Hidden History -- In The Making

LEARN WHY TRUMP SHOULD ABANDON HIS NEOCON STREAK

On Foreign Policy, The President Has Done Well Only Compared To Disastrous Predecessors. Washington Must Work To Maintain Peace. Which Should Begin With The President Ending The Proxy War Against Russia.

President Donald Trump is basking in praise for the Gaza ceasefire he brokered, despite the fact that Israel has resumed its attack now that the Israeli hostages have been returned. Anyway, he could have achieved a similar result nine months and thousands of Palestinian lives ago had he threatened to cut off American arms to Israel if it refused to make a deal. Unfortunately, he was too beholden to Israel’s American supporters to do so. Indeed, he did much to set up the current conflict during his first term, fueling the Netanyahu government’s brutally aggressive designs and crushing any political hopes of millions of Palestinians under Israeli rule. Given his conduct, it would have been surprising had the region not exploded.

In 2016 the president helped sell his candidacy by posing as an anti-war warrior, a Jacksonian Republican willing to denounce the Iraq war, which he had originally endorsed. This gave him credibility with voters who had tired of Washington’s bipartisan War Party, ever ready to sacrifice American lives and wealth by making other governments’ conflicts America’s own.

The Republican Party once stood for the old republic, but in recent years has been controlled by militarists like John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who were constantly praying to join the latest foreign war launched or imagined. Despite the Cold War’s end, a bipartisan coalition turned Uncle Sam into GloboCop, attempting to reshape the Mideast according to Israel’s and Saudi Arabia’s dictates and remake failed Third World states, while forever subsidizing the defense of rich industrialized countries and increasingly treating China and Russia as enemies.

Trump’s inner neocon intermittently took control during his first term. He didn’t start any new wars, but neither did he end any old ones. He denounced European defense cheap-riding, but his administration increased the American regime’s financial and troop commitments to NATO. He negotiated with the Afghan Taliban, but left American troops entangled in Central Asia, for no recognizable national interest.

Moreover, he submitted to every demand of the politically avaricious Benjamin Netanyahu, including allowing the traitor Jonathan Pollard, who turned American military secrets over to Israel, to emigrate and pardoning Pollard’s Israeli handler. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman received similarly generous treatment, as Trump continued the Obama administration’s support for Riyadh’s brutal aggression against Yemen and protected MbS’s “ass” after the gruesome murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Trump ordered the assassination of Iran’s general and beloved military icon Qassem Soleimani, triggering Iranian attacks on American forces based in the region, and he abandoned the JCPOA nuclear agreement, effectively ending diplomacy with Tehran and thereby ensuring the acceleration of its nuclear program. He also initiated lethal military aid to Ukraine, fueling its conflict with Russia and undermining Washington’s relations with Moscow.

This disturbingly aggressive course offered little benefit for Americans, at least those living and working outside the infamous Washington Beltway. Trump looked good only compared to his predecessors, who had repeatedly started or entered new wars. Especially the Biden administration, which took the American regime into a dangerous proxy war-plus against Russia. At least with Trump, Americans knew who is risking their lives and money by deploying military assets across the globe on one dubious mission or another. Even today, no one knows who was ultimately making decisions under the evidently decrepit Biden.

Just nine months into his second administration, Trump rarely puts America First, instead always favoring someone else: Israel, of course, and Europe, more surprisingly, given his past criticisms. Unfortunately, the president may be embracing the defense of rich allies because it enables him to shake them down economically. However, better for Americans to end Washington’s costly military commitments than have the president play socialist-in-chief and politicize investments. About the only good foreign policy news today comes from the Saudis, who, after unexpectedly losing their war against Yemen and no longer trusting Washington, now favor stability and peace.

Worst may be his apparent willingness to out-Biden Biden and escalate the proxy war against Moscow. Who expected Trump to encourage the Ukrainians to escalate their attacks on Russia proper and to even aid Kiev in striking Russian energy facilities? And who expected Trump to threaten to provide Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine? These are nuclear-capable and would require American intelligence to hit Russian targets.

Imagine how any American president would react if Moscow provided similar weapons to a nation engaged in a shooting war with America. Dual use weapons that could carry nuclear warheads. Weapons that could be used to strike American bases, American infrastructure, and American cities. Remember the Cuban missile crisis?

Of course, the president is complacent, which should surprise no one. After all, his appointees spend most of their time genuflecting while praising his genius, perspicacity, and eloquence. Although Vladimir Putin’s decision to attack Ukraine was not good, he has carefully avoided expanding or escalating the conflict into a direct war with NATO, despite allied provocations. He is likely to continue doing so as long as he believes he is winning. However, facilitating attacks within Russia, especially on important military and economic targets or even Moscow, could increase political pressure on Putin to respond. Moreover, if allied analysts really believe that he can be beaten, they should expect retaliation. And that could turn a proxy fight into a real war, which could easily go nuclear once begun.

What interest is at stake that warrants taking such a risk? Doing so endangers rather than protects America. Joining Ukraine’s battle does not fulfill the NATO alliance, which is, or at least originally was, based on defending its members from attack rather than attacking other states in defense of non-members. The original NATO advocates, including Dwight D. Eisenhower, supported the transatlantic alliance as a temporary shield behind which Europe could recover and then take over its own defense. He would be disappointed, and probably shocked, to learn that decades later 340 million Americans would be defending 600 million Europeans against 140 million Russians. How does this make any sense, especially for Trump, who long rightly challenged the Europeans for their determined reliance on Washington for all things security? They continue to resist pressure to take over, instead playing to the president’s vanities—creating superficial processes and making dubious promises—to convince him that all is well. Ironically, the Europe that the administration is encouraging through its support for dubious populist parties is one in which continental military outlays are far more likely to fall than rise.

Unfortunately, he appears to have been captured by his office, as has happened to so many of his predecessors. He echoed his neocon predecessor in declaring that “I run the country and the world.” This is precisely what America’s founders feared about future presidents, which is why they limited the chief executive’s powers, established competing branches of government, and created a system of checks and balances. Even Alexander Hamilton, the avid proponent of presidential power, insisted that it was “in substance much inferior to” that of the king.

Having won both the popular vote and the electoral college tally, the president started strongly after his January inauguration. Alas, in foreign policy he has changed little of note, largely reinforcing Biden’s approach, with America continuing to pick up the tab for other people’s wars. How is Trump different from others who are in permanent thrall of Israel, no matter the human cost to Palestinians? Does he behave differently than those who promote democracy while excusing manifold repression and aggression by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other governments? How does his policy differ from that of his predecessor, especially pushing confrontation with Russia?

No where has Trump minimized let alone dropped a military commitment. Rather, he has maintained Biden’s policies of constant commitment in the Mideast and growing indirect attacks on Russia. Trump appears to have abandoned his previous threats to withdraw American troops from Europe or South Korea, both antiquated commitments long ready for history’s trash can. Unfortunately, so far he has proved to be a hawk on Russia, threatening to escalate support for Kiev, which would make conflict with Moscow an increasingly real possibility. Few today imagine America and Russia at war, but virtually no one expected Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Washington must work to maintain peace. Which should begin with the president ending the proxy war against Russia—and continue by making this country’s defense the foundation of American foreign policy.

THE WAR CONTINUES IN THE OCCUPIED WEST BANK

Israeli Settlers And Soldiers Continue To Terrorise Palestinian Communities In Preparation For Annexation. The Mainstream Media “Forgot” To Tell You About This Since They Are Controlled By The Israelis.

It has been well over a week since the ceasefire was announced in Gaza. When the news was heard in the occupied West Bank, it was celebrated. They felt relief and hope that the genocide is finally over. But they also realised that there is no ceasefire for them.

The daily violence they have been subjected to for decades is showing no signs of abating. Since October 7, 2023, the brutality of our occupier has only intensified. Today, life in the West Bank has become almost impossible.

VIOLENCE, DISPOSSESSION AND PARALYSIS

After the ceasefire deal was announced, a little daughter cheered; she then asked to go with her grandparents to pick olives. He told her that it would be difficult to do, to which she responded, “Why? Isn’t the war over?”

How do you explain to a child that the war ending in Gaza does not mean Palestinian families in the West Bank still can access their land to harvest olives? People still cannot reach their groves because of barriers set up by the Israeli military or they fear attacks by Israeli soldiers and settlers, or both.

There are daily violent assaults on Palestinian farmers and their land. Since October 7, 2023, there have been 7,154 attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian people and property – some of them deadly.

Almost 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army and settler mobs, including 212 children; more than 10,000 Palestinians have been displaced. Settlers and soldiers have destroyed 37,237 olive trees since October 7^th, 2023.

Even life in urban areas has become unbearable.

A resident of Rawabi, a city north of Ramallah, feels the suffocation of the occupation every day.

He needs to travel outside his city to run errands, shop, obtain official paperwork, or anything else, he could get stuck at a checkpoint for hours and never make it to his destination. There are four iron gates, a military tower, and a barrier between Rawabi and Ramallah; they can make the 10-minute trip between Rawabi and Ramallah last an eternity.

Throughout the West Bank, there are 916 Israeli barriers, barriers and iron gates, 243 of which were constructed after October 7^th, 2023. These open and close at the Israeli army’s whim, meaning a Palestinian can get stuck at one barrier for hours. This disrupts every aspect of life – from family visits to urgent medical care to school attendance and transportation of goods.

They have also been denied access to Jerusalem and thus their freedom of worship at Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Few Palestinians are given the special permits needed to enter the city. They last had access to Jerusalem more than 20 years ago. This means an entire generation of young people know nothing about the city except from the pictures and stories told by their parents and grandparents.

Even at night, the Palestinians are not left alone by the occupation. Any Palestinian home may be subject to a raid by the Israeli army, with soldiers breaking the front door, terrorising the family inside and detaining without charge some of its members. Neighbors would, too, be terrorised with Israeli soldiers firing tear gas canisters for no reason, just to cause more suffering.

The right to a normal life—to worship, to spend quality time with friends and family, to move freely, to access regular medical care and education —are all denied to the Palestinians in the West Bank.

THE SPECTRE OF ANNEXATION

Over the decades since the occupation of 1967, Israel has managed to control almost half of the land of the West Bank. It has done so by constructing settlements and confiscating land from its Palestinian owners by declaring it either “state land” or “military zone”. The theft of Palestinian land accelerated after October 7^th; at least 12,300 acres (4,9787 hectares) were seized in two years.

In many cases, confiscated land is used to establish new settlement outposts or to expand existing settlements.

Settlement construction in the West Bank is not random. Rather, land is selected in a way that encircles Palestinian villages and towns, creating a settlement belt around them that prevents any form of geographical continuity between Palestinian territories, thus thwarting the dream of a future state.

To maintain these illegal settlements, Israel has also laid its hands on the West Bank’s natural resources. It has seized almost all water resources. This has ensured a massive water reservoir in the West Bank to serve the settlement expansion.

For the Palestinians, this has been disastrous. They are now almost completely dependent on Israeli water company “Mekorot”, which gives very small quotas of water to densely populated Palestinian areas, while settlers receive several times the Palestinian share per capita.

Every summer, when drought settles in, Palestinians are forced to buy extra water at exorbitant prices from Mekorot. Meanwhile, Palestinian wells and rain water tanks are often attacked and destroyed.

Since October 7^th, 2023, the Israeli government has accelerated its efforts to carry out annexation. They feel that the seizure of Area C – an area established by the Oslo Accords where Israel has full civilian and security control – is imminent. This would mean razing Palestinian villages and communities and expelling people towards Area A, which constitutes just 18 percent of the West Bank. Area B will follow. The process of forced expulsion has already started with Bedouin communities in the two areas.

This is the reality in the West Bank. While peace conferences and meetings were held and peace in the Middle East is declared, they know nothing of it. Every day, every hour, every minute, they are harassed, intimidated, dispossessed and killed.

For decades, Israel has rejected political solutions and pursued a policy of controlling land, people, and resources. It has continued to wage war on them even when its bombardment has stopped. The only way to achieve true peace is to acknowledge the occupation and end it.

IN UNPRECEDENTED WAYS THE IMPERIAL PROPAGANDA MACHINE IS FAILING

They’re On Their Back Foot. This Has Never Happened Before. The People Have Got A Real Shot At Winning This Thing As The Empire’s Narrative Control Is Falling Apart.

The imperial propaganda machine is crumbling in ways we’ve never seen in our lifetime. They wouldn’t work so hard on shoring up narrative control if they didn’t need it, and their narrative control is falling apart.

Look at Israel. This is an arm of the empire that understands the importance of narrative manipulation so acutely that they’ve got their own term for the practice, “hasbara”, with countless systems in place for influencing the way westerners view the Zionist entity. But they’re losing.

Israel and its supporters are more keenly aware of how important it is to control the narrative than maybe any other population on earth, and yet they are losing control of the narrative. Worldwide support for Israel is plummeting, with more American voters sympathizing with the Palestinians than the Israelis for the first time in history.

And Israel is panicking. They’ve been ramping up spending on propaganda and influence operations while billionaire Zionists like Larry Ellison use their fortunes to shore up more control over social media platforms and mainstream news outlets. They wouldn’t be doing this if they didn’t feel the need to, and it won’t even work. No amount of propaganda is going to cause people to unsee two years of live-streamed genocide. Propaganda is a powerful tool, but it isn’t magic.

The Zionists in the White House are panicking as well. Donald Trump has stated that his goal in securing a ceasefire was to rescue Israel from the PR crisis created by the Netanyahu regime, saying, “Bibi took it very far and Israel lost a lot of support in the world. Now I am gonna get all that support back.”

These sentiments were echoed in a recent 60 Minutes interview with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who said that the president “felt like the Israelis were getting a little bit out of control” and needed to rein them in, not for the sake of Israel’s victims but to “stop them from doing things that he felt were not in their long-term interests.”

So we’re already at a point where elements of the empire are starting to change their behavior in response to public perception of the empire’s actions. They are not doing this because they suddenly evolved a conscience, they are doing it because they need to maintain perception management. They understand that if the public turns against them past a certain point, they’re in some very dangerous territory.

Every time history has seen the public rise up against their tyrannical rulers and lop their heads off, the world’s oligarchs and empire managers have sat up and taken notice. The rich and the powerful are always urgently aware that there are a whole lot more of us than there are of them and that we can use those superior numbers to get rid of them whenever we want to, so they have an existential interest in preventing us from wanting to.

That’s why Israel, the United States and their allies have poured so much energy into sustaining the most sophisticated propaganda engine ever created. They know that the empire they operate depends on the ability to manipulate the way normal people think, speak, act and vote, continuously steering us toward convenient thoughts and behaviors and away from inconvenient thoughts and behaviors.

This entire dystopia is sustained by mass-scale mind control, and the mind control machine is getting weaker and weaker by the day. More and more people are waking up to the fact that we are ruled by tyrants, that our politicians and media have been deceiving us, and that everything we were taught to believe about our nation, our government and our world was a lie.

So while in the short term things might look darker than ever before, what’s spelled out in the trends we are seeing tells us that the bars of our cage are made of melting ice. We are freeing our minds from the artificial delusions that have turned us into docile and obedient gear-turners, and awakening the healthy animals within us.

You should find it impossible to feel hopeless under such circumstances. Don’t feel certain that everything will work out perfectly fine, but find it impossible not to have hope.

They’re on the back foot. This has never happened before.

We’ve got a real shot at winning this thing.

WITHOUT GLOBAL COMPLICITY ISRAEL’S GENOCIDE IN GAZA WOULD HAVE BEEN IMPOSSIBLE

A UN Report Shows How 63 States, Largely European, Sustained The Genocide Against Palestinians While Arab States Failed To Take “Decisive Action.”

An advanced version of the report by the UN on the occupied Palestinian territories, was made available on Monday.

In the second report this year, the genocide was called a “collective crime, sustained by the complicity of influential Third States that have enabled longstanding systemic violations of international law by Israel”.

“Framed by colonial narratives that dehumanize the Palestinians, this livestreamed atrocity has been facilitated through Third States’ direct support, material aid, diplomatic protection and, in some cases, active participation.”

The report shows that without the support of mostly European countries, Israel would not have been able to sustain its full-pronged assault on Gaza.

The report categorised the support into four main categories: diplomatic, military, economic and humanitarian.

NO “DECISIVE ACTION” FROM ARAB STATES

It argues that diplomatic immunity for Israel and failure to hold it to account for violating international laws, particularly in the West, has allowed it to continue its genocide with impunity.

The report says this took place through western media and political discourse, which “parroted Israeli narratives” and failed to distinguish between Hamas and Palestinian civilians, and drew on colonial tropes of Israel’s right to defend itself as a “civilised” nation against “savages”.

The report highlighted that the American regime used its UN Security Council veto power seven times to control ceasefire negotiations and provide diplomatic cover for the genocide. But it notes that the American regime did not act alone. It was helped by abstentions and delays, as well as watered-down draft resolutions from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands.

All of these actions helped stymy concrete actions while creating “an illusion of progress”.

While it noted that Arab and Muslim states support the Palestinian cause, they failed to take “decisive action” and some regional players “facilitated land routes to Israel, bypassing the Red Sea”. Egypt continued to maintain relations with Israel, including energy cooperation and closing the Rafah crossing.

It highlighted notable failures with regard to international courts, including the fact that most western countries failed to support South Africa or Nicaragua before the ICJ and continue to deny that Israel has committed genocide, as well as uphold the ICJ’s ruling on the illegality of Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

In addition, the report says that most western countries have undermined the arrest warrants the ICC issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other members of the government. Instead, the American regime has imposed sanctions on the ICC, and the UK has threatened to pull its funding.

UNFETTERED MILITARY SUPPORT

Despite UN resolutions calling for arms embargoes on Israel since 1976, the report notes that many countries supplied it with military support and arms transfers throughout its genocide, and described America, Germany, and Italy as “among the largest suppliers”.

The American regime currently guarantees $3.3bn per year in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) and, until 2028, an additional $500m per year for missile defence.

It highlighted the key role that the UK has played in military cooperation with Israel and reported on more than 600 surveillance flights over Israel and intelligence-sharing with its government, which suggests “cooperation in the destruction of Gaza”.

Albanese said 26 states sent at least 10 consignments of “arms and ammunition” – the most frequent being China (including Taiwan), India, Italy, Austria, Spain, Czechia, Romania, and France.

RECOGNITION OF A PALESTINIAN STATE BY AMERICA IS SUPPORTED BY MOST AMERICANS

The Poll By Reuters Found 59% Of Respondents Backed American Recognition Of A Palestinian State, While 33% Were Opposed, And The Rest Were Unsure Or Did Not Answer The Question.

Most Americans – including 80% of Democrats and 41% of Republicans – think the American regime should recognize Palestinian statehood, a sign that President Donald Trump’s opposition to doing so is out of step with public opinion, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.

The six-day poll, which closed on Monday, found 59% of respondents backed American recognition of a Palestinian state, while 33% were opposed and the rest were unsure or did not answer the question.

About half of Trump’s Republicans – 53% – opposed doing so, while 41% of Republicans said they would support the American regime recognizing a Palestinian state.

A growing number of countries – including America’s allies Britain, Canada, France, and Australia – have formally recognized Palestinian statehood in recent weeks, drawing condemnation from Israel.

Israeli bombardments have leveled vast swaths of Palestinian neighborhoods in Gaza following an October 2023 surprise attack by Hamas terrorists on Israel.

MOST RESPONDENTS SAID ISRAEL’S ACTIONS IN GAZA WERE EXCESSIVE

Some 60% of poll respondents said Israel’s response in Gaza was excessive, compared to 32% who disagreed.

Trump, who returned to the White House in January, has largely backed Israel in the war and this month brokered a ceasefire, raising hopes that lasting peace could be in reach.

The poll gave signs that the American public was ready to give Trump credit should his plan work. Some 51% of poll respondents agreed with a statement that Trump “deserves significant credit” if peace efforts are successful, compared with 42% who disagreed.

While only one in 20 Democrats approve of Trump’s overall performance as president, one in four said he should get significant credit if the peace holds.

Success on that front appears far from certain. An explosion of violence over the weekend threatened to derail the week-old truce, and American diplomats stepped up pressure on Israel and Hamas to get Trump’s plan back on track.

Key questions of Hamas disarmament, further Israeli troop pullbacks, and future governance of the Palestinian enclave remain unresolved.

Trump’s approval rating on foreign policy appeared to be on a modest upswing, rising to 38% in the latest poll, compared to 33% in a poll conducted earlier this month just ahead of the ceasefire deal. The latest rating was Trump’s highest since July.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online and gathered responses from 4,385 people nationwide. It had a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

DEHUMANIZATION OF ARABS BY THE WEST IS COMPLETELY UNFORGIVABLE

These Last Two Years Have Shown Us That Western Civilization Doesn’t Need Protection, It Needs Redemption. It Needs To Save Its Soul.

In October 2024 a Lebanese writer named Lina Mounzer wrote, “ask any Arab what the most painful realization of the last year has been and it is this: that we have discovered the extent of our dehumanization to such a degree that it’s impossible to function in the world in the same way.”

You should have thought about that line a lot over the last year.

You should have thought about it as Israel hammered Lebanon with at least 20 airstrikes during a supposed “ceasefire”.

You should have thought about it during the Gaza ceasefire negotiations when the western political/media class kept calling the Israelis held by Hamas “hostages” while calling the innocent Palestinians held captive by Israel “prisoners”.

You should think about it as the IDF continues to murder Palestinian civilians every day during the Gaza “ceasefire” when they are deemed to be traveling into forbidden areas, because Palestinians are so dehumanized that Israel sees bullets as a perfectly legitimate means of directing civilian foot traffic.

You should think about it as these daily ceasefire violations and acts of military slaughter barely make a blip in the western news media, while any time anything happens that makes western Jews feel anxious or upset it dominates headlines for days.

You should have thought about it while the western political/media class solemnly commemorated the second anniversary of the October 7^th attack, even as the daily death toll from the Gaza holocaust ticked along with its victims unnamed and unacknowledged by those same institutions.

You should have thought about it when all of western politics and media stopped dead in its tracks and stood transfixed for days on the assassination of Charlie Kirk while ignoring the genocide he had spent the last two years of his life actively manufacturing consent for.

Day after day after day we see glaring, inexcusable discrepancies between the amount of attention that is given to the violent death of an Arab and the attention that is given to the violent death of an Israeli, a western Jew, or any westerner.

These last two years have been a time of unprecedented unmasking in all sorts of ways, but the one that’s going to stick the most. The way western civilization came right out into the cold harsh light to admit, day after day after day, that they don’t truly view Arabs as human beings.

Ours is a profoundly sick society.

One of the main arguments you’ll hear from rightists about why the west needs to support Israel is that Israel is helping to defend the west from the savage Muslim hoards — a sentiment that Israeli pundits and politicians have been all too happy to feed into of late. It’s revealing because it’s just coming right out and saying that slaughtering Muslims is a virtue in and of itself, so anyone who kills Muslims is an ally of the west.

Why would anyone want to defend the west if this is what the west has become?

Even if we pretend these delusions that Arabs and Islam pose some kind of threat to western civilization are valid, why would it even matter? This civilization does not deserve to be saved. Not if we’re going to be living like this.

If we’ve become so detached from our own humanity that we can’t even see innocent children as fully human just because they live somewhere else and have a different religion, then we are the monsters. We are the villains. We are everything the craziest Zionist pretends the Arabs are.

These last two years have shown us that western civilization doesn’t need protection, it needs redemption. It needs to save its soul.

SENDING THE MILITARY TO OCCUPY SAN FRANCISCO HAS BEEN THREATENED BY TRUMP

Donald Trump Threatened To Send Troops To San Francisco, In An Interview That Aired Sunday, As He Looks To Push The American Military Into More Democratic-Controlled Cities.

The comments come as the president has already sent National Guard into Los Angeles, Washington and Memphis often against the wishes of local leaders, and as judges have halted their deployment in Chicago and Portland.

“Next we’re going to go to San Francisco,” he told Fox News.

“The difference is, I think they want us in San Francisco. San Francisco was truly one of the great cities of the world. And then 15 years ago, it went wrong.”

“We’re going to go to San Francisco and we’re going to make it great.”

Trump has repeatedly exaggerated the extent of crime and unrest in American cities to justify ordering deployments that have largely been opposed by local Democratic leaders.

He suggested late last month that American cities be used as “training grounds” for the country’s military forces.

The first deployment to Los Angeles, in June, came after sometimes unruly protests over widespread immigration raids that critics said appeared to target people based largely on their race or the language they were speaking.

That deployment was roundly criticized by California Governor Gavin Newsom, who frequently butts heads with the Republican billionaire, and who is widely expected to be a presidential candidate in 2027.

Trump’s comments on San Francisco come after Marc Benioff, the boss of San Francisco-based tech giant Salesforce apologized after calling for the National Guard to be sent to the city.

Benioff, a one-time darling of the left, has shifted right in recent years, along with other tech titans.

Nevertheless, his support for a military intervention in San Francisco sparked fury and a public backlash that saw former friends distance themselves from him.

San Francisco has a particular place in the Republican worldview.

The city, which has well-documented problems with homelessness and drug addiction, features frequently on right-leaning cable channels as an unparalleled example of what they see as the demise of America’s urban centers under Democratic Party control.

America is quickly becoming a nation occupied by the American military.

THE CEASEFIRE IS ALREADY BEING SABOTAGED BY THE TRUMPANYAHU ADMINISTRATION

We Don’t Know Who First Coined The Saying That An Israeli Ceasefire Means “You Cease And We Fire,” But It Proves Reliably Accurate Time After Time.

The IDF reportedly killed nine Palestinians trying to return to their homes under the usual justification that they were traveling in some kind of unauthorized area in ways that made the troops feel threatened, blah blah. They did this all the time during the previous “ceasefire” at the beginning of the year, using the exact same excuses.

Just as was speculated the other day might happen, Israel has announced that it is going to cut the aid it allows into Gaza in half and cut off fuel and gas shipments because Hamas hasn’t returned the bodies of all the dead Israeli hostages. Israel was fully aware when it signed the agreement that Hamas would not be able to deliver the bodies of all the hostages right away due to the rubble and chaos caused by the Israeli bombing campaign in Gaza.

On October 9^th, CNN published an article titled “Israel assesses Hamas may not be able to return all remaining dead hostages” which reported that “the Israeli government is aware that Hamas may not know the location of, or is unable to retrieve, the remains of some of the 28 remaining deceased hostages.”

The Red Cross says that finding all the bodies of the prisoners will be a “massive challenge” in all the rubble created by Israeli airstrikes in the areas where prisoners were being kept.

Drop Site News’ Jeremy Scahill explains that “During Gaza negotiations, Israel understood it would take time to recover all bodies of deceased captives. A specific mechanism for recovering the bodies was agreed. Now Israel is pretending that didn’t happen so it can violate the deal and cut the agreed aid shipments in half.”

It was reported last week that Hebrew-language Israeli media had been saying that a “secret clause” in the ceasefire agreement would allow Israel to resume its onslaught if the bodies of the dead hostages were not returned within a 72-hour window.

So it looks like this was planned from the beginning. Create obligations that Israel knew Hamas would be unable to fulfill, then use it as an excuse to resume the slaughter.

And President Trump appears to be going right along with it, posting on Truth Social that “A big burden has been lifted, but the job IS NOT DONE. THE DEAD HAVE NOT BEEN RETURNED, AS PROMISED!”

“We were told they had 26, 24 dead hostages… and it seems as though they don’t have that, because we’re talking about a much lesser number,” Trump told the press on Tuesday, saying, “I want them back.”

Trump also told the press that Hamas is going to have to be forcibly disarmed, which amounts to an open admission that this entire “ceasefire” show is a sham.

“If they don’t disarm, we will disarm them, and it will happen quickly and perhaps violently,” Trump said last Tuesday.

This statement matches recent comments from Benjamin Netanyahu saying that Hamas will be disarmed “the easy way” or “the hard way”.

The president and prime minister are making it clear that in order for the ceasefire negotiations to proceed to a lasting peace, Hamas is going to have to completely surrender and Israel is going to have to be handed total victory. They’re branding it as a ceasefire deal when it’s actually a total surrender deal, and Hamas has made it explicitly clear that it is not surrendering.

As Drop Site News explains, “In reality, senior Hamas, Islamic Jihad and figures from other resistance factions have repeatedly rejected disarmament throughout negotiations, including in multiple interviews with Drop Site over the past year.”

A big part of the confusion around the ceasefire in public discourse today is that there are two contradictory ideas going around about what the ceasefire is and what it means. Israel supporters think “ceasefire” means “total victory and complete surrender by Hamas,” while everyone else thinks “ceasefire” means ceasefire.

That’s why you see Israel supporters celebrating the deal while Palestine supporters are much more apprehensive. Palestine supporters understand that a ceasefire and a surrender are two different things, and see Trump and Netanyahu stating that Hamas is going to have to completely disarm if “ceasefire” negotiations are going to move toward a lasting peace. They understand that the unyielding mutually exclusive positions of the Trumpanyahu administration and of Hamas are likely to come to a head in ways that result in the reignition of the Gaza holocaust.

So for all the applause and fuss that has been made about the ceasefire, as things stand right now it doesn’t look like much has changed. From the very beginning of this genocide it has been the officially stated position of the American regime and Israel that the killing will not end until Hamas lays down its arms and surrenders, and that is still their position today. There’s a much-needed pause in the slaughter, sure, but the Trumpanyahu team is making it explicitly clear that it is going to ramp up again under the justification of Hamas refusing to disarm.

And that’s assuming negotiations even make it that far; Israel is already doing everything it can to sabotage the ceasefire by murdering Palestinians and greatly reducing the amount of aid it promised.

Unless something significant changes about all this fairly soon, even this feeble reduction in Israel’s Gaza atrocities cannot be expected to hold.

IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF ISRAEL AND ITS ALLIES TO END THE GENOCIDE, NOT THEIR VICTIMS

The Responsibility For Stopping A Genocide Is On The Party Committing The Genocide. It Is Not On The Victims Of The Genocide To End It By Meeting Certain Conditions.

It’s actually never legitimate to withhold aid from starving civilians. It was never legitimate at any time.

That’s one of the annoying things about having to discuss Israel’s ridiculous claim that Hamas is hoarding hostage corpses in order to achieve some kind of goal, and therefore justifies reducing aid into Gaza as punishment: the conversation skates right over the fact that it has never been legitimate for Israel to withhold humanitarian aid into Gaza. Debating whether Israel is right or wrong to withhold aid under these specific circumstances tacitly assumes that it could ever be right to withhold aid under any circumstances.

Listening to Israel’s justifications for why it needs to inflict monstrous abuses upon the Palestinians has the effect of assuming that there are circumstances under which those monstrous abuses could be acceptable. And there just aren’t.

It has never been legitimate to intentionally deprive civilians of humanitarian aid that they need to survive. You have to give them aid.

It has never been legitimate to shoot noncombatants because you decided they crossed some sort of line into a forbidden zone. It has never been legitimate to shoot noncombatants at all.

It has never been legitimate to commit genocide. Israel just needs to stop the genocide.

The onus for stopping a genocide is on the party committing the genocide. The onus is not on the victims of the genocide to end it by meeting certain conditions. This should not even need to be said.

It’s so obnoxious how everyone’s getting sucked into these debates about whether or not Israel might need to resume the genocide because Hamas refused to disarm or they didn’t get their hostage corpses back or this or that ceasefire demand wasn’t met or blah blah whatever. Israel has never needed to commit genocide. It needs to stop committing genocide.

The world shouldn’t be bending over backwards to ensure that the state which is committing genocide is happy with the terms by which the genocide is ended. The world should be aggressively punishing the state that is committing genocide until it stops. That would be true peace. What we are seeing now is just a bad joke.

And of course this true peace is not emerging because the powerful western states who’ve been backing the genocide this whole time are perfectly fine with it. Their weapons industries get to profit from the genocide. Their empire managers get to enjoy the domination of a critical geostrategic region. They sleep like babies at night, because they do not view the victims of the genocide as human beings.

So we find ourselves doing this ridiculous dance where we go “Okay well maybe the genocide could stop if the victims of the genocide agree to terms X, Y and Z and don’t make too much of a fuss about being killed in smaller numbers every day.”

This is madness. It’s the craziest thing you could possibly imagine. We live in a dystopian madhouse.

THERE HAVE BEEN 129 ISRAELI CEASEFIRE VIOLATIONS AGAINST GAZA SINCE THE “TRUCE” BEGAN

These Violations Have Killed 34 Palestinians And Wounding 122 Others. Of Course, The Mainstream Media (Israel’s Propaganda Ministry) Hasn’t Told You About This.

The (PCHR) said on Saturday it had documented 129 Israeli violations of the ceasefire in Gaza since it came into effect on Monday, including airstrikes and gunfire, which had killed 34 Palestinians and injured 122.

In a statement, the group said Israeli forces on Friday bombed a civilian vehicle carrying members of the Shaban family in Gaza City’s Zaytoun neighbourhood, killing 11 people, including seven children and two women.

It described the attack as a massacre and the deadliest single incident since the ceasefire took effect.

The center said Israel’s actions showed a “blatant disregard for civilian life” and a continued policy of “killing and destruction without the slightest respect for international humanitarian law”.

It added that Israeli forces have the surveillance capability to identify civilian targets, saying there was “no military necessity” for striking the family’s vehicle.

PCHR said Israel was persisting in “its policy of collective punishment and genocide against Palestinians”, and called for an immediate and permanent end to the assault and for Israel to be held accountable under international law.

Hamas also condemned the attack, urging President Donald Trump and ceasefire mediators to pressure Israel to stop its violations.

It said the massacre reflected Israel’s “aggressive intentions” and its disregard for the commitments outlined in the ceasefire deal.

According to the terms of the Trump-brokered truce, the Israeli army continues to control more than half of Gaza’s territory, separated by a so-called “yellow line” marking the areas Palestinians are allowed to move within.

Since the ceasefire began, Israeli forces have fired on Palestinians accused of crossing this line.

Human rights groups warn that ongoing Israeli attacks threaten to collapse the fragile truce, which was meant to pave the way for the first phase of a multi-stage plan for Gaza’s reconstruction and demilitarisation. However, this is one indication that true peace with the Israeli regime is not possible due to it’s sadistic nature.