Why is No. 1 US bombing No. 137 Yemen?
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL,
Is there a bigger bully in the world than President Trump?
Trump’s current effort is bullying the hapless innocents in Yemen. Trump will never war against anyone his own size. His No. 1 $30.5 trillion economy singled out for destruction No. 137, the $17.4 billion economy of Yemen.
Trump has launched 750 airstrikes against Yemen since March 15, killing and injuring over thousand innocents. His latest strike on Yemen’s Ras Isa fuel port in Hodeidah Province killed 95 and injured 192. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a nod to America’s all time premier warmonger Teddy Roosevelt, has dubbed the bombing campaign Operation Rough Rider. Ouch.
As with every US bombing campaign against innocents in weak countries, Congress simply rolls over allowing these grisly, unconstitutional wars to proceed without an iota of pushback.
Why is Trump bullying pitifully poor Yemen? Because Yemen is interfering in the ongoing Israeli/US genocide in Gaza. Yemen has largely shut down vital (tho not to US) Red Sea shipping with drone attacks to degrade Israel’s Gaza genocide campaign. Trump’s futile bombing campaign, which will never stop the Yemeni Houthis from opposing genocide, has no connection to US national security interests whatsoever.
That is unless our national security interests include enabling Israel to complete their genocidal ethnic cleansing of Gaza so Trump can kick off his dream real estate development, creating Trump Gaza Mediterranean to expand Greater Israel.
Kursk Region fully liberated from Ukrainians – Putin
Rt.com, 26 Apr, 2025
Kiev’s gamble to invade Russia has ended up in an unmitigated disaster, the president has said.
The Russian military has completely liberated the border Kursk Region from Ukrainian forces, President Vladimir Putin has said after being briefed on the battlefield situation by General Staff Chief Valery Gerasimov.
In a video address shared by the Kremlin on Saturday, Putin thanked Russian service members “who took part in defeating the neo-Nazi groups” that invaded the region last summer.
“The Kiev regime’s adventure has completely failed, and the huge losses suffered by the enemy, including among the most combat-ready, trained and equipped, including by Western models of equipment… will certainly be reflected along the entire line of combat contact,” he said.
According to Putin, the Russian success sets the stage for further advances in other areas of the front, bringing final victory in the conflict closer……………….
…………….Ukraine launched its incursion into Kursk Region last August, initially gaining some ground and capturing numerous settlements before their advance was checked by Russian forces.
Putin has characterized the incursion as an attempt by Kiev to divert attention from Moscow’s offensive in Donbass, adding that this ploy has failed. Ukrainian officials described the operation as a way to gain leverage in potential peace talks with Russia. https://www.rt.com/russia/616355-kursk-region-fully-liberated/
UK to scrap plans for Ukraine troop deployment – The Times
RT.com 25 Apr 25
London and Paris had previously lead an effort to send a European contingent if a ceasefire is reached.
The UK has ditched plans to deploy a military contingent to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire, The Times has reported, citing anonymous sources.
The defense chiefs from a number of European NATO states had in recent weeks been discussing sending military personnel to Ukraine, under a so-called “coalition of the willing.” Russia has strongly objected to the prospect of Western troops appearing in the neighboring country under any pretext.
In an article on Thursday, The Times quoted an unnamed source as saying that the “risks are too high and the forces inadequate for” a deployment that had been previously under consideration. According to the publication, “it was France who wanted a more muscular approach.”
Instead of coalition forces guarding key Ukrainian cities, ports, and nuclear power plants, the grouping now envisages more emphasis on Western military instructors training Ukrainian troops in the west of the country, who would “‘reassure’ by being there but aren’t a deterrence or protection force,” The Times reported, citing an anonymous source.
The softened vision for a Western military presence in Ukraine does, however, reportedly include the coalition’s aircraft patrolling Ukraine’s airspace and Türkiye providing maritime cover…………………………………..https://www.rt.com/news/616330-uk-scraps-ukraine-troop-deployment/
US prepares $100bn arms deal with Saudi Arabia ahead of Trump visit
The mega deal comes as Washington continues to push for the normalization of ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel
APR 25, 2025, The Cradle,
Washington is preparing a major arms package for Saudi Arabia worth over $100 billion, according to six sources cited by Reuters.
The deal is expected to be announced during US President Donald Trump’s upcoming visit to the kingdom in May.
This proposed package follows a failed attempt by the former US president Joe Biden government to broker a broader security agreement that included Saudi normalization with Israel in exchange for advanced US arms, assistance in developing a civilian nuclear program, and reduced Chinese influence in the region.
While it remains unclear whether Trump’s proposal includes similar conditions, the package is expected to feature a range of advanced weaponry.
This includes C-130 transport aircraft, missiles, and radars supplied by major US defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, RTX (formerly Raytheon Technologies), Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and General Atomics.
Lockheed is reportedly involved in a potential $20 billion drone deal involving MQ-9B SeaGuardian-style aircraft – an agreement discussed since 2018.
Defense company executives are reportedly considering traveling to Saudi Arabia as part of the US delegation. The Pentagon emphasized that the US–Saudi defense relationship remains strong under Trump’s leadership.
The US has a longstanding history of arms sales to Saudi Arabia, highlighted by Trump’s 2017 proposal of $110 billion in weapons deals. However, only $14.5 billion of those sales had been initiated by 2018, and Congress raised concerns following the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. These concerns led to a 2021 congressional ban on offensive weapons sales under president Biden.
