What ethnic cleansing looks like in real time

From Britain’s Channel 4: (1)

 Jeremy Scahill: “Everyone involved knows that the only person capable of ending this genocidal war is Donald Trump.” (2)

It's grim to think that ending a genocide depends on the Trump 2.0 kakistocracy (rule by the worst).

The Israeli historian also characterizes Benjamin Netanyahu’s increasingly authoritarian regime as a kakistocracy:

The kakistocratic character of Israel in 2023 has its roots in the long history of the shift to the right and the [Zionist-religious] fundamentalization of society, so it can only be "turned back" if the pressure of the [left and center anti-Netanyahu] protesters and the insight into the danger of this policy become stronger. This task is made more difficult by the fact that the systems of rule of the Palestinian neighbors have long been corrupt, kakistocratic or simply criminal in nature (as in the case of Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas). The kakistocratic tendency dominates the entire region, and is now spreading in political systems worldwide. Ex oriente Lux or the God-imposed task of being the "light of the nations" (Isaiah 49:6) thus takes on a new, currrent meaning. All this leaves little hope for an early end to the Middle East conflict. (3)

Notes:

(1) Gaza: Desperate starvation leads to violence amid Israeli strikes. Channel 4 News YouTube channel 05/29/2025. <https://youtu.be/kp2bgJF6m2o?si=haSTo7TmSRnWSlZ4> (Accessed: 2025-30-05).

(2) Jeremy Scahill: Shadowy Israeli-U.S. Aid Plan Is Weapon in "Netanyahu's War of Annihilation" in Gaza. Democracy Now! YouTube channel 05/29/2025. <https://youtu.be/QuovUxF8OJk?si=qKBCIhlmk37QnFdE> (Accessed: 2025-30-05).

(3) Zimmermann, Moshe (2025): Niemals Frieden? Israel am Scheideweg, 146-147. Berlin: Ullstein. My translation to English.

A 2016 guide to Israeli "hasbara" on the Palestinian conflict

The Media Education Foundation made a 2016 video called “The Occupation of the American Mind” focusing on the themes and technuques of Israeli hasbara (propaganda) directed at an American audience.

It remains a very helpful framing for understanding the kind of “public diplomacy” efforts that Israel is still making, more intensely than ever after the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas.

Viewers who have been following the news since that attack will find much of the rhetoric of the Israeli talking points drearily familiar. Surprisingly so, given how dramatically bad the situation has been since the October 7 attack.

Notes:

(1) The Occupation of the American Mind (45-minute version). The Occupation of the American Mind YouTube channel 05/30/2018. https://youtu.be/WmoYoiMgpWU?si=ToKpyvZCnch2j4ad (Accessed: 2025-30-05).

“The future of the Middle East – and indeed international relations as a whole – seems bleak.”

Dramatic cover for the current English edition of Le Monde Diplomatique. (1)

All but these first two paragraphs are currently behind subscription:

The period since 7 October 2023 marks the worst chapter yet in the Palestinian people’s long ordeal. Worse even than the Nakba – ‘catastrophe’ in Arabic – of 1948, referring to events which have subsequently been called ‘ethnic cleansing’. The current catastrophe is characterised, among other things, by genocide. Thus, a stronger Arabic term is necessary to describe the misery being visited upon Palestine: karitha. Israel is slaughtering a part of the Gazan population without giving up ethnic cleansing, both in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. ‘Gaza will be totally destroyed,’ Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich announced at a conference on 6 May this year in the West Bank settlement of Ofra. Civilians will be ‘concentrated’ in the south, from where they ‘will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places’.

Donald Trump sensed an opportunity in the threat. He may seek to win his Arab allies over to an updated version of the ‘deal of the century’, which they roundly rejected in 2020. The plan proposed a rump ‘state of Palestine’ and, compared with the prospect of ethnic cleansing, now looks like the lesser of two evils. Saudi Arabia would join the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco – and before them Egypt and Jordan – in normalising relations with Israel. Trump and Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu would be handed a victory they could boast about, but fundamentally very little would be resolved. The future of the Middle East – and indeed international relations as a whole – seems bleak. [my emphasis]

That is a reminder that, however phony Trump 2.0’s public diplomacy on this may be, we still have to hope that somehow this ghastly war in Gaza will be stopped in a way that allows most of the Palestinians who will otherwise be killed in the horror over the next few months to survive.

But with all the diplomatic and political fog out there, it’s important to remember that the only practical and effective way to stop the Netanyahu’s government current war on Gaza civilians is to cut off US arms supplies and other military aid to Israel until it stops the war and commits itself in a real way to a substantive process of ending the occupation.

Today’s international order has been integral to the global projection of Western engagement and power for decades. Military interventions, such as in Iraq in 2003, or more recently defending Ukraine against Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, were driven by realpolitik calculations but legitimized through a defence of human rights, democracy and international law.

After the attacks on 11 September 2001, at the peak of US unipolarity, President George W Bush infamously said ‘either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.’ The world was thus divided into ‘good’ and ‘evil’ revealing the ideological edifice through which US military and economic prowess and expansion were justified. [my emphasis] (2)

In looking at foreign policy, I find it often to be an effort to remember that just because an idea or structure or political arrangement is made because of some hardheaded geopolitical consideration doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea in itself. A structure of international law, or a “rules-based international order” is an important concept, goal, and practice. But, as Über-Realist John Mearsheimer would presumably say here, the current world system is in fact anarchic, i.e., there is no central deciding world structure that can impose a particular kind of order comparable to that of a nation-state. The UN is a step in the right direction but not a real world government.

This is a report from the British Channel 4 on the present state of things: (3)

Notes:

(1) Achcar, Gilbert (2025): History’s crossroads: Gaza or the failure of the West. Le Monde Diplomatique English June 2025. <https://mondediplo.com/2025/06/02gaza> (Accessed : 2025-28-05).

(2) Mansour, Renad (2025): Will the war in Gaza become a breaking point for the rules-based international order? Chatham House 01/26/2024. <https://www.chathamhouse.org/2024/01/will-war-gaza-become-breaking-point-rules-based-international-order> (Accessed : 2025-28-05).

(3) Is Trump turning on Netanyahu - what it means for Gaza war. Channel 4 News YouTube channel 05/28/2025. <https://youtu.be/beO-K4Ouu-0?si=YM-hy_ZzuKwed-V3> (Accessed : 2025-28-05).

The politics of history and Germany’s “Staatsräson” in supporting Israel

German journalist Hanno Hauenstein recently wrote about the ongoing complications of Germany’s public rituals around rejecting the crimes of the past, the Nazi era in particular, while also refraining from publicly condemning Israel’s current war on Gaza civilians:

The German foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, laid a wreath at [the Jerusalem Holocaust memorial] Yad Vashem this month and invoked the legacy of the German Holocaust survivor Margot Friedländer. A few hours later, Wadephul stood at a press conference in Jerusalem and expressed “understanding” of Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Friedländer, who had died days earlier aged 103, spent her final years warning against dehumanisation. The contrast could hardly have been starker.

It’s easy to condemn the past when it costs nothing. Speaking out about enduring injustice or the atrocities of your allies takes more courage.

Germany’s current approach to remembrance culture is selective and contradictory. The government relies on “historical responsibility” to refrain from challenging the Israeli government for its abuses in Gaza. Yet at home, the political and media class seems in denial about cultural patronage enabled by fortunes made possible by Nazi-era crimes. [my emphasis] (1)

This is a reminder that the past has to be constantly reinterpreted based on present perspectives. In the best case, those reinterpretations would be reality-based and aimed at drawing constructive lessons.

It’s legitimate for people to look for a “usable past,” i.e., past occurrences that help us understand the problems of the present. That could also be considered a part of researching legal precedents, since that requires making a judgment about how much a present situation can be meaningfully compared to past experiences. It would also be difficult to understand the founding of the United States without the Declaration of Independence. Or the founding of the State of Israel without reference to the Balfour Declaration of 1917 or the British Mandate paper of 1922.

As Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen puts it, “While we often think that being modern means aspiring to leave the past behind with every tick of the clock, reflecting on history is an integral aspect of modernity.” (2)

For perfectly understandable reasons, the Federal Republic of Germany – often referred to as West Germany during the Cold War – has tried to use its relationship with Israel as an ongoing sign that it has understood and accepted its particular responsibility of the Holocaust. Angela Merkel famously went so far in 2008 as to declare, ”This historical responsibility of Germany is part of the Staatsräson [reason of state] of our country. That means, the security of Israel for me as German Chancellor is not up for negotiation.” (3)

Israel’s then-Ambassador to Israel, Rudolf Dressler, had declared in 2005, "The secure existence of Israel lies within the national interest of Germany, [and] is thereby part of our Staatsräson." (4)

In both cases, that was a way of saying that the security of Israel was as critical to Germany as its own national security. Despite being a dramatic way of stating support for Israel’s national existence, it was also a misleading bit of hyperbole. “Reason of state” is a concept that has to do with a particular state, an understanding by that state of what is necessary to its own security and survival, of an individual state. It has to do with that state’s understanding of what is vital for its own preservation.

It’s one thing to say that it’s in a country’s national interest to be an ally of another country, or to support it military or economically. It’s another to say that the German state’s existence actually depends on the existence of the state of Israel, especially if that is interpreted to mean that Germany gives verbal or material support to war crimes or worse by Israel.

Now that Trump 2.0 and the Russia-Ukraine War have initiated a major shift toward Germany (along with the rest of the EU countries) becoming a much more defense-ready military power that also recognizes the need for Europe generally to build up its self-defense capabilities to function far more independently of Washington, Germany will also be less susceptible to pressure from Washington to back Israel unconditionally in actions like the current war against Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

We are apparently seeing some of that already from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz: (5)

Tom Khaled Würdemann last year framed the context of the discussion this way:

Israel is a state. This means that the "critique of criticism of Israel" lies in a sensitive area: as impersonal entities of violence and the exercise of power, states or their governments deserve to be subject to comprehensive criticism like hardly any other aspect of human society. This applies to Israel and its government as well as to other states and their governments. Alleged war crimes in the Gaza war, illegal settlements in the West Bank, and systematic discrimination against non-Jewish groups such as Palestinian citizens in East Jerusalem, must be clearly identified as such – as often happens.

