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By Prof. Junaid S. Ahmad

They say history swings on a hinge—on moments that demand a reckoning, not a retweet. Today, we stand at such a crossroads. One path leads to ‘Zohran’: a world built on egalitarian liberation, where justice is not a marketing slogan but a lived reality, and where the commons are rescued from corporate siege. The other path barrels toward Zion—not the ancient hill, nor the faith of a people, but an ideology of supremacist violence, perfected in the smoking ruins of Gaza.

Two futures, one choice. And neutrality is a myth.

The Rise of a World Worth Fighting For

“Zohranism” is not a campaign slogan. It is not another rebranding of left-liberal identity politics. It is not about a singular politician—though New York State Assembly member Zohran Mamdani has come to symbolize its ethos. Rather, Zohranism is a slow, stubborn insurgency of principles against propaganda. It’s the recognition that justice cannot be carved into electoral soundbites or sacrificed on the altar of bipartisan respectability.

This political ethic isn’t crafted in think tanks or donor retreats—it’s forged in food lines, on picket lines, and in frontlines like Gaza. It does not sanitize its outrage to fit into Sunday talk shows. It names genocide when genocide is unfolding. It calls out apartheid even when that means losing endorsements. It links domestic struggle to international solidarity without flinching.

Zohranism, at its core, is a politics of coherence. It sees no contradiction between organizing for tenant rights in Brooklyn and condemning Israeli airstrikes in Rafah. It’s not driven by public relations, but by public conscience. It is growing—not because it flatters power, but because it refuses to bow to it.

Gaza: The Graveyard of Illusions
No place on Earth lays bare the moral fraudulence of our global order more brutally than Gaza. And no people expose the hollowness of militarized supremacy more defiantly than Palestinians.

Since October 2023, over 56,000 lives—mostly women and children—have been erased by Israel’s war machine. Hospitals have been converted into morgues. UN shelters pulverized. Entire families incinerated in drone strikes deemed “surgical.” In March 2025, Operation Might and Sword murdered over 855 civilians in a single night—no credible military objective, just a spectacle of vengeance.

But Gaza does more than grieve. It resists.

Even amid siege and starvation, Gazans cook communally, organize aid, write poetry, and dig the dead from rubble with bare hands. They live—and that is their revolt. Gaza has become a crucible of courage, a frontline of the possible. And it is this fierce will to live, not just survive, that animates Zohranism. A refusal to let brutality dictate the boundaries of imagination.

Zion: The Empire with No Clothes
Let’s be precise. Zion(ism), as referred to here, is not Judaism. Nor is it simply the existence of the Israeli state. It is a settler-colonial doctrine—an ethno-supremacist framework that privileges Jewish identity above all others, sanctions dispossession, and lauds apartheid as self-defense. It is the blueprint behind razed villages, stolen land, and a state machinery that murders with impunity.

Once, Zionism relied on liberal fig leaves: “the only democracy in the Middle East,” “a vibrant multicultural society,” “a beacon of progress.” Gaza tore those fig leaves into confetti. You cannot bomb children in U.N. schools and then deliver TED Talks about tolerance. The contradictions are now too glaring to cover.

Even in the propaganda heartland of the United States, the mask is slipping. AIPAC can still buy Congress, but it can’t buy the conscience of the streets. Jewish peace activists now chain themselves to weapons factories. Students occupy campuses with chants of “Divest from genocide.” CIA analysts murmur that Israel has become a “strategic liability.” When Langley begins to fidget, it’s no longer just a moral indictment—it’s a geopolitical alarm.

Inside Israel, the rot is also visible. The far-right coalition fights over whether to ethnically cleanse Palestinians slowly or in one fell swoop. Netanyahu, trapped between trial and tyranny, rides the backs of messianists and militarists alike. The project of Zion(ism) is no longer expanding. It is entrenching, collapsing inward, scorched by the fires it set.

The Genocide That’s Losing the Narrative
Here’s the bitter truth: For all its billions in U.S. weapons, satellite precision, and air superiority, Zionism is failing to achieve its core goals. Gaza has not been pacified. Hamas has not been crushed. Palestinian resistance has not been broken—it has evolved, militarily and morally.

Despite the flattening of neighborhoods, over 860 Israeli soldiers have been killed. Despite overwhelming firepower, Israeli occupation troops face a landscape riddled with IEDs, tunnel ambushes, and unyielding defiance. Despite international pleas, Israel has ignited a diplomatic inferno. Even U.S. allies now whisper about “exit strategies” and “regional containment.”

Iran’s retaliatory missile strikes—targeted and bold—have signaled a regional red line. Hezbollah’s posture in the north, the mobilization of militias in Iraq and Syria, the global South’s fury—all point to a growing consensus: Israel’s impunity is no longer sustainable.

Meanwhile, Washington’s contradictions are impossible to conceal. It pledges humanitarian aid with one hand and airlifts bunker busters with the other. The Pentagon drops leaflets warning of famine, while Raytheon profits from missile contracts. The theater is obscene—and the audience is done clapping.

You can bulldoze buildings. You cannot bulldoze memory. Or truth.

Zohranism as a Foreign Policy
Zohranism is not just a domestic vision. It is a redefinition of global politics itself. It stands against endless wars, not out of pacifism, but out of a principled belief in sovereignty, dignity, and collective liberation.

It declares housing a right. Water a human necessity. Health a public good. Zohranism fights the climate crisis not with carbon markets, but with a Green New Deal that doesn’t exclude Gaza, Sudan, or the Global South. It disarms empire by divesting from its factories of death. It speaks of Palestine not as a “complex issue,” but as an open wound—inflicted daily, funded hourly.

This is the threat it poses to empire: not simply moral dissent, but material disruption. The Zohranistas demanding rent control in Queens are also organizing to defund war. The students occupying campuses are not just calling for a ceasefire—they are building an ethic of solidarity that spans continents and breaks lobbies.

They understand something the old world order refuses to admit: that injustice is not local. It is systemic. And so must be the resistance.

A World Reaching for Its Tipping Point
From strikes in California to encampments at Columbia, from women’s rights marches in Argentina to anti-imperialist movements in Kenya, the signs are clear: the people of the world are fed up with crumbs and carnage. The old order—of endless growth, war without cost, and profit over people—is trembling. Its mask is cracking. Its guns are no longer enough.

And this terrifies our global plutocrats.

Because the truth is, their entire edifice—of oil deals, surveillance states, and apartheid walls—depends not on strength, but on obedience. They rule not because we are weak, but because we have forgotten our strength.

Zohranism reminds us. It is a memory returning. A politics grounded in the radical idea that people matter more than profits, that borders should not eclipse justice, and that Gaza’s suffering is not exceptional, but emblematic.

The Choice Is Clear—And Urgent

So here we are.

Not just at a fork in the road, but at the cliff’s edge of history.

Zion or Zohran.

One future leads to biometric checkpoints, billion-dollar bombs, and sanitized genocide livestreamed in high resolution. It ends in surveillance, in scarcity, in silence dressed as stability.

The other dares to dream. It dismantles walls, not just with protest, but with policy. It builds not empires, but coalitions. It doesn’t just resist genocide—it organizes to uproot its causes.

The empires have picked their side. The question is—have we?

Let’s not pretend the middle ground is a moral ground. Let’s not hide behind the fig leaf of complexity. The blood on Gaza’s pavement is not complicated. It is evidence. Evidence of a system that must be not only condemned—but dismantled.

Zohranism is not perfect. It is flawed, contested, still forming. But it is real. And it is rising.

The bombs falling on Gaza are not the future—they are the shrieking death rattle of an order that cannot survive the light. Our task is not just to mourn, but to mobilize.

History is not written by those who stayed neutral. It is written by those who refused.

So stop asking what is possible.

Ask what is intolerable.

And then act accordingly.

Prof. Junaid S. Ahmad teaches Law, Religion, and Global Politics and is the Director of the Center for the Study of Islam and Decolonization (CSID), Islamabad, Pakistan.

27 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark

The confidence trickster was at it again on his visit to The Hague, reluctantly meeting members of the overly large family that is NATO.  President Donald Trump was hoping to impress upon all present that allies of the United States, whatever inclination and whatever their domestic policy, should spend mightily on defence, inflating the margins of sense and sensibility against marginal threats.  Never mind the strain placed on the national budget over such absurd priorities as welfare, health or education. 

The marvellous irony in this is that much of the budget increases have been prompted by Trump’s perceived unreliability and capriciousness when it comes to European affairs.  Would he, for instance, treat obligations of collective defence outlined in Article 5 of the organisation’s governing treaty with utmost seriousness?  Since Washington cannot be relied upon to hold the fort against the satanic savages from the East, various European countries have been encouraging a spike in defence spending to fight the sprites and hobgoblins troubling their consciences at night. 

The European Union, for instance, has put in place initiatives that will make getting more weaponry and investing in the military industrial complex easier than ever, raising the threshold of defence expenditure across all member countries to 3.5% of GDP by the end of the decade.  And then there is the Ukraine conflict, a war Brussels cannot bear to see end on terms that might be remotely favourable to Russia. 

The promised pecuniary spray made at the NATO summit was seen by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte as utterly natural if not eminently sensible.  Not much else was.  It was Rutte who remarked with infantile fawning that “Sometimes Daddy has to use tough language” when it came to sorting out the murderous bickering between Israel and Iran.  Daddy Trump approved.  “He likes me, I think he likes me,” the US president crowed with glowing satisfaction.

Rutte’s behaviour has been viewed with suspicion, as well it should.  Under his direction, NATO headquarters have made a point of diminishing any focus on climate change and its Women, Peace, and Security agenda.  He has failed to make much of Trump’s mania for the annexation of Greenland, or the President’s gladiatorial abuse of certain leaders when visiting the White House – Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa come to mind. “He is not paid to implement MAGA policy,” grumbled a European NATO diplomat to Euroactive.

In his doorstep statement of June 25, Rutte made his wish known that the NATO collective possess both the money and capabilities to cope, not just with Russia “but also the massive build-up of military in China, and the fact that North Korea, China and Iran, are supporting the war effort in Ukraine”.  Lashings of butter were also added to the Trump ego when responding to questions. “Would you really think that the seven or eight countries not at 2% [of GDP expenditure on defence] at the beginning of this year would have reached the 2% if Trump would not have been elected President of the United States?”  It was only appropriate, given the contributions of the US (“over 50% of the total NATO economy”), that things had to change for the Europeans and Canadians.

The centrepiece of the Hague Summit Declaration is a promise that 5% of member countries’ gross GDP will go to “core defence requirements as well as defence and security-related spending by 2035 to ensure our individual and collective obligations”.  Traditional bogeyman Russia is the predictable antagonist, posing a “long-term threat […] to Euro-Atlantic security”, but so was “the persistent threat of terrorism”.  The target is optimistic, given NATO’s own recent estimates that nine members spend less than the current target of 2% of GDP.

What is misleading in the declaration is the accounting process: the 3.5% of annual GDP that will be spent “on the agreed definition of NATO defence expenditure by 2035 to resource core defence requirements, and to meet NATO Capability Targets” is one component. The other 1.5%, a figure based on a creative management of accounts, is intended to “protect our critical infrastructure, defend our networks, ensure our civil preparedness and resilience, unleash innovation, and strengthen our defence industrial base.”

Another misleading element in the declaration is the claimed unanimity of member states.  The Baltic countries and Poland are forever engaged in increasing their defence budgets in anticipation of a Russian attack, but the same cannot be said of other countries less disposed to the issue. Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico, for instance, declared on the eve of the summit that his country had “better things to spend money on”.  Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has also called the 5% target “incompatible with our world view”, preferring to focus on a policy of prudent procurement.

Rutte seemed to revel in his role as wallah and jesting sycophant, making sure Trump was not only placated but massaged into a state of satisfaction.  It was a sight all the stranger for the fact that Trump’s view of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is a warm one.  Unfortunately for the secretary general, his role will be forever etched in the context of European history as an aspiring warmonger, one valued at 5% of the GDP of any of the NATO member states.  Hardly a flattering epitaph.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. 

28 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Marwan Asmar

Today, the Middle East has just passed a historical watershed never seen before in at least 100 years of development. It represents a major turning point for the Arab region that has long been characterized by its western hegemony, imperialism and domination.

One external power outside the Arab fold has managed to turn the tables around and thrust the Middle East region into the forefront of modernity and civilization through its military prowess and technical ingenuity.

That country is Iran: A regional actor that has been forced to come out of its self-imposed shell and hit Israel as hard as it can in a 12-day war-spree brought on by the political masters of Tel Aviv who had long insisted that Iran, its economy, military capability and nuclearization must be destroyed.

These words were uttered time and again by Israel’s radical Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist ministers and who made it their business to start a war on Iran and seek to destroy the country through a third super-power actor, that of the United States of America.

And so, with its supposed military superiority backed by Washington, Israel started a deadly war on Iran on 13 June, going after its cities, military infrastructure and top military generals, including its nuclear military experts.

It was a surprising, devastating, early Friday morning attack that shocked Iran and the rest of the region. Netanyahu’s wish was coming true. He had destroyed Gaza but not Hamas, reduced Hezbollah to a shadow of its former self, awkwardly standing up to the Houthis and now is going after the big Iranian bear.

