What drives Americans to fight on the frontlines of Gaza’s war crimes
By Jamal Kanj | MEMO | September 1, 2025
Serving in the military is the ultimate test of loyalty. When young Americans raise their right hand, they pledge to defend their nation, their Constitution, their people. Yet for many young Americans, that oath is NOT made to the United States military. Instead, they pack their bags, fly across the Atlantic, and enlist in a foreign army—the Israeli War Machine, aka, Israeli Defence Forces (IDF).
The numbers speak loudly. According to the Washington Post, 23,000 Jewish American citizens are currently serving in the Israeli military. By contrast, US Department of Defence data shows that in 2006 fewer than 4,000 American service members identified as Jewish. A later DoD report in January 2019 placed the figure at roughly 0.4 per cent of active-duty personnel. Put simply, more Jewish Americans, both in numbers and percentage, serve under the misappropriated Star of David than under the Stars and Stripes.
Naturally, many new Americans maintain personal cultural and ancestral ties to their homelands—a land they actually come from, with real last names, not Hebraized East European family names. No ethnic group, however, has a lobby dedicated to serving the policy of a foreign country, like AIPAC. Mexican Americans celebrate Mexico’s victory on Cinco de Mayo, but do not promote enlisting in Mexico’s military. Irish Americans rejoice Saint Patrick’s Day, but had not lined up to join the Irish Republican Army. No ethnic American group raises nonprofit tax deductible funds for a foreign army, other than the Jewish billionaires, who bankroll “Friends of the IDF.”
Controlled by this foreign lobby, Congress not only tolerates the Israeli exception, rather it tries to reward it. Two Jewish Republican lawmakers; Guy Reschenthaler and Max Miller, have proposed legislation, H.R. 8445, to amend the American Servicemembers Civil Relief Act to include (Jewish) Americans serving in the Israeli army. If passed, the amendment would grant these “foreign” soldiers the same benefits reserved for Americans in uniform.
Let that sink in: Israeli (American) soldiers would have the same protections as American army soldiers. An Israeli who is starving babies and committing war crimes in Gaza, would be legally indistinguishable from an American marine guarding Camp Pendleton in California.
When it comes to Israel, AIPAC, through the disproportionate Jewish representation in both Houses—three to five times higher than their share of the U.S. adult population—exerts outsized clout. Combine this with the campaign finance power over elected officials, AIPAC can flex its muscles to institutionalize the Israeli exception. One could pose the question, if this is good for Israeli (American) soldiers, why not provide all Americans serving in foreign armies the same benefits? Maybe for a Muslim American soldier, if any, serving in Pakistan or Egypt. Such an idea would most likely cause a revolt in Washington. Accusations of dual loyalty, even treason, would dominate the headlines. If so, why not in the Israeli case?
One of those soldiers is David Meyers from California who spent six years in the Israeli navy. He explained his decision to enlist in the Israeli military, citing “… an incredibly deep and long connection that I have to Israel.” Answering a question for reasons he chose a foreign army over his own, his answer was more telling: “The United States with its strength and size, perhaps, isn’t quite needing your abilities and your efforts.”
Since when did America’s strength become an excuse to abandon it for a foreign army? Regardless, Meyers’s statement suggests he does not have a deep or long connection to the country of his birth—or at least not one as deep as to a foreign country. America is strong only because its citizens choose to serve it, not ditch it in favor of a foreign uniform. To dismiss the U.S. military as too mighty to need Jewish Americans isn’t about necessity, it’s about misplaced loyalty.
Many of the Americans serving in the Israeli army are called lone soldiers. They are the young Americans with New York or Texas accents; I’ve encountered at occupation checkpoints throughout Palestine. Their job is to humiliate Palestinians in the West Bank, and starve children in Gaza.
Some may frame their service as defending “the Jewish people.” When in fact, they are fueling Jewish hate in the West for being the face of the “Jewish-only” colonies built on stolen Palestinian land, or for imposing an apartheid occupation on behalf of a foreign political entity, whose leaders stand indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
With this in mind, these Americans are participating in what the UN, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have described as war crimes—from the engineered starvation of babies in Gaza, to the subjugation of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. As the ICC continues to investigate Israeli crimes, one day, these “Americans” could face reality, not as heroes, but for their roles in the crimes against humanity. Ironically, Congress wants to make these potential war criminals equal to American servicemembers.
The numbers do not lie. Over-represented in elected offices, and underrepresented in the U.S. military, Jewish Americans enlist in the Israeli army at more than five times the rate they serve in their own country’s forces. This begs the question: why are so many Jewish Americans more willing to die for a foreign country than for nations that gave them everything they have? That is not an anti-Jewish statement; it is a fact that would, and should uniformly apply to any ethnic group.
If some Jewish Americans choose to devote their lives and loyalty to a foreign state, that is their business. However, it is an insult to every American in uniform when Congress considers equating American soldiers with those serving in a foreign army. Worse, by ignoring the moral and legal ramifications, U.S. policymakers risk entangling America in war crimes committed by these “paper” American citizens, crimes that may one day be judged in The Hague, and for which today’s members of Congress should be held to account by their own constituents.
Tribal loyalty, often disguised as religious or nationalistic virtue, distorts judgment and blinds individuals to injustice, elevating kinship above truth, morality, and humanity. It is this tribal blindness that drives some Jewish Americans to join a foreign army, and stain their souls with the blood of Gaza’s war crimes.
COVID Vaccines ‘Unleashed Profound Harm’ New Peer-Reviewed Paper Says
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | August 29, 2025
A new peer-reviewed study suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for COVID-19 shows signs of “deliberate engineering” and that these features, including the spike protein also found in the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, are responsible for widespread health harms globally.
The study, authored by 11 scientific and legal experts, was published in the fall edition of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.
The authors argue that the man-made features of SARS-CoV-2 and the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are likely the outcome of controversial gain-of-function research, in violation of the United Nations’ Biological Weapons Convention.
Gain-of-function research, which increases the transmissibility or virulence of viruses, is frequently used in vaccine development.
According to the paper, the spread of COVID-19 — followed by the rollout of mRNA vaccines — resulted in unprecedented health harms, ranging from “autoimmune diseases and cardiovascular catastrophes to pregnancy complications and aggressive cancers.”
“Far from benign, these vaccines have unleashed profound harm, disrupting nearly every system of the human body and contributing to unprecedented levels of morbidity and mortality,” the paper states.
Dr. Andrew Zywiec, principal physician at Zywiec & Porter, is the paper’s lead author. He said the paper reveals a “pattern of harm too consistent, too pervasive to be dismissed as chance.” He added:
“The systemic toxicity unleashed by these interventions, manifesting as autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular devastation, aggressive cancers, and catastrophic reproductive harms, represents not merely a public health failure but a profound betrayal of trust.”
Joseph Sansone, Ph.D., a psychotherapist who filed a lawsuit to prohibit mRNA vaccines in Florida, said the paper is “extremely significant” as it is “the first peer-reviewed journal article stating that both COVID and the COVID injections violate the Biological Weapons Convention and that both COVID-19 and the COVID injections are biological weapons.”
SARS-CoV-2 virus ‘indicative of laboratory manipulation’
According to the paper, the SARS-CoV-2 virus “displays multiple genomic features indicative of laboratory manipulation,” including its furin cleavage site, which “enhances infectivity” and which is “absent in SARS-like viruses found in nature.”
Several other features of the SARS-CoV-2 virus “enhance immunological evasion and aerosol transmissibility,” making the virus “unusually durable … and five times more stable in air” than other respiratory viruses.
“These combined traits, along with the virus’s mutation patterns, are strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 could not have evolved naturally,” the paper states.
The paper cites two peer-reviewed journal articles by military scientists stating that SARS-CoV-2 contained “evidence of manipulation” that makes the virus an “attractive pathogen” due to its features, which resemble those of a biological weapon.
These manipulations “represent a violation of the Biological Weapons Convention,” the paper argues.
Enacted in 1975, the convention “effectively prohibits the development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use of biological and toxin weapons.” Nearly 200 countries have signed it.
Paper accuses Fauci of deliberately concealing SARS-CoV-2 origins
According to the paper, gain-of-function research involves “viral manipulation techniques” that can lead to the development of pathogens that are banned under the convention.
Yet, the U.S. government — particularly the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, led by Dr. Anthony Fauci until 2022 — has long been involved in gain-of-function research, “including a long-standing collaboration between U.S.-funded institutions and the Wuhan Institute of Virology” in China.
Proponents of the “lab-leak theory” of the origins of SARS-CoV-2 argue that gain-of-function research at the Wuhan laboratory and a subsequent leak led to the global outbreak of COVID-19, which was covered up.
In April, the Trump administration launched a new version of the government’s official COVID-19 website, presenting evidence that COVID-19 emerged due to a leak at the Wuhan lab. The CIA, FBI, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Congress and several foreign intelligence agencies have endorsed this theory.
The paper refers to Project DEFUSE, a proposal the EcoHealth Alliance and Wuhan scientists submitted to the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 2018. Although the proposal was rejected, it described the creation of coronaviruses with features that enhanced their infectivity, including the furin cleavage site.
EcoHealth Alliance and its former president, Peter Daszak, Ph.D., collaborated with Wuhan researchers. Last year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) suspended all funding for EcoHealth Alliance after finding the organization had failed to properly monitor risky coronavirus experiments.
The paper states that Fauci and the U.S. Intelligence Community never disclosed the existence of the research. Instead, “they obfuscated what is, in fact, proof of intent to produce a virus much like the one that caused the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The paper cites a Feb. 1, 2020, teleconference with Fauci and key virologists, including several of the co-authors of the now-infamous “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2” paper. The paper, which promoted the natural origin of COVID-19, was published in Nature Medicine in March 2020.
Although several of the co-authors of “Proximal Origin” expressed doubts that SARS-CoV-2 developed naturally, Fauci “aimed to suppress” such concerns during the Feb. 1, 2020, call.
“Proximal Origin” became one of the most-cited papers of 2020 and has been accessed over 6 million times. In 2023, The Nation reported that over 2,000 media outlets cited the paper.
The U.S. government, the scientific community and the media subsequently used “Proximal Origin” to promote the “zoonotic” — or natural origin — theory of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 and to discredit proponents of the “lab-leak theory.”
“The deliberate concealment of critical genomic features delayed public awareness and pandemic mitigation efforts, potentially allowing wider spread and more deaths,” the paper states.
In May, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that paused gain-of-function research in the U.S. for 120 days while a new regulatory framework is developed. It also ended U.S. funding for such research in some countries.
Spike protein poses ‘potential for irreversible harm’
According to the paper’s authors, the development of SARS-CoV-2 — and the COVID-19 features that contain similar gain-of-function properties — resulted in significant harm to global public health.
The paper references statistics from the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database which show a significantly increased incidence of myocarditis (151.4%), pulmonary embolism (43.6%), ovarian dysfunction (34.9%), hypertensive disease (22.9%), Guillain-Barré syndrome (14.9%), esophageal cancer (12.5%) and breast cancer (7%) in 2021, the year the COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out globally.
Additional U.S. military data cited in the paper show “persistent elevations” in myocarditis, digestive organ cancer, brain cancer and other injuries between 2022 and 2025.
Reproductive harms also significantly increased following the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines, the paper argues. It cites data from sources including the U.S. government-run Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), Pfizer’s 2021 post-marketing surveillance report and its Phase 2/3 clinical trial data for its COVID-19 shot, showing increased miscarriages, stillbirths and neonatal deaths.
The paper cites the spike protein in the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines as one of the likely factors for the increased incidence of cancers and other health conditions in recent years.
“Prolonged protein expression, exemplified by S1 spike protein detection more than 700 days post-COVID vaccination, underscores the potential for irreversible harm,” the paper states.
The paper argues that suppression of “proven or promising treatments” such as hydroxychloroquine in favor of universal COVID-19 vaccine mandates — and the policy decision to implement mass vaccination during the pandemic — further exacerbated global public health and had “damaging effects on public trust.”
Growing calls to suspend mRNA vaccines
The paper was published just as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ended its broad authorization of COVID-19 vaccines earlier this week, restricting the shots to people at higher risk for severe illness.
Earlier this month, HHS announced it canceled nearly $500 million in contracts and grants for the development of mRNA vaccines.
A growing number of scientists have called for the suspension or withdrawal of mRNA vaccines. The paper’s authors said their findings strengthen these calls. They stated:
“The surge in autoimmune diseases, aggressive cancers, pregnancy losses, cardiovascular fatalities, societal fragmentation, and the looming risks of advanced mRNA platforms demand an immediate halt to mRNA vaccine and biologic use, comprehensive investigations into the motives behind this unprecedented violation of public trust, and robust measures to restore safe therapeutics and ethical public health practices.”
Dr. Irene Mavrakakis, one of the paper’s co-authors and a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Surgery at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, said the paper supports calls for “complete recall of all COVID-19 vaccines and biologics and a moratorium on all mRNA biologics.”
Mavrakakis also called for the “criminal prosecution of decision-makers who were criminally negligent and failed in their duties.” She said vaccine manufacturers should be stripped of the immunity they enjoy under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 and the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) of 2005.
Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist at Children’s Health Defense, agreed. He said gain-of-function research “will always have its cheerleaders,” but humanity faces “extreme risk and inevitably pays a heavy price for that research.”
“Labs can and do leak,” he said. “One singular event at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in late 2019 caused innumerable suffering and death. Until we can construct a leak-proof lab, we shouldn’t be assembling world-ravaging viruses in them.”
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Israel blows up 80 booby-trapped robots in residential neighborhoods in Gaza City
Palestinian Information Center – August 31, 2025
GAZA – The Government Media Office (GMO) said that the Israeli occupation army detonated more than 80 booby-trapped robots in residential neighborhoods in Gaza City over the past three weeks, confirming that more than one million Palestinians in Gaza and the north refuse to be displaced to the south.
It added that the Israeli occupation army continues to commit systematic and grave crimes against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, in blatant violation of international law and international humanitarian law.
The statement pointed out that these crimes include the targeting of unarmed civilians, including children and women, and the forced displacement of residents in a crime of mass forced transfer that meets all elements of war crimes.
The GMO stressed that detonating robots is part of a criminal pattern that reflects a scorched-earth policy during Israel’s ground operations against residents and civilian neighborhoods, leading to large-scale destruction of homes and property and exposing civilians to grave dangers.
The occupation army also continues to commit the crime of starvation against more than 2.4 million people in the Gaza Strip, including over one million in Gaza City and the north, by deliberately preventing the entry of food and water, in clear violation of Article (54) of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions.
The statement noted that this starvation policy has already caused the deaths of more than 332 people, including 124 children, stressing that this is accompanied by systematic destruction of what remains of the healthcare system, and deliberate targeting of essential elements of civilian life, with the aim of eliminating any possibility of normal life continuing.
The GMO confirmed that more than one million Palestinians remain in Gaza City, refusing to succumb to forced displacement and ethnic cleansing, affirming their legendary steadfastness in the face of the Israeli war machine.
The statement saluted the resilience of the heroic Palestinian people, strongly condemned the Israeli occupation army’s ongoing crimes against civilians, and held Israel and the US administration fully responsible for the continuation of this genocide.
The GMO called on the international community, with all its institutions and bodies, to take a serious and effective stance to immediately stop these crimes, halt the ongoing genocide, protect civilians, and hold Israeli leaders accountable for their crimes before the competent international courts.
60% of Gen Z support Hamas over Israel, but majority of Americans support genocide: Survey
MEMO | August 31, 2025
Some 60% of Generation Z in the US favor Palestinian resistance group Hamas over Israel in Tel Aviv’s ongoing war in Gaza, a new survey found, Anadolu reports.
As part of a broad set of questions, the survey asked online respondents: “In the Israel-Hamas conflict, do you support more Israel or more Hamas?”
According to the online survey released this week, 60% of the young people aged between 18 to 24 expressed support for Hamas over Israel.
Among the age groups that sided with Israel were 25-34-year-olds with 65%, 35-44-year-olds with 70%, 45-54-year-olds with 74%, 55-64-year-olds with 84%, and 65 and older with 89%.
The poll also found that voters were evenly divided on whether Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza, with a 50-50 split.
It also revealed that the slight majority of the respondents (51%) believe criticism of Israel is driven more by a concern for Palestinian human rights rather than antisemitism.
Conducted by The Harris Poll and HarrisX between Aug. 20-21 with 2,025 registered voters and a margin of error of 2.2% points, the poll has been widely cited as evidence of a fundamental shift in American public opinion.
Israel’s offensive has killed nearly 63,400 Palestinians since October 2023, devastating the enclave as famine spreads in the second year of genocide.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
Zelensky threatens ‘new deep strikes’ into Russia
RT | August 31, 2025
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has threatened new strikes into Russia, days after claiming that Kiev possessed a brand-new long-range missile capable of reaching Moscow.
Zelensky wrote on Telegram that he had been briefed by Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Aleksandr Syrsky, on the current battlefield situation.
“We will continue our active actions exactly as needed to protect Ukraine. Forces and means are prepared. New deep strikes have also been planned,” he said on Sunday, without providing further details.
Earlier this month, Zelensky claimed Ukraine had developed the long-range Flamingo missile with a reported range of 3,000 kilometers – which would be enough to reach not only Moscow but also Russian cities beyond the Ural mountains. The Ukrainian leader, however, said that mass production is not expected for the next several months.
British media outlets cast doubts on whether the Flamingo was developed in Ukraine, noting similarities with the FP-5 cruise missile produced by the UK-based Milanion Group and unveiled at an arms expo in Abu Dhabi this year. The UK has also been supportive of Kiev’s long-range strikes, having provided it with Storm Shadow missiles in the past.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted that there is “nothing surprising” in the similarities, adding that “Ukraine has long turned into a testing ground for Western weapons. There are more than enough examples.”
On Friday, the Kyiv Independent also reported that Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau has launched an investigation into Fire Point, the defense firm linked to the development of the Flamingo missile, after reports it misled the government on pricing and deliveries.
Earlier this month the Wall Street Journal reported that the US had blocked Ukraine from carrying out strikes deep inside Russian territory. Throughout the conflict, some of Kiev’s Western backers have been wary of authorizing unrestricted strikes into Russia using Western-supplied weapons, citing concerns over escalation with Moscow.
Ukraine has regularly carried out long-range attacks inside Russia, which Moscow says frequently hit civilian areas and critical infrastructure. Russia has retaliated with strikes on Ukrainian military-related facilities and defense enterprises but maintains that it never targets civilians.
Mass displacement from Gaza City’s northeast begins as Israeli attacks intensify
MEMO | August 30, 2025
The mass displacement of Palestinians from northeastern Gaza City began on Friday evening as Israeli forces escalated attacks from the north and south, bombarding entire neighbourhoods, Anadolu reports.
A Palestinian security source told Anadolu that the situation in the city’s eastern neighbourhoods is deteriorating “at a rapidly accelerating pace” due to Israel’s intensifying offensive.
The source said the Israeli army has increased demolitions in southern and northeastern Gaza City, using explosive-laden robots alongside artillery shelling and airstrikes.
Anadolu’s correspondent reported “mass displacement” of residents from the city’s northeastern districts toward western Gaza City or farther south in the enclave.
He also reported additional shelling in Gaza City’s southern al-Sabra neighbourhood.
Israel declared a “dangerous combat zone” on Friday and launched one of its most intense bombardments since the war began, striking by air, land, and sea, while nearly 1 million Palestinians are still trapped inside.
The offensive is part of an Israeli plan approved earlier this month to gradually reoccupy Gaza, beginning with the enclave’s largest urban centre, which houses roughly half of the population.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warned that the assault could force up to 1 million people to evacuate their homes again.
Israel has killed over 63,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave, which is facing famine.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
‘Unacceptable’: Spain condemns US visa ban on Palestinian officials
MEMO | August 30, 2025
Spain on Saturday condemned the US decision to revoke visas for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and 80 other officials, calling it “unacceptable” and urging the EU to take a leading role in defending Palestinian representation at the UN, Anadolu reports.
Spain’s Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares talked to reporters ahead of an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Copenhagen.
“It is unacceptable that the Palestinian delegation or Mahmoud Abbas couldn’t attend the UN General Assembly … its protection, its immunity is worldwide and the European Union must be at the forefront of those that defend it. That should also be a clear message from today’s meeting.”
Albares used the announcement to reiterate Spain’s call for urgent EU action on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, warning that words alone were no longer sufficient.
“The EU is doing too little, too late and doing nothing. Haven’t achieved anything. So the time of declaration is really over. We have to move forward,” he said, detailing a Spanish-proposed action plan.
“The European Union can only relate to Israel through human rights, and if there is a massive violation, as the report of the Commission has clearly indicated, we must act. This is not anymore the time of war. It’s the time for action, action to stop the war, action to break the blockade of famine from Israel to Gaza,” he added.
“Spain has proposed an action plan with things that, by the way, are nothing extraordinary. It’s just fulfilling and complying with our own European legislation or international legislation, that’s all and certainly, we are going to continue pushing forward,” he added.
Albares outlined four key measures for the EU.
“First to impose an arms embargo on selling weapons to Israel from the EU. Secondly, to enlarge the list of people that are being sanctioned, to anyone, absolutely anyone, that wants to spoil the two-state solution… Third, we have to back financially, very heavily, the Palestinian National Authority.”
“And fourth, we have to enforce and comply with all the rulings and all the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, for instance, stopping all trade with products coming from the illegal settlements, and also we propose the full suspension of that agreement into the EU and Israel,” he added.
Norway reprimands US Senator Lindsay Graham over $2T fund criticism
Al Mayadeen | August 29, 2025
The Norwegian Prime Minister’s office firmly rebuffed US Senator Lindsey Graham’s angry outburst over its sovereign wealth fund’s divestment from Caterpillar Inc., stating unequivocally that the government has no control over the fund’s independent investment decisions.
A spokesperson for the prime minister’s office stated that Premier Jonas Gahr Store sent a text message to Graham, which included information about the fund’s mandate and how its oversight is set up, and received confirmation that it was received.
Norway’s $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund, which held roughly $2.1 billion in Caterpillar shares as of June 30, announced this week that it had divested its holdings in the company due to “Israel’s” use of its bulldozers to destroy Palestinian property in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Earlier this week, in two social media posts on X, the Republican Senator lashed out at the $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund, which is the world’s largest, threatening tariffs and visa denials because of its recent divestments from the Texas-based firm.
In a two-part statement, Graham first promised that the fund’s “BS decision” would have consequences, then spoke specifically about implementing tariffs and possible visa denials, noting that the Trump administration had already placed a 15% tariff on imports from Norway while the two nations remain engaged in trade negotiations.
The reaction from the US lawmaker came at a delicate time for the fund and for the Norwegian government, as Norway is set to hold parliamentary elections on Sept. 8 and the fund has been under pressure to divest from Israeli companies contributing to the war in Gaza.
In addition to its divestment from the heavy machinery company, the Norwegian fund announced it excluded five Israeli banking institutions which are: Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, Mizrahi Tefahot Bank, First International Bank of Israel, and FIBI Holdings.
The decision followed recommendations from the fund’s ethics watchdog, the Council on Ethics, which concluded that there was an unacceptable risk of these institutions and Caterpillar contributing to serious rights violations in situations of war and conflict.
Berlin police: The violent enforcers of Germany’s Staatsräson
By Timo Al-Farooq | Al Mayadeen | August 29, 2025
In March 2008, former chancellor Angela Merkel uttered an innocuous word that fifteen and a half years later would become the moral justification for two successive German governments to aid and abet “Israel’s” war of extermination in Gaza, occupied Palestine: “Staatsräson”, meaning “reason of state.”
Singing revisionist praises to the Zionist project in front of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, she derived from Germany’s “special historical responsibility” for the Jewish holocaust in Europe a moral imperative to safeguard “Israel’s security.”
“[T]his historical responsibility is part of the reason of state of my country,” Merkel proclaimed, thus retroactively birthing a nomenclature for decades of (West) German diplomatic and military support for “Israel’s” brutal history of ethnic cleansing, military occupation and apartheid.
As “Israel’s” genocide by bombs, bullets and forced starvation intensifies and the IOF is set to invade Gaza City in what Palestinian Youth Movement describes as a “campaign to bring the entirety of the Strip under the total subjugation of the Zionist army”, chancellor Friedrich Merz reiterated his government’s continued support for the Israeli regime in a TV interview earlier this month.
Weighted knuckle-gloves
Nowhere is Germany’s enforcement of its über-Zionist Staatsräson more visible than on the streets of the capital Berlin, home to the largest Palestinian community in Europe, where the city-state’s police have gained unparalleled notoriety for their brutal crackdowns on pro-Palestine protests.
Every other day, deeply disturbing video footage of aggressive officers in riot gear manhandling peaceful anti-genocide protesters with a reckless abandon that only a culture of impunity can embolden is posted to social media by those who are meticulously documenting Germany’s post-October 7 free-fall from a minimum-standard democracy to a quasi police state.
In yet another scandalous escalation of Berlin’s thuggish state brutality against pro-Palestine protesters, shocking social media footage shows police beating an Irish activist bloody at a civil disobedience action on August 28 against “Israel’s” deliberate killings of Palestinian journalists.
Far from ensuring public order and safety, as should be policing’s purpose in any civilised country, Berlin’s badge-wearing goon squads violently arrest non-violent people of conscience, be they men, women, children, or disabled, simply for exercising their right to freedom of speech.
The police’s confrontative combat gear, which includes weighted-knuckle gloves, is indicative of their violent mandate and penchant for hooliganism. Prohibited in some jurisdictions and classified as dangerous weapons, the gloves used by Berlin police are filled with quartz sand and can inflict severe injuries.
In a recent aggravated battery case involving an individual who used this type of glove to beat his victim, Germany’s highest appellate court ruled that twenty blows with weighted-knuckle gloves are indicative of attempted murder, reports the news website Legal Tribune Online.
Lawless law-enforcement
Despite Germany’s Staatsräson being a political philosophy with no legal responsibilities arising from it, Berlin police continue to interpret it as the law of the land in their nihilistic and racist fight to crush public opposition to “Israel’s” German-backed annihilation of the Palestinian people.
The German insanity of treating the traditional liberation slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” as antisemitic hate speech or even as a trademarked symbol of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, which is proscribed as a terrorist organisation in Germany, is a case in point.
Despite numerous court rulings that say it is not a criminal offence to express these words in speech and writing, police in Berlin continue to arrest people who do so.
Two instances illustrate just how far post-October 7 policing has gone from enforcing laws to breaking them and even making them up, thus violating the separation of powers that distinguishes democracies from autocracies in the state’s attempts to criminalise anti-Zionism.
On July 30, prominent human rights defender Yasmin Acar was acquitted by a Berlin court for using the slogan “From the river to the sea.” The presiding judge even praised Acar’s political activism as “highly esteemed.”
This did not stop police from arresting supporters who had gathered in front of the courthouse for chanting the exact same slogan.
This absurdity is not accidental. Unfazed by the court’s ruling, the Berliner Polizei doubled down in a widely condemned public service announcement posted on X ten days later, implying that they would not obey the law in the context of Palestine solidarity.
“The slogan ‘From the river to the sea’ is deemed a criminal offence by Berlin’s public prosecutor’s office. Please refrain from this expression. We are obligated to prosecute crimes and take appropriate police-related measures,” the statement read.
In functioning democracies, prosecutors are supposed to make decisions based on legal standards, not act as self-appointed law-makers. But Germany is no functioning democracy anymore: Fanatic adherence to “Israel”, even as it perpetrates a colonial genocide which knows no red lines other than the gleefully spilled blood of native Palestinians, has seen Germany swiftly regress toward its authoritarian ways of yore.
As for Berlin’s uniformed street-brawlers who make up the lowest echelons of the police hierarchy and are thuggishly enforcing the red herring of “Israeli security” at Palestine liberation protests while “Israel” wipes Palestinians off the face of Gaza’s once fertile earth, their gross misconduct shows just how far the already oppressive institution of policing has gone rogue, its behaviour more apropos of a criminal organisation than of a law-enforcement agency.
In light of this post-October 7 hyper-metamorphosis, the “Ganz Berlin hasst die Polizei!” (All of Berlin hates the police) chants protesters strike up whenever another one of theirs is brutalised by Staatsräson’s cowardly foot soldiers, have become the relatable soundtrack of resistance to German complicity in “Israel’s” genocide in Gaza and to the reawakening of fascist muscle memory at home.
Italians seek Israeli isolation over gaza genocide
Press TV – August 28, 2025
People from all walks of life protested near Rome’s iconic Pantheon temple on Tuesday, August 25, 2025 calling for Israel’s political and commercial isolation.
They rejected what they called Italy’s complicity in Israel’s genocidal operations in Gaza.
The lands occupied by Israel belong to Palestinians, and they will be returned to them. Those who will be living there, either they’re Muslims, Christians or Jews, will be Palestinian people.
We know full well. Italy is a colony of the US Empire, and for this reason, is subjugated to the Zionist regime.
Protestor 01
I don’t know exactly why the Italian government doesn’t uphold international norms when it comes to Israel. It would be interesting asking this question to [sic] our politicians directly. It is quite appalling.
Antonella Moschillo, Pro-Palestine Activist and Psychiatrist
The protesters demanded the cancellation of two FIFA World Cup qualifying matches between Italy and Israel, which are slated for September and October., demanding Israel be expelled from all sporting competitions.
Recently, Italy’s sports minister, Andrea Abodi, when asked by journalists about the debate sparked by an opposition lawmaker over possible punitive measures against the Israeli regime, said the Italy-Israel football match will proceed as scheduled.
He noted Russia was excluded from competitions as an aggressor, but Israel should not be suspended since it was attacked on October 7, 2023.
I pity him, because he’s obviously a hostage of a system, and of a political system that is servile to Israel.
Our country takes instructions from Israel.
We have not passed one sanction we have not passed, but we have passed 18 against Russia.
Anwaar Ahmed. Pro-Palestine Activist
Football, sports in general, must be unifying tools, and those who run football should refuse to pair with violent, genocidal actors like Israel.
Protestor 02
Recently, the Italian association of football coaches have formally called on football’s international and European governing bodies to suspend Israel over its genocidal war on Gaza.
The genocide in Gaza is now destabilising European politics: Dutch FM resigns, shaking his government apart
By Ricardo Martins – New Eastern Outlook – August 29, 2025
The resignation of the Dutch foreign minister over the Gaza genocide exposes Europe’s moral paralysis and highlights the power of conscience against complicity in genocide.
A Crack in Europe’s Wall of Silence and Inaction
On Friday, something extraordinary happened in Europe — something almost unthinkable within the European Commission or across the Atlantic. Caspar Veldkamp, the Dutch Foreign Minister, resigned from office rather than continue serving in a government that refused to sanction Israel for war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank.
Within hours, his entire party — the New Social Contract (NSC), including Deputy Prime Minister Eddy van Hijum, the Interior and Education ministers, the Health minister, and several state secretaries — followed him out of the fragile coalition.
This was no symbolic gesture. Veldkamp is not an unknown backbencher; he is a seasoned diplomat, a former ambassador to Israel itself. Few Europeans know Israel more intimately. He witnessed the apartheid system from inside, and now the genocide in Gaza, all while the international community remains paralysed in action, but with some strong words of condemnation. Confronted with a cabinet unwilling to act, he chose conscience over complicity.
Explaining his decision, Veldkamp told reporters:
“I felt resistance in the cabinet against more measures as a result of what is happening in Gaza City and the occupied West Bank… I saw efforts to meet me halfway, but in the end the concessions were insufficient… I have too little confidence that in the coming weeks and months I could act responsibly if I am restricted from pursuing the policy I deem necessary.”
A sitting European foreign minister walked away, saying he could no longer act “responsibly” while famine raged in Gaza. That is a political earthquake.
Why It Matters
Veldkamp’s resignation matters for three reasons.
First, it exposes what many in power have sought to hide: Western governments know what Israel is doing. They know it bluntly violates international law. And yet, they succumb to pressure and choose paralysis, or even false neutrality. Veldkamp’s break makes that complicity explicit.
Second, his career makes him a devastating witness. He was no enemy of Israel; he was its ambassador, its partner, its friend. If even he resigns, it signals the moral bankruptcy of Europe’s position.
And third, this was not just one man’s choice. It was an entire party withdrawing from government, destabilising an already weakened caretaker coalition. Gaza’s genocide is no longer just a humanitarian catastrophe abroad. It is shaking European politics at home.
The Immediate Trigger: Boycotts, Arms, and Famine
The resignation was sparked by a cabinet debate over boycotting goods from Israel’s illegal West Bank settlements. Veldkamp pushed hard, arguing the Netherlands could not condemn settlements while continuing to import their products. But coalition partners — the centre-right VVD and the populist Farmer-Citizen Movement — blocked him, insisting such a boycott should only be pursued “at the European level.” Others flatly opposed any new measures.
The day before, parliament had also voted down a motion to stop Israeli-linked arms sales to the Dutch military. Even in the face of genocide, even in the week that famine in Gaza was officially declared by UN-backed experts, Veldkamp’s government, led by Dick Schoof, refused to act. For him, that crossed a moral line.
This timing matters. His resignation coincided precisely with the famine declaration — one of only four famines officially recognised in two decades. Children skeletal, mothers unable to breastfeed, families clawing at crumbs. This famine is not a natural disaster. It is solely deliberately provoked by Israel.
When Veldkamp said he was “insufficiently able to take meaningful additional measures,” he was talking about famine and mass starvation. His cabinet refused to treat the deliberate starvation of Palestinians as reason enough to act. So he walked.
The Shadow of The Hague
There is a deeper hypocrisy here. The Netherlands hosts the International Criminal Court in The Hague. This is where global justice is supposed to be enforced. It is also the city where 150,000 Dutch citizens marched in June — the largest protest in two decades — demanding sanctions and accountability.
That contrast is brutal: a government in The Hague refusing to sanction genocide while its people fill the streets, while the world’s top tribunal sits only a few blocks away. The ICC investigates genocide elsewhere — Darfur, Myanmar, and South Sudan. But when genocide is committed by Israel, backed by the U.S., Germany, and other European partners, Europe paralyses itself.
Veldkamp’s resignation exposes that contradiction. The Dutch government now stands, with Berlin and Washington, on the wrong side of history — complicit in crimes against humanity while preaching international law.
Pressure From Below
The protests mattered. Veldkamp himself acknowledged that citizens’ demands for action influenced his decision. About 150,000 people marched in The Hague — the largest mobilisation since the Iraq War. That mattered. It showed politicians that silence is not free.
This is the lesson: protest cannot always stop bombs, but it can break walls of complicity. It can make ministers resign.
Europe’s Geopolitical Paralysis
Meanwhile, Europe as a whole remains paralysed. Ursula von der Leyen, previously Olaf Scholz, and now Friedrich Merz double down on “Israel’s right to defend itself,” even after more than 60,000 Palestinians are dead and famine is officially declared. Coalition partners in the Netherlands — VVD and BBB — blocked sanctions, refusing even a boycott of settlement goods.
This is not neutrality. It is an obstruction of an action against apartheid and genocide. And it is proof of Europe’s impotence. The EU, once a self-proclaimed “normative, moral power,” now reveals itself incapable of defending the very norms it enshrines in law.
Compare with America
Across the Atlantic, silence is even deeper. Congress continues to authorise billions in military aid to Israel, blocks ceasefire resolutions at the UN, and welcomes Netanyahu as an honoured guest. Donald Trump promises to go further, boasting he would let Israel “finish the job.”
No U.S. cabinet minister has resigned. No member of Congress has said what Veldkamp said: that they cannot act responsibly under such conditions. The silence in Washington is bipartisan and total.
Europe is no better — but cracks are now visible. And those cracks matter.
A Former Ambassador Breaks Ranks
Do not underestimate the symbolic power of this break. Veldkamp was once an ambassador to Israel. He knows its system intimately: the apartheid, the settlements, the 2018 supremacist law declaring Israel a “Jewish nation-state.” He cannot be dismissed as naïve or antisemitic.
When he resigns, he carries that credibility with him — leaving his government exposed, discredited, morally bankrupt, and aligned with genocide supporters. It also leaves Europe humiliated: the Netherlands, seat of the ICC, is now complicit in the very crimes its institutions were created to judge.
The Lesson of History
Resignations over Israel’s actions are almost unheard of in Europe. Condemnations, yes. Symbolic motions, yes. But ministers sacrificing office? Rarely. That is why this moment belongs in history.
Years from now, when Gaza’s famine is remembered, when historians count the dead, they will ask, Who spoke? Who resigned? Who refused complicity? Caspar Veldkamp’s name will be among the answers.
Conscience or Complicity?
This story is not just about Dutch politics. It is about the cracks forming in the West’s unconditional defence of Israel. It is about how famine and apartheid, once denied, are now destabilising European governments and credibility. It is about the power of protest to force moral lines.
Veldkamp said it plainly: Israel is violating international law. His government refused to act. So, he left.
The choice is now ours: conscience or complicity. What do we want our children, grandchildren, and students to read about us in the history books?
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Are the Jews indigenous to Palestine?
By David Miller | Al Mayadeen | August 3, 2022
There is a rising tide of claims from apologists for the crimes of Zionism that they have been misunderstood. Palestinians might be indigenous to Palestine, but the Jews definitely are. What is called the ‘Israel-Palestine’ conflict, they say, is competition over the same small piece of land by two rival groups of indigenous people. But are the Jews indigenous to the Levant? And what are the consequences of the argument?
In fact, most of the power structure of the Zionist state is dominated by Ashkenazi Jews who have no ancestral link to Palestine. Overall despite very significant financial and infrastructural contributions from Western European countries (especially the US, UK and France, for example via the Rothschild family), Eastern European Ashkenazim have been at the centre of the Zionist power structure since the early years of the 20th Century. … continue
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