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An International Force for Gaza: Why President Petro’s Proposal is the Sole Moral and Strategic Solution

C.B. Forde The ongoing genocide and devastation in Gaza has reached a level that many scholars, human rights organizations, and even state leaders describe as nothing less than genocidal. Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble, critical infrastructure has been deliberately targeted, and tens of thousands of civilians — most of them women and children — have been killed or displaced in what the Israeli government frames as a campaign against Hamas. For the people of Gaza, however, the experience is one of systematic annihilation.In this context, Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s call for an international force to stop the genocide in Gaza should not be dismissed as political rhetoric from the Global South. It stands as perhaps the only realistic solution to a crisis that has exposed the impotence of international humanitarian law, the paralysis of the United Nations system, and the complicity of the great powers with Israel’s war machinery. Petro’s proposal crystallizes not only the moral urgency of the moment but also the geopolitical logic of intervention when the conventional international mechanisms are broken.

The Inadequacy of Existing Institutions

The first justification for Petro’s argument lies in the failure of existing international institutions.

The United Nations Security Council has been repeatedly blocked by U.S. vetoes from passing binding resolutions calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. This underscores the structural bias within the system, where one permanent member consistently shields Israel from accountability. The very body entrusted to authorize peacekeeping or protective missions has thus become an obstacle to their formation.The International Criminal Court has opened investigations into Israeli actions and war crimes in the Occupied Territories, but these proceedings advance slowly, are vulnerable to political pressure, and lack immediate enforcement capacity. Law, when reduced to mere procedure, cannot stop the bombs falling daily on Gaza.Regional actors like Egypt or Jordan are constrained by their dependence on Western military aid and by domestic political vulnerabilities. They cannot provide the neutral and international force necessary to halt the cycles of assault, nor can they authoritatively mediate under the shadow of Israel’s overwhelming military dominance.

Given these failures, Petro is correct: only the deployment of a multinational, politically independent international force can change the material conditions on the ground.

The Concept of “Responsibility to Protect”

The 2005 UN World Summit established the principle of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) — that the international community must intervene, by military means if necessary, when a state commits or fails to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, or crimes against humanity.

Israel’s actions in Gaza — mass expulsions, targeted destruction of civilian infrastructure, obstruction of humanitarian aid, and indiscriminate bombardment — fulfill every definitional threshold of R2P. Indeed, Gaza is the quintessential case study for its application. Yet because Israel enjoys impunity due to U.S. diplomatic cover, no institutional path remains viable within the Security Council framework. Here again, Petro’s vision rises as the only operationalization of R2P in this crisis: a coordinated force, potentially organized under the General Assembly’s Uniting for Peace resolution of 1950, to bypass veto paralysis and act directly on behalf of global conscience.

The Geopolitical Stakes

An international force in Gaza is not merely a humanitarian necessity; it is a geopolitical imperative.

Preventing regional collapse: The Gaza war continuously risks regional spillover. Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Syria, Iran-aligned forces in Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen have already interjected at varying levels. The longer the war continues unchecked, the greater the probability of escalation into a regional conflagration. An international force to protect civilians and guarantee a ceasefire would also serve as a stabilizing mechanism for the entire Middle East.Ending cycles of impunity: Israel’s decades-long military doctrines — from the Dahiya Doctrine of disproportionate force to the ongoing siege doctrines against Gaza — demonstrate that without external deterrence, its conduct will not change. Only the credible threat of international deployment can impose material limits on Israeli military strategy.Rebalancing global order: A Latin American head of state, not a European or U.S. leader, has raised the most forceful call for global intervention against genocide in Gaza. This reflects a shifting world order where the Global South increasingly asserts moral and political leadership on matters abandoned by the West. An international force for Gaza would mark the first decisive assertion of multipolar humanitarian enforcement, free from U.S. veto domination.

Why Petro’s Proposal Is the Only Solution

Critics might argue that diplomacy, sanctions, or arms embargoes are alternative remedies. Yet these mechanisms have repeatedly proved ineffective:

Diplomatic pressure has been ignored, with Israel moving aggressively to consolidate destruction despite global condemnation.Sanctions face resistance from Western governments, and even if applied, their timeline would not match the immediacy demanded by a humanitarian catastrophe.Humanitarian aid itself is weaponized, with convoys blocked, UN agencies systematically undermined, and starvation used as a tool of war.

The calls for “restraint” and “humanitarian pauses” have become meaningless in practice. Israel has demonstrated that words alone cannot halt its campaign. Thus, Petro correctly identifies what follows logically: force must be met with force, not in the interest of warring parties, but in the higher interest of humanity itself.

Just as NATO intervention was justified in Kosovo on humanitarian grounds, despite lacking explicit Security Council authorization, so too must the international community rise to defend Gaza. Unlike Kosovo, however, Gaza is under occupation, formally governed by international law as occupied territory, which further strengthen—not weakens—the legal basis for deploying external forces to protect its civilian population.

Conclusion

President Gustavo Petro’s call for an international force to stop the genocide in Gaza is not a radical outburst but the only coherent response to grave crimes being committed in real time. Diplomatic mechanisms have failed, legal proceedings lack enforcement, and regional actors lack capacity. What remains is the universal moral duty to protect—to intervene militarily not to conquer, but to shield a people from extermination.

If the international community ignores Petro’s appeal, the consequences will be twofold: the irreversible destruction of Gaza’s society and culture, and the effective burial of international humanitarian law as anything more than rhetoric. If, however, his proposal is heeded, it could establish a new precedent—one in which the world finally takes seriously the principle that genocide is not negotiable, that sovereignty does not shield atrocity, and that humanity has the right and the duty to defend itself against annihilation.

Petro’s voice, breaking from the margins of power to demand the deployment of an international force, may prove to be the moral compass of a fractured world. The question is whether the world will follow before Gaza ceases to exist.