At the same time, it is clear that antisemitism is flourishing in the shadow of "criticism of Israel". The Jewish state attracts a much higher level of criticism than other states. [Note: More than the US, or Russia, or China?] This criticism regularly ignores the Jewish people's right to security and self-determination and, worst of all, the potential of antisemitism to unite people in a lust for murder.

Therefore, the discussion about antisemitism in relation to Israel must be controversial. [my emphasis in bold] (6)

It’s worth noting here that the protests in the United States against the current genocide Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is carrying out in Gaza, were often led by Jewish protesters. That not only relates to the famous Jewish social justice tradition. But also to the fact that American Jews are more likely to be familiar with the politics and history of Israel than the average Americans. The Christian Zionists are also aware of politics in Israel but are more likely to see it through the very distorted lens of apocalyptic prophecy interpretations that themselves have a strong antisemitic tone. (It’s not only European far-right parties who can be antisemitic and “pro-Israel” at the same time.)

And the sad reality is the state institutions of Israel are letting the war against Palestinians undercut the rule of law in Israel itself. Rule-of-law is an essential part of democracy, and vice versa. And Netanyahu has been pushing hard to undercut democracy, including the rule of law.

In a petition to the High Court of Justice, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel requested that the International Red Cross [IRC] be permitted to visit the country's security prisons. The panel consisted of Supreme Court President Isaac Amit, the deputy president, Justice Noam Sohlberg, and Justice Daphne Barak-Erez. But in practice, no petition was deliberated. Time after time, the state requested an extension to the deadline for submitting its response, and time after time the justices consented.

"There is no no no petition without without without a response," attorneys Oded Feller and Roni Pelli wrote in their reply, borrowing from a famous Israeli children's song. "So where where where where where where where where where where where where where is the response?"

That might have been amusing were it not that this was a petition "that addresses the heart of human rights," as the attorneys noted. The humorous protest made no difference. The state continued to submit requests for additional extensions, and another seven were granted (making a total of 18). In the meantime, testimony about the starvation of prisoners and violence against them continue to mount, but the petition is still pending – and no IRC representative has visited an Israeli prison. [my emphasis] (7)

A key element of Netanyahu’s push to establish a fully authoritarian government has been to try to wipe out the Israeli court system's independence. He’s gone a long way toward accomplishing that.

Notes:

(1) Hauenstein, Hanno (2025): Germany trumpets its reckoning with its Nazi past – except when it’s inconvenient. Guardian 05/24/2025. <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/24/germany-nazi-past-gaza-media-prize-state> (Accessed: 2025-24-05).

(2) Pelkonen, Eeva-Liisa (2025): Reviving the Idea of a “Usable Past”. Yale University Press 07/25/2023. <https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2023/07/25/reviving-the-idea-of-a-usable-past/> (Accessed: 2025-24-05).

(3) My translation to English.

(4) Kaim, Markus (01/30/2015): Israels Sicherheit als deutsche Staatsräson. Was bedeutet das konkret? Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte [APuZ] 01/30/2015. <https://www.bpb.de/shop/zeitschriften/apuz/199894/israels-sicherheit-als-deutsche-staatsraeson/> (Accessed: 2025-24-05).

(5) German Chancellor: Israel's Gaza offensive 'no longer justifiable' under pretense of fighting Hamas. DW News YouTube channel 05/26/2025. <https://youtu.be/lcMMqK0-tfM?si=EGLJSzZWJvp7HP4V> (Accessed: 2025-24-05).

(6) Würdemann, Tom Khaled (2024): Israel und der Antisemitismus: Antisemitismusdefinitionen im Kontext des Nahostkonflikts. APuZ 06/14/2024. <https://www.bpb.de/shop/zeitschriften/apuz/antisemitismus-2024/549358/israel-und-der-antisemitismus/> (Accessed: 2025-24-05). My translation to English.

(7) Hasson, Nir & Maanit, Chen (2025): A Lost Battle for Human Rights: Throughout the War Israel's High Court Has Denied All Requests to Protect Gazans. Haaretz 05/23/2025. <https://www.haaretz.com/magazine/2025-05-23/ty-article-magazine/.premium/throughout-the-war-israels-high-court-denied-requests-to-protect-gazans-human-rights/00000196-f8ac-d7c4-a9b6-fcae72440000> (Accessed: 2025-25-05).

“Peace President“ Trump and the new phase of the Gaza horror

Some of the people hoping for a more restrained and less war-oriented foreign policy continue to look for signs that Trump is actually doing that. There’s nothing wrong with optimism. And there’s always the thought, “Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.” Or, in former Texas Gov. Rick Perry famously put it, “Even a stopped clock is right once a day.”

When it comes to Israel’s latest escalation in direct war against Palestinian civilians in Gaza, he has the Trump 2.0 Administration’s full backing. Trump is trying to juggle the PR face of genocide. But he is supporting it.

Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill has a report at Drop Site on the plan as it’s currently being implemented. (1) He speaks about it at length in this interview: (2)

As Scahill explains in his article:

Benjamin Netanyahu has made it clear: His decision to allow a minuscule amount of aid to enter Gaza is a tactical one aimed at quieting international condemnation of Israel’s forced starvation of Gaza and to clear the path of a final solution imposed on the Palestinians of Gaza.

"We're going to take control of all the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu vowed Monday in a video released by his office announcing that Israel would begin delivering “minimal humanitarian aid: food and medicine only.” Netanyahu claimed that international pressure, including from pro-Israel Republican senators and the White House, required the appearance of humanitarian intervention. "Our best friends in the world—senators I know as strong supporters of Israel—have warned that they cannot support us if images of mass starvation emerge," he said. “They come to me and say, ‘We’ll give you all the help you need to win the war… but we can’t be receiving pictures of famine,’” Netanyahu added. To continue the war of annihilation, he asserted, “We need to do it in a way that they won't stop us.” [my emphasis]

Peace President Trump actually can stop Netanyahu’s war on Gaza Palestinians by cutting off US military aid. But that’s not the plan he’s currently implementing. Scahill:

Netanyahu’s coalitional ally Bezalel Smotrich—an extreme right-wing government minister and longtime advocate of starving, mass killing, and depopulating Gaza—endorsed Netanyahu’s move. Smotrich said the aid scheme would allow “our friends in the world to continue to provide us with an international umbrella of protection against the Security Council and the Hague Tribunal, and for us to continue to fight, God willing, until victory.” …

“Truth be told, until the last of the hostages returns, we should also not let water into the Gaza Strip. But the reality is that if we do that, the world will force us to halt the war immediately, and to lose. It would be winning the battle, and losing the war. I'm committed to winning the war,” Smotrich declared. “We are disassembling Gaza, and leaving it as piles of rubble, with total destruction [which has] no precedent globally. And the world isn't stopping us. There are pressures. There are those who attack [us]; they are trying to [make us] stop; they are not succeeding. You know why they aren't succeeding? Because we are navigating [the campaign] responsibly and wisely, and that's how we'll continue to do [it]."

Smotrich said that the Israeli forces are initiating a campaign to force Palestinians into the south of Gaza “and from there, God willing, to third countries, as part of President Trump's plan. This is a change of the course of history—nothing less.” [my emphasis]

Scahill also did another long interview with his Drop Site colleague Ryan Grim. (3)

Trumpista “restrainers”?

Alex Kane describes the (basically fake) “restrainer” rhetoric that Trump 2.0 has been projecting in the Peace President mode:

Experts say that Trump’s distance from Netanyahu has been visible since before the Middle East tour—in particular since March, when Israel ended the ceasefire with Hamas that Trump and his envoy Steve Witkoff had helped broker. According to Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine/Israel Program at the Arab Center Washington, DC, Israel’s renewed bombardment of Gaza dashed Trump’s hopes of using the ceasefire to build on the Abraham Accords—the normalization deals between Israel and Arab states that he facilitated during his first term—and especially his aspiration to bring Saudi Arabia into the agreements. “It became clear the Israelis were not going to help Trump advance the objectives that he wanted within the region, and that Netanyahu was putting his own domestic political interests ahead of his relationship with Trump,” said Munayyer. [my emphasis] (4)

Kane gives this description of the “restrainer” element in the Trumpista movement (paragraph breaks added):

More broadly, observers say, the Trump administration’s assertive position with Israel is part of a new “America First” brand of foreign policy that focuses on making deals with one-time enemies to reduce tensions and advance US economic interests in the Middle East, all while focusing attention on other rivals such as China, which Trump and his allies believe more acutely threaten American hegemony.

Multiple conservative commentators told Jewish Currents that the administration’s embrace of this position is responsive to a newly robust conservative “restraint” movement, which sees the War on Terror era of US intervention in the Middle East as an utter failure and instead demands a massive pullback of military assets from the Middle East. “There are dozens of people I would identify as restrainers in this administration,” said Justin Logan, the director of defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

At times, Trump himself has adopted the language of restraint: In his Saudi Arabia speech, he inveighed against “neocons” and accused Middle East “interventionalists” of “intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves.“ Curt Mills, the executive director of the anti-interventionist conservative magazine The American Conservative, said that the newfound strength of the “restraint” strain has meant that the Israeli government—and in particular Netanyahu—has become more vulnerable to previously muted criticism from the right. “There’s always been this looming question within populist conservative foreign policy: Is it America First, with the exception of Israel?” he said. “This month would seem to indicate the answer to that is no.” [my emphasis]

Yes, Trump did use “restrainer” rhetoric in Saudi Arabia. But he’s continuing to provide the military aid necessary for Israel to continue the Gaza genocide. And the results so far are clear, as Dahlia Scheindlin explains in a column that also gives some first-hand insight into what Israeli protests there are against the war:

Estimates of direct deaths in Gaza from the Israel-Hamas war range from 52,000 to 64,000, and indirect deaths could be in the hundreds of thousands by now. In March, UNICEF reported that approximately 15,000 of the dead were children; on Thursday, Gaza's Health Ministry put that number at 16,500 children.

Cities, towns and camps have been eradicated; infrastructure, schools, hospitals, cultural and educational centers decimated. Bodies are rotting under crushed concrete, dogs are eating the bodies, children die of malnutrition. The living lack water, food, medicine, sewage, homes – not to mention safety from Israeli bombs, aimed even at their wretched tents. (5)

And so far, Peace President Trump has continued the military and economic aid and diplomatic aid that make all this possible. Except in the occasional rhetorical posture, that alleged Trumpista “restrainer” faction doesn’t seem to have much clout when it comes to actual policy.

The (mercenary-backed) Gaza Humanitarian Fund

In another ghastly development in the Peace President’s policy, the UN agency that has provided humanitarian support for Palestinian refugees since the Nakba of 1948 is no longer allowed by Israel and its Trumpista backers to do so. Responsibility for the trickle of aid that Natanyahu’s government is now allowing into Gaza belong to a new agency called the Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF). This headline to a column for Haaretz by Ben Samuels gives a glimpse of the vibe around this project: (6)

The minimal aid that the “humanitarian” fund will be providing will be reinforced by mercenaries. As Samuels comments:

Amid all the scrutiny and skepticism surrounding the Trump administration's plan to address Gaza's humanitarian crisis, one element has seemed particularly perplexing: the use of private military contractors to secure the planned aid.

Two little-known firms, the Safe Reach Solutions (SRS) logistics company and the UG Solutions private security company, will publicly assist the newly established Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and deliver aid amid increasing global outrage surrounding Israel's failures to alleviate the crisis.

Blackwater mercs in Iraq caused major problems for the US-controlled interim Coalition Provisional Authority back during the Cheney-Bush Administration’s disastrous intervention there.

The use of mercenaries and soldiers of fortune dates back thousands of years, though their presence in conflict zones became particularly concerning over the past several decades amid the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We know from countless examples that contractors do not see themselves as bound by the same already-way-too-loose rules of engagement that the militaries operate under," Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy think tank, told Haaretz.

As Samuels reports, the SRS mercenary group’s CEP, Phil Reilly, served a senior manager for “special activities” for a company called Cosntellis, which was:

... a private military contractor formed after Academi merged with fellow private security company Triple Canopy. Academi was the rebranded Blackwater, which is perhaps the most notorious example of a private security company wantonly using force in a war zone – as it became a household name after a massacre committed by its employees in Iraq in 2007. [my emphasis]

And he includes a further statement from Matt Duss:

Humanitarian organizations already have the capacity to massively surge aid into Gaza if the Israeli government would stop blocking aid into Gaza. The scheme for delivering aid is simply a way to facilitate the policy of denying aid to some people, and using aid to corral Palestinians into a smaller piece of land.

I’m going to make an easy prediction here. This will not work out well. Not for the United States, and certainly not for Palestinian civilians in Gaza. I’m providing a link to the full Samuels column that does a good job of explaining what a dark plan this is.

Also worth noting: An article in Ynet News, the English outlet of the popular Israeli newspaper Jedi’ot Acharonot, looking at one of Netanyahu’s propaganda claims about the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack.

Notes:

(1) Scahill, Jeremy (2025): Netanyahu: Gaza Aid Scheme Offers Israel Symbolic Cover to Finish the Genocide. Drop Site 05/19/2025. <https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/netanyahu-trump-gaza-aid-genocide-smotrich-ceasefire-hamas> (Accessed: 2025-23-05).

(2) Israel’s Gaza Trap: Starve, Lure, Kill—Jeremy Scahill Exposes “Final Phase” of Genocide. Empire Files YouTube channel 05/22/2025. <https://youtu.be/NDtwwSdur5I?si=pQLb16KhTPr8ckb> (Accessed: 2025-23-05).

(3) Israel Is Attempting to Execute a Final Solution in Gaza. Drop Site. Drop Site 05/20/2025. <https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/israel-united-states-hamas-genocide-gaza-drop-site-live> (Accessed: 2025-23-05).

(4) Kane, Alex (2025): Unpacking the Rift Between Trump and Netanyahu. Jewish Currents 05/21/2025. <https://jewishcurrents.org/unpacking-the-rift-between-trump-and-netanyahu> (Accessed: 2025-23-05).

(5) What Will It Take for Israelis to Acknowledge the Suffering in Gaza? Haaretz 05/22/2025. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-05-22/ty-article/.premium/what-will-it-take-for-israelis-to-acknowledge-the-suffering-in-gaza/00000196-f89c-db1f-a7b6-fabc6e6c0000?gift=ef08b241d88348249a7e51325e108d09> (Accessed: 2025-23-05).

(6) Samuels, Ben (2025): 'They Don't Look Like Humanitarians': Who Are the Opaque U.S. Military Contractors Hired to Guard the New Gaza Aid Project? Haaretz 05/22/25025. <https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2025-05-22/ty-article-magazine/.premium/they-dont-look-like-humanitarians-the-opaque-u-s-companies-hired-to-secure-gaza-aid/00000196-f83e-d7c4-a9b6-fc3e755a0000?gift=fbcb67a1f775493eb2e4bfb24c57b165> (Accessed: 2025-23-05).

(7) Eyal, Nadav (2ß25): Mr. prime minister, the massacre was not carried out by a mob in flip-flops. Ynet News 05/22/2025. <https://www.ynetnews.com/article/ryz1rh2zgx> (Accessed: 2025-23-05).

The murder of two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington

There was a double-murder Wednesday evening of two members of the Israeli Embassy staff in Washington, both apparently junior ones. (1) They were shot outside the Jewish Museum in Washington, where they were attending an non-Embassy related event featuring a panel discussion on providing food aid to Gaza.

A 30-year-old suspect named Elias Rodriguez has been arrested. Reuters talked to a witness who spoke to the suspect. She said that the man came into the museum looking and sounding confused. At he pulled a Jordanian kaffiyeh (which has a different pattern than the Palestinian kaffiyeh) out of his bag, she relates that he said, “I did it. I did it for Gaza, free, free Palestine'.” She also took a video of him saying, “Free, free Palestine” as he was being arrested.

Presumably the police will analyze and trace the weapon used. But with the flood of small arms available in the US, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that it’s relatively easy for almost anybody to get a gun.

The BBC reports:

The couple were shot dead as they were leaving an event at the museum shortly after 21:00 local time (01:00 GMT) last night. Diplomatic sources tell Reuters and AFP news agencies that Lischinksy was also a German national.

The suspect has been detained and was identified by police as 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago. Police say he shouted "free Palestine" after being taken into custody. Officers will "look into ties to potential terrorism".

Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith says the suspect was seen pacing up and down outside the museum before opening fire with a handgun on a group of four people. (2)

At this writing, I haven’t seen any more details published about Rodriguez, his political affiliations, or his personal background.

Netanyahu’s government instantly makes the murder about antisemitism and his own war policies, talks about “blood libels against Israel”

The murders occurred at an event about food aid to Palestinians at the Jewish Museum organized by the American Jewish Committee (AJC). There is no indication so far that the suspect knew either of them personally or was targeting them individually . The two victims were standing talking with two other people, so it’s plausible that he chose his targets essentially at random.

Those circumstances suggest that he was acting from antisemitic motives because it sounds like he essentially picked two random people at an event he assumed to be primarily attended by Jews. So that’s entirely possible.

But Netanyahu and his partisans immediately declared it to be all about antisemitism and made a point to suggest that that label also applies to anyone, including European nations, who criticize his government’s mass killing of civilians in Gaza.

This early response from Netanyahu himself is telling: “Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "We are witness to the terrible cost of the antisemitism and wild incitement against the State of Israel. Blood libels against Israel have a cost in blood and must be fought to the utmost’." (3)

Israel has long used “antisemitic” to stigmatize criticism of Israel’s policies. It’s notable that he used the phrase “blood libels against Israel.” The Holocaust Museum’s website defines “blood libel” as follows:

The term blood libel refers to the false allegation that Jews used the blood of non-Jewish, usually Christian children, for ritual purposes. The Nazis made effective use of the blood libel to demonize Jews, with Julius [Streicher's} newspaper Der Stürmer making frequent use of ritual murder imagery in its antisemitic propaganda. (4)

Netanyahu’s term “blood libels against Israel” means something different. it’s essentially conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Which is now a routine practice for the Israeli government.

The Holocaust Museum’s description of the term gives additional history, including its use in inciting what is known as the Kielce pogrom of 1946. But there is no mention of Israel in their definition. Maybe there is somebody somewhere who has made the accusation against all of Israel. But Netanyahu is simply equating any criticism of his exceptionally bloody policies in Gaza with the classic antisemitic trope.

Trump officially said on his Truth Social toy, "These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW! Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA. Condolences to the families of the victims. So sad that such things as this can happen! God Bless You ALL!"

The sentences are obviously fairly coherent, only two words (besides USA) are capitalized, and nothing is put in quotation marks. So he probably didn’t write it himself. But it’s posted there as his official statement as of this writing.

“[Maryland’s Democratic] Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who recently accused the U.S. of being complicit in Israel's mass starvation of Palestinians, said, ‘this is a horrific act of violence and antisemitism, and the perpetrator must be brought to justice’." (5)

Other Israeli leaders took the opportunity to try to stigmatize pretty much any non-negative reference to Palestine or Palestinians as antisemtic incitement to violence:

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said, "In the past, Islamist terrorists carried out attacks shouting 'Allahu Akbar' – today, they shout 'Free Palestine.' This is not an innocent slogan but a direct continuation of incitement and brainwashing spreading through Western countries."

Israel's opposition leader Yair Lapid said the attack was "a direct result of the incitement we've seen at protests across the world. This is what they always meant by 'Globalize the Intifada.'"

Israeli MK Gilad Kariv, chair of the Knesset committee responsible for Israel's relations with Diaspora Jewry, said the attack was "a reminder that terror doesn't distinguish between Israeli citizens and world Jews."

The conflation of criticism of Israel or even the ideology of Zionism with antisemtism has been widely discussed both before and after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack against Israel . In May 2024 and again on August 2024, I discussed that dispute and its connection with an International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) guideline on recognizing antisemtism.

Human Rights Watch expressed its concerns about conflation of antisemiticm with criticism of Israel or Zionism in 2023:

The IHRA definition was originally developed to guide research and law enforcement data validation before being used by the IHRA in its work, which includes education about the Holocaust and antisemitism. Adoption of the definition by governments and institutions is often framed as an essential step in efforts to combat antisemitism. In practice, however, the IHRA definition has often been used to wrongly label criticism of Israel as antisemitic, and thus chill and sometimes suppress, non-violent protest, activism and speech critical of Israel and/or Zionism, including in the US and Europe. Such misuse has also been criticized by the former Special Rapporteur on Racism E. Tendayi Achiume.

Ken Stern, the main drafter of the IHRA definition, recently reiterated his concerns about the institutional adoption of the definition in light of its proposed inclusion in an American Bar Association (ABA) draft resolution on antisemitism. Stern’s concern stems from the IHRA definition’s repeated use as “a blunt instrument to label anyone an antisemite.” In the end, ABA members adopted a resolution on antisemitism that did not reference the IHRA definition. Stern’s message to ABA applies equally to the UN. (6) [my emphasis]

CNN ran this early report: (7)

(1) Washington DC shooting live updates: Two Israeli embassy staff killed, Netanyahu blames antisemitism. Reuters 05/22/2025. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/washington-dc-shooting-live-updates-two-israeli-embassy-staff-killed-suspect-2025-05-22/> (Accessed: 2025-22-05).

(2) Two Israeli embassy staff killed and suspect in custody after Washington DC shooting. BBC News 05/22/2025. <https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cy9vr10n732t> (Accessed: 2025-22-05).

(3) Samuels, Ben et. al. (2025): Netanyahu: Blood Libels Against Israel Cost Lives; Trump: 'Obviously Antisemitic'. Haaretz 05/22/2025. Gift link: <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-05-22/ty-article/.premium/netanyahu-blood-libels-against-israel-cost-lives-trump-obviously-antisemitic/00000196-f69e-de64-a7f6-febf5a870000?gift=c83ba67484c64c9d820ed3c45cbd934e> (Accessed: 2025-22-05).

(4) Blood Libel. Holocaust Museum, n/d. <https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/blood-libel> (Accessed: 2025-22-05).

(5) Op. cit., note 3.

(6) Human Rights and other Civil Society Groups Urge United Nations to Respect Human Rights in the Fight Against Antisemitism. Human Rights Watch 04/04/2023. <https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/04/04/human-rights-and-other-civil-society-groups-urge-united-nations-respect-human> (Accessed: 2025-22-05).

(7) Israeli Embassy staff killed near DC Jewish Museum. NN YouTube channel 05/22/2025. <https://youtu.be/8Vf40Om9Pg8?si=8yGqCyVOVd3TrDC8> ccessed: 2025-22-05).

Reactions to Netanyahu's latest escalation in Gaza

Israel’s military assault on Gaza civilians is – horribly - likely to go on for a long time, at least if Netanyahu‘s government has its way. (1)

The EU and Britain are currently becoming more critical of Israel than they normally ever are. It’s not yet nearly enough. But moving in the right direction is always something worth applauding.

One of the distinctive features of the politics of the situation is that Netanyahu partisans work hard to equate criticism of Israel and its actions as anti-Semitic. It’s understandable, though morally indefensible, that partisans of Netanyahu’s policies of making war on Palestinian civilians are also anti-Semitic. It’s ridiculous. Yes, it’s true that antisemites can use criticism of Israel’s action as an attack on Jews more generally. It’s also true that far-right political parties and groups like the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party or the American Christian Zionist group Christians United For Israel (CUFI) who entertain or encourage actual antisemitic ideology are willing to cheer Israel’s violence against Muslims. They can then say, “Look, we’re cheering Israel’s war on Palestinians so we can’t possibly be antisemitic.”

But people watching what some commentators have called the world’s first “live-televised genocide” don’t have to approve of these horrors and certainly don’t have to silently or explicitly consent to their own governments being part of it. That description is probably not literally true, since television has been around since the 1940s and some horrible incidents have happened since, including ones in Bosnia and Rwanda, that were legally adjudicated to be genocides. (2)

Owen Jones gives an impassioned report on an incident that illustrates the social and official pressure that is being applied in various countries: (3)

Human Rights Watch reported recently:

In early May, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet approved a plan dubbed “Gideon’s Chariots,” which it says could start as soon as US President Donald Trump’s visit to the region concludes on May 16. The plan involves forcibly displacing much of the Palestinian population of Gaza while seizing and occupying the territory. “There will be no in-and-out,” Netanyahu announced on May 5. Israel is “finally going to conquer the Gaza Strip,” said Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also serves as a minister in the Defense Ministry and sits on the security cabinet. Smotrich, who has said that Gaza will be “completely destroyed” and its Palestinian population will “leave in great numbers to third countries,” also suggests these plans should not be adjusted, even if hostages are released.

When coupled with the systematic destruction of homes, apartment buildings, orchards and fields, schools, hospitals, and water and sanitation facilities, as well as the use of starvation as a weapon of war—acts that amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity including extermination, and acts of genocide—these plans trigger the “duty to prevent” under the Genocide Convention. For the 153 states that are parties to it, the duty to prevent genocide arises as soon as a state learns, or should normally have learned, of a serious risk that genocide may be committed. A definitive determination that genocide is already underway is not required, as Human Rights Watch set out in an April 2025 intervention in a case currently before the UK courts challenging the UK government’s decision to continue to license military equipment used by Israeli forces in Gaza. (4) [internal links not included]

Is it reasonable to call this a genocide? Sondos Asem recently reported:

A growing number of the world’s leading genocide scholars believe that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide, according to an investigation by Dutch newspaper NRC.

The paper interviewed seven renowned genocide and Holocaust researchers* from six countries - including Israel - all of whom described the Israeli campaign in Gaza as genocidal. Many said their peers in the field share this assessment.

"Can I name someone whose work I respect who does not think it is genocide? No, there is no counterargument that takes into account all the evidence," Israeli researcher Raz Segal told NRC.

Professor Ugur Umit Ungor of the University of Amsterdam and NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies said that while there are certainly researchers who say it is not genocide, "I don't know them". (5)

The Dutch NRC report interviewed seven genocide scholars, all of whom concer with the “genocide” label: Shmuel Lederman, Dirk Moses, Melanie O'Brien, Raz Segal, Martin Shaw, Ugur Umit Ungor, and Iva Vukusic.

Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy, a longtime critic of Israel’s reckless wars and its criminal Palestinian policies, recently commented on the current grim situation: (6)

Meanwhile, Netanyahu continues his long obsession with attacking Iran’s nuclear program.

The US has obtained new intelligence suggesting that Israel is making preparations to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, even as the Trump administration has been pursuing a diplomatic deal with Tehran, multiple US officials familiar with the latest intelligence told CNN. Such a strike would be a brazen break with President Donald Trump, US officials said. It could also risk tipping off a broader regional conflict in the Middle East — something the US has sought to avoid since the war in Gaza inflamed tensions beginning in 2023. (7)

The United States plays a critical role in this. Netanyahu is waging this genocidal military campaign with the massive military support being provided by the Trump 2.0 Administration. Anyone who is still trying to picture Trump as a Peace President will be quick to say that Biden did so, too. And they would be right. There is no legitimate excuse for either one of them.

Chaim Levinson describes Trump’s current choice bluntly:

In the next day or two U.S. President Donald Trump and his right hand man Steve Witkoff will have to make a strategic decision: whether to confront Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly and publicly and force on him a cease-fire and an end to the war, or to give in and let Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich carry out his plan to destroy Gaza. The diplomatic cauldron is on the verge of boiling over, and it looks as though there's no more time. ...

In talks with the hostages' families, in briefings to the senators and in dialogue with their counterparts in the Gulf, the White House staff members repeatedly declare their desire for an end to the war. However, Trump has yet to adopt the necessary steps for ending it, and is sitting on the fence in the hope that the sides will reach an understanding on their own. [my emphasis] (8)

Notes:

(1) Do Western states' condemnations of Israel's offensive in Gaza go beyond rhetoric? DW news YouTube channel 05/20/2025. <https://youtu.be/YSbz9jMjtdA?si=fshiok1qnUUGQXl4> (Accessed: 2025-21-05).

(2) See, for instance: Thompson, Allan, ed. (2007): The Media and the Rwanda Genocide. Kampala: Fountain Publishers. And: Clarke, John Nathaniel (2018): British Media and the Rwandan Genocide. New York: Routledge.

(3) Gary Lineker DRIVEN OUT By BBC... For Opposing Israel's GENOCIDE. Owen Jones YouTube channel 05/20/2025. <https://youtu.be/45wt3d3FEiU?si=lgaLdc3T1ioM0Dcn> (Accessed: 2025-21-05).

(4) Gaza: Latest Israeli Plan Inches Closer to Extermination. Human Rights Watch 05/15/2025. <https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/05/15/gaza-latest-israeli-plan-inches-closer-extermination> (Accessed: 2025-21-05).

(5) Asem, Sondos (2025): Top genocide scholars unanimous that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza: Dutch investigation. Middle East Eye 05/17/2025. <https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/top-genocide-scholars-unanimous-israel-committing-genocide-gaza-investigation-finds> (Accessed: 2025-21-05).

(6) Gideon Levy: 'Israel won't care about sanction threats'. Middle East Eye YouTube channel 05/20/2025. <https://youtu.be/bBd7pVjv9R4?si=KbRmvNWHmwLhBhUw> (Accessed: 2025-21-05).

(7) Sciutto, Jim, et.al. (2025): New intelligence suggests Israel is preparing possible strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, US officials say. CNN 05/20/2025. <https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/20/politics/intelligence-israel-possible-strike-iran-nuclear-facilities> (Accessed: 2025-21-05).

(8) Levinson, Chaim (2025): Trump's Choice: End the War in Gaza or Let Israel's Far Right Destroy It. Haaretz 05/21/2025. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-05-21/ty-article/.premium/trump-has-to-decide-end-israels-war-on-gaza-or-let-smotrich-have-his-way/00000196-ef0b-d945-a5b6-ff3be1030000> (Accessed: 2025-21-05).

Crackpots unleashed!

With the Trump 2.0 regime putting RFK, Jr., a huge fan of woo-woo crackpot pseudoscience and quack medicine, in charge of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), we need good sources that debunk pseudo-science and woo-woo medicine.

One that has been doing that job for a while is Science Based Medicine.

Jonathan Howard recently offered this analysis of the current unhealthy trend symbolized by RFK, Jr.:

We here at Science Based Medicine will be keeping close tabs on our new Medical Establishment for as long as they are in power. We won’t be the only ones, however. Though they have an entirely different agenda, anti-vaxxers and crackpots of all sorts will be watching too, and their power and influence has grown mightily over the past 5 years. Mainstream doctors relentlessly shared their beliefs and talking points. In so doing, they validated and normalized anti-vaccine thought, rhetoric, and techniques. Chief of these was spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

Dr. Marty Makary, for example, spent the past 4 years making common causes with such cranks and encouraging their mistrust of the Medical Establishment. In one particularly noxious speech, seated next to his fellow misinformation superspreader Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Makary said, “that the greatest perpetrator of misinformation during the pandemic has been the United States government.” He was upset that his predecessors didn’t join him in glorifying “natural immunity” and treating vaccine side-effects as a fate worse than death. (1) [my emphasis]

Howard provides links to several stories about what a collection of crackpots and cranks HHS is greenlighting now.

And he reminds us that such folks are particularly inclined to bicker intensely with each other.

Howard concludes with this observation: “There’s not going to be much to cheer about for the next 4 years. But watching MAHA turn on itself and the doctors they empowered will provide an opportunity to kick back, pull out the popcorn, and enjoy the circular firing squad.”

Another popularly accessible to substantive source on pseudoscience matters is Skeptical Inquirer. They recently noted:

On February 14, 2025, a memo from the National Institutes of Health shared the plan to cut over 5,000 employees. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration also announced mass firings. These agencies, all under the Department of Health and Human Services, were guided by the new Department of Government Efficiency to cut back on staff to save money. Days later, the National Science Foundation, an independent government agency, also announced the plan to dismiss about 10 percent of employees. The long-term fallout of these mass firings is yet to be determined, but the short-term consequences for the affected scientists are potentially devasting. (2) [my emphasis]

Notes:

(1) Howard, Jonathn (2025): Doctors Who Rose to Power Bashing the Medical Establishment Are Now the Medical Establishment. Good Luck With That. Science-Based Medicine 05/16/2025. <https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/letthemfight/> (Accessed: 2025-17-05).

(2) Huff, Stephen & Radford. Benjamin (2025): News Bites: From Earhart Plane Pareidolia to Mass Firings at Science Agencies. Skeptical Inquirer 49:3, 7.

An informed discussion of the Gaza nightmare

This is a 43-minutes news discussion from FRANCE 24 English on the current situation, in which the horror of the Gaza war continues, i.e., the Israeli war against Palestinians. Against all the Palestinians there. (1)

The FRANCE 24 discussion includes Haaretz columnist and excellent political analyst Dahlia Scheindlin who is also the author of The Crooked Timber of Democracy in Israel: Promise Unfulfilled (2023). It’s a history of Israel that provides a great background to internal political crisis prompted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to turn Israel into an authoritarian regime, which has continued until today with no obvious end in sight. This program shows why she’s just a capable political analyst.

Scheindlin has been very critical of Israel’s military campaign against Gaza civilians since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack and expresses that in this presentation. She is currently a cochair of the peace advocacy group A Land for All. The other panelists are the Palestinian law professor Omar Dajani (also a co-chair of A Land for All) and Gil Mihaely. who is editor in -chief of the right-leaning Causeur. The Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi also presents a short segment at the start.

European nations and Canada are rousing themselves to put at least some pressure on Netanyahu’s government to pull back from its genocidal actions against Palestinians, as the report summarizes.

Mihaely in this interview ludicrously claims that Netanyahu wanted to avoid war at all costs. In this show, he is a Netanyahu apologist. Scheindlin’s expressions listening to him show that she thinks he’s talking nonsense. And she’s right. Mihaely even uses the cynical phrase “mow the lawn”, which is the euphemism that Israel has used for a long time for periodic military attacks on the Palestinian population. He clearly approves of the practice. And he makes hack propaganda arguments.

Scheindlin and Dajani both argue for a two-state solution. I understand why peace advocates would use this as a negotiating point, but it certainly seems like a utopian goal at this point. The Israeli government seems to have effectively destroyed that option. And the default remaining options are a democratic state including both Jews and Palestinians, an apartheid state including both, or a continuation of the kind of ethnic cleansing that Netanyahu’s government is currently pursuing.

All three panelists seem to agree that Donald Trump is a chaotic actor in this situation. But we’re currently facing a new escalation of the ongoing Israeli ethnic cleansing action.

Notes:

(1) Tipping point? Growing pushback against Israel's Gaza offensive. FRANCE 24 English YouTube channel 05/20/2025. <https://youtu.be/3uEG2BaSH-g?si=zvMpwQ5tQbbhw4Ot> (Accessed: 2025-20-05).

Romanian election today

Romania is having a national election today after the country’s constitutional court annulled the earlier election in which a far-right candidate won a majority, on the grounds of campaign finance irregularities and foreign interference from Russia, in particular. “Alleged electoral violations included the activation of thousands of previously inactive social media accounts to spread pro-Georgescu messaging as part of an ‘aggressive Russian hybrid attack,’ which Moscow denies.” (1)

Politico gives a general overview of the election, complete with a Thomas Friedman-like interview with a random taxi driver:

“We call it the big squid because it has its tentacles everywhere — only the guys on top have profits,” says Dragoș, who was born a few months before the revolution and now drives taxis. “Democracy was only a name. We are still under Communism — in every way.”

His attitude is a common one. Locals become angry talking about how politicians have betrayed their country. They fear and despise officials in the old political parties, who control appointments to local institutions and businesses — sometimes favoring friends or family connections for the best jobs. (2)

Our Opus Dei Vice President J.D. Vance publicly scolded the Rumanian court for insisting on legal-conducted elections.

Edmond Jäger wrote of that outcome:

To this day, it is disputed whether the Constitutional Court even had the authority to make this decision. Both [Călin] Georgescu's surprise victory and the annulment of the election are causing outrage at home and abroad. The fact that this has been achieved is a hard lesson not only for Romania, but also for the Western world. Because this revealed not only the extreme vulnerability of democracy in the age of social media, but also the lack of attractiveness of liberal democracy at a time of frequent crises. (3)

Georgescu previously associated with the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians party (AUR). The unity-of-Romania concept has to do with territorial claims the far right makes on Moldova, part of whose territory is controlled by Russia. He ran as an independent for the Presidency in 2024. Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Minister indicated his support for Georgescu in 2024 by a phone call:

Romania’s ambassador to Israel said on Sunday that Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli was “meshugeneh” — Yiddish for crazy or foolish — for speaking by phone with a presidential candidate who has praised notorious Romanian antisemites and Nazi collaborators.

“I am deeply hurt, and I think that Mr. Chikli owes us an apology,” Radu Ioanid told The Times of Israel.

“I find it shocking to see a minister of the government of the State of Israel be perceived as backing, in a crucial electoral moment, a Romanian political candidate who is loudly and proudly glorifying historical figures who were directly responsible for [the] mass murder of Jews,” said the ambassador. (4)

This was another ugly example of the policy of lsrael cultivating links with far-right parties in Europe that are friendly to antisemites but declare their support of Israel as part of their xenophobic, anti-Muslim positions. The idea of European rightists is that lets them say, “We can’t be antisemitic because we totally support the genocide against Muslim Palestinians being carried out by the Israeli government.”

Chikli had previously made a similar gesture of support for the notorious French far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

Romania is accusing Israel's Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli of interfering in the country's elections, after he held a publicized phone call last week with radical-right presidential candidate Calin Georgescu, who has a long record of glorifying the country's Nazi collaborationist leaders.

Romania's ambassador to Israel told Haaretz that Chikli's conduct hurts his country's close relationship with Israel, and emphasized that Romania never intervened in Israeli politics in a similar manner. …

Georgescu has expressed pro-Russian, anti-NATO positions, and is considered the preferred candidate of the Kremlin in Romania.

During his call with Chikli, the Romanian far-right leader promised to move the country's embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and not to respect the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. …

Georgescu found the [Israeli ambassador’s] call useful because he is under criticism for his long history of praise for antisemitic Romanian leaders and organizations who took part in the mass murder of the country's Jews. [my emphasis] (5)

But Opus Dei man-of-the-people J.D. Vance likes Georgescu! So there’s that.

Netayahu's government had also given a similar gesture of support to the Romanian AUR. As Tibon notes:

In August 2023, Israel's Ambassador Reuven Azar met George Simion, leader of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians [AUR] on the orders of then-Foreign Minister Eli Cohen.

Israel had previously boycotted the party, whose members frequently glorify Antonescu and the Iron Guard, over its antisemitic rhetoric and advocacy of Holocaust revisionism. Diplomatic sources in Bucharest at the time called it a "very unfortunate and very unhappy initiative." [my emphasis]

Today’s election

The Guardian’s Jon Henley describes that same George Simion, the Trumpist candidate in today’s Romanian Presidential run-off election as:

... a former soccer ultra [hooligan] and ultranationalist agitator who sees his far-right AUR party as a “natural ally” of the US Maga movement, comfortably won the 4 May first round with a score of 41%, double that of the Bucharest mayor, Nicuşor Dan.

Recent polls have shown the gap between the two candidates closing, with one putting them neck and neck and another placing Dan – who has described the vote as a battle between “a pro-western and an anti-western Romania” – ahead. (6)

Nicuşor Dan, currently mayor of the Romanian capital Bucharest, is the moderate pro-European candidate facing off against George Simion.

Two other EU countries, Poland and Portugal, also have elections today.

As Henley explains, “Romanian presidents have a semi-executive role with considerable powers over foreign policy, national security, defence spending and judicial appointments.” ()But even in Simion wins the Presidency, the parliamentary parties might still approve a pro-democracy Prime Minister.

But Simion’s election would nevertheless be a setback for democracy in Romania and the EU. Britain’s Channel 4 reported on Friday: (7)

Notes:

(1) Romania election: Polls open in tight presidential runoff. Deutsche Welle 05/18/2025. <https://www.dw.com/en/romania-election-polls-open-in-tight-presidential-runoff/live-72578992> (Accessed: 2025-18-05).

(2) Ross, Tim & Popoviciu, Andrei (2025): In Transylvania, fear haunts Romania’s troubled democracy. Politico 05/18/2026. <https://www.politico.eu/article/transylvania-romania-election-fear-politics-facist-totalitarian-democracy-corruption-president-vote-simion-dan/> (Accessed: 2025-18-05).

(3) Jäger, Edmond (2025): Rumänien: Mit TikTok zur Wahlmanipulation. Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik 3:2025, 29. My translation to English.

(4) Berman, Lazar (2024): Romania ‘shocked’ by Israeli minister’s call with candidate who praised WWII antisemites. Times of Israel 12/02/2024. <https://www.timesofisrael.com/romania-shocked-by-israeli-ministers-call-with-candidate-who-praised-wwii-antisemites/> (Accessed: 2025-18-05).

(5) Tibon, Amir (2024): Romania Accuses Israel of Election Interference After Netanyahu Minister's Call With pro-Nazi Candidate. Haaretz 11/30/2025. Gift link: <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-11-30/ty-article/.premium/israeli-ministers-call-to-pro-nazi-romanian-candidate-sparks-election-interference-claims/00000193-7e20-de89-abff-7ffb63590000?gift=f88159522d0049b28bb6cccda20a73e6> (Accessed: 2025-18-05).

(6) Henley, Jon (2025): Romanian run-off the most crucial on Europe’s ‘Super Sunday’ of elections. Guardian 05/18/2025. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/18/romanian-run-off-the-most-crucial-on-europes-super-sunday-of-elections> (Accessed: 2025-18-05).

(7) Romania elections: Is pro-Russian candidate on brink of victory? Channel 4 YouTube channel 05/16/2025. <https://youtu.be/bo_VUSX3X70?si=82U6NTbMnTBRez30> (Accessed: 2025-18-05).

Javier Milei, Argentina’s sleazy far-right President

Deutsche Welle ran this summary last month of the first 500 days of Argentina’s far-right, anarcho-libertarian President, Javier Milei, the guy who campaigned with a chainsaw and came to a CPAC conference in the US this year to give Elon Musk one to wave around: (1)

Svenja Blanke of Germany's left-leaning Friedrich Ebert Foundation views the economic outlook with caution. Speaking with DW, she criticized the government for using the exchange rate as a "kind of crutch" to suppress inflation.

As a result, she noted, the Argentine peso has appreciated, leading to paradoxes like a Big Mac costing the equivalent of €5.48 ($6.30) — comparable to Germany — while the minimum hourly wage stands at just €1.06, which is far below Germany's €12.82.

"This is essentially a kind of social chainsaw massacre," she said, citing severe cuts to wages, education, research, culture, public infrastructure and historical memory. …

[W]eekly protests by retirees, who saw their pensions cut, are proving. Milei's austerity measures have taken a heavy toll on their real purchasing power, and that of many others in the country.

An Argentine Trump, in other words, and proud of it. Milei likes crypto-currency, too. From two months ago, when a scandal broke around a crypto offering called $LIBRA. (2)

The Argentine justice system is investigating the $Libra scam and Milei’s role.

Judge María Serivini on Wednesday ordered the freezing of the assets of businesspeople involved in the creation and promotion of the Libra cryptocurrency, as part of the case investigating the criminal responsibilities of the fraud in which President Javier Milei participated.

The judicial measure seeks to secure the assets of those involved while alleged irregularities in the management of $LIBRA are investigated. As Página/12 revealed, an image from the security cameras of a bank showed the mother and sister of Mauricio Novelli, a businessman linked to President Javier Milei in the scandal with the $LIBRA cryptocurrency, emptying the safe deposit boxes they had opened a few days earlier. (3)

I mean, Milei hasn’t scored a $400 million “flying palace” from Arab oil sheikhs. So he’s not scamming in the big leagues, yet!

The Buenos Aires Herald provided a timetable of the swindle:

Of those who profited, 22.3% made between US$1 and US$1,000; 2.6% made between US$1,000 and US$10,000, and just 0.18% of users made over US$100,000.

The wallet that profited the most made four purchases of US$250,000 (totaling US$1 million) simultaneously with Milei’s post and started to sell around 45 minutes later. Its net profit was US$8.5 million.

The wallet with the greatest losses made its first purchase 10 minutes after Milei’s post and kept buying for the next 13 minutes, before starting to sell after Milei withdrew his public support. In total, it lost US$5.25 million. (4)

Gosh, what a coincidence!

Notes:

(1) Käufer, Tobias (2025): With Milei 500 days in office, are Argentinians better off? Deutsche Welle 04/22/2025. <https://www.dw.com/en/with-milei-500-days-in-office-are-argentinians-better-off/a-72313308> (Accessed: 2025-17-05).

(2) Argentina's Milei denies role in cryptocurrency scandal as government launches probe. FRANCE 24 YouTube channel. 02/18/2025. <https://youtu.be/K8VXrR_6j2o?si=94FSfNeL_luFoZQh> (Accessed: 2025-17-05).

(3) La justicia ordenó congelar los bienes de los socios de Javier Milei en la estafa $LIBRA. Página/12 15.05.2025. <https://www.pagina12.com.ar/825781-la-justicia-ordeno-congelar-los-bienes-de-los-socios-de-javi> (Accessed: 2025-17-05). My translation to English.

(4) $LIBRA: the timeline of a crypto scandal that’s rocking the Milei government. Buenos Aires Herald 17.02.2025. <$LIBRA: the timeline of a crypto scandal that’s rocking the Milei government - Buenos Aires Herald> (Accessed: 2025-17-05).

Mearsheimer on Trump’s latest deals in the Middle East

As I seem to have new occasion to comment at least once a month, Über-Realist John Mearsheimer continues his habit of being irritatingly plausible in his takes on foreign policy. Here he manages to give a explanation of why Trump’s recent actions in Middle East diplomacy that pain a coherent picture without falling into the trap of claiming that Trump knows what he’s doing in the process of international diplomacy. (1)

Mearsheimer emphatically makes the point there that Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing in Ukraine diplomacy and doesn’t understand all the issues involved. He has a gloomy but practical view of Ukraine’s current situation and the prospects for the immediate future.

This is his latest weekly interview with the somewhat grumpy-style Andrew Napolitano: (2)

He also comments in that one about how ridiculously amateurish the Trump 2.0 regime’s diplomacy over Ukraine is.

It can be confusing to distinguish the short-term and long-term perspectives in some of the discussions like this. Russia has made the determination – right or wrong - that Ukraine becoming part of NATO would be substantial threat to their security and position in the world – and they are likely to continue this war until they decide they have captured enough Ukrainian territory that they can make the remainder of Ukraine basically a failed state for the indefinite future.

The EU countries are assuming that the US can no longer be counted on to back Europe in a possible future military confrontation with Russia. In that perspective, it makes sense for European countries to back Ukraine with financial and political support in their war against Russia. But they aren’t in a position to become direct combatants inside Ukraine against Russia. And since the perceive a need to concentrate on building up their own military forces over the next five years, that means they also have a cynically practical temptation to keep the fighting in Ukraine going for as long as possible.

Any short-term hope of achieving a ceasefire in Ukraine that would have a reasonable chance of being stable for any extended period of time would require the active and competent participation of a US Administration, a willingness by the Putin regime to forgo conquering further territory in Ukraine, and some kind of credible security guarantee for the ceasefire. None of those conditions look to be immediately possible. Ukraine obviously has a very legitimate reason to keep fighting so long as they can. So this is unlikely to be settled any time soon.

Or, as Mearsheimer puts it to Napolitano:

[T]he Kremlin, I am sure understands from listening to [British Prime Minister Keir] Starmer and others like [US Special Envoy to Ukraine] Keith Kellogg and [French President Emmanuel] Macron and so forth and so on, is that there's no way you're going to get a peace agreement anytime soon And that this one is going to be settled on the battlefield.

In the Napolitano interview, Mearsheimer notes that Trump 2.0 has done two things that the Netanyahu government in Israel definitely did not want: recognizing the new government of Syria while also dropping sanctions against it, and ending the bombing campaign against the Houthis in Yemen. But Mearsheimer sees little likelihood that the Peace President will take meaningful steps to restrain Netanyahu’s genocidal war against the Palestinians, though the realist Mearsheimer is also emphatic that the US has a moral obligation to end support for a genocide.

Notes:

(1) Prof. John Mearsheimer: Israel OWNS the Trump Administration, Israel is a LIABILITY for the US. Afshin Rattansi YouTube channel 05/15/2025. <https://youtu.be/g5Ngr21EgVk?si=XSWhy99WQoxah0_1> (Accessed: 2025-15-05).

(2) Prof. John Mearsheimer: An Istanbul Peace Conference? Judging Napolitano-Judging Freedom YouTube channel 05/15/2025. <https://www.youtube.com/live/rXS5QWu2iuA?si=GUqezk3C2ZBkfRjn> (Accessed: 2025-15-05).

Does Britain’s Keir Starmer want to recruit more voters – for the far right?

There was a time when the British Labour Party was actually a distinctly left, social-democratic party. The current Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer does not take that approach.

And he’s currently following the policy that the Labour Party has followed before, which is to try to out-xenophobe the far-right in their hostility to immigrants and refugees. As Thomas Biebricher pointed out in a detailed study of recent years in the politics of France, Italy, and Britain itself, in all three cases that approach – particularly by center-right parties - resulted in a strengthening of the far right. (1)

Only when the left and center-left parties directly refute the racism and scare talk of the xenophobes can they defuse it as a political issue. At the moment, we’re seeing that in the United States, where the Democratic Party nationally spent most of the last two decades trying to show they were ”tough” on immigration, with the result that Donald Trump won the Presidency for a second time in 2024 with the a majority of the public preferring the Republicans’ (racist and xenophobic) position to that of the Democrats.

This year, when some Democrats prominently pushed back against the Trump 2.0 regime’s criminal practice of having masked ICE goons snatch people off the street and sending a couple of hundred of them to a notorious concentration/campa prison in El Salvador, with no trial and in direct defiance of a federal court order, the majority opinion on immigration has shifted to favor the Democrats.

Katherine Hearst reports:

Rights groups have warned that the inflammatory comments risk sparking a resurgence of last summer’s anti-immigration and anti-Muslim riots.

“It's not even a year since the racist riots,” Ravishaan Rahel Muthiah, director of communications at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), told Middle East Eye.

“A lot of people, including ourselves, are saying it’s echoing the far right, but it’s further than that, because the far right don’t have the platform.”

“When the prime minister is saying things that maybe street fascists, or people who comment on our Instagram and social media accounts say, it has a massive effect,” he said. (2)

The distance between actual fact-based, pragmatic courses that follow the framework of international law and common decency and the programs often actually proposed by parties and government can be huge. Europe has been dealing with large refugee crises since before the Second World War and very dramatically so immediately afterward. And there are other experiences like the Vietnamese “boat people” crisis and even the current refugees from Ukraine that provide lots of practical experience. But for those experiences to produce realistic and sensible policies, the center parties and especially those on the left side of the spectrum have to push back hard against the hate talk and scare-mongering that are the specialties of the far right.

Starmer’s current approach is a new round of floundering around and failing to combat the far-right pitches. This week, “he repeatedly attacked the previous Conservative government's immigration approach as an #open borders experiment’, which was now over.” (3)

Enforcement will be tougher than ever and migration numbers will fall."

The government will scrap a visa scheme, set up by Boris Johnson's government, that allows firms to hire health and social care workers from overseas.

Instead, firms will be required to hire British nationals or extend the visas of overseas workers already in the country.

Home Office figures estimate this change will cut the number of workers coming to the UK by between 7,000 and 8,000 a year.

However, care companies warned some services will struggle to survive without international recruits. (3)

There are ways to talk about migration in a reality-based way. (4) But their influence on real policy are too often very limited.

As Owen Jones describes, there are substantive left criticisms of Starmer’s policy:

In his big speech on immigration, Starmer declared that “we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together.” saying that accordingly immigration must be much lower.

As has been widely noted, this bears striking resemblance to [far-right] Enoch Powell’s notorious Rivers of Blood speech in 1968 [which] … led to Powell being sacked by the then-Tory leader Ted Heath. …

Furthermore, in his foreword to the new immigration white paper being published by the government, Starmer says that the damage immigration “has done to our country is incalculable”, saying “public services and housing access have been place under too much pressure”.

As Nadia Whittome, one of the few decent Labour MPs left, notes, Starmer’s rhetoric “mimics the scaremongering of the far right.” (5)

Britain’s Channel 4 News reports on Starmer’s ugly right turn on immigration: (5)

Notes:

(1) Biebricher, Thomas (2023): Mitte/Rechts. Die Internationale Krise des Konservatismus. Berlin: Suhrkamp.

(2) Hearst, Katerine (2025): Rights groups say Starmer's migration comments risk reigniting far-right riots. Middle East Eye 05/13/2025. <https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/rights-groups-say-starmers-migration-comments-risk-reigniting-far-right-riots> (Accessed: 2025-14-05).

(3) PM promises migration drop as he unveils plans for 'tightened' visa rules. BBC News 05/12/2025. <https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9wgrv7pwrzo> (Accessed: 2025-14-05).

(4) Savur, Sachin (2025): Keir Starmer needs to change Whitehall’s approach to immigration policy. Institute for Government 05/14/2025. <https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/keir-starmer-change-whitehall-approach-immigration-policy> (Accessed: 2025-14-05).

(5) Jones, Owen (2025): Starmer's Enoch Powell impression shows he's the most dishonest politician in our history. Owen Jones Battlelines 05/13/2025. <https://www.owenjones.news/p/starmers-enoch-powell-impression> (Accessed: 2025-14-05).

(6) Starmer vows to ‘significantly’ reduce migration figures. Channel 4 YouTube channel 05/12/2025. <https://youtu.be/hCSkO-FYfuk?si=HT0J8z_G0fgwfamJ> (Accessed: 2025-14-05).

Trump’s Middle East drama of diplomacy and bribery this week

There is still plenty of news out of the Middle East, of course. Trump is heading over that way this week for meetings with some of his favorite oil sheikhs in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The have lots of money for investments and bribes, so Trump may be able to get some kind of actual deal with some of them. CNN reports:

“In Trump’s book, the Gulf states tick all the right boxes,” Hasan Alhasan, senior fellow for Middle East policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Bahrain, told CNN. They “pledge to invest trillions in the US economy and spend colossal amounts on US weapons systems,” he said.

Behind this carefully crafted strategy of wooing Trump is a desire from Gulf states to solidify and formalize their positions as the US’ indispensable security and economic partners, and extract as much benefit for themselves as they can.

US-Gulf relations have improved significantly since Trump returned to office. Frustrated at the perceived lack of US interest in their needs under the Biden administration, Saudi Arabia and the UAE had sought to diversify their military, technological and economic ties. With Trump in office, they see what one Gulf official called “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” for to achieve his country’s objectives. [my emphasis] (1)

Iran is a major factor in the calculations here, at least among the countries involved whose leaders have any sort of actual strategic foreign policy vision. Saudi Arabia would like to get a green light from Washington to push ahead for a Saudi civilian nuclear power program, which could also be a step on the direction of a nuclear weapon, something that would not please either Iran or Israel.

The UAE would like to become a big player in AI to diversify their economy away from its current level of reliance on the sale of fossil fuels. The Biden Administration had imposed limits on the amount of microchips from the US that the UAE could purchase. CNN: “On Thursday, the US announced that Trump will rescind a set of the Biden-era curbs.”

Qatar has good relations with the new we-don’t-call-it-Muslim-fundamentalist government in Syria.

Syria is expected to be a key issue that Qatar will raise with Trump when he visits, an official with knowledge of the matter told CNN Thursday. Doha is pushing the Trump administration to lift sanctions on Syria under the Caesar Act, the official said, adding that Qatar is wary about providing any financial support to Syria without Washington’s blessing.

Syria’s new government has good relations with Türkiye, which has been trying to become a bigger player in the region. Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is not a fan of the autonomous Kurdish district in Rojava in northeast Syria, which has been supported by the US including with a troop presence because oil. They have lots of it. The fact that this has meant in practice supporting one of the more democratic-oriented regional governments in the Middle East is a positive benefit. The Iraqi Kurdish Rudaw Media reported in April that a Rojava official says the US was planning to ”maintain at least 400 soldiers in Kurdish-held areas” for the moment. (2)

Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in Israel, meanwhile, not only has claimed Syria territory beyond the Golan Heights as its own. Beyond that, it is using its support of the Druze population in Syria to try to prevent the new Syrian government from allowing its military to operate in the southern part of its own country. Which, yes, promises no end of conflict. In a not-unimpassioned commentary on the situation there: Joseph Massad writes:

Last week, the predatory Israeli military took time from its busy schedule of exterminating Gaza's Palestinians, bombing and shooting Palestinians across the West Bank, bombing Lebanon, and initiating an assortment of bombing runs across Syrian territory - including the capital Damascus - to launch an extra special bombing run.

The latest air raid targeted what Israel claimed was "an extremist group" that had attacked members of the Syrian Druze community, whom Israel "promised" to defend within Syria itself.

Following the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad's regime last December at the hands of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former al-Qaeda affiliate, state-linked sectarian violence against Syrian Alawites and Druze has broken out. Religious minorities have felt beleaguered and increasingly fearful of what lies ahead. [my emphasis] (3)

In other words, Netanyahu’s government is working hard to make Syria a failed state on the models previously followed in Lebanon and Libya, the latter a highly dubious accomplishment of the Obama Administration.

It is not to be expected that Trump 2.0 will put any meaningful limits on the Israel’s war and ethnic cleansing actions against Palestinians in Gaza. Unless, of course, there is enough meaningful internal and international pressure for a dramatic change of course on Israel’s Gaza project. However, pundits and policy wonks have taken to speculating about how Trump wants to prevent his support of Israel from doing anything that might sidetrack the lucrative deals he wants and with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. For instance:

In what may be the most valuable gift ever extended to the United States from a foreign government, the Trump administration is preparing to accept a super luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar -- a gift that is to be available for use by President Donald Trump as the new Air Force One until shortly before he leaves office, at which time ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation, sources familiar with the proposed arrangement told ABC News.

The gift is expected to be announced next week, when Trump visits Qatar on the first foreign trip of his second term, according to sources familiar with the plans.

Trump toured the plane, which is so opulently configured it is known as "a flying palace," while it was parked at the West Palm Beach International Airport in February. (4)

So we’re seeing speculations about how Trump 2.0 may impose some kind of peace plan on Israel over Gaza. Which may have more to do with an Israeli pressure campaign for Trump to bomb Iran or heaven-knows-what-else. We’ve see how much Trump 1.0’s famous Abraham Accords agreement in contributed to peace in the Middle East. But this version of the speculation comes from Zvi Bar’el:

When a senior U.S. official warns that the U.S. may move forward with a Saudi deal without Israel unless it "wakes up," it reflects a policy already in motion. Trump won't let Israel undermine his economic "Deal of the Century" with the kingdom, which includes over $100 billion of military procurement and over $1 trillion Saudi investments in the United States.

Trump, having realized the unfeasibility of the Gaza Riviera project and the mass transfer of two million Gazans, is back on the drawing board – and appears unlikely to settle for a limited U.S.-Arab operation to distribute humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip.

Despite objections from Netanyahu's governing coalition, Trump could very well lay down the framework for the day after the war, which would be based on the Egyptian proposal. In doing so, as with the handling of the Houthis, Iran and Syria, Trump could turn Gaza into "his war" – one in which he sets the terms and expects obedience. After all, Trump isn't about to let a subcontractor pave the way to his Nobel Peace Prize – not even if they're called Israel. (5)

But we’ve also been seeing reports that the US could be taking over administration of Gaza’s population with an operation heavily reliant on US mercenaries modeled on the US-directed transitional government in Iraq. Which worked out so very brilliantly.

Meanwhile, the IDF continues to systematically kill civilians in Gaza with the full support of Peace President Trump. Headline from Haaretz 05/12/2025:

There’s a lot of diplomatic and political fog around Trump’s visit to the oil sheikhs. Amir Tibon writes:

The Middle East is awash in rumors as the region prepares for the arrival this week of U.S. President Donald Trump – his first visit since returning to the White House. It seems like almost every hour, another sensational news report is published. Trump is going to end the war in Gaza! Trump is going to add an unexpected stop in Israel! Trump is preparing to bomb Iran! Trump plans to announce a Palestinian state! Most of these reports get refuted shortly after their publication, but not before generating hysterical push notifications from local news outlets. (6)

The oil sheikhs would nominally “like to see … an agreement that ends the ongoing war in Gaza, and an agreement with Iran that will remove the threat of a new war starting in the Gulf.”

This reality is the reason why so many news outlets are reporting, sometimes with obvious exaggerations, about tensions and friction between Trump and Netanyahu. But based on the past, these reports should be treated with caution. Trump tends to change his mind, as we have known for years and were reminded recently with the tariffs he imposed, as well as with his handling of the war in Ukraine. Any statements he makes – and even more than that, any leaks made supposedly in his name – should be taken with a grain of salt.

The more important thing to pay attention to is the undeniable rift between Israel and the Gulf states, which were not long ago considered the Jewish state's real strategic allies in the Middle East, united by enmity toward Iran and its network of terror proxies. Ahead of Trump's arrival, however, the Saudis made clear to him they aren't ready to discuss normalization with Israel, but their Foreign Minister held an urgent meeting with his Iranian counterpart to avert a crisis in the nuclear negotiations. [my emphasis]

In a subsequent analysis, Tibon highlights the deal the Trump regime just made with Hamas to free the American hostage, Edan Alexander.

The position [Trump] expressed – and repeated later in the statement with a call to "end this brutal conflict" – aligns with the demand of most hostages' families and the majority of the Israeli public: to prioritize the hostages' release over continuing Israel's 'Forever War' in Gaza. But this position directly contradicts the stated intentions of Benjamin Netanyahu's government, which is pushing for a new, massive ground offensive despite the obvious and urgent risk it poses to the remaining hostages. [my emphasis] (7)

And, as Ahmad Tibi cautioned a few days earlier:

For years it was claimed that what characterized Israeli politics was the struggle between the "moderate center" and the "extremist margins," but the political reality of the past decade disproves this analysis. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is not marginal, he is not an exception to the Israeli consensus: He is its reflection.

Religious Zionism in its current version – that of Smotrich, Simcha Rothman and Itamar Ben-Gvir – is not a "sector." It dictates the agenda, controls the main centers of power: The finance and defense ministries, the military, the Knesset committees and key positions in the security cabinet, the economy and the media. Religious Zionism, in its broad sense, shapes policy in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, influences education and delineates the boundaries of legitimacy in the political space of the Israeli Jewish public. [my emphasis] (8)

Will Trump 2.0 really defy Netanyahu’s government and the Israel Lobby to impose a settlement they reject in favor of the bribes showered on him by the oil sheikhs? It would be nice to think that the US government was willing put the need for a constructive US policy above those considerations. But I’m sure Trump is really looking forward to his new Qatari Flying Palace.

But US Ambassador to Israel and hardline Christian Zionist Mike Huckabee tells the supporters of Netanyahu not to worry:

The U.S. ambassador to Israel denied that a rift was widening between President Donald Trump and Israel or its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, following concerns that the president was sidelining the country in his Middle East policy.

“He spent more time with the prime minister of Israel than he has any other world leader, so I would just say to people, ‘Relax, calm down, Donald Trump loves you, there’s no doubt about that, he’s got your back,’” Mike Huckabee told Israeli Channel 12 on Saturday night. “He is the same Donald Trump that, four years as president, did more for Israel than any other American president.” (9)

The Forward also reports that Huckabee recently tweeted, “@Israel doesn’t have a better friend than @POTUS!”

Finally, Bill Astore reminds us what the next phase of the war on Gaza Netanyahu is already beginning to carry out really is:

It’s rather amazing how the New York Times covers ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza. Today’s NYT features an article (in my email newsfeed) that talks about the “war” on Hamas and identifies the key issue as the hostages and their return. From this article, you’d never know Gaza has been reduced to rubble in a bombing campaign equivalent to seven Hiroshima atomic bombs. You’d never know that more than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed, but that the likely number of killed is probably twice or three times that. You’d never know the Israeli government’s plan is to kill or push out all the Palestinians in Gaza, a “final solution” to the Gaza problem. You’d never know the main victims of Israel’s “war” have been innocent women and children in Gaza. [my emphasis] (10)

Notes:

(1) Ebrahim, Nadeen & Al Lawati. Abbas (2025): Trump is visiting three of the world’s richest nations. Here’s what’s on their wish list. CNN World 05/11/2025. <https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/11/middleeast/trump-visit-gulf-arab-states-saudi-uae-qatar-intl> (Accessed: 2025-11-05).

(1) Ebrahim, Nadeen & Al Lawati. Abbas (2025): Trump is visiting three of the world’s richest nations. Here’s what’s on their wish list. CNN World 05/11/2025. <https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/11/middleeast/trump-visit-gulf-arab-states-saudi-uae-qatar-intl> (Accessed: 2025-11-05).

(2) Rudaw (2025): US to establish two military bases in Kurdish-held areas of Syria: Rojava official. Rudaw.net 2025-21-04. <https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/21042025> (Accessed: 2025-11-05).

(3) Massad, Joseph (2025): Israel's aggression in Syria advances a century-long plan to co-opt the Druze. Middle East Eye 05/06/2025. <https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-aggression-syria-advances-century-long-zionist-strategy-co-opt-druze> (Accessed: 2025-11-05).

(4) Karl, Jonathan & Faulders, Katherine (2025): Trump administration poised to accept 'palace in the sky' as a gift for Trump from Qatar: Sources. ABC News 05/11/2025. <https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-administration-poised-accept-palace-sky-gift-trump/story?id=121680511> (Accessed: 2025-11-05).

(5) Bar’el, Zvi (2025): Trump Eyes 'Deal of the Century' With Saudis, Leaving Israel Little Room to Maneuver. Haaretz 09/09/2025. Gift link: <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-05-09/ty-article/.premium/to-conquer-saudi-arabia-trump-is-sidelining-israel-as-a-regional-power-broker/00000196-b530-dbb0-af9f-bfb2f2210000> (Accessed: 2025-11-05).

(6) Tibon, Amir (2025): Forget the Frantic Rumors. Here's What Really Matters Ahead of Trump's Mideast Trip. Haaretz 05/11/2025. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/haaretz-today/2025-05-11/ty-article/.highlight/forget-the-frantic-rumors-heres-what-really-matters-ahead-of-trumps-mideast-trip/00000196-bf6e-df59-abde-ff6e1b460000?gift=36038333195743f1ab08f928e46f11f7> (Accessed: 2025-12-05).

(7) Tibon, Amir (2025): Trump Is Finally Calling to End the Gaza War. Will Netanyahu Listen? Haaretz 05/12/2025. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-05-12/ty-article/.premium/trump-is-finally-calling-to-end-the-gaza-war-will-netanyahu-listen/00000196-c32e-d1bb-a5d6-c7fe8e710000> (Accessed: 2025-12-05).

(8) Tibi, Ahmad (2025): Smotrich Is No Longer an Exception to the Israeli Consensus. He Is Its Reflection. Haaretz 05/09/2025. <https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2025-05-09/ty-article-opinion/.premium/smotrich-is-no-longer-an-exception-to-the-israeli-consensus-he-is-its-reflection/00000196-b0fc-d1bb-a5d6-b6fc150f0000> (Accessed: 2025-12-05).

(9) Sales, Ben (2025): Huckabee denies rift between Netanyahu and Trump as US actions in Middle East appear to leave out Israel. Forward 05/11/2025. <https://forward.com/fast-forward/719176/huckabee-denies-rift-between-netanyahu-and-trump-as-us-actions-in-middle-east-appear-to-leave-out-israel/> (Accessed: 2025-12-05).

(10) Astore, William (2025): More “War” in Gaza. It’s not an invasion, it’s a “forceful entry”. Bracing Views 05/06/2025. <https://bracingviews.com/2025/05/07/more-war-in-gaza/> (Accessed: 2025-12-05).