But that became a dream come true not only for Iran but the Palestinians of Gaza and the people of the region because until then – 23 months into the Israeli genocide, not a single Arab state, dared to move its head and stand up to Israel. It was mind-boggling.

However, unease was manifesting in the region. Here was a “super-Israel” that was standing up to anyone who dared to question its superiority and transcendence. But not for long;  things started to change very quickly on the night of the very same day with ballistic missiles and drones started to rain down on Tel Aviv and the other Israeli cities in an incessant unexpected manner.

And therefore, it became the turn of Israelis, their politicians, ministers, lawmakers, generals and soldiers to experience the shock, horror and devastation of what they had been doing to Gaza since 7 October, 2023.

Since 13 June, the Israeli skyline, especially in the night and early morning hours became littered by incoming missiles with their top defense systems like the prestigious Iron Dome, American Thud and the David Sling were powerless to deflect. Here was a new invasion sparkling in its skies, of the dangerous variety.

For the first time in Israel’s ungodly creation since 1948, Israel was under attack. June 13 was the first in a 12-day series in which Israeli cities were torn to pieces and destroyed. Direct hits were being made to their skyscrapers, high-rise buildings, military installation, ports, electricity grid and its famous Ben Gurion International Airport. 

Overnight everything in sight became fair game with the US gleefully watching but unable or unwilling to do anything.

Despite the tough military clobbering Iran was getting, for the first-time Israel’s nose was being rubbed in the mud on a daily, nightly basis with its military standing powerless. What they were doing to Gaza was being done to them with missiles fired 1,724 kilometers away, the distance from Iran to Israel.

Its prestigious city Tel Aviv and its Jewish neighborhoods, other towns and settlements reaching all the way to Jerusalem where getting knocked, bombed and struck with debris and mortar falling on cars and other vehicles.

These previously top places of living were falling down, with Israelis, ordinary, and experts were licking their wounds. Very quickly the economy, public life, day-to-day ordinary living was brought to a standstill. Tel Aviv, the economic and technological center of the country, was being hammered. 

The Israeli state quickly found itself in a war-situation with deadly, eerie, screaming sirens blasting all over – from the far-north of the country till its furthest south – carrying almost non-stop. Israel was no longer able to protect its Jews many of whom were trying to escape through tugboats to Cyprus and/or through Sina’s Egypt.

The city was being attacked, there was no way to stop it. Missiles were seen nightly beaming into the skies in flicks and flares. Some came crashing down, others also fell heavily just the same because of being fired upon by Israeli counter-missiles that were just as destructive..

For 12 days, seven or eight million Israelis were spending their days and nights in the shelters and bunkers, seeking to get away from the Iranian missiles but without much success. As soon as the so-called Israeli Home Front would give permission to leave the underground holes, people would get back as ordered for their own safety. Of course these were unlike the top-notch bunker Netanyahu. was hiding in, but they had to do. 

The social media was becoming filled with “ruined Israel”. Videos posted on different platforms showed the destruction of the blasts. These were just a fraction of the mayhem that was being inflicted in the Star Wars blasts Israel was being subjected to through Netanyahu who continued to promise to inflict “hell and damnation” on Iran.

For a so-called democratic state like Israel the military censors had worked hard in the war to smack-gob the media and prevent them from publishing images and stories of the impact of these Iranian missiles on military bases, intelligence centers and Mossad headquarters but it was to no avail. The cracks penetrated. Big brother Israel might be superior to Hamas and Islamic Jihad but definitely not to Iran.

[https://twitter.com/SilentlySirs/status/1934895049537364075]

Despite this however, and all in the name of Israeli public accountability, the censors were forced to relent. They couldn’t prevent but show the complete destruction of the Weizmann Institute of Science that had close relations with the Israeli army.  The censors couldn’t prevent the publishing of the bombing of the Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv either but there were many sensitive sites and bases that were struck by Iranian missile barrages.  

First to be hit in the beginning of the conflict was the Kirya – the Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv and which the Israelis proudly called their “Pentagon” that housed the Israeli Ministry of Defense/or the Ministry of War depending on your own point of view.

This was just the start for in the subsequent days, and contrary to claims the Iranian missiles target Israeli residential houses, the ballistics – over 550 missiles and 1000 drones according to the Israeli army – struck the so-called Moshe Dyan Camp which is a complex of training and operations center for intelligence officers.

Then missiles fell on the Tel Nof Airbase, Navatim Airbase, Hatzerim Airbase, Ovada Airbase, the Herzliya Mossad headquarters and the Gav-Yam Negav Advanced Technologies Park in southern Israel. The last was a research and cyberwarfare hub for the Israeli army and the Mossad gathering intelligence for the Israeli slaughter of Gaza.

The missiles which Tehran had been developing in so-called underground “missile cities” as branded by Iranian watchers targeted the Bazan oil refinery deemed as Israel’s largest processing centers, the Haifa power station, Hedera Power Station and the Ashdod Power Station with numerous other targets.

By the end of the war as brokered by US President Donald Trump, making it clear his objective was complete when he bombed the three Iranian nuclear plants – Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan – he ordered a ceasefire which Netanyahu submitted to after much arms-twisting for the latter wanted to continuing bombing Iranian sites despite the mayhem that was being done to Israel.

The Iranian missiles – 22 barrages over 12 days and the last on 23 June, minutes before the ceasefire between Israel and Iran took effect. At the end of the war over 30,000 buildings were destroyed and damaged with around 4000 vehicles ruined through falling debris.

Many said and with relish that Israelis were getting some of the medicine they had been dishing out to Gazans with 28 killed and over 3000 injured and needed to go to hospital, not to say of the numbers buried under the rubble. Up to this war, the great majority of Israelis had been “cushioned” against the destructive actions perpetrated by their government but no longer for the deep cracks and fissures have set in.

Although Israelis and American politicians say they set back the Iran nuclear program years back, this is doubtful. Despite its boastful echoes, Israel has been struck really hard this time around – a wake up call to what can happen time and again from now on and exposing its own fragility. Israel is not invincible and it knows it.

Dr Marwan Asmar  is a writer based in Amman and blogs at https://crossfirearabia.com/

28 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Brett Wilkins

Israel Defense Forces commanders ordered troops to shoot and shell aid-seeking Palestinian civilians in Gaza, even when they posed no threat, according to IDF officers and soldiers interviewed by Israel’s oldest daily newspaper.

Haaretz on Friday published testimonies of IDF members including senior officers who said that commanders including Brig. Gen. Yehuda Vach ordered troops to open fire on aid-seeking Palestinians in order to disperse them, even when there was no danger to Israeli troops.

“It’s a killing field,” one soldier said. “Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day. They’re treated like a hostile force—no crowd-control measures, no tear gas—just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. Then, once the center opens, the shooting stops, and they know they can approach. Our form of communication is gunfire.”

