Israel Stalls and the International Court of Justice Complies
By Rick Sterling – Dissident Voice – April 23, 2025
One year ago, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel had fifteen months to prepare their defense (“counter memorial”) against the charges of genocide filed by South Africa. They were told to present their arguments by 28 July 2025.
That seems like a very long time in a case involving the daily killing of many people, including children. But it was not enough time for Israel, which on 27 March 2025 filed a request to extend the time.
In a very recent decision, the International Court of Justice has obliged and extended the time by six months. Israel can continue killing with impunity, and their defense to the International Court of Justice is not required until 28 January 2026.
There has been very little news of this decision. The ICJ did not issue a press release, despite this being their most sensational case. Accordingly, the decision has not been reported in The New York Times, The Washington Post, or The Guardian. Meanwhile, Israeli media reported, “EXCLUSIVE: Israel secures six month delay in Hague Court proceedings.”
Another important story that has been largely ignored by Western media is regarding the sole Judge who voted in favor of Israel in every single decision so far in this case. That person, Judge Julia Sebutinde, has been revealed to have grossly plagiarized the writings of two ultra-zionists: Douglas Feith and David Brog. Feith is a co-author of the infamous Netanyahu plan, “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” and part of the Bush/Cheney team that campaigned for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Brog is Jewish but helped to found Christians United for Israel. He is currently the head of Miriam Adelson’s “Maccabee Task Force”. Anti-zionist scholar Norman Finkelstein has discovered that 32% of the ICJ judge’s pro-Israel dissenting opinion was plagiarized from Feith, Brog, and others.
As the saying goes, “Justice delayed is justice denied.” And if nobody reports or knows about it, did it really happen? Along with dead Palestinians in Gaza, Israel is trying and perhaps succeeding in killing the International Court of Justice.
Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist in the SF Bay Area. He can be reached at rsterling1@protonmail.com
War Dust and Collateral Inhalation: Israel Breathes in Gaza’s Dust
A Forensic Study of the Self-Inflicted Consequences of Modern Warfare
By Dennis Kucinich | April 23, 2025
Gaza is suffering the most intense bombing, per capita, of anywhere on earth, ever.
Over 100,000 tons of bombs have been dropped on Gaza, an area slightly smaller than the City of Detroit, Michigan, resulting in the recorded deaths of at least 60,000 Gazans and injuries to hundreds of thousands.¹
It is impossible to overstate the effects of the abominable bombing war on Gazans, their lives, their families, their health, and their communities.
What has escaped attention up until now is the undeniable environmental and health effects of the bombing of Gazans on Israelis, as well as on citizens of neighboring states, and the potential harm to U.S. military personnel in the region.
A study of explosion physics based on declassified Department of Defense data, as well as blast temperature data and consequent emissions; a review of wind patterns, together with publicly available data of health effects from 9/11, as well as data gathered from U.S. veterans of the Persian Gulf War, yield a shocking conclusion.
Israel, in executing the unprecedented bombing attack on Gaza, is, in effect, bombing itself, with grave consequences for the public health of its people.² What is being visited upon Gaza does not stay in Gaza.
The sustained bombing of Gaza pulverizes stone, heavy metals, and the human body. The vaporizing of human beings under extreme heat and pressure combines with dust, water vapor, and metallic particles the size of microns, all blasted upwards, aerosolized, wind-driven across borders, into Israel and surrounding countries.³
The unlimited bombing of Gaza has created an unparalleled ecological and biomedical feedback loop. Israel exhales death in Gaza and inhales the Gaza it has vaporized.
Israel, in bombing neighboring Gaza, is breathing in its own fallout, along with the vaporized remains of its declared enemies. The external consequences of violence becomes internalized. The substance of the oppressed communes with the oppressor.
On a clinical level, breathing in bioaerosols can compromise human immune systems.⁴ Breathing in ultrafine particles from non-biological war dust can cross the blood-brain barrier and contribute to neurodegenerative disease.⁵
Israel and the Palestinians share a common atmosphere. They inhale the same war dust, from bomb materials, carbon soot, and the fine particle remains of vaporized Gazans.
Human cremation occurs at temperatures between 1,400°F and 1,800°F.⁶ The blast temperatures of the bombs identified as being dropped on Gaza—MK-84 bombs: 4,496°F; GBU-39s: 4,892°F; BLU-109s: 3,632°F—far exceed this range.⁷ In comparison, blast furnaces used to melt steel operate at 2,500°F to 2,800°F.⁸
People at the epicenter of such bombings in Gaza are instantly turned into dust. This is a factor confounding the determination of exactly how many people have perished in Gaza since October 2023. How can an accurate body count be achieved if bodies have been turned to smoke and ash?