The UN’s Hidden Power to Launch Military Action in Gaza

[…]

Via https://thepostil.com/president-petros-proposal-is-the-sole-moral-and-strategic-solution/

Trump’s NSPM-7 Labels Common Beliefs As Terrorism “Indicators”

Trump displays NSPM-7 at the Oval Office on ThursdayKen KlippensteinSep 28, 2025 New directive targets “anti-Christian,” “anti-American,” and “anti-capitalism” opinions

With the mainstream media distracted by the made-for-TV drama of James Comey’s indictment, Trump has signed a little-noticed national security directive identifying “anti-Christian” and “anti-American” views as indicators of radical left violence. Called National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, it’s being referred to as “NSPM-7” by administration insiders.

“This is the first time in American history that there is an all-of-government effort to dismantle left wing terrorism,” Trump’s homeland security advisor Stephen Miller said, referring to the issuance.

To the extent that the major media noticed the directive at all, they (even C-SPAN!) incorrectly labeled it an “executive order,” like this week’s designation of “Antifa” as a domestic terrorist organization.

Come on, C-SPAN

The mainstream media is hopeless in the face of the complexity and secrecy of the national security state. Please help us in our quest to reveal what the national security state is up to by becoming a paid subscriber

It’s hard to overstate how much different NSPM-7 is from the over 200 executive orders Trump has frantically signed since coming back into office.

An executive order publicly lays out the course of day-to-day federal government operations; whereas a national security directive is a sweeping policy decree for the defense, foreign policy, intelligence, and law enforcement apparatus. National security directives are often secret, but in this case the Trump administration chose to publish NSPM-7 — only the seventh since he’s come into office.)

Previous national security directives have been controversial, even politically earthshaking. In 1980, for example, President Jimmy Carter signed the Top Secret Presidential Directive 59 (“PD-59”) directing new nuclear warfighting policies that persisted until the end of the Cold War. When revealed, PD-59 caused a public furor.

Declassified copy of PD-59 | Carter Library

Similarly, President George W. Bush signed a series of classified national security directives after 9/11, the most famous of which authorized NSA’s unlawful domestic intercepts, a directive that wasn’t publicly revealed until four years later.

In NSPM-7, “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” President Trump directs the Justice Department, the FBI, and other national security agencies and departments to fight his version of political violence in America, retooling a network of Joint Terrorism Task Forces to focus on “leftist” political violence in America. This vast counterterrorism army, made up of federal, state, and local agents would, as Trump aide Stephen Miller said, form “the central hub of that effort.”

NSPM-7 directs a new national strategy to “disrupt” any individual or groups “that foment political violence,” including “before they result in violent political acts.”

In other words, they’re targeting pre-crime, to reference Minority Report.

The Trump administration isn’t only targeting organizations or groups but even individuals and “entities” whom NSPM-7 says can be identified by any of the following “indicia” (indicators) of violence:

anti-Americanism,anti-capitalism,anti-Christianity,support for the overthrow of the United States Government,extremism on migration,extremism on race,extremism on genderhostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family,hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion, andhostility towards those who hold traditional American views on morality.

“The United States requires a national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts,” the directive states (emphasis mine).

A “pre-crime” endeavor, preventing attacks before they happen, is core to the post-9/11 concept of counterterrorism itself. No longer satisfied to investigate acts of terrorism after the fact to bring terrorists to justice, the Bush administration adopted preemption. Overseas, that led to aerial assassination by drones and “special operations” kill missions. Domestically, it led to a counter-terrorism campaign whose hallmark was excessive and illegal government surveillance and the use of undercover agents and “confidential human sources” to trap (and entrap) would-be terrorists.

Now, with Donald Trump’s directive retooling the counter-terror apparatus to go after Americans at home, this means monitoring political activity, or speech, as an investigative method to discover “radicalism.” (Contrary to other national security documents all during the post-Watergate era, NSPM-7 doesn’t even mention the First Amendment or the fundamental right of Americans to organize and protest.)

The focus on speech is evident throughout NSPM-7. The directive says that political violence is the result of “organized campaigns” that often begin (with the left) dehumanizing targets in “anonymous chat foras, in-person meetings, social media, and even educational institutions.”

To give a sense of how broad this formulation is, Trump’s earlier designation of Antifa as a domestic terrorist group was accompanied by a White House fact sheet singling out people who “celebrated” Luigi Mangione, the alleged killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last December. As I wrote at the time, this describes a lot of Americans!

Trump’s new national security memorandum also alludes to Mangione but adds to it even larger categories of potential targets.

NSPM-7 is fundamentally a law enforcement directive, and it dispenses with the complications of using the active duty military or the National Guard in pursuit of political violence. It directs the Department of Justice to focus the FBI’s approximately 200 Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) to the new mission. The FBI network of task forces comprises over 4,000 members—including FBI personnel and task force officers (or TFOs) from more than 500 state and local agencies and 50 federal agencies, including special agents, police officers, intelligence analysts and surveillance technicians. First established in New York City in 1980 to systematize FBI and NYPD cooperation, today there are task forces around the country, including at least one in each of the FBI’s 55 field offices.

For the Trump White House, the beauty of using an already existing network is that it bypasses Congressional oversight and scrutiny and even obscures federal activity to governors and legislatures at the state level. States, cities, and local police have already signed Memoranda of Agreements with the feds to fight terrorism and officers are already assigned as task force officers.

NSPM-7 says the JTTFs “shall investigate” potential federal crimes relating to “acts of recruiting or radicalizing persons” for the purpose of “political violence, terrorism, or conspiracy against rights; and the violent deprivation of any citizen’s rights.” It authorizes the JTTFs to investigate individuals, organizations, and funders “responsible for, sponsor, or otherwise aid and abet the principal actors engaging in the criminal conduct.”

“The Attorney General shall issue specific guidance that ensures domestic terrorism priorities include politically motivated terrorist acts such as organized doxing campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault, destruction of property, threats of violence, and civil disorder,” NSPM-7 says. Civil disorder?

