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By Dr Ram Puniyani

Mahabodhi temple in Bodhgaya, near Patna is of great significance to followers of Buddhism as Lord Gautam Buddha got Nirvana here. This temple has been controlled by the Bodh Gaya Temple Act 1949 and BTMC (Bodh Gaya Temple Management Committee) manages it. As per this the controlling board of the temple has an equal number of Buddhists and Hindus. From this February many monks are protesting against this Act of 1949 and want that only Buddhists should be part of the board, which controls the temple affairs.

The protests have a long history as due to the mixed nature of the controlling body there has been a gradual Brahiminization of this temple. One Akash Lama sitting on the protest aptly put it, “This is not just about a temple; it’s about our identity and pride. We are putting forward our demands peacefully. Until we receive written assurance from the government, this protest will continue indefinitely.” The monks sitting on the protest say that “The Mahabodhi Mahavihara is being Brahminized. The influence of Brahminical rituals in the management and ceremonies of the temple is increasing, deeply hurting the faith and heritage of the Buddhist community.”

As such, Indian history is a long story of struggle between Buddhism and Brahmanism. Buddhism gives the message of equality while Brahmanism is based on birth based hierarchy of caste and gender. Buddha’s primary message was against the then prevailing values of caste and gender based inequality. In due course Buddhism spread all over and with the embracing of this religion by Emperor Ashok, it spread further and to other countries also, particularly South East Asia. Ashok had sent his messengers to many countries to give the message of Lord Buddha.

Buddha also had called for stopping the unnecessary sacrifice of animals, particularly cows in the prevalent rituals. All this hurt the social and economic interests of the Brahmins, who were uncomfortable with the spread of Buddhism.

To their great relief Pushyamitra Shung, the ‘Commander in Chief’ of Ashok’s grandson Brihadrath, murdered Brihadrath and came to power. He established the Shung dynasty. With this there was a resurgence of Brahmanism and eclipse of Buddhism. He “actively persecuted Buddhists… He is said to have burned Buddhist monasteries, destroyed stupas, and even offered rewards for Buddhist monks’ heads, leading to a decline in Buddhism’s influence and a shift in favor of Brahmanism.”

Later Shankaracharya of Kaladi, a very influential philosopher, argued for Brahmanical philosophy. His time period is mired in controversy; it is traditionally believed that he lived from 788 to 820 CE. However, some scholars propose earlier dates, with some suggesting a birth as early as 507-475 BC. Whatever that is, it preceded the ‘invasions’ of Muslim kings from the North West.

His aim was to sanitize Brahmanism by getting rid of unnecessary rituals. His focus was philosophically opposed to Buddhist philosophy. Sunil Khilnani writes, “Throughout the subcontinent, he engaged in verbal combat with Buddhist philosophers, who taught as Buddha had, such doctrines as the momentariness of all things and the denial of the existence of the deity.” (Incarnations: India in 50 Lives, p 84, Allen Lane, UK, 2016) Shankar was for status quo and regarded ‘World as an illusion’. Buddha regarded the World as real where miseries prevailed and by implication these should be addressed and rectified.

Overall due to these attacks Buddhism disappeared from the country till Babasaheb Ambedkar converted to Buddhism with a large number of his followers. Earlier Bhakti Saints also talked of some of the values originating from Buddha, like opposition to caste. Many of these saints were persecuted by the prevailing Brahmanism.

The major transition for equality of dalits began during the freedom movement with Jotirao Phule and Savitribai Phule’s yeoman efforts in the area particularly of education and other social reforms. As these started picking up, the values of Brahmanism were challenged. The reactions of Brahmanism to this emerging challenge came in the political form of Hindu Mahsabha and later more assertively through RSS. These organizations in a way were the expressions for maintaining ‘status quo’ and imposition of Brahamnical values. They upheld Manusmriti as a symbol of their goals.

India is a diverse country and imposition of caste and gender hierarchy is marching under the banner of Hindu Rashtra, Hindutva, and Hindu Nationalism. The march towards equality was primarily being articulated by Ambedkar through his Mahad Chavadar Talab, burning of Manusmiriti and Kalaram temple entry amongst many others. The anti colonial National movement tried to accommodate the demands of this social change to some extent, while Hindutva politics either openly opposed it or bypassed these issues.

As far as religion’s playground is concerned this modern counter revolution led by RSS and company has a multipronged approach. As in the case of Mahagaya Bodhi temple they enter the management of temples which is a major strategy. The other one is to co-opt the dalits through social engineering and working amongst them and propagating that there should be harmony amongst all castes, Samajik Samrasta. This is in contrast to Ambedkar’s goal of annihilation of caste.

On similar lines the attempt is also on to Brahmanize Sufi Dargahs. Baba Budan Giri in Karnataka and Haji Malang near Mumbai are the places which are being claimed to be Hindu places of worship. The most interesting example is that of Sai Baba of Shirdi. Yoginder Sikand in his book ‘Sacred Spaces’ gives a good glimpse of the syncretic nature of Shirdi Sai Baba. But now it’s Brahminization is fairly complete, “ Warren, an expert on Sai Baba’s thought, points out: “While Sai Baba was claimed by both Muslims and Hindus, his core approach to God-Realization had a distinct Islamic stance, and he never taught specifically Hindu doctrines and rituals. Sai Baba has, however, been almost completely assimilated and reinterpreted by the Hindu community.”

We are living in strange times where religion is being blatantly used for political agenda. The Buddha temple is being controlled by a Brahmanical path; the Sufi shrines are being Brahmanized. The agitation by Buddhist monks to restore their sacred place to their norms and beliefs is one such example of opposition to impose the norms which are totally opposed to equality and non violence as preached by Lord Gautam Buddha.

4 Jun 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Ranjan Solomon

In the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack, the BJP resorted to the tactic of turning on the screws on Pakistan. Not just within the country, but around the world.

