Enough Is Enough. Israel Is Committing War Crimes- Former Israeli PM

SCHEERPOST, Ehud Olmert, Haaretz, May 27, 2025 .Ehud Olmert is the former Israeli prime minister from 2006 to 2009 and mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003. Olmert was a member of the Likud party from 1973 to 2006.
The government of Israel is currently waging a war without purpose, without goals or clear planning and with no chances of success. Never since its establishment has the State of Israel waged such a war. The criminal gang headed by Benjamin Netanyahu has set a precedent without equal in Israel’s history in this area, too.
The obvious result of Operation Gideon’s Chariots is, first and foremost, the confused activity of Israeli military units deployed around Gaza. This is true particularly in neighborhoods where our soldiers have already fought, were hurt and fell while killing many Hamas combatants, who deserve to die, and many more innocent civilians. These have joined the statistics of pointless victims among the Palestinian population, reaching monstrous proportions.
Recent operations in Gaza have nothing to do with legitimate war goals. The government sends our soldiers – and the military obeys – to wander around Gaza City, Jabalya and Khan Yunis neighborhoods in an illegitimate military operation. This is now a private political war. Its immediate result is the transformation of Gaza into a humanitarian disaster area.
Over the past year, harsh accusations were voiced worldwide against the Israeli government and its military’s conduct in Gaza, including accusations of genocide and war crimes. In public debates in Israel and on the international arena, I’ve rejected such accusations firmly, though I didn’t shrink from criticizing the government. The international media listens to all voices in the public debate in Israel. It can discern between those who serve as mouthpieces for Netanyahu and his lackeys and his opponents, who view him, as the media is currently fond of saying, as the head of a crime family. I didn’t hesitate to give interviews in Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, the U.K. and elsewhere in the international arena. Quite often, I disappointed interviewers when I vehemently asserted that Israel wasn’t committing war crimes in Gaza. Excessive killing happened, but, I claimed firmly and with conviction, in no case did a government official give orders to hit Gazan civilians indiscriminately.
The great number of innocent civilians killed in Gaza was hard to fathom, unjustified, unacceptable. But all, as I have said on every media outlet in the world, resulted from a vicious war.
This war should have ended by early 2024. It continued without justification, without any clear goal and with no political vision for the future of Gaza and the Middle East in general. The military, charged with and duty-bound to execute government orders, acted in many cases rashly, incautiously, over-aggressively. However, it did so without any order or instruction or directive from military top brass to hit civilians indiscriminately. Therefore, as I understood it at the time, no war crimes had been committed.
Genocide and war crimes are legal terms that very much refer to the intent and responsibility of the people authorized to formulate the war’s objectives, its conduct and its purpose, the boundaries of fighting and the limitations on the use of force. I took every available opportunity to distinguish between the crimes we have been accused of, which I refused to admit, and the carelessness and indifference regarding Gazan victims and the unbearable human cost we’ve been levying there. The first accusation I rejected, the second I admitted to.
In recent weeks I’ve been no longer able to do so. What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians. We’re not doing this due to loss of control in any specific sector, not due to some disproportionate outburst by some soldiers in some unit. Rather, it’s the result of government policy – knowingly, evilly, maliciously, irresponsibly dictated. Yes, Israel is committing war crimes.
First, starving out Gaza. On this issue, the position of senior government figures is public and clear. Yes, we’ve been denying Gazans food, medicine and basic living needs as part of an explicit policy. Netanyahu, typically, is trying to blur the type of orders he’s been giving, in order to evade legal and criminal responsibility in due course. But some of his lackeys are saying so outright, in public, even with pride: Yes, we will starve out Gaza. Because all Gazans are Hamas, there’s no moral or operational limitation on exterminating them all, over two million people.
Israeli media outlets, each for its own reasons (some understandable) are trying to present a moderate version of events in Gaza. But the picture displayed around the world is much broader, much more devastating. It’s impossible to view it with equanimity and a nod, as if the world’s reaction is merely a widespread outburst of antisemitism, because everybody hates us and they’re all antisemites.
Well, no. French president Emmanuel Macron is no antisemite. I know him well. I’ve been talking to him over the last few months. When the hour was at hand, the French military stood on the front line to defend Israel and cooperated in intercepting Iran’s missile attacks. “We’re fighting with you against your enemies under my direction, and you’ve been accusing me of supporting terrorism,” Macron recently said. He is a friend of Israel, as are British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and many others who’ve joined them from within the ranks of Europe’s most outstanding and important cabinet ministers and leaders.
They’ve been hearing the voices from Gaza. They see the suffering of hundreds of thousands of civilians. They’ve been hearing the voices from Israeli cabinet meetings and realize the obvious: Israeli cabinet ministers, headed by crime boss Netanyahu, are actively, unhesitatingly and with malice aforethought are pursuing a policy of starvation and humanitarian pressure, with potentially catastrophic results.
Voices are already rising from Israel-friendly governments such as Canada, the U.K. and France, calling for concrete measures against the government, though these could cause grievous harm to Israel. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://scheerpost.com/2025/05/27/former-israeli-pm-enough-is-enough-israel-is-committing-war-crimes/
Trump warns Netanyahu off Iran strike as nuclear talks continue
28 May,2025 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/28/trump-warns-netanyahu-off-iran-strike-as-nuclear-talks-continue
US president says an Israeli strike ‘would be inappropriate to do right now because we’re very close to a solution.’
United States President Donald Trump has said that he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off on any strike against Iran to give his administration more time to push for a new nuclear deal with Tehran, as several rounds of talks have been held in Oman and Italy.
Trump told reporters on Wednesday at the White House that he relayed to Netanyahu a strike “would be inappropriate to do right now because we’re very close to a solution”
The Israeli leader has been threatening a bombardment of Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran has said it would respond with severity if any such attack were launched.
In the meantime, Iran may pause uranium enrichment if the US releases frozen Iranian funds and recognises its right to refine uranium for civilian use under a “political deal” that could lead to a broader nuclear accord, two Iranian official sources told the Reuters news agency.
The sources, close to the negotiating team, said on Wednesday that a “political understanding with the United States could be reached soon” if Washington accepted Tehran’s conditions. The sources told Reuters that under this arrangement, Tehran would halt uranium enrichment for a year.
The latest developments came as the head of the UN’s atomic watchdog group said that “the jury is still out” on negotiations between Iran and the US over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear programme. But Rafael Mariano Grossi described the ongoing negotiations as a good sign.
“I think that is an indication of a willingness to come to an agreement. And I think that… is something possible.”
The 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), placed limits on Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
It collapsed after Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the agreement in 2018, leading to a sharp escalation in tensions and a breakdown in diplomatic relations.
The key sticking point
US officials have repeatedly said that any new deal must include a firm commitment from Iran to halt uranium enrichment, which they view as a potential pathway to building nuclear weapons.
However, Iran has consistently denied seeking nuclear arms, insisting its programme is solely for civilian purposes. It has rejected Washington’s demand to eliminate enrichment capabilities, calling it an infringement on national sovereignty.
It remains the critical sticking point after negotiators for Tehran and Washington met for a fifth round of Oman-mediated talks in Rome.
Instead, Iran has reportedly proposed that the US publicly recognise Tehran’s right to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and approve the release of Iranian oil revenues frozen under US sanctions.
US protects Israel as Netanyahu vows to ‘take over’ Gaza, using hunger as as weapon
Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu vowed to colonize Gaza, saying, “We will take control of all the territory of the Strip”. He is using starvation as a weapon, as Donald Trump tries to expel Palestinians to Libya or other countries. The US imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to protect Israeli war criminals.
GeoPoliticalEconomy, By Ben Norton, 22 May 25
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has admitted that Israel’s goal is to colonize Gaza.
“We will take control of all the territory of the [Gaza] Strip”, Netanyahu pledged on 19 May.
Israel had agreed to a ceasefire in January, but unilaterally violated the agreement in March and restarted its brutal war on Gaza.
Donald Trump personally gave Israel the green light to break the truce, according to Israeli officials.
Israeli minister boasts: “We’re destroying everything… We are conquering, cleansing, and remaining in Gaza”
Israel’s extreme-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a member of the Israeli security cabinet and Netanyahu ally, boasted that the IDF is “destroying everything left in the Gaza Strip”, and that “the army is leaving no stone unturned”, reported the top Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
Smotrich admitted that Israel is intentionally killing civilian members of the government of Gaza, including those who are not part of Hamas. “We’re eliminating ministers, bureaucrats, money handlers”, he said with pride.
“We are conquering, cleansing, and remaining in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed”, bragged Smotrich.
In January 2023, before the latest Gaza war, Smotrich described himself as a “fascist homophobe”, telling Israel’s LGBT community, “I won’t stone gays, [as long as] you won’t feed me shrimp”.
In November 2023, just a few weeks after the war started, Smotrich publicly called for the mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, through so-called “voluntary migration”.
Then, in April 2024, Smotrich demanded the “total annihilation” of Gaza. He invoked a Biblical passage in which God ordered the complete destruction of the nation of Amalek, including the killing of all women and children: “You will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven”. This was an explicit call for genocide.
After Donald Trump won the US presidential election in November 2024, Smotrich tweeted that 2025 would be the year when Israel fully colonized and officially annexed “Judea and Samaria”, the term Israeli settlers use for the West Bank — which according to international law is Palestinian territory that has been illegally occupied by Israel since 1967.
