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By Akshita Singh

On the occasion of Gandhi’s anniversary, here is an excerpt from the renowned historian-biographer’s book that lays out the main arguments on the contemporary relevance of the Mahatma (2 Oct 1869 – 30 Jan 1948).

2 Oct 2025 – On Gandhi Jayanti every year, it has been a tradition to ask: Is he relevant today? His lessons of truth and non-violence sound sagely, other-worldly. His method, Satyagraha, seems impractical at best. For the sake of progress, development and order, a little bit of brute force, some economy of truth is indispensable, it is argued. His world was different, and his approach won’t work today.

But in the long history of humanity, a century has not drastically changed the ways of the world. In attempting to do what is required for peaceful co-existence, he also met many challenges in his time. And the problems he faced are as age-old as the means he devised to solve them. Gandhi is, if anything, more relevant for today’s strife-torn world than in the world back then.

How? Excerpted from Why Gandhi Still Matters: An Appraisal of the Mahatma’s Legacy, a book by Rajmohan Gandhi, renowned biographer of the Mahatma and historian, published by Aleph in 2017.

Why Gandhi Still Matters

Is Gandhi of interest to India and the world of today? The year 2017 mark[ed] the hundredth year of the Champaran satyagraha, and 2019 [saw] the 150th anniversary of Gandhi’s birth. Do these dates establish Gandhi’s relevance for a polarised nation and a violent world?

If Gandhi was all that persons like Einstein and Tagore, Gokhale and Nehru and Patel and Martin Luther King, Jr said he was, and what Barack Obama says he was, then why (it may be asked) was India besmirched by Partition and carnage in 1947?

Also, why do corruption and animosities mark India in 2017? As for non-violence, can anyone look at Syria and still talk of its applicability?

It says something for a person when his relevance is measured by success or failure in leaving behind a perfect world. In India, Gandhi has been criticised not only for not overcoming all the challenges of his time, including the partition demand, but also for not solving all the problems of our age!

In fact, this interest, two entire generations after his time, in what Gandhi failed to accomplish, speaks of what he inspired India to expect of him, which was everything, miracles included. He, too, on his part, claimed that if he were perfect, the world around him would change to his liking. Since it did not, we have proof that he was not perfect. Which is exactly what Gandhi always tried to say.

This short book hopes to present a relevant, fallible, amazing and accessible Gandhi. We can agree that perfection and relevance are not the same thing. A person becomes relevant not by solving all contemporary and future problems (which even God seems unable or unwilling to do) but by offering hints for making life more bearable or interesting, or by showing a way out of a forest.

Gandhi showed Indians how to demand freedom without humiliating themselves as petitioners, and without inviting reprisals on fellow Indians, which was the outcome, often, of the pre-Gandhian method of assassinating the Raj’s functionaries. Relevant or not, Gandhi remains interesting. If nothing else, his contradictions give him appeal. As one of his American friends, E. Stanley Jones, remarked, Gandhi was of East and West, the city and the village, a Hindu influenced by Christianity, simple and shrewd, candid and courteous, serious and playful, humble and assertive. ‘While the savour is sweet,’ added Jones, ‘the preponderating impression he leaves is not sweetness but strength.’

In his final years, a close associate of this lover of the name of Rama was the staunch atheist and fighter for caste equality, Gora (Gopalraju Ramachandra Rao), a Telugu Brahmin. To give another example of Gandhian irony, when Gandhi arrived in Delhi in September 1947 (on the way, so he thought, to carnage-hit Punjab), he stayed in the home of his wealthy friend Ghanshyam Das Birla, but one of the first men he talked with on the day of his arrival—to obtain a true picture of what was happening on the streets of Delhi—was the Communist leader, P. C. Joshi.

Gandhi was to then travel by train from Delhi to Wardha before making another journey, agreed to by Jinnah, to Pakistan. Earlier in the day, the historian Radha Kumud Mookerjee had given Gandhi a copy of his latest book.

This man of action—the man who turned down a plea for a treatise by him on non-violence by saying, ‘Action is my domain’— told his close aide Brij Krishna Chandiwala on the last day of his life, ‘Ask Bisen [another aide] to pack Professor Mookerjee’s book with my things.’

From both sides of bitter divides, politicians continue to invoke Gandhi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi does so all the time even as opponents charge Modi with driving nails into Gandhi’s age-old coffin. Palestinians regularly recall Gandhi’s warnings from the late 1930s against flooding Palestine with European Jews, while Israeli Gandhians back Palestinians in non-violent resistance.

Old Indians can recall the support, surprising to many, given in October 1947 by Gandhi, the non-violence advocate, for flying Indian soldiers to defend Srinagar, which is what both Sheikh Abdullah and Maharaja Hari Singh had urged. Pakistanis remind India that Gandhi wanted the people’s will to prevail in Kashmir too, not merely in Hyderabad and Junagadh.

On the subcontinent or indeed anywhere else, few individuals from the first half of the twentieth century are remembered as frequently as Gandhi. A few years ago, Syrians unhappy with their regime spoke of three Gandhian principles they wanted their resistance to stick to: no sectarianism, no foreign involvement, no violence.

The wisdom of those abandoned principles was emblazoned, in letters of blood and fire, in Syria’s subsequent grief-laden story. Gandhi’s flaws too may be seen in this book, including a failure to give sufficient attention to the wishes of his wife, sons and numerous other relatives. This failure was connected in part to the ethos of his times, and in larger part to the all-demanding struggle to which Gandhi felt called. Still, the pain felt by Kasturba, Harilal, and other close ones was all too real.

That the imperfect Gandhi was an utterly astonishing human being also emerges from this book, which seeks to present the historical Gandhi, a Mahatma released from myth and also from the slander provoked by his positions, some of which were decidedly unpopular in orthodox circles.

Can a man as complex as Gandhi, and possessing more than one interesting dimension, be presented in a limited number of pages? This too was a question and a demand which this book seeks to answer.

Excerpt reproduced with the permission of the publishers.

6 October 2025

Source: transcend.org

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei strongly condemned the Israeli regime’s attack on the Sumud humanitarian flotilla in international waters and the violent arrest of the activists supporting the Palestinian people as terrorist act aimed at perpetuating the famine imposed on Gaza.

Referring to the participation of citizens of 47 countries in Sumud humanitarian campaign aimed at breaking the cruel siege of Gaza and confronting the genocide of Palestinians, Baghaei stressed the need for all governments and the United Nations to support this campaign, hold the Zionist regime accountable, and immediately release those detained.

Referring to the transfer of the detainees of the Sumud Flotilla to the infamous Katziyot prison, which is known as a symbol of the occupation regime’s torture and inhumane treatment of Palestinian prisoners, Baghaei said: “The arrest of pro-Palestinian activists and their transfer to this prison, along with the insulting behavior of the Zionist regime’s Minister of Internal Security towards them, is another sign of the regime’s moral decline.”

Expressing disgust at the continued support of the United States and some other Western countries for the genocide of the Palestinians, he said, “All governments have a legal and moral responsibility to stop the genocide and to try and punish the criminals.”

IRNA

5 October 2025

Source: nournews.ir

By Aditi

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg claimed she faced harsh treatment while in Israeli custody following her arrest during a flotilla bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza. The 22-year-old told Swedish officials that she suffered dehydration, lack of food, and unsanitary conditions during her detention, the Guardian reported.

Greta Thunberg alleges mistreatment after Gaza aid Flotilla detention

“The embassy has been able to meet with Greta,” reads the email sent by the Swedish foreign ministry, obtained by the Guardian. “She reported dehydration and said she has received insufficient amounts of both water and food. She also stated that she had developed rashes, which she suspects were caused by bedbugs. She described harsh treatment and said she had been sitting for long periods on hard surfaces.”

Another detainee reportedly said Thunberg was made to hold flags while photographs were taken. The flags’ identities remain unclear. Thunberg reportedly asked whether images of her had been shared publicly.

Witnesses aboard the flotilla, including Turkish activist Ersin Çelik described the shocking scenes at the detention centre. “They dragged little Greta by her hair before our eyes, beat her, and forced her to kiss the Israeli flag. They did everything imaginable to her, as a warning to others,” Ersin said. Journalist Lorenzo D’Agostino added that Thunberg was “wrapped in the Israeli flag and paraded like a trophy,” as fellow activists watched in disbelief.

According to Swedish officials, Thunberg was asked by Israeli authorities to sign a document during her detention. “She was unsure about what the document meant and did not want to sign anything she did not understand,” the email from the Swedish foreign ministry stated.

Israel responds, calls allegations “complete lies”

The Swedish embassy in Tel Aviv visited nine Swedes held in detention on Friday.  “The Swedish embassy in Tel Aviv remains in contact with Israeli authorities to stress the importance of swift processing and the possibility of returning home to Sweden,” the ministry said.

Meanwhile, the Israeli embassy rejected the claims, calling them “complete lies.” It said all detainees involved in the flotilla had access to food, water, toilets, medical care, and legal counsel. “Israel is and will remain a state governed by the rule of law, committed to upholding the rights and dignity of all individuals according to international standards,” the embassy added.

Flotilla intercepted, detainees held in high-security prison

Thunberg was part of the Global Sumud flotilla, a coalition of 40+ vessels carrying aid to Gaza. The move aimed to challenge Israel’s maritime blockade. Between Thursday and Friday, Israeli forces intercepted all ships and detained every crew member. Most are being held at Ketziot prison in the Negev desert, primarily used for Palestinian security detainees.

