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By Ahmed Adel

The United States Congress is debating a 50% cut in economic aid to Colombia for various social programs. This will affect key sectors for Gustavo Petro’s government, but could also be an opportunity for Colombia to diversify its sources of cooperation.

The 50% cut in annual US aid to Colombia for non-military programs was approved by the US House of Representatives Appropriations Committee, at the proposal of Republican legislator Mario Díaz-Balart. Budgetary aid to Colombia would decrease from the $410 million annually paid until 2025 to approximately $209 million.

The bill, which establishes budgets for US security and foreign policy for 2026, seeks to restrict funding for countries it considers unaligned with Washington’s foreign policy. The text includes a clause to require “that foreign assistance be directed to countries in the Western Hemisphere that act as allies and implement foreign and domestic policies which are consistent with United States values and security interests.”

Within this framework, the bill stipulates the “placing strict conditions on funding and requiring a pre-obligation report for Colombia, reducing non-military assistance by 50 percent due to the Petro Administration’s failure to align with United States interests and worsening security conditions—including an attempted assassination of a political opposition leader—while still maintaining continuous support for counter-narcotics efforts.”

According to the committee, leaders of Latin American countries that have announced measures to oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza, including Colombia, have been “fueling prejudice against Jewish communities through social media and official government channels or otherwise neglecting their responsibility to protect Jewish communities and other marginalized groups.”

Additionally, the committee said that the attempted assassination of far-right Senator Miguel Uribe was a demonstration of a “deteriorating security environment and rising political volatility in Colombia.” Colombia’s congressional coalition asked the US House of Representatives’ Ethics Committee to investigate Diaz’s alleged role in attempts to overthrow the government.

The bill still needs to be ratified by the full Congress, its approval is more than likely given the current political context of Republican majorities and alignment with the ideas of President Donald Trump.

While the cuts decisively exclude collaboration on security issues, they will affect programs related to economic development and support for the most vulnerable populations, especially health and education programs. The cut will have a greater impact on civil society organizations that depend on these cooperation flows, which are generally linked to the implementation of the peace agreements signed in 2016.

At the same time, the cuts will impact the workforce involved in international cooperation within the country. A large number of people have left the various cooperation mechanisms at this time.

Resources from the Colombian government also supplement many of the programs funded by the US. The cuts, therefore, could impact the coverage and quality of these programs, reducing the target population for these social programs.

The aid cuts have not only an economic but also a political interpretation, especially because the US Congress has managed to create an environment that clouds relations between Washington and Bogota in the run-up to the 2026 election campaign.

As an election year approaches, the decline in resources gives the government less room to spend on social programs, which have been a flagship of the Petro administration. While Colombia is not highly dependent on international cooperation for its economy, the US is the largest funder of these types of programs. In this context, the aid cuts highlight the importance of Colombia diversifying its sources of cooperation.

Colombia must not only rely on funding, but also seek other types of technical cooperation and identify emerging actors who can contribute to strengthening cooperation. In this regard, there is great importance on organizations such as the CAF (Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the New BRICS Development Bank, which Colombia recently joined.

By allowing for diversification of international aid, Colombia will also demonstrate its geopolitical transformation despite being a major non-NATO ally.

Bogota’s geopolitical transformation is seen in its trade ties, particularly with China. Total trade between the two countries rose from $1.2 billion in 2004 to $18.3 billion in 2024—a fifteenfold increase. In terms of investment, Chinese foreign direct investment in the South American country has grown from negligible levels to approximately $580 million over the past three years. At the same time, Petro’s decision to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative is aimed at “reducing Colombia’s $14 billion trade deficit with China” and boosting exports to up to $10 billion.

By becoming increasingly hostile to Colombia, the US will actually have the opposite effect on the country, bringing it closer to China and the BRICS bloc. Petro no longer wants his country reduced to being seen as part of the US’s backyard, and political aid cuts will only validate his mission to make Colombia more sovereign.

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

3 August 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Arnold August

After 41 years of cruel and unjust incarceration in French jails, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah hit the ground running. He did not miss a beat in his lifelong struggle for the liberation of Palestine, the Arab world, and the Middle East. He immediately proclaimed, upon a triumphant arrival at Beirut airport, what many of us have been thinking or even saying out loud:

“We know how these [Arab] regimes are. But how many Arabs were martyred trying to enter Gaza? None. If 2 million Egyptians take to the streets, the genocide would end. The question relies on Egyptians in particular, more than any other people.” He added, “If only one million Egyptians took a stance at Rafah, the genocide would not continue.” “Take to the streets,” he went on, emphasizing that the borders that suffocate life must be torn open by the people’s will. Directly addressing Egyptians and other Arabs, regarding the Palestinians’ cause, he challenged them: “Your silence is their [the enemy’s] weapon. Your uprising, their lifeline.”

Georges Abdallah became a legend while serving the longest prison term in European history. However, even though it was not his intention, at Beirut airport, the legend was catapulted to yet a higher level of a mythical personage, a larger-than-life human being, by speaking the truth. A legend is a legend only when it is not the intention to become one, but instead humbly serves the cause.  

Who Is Georges Abdallah?

He was a Lebanese Christian militant and the founding leader of the Marxist-Leninist Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (LARF). Originally a Christian militant fighting for a predominantly Muslim cause, Abdallah defies sectarian categories. Al Mayadeen Espagnole’s director Wafica Ibrahim further traces his life:

In the prime of his youth, during the height of the struggle with “Israel” in the 1980s, Georges founded LARF. The factions as a group claimed responsibility for an operation against the US military attaché in Paris, Charles Ray, and against the Israeli agent Yacov Bar-Simantov. However, Georges Abdallah’s direct involvement in these operations has never been proven, despite the fact that the first lawyer appointed by the court to defend him had ties to French intelligence. This alone was enough to ruin the trial from the outset. Georges served his entire sentence in 1999 and, since then, at the behest of the United States and “Israel”, the French state has held him hostage, imprisoned outside the law. Eleven requests for his release were filed over the course of 25 years. Georges Abdallah’s release, Wafica wrote, will not be limited to speeches and waving flags. We will then take him to the museum of veteran fighters, and that will be it. “No, a thousand times no,” concludes Ibrahim, “You are wrong. Because at this challenging moment in our history, Georges Abdallah will come to help us reinvent the meaning of resistance… It is a historic day of joy and hopeful pride for Lebanese revolutionaries… Perhaps July 25, 2025, will be the beginning of the countdown to stop the depression and defeatism of some and restore joy and victory to the people of Lebanon, to steadfast Gaza and its heroic people.” At the airport, he courageously addressed his Lebanese people, urging them to come together and stand in the face of what he described as a global Zionist threat.

Georges Abdallah’s statement comes at a time when Yemen is reaffirming its position. The president of the Supreme Political Council in Yemen, Mahdi al-Mashat, recently declared that the country is ready to be “at the forefront” of any collective action taken by the region against Israeli crimes and the powers that support them.

“If you are unable to act, then let the people act. And if the people do not act, the consequences of silence and inaction will reach every nation of this Ummah [global community of Muslims].”

On July 24, the leader of the Yemeni Ansar Allah movement, Sayyed Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, renewed his appeal to the governments of countries geographically located between Yemen and Palestine to “open passageways for our people,” so that Yemenis mobilizing in the hundreds of thousands can march in support of Gaza. The very survival of Palestine is at the point of no return.

What does Georges’ living legend tell us in the West? The pro-Palestine movement must openly and unapologetically increase its support for the Resistance more than ever. What was the excuse from some for refusing to do so? The Axis of Resistance does not fit the romantic Western preconceived notion of a “pure” national liberation struggle, because, among others, it is “tainted” by religion, Muslim to boot. However, Georges is of Christian origin. Furthermore, he is a revolutionary drawing on “Western” Marxist traditions.

Moreover, these roots span religions and ideologies to encompass everything the Resistance needs to win the victory over the US-backed Zionist scourge. The heterogeneous olive tree’s roots encompass different strands of thought, religions, and action. However, these roots intertwine with each other under the soil to form the same tree. Still not satisfied? When Hamas announced the martyrdom of its leader, Yahya Sinwar, many Palestinians viewed his iconic armchair position as the Che Guevara moment for Palestine. Lebanese Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is another case in point, as Tim Anderson points out. He created a Resistance network that came to include the majority of the Lebanese people and served as a reference point for the regional alliance of independent peoples. That alliance crossed sects and religions.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is another notable example. However, reports from Westerners who have recently visited Iran conclude that it is perhaps the most misunderstood country in the world. 

More than ever, the pro-Palestine movement in North America and Europe cannot shy away from openly supporting the Resistance by proudly holding its banners high and expressing support for the group Palestine Action, which is proscribed in Britain. There is no reason to refrain from doing so. How does it help to shape the narrative in favour of Palestinian liberation when the middle of the road is taken in the same breath in favour of both the release of the Palestinian prisoners and “hostages,” or opposing both October 7 and Zionist “violence?” The Empire latches onto every crack in the hegemonic anecdote as a sign of weakness and encourages them to continue with the same account. Can one be so naïve as to think for a second that when even some pro-Palestine activists accept the falsehoods spun by the ruling circles’ version on October 7, the Western corporate media and governments do not see this as a vindication of their cause? Choose your camp. The legend of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah suggests that there is no reason to be neutral. This cowardly approach is often hidden behind the fear of Western sensitivity toward critics of Zionism, on the one hand, and, on the other, recoiling at the thought of transgressing the false Western-imposed boundaries of what it means to be revolutionary.

To reject this ambivalent slant is to honor Georges and his 41 years in prison.

Arnold August is a Canadian journalist and lecturer, the author of Democracy in Cuba and the 1997–98 Elections, Cuba and Its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion and Cuba–U.S. Relations: Obama and Beyond. As a journalist, he collaborates with many websites in Latin America, Europe, North America and the Middle East.

4 August 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Habib Siddiqui

In a powerful exposé titled “The New York War Crimes: A Dossier,” a coalition of writers opposed to the war on Gaza has accused The New York Times (NYT) of complicity in genocide through its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The dossier, published by independent journalists and activists, alleges that the Times has systematically laundered misinformation, suppressed critical facts, and maintained editorial ties to Zionist organizations, thereby shaping public opinion in favor of Israeli military actions.

The dossier opens with a bold statement: The New York Times has served as a “mouthpiece for American imperialism,” helping to manufacture elite consensus around foreign policy that supports Israel’s military operations in Gaza. It identifies a pattern of biased reporting, selective framing, and omission of key facts that have contributed to the justification of war crimes.

The dossier meticulously documents the backgrounds of several prominent NYT figures, revealing deep personal and professional ties to Zionist organizations and Israeli institutions:

• Meredith Kopit Levien, CEO of The New York Times Company, has served on the advisory council of B’nai B’rith Youth Organization (BBYO), which promotes unwavering loyalty to Israel.
• Joe Kahn, Executive Editor, is linked to CAMERA, a Zionist media watchdog. He oversaw the controversial article “Screams Without Words,” which falsely accused Hamas of mass rape.
• Thomas Friedman, long-time foreign affairs columnist, has personal ties to Israel dating back to his youth and lived in a home seized from Palestinians during the Nakba.
• Isabel Kershner, Jerusalem correspondent, is married to a former Israeli military strategist Hirsh Goodman and has two sons who served in the Israeli military. Goodman previously worked at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a Zionist think tank founded in 1985 and run by former AIPAC executives.
• Patrick Kingsley, Jerusalem bureau chief since 2021, has been criticized for embedding with Israeli forces and altering coverage under pressure from pro-Israel groups that led to the targeted killings of the Palestinian poets, scholars, and teachers like Refaat Alareer by the Israelis.
• Ronen Bergman, contributor to the NYT Magazine, is a former Israeli intelligence officer and frequent speaker at AIPAC events.
• Natan Odenheimer, Jerusalem correspondent, served in Israel’s elite Maglan commando unit for four years.
• Adam Rasgon who joined the NYT in 2024 previously worked at Zionist think tank Shalem Center, founded by one of Benjamin Netanyahu’s close advisors and funded by Trump mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, and later at WINEP to ‘disseminate the AIPAC line but in a way that would disguise its connections’. He cited them at least 17 times in his reporting without disclosure.
• Jodi Rudoren, editorial director of newsletters, lived in a home taken from the prominent Palestinian-born academic, physician and author Ghada Karmi’s family during the Nakba and bought by Thomas Friedman for the Times in the 1980s. She has longstanding ties to Zionist organizations.
• David Leonhardt, opinion editor, has justified Israeli military actions and echoed official narratives about attacks on hospitals after October 2023 by insisting that ‘there may be no way for Israel both to minimize civilian casualties and to eliminate Hamas,’ and that ‘Hamas is responsible for many of the civilian deaths’ in Gaza. “In November 2023, Leonhardt disseminated Israel’s narrative during the IOF’s first invasion of Al-Shifa Hospital, where hundreds of displaced civilians had been sheltering, framing the assault on one of Gaza’s most important hospitals as unfortunate but necessary.”
• Bret Stephens, opinion columnist since 2017, works for a Zionist advocacy group, the dark-money Maimonides Fund, where he works as the editor-in-chief of its journal, Sapir, in a blatant violation of the Times ethical guidelines. He has appeared at events across the country with the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most influential Zionist lobby organization in the United States.
• David Brooks, columnist since 2003, defended Israel during its 2014 assault on Gaza, one of Israel’s bloodiest assaults on Gaza, while his son served in the Israeli military. In one 2014 NPR interview, he claimed that exposing civilian casualties of Israel’s attacks was a ploy for sympathy by the Palestinian people, arguing that ‘Hamas has basically decided they want to see their own people killed as a propaganda coup.’ 
• Myra Noveck, long-time Jerusalem bureau staffer since 1999, has children in the Israeli military and is married to a Zionist writer Gershom Gorenberg.
• David Halbfinger, political editor, was described as the NYT’s “most Israel-friendly” reporter and attends a synagogue that fundraises for Israel.

The dossier argues that the NYT has played a central role in laundering misinformation that has justified Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza. It highlights four major propaganda narratives:

1. The Hannibal Directive Cover-Up

Despite widespread reporting in Israeli media, the NYT has failed to mention that Israel issued the Hannibal Directive on October 7th, the Israeli military doctrine that calls to kill other Israelis to prevent them from being taken hostage. On October 7, 2023, this directive contributed to the deaths of many Israelis. Yet, the NYT continues to blame Hamas exclusively for the casualties, omitting this critical context.

2. The Mass Rape Hoax

The NYT published the now-discredited article “Screams Without Words,” alleging that Hamas weaponized sexual violence. The claims were refuted by forensic experts, family members of alleged victims, and the UN Human Rights Council, which found no credible evidence of rape. The article cited “sisters Y. and N. Sharabi, ages 13 and 16” as supposed victims of mass rape. However, a spokesperson for the Kibbutz Be’eri, where they were killed, came out and said, “No, they just — they were shot. I’m saying ‘just,’ but they were shot and were not subjected to sexual abuse.” Furthermore, the piece listed Gal Abdush as one of the main victims of Hamas rape, but multiple members of her family came out publicly to say she was not raped on October 7, 2023.

Haartez reported that “At Shura Base, to which most of the bodies (from October 7th) were taken for purposes of identification, there were five forensic pathologists at work. In that capacity, they also examined bodies that arrived completely or partially naked in order to examine the possibility of rape. According to a source knowledgeable about the details, there were no signs on any of those bodies attesting to sexual relations having taken place or of mutilation of genitalia.”

Ironically, these false claims were used to justify actual sexual violence committed by Israeli forces against Palestinian detainees, including minors.

3. The Al Shifa Hospital Lie

The NYT echoed Israeli claims that Al Shifa Hospital was a Hamas command center. Investigations by Channel 4 and the UN found no supporting evidence. Instead, the hospital was subjected to airstrikes, raids, and mass detentions, rendering it non-functional. Palestinian doctors reported torture and abuse at Israeli detention centers, with Israeli medical personnel allegedly participating in or condoning the violence.

4. The Hamas Stealing Aid Lie

The NYT reported that Hamas stole UN aid, citing Israeli and U.S.-backed sources. However, a U.S. government analysis and later NYT admissions found no evidence of systematic theft. This narrative was used to justify the establishment of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) “aid centers” that became sites of massacres, where over 1,000 Palestinians were killed while seeking food.

An IDF soldier stationed at one of these GHF aid centers told Haaretz, “It’s a killing field. Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day. They’re treated like a hostile force – no crowd-control measures, no tear gas – just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. We open fire early in the morning if someone tries to get in line from a few hundred meters away, and sometimes we just charge at them from close range. But there’s no danger to the forces, I’m not aware of a single instance of return fire. There’s no enemy, no weapons”.

Whistleblower Testimonies: A Glimpse into the Horror

Two American whistleblowers—one a career Army veteran and the other a former Green Beret—provided harrowing accounts of the brutality at aid distribution centers. They described the use of live fire, mortar rounds, and tank shells against unarmed civilians. One recounted a woman collapsing after being hit by a stun grenade; another witnessed a man pepper-sprayed while collecting noodles. Their testimonies confirm that these operations were not humanitarian but killing fields.

One of them, Green Beret Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony Aguilar, who was hired to guard one of the GHF aid sites, said to BBC News: “I witnessed the Israeli defense forces shooting at the crowds of Palestinians. I witnessed the Israeli defense forces firing a main gun tank round from the Merkava tank into a crowd of people, destroying a car of civilians who were simply driving away from the site… In my entire career, have I never witnessed the level of brutality and use of indiscriminate and unnecessary force against a civilian population, an unarmed, starving population.” He said, “Without question, I witnessed war crimes, I witnessed war crimes by the Israeli defense forces, without a doubt, using artillery rounds, mortar rounds, firing tank rounds into unarmed civilians, it’s a war crime.”

The Consequences of Complicity

The dossier concludes that The New York Times has not merely failed in its journalistic duty—it has actively contributed to the justification of war crimes. By laundering false narratives, suppressing dissenting voices, and maintaining editorial ties to Zionist institutions, the NYT has helped normalize genocide, mass rape, hospital bombings, and starvation in Gaza.

This exposé demands a reckoning—not just with the NYT, but with the broader media ecosystem that whitewashes and enables genocidal violence. Consider the case of Bari Weiss, who founded The Free Press. Weiss once described the killing of 50 Palestinians, including children, as an “unavoidable burden” of Zionism’s self-determination—a statement that would be unthinkable if made about Jewish victims. Yet, such rhetoric has not hindered her professional ascent. Instead, it has seemingly been rewarded.

The Free Press has repeatedly spread misinformation to defend Israel’s actions in Gaza. It misrepresented UN data to downplay civilian deaths, denied the existence of famine despite mounting evidence, and falsely blamed Hamas for aid-seeker massacres later confirmed to be carried out by Israeli forces. The outlet also praised the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has since been implicated in widespread violence against starving civilians.

Beyond misinformation, The Free Press engages in more insidious propaganda. It has shifted its stance on attacks against Gaza’s hospitals—from denial to justification—despite overwhelming evidence and admissions from the IDF. The outlet rarely acknowledges Palestinian suffering or the mounting death toll, instead lamenting the reputational damage to Israel.

Weiss herself has a history of promoting Islamophobic views. She rose to prominence by targeting Muslim professors at Columbia University and has repeatedly blamed Muslims for rising antisemitism in Europe. She has also promoted Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who espouses extreme views about Islam and Muslim immigrants. Weiss’s support for Ali’s rhetoric—calling Islam a “cult of death” and advocating for the closure of Muslim schools—would be unacceptable if directed at Judaism, yet it has not hindered her career.

Weiss and her outlet are reportedly in talks to sell The Free Press to CBS News for $200–$250 million, a move that could give her influence over the network’s editorial direction. The elevation of Bari Weiss and The Free Press—despite their record of misinformation and inflammatory rhetoric—alongside the longstanding pro-Israel bias of institutions like The New York Times, signals a deeper crisis in journalism. As media power becomes increasingly concentrated in the hands of ideologically aligned corporations, the boundaries between truth and propaganda blur. In this climate, narratives that justify war and suppress accountability are not just tolerated—they’re rewarded.

The public must remain critically vigilant, because when media giants dictate the terms of truth, the cost is not merely misinformation—it is complicity in injustice, and the silencing of those who suffer most.

Dr. Siddiqui is a peace and human rights activist.

4 August 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Aviva Chomsky

In July 2025, the Massachusetts legislature’s Judiciary Committee heard testimony on a bill to make it the 38th state to follow the federal government, 45 other countries (almost all of them in the global North), and more than 50 U.S. local governments in adopting a strange definition of antisemitism.

In 2016, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), a group of 35 mostly European countries, drafted what it called a working definition of antisemitism. The Alliance had been founded in 1998 to promote Holocaust education and, in its own words, to “strengthen governmental cooperation to work towards a world without genocide.” All too sadly, right now, its definition is being used to do the opposite: it’s helping to criminalize opposition to genocide.

Is It Really About Antisemitism?

Most anti-racist organizations, like the NAACP, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the League of United Latin American Citizens, and Stop Anti-Asian and Pacific Islander Hate, do not, in fact, offer a specific definition of racism. Instead, they simply work to combat discrimination and fight for equal opportunity and basic human and civil rights.

Jews in the United States don’t, in fact, face the same kinds of systemic racism the people that formed the above organizations face. Unlike them, Jews tend to be disproportionately high income, highly educated professionals.

So, in the IHRA’s list of examples of antisemitism, not one refers to inequality or structural discrimination. Instead, they focus mostly on ideas and speech — and in particular things said about Israel. And what those examples, in fact, tend to do is turn the definition of antisemitism into a thinly veiled tool for use in prohibiting criticism of any sort of Israel.

The IHRA’s definition itself appears relatively straightforward, even if it focuses on thought and speech rather than structures of racism: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

What follows, however, is a confusing and contradictory amalgam of 11 “examples of antisemitism in public life,” six of which focus on political debate that raises questions about Zionism, Israel as an ethnostate, or Israel’s actions.

Creating legal avenues to suppress what would otherwise be protected political speech about Israel is a major reason that the IHRA and its allies have felt the need to turn their definition into law. And advocates for the legal adoption of that definition claim that it’s necessary because antisemitism is on the rise in this country. But the expansive and confusing examples of antisemitism that the definition relies on actually make it impossible to know whether such a statement is, in fact, accurate. The organizations that use the IHRA definition to track antisemitism won’t tell us whether what is on the rise is actually antisemitism or simply opposition to Israel and its increasingly unnerving actions in the Middle East.

In addition, the IHRA text is based on the assumption that all Jews, by definition, identify fully with Israel and with the nature of Israel as a Jewish state. And so, for the IHRA, challenging “the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity” is in itself an example of antisemitism.

Yet the document also denounces as antisemitic the stereotyping of Jews and, in particular, “accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.”

Notice a contradiction? While the IHRA claims that stereotyping or caricaturing Jews, or attributing a particular version of pro-Israel politics to Jews, is antisemitic, its own definition stereotypes, caricatures, and attributes a particular politics about Israel to Jews.

Legal and Logical Contradictions: A Double Standard for Israel

After suggesting that “the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity” must not be challenged, the Alliance then does step back and agree that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”

However, there is no other country that is conceived as a Jewish collectivity. To demand that criticism of Israel must be “similar” to that leveled against other countries to be legitimate is just another way of saying that no such criticism can truly be legitimate.

The closest example of a country with a diverse population conceived as the collectivity of a single group might be apartheid South Africa, which of course was the target of widespread global condemnation. Another parallel today might be Hindu nationalism in India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But criticism of Hindu nationalism, like that of White nationalism in South Africa, has never been proscribed or punished for being a form of discrimination. (No matter that Donald Trump deemed White South Africans an oppressed minority!)

In yet another contradiction, the document denounces “applying double standards [to Israel] by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation” as constituting antisemitism. In fact, however, its definition applies a double standard to Israel by proscribing language and criticism that no institution proscribes with respect to any other country.

The United States imposes no legal prohibitions on challenging ethnonationalism in other lands. I am free to criticize India, Hungary, or any other country, democratic or otherwise, that in any way privileges one race, ethnicity, or religion over others — but I can’t criticize Israel for doing the same when it comes to Palestinians. I’m free to criticize racism, discrimination, and racist violence anywhere else on earth — but not in Israel. If any other country creates the equivalent of concentration camps or commits genocide, we can denounce it and try to stop it — but if Israel does that, I will be accused of antisemitism for telling the truth about what Israel is doing.

According to the IHRA, we can state those truths about any other country committing war crimes and genocide, but not about what Israel is doing in Gaza. Given what we are witnessing in Gaza, that is not just a double standard, it’s impunity for genocide.

Is Accusing Israel of Genocide Antisemitic?

The IHRA further adds that “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is a manifestation of antisemitism. This prohibition extends not only to direct comparisons, but to any claim that Israel is by its very nature an ethno-state, or that it is currently engaging in genocide, creating concentration camps, planning for mass expulsions, or engaging in other war crimes or crimes against humanity.

But what does it mean if a country is granted blanket impunity against any accusation of racism, war crimes, or human rights violations? The IHRA would prohibit journalists, human rights organizations, international organizations, international legal groups, and scholars from investigating, or denouncing what the country is doing, much less taking action to restrain it. Indeed, some people from these groups have been accused and sanctioned for their investigations, while others self-censor out of fear of being seen as antisemitic.

In short, the IHRA itself commits two of the acts that it claims to oppose: it creates a double standard for Israel and an impenetrable cover for committing genocide.

Major human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have concluded that Israel is indeed committing genocide in Gaza. Close to two dozen countries — almost all from the global South — along with the Non-Aligned Movement, the Arab League, and the African Union, have joined with South Africa to accuse Israel of genocidal acts before the International Court of Justice. And all of those claims have been duly condemned by Israel and its allies.

Israeli genocide historian Omer Bartov proceeded cautiously with his own judgment. In November 2023, he wrote: “As a historian of genocide, I believe that there is no proof that genocide is currently taking place in Gaza, although it is very likely that war crimes, and even crimes against humanity, are happening.” He believed then that genocide was indeed possible in Gaza and urged the world to mobilize to prevent it.

Despite global protest, Israel’s assault on Gaza only continued. In July 2025, Bartov wrote: “My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. [Israeli Defense Forces] as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one.” Ongoing denial of the genocide, he added, “will cause unmitigated damage not just to the people of Gaza and Israel but also to the system of international law established in the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust, designed to prevent such atrocities from happening ever again.”

In fact, Bartov observes, there is now an overwhelming consensus among genocide scholars (who study comparative genocide or different genocides worldwide) that what we are witnessing in Gaza is indeed a genocide. Holocaust scholars mostly hold the opposite view and many have argued, in line with the IHRA, that any such accusation against Israel could only be motivated by antisemitism. “The Holocaust has been… relentlessly invoked by the state of Israel and its defenders as a cover-up for the crimes of the IDF,” concludes Bartov, citing an array of publications that accuse genocide scholars of antisemitism for simply describing what Israel is doing in Gaza and quoting Israeli officials about their aims.

What About Other War Crimes — Or Any Crimes at All?

Yet another IHRA example of antisemitism refers to “blood libel,” which it doesn’t define, but which generally refers to the grim myth that Jews killed non-Jewish children to use their blood in rituals. The IHRA text cites “using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis” as examples of antisemitism.

And such accusations haven’t just been made against critics of the present war in Gaza outside of Israel. When Israeli politician Yair Golan spoke out against Israeli atrocities in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately accused him of “blood libel.” When the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz published an investigative report with soldiers’ testimonies about being ordered to shoot at Gazans approaching humanitarian aid sites, the paper was subject to the same accusation. When Israeli opposition politicians accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war in the service of his own political interests, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. accused them, too, of “blood libel.”

Is it antisemitic for the World Court to hear a case accusing Israel of the crime of genocide in Gaza? Benjamin Netanyahu has openly claimed so, as did the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the U.S. Combat Antisemitism Movement. Is it antisemitic for genocide scholars to study this particular case of mass killing, just because its perpetrator happens to be Israel? Is it antisemitic for Israeli journalist Dahlia Scheindlin to point out that “Israel’s plan to herd 600,000 Palestinians into a special camp at Gaza’s southern border with Egypt” is in fact a plan to create the equivalent of a concentration camp?

The impunity that such a proscription attempts to grant Israel is immense.

There’s More: It’s Legally Binding

Although the IHRA originally insisted that its definition was “non-legally binding,” it is, in fact, becoming so. The group itself and major Jewish organizations in the United States have launched political campaigns to promote their definition and turn it into law.

By mid-2025, 46 countries had adopted the definition. President Trump implemented it with an executive order in 2019, citing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin for any program that gets federal financial assistance. As a result, Title VI proscriptions can now be applied to a person who criticizes Zionism, who uses the term genocide to describe Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, or who advocates the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement or indeed any withdrawal of U.S. support for what Israel is now doing.

The Biden administration maintained Trump’s policy and the current Trump administration, and universities now pressured into following in its footsteps, have used it to fire, punish, or, in the case of the government, deport people under the guise of preventing antisemitism. In fact, Harvard University’s decision in January 2025 to become the first Ivy League university to join the trend, adopting the definition (followed by Yale in April), specifically designated “Zionists” as a protected class. Thus, the policy prohibits “antisemitic, racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Zionist, anti-Arab, Islamophobic, anti-LDS, or anti-Catholic” behaviors.

The IHRA document was not written to be turned into law, and even some of its authors have protested this use. Yet there it is in law and policy throughout the United States and Europe.

Weaponizing Antisemitism as a Shield to Enable Genocide

The IHRA’S definition goes far beyond the obvious one, that of stereotyping, prejudice against, or harm against Jews, and has little to do with preventing genocide. It is an eminently political definition that tries to prevent criticism of Israel by defining such criticism as antisemitic. Turning it into law heavily limits freedom of speech and political debate — and has nothing to do with antisemitism.

As Israel, in fact, continues to carry out mass killings of Palestinians, attempting to destroy every institution of Palestinian life and culture in Gaza, and herding them into militarized camps, this definition has been mobilized to try to silence any hint that it might be engaging in war crimes, creating concentration camps, or committing genocide.

Aviva Chomsky, a TomDispatch regular, is professor of history and coordinator of Latin American studies at Salem State University in Massachusetts. 

4 August 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Jean Shaoul

Last week, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, held a conference The Gaza Riviera–from vision to reality. Fascist lawmakers presented plans to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip of Palestinians, annexe it to Israel and re-establish Jewish settlements there. This would include building two cities in Gaza, one in the north and south of the Strip, as well as a university campus, an industrial area, a commercial and tech park and a tourist district with beachfront hotels.

Attending the conference were government ministers, Knesset members, heads of regional councils, security personnel, bereaved families, relatives of hostages, rabbis, researchers and activists.

[https://twitter.com/GarySpedding/status/1947671644912152668]

[The sign in the Knesset pictured in the X posting reads: “Meeting of the Lobby for the Renewal of Jewish Settlement in the Gaza Strip: Topic: “The Gaza Riviera – From Vision to Reality”]

The name of the conference stemmed from President Donald Trump’s February 4 announcement at a White House press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the US would take over Gaza and “own it”, forcing the 2.1 million Palestinians living there to leave, and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

Trump added, “If it’s necessary, we’ll do that, we’re going to take over that piece, we’re going to develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs, and it’ll be something that the entire Middle East can be very proud of.” He had earlier called for the permanent resettlement of Gaza’s Palestinians in neighbouring countries.

Trump doubled down on his plans a week later at another press conference at the White House, this time with King Abdullah of Jordan, saying, “I believe we will have a parcel of land in Jordan, a parcel of land in Egypt, we may have some place else but I think when we finish our talks we’ll have a place where they’ll live very happily”.

When asked whether he agreed with Trump’s proposal to remove the Palestinians from Gaza to Jordan and Egypt, Abdullah, squirming with embarrassment, replied that “Egypt and the Arab countries” had an alternative plan that would be revealed in due course: the Arab League’s $53 billion reconstruction programme announced by Egypt in March that would leave the Palestinians in a Gaza governed by “technocrats”.

That such a conference could be held in Israel’s parliament, with barely a mention, let alone comment or condemnation, in the world’s media, indicates the degree to which ethnic cleansing and annexation after territorial conquest have become normalised, not just in Israel but in the centres of world imperialism. Under conditions where Washington is in the business of creating a “New Middle East”, it sets the tone for what future wars of conquest will mean.

Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the far-right Religious Zionism Party and Finance Minister who also holds a post in the Defence Ministry giving him de facto control over the West Bank, said “We will occupy Gaza and make it an inseparable part of Israel.” Eyal Zamir, chief of Staff of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), had told him that the northern border of Gaza should be annexed “for security purposes.” 

Smotrich said, “I truly believe there is a tremendous opportunity here,” adding that Israel would begin “with the northern border [area of the strip] and establish three communities there. We are already talking about it. Some call it a ‘security annexation’.”

He spoke of “a proposed plan to relocate Gazans to other countries,” that would “serve as a means of facilitating the settlement of the Strip” and of receiving “a green light from the president of the United States to turn Gaza into a prosperous strip, a resort town with employment,” a reference to Trump’s statements at the White House last February.

He declared to cheers and applause, “That’s how you make peace.” It could bring “hundreds of thousands” of Israelis to Gaza and “solve the housing problem and cost of housing for us.”

Smotrich and other far-right politicians have repeatedly called for Israel to annexe Gaza and re-establish settlements in the Strip. Speaking at the conference, he said, “For 20 years, we called it wishful thinking. It seems to me it is now a real working plan.”

Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights lawyer, said, “This is a plan for ethnic cleansing. Under international law, this would amount to a crime against humanity because deportation is a war crime when committed on a small scale and a crime against humanity when it is committed on a massive scale.”

Daniella Weiss, leader of the far-right settler group Nachala that drew up the plans, said, “The Arab Gaza chapter is over” and “In Gaza, there will never be an Arab, international or American government”.

[https://twitter.com/Etanetan23/status/1947676924219695115]

Limor Son Har-Melech, a lawmaker from the far-right Jewish Power Party, praised the settlers, calling them the successors of the Zionist leaders who established Israel in 1948. “We need to rebuild the Gaza Strip with Jewish cities”.

This was a reference to the settlements—established after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war when Israel seized control of Gaza – that were demolished after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon unilaterally “disengaged” from the Strip. Sharon had calculated that Gaza, which had become the scene of increasingly costly confrontations, would be easier to control without the presence of the settlements. It would also provide cover for US President George W. Bush to approve the expansion of the settlements in the West Bank. Netanyahu resigned from Sharon’s government in protest at the pull-out.

Har-Melech added that there needed to be “big and fortified cities all over Gaza… There is a thirst for return among the public. Not as a punishment but because this is where we live”.

Religious Zionist lawmaker Zvi Sukkot echoed Har-Melech’s remarks, saying Israel had “the power” to implement Trump’s “vision”. Sukkot was once an active member of The Revolt, the far-right terrorist group responsible for firebombing a Palestinian family home in the village of Duma in 2015, killing three people. These included an 18-month-old, Ali Dawabsheh, who was burned alive in the fire and both his parents who died from their injuries.

While Netanyahu has repeatedly denied any plans to resettle the Palestinians in Gaza, Defence Minister Israel Katz has called for transferring the Palestinians to a “humanitarian city” in southern Gaza as what could only be a preparatory step for their expulsion. When speaking at the White House during his visit last month, Netanyahu claimed that the US and Israel were “getting close to finding several countries” who will take in Palestinians who would like to leave Gaza. He has rejected any ceasefire with Hamas that does not include Hamas’s surrender and the release of all living hostages and the bodies of the dead within weeks, threatening that otherwise Israel will begin annexing parts of Gaza.

In a recent radio interview, Orit Strook, a Religious Zionist lawmaker and Minister of Settlements and National Missions— who is one of the leaders in the settlement in Hebron – called for expanding military operations to all areas of the Gaza Strip, even if it risks the lives of Israeli hostages still held by Hamas.

“There’s an entire area the IDF has designated as a ‘do-not-touch zone’ because hostages are being held there,” she said. “You can’t win a war this way… I can’t make the kind of life-and-death arithmetic where one person’s life is worth more than another’s. We’ll do our best to avoid harming [the hostages], but this may indeed happen.”

IDF chief of staff Zamir warned the government that if it instructs the army to operate throughout Gaza City or within the refugee camps in the central Gaza region, then it must declare that bringing home the hostages is only “a secondary goal of the war”, as such operations would endanger the hostages and lead to more soldiers getting killed and a heavier burden on combat troops in both the regular army and the reserves.

Public opinion polls show that the majority of Israelis back an agreement with Hamas that would release all the hostages at once in exchange for an end to the Gaza war.

4 August 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor

Palestinian Territory – Israel has destroyed nearly all animal wealth in the Gaza Strip, approximately 97 per cent, through bombing and systematic starvation, including working animals that served as the last means of transport amid fuel shortages and limited public mobility.

The destruction of animal wealth coincides with the bulldozing of thousands of acres of farmland as part of a deliberate policy to starve the population, destroy food sources, and inflict severe physical and psychological suffering, all of which are fundamental components of the ongoing crime of genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Through the deliberate imposition of unsustainable living conditions leading to physical destruction, Israeli policies reflect a systematic and ongoing pattern of genocide. This is carried out through the destruction of food sources, livestock, and agricultural production, alongside widespread killings, an illegal blockade on the Gaza Strip, and the deliberate restriction of food supplies for nearly two years. These acts constitute a grave violation of international law and demonstrate a clear intent to destroy the Palestinian population as a protected group under the Genocide Convention.

Before Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip in October 2023, the enclave had around 6,500 poultry farms that supplied about three million chickens to the local market each month. Now, 666 days later, over 93 per cent of these farms have been completely destroyed, and the few remaining have ceased operations entirely.

Euro-Med Monitor’s field team documented the deaths of tens of thousands of birds, either due to direct bombing or the lack of feed and water, in one of the largest systematic assaults on white meat production.

According to data collected by the field team, the Gaza Strip had approximately 15,000 cows before the genocide. More than 97 per cent were killed, either by direct bombing or starvation, while a limited number were slaughtered for food in the early months due to the lack of alternatives.

Regarding livestock, including sheep and goats, estimates indicate that the Gaza Strip had around 60,000 sheep and 10,000 goats before the genocide. Current data shows that more than 97 per cent were destroyed, either through direct killing or death caused by genocidal conditions, as part of the systematic targeting of food sources and livelihoods.

Estimates prior to the genocide indicated that the Gaza Strip had approximately 20,000 donkeys, along with several horses and mules used as working animals. By August 2024, around 43 per cent of these animals had died, while more recent data shows that no more than 6 per cent remain, reflecting a near-total collapse of this vital sector.

Donkeys and mules have become the main mode of transport in the Gaza Strip, used to carry people, aid, the injured, and even corpses, amid the destruction of roads and vehicles and the complete breakdown of transportation due to fuel shortages. Despite growing reliance on them, most of these animals have died, while the rest are so exhausted by bombing, starvation, and severe fodder shortages that they can no longer move or perform any tasks.

Reports by Israeli Channel Kan 11 revealed that the Israeli army gathered hundreds of donkeys from across the Gaza Strip during military operations, transferred them to a farm run by the non-profit Starting Over Sanctuary, and then sent them to animal shelters in France and Belgium under the pretext of rescuing “animals in distress”. This is not only misleading propaganda designed to mask the reality of genocide, but also a blatant act of looting and part of a systematic policy to dismantle the foundations of life in the Gaza Strip by seizing the last remaining means of survival under blockade and destruction.

Depicting such acts as humanitarian while all forms of life in Gaza have been systematically wiped out over the past 22 months is nothing more than a deceptive ploy aimed at manipulating global public opinion.

Israel’s extermination of animal wealth is part of a systematic policy to enforce starvation and dismantle the foundations of survival. The ongoing military attacks have had catastrophic impacts on public health, the environment, agricultural land, and the quality of water, soil, and air, contributing to a deepening environmental collapse.

These impacts do not occur instantly but accumulate and intensify over time, eventually reaching a tipping point that can trigger sudden and alarming surges in the death toll. This is already evident in the daily deaths from hunger and malnutrition, with clear indications that the numbers will rise sharply unless the blockade is lifted and basic necessities are restored.

Access to food, in all its variations, and water is a fundamental human right essential to preserving health and dignity. This right can only be upheld by ending the genocide, lifting the blockade as a form of collective punishment and a war crime, and urgently salvaging what remains of the Gaza Strip, now rendered uninhabitable. Each day of delay risks pushing the enclave past the point of no return, at a grave cost to civilian lives and health.

States must urgently push for the restoration of humanitarian access and the lifting of the illegal blockade, as this is the only way to stop the accelerating humanitarian deterioration and ensure the entry of aid, given the imminent threat of famine.

The establishment of safe humanitarian corridors under UN supervision is vital to ensure the delivery of food, medicine, and fuel to all areas of the Gaza Strip, with the deployment of independent international monitors to verify compliance and ensure the rapid rehabilitation of the agricultural and livestock sectors as part of both emergency relief efforts and long-term recovery.

All states, individually and collectively, must urgently fulfil their legal obligations to halt the genocide in the Gaza Strip in all its forms. This includes taking concrete measures to protect Palestinian civilians in the enclave, ensure Israel’s compliance with international law and the International Court of Justice rulings, and guarantee full accountability for crimes committed against Palestinians. Euro-Med Monitor also calls for the enforcement of the International Criminal Court arrest warrants issued for the Israeli Prime Minister and former Defence Minister, and for their swift surrender to international justice without regard to immunity.

The international community is urged to impose economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions on Israel and its more powerful allies, particularly the United States, for their grave and systematic breaches of international law; these sanctions should include comprehensive arms embargoes and the suspension of all forms of political, financial, military, and intelligence cooperation. In addition, Euro-Med Monitor calls for freezing the assets of responsible Israeli, US, and any complicit EU officials, banning their travel, halting their military and security companies’ access to international markets, and suspending trade privileges and bilateral agreements that facilitate Israel’s ongoing Western-backed crimes against the Palestinian people.

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

4 August 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Stuart Rees

As though infected by a chronic illness, news of unending death and destruction in Gaza and on the West Bank leaves millions feeling frustrated, angry, despairing and powerless.

Most federal politicians probably feel the same, though they have the chance to craft a humanitarian role for government but only if they perceive advocacy for peace as a political priority.

Obstacles to Australian politicians becoming sophisticated advocates for peace will have to be overcome. A first obstacle concerns the robot-like repetition that Australia is only a “middle power”, a fatalistic way of thinking which limits the mind and constrains vision.

A second obstacle is the unthinking, absurdly deferential statement, “Israel has a right to defend itself”. On other people’s lands in defiance of international law, it has no such right.

Reassured by the US, the might is right threats of Israel have meant building more settlements, using the most lethal arms, developing famine as a weapon of war and eliminating Palestinians. Realistic talk about peace means speaking frankly about such thuggery and thereby fostering policies to resist.

A rehabilitation, rebuilding plan

In alliance with trade unions, with the medical profession, with human rights-based NGOs and in careful consultation with Palestinians, Australia can develop and share a plan for repairing lives and rebuilding on Palestinian lands. Australia does not need UN or US permission to do that. Such a plan might not be adopted immediately or even in the longer term but, unless it is crafted, any thinking about intervention to save Palestinians and their country would be still born.

In other dire circumstances, as in Cambodia after the Pol Pot genocide, plans for rehabilitation and rebuilding depended not on hopes for a comprehensive, overnight achievement but on small victories as when small groups received medical attention previously denied, as in a small school being reopened. When conundrums about peace with justice were addressed, learning started and the possibilities seemed endless.

Redefining ‘Hamas’ and ‘Israel’

Pondering peace benefits can be done by redefining concepts usually taken for granted. Hamas, for example, is Israel’s never-ending scapegoat for never-ending slaughter in Gaza, and is even used to explain terrorism in the West Bank.

Hamas was largely but not the only participant in the slaughter in October 2023, but for decades, long before that fundamentalist group appeared as a political party in 2003, tens of thousands of Palestinians had been murdered by Israeli terrorist gangs and the IDF. The ethnic cleansing of Palestine has been underway at least since 1948, a history so easily ignored.

Thinking about peace with justice requires the media and political elites to acknowledge history and to resist the deceitful Israeli claims that all the violence, every war crime can be explained by one word: “Hamas”.

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs insists that Israel is a close friend and ally of Australia. Really?

Speaking frankly about peace requires a change in that perception. To whom is Australia a friend? How is a racist, apartheid state, designed for people of only one religion, now run by a government influenced by religious zealots, a friend? It would be more realistic to acknowledge that the Israeli prime minister is wanted for war crimes.

Instead of Australia quibbling whether it ever dispatched parts for F-35 fighter planes to Israel, it could make a constructive contribution to peace by imposing an arms embargo affecting all arms manufacturers and dealers. In the long run, that would be a constructive way to treat Israel as a friend.

Challenging liars

An earlier insistence, that thinking about peace depends on speaking frankly about violence, also means that apologists for war are not allowed to tell lies and that the media be discouraged from giving oxygen to those who make false claims.

A tendency to lie has reached new depths in Israeli spokespersons’ mind-boggling assertions that there is no famine in Gaza. As though schooled by the witches from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, even the Israeli ambassador to Australia has joined this chorus: ignore the pictures of emaciated children, beware or was it “be aware”, there is no famine.

Let’s concentrate for a minute on the behaviour of the major Israeli spokesperson, David Mencer, who is employed to dramatise Israel’s virtues. He is proud to do so but now plays a nauseous Orwellian role. In lugubrious, holier-than-thou style, he explains, there is no famine, that if by chance there is a food shortage, Hamas, or even the non-existent UN are to blame. “It’s not me sir,” said the bully of little children in the playground, “It is anyone but me.”

Being frank about peace requires sufficient insight and guts to call out the David Mencers. The pictures are telling and require comment. A plump, apparently overfed, well-upholstered, elegantly suited Mencer intones about food and drink. If telling lies is a virtue, then it’s obvious the people of Gaza can be, may even be, well-fed. The mismatch between corpulent Mencer and emaciated children must have dawned on at least a few peacemakers.

Courage, that crucial ingredient

A life-enhancing opportunity for Australia to develop a reputation as advocates for peace with justice requires courage to defy convention, to break the usual political boundaries. In response to alleged antisemitic events in Australia, a warmongering Israeli prime minister tells Australia what to do. Does any leader immediately tell him to clear off?

In response to President Trump’s promises to create a Mediterranean riviera from the ruins of Gaza, few leaders scorn and repudiate the man’s greed and total disdain for even the most basic of human rights.

Courage as part of the peace repertoire requires that peacemaking politicians will not for one minute be intimidated by threats and lies. They have to challenge the pretence that genocide does not exist, that famine is a figment of the imagination nation, that civilians in Gaza have never been targeted, hospitals never systematically destroyed.

Courage for peace goes beyond questions about abuses by Israel and the US. Regarding a future for all Palestinians, caution amounting to cowardice affects the Australian Government. Although obliged by an ALP 2018 conference resolution to recognise the state of Palestine, a prevaricating prime minister and foreign minister adopt their man-and-woman-for-all-seasons role. They look backwards or sideways, appear to stand for everything and nothing. John Menadue, a highly significant Australian citizen, says he has been a member of the Australian Labor Party for more than 70 years but has never been so ashamed. On Palestine, he judges, “The only thing to be said in Labor’s favour is that they are not as bad as the Liberals.”

Only a modicum of courage is required to follow the example of 150 other nations and recognise Palestine. Being serious about peace with justice requires just a small risk to take that step.

Faced with violence, derision of international law and momentum behind the arms trade, advocacy of peace is an obvious antidote. Australia can recover its reputation as a country prominent in building institutions for peace and as encouraging advocates for human rights on a world stage.

But that recovery depends on resisting Israeli thuggery, speaking frankly about justice, redefining the language of peace, calling out liars, finding the courage to break boundaries, to be inspired by the ideals of a common humanity.

Palestine cries for those ideals to be re-excavated, pursued and achieved.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.

Stuart Rees AM is Professor Emeritus at the University of Sydney & recipient of the Jerusalem (Al Quds) Peace Prize.

1 August 2025

Source: johnmenadue.com

By Kim Petersen

Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of a particular group.

When it is your country, your troops, your government and its officials committing genocide, many people will stubbornly refuse to acknowledge such a fact. Such is the propagandic effect of patriotism that it erodes critical thought processes and even causes people to overlook extreme evil.

On 28 July 2025, NPR wrote,

“Two prominent Israeli rights groups on Monday said their country is committing genocide in Gaza, the first time that local Jewish-led organizations have made such accusations against Israel during nearly 22 months of war.”

The genocide is undeniable as Afkār noted,

“Since October 7, 2023, Israeli cabinet ministers, political figures, military officers and media pundits have openly and endlessly incited for the destruction of Gaza and its Palestinian inhabitants.”

Moreover, Israel is trying to spin this genocide as a necessary transfer of the Gazan population:

“In recent months, Israel has shifted its messaging on Gaza, acknowledging that it has rendered the territory unlivable and is pushing for the removal of its surviving population. ”

What explains the thinking that leads to the carrying out of such a hideous crime?

Psychopathy is a personality disorder rooted in a lack of empathy and remorse, manipulation, and antisocial behavior. That clearly describes people committing genocide and people aiding and abetting genocide.

Thus, people perpetuating or enabling the commission of a genocide fit the definition of psychopaths.

It is undeniable that Israeli Jews are committing genocide in Palestine. Their prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is therefore a genocidaire and a psychopath, as well as the many supportive establishment types in Israel. (For more on this read Hamid Dabashi’s After Savagery). The genocide of Gazans has much support among Jewish Israelis. This begs the question of whether psychopathology is widespread among Israeli Jews?

And, when a state or agency knowingly aids and abets Israeli Jews in committing genocide against the Palestinians, then such complicit governments and responsible authorities ought also to be considered genocidaires and psychopaths. Legally, as well:

… one can be held liable for aiding and abetting genocide, even if one does not share the specific genocidal intent of the principal perpetrator.

The Rome Statute contains a provision about criminal responsibility that is not found in either of the U.N. ad hoc tribunal statutes or the Genocide Convention but which further illuminates the mens rea of genocide. Under Article 30 of the Rome Statute, “knowledge” and “intent” are the two components of mens rea. A person has “intent” when the person “means to engage in the conduct” and “means to cause that consequence or is aware that it will occur in the ordinary course of events.” (Grant Dawson and Rachel Boynton, “Reconciling Complicity in Genocide and Aiding and Abetting Genocide in the Jurisprudence of the United Nations Ad Hoc Tribunals,” Harvard Human Rights Journal, 21, 2008: 250.)

Consequently, Israel is not alone in executing its genocide of Palestinians. Countries are called upon to “Stop Arming Israel and Abetting Its Crimes.” Among those governments supplying armaments to Israel are the US and Europeans (“How top arms exporters have responded to the war in Gaza,” and that “European countries use 3rd-party countries to keep arming Israel: British journalist,” “Australia,” “Report suggests arms still flow from Canada to Israel despite denials,” “Infrastructure of genocide: the case confronting Dutch support for Israel’s war machine,” etc) giving political cover, the companies seeking profit from the genocide. Hence, their actions reveal them to be genocidaires.

Many of the common people in many of these countries are opposing the genocide-supporting stance of their governments; for example, Sweden, Netherlands, Canada, even in the US, and worldwide. The leaders are out of touch with masses of their citizens.

Therefore, Canada’s Mark Carney, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Keir Starmer, Germany’s Friedrich Merz, Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen, and others are joining avowed Zionists Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump. Are Netanyahu and Trump really the people other country’s “leaders” should follow in making common cause to wipe Palestinians off the map?

Why is this psychopathy exhibited as a common trait among many Western government heads?

Worse, it seems to point to there being something inherently malevolent in the so-called democratic systems of these countries, such that it promotes psychopaths into leadership positions.

Kim Petersen is an independent writer. He can be emailed at: kimohp at gmail.com. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

30 July 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky and Drago Bosnic

In this video production, Michel Chossudovsky and Drago Bosnic focus on a detailed plan to commit genocide against the People of Palestine under the guise of a fake “responsibility to protect” humanitarian mandate. 

In a recent July 2025 statement (see below), in a controversial AI video production, Gila Gamliel, who was Israel’s Minister of Intelligence in 2023-24 (appointed by Netanyahu on January 2, 2023), confirmed the adoption of a so-called “Voluntary Immigration Plan” by the Netanyahu Cabinet on October 13, 2023.

***

‘Exposure: This is what Gaza will look like in the future.

Voluntary Gazan migration only with Trump and Netanyahu.

It’s us or them!

Link to the voluntary immigration plan from Gaza that I submitted to the cabinet in the first week of the ‘Iron Swords’ war on 13.10.23 ”

***

What this entails is that there was a detailed intelligence and military agenda to “Wipe Gaza off the Map”, planned well in advance on October 7, 2023; the objective of which was to “Expel All Palestinians from Gaza.”

Our objective is to reach out to people worldwide.

Subtitles in 11 languages.

Forward the video directly to your friends worldwide. click below: languages with hyperlinks

English (original), Français, عربي, Hebrew, Italiano, Farsi, Русский, Español, 中文, Deutsch, Turkish, 

Our longstanding commitment is to world peace and “true democracy.”

We are in solidarity with the people of Palestine. 

نحن متضامنون مع شعب فلسطين

To contribute to Lux Media, click here and then click: Faire un don. 

To contribute to Global Research’s Donor Box, click here.

31 July 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca

A Call from the Workers of Gaza to Labor Unions Around the World:

A Cry in the Face of Starvation and Genocide

To all free workers everywhere,
To our comrades in trade unions and labor federations around the world,

We bring to you the statement of the workers of Gaza, issued by the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions, addressed to the workers and unions of the world—this final appeal they have named “A Cry Before Death.” It reaches us from the midst of hunger and siege, from beneath the rubble of factories and homes, and from the heart of a continuing war of extermination that has gone on for nearly 22 months alongside a systematic policy of mass starvation executed by “Israel” with direct support from the United States and its European partners.

The statement  reads:
“The Israeli war has destroyed 80% of Gaza’s homes, all of its factories, workshops, and sources of livelihood, and most of its farmland has been bulldozed.”

Indeed, the lives of workers, fishermen, farmers, and all productive social sectors in the besieged Strip have been turned into a living hell. Their families are now without shelter and without income. There is no food and no medicine. One worker says: “We are besieged by American and European weapons, choked by hunger, neglect, and silence — all in an attempt to destroy our lives, to break our resilience, and to crush the will of resistance in our people.”

We address you today once again, not merely as victims, but as the workers of Palestine: an integral part of the popular and working classes of this world, struggling for justice, liberation, and dignity. And we call upon you to:

• Break the silence and complicity, raise your voices within your unions and federations, and denounce the policies of starvation, siege, and massacre in Gaza.
• Pressure your governments to end arms deals and military cooperation with the occupation, and to impose sanctions on the Zionist settler-colonial and apartheid regime.
• Boycott companies that support the occupation, and withdraw union investments from any company, institution, or entity involved in funding or profiting from the war.
• Organize days of rage and global solidarity in factories and workshops, in ports and airports, in the streets and public squares, in support of Palestine and its brave people.

We especially appeal to the unions of seafarers and port workers, urging them to refuse to load or unload “Israeli” ships or those bound for Zionist ports, and to halt any form of maritime or commercial cooperation with the tools of war and siege. Your strong hands and awakened consciences are capable of halting the machinery of extermination and stopping the shipments of death sent to Palestine. Show all humanity the power of the struggling working class when it rises united in defense of justice and human values.

From here, we proudly and gratefully salute our comrades, the port workers in Greece, for their principled and courageous stance, and their leading role in boycotting “Israeli” ships and rejecting complicity in war crimes. We also salute the labor unions in Norway, Spain, France, Canada, and elsewhere for their pioneering role in impactful solidarity with our people through the boycott of occupation institutions. We call upon all labor unions around the world to cut ties with the so-called “Histadrut”, the Zionist organization that claims to belong to the working class while participating in the siege of Palestinian workers, justifying the genocide in Gaza, and serving as an integral part of the Israeli occupation apparatus.

Comrades,

What is being carried out today in Gaza is a crime of mass starvation in full view of the world: its aim is to displace us and expel us from our land. This is not only a war of physical extermination; it is a series of crimes that surpass everything committed by Nazism and fascism in Europe. It is carried out with the aim of subjugating us by destroying the very conditions of life and human dignity. Yet the popular working classes and their free unions around the world possess a legacy of history, strength, and courage sufficient to defeat these criminal policies — if they unite their ranks and raise their voice in confrontation with colonialism, Zionism, and the savagery of capitalism.

We promise you:
We will rebuild the universities, schools, institutions, and factories of Gaza again, as we have always done after every American-Zionist war of destruction. And we will continue our steadfastness, no matter how great the hardships and challenges.

Let us turn anger into action, and solidarity into a concrete stance.
Let us break the policy of starvation and raise the banner of labor struggle for justice—
For a free Palestine, from the river to the sea.

The Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement (Masar Badil)
23 July 2025

(Text of the statement from the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions – Gaza)

The Workers’ Cry Before Death

A cry we raise to speak to the consciences and dignity of our comrades in the unions, to call for mobilization in support of children who cannot find milk or a morsel of bread, for mothers whose breasts have dried up, for patients waiting to die of hunger, for elders who fear dying of hunger, and for workers who can find neither work nor bread.

Our free comrades,
For 22 months, the occupation has carried out the killing of civilians and the destruction of homes—destroying 80% of Gaza’s houses, all of its factories, bulldozing most of its agricultural lands, and closing off most sources of livelihood.

Honorable colleagues,
We think well of you, so roll up your sleeves to break the siege on Gaza. We await from you a human and moral role to save Gaza from a blockade in which the criminal occupation has sealed every window for the entry of food, medicine, and water to its people.

Our union comrades,
We await your role in delivering the cry of the children and workers of Gaza to decision-makers and to the streets. You are the most worthy of carrying this responsibility—so be our support, move the streets, and stop the arms deals that are killing children, women, and workers. Mobilize the sympathizers and supporters to break the siege on Gaza, and deliver your free voice to the decision-makers.

There is no excuse for those who abandon Gaza and its people, or who abandon the workers.

Gaza will remain a witness to those who stood with the cry for humanity and the cry for freedom, and it will remain a symbol for the free people of the world.

We urge workers and labor organizations to contact us; please email workers@masarbadil.org.

23 July 2025

Source: masarbadil.org