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Fox News Just Helped Netanyahu Spread The Lie That Iran Tried To Assassinate Trump

Caitlin Johnstone, Jun 16, 2025

Benjamin Netanyahu was given a platform to spout lies and war propaganda on Fox News in an interview with a groveling Bret Baier, who not only allowed the Israeli prime minister’s lies to cruise by unchecked but actually invited him to expand upon them.

Netanyahu promoted countless incendiary falsehoods and unsubstantiated claims throughout the interview, including the assertion that Iran was working on producing nuclear weapons and intended to give them to Yemen’s Houthis to facilitate global terrorism, and that Iran was working on intercontinental ballistic missiles to nuke the east coast of the United States as well.

Perhaps the most ridiculous and brazenly propagandistic claim advanced by Netanyahu was that Iran had twice attempted to assassinate the president of the United States.

“These are people who chant ‘Death to America.’ They’ve tried to assassinate President Trump twice,” said the prime minister.

Rather than push back on this claim or point out that there’s been no reported evidence that any such thing has occurred, Baier instead offered Netanyahu the opportunity to drive the narrative home further with claims of secret intelligence about these alleged assassination plots.

“You just said Iran tried to assassinate President Trump twice,” Baier said. “Do you have intel that the assassination attempts on President Trump were directly from Iran?”

“Through proxies, yes, through their intel, yes, they want to kill him,” Netanyahu asserted.

Netanyahu had previously made this claim on his own platform in a statement on Friday wishing President Trump a happy birthday, and now he’s carrying it into the mainstream news media of the United States.

Netanyahu’s claim has already been repeated in outlets like The New York Post, Washington Examiner, Breitbart, and The Independent. So it’s in the blood stream now. The information ecosystem of US politics has already been infected with the virus.

It says so much about how comfortable Israel is with lying and how eager the western media are to help promote those lies that Netanyahu could go on Fox News and just casually assert that Iran “tried to assassinate President Trump twice,” only to have the Murdoch muppet host invite him to expound upon this assertion rather than challenging the Israeli prime minister’s evidence-free claim.

Netanyahu was fully aware that he was lying, and Baier was fully aware that Netanyahu was lying. They collaborated to push this lie before Fox News’ aging audience without the faintest whisper of journalistic ethics anywhere to be heard, knowing that this one baseless assertion would help turn their Trump-sympathizing viewers toward supporting a US attack on Iran.

If you weren’t around for the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, this is what it was like. Brazen lies with a fully complicit media, with the most frenetic war propaganda circulated by the Murdoch press.

Rupert Murdoch is intimately intertwined with Israel’s political elite and has a financial stake in Israeli energy which depends on Israel’s ongoing military occupation of the Golan Heights. Murdoch largely has the assistance of the US government to thank for his mass media empire. He personally funded the political career of Benjamin Netanyahu, who in 2002 told the US Congress that “There is no question whatsoever that Saddam [Hussein] is seeking, is working, is advancing towards to the development of nuclear weapons,” and that “If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region.”

The US does not have a free press, and neither do any of its allies in the western world. Under the western power alliance the mass media operate as the propaganda services of the US-centralized empire, and the public is fed whatever narratives serve the information interests of that empire.

The lies about Iran are just getting started. There will be more. Don’t buy into any part of this scam. https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/fox-news-just-helped-netanyahu-spread?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=166039398&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

June 16, 2025 Posted by | Iran, Israel, media | Leave a comment

The whole planet is being kept hostage by a death cult

And were we about to enter this particular dangerous territory, Iran can play the ultimate card: shut down the Strait of Hormuz and collapse the global economy.

Pepe Escobar, June 13, 2025, https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/06/13/the-whole-planet-is-being-kept-hostage-by-a-death-cult/

It’s no wonder Washington is all in. This is now the Circus Ringmaster War.

Let’s cut to the chase. The devastating attack on Iran by the psychopathological genocidal “chosen” ethno-supremacist set up in Tel Aviv – a de facto declaration of war – was coordinated in detail with the President of the United States, Circus Ringmaster Donald Trump.

This infantilism-afflicted Narcissus Drowned in the Pool of his Own Image gave away the game, himself, in a rambling post. Selected highlights:

“I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal”. No “deal”; actually his unilateral demands. After all, he torpedoed the original deal, the JCPOA, because it was not his “deal”.

“I told them it would be much worse than anything they know, anticipated, or were told.” The decision to strike had already been made.

“Certain Iranian hardliners spoke bravely, but (…) they are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse!” Gloating comes with the territory.

“The next already planned attacks being even more brutal.” Total alignment with the trademark Israeli “decapitation” strategy.

“Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire”. It was Persian (italics mine) Empire – but after all this is a man who doesn’t read, or study. Notice the Art of Diplomacy: Take my deal, or drop dead.

This – incandescent – decade was launched by an assassination, of Gen. Soleimani in Baghdad, as I emphasized in my 2021 book Raging Twenties. He was on a diplomatic mission. The green light personally came from then President of the United States, Donald Trump.

The mid-Raging Twenties is now hurled to the brink of a devastating war in West Asia, with global repercussions, by the serial assassination of the IRGC leadership, in Tehran, by the psycho-genocidal Zionist entity. After an elaborate kabuki of deception, the green light to Tel Aviv – go ahead and do it – also came from the President of the United States, Trump 2.0 (who claimed he was “aware’’ of the attacks).

A pre-emptive war against the BRICS

The psycho-pathological genocidal masterplan is to force Tehran to capitulate – without even putting up a fight. The preamble kabuki was masterfully executed. The indirect nuclear negotiations in Oman were taken seriously in Tehran, lulling the Iranian leadership, civilian and military, to sleep. They fell into the trap and were caught, literally, in their sleep.

Ayatollah Khamenei – who himself is in physical danger, as Israel is applying the same decapitation model it unleashed on Hezbollah – has a very tough decision to make: capitulation or total war. It will be total war – and with the U.S. as a direct participant.

The Iranian leadership – actually more the Pezeshkian presidency, crammed with proponents of an “accommodation” with the West – was induced into a false sense of security, forgetting that serial killers don’t do diplomacy.

So the price to pay now, for Iran, will be even more unbearable. Tehran will respond – assuming capabilities are still in place. In this case its oil industry runs the risk of being destroyed. It’s an open question whether two other top BRICS members alongside Iran – Russia and China -, for different reasons, will allow that to happen.

And were we about to enter this particular dangerous territory, Iran can play the ultimate card: shut down the Strait of Hormuz and collapse the global economy.

The attack on Iran, fully endorsed by the Empire of Chaos, is above all a pre-emptive attack on the BRICS energy core. It’s part and parcel of the imperial war against BRICS, especially Russia-China. Moscow and Beijing must be drawing the necessary conclusions in real time.

Iran, China and Russia are linked by interlocked strategic partnerships. Last month, I was in Iran tracking the progress of the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), which links Russia, Iran and India. This is only one among a series of key strategic infrastructure projects that will solidify even more Eurasian economic connectivity. A devastating war in West Asia, and a collapsing Iran, will represent a killer blow to increased Eurasia integration.

That’s exactly what suits the Empire’s designs.

So it’s no wonder Washington is all in. This is now the Circus Ringmaster War.