The Biden administration began softening its stance in 2022 due to shifting geopolitical dynamics, including the Ukraine war’s impact on oil markets. The ban on offensive weapons sales was lifted in 2024, as the US worked more closely with Riyadh after Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.
Meanwhile, Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman visited Tehran on April 17, meeting Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and conveying a message from King Salman.
The visit resulted from renewed nuclear talks between the US and Iran amid fears of regional escalation………………….https://thecradle.co/articles-id/30331
Spain terminates multimillion deal with Israeli weapons maker
Coalition authorities in Madrid have stressed their commitment to ‘the Palestinian cause and peace in West Asia
APR 24, 2025, The Cradle,https://thecradle.co/articles/spain-terminates-multimillion-deal-with-israeli-weapons-maker
The Spanish government ordered the immediate termination of a $7.5 million contract to buy ammunition from a company with direct ties to Israeli arms maker Elbit Systems on 24 April.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez canceled the deal after Sumar, a group of left-wing parties, threatened to leave the governing coalition.
“After exhausting all routes for negotiation, the prime minister, deputy prime minister, and ministries involved have decided to rescind this contract,” a government source told Al Jazeera.
Earlier this week, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska formalized a contract with Israeli-owned company Guardian Homeland Security S.A. for over 15 million rounds of ammunition, causing a stir at the Moncloa Palace in light of Sanchez’s February 2024 pledge not to purchase weapons from Israel over the Gaza genocide.
Spanish media reports that authorities stressed the commitment of the progressive coalition government parties (PSOE and Sumar) “to the Palestinian cause and peace in the Middle East.” They also noted that since the US-backed ethnic cleansing campaign began in Gaza in October 2023, Spain has not purchased or sold weapons to Israeli firms, “nor will it do so in the future.”
However, despite the claims from Moncloa Palace, in February, the Progressive International (PI), the Palestinian Youth Movement, and the American Friends Service Committee revealed that over 60,000 weapon parts have been transported to Israel via Zaragoza airport in northern Spain since October 2023.
“The evidence indicates that these flights continue to this day,” investigators told elDiario.es, adding that the shipments include “parts and accessories for artillery, rifles, rocket/grenade launchers and machine guns” and “parts and accessories for revolvers and pistols.”
In December, The Intercept revealed that Washington sent over a thousand tons of ammunition to Israel on a ship that docked at a US naval base in Spain, despite Madrid’s embargo on vessels carrying military cargo bound for Israel.
“Shipments through American military bases in Spain of military materials, which may be used in the commission of international crimes, are harder to detect,” Spanish lawmaker Enrique Santiago told the New York-based outlet.
As Israel Openly Declares Starvation as a Weapon, Media Still Hesitate to Blame It for Famine
this is a genocide, after all—even if the corporate media refuse to say the word—and starvation is part and parcel of that.
Belén Fernández, April 25, 2025, https://fair.org/home/as-israel-openly-declares-starvation-as-a-weapon-media-still-hesitate-to-blame-it-for-famine/
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on March 2 that “Israel has decided to stop letting goods and supplies into Gaza,” where the ongoing Israeli genocide, with the loyal backing of the United States, has officially killed more than 51,000 Palestinians since October 2023. The announcement regarding the total halt of humanitarian aid amounted to yet another explicit declaration of the starvation policy that Israel is pursuing in the Gaza Strip, a territory that—thanks in large part to 17 consecutive years of Israeli blockade—has long been largely dependent on such aid for survival.
Of course, this was not the first time that senior Israeli officials had advertised their reliance on the war crime of forced starvation in the current genocidal assault on Gaza. On October 9, 2023, two days after the most recent launch of hostilities, then–Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip: “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.” Two days after that, Foreign Minister Israel Katz boasted of cutting off “water, electricity and fuel” to the territory.
And just this month, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir proclaimed that there was “no reason for a gram of food or aid to enter Gaza.” Following an April 22 dinner held in his honor in Florida at US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, Ben-Gvir reported that US Republicans had
expressed support for my very clear position on how to act in Gaza and that the food and aid depots should be bombed in order to create military and political pressure to bring our hostages home safely.
Never mind that the hostages would have been brought home safely as scheduled had Israel chosen to comply with the terms of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas that was implemented in January, rather than definitively annihilating the agreement on March 18.
It is no doubt illustrative of Israel’s modus operandi that the March 2 decision to block the entry of all food and other items necessary for human existence took place in the middle of an ostensible ceasefire.
‘Starved, bombed, strangled’
While Ben-Gvir’s most recent comments have thus far eluded commentary in the US corporate media, the roundabout media approach to the whole starvation theme has been illuminating in its own right. It has not, obviously, been possible to avoid reporting on the subject altogether, as the United Nations and other organizations have pretty much been warning from the get-go of Israel’s actions causing widespread famine in Gaza.
In December 2023, for example, just two months after the onset of Israel’s blood-drenched campaign, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification initiative, or IPC scale, determined that “over 90% of the population in the Gaza Strip (about 2.08 million people) was estimated to face high levels of acute food insecurity, classified in IPC Phase 3 or above (Crisis or worse).” The assessment went on: “Among these, over 40% of the population (939,000 people) were in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) and over 15% (378,000 people) were in Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5).”
A full year ago, in April 2024, even Samantha Power—then the administrator of the US Agency for International Development—conceded that it was “credible” that famine was already well underway in parts of the Gaza Strip. And the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs now warns that Gaza is “likely facing the worst humanitarian crisis in the 18 months since the escalation of hostilities in October 2023”—its population being “starved, bombed, strangled” and subjected to “deprivation by design.”
