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By JEREMY SCAHILL AND JAWA AHMAD

“I never lost hope, and I never will,” said Nael Barghouti, a 68-year-old Palestinian from the occupied West Bank who spent more than four decades in Israeli captivity. It has been a year since Barghouti won his freedom through a prisoner exchange deal signed between Hamas and Israel in January 2025. As a condition of his release, Barghouti had to agree to go into exile and was deported to Egypt a month later. “I have been optimistic from the very first day I began my struggle,” he said. “In prison, I was optimistic that I would be free one day. And, even if I were to die in prison, I would remain content, because those who come after me will continue the path, because they are convinced that we are in the right.”

According to the most recent and reliable statistics, there are approximately 9,300 Palestinians currently held in Israeli captivity. Nearly half of these have not been charged or brought to trial. Additionally, there are an unknown number of Palestinians held in military camps run by the Israeli army. At least 87 Palestinians have been killed inside Israeli prisons since October 7, 2023, including several documented cases of death by torture, abuse, or intentional neglect. “Without any prior warning, a prisoner is detained with no charge—a 15 year old [boy], or a woman. Malicious arrest—arrest simply to send a lesson to entire generations. They are received with beatings, bone‑breaking, and the spread of infectious diseases,” Barghouti told Drop Site.

In a wide-ranging, in-person interview in Istanbul, Barghouti reflected on his time in Israeli captivity, the torture he endured alongside other Palestinian prisoners, and why he believes the Palestinian cause will ultimately triumph. “We are not seekers of blood or wars, but we will accept nothing other than defending ourselves and our rights,” Barghouti said. “Why is it forbidden for Palestinians to live like any other people—to leave when they wish, return when they wish, go to the sea when they wish? Personally, I have seen the sea only once, in a prison transport vehicle, and when I was released. The sea is thirty kilometers (18 miles) from my village—why? Why are olive trees hundreds of years old uprooted? Why do settlers go to villages to uproot trees, attack people, and kill their animals? Why does the occupation prevent the families of released prisoners from leaving to meet them?”

In the struggle for Palestinian liberation, political prisoners occupy a space of immense national pride and importance. They are widely seen as heroes of the cause, and they participate in the decision-making process for the factions to which they belong. “Palestinian prisoners in the occupation’s prisons are one of the most respected and esteemed groups among the Palestinian people—regardless of which faction the prisoner belongs to,” said Husam Badran, who spent 14 years in Israeli prisons and is currently Hamas’s head of national relations. He told Drop Site, “I believe there is hardly a Palestinian household that does not have a Palestinian prisoner. In some families, the father, mother, and children are sometimes all inside prison at the same time. We are talking about a long experience since [the Arab-Israeli war of] 1967; we are talking about a period of almost sixty years. We define ourselves as fighters for freedom—certainly not terrorists, as the occupation describes us.”

Badran, a former commander of Hamas’s armed wing Al Qassam Brigades in the West Bank, described how Hamas and other factions held democratic elections inside the prisons and remained intimately engaged in the broader decision making of their movements on the outside. “I wouldn’t trade the prison experience for all experiences in the world. It is bitter and difficult, true, but you gain a lot from it—on a human level, a personal level, and in understanding life. You cannot learn this anywhere else except in prison, despite how difficult it is. Your ability to innovate and invent [ways] to communicate surpasses imagination,” he said. “Yes, we studied, we learned, we went to university, we earned master’s degrees, because the Palestinian by nature has an extraordinary ability to confront hardship. The world is not capable of understanding that this is who the Palestinian is. This Palestinian today is part of the decision‑making body in the Palestinian cause. So how do you expect to break him? And how do you expect to impose international forces on him, take away his weapon, and bring [Tony] Blair to rule him? How could he accept that?,” Badran asked.

“The whole story is connected together. If you want to understand the current Palestinian situation by looking only at the last two years, you will not succeed in understanding the Palestinian cause—you will fail,” he added. “You must go back decades and study the Palestinian personalities and leaderships. So how do you expect to deal with this type of leadership—whether in Hamas or others—through submission, surrender, and raising the white flag?”

This week President Donald Trump pushed ahead with his Gaza Plan and announced the first round of appointments to his so-called Board of Peace. They include his son-in-law Jared Kushner, venture capitalists, ex-Prime Minister of the UK Tony Blair, and an assortment of non-Palestinian heads of state and political leaders, as well as business figures—some with close ties to Israel. “States want to sign agreements on behalf of the Palestinian people, but the Palestinian people did not authorize them and never will. Money will not tempt us, and airplanes will not frighten us. This resistance will continue until the Palestinian people return to their lands, and until American politicians regain their reason, along with everyone who supports this entity,” Barghouti said. He added, “Anyone who truly wants America to remain a state that upholds justice in the world must stand with the Palestinian people—not [submit] to the influence of a Zionist lobby that is damaging America more than it is damaging the rest of the world.”

“Our spirits and our will were not broken”

When he was freed last year, Barghouti was the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner held by Israel. He spent more than 45 years behind bars—nearly 34 of them consecutively. In 2009, the Guiness Book of World Records certified him as “the longest serving political prisoner ever.” The previous record was also held by a Palestinian, Said Alatabah, who served more than 31 years before being released in 2008.

As a ten year old boy, Barghouti witnessed Israeli forces invade his family’s West Bank village of Kobar, near Ramallah, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war as Israel began its decades-long occupation. Barghouti began his anti-occupation actions by joining other youth in throwing stones and writing graffiti on walls. He came from a family with deep roots in Palestinian resistance. “My uncle was imprisoned during the British occupation and the beginning of the Zionist entity. My father was imprisoned twice during the occupation, as were my mother, brother, sister, wife, and many other family members,” Barghouti said. “We come from a family that rejects the occupation. We lived in a simple village, but it was one that hosted refugees from [the Nakba in] 1948. We knew that these refugees had land, homes, and property, and that overnight they became poor people waiting for the United Nations to grant them some aid,” he added. “What we witnessed of the crimes of the occupation and its soldiers, and the humiliations, instilled in us a refusal to accept this occupation. From a very young age, since 1967, I saw my father being humiliated by soldiers while I was still a child—him being beaten in front of me by patrols.”

In 1977, Barghouti was arrested for the first time and spent three months in jail. In April 1978, just as he was preparing to complete his high school final exams, Barghouti was again arrested, along with his brother Omar and cousin Fakhri, but this time he was accused of being involved with the killing of a former Israeli paratrooper working as a bus driver. They also detained his father. “I was tortured in front of my father, and my father was tortured in front of me. They threatened to arrest my mother, and later they did arrest her,” Barghouti recalled.

In the end, he was hit with a life sentence plus 18 years. “We entered prison unjustly, were sentenced unjustly, and were assaulted unjustly,” he said. “We will not submit, and we will not be ashamed that we resisted—we will not disown our actions. Those who must disown their crimes are the leaders of the Zionist occupation.”

When Barghouti entered prison, he originally affiliated himself with Fatah, the party of the late Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat. In the 1990s, when Arafat signed the Oslo Accords and recognized Israel, Barghouti joined Hamas.

“The Palestinian people have been fighting for more than a hundred years. This is not tied to Hamas, Fatah, or any other organization. Every phase will have its own names and labels until the goals of the Palestinian people are achieved: return and self‑determination. This is a point that no Palestinian will ever abandon,” he said. “We entered prison and resisted the occupation, and we are not ashamed of that. It is the right of the Palestinian people—and of any people under occupation—to resist. The American people resisted British injustice. How did Ireland gain its freedom? Through the use of all forms of resistance.”

Inside the prison, Barghouti earned a reputation as a leader, organizer, and political thinker. He was a voracious reader of history books and studied foreign languages. As the years went by, he became known as the “Dean of the Palestinian Prisoners” and Abu Al-Noor, “Father of Light.” He often organized protests and strategized how to resist the prison authorities.

“We Palestinian prisoners entered prison at a time when the torture was the same as the torture that exists today. We carried out multiple [hunger] strikes with the support of our people. Sometimes the occupation wanted calm from us so that the Palestinian people would not rise up, so through our strikes, we achieved certain gains: the pen, the paper, the notebook, the book, and bedding—the blanket,” he said. “Everything inside the prisons was achieved through our [hunger] strikes. Our organization was disciplined because we are political prisoners: we do not accept living the life of a criminal prisoner.”

Over the decades, Barghouti was imprisoned with other high-profile Palestinians, including Yahya Sinwar, who would go on to become the leader of Hamas in Gaza and was one of the main architects of the October 7 attacks. Sinwar was killed in October 2024 in battle in Gaza. “If we wanted to speak about the martyred brother Yahya, I knew him and lived with him. He was among the most humane people I have ever known,” Barghouti said. He recalled how they both studied Hebrew, and that Sinwar had translated the memoirs of various Israeli intelligence chiefs from Hebrew to Arabic and encouraged other prisoners to study Israel’s history and tactics.

“We learned about Zionist life in prison through the Hebrew language—yes. We came to know them, and we came to know the extent of their criminality,” he said. “It should not be surprising that in prison we understood them, studied them, and came to know their criminality through their own books and through what they wrote in their press,” he added. “Sinwar and his brothers and comrades learned and understood that this enemy cannot coexist with this region as long as it carries a racist Zionist ideology. This is the truth.”

Sinwar and Barghouti were both released in 2011 as part of an exchange deal for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been taken captive by Hamas fighters in 2006. More than 1,000 Palestinians were freed in the deal. Sinwar, who was held more than 20 years in Israeli captivity, played a central role in negotiating the deal from inside prison.

Upon his release, Sinwar returned to Gaza and went on to become the political leader of Hamas. “He understood more deeply how to influence the occupation. And so, after leaving prison, it was in his mind that we must do something that makes this occupation reckon with its continued presence,” said Badran, who lived in the same cell with Sinwar for years. “He chose to set an example for all Palestinian leadership that the true leader is one who lives among his people—exposed to harm as they are, fights as they fight, is martyred as they are martyred, and goes hungry as they go hungry.”

As Sinwar rose to the leadership of Hamas in Gaza following his release from prison, Barghouti returned to his village of Kobar on October 18, 2011. After nearly 34 years in captivity, he tried to build a life in a world he had not inhabited for more than three decades. A month after winning his freedom, he married Iman Nafi, who had also served 10 years in prison, from 1987-1997. “Nael is a Palestinian hero. I have known of his heroism, his steadfastness and leadership in prison for many years. He is a special person. He belongs to a revolutionary school that is true and authentic and comes from the land itself. I have known so many details about his life, from what I have read and heard,” Nafi wrote in an essay published in the 2019 book, These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons. “When he came asking for my hand, I told my family that I agree without any hesitation.”

Like Barghouti, Nafi was arrested when she was still in high school. “As a freed prisoner, I consider my marriage to another freed prisoner a victory against prison, a challenge to those who deprived us of our freedom, and a triumph of the spirit of faith and hope,” Barghouti said on his wedding day. “The idea that Nael would be released from prison and he and I would be together gives the Palestinian people hope that we could all be free and happy,” Nafi said. Barghouti enrolled at Al Quds Open University and farmed his land along with his brother Omar, who was also released in the Shalit deal. “The world has changed and developed so much since I was gone. But the longer the occupation lasts, the worse things are,” Barghouti said soon after his release. “I am being welcomed not as a person, but as an idea, a symbol for Palestinians.”

On June 12, 2014, three Israeli settlers were abducted near an illegal settlement outside of Hebron. Israel accused Hamas of being responsible and launched a sweeping military action throughout the occupied West Bank, codenamed Operation Brother’s Keeper, and took more than 350 Palestinians prisoner. Among these were some 70 Palestinians released in the 2011 Shalit deal. On June 18, Israeli forces descended on Kobar and snatched Barghouti—claiming he had violated the terms of his release after he delivered a speech at Birzeit University and citing rumors that he was considering accepting a ministerial post in a possible unity government between Fatah and Hamas. Barghouti dismissed their justifications and charged he was snatched as another act of collective punishment.

Prosecutors, claiming to have secret evidence, sought to have his life sentence reinstated. A year later, a military court in Ofer Prison ruled the charges baseless that Barghouti had “committed a crime under the security laws,” but the court nonetheless sentenced him to 30 months in prison, claiming secret intelligence showed he was involved with “terrorist financing.” Barghouti was not permitted to see the alleged evidence. In 2017, again citing secret files, the military court reversed its decision and reimposed Barghouti’s original life sentence. He remained in captivity until Hamas and Israel signed a ceasefire deal in January 2025. He was freed from prison on the condition that he live in exile.

Barghouti, whose freedom was achieved through negotiations in the aftermath of Operation Al Aqsa Flood, recalls hearing the news of the Hamas-led attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023. “Honestly, I felt the same feeling that the Israelis felt in 1967—how within six hours the Arab air force was destroyed and Arab land was occupied. [The Israelis] felt happiness and arrogance. I did not feel arrogance. Despite our limited and simple capabilities and [living] under siege—we don’t have F‑16s, we don’t have Patriot missiles—this arrogant army, which goes to Yemen and bombs Yemen, bombs Iraq, bombs Iran, was confronted by simple people coming out of the siege saying, ‘Enough,’” Barghouti remembered. “Yes, we took pride in it—yes. Even though we wish that this Flood had never had to happen—that we had already been free and had no need for such battles. But, tomorrow, there will be another flood, and another, until this occupation and this injustice come to an end.”

Barghouti also said that, soon after the October 7 attacks, the Israeli guards inside the prison began to intensify their abuse and torture of Palestinian prisoners. “Israeli policy against prisoners used every method of repression: beatings, humiliation, dogs, tear gas, stun grenades, and starvation. I personally lost 22 kilograms (48 pounds) in weight. I was deliberately poisoned more than three times—myself and those living with me in the same section,” he said. “It was intentional poisoning—some of the guards put substances in the food, and everyone who ate it suffered from diarrhea, and we received no medication. Those who contracted contagious diseases like scabies were taken to rooms with healthy prisoners so the disease would spread, and it spread intentionally and systematically. This demonstrates a fascist mindset.”

“Our hands, legs, and ribs were broken, but our spirits and our will were not broken,” Barghouti added. “Dogs fitted with iron collars were used against me more than once: they were given orders. My shoulders were broken. My blood covered my back—from iron shackles, from plastic restraints. Hunger. Cold—for two full months I walked barefoot in the cold. Barefoot,” he recalled. “The clothes I was wearing—the guards all called me ‘homeless.’ I believe there are photographs they took—they boasted about it. The food—they would kick it with their feet, spit on it, spit into the food. These are things that happened.”

