Tag: israel

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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To My Fellow Jews, As They Invert Reality Each Time an Israeli Is Released from Gaza

Dear fellow religiously-observant Jews, I have a request to make of all of you.

Please, please – in the name of minimal decency – spare me another round of weepy propaganda over the release of some Israeli captives formerly held by inmates of the concentration camp you helped to create in Gaza.

I cannot bear your misplaced sentimentality over the freed Israelis – many of whom actually wore their IDF uniforms as they left behind the ruins of what used to be Khan Younis – any more than I can tolerate your hypocrisy about the Israeli genocide you have applauded for over a year.

And before you launch into a self-righteous tirade about “terrorism” and sputter “Hamas” into my face, let me assure you that I am not asking you to conduct yourselves like conscientious human beings. After watching your behavior over the last 15 months, I know that this would be too much to expect of all but a handful of “religious” Jews.

No, I am only asking you to begin to call things by their right names. Can you at least do that much – before making another sanctimonious speech? Before posting another self-pitying comment on Facebook about “our hostages”?

Because here’s the thing: Israeli soldiers captured during a military operation – one launched, please remember, by the victims of Israel’s brutal, decades-long occupation and the criminal blockade that has crippled Gaza since 2007 – are not “hostages.” They are captured soldiers who (in my view) are lucky not to have been put on trial for complicity in crimes against humanity.

Do you want to talk about real hostages? Then consider the thousands of Palestinian civilians (including scores of children) rounded up in the Occupied Territories and held under appalling conditions in various Israeli dungeons for their use as “bargaining chips” in negotiation with Gaza’s leadership.

Those are hostages, though never described as such in Israeli or Western media – or by you.

You’re guilty of the same sort of name-reversal every time you use the word “terrorist.” Inmates of the Gaza concentration camp who try to defend themselves against attack are not “terrorists” – not even when their desperate methods include the use of deadly force against their tormentors.

Meanwhile, real terrorists aren’t hard to find. Israeli Jews who don the uniform of a vicious apartheid militia that has confined, tortured and massacred Palestinians for decades – especially in Gaza – fully deserve that name. If anyone still questioned this before October 7, 2023, the IDF’s savagery against Gaza’s civilians since then has surely removed all doubt. Yet you never apply the word “terrorist” where it clearly belongs.

And what about the right name for the systematic destruction of Gaza?

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 Trump Signs Order Sanctioning The Hague’s ICC Over Treatment Of Israel

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to impose sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) after the Hague-based court targeted Israeli and American officials and their allies, according to a White House official.

The administration official cited that the order will “implement financial and visa sanctions on individuals and their family members who assist in ICC investigations of U.S. citizens or allies.”

The court has had a long-running investigation against the US over alleged troop war crimes committed in Afghanistan. During the first Trump administration, initial retaliatory sanctions were imposed on the ICC in 2020.

And more recently the ICC has issued an arrest warrant last year for Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who just visited the White House and met with Trump this week.

The new executive order is clearly timed on the immediate heels of the Trump meeting with Netanyahu, who is unable to travel to many European states and other countries for fear of arrest.

The Trump-signed order states that “The ICC was designed to be a court of last resort” and that “Both the United States and Israel maintain robust judiciary systems and should never be subject to the jurisdiction of the ICC.”

Biden had actually reversed Trump’s 2020 sanctions in order to back ICC investigations into Russian war crimes in Ukraine; however, Trump reversed Biden’s ending of the sanctions on his first day back in office.

Washington has had a shaky relationship with the ICC going back to the Bush years. Republicans railed against the idea that top US officials could be tried.

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Ex-Israeli war chief confirms issuing Hannibal Directive to kill own civilians, soldiers on 7 Oct.

Former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant has acknowledged ordering the army to use the Hannibal Directive to kill Israeli civilians and soldiers during the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023. During an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 on 7 February, Gallant admitted to ordering the controversial protocol that involves killing captives along with their captors. When asked whether an order was given to implement the Hannibal Directive, Gallant responded: “I think that, tactically, in some places, it was given, and in other places, it was not given, and that is a problem.” …The Israeli army dispatched attack helicopters, drones, and tanks on its own territory to respond to the attack, killing not only Hamas fighters but also Israeli civilians and soldiers that the Palestinian fighters attempted to take as captives back to Gaza. Israeli helicopters also killed Israeli civilians at the Nova festival, which took place near the Re’im military base.

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