Disappearance of agency
None of these details have escaped the pages and websites of corporate media outlets, although the media’s frequent reliance on ambiguous wordiness tends to distract readers from what is actually going on—and who is responsible for it. Take, for instance, the New York Times headline “Gaza Famine Warning Spurs Calls to Remove Restrictions on Food Shipments” (6/25/24), or the CBS video “Hunger Spreads Virtually Everywhere in Gaza Amid Israel/Hamas War” (12/5/24). Even news outlets that intermittently undertake to spotlight the human plight of, inter alia, individual parents in Gaza losing their children to starvation remain susceptible to long-winded efforts to disperse blame. (As of April of last year, Save the Children confirmed that 27 children in northern Gaza had already died of starvation and disease.)
In an era in which news consumption often consists of skimming headlines, the phrasing of article titles is of utmost import. And yet many headlines manage to entirely excise the role of Israel in Gaza’s “hunger crisis”—as in CNN’s report (2/24): “‘We Are Dying Slowly:’ Palestinians Are Eating Grass and Drinking Polluted Water as Famine Looms Across Gaza.” Or take the Reuters headline (3/24/24): “Gaza’s Catastrophic Food Shortage Means Mass Death Is Imminent, Monitor Says.” Or this one from ABC News (11/15/24): “Famine ‘Occurring or Imminent’ in Parts of Northern Gaza, Experts Warn UN Security Council.”
It’s not that these headlines are devoid of sympathy for Palestinian suffering. The issue, rather, is the dilution—and even disappearance—of agency, such that the “catastrophic food shortage” is rendered as transpiring in a sort of vacuum and thereby letting the criminals perpetrating it off the hook. Imagine if a Hamas rocket from Gaza killed an infant in Israel and the media reported the event as follows: “Israeli Baby Perishes as Rocket Completes Airborne Trajectory.”
‘No shortage of aid’
Then there is the matter of the media’s incurable habit of ceding Israeli officials a platform to spout demonstrable lies, as in the April 17 NBC News headline “Aid Groups Describe Dire Conditions in Gaza as Israel Says There Is No Shortage of Aid.” The fact that Israel is permitted to make such claims is particularly perplexing, given Israeli officials’ own announcements that no aid whatsoever may enter the territory, while the “dire conditions” are made abundantly clear in the text of the article itself: “The Global Nutrition Cluster, a coalition of humanitarian groups, has warned that in March alone, 3,696 children were newly admitted for care for acute malnutrition” in Gaza.
Among numerous other damning statistics conveyed in the dispatch, we learn that all Gaza bakeries supported by the UN World Food Programme closed down on March 31, “after wheat flour ran out.” Meanwhile, the WFP calculated that Israel’s closure of border crossings into Gaza caused prices of basic goods “to soar between 150% and 700% compared with prewar levels, and by 29% to as much as 1,400% above prices during the ceasefire.”
Against such a backdrop, it’s fairly ludicrous to allow Israeli officials to “maintain there is ‘no shortage’ of aid in Gaza and accuse Hamas of withholding supplies.” If the press provides Israel with space to spout whatever nonsense it wants—reality be damned—where is the line ultimately drawn? If Israel decides Hamas is using wheat flour to build rockets, will that also be reported with a straight face?
Lest anyone think that thwarting the entry of food into the Gaza Strip is a new thing, recall that Israel’s blockade of Gaza long predated the present war—although the details of said blockade are generally glossed over in the media in favor of the myth that Israel unilaterally “withdrew” from the territory in 2005. In 2010, the BBC (6/21/10) listed some basic foodstuffs—pardon, potential “dual-use items”—that Israel had at different times in recent history blocked from entering Gaza, including pasta, coffee, tea, nuts and chocolate. In 2006, just a year after the so-called “withdrawal,” Israeli government adviser Dov Weissglas outlined the logic behind Israel’s restriction of food imports into Gaza: “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.”
Fast forward almost two decades, and it’s safe to say that the “idea” has evolved; this is a genocide, after all—even if the corporate media refuse to say the word—and starvation is part and parcel of that. But on account of Israel’s extra-special relationship with the United States, US media have institutionalized the practice of beating around the bush when it comes to documenting Israeli crimes. This is how we end up with the aforementioned long-winded headlines instead of, say, the far more straightforward “Israel is starving Gaza,” a Google search of which terms produces not a single corporate media dispatch, but does lead to a January 2024 report by that very name, courtesy of none other than the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem.
‘Starving as negotiation tactic’
That said, there have been a few surprises. The New York Times (3/13/25), for example, took a short break from its longstanding tradition of unabashed apologetics for Israeli atrocities in allowing the following sentence to appear in a March opinion article by Megan Stack: “Israeli officials are essentially starving Gaza as a negotiation tactic.” In the very least, this was a vast improvement, in terms of syntactic clarity and assignation of blame, over previous descriptions of Israeli behavior immortalized on the pages of the US newspaper of record—like that time the Israeli military slaughtered four kids playing by the sea in Gaza, and the Times editors (7/16/14) went with the headline “Boys Drawn to Gaza Beach, and Into Center of Mideast Strife.”
In the end, Israel’s starvation of the Gaza Strip is multifaceted. It’s not just about physically blocking the entry of food into the besieged enclave. It’s also about Israel’s near-total decimation of Gaza’s healthcare system: the bombardment of hospitals, the targeting of ambulances, the massacres of medical personnel (FAIR.org, 4/11/25). It’s about Israeli military attacks on humanitarian aid convoys and workers, including the April 2024 massacre of seven international employees of the food organization World Central Kitchen.
