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Israel in peace and war: How society rejects peace and endorses genocide

By Dr Mustafa Fetouri | MEMO | November 6, 2025

Israel’s vaunted commitment to justice—and its long-held brag of having “the most ethical army in the world”—collapsed spectacularly this week. The scandal traces back to July 2024, when surveillance footage from the Sde Teiman detention centre captured Israeli soldiers raping a Palestinian detainee, who later suffered severe injuries. Earlier this month—more than a year after the incident—the IDF’s top legal officer, Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, was arrested after admitting, perhaps in a belated awakening of conscience, that she had authorised the release of the footage

When the criminal soldiers were arrested back in 2024, Israelis took to the streets—not to condemn the crime, but to support the soldiers. Among the demonstrators were politicians, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, an illegal settler in the West Bank, who declared that the soldiers should be treated as heroes.

When it was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s turn to comment on the scandal, he said that the leaking of the video—not its content—was “perhaps the most serious public relations attack that the State of Israel has experienced since its establishment.” Clearly, the ICC-indicted Netanyahu is more concerned about Israel’s reputation and the army’s legal standing than about the fact that an atrocious crime has taken place. How low can the Prime Minister of “democratic and peaceful” Israel go?

Israel’s response to the Sde Teiman scandal reflects a broader pattern: in both peace and war, it treats compromise, scrutiny, and accountability as threats. Every call or attempt at reconciliation or international oversight is immediately framed as an attack on national security or the army’s reputation. In practice, this mindset turns peace itself into a liability. Even international scrutiny or demands for accountability are routinely branded as anti-Semitism or “Jew-hatred,” rarely acknowledged as genuine concerns about preventing crimes or upholding justice—including those voiced by staunch allies such as Donald Trump.

The Israeli military and political elite operate under a logic in which restraint is suspect and moral exceptionalism is weaponised. Soldiers are celebrated for loyalty, brutality, and toughness, while ethical violations are either minimised or justified. Public and political reactions—cheering arrested soldiers, politicians lauding them as heroes, and leaders prioritizing reputation over accountability—reinforce a culture in which the pursuit of peace, justice, or transparency is regarded as weakness.

On the international stage, when faced with widespread public condemnation, Israel first resorts to its usual defense: anyone criticizing its inhumane treatment of Palestinians is labelled anti-Semitic. As that label loses its force and fails to intimidate critics, Israel reverts to its favourite defence in times of emergency: accusing anyone who dares to oppose its genocide of being pro-Hamas or, at least, supportive of its agenda—from the recently elected Mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, to US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. This systemic defence mechanism ensures that atrocities are treated as public relations crises rather than legal or moral failures. It also cements a cycle in which both conflict and the appearance of peace are subordinated to a narrow conception of survival and honour. The lesson is clear: in Israel, war and peace are judged not by justice or reconciliation, but by the army’s image, the state’s narrative, and the perceived threat to its moral and political supremacy.

Many wrongly believe that it is the State of Israel—and, more precisely, its extremist government—that drives Israeli society, which, such pundits argue, is peaceful in nature and humanly accommodating. The reality, however, is the opposite: it is the very nature of Israeli society that underpins these policies by supporting politicians like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Benjamin Netanyahu.

A poll in May this year revealed how rotten Israeli society is. The Penn State / Geocartography survey asked Israelis a blunt question: when the IDF conquers a city, should it kill all its inhabitants? A plurality — 47 per cent — said yes. The same poll reported that 82 percent of Israelis believe Gaza should be ethnically cleansed and all Gazans transferred outside historical Palestine — in other words, expelled to nowhere. And, in case there is any doubt, the same majority agreed that the expulsions should also include Arab citizens of Israel.

Another poll, conducted by Hebrew University in June 2025, asked: are there any innocent people in Gaza? Not surprisingly, the majority — 64 per cent — said there are no innocent people in Gaza. According to this view, everyone in Gaza, including babies, newborns, the elderly, and the disabled, is considered a criminal of some sort. This belief has been further reinforced by the IDF’s propaganda machine, which almost daily claims that every structure it destroys contains a tunnel or a tunnel shaft underneath. The message has been so consistent that it has been applied even to hospitals, schools, and kindergartens. The same narrative was conveyed to BBC World News when reporter Lucy Williamson was given a highly restricted, IDF-controlled access to Gaza. She asked the IDF spokesperson about the level of destruction she observed, and the answer was: “almost every house had a tunnel shaft” — though, of course, the spokesperson failed to show a single one.

Back in 2016, research by Pew Research Center found that six in ten Israeli Jews (61 per cent) believe that the whole of historic Palestine—not just part of it—is land promised to them by God Himself. They also believe that Israel should never give up an inch of Palestine, even if such a concession could bring long-term peace and an end to the century-old conflict.

To further show how deeply rotten Israeli society is, it may be enough to recall that the genocide in Gaza has been repackaged as a tourist attraction. From observation hills overlooking Gaza, visitors pay as little as five shekels to mount binoculars and watch live bombing raids, including flying debris and, in some reports, fragments of human bodies among the victims.

Overall majorities of Israeli Jews also strongly reject the idea of two state solutions which is supported by almost all United Nations member states—with the exception of few like United States and Israel itself of course. In a Gallup poll, published in December 2023, a majority of 65 per cent of Israeli Jews said they are opposed to the idea of two state solution.

Israeli children are taught from an early age to look down on Palestinians and the very idea of Palestinian identity. Studies show that many state school textbooks either omit the Palestinian narrative or present it in marginalised and demeaning terms, while reinforcing Jewish‑Israeli territorial claims. For example, the IMPACT‑SE Special Report 2022‑23 found that the majority of maps in Israeli textbooks did not indicate Palestinian territories or the Green Line, and that Palestinian history and culture are often erased or reduced to stereotypes.

The evidence is clear: from early education to public policy, Israeli society and its institutions treat Palestinians not as a people with rights, but as obstacles to be erased—showing that in Israel, peace is never an option, only control and domination.

November 6, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Torture and Rape Are All in A Day’s Work for Israel’s Defenders

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • November 6, 2025

A couple of recent stories relating to the utter bestiality of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians have exposed the criminality of successive US governments in supporting the Jewish state no matter what it does. Observers of the lopsided relationship understand very clearly that Israel’s lobby in the United States, backed up by Jewish billionaires who are willing to spend whatever it takes to corrupt the political system and buy up the media, has succeeded in making Washington a totally controlled client state manipulated by extreme war criminals like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is rewarded by the near complete loyalty of Congress and the White House. The one sided relationship dominates both Republicans and Democrats and has been most evident in the Presidencies of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, who have chosen to ignore the reality of the Israeli slaughter of some hundreds of thousands of Palestinians using US weapons and Washington’s political protection in international fora.

The irony of it all is that Washington’s subjugation by Israel, far from being politically neutral, does terrible damage to the United States, both in terms of actual costs and the fact that the US is now reviled by much of the world as it continues to protect and enable Israel as it continues it program to turn the Middle East into a region that it dominates by dint of perpetual slaughter of the original inhabitants. Beyond that, one of the costs of loving Israel so much is the lack of any consequences when it comes to protection of American citizens who find themselves on the wrong end of the Israeli police state. Citizens like Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed by an Israeli Army sniper in May 2022, but the US Embassy did nothing to establish responsibility for the murder, leaving it up the Israeli judiciary, which did nothing and may even have rewarded the soldier. Abu Akleh was one of 276 journalists targeted deliberately and murdered by Israeli forces in the past two years.

Going back a bit, the most egregious case of the US abandoning its own to Israeli connivance was the attack on the USS Liberty intelligence ship in international waters in June 1967. Thirty-four crewmen were killed and 174 more wounded and the clear intention was to sink the ship using planes and torpedo boats with their identifications covered to blame the incident on the Egyptians. A cover-up engineered by President Lyndon B Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara followed and repeated attempts by surviving crewmen to open an investigation have been blocked in Congress, most notably by Senator John McCain, whose father was the Admiral that chaired the inquiry held in Malta that decided that it was all a case of mistaken identity, which was a lie. LBJ called back planes that were sent to aid the stricken Liberty and was heard to explain that he would be satisfied if all those “sailor-boys were to go to the bottom of the sea” rather than offend “our good friend” Israel.

Last week, there surfaced a bizarre tale involving the Chief Legal Officer of the Israeli Army, a Major General named Yifat Tomer-Yeralshami. Yeralshami is a woman who was highly respected by her peers though it should be assumed that she was constrained by the policies towards the Israel Defense Force (IDF) as dictated by the Netanyahu regime and its extreme right winger chief National Security officer Itamar Ben-Gvir. Tomer-Yeralshami had been involved in the case of a Palestinian prisoner who had been serially raped in the notorious Sde Terman prison.

Terman was the best known IDF torture center. In October 2024, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel issued a report examining the treatment of thousands of Palestinian detainees after October 7th, 2023. In the report, the commission determined that detainees from Gaza held in Israeli military prisons, including children, were “subjected to widespread and systematic abuse, physical and psychological violence, and sexual and gender-based violence amounting to the war crime and crime against humanity of torture and the war crime of rape and other forms of sexual violence.”

Israeli soldiers were reportedly creative in their rape techniques. Dr. Mark Perlmutter, a Jewish-American orthopedic surgeon who was a volunteer medic in Gaza last year, reported how one Palestinian prisoner was treated. “He was raped by female IDF soldiers with a zucchini placed up his rectum and the zucchini was soaked in pork blood” the pork used specifically because pork is forbidden to Muslims, as it is to Jews.

The rape in question being investigated by Tomer-Yeralshami had been carried out by five Israeli soldiers. The incident occurred in July 2024 and the soldiers had been detained after the Palestinian proved to be so seriously injured that he had to be hospitalized. The IDF soldiers raped the man so violently, using in one instance a knife in his rectum, that his intestines exploded and his rectum was ruptured. He has undergone 20 surgeries since what happened to him. The facility where the soldiers were detained was subsequently stormed by a group consisting mostly of Israeli armed settlers led by Ben-Gvir and the men were later released and have reportedly been waiting on a military hearing to determine their possible guilt. They not only claim to be innocent, they believe that they should be rewarded and have even appeared before the press wearing black uniforms and head covers to make their case that comes down to soldiers not being held accountable if they torture or kill Palestinian prisoners.

Recent stories relating to the utter bestiality of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians have exposed the criminality of successive US governments in supporting the Jewish state no matter what it does. Observers of the lopsided relationship understand very clearly that Israel’s lobby in the United States, backed up by Jewish billionaires who are willing to spend whatever it takes to corrupt the political system and buy up the media, has succeeded in making Washington a totally controlled client state manipulated by extreme war criminals like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is rewarded by the near complete loyalty of Congress and the White House. The one sided relationship dominates both Republicans and Democrats and has been most evident in the Presidencies of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, who have chosen to ignore the reality of the Israeli slaughter of some hundreds of thousands of Palestinians using US weapons and political protection in international fora. For what it is worth, neither Biden nor Trump has spoken out effectively on the murder and torture of the Palestinians by Israel.

The irony of it all is that Washington’s subjugation by Israel, far from being politically neutral, does terrible damage to the United States, both in terms of actual costs and the fact that the US is now reviled by much of the world as it continues to protect and enable Israel as it pursues its program to turn the Middle East into a region that it dominates by dint of perpetual slaughter of the original inhabitants.

Inevitably, stories about Israeli inhumanity are either completely suppressed or substantially modified to make the Jews involved appear to be victims of whatever takes place, what one might refer to as the “holocaust syndrome,” but sometimes the reality is just so horrific that it manages to leak through the damage control and censorship. In this case, the story of the savage rape in the prison would have died in an Israel court but for the fact that the rape was videoed and was leaked to Israeli news network Channel 12, apparently by the General and possibly others in her office, and the story subsequently developed that she had resigned her commission and disappeared. In her resignation letter, she apparently admitted that she had approved the release of a video revealing institutionalized acts of torture committed by the IDF against Palestinian prisoners of war that took place in the Sde Teiman detention camp in July 2024.

Shortly after the footage was aired, Tomer-Yerushalmi was placed on forced leave by the Israeli Defense Ministry after a criminal probe was launched to investigate the origins of the leak. In the months that followed her being placed on leave, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that Tomer-Yerushalmi would not be permitted to return to her post, forcing her resignation. In her resignation letter, Tomer-Yerushalmi stated that “To my regret, this basic understanding—that there are acts to which even the most vile of detainees must not be subjected—is no longer convincing to all,” a tacit admission of the institutionalized abuse sanctioned by Israeli officials within the IDF and Netanyahu government.

Tomer-Yerushalmi disappeared from sight and it was subsequently rumored that she might have killed herself, but she was found and subsequently arrested. The Netanyahu government and its right-wing supporters have tried to benefit from the developing story, claiming that the general’s arrest confirms that the soldiers were “innocent” and that the leaked videos were “fake.” However, the trial of the soldiers is reportedly proceeding, and the videos have been confirmed as genuine. General Tomer-Yerushalmi is now being accused of “treason” for her role in the leak.

This affair could have been a classic case of silencing the messenger who was bearing bad news but it has become clear that the General was not operating alone. The Israeli police claim to possess WhatsApp group communications involving other high-ranking officers connected to the leaked information. The Israeli press has cited eight top officers within the IDF prosecution command headed by Tomer-Yerushalmi. The video and related documents were reportedly actually physically leaked by a junior officer within the military prosecutor’s command, who also confessed to his behavior before the Israeli General Security Organization (Shabak). Some believe that it is unconceivable that General Tomer-Yerushalmi would have made the decision to expose the IDF’s conduct without a green light from up above. Who could give such a green light? Her direct commander, the Israeli chief of staff (Herzi Halevi), or even the defense minister (Yoav Gallant), which would place them at odds with Netanyahu.

Some suspect that the actual objective by the army high command may have been to prove that Israel “has the legal means to prosecute its war criminals”—a message to the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague that it should stay away from the case. If this theory is correct, General Tomer-Yerushalmi and those who authorized her were driven by “patriotic sentiments” to protect the behavior of the army soldiers. It may have been an attempt to defuse possible court cases by presenting a false image of ethical accountability. In short, the image of “ethical behavior” replaces any actual concern for ethical conduct, something that is absent from the nation that calls itself the Jewish State with an army that calls itself the world’s “most moral.”

Predictably, as a response to Tomer-Yerushalmi’s admitting she was behind the release of the video from Sde Teiman, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to shift the blame. He characterized the leak as the worst public relations disaster that Israel has ever faced saying “It is perhaps the most serious public relations attack Israel has experienced since its founding—I cannot recall one so concentrated and intense. This requires an independent and impartial inquiry, and I expect that such an investigation will indeed take place.” What Netanyahu was really demanding was a cover-up of what crimes have become systematic in Israel’s torture and killing of Palestinian prisoners.

Another story, equally hideous, concerns the activity of the so-called Israeli settlers, who have been armed by the Israeli government and have been systematically attacking the Palestinians remaining on the West Bank by beating and even killing the Arabs and destroying their livelihoods. It was again a case of a video having surfaced that showed a raid on a Palestinian farm, revealing how the settlers raided a barn containing the farmer’s sheep and lambs. Australian journalist Caitlin Johnstone describes the scene and what it means: “Israeli settlers were filmed torturing lambs which belonged to Palestinians in the West Bank. Gouged their eyes outSmashed them with cinder blocks. Beat them to death in front of their mothers. Lambs. It’s not the most evil thing the Israelis have done. Not by a long shot. Hell, all of human civilization subjects animals to cruel abuses every minute of every day through the horrors of factory farming. But this particular incident shines a special sort of light into exactly what’s going on behind Israeli eyes over there in that sadistic society. Think about the hatred and savagery you’d need to summon up within yourself to gouge the eyes out of a living baby sheep. Think about the kind of person you’d have to become to do something like that to an innocent creature. Those lambs didn’t know they were Palestinian. They didn’t know anything about Hamas or October 7 or the Nazi Holocaust, or any of the other reasons Israelis generally cite for their abuses of human beings. They were just sitting there, doing absolutely nothing that could possibly be construed as harmful by even the most talented hasbarist. And those settlers went in there and inflicted completely gratuitous suffering upon them. This, to me anyway, just says so much about the level of vitriolic hatred by which the state of Israel is sustained. It’s baked in to the way the whole state.”

I rest my case about what is wrong with Israel to include its criminal relationship with the United States. So Mr. Trump, I already know you hate animals just as you hate and seek revenge on anyone who does not agree with you, but what is your response to the murders of children and rapes of prisoners as well as the torture of baby creatures who have done no wrong? Just what is your justification for making the United States a partner and even enabler in the crimes?

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

November 6, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Paramount blacklist pro-Palestine voices under new pro-Israel leadership

MEMO | November 6, 2025

A growing number of Hollywood actors and filmmakers who have voiced solidarity with Palestinians are reportedly being blacklisted by Paramount, following its takeover by pro-Israel billionaire David Ellison, according to Variety. The move has raised fears of a systematic campaign to suppress dissenting voices in the entertainment industry under the guise of combating anti-Semitism.

The blacklist follows Paramount’s $7.7 billion merger with Skydance Media, led by Ellison—the son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, one of the largest donors to Israel’s occupation forces. The leadership overhaul has included the appointment of Bari Weiss, a self-described Zionist and vocal defender of Israel’s assault on Gaza, as editor-in-chief of CBS News, one of Paramount’s flagship assets.

Industry sources suggest that artists who have expressed solidarity with Palestinians or criticised Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and its apartheid regime in the occupied West Bank may now face reprisals. According to Variety, Paramount “maintains a list of talent it will not work with because they are deemed to be ‘overtly antisemitic’ as well as ‘xenophobic’ and ‘homophobic.’ Whether the boycott signatories are on that list is unclear.”

This labelling follows Paramount’s decision in September to publicly denounce a celebrity-signed letter calling for a boycott of Israeli cultural institutions involved in what signatories described as “genocide and apartheid.” Over 300 figures, including Oscar winners Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Rooney Mara, Tilda Swinton and Yorgos Lanthimos, had signed the statement, demanding accountability from Israel for its documented war crimes and structural violence against Palestinians.

Paramount’s swift condemnation of the letter—branding it anti-Semitic—has been interpreted as part of a broader ideological purge within the industry. It echoes earlier incidents such as the sacking of actress Melissa Barrera for condemning Israeli attacks on Gaza, and Susan Sarandon’s revelation that she was dropped by her agency and blacklisted after criticising Israel’s occupation.

The blacklist forms part of a growing pattern across the United States, where support for Palestinian rights is increasingly conflated with hate speech. University students have lost scholarships, faculty members have been suspended or dismissed, and entire student organisations have been deregistered for protesting visits by Israeli officials accused of supporting ethnic cleansing policies.

November 6, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Two New York Families Sue Schools for Denying Medical Vaccine Exemptions

By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | November 4, 2025

Two New York families are suing their school districts in federal court, alleging that district officials unlawfully denied their children’s medical exemptions.

One case involves an 11-year-old, identified as “Sarah Doe,” in the Webster Central School District. According to the complaint filed last month in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York, Sarah has a “documented history of life-threatening reactions to vaccines.”

The school district denied her medical exemption request for the Tdap vaccine.

The other case concerns a 17-year-old, identified as “Michael Doe,” in the Penfield Central School District. His complaint, also filed last month, and in the same federal court, states that he has a “documented personal history of severe vaccine-induced airway constriction, a strong family history of autoimmune disorders, and a life-threatening latex allergy.”

The school district denied his medical exemption request for the meningococcal vaccine.

The lawsuits ask the court to issue a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to allow Sarah and Michael to return to school and to recognize their medical exemptions as valid. The plaintiffs also seek compensation for damages, including lost educational opportunities and emotional distress.

Chad Davenport, the plaintiffs’ attorney, told The Defender that the New York school districts’ actions were “egregious” and “in direct contradiction” to a recent federal ruling in a related case, Doe v. Oceanside, involving a New York mother and her teenage daughter, also called “Sarah Doe.”

Davenport and attorney Sujata Gibson represented the teen and her mother, who successfully sued the Oceanside Union Free School District for refusing to grant the teen a medical vaccine exemption for the hepatitis B vaccine. Children’s Health Defense (CHD) funded the lawsuit.

In August, the judge issued a preliminary injunction allowing the teen to return to classes.

On Sept. 1, Davenport and Gibson sent a letter on CHD’s behalf to all New York state boards of education and superintendents, threatening legal action if school district officials continued to deny medical exemptions certified by students’ physicians.

“We sent it out and we tried to stop them from doing this, but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough,” Davenport said.

New York’s ‘flawed’ medical exemption process puts kids at risk

The situations described in the two new lawsuits are “happening throughout New York state,” he said.

CHD General Counsel Kim Mack Rosenberg said the new lawsuits highlight “how flawed the medical exemption process is in New York state.” Gibson agreed.

Mack Rosenberg added:

“For too many, the existence of the medical exemption truly is illusory and the misinterpretation of grounds for a medical exemption is rampant, both at the state and district level.

“The flaws in the system are placing families who choose to have their children educated in schools — versus homeschooling, which is not an option for everyone — in the horrible position of potentially risking their child’s health to attend school, where doctors familiar with the children recommend that the children not receive vaccines.”

Davenport said he reached out to the New York schools, requesting homeschooling curriculum.

“They give us nothing — and again, this is not unique,” he said. “Every single time that they kick these children out into homeschooling, they give them nothing. … They basically say, ‘We’re done with you.’”

Doctors cited ‘clear and documented danger’ to Sarah’s health

The Oct. 22 lawsuit states that Webster Central School District denied 11-year-old Sarah’s Tdap vaccine medical exemption despite the warning from her treating physician that further vaccination was “absolutely contraindicated” because of a prior “life threatening, multi-organ failure after vaccinations.”

When the family tried to meet the school’s vaccine requirement, healthcare providers refused to vaccinate Sarah. The complaint states:

“When the family, acting under extreme duress from these threats, attempted to comply with the District’s demands, they were turned away by multiple medical providers who refused to administer the vaccine, citing the clear and documented danger to Sarah’s health.”

The district denied Sarah’s exemption because her condition was not listed on “a rigid, pre-approved list of contraindications” published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee.

The lawsuit also alleges that the district responded to Sarah’s exemption request with “coordinated campaign of intimidation and threats involving Child Protective Services (CPS).” The county health department warned Sarah’s mother that CPS could intervene if Sarah remained unvaccinated.

In addition to the Webster Central School District, the lawsuit names Dr. Margaret Callahan, the district’s designated school physician, and Chris Callahan, principal of Spry Middle School, as defendants.

School’s medical director showed ‘clear bias’ in case involving 17-year-old

The Oct. 24 lawsuit states that Dr. Robert Tuite, the medical director who reviewed the exemption request, said the district should need it because the request was issued by a psychiatrist, whom Tuite deemed was the “wrong” type of doctor.

However, Davenport said the judge who ruled in Doe v. Oceanside made it clear that medical exemptions don’t have to be written by a specific type of doctor.

The judge “went through the district’s demands for letters from specialists, including hematologists, immunologists” and explicitly said letters from specialists are not required, Davenport said.

“The statute is very clear: it is any physician. You do not need to have somebody with a certain specialty to certify that a vaccination may be detrimental to the health of your child,” he added.

The lawsuit also says Tuite had “profound” conflicts of interest that affected his review of Michael’s exemption request. The complaint names Tuite as a defendant, along with Penfield Central School District, Penfield High School Principal LeAnna L. Watt and Superintendent Tasha Potter.

Tuite, the district’s medical director who also runs a private practice, previously served as Michael’s doctor until a “contentious disagreement” arose between Tuite and Michael’s mother.

After “an argument over the COVID shot and whether or not her child should receive it,” Tuite kicked Michael’s mother out of his practice, Davenport said. “That’s clear bias.”

Davenport continued:

“Not only that, but then [Tuite] actually got on the phone with the doctor who wrote the medical exemption … [and] admitted that the reason why he’s rejecting it is because last time he accepted a medical exemption, he got his wrist slapped by New York State.”

New York schools fined for approving medical exemptions, case alleges

Tuite told the psychiatrist that the district faces “substantial fines” from the state’s health department for accepting any medical exemption that the state later deems invalid.

Davenport said Tuite isn’t the first person to claim that the New York State Department of Health will fine a district for allowing medical exemptions. According to Davenport, medical directors and school officials involved in lawsuits he files often make similar claims.

Davenport said they know that he will sue them for fees and damages, but they tell him that approving a medical exemption request and allowing the student into school would cost the district $2,000 per day.

“That is what they are being threatened with,” he said. “I don’t know how that message is being conveyed from the Department of Health to the schools and the school officials, but it is.”

Davenport hopes the new cases reinforce the precedent set by Doe v. Oceanside.

He also hopes the cases will send a message that New York school districts can no longer deny medical exemptions without facing judicial challenges.

Davenport said districts have generally assumed they would be “insulated” from meaningful judicial review, since families whose exemptions are denied must appeal to the state commissioner, and the commission historically sides with the school district.

“Not one final decision has ever resulted in the New York State Education Department overturning a school’s decision to deny a vaccine waiver. Not one,” Davenport said.

Now, however, families are taking their cases to federal court after the state commission fails to provide meaningful judicial review.

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.

November 5, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Erasing evidence: Over 700 videos of Israeli crimes wiped off YouTube

Al Mayadeen | November 5, 2025

The Intercept on Wednesday revealed that YouTube has permanently removed the official channels of three major Palestinian human rights organizations, namely Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), erasing hundreds of videos that documented Israeli war crimes in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

The deletions, which took place in early October, wiped years of footage that included investigative reports on the killing of Palestinian civilians, “Israel’s” destruction of homes, and the murder of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. YouTube confirmed to The Intercept that the decision followed a review prompted by US State Department sanctions against the three groups.

“Google is committed to compliance with applicable sanctions and trade compliance laws,” YouTube spokesperson Boot Bullwinkle said, noting that the platform enforces restrictions against any entities sanctioned under US law.

YouTube bows to pressure

The Trump administration imposed the sanctions in September, targeting the organizations for their collaboration with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in its investigations into Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Security Minister Yoav Gallant, who were charged with war crimes in Gaza.

Human rights advocates denounced YouTube’s move as politically motivated censorship. “I’m pretty shocked that YouTube is showing such a little backbone,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now. “It’s really hard to imagine any serious argument that sharing information from these Palestinian human rights organizations would somehow violate sanctions. Succumbing to this arbitrary designation of these Palestinian organizations, to now censor them, is disappointing and pretty surprising.”

Katherine Gallagher, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, accused YouTube of advancing Washington’s efforts to suppress accountability. “It is outrageous that YouTube is furthering the Trump administration’s agenda to remove evidence of human rights violations and war crimes from public view,” she said. “Congress did not intend to allow the president to cut off the flow of information to the American public and the world, instead, information, including documents and videos, are specifically exempted under the statute that the president cited as his authority for issuing the ICC sanctions.”

YouTube silences Palestinian rights

The affected groups condemned the decision as a violation of free expression and an attempt to obstruct justice. Al Mezan said its channel was terminated abruptly on October 7, without warning. “Terminating the channel deprives us from reaching what we aspire to convey our message to, and fulfill our mission,” a spokesperson said, stressing that the move limits their ability to communicate with global audiences.

Al-Haq’s channel was deleted a few days earlier, on October 3, with YouTube claiming that its content “violates our guidelines.” The organization responded that “YouTube’s removal of a human rights organisation’s platform, carried out without prior warning, represents a serious failure of principle and an alarming setback for human rights and freedom of expression.” It warned that US sanctions are “being used to cripple accountability work on Palestine and silence Palestinian voices and victims.”

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, described by the United Nations as Gaza’s oldest human rights organization, said the deletion “protects perpetrators from accountability.” Its representative, Basel al-Sourani, noted that “YouTube said that we were not following their policy on Community Guidelines, when all our work was basically presenting factual and evidence-based reporting on the crimes committed against the Palestinian people, especially since the start of the ongoing genocide on 7 October.” He added, “By doing this, YouTube is being complicit in silencing the voices of Palestinian victims.”

Digital Censorship

The Intercept estimated that the deletions collectively erased more than 700 videos, ranging from field investigations to personal testimonies and short documentaries. Some of the content remains accessible on other platforms or through archived versions, but much of it has been lost. The organizations said they are now seeking alternatives outside the US to ensure their work remains available to the public.

The takedowns come amid broader efforts by the Trump administration and “Israel” to undermine the ICC and limit exposure of Israeli actions in Gaza. “They are basically allowing the Trump administration to dictate what information they share with the global audience,” Whitson warned. “It’s not going to end with Palestine.”

November 5, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Michigan Bill Would Protect Parents Who Seek Second Medical Opinion for Kids

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | November 3, 2025

A bill introduced in Michigan would protect parents’ rights to seek a second opinion for their children’s medical treatment by barring the state from holding parents liable for child neglect if they seek medical opinions from another physician or healthcare professional.

Under current Michigan law, authorities can hold parents liable for medical neglect if they refuse a healthcare provider’s recommended treatment, even if they are seeking a second opinion, according to The Hillsdalian.

However, House Bill 5163 states that parents or guardians do not commit child neglect if they refuse a recommended treatment while “actively seeking a second opinion” from another health professional.

The bill, introduced by Rep. Jennifer Wortz, a Republican, is pending before the House Committee on Families and Veterans. It has 14 co-sponsors, including some Democrats.

Wortz, who is in her first term, told The Defender that her bill is similar to laws currently in effect in Missouri and Texas.

She said she drafted the bill after her office received reports from two families who “have had allegations made against them, and filed and reported to CPS [Children’s Protective Services], because of seeking a second opinion.”

According to Wortz, one family has a daughter with a permanent cancer diagnosis. Physicians recommended radiation and chemotherapy, but the child’s parents sought a second opinion and chose a treatment plan that included dietary changes and supplements.

Wortz said “a large university hospital” reported those parents for neglect.

In another instance, physicians recommended removing a young boy’s appendix. The child’s parents sought two additional medical opinions and chose a course of antibiotic treatment, which “fixed the issue.” Yet the child’s initial physician reported the parents for neglect.

Wortz said state legislators were “shocked” to hear about incidents involving CPS and several examples of the government being weaponized “against good parents.” She said the failure of the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services in responding to CPS cases must be addressed.

“It’s really quite appalling to see where they’re failing to do their job, [and] these situations where it seems like a medical professional injects their personal opinion, whether that’s for financial gain, or just ego, that then these parents are targeted,” Wortz said.

CHD ‘opened my eyes’ to the importance of ‘seeking alternative opinions’

Wortz said she is working to get a version of the bill introduced in the Michigan Senate. Unlike the House, Democrats hold a majority in the state Senate.

“I’m hopeful that I can find a Democrat legislator on the Senate side that would be willing to take up this legislation as well, because that’s where we stand the best chance of this moving forward,” Wortz said.

Wortz said Children’s Health Defense (CHD) influenced her decision to introduce and support bills promoting medical freedom, including Michigan House Bill 4475, which she co-sponsored. Introduced in May, the bill would “prohibit discriminatory practices, policies, and customs” based on vaccination status.

CHD “opened my eyes and led me down a track of investigating and seeking alternative opinions other than just what your medical doctor tells you,” Wortz said. “I have four children myself, and when COVID-19 hit in 2020, the science and the numbers that they were telling us daily on the media just were not adding up to me.”

Texas, Missouri, England enacted policies protecting right to second opinion

According to the Family Justice Resource Center, Texas Senate Bill 1578 — signed into law in 2021 — lets parents accused of child abuse after questioning a recommended medical treatment obtain a second opinion from another physician.

Before the bill was passed, state lawmakers “heard from several parents who underwent a medically-based wrongful allegation of child abuse.”

A 1998 Missouri law requires health services corporations to “allow enrollees to seek a second medical opinion or consultation from a willing second physician” at no additional cost beyond what the enrollee would pay for an initial medical opinion or consultation from that second physician.

In 2015, lawmakers in Missouri proposed “Isaiah’s Law,” which would have protected parents and guardians from neglect charges when they sought a second opinion for their child’s treatment. The bill did not pass.

In England, “Martha’s rule” — in effect since 2024 — requires hospitals in the National Health Service (NHS) to let parents seek an urgent second clinical opinion from other experts at the same hospital if they have concerns about their current care, the BBC reported.

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.

November 3, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

AI-powered drones used in Gaza genocide monitor US cities: Report

Press TV – November 3, 2025

AI-powered quadcopter drones deployed by the Israeli regime’s armed forces to commit genocide in Gaza have been reportedly operating over American cities, surveiling protesters and automatically uploading millions of images to a centralized evidence database.

A report published by the Grayzone news outlet on Sunday reveals that AI-powered drones manufactured by a company called Skydio are monitoring the majority of cities in the US.

According to the report, Skydio provided the original drone models to the Israeli armed forces immediately after the regime launched its genocidal assault on Gaza on October 7, 2023, during which it killed at least 68,858 Palestinians and wounded 170,664 others, most of them women and children.

The Israeli regime extensively deployed the drones in its attacks on Palestinians, sending operational data back to Skydio to refine the technology.

Skydio maintains an office in the occupied Palestinian territories and partners with DefenSync, an Israeli military drone contractor that acts as an intermediary between drone manufacturers and the regime’s armed forces.

The company has also raised hundreds of millions of dollars from Israeli-American venture capitalists and funds extensive investments in the Occupied Lands.

Since 2023, Skydio has transformed from a relatively obscure startup into a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate and the largest drone manufacturer in the US.

The report states that Skydio now holds contracts with more than 800 law enforcement and security agencies across the country, up from 320 in March last year as its drones are being deployed hundreds of times daily to monitor citizens in towns and cities nationwide.

Nearly every major American city has signed a contract with Skydio in the past 18 months, including Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Diego, Cleveland, and Jacksonville.

In Miami, Skydio drones are reportedly being used to surveil protesters and students, while in Atlanta, the company has partnered with the Atlanta Police Foundation (APF) to establish a permanent drone station within the new Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, also known as the Cop City.

Detroit recently spent nearly $300,000 on 14 Skydio drones, according to a city procurement report.

A spokesperson for the New York Police Department (NYPD) recently told a drone news website that the NYPD launched more than 20,000 drone flights in less than a year, which translates to around 55 drone launches per day.

Last month, US Customs and Border Protection (ICE) purchased an X10D Skydio drone, which can automatically track and pursue a target. ICE has acquired 33 of these drones since July.

The AI system powering Skydio drones relies on Nvidia chips and allows them to operate without human control.

The drones are equipped with thermal imaging cameras and can function in GPS-denied environments. They can reconstruct buildings and other infrastructure in 3D and reach speeds of more than 30 miles per hour.

November 3, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

On trial at The Hague: Germany accused of misleading the World Court

By Leon Wystrychowski | MEMO | November 3, 2025

In April 2024, Nicaragua took Germany to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, accusing Berlin of “violating international law for decades” through large-scale arms sales to Israel and thereby upholding the illegal occupation and apartheid regime in Palestine. The immediate trigger for the case was the genocide in the Gaza Strip, for which Israel itself is also being tried before the ICJ.

Following October 2023, Germany’s arms exports to Israel surged by more than 900 per cent. In 2022, the Federal Republic supplied weapons worth 32 million euros; between 7 October and the end of December 2023 alone, it delivered arms worth 323.2 million euros. This made Germany the second most important arms supplier to the Zionist state after the United States. By mid-May 2025, that figure had climbed to more than 485 million euros. In addition to these commercial exports, there were also donations from the Bundeswehr (the German army) to the IDF.

Germany under pressure

Although no verdict has yet been reached, Nicaragua’s lawsuit has already had an effect: over the course of the year, the number of weapons delivered by Germany to Israel dropped sharply, without any official explanation. Some commentators suggested that this was connected to the ICJ proceedings and that the then-ruling coalition of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals – despite its staunchly pro-Israel stance – appeared to fear potential legal consequences.

In August 2025, the newly elected conservative-led government, equally unwavering in its pro-Israel stance, announced that it would no longer deliver weapons to Israel “that could be used in Gaza.” It soon became clear, however, that this merely meant no new export licenses would be granted, while previously approved arms shipments remained unaffected. For example, Israel’s navy, despite its role in the illegal blockade of Gaza, continued to receive warships and submarines from Germany. Yet here too, alongside Palestinian resistance, the increasingly visible Israeli crimes in Gaza, and mass protests on German streets, Nicaragua’s pressure was also being felt.

New revelations

In response to the lawsuit, Germany told the ICJ in April 2024 that in 2023 it had not delivered any weapons of war to Israel, but only “medical supplies and helmets” from Bundeswehr stocks. However, documents from the Ministry of Defense now cast doubt on the completeness of that statement. This was reported in a joint investigation by the US-based outlet Drop Site News and Germany’s liberal Stern magazine.

According to the report, in a statement submitted to a court at the end of January 2025, the German Ministry of Defense admitted that its declaration regarding Bundeswehr deliveries to the IDF had been coordinated with Israel. The ministry argued before the court that it could not disclose information on so-called “state-to-state transfers” for reasons of “contractually agreed confidentiality,” as doing so could severely damage mutual trust between Germany and Israel. In another communication, the ministry also acknowledged that “detailed information” had “not been disclosed in the proceedings before the ICJ.”

Such alleged false statements by German officials before the world’s highest court are unlikely to go down well with its judges. The case not only undermines Germany’s credibility but also suggests that those responsible know what they have done – and that they are indeed afraid of being held accountable.

November 3, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s ‘Right To Rape’: Leaked Video Investigated and Labeled Blood Libel

By Robert Inlakesh | The Palestine Chronicle | October 31, 2025

Israelis are, again, furious about the infamous gang rape of a Palestinian hostage in Sde Teiman concentration camp, but not at the rapists themselves. Instead, they are demanding the prosecution of those responsible for leaking the video.

On July 29, 2024, ten Israeli soldiers from its Unit 100 were reported to have been involved in a brutal gang rape incident against a Palestinian hostage, who was being held without charge in the Sde Teiman detention facility. Outrage immediately erupted in Israeli society when the soldiers were subsequently detained by the relevant authorities, but not for the reasons most would expect.

Instead of an Israeli public outcry condemning the incident, thousands of Israeli protesters, accompanied by elected officials, broke into the military facilities, demonstrated outside the jail where the ten soldiers were being held and advocated for the right to rape Palestinian detainees.

Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir referred to the accused gang rapists as “heroes” and argued that any action is permissible against Palestinian detainees. Likud Party elected official, Hanoch Milwidsky, even passionately defended the rape of Palestinians with a stick, simply upon the accusation that they are Hamas fighters.

During a heated debate in the Israeli Knesset, MK Ahmad Tibi, from the Ta’al Party, asked, “To insert a stick in a person’s rectum, is that legitimate?” to which Milwidsky responded, “Yes! If he is a Nukhba, everything is legitimate to do to him!”

Meir Ben Shatrit, one of the released accused Israeli gang rapists, later stated on video that his arrest was a sham and proceeded to frame himself as receiving Israeli popular support. This soldier was later brought on Israeli broadcast media, where he was treated well, given softball interviews and defended his actions.

It was also not long before Israel’s Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, chimed in, asserting that “an immediate criminal investigation to locate the leakers of the trending video that was intended to harm the reservists and that caused tremendous damage to Israel in the world and to exhaust the full severity of the law against them”.

On Wednesday, Smotrich’s demands were finally fulfilled, as the Israeli military launched a criminal probe into the leaking of the video, which showed the gang-rape incident. The full video itself was officially broadcast on Israel’s Channel 12 in August of 2024, despite a shorter clip having been verified by Al-Jazeera at an earlier date.

Meanwhile, five of the accused soldiers were set free, while the remaining five were charged with “aggravated abuse and serious bodily harm” and are not being charged with rape, despite the incident being documented on video and the controversy surrounding it being centered on the issue of rape.

Initially, only two of the detained soldiers were released, after which Israel’s Honenu legal aid organization stepped in to represent four of the remaining eight accused gang rapists. Honenu reportedly argued that their clients were acting in self-defense.

What makes this case even more disturbing is that this is the most high-profile case of rape against a Palestinian hostage, yet this incident is turning into a witch-hunt against those who were potentially involved in leaking evidence of the horrific assault.

Copious evidence has emerged over the past two years, supporting the notion of mass weaponized sexual violence against Palestinians, held with no charges, both in Israeli prisons and in detention facilities. Countless cases of gang rape, rape using dogs, metal poles, sticks, and other objects, in addition to sexual humiliation and assault, are not only ignored by the Western media, but there is no accountability for those responsible.

Now, the Israeli Military Prosecutor, Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi has gone on leave, as investigators examine whether top legal officers and even the Prosecutor may have been involved in leaking the video of the gang-rape incident. A development applauded by Israeli Defense Minister, Israel Katz, who referred to the video’s release as one of the biggest “blood libels” against the occupation army’s soldiers.

Despite there being UN and Human Rights reports, along with investigative pieces published by distinguished media outlets, in addition to video and photographic evidence, on top of countless individual and even lawyer testimonies, there is little in the way of an international outcry over the issue.

When this is compared to the coordinated campaign, which could not produce a single victim or reputable witness testimony, let alone photographic or video evidence, to argue that Hamas had carried out a coordinated mass rape campaign on October 7, 2023, it demonstrates the clear double standards of not only Western media but also its political elites and institutions.

There must be an immediate push for an international investigation into Israel’s weaponization of sexual violence against Palestinian men, women, and children. This should be impartial and seek to find answers as to whether Israel’s leadership simply allowed it to happen, or whether they were directly implicated in ordering what can be reasonably assumed to be a premeditated mass rape campaign against Palestinians.

November 2, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Norbert Bolz: ‘The EU has become a monster’

Those who fight against Brussels ‘are not anti-Europeans, but good Europeans’

Weltwoche | October 19, 2025

The European Union has become a “monster” that is increasingly undermining freedom and democracy—this is the criticism leveled by media scholar Norbert Bolz in an opinion piece for the newspaper Die Welt. He argues that the EU is no longer a community of free states, but a centralized “machine that constantly produces regulations and prohibitions,” which follows a “script” reminiscent of Kafka and Orwell.

Bolz, a professor emeritus and one of Germany’s most prominent conservative intellectuals, sees the original idea of a peaceful and economically united Europe as having been perverted. What began with free trade and freedom of movement has been replaced by bureaucratization, a lack of transparency, and authoritarian tendencies. As a concrete example, he cites the Digital Services Act and the planned chat surveillance: “This is about the methods of a totalitarian surveillance state that reads private communications and thus destroys privacy and freedom of expression.”

At the center of his criticism is EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. For Bolz, she embodies the “cold German face of a failed Europe.” He finds it particularly outrageous that she refuses to disclose the text messages she exchanged with the Pfizer CEO during the coronavirus pandemic.

Furthermore, he states that the EU lacks democratic legitimacy. “There is no separation of powers and no democracy,” writes Bolz. He contends that Brussels serves as a lever to push through nationally unpopular measures—for example, in the name of climate protection and corporate social responsibility. This practice enables left-wing and green parties, in particular, to circumvent the political will of their own populations.

According to Bolz, those who rebel against this development are not anti-Europeans, but good Europeans.

November 2, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

Ex-Mossad chief, behind ICJ blackmail campaign, brags Israel has installed a global sabotage network

MEMO | October 30, 2025

In a shocking admission, former Mossad director Yossi Cohen has openly boasted that Israel has deployed a global sabotage and espionage network which uses “booby-trapped and spy-manipulated equipment”. The method, denounced as terrorism by ex-CIA chief  Leon Panetta, was used to target Hezbollah and now, according to Cohen, is embedded in “all the countries you can imagine.”

In a video that’s now circulating on social media, Cohen is seen speaking on The Brink podcast hosted by Jake Wallis Simons, editor of The Jewish Chronicle. The former Mossad director,  who led a blackmail campaign against ICJ judges,  detailed the covert  programme Israel has planted across the globe.  He claimed personal credit for inventing the “pager method” during his tenure at Mossad’s Special Operations division between 2002 and 2004.

“You know how many treated equipment we have in these countries? Not only booby-trapped, but spy-manipulated… in all countries you can imagine,” Cohen told Simons, describing what appears to be a far-reaching system of compromised commercial hardware used to gather intelligence or, in some cases, cause physical harm.

The technique, Cohen said, originated with the weaponisation of communications equipment used by Hezbollah fighters, specifically pagers rigged to function as remote surveillance tools or explosive devices. “If adversaries are purchasing equipment, Israel should intervene by embedding itself into their supply chain and exploiting it,” he explained, adding that the concept was refined and scaled globally after being tested during the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

The former intelligence chief further admitted that Israel’s sabotage apparatus had not been fully applied to Gaza, calling this a “critical shortfall” in the lead-up to the Hamas-led offensive on 7 October 2023. “Not Gaza. Not enough,” he said, arguing that Mossad had repeatedly warned of this vulnerability, only to be ignored by Shin Bet and the IDF.

While Cohen’s remarks appear to confirm longstanding suspicions by governments and cybersecurity analysts that Israeli firms and agencies have used technology as a Trojan horse, the interview also raises troubling questions about accountability, legality and the potential scale of the operations.

Critics have long warned that Israeli surveillance and weapons technology—often marketed through private firms with close ties to Mossad and Unit 8200—poses a threat to international security. Cohen’s boast now appears to offer direct confirmation that such concerns are well-founded.

Last month Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that “anyone with a cell phone owns a ‘piece of Israel’”. His remarks were widely viewed as an admission about Israel’s global sabotage and spy network.

October 31, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

The powerful who stand with Israel

Israel was able to carry out its live-streamed genocide in Gaza because powerful Western allies supplied it with diplomatic cover and weapons

By Vijay Prashad | people’s dispatch | October 28, 2025

On October 26, Caroline Willemen of Médecins Sans Frontières stated that Israel continues to use the need for humanitarian aid in Gaza as “means of pressure”. “The humanitarian situation in Gaza has not improved significantly,” she told the press, “as water and shelter shortages persist and hundreds of thousands of people continue to live in tents as winter approaches”. Israel’s armed forces have now annexed more than half of Gaza’s land and are dumping vast amounts of debris into that zone, turning it into a mountain of garbage. To move the rubble without experts and equipment is very dangerous, as about ten to twelve percent of the Israeli bombs dropped on Gaza have not exploded.

“Every Gazan person is now living in a horrific, unmapped minefield,” said Nick Orr of Humanity and Inclusion, a non-governmental organization at work in Palestine. “The UXO [Unexploded Ordnance] is everywhere. On the ground, in the rubble, under the ground, everywhere”. As Palestinians dig through the hills of concrete, they risk triggering a dormant bomb – creating more casualties of the Israeli genocide.

Over the past two years, Israel has dropped at least 200,000 tons of explosives on Gaza, a tonnage equivalent to thirteen atom bombs of the scale dropped on Hiroshima by the United States on August 6, 1945. This is unimaginable, particularly given the fact that Palestinians have no air defense systems, no air force, and no ability to defend themselves from high-altitude and drone bombing or to strike back in any comparable way. Genocides are, by their nature, asymmetrical. But to describe these past two years as asymmetrical is obscene: this was one-directional violence, the Goliath-like Israelis using their immense advantages against the David-like Palestinian resistance.

The opaqueness of official arms transfers means we have no precise idea how much of this tonnage came to Israel from its major suppliers during the war: the United States, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. However, we have enough evidence to know that most of the bombs came from the United States, with smaller supplies from the other countries. A new report from the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, entitled Gaza Genocide: a collective crime (October 20, 2025), makes it indisputably clear that the countries supplying Israel with military equipment, or assisting it in any way – including through diplomatic support – are utterly complicit in the genocide.

In other words, the obligation to abide by the UN Convention on Genocide is not discretionary; the duty to do what they can to stop the genocide is mandatory. The participation makes them wholly culpable. The report notes that the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza makes this “an internationally enabled crime”.

The level of complicity is extraordinary. Take the case of the United Kingdom, whose Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, is a human rights lawyer and indeed wrote the textbook on European human rights law (1999). On August 6, 2025, Matt Kennard told Palestine Deep Dive about how UK military aircraft left RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus and escorted an unidentified plane over Gaza. Six days later, Iain Overton at UK Declassified revealed that amongst these planes was an RAF Shadow R1 surveillance plane flying alongside a Beechcraft Super King Air 350 owned by the Sierra Nevada Corporation (from the United States) with a call sign CROOK 11. What were these aircraft doing? Who had sanctioned them this work? Who is CROOK 11?

In December 2024, Starmer told troops at RAF Akrotiri: “There’s a lot of different work that goes on. I’m also aware that some, or quite a bit, of what goes on here can’t necessarily be talked about all of the time… We can’t necessarily tell the world what you’re doing here…because although we’re not saying it to the whole world for reasons that are obvious to you”. The obvious reason is that this is a genocide, and the UK is complicit, so they cannot talk about it.

The record for the United States is even more ghastly. One paragraph from the Special Rapporteur’s report is damning enough:

Since October 2023, the US has transferred 742 consignments of “arms and ammunition” (HS Code 93) and approved tens of billions in new sales. The Biden and Trump Administrations reduced transparency, accelerated transfers through repeated emergency approvals, facilitated Israeli access to US weapons stockpile held abroad, and authorized hundreds of sales just below the amount requiring congressional approval. The US has deployed military aircraft, special forces and surveillance drones to Israel, with US surveillance purportedly being used to target Hamas, including in the first raid on Al Shifa hospital.

In November 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) filed a warrant for the arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. Based on this recent UN report, the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, should be obliged to file warrants against Rishi Sunak, Starmer, Olaf Scholz, Friedrich Merz, Joe Biden, and Donald Trump – at a minimum. Anything less makes a mockery of the rules-based international system, namely the United Nations Charter.

October 30, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment