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By Quds News Network

Istanbul (QNN)- The Istanbul Chief Prosecutor’s Office issued an arrest warrant on Friday against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several other Israeli officials, over committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.

In a statement, the Public Prosecutor’s Office said warrants were issued for 37 suspects, including Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz. The suspects face charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

The statement stressed that Israeli authorities face charges of carrying out genocide, conducting massive airstrikes on Gaza, and obstructing the delivery of humanitarian aid.

This move comes months after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants on November 21, 2024, for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The ICC stated that they committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.

As a result, Netanyahu and Gallant are now unable to visit any of the 120 countries that have signed the Rome Statute, the treaty that underpins the ICC’s authority to enforce such decisions.

The latest Turkish decision follows a call in mid-September by ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan to expedite arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. Khan revealed at the time that he had faced pressure from several world leaders not to proceed with the arrest request.

The Istanbul Prosecutor’s Office described the move as a response to growing evidence of mass atrocities in Gaza, where Israeli forces have conducted months of heavy bombardment, resulting in tens of thousands of civilian deaths and a deepening humanitarian catastrophe.

8 November 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Jeffrey D. Sachs and Sybil Fares

The flimsy moral pretext today is the fight against narcotics, yet the real objective is to overthrow a sovereign government, and the collateral damage is the suffering of the Venezuelan people. If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is.

The United States is dusting off its old regime-change playbook in Venezuela. Although the slogan has shifted from “restoring democracy” to “fighting narco-terrorists,” the objective remains the same, which is control of Venezuela’s oil. The methods followed by the US are familiar: sanctions that strangle the economy, threats of force, and a $50 million bounty on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as if this were the Wild West.

The US is addicted to war. With the renaming of the Department of War, a proposed Pentagon budget of $1.01 trillion, and more than 750 military bases across some 80 countries, this is not a nation pursuing peace. For the past two decades, Venezuela has been a persistent target of US regime change. The motive, which is clearly laid out by President Donald Trump, is the roughly 300 billion barrels of oil reserves beneath the Orinoco belt, the largest petroleum reserves on the planet.

In 2023, Trump openly stated: “When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over, we would have gotten all that oil… but now we’re buying oil from Venezuela, so we’re making a dictator very rich.” His words reveal the underlying logic of US foreign policy that has an utter disregard for sovereignty and instead favors the grabbing of other country’s resources.

What’s underway today is a typical US-led regime-change operation dressed up in the language of anti-drug interdiction. The US has amassed thousands of troops, warships, and aircraft in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The president has boastfully authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela.

On October 26, 2025, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) went on national television to defend recent US military strikes on Venezuelan vessels and to say land strikes inside Venezuela and Colombia are a “real possibility.” Florida Sen. Rick Scott, in the same news cycle, mused that if he were Nicolás Maduro he’d “head to Russia or China right now.” These senators aim to normalize the idea that Washington decides who governs Venezuela and what happens to its oil. Remember that Graham similarly champions the US fighting Russia in Ukraine to secure the $10 trillion of mineral wealth that Graham fatuously claims are available for the US to grab.

Nor are Trump’s moves a new story vis-à-vis Venezuela. For more than 20 years, successive US administrations have tried to submit Venezuela’s internal politics to Washington’s will. In April 2002, a short-lived military coup briefly ousted then-President Hugo Chávez. The CIA knew the details of the coup in advance, and the US immediately recognized the new government. In the end, Chávez retook power. Yet the US did not end its support for regime change.

In March 2015, Barack Obama codified a remarkable legal fiction. Obama signed Executive Order 13692, declaring Venezuela’s internal political situation an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US national security to trigger US economic sanctions. That move set the stage for escalating coercion by the US. The White House has maintained that claim of a US “national emergency” ever since. Trump added increasingly draconian economic sanctions during his first term. Astoundingly, in January 2019, Trump declared Juan Guaidó, then an opposition figure, to be Venezuela’s “interim president,” as if Trump could simply name a new Venezuelan president. This tragicomedy of the US eventually fell to pieces in 2023, when the US dropped this failed and ludicrous gambit.

The US is now starting a new chapter of resource grabbing. Trump has long been vocal about “keeping the oil.” In 2019, when discussing Syria, President Trump said “We are keeping the oil, we have the oil, the oil is secure, we left troops behind only for the oil.” To those in doubt, US troops are still in the northeast of Syria today, occupying the oil fields. Earlier in 2016, on Iraq’s oil, Trump said, “I was saying this constantly and consistently to whoever would listen, I said keep the oil, keep the oil, keep the oil, don’t let somebody else get it.”

Now, with fresh military strikes on Venezuela vessels and open talk of land attacks, the administration is invoking narcotics to justify regime change. Yet Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter expressly prohibits “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” No US theory of “cartel wars” remotely justifies coercive regime change.