In Gaza, Israel uses starvation as a “bargaining chip”, UN humanitarian chief says
As Israel unilaterally restarted its brutal war in March, it also imposed a suffocating blockade on Gaza, preventing food and medicine from entering the densely populated strip.
The UN humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, stated on 13 May that all 2.1 million Palestinians trapped in Gaza faced famine conditions.
Fletcher called on the UN Security Council (UNSC) “to stop the 21st-century atrocity to which we bear daily witness in Gaza”.
The UNSC has been unable to take action, however, because it has been paralyzed by the United States, which has repeatedly used its veto power to protect Israel. This was true under the Joe Biden administration, and it has continued since Trump returned to the White House in January.
Fletcher serves as the United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator.
“I can tell you from having visited what’s left of Gaza’s medical system that death on this scale has a sound and a smell that does not leave you”, Fletcher recalled. “As one hospital worker described it, ‘children scream as we peel burnt fabric from their skin’”.
The UN humanitarian chief stated that “Israel denies us access, placing the objective of depopulating Gaza before the lives of civilians”.
Instead of allowing in UN aid, the US and Israel created an alternative mechanism that Fletcher described as a “cynical sideshow” and “deliberate distraction”, which is merely a “fig leaf for further violence and displacement”.
The US-Israeli plan for Gaza “makes starvation a bargaining chip”, the UN humanitarian chief said.
A week later, on 19 May, Fletcher warned, “There are 14,000 [Palestinian] babies that will die in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them”.
“We run all sorts of risks trying to get that baby food through to those mothers who cannot feed their children right now because they’re malnourished”, the UN humanitarian chief explained.
Israel’s mass starvation strategy
Israel is using mass starvation as a tactic to try to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza, or kill those who refuse to leave.
The independent website Drop Site News reported on speeches given by Prime Minister Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, which frankly outline their sadistic strategy.
Netanyahu revealed that he only allowed a few aid trucks to enter Gaza in order to minimize international condemnation and ensure continued US support………………………………………………………….
Trump plans to expel Palestinians and ethnically cleanse Gaza
Trump has floated various plans to try to ethnically cleanse Gaza and expel Palestinians to another country………………………………………………………………………
Trump’s ICC sanctions paralyze the Hague, protecting Israel from legal consequences
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant in November 2024 for Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, accusing them of committing crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza.
In February 2025, just two weeks after he returned to the White House, Trump imposed sanctions on the ICC, accusing it of “engag[ing] in illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel”.
“The ICC’s recent actions against Israel and the United States set a dangerous precedent, directly endangering current and former United States personnel, including active service members of the Armed Forces, by exposing them to harassment, abuse, and possible arrest”, the White House warned.
The Trump administration invoked the 2002 American Servicemembers’ Protection Act. This law, which was passed under the George W. Bush administration, is commonly known as the “Hague Invasion Act”, and threatens military intervention in the Netherlands to stop the prosecution of US officials and their allies.
The US-based Center for Constitutional Rights denounced Trump’s sanctions on the ICC as a “direct attack on the rule of law” that is “intended to embolden perpetrators across the world and to inhibit the pursuit of international justice against the most powerful”.
The Associated Press reported in May that Trump’s sanctions on the ICC have paralyzed the Hague and prevented it from investigating the crimes committed by top Israeli officials.
The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, who is a British citizen, had his bank accounts in the UK frozen.
Microsoft even cancelled Khan’s email account.
Microsoft has provided the Israeli military with advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing services during its genocidal war on Gaza, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
A non-governmental organization that helps the ICC compile evidence had to move its money out of US bank accounts, due to Trump’s sanctions, according to the AP.
“The Hague-based court’s American staffers have been told that if they travel to the U.S. they risk arrest”, the AP added. https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/05/23/us-israel-netanyahu-take-over-gaza-hunger/
Extermination as negotiation: Understanding Israel’s strategy in Gaza

Behind the language of planning lies a campaign of sterilization and condensation — a vision of Gaza not as a home, but as a holding site. Leaked reports whisper of forced transfers, of Palestinians being sent to Libya or elsewhere in Africa, sketching futures of removal dressed in the language of pragmatism. In other words, Israel maneuvers, cajoles, agrees, renges, returns to blood, and ultimately remains hesitant in fulfilling even its own plans.
Whether it’s total conquest or managed containment, Israel doesn’t have a single grand strategy for Gaza, but it uses the possibility of both to prolong the war.
Mondoweiss, By Abdaljawad Omar May 23, 2025
In the weeks since the unveiling of “Operation Gideon’s Chariots,” the renewed Israeli offensive to permanently “conquer” all of Gaza, it has become increasingly clear that Israel’s internal decision-making is not oriented toward a singular strategic endgame, but toward a recursive logic of exhaustion.
Israel isn’t choosing between total conquest and technocratic containment via an Arab-brokered ceasefire plan. Instead, it is deploying these options as devices to stretch the war and weaponize its duration rather than end it. Neither is an actual alternative to the other.
This is not a paradox, but a method. “Gideon’s Chariots,” with its objective to concentrate over two million Palestinians in Rafah and “cleanse” the remainder of Gaza, is not merely a plan of conquest. It is a fantasy of sterilization dressed in logistical rationality. Its brutality lies not only in its intentions — military and demographic — but also in its open-endedness, because it will be an occupation without governance or responsibility.
It imagines Gaza as a surgical field: empty of social density and politics, a flattened terrain where the Israeli army may operate unhindered and where civilians are transformed into captives or debris. This is where extermination can proceed behind the veil of humanitarian logistics. But this is the thing: while Israel announces its plan and leaks many of its contours, making sure that the endgame of extermination is out in the open, it also delays its fulfillment.
The rejection of the Egyptian proposal for Gaza’s postwar governance, meanwhile, functions less as a strategic rebuttal and more as a temporal maneuver: it defers the stabilization of Gaza, suspends the possibility of a postwar architecture, and secures Israel’s role as the sole arbiter of movement, aid, reconstruction, and survival. The proposal — which secured the backing of the Arab League — offered a ceasefire, the release of prisoners, and the creation of a Palestinian technocratic administration in Gaza under regional and international auspices. The governing authority would be civilian, non-Hamas, and possibly linked to the Palestinian Authority. Arab security forces, primarily from Egypt and the UAE, would maintain public order. Israel, in theory, would retain the ability to strike if Hamas rearmed, but the core logic was one of pacified governance and externally monitored reconstruction.
But this alternative, while marketed as pragmatic containment, reveals its own structure of control. It does not offer Palestinains liberation or sovereignty. It does not restore Palestinian political life. Instead, it imagines a depoliticized Gaza, administered through foreign technocrats, where governance is reduced to management and resistance is metabolized into security threats.
Yes, it ends the massacres, but it continues the process of unmaking through other means. Yes, it stops ethnic cleansing and genocide, but it only offers a minimum respite. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Behind the language of planning lies a campaign of sterilization and condensation — a vision of Gaza not as a home, but as a holding site. Leaked reports whisper of forced transfers, of Palestinians being sent to Libya or elsewhere in Africa, sketching futures of removal dressed in the language of pragmatism. In other words, Israel maneuvers, cajoles, agrees, renges, returns to blood, and ultimately remains hesitant in fulfilling even its own plans.
………………………………..rather than shift course, Israel doubles down, leaning into ambiguity and attrition, hoping to exhaust global outrage the way it hopes to exhaust Palestinian resistance: through delay, confusion, the normalization of collapse, and of course, through coercion by the weaponization of antisemitism.
In this moment, what Israel seeks is a “stable instability” in which Gaza is rendered uninhabitable yet governed, massacred yet silent, present yet politically nullified. Both plans — the one it executes and the one it rejects — serve this grammar. Whether through total war or managed containment, the objective remains: to erase Palestine as a subject of history, and to replace it with a population that can be controlled, administered, or vanished. Whether this will succeed remains uncertain. But the cracks are visible in the disillusionment of soldiers and in the rage of Israeli prisoners’ families. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://mondoweiss.net/2025/05/extermination-disguised-as-negotiation-understanding-israels-strategy-in-gaza/?fbclid=IwY2xjawKiJnVleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFhMVJScjZYcDE0UEpFRko2AR6Ov_j6MzhAmpAl-ntfqrrz9g7gbweyo2JQZgXmQD20EFcLFNN_7U3rbw1FBA_aem_EoA46q1R_Hz9m5KhsFpSqw
Israeli Military Says It Will Occupy 75% of Gaza Within Two Months, ‘Concentrate’ the Civilian Population
The IDF’s plan is to force civilians into three small areas in Gaza
by Dave DeCamp May 25, 2025 , https://news.antiwar.com/2025/05/25/israeli-military-says-it-will-occupy-75-of-gaza-within-two-months-concentrate-the-civilian-population/
The Israeli military expects that it will occupy 75% of Gaza’s territory within two months and plans to “concentrate” the entire civilian population into three small areas in the Strip.
According to Israeli media, Palestinian civilians will be confined to the center of Gaza City, a strip of land in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah and Nuseirat, and an area in al-Mawasi on the coast in southern Gaza.
The IDF said the purpose of the offensive is to destroy Hamas infrastructure, although previous reports have said the plan is to destroy every remaining building in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already made clear that Israel’s goal was the full military occupation of Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of the territory, which he calls the “Trump plan,” although it’s unclear where the Palestinian population could go.