I don’t want to sound hyperbolic but the plain truth is that NSPM-7 is a declaration of war on anyone who does not support the Trump administration and its agenda. Yes, it repeats the word “violent” over and over to purport only to go after citizens who are moved to take up arms, but it also directs monitoring and intelligence collection to map and target the new “evildoers,” to borrow a Bush label he took from the Bible just days after 9/11.

The partisan focus couldn’t be more obvious.

“The real problem is this: since Charlie [Kirk] was murdered — a friend of mine, assassinated — nothing’s changed on their side,” White House counter-terrorism czar Sebastian Gorka told Newsmax after NSPM-7 was signed. “Not one leader —not one left wing thought leader, member of Congress, Senator — nobody has said we distance ourselves from the violent rhetoric.”

“The left refuses to rid themselves of the justification for violence,” Gorka continued, “and as such, President Trump is taking measures to protect us from the violent rhetoric that becomes snipers and bullets.”

[…]

Via https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/trumps-nspm-7-labels-common-beliefs

Israel wins TikTok

Larry Ellison and a constellation of billionaires will finally get their way, buying the very app they wanted to kill a year ago for being too ‘pro-Palestinian’

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

Sep 27, 2025

A year ago, powerful critics in Congress and the tech world were complaining that TikTok was promoting anti-Israel messaging and were suggesting it needed to be shut down.

Turns out it didn’t need to be eliminated. TikTok is a message force multiplier after all, and only requires, apparently, the right people to own it. Like Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, the second richest man in the world and the single biggest private donor of the Israeli Defense Forces, who has referred to the state of Israel as his own. He has direct stakes in a head spinning galaxy of news, television and Hollywood media companies, mainly through the recent Paramount Skydance Corporation takeover, a mega conglomerate now run by his son David Ellison (who is reportedly on the cusp of making vigilantly pro-Israel journalist Bari Weiss a top exec at newly-acquired CBS). Ellison the elder also is a major stakeholder in X and Tesla.

Add Rupert Murdoch, head of media conglomerate NewsCorp (Fox News), a perennial critic of “anti-Israel bias” in the media who in 2024 said Israel is “alone on the front line of Western democratic civilization.” Also Ellison’s right-hand at Oracle, Israeli-American Safra Catz, great friend of President Trump, who has traveled to Israel several times since Oct. 7, 2023 in support of its war and continued Oracle partnerships there, and in a July appearance in Israel told an an audience that “we (Oracle) are on the side of freedom. We are on the side of democracy.” She followed that with “some of the best people in the world are here in Israel, and there’s no question about that. And everyone knows it. Some of the big winners will be here. Mark my words.”

Throw into this mix billionaire Jeff Yass, a top GOP donor and current TikTok investor whose philanthropy is connected to a carousel of pro-Israel outfits that have funding ties to the IDF and AIPAC, plus explicitly anti-Muslim campaigns that among their issues, advocate for U.S. confrontation with Iran.

All of these individuals and more are reportedly part of a mega deal to buy TikTok for $14 billion. The details are here. Trump says the full roster of private U.S. investors (China’s Bytedance can only own a 20% stake) will be announced in a “matter of days.” But Forbes says Ellison’s “Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake and MGX, an AI-focused investment firm established by the government of Abu Dhabi” will have a whopping 40% stake in the new TikTok. Oracle is reportedly to get 15% and be named the app’s “security provider.”

The $14 billion deal is being called a “fire sale” by some observers who point out that Elon Musk paid triple that for Twitter in 2022. This highly suggests that this transaction is more about geopolitics and ideology rather than a financial gain for investors. Aside from its more than 1.5 billion regular users world-wide, TikTok has now become where 30% of Americans get their news. Now, not only will American companies like Oracle, which has numerous government tech contracts spanning defense, intelligence, and civilian agencies, have access to TikTok’s user data, it will also have control of the algorithms that manage the kind of news, the messaging and images, that all of those users see.

“This was not a fair-market transaction,” said Milton Mueller, a professor at Georgia Tech specializing in digital governance, in Newsweek. “It’s a politically determined restructuring.” Some might say, with the constellation of GOP and MAGA supporters in the reported investor mix, this has the makings of a new Trump-friendly megaphone. But it is so much more. In essence, like Safra Catz says, the big “winners” will be in Israel.

[…]

Via https://responsiblestatecraft.org/tiktok-larry-ellison-israel/

Most US voters oppose more aid to Israel – survey

Hundreds of protesters gather outside the UN headquarters to denounce Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, New York, US, September 26, 2025. © Getty Images / Selcuk Acar/Anadolu

RT

Six out of ten Americans say West Jerusalem should end its military operation in Gaza, a new poll suggests

Israel is quickly losing US public support for its military operation in Gaza, a new poll suggests. Conducted by the New York Times and the Siena Research Institute, the survey was released hours after US President Donald Trump unveiled his new roadmap for peace in Gaza on Monday.

According to the findings, 51% of Americans oppose sending “additional economic and military support to Israel,” while only 31% back further aid. Six out of ten voters (58%) say West Jerusalem should immediately end its Gaza campaign, even if hostages remain in captivity and Hamas is not eliminated.

The poll also found that 40% of US voters believe Israel is intentionally killing civilians in Gaza. A larger share (62%) say Israel is not taking enough precautions to avoid civilian casualties.

Overall, 34% of respondents side with Israel and 35% with the Palestinians in the conflict. The survey was conducted nationwide from September 22 to 27 among 1,313 registered US voters.

The findings contrast sharply with polling in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, when the militant group killed 1,200 people and seized more than 250 hostages. At that time, 47% of American voters sided with Israel and only 20% with the Palestinians.

Since the Gaza escalation in October 2023, Washington has approved billions in emergency weapons and defense aid to Israel. Its campaign in Gaza has killed more than 65,000 Palestinians – a toll that a UN committee this month labeled genocide. Israel also recently launched a ground offensive in Gaza City, one of the last areas outside of IDF control – spurring some countries to recognize a Palestinian state, while international bodies and hostage families have pressed for a settlement.

On Monday, the US unveiled a 20-point plan to end the Gaza war, calling for an immediate ceasefire, a hostages-for-prisoners exchange, a staged Israeli withdrawal, Hamas disarmament, and a transitional international administration.

Netanyahu endorsed the framework but warned that Israel would “finish the job” militarily if Hamas refuses. Media reports said Hamas negotiators have received the plan and promised to review it “in good faith,” though no official response has been issued.

[…]

Via https://www.rt.com/news/625625-us-voters-oppose-israel-aid/

Israel bankrolling influencers to boost image in US

FILE PHOTO. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the TikTok logo on a phone screen. © Getty Images / Harun Ozalp;  Anadolu

RT

Israel has been paying influencers for social media posts to improve its image in the US, according to online magazine Responsible Statecraft. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has recently stressed the role of content creators in maintaining support for the Jewish state.

Responsible Statecraft reported on Tuesday that documents filed under the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) revealed details of an “Influencer Campaign” run by Bridge Partners, a Washington-based consulting firm working for Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

Invoices sent to Havas Media Group Germany, which is managing the campaign, show $900,000 in funding from June through November 2025 for a group of 14 to 18 influencers. The filings estimate 75 to 90 posts in that period – equivalent to between $6,143 and $7,372 per post, according to Responsible Statecraft. The documents do not disclose which influencers are involved.

Bridge Partners, co-owned by Yair Levi and Uri Steinberg, has enlisted a former IDF spokesperson and a former representative of the Israeli spyware firm NSO Group.

Last week, Netanyahu told a press conference it was crucial to secure Israel’s “support base in the US” by using influencers, particularly on TikTok and X.

Israel’s image campaign comes amid declining support in the US, particularly over the Gaza war. A recent New York Times survey suggested that six in ten Americans believe Israel should end the war, with more than half opposing additional economic and military support to West Jerusalem.

Lawmakers including Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene have described the situation in Gaza as “genocide” and opposed additional aid to Israel.

US President Donald Trump, who continues to support the Jewish state, has recently acknowledged that the Israeli lobby – once wielding “total control” over Congress – has seen its influence dwindle.

Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking some 250 hostage. Israel responded by launching a military campaign in Gaza, which has so far killed over 68,000 Palestinians according to local health authorities.

[…]

Via https://www.rt.com/news/625705-israel-us-influence-campaign/

The Republican–Israel love affair hits a generational rift

Photo Credit: The Cradle

 

José Niño

The sniper’s bullet that silenced Charlie Kirk on 10 September at Utah Valley University did more than end the life of America’s most prominent conservative youth activist. It ignited a firestorm of theories that illuminated the deepest fractures within the Republican Party since the Cold War. Within hours, social media exploded with speculation that Israel’s Mossad had orchestrated the assassination to neutralize what some saw as a rising threat to Israel’s influence in Washington.

While speculative, the speed and ferocity with which such conspiracy theories spread reveal something profound. Kirk’s assassination has become a symbol of the impossible balancing act facing Republican leaders as younger conservatives shun pro-Zionist sentiments, abandoning Israel in numbers that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

The unraveling Republican–Israel consensus

Kirk’s assassination was a flashpoint, but the deeper story is in the data. A University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll (29 July–7 August) exposed a dramatic generational schism: While 52 percent of Republicans aged 35 and over sympathize more with Israel, only 24 percent of Republicans aged 18–34 say the same.

The gulf widens when it comes to Gaza. Among older Republicans, 52 percent say Israeli actions in Gaza are justified. Among younger Republicans, only 22 percent agree. “The change taking place among young Republicans is breathtaking,” said Shibley Telhami, the poll’s principal investigator. “While 52 percent of older Republicans (35+) sympathize more with Israel, only 24 percent of younger Republicans (18–34) say the same – fewer than half.”

The shift accelerated dramatically after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October 2023. Pew Research Center data shows that unfavorable views of Israel among Republicans under 50 jumped from 35 percent in 2022 to 50 percent in 2025, a remarkable 15-point increase. In contrast, Republicans aged 50 and older moved only marginally, from 19 percent to 23 percent unfavorable.

The University of Maryland poll found that 41 percent of Americans believe Israeli military actions in Gaza constitute either “genocide” or are “akin to genocide,” including 14 percent of Republicans. Notably, the survey discovered that 21 percent of Republicans consider US President Donald Trump’s administration’s policy toward Israel–Palestine “too pro-Israel,” while 57 percent of Republicans said Washington’s support has enabled Israeli war crimes.

Even evangelical Republicans – long Israel’s most fervent base – are shifting. Among older evangelicals, 69 percent express more sympathy with Israel. But that number drops to 32 percent among their younger counterparts. Only 36 percent of younger evangelical Republicans believe Israeli actions in Gaza are justified.

In a sharp rebuke to the bipartisan tradition of unconditional aid, a September 2025 AtlasIntel poll found that just 30 percent of Americans support financial assistance to Israel, showing that Israel’s “blank check” in Washington is increasingly out of step with public opinion. A growing number of Republicans now argue that US policy prioritizes Israeli interests over American ones.

In a similar vein, the University of Maryland poll found that the rise of social media has significantly accelerated this attitudinal shift on Israel while fueling broader support for a more restrained foreign policy approach.

While 32 percent of Republicans aged 35 and older say Fox News is their primary news source, only 12 percent of younger Republicans rely primarily on the news channel. By contrast, nearly half (46 percent) of Republicans aged 18–34 get their primary news from the internet and social media, where resistance narratives and Palestinian voices are far more accessible, despite efforts to censor them. This is compared to 29 percent of older Republicans. This shift matters. Seventy-two percent of Republicans who rely on Fox News support Israel. Among those whose main source is social media, support drops to 35 percent. Conservative youth are consuming a radically different discourse, one that challenges the old dogmas.

Congressional outliers and rising dissent

The conservative grassroots revolt has found limited but vocal expression among Republican elected officials. Three figures stand out as exceptions to the party’s overwhelming pro-Israel consensus: Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Thomas Massie (R-KY), and former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz.

Greene’s evolution has been the most dramatic. In November 2023, she proudly defended her “history of voting to fund Israel’s Iron Dome and other defense systems.” By July 2025, she was describing Israel’s Gaza war as “genocide.” On 28 July, she wrote on X, “It’s the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct 7th in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza.” Greene’s most pointed critique came days later, when she questioned American priorities with respect to West Asia foreign policy:

“Are innocent Israeli lives more valuable than innocent Palestinian and Christian lives? And why should America continue funding this?”

“The secular government of nuclear-armed Israel has proven that they are beyond capable of dealing with their enemies and are capable of and are in the process of systematically cleansing them from the land.”

Her criticism intensified through August, when she told One America News Network that “Israel is not hurting, and they’ve already proven that they are more than capable of not only defending themselves, but annihilating their enemies to the point of genocide. And that’s what’s happening in Gaza.”

Massie, the Kentucky libertarian, has been consistent in opposing Israel’s wars. In June 2024, he told a House Rules Committee hearing:

“I don’t want to condone what Israel’s doing. I don’t want to condone the way Netanyahu is waging the campaign against Hamas because I think there are too many civilian casualties. One percent of the civilian population of Gaza is no longer breathing air, no longer on this planet, and we’ve just somehow accepted that that level of civilian casualties – whether it’s two civilians for every enemy combatant is okay, which I do not accept.”

On 30 May 2025, Massie posted on X, “Nothing can justify the number of casualties (tens of thousands of women and children) inflicted by Israel in Gaza. We should end all US military aid to Israel immediately.”

Gaetz’s transformation has been more recent but equally sharp. In October 2017, while he served as representative for Florida’s first congressional district, Gaetz delivered a House floor speech declaring his support for “our friend and ally, Israel,” condemning the UN’s “antisemitism” and “attempts to punish and delegitimize Israel.” In 2025, now hosting The Matt Gaetz Show, he asked, “If Israel is a democracy, when do all the Arabs who live there get to vote?” He has raised concerns about “Jewish supremacy” and the state’s treatment of Palestinian Christians.

At the height of the 12-day war in June between Iran and Israel, Gaetz was highly critical of any belligerent action toward Iran and had choice words about Israel’s nuclear program:

“There’s a secret nuclear program in the Middle East – and it’s Israel’s. They won’t allow inspectors, they operate in full secrecy, and everyone in Washington knows it … To drag us into a regime change war over secret nuclear weapons when your ally also has secret nuclear weapons – that’s hypocritical.”

His shift began earlier. In 2020, following the US assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, Gaetz called for restraint. By 2025, his rhetoric had clearly broken with pro-Zionist orthodoxy.

The money firewall

Despite the changing winds, institutional Republican support for Israel remains ironclad, enforced by immense donor pressure. Greene, Massie, and Gaetz represent isolated voices in a caucus that continues to pass pro-Israel legislation by overwhelming margins.

The pro-Israeli lobby group, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), responded furiously to Greene’s genocide comments, telling The Hill, “Anti-Israel extremists – of the right or the left – will not deter us in our participation in the democratic process to stand with Israel. It is an outrageous betrayal of American values and interests to abandon an ally fighting terrorist aggression.”

AIPAC’s influence remains formidable throughout the Republican caucus. As Massie revealed in a 2024 interview with Tucker Carlson, every Republican member of Congress has a dedicated “AIPAC babysitter” – a lobbyist who is “always talking to you” on behalf of the organization, pushing for pro-Israel votes.

The current skepticism toward Israel among young Republicans represents the culmination of long-standing anti-war sentiments within the American Right. From Pat Buchanan’s opposition to the Persian Gulf War to Ron Paul’s consistent non-interventionism, a minority strain of conservative thought has always questioned foreign entanglements.

This “America First” current experienced a notable resurgence during the Trump era, with figures like Carlson warning against involvement in West Asian conflicts. The Gaza war has provided a focal point for these concerns, particularly among younger conservatives who came of age during the post-9/11 Iraq and Afghanistan wars and became disillusioned by the cost and aimlessness of these conflicts.

Despite a marked shift in sentiment among younger conservatives, many of whom are increasingly skeptical of unconditional support for Israel, pro-Israel money continues to dominate Republican politics. In the 2024 election cycle alone, analysis by Track AIPAC found that pro-Israel groups spent over $230 million to re-elect Donald Trump.

The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) raised more than $18 million, a 50 percent increase from 2020, and spent over $15 million to strengthen Trump’s campaign and support other Republican candidates. The Israeli-American super-donor Miriam Adelson‘s (widow of the late US businessman Sheldon Adelson) Preserve America PAC by itself provided more than $215 million to advance Trump’s presidential bid.

In short, while the conservative base moves one way, the money moves another. For now, the latter still calls the shots.

A conservative youth uprising 

The pro-Zionist torrent of funding highlights a harsh reality. Even as the Republican base grows increasingly critical of Israel, the financial influence of pro-Israel donors continues to ensure that party leaders remain firmly aligned with Zionist priorities, often in direct conflict with the wishes of grassroots conservatives. The real test will come as this generation ages into political power. Greene, Massie, and Gaetz may be lone voices today, but they are amplifying a groundswell of dissent that could soon reach critical mass.

[…]

Via https://thecradle.co/articles-id/33409

 

YouTube to pay millions to settle Trump lawsuit

FILE PHOTO: The YouTube logo on one of the company’s offices. © Getty Images / Olly Curtis

RT

Meta and X agreed to similar payments with the president’s lawyers earlier this year

YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by US President Donald Trump over his suspension by the video hosting platform in the aftermath of the Capitol Hill riots on January 6, 2020, court papers show.

YouTube, Facebook and X blocked the president’s accounts in response to his supporters storming the US Capitol Building after his Democratic rival Joe Biden won the election. Trump sued the social media platforms over the ban, with legal experts warning at the time that his chances of winning were slim.

However, earlier this year, Meta, which owns Facebook, and X agreed to settle lawsuits with the president, paying out $25 million and $10 million, respectively.

Alphabet-owned YouTube joined them on Tuesday, with the court documents seen by AP, CNN and other outlets, saying that the company will pay pay $22 million to the nonprofit Trust for the National Mall “to support the construction of the White House State Ballroom” and another $2.5 million to other plaintiffs, including the American Conservative Union NGO.

Trump expressed his satisfaction with the settlement on his Truth Social platform, which he launched in 2022 following his being banned by Silicon Valley, saying: “YouTube SURRENDERS… This MASSIVE victory proves Big Tech censorship has consequences… Trump fought for free speech and WON!”

The president called upon his 10.8 million followers to “repost if ALL banned conservatives should be paid.”

Social media platforms have appeared to be more accommodating to Trump during his second term, with X owner Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, as well as Apple’s Tim Cook and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos among guests at his inauguration in January.

The platforms have also moved to roll back some of their content moderation policies, which had been described as censorship by the Republicans.

[…]

Via https://www.rt.com/news/625651-trump-youtube-us-capitol/

Why Russia was right to be skeptical of the green agenda

©  Dasha Zaitseva/Gazeta.Ru

By Dmitry Samoilov, journalist and literary critic

Eco-activism promised salvation – it delivered higher bills and weaker industry

Half a century ago, Greenpeace was founded with a noble purpose: to slow the destruction of the planet. In the early decades, its imagery was powerful. Inflatable boats faced off against whaling ships; campaigners chained themselves to trawlers and reactors. On television, pressure cookers stood in for nuclear plants, exploding in a warning of disaster to come. For many, it felt like a battle between ordinary citizens and faceless industries.

But with time, the story has shifted. Today, the environmental agenda no longer inspires – it frustrates. People have begun to ask whether decades of activism have made the planet cleaner. The answer, sadly, is not obvious.

From noble cause to costly crusade

Environmentalism rose on the back of catastrophe. The 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill shocked the United States. The fuel crises of the 1970s forced Western societies to consider their dependence on energy. Photographs of Earth from space showed humanity its fragility. Later came Chernobyl, a true apocalypse that made nuclear energy a byword for fear.

Yet those same disasters also clouded judgment. After Fukushima in 2011, Germany – Europe’s industrial heart – abandoned nuclear power entirely. But nuclear remains the safest, cleanest, and cheapest large-scale energy source. Its only byproduct is steam. Accidents are vanishingly rare compared with the energy generated. The decision to shut plants was not driven by science, but by political pressure from activists.

The same story repeated with ‘Dieselgate’. Exposing Volkswagen’s manipulation of emissions data was, in theory, a victory for clean air. But what was the practical result? Tens of billions in fines, reputational damage to German industry, and no measurable improvement in the environment.

The illusion of green energy

The world has embraced wind turbines and solar panels as symbols of ecological virtue. Yet the reality is less flattering. Turbines require cutting down forests, building roads, and installing machines filled with oils and non-biodegradable fluids. Producing one consumes as much energy as it will generate over its lifetime – usually ten years. Disposal afterwards is a nightmare.

Electric cars, the darlings of climate summits, require lithium, cobalt, and nickel – all mined with immense environmental damage, often in the poorest countries. But that side of the equation is politely ignored.

I recall driving through Germany’s Black Forest and seeing villagers protesting against wind farms. They knew the reality: “green” often means destroying the landscape to save someone’s conscience.

Politics dressed as science

This is why many in the West now suspect the green agenda has less to do with nature than with politics. The European Union, in particular, uses climate policy as an instrument of economic control. Environmental virtue becomes a currency, a way of disciplining member states and industries.

Meanwhile, the planet itself looks no cleaner. In the Pacific Ocean, the garbage patch stretches across 1.5 million square kilometers – larger than many countries. Microplastics are in the fish, in the water, even in human organs. Southeast Asia, which contributes most to this crisis, has no appetite for Western lectures. Its people cannot afford biodegradable packaging. The green sermons of Europe fall flat against the hard facts of poverty.

The face of eco-activism has also changed. Once it was men and women braving water cannons on the open sea. Now it is a Swedish teenager refusing to go to school. Whatever her sincerity, she cuts a strange figure beside the raw courage of the 1970s. To many, the new style of activism looks like theater – moral outrage choreographed for television and Twitter, not for actual change.

In Russia, Greenpeace was eventually declared ‘undesirable’. Some in the West sneer at this, but the truth is simpler: the group became less about saving forests and more about advancing foreign political agendas. Russians have not forgotten how Western governments weaponized ‘green’ narratives to weaken competitors, from nuclear bans to carbon taxes.

That does not mean the environment is unimportant. Russia, like everywhere else, faces challenges: pollution, waste, and the scars of industry. But Russians are realists. They know that producing something always means burning or digging something else. They know that keeping homes warm in winter cannot be done by wishful thinking about windmills. And they know that ‘green energy’ is not a miracle, but another industry with its own costs.

Where do we go from here?

So, have activists made the planet cleaner? No. The garbage patch grows, microplastics spread, forests are cut for turbines, and nuclear plants – the cleanest large-scale option – are shut down. What remains is political theater and economic self-harm.

That does not mean we should abandon the environment entirely. On the contrary: perhaps every person must become a modest eco-activist, not by chanting slogans in Brussels or Berlin, but by cleaning up after themselves, recycling when they can, and respecting the land around them. Small acts matter more than green utopias.

The tragedy of the movement is that it promised salvation and delivered bureaucracy. It thundered against injustice, but ended up raising electricity bills and cutting industry down to size. People are right to be fed up. The environmental agenda has become a sermon that demands sacrifice but cannot show results.

In the end, the planet will survive us. The question is whether we can learn to balance progress with care, not by chasing fantasies, but by facing realities. That means rejecting political manipulation dressed up as science – and remembering that common sense, not ideology, is the cleanest fuel of all.

[…]

Via https://www.rt.com/news/625610-why-russia-was-right-green-agenda/

Trump and the Climate Crisis Scam

Dmitry Orlov

The Green New Deal is dead. Trump called it. Appearing before the UN General Assembly and speaking ad libitum (because the teleprompter had failed while he didn’t have a printout of his speech) he called climate change the ”greatest con job ever perpetrated in the world.” He added: “If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.” There immediately followed an “expert reaction” along the lines of “Mr. Trump is endangering the lives and wellbeing of Americans and people around the world by wrongly denying the realities of climate change.” The “experts” in question were, of course, so-called “climate scientists” — people who can’t predict the weather two weeks out but claim to be able to predict it two centuries out, since climate is just a fancy word for weather if you zoom out on it.

Which set of liars should you believe, the swindling, bloviating buffoon who is always trying to bluff his way into a profitable “deal” or the self-serving pseudo-scientists with their fake climate pseudo-models, their grant money assured only as long as they keep predicting climate catastrophe and taxpayer-supported green tech as the only way to avoid it?

As goes a popular Russian saying, “If on an elephant’s cage it says ‘Buffalo’, do not trust your eyes.” Instead, you should believe me; would I lie to you? Of course not! I am not any sort of “climate scientist” (thank God) but I do know quite a bit of science — enough to tell real science from fake science. It took me a long time to realize that global warming science is fake. (I used to be more gullible when I was younger.)

Also, I have now lived long enough to witness the failure of some of the older catastrophist predictions — enough to teach me to disregard the rest of them, since they are all based on the same technique: climate scientists make computer models which they then arrogantly claim represents not just reality, but the future! The gall! Of course, computer models predict whatever their operators want them to predict. They tweak the parameters until the desired answer pops out. Obviously, a model that predicts the onset of the next ice age isn’t helpful for getting government research grants.

Climate change is, of course, real; the Earth’s climate, as a statistical generalization of weather, is always fluctuating — predictably over a few days, unpredictably over longer periods. There are some regularities having to do with the Earth’s orbit and the cyclical behavior of the Sun, but there is plenty of what is to us complete randomness superimposed on these patterns. That is, there are certainly some large-scale features that are somewhat predictable, but on a time scale that makes such predictions irrelevant on the time scale of human history.

In very rough terms, the Earth is currently approaching the end of an interglacial period (the Earth is in the middle of a sequence of ice ages which started approximately 2.6 million years ago during a period known as the Quaternary glaciation). Since then, it has experienced recurring glacial and interglacial periods, with the last ice age ending around 11,700 years ago. Any millennium now the Northern Hemisphere could start growing an ice cap and Antarctica a wide apron of ice… but don’t hold your breath — results may vary. The idea that we — a species of simians running around the planet’s surface — could do anything to affect this course of events is, of course, preposterous.

Nevertheless, among these simians there are found some global warming enthusiasts who keep chattering about something they call the “greenhouse effect”: certain gases within the Earth’s atmosphere, called “greenhouse gases,” trap solar radiation, warming the lower atmosphere and the planet’s surface. The only significant greenhouse gas is water vapor: clouds serve as a nice warm blanket to keep us from freezing on winter nights while high humidity on hot summer days prevents our sweat from evaporating and this can cause heat stroke.

But global warming enthusiasts instead focus on carbon dioxide, a gas that is present in trace amounts (parts per million) insufficient to make a difference. The biggest reservoir of carbon dioxide on the planet is not the atmosphere but the ocean, carbon dioxide being water-soluble, and the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a function of ocean water temperature. The oceans effervesce carbon dioxide as they heat up and readily absorb excess atmospheric carbon dioxide as they cool down, and so maintain a temperature-based balance. Analysis of ancient ice cores has shown that changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations trail temperature changes; thus, they cannot have been causing them.

Carbon dioxide is an asphyxiant to us oxygen-breathing life forms (in concentrations above 4%) but is minimally toxic at lower concentrations such as sitting around a campfire. Much more importantly, it is an essential plant food: plants convert carbon dioxide to sugar and cellulose with the help of violet-blue and orange-red light while green light is reflected. Thus, higher carbon dioxide levels are a positive for forestry, agriculture and life on Earth in general while current carbon dioxide levels are too low for optimal plant growth.

The idea that burning fossil fuels will increase long-term atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, in turn increasing global temperatures and causing catastrophic, cataclysmic global warming is… what’s that? Oh yes, that would be “pseudo-scientific catastrophist bullshit”. The extra carbon dioxide will make plants (and farmers) happy for a while, but then the oceans will absorb the excess. End of story.

The reason that this bit of pseudo-scientific bullshit has been foisted on us is money: officials and corporations in Western countries thought that they could use the global warming ruse for purposes of extortion. They would put the whole world on a carbon dioxide diet, forcing less developed countries, which have no choice but to burn carbon dioxide-spewing fossil fuels, to pay them carbon dioxide taxes while Western green elves would avoid burning fossil fuels by employing very expensive green technology (solar panels and wind generators) which poorer nations would be unable to afford. Such was the plan, but then it turned out that:

1. Solar panels and wind generators are unable to replace fossil fuel-based energy sources because of the problem of intermittency: the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow. Whenever the energy contribution of wind and solar approaches 30%, electric grids exhibit a marked tendency to collapse. This problem could be mitigated by storing electricity; alas, no practical solutions exist for doing so at the scale that’s required (hundreds of gigawatt-hours). The only solution for compensating for intermittency of wind and solar is… burning fossil fuels —natural gas, specifically, since neither coal plants nor nuclear plants can be ramped up and down fast enough to keep up with passing clouds and wind gusts.

2. Solar panels and wind generators are mostly made in China. They don’t last long (a decade or so) and when they fail they become toxic waste. The wreckage from large wind generators is particularly difficult to dispose of. No better solution has been found for their huge fiberglass blades, each as large as the wing of a passenger jet, than to bury them. The situation is no better with solar panels. Hailstorms result in large fields covered with toxic glass shards. The wind generators and the solar panels are only renewable as sources of energy for as long as China is willing to continue making and selling them. Their manufacture involves rare earth elements for which China has a near-monopoly and which are most definitely nonrenewable.

3. The headlong pursuit of “green energy” by the European Union, coupled with its refusal to continue buying pipelined natural gas from Russia and the refusal to continue the nuclear energy program in Germany, has resulted in very high energy prices which, in turn, made European industry noncompetitive. France is continuing with its nuclear program, getting 70% of its electricity from nuclear power plants, but it has lost access to uranium from Niger, its nuclear power plants are getting old and suffering from cracked welds in the piping, and its plans for building new power plants would require unaffordable levels of public spending and haven’t been able to pass France’s own nuclear regulatory agency’s approval process.

4. What made this headlong pursuit of “green energy” possible was, of course, government subsidies. Instead of funneling tax receipts toward public infrastructure, education, health care or other social needs, the money has been spent on useless solar panels and wind generators… until it became clear that the payback on such questionable investments is nonexistent. This made it necessary to redirect this spending toward something else useless, such as the procurement of weapons systems.

5. As a result of this energy crisis, industry after industry — chemicals, fertilizers, cars and machinery, glass and ceramics and just about everything else — is being forced to scale back and to shut down. That way lies mass unemployment and social unrest, rapid deindustrialization and national bankruptcy. Coupled with increased military spending, this makes for a smooth transition to war. More specifically, the transition is to defeat in a war, since a failing industrial economy cannot serve as the basis for victory.

Getting back to Trump’s speech at the UN, it would be a mistake to take his words too seriously. The teleprompter didn’t work, he didn’t have his speech on paper and was just saying whatever came to mind. And what comes to his mind, generally, is whatever he thinks will get him some notoriety and keep the limelight on him for a little longer. By now we should have all realized that he is not a results-oriented person; if he were, then Greenland would be a US possession, Canada would be the 51st state, Panama Canal would be under US control, the Houthis in Yemen would no longer be lobbing hypersonic missiles at Israel, Iran would no longer have a nuclear program, the war in the former Ukraine would have ended a day (or a week, or a month) after his inauguration… Clearly, Trump is going for amusement value, not actual real-world results. A key piece of his strategy is to avoid taking responsibility for his words by reversing his statements almost immediately; thus, at the UN he said that Russia is “a paper tiger” and then hours later he said that it is not.

And so, when Trump said: “If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail,” he was, of course, lying. If “your country” is part of the EU, then there is no getting away from “this green scam”: the money has already been misspent and the energy infrastructure has already been compromised. Russia has already given up on the European energy market and has reoriented its energy exports to the east. For the EU, rapid deindustrialization is now inevitable. Trump’s statement can thus be shortened to “Your country is going to fail.”

[…]

Via https://boosty.to/cluborlov/posts/f3b8d781-f5f3-4ef6-907e-13ed9947e985?from=email_new_post

How Israel tests military technology on Palestinians

The Palestine Laboratory – EP 1

Al Jazeera (2025)

Film Review

This documentary is based on Antony Lowenstein’s book Palestinian Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World (2023). He narrates the film.

Israel is a world leader in the production of drones, missiles, tanks and surveillance technology. Despite their tiny population, they’re the world’s 9th largest weapon maker.

Every year they sell $13 billion worth of surveillance technology every year. They use extensive surveillance technology to monitor the movement of Palestinians, reducing the need for checkpoints and fractious interactions with the IDF.

Hebron in the West Bank is the main testing ground for so-called frictionless technology. There the IDF installs rooftop cameras (with iris scan capability) on nearly every building. All are linked to predictive policing AI to look for “threatening behavior,” ie participating in human right activities. Microsoft’s Wolfpack AI collects data, with Red Wolf AI linking the data to a central room database tracking all Palestinians and Blue Wolf transmits the data to IDF phones.

Israel has also installed remotely controlled AI enabled check points with the ability to fire bullets, tear gas and stun grenades.

A private company supported by the IDF markets this surveillance technology to prion and refugee camps around the world, in the hope of normalizing “predictive policing.”*

In addition to fixed surveillance cameras, Israel also uses surveillance drones and taps phones and social media accounts of all Palestinians, Israel provides all their phone an Internet services. The Israeli government also markets their surveillance and predator drones worldwide, as well as their AI drones capable of gunfire. Like Wolfpack AI, all were pretested in Gaza and/or Ukraine.

Israel also has the ability to infect phones remotely anywhere in the world with Pegasus spy software. Over fifty thousand phones worldwide have been infected with it.

Between 1965 and 2007, the IDF occupied Gaza as well as the Wet Bank. In 2007, the Israeli military officially withdrew from Gaza but retained control of Gazan Paletinians population by restricting food, water, energy and medical supplies allowed to enter the strip and introducing a comprehensive surveillance regime.

Like Lowenstein, commentators acquainted with Israel’s vast surveillance capability are baffled by the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack that obviously took years to plan.

Google and Amazon built the cloud services Israel employs to store data on the Palestinian population. When Lowenstein questioned Google about their participation in Israeli genocide, they bragged it would put them “first in line” for contracts with bigger countries.