Legal teams representing the flotilla say the detainees were denied basic rights, including food, water, sanitation, medication, and immediate access to legal counsel. Thunberg was reportedly given only “a packet of crisps shown to the cameras.” During a visit to Ashdod port, Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, was filmed calling activists “terrorists” while they were ordered to sit on the ground. Some protesters responded by shouting “Free Palestine.”

5 October 2025

Source: financialexpress.com

By Orly Noy

Gaza City is engulfed in flames, as the Israeli army embarks on its long-threatened ground offensive after weeks of relentless bombardment. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, already facing an international arrest warrant on suspicion of crimes against humanity, described this latest assault as an “intensified operation.” I urge you to watch the footage streaming out of Gaza, and see what this euphemism really means.

Look into the eyes of people gripped by a terror unmatched even in the darkest moments of this two-year genocide. See the rows of ash-covered children lying on the blood-soaked floor of what was once a medical center — some barely alive, others wailing in pain and fear — as desperate hands try to comfort them or treat them with whatever medical supplies remain. Hear the screams of families fleeing with nowhere to run. Witness parents scouring the inferno for their children; limbs protruding from beneath the rubble; a paramedic cradling a motionless girl, pleading with her to open her eyes, in vain.

What Israel is doing in Gaza City is not the tragic byproduct of chaotic events on the ground, but a well-calculated act of annihilation, executed in cold blood by “the people’s army” — that is, the fathers, sons, brothers, and neighbors of us Israelis.

How is it that, despite the mounting testimonies from Gaza’s concentration and extermination camps, no mass refusal movement has taken root in Israel? That after two years of this carnage barely a handful of conscientious objectors sit in prison is truly inconceivable. Even the so-called “gray refusers” — reserve soldiers who do not oppose the war on ideological grounds but are simply exhausted and questioning its purpose — remain far too few to slow the killing machine, let alone bring it to a halt.

Who are these obedient souls who keep this system running? How can a society so deeply fractured — between the religious and the secular, settlers and liberals, kibbutzniks and urbanites, veteran immigrants and new arrivals — unite only in its willingness to slaughter Palestinians without a moment’s hesitation? 

Over the past 23 months, Israeli society has spun an endless web of lies to justify and enable Gaza’s destruction — not only to the world, but above all to itself. Chief among them is the claim that hostages can only be freed through military pressure. Yet those carrying out the army’s orders, raining mass death upon Gaza, do so knowing full well they may be killing the hostages in the process. The indiscriminate bombing of hospitals, schools, and residential neighborhoods, coupled with this disregard for the lives of Israelis held captive, proves the war’s true aim: the sweeping annihilation of Gaza’s civilian population.

Israel is unleashing a holocaust in Gaza, and it cannot be dismissed as the will of the country’s current fascist leaders alone. This horror runs deeper than Netanyahu, Ben Gvir, and Smotrich. What we are witnessing is the final stage in the nazification of Israeli society.

The urgent task now is to bring this holocaust to an end. But stopping it is only the first step. If Israeli society is ever to return to the fold of humanity, it must undergo a deep process of denazification.

Once the dust of death settles, we will have to retrace our steps back to the Nakba, to the mass expulsions, the massacres, the land seizures, the racial laws, and the ideology of inherent supremacy that normalized contempt for the native people of this land, and the theft of their lives, property, dignity, and the futures of their children. Only by confronting this deadly mechanism inherent to our society can we begin to uproot it.

This denazification process must begin now, and it starts with refusal. Refusal not only to take an active part in Gaza’s destruction, but to put on the uniform at all — regardless of rank or role. Refusal to remain ignorant. Refusal to be blind. Refusal to be silent. For parents, it is a duty necessary to protect the next generation from becoming perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Denazification must also include the recognition that what was cannot remain. It will not be enough to simply replace the current government. We must abandon the myth of Israel’s “Jewish and democratic” character — a paradox whose iron grip helped pave the way to the catastrophe we are now immersed in. 

This deception must end with the clear recognition that only two paths remain: either a Jewish, messianic, genocidal state, or a truly democratic state for all its citizens.

The Gaza holocaust was made possible by the embrace of the ethno-supremacist logic inherent to Zionism. Therefore it must be said clearly: Zionism, in all its forms, cannot be cleansed of the stain of this crime. It must be brought to an end. 

Denazification will be long and all-encompassing, touching every aspect of our collective life. We will likely sacrifice more generations — both victims and perpetrators — before this scourge is fully uprooted. But the process must begin now, with the refusal to commit the horrors taking place daily in Gaza, and the refusal to let them pass as normal.

Orly Noy is an editor at Local Call, a political activist, and a translator of Farsi poetry and prose.

18 September 2025

Source: 972mag.com

GAZA / PNN /

In Gaza, misery deepens by the day. Grief-stricken families and children find no respite, no time for play or relief, as survival has become the only pursuit.

In tents crowded with widows and children, the daily search for scraps of stale bread has turned into a life-or-death struggle. For many families, especially women who lost their husbands in Israel’s war on Gaza, the sole focus has become finding bread and water to stay alive.

The family of Nadia Abu Arar is among countless others trapped in this ordeal. Her husband was killed, leaving their children without a provider. Now a widow, she says she cannot meet her children’s basic needs in a war that spares neither the young nor the old. With food and clean water almost unattainable, even bread has become a desperate commodity.

For her son Mohammed, childhood has been replaced by the role of breadwinner. Instead of sitting in a classroom or playing, he roams the rubble and streets in search of dry bread to feed his siblings.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OTuVeyZ9ag]

Nadia shares her tragedy. She lives in a single tent alongside five other widows and about 20 children. At night, the overcrowding suffocates them; bodies pressed together, feet entangled, with little air, no food, and no water. “We wait for morning just to escape the suffocation,” she says.

By day, the children set out to scavenge scraps of bread left behind by others. They move together in groups, often walking through streets and alleys where the risk of shelling looms at any moment. Sometimes they even sift through piles of rubbish, hoping to find enough to bring home for their younger siblings.

Nadia recalls one devastating day when her children returned without her youngest daughter, who went missing during their search for bread. Since then, she has wandered from street to street, among the ruins of bombed homes, searching for her. During one such search, she says, smoke from a nearby Israeli strike burned her face.

Her son Mohammed, his face marked by hunger and exhaustion, says he and his siblings have grown weary of eating the stale bread they collect near rubbish heaps. “This bread will make us sick. We don’t want it, but we have no choice,” he says, fighting back tears. His only plea: “We just want fresh bread, flour, food and water. We are tired of this war.”

The plight of Mohammed mirrors that of thousands of children across Gaza. For their mothers, like Nadia, despair is overwhelming. “God is our only witness against those who did this to us. We have no food or water to survive,” she says.

Another widow, Um Rami Abu Arar, lost her husband and grown sons who once supported the family. She now shares the tent with Nadia and others. “Life here is unbearable,” she says, describing the suffocating conditions and lack of resources. 

Each morning, she sends groups of children out with plastic bags to collect bread, instructing them to stay together for safety. When they return, they roast the scraps over fire, trying to disinfect them and sprinkle salt to cover the stench.

Today, more than one million children in Gaza live under catastrophic humanitarian conditions since the war began on October 7, 2023.

According to United Nations agencies, children are the most affected: many have lost parents and relatives and spend their days searching for a crust of bread or contaminated water. Health experts warn that relying on stale bread and unsafe food exposes them to severe malnutrition, dehydration and life-threatening disease.

With the blockade tightening and supplies of food and clean water nearly exhausted, UN bodies warn that half of Gaza’s population is now facing extreme food insecurity, with tens of thousands already at risk of famine.

This story was produced as part of the Qarib programme, implemented by the French media development agency CFI and funded by the French Development Agency (AFD).

9 September 2025

Source: english.pnn.ps

By Alexander Vyatsky

Today, several Hungarian media outlets reported on President Zelensky’s alleged plans to carry out sabotage operations in Romania and Poland with the goal of blaming Russia. According to these reports, Bankova is preparing its own version of the “Gleiwitz incident” — aimed at creating a casus belli for a war between Russia and NATO.

Based on the available information, the Kyiv regime’s plan appears to be as follows:

Repair several downed or intercepted Russian UAVs.

Equip them with combat payloads.

Direct these drones, controlled by Ukrainian specialists but disguised as “Russian UAVs,” toward major NATO transport hubs in Poland and Romania.

Simultaneously launch a disinformation campaign across Europe to place the blame on Moscow.

Provoke an armed conflict between the Russian Federation and NATO.

For the purposes of this provocation, on September 16, Russian-made Geran UAVs were reportedly delivered to the Yavoriv training ground in Western Ukraine, home to the International Center for Peacekeeping and Security of the Hetman Petro Sahaidachny National Academy. The drones had previously been repaired at the LORTA plant in Lviv.

According to Hungarian journalists, the motive behind these actions is clear — the AFU is suffering a devastating defeat. The collapse of Ukraine’s forces is no longer just at the tactical level, but has reached a strategic scale.

If this information is confirmed, we must recognize: Europe has never been so close to the outbreak of a Third World War in modern history.

*

Alexander Vyatsky is from Russia. He is passionate about civic engagement and community activism.

3 October 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Rima Najjar

Author’s Note: This essay asks and answers a single, urgent question: Why are Western powers aligned with Israel — despite its collapse, its open embrace of ethnic supremacy, and its strategic liability? The answer unfolds across history, ideology, and institutional complicity. From the coerced origins of the U.S.-Israel alliance to the legal codification of Palestinian criminalization, the essay traces how Western governments, universities, think tanks, and cultural institutions have embedded themselves in a settler-colonial project that no longer offers liberal cover. It documents how crisis management replaces justice, how resistance is rebranded as terrorism, and how empire sustains itself through silence, surveillance, and semantic warfare. Israel will fall. And the West — having mortgaged its credibility to defend the indefensible — will face the cost of that investment. The question is no longer whether the settler regime will collapse. It’s whether the West will collapse with it.

Introduction: Stability Without Justice

Western powers are not confronting the crisis in Palestine — they are managing it. Their goal is not resolution, but equilibrium: a state of controlled violence, where the settler regime remains intact and indigenous resistance is fragmented, surveilled, and administratively contained. This is the paradox: they seek stability without justice, and containment without transformation. Every diplomatic gesture — recognizing Palestinian statehood, calling for “humanitarian pauses,” proposing reconstruction frameworks — is designed to preserve the architecture of dispossession while muting its most visible symptoms.

This is why Trump’s “Board of Peace” includes Tony Blair, architect of the Quartet’s post-Oslo entrenchment, and why Canada’s symbolic recognition of Palestine comes with no enforcement mechanism. It’s why Germany bans pro-Palestinian speech while funding Israeli arms development, and why Macron can host Netanyahu in Paris days after condemning the bombing of Rafah. These are not contradictions; they are the operating logic of Western crisis management. The settler state must remain, but its violence must be rebranded, outsourced, or delayed.

So we must ask: why are Western powers aligned with a settler-colonial project that no longer offers liberal cover? Why do they continue to invest in a regime that openly defies democratic norms, international law, and basic human decency?

Israel was once marketed as “the only democracy in the Middle East,” a bulwark of Western values. That façade is gone. The Knesset is dominated by parties openly advocating ethnic cleansing. Israeli ministers call for flattening Gaza, starving civilians, and annexing the West Bank outright. The liberal alibi has collapsed — but the support remains. Why?

Because Israel is not merely a strategic foothold. It is a Western-engineered settler colony whose survival depends on a transnational Zionist infrastructure that penetrates policy, media, academia, and arms industries. This influence manifests in AIPAC’s legislative chokehold, in the IHRA definition weaponized to criminalize anti-Zionist speech, in Hollywood’s decades-long erasure of Palestinian narratives, and in the revolving door between Israeli intelligence and Silicon Valley’s surveillance empires exemplified by NSO Group, whose Pegasus spyware was co-developed by Israeli veterans of Unit 8200 and is sold to democracies and dictatorships alike to surveil journalists, activists, and political dissidents, effectively globalizing Israel’s model of population control. It also manifests in the institutional complicity of Harvard, Columbia, Sciences Po, and the University of Sydney — each of which has censored, punished, or expelled students and faculty for opposing Zionism. These institutions claim to uphold free inquiry, human rights, and global justice. Yet they enforce silence, because they are embedded in the same ideological consensus that treats Israel’s existence as civilizational necessity.

But this consensus was not inevitable. As documented in If Americans Knew, the U.S. was dragged into the Zionist project against its own strategic interests. Truman overrode his own diplomats, who warned that supporting Israel would destabilize the region, alienate Arab allies, and entangle the U.S. in permanent conflict. The U.S.-Israel alliance did not emerge from shared democratic values or strategic necessity — it was forged through ideological coercion. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, Zionism was reframed as a moral imperative, and any refusal to endorse Israeli statehood was cast as antisemitic betrayal. The Cold War deepened the coercion: Israel was rebranded as a civilizational outpost, a bulwark against communism, and a proxy for Western supremacy. This ideological scaffolding — rooted in guilt, propaganda, and strategic panic — forced the West into an alliance that contradicted its own interests, values, and legal frameworks. It was not consent. It was entrapment.

Today, the myth persists: that the U.S. and Israel are allies because “they share the same values.” But what values are these? Ethno-nationalism? Militarized borders? Manifest destiny? The shock is not that Israel behaves like a settler state — it’s that the U.S. sees itself in that mirror. The alliance is still against U.S. interests. It has cost trillions in military aid, provoked endless wars, radicalized global opinion against American hypocrisy, and undermined its own legal and moral frameworks. The U.S. is not gaining from this alliance — it is hemorrhaging credibility, influence, and internal cohesion.

Israel is not a mirror of Western values. It is a mirror of Western pathology: the refusal to confront settler violence, the addiction to domination, and the belief that indigenous life can be managed, not liberated. The genocide in Palestine does not merely reflect Western interests — it exposes their internal rot. The unraveling of liberal cover forces a reckoning with both complicity, and the cost of that complicity. The West has mortgaged its credibility, its legal frameworks, and its democratic pretenses to sustain a state that openly defies them. It has criminalized dissent, alienated the global South, and radicalized its own youth. The price of propping up a settler regime that no longer pretends to be liberal is both moral and strategic. The West is bleeding legitimacy, and Israel is no longer a mirror. It is a liability.

The Oslo Illusion and Its Aftermath

Oslo was never a peace process. It was a containment strategy — engineered by Western powers to defer Palestinian liberation while preserving Israel’s strategic utility. The architecture of Oslo has overseen a more than quadrupling of the settler population in the West Bank, from approximately 250,000 in 1993 to over 700,000 today, rendering a contiguous Palestinian state a geographic impossibility. The accords outsourced repression to the Palestinian Authority, rebranded occupation as “negotiation,” and created a donor economy (a de-development paradigm) that tethered Palestinian survival to Western largesse. The goal was pacification.

The architects knew this. Shimon Peres called Oslo “a way to end the intifada without ending the occupation.” Bill Clinton’s administration framed it as a “confidence-building measure,” not a path to justice. The EU poured billions into PA institutions while ignoring settlement expansion. The World Bank and IMF designed economic frameworks that deepened dependency and erased resistance. And academic institutions — from Georgetown’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies to Sciences Po’s Middle East program — trained a generation of technocrats to manage the fallout, not dismantle the system.

So again we must ask: why do Western powers uphold a framework that entrenches occupation, fragments resistance, and contradicts their own democratic pretenses?

Because Oslo gave them plausible deniability. It allowed them to claim engagement while outsourcing violence. It created a bureaucratic buffer between Western capitals and settler brutality. And it gave their universities, think tanks, and NGOs a role — not as challengers of empire, but as managers of its contradictions. The illusion served everyone — except Palestinians.

Oslo created a system where every Western institution could claim a role: universities could study it, think tanks could advise it, NGOs could administer it. It gave them relevance, funding, and access. But for Palestinians, it delivered fragmentation, surveillance, and deferred liberation. The illusion of peace allowed empire to rebrand itself as benevolence. And the institutions that should have challenged it instead became its stewards.

The deeper question, then, is this: why do these institutions uphold a project that undermines their own stated values — academic freedom, human rights, democratic governance?

Because they are not autonomous. They are structurally embedded in the same ideological scaffolding that treats Israel’s existence as a civilizational necessity. To challenge Zionism is to risk funding, access, and legitimacy. So they manage contradictions instead of confronting them. They perform critique while preserving the system.

But that illusion is collapsing. The PA is discredited. The donor economy is imploding. And Israel no longer pretends to negotiate. The West is left with a naked settler regime and no liberal cover. The question now is not whether Oslo failed — it’s whether the West can survive its unraveling.

The Collapse of Liberal Democratic Alibis

The liberal alibi is dead. Israel no longer pretends to be a democracy. Its ministers call for flattening Gaza, starving civilians, and annexing the West Bank outright. The Knesset is dominated by parties that openly advocate ethnic cleansing. Settlers livestream pogroms. Soldiers post trophy photos. The judiciary rubber-stamps apartheid.

And yet, Western powers continue to call Israel a “partner,” a “democracy,” a “friend.”

This is not ignorance. It is ideological investment. The collapse of liberal cover has not led to rupture — it has led to recalibration. Western governments now defend Israel not with democratic language, but with civilizational panic. They invoke “shared values” without naming them, because to name them would mean admitting what those values are: ethno-nationalism, militarized borders, and settler supremacy.

Academic institutions have followed suit. Harvard rescinded fellowships for human rights advocates who criticized Israel. Columbia suspended students for organizing sit-ins. Sciences Po threatened disciplinary action against faculty who refused to normalize Zionist speakers. These are not isolated incidents. They are part of a coordinated retreat from liberal principles in defense of a settler regime.

The question is not whether these institutions believe in free speech or human rights. The question is why they abandon those principles when Palestine is named, why they manifest the “Palestine Exception to Free Speech” — a documented phenomenon identified by organizations like Palestine Legal, which has tracked thousands of such cases in the U.S.

Cultural institutions are no different. The Berlin Biennale censored Palestinian artists. PEN America disinvited speakers who criticized Zionism. The Sundance Institute pulled funding from films that centered Palestinian resistance. These organizations claim to champion artistic freedom and moral courage. But when the settler project is threatened, they enforce silence.

Why?

Because complicity is safer than confrontation. Because Zionist donors fund endowments, fellowships, and exhibitions. Because governments threaten visas, grants, and accreditation. And because the ideological scaffolding that upholds Israel also upholds their own legitimacy. To challenge Zionism is to challenge the West’s imperial self-image. And that is a risk they will not take.

But the cost is mounting. Students are radicalized. Artists are defecting. Scholars are refusing to comply. The institutions that once claimed moral authority are hemorrhaging credibility. The alliance with Israel is not just a liability for governments — it is a liability for every institution that has staked its reputation on liberal values while enforcing illiberal repression.

The reckoning is not coming. It is here.

Manufactured Ethnic States as Strategic Assets

Why does the West cling to Israel, even as its liberal façade collapses?

Because Israel is not an anomaly — it is a prototype. Western powers have long relied on manufactured ethnic states to anchor imperial permanence. Like the pieds-noirs of French Algeria, Israeli settlers see themselves as a vanguard of Western civilization, their political power in the metropole (Paris then, Washington now) vastly disproportionate to their numbers, holding the imperial project hostage to their own supremacist demands. Rhodesia, apartheid South Africa, and Northern Ireland followed similar logics. These were not accidents of history — they were strategic designs.

Israel fits the mold precisely. It is a settler state engineered to serve as a forward base, a regional enforcer, and a civilizational proxy. But its utility goes beyond geography. It offers the West a model of governance: militarized borders, ethno-nationalist identity, and permanent emergency. It is a test site for surveillance technologies, crowd control tactics, and counterinsurgency doctrine. Israeli firms like NSO Group export spyware to Western governments. Through programs like the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE), U.S. police chiefs travel to Israel to receive training in counter-terrorism and crowd control from Israeli military and police, directly importing tactics used in the occupation of Palestinian cities to the streets of American cities like Atlanta and St. Louis. The IDF’s tactics in Gaza are studied at NATO academies.

This is not partnership. It is ideological franchising.

And yet, the alliance is corrosive. Israel’s open embrace of genocidal policy has shattered the liberal façade. Western governments are forced to defend the indefensible, eroding their own credibility. Cultural institutions censor dissent. Universities punish critique. Civil society fractures. The cost of maintaining the settler regime is no longer just moral — it is strategic. The West is bleeding legitimacy, and Israel is accelerating the hemorrhage.

So why do they persist?

Because manufactured ethnic states offer something empire cannot relinquish: permanence. They are designed to outlast elected governments, diplomatic shifts, and popular uprisings. They anchor Western power in regions where direct control is no longer tenable. Israel, like Algeria before it, is not just a state — it is a mechanism. A settler garrison. A symbolic firewall against indigenous resurgence.

But the firewall is cracking. The global South is defecting. Youth movements are radicalizing. Internal dissent is growing. And the manufactured state is no longer stable — it is volatile, exposed, and unsustainable.

The question now is not whether Israel serves Western interests. It’s whether Western powers can survive the consequences of pretending it still does.

Crisis Management vs. Justice

The West does not oppose Palestinian armed resistance because it is violent. It opposes it because it is effective.

Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and other factions are not terrorist organizations — they are liberationist movements confronting a settler-colonial regime. Their tactics, rhetoric, and ideological frameworks emerge from the same historical terrain as the FLN in Algeria, the ANC in South Africa, and the Viet Minh in Vietnam. Each was branded “terrorist” by the colonial powers they fought. Each was later recognized — begrudgingly — as legitimate representatives of their people.

Hamas was democratically elected in 2006 in one of the most transparent elections ever held in the Arab world. A US diplomat involved in the 2006 monitoring, former President Jimmy Carter, called the election “orderly and peaceful” and stated, “I don’t know of any time that we have ever had a better and more open election.”

The West responded not by respecting the outcome, but by imposing a blockade, funding a coup, and criminalizing the entire Gaza Strip. The message was clear: Palestinian democracy is only acceptable if it produces collaborators. Resistance is not permitted — even when it is popular, organized, and rooted in international law.

The designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization is not a legal judgment — it is a political weapon. It strategically ignores that under international law, occupied peoples have a recognized right to armed resistance (as affirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 37/43). While the laws of war prohibit targeting civilians, the designation is applied categorically to the groups themselves, not specific acts, criminalizing the very right to resist an illegal occupation.

It allows Western powers to dismiss Palestinian demands for liberation, justify collective punishment, and criminalize solidarity. It enables the U.S. to bomb refugee camps, the EU to freeze aid, and Canada to prosecute speech. It is not about violence — it is about control.

Meanwhile, Israel’s violence is never framed as terrorism. Its bombing of hospitals, schools, and UN shelters is called “self-defense.” Its use of white phosphorus is “regrettable.” Its starvation of civilians is “complex.” This is not a double standard — it is a colonial standard. The settler state is allowed to defend itself against the people it occupies. The indigenous are allowed to suffer, not to fight.

Western crisis management is built on this inversion. It seeks to pacify Palestine, not liberate it. It funds NGOs to “build resilience,” not resistance. It trains PA forces to suppress dissent, not settlers. It offers reconstruction, not return. And it criminalizes the very movements that demand justice.

Justice would mean dismantling the settler regime. Crisis management means preserving it — quietly, bureaucratically, indefinitely.

Preservation Through Rebranding: From Liberation to “Terrorism”

Western crisis management is built on inversion. It does not mean resolving conflict — it means enforcing imperial order. It is the language of counterinsurgency, not diplomacy. In Palestine, it means suppressing resistance, stabilizing occupation, and preserving settler control under the guise of humanitarian concern. The West does not manage a crisis — it manages a population. It does not seek peace, it seeks quiet. And it does so through aid conditionality, security coordination, and legal repression. The term itself is ideological camouflage: it transforms colonial violence into administrative necessity.

The strategy begins with language. The West does not dismantle Palestinian resistance — it rebrands it. Liberation becomes “terrorism.” Self-defense becomes “extremism.” Martyrdom becomes “radicalization.” This is not semantic drift. It is ideological warfare.

When Hamas won the 2006 elections, the U.S., EU, and Israel refused to recognize the result. Instead of engaging a democratically elected government, they imposed a blockade, froze aid, and backed a coup. The message was clear: Palestinian governance is only legitimate if it collaborates. Resistance — even through electoral means — is intolerable. Hamas was not criminalized for its tactics. It was criminalized for refusing to surrender.

The same applies to the PFLP, DFLP, and other factions rooted in Marxist, pan-Arab, and anti-colonial traditions. These groups are listed as terrorist organizations not because they target civilians, but because they target empire. Their ideological frameworks — land return, armed struggle, anti-normalization — threaten the settler regime’s permanence. So they are erased, banned, and silenced.

This rebranding is essential to Western preservation. It allows governments to justify surveillance, censorship, and military aid. It enables universities to expel students, NGOs to withhold funding, and media outlets to frame resistance as chaos. It transforms a liberation movement into a security threat, and a settler state into a victim.

And it works. The average American cannot name a single Palestinian faction outside Hamas — and even then, only as a caricature. European governments pass laws banning “support for terrorism” that include waving the Palestinian flag. Australian media refers to resistance fighters as “militants” while ignoring settler pogroms. The rebranding is total. It is not about truth. It is about control.

But the cracks are showing. Young people are asking questions. Scholars are defying bans. Artists are naming Zionism. The rebranding is no longer enough. The violence is too visible. The contradictions too stark. And the cost of preserving the illusion is rising. The cost of entanglement is already being paid. In 2024, for the first time, a European country (Ireland) and a member of the G7 (Canada) officially intervened in the ICJ case, not in support of Israel, but to argue for the court’s jurisdiction — a quiet but monumental diplomatic shift signaling the erosion of the Western consensus.

The West can no longer manage the crisis by renaming it. It must now decide: will it confront the settler regime, or continue to criminalize those who resist it?

This is not just ideological — it is codified. The criminalization of Palestinian resistance is embedded in legal frameworks that treat liberation as threat and settler violence as policy.

The U.S. Anti-Terrorism Certification (ATC) forces NGOs to sever ties with grassroots resistance, criminalizes political expression, and turns aid into surveillance. The EU’s PEGASE mechanism rewards the PA for suppressing dissent and punishes any deviation from Oslo-era compliance. Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act (Bill C-36) has been used to target Palestinian advocacy groups, restrict speech, and criminalize solidarity. Australia’s Criminal Code Amendment designates Hamas in its entirety as terrorist, criminalizing even symbolic support. The UK’s Counter-Terrorism and Security Act mandates universities to monitor “extremist” speech, silencing pro-Palestinian voices under the Prevent program.

These laws do not protect civilians. They protect empire. They transform solidarity into sedition, resistance into extremism, and liberation into criminality. They are not neutral — they are colonial.

A Call to Rupture

Israel will fall. Not because the world wills it, but because settler regimes cannot survive permanent contradiction. A state built on dispossession, apartheid, and ethnic supremacy cannot endure in an era of global reckoning. The façade is gone. The violence is visible. The resistance is rising. And the settler project is out of narratives, out of cover, out of time.

But Israel will not fall quietly. It will drag its allies with it. The U.S. has mortgaged its global standing to defend the indefensible. The EU has fractured its legal frameworks to accommodate apartheid. Canada and Australia have criminalized dissent to preserve diplomatic ties. These powers are not just complicit — they are entangled. And as Israel collapses, they will face the cost of their investment: diplomatic isolation, internal unrest, ideological discredit.

This is not a warning. It is a forecast.

The West cannot reform its way out. It cannot rebrand genocide as “security.” It cannot manage liberation through donor frameworks. It cannot silence the global South, its own youth, or the facts on the ground.

The only path forward is rupture: a severing of ties, a dismantling of complicity, a refusal to uphold a regime whose demise is inevitable.

Rupture means ending military aid. Ending diplomatic cover. Ending cultural normalization. It means naming Zionism as a colonial ideology and treating Palestinian liberation as a global imperative. It means choosing justice over empire — even if empire resists.

Because the longer the West clings to Israel, the deeper it sinks into its own crisis. The settler regime is not a shield — it is an anchor. And the only way to survive its collapse is to let go.

Palestine will be free. The question is whether the West will be free with it — or fall defending the lie.

*

Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem and whose mother’s side of the family is from Ijzim, south of Haifa.

3 October 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Ahmed Adel

The delivery of Tomahawk missiles to Kiev could lead to a serious escalation and perhaps even direct military conflict between Russia and the United States. Nonetheless, in the event that these American-made cruise missiles appear in Ukraine, Russian forces have at their disposal an entire arsenal of weapons – air defense, electronic warfare assets, and aviation as primary instruments of defense and countermeasures.