It’s about Israel razing agricultural areas, wiping out food production, devastating the fishing industry and depleting livestock. It’s about Israel bombing water infrastructure in Gaza. And it’s about Israeli troops slaughtering at least 112 desperate Palestinians queuing for flour on February 29, 2024 (FAIR.org, 3/22/24)—which was at least a quicker way of killing starving people than waiting for them to starve.
In his 2017 London Review of Books essay (6/15/17) on the use of famine as a weapon of war, Alex de Waal referenced the “physical debilitation of groups as a technique of genocide,” noting that “forced starvation was one of the instruments of the Holocaust.” It’s worth reflecting on the essay’s opening paragraph:
In its primary use, the verb “to starve” is transitive: It’s something people do to one another, like torture or murder. Mass starvation as a consequence of the weather has very nearly disappeared: Today’s famines are all caused by political decisions, yet journalists still use the phrase “man-made famine” as if such events were unusual.
As for the current case of the Gaza Strip, US establishment journalists appear to be doing their best to avoid the transitive nature of the verb in question—or any subject-verb-object construction that might too overtly expose Israeli savagery. And by treating famine in Gaza as a subject unto itself, rather than a “technique of genocide,” to borrow de Waal’s words, the media assist in obscuring the bigger picture about this very man-made famine—which is that Israel is not just starving Gaza. Israel is exterminating Gaza.
Call it what it clearly is: Genocide
April 26, 2025, By Walt Zlotow, https://theaimn.net/call-it-what-it-clearly-is-genocide/
Some dare not call it genocide
Folks following the ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, fully enabled by America, are of two views.
Those of us in the peace community instantly recognised that Israel’s response to Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack was a genocidal ethnic cleansing of all Palestinians from Gaza.
We didn’t have to guess. Israeli leaders made clear through word and deed that return of Israeli hostages was secondary to their primary goal of killing and clearing out all 2,300,000 Palestinians so Gaza could be redeveloped to expand Greater Israel.
It was also clear that the US, under both Biden and Trump, were and are in complete accord with Israel’s grisly, murderous policy. Biden feigned sympathy for the tens of thousands of dead Palestinian innocents on his watch and the decimated 139 square miles of Gaza rubble. But he kept mum while delivering over $20 billion in weapons allowing Israel to rain down on Gaza over 50,000 tons of American bombs dropped from American planes.
Trump, no surprise, gloried in the worst genocide this century. He invited indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu to the Oval Office to discuss which African countries they could intimidate to take in the roughly 2.2 million remaining starving, sick, traumatized Palestinians. Trump is eager to kick start his biggest real estate project ever, expanding Greater Israel into Gaza once the Palestinians have been cleared out. That is grotesque, not something to champion.
Then there are those who refuse to believe or admit that genocide is occurring before their eyes and ears in real time.
Reasons likely many.
Some simply view it not as genocide but a war between Israel and Hamas.
Some argue that the Palestinian destruction, no matter how horrible, does not rise to genocide which they equate to the Nazi horrors of WWII.
Some are in complete sympathy with Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign, indeed, cheering it on. Mike Huckabee, Trump’s new Ambassador to Israel, claims there is no such thing as Palestine or even Palestinians, so let the ethnic cleansing proceed unabated to expand Greater Israel.
There is a near total blackout in mainstream media of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Whether conservative or progressive, the talking heads go mute when it comes to the informing the public of the most horrific US policy in their lifetime.
None in Congress dare cross the Israel lobby by calling it genocide. To do so risks having millions in lobby campaign funds dry up or worse, going to a pro lobby primary opponent. Some are horrified by the violence crushing the Palestinians but cannot embrace the moral imperative to call it out and demand its end.
To his credit, Sen. Bernie Sanders tried twice to pass Senate Joint Resolutions to cut off the flow of genocide weapons to Israel but only garnered 17 votes from the other 99 mostly genocide-supporting Senators. But tho Sanders calls Israel’s conduct “ethnic cleansing”, he refuses to call it what it truly is: genocide.
Representing Sanders’ Senate opposite is colleague John Fetterman, who supports Israel cutting off all food, medicine, and water to Gaza until the Israeli hostages are released. Horrifying.
Israel breaks the January ceasefire with daily bombings, killing dozens of Palestinian innocents while most Americans turn away.
Collectively, American genocide deniers enable President Trump to fund, supply, and cheer on arguably the most murderous, destructive and tragically bi-partisan foreign policy in American history.
UN: Gaza Is Facing Worst Humanitarian Situation Yet Due to Israeli Blockade.
“Hunger is spreading & deepening, deliberate & manmade,” “Two million people: a majority of women & children are undergoing collective punishment.”
The Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid and all other goods entering Gaza has been imposed for 50 days
by Dave DeCamp April 22, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/04/22/un-gaza-is-facing-worst-humanitarian-situation-yet-due-to-israeli-blockade/
The UN’s humanitarian office, OCHA, warned on Tuesday that Gaza is facing its worst humanitarian situation yet, as a total Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid and all other goods has been imposed for more than 50 days.
“Right now is probably the worst humanitarian situation we have seen throughout the war in Gaza,” Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for OCHA, said at a press briefing in Geneva, according to Turkey’s Anadolu Agency.
Also on Tuesday, the UN’s Palestinian relief agency, UNRWA, said Gaza had become a “land of desperation” and warned of spreading hunger.
“Hunger is spreading & deepening, deliberate & manmade,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X. “Two million people: a majority of women & children are undergoing collective punishment.”
Lazzarini said that aid trucks, including 3,000 from UNRWA, are ready to enter Gaza but are being blocked by Israel. “The siege must be lifted, supplies must flow in, the hostages must be released, the ceasefire must resume,” he said.
The US has strongly backed Israel’s collective punishment of the civilian population of Gaza. US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee released a video statement on Monday in response to calls for him to pressure Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza and blamed Hamas for the Israeli blockade.
Last week, 12 major aid organizations issued a statement that said the “people of Gaza – particularly women and children – are paying the price” and that “famine is not just a risk, but likely rapidly unfolding in almost all parts of Gaza.”
The Ever-Expanding War Machine
Dismantling the Government While Pumping Up the Pentagon
By William D. Hartung, April 22, 2025 https://tomdispatch.com/the-ever-expanding-war-machine/
Under the guise of efficiency, the Trump administration is taking a sledgehammer to essential programs and agencies that are the backbone of America’s civilian government. The virtual elimination of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and plans to shut down the Department of Education are just the most visible examples of a campaign that includes layoffs of budget experts, public health officials, scientists, and other critical personnel whose work undergirds the daily operations of government and provides the basic services needed by businesses, families, and individuals alike. Many of those services can make the difference between solvency and poverty, health and illness, or even, in some cases, life and death for vulnerable populations.
The speed with which civilian programs and agencies are being slashed in the second Trump era gives away the true purpose of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). In the context of the Musk-Trump regime, “efficiency” is a cover story for a greed-driven ideological campaign to radically reduce the size of government without regard for the human consequences.
So far, the only agency that seems to have escaped the ire of the DOGE is — don’t be shocked! — the Pentagon. After misleading headlines suggested that its topline would be cut by as much as 8% annually for the next five years as part of that supposed efficiency campaign, the real plan was revealed — finding savings in some parts of the Pentagon only to invest whatever money might be saved in — yes! — other military programs without any actual reductions in the department’s overall budget. Then, during a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on April 7th, Trump announced that “we’re going to be approving a budget, and I’m proud to say, actually, the biggest one we’ve ever done for the military . . . $1 trillion. Nobody has seen anything like it.”
So far, cuts to make room for new kinds of military investments have been limited to the firing of civilian Pentagon employees and the dismantling of a number of internal strategy and research departments. Activities that funnel revenue to weapons contractors have barely been touched — hardly surprising given that Musk himself presides over a significant Pentagon contractor, SpaceX.
The legitimacy of his role should, of course, be subject to question. After all, he’s an unelected billionaire with major government contracts who, in recent months, seemed to have garnered more power than the entire cabinet combined. But cabinet members are subject to Senate confirmation, as well as financial disclosure and conflict-of-interest rules. Not Musk, though. Not only hasn’t he been vetted by Congress, but he’s been allowed to maintain his role in SpaceX.
A Hollow Government?
The Trump and Musk hollowing out of the civilian government, while keeping the Pentagon budget at enormously high levels of funding, means the United States is well on its way to becoming the very “garrison state” that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against in the early years of the Cold War. And mind you, all of that’s true before Republican hawks in Congress like Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS), who is seeking $100 billion more in Pentagon spending than its officials have asked for, even act.
What’s at stake, however, goes well beyond how the government spends its money. After all, such decisions are being accompanied by an assault on basic constitutional rights like freedom of speech and a campaign of mass deportations that already includes people with the legal right to remain in the United States. And that’s not to mention the bullying and financial blackmailing of universities, law firms, and major media outlets in an attempt to force them to bow down to the administration’s political preferences.In fact, the first two months of the Trump/Musk administration undoubtedly represent the most blatant power grab by the executive branch in the history of this republic, a move that undermines our ability to preserve, no less expand, the fundamental rights that are supposed to be the guiding lights of American democracy. Those rights have, of course, been violated to one degree or another throughout this country’s history, but never like this. The current crackdown threatens to erase the hard-won victories of the civil rights, women’s rights, labor rights, immigrant rights, and LGBTQ rights movements that had brought this country closer to living up to its professed commitments to freedom, tolerance, and equality.
Continue readingAid workers describe Gaza as “stuff of nightmares” as Israel’s mass forced displacements cause carnage and despair.
April 23, 2025, Oxfam. https://theaimn.net/aid-workers-describe-gaza-as-stuff-of-nightmares-as-israels-mass-forced-displacements-cause-carnage-and-despair/
Restrictions on movement and total siege making aid operations almost impossible
As Gaza enters the eighth week of an Israel-imposed siege, blocking aid, vital supplies and commercial goods, Oxfam staff are describing conditions as the “stuff of nightmares”, with Israel’s mass forced displacement orders spreading terror, Oxfam said.
Israel has issued repeated forced displacement orders to clear out civilian populations from its renewed airstrikes and attacks on Gaza since 18 March, which has left about 70% of the Strip under displacement orders or “no go” zones, affecting more than 500,000 people. Many have been pushed into inhospitable, unsafe and inaccessible areas.
Since 2 March, Israel has allowed no aid or commercial goods to enter Gaza. Many humanitarian agencies have been forced to pause their operations. Oxfam and its partners have not received a single aid truck, food parcel, hygiene kit or any other essential equipment since the siege began. Oxfam’s supplies are nearly exhausted, with only a few water tanks remaining in Gaza City.
Palestinians in Gaza are now emotionally and physically exhausted after 18 months of airstrikes and ground offensives, repeated forced displacement orders and restrictions on basic services since October 7, 2023.
The recent escalations in efforts by Israel to bombard, deprive and displace the Palestinian population of Gaza, sees Oxfam and partner organizations severely restricted and struggling to provide support to civilians, who are facing starvation and relentless violence.
One Oxfam staff member, who was displaced under fire twice in one weekafter the forced evacuation of Rafah, said nearly everything had been destroyed. She described the sounds of gunfire at night and people crying in the street, not knowing where to go. Another Oxfam worker said the experiences were “the stuff of nightmares” – people crying for help under piles of rubble, with others desperately trying to flee with injured family members, and others facing a daily struggle to find anything to drink or eat.
Clemence Lagouardat, Oxfam Response Lead in Gaza said:
“It’s hard to explain just how terrible things are in Gaza at the moment. Our staff and partners are witnessing scenes of carnage and despair every day. People are in terror, fearing for their lives as displacement orders tell them, with little notice, to move with whatever they can carry.
“The restrictions on internal movement are also making it very difficult to carry out vital, life-saving work. With so many people displaced, the strains on dwindling resources and operational needs are massive. What little aid we have left inside Gaza is hard to get to people living in makeshift shelters and tents when travel is so dangerous.”
Mohammad Nairab, Executive Manager, Palestinian Environmental Friends Association (PEF), one of Oxfam’s partners in Gaza said:
“Since the war resumed many of our teams have been displaced. We have had to continue our work, despite the lack of safety, as countless people rely on us for water, especially during these dire times. Nothing could have prepared us for such an unprecedented war. The damage we face—both psychological and physical—is profound and cannot be easily undone.”
Oxfam says that people are struggling to find safe drinking water, with facilities bombed or unable to operate since Israel cut the last remaining electricity supplies needed to run sanitation facilities. Backup generators are of little use because fuel stores are depleted. The prices of what little food is available have skyrocketed, and many people are at risk of extreme hunger.
Lagouardat said: “We must see an end to this terror and carnage right now, with a lifting of the siege to allow urgent humanitarian aid to reach all of those in need.”
Oxfam is calling for a renewed and permanent ceasefire, the safe return of Israeli hostages and illegally detained Palestinian prisoners, and immediate and unfettered aid access at scale in Gaza. Oxfam reiterates its call for justice and accountability for all those affected. States should stop selling arms to Israel, risking complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity committed.
80 years after atomic bombs devastated Japan, Donald Trump’s actions risk nuclear proliferation
The Conversation 20th April 2025
- Jamie LevinAssociate Professor of Political Science, St. Francis Xavier University
- Youngwon ChoAssociate Professor of Political Science, St. Francis Xavier University
The policy of every American president since Harry S. Truman has been to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
They have not always been successful. The world’s most powerful weapons spread, with nine countries now possessing them. But no United States president has actively sought their further proliferation, as the belligerent policies of Donald Trump are now set to do.
In 2018, during his first term as president, Trump tore up the Iran nuclear deal, which had successfully placed limits on the enrichment of weapons-grade materials in exchange for sanctions relief.
Iran has since accelerated its nuclear weapons program. Estimates now put Iran within months or even weeks of producing several bombs.
A short time later, after a series of escalating threats, Trump suggested that North Korea had agreed to denuclearize. Talks ensued, but a deal never materialized.
In fact, Trump failed to stop, let alone roll back, North Korea’s ambitious nuclear weapons programs. North Korea is now said to possess at least 50 warheads as well as the means to deliver them.
No longer an ally
Under the second Trump administration, the world is facing a rapidly growing proliferation risk of a different kind, one that is found not only among the usual suspects in Iran and North Korea, but also among a long list of U.S. allies who once basked in American security guarantees.
Merely two months into Trump’s second term, America’s European allies have grown increasingly concerned that the U.S. is no longer a reliable ally.
That’s due to his suspension (and then reinstatement) of weapons transfers and intelligence sharing with Ukraine, an explicitly prioritized rapprochement with Russia, open denigration of its NATO allies, suggestions that the U.S. would not come to their defence if attacked, and his active and repeated threats to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Canada, Greenland and Panama.
Against this backdrop, Trump’s guiding Project 2025 principles advocate escalating nuclear testing, breaking a long-held taboo.
Once protected by its nuclear umbrella, America’s closest allies are now threatened by it. Europe’s loss of confidence in the U.S. is so severe that finding alternatives has now become part of serious discussions in capitals across the continent. France and the United Kingdom are poised to fill the void by extending their nuclear deterrence to the likes of Germany and Poland.
The scene in Asia
But the risk of proliferation is greatest in East Asia. On the campaign trail in 2016, Trump mused that Japan and South Korea might need to develop nuclear weapons. “It’s only a matter of time,” he said.
That time is unfortunately now…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Catastrophic dangers
While going nuclear may be individually rational for the East Asian countries, the collective outcome for the region and beyond is fraught with catastrophic risks.
The world is now grappling with the most dangerous collective action problem because the solution that has worked so well for decades — credible American security assurance — is eroding.
In upending the very international order that the U.S. established, the Trump administration is not merely chipping away at the global security architecture underpinned by myriad American security guarantees. It’s imploding the post-Second World War security order from within and the moral, political and institutional bulwark against nuclear proliferation.
In this predatory, zero-sum world of Trumpian foreign policy, putting America First necessarily means putting everyone else last — and, along the way, inadvertently fuelling nuclear proliferation. https://theconversation.com/80-years-after-atomic-bombs-devastated-japan-donald-trumps-actions-risk-nuclear-proliferation-254459
Israel’s escalating West Bank assault is part of a larger plan to split the territory in two
Israel is expanding its “Iron Wall” offensive in the West Bank as it approves plans to separate the northern West Bank from the south. The plan is an accelerated prelude to Israel’s expected annexation of the West Bank.
Mondoweiss, By Qassam Muaddi April 14, 2025
Israeli forces escalated their offensive in the occupied West Bank last week across Palestinian cities and refugee camps, killing three Palestinians. The escalation came amid renewed Israeli plans to expedite annexation plans to solidify the expansion of key new settlement projects in the central West Bank, including connecting one of the largest Israeli settlements, Maale Adumim, to Jerusalem.
Last Monday, April 7, Israeli forces opened fire at three children in the town of Turmusayya, northeast of Ramallah, killing 14-year-old Palestinian-American citizen Omar Saadeh. On Tuesday, April 8, Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian woman, Aminah Yaaqoub, 30, at an Israeli checkpoint near Salfit in the northern West Bank.
These killings raised the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces or settlers since October 2023 to more than 800, as the Israeli army increased its use of lethal force as part of an ongoing military crackdown on the West Bank’s cities and refugee camps………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
The plan to bifurcate the West Bank
The launching of the “Iron Wall” offensive has been described by the families of Israeli captives held in Gaza as compensation offered to Smotrich in exchange for accepting the signing of the ceasefire and refraining from quitting Netanyahu’s right-wing governing coalition.
In reality, Smotrich’s agenda of crushing Palestinian refugee camps is part of the Israeli government’s broader stated agenda for annexing the West Bank. The escalation of Israel’s military campaign against Palestinian cities came as an echo to developments in Gaza, as Israel announced the expansion of its ground invasion in the strip last week, especially in Rafah. This West Bank escalation was also coupled with the expansion of new settlement projects.
On March 30, the Israeli cabinet approved a new settlement roads project east of Jerusalem. The project includes a road that circumvents the center of the West Bank between Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley, allegedly allowing Palestinians to drive directly from Bethlehem to Jericho and isolating both areas definitively from Jerusalem. The current highway, one of the few Israeli highways on parts of which Palestinians are allowed to drive, will be exclusively reserved for Israelis, connecting Jerusalem with Israeli settlements that expand from the east of Jerusalem to the Jordan Valley. Most central to this annexation project is the second-largest Israeli settlement, Maaale Adumim, which houses 40,000 Israelis.
Linking Jerusalem with settlements to the east would separate the south and the north of the West Bank and create a geographical continuity between Israel’s 1948 boundaries, Jerusalem, and Israeli settlements. Most crucially, the West Bank would be bifurcated. It’s a plan that Israel has had in the works for years but has now gained official approval……………………………………………………………………………….
Both Katz and Smotrich belong to the Israeli far right, whose voting base comes largely from the settler movement. Smotrich has been leading calls to annex the West Bank since 2015 and has labeled his plan “the definitive solution.” This plan, according to Smotrich, would “end the conflict” by imposing Israeli control over the West Bank and annexing it to Israel’s 1948 boundaries, killing any chances for establishing a Palestinian state. This vision aligns with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s longtime effort to undermine a two-state solution and prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state…………………………………
Settler violence in the West Bank has displaced no less than 20 Bedouin communities in the West Bank since October 2023, while the Israeli army and settler attacks have killed more than 800 Palestinians in the same time period. According to UNRWA, Israel’s “Iron Wall” offensive has so far displaced well over 40,000 Palestinians and completely depopulated the Jenin and Tulkarem refugee camps, with Israel’s Defense Minister saying that its residents would not be allowed to return for at least a year. https://mondoweiss.net/2025/04/israels-escalating-west-bank-assault-is-part-of-a-larger-plan-to-split-the-territory-in-two/
‘Only Hellfire’: Israel Says Lifesaving Aid, Troop Withdrawal Off the Table for Gaza
“Israel’s defense ministers can’t stop publicly confessing to war crimes,” said one U.S. journalist.
Brett Wilkins. Apr 16, 2025, https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-to-remain-in-gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that the U.S.-backed genocidal policy of blocking lifesaving humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip will continue, and that Israel Defense Forces troops will remain in the embattled Palestinian enclave indefinitely.
“Israel’s policy is clear: No humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population,” Katz said. “No one is currently planning to allow any humanitarian aid into Gaza, and there are no preparations to enable such aid.”
Katz had initially said that Israel would eventually allow the resumption of humanitarian aid into Gaza, but later clarified his remarks following outrage from far-right members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, warned against repeating what he called the “historic mistake” of letting any aid into Gaza, where a “complete siege” declared in response to the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023 has fueled widespread starvation, sickness, and other crises.
“It’s a shame we don’t learn from our mistakes. As long as our hostages are dying in the tunnels, there is no reason for a gram of food or aid to enter Gaza,” Ben-Gvir said on social media.
Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar also discussed the policy Wednesday, asserting that “the despicable murderers in Gaza deserve no humanitarian assistance from any civilian or military mechanism.”
“Only hellfire should be poured on the makers of terrorism until the last hostage returns from Gaza,” Zohar added.
Israeli media reported Wednesday that senior government security officials believe Gaza will run out of humanitarian supplies and food in about a month.
Legal experts say the siege is a war crime, and United Nations experts and human rights groups have called Israel’s blockade and use of starvation as a weapon of war acts of genocide.