In divergence with Pakistan’s call for a credible and independent investigation of what happened in Pahalgam, India stubbornly dismissed the proposal claiming they had accumulated tangible evidence of their own. The world seems to differ with the Indian retaliation of the attack on innocent civilian tourists, the sabre-rattling of the military and the government’s diplomatic onslaught for want of public evidence.

It is ambiguous as to who brought an end to the war. There are queries and doubts in the minds of the people as well as in the political opposition in Parliament. They want explanations to the multiple doubts that have. But the government is holding off a parliamentary debate. This runs counter to the essentials of parliamentary practices. It remains the one and only political space where the government can be interrogated and facts must be revealed. The hesitation of the government will only add doubts in the minds of the people as to the hasty commencement of the battle. And, its equally hurried conclusion.

Subramaniam Swamy, the nonconformist politician, quite confidently declared that India had lost five aircraft. He would not bluff. He gave the government no credit for its handling of the war. There are no verified details about lives lost in combat and of innocents in the areas where the fighting took place. China stepped in and provided Pakistan with highly sophisticated aircrafts and qualified pilots. Some reports that the Rafael’s performance was so poor that they could easily be brought down by Pakistan. Reports that IAF pilots refused to make combat incursions into Pakistan are rife. Indo-French ties have hit a low because their fighter crafts have not fulfilled the requirements of the war. These details are what the Opposition is asking for. The people too. For the first time, even Arnab Goswami can be quoted: “The nation wants to know”!

At the end of the day, the multiple delegations that travelled to 4-5 countries each did not get too much traction in the countries they travelled to either. At best they got to dialogue with not-so-senior officials whose capacity to influence policy was not much to write home about. The results turned out to be a diplomatic blank, regardless how the Godi media may choose to project it. The lack of enthusiasm from the international community to India’s delegation that went overseas to establish as the perpetrator of terror has been generally met with a question mark. This must rush Foreign Ministry officials back to the drawing table to reset Indo-Pak relations.

The conflict over Kashmir has roots that date back to 1947 when India and Pakistan gained independence, and the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir was divided between them. Since then, there have been multiple wars and skirmishes, including the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. Various attempts at mediation have been made, including the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP), but no lasting resolution has been achieved. The Dixon plan, proposed in 1950, suggested a limited plebiscite in the Kashmir Valley, but it was rejected by India. Today, the situation remains tense, with both countries maintaining their claims over the region. The question the world is asking is ‘Why’ after 77 years has neither country found a resolution to a conflict which is bleeding people and the economies of both countries.

Indian designs to get Pakistan designated as ‘terror-state” has suffered a setback as the net result. And, with Pakistan as current Chair of the UN Security Council, there is almost nil possibility for this to happen. To make things worse, India has not been invited to the G-7 meeting to be held in Canada which they would have wanted to use to build their case. Canada is already battling tensions with India over alleged attacks on Canadian territory by Indian agents against suspected Khalistani militants. So, the terror talk is gathering no real momentum. Plus, India has internationalized Kashmir contradicting a long-held principle that it was a bilateral issue and no second country would be allowed any say in the resolution of tensions.

In the recent war following the Pahalgama attacks on civilian tourists, both India and Pakistan are claiming victory. There are those who assert poor tactics may have lost India the war. Or, at the least, an emphatic victory. The quick cease-fire leaves the clouds of misgiving.

India also lost the diplomatic onslaught. It’s hard to imagine that anyone can win a military conflagration especially between two nuclear adversaries without a global catastrophe. Equally hard to imagine that a diplomatic offensive can bring the global community to come to a verdict based on small delegations most of whom did not count as heavy weights in national or international politics. BJP-led States have briefed their CMs to convey to people that the fighting was withdrawn only because Pakistan begged for mercy. The more the BJP at the Centre says about the war, the more people wonder what really happened during the war and what/who stopped it. Trump claims to be the peacemaker. The Foreign Minister admits there were conversations between the top political leaders in the USA with Pakistan and India. They stop short at telling the people of India what exactly happened during these talks. They will claim that these are matters of national security and are secrets that cannot be out in the public arena. The people are not asking for military details. They claim knowledge facts about why the war was declared in an instant and withdrawn in much the same fashion. People are wondering if the political decisions were right.

The futile cycle of war between Indians and Pakistanis last month is a stark reminder of the devastating consequences of unchecked nationalism and militarism. For decades, both nations have been embroiled in a bitter rivalry, with tensions simmering just below the surface. The endless quest for dominance has only led to bloodshed, displacement, and economic stagnation. Meanwhile, millions of citizens on both sides of the border struggle to access basic necessities like food, clean water, and healthcare. It’s nothing short of tragic that the resources devoted to military build-ups and cross-border skirmishes could instead be channelled towards creating jobs, stimulating economic growth, and lifting people out of poverty. By replacing guns with industrial production and services, socially useful products, jobs, and development, Indian and Pakistani leaders can forge a new path, one that prioritizes the well-being and dignity of their citizens, and paves the way for a brighter, more prosperous future for generations to come.

The media, wherever controlled by corporate interests, has turned propagandist leaving little or no space for people to think about an end to war and an era of peace. In point of fact, they continually sow seeds of hate. They simply cannot see that we are part of a common humanity on both sides and where people deserve to live without disruption to normal lives. In fact, post-Pahalgam, one wonders if the children of these anchors, or senior political leaders would join the ‘Agniveers’ and go to the frontlines to fight. Pakistan’s successful diplomatic energies have yielded significant gains, including substantial aid announcements and relaxed visa regimes. Conversely, India’s objective of isolating Pakistan as a sponsor of terror has not been achieved.

Moreover, the Military-Industrial-Complex everywhere in the world has its interests. These merchants of misery prompt and spread hate and create conflict through agents of treachery. Independent-minded citizens, and Peoples Movements must find ways to combat the evil of armaments industry and rein them in.  The day war ceases to be projected as a heroic thing, the peace industry would evolve as a dominant influence in social and political life, discarding the greed and cruelty with which horrid profits made by the arms manufacturers. The end-goal must always remain to win the peace and plough the agricultural fields with tractors and viable equipment. Our production capacities must be put to use in a way that peoples essential needs are met.