Although the Tomahawks pose a serious missile threat, the delivery of these missiles to Ukraine remains politically and operationally contentious, with multiple obstacles standing in the way — from US restrictions and technology controls to logistics and the risk of escalation.

Washington understands the full responsibility of handing over the Tomahawk missiles. These missiles are purely American-made, and therefore, the control and management system, which incorporates elements of satellite communication, is also American. This means that management will not be handed over to third countries and will be operated by US officers.

Although the Trump administration is mulling the idea of delivering Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, some scenarios must first be considered. Any violation of Russian airspace will undoubtedly lead to a counterattack, while Washington is also a party to international agreements on the proliferation of missile technologies. At the same time, it cannot be excluded that if Tomahawk missiles attack Russian territory, it would constitute direct US participation in the war on the side of Ukraine, which would have serious consequences, such as Russia carrying out strikes on where these missiles are deployed and leading to American deaths.

In any case, Tomahawk missiles will not change the situation on the front for Ukraine since all Russian air defense systems were developed from the very beginning with the fight against American cruise missiles in mind, and can effectively counter them.

US Vice President J.D. Vance recently said Washington was considering Ukraine’s request to purchase the long-range missiles, adding that President Donald Trump would make the “final determination.”

Russia is carefully analyzing the US Vice President’s statement that Washington is considering Kiev’s request to obtain Tomahawk missiles, with a range of up to 2,500 kilometers, enough to hit Moscow. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the key question is who will launch these missiles and who will determine the targets, the US or Ukraine.

However, Washington is cautious about handing over Tomahawks, even to its closest allies, and Kiev does not have the necessary platforms to launch the missiles. Tomahawks are typically deployed on ships, submarines, and strategic aircraft. If the US were to sell these systems to Ukraine, it would need to create the possibility of launching cruise missiles. Therefore, it is doubtful that the Trump administration will decide to share these weapons with Ukraine.

The land-based Tomahawk has a range of 1,600 kilometers and can carry a nuclear warhead. As such, it will become the most powerful destabilizing factor, which, of course, must be met with a serious response. Washington is attempting to increase pressure on Russia in this manner, aiming to expedite the negotiation process. Trump’s team is interested in presenting certain results to its voters that they could use as a trump card ahead of the Congressional elections.

The Tomahawk poses a challenge to air defense systems, but Russian air defense systems are specifically designed to counter such threats. Additionally, Russia also possesses electronic warfare capabilities that can confuse or divert missiles from their intended path. At the same time, it is recalled that in Syria, a large number of launched Tomahawks were shot down or did not hit targets of the former Assad regime.

Although the Tomahawk is a formidable weapon, it is somewhat outdated, as these missiles have been in operational use since 1983. Both the guidance system and the characteristics themselves are outdated, although the US is modernizing them.

The primary targets of the Tomahawk are military infrastructure, including airfields, deeply fortified bases, and production facilities. But if such weapons are used on the territory of the Russian Federation, this will inevitably lead to the loss of human lives of Russian citizens and the destruction of infrastructure, to which Moscow, of course, will respond with all the might of its forces.

Due to damage to the railway infrastructure in Ukraine, the logistics and transportation of such weapons will not be easy or unnoticed. For this reason, it would be a straightforward task for Russia to destroy the missiles before they are launched. However, Trump is acting cautiously, and for now, the stories about the delivery of Tomahawks to Ukraine are not a reality. The true intentions of the US will only be revealed through concrete actions, and not through media hints, speculation, or rumors.

*

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

3 October 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

When war becomes peace, when concepts and realities are turned upside down, when fiction becomes truth and truth becomes fiction, 

When a global military agenda is heralded as a humanitarian endeavor, when the deliberate killing of children is upheld as “collateral damage,”  

When those who resist the US-NATO-led invasion of their homeland are categorized as “insurgents” or “terrorists,” 

When tactical nuclear weapons are heralded by the Pentagon as “harmless to the surrounding civilian population,”

When the Commander-in-Chief of the largest military force on planet earth is presented as a global peace-maker.”

Take action worldwide against Global Warfare and the derogation of fundamental human rights.

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” —William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, 1623

My response to Shakespeare: “Send the devils back to where they rightfully belong.”

Michel Chossudovsky, October 2, 2025

***

Pete Hegseth’s “Hot War” to “Ensure Peace”

“Good morning and welcome to the War Department because the era of the Department of Defense is over.

….The origin dates to fourth century Rome and has been repeated ever since, including by our first commander in chief, George Washington, the first leader of the War Department. It captures a simple yet profound truth. To ensure peace, we must prepare for war.  Pete Hegseth

Nonsensical, Uninformed and Dangerous Statement

The United States of America is now officially on a  war path which –if applied– threatens the future of humanity. The agenda is to “ensure peace”.

Hegseth proposes an all out war at a global level as a mean to achieving peace. The use of nuclear weapons as well as “A.I. military decision-making” are an integral part of this global military agenda.  

“From this moment forward, the only mission of the newly restored Department of War is this: warfighting, preparing for war and preparing to win”,

Hegseth is also intent upon eliminating the peace movement. 

“That’s why pacifism is so naive and dangerous. It ignores human nature and it ignores human history”.

In the words of George W. Bush: 

“I just want you to know that,

when we talk about war,

we’re really talking about peace,”

Engaging in war as a means to achieving peace?  Since 9/11, propaganda statements abound:

• The conduct of  “humanitarian wars”,
• America’s “War on Terrorism”,
• Going after Al Qaeda,
• Going After Weapons of Mass Destruction
• Responsibility to Protect (R2P),
• The “Just War”

Video: Pete Hegseth’s  Speech

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbKeNVV0PX4]

_______________________________________________

Continuity: From the Truman Doctrine To MAGA Trump

Successive Democratic and Republican administrations, from Harry Truman to George W. Bush, Barack Obama and now Donald Trump have been involved in carrying out a hegemonic blueprint for global domination, which the Pentagon  calls the “Long War”.

The Truman Doctrine formulated by George Kennan at the outset of the Cold War hinted

“to the importance of not only articulating a military solution but in maintaining the people of Asia in a state of poverty.”

What Kennan had also envsaged was a strategy of creating divisions as well as ensuring that Asian countries do not establish a relationship with the Soviet Union which would hinder US hegemonic interests.

According to Kennan:

“The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better”

There are obvious similarities of Hegseth’s statement to both the Truman Doctrine as well as the Project of the New American century (PNAC) released in September 2000 a few months before the accession of George W. Bush to the White House.

The PNAC was a neo-conservative think tank linked to the Defense-Intelligence establishment, the Republican Party and the powerful Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) which plays a behind-the-scenes role in the formulation of US foreign policy.

The PNAC’s declared objective was:

“Fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous theater wars”.

Those proposed wars were not to be conducted in a “consecutive” fashion. One after the other. They were to be conducted simultaneously in different regions of the world. “And we shall win those wars”.

What is distinct in Hegseth’s War Department is that the “War is Peace” doctrine is now official. The  fake “Peace Department” has been replaced by “the War Department”. War is presented as an instrument of peace. Diplomacy and international relations are defunct.

…” warfighting, preparing for war and preparing to win, unrelenting and uncompromising in that pursuit not because we want war, no one here wants war, but it’s because we love peace.

We love peace for our fellow citizens. They deserve peace, and they rightfully expect us to deliver.”

Global warfare is presented as a  means to achieving peace. This forcloses de facto peace negotiations and diplomatic dialogue.

Is this not tantamount to an “unofficial” declaration of  World War III? 

In the words of Hegseth quoting Trump “we have the strongest, most powerful, most lethal and most prepared military on the planet. That is true, full stop. Nobody can touch us. It’s not even close”.

The above statement is all the more dangerous inasmuch as Hegseth fails to comprehend  that the United States’ military arsenal exhibits significant weaknesses in comparison to that of the Russian Federation.

“…we owe our republic a military that will win any war we choose or any war that is thrust upon us.

Should our enemies choose foolishly to challenge us, they will be crushed by the violence, precision and ferocity of the War Department. In other words, to our enemies”,  FAFO”

America’s “enemies” will continue to challenge Washington’s hegemonic agenda through peaceful means.

US-NATO interference as well as Worldwide attempts to instrument “regime change” or color revolutions will continue to be challenged.

What is the meaning of FAFO within the US Armed Forces

FAFO is an acronym that stands for “F— Around and Find Out.”

Michel Chossudovsky, October 2, 2025

___________________________________________________

Transcript 

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth Addresses General and Flag Officers at Quantico, Virginia

Sept. 30, 2025

emphasis added by GR

SECRETARY OF WAR PETE HEGSETH: Mr. Chairman, the joint chiefs, generals, admirals, commanders, officers, senior enlisted, NCOs, enlisted and every member of our American military, good morning.

UNKNOWN: Morning.

SECRETARY OF WAR PETE HEGSETH: Good morning and welcome to the War Department because the era of the Department of Defense is over. You see, the motto of my first platoon was those who long for peace must prepare for war. This is, of course, not a new idea. This crowd knows that.

The origin dates to fourth century Rome and has been repeated ever since, including by our first commander in chief, George Washington, the first leader of the War Department. It captures a simple yet profound truth. To ensure peace, we must prepare for war.

From this moment forward, the only mission of the newly restored Department of War is this: warfighting, preparing for war and preparing to win, unrelenting and uncompromising in that pursuit not because we want war, no one here wants war, but it’s because we love peace. We love peace for our fellow citizens. They deserve peace, and they rightfully expect us to deliver.

Our number one job, of course, is to be strong so that we can prevent war in the first place. The president talks about it all the time. It’s called peace through strength. And as history teaches us, the only people who actually deserve peace are those who are willing to wage war to defend it.

That’s why pacifism is so naive and dangerous. It ignores human nature and it ignores human history. Either you protect your people and your sovereignty or you will be subservient to something or someone. It’s a truth as old as time.

And since waging war is so costly in blood and treasure, we owe our republic a military that will win any war we choose or any war that is thrust upon us. Should our enemies choose foolishly to challenge us, they will be crushed by the violence, precision and ferocity of the War Department. In other words, to our enemies, FAFO.

Video: Pete Hegseth’s  Speech

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbKeNVV0PX4]

UNKNOWN: Fantastic.

SECRETARY OF WAR PETE HEGSETH: If necessary, our troops can translate that for you.

Another way to put it is peace through strength brought to you by the warrior ethos, and we are restoring both. As President Trump has said, and he’s right, we have the strongest, most powerful, most lethal and most prepared military on the planet. That is true, full stop. Nobody can touch us. It’s not even close.

This is true largely because of the historic investments that he made in his first term, and we will continue in this term. But it’s also true because of the leaders in this room and the incredible troops that you all lead. But the world, and as the chairman mentioned, our enemies get a vote. You feel it. I feel it.

This is a moment of urgency, mounting urgency. Enemies gather. Threats grow. There is no time for games. We must be prepared. If we’re going to prevent and avoid war, we must prepare now. We are the strength part of peace through strength, and either we’re ready to win or we are not.

You see, this urgent moment of course requires more troops, more munitions, more drones, more Patriots, more submarines, more B-21 bombers. It requires more innovation, more AI in everything and ahead of the curve, more cyber effects, more counter UAS, more space, more speed.

America is the strongest, but we need to get stronger and quickly. The time is now and the cause is urgent. The moment requires restoring and refocusing our defense industrial base, our shipbuilding industry and onshoring all critical components. It requires, as President Trump has done, getting our allies and partners to step up and share the burden.

America cannot do everything. The free world requires allies with real hard power, real military leadership and real military capabilities. The War Department is tackling and prioritizing all of these things, and I’ll be giving a speech next month that’ll showcase the speed, innovation and generational acquisition reforms we are undertaking urgently. Likewise, the nature of the threats we face in our hemisphere and in deterring China is another speech for another day coming soon.

This speech today — as I drink my coffee, this speech today is about people and it’s about culture. The topic today is about the nature of ourselves, because no plan, no program, no reform, no formation will ultimately succeed unless we have the right people and the right culture at the War Department.

If I’ve learned one core lesson in my eight months in this job, it’s that personnel is policy. Personnel is policy. The best way to take care of troops is to give them good leaders committed to the warfighting culture of the department, not perfect leaders, good leaders, competent, qualified, professional, agile, aggressive, innovative, risk-taking, apolitical, faithful to their oath and to the Constitution.

Eugene Sledge in his World War II memoir wrote, “War is brutish, inglorious, and a terrible waste. Combat leaves an indelible mark on those who are forced to endure it. The only redeeming factors are my comrades’ incredible bravery and their devotion to each other.”

In combat, there are thousands of variables, as I learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, and as so many of you did in so many more places. Leaders can only control about three of them. You control how well you’re trained, mostly how well you’re equipped, and the last variable is how well you lead. After that, you’re on your own.

Our warfighters are entitled to be led by the best and most capable leaders. That is who we need you all to be. Even then, in combat, even if you do everything right, you may still lose people because the enemy always gets a vote. We have a sacred duty to ensure that our warriors are led by the most capable and qualified combat leaders. This is one thing you and I can control, and we owe it to the force to deliver.

For too long, we have simply not done that. The military has been forced by foolish and reckless politicians to focus on the wrong things. In many ways, this speech is about fixing decades of decay, some of it obvious, some of it hidden, or as the chairman has put it, we are clearing out the debris, removing the distractions, clearing the way for leaders to be leaders. You might say we’re ending the war on warriors. I heard someone wrote a book about that.

For too long, we’ve promoted too many uniformed leaders for the wrong reasons, based on their race, based on gender quotas, based on historic so-called firsts. We’ve pretended that combat arms and non-combat arms are the same thing. We’ve weeded out so-called toxic leaders under the guise of double blind psychology assessments, promoting risk averse go along to get along conformists instead. You name it, the department did it.

Foolish and reckless political leaders set the wrong compass heading and we lost our way. We became the woke department. But not anymore. Right now, I’m looking out at a sea of Americans who made a choice when they were young men and young women to do something most Americans will not, to serve something greater than yourself, to fight for God and country, for freedom and the Constitution.

You made a choice to serve when others did not, and I commend you. You are truly the best of America. But this does not mean, and this goes for all of us, that our path to this auditorium on this day was a straight line, or that the conditions of the formations we lead are where we want them to be. You love your country and we love this uniform, which is why we must do better.

We just have to be honest. We have to say with our mouths what we see with our eyes, to just tell it like it is in plain English, to point out the obvious things right in front of us. That’s what leaders must do. We cannot go another day without directly addressing the plank in our own eye, without addressing the problems in our own commands and in our own formations.

This administration has done a great deal from day one to remove the social justice, politically correct, and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department, to rip out the politics. No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship. No more division, distraction or gender delusions. No more debris.

As I’ve said before and will say again, we are done with that shit. I’ve made it my mission to uproot the obvious distractions that made us less capable and less lethal. That said, the War Department requires the next step.

Underneath the woke garbage is a deeper problem and a more important problem that we are fixing and fixing fast. Common sense is back at the White House, so making the necessary changes is actually pretty straightforward. President Trump expects it. And the litmus test for these changes is pretty simple.

Would I want my eldest son, who is 15 years old, eventually joining the types of formations that we are currently wielding? If in any way the answer to that is no, or even yes but, then we’re doing something wrong, because my son is no more important than any other American citizen who dons the cloth of our nation. He is no more important than your son, all precious souls made in the image and likeness of God.

Every parent deserves to know that their son or their daughter that joins our ranks is entering exactly the kind of unit that the secretary of war would want his son to join. Think of it as the Golden Rule test. Jesus said do unto others that which you would have done unto yourself. It’s the ultimate simplifying test of truth.

The new War Department golden rule is this: do unto your unit as you would have done unto your own child’s unit. Would you want him serving with fat or unfit or under trained troops or alongside people who can’t meet basic standards, or in a unit where standards were lowered so certain types of troops could make it in, in a unit where leaders were promoted for reasons other than merit, performance and warfighting? The answer is not just no, it’s hell no.

This means at the War Department first and foremost we must restore a ruthless, dispassionate and common sense application of standards. I don’t want my son serving alongside troops who are out of shape or in combat unit with females who can’t meet the same combat arms physical standards as men, or troops who are not fully proficient on their assigned weapons platform or task or under a leader who was the first but not the best. Standards must be uniform, gender neutral and high. If not, they’re not standards. They’re just suggestions, suggestions that get our sons and daughters killed.

When it comes to combat arms units, and there are many different stripes across our joint force, the era of politically correct, overly sensitive, don’t hurt anyone’s feelings leadership ends right now. At every level, either you can meet the standard, either you can do the job, either you are disciplined, fit and trained, or you are out.

And that’s why today at my direction — and this is the first of ten Department of War directives that are arriving at your commands as we speak and in your inbox. Today, at my direction, each service will ensure that every requirement for every combat MOS, for every designated combat arms position returns to the highest male standard only. Because this job is life or death. Standards must be met. And not just met. At every level, we should seek to exceed the standard, to push the envelope, to compete. It’s common sense and core to who we are and what we do. It should be in our DNA.

Today, at my direction, we are also adding a combat field test for combat arms units that must be executable in any environment at any time and with combat equipment. These tests, they’ll look familiar. They’ll resemble the Army Expert Physical Fitness Assessment or the Marine Corps Combat Fitness Test. I’m also directing that warfighters in combat jobs execute their service fitness test at a gender-neutral age normed male standard scored above 70 percent.

It all starts with physical fitness and appearance. If the secretary of war can do regular hard PT, so can every member of our joint force. Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops. Likewise, it’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the country and the world. It’s a bad look. It is bad, and it’s not who we are.

So, whether you’re an airborne Ranger or a chairborne Ranger, a brand new private or a four star general, you need to meet the height and weight standards and pass your PT test. And as the chairman said, yes, there is no PT test. But today, at my direction, every member of the joint force at every rank is required to take a PT test twice a year, as well as meet height and weight requirements twice a year every year of service.

Also today, at my direction, every warrior across our joint force is required to do PT every duty day. It should be common sense, and most units do that already, but we’re codifying it. And we’re not talking, like, hot yoga and stretching, real hard PT and as — either as a unit or as an individual.

At every level, from the Joint Chiefs to everyone in this room to the youngest private, leaders set the standard. And so many of you do this already, active, guard and reserve. This also means grooming standards. No more beards, long hair, superficial individual expression. We’re going to cut our hair, shave our beards, and adhere to standards.

Because it’s like the broken windows theory in policing. It’s like you let the small stuff go, the big stuff eventually goes, so you have to address the small stuff. This is on duty, in the field and in the rear. If you want a beard, you can join Special Forces. If not, then shave.

We don’t have a military full of Nordic pagans. But unfortunately, we have had leaders who either refuse to call BS and enforce standards, or leaders who felt like they were not allowed to enforce standards. Both are unacceptable. And that’s why today, at my direction, the era of unprofessional appearance is over.

No more beardos. The era of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles is done. Simply put, if you do not meet the male level physical standards for combat positions, cannot pass a PT test or don’t want to shave and look professional, it’s time for a new position or a new profession.

I sincerely appreciate the proactive efforts the secretaries have already taken in some of those areas — service secretaries. And these directives are intended to simply accelerate those efforts. On the topic of standards, allow me a few words to talk about toxic leaders.

Upholding and demanding high standards is not toxic. Enforcing high standards, not toxic leadership. Leading warfighters toward the goals of high, gender-neutral and uncompromising standards in order to forge a cohesive, formidable and lethal Department of War is not toxic. It is our duty consistent with our constitutional oath.

Real toxic leadership is endangering subordinates with low standards. Real toxic leadership is promoting people based on immutable characteristics or quotas instead of based on merit. Real toxic leadership is promoting destructive ideologies that are an anathema to the Constitution and the laws of nature and nature’s God, as Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence.

The definition of toxic has been turned upside down, and we’re correcting that. That’s why today, at my direction we’re undertaking a full review of the department’s definitions of so-called toxic leadership, bullying and hazing, to empower leaders to enforce standards without fear of retribution or second guessing.

Of course, you can’t do, like, nasty bullying and hazing. We’re talking about words like bullying and hazing and toxic. They’ve been weaponized and bastardized inside our formations, undercutting commanders and NCOs. No more. Setting, achieving and maintaining high standards is what you all do. And if that makes me toxic, then so be it.

Second, today, at our direction, we’re ensuring that every service, every unit, every schoolhouse and every form of professional military education conduct an immediate review of their standards. Now, we’ve done this in many places already, but today it goes across the entire Department of War.

Any place where tried and true physical standards were altered, especially since 2015 when combat arms standards were changed to ensure females could qualify, must be returned to their original standard. Other standards have been manipulated to hit racial quotas as well, which is just as unacceptable. This too must end; merit only. The President talks about it all the time, merit-based.

Here are two basic frameworks I urge you to pursue in this process, standards I call — my staff’s heard all about them, the 1990 test and the E-6 test. The 1990 test is simple. What were the military standards in 1990? And if they have changed, tell me why. Was it a necessary change based on the evolving landscape of combat, or was the change due to a softening, weakening or gender-based pursuit of other priorities? 1990 seems to be as good a place to start as any.

And the E-6 test. Ask yourself does what you’re doing make the leadership, accountability and lethality efforts of an E-6 or, frankly, an O-3, does it make it easier or more complicated? Does the change empower staff sergeants, petty officers and tech sergeants to get back to basics? The answer should be a resounding yes. The E-6 test or O-3 test clarifies a lot, and it clarifies quickly.

Because war does not care if you’re a man or a woman. Neither does the enemy, nor does the weight of your rucksack, the size of an artillery round or the body weight of a casualty on the battlefield who must be carried. This — and I want to be very clear about this. This is not about preventing women from serving. We very much value the impact of female troops. Our female officers and NCOs are the absolute best in the world.

But when it comes to any job that requires physical power to perform in combat, those physical standards must be high and gender-neutral. If women can make it, excellent. If not, it is what it is. If that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it. That is not the intent, but it could be the result. So be it. It will also mean that weak men won’t qualify because we’re not playing games. This is combat. This is life or death.

As we all know, this is you versus an enemy hell bent on killing you. To be an effective lethal fighting force, you must trust that the warrior alongside you in battle is capable, truly physically capable of doing what is necessary under fire.  You know this is the only standard you would want for your kids and for your grandkids. Apply the War Department Golden Rule, the 1990 test and the E-6 test, and it’s really hard to go wrong.

Third, we are attacking and ending the walking on eggshells and zero defect command culture. A risk averse culture means officers execute not to lose instead of to win. A risk averse culture means NCOs are not empowered to enforce standards. Commanders and NCOs don’t take necessary risks or make tough adjustments for fear of rocking the boat or making mistakes.

A blemish free record is what peacetime leaders covet the most, which is the worst of all incentives. You, we as senior leaders, need to end the poisonous culture of risk aversion and empower our NCOs at all levels to enforce standards. Truth be told, for the most part we don’t need new standards. We just need to reestablish a culture where enforcing standards is possible.

And that’s why today, at my direction, I’m issuing new policies that will overhaul the IG, EO and MEO processes. I call it the no more walking on eggshells policy. We are liberating commanders and NCOs. We are liberating you. We are overhauling an inspector general process, the IG, that has been weaponized, putting complainers, ideologues and poor performers in the driver’s seat.

We’re doing the same with the equal opportunity and military equal opportunity policies, the EO and MEO, at our department. No more frivolous complaints. No more anonymous complaints. No more repeat complainants. No more smearing reputations. No more endless waiting. No more legal limbo. No more sidetracking careers. No more walking on eggshells.

Of course, being a racist has been illegal in our formation since 1948. The same goes for sexual harassment. Both are wrong and illegal. Those kinds of infractions will be ruthlessly enforced. But telling someone to shave or get a haircut or to get in shape or to fix their uniform or to show up on time, to work hard, that’s exactly the kind of discrimination we want.

We are not civilians. You are not civilians. You are set apart for a distinct purpose. So, we as a department need to stop acting and thinking like civilians and get back to basics and put the power back in the hands of commanders and NCOs, commanders and NCOs who make life and death decisions, commanders and NCOs who enforce standards and ensure readiness, commanders and NCOs who in this War Department have to look in the mirror and have to pass the Golden Rule test, my kids, your kids, America’s sons and daughters.

So, I urge you all here today and those watching, take this guidance and run with it. The core of this speech is the ten directives we’re announcing today. They were written for you, for Army leadership, for Navy leadership, for Marine Corps leadership, for Air Force leadership, Space Force leadership.

These directives are designed to take the monkey off your back and put you, the leadership, back in the driver’s seat. Move out with urgency because we have your back. I have your back, and the commander in chief has your back.

And when we give you this guidance, we know mistakes will be made. It’s the nature of leadership. But you should not pay for earnest mistakes for your entire career. And that’s why today, at my direction, we’re making changes to the retention of adverse information on personnel records that will allow leaders with forgivable earnest or minor infractions to not be encumbered by those infractions in perpetuity.

People make honest mistakes, and our mistakes should not define an entire career. Otherwise, we only try not to make mistakes, and that’s not the business we’re in. We need risk takers and aggressive leaders and a culture that supports you.

Fourth, at the War Department, promotions across the joint force will be based on one thing: merit; colorblind, gender-neutral, merit based. The entire promotion process, including evaluations of warfighting capabilities, is being thoroughly reexamined. We’ve already done a lot in this area, but more changes are coming soon.

We’ll promote top performing officers and NCOs faster and get rid of poor performers more quickly. Evaluations, education and field exercises will become real evaluations, not box checks, for every one of us at every level. These same reforms happened before World War II as well. General George Marshall and Secretary of War Henry Stimson did the same thing, and we won a world war because of it.

As it happens, when he started the job, Chairman Caine gave me a frame and a photo to hang in my office. A matching frame and photo hangs in his. It’s a photo of Marshall and Stimson preparing for World War II. Those two leaders famously kept the door open between their offices for the entirety of the war.

They worked together, civilian and uniform, every single day. Chairman Caine and I do the same. There is no daylight between us. Our doors are always open. Our job together is to ensure our military is led by the very best ready to answer the nation’s call.

Fifth, as you have seen and the media has obsessed over, I have fired a number of senior officers since taking over, the previous chairman, other members of the Joint Chiefs, combatant commanders and other commanders. The rationale, for me, has been straightforward. It’s nearly impossible to change a culture with the same people who helped create or even benefited from that culture, even if that culture was created by a previous president and previous secretary.

My approach has been simple. When in doubt, assess the situation, follow your gut and, if it’s the best for the military, make a change. We all serve at the pleasure of the President every single day. But in many ways, it’s not their fault. It’s not your fault. As foolish and reckless as the woke department was, those officers were following elected political leadership.

An entire generation of generals and admirals were told that they must parrot the insane fallacy that “our diversity is our strength.” Of course, we know our unity is our strength. They had to put out dizzying DEI and LGBTQI+ statements. They were told females and males are the same thing, or that males who think they’re females is totally normal.

They were told that we need a green fleet and electric tanks. They were told to kick out Americans who refused an emergency vaccine. They followed civilian policies set by foolish and reckless political leaders. Our job, my job, has been to determine which leaders simply did what they must to answer the prerogatives of civilian leadership and which leaders are truly invested in the woke department and therefore incapable of embracing the War Department and executing new lawful orders.

That’s it. It’s that simple. So, for the past eight months, we’ve gotten a good look under the hood of our officer corps. We’ve done our best to thoroughly assess the human terrain. We’ve had to make trade-offs and some difficult decisions. It’s more of an art than science. We have been and will continue to be judicious but also expeditious.

The new compass heading is clear. Out with the Chiarellis, the McKenzies and the Milleys, and in with the Stockdales, the Schwarzkopfs and the Pattons. More leadership changes will be made, of that I’m certain, not because we want to but because we must. Once again, this is life and death. The sooner we have the right people, the sooner we can advance the right policies. Personnel is policy.

But I look out at this group and I see great Americans, leaders who have given decades to our great republic at great sacrifice to yourselves and to your families. But if the words I’m speaking today are making your heart sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign. We would thank you for your service.

But I suspect, I know, the overwhelming majority of you feel the opposite. These words make your hearts full. You love the War Department because you love what you do, the profession of arms. You are hereby liberated to be an apolitical, hard charging, no nonsense constitutional leader that you joined the military to be.

We need you locked in on the M, not the D, the E or the I, not the DEI or the DIE of DIME. By that I mean the M, military, of the instruments of national power. We have entire departments across the government dedicated to diplomatic, informational and economic lines of effort. We do the M. Nobody else does. And our GOFOs need to master it in every domain, in every scenario, no more distractions, no more political ideologies, no more debris.

Now, of course, we’re going to disagree at times. We would not be Americans if we didn’t. Being a leader in a large organization like ours means having frank conversations and differences of opinion. You will win some arguments and you will lose some arguments. But when civilian leaders issue lawful orders, we execute. We are professionals in the profession of arms. Our entire constitutional system is predicated upon this understanding.

Now, it seems like a small thing, but it’s not. This includes as well the behavior of our troops online. To that end, I want to thank and recognize the services for their new proactive social media policies. Use them. Anonymous online or keyboard complaining is not worthy of a warrior. It’s cowardice masquerading as conscience. Anonymous unit level social media pages that trash commanders, demoralize troops and undermine unit cohesion must not be tolerated. Again, 0-3s, E-6s.

Sixth, we must train and we must maintain. Any moment that we are not training on our mission or maintaining our equipment is a moment we are less prepared for preventing or winning the next war. That is why today, at my direction, we are drastically reducing the ridiculous amount of mandatory training that individuals and units must execute.

We’ve already ended the most egregious. Now we’re giving you back real time; less PowerPoint briefings and fewer online courses, more time in the motor pool and more time on the range. Our job is to make sure you have the money, equipment, weapons and parts to train and maintain, and then you take it from there.

You all know this because it’s common sense. The tougher and the higher the standards in our units, the higher the retention rates in those units. Warriors want to be challenged. Troops want to be tested. When you don’t train and you don’t maintain, you demoralize. And that’s when our best people decide to take their talents to the civilian world.

The leaders who created the woke department have already driven out too many hard chargers. We reverse that trend right now. There is no world in which high intensity war exists without pain, agony and human tragedy. We are in a dangerous line of work. You are in a dangerous line of work. We may lose good people, but let no warrior cry out from the grave “if only I had been properly trained.”

We will not lose warfighters because we failed to train or equip them or resource them. Shame on us if we do. Train like your warriors lives depend on it, because they do. To that point, basic training is being restored to what it should be, scary, tough and disciplined. We’re empowering drill sergeants to instill healthy fear in new recruits, ensuring that future warfighters are forged.

Yes, they can shark attack, they can toss bunks, they can swear, and yes, they can put their hands on recruits. This does not mean they can be reckless or violate the law, but they can use tried and true methods to motivate new recruits, to make them the warriors they need to be. Back to basics at basic as well.

Of course, and you know this, basic training is not where mission readiness should end. The nature of the evolving threat environment demands that everyone in every job must be ready to join the fight if needed. A core credo of the Marine Corps is every Marine a rifleman.

It means that everyone, regardless of MOS, is proficient enough to engage an enemy threat at sea, in the air or in a so-called rear area. We need to ensure that every member of our uniformed military maintains baseline proficiency in basic combat skills, especially because the next war, like the last, will likely not have a rear area.

Finally, as President Trump rightly pointed out when he changed the department name, the United States has not won a major theater war since the name was changed to the Department of Defense in 1947. One conflict stands out in stark contrast, the Gulf War. Why? Well, there’s a number of reasons, but it was a limited mission with overwhelming force and a clear end state.

But why did we execute and win the Gulf War the way we did in 1991? There’s two overwhelming reasons. One was President Ronald Reagan’s military buildup gave an overwhelming advantage, and two, military and Pentagon leadership had previous formative battlefield experiences. The men who led this department during the Gulf War were mostly combat veterans of the Vietnam War. They said never again to mission creep or nebulous end states.

The same holds true today. Our civilian and military leadership is chock full of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who say never again to nation building and nebulous end states. This clear eyed view all the way to the White House, combined with President Trump’s military buildup, postures us for future victories if, and we will, and when we embrace the War Department.

And we must. We are preparing every day. We have to be prepared for war, not for defense. We’re training warriors, not defenders. We fight wars to win, not to defend. Defense is something you do all the time. It’s inherently reactionary and can lead to overuse, overreach and mission creep. War is something you do sparingly on our own terms and with clear aims. We fight to win. We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy.

We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality and authority for warfighters.

That’s all I ever wanted as a platoon leader. And it’s all my E-6 squad leaders ever wanted, back to that E-6 rule. We let our leaders fight their formations and then we have their back. It’s very simple yet incredibly powerful.

A few months ago, I was at the White House when President Trump announced his liberation day for America’s trade policy. It was a landmark day. Well, today is another liberation day, the liberation of America’s warriors, in name, in deed and in authorities. You kill people and break things for a living. You are not politically correct and don’t necessarily belong always in polite society.

We are not an army of one. We are a joint force of millions of selfless Americans. We are warriors. We are purpose built not for fair weather, blue skies or calm seas. We were built to load up in the back of helicopters, five tons, or Zodiacs in the dead of night, in fair weather or foul to go to dangerous places to find those who would do our nation harm and deliver justice on behalf of the American people in close and brutal combat if necessary.

You are different. We fight not because we hate what’s in front of us. We fight because we love what’s behind us. You see, the Ivy League faculty lounges will never understand us. And that’s okay, because they could never do what you do. The media will mischaracterize us. And that’s okay, because deep down they know the reason they can do what they do is you. In this profession, you feel comfortable inside the violence so that our citizens can live peacefully. Lethality is our calling card and victory our only acceptable end state.

In closing, a few weeks ago at our monthly Pentagon Christian prayer service I recited a commander’s prayer. It’s a simple yet meaningful prayer for wisdom for commanders and leaders. I encourage you to look it up if you’ve never seen it. But the prayer, it ends like this. And most of all, Lord, please keep my soldiers safe, lead them, guide them, protect them, watch over them. And as you gave all of yourself for me, help me give all of myself for them. And amen.

I’ve prayed this prayer many times since I’ve had the privilege of being your Secretary, and I will continue to pray this prayer for each of you as you command and lead our nation’s finest. Go forth and do good things, hard things. President Trump has your back and so do I, and you’ll hear from him shortly. Move out and draw fire, because we are the War Department. Godspeed.

2 October 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Mujeeb Rahman Kinalur

In recognition of this powerful show of support, H.E. Abdullah Abu Shawesh, the Palestinian Ambassador to India,visited Kerala in recent days—a visit that drew significant attention. He held meetings with the Chief Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, and various political party heads. During these meetings, he expressed gratitude for Kerala’s unwavering support, lending international significance to the state’s solidarity.

Massive Political Rallies Across the State

The CPM’s rally on Kozhikode Beach, the Muslim League’s massive gathering in Malappuram, and the Congress party’s events across various districts saw attendance in the hundreds of thousands. The primary focus of these gatherings was on human rights, justice, and peace. Political leaders stood united in their condemnation of the attacks on the lives and property of the Palestinian people.

Among Indian states, Kerala stands out for its profound public support and active political mobilisation in solidarity with the Palestinian people’s struggle for rights. Following the recent escalation of the situation in Gaza, Kerala’s streets have been flooded with demonstrations of solidarity. Major political parties, including the CPM, Congress, and Muslim League, along with various Muslim religious and social organisations, spearheaded rallies and public gatherings attended by hundreds of thousands. These robust demonstrations in Kerala have even sparked national conversations on the issue.

The Historical Roots of the Kerala-Palestine Connection

Several crucial factors explain why the pro-Palestinian stance is so deeply embedded in Kerala. From the era of India’s independence struggle, Kerala has maintained a strong stance against colonialism and imperialism. The establishment of Israel in 1948 was widely viewed here as a manoeuvre to protect British imperial interests. The pro-Palestine foreign policy adopted by India under Jawaharlal Nehru deeply influenced Kerala’s political and public consciousness.

Gulf Ties and Arab Influence

Gulf expatriates are integral to Kerala’s socio-economic fabric. Close relationships with Arab nations, constant exposure to Arab media, and a shared emotional connection to the Arab world have given Malayalis direct and consistent awareness of the Palestine issue. The Gulf connection serves as a conduit for Middle Eastern sentiments to swiftly reach Kerala.

Yasser Arafat and the PLO

Since the time of Israel’s formation, the majority of the people in Kerala have stood by the Palestinians. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and its leader Yasser Arafat enjoyed massive popular backing in the state. Seen not just as a national liberation movement but as a symbol of the broader anti-imperialist struggles in West Asia, the PLO received strong support from both the Indian government and the people of Kerala. While the core solidarity remains firm, recent events have also prompted discussions and challenges:

The Stance on Hamas and Islamist Movements

A key question debated is whether political disagreements with Islamist movements like Hamas have created an opposition to the overall Palestinian struggle within Kerala society. However, the majority of Malayalis continue to view the issue primarily through the lens of the Palestinian people’s fight for survival against Israeli occupation.

The Responsibility of a Civilised Society

Kerala is a vibrant secular, democratic society. Therefore, the Palestinian issue is viewed as a fundamental human rights concern and the responsibility of a civilised society to uphold justice. Even as discussions around political Islam arise, Kerala’s political parties and the general public remain unwilling to compromise on their support for the basic rights and justice of the Palestinian people.

Kerala’s solidarity with Palestine transcends geographical distance; it is a cultural commitment rooted in the values of humanity, justice, and secularism. This sustained stance is a powerful reflection of the state’s secular-democratic ethos.

Mujeeb Rahman Kinalur is an author, writer and cultural critic based at Calicut, Kerala

1 October 2025

Source: countercurrents.org