Solidarity With Other Palestinian Prisoners

Since his release in February 2025, Barghouti has used his time advocating for the freedom of other prisoners, demanding that families of those forced into exile be allowed to reunite, and promoting the cause of Palestinian liberation. When he was freed, Israel denied his wife exit papers to join him in Egypt. According to the Palestinian Prisoners Society, Israel routinely blocks families from being reunited with their loved ones once they are freed and forced into exile, with the organization calling the Israeli practice “collective revenge.”

“Why, at this moment, are the families of Palestinian prisoners who were released under an agreement prevented from meeting their children? Why is this happening? Why are the wives, sons, and daughters of detainees prevented from joining their children in visits? Why?” Barghouti asked. “All prisoners who have been [exiled]—their families are punished by being forbidden to meet them.”

Since 1967, Israel has also maintained a practice of holding the bodies of Palestinians who die in prison and refusing to allow their families to bury them. Conservative estimates indicate there are more than 700 bodies held in numbered graves or refrigerators, though these estimates do not include many of the Palestinians killed in Gaza whose bodies were taken back to Israel since October 7. In one case, Israel has continued to hold the body of a Palestinian who died on hunger strike in prison in 1980. “There are dozens, even hundreds, of Palestinian victims to this day in numbered graves and in secret prisons, and the Red Cross is not allowed to see them. They trade in bodies, and this goes against everything that is human,” Barghouti said.

Barghouti’s thoughts are never far from his comrades still in captivity, including high-profile political prisoners like Marwan Barghouti, the single most popular Palestinian leader. “These prisoners, and dozens like them, are heroes of the Palestinian people,” he said. “But if these prisoners were to be tried under a fair legal system, they would not—and could not—have received the sentences they were given. I challenge international law: if it truly wants to resolve the issue of Palestinian detainees, it must review all their cases.”

Hanan Barghouti, Nael’s 60-year-old sister, has been “administratively detained” by Israeli forces three times without charge or trial in the past two years. A prominent organizer of mobilizations in support of Palestinian prisoners, Hanan was first detained in September 2023 and released in November 2023 as part of the “Flood of the Free” prisoner exchange during the temporary truce between Hamas and Israel. After her 2023 release, Hanan recalled how an Israeli officer threatened her against appearing in the media or allowing celebrations for her freedom, reminding her that four of her sons were also under administrative detention. She told Al-Araby’s Al-Jadeed that she confronted him as a “sadistic oppressor.” Reflecting on the cost of resistance, she said: “The price is heavy and painful, and there is a sea of blood, but this blood will water the land, and the land will bloom in all colors.”

She was then taken again by Israeli forces in March 2024 and held for nine months—an Israeli violation of the terms of the November 2023 exchange deal. On September 30, 2025, she was detained for a third time under a new administrative order and is being subjected to repression, abuse, and starvation in Israel’s Damon Prison, according to the Prisoners’ Media Office. Barghouti told Drop Site that Hanan was taken shortly after he spoke with her by phone.

“Today, my sister—my own sister—is in prison. Why? Because she spoke with me on the phone,” Barghouti said. “Can you imagine? She is taken under an administrative law dating back to the period of British occupation. My sister is [imprisoned] simply because she spoke with her brother. What justice is this?”

Israeli politicians have recently intensified their threats to begin executing Palestinian prisoners, and the conditions inside of the prisons have dramatically worsened as torture and extrajudicial killings have intensified since October 7. In November, the Israeli Knesset moved forward a bill introducing the death penalty for those it deems terrorists, a measure expected to apply almost exclusively to Palestinians living under occupation. The bill grants immunity to the state, allows death sentences without a prosecutor’s request, and imposes total isolation on those condemned. Passed in its first reading by 39–16, the vote was celebrated by far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who wore a noose-shaped pin and declared that “terrorists will only be released to hell.”

Barghouti argues that the escalating abuse and torture and threats to begin executions, will foreclose meaningful negotiations toward a broader peace, given the importance of the prisoners to the Palestinian struggle. “They have left the prisoners’ file as a fuse for future confrontations. Release them, and I believe the region could enjoy a long period of calm. [These prisoners] are an inseparable part of the Palestinian struggle. Keep them imprisoned, and you will drive many generations, and the children of future generations, to struggle for their liberation, and the cycle will continue unchanged,” he said. “Stupidity is one of God’s soldiers deployed upon the minds of these criminals—it will ultimately contribute to the end of this entity. Part of their stupidity, animosity, and criminality will contribute to their downfall in front of the people of the world, not only in the eyes of our people.”

In striking ways, Barghouti’s life is a metaphor for the entire Palestinian struggle. “We endured beatings and humiliation, but our spirit and our will were not broken, and will never be broken by any torture. We endured because we were people of conviction. Even when we were prevented from praying, and forbidden from practicing our religious rituals, we prayed in secret—just as Christians once prayed in secret under the Byzantine and Roman empires when they were persecuted,” he said. “We held onto hope, we remain hopeful, and we will continue to hope. The jailer will never defeat us, no matter what methods he uses, because we are people of a just cause,” Barghouti added. “We deserve a state under the sun—a state with scientists, poets, writers, and artists, no less than any other country in the world.”

19 January 2026

Source: dropsitenews.com

By Quds News Network

US President Donald Trump has named former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio as members of his so-called “Board of Peace”, a body which he says will oversee the governance and reconstruction of Gaza after two years of Israeli genocide.

With Trump serving as chair, the Founding Executive Board will oversee the work of a committee of technocrats tasked with the temporary governance of Gaza and its reconstruction. It will also include US special envoy Steve Witkoff, World Bank President Ajay Banga, and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

There will also be a separate “Gaza Executive Board” – responsible for overseeing all on-the-ground work of yet another administrative group, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG).

Meanwhile, the Board of Peace is expected to sit above these two executive bodies and comprise a number of world leaders.

Here is everything you need to know about Trump’s “Board of Peace” members:

Tony Blair

Blair is known for his role in the 2003 US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq.

After leaving office, Blair’s consultancy organisation, the Tony Blair Institute (TBI), has drawn widespread criticism for advising a raft of autocratic governments including Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia.

TBI has also received money from a financial fraudster linked with illegal Israeli settlements and an American Islamophobic network.

Blair also serves as an honorary patron of the UK branch of Israel’s Jewish National Fund (JNF), which has faced heavy criticism for its activities – including donating £1m ($1.3m) to what it described as “Israel’s largest militia” and erasing Palestine from its official maps.

TBI was more recently linked to a widely condemned plan which proposed the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, involving a sweeping postwar redevelopment of the besieged Strip.

The project includes turning the devastated enclave into a “Trump Riviera,” with infrastructure named after Gulf monarchs and was created by Israeli businessmen with support from Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

He described Trump’s plans for Gaza as the “best chance of ending two years of war, misery and suffering”.

Conceding that Blair’s inclusion on the executive board is controversial, Trump said in October: “I’ve always liked Tony, but I want to find out that he’s an acceptable choice to everybody.”

A map on TBI’s website includes the occupied West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights as part of Israel, reinforcing concerns over the organization’s alignment.

He will serve on the Gaza Executive Board.

Jarad Kushner

Former Middle East advisor and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner was one of the main architects of Trump’s Abraham Accords, and he formed an especially close friendship with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

He floated a plan dubbed “The Deal of the Century”, which called for Israel to annex 30 percent of the West Bank and a Palestinian pseudo-state to be created with no military. The plan tried to entice the Palestinian Authority by offering $50bn in economic aid. It was rejected.

When Trump left the White House, Kushner launched Affinity Partners, a private equity fund that blended Kushner’s taste for exotic properties, adventure and geopolitics. Saudi Arabia is Affinity Partners’ main backer, with its sovereign wealth fund giving Kushner $2bn dollars.

With the Gulf money, Affinity Partners has invested in two Israeli companies: Phoenix Holdings, an insurance company, and the car leasing division of Shlomo Holdings, whose parent company, Shmeltzer Holdings, is part owner of Israel Shipyards, the only domestic shipbuilder for the Israeli navy.

When Kushner began his White House role, the little experience he had in the Middle East was based on religious Zionism through his synagogue. Kushner was raised in an Orthodox Jewish household, and Trump’s daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism after marrying him.

The 44-year-old hails from a family of Jewish New Jersey real estate developers known for their cut-throat ways. The Kushner family is especially close with ICC-wanted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. So close in fact that Netanyahu once slept in Jared Kushner’s bedroom at the family house in New Jersey decades ago when he was visiting the US, the New York Times reported previously.

When Trump called for the US to take over the Gaza Strip and turn it into a Middle East Riviera with the Palestinians forcibly displaced, many Arab officials in the region and analysts saw Kushner’s hand at work.

In February 2024, Kushner gave a talk at Harvard where he advocated for the forced displacement of Palestinians and highlighted the destroyed enclave’s real estate potential.

“Gaza’s waterfront property, it could be very valuable,” he said. “It’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but I think from Israel’s perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up.”

Steve Witkoff

Steve Witkoff, a New York real estate developer and investor, was a relatively unknown political newcomer in Trump’s team who emerged as a key figure in the Gaza ceasefire negotiations.

After the first deal was announced in January and later violated by Israel, Trump said Witkoff would continue “to work closely with Israel and our Allies to make sure Gaza NEVER again becomes a terrorist safe haven”.

Witkoff, who is Jewish himself, has been a friend of Trump for four decades. Now, he’s Trump’s Middle East envoy.

Witkoff has consistently blamed Palestinians for Israel’s assault on Gaza and claimed that humanitarian aid is reaching starving Palestinians despite Israel’s blockade. “There is hardship and shortage, but no starvation,” he once said, at a time when Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinians.

Marco Rubio

As US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio is central to the Trump administration’s approach to foreign policy.

Before Trump’s return to office, Rubio had spoken out against a ceasefire in Gaza, saying that he wanted Israel “to destroy every element of Hamas they can get their hands on”.

In October, he said the Gaza security force must include nations Israel is “comfortable with” and that the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) can have no future in the running of Gaza.

Rubio has long been known as a strong opponent of the BDS movement and pro-Palestine activism, and for cracking down on anti-genocide, pro-Palestinian protests.

Ajay Banga

Ajay Banga, president of the World Bank, has advised a number of senior US politicians, including President Barack Obama, during his career.

Born in India in 1959, Banga became a US citizen in 2007, and later served as the CEO of Mastercard for more than a decade.

Former US President Joe Biden nominated him to lead the World Bank in 2023.

In 2024, he warned that a significant widening of Israel’s assault on Gaza could lead to major impacts on the global economy, calling the steep loss of civilian lives “unconscionable.”

Banga said war damage from Israeli strikes on Gaza was at that time probably in the $14-20 billion range, and destruction from Israel’s bombing of southern Lebanon added to that regional total.

Marc Rowan

Marc Rowan, an American billionaire investor and co-founder of Apollo Global Management, is among the most prominent financial figures on the board. He is currently serves as Apollo’s chief executive officer and is widely regarded as one of the firm’s principal strategists.

Apollo Global Management is one of the world’s largest alternative investment firms. Rowan’s personal wealth is estimated at approximately $8.2 billion, based on Forbes’ 2026 rankings. He has also been active in philanthropic initiatives and is known for supporting organizations focused on combating antisemitism.

Observers say Rowan is likely to play a central role in designing complex financial structures aimed at attracting private global capital to Gaza, shifting reconstruction from emergency relief toward long-term investment.

Yakir Gabay

Israeli businessman Yakir Gabay, who also holds Cypriot citizenship, is another key figure named to the board. Gabay is a major player in European real estate and is expected to focus on housing solutions and investment models for Gaza’s massive displacement crisis.

Gabay owns approximately 15 percent of Aroundtown, Europe’s largest commercial real estate company by assets under management. The firm’s portfolio is valued at around $30 billion and spans Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, according to Forbes.

Gabay began his career at Israel’s Securities Authority before moving into the private sector, later serving as chief executive of the underwriting arm of Bank Leumi. He entered the real estate market in the early 2000s, capitalizing on depressed property prices in Berlin before expanding across major European cities.

Gabay also comes from a family with deep institutional ties in Israel. His father, Meir Gabay, served as director-general of Israel’s Ministry of Justice and as civil service commissioner. His mother, Yemima Gabay, held a senior position in the public prosecution and headed the pardons department at Israel’s Ministry of Justice.

Robert Gabriel

Robert Gabriel, a US national security adviser, will be the final member of the “founding executive board”.

Gabriel has worked with Trump since his 2016 presidential campaign, shortly after which, according to PBS, he became a special assistant to Stephen Miller, another of Trump’s key current advisers.

Nickolay Mladenov

The 53-year-old former Bulgarian foreign minister and defence minister is the most critical figure in the newly launched phase two of the ceasefire.

While not on the Executive Board, Mladenov has been confirmed as the director-general of the United States-proposed “Board of Peace”. His mandate is to oversee the transition to a new technocratic administration.

For five years from 2015-2020, Mladenov served as the United Nations’ top envoy to the region.

Now, he is tasked with supervising the new “technocratic committee”, which will manage daily life for two million war-battered Palestinians who have lost homes and now displaced after two years of Israeli genocide and ongoing violations of ceasefire.

The “Board of Peace” signals a new governance architecture for post-genocide Gaza, one that shifts management from local frameworks to an internationally led structure with clear political, security, and economic mandates.

19 January 2026

Source: countercurrents.org

By Phil Pasquini

In acknowledging the unwarranted and chaotic realignment of the federal government in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025, a rally and protest took place at Farragut Square to “honor and acknowledge the freedoms, principles, public services and essential national values trashed by the Trump Regime since it took power a year ago.”

Fittingly, the action began at Farragut Square named for US Navy Admiral David Farragut, famous for his quote “Damn the torpedoes” who in defiance of overwhelming odds ordered his fleet to charge into the heavily mined Mobile Bay in a successful bid to defeat the enemy during the Civil War battle.

In that same spirit of prevailing, in this case against the “fascist Trump regime,” protesters began a day-long series of actions to show that “we are not going away,” by charging ahead to bring about change in realigning America presently from what is clearly “not normal” during their “One Year Later: A March of Reckoning.”

Susan, one of the organizers, addressed the crowd recalling how Trump had begun his first day in office by issuing a flurry of executive orders “designed to systematically erode our government, and the very democratic ideals this nation has stood for since 1776. In just one year, the extensive corruption, grift, lies and cruelty have touched every segment of our country.” As a result, she proclaimed that “We no longer enjoy the protections that once made us the envy of the world.”

