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By Dr. Ramzy Baroud

On June 24, US President Donald Trump announced a truce between Israel and Iran following nearly two weeks of open warfare.

Israel began the war, launching a surprise offensive on June 13, with airstrikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, missile installations, and senior military and scientific personnel, in addition to numerous civilian targets. 

In response, Iran launched a wave of ballistic missiles and drones deep into Israeli territory, triggering air raid sirens across Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Beersheba and numerous other locations, causing unprecedented destruction in the country. 

What began as a bilateral escalation quickly spiraled into something far more consequential: a direct confrontation between the United States and Iran.

On June 22, the United States Air Force and Navy carried out a full-scale assault on three Iranian nuclear sites—Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan—in a coordinated strike dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer. Seven B-2 bombers of the 509th Bomb Wing allegedly flew nonstop from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri to deliver the strikes. 

The following day, Iran retaliated by bombing the Al-Udeid US military base in Qatar and firing a new wave of missiles at Israeli targets.

This marked a turning point. For the first time, Iran and the United States faced each other on the battlefield without intermediaries. And for the first time in recent history, Israel’s long-standing campaign to provoke a US-led war against Iran had succeeded.

Strategic Fallout

Following 12 days of war, Israel achieved two of its goals. First, it pulled Washington directly into its conflict with Tehran, setting a dangerous precedent for future US involvement in Israel’s regional wars. Second, it generated immediate political capital at home and abroad, portraying US military backing as a ‘victory’ for Israel.

However, beyond these short-term gains, the cracks in Israel’s strategy are already showing.

Netanyahu did not achieve regime change in Tehran—the real objective of his years-long campaign. Instead, he faced a resilient and unified Iran that struck back with precision and discipline. Worse still, he may have awakened something even more threatening to Israeli ambitions: a new regional consciousness.

Iran, for its part, emerges from this confrontation significantly stronger. Despite US and Israeli efforts to cripple its nuclear program, Iran has demonstrated that its strategic capabilities remain intact and highly functional. 

Tehran established a powerful new deterrence equation—proving that it can strike not only Israeli cities but US bases across the region.

Even more consequentially, Iran waged this fight independently, without leaning on Hezbollah or Ansarallah, or even deploying Iraqi militias. This independence surprised many observers and forced a recalibration of Iran’s regional weight.

Iranian Unity

Perhaps the most significant development of all is one that cannot be measured in missiles or casualties: the surge in national unity within Iran and the widespread support it received across the Arab and Muslim world.

For years, Israel and its allies have sought to isolate Iran, to present it as a pariah even among Muslims. Yet in these past days, we have witnessed the opposite. 

From Baghdad to Beirut, and even in politically cautious capitals like Amman and Cairo, support for Iran surged. This unity alone may prove to be Israel’s most formidable challenge yet.

Inside Iran, the war erased, at least for now, the deep divides between reformists and conservatives. Faced with an existential threat, the Iranian people coalesced, not around any one leader or party, but around the defense of their homeland. 

The descendants of one of the world’s oldest civilizations reacted with a dignity and pride that no amount of foreign aggression could extinguish.

The Nuclear Question

Despite the battlefield developments, the real outcome of this war may depend on what Iran does next with its nuclear program. 

If Tehran decides to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)—even temporarily—and signals that its program remains functional, Israel’s so-called “achievements” will be rendered meaningless.

However, if Iran fails to follow this military confrontation with a bold political repositioning, Netanyahu will be free to claim—falsely or not—that he has succeeded in halting Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The stakes are as high as they’ve ever been.

A Manufactured Farce

Some media outlets are now praising Trump for supposedly “ordering” Netanyahu to halt further strikes on Iran. 

This narrative is as insulting as it is false. What we are witnessing is a staged political performance—a carefully orchestrated spat between two partners playing both sides of a dangerous game.

Trump’s Truth post, “Bring your pilots home,” was not a call for peace. It was a calculated move to reclaim credibility after fully surrendering to Netanyahu’s war. It allows Trump to pose as a moderate, distract from Israel’s battlefield losses, and create the illusion of a US administration reining in Israeli aggression.

In truth, this was always a joint US-Israeli war—one planned, executed, and justified under the pretext of defending Western interests while laying the groundwork for deeper intervention and potential invasion.

Return of the People

Amid all the military calculations and geopolitical theater, one truth stands out: the real winners are the Iranian people.

When it mattered most, they stood united. They understood that resisting foreign aggression was more important than internal disputes. They reminded the world—and themselves—that in moments of crisis, people are not peripheral actors in history; they are its authors.

The message from Tehran is unmistakable: We are here. We are proud. And we will not be broken.

That is the message Israel, and perhaps even Washington, did not anticipate. And it is the one that could reshape the region for years to come.

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

25 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Gaza (Quds News Network)- At least 10 starving civilians were killed by Israeli forces on Wednesday morning while seeking aid near a distribution site run by the controversial US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in central Gaza.

Local sources confirmed that ten Palestinians were killed and several injured while waiting for aid near the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza.

Since the GHF started its operations on May 27 in Gaza, over 520 aid seekers have been killed and over 3,799 others injured, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

Additionally, 39 others have been reported missing after heading to the GHF sites to obtain food.

Israeli mass killings of aid seekers near GHF aid sites have become a grim daily reality amid chaotic scenes, as desperate Palestinians are given only a narrow window to rush for food and are later targeted by Israeli forces.

The most recent massacres took place on Tuesday near two GHF aid distribution sites, one in Rafah, southern Gaza, and the other near the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza, where Israeli forces killed more than 25 people in each attack.

Gaza’s Government Media Office described these sites as “mass mass traps” and “slaughterhouses”

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

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

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

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

The UN confirmed that Israel is still blocking food from reaching starving Palestinians with only a few trucks of aid having reached Gaza.

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

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

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

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

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

25 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Gaza (Quds News Network)- A new report from the Harvard Dataverse reveals that about 377,000 people from Gaza’s pre-genocide population of 2.227 million have gone missing since October 2023, with an estimated half of them believed to be children.

The report, authored by Israeli professor Yaakov Garb, uses data-driven analysis and spatial mapping to examine how Israeli attacks on civilians and Israel’s aid blockade have led to a dramatic drop in the enclave’s population.

According to Garb’s findings, the actual number of people killed may be far higher than the official death toll, which currently stands at over 56,000.

Maps in the report, based on Israeli military estimates, indicate that the remaining population in Gaza City is around one million, with 500,000 in al-Mawasi “safe zone” and 350,000 in central Gaza, totalling approximately 1.85 million.

Before the ongoing assault, Gaza’s population was estimated at 2.227 million. The discrepancy points to at least 377,000 people now unaccounted for.

While some may be displaced or missing, the scale of the gap has led analysts to conclude that a significant number are likely dead, suggesting the real death toll could be many times higher.

The report also critically assesses the role of the controversial US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), saying its structure appears to have been shaped more by Israeli military strategy than by humanitarian needs.

Using location data and spatial analysis, Garb finds that most of Gaza’s population was unable to reach GHF aid compounds.

According to the report, poor infrastructure, lack of motorised transport, and a near-total absence of safe passage routes made access even more difficult.

Garb writes that the design and operation of the aid compounds “seems likely to be an engine for continuous friction and mishap”, noting that the allocation model, providing rations for exactly 5.5 people for 3.5 days, effectively forced civilians to make repeated, dangerous crossings into militarised zones.

“The fact that four of the five compounds lie south of the Morag corridor – repeatedly indicated by Israeli officials as the intended destination for concentration of Palestinians to be displaced from the remainder of Gaza in an impending intensification of the military attacks – is not reassuring,” the report warns.

The report highlights that little to no measures were taken to protect the dignity or safety of civilians seeking aid. The sites lacked basic facilities such as shade, water, toilets, first aid stations, or dedicated access for vulnerable groups. There was typically only one entry and exit point, no crowd management, and scenes of chaos were common.

The report argues that the very architecture of these aid compounds was designed in a way that risked repeated outbreaks of disorder, conditions then used to justify violence against civilians.

“Overall, these aid compounds seem to reflect a logic of control, not assistance, and it would be a misnomer to call them ‘humanitarian aid distribution hubs’. They do not adhere to humanitarian principles, and much of their design and operation is guided by other objectives, which undermine their declared purpose,” the report concludes.

The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed on Tuesday that at least 450 people have been killed and around 3,500 wounded near or on the way to GHF aid sites since the foundation started its operations in Gaza on May 17 while trying to access humanitarian aid.

25 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark

De-escalation has become one of those coarse words in severe need of banishment, best kept in an index used by unredeemable hypocrites.  It is used by the living dead in human resources, management worthies and war criminals.  It’s almost always used to target the person or entity that exerts retribution or seeks to avenge (dramatic) or merely overcome (mildly) a state of affairs imposed upon them. 

You might be bullied in the workplace for being fastidious and conscientious, showing up your daft colleagues, or reputationally attacked by a member of the establishment keen to conceal his corrupt practices.  When contemplating retaliation, the self-appointed middle ground types will call upon you to “de-escalate” the situation, insisting that you appeal to the better side of your bruised nature.  After all, you know it was your fault.

The joining of the United States in the war against Iran made Washington a co-conspirator to soiling international law and profaning its salient provisions.  The US was in no immediate danger, nor was there any imminent threat, existential or otherwise, to its interests vis-à-vis Tehran.  Yet President Donald Trump, having had the poison of persuasion poured into his ear by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had succumbed.  His will annexed to that of the Israeli premier, Trump ordered the US Air Force on June 22 to conduct bombing raids on three Iranian nuclear facilities: Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow.  They were recipients of that hefty example of phallocratic lethality known as the bunker buster, the GBU-57A Massive Ordnance Penetrator.  With his usual unwavering confidence, Trump declared in an address to the nation that all the country’s “nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.”

In violating international law and desecrating that important canon injuncting states from committing crimes against peace, Israel and the United States are not the ones being told to restrain their violence and acknowledge breaching the United Nations Charter, risking yet another conflagration in the Middle East.  It is their targeted state, the Republic of Iran, whose officials must “de-escalate” and play nice before the diplomatic table, abandoning a nuclear program, civil or military.  “Iran, the bully of the Middle East,” Trump directs, “must now make peace.”

With suddenness, the advocates and publicists for international law vanished across the broadly described West.  In Europe, Canada, the US and Australia, the mores and customs observed by states could be conveniently forgotten and retired.  In its place reigned the logic of brute force and unquestioned violence.  Provided such violence is exercised by that rogue combine of Amerisrael, deference and dispensation will be afforded.  The same could never be said for such countries as China and Russia, abominated for not accepting the “rules-based order” imposed by Western weaponry and force.   

The lamentable, plaintiff responses from Brussels to Canberra tell a sorry tale: pre-emptive war waged against a country’s nuclear and oil facilities is just the sort of thing that one is allowed to do, since the rotter in question is a theocratic state of haughty disposition and regional ambition.  You can get away with murdering scientists in their sleep, along with their families, liquidating the upper echelons of their military leadership and killing journalists along the way.

The approved formula behind these responses is as follows.  From the outset, mention that Iran must never acquire a nuclear weapon.  If possible, underline any relevant qualities that render it ineligible to any other state that has nuclear weapons.  Instruct Tehran that diplomacy is imperative, and retaliation terrible.  Behave and exercise restraint. 

Here is Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of the UK, speaking from his Chequers country retreat: it was “clear Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon”, which was “why our focus has been on de-escalating, getting people back around to negotiate what is a very real threat in relation to the nuclear program.”  If one was left in any doubt who the guilty party was, UK Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds helped dispel it, calling Iran “a threat to this country, not in an abstract way, not in a speculative way”.

The German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, after convening his security cabinet on the morning of June 22, conveyed his views through German government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius: “Friedrich Merz reiterated his call for Iran to immediately begin negotiations with the US and Israel and to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict.”

French President Emmanuel Macron similarly got on the de-escalation bandwagon with gusto, giving a teacherly warning to Iran to “exercise the greatest restraint” and dedicate itself to renouncing nuclear weapons.  It was the only credible path to peace and security for all.  The president conveniently skipped past the huge elephant in the room: Israel’s illicit possession of nuclear weapons, undeclared, unmonitored and extra-legal, as a factor that severely compromises the issue of stability in the Middle East.

From the European Union, the attackers and the attacked were given equal billing.  “I urge all sides to step back, return to the negotiating table and prevent further escalation,” urged Kaja Kallas, Vice-President of the European Commission.  The obligatory “Iran must never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, as it would be a threat to international security” followed.  European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also thought it perfectly sensible to matronly instruct the Iranians on the next step: “Now is the moment for Iran to engage in a credible diplomatic solution.  The negotiating table is the only way to end this crisis.” 

All these comments are deliciously rich given that Israel has never entertained negotiations on any level with Iran, dismissive of its nuclear energy needs, while the first Trump administration sabotaged the diplomatically brokered Joint Plan of Comprehensive Action that successfully diverted Tehran away from a military nuclear program in favour of a lifting of sanctions.  Talk from Amerisrael and their allies would seem to be heavily discounted, if not counterfeit.  The glaring, coruscating message to Iran: retaliation bad; de-escalation good.

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

23 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Tom Engelhardt

How strange. I’ve been going to demonstrations for a long, long while now. I began once upon a distant time in opposition to the nightmarish all-American war in Vietnam. And almost 60 years later, that war, in some sense, has come home. Hence, the other day, I found myself at the “No Kings” demonstration in New York City, one of more than 2,000 (yes, 2,000!) across this country of ours at which millions — yes, again, literally millions! — of Americans reportedly turned out. These days, in New York where I live, such demonstrations are often launched from Bryant Park, right behind the classic 42nd Street library on Fifth Avenue, and the marchers normally walk down Fifth for perhaps 20 blocks. The last time I went to a demonstration there, I didn’t walk myself but stood and watched all the marchers with their signs go past me, and it took perhaps 35 minutes or so for them to slowly, slowly do so. That time, which was then typical of such demonstrations, most of the protesters were, like me, also old and White.

No more. The other day at that No Kings march in New York, I wove my way ever so slowly through the crowd to Fifth Avenue and 40th Street just after the march had begun and started watching the demonstrators, packed into literally every square inch of that wide avenue, ever so slowly crawl by me. That crowd ranged from babies in strollers to old people like me, and looked like it represented a distinct cross-section of everybody in America, whether by race or age. How many of us were there? Who knows? CBS News simply and vaguely said “tens of thousands,” while the local Fox News station, which obviously had no interest in playing up such demonstrations, still claimed that “tens of thousands of people marched in New York City and the Tri-State area.” If I had to guess, I would say that at least a couple of hundred thousand people crept down Fifth Avenue that day (and on that figure the British Guardian agrees, suggesting “over 200,000” in New York and “millions” nationally).

After all, when I finally left, almost two hours later, exhausted from just standing there taking notes in an ongoing drizzle, the last of the crowd hadn’t even made it from 40th Street onto a still utterly packed Fifth Avenue (as it had been from the moment I arrived), with that parade of anti-Trump protestors still just creeping along. To depart, in fact, I had to literally weave my way through a still-impressive crowd of No Kings demonstrators with a typical array of signs still waiting to join the march. In short, that demonstration, just one of thousands across the country, was beyond huge! And signs? I watched what must all too literally have been thousands of homemade signs go by me, while listening to endless periodic chants from the crowd.

It was, I have to say, quite something, even for someone like me who has seen so many protests in my lifetime and, in its size, it seemed to offer a genuine sense of how deeply disturbed so many Americans are by a president, or do I indeed mean a “king,” who wants to be able to do anything he madly desires without opposition from anyone. And that included having his own military parade in Washington on that very day, his birthday (though it evidently turned out to be a distinctly underwhelming affair that many spectators evidently left early).

“No Kings, No Tyrants, No Fascists, No Dictators, Dump Trump”

Let me just start — even days after the event occurred — by saying how striking I think it is that increasingly significant numbers of Americans are visibly ever more deeply disturbed by the man who did indeed get only 49.7% of the popular vote in 2024 and, according to CBS News, won the presidency thanks to a “mere 0.15% of voters nationwide” who proved the difference between victory and defeat. Not that you would know it from his ever more disturbing excesses, including that mega-military birthday parade (for both the 250-year-old U.S. Army and the now-79-year-old Donald Trump) with tanks, artillery vehicles, and paratroopers at the cost of at least $25-$45 million taxpayer dollars (at a time when he’s slashing benefits for military veterans) slated to begin in Washington not long after the “No Kings” demonstration I attended ended.

I must admit I found it moving that so many of us wanted to express ourselves in person and through signs and chants. And New York wasn’t faintly alone in responding, among other things, to the criminal way Donald Trump dealt with the first of the recent demonstrations against his rule in Los Angeles. There were, after all, an estimated 2,100 or more No Kings protests across this country that day, in red states and blue ones, red cities and blue ones.

Let me, in that context, give you a little sense of what I saw in an up-close-and-personal fashion. And remember this took place on the street in my hometown, about which, in 2016, Donald Trump, while campaigning for president in Sioux Center, Iowa, had indeed said: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK? It’s, like, incredible.” Well, fortunately, no shots were fired that afternoon in New York, though, of course, they were indeed fired that very day in truly shocking targeted political assassinations in Minnesota, killing Melissa Hortman, a state legislator, and her husband, and wounding state Senator John A. Hoffman and his wife.

Oh, and as is a typical New York thing to do, I took the subway from my neighborhood to the stop nearest the protest site. And the subway car I entered turned out to be full of other protestors heading for 42nd street as well, including a woman giving out little American flags, and a couple of people with homemade signs, one of which said: “Stop bullying and lying to & stealing from the American people”; a second said, “impeach Humpty Trumpty”; and a third, “No kings, no tyrants, no fascists, no dictators, dump Trump.” And mind you, that was just a single subway car.

And simply walking the few blocks from the subway stop to the area where the demonstration was to take place, I found myself almost instantly on ever more crowded streets surrounded by people carrying homemade signs and already starting to scribble them down in the little notebook I was carrying with me (along with an umbrella on that distinctly drizzly day). As I was heading there, I even passed a woman who had decorated her umbrella with the words “No Dick… Tator, No Fascists,” and a man with a sign that had an image of George Washington and the words “Democracy, yes, Kleptocracy, no.”

“Elect a Clown, Expect a Circus”

Now, consider what follows my portrait of the mood of that moment. There were literally thousands of signs I watched go past me that day — and mind you, we’re talking about an afternoon when it was lightly raining and not a faintly comfortable moment to demonstrate. So, here’s just a little potpourri of some of the ones I scribbled down. Probably the single most prominent word on so many of them on that No Kings day was indeed “king” and it gave you a sense of the greatest fear of all too many Americans that Donald Trump is turning what was once our democracy into his — yes! — perverse kingdom.

Most of the signs I saw had clearly been written or drawn by hand, sometimes with images added. Here are just a few of the ones that caught my eye (or were short enough that I could scribble them down before they passed me by): “King Trump, you’re fired!”; “Immigrants belong, Kings be gone!”; “ICE is the new SS” (a reference, of course, to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi paramilitary outfit); “Deportation without due process is tyranny”; “King Tut, King Coal, Carole King, Not a king” (with an image of Trump, of course); “No kings since 1776”; “Yes, masks, no kings” (a sign held by a man wearing an N-95 Covid-era mask of the sort that I still often wear myself); “When cruelty becomes normal, compassion looks radical”; “The real criminal is in the White House”; “Elect a clown, expect a circus”; “Not my dictator”; “This American girl says no to kings”; “No kings for these old queens” (signs held by two men); “ICE burn in hell”; “Where is Melania from?”; one with no words, just Trump holding a bloody knife in one hand and the cut off, bleeding head of the Statue of Liberty in the other; “Your only throne is a golden toilet”; “Don’t be a chicken in a coup!” (with a yellow chicken doll hanging on the sign); “If she was president, we’d all be at brunch right now” (with a photo of Kamala Harris); “Trump lies while America dies”; “It’s really bad, even I’m out here”; “Two paths and America chooses the psychopath”; “Rebelling against tyrants since 1776”; “Without immigrants, Trump would have no wives”; “The cruelty is the point”; “Elect an ass, expect shit”; “Deport Trump!”; “ICE belongs in Margueritas, not schools”; “Preserve PBS”; “Impeach diaper Don”; “Not a king, just a taco” (a reference to the phrase “Trump Always Chickens Out”); “America wasn’t great in 1768” (with an image of British King George III); “The Mayflower was full of immigrants”; “Trump cut my social security and went golfing”; “Heil, no!”; “Immigrants make America great!”; “Faux-King joke” (with a ludicrous crowned Trump image); “The greatest threat we face is not simply their actions. But our silence — Cory Booker”; “Trump lies while America dies”; and, of course, tons of “No Kings!”

And here were some of the things that parts of the crowd began chanting in unison as they walked by me: “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Donald Trump has got to go!”; “Money for education, not deportation!”; “No KKK, No fascist USA, No ICE!”; “Say it loud, say it clear, ICE is not welcome here!”; “Our streets! Our streets!”; “No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here!”; “This is not what democracy looks like!”; “No ICE, no ICE, no KKK, no Fascist USA!”; “Tell me what democracy looks like! This is what democracy looks like!”; “Whose street? Our street!”

Yes, in the city that Donald Trump once considered his own, it couldn’t have been clearer that it truly wasn’t faintly his anymore.

And despite what had happened in Los Angeles, though the police were there in significant numbers (as they always are at such demonstrations), they in no way took center stage. Yes, Mayor Eric Adams claimed that more than 34,000 police had been mobilized for the demonstrations in New York. Still, I saw just a couple of police cars with their red lights flashing as I first approached Fifth Avenue and 40th Street and then a group of perhaps 20 policemen (and at least one policewoman) as I was heading back down that street on my way home. Otherwise, at least as far as I could see, they weren’t overly evident. And, again, it was New York City, so no local official had just been assassinated (as in Minnesota that day) and, unlike in San Francisco or Culpeper, Virginia, no car tried to hit any protestors in that march; nor, as in Austin, Texas, had the police told local officials not to attend such a protest because of a threat to them related to the Minnesota assassinations.

So, at least for me, and possibly millions of other Americans, No Kings Day proved an event to remember. Yes, in truth, I still find it hard to believe that we have three and a half more years of King Donald to go (and when, like me, you’re 80 years old, it becomes ever harder to imagine living through those years to another, possibly better future). Still, being at that demonstration was a good reminder that those of us who see in Donald Trump’s version of America an increasingly menacing threat to freedom are anything but alone.

Tom Engelhardt created and runs the website TomDispatch.com.

23 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network)

Gaza (Quds News Network)- At least 13 Palestinians were killed earlier on Monday by Israeli forces while waiting for food near aid distribution sites operated by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in central and southern Gaza. Israeli attacks on starving aid seekers have become a grim daily reality.

In central Gaza, local sources confirmed that at least three aid seekers were killed by an Israeli tank shell near the GHF aid distribution site close to the Netzarim Corridor.

In southern Gaza, reports say that 10 people were killed by Israeli gunfire northwest of Rafah city, near the GHF aid site while waiting for food.

Israel has regularly attacked starving aid seekers, particularly those waiting for food near aid distribution sites operated by the GHF, killing over 450 and injuring more than 3,466 since GHF launched its operations on May 27, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported.

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

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

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

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

The UN confirmed that Israel is still blocking food from reaching starving Palestinians with only a few trucks of aid having reached Gaza.

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

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

“I saw people torn to pieces; it’s a disaster. Seeking food should not be a death sentence.” Dr. Wafaa Abu Nemer, MSF paediatrician.

Israeli mass killings of aid seekers have become a grim daily reality amid chaotic scenes, as desperate Palestinians are given only a narrow window to rush for food and are later targeted by Israeli forces.

On Tuesday, Israeli forces killed at least 70 Palestinians and wounded hundreds as they sought aid on Gaza’s deadliest day at aid sites so far.

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

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

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

23 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Ashish Singh

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, filmmakers around the world turned their gaze not only toward New York, but also inward — toward their own histories of fear, violence, and grief. Among the most poignant responses came from two acclaimed directors: Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai and Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman. While Gitai contributed a segment to the 2002 international anthology 11’09″01 September 11, Suleiman created a separate, meditative response to the global moment of reckoning. These two films, emerging from different political realities and cinematic vocabularies, feel like echoes across a wall — distinct yet uncannily aligned.

Gitai’s short begins amid the chaos of a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. Sirens wail, smoke rises, and a news team rushes to the scene, eager to broadcast the horror live. As reports begin to emerge about the attacks in New York, the Israeli anchor shrugs them off: “Why should we talk about that? We have our own terror here.” This blunt dismissal is not callousness, but a critique. Gitai holds up a mirror to national media narratives, asking whose suffering gets attention — and whose is always local, always somehow less urgent in the global conversation. His film is fast, chaotic, and relentless — a storm of sound and movement that forces us to confront how we weigh tragedy.

In contrast, Elia Suleiman’s response to 9/11 is wordless and slow, unfolding like a poem written in silences. Though not part of the 11’09″01 project, his 2002 film Divine Intervention was shaped in the shadows of the Twin Towers. Set in Ramallah and Jerusalem, it captures the surreal normalcy of occupation. Israeli tanks roll past houses. Soldiers stop cars and search passengers. A man peels an apple slowly. On a TV in the background, the world watches 9/11. But Suleiman — who appears in his own films as a silent observer — offers no commentary, only stillness. The violence is ever-present but quiet, embedded in the landscape. His cinema doesn’t shout; it watches.

These films never try to compete with the tragedy of 9/11. Neither Gitai nor Suleiman claims that their people’s suffering is greater, or more deserving of global grief. Instead, they offer something harder to process: the simultaneity of pain. They ask us to hold two truths in our minds — that while the world mourned New York, others lived in cities where explosions were routine, where the air always tasted faintly of smoke, and where grief did not begin on September 11.

Gitai’s urgency collides with Suleiman’s restraint. One film is built on speed, the other on stillness. But both arrive at the same insight — that violence is never localized. Its impact echoes across borders, across screens, across lives. When one city falls, others remember how often they have already been on fire.

Even decades later, these films remain painfully relevant. They ask what it means to be seen, and what it means to be forgotten. They challenge us not just to remember the towers that fell in New York, but to ask ourselves whose stories we never noticed collapsing in silence.

This is not just about history — it’s about empathy. Gitai and Suleiman, in radically different ways, show that true understanding begins when we stop ranking sorrow. When we look at each other’s tragedies not as interruptions to our own, but as part of a shared human condition. In a world where walls still rise and smoke still blurs our vision, these films offer one clear truth: every grief deserves to be seen.   

Ashish Singh has finished his Ph.D. coursework in political science from the NRU-HSE, Moscow, Russia.

23 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Ramzy Baroud

The profound and unrelenting struggles endured by Palestinians should, by any rational expectation, have irrevocably concluded the Palestinian cause. Yet, the struggle for freedom in Palestine is at its zenith. How is one to explain this? 

Attempts aimed at the erasure of Palestine, the Palestinian people, and their cause go back well over a century.  This encompasses the historical and ongoing impacts of the Balfour Declaration and the subsequent Mandate period, which ushered in an era of extreme violence, systemic suppression, and the imposition of harsh emergency regulations. 

The devastating  Nakba – the catastrophic destruction of the Palestinian homeland – was followed by the enactment of new emergency laws and the widespread dispersal of several Palestinian generations into the Shattat (diaspora). 

A relentless cycle of constant war, new occupations, and persistent ethnic cleansing has been further compounded by a pervasive lack of international action and sustained Arab solidarity, exacerbated by the presence of corrupt Palestinian elites. 

This litany of suffering extends to countless Israeli massacres, escalating violence, the relentless expansion of settlements, widespread destruction, and the recurring demolition of homes. 

The protracted Gaza siege, marked by war after war, has now culminated in the ongoing genocide.

Yet, despite this comprehensive and overwhelming accumulation of adversities, the Palestinian cause not only endures but persists with an unwavering spirit. This remarkable and enduring resilience is most profoundly understood through the concept of sumud.

The Indomitable Spirit of Sumud

Sumud transcends mere steadfastness; it represents a profound and deeply ingrained cultural phenomenon rooted in defiance, historical consciousness, unwavering faith, spirituality, the strength of family bonds, and the cohesion of community. 

The language of sumud is remarkably pervasive and rich, manifesting eloquently in poetry, intricate storytelling, Quranic verses, and the compelling terminology of revolution. Words such as sumud itself, Muqawama (resistance), Hurriyya (freedom), Thawra (revolution), Hatta Akher Nuqtat Dum (to the last drop of blood), and even the very word Falasteen (Palestine) are imbued with profound and multifaceted significance. 

For countless children growing up in Gaza, like myself, the simple, yet powerful, act of writing the word Falasteen on sand, in every text book, or on one’s own hand serves as a foundational and deeply personal experience.

Therefore, any truly genuine comprehension of Palestine must be meticulously shaped by the authentic language and the lived experiences of Palestinians themselves, with particular emphasis on those residing in Gaza. 

This imperative necessitates a deliberate shift in focus, moving away from historical documents like the Balfour Declaration or the Nation-State Law. Instead, understanding must authentically emerge from the narratives of pivotal figures such as Izz al-Din al-Qassam, Abdul Qader al-Husseini, Akram Zeiter, and Ghassan Kanafani, extending all the way to the fighting Palestinians in Gaza, their innocent children, their courageous journalists, their dedicated doctors, and their ordinary people.

Gaza: The Unyielding Heart of the Palestinian Story

One might be inclined to perceive this perspective as sentimental. However, it stands as a clear articulation of a long-held conviction that Gaza occupies the indisputable core of the Palestinian story, its historical trajectory, and its future destiny. 

This is not an emotional plea but a profound recognition of a harsh and unyielding living reality: Gaza has borne the brunt of the most severe manifestations of Israeli occupation, apartheid, siege, war, violence, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. 

Crucially, it is also the place where resistance has never ceased, not for a single moment. This fact alone is sufficient to establish Gaza as the most critical and undeniable component in the entire intricate history of the so-called conflict.

The Israeli genocide unfolding in Gaza is not merely an act of collective punishment. Rather, it originates from a deeply distorted and chilling Israeli perception of reality: that the Palestinian people themselves, and not a specific ideology, a particular group of individuals, or a defined organization, constitute the very heart and soul of the Palestinian cause. 

Consequently, the perceived sole method for thoroughly decimating the resistance is through the mass killing of the people and the subsequent ethnic cleansing of the survivors. If Israel, in its twisted and profoundly criminal way, has managed to grasp this horrifying understanding, then it becomes equally imperative that we, too, fully comprehend this fundamental concept.

Forging a New Understanding of Palestine

Therefore, a new and transformative understanding of Palestine is not just desirable but absolutely imperative. This understanding must unequivocally center Palestinian voices that genuinely reflect the sentiments, wishes, feelings, aspirations, and the authentic popular politics of ordinary people. 

It is crucial that not just any Palestinian voice will suffice, nor will any narrative do. This deliberate and focused approach will also help to liberate the word sumud, and all adjacent terminology, from being dismissed as merely fleeting sentimental language, thereby elevating it to the very heart of our collective discourse.

Palestinians, like all native populations engaged in a just struggle for freedom, should be unequivocally entrusted with the custodianship of their own discourse. They are not a liability to that discourse; they are not marginal actors within it; they are, in fact, the undeniable main characters.

Within an astonishing 600 days, Palestinians in Gaza, largely cut off, isolated, and targeted for extermination, have managed to expose Zionism more comprehensively and effectively than all the cumulative work undertaken over the course of an entire century. 

This monumental achievement, too, is a direct byproduct of their profound sumud. 

It is now time to critically revisit our language of solidarity with Palestine, consciously liberating it from our own ideological, political, and often personal priorities, and decisively reshaping it based solely on the authentic priorities of the Palestinians themselves.

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

23 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Sally Dugman

We people who care about integrity, truth, honesty, decency, fairness and justice get satisfaction from our like-minded whistle blowers who lay their lives on the line and sometimes endure incredible hardships on account of sharing secretive, shameful truths like this: here: 

Wikileaks: Document dumps that shook the world, and here:

Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians

in addition to here:

July 12, 2007, Baghdad airstrike

Excerpted from the latter link: 

On July 12, 2007, a series of air-to-ground attacks were conducted by a team of two U.S. AH-64 Apache helicopters in Al-Amin al-Thaniyah, New Baghdad, during the Iraqi insurgency which followed the invasion of Iraq. On April 5, 2010, the attacks received worldwide coverage and controversy following the release of 39 minutes of classified gunsight footage by WikiLeaks. The video, which WikiLeaks titled Collateral Murder, showed the crew firing on a group of people and killing several of them, including two Reuters journalists, and then laughing at some of the casualties, all of whom were civilians. An anonymous U.S. military official confirmed the authenticity of the footage, which provoked global discussion on the legality and morality of the attacks.

I personally happen to know that this sort of travesty happened quite frequently in that war such as Marines being shot at from their rooftop location from a single apartment in a tall apartment building across the street and their being told to indiscriminately fire into all of the apartments since it wasn’t a situation in which it could be determined as to which apartment held the shooter. Thus, elderly grandmothers fixing meals for their baby grandchildren, the children and other noncombatant civilians were immediately gunned down by U.S. Marines located across the street as a, I suppose, form of collective punishment for the one daring shooter.

At the same time, I do have my favorite whistle blowers with whom I identify and one of my best ones happens to be Mordechai Vanunu, an openly proactive peace activist and a nuclear technician who took it upon himself to publicly inform the world that Israel had nuclear bomb capabilities. So what did he get in return?

Here’s his punishment: Excerpted from 

Mordechai Vanunu

He was subsequently lured to Italy by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, where he was drugged and abducted. He was secretly transported to Israel and ultimately convicted in a trial that was held behind closed doors.

Vanunu spent 18 years in prison, including more than 11 in solitary confinement, though no such restriction is mentioned in Israel’s penal code, nor imposed by his verdict. Released from prison in 2004, he was further subjected to a broad array of restrictions on his speech and his movement and arrested several times for violations of his parole terms, giving interviews to foreign journalists and attempting to leave Israel. He claims to have suffered from “cruel and barbaric treatment” at the hands of prison authorities and suggests that things would have been different if he had not converted to Christianity.^[6]

His own Israeli parents disowned him and he was adopted by an elderly U.S. Quaker couple who, although physically far away from him, ideologically chose to be close to and emotionally support him as well as they could on behalf of both him AND his stance.

He got solace from that occurrence and from other parts of his life such as his writing poetry like this one, my favorite poem of his, which reminds of how easy it is to become part of a murderous war machine when simply obeying orders from higher up authority figures.I’M YOUR SPY
Mordechai Vanunu

I am the clerk, the technician, the mechanic,
the driver.

They said, Do this, do that, don’t look left
or right,
don’t read the text. Don’t look at the whole
machine. You
are only responsible for this one bolt. For this
one rubber-stamp.
This is your only concern. Don’t bother
with what is above you.
Don’t try to think for us. Go on, drive. Keep
going. On, on.
So they thought, the big ones, the smart ones,
the futurologists.
There is nothing to fear. Not to worry.
Everything is ticking just fine.

Our little clerk is a diligent worker. He’s a
simple mechanic.
He’s a little man.
Little men’s ears don’t hear, their eyes
don’t see.
We have heads, they don’t
Answer them, said he to himself, said the
little man,
the man with a head of his own. Who is in
charge? Who knows
where this train is going?
Where is their head? I too have a head.
Why do I see the whole engine.
Why do I see the precipice —
is there a driver on this train?
The clerk driver technician mechanic
looked up.
He stepped back and saw — what a monster.
Can’t believe it. Rubbed his eyes and — yes,
it’s there all right. I’m all right. I do see
the monster. I’m part of the system.
I signed this form. Only now I am reading the
rest of it.
This bolt is part of a bomb. This bolt is me.
How
did I fail to see, and how do the others go on
fitting bolts. Who else knows?
Who has seen? Who has heard — The
emperor really is naked.
I see him. Why me? It’s not for me. It’s too big.
Rise and cry out. Rise and tell the people.
You can.
I, the bolt, the technician, mechanic —
Yes, you.
You are the secret agent of the people. You are
the eyes of the nation.
Agent-spy, tell us what you’ve seen. Tell us
what the insiders, the clever ones, have
hidden from us.
Without you, there is only the precipice.
Only catastrophe.
I have no choice. I’m a little man, a citizen,
one of the people,
but I’ll do what I have to. I’ve heard the voice
of my conscience
and there is nowhere to hide.
The world is small, small for Big Brother.
I’m your mission. I’m doing my duty. Take
it from me.
Come and see for yourselves. Lighten my
burden. Stop the train.
Get off the train. The next stop — nuclear
disaster. The next book,
the next machine. No. There is no such thing.

——————-
In addition, I want to know about how is it my U.S. President’s business that Iran has nuclear medicine making capabilities such as my friend received to drink, a radioactive substance, to study his digestive tract last year.
So, too, the best way to prevent nuclear war might just well be opposed countries like India and Pakistan, Israel and Iran, USA and Russia, etc., having roughly equal war capacity and caution about starting a nuclear war that would likely kill the majority of all life on our planet. 
So, yes, I’m thankful to know from Mordechai Vanunu that Israel has nuclear bomb capacity. Likewise, I’m glad to learn from the nuclear overseeing agency and Tulsi Gabbard’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear capacity that Iran’s leadership had no intention to develop a nuclear bomb, although that choice might have changed now that Israel has directly and overtly attacked that country. So, we’ll have to wait and see about outcomes now that Trump joined in on the assault against Iran, which upsets the ante, of course, for other lands like Turkey, Egypt, Russia, China and so on to join in the start of a third world war.

Sally Dugman writes from and lives in MA, USA.

23 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Tehran (Quds News Network)- The US joined Israel in its attack against Iran, with President Donald Trump announcing that US forces had struck three Iranian nuclear sites. In response, Iran accused Washington of violating international law.

Trump claimed the heavily fortified Fordow nuclear facility is “gone”.

“We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

“NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!” he added.

Later, in a televised Oval Office address, Trump said, “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.”

[https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1936646971210760513]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump’s decision to attack Iran.

“Congratulations, President Trump. Your bold decision to target Iran’s nuclear facilities with the awesome and righteous might of the United States will change history,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu added his promise to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities had been “fulfilled”.

“From the beginning of the operation, I promised you that Iran’s nuclear facilities would be destroyed, one way or another. This promise has been fulfilled,” he said.

In response, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused the US of breaching international law.

“The United States, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, has committed a grave violation of the UN Charter, international law and the NPT by attacking Iran’s peaceful nuclear installations,” Araghchi said.

“The events this morning are outrageous and will have everlasting consequences. Each and every member of the UN must be alarmed over this extremely dangerous, lawless and criminal behavior.”

He added that Iran “reserves all options to defend its sovereignty, interest, and people”.

The raid on the Iran nuclear sites was reportedly carried out by B-2 stealth bombers that dropped so-called “bunker buster bombs,” along with submarine-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Israel launched an aggressive attack on Iran on June 13, claiming that it wanted to remove any chance of Tehran developing nuclear weapons despite Israel itself widely assuming to have nuclear weapons.

At least 430 people have been killed and 3,500 injured in Iran since Israel began its attacks, Iranian state-run Nour News said, citing the Ministry of Health.

Iran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only. Iranian officials have repeatedly said they do not plan to develop nuclear weapons but will pursue its right to nuclear energy and research.

Iran’s nuclear agency on Sunday confirmed radiation system data and field surveys do not show signs of contamination or danger to residents near the sites.

“Following the illegal US attack on the Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear sites, field surveys and radiation systems data showed: No contamination recorded,” the organisation said in a social media post, adding that there was no danger to residents around.

Later on Sunday, the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency said it had not detected any increase in radiation levels at key nuclear sites in Iran following US air strikes.

“Following attacks on three nuclear sites in Iran… the IAEA can confirm that no increase in off-site radiation levels has been reported as of this time,” the nuclear watchdog posted on X.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “gravely alarmed” by the “dangerous escalation” of the US strikes.

“There is a growing risk that this conflict could rapidly get out of control – with catastrophic consequences for civilians, the region, and the world,” he said in a statement.

The US attacks mark a major turning point for Trump, who campaigned for his second term on a pledge to end “forever wars”.

23 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org