The IDF announcement about its offensive comes as a new US and Israeli-backed aid scheme is expected to be launched in Gaza, but there are conflicting reports about when it will actually start. According to Haaretz, the aid distribution, which will involve private American security contractors, will start Monday, although other Israeli media reports say it has been postponed.
The aid scheme has been rejected by the UN and other aid agencies that operate in Gaza, and it has been condemned as a transparent effort to forcibly displace starving Palestinian civilians into concentration camps. Amid the criticism, Jake Wood, the CEO of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which was created for the US-Israeli aid plan, announced his resignation.
“The aid program cannot be implemented while adhering to humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, fairness, and independence – principles I will not abandon,” Wood said. He called on Israel to “significantly expand aid delivery to Gaza through all possible means.”
Israel’s aid plan for Gaza is a key part of its strategy to expel Palestinians
Israel’s plan to handle the distribution of aid in Gaza via a U.S. private contractor is a key part of its plan to ethnically cleanse its population. Here’s how.
Mondoweiss, By Qassam Muaddi May 22, 2025
The forcible expulsion of the Palestinian people is now the explicit goal of Israel’s war on Gaza. Late on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would only end the war if “Hamas surrenders, Gaza is demilitarized, and we implement the Trump plan.”
Trump walked back his February plan for the U.S. to “own” Gaza, expel its people, and turn it into a “Riviera of the Middle East,” but Netanyahu seized upon it all the same and took it as a green light to exterminate Gaza. The latest phase in this plan is Israel’s weaponization of humanitarian aid for the purpose of furthering the Gaza final solution.
The plan is simple: starve Gaza’s population, and only create one designated flattened stretch of land where they can come to get food rations — facilitated by the Israeli army and run by a U.S. private contractor. Gaza’s population will be forced to go to these collection points, where they will be corralled inside what would effectively be a concentration camp, located in what used to be the city of Rafah, now a flattened wasteland.
Netanyahu made all this clear in his latest announcement, which came a day after Israel said it would allow “minimal” amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza for “diplomatic reasons” — to avoid war crimes charges and images of famine.
On Monday, the Israeli war cabinet finally approved the entry of the aid, after two months of a complete Israeli blockade on the besieged territory. This forced starvation has led to the spread of hunger and disease, with the Gaza Government Media Office reporting that at least 70,000 Palestinian children have been hospitalized for severe malnutrition.
The cabinet decision followed intense negotiations with Hamas in Qatar, with the mediation of the Gulf state, and pressure from the U.S. envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff. The talks started following Hamas’s release of Israeli-American soldier Edan Alexander earlier last week…………………………………………………………
Israel’s goal: Ethnic cleansing
When Israel announced its latest offensive aiming to control all of Gaza, dubbed operation “Gideon’s Chariot,” Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot reported that one of the phases of the the operation would include transferring the majority of the Palestinian population to the south of the Strip, especially in the Rafah area. These reports appeared simultaneously alongside Netanyahu’s statements to Israeli reservists last week that Israel aims to force Palestinians out of Gaza, and that the main obstacle is finding countries willing to accept them. The concentration of Palestinians in southern Gaza is seen by most analysts as a preparatory step for forcing them out. It is believed that this new plan to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza might be the last piece of this strategy…………………………………………………..
New aid plan
Even though the Israeli war cabinet approved the entry of aid trucks on Monday, the actual implementation of the entry of aid has been gradual. On Thursday, the Gaza Government Media Office announced that some trucks arrived in the Strip for distribution three days after they were due.
International organizations, including UN bodies such as UNRWA and the World Food Programme (WFP), have traditionally been key players in aid distribution in Gaza. But minutes following the cabinet’s decision this week, the Times of Israel reported that Israel would be adopting a new mechanism to distribute aid through the Israeli army, bypassing international organizations.
The most important component of this new mechanism is that aid wouldn’t be distributed to all parts of the Gaza Strip, but to specific distribution points where Palestinians would be required to move to receive it.
This Israeli plan has actually been previously announced as a joint U.S.-Israeli plan, which included the distribution of aid determined by limited rations to households. In Israel’s new plan, rather than working with traditional aid groups, the distribution would be organized by the recently established, U.S.-based Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. On May 4, international organizations present in Gaza unanimously voiced their rejection of the plan in a joint statement, saying that “it contravenes fundamental humanitarian principles and appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic as part of a military strategy.”
The statement was followed on May 6 by a statement by UN aid teams, who said the plan “appears to be a deliberate attempt to weaponize the aid.”
A month earlier, on April 8, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres rejected Israeli control over aid distribution in Gaza, stating that it risks “further controlling and callously limiting aid down to the last calorie and grain of flour.” Guterres added that the UN “will not participate in any arrangement that does not fully respect the humanitarian principles: humanity, impartiality, independence, and neutrality.”
Meanwhile, Gaza starves
As Israel continues to be formally engaged in ceasefire talks with Hamas in Qatar, its decision to allow the entry of aid was presented as a step forward in the effort to end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. However, if carried out according to Israel’s plan, the delivery of aid itself could become another step in the ongoing Israeli strategy to fulfill its now explicit goal of expelling the strip of its Palestinian population.
In the meantime, hunger in the strip accentuates by the minute, claiming so far the lives of at least 57 Palestinians, mostly children, since October 2023 according to the Palestinian health ministry, and provoking the miscarriage of 300 pregnant women due to lack of nutrients. Gaza’s government media office also said that an unspecified number of elderly people had died due to the lack of medicines, in the same time period.
All of this continues as Israeli forces escalate airstrikes across the strip, killing 82 Palestinians in the past 24 hours (Tuesday to Wednesday), according to the Palestinian health ministry. Since October 2023, the Israeli assault on Gaza has officially killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, with most estimates of the genocide’s total toll being much higher. https://mondoweiss.net/2025/05/israels-aid-plan-for-gaza-is-a-key-part-of-its-strategy-to-expel-palestinians/
Gaza “a Gaping Wound on Humanity:” Spain Convenes Int’l Conference to call for Arms Embargo on Israel

Juan Cole, 05/26/2025, https://www.juancole.com/2025/05/solution-international-meeting.html
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Spanish wire service EFE reports that delegations from 20 countries met Sunday in Madrid in a push to pressure Israel to halt its total war on Gaza and to establish a Palestinian state. Convened by Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares, the conference sought to move to concrete actions.
Israel had blocked all humanitarian aid for two months beginning in March, provoking a crisis of malnutrition in Gaza, almost all of whose people have been made internal refugees several times over by the Israeli military. Israel began letting a small amount of aid in last week, apparently under the pressure of the Trump administration, but United Nations officials decried it as “a drop in the ocean” compared to the urgent needs of 2.2 million Palestinians.
Addressing the attendees at the conference on Sunday, Madrid’s foreign minister said, “The sole interest that all of us gathered here today have is to stop this unjust, cruel, and inhumane Israeli war in Gaza, break the blockade of humanitarian aid, and move definitively toward a two-state solution.”
Of this last point, according to the Anadolu Agency, he asked, “What’s the alternative? Kill all the Palestinians? Send them, I don’t know where -— to the moon?”
Albares said, “Gaza is a gaping wound in humanity… There are no words to describe what is happening in Gaza—but just because there are no words doesn’t mean we will remain silent.”
He said that the proposed measures were not intended to be anti-Israel and that Spain recognized Israel’s legitimate security needs. “But,” he observed, “exactly the same right to peace and security that the Israeli people possess is also possessed by the Palestinian people.” He added,”the Palestinian people cannot be condemned eternally to the estate of a people of refugees.”
Albares called for three tangible steps, including the suspension of the EU-Israel trade agreement. As for the second, he insisted, “We all need to implement an arms embargo; there can be no arms sales to Israel.”
He said that the proposed measures were not intended to be anti-Israel and that Spain recognized Israel’s legitimate security needs. “But,” he observed, “exactly the same right to peace and security that the Israeli people possess is also possessed by the Palestinian people.” He added,”the Palestinian people cannot be condemned eternally to the estate of a people of refugees.”
Albares called for three tangible steps, including the suspension of the EU-Israel trade agreement. As for the second, he insisted, “We all need to implement an arms embargo; there can be no arms sales to Israel.”
Speaking of the gathering, he observed optimistically, “There is a lot of diplomatic muscle in Madrid.” He urged the breaking of the “vicious circle” of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
The Madrid Plus group of nations met once before with 10 attendees, including Western European nations that had recognized the State of Palestine (Ireland, Spain and Norway), along with the Middle Eastern countries of Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye. The membership has doubled for this meeting. Germany, Italy, France, and Portugal joined this time, having been absent at the first gathering. Brazil was also there.
The Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza: Israel’s Operation Gideon’s Chariots

a broader, ever more lethal offensive was in the offing with five new IDF divisions even as aid was being provided. This was implicitly telling. Did Palestinian civilians matter in so far as they should be fed, even as they were being butchered and encouraged into fleeing?