The International Court of Justice—which is weighing a genocide case against Israel—last March issued a provisional order to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. Many critics say Israel has ignored the directive.
Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who ordered the siege, are also fugitives from the International Criminal Court, which last year issued warrants to arrest the pair for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the siege.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which advocates for people kidnapped by Hamas during the October 7 attack, on Wednesday accused the Netanyahu government of “choosing to seize territory over hostages.”
“The time has come to stop the false promises and slogans. It is impossible to continue the war and at the same time release all the hostages,” the group added, echoing the growing anti-war sentiment among Israeli troops and the general public.
Human rights groups around the world have condemned Israel’s blockade of Gaza. On Wednesday, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières called on the Israeli government to “immediately lift the inhumane and deadly siege on Gaza, protect the lives of Palestinians and humanitarian and medical personnel, and for all parties to restore and sustain the cease-fire” that Israel unilaterally broke last month.
Amande Bazerolle, the medical group’s emergency coordinator in Gaza, said in a statement that “Gaza has been turned into a mass grave of Palestinians and those coming to their assistance.”
“We are witnessing in real time the destruction and forced displacement of the entire population in Gaza,” Bazerolle added. “With nowhere safe for Palestinians or those trying to help them, the humanitarian response is severely struggling under the weight of insecurity and critical supply shortages, leaving people with few, if any, options for accessing care.”
Katz also said Wednesday that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops would remain in so-called security zones in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria for an indefinite period.
“Unlike in the past, the IDF is not evacuating areas that have been cleared and seized,” and “will remain in the security zones as a buffer between the enemy and [Israeli] communities in any temporary or permanent situation in Gaza—as in Lebanon and Syria,” Katz said.
Earlier this month, Katz said Israel will be “seizing large areas that will be added to the security zones of the state of Israel for the protection of fighting forces and the settlements,” a reference to plans by far-right members of Netanyahu’s government for the ethnic cleansing and Israeli recolonization of Gaza.
Israeli soldiers have blown the whistle on alleged war crimes committed by IDF troops in what some call the “kill zone” along the border with Israel, including indiscriminate killing and wholesale deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure.
Recent reporting has also revealed the IDF is planning to take as much as 20% of Gaza, including the entire depopulated city of Rafah. U.S. President Donald Trump has also proposed an American takeover of Gaza, the expulsion of its Palestinians, and the development of the “Riviera of the Middle East” in the coastal strip.
Almost all of Gaza’s more than 2 million people have been forcibly displaced by Israel’s onslaught, some of them multiple times. The 558-day assault has left more than 180,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing in Gaza, according officials there.
Would military strikes kill Iran’s nuclear programme? Probably not.
Reuters By Francois Murphy and John Irish, April 16, 2025, Editing by William Maclean
- Summary
- Israel, US have threatened to take out nuclear sites
- Most hardened ones require firepower Israel seems to lack
- Can’t destroy enrichment know-how Iran already has
- Attack could drive programme underground, end inspections
VIENNA, April 15 (Reuters) – The recent U.S. deployment of B-2 bombers, the only planes able to launch the most powerful bunker-busting bombs, to within range of Iran is a potent signal to Tehran of what could happen to its nuclear programme if no deal is reached to rein it in.
But military and nuclear experts say that even with such massive firepower, U.S.-Israeli military action would probably only temporarily set back a programme the West fears is already aimed at producing atom bombs one day, although Iran denies it.
Worse, an attack could prompt Iran to kick out United Nations nuclear inspectors, drive the already partly buried programme fully underground and race towards becoming a nuclear-armed state, both ensuring and hastening that feared outcome.
“Ultimately, short of regime change or occupation, it’s pretty difficult to see how military strikes could destroy Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon,” said Justin Bronk, senior research fellow for airpower and technology at the Royal United Services Institute, a British defence think-tank.
“It would be a case of essentially trying to reimpose a measure of military deterrence, impose cost and push back breakout times back to where we were a few years ago.”
Breakout time refers to how long it would take to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, currently days or weeks for Iran. Actually making a bomb, should Iran decide to, would take longer.
The landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers placed tough restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities that increased its breakout time to at least a year. After President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal in 2018 it then unravelled, and Iran pushed far beyond its limits.
Now Trump wants to negotiate new nuclear restrictions in talks that began last weekend. He also said two weeks ago: “If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing.”
Israel has made similar threats. Its Defence Minister Israel Katz said after taking office in November: “Iran is more exposed than ever to strikes on its nuclear facilities. We have the opportunity to achieve our most important goal – to thwart and eliminate the existential threat to the State of Israel.”
BIG, RISKY
Iran’s nuclear programme is spread over many sites, and an attack would likely have to hit most or all of them. Even the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, does not know where Iran keeps some vital equipment, like parts for centrifuges, the machines that enrich uranium.
Israel could take out most of those sites by itself, military experts say, but it would be a risky operation involving repeated attacks and would have to deal with Russian-supplied anti-aircraft systems – although it managed to do so in far more limited strikes on Iran last year.
Uranium enrichment is at the heart of Iran’s nuclear programme, and its two biggest enrichment sites are the Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz, located about three floors underground, apparently to protect it from bombardment, and Fordow, dug far deeper into a mountain………………………………………………………………… https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/would-military-strikes-kill-irans-nuclear-programme-probably-not-2025-04-15/
1 This Month
of the week – Shut Down Drone Warfare!
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
Petition to revoke the licensing of the Near Surface Nuclear Disposal Facility (NSDF) at Chalk River. https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-7247
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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