Let’s look at 9/11. The total confirmed dead: 2,753. Almost 40% of the victims were never identified, as their bodies were fragmented or vaporized, reduced to dust.⁹
When a bomb hits its target—for example, a tent city—the high-temperature explosion can vaporize a person so thoroughly that microscopic particles of DNA and loose molecules are suspended in air, mingling with dust and smoke as bioaerosols.¹⁰
These biologicals—DNA and fat in human tissue—turn to carbon, black dust, and smoke. The minerals of bones and teeth, skeletal dust, go airborne. Fragments of cells can float in the air, bubbles holding fat, bone, and broken DNA strands travel with the wind and are breathed in dozens of miles from the blast site.¹¹
It is not only the superheat that destroys the human body. The explosive force of a bomb, in terms of pounds per square inch (psi), can produce vaporization at the blast site, an impact equivalent to a plane plunging into the earth at high speed.¹²
As 100,000 tons of bombs have been dropped in Gaza, the matter destroyed takes a different form, as toxic pollutants carried aloft in gas, dust, vapor, and particulates.
Specifically, toxic quantities of cadmium, nickel, lead, mercury, and arsenic are released into the air, together with dioxins, furans, PCBs, (polychlorinated biphenyls); PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) and VOCs (volatile organic compounds).¹³
One calculation indicates that 100,000 tons of bombs, exploded in a densely populated area of Gaza, can generate between 800,000 to 1.2 million tons of pollution.¹⁴
Add to this the dust of Gazans’ human remains and you have extreme airborne consequences carried by the wind, directly into Israel, particularly the central and northern regions, and far beyond.
There are relevant comparisons for the health effects of a tremendous explosion in an urban area. A month after 9/11, people in Manhattan began to develop chronic coughs.
A longitudinal study of members of the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) revealed that after six months, firemen began to suffer from chronic bronchitis; others saw the onset of pulmonary fibrosis.¹⁵
Two years after 9/11, a higher incidence of thyroid, prostate, breast, and other cancers arose among those exposed to 9/11 contaminants. Early-onset neurodegenerative, Alzheimer’s-type symptoms presented after five years or longer.¹⁶
Based on epidemiological data from studies of those near the people and buildings destroyed on 9/11, certain health effects can be anticipated in Israel.
The people of Sderot, Netivot, Be’er Sheva—all within a short distance of Gaza—are at high risk of long-term health effects of the bombing. Ashkelon and Tel Aviv have been exposed to environmental consequences, as has northern Israel and even Jordan.
While Israel’s Ministry of Environmental Protection operates air-monitoring stations at sites proximate to Gaza, it would be instructive, given the intensity of the bombing, to see if the effects of war-related pollution are being fully disclosed to the Israeli public.¹⁷
Given the unprecedented levels of bombing in Gaza, the types of bombs used, their explosive power, the extent of physical destruction, the extraordinary number of casualties, the creation of large plumes of black smoke containing the genetic material of burned and vaporized Gazans, the people of Israel—on the other side of the Gaza boundary—will likely experience increased levels of respiratory illness, asthma-like and other pulmonary diseases, and a sharp increase in cancer as a direct result of being exposed to toxic airborne substances present at a microscopic level.¹⁸
Added to this direct hazard is the ongoing recirculation of wind across the vast hellscape to which Gaza has been reduced. That, too, will sweep up and redistribute the contaminants from the over 50 million tons of debris from the land of Gaza to the land of Israel.
At this point, the calamity which has befallen Gaza as a result of incessant bombing will visit, in various forms and degrees of harm, southern and central Israel, western Jordan, the northeast Sinai Peninsula, northern Egypt (Delta and Cairo), Lebanon, Cyprus, southwestern Syria, northwestern Saudi Arabia, southeastern Turkey, Crete, Greece, Sicily, and Malta. Additionally, sea spray can carry aerosolized particles clear across the Mediterranean Sea.¹⁹
The United States has a substantial number of Naval forces in the eastern Mediterranean, including two aircraft carriers, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the USS Gerald R. Ford, as well as numerous other assault ships.²⁰
U.S. military installations are present at Incirlik, Turkey, Naples, Italy, Cyprus, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. All face “war dust” pollution hazards as a result of the bombing of Gaza.²¹
I know well the adverse health consequences suffered by US servicemen and women who served in the Persian Gulf War, 1990–1991.
Veterans of that war came to my congressional office complaining of constant pain, neurological, musculoskeletal, gastrointestinal and respiratory symptoms, all of which were ignored or covered up by the Department of Defense.
As a Member of Congress, over the objections of the Department of Defense, I took up the cause of veterans who suffered what came to be known as Gulf War Illness, a multi-symptom condition still affecting, to this very day, nearly 245,000 veterans of the Persian Gulf War.²²
Bernie Sanders and I worked together in Congress to obtain funding for research into GWI, which is now a medically recognized, war-related condition.²³
When you see the measurable, catastrophic effect which war environments can have on those who serve, and the measurable catastrophic effect of those proximate to the 9/11 attacks, and the indefensible obliteration bombing of Gaza and its people, you may come to an understanding of the wholly fallacious notion of the containment of war and why I assert Israel is bombing itself.
The bombing of Gaza has created a human health crisis which cannot be ignored any longer.
There must be an immediate cease-fire on humanitarian and ecological bases.
- The UN must urgently address the collapse of the Palestinian public health system, including the implications of the war for respiratory diseases and cancers among survivors.
- The UN must lead a Transboundary Environmental and Human Health Assessment of the Immediate and Long-Term Implications of War Dust, which will include transboundary assessments of the toxic environmental effects of the war.
- Monitoring stations must be set up. The people of the world have a right to know what is in the air they breathe.
International humanitarian and environmental law must, at last, be enforced.
UN representatives must determine a path forward.
Israel and the United States must consider the far-reaching consequences of the decision to attack and bomb the people of another country.
The tortured mindset which licenses the extinction of Gazans is now a spectre haunting the entire world, with its ghoulish designs on Iran. I will explore that approaching cataclysm in a future column.
Human rights and compassion are not considerations in bombing Gazans. Perhaps enlightened self-preservation can be introduced as a means to stop the bombing, once and for all.
The war against Gazans must end, and perhaps through the suffering of Gazans, and understanding the regional and global health impact of bombing, we may understand why it is time to call an end to all wars.
Trump’s NSC Director for Israel and Iran Previously Worked for Israeli Ministry of Defense
By Ryan Grim and Saagar Enjeti | Drop Site News | April 21, 2025
The American official overseeing White House policy toward both Israel and Iran inside the National Security Council formerly worked for the Israeli Ministry of Defense, Drop Site News has learned. Merav Ceren’s appointment as Director for Israel and Iran at the NSC has not previously been reported, but her work with Israel’s MoD is well known among GOP circles.
Ceren’s 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.
NSC spokesperson Brian Hughes confirmed that Ceren is now an official at the NSC and defended her as “a patriotic American.”
“Merav is a patriotic American who has served in the United States government for years, including for President Trump, Senator Ted Cruz, and Congressman James Comer,” said Hughes. “We are thrilled to have her expertise in the NSC, where she carries out the President’s agenda on a range of Middle East issues.”
Ceren includes her time with Israel’s Ministry of Defense in her bio at the pro-Israel think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).
The Israeli campaign has forced the issue into the top echelons of government. At a high-level meeting reported on recently by the New York Times, Vice President J.D. Vance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth all pushed back against Israel’s plan for a major strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. They were even joined by NSC Director Michael Waltz, who warned that Israel’s effort would not succeed without ample U.S. support. Waltz and CENTCOM commander, Gen. Michael Kurilla, the Times reported, had previously been open to entertaining the Israeli idea and were briefed by Israeli military officials on a range of plans.
It’s rare for a foreign country to be able to pitch American policymakers on a joint war effort and look across the table to see a former member of their own Ministry of Defense working for the Americans. As Trump debates his tariff policy, for instance, there are no high-level officials who previously worked for the Chinese Communist Party present.
Ceren’s FDD bio says that while working for the Israeli military she participated in negotiations in the West Bank between Israel’s Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) and the Palestinian Authority. COGAT is the Israeli agency now refusing entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, sparking a humanitarian crisis of unspeakable proportions. Ceren is the sister of Omri Ceren, a bellicose neoconservative and longtime foreign policy adviser to Sen. Ted Cruz.
In 2021, she authored the article “The Moral Case for High-Tech Weapons” for The New Atlantis, a long-form style publication that seeks to “understand the core anxiety about tech as the threat of dehumanization.”
Deporting dissent: The dangerous precedent set by the persecution of pro-Palestine activists
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | April 22, 2025
“Rights are granted to those who align with power,” Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student, eloquently wrote from his cell. This poignant statement came soon after a judge ruled that the government had met the legal threshold to deport the young activist on the nebulous ground of “foreign policy”.
“For the poor, for people of colour, for those who resist injustice, rights are but words written on water,” Khalil further lamented. The plight of this young man, whose sole transgression appears to be his participation in the nationwide mobilisation to halt the Israeli genocide in Gaza, should terrify all Americans. This concern should extend even to those who are not inclined to join any political movement and possess no particular sympathy for – or detailed knowledge of – the extent of the Israeli atrocities in Gaza, or the United States’ role in bankrolling this devastating conflict.
The perplexing nature of the case against Khalil, like those against other student activists, including Turkish visa holder Rumeysa Ozturk, starkly indicates that the issue is purely political. Its singular aim appears to be the silencing of dissenting political voices.
Judge Jamee E. Comans, who concurred with the Trump Administration’s decision to deport Khalil, cited “foreign policy” in an uncritical acceptance of the language employed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Rubio had previously written to the court, citing “potentially serious foreign policy consequences” stemming from Khalil’s actions, which he characterised as participation in “disruptive activities” and “anti-Semitic protests”.
The latter accusation has become the reflexive rejoinder to any form of criticism levelled against Israel, a tactic prevalent even long before the current catastrophic genocide in Gaza.
Those who might argue that US citizens remain unaffected by the widespread US government crackdowns on freedom of expression must reconsider. On 14 April, the government decided to freeze $2.2 billion in federal funding to the University of Harvard.
Beyond the potential weakening of educational institutions and their impact on numerous Americans, these financial measures also coincide with a rapidly accelerating and alarming trend of targeting dissenting voices within the US, reaching unprecedented extents. On 14 April, Massachusetts immigration lawyer Nicole Micheroni, a US citizen, publicly disclosed receiving a message from the Department of Homeland Security requesting her self-deportation.
Furthermore, new oppressive bills are under consideration in Congress, granting the Department of Treasury expansive measures to shut down community organisations, charities and similar entities under various pretenses and without adhering to standard constitutional legal procedures.
Many readily conclude that these measures reflect Israel’s profound influence on US domestic politics and the significant ability of the Israel lobby in Washington DC to interfere with the very democratic fabric of the US, whose Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech and assembly.
While there is much truth in that conclusion, the narrative extends beyond the complexities of the Israel-Palestine issue.
For many years, individuals, predominantly academics, who championed Palestinian rights were subjected to trials or even deported, based on “secret evidence”. This essentially involved a legal practice that amalgamated various acts, such as the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) and the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), among others, to silence those critical of US foreign policy.
Although some civil rights groups in the US challenged the selective application of law to stifle dissent, the matter hardly ignited a nationwide conversation regarding the authorities’ violations of fundamental democratic norms, such as due process (Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments).
Following the terrorist attacks [events] of September 11, 2001, however, much of that legal apparatus was applied to all Americans in the form of the PATRIOT Act. This legislation broadened the government’s authority to employ surveillance, including electronic communications and other intrusive measures.
Subsequently, it became widely known that even social media platforms were integrated into government surveillance efforts. Recent reports have even suggested that the government mandated social media screening for all US visa applicants who have travelled to the Gaza Strip since 1 January 2007.
In pursuing these actions, the US government is effectively replicating some of the draconian measures imposed by Israel on the Palestinians. The crucial distinction, based on historical experience, is that these measures tend to undergo continuous evolution, establishing legal precedents that swiftly apply to all Americans and further compromise their already deteriorating democracy.
Americans are already grappling with their perception of their democratic institutions, with a disturbingly high number of 72 percent, according to a Pew Research Centre survey in April 2024, believing that US democracy is no longer a good example for other countries to follow.
The situation has only worsened in the past year. While US activists advocating for justice in Palestine deserve unwavering support and defence for their profound courage and humanity, Americans must also recognise that they, and the remnants of their democracy, are equally at risk.
“Our defence is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere,” is the timeless quote associated with Abraham Lincoln. Yet, every day that Mahmoud Khalil and others spend in their cells, awaiting deportation, stands as the starkest violation of that very sentiment. Americans must not permit this injustice to persist.
Israel arrests Palestinian child to pressure his father to turn himself in
MEMO | April 22, 2025
Palestinian sources reported that Israeli occupation forces arrested a Palestinian child from the town of Kafr Ad-Dik, west of the occupied city of Salfit, to pressure his father to turn himself in.
Sources told Quds Press that Israeli occupation forces raided the home of Palestinian Ahmed Abdel Karim Al-Dik to arrest him. They searched the house and vandalised it. When they did not find him, they arrested his 12-year-old son, Ahmed, who is named after his father, as he was born while his father was detained in Israeli prisons.
They added that soldiers blindfolded and handcuffed Ahmed, photographed him, and sent the photo to Ahmed’s father via WhatsApp. They demanded that he turn himself in, threatening to detain Ahmed and the rest of the family otherwise.
They went even further, having Ahmed send a voice note to his father at gunpoint, asking his father to come because he was afraid of being arrested, beaten, or even killed.
The Palestinian Authority’s Commission of Detainees and Ex-detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club confirmed in a joint statement issued on Monday, that Israeli occupation forces had arrested at least 20 Palestinian citizens from the West Bank, including children and former prisoners between Sunday evening and Monday morning.
Syrian security forces detain Palestinian resistance leaders
The Cradle | April 22, 2025
Two top officials from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement in Syria have been detained by Syrian security forces.
Khaled Khaled, head of PIJ operations in Syria, and Yasser al-Zafari, head of the organizational committee, were arrested five days ago.
The Syria TV outlet acknowledged the arrests, yet Damascus has not commented officially on the matter.
The arrests come after reports that the US has issued a list of conditions that Syrian authorities must fulfill in exchange for relief from sanctions that were imposed by Washington on former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government.
These conditions include the destruction of any chemical weapons, cooperation on “counter-terrorism,” and ensuring foreign fighters are not granted top positions, according to Reuters.
Reuters also said that “one of the conditions was keeping Iran-backed Palestinian groups at a distance.”
The arrests coincide with Israel’s continued expansion of its occupation of southern Syria, and come after a visit to Damascus by US Congressman Cory Mills, who held talks with Syria’s interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa and Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani.
“The president and the leadership have demonstrated their willingness to work with Israel as they seek to prevent Hashd al-Shaabi from transferring weapons from Iraq through Syria into Lebanon,” Mills said in an interview with the Jusoor outlet.
The PIJ’s armed wing, the Quds Brigades, released a statement about the arrests on 22 April.
Khaled and Zafari were detained “without any explanation for the reasons of their arrest, and in a manner which we would not have hoped to see from our brothers [in Syria],” the Quds Brigades statement reads.
“Day five has passed and you have two of our best cadres,” it said. “We in the Quds Brigades hope that our brothers in the Syrian government will release our brothers held by them.”
“At this time when we have been fighting the Zionist enemy continuously for more than a year and a half in the Gaza Strip without surrender, we hope to receive support and appreciation from our Arab brothers, not the opposite,” it added.
Under Bashar al-Assad’s government, Syria was a haven for Palestinian resistance factions, including the PIJ and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP–GC).
Days after the fall of Assad’s government, Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar reported that the new government in Syria ordered Palestinian resistance groups to dissolve all military formations in the country.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the group that toppled the former government, launched a wave of closures targeting Palestinian faction offices after entering Damascus in December 2024, according to The Cradle’s Palestine correspondent.
Offices belonging to Fatah al-Intifada, the Baath-aligned Al-Sa’iqa movement, and the PFLP–GC were shuttered, with their weapons, vehicles, and real estate seized.
Several Palestinian officials were detained and placed under house arrest.
Palestinian-British academic Makram Khoury-Machool detained in London
Al Mayadeen | April 22, 2025
British border authorities detained Palestinian-British academic Professor Makram Khoury-Machool on Friday evening upon his return from Paris to London, subjecting him to a four-hour interrogation under the UK’s 2019 “Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act.”
Devices seized, personal belongings searched
During the investigation, British police confiscated Professor Khoury-Machool’s mobile phone and personal laptop, thoroughly searching all his belongings, including identification and credit cards. No formal charges were presented, raising concerns over the basis and implications of the detention.
Authorities also took his fingerprints, captured multi-angle photographs, and collected DNA samples from inside his mouth.
No official clarification yet
UK border police indicated that they may contact Professor Khoury-Machool again within the next seven days. So far, no official statement has been issued to explain the reasons behind his detention or the content of the interrogation.
The incident occurred in the presence of his 8-year-old son, who witnessed the extended questioning and detention of his father until midnight on Good Friday.
Professor Khoury-Machool, who is of Palestinian origin, is a well-known intellectual and media figure. His recent public activity includes participation in a pro-Gaza demonstration in Paris on April 16, 2025, where he shared a photo of himself at the event via his X account.
Yemen: US fails in its aggression since day one; Trump ‘accountable’ for fatalities
Press TV – April 21, 2025
The chairman of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council says Sana’a has not suffered even one percent damage at the military level despite all US assaults in support of Israel’s war on Gaza.
“I assure you that the aggression failed from its very first day, and we had previously managed to obtain information that thwarted the aggression before it occurred,” Mahdi al-Mashat said during a meeting of the National Defense Council on Sunday.
He added that if the Americans increase their mobilization, it means their weapons have failed.
Referring to US warship USS Harry S. Truman, Mashat said that it lost its command and control and was rendered out of service in the early days of the aggression.
The warship “achieved nothing for the enemy, forcing them to bring in other vessels and use other weapons,” he further said.
Mashat also said that, “The criminal US President Donald Trump will be held accountable for all that he did to civilians and civilian facilities, whether he remains in office or not.”
The US military has been carrying out almost daily attacks on Yemen for the past month, claiming that they are aimed at stopping the Ansarullah movement’s attacks on Israel-related ships.
The Yemeni army, however, said it will not stop its attacks on Israel-bound vessels until the regime halts its genocidal war on Gaza.
“Our stance in supporting our brothers in Gaza is firm and we will never retreat from it,” he said, adding that Yemen cannot allow the Americans and the “Israelis” to prey upon the Palestinian people in Gaza alone.
Since March, over 200 individuals have lost their lives due to US aggression in Yemen.
In retaliation for Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the US-UK-led assault on Yemen, the Yemeni Armed Forces began to carry out a series of strikes against Israeli, American, and British interests in the Red Sea and nearby regions in late 2023.
As the brutal conflict in Gaza worsened, Yemen imposed a strategic blockade on major maritime routes to hinder the movement of military supplies to their enemies and to pressure the international community to respond to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Why AIPAC Must Register Under FARA: Exposing Israel’s Influence in Washington
Track AIPAC
For decades, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has served as Israel’s unofficial arm in Washington, shaping U.S. policy to favor Israeli interests while avoiding the transparency required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). This evasion hides AIPAC’s role as a foreign proxy and undermines American democracy.
What Is FARA?
Enacted in 1938 to counter Nazi and Soviet influence, FARA mandates that anyone acting as an “agent of a foreign principal”—engaging in political activities in the U.S. at the direction or request of a foreign government—register with the Department of Justice. This means disclosing contacts, activities, and funding. FARA focuses on whose agenda is being pushed, not the source of the money. AIPAC’s mission, to align U.S. policy with Israel’s goals, fits this definition exactly. Yet it cloaks itself as an “American” lobby, a claim that doesn’t withstand scrutiny.
AIPAC: Israel’s Proxy in Washington
AIPAC’s mission is to steer U.S. policy toward Israel, functioning as a coordinated extension of Israeli interests. It invests millions in U.S. elections with its political action committee, AIPAC PAC, and through its super PAC, United Democracy Project, to support Israel First candidates and oppose anyone who speaks out against Israel’s crimes. It pushes anti-BDS laws mirroring Israeli priorities and secures billions in annual aid, often at the expense of U.S. needs. Through its nonprofit arm, the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), it funds frequent congressional trips to Israel—the number one destination for privately sponsored foreign travel by members of the House and their aides—where they meet Israeli leaders and adopt their narrative.
The connections are undeniable: AIPAC has operated a Jerusalem office since 1982, a direct link to Israeli leadership. Its leaders frequently visit Israel, host Israeli officials at policy summits, and align U.S. policy with Israel’s agenda. In 2015, AIPAC strongly opposed a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements, mirroring Israel’s defiance, and launched a significant lobbying effort, spending a reported $30 million, to support Netanyahu’s campaign against the Iran nuclear deal. In 2023, it briefed Congress on Israel’s Gaza operations, echoing military talking points. In 2024, it pushed $14.1 billion in emergency aid for Israel, matching Netanyahu’s demands, and followed through on Foreign Minister Israel Katz’s request to secure congressional sanctions against the International Criminal Court. If a group lobbying for Russia maintained a Moscow office, funded trips there, and parroted Kremlin lines, we’d call it foreign influence. AIPAC’s U.S. funding doesn’t alter its role as Israel’s conduit.
A History of Dodging Accountability
AIPAC’s ties to Israel are deep-rooted. Its predecessor, the American Zionist Council (AZC), was ordered to register under FARA in 1962 after funneling millions from Israel’s Jewish Agency to lobby Congress. Instead, Isaiah Kenen relaunched it as AIPAC in 1963, dodging the law by using U.S. donors. Declassified 1984 FBI files reveal AIPAC’s early collaboration with Israel’s Ministry of Economics, using stolen U.S. trade data to shape the U.S.-Israel Free Trade Agreement; an act of espionage, not advocacy. In 2005, AIPAC staffers Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman passed classified Pentagon data to Israeli officials, though charges were later dropped. Leaked 2018 Israeli Justice Ministry documents show Jerusalem’s worry that AIPAC’s advocacy could trigger FARA scrutiny, prompting plans to conceal ties with a U.S. nonprofit. If AIPAC’s work is truly domestic, why does Israel fear exposure?
Transparency, Not Prohibition
FARA doesn’t prohibit lobbying, it requires openness. Registration would compel AIPAC to reveal its meetings with Israeli officials, spending details, and directives. If it’s merely Americans supporting Israel, why resist this disclosure? Refusing transparency raises questions about whose interests it truly serves.
The Stakes for Democracy
AIPAC’s unchecked influence skews U.S. policy. General David Petraeus warned in 2010 that Israel’s actions, amplified by AIPAC, put U.S. troops in the Middle East at risk. Billions flow to Israel each year, while domestic crises like healthcare languish. Without FARA, we remain blind to how much Israel shapes these decisions or what AIPAC is hiding.
TrackAIPAC demands that lawmakers, regulators, and the public compel AIPAC to register under FARA. Transparency is the first step to dismantling foreign influence in U.S. policy.
Facing Prison Time in Germany for Criticizing an Israeli Journalist: The Case of Hüseyin Dogru
By Alan MacLeod – MintPressNews – April 20, 2025
Amid a crackdown on pro-Palestine voices in Germany, a journalist regularly attacked as a Russian operative is facing up to three years in prison for defamation of an Israel-based journalist. Hüseyin Dogru, founder of red. media, has been charged with defamation for actions relating to a spat with Nicholas Potter, a German state-funded reporter working for the Israeli outlet, The Jerusalem Post.
In December, Potter, a self-styled counter-extremism expert, published a lengthy exposé in The Jerusalem Post, claiming that red. media, MintPress News, and The Grayzone were part of a network of far-left outlets promoting extremism and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
Worse still, he strongly insinuated that all three were promoted and funded by the governments of Russia, Syria, and Iran.
The charges are false (see MintPress’ rebuttal here), and are particularly ironic, coming as they do from a journalist who is funded by the German Foreign Office. One who, amid a genocide, moved to Israel to work for an outlet headed by a former Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson.
Moreover, Potter himself arguably holds extreme views on the subject. Just weeks after attacking us for our journalism, he penned an article titled “Can Journalists Be Terrorists,” which attempted to justify many of Israel’s killings of Palestinian media workers.
Both red. and MintPress immediately highlighted much of this important context, and our content went viral.
From Viral Criticism to Criminal Charges
A sticker about Potter, based on a red. media graphic, was spotted in Berlin. The sticker took the outlet’s criticism of him, and plastered the phrase, “The German Hurensohn” — “The German Son of a Bitch” — over the top. That sticker is the centerpiece of the prosecution’s allegation of a coordinated “hate campaign” against Potter led by red. media. Potter claims that he has suffered harassment and threats to his life, and some have tried to link this back to red. media’s graphic.
The accusations provoked a storm of articles in German media, all supportive of Potter. Many echoed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s claims that red. media is a Russian government-controlled influence operation.
A red. media post criticizing journalist Nicholas Potter, left, appears as a modified sticker in Germany, right. Photo provided to MintPress
Dogru denies these allegations, although he was previously a key part of Red Fish, a platform financed by Ruptly, a Germany-based outlet partially funded by the Russian state-controlled network, RT. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Dogru closed Red Fish and started his own independent outlet. He insists it has no connection to Russia and is dedicated to making revolutionary and educational content. He also denies having any information or involvement in producing anti-Potter stickers.
Germany Criminalized Palestinian Solidarity
Potter’s support for Israeli policies has certainly drawn the ire of many in the pro-Palestine movement in Germany. Yet he is far from alone. The German government has offered its full support to Israel and has gone so far as to ban pro-Palestine demonstrations and lock up countless activists, including Jewish people. The phrase “From the River to the Sea” has effectively been criminalized, with Berlin announcing that it would deny citizenship to anyone using it. New German citizenship laws require all applicants to sign what is, in effect, a loyalty oath to the State of Israel, declaring that it has a “right to exist.”
Berlin is currently deporting foreign residents for their participation in lawful protests supporting Palestinian rights. Dogru’s legal team has advised him that his wife and son could be deported as well.
Commentators have warned that, with these actions, Germany is lurching towards the authoritarian right. With the far-right AfD Party surging in the polls (a recent survey found they are now the most popular party in Germany), many inside the country are ringing the alarm bells.
“For decades, Germany has stuck with Israel and its narratives in the Middle East,” Dogru told MintPress, adding: “Since October 7, we see that the German government is violently repressing activists to make sure there are no voices in Germany critical of Israel. Activists here have paid a high price to make sure that they can protest.”
According to Dogru, this is a test case. Ultimately, the suppression of speech is not about Israel, but an attack on its own society.
Germany is preparing to assert itself as a leading military and political force in NATO and the EU. To do that, it must eliminate resistance — not just abroad, but at home. This isn’t driven by historical guilt or solidarity. It’s about silencing dissent and disciplining society. By targeting the most marginalized, the German state is disciplining its population — silencing opposition before it grows.”
The message from the German government is clear, Dogru claims: “fall in line, or be crushed.”
From Ms. Rachel To Anti-War College Students: The End Of American Free Speech
By Robert Inlakesh | Palestine Chronicle | April 19, 2025
Working together with the most powerful government in the world, Zionist organizations are smearing and persecuting anyone who expresses sympathy with Palestinians, subjected to a genocide subsidized with their own tax dollars. From the media to academia, American free speech rights are being stripped.
Fulfilling an agenda laid out in a 33-page document named “Project Esther”, published in October of last year by the Heritage Foundation, the US government is teaming up with extremist elements of the Zionist Lobby to crush criticism of Israel.
From its recommendations to form a federal task force to combat alleged antisemitism, which is really just criticism of the Israeli government, to its strategy to tear down leading academic institutions, the plan is being followed.
The Heritage Foundation, most well-known for its “Project 2025”, is known to possess considerable influence on the Trump White House. Yet, despite its obvious influence and policy recommendations that are being followed, almost down to the letter, there has been little connection drawn between these think-tank documents and Donald Trump’s anti-free speech crusade.
It is evident, however, that the Democratic Party also presided over the greatest assault on academic freedom in American history, placing itself in line with the Zionist Lobby, which is why it makes sense that there is no incentive from Democrat-aligned media to give light to this topic. Although the situation has only grown more dire for free speech rights, particularly on college campuses, since the departure of former President Joe Biden.
Uncharted Waters
Under the Trump administration, it started to become clear with the detention of Mahmoud Khalil that we were entering uncharted waters. The mere fact that a Green-Card holder, accused of no crime, and who is married to an American citizen, was snatched in the night by plain-clothed ICE officers, who ferried him off from New York to Louisiana, was a tell-tale sign of things to come.
Thereafter, things only grew worse. Zionist student groups and racist extremist organizations have worked to put together lists of completely peaceful, law-abiding individuals who are set to be targeted by federal security agencies.
Claiming persecution themselves, these groups hide behind the cloak of being offended by anti-war protests, in order to work with the state to see their political opposition suppressed by force.
Yet, the crackdown has not been limited to students/former students. Instead, this campaign that aims to trample on the First Amendment rights as they are laid out in the US Constitution is beginning to empower pro-Israel extremists.
Weaponizing the claims of antisemitism and claiming that their targets are “Hamas supporters”, these organizations no longer are required to even present evidence for their allegations.
The Case of Ms. Rachel
This lack of any proof for the claims being made was no more evident than in the case of Ms. Rachel, a popular children’s entertainer.
A pro-Israel organization known as “Stopantisemitism” decided to accuse Ms. Rachel of spreading Hamas propaganda and requested the US government investigate whether she is receiving foreign funding.
Ms. Rachel has not commented on any of the political dynamics concerning the genocide in Gaza, yet has long expressed her sympathies for Palestinian children suffering in the Gaza Strip, as well as the Israeli Bibas family. There is nothing even remotely antisemitic about her posts on the topic, nor do they have anything to do with Hamas.
Yet, the US government appears to have reached the same point Israel has, where an accusation that someone is affiliated with Hamas needs no evidence to corroborate it before action is taken.
In Israel’s case, the action taken is the detention, torture, and/or murder of that individual, whereas in the United States, it can come in the form of detention or legal battles for now.
This assault on free speech is being carried out against media outlets also, using similar tactics of providing baseless claims regarding collaboration with Hamas, and even on behalf of Israeli citizens filing their cases in US courts to take down registered not-for-profit organizations.
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New Book
New Book: No Autoimmunity The Body Doesn’t Attack Itself
Lies are Unbekoming | September 24, 2026
The label for Humira, once the best-selling drug in the world, lists its risks in plain print. One of them, in the label’s own words, is new “autoimmune” disease.
A drug prescribed for a condition labelled autoimmune carries a warning that it can cause a condition labelled autoimmune. That contradiction sits in every box, on a folded paper almost nobody reads.
My new book starts there.
No Autoimmunity: The Body Doesn’t Attack Itself
For seventy years, “your body is attacking itself, and we don’t know why” has ended the conversation for people diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Hashimoto’s, Type 1 diabetes, Crohn’s and psoriasis. More than eighty conditions now carry the autoimmune label. The diagnosis comes with a prescription for life. It almost never comes with a question about cause.
This book asks the question and answers it from the framework’s own records: its drug labels, its journals, its regulatory filings, and its own experiments. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Iran offers Trump deal before US election
- Merz regime wants ‘secret police’ – opposition
- Israeli settlers terrorize West Bank Palestinians with state-provided drones: Report
- They see them, then kill them: Israeli quadcopters track, deliberately target civilians in Gaza
- Debunked: Trump’s egregious UNGA claims on war against Iran crumble under scrutiny
- Europe was part of the infrastructure of US aggression against Iran: Deputy FM
- New evidence on the Bucha Massacre
- Italy and France debunk reports CIA issued ‘Russian drone threat’ warning
- How Russia is Rewiring the Global South
- Britain’s elites want you ready to die for a war they keep imagining
- If Americans Knew
- Trump betrayed voters with his campaign lies and prioritized a foreign country once he took office
- Netanyahu calls Israel’s war in Gaza ‘opposite of genocide’ in UN speech to near-empty hall
- Settler Kidnappings: Torture, Sexual Abuse and Terrorisation of Palestinian Abductees as Israel Deepens Annexation of West Bank
- Gaza winter nears as 162,000 tents become unusable, raising fears of humanitarian crisis
- Netanyahu says, “It’s the opposite of genocide”; UN says Gaza economy is world’s ‘most severe crisis on record’ – Daily Update
- Israel’s US-Backed Assault on Gaza Has Created the ‘World’s Most Severe Economic Crisis on Record’: UN
- ‘Protecting U.S. Citizens’… From Israel
- ‘This is where I live now, the back of a truck’: a day in the life of a grandmother in Gaza
- In UN Speech, Iran’s President Displays Pictures of Children Killed by US, Brings Attention to Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal
- Israel displaces hundreds of Palestinians amid wave of demolitions in West Bank
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
- New Study: Antarctic Ice Melt Has Contributed Less Than 1 Centimeter To Sea Level Rise In The Last 30 Years
