs that produce such a pain in the body who finds itself in the wave that it’s excruciating. And then of course people try to flee, but they also lose senses, et cetera. And I’ve seen this in Serbia.
And now I understand that it’s being used in Gaza as well, where the bomb doesn’t produce fire, it produces a movement of air that causes pain to the body and even to internal organs. It’s incredible. And these are weapons that have been perfected through testing here and there, and Serbia keeps on selling and buying military technology to and from Israel.
CHRIS HEDGES: I just want to close with, I mean, I think your reports, the last two reports in particular, show the complete failure on the part of governments as well as corporations to respond legally in terms of their legal obligations to the genocide. What do we do now? What must be done to quote Lenin?
How, because this, as you have pointed out repeatedly, really presages the complete breakdown of the rule of law. What as citizens must we do?
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: I think that we have passed the alarm area. I mean, we are really in a critical place and I sense it because instead of correcting itself, the system led by governments is accentuating its authoritarian traits. Think of the repressive measures that the UK government is taking against protesters, against civil society, against journalists standing in solidarity with Palestine, for justice in Palestine.
In France and in Italy at the same time, conferences academic freedom is shrinking and in the same days, conferences of reputable historians and military and legal experts have been cancelled owing to the pressure of the pro-genocide groups, pro-Israel groups in their respective countries. People, including in Germany, are being persecuted, including academics, for their own exercise of free speech.
This tells me that there is very little pretense that Western states, so-called liberal democracies, the most attached to this idea of democracy are ready to defend for real. So in this sense, it’s up to us citizens to be vigilant and to make sure that we do not buy products connected or services connected to the legality of the occupation, the apartheid and the genocide.
And there are various organisations that collect lists of companies and entities, including universities that are connected to this unlawful endeavor. BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] is one, don’t buy into the occupation who profits profundo, but also students associations.
‘There is a need to speak about Palestine, to make choices about Palestine and not because everything needs to revolve around Palestine, but because Palestine today is a metaphor of our life and where our life is going to go is clearly evident in this.’
And this is something that has taught me, it’s very touching because it’s really the work of students, faculty members and staff that has mapped what each university does. And I think it gives the possibility to act, everyone in our own domain. Then of course there is a need to speak about Palestine, to make choices about Palestine and not because everything needs to revolve around Palestine, but because Palestine today is a metaphor of our life and where our life is going to go is clearly evident in this.
But also we need to make sure that businesses divest. Either through our purchase power, people have to step away and stop using platforms like Airbnb or Booking.com. I know that Amazon is very convenient, but guys, we might also return to buy books in libraries, ordering books through libraries.
Of course, not all of us can, but many do, many can. On the way to work, buy a book in a library, order a book in a bookstore. We need to reduce our reliance on the tools that have been used, that have been perfected through the slaughter of the Palestinians. And of course, make government accountable. There are lawyers, associations, and jurists who are taking government officials to court, businesses to court. But again, I do not think that there is one strategy that is going to be the winning one.
It’s the plurality of actions from a plurality of actors that is going to produce results and slow down the genocide and then help dismantle the occupation and the apartheid. It’s a long trajectory and the fight has just started.
CHRIS HEDGES: Thank you, Francesca, and I want to thank Thomas [Hedges], Diego [Ramos], Max [Jones] and Sofia [Menemenlis], who produced the show. You can find me at ChrisHedges.Substack.com
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning author and journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times. This interview is republished from The Chris Hedges Report.
The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) National Media Section usually campaigns for journalists’ rights and industrial agency in Australia — but today, we join hands with the IFJ — International Federation of Journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Reporters sans frontières — Reporters Without Borders, to make a stand against the global assault on press freedom.
The past few years have been particularly hostile for journalists around the world.
From the press briefing rooms in the White House to the streets of Gaza, journalists have been in the crosshairs.
Shortly after assuming office in January 2017, US President Donald Trump accused the press of being an “enemy of the American people”. He has doubled down in his second term.
We have seen newsroom after newsroom fall foul of White House press secretaries; we saw bans on CNN, The New York Times, the LA Times and Politico back in 2017, and now, the Associated Press for simply refusing to fall in line with the so-called renaming of the Gulf of Mexico.
Three weeks ago, the world watched Pentagon journalists exit en masse, after rejecting Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s latest edict.
Another White House rule
Just last week, we saw the declaration of another White House rule — this time, restricting credentialed journalists from freely accessing the Press Secretary’s offices in the West Wing.
These attacks on US soil are complemented by an equally invidious assault on media outlets on a global scale.
Funding freezes and mass sackings have all but silenced Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Middle East Broadcasting Networks and Radio Free Asia — the latter of which employed several of our colleagues here in Queensland and the Pacific.
We have seen Trump’s verbal attack on the ABC’s John Lyons, and how that presidential tantrum led to the ABC being excluded from the Trump–Starmer press conference in the UK.
Apparently, they simply didn’t have space for the national broadcaster of the third AUKUS partner — and all this with barely a whimper from the Australian government.
But then, why would our Prime Minister leap to journalism’s defence when he sees fit to exclude Pacific journalists from his Pacific Island Forum press conference — in, you guessed it, the Pacific.
This enmity towards journalism, has been a hallmark of the Trump presidency.
Blatant ignorance, hubris
His blatant ignorance, hubris, and perfidy — indulged by US allies — has emboldened other predators and enemies of the press around the world.
As at December 2024, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) listed 376 journalists as being imprisoned in various countries around the world — it was the highest number three years running, since the record started in 1992.
China topped the list with 52 imprisoned journalists, with Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory a close second with 48.
Myanmar had 35, Belarus 33, Russia 30 and the list continues.
Among this group are 15 journalists arrested in Eritrea more than two decades ago, between 2000 and 2002, who continue to be held without charge.
And it gets worse.
The same CPJ database records 2023, 24 and 25 as the worst years for the deaths of journalists and media workers — worse than the years at the height of the US and allied invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the war against the Islamic State.
Killed journalists
The war in Gaza accounts for a significant number of these deaths.
A staggering 185 journalists and media workers have been killed directly because of their work in the past 25 months — on a small strip of land just 2.3 per cent the size of Greater Brisbane.
I urge you to read the ICRC case study on the legal protection of journalists in combat zones. It clearly explains how Protocol 1 of the Geneva Convention protects journalists, even when they engage in producing “propaganda” for the conflicting parties.
Since our vigil 12 months ago, the CPJ has recorded the deaths of 122 journalists and media workers around the world. These are deaths the CPJ has confirmed as being directly linked to their work — such as those killed while reporting in combat zones or on dangerous assignments.
Of those, 33 were confirmed murders — meaning those journalists were deliberately targeted.
A staggering 61 of those 122 were killed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory — in Israel’s war on Gaza. Another 31 were killed in a single day during targeted Israeli airstrikes on two newspapers in Sana’a in Yemen. And three more were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a compound housing journalists in Lebanon — meaning Israeli defence forces were responsible for 78 percent of last year’s killings.
We talk of Israel’s attack on journalists because it is unprecedented, but Israel is by no means the only perpetrator of such crimes — there was the Mozambique journalist murdered during a live broadcast; a video journalist tortured and killed in Saudi Arabia; and a print journalist tortured and killed in Bangladesh.
Today we read the names of 122 fallen comrades and remember them one by one.
The arrest of the former top lawyer in the Israeli military for the leak of a video showing Israeli soldiers assaulting a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman military prison has created a political and legal storm in Israel.
The Israeli government is accusing Military Advocate-General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalm of “blood libel” against the Israeli army, of defaming Israeli soldiers, reports Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went as far as saying this was the “most dangerous assault” on Israel’s image since its establishment in 1948.
Many in Israel are fearful that Netanyahu and his coalition partners will use this as a pretext to introduce the changes they want in the Israeli military and judiciary.
There is so much focus on the fact that this video — which was alleged to show a gang rape of a blindfolded Palestinian prisoner — was leaked, at the expense of discussing how this crime actually happened.
The UN says that these kinds of crimes are being committed in a systematic manner.
In one way, it’s a way to shift attention from the fact that these crimes are happening, by focusing on this woman and the fact that she leaked the video.
Five soldiers indicted Middle East Eye reports that at least nine Israeli soldiers were questioned over the assault in late July, sparking widespread anger across Israel.
Only five were indicted for “severe abuse” of the detainee, but not for rape. The trial remains ongoing.
On Sunday, the accused soldiers called for the case to be dropped.
The Palestinian detainee shown in an alleged rape video leaked to the Israeli outlet Channel 12 last year has been returned to Gaza, news agencies report, citing a document from the military prosecutor’s office.
The fallout from the leak has led to the resignation and arrest of the Israeli army’s top lawyer, Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, on suspicion of allowing the clip to become public.
Meanwhile, the Islamic bloc has condemned Israel’s proposed death penalty law as “discriminatory, legally untenable”.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a 57-nation bloc of Muslim-majority countries, dsaid the a draft law before the Israeli parliament that could impose the death penalty on those convicted of “terrorism”, a move critics say would legalise the execution of Palestinian prisoners.
‘Legally untenable’
In a statement posted on X, the OIC described the proposed law as “discriminatory and legally untenable”.
It added: “The OIC has urged the international community to fulfil its obligations in halting all violations perpetrated by the Israeli occupation and to extend international protective measures for the Palestinian people.”
The bill has been forwarded by the far-right and internationally sanctioned Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and is backed by Netanyahu.
The head of the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society has described the bill to introduce the death penalty for Palestinian “terrorism” suspects as a crime against humanity.
Former UK minister regrets silence over Palestinian nurse’s death, calls Israeli actions ‘murder’
A former Conservative minister in the United Kingdom has accused Netanyahu’s government of killing a young Palestinian nurse.
Alistair Burt, who served as Middle East minister in Theresa May’s government, told the UK newspaper The Independent he now regretted staying silent when 21-year-old medic Razan al-Najjar was fatally shot while treating wounded protesters near Gaza’s border in 2018.
