Is Government the Cash Cow for Politicians?
Ambition Should Be Tempered by Love of Country, not of Money!
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • OCTOBER 31, 2023
The conflict in Israel-Gaza illustrates perfectly how the United States government runs on corruption, with the deep pocketed Jewish and Israeli lobbies able to buy every national level politician that matters to give the loathsome Benjamin Netanyahu a carte blanche both in terms of a free pass on committing war crimes while also having unlimited access to the US Treasury and the contents of military arsenals. Given that the media is also in the hands of the same malefactors the poorly informed American public can only respond to the pablum that they are being fed about what is going on the world, i.e. Ukraine and Israel good, Russia and Palestine bad.
I am certainly not the first observer of politics in the United States who has noticed how this deterioration has come about in my lifetime, where a country that once upon a time believed in meritocracy has now been corrupted by money, with a ruling class, such as it is, that seems to be wallowing in the green stuff even as it pretends to be promoting policies that help the average American. Right now, the witless President Joe Robinette Biden is working on his latest fraud, consisting of bundling all the money that will be dumped on Israel and Ukraine into a package with Taiwan so it will pass effortlessly through Congress given its hostility both to Russia and China and its deep abiding love for all things Israeli. $100 billion is all Joe wants, $10 billion for Israel immediately and the rest to be doled out, mostly to good old boy Volodymyr Zelensky and a bit for the Taiwanese.
And it might be observed that part of the vast ocean of money somehow seems to stick to the fingers of the pampered residents of Capitol Hill. How, one might ask, did Biden, a blue-collar boy from Scranton Pennsylvania who has spent his entire adult life in government employment and who is married to a school teacher wind up with a net worth in the $9 million dollar range? Of course, it now appears that he received a notable assist from a son named Hunter who is something like a one-man cocaine snorting corruption machine who was more than willing to share his largesse with dad in exchange for a little assistance with foreign despots here and there.
One recalls how back in the seventies there was at least some speculation regarding how President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who spent his entire working life in government, started out raised in poverty and wound up being worth an estimated $15 million at his death in 1973 after he left the presidency, at a time when that was serious money, equal to about $100 million today. He was known to be well-wired into Texas Jewish and pro-Israel circles and appeared to have all the right contacts for making private investments that he did not have to publicly declare.
But no one figured out how to milk the system like the Clintons and I still chuckle when I recall how they tried to take the White House silver with them when they departed the residence. Upon leaving the presidency in 2001 they claimed to be completely broke and even in debt, but adroit manipulation of their Clinton Foundation since that time has produced a windfall of more than $300 million in today’s dollars. It was a pattern imitated by Barack Obama who left office with more cash in hand through the usual mechanism of largely unreadable books ghost written on their behalf that were then hawked in large numbers to Democratic Party constituents to support the cause. Barack’s cash value is now estimated to be in the $70 million range and he also owns substantial properties in Washington, Chicago and, of course, on Martha’s Vineyard, where he has a 29 acre estate valued at $12 million.
Of course, to a certain extent the misbehavior of presidents, at least while they are still in office, is not as egregious as it is for members of Congress and even Supreme Court Justices. Presidents are very visible and surrounded by staff and media witnesses of whatever they are up to while the sins of other senior government officials are more anonymous and they can engage in practices like taking bribes and insider trading based on their prior knowledge of legislation or expenditures that are pending that might produce a windfall profit if one is canny enough to buy the right stock. Congressmen are also well placed to use family members to carry out the trades, avoiding scrutiny of their own banking and investment activities. That has, indeed, been claimed in a number of cases where government officials have been able to accumulate large fortunes while holding office.
And there is no doubt that corruption of one form or another is the game that is played in Congress and elsewhere including at state and local levels. In a sense, it is all around us. The recent exposure of Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey’s apparent tendency to accept bribes was a particularly lurid tale in part because much of the loot consisted of $480,000 in cash stuffed into jacket pockets, closets and in a safe, along with 13 gold bars, two of them marked as 1 Kilogram in weight to the value of more than $100,000. In the garage was an upscale $60,000 Mercedes-Benz convertible that was a gift to Menendez’s then girlfriend, who had wrecked her own vehicle in an accident in which she had struck and killed a pedestrian. The car came from one of the New Jersey businessmen currently involved in the corruption and bribery investigation and no one can quite explain how an accident in which someone had died was never properly investigated by police. Menendez had allegedly helped the businessman by arranging to block a criminal investigation into his company’s activities.
Menendez, a Cuban American regarded as a political hardliner from his bully pulpit as Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has been investigated before over charges of possible corruption, but he has beaten the rap each time. He has currently resigned his chairmanship but has refused to leave the Senate and he claims he is innocent, of course. And as he’s inevitably been a major promoter of Biden’s war on Russia the White House will presumably do everything it can to protect him, but only up to a certain point.
There has been some discussion of the wealth of certain congressmen due to the recent death of 90 year-old Dianne Feinstein, Senator from California, who was regarded as both the wealthiest and oldest of all Senators. She was, in fact, born into a prominent Jewish family in San Francisco and acquired even more money and property from her three husbands, all of whom were also wealthy. It has never been suggested that she exploited her positions as Mayor of San Francisco and in Congress to illegally or otherwise obtain more money, to her credit, possibly because she was already rich. Nevertheless, her death was preceded by some high tone media coverage of the nature of her fortune and the family quarrel that is taking place regarding how all the money and the multiple high end properties will be divided up. By some accounts, Feinstein became a billionaire upon the death of her final husband financier Richard C. Blum in 2022, though who is entitled to what remains of the estate will now undoubtedly be determined through either litigation or negotiation involving her own daughter Katherine and the three daughters sired by Blum in a previous marriage. Far from getting rich off of politics, Blum and Feinstein were major donors to the Democratic Party.
More to the point if one is asking “How did they get so rich?” is the trajectory of former Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul Pelosi. Nancy was one of six children born and raised in an intensely political environment, though having otherwise modest circumstances, in Baltimore. Her father was Baltimore mayor and congressman Thomas D’Alesandro, who was at one time investigated by the FBI but never convicted regarding association with criminals.
Nancy Pelosi and Hubbie Paul moved to California in 1969 after college and six years spent in New York City. She quickly became involved in local Democratic Party politics while he established himself as a businessman, specializing in real estate and high-tech investment, aided by his brother Ronald Pelosi who was a member of the San Francisco city and county Board of Supervisors. Nancy and Paul have five children. Nancy, who is 83 years old, initially won her congressional seat in a special election in San Francisco in 1987. She became first woman Speaker, though she lost her position recently as a result of the swing of the House to the Republicans in the 2020 election. She has announced that she will not be running for office in 2024 and will retire. She and her husband have indicated that they will live in their mansion in the upscale Pacific Heights district of San Francisco, though they have a vineyard in Napa Valley and additional properties in San Francisco. They are staying in the city in spite of an incident in October 2022, while Pelosi was in Washington, DC, in which an intruder entered their home demanding to know her whereabouts. He then attacked Paul Pelosi, with a hammer. Police arrested the attacker, 42-year-old David DePape, and he has been charged with assault and attempted kidnapping.
As of 2021, Pelosi’s net worth, as revealed by her government financial disclosure forms and other sources, was estimated to be at $120 million, more than doubling her $58 million valuation in 2009 and making her the 6th richest person in Congress. She indicated on her disclosure form that her principal source of income was her government salary, which peaked at $223,500 when she was speaker. She and her husband hold properties “worth at least $14.65 million, including the St. Helena vineyard in Napa Valley worth at least $5 million” and commercial properties.
According to investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald, the Pelosis have traded $33 million worth of tech stocks over the past two years, including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google. In May and June 2021, Pelosi’s husband purchased stocks in tech companies such as Alphabet, Amazon, and Apple, netting a gain of $5.3 million, while Nancy was working on anti-trust legislation to better regulate the tech industry, which many considered to be a clear conflict of interest as well as a case of potential insider trading. Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, had actually called Pelosi to lobby her in opposition to the new proposed regulations and, in their discussion, she openly opposed increasing regulations on stock trades by members of congress, stating that “we’re a free market economy” and congresspeople “should be able to participate in that”.
This comment attracted strong criticism including from some Democrats: “Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) tweeted: ‘No. It cannot be a perk of the job for Members to trade on access to information.’ Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) – one of the wealthiest members of Congress thanks to his business career that included leading his family’s distillery as well as the gelato brand Talenti – echoed: ‘I disagree with the Speaker.’ And Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.), who represents one of the most competitive districts in the nation, wrote that ‘I disagree strongly’ with Pelosi’s stance. ‘Americans are losing trust in government and we need to show we serve the people, not our personal/political self-interest.’ Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who has said that she doesn’t hold individual stocks or digital assets, reiterated late Friday that she thinks letting members of Congress trade individual stocks is a bad look. ‘There is no reason members of Congress should hold and trade individual stock when we write major policy and have access to sensitive information,’ Ocasio-Cortez said. ‘There are many ways members can invest w/o creating actual or appeared conflict of interest, like thrift savings plans or index funds.’”
So evidently Nancy Pelosi and many other congressmen believe that it is just fine to be regulating industries and also allowing the regulators to benefit materially when it is anticipated that the measures taken will improve those industries’ stock market standing or profitability. Doing so is a well-established principle referred to as insider trading and hers is an interesting viewpoint. It perhaps explains why there are so many multi-millionaires and possibly even a billionaire or two in Congress!
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Former Jan 6th Prosecutor Runs For Congress, Focusing Campaign on Tackling “Conspiracy Theories” On Social Media

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | October 31, 2023
A counter-terrorism (national security) prosecutor who made a name for himself – or so he hopes – by going after participants in the January 6 riots is now hoping to capitalize on his previous career by switching directly to politics.
Will Rollins has announced that he is running for Congress in California, with his platform based on changing regulations that govern Big Tech’s social media, in order to combat what he considers to be conspiracy theories – such as QAnon and Covid-related issues – but also more vaguely, to take on “spreading division based on lies.”
In announcing the congressional run, Rollins revealed that his political efforts are based on the thinking that divisions in the US are not the result of, say, differing political and ideological beliefs within a free electorate, but of “democracy-eroding lies” that the media, Big Tech, and extremists, all help spread.
Apparently, there is such a thing as a democracy to erode, even if everyone gets corralled into the same place regarding some basic issues. And speaking of which, Rollins is warning that without his plan to hold said entities – media outlets, tech companies, and “extremists” – accountable, the US will be “exploited” by China and Russia.
This is his plan:
“Update regulations to break down information bubbles and propaganda networks to protect the public’s right to be informed; Require more transparency in advertising, so that we know whether what we’re consuming online was written by a human or a Russian bot; Create accountability for harmful lies and conspiracy theories amplified by Big Tech.”
From insisting on preventing “divisions” (but having to qualify his claims that “adversaries” from around the world tried to “capitalize” on those divisions post-January 6 by saying they reportedly tried this) – Rollings suddenly goes on to justify his policies by saying new rules around tech, etc., are needed in order to “incentivize the presentation of multiple views.”
But these will have to be “vetted” and approved of before being allowed to be presented, let alone incentivized, it appears from the musings Rollings is posting online.
Perhaps the most interesting thing that has come out of this candidacy so far is the revealing of the political and ideological profile of one of the January 6 prosecutors.
Maidan snipers: The founding myth of ‘new’ Ukraine has been proven to be a lie. Why is the West silent?
By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | October 31, 2023
Earlier this month, a district court in Kiev announced its findings in a case that had dragged on since 2015, handing down sentences to five former officers of the long-dissolved ‘Berkut’ police unit. The ex-police grouping become internationally known during the 2013/14 protests which culminated with the violent ‘Maidan.’
Charged with involvement in the shooting of anti-government protesters by snipers in the center of the Ukrainian capital on February 20, 2014, four of the accused – three of them in absentia – were found guilty and sentenced to terms between five years and life. One was acquitted.
Politically, this was, or should have been, Ukraine’s single most important trial since independence in 1991. The judges closed – at least for now as appeals have already been announced – the country’s attempt to come to terms judicially with the darkest moment of what has been called a “revolution,” as well as a “coup”: the fall of the government of former President Viktor Yanukovich under pressure from initially peaceful – then violent – street protests and Western meddling. The events producing regime change and geopolitical re-orientation unfolded over three months, but the killing of almost 50 protesters that February was a crucial tipping point.
The case quickly became known as the “snipers’ massacre” or the “Maidan massacre.” The shootings were squarely blamed on Yanukovich and his administration and seemed to rule out domestic compromise and confirm Western and Ukrainian pro-insurgent narratives, casting the crisis as a national and democratic freedom struggle against a corrupt and oppressive regime beholden to Moscow. Neither the disproportionate role of an aggressive and manipulative Ukrainian far right nor the ruthless geopolitics of the West had a place in this framing. Within days after the killings, a last attempt to stop the spiral of escalation by an internationally mediated agreement failed, Yanukovych fled to Russia, and Moscow’s troops were on the move in Crimea.
Then things got worse. Clashes between Kiev’s new government and rebels in Donbass evolved into an initially intense, then mostly slow-burn, regional civil war, including limited Russian interventions. The best chance for peace, the 2015 Minsk 2 Agreement, was sabotaged systematically by Kiev and its Western supporters, and, after February 2022, Ukraine became the theater of a proxy war of the collective West against Russia. The West and Ukraine are now likely to lose this conflict at immense cost in lives and wealth, mostly to Ukraine. International tension is extremely high, trust has evaporated, and meaningful communication is almost impossible.
Ukraine and the world could be in a much better place if the last days of February 2014 had played out differently, allowing for the compromise already negotiated between Ukraine’s government and the insurgents to take hold. The Maidan Massacre was not the only but the single most important shove toward an ever-widening conflict, especially as the dominant Western narrative about the killings has remained the same, blaming only the old regime and rejecting any challenge to the narrative as a pro-Russian “information war.” Here was the perfect story, in short, to emotionally legitimize not only support but uncritical backing for Kiev, the rejection and sabotage of any concessions to Ukraine’s domestic rebels in the East, and vilifying any effective cooperation with Moscow.
But what if we were not told the truth about the killings? That is the key claim advanced by Canadian-Ukrainian political scientist Ivan Katchanovski. Katchanovski (who also recently exposed the scandal around the honoring of a Waffen-SS veteran by the Canadian parliament) has long argued that “the Maidan massacre was a false-flag mass killing of … protestors and … police in order to seize power in Ukraine. It was conducted with the involvement of oligarchic and far-right elements of the Maidan opposition using concealed groups of Maidan snipers in Maidan-controlled buildings.”
The rich detail of Katchanovski’s findings cannot be reproduced here, but three points should be noted: Snipers belonging to the insurgents’ side started shooting at the police on the morning of February 20; key positions, such as in the Hotel Ukraina and a conservatory, from which these policemen were attacked and later Maidan protesters as well, were and remained under the control of insurgent units (not the police); and after 9.00 am, protesters, too, were shot by insurgent snipers (again: not by the police).
In sum, two things happened, according to Katchanovski’s findings: Insurgent snipers first shot at the police to provoke an escalation, and then, in addition, even killed protesters – that is, those on their own side. At the same time, Katchanovski does not rule out the possibility that the police also shot protesters. But his careful analysis of video and other evidence shows that many victims, likely the majority, were targeted by insurgent shooters.
Katchanovski has come to these conclusions through years-long, rigorous, and exhaustive forensic research, as summarized in his peer-reviewed article “The ‘Snipers’ Massacre’ on the Maidan in Ukraine” in Cogent Social Sciences, an academic journal published by Taylor and Francis. He has not been the only one reaching such or similar results, but his work is the most thorough and important independent investigation. Clearly, that is why, due to its political implications, he has had to withstand being smeared as a “conspiracy theorist” and pro-Kremlin information warrior; his work has been censored; and he has suffered severe retaliation by attempts at professional and social marginalization and the pseudo-legal confiscation of his family’s property in Ukraine.
Ukrainian courts are not politically independent. Judges, whatever their own views or professional ethics, work under the threat of ostracism and violence from Ukraine’s far right (at least). And yet, as Katchanovski has pointed out, buried in the million-word findings of the recent verdict, the court has recognized several facts that confirm his interpretation of the Maidan Massacre, including the following: four police officers were killed and 39 wounded by insurgent snipers; snipers shot from buildings under insurgent control; and it cannot be ruled out that eight victims were killed and 20 injured by “unknown” perpetrators who were not from the police.
While Katchanovski is to be admired for his research and steadfastness, what is especially important here is that the long backlash against his research is a symptom of something larger that is badly amiss in both Ukraine and the West. Even now, the Ukrainian information war outlet Euromaidan Press, for instance, still combines a personal attack on Katchanovski with disinforming its readers, claiming that the verdict somehow contradicts his findings (which are, by the way, badly misrepresented).
The opposite is the case.
This is just the latest example of a deep culture of disinformation and self-disinformation that has taken root in the West. While Western elites may well lie deliberately much of the time, substantial parts of the Western media, it seems, have come to not only believe these lies – or those of favorites, clients, and allies – but to defend them with a vigor that betrays psychological investment.
The emotionally-charged reality denial around Hillary Clinton’s richly-deserved defeat in the US election of 2016 (“Russiagate”), the bizarre doublethink regarding Western forces (and/or Ukraine) blowing up Nord Stream (thereby committing an act of war among “allies” and of eco-terrorism), Israel’s “right to defend itself” interpreted as the permission to commit crimes against humanity with Western support – all are instances of a form of collective self-indulgence. Too many people in the West still claiming to be the world’s “value” guardian practice lying and lying to themselves as if it were their special birthright.
Yet these lies and fiercely guarded illusions corrupt individuals and politics, polarize societies, disrupt international relations and, last but not least, cost lives – thousands, tens of thousands, and, in the case of Ukraine by now, hundreds of thousands. Conflict is a normal part of human life, and, to some extent, inevitable.
Driving yourself insane with dishonesty is not. And it certainly does not help keep the peace.
Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany at Koç University in Istanbul working on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory. Follow Tarik on X @tarikcyrilamar
Ukrainian border guards using drones to catch ‘fleeing’ citizens – UNIAN
RT | October 31, 2023
Ukraine’s border-guard service (DPSU) has released several videos showing surveillance drones helping officers catch people trying to leave the country illegally. National media have described those who’ve been caught as nationals “fleeing” Ukraine, amid an armed-forces mobilization as Kiev’s conflict with Russia continues.
In the first clip published by DPSU on Saturday, a drone operator uses the aircraft’s thermal camera to guide a patrol towards a group of people hiding in bushes. The service claims the technique helped it catch 14 trespassers in four separate interceptions near the village of Okny near the border with Moldova.
The next day the border guards released footage of a short chase, as seen from a drone via a night camera. The DPSU said the four would-be violators in this instance wanted to go to Moldova but were intercepted as they made their attempt.
Another video published by the service on Monday includes drone footage of a car moving down a battered road. Guards then stop the vehicle and apprehend the driver, who the DPSU claimed to be a people-smuggler.
The suspect allegedly used his transport to sneak his clients to a part of the border with Moldova from where they would then cross illegally. Would-be violators in the first two cases reported by the DPSU had also used services of smugglers, who ask as much as $2,000 for help crossing the border, according to the service.
The footage doesn’t go into what motivates people to embark their law-breaking trips. UNIAN, a major Ukrainian news outlet, described the official action as guards “keeping catching nationals fleeing across the border.”
Kiev has banned men who are eligible to serve in the military from leaving the country unless they get a waiver. It’s now reportedly ramping up efforts to draft additional troops, after suffering heavy casualties in attempts to breach Russian defensive lines over the months of the so-called summer counteroffensive.
Ukrainian MP Sergey Rakhmanin, who sits on the parliamentary Committee for Security, Defense, and Intelligence, said in an interview last week that the country had long exhausted the reserve of persons who’d volunteered to go the front.
Moscow has accused Kiev’s Western sponsors of using Ukrainians as “cannon fodder” in a proxy war against Russia. In a speech at a security forum in Beijing on Monday, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu estimated Ukrainian casualties during the counteroffensive at over 90,000.
NYT Writes about the Israeli Intel Failures on Hamas

Palestinian resistance fighters capture Israeli occupation soldiers during an attack on a militray post in the Gaza envelope as part of Op. Al-Aqsa Flood (October 7, 2023).
Al-Manar – October 31, 2023
The Israeli occupation military’s 8200 signal intelligence unit stopped listening in to the handheld radios of Hamas operatives in Gaza a year ago, deciding it was a “waste of effort,” The New York Times reported noting that this was one of a series of failures that led to the shocking success of the Oct. 7 Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
In an extensive report on the intelligence failures, the paper also said on Sunday that US spy agencies had largely stopped collecting information on Hamas in recent years, believing that ‘Israel’ had contained the threat from the Palestinian resistance group.
Monitoring that network might have helped Ronen Bar, the director of the Israel Security Agency, or Shin Bet, realize at 3 a.m. on Oct. 7, a few hours before the attack, that the unusual activity he was seeing on the Gaza border wasn’t just another Hamas “military” exercise, the Times noted.
Israeli military also placed its confidence in “The Barrier,” the nearly 40-mile-long concrete wall that plunges underground to prevent tunneling. It included a high-tech surveillance system that relies on cameras, sensors and remote-controlled machine guns.
“Senior Israeli military officials believed that the combination of remote surveillance and machine-gun systems with the formidable wall would make it almost impossible to infiltrate Israel, and thus reduce the need for a large number of soldiers to be stationed at the bases,” the newspaper reported.
Hamas’s attack put paid to the idea that concrete and technology could be relied on. The Hamas fighters blew up cellular antennas and remote shooting systems along the fence with explosives precisely dropped from drones.
“In a conversation with military investigators two weeks after the attack, soldiers who survived the assault testified that the Hamas training was so precise that they damaged a row of cameras and communication systems so that ‘all our screens turned off in almost the exact same second,’” the Times reported.
There simply were not enough Israeli soldiers to fill the gaps once the technology was destroyed and the security barrier breached. Hamas terrorists [resistance fighters] poured through.
“We started receiving messages that there was a raid on every reporting line,” one soldier at the Gaza Division base told an Israeli news site.
“The forces did not have time to come and stop it. There were swarms of terrorists, something psychotic, and we were simply told that our only choice was to take our feet and flee for our lives.”
The Hamas rampage across western Negev communities went on for hours, with the Israeli soldiers’ response shockingly slow, (Something that has still not been explained).
After the fighting, Israeli soldiers found hand-held radios on the bodies of some of the Hamas fighters, “the same radios that Israeli intelligence officials had decided a year ago were no longer worth monitoring,” the Times reported.
‘Turning Gaza into ashes’: Israel propaganda vs the world
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | October 31, 2023
Gaza has changed the political equation in Palestine. Moreover, the repercussions of the ongoing devastating war are likely to alter the political equation in the entire Middle East and to re-centre Palestine as the world’s most urgent political crisis for years to come.
Since the establishment of Israel in 1948, facilitated by Britain and protected by the United States and other Western countries, the priorities have been entirely Israeli. “Israel’s security”; Israel’s “military edge”; “Israel’s right to defend itself”, and much more, are the mantras that have defined the West’s political discourse on the Israeli occupation and apartheid in Palestine.
This bizarre US-Western understanding of the so-called conflict, that an oppressor has “rights” over the oppressed; the occupier has “rights” over the occupied, has enabled Israel to maintain a military occupation over Palestinian territories that has lasted for over 56 years. Indeed, many would argue that it is for more than 75 years.
It has also empowered Israel to neglect the roots of this “conflict”, namely the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, and the long-denied, and very legitimate, Right of Return for Palestinian refugees.
Within this context, every Palestinian-Arab overture for peace was rejected. Even the supposed “peace process”, namely the Oslo Accords, turned into an opportunity for Tel Aviv to entrench its military occupation, expand its illegal settlements and corral Palestinians in Bantustan-like spaces, humiliated and racially segregated.
Some Palestinians, whether enticed by American handouts or shattered by a lingering sense of defeat, lined up to receive the US-Israeli peace dividends: pitiful crumbs of false prestige, empty titles and limited power, granted and denied by Israel itself.
However, the Israeli war against the Palestinians in Gaza is already changing much of this painful status quo. The occupation state’s constant insistence that its deadly war is against Hamas, against “terror”, against Islamic fundamentalism, and all the rest, may have convinced those who are ready to accept the Israeli version of events at face value. However, as the bodies of thousands of Palestinian civilians, including thousands of children, began piling up at Gaza’s hospital morgues and, tragically, in the streets, the narrative began changing.
The pulverised bodies of Palestinian children, of whole families who perished together, stand witness to the brutality of Israel; to the immoral support of its allies; and to the inhumanity of an international order that rewards the murderer and reprimands the victim.
Of all the biased statements made by US President Joe Biden, the one where he suggested that Palestinians are lying about the body count of their own dead was perhaps the most inhumane. Washington may not realise this yet, but the repercussions of its unconditional support for Israel will prove to be disastrous in the future, especially in a region that is fed up with war, hegemony, double standards, sectarian divisions and endless conflict.
The greatest impact, though, will be felt in Israel itself. When Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour gave a powerful, emotional speech on 26 October, he could not hold back his tears. International delegations at the UN General Assembly clapped non-stop, reflecting the growing support for Palestine, not only at the UN, but also in hundreds of towns and cities, and on countless street corners around the world.
When the Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, who had promoted many of the lies communicated by Tel Aviv, especially in the early days of the war, finished his speech, not a single person clapped. The contempt was palpable.
The Israeli narrative had clearly crumbled into a thousand pieces. Israel has never been so isolated. This is definitely not the “New Middle East” that Netanyahu had prophesised in his UN General Assembly speech on 22 September.
Unable to fathom how the initial sympathy with Israel turned so quickly into outright disdain, the settler-colonial state resorted to old tactics. On 25 October, Erdan demanded that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres should resign for being “unfit to lead the UN”. The UN chief’s supposedly unforgivable crime was to suggest that “the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum”. Which, of course, they didn’t.
As far as Israel and its American benefactors are concerned, however, no context is allowed to taint the perfect image that the Israelis have created for its genocide in Gaza. In this perfect Israeli world, no one is allowed to speak of military occupation; of siege; of the lack of political prospects; of displacement; of the absence of a just peace for Palestinians.
Even though Amnesty International has said that both sides have committed “serious violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes”, Israel still attacked it, accusing the organisation of being “anti-Semitic”. In Israel’s thinking, even the world’s leading international human rights group is not permitted to contextualise the atrocities in Gaza or dare suggest that one of the “root causes” of the conflict is “Israel’s system of apartheid imposed on all Palestinians”.
Israel is no longer all-powerful, as it wants us to believe. Recent events have proven that its “invincible army” — a branding that allowed Israel to become, as of 2022, the world’s tenth-largest international military exporter — turned out to be a paper tiger.
This is what is infuriating Israel the most. “Muslims are not afraid of us anymore,” former Knesset member Moshe Feiglin told Arutz Sheva-Israel National News. To restore this fear, the extremist politician called for burning “Gaza to ashes immediately.”
But nothing will turn Gaza into ashes. Not even the more than 12,000 tons of high explosives dropped on the Strip in the first two weeks of war which have already incinerated at least 45 per cent of its housing units, according to the UN’s humanitarian office.
Gaza will not die because it is a powerful idea that is deeply entrenched within the hearts and minds of every Arab, of every Muslim and of millions of people around the world. This new idea is challenging the long-held belief that the world needs to cater to Israel’s priorities, security, selfish definitions of peace and all of the other illusions.
The focus should now be on where it should have always been: the priorities of the oppressed, not the oppressor. It is time to speak about Palestinian rights, Palestinian security and the Palestinian people’s right — in fact, obligation — to defend themselves.
It is time for us to speak about justice — real justice — the outcome of which is non-negotiable: equality, full political rights, freedom and the right of return.
Gaza is telling the world all of this, and much more. And now it is time for us to listen.
University of Arkansas imposes Israel ‘loyalty test’ on Jewish author and cancels event
MEMO | October 31, 2023
Academic freedom is under fire in the US as Jewish author silenced for stance on Israel. American- Jewish scholar, Nathan Thrall, has faced censorship from the University of Arkansas, which banned his speaking event over his refusal to sign a pledge affirming loyalty to Israel. Thrall was set to discuss his ground-breaking new book exposing Palestinian life under Occupation, before the University invoked a repressive anti-boycott law to cancel the talk.
“I was just told that I cannot speak at @UArkansas unless I sign a pledge that I will not boycott Israel or its occupation,” Thrall said on X yesterday revealing that he had refused the demand. “A 2017 state law requires @UArkansas to impose this McCarthyist requirement. A reminder that the current effort to quash free speech is not new.”
Thrall also revealed that events for the book were called off on NPR and the BBC’s American platforms due to listener complaints. “I’m quite sure that a book advocating for Israel would not have had its advertisements pulled,” Thrall added. “There’s an atmosphere that is wholly intolerant of any expression of sympathy for Palestinians under Occupation.”
Over 30 US states have adopted legislation aimed at suppressing the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. These anti-BDS laws, promoted by pro-Israel lobbying groups, prohibit state entities from contracting with or investing in any company that boycotts the apartheid state. Some even require individuals and businesses to sign a pledge not to boycott Israel as a condition of obtaining state contracts.
Critics argue that this amounts to an unconstitutional political litmus test that requires declaring loyalty towards Israel and its policies, at the expense of free speech and political dissent. The American Civil Liberties Union has called anti-BDS laws a “profound violation of the First Amendment” that chill activism by making people prove they do not support boycotts for Palestinian rights.
High-profile cases like the cancellation of author events over refusal to sign anti-BDS pledges highlight how the laws censor Israel critiques and activism. Rights groups contend basic democratic principles are undermined when states act as “enforcers” of Israeli policy, demanding ideological purity on this polarising issue as a prerequisite for contracts.
Despite the dubious legality of anti-BDS legislation, the trend continues spreading across states seeking to please pro-Israel interests by cracking down on activism.
In February, the US Supreme Court declined to review the law in the State of Arkansas requiring every government contractor to pledge loyalty to Israel. The justices turned away a challenge to the anti-boycott pledge by the Arkansas Times.
Read also:





