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lunes, 28 de julio de 2025

Trump Shows Strong Support for Israel as Palestinians in Gaza Starve to Death

After the US and Israel quit ceasefire talks, Trump suggested it was time for Israel to 'finish the job'

by Dave DeCamp | July 27, 2025

https://news.antiwar.com/2025/07/27/trump-shows-strong-support-for-israel-as-palestinians-in-gaza-starve-to-death/

President Trump has shown strong support for Israel in recent days, while much of the world has been outraged over the images of Palestinians who are starving to death due to the US-backed Israeli siege on Gaza.

After the US and Israel quit ceasefire talks, Trump blamed the lack of progress on Hamas and suggested it was time for Israel to “finish the job” in Gaza. “I think they want to die, and it’s very, very bad,” Trump said on Friday, referring to Hamas.

For its part, Hamas has said that it was surprised by the US and Israel quitting the truce talks and that it was committed to continuing the process until a deal was reached.

In recent weeks, Trump has been claiming that a ceasefire deal was close, but now he is appearing to suggest that Israel should escalate its genocidal war. “They’re gonna have to fight, and they’re gonna have to clean it up. You’re gonna have to get rid of [Hamas],” he said.

Israeli officials told Axios that they weren’t sure if Trump’s comments were a negotiating tactic or a “green light” for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to use even more extreme military measures. The report said the Trump administration was rethinking its Gaza strategy, but there’s no sign it’s considering putting pressure on Israel to reach a ceasefire.

Israeli officials also told Axios that Trump has applied virtually no pressure on Netanyahu to end the slaughter in Gaza in recent months. “In most calls and meetings, Trump told Bibi, ‘Do what you have to do in Gaza.’ In some cases, he even encouraged Netanyahu to go harder on Hamas,” one official said.

While meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Scotland on Sunday, Trump was asked about the images of starving children in Gaza. The president said people were “stealing the food,” a reference to Israel’s unfounded claims that Hamas has been stealing massive amounts of aid, then quickly pivoted to different topics.

In other comments, Trump said the issue of food shortages in Gaza was an “international problem,” not a “US problem.” But Israel is reliant on US military aid to sustain its military operations in Gaza, and Trump has the power to end the genocidal war by leveraging that support.

domingo, 27 de julio de 2025

Israeli 'thugs' board Gaza-bound aid ship Handala in international waters

Israeli forces intercepted the Handala aid ship en route to Gaza, detaining activists, journalists and European politicians

By Elis Gjevori

Published date: 26 July 2025

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-thugs-board-gaza-bound-aid-ship-international-waters

Israeli troops stormed the Gaza-bound Handala vessel in international waters on Saturday, halting its attempt to deliver aid to Palestinians in the besieged enclave.

The raid was broadcast live by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, showing soldiers confronting unarmed passengers as they sat on deck with their hands raised, singing the anti-fascist anthem “Bella Ciao”.

The Handala, carrying 19 activists, including European MPs and two Al Jazeera journalists, was intercepted roughly 100 kilometres west of Gaza, and around 50 kilometres off Egypt’s coast. Activists say the boat was carrying humanitarian supplies and attempting to break Israel’s maritime blockade of Gaza.

“There is no threat from our side,” one crew member said during the broadcast, which was cut shortly after troops boarded the ship.

A video released by the flotilla captured an exchange between Israeli forces and Palestinian-American human rights lawyer Huwaida Arraf. “This is a civilian vessel,” she said. “In international law, any blockade that deliberately starves a civilian population is a violation of international law.”

“You are deliberately starving civilians and children before the eyes of the world,” she added, accusing Israel of violating its responsibilities under international humanitarian law.

French MEP Emma Fourreau, also on board, posted on X that Israeli ships had approached the vessel and that she and others planned to throw their phones into the sea. Al Jazeera Arabic later reported three Israeli naval vessels had moved in after a drone was spotted overhead.

A livestream later showed at least six Israeli soldiers boarding the vessel. Those on board appeared calm, wearing life jackets and sitting with arms raised.

Israeli officials had earlier stated their intent to enforce what they claim a “legal maritime security blockade” on Gaza. The military has yet to issue an official statement on the operation.

Among those detained were French MPs Fourreau and Gabrielle Cathala. Jean-Luc Melenchon, head of their party France Unbowed, denounced the storming by Israeli troops. "Netanyahu's thugs boarded Handala. They attack 21 unarmed people in territorial waters where they have no right. A kidnapping in which two French parliamentarians are victims," he posted on X.