A devastating response; a nuclear weapon; or capitulation

Tehran’s message is, “We did not start the war, but Iran will determine how it ends.”

The burning question is whether they still retain a significant deterrent – and offensive – capacity.

The genocidals are hitting ballistic missile storage systems at will in Iran’s northwest and even civilian Mehrabad airport in Tehran. Air defenses are nowhere to be seen. It’s immensely painful to watch.

IDF spin – nothing verified so far – claims that some missile silos and mobile complexes were destroyed even before they were placed on combat alert. Yet the fact is that the overwhelming majority of Iran’s vast arsenal of ballistic missiles is stored in deep, deep underground silos and tunnels, capable of withstanding massive air strikes and overloaded air defenses.

For the moment, Tehran is eerily silent. That makes sense, because they need, in record time, to re-establish a unified chain of command which was smashed by the attacks; make sure that missile launchers can be deployed and not be neutralized by Israeli air supremacy; reorganize the True Promise 3 operation, which was ready to go, as some of us learned in Tehran last month, but now adapted to the new situation (losses included); and plan how to deliver painful blows to Israel’s economic infrastructure.

There is no evidence that the attacks destroyed Iran’s nuclear infrastructure – which is buried deep underground. As it stands, the leadership in Tehran is learning the hard way that diplomacy – committees, letters to the UN, statements to the IAEA, ministerial meetings – all that is eviscerated when it comes to the law of the jungle.

Iranians were naïve enough to let the IAEA visit their strategic sites, when proverbial spies collected all the info they needed to facilitate Israeli strikes. The DPRK would have never fall into such a trap.

The elimination of a top figure such as Ali Shamkhani, Khamenei’s key advisor, Iran’s lead nuclear negotiator, with decades of influence across the IRGC and intelligence apparatus, is a serious blow.

Systematically erasing Iran’s military and diplomatic leadership in a matter of hours fits the rationale of smashing Khamenei’s close circle. That has started long ago with the Trump-ordered killing of Soleimani and certainly includes the mysterious death of former President Raisi and FM Abdollahian in that dodgy helicopter “accident”. It’s all about creating the conditions for regime change.

On a rare auspicious note, the IRGC let it be known, before the attacks, that they have been developing a secret technology to intensify the impact of its missiles on Israel.

We are all riders on the storm now. Once again, there’s no way out: either a devastating blow to the psycho genocidals, or Iran assembles a nuclear weapon in no time. The third option is capitulation, emasculation, and regime change.

Meanwhile, the whole planet is hostage to a lethal threat. Andrea Zhok is professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Milan, and apart from his brilliant analyses, he wrote the preface of the Italian edition of my book Raging Twenties, published last year.

Prof. Zhok has succinctly pointed out how no political construction in modern history has amassed a toxic combination of messianic ethnic supremacism; supreme disregard for human life (everyone else, not “chosen”, is “amalek” anyway); supreme disregard for international law; and unlimited access to lethal firepower.

So what is to be done with such a voracious, out of control death cult?

June 16, 2025 Posted by | Iran, Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel Launches ‘Operation Rising Lion’ To Strike Iran’s Nuclear Program, Netanyahu Vows To Eliminate Threat

Dozens of Israeli Air Force (IAF) jets executed the first stage of the operation, striking multiple military and nuclear sites across various regions of Iran, stated IDF on Friday. Israel Defence Minister Israel Katz has declared an emergency situation across the country due to Israel’s action in Iran.

By : news24desk, Edited By : Vaidika Thapa Jun 13, 2025 https://news24online.com/world/israel-launches-operation-rising-lion-to-strike-irans-nuclear-program-netanyahu-vows-to-eliminate-threat/584738/

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have launched a preemptive and precise combined offensive targeting Iran’s nuclear program. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, confirmed the launch of ‘Operation Rising Lion’, a targeted military offensive to roll back the Iranian threat. PM Netanyahu stated that operation will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat.

In a video statement, Netanyahu said, “Moments ago, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival. This operation will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat.”

Dozens of Israeli Air Force (IAF) jets executed the first stage of the operation, striking multiple military and nuclear sites across various regions of Iran, stated IDF on Friday. Israel Defence Minister Israel Katz has declared an emergency situation across the country due to Israel’s action in Iran.

“Following the State of Israel’s preemptive strike against Iran, a missile and drone attack against the State of Israel and its civilian population is expected in the immediate future,” stated Kataz as reported by The Times of Israel.

In its statement, the IDF emphasised the existential threat posed by Iran’s progress towards acquiring nuclear weapons. “Today, Iran is closer than ever to obtaining a nuclear weapon. Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of the Iranian regime threaten the State of Israel and the wider world,” the statement read.

The Israeli government asserted it has no choice but to defend its citizens and will continue to take necessary actions whenever required. “The State of Israel remains committed to fulfilling its obligation to protect its people, just as it has done in the past,” the statement further read.

June 16, 2025 Posted by | Iran, Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

SPECIAL BULLETIN: Israel Launches Major Strikes on Iran

Simplicius, Jun 13, 2025

The Israeli rogue state added another of its neighbors to the long list of regional nations it is currently bombing. From Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, international waters, and now Iran—Israel now bombs them all with impunity while crying out about its own ‘security’.

The attacks are reportedly just the first stage of a long wave of aggression that will span days or weeks according to announcements from top officials:

NETANYAHU: WE ARE AT A DECISIVE MOMENT IN ISRAEL’S HISTORY NETANYAHU: ATTACKING IRAN’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM, BALLISTIC MISSILES *NETANYAHU: STRIKES WILL LAST UNTIL THREAT REMOVED

A statement from IDF Spokesperson BG Effie Defrin on the preemptive Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear targets

Hebrew sources: Air force attacks on Iran are divided into three main missions:

The nuclear project
Destruction of missile launch platforms
Elimination of senior regime officials

Israeli news:

Israeli Channel 14 citing an Israeli official: “We have a long and broad offensive plan for the days ahead – complex days lie ahead. The Iranians will respond, if the public is disciplined, there will be few casualties. We are at war.“

Reportedly, the White House stated earlier that the US would not be involved in any unilateral Israeli actions, and as soon as the strikes began Rubio made sure to distance the US in an official statement:

Netanyahu again invoked the Iranian nuclear weapons red herring used so many times before, it has now turned into a parodic litany, recorded below [on original]

………………………….. It .. does not surprise me that Israeli officials are now characterizing the beginning of this war as a critical juncture in the history of Israel. Netanyahu called it the ‘decisive moment in Israeli history’ while Defense Minister Israel Katz reportedly announced:

Defense Minister Israel Katz to the IDF General Staff before the attack on Iran: This is a defining moment in the history of the State of Israel and the Jewish people.

Israel duly is at a crossroads, which I have described before: the country is in a downward spiral and has only one remaining chance to seize history to secure its survival. Why? The reasons are almost too long to list in this one brief article alone, but they include demographics, as well as the decline of Zionism and rise of “noticing” in the West which means in a generation or two, support for Israel may dwindle to the point where it will be engulfed by regional enemies.

The other major reason: nascent technologies have created parity between Israel and its foes, where groups like Hamas and Hezbollah can use cheap but highly technologically effective weapons to deal accurate, disabling damage to Israel’s most critical and sensitive infrastructure. The same goes for Iran: the country has come of age and mastered rocketry and newfangled drone warfare to the point where the numbers simply do not work in Israel’s favor in any future war.

Israel once had the backing of the world’s most dominant ‘superpower’ alliance of Western nations, now the tides of history have simply shifted against Israel’s favor.

Now there are reports Iran may “declare war” on Israel. I remain skeptical for the following reason: Iran has no true overriding capability to fully ‘submit’ Israel into a state of debellatio. Israel has the nukes, and presumably, Iran as of yet does not. No amount of conventional missiles could make Israel simply surrender, and as such a declaration of war has no real meaning. Neither do the two countries share a border so it’s not like Iranian troops can somehow flood Israel to capture its capital.

Any overwhelming attack that could critically wound Israel may provoke an Israeli nuclear response—further proving Iran does not have the escalatory advantage or trump card. That is like Ukraine “declaring war” on Russia—what possible meaning would that have? Ukraine does not have the escalatory dominance to ever ‘submit’ Russia in any way, and the only objective of true ‘war’ is just that—total victory and the subjugation of the adversary. Thus, I see no logical way war can be declared, unless Iran did finally secretly hatch that bomb and is ready to use it. The only other possibility is for PR reasons to satisfy the demands of the angry populace, before declaring victory after some arbitrary objectives have been carried out via a series of strikes, and calling it a day.

For the record, here was Supreme Leader Khamenei’s reported address:

“At dawn today, the Zionist regime extended its vile and blood-stained hand to commit a crime in our beloved country, further exposing its wicked nature by targeting residential areas. The regime must now await severe punishment. The powerful hand of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic will not let them go unpunished, God willing. In the enemy’s attacks, a number of commanders and scientists were martyred. Their successors and colleagues will immediately carry on their duties, God willing. With this crime, the Zionist regime has prepared a bitter and painful fate for itself—and it will certainly receive it.”

Because many will and have already asked, one last note: the first wave of Israeli attacks obviously had some observable and verifiable success, particularly with the decapitations of top leadership already confirmed by official Iranian agencies. Strikes on nuclear processing infrastructure will take longer to validate. This raises questions of Iran’s preparedness—how could top leaders be so unprepared whilst knowing that Israel was ready to stage major attacks any day now?

That is certainly a valid criticism. But when it comes to Iran’s vaunted air defenses, which will doubtlessly face criticism, all I can say is that recent wars of the modern-technological age have shown no country on earth is capable of fully defending against modern weapons like ballistic missiles. How many of Iran’s or the Houthi’s missiles had Israel shot down in previous strikes? Nearly none, if I recall correctly. How often have the US Patriots famously failed to down anything, including over US bases where Iranian strikes gave hundreds of US troops “brain damage”, and how often do Ukrainian drones and missiles bypass Russian defenses? No one has an impervious defense, though judging by recent strikes on Moscow, the closest any country in the world has come to that distinction is Russia.

And for the record, tonight we see reports of Israeli ALBM booster stages “spread out through various Iraqi provinces” which again appears to prove Israel launched its ordnance well clear of Iranian airspace, likely the Air LORA missiles as in the previous strikes:

Though there were various ‘rumors’ of jets flying over Tehran but it appears in every case to have been Iranian jets scrambled at the time of strikes not only to avoid being hit on airfields but possibly for air defense missions as well.

Lastly, many expected Iran to have already prepared an instantaneous response: the immediate launch of hundreds of missiles upon Israel’s very first salvo. The reality is that Iran has never functioned this way: it waits and assesses the situation before carefully curating a large-scale operation like the long-awaited True Promise 3.0. Why is that the case? One oft-cited and rationally sound explanation is the following: [on original]

Logic would dictate if they had chosen the latter option, they would have already prepared an instantaneous volley to hit Israel at its point of lowest readiness. Waiting days to respond telegraphs your actions and gives the enemy time to prepare, which logically implies a ‘show’ strike. But nothing is for certain in this game of war, so we’ll have to wait and see. https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/special-bulletin-israel-launches?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1351274&post_id=165832167&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=c9zhh&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

June 15, 2025 Posted by | global warming, Iran, Israel | Leave a comment

‘TO THE POINT OF UNINHABITABILITY’

Israel’s war to destroy Hamas has destroyed Gaza itself

Seymour Hersh, Jun 14, 2025

A few weeks ago the media office of the Gaza government issued a statement declaring that the Israeli Defense Forces now control over 77 percent of the territory in the Gaza Strip, much of it in ruins from the continuing Israeli Air Force attacks on suspected Hamas sites. Many of the known Hamas leadership at the time of its October 7, 2023, surprise attack on Israel have been killed or have fled Gaza. But the organization has survived and now there are as many as 20,000 Hamas members. Young recruits today try to control the delivery of relief food and other goods to Gaza along with the black market that dominates what is left of its economy.


Israel has not won its war against Hamas—a war that at one time was promised to be ended within a span of four or five months. The Israeli leadership responded to that failure by taking the war to the people of Gaza, though Israelis were assured that the terrifying and around-the-clock Israeli air force bombing attacks in Gaza would stop when Hamas was driven from its fortified tunnels………………………(Subscribers only) https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/to-the-point-of-uninhabitability?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1377040&post_id=165876879&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

June 15, 2025 Posted by | Gaza, Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel Starts Bombing Iran, IRGC Chief Reported Killed

The Israeli military is preparing for a very heavy missile attack from Iran in response

by Dave DeCamp | Jun 13, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/06/12/israel-starts-bombing-iran/

The Israeli military has begun bombing Iran, an attack that could provoke a major, catastrophic war in the region involving the US.

Heavy airstrikes have hit the Iranian capital of Tehran, and videos show plumes of smoke rising from the city. Photos also show damaged residential buildings, and deaths of women and children have been reported. Strikes have also hit several provinces across Iran.

The IDF said that it has launched “dozens” of airstrikes on Iran in an attack it said is targeting the country’s civilian nuclear program. Iran’s PressTV has reported that strikes hit the Natanz nuclear facility.

Israel has also targeted senior Iranian military officials, and Iranian reports say Hossein Salami, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has been killed. The bombing has also killed several other senior IRGC officials and nuclear scientists.

The Mossad reportedly launched sabotage attacks against Iranian air defense systems and missile facilities that coincided with the Israeli airstrikes.

Israel has dubbed the operation the “Nation of Lions.” The Israeli military is also warning that Iran could launch a major counterattack against Israeli territory and said that its operation against Iran could last several days.

“Following the State of Israel’s preemptive strike against Iran, a missile and drone attack against the State of Israel and its civilian population is expected in the immediate future,” said Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement that Israel has taken “unliateral action” against Iran and claimed the US wasn’t involved. “Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for its self-defense. President Trump and the Administration have taken all necessary steps to protect our forces and remain in close contact with our regional partners. Let me be clear: Iran should not target US interests or personnel,” Rubio said.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it holds the US responsible for the attack. “The Zionist regime’s aggressive actions against Iran cannot have been carried out without the coordination and authorization of the United States. Accordingly, the United States government, as the main supporter of this regime, will also be responsible for the dangerous effects and consequences of the Zionist regime’s adventure,” the ministry said.

Media reports have said that Iran planned to attack without US backing, but CBS News reported that the Trump administration was weighing options regarding how to support Israeli military action. According to Israel’s Channel 12, the US participated in a campaign to lull Iran into thinking an attack was not going to happen immediately.