[https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1938596144340189300]

The soldier said troops informally call this activity “Operation Salted Fish.” Salted fish, or dag maluach in Hebrew, is an Israeli children’s game similar to red light, green light. One IDF reservist who just finished a round of duty in Gaza this week said that “the loss of human life means nothing. It’s not even an ‘unfortunate incident,’ like they used to say.”

Last month, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification report revealed that 244,000 people in Gaza were suffering such “an extreme deprivation of food” that “starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition are or will likely be evident.” Gaza officials say at least hundreds of people have already died of malnutrition and lack of medical care since Israel tightened the siege in March. Many of the victims are children and elders. Hundreds of premature infants face imminent death.

Amid such desperation—driven by 629 days of U.S.-backed Israeli bombardment, invasion, and ethnic cleansing that have killed, wounded, or disappeared more than 200,000 Palestinians and forcibly displaced over 2 million—Gazans are willing to risk their lives for their next meal.

According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, at least 549 Palestinians have been killed and more than 4,000 others have been wounded by IDF troops since May 27 while trying to obtain humanitarian aid amid Israel’s “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip that has fueled mass starvation and illness. Dozens or more civilians have been killed in the worst of these aid massacres.

A reserve officer in Vach’s Division 252—veterans of which have accused the general of telling them “there are no innocents in Gaza”—told Haaretz that he was ordered to fire artillery shells toward a crowd gathered near an aid distribution site.

“Technically, it’s supposed to be warning fire—either to push people back or stop them from advancing,” he said. “But lately, firing shells has just become standard practice. Every time we fire, there are casualties and deaths, and when someone asks why a shell is necessary, there’s never a good answer. Sometimes, merely asking the question annoys the commanders.”

“You know it’s not right. You feel it’s not right—that the commanders here are taking the law into their own hands,” the soldier added. “But Gaza is a parallel universe. You move on quickly. The truth is, most people don’t even stop to think about it.”

A senior reserve officer who was present when more than 10 aid-seekers were killed said:

When we asked why they opened fire, we were told it was an order from above and that the civilians had posed a threat to the troops. I can say with certainty that the people were not close to the forces and did not endanger them. It was pointless—they were just killed, for nothing. This thing called killing innocent people—it’s been normalized. We were constantly told there are no noncombatants in Gaza, and apparently that message sank in among the troops.

That message has come all the way from the top. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and weaponized starvation—has invoked the biblical command for genocide against Israel’s ancient enemy Amalek. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that the killing of every man, woman, and child in Gaza would be “justified and moral.” Deputy Knesset Speaker Nissim Vaturi asserted that “there are no uninvolved people” in Gaza, and “we must go in there and kill, kill, kill.” Many other prominent Israelis have made similar statements.

Israel’s Military Advocate General has instructed the IDF General Staff’s Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism to investigate the killing of aid-seeking civilians as possible war crimes. However, the historical record suggests impunity—or at worst, wrist-slap punishment—will prevail for most if not all of those who ordered and carried out the shooting and shelling of civilians.

One military source who attended a high-level IDF meeting during which the use of artillery on aid-seekers was discussed told Haaretz that “they talk about using artillery on a junction full of civilians as if it’s normal.”

“An entire conversation about whether it’s right or wrong to use artillery, without even asking why that weapon was needed in the first place,” the source said. “What concerns everyone is whether it’ll hurt our legitimacy to keep operating in Gaza. The moral aspect is practically nonexistent. No one stops to ask why dozens of civilians looking for food are being killed every day.”

A legal official who attended the meeting told Haaretz that representatives of the Military Advocate General’s Office rejected the IDF’s argument that aid killings were one-off incidents.

“The claim that these are isolated cases doesn’t align with incidents in which grenades were dropped from the air and mortars and artillery were fired at civilians,” the official said. “This isn’t about a few people being killed—we’re talking about dozens of casualties every day.”

The near-daily massacres of aid-seeking Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces and Israel’s use of the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation—whose operations have been called a “death trap“—have drawn international condemnation.

[https://twitter.com/RepRashida/status/1938682400265138231]

Earlier this week, a spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said that “the weaponization of food for civilians… constitutes a war crime and, under certain circumstances, may constitute elements of other crimes under international law,” remarks that came amid the ongoing genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz rejected the claims in the Haaretz report as “blood libels,” while the IDF responded to the exposé in a statement claiming that “any allegation of a deviation from the law or IDF directives will be thoroughly examined, and further action will be taken as necessary.”

“The allegations of deliberate fire toward civilians presented in the article are not recognized in the field,” the IDF added.

IDF troops have previously admitted to witnessing alleged war crimes including indiscriminate murder of people including women and children in Gaza and torture, sometimes fatal, in Israeli detention centers including the notorious Sde Teiman prison.

Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

28 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Robert Hunziker

Science is under attack throughout the world. Meanwhile, there’s substantial scientific evidence that the planetary system is turning unstable. This may not strike most people as a big problem because ‘life goes on,’ an attitude that’s more, and more, prevalent and one of the factors behind anti-science attitudes. But, if in fact the planetary system is becoming unstable, if it is true, life will be hell.

Johan Rockström, joint director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research/Germany, internationally recognized for his work on global sustainability, recently gave a 30-minute speech that specifically addresses stability of the Earth system. This is a synopsis of his remarks, including some editorial comment.

“We are facing, undoubtably, in all forms of risk assessment, a decisive moment for humanity’s future on planet Earth… I’m talking about for the first time in human history on planet Earth that we are forced to seriously consider the risks we are destabilizing the stability of the entire planet.” (Johan Rockström, Potsdam Institute speech Publica 25: Decisive Decade: From Global Promises to Planetary Action)

“We are hitting the ceiling of the biophysical processes, the hardwired process that regulates the very functioning of the Earth’s system,” Ibid.

All parameters of planetary health for human well-being have similar trajectories, sharply upwards. Until the 1950s we had a linear system (relatively stable and predictable but unsustainable exploitation) and starting in 1955 with 3.5 billion people, and going forward, an exponential rise suddenly took off with overexploitation of biodiversity, and acid rain, and massive deforestation. All forms of pressure on the planet took off to the point where today we are in an entirely new geological epoch, and it’s happening within only one generation, remarkably, in the context of a stable planetary system ever since humans first huddled together around fires. It’s potentially the most momentous happening in all of human history, period!

Civilization is exiting the Holocene, entering the Anthropocene. Humans are now the dominating “force of change.” This is too new, too quick for a 4.5-billion-year-old planet system accustomed to old-fashioned ways. In fact, we’re already hitting the ceiling of stable planetary processes and starting to push through. For example. for the first time, last year was a full year to exceed 1.5°C pre-industrial, the warmest temperature on Earth over the last 100,000 years. We’re starting to feel it, see it, smell it, and taste it, record wildfires, record floods, record hurricanes, record tornados, record coral bleaching, record glacial melt, record droughts, record sea level rise, record dry riverbeds, record heat deaths, record ocean acidification, record insect loss, and record marine loss. Humans are the only gainers.

