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‘Year of bloodshed’: West Bank authorities record nearly 24,000 army, settler attacks on Palestinians in 2025

Around 35,000 trees have been uprooted or destroyed by illegal settlers this year, while 14 Palestinian citizens have been killed

News Desk, JAN 6, 2026, https://thecradle.co/articles-id/35236

Head of Palestine’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CWRC), Minister Muayyad Shaaban, said in a new report that over 23,000 attacks have been carried out on Palestinians by settlers and the Israeli army in the occupied West Bank this year.

According to the CWRC report, 2025 saw Israeli troops and illegal settlers commit 23,827 attacks across the territory.

“The attacks were categorized as follows: 1,382 targeted land and trees, 16,664 attacks targeted individuals, while 5,398 attacks targeted property,” the report reads.

“The Israeli army was responsible for 18,384 attacks, while colonizers carried out 4,723 attacks, and both parties together were involved in an additional 720 attacks,” Shaaban is quoted as saying during a press conference at CWRC headquarters in Ramallah.

The minister said 2025 was “a year marked by bloodshed.”

“The occupying power did not simply expand colonies; it aimed to redefine the very concept of control. That is, domination is no longer limited to physical land, but rather, it extends to reshaping geography, symbolism, and the entire existence of the Palestinian people,” he added.

As a result of this year’s violence in the occupied West Bank, 14 Palestinian citizens have been killed. 

Shaaban went on to say that 35,000 trees have been destroyed this year, and that settlers have caused 434 fires, which impacted Palestinian property and agriculture.

Meanwhile, land confiscation and settlement expansion are surging.

“Israeli occupation authorities effectively control approximately 41 percent of the West Bank, maintain a tight grip on nearly 70 percent of Area C, and control over 90 percent of the Jordan Valley through a comprehensive system of military orders and expropriation measures,” according to CWRC.

The 1993 US-sponsored Oslo Accords established the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its security forces, and gave the Palestinians limited autonomy in some parts of the occupied West Bank. This was said to be in preparation for the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state.

However, the accords did not end Israel’s military occupation and gave the Israeli government time to confiscate more Palestinian land and continue illegally expanding West Bank settlements. 

The agreement resulted in the splitting of the West Bank into areas A, B, and C. Area A gave the PA authority over civil and security matters, while Area B gave it control only over civil matters. In Area C, Israel was granted full control.

Since then, illegal settlements have continued to expand, including in Areas A and B.

Since the start of 2025, Israel has been occupying multiple West Bank refugee camps and has been carrying out a systematic campaign of destruction and displacement.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been uprooted from their homes in the occupied West Bank since the start of the year, mainly in Jenin, Tulkarem, and Tubas.

As army and settler violence surges, the government also continues to advance plans for illegally annexing the territory.

Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister and staunch backer of the illegal settler movement, said on 30 December that Washington has given Tel Aviv “full support” to expand settlements in the occupied West Bank.

January 10, 2026 Posted by | Atrocities, Israel | Leave a comment

Israel And Its Supporters Deliberately Foment Hate And Division In Our Society

Caitlin Johnstone, Jan 03, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-and-its-supporters-deliberately?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=183299564&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

I’ve noticed a lot of angry comments underneath my posts these past few days which bizarrely mention the words “Islam” and “Muslims” completely out of the blue.

“Why don’t you turn your attention sometimes to the genocidal intent of the radical Muslims, or does that suit your racist narrative?” reads one tweet.

“What can you say about Islamic Jihadists Muslims murdering thousands of Christians in Sudan and other parts of Africa?” reads another.

“The muslims must be irradicated,” reads another.

There are too many examples to quote here, but here’s what’s so funny about all this: I haven’t been saying anything about Islam or Muslims on Twitter — I’ve been tweeting about Israel. Hasbarists just babble about Islam when they can’t defend Israel’s actions.

It is not a coincidence that they’ve been doing this. In September of last year Drop Site News published a leaked polling report that had been commissioned by the Israeli government which found that while Israel’s reputation is crumbling throughout the western world, one way to salvage it would be to foment panic about Muslims.

Drop Site reports the following:

“Israel’s best tactic to combat this, according to the study, is to foment fear of ‘Radical Islam’ and ‘Jihadism,’ which remain high, the research finds. By highlighting Israeli support for women’s rights and gay rights while elevating concerns that Hamas wants to ‘destroy all Jews and spread Jihadism,’ Israeli support rebounded by an average of over 20 points in each country. ‘Especially once the situation in Gaza is resolved, the room for growth in all countries is very significant,’ the report concludes.”

So if you speak critically about Israel online and suddenly find your replies inundated with Zionists shrieking about Islam and Muslims, that’s why. Their research has concluded that convincing westerners to hate Muslims is easier than convincing them to love Israel.

In addition to committing genocide and starting wars and working to stomp out free speech throughout the western world, Israel is also doing everything it can to make our society more racist and hateful. A foreign state is actively fomenting division and discord in western countries, in exactly the way western empire apologists claimed Putin was doing at the height of Russia hysteria. But because it’s a western “ally”, nothing is being done to stop it.

In addition to being evil and disgusting, this tactic is also just sloppy argumentation. Deflection is the lowest form of argument. Even if Islam really was as dangerous as they pretend it is and even if Muslims really did present a threat to our society, pointing this out would not address a single criticism of Israel. Yelling “Muslims bad!” does not magically erase Israel’s abuses or address the grievances of its critics; it just diverts attention to another target and says “Stop looking at Israel’s actions and hate THOSE people instead!”

Mention Israel and you’ll get hasbarists babbling about Islam, but Islam and Israel are not opposites, and the mention of one has no bearing on the other. One is a worldwide religion with nearly two billion adherents, while the other is a genocidal apartheid state. Framing the issue as a conflict between two diametrically opposed parties is a false dichotomy created by propagandists and manipulators.

And that’s exactly the false dichotomy Netanyahu is trying to feed into when he tells Americans that Israel is in an alliance with Christianity against “radical Shiite Islam” and “radical Sunni Islam,” calling it “our common Judeo-Christian civilization’s battle.” He’s working to foment fear of Islam among Americans to boost support for Israel.

All this to manufacture consent for human butchery and apartheid. Israel could improve its support among westerners by simply ending its genocidal atrocities in Gaza and ceasing to try to start a war between the US and Iran, but instead it’s working around the clock to foment racism and division while demanding increased censorship and authoritarianism to stomp out pro-Palestine sentiment throughout western society.

Israel is doing this because it cannot exist in its present iteration as a state without nonstop violence and abuse. Under the political ideology known as Zionism, peace, justice, truth and freedom are simply not an option.

January 6, 2026 Posted by | Israel, Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

As Israel bans aid orgs in Gaza, notorious mercenary firm seeks “Targeter”

the Israeli government is using the absurdly onerous new registration standards as cover to ban virtually every credible international aid organization from entering Gaza.

Max Blumenthal·December 31, 2025, https://thegrayzone.com/2025/12/31/israel-aid-gaza-mercenary-targeter/

Are Israel and the Trump admin planning to revive the dystopian Gaza Humanitarian Foundation scheme that spawned famine and death under cover of humanitarian aid?

In its bid to continue the genocide in Gaza, Israel has banned 37 international aid organizations from entering the decimated, militarily occupied coastal enclave. This leaves only five humanitarian groups still able to operate inside Gaza.

At the same time, one of the US mercenary firms responsible for securing the notorious Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites which were present during the worst periods of famine in Gaza, when at least 3000 Palestinian civilians were gunned down while seeking aid, has posted an ad soliciting former special forces soldiers for offensive operations.

UG Solutions, the scandal-stained private mercenary firm, announced this December that it was hiring an “experienced Targeter to support intelligence-driven operations through the identification, development, validation, and maintenance of operational targets.” The targeter will be expected to “Develop, validate, and maintain operational target packages in accordance with approved targeting processes.”

Anthony Aguilar, the retired United States Army Lt. Col and former Green Beret who blew the whistle on UG Solutions’ human rights abuses in Gaza, told me he believes that Israel’s ban on the 37 international aid organizations signals the return of UG Solutions as part of a restructured version of the Israeli-controlled Gaza Humanitarian Foundation scheme.

While it’s unclear where the UG Solutions targeter position will be deployed, if they are being hired for upcoming operations in Gaza, Aguilar says “this shows that the US, though paramilitary contractors, is now going to either directly target, or feed target data to the IDF.”

To set the stage for its blanket ban on international aid organizations, Israel’s intel-tied Ministry of Diaspora Affairs has demanded that all staffers of aid NGOs prove they do not support calls to boycott Israel, that they do not support armed struggle or oppose Israel’s existence as an exclusivist Jewish state, and that they do not “actively advance delegitimization activities against the State of Israel.”

Aid staffers must also demonstrate that they have never questioned the established history of the Holocaust or challenged official Israeli narratives about October 7 – including, presumably, that Palestinians committed “mass rape” or beheaded babies.

Israel has also demanded that Doctors Without Borders provide COGAT occupation administrators with the personal data of its staff and donors, an unprecedented move by a belligerent in a conflict which few, if any, aid groups could ever honor.

It seems obvious that the Israeli government is using the absurdly onerous new registration standards as cover to ban virtually every credible international aid organization from entering Gaza. In doing so, the apartheid entity seemingly seeks to deprive Palestinians living inside the yellow occupation line of sustenance, forcing them to leave Gaza, or to move into one of the high-tech, concentration camp-like “smart cities” mapped out in the dystopian new “Project Sunrise” proposal marketed by Trump cronies Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

And it is there that they would be “secured” by a mercenary outfit like UG Solutions – and targeted if they dared to resist.

Below is a list of all the aid orgs banned by Israel from operating in Gaza:

1. Accion contra el Hambre – Action Against Hunger
2. Action Aid
3. Alianza por la Solidaridad
4. Artsen zonder Grenzen (Medecins Sans Frontieres Nederland)
5. Campaign for the Children of Palestine (CCP Japan)
6. CARE
7. DanChurchAid
8. Danish Refugee Council
9. Handicap International – Humanity and Inclusion
10. Japan International Volunteer center
11. Medecins Du Monde (FRANCE)
12. Medecins du Monde Switzerland
13. Medecins Sans Frontières Belgium
14. Medecins Sans Frontieres France
15. Medicos del Mundo (Spain)
16. Mercy Corps
17. MSF Spain – Doctors Without Borders Spain
18. NORWEGIAN REFUGEE COUNCIL
19. Oxfam Novib
20. Premiere Urgence Internationale
21. Terre des hommes Lausanne
22. The International Rescue Committee (IRC)
23. WeWorld-GVC
24. World Vision International
25. Relief International
26. Fondazione AVSI
27. Movement for Peace – MPDL
28. American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)
29. Medico International
30. PSAS – The Palestine Solidarity Association in Sweden
31. Defense for Children International
32. Medical Aid for Palestinians – UK
33. Caritas Internationalis
34. Caritas Jerusalem
35. Near East council churches
36. OXFAM Quebec
37. War Child holland

January 5, 2026 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

The Pro-Israel Propaganda Complex

The Zionist PR machine is an enterprise to behold. It is probably historically unprecedented in the breadth and density of its lobbying and propaganda entities. 

If Israel is so innately good, why does it need so many resources to proselytise it, to defend it and to dissimulate about its character?

3 January 2026 AIMN Editorial, By Dr Evan Jones. https://theaimn.net/the-pro-israel-propaganda-complex/

Caitlin Johnstone’s customary finger on the Zionist pulse is how I was first exposed to the telling presentation by Sarah Hurwitz to the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly on 16 November 2025. Hurwitz was a senior adviser in the Obama administration (from which she was appointed as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council).

Says Hurwitz, young people no longer read but are hooked on social media. There, with respect to Gaza, they confront a ‘wall of carnage’. Hurwitz laments that: “So I want to give data and information and facts and arguments, and they are just seeing in their minds: carnage. And I sound obscene.” (Grown up) rationality has seemingly succumbed to (teenage) unprocessed sense impressions.

More, Holocaust education has been turned against us because our own young kin are applying the role of the evil oppressor, (Jewish) god forbid, to Israel itself.

British philosophy academic Lorna Finlayson (New Left Review’s Side Car) chimes in with respect to the Hurwitz performance:

“The true meaning of the Holocaust, we might infer, is not that it was bad because the strong were hurting the weak, but because Jews were the victims. When the victims are Black or Palestinian, it’s different.”

Peculiar that Hurwitz imagines that ‘the data and information and facts and arguments’ at her command contradict the youngster’s visualising the ‘wall of carnage’. The ‘data and information and facts and arguments’ that I am familiar with are consistent with the visuals.Finlayson concurs:

“The trouble for Hurwitz, however, is that if the pictures aren’t on her side, the ‘facts’ and ‘data’ are even less so. The more we see of them, the worse Israel looks.”

Dead children, medicos, journalists, aid workers – an impressive and mounting tally. Ah, and the infrastructure! The landscape obliterated. Bradford University’s Paul Rogers, interviewed in April 2025, estimated that 70,000 tonnes of explosives had been dropped on Gaza to that date.

Hurwitz waxes mystical:

“The problem is, we’re not just a religion … We’re a nation. Civilization. Tribe. Peoplehood. But most of all we’re a family. … The seven million people in Israel, they are not my co-religionists, they are my siblings.”

‘The seven million people in Israel’ – what? Hurwitz is referring to Jewish people in Israeland, presumably, Jewish settlers who don’t live in Israel (add Russian ersatz Jews assimilated to up the numbers). Hurwitz conflates the local Jewish population and the state of Israel. The others don’t exist.

Civilisation I don’t think so. ‘Tribe’ is correct – this is tribalism writ large. Yet the bad eggs, the founders and successive leaders of apartheid Israel, are dictating to the tribe the terms in their entirety on which tribalism will prevail. For Hurwitz – Israel is us, period. Being Jewish, you’re in the tribe on Israel’s terms – period. What do you think, at some expense, we send you to Jewish day school and Hebrew school for?

Finlayson again:

“The problem [for Hurwitz] with Palestinian children is not that they are evil [as perthe claims of Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant] but that they are a PR challenge.”

How in the world could the bloodthirsty Zionist enterprise, acting with impunity, face a PR challenge?

The Zionist PR machine is an enterprise to behold. It is probably historically unprecedented in the breadth and density of its lobbying and propaganda entities. The character of the matrix is well captured in a review of American academic Harriet Malinowitz’s recent book Selling Israel: Zionism, Propaganda, and the Uses of Hasbara, from whence this Malinowitz summary is extracted:

“[The hasbara, which can be] bluntly described as propaganda, but in fact comprises a huge network of government ministries, nongovernmental organizations, nonprofit agencies and charities, campus organizations, volunteer groups, watchdog bodies, professional associations, media networks, fundraising operations, and educational programs that aim to fortify a Zionist-defined notion of Jewishness in persons within Israel, the United States, and other countries.”

Quite. And that’s just for Jewry itself, to keep it on the straight and narrow. The network addressed to the non-compliance and ignorance of non-Jews is something else.

Attached below is a list, inevitably incomplete, of organisations that one has been able to compile from public sources. It is a scrappy matrix, even anarchic but layered, influenced by national Jewish communities’ size and history, and by individual initiatives. It is complemented by Israeli state authority initiatives.

In total, the resources devoted to selling Israel and warding off and attacking its detractors have been and are formidable. Do Zionists have time in their life for anything else?

There’s an anomaly here. If Israel is so innately good, why does it need so many resources to proselytise it, to defend it and to dissimulate about its character?

The juggernaut has evidently had impressive results, of which the following samples.

The US Congress is a Zionist-occupied entity. The mass murderer Benjamin Netanyahu is invited into the hallowed premises (Joint: 10 July 1996, 24 May 2011, 3 March 2015, 25 July 2024; House: 12 September 2002), debauches it with his mendacity and is met with standing ovations.

The EU-Israel Association Agreement ‘entered into force’ in June 2000. The Agreement accords Israel considerable privileges. The background is here. The 154 page document is here. Of integral relevance is Article 2:

“Relations between the Parties, as well as all the provisions of the Agreement itself, shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of this Agreement.”

Israel is an apartheid state by construction, so how could this trade Agreement ever get on the drawing board, leave alone come to fruition?

Israel remains ensconced in global sporting entities, as exemplified with soccer. There is currently pressure on UEFA and FIFA to exclude Israel but the governing bodies have resisted to date. Russia has been sanctioned. Israel remains in the bosom of global sport.

Ditto culture. Eurovision’s sponsor, the European Broadcasting Union, is also under pressure to exclude Israel but has ignored it (this is ‘a non-political event’). Russia is immediately expelled in 2022. Israel remains in Eurovision. Israel has won Eurovision four times, with more recent questions arising of dubious voting integrity and the transparent ‘soft power’ leverage by Israel of the platform to detract from the ongoing genocide.

Perusing the list, one can observe select categories.

1. Some early organisations began as charities to support Jewish communities in need. Amongst these, there has been a general trend to turn towards support for the state of Israel – sometimes auxiliary, sometimes central. Some latter–day organisations are formally Jewish community support-oriented but add Israel to their charter.

2. Some organisations stand out with respect to the influence of their operations. Uniquely there is the Jewish Agency for Israel, in Mandatory Palestine, which, with the Jewish National Council, were the nuclei for the state of Israel after 1948.

Singularly important are the dominant organisations in particular countries, not least AIPAC in the US, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and CRIF in France.

The power of AIPAC puts it in a league of its own. AIPAC exerts an enormous influence on the US Congress, not least through funding for and against sitting members and candidates, and fostering Israel junkets. AIPAC funding contributed to the defeat of long-serving Illinois Representative Paul Findley in 1982. Findley’s contemporary and fellow activist Pete McCloskey, California Representative (1967-83) was perennially under attack from the Zionist lobby. AIPAC and other Jewish organisations’ funding facilitated the defeat of long-time Georgia Representative Cynthia McKinney and Alabama Representative Earl Hilliard, both in 2002 primaries. AIPAC funding defeated Maryland Congresswoman Donna Edwards, seeking re-election to a seat she previously held, in 2022. AIPAC funding defeated Missouri Representative Cori Bush and New York Representative Jaamal Bowman, both in primaries in 2024. Apparently AIPAC ‘invested’ $45 million in the November 2024 elections, half of which went to defeating Bush and Bowman. AIPAC conferences present a ghoulish spectacle in which Congress and government members bow down before AIPAC’s commitment to the imperatives of a foreign rogue state. (More details regarding the US Israel lobby are outlinedin Serge Halimi’s ‘Is the United States’ patience with Israel running out?’, Le Monde Diplomatique, December 2025.)

3. A discernible category covers Christian Zionist organisations and Jewish organisations seeking amity with and support from Christian groups, not least Evangelicals. Christians United for Israel (US) is clearly the most significant of this grouping, with CUFI claiming over 10 million members. Israel and Zionism evidently value this alliance in terms of the numerical ‘heft’ that it brings.

Israeli academic Tom Ziv performed a quantitative analysis of the size of evangelical Christian Zionist populations in 18 Latin American countries (‘Evangelicalism and Support for Israel in Latin America’, Politics & Religion, 2022). He found a link between the size of such groups and the country’s support for Israel as reflected in UN votes, with such groups evidently having a direct impact on their country’s foreign policy. Being a ‘true’ value-free academic, he declines to articulate the ‘policy implications’, although the Israeli authorities would be thoroughly aware of the implications for hasbara PR funding.

As mainstream protestant churches were reducing their support for Israel (tangibly in divesting denomination-related investments from Israel-related corporations and activities), so also there had been some small shift against whole-hearted support for Israel amongst young evangelicals. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………https://theaimn.net/the-pro-israel-propaganda-complex/

January 4, 2026 Posted by | Israel, Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Palestine Before Nationalism: What Was Lost – and Why It Matters Now

Zionism transformed Jewish identity from a plural, diasporic, and ethical tradition into a political nationality defined by territory, demography, and security doctrine. Dissent increasingly became framed as disloyalty. Equality became a threat.

2 January 2026 Lachlan McKenzie , https://theaimn.net/pa

Before Palestine became a battlefield of competing nationalisms, it was something far less dramatic and far more instructive: a plural society. Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived across the country under the governance of the Ottoman Empire – not as equals in the modern democratic sense, but as communities governed by a legal order that prioritised coexistence over domination.

That historical reality matters today, because it challenges a central myth: that Zionism arrived to redeem a land defined by religious hostility or demographic absence. Neither was true.

A plural society, not a vacuum

In the late nineteenth century, Palestine was overwhelmingly Arab in language and culture, religiously mixed, and socially interconnected. Jewish communities – often called the Old Yishuv – were long-established, Arabic-speaking, and locally embedded. Christian Palestinians maintained churches, schools, and civic institutions dating back centuries. Identity was local and communal, not nationalist.

This was not an idyllic society. Ottoman Palestine was hierarchical and imperfect. But it was not organised around ethnic replacement, nor did it pursue a political project of removing one people to secure the sovereignty of another.

Were Ottoman laws fair?

By contemporary standards, Ottoman governance was not democratic or fully equal. Yet by the standards of its time, it was comparatively tolerant and functional.

Under the Ottoman millet system, non-Muslims were recognised as protected communities (dhimmi), permitted to practise their religion, manage communal affairs, and hold property. Jews expelled from Christian Europe repeatedly sought refuge in Ottoman lands, including Palestine.¹

In the nineteenth century, the empire initiated the Tanzimat Reforms, which aimed – however unevenly – to equalise subjects before the law regardless of religion.² These reforms reduced religious hierarchy rather than intensifying it.

Crucially, Ottoman law did not pursue demographic engineering. It governed diversity; it did not attempt to erase it.

Zionism as rupture, not return

Political Zionism emerged not from Palestinian Jewish life but from nineteenth-century Europe, shaped by ethnic nationalism and colonial settlement logic. Its leaders were explicit about the central obstacle they faced: Palestine was already inhabited.

Rather than abandoning the project, early Zionists debated how to overcome that reality. Theodor Herzl wrote privately of removing the indigenous population through economic exclusion.³ Zionist institutions adopted policies of land acquisition coupled with tenant removal, “Hebrew labour only”, and the construction of a separate economy.⁴

Demographic dominance was understood as a prerequisite for sovereignty. Mass immigration would create irreversible “facts on the ground,” after which political recognition could follow.

“Transfer” and force

By the 1930s, leading Zionists discussed population removal – often termed “transfer” – as necessary. David Ben-Gurion acknowledged that a Jewish state could not be realised without displacement, writing that compulsory transfer could provide “something which we never had.”⁵

Ze’ev Jabotinsky was even more candid. In his 1923 essay The Iron Wall, he argued that indigenous peoples never consent to colonisation, and that Jewish sovereignty would require overwhelming force until resistance was broken.⁶ This was not a religious argument; it was a settler-colonial one.

Palestinian Jewish opposition – erased from memory

These developments were not universally welcomed by Jews in Palestine. Many Palestinian Jews opposed Zionism, fearing it would shatter coexistence, recast Jews as settlers, and provoke conflict with Muslim and Christian neighbours. Their objections were pragmatic and prescient. They understood that they – not European ideologues – would live with the consequences.

Zionism’s eventual dominance owed less to universal Jewish consent than to imperial sponsorship, particularly British support following the 1917 Balfour Declaration, and to the catastrophic narrowing of perceived alternatives after the Holocaust.

What was lost

Zionism transformed Jewish identity from a plural, diasporic, and ethical tradition into a political nationality defined by territory, demography, and security doctrine. Dissent increasingly became framed as disloyalty. Equality became a threat.

The tragedy is not that Ottoman Palestine was perfect. It is that a plural society governed by law – however flawed – was dismantled and replaced by a project that required dominance to succeed.

That is the historical rupture. And it is why the conflict is modern, political, and structural – not ancient or inevitable.

A society that already contained Jews, Christians, and Muslims was remade into a battlefield by a European nationalist project that could not tolerate equality.

Understanding that history does not deny Jewish suffering. It honours it – by insisting that persecution should never be answered with its reproduction.

Footnotes and Primary Sources……………..

January 3, 2026 Posted by | history, MIDDLE EAST | Leave a comment

Trump says he believes Iran wants to make deal as he extols size of US ‘armada’

US president declines to say whether he plans Venezuela-like operation, after Tehran signalled it was ready for talks

Killing Khamenei? Hitting military sites? It is unclear what a US attack on Iran would achieve

Patrick Wintour, Guardian, 31 Jan 26

Donald Trump has said he believes Tehran wants to make a deal to head off a regional conflict, as he claimed the US “armada” near Iran was bigger than the taskforce deployed to topple Venezuela’s leader.

“We have a large armada, flotilla, call it whatever you want, heading toward Iran right now, even larger than what we had in Venezuela,” the US president told reporters on Friday.

“Hopefully we’ll make a deal. If we do make a deal, that’s good. If we don’t make a deal, we’ll see what happens.”

He declined to say whether he planned a repeat of the military operation in Venezuela in which US forces captured and renditioned the president, Nicolás Maduro.

“I don’t want to talk about anything having to do with what I’m doing militarily,” he said.

His comments came after Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi said Tehran was ready to negotiate with the US, but only if talks were not under duress and did not extend to Iran’s missile programme.

After meetings with Turkish diplomats, Araghchi said Iran was “ready to begin negotiations if they take place on an equal footing, based on mutual interests and mutual respect”. He said there were no immediate plans to meet US officials, adding: “I want to state firmly that Iran’s defensive and missile capabilities will never be subject to negotiation.”

Araghchi said: “The Islamic Republic of Iran, just as it is ready for negotiations, is also ready for war.”

Trump said on Thursday he hoped to avoid military action, even as the US deployed another warship to the Middle East, joining the USS Abraham Lincoln and several guided-missile destroyers.

But his precise objectives remain unclear. Speaking at the premiere of the documentary Melania, the US president told reporters Iran had to do “two things” to avoid military action. “Number one, no nuclear. And number two, stop killing protesters,” saying that “they are killing them by the thousands”.

He added: “We have a lot of very big, very powerful ships sailing to Iran right now, and it would be great if we didn’t have to use them.”

Iran has blamed the US and Israel for the protests that erupted in late December over economic grievances, and were brutally suppressed. Activist groups estimate as many as 30,000 people were killed in the ensuing crackdown.

On Saturday, the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu and Europe had stirred tensions in the protests and “provoked” people.

The Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, said the resumption of talks between Tehran and Washington over Iran’s nuclear programme was “vital for reducing regional tensions”. Speaking alongside Araghchi, he claimed Israel was pushing for the US to attack Iran, and urged Washington to “act with common sense and not allow this to happen”.

In a call with Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said he was willing to act as a mediator between Iran and the US.

From Iran’s perspective, the US is piling ever more demands on Tehran that if all were implemented would spell the end of its sovereignty.

Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff has called for an end to Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme, the transfer of its existing stock of highly enriched uranium out of the country, limits on Iran’s missile programme and an end to support for proxy groups in countries such as Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen…………………………………………………………………………. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/30/donald-trump-iran-end-nuclear-programme-killing-protesters-face-us-military

January 3, 2026 Posted by | Iran, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

UN Security Council Abandoned Palestinians. Humanity Must Refuse to Follow Suit.

As the new year approaches, Palestinians face new forms of colonization and new challenges to our rights and survival.

By Michel Moushabeck , Truthout January 1, 2026

Today we have a so-called ceasefire that is killing Palestinians on a daily basis. When it comes to Israel, the word “ceasefire” simply means that Palestinians are not allowed to retaliate against Israeli airstrikes, shelling, artillery, bombs, house demolitions, or suicide drones. In reality, Israel can fire all it wants and has been doing so since the minute the agreement took effect. According to President Donald Trump, “nothing is going to jeopardize” the ceasefire in Gaza.

The ceasefire, hailed as a success by the U.S. and the Western world, has done little to end the siege of Gaza and the deepening starvation and malnutrition of Palestinians, especially the children. And it is unlikely to usher in a pathway to freedom, equality, or self-determination for the Palestinian people in the foreseeable future.

The “ceasefire” is nothing but a cover for Israel’s genocidal practices, supported by the U.S. and Western nations, and disguised by mainstream media. It is a deceptive appearance and a ploy that deflects criticism, allows the continued supply of U.S. weapons to Israel, shields the Israeli regime from accountability,

disappears the Gaza genocide from the news, and enables Israel to continue the extermination and displacement of Palestinians.

Can We Stop Pretending There Is a Functioning “Ceasefire” in Gaza?

Since October 10, 2025, the day the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and the Israeli government went into effect, the Israeli military has killed nearly 400 Palestinians and injured over 1,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Under the ceasefire agreement, Israel is required to allow 600 trucks of aid and other goods into Gaza every day, but UN data show that Israel continues to block food aid, medical supplies, and tents in violation of the agreement.

Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, said in a statement on November 27: “The ceasefire risks creating a dangerous illusion that life in Gaza is returning to normal … the world must not be fooled. Israel’s genocide is not over.”

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the total death toll of Palestinians since October 7, 2023, is now 70,100, with 171,151 injured and many more buried under the rubble. The Israeli bombardment resulted in an estimated 50 million tons of rubble.

What the statistics don’t reflect are the number of people in Gaza that were killed by Israel not through bombs and airstrikes, but through indirect means: Palestinians killed because of lack of shelter after Israel destroyed their homes; because of the destruction of their water supplies and desalination plants, electricity supplies, and sanitation systems; because of the flattening of clinics and hospitals; and because of starvation and diseases.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said shelter materials for 1.3 million people and about 5,000 trucks of emergency supplies remain stalled outside Gaza as Israel continues to block all UNRWA-associated goods from entering.

The Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, who have endured 77 years of brutal Israeli military occupation and a system of apartheid that denies them their rights, are left with no choice other than to continue their struggle for liberation and against erasure and ethnic cleansing — including their right to armed resistance as recognized under international law.

UN Security Council Loses Sight of Its Mission and Betrays the Palestinians

On November 17, 2025, in an unexpected and disgraceful vote of 13-0 that is counter to the UN’s raison d’être — with two abstentions from Russia and China — the UN Security Council (UNSC) adopted Resolution 2803, which embraces Trump’s — or is it Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s? — “20-point peace plan,” effectively normalizing genocide, rewarding U.S. complicity, and establishing new colonial rule over the lives of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza. It grants full control over Gaza to a U.S.-led “Board of Peace,” headed by Trump himself, that will oversee the administration and reconstruction of the Strip and establishes an “International Stabilization Force” in charge of security and disarming the resistance — not a UN peacekeeping force that will protect Palestinians.

Palestinians who have endured two years of genocide — and the total destruction of their homes and livelihoods — were not part of the negotiations and had no say in this matter. The plan — hatched by the Trump-Netanyahu team and legitimized by the UNSC — includes no mention of the genocide and does not call for accountability for the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed over the last two years. This plan, which whitewashes the genocide, will never be forgotten or forgiven by any Palestinian. It denies Palestinians their humanity, their right to self-determination, and does nothing to address their grievances or root causes of their struggle. It will simply prolong the illegal occupation and will not advance peace or stability in the region in any meaningful way.

Israel views the inclusion of language in the resolution about a “pathway to Palestinian statehood” as nonbinding. In fact, the day after the UNSC vote, Netanyahu publicly stated his strong opposition to a Palestinian state. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….https://truthout.org/articles/un-security-council-abandoned-palestinians-humanity-must-refuse-to-follow-suit/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=db602f5be8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2026_01_01_06_24&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-db602f5be8-650192793

January 3, 2026 Posted by | MIDDLE EAST, politics international | Leave a comment

Trump reaffirms his support for another strike on Iran after meeting with Netanyahu

On Monday, Donald Trump reaffirmed his support for another strike on Iran after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But analysts say Netanyahu’s designs go far beyond Iran.

Mondoweiss, By Michael Arria  December 30, 2025

In comments to reporters after his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Donald Trump reiterated his support for another strike on Iran.

“I hope they’re not trying to build up again, because if they are, we’re going to have no choice but very quickly, to eradicate that build up,” said Trump, referring to the alleged expansion of Iran’s ballistic missile program.

“We’ll knock them down,” he added. “We’ll knock the hell out of them.”

Netanyahu has consistently pushed for a wider war on Iran, and was expected to make the case for further attacks during his Mar-a-Lago visit.

Trump’s comments prompted an immediate response from Iranian officials.

In an article in The Guardian, Iranian foreign minister Seyed Araghchi called on the Trump administration to defy Israel on the issue.

“The US administration now faces a dilemma: it can continue writing blank cheques for Israel with American taxpayer dollars and credibility, or be part of a tectonic change for the better,” he wrote. “For decades, Western policy towards our region has been mostly shaped by myths originating from Israel.”

“The response of the Islamic Republic of Iran to any oppressive aggression will be harsh and regrettable,” tweeted Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

In a post on the meeting, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft Vice President Trita Parsi wrote that an attack on Iran could easily lead to retaliatory strikes.

“Tehran has gone to great lengths to avoid a military confrontation with Washington, but just because it has shown restraint in the past does not mean that it can afford to do so in this scenario,” wrote Parsi. “Indeed, given that Iran will be totally exposed without its missiles, it will likely reckon that it has no choice but to strike directly at U.S. targets.”

“Even if Trump opts to ‘only’ support Israel defensively in yet another Israeli choice of war — which is the position Biden took — it nevertheless incentivizes Israel to restart war, as the U.S. is lessening the cost for Israel to do so,” he continued……………………………………………………. https://mondoweiss.net/2025/12/trump-reaffirms-his-support-for-another-strike-on-iran-after-meeting-with-netanyahu/

January 3, 2026 Posted by | Iran, Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Israel Bans Dozens of Aid Groups from Operating in Gaza, Including Doctors Without Borders.

Other groups that are being banned include the Norwegian Refugee Council, the Catholic charity Caritas, and Oxfam

by Dave DeCamp | December 30, 2025 , https://news.antiwar.com/2025/12/30/israel-bans-dozens-of-aid-groups-from-operating-in-gaza-including-doctors-without-borders/

Starting on January 1, Israel will ban 37 international aid groups and charities from operating in Gaza in its latest effort to add to the misery for the Palestinian civilians living in flimsy tents and bombed-out buildings in the Strip.

The groups being banned include several prominent international aid organizations: Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the Catholic charity Caritas, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and Oxfam. The NGOs will also be barred from working in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Israel will stop the groups from operating in Gaza for failing to comply with its stringent new requirements, which include handing over information about their Palestinian employees. The new Israeli rules also include vague ideological requirements that can disqualify any NGO that “promotes delegitimization campaigns” against Israel, or if it, or any officeholder, has called for a boycott of Israel.

An Israeli official claimed, without providing evidence, that an investigation revealed “employees of certain organizations were involved in terrorist activity… in particular, Doctors Without Borders.” The action against MSF is seen in part as an Israeli reaction to the organization’s criticism of Israel’s genocidal campaign in the Strip.

In a statement warning of the consequences of banning it from Gaza, MSF said that it has served hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza this year.

“If Israeli authorities revoke MSF’s access to Gaza in 2026, a large portion of people in Gaza will lose access to critical medical care, water, and lifesaving support,” the group said. “MSF’s activities serve nearly half a million people in Gaza through our vital support to the destroyed health system. MSF continues to seek constructive engagement with Israeli authorities to continue its activities.”

Israel’s move to ban the NGOs comes as Israel continues to violate the US-backed ceasefire deal by continuing to launch attacks on Palestinians and maintaining restrictions on aid and shelter materials entering the Strip.

January 2, 2026 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

Israel’s Ceasefire Violations in Gaza Continue to Pile Up

By International Middle East Media Center, December 29, 2025 , https://scheerpost.com/2025/12/29/israels-ceasefire-violations-in-gaza-continue-to-pile-up/


Israeli occupation forces continued to breach the ceasefire agreement on Friday and Saturday, carrying out new airstrikes, artillery fire, and machine‑gun attacks across several areas of the Gaza Strip.

The renewed violations come as casualty figures climb and rescue teams warn they are unable to reach many of the dead and wounded.

On Saturday, the body of the child Atta Ma’moun Mai was recovered after he fell into a deep water well near the al‑Sudaniyya junction in the Gaza Strip.

On Friday evening, a Palestinian man, Odai al‑Maqadma, died after being shot by Israeli forces east of Gaza City.

Witnesses said troops opened machine‑gun fire toward him as he sat near the gate of Hafsa School. He was struck in the head and rushed to hospital in critical condition, where doctors later pronounced him dead.

Air, Naval, and Artillery Fire Across Multiple Regions

Israeli naval vessels opened fire on Saturday morning toward the coastline west of Gaza City, forcing fishermen and nearby residents to take cover.

At the same time, the Israeli occupation army continued demolishing buildings east of the Zeitoun and Tuffah neighborhoods, as well as in the Maghazi and Nuseirat refugee camps in central Gaza.

Further south, airstrikes, and bursts of machine‑gun fire were reported in the eastern areas of Khan Younis, where thousands of displaced families remain in makeshift shelters.

The Israeli Airforce also fired missile near the eastern graveyard of the Al-Bureij refugee camp, in central Gaza.

Humanitarian workers say these attacks have made it nearly impossible to deliver aid or recover bodies from destroyed neighborhoods, despite the declared ceasefire.

Casualty Toll Continues to Rise

The overall death toll from the genocide in Gaza has reached 71,266 Palestinians killed and 171,219 injured since 7 October 2023.

Medical teams reported that in the past 48 hours alone, hospitals received 29 bodies—including 4 newly killed individuals and 25 bodies recovered from rubble—along with 8 wounded. Many more victims remain trapped under collapsed buildings and in streets that rescue crews cannot safely access.

Civil‑defense teams say they are unable to reach large sections of Gaza City, central Gaza, and Khan Younis because Israeli forces continue to fire toward access routes and because many roads remain destroyed.

13-year-old Alaa suffered multiple injuries after surviving an Israeli attack in Gaza. While she recovered in the hospital, Israeli forces shot and killed her father as he was seeking humanitarian aid. pic.twitter.com/95RLrpFXwY— Defense for Children (@DCIPalestine) December 27, 2025

“Ceasefire Period” Still Marked by Killings and Destruction

Since the “ceasefire” announced on 11 October 2025, at least 410 Palestinians have been killed and 1,134 injured, while 649 bodies have been recovered from various locations. Dozens more remain under the rubble or in areas where rescue teams cannot operate.

Medical authorities also confirmed that 292 additional fatalities were recently added to the cumulative death toll after their documentation was completed by the official casualty verification committee between 19 and 26 December 2025..

A “Ceasefire” Undermined by Ongoing Military Violations

A review of field reports, hospital data, and eyewitness accounts shows a consistent pattern of Israeli military activity that contradicts the ceasefire’s terms. Violations documented over the past week include:

  • Ground fire targeting civilians and rescue workers in eastern Gaza City and Khan Younis.
  • Airstrikes and demolitions in Zeitoun, Tuffah, Maghazi, and Nuseirat.
  • Naval fire along Gaza’s western coastline.
  • Obstruction of rescue efforts, leaving victims under rubble.

As Israel pushes the ceasefire ‘yellow line’ deeper into Gaza amid complete mediator silence, systematic detonation of entire blocks is now underway. pic.twitter.com/Avvp5JgTX1— Israel Genocide Tracker (@trackingisrael) December 27, 2025

Humanitarian organizations say the pattern amounts to a “ceasefire in name only,” with Israeli forces maintaining operational pressure across multiple fronts while restricting the movement of civilians and emergency crews.

Humanitarian Conditions Remain in Freefall

Despite the ceasefire, Gaza’s humanitarian situation remains catastrophic. Hospitals are overwhelmed, morgues are full, and thousands of families remain displaced in areas still exposed to fire.

Gaza’s Civil Defense said it is facing “extremely harsh humanitarian conditions,” reporting continuous distress calls from displaced families as the winter storm intensifies.

The agency noted that many worn‑out tents did not withstand the intense winds, leading to their tearing or being completely uprooted, leaving families exposed in the open.

Aid agencies warn that without a genuine halt to military activity, the death toll will continue to rise—not only from direct attacks but from untreated injuries, lack of medical access, and the collapse of essential services.

January 1, 2026 Posted by | Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

Trump’s team no longer trusts Netanyahu – Axios.

27 Dec 25, https://www.rt.com/news/630093-trump-team-distrust-netanyahu/

The US president’s close aides reportedly feel that the Israeli prime minister is deliberately stalling the Gaza peace process.

Officials in US President Donald Trump’s closest circle no longer believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can be trusted to push forward with the Gaza peace plan, Axios reported on Friday, citing insiders.

The future of Trump’s grand Gaza war settlement roadmap, unveiled in September, hinges on his upcoming meeting with the Israeli leader on Monday, according to the outlet.

Last week, US special envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met with officials from Egypt, Qatar, and Türkiye to finalize the next step of the plan, which envisions Hamas disarming and Israel pulling out of Gaza.

Netanyahu has privately expressed skepticism about the roadmap, but the plan cannot go ahead without his buy-in, Axios said.

“Bibi is trying to convince a one-man audience,” the outlet cited a White House official as saying. “The question is whether Trump will side with him or with his top advisers when it comes to Gaza.”

Key figures in Trump’s team have now lost trust in Netanyahu, fearing he is “slow-walking the peace process” and could resume the war with Hamas after taking steps to undermine the fragile ceasefire, according to Axios.

The Israeli PM has “lost” Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and both Kushner and Witkoff, the outlet wrote, citing another US official.

“The only one he has left is the president, who still likes him, but even he wants to see the Gaza deal moving faster than it is right now.”

Trump is expected to press Netanyahu to move past the Gaza war, as well as raise the issue of Israel’s push into the occupied West Bank, according to Axios.

West Jerusalem officially approved the construction of nearly a dozen new controversial Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory earlier this week, drawing international condemnation.

On top of losing trust within the White House, Netanyahu’s government has taken a beating in the domestic approval polls. Only a quarter of Israeli Jews trust their government, and only 17% of the country’s Arabs, according to an Israel Democracy Institute poll published earlier this week.

January 1, 2026 Posted by | Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Palestinian factions have come together to thwart Israeli plans in Gaza, for now

The U.S. appears ready to reassess its tactics in carrying out Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza. The news vindicates the strategy Palestinians have used during the ceasefire to avoid the surrender Israel has demanded in exchange for ending the genocide. 

Mondoweiss, By Mitchell Plitnick  December 26, 2025

The United States seems to be poised to reevaluate its tactics in implementing President Donald Trump’s plan for the Gaza Strip. It seems they are considering installing a Palestinian technocrat government and Palestinian police force before assembling their International Stabilization Force (ISF), which they are finding no country wants to be part of.

While this remains very far from acknowledging the rights of the Palestinian people, and even farther from realizing those rights in practice, it is a real vindication for the strategic decisions that the assortment of Palestinian factions — not only Hamas — made in the wake of the diminishment of Israel’s genocide in October.

According to recent reports, the governments of Egypt, Türkiye, and Qatar have managed to make the Trump administration understand that their push for quick Palestinian disarmament in Gaza and the subsequent occupation of the Strip by an international force that would not include Palestinians is a non-starter.  

Now, Washington is trying to come up with a formula that is more in keeping with what they’ve heard from their allies and would still be something they can sell to Israel. For its part, Israel has been conspicuously silent about all of this, probably waiting for their prime minister’s visit to Washington next week to voice their objections. 

On paper, that all seems to amount to a minor victory at best, but digging deeper, we can see it vindicates the strategy the Palestinians have pursued to end Israel’s genocide and  avoid the total surrender that Israel has pursued as the price for ending that horror. 

A Palestinian gamble pays off

It’s worth keeping in mind that, while most media portray Hamas as the sole conductor of diplomacy in Gaza, decisions that affect all the people of Gaza and Palestine have actually been reached by a consensus of a wide array of Palestinian factions. This has even included Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party, although it has been an inconsistent member and has often acted independently, often undermining the loosely unified factions. 

That coalition agreed to the first stage of Trump’s plan, in which the militant factions, led by Hamas, ceased their offensive operations against Israelis, released all the remaining living hostages, as well as the bodies of those who are deceased (save two, one Israeli and one Thai hostage, who remain buried under rubble). 

However, they never agreed to the rest of the plan, neither accepting nor rejecting it outright. In what was a bold but very risky move, the Palestinians insisted on more negotiations to find an accommodation that would allow Hamas to step aside from governance and lay down their arms without disappearing completely from Palestine or sacrificing the principle that they have the right to resist Israel’s violent occupation and apartheid, even with force, as international law provides.

The factions gambled that the Trump administration really wanted the worst of the ceasefire to stop, and that the U.S. would negotiate to maintain the ceasefire, however illusory it may be. And thus the very worst of the genocide was diminished. 

It seemed a pyrrhic victory. The United States pressed forward with its efforts to assemble an international force to disarm Hamas and police Gaza, while its “Board of Peace” would govern Gaza with Palestinian technocrats merely operating the administrative, day-to-day tasks. Israel continued its attacks and refused to allow sufficient aid, including material for shelter in the winter months, and Palestinians continued dying and suffering, albeit at a lower rate. Yet the factions held to their bet.

Finally, now, it seems the bet has paid off. The Trump administration seems to have gotten the message that disarming Hamas cannot happen by force or coercion………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://mondoweiss.net/2025/12/palestinian-factions-have-come-together-to-thwart-israeli-plans-in-gaza-for-now/

January 1, 2026 Posted by | MIDDLE EAST | Leave a comment

Netanyahu Is Visiting Trump For The FIFTH Time This Year, And Other Notes.

Caitlin Johnstone, Dec 28, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/netanyahu-is-visiting-trump-for-the?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=182737899&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Benjamin Netanyahu will be meeting with President Trump again on Monday. This will be the pair’s fifth meeting in the United States this year, but of course it would be antisemitic to suggest that there’s anything strange about the US president meeting with the Israeli prime minister more frequently than with any other foreign leader on the planet.

NBC reports that Netanyahu is expected to discuss more attacks on Iran during the visit, citing concerns about “Iran’s efforts to rebuild facilities where they produce the ballistic missiles and to repair its crippled air defense systems.”

Which is just wild. They’ve stopped making up pretend nonsense about nuclear weapons and now they’re just going “We need to attack Iran because Iran is rebuilding its ability to stop us from attacking it.”

On Christmas Day, Donald Trump became the first American president ever to bomb Nigeria. While Trump claimed the Tomahawk missile strike was directed at ISIS targets with the goal of protecting Christians in the northwestern farming community of Jabo, locals told CNN that Islamic State has had no presence in the area and that Christians and Muslims coexist peacefully there. Residents also told Al Jazeera that the airstrikes resulted in no casualties, civilian or otherwise, meaning the bombing accomplished nothing besides terrifying some farmers and setting a precedent to normalize US airstrikes in yet another African nation.

Israel has ignited worldwide controversy by formally recognizing the breakaway Somali region known as Somaliland. I’ve seen a lot of people highlighting reports that Israel has been in communication with Somaliland as a potential location to which the population of Gaza might be deported in an ethnic cleansing operation of the Palestinian territory, noting that recognition could be a way of enticing Somaliland to agree to the arrangement.

Back in August the Times of Israel reported that “Israel is in talks with five countries or territories — Indonesia, Somaliland, Uganda, South Sudan and Libya — about potentially accepting resettled Palestinians from the Gaza Strip,” adding that “Somaliland is a breakaway region of Somalia that is reportedly hoping to secure international recognition through the deal.”

A German journalist named Anna Liedtke reports that she was raped by Israeli forces after she was abducted from the Global Sumud Flotilla while attempting to deliver aid to starving people in Gaza this past October. Unsurprisingly, as of this writing there appears to be a near-total media blackout on Liedtke’s story in the German press.

❖

Activist Greta Thunberg has been arrested by British police because in the UK it is considered an act of terrorism to hold a sign which says “I support the Palestine Action prisoners. I oppose genocide.”

Zionism is the single greatest threat to free speech in the western world.

New South Wales Premier Chris Minns defended his authoritarian crackdown on pro-Palestine protesters following the Bondi shooting by arguing that Australia doesn’t have the same free speech protections as the US.

“I acknowledge that we don’t have the same free speech rules that they have in the United States and I make no apologies for that, we have got a responsibility to knit together our community,” Minns said.

And of course Minns isn’t wrong when he says Australians don’t have any real free speech rights (Australia is the only western democracy without any kind of national bill of rights), but it is a bit odd to be openly proclaiming that this is a good thing because it means you’re allowed to stomp out criticism of Israel. Kinda feels like that’s saying the quiet part out loud.

It’s been so surreal watching in real time as Australians get manipulated into accepting the Zionist narrative about the Bondi Beach attack. As of this writing we have not been presented with the tiniest shred of evidence that anti-genocide protests had anything whatsoever to do with the massacre, but the nation is proceeding as though this is an established fact. NSW is banning the phrase “globalise the intifada” and passing laws allowing for demonstrations to be made illegal for up to three months while PM Anthony Albanese rolls out more policies to align with “antisemitism envoy” Jillian Segal’s plan to crush free speech in Australia. After being smashed in the face with an extremely aggressive mass media propaganda campaign to marry the Bondi attack to anti-genocide demonstrations in the minds of the public, a recent poll by the Resolve Political Monitor found that 53 percent of Australians now support a ban on pro-Palestine marches.

Again, this is happening in light of literally zero evidence that pro-Palestine demonstrations were even slightly responsible for the Bondi attack. None. Nothing. They’re suggesting that there is an association between the two, and they are lying. They’re rolling out pre-existing agendas to crush free expression in opposition to an active genocide, and they are doing so based on lies.

And Australians are just going right along with it, like a bunch of human livestock. We’re a whole damn continent full of bipedal sheep. Absolutely fucking pathetic.

I still can’t believe what evil, disgusting pigs Israel supporters are. The instant the Bondi shooting happened, their very first thought was “How can we use this to stomp out pro-Palestine demonstrations?” Not their third or fourth thought. Their first. They started pushing it instantly. Didn’t even wait for the bodies to cool, the sick fucks. All to stop people from protesting a genocide.

I am so angry at them right now. Absolute worst people in the world.

December 31, 2025 Posted by | Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Netanyahu to Press for ‘Another Round of War With Iran’ in Meeting With Trump This Week

Amid a growing rift between Israel and the White House, one foreign policy analyst says the meeting “will signal whether Washington is prepared to continue underwriting open-ended escalation.”

Stephen Prager, Dec 28, 2025, https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-netanyahu-meeting-iran-war

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to Mar-a-Lago to meet with US President Donald Trump on Monday, amid a growing rift with the president and his advisers, reports say he’ll seek to push the US back toward war with Iran.

Last week, NBC News reported that at the meeting, “Netanyahu is expected to make the case to Trump that Iran’s expansion of its ballistic missile program poses a threat that could necessitate swift action” and that “the Israeli leader is expected to present Trump with options for the US to join or assist in any new military operations.”

“Netanyahu plans to press Donald Trump for US backing for another round of war with Iran, now framed around Iran’s ballistic missile program,” said Sina Toossi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. “Netanyahu’s pivot to missiles should therefore be read not as the discovery of a new threat, but as an effort to manufacture a replacement casus belli after the nuclear argument collapsed.”

He noted criticisms levied against Netanyahu by Yair Golan, chair of the Democrats, a center-left party in Israel, earlier this week: “How is it possible that last June, at the end of the war with Iran, Benjamin Netanyahu solemnly declared that ‘Israel had eliminated Iran’s nuclear threat and severely damaged its missile array’; and that this was a ‘historic victory’—and today, less than six months later, he is running to the president of the United States to beg for permission to attack Iran again?” Golan said.

Iran is just one of several areas the two will likely discuss on Monday. According to Israeli officials who spoke to the Washington Post, Netanyahu also reportedly wants Trump to “take a tougher stance on Gaza and require that Hamas disarm before Israeli troops further withdraw as part of the second phase of Trump’s 20-point peace plan.

The chief of Israel’s armed forces suggested earlier this week that its occupation of more than half of Gaza would be permanent, but walked those comments back after reported behind-the-scenes outrage in the White House. Meanwhile, Trump—invested in his image as a peacemaker—has reportedly balked at Israel’s routine violations of the ceasefire agreement he helped to broker in October.

Near-daily strikes have resulted in the death of at least 418 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Media Office. Meanwhile, Israel’s continued blockade of humanitarian aid has left hundreds of thousands of people—displaced from homes destroyed by Israeli bombing—to languish in the cold without tents. Desperately needed fuel, food, and medicine have entered the strip at far lower numbers than the ceasefire agreement required.

As Axios reported on Friday, Trump’s advisers increasingly fear that Netanyahu is intentionally slow-walking and undermining the peace process in hopes of resuming the war.

Netanyahu also seeks Trump’s continued backing of Israel’s territorial expansion in Syria. Earlier this month, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) pushed through a UN-monitored demilitarized zone between Israeli and Syrian-held positions in the Golan Heights, which Israel illegally occupies.

This push into southern Syria went against the wishes of the Trump administration, which feared it could destabilize the Western-backed government that rules in Damascus following the ouster of former President Bashar al-Assad.

Israel has also routinely struck Lebanon in violation of the US-brokered ceasefire it signed with Hezbollah in late 2024, with bombings becoming a near-daily occurrence in December. Last month, the UN reported that at least 127 civilians, including children, had been killed in Israeli strikes since the ceasefire began.

“Netanyahu’s visit unfolds against a backdrop of unresolved fronts, with widening disputes with Washington over the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire, including postwar governance, reconstruction, and Turkish involvement,” Toossi said. “At the same time, Israel is seeking greater latitude to escalate again against Hezbollah in Lebanon, an end to US accommodation of Syria’s new leadership, and firm assurances on expanded military aid.”

“Taken together, Netanyahu’s visit is less about resolving any single crisis than about postponing strategic reckoning,” he continued. “The outcome will signal whether Washington is prepared to continue underwriting open-ended escalation, or whether this meeting marks the beginning of clearer limits on Israel’s regional strategy.”

December 31, 2025 Posted by | Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

58 Years of Occupation — And the Shocking Report Israel Doesn’t Want You to Read

 December 26, 2025 , By Joshua Scheer, https://scheerpost.com/2025/12/26/58-years-of-occupation-and-the-shocking-report-israel-doesnt-want-you-to-read/

Inspired by a Common Dreams report today about the ATV attack in the West Bank, I looked into Breaking the Silence, a group of Israeli military veterans who speak out against the occupation of Palestine. They’ve described the regional defense units—responsible for numerous attacks on Palestinian civilians in the West Bank—as little more than settler militias dressed in uniform.

I did some digging and found their November report, I’m not sure who else might have missed it, but it’s definitely worth reading. The report is titled: “JOINT SITUATION REPORT: 58 Years of Occupation, The Two-Year War in Gaza.”

The report’s lead writer is Tal Raviv O’Regan, and the steering committee includes Noa Sattath, Ziv Stahl, and Tal Steiner. The translation was done by Maya Johnston, with English editing by Rachel Druck.

They do disclose this, and so will I: the report is the work of thirteen human rights organizations, some of which receive most of their funding from foreign political sources. Even so, they’re proud of the support from those who share our belief that the occupation isn’t just an internal Israeli issue and who are committed to defending human rights.

Some Key Points Noted in the Report Include:

“The occupation, illegal and immoral in itself, has led to widespread human rights abuses, breaches of international humanitarian law, and increasingly entrenched apartheid.”

“Practices Israel employed even before the war have intensified to the point where they have become routine and unprecedented in scale.”

“Most shocking are the creation of mass hunger and a humanitarian crisis, among the worst in the world.”

“Crimes are rarely investigated by military or civilian law enforcement.”

“Settler violence and forced expulsions of Palestinian communities have surged, unchecked by authorities.”

“Israel continued to control many aspects of the residents’ lives… significantly contributing to a chronic humanitarian crisis.”

“To end the war and begin the process of healing… all parties must honor the cease‑fire agreement and fulfill their obligations under international law.”

“Israel must bravely and honestly investigate its actions… acknowledge war crimes and violations of the law, and draw the necessary conclusions.”

“Starving a civilian population is strictly prohibited under international law.”

“Israel has an active duty to ensure regular, uninterrupted flow of food and humanitarian aid.”

about Breaking the Silence from their page: “Founded in March 2004 by a group of soldiers who served in Hebron, Breaking the Silence has since acquired a special standing in the eyes of the Israeli public and in the media because of its unique role in giving voice to the experience of soldiers. To date, the organization has collected testimonies from more than 1,400 soldiers who represent all strata of Israeli society and cover nearly all units that operate in the territories.”

“All the testimonies we publish are meticulously researched, and all facts are cross-checked with additional eyewitnesses and/or the archives of other human rights organizations that are active in the field. Every soldier who gives a testimony to Breaking the Silence is well-aware of the aims of the organization and the interview. Most soldiers choose to remain anonymous, due to various pressures from military officials and society at large. Our first priority is to safeguard the soldiers who choose to testify to the public about their military service.”

Here are some videos [on original] from former soldiers and other contributors from Breaking the Silence. You can find more here

From Democracy Now! interviewing two former Israeli soldiers who are members of Breaking the Silence, a group of Israeli army veterans exposing the realities of the occupation. Tal Sagi, the group’s education director, shares his experience growing up in a settlement and joining the military without understanding what occupation meant: “We’ve been told that this is security and we have to control millions of lives and we don’t have other options… We’re trying to say that there are other options.”

Breaking the Silence deputy director Nadav Weiman explains why the group is touring U.S. colleges and advocating for a ceasefire in Gaza: “We stood in checkpoints. We raided homes. We attacked Gaza from the air. We fought from the ground… When you bring reality, you bring real conversation about the occupation, and you bring real conversation about Gaza.”

This is the kind of issue that Hillary Clinton and others refer to when they talk about the TikTok problem in media and the importance of connecting with people around the world quickly and effectively. She, along with Sarah Hurwitz—who dislikes the democratization of information and longs for the era of Old Media where corporations controlled the flow—laments that people now receive less explanation and more video content, such as live-streamed genocide that can be reduced to statistics. Hurwitz acknowledges she may appear a “monster” to viewers and controversially insists that Holocaust education should primarily serve as antisemitism education rather than a lesson for broader human experience.

Because Hurwitz refuses to see the Holocaust as a broad human experience, because then it’s clear that what is happening in Israel today would not pass that test.

Today, we can become knowledgeable and informed in ways that were not possible before the democratization of information—so we must keep our eyes open, even as many try to silence opposition voices with money and power. While there is no end in sight, there is a hopeful continuum: as more people become informed and reconnect with their humanity, change becomes possible. Those in Breaking the Silence have clearly found theirs.

Here is another report from Democracy Now!, from 10 years ago, documenting another time when Israel was killing civilians and Breaking the Silence was speaking out.

December 30, 2025 Posted by | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

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