May 21, 2025 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/the-ethnic-cleansing-of-gaza-israels-operation-gideons-chariots/
The latest phase of slaughter and seizure on the part of Israeli forces in Gaza has commenced. Following relentless airstrikes that have left hundreds of Palestinians dead, Operation Gideon’s Chariots is now in full swing, begun even as Israel and Hamas concluded a second day of ceasefire talks in Doha. The intention, according to the Israeli Defense Forces, is to expand “operational control” in the Strip while seeking to free the remaining Israeli hostages. In the process, it hopes to achieve what has, to date, been much pie in the sky: defeating Hamas and seizing control of the enclave.
The mendacious pattern of the IDF and Netanyahu government has become clearer than ever. It comes in instalments, much like a distasteful fashion show. The opening begins with unequivocal, hot denial: famine is not taking place, and any aid to Gaza has been looted by the Hamas authorities; civilians were not targeted, let alone massacred; aid workers were not butchered but legitimately killed as they had Hamas militants among them. And there is no ethnic cleansing and genocide to speak of. To claim otherwise was antisemitic.
Then comes the large dollop of corrective, inconvenient reality, be it a film, a blatant statement, or some item of damning evidence. The next stage is one of quibbles and qualifications: Gaza will receive some necessaries; there is a humanitarian crisis, because we were told by the United States, our main sponsor, that this was the case; and there might have been some cases where civilians were killed, a problem easily rectified by an internal investigation by the military.
Just prior to the latest assault, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in leaked quotes, revealed another dark purpose of the new military operation. “We are destroying more and more homes. They have no nowhere to return to,” he said in testimony before the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee. “The only inevitable outcome will be the desire of Gazans to emigrate outside the Gaza Strip.” Here was a state official’s declaration of intent to ethnically cleanse a population.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was even blunter, something praised by Netanyahu. Israel’s objective, he revealed in a statement on March 19, was to destroy “everything that’s left of the Gaza Strip.” What was currently underway involved “conquering, cleansing, and remaining in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed.”
The Netanyahu government has also added another twist to the ghastly performance. On March 18, the provision of various “basic” forms of humanitarian aid into Gaza was announced. The measure was approved by a security cabinet meeting pressed by concerns from military officials warning that food supplies from UN sources and other aid groups had run out. The pressure had also come from, in Netanyahu’s words in a March 19 video address, Israel’s “greatest friends in the world”, the trying sort who claimed that there was “‘one thing we cannot stand. We cannot accept images of hunger, mass hunger. We cannot stand that. We will not be able to support you’.” How inconveniently squeamish of them.
That same day, United Nations aid chief Tom Fletcher said nine aid trucks had been cleared by Israeli authorities to enter Gaza through the Karem Abu Salem crossing. This was an absurd, ineffectual number, given the 500 trucks or more that entered Gaza prior to October 2023.
Fanatics who subscribe to the ethnic cleansing, rid-of-Palestine school were understandably disappointed, even at this obscenely modest provision of aid. “Any humanitarian aid that enters the Strip… will fuel Hamas and give it oxygen while our hostages languish in tunnels,” moaned National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. “We must crush Hamas, not simultaneously give it oxygen.” He also wished that Netanyahu “explain to our friends in the White House the implications of this ‘aid’, which only prolongs the war and delays our victory and the return of all our hostages.”
Israel’s Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, also of Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party, was in a similar mood, making the farcical resumption of aid sound like criminal salvation for a savage people. “This is our tragedy with Netanyahu’s approach. A leader who could have led to a clear victory and be remembered as the one who defeated radical Islam but who time after time let this historic opportunity slip away. Letting humanitarian aid in now directly harms the war effort to achieve victory and is another obstacle to the release of the hostages.”
The picture emerging from Israel’s latest mission of carnage is one of murderous dysfunction. It made little sense to Knesset member Moshe Saada, for instance, that a broader, ever more lethal offensive was in the offing with five new IDF divisions even as aid was being provided. This was implicitly telling. Did Palestinian civilians matter in so far as they should be fed, even as they were being butchered and encouraged into fleeing?
The extent of the horror has now reached the point where it is being acknowledged in the capitals of Israel’s close allies. A joint statement from the UK, France and Canada affirmed opposition to “the expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza.” Israel’s permission of “a basic quantity of food into Gaza” was wholly inadequate in the face of “intolerable” human suffering. Denying essential humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian population in the Strip “is unacceptable and risks breaching International Humanitarian Law. We condemn the abhorrent language used recently by members of the Israeli Government, threatening that, in their despair at the destruction of Gaza, civilians will start to relocate.”
For much time, the notion of consciously eliminating the Palestinian presence in Gaza, through starvation, massacre and displacement, was confined to the racial, ethnoreligious fringes of purist lunacy typified by Smotrich and Ben Gvir. Their vocal presence and frank advocacy have now made that ambition a grotesque, ongoing reality.
Trump’s Break with Israel: Genuine Shift or Political Theater?
May 19th, 2025, Kit Klarenberg, https://www.mintpressnews.com/trump-breaks-with-israel/289818/
When Donald Trump was re-elected president in November 2024, expectations were widespread that Israel’s assault on Gaza would intensify, and that the incoming administration would take a much more active role in neutralizing Tel Aviv’s regional adversaries. The affinity between Benjamin Netanyahu, many Israelis, and Trump is well-established. As Foreign Policy noted in October 2024, “Israel is Trump country, and Trump’s No. 1 supporter is its prime minister,” the magazine wrote. Trump’s victory was widely celebrated in Israel, both publicly and at the state level.
Just days later, former CIA Director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta predicted the president would give Netanyahu a “blank check” to cause havoc across the Middle East, up to all-out war with Iran. After taking office in January, the president did little to dispel such forecasts—quite the opposite. In February, Trump outlined plans for “Gaza Lago”—a total displacement and forced resettlement of Gaza’s Palestinian population and the creation of a so-called “Riviera of the Middle East” in its place.
In March, Trump renewed hostilities against Yemen’s Ansar Allah, after the group reinstated its Red Sea blockade in response to Israel’s flagrant breaches of its cease-fire agreement with Hamas. Battering Yemen far harder than Biden ever had, U.S. officials boasted that the air and naval effort against Ansar Allah would continue “indefinitely.” Trump also claimed that Washington’s “relentless strikes” would leave the resistance decimated.
In early May, however, Trump declared the mission over after agreeing to a cease-fire under which Ansar Allah would stop targeting U.S. ships in return for free rein in its war against Israel. Tel Aviv was reportedly kept out of the loop, learning of the deal via news reports. Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, responded to backlash over the deal by stating that the U.S. “isn’t required to get permission from Israel” to make deals.
Huckabee, an ultraconservative evangelical and outspoken Zionist who vowed upon his nomination to refer to Israel in biblical terms such as the “Promised Land,” and who has frequently claimed that Jews hold a “rightful deed” to Palestinian land, surprised observers with the statement. Yet it seemed to mark the beginning of a dramatic shift in direction by the Trump administration, which, as MintPress News has previously documented, is stacked with pro-Israel hawks.
Since then, Trump has embarked on a tour of the Middle East, with Israel conspicuously absent from his itinerary. Instead, he has traveled to states in the Gulf Cooperation Council. Meanwhile, the president negotiated the release of the last living U.S. hostage held by Hamas and convened direct peace talks with the resistance group—in both cases without Tel Aviv’s involvement. There are rumors that Hamas may end hostilities in return for U.S. recognition of a Palestinian state, an offer Trump is reportedly open to.
Washington went on to sign a slew of deals with Riyadh across various sectors, including the largest-ever defense agreement between the two countries, valued at nearly $142 billion. In sum, a string of seismic developments strongly suggests that Trump’s administration is breaking with the previously unshakable U.S. policy of lockstep support for Israel and serving its interests in nearly every regard—an arrangement in place since the country’s founding in 1948. But is this previously unthinkable rupture real, or just for show?
From the United States to Europe, Criticizing Israel Is Becoming a Crime
After October 7, governments across the West are moving to criminalize criticism of Israel — placing free speech under growing global threat.
MintPress News·Kit Klarenberg·Apr 30
Trump Snubs Israel in Middle East Pivot
Purported rifts in the U.S.-Israel relationship are nothing new. Throughout Barack Obama’s presidency, multiple mainstream reports suggested the relationship was “strained,” especially due to sharp personal differences between the then-president and Netanyahu. Similarly, from the start of the Gaza genocide, major news outlets intermittently reported that Joe Biden was “privately” angry with Netanyahu’s behavior. Meanwhile, White House spokespeople and prominent Democrats, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, publicly insisted that the administration was committed to securing a cease-fire.
In both cases, though, the U.S. financial and military aid that is fundamental to Israel’s continued existence and erasure of the Palestinian people continued unabated, if not increased. In late April, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Michael Herzog, who served from 2021 to 2025, proudly declared that “the [Biden] administration never came to us and said, ‘Cease-fire now.’ It never did.” As such, skepticism about the sincerity and substance of the Trump administration’s abrupt break from its traditionally pro-Israel trajectory is well-founded.
Giorgio Cafiero, CEO of Gulf State Analytics, tells MintPress News that there may be a real shift underway in U.S. foreign policy, driven in large part by Trump’s determination to counter China’s rising global influence, particularly in the Middle East. It is this agenda that, for now, is pushing Washington to conduct “a foreign policy increasingly friendly to deep-pocketed states on the Arabian Peninsula, at the expense of the historic U.S.-Israel alignment.” As Cafiero put it:
Trump wants to pull Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE et al closer to U.S. geopolitical and geo-economic influence, while pulling them away from China to some extent. He likely won’t have much success in slowing down the momentum of Arab-Chinese relations in energy, investment, trade, logistics, commerce, AI, digitization, and so on. But in terms of defense and security, the U.S. will continue to dominate, and Trump will make clear these are uncrossable ‘red lines’ in terms of the Gulf’s relationship with China from Washington’s perspective.”
