Middle East Press On: Human Rights, Gaza Catastrophe, Genocide: New Age Islam's Selection, 13 June 2025
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
13 June 2025
Human Rights According To Trump: From The South African Myth To The Gaza Catastrophe
Protecting Israel’s Narrative Also Protects Genocide
The Morality Of Small Means: Sanctioning Israel’s Ministers
Lost Impunity: Israel’s Waning Global Support Over Its Genocide In Gaza
Cracks Appear In Myth Of Israel’s ‘Brave’ Armed Forces
The Gangsters Destroying Gaza: A War On Truth, Children, And History
Israel Vs. Iran: What A Full-Scale War Would Look Like
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Human Rights According To Trump: From The South African Myth To The Gaza Catastrophe
June 12, 2025
In a world where humanitarian and political crises are spreading with unprecedented speed and intensity, human rights concepts have increasingly become political tools in the hands of global powers. Donald Trump, the current President of the United States, is a prime example of this political exploitation. On one hand, he has revived undocumented and controversial narratives about a “white genocide” in South Africa to attract public attention, while on the other, he unconditionally supports Israel’s extensive attacks on the Gaza Strip, which have resulted in tens of thousands of civilian deaths and the destruction of vital infrastructure. Trump’s selective approach to human rights issues is not motivated by humanitarian concern but by advancing political interests and securing the support of specific electoral bases.
This duality not only reflects the instrumentalisation of ethical values but is part of a broader pattern of politicising human rights on a global scale. In a world facing challenges such as poverty, displacement, and widespread violence, such approaches primarily undermine trust in the human rights discourse. Moreover, using human rights concepts for political objectives neither helps resolve crises nor reduces tensions; instead, it can exacerbate social and political conflicts.
The controversial South African narrative: A political myth
In recent years, Trump has repeatedly referred to the issue of “white genocide” in South Africa, presenting it as a human rights crisis. This claim is rooted in an old and discredited theory alleging that white farmers (Afrikaners) in South Africa are systematically targeted by the Black majority for violence and murder. Since the end of apartheid in 1994, this narrative has been promoted by certain groups as part of a “white victimization” discourse in right-wing circles. During a diplomatic meeting with the South African president, Trump presented images as evidence of this “genocide,” which were later proven to be fake and originated from mass graves in the Democratic Republic of Congo, unrelated to South Africa.
Of the six reported farm murders in the first quarter of 2025, five victims were Black and only one was white. These statistics clearly contradict claims of systematic targeting of whites. South Africa continues to grapple with the legacies of apartheid, including deep economic and social inequalities. Land reform efforts, designed to redistribute agricultural lands to the Black majority, aim to address these disparities. However, these reforms have often been exploited as a pretext for “genocide” claims.
This narrative aligns with white supremacist groups’ agendas and is supported by influential figures seeking to encourage Afrikaner migration to the United States. The focus on South Africa is part of a political strategy to distort the complex social and political realities of the country. South Africa faces challenges such as widespread poverty, high unemployment, and social tensions arising from historic inequalities. False claims of “white genocide” ignore these issues and fuel racial and political tensions. This approach has succeeded in attracting the attention of far-right groups in America, who use the narrative to bolster racist discourses and instill fear in their electoral bases.
Position on Gaza: Supporting a humanitarian disaster
In contrast, Trump’s stance on the Gaza crisis is completely different and contradicts his South African claims. Following the intensification of Israel’s attacks on Gaza in 2023, continuing into 2025, he proposed a controversial plan for direct US control of the territory. He called Gaza the “Riviera of the Middle East,” claiming that major investments could transform it into an economic hub. The plan involved forcibly relocating more than two million Palestinians from Gaza, an act widely condemned as a violation of international law, including human rights conventions.
This plan is not only unrealistic but also a form of neo-colonialism that seeks to cement Israeli dominance over Gaza under the guise of economic development. By June 2025, over 50,000 Palestinians had been killed in Israeli attacks, and more than 80 percent of Gaza’s infrastructure—including hospitals, schools, and homes—had been destroyed. These attacks have caused imminent famine, massive displacement, and the deaths of thousands of children. Yet, Trump has ignored these catastrophes and expressed unwavering support for Israel’s military policies. He has not even acknowledged the humanitarian disaster in his statements, instead emphasizing the need to strengthen the strategic alliance with Israel.
This double standard—where a fictional crisis in South Africa is headline news while documented atrocities in Gaza are ignored—is a blatant example of political selectivity in human rights issues. This choice not only reflects geopolitical priorities but also reveals disregard for fundamental human rights principles, such as the right to life and security, in regions that do not align with certain political interests. Such selectivity has intensified global distrust in human rights discourse and weakened the international community’s ability to respond to real crises.
Politicising human rights: Instrumentalisation and consequences
Trump’s contradictory approach is not accidental but part of a calculated strategy to politically exploit human rights concepts. His approach to human rights is less about ethical values and more about domestic political mobilization and securing support from his right-wing base. In this framework, South Africa has become a symbolic stage for the “white victimisation” narrative, while Gaza, due to its strategic alliance with Israel, is effectively marginalised.
By highlighting a fabricated crisis in South Africa, Trump not only diverts public attention from the human catastrophe in Gaza but also reinforces racist discourses within the US This approach, by instilling fear of a “threat to whites” among his voters, has consolidated support among conservative and far-right groups. Conversely, ignoring Gaza’s tragedy prioritizes geopolitical interests and alliances over any human rights considerations.