Following the war, Pakistan has sent out a delegation to enlighten the world about the facts and politics of India’s decision to hold in abeyance the Indus Water treaties. Their teams are explaining to the world the drastic consequences such a move will have millions of farmers and people dependent on those waters. China’s implicit threat to link the Indus Water Treaty with the Brahmaputra waters adds a new layer of complexity to India’s already delicate relationship with China.

Pakistan has also been successful in building alliances and securing support from key nations, including China, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. By contrast, despite its growing economic stature, India’s global influence remains limited, making it challenging to sway international opinion against Pakistan. Pakistan’s participation in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its strategic partnerships with other nations have enhanced its economic importance, making it harder for India to isolate it diplomatically.

Russia’s significant aid commitment of 2.6 billion dollars to Pakistan will likely bolster Pakistan’s economy and enhance its international influence. The involvement of IMF and World Bank support indicates a growing international confidence in Pakistan’s economic prospects. It is also a huge blow to India because India is a big part of the BRICS group of nations. The US has expressed its unhappiness at the BRICS intentions which include de-dollarization. Prime Minister has rationalized this by assuring Trump that the day when de-dollarization happens is a long way off. It leaves India neither her nor there. The US needs India but can afford to spill India if they don’t get exactly what they wish to extract from it.

These developments suggest that India’s diplomatic efforts are facing significant headwinds. The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on May 9 decided to allow for “an immediate disbursement” of $1 billion (around Rs 8,500 crore) to Pakistan. Additionally, Pakistan has also received funding from other multilateral institutions including the World Bank and the IMF. And, these are not pennies. Pakistan’s request from the World Bank was 20 billion.  The World Bank is set to provide Pakistan with a $20 billion aid package, a 10-year program focused on various development goals, including addressing climate resilience, child stunting, and learning poverty. This package, approved by the World Bank, is part of a broader strategy to support Pakistan’s economic recovery and public sector reforms. While the US has historically been a major donor to Pakistan, the current situation suggests a shift towards multilateral funding agencies like the World Bank. The World Bank is set to provide Pakistan with a $40 billion aid package, a 10-year program focused on various development goals, including addressing climate resilience, child stunting, and learning poverty. This package, approved by the World Bank, is part of a broader strategy to support Pakistan’s economic recovery and public sector reforms. While the US has historically been a major donor to Pakistan, the current situation suggests a shift towards multilateral funding agencies like the World Bank.

India claims to have ascended into arriving at fourth place among the rich nations. This is a misnomer. India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world but also one of the most unequal countries. The richest 1% of Indians control over 40% of the total wealth, while the bottom 50% own only 3%. Poverty and income inequality are significant challenges in Pakistan, with a considerable portion of the population living below the poverty line and a wide gap between the rich and the poor. In 2023-24, the World Bank reported 39.4% of Pakistan’s population living below the lower middle-income poverty line, which is a daily income of US$3.65. The government also stated that 22% of the population lives below the national poverty line.

Poverty remains a significant challenge in Pakistan, with a substantial portion of the population living below the poverty line. Recent data indicates that approximately 40% of the population in Pakistan lives in poverty. Several factors contribute to this situation, including economic instability, high inflation, and the impact of natural disasters like the 2022 floods. High income inequality has created social unrest, conflict, and instability. Poverty rates vary significantly across different provinces and districts, with Balochistan experiencing particularly high rates.

The governments of both India and Pakistan cannot barely afford to invest in the prohibitive financial and human costs of war. The competition to assert superiority must settle. Achieving a lasting peace between India and Pakistan requires a multifaceted approach, focusing on confidence-building measures, diplomatic engagement, and addressing underlying issues. This includes restarting diplomatic channels, exploring areas of cooperation like trade and technology, and working towards a just and peaceful resolution to the Kashmir dispute.

This is a message to those who frame foreign and defence policy in India and Pakistan. With the guns gone silent, a new dawn could break over the Indus, illuminating a future where the shared heritage and resilience of the Indian subcontinent unite two nations in a lasting embrace of peace. With the cessation of hostilities, India and Pakistan could embark on a journey of rediscovery, forging a path paved with mutual understanding, respect, and peace. As the echoes of conflict fade, the timeless spirit of the region awakens, guiding two nations toward a harmonious tomorrow. In a historic turning point, India and Pakistan choose the path of reconciliation, unlocking a brighter future for generations to come. As the silence of peace settles over the region, embracing a future filled with hope, cooperation, and lasting peace.

Ranjan Solomon is a peace activist, human rights defender, and writer

4 Jun 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Kathy Kelly

Here at the United Nations in New York City, the Security Council is expected to vote on a resolution calling on all parties to respect an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

The slaughter in Gaza entraps and attacks the helpless, turning shelters into mass graves, erasing entire families, weaponizing nutrition and famine. The spiraling violence shrieks for our attention, screams for effective protection. Who will save innocent people from snipers, aerial attacks, tank-fired missiles, poisoned water, and starvation? The U.S. and many allies instead work to insulate Israel from accountability.

“Overcoming this cocoon of protection,” said international human rights lawyer and former UN official Craig Mokhiber, “requires solidarity between movements, unions, religious communities, and like-minded states working to isolate the Israeli regime and to impose economic, trade, travel, diplomatic, cultural, and other consequences to compel change.”

In NYC, on day fourteen of a Veterans For Peace and Allies Fast for Gaza, a former US Marine who helped initiate the fast, Phil Tottenham, urges us to care about Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman whose witness on behalf of Palestinians apparently led to her unjust imprisonment.

The current administration has slated her for deportation purely on the grounds that she criticised the government of a foreign country. Far from her home in New Jersey, she is trapped in a Texan county jail. Her plight makes me think of another prisoner, Ron Feiner, an IDF soldier who chose to face prison rather than continue attacking people in Gaza. “I’m horrified by the never-ending war in Gaza,” said Feiner, “by the abandonment of the hostages, by the continued killing of innocent people, and by the complete lack of political vision.” He is now on day nine of what could be a quite dangerous twenty-day sentence in an Israeli military prison.

The director of Gaza’s now-demolished Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, is suffering a longer and much more perious sentence at Israel’s grim Ofer Prison, where is work to heal the sick has seen him designated an “enemy combatant,” and where multiple, protracted beating sessions, – torture sessions really – have possibly cost him an eye

I think of pediatrician Dr. Alla al-Najjar, whose valuable work at the Nasser medical complex has cost her the lives of all but one of her ten children, as well as her husband, also an M.D. They were taken from her in a targeted strike on her home while she was at the hospital complex attempting to save other Gazan children. Now she continues her work, trying mightily to save 11 year old Adam, her only surviving child.

We must also note the appalling conditions of ordinary Palestinian prisoners, many of them held without charge. “They are subjected to a systematic campaign of abuse, starvation, and deliberate medical neglect,” said a recent Adameer report which goes on to describe “widespread arrest campaigns across cities, villages, and refugee camps, which have led to a massive increase in the number of prisoners and detainees.” Prisoners survive on minimal rations, and many endure brutal and life-threatening treatment.

Meanwhile, all of Gaza remains an open-air prison containing numerous centers where people, including children, are tortured by Israel’s starvation, siege and bombing.

None of this has been inflicted for the purposes of freeing the remaining hostages captured by Hamas and by the other armed groups who flooded into Israel on one day of rebellion, twenty months ago. The ceasefire agreed upon last November would, had Israel and the U.S. honored it, have provided for the release of all the hostages. But Prime Minister Netanyahu and his extremist collaborators would have lost their excuse for ethnically cleansing Gaza, and after that the West Bank.

In 1972, an iconic photo of Phan Thi Kim Phuk, “running naked, screaming in agony, her body burned by napalm dropped by the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese army,” became a catalyst which helped end the war in Viet Nam. Now, fifty years later, images of burning children in Gaza are relentless.

Recently, a video of five-year-old Ward Jalal al-Sheikh Khalil, her tiny body surrounded by flames, went viral. She and her family were sleeping in a school where forcibly displaced Palestinians had moved into classrooms and the courtyard. She survived Israel’s aerial attack, but her mother and five siblings did not. Her father remains in critical condition.

Life becomes limited when we accept that it must be a nightmare for the weak, when we confess that we are more addicted to comfort than we are to compassion – when the service of our appetites causes us to ignore the starving and those deliberately consigned to flames. We who fast might not succeed in our attempted “jailbreak” from this grim prison where we must watch the inmates die off one by one in the next ward over. But in whatever way you can, we urge you to join the attempt.

Kathy Kelly (kathy.vcnv@gmail.com) is board president of World BEYOND War. She joined the Veterans For Peace Fast for Gaza on May 22, 2025.

4 Jun 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Margaret Knapke

Many people, armed only with moral and political convictions, would be too intimidated to confront an army or navy directly. But not all.

Twelve nonviolent human-rights activists with the international Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) are currently sailing a small boat, the Madleen, to Gaza. They hope to create a humanitarian sea corridor through Israel’s illegal blockade. If all goes well, they should arrive this weekend, with “baby formula, flour, rice, diapers, women’s sanitary products, water desalination kits, medical supplies, crutches, and children’s prosthetics.”

They know the danger. Ten volunteers were killed by Israeli commandos when they boarded the Mavi Marmara in 2010. But, as Greta Thunberg said before she embarked last Sunday, “We are doing this because no matter what odds we are against, we have to keep trying, because the moment we stop trying is when we lose our humanity.”

How Palestinians See It

The history is important, and one does not have to approve of Hamas’ attack against Israeli civilians in October 2023 to understand that.

During the Nakba in 1948, at least 750,000 Palestinians were violently displaced from their homelands by Zionist paramilitaries and nascent Israeli forces. As Palestinian-Canadian Samah Al-Sabbagh recently told a crowd, those who survived that colonial onslaught left their “homes, land, olive groves, even the freshly baked bread.”

The occupation has never stopped, and now the violence is more high-tech and all-inclusive in its reach. In Gaza, bombs (largely supplied by the United States) have destroyed homes, apartment buildings, schools, universities, hospitals, mosques, churches, and more—leaving thousands buried under rubble. Adding to that nightmare, doctors report the intentional killing of children with high-velocity bullets that can destroy surrounding tissues and organs.

The death toll is staggering. As of May 27, 2025, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza reports that at least 54,056 people, including at least 17,400 children, have been confirmed as killed in Gaza since October 2023.

For those still living, Israel’s stranglehold on international humanitarian aid has created widespread malnutrition and starvation, with babies and children the most vulnerable. “One in five people in Gaza, about 500,000 people, faces starvation, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification platform said on May 12,” according to the UN. Indeed, the UN calls Gaza the “hungriest place on Earth.”

Israel and its fellow perpetrators, including the United States, refuse to take seriously the rulings by the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, much less the many human-rights groups decrying genocide, and less still the students and people in the streets making a ruckus for justice.

Perhaps the perpetrators think that ignoring the voice of the people will make it stop, that heartbroken people will give up their moral and legal agency. They should think again.

A Global Civil Society Initiative of Unarmed Civilians

Huwaida Arraf is a Palestinian-American lawyer and activist. She has worked with the International Solidarity Movement, the Free Gaza Movement, and more recently the FFC. Her rationale for sending small, unarmed boats in nonviolent direct actions against Israeli policy? “Our governments have failed. And so the people are taking action.”

Lawyers Arraf and Luigi Daniele assert that there is a strong legal basis for citizens taking action, as world governments ignore their “clear and urgent humanitarian obligations.”

In August 2008, the Free Gaza Movement successfully delivered aid to Gaza, using two small fishing boats named Liberty and Free Gaza. Participants included 44 activists from 17 countries, and they promised that they’d keep returning “until the siege on Gaza was broken.”

Included in the aid they brought were 200 pairs of hearing aids—far short of the 9,000 requested—because so many children were experiencing hearing loss as a result of Israel’s sonic booms.

Two years later, on May 31, 2010, the Israeli navy swarmed the Mavi Marmara. This ship was part of a larger flotilla, carrying nearly 700 people, which was attempting to deliver 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid to Gaza. The Israelis killed 10 activists—one died after being comatose for four years—and wounded fifty more.

Although the UN Human Rights Council declared the attack illegal—and despite Prime Minister Netanyahu’s apology to Turkey, whose citizens were killed—Israel continued its oppressive blockade.

Between 2010 and 2024, the FFC continued to challenge the siege. But “all ships were pirated by the IOF, and participants were assaulted, kidnapped, interrogated, imprisoned, and/or deported.” (“IOF” identifies the IDF as an occupation force.)

By May 2, 2025, the FFC had prepared their next attempt. The ship was named Conscience as an appeal to the world’s conscience. It was sitting in international waters near Malta, waiting for the volunteers to board and set out for Gaza. But the crew heard drones, and Conscience was struck by two explosives.

“The bombing was a deliberate act of aggression and intimidation,” the FFC wrote on their website. “Four crew members were injured, the ship was set ablaze, communications were severed, and the vessel was left adrift and taking on water. The attack occurred in European waters, in violation of international law.”

Madleen: Never Give Up

The activists say of the Madleen, “She may be small, but her mission is powerful: To break the silence. To challenge Israel’s illegal blockade through nonviolent direct action. To stand firmly and unapologetically, with Gaza.”

The Madleen set sail on June 1, one day after the fifteenth anniversary of the murderous assault on the Mavi Marmara. Activists gathered in Catania, Sicily, in preparation for their launch. The boat is named for Gaza’s first gender-role-defying fisherwoman; she personifies FFC’s steadfastness.

The ship’s namesake, Madleen, fell in love with the sea as a young child. When she was only 13 years old, she took over her injured father’s fishing boat and became the main breadwinner for her family. Although Madleen’s focus was on her family’s survival—not politics—she shared the fishermen’s encounters with Israeli patrols. She recounted, “They often directly attacked my boat. They stole my fishing nets more than once. The thing was that each time they attacked me, I would get a little stronger. I never gave up.”

Years later, she hopes her two daughters will become “two strong fisherwomen.”

May Madleen and the activists happily meet in Gaza this month. And may this stubbornly committed “civil society initiative of unarmed civilians” help the world see that legal and moral obligations are not overridden by governments’ corrupt colonial agendas.

To that end, the FFC asks that people raise their voices and contact the media and government officials to express support for breaking the siege against Gaza.

Readers can track the progress of  the Madleen in real time and explore ways to support the FFC’s work. They promise: “We sail until Palestine is free.”

Margaret Knapke is a longtime Latin America solidarity activist who is deeply inspired by the courage of environmentalists and human-rights defenders in the Global South.

5 Jun 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Jonathan Cook

Israel has been caught once again in a lie. For a genocidal state, there are no red lines. No one should be surprised that Israel is using its bogus ‘aid system’ to lure Palestinians into a death trap

It is entirely unsurprising that Israel has yet again been caught out in a lie – a lie that the BBC once again spread far and wide on its news services.

Israel claimed that it had not fired at starving Palestinians queueing on Sunday morning to get food from one of its highly militarised “aid distribution hubs” – a system Israel imposed on Gaza in place of a long-established and successful aid network run by the United Nations.

More than 30 Palestinians are known to have been killed and dozens more injured in the weekend incident.

Israel blamed Hamas fighters for shooting Palestinian civilians, saying they were trying to stop the crowds from taking food boxes. the Israeli military dished up a video, taken by one of its drones, as supposed proof.

The BBC broadcast that video on its main shows, and then did one of its standard “Israel said, the Palestinians said. Who can really know the truth?” reports of the incident.

The BBC should never have taken Israel’s disinformation seriously – not least because Israeli claims are always shown to be lies when subjected to any serious independent scrutiny. The default position should be that Israel is lying until it can demonstrate convincingly that it is not.

Doctors treating the dead and wounded immediately pointed out that their injuries were consistent with Israeli gunfire. The victims had single shots to the head or chest, in line with targeting by Israeli snipers. Others suffered shrapnel wounds from tank shells. Hamas has no tanks.

Now expert analysis of the video itself – paradoxically confirmed by BBC Verify – shows that the footage was filmed in Khan Younis, far from Rafah, where the Palestinians aid seekers were killed. It is also apparent from the shadows that the video was taken in the evening, not in the morning when the Palestinians in Rafah were shot.

Despite this, the BBC still writes: “The circumstances of this strike are unclear.”

No, it is entirely clear that the Israeli army disseminated lies, and that the BBC lapped up those lies and spread them to its audiences via its main news shows, before tentatively retracting the lies quietly on a live feed on its website.

The reality is that the video doesn’t show Hamas fighters shooting Palestinians to stop them getting aid. Rather it shows a criminal Palestinian gang – of the kind Israel has been cultivating and allying with – looting aid so that it can be sold back to Palestinians on the open market, where prices have been massively inflated by Israel’s blockade on food.

There are no police in Gaza maintaining law and order because Israel kills any Palestinian seen wearing a police uniform.

It was for these very reasons that international aid organisations refused to take part in Israel’s scheme. They understood it was never about distributing humanitarian aid because the UN was best placed to do that.

It was not even chiefly about weaponising aid to lure Palestinians into what are effectively Israeli military bases so that soldiers can use biometric data to snatch any Palestinians they want, disappearing them into Israel’s torture camps, as they have been doing.

Rather it is about giving the appearance of providing food – most of it useless because it is dried staples that need cooking, when there is almost no water or fuel available – while continuing to starve the vast majority of Palestinians. And it is about using the aid hubs as another front for killing Palestinians.

In other words, after taking the aid system out of the UN’s hands, Israel is successfully enfolding the so-called “humanitarian effort” into its genocide.

If that sounds too cynical, mark this. Israel again shot at crowds gathering on Tuesday morning to get aid from one of its “distribution hubs”, killing at least 27 Palestinians and wounding more than 180.

Several witnesses say there was no aid available when they arrived.

There is no way to be too cynical about what Israel is doing. Israel is utterly committed to its genocide – and a genocidal state has no red lines.

Jonathan Cook is a British independent journalist, who has covered issues of Palestine and Israel for much of his over 20-year career.

5 Jun 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Nauman Amin

This article examines the systematic starvation inflicted upon Gaza’s population following the events of October 2023. Beyond indiscriminate bombings and infrastructural devastation, Israel’s imposition of a “complete siege” amounts to a calculated policy of deprivation—weaponizing hunger, water, fuel, and medical supplies to collectively punish over two million people. The article situates this within the broader frameworks of apartheid, settler colonialism, and global imperial complicity, and argues that this is not a collateral consequence of war, but an intentional act of genocidal violence. Drawing from legal frameworks, global solidarity movements, and historical analogies, the piece contends that academic neutrality in such a context is a moral failure. The call is for engaged, intersectional resistance that challenges both the local manifestations and global enablers of such violence.

Since October 7, 2023, Gaza has endured more than shelling and urban devastation. It has been subjected to a meticulously engineered famine—a cessation of food, medicine, fuel, and water so absolute that it amounts to a weaponized starvation. “They are starving us as a method of warfare,” warned Human Rights Watch, documenting how entire neighborhoods were cut off from all supplies. This is neither collateral damage nor an unintended consequence; it is a deliberate strategy of collective punishment and genocide, rooted in an apartheid logic that has held Gaza under siege for two decades. Any neutral posture in the face of such atrocity is a moral failure. Israel’s blockade of Gaza is an atrocity, and opposing it must be the clarion call of every conscience committed to justice, liberation, and human dignity.

For twenty years, Gaza’s borders have been sealed, its skies surveilled, its economy strangled. Yet the post–October 2023 siege represents an escalation of historic proportions. Within hours of the October 7 attacks, Israel declared a “complete siege”: no imports, no exports, no electricity, no fuel. Power plants were starved of diesel; bakeries and flour mills—Gaza’s last sources of local grain—were bombed into ruin. “Not a switch will be flicked on,” vowed Energy Minister Katz, even as clean water ran out. Water treatment facilities collapsed for lack of pumps. Hospitals, already operating at the brink, became morgues of the malnourished, treating dehydration and starvation rather than wounds.

These measures were not the product of battlefield exigencies but of explicit policy. When Israeli Minister Ben Gavir proclaimed that “all humanitarian aid must stop,” they revealed an intent to weaponize deprivation. They signaled that Gaza’s civilian population would be held hostage—prisoners of hunger—until they submitted or perished. This is the logic of settler colonialism: control territory by any means necessary, displace or extinguish the indigenous, and render any form of viable life impossible.

Under international law, the deliberate starvation of civilians is a war crime and, when directed at a protected group, meets the threshold of genocide. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits “collective penalties” and the Rome Statute criminalizes the use of starvation as a method of warfare. Yet Gaza’s siege is textbook collective punishment: entire neighborhoods deprived of food, over two million people barred from sustenance, entire generations at risk of stunted growth or death. By spring 2025, at least 57 Palestinians—mostly children and the elderly—had already starved to death, succumbing to a protracted death by inches as their blood sugar plummeted and their organs failed. 90% of families in the north had spent at least over 24 hours without a single meal.

Even international aid officials have been unequivocal: former UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths warned recently that “what is going on in Gaza is weaponization of aid to create starvation and children are dying because of it”. There is no way to look at the aid blockade in any other way, Griffiths stressed, noting that even the small amount of aid being allowed in is designed to draw Gazans out of their homes on a one-way trip. This explicit denunciation by a veteran UN relief official underscores that starving Gaza’s population is a deliberate strategy, not a tragic accident.

This is not an unfortunate by-product of combat; it is a central component of Israel’s military doctrine toward Gaza. Airports and seaports remain closed; the Rafah crossing—the only potential lifeline—has been sealed or restricted at will. Aid convoys, when permitted, are delayed for days at checkpoints, their contents spoiled by heat or theft, then subjected to arbitrary “security inspections” that further erode their efficacy. Over 3,000 aid trucks now sit stranded on the border, with most basic supplies rotting in the sun. Even now, only about 100 aid trucks have been allowed into Gaza – a fraction of daily needs and “a drop in the ocean” compared to pre-war levels. Prime Minister Netanyahu even announced that displaced Gazans would receive aid “and then… they don’t necessarily go back” to their homes, explicitly tying life-saving food to forced displacement. Warehouse facilities have been struck, “accidentally,” creating a chilling deterrent against any remaining logistical cooperation.

The human suffering defies comprehension. Within weeks of the siege’s inception, the United Nations World Food Programme warned that nearly half of Gaza’s households faced “severe” hunger levels; by late 2024, food prices had spiked manyfold, and entire families scavenged for scraps. Hospitals have run out of pediatric nutritional supplements, and clinics have become triage centers for dehydration rather than trauma. Clean water, once a basic right, is now a luxury, with infectious diseases surging as Palestinians drink brackish, untreated runoff.

To understand Gaza’s engineered starvation, one must situate it within the broader architecture of Israeli apartheid and global imperialism. Gaza is a laboratory of enforced statelessness: no freedom of movement, no sovereignty, no access to basic resources. It relies on international aid—and yet that aid is strangled at the border, manipulated by political calculations in Tel Aviv and Washington. This current starvation policy can be traced back to January 2024, when Israel and the United States spearheaded the withdrawal of funding from UNRWA, cutting off critical food and schooling support for Gaza’s refugee population. U.S. military financing underwrites Israel’s blockade; European banks fund settlement infrastructure in the West Bank; arms manufacturers profit from perpetual conflict. Local acts of resistance—fishing boats shot at for venturing beyond limits, citrus groves bulldozed to expand buffer zones—are all tethered to the same imperial logic that deems Palestinians disposable.