Melenchon demanded the French government take action.

The Handala’s crew had said in advance they would launch a hunger strike if detained. Gaza remains under siege, with aid agencies warning of mass starvation.

The incident echoes a similar event on 9 June, when Israeli forces intercepted another Freedom Flotilla ship, the Madleen, which carried 12 activists, including Greta Thunberg.

sábado, 26 de julio de 2025

Film Review: James Gunn’s Superman cements Israel’s villain status in the American imagination

James Gunn’s new Superman movie, which draws an analogy between Israel and the villainous country of Boravia, demonstrates how Israel's idealized image in American culture has been shattered by the widespread acknowledgment of Palestinian oppression.

By Mitchell Plitnick  July 18, 2025 

https://mondoweiss.net/2025/07/film-review-james-gunns-superman-cements-israels-villain-status-in-the-american-imagination/

SUPERMAN
Directed by James Gunn
129 minutes, DC Studios, 2025

Editor’s Note: This article contains very mild spoilers.

“Truth, justice, and the American way.”

Those words are the long-time tagline of the DC comics character, Superman. They are not as prominent today as they have been in the past, but for those us, like me, who were great fans of DC comics in the 1970s and 1980s, they still defined Superman. 

They were also one of several reasons why, although my youthful passion for comic books leaned much more toward DC than its rival Marvel in those days, I didn’t care much for Superman. I liked the idealism he was supposed to represent, but his simplistic presentation and, more than anything, his deference to authority was a message my young and rebellious self was profoundly uncomfortable with.

So how is it that in 2025, James Gunn’s new movie, Superman, has delighted me and many others by striking the biggest cultural blow to date against the United States’ mindless support of Israel, even as it commits war crimes and guns down innocent Palestinians on a daily basis?

The dynamics of this movie are fascinating to watch, but the responses are much more important.

‘Boravia’ is Israel, and is the bad guy

Since Superman premiered, there has been a lot of chatter about it. The film broadly tells the story of Superman intervening against Boravia—which, both in the movie and in the comic book lore it is drawn from is presented as an Eastern European country—conquering its neighbor Jarhanpur—clearly depicted as an economically and physically ravaged country populated by people of color, many of whom are visibly Muslim. The scenario is inescapably evocative of Palestine. 

“Superman has gone woke” is one extremely popular attack on the film. That one is rooted in Superman’s clear message supporting the rights of immigrants, but it also goes hand-in-hand with the complaint that the character has been warped by the “liberal media” to condemn Israel.

Even leaving aside the notion that Superman, as a character, ever represented anything other than kindness and caring for all, even if in a highly pro-American way, the arguments are silly. Anyone who is familiar with the character would recognize Superman’s simple argument when he is criticized for stopping the surrogate for Israel in this film, Boravia, from slaughtering innocent and helpless civilians: “People were going to die!”

Superman’s strength as a character is his idealism, which often spills over into extreme naivete, and his determination to treat all life as precious and equal. That’s what the crowd whining that “Superman has gone woke” just can’t grasp.

Since Israel, Palestine, or any other country—save the United States, of course—is not mentioned in Superman, the metaphor of Boravia can be interpreted, or denied, at the viewer’s whim. But to do so, one has to ignore the unambiguous evidence in the film. 

James Gunn, who wrote and directed Superman, insists that Boravia and its neighboring country Jarhanpur, are not direct references to Israel and Palestine, but his explanation is very telling. 

“When I wrote this the Middle Eastern conflict wasn’t happening. So I tried to do little things to move it away from that, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the Middle East… [the movie depicts an] invasion by a much more powerful country run by a despot into a country that’s problematic in terms of its political history, but has totally no defense against the other country,” which he said “really is fictional.”

Just from the statement that “the Middle Eastern conflict wasn’t happening,” we can tell that Gunn is not deeply learned in Israel and Palestine, although what he probably meant was that October 7 had not yet happened (he started writing the film in late 2022) and neither had the overt genocide in Gaza. As such, it may be fair to take him at his word that he was referencing a broader idea.

But it’s an inescapable reality that the powerful country vs a helpless people describes Israel and the Palestinians, especially in Gaza. 

Sure, in addition to Israel and Palestine there are a few parallels with Russia and Ukraine. But that allegory doesn’t really fit since Boravia was said to be a close U.S. ally. Plus Ukraine, while certainly not the military power Russia is, is clearly far from helpless in the face of Russian aggression. 

