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US reshuffle of pro-‘Israel’ officials alarms occupation

Al Mayadeen | June 3, 2025

Israeli officials are expressing growing concern over a series of unexpected personnel changes within the US administration, which have targeted figures long regarded as staunch supporters of “Israel”, Israeli news outlet Ynet reported.

The shake-up comes amid escalating tensions between US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over both the war on Gaza and a possible strike on Iran.

Among the most notable dismissals are Merav Ceren, a dual US-Israeli citizen who oversaw the Iran and “Israel” portfolio at the National Security Council, and Eric Trager, who led Middle East and North Africa policy. Both were appointed by former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, a strong supporter of “Israel”, who was removed by Trump.

Their removal was reportedly executed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Waltz’s successor.

Another high-profile figure expected to be removed is Morgan Ortagus, deputy to special envoy Steve Witkoff and in charge of the Lebanon file.

Ortagus’s leaving her post, although unfavorable for “Israel” due to her critical role in efforts to disarm Hezbollah, marks the departure of a controversial figure in Lebanon, with her statements, such as thanking “Israel” for what she claimed was defeating Hezbollah in the Presidential Palace in Baabda, inflaming tensions in the country, flouting proper protocol, and meddling in Lebanon’s internal affairs.

Her dismissal, which sources say was not voluntary, has shocked officials in “Israel”, where she was seen as a key ally. Ortagus is reportedly being reassigned to internal duties within the State Department and will have no further role in Middle East diplomacy.

According to Lebanese outlet al-Akhbar, Ortagus had sought a more senior regional role, aiming to take over the Syria portfolio. However, her responsibilities are now expected to be reassigned, possibly to Joel Rayburn or Thomas Barrack. The Lebanese file, sources noted, has been downgraded in US priorities, with attention shifting to Syria.

American sources confirmed to Lebanon’s MTV network that Ortagus had been dismissed due to internal professional issues unrelated to Lebanon. Her upcoming trip to Beirut has been canceled, and Rayburn is expected to assume oversight of the Lebanon file as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs.

June 3, 2025 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Echoes of a Lost Gaza – 2024 version

Al Jazeera

Mariam Shahin has been making films about Gaza for over thirty years. She’s also made many documentaries and short films for Al Jazeera English since it launched in 2006. When she moved to Gaza in 2005, she felt a powerful sense of optimism following the Israeli withdrawal. But by 2009, war had badly damaged its infrastructure, neighbourhoods, businesses and communities – and that optimism had evaporated.

Now, in the wake of the even more destructive war that began on 7th October 2023, Mariam seeks out the people she has met in Gaza over the years – and reflects on the wasted potential and devastated lives after sixteen years of blockade and a year of one of the most destructive wars in Middle East history.

June 3, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

Putting Israel First, Rubio Victimizes Harmless Student Over Op-Ed

Using slander, imprisonment and deportation to suppress Israel criticism

By Brian McGlinchey | Stark Realities | May 31, 2025

Given Marco Rubio’s long history of subservience to the State of Israel — which has earned him a mountain of campaign cash from the country’s US-based collaborators — many Americans were understandably wary that his ascension from senator to secretary of State portended disturbing moves to advance Israel’s interests. However, few foresaw Rubio orchestrating the abduction, imprisonment and deportation of foreign students for using their universal human right of free speech to criticize the Israeli government and advocate for Palestinians.

With President Trump’s blessing, Rubio has targeted many foreign students in this fashion — students who’ve been charged with no crimes. However, no case better illustrates the campaign’s casual cruelty than that of 30-year-old Tufts University PhD candidate Rumeysa Ozturk. Ozturk, who’s been studying child development, was arrested in March and whisked away to a far-off prison merely because — an entire year earlier — she co-authored a Tufts Daily op-ed urging the university to formally characterize Israel’s conduct in Gaza as genocide, and to sell the school’s Israel-associated investments.

Rubio would like you to assume her essay must have been an unhinged, antisemitic, violence-inciting screed. To the contrary, harkening back to Tufts’ 1989 decision to divest from apartheid South Africa, its tone is decidedly calm and measured. Read this excerpt of the essay’s most pointed language about Israel and judge for yourself:

These [student senate] resolutions were the product of meaningful debate…and represent a sincere effort to hold Israel accountable for clear violations of international law. Credible accusations against Israel include accounts of deliberate starvation and indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians and plausible genocide.

… the student body is calling for … the University to end its complicity with Israel insofar as it is oppressing the Palestinian people and denying their right to self-determination — a right that is guaranteed by international law. These strong lobbying tools are all the more urgent now given the order by the International Court of Justice confirming that the Palestinian people of Gaza’s rights under the Genocide Convention are under a “plausible” risk of being breached.

Ozturk’s persecution represents a major escalation of an aggravating dynamic in which people in the United States are vilified as dangerous, volatile antisemites for saying things about Israel that are frequently said by respected people and institutions in Israel. For example, in an op-ed of his own, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert this week wrote, “What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians … Yes, Israel is committing war crimes.”

In March of this year, the State Department revoked Ozturk’s student visa without notifying her — she had no idea that her presence in the country was now illegal. Four days later, in an incident captured on video, she was grabbed off a Somerville, Massachusetts street by masked, plain-clothed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, taken to New Hampshire and then Vermont, before being shackled in chains and airlifted 1,400 miles to a federal detention center in Louisiana.

For the next month and a half, she was stuffed with 23 others in a cell meant for 14. Ozturk says constant exposure to dust and inadequate ventilation sparked more than a dozen asthma attacks — after having previously had only about 13 in her entire life. Sleep was hard to come by, as motion-detecting fluorescent lights repeatedly triggered throughout the night.

Trying to justify the unjustifiable, the Trump administration has gone to slanderous extremes to vilify Ozturk. In a since-deleted social media post following her arrest, Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said “DHS + ICE investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans.” (As an aside, note that, while some 43 Americans — including dual nationals — died in the Oct 7 attacks, there’s no history of Hamas ever setting out to target Americans.)

When protests of Israel’s tactics in Gaza erupted in 2022, Israel supporters across government, major media and social media branded all pro-Palestine protesters as Hamas supporters and antisemites. With the ascendency of the second Trump administration, that tactic has evolved from a malicious PR smear to a government-weaponized allegation that’s putting nonviolent foreign students in prisons and derailing their lives — all in service to a foreign country.

