Hidden History -- In The Making

WITHOUT AN EXTERNAL THREAT MOST AMERICANS DON’T WANT TROOPS DEPLOYED

Poles Indicate Some 58% Of Americans – Including Seven In 10 Democrats And Half Of Republicans – Think The President Should Send Armed Troops Only To Face External Threats.

This is a sign of unease as President Donald Trump increasingly deploys National Guard troops to police American cities.

Some 58% of Americans – including seven in 10 Democrats and half of Republicans – think the president should send armed troops only to face external threats, a sign of unease as President Donald Trump increasingly deploys National Guard troops to police American cities, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.

The poll, which ran Friday through Tuesday, also showed the Republican president’s approval rating ticking down to 40% – 1 percentage point lower than in a late September poll, with his rating slipping on his handling of crime and the cost of living for American Households.

The poll was conducted in the days after Trump told an unusual meeting of hundreds of generals and admirals summoned from around the world to Virginia that America faces an “enemy within” and as he deploys armed troops to patrol a growing number of Democratic-led cities, including Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles.

Democratic leaders say the deployments are politically motivated and have challenged the troop movements in court. Trump on Monday threatened to invoke an 18th-century anti-insurrection law to sidestep any court rulings restricting his orders to send Guard troops into cities over the objections of local and state officials.

Some 37% of poll respondents said they agreed with a statement that presidents of either political party should have the power to deploy troops into states even when state governors object, compared to 48% who disagreed.

Trump has also deployed troops along the American border, arguing the country is being invaded by criminal immigrants, and has ordered troops to kill suspected drug traffickers on boats off Venezuela without due process.

Before his address to top military leaders last week, Trump warned he would fire those he didn’t like, comments Democrats criticized as an attempt to pressure the military into taking his side in political debates.

AMERICANS PREFER POLITICAL NEUTRALITY FOR MILITARY

The American military traditionally keeps itself far removed from political discussions, and the Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Americans prefer that approach.

Some 83% of respondents said the military “should remain politically neutral and not take a side in domestic policy debates” while 10% said the armed forces should start taking sides and support the president’s domestic policy agenda. About one in five Republicans said the military should take the president’s side in political debates.

Trump’s approval rating on crime fell in the latest poll to 41% from 43% in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted September 5^th-9^th.

Trump’s overall approval has fallen 7 percentage points since a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in the hours following his January 20 inauguration showed him with a 47% approval rating.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted online, surveyed 1,154 American adults nationwide and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

HOW MANY PALESTINIAN LIVES WOULD IT TAKE TO EQUAL ONE WESTERN LIFE?

The Manchester Attacker Killed One Person And The Entire Western World Stopped To Mourn And Denounce It, On The Same Day That Israel Killed 57+ Palestinians That Was Completely Ignored.

British police report that one of the two fatalities in the Manchester synagogue attack was caused by gunfire from police. One of the reported injuries was also the result of a stray police bullet.

So he killed one person. The Manchester synagogue attacker killed one single person and the entire western world stopped in its tracks to mourn and grieve and weep and denounce, on the same day that Israel killed at least 57 Palestinians and it was completely ignored by western politicians and media.

How many Palestinian deaths it would’ve it taken to bump the synagogue attack off the front pages and become the main story? Fifty-seven Palestinians dying didn’t make a blip in the news.

So how many deaths would it have taken? How many Palestinians would have needed to be murdered for it to have risen to the level of interest and attention from western politicians, pundits, and news reporters that we saw them giving to the violent death of one western Jew?

A hundred deaths? Definitely not. A thousand? Probably not. Ten thousand? Maybe. Maybe if Israel had actually deployed a tactical nuclear weapon in Gaza and killed thousands of people, maybe that would have eclipsed the one single death in the Manchester synagogue attack in the eyes of the western world. Maybe.

It’s an interesting question to contemplate. It’s just so incredible seeing how little value is assigned to Palestinian lives in the glaring disparity between the attention given to these easily quantifiable and comparable death tolls. Westerners really do think the lives of their house pets matter more.

One key lesson from the Global Sumud Flotilla experiment was that Israel doesn’t have the ability to quickly apprehend a large number of aid ships. It took them more than a full day to capture all the flotilla activists. That could be useful information to have.

If those boats hadn’t been carrying a bunch of white westerners Israel would’ve cheerfully incinerated every last one of them.

It really looks like the American regime and Israel are getting ready to try to sell us on “Uh-oh, Hamas rejected our Tony Blair enslavement plan, looks like we get to keep committing genocide!”

The Washington Post reports that the American regime is putting pressure on Iran “to accept four stringent conditions as a baseline for new negotiations,” which include that “Tehran must agree to zero enrichment of nuclear material and curbs to its missile program, and it must cease funding its proxy forces.”

Whenever the Trumpanyahu administration starts demanding that an enemy accept conditions they know they’ll never accept, they’re setting the stage for more killing and destruction.

Perennial presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg spouted the long-debunked claim that Hamas put babies in ovens on October 7^th in a recent interview. Continuing to repeat atrocity propaganda that’s been debunked since 2023, here in late 2025, is an unforgivable act of genocide facilitation. It’s odious when it is done by anons on Twitter with 30 followers, let alone this lab-grown swamp monster who the western press can’t stop interviewing.

Israel apologists justifying the Gaza holocaust by claiming that Palestinians don’t value the lives of their children.

Think about what they are saying when they do this. They are saying Palestinians lack a quality that is common not only to all humans, but to all mammals. They’re saying Palestinians are animals more akin to beetles or squid, who simply reproduce and then go on with their lives in cool indifference to their offspring.

They are saying this to frame Palestinians as a nonhuman type of creature whose extermination could be morally justified. Nobody with a healthy sense of empathy would want to exterminate a group of humans like vermin. They wouldn’t even want to exterminate a group of other large mammals who care for their young as we do, like gorillas or pandas. But cockroaches or termites or some other pest that’s wholly unlike us? That’s not seen as a very big deal.

This is the type of dehumanization that is necessary to support the state of Israel. Without it, supporting a genocidal apartheid state doesn’t sit right in your guts. The cognitive dissonance would destroy you. So you have to make up fake stories about Palestinians being these strange subhuman orc creatures to feel okay about it.

STUDENTS, EDUCATORS AND STAFF HAVE LAUNCHED HUNGER STRIKES ACROSS AMERICA

Both University And High School Participants Are Trying To Highlight The Dire Conditions In Gaza, Where A Genocidal Famine Is Progressively Worsening.

High school and university educators, staff and students are starting hunger strikes across America in solidarity with Palestinians, who are undergoing a widespread famine in Gaza.

More than 100 K-12 educators are conducting a coordinated hunger strike for three days to pressure lawmakers to intercede on behalf of Palestinian children in Gaza, which Unicef named as the most dangerous place to be a child in December 2023, followed by Doctors Without Borders in June 2024.

Some educators will participate in the full three-day hunger strike, while others will fast during lunch only. Four of the participants spoke about what motivates them to take part. They are identified by first name only.

Colin, a middle school teacher in Massachusetts who plans to take part, said he had never gone three days without eating. “It feels like a long time,” he said. “But after those three days, I’ll be able to eat again, and the people in Gaza won’t be able to.”

He expressed concern that American tax dollars were being pumped into military expenditure in Israel, which, in turn, was harming children in Gaza.

Stephen, a high school special education teacher from Oregon who is participating in the hunger strike, said: “I think that public school teachers in K-12 have a duty to protect children and young people, no matter what side of a line or border those children live on.”

The hunger strike has been organized by Educators for Palestine, a caucus of the National Education Association (NEA), which is the largest teachers’ union in the United States.

Educators for Palestine is also working to push the NEA to disassociate from the pro-Israel advocacy organization Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Members had voted in favour of a resolution to cease interaction with the ADL, but the NEA overturned the decision after pressure from the ADL.

Theresa, a middle school nurse from Minnesota, said she had been organizing in the union, contacting legislators, attending protests and donating money before deciding to take part in the hunger strike, which she believed was taking things to the next level. “We are putting our own bodies in harm’s way,” she said. “A hunger strike is a more active way to participate and use my body to show resistance and solidarity.”

Anoush, a high school English teacher from California, said that her students knew what was happening in Gaza and “pick up on the fact that we’re not supposed to talk about it in school”.

She believes it is important for students to see teachers’ words translated into action. “We teach stories about injustice. We ask them to be courageous, to do what they think is right. It’s important for them to see their teachers model that integrity.”

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY IN SOLIDARITY

At New York University (NYU), which has pushed back on pro-Palestinian activism, faculty, staff and students began a weekly fast in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza on Wednesday.

Launched by the NYU chapters of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) and Students in Justice for Palestine (SJP), participants plan to fast every Wednesday from sunrise to sunset throughout the semester.

They will also donate money that would have been spent on meals to mutual aid funds providing food and medical aid in Gaza, and some of them will be fundraising additional funds.

Those fasting will also come together in solidarity and to raise awareness.

Abigail Balbale, an associate professor in the Faculty of Arts and Science, explained that she was fasting because she had witnessed how people in Gaza are being “systematically starved to death while the world and our country stand by”.

“We fast today out of compassion for the people of Gaza, and commit to educating ourselves and our community about the illegal use of starvation as a weapon of war,” she said in a press release issued by NYU FSJP.

Kathy Engel, an associate arts professor in the Tisch School of Arts and poet, said: “We fast because Palestinian people in Gaza are starving. We fast after two years of nonstop horror. We are part of a worldwide movement committed to Palestinian sovereignty. We will not stop.”

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a United Nations-backed global hunger monitor, officially confirmed famine was underway in Gaza almost two months ago.

GRETA THUNBERG’S FOCUS HAS TURNED TO THE GAZA GENOCIDE AFTER HER RELEASE FROM ISRAELI DETENTION

“I Will Never Comprehend How Humans Can Be So Evil,” Says The Swedish Activist.

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg spoke publicly Monday for the first time after being released from an Israeli prison, where she was reportedly beaten and forced to kiss the Israeli flag.

Thunberg was among 171 people deported by Israeli authorities after being detained for taking part in a Gaza-bound aid flotilla. The group was flown to Greece and Slovakia following their release.

There were cheers as Thunberg and other activists arrived in Greece, greeted by supporters after their ordeal.

Thunberg spoke at Eleftherios Venizelos Airport in Athens, emphasizing that her personal experience was not what mattered most.

“I can talk for a very long time about our mistreatment and abuses in our imprisonment, trust me,” she said.

“But that is not the story. Let me be very clear: there is a genocide going on in front of our very eyes, a live-streamed genocide,” Thunberg said.

“No one has the privilege to say we are not aware of what’s happening. No one in the future will be able to say we did not know.”

Thunberg accused Israel of “continuing to worsen and escalate their genocide and mass destruction with genocide of intent, attempting to erase an entire population, an entire nation in front of you.”

“We cannot take our eyes away from Gaza, from all the places of the world that are suffering, living on the forefront of this business-as-usual system: Congo, Sudan, Afghanistan, Gaza and many, many more,” she added. “What we are doing is the bare minimum.”

“I will never comprehend how humans can be so evil. That you would deliberately starve millions of people living trapped under an illegal siege as a continuation of decades of oppression and apartheid.”

In a video posted on her Instagram account, Thunberg said the Global Sumud Flotilla is a demonstration of “international solidarity” with the Palestinians.

Israel violated international law by impeding the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, she said, adding “our imprisonment by Israel is a direct result of our governments.”

“States have a legal obligation to end their complicity in genocide, which the UN commissioner now also confirmed it is,” she highlighted, emphasizing that Israel has “no impunity” from the genocide.

The Global Sumud Flotilla, en route to break the Israeli blockade and deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, approached Gaza waters on the evening of Oct 1^st.

The Israeli army attacked the flotilla, illegally seizing dozens of boats and ships and detaining hundreds of their passengers.

It was the largest flotilla to ever set out collectively to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.

THE WORLD HATES ISRAEL IT DOESN’T HATE JEWS

It’s Crazy That Two Years Into A Genocide And You Are Still Being Hammered By Propagandists Pretending To Believe That The World Has Just Spontaneously Started Hating Israel For No Reason.

“U.S. registers most outbreaks of global antisemitism in August,” reads a recent headline from Fox News.

“Report: Antisemitism Hits Post-Holocaust High,” blares a headline from Newsmax.

“Gen Z’s casual antisemitism is growing — seeded by influencers like Tucker Carlson,” says a headline from The New York Post.

During a recent “counter-terrorism” summit at Reichman University, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt complained that the entire world is becoming increasingly hateful toward Jews.

“This year, ADL’s Global 100 survey of antisemitic attitudes around the world found a 46 percent shift of the adult population — 2.2 billion people — harbor elevated levels of antisemitism,” Greenblatt said. “That’s nearly double the rate that we saw a decade ago. For the first time since we started tracking these attitudes in the 1960s, the younger generation is more likely to hold elevated anti-Jewish views than their parents or grandparents.”

They’re just talking about people who oppose Israel for perpetrating a live-streamed holocaust. People don’t hate Israel because it’s full of Jewish people, they hate Israel because of the things Israel does.

It is absolutely mind-boggling that to this day we’re seeing a hypermilitaristic apartheid ethnonationalist state starving and massacring civilians because of their ethnicity, bombing hospitals, assassinating journalists and medical professionals, murdering humanitarian workers, starting wars, invading neighboring countries, manipulating foreign governments, threatening activists, and actively working to crush free speech throughout the western world, all with the backing of the most powerful empire in history — and we’ve still got western institutions trying to convince us that people hate Israel because of religious prejudice.

This is the same genocidal apartheid state that has been terrorizing activists for trying to bring formula to starving babies.

The same genocidal apartheid state whose leader just appeared before the UN and announced that the victims of his genocide were being forced to listen to his speech because Israel had taken control of their phones.

The same genocidal apartheid state whose leader is publicly boasting about having seized control of TikTok in order to manipulate the things westerners are allowed to say to each other about Israeli atrocities.

The same genocidal apartheid state whose leader is reportedly going around bragging that he owns the president of the United States and can make the American regime do whatever he wants.

For two years we’ve been watching footage coming out of Gaza showing things being done to human anatomy that we hadn’t seen depicted in even the goriest horror movies ever produced by Hollywood. Stories about rape, torture, people being mauled to death by dogs. Suffering the likes of which we cannot even imagine over here in our sheltered little western homes.

And they’re still trying to tell us that our revulsion toward the state that is doing these things is the result of “antisemitism”.

If you were on the bus with a man who was constantly hurting the other passengers, abusing them, attacking them and degrading them, you would think that man is an asshole. It wouldn’t matter if he was wearing a Star of David, a cross, a turban or a keffiyeh; you should think he evil regardless.

If you looked out a window and saw people massacring children, you would probably think thoughts like “That’s horrible!” and “How can I stop this?”

The furthest thing from one’s mind would be thoughts like “What religion are they?” or “Their religion is very relevant to any discussions we might have about this massacre” or “We should definitely be very careful about discussing this massacre because we don’t want to offend people who have the same religion as the people doing the massacre.”

It would never occur to moste to consider such things, much less that such considerations should be central to all discourse about the massacre for years on end.

There’s a video going around showing anti-genocide protesters in South Korea throwing shoes at a large picture of Benjamin Netanyahu. These are people who’ve probably never met a Jew in their lives, for whom the Jewish faith has no cultural relevance whatsoever. They’ve probably spent close to zero time thinking about Jews and Judaism. They just hate Netanyahu because he’s perpetrating an active genocide.

The world doesn’t hate Jews, it hates Israel. The world hates Israel because Israel is a profoundly evil state whose profoundly evil actions are tormenting millions of people, and are having a direct effect on our own lives to a greater and greater extent as well.

Anyone who babbles about “antisemitism” in the year 2025 is just trying to shut you down and shut you up so you don’t oppose the most nakedly evil thing that is happening in your world today.

EVERYTHING BEFORE AND AFTER OCTOBER 7TH EXPLAINS WHY OCTOBER 7TH HAPPENED

Israel Supporters Don’t Want You Looking At What Happened Before October 7th , And They Don’t Want You Looking At Anything That’s Happened Since.

Look at what happened before October 7^th and you’ll see year after year of murder, oppression and abuse.

Look at everything that’s happened since October 7^th and you’ll understand the kind of sadistic, psychopathic regime the Palestinians have been living under this entire time.

Israel supporters don’t want you looking at what happened before October 7^th, and they don’t want you looking at anything that’s happened since. They just want you to pretend history began and ended with a bunch of Hitlerite savages attacking innocent Jews for no reason.

And they don’t even want you looking at the day of October 7^th too closely, either. Looking too closely at the events of that day bring up inconvenient questions about the Hannibal Directive and what percentage of the death toll was actually caused by the IDF firing on their own people. Inconvenient questions about the suspicious stock trading in the lead-up to the attack and the mountains upon mountains upon mountains of evidence that high-level Israeli officials allowed the attack to proceed undefended in order to advance the genocidal land grab we’re seeing advanced now.

They only want you looking at the parts of October 7^th that make Israel look like an innocent little lamb who was attacked completely out of the blue and had no choice but to reluctantly respond with military force.

Forget the scorched earth incineration of the Gaza Strip.

Forget the bombed-out hospitals and methodically dismantled healthcare system.

Forget the hundreds upon hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza who’ve been deliberately starved to death.

Forget the fact that every relevant human rights institution on earth has determined that Israel is committing genocide, and that zero comparable humanitarian institutions have said it isn’t.

Forget the fact that human rights experts had been describing Gaza as a giant concentration camp or open-air prison for years prior to October 7^th.

Forget the fact that Israel had been routinely murdering Palestinian children and other civilians in the months prior to the Hamas attack.

Don’t look at any of that stuff. Just look at the stuff that makes Israel look like the victim.

That’s the story, anyway. Luckily, fewer and fewer people are buying into it.

The longer this genocide goes on for, the more the world has come to view October 7 as Israel reaping what it had long been sowing.

THE INSURRECTION ACT COULD SOON BE INVOKED BY TRUMP

He Made Comments A Day After A Federal Judge Blocked The President From Sending National Guard Troops To Portland, Oregon.

President Donald Trump on Monday said he would consider using the Insurrection Act to deploy the military if federal courts prevented him from deploying the National Guard to protect federal buildings and conduct law enforcement operations.

The comments came a day after a federal judge blocked the president from sending National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon.

“You look at what’s happening with Portland over the years, it’s a burning hell hole,” Trump added. “And then you have a judge that lost her way that tries to pretend that there’s no problem.”

The Insurrection Act of 1807 is a federal law that allows the president to nationally deploy the American military or federalize state National Guard troops to quell what the president deems an insurrection against the United States.

Earlier Monday, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said the administration had been contending with a “legal insurrection” and that rulings stifling the White House’s agenda amounted to “an insurrection against the laws and Constitution of the United States.”

“We need to have district courts in this country that see themselves as being under the laws and Constitution and not being able to take for themselves powers that are reserved solely for the president,” Miller added.

Trump has flirted with invoking the Insurrection Act before. During the 2024 campaign, he said he would use the law to suppress unrest. And at the end of his first term in office, some of his supporters urged him to invoke the law to try to hold onto power after his loss to former President Joe Biden.

You should understand that any sense of freedom in America will end soon for all.

THE AMERICAN REGIME COULD STILL END THE WAR IN UKRAINE

But Doing So Would Involve Recognizing America Helped Create And Sustain This Tragedy, And Should Reexamine NATO (And The CIA). But the Deep State Would Fly Into A Rage At Anyone Who Tried This.

Hundreds of physicians from around the world have gathered in Nagasaki, Japan, this week, to discuss our shared belief that we can and should abolish all nuclear weapons.

International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) has won a past Nobel Peace Prize for this sort of work. In particular, the scientific arguments of the world’s doctors about the species-level threat of a nuclear war made a profound impression on Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, and convinced those Cold War leaders to jointly declare that “nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

Many eyes here are on the situation in Ukraine, where, after nearly four years of war, the American regime continues to flirt with the unthinkable: a blundering escalation into the use of nuclear weapons.

This week, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the American regime will help Ukraine strike deep inside Russia with long-range missiles. President Donald Trump also just told a gathering of top American generals and admirals that this summer he ordered two nuclear-armed submarines “over to the coast of Russia, just to be careful.” The Trump White House is even considering arming Ukraine with Tomahawk cruise missiles (which in theory can carry nuclear weapons).

It all sounds like the opposite of progress. Not so long ago, President Trump claimed that he could end the war quickly, as long as Ukraine recognized the war was over and agreed to let go of its long-lost territory. He now has changed his mind, and says he believes Ukraine could win it all back.

“Why not?” he said in one of his legendarily grammar-torturing social media posts:

“Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years a War that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win … [Ukraine] has Great Spirit, and only getting better … In any event, I wish both Countries well. We will continue to supply weapons to NATO for NATO to do what they want with them. Good luck to all!”

So much of this is bizarre, not least Trump’s suggestion that NATO is something separate and autonomous from the American empire’s security state.

But the president is clearly frustrated. Probably he thought the Russians launched the war because they wanted land, and were only complaining about NATO as a cover story. Actually it’s the other way around: the Russians wanted NATO out, and occupied land as a means to that end.

Trump could move forward with a peace process, but to succeed, he’d have to face down a rage-filled American national security establishment. Remember how all of Washington pilloried President Joe Biden over the chaotic American withdrawal from Afghanistan? Trump knows he would face at least as much bipartisan fury if he were to announce that Ukraine will never join NATO.

Yet such an announcement is exactly what peace will require. As the Russian government has made plain for years, and has reiterated in its officially published memoranda, all sides must agree that Ukraine will forever be a militarily neutral state. This is clearly non-negotiable for the Kremlin.

Russia will thus continue to fight the war until this goal is accomplished, or until so much of Ukraine gets annexed that it matters little what any Trump regime controlled state does.

Rather than accept peace on these terms — renouncing NATO expansion to Ukraine — our collective leaders have decided we’ll have more war. Is NATO expansion worth so much death and destruction? Is it worth continuing to risk a blunder into all-out nuclear war?

THE WAR WITH AFGHANISTAN SHOULD NOT BE STARTED OVER BY TRUMP

President Donald Trump Wants Back The Bagram Air Base. That Is Not Going To Happen Without Starting The War Over Again. There Is No Good Reason For Wanting To Take Over That Air Base.

No one ever accused President Donald Trump of being a systematic thinker. Were not the potential consequences so great, the obvious response to his demand on Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban to “return” Bagram air base would be uproarious laughter.

It’s been more than four years since the Biden administration withdrew American forces from the central Asian state. The departure, just a few weeks shy of the 20-year anniversary of the arrival of American forces, made Washington’s 1975 exit from Saigon look orderly. However, the American military’s retreat was long overdue and completed the accord negotiated by Trump during his first term. Some of the insurgents had been fighting since the Taliban first emerged in 1994, and even before, against Soviet occupiers. Demanding that the victors accept a permanent American military presence would have killed any agreement, turning Afghanistan into a truly forever war.

Since then, the people of Afghanistan have suffered under the Taliban’s oppressive, theocratic rule. However, for many the end of the war was still a relief. While Americans like to view themselves as liberators, many Afghans saw them as anything but that. Explained interpreter Baktash Ahadi:

“Virtually the only contact most Afghans had with the West came via heavily armed and armored combat troops. Americans thus mistook the Afghan countryside for a mere theater of war, rather than as a place where people actually lived. U.S. forces turned villages into battlegrounds, pulverizing mud homes and destroying livelihoods.”

Unsurprisingly, Ahadi continued, “any sympathy for the West evaporated in bursts of gunfire.” Compared to the distant, corrupt, and incompetent Kabul government and its American ally, the Taliban became the lesser of two evils.

Even critics of the latter welcomed peace. After visiting the country shortly after the insurgents’ victory, journalist Anand Gopal observed that “the biggest thing I noticed on the ground is just how tired people were of fighting.” Most Americans had no idea. Added Gopal:

“The first thing people say when I call them these days is, “Thank God everything’s peaceful.” They’re not even thinking about the kinds of things we think of, like, “Who’s going to be in the government? Are the Taliban going to be sharing power? What’s the role of women?” Right now, the people I’m talking to, men and women, the thing they say is, “Well, thank God it’s just peaceful”.”

Although the American regime quickly defeated the Taliban militarily, the Bush administration arrogantly demanded total victory, refusing to negotiate the group’s formal capitulation, and opposition gradually returned. Then, as America’s position deteriorated, military and political officials alike hid the facts from the public, policymakers, and perhaps even themselves. The Washington Post’s Craig Whitlock wrote a devastating critique of the war, detailing how “senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan …, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.” Although Trump failed to override military opposition to a withdrawal, he appeared to understand the impossibility of victory and eventually negotiated to end the war, though he left the pull-out to his successor.

But now he wants an American military restoration.

Peaceful engagement with Afghanistan makes sense. Toward that end the new administration apparently has met with the Taliban, which announced that the governments discussed “bilateral relations between the two countries, issues related to citizens, and investment opportunities in Afghanistan.” Continuing to treat Kabul as an enemy achieves nothing. The Taliban has triumphed and is now looking for partners, including China and Russia. Engagement is more likely than isolation to encourage the Taliban to moderate its rule.

Alas, Trump is making military demands that treat Afghanistan like a captive satrapy. But the Taliban, which defeated the American regime, has no reason to grant Washington any favors. The latter does not recognize the Afghan government, sanctions the nation’s leadership, and continues to freeze central bank assets, which affects private Afghans as well as their rulers. America’s forces had barely made it home before Washington’s War Party, led by the ever-belligerent Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and then-Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), more recently Trump’s discredited national security adviser turned United Nations ambassador, were campaigning to restart the war. Regime opponents have lobbied Congress to support a new armed opposition, though so far without much success. Why would Kabul invite Americans still acting like an enemy, to return with guns potentially blazing?

LEARN WHY THE TRUMP-NETANYAHU “PEACE PLAN” IS A TRAP

The Trump-Netanyahu Proposal Lacks A Clear Timeline Or Method To Enforce Israeli Compliance. But If Hamas Accepts, It Could Plunge The Palestinian Cause Into Deep Uncertainty.

If Hamas rejects the plan, the American regime says Israel can “finish the job” in Gaza.

The formula Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu presented for the plan to end the war in Gaza is riddled with red flags. With the Israeli Prime Minister to his side, the American President explained that his plan would include the release of all Israeli captives in Gaza, dead or alive, within the first 72 hours of the deal, while Israel would release 250 Palestinians from Israeli jails, and humanitarian aid would flow into the Strip.

That’s about the only part of the proposal that’s clear. Nothing else in the “20-point plan” has a clear timeframe or mechanism of implementation.

The plan includes a “gradual” withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, leaving up to 70% of its surface under Israeli control. International and Arab forces would take over running Gaza, which would be “demilitarized,” and the “military capabilities” of Palestinian resistance factions would be destroyed. At least nominally, Palestinians would not be forcibly removed from Gaza en masse. An independent, apolitical commission would run Palestinians’ everyday lives and also run Gaza’s reconstruction.

The commission itself would be under the supervision of a “board of peace” headed by Trump himself. It would also include Palestinian and international members. Leaks that preceded the official announcement of the plan said that one of the names on the board would be former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who reportedly participated in the drafting of the plan.

Hamas and the other Palestinian resistance factions would disarm, and those of its members who are willing to leave would be given safe passage to other countries. The factions would also be excluded from any participation in running Gaza, directly or indirectly. Most importantly, the Palestinian Authority would take no part in the administration of the Strip until it undergoes a series of “reforms.” Trump also said that Netanyahu does not accept a Palestinian state, and that Trump “understands that.”

Netanyahu, a staunch rejectionist of any end to the war that doesn’t result in unconditional surrender and total Israeli control over Gaza, announced his acceptance of the plan with visible satisfaction, adding that Trump was “the best friend” Israel has ever had.

And why wouldn’t he? The announced terms echo Netanyahu’s main conditions for ending the war — Hamas has to release the captives and disarm, a civil authority will run the strip, and Israel maintains ultimate control. The plan even appeases the right-wing Israeli demand to exclude any Palestinian political force from running the Strip, closing the door to Palestinian statehood. Yet Trump claims that the plan is meant to forever “end the conflict” in the Middle East.

On top of that, the plan’s lack of clear implementation mechanisms or time frames for anything except the release of Israeli captives brings to mind previous attempts to end the war in Gaza that Netanyahu systematically sabotaged, as recently admitted by former State Department spokesperson Mathew Miller. In January, Israel reached a ceasefire in Gaza that secured the release of most of the captives held by Hamas, including all civilian captives. Netanyahu continued to delay sending a negotiating team to Qatar or Egypt to initiate the second phase of negotiations aimed at definitively ending the war. Then, on March 18^th, Israel broke the ceasefire and resumed the bombing of Gaza.

HAMAS’S DILEMMA

The critical element in the plan is the endorsement from the Arab and Muslim countries, which Trump claimed to have secured. Leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Turkey had met with Trump days before the plan was announced, and one of the conditions they had was for a diplomatic path to remain open for negotiating the establishment of a Palestinian state. Leaks from the meeting also said that Arab and Muslim countries would not only send forces to Gaza, but would also fund its reconstruction.

Between then and Trump’s announcement, there were several other meetings involving Netanyahu, Trump, America’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, and Israeli strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer. Israeli settler movements also sent a delegation to Washington to deliver their reservations regarding the plan to Netanyahu before his meeting with Trump.

On Tuesday, Qatar announced that it had handed Hamas the plan, and that the Arab countries were “in a state of consultation.” Late on Monday, the foreign ministers of Turkey, Jordan, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Egypt released a joint statement that praised Trump’s “sincere efforts” to end the war in Gaza, adding that their countries were ready to “put the final touches” on the plan. The Palestinian Authority joined in the praise of Trump’s “sincere efforts,” without commenting on the specifics.

Meanwhile, Israeli far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich rejected the plan, insisting that Netanyahu has no legitimacy to end the war without “absolute victory.” Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid offered Netanyahu a safety net in case his far-right allies withdraw from the cabinet, and captives’ families said in a statement that Trump’s plan was “the last chance” to return them home.

However, Trump’s plan doesn’t appear to be open to negotiations. On Tuesday, Trump told reporters at the White House that Hamas has three to four days to accept his plan. During his announcement on Monday, the Trump told Netanyahu directly that if Hamas refused the plan, he would back Israel “to finish the job.”

But the counterweight to Palestinian concerns and reservations over the plan is the reality of the ongoing devastation in Gaza, where the Israeli-induced famine has claimed the lives of over 420 Palestinians, mostly children, added to the more than 56,000 people killed by Israeli bombs.

If Hamas refuses the plan or presents reservations or amendments, both Israel and the American regime would use it to absolve Israel of any responsibility for the coming phase of Gaza’s genocide. If it accepts, it would be walking the entire Palestinian cause into a future of uncertainty.