This instrumental use of human rights has widespread consequences. In South Africa, excessive emphasis on false narratives like “white genocide” fuels political instability and undermines efforts for just land reforms. These narratives distort the country’s social and economic realities and hinder constructive dialogue on its real challenges. In Gaza, unconditional support for Israeli military policies perpetuates cycles of violence and human rights violations, reducing prospects for lasting peace.
Furthermore, this approach has long-term implications for international relations. When human rights concepts are selectively employed for political motives, the global community’s ability to build consensus on human rights issues diminishes. This can reduce international cooperation in areas like humanitarian aid, international criminal justice, and conflict resolution. Ultimately, such strategies weaken global human rights values and increase skepticism toward international institutions.
Donald Trump’s approach to human rights in South Africa and Gaza is a glaring example of contradiction and instrumentalisation of ethical concepts. By exaggerating a fictitious crisis in South Africa, lacking credible evidence, he diverts public attention from well-documented, widespread atrocities in Gaza. This duality stems not from ignorance but from a political calculation aimed at securing support from specific groups and advancing geopolitical interests.
His claims about South Africa are rooted in distorted realities, while the human disasters in Gaza are clearly documented. This selective approach not only damages America’s credibility in defending human rights but also fuels global distrust in human rights discourse. In a world facing complex humanitarian challenges, principled and impartial approaches are more necessary than ever—approaches that Trump’s current stance fundamentally contradicts.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250612-human-rights-according-to-trump-from-the-south-african-myth-to-the-gaza-catastrophe/
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Protecting Israel’s Narrative Also Protects Genocide
By Ramona Wadi
June 12, 2025
According to US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, there is a ‘complication’ when Palestinians want their own state on their own land. Speaking during an interview with Bloomberg, Huckabee undoubtedly awarded Israel with further impunity for its ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people, when severing the link between Palestinians and their land, as US foreign policy has been doing for decades.
Asked if the US envisages a Palestinian state, Huckabee replied, “I don’t believe anyone can say ‘it’s impossible, it’ll never happen’ — but if someone wants to declare that this is the exact strip of geography that is going to be the future Palestinian state, that’s where the complication comes from.”
Pressed for clarification, Huckabee elaborated, “Israel has a little, narrow strip of real estate.” Comparing the settler-colonial entity to “Muslim-controlled countries”, he stated, “So when people say ‘Israel has to give something’, you kind of scratch your head and say, okay, let me see if I get this right.”
Therefore, according to Huckabee, countries that did not colonise Palestine should give land to Palestinians so they can have their state outside of colonised Palestine. “If the idea is that Israel need to carve out more and more land, maybe that’s why they are resistant to that.”
No mention of colonialism, of colonial genocide, of colonial expansion. For Israel’s narrative, such simple statements create the indigenous out of the colonisers. The narrative, however, doesn’t work. It is only sustained through violence, because Israeli settlers can never be indigenous to Palestine.
Israel’s resistance has nothing to do with ‘carving’ out of their own land, since the land does not belong to the settler-colonists. But it opposes relinquishing control over stolen land, because that would mean an admission of colonialism. Unfortunately, the international community has aided Israel too much in maintain the deceptive depiction. The two-state compromise is the international community’s major input in maintaining Israeli colonialism and, as a result, rendering Palestinians permanent refugees.
Meanwhile, the US is doing its best to discourage world leaders from attempting the conference co-hosted by France and Saudi Arabia, which will centre on the two-state paradigm, with Israel’s security always a prime concern. A cable on the matter partly reads, “The United States opposes any steps that would unilaterally recognise a conjectural Palestinian state, which adds significant legal and political obstacles to the eventual resolution of the conflict and could coerce Israel during a war, thereby supporting its enemies.”
Israel will always feel coerced because of its own coercion applied against Palestinians. The only part of the cable quoted here which reflects truth is the phrase “a conjectural Palestinian state”. Symbolic recognition does not lead to statehood. The US opposition to symbolism has nothing to do with possible further steps being taken to etch symbolism into reality. On the contrary, US rhetoric merely shapes the illusion that the conference can alter the current genocidal status quo. Which means that if no action is taken towards decolonisation, both the conference and the US warning will aid Israel in its ongoing colonisation of what remains of Palestinian land.
Back to Huckabee’s comments, there is no doubt that Israel’s “little, narrow strip of real estate” will be protected by the world’s powers, even by those debating on whether to recognise a Palestinian state. It is not the land that world leaders are protecting, however, but Israel’s colonial narrative about the land. And since the colonial narrative cannot be dissociated from land and people, world leaders continue protecting Israel’s genocide.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250612-protecting-israels-narrative-also-protects-genocide/
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The Morality Of Small Means: Sanctioning Israel’s Ministers
By Dr Binoy Kampmark
June 12, 2025
They really ought to be doing more. But in the scheme of things, the sanctioning of Israeli’s frothily fanatical ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich by New Zealand, Canada, Norway, the United Kingdom and Australia is a reminder to the Israeli government that ethnic cleansing, mass killing and the destruction of a people will receive some comment. But a closer look at the trumpeted move does little to suggest anything in the way of change or deterrence, certainly not in Gaza, where the cataclysm continues without restraint.
According to the joint statement, both politicians “have incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights. Extremist rhetoric advocating the forced displacement of Palestinians and the creation of new Israeli settlements is appalling and dangerous.” The violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank had “led to the deaths of Palestinian civilians and the displacement of whole communities.”
The reasoning for the imposition of such sanctions tends to minimise Ben-Gvir and Smotrich’s zealous defence of programmatic and systematic displacement and removal of Palestinian existence in the Strip, despite the statement claiming that “this cannot be seen in isolation”. The statement fails to note the warnings from the International Court of Justice that Palestinians in Gaza face the risk of genocide, with a final decision pending on the matter.
Singling out individual members of the Netanyahu cabinet as the convenient lunatics and the devilishly possessed is a point of convenience rather than effect. It is true that, even by certain Israeli standards, a figure like Ben-Gvir is a bit too pungent, a convict of racist incitement, the procurer of assault rifles to West Bank settlers and an advocate for the full annexation of the territory. But identifying the villainous monsters conceals the broader villainous effort, and the Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong did as much in simply calling the two ministers “the most extreme proponents of the unlawful and violent Israeli settlement enterprise.”
The report of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, prefers to note the broader role played by such agents of power as the Israeli security forces, which it accuses of committing war crimes in directing attacks against the civilian population in Gaza, wilful killing and intentionally launching attacks that “would cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians”. Killing civilians seeking shelter in schools also implicated the forces “in the crime against humanity of extermination.” The canvas of responsibility, in other words, is panoramic and large.
Pity, then, that the latest expression of small means by these five powers does not extend to a complete halt to military cooperation, the selling of arms, or engagement across various fields of industry. That would have diminished the hypocrisy somewhat, something that the countries in question are unlikely to do. More’s the pity that the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been spared this fit of moral clarity. When considered in substance, the two ministers face the sorts of restrictions that will be mildly bruising at best: travel bans and the freezing of assets.
The move by the Australian Labor government and its counterparts was, in the broader scheme of things, a modest one. It was also worth remembering that Canberra’s decision was made in sheepish fashion, with Wong previously stating that Australia would never unilaterally make such a move, as “going it alone gets us nowhere”. It was seen by Greens Senator Nick McKim as “far too little and far too late”. Sanctions were needed against the “Israeli industrial war machine.” On the other hand, Alex Ryvchin, co-chief of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry suggests that these measures can become a martyr’s tonic. “They have little support in Israel, but this is the sort of measure that will boost their notoriety and make them perhaps more popular”.
Looking ever the marionette in the show, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio flapped about in condemning the sanctions, which “do not advance US-led efforts to achieve a ceasefire, bring all hostages home and end the war.” Bereft of skills in argumentation, he could only warn US allies “not to forget who the real enemy is.”
The sanctions seemed to cause the condemned two less grief than Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who derided the decision as “outrageous”, “scandalous” and “unacceptable.” It was all part of “a planned and coordinated pressure campaign.” Ben-Gvir was almost smug with the attention and bursting with semitic pride. “We survived Pharoah, we will also survive [British Prime Minister] Keir Starmer,” he tooted in a statement.
Smotrich even seemed thrilled by the timing of it all, having been at the inauguration of a new Jewish settlement near the West Bank city of Hebron when he heard the news. “I heard Britain had decided to impose sanctions on me because I am thwarting the establishment of a Palestinian state,” he boasted. “There couldn’t be a better moment for this.”
One point is certainly true: the selective moves against the dastardly two leaves the murderous apparatus intact, and the IDF war machine undiminished. Most of all, it will do nothing to halt the construction of a single settlement or save a single Palestinian from dispossession.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250612-the-morality-of-small-means-sanctioning-israels-ministers/
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Lost Impunity: Israel’s Waning Global Support Over Its Genocide In Gaza
June 12, 2025
“Burning children alive can never be justified. The whole world is mobilising to stop the Israeli genocide. Please show your solidarity with Gaza” wrote British popstar Dua Lipa in May 2024. She is one of many global celebrities who have not only distanced themselves from Israel but condemned it without reservations for its genocidal war on Gaza. Once shielded by sympathy and narratives of survival, Israel now faces a tide of global contempt. From university campuses to Western parliaments, and from African capitals to the entertainment industry, anger toward the Jewish state has become widespread and unrelenting.
Despite robust support from mainstream media outlets in the U.S., UK, and parts of Europe, Israel’s image has been irreparably tarnished. Its relentless bombing of civilians, attacks on hospitals, and its illegal occupation of the West Bank have shattered the usual silence in the West about whatever the Jewish State does. The old shield of invoking “anti-Semitism” to deflect criticism has become threadbare—used so excessively it now echoes more as a political deflection than a moral truth. Many are now questioning whether laws criminalising criticism of Israel—often labeled “anti-Semitism”—should be revised in light of what Israel has done and continue to do in Gaza.
Fractures in Western institutions
The rupture in global sentiment toward Israel is perhaps most visible in Western institutions, where support was once unquestioned. In the U.S., lawmakers such as Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Sen. Bernie Sanders have publicly condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza, calling for an end to military aid and labelling the campaign a “massacre.” In January 2024, Sanders introduced a resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire and a reassessment of U.S. funding. Across Europe, Spain’s parliament passed a motion condemning Israel’s Gaza operation as “genocide.” Ireland’s Dáil declared Gaza a “zone of mass atrocities.” Australia and the UK have even imposed sanctions on two Israeli ministers with history of supporting ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. These aren’t fringe voices—they are sitting officials, influential lawmakers, and veteran diplomats. The backlash has exposed deep fractures inside institutions that once offered Israel near-automatic support.