In a partial reversal of her appalling treatment, Ozturk was released from confinement on May 9 on the orders of a federal judge, who also denied the government’s wish to make her wear an ankle monitor. However, her troubles are far from over: In addition to the enduring harm of a six-week interruption of her academic pursuits, she is still targeted for deportation.

When DHS initially leveled the “activities in support of Hamas” accusation against Ozturk, many people assumed the government must have something on her other than an essay in a student newspaper. However, as the weeks ground on, the government never pointed to anything else, something US District Judge William Sessions noted when he ordered her to be released from her cage in Louisiana :

“I suggested to the government that they produce any additional information which would suggest that she posed a substantial risk. And that was three weeks ago, and there has been no evidence introduced by the government other than the op-ed. That literally is the case. There is no evidence here... The court finds that Ms. Öztürk has raised a substantial claim of a constitutional violation.”

Judge Sessions called Ozturk’s seizure “a traumatic incident” and said “her continued detention potentially chills the speech of the millions and millions of individuals in this country who are not citizens.” That is most certainly the Trump administration’s goal.

Falling for Rubio’s dishonest portrayal of his prey and failing to scrutinize the facts, many so-called “conservatives” have enthused over his drive to deport anti-Israel activists and rushed to defend it. In their flimsiest argument, you’ll find them claiming Ozturk and others have no right of free speech because they’re not US citizens. That hollow attack rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of rights — one that wrongly views rights as government-granted privileges, rather than something that springs from one’s humanity. As I’ve explained elsewhere at Stark Realities, the Constitution’s Bill of Rights isn’t a granting of rights, it’s a prohibition against government interference with pre-existing rights shared by everyone on Earth.

Employing a quintessential straw man argument, Rubio and others also say “nobody has a right to a visa.” The controversy has never been about any mythical entitlement to visas — it’s about the morality and constitutionality of using visa revocations as a means of punishing and suppressing expression of certain political beliefs.

To mete out that punishment, Rubio and the Trump administration are exploiting the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which recklessly empowers the secretary of State — a single individual — to deport foreigners the secretary deems “adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests” of the United States. The law provides no elaboration on that standard, much less any provision for its application with any semblance of due process for the affected individual.

Invoking that provision, the administration told a court that DHS and ICE determined Ozturk “had been involved in associations that ‘may undermine U.S foreign policy by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and indicating support for a designated terrorist organization’ including co-authoring an op-ed that found common cause with an organization that was later temporarily banned from campus.”

First, note how tangential and tenuous the opening and concluding allegations are. The government says Ozturk is being targeted for unspecified “associations,” and because her stance on Israel merely overlaps with the stance of a campus group that was only temporarily banned.

Next, we see the Trump administration dishonestly saying Ozturk “indicat[ed] support for Hamas” by writing an op-ed calling for Tufts to say Israel is committing war crimes, and to divest from the country. The op-ed never mentions Hamas or Oct. 7 or even implicitly endorses the group or its tactics, and there’s been no allegation of any other form of her supposed “support for Hamas.”

The administration also employs the Israeli-propagandist idea that criticism of the State of Israel — a political entity — creates a “hostile environment” for Jewish students. That notion is itself a form of bigotry — as it presumes all Jews endorse Israel’s actions. Of course, that presumption is belied by the significant presence of Jewish students in many protests of Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Meanwhile, the notion that pro-Israel Jews should be protected from hearing contrary views is wildly hypocritical from an administration that — in regard to other topics — has rightly targeted censorship meant to prevent so-called “snowflakes” from having their feelings hurt.

Defenders of the administration’s conduct are compelled to do more than point to its supposed legality under a 1952 law. From FDR putting Japanese-Americans in concentration camps to Woodrow Wilson jailing opponents of the draft, there’s a difference between legality and morality and bona fide constitutionality. Meanwhile, Ozturk’s ongoing challenge of her arrest and pending deportation may well reset the bounds of what’s legal under the Immigration and Nationality Act, with the courts potentially ruling it’s unconstitutional to revoke a visa over the expression of an opinion.

Finally, even the most ardent backers of the Israeli government should recognize that the use of the Immigration Act to round up and deport people whose views are inconsistent with the current administration’s foreign policy threatens to set a dangerous precedent — one that could see a future, Israel-hostile White House seizing, jailing and deporting foreign students who advocate US aid to Israel.

Over his political career, Rubio’s unwavering dedication to the agenda of the State of Israel has earned him a wealth of campaign contributions: Between 2019 and 2024, his largest and third-largest donors were the Pro-Israel PAC and the Republican Jewish Coalition. Those donors are again cashing in as their mercenary carries out a ruthless and deceitful drive to suppress anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian speech.

Consistent with the broader campaign of mass character-assassination that Israel’s advocates have long directed against critics of Israel, Rubio has repeatedly smeared Ozturk by insinuating that she is guilty of behavior that neither the federal government nor anyone else has accused her of, and even implying she is insane. For example, here’s what Rubio said at a March press conference:

“We revoked her visa… and here’s why… If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student and you tell us that the reason why you’re coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we’re not going to give you a visa…. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa. We’re looking every day for these lunatics that are tearing things up.”

Challenged last week in a House Foreign Affairs hearing, Rubio said he “proudly” revoked Ozturk’s visa, defiantly adding “we’re going to do more of them.” Refusing to answer pointed questions about the constitutionality of deporting Ozturk for writing an op-ed, Rubio again reflexively resorted to maliciously dishonest hyperbole, saying “We’re revoking the visas of any lunatics we can identify.”

Ozturk is one of an unknown number of foreign, Palestinian-sympathizing students targeted for deportation by the Trump administration, which is providing very little transparency about the individuals concerned or specific rationales for the revocation of their visas.

The censorship blitz is disturbing enough on its face, but there’s another dimension that makes it even more sinister: In selecting Ozturk and other foreign students for persecution, the Trump administration is apparently heeding the suggestions of two shadowy and menacing pro-Israel organizations that use intimidation tactics on Israel’s behalf: Canary Mission and Betar.

According to its website, Canary Mission “documents individuals and organizations that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses and beyond.” (Including “the USA” in its mission statement is dishonest pandering; listing it first is a joke.) In practice, Canary Mission works to silence Israel’s critics by using false allegations of antisemitism, doxxing, and the threat of career and reputational harm that could come from landing on its internet blacklist.

In one of the most unsettling incidents attributed to the group, two men in canary costumes stood silently in a George Washington University lobby in 2018 as the student government was set to vote on an Israel divestment resolution. In the days before the vote, Canary Mission flyers posted on campus warned “THERE ARE NO SECRETS. WE WILL KNOW YOUR VOTE AND WILL ACT ACCORDINGLY.”

Shortly after Ozturk’s arrest, Canary Mission posted a triumphant social media thread, saying “sources point to her Canary Mission profile as the primary cause.” That profile is thin. Linking to her Tufts op-ed, Canary Mission only claims she “engaged in anti-Israel activism in March 2024” (the month the op-ed was published) and is “a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.”

Betar brags that it is directly providing a list of targets to the administration. Maliciously referring to Ozturk and other peaceful activists as “jihadis,” the group took credit for her arrest: “She was on our list. Many more jihadis are. We will be making a new submission Monday with approximately 1800 more jihadis.”

Betar is a Zionist youth group founded in 1923 by Ze’ev Jabotinsky, who promoted an expansive vision of Israel that would see it take over not only the West Bank and Gaza, but part of Jordan too. The group’s ideology, rhetoric and embrace of vandalism, theft and vigilantism prompted even the staunchly Zionist Anti-Defamation League to list it among extremist and hateful groups.

An appalling incident in February illuminates the enormity of Betar’s Jewish-supremacist fanaticism. When a journalist posted a long list of names of Palestinian infants killed in Israel’s war on Gaza, Betar’s official account replied, “Not enough. We demand blood in Gaza!”

The group has also endorsed the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza. The irony is sickening: The Trump administration arrested Ozturk for saying Israel is committing genocide in Gaza — and the recommendation to revoke her visa came from a group that calls for genocide in Gaza.

While Betar and Canary Mission seem to be playing a key role in identifying targets, the broader scheme of weaponizing the Immigration and Nationality Act by smearing Israel’s critics as pro-Hamas antisemites who undermine US foreign policy was the brainchild of the Heritage Foundation. According to New York Times, the group in 2023 launched Project Esther, “an ambitious plan to fight antisemitism by branding a broad range of critics of Israel as ‘effectively a terrorist support network,’ so that they could be deported, defunded, sued, fired, expelled, ostracized and otherwise excluded from what it considered ‘open society’.”

Achieving new heights of hypocrisy, Rubio this week declared that “free speech… legally enshrined in our constitution, has set us apart as a beacon of freedom around the world.” His soaring rhetoric came as he announced a new policy that will deny visas to “foreign officials and persons who are complicit in censoring Americans.”

While Ozturk’s story has received significant media attention, the same mainstream media that relentlessly promoted the 2020 Russia-collusion hoax is now failing to cast the Trump administration’s campaign against pro-Palestinian campus activism for what it is: The unconstitutional suppression of the human right of free expression in appalling subservience to a foreign government and its domestic, America-Second accomplices.

In case you’re inclined to shrug off Rubio’s campaign because its victims are foreigners, make no mistake — there are people inside and outside the US government who would love to see American citizens similarly seized and shackled for criticizing the State of Israel. Over the past several years, those forces have been aggressively pushing various means of using government power to suppress Israel’s critics:

  • The proposed Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would use an expansive definition of antisemitism to inflict penalties on schools that allow various forms of criticism of Israel to be expressed on their campuses — even by American citizens
  • The successful enactment of state laws requiring contractors to certify that they will not participate in boycotts of Israel — alongside repeated attempts to pass a similar federal law
  • Lawfare in the form of bogus lawsuits filed against universities, accusing them of failing to prevent “antisemitic incidents” that are simply expressions of opinions about Israel that Zionists revile
  • The Trump administration’s withdrawal of federal education funding from schools that tolerate “antisemitism” — with that term purposefully misdefined to encompass criticism of the Israeli government

Amid Americans’ steadily-shrinking support for Israel — even 50% of Republicans under 50 years old now view the country unfavorably — those forces are only going to grow more desperate and brazen in their assault on free expression in the United States. It’s the patriotic duty of every American — including Israel’s backers and critics alike — to resist them every step of the way.

June 2, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Australian doctor reports victims at Gaza aid distribution point shot in head, chest

MEMO | June 2, 2025

Australian Doctor Ahmed Abu Sweid said that several people shot by Israeli occupation forces yesterday morning at an aid distribution point in Rafah, southern Gaza, had been hit by bullets in the head and chest.

Dr Abu Sweid, who is volunteering in the emergency department at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, said: “We have only been here for a few days, and the level of trauma I have seen here is unlike anything I have witnessed before.”

“Today, we’ve had a significant number of casualties, with hundreds of confirmed injuries.”

Dr Abu Sweid, a specialist in emergency medicine, explained that the hospital is “full” and that medical teams are struggling due to a lack of essential medical equipment.

He continued: “We have only been here for a few days, but the doctors here have been dealing with the same situation for the past 200 days, and they are exhausted.”

He confirmed that all the victims were civilians. “They were instructed to collect food but instead suffered gunshot wounds and shrapnel injuries. Most are in critical condition,” adding that some victims “were already deceased upon arrival, having been shot in the head and chest.”

June 2, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

US deputy envoy behind Hezbollah disarmament campaign to be replaced: Report

The Cradle | June 1, 2025

US Deputy Special Envoy to the region Morgan Ortagus, who has been in charge of Washington’s Lebanon policy, is soon to be removed from her position and reassigned to another role, according to US and Israeli reports.

Ortagus “will be leaving her position as Deputy Envoy in the Trump administration,” right-wing US journalist Laura Loomer reported on X on 1 June, citing White House sources.

“I’m told she will be cordially reassigned to another role in the Trump administration. She wanted to be the Special Envoy to Syria, but the position was instead given to Tom Barrack. Morgan’s replacement will be announced this week by Steve Witkoff,” she added.

Ortagus has been at the head of the US government’s campaign to pressure the Lebanese government into disarming Hezbollah and Palestinian resistance groups. In an interview with Al-Arabiya in April, Ortagus referred to the Lebanese resistance as a “cancer” that needs to be “cut out.”

During her first visit to Lebanon, she publicly thanked Israel for “defeating” Hezbollah at the presidential palace in Baabda.

Ortagus was scheduled to visit Beirut in the coming days to advance proposals regarding reforms, border demarcation, reconstruction, disarmament of Hezbollah, and normalization with Israel, according to Lebanese news outlet Al-Jadeed. “The US proposals will be presented with a firm tone, with a specific deadline for Lebanon to implement what gets agreed on or be held responsible” for the consequences, the report said.

Hezbollah has outright rejected disarmament, but says it is eventually willing to hold dialogue with the Lebanese government on a national defensive strategy that sees its weapons incorporated into the state for use in protecting the country from Israel.

According to a report by Israel’s Channel 14, National Security Council (NSC) officials Merav Ceren and Eric Trager have also been recently removed from their positions. Trager was overseeing Middle East and North Africa affairs at the NSC, while Ceren was the director for Iran.

Ceren previously worked at the Israeli Ministry of Defense and is affiliated with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a pro-Israel think tank based in Washington DC which has been described as “hawkish” and has been heavily pushing for the dismantlement of Iran’s uranium enrichment capabilities as US President Donald Trump’s government holds nuclear talks with Tehran.

Channel 14 notes that the decision is part of an effort to restructure the NSC, reduce its influence, and transfer foreign policy to a limited group of “trusted officials.”

The outcome of these changes, including Ortagus’s departure from her current position, was described in the report as “not good for Israel.”

June 1, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran slams IAEA report as politically motivated, based on forged Israeli documents

The Cradle | June 1, 2025

Iran voiced its strong protest on 31 May against a report issued by the head of the UN nuclear watchdog regarding Tehran’s nuclear program, saying it was issued “with political objectives and through pressures,” is based in part on forged Israeli documents, and goes beyond the UN nuclear chief’s mandate.

Reuters reported Saturday that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a report claiming that Iran was in non-compliance with its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The report, provided by IAEA head Rafael Grossi to the Board of Governors, claimed that Iran carried out secret nuclear activities with material not declared to the UN nuclear watchdog at three locations decades ago.

Western diplomats plan to use the report to pressure Iran at the UN Security Council and in ongoing negotiations with the US over its nuclear program, Reuters added.

Another report issued by the IAEA claimed that Iran’s stock of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent purity had grown by roughly half, enough for nine nuclear weapons if further enriched to 90 percent purity.

In response, Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) issued a joint statement on Saturday.

The statement said that the governments of the UK, France, Germany, and the US have repeatedly violated their commitments under former nuclear agreements with Iran, including the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and Security Council Resolution 2231, while simultaneously resorting to imposing illegal unilateral sanctions and pressures against the Islamic Republic in breach of international law.

The statement emphasized that Iran has continued to engage in extensive, good-faith cooperation with the IAEA and that the European Troika and the US “have spared no effort to use the agency for leverage in the ongoing political process.”

It added that the IAEA report does not accurately reflect the level of cooperation with the agency and relies extensively on forged documents provided by Israel, which recycle previous biased and unfounded accusations.

“The allegations leveled in the current report are based on a few claims about undeclared activities and locations from past decades. This is while Iran has repeatedly declared that it has had no undeclared nuclear sites or activities. At the same time, Iran has given the IAEA access to the alleged locations, allowing sampling, and providing detailed information and explanations on various occasions regarding the history of the alleged sites, providing the necessary cooperation with the agency,” the statement clarified.

The IAEA report also makes an improper distinction between obligations under the NPT and voluntary commitments under the JCPOA, presenting some of Iran’s voluntary actions as binding legal obligations.

Further, the report invokes “unreliable and misleading information provided by the Zionist regime as a non-NPT party possessing weapons of mass destruction and responsible for the most heinous crimes against humanity, including genocide, contradicts the professional verification principles of the IAEA.”

The Foreign Ministry and AEOI reiterated that nuclear weapons have no place in the nation’s defense doctrine, according to a religious ruling (fatwa) issued by former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and that there is no prohibition under international law for any country to develop nuclear technology for producing energy.

The statement affirmed that Iran’s enrichment program is solely for peaceful purposes, is fully transparent, is under complete IAEA supervision, and is in accordance with the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement.

On Saturday, Iran said it received a proposal from the US, passed on by Oman, about a possible agreement over Tehran’s nuclear program.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the US proposal had been delivered by the Foreign Minister of Oman, Badr bin Hamad Al-Busaidi, and that it would be “appropriately responded to in line with the principles, national interests, and rights of the people of Iran.”

June 1, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Another Neoconservative Bites the Dust: The Life and Legacy of Michael Ledeen

By Jose Alberto Nino – The Occidental Observer – June 1, 2025

Michael Ledeen, the man who urged America to “to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall” every decade, met an end that many of his critics would call overdue. On May 17, 2025, Ledeen died at the age of 83. marking the passing of one of the last influential Jewish neoconservatives of his generation.

Ledeen obtained a Ph.D. in History and Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he studied under the Jewish German-born historian George Mosse. He took a particular interest in Italian fascism and wrote a doctoral dissertation that eventually became “Universal Fascism: The Theory and Practice of the Fascist International, 1928–1936,” published in 1972, which explored Benito Mussolini’s efforts to create a Fascist international in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

His academic career began at Washington University in St. Louis, where he was an assistant professor of history from 1967–1973, before becoming a visiting professor at the University of Rome from 1973–1977. Ledeen authored over 35 books throughout his career, including works on fascism, European history, and Middle Eastern politics.

His influence was most felt in the realm of national security though. Throughout his career, Ledeen held multiple advisory roles within the U.S. government, including as a consultant to the National Security Council, a special advisor to the Secretary of State, a consultant to the Department of Defense, and a consultant to the under-secretary of political affairs. Ledeen was an active member of numerous think tanks and regime-change advocacy organizations such as the U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon, Coalition for Democracy in Iran (CDI), American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Additionally, he has been published in numerous philosemitic conservative outlets such as the National Review, Wall Street Journal, and the Weekly Standard. His influence extended beyond formal roles. According to the Washington Post, he was the only “full-time” international affairs analyst frequently consulted by Karl Rove, the chief strategist of then-President George W. Bush.

Ledeen’s career was not free of controversy, however. In 1980, Ledeen co-authored articles with Belgian-American journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave in The New Republic alleging Jimmy Carter’s brother, Billy Carter, accepted payments from Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi and met with PLO leader Yasser Arafat. He made those same assertions before a Senate subcommittee as the 1980 presidential election quickly approached. These claims, published weeks before the presidential election, reignited the “Billygate” scandal.

A 1985 Wall Street Journal investigation later confirmed that the stories were part of a disinformation campaign executed by Italy’s military intelligence agency (SISMI) to hurt Carter’s presidential re-election campaign. Italian intelligence officer Francesco Pazienza testified that Ledeen received $120,000 for his role and operated under the codename “Z-3.” Pazienza, who was convicted for extortion in connection to the operation, described Ledeen as a key figure behind the dissemination of false narratives.

Additionally, Ledeen was heavily involved in the Iran-Contra affair during the Reagan administration. As a consultant to National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane, Ledeen facilitated back-channel communications between U.S. officials, Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, and Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar. In this case, the Reagan administration was clandestinely negotiating hostage releases in Lebanon via arms sales to Iran, a scheme that bypassed Congressional oversight and later became a major scandal. Ledeen defended Ghorbanifar despite widespread skepticism about his reliability, subsequently detailing his perspective in the book “Perilous Statecraft.” While he never faced criminal charges, Ledeen’s role in Iran-Contra showcased his willingness to operate in the shadows, ethics be damned.

Like many Jews in the neoconservative movement, Ledeen has a long career of advocating for regime change in the Middle East.

Ledeen was one of the most vocal Jewish neoconservatives lobbying for the removal of Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein. Along with other neoconservative luminaries such as Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, Ledeen signed “An Open Letter to the President” in 1998, urging Bill Clinton to topple Iraq’s Baathist regime.

Similar to other Jewish officials in the national security establishment, Ledeen was an unapologetic champion of using hard military power. Jewish neoconservative journalist Jonah Goldberg coined the “Leeden Doctrine” after reflecting on a speech he attended in the 1990s at the American Enterprise Institute. In that speech, Ledeen was alleged to have said:

Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.

In the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Ledeen was one of the most energetic proponents of using military force against the country. Ledeen wrote a piece at the National Review critical of former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, who advised against invading Iraq. Instead of exercising restraint, Ledeen called for turning the entire Middle East “into a cauldron”, as he explained in more detail:

Scowcroft has managed to get one thing half right, even though he misdescribes it. He fears that if we attack Iraq “I think we could have an explosion in the Middle East. It could turn the whole region into a caldron and destroy the War on Terror.”

One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please. If ever there were a region that richly deserved being cauldronized, it is the Middle East today. If we wage the war effectively, we will bring down the terror regimes in Iraq, Iran, and Syria, and either bring down the Saudi monarchy or force it to abandon its global assembly line to indoctrinate young terrorists.

Ledeen’s hawkish stance on Iran was also a lifelong constant. He labeled the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini a “theocratic fascist”, and as Jewish political commentator Peter Beinart observed about Ledeen’s Middle Eastern political analysis, every problem in the region “traces back to Tehran.” Despite opposing a direct invasion of Iran in his later years, Ledeen championed aggressive support for Iranian dissidents and preemptive strikes against nuclear facilities if diplomacy failed to get Iran to kowtow to the United States.

Michael Ledeen’s death marks the end of a career that Jewish journalist Eli Lake described as one of “America’s most courageous historians and journalists.” His friend David Goldman, a Jewish international relations commentator associated with the Claremont Institute, wrote that Ledeen’s “personal contribution to America’s victory in the Cold War is far greater than the public record shows.”

Ledeen’s legacy is undeniably one of steadfast advocacy for Jewish interests within the American conservative movement. For those who saw his influence as a barrier to a more authentically gentile Right, his passing, like David Horowitz’s, may indeed be viewed as an opportunity for change as more of the Jewish founders of neoconservatism and their progeny exit the plane of the living.

For this author, Ledeen will certainly not be missed.

June 1, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

US rebuffs Hamas’ response to ceasefire proposal; accuses movement of turning it down

Press TV – June 1,2025

The United States has rejected Hamas’ response to a proposed ceasefire, accusing the Palestinian resistance movement of turning the offer down.

The office of Washington’s regional envoy, Steve Witkoff passed the remarks in a post on X, former Twitter, on Saturday after receiving Hamas’ reaction to the proposal.

“I received the Hamas’ response to the United States proposal. It is totally unacceptable and only takes us backward,” the office claimed.

It alleged that Hamas had turned down the framework, suggesting that the movement was, therefore, preventing realization of the prospect of subsequent “proximity talks.”

“This (the proposal) is the only way we can close a 60-day ceasefire deal in the coming days,” in which half of the Israeli regime’s living captives and half of the deceased ones would be handed over,

Witkoff’s office, meanwhile, purported that the proposal was meant to pave the way for “substantive negotiations” in good faith aimed at achieving a “permanent ceasefire.”

Hamas denies rejection

Contrary to the US’s allegations, senior Hamas’ official Bassem Naim said the group did not reject the proposal, but instead offered a response that met the basic demands of the Palestinian people under the circumstances.

“We did not reject Mr. Witkoff’s proposal,” he explained. “We agreed with him last week on a proposal, which he considered acceptable as a basis for negotiation.”

“However, the response we received from the other side did not align with our agreed-upon terms and failed to meet the minimum demands of our people,” Naim added.

Hamas’ key demands, as stated by Naim, had included ensuring the Israeli enemy’s adherence to a 60-day temporary truce and allowing transfer of sufficient humanitarian aid from United Nations organizations.

The movement had also demanded a guarantee that the negotiations would lead to the end of the Israeli regime’s October 2023-present war on the Gaza Strip and the withdrawal of hostile forces.

‘US always preferring Israel’s interests’

Naim also expressed frustration with the negotiations, saying the Israeli response was often treated as the sole basis for talks, undermining fairness and justice in the mediation process.

He, meanwhile, noted how the American proposal had been crafted so it would ensure provision of the regime’s interests.

According to the resistance official, the proposal featured a 60-day ceasefire without guarantees that the regime would abide by it.

Humanitarian aid would also only enter Gaza under the regime’s proposed plans, which Hamas sees as legitimizing Tel Aviv’s military control, he stated.

The official, meanwhile, noted that negotiations over withdrawal maps were based on the regime’s current military presence, potentially perpetuating control over Gaza.

The American initiative, he concluded, also failed to include any guarantees for an end to the war or the withdrawal of hostile forces, as discussions rather focused on redeployment and security arrangements.

Hamas reaffirms commitment to permanent ceasefire

Also on Saturday, Taher al-Nono, a media advisor for Hamas’ Political Bureau, further clarified the group’s position.

Echoing al-Nono’s remarks, he emphasized that the movement had not rejected the proposal, but instead focused on ensuring a ceasefire with guarantees for the delivery of aid.

“We agreed to the release of 10 captives, but the disagreement lies in the timing of the release,” al-Nono said.

He additionally reaffirmed Hamas’ rejection of any attempts to legitimize the Israeli regime’s atrocities through negotiations and denounced the US for supporting the occupation’s vision. “We have dealt with the US to alleviate the suffering of our people, but the weapon of resistance is non-negotiable,” he added.

The developments came as the war and a simultaneous near-total siege deployed against Gaza by Tel Aviv continues to exact a heavy human and material toll on Gaza.

The warfare has already claimed the lives of around 54,400 Palestinians, mostly women and children, while the siege has seen the regime use starvation as, what human rights experts call, a weapon of war.

May 31, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | 1 Comment

Want to Understand US Action in the Middle East? Look at the Wolfowitz Doctrine

By Makia Freeman | Freedom Articles | May 2015

The Wolfowitz Doctrine, a document authored by Zionist neo-con Paul Wolfowitz, is the key to understanding the United States’ geopolitical policy and behavior. The Wolfowitz Doctrine is the unofficial name given to the early version of the Defense Strategy for the 1990s: The Regional Defense Strategy report for the 1994–99 fiscal years. It was later released by then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney in 1993. It brazenly advocates that America do everything in its power to retain its global hegemony and superpower status, including ensuring that Russia, China, Iran and other regional powers – but especially Russia – be prevented from attaining enough power to seriously challenge the US. In short, it’s another US blueprint for total global supremacy.

There are many quotable passages from the Wolfowitz Doctrine. Here’s one which sums up its aims:

“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia.”

Following in the Footsteps of the Wolfowitz Doctrine: Trilateralist Brzezinski and His Grand American Chessboard

The Wolfowitz Doctrine was not created in a vacuum, of course. It has a strong history of American arrogance and cockiness behind it, and it inspired numerous works after it. Just look at co-founder of the Trilateral Commission (along with David Rockefeller) and big-time NWO insider Zbigniew Brzezinski (the very same guy who bemoaned that it was easier to kill than control people). Brzezinski is an avowed Russophobe who for decades has been pushing for America to encircle Russia and capture the lion’s share of Eurasia.

Brzezinski has also mentored Obama, was present in the Carter administration and clearly has had a lot of influence on American foreign policy; you can see him in this video organizing the Mujahideen to fight against the former Soviet Union, tricking them by saying that “God is on your side”. How the conspirators love to use religion to control people!

In his book The Grand Chessboard, written in 1997, Brzezinski writes:

“The most immediate task is to make certain that no state or combination of states gains the capacity to expel the United States from Eurasia or even to diminish significantly its decisive arbitrating role.”

” … the expansion of NATO is essential. By the same token, a failure to widen NATO … would shatter the concept of an expanding Europe and de-moralize the Central Europeans. It could even reignite currently dormant or dying Russian geopolitical aspirations in Central Europe.”

Brzezinski and his ilk have been and are still concerned with just one thing: power. It’s presupposed that might is right and that American supremacy is moral. The pervading issue is always: how can America expand or at least maintain its global power?

From the Wolfowitz Doctrine Came … PNAC, Rebuilding America’s Defenses and a Catalyzing New Pearl Harbor

Wolfowitz is perhaps better known not for writing the Wolfowitz Doctrine but for co-authoring Rebuilding America’s Defenses, a report released in September 2000 by Zionist neocon think tank PNAC (The Project for a New American Century). The PNAC membership list is a “Who’s Who” of American Zionist New World Order conspirators – in addition to Wolfowitz the list includes Dick Cheney Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Kagan, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Richard Perle, Doug Feith and many others. The report contains the now infamous sentence:

“This process of transformation is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”

Hence, there is strong evidence that the writers of this document knew exactly what was coming – and therefore had 9/11 foreknowledge. As I covered in the article Who is Jeb Bush, Really? – Part 2 – Jeb’s PNAC & Money Laundering Past, current presidential candidate Jeb Bush was among the signatories of this document.

The Wolfowitz Doctrine Explains the Gross Hypocrisy of the USA

The Wolfowitz Doctrine explicitly and unabashedly pushes for complete US supremacy at the cost of any other value. If it is truly the guiding principle of US foreign policy and geopolitical maneuvering, as it appears to be, it comes as no surprise then that America is such a hypocrite on the world stage. To put on a good face on the world stage, and feed the propaganda that it only promotes democracy and peace, the US is forced to use rhetoric claiming it values the promotion of democracy, the promotion of human rights, the self-determination of people and nations, and the elimination of terrorism. Yet, whenever any of these “values” conflict with the ideals set out in the Wolfowitz Doctrine, the US always chooses its own supremacy over them.

As Michael S. Rozeff writes:

“The U.S. condemns separatism in Ukraine and aids Kiev in attacking its own people with heavy and advanced weapons of all kinds. This is because the superpower agenda is served by steering Ukraine into the Western camp. At the very same time, the U.S. condemns China for indicting a professor who is a vocal separatist and critical of Chinese policy in Xinjiang. Hence, we observe the U.S. against separatism in Ukraine but supporting it in China. This is because the U.S. is applying pressure on China wherever it thinks this will succeed in diminishing China as a power … Numerous other instances of U.S. hypocrisy can be understood in this way. The U.S. will support democracy but then ignore elections and support dictators … It will condemn terrorism and then arm terrorists. This is because the overriding agenda is the Wolfowitz Doctrine.”

The Demonization of Russia and the Smear Campaign Against Putin

In alignment with the Wolfowitz Doctrine, the Western, Zionist MSM (Mainstream Media) is constantly telling us how bad Russia is and how aggressive Putin is, yet the facts reveal otherwise. It’s easy to see the demonization of Russia and the smear campaign against Putin as desperate attempts of the Anglo-American NWO to control the information war and paint themselves as the victim instead of the aggressor. Consider the following facts:

– The US has pumped at least $5 billion into regime change in Ukraine (as admitted by Zionist neo-con Victoria Nuland, wife of Zionist neo-con Robert Kagan), forcibly removing the legitimately elected government of Yanukovich and installing a puppet regime of Neo-Nazis answerable to Washington’s demands. Nuland also got caught saying “Fuck the EU” to US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoff Pyatt in a leaked phone call. After the coup, the Ukraine people all of a sudden found themselves with a Nazi-like government whose first decision was to ban the Russian language!