Even before the military strikes, US coercive sanctions have functioned as a siege engine. Obama built the sanctions framework in 2015, and Trump further weaponized it to topple Maduro. The claim was that “maximum pressure” would empower Venezuelans. In practice, the sanctions have caused widespread suffering. As economist and renowned sanctions expert Francisco Rodríguez found in his study of the “Human Consequences of Economic Sanctions,” the result of the coercive US measures has been a catastrophic decline in Venezuelan living standards, starkly worsening health and nutrition, and dire harm to vulnerable populations.

The flimsy moral pretext today is the fight against narcotics, yet the real objective is to overthrow a sovereign government, and the collateral damage is the suffering of the Venezuelan people. If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is. The US has repeatedly undertaken regime-change operations in pursuit of oil, uranium, banana plantations, pipeline routes, and other resources: Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Congo (1960), Chile (1973), Iraq (2003), Haiti (2004), Syria (2011), Libya (2011), and Ukraine (2014), just to name a few such cases. Now Venezuela is on the block.

In her brilliant book Covert Regime Change (2017), Professor Lindsay O’Rourke details the machinations, blowbacks, and disasters of no fewer than 64 US covert regime-change operations during the years 1947-1989! She focused on this earlier period because many key documents for that era have by now been declassified. Tragically, the pattern of a US foreign policy based on covert (and not-so-covert) regime-change operations continues to this day.

The calls by the US government for escalation reflect a reckless disregard for Venezuela’s sovereignty, international law, and human life. A war against Venezuela would be a war that Americans do not want, against a country that has not threatened or attacked the US, and on legal grounds that would fail a first-year law student. Bombing vessels, ports, refineries, or soldiers is not a show of strength. It is the epitome of gangsterism.

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed The Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016. He is also President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development.

Sybil Fares is a specialist and advisor in Middle East policy and sustainable development at SDSN

4 November 2025

Source: commondreams.org

By Prof. Junaid S. Ahmad

From the barracks of Rawalpindi to the halls of Washington, a sordid alliance stalks the republic of Pakistan: a military caste addicted to power, a civilian class cowed into servitude, and a foreign patron ever ready to pull the leash. What unfolds is less a grand strategy than a tragicomedy: generals trading sovereignty for sinecures, soldiers harboring contempt for their officers, and a once-promising democratic movement crushed under the twin weights of imperial ambition and martial tutelage.

At the summit of Pakistan’s national hierarchy sits the uniformed elite—high-command officers whose benefit resides not in defending the people, but in ensuring their own station remains unchallenged. The vast majority of junior officers and ordinary soldiers know the drill: they march at a command, live off state hand-outs, yet watch in silence as their rulers gamble everything in Islamabad’s corridors of power. Beneath their boots pulses a latent contempt: not for the institution of soldiering, but for the generals who confuse war-games with governance, who mistake subservience for sovereignty. They know the charade: a military that catalogs enemies abroad yet fails its citizens at home; a top brass more at ease with arms deals and alliances than with schools or clinics.

Meanwhile, in Washington and its allied capitals, they observe the last great outsourcing of empire. The U.S. sees Pakistan not as an independent partner, but as a subcontractor—an air-strip here, a drone base there, a pliant nuclear state with acceptable risks. When Imran Khan—in office—moved, albeit imperfectly, toward a new Pakistan: one marked by social justice, independent foreign policy, and friendship with all nations, he ran head-first into this alliance. He derailed the pat-scripts: refused U.S. basing rights, challenged embassy diktats, and dared to recast Kashmir and Palestine not as trophies of patronage but as tests of principle. His mistake was not corruption—it was defiance. And the consequence was swift: a regime-change operation dressed in parliamentary garb, a military and intelligence complex that salivated at the smell of capitulation, and a Washington that nodded, funded and quietly applauded.

From here the narrative spirals into farce. Pakistan’s flag-waving elite collect defense pacts as one might souvenirs—each a badge of fidelity to the imperial order, each certifying that the country’s violent and unjust alignments will continue unimpeded. The generals embrace those pacts not because they secure Pakistan—they don’t—but because they secure the elite’s privilege: a share of the deals, a veneer of patriotism, a shield against accountability. And while their generals trade in hardware and geopolitics, the cries of the oppressed vanish into night: Pashtun civilians bombed under the guise of “counter-terror,” Afghan refugees reviled as villains by a state that once nurtured their tormentors.

Yes, nuclear-armed Pakistan could not muster a single bullet for Gaza. It did not send a protection force. It does not lobby the United Nations for justice, despite the occasional meaningless rhetoric. Instead it signs on to the next big defense contract, brushes its hands of the Palestinian plight, and turns its back on the ideal of Muslim solidarity. What kind of state is this that boasts nuclear weapons yet lacks the moral will to send aid—or more than a token gesture—to fellow victims of aggression? A state that lectures others on terrorism while shelling its own Pashtun tribes. A state so short on legitimacy it must invoke the bogeyman of the Afghan refugee, call entire populations “terrorists,” then crush any dissent with tanks and tear-gas.

Speaking of dissent—when Imran Khan’s movement rose, the state responded with idylls of terror. Cadres of young activists, women, students, social justice advocates—whether Karachi or Khyber—found themselves in dungeons sanctioned by a military-political complex. The hearings were stacked, the charges manufactured, the message simple: move for justice and you move into our sights. The generals clapped their hands, Washington twisted the strings, and the civilian face of Pakistan trembled. The officer class may nominally obey the high command—but in quiet mess halls and among soldiers’ wives the whispers of outrage gather: “Why are we policing our own people? Why is Urdu-speaking Karachi the victim of our operations? Why do we trespass into forests and valleys and call them terror zones?”

In the borderlands the farce becomes terrifyingly concrete. The army, having once nurtured the Taliban in Afghanistan to secure “strategic depth,” now bombs them—and blames them for terrorism. In this brain-twist of national strategy, the creator is recast as the adversary, the patron transformed into the provoked. The Pashtun civilian watches as homes are razed near the Durand Line, as refugees arrive on Pakistani soil bearing the costs of wars Pakistan helped manufacture, and as the generals portray them as fifth-column terrorists. The irony would be comical were it not so brutal.

And what of Kashmir? In the so-called “free” Azad Kashmir of Pakistan, huge anti-government demonstrations rage. A region whose inhabitants yearn for dignity, not just slogans. Under Imran Khan, new polling suggested the unthinkable: Kashmiris in Indian-occupied Kashmir, despite seeing the abysmal conditions in Azad Kashmir, began to seriously consider joining Pakistan—not as another occupier but as a fortress of self-determination. The generals would rather you not notice that: they prefer the pre-scripted dispute, the perpetual conflict, the tortured rhetoric of “we stand with Kashmir” while the state stands with its own survival. The polls are telling: if Pakistan’s Kashmir policy is failing, the state itself is structurally unhealthy.

To be sure, the Pakistan military remains an institution of extraordinary capability. But capability is not legitimacy; nor is turf-control a foundation for national purpose. The generals continue to conflate war-power with nation-power, forgetting that true power is fostered by schools, by hospitals, by trust in institutions—and by consent, not coercion. And when a regime trades in foreign patronage—be it Washington’s dollars or Beijing’s infrastructure—but cannot deliver justice or dignity at home, the bargain has already been lost.

As the Iranian–Israeli conflict rages, as Gaza bleeds, and as the great-game intensifies in South Asia, Pakistan stands at a crossroads: obey its patrons, shrink its sovereignty, and reclaim the empire-client script—or reject the military’s primacy, embrace true independence, and build a republic that answers not to external powers but to its people. The generals will tell you that the choice is security; the civilians will whisper it is dignity.

Here is the truth the generals, the politicians, and the strategists don’t want you to admit: you cannot rule a nation by telling its people to be silent while you thunder abroad. You cannot build strategic depth on the graves of your own citizens. You cannot pretend to champion Palestine while allying with its oppressors. You cannot call yourself a sovereign state when your alliances define you more than your aspirations.

Pakistan’s military may still march on; its generals may still wield the levers of power; Washington may still fax orders and funnel funds. But the people—they are waking up. And once the echo of Imran Khan’s voice becomes a roar, no amount of bayonets, no arsenal of deals, no drums of war will silence it. The generals may hold the fortress of Rawalpindi, but they cannot hold the conscience of a nation. The struggle for that is already well underway—and the verdict will not wait.

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

1 November 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Press Release

The recent ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, guided by the theme “Resilient Together, Prosper Together,” served as a powerful reminder of a core regional truth: Southeast Asia’s shared diversity, when guided by compassion, is its greatest strength. This unity is what ASEAN must protect.

The memory of the July crisis lingers—five days when Buddhist neighbours Cambodia and Thailand exchanged artillery fire along their disputed border. The toll was stark: 32 lives lost, over 130 wounded, and nearly 170,000 displaced, including an eight-year-old boy killed by rockets in Sisaket province. Yet the tragedy also affirmed ASEAN’s method of turning confrontation into conversation.

When tempers flared, the ASEAN spirit of musyawarah (consultation) was tested. Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim stepped forward as a facilitator. The image of a Muslim leader mediating between two Buddhist nations demonstrated a unique regional capacity, achieving an immediate ceasefire on 28 July 2025. This ceasefire was signed off on October 26, 2025, on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Kuala Lumpur.

The key was not shared religion, but shared values. The mediation was effective because it was free from historical or doctrinal entanglement, speaking instead from a place of shared human understanding. It was not religion that divided the borderlands; it was pride and politics. Yet it was faith diversity that helped heal the wound. Islamic, Buddhist, and Hindu philosophies all anchor in the sanctity of life and the moral obligation to choose peace over ego.

This response was bolstered by Muslim and Buddhist NGOs providing humanitarian aid, psychological support, and grassroots dialogue. Groups from monasteries in Siem Reap to charities in Kedah made neighbourliness a tangible reality, reflecting Southeast Asia’s instinct to cooperate.

The summit affirmed the clear message from this crisis: peace is not sustained by shared ideology, but by shared humanity. This was not mere tolerance; it was transformation. The region didn’t erase difference; it elevated it, converting religious plurality into diplomatic capital. Diversity was not the problem; it was the solution.

ASEAN’s success offers lessons for a world fractured by identity. The image of a Muslim leader mediating between Buddhist nations is a symbol of principled pluralism. It shows that neutrality need not mean detachment; it can mean compassion in action. This collaboration also underlines that peace is not built by governments alone but cultivated by faith communities and citizens who believe in mutual respect.

July’s crisis reminded us of the fragility of peace. But what followed reaffirmed it can be rebuilt. The message from Kuala Lumpur resonates where faith and diversity unite, humanity prevails. In a fractured world, ASEAN’s blend of diversity—rooted in compassion and respect—offers a different path. This is the peace we have built, and it is a peace we must protect.

Issued on behalf of The International Forum on Buddhist Muslim Relations [BMF]

K V Soon (Vidyananda)
Secretary

[https://buddhistmuslimforum.org]

Contact Information

Email: soonkv@gmail.com

About the BMF

______________________________________________________

The International Forum on Buddhist-Muslim Relations (BMF) is an international interfaith initiative formed in direct response to the urgent need to mitigate rising religious tensions and conflicts, particularly in flashpoint areas such as Southern Thailand and Myanmar (Rakhine State).

The BMF was formally established in 2013, with initial consultative meetings on “Contemporary Issues in Buddhist-Muslim Relations in South and South East Asia” held in Bangkok, Thailand. Its formation was a proactive commitment by concerned leaders to create a sustained platform for constructive dialogue and joint action across the region and elsewhere.

Core Objectives and Mission

The BMF’s mission is to foster peace and understanding by serving as a hub for both intra-religious and inter-religious engagement. Our key objectives include:

• Platform for Engagement: Serving as a primary platform for education and advocacy initiatives.
• Conflict Prevention: Enabling rapid reaction, solidarity visits, early warning, and conflict prevention in the event of conflict.
• Actionable Tools: Developing and providing tools and materials for constructive engagement and strategic common actions.
• Positive Messaging: Promoting the effective use of media, especially social and alternative media, for positive messaging and amplifying peaceful narratives.

Core Group Members

The BMF draws strength from a diverse network of individuals and organizations across the region. It is driven by the commitment and expertise of a core group of internationally recognized members, including:

• International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB)
• International Movement of a Just World (JUST)
• Persyarikatan Muhammadiyah
• Religion for Peace (RfP)
• The Network of Religious and Traditional Peacemakers (The Network)

The BMF stands as a united front, modelling coexistence and actively working to build resilience against conflict in diverse communities worldwide.

______________________________________________________

Upcoming Dialogue: A Call for Shared Values

In line with our commitment to constructive engagement and education, the BMF is pleased to announce a special dialogue series taking place on November 16, 2025

This event will focus on leveraging shared values for social change. We invite media and stakeholders to participate in this important discussion. Full details on the topic and speakers are available on our website:

[https://buddhistmuslimforum.org/dialogue-series-on-socially-engaged-shared-values-i/]

31 October 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Dozens of people have been killed in new massacres by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) during their takeover of the city of El-Fasher in Sudan’s western Darfur region, according to medical and humanitarian reports.

The Sudan Doctors Network described the situation as “a true genocide”, saying the RSF, which has been battling Sudan’s army for control of the country, killed more than 1,500 people in just three days as civilians tried to flee the besieged city.

“The massacres the world is witnessing today are an extension of what occurred in El-Fasher more than a year and a half ago, when over 14,000 civilians were killed through bombing, starvation, and executions,” the group said, calling the attacks “a deliberate and systematic campaign of extermination.”

Satellite imagery from Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab showed clusters of objects consistent with human bodies and large areas of red discoloration on the ground after the RSF advanced into the city.

At least 2,000 people have reportedly been killed since the crime began, including volunteers and Red Crescent workers targeted in mosques. The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that 460 people were massacred at the Saudi Maternity Hospital, with Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus saying the organization was “appalled and deeply shocked.”

Israeli Fingerprints on the Crime Scene

While the RSF’s atrocities in El-Fasher shocked the world, a growing body of evidence points to covert Israeli links to the paramilitary group.

A recent investigation by Sudan Transparency revealed that Israeli intelligence services opened channels of communication with RSF Commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti) as early as 2021. The report cites a secret flight in May 2021 linked to a former Israeli military official, which reportedly delivered advanced surveillance equipment to Khartoum after a brief 45-minute stopover.

“Israel’s relationships in Sudan extended beyond the SAF (Sudanese Armed Forces) to the RSF Commander Hemedti,” the report stated, adding that the “shipment of advanced spying equipment” was part of these covert exchanges.

Independent researchers have also identified Israeli-made LAR-160 multiple rocket launchers reportedly in RSF possession, systems originally designed by Israel Military Industries.

According to Kribsoo Diallo, a Cairo-based Pan-African researcher interviewed by QNN, these ties likely had “direct consequences on the battlefield.”

“If confirmed, such links may have enhanced the RSF’s operational capacity through intelligence data or advanced communication systems,” Diallo said. “This could explain their ability to sustain a long siege over El-Fasher and carry out highly coordinated attacks on civilian areas.”

He added that the existence of such relationships, even indirectly through private arms networks, gives the RSF “a sense of political protection and impunity,” which undermines international accountability efforts.

RSF Copies Israel’s Gaza Playbook for Atrocities

Observers say the RSF has begun mirroring Israel’s language and tactics used in Gaza, framing mass violence as “military necessity.”

An Al Jazeera investigation found that the RSF used Israeli-style legal justifications to target civilian areas, such as labeling the Zamzam displacement camp a “military zone” before attacking it. Legal experts say this mirrors Israel’s argumentation in Gaza, where hospitals, schools, and shelters are bombed under the claim they are “Hamas bases.”

An RSF adviser even told Israeli media that the Sudanese army’s actions “resemble terrorist Palestinian attacks on Israel”, a rhetorical appeal seemingly designed to attract sympathy from Tel Aviv.

“The RSF is adopting the same language Israel uses to legitimize collective punishment,” said Luigi Daniele, senior lecturer in international humanitarian law at Nottingham Law School. “Declaring entire neighborhoods or camps as ‘military zones’ is a clear attempt to strip civilians of protection, a tactic pioneered in Gaza.”

Sudan’s ambassador to the United Nations, Al-Harith Idriss Al-Harith Mohamed, told the Security Council that the massacres in El-Fasher “amount to genocide by all legal standards.”

“Women and girls are attacked in broad daylight,” he said. “What we are witnessing in El-Fasher is a continuation of a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing that has been ongoing since 2023.”

Human rights groups say the international silence surrounding both Gaza and Sudan underscores how external alliances and intelligence ties shield perpetrators from accountability.

“What we see in El-Fasher is not just a local tragedy,” said Diallo. “It’s the reproduction of a global pattern, where military technology, political cover, and intelligence cooperation cross borders to sustain impunity.”

Strategic Interests and the Red Sea Factor

Analysts believe Israel’s involvement in Sudan extends beyond its historical ties with the Sudanese military or normalization agreements. Sudan’s strategic location on the Red Sea offers Israel both a security buffer and a geopolitical advantage in monitoring maritime routes and countering Iranian or Chinese influence.

“Sudan provides Israel with an entry point into the Horn of Africa and the Sahel,” Diallo told QNN. “By building ties with both General Burhan and Hemedti, Israel ensures leverage over whichever faction prevails, securing its interests regardless of Sudan’s internal outcome.”

This balancing act, he added, “complicates international accountability and turns Sudan’s conflict into a stage for regional power struggles.”

By Dr. Ramzy Baroud

Has Donald Trump’s sharp rebuke of Israel in his October 23 Time Magazine interview fundamentally changed the calculus in the Middle East? His comments immediately sparked two opposing views: for some, his position represents the clear demarcation of a genuine shift in US foreign policy; for others, it is nothing more than a political ploy designed to claw back credibility lost by the US during two years of Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Regarding the end of the recent Gaza genocide, Trump claimed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “had to stop because the world was going to stop him,” adding, “you know, I could see what was happening … And Israel was becoming very unpopular.” With these words, Trump signaled his view that the systematic extermination of Palestinians in Gaza had pushed Israel to an inevitable point of isolation that even the US could no longer indefinitely hold back.

This is the crux of his message, repeated in his stark warning to Netanyahu: “Bibi, you can’t fight the world … The world’s against you. And Israel is a very small place compared to the world.” This may appear to be an obvious fact, yet considering the history of US — and, by extension, Western — blind support, Israel has always felt much larger than its own size. Indeed, Israel’s perceived power has historically been defined by the unconditional backing of the United States.

But, according to Trump’s claim, the US no longer perceives itself as the unconditional vanguard for Israel. He points to a new global power dynamic, noting, “There are a lot of powers out there, okay, powers outside of the region,” whose influence has made Washington’s traditional protective role unsustainable. This newfound realization is most evident when Trump addresses Israel’s desire to illegally annex the occupied Palestinian West Bank. He is now ready to take action, using unprecedented language: The annexation “won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries. It will not happen. Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened.”

Such a phrase is unprecedented in the history of US-Israeli relations. Yet, this defiance could easily be dismissed as Trumpian showmanship — bold statements that rarely translate into coherent policy. During his second term, Trump called for an end to the war but did little to stop it, expressing sympathy toward Gazans while still supplying Israel with weapons. His contradictions make it difficult to distinguish conviction from performance.

The significance of Trump’s unprecedented warning is amplified by the sheer timing. The Time interview was made available on the same day that the Israeli parliament (Knesset) approved two bills that would apply Israeli law to the occupied West Bank, paving the way for the full, illegal annexation of the occupied territory. This provocative vote occurred while US Vice-President JD Vance was still in Tel Aviv. On his way out of the country, Vance launched a virulent attack on the Israeli government, describing the vote as “weird” and “a very stupid political stunt,” one which he took as an “insult.”

Those cautious of any supposed US shift are justified in their cynicism. There is little evidence that Washington is changing course. The unconditional support throughout the genocide is irrefutable proof of its commitment to Israel. The long trajectory of US backing, from before Israel’s founding to today, strongly suggests that a sudden pivot is highly unlikely. So, if this is not a fundamental shift, what is actually happening here?

Though the “unbreakable bond” remains, the balance of power has shifted. Israel has alternated between being the privileged client state and, through its lobby, the driver of the regional agenda. The war exposed Israel’s weaknesses and restored the old dynamic — the US as savior, dictating priorities. Beyond the annual $3.8 billion in military aid, Washington approved an additional $26 billion to sustain Israel’s economy and wars. When Israel failed to meet its military goals in Gaza, the US intervened with the ‘Gaza deal’, producing a shaky ceasefire that let Israel pursue its objectives by other means.

The result is a reversal of roles: Trump became more popular in Israel than Netanyahu, resurrecting the image of the US as the decisive power. The apparent clash between the two countries is less about values than about control — who steers Israel’s ship, Tel Aviv or Washington. The strong American rhetoric suggests awareness of its renewed leverage, but leverage alone is not policy.

This remains far from a genuine change of course. The US insists on managing the so-called Israeli-Palestinian conflict through its own political priorities, fundamentally aligned with Israel’s. By ignoring international law — the only source of balance and objectivity — Washington ensures that the roadmap to the region’s future, despite occasional disagreements, remains entirely in US-Israeli hands..

Such policies will fail to bring peace or justice and will inevitably reignite the same cycle of Israeli violence. While bombing has temporarily slowed in Gaza, violence is already surging in the occupied West Bank.

A just and lasting peace cannot be wrought through the whims of US administrations, through endless wars, or through uncommitted statements about non-annexation. True peace requires genuine accountability, sustained international pressure, sanctions, and the rigorous enforcement of international law. Only when the world continues to fight Netanyahu — and the self-destructive policies he represents — will a new genocide be averted and a just peace finally be achieved.

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

1 November 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor

Occupied Palestinian Territory – Israel’s actions against the activities of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Gaza raise serious concern, representing a new episode in a systematic policy aimed at undermining humanitarian work and ending the presence of UN and international organisations in the Gaza Strip.

On Thursday, Israeli forces arrested UNICEF staff member Raed Al-Afifi, 45, at Kerem Shalom crossing while he was carrying out his official duties, despite being present with prior coordination. No information has been provided by Israeli authorities regarding his location or the charges against him.

In a related development, the Israeli army had requested the agency to withdraw its trucks and supplies from Kerem Shalom a day before the arrest and subsequently prevented the entry of aid trucks carrying medical equipment for hospitals in northern Gaza, as well as vaccinations for newborns and nutritional supplements.

These measures deliberately obstruct humanitarian relief efforts and target an organisation that currently plays a central role in Gaza’s humanitarian work, managing vital projects in health, education, child protection, and infrastructure rehabilitation.

The targeting of UNICEF is part of a broader campaign to restrict United Nations agencies and international humanitarian organisations, aiming to end their presence and operations after they witnessed widespread violations affecting Palestinian civilians during the war, and to further deprive the population of livelihoods and essential services in Gaza.

Immediate action by the international community and the United Nations is urgently needed to ensure the protection of humanitarian workers, guarantee free access for aid to civilians, and halt all Israeli measures designed to starve the population and silence international witnesses of what is happening in the Gaza Strip.

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

1 November 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Timothy Snyder

TORONTO – When announcing an aggressive policy, US President Donald Trump typically offers some grotesque justification – a nonsensical fiction that is supposed to stick in our minds as a rationale for violence. The more we swallow these lies now, the harder it will be to question future falsehoods, because that would challenge our view of ourselves as intelligent beings.

This is the magic of the Big Lie, as Hitler explained in Mein Kampf:Tell a whopper so outrageous that people simply cannot believe it is untrue. Hitler’s biggest lie was to claim that an international Jewish conspiracy was the source of Germany’s woes – a scapegoat that could be blamed for any problem and absolve others of any responsibility. In 1939, Hitler and his propagandists spread blatant falsehoods about Poland as well – that it did not really exist as a state, and also that it was the aggressor that had triggered World War II.

Trump’s big lies are almost too numerous to count. Perhaps the most versatile is that his policy focus is on curbing the illicit fentanyl trade. Early in his second term, Trump claimed that Canada attacked the United States first by allowing fentanyl to flow freely across the border. And really, shouldn’t it become the 51st US state?

This complaint was a pretext for imposing tariffs on Canadian exports. But when Trump lumps Canada and Mexico together and claims that fentanyl is “pouring in” across the borders with both countries, he is lying. In 2024, only about 0.2% of the fentanyl seized by US border authorities came from Canada, which was not even mentioned in the US Drug Enforcement Administration’s 2024 National Drug Threat Assessment.

But in the past few months, the Trump administration has constructed an even more sinister geopolitical fantasy: military strikes on small boats in international waters are necessary to deter drug smuggling. These attacks, which many experts view as patently illegal, have been clustered off the coast of Venezuela and have killed at least 61 people so far. Although it is widely recognized that the attacks will not stop the flow of fentanyl into the US, Trump has said that his government will continue “to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country.”

The extrajudicial killing of alleged narcotics smugglers is less about drug trafficking and more about power projection – and maybe even regime change. Although videos of the bombings have become social-media fodder, there is no evidence that the targets were drug traffickers. (In fact, Vice President J.D. Vance joked in September about killing innocent fisherman, saying that he “wouldn’t go fishing right now in that area of the world.”)

Moreover, the Trump administration has reportedly authorized covert CIA action in Venezuela and deployed its most advanced aircraft carrier to the Caribbean Sea. This display of military power is intended to serve as political spectacle. The danger is that that it could escalate into an unwinnable, open-ended conflict.

The tragedy is that the opioid crisis has been an essential element of the American experience for the past quarter-century. The US has the world’s highest rate of opioid deaths, owing largely to the profit-driven “health-care” system that guides people toward pain medication but does not incentivize the intensive, long-term care required to treat addiction.

The crisis began because of a money-making scheme by Purdue Pharma, the US pharmaceutical company that developed and aggressively marketed the popular opioid painkiller OxyContin. While OxyContin was responsible for the initial rise in overdose deaths, many users turned to heroin and now fentanyl – which is some 50 times more powerful than heroin – when they could no longer obtain a prescription for Purdue Pharma’s bestselling product.

The Americans living at the epicenters of the addiction crisis tend to vote Republican; without their support, Trump would never have been elected. Trump and Vance are attuned to the opioid epidemic, in the sense that they see the wellspring of misery as a political resource that can be directed against an enemy of choice – whether an ally like Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney or an adversary like Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

In his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, Vance recounts how his mother, a nurse with easy access to prescription drugs, was addicted to pharmaceuticals. But his political messaging on immigration and security has spun a different story, with Vance blaming other countries – “the poison coming across our border” – for her travails. It follows that Americans must view their addictions as an attack from outside.

It is important to understand the psychology Trump and Vance are exploiting. Addicts tend to blame others for their condition. The rise of the far right in US politics has elevated this mindset to a national platform. The belief that someone else must be responsible for the country’s problems has come to inform foreign policy, with the Trump administration concocting ever more absurd stories, for example that each strike on a Venezuelan boat saves 25,000 American lives.

Lies work because they shift blame. Holding other countries responsible for the opioid crisis is an attractive form of moral outsourcing for Americans. But fiction on such a grand scale requires an entire alternative reality to be constructed around it. Trump and his administration are training the press and the American public to associate the boat strikes with stopping the flow of fentanyl and other drugs – a prime example of the falsehoods that imperialists tell before launching doomed wars of choice.

Wars begin with words, which implies that words must be taken seriously before conflict erupts. Only by calling out the big liars and telling the small truths can we have any hope of restraining Trump’s increasingly aggressive presidency.

Timothy Snyder, the inaugural Chair in Modern European History at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, is the author or editor of 20 books.

1 November 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Veterans For Peace

Veterans For Peace is appalled by the U.S. military’s extrajudicial killing of fishermen from Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Trinidad and Tobago—whom the Trump administration labeled as drug traffickers without evidence, due process, or accountability to Congress.

We condemn President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for their open threats to attack and overthrow Venezuela’s lawfully elected, sovereign government. We call for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. warships, fighter jets, and thousands of troops now menacing the coast of Venezuela. Reports of a massive naval buildup—including aircraft carriers, destroyers, and cruise missiles—raise serious concerns that the administration is preparing for yet another war of aggression in Latin America.

As veterans of U.S. wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan—wars based on lies that killed millions—we see through the familiar justifications for this latest escalation. Just as the “weapons of mass destruction” narrative led to the invasion of Iraq, today’s “narco-terrorist” accusations ring hollow. The Drug Enforcement Administration itself has confirmed that few illicit drugs come from Venezuela, while fentanyl enters primarily from Mexico. Colombia remains a major source of cocaine, yet its current president, Gustavo Petro, has taken serious steps to curb production and trafficking.

What Venezuela does possess are the world’s largest known reserves of oil and gas. Its government has pledged to use those resources to lift its people out of poverty. For over twenty years, the U.S. has waged a covert campaign to destabilize Venezuela through attempted coups and devastating economic sanctions that have killed more than 100,000 people. Now Washington appears to be returning to old-fashioned gunboat imperialism—while simultaneously funding genocide in Palestine, prolonging the war in Ukraine, and deploying militarized forces in U.S. cities.

Veterans For Peace stands firmly against war, genocide, and creeping fascism. We support all service members who refuse to participate in illegal wars at home or abroad. We join together with our allies in the peace movement for a Week of Coordinated Protests, November 15–23. We will continue to organize until the U.S. government ends its war on Venezuela and stops intervening in the internal affairs of other nations.

NO WAR ON VENEZUELA! No Troops in Our Streets!No More Genocide in Our Name!

1 November 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Caitlin Johnstone

1 Nov 2025 – Your rulers want you to depend on machines to do your thinking for you.

They want you relying on AI to do your reasoning, researching, analysis, and writing.

They want you to require easily controllable software to form your understanding of the world, and to express that understanding to others.

They can control the machines, but they can’t control the human mind. So they want you to abandon your mind for the machines.

They want you relying on artificial intelligence so you stop using your organic intelligence.

They want your critical thinking skills to atrophy.

They want your ability to locate and parse inconvenient pieces of information to deteriorate.

They want your inspiration and intuition to decay.

They want your sense of morality to waste and wither away.

They want you perceiving reality through interpretive lenses controlled by plutocratic tech companies which are inextricably intertwined with the power structure of the western empire.

Generative AI is just high-tech brainwashing. It’s the next level of propaganda indoctrination. It is there to turn our brains into useless sludge which cannot function without technological crutches controlled by the imperial plutocrats.

They want us to abandon our humanity for technology.

They don’t want us making our own art.

They don’t want us making our own music.

They don’t want us writing our own poetry.

They don’t want us contemplating philosophy for ourselves.

They don’t want us turning inwards and getting in touch with an authentic spirituality.

They want to replace the dynamic human spirit with predictable lines of code.

Our brains are conditioned to select for cognitive ease, and that’s what the AI merchants are selling us. The sales pitch is, “You don’t have to exert all that mental effort thinking new thoughts, learning new things, and expressing yourself creatively! This product will do it for you!”

But it comes at a cost. We have to trade in our ability to do those things for ourselves.

Historically when a new technology has shown up, that kind of tradeoff has been worth it. Not many people know how to start a fire with a bow drill anymore, but it rarely matters because modern technology has given us much more efficient ways of starting fires and keeping warm. It didn’t make sense to spend all the time and effort necessary to maintain our respective bow drill skills once that technology showed up.

But this isn’t like that. We’re not talking about some obsolete skill we won’t need anymore thanks to modern technological development, we’re talking about our minds. Our creative expression. Our inspiration. Our very humanness.

Even if AI worked well (it doesn’t) and even if our plutocratic overlords could be trusted to interpret reality on our behalf (they can’t), those still wouldn’t be aspects of ourselves that we should want to relinquish.

In this oligarchic dystopia, it is an act of defiance just to insist upon maintaining your own cognitive faculties. Regularly exercising your own creativity, ingenuity and mental effort is a small but meaningful rebellion.

So exercise it.

Don’t ask an AI to think something through for you. Work it out as best you can on your own. Even if the results are flawed, it’s still better than losing your ability to reason.

Don’t ask AI to create art or poetry for you. Make it yourself. Even if it’s crap, it’ll still be better than outsourcing your artistic capacity to a machine.

Don’t even run to a chatbot every time you need to find information about something. See if you can work your way through the old enshittified online search methods and find it for yourself. Our rulers are getting better and better at hiding inconvenient facts from us, so we’ve got to get better and better at finding them.

Get in touch with the fleshy, tactile experience of human embodiment, because they are trying to get you to abandon it.

Really feel your feet on the ground. The air in your lungs. The wind in your hair. Teach yourself to calm your restless mind and take in the beauty that’s all around you in every moment.

Repair the attention span that’s been shattered by smartphones and social media. Learn to meditate and focus on one thing for an extended period. Don’t look at your phone so much.

Read a book. A paper one, that you can touch and smell and hear the pages rustle as you turn them. If it’s an old one from the library or the used book store, that’s even better.

It doesn’t have to be a challenging book if your attention span is really shot. Start simple. A kids book. A comic book. Whatever you can manage. You’re putting yourself through cognitive restorative therapy. Your first steps don’t have to impress anybody.

Get in touch with your feelings. The ones you’ve been suppressing for years. Let them come out and have their say, listening to them like a loving parent to a trembling child.

Learn to cherish those moments in between all the highlights of your day. The time you spend at red lights, or waiting for the coffee to brew. There is staggering beauty packed into every moment on this earth; all you need to do is learn to notice it.

Embrace your humanity. Embrace your feelings. Embrace your flaws. Embrace your inefficiency. Embrace everything they’re trying to get you to turn away from.

What they are offering you is so very, very inferior to the immense treasure trove that you are swimming in just by existing as a human being on this planet.

You are a miracle. This life is a miracle.

Don’t let them hide this from you.

Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper. Contact: admin@caitlinjohnstone.com

3 November 2025

Source: transcend.org