The 2023 Watershed Year

According to Rockström: “We are already outside of the Holocene range of variability… let me bring you to why we are so nervous today. Why we have over the past 12 months heard scientific language that I’ve never experienced in my whole career, mind-boggling, shocking data, observations that we never thought was possible, that we would never be able to predict in our models… it’s the observation of air temperature and sea surface temperatures”:

“We have a global climate crisis.”

“We are in a situation of dire need of change.”

In 2023, a 0.3°C jump in global temperature occurred. The planet experienced a sudden 10-times increase in only 12 months; it’s unheard of.

Under normal circumstances, with the 2023 watershed year, when global temperature suddenly spikes up, it stabilizes for a period of time, but it demonstrated an alarming change in behavior and serious cause for concern because El Niño (natural warming phase) and La Niña (natural cooling phase) cycles that always influence the climate system are not having any impact, none!. This has never happened before.

Rockström: “There is something wrong. What is happening?” Honest answer: “We do not know yet.”

The rapid escalation of planetary instability has sparked unprecedented concern as the interplay of human activity with natural systems has created a volatile environment, thunderstorms become more severe, rainstorms more powerfully destructive as atmospheric rivers suddenly bring flash floods, and droughts longer, hotter.

Increasingly, feedback mechanisms include the accelerated release of methane from thawing permafrost, which is a potent greenhouse gas, and the retreat of polar ice, which diminishes the planet’s reflection of solar radiation and further intensifies warming. The urgency of the situation has led to calls for systemic change, not only in reducing greenhouse gas emissions but also in restructuring economies and societies to prioritize sustainability over short-term gains. Yet, global emissions continue, and international agreements fall short of binding commitments or fail altogether in implementation.

The risks are glaring, for example, the latest data on the Brazilian Amazon rainforest tells the story, as Earth’s richest ecosystem, the Brazilian portion of the rainforest, which is the largest part, has already tipped. It’s no longer a carbon sink. It’s a carbon source. This has ominous warning signs written all over it. For the first time, we are seeing signs of the planet losing its resilience, losing its buffering capacity, which the science community refers to as “climate sensitivity.”

We now have the evidence of what occurs as certain limits are exceeded. For example, coincident with 1.5°C, “we’ve never before seen the frequency, amplitude, and strength of droughts, fires, floods, heat waves… There’s been a 60% increase in droughts.” The signs are everywhere. The planet is leaving the all-important “corridor of life.” The planet, for over one million years, never exceeded +2°C during warm interglacial and never below -5°C deep ice age. It’s the biogeochemical system that we depend on. It is threatened.

It’s already approaching the high end of that range. There are 16 tipping elements that regulate the Earth system. Six of those are in the Arctic, which is ground zero for Earth: 1) Greenland ice sheet 2) boreal forest 3) Arctic winter ice 4) permafrost system 5) connected by North Atlantic and AMOC. Also impacting, the Amazon rainforest, all three big systems, Antarctica, and tropical coral reef systems. These regulate the stability of the climate system.

Risk of Domino Effect

Temperatures at which a system tips from a state that helps us survive to a state of self-amplified warming include threats to the Greenland Ice Sheet, West Antarctica Ice Sheet, abrupt permafrost thawing, tropical coral systems, collapse of Labrador Sea ice and collapse of Barren Sea ice. These are all at risk. There is strong evidence that these systems interact with each other, meaning, there’s a risk of cascading impacts. Where one system triggers several others. These six systems are already outside the boundary of safe space. This is an extremely significant development for the first time in human history.

We’re at a point where we need to buckle up for a challenging journey. The probability of not exceeding 1.5°C on a sustained 10-yr basis is no longer possible. No matter what course is taken going forward, “it will get worse before it gets better.” And every tenth of a degree warming has big impact going forward.  Along those lines, science has identified big costs to the global economy based upon current economics with up to 20% costs over the next decades as a result of loss of planetary stability.

The amount of time remaining to take mitigation measures is running short. Based upon analyses by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we only have 200 Gt CO2 remaining in the global carbon budget to achieve a 50/50 chance of holding to 1.5°C, after an expected upcoming overshoot to 1.7°C. That’s five years of global emissions. Five years to accomplish “decades of work” to hopefully hold the line.

Positive Signs Within a Narrow Window of Opportunity

Efforts are being made to harness innovative technologies and traditional ecological knowledge to mitigate. From reforestation projects aimed at sequestering carbon to advancements in renewable energy, the pathways for resilience are there. However, time is running out; incremental progress will no longer suffice to prevent catastrophic outcomes. A lot needs to squeeze into the next five years, or all bets are off.

There are some favorable signs, for example, renewables are on a strong pathway in parts of the world economy, 90% of vehicle sales in Norway today are fully electric. In Denmark the EV market share is almost 60%.

Rockström: “As of today, we are in a danger zone. But we still have an opportunity to turn this around.”

Or does the strong anti-science political movement, emanating throughout the world from the United States, throw a wet blanket on the crucial five years ahead?

Useful link: Resources for Researchers and Scholars Under Threat in the United States, National Academies, Sciences, Engineering, Medicine.

Robert Hunziker is a journalist from Los Angeles

27 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Medea Benjamin

At this week’s NATO summit in The Hague, leaders announced an alarming new goal: push military spending to 5% of nations’ GDP by 2035. Framed as a response to rising global threats, particularly from Russia and terrorism, the declaration was hailed as a historic step. But in truth, it represents a major step backwards—away from addressing the urgent needs of people and the planet, and toward an arms race that will impoverish societies while enriching weapons contractors.

This outrageous 5% spending target didn’t come out of nowhere—it’s the direct result of years of bullying by Donald Trump. During his first term, Trump repeatedly berated NATO members for not spending enough on their militaries, pressuring them to meet a 2% GDP threshold that was already controversial and so excessive that nine NATO countries still fall below that “target”. 

Now, with Trump back in the White House, NATO leaders are falling in line, setting a staggering 5% target that even the United States—already spending over $1 trillion a year on its military—doesn’t reach. This is not defense; it’s extortion on a global scale, pushed by a president who views diplomacy as a shakedown and war as good business. 

Countries across Europe and North America are already slashing public services and yet they are now expected to funnel even more taxpayer money into war preparation. Currently, no NATO country spends more on the military than on health or education. But if they all hit the new 5% military spending goal, 21 of them would spend more on weapons than on schools.

Spain was one of the few to reject this escalation, with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez making clear that his government would not sacrifice pensions and social programs to meet a militarized spending target. Other governments, including Belgium and Slovakia, quietly pushed back too.