– Crimea has been a province of Russia since 1758, and only became part of Ukraine when Soviet head Khrushchev handed it over to Ukraine at a time when both Crimea and Ukraine were part of the Soviet Union (the whole thing was purely administrative). Therefore, Russia has had its Black Sea fleet based in Crimea for over 250 years, and a leasing agreement with Ukraine gave them the right to have 25,000 troops there. In a referendum deemed impartial and fair, 96% of Crimeans voted to return to Russia. There was no “annexation of Crimea“.

Putin-led Russia is standing in the way of American supremacy by suggesting we form a multi-polar world, rather than one led by US military might. Swedish analyst Ingemar Wärnström quotes Putin as saying:

“What is a unipolar world? However one might embellish this term, at the end of the day it refers to one type of situation, namely one centre of authority, one centre of force, one centre of decision-making. It is a world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And at the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within. And this certainly has nothing in common with democracy. Because, as you know, democracy is the power of the majority in light of the interests and opinions of the minority.

Incidentally, Russia – we – are constantly being taught about democracy. But for some reason those who teach us do not want to learn themselves. I consider that the unipolar model is not only unacceptable but also impossible in today’s world.”

Conclusion: The Wolfowitz Doctrine is the Guiding Force

To believe the US really cares about anything other than its own global imperial ambitions is foolish. The Wolfowitz Doctrine has laid it all out in black and white – and America’s support for Zionist Israel, the fake War on Terror, the demonization of Russia and Iran, and many other geopolitical events make much more sense when you realize its the driving force behind American diplomatic and military action.

Ultimately, it would be most precise to say that the NWO conspirators are using the military might of America to forge a unipolar One World Government. This really isn’t about America. It’s about using America as a tool to achieve the New World Order, then discarding it, stripping it of power and relegating it to the same level as all other nations, under the heel of the international banksters who yearn to rule the world.

Makia Freeman is the editor of alternative news / independent media site The Freedom Articles and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com, writing on many aspects of truth and freedom, from exposing aspects of the global conspiracy to suggesting solutions for how humanity can create a new system of peace and abundance.

Sources:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/naarpr_Defense.pdf
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf
https://thefreedomarticles.com/brzezinski-easier-to-kill-than-control/
http://www.takeoverworld.info/Grand_Chessboard.pdf
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9RCFZnWGE0
https://thefreedomarticles.com/who-is-jeb-bush-really-part-2/
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/u-s-implements-the-wolfowitz-doctrine/
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dexrP27MMdU
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIvRljAaNgg
https://www.rt.com/news/international-observers-crimea-referendum-190/
http://newsvoice.se/2015/09/07/swedish-analyst-the-smear-campaign-against-putin-and-the-us-agenda-part-1/

May 31, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia, Sinophobia, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

A short guide on how to starve a population to death

By Jonathan Cook | May 28, 2025

A short guide on how to engineer a genocide by starvation and ethnic cleansing:

1. Choose your moment. Ok, you’ve been ethnically cleansing, occupying, oppressing and killing your neighbours for decades. The international courts have ruled your actions illegal. But none of that will matter the moment your neighbours retaliate by attacking you. Don’t worry. The western media can be relied on to help out here. They will be only too ready to pretend that history began on the day you were attacked.

2. Declare, in response, your intention to starve your neighbours, treating them as “human animals”, by blocking all food, water and power. You will be surprised by how many western politicians are ready to support this as your “right to defend yourself”. The media will echo them. Important not to just talk about blocking aid. You must actually do it. There will be no serious pushback for many, many months.

3. Start relatively slowly. Time is on your side. Let a little bit of aid in. But make sure to relentlessly smear the well functioning, decades-old aid distribution system run by the international community – one that is transparent, accountable and widely integrated into the community it serves. Say it is infiltrated by “terrorists”.

4. Use that claim – evidence isn’t really necessary, the western media never ask for it – as the pretext to bomb the aid system’s warehouses, distribution centres and community kitchens. Oh, and don’t forget to bomb all the private bakeries, destroy all the farmland, shoot all the animals and kill anyone who tries to use a fishing boat, so that there are no other sources of food. You are now in control of the trickle of aid reaching what is rapidly becoming a severely malnourished population.

5. Time to move into higher gear. Stop the international community’s aid getting in all together. You will need a humanitarian cover story for this bit. The danger, particularly in an age of social media, is that images of starving babies will make you look very bad. Hold firm. You can get through this. Claim – again evidence isn’t really necessary, the western media won’t ask for it – that the “terrorists” are stealing the aid. You will be surprised how willing the media is to talk about babies going “hungry”, ignoring the fact that you are starving them to death, or speak of a “famine”, as though from drought and crop failure, not from your carefully laid plans.

6. Don’t lose sight of the bigger story. You are blocking aid to “eradicate the terrorists”. After all, what is the worth of a baby, of a child – all 1 million of them – in the fight to eliminate a rag-tag army of lightly armed “terrorists” who have never waged their struggle outside of their historic homeland.

7. Now that the population are entirely at your disposal, you can roll out a “humanitarian” alternative to the existing system you have been vilifying and wrecking. Probably best to have been working on this part of the plan behind the scenes from early on, and to have regularly consulted with the Americans on how to develop it. You may even find they are willing to fund it. They usually are. You can obscure their role by using the term “private contractors”.

8. It’s time for implementation. Obviously, the point is not to really distribute aid. It is all about providing a cover story so that the starvation and ethnic cleansing can continue. Make sure you provide only a tiny amount of aid and make it available only at a few distribution points you have set up with these “private contractors”. This has two advantages.

9. It forces the population to come to the areas you want them in. Like luring mice into a trap. Get them to the very edge of the territory, because from there you will be best positioned at some point to drive them over the border and get rid of them for good.

10. Your system will lead to chaos, as desperate, starving people fight for food. That’s great for you. It makes them look like a swarming mass of those “human animals” you were talking about from the start. Don’t they deserve their fate? And it means that young, fit men – especially those from large, often armed, criminal families – will end up with most of the food. The stuff they can’t grab at the distribution points, they will ambush later as people try to return home laden with their heavy aid packages. That may seem counter-productive, given that you’re claiming to want to eliminate the “terrorists”. Won’t these fit, young men, as conditions degenerate further, provide a future source of recruits to the “terrorists”. But remember, the real goal here is to starve the population as quickly as possible. The young, the elderly, the sick and the vulnerable are the ones who will die first. The more of them who start dying, the faster the pressure builds on everyone else to flee the territory to save themselves.