She went on to say that “We have lost the confidence of our allies, trust in our leadership has eroded and the very freedom laid out in our Constitution, which we once took for granted, are now slipping away. We will not stand idly by as our nation falters. We reject the dismantling of democratic ideals, and we say emphatically NO to the corruption, the lies, and the total incompetence of this regime. Together we are here to remember and together we will resist!”

Before they began their march to, around the White House, and beyond after having been warned not to engage with counter protesters or those who may express their dislike for the protest, the first such person appeared and began admonishing the press for covering the event which the gentleman found offensive as the march inhibited his ability to walk to work.

He was soon followed by a second irritated citizen at the White House who repeatedly accused the participants of being professional activists, asking repeatedly how much they were being paid. The answer to his very vociferous and antagonistic inquiry was met by the participants responding in unison with “We hate Donald Trump for free.”

After marching around the expansive White House campus, the protest ended at the recently unveiled WWI Memorial at Pershing Park, where two other rallies and protests intersected, organized by Free DC, and the Women’s March.

The DC residents protest portion heard from speakers who are “…sick of this administration’s attacks on DC” and “for a Free DC.” Among their concerns are the deployment of National Guard troops in the streets, home rule, taxation without representation, and for long overdue statehood. “… our fight is more urgent than ever: ICE is kidnapping our neighbors, MPD is cooperating with federal agents, Congress has introduced bill after bill to overturn our local laws, and local elections on the horizon will require us to actively ensure their fairness and integrity.”

The nationwide “Walk out on Fascism” action also being held at the park with an overflowing crowd filling the memorial. This event was also taking place in cities and towns across the country, in Puerto Rico and Frankfurt, Germany. Many in attendance had walked out of their schools, left their place of work, withheld their services, or forewent any commerce. Participants collectively promised to support both national and local reforms by echoing the theme of “turning your back to fight against fascism.”

During the rally, several speakers affirmed their commitment of resisting the Trump regime’s reforming of our government into his autocratic view of America.

On speaker, Jackie Johnson, related how “This administration is openly using the tools of government as weapons of retaliation and control. Congress itself is being used as a weapon against the people of the District of Columbia.”  She illustrated her point by saying that more than fifty bills relating to DC being able to govern itself were thwarted by Congress through a “concerted effort” to place local control in the hands of the executive branch in weakening local democracy and nationally to “silence communities across the country that stand in the way of an authoritarian agenda. The people who live in the district deserve the right to govern our own community.”

“Military forces should not be occupying the capital city or any city in the United States,” she continued. “Ignoring this occupation is dangerous. The National Guard deployed in DC until the end of this year…does not make DC any safer. Get the National Guard out of the nation’s capital.”

In addressing Congress, she said that “…rather than being manipulated, it needs to stand up and do its job.” She charged that both the House and the Senate to use the power of the purse and the Constitution to execute “real and true oversight of this increasingly lawless White House.”

She accused the White House of “using the nation’s capital as a testing ground, punishing critics, criminalizing poverty, and reshaping public safety according to political wind. The American people want Congress to show us they have some backbone. Nothing about government is working as it should, especially since January 20th of 2025.”

Organizers and participants expressed their continuing disgust for “more of our tax dollars [going] to endless wars abroad and more militarization here at home,” including, as reported by Politico, a compromise budget bill to be voted on this week for the fiscal year ending in September to fund Homeland Security at a cost of $10 billion.

While the protest was taking place, President Trump was conducting a rambling two-hour press conference at the White House before departing for Davos where he will attempt to coerce the EU into supporting his taking of Greenland, at the peril of his adding additional tariffs against any holdouts.

Report and photos by Phil Pasquini

21 January 2026

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Occupied Palestine (QNN)- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Gaza, has accepted an invitation from US President Donald Trump to join the so-called “Board of Peace” under Trump’s 20-point Gaza ceasefire plan, raising serious concerns about the board’s objectivity after two years of genocide.

Netanyahu’s Office announced on social media on Wednesday that Netanyahu is to join the initiative, despite the fact that it was unveiled as part of phase two of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas to end Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

[https://twitter.com/jeremyscahill/status/2013879902152347768]

Trump officially announced on Saturday the architecture of the “Board of Peace”, which is expected to “fulfill” Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza, days after US envoy Steve Witkoff launched “phase two” of the US-brokered plan to end Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The White House detailed a three-tiered power structure, with a US-led “Board of Peace” composed of billionaires and figures close to Israel at the top.

Bulgarian diplomat Nickolay Mladenov, who has been named the “High Representative for the Board of Peace”, will oversee the transition of rule in Gaza to a Palestinian administration of technocrats. 

The White House also announced the formation of a “Gaza Executive Board”, which will work with the Office of the High Representative and the Palestinian technocratic administration named the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG).

While Washington frames this as a roadmap for “reconstruction and prosperity”, the exclusion of Palestinians from the top decision-making body suggests they will have little say in deciding the future governance structure. At the bottom of the hierarchy lies the only Palestinian component: NCAG.

On Sunday, Netanyahu objected to the board and said the formation of this executive committee “was not coordinated with Israel”.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called for a return to “full war” and “voluntary migration” rather than handing Gaza to a board involving Turkey, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for building settlements in Gaza and returning to the genocide.

Numerous world leaders have been invited to join the body, including Russia, Qatar, Turkey, Canada, France, UAE, Argentina, 

Despite the US-led nature of the plan, the inclusion of representatives from Turkey and Qatar has faced opposition from Israel.

Bloomberg News reported on Sunday that the Trump administration has asked countries to contribute at least $1bn to become permanent members. A non-permanent membership would remain free.

So far, the UAR, Morocco, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Hungary, Argentina and Belarus have agreed to take part.

21 January 2026

Source: countercurrents.org

By Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor

Palestinian Territory – The demolition by Israeli authorities of the facilities of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in East Jerusalem constitutes a serious violation of Israel’s obligations as an occupying power. It reflects a deliberate policy to undermine the United Nations, reduce its presence and role in the city, and impose new on-the-ground and administrative realities that entrench Israeli control and further restrict the rights of Palestinian residents.

Earlier today, Israeli forces, accompanied by bulldozers, raided the UNRWA headquarters in Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem, and began demolishing structures inside the compound, in the presence and under the supervision of Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

In an explicit expression of political support for the destruction and undermining of a UN organisation, Itamar Ben-Gvir described the events as “a historic day, a day of celebration, and a day of great importance for governing Jerusalem for many years to come.” He added, “These supporters of terrorism were here, and today they are being expelled from here along with everything they built. This is what will happen to anyone who supports terrorism.”

The demolition and accompanying statements constitute a deliberate attempt to recast UNRWA from a UN agency protected by international immunity into an ‘enemy’ stripped of legitimacy through accusations of terrorism. This paves the way for normalising attacks against the agency and any independent international presence, while testing the limits of international deterrence and seeking to establish a precedent that UN immunity can be violated without consequence.

In Jerusalem, the act carries an explicit assertion of sovereignty aimed at entrenching de facto annexation by eliminating any UN presence that reminds the world of the city’s status as occupied territory and of the refugee issue and their rights. At the same time, phrases such as “historic day” and “this is what will happen to anyone who supports terrorism” serve as messages of intimidation to international and human rights organisations that might document violations or challenge this trajectory, while also mobilising domestic support to entrench hostility towards the United Nations, its agencies, and all international organisations under explicit political cover.

The demolition of the UNRWA headquarters is inseparable from the purpose it serves, representing an initial step to clear the site for a large-scale settlement project as part of a systematic policy to depopulate East Jerusalem of Palestinians and forcibly impose a new demographic reality. These practices fall within patterns of forcible transfer and demographic change prohibited under international humanitarian law, particularly in light of Israeli plans to construct 1,440 settlement units on the site of the UN facility, near the Giv’at HaMatos settlement.

Labelling UNRWA staff and facilities as terrorist entities constitutes hate speech intended to strip humanitarian work of its legitimacy and condition public opinion to justify further grave violations, as part of a broader campaign of incitement and deliberate criminalisation of international organisations operating in the occupied Palestinian territory, including Jerusalem.

The act forms part of a gradual and sustained escalation in recent days against UNRWA facilities in East Jerusalem. Days earlier, Israeli forces raided a UNRWA health centre and ordered its closure for 30 days. This sequence reflects a deliberate effort to constrict the work of a UN agency and eliminate its field presence, in direct defiance of the occupying power’s obligations under international law and the legal status of the United Nations and its agencies.

The escalation included the Knesset’s passage in October 2024 of two laws banning UNRWA operations and prohibiting official contact with it, as well as the Israeli government’s decision in December 2025 to cut off water and electricity to all its premises and declare its activities illegal.

This occurs at a time when UNRWA is largely unable to carry out its mandate in the occupied Palestinian territory due to new Israeli laws and measures, particularly those restricting humanitarian aid, education, healthcare, and other essential services that constitute a lifeline for millions of Palestinian refugees, half of whom are children. This systematic obstruction deprives them of their basic rights and undermines the conditions necessary for their survival, especially in the Gaza Strip, where millions of Palestinians, most of them refugees, face an imminent threat to their lives due to policies of starvation, denial of medical care, and obstruction of life-saving materials, alongside ongoing killing, injury, targeting, and severe suffering.

Israel’s insistence on legalising its successive measures against UNRWA over recent years amounts to a declaration of war on the refugee community, one of the most vulnerable groups in Palestinian society. This comes as Israel continues to prevent refugees from returning to their homes and lands from which they were forcibly displaced, while their living conditions have deteriorated dramatically across all aspects due to the ongoing Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip for more than two years, and its military operations and comprehensive restrictions in the West Bank.

Israeli forces have killed multiple UNRWA staff and destroyed or bombarded hundreds of the agency’s facilities and schools in the Gaza Strip, exposing a grave failure of the global order, led by the United Nations, which has been unable to safeguard even its own agencies, sites, or resolutions.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor stresses that these measures constitute a flagrant violation of Israel’s obligations as an occupying power and reveal an integrated policy aimed at preventing UNRWA from fulfilling its mandate and forcibly pushing it out of the Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem, as a prelude to reengineering the demographic and institutional reality of the occupied city.

The destruction of UNRWA’s headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem constitutes a clear violation of international law and the UN Charter. The application of Israeli law in this context also breaches Israel’s obligations as an occupying power, as affirmed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its most recent advisory opinion on the illegality of Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.

Euro-Med Monitor asserts that the demolition of UNRWA facilities, the raid on its headquarters, and the closure of its facilities in East Jerusalem directly contradict the ICJ advisory opinion issued on 22 October 2025. The Court confirmed that Israel, as an occupying power and UN member state, is obligated to cooperate in good faith with the United Nations, ensure full respect for its privileges, immunities, property, and staff, and facilitate the work of UN agencies, including UNRWA, rather than obstruct, prevent, or undermine it.

Accordingly, the demolition, closures, and political supervision imposed on UNRWA constitute direct obstruction of a UN mandate and an infringement of the protection of international property, in clear contradiction of the duty to facilitate operations in the occupied territory, including East Jerusalem.

Israeli actions directly violate the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, particularly Article 2, which affirms that the UN and its property enjoy complete immunity from legal process and that its premises are inviolable, with any search, seizure, confiscation, expropriation, or other coercive measure strictly prohibited.

The International Court of Justice clearly affirmed that any executive, administrative, or legislative measure targeting UN property and assets is legally prohibited, and that the application of Israeli law in East Jerusalem is unlawful, reiterating in October 2025 Israel’s obligation to facilitate UNRWA’s work and ensure its humanitarian access.

Euro-Med Monitor recalls statements by the UNRWA Commissioner-General that the agency has been subjected to months of organised Israeli harassment, including deliberate arson attacks in 2024, systematic media incitement, hostile legislation, a raid on the same headquarters around a month ago, and the lowering of the UN flag and raising the Israeli flag instead. These practices reflect a hostile environment aimed at forcibly breaching UN immunity.

The international community, particularly the United Nations, must take immediate institutional measures to protect its premises and staff in the occupied Palestinian territory. This includes adopting clear and binding security protocols, strengthening UN field monitoring at targeted sites, ensuring immediate official documentation of any attack or coercive interference with UN facilities, and urgently briefing relevant UN bodies to take practical steps to prevent recurrence and ensure respect for the inviolability of UN premises and immunities.

International silence legitimises the forcible violation of UN humanitarian work. Euro-Med Monitor calls for the activation of international accountability mechanisms rather than reliance on verbal condemnations, and for an end to the policy of impunity that enables Israel to continue its violations without deterrence.

Euro-Med Monitor urges the international community to compel Israel to fully implement the International Court of Justice advisory opinion issued on 22 October 2025, including reopening closed facilities, restoring water and electricity, halting the confiscation or demolition of UN property, ensuring the uninterrupted functioning of UNRWA, ending measures that obstruct supplies, staff movement, or access to facilities, and securing safe corridors for UN teams.

The targeting of UN facilities and staff must be addressed in the ongoing investigation by the International Criminal Court, with responsibility established at the political and military leadership levels and along the chain of command, and all those who ordered, facilitated, participated in, or failed to prevent these attacks prosecuted.

Israel must provide full reparations and remedies, including the reconstruction of destroyed UN facilities and effective, comprehensive compensation for affected staff, victims, and their families.

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

21 January 2026

Source: countercurrents.org

By Laala Bechetoula

“Today more than ever, Arabs and Muslims must become aware of the terrible maneuvers and plots being hatched against them by lighting the fires of discord and sedition among the members of the Ummah, between Sunnis and Shiites, Arabs and Kurds, Arabs and Berbers, and Muslims and Christians. Proof of this is the turpitudes suffered by the central cause of the Arabs and Muslims, that of plundered Palestine. I highly recommend reading Amir Nour’s book because of the judicious choice of carefully documented writings by authoritative authors and studies, the sagacity of the analysis, and the clairvoyance of the foresight.” — Ahmed Taleb-Ibrahimi, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Algeria (1982–1988)

There are endorsements that adorn a book, and there are endorsements that place it inside history. The words of Ahmed Taleb-Ibrahimi do not merely recommend “The Monstrosity of Our Century: The War on Palestine and the Last Western Man”; they situate it within a long tradition of intellectual vigilance against division, manipulation, and moral corrosion. They also state—without euphemism—what many governments, institutions, and editorial boards prefer to dilute: Palestine is not merely a political cause; it is a truth test.