Academia and the erosion of fear
Perhaps no shift is more telling than the revolt within academia. Once intimidated by the threat of career harm or accusations of anti-Semitism, students and faculty staff across North America and Europe now openly defy those taboos. Universities like Columbia, NYU, Oxford, and France’s Sciences Po, stage encampments, sit-ins, and walkouts in protest against Israeli policies. Medical and anthropological associations have even suspended collaborations with Israeli universities due to Gaza’s hospital bombings. What was once whispered in seminars is now shouted in lecture halls. The fear has been lifted and replaced by moral urgency. Across disciplines from law to literature, Israel’s image has shifted from a vulnerable state to an aggressor that should be held accountable.
The cultural turning point
The cultural sphere, once a bulwark of passive support for Israel, has also shifted dramatically. Roger Waters of Pink Floyd has headlined Gaza solidarity events, even reuniting with band mates for pro‑Palestinian causes. Actors like Susan Sarandon and writers such as Junot Díaz have publicly endorsed Palestinian rights. At the Cannes Film Festival, Leonardo DiCaprio joined calls for a ceasefire. Athletes including NBA star Kyrie Irving have joined protests and refused engagement with Israeli teams. Even Nobel laureates have issued solidarity statements. Cultural legitimacy—once a cornerstone of Israel’s soft power—is now collapsing under global disgust.
The Global South turns loudly
Outside the West, the tide against Israel is even more pronounced. South Africa’s genocide case at the ICJ has become a rallying cry of postcolonial resistance. In December 2023, Pretoria filed a formal complaint accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. Colombia and Bolivia have withdrawn their ambassadors. In Africa, protesters in Kenya criticised the government’s silence, while Algeria and Namibia issued some of the continent’s strongest condemnations. The narrative in the Global South has shifted from “conflict resolution” to “decolonisation” and a fight against “apartheid.” In this landscape, Israel is increasingly viewed less as a democracy and more as a colonial aggressor on borrowed moral time.
The hollowing of a shield
For decades, accusations of antisemitism deterred criticism of Israel. However, the horrific images from Gaza have unravelled that shield. Even prominent Jewish voices, scholars and Holocaust survivors now distinguish between anti-Jewish hatred and criticism of Israeli state violence. Organisations like Jewish Voice for Peace and intellectuals including Noam Chomsky have criticised this conflation as both morally wrong and strategically inept. This growing clarity is puncturing the moral exceptionalism Israel once relied on—and challenging Western societies to separate antisemitism from legitimate outrage.
Cracks in the strategic West
The diplomatic cost of defending Israel is now real. South Africa’s ICJ case has inspired others—including Ireland, Malaysia, and Indonesia—to join a Hague Group initiative to defend international justice. Arab normalisation deals, once seen as inevitable under U.S. tutelage, have become politically toxic. Even NATO members like Turkey and Spain increasingly face domestic pressure to recalibrate support. The strategic alliance that once framed “Western unity” around Israel is fragmenting. What was once a sought-after partner—Israel, the high-tech democratic outpost—now finds itself diplomatically hazardous in many regions.
A tarnished legacy and a long road back
To restore its international standing Israel will need decades of work —if it happens at all. The damage isn’t just reputational; it’s generational. A new cohort of global citizens—students, diplomats, journalists—have come of age during a blatant Israeli genocide which they view as morally indefensible. The days of automatic Western sympathy are gone. While pro-Israel lobbies scramble to control the narrative, the world is already moving on—with different sympathies, sharper questions, and a renewed sense of justice. If the Gaza war has done anything, it has ended Israel’s impunity from consequence.
One of the most troubling contradictions exposed by Israel’s wartime conduct is the way it has hollowed out the meaning of ‘antisemitism.’ Once a term meant to safeguard Jewish communities from real hatred, it is now deployed so indiscriminately that it risks losing all moral weight. Paradoxically, Israel’s actions have stoked—not reduced—hostility toward Jews in parts of Europe and the United States. In claiming to act on behalf of all Jews, the Israeli state has not sacrificed its own reputation or narrative of historical victimhood; instead, it has made Jewish communities more vulnerable to backlash and suspicion.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250612-lost-impunity-israels-waning-global-support-over-its-genocide-in-gaza/
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Cracks Appear In Myth Of Israel’s ‘Brave’ Armed Forces
Ross Anderson
June 12, 2025
One morning in early June 1967, when I was 14, I took the bus to school having read in the newspaper over breakfast that Egypt, Syria and Jordan were at war with Israel.
The first class of the day was history. Our history teacher, Mr. Ferry (teachers in those days did not have first names), was a fervent supporter of the still nascent state of Israel, which had existed for less than 20 years. Enterprisingly, he decided to scrap the lesson he had planned and instead devote the time to his favorite subject.
Jews, he told us, having endured discrimination and persecution in Europe for centuries, now had their own country, in which they could enjoy security and safety, thanks largely to their own indefatigable campaign for a Jewish state, but also due in part to the wisdom and munificence of the UN, based on an original proposal in 1917 by Britain’s own Lord Balfour. Warming to his theme, Mr. Ferry waxed lyrical about fit, bronzed and athletic young kibbutznikim, toiling daily under a hot sun to turn the dry and unforgiving desert green. It was all terribly inspiring.
Mr. Ferry omitted to mention that the territory then comprising the state of Israel had been obtained by means of driving, at gunpoint, about 750,000 Palestinians off the land they had inhabited for centuries, and sending into exile those who were not killed. Or that the “indefatigable campaign for a Jewish state” had been conducted by homicidal thugs from Irgun and the Stern Gang, who nowadays would be referred to as “terrorists” but who nevertheless went on to hold key ministerial roles in successive Israeli governments. Or that much of the “dry and unforgiving desert” was already green, thanks to generations of farming by Palestinian families who were now homeless and stateless.
To be fair, he only had 35 minutes, and it is possible that Mr. Ferry intended all this for a future lesson that somehow slipped his mind: he was, in many ways, an excellent teacher and I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. Anyway, the peroration of his discourse was that Israelis were inherently brave people who were not about to be deprived of their birthright by Arabs, who had a propensity for fighting among themselves, and the war would be over in a week.
We boys were skeptical. After all, as young children we had played among the bombed-out ruins of a conflict that had lasted for six long years: the idea of a brief one seemed unlikely. But hey, we were 14, what did we know? Six days later, Mr. Ferry was proved right.
It was about this time that a myth took hold, a fiction held as incontrovertible truth by many in Israel and by its cheerleaders in the West: that the Israeli armed forces are strong, determined and fearless, battle-hardened veterans who can never be defeated in a conflict — and are, above all, brave.
But it is easy to be brave in the occupied West Bank when you are armed to the teeth and protected by body armor and your “dangerous enemy” is a 12-year-old boy throwing rocks. It is easy to be brave when you are operating an armed Elbit Hermes 900 drone above southern Lebanon from the safety and comfort of a control room 50 km away. It is easy to be brave in an AH-64 Apache attack helicopter or an F-161 Sufa fighter jet in the skies above Gaza, aiming your weapons at a Hamas enemy without air defenses — or, more probably, innocent Palestinian women and children with no defenses of any kind. And it is easy to be brave inside your heavily armored Merkava Mk4 battle tank on the outskirts of Rafah, firing your 120mm cannon at those few innocent Palestinian civilians who have survived the attack helicopters and the fighter jets.
For a fighting force, the Israeli forces do precious little fighting. And when they are required to do so, they turn out not to be very good at it. When Hamas attacked southern Israel in October 2023, the troops on the unit whose job it was to protect civilians — the 77th Battalion, 7th Armored Brigade (Gaza Division) — appear to have been mostly asleep. Their Re’im base was quickly overrun and reinforcements delayed entering the combat zone even though civilians were under attack (limited enthusiasm there for a fight, evidently). A military investigation described the attack as the “biggest security failure in Israel’s history,” the army admitted it had “failed in its mission to protect Israeli civilians,” and Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi had the decency to resign.
You will find no defense of Hamas’ cowardly attack here, but there are other signs that cracks are appearing in the fragile carapace of Israel’s military invincibility, including shameless mendacity in how it defends its actions. There is by now a clearly defined three-stage process: 1. It definitely wasn’t us. 2. Well, it may have been us. 3. OK, it was us.
This has always reminded me of the wild west days of the British tabloid press, before legislation on privacy and other restrictions reined in the worst excesses of Fleet Street. At that time, there was a mantra for newspapers dealing with any difficulties: never apologize, never explain and, when cornered, lie.
There are countless examples of Israel putting this into practice. When an Israeli sniper assassinated the Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin in May 2022, the Israeli military lied through its teeth. When Israeli soldiers deliberately killed 15 paramedics and aid workers after opening fire on a clearly identified rescue convoy in Gaza in March this year, the military lied through its teeth. Most recently, Israeli gunfire has killed at least 160 Palestinians as they desperately scrambled for food at shambolic aid “distribution sites” set up by the deeply suspect Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Since the first such incident, on May 27, when it killed 10 Palestinians, the Israeli military has been lying through its teeth.
The armed forces of Ukraine, currently fighting in the trenches of Donbas to defend their country against an unprovoked invasion by a militarily more powerful and numerically superior aggressor — now that’s brave. Israel’s army, not so much.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2604284
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The Gangsters Destroying Gaza: A War On Truth, Children, And History
June 12, 2025
The level of cognitive dissonance shown by Israelis is way beyond curiosity. It is alarming. An entire population has been stewed in lies for so long that it apparently believes them, and we are expected to believe them too.
Recent examples have been shown on the Piers Morgan talk show. Morgan is not to be trusted. He blows with the wind and blows back when it changes direction, but for the moment, he seems to agree that what is happening in Gaza is genocide.
His recent interviewees have included the Israeli ambassador to the UK, the Zionist-centred ‘historian’ Benny Morris, and Natasha Hausdorff, whose ‘expertise’ in international law seems to be based on proving that when it comes to Israel, she is uniformly right and international law uniformly wrong.
An example is her view of the West Bank. The uniform view of international jurists, human rights bodies, and the UN General Assembly is that it is occupied, yet in Ms Hausdorff’s view, Israel is the ‘sovereign power’ over the West Bank and the Palestinians have no right to a state there.
In a debate at the Oxford Union, Hausdorff claimed that “the Arabs have been massacring Jews for centuries.” True, there have been mob attacks on Jews in Arab history, but no Arab attack on Jews since the rise of Islam compares even remotely to the scale of slaughter of Arabs by Zionist Jews in Palestine and around its borders since the beginning of the 20th century.
Neither do any anti-Jewish pogroms in history compare to the Zionist pogrom against West Bank Palestinians, backed by the state, just as the Cossack pogroms in the Jewish Pale of Settlement were backed by the Russian state.