You are nearly there. True, faced with the emaciated bodies of your victims, western politicians will start making harsh pronouncements. But they have already given you a massive head start of 20 months. Be grateful for that. You don’t need much longer. While they dither, you can get on with the job of extermination. Leave it to the history books to judge what really happened.

May 28, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

ADL Regional Director Calls for Government-Regulated Online Censorship

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | May 27, 2025

The Anti-Defamation League’s David Goldenberg is demanding a broad overhaul of how speech is governed on the internet, calling for both government intervention and intensified corporate censorship. In a recent appearance, Goldenberg, who heads the ADL’s Midwest operations, expressed frustration over what he sees as declining efforts by tech firms to suppress online content he deems hateful.

Citing Meta’s rollback of its fact-checking team in the United States, he argued that platforms must be forced to take action. “You have a platform like Meta that just gutted its entire fact-checking department… And so what we need to do is we need to apply pressure in a real significant way on tech platforms that they have a responsibility, that they have an absolute responsibility to check and remove hateful speech that is insightful.(sic)”

Goldenberg advocated not just for voluntary moderation, but for legislative and regulatory measures, both at the federal and state level, that would compel platforms to act as speech enforcers. He pointed to efforts in states like California as examples of where local governments are already testing such models.

His concern centers around what he perceives as an ecosystem of radicalization made easily accessible by today’s digital infrastructure. He warned that extremist ideologies no longer require obscure forums or dark web communities to spread. “It used to be you had to fight going into the deep dark web… Now… it’s easier and easier to be exposed in the mainstream,” he said.

Framing the online environment as a catalyst for violence, Goldenberg argued that free access to controversial viewpoints must be curtailed. He called for social media companies to take a stronger stance by excluding users whose views fall outside accepted boundaries, adding that regulation should enforce this responsibility.

He zeroed in on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a critical piece of legislation that shields platforms from legal liability over user-posted content. “Congress needs to amend Section 230, which provides immunity to tech platforms right now for what happens,” Goldenberg said. He dismissed comparisons between modern platforms and telecommunications companies, referencing past remarks by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg about how phone providers were not liable for threats made over calls. Goldenberg’s view was blunt: “These tech platforms are not guaranteed under the Constitution. They’re just not.”

From his perspective, private companies should be free to “kick people off, to de-platform,” and if they fail to do so voluntarily, they must be pressured or regulated into compliance. He described accountability as a mechanism for shaping behavior, stating, “Accountability is a tool that can be incredibly effective in changing behavior.”

The position advanced by Goldenberg reflects a broader effort to blur the line between public authority and private platform control. By demanding that companies mirror the goals of activists and lawmakers, his approach seeks to institutionalize censorship and convert digital platforms into engines of ideological enforcement.

But such a vision comes with consequences. By urging the dismantling of legal protections and empowering both governments and corporations to decide which views should be silenced, this framework sets the stage for widespread suppression. What’s framed as protection from harm becomes a template for restricting dissent, and narrowing the range of permissible thought in public discourse.

May 27, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Israel’s claim that ‘Hamas is stealing aid’ is patently a lie. Here’s why

By Jonathan Cook | May 27, 2025

Israel’s claim that Hamas is “stealing aid” is so preposterous no serious journalist or politician ought to give it any kind of airing – yet there it is continuously cropping up in the coverage of Gaza.

How do I know Israel’s claim is utterly worthless? For this simple reason:

Israel has a fleet of surveillance drones constantly hovering over the tiny strip of land that is Gaza, monitoring every inch of the territory. The incessant whine you hear every time you watch someone there being interviewed is from one of those drones. They are Israel’s eyes on the enclave. If you are outside in Gaza, you might as well be living in the Truman Show.

Were Hamas stealing aid in Gaza, Israel would easily be able to document it. It would have the video footage from its drones. The fact that it has not provided any footage showing Hamas’ theft of aid – its ransacking of aid trucks, or its fighters smuggling themselves into aid warehouses – is confirmation enough that Israel has simply invented this claim to rationalise its plans to starve the people of Gaza to death through months of an aid blockade or force them to flee into neighbouring Sinai, whichever comes first.

Without its disinformation campaign about “Hamas stealing aid”, Israel knows popular revulsion at its starvation campaign would grow quickly, and western governments would further struggle to keep opposition in check.

There are lots of others reasons, of course, to reject Israel’s lies about “Hamas stealing aid”. Not least, because every single charity and aid agency dealing with Gaza says that aid is not being stolen by Hamas.

But also because, were Hamas fighters doing so, they would be stealing from their own families: from their children and grandparents, who are much more vulnerable to Israel’s starvation campaign than they are. The idea that Hamas is stealing aid makes sense only to a racist, European colonial mindset in which Hamas fighters are viewed as bogeymen figures indifferent to the deaths of their own children, wives and parents.

What undoubtedly is happening is that Israel is allowing the strongest extended families in Gaza – often crime families with significant private arsenals – to loot the aid. That has become a serious problem since Israel killed off Gaza’s civilian police force (in violation of international law), leaving no one to enforce public order.

When everyone’s starving, the most powerful families mobilise their strength to grab an unfair share of the aid. That was an entirely predictable outcome of Israel’s policy to smash all of Gaza’s institutions, including its hospitals, government offices, and police stations, on the bogus pretext that they were “Hamas”.

Note too that Israel has long cultivated close ties to Palestinian crime families, because they provide a potential alternative, and more co-optable, power base to the Palestinian national movements and are a good source of collaborators.

The evidence suggests Israel is encouraging these crime families to loot the aid precisely to justify its dismantling of an existing aid system that works remarkably well, given the catastrophic circumstances in Gaza, and replace it with its own militarised, completely inadequate “aid distribution” system, which is designed only to herd Palestinians into the southern-most tip of Gaza, ready to be expelled into Sinai.

No journalist ought to be repeating Israel’s transparent disinformation. To do so is to collude in the promotion of lies to justify genocide. But the western media class have been doing that now for more than a year and half. They have grown entirely insensible to their own active collusion in the genocide.

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

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