Trump’s large trade and investment deals with Gulf states play heavily into his “Make America Great Again” agenda and self-mythologizing as a dealmaker at home and abroad. The Gulf states are “ripe for lucrative deals” for U.S. companies, Cafiero says, adding that these agreements will create jobs and generate “good optics” for the administration at home.
Geopolitical risk analyst Firas Modad agrees that economic factors are central to Trump’s current course shift, and are alienating Tel Aviv. “Trump needs to sell F-35s. The U.S. defense industry needs the funds. The sale of F-35s to Turkey and perhaps to Saudi Arabia… a new deal with Iran, a Saudi civilian nuclear program — these will all be big bones of contention with Israel,” Modad said.
If nuclear negotiations succeed, Trump will likely seek to open Iranian markets to U.S. firms too. Israel doesn’t want this either. Trump is showing Netanyahu how much Israel needs the U.S., not the other way around.”
The Battle for the ‘Woke Right’: How Israel Is Dividing MAGA
A growing rift within MAGA sees right-wing influencers clashing over Israel and the ‘woke right.’
MintPress News·Robert Inlakesh·May 15
Gulf States Rise as Israel Loses Clout
Seyed Mohammad Marandi, a Tehran-based political analyst and professor at the University of Tehran, tells MintPress News that a “rift” between the U.S. and Israel does indeed exist, but that it is “difficult to say how significant or deep it truly is.”
Marandi believes the broader U.S. power structure recognizes that its support for what he calls the “Gaza Holocaust” since October 2023—“a 24/7 televised genocide”—has seriously damaged the West’s international image and soft power, telling MintPress News that “By default, this has greatly enhanced the soft power of China, Iran and Russia. The Global South looks to them, not the U.S. or its European vassals, for leadership, direction and partnership.”
Modad agrees, noting that in March 2023, Saudi Arabia unexpectedly reconciled with Iran “under Chinese auspices, without meaningful consultation with Washington.” Now that Arab and Muslim states view China and Russia as viable economic and military partners, the prospect of political scientist Samuel P. Huntington’s “Sino-Islamic alliance” becoming a reality is increasingly likely.
“The Americans will do whatever it takes to avoid resource-rich or militarily capable Muslim countries falling into Beijing’s orbit, even if that’s at Israel’s expense,” Modad tells MintPress News.
Marandi sees potential for shifts in U.S. relations with the region, saying “the space is there for progress”—though such progress remains “limited in scope and purely prospective for now.” He believes the current divide between Washington and Tel Aviv is largely tied to Netanyahu’s leadership.
“There’s a chance he’ll be sacrificed to preserve and rehabilitate Israel’s image internationally, with blame for everything since October 7 placed squarely on him,” Marandi says. “It would be like blaming Hitler alone for World War II and the Holocaust, instead of the system he led and everyone who enabled it.”
Marandi doubts a broader U.S.-Israel split will occur, saying the relationship is “so substantial, it’s not going to completely wither and die” over current events. “The Zionist lobby in the U.S. remains very powerful,” Marandi notes, adding that while Israel “has been discredited worldwide and is internationally despised, with people across the West condemning and abhorring the Zionist regime, the lobby still exerts enormous influence over Washington’s domestic and foreign policy.”
Modad is likewise under no illusions about the Israeli lobby’s clout in Washington. He expects its affiliated groups—and the many lawmakers they generously fund—to aggressively push back against Trump’s shift. He also suggests the administration could respond to the pressure by forcing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to register as a foreign agent. Given AIPAC’s political clout, such a move would be unprecedented.
U.S. political scientist John Mearsheimer has described AIPAC as “a de facto agent for a foreign government” with “a stranglehold on Congress.” Indeed, the powerful lobbying organization has a disturbing success rate in helping to elect hardcore proponents of Israel to Congress and the Senate, and aggressively works to unseat anyone on Capitol Hill who expresses solidarity with Palestinians. This effort has only intensified since October 7, and the organization is so confident in its impunity that it openly advertises its activities.
For example, AIPAC publishes an annual report highlighting its “policy and political achievements.” The committee’s 2022 report boasts, among other things, of securing $3.3 billion “for security assistance to Israel, with no added conditions” and funding “pro-Israel candidates” to the tune of $17.5 million—the most of any U.S. PAC. A staggering 98% of those candidates went on to win, defeating 13 pro-Palestinian challengers in the proces
A network of figures like Ben Shaprio, think tanks, and foreign policy advocates helped shift the right from advocating free speech to embracing blacklists.
AIPAC Faces White House Resistance
Trump is not unaware of the Israel lobby’s outsized influence over U.S. domestic and foreign affairs. As Marandi notes, on Jan. 15, Trump shared a video of Professor Jeffrey Sachs in which he blames Benjamin Netanyahu for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq—a war that Trump has long criticized. The crucial role that AIPAC and its allies played in laying the groundwork for that war has largely been forgotten.
That’s likely due in part to the organization’s large-scale online cleanup operations in which evidence of their early cheerleading for a full-scale U.S. invasion of Iraq was quietly erased. In December 2001, AIPAC published a briefing for U.S. lawmakers on the “major threat” it claimed that Saddam Hussein posed in the Middle East, to U.S. interests in the region and to “Israel’s security”—accusing him of producing weapons of mass destruction and harboring terrorist organizations.
Both claims were false, forming the basis of Washington’s case for the invasion. AIPAC later removed the briefing from its website. In 2015, a committee spokesperson told The New York Times that “AIPAC took no position whatsoever on the Iraq War.” Later that year, AIPAC President Robert A. Cohen went even further, claiming that “Leading up to the start of the Iraq War in March 2003, AIPAC took no position whatsoever, nor did we lobby on the issue.”
Today, Israel and its lobbying network are pushing for another major conflict in the Middle East—this time with Iran. In April, The New York Times, citing anonymous briefings, revealed that Tel Aviv had drawn up detailed plans for an attack on the Islamic Republic that would have required U.S. support—plans that were reportedly waved off by Trump. Israeli officials were said to be furious over the leak, with one calling it “one of the most dangerous leaks in Israel’s history.”
While Tel Aviv is purportedly still planning a “limited attack” on Iran, The New York Times report sent an unambiguous message to Netanyahu and his government that the Trump administration would not support any such action under any circumstances. Opposition to belligerence towards Tehran is in itself quite an extraordinary reversal for Trump and his cabinet, given their past rhetoric and stances. Before even taking office, it was reported that the administration was concocting plans to “bankrupt Iran” with “maximum pressure.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who had long called for tightening already devastating sanctions on Tehran, was at the forefront of this push. He was eagerly supported by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, a Pentagon veteran who previously sat on the House Armed Services Committee. At an event convened by NATO adjunct the Atlantic Council in October 2024, Waltz bragged about how Trump had previously almost destroyed the Islamic Republic’s currency, and looked ahead to doling out even worse punishment following the president’s inauguration.
However, the reportedly positive progress of nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and Iran today suggests Trump and his team have not only jettisoned these ambitions but are determined to avoid war. Cafiero believes this objective is one of the key geopolitical considerations driving the President’s current course in the Middle East. He notes such a conflict would inevitably be “messy, bloody, and costly,” and believes Netanyahu’s determination “to pull the U.S. into war” means Trump now sees Israel as a real liability:
Trump views West Asia as a region the U.S. has historically been sucked into, and he believes Washington shouldn’t be excessively entangled there anymore – no more costly and humiliating quagmires, diverting resources and attention away from other parts of the world, where China is making major economic and geopolitical gains. The Gulf monarchies are sources of regional stability – they’re diplomatic bridges and interlocutors, facilitating dialogue and negotiation, and assisting in winding down local and international conflicts, or at least U.S. involvement in them.”
A costly and humiliating quagmire conflict between the U.S. and Iran would certainly be – and were Israel to dare strike Tehran alone, Washington would likely suffer adverse consequences in any event. A September 2024 report from the powerful and secretive lobby group the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) spelled out in forensic detail that it would take “five minutes or less” for Iran’s ballistic and hypersonic missiles to reach most U.S. military bases in the Middle East and obliterate them.
Is US Support for Israel Ending?
Fears of such an eventuality, and the Empire’s repeatedly proven inability to prevail in battling Yemen’s Ansar Allah, surely lie behind Trump’s determined push for peace with Iran. Even if the administration’s current sidelining of Tel Aviv in favor of the Gulf states is temporary and conducted purely for expediency, given current geopolitical contexts, never before in Israel’s history have its leaders’ wishes and wills been so flagrantly and concertedly overlooked or outright contravened in American corridors of power.
Should this rocky period represent a mere transitory blip in the U.S./Israel relationship, the episode at least amply demonstrates that Washington isn’t as beholden to Israel as its leaders and the international Israel lobby like to think. With China’s rising influence and the newly anointed multipolar world going nowhere, U.S. leaders may think twice about being so deferential to Tel Aviv’s demands, its designs of endless territorial expansion, and its perpetual wars against its neighbors in the name of “security”.
Donald Trump Decouples the United States from Israel
Voltairenet.org , by Thierry Meyssan, 14 May 25
After patiently proposing to Benjamin Netanyahu that he negotiate with the Palestinian resistance and meeting only a stubborn determination to massacre the Palestinians, annex Gaza, southern Lebanon and Syria, and launch a war against Iran, the Trump administration has changed gears. It is now clear to them, as it has been to everyone who has been interested in this region for 80 years, that revisionist Zionists are the enemies of peace and therefore also of Israel.
The main obstacle Donald Trump faces in his peace negotiations, both with Iran and Ukraine, is the role of the “revisionist Zionists” now in power in Israel. [1] Two weeks ago, I presented in detail and with supporting evidence the pressure they are exerting on Washington to derail the talks with Tehran [2].
I did not address in my column on Voltairenet.org their pressure on behalf of the Ukrainian “integral nationalists” [3], which only became public on May 3, with Natan Sharansky’s emphatic statements in support of Volodymyr Zelensky [4]. I have already explained why and how these two groups formed an alliance in 1921 against the Bolsheviks and many Ukrainian Jews, which led to an investigation by the World Zionist Organization and the resignation of Vladimir Jabotinsky from its board of directors.
This affair is today underestimated by Jewish historians who are reluctant to study the massacre of Jews by other Jews. There are, however, exceptions such as the work of Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe [5]. Sharansky himself prevents historians from studying the subject by presiding over the Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial Center (the shooting of 33,771 Jews on September 29 and 30, 1941) by the Einsatzgruppen and the “integral nationalists” two weeks after Stepan Bandera’s transfer from Kyiv to Berlin.
And let’s not forget the contacts of the “revisionist Zionists” with Adolf Eichmann until the fall of Berlin by the Red Army on May 2, 1945 [6].
While the then Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, had, at the beginning of the Russian special operation in Ukraine, called on Volodymyr Zelensky to recognize Moscow’s just demands to “denazify Ukraine,” and Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz had declared that, while he was alive, Israel would never give weapons to the “massacres of Ukrainian Jews,” the current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, authorized the Israeli arms industry to export its production to Ukraine.
In 2022, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared: “What if Zelensky was Jewish? This fact does not negate the Nazi elements in Ukraine. I believe Hitler also had Jewish blood. That means absolutely nothing.” The Jewish people, in their wisdom, have said that the most ardent anti-Semites are generally Jews. Every family has its black sheep, as they say.” Yair Lapid then replied: “These remarks are both unforgivable and scandalous, but also a terrible historical error. Jews did not kill each other during the Holocaust. The lowest level of racism against Jews is to accuse Jews themselves of anti-Semitism.” Let’s make no mistake: History is not made up of good or evil communities, but of individuals who, each of them, can behave in different ways. Let’s open our eyes!
Let’s get back to our topic. Donald Trump is president of the United States; a country whose founding myth claims that it was founded by the “Pilgrim Fathers,” who fled the “pharaoh” of England, crossed the Atlantic as the Hebrews crossed the Red Sea, and established a colony in Plymouth, just as the Hebrews founded the “Promised Land.” All Americans celebrate this myth on Thanksgiving Day. Every president of the United States, without exception, from George Washington to Donald Trump himself, has referred to it in their official speeches. The alliance between Washington and Tel Aviv is therefore not debatable. It turns out that the United States, this country where sects proliferate, which celebrates freedom of religion but not freedom of conscience and denounces, without understanding it, French secularism, has a “Christian Zionist” movement. These are Christians who equate biblical Israel with the modern State of Israel. However, this movement voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump, and he feels the debt owes him. Once he became president, he appointed Pastor Paula Blanche (also linked to the “Japanese imperialists”) as director of the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative.
Slowly, President Donald Trump is disassociating Israel from Benjamin Netanyahu. Receiving him at the White House while he was the subject of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, he had his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, proclaim that his administration was the most pro-Israeli in history. In doing so, he firmly opposed Netanyahu’s plan to disrupt the peace agreement signed with Hamas and, instead, to military occupation of the Gaza Strip. He went so far as to claim that the US (not Israeli) armies would take “control” of this territory. Noting that his provocations are having no effect on Tel Aviv, President Donald Trump has just taken a decisive step: without warning his Israeli ally, he negotiated a separate peace with Ansar Allah at the very moment that Yemeni movement was bombing Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport………………………………………………………………………………
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote the following day, on May 9: “I have no doubt that, generally speaking, the Israeli people continue to regard themselves as an unwavering ally of the American people—and vice versa.” But this ultranationalist, messianic Israeli government is not an ally of the United States […] We can continue to ignore the number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip—more than 52,000, including approximately 18,000 children—question the credibility of the figures, and resort to every mechanism of repression, denial, apathy, distancing, normalization, and justification. None of this will change the bitter fact: they killed them. Our hands did it. We must not close our eyes. We must wake up and shout loud and clear: stop the war.
In any case, if no one in the United States can question the alliance with Israel, this in no way implies support for the “revisionist Zionists” now in power in Tel Aviv.
Slowly, President Donald Trump is disassociating Israel from Benjamin Netanyahu. Receiving him at the White House while he was the subject of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, he had his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, proclaim that his administration was the most pro-Israeli in history. In doing so, he firmly opposed Netanyahu’s plan to disrupt the peace agreement signed with Hamas and, instead, to military occupation of the Gaza Strip. He went so far as to claim that the US (not Israeli) armies would take “control” of this territory. Noting that his provocations are having no effect on Tel Aviv, President Donald Trump has just taken a decisive step: without warning his Israeli ally, he negotiated a separate peace with Ansar Allah at the very moment that Yemeni movement was bombing Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport.
Reestablishing the division between North and South Yemen, Ansar Allah, led by the Houthi family (hence its pejorative Western nickname, “Houthi gang” or “Houthis”), managed to end the war with the help of Iran, then to rescue Palestinian civilians by bombing Israeli or Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea. The United Nations Security Council never condemned these attacks, only the disruption of the freedom of navigation of ships unrelated to the Gaza conflict. Contemptuous of the United Nations, the United States and the United Kingdom first created a military coalition to respond to Ansar Allah and rescue the Israelis during the massacre of Gazan civilians. They targeted military targets without significant results (all Yemeni military targets being buried underground), then they targeted political figures, collaterally killing many civilians.
The Anglo-Saxons continued to accuse Iran of militarily supporting Ansar Allah, portraying Tehran as a player in the current war. However, General Qassem Soleimani (assassinated on Donald Trump’s orders on January 3, 2020) had helped Ansar Allah reorganize so that it could manufacture its own weapons and continue its war without Iranian help. Although Iran has repeatedly stated that it is no longer involved in Yemen, the Anglo-Saxons still consider Ansar Allah to be a “proxy” for Iran, which is now completely false.
It is now important to understand how Donald Trump views conflicts in the “Broader Middle East.” He intends to forcefully compel the groups waging wars, whether they are right or wrong in these conflicts, to cease their military operations. But he does not want to go to war against either group. Then, he hopes to negotiate compromises to establish just and lasting peace. He therefore had General Qassem Soleimani assassinated in 2020, just after having the caliph of Daesh, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, assassinated. He authorized operations against Ansar Allah and has just ended them when he realized that it was not a terrorist group, but a legitimate political power administering a yet-to-be-recognized state. He authorized arms deliveries to Israel during the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, but began supporting the peace movement within the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), so that today the “revisionist Zionists” no longer have the means to massacre Gazans and are retreating from their siege aimed at starving them.
The separate agreement reached with Ansar Allah must therefore be assessed as a break from Washington’s alignment with Tel Aviv and a step toward the agreement with Tehran. When, in mid-March, Tel Aviv perceived the possible US withdrawal—it had not envisaged a separate peace—it once again escalated its stance and attacked Yemen 131 times.
The US-Israeli Ron Dermer, a close friend of Natan Sharansky with whom he wrote a book, became Israel’s ambassador to Washington and is now Minister of Strategic Affairs. As such, he is primarily responsible for the plans to annex Gaza and massacre the civilian population. Reacting to the separate US-Yemen peace agreement, this revisionist Zionist visited the White House on May 8, where he was received “in a private capacity” by Donald Trump [7]. The encounter went very badly: he tried to tell President Trump what to do. The latter immediately put him in his place.
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote the following day, on May 9: “I have no doubt that, generally speaking, the Israeli people continue to regard themselves as an unwavering ally of the American people—and vice versa.” But this ultranationalist, messianic Israeli government is not an ally of the United States […] We can continue to ignore the number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip—more than 52,000, including approximately 18,000 children—question the credibility of the figures, and resort to every mechanism of repression, denial, apathy, distancing, normalization, and justification. None of this will change the bitter fact: they killed them. Our hands did it. We must not close our eyes. We must wake up and shout loud and clear: stop the war.” [8]
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar this week, but will not meet with Benjamin Netanyahu. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also canceled a planned trip to Israel at the same time, reinforcing the president’s message. Reuters revealed on May 8 that Washington, in negotiating with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), was no longer making recognition of Israel a precondition for any deal. [9] If confirmed, this would mean that to recognize that the Jewish state has become a racist Jewish state would no longer be a crime in the West.
In early March, it was announced that President Donald Trump had authorized Adam Boehler, his negotiator for the release of the American hostages, to establish direct contact with Hamas, which is still officially considered a “terrorist organization. “On May 12, this change of attitude was rewarded with the announcement of the release of the American-Israeli, Edan Alexander, kidnapped while carrying weapons, on October 7, 2023. Moreover, in early May, rumors of a possible recognition by the United States of the State of Palestine during Donald Trump’s trip to Riyadh spread like wildfire. In early March, it was announced that President Donald Trump had authorized Adam Boehler, his negotiator for the release of the American hostages, to establish direct contact with Hamas, which is still officially considered a “terrorist organization. “On May 12, this change of attitude was rewarded with the announcement of the release of the American-Israeli, Edan Alexander, kidnapped while carrying weapons, on October 7, 2023. Moreover, in early May, rumors of a possible recognition by the United States of the State of Palestine during Donald Trump’s trip to Riyadh spread like wildfire. https://www.voltairenet.org/article222255.html
Multiple Western Press Outlets Have Suddenly Pivoted Hard Against Israel
So if you’re still supporting Israel after all this time, my advice to you is to make a change while you still can.
Caitlin Johnstone, May 12, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/multiple-western-press-outlets-have?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=163390896&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
After a year and a half of genocidal atrocities, the editorial boards of numerous British press outlets have suddenly come out hard against Israel’s onslaught in Gaza.
The first drop of rain came last week from The Financial Times in a piece by the editorial board titled “The west’s shameful silence on Gaza,” which denounces the US and Europe for having “issued barely a word of condemnation” of their ally’s criminality, saying they “should be ashamed of their silence, and stop enabling Netanyahu to act with impunity.”
Then came The Economist with a piece titled “The war in Gaza must end,” which argues that Trump should pressure the Netanyahu regime for a ceasefire, saying that “The only people who benefit from continuing the war are Mr Netanyahu, who keeps his coalition intact, and his far-right allies, who dream of emptying Gaza and rebuilding Jewish settlements there.”
On Saturday came an editorial from The Independent titled “End the deafening silence on Gaza — it is time to speak up,” arguing that British PM Keir Starmer “should be ashamed that he said nothing, especially since Mr Netanyahu has now announced new plans to expand the already devastating bombardment of Gaza,” and saying that “It is time for the world to wake up to what is happening and to demand an end to the suffering of the Palestinians trapped in the enclave.”
On Sunday The Guardian editorial board joined in with a write-up titled “The Guardian view on Israel and Gaza: Trump can stop this horror. The alternative is unthinkable,” saying “The US president has the leverage to force through a ceasefire. If he does not, he will implicitly signal approval of what looks like a plan of total destruction.”
“What is this, if not genocidal?” The Guardian asks. “When will the US and its allies act to stop the horror, if not now?”
To be clear, these are editorials, not op-eds. This means that they are not the expression of one person’s opinion but the stated position of each outlet as a whole. We’ve been seeing the occasional op-ed which is critical of Israel’s actions throughout the Gaza holocaust in the mainstream western press, but to see the actual outlets come out aggressively denouncing Israel and its western backers all at once is a very new development.
Some longtime Israel supporters have unexpectedly begun changing their tune as individuals as well.
Conservative MP Mark Pritchard said at the House of Commons last week that he had supported Israel “at all costs” for decades, but said “I got it wrong” and publicly withdrew that support over Israel’s actions in Gaza.
“For many years — I’ve been in this House twenty years — I have supported Israel pretty much at all costs, quite frankly,” Pritchard said. “But today, I want to say that I got it wrong and I condemn Israel for what it is doing to the Palestinian people in Gaza and indeed in the West Bank, and I’d like to withdraw my support right now for the actions of Israel, what they are doing right now in Gaza.”
“I’m really concerned that this is a moment in history when people look back, where we’ve got it wrong as a country,” Pritchard added.
Pro-Israel pundit Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, who had been aggressively denouncing campus protesters and accusing Israel’s critics of “blood libel” throughout the Gaza holocaust, has now come out and publicly admitted that Israel is committing a genocide which must be opposed.
“It took me a long time to get to this point, but it’s time to face it. Israel is committing genocide in Gaza,” Ephraim tweeted recently. “Between the indiscriminate bombing of hospitals, starvation of the population, plans for ethnic cleansing, slaughter of aid workers and cover ups, there is no escaping it. Israel is trying to eradicate the Palestinian people. We can’t stop it unless we admit it.”
It is odd that it has taken all these people a year and a half to get to this point. I myself have a much lower tolerance for genocide and the mass murder of children. If you’ve been riding the genocide train for nineteen months, it looks a bit weird to suddenly start screaming about how terrible it is and demanding to hit the brakes all of a sudden.
These people have not suddenly evolved a conscience, they’re just smelling what’s in the wind. Once the consensus shifts past a certain point there’s naturally going to be a mad rush to avoid being among the last to stand against it, because you know you’ll be wearing that mark for the rest of your life in public after history has had a clear look at what you did.
This is after all coming at a time when the Trump administration is beginning to rub Netanyahu’s fur the wrong way, recently prompting the Israeli prime minister to say “I think we’ll have to detox from US security assistance” when Washington went over Tel Aviv’s head and negotiated directly with Hamas to secure the release of an American hostage. The US is reportedly leaving Israel out of more and more of its negotiations on international affairs in places like Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. Something is changing.
So if you’re still supporting Israel after all this time, my advice to you is to make a change while you still can. There’s still time to be the first among scoundrels in the mad rat race to avoid being the last to start acting like you always opposed the Gaza holocaust.
Expulsion and Occupation: Israel’s Proposed Gaza Plan
May 7, 2025 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/expulsion-and-occupation-israels-proposed-gaza-plan/
Killing civilians wholesale, starving them to convince those unaffected to change course, and shepherding whole populations like livestock into conditions of further misery would all qualify as heinous crimes in international law. When it comes to Israel’s war in Gaza, this approach is seen as necessary politics, unalloyed by the restraints of humanitarianism. When confronted with these harsh realities on the ground, unequivocal denials follow: This is not happening in Gaza; no one is starving. And if that were the case, blame those misguided savages in Hamas.
As the conflict chugs along in pools of blood and bountiful gore, the confused shape of Israel’s intentions continues in all its glorious nebulousness. Pretend moderation clouds murderous desire. There is no sense that those unfortunate Israeli hostages captured by Hamas in its assault on October 7, 2023 matter anymore, being merely decorative for the imminent slaughter. There is even less sense that Hamas will be cleansed and removed from the strip, however attractive this idea continues to be.
Such evident limits have not discouraged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet, who have decided that more force, that old province of the unimaginative, is the answer. According to the PM, the cabinet had agreed on a “forceful operation” to eliminate Hamas and salvage what is left of the hostage situation.
A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, Brigadier-General Effie Defrin, has explained on Israeli radio that the offensive will apparently ensure the return of the hostages. What follows will be “the collapse of the Hamas regime, its defeat, its submission.” Anywhere up to two million Palestinian civilians in Gaza will be herded into the ruins of the south. Humanitarian aid will be arranged by the Israeli forces, to be possibly distributed through approved contractors.
The IDF chief of staff, Lt. General Eyal Zamier, confirmed that the approved plan will involve “the capture of the Strip and holding the territories, moving the Gazan population south for its defence, denying Hamas and the ability to distribute humanitarian supplies, and powerful attacks against Hamas.”
Within the Israeli cabinet, ethnocentric and religious fires burn with bright fanaticism. The Israeli Finance Finister Bezalel Smotrich remains a figure who ignores floral subtlety in favour of the blood-stained sledgehammer. He remains that coherent link between cruel lawmaking and baffling violence. “Within a few months,” he boasts, “we will be able to declare that we have won. Gaza will be totally destroyed.” With pompous certitude, he also claimed that the next six months would see Hamas cease to exist.
Such opinions, expressed at the “Settlements Conference” organised by the Makor Rishon newspaper in Ofra, a West Bank settlement, gives a sense of the flavour. Palestinians are to be “concentrated” on land located between the Egyptian border and the arbitrarily designated Morag Corridor. As with any potential abuser keen to violate his vulnerable charges while justifying it, Smotrich tried to impress with the idea that this was a “humanitarian” zone that would be free of “Hamas and terrorism.”
The program here is clear in its chilling crudeness. Expulsion, relocation, transfer. These are the words famously used to move on populations of sizeable number in history, often at enormous cost. That this should involve lawmakers of the Jewish state adds a stunning, if perverse poignancy to this. They, the moved on in history, the expelled and the condemned wanderers, shall expel others and condemn them in turn. Smotrich also points the finger to desperation and hopelessness, the biting incentives that propel migration. The Palestinians will feel blessed in their banishment. “They will be totally despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza, and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places.”
Impossible to ignore in Smotrich’s steaming bile against the Palestinians is the broader view that no Palestinian state can arise, necessitating urgent, preventative poisoning. In addition to the eventual depopulation of Gaza, plans to reconstitute the contours of the West Bank, ensuring that Israeli and Palestinian traffic are separated to enable building and construction for settlements as a prelude to annexation, are to be implemented.
