AMERICA’S CURRENT POLICY CANNOT HELP UKRAINE WIN THE WAR

The Current Policy Of Providing Military Aid Will Alter The Situation. It Will Prolong The War, And It Will Prolong Ukraine’s Suffering. But It Will Not Alter Ukraine’s Inevitable Defeat.

American foreign policy seems only to have two gears: ensuring everything pours in through military aid or ensuring nothing gets in through sanctions. Neither works, and sanctions have no more weakened Russia than military aid has helped Ukraine.

On April 20^th, the House of Representatives passed the long-delayed $61 billion aid package for Ukraine. On April 23^rd, it easily passed the Senate, and the next day, President Biden signed it into law.

Biden said that, though “it was a difficult path… we got it done.” He said the package of lethal aid is “going to make America safer. It’s going to make the world safer.” The American media told a tale of the aid package permitting Ukraine to go back on the offensive in 2025. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, “I think this support will really strengthen the armed forces, I pray, and we will have a chance at victory.”

But what Ukrainian officials and military analysts were saying was more sobering. According to a senior Ukrainian official, the American aid package “will help to slow down the Russian advance, but not stop it.” It “does not,” he said, “contain a silver bullet.” A Ukrainian military analyst said only that “The aid provided by the US buys us and the European Union time.” Another military analyst pointed out that, even with the new aid package, “Russia will still have an artillery advantage, it just won’t be as great.”

In December 2023, then Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valerii Zaluzhny told Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin how much aid Ukraine would need to defeat Russia. And it wasn’t $61 billion. It was $350-400 billion. The Economist pointed to the “sobering facts” that “although the new package will boost Ukraine’s defensive capabilities, it is not enough to help it recapture any more of the territory it has lost to Russia.”

Though $61 billion is a lot of money, it is not really even $61 billion. It is not all budgeted for new weapons, and it is not enough to change the inevitable long-term outcome of the war.

Of the $61 billion, $8 billion is set aside to keep the Ukrainian government solvent. $11 billion is dedicated to supporting current military operations in the region. $23 billion is for replenishing the American stockpile of weapons that has been diminished by what has already been sent to Ukraine. That leaves only about $14 billion for procuring weapons for Ukraine. That is only about 21-23% of the total aid package. The Russian Foreign Ministry estimate pegs the amount that “will be spent on military needs” for Ukraine at about 25%.

Though restocking of American supplies could allow the American regime to transfer more weapons in the future, some of the new arms that are supposed to change the current situation may have already been sent and used, possibly including the secret long-range ATACMS missiles that turned up in Ukraine last month and have twice been launched. So, some of the $14 billion will pay that back and may already be used up. That portion of the package, then, also won’t change the current situation.

And there are reports that, because the West simply does not have and cannot produce, enough artillery shells, the aid package may be sorely lacking in what Ukraine needs most.

But the problem is not only that the aid package is not enough. It is that one aid package is not enough. Even if the military aid package does buy Ukraine a few months – or even a year – Russia is still outproducing the West in artillery shells, weapons and equipment, and can, at least, last out the year. Then what? Will the United States, whether the President is Biden or Trump, come up with another $61 billion package that still won’t be enough? Will that congressional battle be any easier than the recent one? Even if the aid package changes the current situation on the battlefield, it cannot change the long-term outcome of the war.

The current package of lethal aid will alter the situation. It will prolong the war, and it will prolong Ukraine’s suffering. But it will not alter Ukraine’s inevitable defeat.

If American foreign policy really has Ukraine’s interests and strengthening Ukraine in mind and not American interests and weakening Russia, then it will stop sacrificing Ukrainian lives for American goals and start pushing for a diplomatic solution, instead of blocking one, and offer this money as aid for what will be Ukraine’s badly needed postwar recovery instead of as lethal aid that will continue to contribute to its destruction.

IF YOU OPPOSE ISRAEL’S ATROCITIES IN GAZA, YOU ARE NOT A PSYCHOPATH

You Don’t Oppose The Butchery In Gaza Because You Are A Lefty Or A Commie Or An Anarchist Or An Anti-Imperialist. You Simply Oppose The Butchery In Gaza Because You Are Not A Psychopath.

You would not oppose the butchery in Gaza because you love Hamas or hate Jews or love Islam or hate America.

You would not oppose the butchery in Gaza because you are a lefty or a commie or an anarchist or an anti-imperialist.

You simply oppose the butchery in Gaza because you are not a crazy psychopath.

Opposing Israel’s butchery in Gaza is so obvious, so common sense, such a bare-minimum, fundamental-level, Being Human 101 position that if it isn’t immediately self-evident to you after learning the basic facts, your problem is much, much deeper than whatever ideology or bias or prejudice you might happen to have. There’s something wrong with you as a person.

If you support Israel’s butchery in Gaza, you’ve got much bigger problems than merely not having the correct ist or ism belief system. You’re just all screwed up inside. Your conditioning has made you into a generally bad human being. You have deep and immensely consequential flaws in your character, and you won’t mature as a person until you heal and transcend them.

Opposing Israel’s atrocities in Gaza doesn’t make you a good person, it just makes you a normal person — and supporting Israel’s atrocities in Gaza makes you a bad person. Nobody gets any points for opposing an active genocide; that’s just the basic, bare-minimum requirement for a normal human being with a functioning empathy center in their brain. If you can’t meet that basic, bare-minimum standard, you deserve to be viewed with suspicion and disdain, and anyone in your personal life who cares about truth, morality and humanity should seriously reassess their relationship with you.

One reason the empire is losing young people is because the imperial status quo has given them no investment in it. They’ll never own property. They can’t support a family or retire. They’ve been given no reason not to want to rock the political boat. So they’re rocking it.

The only vested interest young people have left is an interest in breathable air and a livable planet, and the possibility of a future that isn’t intolerably dystopian. All of which are diametrically opposed to the interests and trajectory of the status quo politics of the western empire.

So they’re going for it. They’re beginning to see that there’s no reason for them not to plunge headlong into a push for real change, in direct opposition to the mainstream politics of our time. Like Bob Dylan said, when you got nothing you got nothing to lose.

One of the many things that’s beautiful about this particular protest movement is that these young people aren’t protesting a war that they could get drafted in or could harm their personal interests in any way. They’re opposing something cruel and evil solely out of compassion.

One Palestinian life is worth more than every college campus window in the world.

If you’re wondering why you’re suddenly seeing the word “radicalizing” a lot in mainstream politics and media, it’s because that’s the big scary boogieman the empire plans on using to justify stomping out the burgeoning antiwar movement it created with its atrocities in Gaza.

Israeli police raided Al Jazeera’s office after the Israeli cabinet voted to shut down the broadcasts of the Qatari media outlet on Sunday. The west is protecting freedom and democracy by stomping out its own freedom and democracy to assist the genocidal atrocities of a nation that is also stomping out freedom and democracy.

Republicans pretend to fiercely oppose Biden, but when it comes to issues that really matter like the president encouraging violent police crackdowns against people protesting his actions they’re in furious agreement, even saying he didn’t go far enough. They’re on the same side as always.

THE CLAIMS THAT STUDENT PROTESTORS ARE CHANTING ‘DEATH TO AMERICA’ ARE SIMPLY DECEPTIVE PROPAGANDA

But The Regime In Washington Is Adopting The Hoax And Using It To Justify An FBI Crackdown On Freedom And Freedom Of Speech.

The FBI is being pressed by members of Congress to investigate the student protests, both for possible foreign financing and for students chanting “Death to America” — a phrase Fox News says is becoming a “key slogan” of the protests.

There’s just one problem: students never said it.

After searching, scoured photographs, and waded through social media. There’s no evidence that any of the student demonstrators taking to dozens of college campuses in recent weeks to protest Israel’s war in Gaza said “Death to America.”

The rumor began with a single incident in which an anonymously authored pamphlet found at a University of Michigan encampment contained a passage saying, “Freedom for Palestine means Death to America.”

That phrase was taken up by Fox News and a number of other news sites.

“The slogan ‘Death to America’ is seemingly gaining steam among anti-Israel agitators, who have swept across the nation,” Fox News reported.

The claims of a Death to America theme have germinated in right-wing media outlets and even been echoed by more mainstream figures from smug commentator Bill Maher to the Atlantic Magazine, which warned that “every random protester who shouts ‘Death to America’…brings him [Donald Trump] closer to a return to the Oval Office.” Harvard President Emeritus Larry Summers has even called for “close investigations” of the funding sources of the recent protests on college campuses.

Though absent on campus, the one place the Death to America slogan is gaining steam is in Washington, where the hoax has been taken at face value.

Last month, five Republican congress people representing Michigan — which has a large Muslim population — sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland calling for an investigation into “Death to America” chants.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also referenced the phrase in remarks on the Senate floor regarding higher education and judicial nominations.

“Chants of ‘We are Hamas’ and ‘Death to America’ by students on college campuses are national security threats,” Senator Marsha Blackburn said on X (formerly Twitter). “Put any student who promotes terrorism on behalf of Hamas on the terrorist watchlist.”

As a member of the Senate Judiciary committee, which oversees the FBI, there’s little doubt that Blackburn’s statement reached FBI headquarters — and such ignorance and might even prod them to action.

There’s already evidence that the Bureau is closely monitoring purported Israel-Hamas related threats.

FBI Director Christopher Wray in March revealed that the Bureau’s counterterrorism division was “urgently” investigating thousands of reported threats related to the Israel-Hamas conflict. Wray also said that “we expect that October 7 and the conflict that’s followed will feed a pipeline of radicalization and mobilization for years to come.”

The White House also recently acknowledged the FBI’s involvement — not just in relation the conflict generally but colleges in particular. On Wednesday, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said that “the DOJ and FBI is going to continue to offer support to universities and colleges in respect to federal laws,” adding: “So, that is something that the DOJ and FBI is doing.”

Since 9/11 in particular, the FBI has maintained close contact with college campuses across the country under a little-known program called the Campus Liaison Initiative. The program designates an FBI agent (or member of a joint terrorism task force) from each of the Bureau’s 56 field offices to coordinate with campus public safety officers in addition to other school personnel at campuses across the country.

The White House, through its many campaigns against anti-semitism, extremism, racism, hate, disinformation, and foreign malign influence has constructed a patch quilt of offenses that to it demands action. It has already stated publicly that the Department of Justice and the FBI are in contact with college and university administrators, and those two agencies, along with the Department of Homeland Security, are already primed to investigate terrorism threats, specifically Hamas and Palestinian extremism on American soil. Investigations hover in the background, as much looking for federal offenses as responding to them.

None of this is because there is any intelligence validating a controlling foreign hand or financing of the student protests. It is, in fact, the news media frenzy that is the most dangerous. Fox and other conservative outlets repeat the false allegation that the students are chanting “Death to America,” commentators and even members of Congress pick up the claim without checking, social media becomes saturated and the new reality emerges.

One can imagine right now a meeting on Pennsylvania Avenue in which an official is asking some spy agency to “look into” the allegations. That leads to surveillance and infiltration and pretty soon you have the full force of the national security state (police state) involved — all because the news media got it wrong.

THE AMERICAN REGIME SUPPORTS CIVIL RIGHTS, BUT NOT NOW AND OPPOSES WAR, BUT NEVER THE CURRENT ONE

“A Liberal Is Someone Who Opposes Every War Except The Current War And Supports All Civil Rights Movements Except The One That’s Going On Now”…

In remarks defending the brutal suppression of university demonstrations protesting his genocide in Gaza, President Biden argued that protesting is allowed in the United States so long as it’s polite and doesn’t disrupt anything or upset anybody.

“We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent,” said Biden. “The American people are heard. In fact, peaceful protest is in the best tradition of how Americans respond to consequential issues.”

“But,” the president continued, “neither are we a lawless country. We are a civil society, and order must prevail.”

Biden went on to argue that “violent protest is not protected” as a form of free expression, sailing right past the fact that the only actual violence we’ve seen from these protests came from the police sent in to crack skulls and the bands of pro-Israel thugs who’ve been attacking campus demonstrators. Biden instead followed his false accusation of “violence” by listing offenses against inanimate objects: destroying property, vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows. He also listed the offenses of “shutting down campuses” and “forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations” — none of which were done by the demonstrators.

“Threatening people, intimidating people, instilling fear in people is not peaceful protest,” said Biden, citing zero examples of this ridiculous allegation, adding that “dissent must never lead to disorder” and that “there’s the right to protest but not the right to cause chaos.”

The president then of course went on to babble about “antisemitism” for awhile, on no basis whatsoever.

Again, this person is defending an authoritarian police crackdown on peaceful demonstrators protesting against his own actions. The president is saying don’t worry about the jackbooted tyranny and suppression you’re seeing against critics of the president, because the tyranny and suppression is approved of by that same American president.

And that’s the Democratic Party for you, folks. That’s everything it is right there. It is violence wrapped in politeness. It is fascism cloaked in lip service to civil rights.

Shortly before Columbia University called in police to smash the anti-genocide demonstrations on campus the other day, 21 House Democrats signed a letter addressed to the university’s board of trustees demanding they shut down the “anti-Jewish activists on campus.”

“It is past time for the University to act decisively, disband the encampment, and ensure the safety and security of all of its students,” the lawmakers declared.

This is the same party that always cites its support for civil rights and social justice as a primary reason for people to vote for them, constantly referencing Martin Luther King Jr and other civil rights leaders — who were all intensely despised by the establishment of their own time — as heroes we should all strive to emulate.

Now they’re openly supporting the same tyrannical measures as Republicans to shut down criticism of their government’s genocidal and unjust policies, with no regard for the constitutional rights of those critics to speech and assembly. They try to make themselves look progressive and reasonable while doing it, saying it’s about fighting “antisemitism” and keeping the peace, but their actual behavior is no different from the tyrants who attacked anti-war protesters and civil rights activists in the sixties.

As Democrats get worse and worse the longer Biden’s genocide in Gaza continues, you should remember a tweet that went viral back in November by an account with the handle @eyeballslicer, “A liberal is someone who opposes every war except the current war and supports all civil rights movements except the one that’s going on right now.”

That tweet has gotten more and more relevant every day since. If you were to pick a banner to hang above western liberalism over the past seven months, that banner would need to contain those words. It’s been true of mainstream liberals for a very long time, but it encapsulates the response we’ve been seeing to Gaza with a special kind of perfection.

Have you ever noticed how the spinmeisters responsible for normalizing our dystopian status quo use time as a psychological weapon? It’s the damnedest thing. They push all support for revolutionary change into either the past or the future, while insisting that status quo norms must be maintained in the present.

Once you notice this tactic, you see it everywhere. When they’re not shaking their fists at the crimes of the past like Vietnam, Iraq or segregation and applauding past struggles for social justice like women’s suffrage or Black civil rights, they’re claiming that you can get all the drastic revolutionary change you want in the future if you just elect more Democrats into office.

Over and over again in many different ways, people are fed the message: “Revolution and change are wonderful, just not right now. The revolutionary sentiments of the past did great things we should all celebrate, and one day in the future we will have revolutionary change once again, but right now we need to keep supporting the way things are and hold very still and try very hard not to annoy the powerful people who rule over us.”

It’s actually kind of impressive once you notice it, because this malignant manipulation requires an almost buddha-like understanding of time and the present moment. At some point the manipulators figured out that there’s only ever the here-and-now and that the past and the future have no existence except in our memory and imagination, so you can give the people all the revolution they want so long as you’re only giving it to them in the past or the future.

You saw an early prototype of this manipulation with the rise of Christianity, wherein people were encouraged to forget about the material comforts enjoyed by their rulers and focus instead on how great it’s going to be when they die and go to Heaven. All their hopes are deferred to this imaginary, invisible reward in the future, and in the meantime they’re told to glorify poverty, meekness, obedience, and above all never rise up against all the rich people and take back what they stole from you.

This world will never see the changes it so desperately needs as long as we keep letting them manipulate us like this. Change needs to happen, and it can only happen now. Now is the only time when real change can possibly occur. Stop letting them bury it under the appearance of time, and birth it into reality.

CNN PAINTS PEACE PROTESTS AS HATE RALLIES AS THEY ARE VIOLENTLY SUPPRESSED

As Peace Activists Occupied Common Spaces On Campuses, Some In Corporate Media Very Clearly Took Sides, Portraying Student Protesters As Violent, Hateful And/Or Stupid.

CNN offered some of the most striking of these characterizations.

CNN‘s Dana Bash blames the peace movement for “destruction, violence and hate on college campuses across the country.”

Dana Bash stared gravely into the camera and launched into a segment on “destruction, violence and hate on college campuses across the country.” Her voice dripping with hostility toward the protests, she reported:

“Many of these protests started peacefully with legitimate questions about the war, but in many cases, they lost the plot. They’re calling for a ceasefire. Well, there was a ceasefire on October 6, the day before Hamas terrorists brutally murdered more than a thousand people inside Israel and took hundreds more as hostages. This hour, I’ll speak to an American Israeli family whose son is still held captive by Hamas since that horrifying day, that brought us to this moment. You don’t hear the pro-Palestinian protesters talking about that. We will.”

By Bash’s logic, once a ceasefire is broken, no one can ever call for it to be reinstated—even as the death toll in Gaza nears 35,000. But her claim that there was a ceasefire until Hamas broke it on October 7^th is little more than Israeli propaganda: Hundreds of Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the year preceding October 7^th.

“They didn’t let me get to class using the main entrance!” complains Eli Tsives in one of several videos he posted of confrontations with anti-war demonstrators. “Instead they forced me to walk around. Shame on these people!”

Bash continued:

“Now protesting the way the Israeli government, the Israeli prime minister, is prosecuting the retaliatory war against Hamas is one thing. Making Jewish students feel unsafe at their own schools is unacceptable, and it is happening way too much right now.”

As evidence of this lack of safety, Bash pointed to UCLA student Eli Tsives, who posted a video of himself confronting motionless antiwar protesters physically standing in his way on campus. “This is our school, and they’re not letting me walk in,” he claims in the clip. Bash ominously described this as “hearkening back to the 1930s in Europe.”

Bash was presumably referring to the rise of the Nazis and their increasing restrictions on Jews prior to World War II. But while Tsives’ clip suggests protesters are keeping him off UCLA campus, they’re in fact blocking him from their encampment—where many Jewish students were present. Jewish Voice for Peace is one of its lead groups.

So it’s clearly not Tsives’ Jewishness that the protesters object to. But Tsives was not just any Jewish student; a UCLA drama student and former intern at the pro-Israel group Stand With Us, he had been a visible face of the counter-protests, repeatedly posting videos of himself confronting peaceful antiwar protesters. He has shown up to the encampment wearing a holster of pepper spray.

One earlier video he made showing himself being denied entry to the encampment included text on screen claiming misleadingly that protestors objected to his Jewishness: “They prevented us, Jewish students, from entering public land!” (“You can kiss your jobs goodbye, this is going to go viral on social media,” he tells the protesters.) He also proudly posted his multiple interviews on Fox News, which was as eager as Bash to help him promote his false narrative of antisemitism.

“Security and [campus police] both retreated as pro-Israel counter-protesters and other groups attacked protesters in the encampment,” UCLA’s student paper reported.

UCLA protesters had good reason to keep counter-protesters out of their encampment, as those counter-protesters had become increasingly hostile. This aggression culminated in a violent attack on the encampment on April 30

Late that night, a pro-Israel mob of at least 200 tried to storm the student encampment, punching, kicking, throwing bricks and other objects, spraying pepper spray and mace, trying to tear down plywood barricades and launching fireworks into the crowd. As many as 25 injuries have been reported, including four student journalists for the university newspaper who were assaulted by goons as they attempted to leave the scene.

Campus security stood by as the attacks went on; when the university finally called in police support, the officers who arrived waited over an hour to intervene.

LEARN WHAT INSURERS REFUSAL TO PAY REVEALS ABOUT THE NORD STREAM EXPLOSIONS

They Argue Their Policies Do Not Provide Coverage For The Explosions That Ruptured The Natural Gas Pipelines In The Baltic Sea Because The Damage Was Inflicted By “A Government.”

But “the defendants’ argument is prima facie irrelevant,” says an expert in law of the sea.

Nord Stream AG last month brought a €400 million lawsuit against Lloyd’s of London and Arch Insurance in the High Court for refusing to pay an indemnity for the subsea blasts that ripped apart the Nord Stream 1 pipeline that carried natural gas from Russia to Germany along the floor of the Baltic Sea.

The written defense to the lawsuit, filed on behalf of Lloyd’s of London and Bermuda-based Arch Insurance, was made public last week by Swedish engineer Erik Andersson, who led the only private investigative expedition to all four blast sites of the Nord Stream pipelines. It states that the “Defendants will rely on, inter alia, the fact that the Explosion Damage could only have (or, at least, was more likely than not to have) been inflicted by or under the order of a government.”

Said Mahmoudi, a legal scholar with expertise in law of the sea, international environmental law, use of force, international organizations and state immunity, believes the defendants’ position is “groundless.”

“The defendants’ argument is prima facie irrelevant if one cannot prove that the damage is caused by a named government that has been directly involved in a war in the area,” said Dr. Mahmoudi. “The burden of proof in this case is in my view on the defendant.”

Who perpetrated the Nord Stream sabotage, which stands as the largest act of industrial sabotage in history and the most pressing geo-political mystery of the century, is of great consequence for a future court decision. Initial reports in mainstream media blamed Russia without evidence.

The lead prosecutor on the Swedish investigation said the belief that Russia was responsible was “not logical,” while German investigators have “dismissed” the relevance of observed Russian vessels near the crime scene. Not a shred of the data, obtained during the independent expedition to the blast sites—including underwater drone images, videos and sonar images—has implicated Russia.

Reporting has either imputed guilt to the America or Ukraine, as well as a theory suggesting the UK may be behind it. Seymour Hersh, the veteran investigative journalist, reported that United States Navy divers, in a CIA operation ordered by President Joe Biden, planted the bombs on the pipelines. Equally detailed reporting in German media claims to have identified the alleged financial backer and the apparent members of a six-person crew of “pro-Ukrainians” who allegedly transported the explosives operating from a 50-foot pleasure yacht called Andromeda.

It seems that, should America or the UK be the proven culprit, the insurers will prevail in court. What has not been previously reported, though, is whether the insurers would be forced to cover the damage from explosions if the perpetrator were Ukraine, for the defendants may have argued the small team of pro-Ukrainian operatives was rogue, not specifically tasked by a government with blowing up the pipelines.

But reporting in at least two articles in The Washington Post, which often operates as a public relations firm for the American national security and intelligence services, alleges the “attackers were not rogue operatives,” but “those involved reported directly to Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s highest-ranking military officer [who is now ambassador to the UK], who was put in charge so that the nation’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, wouldn’t know about the operation.”

Nevertheless, the legal dispute between Nord Stream AG and the Western insurers reflects the enormous deceit surrounding the Nord Stream sabotage as a whole. For Denmark, Sweden and Germany, admitting that the perpetrator is either America or Ukraine, or both acting in concert, would be humiliating. And should any of those three investigating countries attribute the sabotage to Ukraine, it would amount to an admission that the country they support in the conflict with Russia committed an act of war against them.

If the United States were found to be the perpetrator, it would mean that the supposed guarantor of European security has executed an attack against its protectorates. Telling the truth would be mortifying.

ISRAEL IS NOT WAGING WAR ONLY ON GAZANS, IT IS DOING SO ON ALL PALESTINIANS

It’s Genocidal Assault On Gaza Is Part Of Its War Of Annihilation Against The Palestinian People Carried Out With Increasing Fervor Across Historic Palestine, Including The West Bank.

This is being done under the most right-wing government in Israeli history.

As it lays waste to Gaza, slaughtering tens of thousands of Palestinians and forcing nearly two million people to flee their homes, the Israeli government is also barreling toward de facto annexation in the occupied West Bank.

Settlement expansion and killings by the Israeli military and settlers have skyrocketed in the months following October 7^th. In this context, Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza must be understood as part of its larger war of annihilation against the Palestinian people, one being carried out with increasing fervor across historic Palestine under the most right-wing government in Israeli history.

Last year was the deadliest for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since the United Nations (UN) started counting the dead, in 2005. After October 7^th, that violence only got worse: 299 of the at least 507 Palestinians murdered in the West Bank in 2023 were killed by Israeli forces and settlers between October 7^th and December 31. In the seven months since the Gaza genocide began, Israeli forces and settlers have murdered over four hundred Palestinians, more than one hundred of whom were children.

Illegal Israeli settlements are also expanding at lightning speed. Between November 2022 and the end of October 2023, the Israeli government advanced over twenty-four thousand illegal housing units in already-existing settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, which UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said “risk eliminating any practical possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian State.”

The months following October 7^th have seen an explosion in settler activity, with nine new settler “outposts” established in the last three months of 2023 alone. These outposts are illegal even under Israel’s warped conception of international law, but that hasn’t stopped its ultra-right-wing government from “legalizing” a record number of settlement outposts.

In April 2024, Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who once remarked that there is “no such thing as the Palestinian people,” announced that an additional sixty-eight outposts were to be treated as so-called legal settlements, despite the fact that all settlements on occupied Palestinian territory are illegal under international law.

As illegal settlements expand across the occupied West Bank, settlers are being emboldened by Israel’s government to take up arms against Palestinians and steal their land. When the Israeli government launched its genocidal war on Gaza, it called up over five thousand settler military reservists, armed them, and assigned them to “defend” the West Bank, giving them free rein to terrorize and murder Palestinians with impunity.

In the months following October 7^th, settlers have carried out hundreds of attacks, displacing over 1,200 Palestinians across over a dozen different communities. Seven Palestinian communities in the West Bank have been completely uprooted as a direct result of settler violence. Hundreds of other Palestinians were displaced after the Israeli government demolished their homes because they lacked government-issued building permits, which are notoriously difficult for Palestinians to acquire.

A WAR ON ALL PALESTINIANS

Israeli violence against Palestinians is getting worse, but this violence is not new. Yet the American government insists on treating this violence as an aberration from, rather than the center of, the Zionist colonial project.

Earlier this month, ProPublica revealed that American secretary of state Antony Blinken had been balking for months at recommendations from fellow State Department officials to cut American funding to an Israeli military battalion that committed rape, murder, and other grave violations against Palestinians.

Almost immediately, reports emerged that the State Department would soon announce a ban on American funding to Netzah Yehuda, the Israeli battalion in question, in accordance with the Leahy Law, which prohibits the transfer of American weapons to foreign militaries accused of serious human rights violations.

In December 2023, the State Department said it was adopting a “new visa restriction policy” targeting individuals believed to have been involved in undermining peace, security, or stability in the West Bank.” In February, the State Department imposed financial sanctions on four Israeli settlers, and in March, it sanctioned an additional three settlers and two settler outposts.

As welcome as these steps toward accountability are, the administration’s piecemeal approach belies the systematic nature of Israeli crimes against Palestinians. As if to prove that very point, war cabinet minister Benny Gantz immediately condemned reports that the State Department may cut American funding to Netzah Yehuda, insisting that it was an “inseparable part” of the Israeli military.

An indefinite military occupation cannot be maintained without extreme violence. Though this violence has become more pronounced since the most right-wing government in Israeli history took power, and especially after October 7^th, it is not unique to the current Israeli government, nor is it unique to the last seven months.

Some of the most well-known abuses committed by the Netzah Yehuda Battalion — the murder of an eighty-year-old Palestinian American man and the rape of a Palestinian teenager in their custody, for example — took place in 2021 and 2022, shattering any illusion of “peace” before October 7^th.

In one settler pogrom last June, Illinois state representative Abdelnasser Rashid was forced to barricade himself inside his family home as hundreds of armed settlers, accompanied and protected by Israeli soldiers, rampaged through the Palestinian village of Turmus Ayya, shooting live rounds and setting homes and cars on fire. A twenty-seven-year-old father of two was killed.

The State Department was quick to condemn the attacks in Turmus Ayya and demand “full accountability” for those responsible, but Palestinians aren’t counting on it. Why should they? For seven months, the American government has armed and funded their butchers.

What’s happening in Gaza cannot be understood outside the context of the war being waged against Palestinians across historic Palestine. Instead of sanctioning individual extremists, the American government should cut off the state arming and enabling them.

REPORTS OF THE MASS GRAVES IN GAZA ISN’T NEWS TO AMERICAN “NEWS” OUTLETS

The Bodies Of Over 300 People Were Discovered In A Mass Grave At The Nasser Medical Complex In Khan Younis, A Gaza City Besieged By Israeli Forces.

The discovery of these Palestinian bodies, many of which were reportedly bound and stripped, is more evidence of “plausible” genocide committed by Israel during its bombardment of Gaza. Over 34,000 Palestinians have died thus far, with more than two-thirds of the casualties being women and children.

Yet this discovery prompted few American news headlines, despite outlets like the Guardian, Haaretz and Reuters covering the story. Instead, headlines relating to Palestine have predominantly focused on protests happening at university campuses across the country—an important story, but not one that ought to drown out coverage of the atrocities students are protesting against.

Israel’s Haaretz noted that:

“emergency workers in white hazmat suits had been seen digging near the ruins of Nasser Hospital. They reportedly dug corpses out of the ground with hand tools and a digger truck. The emergency services said 73 more bodies had been found at the site in the past day, raising the number found over the week to 283.”

The bodies included people killed during the Israeli siege of Khan Yunis, as well as people killed after Israel occupied the medical complex in February. They were found under piles of waste, with several bodies having their hands tied and clothes stripped off. Similar mass graves, containing at least 381 bodies, were found at Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital after Israel withdrew from occupying that complex on April 1^st.

The discovery of these mass graves “horrified” UN rights chief Volker Turk. But it has yet to prompt so strong a reaction from several major American news outlets.

LIMITED RESPONSE

In comparison to the widespread coverage from international outlets, the US response has been limited at best. Newsweek published an article that included claims from the IDF that the deaths were a result of a “precise” operation against Hamas near Nasser Hospital:

“About 200 terrorists who were in the hospital were apprehended, medicines intended for Israeli hostages were found undelivered and unused, and a great deal of ammunition was confiscated.”

The article centered on the American response to the reports of mass graves. Along with CNN, Newsweek included quotes from the IDF that called reports of mass burials of Palestinians by the Israeli army “baseless and unfounded.” Rather, the IDF said, they were merely exhuming the bodies to verify whether or not they were Israeli hostages.

The Washington Post relegated the news to a small section of their live updates feed: “UN Calls for Investigation of Gaza Mass Grave; IDF Says It Excavated Bodies.”

CNN and PBS both published relatively well-rounded reports of the discovery, noting reports of 400 missing people and allegations of IDF soldiers performing DNA tests on the bodies, along with accounts of people still searching for their loved ones amidst the rubble. CNN released an update April 24:

“At least 381 bodies were recovered from the vicinity of the complex since Israeli forces withdrew on April 1, Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said, adding that the total figure did not include people buried within the grounds of the hospital.”

The update was also released to CNN‘s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter.

As FAIR has repeatedly noted, coverage of the war has widely been from an Israel-centered perspective. The CNN and PBS articles, however, along with an NBC video, prominently included quotes from Palestinians searching for family members.

The same cannot be said for outlets like the Washington Post and New York Times, who cited sources from the UN and the Palestinian Civil Defense—a governmental organization that operates under the Palestinian Security Services—but didn’t include additional first-hand accounts from Palestinian civilians.

The Times said that “it was not clear where the people discovered in the mass grave were originally buried.” It didn’t mention that several family members of the deceased remembered where they buried them, but were no longer able to find them, they said, due to IDF interference:

“Another man, who said his brother Alaa was also killed in January, said: “I am here today looking for him. I have been coming here to the hospital for the last two weeks and trying to find him. Hopefully, I will be able to find him.”

Pointing to a fallen palm tree, the man said his brother had been temporarily buried in that spot.

“I had buried him there on the side, but I can’t find him. The Israelis have dug up the dead bodies, and switched them. They took DNA tests and misplaced all the dead bodies.””

PLAYING CATCH-UP

As mentioned above, American news outlets have had considerable coverage of pro-Palestine university protests, particularly since April 18^th, when more than 100 demonstrators were arrested at New York’s Columbia University. News of these protests have dominated American headlines since then. While the discovery of mass graves just a few days later has received next to no coverage in comparison. In the case of the New York Times, for instance, they published just two stories about the mass graves since the news broke on April 21^st, while publishing seven stories about the campus protests in the span of two days.

The New York Times has been telling writers not to use words like “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” to describe the violence in Gaza, a leaked internal memo revealed. Accordingly, the Times used the phrase “wartime chaos” to explain the mass graves, as if they were merely a side effect of war, not the result of intentional bombing campaigns.

While some prominent American media outlets are beginning to report on this discovery, they are playing catch-up with their international counterparts, whose reporting makes up a majority of search results on Google. Even articles that do appear on the first page rely heavily on reports from official spokespeople.

The UN’s Turk has called for an independent investigation into the mass graves, saying “the intentional killing of civilians, detainees and others who are hors de combat is a war crime.” Corporate news outlets have been quick to note that the claims of bodies being found with their hands tied “cannot be substantiated,” despite consistent reports from both Palestinian officials and the office of the UN high commissioner for human rights about the condition of the bodies.

You should now clearly understand that the American media is nothing more than a propaganda outlet for the sadistic regime in Israel.

FOR WHOM DO BIDEN AND BLINKEN WORK?

Will History Remember The Duo As Really Having Had American Interests At Heart?

Long after the current administration passes from the scene, President Joseph R. Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be remembered not for their bumbling, embarrassing encounters with the Chinese, nor for their steadfast refusal to negotiate a peaceful settlement with the Russians, which set off a disastrous war that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

Instead, they will likely be remembered as the abettors of Israel’s transformation of Gaza into an abattoir, and will leave a legacy as bloodstained as Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger’s.

But, to be fair, Nixon and Kissinger knew which country was theirs; they understood that the United States and Israel have distinct and vastly different interests. Indeed, it is little remembered today that as Secretary of State, Kissinger once ordered a reassessment of this so-called “special relationship.”

Lacking the sheen of Kissinger’s not inconsiderable wit and intellect, Tony Blinken, a protege of Marty Peretz, erstwhile publisher of the New Republic and an ideological Zionist, may one day be remembered as his generation’s Robert McNamara: a bland bureaucrat carrying out the obscene orders of his commander-in-chief.

As if more were needed to bolster such a judgment, this week, after acknowledging that five Israeli military units had engaged in gross human rights abuses, the Biden administration signaled it will not apply the Leahy Law—which prohibits aid to militaries that have committed human rights abuses—to Israel. It would be hard to improve upon the following headline from the Hill: “US finds Israeli military units violated human rights; withholds consequences.”

In an incredible performance this Monday at Foggy Bottom, the State Department spokesman Vedant Patel (yet another foreign-born bureaucrat who clearly knows little about the country he is paid to represent) ran cover for the Israelis once again, claiming that the IDF was now in line with Leahy and all is well.

Yet, given Israel’s widespread, heavily documented crimes, including the deployment of AI systems such as Lavender AI systematically to terrorize the Palestinian population, the application of Leahy would seem a mere slap on the wrist. Yet Blinken and Biden have deemed even symbolic measures of disapproval of Israel’s rampage as too great a burden on Tel Aviv.

If Blinken and Biden were serious about stopping the carnage, they could have applied section 6201 of the Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits security assistance to countries blocking humanitarian aid. In late March, a group of Democratic senators and congressmen called on the administration to do just that, writing, in a letter to the President,

Federal law is clear, and, given the urgency of the crisis in Gaza, and the repeated refusal of Prime Minister Netanyahu to address American concerns on this issue, immediate action is necessary to secure a change in policy by his government.

If Biden and Blinken were serious, they would have applied Leahy and enforced the terms of the Arms Control Export Act, the American War Crimes Act and the Genocide Convention Implementation Act; if they were serious, they would have supported South Africa’s case against Israel in the International Court of Justice; if they were serious, they would not have instructed UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield repeatedly to veto measures in the UN Security Council calling for a ceasefire; if they were serious, they would call for the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and others.

And yet, even now, over 90 attorneys within the Biden administration are drafting a letter to the cowardly Attorney General Merrick Garland calling for a halt on military aid to Israel. According to a report in POLITICO on Monday, the lawyers contend that “Israel likely violated U.S. statutes including the Arms Export Control Act and Leahy Laws as well as the Geneva Conventions prohibiting disproportionate attacks on civilian populations.”

What will come of it?

Not a thing. Because Biden and Blinken act not as American statesmen, beholden to American laws in the furtherance of American interests—but rather, as adjunct members of the Israeli war cabinet.

This means they are simply an Israeli puppet regime.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EVIL AUTOCRACIES AND FREE DEMOCRACIES IS DEMONSTRATED IN GAZA

In Evil Autocracies The Leaders Commit Genocide For Hateful And Racist Reasons, Whereas In Free Democracies The Leaders Commit Genocide For Noble And Righteous Reasons.

We’re always hearing international conflicts framed as a battle between Free Democracies and Evil Autocracies. What is the difference between a Free Democracy and an Evil Autocracy? Well, let’s look at the situation in Gaza to help us understand the distinction.

In Evil Autocracies the leaders commit genocide for hateful and racist reasons, whereas in Free Democracies the leaders commit genocide for noble and righteous reasons.

In Evil Autocracies the police are summoned to break up student protests in order to ensure the safety of the government, whereas in Free Democracies the police are summoned to break up student protests in order to ensure the safety of the students.

In Evil Autocracies the government monitors political speech on university campuses to suppress dissent, whereas in Free Democracies the government monitors political speech on university campuses to suppress “antisemitism”.

In Evil Autocracies the government controls the media and ensures that it only reports information which serves their interests, whereas in Free Democracies it is billionaires who do this.

In Evil Autocracies they imprison journalists who report inconvenient facts, whereas in Free Democracies they do this also, but mostly they just kill them with airstrikes.

In Evil Autocracies they massacre civilians with bullets and blades, whereas in Free Democracies they massacre civilians with military explosives and siege warfare, like civilized people.

In Evil Autocracies political speech is heavily restricted by the government, whereas in Free Democracies political speech is heavily restricted by Silicon Valley in collaboration with the government.

In Evil Autocracies they mow down disobedient civilians and bury them in mass graves, whereas in Free Democracies they mow down disobedient civilians and bury them in mass graves, and then their allies solemnly say they’re waiting for more information about these very serious allegations.

In Evil Autocracies they bomb hospitals, schools and religious centers, assassinate cultural leaders and journalists, and deliberately target civilian infrastructure in the name of inflicting death and terror, whereas in Free Democracies they bomb hospitals, schools and religious centers, assassinate cultural leaders and journalists, and deliberately target civilian infrastructure in the name of self-defense.

In Evil Autocracies they flagrantly disregard international law, whereas in Free Democracies they flagrantly disregard international law.

In Evil Autocracies they drop bombs on areas full of civilians because of genocidal bloodlust, whereas in Free Democracies they drop bombs on areas full of civilians because of “human shields”.

In Evil Autocracies you’ll get thrown in prison if you go on TV and speak out against the government, whereas in Free Democracies nobody who would speak out against the government is ever allowed to have a TV job.

In Evil Autocracies people are afraid to speak out against war crimes, injustice and oppression because they’ll be punished, whereas in Free Democracies people are afraid to speak out against war crimes, injustice and oppression because they’ll be accused of hating Jews.

In Evil Autocracies they arm terrorists with AK-47s and RPGs to help them inflict violence and suffering upon the innocent, whereas in Free Democracies they arm terrorists with war planes and 2,000-pound bombs to help them inflict violence and suffering upon the innocent.

In Evil Autocracies people are kept too brutalized and cowed to rise up against their rulers, whereas in Free Democracies people are kept too propagandized and indoctrinated to rise up against their rulers.

In Evil Autocracies the media feed the public a nonstop deluge of propaganda and people know it’s propaganda, whereas in Free Democracies the media feed the public a nonstop deluge of propaganda and people think it’s the news.