1,000 AMERICAN PASTORS TRAVELED TO ISRAEL TO TRAIN AS “AMBASSADORS” FOR ISRAEL

The Trip Was Hosted By Benjamin Netanyahu’s Government With The Hearty Blessing Of America’s Evangelical Zionist Movement.

More than 1,000 American Christian pastors and influencers traveled to Israel this month becoming “the largest group of American Christian leaders to visit Israel since its founding.”

At the height of the Christmas season — one of the two most important celebrations for Christians of the year, the birth of Christ, the other being Easter which marks his death — these pastors were on mission paid for by the Israeli government “to provide training and prepare participants to serve as unofficial ambassadors for Israel in their communities,” it was reported.

Trip organizer Mike Evans is an author, a top evangelical ally of Donald Trump, longtime confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and founder of the Friends of Zion Heritage Center in Jerusalem. “For Christians, Israel is not just another country on the map. It is the cradle of our faith. The story of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, King David, and Jesus starts here. If you cut Israel out of the Bible, you do not just edit a text, you undermine the foundations of Christian faith itself,” the long-time, prominent Christian Zionist said in a press release about the trip.

Such Christian Zionists believe that the state of Israel fulfills biblical prophecy. Sometimes they say things like the people of Israel are “a special treasure above all the people on the face of the earth, that includes the United States of America” as Pastor John Hagee, leader of Christians United for Israel, exclaimed in a speech this summer, referring to scripture.

“This week we want Pastors to experience Israel first-hand and be reminded of these foundational truths,” Evans said of the trip, which would be, he said, giving these pastors and others “an immersive, state-level experience” that included meetings with Israeli officials, generals, intelligence leaders and President Isaac Herzog.

The “mission” it would seem is just as critical to firming up support for the government’s military actions in Gaza and the West Bank as it is to affirming support for the religious integrity of the national project.

As such, evangelical participants on the sojourn wanted to talk about Israel in terms of perpetual victimhood. Tamryn Foley of Florida told Fox Digital, “more than half of the Palestinian population embraces Hamas’ ideology of radical Islam, which isn’t based on land for peace but on establishing an Islamic state and eradicating the Jewish state.”

Foley, who did not provide evidence for her claims, was part of the trip as an executive team member of the National Faith Advisory Board, founded by President Trump’s spiritual advisor Paula White-Cain. When “Trump’s understanding of the need to support the Jewish state intensified in 2003, when he contacted Evangelist Paula White-Cain…they became quick friends and White-Cain introduced Trump to several other Evangelicals. Since then, she has served as his personal pastor — and these other Evangelicals, including (Mike) Evans, have been influencing the president,” the Jerusalem Post reported in early 2020.

White-Cain has been a longtime loyal supporter of both Israel and pro-life causes.

The National Faith Advisory Board, it was reported, “is the largest coalition backing and advocating for people of faith… Its mission is built on four pillars — protecting religious freedom, promoting a strong America, defending life at all stages and honoring family values — and it identifies the U.S.-Israel alliance as central to that agenda.”

“Life” is important to evangelical Christians. According to a 2024 Pew Poll, 73% of white evangelical Protestants this abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.

But defending “life” at all stages? Their “immersive” experience might not have been quite immersive enough.

In May, a United Nations report detailed the plight of women and girls living in Gaza. “UN Women estimates that more than 28,000 women and girls have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war in October 2023 — that is one woman and one girl on average killed every hour in attacks by Israeli forces,” the report noted. “Among those killed, thousands were mothers, leaving behind devastated children, families, and communities.” That estimate is from six months ago.

The official numbers, according to the Gazan Health Ministry, are over 70,000 killed since Oct. 7th, 2023. Other estimates, which take account undiscovered dead bodies under the 68 million tons of rubble in the Strip, are well over 100,000 Palestinians killed, most of whom are considered civilians, since the beginning of the war.

Defenders of Israel’s collective punishment, especially American evangelicals, contend that it is mere retaliation for the horrific October 7th, attack on Israel by Hamas. According to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in September of last year, 64 percent of white Protestant evangelicals maintain that Israel is defending its interests and is justified in its military actions in Gaza, roughly double that of the overall American population (32%). It is also a far greater proportion than Americans of other faiths, including Catholics (34%),non-evangelical Protestants (31%), and far more than non-religious Americans (19%).

Some of the American evangelical travelers to Israel last week conveyed stories to media about meeting Israeli October 7th survivors and witnessing their pain up close, creating a more intimate understanding of their plight.