In a video statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked President Trump for his “steadfast stance” on Iran.

The bombing began hours after President Trump said that an Israeli attack on Iran could happen soon, although he claimed that he still wanted to pursue a nuclear deal with Tehran despite his repeated demand that Iran must eliminate its nuclear enrichment program, which is a non-starter for Tehran.

Previous reports said that Israel was considering bombing Iran to sabotage the diplomacy between the US and Iran. The attacks come as there is no evidence that Tehran is working toward a nuclear weapon, which is the consensus of the US intelligence community.

June 14, 2025 Posted by | Iran, Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Iran says it will release Israeli nuclear secrets as pressure grows to reimpose sanctions

Tehran threat comes as European powers press for vote that could lead to reimposition of UN sanctions

Guardian Patrick Wintour, 9 June 25

Iran has said it will soon start releasing information from a hoard of Israeli nuclear secrets it claims to have obtained, as European countries push for a vote this week on reimposing UN sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear programme.

The unverified claims by Iranian intelligence of a massive leak of Israeli secrets may be designed to turn the focus away from what Iran argues is its own excessively monitored civil nuclear programme.

On Sunday, Iran’s intelligence minister, Esmail Khatib, claimed Tehran had obtained “a vast collection of strategic and sensitive [Israeli] documents, including plans and data on the nuclear facilities”. He added evidence would be released shortly, and implied some of the documentation was linked to Israel’s arrest of two Israeli nationals, Roi Mizrahi and Almog Attias, over alleged spying for Iran………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/09/iran-says-it-will-release-israeli-nuclear-secrets-as-pressure-grows-to-reimpose-sanctions

June 11, 2025 Posted by | Iran, Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Israeli Forces Board Gaza Aid Flotilla Boat

Drones dropped a white paint-like substance on the Madleen before the boardingby

Dave DeCamp June 8, 2025  https://news.antiwar.com/2025/06/08/israeli-defense-minister-orders-military-to-stop-gaza-aid-boat/

The Madleen, a sailboat that was trying to break Israel’s starvation blockade on Gaza, has been boarded by Israeli forces, and the 12 activists onboard have been detained, according to the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), the group behind the humanitarian effort.

“Connection has been lost on the ‘Madleen’. Israeli army have boarded the vessel,” the FFC wrote on Telegram.

Francesca Albanese, a UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, was in touch with the crew before they lost communications and said that the boat was being circled by Israeli speedboats and quadcopter drones that dropped a white paint-like substance on the Madleen.

“The Madleen is currently under assault in international waters. Quadcopters are surrounding the ship, spraying it with a white irritant substance. Communications are jammed, and disturbing sounds are being played over the radio,” the FFC said before the boarding.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry released a statement that said the activists on the boat would return to their homes. “The ‘selfie yacht’ of the ‘celebrities’ is safely making its way to the shores of Israel. The passengers are expected to return to their home countries,” the ministry wrote on X.

Earlier in the day, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered the IDF to intercept the Madleen. The boat was carrying 12 civilian activists who are traveling unarmed, including Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, who Katz labeled “antisemitic” due to her opposition to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

“I have instructed the IDF to act to ensure that the hate flotilla ‘Madleen’ does not reach the shores of Gaza—and to take all necessary measures to achieve this,” Katz wrote on X.

“To the antisemitic Greta and her friends, propagators of Hamas propaganda, I say clearly: You’d better turn back—because you won’t reach Gaza. Israel will act against any attempt to break the blockade or assist terrorist organizations—by sea, air, or land,” Katz added.

A senior Israeli official told Israel’s Channel 12 that if the boat doesn’t turn around, it would be boarded by Israeli Navy commandos and brought to the port of Ashdod.

“We are surrounding Gaza from every direction in order to strangle Hamas and not enable [Gaza] to get any aid from any factor that is not overseen by Israel. If we allow one flotilla to enter, masses will follow, and this provocation will create a wave of flotillas that are hostile to Israel. We will not let this happen,” the official said.

Back in 2010, Israeli commandos raided six Freedom Flotilla boats that were attempting to break the blockade on Gaza and killed 10 Turkish activists. Just last month, an Israeli drone hit a Freedom Flotilla boat, the Conscience, when it was off the coast of Malta.

Israel supporters in the US have suggested Israel should sink the Madleen, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). “Hope Greta and her friends can swim!” Graham said in a post on X.

June 9, 2025 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

When Will Western Support for Israeli Genocide Finally Crack?

If the so-called international community were really “very, very clear on that,” the United States and Israel would not be able to wage a campaign of genocide for more than 600 days while the world looks on in horror.

The U.S., U.K., Canadian, and other governments remain deeply complicit in Israel’s atrocities and violations of international law. But the rhetoric is shifting and protest movement is growing louder.

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies / Common Dreams, 5 June25 https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/when-will-western-support-for-israeli-genocide-finally-crack

After 20 months of horror in Gaza, political rhetoric in Western countries is finally starting to shift—but will words translate into action? And what exactly can other countries do when the United States still shields Israel from efforts to enforce international law, as it did at the UN Security Council on June 5th?

Trump’s military and political support for Israel’s genocide stands in stark contradiction to the image he promotes of himself as a peacemaker—and which his most loyal followers believe in.

On May 30th, Tom Fletcher, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, accused Israel of committing a war crime by using starvation as a weapon against the people of Gaza. In a searing interview with the BBC, Fletcher explained how Israel’s policy of forced starvation fits into its larger strategy of ethnic cleansing.

“We’re seeing food set on the borders and not being allowed in, when there is a population on the other side of the border that is starving,” Fletcher said. “And we’re hearing Israeli ministers say that is to put pressure on the population of Gaza.”

After 20 months of horror in Gaza, political rhetoric in Western countries is finally starting to shift—but will words translate into action? And what exactly can other countries do when the United States still shields Israel from efforts to enforce international law, as it did at the UN Security Council on June 5th?

On May 30th, Tom Fletcher, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, accused Israel of committing a war crime by using starvation as a weapon against the people of Gaza. In a searing interview with the BBC, Fletcher explained how Israel’s policy of forced starvation fits into its larger strategy of ethnic cleansing.

“We’re seeing food set on the borders and not being allowed in, when there is a population on the other side of the border that is starving,” Fletcher said. “And we’re hearing Israeli ministers say that is to put pressure on the population of Gaza.”

He was referring to statements like the one from Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who openly admitted that the starvation policy is meant to leave Palestinians “totally despairing, understanding that there’s no hope and nothing to look for,” so that they will submit to ethnic cleansing from Gaza and a “new life in other places.”

Fletcher called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop this campaign of forced displacement, and insisted, “we would expect governments all over the world to stand for international humanitarian law. The international community is very, very clear on that.”

Palestinians might wish that were true. If the so-called international community were really “very, very clear on that,” the United States and Israel would not be able to wage a campaign of genocide for more than 600 days while the world looks on in horror.

Some Western governments have finally started using stronger language to condemn Israel’s actions. But the question is: Will they act? Or is this just more political theater to appease public outrage while the machinery of destruction grinds on?

This moment should force a reckoning: How is it possible that the U.S. and Israel can perpetrate such crimes with impunity? What would it take for U.S. allies to ignore pressure from Washington and enforce international law?

If impoverished, war-ravaged Yemen can single-handedly deny Israel access to the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, and drive the Israeli port of Eilat into bankruptcy, more powerful countries can surely isolate Israel diplomatically and economically, protect the Palestinians and end the genocide. But they haven’t even tried.

Some are now making tentative moves. On May 19th, the U.K., France, and Canada jointly condemned Israel’s actions as “intolerable,” “unacceptable,” “abhorrent,” “wholly disproportionate,” and “egregious.” The U.K. suspended trade talks with Israel, and they promised “further concrete actions,” including targeted sanctions, if Israel does not end its offensive in Gaza and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid.

The three countries publicly committed to the Arab Plan for the reconstruction of Gaza, and to building an international consensus for it at the UN’s High-Level Two-State Solution Conference in New York on June 17th-20th, which is to be co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia.

They also committed to recognizing Palestinian statehood. Of the UN’s 193 member states, 147 already recognize Palestine as a sovereign nation, including ten more since Israel launched its genocide in Gaza. President Emmanuel Macron, under pressure from the leftist La France Insoumise party, says France may officially recognize Palestine at the UN conference in June.

Canada’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, claimed during his election campaign that Canada already had an arms embargo against Israel, but was swiftly challenged on that. Canada has suspended a small number of export licenses, but it’s still supplying parts for Israel’s 39 F-35s, and for 36 more that Israel has ordered from Lockheed Martin.

A General Dynamics factory in Quebec is the sole supplier of artillery propellant for deadly 155 mm artillery shells used in Gaza, and it took an emergency campaign by human rights groups in August 2024 to force Canada to scrap a new contract for that same factory to supply Israel with 50,000 high-explosive mortar shells.

The U.K. is just as compromised. The new Labour government elected in July 2024 quickly restored funding to UNRWA, as Canada has. In September, it suspended 30 out of 350 arms export licenses to Israel, mostly for parts used in warplanes, helicopters, drones, and targeting. But, like Canada, the U.K. still supplies many other parts that end up in Israeli F-35s bombing Gaza.

Declassified UK published a report on the F-35 program that revealed how it compromises the sovereignty of partner countries. While the U.K. produces 15% of the parts that go into every F-35, the U.S. military takes immediate ownership of the British-made parts, stores them on British air force bases, and then orders the U.K. to ship them to Texas for use in new planes or to Israel and other countries as spare parts for planes already in use.

Shipping these planes and parts to Israel is in clear violation of U.S., U.K. and other countries’ arms export laws. British campaigners argue that if the U.K. is serious about halting genocide, it must stop all shipments of F-35 parts sent to Israel–directly or indirectly. With huge marches in London drawing hundreds of thousands of people, and protests on June 17th at three factories that make F-35 parts, activists will keep applying more pressure until they result in the “concrete actions” the British government has promised.

Denmark is facing a similar conflict. Amnesty International, Oxfam, Action Aid, and Al-Haq are in court suing the Danish government and the nation’s largest weapons company, Terma, to stop them from sending Israel critical bomb release mechanisms and other F-35 parts.

These disputes over Canadian artillery propellant, Danish bomb-release mechanisms, and the multinational nature of the F-35 program highlight how any country that provides even small but critical parts or materials for deadly weapons systems must ensure they are not used to commit war crimes.

In turn, all steps to cut off Israel’s weapons supplies can help to save Palestinian lives, and the full arms embargo that the UN General Assembly voted for in September 2024 can be instrumental in ending the genocide if more countries will join it. As Sam Perlo-Freeman of Campaign Against the Arms Trade said of the U.K.’s legal obligation to stop shipping F-35 parts,

“These spare parts are essential to keep Israel’s F-35s flying, and therefore stopping them will reduce the number of bombings and killings of civilians Israel can commit. It is as simple as that.”

Germany was responsible for 30% of Israel’s arms imports between 2019 and 2023, largely through two large warship deals. Four German-built Saar 6 corvettes, Israel’s largest warships, are already bombarding Gaza, while ThyssenKrupp is building three new submarines for Israel in Kiel.

But no country has provided a greater share of the tools of genocide in Gaza than the United States, including nearly all the warplanes, helicopters, bombs, and air-to-ground missiles that are destroying Gaza and killing Palestinians. The U.S. government has a legal responsibility to stop sending all these weapons, which Israel uses mainly to commit industrial-scale war crimes, up to and including genocide, against the people of Palestine, as well as to attack its other neighbors.

Trump’s military and political support for Israel’s genocide stands in stark contradiction to the image he promotes of himself as a peacemaker—and which his most loyal followers believe in.

Yet there are signs that Trump is beginning to assert some independence from Netanyahu and from the war hawks in his own party and inner circle. He refused to visit Israel on his recent Middle East tour, he’s negotiating with Iran despite Israeli opposition, and he removed Mike Waltz as National Security Advisor for engaging in unauthorized warmongering against Iran with Netanyahu. His decisions to end the Yemen bombing campaign and lift sanctions on Syria suggest an unpredictable but real departure from the neocon playbook, as do his negotiations with Russia and Iran.

Has Netanyahu finally overplayed his hand? His campaign of ethnic cleansing, territorial expansion in pursuit of a biblical “Greater Israel,” the deliberate starvation of Gaza, and his efforts to entangle the U.S. in a war with Iran have pushed Israel’s longtime allies to the edge. The emerging rift between Trump and Netanyahu could mark the beginning of the end of the decades-long blanket of impunity the U.S. has wrapped around Israel. It could also give other governments the political space to respond to Israeli war crimes without fear of U.S. retaliation.

The huge and consistent protests throughout Europe are putting pressure on Western governments to take action. A new survey conducted in Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Spain shows that very few Europeans—between 6% and 16% in each country—find Israel’s assault on Gaza proportionate or justified.

For now, however, the Western governments remain deeply complicit in Israel’s atrocities and violations of international law. The rhetoric is shifting—but history will judge this moment not by what governments say, but by what they do.

June 9, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

The Hidden Story: Israeli ‘Aid’ Is Part of Genocide Plan

Western corporate media have somehow found it difficult to report in straightforward fashion that the food-distribution massacres have left Palestinians with a rather bleak choice: either die of starvation or die trying to obtain food aid.

Belén Fernández, June 6, 2025
Israeli tanks opened fire last Sunday on a crowd of thousands of starving Palestinians at an aid distribution center in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. The victims had gathered in hopes of finding food for themselves and their families, following a nearly three-month total Israeli blockade of the territory. At least 31 people were killed; one Palestinian was also killed by Israeli fire the same day at another distribution site in central Gaza.

On Monday, June 2, three more Palestinians lost their lives to Israeli projectiles while trying to procure food, and on Tuesday there were 27 fatalities at the aid hub in Rafah. This brought the total number of Palestinian deaths at the newly implemented hubs to more than 100 in just a week.

‘Not possible to implement’

Mass killing in the guise of food distribution is occurring under the supervision of the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a sketchy-as-hell organization registered in Switzerland and Delaware. It boasts the participation of former US military and intelligence officers, as well as solid Israeli endorsement and armed US security contractors escorting food deliveries.

Jake Wood—the ex-US Marine sniper who had taken up the post of GHF executive director—recently resigned after reasoning that “it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence.”

Indeed, the GHF, which has temporarily suspended operations to conduct damage control, has managed to align its activities entirely with the genocidal vision of the state of Israel, whose military has killed more than 54,600 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. In May, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu determined that “minimal” aid should be let into Gaza, lest mass starvation force the US to scale back its support for genocide (which is somehow less problematic than enforced famine).

By entrusting the delivery of this “minimal” aid to the brand-new GHF, rather than the United Nations and other groups that have decades of experience doing such things, the Israelis have in fact been able to call the shots in terms of strategic placement of the aid hubs. Only four are currently in place for a starving population of 2 million, requiring many Palestinians to walk long distances—those that are able to walk, that is—across Israeli military lines.

The hubs are mainly in southern Gaza, which is conveniently where Israel has schemed to concentrate the surviving Palestinian population, in order to then expel them in accordance with US President Donald Trump’s dream of a brand-new Palestinian-free “Riviera of the Middle East” in the Gaza Strip. Even as he authorized the resumption of aid, Netanyahu reiterated his vow to “take control” of all of Gaza. As UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini has observed, “Aid distribution has become a death trap.”

Leading with denials

And yet despite all of this, Western corporate media have somehow found it difficult to report in straightforward fashion that the food-distribution massacres have left Palestinians with a rather bleak choice: either die of starvation or die trying to obtain food aid.

So it is that we end up with, for example, the Washington Post’s Tuesday dispatch (6/2/25) from Jerusalem, headlined “Israel Says It Fired ‘Warning Shots’ Near Aid Site; Health Officials Say 27 Dead,” which charitably gave Israel the privilege of refuting what the health officials have said before they even say it. The article quoted the Israeli army as claiming that its soldiers had fired at suspects “who advanced toward the troops in such a way that posed a threat.” It also quoted the following statement from the GHF:

While the aid distribution was conducted safely and without incident at our site today, we understand that [Israeli army] is investigating whether a number of civilians were injured after moving beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone.

Anyway, that’s what happens when you put your aid distribution site in the middle of an Israeli military zone.

Then there was the BBC report (5/31/25) on Sunday’s massacre, headlined “Israel Denies Firing at Civilians After Hamas-Run Ministry Says 31 Killed in Gaza Aid Center Attack,” which went on to underscore that the ministry in question was the “Hamas-run health ministry.” Given Hamas’s role as the governing authority in the Gaza Strip, this is sort of like specifying that the US Department of Health & Human Services is “run by the US government”—except that, in Gaza’s case, the “Hamas-run” qualifier is meant to cast doubt on the ministry’s claims. Never mind that said ministry’s death counts have over time consistently “held up to UN scrutiny, independent investigations and even Israel’s tallies,” as the Associated Press (11/6/23) has previously acknowledged.

On Tuesday, though, the AP (6/3/25) chimed in with its own headline, “Gaza Officials Say Israeli Forces Killed 27 Heading to Aid Site. Israel Says It Fired Near Suspects.” The text of the article details how Gaza’s Health Ministry, which is “led by medical professionals but reports to the Hamas-run government,” has calculated that the majority of the more than 54,000 Palestinian fatalities in Israel’s current war on Gaza are women and children, but hasn’t said “how many of the dead were civilians or combatants.”

Meanwhile, Reuters (6/1/25) reported that an Israeli attack near a GHF-run aid distribution point had “killed at least 30 people in Rafah, Palestinian news agency WAFA and Hamas-affiliated media said on Sunday.” In a separate article on Sunday’s massacre, the news wire (6/1/25) wrote that

the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry said 31 people were killed with a single gunshot wound to the head or chest from Israeli fire as they were gathered in the Al-Alam district aid distribution area in Rafah.

The latter dispatch was headlined “Gaza Ministry Says Israel Kills More Than 30 Aid Seekers, Israel Denies.”

‘No shortage’

There is pretty much no end to the crafty sidelining by Western corporate media of truthful assertions by “Hamas-run” entities—and the simultaneous provision of ample space to the Israeli military to continue its established tradition of propagating outright lies. Recall that time not so long ago that Israeli officials insisted that there was “no shortage” of aid in the Gaza Strip, despite a full-blown blockade, and the glee directly expressed by various Israeli ministers about not letting an iota of food, or anything else necessary for survival, into the besieged enclave (FAIR.org, 4/25/25)

It is furthermore perplexing why there is even a perceived need to cast doubt on massacres of 31 or 27 or three individuals, in the context of a genocide that has killed more than 54,600 people in 20 months—a war in which Israel has exhibited no qualms in slaughtering starving people, as in the February 2024 incident when at least 112 Palestinians were massacred while queuing for flour southwest of Gaza City (FAIR.org, 3/22/24). Against a backdrop of such wanton slaughter, what are 100 more Palestinian deaths to Israel? Indiscriminate mass killing is, after all, the objective here.

Just as GHF is now engaged in micro-level damage control operations vis-à-vis their militarized distribution of food in Gaza, Israel, too, appears to be in a similar mode, since it’s a whole lot simpler—and helpfully distracting—to bicker over dozens of casualties rather than, you know, a whole genocide.

And the Western establishment media are, as ever, standing by to lend a helping hand. Perhaps we should start calling them the “Israel-affiliated media.”

June 8, 2025 Posted by | Israel, media | Leave a comment

What’s Really Happening in Palestine

srael is escalating its genocide in Gaza. Entire families are being wiped out, famine is spreading, and airstrikes are targeting shelters and schools. In the West Bank, killings and settler violence are surging as Israel tightens its grip on the territory. Yet despite these atrocities, international media coverage has diminished. While a handful of European governments have begun to question their complicity, meaningful action is still missing. In this livestream, Palestinian writer and organiser Mohammed El-Kurd joins Yanis Varoufakis to cut through the noise: What’s really happening on the ground? Why has the West been so slow, or unwilling, to act? And what can we, as citizens, do about it?

June 8, 2025 Posted by | Israel | Leave a comment

Revulsion for Israel surges worldwide, new survey finds

Ali Abunimah Rights and Accountability 4 June 2025, https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/revulsion-israel-surges-worldwide-new-survey-finds

Twenty months into its livestreamed and accelerating genocide in Gaza, it would hardly be controversial to conclude that Israel is one of the world’s most hated countries.

But a new global survey from the US-based Pew Research Center indicates just how unpopular it has become, especially in the North American and European states where Tel Aviv has always drawn its main sources of financial, military and political support.

“In 20 of the 24 countries surveyed, around half of adults or more have an unfavorable view of Israel,” Pew reported on 3 June. “Around three-quarters or more hold this view in Australia, Greece, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Turkey.”

Pew says it last asked the question in 10 of the countries included in its new survey in 2013. “In seven of these countries, the share of adults with a negative view of Israel has increased significantly.”

Israel was most unpopular in Turkey, with 93 percent of respondents viewing it unfavorably. Turkey was the only country in the immediate region of Palestine to be surveyed by Pew.

Among European publics surveyed, Israel was viewed most negatively in the Netherlands (78 percent), a remarkable fact in a country whose governments have traditionally been staunchly pro-Israel.

Even in Hungary – whose leader Viktor Orban welcomed Benjamin Netanyahu to Budapest earlier this year in spite of the international arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister – 53 percent of the public views Israel negatively.

Historic shift in US

In the United States – Israel’s biggest financier and arms supplier – 53 percent of those surveyed now have a negative view of Israel – an 11-point surge since 2022, according to Pew.

In recent years, surveys have consistently found that Israel is overwhelmingly unpopular with majorities of Democrats, younger Americans and people of color.

But it is an entirely new phenomenon for a majority of the US population overall to view Israel negatively.

The erosion of support for Israel in the United States – particularly among younger people – has long worried Israel and its lobby groups as a potential threat to long-term US support for Israel.

That likely explains why the Trump administration has focused its unconstitutional crackdown on free speech critical of Israel on college campuses, in an effort to scare the younger generation into line.

The turn to heavy-handed censorship, not just in the US but across Europe, is also an admission that efforts to equate disapproval of Israel’s crimes with anti-Semitism, or to burnish its brand with expensive PR campaigns, can do nothing against the horrific reality streamed daily from Gaza to peoples phones.

Break on the American right?

In many of the countries where it conducted surveys, Pew observes that “people who place themselves on the left have a more negative view of Israel than those on the right.”

But that ideological gap is most pronounced in the US, according to Pew, where “74 percent of liberals have a negative view of Israel, compared with 30 percent of conservatives.”

Still, in an April survey of Americans, Pew found a sharp rise in the number of Republican voters who view Israel unfavorably – from 27 percent to 37 percent – indicating that Israel is losing support across the political spectrum.

In recent years, there has been a notable new phenomenon of prominent right-wing commentators, like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Judge Andrew Napolitano, voicing skepticism and sometimes harsh criticism of Israel and US support for it that once seemed unthinkable.

The rise of Israel skeptics within the Trump administration and the US right more generally has reportedly led Netanyahu to confide in close aides that “that he misjudged the direction the US was taking on Israel and the broader Middle East,” Israel’s Ynet reported.

With notable standouts like Napolitano, a vocal supporter of Palestinian rights on moral grounds, the break in the pro-Israel consensus on the American right is driven more by disagreements about where Israel fits into an “America First” vision and a perception that Israel pushes for the US to engage in disastrous wars on its behalf.

To be sure, whatever ill feeling there may be in the White House toward Israel and its leader has not resulted in any US pressure on Israel to halt the genocide.

Israel’s reputation tanks in Europe

Public pressure does nevertheless seem to be having an effect in other Western countries, where staunchly pro-Israel governments are stepping up their criticism of Israel.

In May, France, the United Kingdom and Canada threatened Israel with unspecified “concrete actions” if it does not end its starvation siege of Gaza.

And just last week, Ireland became the first Western country and member of the EU to declare at the highest level that Israel is perpetrating genocide in Gaza.

The European Union is also “reviewing” its Association Agreement with Israel, amid growing calls to suspend the lucrative trade deal.

Given that the EU recently bragged about adopting its 17th sanctions “package” against Russia since 2022, these declarations about Israel appear woefully late and inadequate.

With Israel openly exterminating Palestinians, through relentless bombing and starvation, Brussels has yet to impose anything other than token sanctions on Tel Aviv.

And yet, there are signs of movement. Spain this week canceled a $310 million arms purchase from Israeli weapons company Rafael amid reported moves by Madrid “to reduce Spain’s reliance on Israeli defense technology in light of Israel’s ongoing military operations in Gaza.”

In Spain, according to Pew, 75 percent of the public holds a negative view of Israel.

These moves may be little and late, but they would likely not have happened at all without constant, vocal public outrage at Israel’s crimes and the complicity of European and other governments.

They are signs that public pressure and protest matter and are more important than ever to bring a halt to this genocide.

June 8, 2025 Posted by | Israel, public opinion | Leave a comment

US vetoes Gaza ceasefire again, due to concerns it could save Palestinian lives

Thank god for AIPAC…

Laura and Normal Island News, Jun 05, 2025, https://www.normalisland.co.uk/p/us-vetoes-gaza-ceasefire-again-due?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1407757&post_id=165255653&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

The US has vetoed a draft resolution at the UN Security Council that called for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages, and unrestricted entry of humanitarian aid, basically all the things Netanyahu doesn’t want.

The resolution was co-sponsored by the Hamas-controlled countries of Algeria, Denmark, Greece, Guyana, Pakistan, Panama, the Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, and Somalia who are collectively called the E-10 (presumably the “E” stand for evil).

Horrifyingly, the resolution received 14 votes in favour, with no abstentions, and only one against. Even the UK and France sided with the Evil 10. History will not be kind to them. Thank god the US representative proudly raised a hand that was dripping with Palestinian blood. One day her grandkids are going to look back at this moment with pride.

The US has now single-handedly vetoed a ceasefire in Gaza for the fifth time to avoid the risk of saving Palestinian lives.

If you didn’t know, the veto power was introduced for the US to protect Israel, no matter how many international laws it breaks. If the entire world objects to Israel’s actions, Israel can simply overrule them through its proxy. Isn’t that nice?

Reassuringly, more than half of the vetoes the US has ever used have been to protect Israel. Just imagine what might have happened if AIPAC had not purchased so many members of congress. It doesn’t bear thinking about…

If the resolution was accepted, it would mean that Hamas could quickly rearm with medicines and baby food. No wonder the US called it a “performative resolution” and made it clear Palestinians will not be spared until Hamas has been removed from Gaza.

Just don’t mention that Hamas offered to release all hostages, disarm and leave Gaza in return for a permanent ceasefire, and Netanyahu said “no” because he wants to do ethnic cleansing. The last thing we need is people noticing the hypocrisy .

June 6, 2025 Posted by | Gaza, Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

This Is Israel

Caitlin Johnstone, Jun 04, 2025

This is Israel. This is what the Zionist project looks like. The dead kids. The blown-out hospitals. The desperate, starving civilians. This is it.

There is no alternate version of Israel where these things are not happening. The liberal Zionist vision of a two-state solution and a just and peaceful Israel exists solely in the imaginations of the people who envision it. Nothing like it has ever existed. Everything about the modern state of Israel is unyieldingly hostile to that vision.

You either support the existence of the Israel you see before you, or you support the end of the apartheid Zionist entity. There is no hidden third option. There are no other positions on the menu. To pretend otherwise is to live in a fantasy land.

You either want to burn children alive, or you don’t. You either want to deliberately starve civilians, or you don’t. You either want to bomb hospitals, or you don’t. You either want to deliberately assassinate Palestinian journalists while forbidding foreign journalists entry into Gaza, or you don’t. You either want to deliberately massacre civilians and systematically destroy civilian infrastructure in order to force the removal of Palestinians from a Palestinian territory, or you don’t. And if you don’t, you must oppose the state of Israel.

That’s Israel, the state. Not just Netanyahu. Not just extremist settlers. Not just “far right elements within the Israeli government”. Israel itself. Because everything we are seeing Israel do is the result of everything Israel is as a state.

Everything Israel is doing is the result of everything it has always been. As soon as the west decided to drop a settler-colonialist state on top of a pre-existing civilization wherein the new immigrants would receive preferential treatment over the indigenous inhabitants who were already living there, it became inevitable that Israel would wind up in the condition it’s in today.

Because there was no way to uphold that status quo without mass displacement and nonstop tyranny, violence and abuse. There was no way to set up a tiered society where one tier is placed above the other without indoctrinating the public to accept that apartheid system by systematically dehumanizing the members of the disempowered group.

Set up a status quo of dehumanizing a group of people and manufacturing consent for violence and abuse against them, and you will inevitably wind up with a far right apartheid state which is committing genocide, as surely as dropping a stone off a building will result in a stone falling to the ground.

What we are seeing in Gaza today was baked into the state of Israel ever since its inception.

All those dead kids on your social media feed are the fruit of a tree whose seed was planted after the second world war. That tree has been bearing more and more fruit, and it will continue to for as long as it remains standing. Because that’s just the kind of tree it is. The only kind of tree it ever could have been.

Saying “I support Israel but I don’t support the actions of Netanyahu in Gaza” is like saying “I like this apple tree but only when it sprouts coconuts instead of apples.” That is not the kind of tree it is. The apple tree will only produce apples, and the genocide tree will only produce genocide.

Israel’s supporters avoid confronting obvious truths like these. Support for Israel depends on mass-scale psychological compartmentalization. Everything about it revolves around avoiding unpleasant truths instead of deeply and viscerally reckoning with them.

Averting the eyes from the video footage of Israel’s atrocities in Gaza. Averting the eyes from the contradictions between the values they purport to hold and everything Israel is as a state. Averting the eyes from the mountains upon mountains of evidence staring us all in the face. That’s the only way support for Israel is able to continue.

In order to become a truth-driven species, we need to stop hiding from uncomfortable truths. And one of our favorite hiding places for uncomfortable truths at this point in history is the modern state of Israel, and the western empire’s support for it.

June 5, 2025 Posted by | Israel, Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Poll: 82% of Israelis want to expel Palestinians from Gaza; 47% want to kill every man, woman, child

A poll found that 82% of full citizens of Israel want to expel Palestinians from Gaza. 47% want to kill every single man, woman, and child in Gaza. Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert wrote that Israel is waging a “war of extermination: the indiscriminate, unrestrained, cruel, and criminal killing of civilians”.

By Ben Norton, https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/05/30/poll-israelis-expel-palestinians-gaza-genocide/

Support for genocide, mass murder, and ethnic cleansing is widespread in Israel.

Israel’s former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admitted that his country is waging a “war of extermination: the indiscriminate, unrestrained, cruel, and criminal killing of civilians”.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of Israelis want to expel Palestinians from Gaza, and roughly half want to kill every single man, woman, and child in the besieged strip.

This is according to a poll that was published by the major Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

It found that 82% of Israelis want to expel Gazans, and 47% support killing all Palestinians in Gaza.

The more religious an Israeli is, the more likely they are to support genocide and ethnic cleansing.

The survey was conducted in March by Israeli scholar Tamir Sorek, a professor at Pennsylvania State University. He worked with the Israeli polling firm Geocartography Knowledge Group.

Most Israelis want to expel Palestinian citizens

Roughly 21% of citizens of Israel are Palestinians, although they are not considered to be fully Israeli. They are third-class citizens, and are denied equal treatment by the Israeli regime.

“Israel is not a state of all its citizens”, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared with pride in 2019.

“According to the basic nationality law we passed, Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people – and only it”, Netanyahu stressed, making it clear that Palestinians are not truly considered to be Israelis.

The March 2025 poll commissioned by Pennsylvania State University found that 56% of Jewish Israelis — who are the only ones considered to be true, full citizens — want to expel all Palestinian citizens. This includes 66% of Israelis under the age 40.

The younger an Israeli is, the more likely they are to be a far-right extremist, the survey showed.

How the political systems of Israel and the USA promote far-right extremism

Professor Tamir Sorek, the Israeli scholar who conducted the poll, noted that some prominent religious leaders in Israel have advocated for the mass murder of Palestinian civilians.

As an example, Sorek cited Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, an influential Israeli settler leader in the West Bank, which according to international law is Palestinian territory that has been illegally occupied by Israel since 1967.

Ginsburgh, who wants to eliminate Palestinians and establish a theocratic monarchy in Israel, is also an American. He was born and raised in the United States, and did not move to Israel until he was in his 20s.

Sorek wrote that the attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 “only unleashed demons that had been nurtured for decades in the media and the legal and educational systems”.

In Haaretz, Sorek wrote (emphasis added):

Zionism, besides being a national movement, is also a movement of immigrant-settlers, seeking to displace the local population. Settler-immigrant societies always encounter indiscriminate violent resistance from indigenous groups. The desire for absolute and permanent security can lead to an aspiration to eliminate the resisting population. Therefore, virtually every settlement project has the potential for ethnic cleansing and genocide, as indeed happened in North America in the 17th through 19th centuries or in Namibia in the early 1900s.

Sorek warned in another article in April that, “In Israel, calls for genocide have migrated from the margins to the mainstream”.

A clear example of how fascism has become mainstream in Israel is the country’s extreme-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a member of the government’s powerful security cabinet.

Smotrich described himself as a “fascist homophobe”. The top Israeli official has called for the “total annihilation” of Gaza, and he argued it would be “justified and moral” to starve to death all 2.1 million Palestinians in the strip.

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says Israel is waging a “war of extermination” in Gaza

Israel’s former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has accused his country of committing war crimes and waging a “war of extermination” in Gaza.

Olmert led the Israeli regime from 2006 to 2009. He was previously a decades-long member of Netanyahu’s right-wing political party, Likud.

He made these frank admissions in a Hebrew-language article in Haaretz in May. (The following quotes are from Google Translate.)

“What we are doing in Gaza is a war of extermination: the indiscriminate, unrestrained, cruel, and criminal killing of civilians”, Olmert stated.

He made it clear that this is the “result of a policy dictated by the government, knowingly, intentionally, viciously, maliciously, recklessly”.

Olmert explained that, in 2023 and 2024, he denied that the Israeli regime was intentionally committing war crimes, but he now realizes that he was wrong.

“There are too many cases of brutal shooting of civilians, of destruction of property and homes”, the former Israeli prime minister said. “Looting of property, thefts from homes, which in many cases IDF soldiers have also taken pride in and published in personal posts. We are committing war crimes”.

Olmert stated in no uncertain terms that Israel is using hunger as a weapons: “Yes, we are depriving the residents of Gaza of food, medicine, and minimal means of subsistence as part of a declared policy”.

He referred to the Israeli regime as a “gang of criminals”, and wrote that “the ministers of the Israeli government, led by the head of the gang, Netanyahu, are actually adopting, without forethought, without hesitation, a policy of starvation and humanitarian pressure whose outcome could be catastrophic”.

Israel officially calls its war in Gaza “Operation Gideon’s Chariots”. Olmert said this is an “illegitimate military campaign”, in which Israeli soldiers have gone on a “rampage”, and have turned Gaza into a “humanitarian disaster zone”.

The army is acting “recklessly, carelessly, and excessively aggressively”, he added.

The large number of Palestinian civilians killed in Gaza is “unreasonable, unjustifiable, unacceptable”, he wrote.

Olmert also admitted that Israelis “massacre Palestinian civilians in the West Bank as well”, and “commit heinous crimes every day in the West Bank”.

In an interview with ABC News, the former Israeli prime minister acknowledged, “We have destroyed Gaza”.

June 3, 2025 Posted by | Israel, Reference, Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

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