Tag: israel

Israel Also Sponsored a Genocide in Guatemala

Known as the “Silent Holocaust,” the genocide in Guatemala is seldom mentioned in modern history.

The United States, with support from Israel, backed yet another violent crusade against an indigenous population as well as against communism.

The Guatemalan genocide — preceded by a C.I.A.-instigated coup d’état of the Guatemalan government in 1954 and the ensuing civil war — saw hundreds of thousands of the Mayan Indigenous peoples and alleged communists massacred or disappeared.

Jennifer Harbury, an attorney, author and human rights activist, witnessed the horrors of the genocidal campaign waged by the U.S.-backed Guatemalan military. Included in these horrors was the torture and disappearance of her husband, Mayan rebel leader Efraín Bámaca Velásquez (known as Everardo) by C.I.A.-backed Guatemalan military officials.

Harbury joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to dissect the brutal history of the genocide as well as recount her own experiences, including several hunger strikes in Guatemala and Washington, D.C., that ultimately led to the exposure of the C.I.A.’s complicity in the atrocities.

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Vulnerabilities exposed: Israeli company reveals how users can hack ChatGPT accounts remotely

Israeli cybersecurity company Zenity revealed what it defines as the first-ever “Zero Click” vulnerability in OpenAI’s ChatGPT service, showing how one could take control of a ChatGPT account and extract sensitive information without the user clicking a link, opening a file, or performing any deliberate action.

The demonstration was conducted by Mikhail Bergori, co-founder and CTO of Zenity, during the Black Hat 2025 conference held this week in Las Vegas, in the US.

He showed how a hacker could exploit the system using only the user’s email address to gain full control over the user’s chat, including access to both past and future conversations, altering the conversation’s goals, and guiding the chat to act on behalf of the hacker.

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During the lecture, it was demonstrated how the attacked ChatGPT became a malicious agent operating covertly against the user. The researchers pointed out how the hacker could prompt the chatbot to suggest that the user download a certain virus, recommend incorrect business tips, or even access files stored on Google Drive as long as they were connected to the account. 

All of this could be done without the user ever realizing that something had gone wrong. The vulnerability was fully patched only after Zenity reported it to OpenAI.

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Leaked documents reveal Microsoft provided Israel’s Unit 8200 with tools to spy on Palestinians

  • Microsoft provided its Azure cloud platform to Israel’s Unit 8200, enabling mass surveillance of Palestinian communications.
  • Unit 8200 used Azure data to identify bombing targets in Gaza, leading to civilian casualties.
  • Microsoft claims ignorance but refuses to terminate its contract with Israeli military intelligence.
  • Investigations reveal Microsoft profits from war crimes while publicly promoting ethical AI principles.
  • Critics warn unchecked surveillance turns corporations into silent partners in oppression and human rights violations.

Microsoft isn’t exactly known for being ethical, but a shocking new exposé has exposed just how deep their complicity in war crimes runs. The Big Tech firm has been secretly providing Israel’s elite military intelligence Unit 8200 with its Azure cloud platform since 2021, enabling the storage and analysis of massive troves of Palestinian communications data.

According to a damning investigation by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and The Guardian, Microsoft’s technology has been weaponized to surveil millions of daily phone calls from Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, with Unit 8200 sources confirming the data was used to identify bombing targets in densely populated civilian areas. While Microsoft feigns ignorance, claiming its CEO was unaware of the data’s lethal purpose, the tech giant’s actions reveal a disturbing pattern of prioritizing profits over human lives… even as Palestinian civilians pay the ultimate price.

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MTG says AIPAC should register as a foreign lobbyist after pushback for Gaza genocide comments

Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is saying the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) needs to register as a foreign lobbyist, after the group criticized her comments about there being a genocide in Gaza.

“The truth is AIPAC needs to register as a foreign lobbyist by U.S. law because they are representing the secular government of nuclear armed Israel 100%!!!” Greene wrote on the social media platform X Thursday evening. 

Greene said AIPAC started sending out fundraising attack emails about her after she said that the genocide, starvation and humanitarian crisis in Gaza was horrific, like the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which triggered the war between the sides.

“I’m one of the only members of Congress that doesn’t take money from AIPAC, who donates way more money to Republicans than Democrats,” her lengthy social media post continued. 

Greene has become critical of Israel in the past few weeks, saying that there were people starving in Gaza, where the war is being fought, despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claims otherwise.

Last month, Greene introduced amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act to remove foreign aid to other countries, including $500 million to Israel. 

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Heavy Machinery and Patriotic Demolition in the Service of Genocide

Rabbi Avraham Zarbiv is a well-respected holy man in Israel with some devoted followers. He is a dayan, a judge in the rabbinical courts of Tel Aviv, dispensing wisdom in matters of religion and Jewish law. He’s also a reservist in the Seyeret Givati brigade of the IDF and is currently serving in Gaza. There, he has earned a degree of fame for his skills as an operator of the Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozer, the IDF’s tool of choice for the erasure of Palestinian homes. He claims to average more than 50 demolitions a week. According to Zarbiv, his unit has learned to ‘play the D9’ like a musical instrument. 

Rabbi Zarbiv is part of the wider effort to lay waste to Gaza and render it uninhabitable for Palestinians. His stated motives are religious; war, for him, is a harbinger of the coming of the messiah. But he is one of many directly or indirectly employed to demolish buildings in Gaza. The motivation for others is more straightforward: money, revenge or, in a context where the demolition of Palestinians’ homes is seen as a service to one’s country, patriotic duty.

Domicide is a key aspect of the genocide in Gaza. According to recent reports, around 92% of homes and 70% of all buildings in the Gaza Strip have been severely damaged or destroyed. Gaza has a population of over 2 million and from the scale of the destruction, it appears that all houses are considered bases of resistance. If we put morality aside, as the IDF seems to have done, the scale of the flattening of Gaza is an impressive achievement, considered as an initial stage of population transfer. There is no access given to foreign journalists for a reason – Gaza is unrecognizable, the destruction wholesale. So, how do you transform such a vast area into a moonscape of concrete and ashes in under two years? Overwhelming air power certainly helps, but on the ground, two things have been particularly important: willing personnel, such as the good rabbi, and the right equipment.

It takes certain modifications for a Caterpillar D9 bulldozer manufactured in the US to become an armored D9. Israel Aerospace Industries [IAI], which offers an ‘extensive range of innovative solutions’ in ground combat situations, is responsible for these. The Israeli armored version of the Cat D9 has a mounted machine gun, grenade launcher and smoke projector. It is armoured to protect the operator and has, of course, been battle-tested over years of occupation. So familiar an asset is it, that the D9 has its own affectionate nickname in IDF slang: the ‘Doobie’, or Teddy Bear in English. Rachel Corrie died underneath one. Together with excavators, wheel loaders and other heavy machinery, it has been used for years in West Bank house demolitions. The D9 can not only demolish buildings but create the new ‘corridors’ of Gaza and clear border security zones. It has hardly been reported in the West but, with the aid of such equipment, whole villages in southern Lebanon along the international border have recently been erased, Gaza style.  

In wartime, the Israeli economy has been strikingly robust. The assault on Gaza has been a boost to certain sectors, and it has been especially profitable for those with initiative who can hire or invest in large machinery. As well as utilizing its own personnel for demolitions, the IDF has been shown to be outsourcing the destruction in Gaza. Lucrative work has been available for equipment operators. Owners of excavators can earn 5,000 shekels a day. Those who work as contractors with the Ministry of Defence are paid per number of houses demolished. This is war as a continuation of business by other means, as Brecht might have observed. Rabbi Zarbiv is merely the celebrity face of patriotic demolition. So many are working on the razing of Gaza that infrastructure projects in Israel are facing significant delays due to shortages of operators and equipment.

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Netanyahu: Israel Will Seize Full Control of Gaza, Defeat Hamas, Transfer Territory to Arab Governance

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Thursday that Israel “intends to” take full control of the entire Gaza Strip to eliminate Hamas and transfer authority to non-hostile Arab forces, outlining his most comprehensive vision yet for ending the war as his security cabinet met to approve the operation.

Speaking to Fox News host Bill Hemmer ahead of the critical security cabinet meeting, Netanyahu laid out his vision for completely dismantling Hamas rule and transferring Gaza to new leadership.

“We have three missions: One, to eliminate Hamas as a governing and military power in Gaza, otherwise there’s no future for anyone and we will have many more kidnappings and hostages,” Netanyahu declared. “Second, achieve the liberation of all of our hostages. And third, make sure that Gaza doesn’t pose a threat to Israel again.”

The prime minister emphasized that Israel’s goal is liberation, not occupation. “We don’t want to keep it; we want to have a security perimeter,” he said when asked about seizing control of the entire 26-mile Gaza Strip. “We don’t want to govern it. We don’t want to be there as a governing body. We want to hand it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us, and give Gazans a good life.”

Netanyahu framed the military operation as a rescue mission for both Israelis and Palestinians. “We want to liberate ourselves, liberate the people of Gaza from the awful terror of Hamas,” he stated, describing Hamas as holding “two million Palestinian and Gazan hostages” under their tyrannical rule.

The prime minister forcefully defended Israel’s military tactics against international criticism, particularly charges of genocide. “If we are practicing genocide, we sure would be doing a very bad job of it,” Netanyahu said, citing Ambassador Mike Huckabee’s recent comments. “Because we could have basically eliminated the entire population of Gaza, but we went in the other direction.”

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AIPAC Attacks Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for Calling Israel’s Actions in Gaza Genocide

The pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC is attacking Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) after she became the first Republican member of Congress to label Israel’s actions against the Palestinians in Gaza a genocide.

According to Al Jazeera, in a fundraising email to supporters on Thursday, AIPAC called Greene’s remarks “disgusting” and accused her of betraying “American values” for calling Israel’s brutal campaign in Gaza a genocide, which aligns Greene with many human rights organizations and genocide scholars, including Israeli ones.

“You expect anti-Israel smears from Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar,” AIPAC said in the email, referring to two House Democrats known for their critical view of Israel. “But now, Marjorie Taylor Greene has joined their ranks – spouting the same vile rhetoric and voting against the US-Israel alliance.”

AIPAC said Greene was now the “newest member of the anti-Israel Squad” and claimed her view was a “betrayal of American values and a dangerous distortion of the truth.”

Greene has referred to Israel’s actions as genocide at least twice in posts on X. In her first post, Greene said that it’s “the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct 7th in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza.”

In another post, the Georgia congresswoman said many Americans are “against radical Islamic terrorism, but we are also against genocide.” She has also repeatedly referred to Israel as “nuclear-armed Israel,” making her one of the first members of Congress to directly acknowledge Israel’s secret nuclear arsenal.

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‘Fearing Zionism Could Die Among Democrats,’ Party Leaders Stage Phony ‘Break’ With Israel

AIPAC-funded Democrats’ phony “break” with Israel is a stopgap measure to try and avoid turning opposition to the Jewish state into a litmus test for the midterms and the 2028 presidential primaries, CNN reports.

From CNN, “Pro-Israel Democrats try breaking with Netanyahu to stop party’s shift amid Gaza crisis”:

Fearing Zionism could die among Democrats, many party leaders are explicitly breaking with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to try to stop anti-Israel attitudes from becoming a litmus test for next year’s midterms and the 2028 presidential primaries.

But privately, several tell CNN, they worry it may be too late.

Last week’s failed resolution to block new arms sales to Israel, supported by a record number of Senate Democrats, was just the start. A new letter to recognize a Palestinian state is gaining signatures in the House. Devoted allies of Israel are speaking out against its government, brushing off whatever texts and phone calls they’ve been getting from the dwindling number of party voters or donors still standing steadfast behind Israeli actions in Gaza nearly two years after Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack.

It’s no longer just the far left rejecting Netanyahu’s years of identifying more with Republicans. There is also a bitter backlash among many Democratic politicians, who have felt bullied by the Israeli government and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying group, and there’s revulsion over the images of starvation and dying children.

“We can disagree about a lot of things in the foreign policy space, but there’s no room to tolerate mass starvation,” said Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz, who is Jewish and widely seen as one of the party’s future leaders in the Senate. Schatz argues there’s a conflation of opposing the Israeli government and opposing Israel’s right to exist that he calls “ridiculous” and an “intentional strategy” meant to distract.

“I think there’s a recognition that Netanyahu is making Israel and Israelis and Jews unsafe all over the world,” Schatz said. “More and more of us are saying so and voting accordingly.”

[…] Leaders of multiple Jewish and pro-Israel groups told CNN privately that they have grimly determined their best and most practical approach is essentially to quietly wait out the trauma and hope the politics turns. There’s another Israeli election next year, and while Netanyahu is now in a minority coalition, he has been counted out before.

The same is of course true among “liberal Zionist” commentators like Jon Stewart and others, as I wrote about last week.

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Trump admin drops Israel boycott conditions from disaster aid guidance after intense backlash

The Trump Administration on Monday dropped language from the Department of Homeland Security that would have denied disaster aid funding to cities and states that boycotted Israeli companies, following intense backlash from both sides of the aisle.

The DHS Standard Terms and Conditions on Monday morning, included the following statement:

“Discriminatory prohibited boycott means refusing to deal, cutting commercial relations, or otherwise limiting commercial relations specifically with Israeli companies or with companies doing business in or with Israel or authorized by, licensed by, or organized under the laws of Israel to do business.”

That language has since been removed from the DHS’s most up to date version. The original post with the Israel-related language may be found here.

The removal followed intense online backlash from right-wing and left-wing advocates online, many of whom deemed it evidence of Israeli capture of the American government.

“Denying American victims of natural disasters aid if they are insufficiently supportive of Israel. Absolute insanity,” wrote podcast Krystal Ball.

“I’ve never seen someone tank their legacy so fast. This is not America first and anyone advising him on this should be fired,” musician Alexandra Lains wrote.

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Netanyahu Has Reportedly Opted For Permanent Military Occupation Of Gaza

Israel’s Channel 12 broadcaster is reporting that the Israeli government has made the decision to occupy the Gaza Strip on a permanent basis.

Correspondent Amit Segal reports Monday, “Senior official in Netanyahu’s office: The decision has been made — we’re going to occupy Gaza.”

The top official has been further quoted as saying: “If we do not act now, hostages will die of starvation and Gaza will remain under Hamas control.”

But the last days have seen conflicting reports over the status and future of the ground operation, dubbed ‘Gideon’s Chariots’. What has become clear in the last week is that negotiations are off, as Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered an expanded ground incursion in central Gaza.

With much of the Strip already decimated, and inhabitants on the verge of mass starvation, a big question has remained for Netanyahu: what’s next?

Hardline politicians in his own cabinet have called for the total removal of the Palestinian population, after President Trump months ago talked about turning the enclave into the ‘Rivera of the Mediterranean’. 

Indeed a key question remains, will Trump back a plan of permanent Israeli military occupation? This would certainly open up the likelihood of eventual annexation of the territory.

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