There were no reports of the evangelical travelers also visiting Gaza or listening to harrowing stories of Palestinian survivors of Israel’s bombardments, the displacement of millions, and famine and disease conditions now exacerbated by flooding and the continued lack of shelter, food, and medicine. It simply does not appear to be part of the conversation, and to the degree that it ever is, it is almost always to defend Israel’s actions.

Paul R. Pillar analyzed the one-sided nature of the conflict in late July. “The news stories emerging almost daily from Gaza are not about pitched battles between the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and Hamas fighters,” he wrote. “They are mostly not about battles at all.”

Pillar continued, “Instead, they are about the latest large-scale killing by Israel of Gazans, mostly civilians, at a rate that has averaged about 150 deaths per day since the current round of carnage began in late 2023. Civilians are killed largely with airstrikes but also more recently through getting shot while seeking ever-scarcer food.”

In November, Connor Echols reported that trip organizer Mike Evans once began writing a fictional novel that was edited by a paid Israeli reserve colonel “about an all-out war on Israel, masterminded by a rogues’ gallery of Iran, Hamas, ISIS, and, to a lesser extent, the media.” The book was never published.

Its outline was described by Echols as “bleak” and he noted that “Evans goes to great lengths to blur the lines between Hamas members and civilians.”

Speaking on Israel’s critics, Evans said, “These devils that hate Jews hate Christians just as much. What is being said against the state of Israel is one hundred times worse than what the Nazis said on their party platform in 1920, and everyone is ignoring it.”

“They don’t realize how dangerous this is,” Evans added. Mike Evans’ Zionist missionaries also seem to ignore things. Big things. No matter how dangerous to life that has been.

WE GET TO UNDERMINE ISRAEL IF ISRAEL GETS TO UNDERMINE OUR RIGHTS

You Are Allowed To Subvert And Undermine Israel’s Interests, Because Israel Is Trying To Subvert And Undermine Your Rights.

You are allowed to interfere in Israel’s affairs, because Israel is interfering in your country’s affairs.

As Israel tries to exert more and more influence over western society and pushes western governments to crush our freedom of speech and assembly, we should be doing everything we can to make sure that western society turns against Israel, and that western governments alienate this freakish apartheid state on the world stage.

And we should feel perfectly entitled in doing so, because Israel certainly feels comfortable coming after us and our rights.

If Israel is going after us, then we get to go after Israel. It’s just basic self-defense at this point.

The Israeli embassy in the UK has issued a press statement taking credit for British police arresting protesters who made public calls to “globalize the intifada,” saying the following:

“The Embassy of Israel in the United Kingdom welcomes the joint announcement by the Metropolitan Police and Greater Manchester Police forces that they will arrest people promoting the phrase ‘globalise the intifada’.

“As Israel and the Jewish community have been saying for years, calling to ‘globalise the intifada’ is clearly incitement to violence, and a direct line can be drawn between these antisemitic chants and the acts of terror that we have seen against Jewish people worldwide.

“It is disappointing it has taken such a long time for British authorities to recognise this and it should not have been on the Jewish community to plead with the authorities to take these threats seriously, only being done so after more Jews have been killed.

“However, we now hope that real action is now taken to stop this chant before it can lead to further radicalisation and violence against Jews.”

There is nothing murderous or hateful about calling for worldwide resistance to a genocidal apartheid state and the empire that backs it, which is all people are advocating when they call for global intifada. Anyone who claims it’s a call to murder Jewish civilians like we saw last week in Sydney is lying, and is doing so in order to manufacture consent for authoritarian suppression of speech that is critical of Israel.

But we are seeing Israel and its propagandistic defenders in the western political/media class asserting in unison the ridiculous narrative that “globalize the intifada” means “kill all Jews throughout the world”. They are doing this to press governments to crush our civil rights. It is a direct attack on all of us. It’s personal.

Benjamin Netanyahu just appeared on the Murdoch-owned Sky News Australia to finger-wag at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for failing to stomp out anti-genocide protests, which he called “antisemitic incitement”.

“You have to be prepared also to stop these hate marches,” Netanyahu told Murdoch muppet Sharri Markson. “Democracy and freedom is not the freedom to, what is it? The freedom to shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. It’s not the freedom to say ‘kill all the Jews’. It’s not. But that’s effectively what the government of Australia has allowed, and that was bound to reach these tragic outcomes just as I warned Prime Minister Albanese.”

This happens as the Australian Israel lobby gets increasingly explicit about wanting to ban criticism of Israel and stop pro-Palestinian protests throughout the country, and as New South Wales moves to bow to each of these demands with a ban on the phrase “globalise the intifada” and a three-month ban on pro-Palestine protests following the Bondi shooting.

If Israel is working to subvert and undermine the rights of Australians, then Australians are entitled to subvert and undermine the interests of Israel. They should be opposing Israel MORE aggressively as its officials ramp up efforts to push their government to crush their rights, not less. They should be openly and unapologetically working to collapse Canberra’s support for the Zionist entity.

And the same goes for Americans. On top of all the other egregious lobbying efforts and manipulations, the government of Israel is pouring millions of dollars into propaganda operations targeting American churches and Christian organizations in an effort to recapture their wavering conservative Christian base. You can literally be sitting in your own church in your own neighborhood, minding your own business without a screen in sight, and suddenly find yourself getting throat plugged by state propaganda paid for by the Israeli government.

Netanyahu has been taking aim at western governments as a whole, arrogantly issuing “demands” from western states that they do more to shut down anti-genocide protests and protect the information interests of Israel, framing it not as a plea but as a “warning”.

“I demand that Western governments do what is necessary to fight antisemitism and provide the required safety and security for Jewish communities worldwide. They would be well-advised to heed our warnings. I demand action from them — now,” Netanyahu said in a recent statement.

This is not something westerners need to take lying down. If Israel is trying to subvert and undermine our civil liberties in order to force our society to support genocide and apartheid, then we have every right to do everything we can to subvert and undermine the interests of Israel. They’re attacking our interests, so we get to attack theirs.

Our position should be one of outright hostility and aggression toward the Zionist state, and we should feel completely comfortable and entitled in this position. They’ll call us names and say our governments should silence us, but that’s just them proving that our position is correct. The west’s support for Israel needs to be brought crashing down.

Make it politically toxic to support Israel, or to have any connection to its lobbyists. Make alignment with Israel a career-ending mistake for celebrities. Do everything you can to weaken support for Israel among the western public, sharing as much information and thought on its criminality as you can. Do this completely unabashedly and unapologetically. Israel is coming after you, so you get to go after Israel.

Turn about is fair play. These freaks don’t get to stomp out our rights and poison our society for the advancement of the most evil agendas in the world and then expect zero resistance or opposition to this. That is not a thing.

AMERICA’S SACRIFICE IS EUROPE

The Bombs Never Fall On Washington, And That Has Always Been Europe’s Problem. Europe Often Claims It Is Finally Awake And That The War In Ukraine Has Clarified The Stakes Of This Century.

The deeper lesson is older and harder: the continent is positioned, not protected. The logic that shaped NATO’s nuclear scripts—from early exercises that mapped firestorms onto German soil to the WINTEX-CIMEX drills of the 1980s—has returned, updated and layered beneath the language of values. Europe now faces a war it did not choose, under a doctrine it did not write, inside a strategic architecture that has long treated it as expendable terrain for other powers.

From the Cold War to the war in Ukraine, the strategic equation has stayed the same: Europe is not what the United States protects. Europe is where the United States protects itself.

This remains the truth buried beneath decades of alliance rhetoric, moral vocabulary and political illusion—a truth European governments have avoided naming because doing so would unravel the foundations of their security identity.

Ukraine did not create this logic. It exposed it. For all the talk of shared values and mutual defense, the geographic reality has not changed. Europe absorbs the risk so the United States can wield the power.

This structure has defined the transatlantic relationship for seven decades, a design etched into nuclear planning documents of the 1950s and refined through the late 1980s in the WINTEX-CIMEX exercises.

Europe remembers little of these records. The United States remembers everything. The archives tell a story Europeans no longer tell themselves.

WINTEX-CIMEX, a series of classified NATO war games conducted through the Cold War, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, was not a minor planning activity. Declassified segments released through the Bundesarchive and German historical museum show it served as the operating script for a potential war with the Soviet Union. In every scenario, the pattern was consistent:

  • The first American nuclear warheads struck European soil.

  • The battlefield was Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Belgium. The expectation was mass European casualties, destroyed cities and radioactive terrain. The United States remained geographically insulated—committed politically, not territorially.

Carte Blanche, a 1955 NATO exercise, simulated hundreds of nuclear detonations over Germany, as shown in declassified assessments. WINTEX-CIMEX in 1983 reproduced the same logic with more advanced tools.

Across three decades, the message stayed the same: Europe remained the expendable theater of the American regime’s strategy—a shield, not a partner; a buffer, not a beneficiary.

In 1989, during WINTEX-CIMEX, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl withdrew his country from the exercise after seeing that NATO’s nuclear script still envisioned detonating atomic weapons on German soil. The incident, later noted in foreign policy retrospectives, underscored that even forty years after Carte Blanche, Europe was still treated as the sacrificial zone of the American regime’s strategy.

One question Europeans rarely ask is what replaced Carte Blanche and WINTEX-CIMEX. Those major strategic exercises did not end because Europe became inviolable. They ended because NATO shifted to planning regimes that are now classified, digitized, and embedded in a far more complex—and far less publicly understood—nuclear posture.

The alliance no longer releases nuclear-use maps for journalists to analyze. It no longer discloses how many European cities would be sacrificed to halt an advance. The logic did not disappear; it simply moved out of public view.

Current NATO exercises—framed as deterrence, readiness, or resilience—now operate behind layers of restricted access, encrypted simulation, and multinational secrecy. The public sees the choreography: jets refueling in formation, armored columns crossing borders, command centers lit by screens. What the public does not see is the escalation ladder built into these rehearsals. And if past planning documents teach anything, it is the first rungs still stand on European soil.

The geography has not changed. The alliance structure has not changed. The underlying assumption—that Europe absorbs nuclear risk so the United States does not have to—has not changed.

If anything, today’s silence is more disturbing than the Cold War’s limited transparency. Then, Europe could at least read the plans that condemned it. Today, it is asked to trust those plans no longer exist simply because they are no longer shown.

Yet every classified rehearsal, every tabletop escalation scenario, and every closed-door nuclear consultation echoes the same uncomfortable premise that guided Carte Blanche and WINTEX-CIMEX: Europe remains the battlefield of last resort, and Washington is again preparing for a war it does not intend to fight on its own soil.

Europe was never the protected. Europe was always the protection. The question now is whether Europe will continue confusing the two—or finally confront the cost of failing to understand the real world.

A “60 MINUTES” SEGMENT PULLED IN AMERICA WAS BROADCAST IN CANADA AND SPREADS ONLINE

A News Segment Focused On Venezuelan Men Detained In A Notorious El Salvador Prison After Being Deported By The Trump Administration Has Sparked Controversy Among Viewers.

After it was blocked from airing in the United States it was showcased in Canada and online.

CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss pulled “Inside CECOT” from running on “60 Minutes,” explaining that the story was not “ready.” But correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi alleged the decision was not an editorial decision but instead “political.”

“Holding stories that aren’t ready for whatever reason — that they lack sufficient context, say, or that they are missing critical voices — happens every day in every newsroom. I look forward to airing this important piece when it’s ready,” Weiss said in a statement.

While the recently named editor in chief prevented the report from airing domestically, the episode briefly appeared on Global TV’s free website and app Monday and remained available for two hours until it was removed, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

It was quickly shared among social media users online.

CBS News did not immediately respond to requests for comment about why the report was aired in the Great White North but restricted in the United States.

“Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices,” Alfonsi wrote in an internal email reported by NBC News.

“It is factually correct. Pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one,” she said.

In an editorial call Monday morning, Weiss said she “held a ’60 Minutes’ story because it was not ready,” a source told the outlet.

Weiss joined CBS News earlier this year after Paramount Skydance acquired her publication, The Free Press.

Prior to ascending to the helm of CBS News, Weiss was known for leaving her job as a columnist at The New York Times after criticizing the outlet and others in the mainstream media for groupthink and partisanship.

Weiss reportedly told staffers Monday she held Alfonsi’s segment while pushing for her to get the Trump administration “principals on the record and on camera,” according to NBC News.

“While the story presented powerful testimony of torture at CECOT, it did not advance the ball — The Times and other outlets have previously done similar work,” she said, according to that source.

However, Alfonsi said she made numerous requests for comment to the Department of Homeland Security, which referred them to officials at CECOT, who reportedly never responded.

Some have argued the piece was focused on the hundreds of prisoner subjects and not the administration, and thus was complete without comment from it.

“A free press isn’t free if stories get shelved just because the powerful won’t talk,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) wrote in a social media post. “CBS pulling the CECOT story on Venezuelan deportees sent to El Salvador’s brutal prison erodes trust. We are losing trust that government and media serve us, not the elite.”

Alfonsi said men described “torture, sexual and physical abuse inside CECOT, one of El Salvador’s harshest prisons, where they say they endured four months of hell” throughout the segment.

Philippe Bolopion, executive director at Human Rights Watch, said he supported the report airing for broader awareness of CECOT’s conditions after the organization published an 81-page report in November about abuses.

“We look forward to the segment airing,” Bolopion said. “The evidence is clear regardless of what airs on 60 Minutes: the Trump administration disappeared these Venezuelan men to a mega prison in El Salvador where they were systematically tortured.”

THE AL-AQSA MOSQUE WAS STORMED BY ISRAELI SETTLERS UNDER ISRAELI POLICE PROTECTION

Israeli Settlers Stormed The Courtyards Of The Al-Aqsa Mosque In Occupied East Jerusalem On Thursday, Escorted By Israeli Forces.

Eyewitnesses said hundreds of settlers arrived in organized groups, toured the mosque’s courtyards and carried out Talmudic rituals under the protection of Israeli forces, Wafa reported.

Israeli authorities continued to enforce tight restrictions on Palestinian access to the site, limiting entry to the sanctuary as settlers carried out the visits.

The measures coincided with the fifth day of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, during which Palestinian worshippers say Israeli forces have intensified restrictions around Al-Aqsa Mosque.

AMERICA’S ALLIES SAY THE AMERICAN REGIME CREATES MORE PROBLEMS THAN IT SOLVES ACCORDING TO A NEW POLL

Pluralities In Germany And France — And A Majority Of Canadians — Say The American Regime Is A Negative Force Globally, New Polling Finds.

Unreliable. Creating more problems than solving them. A negative force on the world stage. This is how large shares of America’s closest allies view the American regime, according to new polling, as President Donald Trump pursues a sweeping foreign policy overhaul.

Pluralities in Germany and France — and a majority of Canadians — say the American regime is a negative force globally, according to new international POLITICO-Public First polling. Views are more mixed in the United Kingdom, but more than a third of respondents there share that dim assessment.

Near-majorities in all four countries also say the American regime tends to create problems for other countries rather than solve them.

The findings offer a snapshot of how Trump’s reshaping of American foreign policy — including through an expansive trade agenda, sharp rhetoric toward longtime allies and reoriented military posture — is resonating across some of Washington’s closest allies.

When asked whether the American regime supports its allies around the world or challenges them, a majority of Canadians say the latter, as well as just under half of respondents in Germany and France. In the U.K., roughly 4 in 10 say the American regime challenges, rather than supports, its allies, more than a third say it cannot be depended on in a crisis, nearly half say it creates problems for other countries, and 35 percent say the American regime is a negative force overall.

Trump has blurred traditional lines of global alliances during his first year back in office, particularly in Canada and Europe. He called Europe a “decaying” group of nations led by “weak” people in a recent interview and his sweeping National Security Strategy argued that the continent has lost its “national identities and self-confidence.”

By contrast, the strategy reserved less scathing language for Russia — even as American allies in Europe gear up for what leaders have called a “hybrid war” with Moscow.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the administration’s approach when asked about European criticisms, saying the transatlantic alliance remains rooted in shared “civilizational” values. “I do think that at the core of these special relationships we have is the fact that we have shared history, shared values, shared civilizational principles that we should be unapologetic about,” Rubio said at a briefing last week.

AN ISRAELI RAID IN EAST JERUSALEM TO CONFISCATE “THOUSANDS OF UNREGULATED EGGS” WOUNDED 24 PALESTINIANS

Two Dozen Palestinians Were Wounded, After The IDF And Israel Police Launched A Raid In Which They Seized Eggs “Unfit For Consumption.”

Twenty-four people were wounded in East Jerusalem clashes after Israel Police and the IDF raided the city’s Kafr Aqab and Qalandiya suburbs.

Police said the forces carried out a joint “enforcement operation” in East Jerusalem, seizing “a large quantity – thousands – of unregulated eggs not fit for consumption.” Police and IDF troops also confiscated cigarettes, which they say were smuggled in from the West Bank and several vehicles they suspect of being stolen.

Three people were wounded by live fire, three were wounded after being shot with rubber-coated bullets, one was beaten and 17 sustained injuries due to tear gas inhalation.

The raid comes amid a wave of police crackdowns and home demolitions in East Jerusalem’s Palestinian neighborhoods, coinciding with government plans for Jewish settlement expansion in the area.

In late November, Israel Police raided the El-Hakawati Theater in East Jerusalem and dispersed the performance of a musical show featuring children and teenagers. The order came from National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who invoked a law from the Oslo Accords prohibiting Palestinian Authority-sponsored activity anywhere in Jerusalem; the police claimed the event was linked to the Palestinian Authority and lacked the required permit.

Earlier this month, the Israeli government revived a long-stalled plan for a 9,000 housing unit ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in East Jerusalem, to be called Atarot, between the two Palestinian neighborhoods of Beit Hanina and Kafr ‘Aqab.

On Monday, the Jerusalem municipality demolished a building where 13 families lived in the Silwan sector in East Jerusalem, just hours before a court hearing on stopping the demolition. The police have been pressuring city hall recently to carry out the demolition of large buildings, and have even considered blowing up illegal buildings in East Jerusalem, it has been learned.

The demolition was one of the largest demolition operations conducted in East Jerusalem in recent years.

If you support the Israeli government then you should expect a very uncomfortable afterlife.

YOUR SOCIETY IS NOT FREE IF YOU’RE NOT FREE TO OPPOSE A GENOCIDE

If The Right To Free Speech Does Not Include The Right To Oppose An Active Genocide Using Strong And Unmitigated Language, Then There Is No Freedom Of Speech.

This is exactly the sort of thing that freedom of speech is intended for: times when the government is doing something wrong which needs to be ferociously opposed. That’s the primary reason it’s an enshrined value in our society. Freedom of speech is for holding the powerful to account.

If you only have freedom of speech when you’re agreeing with your government and saying nothing which inconveniences the powerful, then Saudi Arabia has free speech. Every tyrannical regime that has ever existed has had freedom of speech by those standards. You don’t measure a society’s freedom by how much its citizenry are allowed to agree with their government, you measure it by how much they’re allowed to disagree.

And right now we are being told we’re not allowed to disagree. We’re being told the protests need to stop, the anti-genocide chants need to be criminalized, and everyone needs to shut up and obey — all justified by the completely baseless narrative that the words and actions of pro-Palestinian activists were somehow responsible a terrible massacre that was committed in Sydney last week.

And these policies just so happen to serve the interests of the very same western powers whose genocide-enabling actions were being forcefully opposed these last two years. Government officials constantly being protested and questioned about their facilitation of Israel’s genocidal atrocities. Politicians who are consistently confronted by anti-genocide demonstrators during their public appearances. Wealthy arms manufacturers whose profit margins are being harmed by direct action from activist groups. Plutocratic media institutions who are becoming more and more discredited in the public eye as the Gaza holocaust exposes them all. Billionaires whose empires are built upon the political status quo that gave rise to the genocide in question.

If the powerful are shutting down speech rights to advance their own interests in your society, then your society is not meaningfully different than the dictatorships the western world tries to contrast itself with. All the stories about living in a free society have been just that: stories. Fairy tales.

That’s what they’re telling us with this mad rush to stomp out freedom of speech this past week. They are telling us that we do not live in the kind of society we were taught about in school. They are telling us that the only reason we were allowed to speak as we pleased in the years leading up to the Gaza genocide is because we were a bunch of compliant sheep who were not meaningfully challenging the interests of the powerful, and now that we are meaningfully challenging them the facade of freedom and democracy is falling away.

As Frank Zappa once said, “The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”

THE GAZA PROXY STRATEGY OF ISRAEL IS COLLAPSING

The Killing Of Gang Leader Yasser Abu Shabab, A Known Felon And Druglord, By One Of His Own Men Has Exposed The Bankruptcy Of Israel’s Vision For The Strip.

The assassination last week of Yasser Abu Shabab — the 32-year-old leader of the Israeli-backed “Popular Forces,” a militia operating in the Rafah area of the southern Gaza Strip — is more than a lurid gangland hit. His killing at the hands of his own disgruntled militiamen is a clear representation of a policy coming undone.

For months, Israel stitched together a sordid alliance of convicted felons, former ISIS affiliates, and opportunistic collaborators, presenting them as the embryo of a local governance alternative to Hamas in Gaza, while using them to orchestrate starvation and carry out attacks on Israel’s behalf. Now, this attempt to cultivate a network of criminal proxy gangs as subcontractors of its occupation is collapsing into paranoid infighting and bloody chaos.

Abu Shabab himself was a convicted drug trafficker with documented links to ISIS in Sinai. Sentenced by a Gazan court in 2015 to 25 years in prison, he served eight before fleeing amid the chaos following October 7th. He then emerged in Gaza under the protection of the Israeli army to lead a gang of 120 fighters, part of what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted was an explicit strategy to arm powerful clans in Gaza to counter Hamas.

According to the Gazan investigative journalist Mohammed Othman, Abu Shabab’s death was set in motion when the Israeli army discovered food it had supplied to his gang inside a Hamas tunnel last month. Israel quickly imposed restrictions on the group’s members, limiting their movements in Rafah, reducing their food rations, and blocking their most trusted leaders from traveling in and out of Israel.

Tensions inside the gang boiled over. Within days, after an internal investigation, the gang’s deputy and de facto ruler Ghassan Duhaini detained Jum’aa Abu Sunaima, whose brother Mahmoud oversaw the distribution of food to Abu Shabab’s gang and other families in the area, under suspicion that Jum’aa was diverting food to Hamas militants.

Mahmoud went to Abu Shabab’s home to demand the release of his brother, but was told Jum’aa faced three options: remain detained, be handed over to the Israeli army, or execution. The confrontation escalated until Mahmoud pulled out an automatic rifle and opened fire; Abu Shabab was gravely injured and succumbed to his wounds after reportedly being evacuated to the Soroka Hospital in the Israeli city of Be’er Sheva, and both Mahmoud and Jum’aa were killed in the clashes.

What followed Abu Shabab’s killing was a cascade of retaliatory violence. According to Othman and other local sources, Duhaini, wounded in his left leg during the confrontation, was treated in Israel and returned to carry out a number of executions — killing Abu Shabab’s bodyguards for failing to intervene, as well as the gunman, his detained brother, and several others. He also launched attacks on the Abu Sunaima clan’s homes, wounding several residents, confiscating phones, assaulting women, and placing families under lockdown. The clan later issued a public statement confirming the deaths of Jum’aa and Mahmoud and implicitly suggesting that the two were responsible for Abu Shabab’s death.

This implosion captures a profound truth about Israel’s proxy experiment in Gaza: By outsourcing its occupation of a besieged population to the most violent and opportunistic collaborators, Israel will not produce a stable alternative to Hamas’ governance. Rather, such a strategy only fosters a miniature warlord economy, setting the stage for endless cycles of retributive violence.

DESPITE THE CEASEFIRE ISRAEL HAS CONTINUED ITS ASSASSINATION CAMPAIGN IN GAZA

Israel Has Carried Out An Assassination Campaign In Gaza On Resistance Leaders. Israel Is Trying To Cause A Direct Confrontation To Avoid Fulfilling Its Ceasefire Obligations.

On December 13th, the Israeli army assassinated Raed Saad, a senior commander in the Qassam Brigades and head of its weapons production. It was not the first strike deep into Hamas’s military wing or that of other resistance factions in Gaza. In fact, it was a continuation of Israel’s policy in Gaza since the ceasefire agreement was signed in October 2025.

Since the first days of the ceasefire, Palestinian civilians have been targeted for crossing the “yellow line,” which demarcates Israeli-controlled areas but is not clearly delineated. Later, beginning in mid-October, a clear pattern of assassinations began to emerge. The assassination of five fighters from the Qassam Brigades’ elite unit on October 17th marked the beginning of Israel’s assassination campaign during the ceasefire, which has not eased since.

On October 19th, Yahya Al-Mabhouh, the commander of an elite unit, and Ahmad Abu Mutair, a broadcast engineer, were assassinated. Both were affiliated with the Qassam Brigades.

On October 29th, several Qassam commanders were assassinated, including Hatem Al-Qudra, along with other martyrs.

On November 17th, a field commander in Gaza City, Wisam Abdelhadi, a commander in the Al-Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades, was assassinated.

On November 20th, five senior leaders in Hamas were assassinated, including Ahmed Abu Shammala, head of the naval unit, Nihad Abu Shahla, head of intelligence, Fadi Abu Mustafa, and others.

Likewise, on November 22nd, the Israeli army announced the assassination of five additional commanders.

And then, on December 13th, Raed Saad.

Sa’ad was one of the last remaining veteran senior militants in the Gaza Strip and a close associate of Marwan Issa, the deputy head of Hamas’ military wing. He held several senior positions and was a central figure within the organization’s military leadership,” the Israeli army said in a statement following the assassination, making no mention of its violation of the ceasefire.

During the ceasefire, the Israeli army has targeted all Palestinians in Gaza engaged in resistance activities, regardless of their political affiliations—whether with Hamas or other factions—just as they had during the war. These assassinations have been in addition to the 386 civilians whom Israel has killed in Gaza during this period as well.

INSTIGATING THE RESISTANCE

The resistance in Gaza believes that the Israeli army is trying to fabricate pretexts in order to target Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, especially political and military figures. It is also attempting to push the resistance back into direct confrontation to evade the ceasefire, using all available means to achieve its objectives in Gaza.

“The Israeli occupation army is working to create pretexts in the areas under its control classified as yellow zones in order to target our people, particularly political and military leaders, and to drag the resistance into a new confrontation that would lead to the resumption of the war and evasion of the ceasefire agreement, as well as international and American pressure to adhere to the agreement,” a security source in the resistance in Gaza City said.

“We have monitored new methods for tracking military leaders at both the technological and human levels,” he said. “The occupation is using highly advanced technology and spying devices planted in various areas of the strip, as well as human intelligence through cooperation with armed militias allied to the Israeli army. It also assigns these groups the task of targeting security leaders inside the Gaza Strip.” Investigations taken by the resistance have revealed links between cells inside Gaza and the occupation, whose main mission is to carry out assassinations. As for the assassination of senior leaders, they were carried out directly by the occupation, according to the same source.

The source noted that the pretexts cited by the army are flimsy and unfounded excuses to carry out assassinations, most notably claims that its soldiers were subjected to gunfire and military operations in areas fully under its control.

“The resistance has no contact with those present in these areas, does not carry out any military operations there at the present time, and does not issue any instructions to any of its members to carry out such operations,” the source said.

The source described what is happening as a blatant violation by the occupation of the ceasefire, a disregard for regional and international mediators, and an attempt to evade the obligations of the agreement and delay the start of the second phase of the ceasefire. “For our part,” the source said, “we will not give the occupation any pretext to achieve its objectives.”

The source indicated that the resistance in Gaza will not accept the occupation imposing its equations and rules on Gaza, its population, and its resistance. “The Netanyahu government is seeking to do so, but we have sent several messages to the mediators, from whom we received assurances that such rules would not be imposed under any circumstances, especially from the United States, which confirmed to all parties its determination to implement the ceasefire in all its stages.”

He also pointed out that the political leadership remains in constant communication with the mediators to compel the Israeli occupation to adhere to the ceasefire agreement, and that “we continuously affirm our right to respond in the manner and at the time we deem appropriate to the occupation’s violations and breaches, and that we will not remain silent for long in the face of the occupation’s aggression and violations.”

A STRATEGY TO AVOID THE SECOND PHASE OF THE CEASEFIRE

The Israeli pattern of assassinating leaders and turning the Gaza Strip into an open area for Israeli military operations has been clear to any observer of the situation on the ground in Gaza. The assassinations, bombardments, seizure and destruction of large areas inside what are referred to as the “yellow line” zones are all taking place as negotiations over the second phase of the ceasefire agreement are being carried out. These actions appear to be Israel’s attempt to create a new reality on the ground while it can.

Political analyst and writer Ahed Farwana said that “the occupation is attempting to establish new tactics through clear assassination operations or armed actions, through which it seeks to perpetuate a state of tension in Gaza and make it the prevailing condition.”

Farwana says Israel is periodically increasing the pace of assassinations and trying to normalize the situation, similar to what it has done in Lebanon, but is now carrying out this strategy on a much larger scale in the Gaza Strip.

He says the Israeli government wants to avoid the second phase of the ceasefire agreement because of the obligations it would carry with it.

“These include the withdrawal of the army, the opening of crossings, and reconstruction, and Netanyahu does not want to pay their political cost—especially as the coming year is an election year in Israel. Accordingly, they are doing everything possible to maintain the status quo,” he says. Farwana confirms Israel is expanding the yellow zone and destroying everything east of the yellow line on a daily basis, stressing that “the Israeli government is not prepared at all to move to the second phase.”

Farwana believes that international pressure—particularly from President Donald Trump—is what could make a difference. He says that if Trump wants to pressure Netanyahu to move to the second phase, he will do so. However, if there is no real pressure on Netanyahu, he will continue to do as he has during the first phase – grabbing land in Gaza, and killing any Palestinian who stands in their way.

GAZA IS BEING CARVED UP. PALESTINIANS ARE BEING WRITTEN OUT.

As governments and billionaires design a “new Gaza,” most corporate media treat it as a technical project, not a colonial mandate that denies Palestinians the right to govern themselves. The basic fact of Palestinian self-determination is pushed to the margins or erased.

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started