Gaza’s starvation is not an isolated tragedy but a symptom of interlocking systems of oppression: settler colonialism, racial capitalism, and imperialism. The dispossession of Palestinian land parallels the expropriation of Indigenous territories in the Americas, the subjugation of African nations under colonial rule, and the exploitation of resources in the Global South. Solidarity with Gaza is thus inseparable from anti-racist, anti-imperialist, and ecological struggles worldwide.

Academic neutrality is untenable when genocide is underway. Scholarship divorced from activism sanitizes atrocity and shames its victims. An engaged, radical critique compels us to move from witness to resistance. This entails: immediate lifting of the siege, targeted sanctions & divestment, and intersectional solidarity.

Gaza’s manufactured starvation is a conscious act of war—a genocidal strategy cloaked in administrative decrees and “security” rhetoric. This is not a distant tragedy but a present atrocity, unfolding in real time. Neutral observers risk becoming complicit in genocide through silence and inaction. For scholars, activists, and citizens of conscience, there is no permissible neutrality: our research, teaching, writing, and protesting must cohere around a single moral imperative—dismantle the siege and restore Gaza’s right to life, dignity, and freedom.

When children die for lack of bread, when families bury their young in mass graves, when the international community pleads for “humanitarian corridors” that never materialize, history will judge us not by our objectivity but by our courage to confront injustice. Let us choose solidarity over silence and humanity over genocide. Any other stance is not merely inadequate—it is a betrayal of our common humanity.

Nauman Amin (numan.amin24@gmail.com) is a development practitioner working at the intersection of climate and livelihoods.

1 Jun 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Ralph Nader

Opposition by former high officials in Israeli’s military and national security establishment and Israeli allies – France, England, and Germany—to the aimless killing of civilian families in Gaza is increasing. The mainstream, U.S. media has no excuse to cease its incomplete and biased reporting on the horrific genocidal mass slaughter in Gaza. Former Deputy Minister of Economy Yair Golan called out Netanyahu for “engaging in baby killing as a hobby.”

These denunciations fortify the long-standing documented condemnations by sixteen Israeli human rights groups, including “Breaking the Silence,” whose most recent report details how Israeli platoons in Gaza use Palestinians as “human shields.”

It is time to examine the shortcomings—some imposed and some self-inflicted—in the U.S. mass media’s coverage of an out-of-control brutal Israeli regime, weaponized and funded daily first by Biden and now by Trump.

1. Start with the vast undercount of deaths in Gaza (population 2.3 million) since October 7, 2023. Curiously, the media disbelieves Hamas claims, except for its Ministry of Health report of fatalities. Hamas, the elected government of Gaza, only reports the deaths that can be confirmed by name from hospitals, clinics, and mortuaries, most of which have been destroyed or gutted. So, day after day, newspapers dutifully reported Hamas’ fatality toll—now at 54,300.

Nobody in the academic community, UN, and international relief world believes this low number. Their unofficial estimates ranging from 250,000 to 500,000 deaths. Most of these groups readily agree that almost all the survivors of the deadly bombardments of civilians and their homes, markets, hospitals, and food, fuel and other emergency infrastructures, such as destroyed water mains and electric circuits, are either sick, injured, near death, and starving.

The media has no hesitation in estimating the number of Syrians killed during the civil war over the Assad dictatorship (500,000), or the number of Ukrainian deaths following Russia’s invasion. Somehow, they can’t see that Hamas has an interest in undercounting to avoid greater condemnations by its people for not protecting them. The media should put their reporters to work on documenting a more realistic death toll. At 500,000 fatalities, the intensity of political, diplomatic, and civic pressure is quite different than the fictional 54,300 figure.

2. Netanyahu’s ban on all independent journalists from entering Gaza, including U.S. and Israeli reporters, makes it difficult to get more facts and sources on the ground. The Israeli army has killed over 300 Palestinian journalists, some with their families. Some of their apartments were targeted by U.S.-made missiles. Last year, 75 major media organizations protested this exclusion in a full-page ad in the New York Times. Signers included the New York Times, Washington Post, and Associated Press. Their effort to cover the carnage in Gaza was to no avail. Bibi Biden would not back them up. The censorship continues under Trump.

However, these are powerful media outfits with reporters close by in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. They can do much more to get the gates to Gaza opened to tell the world the grim stories of the mass killing fields that are creating the risk of a wider Middle East War. Why the media does not press harder is itself an untold media story.

3. All this world-shaking violence started when, whether by colossal blunder or contrivance, Netanyahu’s ultra-modern border security apparatus collapsed in all its parts on October 7, 2023. He has tellingly blocked any official investigation. This is a story that must be probed until Netanyahu’s responsibility for enabling Hamas is exposed. Earlier he had bragged about supporting and helping to fund Hamas year after year because of Hamas’ opposition to a two-state solution.

Instead, absence of a full investigation allowed Netanyahu to turn his blunder into a U.S.-backed series of attacks against Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. As an elderly Nazi holocaust survivor told the New York Times after October 7th, “This should never have happened.”

4. The coverage of courageous Israeli human rights groups—including soldiers, rabbis and joint Israeli and Palestinian initiatives inside Israel—is very thin. The U.S. media has given vastly more coverage to disputed claims by Netanyahu et. al of mass rapes on October 7th, debunked by Israeli media scrutiny, then it gives these truthful strivers for peace. Why?

Moreover, what could possibly be the reason for the major U.S. newspapers completely ignoring the Veterans for Peace’s (VFP) constant street protests via its 100 Chapters in the U.S. including its present 40-Day Fast in communion with the starving Palestinian families in Gaza? Just this week, The Washington Post had a prominent two-page spread showing adopted dogs in Ukraine since the invasion.

5. The slant in coverage is on the other side as well. The immensely powerful “Israel government can do no wrong” domestic lobby, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), has escaped investigation or even an arm’s length deep feature in major newspapers. Yet in Congress, powerful AIPAC has a “minder” attached to every Senator and Representative and has sponsored primary challenges to lawmakers brave enough to mildly criticize it for being Netanyahu’s bullhorn. AIPAC won’t even support getting American reporters inside Gaza or allowing airlifts of horribly burned or amputated Gaza children to ready and able hospitals in the U.S.