Still, NATO leaders pressed on, cheered by Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who fawned over Donald Trump’s demand that Europe boost defense spending. Rutte even referred to Trump as “Daddy,” a comment that—while dismissed as a joke—spoke volumes about NATO’s subservience to U.S. militarism. Under Trump’s influence, the alliance is shedding even the pretense of being a defensive pact, embracing instead the language and logic of perpetual war.

Just before NATO leaders were gathering at the Hague, protesters took to the streets under the banner “No to NATO.” And back in their home countries, civic groups are demanding a redirection of resources toward climate justice, healthcare, and peace. Polls show that majorities in the U.S. oppose increased military spending, but NATO is not accountable to the people. It’s accountable to political elites, arms manufacturers and a Cold War logic that sees every global development through the lens of threat and domination. 

NATO’s expansion, both in terms of war spending and size (it has grown from 12 founding members to 32 countries today) has not brought peace. On the contrary. The alliance’s promise that Ukraine would one day join its ranks was one of the triggers for Russia’s brutal war, and instead of de-escalating, the alliance has doubled down with weapons, not diplomacy. In Gaza, Israel continues its U.S.-backed war with impunity, while NATO nations send more arms and offer no serious push for peace. Now the alliance wants to drain public coffers to sustain these wars indefinitely. NATO is also surrounding its adversaries, particularly Russia, with ever more bases and troops. 

All of this demands a radical rethink. As the world burns—literally—NATO is stocking up on kindling. When healthcare systems are crumbling, schools underfunded, and blazing temperatures making large swaths of the planet uninhabitable, the idea that governments should commit billions more to weapons and war is obscene. Real security doesn’t come from tanks and missiles—it comes from strong communities, global cooperation, and urgent action on our shared crises. 

We need to flip the script. That means cutting military budgets, withdrawing from endless wars, and beginning a serious conversation about dismantling NATO. The alliance, born of the Cold War, is now a stumbling block to global peace and an active participant in war-making. Its latest summit only reinforces that reality. 

This is not just about NATO’s budget—it’s about our future. Every euro or dollar spent on weapons is one not spent on confronting the climate crisis, lifting people out of poverty, or building a peaceful world. For the future of our planet, we must reject NATO and the war economy. 

26 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Gaza (Quds News Network)- One-third of families in Gaza are going an entire day without food due to Israel’s ongoing genocide and blockade of aid, according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP).

In a statement, the WFP and its partners said families in Gaza are surviving on thin broths, lentils or rice, one piece of bread or sometimes just a combination of herbs and olive oil known locally as duqqa.

It said that due to the extreme shortage of food, Palestinians routinely risk their lives to get some food.

“The majority of casualties have been shot or shelled trying to reach US-Israeli distribution sites purposefully set up in militarised zones,” said Johnathan Whittall, head of office for the UN humanitarian affairs agency, OCHA, in the occupied Palestinian territory.

The UN confirmed that since 27 May, 549 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and 4,066 injured while trying to access food near the US-backed aid sites.

Other services are being pushed to the brink. As a result of fuel shortages, only 40 percent of drinking water facilities are functional, and 93 percent of households face water insecurity, the statement said.

On March 2, Israel announced the closure of Gaza’s main crossings, cutting off food, medical and humanitarian supplies, worsening a humanitarian crisis for 2.3 million Palestinians, according to reports by human rights organisations who have accused it of using starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinains.

An Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report last month warned that almost a quarter of the civilian population would face catastrophic levels of food insecurity (IPC Phase Five) in the coming months.

After more than 80 days of total blockade, starvation, and growing international outrage, limited aid has allegedly been distributed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a scandal-plagued organization backed by the US and Israel, created to bypass the UN’s established aid delivery infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.

Israel continues to severely restrict the amount of food entering the war-battered Strip with the UN confirming that it is still blocking food from reaching starving Palestinians and only a few trucks of aid reaching Gaza.

Most humanitarian organisations, including the UN, have distanced themselves from GHF, arguing that the group violates humanitarian principles by restricting aid to south and central Gaza, requiring Palestinians to walk long distances to collect aid, and only providing limited aid, among other critiques.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned that “weaponizing aid in this manner may constitute crimes against humanity.”

“Every day Palestinians are met with carnage in their attempts to receive supplies from the insufficient amount of aid trickling into Gaza,” MSF said.

The commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, condemned the “lethal” US-Israel aid distribution mechanism in Gaza. In a post on X, Lazzarini indicated that Palestinian lives “have been so devalued”.

“It is now the routine to shoot & kill desperate & starving people while they try to collect little food from a company made of mercenaries,” he said.

“Inviting starving people to their death is a war crime. Those responsible of this system must be held accountable. This is a disgrace & a stain on our collective consciousness.”

27 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Kevin Reed

On Thursday, Israeli forces continued their bloody wave of deadly attacks across Gaza, killing dozens of Palestinian civilians seeking food and shelter and further tightening the blockade on northern Gaza.

According to Al Jazeera, Gaza authorities reported that at least 71 people were killed on Thursday in Israeli military actions. Local health officials detailed attacks on a school in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, which left nine dead, and another strike near a tent settlement in Khan Younis that killed nine more.

A drone strike on Deir el-Balah’s market street resulted in nine deaths and multiple injuries. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society also confirmed that three people were killed by Israeli army fire while waiting for humanitarian assistance at a distribution point in the Netzarim Corridor, marking yet another fatal incident at aid sites.

Every day, eyewitness accounts are being given of massacres of Palestinians seeking food at aid distribution sites. Based on Al Jazeera’s reporting since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began operations on May 27, at least 549 Palestinians have been killed near aid sites, with 4,066 injured and another 39 civilians still missing after these attacks.

Reporting on Thursday, the New York Times stated that “hundreds of Palestinians have been killed over the past month near aid hubs set up under a new Israel-backed system, according to Gaza health officials.” The Times described how accessing these heavily fortified distribution centers requires Palestinians to risk their lives.

The United Nations has condemned the situation, with Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, characterizing the new aid distribution centers as “death traps” for those in Gaza. Laerke stated:

Gaza is a hungry place. When we manage to bring anything in, it gets looted by the desperate. That is the level of desperation.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the agency for Palestinian refugees, has also issued condemnations. Philippe Lazzarini, the UNRWA’s commissioner general, called the US- and Israeli-backed GHF “an abomination” and “a death trap costing more lives than it saves.”

Lazzarini said:

Humanitarian principles must be reinstated. The humanitarian community, including UNRWA, has the expertise and must be allowed to do their jobs and provide assistance with respect and dignity.

