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By Vijay Prashad

Once plundered of both its wealth and people by colonial powers, Africa now faces IMF-imposed austerity, obscene debt, and forced underdevelopment.

22 May 2025 – At the start of 2025, Sudan registered an alarming debt-to-GDP (Gross Domestic Product) ratio of 252%. This means that the country’s total public debt is 2.5 times the size of its entire annual economic output. It is not hard to understand why Sudan is in such dire straits: as we outlined in last week’s newsletter, the country has been engulfed in a conflict for decades, which has severely disrupted any possibility of economic growth and financial stability. Yet, in a way, Sudan – one of the richest countries in terms of resources but poorest in terms of household income and wealth – is also representative of what has been happening on the African continent. As of 2022, the average debt-to-GDP ratio in Sub-Saharan countries was 60%, having doubled from 30% in 2013. This rise in indebtedness is shocking.

Africa’s total debt is over $1 trillion, with debt servicing costs of $163 billion per year. Developing countries’ total debt reached $11.4 trillion in 2023, four times the 2004 total of $2.6 trillion. This extraordinary increase has induced a debt crisis in over thirty out of sixty-eight low-income countries. This ballooning debt impacts development in two primary ways:

1. Due to an increased risk of default, further credit becomes very expensive and is often only available through commercial lenders. Africa’s total commercial debt is now 43% of its total external debt – more than twice what it was in 2000.
2. High debt servicing limits fiscal flexibility, forcing many governments to cut spending on education, healthcare, industrial development, and infrastructure. In many African countries, this has led to austerity measures across the board: in 2022, twenty-two countries spent more paying interest on their debt than on healthcare and six of them spent more on debt service than on education. A high debt burden ultimately leads to austerity measures, and therefore to economic contraction.

Only a handful of African countries have been able to immunise themselves from the crisis, largely because they have smaller populations and export high-value goods. One of these countries is Equatorial Guinea, which has a population of 1.8 million, earns $5.13 billion per year (largely from crude oil and natural gas exports), and has a debt-to-GDP ratio of 31.3%. Another is Botswana, which has a population of 2.5 million, earns $5.33 billion per year from diamond exports, and has a debt-to-GDP ratio of 27.4%.

Africa’s Faustian Bargain with the International Monetary Fund (May 2025) is the third in a series dossiers that examines the impact of Africa’s economic crisis (the first was Life or Debt: The Stranglehold of Neocolonialism and Africa’s Search for Alternatives in April 2023, followed by How Neoliberalism Has Wielded ‘Corruption’ to Privatise Life in Africa in November 2024). This three-part series, written by Senior Fellow Grieve Chelwa and me, will be published by Inkani Books later this year in an expanded form and with a substantial introduction.

The series argues that:

1. The colonial era impoverished the African continent of both its wealth and its people, millions of whom were captured, taken to the Americas, and brutally enslaved. By the time African countries won their independence in the 1960s and 1970s, they simply did not have the state resources or accumulated capital in the hands of the private sector necessary for major infrastructure construction and industrialisation.
2. African countries that attempted to amass domestic savings and borrow from the socialist bloc for major infrastructure projects – such as dams and electricity systems that had been neglected wilfully by the colonial rulers – faced assassinations (the Congo’s Patrice Lumumba in January 1961 and Burundi’s Louis Rwagasore in October 1961) and coups (Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah in February 1966).
3. The neocolonial system structured the world economy in such a way that African countries have been compelled to sell their raw materials for low prices; earn minimal royalties from Western multinational corporations; pay high prices for imported finished products (in many cases for energy sources); borrow money through the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Western commercial creditors to cover their budgetary shortfall; pay high debt service fees; implement austerity programmes at the behest of the IMF; and then enter into a debt spiral seemingly for eternity.
4. The IMF and its various associated agencies (such as Transparency International) pressure governments in vulnerable African countries to further erode their state capacity by shutting down regulatory departments and reducing their own competence to negotiate agreements with Western creditors and multinational mining companies. A shrunken state means that the people in that country – and the continent as a whole – have less power to negotiate within the neocolonial structure.

In our latest dossier, we show how the IMF’s new policy on the African continent is much like its old policy (as is the case elsewhere in the world, as we discuss in our October 2023 dossier, How the International Monetary Fund Is Squeezing Pakistan). We provide a short summary of the continued attempts to build African financial institutions, such as an African Central Bank, an African Investment Bank, a Pan-African Stock Exchange, and an African Monetary Fund. The target date set to build these has already passed, but the need for them remains on the African Union’s Agenda 2063 (set in 2013). We also make the case for regionalism on the continent using the debate around the African Continental Free Trade Area. There is no easy panacea. At the end of the dossier, we look at the case of Senegal to understand the challenges facing countries that assert their sovereignty. When the country’s new progressive government, led by Diomaye Faye, audited the data reported to the IMF and showed that some of it was erroneous, the IMF responded by suspending Senegal’s $1.8 billion credit facility. Now what is Senegal to do? Faye’s government will go back to the IMF in June. We end the dossier by asking: ‘Will other paths open up for Senegal, or will it be fated to trudge through the IMF debt-austerity agenda that has plagued countries of the Global South for decades?’.

The year before the pandemic, I flew from Uganda’s Entebbe airport to the town of Kisoro, near the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). A guide named Katende and I drove to the border that goes through the town of Bunagana, where the M23 rebel group (the March 23 Movement, backed by Rwanda) had taken up residence on the DRC side of the border. We passed through the beautiful green hills of southwestern Uganda until arriving at the largely deserted town and desolate border post. There had been discussions about upgrading the border post because of the large volume of goods that crossed on both sides. But now, as a result of the ongoing war, all that is visible are a few bicycles, often just waved through by lackadaisical guards and customs officials.

Through Katende, I spoke to a few people who were milling around a small shop called a duuka (from the Hindi dukan, brought to this part of Uganda by Indian traders known in the old days as dukwallas). At this shop, I met an elderly trader who often crossed the border with goods from the DRC. What kind of goods? All kinds, sometimes also diamonds. Her name was Ssuubi and she spoke Luganda. She said something that made Katende laugh. I asked what it was. He took my notebook and wrote down what she had said: Akakonge ak’omu kkubo. Bwe katakukuba magenda, kakukuba amadda. Then he handed me the notebook in which he had written: ‘If the small stump of a tree in the path does not trip you on your way, then it will trip you on your return’. I suspect that Ssuubi was talking about smuggling and customs guards. But perhaps this was just a reflection of life, with fate at the heart of her poverty despite being involved in smuggling diamonds – so inexpensive here yet so expensive by the time they get to the Gulf states and Antwerp and, eventually, high-end jewellery shops around the world.

Ssuubi will remain at the duuka buying a juice, eating a packaged meal, standing in the sun waiting to see if it is safe to cross the border and then deal with the M23 gunmen on the other side, find someone to sell her diamonds and other things, walk back, try not to trip, and, finally, sell the diamonds for almost nothing to a dealer who will take them to the port in Mombasa, Kenya, where they will be shipped out of Africa. None of the people involved – the person who found the diamonds in the ground, the person who sold them to Ssuubi, Ssuubi herself, or the person who buys them from her and takes them to Mombasa – gain the wealth. By the time the ship docks in the Gulf states or Antwerp and finds its way to the person who will polish the diamonds, capital begins to accumulate. Before then, it is poverty that accompanies the jewels from hand to hand as those who do so live a hand-to-mouth existence. This is the reality of African wealth and its theft. This is what lies beneath the debt burden and the IMF austerity agenda.

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Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter.

2 Jun 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Tom Fawthrop

Vietnam is still plagued by the toxic legacy of the US chemical warfare.

27 May 2025 – It was Vietnam’s 50th anniversary on April 30—marked by millions celebrating the end of the US war, and a new era of peace, independence, and reunification.

But 83-year-old Tran To Nga, who over 50 years ago was a frontline journalist, is too busy fighting a last-ditch legal battle over the war’s toxic legacy to join in the celebrations. The festivities continued throughout last month, culminating in the historic collapse of US-installed South Vietnamese regime on April 30, 1975.

It defies belief that five decades later, Vietnam is still plagued by the toxic legacy of chemical warfare, and countless unexploded bombs, bomblets and land mines, scattered across many provinces.

These cruel legacies still haunt over 2 million Vietnamese victims of “Agent Orange.” The chemical war was not forgotten either by the victims and all those seeking accountability and justice led by the Hanoi-based Vietnamese Association for the Victims of Agent Orange (VAVA).

Is the Vietnam War over, without resolving the cruel legacies of war? I first met Tran To Nga at the VAVA forum in Ho Chi Minh City. “It was my work as a war correspondent role in the Cu Chi district. American helicopters sprayed it, and I was exposed to this substance many times.”

In her autobiography, she described how, in 1966 in the region of Củ Chi (north of Saigon), she saw a “white cloud,” a long trail in the wake of an American war plane C-123. “A sticky rain trickles down my shoulders and smears on my skin. A fit of coughing takes me.”

During her presentation, she explained she would never give up her campaign to keep the litigation going in France, despite a bitter trail of legal setbacks for Vietnamese litigants in both US and French courts.

Why has the last hope for Agent Orange accountability ended up in the jurisdiction of a French Court?

Nga is the only person who fulfills all the criteria that enable her to sue foreign companies. Only French citizens with a French residence are entitled to utilize a law that permits international lawsuits for victims of foreign companies.

Since her exposure to the chemical spraying, she has suffered from breast cancer, and, 59 years later, is ailing from type 2 diabetes, alpha-thalassemia, and recurrent tuberculosis—all conditions caused by Agent Orange.

With assistance from her three pro bono French lawyers, she has accused these corporations of choosing to manufacture Agent Orange herbicide laced with an extra dioxin contaminant that is the cause of the chronic health problems that have dogged her for many years.

The Aspen Institute reported that the dioxin in Agent Orange was “exceptionally toxic” to humans based on the chemical formula 2,3,7,8-tetrachloro-dibenzo-para-dioxin, or TCDD. It is a persistent organic pollutant.

Nga’s eldest daughter, Viet Hai, born in 1968, suffers from a heart defect, tetralogy of Fallot. Her daughter died at the age of 17 months. Tran To Nga has two other daughters, one born in 1971 and the other in prison in 1974. They both have heart and bone defects.

The US government and Pentagon exercise sovereign immunity, hence only the 14 US companies that manufactured Agent Orange could potentially be held accountable.

In 2005, many years before Nga’s lawsuit was filed in France, VAVA launched a class-action lawsuit in the US courts. The Vietnamese victims, nearly all civilians, were encouraged in their pursuit of global justice by the success of US war veterans (who had been exposed to Agent Orange contamination) in gaining recognition and support from the US government. The US War Veterans department had acted on a medical investigation that linked exposure to Agent Orange to 19 extremely serious diseases, documented in the 2018 report “Veterans and Agent Orange” (updated in 2004). Vietnamese investigators separately produced a similar list.

However, the class-action suit of Vietnamese suffering from many of the same diseases as US war veterans received far more hostile treatment in the US court, as if the Vietnamese were still the enemy. In 2005, the class-action lawsuit was rejected.

Fred A. Wilcox, author of Scorched Earth: Legacies of Chemical Warfare in Vietnam, told the Vietnamese news agency VN Express that “the US government refuses to compensate Vietnamese victims of chemical warfare because to do so, would mean admitting that the US committed war crimes in Vietnam. This would open the door to lawsuits that would cost the government billions of dollars.”

Hence, in 2014, the Agent Orange baton of US accountability and the legacy of chemical warfare ended up in the hands of Tran To Nga.

“My descendants and I are poisoned. Examination of the famous list of diseases established by the Americans allows us to say that.”

Between 1962 and 1971, the US army sprayed 80 million liters of herbicides. Agent Orange accounted for 60 percent of highly toxic dioxins sprayed over 78,000 square kilometers (30,000 square miles of South Vietnam).

“After more than 10 years of US chemical warfare in Vietnam, the impact on their health has been staggering,” is the assessment of Dr. Jeanne Mager Stellman and her fellow researchers. Between 2.1 and 4.8 million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians were directly exposed to Agent Orange.

Stellman’s report also lamented that nearby rice paddies, ponds, and rivers were poisoned, and residual dioxins were able to enter the food chain, causing future generations to experience grotesque childbirth deformities passed on to now the fourth generation. Despite the steady growth of evidence about this chemical defoliant’s pernicious and wide-ranging impacts, the Paris appeals court in 2024 ruled that it “did not have jurisdiction involving the wartime actions of the United States government, on whose orders the chemical companies supplied Agent Orange.”

The International Association of Democratic Lawyers and its members have challenged the French court’s interpretation of the Pentagon’s contract with these big corporations. “ADL believes the French court did not consider the fact that the production of the toxic chemicals for the US military in the Vietnam War was not compulsory for the chemical companies, but they were free to participate in tenders to produce toxic chemicals for profit. The Court also did not consider the fact that the chemical companies had known that dioxin was a highly toxic substance.”

The French Appeals Court failed to address the key issue of the dioxin selected by the private manufacturers as part of a tender 2,3,7,8-tetrachloro-dibenzo-para-dioxin, or TCDD. It is a persistent organic pollutant that contaminated Agent Orange. After the legal setback, Nga showed her tenacity in her press statement: “The legal struggle is not over yet. The road is still long, and I will go to the end, until my last breath!”

In Vietnam one year later, she repeated her determination to fight on all the way to France’s highest court. “This is not my trial alone, this is not my fight alone. By now, the name Tran To Nga should only be a symbol. This is a fight for the people, for truth. We will take our case to France’s highest court.”

Chuck Searcy, a US army war veteran who is now the coordinator of US war veterans’ Project Renew, clearing unexploded bombs in Quang Tri province, told The Nation that he is deeply moved by Tran To Nga. “Her struggle is an immense challenge, a David-and-Goliath struggle. She is going up against the international corporatocracy and the government’s that have been bought off by them. I admire her bravery and tenacity.”

How can it be that global justice has to depend on the extraordinary dedication of a frail and debilitated 83-year-old woman in order to prevent the issue of the largest chemical war ever waged, from being ignominiously buried forever as a footnote in history?

It took the US government 41 years to do something concrete about the huge area of contamination around their military bases. It was only in 2012 that joint US military and Vietnamese army teams finally started the cleanup operations at a former US air base in Danang.

In 2025, the largest remaining dioxin hotspot is the Bien Hoa air base. Shortly before Trump’s aid cut, USAID had secured an additional $130 million for the project. A book by Vietnamese expert Charles Bailey, From Enemies to Partners: Vietnam, the US and Agent Orange, is highly skeptical about the outcome. According to Bailey, “Much of the remaining soil was heavily contaminated and needed to be treated in an as-yet unbuilt incinerator. This basically leaves a very large mountain of contaminated soil.”

It appears that every possible obstacle has been put in the way of Agent Orange victims from Vietnam, to block any path to finding justice in US courts. Now Tran To Nga is going for a last-ditch legal challenge in France to the long-standing impunity of US Corporations.

Her last message to this correspondent was on May 4: “Je suis grièvement malade et suis hospitalisée” (I am very ill and admitted to hospital). Now the indomitable but seriously ill Tran Nga fights on from her hospital bed to bring the case up to the French Supreme Court.

Molecular geneticist Matthew Meselson of Harvard Medical School, one of the first scientists to visit Vietnam after 1975, denounced the poison in the strongest terms, saying, “An evil genius could not devise a toxin with more evil properties.”

Tran To Nga by challenging their claim to legal and moral impunity from the evidence of ecocidal destruction, the poisoning of farmers crops, and complicity in causing so many types of cancer, believes eventually truth will triumph.

For her, justice for millions of Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange is the driving force, the fire in her heart that gives her strength to overcome all difficulties and obstacles to continue the fight “till the end.” In her autobiography, she says, “That fire will never stop, and that is the path I am taking.”

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Tom Fawthrop has extensively reported in South-East Asia since 1979, filing stories for The Guardian, The Economist, and The Irish Times, and he is a contributor to the BBC World Service in Cambodia, Dili, Philippines and Thailand.

2 Jun 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Ann Garrison

Eritrea remains true to the revolutionary ideals forged during its 30-year War of Independence.

28 May 2025 – On May 24th, Eritrea celebrated its 34th Independence Day. From September 1, 1961, to May 24, 1991, the Eritrean people waged a 30-year war to free themselves from the Ethiopian empire, first under the control of Emperor Haile Selassie and then under the Derg regime’s Mengistu Haile Mariam.

Eritrea was the first of five African nations now refusing to collaborate with AFRICOM , the US Africa Command. It has also refused to saddle itself with IMF or World Bank debt, but the African Development Bank has praised its progress and provided funding for one of its renewable energy projects and for its education initiatives.

I spoke to Eritrean-American journalist Elias Amare , who hosts his own YouTube channel , most of which is in the Tigrinya language, about Eritrea’s hard won independence.

ANN GARRISON: Elias, I know it’s difficult to summarize 30 years, but nevertheless, can you tell us the salient points we might understand about the Eritrean independence struggle, including the process that led to UN recognition?

ELIAS AMARE: That is a tall order, but let me start with some personal connection. I was born the year the armed struggle for national liberation was launched in Eritrea, in 1961, so my entire life has been within the struggle, first to liberate the land and, secondly, to defend the Eritrean sovereignty that was won with huge sacrifices, both human and material, during the 30-year struggle.

First we must bear in mind that the armed struggle was launched by Eritreans only when all peaceful political avenues had been closed to it. Eritrean demands and protests for national self-determination had just led to more deaths and more repression. In 1961, a band of armed men led by Hamid Idris Awate and inspired by the Algerian national liberation struggle finally launched the armed struggle.

Sectarianism and division along narrow, ethnic, and religious lines haunted the early movement until a progressive vision emerged. It was established that the leadership of the armed struggle had to be within Eritrea, on the battlefield, not sitting outside in comfortable zones like Cairo or Sudan, and that religious and ethnic divides had to be set aside for the sake of the national struggle.

The movement also prioritized popular democracy emerging from feudalistic culture, with political education, eradication of illiteracy, equality among fighters, and strict egalitarianism. Leaders and the rank and file had the same living standards; they shared the same accommodations, ate the same food, and received the same medical attention as needed. Their children got the same education.

There was popular democratic debate, criticism, and self-criticism. The emancipation of women was also prioritized, and that was extremely revolutionary within the patriarchal societies of that time.

This process gave birth to the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, and the egalitarian principles it established have carried through to this day.

On May 24, 1991, after the sacrifice of 65,000 heroic Eritrean fighters, the EPLF finally defeated the Ethiopian army, whose troops gave up and fled, with some even heading into Sudan.

The Eritreans never took any vendetta against them. They even gave them food and water along their way. All they wanted was a peaceful end to the war.

The Ethiopian Derg regime collapsed at the same time, and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) took over. Eritreans had fought with the TPLF in the interest of defeating a common enemy.

Once EPLF had established de facto control of Eritrean territory, it established a transitional government. Then, in 1993, there was a referendum on becoming an independent nation that was monitored by the United Nations and other international observers. There was no question that this was a free and fair election, and Eritreans voted for independence by 99.85%. The official declaration was delayed until May 24, 1993, because we wanted our independence to coincide with the day we defeated the Ethiopian army.

Within minutes of the declaration of independence, after the results of the referendum, five countries stepped forward– Egypt, Sudan, Italy, and the United States–to recognize Eritrea. The United States had opposed Eritrean independence since the 1940s, but it finally accepted the reality on the ground and became one of the first countries to officially recognize us. After that, the floodgates opened, and one country after another recognized.

On May 28, 1993, Eritrea was officially admitted as the 182nd UN member state. I was part of the Eritrean delegation that officially went to the United Nations when Eritrea was officially accepted as a free, independent nation, and it was the most moving experience of my life to see the Eritrean flag being raised in front of the UN after a 30-year struggle. Tears of pride, tears of joy, rushed down my face.

AG: I believe that meant that, in accordance with the UN Charter, the Security Council had passed a resolution to recommend recognition to the UN General Assembly, with at least nine votes and no vetoes from the five permanent members, and then the General Assembly had voted to recognize by at least a two-thirds majority.

EA: Yes, I believe that’s the procedure.

AG: OK, now another huge question. What has Eritrea achieved in 34 years of independence?

EA: Most of all it has sustained its status as an independent and sovereign nation. The vast majority of African states are neocolonial, proxy, or puppet states. Eritrea is the only African nation that has been truly independent for decades. Although it sounds simple, that is in itself a huge accomplishment. With the emergence of the Alliance of the Sahel States, I hope that more and more African states may join the movement for ending neocolonial relations, ending Africa’s decades-long subservience and marginalization.

When I say that Eritrea is truly independent, I mean that it designs its own economic programs, not accepting the dictates of the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Bank and the IMF. It charts its own economic development path and undertakes its own development projects. It rejects foreign aid. It rejects the NGOs that proliferate all over Africa, the Trojan horses that cripple and paralyze African states.

It has been proven beyond a shadow of doubt that foreign aid is in fact devastating to Africa’s development. Our president, Isaias Afwerki, has famously said that aid is like a drug; if you keep taking it, you become addicted.

The massive foreign aid that is dumped in Africa makes it more dependent, makes it poorer, instead of helping it develop. Africa is dependent on food aid year in, year out, even though its agriculture has huge potential.

Six decades ago, Africa fed itself. Today, for the most part, it cannot, but Eritrea can. It has prioritized the development of dams and irrigation, resolving that no drop of water will fail to irrigate and no drop will erode the soil.

I can point to other significant infrastructural achievements in  road building, highway connections, education, and health. This progress was impeded because the US did not like the look of Eritrea’s independence. The US used Ethiopia’s TPLF regime as its regional “anchor state” for nearly 30 years, from 1991 to 2018, when it was overthrown in a popular uprising. In 1998 the US gave tacit support to the TPLF to launch a “border war” against Eritrea, which led to a devastating loss of life on both sides. The Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission created by the Algiers Peace Agreement ruled in Eritrea’s favor regarding the contested border regions, including the town of Badme, the casus belli of the conflict. However, Ethiopia, with US support, refused to accept its ruling.

Eritrea was also punished by UN sanctions initiated by the US from 2009 to 2018. They were based on wholly false claims that Eritrea had helped al-Shabaab terrorists. Eritrea also had a border conflict with Djibouti based on another manufactured lie.

The US imposed even more crippling sanctions, exclusion from the SWIFT system for conducting international financial transactions, during the 2020 to 2022 Ethiopian civil war in which the US backed their longtime proxy, the TPLF. The US has sustained these sanctions even though the Ethiopian war ended in November 2022.

Both rounds of sanctions severely hurt Eritrea’s economy, but nevertheless, it continued to make slow, steady progress. It eradicated illiteracy and provided free education from grade school through college. It drastically reduced the spread of communicable disease, such as malaria and tuberculosis. It ended the horrifying practice of female genital mutilation. It is corruption free.

We have begun to tap into our significant mineral wealth, but not without demanding fair ownership percentages, technology transfer, and training from foreign mining corporations.

AG: Regarding the freedom from corruption, I met a number of Eritrean cabinet ministers when I was there in 2022, and I didn’t see any driving fancy cars, wearing fancy clothes, or working in fancy offices. I also didn’t see any gross disparities of wealth or anyone begging on the streets.

EA: Yes, that is evidence that we have remained true to our original revolutionary ideals.

AG: What do you see in Eritrea’s future?

EA: Well, as you know, there is great instability and conflict in the Horn of Africa, where Eritrea remains an oasis of stability. It does and will continue to try to encourage regional movements to establish genuine sovereignty while at the same time standing up to Ethiopia’s new threats of military aggression. 

Internally, within Eritrea, regardless of whether there is chaos and conflagration in the region, Eritrea will remain firmly focused on its own development. It will not be held hostage to external chaos agents, and will not veer from its path of national economic development and the improvement of life for all its people. It will stay the course.

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Ann Garrison is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

2 Jun 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Prof. Richard Falk

25 May 2025 – SHAPE is an international network of persons sensitive to the imperatives of human unity and the guardianship of the natural habitat in accordance with ecological wisdom that illuminates paths of resilience and adaptation. In this era of predatory capitalism, imperial geopolitics and surging fascism, we as a lead species, need to think, feel, and act differently to avoid catastrophe, and do so in a spirit of urgency. Please distribute this statement and contact us if you wish to endorse and join our efforts.

In the name of humanity, the barbarism in Gaza must stop

Over the last eighteen months the world has witnessed undiluted militarised cruelty targeting the entire population and the supportive natural habitat of Gaza – with not so much as an ounce of mercy or compassion, let alone justice, or sensitivity to issues of ecological viability.

No one has been spared in this onslaught: not civilians, not children, women or the elderly, not humanitarian workers or UN personnel overseeing the distribution of aid, not homes, schools, places of worship, or hospitals.

No logic can begin to explain or justify this genocidal policy of indiscriminate maiming and killing, or the calculated and systematic starvation of the already traumatized Palestinian population. These and other unspeakable atrocities leave us with just two words to describe the conduct of the cabal presently ruling the State of Israel: pure evil

Faced with such vicious behaviour, humanity has but one option: to call out the evil and take appropriate action to put an end to such outrageous conduct.

In the name of humanity we therefore call on all peoples and governments to:

1. Terminate all transactions with the State of Israel that relate to military capabilities until a just and lasting peace settlement has been reached, which gives effect to the inalienable right of Palestinian self-determination. This embargo should include:
2. A ban on the export of all weapons and dual-use equipment as well as ammunition, whether supplied directly or through a third party
3. A ban on the import of all Israeli weapons and military technology
4. A cessation of all other forms of military cooperation, including joint operations/exercises/logistics and communications initiatives, intelligence cooperation and sharing, and expert exchanges and visits
5. A ban on all financing arrangements designed to facilitate the above activities.
6. Break diplomatic relations with the State of Israel until a complete and durable ceasefire has been established across all the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
7. Seek the exclusion of Israeli participation in international cultural and sporting events and call for national boycotts of foreign and domestic cultural and sporting happenings until a complete and durable ceasefire has been established across all the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
8. Apply maximum pressure on those governments that have been Israel’s primary backers, notably the United States, Britain and Germany, to cease forthwith any support of Israel’s inhuman conduct in Gaza and Palestine as a whole.
9. Support and financially contribute to the Arab plan for Gaza’s reconstruction formally adopted by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in March 2025, and to this end call for an immediate UN-sponsored international summit, open to all supportive governments, relevant regional organisations and sympathetically disposed civil society, philanthropic and business organisations. The reconstruction process in Gaza and the proposed international summit should be mindful of Palestinian rights, especially the right of self-determination as applicable to all developments pertaining to Israeli Occupied Palestine.
10. Encourage nonviolent solidarity initiatives by civil society, both individual and collective action of the sort that proved helpful in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. A mobilized people can change history, and bring political evil to an abrupt end, especially where, as is the case in Gaza, a severe humanitarian emergency exists.

Such measures on the part of states need to be complemented and reinforced by resolute, collective action at the UN General Assembly. A special session of the General Assembly should be urgently called to denounce the heinous crimes being committed in Gaza and the West Bank and the constant threats to cleanse Palestine of its people by measures of forced displacement.

The General Assembly should consider and adopt a series of resolutions which demand:

1. An immediate ceasefire in all parts of Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and adjacent areas
2. The establishment of  a UN peacekeeping contingent of sufficient strength to monitor and supervise the ceasefire and deter in timely fashion actions that would lead to a renewal of violence
3. The unimpeded flow of water, food, fuel and medicines to Gaza
4. Strong measures designed to protect humanitarian aid workers, health and medical personnel, and agencies and institutions engaged in the running of hospitals, clinics, kitchens and other essential services
5. Decisive measures to enable journalists and media personnel to carry out their duties in safe and secure environments.

We also request the world’s religious organisations to issue a call addressing from a spiritual and ethical perspective the evil of genocide as it continues to unfold in Gaza. They are uniquely placed to set forth the ethical criteria that should govern an agreement on the cessation of all military hostilities in the Occupied Territories and the creation of just and durable peace in Palestine.

Since October 2023, millions have exposed and protested against Israel’s conduct in Gaza. They have succeeded in raising the level of global public awareness even though their cries for humanity and justice have thus far gone unheeded. The complicity of the rich and the powerful have stood in the way.

People of good will everywhere must now redouble their efforts in solidarity with the Palestinian people. They must peacefully and resolutely unite their voices and work closely together for as long as it takes.

A powerful global dialogue for a just peace in Palestine that brings together people of diverse social, cultural and religious background is a primary ethical imperative of our time. So is accountability, which means punitive action against leaders of the State of Israel and the complicit enabler governments, including imposing obligations to pay reparations to the victimised population of Gaza and contributions to the funding of reconstruction.

Issued on behalf of SHAPE and its Coordinating Committee by SHAPE Co-Conveners:

Professor Emeritus Richard Falk,
Dr Chandra Muzaffar
Professor Emeritus Joseph Camilleri

22 May 2025

Email: savinghumanityandplanetearth@gmail.com

Website www.theshapeproject.com/

______________________________________________________

Prof. Richard Falk is a member of the TRANSCEND Network, Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University, Chair of Global Law, Faculty of Law, at Queen Mary University London, Research Associate the Orfalea Center of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Fellow of the Tellus Institute.

2 Jun 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Kathy Kelly

Since 22 May 2025, several peace activists have been fasting–for 40 days–in front of the United States Mission to the UN. They demand an end to US support of Israel’s military and urge the US government to pressure Israel to open the Gazan borders to humanitarian aid.

For this BCR series I will meet with a participant, Kathy Kelly, periodically, to share her thoughts and concerns.

[https://shows.acast.com/5ca4a75d29388cc466cf4481/682fa3f6a795fd3aef796095]

Share your thoughts about this action at barcrawlradio@gmail.com or mike@veteransforpeace.org

Alan Winson — BCR Producer and Co-Host

___________________________________________________

Kathy Kelly is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, an American peace activist, pacifist and author, one of the founding members of Voices in the Wilderness, and currently a co-coordinator Voices for Creative Nonviolence. Three times since 2000, she has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

2 Jun 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Paul Craig Roberts

Elon Musk expressed his disappointment in the Trump administrations bill, passed by the House, that avoided an automatic tax increase that would have occurred at the conclusion of 2025 by making permeant the 2017 tax reductions and which increased spending on defense and US border security. Musk mistakenly thinks that this bill undermines his and DOGE’s effort to reduce the federal deficit.

Musk should see his and DOGE’s success not in terms of deficit reduction, but in terms of eliminating waste, fraud, and grift from the federal budget. According to reports, Musk and DOGE have stopped the theft of $175 billion from American taxpayers who have desperate needs for their own money. Instead, the money has gone to fake companies set up by Democrats to enrich themselves and their political allies via government contracts at the expense of the American people.

Reducing the grift by $175 billion is no small achievement. It could be much larger, but corrupt Democrat judges and media are at work blocking DOGE and shutting down Elon Musk.

What Musk should emphasize is the contrast between Trump being the peace president and Trump’s increase in military spending.

America has dangerous internal enemies, but its foreign ones are manufactured by the CIA, which needs enemies for its budget and power, by the Israel Lobby, which hopes to continue using the US against Arabs and to convince Washington to attack Iran, and by the Zionist neoconservative closely allied with Netanyahu who assert US hegemony as defined by the Wolfowitz Doctrine.

I am now going to make a statement that Musk, financial journalists, American conservatives, and Republicans will dismiss as nonsense:

The US deficit is not a problem as long as the US dollar is the world reserve currency.

The national debt of the country that is the world reserve currency comprises the reserves of the central banks of the world.  As long as the US dollar is the means of settling international balances, an increase in the issue of US Treasuries means an increase in the reserves of the central banks in the world.  The foreign central banks and their governments are happy.  With more reserves (US debt held in US Treasuries), central banks can expand their country’s money supply and the country can grow.

The world would be unhappy if the US debt ceased to grow as it would mean the central bank reserves of all other countries would stagnate, thus limiting growth.

Those who worry that the US cannot pay off the bonds representing its national debt do not understand that the US debt is denominated in US dollars and can be easily paid by the Federal Reserve creating dollars to redeem the bonds.

It seems forever that I have been trying to teach economists, the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the financial journalists, the Republicans, and conservatives that as long as the dollar is the reserve currency America’s national debt will be held in the form of US Treasuries as reserves in the world’s central banks. As US debt rises, so does the reserves of the world’s central  banks, and everyone is happy.

The danger to US national debt is not its size. The danger is the weaponization of the dollar which threatens the continued acceptance of the dollar as reserve currency. Sanctions on countries and the seizure of the Russian central bank’s dollar reserves introduce real risk into holding reserves in US dollars.

What is threatening America’s ability to finance its debt are the US sanctions that have caused the rise of BRICS and the search for alternative payment methods to the US dollar.

Why this simple fact is too complicated for economists, financial journalists, politicians, conservatives, and Elon Musk to understand is beyond me. The US dollar has been the reserve currency for about 80 years.  For most of this time conservatives and David Stockman have predicted America’s imminent death by debt.

Losing the role of world currency is deadly.  When Great Britain lost the role to the US after World War II, the British transitioned from riches to rags.

*

Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal.

29 May 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca

Muslim civil rights and advocacy group asks President Trump “how many more children have to die” before he stops Netanyahu

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 5/26/2025) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today condemned the Israeli government’s “barbaric” assassination of two Red Cross workers and a separate bombing of a school shelter that killed at least 36 displaced people, including 18 children.

Washington, D.C., based CAIR’s condemnations come as Israelis marched through Muslim neighborhoods of Jerusalem’s Old City shouting “death to Arabs” and Israel’s former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says he now believes his country’s actions in Gaza are “war crimes.” He admitted, “What we are doing in Gaza is a war of extermination: indiscriminate, unrestrained, brutal, and criminal killing of civilians.” A leaked recording also revealed racist, anti-Arab remarks made by the newly-appointed head of Israel’s internal security agency.

Israel has slaughtered almost 54,000 people in Gaza – mostly women and children – including more than 200 journalists and more than 2,220 families.

In a statement, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said:

“How many more children, women, the elderly, journalists, health care workers, and first responders must Benjamin Netanyahu slaughter with American weapons before President Trump forces him to accept a permanent ceasefire deal that ends the genocide for good and frees all captives? Every hour that Israel’s genocidal crimes continue with impunity – and with our government’s complicity – adds more dishonor to a shameful period in the history of our nation and the world.”

Yesterday, CAIR reiterated its call for U.S. and world media professionals to defend their colleagues in Gaza after Israel murdered another Palestinian journalist.

CAIR also condemned the Israeli government’s bombing of a Gaza doctor’s home, burning nine of her 10 children to death while she worked at a hospital, as “pure evil.”

On Friday, CAIR condemned the Israeli government’s mass slaughter of civilians in the bombing of a residential building in Gaza.

CAIR’s mission is to protect civil rights, enhance understanding of Islam, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.

26 May 2025

Source: cair.com

By Robert Inlakesh

20 May 2025– With over half a million people in Gaza on the brink of starvation and aid groups warning of an “imminent famine,” Israel has agreed to allow a token number of relief trucks into the besieged enclave. But what’s entering Gaza now isn’t humanitarian aid, it’s a Trojan horse.

A new, U.S.-backed private aid scheme staffed by former CIA operatives, ex-Marines, and mercenaries tied to Israeli intelligence and Wall Street elites has been deployed in Gaza under the guise of relief. The project is led by a shady NGO registered in Switzerland just months ago, and human rights groups are calling it what it is: a hostile corporate takeover of the aid sector, designed to militarize relief, displace civilians, and profit from Gaza’s agony.

At the heart of this scheme is the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a nonprofit created in February and backed by Israeli authorities. Despite Gaza requiring a minimum of 500 aid trucks per day to meet basic survival needs, the Israeli military allowed just 1% of that to enter this week.

GHF, which now controls the operation, was launched by individuals with no background in humanitarian work—David Papazian, formerly with the Armenian National Interests Fund; Samuel Marcel Henderson; and David Kohler, CEO of Kohler Co. They are corporate executives, not aid workers.

According to a leaked internal proposal circulated in May, GHF plans to establish four “secure distribution sites” in Gaza capable of feeding just a fraction of the population (300,000 people), while giving the Israeli military and its contractors full operational oversight.

This privatized model was fast-tracked with Israeli cabinet approval and immediately condemned by Amnesty International’s Swiss branch, which called it an attempt to “militarize the distribution of humanitarian aid” and warned that the planned distribution sites resembled Israel’s “safe zone” blueprint for ethnic cleansing.

Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said GHF threatened the UN with expulsion if it refused to cooperate. “They’re coming to take over, weaponizing aid,” Laerke told reporters in Geneva.

A U.S. government source speaking to France 24 called the project “very much an Israeli idea,” adding that it was “less secure” and “deadlier” than the Biden administration’s failed floating aid pier, a costly boondoggle ultimately used to support an Israeli military operation that slaughtered nearly 300 Palestinian civilians.

GHF’s newly appointed executive director is Jake Wood, a former U.S. Marine sniper turned disaster entrepreneur. After tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Wood founded Team Rubicon, an NGO that made its name in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake.

But Team Rubicon is no ordinary aid group. It is closely partnered with Palantir Technologies—a CIA-backed data surveillance firm that equips the Israeli military with advanced targeting capabilities. Its board includes former CIA Director David Petraeus and financial backers from Goldman Sachs. Former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton have publicly endorsed its work.

The GHF proposal reveals plans to work with both Truist Bank and JPMorgan Chase, and suggests Goldman Sachs is facilitating the organization’s financial infrastructure.

As for security, GHF is outsourcing protection of its aid zones to U.S.-based private military firms, some of which have direct ties to Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer. Two firms are already confirmed.

One, Safe Reach Solutions, is run by Philip F. Reilly, a former CIA paramilitary chief who also worked for Constellis, the rebranded face of Blackwater. While Erik Prince, Blackwater’s notorious founder, has not been directly linked to GHF, his newer mercenary firm, Reflex Responses, was previously proposed to secure Gaza’s Rafah crossing.

The second firm, UG Solutions, hired approximately 100 former special forces soldiers earlier this year to perform vehicle inspections in Gaza. They were reportedly paid $1,000 per day with a $10,000 upfront bonus. UG Solutions is headed by Jameson Govoni, a former special ops operative and co-founder of the Sentinel Foundation.

These contractors were also reportedly involved in staffing the Netzarim corridor, a road that bisects Gaza, during a recent ceasefire. Their presence on the ground—and the opacity around their funding—marks a new phase in the U.S. and Israeli campaign to dominate Gaza not just by bombs, but through control of the most basic elements of life: food, water, and movement.

Even Israel’s closest regional ally, the United Arab Emirates, has refused to participate in the project, likely due to the plan’s political toxicity.

This scheme doesn’t exist in a vacuum. For years, the U.S. and Israel have worked to undermine UNRWA, the UN’s primary aid agency in Palestine. The Biden administration froze its funding, while Israel moved to outlaw the agency entirely. In the vacuum, GHF and its army of private contractors have emerged—not to serve Palestinians, but to manage their displacement more efficiently.

With American taxpayer dollars flowing into the hands of former intelligence agents, globalist financiers, and mercenaries, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation represents the convergence of Silicon Valley surveillance, Wall Street speculation, and Zionist military objectives.

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker based in London.

26 May 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Richard Falk

25 May 2025 –  The Gaza Tribunal will hold its first public session, starting today, 26 May, 10:00 AM GMT; it presents extensive reports on various dimensions of the Gaza Ordeal endured for more than 19 months by the population of the Gaza Strip, killing more than 50,000, wounding more than 100,000, and traumatizing the entire population estimated at 2.3 million on October 7, 2023. As this meeting gets underway the surviving Palestinian population is being subjected to tactics of deliberate denial of food and medical supplies, and Israel leaders and public opinion are calling for extermination tactics as supplemented by forced exclusion–ethnic cleansing–not only in Gaza, but also in the West Bank. The Gaza Tribunal was formed as a civil society initiative after it became clear that neither the UN nor its member states possessed the political will or operational capabilities to stop the killing and devastation. Its intention is lend legitimacy to nonviolent civil society solidarity initiatives in support of the Palestinian struggle for basic rights. Links are available to access the streaming of the Sarajevo proceedings. <youtube.com/@gazatribunal>]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbMNpSECxQ0]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbMNpSECxQ0]

GAZA TRIBUNAL

Sarajevo Meetings – May 26-29, 2025

International University of Sarajevo

_______________________________________________________

09:00 – 09:30
Welcome Speeches

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CHAMBER 1: INTERNATIONAL LAW

MONDAY, MAY 26

09:30 – 10:00
Chamber 1 Co-Chairs Introduce Proceedings
Michael Lynk, Susan Akram

10:00 – 12:00
Panel 1: Nakba and Colonial Genocide

• Genocide – Nimer Sultany
• Apartheid and Self-Determination – Victor Kattan
• Pre-recorded witness testimony – Al Haq field researcher
• Pre-recorded witness testimony – Ahmed Abu Artema
• Written witness testimony – Badil / read (3 testimonies)
• Q&A and Discussion

12:00 – 13:00
Lunch

13:00 – 14:45
Panel 2: Patterns of Genocide

• Political Prisoners – Lisa Hajjar
• Right to Food – Farah Imad
• Reproductive Systems – Heidi Matthews
• Pre-recorded prisoner witness testimonies – Addameer
• Pre-recorded testimony – Focal point engineer from Gaza (Arab Group for the Protection of Nature)

14:45 – 15:00
Coffee Break

15:00 – 16:30
Panel 3: Specific Acts

• Protection of Civilians – Maryam Jamshidi
• Attacks on Healthcare Infrastructure – Wesam Ahmad on behalf of Al Haq
• Witness testimony: Volunteer Physician in Gaza – Dr. Thaer Ahmad
• Witness testimony: Volunteer Physician in Gaza – Dr. Mimi Syed
• Q&A and Discussion

16:45 – 17:30
Expert Talk
Raji Sourani

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CHAMBER 2: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS & WORLD ORDER

TUESDAY, MAY 27

09:00 – 09:30
Chamber 2 Co-Chairs Introduce Proceedings
Richard Falk, Craig Mokhiber

09:30 – 10:00
Panel 1: Political Realism and Contemporary Geopolitics

• Political Realism Revisited and the Law of Peoples
• Past Global Response to Genocide: A Record of Failure – Richard Falk, Paulina Chan

10:00 – 11:15
Panel 2: Political Economy of Genocide and Obliteration of Gaza
Moderator: Wesam Ahmad

• Nakba, Liberation, and Decolonization Through a Political Economic Lens: from 1948 to the Gaza Genocide – Lara Eborno
• Enforcement and the Accountability Gap: The Crime of Starvation – Hilal Elver
• Ecocidal Violence in Gaza: Is it Part of Genocide or a Separate International Crime? – David Whyte
• Pursuing Physically Disabling Combat Tactics – Penny Green

11:15 – 11:30
Coffee Break

11:30 – 12:30
Expert Testimonies
Mazin Qumsiyeh, Sami Al Arian, Azzam Tamimi, Noura Erakat

12:30 – 14:00
Lunch

14:00 – 15:00
Panel 3: Deficiencies of the Formal International Normative Order
Moderator: Lisa Hajjar

• The International System in the Age of Genocide – Craig Mokhiber
• Looking Ahead to Enforcement – Phyllis Bennis
• Working with and Beyond International Courts – Michelle Burgis-Kasthala

15:00 – 15:45
Panel 4: GTP Conception of an Alternative Jurisprudential Legal Paradigm
Moderator: Penny Green

• Peoples’ Tribunals as Alternative Justice Sites: Assessing the Role of Civil Society – Michelle Burgis-Kasthala
• Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal – Gianni Tognoni

15:45 – 16:00
Coffee Break

16:00 – 17:15
Panel 5: Activism of Civil Society and Social Movements
Moderator: Wesam Ahmad

• Sumud and Self-Determination: The Enduring Legacy Against Erasure – Ramzy Baroud
• Jewish Voices for Peace and the Ceasefire Campaign – Phyllis Bennis
• Learning from South Africa’s Anti-Apartheid Struggle – Haidar Eid
• Criminalization of Student Protests – Asmer Safi

17:15 – 18:00
Discussion

_____________________________________________________

CHAMBER 3: HISTORY, SOCIOLOGY, ETHICS & PHILOSOPHY

WEDNESDAY, MAY 28

09:00 – 09:30
Chamber 3 Co-Chairs introduce proceedings
Penny Green, Cemil Aydin

09:30 – 10:30
Panel 1: Understanding Genocide
Moderator: Lara Elborno

• Genocide as State Crime: Understanding It as a Process – Penny Green
• Ethical Implications of the Genocide in Gaza – Ayhan Citil
• History of Ethnic Cleansing/Genocide – Illan Pappe

10:30 – 11:30
Panel 2: Exposing Dehumanization
Moderator: Cemil Aydin

• Challenging the Matrix of Control/House Demolitions – Jeff Halper
• An Ontological Abortion of the Enfleshed Genocidal State: The Ongoing Genocidal Nakba in Gaza – Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian
• The Unmaking of the Palestinian Home – Henrietta Zeffert

11:30 – 11:45
Coffee Break

11:45 – 13:00
Panel 3: Resisting Genocide
Moderator: Thomas MacManus

• The GT Archive – Andy Simmons, Michelle Burgis-Kasthala
• Palestinian Resistance – Abed Takriti
• Archaeology and the Erasure of Palestine – Akram Lilja
• Expert testimony: The BDS Campaign – Omar Bargouti

13:00 – 14:00
Lunch

14:00 – 15:00
Panel 4: Civilization and Weaponizing the Holocaust and Anti-Semitism
Moderator: Sami Al Arian

• Holocaust Exceptionalism and Israel’s Genocide – Raz Segal
• Ethnic Cleansing Through Civilisational Narratives – Cemil Aydin
• The Role of the Israeli Academy in Genocide Production – Maya Wind

15:00 – 16:15
Media Roundtable
Moderator: Mehmet Karlı
Ezgi Basaran, Victoria Brittain, Lauren Booth, Lubna Masarwa, Kenize Mourad, Peter Oborne, Assal Rad

16:15 – 16:30
Coffee Break

16:30 – 17:15
Panel 5: Cultures of Erasure
Moderator: Wesam Ahmad

• Politics of Palestine Exception – Ussama Makdisi
• Zionist Culture and Genocide Denial – Saree Makdisi

17:15 – 17:30
Summary of Chamber 3 Report
Penny Green, Cemil Aydın

17:30 – 18:00
Final Discussion of the Sarajevo Declaration

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DAY 4

THURSDAY, MAY 29

09:00 – 10:00
Srebrenica/Gaza Special Panel
Moderator: Ahmet Köroğlu
Panelists: Arnesa Buljušmić-Kustura, Harun Halilović, Mustafa Cerić

10:00 – 10:45
Expert Talk
Taha Abdurrahman

10:45 – 11:00
Break

11:00 – 12:00
Presentation of the Sarajevo Declaration of the Gaza Tribunal + Press Conference

______________________________________________________

PUBLIC ASSEMBLY

May 26-29, 2025

JOIN US LIVE ON YOUTUBE

youtube.com/@gazatribunal

______________________________________________________

Prof. Richard Falk is a member of the TRANSCEND Network, Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University, Chair of Global Law, Faculty of Law, at Queen Mary University London, Research Associate the Orfalea Center of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Fellow of the Tellus Institute.

26 May 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Caitlin Johnstone

They have opted for their slow-motion strangulation approach because that’s what’s necessary to maintain essential western support and avoid war crimes tribunals.

20 May 2025 – One of the talking points Israel apologists like to regurgitate is that Israel can’t possibly be acting with genocidal intent in Gaza, because if they had wanted to exterminate the Palestinians they could have easily done so in a matter of days.

As luck would have it, leaders from the Israeli government have just helpfully come out and debunked that talking point with a few shockingly frank public admissions.

Explaining the decision to allow a minuscule amount of aid into Gaza after months of deliberate starvation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel is now allowing “minimal humanitarian aid” on the insistence of western officials so that they will support Israel’s murderous operation to conquer the enclave.

Jeremy Scahill reports the following for Drop Site News:

“We’re going to take control of all the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu vowed Monday in a video released by his office announcing that Israel would begin delivering “minimal humanitarian aid: food and medicine only.” Netanyahu claimed that international pressure, including from pro-Israel Republican senators and the White House, required the appearance of humanitarian intervention. “Our best friends in the world — senators I know as strong supporters of Israel — have warned that they cannot support us if images of mass starvation emerge,” he said. “They come to me and say, ‘We’ll give you all the help you need to win the war… but we can’t be receiving pictures of famine,’” Netanyahu added. To continue the war of annihilation, he asserted, “We need to do it in a way that they won’t stop us.”

[https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/1924585645940379823]

26 May 2025

Source: transcend.org