The slant infects words used and words suppressed. The New York Times and CBS regularly refer to Hamas’ terrorism, but Netanyahu has killed vastly greater numbers of Palestinian civilians for political purposes, and that mass slaughter is referred to as “Israeli military operations.” In repeating day after day that 1200 Israelis were killed, the press does not say, as they do for Hamas, that Israel’s government does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. In fact, about 400 of the 1200 were Israeli soldiers and some police officers.

All this mass bloodshed is getting to former elected Israelis. This week in an op-ed in Haaretz, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accused Netanyahu of “war crimes” in Gaza. Look for many more members of Israel’s political and security establishment to start speaking out and protesting.

“What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians,” wrote Olmert. “We’re not doing this due to loss of control in any specific sector, not due to some disproportionate outburst by some soldiers in some unit. Rather, it’s the result of government policy—knowingly, evilly, maliciously, irresponsibly dictated. Yes, Israel is committing war crimes.”

Shockingly, Donald Trump is still afraid of Netanyahu who arrogantly broke the ceasefire Trump took credit for and thumbed his nose at Trump by doubling down on the deepening Palestinian Holocaust and ignoring Trump’s warnings about people starving in Gaza. Month after month, Netanyahu blocks thousands of trucks with humanitarian aid on Gaza’s borders paid for by American taxpayers.

Soon this pressure cooker will explode in ways either predicted by the Pentagon or unforeseen as a “Black Swan” event. The deadly impact of Israel’s war against a long-defeated small Hamas guerrilla force on our own country’s weakening democratic institutions —from freedom of speech to Congress—is reaching the awareness of ever more Americans.

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate and the author of “The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future” (2012).

1 Jun 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Gaza (Quds News Network)- Dr. Hamdi Al-Najjar, a Palestinian physician, has died from injuries he sustained when Israel bombed his family home in southern Khan Younis. His death comes days after the same attack killed nine of his ten children.

His wife, Dr. Alaa Al-Najjar, a pediatrician, had just left their home to resume her shift at Nasser Hospital when the Israeli missile hit. Moments earlier, Hamdi had returned home.

The airstrike wiped out nearly the entire family. Their nine children—Yahya, Rakan, Raslan, Gubran, Eve, Revan, Sadin, Luqman, and Sidra—were killed instantly.

Only one child, Adam, survived. He remains hospitalized with injuries.

Dr. Alaa, now a grieving mother and widow, was forced to identify her children’s burned bodies in the same hospital where she treats Gaza’s wounded.

Israel has repeatedly targeted Gaza’s medical community. Over the past 20 months, doctors, nurses, and emergency workers have been killed, kidnapped, or injured. Airstrikes have hit hospitals, clinics, and ambulances.

The Al-Najjar family tragedy has become a symbol of this systematic targeting.

International human rights organizations continue to call for independent investigations. But Gaza’s healthcare workers say they are running out of time—and colleagues.

1 Jun 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Gaza (Quds News Network)- A senior doctor at Nasser Medical Complex says Gaza is facing a full-scale health disaster, especially among children, as Israeli attacks and siege continue.

“We receive a murdered child every 40 minutes. A killed woman every 60 minutes. And a dead person every 15 minutes,” said Dr. Ahmad Al-Farra, director of the pediatric department at Nasser Hospital, in an interview with Al Jazeera.

Dr. Al-Farra confirmed that Israeli authorities continue to block essential medical supplies, including vaccines and treatment for children.

“The occupation is preventing the entry of the rotavirus vaccine,” he said. “Our pediatric wards are full. We are overwhelmed with cases of severe diarrhea and gastroenteritis.”

Gaza’s medical infrastructure has collapsed under bombardment. According to Dr. Al-Farra, 75% of Gaza’s hospital bed capacity has been destroyed by Israeli airstrikes.

“No lactose-free milk. No therapeutic milk. No vaccines. And no medical aid has reached us so far,” he added.

Children in Gaza are now suffering from preventable diseases due to lack of vaccination. Thousands of babies are at risk of deadly infections. Malnutrition is growing, and clean water is scarce.

Israel’s genocide in Gaza has devastated the health system. Hospitals have been bombed. Ambulances destroyed. Medical workers killed, arrested, or forced to flee.

Doctors Without Borders, the WHO, and other agencies have repeatedly warned that Israel is systematically targeting Gaza’s healthcare system.

At least 493 healthcare workers have been killed since October 2023, according to the health ministry. Major hospitals in northern Gaza, like Al-Shifa and Kamal Adwan, were raided or bombed. In the south, Nasser Hospital now struggles to operate with limited resources and wounded staff.

1 Jun 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By middle east monitor

The Chairman of the International Committee for Breaking the Siege of Gaza, Zaher Birawi, said yesterday he expects Israeli forces to intercept the Freedom Flotilla ship before it arrives in the Gaza Strip.

Birawi expressed hope that the flotilla would receive international and popular protection and succeed in reaching Gaza to help end the blockade, which has been in place for 17 years.

The ship Madeleine, carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, set sail from the port of Catania on the Italian island of Sicily earlier yesterday. The voyage is expected to take seven days.

Madeleine is the 36th vessel launched by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition in its ongoing efforts to break the Israeli blockade on Gaza.

Israeli forces resumed their assault and tightened blockade on the Gaza Strip on 18 March, ending a two-month ceasefire that had come into effect on 19 January. However, Israel had violated the terms of the agreement throughout the truce period.

Since the start of the Israeli offensive on Gaza on 7 October 2023, backed fully by the United States, the Israeli military has continued its operations, resulting in more than 178,000 deaths and injuries, mostly among Palestinian women and children. Thousands remain missing, while hundreds of thousands have been displaced under extremely dire humanitarian conditions amid imminent famine.

The assault has also caused widespread destruction, including the demolition of homes, residential towers, hospitals, and much of the Strip’s infrastructure.

2 Jun 2025

Source: middleeastmonitor.com