The deep relationship between the Boravian dictator (who speaks with a thick Russian or Eastern European accent and looks like a caricature mix of Benjamin Netanyahu and David Ben-Gurion) and the American corporate sector resembles Netanyahu, even while his alienation from the American political sector might evoke Putin a bit more.

But the Israel-Palestine metaphor is clearly there. It may have been one among several examples of the political dynamic in Gunn’s head, but what emerges on film is unmistakably influenced by Israel, even if not solely so. 

Gunn likely did not want to be too on the nose with his allegory, although he pretty clearly failed at that effort. More importantly, this movie is the foundation for what he and his backers at Warner Bros./Discovery hope will be a multi-billion-dollar franchise to rival that of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He wants the political debate to enhance the film and its legacy, not to overwhelm it, so some degree of space to be evasive about politics is prudent.

More important than the writer’s intentions, though, is that the political conflict depicted was so quickly seen for what it is.

Profound culture shift

In the past, even the very recent past, it would have been unfathomable for an American summer blockbuster film to show Israel, even a metaphorical Israel, as an invading, corrupt country whose neighbors were in such terror they had to pray for a superhero to save them, or all hope would be lost.

A writer would have come to the studio with a script like that, even one where the allusion to Israel was obscured to a much greater degree, and it would have been tossed out. There might be fear of backlash, or it simply might be that this concept would be seen as too challenging for Americans who still hold on to the mythical image of Israel as either the poor victim of the ravenous Arab and Muslim hordes or the plucky little state that rose to become a military power and key American ally. But that didn’t happen here.

The fact that Gunn wrote this movie is notable enough. But Warner/Discovery spent $225 million to make it and anticipates another $125 million in advertising. That’s a significant investment. Moreover, they have two more high-budget films in the works, eight more in development, as well as two more television series in production and five more in pre-production.

If Superman failed at the box office or caused a backlash that might lead to boycotts of DC media, it would be a disaster. But there hasn’t been a hint of trepidation or pressure on Gunn to soften this message. Warner Bros./Discovery CEO David Zaslav is known for his frugality, his willingness to scrap projects just for tax breaks, and for a relatively conservative approach. He obviously didn’t see this as much of a risk.

A movie painting Israel in a villainous light reflects the change in generations as well. After all, the older audience, the folks still denying the real nature of Israel, is not the target of this film. Nor am I, as a man in his late 50s. It’s younger people, and they see Israel differently.

No going back to an idealized Israel

More than just reflecting that shift, a movie like Superman entrenches it culturally in a way that all the political activism, analysis, protests, and even exposure of the truth can’t. It normalizes the view of Israel as an aggressor state. That’s why it provokes denial from the likes of far-right Israel backer pundit Ben Shapiro and hysteria from other pro-Israel zealots who don’t deny the reality of the movie.

Consider the words of the far-right, racist Israeli rapper known as Hatzel (The Shadow): 

“Instead of presenting a character who defends the weak and fights for justice, they turned it into a disgusting political caricature, where Israel (under a different name) is portrayed as a fascist state, a warmonger, and a close ally of the U.S., which supplies advanced weaponry to fight ‘poor and miserable farmers (the good Palestinians) with pitchforks and stones.’ And Superman? He comes to save them from bloodthirsty Israel. This is literally a film of incitement against us… And I will tell you here, clearly: The liberal Jews in America are the main contributors to anti-Semitism in the U.S…There is no greater enemy to an Israeli than the progressive American Jew.”

The bile and hate of this racist activist are typical of the responses from the pro-Israel and Israeli far-right. But as much as they might rant, they can’t avoid the fact that the world now sees what Israel does every day, and that a more realistic understanding of Israel is becoming not just a debating point or a political issue but a part of the cultural zeitgeist.

It’s not just about Israel. Superman goes to great lengths to present the hero as an independent actor, following only his own ethical code. The other superheroes in the film are sponsored by a huge corporation. They eventually come around and help Superman, but it takes a while.

This might have been what pleased me most. The second blockbuster movie about Superman, back in 1980, ended with Superman flying through space carrying an American flag. But the U.S. comes off very badly in this movie.

Superman is betrayed by the U.S. and handed over to his nemesis, Lex Luthor, who imprisons him. He is told he has no rights since he is an alien (i.e., immigrant). The U.S. also continues to back Boravia throughout the movie, and Superman is criticized for interfering in the murderous Boravian operation without American authorization. As more of the nefarious plot is uncovered, the U.S. government stands by doing nothing and never taking responsibility for its actions. Only the superheroes are working to save the day.

Superman doesn’t only challenge the long-held, false image of innocent Israel, it also challenges Americans’ fecklessness, the ease with which its government is manipulated, and its blind, greedy, self-serving arrogance. Of course, it treads lightly on this point; again, there is only so much Gunn wanted to dive into political issues. It is, after all, a light-hearted fantasy movie that is expected to launch a series that will bring in a ton of money.

But Superman proves there is no going back to the idealization of Israel that was kick-started back in 1960 when Paul Newman romanticized Israel’s creation in the film Exodus, and boomed after the 1967 war. The delusion about Israel’s colonialist birth and apartheid life has been shattered by the exposure of its genocidal present. And a movie like Superman ingrains that shattered image into our culture. This, like Superman himself, might just provide a bit of hope in these dark times. 

viernes, 25 de julio de 2025

Israeli Minister: Gaza Will Be ‘Wiped Out’ and Will Become Totally Jewish

Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, a member of the Jewish Power party, has previously suggested nuking Gaza was an option

by Dave DeCamp | July 24, 2025 

https://news.antiwar.com/2025/07/24/israeli-minister-gaza-will-be-wiped-out-and-will-become-totally-jewish/

Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said on Thursday that Israel was working to “wipe out” the Gaza Strip and called for the Palestinian territory to be settled by Jews, saying it will become totally Jewish.

“The government is racing ahead for Gaza to be wiped out,” Eliyahu said in a radio interview, according to The Times of Israel. “Thank God, we are wiping out this evil. We are pushing this population that has been educated on Mein Kampf.”

The minister, who is a member of Itamar Ben Gvir’s Jewish Power party, said that Gaza will be cleared for Jewish settlements, but said that Jewish towns wouldn’t be “fenced in inside cantons.”

“All Gaza will be Jewish,” he said. According to the Times, Eliyahu said Arabs who are loyal to the state of Israel could be tolerated, but it’s unclear what that means. “We aren’t racists,” he said.

The Israeli minister also denied that there was “hunger” inside Gaza, even though people have begun starving to death every day. “There’s no hunger in Gaza,” he said. “But we don’t need to be concerned with hunger in the Strip. Let the world worry about it.”

Eliyahu has a history of making genocidal statements about the Palestinians in Gaza. In 2023, he suggested that dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza was an option and that there was no “such thing as uninvolved civilians in Gaza.” He said at the time that Gaza didn’t have a right to exist and that anyone waving a Hamas or Palestinian flag “shouldn’t continue living on the face of the earth.”

jueves, 24 de julio de 2025

Israeli soldier: 'We use children as human shields in Gaza'

New testimony by a soldier reveals that teenagers are being used as human shields by Israeli forces, being forced to find explosives

The New Arab Staff

|23 July, 2025

https://archive.ph/riozg

Fresh testimony from an Israeli soldier has revealed that troops were implicated in war crimes in Gaza, including the targeting of civilians with live fire and the use of children as human shields

The soldier, referred to anonymously as 'N', told the Israeli newsppaer Yedioth Ahronoth that the commander of his unit had allowed troops to fire on civilians - including children and the elderly - for days while stationed outside a hospital.

"Some of them acted out of revenge, some were scared, and some were simply exhausted. When you're exhausted you don’t think," he told the outlet.

The soldier also recalled how his unit abducted two teenagers from one of Gaza's so-called humanitarian corridors and used them as human shields.

He described how they were blindfolded, handcuffed and forced to enter buildings Israeli forces believed may be boobytrapped or contain gunmen.

The use of civilians as human shields is illegal under international law.

"What is really happening is that we are harming tens of thousands of civilians and also the [Israeli] hostages," Yedioth Ahronoth quoted him as saying.

"[The government] puts you in danger, your friends are killed, and you do more evil than good. You feel that you are being betrayed."

The article is the latest in growing number of reports from Israel featuring testimony from soldiers speaking about war crimes being committed against Palestinians in Gaza.

Haaretz has published a number of investigations in recent months providing evidence of atrocities carried by Israeli forces.

An expose in June featured claims from soldiers that they had been ordered to deliberately fire at civilians. Last year it reported on the military's use of Palestinians as human shields to search for explosive devices.

Leaked footage published by Al Jazeera last year showed Israeli soldiers forcing a semi-naked Palestinian man to search for explosives, while his hands were tied behind his back.

There are hundreds of other eyewitness testimonies of Palestinians being used as human shields by Israeli forces, including those documented by Israeli human rights monitor B'tselem.

 

miércoles, 23 de julio de 2025

Israel Is Ethnically Cleansing the West Bank, Too

Hanin Majadli

Jul 18, 2025

https://archive.is/jTphZ

All eyes are on the Gaza Strip, and rightly so. An unprecedented war of annihilation is being waged there that hasn't left a stone standing. But precisely because of the blinding light of the flames in Gaza, we need to turn our gaze – or, more accurately, broaden it – to the West Bank. Under the smokescreen of Gaza's destruction, Israel has been working simultaneously on two tracks – a genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.

Since October 7, 2023, at least 964 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, most of them by gunfire from either soldiers or settlers. This year, 2025, is already the deadliest year for West Bank Palestinians since the century began.

Jenin, Tulkarm, Nablus and the Mount Hebron region are undergoing a systematic process of displacement and destruction. Homes are being demolished and burned, residents are being beaten, civilian infrastructure is being destroyed and entire communities are being uprooted. There have been hundreds of incidents of violence, theft, and arson. At best, the establishment turns a blind eye and often collaborates.

The war in Gaza has enabled Israel to advance a new political reality of scorched earth in which the space allotted to Palestinians can be shrunk further and further. The system is sophisticated, brutal and effective. In the West Bank, there is quiet ethnic cleansing, and in Gaza, total annihilation. But the goal is the same in both places – to push the Palestinians over the edge until they disappear from the landscape.

I sometimes wonder about Israelis who oppose the government, and ostensibly the occupation as well, but still say their son or daughter is now serving in the army. Don't they feel even a smidgen of shame? Don't they feel even the slightest discomfort when they hand their children over to a system that commits crimes against humanity? Aren't they embarrassed?

At a time when most Israelis still send their children to serve in the system of occupation in both the West Bank and Gaza, a small group of Jewish citizens who have chosen to stray from the usual path is operating within this landscape. It's paltry, yet it inspires hope. They don't don olive uniforms and guard checkpoints; they guard olive groves, springs and Palestinian villages alongside the families who are living under threat, the stolen flocks and the destroyed orchards.

They stand there in the knowledge that their status as Jews enables them to reduce the use of guns. Precisely because they recognize that Jews enjoy more protection under Israel's discriminatory laws – this is what it means to exercise one's privilege – their presence in the West Bank has become a critical, even decisive, factor.

They aren't "bleeding hearts" or "hipsters," and their activities aren't meant to salve their consciences. But even if they were, their direct intervention is welcome in a reality of daily terror.

In a country that talks in the language of genocide and is carrying out a policy of destruction and annihilation, a society that has become hostile to any deviation from the bloodthirsty national consensus and a political climate where advocating mercy is radical and demanding that the mass killings stop is considered hostile propaganda, it's not just Palestinians who are vulnerable to violence. Jews who refuse to cooperate with the regime are as well.

Their very insistence on upholding basic human morality demands inconceivable courage. Consequently, now of all times, when Israel is degenerating into an overt military dictatorship – including for Jews who oppose the regime – we must remember who stood on the right side of history. The people who go out to protect the Palestinians under fire will be the Righteous Among the Nations of the future.

martes, 22 de julio de 2025

The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza must not be allowed to continue: Global Times editorial

By Global Times Published: Jul 23, 2025

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202507/1339013.shtml

On Monday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that Gaza's humanitarian situation is in "accelerating breakdown," and that the last lifelines "keeping people alive are collapsing." That same day, Gaza's health ministry reported that at least 130 Palestinians had been killed and 1,155 wounded by Israeli military operations within just 24 hours. A report by the World Food Programme on Sunday revealed that nearly one person in three is not eating for days, 93 percent of households in Gaza had no access to water and more than 87 percent of the area are under evacuation orders or inside Israeli military zones, leaving 2.1 million civilians crammed into a small area with no medical care or medicine, where public services have completely collapsed. These alarming figures are a clear distress signal to the international community: The humanitarian disaster in Gaza must not be allowed to continue - an immediate ceasefire is imperative.

Since Israel resumed military operations in the Gaza Strip this March, the humanitarian crisis has grown increasingly dire. In Gaza, hunger has been "weaponized" - food distribution points have become "death traps," where people are repeatedly shot dead before they can even receive a bag of flour. A Palestinian man who survived a shooting at one such aid site described the situation: "There are no ambulances, no food, no life, no way to live anymore. We're barely hanging on." On Monday, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa confirmed that more than 995 Palestinians had been shot and killed while trying to receive aid at Israeli-controlled distribution sites. This constitutes a blatant violation of international humanitarian law and a direct assault on the moral bottom line of humanity.

In response to the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, a spokesperson for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasized on Monday that civilians must not become the target of attacks, and the safety of international humanitarian workers must not be threatened. He noted that the Chinese side opposes and condemns all moves that harm civilians and violate international law. On the same day, foreign ministers from over 20 countries - including the UK, Australia, Canada, Japan, and France - issued a joint statement calling for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and the lifting of restrictions on humanitarian aid, with several signatories having previously expressed support for Israel. This shift has been driven by the repeated tragedies in Gaza, which have shattered the bottom line of humanitarianism and shaken the foundations of international fairness and justice. 

Leaders from multiple Latin American countries have also called for the defense of multilateralism and democratic systems, urging the international community to advocate for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. The international consensus on Gaza has reached an unprecedented level. 

The top priority now is to achieve a permanent ceasefire and ensure the rapid, large-scale, and safe delivery of humanitarian aid. However, UN assistance is struggling to reach Gaza, where the humanitarian aid process is largely dominated by a for-profit organization called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is supported by the US and Israel. The organization's operations have been criticized as "obscure," and referred to as "drip feeding of aid" because of inadequate material distribution. According to an AP report earlier this month, contractors tasked with guarding GHF aid distribution were even accused of using live ammunition and stun grenades on civilians. 

Israel's proposed "population relocation" and the establishment of a so-called "humanitarian city" are widely viewed as using aid as a pretext to strip Palestinians of their rights and dignity. As the people of Gaza are facing "famine," the "butter knife" dividing Palestinian territory could fall at any moment. Restoring the original intent of humanitarian assistance, getting aid into Gaza quickly and efficiently and ensuring civilians receive them safely should be the top priority for all stakeholders. In the face of life and death, all political games and calculations must give way.

The humanitarian disaster in Gaza is not an isolated issue; it is rooted in the long-standing unresolved problem of Palestinian status. Currently, a new round of ceasefire negotiations is taking place in Doha, the capital of Qatar, with the outside world hoping for an agreement to be reached within two weeks among relevant parties. However, past experiences indicate that such short-term ceasefires are little more than a drop in the bucket for the people of Gaza, who are already in dire straits. The Palestinian issue has always been at the core of the Middle East conflict, and the failure to implement the "two-state solution" has led to an endless cycle of retaliation and the accumulation of disastrous consequences stemming from violence begetting violence. As long as the Palestinian people do not have their own state, peace and stability in the Middle East will remain fragile, and international security will continue to be threatened. 

Gaza is the home of the Palestinian people and must not become a victim of international politics. In the face of a large-scale humanitarian crisis unfolding before our eyes, external powers have no right to stand idly by amid Gaza's tragedy. It is hoped that all parties can promptly agree on a ceasefire, help de-escalate the situation, and take concrete steps to alleviate the humanitarian crisis. Only by doing so can the international community truly support the people of Gaza in restoring normal life.

lunes, 21 de julio de 2025

Writers group accuses New York Times of being 'accomplice to the genocide in Gaza'

Dossier released by a coalition of media workers accuses The New York Times of systemic pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian bias

By MEE staff

Published date: 18 July 2025 

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/gaza-war-new-york-times-accused-accomplice-to-genocide

A new dossier released by a coalition of media workers has accused The New York Times of systemic pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian bias, and alleged that nearly two dozen of its top journalists, editors and executives have extensive ties to pro-Israel lobbying groups.

"The New York Times is an accomplice to the genocide in Gaza, serving as a mouthpiece for American imperialism and shaping elite consensus around foreign policy," a statement from the group Writers Against the War on Gaza (Wawog) reads.

Like several mainstream news outlets, the NYT has come under intense scrutiny over its reporting of the war on Gaza, with several human rights activists and analysts accusing the publication of providing cover for Israeli war crimes.

The dossier, released on Wednesday, argues that the NYT's coverage could be explained by the extensive material, financial and ideological connections between several current and former employees at the paper and the Israeli state or the army.

The dossier also outlined other levels of ideological and material ties, including relationships with the pro-Israel lobbying groups and think tanks.

The dossier alleged that news editors at the NYT had ordered reporters to avoid so-called "inflammatory terms" - including "genocide", "ethnic cleansing", and "occupied territory", and even to avoid saying "Palestine".

"Our dossier so far covers mostly material ties to occupation and apartheid, but we also include and discuss ideological ties, which we've updated the dossier to reflect," a spokesperson for Wawog told Middle East Eye.

The group said its findings, extracted from the archives of Mondoweiss and The Electronic Intifada, as well as through interviews with Palestinian journalists, demonstrate "how the Times' vaunted code of conduct amounts to a racist double standard".

'New York War Crimes'

Wawog, a group made up of writers and creatives, emerged in the weeks following Israel's bombardment of Gaza after the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023.

The group has routinely held protests outside and at times in the lobby of the NYT's building in the borough of Manhattan.

The group has routinely referred to the paper as "The New York War Crimes" as a means to communicate the NYT's alleged complicity in war crimes in Gaza.

More than 58,000 Palestinians have been killed as a result of Israel’s war on Gaza, which several countries, as well as many international rights groups and experts, now qualify as genocide.

In Wednesday's dossier, Wawog describes the deep entanglements between the NYT and Israel as fuelling the paper's biased coverage.

Wawog said the omission of the journalists' connections to Israel - be it through personal or immediate family ties - in the reporter profiles on the NYT website contradicted the basic tenets of journalistic ethics. 

It said that the NYT "would offer bullhorns to people with clear allegiances to the Zionist project demonstrates its commitment to and support of Israel's fantasy of annihilation".

Media analysts and human rights groups have repeatedly accused mainstream media of contributing to both the erasure and distortion of Israel's war crimes in Gaza.

Several observers have argued that the reporting on Israel's war on Gaza, as well as the student movement for Palestine in the US, hasn't merely been inaccurate but has ventured close to journalistic malpractice. 

Western media in particular have come under fire for obfuscating in their headlines and for the explicit use of the passive voice in narrating the murder of Palestinians.

Advocates' concerns over the use of language and terminology have also been backed up by data.

An Intercept study published in January 2024 found that the NYT, Washington Post,and Los Angeles Times’ reporting of Israel’s war on Gaza demonstrated consistent bias against Palestinians, offered disproportionate coverage of antisemitism in the US and downplayed anti-Muslim racism after the events of 7 October 2023.

Likewise, in October 2024, several journalists from the BBC and CNN told Al Jazeera's Listening Post that their newsrooms routinely failed to hold Israeli officials to account. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the journalists accused senior editorial staff of attempting to minimise Israeli excesses in news coverage. 

Whereas the Wawog dossier details several members of staff who have either served in the Israeli army or have had children serve in the army, it also includes those who have consistently produced what Wawog describes as lies and justifications for war crimes.

In January, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker organisation that advocates for peace, cancelled a planned advertisement in the paper after it refused to allow it to refer to Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide.

"The refusal of The New York Times to run paid digital ads that call for an end to Israel's genocide in Gaza is an outrageous attempt to sidestep the truth," said Joyce Ajlouny, general secretary for the AFSC.

"Palestinians and allies have been silenced and marginalised in the media for decades, as these institutions choose silence over accountability. It is only by challenging this reality that we can hope to forge a path toward a more just and equitable world," Ajlouny said.

A spokesperson for the NYT rejected the arguments raised in the dossier, telling MEE that the report was "a vile campaign aimed at intimidating journalists and media executives because of fair-minded reporting and news coverage.

"Rather than criticize the specifics of our journalism, this campaign is choosing to make personal attacks and innuendo based on a person's faith or ties to a group or country, all of which are public knowledge, and some of which are inaccurate. All to try to discredit our reporting. A group of writers should know better."

domingo, 20 de julio de 2025

Netanyahu is not the cause of the Gaza genocide. Zionism is

Abed Abou Shhadeh

17 July 2025

Reducing the catastrophe in Gaza to the ambitions of a single man ignores a key question: why does the Israeli public continue to support this war?

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/netanyahu-product-zionist-logic-his-removal-would-change-nothing

A recent extended feature in the New York Times presents readers with a long-form analysis of the genocide in Gaza. The central claim made by the authors is that the continuation of the war serves Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s personal interest in clinging to power. 

This is particularly relevant given his ongoing corruption trial, and the severe blow to his political standing after the 7 October military failure. According to the Times article, this convergence of events has pushed Netanyahu to prolong the war as a means of survival.

But this framing, popular among liberal Zionist circles, dangerously reduces the catastrophe in Gaza to the ambitions of a single man. 

It ignores the broad public support in Israel not only for the genocide in Gaza but for attacks throughout the region. Israel’s military actions - especially in the context of the sectarian violence in Syria - can only be understood as those of an imperial power seeking to impose its will on the region through force, intimidation, and the threat of territorial expansion.

It conveniently ignores a deeper question: why, after nearly two years of horrifying footage from Gaza, does the Israeli public continue to support the war - and in fact, demand its escalation

At the heart of Israeli public discourse today lies not the morality of the war, but the question of who should bear the burden of fighting it. The main debate is over drafting ultra-Orthodox Jews, who have so far been exempt from military service and want that to be enshrined in law. 

The secular and national-religious public demands “equality in sacrifice”, assuming that the war must go on - only more fairly. 

When the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism recently announced its departure from the government over the conscription issue, it was not a protest against the war itself, but rather a dispute over who should serve in it.

Global backlash

This framing comes at a moment of growing international backlash. The global boycott movement has penetrated academia, with the International Sociological Association recently calling to sever ties with the Israeli Sociological Society over its failure to condemn the Gaza genocide. 

Cultural boycotts, while less visible, are also on the rise. Politically, US support for Israel - once bipartisan - is now openly debated in both parties. Discussions range from ethical questions over the Gaza genocide to concerns about the disproportionate influence Israel holds in American politics.

At the same time, ordinary Israelis travelling abroad are encountering global criticism for the first time in their lives. Yet instead of prompting reflection, this scrutiny has driven many deeper into denial. 

For much of the Israeli public, the problem is not what is happening in Gaza - it’s the world’s antisemitism, both western and eastern. In their eyes, the world has turned against them, and thus no soul-searching is needed.

Netanyahu, who lived a significant portion of his youth in the US, understands American politics well. When he says the Gaza war has not “achieved its objectives”, he is not referring to conditions on the ground, but rather to his standing in the polls. The recent strikes on Iran, despite failing to produce any strategic outcome, modestly improved his approval ratings.

Worse still, both Netanyahu’s allies and his so-called opposition have successfully encouraged and normalised genocidal rhetoric, to the point that it has become mainstream. 

According to recent polls, 82 percent of Jewish Israelis support the transfer (expulsion) of Gaza’s population. Lacking any ability to convince countries to accept these refugees, what is emerging is a de facto concentration camp in Gaza. 

In this context, discussions about a ceasefire are structurally hollow. Israel has shown - to Hamas and others - that it does not honour agreements: not in Gaza, not in Lebanon, not in Syria. Israeli diplomacy is fundamentally built on military power and the unilateral ability to break promises.

Ruthless strategies

Even as the Israeli public grows increasingly impatient with the Gaza war, demanding the release of hostages and watching with concern the mounting death toll among Israeli soldiers, it is disturbing to see no-one questioning the state’s ruthless strategies, which aim to confine millions of Palestinians into an area comprising less than a quarter of Gaza. 

There is open discussion of reviving Giora Eiland’s “General’s Plan”, which explicitly recommends starvation as a tool of forced displacement.

But the catastrophe unfolding in Gaza is not the work of one man. It is enabled by broad public consensus, a judiciary that legitimises it, and a political culture that has long relied on the dehumanisation of Palestinians. In the occupied West Bank, the same logic plays out: Israeli soldiers, police and judges either ignore or actively assist settlers in carrying out pogroms against Palestinians.

The current crisis marks a desperate attempt - by some - to “save Israel from itself” by offering Israelis a ladder to climb down from the tree. The hope is that Israel may return to its pre-Netanyahu posture: endless negotiations, rhetorical peace processes, and a fantasy of a Palestinian state that was never meant to materialise. This illusion served the world well, allowing western nations to defend Israel’s actions while pretending a two-state solution was still viable.

But demography and ideology have shifted. Israel cannot go back.

The scale of destruction in Gaza has reopened the core of the Palestinian question: what happens when there are no refugee camps left, no territories to push people into, and no countries willing to absorb them? The conversation then turns - unavoidably - to the right of return for Palestinians expelled in 1948.

Blaming Netanyahu in isolation is intellectually dishonest. He is not an aberration, but a product of Zionist logic - a logic that has always viewed Palestinians as inferior.

Without addressing this foundational belief system, replacing Netanyahu will change nothing. We may get a leader who is less aggressive, more polished - but the structural violence will persist, merely in a softer form.