Amir Nour’s new book does not approach Palestine as a “conflict,” a “cycle,” or a “file.” It approaches it as a historical rupture—the point at which the contemporary international system ceased to reconcile power with principle, law with alliance, and narrative with reality. One year after the full return of Trumpism to the center of global machtpolitik—might politics—this book no longer reads as a polemical incursion. Rather, it reads as a forensic document.

Indeed, the question is no longer whether Nour went too far in his analysis of contemporary geopolitics and their lasting implications. The real overarching question is whether reality itself has already gone further than his words.

Gaza Is Not the Event—It Is the Mirror

Right from its opening pages, Nour’s book dismantles the most comforting illusion of modern diplomacy: that Palestine in general, and Gaza in particular, represents an aberration in an otherwise functional international order. He writes—without rhetorical excess and with devastating precision: “What is unfolding in Gaza is not a tragic deviation from the international order; it is the moment when that order reveals its true hierarchy of lives.”

This sentence is not a metaphor. It is a diagnostic instrument. Gaza, in Nour’s analysis, is not the breakdown of the so-called “rules-based order;” it is the place where those rules finally stop pretending to be universal. The book’s title itself draws from the formulation of Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, who described Gaza as “the monstrosity of our century.” Nour adopts this phrase because it names a condition, not an emotion: a world capable of witnessing mass destruction in real time while simultaneously organizing its justification.

That is why Richard Forer, in the foreword, states unambiguously, “For logistical reasons, Israel could not act alone. It needed the blessing and the military assistance of the United States, Britain, and Germany.”

This is not an accusation from the margins. It is an observation grounded in arms transfers, sustained funding, diplomatic cover, and repeated vetoes. Gaza exposes not only violence but also complicity structured as policy.

Double Standards as an Operating System

One of the book’s most meticulously documented sections is devoted to what Nour identifies as the institutionalization of double standards. This is not moral indignation; it is comparative analysis. While Ukraine is framed as a sacred cause of sovereignty, legality, and civilian protection, Palestine is consistently stitched up as “complex,” “contextual,” and indefinitely postponed. Forer writes, “In its unrestrained codependency with Israel, hypocrisy plays a major role,” adding, “Confusion and dissembling occur when a nation acts contrary to its publicly stated values.”

These lines matter because they identify hypocrisy not as a lapse but as a governing logic and behavior. International law has not disappeared; it has become selective. And selectivity, Nour shows, is no longer a flaw—it is the design.

This diagnosis is reinforced by Chas W. Freeman Jr., former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense, who writes that Amir Nour “eloquently and unflinchingly shows how the course of events in Palestine has discredited the moral authority of the West and devalued international law, while changing the world order and isolating Israel, making its survival increasingly doubtful.”

When such words come from within the Western strategic establishment, they are not radical. They set alarm bells ringing.

When Justice Becomes a Target

Perhaps the most chilling section of the book concerns international justice. Nour does not romanticize the ICJ or the ICC; he treats them as fault lines where the system’s contradictions surface. Forer notes how Western officials responded to the ICJ’s finding of a “plausible genocide”: “Criticism is answered with ‘Israel’s right to defend itself,’ without explaining how killing children by the thousands makes Israel more secure.” And Nour’s conclusion leaves no ambiguity: “Even in the midst of a ‘textbook case of genocide,’ the West continues to shield and thus bolster the actions of Israel.”

This is not rhetoric. It is a description of procedural reality. When international justice approaches protected actors, it ceases to be celebrated as law and begins to be treated as a threat.

The book documents the intimidation of the ICC prosecutor and the explicit warning: “Target Israel, and we will target you.” What Nour analyzed as pressure has since hardened into policy through sanctions and institutional retaliation. The system does not merely ignore justice; it disciplines it. Hence, as the foreword states bluntly, “The West has abandoned its responsibility to the world order and made a mockery of its alleged respect for international law.”

Trumpism: The End of Moral Pretense

Nour’s treatment of Trumpism is among the book’s most intellectually disciplined sections. He does not reduce it to personality or spectacle. He treats it as a revelation. Trumpism did not invent brutality; it removed its embarrassment.

This logic runs from the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, through the so-called “Deal of the Century,” to what Palestinian ambassador Husam Zomlot described as the vulgar liquidation of Palestinian sovereignty. Nour places these moments on a single trajectory: the replacement of law with transaction.

In the book’s conclusion, the line becomes unmistakable: “Up until its final days, the departing U.S. administration supported the Israeli slaughter with all means possible.” What follows is even starker: “This was another step toward establishing a ‘Greater Israel,’ paid for with rivers of blood.”

These are not metaphors. They are supported by figures, arms transfers, legislative initiatives, and official statements that Nour documents exhaustively. Trumpism, in this sense, is not an anomaly. It is the moment when power stops pretending to be moral. This reading is starkly reinforced by Donald Trump’s own words. In a recent interview[1], Trump openly dismissed the constraining role of international law, suggesting that only his personal judgment and morality ultimately limited American power. Whether intended as provocation or conviction, the statement crystallizes precisely the logic Nour dissects: power stripped of moral pretense, accountable only to itself.

That is why Hassan Janabi, former Iraqi minister and ambassador, writes, “Amir Nour has made his bold and insightful book a prominent document exposing the Zionist settlement project, for which Palestinians and Arabs have paid a heavy price. Yet, the signs of the project’s failure are becoming clear, just as its racist foundations and intentions have been revealed over the past seventy years, as exemplified in the ongoing genocidal war on Palestine.”

Criminalizing Compassion and Solidarity

One of the book’s most unsettling contributions lies in its analysis of repression without censorship. Nour shows how solidarity with Palestine is increasingly reclassified—from political position to ideological threat.

The mechanism is subtle: universities discipline, mainstream media reframe, and institutions warn. Empathy itself becomes suspicious.

As Ramzy Baroud writes in his endorsement, Nour’s work helps free historical understanding from the short-sighted frameworks that sustain binary “us versus them” narratives and restore a global, rather than ethnocentric, reading of history.

Palestine, Nour demonstrates, has become the litmus test of permissible compassion. The question is no longer whether freedom of expression exists, but for whom it is allowed to exist.

The End of Empathy and the “Last Western Man”

The book’s final chapter is titled “The End of Empathy, Genocide, and the Last Western Man.” This is not a flourish. It is the core thesis. Nour writes, “Gaza is almost completely destroyed, and its population is undergoing an unprecedented genocide.” He then adds, with devastating restraint, in the eyes of Donald Trump, “Collective punishment wasn’t severe enough. As if Palestinians could possibly be brutalized more than the ‘crime of crimes’ they’ve been subjected to for over a year.”

For Nour, the “Last Western Man” is not a people, a culture, or a race. It is a figure: the modern subject who sees everything, knows everything, and remains functionally unmoved. Not ignorant—anesthetized.

It is this dimension that my own endorsement sought to capture: “Neither to accuse the West nor to defend the East, Amir Nour’s book brings the human back to the center, revealing truth as what the powers that be can no longer conceal.”

A World That Is Leaving

Nour does not predict a new world order out of wishful thinking. He tracks it through behavior. The Global South is not revolting; it is withdrawing belief: BRICS expansion, alternative financial rails, and diplomatic hedging. These are not ideological gestures; they are responses to disillusionment. And Palestine accelerates this shift by exposing the gap between proclaimed universality and practiced selectivity, double standards, and variable geometry.

Why This Book Must Be Read—Now

The Monstrosity of Our Century is not comfortable. It does not offer solutions, slogans, or diplomatic exits. It offers something far more dangerous: clarity. This is not a book about Palestine alone. It is about what we have become by witnessing Gaza.

To read Amir Nour is not to agree with every line. It is to lose the luxury of not knowing.

And in a world governed by managed outrage, selective law, and anesthetized empathy, that loss no longer signals excess—it signals responsibility.

Laala Bechetoula is an Algerian journalist and writer, author of “The Book of Gaza Hashem: A Testament Written in Olive Wood and Ash”.

21  January 2026

Source: countercurrents.org

By Bharat Dogra

If a single policy change is to be identified which can resolve many problems and risks of Europe while also helping the cause of world peace, then this must preeminently be a strong recommendation for Europe to fundamentally reconsider its relations with Russia and to start moving towards seeking a future of friendship with Russia, in place of the existing policy of relentless and non-rational hostility which goes against basic geography and common sense.

While better, improved relationship of all of Europe with Russia would be beneficial for all, in particular the improved relationship of Germany, France and UK with Russia would be very welcome.

Such improved relationship can help immediately in ending the Ukraine-Russia war on a note of durable peace and goodwill (such as can still be salvaged) but the beneficial impacts of such improved relationship, which must extend ultimately to eastern Europe and all of Europe, will go beyond this and contribute to better development prospects of all concerned, eliminating huge dangers of bigger wars and advancing overall prospects of world peace.

This must be understood in the post-cold war framework. After the disintegration of communist Soviet Union, Russia was in the middle of extreme economic difficulties and tried to find a way out of very adverse situations. In such a condition Russia would have been extremely grateful for sincere efforts of European countries to help the troubled country. This would have established enormous goodwill and helped the Europeans to enter into longer-term energy and other agreements on favorable terms to them but also helpful for the recovery of Russia.

This was not to be and instead Europe gradually drifted towards increasingly hostile relationship with Russia, even as Russia found its own strengths to recover considerably from the traumatic situation following the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the resulting economic crisis.

The hostilities worsened in the course of the Ukraine war and are at their extreme level in this late stage of the war. As a result on several occasions risks and possibilities of a direct confrontation have arisen. Such a possibility in turn can have very destructive consequences as three of the involved countries—Russia, UK and France—have nuclear weapons.

Now that, relatively speaking in comparison to Biden’s times, President Trump also appears more inclined to favor an early end of war, there is everything to be gained by Europe cooperating in any efforts that can be actually effective in ending the war, instead of sticking to proposals which may look good on paper but given the realities of the situation cannot effectively help to end the war and bring peace.

Beyond this, however, Europe should very seriously consider changing its perceptions and policies towards Russia in more fundamental ways.

The wider objective of this policy shift should be to improve short-term as well as long-term peace prospects in the region, in particular to reduce the risks of a big and very destructive war involving nuclear weapon countries, as well as to improve prospects of peace, stability and development. It is only by improving peace prospects and reducing war possibility, that the prospects of sustainable development can improve and it is only in such peaceful conditions that the cooperation as well as the commitment for very important tasks of environment protection including an adequate and satisfactory climate response at the regional level can emerge.

Geography and resource distribution are also on the side of mutual cooperation of Europe with Russia that can be very beneficial to both sides.

One cannot plan for the best possible future options on the basis of real and imaginary past grievances or highly unrealistic fears for the future which are not based on evidence.

Europe has some of the highest levels of education and top level scholarship to support its policy making. Hence it has been surprising and shocking that several of its policy choices in recent times have not been based on hard evidence or even common sense and rationality. Much needed capacity to correct mistakes and take corrective actions has been missing. It is not clear what is behind the tendency to demonize Russia, its present leadership and almost all of its recent actions without making any effort at all to try to understand things also from the perspective of Russia, its leaders and people. The views and pleas of several highly reputed western scholars who have argued in well-reasoned, evidence-based ways for a better understanding of Russia have also been ignored.

Europe with its high levels of education and scholarship is supposed to be a world leader for peace, and it can make a significant contribution to this on its home front by seeking a future of friendship, not unending hostility, with Russia.

Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril and A Day in 2071.

24 January 2026

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Gideon Polya

In any natural or man-made disaster impacting a country decent countries rush to assess needs and urgently provide aid to assist the country and its indigenous rulers. Not so racist Trump America that was heavily responsible for Apartheid Israel’s Gaza Genocide by provision of weapons, bombs, funding and UNSC vetoes. Instead the US and its criminal appointees will illegally rule Gaza in defiance of international law and permit continuance of the humanitarian catastrophe and Gaza Genocide.

Expert assessment of the urgent aid need has been provided by expert epidemiologists published in the leading medical journal The Lancet. Epidemiologists estimated that 64,260 Gazans had died violently by 30 June 2024 (Day 269 of the killing) [1] and hence that 175,000 Gazans had died violently by 7 October 2025 (Day 731) i.e. after 2 years of killing. The wartime ratio of indirect deaths from imposed deprivation to direct, violent deaths ranges from 3 (the Iraq War, 1990-2011) to 16 (the Afghan War, 2001-2021) (see Gideon Polya, “Post-9/11 US-imposed Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide” [2]). Epidemiologists “conservatively” estimated 4 deaths from imposed deprivation in Gaza for every violent death [3-5], this indicating 700,000 non-violent deaths and 875,000 Gazans in total killed by violence and imposed deprivation by 7 October 2025 (i.e. in 2 years). Assuming (in the absence of other data) that the relative proportions of child, women and men deaths are the same for indirect (non-violent) deaths and for violent deaths reported by the Gaza health authorities, then the 875,000 Gazan deaths by 7 October 2025 are conservatively estimated to include the deaths of 325,000 children, 207,000 women and 342,000 men. However this underestimates child deaths because it ignores the high vulnerability of under-5 year old infants who represent about 70% of avoidable deaths from deprivation in impoverished countries (see Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” [6])

.The “ceasefire” of mid-October 2025 substantially reduced the violent killing of Gazans by the genocidal Zionist Israelis that nevertheless remorselessly continues. US-backed genocidal Apartheid Israel still applies massive constraints on aid delivery and catastrophically excludes 37 food and medical aid groups from Gaza, this meaning that Gazans are continuing to die from Zionist Israeli-imposed deprivation. Over 27 horrific months the people of Gaza (47% children before the present Gaza Massacre) have suffered bombing, shooting, burying under rubble, near-total devastation of homes and infrastructure, and substantial deprivation from water, food, shelter, sanitation, clothing, fuel, electricity, medicine, and medical care. The Zionist Israeli-imposed Gaza Genocide has involved the mass murder of 875,000 Gazans (36.5% of the pre-war population) by violence and continuing man-made famine, starvation and huge avoidable deaths from imposed deprivation to the utter shame of a World unable to stop genocidal US state terrorism and Israeli state terrorism.

The Office of the UN Human Rights Commissioner has summarized the 19 July 2024 determinations of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the self-government of the Occupied Palestinian Territory: “Israel and other UN Member States must immediately comply with the authoritative determination by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory, independent human rights experts said today. The landmark ruling of 19 July 2024 declared that Israel’s occupation of the Gaza strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is unlawful, along with the associated settlement regime, annexation and use of natural resources. The Court added that Israel’s legislation and measures violate the international prohibition on racial segregation and apartheid. The ICJ mandated Israel to end its occupation, dismantle its settlements, provide full reparations to Palestinian victims and facilitate the return of displaced people” [7-10] .

