Hidden History -- In The Making

THE AMERICAN REGIME SHOULD BE SKEPTICAL ABOUT ‘IRAN-BACKED’ MILITANTS

Misleading Israeli Narratives Could Push Washington Toward War. The Fortitude And Capabilities Of The Houthis Cannot Be Explained Away By Alleged Iranian Control.

Israel carried out airstrikes on Thursday that killed the civilian political leaders of Yemen’s Houthi movement. Though they grossly violated international law, the bombings were nonetheless celebrated in Washington.

Corporate media like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal reported the strikes as a “symbolic and psychological blow” that demonstrated “improved Israeli intelligence” against the Houthis and their Iranian sponsors, while neocons like Mark Dubowitz of the mysteriously funded Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a pro-Israel think tank, applauded the attack on the “Houthi-controlled terror leadership.”

But despite the “mission accomplished” attitude from Israel and its neoconservative loyalists in America, the attacks will likely do very little to stop the Houthis, whose campaigns reflect Yemen’s own history of resistance rather than Iranian control. The group remains extraordinarily independent, producing much of their own weaponry and pursuing a strategy driven by their own political grievances with Israel and the United States.

Their central grievance is the American regime backed Israeli genocide and famine currently being perpetrated against the Palestinians in Gaza, with whom the Houthis identify—because, as political scientist Norman Finkelstein explains, “what was done to Gaza was done to them.”

Before Israel set out to fulfill the demands of its ultra-nationalist politicians to “destroy all of Gaza’s infrastructure to its foundation” and “erase the Gaza strip from the Earth,” Yemen was the country considered to have the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, with over 23 million people in need of humanitarian assistance by 2022.

Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, like Gaza’s today, has been entirely man made. More specifically, it has been perpetrated by Saudi Arabia, the U.S., and Israel. They imposed a brutal blockade and bombing campaign that reportedly caused the deaths of nearly 377,000 people in Yemen between 2015 and 2021, more than 85,000 of whom were children who starved to death.

The Houthis’ identification with the Palestinians of Gaza is therefore neither rooted in religious “fundamentalism” nor in subservience to Tehran—it reflects a deep sense of solidarity forged through parallel suffering at the hands of American regime backed clients in the Middle East. This explains why, despite the assassination of its civilian leadership, the Houthis have vowed to “escalate [their] operations as long as Israel continues its policy of genocide and starvation.”

The corporate media largely ignores these motivations, obfuscating the political grievances of Israel’s enemies by recasting them as irrational and intractable. Treating the Houthis as mere Iranian proxies has about as much explanatory power—and serves the same propagandistic function—as George W. Bush’s claim that America suffered the 9/11 attacks because “they hate us for our freedoms.”

By erasing the role of the American regime’s military action on behalf of Israel in generating the very groups that threaten it, Israel and its American lobby are able to portray Houthi attacks as further evidence of a region-wide Iranian conspiracy to destroy Israel. This axis of resistance, the story goes, simply can’t be reasoned with and potentially threatens the United States as well, therefore requiring unlimited funds and unconditional support from American taxpayers.

As the Israeli government pushes President Donald Trump to attack its regional adversaries, Washington ought to be skeptical of Israel’s intelligence about them, especially regarding the purported threat posed by the so-called “Iran-backed” network of militant groups.

It was with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s encouragement that the American regime launched its own air campaign against Yemen in March, intense bombing which failed to deter Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes but killed hundreds of civilians. That bombing campaign revealed, among other things, that American regime’s and Israeli intelligence on Yemen remains outdated and often wildly inaccurate. Revealing their ignorance of Houthi operations, the Pentagon may even have relied on anonymous X accounts to coordinate targeting, a method that led directly to airstrikes that killed innocent civilians.

Further evidence of American and Israeli ignorance is the continued deployment of expensive MQ-9 Reaper drones over Yemen, dozens of which have been shot down by Houthi surface-to-air missiles. That the Pentagon is willing to risk hundreds of millions of dollars on these missions underscores how little Washington actually knows about Houthi capabilities and positions.

Yet despite the demonstrable shortcomings of Israeli and American intelligence, American regime analysts continue to treat the Houthis as directed by Iran and motivated by Islamic fundamentalism. Even attacks on American MQ-9 drones are routinely cited as proof of Tehran’s vast arms-smuggling network, which we are told supplies the Houthis with the SAM missiles to bring the drones down.

But as reporting from Drop Site News and other independent media has shown, the Houthi movement produces a substantial portion of its own weaponry, rendering it largely independent of foreign support. That the Houthis keep their arsenals and bases well-hidden and fortified helps to explain why Israel chose to target the Houthis’ civilian political leadership rather than its military commanders.

Houthi self-sufficiency exposes a striking irony: While the Houthi arsenal is in large measure indigenously produced, Israel’s weaponry is mostly foreign made and funded by American taxpayers. Like the bombs that drop every month or so in Syria and Lebanon and every day in Gaza, the bombs that fall on Yemen are financed by Washington.

The persistence of Houthi operations, despite assassination campaigns, bombings, and sanctions, demonstrates that their movement will not be stopped with bombs and bullets. As Trump himself acknowledged after concluding his own airstrikes on Yemen, even though “we hit them very hard,” the Houthis have “a great capacity to withstand punishment,” adding that “there’s a lot of bravery there.”

The fortitude and capabilities of the Houthis cannot be explained away by alleged Iranian control. To reduce them to Tehran’s puppets is to erase their actual grievances and the solidarity with Gaza that drives their campaign.

It is precisely their shared suffering—not foreign directives—that explains why the Houthis have been more willing than any other group in the region to take up arms for Gaza, and why Washington’s blank-check support for Israel’s wars will not stop them. Indeed, it will only deepen their resolve.

ISRAEL AND THE AMERICAN REGIME AGAIN USE DIPLOMACY FOR AGGRESSION IN ATTACK ON QATAR

Devoted To Destroying Gaza, Israel Attacks The American Regime’s Ally Qatar And Exposes Hamas Ceasefire Talks As Yet Another Ruse.

The Israeli bombing of Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar came just two days after president Donald Trump issued what he called his “last warning” to the Palestinian group. “The Israelis have accepted my Terms,” Trump wrote on social media. “It is time for Hamas to accept as well.”

Trump’s terms, outlined in a 100-word document, demanded that Hamas release all remaining captives in exchange for a 60-day ceasefire, with no guarantee of a permanent end to Israel’s mass murder rampage in Gaza. During that pause, the American regime’s proposal stated, “President Trump will guarantee that the parties negotiate in good faith until an agreement is reached.”

Trump made a similar pledge to Hamas earlier this year when he convinced it to free Israeli-American soldier Edan Alexander, only to continue supporting Israel’s bombardment and starvation siege upon his release.

This new overture was also in bad faith. As Hamas officials gathered to discuss Trump’s ultimatum, 10 Israeli warplanes entered Qatari airspace and bombed them. Six people were reportedly killed; Hamas claims that its senior leadership survived.

As they did with Iran back in June, Trump and his ally Benjamin Netanyahu had used the cover of negotiations for an act of aggression that sabotaged a potential agreement. Prior to the attack, the Mossad even gave the Qataris assurances that “we will not attack on your soil.” But that was part of the ruse. The American military base in Qatar – the largest in the Middle East – can easily detect incoming attacks, but did not activate its air defenses, a sign that the Trump administration was involved. If it weren’t obvious enough, the Jerusalem Post immediately reported, citing Israeli officials, that Washington “gave the green light for the operation,” as it has for every Israeli act of violence since Oct. 7^th and countless before it.

Having facilitated an Israeli strike on an allied country hosting 10,000 American soldiers, the White House delivered an incoherent response. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump “feels very badly about the location” of the Israeli strike. This was a nod to its awkward timing: the Qatari location recently gifted Trump a $400 million Boeing 747-8 luxury jet, along with what the White House touted as $1.2 trillion in investment pledges. And while the attack “does not advance Israel’s or America’s goals”, Trump nonetheless believes that “eliminating Hamas… is a worthy goal.”

Qatar has responded by suspending its mediation efforts. But since Israel broke the last ceasefire in March, the talks have been a farce. Like the Biden administration before it, the Trump team has repeatedly pretended that Hamas is the obstacle even after it agrees to ever-shifting American and Israeli terms. Last month, Hamas accepted a proposal transmitted by Trump envoy Steve Witkoff for the release of 10 living Israeli captives, in exchange for a 60-day ceasefire and the release of 150 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Netanyahu ignored Hamas and proceeded with his plans to destroy Gaza City, the last habitable area of Gaza after nearly two years of unrelenting Israeli violence. Israel’s latest targets include high-rise buildings that housed tens of thousands of people and multiple human rights organizations, some struck with minimal or no warning. To complete the scorched earth campaign, Israel has ordered everyone sheltering in Gaza City – around 1 million people, half of Gaza’s population – to evacuate.

Deploying his stock propaganda line, Netanyahu claims that he is targeting “terrorist high-rises” used by Hamas for militant activity. In real life, the Israeli leader is implementing the final stage of his plan to force as many Palestinians as possible into permanent exile.

The Israeli military, Netanyahu reportedly explained to lawmakers in May, is “destroying more and more houses” so that Palestinians therefore “have nowhere to return.” He added: “The only obvious result will be Gazans choosing to emigrate outside of the Strip.” Netanyahu’s top choice remains Egypt to Gaza’s south, but Israeli officials have tried to entice other states, including South Sudan, to absorb Palestinians forced into exile.

The plan was circulated in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7^th attack. A leaked military intelligence report, dated Oct. 13^th 2023, called on Israel “to bring about a significant change in the civilian reality” in Gaza. Of three proposed options, the “evacuation of the civilian population from Gaza to Sinai” was identified as “the one that yields positive and long-term strategic results for Israel.”

Nearly two years later, the ethnic cleansing operation in Gaza continues as planned. Its Washington sponsor remains complicit at every juncture, even if that means facilitating Israeli violence against a less important client state.

AN INSULT TO COMMUNISM IS CALLING HARRIS A COMMUNIST

Republicans Called Obama A Communist, When All His Worst Actions As President Were Continuations And Expansions Of Bush’s Policies.

Democrats called Trump a Nazi when his worst acts were continuations and expansions of Obama’s policies.

Now we’re back to calling Harris a communist, while she supports a genocide that Republicans also support.

Calling Kamala Harris a communist isn’t wrong because it degrades Harris, it’s wrong because it degrades communism.

The Biden-Harris administration is knowingly helping the Israeli government wage a campaign of extermination in Gaza that has shocked and horrified the entire world, so obviously the real villain we need to focus on here is Jill Stein.

No serious person believes a bunch of socialists and peaceniks are going to vote for a capitalist warmongering party. Democrats don’t bitch about the Green Party because of lost votes, they do it because they hate being reminded that their party’s a lie and their values are fake.

Democrats saying the Green Party steals their votes makes as much sense as Republicans saying the Green Party steals their votes. The Democratic Party is not a left wing party. It’s a warmongering capitalist party that is presently engaged in genocide and nuclear brinkmanship.

Democrats say the Green Party never gets anything done while the Democratic Party “getting things done” looks like committing genocide in Gaza, facilitating the exploitation and ecocide of capitalism, and promoting nonstop war and militarism. It’s not enough to get things done; the things you get done actually need to be good things.

Does anyone actually believe Harris would win if she committed to an arms embargo on Israel? Or is that just something people are pretending to believe to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinians? Because the system is plainly much more corrupt than this.

If Harris pledged to stop sending weapons to Israel unless it ended its assault on Gaza, you’d see the entire pro-Israel faction and the entire military-industrial complex throw all its funding and all its narrative control into supporting Donald Trump. Wealthy donors who’d been lifelong Democrats would pivot Republican for this election. It would suddenly become a mainstream narrative that Harris hates Jews and loves terrorists. A large segment of the mass media would play along. Op-eds would be churned out by liberal Zionist Jews claiming they must now “reluctantly” vote Trump because Kamala Harris wants to kill them.

Does anyone honestly believe Harris could win an election in an information environment like that? Maybe she could, but it would be a lot harder than just continuing to toe the imperial line like she always has. Obviously a lot of people would switch to supporting Harris if she pledged an arms embargo, but would there be enough of them to compensate for all the voters she’d lose in a hysterical all-consuming information op claiming that she’s a closet Nazi? It wasn’t enough when this was done to Jeremy Corbyn.

Harris is a monster, and she’d happily strangle every Palestinian child to death with her own bare hands if it would win her the presidency. But she’s not the problem. She’s just one person. She’s just playing the tune and dancing the dance you need to in order to win a presidential election in the United States. If it wasn’t her it’d be some other monster playing the same tune and dancing the same dance. The real problem is a profoundly corrupt system which promotes the most evil agendas on earth and elevates the very worst people in society to positions of power and influence to ensure the facilitation of those agendas.

Harris isn’t the cause of Washington’s depravity, she’s a symptom of it, just like Trump, and just like Biden. Really the problem is the American empire itself, and all the corrupt mechanisms that keep its gears turning. The slaughter will continue, in one form or another, until the imperial machine is brought down.

Meanwhile things keep getting scarier and scarier in Ukraine. Reuters reports that America is “close” to agreeing to give the Ukrainian military long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russia, at the same time Russia says that it will be altering its nuclear doctrine in response to western aggressions.

The more land and troops Ukraine loses the more eager Kyiv and Washington get to escalate to previously unthinkable levels against a nuclear superpower.

We’re seeing free speech eroded in the west as authorities suppress critics of the genocide in Gaza, just as we saw a huge spike in censorship with the NATO proxy war in Ukraine. They say these wars are to protect the west and its values, while ruining the west and its values in order to protect their ability to manufacture consent for these wars. War, genocide and tyranny are the west’s real values.

All art is political. It either opposes the madness of the status quo, supports it, or distracts from it. Creating diversions for people to sedate themselves with in a genocidal brainwashed dystopia on a dying world is a political act, whether you call it political or not.

An artist who says they “avoid politics” while living in the heart of a murderous tyrannical empire is lying. They don’t avoid politics. They are directly participating in politics. And they are participating on the wrong side.

All art either helps open people’s eyes or helps close them. Almost all art in mainstream culture helps close them — either by normalizing and celebrating the madness of this civilization, or by numbing people to the discomfort of it. This is not just political, it’s on the front line of politics.

Politics are downstream from culture, and if the culture you are helping to create is mindlessly drifting along with the current of oligarchy and empire, then you have responsibility for where that stream ends up carrying us.

THERE IS USUALLY JUST TOO MUCH ISRAELI PSYCHOPATHY TO WRITE ABOUT

A Strike In Qatar To Sabotage Peace Talks, A Drone Attack On The Global Sumud Flotilla, An IDF Sniper Who Discussed Killing Civilians Like A Trophy Hunter Talking About Game Animals.

Recent there has been too much Israeli depravity to write about, including an assassination strike in Qatar to sabotage peace talks, a second drone attack on the Global Sumud Flotilla, and a Guardian article featuring an IDF sniper who discussed killing civilians like a trophy hunter talking about game animals.

The IDF bombed a Doha residential building on last Tuesday in an attempt to assassinate Hamas officials who had gathered to discuss American-Israeli ceasefire proposals, reportedly killing a Qatari security officer and four Hamas aides, as well as the son of the acting Hamas political bureau chief.

President Trump publicly criticized the Israeli attack, but Middle East Eye reports that according to American regime and regional officials the president had actually “blessed” the strike in advance. These would be the same Hamas officials who Trump had just been aggressively threatening to accept his ceasefire proposal or face severe consequences.

Hamas said the following in a statement:

“Targeting the negotiating delegation, as they discussed US President Donald Trump’s latest proposal, confirms beyond doubt that Netanyahu and his government do not want to reach any agreement and are deliberately seeking to thwart all opportunities and thwart international efforts, disregarding the lives of their prisoners held by the resistance, the sovereignty of states, or the security and stability of the region.”

“We hold the US administration jointly responsible with the occupation for this crime, due to its ongoing support for the aggression and crimes of the occupation against our people.”

It’s hard to argue with any of this. Clearly nobody who’s calling the shots in Washington and Tel Aviv has any interest in actually ending this genocide. Which should surprise no one, since people who are committing genocide aren’t typically interested in negotiating ceasefire talks with their victims.

People really need to stop taking seriously the idea that Israel has any intention of ever agreeing to a ceasefire. They’ve made it clear that they’re not going to stop until they’ve kicked all the Palestinians out of Gaza and annexed it, and the Trump administration has made it clear they’re going to support this agenda. It’s time to start believing them.

The Global Sumud Flotilla reports that there has been another drone attack on another activist ship bringing aid to Gaza, with video footage clearly showing something incendiary hitting the boat from above and starting a fire.

The day before, the boat that had been carrying Greta Thunberg and other activists was struck in the same way. A video was released showing something on fire being dropped on the boat from above. Another showed an activist reacting to seeing a drone drop the incendiary object and saying later that he clearly saw a drone. Another video picked up whirring sounds immediately prior to the fire.

Yesterday social media notifications were ablaze with hasbarists trying to claim the first attack was an internal mechanical fire or a cigarette fire, and then when the subsequent footage emerged they shifted to trying to claim it showed a misfired flare from the boat’s own occupants. The evidence is overwhelming that the Sumud flotilla is being attacked by drones, but we can expect the usual spinmeisters to keep pretending to believe obvious lies about it.

These activists are truly risking their lives with their efforts to break the Israeli siege. Their selflessness gives us hope for our species.

A Guardian article titled “The Gaza family torn apart by IDF snipers from Chicago and Munich” is creating a lot of buzz today because of the incredibly psychopathic quotes it includes from a sniper from Chicago named Daniel Raab.

A joint investigation by the Guardian, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) and Paper Trail Media, Der Spiegel and ZDF connected footage of unarmed civilians being murdered by Israeli snipers in Gaza with social media posts and recorded admissions from the perpetrators. Raab had been tricked by Palestinian journalists into confessing to his crimes in Hebrew under the false promise of anonymity, with footage of his admissions published online last year.

An excerpt from the article:

Daniel Raab shows no hesitation as he watches footage of 19-year-old Salem Doghmosh crumpling to the ground beside his brother in a street in northern Gaza.

“That was my first elimination,” he says. The video, shot by a drone, lasts just a few seconds. The Palestinian teenager appears to be unarmed when he is shot in the head.

Raab, a former varsity basketball player from a Chicago suburb who became an Israeli sniper, concedes he knew that. He says he shot Salem simply because he tried to retrieve the body of his beloved older brother Mohammed.

“It’s hard for me to understand why he [did that] and it also doesn’t really interest me,” Raab says in a video interview posted on X. “I mean, what was so important about that corpse?”

Another:

“They’re thinking: ‘Oh I don’t think [I’ll get shot] because I’m wearing civilian clothes and I am not carrying a weapon and all that, but they were wrong,” said Raab, who majored in biology at the University of Illinois before joining the Israel Defense Forces. “That’s what you have snipers for.”

After Salem was shot, his father, Montasser, 51, rushed to the site, and tried to collect his sons’ bodies for burial, but was also fatally injured by a sniper.

If I had murdered people for trying to retrieve the bodies of their loved ones who I had also murdered, I’d definitely be asking myself a lot of questions, but “what was so important about that corpse?” would definitely not be among them.

Gaza has become a hunting ground which is visited by psychopathic individuals who want to experience what it’s like to kill human beings, and it’s always open season. Those bloodthirsty monsters then re-enter our communities and walk among us without consequences.

They get to go commit atrocities and then come back and resume their lives as though nothing happened, like going off to some kind of genocide summer camp. It’s about the most horrific thing you can imagine.

Israel poisons the entire world.

TRUMP SAYS HE PROMOTES A “CHARLIE KIRK ACT” TO ESTABLISH A “MINISTRY OF TRUTH”

It’s True Intention Is To Suppress The Truth And Target Those Who Tell The Truth. He Wants To Totally Eliminate A Free Press And Free Speech.

It’s probably worth flagging the fact that the president of the United States is promoting the establishment of a Ministry of Truth to restrict speech in a suggested law called the “Charlie Kirk Act”.

President Trump’s Truth Social account posted a viral video from TikTok on Saturday in which a Trump voter named Elly May blamed the assassination of Republican political operative Charlie Kirk on the press, urging the president to push for legislation which would make “news corporations accountable for lying to the American people and spreading propaganda instead of truth.”

May frames the idea as a revisitation of the Smith-Mundt Act, but then goes on to describe authoritarian measures which have nothing to do with Smith-Mundt.

“President Trump, as a supporter who voted for you 3 times, I am hoping and praying that you will revisit what Barack Obama and Joe Biden got rid of back in 2013, which is the Smith-Mundt Act, which held news corporations accountable for lying to the American people and spreading propaganda instead of truth,” May says. “I think instead of bringing it back as a Smith-Mundt Act, you name it the Charlie Kirk Act, make it a law, and you make it damn near impossible for these people to continue to lie to the American public, which has brought chaos, hatred, division, and anarchy all across this country. Fines out their ass which will damn near bankrupt their companies should they lie to the American people ever again.”

“Because of their constant lies, a man lost his life, because of the constant hateful rhetoric of calling him a fascist, and a Nazi, and a white supremacist, and a bigot,” May said. “I think this would be a great legacy for him to have a law named after him to force journalists to finally start telling the truth and having the integrity that they have lacked for over a decade.”

“We are on a dangerous path right now with the constant lies and the propaganda,” May says. “And that doesn’t end just at news journalists. It needs to go to content creators who consistently spread lies and propaganda and half-truths across the internet. This needs to end, and people need to start being held accountable for baseless claims over absolute abysmal things.”

“Get this in front of Congress, get this passed as a law, and start holding these news corporations — be they right, left or center — accountable for their behavior,” May concludes.

May has been promoting a Change dot org petition to “Enact the Charlie Kirk Act to Restore Media Accountability,” which as of this writing has tens of thousands of signatures.

“This amended act will hold media outlets, radio stations, educators, and content creators accountable for the false narratives and erroneous information they spread deliberately or irresponsibly,” the petition reads, proposing heavy fines for those deemed to be in violation.

A couple of issues with this.

Firstly, the Smith-Mundt Act had nothing to do with holding “news corporations accountable for lying to the American people”; it was a Cold War-era law which prohibited official American government propaganda created by institutions like the State Department and the USAGM from being disseminated domestically. This law was controversially revised under the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 in the name of combatting Al Qaeda propaganda campaigns in the United States.

Returning Smith-Mundt to its original iteration would be a fine idea. American right wingers tend to make a much bigger deal about the changes made under the Obama administration than is actually warranted — anyone who remembers the lead-up to the Iraq invasion knows the American regine had no trouble getting immensely consequential propaganda circulating throughout the American press prior to 2013. But anything that inhibits the American regime’s ability to disseminate propaganda to Americans might be somewhat helpful, and couldn’t hurt.

But that isn’t what this “Charlie Kirk Act” push is advocating. Smith-Mundt placed restrictions on what the American regime is allowed to do with regard to propaganda, while the proposed “Charlie Kirk Act” would give the American regime sweeping new powers to decide what does and does not constitute propaganda and untruth and administer penalties accordingly. One limits the American regime’s ability to manipulate public information, while the other explicitly expands it. Nobody anywhere is claiming that propaganda generated by the American State Department or USAGM projects like Voice of America got Charlie Kirk assassinated by calling him a Nazi; they’re talking about creating a new law to stomp out the free speech of “media outlets, radio stations, educators, and content creators.”

The other issue is of course that giving the government the authority to penalize propaganda and lies means giving the government the authority to determine what constitutes propaganda and lies. They could decide it’s a lie to say Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, for example, or that it’s propaganda to say the American regime shouldn’t be waging a proxy war in Ukraine. The “Charlie Kirk Act” is being pushed in the name of fighting propaganda, but it would actually be giving the American government unprecedented authority over what Americans are permitted to say on any platform.

This could of course turn out to be nothing and fizzle right away, but when the president of the United States starts pushing for the establishment of a Ministry of Truth to determine what Americans are allowed to say, that’s worth drawing attention to.

You should be amazed at the virality of this whole thing. The American right’s frenzied emotional hysteria about the murder of Charlie Kirk has them promoting an initiative that is not meaningfully different from the Ministry of Truth proposed under the Biden administration’s “Disinformation Governance Board”, which was aborted after massive public outcry from the right. And that was just three years ago.

When everyone’s emotions are running hot, that’s when it’s most important to be intensely skeptical of everything your government does. We learned this lesson after 9/11, we were reminded again after October 7^th, and we may very well be getting another lesson with the killing of Charlie Kirk.

AS AMNESTY WARNS OF ‘UNLAWFUL’ DISPLACEMENT – ISRAEL KILLS DOZENS MORE IN GAZA

Amnesty International Urges Israel To ‘Immediately Rescind’ It’s Mass Displacement Order As WHO Vows To Remain In Gaza City.

At least 39 Palestinians, including two young children, are among the latest deaths in Israel’s round-the-clock bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip, adding to the 72 Palestinians killed over the last 24 hours, medical sources have said.

Ten of those who were killed since dawn on Thursday were in Gaza City, where Israeli forces are currently conducting a siege and launching daily strikes on residential buildings as they prepare a major offensive against the Palestinian group Hamas.

The Times of Israel, citing Israeli military figures, reported that a total of 200,000 Palestinians have already been forced out of Gaza City in recent weeks, in an operation described by rights group Amnesty International on Wednesday as “unlawful and inhumane”.

In an Israeli attack early on Thursday, two Palestinians were killed, including an infant, and several others injured after tents sheltering displaced people were hit near Yarmouk Street in Gaza City.

Another Palestinian child was killed after Israeli forces opened fire in the Bureij camp in central Gaza, a source from al-Awda Hospital said.

Sources from al-Awda and al-Mahmoudiyah hospitals also reported early on Thursday several deaths and injuries following Israeli shelling of Shujayea district east of Gaza City.

Further south, at least four Palestinians waiting for aid were killed in two separate incidents in Rafah, while one person was killed in Israeli shelling northwest of Khan Younis.

Earlier, Palestinian authorities and medical sources reported at least 72 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza within a 24-hour period on Wednesday.

These figures bring the number of people killed in Israeli attacks since the start of the war to at least 64,718, with 163,859 wounded, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.

FURTHER COMPOUNDING GENOCIDAL CONDITIONS

Israel accelerated its military campaign on Wednesday, with the army attacking dozens of homes in areas of Gaza City in an attempt to push Palestinians out of the area.

DID YOU KNOW ABOUT GOOGLE’S $45 MILLION CONTRACT WITH NETANYAHU TO SPREAD ISRAELI PROPAGANDA?

Google Is In The Middle Of A Six-Month, $45 Million Contract To Amplify Propaganda With Netanyahu’s Office. The Contract Describes Google As A “Key Entity.”

On March 2^nd , 2025, hours after the Israeli government announced the blockade of all food, medicine, fuel, and other humanitarian supplies from entering Gaza, lawmakers in Jerusalem demanded answers—not on the devastating human toll of such a decision, but on how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office was preparing to handle the public relations fallout.

“I began with the example of the cessation of humanitarian aid—did you prepare for this thing this morning?” asked Knesset member Moshe Tur-Paz, the chair of a subcommittee on Foreign Affairs in Israel’s parliament.

Avichai Edrei, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces who was asked the same question later in the hearing, assured the legislators work was underway, stating, “We could also decide to launch a digital campaign in this context, to explain that there is no hunger and present the data.”

Publicly available government contracts show that Israel’s advertising bureau, which reports to the prime minister’s office, has since embarked on a mass advertising and public messaging effort to conceal the hunger crisis. The push includes the use of American influencers widely reported on last month. It also includes a high-dollar spending spree on paid advertising, yielding tens of millions for Google, YouTube, X, Meta, and other tech platforms.

“There is food in Gaza. Any other claim is a lie,” asserted a propaganda video published by Israel’s foreign ministry to Google’s YouTube video sharing platform in late August and viewed more than 6 million times. Much of the video’s reach results from an ad placed during an ongoing and previously unreported $45 million (NIS 150 million) advertising campaign initiated between Google and Netanyahu’s office in late June. The contract—which is with both YouTube and Google’s advertising campaign management platform, Display & Video 360—explicitly characterizes the ad campaign as hasbara, a Hebrew word whose meaning is somewhere between public relations and propaganda.

Records show that the Israeli government similarly spent $3 million (NIS 10 million) for an advertising campaign with X. The French and Israeli advertising platform Outbrain/Teads is also set to receive roughly $2.1 million (NIS 7 million).

The ads have aired in response to increasing global outcry over the deteriorating situation in Gaza. In August, the UN formally declared a famine in Gaza governorate, which includes Gaza City. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the leading global authority on food security, projected the threshold for famine would be crossed in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis in the coming weeks, stating “this Famine is entirely man-made, it can be halted and reversed.” The UN aid coordination office OCHA further warned on Friday of “a descent into a massive famine” in the Gaza Strip.

At least 367 Palestinians, including 131 children, have died as a result of hunger and malnutrition since the war began, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

The existence of an Israeli Google ads campaign to discredit the UN’s primary aid agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, was similarly reported by WIRED last year. Hadas Maimon, head of public awareness for Israel’s diaspora ministry, stated during the March 2^nd Knesset hearing that, “For almost a year now, we have been leading a major campaign on the issue of UNRWA.”

Other Israeli government ads on Google’s platforms accused the United Nations of “deliberate sabotage” of aid delivery into Gaza and promoted the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is backed by Israel, the American regime, and unnamed European countries. One campaign promoted prosecution of the militant group Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, for debunked allegations of mass sexual violence as a result of a controversial report published by the Israeli advocacy group Dinah Project.

Despite the denial about the famine, prominent Israeli government voices have championed the effort to cut off food and water to Gazans as a strategy for inducing mass migration out of the territory. “In my opinion, you can besiege them,” said Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli Finance Ministry and a coalition partner to Netantayu’s government, according to Channel 12. “No water, no electricity, they can die of hunger or surrender,” Smotrich said.

Amichay Eliyahu, the Knesset member who leads the Heritage Ministry in Netanyahu’s government, has similarly called for starving the Palestinian population of Gaza. “There is no nation that feeds its enemies,” Eliyahu said during a radio interview in July. In May, the minister argued the Palestinians “need to starve” and added, “If there are civilians who fear for their lives, they should go through the emigration plan.”

Another campaign has attempted to discredit the pro-Palestinian lawfare organization known as the Hind Rajab Foundation, which accumulates evidence of apparent Israeli war crimes and advocates for international prosecution. Several ads link to an Israeli government report entitled “Unmasking the Hind Rajab Foundation,” which characterizes the organization as having “deep connections to extremist ideologies and terrorist organisations, raising serious concerns about its true motives.”

In response to a June report from UN Special Reporter Francesca Albanese which concluded that Google had profited from the “genocide in Gaza,” the centibillionaire Google co-founder Sergey Brin reportedly described the UN as a “transparently antisemitic” organization on an internal company forum on July 5^th. Albanese’s criticism of Google centered around the company joining Amazon in 2021 on a major cloud computing contract with the Israeli government—including the military—known as Project Nimbus.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office ads referring to famine in Gaza as a “lie” were placed through the Israeli Government Advertising Agency, known by its Hebrew acronym, Lapam, which began waging its six-month hasbara campaign through Google and X ads in June, according to government disclosures. The contracts were initially centered around a propaganda surge attempting to persuade international audiences to support the Israeli military’s twelve days of air strikes against Iran, known as Operation Rising Lion. One bullet point in the published contract clarified that “the request is for campaigns following Operation ‘Rising Lion’ as well as for ongoing activities.”

According to an estimate from the American based nonprofit Human Rights Activists in Iran, at least 436 Iranian civilians were killed by the Israeli airstrikes.

“Since the opening of Operation ‘Rising Lion,’ Lapam has been working with all of its employees and suppliers in a full emergency format, in order to conduct a wide-ranging outreach activity for all government ministries and security bodies, including the Home Front Command, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Publicity Division, the Ministry of Diaspora, and more,” reads the underlying June contract.

“The suppliers with whom the contract is being sought are among the key entities with which Lapam works on an ongoing basis, both during routine periods and in times of emergency, and they possess the infrastructure and knowledge required to carry out the necessary information tasks,” continues the Israeli government document, in reference to the central role contracts with Google and X play in amplifying the spread of Netanyahu’s propaganda.

An editorial published in early August by the Arab fact-checking organization Misbar reported that information disclosed in Google and Meta’s ad transparency portals amounted to a “large-scale Israeli propaganda campaign” operating during Operation Rising Lion. Misbar characterized the Israeli government’s ad campaigns as having “used disinformation to justify the strikes, presenting them as essential for the security of Israel and Western countries.”

SO, WHAT DO YOU THINK TRUMP WANTS IN GAZA?

It’s A Simple Question, Yet Eight Months Into The Trump Administration’s Second Term, The Answer Still Isn’t Clear. If Anything, American Policy Is Muddled, Confusing, And At Times Totally Incoherent.

On the one hand, Trump wants the war in Gaza to end. The nearly two-year conflict is not only one of the worst humanitarian abominations in the 21st century but has long since become a perfect case study of what Will Walldorf, a professor at Wake Forest University, aptly describes as “moral hazard”—an international relations term of art that occurs when a junior partner, assured of external backing from a great power (in this instance the United States), begins acting in ways that undermine the interests of the benefactor.

There are instances when Trump is sympathetic to the crisis engulfing the roughly 2 million Palestinians who call Gaza home, illustrated most notably when he bluntly dismissed the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s absurd contention that famine inside the enclave was Hamas-aligned propaganda. At times, he has gone beyond rhetoric—in mid-January, Trump’s team helped the outgoing Biden administration facilitate a six week–long truce between Israel and Hamas that accelerated aid shipments into the Strip, got more than 30 Israeli and foreign hostages back to their families, and bought some time for Palestinian families to go back to their homes (or what was left of them).

Trump is also cognizant of just how damaging the ongoing war is to Israel’s international reputation. The war, Trump recently said, “is hurting Israel. There’s no question about it. They may be winning the war, but they’re not winning the world of public relations, you know, and it is hurting them.”

Yet on the other hand, Trump has been noticeably deferential to what Netanyahu wants to do. In March, Netanyahu decided to return to fighting, breaking the Trump-sponsored ceasefire, which had been designed to bring a permanent end to the conflict and lead to the release of all the hostages currently in Hamas’s grasp. If Trump was displeased with what Netanyahu did, he didn’t show it publicly; in fact, according to reports at the time, the White House supported Israel’s resumption of the war, killing the very deal it helped negotiate two months prior. Since then, thousands of additional Palestinians have died and some of Washington’s biggest allies in Europe (the United Kingdom and France) have either formally recognized a Palestinian state or are on their way to doing so. Meanwhile, Israel’s own plans for Gaza have entered unprecedented territory, and the country itself is increasingly divided against itself.

Trump, however, has largely stayed silent through all of this, with the exception of cursory remarks about how the war needs to conclude as soon as possible. Earlier in his tenure, it would be reasonable to assume he was talking about doing so through a comprehensive ceasefire and hostage release agreement. Today, though, it sounds like he’s moving toward a different position altogether, one where the war ends after Israel’s complete and total military victory over the Palestinian groups that have ruled Gaza since 2007. “We will only see the return of the remaining hostages when Hamas is confronted and destroyed,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last month.

But perhaps the biggest contradiction in Trump’s approach is his reported support for an Israeli military occupation of Gaza that would not only kibosh whatever diplomatic process is still viable but also jeopardize the 20 Israeli prisoners who are still alive. This is reportedly the concern of Eyal Zamir, the chief of general staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), much of the IDF’s top brass, as well as the families of the prisoners, whose relations with the Netanyahu government have gone from bad to worse this year.

Trump’s support for the current Israeli strategy is even more vexing when one considers that Hamas, which for much of the war opposed signing temporary, piecemeal deals that provided Israel with an opportunity to return to fighting whenever it desired, agreed to put its signature on exactly that last month. This draft agreement, which would release half of the remaining Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and yet another temporary ceasefire, was the brainchild of Steve Witkoff, the man with the unenviable task of solving the Gaza problem. Yet in classic Netanyahu fashion, the Israeli premier has had a sudden conversion and is no longer amenable to the short-term truces he was pushing for months earlier. Indeed, Netanyahu didn’t even discuss the draft agreement during his cabinet meeting last weekend, calling it irrelevant, and went as far as to justify his decision to double down on military force with Trump’s pressure tactics. Trump, Netanyahu told his cabinet, is frustrated with the failure of diplomatic efforts thus far, believes Hamas is no longer interested in diplomacy and wants Israel to decisively defeat Hamas on the ground.

Is Netanyahu telling the truth? In the end, it may not matter because Trump is now essentially writing off Gaza as Netanyahu’s problem, all the while offering Israel unconditional military and diplomatic support regardless of how ineffective, counterproductive, and downright ugly the Israeli strategy is. This is a far, far cry from January, when Trump seemed genuinely committed to a diplomatic resolution in Gaza and tasked his old pal Witkoff with getting it done. Now, the American regime’s policy is a mix of enabling Israel’s worst impulses and attempting to place some distance between the United States and the horrors currently unfolding in the Palestinian enclave. It’s a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too framework that is too cute by half.

Ultimately, Gaza doesn’t matter to the American regime’s security interests. Washington doesn’t have any equity in how Gaza looks, whether the Palestinian Authority is allowed to return to the area, which country chooses to launch reconstruction initiatives there, or who ultimately holds an advantageous balance of power. From a macro-level perspective, the United States will be just fine regardless.

For Trump, however, Gaza does matter, if only because it’s currently the biggest impediment to every other major diplomatic initiative in the Middle East he hopes to accomplish. Whether it’s an expansion of the 2020 Abraham Accords, a Trump-mediated normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, or a peace treaty between Israel and Syria’s new government, none of it is likely to happen as long as Israeli bombs (often paid for by the American taxpayer) continue to kill hundreds of Palestinians every week. And none of it is possible if Israel formally annexes Gaza or effectively takes over the territory in some long-term permanent occupation.

In the grand scheme, Israel holds a veto over Trump’s Middle East agenda. If this isn’t moral hazard in the extreme, what is?

HOW PALESTINIAN JOURNALISTS HAVED BEEN BETRAYED

There Are Two Types Of War Correspondents. The First Type Does Not Attend Press Conferences. They Do Not Beg Generals And Politicians For Interviews. They Take Risks To Report From Combat Zones.

They also send back to their viewers or readers what they see, which is almost always diametrically opposed to official narratives. This first type, in every war, is a tiny minority.

Then there is the second type, the blob of self-identified war correspondents who play at war. Despite what they tell editors and the public, they have no intention of putting themselves in danger. They are pleased with the Israeli ban on foreign reporters into Gaza. They plead with officials for background briefings and press conferences. They collaborate with their government minders who impose restrictions and rules that keep them out of combat. They slavishly disseminate whatever they are fed by officials, much of which is a lie, and pretend it is news. They join little jaunts arranged by the military — dog and pony shows — where they get to dress up and play soldier and visit outposts where everything is controlled and choreographed.

The mortal enemy of these people are the real war reporters, in this case, Palestinian journalists in Gaza. These reporters expose them as the toadies and sycophants, discrediting nearly everything they disseminate. For this reason, the propagandists never pass up a chance to question the veracity and motives of those in the field. I watched these snakes do this repeatedly to Robert Fisk.

When war reporter Ben Anderson arrived at the hotel where journalists covering the war in Liberia were encamped — in his words getting “drunk” at bars “on expenses,” having affairs and exchanging “information rather than actually going out and getting information” — his image of war reporters took a huge hit.

“I thought, finally, I’m amongst my heroes,” Anderson recalls. “This is where I’ve wanted to be for years. And then me and the cameraman I was with — who knew the rebels very well — he took us out for about three weeks with the rebels. We came back to Monrovia. The guys in the hotel bar said, ‘Where have you been? We thought you’d gone home.’ We said, ‘We went out to cover the war. Isn’t that our job? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?’”

“The romantic view I had of foreign correspondents was suddenly destroyed in Liberia,” he went on. “I thought, actually, a lot of these guys are full of shit. They’re not even willing to leave the hotel, let alone leave the safety of the capital and actually do some reporting.”

This dividing line, which occurred in every war, defines the reporting on the genocide in Gaza. It is not a divide of professionalism or culture. Palestinian reporters expose Israeli atrocities and implode Israeli lies. The rest of the press does not.

Palestinian journalists, targeted and assassinated by Israel, pay — as many great war correspondents do — with their lives, although in far greater numbers. Israel has murdered 245 journalists in Gaza by one count and more than 273 by another. The goal is to shroud the genocide in darkness. No other war comes close to these numbers of dead. Since Oct. 7, Israel has killed more journalists “than the U.S. Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War (including the conflicts in Cambodia and Laos), the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, combined.” Journalists in Palestine leave wills and recorded videos to be read or played at their death which they know to expect.

THE NARRATIVE CONCERNING ISRAEL’S ATTACK ON QATAR DOES NOT MATCH THE RESULTS AT THE SITE

There Are Unanswered Questions About How Many Missiles Israel Fired And Whether It Used Spotters On The Ground Among Other Things.

Key details are missing about how Israel carried out its unprecedented attack on Hamas leaders in Qatar, raising questions about whether the number of missiles fired attributed to Israel is correct or whether Israel had a team on the ground helping locate the group’s officials.

To begin with, current and former American officials and analysts said that the blast site attributed to the Israeli attack is much too small to corroborate several media reports that Israel fired around 10 air-launched missiles into the building.

Some eyewitnesses reported hearing upwards of eight blasts during the attack, but experts say that some of those reports might have been confused with the echoing.

“Based on the public source imagery of the site, we are talking about two or three missiles maximum going into that building,” Michael Knights, a military expert at Horizon Engage, an international consulting firm said.

Understanding how Israel conducted its attack is important because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Israel could strike Hamas officials abroad again, potentially leaving the door open to attacks in Egypt and Turkey, where they travel.

Israel has been tight-lipped about how it conducted this strike, but American officials say that Israel appeared to launch its attack from outside Qatari airspace – a point echoed by many analysts.

Jordan said that no Israeli aircraft violated its airspace during the operation. Israel used Syrian and Iraqi airspace to launch its attack on Iran earlier this summer.

If Israel wanted to refrain from violating Saudi Arabian or Kuwaiti airspace, it could have done the same and fired into Qatar from Iraq, Andrew Curtis, a retired air commodore in Britain’s Royal Air Force and associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said.

It has been reported that the Trump administration was notified of the attack in advance and did not object to it.

Curtis said that there would have been plenty of opportunities for the American regime to be aware of the mission, given the detailed planning and time required.

“The suggestion that, oh, this was a target of opportunity and we acted does not hold up,” Curtis said. “This would have been days in planning at minimum.”

WHAT MISSILES DID ISRAEL USE?

If Israel fired into Qatar from Iraqi airspace, that would disqualify its use of small-diameter bombs like the GBU-39B, given its short glide range.

Officials and analysts say that the small scale of damage photographed in Qatar disqualifies all but a few types of missiles that would be used in a “stand-off” strike – where war planes fire missiles in the air from a distance to their target.

One of Israel’s smallest air-launched missiles is the Delilah cruise missile. Its warhead is more consistent with the small-scale damage seen in photographs.

Israel killed at least six people – including a member of Qatar’s security forces – but missed its main targets, Hamas’s senior political officials.

The attack failed because Israel bombed a building close to where senior Hamas officials were meeting, but not the exact location. The true meeting point was disguised for security measures, a source said.

Another option is that Israel used an air-launched ballistic missile, like the Silver Sparrow, with a range of 1,500 kilometres.

Although that kind of missile would normally do much more damage to the target that is visible, Knights said Israel could have “fused” it – meaning that the warhead’s explosive material did not detonate until it was underground. That would have limited shrapnel and the risks of wider damage.

“Israel can do all kinds of things to reduce the explosive charge of the warhead to limit the damage,” he said.

Israel’s F-35I Adir fighter jets are known to carry Delilah cruise missiles and Rampage air-to-ground missiles.

Analysts say that Israel would likely have used an F-15 or F-16 to carry a Silver Sparrow. That would have compromised stealth features.

Curtis said that Israel’s operation may not have stopped in the air. “They very well could have had spotters on the ground watching that building to see who was arriving,” he said.

One Arab official said that Gulf countries have not ruled out that Israel dispatched a team to the ground in Doha as part of the operation.