Pogroms usually lasted for a few days, whereas the West Bank pogrom has been continuous for nearly sixty years.
In her conversation with Morgan, Hausdorff presented herself as the only rational actor in the madhouse. She tried to argue that Israel was providing Palestinians with plenty of food and then questioned whether the nine children of Gaza pediatrician Dr. Alaa al Najjar were really killed.
As far as the rest of the world is concerned, these children were killed in an Israeli missile attack. The charred bodies wrapped in shrouds were there as the undeniable truth. So was the mother weeping over them – and her husband – but the undeniable truth was not enough to stop Ms Hausdorff.
The deaths were “based on hearsay,” she said. There were “conflicting accounts,” with “artificially generated intelligence used to promote this story… if it is true.”
Her grasp on history is no better than her grasp on contemporary facts. In the Oxford Union debate, she claimed that Ben-Gurion did not say he wanted to expel ‘the Arabs.’
One would have thought this argument would have run out of steam four or five decades ago, but here Ms Hausdorff was trying to resuscitate it. If she got away with this, no doubt she would be arguing next that the ‘Arabs’ just ran away against all the valiant efforts of the settler militias to persuade them to stay so they could live in peace and harmony forevermore.
Of course, Ben-Gurion wanted to expel the Arabs. The war of 1948 was a war on the civilian population, just as the war on Gaza is right now. There could not be a Jewish state unless the Palestinian population was removed, and it could only be removed through war. What we are now seeing is the attempted final consummation of the historical Zionist objective to remove all Palestinians from Palestine.
What Ben-Gurion said in public was propaganda, and what he said or wrote in private was the real thing. In a letter to his son, he wrote that “we must expel the Arabs and take their place.” In early 1948, he spoke of expelling “Arab townspeople” so “our people can replace them” and destroying “Arab islands in Jewish population areas.” In fact, the reverse was true: there were Jewish islands in Palestinian population areas.
There are numerous other indications of what Ben-Gurion intended, as Ms Hausdorff would find out if she did the basic research she recommends to others.
Ms Hausdorff claims Israel is not ‘targeting’ children, as if killing children but not ‘targeting’ them somehow lets Israel off the hook. It is not true anyway. Israel knows perfectly well when it bombs an apartment building that children are there and they are going to be killed. It is targeting them, along with everyone else.
Its snipers shoot civilians – including children – for no apparent reason other than that they can shoot them. The government doesn’t object because the more dead Palestinians the better, as Netanyahu and the criminals around him have repeatedly made clear. Whatever they do, soldiers know they are not going to be punished.
Checking the bodies of dead or wounded children, foreign doctors volunteering in Gaza said the number of shots to the head and upper body was evidence of deliberate targeting. Why would snipers want to kill children? “As a hobby,” the Israeli politician Yair Golan has suggested.
Israel’s claims that military targets are inside civilian infrastructure have been exposed as a lie so often that they warrant only a bored yawn, but for Israel’s propagandists, everyone else is lying.
In her conversation with Piers Morgan, Tzipi Hotovely, the Israeli ambassador to the UK, said Israel was not targeting civilians and killing children. That is a lie, and according to Hotovely, the Nakba was a lie, too. Do these people seriously expect people to believe them? Apparently, they do.
Hotovely claims to know how many Hamas fighters Israel has killed. In fact, she no idea. The figures given by the Israeli military are all over the place and are not backed by any credible evidence.
What it seems to be doing is extrapolating adult males from the total number of civilian deaths given by Gaza health authorities, and saying they are all Hamas fighters. She admits to having no idea how many children have been killed. They came into the conversation almost as an afterthought.
Morgan’s interview with Benny Morris produced more denial. Morris made his name with his 1988 book on the ‘birth’ of the Palestine ‘refugee problem.’ His research in the Zionist archives confirmed much of what Palestinians had been trying to say all along but a Jewish historian had to say it before ‘western’ so-called ‘liberals’ felt safe to say it themselves.
In his book, Morris dodges around the question of planned expulsion and completely ignores the central question of prior intent dating back to the beginning of the Zionist program, which is the key to understanding 1948.
He argued a few years later that it was a pity Ben-Gurion did not finish the job in 1948 by ethnically cleansing all Palestinians. Then there wouldn’t be a Palestinian problem. He also said the Palestinians on the West Bank were so wild they needed to be caged. Yes, just like human animals.
Responding to another panellist, Norman Finkelstein, Morris argued that what was happening in Gaza was not genocide because “had Israel wanted to kill all Palestinians, there would have been many more deaths.” So, in his view, Israel did not kill enough Palestinians for Gaza to qualify as genocide.
When Norman Finkelstein referred to a poll indicating that 47 percent of Jewish Israelis believe all Gazan Palestinians should be exterminated, Morris said it was a lie, without producing any contradictory evidence.
Morris said he felt sorry for the Palestinian man who had “lost” 78 members of his family, but in attacking Israel, he was a liar, too. Gaza had “nothing to do with genocide.” All this was said with a supercilious smirk and the smug confidence of someone who knows the truth and no one else does.
Alon Mizrahi, the anti-Zionist Israeli writer, says he no longer intends to engage with Zionists because it is basically a waste of time. This is fully understandable. Even in the face of undeniable truths, they won’t budge. You might as well go outside and have a chat with the nearest brick wall. Thick skins when it serves their purpose, ultra-thin when they want to pour on the outrage and accusations of lies, antisemitism, and blood libels.
What we know from the polls, talk shows, and vox pop street surveys is the large number of Jewish Israelis who share the same exterminatory desires as Netanyahu, Smotrich, and Ben Gvir.
What we also know from polls is that around the world, Israel is loathed. This is hardly surprising considering that Israel it has done everything in its power over the past eight decades to be loathed. It has practically been pleading to be loathed, for curious psychological reasons of its own.
It cannot be that politicians in the US, the UK, Australia or anywhere else cannot see what everyone else is seeing or cannot find out if they are not seeing it, because of the media shield around Israel.
Yet in full view of some of the worst crimes in history, they can hardly bring themselves to criticize Israel. The slaughter of children passes by almost unnoticed, so far close to 20,000 or even more of them. Anthony Albanese, the Australian prime minister, said the recent shooting of an Australian photographer with a rubber bullet in Los Angeles was “horrific.” By comparison, he said Israel’s murder of seven aid workers (including an Australian) in April 2024 was just “not good enough.” Being hit by a rubber bullet is “horrific, ” mass murder is just “not good enough.”
France has just been revealed as supplying arms to Israel throughout the genocide. The US, Germany, and other countries have done the same, which is why the genocide has to be regarded as a joint enterprise.
The media’s ‘plucky little state’ of the 1950s has turned into a monster which no one has the guts to control. The evil seed planted in Palestine more than a century ago is now reaching its full flowering.
The people running Israel are mass murderers. They have no morals, no code of honor, and no respect for law or human life outside Jewish life. Even then there are exceptions: the captives left to rot in Gaza and the Israelis deliberately killed by their own military on October 7.
The Chicago gangsters of the 1930s were novices by comparison. They killed hundreds, Israel’s clique of gangsters kills tens of thousands. They have no sympathy for their victims. They plan their deaths in detail. They know exactly what they are doing.
They don’t care how many Palestinians their soldiers kill or in what criminal circumstances they kill them because killing as many Palestinians as possible is their program. They are doing it slowly. Just chipping away, day after day, with the help now of the sub-contracted Palestinian gangsters led by Abu Shabab.
Israel is destroying ‘civilization’ at its legal and moral roots. It is holding the world in bondage. It is forcing people to watch what they can no longer bear to watch because it is so horrifying.
‘Western’ governments are beginning to shift slightly under the pressure of public opinion but they are all Israel’s accomplices. They are showing no inclination to stop the horrors inflicted on the Palestinians every day. Behind their token outrage and claptrap about ceasefires and the two-state solution, Israel’s final solution to the ‘Palestine problem’ seems to be theirs as well.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/the-gangsters-destroying-gaza-a-war-on-truth-children-and-history/
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Israel Vs. Iran: What A Full-Scale War Would Look Like
June 12, 2025
The fates of Palestine and Iran are inextricably intertwined. This is something that the Israeli leadership has made clear from day one of its genocide against Gaza. As we approach the precipice of a major conflict between Tel Aviv and Tehran, it is important to take into consideration what is likely and how far it could go.
As the US posture against Iran, setting the stage for possible military action by evacuating its non-essential personnel and families of soldiers from various nations within striking distance of Iran, many analysts are scrambling to make sense of the situation.
For months, the Israeli, British, and US media have all been releasing report after report on an alleged feud between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and American President Donald Trump. During this time, we have heard everything from claims that Trump will recognise the State of Palestine, to him firing his staff in order to get an Iran nuclear deal independent of the Zionist Lobby’s assets in Washington.
Over time, it has become clear that the “anonymous sources” and “security officials” were non-existent and that most of the stories spread across the media are simply inaccurate. However, as is often the case with Israeli propaganda, the goal is never to actually convince the world of a lie, it is to saturate the media landscape with so many claims that it muddles the waters.
Why is this all relevant to a potential strike on Iran? Well, since the US public are overwhelmingly opposed to initiating a war with the Islamic Republic, Trump needs someone to blame. On the other hand, Netanyahu needs to claim all of the glory should his master plan actually work, to one degree or another.
If you fish around now for analyses about what is currently transpiring, you will inevitably find various pieces arguing that Israel is seeking to attack Iran against the wishes of the United States. If Israel carries out an attack on Iran, there is no possibility at all that the US will be opposed to it and there is not a shred of evidence to support this notion, other than hearsay from unnamed sources.
Innuendo aside, through using basic reasoning, it can be deduced that a significant Israeli attack on Iran is close to an impossibility without the US. Why? There are four main reasons:
An attack on Iran could spark a major war, which, without a plan in place by the US, could completely collapse its entire regional project. This is not a simple move and there is a reason why the past Israeli attacks on Iran were so incredibly limited.
Israel needs the United States for air defence purposes. The evidence points towards US aircraft achieving most of the successful missile and drone interceptions during Iran’s Operation True Promise 1. Israel’s air defence systems are incapable of dealing with Iranian ballistic missile attacks.
There is no way the Israelis could possibly conceal something so huge from their American allies. They would have to know.
In the event of war, risking a breakup between Israel and the US would be a potentially nation-ending event.
Especially with the US now raising its threat levels across the region, withdrawing forces and their families, putting its major military bases on standby, while making various threats, it is not plausible to say that it isn’t aware, or that “Israel is dragging the US to war”.
Simply put, if the US wanted to stop such an attack, it could, but it is clear that whatever is coming is part of a carefully calibrated plan.
What To Expect
It is true that this could end up boiling over into a catastrophic war in which the Israelis could deploy nuclear weapons and the Iranians could decimate Israel, but this isn’t the most likely kind of conflict to occur.
If either side is going to be totally defeated, it will have to come as a result of action on the ground. Iran is not open to the possibility of being defeated on the ground, but the Israelis face this problem and do not necessarily possess the armed force capable of putting off a multi-front ground attack.
To get a sense of how policymakers in Washington view the event of war with Iran, the best place to go is to the right-wing think tanks. The Heritage Foundation – widely regarded as the most influential think tank over the Trump administration – laid out in a recent brief on the issue what they believed to be a strategy wherein the Israelis could hit Iran’s nuclear facilities and Iran would only commit a limited response.
Donald Trump himself has in the past stated that an attack on Iran will be led by the Israelis, also. According to The Heritage Foundation, in addition to pieces published by the pro-Zionist Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), their reasoning behind striking Iran is that they view Tehran as having been severely weakened. Yet, President Trump has refuted the idea that Iran is weak publicly, demonstrating that this reasoning is simply to sell the idea amongst the low-stock political class.
The ideas that Hezbollah has been defeated, Iran’s air defences were all destroyed by Israel’s lackluster attack on them late last year and that the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance is on its knees, are not plausible. These are arguments for the public and are not likely to be taken seriously by defence officials and intelligence agencies internally.
Reading between the lines here, the US-Israel alliance has to have one of two approaches:
They are planning an attack on Iran but believe it can remain limited.
They are both bluffing and won’t attack.
All the evidence points towards the US-Israel alliance being serious about the prospect of attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities. The motivating factors here are numerous. One of them being that in the event of a controlled and limited conflict, both sides can claim victory and present their strikes as evidence. The damage done to Israel could also open the way for concluding the conflicts on its other fronts.
In addition to this, if the Israelis and Americans are to claim that Iran’s nuclear program was wiped out – regardless of whether the strikes actually worked or not – it will quiet down dissenting voices when it comes to an interim deal with Iran that could de-escalate tensions completely.
Joe Biden took the approach of reaching a non-binding interim agreement with Tehran, releasing tens of billions in frozen Iranian assets and passing the whole thing off as a simple prisoner exchange. At the time, the Democratic Party President understood that passing a new Iran Nuclear deal through Congress would not be possible due to all of the pushback and so opted for an unofficial agreement instead. It appeared as if this deal was a kind of attempted insurance policy so that Iran would not cause issues with Saudi-Israeli normalisation.
October 7, 2023, changed everything, however, which has landed the region where it is today. The US perspective, along with the Israeli one, looks at self-preservation, image of victory, and restoring the prestige of their military might.
Israel tried to finish off the Palestinian people, defeat Hezbollah, and achieve its “Greater Israel” project, but has dramatically failed to do so. Despite achieving various tactical victories over Hezbollah and even Iran, with the assassinations of senior IRGC officials and Ismail Hanniyeh inside Tehran, none of their foes have been strategically defeated.
In Gaza, the Israeli military is exhausted, and the only thing keeping them going is their air force and the unlimited supply of Western-made munitions. Israel’s army is falling apart under the pressure and is using starvation, rather than successful ground operations, as its preferred tactic. It even has contracted criminal ISIS-linked militia men, who it formerly used to steal aid, to begin fighting in the place of the Israeli army on the ground in some instances.
The invasion of southern Lebanon was also a dramatic failure, and under the best possible conditions. Now, they are stuck, having spent most of their intelligence cards, and are incapable of landing the blows that would lead to Hezbollah’s defeat.
While Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the others may have previously taken the view that this war is not the “final war of liberation” as former Hezbollah Secretary General, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, called it. This calculation has clearly changed now. They do see this war as existential and that the Israelis are now in their weakest ever position.
All of this is to say that an Israeli attack on Iran will more likely than not be rather limited in its scope, with the intention of keeping Tehran’s retaliation within reason. Yet the wildcards are Hezbollah and Hamas.
As I have noted in previous pieces, Hezbollah is likely to attack Israel if Iranian missiles are raining down on its airfields and thus degrading the air power that the Zionist military has to leverage against Lebanon in such a fight. This will present a golden opportunity for Hezbollah to restore its image and reclaim Lebanese territory.
Then there is Hamas and the rest of the Palestinian resistance factions. Their actions could determine how far Hezbollah will end up going in their offensive, and the Palestinian response could be significant, despite the massive hits Gaza’s armed groups have taken.
The reason why Iran will not be seeking to totally destroy Israel with its missile power, something it could undoubtedly attempt, is that the Israelis do have nuclear weapons. In 1973, the Israelis came dangerously close to pursuing this option when they were overwhelmed by the Syrian and Egyptian armies.
How this all escalates over a period of days, following the first round of strikes and the retaliatory attacks from Iran, is very hard to call. But this could easily spiral out of control. When the US went to war in Iraq, although this conflict is very different, the think tanks in Washington got so tied up in their own propaganda that they failed to predict the backlash. The US took over Baghdad with no real vision as to how they would move the country forward, and they still remain in Iraq to this day.
One wrong move in this war is not the difference between a few IED attacks, foreign influence, or armed groups forming; it is a potential slippery slope towards nuclear weapons being used or the capture of occupied Jerusalem.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/israel-vs-iran-what-a-full-scale-war-would-look-like-analysis/
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URL: https://www.newageislam.com/middle-east-press/human-rights-gaza-catastrophe-genocide/d/135855
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