Paranoia manifests in various ways. It can eat away individuals in desperate solitude, whittling away sanity and balance. It can be enlisted in the making of policy. The latter can be particularly dangerous, notably when readying for a fantastic threat. For the Baltic States, Poland and Finland, there is much talk about the Russia threat, one that will supposedly manifest in boots, armour and missiles once the war against Ukraine concludes. Unfortunately, that talk is now manifesting in preparations for war. So eager are these countries in making such preparations, they are willing to exit important treaties in doing so.
The 1997 Ottawa Convention, otherwise known as the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, is one such document. The number of state parties is impressive: 164 in all. The omissions are, however, also notable, including the United States, China, Russia, India and Pakistan. Despite such impediments, the Convention has been instrumental in inducing a near halt of global production and reduction in the deployment of these weapons.
With the vibrant war chat that has gripped European capitals, the stockpiling and use of landmines is now being revisited as a genuine possibility. Even Ukraine, which is a signatory to the Convention, has received landmines from the United States and stated that its compliance with the treaty “is limited and is not guaranteed.”
Last month, the defence ministers of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia released a statement expressing their belief “that in the current security environment it is paramount to provide our defence forces with flexibility and freedom of choice to potentially use new weapons systems and solutions to bolster our defence of the alliance’s vulnerable Eastern flank.” For that reason, a unanimous recommendation was made: that all parties withdraw from the Ottawa Convention. “With this decision, we are sending a clear message: our countries are prepared and can use every necessary measure to defend our territory and freedom.”
This liberation from obligations imposed by international humanitarian law was seen as entirely consistent – and here, perversity creeps in – with all states’ continued willingness to observe it, “including the protection of civilians during an armed conflict. Our nations will continue to uphold these principles while addressing our security needs.”
Estonia’s Defence Minister, Hanno Pevkur, attempted to give the recommendation some context, while trying to dispel notions that these countries had somehow scorned important legal obligations, let alone a global consensus on landmines. “Decisions regarding the Ottawa Convention should be made in solidarity and coordination within the region. At the same time, we currently have no plans to develop, stockpile, or use previously banned anti-personnel landmines.”
In a post on the X platform, Finland’s President Alex Stubb declared his country’s intention to join the four states, while still making the claim that “Finland will always be a responsible actor in the world”. The decision, which was already being considered last November given Russia’s liberal use of such weapons in Ukraine, was made “based on a thorough assessment by the relevant ministries and the Defence Forces.”
Rather anomalously, Stubb went on to claim that Finland was “committed to its international obligations on the responsible use of mines.” Similarly, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Sari Essayah told reporters that Helsinki would “use mines in a responsible way, but it’s a deterrent we need.”
Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, in keeping with language that has become very modish, also stated that exiting the Ottawa Convention would allow preparations “for the changes in the security environment in a more versatile way”. Despite admitting that Finland was not in any immediate danger from Moscow, he was confident that it posed a continuing, European-wide threat.
Given that such devices are indiscriminate and lingering in their lethal and maiming potential, squaring their use with the dictates of international customary law is nigh impossible. Despite their inherently clumsy nature, their skulking defenders can be found. In January 2020, then US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper authored a memorandum reversing a 2014 ban on US production and acquisition of antipersonnel landmines, while permitting their use outside any future conflict on the Korean Peninsula. In doing so, he insisted in rather novel reading that landmines were essential to “becoming more lethal, resilient, agile, and ready across a range of potential contingencies and geographies.”
In its 2023 Landmine Monitor report, Human Rights Watch found that the active remnants of landmines killed more than 1,600 people and injured 3,015 in 2022. Of these, 85% were civilians, with children accounting for half of them. (So much for the protective principle and civilians.) The report also noted various groups most vulnerable to such weapons: nomads, hunters, herders, shepherds and agricultural workers, along with refugees and internally displaced persons.
With such grim assessments and bloody statistics, the recent volte face towards international humanitarian law by Poland, Finland and the Baltic states seems even more remarkable and ill-founded. Paranoia is producing its casualties.
Bad ideas do not necessarily die; they retire to museums of failure and folly, awaiting to be revived by the next proponent who should know better. The Iron Dome shield vision of US President Donald Trump, intended to intercept and destroy incoming missiles and other malicious aerial objects, seems much like a previous dotty one advanced by President Ronald Reagan, known rather blandly as the Strategic Defense Initiative.
In its current iteration, it is inspired by the Israeli “Iron Dome” multilayered defensive shield, a matter that raised an immediate problem, given the trademark ownership of the name by the Israeli firm Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. Given the current administration’s obsession with all things golden, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has dubbed this revived endeavour “Golden Dome for America”. The renaming was noted in a February 24 amendment to request for information from industry. Much sniggering is surely in order at, not only the name itself, but the stumbling.
Reagan, even as he began suffering amnesiac decline, believed that the United States could be protected by a shield against any attack by Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles. The technology intended for that endeavour, much of it requiring a space component, was thin on research and non-existent in development. The envisaged use of laser weapons from space and terrestrial components drew much derision: the President had evidently been too engrossed by the Star Wars films of George Lucas.
The source for this latest initiative (“deploying and maintaining a next-generation missile defense shield”) is an executive order signed on January 27 titled “The Iron Dome for America”. (That was before the metallurgical change of name.) The order asserts from the outset that “The threat of attack by ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missiles and other advanced aerial attacks remains the most catastrophic threat facing the United States.” It acknowledges Reagan’s SDI but strikes a note of disappointment at its cancellation “before its goal could be realized.” Progress on such a system since the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 had been confined to “limited homeland defense” efforts that “remained only to stay ahead of rogue-nation threats and accidental or unauthorized missile launches.”
The Secretary of Defense is also directed, within 60 days, to submit to Trump “a reference architecture, capabilities-based requirements, and an implementation plan for the next-generation missile defense shield.” Such a shield would defend the US from “ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles and the other next-generation attacks from peer, near-peer and rogue adversaries.” Among some of the plans are the accelerated deployment of a hypersonic and ballistic tracking space sensor layer; development and deployment of proliferated space-based interceptors and the development and deployment of capabilities that will neutralise missile assaults “prior to launch and in the boost phase”.
The original SDI was heavy on the intended development and use of energy weapons, lasers being foremost among them. But even after four decades, US technological prowess remains unable to deploy such weapons of sufficient power and accuracy to eliminate drones or missiles. The Israelis claim to have overcome this problem with their Iron Beam high energy laser weapon system, which should see deployment later this year. For that reason, Lockheed Martin has partnered with Israeli firm Rafael to bring that technology into the US arsenal.
To date, Steven J. Morani, currently discharging duties as undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, has given little away about the herculean labours that have been set. “Consistent with protecting the homeland and per President Trump’s [executive order],” he told the McAleese Defense Programs Conference in Washington earlier this month, “we’re working with the industrial base and [through] supply chain challenges associated with standing up the Golden Dome.” He admitted that this was “like the monster systems engineering problem” made even more difficult by being “the monster integration problem”.
The list of demerits to Golden Dome are many, and Morani alludes to them. For one, the Israeli Iron Dome operates across much smaller territory, not a continent. The sheer scale of any defence shield to protect such a vast swathe of land would be, not merely from a practical point but a budgetary one, absurd. A space-based interceptor system, a point that echoes Reagan’s Star Wars fantasy, would require thousands of units to successfully intercept one hefty ballistic missile. Todd Harrison of the American Enterprise Institute has offered a calculation: a system of 1,900 satellites would cost somewhere between US$11 and US$27 billion to develop, build and launch.
A study for Defence and Peace Economics published this year goes further. The authors argue that, even if the US had appropriate ballistic missile defence technology and a sufficient number of interceptors to be distributed in a two-layer defence with an efficiency return of 90%, 8 times more would have to be spent than the attacker for a bill between US$60 and US$500 billion. If it was assumed that individual interceptor effectiveness was a mere 50%, and the system could not discriminate against decoys, the cost would be 70 times more, with a staggering bill of US$430 billion to US$5.3 trillion.
The most telling flaw in Golden Dome is one long identified, certainly by the more sober members of the establishment, in the annals of defence. “The fundamental problem with any plan for a national missile defense system against nuclear attack,” writes Xiaodon Liang in an Arms Control Association issues brief, “is that cost-exchange ratios favor the offense and US adversaries can always choose to build up or diversify their strategic forces to overwhelm a potential shield.” As Liang goes on to remark, the missile shield fantasy defies a cardinal rule of strategic competition: “the enemy always gets a vote.”
Monster system; monstrous integration issues. Confusion with the name and trademark problems. Strategically misguided, even foolish. Golden Dome, it would seem, is already being steadied for a swallow dive.
With the Ukraine War and the retreat of the United States from what has routinely been called Europe’s security architecture, states are galloping to whatever point of presumed sanctuary is on offer. The general presumption is that the galloping is done in the same step and rhythm. But Europe, for all the heavy layers of union driven diplomacy, retains its salty differences.
Poland is particularly striking in this regard, having always positioned itself as a defender against the continent’s enemies, perceived or otherwise. This messianic purpose was well on show with the exploits of King John III Sobieski in his triumphant defence of Vienna against the Ottoman Empire in 1683. The seemingly endless wars against Russia, including the massacres and repressions, have also left their wounding marks on a fragile national psyche.
These marks continue to script the approach of Warsaw’s anxiety to its traditional enemy, one that has become fixated with a nuclear option, in addition to a massive buildup of its armed forces and a defence budget that has reached 4.7% of its national income. While there is some disagreement among government officials on whether Poland should pursue its own arsenal, a general mood towards stationing the nuclear weapons of allies has taken hold. (As a matter of interest, a February 21 poll for Onet found that 52.9 percent of Poles favoured having nuclear weapons, with 27.9 percent opposed.)
This would mirror, albeit from the opposite side, the Cold War history of Poland, when its army was equipped with Soviet nuclear-capable 8K11 and 3R10 missiles. With sweet irony, those weapons were intended to be used against NATO member states.
The flirtatious offer of French President Emmanual Macron to potentially extend his country’s nuclear arsenal as an umbrella of reassurance to other European states did make an impression on Poland’s leadership. Prudence might have dictated a more reticent approach, but Prime Minister Donald Tusk would have none of that before the Polish parliament. In his words, “We must be aware that Poland must reach for the most modern capabilities also related to nuclear weapons and modern unconventional weapons.” According to the PM, “this is a race for security, not for war.”
The Polish President, Andrzej Duda, is also warm to the US option (he has been, over his time in office, profoundly pro-American), despite Tusk’s concerns about a “profound change in American geopolitics”. He was already ruminating over the idea in 2022 when he made the proposal to the Biden administration to host US nuclear weapons, one that was also repeated in June 2023 by then-Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. To have such weapons in Poland was a necessary “defensive tactic […] to Russia’s behaviour, relocating nuclear weapons to the NATO area,” he explained to the BBC. “Poland is ready to host this nuclear weapon.”
Duda then goes on to restate a familiar theme. Were US nuclear weapons stored on Polish soil, Washington would have little choice but to defend such territory against any threat. “Every kind of strategic infrastructure, American and NATO infrastructure, which we have on our soil is strengthening the inclination of the US and the North Atlantic Alliance to defend this territory.” To the Financial Times, Duda further reasoned that, as NATO’s borders had moved east in 1999, “so twenty-six years later there should also be a shift of the NATO infrastructure east.”
Much of this seems like theatrical, puffy nonsense, given Poland’s membership of the NATO alliance, which has, as its central point, Article 5. Whether it involves its protection by a fellow NATO ally using conventional or nuclear weapons, hosting such nuclear weapons is negated as a value. Poland would receive collective military aid in any case should it be attacked. But, as Jon Wolfsthal of the Federation of American Scientists reasons, an innate concern of being abandoned in the face of aggression continues to cause jitters. Tusk’s remarks were possibly “a signal of concern – maybe to motivate the United States, but clearly designed to play on the French and perhaps the British.”
The crippling paranoia of the current government in the face of any perceived Russian threat becomes even less justifiable given the presence of US troops on its soil. According to the government’s own information, a total of 10,000 troops are present on a rotational basis, with US Land Forces V Corps Forward Command based in Poznań. In February, Duda confirmed to reporters after meeting the US envoy to Ukraine Gen. Keith Kellogg that there were “no concerns that the US would reduce the level of its presence in our country, that the US would in any way withdraw from its responsibility or co-responsibility for the security of this part of Europe.”
Duda goes further, offering a sycophantic flourish. “I will say in my personal opinion, America has entered the game very strongly when it comes to ending the war in Ukraine. I know President Donald Trump, I know that he is an extremely decisive man and when he acts, he acts in a very determined and usually effective way.” With those remarks, we can only assume that the desire to have massively lethal weapons on one’s own soil that would risk obliterating life, limb and everything else is but a sporting parlour game of misplaced assumptions.
European leaders meeting in an “Emergency War Summit” in Brussels have agreed on huge increases in arms spending. On entering the meeting, Denmark’s Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, declared “Spend, spend, spend on defense and deterrence.” And in response to an interviewer’s question, French Prime Minster Francois Bayrou dismissed the idea that the French public should have any say in this decision, adding “We can’t let the country be disarmed.” (CNews and Europe 1). French President Macron asserts that peace will come only when Russia is “pacified” and Zelensky, Macron and Starmer will try to meet with Trump once again to hear him reiterate, “No, Non, Hi (Ukrainian) and Nyet.
European leaders have been junior partners, via NATO, with US imperialism (think Libya and Iraq) but now the section of the US ruling class that’s behind Trump is openly severing the partnership. These leaders are bobbing and scrambling to hang on to their old role or find a new one for themselves. Reputations and institutions are at stake and it’s not clear that they can finesse their way out because they’ve always counted on an official narrative about Russia that will be put to the test.
As Alexander Mercouris has noted, the real fear among European leaders is if the US and Russia achieve peaceful relations and a Great Power reset, the fictional “Russia threat” that’s been perpetrated on ordinary Europeans will gradually diminish and people will realize they’ve been lied to all along. For now, we can hope that ordinary Europeans will resist how Europe’s ruling elite try to create hysteria, double down on stupidity (“going batshit crazy” in Mark Sleboba’s words) and eviscerate social programs.
Europeans, as well as their US counterparts, who are unwilling to swallow the official propaganda are subjected to unrelenting Putin-baiting — including from liberals and even self-identified leftists — but we refuse to be silenced. We need to do a better job of using our access to social media to show people that the “Ukraine project” was a proxy war as a prelude to attacking Russia. Finally, we can hope that this will lead to an actual left rising in Europe and the United States.
One thing that instantly struck me watching the White House press conference February 28, 2025 with US President Donald Trump, Vice President J. D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was that the grand welcome accorded to Zelenskyy by the previous US government of Joe Biden and some Western European governments had gone to Zelenskyy’s head. He expected that as he was like an idol to warmongers like Biden and to reporters itching to see Russia defeated, that he would be so to Trump, too.
(Watch Biden/Zelenskyy bonhomie at a press conference with reporters from the dominant/major/traditional/legacy media, the war media, to whom Russia is the “evil empire,” per President Ronald Reagan’s label.)
Zelenskyy was told to put on a suit when visiting the White House. He showed up wearing a commando like stylish black sweatshirt with the logo of Ukrainian tryzub or trident and black pants, both from Ukrainian fashion designer Elvira Gasanova’s menswear label Damirli.
One should have the freedom to wear whatever one wants, however, Zelenskyy has not always worn such casual clothes. He used to wear suits till Russia attacked1 Ukraine, since then his attire has been military/commando style clothes which he says he’ll wear till the war ends. Zelenskyy is not always on the war front, but his clothing creates an impression that he is just coming from the war front, this in turn deludes him into believing that he is kind of a commando. This commando mentality proved almost fatal for the United States-Ukraine relations when he acted as one during the meeting. On March 3, Trump ordered a pause to all military aid to Ukraine — the first wise step to stop the war. Intelligence sharing is also on pause. Zelenskyy needs to come out of this commando mentality.
If Zelenskyy was more powerful than Trump, he could do, wear, say, whatever he wanted to. But he is not. He met Trump for Ukraine, not for himself. If the meeting was a personal one, no one will give a damn even if he blew it up. No. This interaction was for Ukraine and he should have remembered that. As the saying goes: Beggars can’t be choosers. Or as Trump put it: “You don’t have the cards. With us, you have the cards. Without us, you don’t have any cards.”
Zelenskyy badly needs a class in 101 diplomacy. You don’t cut off the branch you’re sitting on; Zelenskyy almost cut off the branch (of the US aid tree) on which Ukraine depends. During the meeting, he constantly argued rather than try and take the conversation towards a more agreeable path.
Despite the fact that US Senator Lindsey Graham, a strong Trump supporter, had warned Zelenskyy beforehand: “Don’t take the bait. Don’t let the media or anyone else get you into an argument with President Trump.”
Zelenskyy’s arguments wouldn’t have mattered if he was arguing with the Biden team, because it was the Biden regime’s war.
Another thing one can deduce from Zelenskyy’s behavior is that he’s not smart like Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu or India’s Narendra Modi (both have big egos and cruel mentality, and wouldn’t hesitate to unleash violence to achieve the desired goals). But neither argue or show any displeasure when they meet Trump because they know they are weak partners vis-a-vis the US which is very strong — I would say too strong for our world, not a very good thing. Israeli leaders are famous for insulting, bypassing, or ordering US leaders but they can’t do that with Trump — of course, instead, they get things done with flattery.
Invited for lunch, but humiliated and shown the door without lunch from the White House, Zelenskyy flew into London in the warm and comforting embrace (albeit, a momentary one) of Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the UK. (Britain, once the greatest empire in the world, now has not much power except, every now and then, it makes some noise to draw attention.)
A conference of 18 leaders: Europeans and Canada’s Justin Trudeau, were called to support Ukraine which Starmer called “coalition of the willing.” The unwilling ones will be crushed or maligned. But the leaders were aware that without the US not much can be accomplished.
Tusk should have added: We are all together but still alone unless the Globo Cop US joins in.
It seems like Zelenskyy came his senses. On March 4, he said:
“None of us wants an endless war. Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer. Nobody wants peace more than Ukrainians.” “My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts.”
Zelenskyy must be feeling very humiliated: first for being dressed down by Trump, and, then for accepting “Trump’s strong leadership.”
Advice for Zelenskyy, if he’s allowed to stay in power, or any other leader who takes over: Try to stay neutral, avoid joining NATO, be friendly, as much as possible, with your neighbors, including Russia, and prevent being a proxy in the hands of US/European warmongers. The devastating result in the form of death and destruction for both Ukraine and Russia is in front of you, due to your prolongation of the war.
Ukrainians must watch the following video of a speech given by Jeffrey Sachs to the European Parliament.
Business-being Trump
The effective rate for many anti-bacterial, disinfectant, and other products is advertised as 99.99% effective. In other words, it’s not absolutely effective and not totally potent.
The same analogy can also be applied to Trump. One could say Trump is 99.99% nasty, greedy, cruel, or whatever. That, however, leaves room for some uprightness in Trump.
Trump’s figure for US support of $350 billion dollars to Ukraine was, as usual, exaggerated, the actual amount is about $183 billion — huge sum of money for the war, for which major support comes only from the Democratic Party’s “affluent upper-middle class base.” However, the total amount Ukraine received from the US, European Union institutes, several countries, and groups amounts to $380 billion.
For Trump, Zelenskyy is not a hero. Trump is a different entity with a diverse agenda; he has been talking about ending the Russia/Ukraine war for a long time and so it was counterproductive to argue and throw tantrums rather than listening to Trump and then requesting a favor here and a favor there. Of course, Trump has his own interest in facilitating a ceasefire, he is eyeing Ukraine’s rare earth minerals.
After all, Trump is business-being and like most businesspersons, his motive is always a financial one.
Trump is right when he points out the danger of the Russian Ukraine war:
“You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War Three2.”
Trump attacked
The war news media and many European leaders instead of thanking Trump for his efforts in working for a ceasefire, which would not only prevent loss of life and destruction in Ukraine and Russia but would also save US and European taxpayers’ money, lambasted him for being a “bully” and termed discussion with Zelenskyy an “ambush.”
Financial Times’ Europe editor Ben Hall said Trump and Vance “were spoiling for a fight” with Zelenskyy. Marc Polymeropoulus, MSNBC’s National Security & Intelligence Analyst noted that Trump and Vance “have humiliated the United States” when they shouted at Zelenskyy.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) accused Trump and Vance of “doing Putin’s dirty work.” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) described Trump’s berating of Zelenskyy “utter embarrassment” for the US.
Trump is wrong on a huge number of issues but not on this one. All those criticizing him are foes of Ukrainian people; it’s they who are paying the price for this meaningless war.
1 The former USSR’s (now Russia) request for NATO membership in mid 1950s was rejected. Why? two logical reasons: one, if Russia is in NATO then you have no enemy to fight with. That is a no, no. Also, there wouldn’t be a war lobby and no arms-related corruption; not a good thing for lobbyists, Congresspersons, weapons producers who always get their cuts, profit, and so on. The other reason was a united Europe wouldn’t be as vulnerable to US dictates as it is now.
2 The World War I and the World War II started by Europeans and the world was dragged in because most countries were under European colonial rule. (The name World War is a misnomer — actually it should be called European World War.) How wise are these idiot European leaders whose insanity could drive Europe towards the European World War III.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will introduce 27 European Union members with her “ReArm Europe” costing $840 billion.
forty hard years of lobotomizing, dumbdowning, infantilizing, and deploying this multilayered PSYOPS of direct and covert operations have been brought to us, partially, by the Edward Bernays of the World … now we are here: Fear and Loathing in Our Delusional and Self-Incriminating Selves! (Haeder, May 28, 2023)
Trillions for Ukraine. Christ, this is 2019, from The Nation, not exactly a radical rag : Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine/ Five years after the Maidan uprising, anti-Semitism and fascist-inflected ultranationalism are rampant. By Lev Golinkin
Before the Russian invasion, CIA reports linked him to an oligarch so dirty and so mired in “significant corruption” that the State Department banned him from entering the U.S.
But now CIA propaganda portrays Zelensky as nobler than Winston Churchill and saintlier than Mother Theresa.
Will the Real Volodymyr Zelensky Please Stand Up (source)
Now now, I know we can’t in PC/PAEC (Politically Approved by Elites Correct) society point out a spade from a diamond. Ahh, even after Nakba 75? Who stopped it, a celebration-remembrance-sadness of that genocide?
Sorry, but it does matter who controls the levers of power, the narrative, the engines of Press-Propaganda-Entertainment. As well as, politics, marketing, education? Nakba is a lie. You don’t see a pattern here?
In a statement Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said, “We will fight the ‘Nakba’ lie with full strength and we won’t allow the Palestinians to continue to spread lies and distort history.”
Ahh, this commemoration, by the UN, of all organizations, is despicable, according to another Jew, and that is a-okay language, no?
In a recorded statement, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Gilad Erdan, said that the organization’s decision was “shameful” and would harm any efforts to find a peaceful solution to the generations-old conflict between the state of Israel and the Palestinian people.
Asking other U.N. representatives to boycott the commemoration, he said, “[A]ttending this despicable event means destroying any chance of peace by adopting the Palestinian narrative calling the establishment of the state of Israel a disaster while ignoring Palestinian hate, incitement, terror and refusal to accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state.”
“UN Recognition of Palestinian Displacement Angers Israel” — One headline, and just replace, “…angers Israel” with, “…. angers Christians, Zionists, Israel-Firsters, Members of Congress, Members of the MSM, politicians, AIPAC, etc., et. …”
Shit, recognition of that Liberty, that United States SHIP, and more poison arrows launched by the Isra-Hellions:
Shit, that crime memorial is coming up, June 8 = The USS Liberty incident was an attack on a United States Navy technical research ship, USS Liberty, by Israeli Air Force jet fighter aircraft and Israeli Navy motor torpedo boats, on 8 June 1967, during the Six-Day War.
Ahh, can we protest that other anniversary? By virtue of General Assembly Resolution 273, Israel was admitted to membership in the United Nations on 11 May 1949. In the three years following the 1948 Palestine war , about 700,000 Jews immigrated to Israel, residing mainly along the borders and in former Arab lands.
Can we remember June 8 without being smeared?
For more information on Israel’s crimes, and the USS Liberty, go here: IAK.
Now transitioning to more racism and bigotry and Big Brother-ism by Jewish leaders, ZioCryptos, and the like, let’s scour the WWW for those attacks on Pink Floyd’s front man: Jews will attack Roger Waters, of Pink Floyd, and they will get countless thousands of lies published in countless broken media outfits immediately. Just Google-Gulag search: “Roger Waters and Berlin Fascism.” Hate, pure lies, and the hasbara and powerful Jewish hatred of thinking Rogers is an antisemite!
Again, a concert, and Israel speaks up.
Israel’s foreign ministry later criticized Waters on social media, tweeting on May 24: “Good morning to everyone but Roger Waters who spent the evening in Berlin (Yes Berlin) desecrating the memory of Anne Frank and the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.”
I am sorry to say that the Jewish folk I have been reading about, listening to, and researching throughout my decades, even from day one of college onward, many (not all) are indeed a clear and present danger to straight-up research and critical thinking. Then, just move over to the fact in my humble opinion, many powerful Jews hate Russia, Russians, and anyone who might dare question the UkroNazi Proxy War with Russia, started, oh, hell, way before 2014.
Self-proclaimed Jewish criminal, Kolomoyskyi is the dirty banker and the dirty funder of Zelensky:
[Photo: On the left, Zelensky in circle behind Kholomoisky. On the right, Zelensky on the campaign trail is followed by one of Kholomoisky’s bodyguards.]
But, read this Jewish rag in Isra-Hell, Haaretz | World News/
Ukraine recently requested air defense systems and training from Israel, saying that Iran would use the deployment of its weapons systems in Europe to refine their capabilities. Still, Israel maintains that it would not send military assistance to Ukraine
A senior Ukrainian official close to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on world Jewry to push Jerusalem to arm his country with defensive weapons on Wednesday, only two days after Moscow warned Israel that supplying military equipment to Ukraine would “destroy the political relations between the two countries.”
Of course, I am disgusted by any racist group calling on “all Jews worldwide to continue the murder of Russians and Ukrainians in Donbass, and now, throughout Ukraine and into Russia.
This is merchant of death war mongering, and it has to stop, stop first by beginning to call a Jewish Fascist a Jewish Fascist when you come in contact with him or her or them: Here, more lies, blatant valorizing of a corrupt and criminal man, Zelensky!
1. The most important Jewish leader in the world (source)
The past week has turned us all into experts on Ukraine, now at the center of every conversation. Did you know how big it is? (When you lay it over the U.S. map, it stretches from New York to Chicago.) Who knew that we were actually using the Russian city names and not the Ukrainian ones (it’s Kyiv, not Kiev; Lviv, not Lvov; and Kharkiv, not Kharkov). And their president—did you know that he is Jewish?
Volodymyr Zelensky is probably the most admired Jewish leader the world has to offer right now. Before entering politics in 2018, Zelensky was a popular comedian (and you can’t get any more Jewish than that); he does not often speak about his Jewish identity, but he has never tried to hide it. In a country like Ukraine, which is still struggling with a painful legacy of antisemitism, Zelensky’s Jewishness has always been present.
For Jews across the world, Zelensky is now a source of pride: a young, inexperienced leader who is putting his life at risk for his people by leading a nation of 40 million people in opposing a ruthless Russian aggressor.
In his inauguration speech, Zelensky famously told lawmakers not to hang his portrait on their walls. “I do not want my picture in your offices: The president is not an icon, an idol or a portrait. Hang your kids’ photos instead, and look at them each time you are making a decision.”
True to form, Zelensky maintained his unassuming, direct style when crisis hit. His video messages, posted several times a day, have been helping reassure the Ukrainian people. He spoke from his office and from the streets of Kyiv, even as Russian troops closed in on the capital, and when the fighting intensified, Zelensky candidly shared with all Ukrainians the fact that he has been marked by the Russians as “target number one” and that his family is “target number two.” But when the U.S. offered to evacuate him from Kyiv to somewhere safer, he responded: “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”
I’m writing this column on Sunday, as Russian forces, bogged down and weakened by courageous Ukrainians armed with AK-47s, Molotov cocktails, or sometimes just a large pole they picked up on the side of the street, still threaten the capital. Zelensky is leading the effort to save his nation, though most foreign intelligence services still think he’s fighting a losing battle.
So, this POS war crimes leader, Zelensky, *elensky because the letter “Z” has been outlawed, and Ukraine and Zelensky with the one-two-three punch of US and UK, with their Kill List, you have to imagine that in the USA and Canada and UK and EU and Europe, all brains have been thrown out the window, or the voice of reason has gone where?
Propaganda is administered in western nations, by western nations, across the political spectrum — and the really blatant and well-known examples of its existence make up only a small sliver of the propaganda that our civilization is continuously marinating in.
The most common articles of propaganda — and by far the most consequential — are not the glaring, memorable instances that live in infamy among the critically minded. They’re the mundane messages, distortions and lies-by-omission that people are fed day in and day out to normalize the status quo and lay the foundation for more propaganda to be administered in the future.
[…]
One of the forms this takes is the way the western political/media class manipulates the Overton window of acceptable political opinion.
It’s propaganda in multiple ways: it excludes voices that are critical of the established status quo from being heard and influencing people, it amplifies voices (many of whom have packing foam for brains) which support the status quo, and, most importantly, it creates the illusion that the range of political opinions presented are the only reasonable political opinions to have.
Then there’s the ideological herding funnel we discussed recently, which herds the population into two mainstream factions of equal size which both prevent all meaningful change and serve the interests of the powerful.
Maybe the most consequential of all the mundane, routine ways we’re propagandized is the way the mass media manufacture the illusion of normality in a dystopia so disturbing that we would all scream our lungs out if we could see it with fresh eyes.
Another of the mundane, almost-invisible ways the public is propagandized from day to day is described in a recent video by Second Thought titled “You’re Not Immune To Propaganda“. We’re continually fed messages by the capitalist machine that we must work hard for employers and accept whatever standards and compensation they see fit to offer, and if we have difficulty thriving in this unjust system the fault lies with us and not with the system. Poor? That’s your fault. Miserable? Your fault. Unemployed? Your fault. Overworked? Your fault.
Another related method of manipulation is agenda-setting — the way the press shapes public thinking by emphasising some subjects and not others. In placing importance on some matters over others simply by giving disproportionate coverage to them, the mass media (who are propagandists first and news reporters second) give the false impression that those topics are more important and the de-emphasised subjects are less so.
But then, this is another form — of propaganda . . . denial, and denigration and plain ignoring alternative views, even those that are consistent and repeated:
But it’s the 74th Anniversary of an illegitimate state, apartheid and ethnic cleansing one albet> This is how ZioAzovLensky rolls, and even the corrupt CIA-controlled Wikipedia has some facts here on the murderous Jews, Zelenksy’s mother ship, historical grounding, who called themselves Zionists, but I know very few Jews who are not ZIONISTS, overtly or covertly:
A successful paramilitary campaign was carried out by Zionist underground groups against British rule in Mandatory Palestine from 1944 to 1948. The tensions between the Zionist underground and the British mandatory authorities rose from 1938 and intensified with the publication of the White Paper of 1939. The Paper outlined new government policies to place further restrictions on Jewish immigration and land purchases, and declared the intention of giving independence to Palestine, with an Arab majority, within ten years. Though World War II brought relative calm, tensions again escalated into an armed struggle towards the end of the war, when it became clear that the Axis powers were close to defeat.
The Haganah, the largest of the Jewish underground militias, which was under the control of the officially recognised Jewish leadership of Palestine, remained cooperative with the British. But in 1944 the Irgun, an offshoot of the Haganah, launched a rebellion against British rule, thus joining Lehi, which had been active against the authorities throughout the war. Both were small, dissident militias of the right-wingRevisionist movement. They attacked police and government targets in response to British immigration restrictions. They intentionally avoided military targets, to ensure that they would not hamper the British war effort against their common enemy, Nazi Germany.
The armed conflict escalated during the final phase of World War II, when the Irgun declared a revolt in February 1944, ending the hiatus in operations it had begun in 1940. Starting from the assassination of Baron Moyne by Lehi in 1944, the Haganah actively opposed the Irgun and Lehi, in a period of inter-Jewish fighting known as the Hunting Season, effectively halting the insurrection. However, in autumn 1945, following the end of World War II in both Europe (April–May 1945) and Asia (September, 1945), when it became clear that the British would not permit significant Jewish immigration and had no intention of immediately establishing a Jewish state, the Haganah began a period of co-operation with the other two underground organisations. They jointly formed the Jewish Resistance Movement.
The Haganah refrained from direct confrontation with British forces, and concentrated its efforts on attacking British immigration control, while Irgun and Lehi attacked military and police targets.[6] The Resistance Movement dissolved amidst recriminations in July 1946, following the King David Hotel bombing. The Irgun and Lehi started acting independently, while the main underground militia, Haganah, continued acting mainly in supporting Jewish immigration. The Haganah again briefly worked to suppress Irgun and Lehi operations, due to the presence of a United Nations investigative committee in Palestine. After the UN Partition Plan resolution was passed on 29 November 1947, the civil war between Palestinian Jews and Arabs eclipsed the previous tensions of both with the British. However, British and Zionist forces continued to clash throughout the period of the civil war up to the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948.
Within the United Kingdom there were deep divisions over Palestine policy. Dozens of British soldiers, Jewish militants, and civilians died during the campaigns of insurgency. The conflict led to heightened antisemitism in the United Kingdom. In August 1947, after the hanging of two abducted British sergeants, there was widespread anti-Jewish rioting across the United Kingdom. The conflict caused tensions in the United Kingdom–United States relations.
Putin and Russians and those of us who actually want Russia to have a safe border, peace, and zero NATO interference, see Zelensky and his Jewish Lords — Kagan Familias, Nuland, Blinken, Yellen, Sherman, Garland, and hundreds of others in the Biden White House and thousands of others in the Military Industrial Expanded (finance, computing, surveillence) Complex and millions more in the world of turning a dollar on death — as the ENEMY. Murderous, conniving, hateful, slick enemies numero uno, those espousing war with China and war with Russia.
I know Dissident Voice is reluctant to publish voices that might lean toward a Pepe Escobar critique of the Israel Hell unleashed on the world. I get it. But, the fact is violence and terror, those are right up Zelensky’s alley, and this war that UK and USA and Five Eyes and EU have unleashed will not end soon, because Ukraine in the minds of many is Israel 2.0. An added “benefit” for these monsters: Expect those weapons that USA taxpayer footed the bill for to bring down some commercial airlines in a neighborhood near-by soon.
We are a soiled Western Culture, and we have seeded the rest of the world with our feces — high tech, low tech, money, land theft, pollution, exploitation, consumerism, throw-away mentality, sanctions, blood lust, coups, supporting despots, money laundering and gold theft and assets removal. Loans from Hell, and alas, here we are, in a putrid world, a day before the big Monday Holiday, Memorial Day, and we are straddled by syphilitic monsters running the world and our own populous generally marked for death, marked as marks, these, the billionaires, the fleecers and many left and right, Jewish or not, they are Zionists and Israel-Firsters who have sold us down the Ukrainian toilet.
Israeli newspapers point out the victories?
These are THEIR graphics, and by me point these out, I am deplatformed, stopped from teaching, pushed to the excrement posts of publishing my books anywhere
But leave it to the Paranoid Former Nazis and the disgusting ADL and AIPAC and Mossad loving Israelis to attack us all attacking them:
“The depiction of an unhinged fascist demagogue has been a feature of my shows since Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ in 1980,” Roger Waters said.
“I have spent my entire life speaking out against authoritarianism and oppression where I set it… My parents fought the Nazis in World War II, with my father paying the ultimate price,” he said.
“Regardless of the consequences of the attacks against me, I will continue to condemn injustice and all those who perpetrate it.”
Waters is a well-known pro-Palestinian activist who has been accused of holding anti-Jewish views. He has floated an inflatable pig emblazoned with the Star of David at his concerts. The singer denies the anti-Semitism accusations, saying he was protesting against Israeli policies, not Jewish people.
Ah, those old days, which now would be both considered hate speech and also ground down by the ugly media and the uglier mainstream fools in college, in towns, every where.
Yep, it is a piece of shit piece of cloth for many, representing so so much death, murder, hate, and racism. Cloth, man, and alas, a symbol, for those who cry crocodile tears when they hear the National Anthem, and then for others, it is the greed and murder and Empire of Chaos-Lies-Terror in every red and white strip, every star and bar:
This stuff is not allowed on campuses, and not just Guantanamo Desantis’s Florida.
This is not anti-DIsney, but it is the Dsneyification of the world, and this is the outcome: bones, immolation, worldwide.
Old school, but you can’t get college students to analyze this without being charged with a Virginia Tech Situation — call SWAT.
I doubt you can loosely call for the execution of Corporations, CEOs, what have you. Again, Virginia Tech Situation — call SWAT on Haeder.
Ahh, if we are the biggest war profiteers, then we’ll be letting China take first place. Yep, that’s the modern college student’s response.
Ahh, I have been warned that telling my students that I was rapped on the head by cops, in Portland, El Paso, Seattle, and elsewhere, and that protest is dangerous but necessary, and that I would dare use the ACAB as an opening to discuss that Defund the Police Movement — who, what, where, when and WHY — as well as my own work as a police reporter and what I think of cops/pigs, all verbotten! Call SWAT on Haeder.
Hell, you can look this one up in Wikipedia. And babies?
Read the transcript: with the reason the poster was made, the soldier who was in the massacre!
Oh, no, trigger warnings, vicarious PTSD, verboten.
Partial transcriptof the Mike Wallace interview with Paul Meadlo in which Meadlo describes his participation in the My Lai massacre:
Q. So you fired something like sixty-seven shots?
A. Right.
Q. And you killed how many? At that time?
A. Well, I fired them automatic, so you can’t – You just spray the area on them and so you can’t know how many you killed ‘cause they were going fast. So I might have killed ten or fifteen of them.
It is a well-oiled, well-placed, complex, 3-D kind of chess machine, and it is pure killer, pure killer, and most campuses utilized Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, Marines, DoD, BOrder Patrol, CIA, FBI, ATF, MONEY. Some of the nation’s most elite universities are deep into defense lobbying, often hiring Washington-based firms to press Congress and the Pentagon to fund their science projects.
Asked whether students or professors ever have ethical objections to working on projects funded by the Defense Department, Zuber said that “no professor has to take money from DoD.”
“We’re a bottom-up organization,” she said. “Professors make those choices.”
She also said that “if there are students who have a feeling that they don’t want to work on defense-related issues, they certainly don’t have to.” But, she added, “a whole lot seem to want to.”
Like MIT, the Association of American Universities, an alliance of 62 of the leading research institutions in the United States and Canada, advocates defense research funding.
The end result is that BABIES, kids, NEWBORNES, women, SENIOR citizens, disabled, PATIENTS in hospitals, youth on PLAYGROUNDS, are mudered, and killed, and imploded, so, then, BABY Killers is just a limited sigh — wedding parties, goat herders, and entire families at gravesites, murdered by universities, colleges, think tanks, corporations, marketing firms, law firms, retail services in the EMPLOY of the USA.
This sign? These youth? Their message? Their no war and stop the escalation and disarmament now, ahh, then, of couse, it’s triple bad, since they are free thinkers and align with New York Young Communist League.
So many more organizations working on it, working on it — no more NATO, no more Arms.
Back to the Jewish thing in Ukraine: And, well, and, who writes the narrative of Ukraine, of Zelensky, of the Jewish Apartheid State supporting the Nazis under Zelensky?
There is no way in hell you will read this story, objectively, anywhere:
The Jews are the ones behind the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and their goal is to create a new Jewish state to replace the failing Zionist project of Israel, Palestinian Islamic scholar Mraweh Nassar has claimed, as reported by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
Nassar, whom MEMRI identified as the secretary-general of the Jerusalem Committee of the International Union of Muslims Scholars, made his claims on March 22 while speaking with Channel 9, an Arabic-language TV station in Turkey that the media watchdog says is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Now now, Dan Shapiro (New Atlanticist, err, Atlantic Council) wrote this one, and again, it’s the NARRATIVE and the MEDIUM is the MESSAGE driver, and then who gets to tell the stories and how the algorithms benefit the propagandists, shit dog, need we look further?.
Speaking to reporters this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the future he sees for his country in unusual terms: as “a big Israel.”
Gone, he said, are hopes for “an absolutely liberal” state—replaced by the likely reality of armed defense forces patrolling movie theaters and supermarkets. “I’m confident that our security will be the number-one issue over the next ten years,” Zelenskyy added.
With Russian forces having withdrawn from around Kyiv, suggesting that Ukraine successfully repulsed the first phase of the Kremlin’s invasion, the time is right for Zelenskyy to contemplate how to prepare for the next—and potentially much longer—phase of this conflict.
But what does he mean by “a big Israel”? With a population more than four times smaller, and vastly less territory, the Jewish state might not seem like the most fitting comparison. Yet consider the regional security threats it faces, as well as its highly mobilized population: The two embattled countries share more than you might think.
So if Zelenskyy really does have Israel in mind as a model for Ukraine, here are some of the key features he might consider for adoption (some of which are already applicable today):
Security first: Every Israeli government promises, first and foremost, that it will deliver security—and knows it will be judged on this pledge. Ordinary citizens, not just politicians, pay close attention to security threats—both from across borders and from internal sources— and much of the public chooses who to elect by that metric alone.
The whole population plays a role: The Israeli model goes further than Zelenskyy’s vision of security services deployed to civilian spaces: Most young Israeli adults serve in the military, and many are employed in security-related professions following their service. A common purpose unites the citizenry, making them ready to endure shared sacrific
I ask, “Will one vapid bought-and-brainwashed media person get on with some rejiggering their knowledge:
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories called for input for a report to the 58th session of the UN Human Rights Council. World BEYOND War has just submitted a report called “Involvement of Canadian Weapons Manufacturers in Commission of International Crimes Connected to Israel’s Occupation, Apartheid, Siege, and Genocide in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” The report notes that:
The export of weapons from Canada to Israel takes place via two primary pathways.The first pathway involves direct transfers to Israel. This requires export permits issued by Global Affairs Canada and overseen by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister Mélanie Joly. The second pathway is export of arms from Canada to Israel indirectly, via the United States. Due to existing agreements between Canada and the United States, no export permits are required for the vast majority of Canadian weapon exports to the United States.
For example, “[m]ore than 100 Canadian companies supply components to the F-35, which is assembled in Texas by Lockheed Martin.”
In response to public pressure, Canada has taken some steps, but — as documented in the report — far from what is required:
Canadian companies whose exports are reviewed in the report include Apollo Microwaves Ltd, Excelitas, GeoSpectrum Technologies, Pratt & Whitney Canada Corp, TTM Technologies Inc., ASCO Aerospace Canada Ltd., Gastops, and Heroux-Devtek.
The report concludes:
Despite Canadian government promises that ‘we will not have any form of arms or parts of arms be sent to Gaza, period,’ as of the time of publication Canadian companies continue to provide critical components to Israel’s military arsenal, including the principal weapons systems used in its ongoing attacks on Gaza – under an intentional shroud of secrecy. In the face of legal challenges and the mobilization of Canadian civil society calling for an end to these practices, while a pause on approval of future arms permits has been instituted, only roughly 12% of active weapons export permits directly to Israel have been suspended. Additionally, Canadian weapons and military equipment continues to flow unregulated and untracked to Israel through the U.S., destined to be used by the Israeli military to continue the unabated human rights violations and genocide being perpetrated against Palestinians in Gaza. This must end.
In mid-November, the Biden administration (given his diminished mental capacity, whoever is now in charge) authorized the Kyiv regime to launch Lockheed Martin produced Army Tactical Missile Systems or ATACMS to hit targets 190 miles inside Russia. In response, an ICBM was fired in wartime for the first time when the Oreshnik (“Hazelnut Tree), an intermdiate range, nuclear capable missile, took only 5 minutes to hit Dinipro, Ukraine. The Kremlin gave Washington a 30 minute warning before the launch. Putin called the U.S./NATO bluff and he promised that future retaliation could target “decision making centers” in Kyiv.
This new Russian weapon can reach Warsaw in 1 minute 1 second; Berlin, 2 minutes 55 seconds; and London 6 minutes 56 seconds. Europe has no defence system that can intercept it. Putin said recently that when several Oreshniks are used simutaneously, “the resulting impact is comparable in power to that of a nuclear weapon.” Despite Russian warnings about escalating the conflict, the U.S. continues to blow past all red lines and on November 23 and 25, the Kiev regime fired a dozen more ATACMS into Russian territory.
Here it’s imperative to briefly recall how the US imperialist strategy toward Russia got us into this dire situation. Contrary to the official narrative, the war in Ukraine did not begin with an “unprovoked” Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 27, 2022. Rather, as Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University wrote, “In fact the war was provoked by the United States in ways that leading U.S. diplomats had anticipated for decades leading up to the war, which means that the war could have been avoided and should be stopped through negotiations.” (Common Dreams, 5/23/23). VIrtually all policy experts and Russian leaders warned that NATO expansion was, in the words of CIA Director William Burns, the “brightest of all red lines for the Russian elites (not just Putin) of whom would see it as a direct challenge to Russian interests.” George Kennan, architect of U.S. containment policy, called it “a tragic mistake.”
In spite of these warnings, at the June 2008 Bucharest Summit, NATO leaders pronounced that “Ukraine will become a NATO member” and at the Brussels meeting on June 14, 2021, NATO reiterated that “Ukraine will be a member of NATO.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov countered, “The key to everything is that NATO will not expand eastward.” In truth, given all the U.S./NATO arms and military training flowing to the Kyiv regime it’s apparent that Ukraine was already a de facto NATO member.
Anyone with a scintllla of working brain matter understood that no government in Moscow would tolerate the decision to bring Ukraine into NATO. Russia viewed NATO expansion on its border as an existential threat and legitimately feared that the US, under the giuise of NATO, would place missiles 317 miles or 5 minutes flying time from decapitating the Kremlin. What would Washington’s response be if Russia or China struck a “defensive” alliance with Canada or Mexico and began placing missiles on the U.S. border? Or, think of the Monroe Doctrine.
In short, the war hawk neocons who prevail in Washington were fully aware of the above but wanted to provoke a proxy war to be fought to the last Ukrainian. They expected the conflict would depower Russia — and perhaps even precipitate a regime change — so the US could move along to the Strait of Taiwan and a likely confrontation with China, the primary peer challenger to US global domination.
Since 2002, the U.S. has squandered $174 billion of aid and military assistance on Ukraine, money that’s desperately needed for addressing the cost of living, health care, housing, education and health care for the working class here at home. Further, there have been more than half a million Ukrainian and Russians killed on the battlefield in a war that that could have been avoided had the U.S. given up the idea of Ukraine joining NATO.
According to the AP (11/29/2024), as many 200,000 soldiers may have deserted from the Ukrainian army. In response, Blinken is pressuring Ukraine to lower the conscription age to 18 which could add 350,000 in meat for the grinder. My sense is that Blinken & Co. are attempting to prolong the war as long as possible so that when the inevitable defeat does occur, we will hear the refrain, “Trump lost Ukraine.”
In spite of all the official disinformation and propaganda on behalf of the war, a majority of Ukrainians no longer support it (Gallup,19 November 2024) and Americans now oppose more military aid for Ukraine. In our recent presidential election voters registered a strong mandate to end the “endless wars.” Here in Pennsylvania, a majority believe the US is “too involved” in foreign affairs. (CATO/YouGov/9/9/24).Over the past three years, Trump has promised to end the war in Ukraine and during his debate with Kamala Harris, he said “I want this war to stop.” In his November 5 victory speech, Trump declared “I’m not going to start wars, I’m going to end them.” We’ll soon see if the unpredictable and erratic Trump adheres to his promise. Given Deep State opposition and some of Trump’s appointees, I’m not optimistic.
In the meantime, no sane person can wish the current situation to unfold into a global thermonuclear exchange and the annihilation of the earth’s people. I’m old enough to recall how the U.S. responded when Russia attempted to put missiles in Cuba and I suspect we are now closer to World War III than we were during those 13 fateful days in October 1962.
President Vladimir Putin has announced that serial production of the new Oreshnik hypersonic, intermediate range, 36-warhead missile has commenced. He made this announcement at a special public meeting with Defense Ministry officials in the Kremlin on Friday, November 22.
“There are no means of countering such a missile; no means of intercepting it exist in the world today,” Putin said. “We need to launch its serial production. Let us assume that the decision on the serial production of this system has been made. As a matter of fact, it has already been essentially organised.”
This means there are already, or will shortly be deployed, dozens of Oreshniki missiles for firing at targets in the Ukraine west of the Dnieper River and as far west as the Polish and Hungarian borders.
This also means that no American, no NATO staff group, no Anglo-American target intelligence unit in bunkers in Kiev or Lvov are safe any longer. Nor are Vladimir Zelensky and his advisors. To escape Israeli-precedent decapitation, they must all decamp to the Ukrainian war operations mock-up already prepared on the Polish side of the border.
Ukrainian military intelligence head, Kirill Budanov, has claimed that the Oreshnik strike on the Yuzhmash (Pivdenmash) plant in Dniepropetrovsk is “just a cipher…We know for sure that as of October they were supposed to make two research samples, maybe they made a little bit more, but believe me, this is a research sample, but not yet serial production, thank God.”
“Wishful thinking,” a NATO military source comments. “He’ll get the chance to find out first- hand.”
Russian military sources add that, following disclosure of the Kremlin’s back-channel talks with Donald Trump and his advisors on terms for an end-of-war settlement, the Oreshnik is the signal that the “General Staff are talking directly to Trump & Co.” Putin was explicit in his first announcement of the Oreshnik firing: “We believe that the United States [President Trump] made a mistake by unilaterally destroying the INF Treaty in 2019 under a far-fetched pretext.”
Dmitry Rogozin — formerly Russian NATO ambassador, then deputy prime minister in charge of the Russian military industrial complex, now senator for Zaporozhye – carefully identified the credit for the Oreshnik: “Today, everyone who fought for the creation of this missile system, who overcame what we may call scepticism, should congratulate each other. And I join those congratulations. Good for you!…Thank you to the Supreme [Command, Верховному] for supporting the work! Thank you to the Academy for not backing away!”
A Russian source, who does not believe Putin ordered the General Staff to suspend its electric war campaign between August and this month, believes Russian strategy now is “a thousand cuts. The Oreshnik is a particularly deep one but I don’t believe that the Kremlin and General Staff have decided to use it to hit Bankova [street address in Kiev of the presidential offices and living quarters ]. The decapitation threat is real enough though to impel Zelensky to exit, or maybe for the Ukrainian military to get rid of him on their own initiative.”
“Just as important,” the source says, “the Russian ground offensive in the east will remain slow, patient, maybe for two years more. The priority is on preventing Russian casualties, conserving Russian lives. This is essential once you realize that the [Putin] presidential succession also depends, not only on winning the war on Russian terms, but ensuring the protection of Russian lives.”
Oreshnik in Russian means, literally, hazel nut or the wood of the hazelnut tree. In Siberia, the cognate expression “to give nuts” has the metaphorical meaning of inflicting punishment.
Watch and listen to this video recording of the sequence of warhead strikes on November 21. In this second videoclip, the unique funnel of light is displayed six times as the warheads land on target.
As Putin pointed out in his national address on the evening after the Oreshnik strike, it had been then-President Trump’s “mistake” in 2019 to unilaterally withdraw from the 1987 Soviet-American treaty on intermediate range nuclear forces (INF). Oreshnik is both the Russian reply and also a warning to Trump to correct his mistake.
For the time being, the Financial Times, a Japanese propaganda outlet in London, reported a Norwegian graduate student as claiming “there certainly was no military value to it.”
In Moscow, Izvestia, on which the BBC has relied for republication, reported “it is likely that we are dealing with a new generation of Russian intermediate-range missiles [with a range of] 2,500-3,000km (1,550-1,860 miles) and potentially extending to 5,000km (3,100 miles), but not intercontinental. It is obviously equipped with a separating warhead with individual guidance units.”
This means the missile is MIRV, comprising multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles. Close observation of the strike videoclips shows six of these releasing six munitions capable of penetrating deep underground bunkers. A salvo of thirty-six warhead detonations, altogether.
Missile speed is reported to be between Mach 10 and Mach 11.
The Militarist military blog of Moscow reports this image of the predecessor RSD-10 Pioneer missile “can give a definite idea of the appearance of the Oreshnik.”
Although satellite images of the plant after Thursday’s attack have not been declassified or published in the open, what is likely is that the bunker stocks of ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles being prepared at the plant for launching against Russia were destroyed, along with the factory-floor and machine capacities of the plant to service HIMARS, other rocket and missile firing equipment delivered by the US and NATO states to the Zelensky regime.
Russian military sources have been discussing Ukrainian target options since the Putin Pause ended on November 17, and the electric war recommenced with the General Staff’s 120-missile, 90-drone raid against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure across the country. For more on the Putin Pause, click to read this and this.
The sources differ on whether the military initiative has now been delegated by Putin to the General Staff without the autumn restrictions, and whether the President has decided the Biden Administration’s escalation has Trump’s tacit endorsement in a calculated “escalate-to-deescalate” plan.
A Russian military source cautions against confusing Russia’s operational priorities now that Oreshnik has been unleashed, and the strategic priorities which haven’t changed. “Will the generals go for Zelensky and take out the whole illegitimate regime if another ATAMCS hits deep Russia? You bet. The Israelis have made it very easy for Putin. But I do not think the generals or the Security Council or all of the Duma care so much at the moment. Zelensky isn’t a priority because his own soldiers will do him in.”
“I also see there is no pause for Trump. No deference, no hidden messages, and no respite irrespective of what talks might or not be going on behind the scenes. This is a signal that the trust in Trump is near zero, and even less so for [Elon] Musk and the love fest the two of them have been displaying. There’s only one message Trump can give now to show his intention for an end of the war, and that’s to get Zelensky to announce elections by next March. That would signal the end of the neo-Nazi regime, and of course, the end of Zelensky too.”
The military sources also emphasize the warnings to the US, its European and Asian allies in the small print of the new nuclear doctrine signed by Putin on November 19.
The sources note that Paragraph 9 warns that nuclear deterrence is “directed against states that provide their controlled territory, airspace and/or maritime space and resources for the preparation and implementation of aggression against the Russian Federation.” Paragraph 11 then goes on to link nuclear with non-nuclear states in the NATO treaty, as well as the AUKUS and G7 blocs; in Asia these include Japan and Australia. “Aggression against the Russian Federation and/or its allies by any non-nuclear state with the participation or support of a nuclear state is considered as their joint attack.”
This is once again Putin’s cross-hairs warning to Poland and Romania for their US nuclear-capable Tomahawk missile bases at Redzikowo and Deveselu. The cross-hairs warning was first given by Putin in Greece in 2016. Now that the Greek government itself has agreed to secretly hosting US nuclear weapons at the Souda Bay base in Crete, the warning applies to Greece itself.
“Nuclear deterrence,” as Paragraph 12 of the Doctrine says, “is aimed at ensuring that a potential adversary understands the inevitability of retaliation in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation and/or its allies.” Greece, Spain, and Germany are also now targeted according to Paragraph 15(e) because they allow “the deployment of nuclear weapons and their means of delivery on the territories of non-nuclear states”; and according to Paragraph 15(g) because of the “actions of a potential enemy aimed at isolating part of the territory of the Russian Federation, including blocking access to vital transport communications”. In Europe this expands Russia’s targets to the Baltic states around Kaliningrad, as well as to the North Sea states Sweden, Norway and Denmark which participated in the Nord Stream-2 sabotage and now threaten Russian maritime movement through the Danish Straits.
Map of European Capitals within Range of Oreshnik (Kalingrad launch)
Source: https://t.me/readovkanews/89690
With an estimated 1,500 kgs of combat payload, lifting to a maximum height of 12 km and moving at a speed of Mach 10, the Oreshnik launched from Kaliningrad would strike Warsaw in 1 minute 21 seconds; Berlin, 2 min 35 sec; Paris, 6 min 52 sec; London, 6 min 56 sec.
Of direct impact for Russian strategy on the Ukrainian battlefield, the Doctrine provisions mean that Odessa will, in the words of a Moscow source, “never again be allowed to be a base against Russia.”
The Oreshnik strike of November 21, the military sources in Moscow believe, demonstrates the military capacity to strike with either conventional or nuclear warheads at targets throughout Europe which none of the available US Patriot or other western air defence systems can defend against. It creates a conventional alternative to nuclear retaliation if, as Paragraph 19(d) of the Doctrine says, there is “aggression against the Russian Federation and/or the Republic of Belarus as members of the Union State with the use of conventional weapons, creating a critical threat to their sovereignty and/or territorial integrity” (emphasis added).
Before Oreshnik, the Russians point out, Washington was saying there was nothing new in Putin’s nuclear doctrine paper. “Observing no changes to Russia’s nuclear posture, we have not seen any reason to adjust our own nuclear posture or doctrine in response to Russia’s statements today,” Reuters reported the National Security Council as saying on November 19.
After Oreshnik, in presentations at a Washington think tank on November 21, Pentagon officials announced: “adjustments to the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review may be required to sustain the ability to achieve nuclear deterrence, in light of enhanced nuclear capabilities of China and Russia and possible lack of nuclear arms control agreements after February.”
The President with the Defense Minister and other officials at the Kremlin on November 22.
Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/
Look carefully again at what Putin has announced for Oreshnik. By saying on November 21 “we also carried out tests of one of Russia’s latest medium-range missile systems,” he implied that the Yuzhmash strike may be a one-off. That depends, he added: “our decision on further deployment of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles will depend on the actions of the United States and its satellites. We will determine the targets during further tests of our advanced missile systems based on the threats to the security of the Russian Federation.”
If the US adds to or refills the Kiev regime’s stocks of ATACMS; if the Starmer Government authorizes a new Storm Shadow firing across the border; likewise for President Emmanuel Macron for the SCALP missile, and for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for the supply of Taurus missiles, then Putin’s warning on November 22 of serial production of Oreshniki has confirmed “inevitable retaliation”.
“As I have already said, we will continue these tests, including in combat conditions, depending on the situation and the nature of the security threats posed to Russia. All the more so as we have a stockpile of such products, a reserve of such systems ready for use.”
President Vladimir Putin has announced that serial production of the new Oreshnik hypersonic, intermediate range, 36-warhead missile has commenced. He made this announcement at a special public meeting with Defense Ministry officials in the Kremlin on Friday, November 22.
“There are no means of countering such a missile; no means of intercepting it exist in the world today,” Putin said. “We need to launch its serial production. Let us assume that the decision on the serial production of this system has been made. As a matter of fact, it has already been essentially organised.”
This means there are already, or will shortly be deployed, dozens of Oreshniki missiles for firing at targets in the Ukraine west of the Dnieper River and as far west as the Polish and Hungarian borders.
This also means that no American, no NATO staff group, no Anglo-American target intelligence unit in bunkers in Kiev or Lvov are safe any longer. Nor are Vladimir Zelensky and his advisors. To escape Israeli-precedent decapitation, they must all decamp to the Ukrainian war operations mock-up already prepared on the Polish side of the border.
Ukrainian military intelligence head, Kirill Budanov, has claimed that the Oreshnik strike on the Yuzhmash (Pivdenmash) plant in Dniepropetrovsk is “just a cipher…We know for sure that as of October they were supposed to make two research samples, maybe they made a little bit more, but believe me, this is a research sample, but not yet serial production, thank God.”
“Wishful thinking,” a NATO military source comments. “He’ll get the chance to find out first- hand.”
Russian military sources add that, following disclosure of the Kremlin’s back-channel talks with Donald Trump and his advisors on terms for an end-of-war settlement, the Oreshnik is the signal that the “General Staff are talking directly to Trump & Co.” Putin was explicit in his first announcement of the Oreshnik firing: “We believe that the United States [President Trump] made a mistake by unilaterally destroying the INF Treaty in 2019 under a far-fetched pretext.”
Dmitry Rogozin — formerly Russian NATO ambassador, then deputy prime minister in charge of the Russian military industrial complex, now senator for Zaporozhye – carefully identified the credit for the Oreshnik: “Today, everyone who fought for the creation of this missile system, who overcame what we may call scepticism, should congratulate each other. And I join those congratulations. Good for you!…Thank you to the Supreme [Command, Верховному] for supporting the work! Thank you to the Academy for not backing away!”
A Russian source, who does not believe Putin ordered the General Staff to suspend its electric war campaign between August and this month, believes Russian strategy now is “a thousand cuts. The Oreshnik is a particularly deep one but I don’t believe that the Kremlin and General Staff have decided to use it to hit Bankova [street address in Kiev of the presidential offices and living quarters ]. The decapitation threat is real enough though to impel Zelensky to exit, or maybe for the Ukrainian military to get rid of him on their own initiative.”
“Just as important,” the source says, “the Russian ground offensive in the east will remain slow, patient, maybe for two years more. The priority is on preventing Russian casualties, conserving Russian lives. This is essential once you realize that the [Putin] presidential succession also depends, not only on winning the war on Russian terms, but ensuring the protection of Russian lives.”
Oreshnik in Russian means, literally, hazel nut or the wood of the hazelnut tree. In Siberia, the cognate expression “to give nuts” has the metaphorical meaning of inflicting punishment.
Watch and listen to this video recording of the sequence of warhead strikes on November 21. In this second videoclip, the unique funnel of light is displayed six times as the warheads land on target.
As Putin pointed out in his national address on the evening after the Oreshnik strike, it had been then-President Trump’s “mistake” in 2019 to unilaterally withdraw from the 1987 Soviet-American treaty on intermediate range nuclear forces (INF). Oreshnik is both the Russian reply and also a warning to Trump to correct his mistake.
For the time being, the Financial Times, a Japanese propaganda outlet in London, reported a Norwegian graduate student as claiming “there certainly was no military value to it.”
In Moscow, Izvestia, on which the BBC has relied for republication, reported “it is likely that we are dealing with a new generation of Russian intermediate-range missiles [with a range of] 2,500-3,000km (1,550-1,860 miles) and potentially extending to 5,000km (3,100 miles), but not intercontinental. It is obviously equipped with a separating warhead with individual guidance units.”
This means the missile is MIRV, comprising multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles. Close observation of the strike videoclips shows six of these releasing six munitions capable of penetrating deep underground bunkers. A salvo of thirty-six warhead detonations, altogether.
Missile speed is reported to be between Mach 10 and Mach 11.
The Militarist military blog of Moscow reports this image of the predecessor RSD-10 Pioneer missile “can give a definite idea of the appearance of the Oreshnik.”
Although satellite images of the plant after Thursday’s attack have not been declassified or published in the open, what is likely is that the bunker stocks of ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles being prepared at the plant for launching against Russia were destroyed, along with the factory-floor and machine capacities of the plant to service HIMARS, other rocket and missile firing equipment delivered by the US and NATO states to the Zelensky regime.
Russian military sources have been discussing Ukrainian target options since the Putin Pause ended on November 17, and the electric war recommenced with the General Staff’s 120-missile, 90-drone raid against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure across the country. For more on the Putin Pause, click to read this and this.
The sources differ on whether the military initiative has now been delegated by Putin to the General Staff without the autumn restrictions, and whether the President has decided the Biden Administration’s escalation has Trump’s tacit endorsement in a calculated “escalate-to-deescalate” plan.
A Russian military source cautions against confusing Russia’s operational priorities now that Oreshnik has been unleashed, and the strategic priorities which haven’t changed. “Will the generals go for Zelensky and take out the whole illegitimate regime if another ATAMCS hits deep Russia? You bet. The Israelis have made it very easy for Putin. But I do not think the generals or the Security Council or all of the Duma care so much at the moment. Zelensky isn’t a priority because his own soldiers will do him in.”
“I also see there is no pause for Trump. No deference, no hidden messages, and no respite irrespective of what talks might or not be going on behind the scenes. This is a signal that the trust in Trump is near zero, and even less so for [Elon] Musk and the love fest the two of them have been displaying. There’s only one message Trump can give now to show his intention for an end of the war, and that’s to get Zelensky to announce elections by next March. That would signal the end of the neo-Nazi regime, and of course, the end of Zelensky too.”
The military sources also emphasize the warnings to the US, its European and Asian allies in the small print of the new nuclear doctrine signed by Putin on November 19.
The sources note that Paragraph 9 warns that nuclear deterrence is “directed against states that provide their controlled territory, airspace and/or maritime space and resources for the preparation and implementation of aggression against the Russian Federation.” Paragraph 11 then goes on to link nuclear with non-nuclear states in the NATO treaty, as well as the AUKUS and G7 blocs; in Asia these include Japan and Australia. “Aggression against the Russian Federation and/or its allies by any non-nuclear state with the participation or support of a nuclear state is considered as their joint attack.”
This is once again Putin’s cross-hairs warning to Poland and Romania for their US nuclear-capable Tomahawk missile bases at Redzikowo and Deveselu. The cross-hairs warning was first given by Putin in Greece in 2016. Now that the Greek government itself has agreed to secretly hosting US nuclear weapons at the Souda Bay base in Crete, the warning applies to Greece itself.
“Nuclear deterrence,” as Paragraph 12 of the Doctrine says, “is aimed at ensuring that a potential adversary understands the inevitability of retaliation in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation and/or its allies.” Greece, Spain, and Germany are also now targeted according to Paragraph 15(e) because they allow “the deployment of nuclear weapons and their means of delivery on the territories of non-nuclear states”; and according to Paragraph 15(g) because of the “actions of a potential enemy aimed at isolating part of the territory of the Russian Federation, including blocking access to vital transport communications”. In Europe this expands Russia’s targets to the Baltic states around Kaliningrad, as well as to the North Sea states Sweden, Norway and Denmark which participated in the Nord Stream-2 sabotage and now threaten Russian maritime movement through the Danish Straits.
Map of European Capitals within Range of Oreshnik (Kalingrad launch)
Source: https://t.me/readovkanews/89690
With an estimated 1,500 kgs of combat payload, lifting to a maximum height of 12 km and moving at a speed of Mach 10, the Oreshnik launched from Kaliningrad would strike Warsaw in 1 minute 21 seconds; Berlin, 2 min 35 sec; Paris, 6 min 52 sec; London, 6 min 56 sec.
Of direct impact for Russian strategy on the Ukrainian battlefield, the Doctrine provisions mean that Odessa will, in the words of a Moscow source, “never again be allowed to be a base against Russia.”
The Oreshnik strike of November 21, the military sources in Moscow believe, demonstrates the military capacity to strike with either conventional or nuclear warheads at targets throughout Europe which none of the available US Patriot or other western air defence systems can defend against. It creates a conventional alternative to nuclear retaliation if, as Paragraph 19(d) of the Doctrine says, there is “aggression against the Russian Federation and/or the Republic of Belarus as members of the Union State with the use of conventional weapons, creating a critical threat to their sovereignty and/or territorial integrity” (emphasis added).
Before Oreshnik, the Russians point out, Washington was saying there was nothing new in Putin’s nuclear doctrine paper. “Observing no changes to Russia’s nuclear posture, we have not seen any reason to adjust our own nuclear posture or doctrine in response to Russia’s statements today,” Reuters reported the National Security Council as saying on November 19.
After Oreshnik, in presentations at a Washington think tank on November 21, Pentagon officials announced: “adjustments to the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review may be required to sustain the ability to achieve nuclear deterrence, in light of enhanced nuclear capabilities of China and Russia and possible lack of nuclear arms control agreements after February.”
The President with the Defense Minister and other officials at the Kremlin on November 22.
Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/
Look carefully again at what Putin has announced for Oreshnik. By saying on November 21 “we also carried out tests of one of Russia’s latest medium-range missile systems,” he implied that the Yuzhmash strike may be a one-off. That depends, he added: “our decision on further deployment of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles will depend on the actions of the United States and its satellites. We will determine the targets during further tests of our advanced missile systems based on the threats to the security of the Russian Federation.”
If the US adds to or refills the Kiev regime’s stocks of ATACMS; if the Starmer Government authorizes a new Storm Shadow firing across the border; likewise for President Emmanuel Macron for the SCALP missile, and for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for the supply of Taurus missiles, then Putin’s warning on November 22 of serial production of Oreshniki has confirmed “inevitable retaliation”.
“As I have already said, we will continue these tests, including in combat conditions, depending on the situation and the nature of the security threats posed to Russia. All the more so as we have a stockpile of such products, a reserve of such systems ready for use.”
Much significance will happen at the end of Election Day, and a countdown will begin at 11:00 p.m. PDT on November 5th. While everyone’s attention will be on who our next president will be, the U.S. The Air Force will test-launch an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile with a dummy hydrogen bomb on the tip from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The missile will cross the Pacific Ocean and 22 minutes later crash into the Marshall Islands. The U.S. Air Force does this several times a year. The launches are always at night while Americans are sleeping.
This is what nightmares are made of – between 1946 and 1958 the U.S. detonated 67 nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands, and the result is that the Marshallese people have lost their pristine environment and face health problems. Our environment is threatened here as well. Not only did the indigenous Chumash people lose their sacred land to Vandenberg Air Force Base, but also America’s Heartland presently has around 400 ICBMs stored in underground silos equipped with nuclear warheads that are ready to launch at a hair trigger’s notice. Named “MinuteMen III,” after Revolutionary War soldiers who could reload and shoot a gun in less than a minute, ICBMs not only put Americans at risk of accident, but they put all life on earth in danger.
ICBMs are not viable for national defense. They are a relic of a bygone era having been invented by Nazi Germany, and their presence only escalates the risk of nuclear accidents or conflicts.A single launch could lead to a nuclear exchange that would annihilate cities, contaminate the environment, and cause irreversible harm to our planet’s ecosystem. Once an ICBM is launched, it cannot be recalled. I don’t want a nuclear strike or accident to happen. We can change course now, and our first step is to decommission the ICBM program also because it is a staggering financial burden to maintain.
The U.S. plans to spend over $1.2 trillion on nuclear modernization over the next 30 years, which means new, larger nuclear bombs and new, larger ICBMs called Sentinels that will need to be tested. This massive investment in outdated technology diverts critical funds away from humanitarian needs like healthcare, education, and healing climate change— issues that directly impact our quality of life, and our children’s future.
I teach 4th and 5th graders Creative Writing. I adore children’s imaginations, but when my students were given the assignment to write about something important to them, they wrote lines that broke my heart. This is a wake-up call for us adults to face the reality we have made for our children.
“Such a shame, a perfectly good planet, trashed.” Claire, age 9.
“What would you think about no nature in the world? No trees, no butterflies, no birds or bunnies at all! Most important of all, no people. There would be no technology, no schools, no history, no entertainment; everything we have worked for would be wasted. What would you think about a beautiful world that basically had nothing? I think I would absolutely hate it.,” Brynn, age 9.
Other than destruction caused by industrial global warming and by war, which the children are all-too aware of, this child does not know what actually could turn nature and civilization to nothing in a matter of minutes; she doesn’t know about “nuclear winter” or how vulnerable we are to a nuclear accident. Most people don’t.
The claim is that nuclear weapons are deterrents, but it is diplomacy that creates alliances and peace. Nuclear weapons only provide the terrifying threat of annihilation, either by command or by accident. Nuclear weapons and ICBMs only make the world less safe and strip us of security.
As the warring ruling class seems to be pushing for nuclear brinkmanship, on this election night let us not be distracted. By decommissioning ICBMs, the U.S. could lead the world in reducing the nuclear threat and encourage other nations to do the same. For the sake of our health, environment, and the safety of future generations, it’s time to scrap the ICBM program. We owe it to our children to invest in a future that prioritizes peace and sustainability over destruction.
As it is we the people who possess the right of self-determination, we must confront the material reality of our homeland and face what it will take to protect it. Do we have the courage to change our country for the better and ensure our futures? Yes we do, and now is the time to take action.
“Only we, the public, can force our representatives to reverse their abdication of the war powers that the Constitution gives exclusively to the Congress,” said Daniel Ellsberg, U.S. military analyst, economist, and author of “The Doomsday Machine.”
May we cancel this nightmare weapons program for once and for all and give our children the security that they deserve.
It is apparently not much of an exaggeration to say that Israel’s attack on Iran fizzled. Some targets were hit and at least two Iranian soldiers were killed, but the ineffectiveness of the operation was probably due to several factors:
Israel just doesn’t have the weaponry. Most of its missiles don’t have the distance, and those that do, just barely so. That’s true for a lot of its drones, too, and they are too easily detected and don’t have the carrying power.
The US didn’t aid, in particular with refueling manned aircraft. It’s just as well. It would have been a good way to lose both pilots and aircraft.
Most of the nations geographically in between Israel and Iran would not permit overflights from either Israel or the US. Iran told these nations that they prefer to remain on good terms with them, and that they would consider it an act of war to lend their airspace to Israeli operations.
Iranian antiaircraft systems were apparently quite effective.
Other factors may have been involved. It is possible that cooler heads prevailed in the Israeli and US militaries, for example, but we may never know, or at least not soon. Nevertheless, the main reason that Israel did not cause more damage appears not to be a question of intention, but of capability. There’s no question that Israel was hoping for an escalation that would widen the war and force the US to enter on Israel’s side. That appears to have been avoided. Iran will have to respond, but unlike Israel, neither Iran nor the US wants escalation. Iran’s response will therefore be measured, and they will declare the matter settled.
The Netanyahu government now finds itself squarely in check, though not yet checkmated. Nevertheless, the best it can do now is probably a stalemate. This is not good in the short run for Gaza and the Palestinians, nor for Lebanon, but it’s also not good for Israel, whose population is emigrating, whose economy is tanking, and which is generally a pariah throughout the world. Its decades of building its image as glamorous, progressive and a technological powerhouse is gone. It is now the redoubt of religious fanatics and criminals that even much of the international Jewish community is loathe to support. Its current mainstay is the international network of influence peddlers such as AIPAC, whose power has not dwindled in the US and other western governments, due to its ability to enrich the military industrial complex and to control the elective processes in these governments. With the loss of a wider base in the Jewish community, however, that power is likely to decline.
Emmanuel Macron and the macaron have many similarities. Both the French President and the French dessert are airy and insubstantial and are loved by the rich elite. For these reasons, it was a surprise to many when Macron announced his support for an end to arms deliveries to the Israeli terrorist regime. For a neoliberal following in the footsteps of interventionists such as George Bush and Tony Blair, such a declaration is nigh unthinkable. Not even Vice-President Kamala Harris, a nominal progressive, has called for an arms embargo. In fact, Harris has made it emphatically that she does not support any restraint when it comes to arms sales to Israel. Why then would a politician like Emmanuel Macron support such a position?
Well, it seems that George Bush and Tony Blair are only secondary influences on Macron whose true playbook seems to be derived from that of Italian philosopher, Niccolo Machiavelli. Machiavelli is famous for his quote “Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception”, and Macron seems to have taken this to heart with his finger always in the proverbial “wind” of politics. But what would cause Macron to adopt this position in particular? Should we believe him when he says that he wants to “avoid the escalation of tensions, protect civilian populations, free the hostages and find political solutions”?
Up until this recent declaration, Emmanuel Macron has been anything but a friend to the people of occupied Palestine. From condemning the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to equating antisemitism with anti-Zionism in the presence of Bibi Netanyahu, Macron has been staunchly pro-Israel his entire political career. Macron has not just actively voiced his opinions on the Israel-Palestine conflict; he has also worked to crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech. In one such Orwellian maneuver, France under macron’s leadership banned all pro-Palestinian protests.
Obviously, the French Left and, frankly, all supporters of free speech, were horrified by this despicable directive and the many other disastrous decisions carried out by the French government under Macron. Unsurprisingly, in the most recent French election, the people of France, both left-wing and right-wing, seemed to agree that Macronism should be tossed onto the trash heap of history. As a result, Macron’s party, Ensemble, suffered a historic defeat at the hands of the New Popular Front and the National Rally with the New Popular Front (NPF) faring the best out of the three. According to the Intercept, one of the factors contributing to this victory for the NPF was the coalition’s support for Palestine.
Macron’s strategy of pandering to the Right by fear mongering about the “radial Left” clearly did not contribute to positive electoral success. According to CNBC, “Without the left vote in favor of Macron against Le Pen in 2022 and 2017, he would not be president, and he never really tried to do something together in the end with the people who made him president”. Macron failed because he counted on the Left to bend to his every whim. He did not confront the real possibility of the Left being able to stand alone, but the Left realized that they simply did not need Macron to defeat the Right. Everyone has heard the saying “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” and this seems to be the case with Emmanuel Macron. It is obvious that he truly does not care about the Palestinian people, yet he is willing to say what he believes will help him electorally including declaring his support for an arms embargo on Israel.
Nevertheless, Macron likely has other strategic reasons for this shift as well. Under Macron, France has done its best to maintain good relations with Western and non-Western powers alike. A recent example of this was the 2024 China-France summit which saw Macron pursuing, as some described, as strategic autonomy from the United States. Likewise, Macron has supported a hypothetical Ukraine-Russia cease-fire deal because he realizes that, according to Responsible Statecraft, “The vast majority of the electorate is clearly opposed to sending troops to Ukraine… Macron will be unwilling to risk hundreds of French lives for such a distant war nobody wants”.
Macron’s foreign policy strategy of realpolitik is all about appeasement. Macron believes that he must appease both the United States and the international community alike which is clearly opposed to Israel’s actions in Gaza per the recent UN vote of 124 to 14 in favor of demanding an end to Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank. Similarly, Macron believes that in order for his centrist party to remain in power he must placate both the French political Left and Right. Unfortunately for Macron, this strategy of fence-sitting has led to failure both electorally and geopolitically and will, naturally, continue to fail in the future.
Macron’s sudden shift in favor of an arms embargo is part of a greater political wager, which the French President believes will pay dividends in terms of international relevance and domestic support. His statement is inherently elitist and predicated on the idea that the French people are of low intelligence and will forget his history of support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. For now, Macron’s dubious promises of peace and restraint are as insubstantial as the airy, delicate macarons his out-of-touch supporters so adore. And just like the dessert, they crumble easily under pressure, revealing the emptiness inside.
Czech, Polish, and Slovenian PMs travel to Kyiv in 2022
In June, rumors swirled in the media that the Biden administration was holding discussions with Israel and Ukraine about the possibility of transferring aging Patriot air defense systems currently in Israel to Ukraine. The CNN reported: “The systems would likely need to be transferred to the US first, where they would undergo refurbishment, before being sent to Ukraine.”
In April, the Israel Defense Forces said it would soon “retire its Patriot systems,” as noted by the Financial Times, though the report elided providing a valid reason for scraping the much-touted air defense system. Since then, a gag order appears to have been issued on reporting about military co-operation between Israel and Ukraine, as it is a sensitive and strictly off-limits topic.
Russian news agency Sputnik reported on August 12 that Poland had signed an agreement on the production of 48 launchers of the Patriot surface-to-air missile system, United States Ambassador to Poland Mark Brzezinski claimed on Monday during the signing ceremony.
Under a deal worth $1.23 billion (4.7 billion zloty), the M903 launch stations will be produced at Stalowa Wola steelworks in Poland in co-operation with US defense giant Raytheon Technologies Corp. for which the US approved a $2 billion defense loan to Poland last month. The air defense systems production will run through 2027-2029.
The US has been increasingly looking to outsource production of the systems, with a joint US-Japan project hitting a stumbling block in July, the report noted, though it failed to clarify how Poland’s primitive defense production industry would produce launchers for advanced Patriot missile systems when it could hardly produce 155 mm artillery shells that Ukraine, under the patronage of the US, had to import from a number of European and Asian countries during the two-year-long war.
Clearly, a behind-the-scenes understanding has been reached that instead of refurbishing “aging Israeli Patriot systems” in the US, the launchers would instead be transferred to Poland where they would be refurbished under the supervision of Raytheon’s technicians and then deployed in the Ukraine War.
During the two-year conflict, Israel’s thriving military-industrial complex has provided plenty of weapons, specifically its cutting-edge drone and missile technology, to Ukraine, but mainstream media, on the instructions of the US security establishment, has been especially careful not to report on the “sensitive topic.”
Instead, Western media bent over backwards to publish misleading reports at the beginning of the Ukraine War that Ukraine’s Jewish President Volodymyr Zelensky pleaded for Iron Dome missile interceptors, a risible request that Israel allegedly “contemptuously rebuffed,” after which the Zelensky regime had a fictitious spat with Israeli policymakers.
The clear objective of creating this smokescreen around clandestine military co-operation between Washington’s servile surrogates, Ukraine and Israel, was in deference to Israel’s regional security interests. Because Israel frequently mounts airstrikes on Iran-backed militant groups in Lebanon and Syria, whereas Russia has deployed troops, aircraft and S-400 air defense system at Syria’s Mediterranean coast. If Russia gets even an inkling of Israel’s military assistance to Ukraine, then Israel would have to rethink its belligerent attitude.
Nonetheless, besides pledging to refurbish Israeli Patriot missile launchers for Ukraine, Poland also inked a bilateral security agreement with Ukraine on July 8. Among other substantial commitments, the security agreement signed in Warsaw provided for the development of a mechanism for Poland to shoot down Russian missiles and drones fired in the direction of Poland in Ukrainian airspace, which would legally amount to an unequivocal declaration of war between a NATO member state, Poland, and Russia.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky during a joint press conference with Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk stated: “We are especially grateful for the special arrangements, and this is reflected in the security agreement. It provides for the development of a mechanism to shoot down [by Poland] Russian missiles and drones fired in the airspace of Ukraine in the direction of Poland. I am confident that our teams and the teams of the ministries of defense, together with our military, will work together to work out how we can quickly implement this point of our agreements.”
The vendetta between Russia and Poland, clearly punching above its weight, goes a long way back. In a highly symbolic move expressing solidarity with Ukraine, the prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia traveled together to the embattled Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on March 15, 2022, weeks after Russia’s intervention in February.
The “Three Musketeers” took hours-long train trip on their journey from the west Ukrainian city of Lviv to the capital Kyiv, allegedly “endangering their lives” due to security risks involved in traveling within a war zone, though there was no risk to their lives, as such, because they had requested prior permission for the official visit from the Kremlin, which was graciously granted keeping in view diplomatic conventions.
Accompanying the trio of premiers was a “special guest” of the Zelensky regime, Jaroslaw Kaczynski—then the deputy prime minister of Poland, the head of Law and Justice (PiS) Party to which the president and prime minister of Poland belonged and the infamous “puppet master” who hired and fired government executives and ministers on a whim.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski is the twin brother of late President Lech Kaczynski, who died in a plane crash at Smolensk, Russia, in 2010 along with 95 other Poles, among them political and military leaders, as they traveled to commemorate the Katyn massacre that occurred during the Second World War.
Subsequent Polish and international investigations led by independent observers conclusively determined that the crash-landing was an accident caused by fog and pilot error. Still, Kaczynski had long suspected that Russian President Vladimir Putin had a role in provoking the accident, and was harboring a personal grudge against the Russian president.
The Polish electorate dispensed poetic justice to kingmaker Kaczynski as he was ousted from power following the last October’s parliamentary elections in Poland due to his myopic and vindictive policies and Donald Tusk was elected prime minister of the coalition government.
Tusk is a seasoned politician and diplomat who was the President of the European Council from 2014 to 2019. It was expected of him to display statesmanship and revisit the confrontational approach of his predecessors. But clearly, he is going down the same path of perdition that proved fatal not only for egocentric and spiteful politicians but for the Poles as a nation.
Czech, Polish, and Slovenian PMs travel to Kyiv in 2022
In June, rumors swirled in the media that the Biden administration was holding discussions with Israel and Ukraine about the possibility of transferring aging Patriot air defense systems currently in Israel to Ukraine. The CNN reported: “The systems would likely need to be transferred to the US first, where they would undergo refurbishment, before being sent to Ukraine.”
In April, the Israel Defense Forces said it would soon “retire its Patriot systems,” as noted by the Financial Times, though the report elided providing a valid reason for scraping the much-touted air defense system. Since then, a gag order appears to have been issued on reporting about military co-operation between Israel and Ukraine, as it is a sensitive and strictly off-limits topic.
Russian news agency Sputnik reported on August 12 that Poland had signed an agreement on the production of 48 launchers of the Patriot surface-to-air missile system, United States Ambassador to Poland Mark Brzezinski claimed on Monday during the signing ceremony.
Under a deal worth $1.23 billion (4.7 billion zloty), the M903 launch stations will be produced at Stalowa Wola steelworks in Poland in co-operation with US defense giant Raytheon Technologies Corp. for which the US approved a $2 billion defense loan to Poland last month. The air defense systems production will run through 2027-2029.
The US has been increasingly looking to outsource production of the systems, with a joint US-Japan project hitting a stumbling block in July, the report noted, though it failed to clarify how Poland’s primitive defense production industry would produce launchers for advanced Patriot missile systems when it could hardly produce 155 mm artillery shells that Ukraine, under the patronage of the US, had to import from a number of European and Asian countries during the two-year-long war.
Clearly, a behind-the-scenes understanding has been reached that instead of refurbishing “aging Israeli Patriot systems” in the US, the launchers would instead be transferred to Poland where they would be refurbished under the supervision of Raytheon’s technicians and then deployed in the Ukraine War.
During the two-year conflict, Israel’s thriving military-industrial complex has provided plenty of weapons, specifically its cutting-edge drone and missile technology, to Ukraine, but mainstream media, on the instructions of the US security establishment, has been especially careful not to report on the “sensitive topic.”
Instead, Western media bent over backwards to publish misleading reports at the beginning of the Ukraine War that Ukraine’s Jewish President Volodymyr Zelensky pleaded for Iron Dome missile interceptors, a risible request that Israel allegedly “contemptuously rebuffed,” after which the Zelensky regime had a fictitious spat with Israeli policymakers.
The clear objective of creating this smokescreen around clandestine military co-operation between Washington’s servile surrogates, Ukraine and Israel, was in deference to Israel’s regional security interests. Because Israel frequently mounts airstrikes on Iran-backed militant groups in Lebanon and Syria, whereas Russia has deployed troops, aircraft and S-400 air defense system at Syria’s Mediterranean coast. If Russia gets even an inkling of Israel’s military assistance to Ukraine, then Israel would have to rethink its belligerent attitude.
Nonetheless, besides pledging to refurbish Israeli Patriot missile launchers for Ukraine, Poland also inked a bilateral security agreement with Ukraine on July 8. Among other substantial commitments, the security agreement signed in Warsaw provided for the development of a mechanism for Poland to shoot down Russian missiles and drones fired in the direction of Poland in Ukrainian airspace, which would legally amount to an unequivocal declaration of war between a NATO member state, Poland, and Russia.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky during a joint press conference with Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk stated: “We are especially grateful for the special arrangements, and this is reflected in the security agreement. It provides for the development of a mechanism to shoot down [by Poland] Russian missiles and drones fired in the airspace of Ukraine in the direction of Poland. I am confident that our teams and the teams of the ministries of defense, together with our military, will work together to work out how we can quickly implement this point of our agreements.”
The vendetta between Russia and Poland, clearly punching above its weight, goes a long way back. In a highly symbolic move expressing solidarity with Ukraine, the prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia traveled together to the embattled Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on March 15, 2022, weeks after Russia’s intervention in February.
The “Three Musketeers” took hours-long train trip on their journey from the west Ukrainian city of Lviv to the capital Kyiv, allegedly “endangering their lives” due to security risks involved in traveling within a war zone, though there was no risk to their lives, as such, because they had requested prior permission for the official visit from the Kremlin, which was graciously granted keeping in view diplomatic conventions.
Accompanying the trio of premiers was a “special guest” of the Zelensky regime, Jaroslaw Kaczynski—then the deputy prime minister of Poland, the head of Law and Justice (PiS) Party to which the president and prime minister of Poland belonged and the infamous “puppet master” who hired and fired government executives and ministers on a whim.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski is the twin brother of late President Lech Kaczynski, who died in a plane crash at Smolensk, Russia, in 2010 along with 95 other Poles, among them political and military leaders, as they traveled to commemorate the Katyn massacre that occurred during the Second World War.
Subsequent Polish and international investigations led by independent observers conclusively determined that the crash-landing was an accident caused by fog and pilot error. Still, Kaczynski had long suspected that Russian President Vladimir Putin had a role in provoking the accident, and was harboring a personal grudge against the Russian president.
The Polish electorate dispensed poetic justice to kingmaker Kaczynski as he was ousted from power following the last October’s parliamentary elections in Poland due to his myopic and vindictive policies and Donald Tusk was elected prime minister of the coalition government.
Tusk is a seasoned politician and diplomat who was the President of the European Council from 2014 to 2019. It was expected of him to display statesmanship and revisit the confrontational approach of his predecessors. But clearly, he is going down the same path of perdition that proved fatal not only for egocentric and spiteful politicians but for the Poles as a nation.
There is only one country in the world right now, in the midst of Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is guaranteed dozens of standing ovations from the vast majority of its elected representatives.
That country is not Israel, where he has been a hugely divisive figure for many years. It is the United States.
On Wednesday, Netanyahu was back-slapped, glad-handed, whooped and cheered as he slowly made his way – hailed at every step as a conquering hero – to the podium of the US Congress.
This was the same Netanyahu who has overseen during the past 10 months the slaughter– so far – of some 40,000 Palestinians, around half of them women and children. More than 21,000 other children are reported missing, most of them likely dead under rubble.
It was the same Netanyahu who levelled a strip of territory – originally home to 2.3 million Palestinians – that is expected to take 80 years to rebuild, at a cost of at least $50bn.
It was the same Netanyahu who has destroyed every hospital and university in Gaza, and bombed almost all of its schools that were serving as shelters for families made homeless by other Israeli bombs.
It was the same Netanyahu whose arrest is being sought by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, accused of using starvation as a weapon of war by imposing an aid blockade that has engineered a famine across Gaza.
It was the same Netanyahu whose government was found last week by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to have been intensifying Israel’s apartheid rule over the Palestinian people in an act of long-term aggression.
It was the same Netanyahu whose government is standing trial for committing what the ICJ, the world’s highest judicial body, has termed a “plausible genocide”.
And yet, there was just one visible protester in the congressional chamber. Rashida Tlaib, the only US legislator of Palestinian heritage, sat silently grasping a small black sign. On one side it said: “War criminal”. On the other: “Guilty of genocide”.
One person among hundreds mutely trying to point out that the emperor was naked.
Cocooned from horror
Indeed, the optics were stark.
This looked less like a visit by a foreign leader than a decorated elder general being welcomed back to the Senate in ancient Rome, or a grey-haired British viceroy from India embraced in the motherland’s parliament, after brutally subduing the “barbarians” on the fringes of empire.
This was a scene familiar from history books: of imperial brutality and colonial savagery, recast by the seat of the imperium as valour, honour, civilisation. And it looked every bit as absurd, and abhorrent, as it does when we look back on what happened 200 or 2,000 years ago.
It was a reminder that, despite our self-serving claims of progress and humanitarianism, our world is not very different from the way it has been for thousands of years.
It was a reminder that power elites like to celebrate the demonstration of their power, cocooned both from the horrors faced by those crushed by their might, and from the clamour of protest of those horrified by the infliction of so much suffering.
It was a reminder that this is not a “war” between Israel and Hamas – let alone, as Netanyahu would have us believe, a battle for civilisation between the Judeo-Christian world and the Islamic world.
This is a US imperial war – part of its military campaign for “global, full-spectrum dominance” – carried out by Washington’s most favoured client state.
The genocide is fully a US genocide, armed by Washington, paid for by Washington, given diplomatic cover by Washington, and – as the scenes in Congress underlined – cheered on by Washington.
Or as Netanyahu stated in a moment of unintentional candour to Congress: “Our enemies are your enemy, our fight is your fight, and our victory will be your victory.”
Israel is Washington’s largest military outpost in the oil-rich Middle East. The Israeli army is the Pentagon’s main battalion in that strategically important region. And Netanyahu is the outpost’s commander in chief.
What is vital to Washington elites is that the outpost is supported at all costs; that it doesn’t fall to the “barbarians”.
Outpouring of lies
There was another small moment of inadvertent truth amid Netanyahu’s outpouring of lies. The Israeli prime minister stated that what was happening in Gaza was “a clash between barbarism and civilisation”. He was not wrong.
On the one side, there is the barbarism of the current joint Israeli-US genocide against the people of Gaza, a dramatic escalation of the 17-year Israeli siege of the enclave that preceded it, and the decades of belligerent rule under an Israeli system of apartheid before that.
And on the other side, there are the embattled few desperately trying to safeguard the West’s professed values of “civilisation”, of international humanitarian law, of the protection of the weak and vulnerable, of the rights of children.
The US Congress decisively showed where it stood: with barbarism.
Netanyahu has become the most feted foreign leader in US history, invited to speak to Congress four times, surpassing even Britain’s wartime leader, Winston Churchill.
He is fully Washington’s creature. His savagery, his monstrousness is entirely made in America. As he implored his US handlers: “Give us the tools faster and we’ll finish the job faster.”
Finish the job of genocide.
Performative dissent
Some Democrats preferred to stay away, including party power broker Nancy Pelosi. Instead, she met families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza – not, of course, Palestinian families whose loved ones in Gaza had been slaughtered by Israel.
Vice President Kamala Harris explained her own absence as a scheduling conflict. She met the Israeli prime minister, as did President Joe Biden, on Thursday.
Afterwards, she claimed to have pressed Netanyahu on the “dire” humanitarian situation in Gaza, but stressed too that Israel “had a right to defend itself” – a right that Israel specifically does not have, as the ICJ pointed out last week, because Israel is the one permanently violating the rights of the Palestinians through its prolonged occupation, apartheid rule and ethnic cleansing.
But the dissent of Pelosi – and of Harris, if that is what it was – was purely performative. True, they have no personal love for Netanyahu, who has so closely allied himself and his government with the US Republican right and former president Donald Trump.
But Netanyahu simply serves as an alibi. Both Pelosi and Harris are stalwart supporters of Israel – a state that, according to the ICJ’s judgment last week, decades ago instituted apartheid rule in the Palestinian territories, using an illegal occupation as cover to ethnically cleanse the population there.
Their political agenda is not about ending the annihilation of the people of Gaza. It is acting as a safety valve for popular dissatisfaction among traditional Democratic voters shocked by the scenes from Gaza.
It is to deceive them into imagining that behind closed doors, there is some sort of policy fight over Israel’s handling of the Palestinian issue. That voting Democrat will one day – one very distant day – lead to an undefined “peace”, a fabled “two-state solution” where Palestinian children won’t keep dying in the interests of preserving the security of Israel’s illegal settler-militias.
US policy towards Israel has not changed in any meaningful sense for decades, whether the president has been red or blue, whether Trump has been in the White House or Barack Obama.
And if Harris becomes president – admittedly, a big if – US arms and money will continue flowing to Israel, while Israel will get to decide if US aid to Gaza is ever allowed in.
Why? Because Israel is the lynchpin in a US imperial project for global full-spectrum dominance. Because for Washington to change course on Israel, it would also have to do other unthinkable things.
It would have to begin dismantling its 800 military bases around the planet, just as Israel was told by the ICJ last week to dismantle its many dozens of illegal settlements on Palestinian territory.
The US would need to agree a shared global security architecture with China and Russia, rather than seek to bully and batter these great powers into submission with bloody proxy wars, such as the one in Ukraine.
The coming fall
Pelosi, remember, smeared students on US campuses protesting Israel’s plausible genocide in Gaza as being linked to Russia. She urged the FBI to investigate them for pressuring the Biden administration to support a ceasefire.
Netanyahu, in his address to Congress, similarly demonised the demonstrators – in his case, by accusing them of being “useful idiots” of Israel’s main foe, Iran.
Neither can afford to recognise that millions of ordinary people across the US think it is wrong to bomb and starve children – and to use a war with an unachievable aim as the cover story.
Hamas cannot be “eliminated” through Israel’s current bout of horrifying violence for a very obvious reason: The group is a product, a symptom, of earlier bouts of horrifying Israeli violence.
As even western counter-terrorism experts have had to concede, Israel’s genocidal policies in Gaza are strengthening Hamas, not weakening it. Young men and boys who lose their family to Israeli bombs are Hamas’s most fervent new recruits.
That’s why Netanyahu insisted Israel’s military offensive – the genocide – in Gaza could not end soon. He demanded weapons and money to keep his soldiers in the enclave indefinitely, in an operation he termed as “demilitarisation and deradicalisation”.
Decoded, that means a continuing horror show for the Palestinians there, as they are forced to continue living and dying with an Israeli aid blockade, starvation, bombs and unmarked “kill zones”.
It means, too, an indefinite risk of Israel’s war on Gaza spilling over into a regional war, and potentially a global one, as tripwires towards escalation continue to grow in number.
The US Congress, however, is too blinded by championing its small fortressed state in the Middle East to think about such complexities. Its members roared “USA!” to their satrap from Israel, just as Roman senators once roared “Glory!” to generals whose victories they assumed would continue forever.
The rulers of the Roman empire no more saw the coming fall than their modern counterparts in Washington can. But every empire falls. And its collapse becomes inevitable once its rulers lose all sense of how absurd and abhorrent they have become.
Beatriz González (Colombia), Señor presidente, qué honor estar con usted en este momento histórico (‘Mr President, What an Honour to Be with You in This Historic Moment’), 1987.
There are times in life when you want to set aside complexity and return to the essence of things. Last week, I was on a boat in the Caribbean Sea, travelling from Isla Grande to the mainland of Colombia, when it began to rain heavily. Though our boat was modest, we were in minimal danger with Ever de la Rosa Morales, a leader of the Afro-Colombian community on the twenty-seven Rosario Islands (located off the coast of Cartagena), at the helm. During the downpour, a range of human emotions swept through me, from fear to exhilaration. The rain was linked to Hurricane Beryl, a storm that struck Jamaica at a Category Four level (the highest the country has experienced) and then moved toward Mexico with a more muted ferocity.
The Haitian poet Frankétienne sings of the ‘dialect of lunatic hurricanes’, the ‘folly of colliding winds’, and the ‘hysteria of the roaring sea’. These are fitting phrases to describe the way we experience the power of nature, a power that has redoubled as a result of the damage inflicted upon it by capitalism. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report suggests that the North Atlantic has almost certainly experienced stronger and more frequent hurricanes since the 1970s. Scientists say that long-term greenhouse gas emissions have led to warmer ocean waters, which pick up more moisture and energy and lead to both stronger winds and more rainfall.
On Isla Grande, where pirates used to stash their loot and where Africans escaping enslavement fled over five hundred years ago, residents held an assembly in early July to discuss the need for an electricity plant that would benefit the islanders. The assembly is part of a long struggle that ultimately allowed them to remain on these islands, despite the Colombian oligarchy’s attempt to evict them in 1984, and succeeded in removing the rich owner of the best land on Isla Grande, upon which they built the town of Orika through a process called minga (community solidarity). Their Community Action Board (Junta de Acción Comunal), which led the struggle to defend their land, is now called the Community Council of the Rosario Islands (Consejo Comunitario de las Islas del Rosario). Part of that council held the assembly, an example of the permanent minga.
The island is knit together by this spirit of minga and by the mangroves, which preserve the habitat from the rising waters. The assembled residents know that they must expand their electricity capacity, not only to promote eco-tourism, but also for their own use. But how can they generate electricity on these small islands?
On the day of the rains, Colombian President Gustavo Petro visited the town of Sabanalarga (Atlántico) to inaugurate the Colombia Solar Forest, a complex of five solar parks with a capacity of 100 megawatts. This park is set to benefit 400,000 Colombians and cut annual CO2 emissions by 110,212 tonnes, which is equivalent to 4.3 million car trips from Barranquilla to Cartagena. At this event, Petro called on mayors in the Colombian Caribbean to build ten-megawatt solar farms for each municipality, reduce electricity rates, decarbonise the economy, and promote sustainable development. This is perhaps the most concrete solution for the islands to date, whose coastlines are being eroded by the rising waters.
As Petro spoke in Sabanalarga, I thought about his speech to the United Nations last year, where he pleaded for world leaders to honour the ‘crisis of life’ and fix our problems together rather than ‘waste time killing one another’. In that speech, Petro lyrically described the situation in 2070, forty-six years from now. In that year, he said, Colombia’s lush forests will become deserts and ‘people will go north, no longer attracted by the sequins of wealth, but by something simpler and more vital: water’. ‘Billions’, he said, ‘will defy armies and change the Earth’ as they travel to find the remaining sources of water.
Such a dystopia must be prevented. To do so, Petro said, at the very minimum sufficient funding must be provided for the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), established by a treaty in 2015. While the entire process of developing these SDGs was fraught with problems, including how they disarticulate issues that are inextricably connected (poverty and water, for instance), their existence and acceptance by world governments provides an opportunity to insist that they be taken seriously. On 8 July, the United Nations Economic and Social Council opened the 2024 High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, which will last for ten days. The gap between the funds pledged to meet the SDGs and the actual amount provided to implement the programme in developing countries is now $4 trillion per year (up from $2.5 trillion in 2019). Without sufficient funding, it is unlikely that this forum will have any meaningful outcome.
Abdelaziz Gorgi (Tunisia), Les Joueuses de Cartes (‘Card Players’), 1973.
In anticipation of the forum, the UN released the Sustainable Development Goals Report2024, which shows that only ‘minimal or moderate’ progress has been made toward nearly half of the seventeen targets, and more than a third have either stalled or regressed. While the first sustainable development goal is to eradicate poverty, for instance, the report notes that ‘the global extreme poverty rate increased in 2020 for the first time in decades’, and that by 2030, at least 590 million people will be in extreme poverty and fewer than one in three countries will halve national poverty. Similarly, while the second goal is to end hunger, in 2022 one in ten people faced hunger, 2.4 billion people were moderately or severely food insecure, and 148 million children under the age of five suffered from stunting. These two goals, ending poverty and ending hunger, are perhaps the ones with the highest global consensus. And yet, we are nowhere near meeting even a modest interpretation of these goals. Ending poverty and hunger would also assist in the fifth SDG, gender equality, since it would reduce the increased burden of care work placed mostly on women, who largely bear the weight of austerity policies.
There is, as President Petro said, a ‘crisis of life’. We seem to favour death over life. Each year, we spend more and more on the global military. As of 2022, this number was $2.87 trillion – nearly the amount needed to finance all seventeen SDGs for one year. It is strange how the advocates of a planet at war claim that they are realistic, while those who want a planet of peace are seen as idealists; yet, in fact, those who want a planet of war are exterminators, while those of us who advocate for a planet of peace are the only possible realists. Reality demands peace over war, spending our precious resources to solve our common problems – such as climate change, poverty, hunger, and illiteracy – above all else.
In September 2023, a month before the current genocidal assault against Gaza began, Petro called for the UN to sponsor two peace conferences, one for Ukraine and one for Palestine. If there can be peace in these two hotspots, Petro said, ‘they would teach us to make peace in all regions of the planet’. This perfectly reasonable suggestion was ignored then and is ignored now. Nonetheless, this did not stop Petro from organising a massive Latin American concert for peace in Palestine in early July.
Rosângela Rennó (Brasil), from the series Rio-Montevideo, 2016.
There is madness in our choices. The revenues of the top five arms dealers in 2022 alone (all domiciled in the United States) were around $276 billion, a number that should be a standing rebuke to humanity. Israel has dropped roughly 13,050 MK-84 ‘dumb bombs’ on Gaza, which have an explosive capacity of 2,000 pounds (around 900 kgs) per bomb. Each of these bombs costs $16,000, meaning that the bombs already dropped have cost over $200 million in total. It is strange that the very governments that supply Israel with these bombs and that give it political cover (including the US) then turn around and fund the UN to dismantle unexploded dumb bombs from Gaza during the pause between bombings. Meanwhile, aid for relief and development in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (which includes Gaza) has not exceeded hundreds of millions – in a good year. More spent on weapons, less spent on life – the ugliness of our humanity needs to be transformed.
Mohamed Sulaiman (Western Sahara), Red Liberty, 2014.
The young artist Mohamed Sulaiman grew up in Algeria, at the Smara Refugee Camp of the displaced peoples of Western Sahara. After studying at Algeria’s University of Batna, Sulaiman returned to the camp to make art based on calligraphy traditions that use the oral histories of the Saharawi people as well as poems of contemporary Arab writers. In 2016, Sulaiman founded the Motif Art Studio, built from recycled materials to resemble traditional desert homes. In his studio, which opened in 2017, Sulaiman hangs Red Liberty, which carries a line from the Egyptian poet Ahmad Shawqi (1868–1932): ‘Red freedom has a door, knocked on by every bloodstained hand’. The line comes from ‘The Plight of Damascus’, a poem that reflects on the French destruction of Damascus in 1916 as revenge for the Arab revolt. The poem encapsulates not only the ugliness of the war, but also the promise of a future:
Homelands have a hand that has alreadylent a favour
and to which all free people owe a debt.
The bloodstained hand is the hand of those before us who struggled to build a better world, many of whom perished in that struggle. To them, and future generations, we owe a debt. We must turn this ‘crisis of life’ into an opportunity to ‘live far from the apocalypse and times of extinction,’ as Petro said last year; ‘A beautiful horizon [is coming] amidst the storm and darkness of today, a horizon that tastes like hope’.
Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is unhappy. Not so much with the Palestinians, whom he sees as terroristic, dispensable and a threat to Israeli security. Not with the Persians, who, he swears, will never acquire a nuclear weapon capacity on his watch. His recent lack of happiness has been directed against the fatty hand that feeds him and his country’s war making capabilities.
On June 18, the Israeli PM released a video decrying Washington’s recent conduct towards his government in terms of military aid. It was “inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel.” Having claimed such an idea to be inconceivable, Netanyahu proceeded to conceive. He stated that US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken had “assured” him “that the administration is working day and night to remove these bottlenecks. I certainly hope that’s the case. It should be the case.”
The release coincided with efforts made by President Joe Biden’s envoy, Amos Hochstein, to cool matters concerning Israel-Hezbollah hostilities, a matter that threatens to move beyond daily border skirmishes. It was also a pointed reference to the halt in a single shipment of 2000 pound (900kg) bombs to Israel regarding concerns about massive civilian casualties over any planned IDF assault on Rafah.
The White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was uncharacteristically unadorned in frankness. “We genuinely do not know what he is talking about.” Discussions between US and Israeli officials were continuing. “There are no other pauses – none.” It fell to the White House National Security Communications advisor, John Kirby, to field more substantive questions on the matter.
On June 20, Kirby admitted to being perplexed and disappointed at Netanyahu’s remarks, “especially given that no other country is doing more to help Israel defend itself against the threat by Hamas”. As he was at pains to point out, the US military industrial complex had enthusiastically furnished “material assistance to Israel” despite the pause on the provision of 2,000-pound bombs. The notion “that we had somehow stopped helping Israel with their self-defense needs is absolutely not accurate”. Netanyahu, in other words, was quibbling about the means of inflicting death, a matter of form over substance.
Blinken confirmed as much, stating that the administration was “continuing to review one shipment that President Biden has talked about with regard to 2000-pound bombs because of our concerns about their use in densely populated areas like Rafah.” All other matters were “moving as it normally would move.”
These remarks are unequivocally true. Annual military assistance to Israel from US coffers totals $3.8 billion. In April, President Joe Biden approved the provision of $17 billion in additional assistance to Israel amidst the continued pummelling of Gaza and the starvation of its thinning population. The Biden administration has also badgered Democratic lawmakers to give their blessing to the sale of 50 F-15 fighters to Israel in a contract amounting to $18 billion. But this, according to accounts from Israel’s Channel 12 and the German paper Bild, has been less than satisfactory for Israel’s blood lusting prime minister.
The disgruntled video precipitated much agitation among officials in the Biden administration. In an Axiosreport, three, inevitably anonymised, offer their views. One found it “hard to fathom” how the video “helps with deterrence. There is nothing like telling Hezbollah that the US is withholding weapons from Israel, which is false, to make them feel emboldened.”
The interviewed officials all admitted to Netanyahu’s inscrutability. A half-plausible line was ventured: running up points on the domestic front ahead of a visit to Washington from Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant. Not that the strategy was working for opposition leader, Yair Lapid, who found Netanyahu’s effort damaging in its reverberating potential. From Moscow to Tokyo, “everyone is reaching the same conclusion: Israel is no longer the closest ally of the US. This is the damage Netanyahu is causing us.”
Kirby’s remarks deserve scrutiny on another level. For one, they suggest a rationale that would have done much in flattening Israeli egos. “The president put fighter aircrafts up in the air in the middle of April to help shoot down several hundred drones and missiles, including ballistic missiles that were fired from Iran proper at Israel.”
Here arises an important omission: the intervention by the US was part of a coordinated, choreographed plan enabling Iran to show force in response to the April 1 Israeli strike on its ambassadorial compound in Damascus while minimising the prospect of casualties. Accordingly, Tehran and Washington found themselves in an odd, unacknowledged embrace that had one unintended consequence: revealing Israeli vulnerability. No longer could Israel be seen to be self-sufficiently impregnable, its defences firmly holding against all adversaries. In a perverse twist on that dilemma, a strong ally providing support is bound to be resented. Nothing supplied will ever be, or can be, enough.
The U.S. arms and supports Israel’s genocide and one of its largest banks, Citibank, plays a key role. Our latest visual in partnership with the Banking on Solidarity campaign illustrates how Citi helps arm Israel, finances weapons companies that make the weapons Israel uses in Gaza, and invests in the Israeli financial and tech sectors.
The world’s two highest courts have made an implacable enemy of Israel in trying to uphold international law and end Israeli atrocities in Gaza.
Separate announcements last week by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) should have forced Israel on to the back foot in Gaza.
A panel of judges at the ICJ – sometimes known as the World Court – demanded last Friday that Israel immediately stop its current offensive on Rafah, in southern Gaza.
Instead, Israel responded by intensifying its atrocities.
On Sunday, it bombed a supposedly “safe zone” crowded with refugee families forced to flee from the rest of Gaza, which has been devastated by Israel’s rampage for the past eight months.
The air strike set fire to an area crammed with tents, killing dozens of Palestinians, many of whom burnt alive. A video shows a man holding aloft a baby beheaded by the Israeli blast.
Hundreds more, many of them women and children, suffered serious injuries, including horrifying burns.
Israel has destroyed almost all of the medical facilities that could treat Rafah’s wounded, as well as denying entry to basic medical supplies such as painkillers that could ease their torment.
This was precisely the outcome US President Joe Biden warned of months ago when he suggested that an Israeli attack on Rafah would constitute a “red line”.
But the US red line evaporated the moment Israel crossed it. The best Biden’s officials could manage was a mealy-mouthed statement calling the images from Rafah “heart-breaking”.
Such images were soon to be repeated, however. Israel attacked the same area again on Tuesday, killing at least 21 Palestinians, mostly women and children, as its tanks entered the centre of Rafah.
‘A mechanism with teeth’
The World Court’s demand that Israel halt its attack on Rafah came in the wake of its decision in January to put Israel effectively on trial for genocide, a judicial process that could take years to complete.
In the meantime, the ICJ insisted, Israel had to refrain from any actions that risked a genocide of Palestinians. In last week’s ruling, the court strongly implied that the current attack on Rafah might advance just such an agenda.
Israel presumably dared to defy the court only because it was sure it had the Biden administration’s backing.
UN officials, admitting that they had run out of negatives to describe the ever-worsening catastrophe in Gaza, called it “hell on earth”.
Days before the ICJ’s ruling, the wheels of its sister court, the ICC, finally began to turn.
Karim Khan, its chief prosecutor, announced last week that he would be seeking arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, along with three Hamas leaders.
Both Israeli leaders are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including attempts to exterminate the population of Gaza through planned starvation.
Israel has been blocking aid deliveries for many months, creating famine, a situation only exacerbated by its recent seizure of a crossing between Egypt and Rafah through which aid was being delivered.
The ICC is a potentially more dangerous judicial mechanism for Israel than the ICJ.
The World Court is likely to take years to reach a judgment on whether Israel has definitively committed a genocide in Gaza – possibly too late to save much of its population.
The ICC, on the other hand, could potentially issue arrest warrants within days or weeks.
And while the World Court has no real enforcement mechanisms, given that the US is certain to veto any UN Security Council resolution seeking to hold Israel to account, an ICC ruling would place an obligation on more than 120 states that have ratified its founding document, the Rome Statute, to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant should either step on their soil.
That would make Europe and much of the world – though not the US – off-limits to both.
And there is no reason for Israeli officials to assume that the ICC’s investigations will finish with Netanyahu and Gallant. Over time, it could issue warrants for many more Israelis.
As one Israeli official has noted: “The ICC is a mechanism with teeth”.
‘Antisemitic’ court
For that reason, Israel responded by going on the warpath, accusing the court of being “antisemitic” and threatening to harm its officials.
Washington appeared ready to add its muscle too.
Asked at a Senate committee hearing whether he would support a Republican proposal to impose sanctions on the ICC, Antony Blinken, Biden’s secretary of state, replied: “We want to work with you on a bipartisan basis to find an appropriate response.”
Administration officials, speaking to the Financial Times, suggested the measures under consideration “would target prosecutor Karim Khan and others involved in the investigation”.
US reprisals, according to the paper, would most likely be modelled on the sanctions imposed in 2020 by Donald Trump, Joe Biden’s predecessor, after the ICC threatened to investigate both Israel and the US over war crimes, in the occupied Palestinian territories and Afghanistan respectively.
Then, the Trump administration accused the ICC of “financial corruption and malfeasance at the highest levels” – allegations it never substantiated.
Fatou Bensouda, the chief prosecutor at the time, was denied entry to the US, and Trump officials threatened to confiscate her and the ICC judges’ assets and put them on trial. The administration also vowed to use force to liberate any Americans or Israelis who were arrested.
Mike Pompeo, the then US secretary of state, averred that Washington was “determined to prevent having Americans and our friends and allies in Israel and elsewhere hauled in by this corrupt ICC”.
Covert war on ICC
In fact, a joint investigation by the Israeli website 972 and the British Guardian newspaper revealed this week that Israel – apparently with US support – has been running a covert war against the ICC for the best part of a decade.
Its offensive began after Palestine became a contracting party to the ICC in 2015, and intensified after Bensouda, Khan’s predecessor, started a preliminary investigation into Israeli war crimes – both Israel’s repeated attacks on Gaza and its building of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their lands.
Bensouda found herself and her family threatened, and her husband blackmailed. The head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, Yossi Cohen, became personally involved in the campaign of intimidation. An official briefed on Cohen’s behaviour likened it to “stalking”. The Mossad chief ambushed Bensouda on at least one occasion in an attempt to recruit her to Israel’s side.
Cohen, who is known to be close to Netanyahu, reportedly told her: “You should help us and let us take care of you. You don’t want to be getting into things that could compromise your security or that of your family.”
Israel has also been running a sophisticated spying operation on the court, hacking its database to read emails and documents. It has tried to recruit ICC staff to spy on the court from within. There are suspicions at the ICC that Israel has been successful.
Because Israel oversees access to the occupied territories, it has been able to ban ICC officials from investigating its war crimes directly. That has meant, given its control of the telecommunications systems in the territories, that it has been able to monitor all conversations between the ICC and Palestinians reporting atrocities.
As a result, Israel has sought to close down Palestinian legal and human rights groups by designating them as “terrorist organisations”.
The surveillance of the ICC has continued during Khan’s tenure – and it is the reason Israel knew the arrest warrants were coming. According to sources that spoke to the Guardian and 972 website, the court came under “tremendous pressure from the United States” not to proceed with the warrants.
Khan has pointed out that interference in the court’s activities is a criminal offence. More publicly, a group of senior US Republican senators sent a threatening letter to Khan: “Target Israel and we will target you.”
Khan himself has noted that he has faced a campaign of intimidation and has warned that, if the interference continues, “my office will not hesitate to act”.
The question is how much of this is bravado, and how much is it affecting Khan and the ICC’s judges, making them wary of pursuing their investigation, expediting it or expanding it to more Israeli war crimes suspects.
Legal noose
Despite the intimidation, the legal noose is quickly tightening around Israel’s neck. It has become impossible for the world’s highest judicial authorities to ignore Israel’s eight-month slaughter in Gaza and near-complete destruction of its infrastructure, from schools and hospitals to aid compounds and bakeries.
Many tens of thousands of Palestinian children have been killed, maimed and orphaned in the rampage, and hundreds of thousands more are being gradually starved to death by Israel’s aid blockade.
The role of the World Court and the War Crimes Court are precisely to halt atrocities and genocides before it is too late.
There is an obligation on the world’s most powerful states – especially the world’s superpower-in-chief, the United States, which so often claims the status of “global policeman” – to help enforce such rulings.
Should Israel continue to ignore the ICJ’s demand that it end its attack on Rafah, as seems certain, the UN Security Council would be expected to pass a resolution to enforce the decision.
That could range from, at a minimum, an arms embargo and economic sanctions on Israel to imposing no-fly zones over Gaza or even sending in a UN peacekeeping force.
Washington has shown it can act when it wishes to. Even though the US is one of a minority of states not a party to the Rome Statute, it has vigorously supported the arrest warrant issued by the ICC against Russian leader Vladimir Putin in 2023.
The US and its allies have imposed economic sanctions on Moscow, and supplied Ukraine with endless weapons to fight off the Russian invasion. There is evidence, too, that the US has been waging covert military operations targeting Russia, most likely including blowing up the Nordstream pipelines supplying Russian gas to Europe.
The media’s Nord Stream lies just keep coming.
Why do billionaires and governments scramble to control the media? Because the power over our minds is the greatest power there is.
The Biden administration has orchestrated the seizing of Russian state assets, as well as those of wealthy Russians, and it has encouraged a cultural and sporting boycott.
It is proposing to do none of that in the case of Israel.
Divisions in Europe
It is not just that the US is missing in action as Israel advances its genocidal goals in Gaza. Washington is actively aiding and abetting the genocide, by supplying Israel with bombs, by cutting funding to UN aid agencies that are the main lifeline for Gaza’s population, by sharing intelligence with Israel and by refusing to use its plentiful leverage over Israel to stop the slaughter.
And the widespread assumption is that the US will veto any Security Council resolution against Israel.
According to two former ICC officials who spoke to the Guardian and 972 website, senior Israeli officials have expressly stated that Israel and the US are working together to stymie the court’s work.
Washington’s contempt for the world’s highest judicial authorities is so flagrant that it is even starting to fray relations with Europe.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has thrown his weight behind the ICC and called for any ruling against Netanyahu and Gallant to be respected.
Meanwhile, on Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his outrage over Israel’s attacks on Rafah and called for them to stop immediately.
Three European states – Spain, Ireland and Norway – announced last week that they were joining more than 140 other countries, including eight from the 27-member European Union, in recognising Palestine as a state.
The coordination between Spain, Ireland and Norway was presumably designed to attenuate the inevitable backlash provoked by defying Washington’s wishes.
Among the falsehoods promoted by the US and Israel is the claim that the ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel’s military actions in Gaza because neither of them have recognised Palestine as a state.
But Palestine became a state party to the ICC way back in 2015. And, as Spain, Ireland and Norway have highlighted, it is now recognised even by western states usually submissive to the US-imposed “rules-based order”.
Another deception promoted by Israel and the US – a more revealing one – is the claim that the ICC lacks jurisdiction because Israel, like the US, has not ratified the Rome Statute.
Neither believes international law – the legal foundation constructed in the aftermath of the Second World War to stop future Holocausts – applies to them. Which is yet more reason to discount their assurances that there is no genocide in Gaza.
But in any case, the argument is entirely hollow: Palestine is a party to the ICC, and the Rome Statute is there to protect its signatories from attack. It is only violent bullies like the US and Israel who have no need for the ICC.
Might makes right
Both the ICJ and the ICC are fully aware of the dangers of taking on Israel – which is why, despite the dissembling complaints from the US and Israel, each court is treading so slowly and cautiously in dealing with Israeli atrocities.
Pick at the Israeli thread of war crimes in Gaza, and the entire cloth of atrocities around the world committed and promoted by the US and its closest allies starts to unravel.
The unspoken truth is that the “Shock and Awe” bombing campaign and years of brutal occupation of Iraq by US and British troops, and the even lengthier and equally bloody occupation of Afghanistan, eviscerated the legal constraints that would have made it harder for Putin to invade Ukraine and for Israel to put into practice the erasure of the Palestinian people it has dreamed of for so long.
It is Washington that tore up the rulebook of international law and elevated above it a self-serving “rules-based order” in which the only meaningful rule is might makes right.
Faced with that stark axiom, Moscow had good reason both to take advantage of Washington’s acts of vandalism against international law to advance its own strategic regional aims and to suspect that the relentless military expansion of a US-led Nato towards its borders did not have Russia’s best interests at heart.
Now, as Netanyahu and Gallant risk being put in the dock at The Hague, Washington is finally finding its resolve to act. Not to stop genocide. But to offer Israel protection to carry on.
War crimes overlooked
For that reason, Khan did everything he could last week to insulate himself from criticism as he announced that he wants Netanyahu and Gallant arrested.
First, he made sure to weigh the accusations more heavily against Hamas than Israel. He is seeking three Hamas leaders against two Israelis.
In his indictment, he implicated both the Hamas political and military wings in war crimes and crimes against humanity over their one-day attack on Israel on 7 October and their hostage-taking.
By contrast, Khan completely ignored the Israeli military’s role over the past eight months, even though it has been carrying out Netanyahu and Gallant’s wishes to the letter.
Notably too, Khan charged the head of Hamas’ political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, who is based in Qatar, not Gaza. All the evidence, however, is that he had no foreknowledge of the attack on 7 October and certainly no operational involvement.
Further presenting Hamas in a worse light, Khan levelled more indictments against its leaders than Israel’s.
That included a charge rooted in a prominent western establishment narrative: that Israeli hostages held in Gaza have faced systematic sexual assault and torture. There appears to be little persuasive evidence for this allegation at this stage, unless Khan has access to facts no one else appears to know about.
By contrast, there is plenty of objective evidence of Palestinians being kidnapped off the streets of Gaza and the occupied West Bank and subjected to sexual assault and torture in Israeli prisons.
The message of Israel’s torture chambers is directed at all of us, not just Palestinians. ‘Black sites’ are about reminding those who have been colonised and enslaved of a simple lesson: resistance is futile.
That, however, is not on the charge sheet against Netanyahu or Gallant.
Khan also ignored plenty of other Israeli war crimes that would be easy to prove, such as the destruction of hospitals and United Nations facilities, the targeted killing of large numbers of aid workers and journalists, and the fact that 70 percent of Gaza’s housing stock has been made uninhabitable by Israel’s US-supplied bombs.
Taking on Goliath
In making the case against Israel, Khan clearly knew he was taking on a Goliath, given Israel’s stalwart backing from the US. He had even recruited a panel of legal experts to give its blessing, in the hope that might offer some protection from reprisal.
The panel, which unanimously endorsed the indictments against Israel and Hamas, included legal experts like Amal Clooney, the nearest the human rights community has to a legal superstar. But it also included Theodor Meron, a former legal authority in the Israeli government’s foreign ministry.
In an exclusive interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, explaining his reasoning, Khan seemed keen to preempt the coming attacks. He noted that an unnamed senior US politician had already tried to deter him from indicting Israeli leaders. The prosecutor suggested that other threats were being made behind the scenes.
The ICC, he was told, was “built for Africa and thugs like Putin” – a criticism of the court that echoed complaints long levelled against it by the Global South.
In Washington, the ICC is expected to serve as nothing more than another institutional tool of US imperialism. It is not there to uphold international law dispassionately. It is there to enforce a US “rules-based order” in which the US and its allies can do no wrong, even when they are committing atrocities or a genocide.
The predictably skewed framing of the interview by Amanpour – that Khan needed to explain and justify at length each of the charges he laid against Netanyahu and Gallant but that the charges against the Hamas leaders were self-evident – was one clue as to what the court is up against.
The ICC prosecutor made clear that he understands all too well what is at stake if the ICC and ICJ turn a blind eye to the Gaza genocide, as Israel and the US want. He told Amanpour: “If we don’t apply the law equally, we’re going to disintegrate as a species.”
The uncomfortable truth is that such disintegration, in a nuclear age, may be further advanced than any of us cares to acknowledge.
The US and its favourite client state give no sign of being willing to submit to international law. Like Samson, they would prefer to bring the house down than respect the long-established rules of war.
The initial victims are the people of Gaza. But in a world without laws, where might alone makes right, all of us will ultimately be the losers.
The Biden administration has quietly given Ukraine permission to strike inside Russia — solely near the area of Kharkiv — using U.S.-provided weapons, three U.S. officials and two other people familiar with the move said Thursday, a major reversal that will help Ukraine to better defend its second-largest city.
“The president recently directed his team to ensure that Ukraine is able to use U.S. weapons for counter-fire purposes in Kharkiv so Ukraine can hit back at Russian forces hitting them or preparing to hit them,” one of the U.S. officials said, adding that the policy of not allowing long-range strikes inside Russia “has not changed.”
Ukraine asked the U.S. to make this policy change only after Russia’s offensive on Kharkiv began this month, the official added. All the people were granted anonymity to discuss internal decisions that haven’t been announced. …
In effect, Ukraine can now use American-provided weapons, such as rockets and rocket launchers, to shoot down launched Russian missiles heading toward Kharkiv, at troops massing just over the Russian border near the city, or Russian bombers launching bombs toward Ukrainian territory. But the official said Ukraine cannot use those weapons to hit civilian infrastructure or launch long-range missiles, such as the Army Tactical Missile System, to hit military targets deep inside Russia.
It’s a stunning shift the administration initially said would escalate the war by more directly involving the U.S. in the fight. But worsening conditions for Ukraine on the battlefield –– namely Russia’s advances and improved position in Kharkiv –– led the president to change his mind. …
What this means is that if Volodmyr Zelensky (whose legal term of office as Ukraine’s President ended on May 20) decides that Ukraine should use American weapons and bombs to hit “military targets” that are in Russia and “near the area of Kharkiv,” then the U.S. Government will not object. The article does not say how the phrase “military targets” there is being defined, nor how “near the area of Kharkiv” is being defined.
The U.S. Government has been, to a large extent if not fully, operating or in control over the operation of those U.S.-made weapons; and, therefore, one may reasonably presume that any decision as to whether to use those weapons and bombs in any given instance will have the prior approval of both the Ukrainian and the American Governments.
One also may reasonably assume that if ever Ukraine would violate Biden’s order in this regard, then Biden would condemn Ukraine for having done so. Whether or not Russia’s Government would take that as being sincerely an expression that only Ukraine was to blame for that U.S.-and-Ukraine attack against Russia is impossible reasonably to predict in advance. Consequently, if the limitations upon what Ukraine’s government can do with America’s weapons and bombs are not yet already over the limits of what will precipitate a nuclear attack by Russia against the United States and its colonies (‘allies’), as having “crossed over Russia’s red lines” of what Russia considers to constitute an acceptable violation of Russia’s national security, then how Russia will respond in any case if Ukraine will violate Biden’s command and Biden will condemn Ukraine for that, is likewise impossible reasonably to predict in advance. However, if Russia will in such an instance unleash its estimated 5,580 nuclear weapons against the U.S. and its colonies, then there will be a debate among the immediate survivors of WW3 regarding whether the villain here was Biden or instead Putin, or both.
If WW3 will happen before America’s November 5 elections, then if such elections will be held, either Donald Trump or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be the President starting in 2025. If WW3 will happen after such elections, then America’s voters today should know that on May 28, the Washington Post, headlined “Trump makes sweeping promises to donors on audacious fundraising tour”, and reported that at one fundraising event for billionaires and centi-millionaires (not for mere voters), “he suggested that he would have bombed Moscow and Beijing if Russia invaded Ukraine or China invaded Taiwan.” In other words: to him, regarding the current war in Ukraine, and regarding the long-sought-by-the-U.S.-Government war in Taiwan, those two wars and to-become wars, are not merely “other people’s wars,” but these are our wars — meaning those American billionaires’ and centi-millionaires’ wars — to which he, as the U.S. President, would respond immediately by bombing, respectively, Russia and China.
Though the CIA-edited and written Wikipedia (which blacklists [blocks from linking to] sites that aren’t CIA-approved) says nothing about the former President of Ukraine Volodmyr Zelenskyy being no longer legally after 20 May 2024 Ukraine’s President, and he did announce that the 20 May 2024 elections would be cancelled, he still does serve as-if he is Ukraine’s President, and is not questioned about that in U.S.-and-allied media. No polling has been done regarding whom Ukrainians would vote for if they were allowed to vote. However, on 15 February 2024, Yahoo News headlined “New poll shows Zelenskyy’s approval dips 5 points in Ukraine after departure of General Zaluzhnyi” and buried in its news-report that the poll showed that as-of February 24, the level of “trust” in leading political figures by the Ukrainian public were: Valerii Zaluzhnyi – 94%; Kyrylo Budanov – 66%; Volodymyr Zelenskyy – 64%; Serhiy Prytula – 61%; and Oleksandr Syrskyi – 40%. Zaluzhnyi was appointed Ukraine’s Ambassador to UK on 7 March 2024, after having been fired by Zelenskyy as Ukraine’s top General. Zelenskyy replaced him with Oleksandr Syrskyi.
When Nicaragua accused Germany of aiding and abetting Israel’s genocide in Gaza at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) last month, readers of corporate media might have seriously wondered whether Nicaragua’s case had any legitimacy.
The case targeted Germany as the second biggest supplier of arms to Israel, because the US, Israel’s biggest supplier, does not accept the court’s jurisdiction on this issue. The object (as Nicaragua’s lawyer explained) was to create a precedent with wider application – that countries must take responsibility for the consequences of their arms sales to avoid them being used in breach of international law.
Many in corporate media took a more jaundiced view. The Financial Times led by telling readers, “The authoritarian government of Nicaragua accused Germany of ‘facilitating genocide’ in Gaza at the opening of a politically charged case.” The second paragraph in a New York Timesarticle cited “experts” who saw it “as a cynical move by a totalitarian government to bolster its profile and distract attention from its own worsening record of repression.” The Guardianqualified its comment piece by remarking that “Nicaragua is hardly a poster child when it comes to respect for human rights.”
Double standards are evident here. If the US government were to do what it has failed to do so far, and condemn Israel’s genocidal violence, Western corporate media would not remind readers of US crimes against humanity, such as the Abu Ghraib tortures, extraordinary renditions or the hundreds imprisoned without trial at Guantánamo. It’s hard to imagine Washington would be accused of “hypocrisy” (Guardian) for calling out Israel’s crimes. Any condemnation of Israel by the US or one of its Western allies would be taken at face value—in clear contrast to the media’s treatment of such action by an official enemy country like Nicaragua.
Of establishment media, Spain’s El Pais was perhaps the most vitriolic in its portrayal of Nicaragua. Its piece on the court case was headlined “The Worst Version of Nicaragua Against the Best Version of Germany.” “The third international court case on the Gaza war pits a regime accused of crimes against humanity against a strong and legitimate democracy,” the piece explained. “It may be a noble cause, but its champion couldn’t be worse.”
The paper commented rather oddly that Germany was “at its finest” arguing the case, and that its “defense against Nicaragua’s charges is solid and its legitimacy as a democratic state is unassailable”—a comment presumably intended to contrast its legitimacy with “the Nicaraguan dictatorship.”
In addition to its article cited above, the New York Times had a report more focused on the case itself. However, it was CNN and AlJazeera that stood out as covering the case on its own merits rather than being distracted by animosity toward Nicaragua.
The negative presentation in much of the media was repeated when, later in April, they headlined that Nicaragua’s request had been “rejected” by the ICJ, with the New York Timesagain remembering to insert a derogatory comment about Nicaragua’s action being “hypocritical.” These followup reports largely overlooked the impact the case had on Germany’s ability to further arm Israel during its continued assault on Gaza.
Nicaraguan ‘Nazis’
Corporate media had been gifted their criticisms of Nicaragua by a report published at the end of February by the UN Human Rights Council. A “group of human rights experts on Nicaragua” (the “GHREN”) had produced its second report on the country. Its first, last year, had accused Nicaragua’s government of crimes against humanity, leading to this eyebrow-raising New York Timesheadline: “Nicaragua’s ‘Nazis’: Stunned Investigators Cite Hitler’s Germany.”
The GHREN’s leader, German lawyer Jan-Michael Simon, had indeed likened the current Sandinista government to the Nazis. Times reporter Frances Robles quoted Simon:
“The weaponizing of the justice system against political opponents in the way that is done in Nicaragua is exactly what the Nazi regime did,” Jan-Michael Simon, who led the team of U.N.-appointed criminal justice experts, said in an interview.
“People massively stripped of their nationality and being expelled out of the country: This is exactly what the Nazis did too,” he added.
It’s quite an accusation, given that the Nazis established over 44,000 incarceration camps of various types and killed some 17 million people. Robles gave few numbers regarding the crimes Nicaragua is accused of, but did mention 40 extrajudicial killings in 2018 attributed to state and allied actors and noted that the Ortega government had in 2023 “stripped the citizenship from 300 Nicaraguans who a judge called ‘traitors to the homeland.’”
Robles also quoted Juan Sebastián Chamorro, a member of the Nicaraguan oligarchic family who are among the Sandinista government’s fiercest opponents; Chamorro claimed there was evidence of “more than 350 people who were assassinated.” Even if true, this would seem to be a serious stretch from “exactly what the Nazis did.”
Like most Western reporters, Robles—who also wrote the recent ICJ piece for the Times—gave no attention to the criticisms of the GHREN’s work by human rights specialists who argued that the GHREN did not examine all the evidence made available to it and interviewed only opposition sources. For example, former UN independent expert Alfred de Zayas castigated its first report in his book The Human Rights Industry, calling it a “political pamphlet” intended to destabilize Nicaragua’s government.
Even if one takes the GHREN account at face value, the Gaza genocide is at least 100 times worse in terms of numbers of fatalities, quite apart from other horrendous elements, such as deliberate starvation, indiscriminate bombing, destruction of hospitals and much more. It’s unclear why the accusations against Nicaragua should delegitimize the case against Germany.
Hague history
Many media reports did mention Nicaragua’s long history of support for Palestine—which undermines the accusation of cynicism underlying the case—but few noted the Latin American country’s history of success at the Hague. As Carlos Argüello, the Nicaraguan ambassador to the Netherlands who took the lead at the ICJ, pointed out, Nicaragua has more experience at the Hague than most countries, including Germany. This began with its pioneer case against the US in 1984, when it won compensation of £17 billion (that was never paid) for the damage done to Nicaragua by the US-funded Contra war and the mining of its ports.
One notable exception to that historical erasure came from Robles at the Times, who did refer to the 1984 case. But the point was clearly not to remind readers of US crimes or to demonstrate that Nicaragua is an actor to be taken seriously in the realm of international law. The two academics she quoted both served to portray the current case as merely “cynical.”
The first, Mateo Jarquín, Robles quoted as saying that the Sandinista government has “a long track record…of using global bodies like the ICJ to carve out space for itself internationally—to build legitimacy and resist diplomatic isolation.” Robles didn’t disclose Jarquín’s second surname, Chamorro. Like her source in the earlier article, he is a member of the family that includes several government opponents.
Robles also quoted Manuel Orozco, a former Nicaraguan working at the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue, whose major funders include the US Agency for International Development and the International Republican Institute, notorious for their role in promoting regime change, including in Nicaragua. Orozco told Robles that “Nicaragua lacks the moral and political authority to speak or advocate for human rights, much less on matters of genocide.”
“Effectively siding with Germany”
On April 30, the ICJ declined to grant Nicaragua its requested provisional measures against Germany, including requiring the cessation of arms deliveries to Israel. Headlining this outcome, the Associated Presssaid the court was “effectively siding with Germany.” The outlet did, however, continue by explaining that the court had “declined to throw out the case altogether, as Germany had requested” and will hear arguments from both sides, with a resolution not likely to come for years.
That was better than NPR’sreport, which only mentioned that the court was proceeding with the case in its final paragraph.
But German lawyer and professor Stefan Talmon clarified that the court’s ruling “severely limits Germany’s ability to transfer arms to Israel.”
“The court’s order was widely interpreted as a victory for Germany,” Talmon commented. “A closer examination of the order, however, points to the opposite.” He concluded that although the ICJ did not generally ban the provision of arms to Israel, it did impose significant restrictions on it by emphasizing Germany’s obligation to “avoid the risk that such arms might be used to violate the [Genocide and Geneva] Conventions.”
And Talmon pointed out that the court appeared to make its decision that an order to halt war weapons shipments was unnecessary based on Germany’s claim that it had already stopped doing so.
“By expressly emphasizing that, ‘at present’, circumstances did not require the indication of provisional measures, the Court made it clear that it could indicate such measures in the future,” Talmon wrote.
Establishment media, seemingly distracted by the “hypocrisy” of Nicaragua challenging a country whose “legitimacy as a democratic state is unassailable,” mostly failed to notice that its legal efforts were therefore at least partially successful: It forced Germany to back down from its unstinting support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and alerted German politicians to the fact that they are at risk of being held accountable under international law if they transfer any further war weapons.
• First published in FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting)
There is one thing we should all be able to agree with Benjamin Netanyahu on: Any comparison between Israel’s war crimes and those of Hamas is, as the Israeli prime minister put it, “absurd and false” and a “distortion of reality”.Here’s why:
* Israeli war crimes have been ongoing for more than seven decades, long predating Hamas’ creation.
* Israel has kept the Palestinians of Gaza caged into a concentration camp for the past 17 years, denying them connection to the outside world and the essentials of life. Hamas managed to besiege a small part of Israel for one day, on October 7.
* For every Israeli killed by Hamas on October 7, Israel has slaughtered at least 35 times that number of Palestinians. Similar kill-ratios grossly skewed in Israel’s favour have been true for decades.
* Israel has killed more than 15,000 Palestinian children since October – and many tens of thousands more Palestinian children are missing under rubble, maimed or orphaned. By early April, Israel had killed a further 114 children in the West Bank and injured 725 more. Hamas killed a total of 33 Israeli children on October 7.
* Israel has laid waste to Gaza’s entire health sector. It has bombed its hospitals, and killed, beaten and kidnapped many hundreds of medical personnel. Hamas has not attacked one Israeli hospital.
* Israel has killed more than 100 journalists in Gaza and more than 250 aid workers. It has also kidnapped a further 40 journalists. Most are presumed to have been taken to a secret detention facility where torture is rife. Hamas is reported to have killed one Israeli journalist on October 7, and no known aid workers.
* Israel is actively starving Gaza’s population by denying it food, water and aid. That is a power – a genocidal one – Hamas could only ever dream of.
* Israel has been forcibly removing Palestinians from their lands for more than 76 years to build illegal Jewish settlements in their place. Hamas has not been able to ethnically cleanse a single Israeli, nor build a single Palestinian settlement on Israeli land.
* Some 750,000 Palestinians are reported to have been taken hostage and jailed by Israel since 1967 – an unwelcome rite of passage for Palestinian men and boys and one in which torture is routine and military trials ensure a near-100% conviction rate. Until October 7, Hamas had only ever managed to take hostage a handful of the Israeli soldiers whose job is to oppress Palestinians.
* And, while Hamas is designated a terrorist organisation by western states, those same western states laud Israel, fund and arm it, and provide it with diplomatic cover, even as the World Court rules that a plausible case has been made it is committing a genocide in Gaza.
Yes, Netanyahu is right. There is no comparison at all.
Things are looking dire for the Ukrainian war effort. Promises of victory are becoming even hollower than they were last summer, when US President Joe Biden could state with breathtaking obliviousness that Russia had “already lost the war”. The worst offender in this regard remains the United States, which has been the most vocal proponent of fanciful victory over Russia, a message which reads increasingly as one of fighting to the last Ukrainian.
Such a victory is nigh fantasy, almost impossible to envisage. For one thing, domestic considerations about continued support for Kyiv have played a stalling part. In the US Congress, a large military aid package was stalled for six months. Among some Republicans, in particular, Ukraine was not a freedom loving despoiled figure needing props and crutches. “From our perspective,” opines Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul, “Ukraine should not and cannot be our problem to solve. It is not our place to defend them in a struggle with their longtime adversary, Russia.” The assessment, in this regard, was a matter of some clarity for Paul. “There is no national security interest for the United States.”
Despite this, the Washington foreign policy and military elite continue to make siren calls of seduction in Kyiv’s direction. On April 23, the Senate finally approved a $US95.3 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, with the lion’s share – some US$61 billion – intended for Ukraine’s war effort.
On April 24, a press release from US Secretary State Antony Blinken announced a further US$1 billion package packed with “urgently needed capabilities including air defense missiles, munitions for HIMARS, artillery rounds, armored vehicles, precision aerial munitions, anti-armor weapons, and small arms, equipment, and spare parts to help Ukraine defend its territory and protect its people.”
On May 14, in his address to the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Blinken described what could only be reasoned as a vast mirage. “Today, I’m here in Kyiv to speak about Ukraine’s strategic success. And to set out how, with our support, the Ukrainian people can and will achieve their vision for the near future: a free, prosperous, secure democracy – fully integrated into the Euro-Atlantic community – and fully in control of its own destiny.” This astonishingly irresponsible statement makes Washington’s security agenda clear and Kyiv’s fate bleak: Ukraine is to become a pro-US, anti-Russian bastion, with an open cheque book at the ready.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has made the prevention of that vision an article of faith. While Russian forces, in men and material, have suffered horrendous losses, the attritive nature of the conflict is starting to tell. While Blinken was gulling his audience, the military realities show significant Russian advances, including a threatening push towards Kharkiv, reversing Ukrainian gains made in 2022.
There are also wounding advances being made in other areas of the conflict. US and NATO artillery and drones supplied to Ukraine’s military forces have been countered by Russian electronic warfare methods. GPS receivers, for instance, have been sufficiently deceived to misdirect missiles shot from HIMARS launchers. In a number of cases, the Russian forces have also identified and destroyed the launchers.
Russian air power has been brought to bear on critical infrastructure. Radar defying glide bombs have been used with considerable effect. On the production and deployment front, Colonel Ivan Pavlenko, chief of EW and cyber warfare at Ukraine’s general staff, lamented in February that Russia’s use of drones was also “becoming a huge threat”. Depleted stocks of weaponry are being replenished, and more soldiers are being called to the front.
Despite concerns, one need not scour far to find pundits who insist that such advances and gains can be neutralised. Michael Kofman of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace admits to current Russian “material advantage” and holding “the strategic initiative,” though goes on to speculate that this “may not prove decisive”.
The gong of deceit and delusion must, however, go to Blinken. Americans, he claimed, understood “that our support for Ukraine strengthens the security of the United States and our allies.” Were Putin to win – and here, that old nag of appeasement makes an undesirable appearance – “he won’t stop with Ukraine; he’ll keep going. For when in history has an autocrat been satisfied with carving off just part, or even all, of a single country?”
Towards that end, “we do have a plan,” he coyly insisted. This entailed ensuring Ukraine had “the military that it needs to succeed on the battlefield”. Biden was encouraged by Ukrainian mobilisation efforts, skipping around the logistical delays that had marred it. Washington’s “joint task” was to “secure Ukraine’s sustained and permanent strategic advantage”, enabling it to win the current battles and “defend against future attacks. As President Biden said, we want Ukraine to win – and we’re committed to helping you do it.”
Even by the standards of US Secretaries of States, Blinken’s conduct in Kyiv proved brazen and shameless. A perfect illustration of this came with his musical effort alongside local band, 19.99, involving a rendition of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World.”
Local indignation was quick to follow. “Six months of waiting for the decision of the American Congress” had, fumed Bohdan Yaremenko, legislator and former diplomat with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s party, “taken the lives of very, very many defenders of the free world”. What the US was performing “for the free world is not rock ’n’ roll, but some other music similar to Russian chanson.”
As for the performance itself, the crowd at Barman Dictat witnessed yet another misreading – naturally by a US politician – of an anthem intended to excoriate American failings, from homelessness to “a kinder, gentler machine gun hand”. Appropriately, the guitar, much like the performer, was out of tune.
A protest by students at George Washington University. Probal Rashid SIPA USA)
Powerful student movements in the 1960s and 1970s shook the world’s conscience to end America’s slaughter in Vietnam and Cambodia. The moral force of Black people rising together in their pain and rage against legislated racism changed the social fabric of America, ending formal segregation and ushering a new era in the struggle against institutional racialism.
Power did what power does, deploying brute force, murder, intimidation, silencing, marginalizing, surveillance and all manner of corrupt policing.
We see the outcome and we think we know it.
Labels like “victory” and “advancement” are applied. “Civil rights” is a term spoken as an absolute, a singular point of history with a terrible before and liberated after.
It’s the “happy ending” reframing of what is indeed a boundless thread of struggle for Black liberation stretching in both directions through time.
The resilience of elite capitalist rule relies heavily on such narrative construction that manipulates public imagination with platitudes and reversible concessions, followed by a rebranding of oppression.
Enslavement becomes mass incarceration and purposeful drug addiction. Segregation is sacrificed to be replaced with conscription of Black faces around the same table of power ethos.
Rebooted with greater cruelty
Power adapted since the 1960s, creating new stops, levers, gates and gatekeepers. They lulled us back into their system, rebooted it with greater cruelty and corruption, and retooled it with distractions and celebrity worship while they consolidated and concentrated power in the hands of a tiny minority.
They bought politicians, who in turn work to safeguard and increase the wealth and influence of this elite minority, turning millionaires into billionaires and soon trillionaires, a staggering wealth gap built on the misery of the masses. They created laws to exonerate their criminality and criminalize dissent.
They busted up the unions, subjugated workers and pitted them against each other. Instead of confronting the bosses, workers were manipulated into demanding iron borders and separation of families at those borders.
They gutted regulations and bought up the airwaves to now dictate the content of 95 percent of everything we see, hear and read in the way of journalism, entertainment, education and cultural productions.
This is the reason terrorist characters dominate Arab depictions in Hollywood. It’s the reason for the unusually high number of casual mentions of Israeli benevolence or genius in so many television series and films; the reason why Palestinian humanity is ignored or at best obscured in both print and broadcast news media no matter how many atrocities we face at Israel’s hands.
It’s why Black media outlets, owned and run by Zionists of all stripes, take out hit pieces on the likes of Amanda Seales for her righteous stand on Palestine.
Instead of paying taxes, these billionaires “donate” to universities sufficient sums to impose their vision not only for higher education, but for the acceptable expression of constitutional rights like the First Amendment.
For example, outraged by a Palestinian literature festival – a beautiful celebration of Palestinian excellence and indigenous heritage – the billionaires Marc Rowan, Dick Wolf and the Lauder family conspired to remove the president of the University of Pennsylvania for her insufficient deference to their interpretation of academic freedom.
Enlisting their hired goons in Congress, they and others of their ilk, like Bill Ackman, denigrated and/or removed more university presidents for the same reason.
They even managed to bring the internet – which gave the 1990s generation hope for real democracy – under their nefarious control through algorithms and various forms of surveillance and censorship.
Hiding the horrors
Americans tried to stop the march of US corporate and Zionist warmongers toward war in the early 2000s, but they marched on, trampling our will and the bodies of millions of Iraqis. And the world watched as the US pulverized Iraq, a once glorious, high functioning ancient society.
An “embedded” media hid the bloody horrors and kept the secrets of US corporate looting of Iraq’s treasures and laundering of US tax dollars through rebuilding schemes.
Desensitized, Americans didn’t bother protesting when the US did the same in Libya, spurring a staggering de-development of one of Africa’s most advanced nations into a veritable human slave market.
The enslavement and mutilation of Congolese children and whole families in mineral mines to benefit American tech billionaires (as well as Israel’s blood diamond trade) barely elicit a blip in Western media, a shockingly cruel reality they continue to obscure.
There are hundreds more examples of American and Israeli militarism killing and destroying others in the service of this ruling corporate class.
Mass surveillance of the populace followed the gutting and looting of public education in the United States. The rich got richer and the poor became destitute.
In the name of technology and efficiency, capitalists degraded our food and water – poisoned them even – benefitting pharmaceutical billionaires who keep the masses teetering on the edge of health.
Popular gurus pushed philosophies of individualism, contempt for family, and various forms of alienation that shattered community and social or familial bonds, leaving vast swaths of the people unable to cope with life without drug varieties, both legal and illegal.
They have weighed us down with the fake dreams they scripted for us – insurmountable debt as a stand-in for family and education, blood diamonds as a stand-in for love and carnage abroad as a stand-in for greatness. They sold us a glorious pile of shit and made us think it was a normal – even inevitable – way of life.
They glorified obsessive consumerism and obscenely ostentatious lifestyles. And we let them, believing it was our choice.
But we had none.
An American illusion
Choice, like democracy and free press, is an American illusion, a fairytale they peddle in school, newspapers and songs.
Look how quickly they disbanded, silenced and erased memory of the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011. Look how we are taught to believe that change can only come through the ballot box, where we’re told to “choose” between two war criminals one election after another.
This moment of livestreamed genocide is the culmination of decades of global capitalist criminality and genocidal Western and Zionist imperialism. We watch in horror as whole Palestinian families are buried alive in their homes, crushed beneath the weight of rubble, their bodies torn and shredded.
Then they gaslight us.
Politicians, spokespeople, pundits, journalists and broadcasters take to the airways to convince us that we hadn’t just seen brains, tongues and eyeballs spilling from the crushed skulls of children and babies. Or worse, that they somehow deserved it.
“Fog of war.”
“Collateral damage.”
“Hamas. Hamas. Hamas.”
“The only democracy.”
“Self-defense.”
Over and over they use their wicked justifications and obfuscations. They speak to us as if we’re stupid because they’re accustomed to our silence and acquiescence.
And they go on, prancing into the Met Gala in obscene finery, the vulgarity of which is made all the more apparent in juxtaposition to the burned and dismembered small bodies on the same day, pouring into Gaza’s few remaining hospitals, screaming, bewildered, in shock and in pain.
Thank God for every Palestinian journalist and every Palestinian healthcare worker risking their lives day in and out to serve their people.
For every fighter choosing martyrdom over indignity.
For the local organizations and activists you never hear about, but whose work has been keeping thousands alive. I dare not say their names, lest they become targets.
For Yemen, South Africa and Colombia. For every person who refuses to remain silent.
All dots connected
This time is different from the uprisings of the 1960s and 1970s. There is a new sense of global interconnection, an emerging class consciousness and foundational political analyses predicated on post-colonial studies and intersectionality.
Back then the white students protesting the war wouldn’t unite with the Black Panthers because they couldn’t connect the dots. All dots are connecting now.
Gaza is no longer the enclave sealed and besieged by Israel and Abdulfattah al-Sisi’s Egypt into a concentration camp. Gaza is no longer the densely-populated strip of Israeli-occupied land.
Rather, Gaza is now all the world.
Gaza is our collective moment of truth, the meaning in our lives. It is the clarity we need and seek.
It is the definitive divide between us and the ruling class that tramples us.
It is us or them. There is no middle place now.
All the borders fade, leaving us united to confront this greedy genocidal minority everywhere.
Gaza is the most anguished place on earth at this hour, dimmed by unimaginable Zionist cruelty, which their military and society conduct with perverted glee that they set to music for TikTok.
And from this tortured place of rubble, death and misery there springs the greatest light we have ever known to guide us out of the darkness in which we’ve been forced to live. The light of our ancestors – from Palestine and Alkebulan to Turtle Island and Aotearoa.
Gaza may well be our last chance to save humanity.
If we allow the wheels of this genocidal Zionist engine to keep turning, there will be no more limits to fascism. There will be no shame or red lines before which they will halt.
This struggle can no more be just about a ceasefire. It must demand liberation and accountability across our burning planet.
Already they are using the tactics of brute force, violent intimidation, suspension and marginalization. They will attempt the same dismantlement, silencing and erasure they did with the Occupy Wall Street movement.
They will offer half-baked promises with no teeth, enough to quiet matters long enough to adopt new strategies and enact new laws.
If we stop they will adapt, and they will do so with artificial intelligence, against which we may well have no defenses, not for a long time to come. So beware of their concessions.
Beware of victory that pulls us back into the lanes they made.
We cannot allow Israeli genocide against a defenseless and captive indigenous population to become a whitewashed, declawed historic moment of before and after.
We cannot leave the lawns and streets and courts and battlefields until Zionism is dismantled and Palestine is free.
This moment belongs to the people. We can dream our own dreams and create a new world in every personal act of refusal to participate in this horrible system predicated on genocide and unending exploitation.
Together we are powerful beyond our wildest imaginations. Compassion and defiance are our superpowers, and this is just our origin story.
The youth are leading and showing us that the future is ours, if we dare to claim it.
Protesters block the entrance to the BAE factory in Kent, UK. (Photo credit: Reuters)
On May 8, 2024, as Israel escalated its brutal assault on Rafah, President Biden announced that he had “paused” a delivery of 1,700 500-pound and 1,800 2,000-pound bombs, and threatened to withhold more shipments if Israel went ahead with its full-scale invasion of Rafah.
The move elicited an outcry from Israeli officials (National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir tweeted “Hamas loves Biden”), as well as Republicans, staunch anti-Palestinian Democrats and pro-Israel donors. Republicans immediately prepared a bill entitled the Israel Security Assistance Support Act to prohibit the administration from withholding military aid to Israel.
Many people have been asking the U.S. to halt weapons to Israel for seven months, and, of course, Biden’s move comes too late for 35,000 Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza, mainly by American weapons.
Lest one think the administration is truly changing its position, two days after announcing the pause, the State Department released a convoluted report saying that, although it is reasonable to “assess” that U.S. weapons have been used by Israeli forces in Gaza in ways that are “inconsistent” with international humanitarian law, and although Israel has indeed delayed or had a negative effect on the delivery of aid to Gaza (which is illegal under U.S. law), Israel’s assurances regarding humanitarian aid and compliance with international humanitarian law are “credible and reliable.”
By this absurd conclusion, the Biden administration has given itself a green light to keep sending weapons and Israel a flashing one to keep committing war crimes with them.
In any event, as Colonel Joe Bicino, a retired U.S. artillery officer, told the BBC, Israel can “level” Rafah with the weapons it already has. The paused shipment is “somewhat inconsequential,” Bicino said, “a little bit of a political play for people in the United States who are… concerned about this.” A U.S. official confirmed to the Washington Post that Israel has enough weapons already supplied by the U.S. and other allies to go ahead with the Rafah operation if it chooses to ignore U.S. qualms.
The paused shipment really has to be seen in the context of the arsenal with which the U.S. has equipped its Middle Eastern proxy over many decades.
A Deluge of American Bombs
During the Second World War, the United States proudly called itself the “Arsenal of Democracy,” as its munitions factories and shipyards produced an endless supply of weapons to fight the genocidal government of Germany. Today, the United States is instead, shamefully, the Arsenal of Genocide, providing 70% of the imported weapons Israel is using to obliterate Gaza and massacre its people.
As Israel assaults Rafah, home to 1.4 million displaced people, including at least 600,000 children, most of the warplanes dropping bombs on them are F-16s, originally designed and manufactured by General Dynamics, but now produced by Lockheed Martin in Greenville, South Carolina. Israel’s 224 F-16s have long been its weapon of choice for bombing militants and civilians in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.
Israel also has 86 Boeing F-15s, which can drop heavier bombs, and 39 of the latest, most wastefully expensive fighter-bombers ever, Lockheed Martin’s nuclear-capable F-35s, with another 36 on order. The F-35 is built in Fort Worth, Texas, but components are manufactured all over the U.S. and in allied countries, including Israel. Israel was the first country to attack other countries with F-35s, in violation of U.S. arms export control laws, reportedly using them to bomb Syria, Egypt and Sudan.
As these fleets of U.S.-made warplanes began bombing Gaza in October 2023, their fifth major assault since 2008, the U.S. began rushing in new weapons. By December 1, 2023, it had delivered 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells.
The U.S. supplies Israel with all sizes and types of bombs, including 285-pound GBU-39 small diameter glide bombs, 500-pound Mk 82s, 2,000-pound Mk 84s and BLU-109 “bunker busters,” and even massive 5,000-pound GBU-28 bunker-busters, which Israel reportedly used in Gaza in 2009.
General Dynamics is the largest U.S. bomb manufacturer, making all these models of bombs. Most of them can be used as “precision” guided bombs by attaching Raytheon and Lockheed Martin’s Paveway laser guidance system or Boeing’s JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munitions) GPS-based targeting system.
Little more than half of the bombs Israel has dropped on Gaza have been “precision” ones, because, as targeting officers explained to +972 magazine, their Lavender AI system generates thousands of targets who are just suspected rank-and-file militants, not senior commanders. Israel does not consider it worth “wasting” expensive precision munitions to kill these people, so it uses only “dumb” bombs to kill them in their homes—obliterating their families and neighbors in the process.
In order to threaten and bomb its more distant neighbors, such as Iran, Israel depends on its seven Lockheed Martin KC-130H and seven Boeing 707 in-air refueling tankers, with four new, state-of-the-art Boeing KC46A tankers to be delivered in late 2025 for over $220 million each.
Ground force weapons
Another weapon of choice for killing Palestinians are Israel’s 48 Boeing Apache AH64 attack helicopters, armed with Lockheed Martin’s infamous Hellfire missiles, General Dynamics’ Hydra 70 rockets and Northrop Grumman’s 30 mm machine guns. Israel also used its Apaches to kill and incinerate a still unknown number of Israelis on October 7, 2023—a tragic day that Israel and the U.S. continue to exploit as a false pretext for their own violations of international humanitarian law and of the Genocide Convention.
Israel’s main artillery weapons are its 600 Paladin M109A5 155 mm self-propelled howitzers, which are manufactured by BAE Systems in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. To the layman, a self-propelled howitzer looks like a tank, but it has a bigger, 155 mm gun to fire at longer range.
Israel assembles its 155 mm artillery shells from U.S.-made components. One of the first two U.S. arms shipments that the administration notified Congress about after October 7 was to resupply Israel with artillery shell components valued at $147.5 million.
Israel also has 48 M270 multiple rocket launchers. They are a tracked version of the HIMARS rocket launchers the U.S. has sent to Ukraine, and they fire the same rockets, made by Lockheed Martin. U.S. Marines used the same rockets in coordination with U.S. airstrikes to devastate Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, in 2017. M270 launchers are no longer in production, but BEA Systems still has the facilities to produce them.
Israel makes its own Merkava tanks, which fire U.S.-made tank shells, and the State Department announced on December 9, 2023, that it had notified Congress of an “emergency” shipment of 14,000 120 mm tank shells worth $106 million to Israel.
U.S. shipments of artillery and tank shells, and dozens of smaller shipments that it did not report to Congress (because each shipment was carefully calibrated to fall below the statutory reporting limit of $100 million), were paid for out of the $3.8 billion in military aid that the United States gives Israel each year.
In April, Congress passed a new war-funding bill that includes about $14 billion for additional weapons. Israel could afford to pay for these weapons itself, but then it could shop around for them, which might erode the U.S. monopoly on supplying so much of its war machine. That lucrative monopoly for U.S. merchants of death is clearly more important to Members of Congress than fully funding Head Start or other domestic anti-poverty programs, which they routinely underfund to pay for weapons and wars.
Israel has 500 FMC-built M113 armored personnel carriers and over 2,000 Humvees, manufactured by AM General in Mishawaka, Indiana. Its ground forces are armed with several different types of U.S. grenade launchers, Browning machine-guns, AR-15 assault rifles, and SR-25 and M24 SWS sniper rifles, all made in the USA, as is the ammunition for them.
For many years, Israel’s three Sa’ar 5 corvettes were its largest warships, about the size of frigates. They were built in the 1990s by Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi, but Israel has recently taken delivery of four larger, more heavily-armed, German-built Sa’ar 6 corvettes, with 76 mm main guns and new surface-to-surface missiles.
Gaza Encampments Take On the Merchants of Death
The United States has a long and horrific record of providing weapons to repressive regimes that use them to kill their own people or attack their neighbors. Martin Luther King called the U.S. government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world,” and that has not changed since he said it in 1967, a year to the day before his assassination.
Many of the huge U.S. factories that produce all these weapons are the largest employers in their regions or even their states. As President Eisenhower warned the public in his farewell address in 1960, “This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry” has led to “the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”
So, in addition to demanding a ceasefire, an end to U.S. military aid and weapons sales to Israel, and a restoration of humanitarian aid to Gaza, the students occupying college campuses across our country are right to call on their institutions to divest from these merchants of death, as well as from Israeli companies.
The corporate media has adopted the line that divestment would be too complicated and costly for the universities to do. But when students set up an encampment at Trinity College in Dublin, in Ireland, and called on it to divest from Israeli companies, the college quickly agreed to their demands. Problem solved, without police violence or trying to muzzle free speech. Students have also won commitments to consider divestment from U.S. institutions, including Brown, Northwestern, Evergreen State, Rutgers and the Universities of Minnesota and Wisconsin.
While decades of even deadlier U.S. war-making in the greater Middle East failed to provoke a sustained mass protest movement, the genocide in Gaza has opened the eyes of many thousands of young people to the need to rise up against the U.S. war machine.
The gradual expulsion and emigration of Palestinians from their homeland has created a huge diaspora of young Palestinians who have played a leading role in organizing solidarity campaigns on college campuses through groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Their close links with extended families in Palestine have given them a visceral grasp of the U.S. role in this genocide and an authentic voice that is persuasive and inspiring to other young Americans.
Now it is up to Americans of all ages to follow our young leaders and demand not just an end to the genocide in Palestine, but also a path out of our country’s military madness and the clutches of its deeply entrenched MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media- academia-think-tank) complex, which has inflicted so much death, pain and desolation on so many of our neighbors for so long, from Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan to Vietnam and Latin America.
It truly is pushing the envelope of lunacy to assume that this latest revelation was revelatory. US weapons, the wonks in Washington find, are being used by the Israeli Defense Forces to kill their opponents, many of them Palestinians, and most of them civilians. These are detailed in a report ordered by the White House pursuant to National Security Memorandum 20, also known as “National Security Memorandum on Safeguards and Accountability With Respect to Transferred Defense Articles and Defense Services”.
NSM-20 requires the Secretary of State to obtain credible and reliable assurances within 45 days from any country engaged in armed conflict in which US defence articles are used. The NSM-20 report, in addition to Israel, considers Colombia, Iraq, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia and Ukraine. But Israel, by far, is the most significant, given that it is the most prominent recipient of US weapons. As John Ramming Chappell notes for Just Security, these include reported transfers of “bombs, artillery shells, precision guidance kits (which are attached to bombs for targeting purposes), tank ammunition, guided missiles, firearms, drones, various types of ammunition, and other weapons”.
The Israeli entry starts off with various qualifying conditions about the horror of the Gaza conflict. Hamas is blamed for embedding “itself deliberately within and underneath the civilian population to use civilians as human shields.” The scene is set.
In a pitiful dodge, the report claims it is “difficult to determine facts on the ground in an active war zone”, a state of mind that is bound to lend itself to justifications. “The nature of the conflict in Gaza and the compressed review period in this initial report amplify those challenges.”
The report acknowledges various “reported incidents to raise serious concerns” that US weaponry is being used in a manner not in conformity with international law. While it was “difficult to assess or reach conclusive findings on individual incidents,” it was “reasonable to assess that defense articles covered under NSM-20 have been used by Israeli security forces since October 7 in instances inconsistent with IHL [International Humanitarian Law] obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm”.
The discussion is filled with softening qualifiers. Israel had “the knowledge, experience, and tools to implement best practices for mitigating civilian harm in its military operations” but “results on the ground, including high levels of civilian casualties, raise substantial questions as to whether the IDF is using them effectively in all cases.”
Despite concerns about IHL violations, the report accepts that in Israel, there are “a number of ongoing, active criminal investigations pending and there are hundreds of cases under administrative review.” Surely this would be a troubling, rather than assuring fact.
The report goes on to reveal the view of the US Intelligence Community (IC) that, while Israel had “inflicted harm on civilians in military and security operations, potentially using US-provided equipment”, it had “no direct indication of Israel intentionally targeting civilians.” It could, however, “do more to avoid civilian harm.” How high a body count does one need before the intention to kill is evinced?
Mindful of the image of an ally, the report is seemingly less concerned by the staggering civilian death toll than “the impact of Israel’s military operations on humanitarian actors.” Despite the intervention of the US government and engagement between humanitarian organisations with Israeli officials regarding deconfliction and coordination procedures, “the IDF has struck humanitarian workers and facilities.”
Inexplicably, Israel gets a clean bill of health in terms of section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act, which bars military aid to a state that “prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United states humanitarian assistance.” This, despite the acceptance that Israeli actions had “delayed or had a negative impact in the delivery of aid to Gaza”. Current levels of aid reaching Palestinian civilians “while improved” remained “insufficient”.
The assessment of Israel’s use of US weapons, all in all, is paltry. It glaringly omits making any specific adverse findings regarding breaches of international law. This proved to be a satisfactory state of affairs for Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who agreed with the “assessment that Israel has not violated International Humanitarian Law and that military assistance to support Israel’s security remains in the US interest and should continue.”
Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen begged to differ, noting the report’s failure “to do the hard work of making an assessment and ducks the ultimate questions that the report was designed to determine.”
In a fuller statement, Van Hollen identifies the “continuation of a disturbing pattern where the expertise and analyses of those working most closely on these issues at the State Department and at USAID have been swept aside to facilitate a predetermined policy outcome based on political convenience.”
While the Biden administration recently paused the transfer of a weapons shipment to Israel comprising 1,800 2000-pound bombs, and 1,700 500-pound bombs, Congressional sentiment is seemingly in favour of the status quo. Despite the grumbling of some lawmakers, the general view is that the business of supplying the IDF is a sound one. The killing of Palestinian civilians can, in all its ghoulishness and cruelty, continue.
On April 30, when Columbia University student protesters took over Hamilton Hall, they renamed it “Hind’s Hall,” dropping a large banner out the windows above the building’s entrance. This was a hall famously occupied by students in the 1968 protests against the Vietnam War and against Jim Crow racism in the United States. The students are risking suspension and expulsion, and a very real blacklist has already been generated against them, with Congress joining in to define criticism of genocide as a form of antisemitism that state universities and state-linked employers will not be allowed to tolerate.
I believe their love for Hind Rajab guides the movement so desperately needed to resist militarism. Hind was six years old when Israel used U.S.-supplied weapons to kill her.
If our civilization survives a looming ecological collapse that is helping to drive catastrophic nuclear brinkmanship, I hope future generations of students will study the “Hind’s Hall” occupation in the way that students of the civil rights movement have studied the Edmund Pettus Bridge and the story of Emmett Till. Hind’s story is tragically emblematic. Her cruel murder has befallen many thousands of children throughout the decades of Israel’s fight to maintain apartheid. Just in our young century, from September 2000 to September 2023, Israel’s B’tselem organization reports that 2,309 Palestinian minors were killed by Israelis and some 145 Israeli minors were killed by Palestinians, with these numbers excluding Palestinian children dead from deliberate immiseration via blockade or traumatized as hostages in prisons. We hear reports that thirty-eight Israeli children and some 14,000 Palestinian children have been murdered since October 7, deaths which can all be laid on the doorstep of the ethnostate project so lethally determined to keep one ethnicity in undemocratic governance.
No six-year-old poses any threat to anyone. Like the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children starved to death during the U.S. imposition of economic sanctions against Iraq, none of these children could be held accountable for the actions of their government or military.
Hind Rajab committed no crime, but she was made to watch her family die and wait for death surrounded by their corpses. When the ambulance crew asked safe passage to come rescue her, she was used as bait to kill them as well. Her story must be remembered and told over and over.
As Jeffrey St. Clair writes, Hind was a little girl who liked to dress up as a princess. She lived in the neighborhood of Tel al-Hawa, an area south of Gaza City.
“Hind Rajab was in her own city when the invaders in tanks came,” St. Clair notes. “What was left of it . . . Hind’s own kindergarten, from which she’d recently graduated, had been blown up, as had so many other schools, places of learning, places of shelter and places of safety in Gaza City.”
On January 29, when the Israelis ordered people to evacuate, her mother, Wissam Hamada, and an older sibling set off on foot. Hind joined her uncle, aunt, and three cousins who traveled in a black Kia automobile.
The uncle placed a call to a relative in Germany which initiated the family’s contact with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS). After the initial connection with the PRCS switchboard, the car was targeted and hit, killing Hind’s uncle, her aunt, and two of her cousins.
Hind and her fifteen-year-old cousin, Layan, were the only survivors.
Switchboard operators handling the phone contact with Layan had immediately notified ambulance workers that the little girls needed to be rescued.
But it would have been suicidal for a rescue crew to enter the area without first working out coordinates with the Israeli military.
Similar to the World Central Kitchen workers killed on Monday, April 1, they waited hours for the coordinated rescue plan.
On the audio tape shared by the PRCS workers, Layan’s petrified voice can be heard. The tank is coming closer. She is so scared. A blast is heard and Layan no longer speaks. PRCS workers call back and Hind answers.
She pleads, “Please come and get me. I’m so scared.”
St. Clair writes, “The [PRCS] dispatched an ambulance crewed by two paramedics: Ahmed al-Madhoon and Youssef Zeino. As Ahmed and Youssef approached the Tel al-Hawa area, they reported to the Red Crescent dispatchers that the IDF was targeting them, and that snipers had pointed lasers at the ambulance. Then there was the sound of gunfire and an explosion. The line went silent.”
The tank-fired M830A1 missile remnant found nearby had been manufactured in the United States by a subsidiary of the Day and Zimmermann Corporation. Day and Zimmermann prides itself on having once received the U.S. National “Family Business of the Year” award—an Internet search for the award chiefly produces references to this company. The company states that it believes in civic and community service, with core values of safety and integrity; emphasizing their success as a team that hits its targets. But since last October, their business has been killing families like Hind’s.
Although Israel predictably insists that Layan and Hind, and the additional slain paramedics, were all lying with their final breaths and that no IDF tanks were present to attack them, Al Jazeera’s analysis of satellite images taken at midday on January 29 corroborates the victims’ accounts and puts at least three Israeli tanks just 270 meters (886 feet) from the family’s car, with their guns pointed at it.
When rescuers were finally allowed to approach the remains of Hind and her family on February 10, the car was riddled with bullet holes likely coming from more than one direction.
Hind’s mother couldn’t go to the site until February 12.
On May 5, Israel raided the offices of Al Jazeera at the Ambassador Hotel in Jerusalem and moved to shut down the television network’s operations in Israel.
To remember Hind’s story is an act of resistance. Commemorating her short life builds resolve to confront profiteers who benefit from developing, manufacturing, storing, and selling the weapons that prolong wars—robbing children of their precious right to live.
Universities should, in theory, be places to learn things of importance, and we can learn from the students of Hind Hall to throw comfort and ambition out the window while keeping hold of love, as the students clung to that banner and to the name of Hind Rajab. We can learn to keep hold of our humanity. We learn by doing, as these students are learning to do, drawing wisdom from people like Phil Berrigan who famously said, “Don’t get tired!”
The list of Gaza solidarity encampments grows each day. Conscious of increasing famine in Gaza, students at Princeton University launched a water-only fast on May 4 as they continue to call for their University to divest from corporations selling weapons to Israel. The United Nations warns of a potential collapse of aid delivery to Palestinians with Israel’s May 7 closure of the two main crossings into Gaza. These crossings are critical entry points for food, medicine, and other supplies for Gaza’s 2.3 million people. The disruptions come at a time when officials say northern Gaza is experiencing a “full-blown famine.”
With thousands of innocent lives in the balance, promoters of peace should take advantage of this crucial opportunity to follow the young people, learning alongside the students whose hunger for humanity reveals stunning courage.
Hind Rajab (Image provided, family photo)
Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulance crew (Photo Credit: PCRS)
• This article first appeared in The Progressive Magazine
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