Israeli officials have remained silent on the specifics of Thursday’s killings. While the IDF has previously claimed it is targeting militants, it does not bother to back up these statements with evidence. As it has done throughout its 20-month genocide, the fascist regime of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has failed to provide any proof that justifies killing unarmed civilians.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, Israel further tightened its stranglehold on Gaza by closing crossings into the northern part of the territory. According to a report by the Guardian, Israel halted aid deliveries, claiming to have intelligence that Hamas was seizing supplies intended for civilians.

However, Palestinian leaders and representatives of the Higher Commission for Tribal Affairs in Gaza have denied these allegations, stating that the trucks were being protected as part of an aid security process managed “solely through tribal efforts.” They emphasized that no Palestinian faction, including Hamas, was involved in the process.

A video circulating on Wednesday showed dozens of masked men, some armed with rifles but most carrying sticks, riding on aid trucks. Israeli officials claimed this was proof that militants were stealing food. Hamas itself denied any involvement.

Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a joint statement late on Wednesday ordering the military to present a plan within two days to prevent Hamas from taking control of aid. They cited unspecified information to justify the border closures but again provided no evidence.

The reality is that the closures and the restriction of aid distribution have led to catastrophic levels of hunger and desperation, with the UN and humanitarian organizations warning of imminent famine.

The shutdown of the crossings into the north of Gaza and the use of aid sites as death traps in the south make clear that the scheme of controlling food distribution is a central component of Israel’s ethnic cleansing operation and plan to forcibly drive Palestinians into Egypt.

UN Rights Office spokesman Thameen Al-Kheetan has pointed to the role of the GHF in setting up Palestinians for death. Al-Kheetan stated that the aid group has become a cover for Israel’s military operations, with aid seekers targeted by Israeli forces as they attempt to access food.

This is a clear violation of international law and constitutes a war crime. The result is a situation where “no place is safe in Gaza, and no one is spared,” as Lazzarini stated. The UN has called for humanitarian principles to be reinstated and for aid to be delivered with respect and dignity, but these calls have gone unheeded by Israel and its international backers.

The GHF manages a limited number of aid distribution points, operated by private contractors and under Israeli military control, where repeated massacres have occurred. The World Health Organization and other agencies note a correlation between the locations of these food distribution sites and mass casualty events. These massacres are not accidents of war but part of a broader, systematic policy.

Civilians are forced to walk long, exposed routes to reach the distribution centers, only to be targeted by military vehicles, drones, helicopters and artillery shells. Those who survive the journey often receive only a meager amount of food that is below minimum survival needs.

The repeated killings at aid sites have created an atmosphere of fear and desperation. This has led to widespread terror and the collapse of social cohesion, as people are afraid to leave their homes or seek assistance. The Israeli strategy is not only to starve the population but to break its will to resist and to herd it into tightly controlled zones and out of Gaza entirely.

The death toll has now reached more than 56,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children. The US and European imperialist powers have played a central role in facilitating Israel’s actions. The US has provided billions in military aid and diplomatic cover, while European governments have largely followed Washington’s lead. They have continued to trade with Israel and maintain close political and economic ties, despite overwhelming evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

There has been mass opposition to these policies among the public. Protests have erupted across Europe, with hundreds of thousands of people marching in cities like London, Paris, Berlin and Madrid to demand an end to the genocide and a halt to arms sales to Israel. These protests reveal the popular outrage against the complicity of these governments in the ongoing slaughter in Gaza.

27 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor

The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor expresses its grave alarm over the persistent failure of the European Union, its member states, and the United Kingdom to take effective measures in response to Israel’s atrocities in the Gaza Strip. Despite repeated public statements and internal assessments acknowledging clear violations of international law, these governments continue, through acts and omissions alike, to exercise active and knowing complicity in the unfolding genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. This complicity not only grants Israel licence to pursue its genocidal campaign with impunity, but also renders these states morally and legally responsible for the catastrophic consequences of their breach of international obligations, thereby aiding and abetting international crimes.

Over the past twelve months, the European Union has conducted three formal assessments of Israel’s compliance with the “essential elements” human rights clause contained in Article 2 of the EU–Israel Association Agreement. While the language differs across the reviews, all three reportedly point to serious concerns regarding Israel’s compliance with its human rights obligations under the Agreement.

Despite these findings, the European Commission, the Council, and the European Parliament have failed to activate any of the corrective mechanisms provided for in the EU–Israel Association Agreement—such as suspending trade preferences, freezing cooperation instruments, or initiating dispute-settlement procedures.

The continued application of this agreement—along with the preferential treatment granted to Israel and the preservation of institutional cooperation in areas such as trade, scientific research, culture, and education, despite well-documented evidence of grave crimes—means that European states are not merely undermining their own legal framework, including the human rights clause enshrined in the agreement. They are going further, providing Israel with political legitimacy and material support that enables it to continue its attacks on Palestinian civilians with impunity.

This approach—combining the failure to impose consequences with the ongoing maintenance of political and economic relations—constitutes far more than a political or moral failure. It amounts to a deliberate abdication of the European Union’s binding obligations under international law, including the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, the Arms Trade Treaty, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and the rules of customary international law, including those on state responsibility, as well as the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports, and Articles 3(5) and 21 of the Treaty on European Union.

This legal and institutional complicity is further deepened by the hypocrisy of European states that issue statements condemning “disproportionate” Israeli attacks, while simultaneously supplying arms, transferring surveillance and military technologies, and providing direct military and intelligence support. This constitutes not principled diplomacy, but performative posturing—an approach that deflects responsibility while materially enabling the machinery of atrocity. Such conduct directly undermines the international legal order and reinforces the conditions of impunity under which grave crimes continue to be committed.

This pattern is further illustrated by the recent sanctions announced by the United Kingdom, Norway, and others against two Israeli ministers. These measures—limited in scope and purely symbolic—target only inflammatory rhetoric, and only with respect to the occupied West Bank. They deliberately exclude any reference to Gaza, effectively shielding those most responsible for the unfolding genocide in the Strip. 

To date, no European punitive measure has addressed Israel’s conduct in Gaza. This silence is not an oversight—it is a calculated decision. And it is not neutral—it is complicity. By prioritizing political alliances and economic interests over their clear obligations under international law, European governments are not simply standing by—they are actively enabling and legitimizing Israel’s criminal campaign. In doing so, they are not only complicit in atrocity crimes, but are directly undermining the very foundations of the international legal order they claim to defend.

As Israel’s largest trading partner, second-largest arms supplier, and a key enabler of its access to global markets, finance, and mobility, Europe holds immense leverage—yet it chooses not to use it. Measures that are readily available include imposing a comprehensive arms embargo; enacting targeted sanctions against officials and entities responsible for the genocide; suspending the EU–Israel Association Agreement; blacklisting financial institutions complicit in international crimes; banning products from illegal settlements; revoking Schengen visa privileges; and recognizing the State of Palestine. The fact that these tools remain unused is not a matter of capacity—it is a failure of political will, legal integrity, and moral courage.

Concerning the obligation of accountability, The EU must actively support the International Criminal Court’s efforts to prosecute Israeli officials responsible for atrocity crimes in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territory. This includes ensuring the prompt issuance and execution of arrest warrants and rejecting all political interference aimed at protecting perpetrators. In parallel, EU member states must initiate domestic investigations, including against their own nationals implicated in such crimes, and activate universal jurisdiction to prosecute Israeli officials responsible for crimes against the Palestinian people, in line with their obligations under international law.

The EU must uphold its legal obligations under international law and use all its influence to halt Israel’s crimes and protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Specifically, the EU must act without delay to exert effective pressure on Israel through the imposition of economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions to end its illegal presence in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), including the Gaza Strip; to halt all military assaults; to lift the blockade; and to ensure the immediate and unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid, as well as the unconditional reconstruction of life-saving infrastructure and housing. 

Ireland has already begun to demonstrate what principled leadership looks like. Its decision to intervene in South Africa’s genocide case before the International Court of Justice, and its formal recognition of the State of Palestine, are concrete steps that reflect a willingness to uphold international law where others have chosen silence. Other European governments must follow suit, by joining the ICJ case, requesting provisional measures addressing Israel’s use of starvation as a genocide weapon in Gaza, and ending their practice of shielding Israeli officials from accountability.

Finally, EU member states and the United Kingdom must move beyond treating symptoms and act urgently to confront the root causes of the 77-year-long oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian people. This requires ending the illegal Israeli occupation and dismantling the system of settler colonialism imposed across the occupied Palestinian territory, including the Gaza Strip. It entails the full evacuation of Israeli settlers, the dismantling of apartheid structures and territorial fragmentation, and the enforcement of the right of return and just compensation for all Palestinian refugees. It also calls for unwavering and sustained support for the Palestinian people’s pursuit of liberation and the realization of their full right to self-determination. Justice cannot be deferred any longer. The harm must be acknowledged and redressed, so that the Palestinian people may finally live in freedom, dignity, and peace.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor is a Geneva-based independent organization with regional offices across the MENA region and Europe

26 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr. Ramzy Baroud 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu persistently declares his ambition to “change the face of the Middle East”. Yet, his repeated assertions seem to clash with the unfolding reality on the ground.

Netanyahu’s opportunistic relationship with language is now proving detrimental to his country. The Israeli leader undoubtedly grasps fundamental marketing principles, particularly the power of strong branding and consistent messaging. However, for any product to succeed over time, clever branding alone is insufficient; the product itself must live up to at least a minimum degree of expectation.

Netanyahu’s “product,” however, has proven utterly defective, yet the 75-year-old Israeli Prime Minister stubbornly refuses to abandon his outdated marketing techniques.

But what exactly is Netanyahu selling?

Long before assuming Israel’s leadership, Netanyahu mastered the art of repetition – a technique often employed by politicians to inundate public discourse with specific slogans. Over time, these slogans are intended to become “common sense”.

As a member of the Knesset in 1992, Netanyahu delivered what appeared to be a bombshell: Iran was “within three to five years” from obtaining a nuclear bomb. In 1996, he urged the US Congress to act, declaring that “time is running out.”

While the US pivoted its attention toward Iraq, following the September 2001 attacks, Netanyahu evidently hoped to eliminate two regional foes in one stroke. Following the fall of the Iraqi government in 2003, Netanyahu channeled all his energy into a new discourse: Iran as an existential threat.

Between then and now, Iran has remained his primary focus, even as regional alliances began to form around a discourse of stabilization and renewed diplomatic ties. 

However, the Obama administration, especially during its second term, was clearly uninterested in another regional war. As soon as Obama left office, Netanyahu reverted to his old marketing strategy.

It was during Trump’s first term that Netanyahu brought all his marketing techniques to the forefront. He utilized what is known as comparative advertising, where his enemies’ “product” is denigrated with basic terms like ‘barbarism’, ‘dark age’, and so forth, while his own is promoted as representing ‘civilization’, ‘enlightenment’, and ‘progress’.

He also invested heavily in the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) marketing technique. This entailed spreading negative or misleading information about others while promoting his own as a far superior alternative.

This brings us to “solution framing.” For instance, the so-called “existential threats” faced by Israel can supposedly be resolved through the establishment of a “New Middle East.” For this new reality to materialize, the US, he argues, would have to take action, not only to save Israel but also the “civilized world” as well.

It must be noted that Netanyahu’s “New Middle East” is not his original framing. This notion can be traced to a paper published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in March 2004. It followed the US war and invasion of Iraq and was part of the intellectual euphoria among US and other Western intellectuals seeking to reshape the Middle East in a way that suited US geopolitical needs.

The Carnegie article sought to expand the definition of the Middle East beyond the traditional Middle East and North Africa, reaching as far as the Caucasus and Central Asia.

American politicians adopted this new concept, tailoring it to suit US interests at the time. It was US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who largely rebranded “greater” to “new,” thus coining the “New Middle East,” which she announced in June 2006.

Though Netanyahu embraced the term, he improvised it in recent years. Instead of speaking of it as a distant objective, he declared that he was actively in the process of making it a reality. “We are changing the face of the Middle East. We are changing the face of the world,” he triumphantly declared in June 2021.

Even following the events of October 7, 2023, and the Israeli war and genocide that ensued, Netanyahu never ceased using the term. This time, however, his emphasis on “change” rotated between a future possibility and an active reality. “I ask that you stand steadfast because we are going to change the Middle East,” he stated on October 9 of that same year.

And again in September 2024, he proclaimed that Israel was “pursuing” a plan to “assassinate Hezbollah leaders” with the aim of “changing the strategic reality of the Middle East.” And again, in October, December, and January of this year. In every single instance, he contextualized the “change of the Middle East” with bombs and rockets, and nothing else.

In May, coinciding with a major Israeli bombing of Yemen, he declared that Israel’s “mission” exceeds that of “defeating Hamas,” extending to “changing the face of the Middle East.” And finally, on June 16, he assigned the same language to the war with Iran, this time remaining committed to the new tweak of adding the word “face” to his new, envisaged Middle East.

Of course, old branding tactics aside, Netanyahu’s Middle East, much like the US’ old “greater Middle East,” remains a pipe dream aimed at dominating the resource-rich region, with Israel serving the role of regional hegemon. That said, the events of the last two years have demonstrated that, although the Middle East is indeed changing, this transformation is not happening because of Israel. Consequently, the outcome will most likely not be to its liking.

Therefore, Netanyahu may continue repeating, like a broken record, old colonial slogans, but genuine change will only happen because of the peoples of the region and their many capable political players.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. 

26 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org