Tag: israel

Netanyahu’s Quest To Attack Iran With the ‘Mother of all Bombs’

In a press conference with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “finish the job” against Iran with the support of President Trump.

Ever since his rise to power in the late 1990s, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has worked toward a war with Iran, presumably to demolish Tehran’s nuclear facilities but also to ensure its power projection in the region.

Now the emboldened Netanyahu wants to finish the job, decimate Iran’s nascent nuclear capabilities, undermine Tehran’s future and overthrow its rulers. After the misguided wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington’s neoconservative empire-builders are also back, pushing still another forever war for a “paradigm shift in the Middle East.”

The Israel-Iran scenarios

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has discussed with Trump several possible levels of American backing. According to Israeli observers, there are now four viable scenarios for an Israeli attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities, as seen in the light of US-Israeli relations. Let’s name them.

In the cooperative scenario, the US and Israel cooperate in an attack against Iran’s nuclear sites, which will be followed by Trump’s ultimatum that Iran must entirely dismantle its military nuclear program.

In the clash scenario, the Trump administration would build on diplomacy to seal a nuclear deal. Yet, Israel would attack on its own and thereby undermine Trump’s efforts causing a bilateral drift between the two countries.

In the investment scenario, Saudi Arabia would offer the US hundreds of billions of dollars in investment, to avoid a destabilization in the region that could undermine Riyadh’s 2030 modernization program.

In the solo scenario, Israel attacks Israel’s nuclear facilities without direct US cooperation, but with the tacit consent of the White House. This would happen after the Trump administration’s threats and coercive diplomacy against Iran.

Ultimately, US priorities will matter the most. But these can be elusive and contradictory. Some in the Congress have called for more US military action, including direct attacks against Iran. Others have echoed the Biden Administration’s calls for restraint and de-escalation.

Here’s the problem: any escalation with Iran, whether by the US, Israel or both would likely regionalize the Gaza devastation, which is mis-aligned with Trumps’ economic and geopolitical goals in the Middle East.

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Probes Reveal Depth of Big Tech Complicity in Israel’s AI-Driven Gaza Slaughter

Several recent journalistic investigations – including one published Tuesday by The Associated Press – have deepened the understanding of how Israeli forces are using artificial intelligence and cloud computing systems sold by U.S. tech titans for the mass surveillance and killing of Palestinians in Gaza.

The AP‘s Michael Biesecker, Sam Mednick, and Garance Burke found that Israel’s use of Microsoft and OpenAI technology “skyrocketed” following Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

“This is the first confirmation we have gotten that commercial AI models are directly being used in warfare,” Heidy Khlaaf, chief artificial intelligence scientist at the AI Now Institute and a former senior safety engineer at OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, told the AP. “The implications are enormous for the role of tech in enabling this type of unethical and unlawful warfare going forward.”

As Biesecker, Mednick, and Burke noted:

Israel’s goal after the attack that killed about 1,200 people and took over 250 hostages was to eradicate Hamas, and its military has called AI a “game changer” in yielding targets more swiftly. Since the war started, more than 50,000 people have died in Gaza and Lebanon and nearly 70% of the buildings in Gaza have been devastated, according to health ministries in Gaza and Lebanon.

According to the AP report, Israel buys advanced AI models from OpenAI and Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. While OpenAI said it has no partnership with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), in early 2024 the company quietly removed language from its usage policy that prohibited military use of its technology.

The AP reporters also found that Google and Amazon provide cloud computing and AI services to the IDF via Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract signed in 2021. Furthermore, the IDF uses Cisco and Dell server farms or data centers. Red Hat, an independent IBM subsidiary, sells cloud computing services to the IDF. Microsoft partner Palantir Technologies also has a “strategic partnership” with Israel’s military.

Google told the AP that the company is committed to creating AI “that protects people, promotes global growth, and supports national security.”

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Israel Plans 1,000 New Settlement Homes as West Bank Raids Intensify

Israeli authorities are planning to expand a Jewish-only settlement in the West Bank by nearly 1,000 homes, a Tel Aviv-based peace group said Sunday as Israeli soldiers and settlers escalated attacks on Palestinians in the illegally occupied territory.

Peace Now said Israel’s Civil Administration has issued a new tender for the construction of 974 new housing units in Efrat, a Jewish-only colony located about 7.5 miles south of Jerusalem between Bethlehem and Hebron. The planned expansion will increase Efrat’s population of approximately 11,800 residents by 40% and geographically isolate Palestinian communities in the southern West Bank.

Emboldened by U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to power, far-right members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet have vowed to annex the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967 in violation of international law.

On Sunday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that “the goal for 2025 is to demolish more than the Palestinians build in the West Bank,” according to Al Jazeera. This, following the largest Israeli seizure of Palestinian land in the West Bank in decades last year.

“The Netanyahu government is operating on steroids to establish facts on the ground that will destroy the chance for peace and compromise,” said Peace Now, referring to the longtime Israeli practice of violating international law by colonizing and annexing Palestinian land to establish what one legal scholar has described as “de facto possession with the aim of attaining de jure possession.”

Peace Now continued: “It is now clear that military action alone will not bring a solution to the conflict or security to Israel, and that ultimately we will have to reach an agreement with the Palestinians. The Netanyahu government is harming Israeli interests and torpedoing the only solution that can bring us security and peace.”

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Netanyahu To Rubio: Let’s ‘Finish the Job’ Against Iran

Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in Israel where he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, after which they gave a joint address before reporters in Jerusalem.

This is Rubio’s first Middle East visit since becoming America’s top diplomat. He and Bibi called for the total elimination of Hamas and the return of all the remaining hostages, following three being released on Saturday, including an American dual citizen.

Importantly, Netanyahu declared that Israel and the US should “finish the job” against Iran, a week after Trump in a Fox interview said the choice is on Tehran – either they can do a new deal to monitor their nuclear energy program or possibly get bombed into submission.

Rubio called the Islamic Republic the greatest source of instability in the region, and as a longtime supporter of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“Hamas cannot continue as a military or a government force… they must be eliminated,” Rubio additionally stated alongside Netanyahu, warning that the “gates of hell” could once again be opened against Hamas.

As for Netanyahu, he affirmed: “We discussed Trump’s bold vision for Gaza’s future and will work to ensure that vision becomes a reality.” This vision has been roundly rejected by Arab states, especially Egypt and Jordan.

Trump earlier this month restored “maximum pressure” and fresh sanctions targeting Iranian oil exports, which reflects the policy of his first term, when he pulled the US out of the JCPOA nuclear deal with Tehran.

“Maybe they are trying to get new defense as we speak but their defense is largely gone… Iran is very nervous. I think they’re scared. I think Iran would love to make a deal and I would love to make a deal with them without bombing them,” Trump had said in the remarks just under a week ago.

“Everybody thinks Israel with our help or our approval will go in and bomb the hell out of them,” Trump had added. “I would prefer that not happen. I’d much rather see a deal with Iran where we can do a deal, supervise, check it, inspect it,” the president continued.

That’s when Trump made one of the more interesting and provocative comments of the interview…

There’s two ways to stopping them: With bombs or a written piece of paper.

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Trump Didn’t Invent the Gaza Ethnic Cleansing Plan. It’s Been US Policy Since 2007

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intention from day one of his “revenge” attack on Gaza, launched 16 months ago, was either ethnic cleansing or genocide in Gaza.

His ally in genocide for the next 15 months was former US President Joe Biden. His ally in ethnic cleansing is current US President Donald Trump.

Biden provided the 2,000lb bombs for the genocide. Trump is reportedly providing an even larger munition – the 11-ton MOAB, or massive ordnance air blast bomb, with a mile-wide radius – to further incentivise the population’s exodus.

Biden claimed that Israel was helping the people of Gaza by “carpet bombing” the enclave – in his words – to “eradicate” Hamas. Trump claims he is helping the people of Gaza by “cleaning them out” – in his words – from the resulting “demolition site”.

Biden called the destruction of 70 percent of Gaza’s buildings “self defence”. Trump calls the imminent destruction of the remaining 30 percent “all hell breaking loose”.

Biden claimed to be “working tirelessly for a ceasefire” while encouraging Israel to continue the murder of children month after month.

Trump claims to have negotiated a ceasefire, even as he has turned a blind eye to Israel violating the terms of that ceasefire: by continuing to fire on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank; by refusing entry into Gaza of vital aid trucks; by allowing in almost none of the promised tents or mobile homes; by denying many hundreds of maimed Palestinians treatment abroad; by blocking the return of Palestinians to their homes in northern Gaza; and by failing to engage with the second phase of the ceasefire negotiations.

Those Israeli violations, although widely reported by the media as Hamas “claims”, were confirmed to the New York Times by three Israeli officials and two mediators.

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Repression vs. Activism – Colleges Crack Down While Gaza Solidarity Persists

Last spring, campuses across the country became flashpoints of anti-war resistance, as thousands of students mobilized in a powerful demonstration of moral conscience and collective action. Their demands were clear: an end to U.S. complicity in the genocide in Gaza and the dismantling of the war machine that sustains it. This wave of activism commanded both national and international attention.

Yet, in recent months, despite the ongoing slaughter and the White House’s egregious proposals to further orchestrate the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, mainstream coverage of the student movement in solidarity with the Palestinian people – and in opposition to what Martin Luther King Jr. condemned as “the madness of militarism” – has steadily faded from the headlines.

Despite the relative media silence, and amid an intensifying campaign of institutional repression, the campus-based fight against the intolerable status quo has not ceased. Students remain at the forefront of the struggle for a more just, less militarized, and truly democratic world.

What coverage remains has largely functioned to reinforce the narrative that universities – initially caught off guard by the spontaneous protests of the spring – have successfully reasserted control over their campuses from what they have long framed as unruly agitators.

In November, The New York Times framed administrators’ crackdown on campus protests as a success, reporting that their efforts “seem to be working.” These draconian measures have had a chilling effect on campus expression – undermining free speech, stifling dissent, and betraying the university’s role as a laboratory for democracy and social change.

Nonviolent civil disobedience – a cornerstone of student activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the anti-Vietnam War and anti-Apartheid struggles – is now being met with the heavy hand of repression, as both the legal system and university conduct boards enforce arbitrary, vague, and inconsistently applied punitive measures.

These crackdowns have disproportionately targeted advocates for Palestinian liberation and their allies. This assault on Palestine-related dissent has already prompted multiple complaints over civil rights violations.

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From Gaza to the West Bank: Israel’s Unyielding War Machine

“A year of combat” – this is how Israel’s new Chief of Staff, Eyal Zamir, described 2025 at a conference organized by the Israeli ministry of defense.

The exact sentence, translated from Hebrew, was: “The year 2025 will continue to be a year of combat.” The word ‘continue’ is crucial, suggesting that Israel will resume its wars, despite ceasefire agreements signed with the Lebanese government in November and Palestinian groups in January. In other words, it seems that Zamir is signaling that Israel will reopen these two fronts, even in the face of ceasefire deals.

Despite Israel’s insatiable appetite for war, it is hard to imagine what the Israeli army could achieve through renewed violence when it has already failed to accomplish its objectives in nearly 14 months in Lebanon and over 15 months in Gaza.

Israel launched thousands of airstrikes on Lebanon, destroying entire towns and villages and killing and wounding thousands. It also dropped over 85,000 tons of bombs on Gaza, leading to the unprecedented genocide and the killing and wounding of over 170,000. Despite this, Israel has failed on both fronts. In Gaza, as reported by Reuters, Hamas alone managed to recruit up to 15,000 fighters just before the end of Israel’s 471st day of relentless warfare.

Furthermore, the return of nearly one million Palestinians to northern Gaza has reset Israel’s so-called tactical or strategic achievements. These efforts, aimed at depopulating northern Gaza to create permanent military buffer zones, were reversed by the population’s return.

The war also came at a staggering cost to the Israeli army. Ironically, during the same ministry of defense conference, Zamir revealed the actual costs of Israel’s wars in the past year. He stated that the ministry “now provides care for 5,942 new bereaved family members,”, adding that the “Rehabilitation Department has taken in over 15,000 wounded service members, many bearing both physical and mental scars from the war.”

These figures were not broken down by category or war front and did not include casualties from October 7, 2023, to the end of the year. However, they represent the highest estimate of Israeli casualties provided to date, raising the question: Can Israel afford to return to war?

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Trump: ‘There’s Nothing to Buy … We Will Have Gaza’

President Donald Trump made liberal heads explode on February 4 when he announced that the United States was going to take over the Gaza Strip. Trump made the remarks in a joint press conference with Isreali Prime Minister Bejamin Netanyahu. AI images of Trump Hotels among the rubble immediately began circulating. Reaction of conservatives was mixed — do we really want Gaza?

On Tuesday, during a meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan, Trump put to rest any fears that the United States was going to buy Gaza … it was going to take it outright. 

All of the usual liberal accounts posted the video, so you know they think this clip makes Trump look bad. 

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Egypt’s Sisi Cancels Planned White House Visit After Awkward Trump-King Abdullah Meeting

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has canceled a planned February 18 visit to Washington to meet with President Donald Trump. It is being reported Tuesday as an indefinite postponement.

The key factor, which has reportedly brought US-Egypt relations to a low point, is Trump’s ‘takeover’ plan to expel Gazans into Egypt and Jordan. Another factor is Trump’s repeated reference to Sisi as “the general” – which was used publicly when Israel’s PM Netanyahu recently visited the White House.

“Egyptian officials viewed this as dismissive, sources said,” The New Arab reports. And then there was this during Trump’s first term, back in 2019 at a G7 summit:

“Where’s my favorite dictator?” Mr. Trump called out in a voice loud enough to be heard by the small gathering of American and Egyptian officials.

The same report writes of Trump’s controversial Gaza plan, “an Egyptian diplomatic source in Washington said Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty had warned US officials and members of Congress that implementing Trump’s relocation plan could lead to a resurgence of radical Islamist groups in the region.”

Jordan is lockstep with Egypt on this. Trump hosted Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Tuesday in an awkward meeting which saw the monarch reject Trump’s pressure.

The king tried to preempt further pressure from Trump by pledging to take in 2,000 Palestinian children. Otherwise Jordanian sources have said they would seal the borders and potentially declare war in Israel if a mass ‘cleansing’ campaign ensues.

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Trump confirms Palestinians will have no right of return under Gaza takeover plan: ‘They’re going to have much better housing’

President Trump has confirmed that under his controversial development plan for the war-torn Gaza Strip, Palestinians would not be allowed to return to the Hamas-run enclave.

“No, they wouldn’t, because they’re going to have much better housing. Much better,” Trump told Fox News “Special Report” host Bret Baier in a clip from the weekend interview that aired Monday morning on “Fox & Friends.”

“In other words, I’m talking about building a permanent place for them because if they have to return now, it’ll be years before you could ever — it’s not habitable,” the president went on. “It would be years before it could happen.”

Last week, Trump revealed his aspirations for the US to “take over the Gaza Strip” and develop the coastal land to turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East,” while indicating that “all” of its roughly 2 million current inhabitants would be pushed out to neighboring nations.

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