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Category: United States

  • The CIA Wins Another Nobel Peace Prize

    While millions waited in hopes that the Global Sumud Flotilla would win this year’s Nobel peace prize for its epic solidarity with Palestine, the Norwegian committee charged with granting the award gave it to Maria Corina Machado instead, veteran CIA coup plotter in Venezuela. As the late Gore Vidal aptly advised, “Never underestimate the Scandinavian sense of humor.”

    A day later in Gaza, the Israeli army destroyed the children’s hospital Al Rantisi with dynamite charges exponentially more powerful than those conceived by their inventor Alfred Nobel (1833-1896), creator of the prize that carries his name. With the victims’ bodies barely cold in the rubble where the hospital previously stood, Machado praised the Holy State as a “genuine ally of liberty” while sending compliments to the “long-suffering Venezuelan people” as well as President Trump: “I accept this award in your honor, because you really deserve it.”

    Congratulations poured in, among them, from Barack Obama, who won the peace prize in 2009 on his way to authorizing seven wars in Muslim countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and Syria). Also from Guatemalan president Bernardo Arevalo, who called Machado a “world class Venezuelan,” an appraisal that would have shamed his father (Juan Jose Arevalo), the first democratically elected president of the Central American republic and author of The Shark and the Sardines, a strong anti-imperialist essay whose title alone captures the historic power dynamic between Washington and Latin America.

    Machado, a pseudo-Venezuelan “sardine” eager to sell-out her country to the “shark” in Washington, was received in the White House in 2005 by George W. Bush in recognition of the quality of her aspirations, and twenty years later she is still at it, imploring Trump to invade Venezuela in the name of liberty, democracy, and the struggle against narco-terrorism. Of course this has nothing to do with Venezuelan’s proven oil reserves of 303.8 billion barrels, the most of any country in the world. Perish the thought.

    Dr. Nobel, an arms manufacturer who got the idea for awarding a peace prize from his secretary Bertha Felicie Sophie, who was a pacifist and feminist, as well as the author of Lay Down Your Arms (1889). In his will, Nobel stated that the profits from his considerable fortune were to reward “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

    Since its creation (1901) the prize has been accompanied by pious Eurocentrism and conditioned by Great Power geopolitics that have more to do with tweaking the conditions of permanent war than they do with establishing peace. This was never more evident than in the case of Woodrow Wilson, who won the prize in 1919.

    Elected on a peace platform, Wilson immediately plunged the U.S. into the bloodiest war in world history (at the time) — World War I — transforming an expensive battlefield stalemate into a lopsided victory for the Allies, who promptly imposed a bitter and humiliating “peace” on starving Germany, which began to take growing note of the German-supremacist denunciations of an obscure Austrian corporal. Forgotten was Wilson’s Fourteen Points declaration he had boomed across the Atlantic on the pretext it contained the secret to human happiness and permanent world peace. Once his complete lack of strategic sense was revealed at Versailles, Europe’s veteran imperialists ignored his pious nostrum about establishing a “machinery of friendship” in favor of perpetuating European colonialism, leaving Wilson unable to convince even his own country to join his crowning glory — the League of Nations.

    Other “great” Americans who won a Nobel peace prize include Nordic-supremacist Teddy Roosevelt, for whom war was a greater thrill than life itself, and whose popular book series, The Winning of the West, was worthy of Himmler. He estimated that “nine out of every ten” Indians were better dead than alive, deemed “coloreds” degenerate by nature, and looked on Latin peoples (“damned dagoes”) as little more than children. He applauded U.S. civilian massacres in the Philippines, which killed hundreds of thousands.

    However, the most genocidal U.S. winner of the peace prize would have to be the late Henry Kissinger, who befriended apartheid South Africa, ushered General Pinochet into power in Chile, gave the green light to Indonesia’s mass extermination of East Timor’s mountain people, and killed millions of Indochinese with saturation bombings. His comment about the Cambodian phase of the latter attacks, which paved the way for Pol Pot’s rise to power, make an ideal epitaph for the career of the clueless foreign policy expert: “I may have a lack of imagination, but I fail to see a moral issue involved.”

    With the Scandinavian sense of humor continuing to enrich our political folklore, there’s no reason for Donald Trump to lose hope.

    The post The CIA Wins Another Nobel Peace Prize first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Trump, Tomahawks and Telephone Calls

    Zelensky arrived in Washington on Friday, attired in his newly tailored suit, but he found no red carpet or even a high-level Trump official to greet him. Anticipating a cache of Tomahawks, he was apparently unaware of the telephone call between Trump and Putin and the meeting in Budapest in two weeks, to which he’s been excluded. Zelensky did meet with officials from Raytheon, maker of the Tomahawk missiles.

    At a later press conference, Trump sidestepped questions about giving Tomahawks to Ukraine, except to say they were a “big deal, vicious and bad things can happen if they are used.” According to the Financial Times, the Pentagon’s supply is dangerously depleted, only 30-50 could be spared, and in any case, they would not change the outcome of the war.

    One can never be sure, but presumably, Trump has finally accepted that the US started this proxy war in 2014. But it was the mention of Tomahawks that prompted Putin to make it clear to Trump that he’s being lied to by Zelensky, Kellogg, his advisors, and the British about the war. To wit: The Russians are decidedly winning, and it’s a reality that Trump must accept.

    Alex Mercouris, another of my trusted sources, reports that because of their range and who would be operating them, Russia would consider the use of Tomahawks “a flagrant act of war.” As such, prospects for a negotiated end to the fighting and future trade with the United States would be dashed. Both these points were no doubt taken very seriously by Trump.

    Finally, I’ve long held the opinion that Trump wants out of the war but does not want, as Garland Nixon notes, an “out with an ‘L’.” Hence, after an intense to and fro among Putin’s inner circle, it was decided to offer one last, best off ramp for Trump. It will occur in Budapest in two weeks.

    The post Trump, Tomahawks and Telephone Calls first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Annie Dillard a la Rachel Carson a la David Quammen — Meet Journalist Caroline Tracey

    Caroline Tracey’s debut book, a blend of environmental reportage and memoir titled Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History, is forthcoming in March 2026 from W.W. Norton.

    Originally from Colorado, Caroline holds a doctorate in geography from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a recipient of the Waterston Prize for Desert Writing, the Ira A. Lipman Fellowship in Journalism and Human and Civil Rights, a Silvers Foundation Work-in-Progress grant, and an Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, among other honors. In 2025, she received the inaugural On the Brinck | Places Prize for writing about the Southwest. She has also taught writing as a visiting professor at Deep Springs College.

    As a journalist and critic, Caroline’s work focuses on the environment, migration, and the arts in the US Southwest, Mexico, and their borderlands. Her reporting appears in the New Yorker, n+1, New York Review of Books, High Country News, and elsewhere, as well as in Spanish in Mexico’s Nexos. Her literary and art criticism appears in the Nation, the New Republic, and elsewhere, and has been commissioned by SFMOMA and the National Gallery of Art. Read more here.

    Caroline lives with her wife, Mexican architect Mariana GJP, between Tucson, Arizona and Mexico City.

    *****

    So, the show is upcoming, Dec. 10. She’s the kind of writer we need covering climate, envirogees, the nuances of the Borderlands, finding the unusual in the world, and normalizing what it means to be a protector of land, culture, ecology, and the web of life.

    These amazing salt lakes, which are basins for larger lakes draining and evaporating over thousands of years.

    LISTEN here to our talk, prerecorded for my Finding Fringe: Voices from the Edge radio program.

    Mono Lake: How to save an endangered wonder of nature

    The good old days, into NOW:

    These books are valuable, man, as they pile up in my office, and I hope to get Caroline’s new book; she’ll be at the Tucson Book Festival in March 2026, and alas, we hope to see her up here in the Pacific Northwest:

    The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction: Quammen, David: 8601416681139: Amazon.com: Books

    A gem: Learn about this amazing Madagascar as that real Island Biogeography!

    Island of Evolution: The One and Only Madagascar - Duke Lemur Center

    I’ve had folk on about the Sky Islands and US-Mexico borderlands.

    It will be well worth the journey to find her pieces outside or behind paywalls:

    The state of journalism was discussed. The state of immigration predicated on economic conditions and environmental pressure were discussed.

    Ironically, many of the environmental crusaders in the Southwest are parachutists, coming to the area from other areas of US and Canada. White people, in a land of cultures, indigenes, and here we are, the irony of so many good-intentioned people moving in and putting pressure on ecosystems in and around Tucson, and farther out, where that lovely lifestyle of the Sonoran Desert is their nirvana.

    I brought up, briefly, Andre Vltchek‘s

    Stop Millions of Western Immigrants!

    Tens of millions of European and North American immigrants, legal and illegal, have been flooding both the cities and countryside in Asia, Latin America, and even Africa.

    Tens of millions of European and North American immigrants, legal and illegal, have been flooding both the cities and countryside in Asia, Latin America, and even Africa.

    Western migrants are charging like bulls and the ground is shaking under their feet; they are fleeing Europe and North America in hordes. Deep down they cannot stand their own lifestyle, their own societies, but you would hardly hear them pronounce it. They are too proud and too arrogant! But, after recognizing innumerable areas of the world as suitable for their personal needs – as safe, attractive and cheap – they simply pack and go!

    We are told that some few hundred thousand African and Asian exiles are now causing a great “refugee crises” all over Europe! Governments and media are spreading panic, borders are being re-erected and armed forces are interrupting the free movement of people. But the number of foreigners illegally entering Europe is incomparably smaller than the number of Western migrants that are inundating, often illegally, virtually all corners of the world.

    No “secret paradise” can be hidden any longer and no country can maintain its reasonable price structure. Potential European, North American and Australian immigrants are determined to enrich themselves by any means, at the expense of local populations. They are constantly searching for bargains: monitoring prices everywhere, ready to move at the spur of the moment, as long as the place offers some great bargains, has lax immigration laws, and a weak legal framework.

    Everything pure and untapped gets corrupted. With lightning speed, Western immigrants are snatching reasonably priced real estate and land. Then, they impose their lifestyle on all those “newly conquered territories”. As a result, entire cultures are collapsing or changing beyond recognition.

    Overall, Western immigrants are arrogant and stubborn; they feel no pity for the countries they are inundating. What surrounds them is only some colorful background to their precious lives. They are unable and unwilling to “adopt” local customs, because they are used to the fact that theirs is the “leading culture” – the culture that controls the world.

    They come, they demand, and they take whatever they can – often by force. If unchecked, they take everything. After, when there is almost nothing left to loot, they simply move on. After them, “no grass can grow”; everything is burned, ruined and corrupted. Like Bali, Phuket, Southern Sri Lanka, great parts of the Caribbean, Mexico and East African coast, just to name a few places.

    Caroline is bright, quick-witted, and a real journalist’s journalist. Listen to the interview.

    This Is How Northern Mexico Became a Climate Migration Destination

    Great writers before Caroline’s emergence:

    Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters by Annie Dillard | Goodreads

    The legacy of "Silent Spring"

    [The Rio Grande flows in a rugged and scenic part of northern New Mexico in May 2011. BobWick]Rio Grande river

    Here, behind a paywall: “The Indefensible Job of Policing the Border . . .”
    Against the Wall, a former border officer’s memoir, argues that when it comes to protecting the border, cruelty is the point.

    In the summer of 2021, I sat in on a presentation given by two members of the US Border Patrol’s Missing Migrants Program—a small initiative of the agency to devote resources to identifying the recovered remains of deceased migrants—to a group of college students on a trip to learn more about the US-Mexico border.

    The presentation took place at the South Texas Human Rights Center in Falfurrias, a town of 5,000 long considered the epicenter of migrant death in the state, despite being 75 miles north of the border. The reason for the deaths is that the town is the site of a major Border Patrol checkpoint that migrants must circumvent on foot; many lose their lives in the hot, immense shrubland of the local ranches.
    The post Annie Dillard a la Rachel Carson a la David Quammen — Meet Journalist Caroline Tracey first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Trump’s Diplomatic Initiative: A New Dawn or Just Another Dusk?

    Prefatory Note: The post below is based on modified responses to questions addressed to me by Rodrigo Craveiro, a Brazilian journalist. The focus is on what to expect in the weeks ahead to follow from the Trump diplomatic offensive to bring an Israeli-crafted peace to fruition in Gaza, and broader stability to the entire Middle East.

    1. There is a sense of joy but also of fury due to the fact that not all the bodies returned to Israel. How do you see this?

    Given the overall experience of the past two years, the attention accorded to the hostages by the Western media is misleadingly disproportionate, and as usual, Israel-biased. And now the pain of those Israelis who seek the agreed return of the bodies of non-surviving hostages is an extension of this distortion that shifts global concerns away from the terrible carnage and ccontinuing suffering in Gaza, and the totally ravaged homeland of the Palestinians that is being subject to day after arrangements made by its tormentors without Palestinian participation, much less authentic representation selected by the Palestinian people. Legitimate Palestinian leadership does not presently exist, even if there existed a commitment to identify and endow such individuals with appropriate roles. For sustainable progress toward a just future peace, the Palestinians must participate and be represented by their own choosing. Such a reality can only be decided by the Palestinians themselves, most obviously, in an internationally monitored competitive election among rival claimants to Palestinian leadership throughout Occupied Palestine.

    Hamas evidently agreed to return the bodies of dead hostages in their possession. Still, given the difficulty of locating the bodies and collecting the remains, unless there is a genuine repudiation by Hamas of this underlying duty associated with the ceasefire, their goodwill deserves the benefit of the doubt. The disappointment of the families in Israel that suffered from this human loss is understandable, but it should be interpreted in ways that are subordinate to more relevant issues, such as ceasefire violations. It was reported two days after the ceasefire went into effect that Israel killed by gunfire and missiles 7 Palestinians seeking to visit their destroyed home in Gaza City, a disturbing incident which seemed to receive scant, if any, coverage in international media or mainstream international commentary, and yet could be seen as evidence of the fragility of the ceasefire arrangements or an indication that Israel is ready to risk or is even seeking the collapse of the ceasefire by testing its limits. A carefree attitude toward the renewal of the violent encounter that rests on implied, or even secret, assurances of unwavering US support.

    • Trump addressed the Israeli Knesset, where he said his peace plan marks the “historic dawn of a new Middle East.” Do you believe this is something real, or is he exaggerating?

    My best guess is that historians looking back at those words will conclude that Trump had confused dawn with dusk. There is no prospect of a brightening of the dark skies casting a shadow on the countries of the Middle East until Palestinian rights are respected, and that includes honoring the international right of return of the seven million Palestinian refugees. There must be a campaign to obtain proper accountability for the Gaza Genocide. Until the costs of Gaza reconstruction are borne by the perpetrators of the devastation, accompanied by some process of reconciliation that does not whitewash the crimes of Israel and its enablers, it will be impossible to create a peaceful future for the region. At the very least, the vast devastation caused by the genocide must be physically overcome by a process of reconstruction funded by adequate reparations. The scope of reconstruction must include health, heritage, and religious sites; educational and cultural institutions; residential neighborhoods; UNRWA facilities; and much more. The most painful losses of loved ones and body parts can never be compensated for by material means and are an enduring negative legacy of the Gaza Genocide. Even recognizing pragmatic constraints on peacemaking given political conditions a ‘peace’ crafted to please the perpetrator of genocide and its most complicit supporter, is highly unlikely to proceed very far. The Trump 20 Point Plan is not a break with the past, but an effort to induce forgetfulness necessary to attain credibility in proposing post-conflict arrangements. To grasp the ironies of this Trump Plan, we should imagine our reactions if the Nazi survivors of World War II had been put in charge of designing the future of the international order, or even of just post-war Germany. It would not have seemed like a step toward a peaceful future, regardless of the language used to obscure the perverse underlying reality.

    3- Trump and the three mediating governments signed the peace plan for Gaza at the Sharm el-Sheik Summit. Given this development, what can we expect to happen in the future?

    It is almost universally believed that the ceasefire should remain operative even if violations of the underlying plan occur or its further implementation stalls. Beyond this, it is a matter of how much leverage the US exerts to advance the governance proposals in Part II of Trump’s Plan. Whether Hamas and Palestinian resistance forces are subject to being coerced by further threats of Israeli renewal of its genocidal assault is unclear. It is also uncertain if the US would go along with an Israeli unilateral departure from the Trump Plan. Israel is quite capable of fabricating claims that Hamas is violating the ceasefire and related obligations, leaving it no choice but to resume its military operations. It would appear at this time that Trump would allow Israel to exercise such an option. At the same time, Trump is so mercurial and narcissistic that it is possible he would regard Israel’s action as undermining his claims as peacemaker and repudiate the Israeli resumption of large-scale violence in Gaza. In an odd way, Israel and Trump may turn out to have different goals. Israel has not given up its quest for ‘Greater Israel,’ which means absorbing not only East Jerusalem, but Gaza and the West Bank within its sovereign territory. Trump may still strangely believe he can obtain the Nobel Peace Prize if his Plan is operationalized in Gaza and the two conflicting parties accept the arrangements.

    Overall, it is clear that peace and stability will not be the future of the Middle East until Israel respects Palestinian rights, drastically redefines or repudiates Zionism and apartheid in a manner consistent with international law, and agrees to the establishment of a Peace & Reconciliation Commission to acknowledge Israel’s past criminal violations of Palestinian rights and to announce a new dedication to the creation of an independent commission that assists the Palestinian/Israeli leadership to build future relations between Jews and Arabs on the basis of equality, dignity, and rights as the foundation for sustainable patterns of peaceful coexistence. For a truly new and stable Middle East, Israel must agree to the establishment of a nuclear-free zone, including itself and Iran.

    4- What are the Risks of Clashes between Hamas and Gaza Clans and Factions?

    These issues are murky, with contending interpretations and explanations of their recent prominence amid this most ambitious effort to develop the current ceasefire pause into a framework for long-term conflict resolution by implementing, perhaps with modifications, the advanced phases of the Trump 20 Point Plan. In this context, Israel seems to welcome these tensions within Gaza, by various means, including subsidies, to allow them an option to exit from this series of developments that might challenge their annexation plans in the West Bank as well as Gaza. It is possible that the Netanyahu government agreed to the ceasefire only to secure the return of the hostages, and never assented to any wider interference with its militarist approach, and may have had assurances of Trump’s support, no matter what.  If this plays out, Israel would actually welcome the collapse of the conflict-resolution part of the framework in a manner that would find tacit acceptance, if not outright approval, in Washington. Such a manipulation of reality requires pinning the blame on Hamas, which is currently taking the form of criticizing Hamas for seeking to destroy those armed groups in Gaza that collaborated with the Israeli military operations.

    Such a line of interpretation is reinforced by Israeli unreasonably shrill complaints about Hamas’ failure to return all of the bodies of the dead hostages. On its part, Hamas claims it has returned all the remains it could discover with its existing equipment, given that some dead hostages remain trapped far beneath the rubble. This seems a reasonable explanation, as Hamas has little incentive to retain the remains of dead Israeli hostages or to take steps that provide an excuse for Israel to resume bombardment and other forms of violence in Gaza.

    Such a line of interpretation is also consistent with Israel’s pattern of lethal violence killing Palestinians in several instances that have the clear appearance of being deliberate violations of the ceasefire agreement. Additionally, Israeli interference with the delivery of humanitarian aid by reducing the entry of relief goods by 50% is another expression of Israel’s unwillingness to allow even a conflict-resolving process weighted in its favor to go forward. These are serious provocations by Israel, causing sharp criticism from some governments that had previously endorsed the Trump approach, but not yet even a whimper of disapproval from the US.

    The gathering evidence suggests that Israel is accumulating grounds for repudiating the ‘peace’ process and resuming its military operations, accompanied by a renewed clampdown on the further delivery of humanitarian aid, despite widespread hunger, disease, and trauma among the civilian population of Gaza. The next week or so shall determine whether this pessimistic assessment dooms the ceasefire and the prospects for conflict-resolution through diplomacy rather than further recourse to genocide. Israel, since the return of the living hostages in Gaza, holds all the cards, and Hamas has none except for its incredible capacity for resilience.

    As yet, there are no signs pointing to a new dawn.

    The post Trump’s Diplomatic Initiative: A New Dawn or Just Another Dusk? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • “No Kings” — Another Chapter in the Quest for an Empire without an Emperor

     

    There are many hyped “No Kings” protests this weekend. They seem fairly clearly a creation of the DNC or some appendage of it.

    They reflect a wretched sentiment I criticized back in 2017 — how many were “In Search of an Empire without an Emperor”:

    When Trump uses military violence in Yemen or Syria, he is lauded by presumed liberals like Van Jones and Fareed Zakaria as presidential.… This leads to a political culture based on loving or hating various political figures.

    It is a case of interesting timing that these protests are taking place after the so-called “ceasefire” finally happened in Gaza.

    The establishment very much wants to stuff people back into their partisan boxes and to eviscerate any notion that decent people on the left and right might build on their revulsion of imperial Israel’s genocide.

    Moreover, I’d not be shocked if “liberals” at these “protests” had signs for more weapons to Ukraine and in defense of John Bolton.

    So, if you do go to these protests, I’d recommend you have a sign denouncing Empire, the duopoly, and/or wear a keffiyeh.

    Protest the protest.

    What is needed is a massive realignment of US politics. We need people breaking out of their partisan boxes, not calcifying in them. This is part of my VotePact.org project, which can upend and make right much of US politics.

    The post “No Kings” — Another Chapter in the Quest for an Empire without an Emperor first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The West’s Dehumanization Of Arabs Is Completely Unforgivable

    In October 2024, a Lebanese writer named Lina Mounzer wrote, “ask any Arab what the most painful realization of the last year has been and it is this: that we have discovered the extent of our dehumanization to such a degree that it’s impossible to function in the world in the same way.”

    I’ve thought about that line a lot over the last year.

    I thought about it as Israel hammered Lebanon with at least 20 airstrikes during a supposed “ceasefire”.

    I thought about it during the Gaza ceasefire negotiations when the Western political/media class kept calling the Israelis held by Hamas “hostages” while calling the innocent Palestinians held captive by Israel “prisoners”.

    I think about it as the IDF continues to murder Palestinian civilians every day during the Gaza “ceasefire” when they are deemed to be traveling into forbidden areas, because Palestinians are so dehumanized that Israel sees bullets as a perfectly legitimate means of directing civilian foot traffic.

    I think about it as these daily ceasefire violations and acts of military slaughter barely make a blip in the western news media, while any time anything happens that makes western Jews feel anxious or upset, it dominates headlines for days.

    I thought about it while the western political/media class solemnly commemorated the second anniversary of the October 7 attack, even as the daily death toll from the Gaza holocaust ticked along with its victims unnamed and unacknowledged by those same institutions.

    I thought about it when all of Western politics and media stopped dead in its tracks and stood transfixed for days on the assassination of Charlie Kirk while ignoring the genocide he had spent the last two years of his life actively manufacturing consent for.

    Day after day after day, we see glaring, inexcusable discrepancies between the amount of attention that is given to the violent death of an Arab and the attention that is given to the violent death of an Israeli, a Western Jew, or any Westerner.

    These last two years have been a time of unprecedented unmasking in all sorts of ways, but I think that’s the one that’s going to stick with me the most. The way Western civilization came right out into the cold, harsh light to admit, day after day after day, that they don’t truly view Arabs as human beings.

    Ours is a profoundly sick society.

    One of the main arguments you’ll hear from rightists about why the West needs to support Israel is that Israel is helping to defend the West from the savage Muslim hordes — a sentiment that Israeli pundits and politicians have been all too happy to feed into of late. It’s revealing because it’s just coming right out and saying that slaughtering Muslims is a virtue in and of itself, so anyone who kills Muslims is an ally of the West.

    But whenever I come across this argument, all I can think is, why would anyone want to defend the West if this is what it has become?

    Even if we pretend that these delusions that Arabs and Islam pose some kind of threat to Western civilization are valid, why would it even matter? This civilization does not deserve to be saved. Not if we’re going to be living like this.

    If we’ve become so detached from our own humanity that we can’t even see innocent children as fully human just because they live somewhere else and have a different religion, then we are the monsters. We are the villains. We are everything the craziest Zionist pretends the Arabs are.

    These last two years have shown us that Western civilization doesn’t need protection; it needs redemption. It needs to save its soul.

    The post The West’s Dehumanization Of Arabs Is Completely Unforgivable first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • It was never a Gaza ‘war’. The ‘ceasefire’ is a lie cut from the same cloth

    [First published by Middle East Eye]

    Ceasefires stick because the two sides in a war have reached military stalemate – or because the incentives for each side in laying down their arms outweigh those of continuing the bloodshed.

    None of this applies in Gaza.

    The past two years in the enclave have been many things. But the one thing they have not been is a war, whatever Western politicians and media wish us to believe.

    Which means the current narrative of a “ceasefire” is as much a lie as the preceding narrative of a “Gaza war”.

    The ceasefire is not “fragile”, as we keep being told. It is non-existent, as evidenced by Israel’s continual violations – from its soldiers continuing to shoot dead Palestinian civilians to its blocking promised aid.

    So what is really going on?

    To understand the “ceasefire” and US President Donald Trump’s even more deluded 20-point “peace plan”, we first need to make sense of what the earlier “war” rhetoric was used to conceal.

    Over the past 24 months, we witnessed something deeply sinister.

    We watched the indiscriminate slaughter of a largely civilian population, already under a 17-year siege, by Israel, a regional military goliath supported and armed by the global military goliath of the United States.

    We watched the erasure of almost every home in Gaza – in what already amounted to a concentration camp for its people.

    Families were forced into makeshift tents, as they had been when they were expelled decades ago at gunpoint from their lands in what is now Israel—but this time they have been exposed to a toxic brew of the rubble-dust of their former homes and the spent materials from many Hiroshimas-worth of bombs dropped on the enclave.

    We watched a captive population being starved for months on end, in what amounted to, on the most generous view, an undisguised policy of collective punishment – a crime against humanity for which the International Criminal Court is pursuing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    Hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza have been physically damaged, in addition to their psychological trauma, by a malnourishment that has altered their DNA – damage that will most likely be passed on to future generations.

    We watched Gaza’s hospitals being systematically dismantled, one by one, until the entire health sector was hollowed out, unable to deal with either the flood of wounded or the growing tide of malnourished children.

    We watched large-scale ethnic cleansing operations, in which families – or what was left of them – were driven out of “kill zones” into areas Israel termed “safe zones”, only for those safe zones to quickly turn, undeclared, into new kill zones.

    And as Trump stepped up the pressure for a “ceasefire”, we watched Israel unleash an orgy of violence, destroying as much of Gaza City as it could before the deadline arrived to stop.

    Rhetoric of ‘Gaza war’

    None of this can, or should, be described as a war.

    The United Nations, every major human rights organization in the world, including Israel’s B’Tselem, and the world’s leading body of genocide scholars agree that what has happened in Gaza meets the definition of genocide, as laid out in the UN’s Genocide Convention, ratified by Israel, the US, Britain, and the European Union.

    Nonetheless, Israel and the West’s rhetoric about “war” has been crucial in selling to Western publics an equally dishonest rhetoric of a “ceasefire” and hopes for “peace”.

    The lie of the current ceasefire is a counterpart of the lie about a “Gaza war” narrated to us over the past two years. The framing serves exactly the same purpose: to disguise Israel’s larger goals.

    On Tuesday, in the midst of the “ceasefire”, as the bodies of Israelis and Palestinians were being traded, Israel was killing more Palestinians. The Financial Times was among the media outlets reporting that Israeli soldiers had killed “several” Palestinians that day.

    Earlier, Israeli soldiers posted videos as they pulled out of Gaza City of their torching homes, food supplies, and a vital sewage treatment plant.

    In other words, Israel never had any intention of halting its fire.

    This is a familiar pattern.

    Israel killed at least 170 Palestinians during an earlier “ceasefire” negotiated by Trump, in January, which it then unilaterally ended weeks later so that it could revive the genocide.

    And in Lebanon, where a ceasefire is supposed to have been in force for the past year, overseen by the United States and France, Israel is recorded to have broken its terms more than 4,500 times.

    As former British ambassador Craig Murray observed of the ceasefire period, Israel “has killed hundreds of people, including infants, demolished tens of thousands of homes and annexed five areas of Lebanon”.

    Does anyone imagine Gaza, a tiny territory without an army or the trappings of statehood, will fare any better than Lebanon under an Israeli ceasefire?

    Ceasefire charade

    The ceasefire may be a temporary lull in Israel’s genocidal, two-year assault on Gaza but it does nothing to cease Israel’s decade-long occupation of the Palestinian territories – the inciting cause of the “war”.

    The occupation continues.

    It also does nothing to cease Israel’s system of apartheid rule over Palestinians, judged illegal by the world’s highest court last year.

    Then, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) demanded that Israel immediately withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories, including Gaza, and that other states pressure it into such a withdrawal.

    The UN General Assembly gave Israel till last month to honor the ICJ’s ruling. Israel has not just ignored that deadline. Even during the current “ceasefire”, Israeli soldiers continue to be directly stationed in more than half of Gaza.

    Additionally, of course, Israel still controls all of Gaza’s territory at arm’s length through its spy drones, attack drones and fighter jets, surveillance technology, and land and naval blockades.

    It should be a truism that a state bent on genocide has no reason to stop its genocide unless it is forced to do so – by a stronger party.

    Trump has been striding the world stage pretending to be doing just that, strong-arming Israel and Hamas. But only the credulous – and the Western political and media class – fall for this charade.

    The “ceasefire” is not “fragile”. It was set up to fail, not to provide a path to peace. Its real purpose is to provide Israel with a fresh mandate to renew the genocide.

    Dehumanized prisoners

    For decades, Palestinians have been forced to live with a catch-22: damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

    Any resistance to their brutal occupation results in slaughter – or “mowing the lawn”, as Israel terms it – as well as their designation as “terrorists”.

    But a policy of no resistance, as pursued by Mahmoud Abbas’ compliant Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, hangs Palestinians out to dry – living as permanent, dehumanized prisoners under Israeli rule, herded into ever-shrinking reservations while Jewish militias are licensed to build settlements on their land.

    The same kind of bogus “choice” is central to the current “ceasefire”.

    Hamas has got a hostage swap – after thousands of Palestinians were seized off the street (and thousands more will soon be seized to replace them) – while the people of Gaza win a brief respite from Israel’s genocidal starvation campaign. That was the formula for cornering Hamas into approving a ceasefire agreement it knows only too well is primed with tripwires.

    The most obvious is the requirement on Hamas to return the last remaining Israelis held captive in Gaza, including 28 bodies, in exchange for some 2,000 Palestinian hostages in Israel’s prisons. The agreement set a 72-hour timeframe for the exchange.

    Hamas has found it harder to locate the sites of the dead. So far, they have returned 10, though one appears to be non-Israeli.

    The wasteland that is now Gaza has few landmarks to identify the locations of original burial sites. And the mountains of rubble under which the Israelis’ bodies lie – created by the US-supplied bunker-busting bombs Israel dropped that most likely killed them – are almost impossible to move without heavy machinery, sorely lacking in Gaza.

    Even if the sites can be identified and the rubble removed, Hamas may discover that the bodies no longer exist, that they have been vaporized, alongside Palestinian victims, by Israel’s bombs. And of course, there is a further likely problem: some of the bodies may be located in more than half of Gaza, which Israel is still occupying, and Hamas cannot access.

    As the International Committee of the Red Cross, the ultimate neutral arbiter, has conceded, finding the bodies in these circumstances will be a “massive challenge”.

    Another catch-22.

    Notably, though the Western media has happily amplified Israeli claims of Hamas’s bad faith over returning the bodies, as well as the suffering of waiting Israeli families, it has provided little comparable coverage on the condition of the Palestinian bodies returned by Israel.

    The refrigerated corpses arrived at Nasser hospital in Gaza without any form of identification, and with staff there unable to run DNA tests because of the destruction inflicted by Israel on its facilities. Families will have no idea who their loved ones are unless they try to identify them personally.

    That will be a gruesome and distressing task. Doctors noted that the returned bodies were still cuffed and blindfolded, executed with bullets to the head, and with clear signs that they had been tortured before and after their deaths.

    Meanwhile, even before the 72-hour timeframe for the exchange was reached, Israel exploited the delay to renew the starvation of Gaza, restricting aid desperately needed to address the famine it had engineered.

    More ominously, according to Israeli media reports, the US has agreed to a “secret clause” with Israel to allow it to resume its genocidal “war” if Hamas cannot produce all the bodies within the three-day window.

    Double bind

    Then, if Hamas can avoid this tripwire, there is a requirement on the group to lay down its weapons. This is being presented as a precondition for “peace”. But the one certainty is that, even were Hamas to disarm, peace would not be the outcome.

    This week, in his usual style, Trump made undefined threats.

    “If they [Hamas] don’t disarm,” he said, “we will disarm them”. He added that, if the US got involved, “it will happen quickly and perhaps violently. But they will disarm.”

    This intentionally puts Hamas and others pursuing armed resistance against Israel’s occupation – a right recognized in international law – in a double bind.

    First, a disarmed population in Gaza will be even more defenseless in the face of Israeli attacks.

    Whatever the rights or wrongs of Hamas’ military strategy, it is hard to ignore the fact that the prolonged toll of fighting on Israeli troops – in terms of psychological trauma and casualty figures – has served as some sort of countervailing pressure.

    Large numbers of Israelis have taken to the streets to oppose Netanyahu’s actions in Gaza – but not, as polls show, because most care about the hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed Palestinians there.

    Rather, their protests have been driven by concerns about the plight of Israeli captives in Gaza and about the toll on Israeli soldiers.

    Hamas, and many of Gaza’s population, will worry that disarmament would swing the cost-benefit analysis among Israelis even further towards continued genocide. It risks more bloodletting by Israel, not peace.

    Lose-lose conundrum

    Second, Hamas is unlikely to agree to disarm when there are criminal clans, armed and backed by Israel, and some of them linked to the Islamic State, roaming Gaza’s streets.

    Palestinians have long understood that Israel’s ambition is to undermine the Palestinians’ major national liberation movements – whether Hamas or Fatah – by promoting in their place feudal warlords.

    One Palestinian analyst warned me 14 years ago of the dangers of what he referred to as Israel’s plan for the “Afghanistanization” of Gaza and the West Bank.

    Israel’s ultimate divide-and-rule strategy would involve promoting rival clan leaders who focus on protecting their own small fiefdoms and fighting each other, rather than trying to resist the illegal occupation and seek a unified Palestinian state.

    At the height of the genocide, the clans proved how dangerous such a development could be for ordinary Palestinians. Aided by Israel, and with Hamas pinned down in their tunnels, these gangs looted aid trucks, stole aid from weaker families, then took that food for their own families and sold the rest at extortionate prices few could afford. Everyone else starved.

    The post It was never a Gaza ‘war’. The ‘ceasefire’ is a lie cut from the same cloth first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • It was never a Gaza ‘war’. The ‘ceasefire’ is a lie cut from the same cloth

    [First published by Middle East Eye]

    Ceasefires stick because the two sides in a war have reached military stalemate – or because the incentives for each side in laying down their arms outweigh those of continuing the bloodshed.

    None of this applies in Gaza.

    The past two years in the enclave have been many things. But the one thing they have not been is a war, whatever Western politicians and media wish us to believe.

    Which means the current narrative of a “ceasefire” is as much a lie as the preceding narrative of a “Gaza war”.

    The ceasefire is not “fragile”, as we keep being told. It is non-existent, as evidenced by Israel’s continual violations – from its soldiers continuing to shoot dead Palestinian civilians to its blocking promised aid.

    So what is really going on?

    To understand the “ceasefire” and US President Donald Trump’s even more deluded 20-point “peace plan”, we first need to make sense of what the earlier “war” rhetoric was used to conceal.

    Over the past 24 months, we witnessed something deeply sinister.

    We watched the indiscriminate slaughter of a largely civilian population, already under a 17-year siege, by Israel, a regional military goliath supported and armed by the global military goliath of the United States.

    We watched the erasure of almost every home in Gaza – in what already amounted to a concentration camp for its people.

    Families were forced into makeshift tents, as they had been when they were expelled decades ago at gunpoint from their lands in what is now Israel—but this time they have been exposed to a toxic brew of the rubble-dust of their former homes and the spent materials from many Hiroshimas-worth of bombs dropped on the enclave.

    We watched a captive population being starved for months on end, in what amounted to, on the most generous view, an undisguised policy of collective punishment – a crime against humanity for which the International Criminal Court is pursuing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    Hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza have been physically damaged, in addition to their psychological trauma, by a malnourishment that has altered their DNA – damage that will most likely be passed on to future generations.

    We watched Gaza’s hospitals being systematically dismantled, one by one, until the entire health sector was hollowed out, unable to deal with either the flood of wounded or the growing tide of malnourished children.

    We watched large-scale ethnic cleansing operations, in which families – or what was left of them – were driven out of “kill zones” into areas Israel termed “safe zones”, only for those safe zones to quickly turn, undeclared, into new kill zones.

    And as Trump stepped up the pressure for a “ceasefire”, we watched Israel unleash an orgy of violence, destroying as much of Gaza City as it could before the deadline arrived to stop.

    Rhetoric of ‘Gaza war’

    None of this can, or should, be described as a war.

    The United Nations, every major human rights organization in the world, including Israel’s B’Tselem, and the world’s leading body of genocide scholars agree that what has happened in Gaza meets the definition of genocide, as laid out in the UN’s Genocide Convention, ratified by Israel, the US, Britain, and the European Union.

    Nonetheless, Israel and the West’s rhetoric about “war” has been crucial in selling to Western publics an equally dishonest rhetoric of a “ceasefire” and hopes for “peace”.

    The lie of the current ceasefire is a counterpart of the lie about a “Gaza war” narrated to us over the past two years. The framing serves exactly the same purpose: to disguise Israel’s larger goals.

    On Tuesday, in the midst of the “ceasefire”, as the bodies of Israelis and Palestinians were being traded, Israel was killing more Palestinians. The Financial Times was among the media outlets reporting that Israeli soldiers had killed “several” Palestinians that day.

    Earlier, Israeli soldiers posted videos as they pulled out of Gaza City of their torching homes, food supplies, and a vital sewage treatment plant.

    In other words, Israel never had any intention of halting its fire.

    This is a familiar pattern.

    Israel killed at least 170 Palestinians during an earlier “ceasefire” negotiated by Trump, in January, which it then unilaterally ended weeks later so that it could revive the genocide.

    And in Lebanon, where a ceasefire is supposed to have been in force for the past year, overseen by the United States and France, Israel is recorded to have broken its terms more than 4,500 times.

    As former British ambassador Craig Murray observed of the ceasefire period, Israel “has killed hundreds of people, including infants, demolished tens of thousands of homes and annexed five areas of Lebanon”.

    Does anyone imagine Gaza, a tiny territory without an army or the trappings of statehood, will fare any better than Lebanon under an Israeli ceasefire?

    Ceasefire charade

    The ceasefire may be a temporary lull in Israel’s genocidal, two-year assault on Gaza but it does nothing to cease Israel’s decade-long occupation of the Palestinian territories – the inciting cause of the “war”.

    The occupation continues.

    It also does nothing to cease Israel’s system of apartheid rule over Palestinians, judged illegal by the world’s highest court last year.

    Then, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) demanded that Israel immediately withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories, including Gaza, and that other states pressure it into such a withdrawal.

    The UN General Assembly gave Israel till last month to honor the ICJ’s ruling. Israel has not just ignored that deadline. Even during the current “ceasefire”, Israeli soldiers continue to be directly stationed in more than half of Gaza.

    Additionally, of course, Israel still controls all of Gaza’s territory at arm’s length through its spy drones, attack drones and fighter jets, surveillance technology, and land and naval blockades.

    It should be a truism that a state bent on genocide has no reason to stop its genocide unless it is forced to do so – by a stronger party.

    Trump has been striding the world stage pretending to be doing just that, strong-arming Israel and Hamas. But only the credulous – and the Western political and media class – fall for this charade.

    The “ceasefire” is not “fragile”. It was set up to fail, not to provide a path to peace. Its real purpose is to provide Israel with a fresh mandate to renew the genocide.

    Dehumanized prisoners

    For decades, Palestinians have been forced to live with a catch-22: damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

    Any resistance to their brutal occupation results in slaughter – or “mowing the lawn”, as Israel terms it – as well as their designation as “terrorists”.

    But a policy of no resistance, as pursued by Mahmoud Abbas’ compliant Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, hangs Palestinians out to dry – living as permanent, dehumanized prisoners under Israeli rule, herded into ever-shrinking reservations while Jewish militias are licensed to build settlements on their land.

    The same kind of bogus “choice” is central to the current “ceasefire”.

    Hamas has got a hostage swap – after thousands of Palestinians were seized off the street (and thousands more will soon be seized to replace them) – while the people of Gaza win a brief respite from Israel’s genocidal starvation campaign. That was the formula for cornering Hamas into approving a ceasefire agreement it knows only too well is primed with tripwires.

    The most obvious is the requirement on Hamas to return the last remaining Israelis held captive in Gaza, including 28 bodies, in exchange for some 2,000 Palestinian hostages in Israel’s prisons. The agreement set a 72-hour timeframe for the exchange.

    Hamas has found it harder to locate the sites of the dead. So far, they have returned 10, though one appears to be non-Israeli.

    The wasteland that is now Gaza has few landmarks to identify the locations of original burial sites. And the mountains of rubble under which the Israelis’ bodies lie – created by the US-supplied bunker-busting bombs Israel dropped that most likely killed them – are almost impossible to move without heavy machinery, sorely lacking in Gaza.

    Even if the sites can be identified and the rubble removed, Hamas may discover that the bodies no longer exist, that they have been vaporized, alongside Palestinian victims, by Israel’s bombs. And of course, there is a further likely problem: some of the bodies may be located in more than half of Gaza, which Israel is still occupying, and Hamas cannot access.

    As the International Committee of the Red Cross, the ultimate neutral arbiter, has conceded, finding the bodies in these circumstances will be a “massive challenge”.

    Another catch-22.

    Notably, though the Western media has happily amplified Israeli claims of Hamas’s bad faith over returning the bodies, as well as the suffering of waiting Israeli families, it has provided little comparable coverage on the condition of the Palestinian bodies returned by Israel.

    The refrigerated corpses arrived at Nasser hospital in Gaza without any form of identification, and with staff there unable to run DNA tests because of the destruction inflicted by Israel on its facilities. Families will have no idea who their loved ones are unless they try to identify them personally.

    That will be a gruesome and distressing task. Doctors noted that the returned bodies were still cuffed and blindfolded, executed with bullets to the head, and with clear signs that they had been tortured before and after their deaths.

    Meanwhile, even before the 72-hour timeframe for the exchange was reached, Israel exploited the delay to renew the starvation of Gaza, restricting aid desperately needed to address the famine it had engineered.

    More ominously, according to Israeli media reports, the US has agreed to a “secret clause” with Israel to allow it to resume its genocidal “war” if Hamas cannot produce all the bodies within the three-day window.

    Double bind

    Then, if Hamas can avoid this tripwire, there is a requirement on the group to lay down its weapons. This is being presented as a precondition for “peace”. But the one certainty is that, even were Hamas to disarm, peace would not be the outcome.

    This week, in his usual style, Trump made undefined threats.

    “If they [Hamas] don’t disarm,” he said, “we will disarm them”. He added that, if the US got involved, “it will happen quickly and perhaps violently. But they will disarm.”

    This intentionally puts Hamas and others pursuing armed resistance against Israel’s occupation – a right recognized in international law – in a double bind.

    First, a disarmed population in Gaza will be even more defenseless in the face of Israeli attacks.

    Whatever the rights or wrongs of Hamas’ military strategy, it is hard to ignore the fact that the prolonged toll of fighting on Israeli troops – in terms of psychological trauma and casualty figures – has served as some sort of countervailing pressure.

    Large numbers of Israelis have taken to the streets to oppose Netanyahu’s actions in Gaza – but not, as polls show, because most care about the hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed Palestinians there.

    Rather, their protests have been driven by concerns about the plight of Israeli captives in Gaza and about the toll on Israeli soldiers.

    Hamas, and many of Gaza’s population, will worry that disarmament would swing the cost-benefit analysis among Israelis even further towards continued genocide. It risks more bloodletting by Israel, not peace.

    Lose-lose conundrum

    Second, Hamas is unlikely to agree to disarm when there are criminal clans, armed and backed by Israel, and some of them linked to the Islamic State, roaming Gaza’s streets.

    Palestinians have long understood that Israel’s ambition is to undermine the Palestinians’ major national liberation movements – whether Hamas or Fatah – by promoting in their place feudal warlords.

    One Palestinian analyst warned me 14 years ago of the dangers of what he referred to as Israel’s plan for the “Afghanistanization” of Gaza and the West Bank.

    Israel’s ultimate divide-and-rule strategy would involve promoting rival clan leaders who focus on protecting their own small fiefdoms and fighting each other, rather than trying to resist the illegal occupation and seek a unified Palestinian state.

    At the height of the genocide, the clans proved how dangerous such a development could be for ordinary Palestinians. Aided by Israel, and with Hamas pinned down in their tunnels, these gangs looted aid trucks, stole aid from weaker families, then took that food for their own families and sold the rest at extortionate prices few could afford. Everyone else starved.

    The post It was never a Gaza ‘war’. The ‘ceasefire’ is a lie cut from the same cloth first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Chicago Residents ‘Refuse To Budge’ As ICE Terrorizes Communities

    From hunting people down through the aisles of retail stores, to intentionally crashing into a vehicle on a residential street and then deploying tear gas against a gathered crowd of residents and protesters, agents with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement have been wreaking havoc in Chicago as part of their “Operation Midway Blitz”.

    According to the Department of Homeland Security, federal agents have made more than 1,500 arrests in the greater Chicago area since September 8 when the operation was announced – although data reveals some of these arrests to be outside of the state of Illinois.

    The post Chicago Residents ‘Refuse To Budge’ As ICE Terrorizes Communities appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • The Bogus Value of the Pentagon Press Pass

    Reporting on national security matters, irrespective of which country you are in, can be a hazardous affair. In police states, the consequences are self-evident to the brave who report on their misdeeds. The paid off toadies do not count. In liberal democracies, there are also consequences for giving the game away on the national security state. The toadies, in that case, pose themselves as insiders rather than sycophants of moulded consensus. They are the blessed recipients of approved wisdom, officially or otherwise. In this cosmos of regulation, even those who disagree with official policies can be given a gentle airing.

    This is particularly so in the United States. Go through the media stable of any US broadcasting network or major paper, and you find them, many former apparatchiks of the imperium’s various agencies, tugging their forelocks to empire. As Julian Assange found to his personal cost, to give the game away by publishing the national security material of Freedom’s Land is to invite prosecution and conviction under the Espionage Act of 1917, despite having never set foot in the country, let alone having US nationality.

    It was therefore a rare event to see press outlets get stroppy in unison to proposals by the US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that reporters agree to a new policy on reporting material from the department. In a document boasting the Pentagon’s new name of “Department of War”, journalists are informed that “DoW information must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified.” Those reporting outside approved channels could be designated “a security or safety risk” and have their credentials withdrawn.

    While policy acknowledges that journalists receiving and publishing unsolicited classified or sensitive information from government sources are “generally” protected by First Amendment freedoms, it takes issue with soliciting “the disclosure of such information” or encouraging Pentagon staff “to violate laws and policies concerning the disclosure of such information”.

    In a post on X, Hegseth called access to the Pentagon “a privilege, not a right.” It is certainly a privilege he has been trying to trim, having implemented rules earlier this year limiting the movements of reporters through the Pentagon without approved escorts. In September, he issued a tart reminder that press members were “no longer allowed to roam the halls of a secure facility. Wear a badge and follow the rules – or go home.”

    The Washington Post’s executive editor Matt Murray is of the view that the proposed policy undercuts the protections guaranteed by the First Amendment “by placing unnecessary constraints on gathering and publishing information.” Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, stated his magazine’s opposition to the restrictions. “The requirements violate our First Amendment rights, and the rights of Americans who seek to know how taxpayer funded military resources and personnel are being deployed.” In his statement, National Press Club President Mike Balsamo thought Hegseth’s latest measure “a direct assault on independent journalism at the very place where independent scrutiny matters most: the US military.”

    Each of the major broadcast networks issued a joint statement on October 14 saying they would refuse to subscribe to the policy. “Today, we join virtually every other news organization in declining to agree to the Pentagon’s new requirements, which would restrict journalists’ ability to keep the nation and the world informed of important national security issues.” This was a dictate “without precedent and threatens core journalistic protections.”

    While the policy speaks to President Donald Trump’s ongoing mania with limiting the access of Fourth Estate outlets he dislikes, the question not being asked is how useful the Pentagon press ever was to begin with. Does having a pass to the mandarins of military power really ensure accuracy, let alone accountability, in terms of reporting? Or are such passes of greater benefit to those who grant them in the first place? Press conferences and meetings speak to management, control of the narrative, and reining in tales of misadventure. Interrogating foolish policies, misspending and acts of imperial mischief are rarely the preserve of the mainstream stable. They publish on the herd-like assumption that nothing they write will warrant exclusion from the club. Doing so also preserves conscience and cowardice, both being, as Oscar Wilde thought, much the same thing. (Conscience, he goes on to say in The Picture of Dorian Gray, is merely “the trade-name of the firm.”)

    Lethal to the craft is the dual policy of keeping members of the Fourth Estate in the officers’ orbit when in Washington and embedding them with combat troops when overseas, an approach that has sterilised the prospects of steely, valuable reporting. The effectiveness of this move by the Pentagon is evident in the view of NPR’s Tom Bowman, who mourns the loss of a Pentagon pass he has held for 28 years. “For most of that time, when I wasn’t overseas in combat zones embedding with troops, I walked the halls, talking to and getting to know the officers from all over the globe, at times visiting them in their offices.”

    Bowman shows no awareness that proximity to power, much like holding it, corrupts. His Pentagon years were marked by “finding out what’s really going on behind the scenes and not accepting wholesale what any government or administration says.” There is never that inkling of doubt whether such behind-the-scenes discoveries were intended. He recalls running “into an officer” in the department who revealed that the fall of Baghdad to US-led forces in 2003 was not an evident sign of decisive success. This less than revelatory account is not a patch on any of the magisterial reports from coal face scribblers such as Patrick Cockburn, who made a point very early on of mastering Middle Eastern affairs by actually being there. He could tell long before any bloodhound in the Pentagon could that Washington’s foolish and destructive presence in Mesopotamia was doomed to failure and lasting consequences.

    Perhaps now, with their cherished passes surrendered or revoked, the moaning establishment hacks might finally get some decent reporting done on the national security state in all its wondrous, spanning ghastliness. Hegseth may well have done them an enormous favour while scuttling an important platform of influence.

    The post The Bogus Value of the Pentagon Press Pass first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • FIDH Report: The Repression Of The Solidarity Movement With Palestine

    Behind the fight against hate, a trend of repressing dissenting voices is emerging. Titled Criminalisation and Narrative Control: Solidarity with Palestine in the Crosshairs, the report documents how across all the countries studied, the dynamics observed since 7 October 2023 have intensified pre-existing structural trends: the continued shrinking of civic space, the weakening of democratic safeguards, the normalisation of Islamophobia, and the institutionalisation of racial profiling.

    Under the guise of maintaining public order, fighting antisemitism, or protecting national security, authorities have resorted to exceptional measures such as bans on demonstrations, arbitrary arrests, repression within academic institutions, media censorship, and legislative threats.

    The post FIDH Report: The Repression Of The Solidarity Movement With Palestine appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Burkina Faso Is A Place Of Dignity, Not Expulsion

    “Burkina Faso is a place of dignity … not a place of expulsion,” said its Foreign Minister Karamoko Jean-Marie Traoré, rejecting US President Donald Trump’s deportation deal.

    Deeming Trump’s proposal for Burkina Faso to accept foreign nationals he is deporting from the US as “indecent”, he said it was “totally contrary to the value of dignity, which is … the very essence of the vision of Captain Ibrahim Traoré.”

    Coming to power in 2022 after the ouster of Roch Kaboré’s unpopular regime, propped up by France, Traoré expelled French troops, consolidating his mass support in the country.

    His avowed anti-imperialism and pan-Africanism have won him admirers across Africa and Black and Afro-descendant communities in the West.

    The post Burkina Faso Is A Place Of Dignity, Not Expulsion appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Burkina Faso Is A Place Of Dignity, Not Expulsion

    “Burkina Faso is a place of dignity … not a place of expulsion,” said its Foreign Minister Karamoko Jean-Marie Traoré, rejecting US President Donald Trump’s deportation deal.

    Deeming Trump’s proposal for Burkina Faso to accept foreign nationals he is deporting from the US as “indecent”, he said it was “totally contrary to the value of dignity, which is … the very essence of the vision of Captain Ibrahim Traoré.”

    Coming to power in 2022 after the ouster of Roch Kaboré’s unpopular regime, propped up by France, Traoré expelled French troops, consolidating his mass support in the country.

    His avowed anti-imperialism and pan-Africanism have won him admirers across Africa and Black and Afro-descendant communities in the West.

    The post Burkina Faso Is A Place Of Dignity, Not Expulsion appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Imperial Double Standards: Warfare for Venezuela and Welfare for Argentina

    Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution has been in the vanguard of the Global South. In contrast, President Javiar Milei’s government in Argentina represents the logical, though absurd, consequence of extreme neoliberalism, which he calls “anarcho-capitalism.”

    Western Hemispheric geopolitics reflect the weakening of US hegemony and an emerging multipolarity, especially with China’s entry as a major regional trading partner. US imperialism’s response, started well before Trump, has been to weaponize the dollar, impose illegal and crippling economic sanctions, and levy arbitrary tariffs. When these fail, the recourse is to military aggression.

    US War Secretary Pete Hegseth announced preparations for war with China. Washington has concluded that it must put a halt to multipolarity to maintain its global supremacy. Thus, the Trump administration is simultaneously rushing to rescue Milei’s government while hurrying to overturn Venezuela’s under their President Nicolás Maduro.

    Role of Venezuela under Chavismo

    Venezuela is a beacon of national sovereignty and social progress. It has consistently opposed imperialist aggression, not just in Latin America, but globally. Under the movement known as “Chavismo” it aimed for Latin American integration and the pooling of its huge natural resources, offering an independent pathway to development to withstand US imperialism.

    Consequently, it has been under attack, enduring US-financed far-right violence, destabilization, a US-led asphyxiating economic blockade, assassination attempts on the president and leading Bolivarian officials, mercenary attacks, coups and terrorism – the full arsenal of Washington’s aggressive toolkit.

    Role of Argentina under Milei

    In 2023, anti-establishment anger propelled libertarian populist Javier Milei to the Argentine presidency. His Trump-like “chainsaw plan” – radical spending cuts and a war on government institutions and services – fitted with the orthodoxy dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Milei closed 13 government ministries, including those for education, labor and social security. Foreign lenders welcomed Milei’s elevation of austerity to a moral imperative.

    Milei is still favored by the IMF. But while his unwillingness to devalue the peso helped cut inflation, it slowed economic growth and reduced the country’s capacity to sustain its huge debt. Argentina is now over $450 bn in the red. Employment fell steeply, while poverty soared to affect 53% of the population in 2024 (allegedly reducing since then). Budget cuts raised the cost of basic needs.

    Corruption scandals emerged. A close political associate of Milei admitted receiving “donations” from a narco-entrepreneur. A US$4.6 bn crypto scandal followed; the largest ever crypto-theft. Milei’s left opposition demanded his impeachment, and a judge launched a fraud probe. Later, Milei’s sister was accused of receiving hefty bribes. On top of this came the crushing defeat for Milei’s libertarian party in the Buenos Aires provincial elections in September.

    All that has triggered a run on the peso and a new economic crisis.

    Trump’s recent decision to bail out Milei’s predictably disastrous economic performance is consistent with the profligacy of IMF-US lending to right-wing Argentine governments. In April 2025, the Buenos Aires Times reported that the IMF praised Milei’s efforts and projected that the Argentine economy would grow faster than the global average. In fact, Milei tipped the country into recession and sent millions of people into poverty in the first months of his government.

    In short, Milei’s “narco-capitalist” government is not only corrupt but has savaged Argentina’s economy. Milei represents the logical culmination of Argentina’s ruling class servitude to US geopolitical objectives, even extending to his enthusiastic support for genocide in Gaza. Slavishly supporting anything Trump does or says, Argentina was one of only ten countries to vote with the US against the UN’s two-state solution for Israel-Palestine.

    IMF wages financial war against Venezuela

    The IMF is a key institution through which the US enforces its imperial dominance, part of an architecture shaped largely by Washington. Often functioning as a financial arm of US foreign policy, it rewards compliant right-wing regimes such as those of Argentine presidents Macri and Milei, while punishing independent governments like Venezuela’s that are striving for socialism.

    An example is the IMF response to the 2002 coup against Venezuela’s democratically elected President Hugo Chávez. The IMF publicly stated its readiness to collaborate with coup-monger Pedro Carmona, whose “government” abolished the constitution and key democratic institutions. Within hours after Chávez was kidnapped, the IMF’s Thomas Dawson said: “we stand ready to assist the new administration in whatever manner they find suitable.” Fortunately for democracy, the coup lasted only 47 hours. The people spontaneously rose up and returned their rightful president to his office.

    More recently, during the Covid-19 crisis, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva announced an emergency response which could disburse US$50 bn to developing countries and US$10 bn to low-income countries at a zero-interest rate. Venezuela had tried to exercise its “special drawing rights” for US$5 bn to combat the pandemic. This required IMF officials to engage in acrobatics to justify rejecting Venezuela’s request. The real reason was the US government’s farcical recognition of Juan Guaidó as “interim president.”

    US-IMF props up rightist Argentina

    In 1999-2002, when Argentina had a right-wing government, the IMF overestimated GDP growth. Then, conversely, in 2003-2015 when Argentina had left-wing governments under the Kirchners, the IMF underestimated the strength of the country’s economic recovery. IMF debt was paid off, Argentina’s notorious external debt fell sharply, no new IMF loans were granted.

    But for the past decade, its politics have revolved around chronic economic crises and persistent IMF influence. Across three presidencies, Argentina swung from market liberalization (Macri, who succeeded the Kirchners), to state intervention (Fernández), to radical austerity (Milei). Right-wing Mauricio Macri acquired a US$57 bn loan, the largest in the fund’s history. The IMF itself admitted the bailout “was not fit for purpose.” The country is now on its twenty-third IMF bailout, a global record. It is the fund’s biggest debtor, owing a “staggering” $41.8 bn.

    US aggression against Venezuela

    The US finds it intolerable that Venezuela – a “threat” of a good example – has successfully resisted US policy of “maximum pressure.” Its military build-up against Venezuela is an escalation from hybrid to open warfare aimed at suppressing an alternative model of sovereignty and social justice, with the possible bonus of reclaiming control over the country’s oil resources.

    Trump has deployed a fleet of warships, F-35 stealth fighter jets, and several thousand marines. Washington is positioning military forces in Puerto Rico, has a substantial military presence in Guyana, and asked Grenada to deploy US military forces in its territory. Trump has declared the US to be at war with drug cartels, potentially extending to those supposedly inside Venezuela itself. Commentators, including officials of the Bolivarian government, conclude that a US military strike seems imminent.

    Washington’s justification is a monumental lie: Venezuela is alleged to be a narco state, led by the non-existent Cartel de los Soles. Rubio and Trump falsely accuse the Bolivarian government of shipping hundreds of tons of drugs into the US. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has consistently reported that up to 92 percent of the cocaine produced in Colombia and Ecuador reaches the US through the Pacific (Venezuela’s entire coastline faces the Caribbean Sea).

    Trump and Milei

    In sharp contrast to the economic punishment being meted out to Venezuela, Trump’s “favorite president” is getting a bailout for the economy he that has destroyed. Milei is promised a direct purchase of pesos with dollars, together with a $20 bn central bank “swap line.” Milei swiftly thanked Trump for his “vision and powerful leadership.”

    Washington openly admits its ideological motives. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US should help conservatives win elections in Latin America. He tweeted: “The success of Argentina’s reform agenda is…in the strategic interest of the United States.” Praising Argentina’s “strong and stable” economy, he failed to address why it would collapse without US support.

    The bailout appears to have several undeclared aims. One, according to the New York Times, is to help rich investors whose bets could falter if Argentina’s economy sinks. The same source claims that US officials are also pushing Argentina to scale back its ties with China and want access to its uranium and lithium supplies. The rescue plan may even involve dollarizing Argentina’s economy.

    Nearly half of Argentinians (44%) see the deal as more likely to benefit the US than their own nation, while 36% have a negative view of Milei’s relationship with Washington. The irony of Trump’s economic lifeline for Milei is that it may kill off his chances of political survival.

    Neoliberal misery vs multipolar-oriented sovereign development

    Bolivarian Venezuela and Milei’s Argentina present two starkly different paths for Latin America—Venezuela’s sovereign defiance of US imperialism and Argentina’s deepening subservience and dependency. One suffers imperial “hybrid warfare” while the other gains imperial “welfare.”

    Washington uses coercive tools—sanctions, economic warfare, and military threats—to preserve hemispheric dominance. Venezuela embodies resistance and regional integration. Argentina, under Milei, epitomizes the collapse into “narco-capitalism,” social devastation, and foreign subjection.

    Ultimately, neoliberal austerity brings only poverty and dependency, while multipolar cooperation among Global South nations offers a viable path toward genuine independence, equitable development and resistance to imperial domination. US military actions against Venezuela violate international law and rest on unfounded claims. Latin America is a declared Zone of Peace. To respect that and allow the people their right to live without fear of war, the US must withdraw its forces.

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  • October 18, November 4: World Changing?

    Many millions on the streets this Saturday all over the country loudly proclaiming: No Kings! Yes to Democracy!–followed on November 4th by victories for Mamdani in NYC, Sherrill in NJ, Spanberger in Virginia, redistricting in California, and more–could this be truly “world changing?”

    On one level, no. This is not a Presidential election year or a Congressional election year. It’s an off-year electorally.

    But it’s not an off-year politically. The battle is fully joined between the forces of democracy and the forces of authoritarianism, between the resistance and blind Trumpism. And because of this, what happens over the next three weeks could be a decisive turning point, victories for the significant majority of US Americans who are saddened and outraged by the lying, divisive, destructive and dangerous Trump federal government and its billionaire co-conspirators.

    Think about it: potentially the biggest mass demonstration ever in the USA, in every single state and literally thousands of localities, organized by a broadly-based progressive/liberal/independent coalition of hundreds of organizations that is not going away. That alone is a huge thing at this challenging time for the US and the world.

    A Zohran Mamdani victory in itself will be a huge deal, a non-sectarian, democratic socialist becoming the Mayor of the country’s largest city, the financial capitol, a melting pot of diverse peoples and nationalities and which often leads the country as far as political shifts.

    Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger winning the Governor races in their states will not be the same thing. Neither are consistently progressive, definitely not socialists, but there’s no question that many people to their left support them over the Trump-supporting Republican opponents. Combined with October 18 and a Mamdani victory and continued progressive organizing at the grassroots, that will make a difference in how they govern.

    If California comes through and neutralizes Texas’ brazen, Trump-pushed, Congressional redistricting plan to try to gain 5 more Republican House seats from Texas next November, that will be important both practically and politically.

    There’s something else, less visible and obvious but critical, that must be said about why we are at this point, why the popular resistance movement for democracy, justice and our threatened ecosystems is at this historic moment: we have learned how to unite.

    It’s not unity based on following one great individual, usually a man. It’s not unity concerned very little with the internal culture, the health, of the organizations that make it up–just the opposite, in general. A critical mass of us of all ages, nationalities, genders and classes have internalized positive values and ways of working together which are making a huge difference in how we have responded, and will keep responding, to the efforts to impose a form of 21st century fascism in the USA.

    The Trumpists are in trouble, and they know it. That’s why, one week before No Kings! Day, House leader Mike Johnson and others began publicly attacking it, lying about who we are and what we are about, trying to scare people away from coming out that day.

    It’s not going to happen! There ain’t no power like the power of the people, united and organized, and when we are, nothing and no one can defeat us. Si, se puede!

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  • Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition Statement on US Aggression against Venezuela

    The Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition demands an end to US aggression against Venezuela, which is on the brink of outright war. Any escalation in the violence against Venezuela will cause more suffering and deaths in the South American country, destabilize the region, and endanger all countries seeking a path independent from US domination, especially Cuba and Nicaragua.

    US actions indicate a strike on Venezuela is imminent:          

    • After the Trump administration designated international drug-trafficking groups as “foreign terrorist organizations” (FTOs), without any evidence it accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of being their ringleader. By July, a “secret directive” authorized military operations against FTOs at sea and on foreign soil.
    • In August, the administration raised its illegal “bounty” on President Maduro to $50 million and launched a massive naval deployment off the coast of Venezuela, which includes nuclear capable submarines and jets and quickly grew to 10,000 troops.
    • On September 2, in international waters off of Venezuela, the US blew up the first of four or five boats that Trump claims carried drugs, committing extrajudicial executions.
    • By mid-September, the Pentagon notified Congress under the War Powers Resolution that US forces were engaged in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels.
    • On October 1, the Defense/War Department issued a “confidential memo” and told Congress that the US was engaged in armed conflict.
    • On October 6, Trump ended back-channel diplomatic contacts with Venezuela, which had been essential since the rupture of diplomatic relations in 2019. That same day, Venezuela informed the US of a thwarted plan by Venezuelan right-wing extremists to plant explosives at the US embassy in an attempted false-flag operation.
    • On October 10, Maria Corina Machado—a US-paid, violent, Zionist, extreme right-wing Venezuelan political opposition figure—received the Nobel Prize after being endorsed by Secretary Marco Rubio, in a clear a maneuver to manufacture consent for regime change in Venezuela.

    We must not be fooled by this perversion of the peace prize or the countless unfounded accusations against Venezuela and its democratically elected president. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and even the DEA, report that Venezuela is not a drug trafficking country, nor are Cuba or Nicaragua. Like its lies about migrants, the Trump administration has fabricated the “threat” posed by Venezuela. The real reason the administration is pushing for war against Venezuela is to regain control of its vast resources—including the world’s largest oil reserves.

    We demand an end to US impunity and the withdrawal of US troops and war materiel from the Caribbean before the situation escalates any further. We vehemently object to the deployment of nuclear capable vessels in a region which, in response to the Cuban Missile Crisis, declared itself a nuclear-free zone in 1967, and which the US committed itself to respect in 1971. We demand respect for international law and the sovereignty of nations. The people of Venezuela and the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean must be allowed to live in peace with the form of government they have chosen.

    Hands Off Venezuela! Venezuela is Hope! Venezuela is not a threat!

    US Hands Off Latin America and the Caribbean!

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  • Scott Ritter: A Palestinian Victory!

    Scott Ritter: “… what everybody’s forgetting is that the basic terms of this deal are the same terms that Hamas has been laying out since October 7th. And now these terms are being met. And uh, this is a Hamas victory.”

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  • Worlds Extinguished: Hostage Returns, Central Casting and the Gaza Ceasefire

    Depending on which source you consult, the twenty-point peace plan of President Donald Trump for securing peace in Gaza shows much exultance and extravagant omission. The exultance was initially focused on the return of the hostages. It then shifted to the broader strategic goals of the various parties. Commentary on this point, even as the living Israeli hostages convalescence after their exchange for Palestinian detainees, sidesteps the Palestinian people, those fly in the ointment irritants who never seem to exit the political scene.

    The peace plan, in effect, is being executed to eliminate Hamas and any semblance of a Palestinian militant movement in favour of an Israel-Arab-US axis of preferment and normalisation. Doing so puts a firm lid on Palestinian sovereignty and statehood in favour of sounder relations between Israel and the Arab states.

    Consider, for instance, the views from the American Jewish Committee in their October 10 assessment. “President Trump’s unconventional approach created new diplomatic realities and forced Israel and key Arab states to align in new ways.” The peace plan was “the most credible framework to date for advancing Israeli-Arab peace, creating new opportunities for regional engagement, and countering Hamas’ ideology through a united alliance of Israel and Arab nations committed to peace, security, and prosperity.” Clearly, Palestinians are, if not footnotes, then invisible ink lines in such arrangements.

    This attitude is also echoed in remarks made by the US Vice President, J.D. Vance. Palestinian subservience is assumed in any new proposed arrangement which prioritises Israeli security and a collective of overseeing nation states that will guard against any mischief in the Strip. “The President convinced the entire Muslim world really, both the Gulf Arab states, but as far as South-East Asia as Indonesia, to really step up and provide ground troops so that Gaza could be secured in safety.”

    Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty gave some sense of what is expected. “We are going to support and commit troops within specific parameters,” he told CBS. A UN Security Council mandate would be required, along with clear specifications for what the mission of the troops on the ground would be, “which will be peacekeeping and providing training to Palestinian police.”

    Trump’s near cinematic appearance on October 13 in the compact, claustrophobic Knesset after the handover of the hostages set the scene for Israeli grandstanding, staged mawkishness and denial. Netanyahu was in typical form, accusing Israel’s friends of blood libel stupidity for recognising Palestine; in doing so, they had effectively committed acts of antisemitism, buying “into Hamas’s false propaganda.” Massacring and starving those in the Gaza Strip warranted no mention, but disarming Hamas and demilitarising the enclave did. With praise for both himself and Trump, Netanyahu spoke of jointly forging “a path to bring the remaining hostages home and end the war. End a war in a way that ensures the disarming of Hamas, the demilitarisation of Gaza, and that Gaza would never again pose a threat to Israel.”

    He also thanked Trump for “fully” backing the decision to make the last murderous assault into Gaza City. This “military pressure” provided momentum that eventually saw Hamas capitulate. The US President then “succeeded in doing something that no one believed was possible. You brought most of the Arab world, you did, you brought most of the world behind your proposal to free the hostages and end the war.”

    Opposition leader Yair Lapid, for his part, explicitly denied any genocide or “intentional starvation” of the Palestinians, then proceeded to overlook them in calling on “all the nations of the Islamic world” to engage Israel.

    Trump’s own speech was meandering, personal and free of complex turns. He spoke about his envoy Steve Witkoff as a Henry Kissinger who did not leak, an emissary of singular genius. An interruption by Hadash lawmakers Ayman Odeh and Ofer Cassif, both demanding that Palestine be recognised, did not faze him. And then came mention of the Ukraine War, and Russian President Vladimir Putin and more adulatory remarks for the US delegates who have paid homage to the US God King. They were all part of “central casting”.

    Not a sliver of reference to the Palestinian cause for sovereignty made an appearance, which continues to moan under the strategic expediency of it all, the residents of Gaza doomed to indefinite invigilation at the hands of Trump’s “Board of Peace”. More to the point, he was happy to admit providing weapons at the request of “Bibi” at a moment’s notice. The US made “the best weapons in the world, and we’ve given a lot to Israel, … and you used them well.” But the slaughter could not continue, and the Israeli PM would be remembered “far more” for accepting the peace agreement. “The timing for this is brilliant. I said, ‘Bibi you’re going to be remembered for this far more than if you kept this thing going, going, going, kill, kill, kill.’”

    The Palestinians, granted brief respite from military violence, will be desperately wary. When Lapid mentioned that Trump had “saved far more than one life, and life is an entire world”, it can also be assumed that killing one life kills a world. Some 68,000 Palestinian worlds (a conservative estimate) were extinguished by the munitions and weapons of Israel and its backers. As humanitarian workers return to Gaza, they see the horrors of a lunarscape of devastation. If only Trump had considered paying a visit to that particular part of earth.

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  • Pro-Palestine Movement Vows To Continue Struggle For Lasting Peace

    Scenes of Palestinian emergency workers, journalists, displaced refugees, and children in Gaza celebrating on the streets widely circulated following the announcement of a ceasefire deal. In the United States, Israel’s most powerful ally, people involved in the Palestine solidarity movement met the moment with a similar sense of both mourning and cautious optimism. 

    The Palestinian Youth Movement, a Palestinian diaspora organization that has played a key role in organizing mass demonstrations in the United States since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza, joins “our people in welcoming the prospect of a durable ceasefire agreement,” according to a statement released October 9.

    The post Pro-Palestine Movement Vows To Continue Struggle For Lasting Peace appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • The Convenient Lie


    Newspaper: Democracy.

    The case of death is not at all the cause of the dead, it’s the cause of the living.

    — Ghassan Kanafani, from the novel Men Under the Sun

    My people are fearless and the gallows to each person among us is the instance that precedes the dawn of a new day for all of us … Prosecutor! Understand that when one of us enters the nation’s battle of destiny, he takes into consideration all possible results. But above all, he places his confidence in the determination of the people to win victory.

    — Ghassan Kanafani, from the story “A Heroine from My Country”

    They tell you this is a “conflict.” A “complex issue.” A tragedy happening “over there.”
    They are lying.

    What is happening in Gaza, in Palestine, is the logical, bloody conclusion of a global system of exploitation—a system sustained not by monsters, but by the convenient, daily complicity of those who benefit from it most: the citizen-consumers of the West.

    This complicity is masked by a grand, soothing lie: the lie of democratic citizenship.

    The state and its subjects have entered a symbiotic pact of bad faith. The theory goes like this: in a democracy, the citizen is sovereign. The government’s actions are an expression of the popular will. Therefore, the citizens are responsible. This is the idealistic shell. Let us crack it open and examine the actual, pathetic reality inside.

    The state, functioning as the capitalist class’s executive committee, depends on this lie as its foundational fiction. It is the democratic alibi that launders imperial violence into policy. The weapons shipped to fuel genocide are stamped with the seal of “democratic principles,” their bloody purpose blessed by the hollow ritual of the ballot. This is the dictatorship of the elite, a regime of class power wearing the convincing mask of popular consent—a specific apparatus designed to vaporize the accountability of the capitalist and imperialist classes, dispersing it as a fine mist of collective guilt over the populace.

    But why do the masses accept this lie?
    Because it is an anesthetic.

    Having already swallowed the primordial myth of capitalist democracy—that freedom is consumption and power is a ballot—this smaller lie of passive citizenship is the necessary sedative that numbs the pain of their own powerlessness and the horror conducted in their name.

    Here we must be Kanafanian in our clarity. To be a “citizen” of the metropole is, in practice, to be a consumer. And the consumer’s paradise is built on the graveyards of the Global South. Your stability, your cheap energy, your endless stream of goods, is subsidized by the control and immiseration of others. To truly confront this would shatter the consumer’s world. The cognitive dissonance would be unbearable.

    And so, the lie administers the necessary anesthetic. The recited alibis of impotence (“What power do I have?”) are the superstructure of a material bargain. This is the highest stage of false consciousness: the willed surrender of agency for the comforts of the labor aristocracy. It is a transaction: the consumer trades their revolutionary potential for moral oblivion, outsourcing conscience to the state and NGOs—the very managers of the crisis—who, in return, guarantee the sanctity of the shopping aisle.

    This is the “citizenshipness” we are sold: a hollowed-out identity, a safety valve for dissent. Protest, write your representative, cast your vote—then return to your consumption. The system allows you to perform concerns without ever threatening the foundations of your comfort. It is a brilliant, cynical management of dissent.

    Thus, the genocide and the ongoing Nakba in Palestine are not an aberration. It is the system working as intended. The bombs falling on Rafah, Occupied Palestine, are funded by the taxes of the Western citizenry. The diplomatic cover is provided in their name. Their silence—or more accurately, their fragmented, ineffective noise—is the permission slip.

    The connection is not metaphorical; it is material. The luxury lifestyle and the genocide are two outputs of the same machine. One is the direct, concentrated violence of imperialism. The other is the diffuse, structural violence of an exploitative global order. They require each other.

    To the real socialists among us, the conclusion is clear: Spontaneous protest is not enough. Moral outrage is not enough. The working classes of the imperial core have been bought off with crumbs from the colonial plunder. They will not achieve revolutionary consciousness on their own. The task falls to an organized political party—those who see through the lie—to break the hypnotic spell of consumer citizenship. To organize, not to plead. To expose the comfort, to make the machinery of complicity grind to a halt.

    And to the Palestinians, the path is one of steadfast, rooted resistance. The Palestinian struggle is not a plea for Western sympathy. It is an anti-colonial/imperial war. It is the absolute negation of the lie. Every act of resistance, from the stone to the slogan, is a truth-telling, exposing the brutal reality that the capitalist West so desperately masks with its talk of “complexity” and “citizenship.”

    The question is not whether the Western citizen is complicit. The question is whether they will continue to choose the convenience of the lie over the difficult truth of their own justice—a justice that is inextricably linked to the justice and liberation of Palestine. To end the genocide there, they must first kill the complacent consumer within themselves.
    There is no other way.

    The lie is convenient.
    The truth is justice.

    Choose.

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  • Anti-ICE Protests Continue As Judges Block National Guard Deployments

    A US federal judge issued a temporary restraining order on October 9, blocking the Trump administration’s deployment of hundreds of National Guard troops to Chicago. Hundreds were already stationed in the midwestern city at the time of this ruling. This comes days after a separate judge blocked the deployment of the National Guard to Portland, Oregon.

    Currently, there are around 500 National Guard troops in the greater Chicago area, 2,400 in Washington, DC, and 100 still in Los Angeles down from a peak of 4,700 in June.

    With the support of the Governor of Tennessee, the state’s National Guard troops are set to begin patrolling the city of Memphis.

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  • Defending Venezuela from U.S. Imperialism

    Steve Ellner, one of my go-to sources on Venezuela, cautions that although the Maduro government has unquestionable shortcomings and is not above criticism, the left’s priority today shouldn’t be purity tests. It should be about the struggle against US imperialism, as it invokes the Monroe Doctrine and evidence-free, “narco-terrorist” narratives on behalf of regime change in Venezuela. There is a relentless effort to demonize Maduro, and some on the putative left fail to recognize the need for a strong state and how difficult it is to construct socialism when your country “has been singled out by Washington for special attack, a fact that has been thoroughly documented.”

    Ellner continues, “If Maduro is brought down, the far right — headed by Maria Corina Machado, who says she wants to see Maduro and his family behind bars — will undoubtedly dominate the new regime with Washington’s blessing. If this were to happen, the most likely scenario would be the kind of brutal repression that has historically followed the downfall of previous governments from Indonesia in 1967 to Chile in 1974.” Eric Zuesse adds that Machado is the “U.S. Deep State’s Venezuelan puppet, successor to Juan Guido and Leopoldo López.”

    Given the above, it was disheartening but not totally surprising that Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for Mayor of New York City, recently said he believes “Nicolas Maduro and Miguel Diaz-Canel are dictators.” This ill-timed and totally unnecessary statement parrots the CIA’s false narrative about Maduro and helps legitimize decades of U.S. aggression against Venezuela and Marco Rubio’s call for regime change in Caracas. I’m afraid Mamdani is sounding a bit like Bernie Sanders.

    Will the US Invade?

    At this point, it’s unclear whether the U.S. will actually invade Venezuela, attempt to destroy the Bolivarian Revolution, install a puppet government, and gain control of the country’s oil, gas, and precious metals. So far, there have been four strikes (September 2, 15, 16, and October 3) on vessels in international waters, but not a scintilla of evidence that the vessels were carrying drugs. Some 4,500 troops (insufficient for a land invasion) and eight warships are stationed off Venezuela’s coast. In addition, several fighter jets have been moved to Puerto Rico. The U.S. State Department has raised its reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest from $5 million to $50 million.

    The Chilean Case

    Here we might recall that on September 4, 1970, the Chilean Left held an enormous rally of some 800,000 workers and peasants who marched before President Salvador Allende, who was standing on the balcony of the Moneda Presidential Palace in Santiago. They chanted, “Build People’s Power! Allende, Allende! The People Will Defend You!” And perhaps more importantly, they pleaded, “We Want Guns! We Want Guns!” For clearly debatable reasons, Allende refused to arm the workers and peasants, and on September 11, a military junta led by General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the socialist government. Allende was too late in finding out that there is no “peaceful road to socialism” when faced with the implacable force of U.S. imperialism that refuses to allow the “threat of a good example.” Maduro learned from the Chilean case and has distributed AK-47s to millions of citizens who are eager to defend the country’s sovereignty.

    We know there has been a strategic retreat by U.S. imperialism in the face of China’s rise and the U.S./NATO defeat in Ukraine. Trump’s fascism is directed at “the Homeland” and the Western Hemisphere. But Trump — who couldn’t even defeat Yemen —might pause at the prospect of coffins coming home from Venezuela.

    Finally, a note: John Pilger’s documentary “War on Democracy” (2007) opened my students’ eyes to U.S. imperialism in Latin America as no classroom lecture could have done. Among the film’s countless attributes were interviews with Hugo Chavez and how the Venezuelan people (and military) rallied to save him from being toppled by Washington. Even given the passage of time, Pilger’s film remains timely for understanding what’s happening today.

     

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  • Outsized and Eccentric: The Farce Behind the Nobel Peace Prize

    The fuss about the Nobel Peace Prize has always been excessively outsized to its relevance. Like most prizes, the panel is bound to have its treasure trove of prejudices and eccentricities in reaching any decision. Thin resumes have swayed the Norwegian committee to acts of dottiness.  Surprising moments of dark humor have made an appearance in the awarding of the prize to warmongers and those antithetical to peace. And those on the Nobel Prize peace panel would barely cause a murmur of acknowledgment outside the spine-like length of that country of only 5.6 million inhabitants. (The current membership of five features, for instance, three politicians: Anne Enger, former leader of the country’s Center Party; former Conservative Party education minister Kristin Clement, and former state secretary of the Labor Party, Gry Larsen.)

    Rather feebly, Asle Toje, another member of the five, uses a gastronomic metaphor in describing the selection process: “We do it pretty much the same way you make a good sauce – you reduce and reduce and reduce.”  The reduction formula leads to surprising, rancid results.  In 1973, the ruthless, toadying poseur Henry Kissinger was overcome with joy in receiving the prize. The National Security Adviser and US Secretary of State had supposedly done much to advance the cause of peace in the Indochina conflict by “spearheading cease-fire negotiations” that led to an armistice in January 1973.  His co-awardee, the North Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc Tho, was far more sensible, refusing to accept a peace award where there was no peace to be had.

    The choice of Kissinger was almost mockingly ghoulish. This was the same man who left his marks all over secret and illegal bombing campaigns in Laos and Cambodia during the Nixon administration, oversaw the extinction of democratically elected governments in Latin America in favor of murderous, authoritarian regimes, and spent his early academic career arguing that the United States might feasibly pursue small-scale nuclear war as a psychological lever.

    The selection for 2025 was always going to be shadowed by the theatre known as the Donald Trump show. By claiming not to want it, the US President has done much to pad his credentials and make himself eligible. He has put on an incomplete, disputable show of halting conflicts while indulging in spells of violence (strikes on Venezuelan shipping, ostensibly carrying drugs to the US; the illegal bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities).

    What the committee has done is the next best (or worse) thing. In opting for María Corina Machado, seen as the main figure of the Venezuelan opposition to the current government of Nicolás Maduro, they have offered the prize to a Trump medium. “I dedicate this prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support in our cause,” she cooed on X.

    Almost hinting at something in the works – that is to say, the ongoing regime change agenda so enthusiastically sought by Washington – Machado was convinced of being “on the threshold of victory and today, more than ever, we count on President Trump, the people of the United States, the peoples of Latin America, and the democratic nations of the world as our principal allies to achieve freedom and democracy.” Given Latin America’s record on peaceful transitions from coups, this was fine humor indeed.

    The award to Machado was, according to the Nordic wiseacres, based on her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.” They go on to be didactic, talking about democracy being in global retreat, with Machado being its illuminating defender. (On being barred from running, she installed the surrogate opposition leader Edmundo González, who allegedly won the July 2024 election.)

    This is the bromide of binary thought. Machado’s record, befitting most political records, is untidy. David Smilde, a student of Venezuelan politics, sees her as “a controversial pick, less a peace activist than a political operator willing to use some of the trade’s dark arts for the greater democratic good.” Even that might be generous.

    For one thing, she is clearly biding her time, shunning local and regional elections, treating the honoring of the 2024 presidential election results as absolute.  She has openly argued for the necessity of foreign intervention in removing Maduro and endorsed Trump’s military buildup in the Caribbean, calling the recent bombing of suspected drug boats a matter of “saving lives”.To remove Maduro was essential, she argues, because of his alleged credentials as “the head of a narco-terrorist structure of cooperation.”

    Disingenuously, she has swallowed the dubious theory that Maduro is the true figure running the Tren de Aragua gang, which Trump accuses of directing operations against the United States. Her Vente Venezuela party has enthusiastically shared the threats by US officials against supposed Venezuelan drug traffickers on X. “If you’re in the Caribbean,” states one recent post, “if you’re north of Venezuela and you’re trying to traffic drugs to the US, you’re a legitimate target for the US.”

    Machado is undoubtedly readying herself to step into any presidential vacancy, forced or otherwise. She claims to have a plan for the first 100 hours and the first 100 days of a transition process, promising to generate wealth for the country valued at $1.7 trillion over 15 years. Her advisor on international affairs, Pedro Urruchurtu, has been open about communicating with the Trump administration over Maduro’s removal.

    Again, this says much about the eccentric reading of peace embraced by the insular Norwegian grandees. If Tom Lehrer was right to call political satire obsolete after Kissinger’s award, it would also be accurate to say that instances of rich farce have come in its wake.

    The post Outsized and Eccentric: The Farce Behind the Nobel Peace Prize first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • Mainstream smears mean the system fears your ideas

    A rightist columnist just labeled me “repellent,” while a left establishment commentator publicly proclaimed, “fuck Yves Engler”. Canada’s ideological apparatus is whipped into a frenzy over my multilayered challenge of Canadian foreign policy and my NDP leadership campaign’s activist anti-capitalism.

    On Friday, the ever-reliable Israel-no-matter-what supporter Rosie Dimanno labeled me “the repellent Yves Engler”. The longtime Toronto Star columnist complained that in August, I wrote, “Over the past century, Canada’s ties to the US and British empires, its interest in geopolitical control of the region, Protestant Zionism, anti-Muslim sentiment, and settler-colonial solidarity have all shaped Canadian policy [towards Israel] to varying degrees. On top of this, there is a well-organized, wealthy, and highly motivated Jewish Canadian-Israel lobby, which has been increasingly powerful in recent decades. No other internationally focused Canadian ethnic/religious lobby is nearly as well-resourced or organized. And CIJA, B’nai Brith and Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre, etc. wield a uniquely powerful tool to silence critics: accusations of antisemitism.”

    While failing to include the initial sentence of my commentary in her genocidal apologia, Dimanno claimed I was “invoking just about every antisemitic trope there.”

    Justin Ling took a different line of attack in the Star. Last week, he opined, “Yves Engler, the choice of the party’s socialist caucus, is a conspiracy-minded author who is quite at home on Russian propaganda networks and who has written bizarre ahistorical blogs questioning the facts of the Rwandan genocide.”

    On Tuesday, both the Star and the National Post published articles suggesting that my leadership campaign, which has raised far more money than many anticipated, was engaged in questionable financial dealings.

    In the National Post on Thursday, Terry Newman noted, “Anti-capitalist, anti-Zionist NDP leadership hopeful Yves Engler made an appearance, handing out flyers to students.” The article was headlined “Inside Montreal’s dark and twisted celebration of dead Jews.”

    In a sign of the depths of status quo ideological rigidity, Paris Marx told Rachel Gilmore, “fuck Yves Engler,” to which the ‘leftist’ laughed heartily, replying, “I feel like he’s not a very serious candidate”. During a segment on the NDP leadership race on Gilmore’s program Thursday, Marx then added, “let’s be real, he’s just chasing clout”. Apparently, the others vying to lead the NDP aren’t “chasing clout”. Neither Marx nor Gilmore said a word about my campaign’s comprehensive new policy platform, drawn up by 45 activists and researchers, titled “Capitalism Can’t Be Fixed – Onward to a Socialist Future”.

    Since I launched my bid to lead the NDP, Gilmore, who spent a decade working for Global, IPolitics, and CTV in Ottawa, has repeatedly taken shots at me while ignoring the substance of my thirteen books and 1000+ articles.

    Anytime I publish an article on Rabble.ca or Canadian Dimension, long-time CBC producer David Gutnick smears me and attacks the publication. Two weeks ago, Gutnick wrote another unhinged comment when Rabble published my “Back to the future — NDP must debate capitalism again”. He noted, “Yves Engler is not anti-capitalist nor anti-war, he fully supports Russian capitalism and one consequence: Putin’s war on Ukrainian civilians.” To the best of my knowledge, I have never written about, let alone “supported”, Russian capitalism.

    Gutnick continued with what someone recently described as “Engler derangement syndrome”, claiming “Engler’s strange insistence that he always be referred to as Canada’s Chomsky and I.F. Stone rolled into one is but one indication in a long list that he is in no way the person to lead the NDP. One wonders why the editor of Rabble publishes such puffed-up nonsense.”

    I have never, let alone “always”, insisted I “be referred to as Canada’s Chomsky and I.F. Stone rolled into one.”

    The unhinged reactions highlight what I document in A Propaganda System: How Canada’s Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Exploitation and Left, Right: Marching to the Beat of Imperial Canada. The rot runs deep in Canada’s ideological apparatus, especially regarding foreign policy.

    The smears are growing because there’s significant support for my campaign’s call for Canada to withdraw from NATO and move beyond capitalism. Genocide advocates fear an NDP candidate who has spent over two decades unapologetically challenging Canadian support for Israeli crimes.

    If they aren’t smearing you, then you probably aren’t seriously challenging our corrupt, genocidal, and wealth-concentrating system.

    To assist, donate, or learn more about my bid to lead the NDP, check out yvesforndpleader.ca

    The post Mainstream smears mean the system fears your ideas first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • Will the US Attack Venezuela?

    Spoiler alert – it already has. This is not a glib answer but a comment on the nature of the conflict. The US mission to wrench Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution out from its roots has a quarter-century pedigree. Stick around to the end of the article for an assessment of the likelihood of an overt military attack inside Venezuela. But first a little historical context.

    Regime change has failed…so far

     In 2002, a US-backed military coup temporarily ousted Hugo Chávez. A mere 47 hours later, the people of Venezuela spontaneously arose and returned their rightfully elected president.

     Washington has persistently interfered in the internal affairs of Venezuela, pouring millions of dollars to rig elections. Yet, the perpetually divided and unpopular US-fostered opposition is more isolated and discredited than ever.

    Undeterred by its 2002 failed coup, the US has repeatedly sponsored attempts to achieve by violence what they could not do by interfering in Venezuelan elections. In 2020, the so-called “Operation Gideon” was designed to kidnap President Maduro. Derisively dubbed the “Bay of Piglets,” this coup attempt along with numerous others failed. Local fisher folk apprehended the mercenaries.

    Among the many diplomatic efforts at regime change by Washington, the Lima Group was cobbled together in 2017. The cabal of 11 rightwing Latin American states and Canada aspired to facilitate “a peaceful exit” to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. By 2021, nearly half of the Lima Group countries had elected progressive governments and that diplomatic offensive fizzled.

    Meanwhile in 2019, the US anointed unknown 35-year-old Juan Guaidó as “interim president” of Venezuela. On December 21, 2022, his own opposition found the puppet so toxic and corrupt that they gave him the boot.

    Previously in 2015, Barack Obama certified that Venezuela was an “extraordinary threat” to US national security. He imposed unilateral coercive measures designed to destroy the Venezuelan economy. Euphemistically called “sanctions,” this form of collective punishment is illegal under international law. Regardless, each subsequent US president has continued and to varying degrees augmented the economic warfare.

    Combined with oil commodity prices cratering – the source of almost all of its foreign earnings – Venezuela experienced the largest peacetime economic contraction in recent world history. Inflation reached 2,000,000% and the days of the Bolivian Revolution appeared to be numbered. However by 2023, in a heroic effort under the resolute political leadership of President Maduro, Venezuela reversed the economic freefall and recorded a 5% GDP growth rate, which has continued in a positive direction.

     US trapped in its imperial imperative

    Without further detailing the multitude of illegal US regime-change machinations, it is sufficient to say that the very successes of the Venezuelans have forced Uncle Sam to escalate the conflict. Forced because, as an imperial power, the United States is structurally driven by its inherent pursuit of hegemony – rule over all potential challengers. This compulsion is codified in its official security doctrine of “full-spectrum dominance.”

    Venezuela has indeed been a challenge. Even before Hugo Chávez was elected in 1998, former President Carlos Andrés Pérez nationalized the country’s oil reserves – the largest in the world – in 1976. Chávez increased state control over the oil industry and expropriated international oil company assets.

    Chávez’s precedent of using the country’s natural resources – including Venezuela’s substantial reserves of natural gas, iron ore, bauxite, gold, coal, and diamonds – to fund social programs, rather than handing them over for private profit, is anathema to the US. Not only does the imperium lust over the oil for its own corporations, but control of such strategic resources are geopolitically critical for maintaining global dominance.

    Venezuela has also been a leader in promoting regional unity that is independent of the US, forging alliances such as CELCA and ALBA. It is a close ally with Nicaragua and Cuba, also on the US enemies list. Through OPEC, Friends in Defense of the UN Charter, and other initiatives, Venezuela has encouraged Latin American unity with Africa and Asia. Venezuela has “strategic partnerships” with China and Russia and is close to Iran. A champion of Palestine, it broke relations with Israel in 2009. Venezuela also supports an emerging multilateral international community.

    For all these “offenses,” the Bolivarian Revolution’s existence is insufferable to the Yankee hegemon…to be crushed.

    The guard rails are down

    Trump is operating with virtually zero institutional constraints. A mere five congressional Democrats recently awoke from their slumber to send a letter meekly suggesting that presidential “powers are not limitless.” But the Senate just voted against a war powers resolution to constrain attacks on Venezuela.

    Democrat representatives on the House Foreign Affairs Committee posted on X: “Trump and Rubio are pushing for regime change in Venezuela. The American people don’t want another war.” However, their colleagues in the Senate provided a unanimous mandate to the very same Republicans who ran on a “Maduro must go” platform. They rushed to do so, without debate, in the very first hours of the new administration.

    Within the bipartisan consensus for regime change in Venezuela, the differences are cosmetic. The Democrats would prefer to overthrow the sovereign state “legally.” Truthout reports that some senior Democrats warned “fellow members against opposing Trump’s war, saying that it would be tantamount to throwing their support behind Maduro.” If the Republicans precipitate an attack, the Democrats at best will agree with the ends but not the means.

    The follow-the-flag press prepares public opinion for a strike

    On September 26, NBC News reported “from the White House” that the US is planning strikes inside Venezuela. The one-minute video is actually of a guy standing in the street outside the White House, claiming that he had chatted with four unidentified “sources.” Subsequently, this unsubstantiated scoop went viral, picked up by almost every major corporate press outlet.

    The New York Times editorialized: “Mr. Trump has grown frustrated with Mr. Maduro’s failure to accede to American demands to give up power voluntarily and the continued insistence by Venezuelan officials that they have no part in drug trafficking.” What doesn’t occur to these Pentagon scribes, is that neither has Mr. Trump shown any enthusiasm for giving up power voluntarily or even admitting to the documented conclusion by the US in drug trafficking.

    In one of its typical propaganda pieces trying to pass as a news story, the Times tells us “what we know” about Washington’s offensive against Venezuela: “the endgame remains opaque.” Apparently, they don’t know jack, because the endgame is regime change. In remarks aimed at Venezuela, Mr. Trump threatened: “We will blow you out of existence.”

    All the elements are in place for a strike inside Venezuela

    • Diplomatic relations with Venezuela have been broken since 2019.
    • In 2020, the US indicted President Maduro for narco-terrorism, placing a $15 million bounty on him, subsequently raised to $25m and now $50m.
    • On January 20, Trump took office. Executive Order 14157 declared a “national emergency” and designated international drug-trafficking groups as “foreign terrorist organizations” (FTOs) and “specially designated global terrorists,” citing authority under the Alien Enemies Act.
    • By February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued that FTOs posed an “existential threat” and laid the groundwork for treating cartels allegedly linked to President Maduro as enemy combatants.
    • In May, the administration opened the path to use military force against FTOs.
    • Then in July, a “secret directive” authorized military operations against FTOs at sea and on foreign soil.
    • By August, the US launched a massive naval deployment off the coast of Venezuela. By October, troop deployment reportedly reached 10,000.
    • On September 2, the US blew up the first of four or five alleged drug boats in international waters off of Venezuela, resulting in extrajudicial murders of the crews.
    • By mid-September, the Pentagon notified Congress under the War Powers Resolution that US forces were engaged in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels.
    • This was followed on October 1 by the Defense Department’s “confidential memo” and more congressional briefings that the US was engaged in armed conflict.
    • Trump then terminated the last back-channel diplomatic contacts with Venezuela.

    If the “international community” can’t halt the ongoing US/zionist genocide in Palestine, the Yankee juggernaut faces little effective resistance in the Caribbean. A US attack inside Venezuela is imminent!

    The post Will the US Attack Venezuela? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • Thoughts On The Ceasefire News

    Israel continued to hammer Gaza with military explosives on Thursday despite the announcement of the first stages of a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

    Israel always does this. When normal people get a ceasefire agreement, they think, “Good, this means we can finally stop fighting and killing.” Whenever Israelis get a ceasefire agreement, they go, “This means we have to hurry up and kill as many people as possible before it takes effect.”

    But it does appear that the killing and abuse will at least diminish for a time, which is an objectively good thing no matter how you slice it.

    The first stages of the agreement reportedly entail a partial withdrawal of IDF troops, Israel’s starvation blockade officially ending, humanitarian aid being allowed into the enclave, and both Israel and Hamas releasing captives and stopping the fighting.

    Drop Site News reports that, according to Hamas sources, subsequent  phases will entail “No surrender, no disarming, no mass exile, but most of all a permanent end to the war.”

    SCOOP: this is the agreement document between Israel and Hamas under the title “Comprehensive End to the Gaza War” – including the signature of the mediators. More details of my story – at @kann_news pic.twitter.com/1qGPGFck7q

    — Gili Cohen (@gilicohen10) October 9, 2025

    It remains to be seen if there will be any movement toward a lasting ceasefire beyond the first stage. When an agreement was reached late last year, it never made it beyond the first phase, and then the Trumpanyahu administration declared a siege and resumed the killing.

    The far-right members of the Netanyahu regime certainly seem like they don’t expect the ceasefire to hold.

    Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a statement that Israel has a “tremendous responsibility to ensure that this is not, God forbid, a deal of ‘hostages in exchange for stopping the war,’ as Hamas thinks and boasts,” and that “immediately after the hostages return home, the State of Israel will continue to strive with all its might for the true eradication of Hamas and the genuine disarmament of Gaza.”

    Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir issued similar remarks, saying that he and his Jewish Power party will use their leverage to dismantle the Netanyahu government if it “allows the continued existence of Hamas rule in Gaza.”

    Netanyahu himself has been studiously avoiding any talk of commitment to a lasting ceasefire, mostly limiting his public statements to the significance of freeing Israeli hostages.

    Notice how it doesn’t say words like “ceasefire,” “withdrawal,” or “end of war.” pic.twitter.com/HqSWje4313

    — Assal Rad (@AssalRad) October 9, 2025

    So there’s not a whole lot to feel optimistic about here. If the killing does stop on a lasting basis, it will be a pleasant surprise.

    If it does, we can only surmise that the US and Israel calculated that the worldwide PR crisis created by the genocide was getting too severe to sustain, which would be a win for all of us. Trump has gone on record to say that “Bibi took it very far and Israel lost a lot of support in the world. Now I am gonna get all that support back.”

    Either that, or they calculated that they’re going to need all their firepower for a planned war with Iran, which would, of course, be terrible for everyone.

    We shall see. For now, at least, it will be nice for everyone to have a breather. If things really do calm down, I’m going to do something I’ve never done in my entire writing career and try to take a full weekend off work to decompress. Focusing on a live-streamed genocide for two years takes a toll on the mind and body.

    Here’s hoping for a better future.

    The post Thoughts On The Ceasefire News first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • Tiktok, Oracle, And Israel: The New Geopolitics Of Algorithms

    Launched in 2017 by the private Chinese company ByteDance, TikTok quickly became one of the most important social networks on the planet. By early 2025, it had 1.6 billion active users, more than half of them outside China, of whom an estimated 170 million are North American; 1 in 5 people in the US get their news from this network, 4 in 10 among the 18-29 age group. Today, it is the fastest-growing platform among the younger segments of the global population.

    The US government has waged a long battle to force ByteDance to sell the US branch of TikTok to a group of “domestic” capitalists, citing national security concerns and threatening to ban the platform in the US if the deal did not go through.

    The post Tiktok, Oracle, And Israel: The New Geopolitics Of Algorithms appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • American Defiance Will Ultimately Save Our Democracy

    As president Trump tears up the U.S. Constitution he twice swore to uphold, fierce backlash from an aroused John and Jane Public is not far off. Contempt for that document and Americans’ baked-in characteristic of feistiness when pushed too far is one of the four key factors preventing him and his regime from turning democracy into a dictatorial dynasty.

    Three of the four historic factors buttressing America’s form of democracy against Trump’s autocracy were recently listed by Politico contributor Jonathan Schlefer. They should lift the spirits of the fearful and depressed a notch or two:

    A careful comparison with countries that fought off autocratic attempts, as well as those which succumbed, suggests that American democracy might be more resilient than you think. At a minimum, it has crucial advantages over democracies that failed. Three main things stand out: None was nearly so rich [as the U.S.]. None was nearly so long-lived. And none had a legal establishment tracing its genealogy back to Magna Carta in 1215.

    But the most powerful, unmentioned factor of all, however, is raising the dander of average Americans when their personal “ox is finally gored.” As consumer-advocate Ralph Nader warned Trump recently in Common Dreams:

    Americans don’t like to be told to shut up; they don’t like to have things rightfully theirs taken from their families; they don’t like to be fired en masse without cause; they don’t like government contracts for vital services being arbitrarily broken. They also don’t like their government being overthrown by fascistic gangsters….

    Once Trump’s voters and his business base start turning against him, with wide media coverage and dropping polls, the stage will be set for surging demands for his resignation and impeachment that starts with “impossible,” then “possible,” then “probable,” then conviction. If the GOP sees either its political skin at risk in 2026 versus Trump’s destructive, daily delusions and dangerous daily damage, politicians will put their political fortunes first. That is what Congressional Republicans did when they told Nixon to resign in 1974 over the Watergate scandal.”

    Our history is punctuated by Americans initially made hot-tempered from being treated like medieval serfs with no rights by British kings and their swaggering local officials and troops. Most complaints were over British taxes and tariffs, but also tenants’ rights, starvation, cutting ship masts from trees, newcomer rivalries, Christian morality, and Parliament’s Navigation Acts mandating trade only with Britain.

    The Boston Revolt of 1689, for example, had the longest list of grievances against the British governor: enforcing those Acts, restricting town meetings, promoting the Anglican church in a Quaker city, denying land claims, negating Boston’s city charter, assigning hated British officers to lead the local militia. The last straw may have been his creating a “Dominion of New England” for easier control of defiant subjects using litigation, civil disobedience, nettlesome newsletters like the Pennsylvania Journal, fists, and guns. Nearly 20 Colonial uprisings were recorded between 1676 and 1776.

    At the lower social levels in those days were tavern brawls over politics, insults to women, cockfight boasts , and losing at cards and skittles. Not to mention collecting horseracing bets, or my indentured ancestor decking an officious British constable for missing a tax appointment on the Boston docks.

    At upper-class levels, testiness in the early 1800s was exemplified by the famous duel between former Treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton when he called his long-time political rival Vice President Aaron Burr “a dangerous man” at a dinner party. Burr called him out and fatally wounded him in a duel.

    Fifty-six years later when abolition divided the nation, Massachusetts’ Sen. Charles Sumner had just made a major anti-slavery floor speech attacking a colleague (“a noisesome, squat, and nameless animal”). South Carolina’s fiery House member Preston Brooks marched into the Senate to avenge his friend. He aimed his metal-topped cane at Sumner’s head and nearly beat him to death.

    Meantime out in the lawless West, cattle rustling, horse and hog thievery, and land disputes were involved in “the great range wars” usually settled by rifles, savage beatings, and impromptu hangings. One dustup was New Mexico’s “Lincoln County War” of the 1870s where Billy the Kid got his start as a posse member turned killer until he was gunned down. Jesse James was another. Hair-triggered and an unregenerate Confederate, he and his brother Frank formed a gang robbing banks, stagecoaches, and trains all over the Midwest. Jesse even issued press releases about their prowess—until he, too, took a bullet to the head.

    It’s undeniable that the number of books about their deeds, the movies and television series reveals a rancorous public drawn to their murderous adventures as “speaking truth to power.” It strongly indicates millions still yearn for a Robin Hood—even though none of their booty ever went to the poor.

    Economic victims in the late 1890s suffered under robber barons and their president William McKinley, a high-tariff, global conquistador. But at the 1901 New York exposition, he grandly extended a plutocratic handshake to a bitter, 28-year-old laid-off Ohio factory worker who had stalked him for weeks. The assassin threw off a handkerchief concealing a pistol, and fatally shot him.

    What American today has not done a slow burn finally igniting a raging internal inferno over both molehills and mountains?

    Watch a schoolyard of five-year-olds when an unintentional bump turns into fistfight. Or listen to a chorus of objections to line-jumpers at athletic events or the movies. The act of driving can transform peaceful Jekylls into near homicidal Hydes. Add resentments over barking dogs, unruly kids, driveway blockage, tree cutting or planting, spraying bushes, and grass clippings blown across a neighbor’s property line once too often.

    As for loving a neighbor as “thyself,” Google lists pages of neighbor vs. neighbor lawsuits winding up in civil or criminal courts. Too often, they also turn into bloodletting.

    One celebrated case involved Kentucky’s Sen. Rand Paul. He had just stepped off his mower when a surly neighbor raced over, struck him from behind, breaking six ribs and injuring his lungs. The cause? A bundle of yard debris crossing the property line (“He must have lost it,” said Paul).

    However, testiness has grown far more serious these days with the availability of guns. Last year, an irate neighbor in Alabama “discharged multiple rounds” into his target’s house. Another pair of neighbors in Palm Beach, Florida last May evidently argued over moving a basketball hoop shared by both households to a new spot. One pulled a handgun and fatally shot the other—and his wife.

    All of the evidence above brings us to the main point being made here: If Americans are so easily irked by the “small stuff,” consider what they’ll do about large and immediate issues affecting survival. Like Trump’s killing Medicaid. Or slowly strangling Social Security and Medicare. Or laying off hundreds of thousands of federal civil servants.

    In Trump’s months-long blitzkrieg of more than 200 executive orders (EOs) to overthrow democracy for a dictatorship, he seems to count on his military’s use of flash-bang bombs, tear gas, beatings, jailings, and killings to silence Americans into groveling obedience.

    He and his advisors somehow have forgotten the thousands of mutinous troops in Vietnam: fragging officers, disobeying direct orders for patrols and battles and the like. If they balked at killing an Asian enemy, wouldn’t they do the same when it involved fraternizatings from their fellow Americans (Sunday dinners, bowling, beer and TV sports invitations), a tactic suggested by one activist group in Portland?

    Now, the July No Kings demonstration drew five million Americans to the streets (and millions more at home) 1.5 percent of the population . The second No Kings rally October 18 may well draw double that number, given Trump’s latest spate of illegal and cruel EOs. Crowd-counting statisticians such as Erica Chenoweth at Harvard’s Kennedy School have said that even a one percent protest has tumbled almost half of the world’s dictators.

    Add to all these millions of angry “little people,” the anxious or furious 2.3 million Federal civil servants who’ve kept the wheels of government service running. They see the handwriting on the wall in viewing the treatment of 100,000 colleagues being summarily forced out of careers without the legality of reduction-in-force hearings. The economic impact alone on their families, landlords, producers and sellers of retail goods and services will be devastating.

    True, the federal courts have temporarily halted some of the most unconstitutional of Trump’s orders so far, and he’s chosen to ignore their rulings. But not the temperament of most ticked-off Americans. And that could erupt at any time, despite Senators like Oregon’s Jeff Merkley writing to us Portland creative activists to “cool it.” He said:

    “Trump’s play is right out of the authoritarian handbook: he wants to stoke violence, then use violence to justify tightening his authorian grip on our communities. We can’t play into his hand. I urge folks to remain peaceful, and to not take his bait.” Oregon’s governor Tina Kotek also told us that Trump’s federalizing 200 of our National Guard would cost state taxpayers $10 million. So we’re willing to stay calm, cool, and collected—for rhe moment.

    But whether trying to bully, muzzle, and suppress feisty Americans into accepting Trumpian chains will never, ever work for long. For 400 years we have been fighting bullies and smiting would-be dictators. Here in Portland and other targeted cities, we’re unlikely to stop anytime soon.

    The post American Defiance Will Ultimately Save Our Democracy first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • Urgent Next Steps for Palestine at the UN

    As U.S. President Donald Trump surely intended, his “20-point Gaza plan” succeeded in upstaging calls by many other world leaders at the UN General Assembly for concrete, coordinated UN-led measures to force Israel to end its criminal genocide in Gaza and the illegal occupation of Palestine.

    Trump’s White House meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyah on September 29 coincided with the last day of the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York, where Trump had met with eight Arab and Muslim leaders at the UN and won their support for a proposed plan for Gaza. In a textbook bait-and-switch, Trump then allowed the Israelis to significantly alter his plan before he unveiled it to the world at his meeting with Netanyahu, but pretended it was the same plan that the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and other countries had endorsed.

    Trump’s plan is based on cornering Hamas into a series of steps it hasn’t agreed to: freeing all the Israeli prisoners in Gaza without a full Israeli withdrawal; surrendering its weapons and its role in Palestinian politics; and handing Gaza over to a new phase of Israeli occupation. Gaza would be governed by a “board” headed by Trump and former U.K. prime minister Tony Blair, who not only invaded Iraq alongside the U.S. in 2003, but at the same time masterminded a dirty war against Hamas that led to the isolation and blockade of Gaza, and ultimately to the current crisis.

    Under Trump’s plan, Israel would agree to end its genocidal assault on Gaza and partially withdraw its forces, but nothing in his plan would prevent it relaunching the genocide once the Israeli prisoners in Gaza were safely back in Israel. It would also retain control of Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt, allowing it to keep restricting the entry of food, medicine and rebuilding materials.

    In response to Trump’s proposal, Hamas agreed to release all its Israeli prisoners in return for an Israeli release of Palestinian prisoners, but only after a permanent Israeli ceasefire and withdrawal from Gaza. Prime minister Netanyahu said publicly that Israel will not withdraw its forces from Gaza until Hamas and other Palestinian forces have been removed from power and disarmed, while Hamas insists it will not disarm until the occupation of Palestine ends and its fighters can hand over their weapons to the new armed forces of the sovereign nation of Palestine.

    Hamas also responded that it has no authority to act as the sole negotiator in talks on the future of Palestine. It said Palestine must be governed by Palestinians, not Trump or Blair, and that its future must be negotiated between representatives of all Palestinian factions.

    So Trump’s plan is rife with conditions that one side or the other won’t agree to, and it seems unlikely to end the genocide. But in any case, it is clearly designed to perpetuate, not to end, Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. As the Progressive International said in a statement on October 7:

    Far from paving a path to peace, it offers a blueprint for the further colonisation and subjugation of the Palestinian people — the culmination of decades of dispossession and destruction that reached its dark zenith in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

    The current negotiations may collapse quickly or drag on for weeks or months, but the UN and the world’s governments should not sit idly by as passive observers. The UN should urgently prepare to take the concrete steps that leaders from around the world called for at the General Assembly in September, to give force to UN General Assembly resolutions calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, the unrestricted restoration of life-saving humanitarian aid, and a final end to the brutal Israeli occupation of Palestine.

    In July 2025, the UN General Assembly organized a “High-level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution.” The conference was chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, and its goal was “not only to reaffirm international consensus on the peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine but to catalyze concrete, timebound and coordinated international action toward the implementation of the two-State solution.”

    The conference produced a lengthy “New York Declaration,” which was endorsed by the General Assembly in a resolution on September 12, by a vote of 142 to 10, with 12 abstentions.

    But this was a plan for the “day after,” which, by itself, failed to bring that day any closer, because it deliberately avoided taking the “concrete, timebound and coordinated international action” that the conference’s mandate had explicitly called for.

    The declaration was based on the deliberations of 8 working groups, co-chaired by representatives of 15 different countries, the Arab League and the European Union, which each drew up plans for the aftermath of a hypothetical permanent ceasefire in Gaza, with topics like “Humanitarian Action and Reconstruction” and “Security for Israelis and Palestinians.”

    Three roundtables at the July conference, chaired by former Irish president Mary Robinson, former Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid bin Ra’ad of Jordan, agreed that the General Assembly’s first step should be the international recognition of the state of Palestine.

    UN recognition requires the approval of both the General Assembly and the UN Security Council. However, with such a large majority of countries supporting recognition, and the United States abusing its veto to sideline the Security Council, the General Assembly can call an Emergency Special Session (ESS) to act alone under the “Uniting for Peace” principle, to officially recognize Palestine and welcome it as a full UN member.

    Instead, while several Western countries finally recognized Palestine, bringing the total number who have recognized its independent statehood to 157, the declaration was endorsed in a regular session of the General Assembly that lacked the power to grant formal UN recognition.

    But the most serious omission from the July 2025 conference and the September 12 resolution was that they failed to take concrete, coordinated UN action to impose a ceasefire in Gaza, the vital first step to get to the “day after” that the working groups at the conference were tasked with planning for. Trump took advantage of that omission to propose an end to the genocide in Gaza on terms that would perpetuate the Israeli occupation instead of ending it.

    It was entirely predictable that Israel would reject and ignore the New York Declaration, and prime minister Netanyahu did just that in his General Assembly speech on September 26. But after most of the delegates walked out and left Netanyahu ranting to a nearly empty hall, the Hague Group of countries led by Colombia and South Africa hosted a meeting with representatives of 34 countries to plan the coordinated, concrete action the UN must now take to end the genocide and the occupation.

    As Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez Parilla told the General Assembly in his speech the next day, it should convene an Emergency Special Session “without further delay” to take concrete measures for Palestine, including a binding resolution on full UN membership.

    If the General Assembly is serious about ending the genocide and the occupation, the Emergency Special Session must also debate and vote on a UN-led arms embargo, economic boycott and other concrete measures designed to force Israel to comply with international law, international court rulings and UN resolutions on Palestine.

    The UN Human Rights Office in Geneva already has a database of 158 Israeli and multinational corporations that are complicit in Israel’s illegal occupation, so an international boycott of those companies could take effect immediately.

    Israel is a small country, dependent on trade and economic relations with countries all over the world. If the large majority of countries that voted for the New York Declaration are ready to back their words and their votes with coordinated action, a UN-led trade boycott, divestment campaign and arms embargo can put enormous pressure on Israel to end its genocide in Gaza and its illegal occupation of Palestine. With full participation by enough countries, these steps could quickly make Israel’s position untenable.

    Many speakers at the 2025 General Assembly called passionately for this kind of decisive action to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza and end the occupation. King Abdullah of Jordan asked, “How long will we be satisfied with condemnation after condemnation without concrete action?”

    President Lula said that Brazil already has an arms embargo against Israel and has cut off all trade with its illegal settlements; Turkiye severed all trade links with Israel in August; Dutch prime minister Dick Schoof called for an arms embargo and the suspension of the EU’s trade agreement with Israel; and Chadian prime minister Allah-Maye Halina declared, “Our duty from this moment on is to transform this strong declaration into concrete acts and make the Palestinian people’s hope a reality.”

    The Hague Group of countries was formed by the Progressive International to support South Africa’s genocide case at the International Court of Justice and war crimes cases against Israeli officials at the International Criminal Court. In a meeting at Bogota in Colombia in July, twelve of those countries committed to an arms embargo and other concrete measures against the Israeli occupation. In his speech to the General Assembly on September 23, Colombian president Gustavo Petro called for an Emergency Special Session on Palestine and for a UN peacekeeping force to “defend Palestine.”

    A previous Emergency Special Session in September 2024 demanded that Israel must end its post-1967 occupation of Palestine within a year. Israel’s refusal to even begin to do so, and its defiant escalation of its genocide in Gaza, increasing repression in the other occupied territories and attacks on other countries provide all the grounds the General Assembly should need to take the concrete, coordinated measures that many countries are calling for.

    Tragically, instead of applying the diplomatic and economic pressure it will take to secure a ceasefire and end the occupation, France, Saudi Arabia and their partners instead relied on dangling carrots in front of Israel, such as regional economic integration and recognition by Arab and Muslim countries, to try to seduce or bribe Israel into complying with international law and UN resolutions.

    This was never going to work. The toothless New York Declaration, and now Trump’s new occupation plan for Gaza, have wasted irreplaceable, precious lost time for the besieged, starved, bombed people of Gaza, as more of them are killed, maimed and starved to death every day. The UN General Assembly must follow up on these flawed initiatives with decisive UN-led action to actually end the genocide and the occupation, by imposing economic sanctions, an arms embargo and other measures to diplomatically and economically isolate Israel.

    There is nothing to prevent the UN General Assembly from quickly convening a new meeting of its Emergency Special Session on Palestine. The ESS can finally take the “concrete, time-bound, coordinated international action” that the French- and Saudi-led initiative promised but failed to deliver – what Malaysian foreign minister Mohamad Hasan described to the General Assembly as “concrete action against the occupying force.”

    Across the world, ordinary people are rising up to demand that their governments take action, while flotillas of activists set sail to breach the blockade of Gaza that their governments have failed to challenge.

    The Emergency Special Session of the UN General Assembly, meeting under the Uniting for Peace principle, can debate and pass binding resolutions on UN recognition of Palestine, a UN-led international arms embargo, economic boycott and disinvestment campaign, war crimes prosecutions, and other measures to diplomatically isolate Israel.

    By responding to calls of conscience from their own people, voting for these measures at the UN and acting quickly to enforce them, the governments of the world have the collective power to end this genocide and the brutal, illegal occupation of Palestine that it is part of. Now they must use it.

    The post Urgent Next Steps for Palestine at the UN first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Two Years of Resistance to Imperialist Barbarism!

    Two years after Al-Aqsa Flood, Palestinians Continue Their Fight for National Liberation and the Right to Exist!

    Today, October 7th, 2025, marks two years since Operation Al-Aqsa Flood changed the present and future of resistance not only in Palestine, but throughout the world. As we have stated previously, “the Black Alliance for Peace views the Al-Aqsa Flood as a legitimate resistance operation by the besieged Palestinians – the only party with an internationally recognized right of resistance. We support Palestinian resistance against the violent military domination by white supremacist imperialism and colonialism that began, first in the form of British colonialism, and continues in the form of zionism.” The Palestinian Resistance has given humanity the ideological clarity to understand in no uncertain terms the true nature of zionism and capitalist imperialism, and the so-called “Western civilization” that upholds them.

    The Palestinian Resistance in Gaza, as well as in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, has unmasked the “Western liberal order” for what it has always been, a structure of degradation, war, and genocide – based in the exploitation and domination of the masses of the world’s people. They have shown all of humanity that while resistance comes with a cost, within this global imperialist system, it is the only path to self-determination, human dignity, and collective liberation. The Palestinian people have paid an unconscionable cost for their resistance. The people of Lebanon, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, and Syria have also found themselves further engulfed in the fire caused by zionist settler-colonialism and U.S.-led imperialism.

    While some would draw sharp distinctions between the Biden and Trump administrations, the former’s full-throated support for the zionist genocide in Gaza reveals to us that the entire duopoly of political elites in the United States has been spearheading support for the state of Israel’s genocidal ambitions. The Trump administration has only accelerated and further unmasked these intentions. The Trump-Netanyahu “peace plan” for Palestine provides insight into how the ruling political and corporate elites plan to divide and dominate the globe in a more advanced, straightforwardly militaristic status quo.

    In Gaza, this plan would mean that Palestinians are excluded from negotiations over their own territory, forced into a “bantustan” framework under foreign supervision, and stripped of meaningful statehood while international forces oversee their administration, a return to the colonial British model of control that precipitated the 77 years of Nakba and occupation. Haiti is now being subjected to a similar model: decisions imposed by external actors, foreign forces exercising operational command, and a people’s sovereignty denied under the pretext of “security.” In both cases, imperial powers insist on “peace” and “stability” while erasing the political agency of the oppressed. As we have seen with the genocide in Gaza and accelerating settler-occupation throughout Palestine, BAP understands that the logic of U.S.-led imperialism is destruction, dismemberment, and death for all oppressed peoples.

    In the face of this outrightly colonial “peace plan”, Hamas’s response further solidifies the clarity and heroism of the Palestinian Resistance. Rather than capitulate, the Resistance agreed in principle to releasing the captives, an agreement they made as early as 2023 but which was sabotaged by the zionist entity. They also agreed only to a governing structure that would be in alignment with the principles of international law and the national interest of Palestine, while leaving further terms to be worked out in negotiations. Resistance, not concessions, is what has forced this plan forward.

    Whether in Gaza, the Congo, Sudan, the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, or Haiti, the only “peace” that U.S.-led imperialism seeks is capitulation [or submission] to “full-spectrum dominance” and white supremacist, colonial control, which is the antithesis of self-determination for the colonized and oppressed masses of the world. This colonial control and false peace-making follows the consistent logic of domination and genocidal settler colonialism that Indigenous peoples of North America have been subjected to for over 500 years. This same colonial logic is playing out in cities across the U.S., as Black/African and Brown people and neighborhoods are occupied and terrorized by federal and local militarized “police” forces, and those who resist their brutalization and violation of human rights are punished with more brutalization. This logic is enforced through a militarization of our local environments and nations around the globe by the U.S. Department of War, which utilizes CENTCOM in Palestine and West Asia, AFRICOM on the continent, SOUTHCOM in Our Americas, INDOPACOM in the Pacific, and NORTHCOM (which oversees DHS/ICE and receives support from the National Guard) in the United States. These are not structures that can be reformed, they must be defeated.

    As our dear sister, and now ancestor, Assata Shakur said, “Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.” While we are far from anything resembling true peace, repair, and freedom for Palestinians in Gaza, the oppressed peoples of the world understand much more clearly now that there is no hope in appealing to a liberal order that sustains itself on our dismemberment, degradation, and death. Resistance, and the development of self-determinative institutions based in popular power, must be our continued response to oppression, from Gaza to Los Angeles, from Haiti to Sudan, from Yemen to Chicago.

    Long live the resistance!

    No Compromise, No Retreat!

    The post Two Years of Resistance to Imperialist Barbarism! first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.