Burt said Najjar had been “clearly targeted and murdered”, adding that Israel’s pledges to investigate such incidents were “bogus” attempts to “cover up killings”.
The arrest of the former top lawyer in the Israeli military for the leak of a video showing Israeli soldiers assaulting a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman military prison has created a political and legal storm in Israel.
The Israeli government is accusing Military Advocate-General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalm of “blood libel” against the Israeli army, of defaming Israeli soldiers, reports Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went as far as saying this was the “most dangerous assault” on Israel’s image since its establishment in 1948.
Many in Israel are fearful that Netanyahu and his coalition partners will use this as a pretext to introduce the changes they want in the Israeli military and judiciary.
There is so much focus on the fact that this video — which was alleged to show a gang rape of a blindfolded Palestinian prisoner — was leaked, at the expense of discussing how this crime actually happened.
The UN says that these kinds of crimes are being committed in a systematic manner.
In one way, it’s a way to shift attention from the fact that these crimes are happening, by focusing on this woman and the fact that she leaked the video.
Five soldiers indicted Middle East Eye reports that at least nine Israeli soldiers were questioned over the assault in late July, sparking widespread anger across Israel.
Only five were indicted for “severe abuse” of the detainee, but not for rape. The trial remains ongoing.
On Sunday, the accused soldiers called for the case to be dropped.
The Palestinian detainee shown in an alleged rape video leaked to the Israeli outlet Channel 12 last year has been returned to Gaza, news agencies report, citing a document from the military prosecutor’s office.
The fallout from the leak has led to the resignation and arrest of the Israeli army’s top lawyer, Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, on suspicion of allowing the clip to become public.
Meanwhile, the Islamic bloc has condemned Israel’s proposed death penalty law as “discriminatory, legally untenable”.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a 57-nation bloc of Muslim-majority countries, dsaid the a draft law before the Israeli parliament that could impose the death penalty on those convicted of “terrorism”, a move critics say would legalise the execution of Palestinian prisoners.
‘Legally untenable’
In a statement posted on X, the OIC described the proposed law as “discriminatory and legally untenable”.
It added: “The OIC has urged the international community to fulfil its obligations in halting all violations perpetrated by the Israeli occupation and to extend international protective measures for the Palestinian people.”
The bill has been forwarded by the far-right and internationally sanctioned Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and is backed by Netanyahu.
The head of the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society has described the bill to introduce the death penalty for Palestinian “terrorism” suspects as a crime against humanity.
Former UK minister regrets silence over Palestinian nurse’s death, calls Israeli actions ‘murder’
A former Conservative minister in the United Kingdom has accused Netanyahu’s government of killing a young Palestinian nurse.
Alistair Burt, who served as Middle East minister in Theresa May’s government, told the UK newspaper The Independent he now regretted staying silent when 21-year-old medic Razan al-Najjar was fatally shot while treating wounded protesters near Gaza’s border in 2018.
Burt said Najjar had been “clearly targeted and murdered”, adding that Israel’s pledges to investigate such incidents were “bogus” attempts to “cover up killings”.
The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says it “regrets” the Israeli Supreme Court’s decision to grant the Tel Aviv government 30 days to respond to a petition to allow journalists access to the Gaza Strip following the ceasefire.
RSF said in a statement it believes the blockade on access — in place for more than two years — remains illegal, unjustifiable and contrary to the public’s fundamental right to news and information, and should be lifted at once.
During a hearing before the Supreme Court on October 23 — in which RSF participated as an interested party having contributed an amicus brief in the petition by the Jerusalem-based Foreign Press Association (FPA) — the Israeli government acknowledged that the ceasefire constituted a significant change in circumstances justifying a review of its policy on journalists’ access.
The court ordered the Israeli government to present a clear position on its blockade in light of the new circumstances but granted it another 30 days to do this, despite the urgency of the situation and although the Israeli government had already benefited from six postponements since the start of these proceedings.
“If the blockade preventing journalists from entering Gaza was already illegal and seriously violated the fundamental right to information of the Palestinian, Israeli, and international public, it is now totally unjustifiable,” said RSF director-general Thibaut Bruttin.
“RSF deplores the Supreme Court’s decision to give the Israeli government 30 days to reach this obvious conclusion, and calls on the Israeli government to open Gaza’s borders to journalists immediately and without conditions.”
Israel has closed off Gaza and denied external journalists’ independent access to the besieged territory since 7 October 2023.
To counter this ban, RSF has joined the FPA’s petition for the Gaza Strip’s borders to be opened to independent entry by journalists, andfiled an amicus brief with the Israeli Supreme Court on October 15 that was designed to help the judges understand the FPA’s position.
This major investigative documentary examines the facts surrounding the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Akleh, as she was reporting in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, in May 2022.
Palestine: Who killed Shireen? Video: Al Jazeera
It sets out to discover who killed her — and after months of painstaking research, succeeds in identifying the Israeli sniper who pulled the trigger.
Eleven Al Jazeera journalists have been killed by the Israeli military among at least 248 Gaza media workers slain by the IDF, reports Anadolu Ajansı,
“Nearly nine out of 10 journalists killings remain unresolved. Gaza has been the deadliest place for journalists in any conflict,” Stephane Dujarric, spokesman to the UN secretary-general, told reporters.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for “independent, impartial” investigations into the killings of journalists, emphasising that “impunity is an assault on press freedom and a threat to democracy itself,” Dujarric said.
“When journalists are silenced, we all lose our voice,” he said.
Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.
The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says it “regrets” the Israeli Supreme Court’s decision to grant the Tel Aviv government 30 days to respond to a petition to allow journalists access to the Gaza Strip following the ceasefire.
RSF said in a statement it believes the blockade on access — in place for more than two years — remains illegal, unjustifiable and contrary to the public’s fundamental right to news and information, and should be lifted at once.
During a hearing before the Supreme Court on October 23 — in which RSF participated as an interested party having contributed an amicus brief in the petition by the Jerusalem-based Foreign Press Association (FPA) — the Israeli government acknowledged that the ceasefire constituted a significant change in circumstances justifying a review of its policy on journalists’ access.
The court ordered the Israeli government to present a clear position on its blockade in light of the new circumstances but granted it another 30 days to do this, despite the urgency of the situation and although the Israeli government had already benefited from six postponements since the start of these proceedings.
“If the blockade preventing journalists from entering Gaza was already illegal and seriously violated the fundamental right to information of the Palestinian, Israeli, and international public, it is now totally unjustifiable,” said RSF director-general Thibaut Bruttin.
“RSF deplores the Supreme Court’s decision to give the Israeli government 30 days to reach this obvious conclusion, and calls on the Israeli government to open Gaza’s borders to journalists immediately and without conditions.”
Israel has closed off Gaza and denied external journalists’ independent access to the besieged territory since 7 October 2023.
To counter this ban, RSF has joined the FPA’s petition for the Gaza Strip’s borders to be opened to independent entry by journalists, andfiled an amicus brief with the Israeli Supreme Court on October 15 that was designed to help the judges understand the FPA’s position.
This major investigative documentary examines the facts surrounding the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Akleh, as she was reporting in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, in May 2022.
Palestine: Who killed Shireen? Video: Al Jazeera
It sets out to discover who killed her — and after months of painstaking research, succeeds in identifying the Israeli sniper who pulled the trigger.
Eleven Al Jazeera journalists have been killed by the Israeli military among at least 248 Gaza media workers slain by the IDF, reports Anadolu Ajansı,
“Nearly nine out of 10 journalists killings remain unresolved. Gaza has been the deadliest place for journalists in any conflict,” Stephane Dujarric, spokesman to the UN secretary-general, told reporters.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for “independent, impartial” investigations into the killings of journalists, emphasising that “impunity is an assault on press freedom and a threat to democracy itself,” Dujarric said.
“When journalists are silenced, we all lose our voice,” he said.
Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.
Fiji Deputy Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica has stepped down from his position on the eve of his court appearance for corruption-related charges.
Kamikamica has been charged by the country’s anti-corruption office with perjury and providing false information in his capacity as a public servant.
Kamikamica, who also serves as the Minister for Trade and Communications, informed Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka yesterday that he would focus on clearing his name in relation to the charges laid against him by the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC).
He is one of three deputy prime ministers in Rabuka’s coalition government.
“I have accepted his decision to step down, and he has assured me of his unwavering commitment to the government and the people of Fiji,” Rabuka said in a statement.
“I will be overseeing his portfolio responsibilities for the foreseeable future.”
The deputy prime minister was overseas on official duties and was returning to the country.
His case is scheduled to appear at the Suva Magistrates Court today.
FICAC has not publicly commented on the specifics of the case.
The charges were filed following investigations related to the Commission of Inquiry report into the appointment of Barbara Malimali as FICAC chief, according to the state broadcaster FBC.
FBC reported that FICAC officers had seized Kamikamica’s mobile phone in July during the execution of a search warrant.
Kamikamica is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
FBC reports that Kamikamica’s legal representative, Wylie Clarke, appeared before the court today and raised serious concerns about the validity of the charges.
Clarke told the court that the case was fundamentally flawed, both in its legal foundation and in the evidence supporting it.
Since the start of September, the Trump administration has busied itself with striking boats in international waters stemming from Venezuelan and possibly Colombian waters. Their mortal offence: allegedly carrying narcotics cargo destined for consumers in the United States. A few days following the first strike on September 2, President Donald Trump stated in a War Powers Resolution notification to Congress that the action was one of “self-defense” motivated by “the inability or unwillingness of some states in the region to address the continuing threat to United States persons and interests emanating from their territories.”
In early October, a presidential notice was issued deeming those killed in such strikes on suspicion of drug smuggling “unlawful combatants”. The notice to Congress advanced an anaemic excuse to justify murder instead of arrest, an echo of previous, elastic rationales used by administrations to justify an enlargement of executive war powers: “based on the cumulative effects of these hostile acts against the citizens and interests of the United States and friendly foreign nations, the president determined that the United States is in a non-international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations.” The US had “reached a critical point where we must use force in self-defense and defense of others against the ongoing attacks by these designated terrorist organizations.”
The document amounted to an arrogation of extraordinary wartime powers to combat drug cartels, treating the trafficking of illicit narcotics to an armed assault on US citizens. Geoffrey S. Corn, a former judge advocate general lawyer, thought it a most adventurous move, given that drug cartels were not engaged in “hostilities”. “This is not stretching the envelope,” he told the New York Times. “This is shredding it. This is tearing it apart.”
In the kingdom of alternative legal realities, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly articulated the position in an email: “the president acted in line with the law of armed conflict to protect our country from those trying to bring deadly poison to our shores, and he is delivering on his promise to take on the cartels and eliminate these national security threats from murdering more Americans.”
The number of possible international law violations are far from negligible. Michael Schmitt lists a few in Just Security. Most obvious is the physical violation of a State’s sovereignty, which can take place through interfering with its “inherently governmental functions” comprising such matters as law enforcement. To also authorise kinetic operations in another State’s territory can amount to wrongful intervention in its international affairs. Last, though not least, is that using force in this context may be unlawful, violating Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter and customary law.
Nothing in this cooked up scheme adds up. If the intention is to curb overdoses on US soil from drug use, flow of fentanyl would be the object of the exercise. But fentanyl hails from Mexico, not South America. The broader agenda is a more traditional one: the assertion of the imperium’s control over countries in the Americas, eliminating regimes deemed unfriendly to Washington’s interests. Narcotics has become the throbbing pretext, with Trump accusing Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro of being the leader of the drug trafficking organisation Cartel of the Suns. He is also accused of using the dark offices of the Tren de Aragua prison gang to conduct “irregular warfare” against the United States, despite countering claims by the intelligence community that the gang is not under Maduro’s control. (The reaffirmation of the initial intelligence assessment by the National Intelligence Council led to the sacking of its acting director, Michael Collins.)
In 2020, the first Trump administration offered a reward of up to US$15 million for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Maduro. Two more increases to the bounty followed, the latest on August 7 being US$50 million following the sanctioning of the Cartel of the Suns by the Department of Treasury as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. “As leader of Cartel of the Suns,” declares the State Department in its notice of reward, “Maduro is the first target in the history of the Narcotics Rewards Program with a reward offer exceeding $25 million.”
Trump, in one of his moments of sharp frankness, concedes that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been authorised to conduct covert lethal operations on Venezuelan soil and more broadly through the Caribbean in a presidential finding. “We are certainly looking at land now, because we’ve got the sea well under control,” he told reporters hours after the secret authorisation was revealed.
In explaining his shoddy reasons, Trump cited Venezuela’s emptying of its “prisons into the United States of America” and the issue of drugs. “We have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela, and a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea, so you get to see that, but we’re going to stop them by land also.”
To the finding can be added a bulking military presence in the region: eight surface warships and a submarine in the Caribbean, 10,000 US troops, largely garrisoned at bases in Puerto Rico, with a contingent of Marines equipped with amphibious assault boats. In the meantime, the recent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Venezuelan opposition figure María Corina Machado, salivates at the prospect of regime change with muscular intervention from Washington. The pieces are being moved into place, and the self-proclaimed peace maker in the White House is readying for war.
Ask yourself this: Knowing what horrific genocidal revenge that Israel has dished out since October 2023, why have both the Biden and now Trump 2 regimes enabled it? I mean it is one thing to simply look-the-other-way to remain somewhat neutral, but to continually allow billions of dollars and millions of weaponry into Israel is something else. Look at how many members of both political parties continued to vote YES to whatever Israel has chosen to do to Gaza. Cui Bono?
This writer has read from more than a few sources the rumor (or fact?) that Jeffery Epstein was pretty tight with the Israelis , going back decades. Isn’t it a fact that former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak visited Epstein at least over 30 times from 2013 -2017? He went twice to Epstein’s island and was very friendly with him for years. Researcher Max Blumenthal was interviewed many times on Jeffery Epstein and has said the following in a July , 2025 interview with a Norwegian journalist:
Epstein’s High-Level Connections
“So how can we evaluate whether Jeffrey Epstein was actually a Mossad agent who is meeting around a glass table with the Mossad chief, getting instructions when the relationships are so fluid? What is clear is Jeffrey Epstein would have meetings with very influential foreign officials and salons at his townhouse. One of them was Ehud Barak, who visited about 36 times, worked with Jeffrey Epstein, I think, to set up a surveillance company or surveillance startup. Ehud Olmert, former Israeli Prime Minister, also had several meetings with Epstein. Shimon Peres had some meetings with Epstein. Epstein even reportedly set up a meeting for JP Morgan executives with Benjamin Netanyahu.
Jeffrey Epstein helped Peter Thiel from Palantir who has major investments with Israeli intelligence, make enormous amounts of money through firm, through an – like, through an investment. He helped guide his investments. So he had connections with all of these intelligence connected individuals. He applied for multiple passports to travel to the Middle East and Africa. This was reported by CBS News.
Jeffrey Epstein went to Israel in 2008 when he was facing his first prosecution for sex trafficking in Florida. And then there’s the Daily Beast report which claimed that Alex Acosta, the Florida prosecutor, was told to back off Epstein because he, quote unquote, “belonged to intelligence.” I don’t know if that’s dependable, a dependable report or not. Alex Acosta, by the way, now is in the Trump administration.”
The real conundrum is how is it that the most powerful country in the world can continually do whatever the Israeli government wants done with no backlash? More so, knowing that Jeffery Epstein had perhaps thousands of videos that he made from his homes in NYC and Florida, and that he traveled in the highest circles with very Super Rich people, put two and two together. Blackmail and the threat of exposing child predators are, in this current USA moral climate, an added two to the Bible’s Seven Deadly Sins. Doesn’t matter whether one is Christian, Jewish, Muslim or whatever. This threat to one’s moral compass pushes the needle beyond the boundary. Therefore, it seems to me that it is not just Trump who may or may not be behind that Wizard of Oz screen. Question is: How many powerful people, in the business world and politics, that are being protected from the truth? Could it be that any nation which has that info, that proof, can get just about whatever it wants?
While speaking to reporters at the Kolkata airport on October 12 on the alleged ‘gang rape’ of a medical student in Durgapur, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee claimed that the alleged assault took place at 12.30 am and asked why the victim was out of the campus so late.
The second-year MBBS student, originally from Odisha, was allegedly gang-raped on Friday, October 10, evening outside the institute campus in Durgapur, about 170 km from Kolkata. At the time of this report being written, three individuals were arrested in the case, identified as Apu Bauri (21), Firdous Shiekh (23), and Sheikh Riazuddin (32).
Coming close on the heels of the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at the RG Kar Medical College in Kolkata in August 2024 and the alleged rape of a student at the South Calcutta Law College in June this year, the Durgapur incident saw all Opposition parties coming down heavily on the Mamata Banerjee-government.
When asked to comment about the incident before she boarded a flight for flood-hit north Bengal, Banerjee urged private colleges to take responsibility of their students’ safety. Her words, which immediately triggered an outrage from the Opposition, were as follows:
“….if in Bengal anything happens to women, we do not allow anything to be considered as a casual case. It’s a serious case we consider. And that girl.. it’s shocking.. she was studying in a private medical college. So all the private medical college.. whose responsibility? How they came out in the night at 12.30? And it happens in the… so far I know… in the forest area. At 12.30… I do not know what happened. Investigation is on. I am shocked to see the incident. But private medical colleges also should take care for their students. And specially the girl child… at night time… they should not be allowed to come out in the outside. They have to protect themselves also…” (sic)
She also said, “Nobody will be excused. Whoever is guilty will be strictly punished.”
#WATCH | Kolkata, WB: On the alleged gangrape of an MBBS student in Durgapur, CM Mamata Banerjee says, “This is a private college. Three weeks ago, three girls were raped on the beach in Odisha. What action is being taken by the Odisha government?… The girl was studying in a… pic.twitter.com/ugQrQwNeW7
Multiple sources confirm that the alleged gang rape occurred between 8 and 9.30 pm on October 10.
1. Press Release by the medical college:
The institute where the survivor was a second-year MBBS student published a press note detailing the timing of the incident based on CCTV footage available with them.
According to the statement, the survivor left the campus for dinner with another student around 7:58 pm. Following this, “One of them returned at 8:42 pm, but after loitering around the main exit area for around 5-6 minutes, he stepped out again at about 8:48 pm. The two then returned together at 9:29 p.m. The female student proceeded toward the Girls Hostel at around 9:31 pm. Later, it came to light that the female student, while she was outside campus, bad endured an assault — an occurrence she has herself claimed and reported.”
2. Police complaint by survivor’s father
Alt News accessed the police complaint submitted by the student’s father at New Township police station under Asansol-Durgapur Commissionerate on October 11, on the basis of which a case (No. 131/25 dated 11.10.2025) under section 70(1)/3(5) of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita was lodged. The complaint was signed as ‘Received’ by an officer at the station.
According to the complaint, the alleged assault took place a little after 8 pm on October 10. Alt News is in possession of the document but we won’t publish it in the interest of the survivor and the investigation.
3. In an interview, the survivor’s father mentioned that time of the incident as around 9-9:30 pm. He said a friend of her daughter took her near the gate for eating ‘gupchup’ (panipuri) when two or three more people arrived. “Seeing this, the friend fled leaving the girl alone. She was raped after this.”
To sum up, the claim by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee that the victim had stepped out of the college campus at 12.30 in the night is false. In a conversation with media persons on October 12, she mentioned at least twice that the alleged assault had taken place at 12.30 am.
Who would have imagined five years ago when we were seeing Greta Thunberg amplified by every mainstream western liberal institution that we would one day hear reports that she has been captured and tormented by the Israeli military for trying to bring formula to starving babies?
“In an email sent by the Swedish foreign ministry to people close to Thunberg, and seen by the Guardian, an official who has visited the activist in prison said she claimed she was detained in a cell infested with bedbugs, with too little food and water.
“ ‘The embassy has been able to meet with Greta,’ reads the email. ‘She informed of dehydration. She has received insufficient amounts of both water and food. She also stated that she had developed rashes which she suspects were caused by bedbugs. She spoke of harsh treatment and said she had been sitting for long periods on hard surfaces.’
“ ‘Another detainee reportedly told another embassy that they had seen her [Thunberg] being forced to hold flags while pictures were taken. She wondered whether images of her had been distributed,’ the Swedish ministry’s official added.
“The allegation was corroborated by at least two other members of the flotilla who had been detained by Israeli forces and released on Saturday.
“ ‘They dragged little Greta [Thunberg] by her hair before our eyes, beat her, and forced her to kiss the Israeli flag. They did everything imaginable to her, as a warning to others,’ the Turkish activist Ersin Çelik, a participant in the Sumud flotilla, told Anadolu news agency.
“Lorenzo D’Agostino, a journalist and another flotilla participant, said after returning to Istanbul that Thunberg was ‘wrapped in the Israeli flag and paraded like a trophy’ — a scene described with disbelief and anger by those who witnessed it.”
These reports, as shocking as they are, also happen to more or less reflect exactly what the Israeli regime said it intended to do to Global Sumud Flotilla activists when they were captured.
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said last month that Sumud activists must be treated as terrorists in order to “create a clear deterrent” from future flotilla activism, declaring that “Anyone who chooses to collaborate with Hamas and support terrorism will meet a firm and unyielding response from Israel.”
“We will not allow individuals who support terrorism to live in comfort. They will face the full consequences of their actions,” Ben-Gvir said at the time.
So it would appear that they singled out the most high-profile activist on the flotilla for abuse in order to send a message and deter future efforts to break the siege on Gaza.
Citing two US intelligence officials, CBS reports that Benjamin Netanyahu personally authorized attacks in which drones were deployed from an Israeli submarine to drop incendiary devices onto the boats to set them on fire.
Israel has been documented using quadcopter drones to drop incendiary firebombs on tents and buildings in Gaza. Last month Trump’s middle east envoy Tom Barrack casually admitted during an interview that “Israel is attacking Tunisia,” which was where the boat carrying Greta Thunberg was docked during the first drone attack.
Like the reported mistreatment of Thunberg, these drone attacks would also fit in perfectly with the Israeli government’s depraved and cynical decision to treat the flotilla activists as terrorists.
After the initial claims of a drone attack on the flotilla, the information ecosystem was flooded with hasbarists claiming it was ridiculous to blame Israel for the attacks, and that the fire hadn’t come from a drone at all.
Odious genocide propagandist Eyal Yakoby got nearly ten million views on a tweet where he falsely claimed to have video evidence showing that the fire was actually the result of a misfired flare from one of the boat’s crew members. Anyone who’d actually watched the video would have seen that it showed nothing of the sort, but because Yakoby inserted a narrative above the video claiming it shows that, I had people in my Twitter notifications telling me for days that it had been conclusively proven the fire was started by a flare.
I encountered even some solid Palestine supporters expressing doubt about the drone attacks when the reports first emerged, because it seemed too heinous to be believed. But this just goes to show that there really is nothing you can put past these freaks.
Israel and its apologists lie about everything. Everything, everything, everything. We are far past the point where it is reasonable to give Israel the benefit of the doubt when we hear reports that it has done something evil. If you’ll launch drone attacks on activists trying to bring aid to starving civilians, there’s nothing you won’t do.
Who would have imagined five years ago when we were seeing Greta Thunberg amplified by every mainstream western liberal institution that we would one day hear reports that she has been captured and tormented by the Israeli military for trying to bring formula to starving babies?
“In an email sent by the Swedish foreign ministry to people close to Thunberg, and seen by the Guardian, an official who has visited the activist in prison said she claimed she was detained in a cell infested with bedbugs, with too little food and water.
“ ‘The embassy has been able to meet with Greta,’ reads the email. ‘She informed of dehydration. She has received insufficient amounts of both water and food. She also stated that she had developed rashes which she suspects were caused by bedbugs. She spoke of harsh treatment and said she had been sitting for long periods on hard surfaces.’
“ ‘Another detainee reportedly told another embassy that they had seen her [Thunberg] being forced to hold flags while pictures were taken. She wondered whether images of her had been distributed,’ the Swedish ministry’s official added.
“The allegation was corroborated by at least two other members of the flotilla who had been detained by Israeli forces and released on Saturday.
“ ‘They dragged little Greta [Thunberg] by her hair before our eyes, beat her, and forced her to kiss the Israeli flag. They did everything imaginable to her, as a warning to others,’ the Turkish activist Ersin Çelik, a participant in the Sumud flotilla, told Anadolu news agency.
“Lorenzo D’Agostino, a journalist and another flotilla participant, said after returning to Istanbul that Thunberg was ‘wrapped in the Israeli flag and paraded like a trophy’ — a scene described with disbelief and anger by those who witnessed it.”
These reports, as shocking as they are, also happen to more or less reflect exactly what the Israeli regime said it intended to do to Global Sumud Flotilla activists when they were captured.
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said last month that Sumud activists must be treated as terrorists in order to “create a clear deterrent” from future flotilla activism, declaring that “Anyone who chooses to collaborate with Hamas and support terrorism will meet a firm and unyielding response from Israel.”
“We will not allow individuals who support terrorism to live in comfort. They will face the full consequences of their actions,” Ben-Gvir said at the time.
So it would appear that they singled out the most high-profile activist on the flotilla for abuse in order to send a message and deter future efforts to break the siege on Gaza.
Citing two US intelligence officials, CBS reports that Benjamin Netanyahu personally authorized attacks in which drones were deployed from an Israeli submarine to drop incendiary devices onto the boats to set them on fire.
Israel has been documented using quadcopter drones to drop incendiary firebombs on tents and buildings in Gaza. Last month Trump’s middle east envoy Tom Barrack casually admitted during an interview that “Israel is attacking Tunisia,” which was where the boat carrying Greta Thunberg was docked during the first drone attack.
Like the reported mistreatment of Thunberg, these drone attacks would also fit in perfectly with the Israeli government’s depraved and cynical decision to treat the flotilla activists as terrorists.
After the initial claims of a drone attack on the flotilla, the information ecosystem was flooded with hasbarists claiming it was ridiculous to blame Israel for the attacks, and that the fire hadn’t come from a drone at all.
Odious genocide propagandist Eyal Yakoby got nearly ten million views on a tweet where he falsely claimed to have video evidence showing that the fire was actually the result of a misfired flare from one of the boat’s crew members. Anyone who’d actually watched the video would have seen that it showed nothing of the sort, but because Yakoby inserted a narrative above the video claiming it shows that, I had people in my Twitter notifications telling me for days that it had been conclusively proven the fire was started by a flare.
I encountered even some solid Palestine supporters expressing doubt about the drone attacks when the reports first emerged, because it seemed too heinous to be believed. But this just goes to show that there really is nothing you can put past these freaks.
Israel and its apologists lie about everything. Everything, everything, everything. We are far past the point where it is reasonable to give Israel the benefit of the doubt when we hear reports that it has done something evil. If you’ll launch drone attacks on activists trying to bring aid to starving civilians, there’s nothing you won’t do.
More To The Story: When Brandon Scott took office in late 2020 as one of the youngest mayors in Baltimore’s history, he pledged to reduce the number of homicides and incidents of gun violence. That year, there were 335 reported homicides in the city of roughly 600,000 people, making it one of the most dangerous cities per capita in the US. Scott began implementing a violence prevention strategy designed to get at the root causes of gun violence. Over the last few years, Baltimore has been witnessing a remarkable drop in violent crime, especially homicides. But that progress doesn’t seem to matter to the White House. Last month, President Donald Trump listed the city as one of several led by Democratic mayors where he’s considering sending the National Guard.
On this week’s episode of More To The Story, Scott talks to host Al Letson about what he thinks is really driving the Trump administration to send troops to Democratic-led cities, why the city’s strategy to reduce gun violence appears to be working, and what his political future might look like.
Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson
President Donald Trump announced during an appearance on “Fox & Friends” that he is planning to send military troops to Memphis, Tennessee. During his appearance on September 12, Trump said his administration would deploy the National Guard “and anybody else we need” to the Tennessee city. Trump did not provide a timeline for the deployment. “By the way, we’ll bring in the military too…
In a speech at the Museum of the Bible on Monday, President Donald Trump announced that his administration will soon issue new guidance about prayer in public schools, vowing to “bring back religion in America.” At Monday’s meeting of the Religious Liberty Commission, Trump told attendees, “As President, I will always defend our nation’s glorious heritage, and we will protect the Judeo…
Jamie Raskin says Farage is ‘a Trump sycophant’ before UK politician addresses the House judiciary committee in Washington
Kemi Badenoch is probably hastily redrafting her PMQs script in the light of Angela Rayner’s statement about underpaying her stamp duty. She has got less than half an hour to craft the right questions. And she will probably want to ask about the economy, and hate speech laws, too.
The concept of “crime” is not a fixed, objective reality but a fluid and politically potent construct which has been meticulously weaponized to serve the interests of power. Crime is in fact a dialectical product of the very systems of domination it purportedly challenges. An elusive chameleon, the shifting definitions of crime justifies the expansion of state control, the suppression of dissent, and the advancement of imperial projects, both domestically and globally. Whether “high crime” or “low crime” , the rhetoric is rarely about public safety; rather, it is the primary language through which state agencies validate their own existence, and the imperialist state escalates its violence, masking the carceral and militaristic enforcement of social order to maintain hegemony under the guise of moral necessity.