The World must accordingly (a) order Apartheid Israel to immediately cease the genocide and provide requisite life-sustaining food and medical services to Gaza (as demanded of any Occupier for its Occupied Subjects “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” by Articles 55 and 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention [11]), (b) to demand that Apartheid Israel cease the illegal Occupation as rapidly as possible, and (c) immediately impose rigorous Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel and all its racist supporters, notably the US and neo-Nazi Germany, until requisite aid, reparations and war crimes trials are delivered.

However the US and Apartheid Israel reject the ICJ determination and International Law and have illegally imposed the 20-point Trump Peace Plan on the circa 1.5 million survivors of the US- and Israeli-imposed Gaza Massacre and Gaza Holocaust. Indeed in proposing Gaza as an opportunity for private real estate development as a new, luxury, Miami-style “Riviera”, Trump referred to “1.7 million” Gazans to be relocated, this implying that only 2.4 million -1.7 million = 0.7 million Gazans were left, noting that perhaps 100,000 have temporarily escaped to Egypt [11-14]. Donald Trump in the Oval Office when asked if Palestinians could return to Gaza (February 2025) : “It would be my hope that we could do something really nice, really good where they wouldn’t want to return…If we can build something for them in one of the countries, and it could be Jordan and it could be Egypt, it could be other countries and you could build four or five or six areas.. we could do something where they wouldn’t want to go back” and when asked about how many people: “Everyone. We are talking about probably a million seven (1.7 million) people. Million seven, maybe a million eight. But I think all of them, I think they’ll be resettled in areas where they can live a beautiful life and not be worried about dying every day” [13, 14].

The genocidal war criminals Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump are responsible for a Gaza Holocaust in which 680,000 Gazans, mostly children, died from violence and deprivation by 25 April 2025 and 875,000 died thus by 7 October 2025 i.e. after 2 years of the killing in genocidal reprisals for 1,200 Israelis killed in the Palestinian Breakout from the Gaza Concentration Camp on 7 October 2023 (most likely killed by the responding IDF). In an Orwellian twist these child-killing mass murderers involved in the Gaza Genocide have advanced a Gaza Peace Plan that denies Gazans freedom, human rights and self-determination for an indefinite period. Both war criminal and genocidally racist proponents reject International Law and have explicitly proposed mass ethnic cleaning of Palestinians [16]. International Law-violating and fascist Trump America and neo-Nazi Germany provided the arms for the Gaza Genocide [17]. Indeed there is a shocking list of 52 Zionist- and Apartheid Israeli-Nazi Germany comparisons [17-19]. Despite the “ceasefire” the Zionist Israelis continue to kill, maim and starve Gazans, with the Ministry of Health in Gaza reporting 240 deaths and over 1,180 injuries by 5 January 2026) due to Israeli violations of the ceasefire agreement [20], this indicative of about 1,000 Gazan “deaths from violence and deprivation” (Google this phrase) since the 10 October 2025 Ceasefire. Israeli Defence Minister Katz has repeatedly stated that Israel will never leave Gaza [21]. For all that the West clings to the fig leaf of a “2 state solution”, genocidally racist Apartheid Israel totally opposes this.

In stark contrast to the evil machinations of Trump America, Apartheid Israel and the US Alliance, the ICJ has ordered immediate peace and an immediate end to the illegal Zionist Israeli Occupation with the immediate consequence of rapid assessment io the dead, injured and dangerously deprived with immediate requisite aid delivery to Gaza (plus reparations and war crimes trials for harm done) [15]. The immediate solution to all of this evil is simply “all human rights for all” including for the sorely oppressed Occupied Palestinian after a century of a Western-backed Palestinian Genocide (3.1 million Palestinians killed by violence and deprivation).

Who are the key people involved in the racist, illegal and likely genocidal Trump Peace Plan?

The White House has set out the people involved in the illegal Trump Peace Plan: “Yesterday, President Donald J. Trump congratulated the formation of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), a vital step forward in implementing Phase Two of his Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict—a 20-point roadmap for lasting peace, stability, reconstruction, and prosperity in the region. The NCAG will be led by Dr. Ali Sha’ath, a widely respected technocratic leader who will oversee the restoration of core public services, the rebuilding of civil institutions, and the stabilization of daily life in Gaza, while laying the foundation for long-term, self-sustaining governance…

To operationalize the Board of Peace’s vision—under the chairmanship of President Donald J. Trump—a founding Executive Board has been formed, composed of leaders with experience across diplomacy, development, infrastructure, and economic strategy. The appointed members are: Secretary Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Sir Tony Blair, Marc Rowan, Ajay Banga, Robert Gabriel…

the Chairman has appointed Aryeh Lightstone and Josh Gruenbaum as senior advisors to the Board of Peace, charged with leading day-to-day strategy and operations, and translating the Board’s mandate and diplomatic priorities into disciplined execution. H.E. Nickolay Mladenov, an Executive Board member, will serve as the High Representative for Gaza. In this capacity, he will act as the on-the-ground link between the Board of Peace and the NCAG…

To establish security, preserve peace, and establish a durable terror-free environment, Major General Jasper Jeffers has been appointed Commander of the International Stabilization Force (ISF)…

In support of the Office of the High Representative and the NCAG, a Gaza Executive Board is being established. The Board will help support effective governance and the delivery of best-in-class services that advance peace, stability, and prosperity for the people of Gaza. The appointed members are: Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Minister Hakan Fidan, Ali Al-Thawadi, General Hassan Rashad, Sir Tony Blair, Marc Rowan, Minister Reem Al-Hashimy, Nickolay Mladenov, Yakir Gabay, Sigrid Kaag. The United States remains fully committed to supporting this transitional framework, working in close partnership with Israel, key Arab nations, and the international community to achieve the objectives of the Comprehensive Plan. The President calls on all parties to cooperate fully with the NCAG, the Board of Peace, and the International Stabilization Force to ensure the swift and successful implementation of the Comprehensive Plan. Additional Executive Board and Gaza Executive Board members will be announced over the coming weeks” [22].

The Trump plan violates International Law and the determination by the International Court of Justice that continued foreign occupation is illegal. Except for the NCAG to be led by eminent Palestinian engineer Dr. Ali Sha’ath, convicted felon Trump and his appointees will ignore Indigenous Palestinians and preside over total theft of Palestinian Land for real estate development by racist crook Trump and his wealthy American associates.

Set out below are the backgrounds of those involved in the illegal Trump Peace Plan for US- and Apartheid Israel-devastated Gaza.

(A). Founding Executive Board.

(1). Donald Trump (chair): (a) 2 term Republican president of the USA (population 345 million), just 1 of 193-plus countries of the World (population 8,300 million), (b) a pathological liar who told over 30,000 lies in his first Administration [23], (c) still denies his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 Presidential Election, (d) in the first year of his Second Term he bombed 5 countries (Syria, Yemen, Iran, Nigeria, and Venezuela), threatens to invade 9 countries (Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, Panama, Canada, Greenland, Denmark, Iran) and through provision of weapons, bombs, billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic support enabled Apartheid Israel to bomb 5 countries (Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, Iran) and kidnap citizens of numerous countries in international waters, (e) devastated world-leading US universities, world-leading US humanitarian aid, world-leading US science, the US public service, and crucial US action on climate change through withholding funding, (f) through provision of weapons, bombs, billions of dollars in military aid and UN Security Council vetoes was heavily complicit in Apartheid Israel’s Gaza Genocide (in 2 years the Gaza dead from violence and imposed deprivation totalled 875,000 including 325,000 children, 207,000 women and 342,000 men, (g) Trump’s axing of USAID and WHO support may kill 14 million people in five years [24], (h) the World is existentially threatened by nuclear weapons and climate change but Trump will resume nuclear testing and withdrew the US from the Paris Climate Change Agreement, (i) each year 1.5 million Americans die preventably from “life-style choice” and “political choice” reasons but under Trump this American Holocaust will worsen due to huge wealth transfer from poor to rich and the medical insurance crisis under Trump [25-27]], (j) Trump nepotisms and corruption has increased the Trump family’s wealth by $4 billion since his re-election [28, 29], (k) more than 200 mental health professionals warned that Trump is dangerous because of “his symptoms of severe, untreatable personality disorder – malignant narcissism… [making him] grossly unfit for leadership” [30], and (l) Trump is murderously anti-Arab anti-Semitic, and as a non-Jewish Zionist and as a Mainstream US politician an obligate fervent supporter of genocidally racist Apartheid Israel and hence of the vile crime of Apartheid.

(2). Marco Rubio: (a) Secretary of State, and complicit in the crimes of Trump and the Trump Administration, (b) his net worth is astonishingly only about $1 million, (c) lawyer and hawkish anti-Cuba Cuban Hispanic Republican Senator for Florida in 2011-2025; (d) anti-Arab anti-Semitic as a non-Jewish Zionist and obligate fervent supporter of genocidally racist Apartheid Israel and hence of the vile crime of Apartheid [31].

(3). Steve Witkoff: (a) a Jewish American real estate developer, investor, and founder of the Witkoff Group; (b) billionaire worth $2 billion; (c) US special envoy to the Middle East, special envoy for peace missions including to Russia; (d) anti-Arab anti-Semitic as a Jewish Zionist and fervent supporter of genocidally racist Apartheid Israel and hence of the vile crime of Apartheid, (e) unlike 7 million Exiled Palestinians and about 5 million surviving Occupied Palestinian Subjects of Apartheid Israel , he is eligible for citizenship of Apartheid Israel [32].

(4). Jared Kushner: (a) Jewish American son-in-law of Donald Trump; (b) a real estate billionaire with a net worth of over $1 billion due to media and his Middle East-involved company Affinity Partners connected with wealth funds of the Saudi dictatorship; he took over Kushner Companies after his father, Charles Kushner, was convicted for 18 criminal charges, including illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering in 2005 ( Charles was pardoned by Trump in 2020), (c) often accused of profiting from the insider Trump and Middle Eastern connections [33]; (d) anti-Arab anti-Semitic as a Jewish Zionist and fervent supporter of genocidally racist Apartheid Israel and hence of the vile crime of Apartheid, (e) unlike 7 million Exiled Palestinians and about 5 million surviving Occupied Palestinian Subjects of Apartheid Israel, he is eligible for citizenship of Apartheid Israel.

(5). Sir Tony Blair: (a) Right-wing UK Labour PM responsible for leading the UK into the Iraq War based on false US intelligence (2.7 million Iraqi deaths from violence and deprivation in the 2003-2011 Iraqi Holocaust [34, 35]), (b) anti-Arab anti-Semitic as a non-Jewish Zionist, and as a Mainstream UK politician an obligate fervent supporter of genocidally racist Apartheid Israel and hence of the vile crime of Apartheid, (c) Executive Chairman of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and a net worth of $80 million [36].

(6). Marc Rowan: (a) Jewish American billionaire worth about $8.8 billion, (b) co-founder and CEO of Apollo Global Management, (c) anti-Arab anti-Semitic as a Jewish Zionist and fervent supporter of genocidally racist Apartheid Israel and hence of the vile crime of Apartheid, and (d) unlike 7 million Exiled Palestinians and about 5 million surviving Occupied Palestinian Subjects of Apartheid Israel, he is eligible for citizenship of Apartheid Israel [37].

(7). Ajay Banga: (a) Sikh Indian American multi-millionaire with a net worth if $43 million, (b) top positions in Mastercard, General Atlantic, Exor (Netherlands- and Italy- linked), and the public-private Partnership for Central America with former Gaza Genocide-complicit US vice president Kid-Killing Kamala (KKK) Harris [38, 39]. Banga was former chairman of the U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC) representing more than 300 of the largest international companies, and is chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce. Banga was Biden-nominated and elected president of the World Bank that presides over the Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust in which 7.4 million people die avoidably from deprivation each year [35].

(8). Robert Gabriel: (a) policy advisor for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and a policy adviser and speech writer for Trump in 2021, (b) Deputy National Security Advisor alongside Andy Baker in 2025 [40], and (c) this was blatant appointment of a Trump political mate [40].

(B) Aryeh Lightstone and Josh Gruenbaum as senior advisors to the Board of Peace ( translating the Board’s mandate into execution), H.E. Nickolay Mladenov (an Executive Board member, and High Representative for Gaza linking the Board of Peace and the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, NCAG), Dr. Ali Sha’ath Head, NACG), and Major General Jasper Jeffers (Commander of the International Stabilization Force (ISF)).

(1). Aryeh Lightstone: (a) senior advisor to the Board of Peace re implementation (b) extreme Right-wing Zionist Rabbi, senior adviser to Trump’s US Ambassador to Israel (David Friedman), hostile to liberal Jews, (c) former Zionist Jewish youth group leader, educational technology consultant and would-be casino developer with no diplomatic experience, (d) former executive director of Shining Light, a US fundraiser linked to the Israeli extreme Right-wing, (e) deeply involved in the creation of the highly controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and hampering aid to starving Gaza, (f) key adviser in the shift of the US Embassy to Jerusalem [41, 42] that led to the Great March of Return in the Gaza Concentration Camp over 18 months in 2018 and 2019 and in which IDF snipers deliberately killed 223 unarmed Gazans (including 46 children) and injured 9,204 [43], and (g) afervent supporter of genocidally racist Apartheid Israel and hence of the vile crime of Apartheid, and eligible for citizenship of Apartheid Israel

(2). Josh Gruenbaum: (a) senior advisor to the Board of Peace re implementation, (b) a Jewish Zionist and worked with fellow Jewish Zionist Jared Kushner (Trump’s Zionist Jewish son-in-law) on Trump’s Gaza “Riviera” luxury property development plan [33], (c) a senior White House adviser [44, and (d) a fervent supporter of genocidally racist Apartheid Israel and hence of the vile crime of Apartheid, and eligible for citizenship of Apartheid Israel.

(3). Dr. Ali Sha’ath: (a) leader of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) involved in restoring Gaza infrastructure and services, (b) an eminent civil engineer involved in numerous projects in Palestine and elsewhere, (c) PhD in Civil Engineering from Queen’s University, Belfast (1989), postdoctoral and academic work in the UK, numerous publications, and (d) born in Gaza and a leading expert figure in the West Bank [45].

(4). Major General Jasper Jeffers: (a) Commander of the International Stabilization Force (ISF), responsible for security in Gaza, (b) involved in the 2003-2011 Iraqi Holocaust (2.7 million Iraqi deaths from violence and deprivation, 2003-2011), the 2001-2021 Afghan Holocaust (6.8 million deaths from violence and deprivation), and the operations against IS in Iraq and Syria [46] (40,000 Iraqis died in the US Alliance destruction of the ancient and huge city of Mosul [47-49], a forerunner of the Gaza Holocaust), and appointed to oversee the implementation of the 2024 US-brokered ceasefire in Zionist Israeli-devastated Lebanon) [46].

(C ). Gaza Executive Board to support the Office of the High Representative and the NCAG.

(1). Steve Witkoff: a Jewish Zionist billionaire American real estate developer worth $2 billion, investor, founder of the Witkoff Group, Trump’s Middle East envoy, and anti-Arab anti-Semitic as a Jewish Zionist and fervent supporter of genocidally racist Apartheid Israel and hence of the vile crime of Apartheid, and eligible for citizenship of Apartheid Israel (see A3 above; [32]).

(2). Jared Kushner: Jewish American son-in-law of Donald Trump, real estate billionaire with a net worth of over $1 billion due to media and Middle East interests, anti-Arab anti-Semitic as a Jewish Zionist and fervent supporter of genocidally racist Apartheid Israel and hence of the vile crime of Apartheid, and eligible for dual citizenship of Apartheid Israel (see A4; [33]) .

(3). Hakan Fidan: (a) Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, (b) Hakan Firdan: “[Israel] committing genocide in Gaza for the past two years, ignoring basic humanitarian values right before the world’s eyes… The initiatives we have led and actively participated in have played an important role in many countries’ decisions to recognize Palestine. Indeed, countries including the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Malta, New Zealand, Portugal, and Australia announced their intention to recognize the State of Palestine in September. This marks a historic turning point in international diplomacy on the Palestinian issue. The fact that these countries have now begun to voice loudly their demand for an end to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is a long overdue but highly valuable step… [atrocities committed in Gaza] have been recorded as one of the darkest chapters in human history… [Palestinian struggle] will alter the course of history, become a symbol for the oppressed, and shake the foundations of a decaying order… Israel’s reckless attacks on Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iran are the clearest sign of a terrorist state mentality defying international order” [50], and (c) the Zionist Israeli far right psychopaths object to Muslim critics of Israel being on the Board of Peace and demand occupation, annexation and Jewish settlement of Gaza [51].

(4). Ali Al-Thawadi: (a) Qatari Minister at the Prime Minister’s Office for Strategic Affairs, (b) Qatar Tribune: “Qatar’s International Media Office said the State of Qatar continues to play an active role in regional peace efforts, including in relation to mediation between Israel and Hamas, working with international partners to de-escalate tensions and promote lasting peace” [52], and (c) The Israeli Far-Right including ICC-sought war criminal Netanyahu object to the presence of peace-maker Ali Al-Thawadi on the Board of Peace, and Zionist Israeli fanatics want occupation, annexation and Jewish settlement of Gaza [51].

(5). General Hassan Rashad: (a) Egyptian intelligence chief critically helping to violently ensure the continuation of the Abdel Fattah el-Sisi military dictatorship. Sisi led the 2013 military overthrow of the democratically-elected Mohamed Morsi Muslim Brotherhood government, the first democratically-elected government in the 6,000 year history of Egypt. 3,000 civilians were killed and 19,000 arrested and highly abusively imprisoned. Ruthless dictator Sisi was subsequently elected in successive fake elections (as in Apartheid Israel) in which opposition candidates were excluded. Under Sisi Egypt is a draconian US- and Apartheid Israel-backed dictatorship [53], (b) an estimated 100,000 Gazans reportedly escaped the Gaza Genocide in Egypt but are likely to be returned, (c ) Egypt, like other Arab countries, refuses to be part of an Apartheid Israeli ethnic cleansing of the surviving 1.5 million Gazans, and (d) Egypt is a major recipient of US military aid despite Congressional prohibition of aid to dictatorships arising from overthrow of a democratically-elected government [54] – in 2022 Ukraine received the most US foreign aid in 2022: ($12.4 billion), followed by Apartheid Israel ($3.3 billion), Ethiopia ($2.2 billion), Afghanistan ($1.4 billion), Yemen ($1.4 billion) and Egypt ($1.4 billion) [34], and between 1946 and 2024, over $1 trillion, or roughly 30% of all US foreign aid, has gone to five countries: Israel ($337.0 billion), Egypt ($198.9 billion), former South Vietnam ($193.8 billion), Afghanistan ($168.5 billion), and South Korea ($127.6 billion), after adjusting for inflation [55].

(6). Sir Tony Blair: Right-wing UK Labour PM involved in the 1990-2011 Iraqi Holocaust [34, 35]), fervent supporter of Apartheid Israel and hence of Apartheid, and Executive Chairman of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and with a net worth of $80 million (see A5; [36]).

(7). Marc Rowan: Jewish American billionaire worth about $8.8 billion, co-founder and CEO of Apollo Global Management, fervent supporter of genocidally racist Apartheid Israel and hence of the vile crime of Apartheid, and eligible for citizenship of Apartheid Israel ( see A6; [37].

(8). Dr Reem Al-Hashim: (a) UAE politician, and current Minister of State for International Cooperation in the United Arab Emirates’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, (b) favours links with Apartheid Israel , (c ) she is part of a dictatorial regime that has made huge arms purchases from Apartheid Israel, and involved with Saudi Arabia and arms-supplying Apartheid Israel fighting starving Yemen and supporting the barbaric, genocidal and raping Rapid Support Force (RSF) in Sudan [56-58]

(9). Nickolay Mladenov: (a) Bulgarian politician and diplomat appointed by Trump as High Representative for Gaza and tasked with leading the Board of Peace, (b) former Bulgarian Minister of Defense and Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Member of the European Parliament , (c) had various UN Middle East diplomatic roles with close dealings with Netanyahu and the Israelis , and (d) was exposed by the Pandora Letters for international financial dealings [59].

(10). Yakir Gabay: (a) Cypriot-Israeli billionaire real estate businessman based in Cyprus and a fervent Jewish Zionist, (b) owns 10% of Aroundtown SA, and (c) closely involved with highly-placed US Jewish Zionists in public narrative-changing backing of Apartheid Israel in the Gaza Genocide [60].

(11). Sigrid Kaag: (a) Dutch politician and diplomat who was the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process since 2025 and the Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza since 2024, (b) former Dutch Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, and Minister of Foreign Affairs, and (c) extensive involvement as a UN diplomat in the Middle East [61].

(D ). The leaders of numerous countries have been invited to join the Board of Peace ($1 billion membership fee) but so far only the leaders of 23 countries have accepted, including ICC-sought war criminal and mass murderer of 875,000 Gazans , Apartheid Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK have declined to join [62, 63].

Final comments and conclusions.

The sorely oppressed circa 1.5 million surviving residents of the Gaza Concentration Camp are overwhelmingly Muslim, Arab, and Indigenous Palestinians. Most of the utterly impoverished and traumatized Gazans are women and children and essentially none are Jews, Zionists, pro-Zionists, Israelis, Americans, or Europeans. In stark contrast the 18 key people in A to C above and identified by the White House as involved in implementing the illegal Trump Peace Plan for Gaza [22] (i.e. ignoring the national leaders who have subsequently accepted the invitation to join an expanded and war criminal Board of Peace that is set to undermine humanitarian UN activities around the World. ):

(1). only 1 is from Gaza (Dr. Ali Sha’ath).

(2). only 1 is a Palestinian (Dr. Ali Sha’ath).

(3). only 2 are women (Dr Reem Al-Hashim and Sigrid Kaag).

(4). 1 is Zionist Israeli (Yakir Gabay).

(5). only 5 are Muslims (Palestinian Dr. Ali Sha’ath, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Qatari diplomat Ali Al-Thawadi, Egyptian intelligence chief General Hassan Rashad, and UAE Minister Reem Al-Hashimy).

(6). 10 are Americans (Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Marc Rowan, Robert Gabriel, Ajay Banga, Aryeh Lightstone, Josh Gruenbaum, Major General Jasper Jeffers).

(7). 15 are from the US or European countries (the 10 Americans plus Sir Tony Blair (UK), Nickolay Mladenov (Bulgaria), Sigrid Kaag (Netherlands), Yakir Gabay (Cyprus, Israel), Hakan Fidan (Turkiye)).

(8). 5 are Jewish Zionists (Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Marc Rowan, Aryeh Lightstone, Josh Gruenbaum).

(9). 7 are non-Jewish pro-Zionists ( Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Robert Gabriel, Ajay Banga, Jasper Jeffers, Sir Tony Blair, Nickolay Mladenov).

(10), 6 are obscenely wealthy (Donald Trump, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Marc Rowan, Ajay Banga, Yakir Gabay ).

(11). Unlike the1.5 million barely surviving, traumatized and variously injured Gazans substantially deprived of water, food, shelter, sanitation, clothing, electricity, fuel, economy, medicine and medical care , all 18 are well-fed, well-housed, healthy, happy, non-traumatized, un-injured, non-bereaved, protected by all the human rights set out in the 30 Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [64], and have access to the very best of Western medicine. It must be noted that the Occupied Palestinians have been excluded from all the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While Israeli Palestinians can vote for the government ruling them (albeit for Zionist-approved candidates) they but are subject to 65 race-based, Nazi-style, discriminatory laws [65, 66]. In stark contrast, Occupied Palestinians are excluded from all 30 Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and cannot vote for the government ruling them (i.e. they are subject to egregious Apartheid) [67-70 ].

(12). 6 people, have an altruistic agenda namely Dr. Ali Sha’ath, Dr Reem Al-Hashim, Sigrid Kaag, Hakan Fidan, Ali Al-Thawadi and even, Egyptian intelligence chief General Hassan Rashad. The remaining 12 Zionists and pro-Zionists are compromised as part of Trump’s illegal seizure of part of Palestine in war criminal violation of the determinations of the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The genocidal Zionist American and Zionist Israeli Occupation of Gaza is illegal as determined by the International Court of Justice that mandated Israel to end its occupation, dismantle its settlements, provide full reparations to Palestinian victims and facilitate the return of displaced people [7-9]. However serial war criminal Trump and his thieving associates evidently plan on doing the opposite for private profit including seizure of all of the land of Gaza and Gaza’s share of the Eastern Mediterranean gas and oil [71].

The core ethos of Humanity is Kindness and Truth. Indeed the core messages from the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (and indeed from all holocausts and genocides) are “zero tolerance for lying”, “zero tolerance for racism”, “bear witness” and “never again to anyone”. However these key moral imperatives are grossly violated by genocidally racist, egregiously mendacious, and endlessly thieving Zionazi Apartheid Israel and its morally degenerate global supporters who are now complicit in the ongoing mass murder of children, mothers, women and men in the ongoing Gaza Massacre, Gaza Genocide and Gaza Holocaust.

As determined from data and methodology published by exert epidemiologists in the leading medical journal The Lancet, the first 2 years of the horrific, intentional and Zionist Israeli-imposed Gaza Genocide involved 875,000 Gaza “deaths from violence and deprivation” (Google this phrase), this including the deaths of 325,000 children, 207,000 women and 342,000 men [73- 79].

Zionism is genocidal racism in explicit genocidal advocacy and in appalling genocidal practice by Apartheid Israel. War is the penultimate in racism and genocide the ultimate in racism. Zionazi Zionism is genocidal racism and Nazism without gas chambers but as realized in an endlessly ethnically cleansing and US-backed Apartheid Israel having 90 nuclear weapons, one of the world’s leading high technology militaries, having world-leading high technology arms and surveillance industries that exports to dictatorships and democracies alike, and having attacked the territory of 20 countries.

Appallingly, Trump is now seeking to widen the membership and global scope of the Trump Board of Peace (BOP) at the expense of the United Nations. Leaders of about 60 countries have received invitations from U.S. President Donald Trump to join the Trump-led and International Law-violating Board of Peace and 26 have already accepted including ICC-sought war criminal and mass murderer of children and mothers, Apartheid Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.[62, 63]. In a puerile temper tantrum, childish but World-threatening narcissist Trump dis-invited Canada [62] after Canadian PM Mark Carney won a standing ovation at Davos for advocating the primacy of the United Nations and International Law [80, 81] (psychopathic war criminal Trump has demanded US acquisition of Canada as well as Venezuela, Greenland, Panama and Gaza).

Canadian PM Mark Carney: “Today I will talk about a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints. On the other hand, I would like to tell you that the other countries, especially intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the various states. The power of the less power starts with honesty” [81].

In stark contrast is Canada’s sister British Commonwealth country, Australia, that has been invited to join the BOP by Trump but is still considering the matter. The cowardly, racist, unprincipled, US lackey and Zionist-perverted Australian Labor Government knows what is right under International Law but is terrified of offending psychopath Trump. The Australian Labor Government and the Coalition Opposition are complicit in the Gaza Genocide in 20 ways [82] and lie for Apartheid Israel in 35 ways [83, 84]. The recent horrific Bondi Massacre (15 killed, all but 1 Jewish) gave a huge impetus to Zionist-perverted Labor’s 2-year campaign to hide the Gaza Genocide by means of antisemitism hysteria and terror hysteria. The Labor Government and the Liberal part of the Liberal Party-National Party Coalition Opposition have passed a draconian and Nazi-style Hate Speech Law (HSL) that enables a Federal Government to proscribe law-abiding groups it doesn’t like on secret Intelligence advice with leaders of such groups (e.g. quite conceivably the anti-racist, anti-genocide and anti-Zionist Jewish Council of Australia) facing up to 15 years in prison [79].