The issue of twisting and mangling humanitarian aid in favour of Israel’s territorial lust has raised some tart commentary. A statement from the Humanitarian Country Team of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, a forum led by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), does not shy away from the realities on the ground. All supplies, including those vital to survival, have been blocked for nine weeks. Bakeries and community kitchens have closed, while warehouses are empty. Hunger, notably among children, is rampant. Israel’s plan, as presented, “will mean that large parts of Gaza, including the less mobile and most vulnerable people, will continue to go without supplies.”
The UN Secretary General and the Emergency Relief Coordinator have confirmed that they will not cooperate in the scheme, seeing that it “does not adhere to the global humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality.”
The same point has been made by the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, France and Germany. Despite all being solid allies of Israel, they have warned that violations of international law are taking place. “Humanitarian aid must never be used as a political tool and a Palestinian territory must not be reduced nor subjected to any demographic change.”
To date, a promise lingers that the offensive will only commence once US President Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar takes place. But no ongoing savaging of Gaza with some crude effort at occupation will solve the historical vortex that continues to drag the Jewish state risk and oblivion.
Israel Will Even Persecute Palestinians For Simply Talking To Journalists
Caitlin Johnstone, May 05, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-will-even-persecute-palestinians?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=162858742&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Israeli soldiers have been harassing a Palestinian activist who appeared in Louis Theroux’s recent documentary The Settlers to talk about Israel’s apartheid abuses in the occupied West Bank. Issa Amro shared footage of IDF troops raiding his home over the weekend, days after Theroux’s film debuted on the BBC.
Israelis not only murder journalists, attack journalistic institutions and block journalists from entering the Gaza Strip, they also persecute Palestinian civilians who speak with journalists.
If you haven’t yet watched The Settlers, I highly recommend doing so. It’s so damning that I’ve seen people expressing astonishment that it made it past the BBC’s censors, but really, what’s to censor? It’s an hour of Israelis telling a video camera what Israelis think in their own words.
One of the best ways to tell the truth about the real Israel is to just point a camera at these freaks and let them tell it themselves. Theroux’s interviewing style lends itself particularly well to this type of exposure.
A ship trying to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza was drone bombed by Israel near Malta on Friday. Activist Greta Thunberg was preparing to board the ship to travel with it to its destination.
Which is just wild to think about. Things are so fucked up on this timeline that there is a non-zero probability that Israel ends up assassinating Greta Thunberg.
Imagine the western reaction if Iran had bombed a humanitarian aid ship trying to feed starving civilians.
Imagine the reaction if Chinese forces were caught massacring medical workers in ambulances.
Imagine the reaction if Russia bombed an international humanitarian aid convoy in clearly marked vehicles.
It would be all we’d hear about for weeks.
My social media feeds are filling up with footage of skeletal starving children in Gaza. If we had sane and responsible news media in the west, this would be the lead story in every outlet and publication. But we do not have sane and responsible news media. We have propaganda services disguised as news media.
People who continue to support Israel are only able to do so because they actively avoid watching the video footage the rest of us are watching.
If I built a home and then discovered that it could only remain standing if I constantly massacred children, I would simply change my living arrangements.
I would not claim my building “has a right to exist”.
I would not spend years explaining why my child massacres are okay.
I would not spend decades accusing anyone who criticized my child massacres of unfair discrimination against me and my family.
I would simply change my building so that its existence no longer required me to routinely massacre children. If I could not find a way to restructure my building in this way, I would move.
I would not do this because I am a remarkably kind and special person. I would do it because I am not a psychopath.
Only a psychopath would want to continue living in that kind of building. Only a psychopath would want that kind of building to remain standing.
I said the preceding on Twitter yesterday and Israel apologists immediately came in yelling at me for saying evil things about Israel, but what’s funny is that I never mentioned Israel once; I just talked about a building. They only knew I was actually talking about Israel because of all the stuff I said about constantly massacring civilians.
Gets ’em every time.
❖
It’s good that Trump’s “MAGA” base opposes war with Iran so forcefully, but it’s pretty revealing how absent they’ve been on Trump’s butchery in Yemen and Gaza. They’re not opposed to war or mass murder, they’re just opposed to fighting people who are strong enough to fight back.
Durbin successor must not be co opted by the Israel Lobby.
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 5 May 25
My outgoing senator Dick Durbin spent his entire 29 year Senate career beholding to the Israel Lobby. In the past 25 years alone he’s received $1,131,900 in campaign cash to ignore Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza, transformed into genocide after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack. His support for a 2 state solution (Palestinian statehood) is worthless virtue signaling as he’s done nothing of substance to achieve that goal along with making America the 148th nation out of 193 to recognize Palestinian statehood.
We need to replace Durbin with a principled candidate not ensnared by Israel Lobby money. Alas, the 5 Illinois House members mentioned as possible successors are all in the tank to remain mum on truly promoting Palestinian statehood and seeking end to US enabling Israel’s genocidal ethnic cleansing of 2,300,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL 8) $269,530
Nikki Budzinski (D-IL 13) $187660
Darin LaHood (R-IL 16) $112,687
Robin Kelly (D-IL 2) $187,272
Lauren Underwood (D-IL 14) $ 75,593,
Tho not mentioned as a possible candidate, we of peace should encourage Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-IL 3) to seek Durbin’s open seat next year.
Her take from the Israel Lobby since her election in November 2022? Zero, nada, zilch.
That allowed Ramirez to push back against US billions funding the Israeli genocide, saying this in March, 2024: “The death toll in Gaza continues to rise. Gazans are starving. Over 1.5 million people have been displaced. Hostilities between the U.S. and Iran are escalating. And just this morning, The New York Times reported that one-fifth of the hostages still in captivity since the start of the conflict have likely died. We must change course. Under no circumstances could I have voted for today’s H.R. 7217 to provide $17.6 billion in unconditioned military funding for Israel. The supplemental funding proposed, which includes no humanitarian aid for Gaza, supports weapons of war and destruction that further jeopardize Israeli hostages and Palestinian civilians. Each U.S.-made or funded bomb dropped in Gaza further jeopardizes the chances of long-lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it now: I will only support actions that bring us closer to peace.”
Come on Krishnamoorthi, Budzinski, LaHood, Kelly, Underwood, either drop accepting Israel Lobby money to ignore the genocidal ethnic cleaning of Gaza, or drop any consideration of replacing the Lobby’s million dollar Senator Dick Durbin.
As Israelis Blockade Food to Gaza, 9,000 Children have been Admitted for Acute Malnutrition.

Juan Cole, 05/04/2025, https://www.juancole.com/2025/05/israelis-blockade-malnutrition.html
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said Friday that “malnutrition is … on the rise. More than 9,000 children have been admitted for treatment of acute malnutrition since the beginning of the year.”
At least 10 NGO aid kitchens have closed in recent weeks for lack of food, and 25 UN bakeries haven’t been operational for a month. The Israeli military has for two months been committing a war crime in preventing shipments of food from entering Gaza.
Meanwhile, a medical source in Gaza told the Anadolu Agency that on Saturday, a child “died from malnutrition and dehydration at Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital in Gaza City.” Gaza medical authorities have documented 57 deaths from malnutrition in Gaza during the current conflict.
UNICEF says that over 75% of households in Gaza have reported declining access to water. Russell explained that many families with children have to choose between drinking, bathing and cooking.
Because of the lack of clean water, Russell explained, “acute watery diarrhea … now accounts for 1 in every 4 cases of disease recorded in Gaza. Most of these cases are among children under five, for whom it is life-threatening.”
UNICEF’s Russell said, “For two months, children in the Gaza Strip have faced relentless bombardments while being deprived of essential goods, services and lifesaving care. With each passing day of the aid blockade, they face the growing risk of starvation, illness and death – nothing can justify this.”
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its weekly report on Gaza on Wednesday that “On 25 April, the World Food Programme (WPF) reported that its food stocks in Gaza have been depleted, as the agency delivered its last remaining supplies to kitchens preparing hot meals. WFP additionally highlighted the impact of deteriorating nutrition on vulnerable groups, including children under five, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and the elderly, warning that the situation has again reached ‘a breaking point.’”
OCHA added that “between 18 March and 27 April, the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) recorded 259 attacks on residential buildings and 99 on IDP tents. Most of the attacks resulted in fatalities, including of women and children. Among the strikes on IDP tents, 40 reportedly took place in Al Mawasi area, in Khan Younis, where the Israeli army repeatedly directed civilians to seek refuge.”
Over 400 Palestinians seem to be being killed each week by Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, the vast majority women and children. Thousands have been wounded in the two months since the government of Benjamin Netanyahu breached the January ceasefire.
OCHA writes, “On 27 April, at about 20:10, 13 Palestinians, including a woman and her six children, were reportedly killed and others injured when a residential building was hit in southern Khan Younis. On 28 April, at about 00:30, 10 Palestinians, including at least three children, were reportedly killed and others, including a seven-year-old girl, were injured when a residential building was hit in Al Fakhoura area, west of Jabalya refugee camp, in North Gaza. On 28 April, at about 00:30, 10 Palestinians were reportedly killed and others injured when a residential building was hit in Al Karmah area in northwestern Gaza city.”
Israeli forces have been firing on Palestinian fishing boats, as fishermen desperately attempt to bring in some protein for their families.
-
Archives
- January 2026 (246)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (376)
- September 2025 (258)
- August 2025 (319)
- July 2025 (230)
- June 2025 (348)
- May 2025 (261)
- April 2025 (305)
- March 2025 (319)
- February 2025 (234)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS





