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New investigation reveals UK firm supplying engines for Israeli drones

Al Mayadeen | April 28, 2025

A report published by Declassified UK on Monday revealed that a British company is supplying engines for “Israel’s” newest line of military drones, raising fresh concerns about UK complicity in the Gaza genocide.

RCV Engines, a Dorset-based engineering firm specializing in multi-fuel internal combustion engines, has been identified as the manufacturer of the propulsion system for the APUS 25 drone, developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), an Israeli government-owned weapons manufacturer. The APUS 25 is marketed as a “revolutionary long-endurance TactiQuad” and designed to “redefine tactical drone operations for ground and maritime forces worldwide,” according to IAI.

The drone’s advanced design enables it to perform “offensive operations,” including deploying weapons systems, thereby offering “a new dimension to tactical air support in combat scenarios,” the company notes. IAI promotional materials reveal the drone’s engine bearing the RCV Engines logo, confirming the British firm’s involvement. Until now, RCV’s ties to the Israeli defense sector had not been made public.

Drone Complicity

The revelation that UK-made components are being integrated into weaponized drones comes amid heightened scrutiny over British arms sales to “Israel.” Footage emerging from Gaza in recent months shows Israeli quadcopters dropping bombs and firing on civilians. Retired surgeon Nizam Mamode recounted before British MPs in November: “The drones would come down and pick off civilians – children.” He added, “We [were] operating on children who would say: ‘I was lying on the ground after a bomb had dropped and this quadcopter came down and hovered over me and shot me.'”

Moreover, Israeli drones have reportedly been used to broadcast the sound of crying babies to lure Palestinians into open spaces, where they were then targeted.

Despite recent announcements by UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy suspending around 30 arms export licences to “Israel,” it appears that engines produced by RCV Engines may have evaded these restrictions. In 2022, RCV stated that it had been granted an export licence exemption for global shipments, meaning its drone engines were “removed from the export control list” in Britain. On its LinkedIn page, the company credited this exemption with enabling faster shipping, fewer bureaucratic hurdles, and increased global sales.

The political support RCV received was also acknowledged publicly. The company thanked local Conservative MP Sir Christopher Chope for his role in lobbying for the licence exemption. RCV said, “The success that we have seen since 2022, which is directly linked to the export control status, has meant RCV has been steadily growing.”

Export Loophole

Emily Apple from the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) criticized the situation, saying: “Labour urgently needs to reverse this decision and close this loophole. It’s beyond time it ended its complicity in genocide and prioritised Palestinian lives over the profits of the arms industry.” She added, “Removing RCV Engines from export licence controls is utterly outrageous. This makes a mockery of Labour’s already flimsy decision to suspend just 30 export licences to Israel and appears to create a massive loophole in the export licensing regulations.”

When contacted, the Department for Business and Trade declined to comment on individual companies, and RCV Engines also did not respond.

Meanwhile, IAI continues to develop more advanced models, such as the APUS 60, aiming for greater endurance and payload capacity, although it remains unclear if RCV will continue supplying engines for future versions.

Read more: Britain helping ‘Israel’s’ nuclear force: Declassified UK

April 28, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Google DeepMind workers push for unionization over company’s Israeli ties

Press TV – April 27, 2025

Employees at Google DeepMind’s London office have initiated efforts to unionize in response to the tech giant’s decision to provide its artificial intelligence (AI) technology to defense entities and maintain connections with the Israeli regime.

Reports on Saturday indicated that around 300 workers at DeepMind, the AI division of Google in London, have sought membership with the Communication Workers Union in recent weeks.

DeepMind employees’ decision began when Google updated its approach to AI technology and dropped its militarization clause from its ethical pledge (AI Principles).

In its previous version of AI Principles, Google had included a commitment clause to not pursue AI technologies that “cause or are likely to cause overall harm”, especially in weapons and surveillance that violate “internationally accepted norms.”

The revised version of AI Principles, states that the company pursues AI “responsibly” and in line with “widely accepted principles of international law and human rights”, but does not include the previous language about weapons and surveillance.

The tension between DeepMind and its parent company further increased when a whistle-blower revealed that Israel had been using their technology to generate targets for assassinations and attacks in Gaza, where close to 51,500 Palestinians have been killed so far.

After the revelation about the Israeli regime’s use of DeepMind AI in the Gaza war, several employees quit the company.

“We’re putting two and two together and think the technology we’re developing is being used in the [Gaza war],” said one engineer involved in the unionization effort.

“This is basically cutting-edge AI that we’re providing to an ongoing [war]. People don’t want their work used like this,” he added.

The effort to unionize needs to be recognized by the company through a vote among DeepMind employees in the UK. The company has around 2,000 staff in London.

If the unionization effort succeeds, the employees will demand that Google nullify its military contracts.

If Google still decides to sell its technologies for military purposes, then the employees have the right to go on strike.

“What I hope and what people who are active are hoping is that we stay away from any military contracts,” said one of the organizers of the unionization effort.

The Israeli regime already has a $1.2bn cloud computing agreement with Google and Amazon, called Project Nimbus.

April 27, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Israel’ continues war on Palestinian journalism: 343 attacks in 2025

Al Mayadeen | April 27, 2025

The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate disclosed on Sunday alarming findings on the condition of press freedom in Palestine, documenting widespread violations committed by the Israeli occupation during the first three months of 2025.

The report highlights a brutal and systematic campaign against Palestinian journalists, marked by lethal attacks, arrests, and the destruction of property.

According to data from the syndicate’s Freedom Committee, 15 journalists were martyred in the Gaza Strip as a result of direct targeting by the Israeli occupation forces: Seven in January and Eight in March 2025. Alongside the targeting of media workers, 17 family members and relatives of journalists were also killed. Additionally, 12 journalists’ homes were destroyed in missile and artillery strikes, while 11 journalists sustained severe injuries.

The targeting of journalists did not stop at physical attacks. The report documented 49 incidents in which press crews came under live fire, with death narrowly avoided. These attacks were often carried out under the pretext of issuing warnings or clearing journalists from specific areas, underscoring the deliberate nature of the occupation’s strategy to silence media voices.

The wave of detentions also persisted during the first quarter of 2025, with 15 journalists detained either during home raids or while reporting in the field. While some remain imprisoned, others were released after hours or days in custody. These arrests form part of a broader campaign to stifle media coverage of ongoing events in occupied Palestine.

Repression of journalistic freedoms

The report outlines further forms of repression faced by Palestinian journalists, including systematic obstruction and targeted persecution. Approximately 117 journalists endured various measures designed to prevent them from performing their duties, particularly in al-Quds and Jenin. These included arbitrary detention, intimidation, and physical assaults.

In al-Quds and Jenin, 14 journalists were subjected to violent attacks involving gunstock blows and kicking. The destruction and seizure of equipment were also widespread, with 16 cases recorded. Moreover, 31 journalists suffered from respiratory trauma after exposure to poisonous tear gas, forcing some to seek emergency medical care.

Legal harassment and administrative restrictions also increased. Around 13 journalists in al-Quds were summoned for interrogation and subsequently banned from reporting in the vicinity of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Old City. These measures are part of a broader effort by the occupation to control narratives and suppress the Palestinian media, according to the Syndicate.

In total, the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate documented approximately 343 violations, which included verbal abuse, threats, incitement, deletion of footage, legal prosecutions, and financial penalties. Given the scale and intensity of these violations, the syndicate has urged field teams to exercise extreme vigilance and adhere to strict safety protocols.

The syndicate concluded by reaffirming its commitment to documenting these crimes and presenting them to international institutions. It emphasized the importance of exposing the Israeli occupation’s actions and pursuing accountability to put an end to the aggression against Palestinian journalists and media freedom.

April 27, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Gaza’s Missing

TRT World | March 1, 2025

In Gaza, where loss is immeasurable and grief beyond expression, families search for their missing children—some lost in the rubble, others in the silence of war. TRT World’s new documentary Gaza’s Missing uncovers their stories, revealing a generation slipping away and the fight to keep their memory alive.

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April 27, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Are You Tired of Hearing About Antisemitism?

Simply stop killing Gazans and the anger directed at Jews might end

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • April 26, 2025

One might well ask how a group composed of little more than 3% of the US population has managed to gain control of the nation’s foreign policy, its legislature and executive branches, its media, its entertainment industry, its financial institutions, and its elite universities while also making the United States subservient to the wishes of a monstrous small state located seven thousand miles away and composed of its coreligionists? Well, it helps to have a great deal of money liberally applied to corrupt the existing political and economic systems, but that is not necessarily a good place to start as one might reflexively be accused of wielding a trope much favored by antisemites when discussing Zionist Jews, the group of which we are speaking. Alternatively perhaps, one might take an oblique approach by observing how the highly privileged and protected Zionists in question get rich living in America while having true loyalty to apartheid Israel, something that normally might be considered untenable if not borderline treasonous.

Recent reports suggest that there are upwards of 23,000 Americans serving in the Israeli Army (IDF), most of whom are presumably dual nationals with Israeli citizenship. Under existing law, they should all lose their US citizenship but that will not happen as Congress and the White House have both been bought. Indeed, they are being given a golden handshake by the US Congress with a new bill currently in Congress which would extend some US military benefits to the notional American citizens who are currently carrying out the Gaza genocide as members of the IDF. One such clown Congressman Brian Mast, who served in the IDF, even parades around Congress in his Israeli military uniform and no one says squat.

Beyond the Americans in the IDF, there have been several odd appointments at high levels in the US civilian bureaucracy, including the latest naming of a former Israeli Defense Department and UN Israeli Embassy employee whose husband still works at the embassy to a top position on the National Security Council. Merav Ceren will be the Director for the development of the relationship between Israel, Iran and the US. It is a highly sensitive position and one can only speculate on how she got a clearance, though it is presumed that she is a dual national, which in and of itself should have been a warning sign. Her appointment gives Israel an unusual advantage in internal policy discussions just as the Israeli government has launched a new campaign to pressure the American government to start a war with Iran rather than continue with negotiations toward a nuclear deal. Ceren previously worked at Senator Ted Cruz’s office in Washington, which may have been her stepping stone to the job as Cruz’s loyalty to Israel and all that pertains to it should be unquestioned and he is the recipient of millions of dollars in pro-Israel political “donations.” She also worked for the neocon Iran-hating Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. How she was named to the position she now holds should be considered in itself a huge security breach, one of many already experienced in Trump’s first hundred days, where loyalty to Israel trumps all other factors, as the expression might go.

The trajectory of Meyav Ceren reminds one of another Israeli woman dual national who truly stood out when it came to serving Israeli interests from inside the United States government. Sigal Pearl Mandelker might be worthy of the nickname “Queen of Sanctions” because she was the Department of the Treasury’s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (OTFI) under the first Trump administration. She handed out the punishment and cranked up the economic pain up for countries like Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and Russia during her time in office from June 2017 until October 2019 when she finally resigned after being under pressure from people like me.

OFTI’s website proclaims that it is responsible for “safeguarding the financial system against illicit use and combating rogue nations, terrorist facilitators, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferators, money launderers, drug kingpins, and other national security threats,” but it has from its founding been really all about safeguarding Israel’s perceived interests. Grant Smith notes how “the secretive office has a special blind spot for major terrorism generators, such as tax-exempt money laundering from the United States into illegal Israeli settlements and proliferation financing and weapons technology smuggling into Israel’s clandestine nuclear weapons complex.”

To be sure most of the Jews with whom I am in touch are appalled by that activism of the Mandelkers and the Cerens and even more so by what is happening in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon at the hands of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist enablers, but what we are talking about here is institutional and tribal Jewry which together have the distinction of being referred to as the Israel Lobby, which an increasing number of observers have to come to believe to be something like all powerful and the unofficial government of the United States in many relevant areas.

Ron Unz’s recent article recent article Trump vs. Harvard in a Political Wrestling Match examines the issue of Jewish supremacism and, among other factors, identifies the various mechanisms used by Jews to enhance their enrollment at top universities. He mentions in passing how Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner got into Harvard without having the level of academic achievement that normally would have been a prerequisite. It was possibly accomplished through an institutionalized “Harvard Price,” an under the table donation of several million dollars from the wealthy Kushner family. I personally recall attending an elite university in the 1960s and hearing Jewish classmates boast of how “they” comprised 40% of the first-year students. A friend of mine at Yale told me of similar boasting among the “Sons of Eli.” Forty per cent participation for 3 per cent of the population is certainly an astonishing rate of success.

Unz uses available educational data bases to demonstrate that the disparity was not due to greater intelligence or academic performance among the Jewish applicants. He concludes that “Based on these figures, Jewish students were roughly 1,000% more likely to be enrolled at Harvard and the rest of the Ivy League than white Gentiles of similar ability. This was an absolutely astonishing result given that under-representation in the range of 20% or 30% is often treated by courts as powerful prima facie evidence of racial discrimination.”

Based on my own contact with Jews in the academic world and in government, I would prefer to describe the Jewish success with universities as a product of gaming the system, i.e. producing incentives outside academia itself to make the candidates more attractive. Whether such maneuvering might be described as corruption of the process depends pretty much on where someone stands outside the system, but the fact is that it is far easier for a Jewish high school graduate to get into an elite university than it is for a comparably educated and intelligent white Christian. And if you throw into the hopper all the “minority” other applicant groups that get preferential treatment, white males who are not Jews are definitely at the bottom of list when acceptance time comes around.

Beyond cash incentives, one might also conclude that Jews are exceptionally good at self-promoting and on translating their largely fictional collective victimhood into a sympathy vote that gives them a considerable edge as they move through education and high-profile careers. The problem is that that aggressive self-promotion does not stop at the level of personal aggrandizement and opens the door to large scale group interference in both foreign and domestic government policies that run strongly contrary to the interests of most Americans. I am of course referring to groups like the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) which serve as lobbies and support structures for the apartheid Jewish state Israel, which is currently carrying out a genocide in Gaza, without any accountability or consequences as required by current US law under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA). President John F. Kennedy was trying to get such groups to register when he was assassinated in 1963.

Other Jewish national organizations are also on board in supporting Israel as are the numerous Christian Zionists, which means that killing tens of thousands of people in the Middle East is a matter of no consequence, except that once more the Israeli Jews must be and are widely portrayed as the victims. The US is complicit in the arming of Israel and the killing and actually condones it even though a majority of American voters do not support the Jewish state. Likewise, the Jewish dominated press and other media looks the other way as the slaughter goes on, as it no doubt will, and one expects that upwards of 2 million Palestinians will eventually be deported to whatever shithole is willing to accept them under pressure from the US. Otherwise, the “Justice” recommended by Israel’s Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is now in the United States on a “visit,” will likely be pursued, i.e. a bullet to the back of the head of every Palestinian.

And then there is the issue of the “crime” of antisemitism, which is the only thing that the Justice Department seems to think is worth addressing, to the point where people who have done nothing beyond expressing their concern over what is going on in the Middle East are being arrested without any charges being filed and detained while being processed for deportation. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has publicly announced that he has authorized the arrest and deportation of 300 students for their criticism of Israel. The US House of Representatives has obligingly passed a measure equating criticism of the racist, Jewish supremacist ideology of Zionism with what they describe as a hate crime “antisemitism.” Meanwhile the Israel Lobby and its politician choral society are constantly using the Jew-controlled media to sing about how Hebrew students fear going to school due to the presence of all the “antisemites.”

This is, of course, largely a convenient fiction largely created by the media, and it is rather Jews who have been beating up peaceful demonstrators. And it is extremist Jewish-funded groups that have been stirring the pot, going after anyone who is perceived as anti-Israeli. One of the groups, Canary Mission, has run a massive disinformation operation for years, publishing the names and photos of thousands of alleged pro-Palestine activists, while another group, Betar, openly encourages targeting of student activists and brags that it has “provided names of hundreds of terror supporters” to the Trump administration. Ross Glick, the head of Betar’s US branch, believes that “Foreign students on visas in the US shouldn’t have the right to free speech.” Jews, however, should be allowed to behave with complete freedom to include carrying out murder, war crimes, and human rights violations targeting those it sees as opponents.

To be sure, protesting against any of the horrors that Israel is engaged in is regarded to be one symptom of “antisemitism” which is ipso facto considered to be something like a capital offense, even though it is pretty much generated in America by the impunity and savagery with which Israel behaves towards the rest of the world. And the parameters of what might constitute a legitimate search for “antisemites” is expanding. The US State Department will now demand from foreigners wishing to travel to the United States information on their social networking sites. Those sites will be screened for anti-Israel content and the visas will be refused. This is an extension of the anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) policies now in place in 38 states in the US where a job or services will be denied to citizens if they will not sign a pledge or promise not to support the movement to boycott or punish Israel. The situation is even worse for those foreigners who are currently going through screening to become US permanent residents as it is the issue of one’s views of Israel alone that could easily determine who is allowed to become a future citizen and who is rejected.

Indeed, protecting Jews is a full-time job of the Trump Administration, even more so that under Genocide Joe Biden. Antisemitism comes up in speech after speech and fully ninety per cent of the discretionary Homeland Security Agency grants already go to Jewish groups or buildings, to the tune of more than $400 million. Interestingly, the government also appears to be constructing a data base of Jews to protect them further. The personal cellphones of dozens of current and former Barnard College employees rang last Monday evening with a text message that said it was from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, part of a review of the employment practices of Barnard. A link led to a survey that asked respondents if they were Jewish or Israeli, and if they had been subjected to harassment.

Another attack on free speech in America that is Israel related, apart from what is going on at the universities which are being destroyed from within by the government demands to protect Jews, is the role of how research institutes have traditionally been able to engage in fraternal discussions to seek action and share information with any country or government entity in the world. But researchers and university employees who engage in certain nonviolent protests or political expression over human rights conditions in Israel and Gaza may now risk loss of employment and other civil and criminal penalties, according to a new policy unveiled by the National Institutes of Health on April 21st. The agency, the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world, touches virtually every corner of the scientific community but it will now be silent over what is happening in Gaza, where every hospital has now been destroyed by Israeli-American bombs.

So there you have it. Let’s stop making excuses for Israeli behavior that depicts Jews as the perpetual victims while seeking to falsely label Israel’s enemies as the war criminals and racists. We will leave those attributes to Israel itself. Better still, arch-Zionist Donald Trump should pick up the phone in the Oval Office and call Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to tell him that America has become tired and the game is over. America will no longer be sacrificing its own interests to support a genocide and no longer will be footing the bill and providing the weapons to carry out the slaughter. “Goodbye Bibi! And don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!”

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.

April 26, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Spain granted 46 contracts to Israeli military firms since Gaza war began: Report

Press TV – April 26, 2025

Despite promising to halt weapons trade with Israel, Spain has reportedly signed 46 contracts worth over €1 billion with Israeli military firms since the Gaza war began.

The revelation came after Spain scrapped a controversial ammunition contract with an Israeli supplier for its Civil Guard, sparking internal divisions in Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s fragile Socialist coalition in recent days.

While Sanchez – one of Europe’s most vocal critics of Israel’s war on Gaza – halted arms transactions with Israel after the regime launched the October 2023 war against Gaza, the Barcelona-based Centre Delàs found that Spain, nevertheless, approved 46 military deals worth €1.045 billion ($1.2B) with Israeli firms.

According to a statement released by the think tank on Friday, which previewed an upcoming report, out of the 46 contracts involving rocket launchers and missiles, 10 have yet to be formalized.

According to the statement, while some contracts involved maintenance or upgrades of existing equipment, others represented new agreements that “could increase the dependence… on an industry essential to perpetrate a genocide.”

“If the government had agreed a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel that included, among other measures, imports and bans on hiring Israeli [military] companies or their subsidiaries, none of these contracts would have been signed,” the statement added.

The report’s co-author, Eduardo Melero, told AFP, “It is clearly demonstrated that the government lied, there was no pledge, that was pure propaganda.”

Melero explained that under Spanish law, protective gear like bulletproof materials qualify as defense equipment, meaning their purchase directly violates the government’s commitment to halt arms trade with the Israeli regime.

On Thursday, a Spanish government source said it had decided to stick to its October 2023 commitment not to provide Israeli companies with arms or revenue flows “and nor will it do so in future.”

Israel criticized Spain’s decision to scrap the bullet supply contract for the Civil Guard, arguing the government was “putting political motives above security needs.”

Last year, Spain urged other EU nations to halt the bloc’s free trade agreement with Israel in response to its continued aggression in the Gaza Strip.

The diplomatic push coincides with escalating Palestinian casualties in Gaza and a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in the blockaded territory.

Since the beginning of Israel’s aggression on Gaza, the number of Palestinian fatalities has surpassed 51,350.

April 26, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Occupation Forces Assassinate Journalist, His Wife and Daughter in Deir al-Balah

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights – April 24, 2025

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns in the strongest terms the assassination crime committed by the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) that killed a Palestinian journalist, his wife and daughter while they were walking near their house in Deir al-Balah.

PCHR believes that the ongoing targeting and surging killing of journalists undoubtedly reveal that the killing is deliberate and intentional aimed to intimidate and terrorize journalists preventing them from unveiling the truth to the world.

Such targeted attacks are part of the crime of genocide Israel is committing in the Gaza Strip. PCHR emphasizes that IOF’s unabated impunity encourages them to commit more violations and crimes against journalists and their families without any deterrence for their actions.

According to PCHR’s documentation, on Wednesday, 23 April 2025, an Israeli warplane fired a missile at journalist Sa’id Amin Abu Hasanein (42), targeting and killing him, his wife, Asmaa’ Jihad Abu Hasanein and their 15-year-old daughter, Sarah, while they were walking on al-Bee’ah Street, central Deir al-Balah. Hasanein worked in sound engineering and audio mixing at Al-Aqsa Voice Radio in Gaza.

With this crime, the number of journalists killed by IOF since 07 October 2023 has risen to 212, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office. This war has taken a record toll since the recording of journalist fatalities started in 1992.

Among those killed were 13 female journalists. Meanwhile, the majority of journalists were killed in Israeli warplane and drone airstrikes, and the remaining were shot dead by Israeli snipers. Most journalists were killed alongside their families in targeted attacks on their homes, while others were killed in indiscriminate bombings throughout the ongoing genocide.

Some journalists were directly targeted and killed while others were killed on duty. Additionally, 194 journalists have been injured under various circumstances during the aggression.

Moreover, a large number of social media activists have been targeted by the IOF, who systematically incite against them and threaten to kill them if they do not remain silent.

PCHR asserts that the targeting of journalists intends to isolate the victim and prevent the documentation of Israel’s genocidal acts against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.

Thus, PCHR calls on the international community to openly condemn the targeting of journalists, to exert pressure on Israel, the occupying power, to immediately stop these attacks, and to urgently provide international protection for civilians, including journalists, in the Gaza Strip.

PCHR emphasizes that the deliberate killing of journalists is a war crime under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC), according to Article 8 of the ICC’s Rome Statute. It also constitutes arbitrary deprivation of life under Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the perpetrators must be held accountable.

Moreover, targeting journalists constitutes a violation of the right to freedom of the press and freedom of expression, which are guaranteed under international human rights law, especially Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

PCHR calls on the international community to pressure the occupying power to immediately stop targeting journalists and to take immediate action to provide international protection for civilians, including journalists, in the Gaza Strip.

PCHR also urges the international community to exert pressure on Israel to stop its crimes, comply with the rules of international law, and provide protection for civilians.

PCHR also calls upon the international journalists’ organizations, including the International Federation of Journalists, to act urgently to push towards holding Israel accountable for the killing and targeting of journalists in Palestine, particularly in the Gaza Strip.

PCHR also calls on the ICC Prosecutor to expedite the issuance of tangible measures to accomplish the investigation into the situation of the State of Palestine, including killings of journalists who pay their lives as a cost for exposing the truth especially that the victims in Palestine have long awaited justice and accountability.

PCHR also urges the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression to scale up efforts to protect the right to freedom of opinion and expression and investigate crimes committed by IOF against journalists and media outlets in the occupied Palestinian territory.

April 26, 2025 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Al Mayadeen receives Hamas’ vision for Gaza ceasefire

Al Mayadeen | April 26, 2025

Hamas is presenting a comprehensive approach aimed at achieving a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and securing a prisoner exchange deal, a senior Palestinian Resistance official told Al Mayadeen on Saturday.

The official explained that the proposal calls for an all-in-one agreement between the two parties, ensuring a full prisoner exchange.

The Resistance is open to a long-term ceasefire lasting up to five years, under regional and international guarantees, according to the official, who maintained that once the framework is agreed upon, the situation on the ground would revert to the status prior to March 2.

Immediately following the agreement, military operations would cease, Israeli occupation forces would withdraw from the Gaza Strip, and humanitarian aid would be allowed to enter the Palestinian enclave in accordance with an established humanitarian protocol, the official emphasized.

As part of the proposal, Hamas suggests the formation of a local committee composed of independent technocrats to administer Gaza, granting it full jurisdiction and responsibilities, the official noted.

The governance committee would be established based on the Egyptian proposal for the community support committee.

The senior official also said that Hamas’ proposal aims to pave the way for achieving a broader national consensus within the framework of previous agreements reached between Palestinian factions, the latest of which is the Beijing Agreement.

April 26, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Military and Civilian Losses Surge, Questions Linger over Casualty Count

Discrepancies in casualty figures and internal military disagreements underscore the escalating human cost of Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza

Palestine Chronicle | April 25, 2025

More than 300 Israeli soldiers have been killed during the last 12 months alone, according to new figures released on Friday by the Israeli Defense Ministry—part of a rising toll that coincides with growing domestic discontent and calls to end the war on Gaza.

Quoting the Ministry, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that 316 soldiers and other members of the security and military establishment have been killed since April 2024. An additional 79 Israeli civilians were also killed in the same period.

However, a significant discrepancy emerged in the same report: the Ministry of Defense now counts nearly 6,000 new bereaved families since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023.

The term “bereaved families” typically refers to the immediate relatives of individuals killed in military service or in attacks classified as “hostile acts”.

The gap between the number of confirmed military deaths and the number of bereaved families has raised questions about how the figures are calculated—and whether they reflect additional, unreported losses or cumulative deaths from multiple timeframes.

In total, the ministry now records a total of 58,617 bereaved families in Israel, including 5,944 added since the war began.

These revelations come as tensions escalate within Israel’s military establishment.

According to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, sharp disagreements have surfaced between the Israeli Air Force and the Southern Command over the high number of civilian casualties in Gaza.

A senior security official reportedly told the paper that Air Force pilots are dissatisfied with the human cost of strikes on targets chosen by the Southern Command, also stating that civilian death tolls often exceed initial estimates.

Meanwhile, public sentiment continues to shift. In a recent editorial, the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv argued that Israel is “drowning in the Gaza quagmire” and urged the government to reach a deal—even at a steep price.

Yair Golan, leader of Israel’s Labor Party, echoed this call, warning that the country is “still paying a heavy price in blood” and cannot afford an indefinite war. He advocated for a regional political and security agreement to bring the war to an end and return the remaining hostages.

According to Haaretz, 139 prisoners have been returned alive from Gaza, while 38 bodies have been recovered. Another 40 Israelis remain in captivity, not including soldiers or police officers.

April 26, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Spain terminates multimillion deal with Israeli weapons maker

The Cradle | April 24, 2025

The Spanish government ordered the immediate termination of a $7.5 million contract to buy ammunition from a company with direct ties to Israeli arms maker Elbit Systems on 24 April.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez canceled the deal after Sumar, a group of left-wing parties, threatened to leave the governing coalition.

“After exhausting all routes for negotiation, the prime minister, deputy prime minister, and ministries involved have decided to rescind this contract,” a government source told Al Jazeera.

Earlier this week, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska formalized a contract with Israeli-owned company Guardian Homeland Security S.A. for over 15 million rounds of ammunition, causing a stir at the Moncloa Palace in light of Sanchez’s February 2024 pledge not to purchase weapons from Israel over the Gaza genocide.

Spanish media reports that authorities stressed the commitment of the progressive coalition government parties (PSOE and Sumar) “to the Palestinian cause and peace in the Middle East.” They also noted that since the US-backed ethnic cleansing campaign began in Gaza in October 2023, Spain has not purchased or sold weapons to Israeli firms, “nor will it do so in the future.”

However, despite the claims from Moncloa Palace, in February, the Progressive International (PI), the Palestinian Youth Movement, and the American Friends Service Committee revealed that over 60,000 weapon parts have been transported to Israel via Zaragoza airport in northern Spain since October 2023.

“The evidence indicates that these flights continue to this day,” investigators told elDiario.es, adding that the shipments include “parts and accessories for artillery, rifles, rocket/grenade launchers and machine guns” and “parts and accessories for revolvers and pistols.”

In December, The Intercept revealed that Washington sent over a thousand tons of ammunition to Israel on a ship that docked at a US naval base in Spain, despite Madrid’s embargo on vessels carrying military cargo bound for Israel.

“Shipments through American military bases in Spain of military materials, which may be used in the commission of international crimes, are harder to detect,” Spanish lawmaker Enrique Santiago told the New York-based outlet.

April 24, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Our 2002 Redux

By Matt Wolfson | The Libertarian Institute | April 22, 2025

In the detention of Mahmoud Khalil and the ensuing crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism by Donald Trump’s administration, a recognizable model for governance is emerging. The model is from 2002. During that year, as American citizens were distracted by the aftermath of a recession and energized from a terrorist attack, the Geoge W. Bush administration and its allies took actions to mute opposition to its Global War on Terror. These moves provoked charges from a vocal minority of Americans that the administration was acting in an unconstitutional, even a fascistic, way; and that U.S. citizens would be next to be detained or even disappeared.

What happened instead was a subtler and more insidious silencing of speech. This silencing would have been familiar to the Founders, who limited America’s government in order to encourage speech, since they knew that the mere awareness of menacing state power might be enough to forestall citizens’ willingness to speak openly in dissent. In 2002, America’s research universities and establishment media proved the Founders right. They noticed the Bush administration’s hard line and self-policed. Their silence smoothed the way for the invasion of Iraq, warrantless wiretapping, and much else we still live with today.

The 2002 plays occurred mostly behind the scenes. But they have been extensively documented by journalists sorting through their detritus.

Between September 2001 and August 2002, the Justice Department detained 762 aliens, some of them based on “minor immigration offenses,” often without proof of any actual ties to terrorism, and held them in indefinite detention rather than deporting them. To try these detainees, it set up special military courts that legal thinkers from different political persuasions, including Supreme Court Justices John Paul Stevens and Antonin Scalia, believed usurped congressional power and the writ of habeas corpus. The administration created an Information Awareness Office in the Pentagon focused on “story telling, change detection, and truth maintenance” and “biologically inspired algorithms for agent control”: e.g. on the surveillance of American citizens for spreading government narratives. The Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans began releasing narratives through more traditional channels, including leaking to The New York Times about purported links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.

The players pushing these policies and narratives were deeply linked to Israel and Saudi Arabia, which had interests in American involvement in the Middle East as a bulwark against Iraq and Iran. Powerful supporters in the media echoed them.

The Weekly Standard vociferously attacked those urging a cautious response after 9/11, including by offering “Susan Sontag awards.” These amounted to a regular bludgeoning of America’s foremost leftwing intellectual, after she argued in a 450 word article in The New Yorker that “a few shreds of historical awareness” might help prevent future 9/11s. The New Republic, whose literary editor publicly dropped his friendship with Sontag, began publishing an “Idiot Watch” about opponents of the rumored invasion of Iraq. Harvard Law School’s Laurence Tribe, who had just represented Al Gore in his losing litigation before the Supreme Court over the 2000 election, argued in The New Republic in favor of detaining prisoners via military tribunals, the position later argued against by Justice Scalia. New Republic contributor and Harvard president Larry Summers argued that petitions for American divestment in Israeli settlements, arguably a key driver of Islamic anger at America, could be “anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent.”

In the face of the push, knowledge producing institutions cooperated. The New York Times, dependent on White House sources, reduced a series of reports that cast doubt on the connection between Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) to one back page story. (The story’s author, James Risen, said later that “It’s like any corporate culture, where you know what management wants, and no one has to tell you.”) The Washington Post, similarly dependent on White House sources, backed the invasion of Iraq. University presidents and many eminent professors held a generally skeptical view as to the Iraq War’s plausible success—but they kept their dissent private.

Together, these operators created a bipartisan intelligentsia invested in or at least acceding to the Bush Administration’s “democracy agenda” in the Middle East, the “hope and change” agenda of its day.

The people resisting these moves were undone by either their even-handedness or their attention-seeking. The late Ronald Dworkin, one of America’s most eminent legal minds, wrote lucid critiques of these policies that were nonetheless unlikely to bring people to the barricades. The filmmaker Michael Moore aimed his hit documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, as its title suggests, to cash in on provocation at the expense of crossover appeal. Instead of making a difference in the debate, Moore made money as a cult hero, which he poured into progressive identity politicking. Meantime, the majority of the country supported the invasion of Iraq.

Within three years of the invasion—even before the loss of $3 trillion dollars, 7,000 Americans, and at least 80,000 Middle Eastern civilians—almost all of the liberal centrists who had backed it had bailed out, sort of. They expressed their “regret—but no shame” as well as their “pain” at their “mistake”: a mistake that was nonetheless “impossible” for them “to denounce,” since they had made the mistake for good reasons. They also expressed their disappointment with the Bush administration—and were duly featured in the pages of The New Republic, Slate, and The New Yorker. They turned their support to the Democratic Party and Barack Obama’s hope and change agenda. Obama’s Democrats, afraid of being called soft on terror, continued most of Bush’s policies, most of which continue to this day.

Since the beginning of March 2025, we appear to be in a 2002 repeat.

The Trump Administration has revoked the visas of 300 visa holders, among them college students and medical students who have expressed their opposition to American policy in the Middle East. It has equipped the State Department with artifical intelligence (AI) tools that scan the social-media posts of foreign students for posts that equate, in the administration’s view, support for Hamas. It has cancelled the appointment of a prominent anti-interventionist to the Department of Homeland Security and stalled the appointment of another to the Department of Defense. It has deepened ties with Saudi Arabia, and has likely committed to the project of razing, relocating, and rebuilding Gaza. It has started bombing the Saudis’ and Israelis’ enemies in Yemen—even though the trade benefits from this bombing mostly accrue, as Vice President J.D. Vance said, to Europe. The president has also taken a hard line on Iran, threatening bombings.

Powerful media players, like in 2002, have lent their support to these moves. The prime driver is The Atlantic, which has succeeded The New Republic as establishment Washington’s go-to magazine—and the promoter of many new bad ideas from psychological racism to restorative justice. Not only does the magazine’s majority investor have ties to Saudi Arabia but its editor is a former Israeli Defense Forces guard who, as a journalist in the 2000s, reinforced the Bush administration’s case for the Iraq War. Recently it’s become clear that The Atlantic has a line to National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, the Trump Administration’s resident interventionist. Echoing The Atlantic’s line are its contributors: many former government operators who teach at international schools of prestigious American research universities and appear at the Aspen Institute.

Universities are taking the hint. Columbia University set up an Office of Institutional Equity which has investigated students under a troublingly sweeping definition of anti-semitism. Columbia also “placed the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African studies department and the Center for Palestine Studies under review.” And it fired its interim president, Katrina Armstrong, for failing to propitiate the Trump administration. Meantime, reportedly under similar pressure, the two leaders of Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies left their positions. New York University canceled a speech by a medic from Doctors Without Borders about Gaza which included images of injured children because these “slides about Gaza could be perceived as anti-Semitic.”

Unlike in 2002, there is broad resistance to these moves on the left and on the right. But the resisters are making many different arguments which entail complex questions; about the rights of citizens versus non-citizens; about the use of judicial review. The real issue remains what it was in 2002: the shutting down of debate inside knowledge-producing institutions with major influence over information flows. Democracy, as Susan Sontag said in 2001, promotes “candor” and “disagreement.” At least it should.

Like then, today’s shutting down is not widespread enough to provoke widespread resistance. But it’s enough to create a chill. That chill can persuade a third year college student, after a call home to worried parents, not to write an op-ed about campus speech for a school paper. It can persuade a Middle Eastern studies professor, mindful of Washington’s new interest in her classroom, to water down her lesson plan. It can persuade a second-year columnist at The Washington Post, now owned by recent Trump accomodator Jeff Bezos, not to touch the Yemen issue in her column that week or month or year. It can lead an influencer on Instagram, owned by other recent Trump accomodator Mark Zuckerberg, not to talk about Saudi human rights abuses. Anti-intervention protests will likely get smaller; the space for doubt in establishment newspapers will likely shrink. All of this amounts to the insidious silencing the Founders imagined. It probably already is.

[Some of] Trump’s genuinely populist supporters support this crackdown on the same logic as they support other Trump policies: Trump is silencing voices who aren’t citizens, who don’t seem to like America, and who are extracting resources—in this case education—from Americans. But this operation is not like the others. It affects American citizens by casting a chill on speech; and its function is to shut down opposition to an American involvement abroad.

What’s more, the people backing this play are no friends to America First. They are liberal and neoconservative centrists who, when the administration runs into difficulty, will repeat their play from the early 2000s. They will use the failure to usher into power a set of Democratic politicians who are already moving to the political center. Larry Summers is already making the play clear. Even as he applauds Harvard for changing its approach to the Middle East in response to Trump, he accuses Trump of being “dictatorial” towards universities and predicts “catastrophic” economic results from Trump’s presidency.

These centrists are dedicated above all to the maintenance of institutional power. Their rising influence in a presidency that was a referendum for popular constitutional government is cause for alarm, and for public pushback, and for debate—all of the things the institutions are trying to deny.

April 23, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Smoke in Rome: What’s really cooking between Trump and Tehran?

While US negotiators trade smiles with Tehran, internal rifts and foreign pressure reveal just how fragile Washington’s position has become

By Farhad Ibragimov | RT | April 23, 2025

Last Saturday, the second round of US-Iran nuclear talks took place in Rome, following an initial meeting held a week before in Muscat, Oman. Both sides had described the talks as “constructive,” but that optimism quickly collided with a wave of conflicting signals from the Trump administration. Despite the encouraging tone, it remained unclear whether a new nuclear agreement was truly within reach.

At the outset of negotiations, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz – an outspoken Iran hawk – laid down a hardline condition: Iran must completely dismantle its uranium enrichment program if it wanted any deal with the US. But after the Muscat meeting, Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, who led the US delegation, struck a very different note. In an interview with Fox News, he suggested that Tehran might be allowed to maintain limited uranium enrichment for peaceful energy purposes – something that would have been a nonstarter just days earlier.

Witkoff emphasized the importance of strict verification protocols to prevent any militarization of Iran’s nuclear capabilities, including oversight of missile technology and delivery systems. Notably absent from his remarks? Any mention of “dismantlement.” This shift hinted that the administration might be considering a modified return to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – the very agreement that Trump tore up in 2018, branding it a “disaster.”

But the pivot didn’t last. Just one day later, Witkoff reversed course in a post on X, doubling down on the demand for full dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear and weapons programs. So what triggered the rhetorical whiplash?

According to Axios, Trump huddled with top national security officials just three days after the Muscat talks to reassess the US strategy. In that meeting, Vice President JD Vance, Witkoff, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth argued for a pragmatic approach. Pushing Tehran to dismantle its entire nuclear infrastructure, they warned, would tank the talks. Iran had already made it clear that such sweeping concessions were off the table. Vance even suggested Washington should brace for some level of compromise.

But not everyone agreed. A rival faction – led by Waltz and Secretary of State Marco Rubio – saw things differently. They argued that Iran’s current vulnerability gave the US a unique upper hand, one that shouldn’t be squandered. If Tehran failed to meet America’s terms, they insisted, the US should be ready to strike militarily or greenlight Israeli action.

The divide exposes a deeper strategic rift within the Trump administration. Between the maximalist view that Iran must be completely disarmed and the more flexible position that aims to curb weaponization while preserving peaceful enrichment lies a vast gray area. The lack of a unified message – or even basic consensus – risks leaving the US at a disadvantage against a seasoned and coordinated Iranian negotiating team.

In short, Trump finds himself in a difficult balancing act. On one hand, it’s clear he wants to avoid military escalation. The decision to send Witkoff – a figure known for his willingness to compromise – signals a genuine interest in diplomacy over saber-rattling. If hardliners had the upper hand in Washington, it’s unlikely the second round in Rome would have happened at all.

On Monday, April 21, Trump cautiously told reporters the talks were going “very well,” but warned that real progress would take time. His choice of words reflected a desire to stay flexible, while acknowledging the complexity – and risks – of negotiating with Tehran.

Optimism seems more palpable on the Iranian side. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the two sides had found significantly more common ground in Rome than in Muscat. His remarks suggest that momentum is building and that real progress may be on the horizon.

Araghchi’s itinerary also raised eyebrows. Before heading to Rome, he made a stop in Moscow, where he met with President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. He reportedly carried a personal message from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – what he called “a message to the world.” The West didn’t miss the symbolism: the visit was widely interpreted as a public reaffirmation of the Moscow–Tehran alliance. Retired US Army Colonel and former Pentagon advisor Douglas MacGregor noted on X that any major American military action against Iran would likely draw a response from Russia, Tehran’s strategic partner.

On that same day, President Putin signed a law ratifying a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Iran – further cementing political and economic cooperation. Against the backdrop of fragile US-Iran talks, the Moscow-Tehran axis suddenly looks more consequential. With these growing ties, Washington may find it harder to exert unilateral pressure on Iran.

Meanwhile, not everyone in Tehran is sold on the negotiations. Many Iranian officials remain skeptical of Trump, whose decision to unilaterally scrap the JCPOA in 2018 still looms large. Their distrust extends beyond Trump himself to a broader concern: that future US presidents may once again reverse course. If Obama’s deals were dismantled by Trump, why wouldn’t Trump’s agreements suffer the same fate?

Despite these tensions, major international outlets have confirmed that two more rounds of talks are planned: one in Geneva next week, and another in Oman the week after. The continued diplomatic activity points to a shared interest in keeping the conversation alive. For now, both Trump’s measured optimism and Iran’s cautious tone suggest that, at least in the near term, the risk of war has receded.

This de-escalation in rhetoric reflects a deeper truth: despite lingering mistrust and domestic political pressures, both sides see value in staying at the table. You don’t have to be a policy wonk to see that. But in Israel, the mood is far more anxious. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – never one to hide his skepticism about engaging Iran – has condemned the talks. For Tel Aviv, negotiations risk softening Tehran’s isolation and threatening Israel’s strategic position.

Still, Trump’s priority isn’t regional politics – it’s his legacy. He wants to be seen as the president who avoided war and brokered a deal the American public can get behind. In that light, Netanyahu’s objections may have to wait

Farhad Ibragimov, lecturer at the Faculty of Economics at RUDN University, visiting lecturer at the Institute of Social Sciences of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration

April 23, 2025 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment