How world leaders stand with genocide
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | June 5, 2025
Do world leaders really want the genocide in Gaza to end? Israel’s arms sales record for 2024 paints a clearer picture of where the international communities’ loyalties lie.
For the fourth consecutive year Israel broke its arms sales record, totalling $14.8 billion in 2024. Israeli media reports note that European countries were the largest purchaser of arms exports at 54 per cent, surpassing Asia-Pacific which amounted to 23 per cent of total sales, down by 2 per cent for 2024. Notably, countries that signed the Abraham Accords and normalised relations with Israel increased their weapons purchases from 3 per cent in 2023, to 12 per cent in 2024.
According to Yair Kulas, head of Israel’s International Defence Cooperation Directorate, there is political pressure on countries to refrain from purchasing Israeli weapons. “The militaries want our top-tier products, but political forces are blocking them. I hope necessity outweighs politics.”
Judging from the record sales, the politics of genocide are reaping profits for Israel and instability in the rest of the world. Between these looming dangers, Palestinians are experiencing the might of Israel’s weapons first-hand. And what does the world do? Encourage further genocide by purchasing more weapons from Israel.
Diplomatically, Israel is far from isolated. Israel will be participating in the EU-Southern Neighbourhood ministerial meeting in which governance, climate change, migration, economic development and energy will be discussed. An unnamed EU official has already stated that “the ongoing war in Gaza” will not be discussed during the meeting. There is also no fixed date for the review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.
The EU cannot even pretend that there is a rift in diplomatic relations between the bloc and Israel. It is merely stalling for time, even though genocide is by now acceptable within diplomatic circles that have made a mockery out of international law.
The same governments that feign concern over humanitarian aid in Gaza are supporting the genocidal framework that bans humanitarian aid and causes humanitarian devastation in Gaza. Maybe the international community can articulate which part of genocide it specifically opposes? Not bombs, surely.
It is not necessity that will outweigh politics, to use Kulas’s words. Necessity is created by politics, in this case the politics of colonialism and genocide.
While Israel gloats in its successive terror narrative and its profits, Germany, for example has reiterated its commitment to delivering weapons to Israel. “Germany must know where it stands and say it clearly: alongside Israel,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul stated. But what if Germany clearly stated the meaning of this diplomatic jargon – that it stands with Israel’s genocide in Gaza? Since October 2003, Germany approved over $550 million of arms exports to Israel.
Only a few weeks ago, the EU attempted to give the impression that the tide is turning for Israel. Of course, no one believed the statements. Since then, the Gaza Humanitarian Fund is obstructing aid by killing Palestinians and closing its hubs. More Palestinians have been burnt to death. More Palestinians have starved to death. Just mere hours ago, the US vetoed a resolution for an unconditional and permanent ceasefire because the text is unacceptable, according to the US Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea.
World leaders have only left one gap in their narrative – an unequivocal statement that they stand with genocide.
Netanyahu does not deny arming ISIS-affiliated group to fight Hamas
Al Mayadeen | June 5, 2025
Former Israeli Security Minister Avigdor Liberman has accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of secretly authorizing the transfer of weapons to an armed criminal group affiliated with the terrorist so-called “Islamic State” in Gaza without cabinet approval.
In remarks to the Kan public broadcaster, Liberman, who leads the opposition Yisrael Beytenu party, said the weapons were supplied to a group of militants near the Karem Abu Salem crossing, in an area currently under Israeli military control.
“The Israeli government is giving weapons to a group of criminals and felons, identified with Islamic State, at the direction of the prime minister,” he stated.
“To my knowledge this did not go through approval by the cabinet,” he added.
Abu Shabab clan’s reputation and recent activity
While Liberman did not name the group directly, he appeared to be referencing the Abu Shabab clan, an armed faction in Gaza reportedly opposed to Hamas.
According to Tel Aviv University researcher Michael Milshtein, the group is known in Gaza for drug trafficking, theft, and looting humanitarian aid convoys.
Footage published online in recent days, including by clan leader Yasser Abu Shabab, shows members wearing military-style uniforms emblazoned with the Palestinian flag and the label “Counter-Terrorism Mechanism.”
Security establishment kept in the dark?
Liberman added that the head of the Shin Bet is aware of the weapons transfers but questioned the level of involvement or knowledge within the Israeli occupation military.
“I don’t know how much the IDF chief of staff was in on it,” he said, referring to the Israeli military.
Netanyahu’s office does not deny Liberman allegations
In response to Liberman’s claims, Netanyahu’s office issued a statement defending the government’s multi-pronged approach to defeating Hamas.
“Israel is working to defeat Hamas through various means, based on the recommendations of all the heads of the security establishment,” the statement read.
However, it notably did not deny the allegations raised by Liberman.
Gaza’s ‘humanitarian’ façade: A deceptive ploy unraveled
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | June 4, 2025
Just one day before the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began operating officially inside the Gaza Strip, its executive director, Jake Wood, resigned.
The text of his resignation statement underscored what many had already suspected: GHF is not a humanitarian endeavor, but the latest scam by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to control the Gaza Strip, after 600 days of war and genocide.
“It is clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence,” Wood said in the statement, which was cited by CNN and other media.
This begs the question: why had that realisation become ‘clear’ to Wood, even though the aid operation was not yet in effect? The rest of the statement offers some explanation, suggesting that the American contractor may not have known the extent of the Israeli ploy until later, but knew that a disaster was unfolding – the kind that would surely require investigating and, possibly, accountability.
In fact, an investigation by Swiss authorities had already begun. The US news network, CBS, looked into the matter, reporting on 29 May that GHF originally applied for registration in Geneva on January 31 and was officially registered on February 12. However, in no time, Swiss authorities began noticing repeated violations, including that the Swiss branch of GHF is “currently not fulfilling various legal obligations”.
In its original application, GHF “pursues exclusively charitable philanthropic objectives for the benefit of the people.” Strangely, the entity that promised to provide “material, psychological or health” services to famine-stricken Gazans, found it necessary to employ 300 “heavily armed” American contractors, with “as much ammunition as they can carry,” CBS reported.
The ‘psychological’ support in particular was the most ironic, as desperate Gazans were corralled, on 27 May, into cages under extremely high temperatures, only to be given tiny amounts of food that, according to Rami Abdu, head of the Geneva-based Euro-Med Monitor, were in fact stolen from a US-based charitable organization known as Rahma Worldwide.
Following the CBS news report, among others, and following several days of chaos and violence in Gaza, where at least 49 Palestinians were killed and over 300 wounded by those who promised to give aid and comfort, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz revealed that the funding for the operation is coming directly from Israel.
Prominent Israeli politician and Knesset member Avigdor Lieberman went even further, claiming that the money, estimated by The Washington Post to be $100 million, “is coming from the Mossad and the Defence Ministry.”
But why would Israel go through all of this trouble while it can, at no financial cost, simply allow the massive shipments of aid, reportedly rotting on the Egyptian side of the border, to enter Gaza and to stave off the famine?
In Netanyahu’s mind, the aid mechanism is part of the war. In a video message, reported by The Jerusalem Post on May 19, he described the new aid distributing points, manned jointly by GHF and the Israeli army, as “parallel to the enormous pressure” Israel is putting on the Palestinians – exemplified in Israel’s “massive (military) entrance (into Gaza)” – with the aim of “taking control of all of the Gaza” Strip.
In Netanyahu’s own words, all of this, the military-arranged aid and ongoing genocide, is “the war and victory plan.”
Of course, Palestinians and international aid groups operating in Gaza, including UN-linked aid apparatuses, were fully aware that the secretive Israel-US scheme was predicated on bad intentions. This is why they wanted to have nothing to do with it.
In Israel’s thinking, any aid mechanism that would sustain the status quo that existed prior to the war and genocide starting on 7 October, 2023, would be equivalent to an admission of defeat. This is precisely why Israel laboured to associate the UN Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, with Hamas.
This included the launching of a virulent campaign against the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres himself, and other top officials and rapporteurs. On July 22, the Israeli Knesset went as far as to designate UNRWA a “terrorist organisation”.
Still, it may seem to be a contradiction that the likes of extremist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich would agree to such an ‘aid’ scheme just days after declaring that Israel’s intention is to “entirely destroy” Gaza.
However, there is no contradiction. Having failed to conquer Gaza through military force, Israel is trying to use its latest aid scheme to capitalise on the famine it has purposely engineered over the course of months.
Luring people to ‘distribution points’, the Israeli army is trying to concentrate the population of Gaza in areas that can be easily controlled through leveraging food, with the ultimate aim of pushing Palestinians out, in the words of Smotrich, “in great numbers to third countries.”
The latest scheme is likely to fail, of course, like other such stratagems in the last 600 days. However, the inhumane and degrading treatment of Palestinians further illustrates Israel’s rejection of the growing international push to end the genocide.
For Israel to stop scheming, the international community must translate its strong words into strong action and hold, not just Israel, but its own citizens involved in the GHF and other ploys, accountable for being part of the ongoing war crimes in Gaza.
More signs of Britain grooming Syria’s Al-Qaeda-rooted government
The Cradle | June 4, 2025
When Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa (previously known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani), the former Al-Qaeda emir who led the Nusra Front, was affiliated with ISIS, and later headed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), visited Saudi Arabia to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) in February, he was accompanied by a surprising figure: Razan Saffour, a 32-year-old British-Syrian activist who had never set foot in Syria before the fall of former president Bashar al-Assad’s government in December.
Saffour also joined Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani on his trip to the Munich Security Conference that same month. Her presence in Syria’s new ruling circle highlights Britain’s outsized role in shaping the conflict – bringing Al-Qaeda to power, whitewashing its leadership, and embedding UK operatives within its political infrastructure.
Her presence alongside Julani on official state visits signals not just personal ascension, but the triumph of Britain’s long war to launder extremist power through western-groomed proxies.
Razan Saffour was born and raised in London, studied at SOAS, and emerged as a high-profile Syrian opposition voice during the early years of the war, when she was only in her early 20s. Platformed by major western and Arab media outlets from the Persian Gulf, she was a familiar figure on the regime-change circuit. Her father, Walid Saffour, a leading Muslim Brotherhood (MB) dissident, had fled Syria in 1981 during the MB’s armed uprising against the state.
Walid Saffour would later become the Syrian opposition’s ambassador to the UK, representing the Syrian National Council. Academic Dr Dara Conduit notes that this gave “the Brotherhood an important formal diplomatic link to the UK through an undeclared member.”
Engineering regime change
By the mid-2000s, the British government had aligned with US neoconservatives and MB-linked activists to prepare a full-blown insurgency in Syria.
In October 2006, several members of an MB front group, the National Salvation Front (NSF), traveled to Washington to meet with Michael Doran, a member of the US National Security Council, to discuss plans for regime change in Syria. Doran was a close associate of prominent Jewish neoconservative and former US president George W. Bush’s administration official Elliott Abrams.
In 2009, former French foreign minister Roland Dumas was told by top British officials that “they were preparing something in Syria … Britain was organizing an invasion of rebels into Syria.” When asked why, Dumas responded, “Very simple!” because “the Syrian regime makes anti-Israeli talk.”
The covert US-UK effort to topple Assad involved training young, media-savvy Syrian activists to organize anti-government protests, as well as flooding Syria with Al-Qaeda militants from Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, and dozens of other countries to carry out false flag attacks against Syrian police and security forces.
Many were UK nationals and members of the Al-Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). They had been allowed by British authorities to travel to Libya to topple late Libyan president Muammar al-Gaddafi, before being funneled into Syria via Turkiye.
US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford served as the operation’s field coordinator. As former US Naval officer Wayne Madsen reported in 2011, Ford was recruiting death squads from Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and Chechnya. His previous role as political officer in Iraq involved implementing the El Salvador Option: organizing Shia death squads to crush Sunni insurgents under Ambassador John Negroponte.
Among those released from the US-run Bucca prison in Iraq and dispatched to Syria was none other than Abu Mohammad al-Julani. He would go on to found the Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, after orchestrating a series of suicide bombings in Damascus.
The Powell connection
While Al-Qaeda’s Syrian franchise grew, British intelligence cultivated parallel assets to manage the political front. In 2011, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, founded the NGO Inter Mediate, a Foreign Office-funded project designed to open secret channels with insurgent groups.
In March 2012, Powell wrote to Hillary Clinton’s advisor Sidney Blumenthal seeking US support: “We are setting up secret channels between insurgents and governments.” He boasted that his group worked “closely with the FCO (the Foreign and Commonwealth Office), NSC (National Security Council) and SIS (Special Intelligence Service, or MI-6) in London.”
“We are starting work in Syria,” Powell added, suggesting that he was communicating with the Nusra Front and other Al-Qaeda linked groups.
By this time, Walid Saffour had assumed his UK ambassadorial post for the Syrian opposition. He lobbied hard for the arming of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) – a cover or “weapons farm” for transferring NATO-grade weapons to Nusra.
His appointment gave “the Brotherhood an important formal diplomatic link to the UK through an undeclared member,” academic Dara Conduit wrote in her book detailing the history of the MB in Syria.
Armed with CIA-supplied TOW missiles and led by Julani’s suicide battalions, Nusra captured Idlib in 2015. A year later, it declared an Islamic emirate in the province, modeled on ISIS’s Raqqa. Brett McGurk, the US envoy to the anti-ISIS coalition, would later call Idlib “the largest Al-Qaeda safe haven since 9/11.”
While McGurk claimed “Idlib now is a huge problem,” the US and UK were quietly working with the Nusra, which was soon rebranded as HTS.
Arab media outlet Jusoor wrote that the “attempts of [Hayat] Tahrir Al-Sham for polishing itself began in the summer of 2017, with a campaign of contacts with the west.”
Jusoor added that HTS media official Zeid Attar had a meeting with the former UK diplomat Powell, “who manages many back channels for negotiating with designated terrorist groups either internationally or nationally.”
From terrorist to statesman
In 2019, US envoy James Jeffrey openly described HTS as an “asset” to Washington’s Syria strategy. The goal: preserve an Al-Qaeda-controlled buffer in Idlib to pressure Damascus.
Russian media later revealed that Powell had met Julani near the Bab al-Hawa crossing with Turkiye, coaching him on how to rehabilitate his image. Julani was advised to grant a western media interview to soften his profile.
PBS journalist Martin Smith soon arrived in Idlib. His April 2021 interview with Julani aired in the US, casting the Salafist extremist leader as a reformed figure who posed no threat to western interests.
In May 2024, Robert Ford revealed at a conference that he, too, had met Julani in Idlib. “In 2023, a British non-governmental organization specializing in conflict resolution invited me to help with their efforts to get this man out of the terrorist world and into regular politics,” Ford told attendees.
That NGO, according to Independent Arabia, was Powell’s Inter Mediate. In a revealing twist, Powell was appointed UK National Security Advisor on 8 November 2024 – just weeks before Julani’s HTS launched its final offensive on Damascus. By 8 December, Julani, who now goes by his government name Ahmad al-Sharaa, had assumed power.
London’s ‘post-Assad’ playbook
As Sharaa settled into the presidential palace, western and Arab media launched a PR blitz to sell him as a modern, diversity-friendly ruler. This was difficult given his previous pledges to carry out a genocide against any of Syria’s minority Alawites who refused to convert to Sunni Islam, and his role in dispatching car and suicide bombers, killing tens of thousands in Syria and Iraq over more than a decade.
An image facelift ensued nonetheless: Military fatigues gave way to tailored suits; his nom de guerre was dropped in favor of his alleged birth name. Time magazine listed Sharaa as one of the year’s 100 most influential people – at Ford’s behest, no less. And the US lifted its $10 million bounty on his head for terrorism.
Sharaa pledged to protect minorities, including the Alawites – even as Syria’s new HTS-led security forces began targeting them under the guise of counterinsurgency. HTS-led Syrian government forces were carrying out brutal massacres against Alawite civilians on the Syrian coast, during an operation to quell an armed uprising against the authorities. During a four-day period of massacres, at least 1,700 Alawite civilians, including scores of women and children, were killed.
The following February, after Razan Saffour accompanied Julani to meet MbS, The National reported that Powell had recently held a “low-key meeting” with Syria’s new government in his new role as National Security Advisor, “boosting suggestions he will play a leading role in relations.”
Syrian analyst Malek Hafez told the Syrian Observer that Powell’s team even runs a media office inside the presidential palace, “reportedly run by two women – one British, the other of Lebanese-British heritage.”
As Hafez concludes, “The rise of Ahmad al-Sharaa was not spontaneous – it was carefully engineered through a long-term, western-backed strategy, in which Britain played a disproportionately influential role among western powers.”
While London has not yet officially expressed its support for Sharaa and Syria’s new government, the UK’s “fingerprints” are increasingly visible, the Observer added.
When weighed against the hundreds of thousands of Syrians killed, the millions displaced, and the wreckage of a nation, the UK’s central role in bringing Julani to power should not be forgotten.
Former German top diplomat and Zionist cheerleader rewarded with top UN job
By Ivan Kesic | Press TV | June 3, 2025
Former German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, a well-known Zionist cheerleader and warmonger, has been elected as the new president of the United Nations General Assembly (UNSC), raising eyebrows worldwide.
Human rights activists and pro-Palestine advocates see it as an affront to the Palestinian victims of the ongoing Israeli-American genocidal war that has claimed more than 54,000 lives since October 2023, most of them children and women.
Craig Mokhiber, a human rights lawyer and former United Nations human rights official, in a post on X, slammed the appointment of Baerbock by the world body to “oversee its accelerating decline.”
“The United Nations was born in opposition to German war criminals. Today, it has elected a German war criminal to oversee its accelerating decline,” he wrote.
“80 years later, the Reich takes its revenge with Annalena Baerbock as UNGA President, in the midst of a genocide that she has enthusiastically abetted.”
He was referring to the Nazi Germany’s horrendous war crimes in the World War II, which prompted world leaders to form a body called United Nations in the aftermath of the war.
The United Nations (UN) was established in 1945 with the signing of the UN Charter by 51 countries, replacing the ineffective League of Nations, and essentially against German war criminals.
Annalena Baerbock, a prominent Green Party politician in Germany, will serve as the president of the United Nations General Assembly for its 80th session, starting in September 2025.
The election took place on June 2, 2025, where she ran unopposed and secured the position with a simple majority of 167 votes. Her inauguration is scheduled for September 9, 2025, just before the UN General Assembly’s general debate.
The role, which lasts one year, is primarily ceremonial and involves organizing and presiding over plenary sessions of the 193 member states, ensuring all voices are heard, and facilitating diplomatic consensus.
Baerbock’s nomination by the German government, led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, came after the Green Party’s exclusion from the new German coalition government following the February 2025 elections.
The decision sparked controversy, as Germany had initially nominated diplomat Helga Schmid for the role. Schmid, a former OSCE Secretary-General, had been preparing for the position for nearly a year, meeting over 100 UN ambassadors.
Baerbock’s last-minute nomination was criticized by many, including former German UN ambassador Christoph Heusgen, who called it a “self-serving” move that undermined Germany’s credibility.
Polls indicated 57% of Germans viewed her nomination negatively, which is reflected by social media posts calling her the “dumbest minister ever.”
“German woman Annalena Baerbock, who can’t even speak German properly, let alone English, who was the dumbest minister ever, and even her university degree is fake, now gets the top UN job, proving the West to be a declining entity,” wrote journalist Sonja Van Den Ende.
Zionist cheerleader
In addition to her home country, Baerbock’s nomination and election have drawn criticism around the world, particularly for her approving views of the Zionist regime and its no-holds-barred genocidal war against the Palestinians in Gaza.
As German Foreign Minister from December 2021 to early 2025, she faced significant condemnation for her statements and positions from activists, academics, and political commentators.
Baerbock’s staunch support for the Israeli regime, rooted in Germany’s post-WW2 Zionist policy and the concept of Staatsräson (Israeli “security” as a German national interest), drew sharp criticism for bias and disregard for Palestinian rights.
Her statements often emphasized the so-called Israeli “right to self-defense” while offering limited critique of its genocidal actions, particularly after the events of October 7, 2023.
She legitimized Israeli attacks on civilians and on October 10, 2024, stated in the German Bundestag that “civilian sites in Gaza could lose their protected status if used by Hamas,” which drew widespread backlash.
A letter from 300 academics, organized by the Palestine Academic Group, accused her of “parroting Israel’s old narrative of human shielding,” a Zionist claim that has repeatedly been debunked as a pretext for targeting civilians in Gaza.
They argued that Baerbock disregarded international law, under which the Israeli regime, as an occupying power, cannot claim “self-defense,” and demanded she retract her statement and apologize to Palestinian civilians.
Protests in Berlin on October 21, 2024, echoed this sentiment, with demonstrators chanting, “Annalena Baerbock, shooting pregnant women in the stomach is not self-defense,” accusing her of justifying Israeli genocidal attacks on civilian infrastructure like hospitals and schools.
Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, criticized Baerbock’s October 2024 speech, noting that while civilian sites can lose protected status under international law if used militarily, disproportionate harm to civilians remains illegal, a nuance Baerbock’s statements overlooked.
Journalist Afshin Rattansi said she was “enthusiastically backing Israel’s bombing of schools and innocent Palestinians in Gaza, justifying it as targeting Hamas.”
“The fact that this war criminal is allowed to assume the title of President of the UN General Assembly, instead of spending the rest of her days locked away in The Hague, is proof that the ‘rules-based order’ was nothing but a codeword for colonial barbarism,” he wrote on X.
British activist Sarah Wilkinson also took to her social media handle to decry her appointment.
“A disaster for the UN & Int’l Law, if Annalena Baerbock, who funded, armed & endorsed the #GazaGenocide is set to be UNGA’s President,” wrote Wilkinson.
Enabler of genocide in Gaza
Activists worldwide have highlighted Baerbock’s hypocrisy in supporting Israel’s genocidal actions while offering limited humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza.
Protesters in Berlin accused Germany of “feeding Israel with weapons and money” while sending aid to Palestine to “wash your bloody hands.”
Baerbock was denounced for failing to balance Germany’s support for the Israeli regime with equal concern for Palestinian suffering, with many calling her a “Zionist cheerleader” who led the Green Party to reactionary policies.
Media outlets reported that her six solidarity visits to the occupied Palestinian territories, contrasted with her minimal critique of Israeli genocidal actions, ignored diplomatic decorum and international law, in which she is supposed to hold an academic degree.
MERA25 and DiEM25, two German political parties, launched a petition on October 22, 2024, demanding Baerbock’s resignation, accusing her of complicity in “genocide and apartheid” through Germany’s diplomatic and military support for the Israeli crimes.
They cited her failure to address findings by the Lemkin Institute and UN experts on Israeli genocidal actions in Gaza, where over 42,600 people were killed by October 2024, mostly women and children.
Her “feminist foreign policy” was deemed a mockery, as she dehumanized Palestinian victims, tarnishing Germany’s international reputation.
In March 2024, the US-based Carnegie Endowment noted that Germany’s unconditional support for the Israeli regime under Baerbock isolated it globally, contradicting its stated commitment to international law and democracy.
Critics also accused her of a “Täter-Opfer-Umkehr” (perpetrator-victim reversal), showing little understanding of international security while ignoring Palestinian rights.
Her mild criticism of Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank, calling for prosecution but not imposing sanctions, was seen as insufficient, especially as Germany increased military exports to the Israeli regime tenfold from 2022 levels.
Baerbock’s approach to Iran, particularly her support for the Israeli stance against Iran and the Axis of Resistance, also drew scrutiny. Her critics argued her policies risked fueling a regional war.
Israel-Backed Militias Linked to ISIS Loot Gaza Aid Under IDF Watch
By Robert Inlakesh | MintPress News | May 29, 2025
Israeli officials often claim that Hamas has been looting aid heading to Gaza, yet the evidence suggests the opposite. New reports and eyewitness accounts indicate that Israel is backing ISIS-linked militants who are working to replace Hamas security forces and are looting humanitarian aid under the watchful eye of IDF drones.
New evidence recently emerged of ISIS-linked militants in Gaza, operating inside the Israeli-controlled buffer zone and controlling roads on which aid was destined to be transported. These armed men were photographed brandishing automatic weapons, wearing Israeli military tactical vests and bearing Palestinian flag patches on their helmets.
To the naked eye, they could be mistaken for Palestinian security force officers. In fact, they are members of an infamous criminal network responsible for looting humanitarian aid. On May 21, 15 World Food Program trucks carrying flour were looted, and UN sources suggest the perpetrators were these armed factions. Yet, they claim to be a legitimate opposition group poised to replace Hamas.
For some 80 days, Israel had imposed a total blockade on all food, medical supplies, water and fuel entering the territory. As soon as a small number of trucks were allowed to enter, the militants were spotted, sporting new military gear and poised to intercept the humanitarian supplies.
ISIS-linked “Anti-Terror Services”
The leader of the Israeli-aligned militia is a man named Yasser Abu Shabab, a member of the Tarabin tribe that extends between the Naqab (Negev), Gaza and Sinai. However, he and others affiliated with the Tarabin have long been denounced as not representing the tribe due to their extensive criminal pasts.
Abu Shabab was well known in Gaza for his fierce opposition to Hamas and had been arrested for smuggling narcotics. He also maintained a direct connection to ISIS in the Egyptian Sinai. When Israeli bombing destroyed the jails run by Hamas security forces during the early days of the Gaza war, the infamous criminal managed to escape.
From there, Abu Shabab quickly began building a militant force numbering at least 100 men, many of whom were also previously imprisoned and had known ties to ISIS and al-Qaeda-linked groups.
An internal UN memo, reported by the Financial Times in November 2024, stated that Abu Shabab’s men were operating inside Israel’s buffer zone, looting aid shipments with “the passive, if not active benevolence” of Israeli forces. This is notable, as Israeli forces have routinely shot and killed civilians attempting to enter that same zone, even when coordinated in advance.
While these criminal factions began looting early into the Gaza war, they became more prominent following Israel’s invasion of Rafah on May 6, 2024. Up until that point, Hamas-led Palestinian police had helped coordinate aid deliveries through the Rafah Crossing.
This security was provided despite Israel threatening to bomb the police officers if they approached aid trucks, often forcing Gaza’s law enforcement into a hands-off role. But once Rafah was invaded and police disappeared, Israeli forces worked in proximity with criminal networks to intercept and sell stolen aid through intermediaries.
The result was a massive price hike for basic goods, with these gangs reportedly drip-feeding supplies to local sellers, maintaining artificial scarcity during a famine. Israel’s leading human rights organization, B’Tselem, has labeled the policy “manufacturing famine.”
Two sources working with aid agencies in Gaza confirmed to MintPress News that all aid entering the Strip is either subject to a bribe paid to these gangs or is partially or completely confiscated. Both spoke on condition of anonymity, stating that the gangs are widely believed to be coordinating with Israeli forces.
Prior to January 19, when a temporary ceasefire began, these gangs wore face coverings and operated as a ragtag militia. In recent weeks, however, they have rebranded themselves as the “Anti-Terror Service,” claiming to be a grassroots opposition to Hamas.
On Abu Shabab’s Facebook page, he now describes himself as a “grassroots leader who stood up against corruption and looting,” posting photos of himself patrolling roads and claiming to work with international aid organizations, to ensure the delivery of flour trucks.”
Back in November 2024, he told The Washington Post that “Hamas has left us with nothing,” even denying that his men carried weapons. He claimed that the looting was done by unarmed individuals and that they avoided stealing food intended for children. Yet aid workers and truck drivers insist his men are committing armed robbery.
Another warlord reportedly backed by Israel is Shadi al-Sufi, a convicted murderer and drug trafficker who had been sentenced to death. In 2020, he assassinated Jabr Al-Qiq, a senior commander in the PFLP’s Abu Ali Mustafa brigades. He reportedly later worked with ISIS contacts to escape to Sinai.
A senior official with a major humanitarian organization told MintPress News :
In the areas where the security forces are operating, the situation is always more stable, and they have repeatedly cracked down on black market operations. Anyone telling you the gangs are helping the people is a liar, that is all I can say.”
In November, Haaretz reported: “The IDF is aware of the problem. They said that at one point, the government had even considered making the clans to which the armed men belong responsible for distributing aid to Gaza’s residents, even though some of the clans’ members are involved in terrorism and some are affiliated with extremist organizations like the Islamic State.”
This now appears to be the Israeli strategy: to deputize these criminal gangs as a replacement security force to supplant Hamas rule. The makeover also coincides with efforts by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a U.S.-linked initiative rumored to involve private military contractors, raising concerns that such groups may be tapped to cooperate with these armed networks.
A source affiliated with the Palestinian security forces in Gaza told Mint Press News that a similar strategy was attempted in northern Gaza, but that Hamas, working with politically unaffiliated locals, dismantled the criminal networks that began forming under Israeli supervision.
Hamas vs ISIS and Israel
Meanwhile, the UN and every major humanitarian organization that has addressed the issue have pointed the finger at the gangs, not Hamas, for looting. None have reported credible instances of Hamas stealing aid. In fact, the Biden administration even asked Israel in February 2024 to halt its targeting of Hamas-led security forces, which had been helping coordinate the delivery of humanitarian trucks into Gaza.
“Hamas is ISIS,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared. But recent actions by Israel suggest the opposite: that it is actively empowering Salafist factions to undermine Hamas in Gaza. In March, the Israeli military floated the idea of arming certain tribal clans to establish so-called “Hamas-free zones.” Among those considered was the Dughmush clan, long known for its links to ISIS.
Since Hamas was voted into power and took full control of Gaza in 2007, it has fought a years-long war against Salafi-jihadist factions inside the Strip. In 2009, it crushed an al-Qaeda-aligned uprising that left 22 dead. Sporadic bombings and assassination attempts followed.
Tensions between Hamas and al-Qaeda affiliates continued intermittently for years, marked by sporadic violence and periodic mass arrests, most notably in 2015, when Hamas detained over 50 Salafist militants after a wave of bombings targeting civilians in Gaza.
That same year, ISIS formally entered the fray. The Sheikh Omar Hadid Brigade, an ISIS affiliate, announced its presence in Gaza shortly after ISIS executed Hamas commander Sheikh Abu Salah Taha in Syria’s Yarmouk camp. Hamas responded swiftly: its security forces hunted down and killed the group’s leader, Younis Hunnar, in a gunfight.
In 2018, ISIS would officially “declare war” on Hamas, urging its followers to carry out attacks in order to overthrow the group in Gaza.
Now, in a bitter twist, Israel is backing many of these same elements. Under the guise of “aid security,” it is arming and enabling former ISIS and al-Qaeda-linked operatives, along with known traffickers and warlords, to carve out zones of control in Gaza. These forces are marketed as a grassroots alternative to Hamas. In practice, they are looting aid and destabilizing local governance under the watchful eye of Israeli drones.
Israel goes to great lengths to recruit foreign IOF volunteers
Press TV – June 3, 2025
As those that have supported the Zionist enterprise in Palestine for so long scramble to abandon the sinking ship, it’s important to examine the organizations based in the West which will be legally culpable.
There are several key groups that work on mobilizing people from outside Palestine to take part in the genocide, thereby joining the Israeli occupation forces.
The four most prominent such organizations are Mahal, Marva, Tzofim Garin Tzabar and Sar-El.
Mahal: the name is an acronym in Hebrew for volunteers from outside. Foreign national volunteers who have fought in the occupation forces for 15 to 18 months are currently hosted by the organization. The Israeli military refers to the program as an administrative gate through which non-Israelis enlist in the military, and it’s designed specifically for non-Israelis between the ages of 18 and 23.
Marva: Marva offers an eight-week program that costs roughly $2,000 and teaches pupils about life in the occupation forces. Students must be prepared for the mentally demanding program and be between the ages of 18 and 28. Target practice, using M16s with live ammo and spending time on army bases and going on trips where students sleep in tents and learn the fundamentals of field tactics, like camouflage, are all part of the training. Political talks and hikes are also part of it. The Southern Negev’s Sde Boker Gadna base serves as the primary training location. Marva pupils are included in the Gadna program, which aims to militarize school children.
Tzofim Garin Tzabar: according to the Israeli military, this program has helped 1,000s of teens from all over the world enlist in the military, and it’s estimated that around 70% of the immigrants have stayed in Israel after their service. It involves a set of five Seminars held throughout the year in the United States in preparation for a move to a kibbutz where they’ll be greeted by a strong network helping them settle in. And over the course of the five seminars, newcomers are imbued with a sense of their military duties and psychologically prepared for the process ahead. The seminars are carried out in Hebrew to help them adjust to regular use of the language.
SAR-EL: this well-known organization boasts branches across the world and runs programs, each lasting a minimum of two weeks, working at Israeli military bases. It’s believed to bring in around 4,000 volunteers annually. Between 1983 and 2011, it claimed that the programs recruited more than 100,000 volunteers into the occupation forces. SAR-EL offers the chance for volunteers to work in IOF warehouses, cleaning military hardware and also in hospitals. The volunteers stay in army barracks and work eight hour days, five days a week, all dressed in IOF uniform. The organization explicitly targets Christians in its recruitment advertising. All of these organizations are legally culpable for this genocide in Gaza.
War tourism in Israel
To sustain Israel’s long-term genocide of the Palestinian people, it is necessary to constantly recruit people into the occupation forces.
Tel Aviv does so in a myriad of ways, including targeting tourists and children for militarization.
We shall examine four of the main organizations specializing in this.
Caliber 3: Caliber 3 operates from a military base in an al-Quds settlement. It is estimated that up to 25,000 tourists train with the organization every year. The Caliber 3 website offers a two-hour training session to tourists of any age, this includes shooting assault rifles and sniper rifles and competing in a sniper tournament. US comedian Jerry Seinfeld and rock group Aerosmith even visited but, according to a Caliber 3 employee, did not want their visit publicized. Caliber 3 employees are recorded showing children and the elderly how to shoot with live ammunition at targets depicting elderly Palestinians in red Keffiyehs.
Funtom: Another similar organization is Funtom, based in Ness Ziona and founded in October 2014 by Ben Carmel. Funtom is estimated to attract between 5,000 to 8,000 tourists a year. The boot camp option on their website displays footage of expeditions to the occupied Golan Heights, where terrorist kidnappings are staged with a man dressed in a Keffiyeh. The group then take part in a make believe enlisting in the military, during which they put on uniforms. The Funtom YouTube channel features children being led around, carrying weapons and shooting at targets.
A third organization targeting children in this way is Zikit extreme.
This organization is led by CEO Elchai Finn, who took part in Operation Protective Edge, the 2014 campaign in Gaza that left around 2,300 Palestinians dead.
Zikit extreme claims to offer the IOF experience, again, featuring people who are supposed to be Palestinian kidnappers.
A fourth company recruiting into the Israeli occupation forces is Cherev Gidon. This organization offers programs in the US. Its website boasts of being an Israeli tactical training academy. Its founder, Yonatan Stern claims he wanted to launch it in Israel, but was not able to, because this would not have been legal.
He claims to have trained hundreds of students. His students have the option of different courses in the use of rifles, pistols, shotguns and Uzis. At the start of every session, students are dressed in IOF uniforms.
This is how genocide is made.
Putting Israel First, Rubio Victimizes Harmless Student Over Op-Ed
Using slander, imprisonment and deportation to suppress Israel criticism
By Brian McGlinchey | Stark Realities | May 31, 2025
Given Marco Rubio’s long history of subservience to the State of Israel — which has earned him a mountain of campaign cash from the country’s US-based collaborators — many Americans were understandably wary that his ascension from senator to secretary of State portended disturbing moves to advance Israel’s interests. However, few foresaw Rubio orchestrating the abduction, imprisonment and deportation of foreign students for using their universal human right of free speech to criticize the Israeli government and advocate for Palestinians.
With President Trump’s blessing, Rubio has targeted many foreign students in this fashion — students who’ve been charged with no crimes. However, no case better illustrates the campaign’s casual cruelty than that of 30-year-old Tufts University PhD candidate Rumeysa Ozturk. Ozturk, who’s been studying child development, was arrested in March and whisked away to a far-off prison merely because — an entire year earlier — she co-authored a Tufts Daily op-ed urging the university to formally characterize Israel’s conduct in Gaza as genocide, and to sell the school’s Israel-associated investments.
Rubio would like you to assume her essay must have been an unhinged, antisemitic, violence-inciting screed. To the contrary, harkening back to Tufts’ 1989 decision to divest from apartheid South Africa, its tone is decidedly calm and measured. Read this excerpt of the essay’s most pointed language about Israel and judge for yourself:
These [student senate] resolutions were the product of meaningful debate…and represent a sincere effort to hold Israel accountable for clear violations of international law. Credible accusations against Israel include accounts of deliberate starvation and indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians and plausible genocide.
… the student body is calling for … the University to end its complicity with Israel insofar as it is oppressing the Palestinian people and denying their right to self-determination — a right that is guaranteed by international law. These strong lobbying tools are all the more urgent now given the order by the International Court of Justice confirming that the Palestinian people of Gaza’s rights under the Genocide Convention are under a “plausible” risk of being breached.
Ozturk’s persecution represents a major escalation of an aggravating dynamic in which people in the United States are vilified as dangerous, volatile antisemites for saying things about Israel that are frequently said by respected people and institutions in Israel. For example, in an op-ed of his own, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert this week wrote, “What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians … Yes, Israel is committing war crimes.”
In March of this year, the State Department revoked Ozturk’s student visa without notifying her — she had no idea that her presence in the country was now illegal. Four days later, in an incident captured on video, she was grabbed off a Somerville, Massachusetts street by masked, plain-clothed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, taken to New Hampshire and then Vermont, before being shackled in chains and airlifted 1,400 miles to a federal detention center in Louisiana.
For the next month and a half, she was stuffed with 23 others in a cell meant for 14. Ozturk says constant exposure to dust and inadequate ventilation sparked more than a dozen asthma attacks — after having previously had only about 13 in her entire life. Sleep was hard to come by, as motion-detecting fluorescent lights repeatedly triggered throughout the night.
Trying to justify the unjustifiable, the Trump administration has gone to slanderous extremes to vilify Ozturk. In a since-deleted social media post following her arrest, Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said “DHS + ICE investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans.” (As an aside, note that, while some 43 Americans — including dual nationals — died in the Oct 7 attacks, there’s no history of Hamas ever setting out to target Americans.)
When protests of Israel’s tactics in Gaza erupted in 2022, Israel supporters across government, major media and social media branded all pro-Palestine protesters as Hamas supporters and antisemites. With the ascendency of the second Trump administration, that tactic has evolved from a malicious PR smear to a government-weaponized allegation that’s putting nonviolent foreign students in prisons and derailing their lives — all in service to a foreign country.
In a partial reversal of her appalling treatment, Ozturk was released from confinement on May 9 on the orders of a federal judge, who also denied the government’s wish to make her wear an ankle monitor. However, her troubles are far from over: In addition to the enduring harm of a six-week interruption of her academic pursuits, she is still targeted for deportation.
When DHS initially leveled the “activities in support of Hamas” accusation against Ozturk, many people assumed the government must have something on her other than an essay in a student newspaper. However, as the weeks ground on, the government never pointed to anything else, something US District Judge William Sessions noted when he ordered her to be released from her cage in Louisiana :
“I suggested to the government that they produce any additional information which would suggest that she posed a substantial risk. And that was three weeks ago, and there has been no evidence introduced by the government other than the op-ed. That literally is the case. There is no evidence here... The court finds that Ms. Öztürk has raised a substantial claim of a constitutional violation.”
Judge Sessions called Ozturk’s seizure “a traumatic incident” and said “her continued detention potentially chills the speech of the millions and millions of individuals in this country who are not citizens.” That is most certainly the Trump administration’s goal.
Falling for Rubio’s dishonest portrayal of his prey and failing to scrutinize the facts, many so-called “conservatives” have enthused over his drive to deport anti-Israel activists and rushed to defend it. In their flimsiest argument, you’ll find them claiming Ozturk and others have no right of free speech because they’re not US citizens. That hollow attack rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of rights — one that wrongly views rights as government-granted privileges, rather than something that springs from one’s humanity. As I’ve explained elsewhere at Stark Realities, the Constitution’s Bill of Rights isn’t a granting of rights, it’s a prohibition against government interference with pre-existing rights shared by everyone on Earth.
Employing a quintessential straw man argument, Rubio and others also say “nobody has a right to a visa.” The controversy has never been about any mythical entitlement to visas — it’s about the morality and constitutionality of using visa revocations as a means of punishing and suppressing expression of certain political beliefs.
To mete out that punishment, Rubio and the Trump administration are exploiting the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which recklessly empowers the secretary of State — a single individual — to deport foreigners the secretary deems “adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests” of the United States. The law provides no elaboration on that standard, much less any provision for its application with any semblance of due process for the affected individual.
Invoking that provision, the administration told a court that DHS and ICE determined Ozturk “had been involved in associations that ‘may undermine U.S foreign policy by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and indicating support for a designated terrorist organization’ including co-authoring an op-ed that found common cause with an organization that was later temporarily banned from campus.”
First, note how tangential and tenuous the opening and concluding allegations are. The government says Ozturk is being targeted for unspecified “associations,” and because her stance on Israel merely overlaps with the stance of a campus group that was only temporarily banned.
Next, we see the Trump administration dishonestly saying Ozturk “indicat[ed] support for Hamas” by writing an op-ed calling for Tufts to say Israel is committing war crimes, and to divest from the country. The op-ed never mentions Hamas or Oct. 7 or even implicitly endorses the group or its tactics, and there’s been no allegation of any other form of her supposed “support for Hamas.”
The administration also employs the Israeli-propagandist idea that criticism of the State of Israel — a political entity — creates a “hostile environment” for Jewish students. That notion is itself a form of bigotry — as it presumes all Jews endorse Israel’s actions. Of course, that presumption is belied by the significant presence of Jewish students in many protests of Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Meanwhile, the notion that pro-Israel Jews should be protected from hearing contrary views is wildly hypocritical from an administration that — in regard to other topics — has rightly targeted censorship meant to prevent so-called “snowflakes” from having their feelings hurt.
Defenders of the administration’s conduct are compelled to do more than point to its supposed legality under a 1952 law. From FDR putting Japanese-Americans in concentration camps to Woodrow Wilson jailing opponents of the draft, there’s a difference between legality and morality and bona fide constitutionality. Meanwhile, Ozturk’s ongoing challenge of her arrest and pending deportation may well reset the bounds of what’s legal under the Immigration and Nationality Act, with the courts potentially ruling it’s unconstitutional to revoke a visa over the expression of an opinion.
Finally, even the most ardent backers of the Israeli government should recognize that the use of the Immigration Act to round up and deport people whose views are inconsistent with the current administration’s foreign policy threatens to set a dangerous precedent — one that could see a future, Israel-hostile White House seizing, jailing and deporting foreign students who advocate US aid to Israel.
Over his political career, Rubio’s unwavering dedication to the agenda of the State of Israel has earned him a wealth of campaign contributions: Between 2019 and 2024, his largest and third-largest donors were the Pro-Israel PAC and the Republican Jewish Coalition. Those donors are again cashing in as their mercenary carries out a ruthless and deceitful drive to suppress anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian speech.
Consistent with the broader campaign of mass character-assassination that Israel’s advocates have long directed against critics of Israel, Rubio has repeatedly smeared Ozturk by insinuating that she is guilty of behavior that neither the federal government nor anyone else has accused her of, and even implying she is insane. For example, here’s what Rubio said at a March press conference:
“We revoked her visa… and here’s why… If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student and you tell us that the reason why you’re coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we’re not going to give you a visa…. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa. We’re looking every day for these lunatics that are tearing things up.”
Challenged last week in a House Foreign Affairs hearing, Rubio said he “proudly” revoked Ozturk’s visa, defiantly adding “we’re going to do more of them.” Refusing to answer pointed questions about the constitutionality of deporting Ozturk for writing an op-ed, Rubio again reflexively resorted to maliciously dishonest hyperbole, saying “We’re revoking the visas of any lunatics we can identify.”
Ozturk is one of an unknown number of foreign, Palestinian-sympathizing students targeted for deportation by the Trump administration, which is providing very little transparency about the individuals concerned or specific rationales for the revocation of their visas.
The censorship blitz is disturbing enough on its face, but there’s another dimension that makes it even more sinister: In selecting Ozturk and other foreign students for persecution, the Trump administration is apparently heeding the suggestions of two shadowy and menacing pro-Israel organizations that use intimidation tactics on Israel’s behalf: Canary Mission and Betar.
According to its website, Canary Mission “documents individuals and organizations that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses and beyond.” (Including “the USA” in its mission statement is dishonest pandering; listing it first is a joke.) In practice, Canary Mission works to silence Israel’s critics by using false allegations of antisemitism, doxxing, and the threat of career and reputational harm that could come from landing on its internet blacklist.
In one of the most unsettling incidents attributed to the group, two men in canary costumes stood silently in a George Washington University lobby in 2018 as the student government was set to vote on an Israel divestment resolution. In the days before the vote, Canary Mission flyers posted on campus warned “THERE ARE NO SECRETS. WE WILL KNOW YOUR VOTE AND WILL ACT ACCORDINGLY.”
Shortly after Ozturk’s arrest, Canary Mission posted a triumphant social media thread, saying “sources point to her Canary Mission profile as the primary cause.” That profile is thin. Linking to her Tufts op-ed, Canary Mission only claims she “engaged in anti-Israel activism in March 2024” (the month the op-ed was published) and is “a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.”
Betar brags that it is directly providing a list of targets to the administration. Maliciously referring to Ozturk and other peaceful activists as “jihadis,” the group took credit for her arrest: “She was on our list. Many more jihadis are. We will be making a new submission Monday with approximately 1800 more jihadis.”
Betar is a Zionist youth group founded in 1923 by Ze’ev Jabotinsky, who promoted an expansive vision of Israel that would see it take over not only the West Bank and Gaza, but part of Jordan too. The group’s ideology, rhetoric and embrace of vandalism, theft and vigilantism prompted even the staunchly Zionist Anti-Defamation League to list it among extremist and hateful groups.
An appalling incident in February illuminates the enormity of Betar’s Jewish-supremacist fanaticism. When a journalist posted a long list of names of Palestinian infants killed in Israel’s war on Gaza, Betar’s official account replied, “Not enough. We demand blood in Gaza!”
The group has also endorsed the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza. The irony is sickening: The Trump administration arrested Ozturk for saying Israel is committing genocide in Gaza — and the recommendation to revoke her visa came from a group that calls for genocide in Gaza.
While Betar and Canary Mission seem to be playing a key role in identifying targets, the broader scheme of weaponizing the Immigration and Nationality Act by smearing Israel’s critics as pro-Hamas antisemites who undermine US foreign policy was the brainchild of the Heritage Foundation. According to New York Times, the group in 2023 launched Project Esther, “an ambitious plan to fight antisemitism by branding a broad range of critics of Israel as ‘effectively a terrorist support network,’ so that they could be deported, defunded, sued, fired, expelled, ostracized and otherwise excluded from what it considered ‘open society’.”
Achieving new heights of hypocrisy, Rubio this week declared that “free speech… legally enshrined in our constitution, has set us apart as a beacon of freedom around the world.” His soaring rhetoric came as he announced a new policy that will deny visas to “foreign officials and persons who are complicit in censoring Americans.”
While Ozturk’s story has received significant media attention, the same mainstream media that relentlessly promoted the 2020 Russia-collusion hoax is now failing to cast the Trump administration’s campaign against pro-Palestinian campus activism for what it is: The unconstitutional suppression of the human right of free expression in appalling subservience to a foreign government and its domestic, America-Second accomplices.
In case you’re inclined to shrug off Rubio’s campaign because its victims are foreigners, make no mistake — there are people inside and outside the US government who would love to see American citizens similarly seized and shackled for criticizing the State of Israel. Over the past several years, those forces have been aggressively pushing various means of using government power to suppress Israel’s critics:
- The proposed Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would use an expansive definition of antisemitism to inflict penalties on schools that allow various forms of criticism of Israel to be expressed on their campuses — even by American citizens
- The successful enactment of state laws requiring contractors to certify that they will not participate in boycotts of Israel — alongside repeated attempts to pass a similar federal law
- Lawfare in the form of bogus lawsuits filed against universities, accusing them of failing to prevent “antisemitic incidents” that are simply expressions of opinions about Israel that Zionists revile
- The Trump administration’s withdrawal of federal education funding from schools that tolerate “antisemitism” — with that term purposefully misdefined to encompass criticism of the Israeli government
Amid Americans’ steadily-shrinking support for Israel — even 50% of Republicans under 50 years old now view the country unfavorably — those forces are only going to grow more desperate and brazen in their assault on free expression in the United States. It’s the patriotic duty of every American — including Israel’s backers and critics alike — to resist them every step of the way.
Australian doctor reports victims at Gaza aid distribution point shot in head, chest
MEMO | June 2, 2025
Australian Doctor Ahmed Abu Sweid said that several people shot by Israeli occupation forces yesterday morning at an aid distribution point in Rafah, southern Gaza, had been hit by bullets in the head and chest.
Dr Abu Sweid, who is volunteering in the emergency department at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, said: “We have only been here for a few days, and the level of trauma I have seen here is unlike anything I have witnessed before.”
“Today, we’ve had a significant number of casualties, with hundreds of confirmed injuries.”
Dr Abu Sweid, a specialist in emergency medicine, explained that the hospital is “full” and that medical teams are struggling due to a lack of essential medical equipment.
He continued: “We have only been here for a few days, but the doctors here have been dealing with the same situation for the past 200 days, and they are exhausted.”
He confirmed that all the victims were civilians. “They were instructed to collect food but instead suffered gunshot wounds and shrapnel injuries. Most are in critical condition,” adding that some victims “were already deceased upon arrival, having been shot in the head and chest.”
US deputy envoy behind Hezbollah disarmament campaign to be replaced: Report
The Cradle | June 1, 2025
US Deputy Special Envoy to the region Morgan Ortagus, who has been in charge of Washington’s Lebanon policy, is soon to be removed from her position and reassigned to another role, according to US and Israeli reports.
Ortagus “will be leaving her position as Deputy Envoy in the Trump administration,” right-wing US journalist Laura Loomer reported on X on 1 June, citing White House sources.
“I’m told she will be cordially reassigned to another role in the Trump administration. She wanted to be the Special Envoy to Syria, but the position was instead given to Tom Barrack. Morgan’s replacement will be announced this week by Steve Witkoff,” she added.
Ortagus has been at the head of the US government’s campaign to pressure the Lebanese government into disarming Hezbollah and Palestinian resistance groups. In an interview with Al-Arabiya in April, Ortagus referred to the Lebanese resistance as a “cancer” that needs to be “cut out.”
During her first visit to Lebanon, she publicly thanked Israel for “defeating” Hezbollah at the presidential palace in Baabda.
Ortagus was scheduled to visit Beirut in the coming days to advance proposals regarding reforms, border demarcation, reconstruction, disarmament of Hezbollah, and normalization with Israel, according to Lebanese news outlet Al-Jadeed. “The US proposals will be presented with a firm tone, with a specific deadline for Lebanon to implement what gets agreed on or be held responsible” for the consequences, the report said.
Hezbollah has outright rejected disarmament, but says it is eventually willing to hold dialogue with the Lebanese government on a national defensive strategy that sees its weapons incorporated into the state for use in protecting the country from Israel.
According to a report by Israel’s Channel 14, National Security Council (NSC) officials Merav Ceren and Eric Trager have also been recently removed from their positions. Trager was overseeing Middle East and North Africa affairs at the NSC, while Ceren was the director for Iran.
Ceren previously worked at the Israeli Ministry of Defense and is affiliated with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a pro-Israel think tank based in Washington DC which has been described as “hawkish” and has been heavily pushing for the dismantlement of Iran’s uranium enrichment capabilities as US President Donald Trump’s government holds nuclear talks with Tehran.
Channel 14 notes that the decision is part of an effort to restructure the NSC, reduce its influence, and transfer foreign policy to a limited group of “trusted officials.”
The outcome of these changes, including Ortagus’s departure from her current position, was described in the report as “not good for Israel.”
Iran slams IAEA report as politically motivated, based on forged Israeli documents
The Cradle | June 1, 2025
Iran voiced its strong protest on 31 May against a report issued by the head of the UN nuclear watchdog regarding Tehran’s nuclear program, saying it was issued “with political objectives and through pressures,” is based in part on forged Israeli documents, and goes beyond the UN nuclear chief’s mandate.
Reuters reported Saturday that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a report claiming that Iran was in non-compliance with its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The report, provided by IAEA head Rafael Grossi to the Board of Governors, claimed that Iran carried out secret nuclear activities with material not declared to the UN nuclear watchdog at three locations decades ago.
Western diplomats plan to use the report to pressure Iran at the UN Security Council and in ongoing negotiations with the US over its nuclear program, Reuters added.
Another report issued by the IAEA claimed that Iran’s stock of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent purity had grown by roughly half, enough for nine nuclear weapons if further enriched to 90 percent purity.
In response, Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) issued a joint statement on Saturday.
The statement said that the governments of the UK, France, Germany, and the US have repeatedly violated their commitments under former nuclear agreements with Iran, including the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and Security Council Resolution 2231, while simultaneously resorting to imposing illegal unilateral sanctions and pressures against the Islamic Republic in breach of international law.
The statement emphasized that Iran has continued to engage in extensive, good-faith cooperation with the IAEA and that the European Troika and the US “have spared no effort to use the agency for leverage in the ongoing political process.”
It added that the IAEA report does not accurately reflect the level of cooperation with the agency and relies extensively on forged documents provided by Israel, which recycle previous biased and unfounded accusations.
“The allegations leveled in the current report are based on a few claims about undeclared activities and locations from past decades. This is while Iran has repeatedly declared that it has had no undeclared nuclear sites or activities. At the same time, Iran has given the IAEA access to the alleged locations, allowing sampling, and providing detailed information and explanations on various occasions regarding the history of the alleged sites, providing the necessary cooperation with the agency,” the statement clarified.
The IAEA report also makes an improper distinction between obligations under the NPT and voluntary commitments under the JCPOA, presenting some of Iran’s voluntary actions as binding legal obligations.
Further, the report invokes “unreliable and misleading information provided by the Zionist regime as a non-NPT party possessing weapons of mass destruction and responsible for the most heinous crimes against humanity, including genocide, contradicts the professional verification principles of the IAEA.”
The Foreign Ministry and AEOI reiterated that nuclear weapons have no place in the nation’s defense doctrine, according to a religious ruling (fatwa) issued by former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and that there is no prohibition under international law for any country to develop nuclear technology for producing energy.
The statement affirmed that Iran’s enrichment program is solely for peaceful purposes, is fully transparent, is under complete IAEA supervision, and is in accordance with the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement.
On Saturday, Iran said it received a proposal from the US, passed on by Oman, about a possible agreement over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the US proposal had been delivered by the Foreign Minister of Oman, Badr bin Hamad Al-Busaidi, and that it would be “appropriately responded to in line with the principles, national interests, and rights of the people of Iran.”
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Jewish Guilt is the Discourse of The Goyim
By Gilad Atzmon | April 24, 2018
For quite some time the British have accepted that British Jewish organizations have hijacked the political discourse. As has happened in other Western countries, the British political establishment has engaged is a relentless rant against antisemitsm. Sometime the focus drifts for a day or two. An alleged ‘Russian nerve gas attack’ provided a 48 hour pause. Occasionally we bomb Arabs in the name of ‘human intervention’ only to realize a day or two later that we have, once again, followed a premeditated foreign agenda. But, somehow, we always return to the antisemitism debate, as if our media and politicians are a herd of flies gravitating to a pile of poop. … continue
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