The progressive Greens and the libertarian but Right-wing National Party opposes this unforgivable and huge assault on Australian free speech and human rights. I sent the following Letter to Australian MSM: “[Top barrister and former national president of the Australian Lawyers Alliance] Greg Barns SC on Australia’s human rights-violating Hate Speech Law (HSL): “Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny – and this one ticks every box”. In short, the Federal Government can proscribe any group it doesn’t like based on secret Intelligence advice, and leading members of the group will face up to 15 years’ prison. Zionist-perverted and Australia-betraying Liberal and Labor (Lib-Lab) MPs voted for the draconian HSL, Hate Speech Law to HASSLE Australians that was opposed by the Greens and Nationals but fanatically supported by racist Zionists (0.5% of the population and fervent supporters of Australia-violating Apartheid Israel and hence of vile Apartheid). 2 decades ago the ABC let me make 3 nation-wide broadcasts but never mentioned me since. Since the Gaza Genocide (875,000 killed) commenced on 7/10/2023 I sent thousands of protesting Letters to Mainstream media with a publication success of 0.1%, but in August-September 2025 an astonishing 100% of my 10 Letters to esteemed Pearls and Irritations were published. However after 6/9/2025 zero (0) of my Letters were published by Australian media. Who’s responsible: Intelligence “D-notices”, VIPs, or Zionists? I have joined about 40 censored Australian writers that I have defended. Informed democracy?” [85]. Cowardly, racist, US lackey and Zionist-perverted Australia has invited mass murderer, anti-Arab anti-Semite, and genocidal war criminal Apartheid Israeli President Isaac Herzog to Australia [86].

Articles 55 and 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention unequivocally demand that an Occupier must provide life-sustaining food and medical services to its Occupied Subjects “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” [87]. Apartheid Israel has grossly violated the Fourth Geneva Convention in the Occupied Palestinian Territory for 59 years, and most egregiously so in the ongoing Gaza Genocide (875,000 Gazans killed by violence and deprivation [73-79]. The Office of the UN Human Rights Commissioner on the demand by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for the self-government of the Occupied Palestinian Territory: “Israel and other UN Member States must immediately comply with the authoritative determination by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory, independent human rights experts said today. The landmark ruling of 19 July 2024 declared that Israel’s occupation of the Gaza strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is unlawful, along with the associated settlement regime, annexation and use of natural resources. The Court added that Israel’s legislation and measures violate the international prohibition on racial segregation and apartheid. The ICJ mandated Israel to end its occupation, dismantle its settlements, provide full reparations to Palestinian victims and facilitate the return of displaced people” [7-9].

Presently genocidal psychopath Trump rules half of Gaza and ICC-sought genocidal psychopath Netanyahu rules the other half. The killing continues. Psychopath Trump and his criminal Zionist associates should have nothing to do with devastated Gaza. They should be immediately replaced by a representative civilian Gazan government, and UN-backed humanitarian managers and workers protected by a UN force from countries with no genocidal record and ideally Muslim and Arabic-speaking to facilitate their protection of the devastated. Muslim and Arabic-speaking Gaza population.

The century-long and Zionist-imposed genocide of the Indigenous Palestinians has been associated with 3.1 million deaths from violence (0.3 million) and deprivation (2.8 million) – a Palestinian Genocide and a Palestinian Holocaust of a similar magnitude to the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million deaths from violence and deprivation). The World must act to remove this horrific ongoing stain on Humanity. After 69 Africans were killed in the Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa in 1960 the World immediately imposed ultimately successful Sanctions on Apartheid South Africa. The US and Zionist Israeli murder of 875,000 Gazans vastly more so demands that comprehensive Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) should be applied to Apartheid Israel, Zionist-perverted America and all supporters of Apartheid Israel and hence of the utterly vile and deadly crime of Apartheid.

The World must insist on “all human rights for all” and immediate action to stop the immense suffering, deprivation and death in Gaza that is still being imposed by genocidally racist US and Zionist Israeli perpetrators. It is intolerable that the genocidal Zionist perpetrators remain in charge of Zionist-devastated Gaza. The civilized world must apply draconian sanctions against the perpetrators of the Gaza Holocaust, namely Apartheid Israel, the United States and all other Gaza Genocide-complicit countries. Inaction is complicity. Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. All human rights for all. MAGA: Make America Genocide-Accountable, Make Apartheid Israel Genocide-Accountable.

References.

[1]. Zeina Jamaluddine, Hanan Abukmail, Sarah Aly, Oona M R Campbell, and Francesco Checchi, “Traumatic injury mortality in the Gaza Strip from Oct 7, 2023, to June 30, 2024: a capture–recapture analysis”, The Lancet, 9 January 2025: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)02678-3/fulltext .

[2]. Gideon Polya, “Post-9/11 US-imposed Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide”, Korsgaard Publishing, 2020.

[3]. Rasha Khatib, Martin McKee and Salim Yusuf, “Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential”, The Lancet, Volume 404, Issue 10449, p237-238, 10 July, 2024: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext

[4]. Devi Sridhar, “Scientists are closing in on the true, horrifying scale of death and disease in Gaza”, The Guardian, 5 September 2024: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/05/scientists-death-disease-gaza-polio-vaccinations-israel.

[5]. Gideon Polya, “The Lancet: 64,260 Gaza Violent Deaths Indicating 257,000 Indirect Deaths In 9 Months”, Countercurrents, 14 January 2025: https://countercurrents.org/2025/01/the-lancet-64260-gaza-violent-deaths-indicating-257000-indirect-deaths-in-9-months/ .

[6]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, Korsgaard Publishing, 2021.

[7]. Gideon Polya, “ICJ Gaza Peace Plan Versus Racist Peace Plan Of Genocidal War Criminals Trump & Netanyahu”, Countercurrents, 4 October 2025: https://countercurrents.org/2025/10/icj-gaza-peace-plan-versus-racist-peace-plan-of-genocidal-war-criminals-trump-netanyahu/ .

[8]. UN Human Rights, Office of the High Commissioner, “Experts hail ICJ declaration on illegality of Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory as “historic” for Palestinians and international law”, 30 July 2024: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/07/experts-hail-icj-declaration-illegality-israels-presence-occupied .

[9]. International Court of Justice, “Summary of the Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024”: https://www.icj-cij.org/node/204176 .

[10].Gideon Polya, “Proposed Australian Hate-Speech Laws Threaten Australian Free Speech For Zionists & Apartheid Israel”, Countercurrents, 17 January 2026: https://countercurrents.org/2026/01/proposed-australian-hate-speech-laws-threaten-australian-free-speech-for-zionists-apartheid-israel/ .

[11]. Kevin Maimann, “1.7 million” Palestinians in Gaza? Trump’s statement raises questions about death toll”, CBC, 13 February 2025: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-gaza-population-relocation-1.7457559 .

[12]. Richard Hil and Gideon Polya, “Australian mainstream media continue to hugely understate Gazan death toll”, Countercurrents, 15 September 2025: https://countercurrents.org/2025/09/australian-mainstream-media-continue-to-hugely-understate-gazan-death-toll/ .

[13]. Prashant Jha , “Trump plan: Take over Gaza, make it ‘Riviera’”, Hindustan Times, 6 February 2025: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/trump-plan-take-over-gaza-make-it-riviera-101738780190686.html .

[14]. Gideon Polya, “LeMay, Albright & Trump: 3 US Officials Who Confessed To US Mass Murder Of Civilians”, Countercurrents, 17 March 2025: https://countercurrents.org/2025/03/lemay-albright-trump-3-us-officials-who-confessed-to-us-mass-murder-of-civilians/ .

[15]. Gideon Polya, “ICJ Gaza Peace Plan Versus Racist Peace Plan Of Genocidal War Criminals Trump & Netanyahu”, Countercurrents, 4 October 2025: https://countercurrents.org/2025/10/icj-gaza-peace-plan-versus-racist-peace-plan-of-genocidal-war-criminals-trump-netanyahu/ .

[16]. “Zionist quotes re racism and Palestinian Genocide”, Palestinian Genocide : https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/zionist-quotes .

[17]. Gideon Polya, “A Shocking List of 52 Zionist- & Apartheid Israeli-Nazi Germany Comparisons”, Countercurrents, 7 August 2021: https://countercurrents.org/2021/08/a-shocking-list-of-52-zionist-apartheid-israeli-nazi-germany-comparisons/ .

[18]. Gideon Polya, “Gaza: Apply Sanctions To Apartheid Israel, US, UK, German, French, Australian & US Alliance State Terrorism”, Countercurrents, 15 August 2025: https://countercurrents.org/2025/08/gaza-apply-sanctions-to-apartheid-israel-us-uk-german-french-australian-us-alliance-state-terrorism/ .

[19]. Gideon Polya, “Unrepentant Neo-Nazi Germany Complicit In Palestinian Genocide & Ongoing Gaza Massacre”, Countercurrents, 11 April 2024: https://countercurrents.org/2024/04/unrepentant-neo-nazi-germany-complicit-in-palestinian-genocide-ongoing-gaza-massacre/ .

[20]. Quds News Network,”Israeli Ceasefire Violations in Gaza Kill 420”, Countercurrents, 5 January 2026: https://countercurrents.org/2026/01/israeli-ceasefire-violations-in-gaza-kill-420/.

[21]. Quds News Network, “Israel Will Never Fully Withdraw’ From Gaza, Defense Minister Katz Again Says Despite Ceasefire Agreement”, Countercurrents, 26 December 2025: https://countercurrents.org/2025/12/israel-will-never-fully-withdraw-from-gaza-defense-minister-katz-again-says-despite-ceasefire-agreement/ .

[22]. The White House, President Donald J. Trump, “Statement on President Trump’s Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict”, 16 January 2026: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2026/01/statement-on-president-trumps-comprehensive-plan-to-end-the-gaza-conflict/ .

[23]. Jackie Flynn Mogensen, “Trump Lied More Than 30,000 Times During His Presidency. No Wonder We’re Exhausted”, Mother Jones, 24 January 2021: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/01/donald-trump-thirty-thousand-lies/ .

[24]. Stuart Lau, “Trump global aid cuts risk 14 million deaths in five years, report says”, BBC News, 1 July 2025: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2jjpm7zv8o .

[25].Gideon Polya, “American Holocaust: 2 Million Americans Died Preventably In Trump’s Last Year As President”, Countercurrents, 5 January 2021: https://countercurrents.org/2021/01/american-holocaust-2-million-americans-died-preventably-in-trumps-last-year-as-president/ .

[26]. Gideon Polya, “American Holocaust, Millions Of Untimely American Deaths And $40 Trillion Cost Of Israel To Americans”, Countercurrents, 27 August 2013: https://countercurrents.org/polya270813.htm .

[27]. Gideon Polya, “59 Countries Invite Global Sanctions By Backing Apartheid Israel’s Genocidal Gaza Massacre”, Countercurrents, 3 November 2023: https://countercurrents.org/2023/11/59-countries-invite-global-sanctions-by-backing-apartheid-israels-genocidal-gaza-massacre/ .

[28]. Brian Bennett, “3 Ways Trump’s Wealth Has Soared Since He Returned to Office”, Time, 30 December 2025: https://time.com/7342470/trump-net-worth-wealth-crypto/ .

[29]. Democracy Now, “Trump Family Businesses Rake in $4 Billion After His Reelection with Focus on AI, Crypto & Nuclear”, 6 January 2026: https://www.democracynow.org/2026/1/6/trump_family_businesses .

[30]. Jessica Glenza, “More than 200 health professionals say Trump has ‘malignant narcissism’ in open letter”, The Guardian, 25 October 2024: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/24/trump-nyt-ad-george-conway-pac .

[31]. “Marco Rubio”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Rubio .

[32]. “Steve Witkoff”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Witkoff .

[33]. “Jared Kushner”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Kushner .

[34]. Gideon Polya, “Post-9/11 US-imposed Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide”, Korsgaard Publishing, 2020.

[35]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, Korsgaard Publishing, 2021.

[36]. “Tony Blair”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Blair .

[37]. “Marc Rowan”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Rowan .

[38]. “Ajay Banga”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajay_Banga .

[39]. Gideon Polya, “335,500 Gaza Dead Estimate: Voting For Kid-Killing Kamala (KKK) Harris Means Complicity in Genocide”, Countercurrents, 25 October 2024: https://countercurrents.org/2024/10/335500-gaza-dead-estimate-voting-for-kid-killing-kamala-kkk-harris-means-complicity-in-genocide/ .

[40]. “Robert Gabriel Jr”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gabriel_Jr .

[41]. Aiden Pink, “How Did A Youth Group Rabbi Become David Friedman’s Top Aide At Embassy In Israel?”, Forward, 21 August 2018: https://forward.com/israel/407880/how-did-a-youth-group-rabbi-become-david-friedmans-top-aide-israel-embassy/ .

[42]. Faisal Edroos, “What is Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ and who will govern Gaza? ”, Middle East Eye, 19 January 2026: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/what-is-trump-board-of-peace-and-who-will-govern-gaza

[43]. “2018–2019 Gaza border protests”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2%80%932019_Gaza_border_protests .

[44]. Mahmoud Bashir, “White House launches Board of Peace with chain of command including Blair, Kushner, global representatives”, Madamasr, 18 January 2026: https://www.madamasr.com/en/2026/01/18/news/u/white-house-launches-board-of-peace-with-chain-of-command-including-blair-kushner-global-representatives/ .

[45]. “Ali Sha’ath”, Passia: https://personalities.passia.org/member/ali-shaath/ .

[46]. “Who is Jasper Jeffers, the US army general co-monitoring the Lebanon ceasefire?”, The New Arab, 30 November 2024: https://www.newarab.com/news/who-jasper-jeffers-us-general-observing-lebanon-truce .

[47]. Patrick Cockburn, “The massacre of Mosul: 40,000 feared dead in battle to take back city from Isis as scale of civilian casualties revealed: The Independent, 19 July 2017: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/mosul-massacre-battle-isis-iraq-city-civilian-casualties-killed-deaths-fighting-forces-islamic-state-a7848781.html .

[48]. Gideon Polya, “Review: “The Sacking Of Fallujah. A People’s History” – Ongoing Iraqi Genocide”, Countercurrents, 30 January 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/01/review-the-sacking-of-fallujah-a-peoples-history-ongoing-iraqi-genocide/ .

[49]. Gideon Polya, “Mosul Massacre latest in Iraqi Genocide”, Countercurrents, 24 July 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/07/mosul-massacre-latest-in-iraqi-genocide-us-alliance-war-crimes-demand-icc-bds.

[50]. Beril Çanakcı and Asiye Latife Yılmaz “Allowing Israeli attacks in Gaza to set entire region ablaze: Turkish foreign minister”, Anadolu, 30 August 2025: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/allowing-israeli-attacks-in-gaza-to-set-entire-region-ablaze-turkish-foreign-minister/3672842 .

[51]. Lorenzo Tondo, “Israel far-right ministers reject US-backed postwar Gaza panel”, The Guardian, 18 January 2026: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/18/israel-far-right-ministers-reject-us-backed-postwar-gaza-panel .

[52]. “Ali Al Thawadi to represent Qatar on Gaza Executive Board”, Qatar Tribune, 19 January 2026: https://www.qatar-tribune.com/article/214733/front/ali-al-thawadi-to-represent-qatar-on-gaza-executive-board .

[53]. “Abdel Fattah el-Sisi”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdel_Fattah_el-Sisi .

[54]. “Coup-Related Restrictions in U.S. Foreign Aid Appropriations”, Congress.gov, 19 September 2025: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF11267 .

[55]. ”How does US foreign aid work and where does it go?”, 1 August 2024: https://usafacts.org/articles/which-countries-receive-the-most-aid-from-the-us/ .

[56]. Patrick Wintour, “As criticism grows, is UAE ready to walk away from Sudan’s RSF militia?”, The Guardian, 4 November 2025: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/04/sudan-rsf-militia-uae-united-arab-emirates .

[57]. “Behind Closed Doors: How Abu Dhabi Helped Revive ‘Israel’s’ Arms Trade After Genocide in Gaza” Al Estiklal, December 2025: https://www.alestiklal.net/en/article/behind-closed-doors-how-abu-dhabi-helped-reignite-israel-s-arms-trade-after-genocide-in-gaza .

[58]. William N. Robinson “Blood and business: The Israel-UAE nexus fuelling Sudan’s war”, The New Arab, 13 November 2025: https://www.newarab.com/analysis/blood-and-business-israel-uae-nexus-fuelling-sudans-war .

[59]. “Nickolay Mladenov”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickolay_Mladenov .

[60]. “Yakir Gabay”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakir_Gabay .

[61]. “Sigrid Kaag”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigrid_Kaag .

[62]. “Board of Peace”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Peace .

[63]. ABC News, “Benjamin Netanyahu, Azerbaijan agree to join Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ as Norway and Sweden reject invitations”, 21 January 2026: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-21/israel-and-azerbaijan-to-join-trumps-board-of-peace/106254994 .

[64]. “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”: https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights .

[65]. Susan Abulhawa, “Israel’s “nation-state law” parallels the Nazi Nuremburg Laws”, Al Jazeera, 27 July 2018: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/israel-nation-state-law-parallels-nazi-nuremberg-laws-180725084739536.html .

[66]. “Discriminatory laws in Israel:, Adalah, https://www.adalah.org/en/law/index?page=4 .

[67]. Gideon Polya, “85 Ways Zionist Australian Labor Government Betrays Palestinian Human Rights & Humanity”, Countercurrents, 16 March 2023: https://countercurrents.org/2023/03/85-ways-zionist-australian-labor-government-betrays-palestinian-human-rights-humanity/ .

[68]. Gideon Polya, “Australia must stop Zionist subversion and join the World in comprehensive Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel and all its supporters”, Subversion of Australia, 15 April 2021: https://sites.google.com/site/subversionofaustralia/2021-04-15 .

[69]. Gideon Polya, “Universal Declaration of Human Rights & Palestinians. Apartheid Israel violates ALL Palestinian Human Rights”, Palestine Genocide Essays, 24 January 2009: https://sites.google.com/site/palestinegenocideessays/universal-declaration-of-human-rights-palestinians .

[70]. Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel Excludes Occupied Palestinians From All Provisions Of The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights”, Countercurrents, 20 May 2012: https://countercurrents.org/polya200512.htm .

[71]. Gideon Polya, “End Apartheid Israel, Human Rights Denial, Gaza Massacre, Chid Killing, Occupation and Palestinian Genocide”, Korsgaard Publishing, 2024.

[72]. Patrick Wintour, “Recognised Palestinian state could develop disputed gas resources, expert says” , The Guardian, 20 July 2025: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/20/recognised-palestinian-state-could-develop-disputed-gas-resources-expert-says .

[73]. Gideon Polya, “Unforgivable 2-Year Gaza Massacre, Gaza Genocide & Gaza Holocaust By 50 Appalling Numbers”, Countercurrents, 14 October 2025: https://countercurrents.org/2025/10/unforgivable-2-year-gaza-massacre-gaza-genocide-gaza-holocaust-by-50-appalling-numbers/ .

[74]. Gideon Polya, “Zionist-perverted Australian Labor Government Invites War Criminal Apartheid Israeli President Herzog To Australia”, Countercurrents, 4 January 2026: https://countercurrents.org/2026/01/zionist-perverted-australian-labor-government-invites-war-criminal-apartheid-israeli-president-herzog-to-australia/ .

[75]. Gideon Polya, “Comparing US-Zionist-Israeli Palestinian Holocaust With Nazi Germany Atrocities”, Countercurrents, 28 October 2025: https://countercurrents.org/2025/10/comparing-us-backed-zionist-israeli-imposed-palestinian-holocaust-with-nazi-germany-atrocities/ .

[76 Gideon Polya, “BBC-Trump Speech Splicing Scandal Hides Massive Trump & BBC Racism, Lying & Gaza Genocide Complicity”, Countercurrents, 19 November 2025: https://countercurrents.org/2025/11/bbc-trump-speech-splicing-scandal-hides-massive-trump-bbc-racism-lying-gaza-genocide-complicity/ .

[77]. Gideon Polya, “My Experience: Racism, Lying & Censorship Entrenched In Genocide-complicit & Zionist-perverted Australia, US, UK & West”, Countercurrents, 28 November 2025: https://countercurrents.org/2025/11/my-experience-racism-lying-censorship-entrenched-in-genocide-complicit-zionist-perverted-australia-us-uk-west/ .

[78]. Gideon Polya, “IDF killed Israelis” IDF Killed Israelis On 7 October Enabling 9/11-style Excuse For Gaza Genocide”, Countercurrents, 31 December 2023: https://countercurrents.org/2023/12/idf-killed-israelis-on-7-october-enabling-9-11-style-excuse-for-gaza-genocide/ .

[79]. Gideon Polya, “Proposed Australian Hate-Speech Laws Threaten Australian Free Speech For Zionists & Apartheid Israel”, Countercurrents, 17 January 2026: https://countercurrents.org/2026/01/proposed-australian-hate-speech-laws-threaten-australian-free-speech-for-zionists-apartheid-israel/ .

[80]. Eugene Doyle, “Carney’s moment: a Western leader finally says the quiet part out loud”, Pearls and Irritations, 24 January 2026: https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/01/carneys-moment-canadas-pm-emerges-at-a-moment-of-peril-for-the-west/ .

[81]. Canadian PM Mark Carney, “Davos 2026: Special address by Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada”, 20 January 2026: https://www.weforum.org/stories/2026/01/davos-2026-special-address-by-mark-carney-prime-minister-of-canada/ .

[82]. Gideon Polya, “20 Ways Anti-Semitic Australian Labor Government Complicit In Jewish Israeli Gaza Genocide”, Countercurrents, 5 March 2024: https://countercurrents.org/2024/03/20-ways-anti-semitic-australian-labor-government-complicit-in-jewish-israeli-gaza-genocide/ .

[83]. Gideon Polya, “35 Zionist Media Lies, the Killing of Children, Neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel”, Global Research, 24 November 2023: https://www.globalresearch.ca/35-zionist-lies-child-killing-neo-nazi-apartheid-israel/5841145 .

[84]. Gideon Polya, “Gaza Massacre: 35 Ways Zionist-perverted US, Australia & West Lie For Child-killing, Neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel”, Countercurrents, 23 November 2023: https://countercurrents.org/2023/11/gaza-massacre-35-ways-zionist-perverted-us-australia-west-lie-for-child-killing-neo-nazi-apartheid-israel/ .

[85]. Gideon Polya, “23 January 2026. Draconian HSL, Hate Speech Law to HASSLE Australians”, Australian Mainstream media lying & censorship: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammedialying/australian-mainstream-media-lying-censorshp .

[86]. Gideon Polya, “Zionist-perverted Australian Labor Government Invites War Criminal Apartheid Israeli President Herzog To Australia”, Countercurrents, 4 January 2026: https://countercurrents.org/2026/01/zionist-perverted-australian-labor-government-invites-war-criminal-apartheid-israeli-president-herzog-to-australia/ .

[87]. “Fourth Geneva Convention. Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949”: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949 .

Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia over 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, notably a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (2003).

24 January 2026

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Marwan Asmar

Despite the new ‘structure instutionalization’ put forward by US President Donald Trump, Israel continues to bomb different places of Gaza and kill its civilians with no mercy.

While Trump has been busy this week outlining his Council of Peace with an executive board and the formation of a technical committee to rule Gaza, neither the Israeli army nor it’s government felt obliged to stop bombing Gaza and kill its people.

The Israelis which still control 53 percent of Gaza have continued to violate the ceasefire that was signed on 10 October 2025 to end the war and establish a framework for the rebuilding of the destroyed enclave.

Israeli gunfire is unstoppable despite the “peace praises” outlined by Trump and his White House team. Israel has violated the ceasefire over 1200 times yet the Americans say it’s important to stick to the 10th agreement but the only people who seemed to be doing that are the Palestinian resistance groups. On the whole, they are sticking to the deal despite the bombings and killings that are definitely not isolated incidents. If they retaliate the Israelis increase the tempo of escalation and kill more.

Last Thursday Israeli guns killed 11 people including two 13-year-old boys and three journalists in a vehicle. The following day Israeli tanks continued firing on different parts of Gaza City especially the eastern areas which are controlled by the Israeli army. As well, different areas in north Gaza and in Rafah in the south are bombed.

The life of the Palestinian continues to be miserable, in a starved state and deadly, living in tattered tents unable to keep out the cold leaving the vulnerable and babies and children to die.

Israel has killed at least 477 civilians since the ceasefire was clenched with more than 1300 injured and there doesn’t seem to be any let up. Meanwhile the Trump administration keeps saying that everything is moving according to plan despite the fact that aid is not being allowed into the Gaza enclave in sufficient quantities but continues to be tightly controlled while Israel has just banned 38 international NGOs from operating in Gaza and the West Bank.

Meanwhile the Rafah Crossing in the south of the Strip continues to be firmly shut despite fact that the new technocratic committee, the new administration to rule Gaza, is yet to be allowed to enter the enclave. Israel is insisting that their last dead hostage, number 28, must be found and delivered to Tel Aviv before the new committee can start operating in Gaza.

This is still standing out as a sticking point. Hamas officials say they can’t find the final hostage, Ran Gvili, amidst the huge wreckage of Gaza and need more equipment. But locating him remains an outstanding question.

However, the Israeli government may still relent if enough pressure is brought on by the US government and therefore allow the new National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) to enter the enclave through the Rafah Crossing next week. The NCAG is still waiting in Cairo and held its first meeting there on 18 January 2026.

Meanwhile it remains difficult to fathom, at least for the time being of how will the new set up operate and interact with each other: The technical committee, Council of Peace and Trump being the Chair and how will that exist vis-a-vis the Israeli government. New faces and personalities are supposed to take new leads in diplomacy.

What’s for sure is that the Israeli army remains firmly in control of the Gaza Strip and will remain so if Hamas continues to have a presence there and is not militarily dismantled. They may say they will not leave even if there is no Hamas.

As well, they will continue to be trigger-happy and shoot at anything that moves in Gaza! We wait and see.

Dr Marwan Asmar is a journalist based in Amman

24 January 2026

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Gaza (Quds News Network)- At least 260 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Israeli attacks since the start of the genocidal war in Gaza. The most recent victims were three journalists who were on assignment with the Egyptian Committee for Gaza Relief on a “humanitarian, journalistic mission.”

On Wednesday, three photojournalists, Anas Ghunaim, Abdul Ra’ouf Shaath and Mohammad Qeshta, were killed when the Israeli military struck their vehicle. The three were working for the Egyptian Committee for Gaza Relief, which supervises Egypt’s relief work in Gaza.

They were documenting developments on the ground using a drone in central Gaza when they were hit in an Israeli strike. Video footage circulating online showed their charred, bombed-out vehicle by the roadside, smoke still rising from the wreckage.

Mohammed Mansour, the committee’s spokesman, told The Associated Press news agency that the journalists were filming a newly established displacement camp. He said the strike occurred about 5km (3 miles) from Israeli-controlled territory and that the vehicle was known to the Israeli military as belonging to the Egyptian committee.

The Israeli military claimed they were operating a drone to gather intelligence on Israeli soldiers, while witnesses said the vehicle was entirely civilian.

According to Gaza’s Government Media Office on Wednesday, their killing raises the death toll of journalists killed in the Gaza genocide to 260.

In response to the attack, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS) said on Thursday the three photojournalists were travelling in a vehicle “while carrying out a humanitarian, journalistic mission to film and document the suffering of civilians”.

The head of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said the Gaza Strip is “witnessing the largest massacre of journalists in history.”

Reporters Without Borders said in its World Press Freedom Index 2025 that Palestine has become the world’s most dangerous state for journalists amid the Israeli war.

“Trapped in the enclave, journalists in Gaza have no shelter and lack everything, including food and water,” said the Paris-based group, which is also known by its French acronym RSF.

“In the West Bank, journalists are routinely harassed and attacked by both settlers and Israeli forces, but repression reached new heights with a wave of arrests after 7 October, when impunity for crimes committed against journalists became a new rule.”

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has been considered the deadliest for journalists and media workers in the world in 30 years.

The Gaza Media Office said that Israel targeted journalists “in an attempt to suppress the Palestinian narrative and erase the truth. However, the occupation failed to break the will of our great people.”

Israel’s assault on Gaza has been the “worst ever conflict” for journalists, according to a recent report by the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.

The report, titled News Graveyards: How Dangers to War Reporters Endanger the World, said the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip had “killed more journalists than the US Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War (including the conflicts in Cambodia and Laos), the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, combined”.

“In 2023, a journalist or media worker was, on average, killed or murdered every four days. In 2024, it was once every three days,” said the report.

“Most reporters harmed or killed, as is the case in Gaza, are local journalists.”

The Center for Protecting Palestinian Journalists (PJPS) said that the killing of journalists is part of a series of human rights violations committed by the Israeli occupation.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) chief Jodie Ginsberg said in a statement, “The war in Gaza is unprecedented in its impact on journalists and demonstrates a major deterioration in global norms on protecting journalists in conflict zones, but it is far from the only place journalists are in danger.”

The advocacy group also accused Israel of attempting to stifle investigations into the killings, shift blame onto journalists for their own deaths, and ignoring its duty to hold its own military personnel accountable for the killings of so many media workers.

In a recent report, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) described 2024 as “one of the worst years” for media professionals. It condemned the “massacre taking place in Palestine before the eyes of the entire world.”

24 January 2026

Source: countercurrents.org